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survivingcollegeonefanficatatime · 4 days

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Natural disasters -- star wars insanity.

Ani is little and despite having had no formal education for the majority of his life, he’s been studying hard and has caught up to his peers. He’s doing his best but some of these concepts are hard, padawan level classes are collage equivalent if, for no other reason, than because it makes it convenient for me, a collage student, to write characters studying stuff that’s relevant to me.

Anakin’s eyes were wide as he went over the information for his classes again. He wrinkled his nose in disbelief and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but laugh, he’d only known the boy for a few years but he was already so fond.

“I don’t think this is real…” Anikin said

“Why not, dear one?” Obi-Wan asked, his voice was soft and gentle.

“How can too much water be a bad thing?” the boy asked.

“What are you studying?”

“Natural disasters, they’re using Naboo as an example, I remember the oceans there, but the gungans live there, and besides how can you have too much water, Master? That seems hard to believe.”

Obi-Wan laughed and ruffled his young apprentice’s hair. “Are you talking about tsunamis?” he asked Anakin nodded.

“The whole thing is confusing, there are dangers on Tatooine but nothing like this, it’s confusing!” he complained.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning and we’ll work it out together?” Obi-Wan suggested, Anakin nodded and handed his data pad off to the senior Jedi.

“Alright, my little one, we can start simple, do you remember why we study natural hazards?”

“Oh, um, we have to improve our understanding of natural processes, especially because a lot of planets face different hazards and we need to learn the differences in case we face something like it in the future.” Anakin replied “and a hazard is a natural process that could potentially threaten life or property, and a disaster is a sudden event that can cause great damage over a specific area, and a catastrophe is a big disaster!” Anakin extended his arms out when he said ‘big’ to emphasize it “it can be expensive, and it can take a long time to recover from.”

“That’s right, little one, did you know that planets facing climate crises tend to have higher numbers of disasters, and the way sentients colonize their parents can have a drastic impact on the types of disasters they face, because a disaster is defined by its effect on sentient life.” Obi-Wan asked

“Yeah, I’d imagine a planet-quake on Corrasunt would be a big issue.” Anakin said

“Right, exactly, and geologic conditions govern what type and how intense a natural process may be. Atmospheric pressure is influenced by surface level conditions, it’s why the air tends to be thinner near the temple and the senate rotunda, if you ever climb the temple spires you’ll notice just how thin the air can get.”

“Am I allowed to do that?” Anakin asked

“It’s ah- not encouraged for little ones to go climbing without supervision” Obi-Wan admitted, Anakin’s expression set.

“There were cycles right?” he asked “tectonic, and rock, and hydrologic, and biogeochemical, and they’re based on movement? The tectonic cycle is what makes the ground shake on Naboo, and the rock cycle is how we get rocks, and hydrologic is water and biogeochemical is chemicals?”

“Very good, my dear, can you tell me about different types of rocks?” Obi-Wan asked, he swiped through his apprentices learning module, so he could follow along with the class in the review.

“Yes! There’s igneous which is like crystallization, and sedimentary which is made from squishing sorta but it’s gotta be layers of stuff and metamorphic which is altered by heat or pressure or chemical fluids.”

“Very good, the hydrologic cycle is based on what?”

“Uhh mostly solar energy… on most planets?”

“Correct, iit involves the phase changes of water, so melting or freezing which is what drives evaporation and condensation, and sublimation which is the phase change between solid and gas, not as common on most planets but it happens. Solar energy and gravity are the primary motions behind hydrologic cycles. There are also storage reservoirs where water is stored, can you name a few?”

“Oh yes! There’s oceans, and some water is stored in the atmosphere, or rivers, or groundwater, or ice, can you imagine that Obi? So much water is all contained in ice, there’s apparently massive glactures, which are big things of ice, on some planets. That’s such a wizard, and someone told me that there are oceans on Corrasunt, but they’re buried deep beneath the surface and no one knows if they actually exist. Do you know?”

Obi-Wan laughed “well I’ve definitely heard those rumors, but I can’t speak to their truth, if such oceans exist they must have been abandoned long ago. Now to continue your lessons, flux is the rate of transfers as happens between different reservotes, especially in regards to the biogeochemical cycle, carbon and oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles are especially important, and are very important when looking at the world's climate crisis.”

Anakin squinted “we’ve been talking a lot about the world's facing climate crises, why?”

“Unfortunately, dear heart, it is an extremely common issue that quite a lot of the world faces. It's something that can be fixed, but up to a certain extent, when the damage is done it cannot be undone, not entirely, so it's important to understand. This is why we study the rate of release of chemicals into the air. Naboo currently has a fairly strong keeling curve, which measures the annual fluctuations of CO2 in the planet's atmosphere.”

Anakin made a face but Obi-Wan continued.

“It’s important to understand the nitrogen cycle which goes from ammonium or HN4 to Ammonia NH3 to nitrates NO3 then to Nitrites NO2, they travel through the soil and different organisms and even though the sky during storms to cycle between forms they also deliver important nutrients to the organisms that need them, nitrogen is naturally fixed by free living bacteria which are called cyanobacteria, but they can also be fixed by symbiotic bacteria rhizobia and root noodles of legumes sentients use nitrogen for fertilizers, so farming planets can suffer from runoff and blooms, it’s not good to use too much nitrogen in the soil, however most industrial farming planets use quite a bit in order to compensate for poor nutrient content in the soil, in this way there are dozens of farming planets that do not practice sustainable agriculture, there are dozens of former farming planets that have been transformed into barren junk planets after their ecosystems were entirely destroyed.”

“But- but that’s awful.” Anakin said

“Unfortunately it’s currently how the galaxy works, we can encourage farming plants to practice sustainable agriculture, and the agrecorps have managed to save a handful of planets but we can’t always stop the path they’ve set themselves on. Too much nitrogen leaches the soil which increases bilateral growth and alters pH, it makes minerals more soluble and means they wash away, it also dissolves aluminum which can be toxic to many species. It also affects aquatic planets, algae growth and plankton is increased, dead algae and fecal pellets increase bacterial growth, bacteria can consume oxygen and oxygen depleted water kill aquatic biota and force spaces to migrate. This can create massive dead zones in aquatic systems. In your next poli sci class you'll study a case where a planet that hosted a major aquatic and land-dwelling species got into a major conflict over the abundance of dangerous dead zones caused by overuse of nitrogen in fertilizer.”

“Is it Naboo?” Anakin asked

“No dear one, although I would be surprised if a similar issue never happened in Naboo, sentients tend to repeat history when they refuse to learn from it. We should move on to the phosphorus cycle, which is essential to life but much smaller, there are no gaseous reseveros and they have a limited sedimentary cycle so it often has a cyc system limit that if affected will result in negative changes. There is a lot of pollution from atmospheric deposition from fossil fuels, it’s also a material in fertilizers which we went over before, and it can come from detergents in wastewater. So with that in mind, can you name the five fundamental concepts for understanding natural hazards?”

“Oh ohhhh can we predict hazards with science? That’s one, right master?” Anakin asked, and Obi-wan nodded in encouragement “then um, knowing hazard risks can help sentients make choices, and some natural hazards are like um, ground-quakes can cause landslides right? Oh then sentient can turn to disasters and catastrophes, and finally the consequences of hazards can be minimized?”

“Exactly right, dear one, let’s look at these concepts more in-depth. Scientists, researchers, and archivists use a simple method to learn more about the galaxy, if you ever develop an interest in the educorps you’ll study this well, they start by asking a question, then they form a hypothesis based on prior knowledge, then they make a prediction about what will happen, they test it and analyze everything they’ve discovered. This simple process helps us learn more, although it often falls apart when studying the force.”

“Really, why?”

“That’s a complicated question dear heart, to put it plainly, the force defies explanation. Much to the endless frustration of every educorps member I’ve ever met. Sometimes it functions in a predictable way, if I reach out like this, my mind will brush against yours.” Obi-Wan demonstrated by allowing his presence to flow around his padawan, Anakin giggled as he wrapped his too-bright presence around Obi-Wan in turn, who carefully shielded just enough to protect his mind from Anakin’s overwhelming presence. Reaching out to others without overwhelming them was a work in progress. “However, the force frequently acts in complete defiance to the way the universe outside of it works, a consistent violation to the laws of conservation, it will also return inconsistent results. I know of an archivist who’s spent over fifty years running the same experiment with the same variables and changing nothing, only to get entirely different and often impossible results every time. It’s a fascinating exercise, really, I’ll admit I tried to read the paper he published and was unable to understand a word of it. The force is not a very practical thing to assign scientific information to.”

“Oh… I guess that makes sense,” Aankin replied.

“It’s alright if not, we can focus on other things for now, like the way we predict hazards, it's important to understand that most are beyond even our control, we can predict some with the force, but most of the galaxy needs to use technology to predict or control hazards. Most planets have found that attempting to fully control such hazards makes them worse or doesn't work at all.

“So then what do we do about it, master?”

“We identify the areas prone to hazards and warn them, we build in a way that can survive hazards and we work to keep people safe.” Anakin nodded in response “we also have to understand how change happens on most planets, there’s a few theories of thought, the first is catastrophism, which emphasizes that rapid large scale events shape planets, then there’s uniformitarianism which assumes the same physical processes that happen in the modern era have happened throughout the lifetimes of planets, then punctuated equilibrium which sees episodic cataphoric interruptions of an otherwise uniform process, or environmental unity that has one action causing another in a long chain of events. I would say that all have their pros and cons, no one idea is perfect but some are more correct than others.”

“That makes sense” Anakin glanced at the pad in Obi-Wan’s hands “oh! I know this next part, the difference between a prediction, a forecast and a warning! A prediction is specific, it explains the date, time, and size, whereas a forecast is a prediction but less certain, it’s more like a good guess, it also includes the probability and consequences of an event, and a warning is just a heads up.”

“Correct, my dear, and we can predict patterns by looking at history and by understanding warning size, this often uses something called geologic time, which is time on a planetary scale. Do you know of the gambler's fallacy, my little one?”

“Oh yes Obi-Wan, I do! It’s where you think your odds change as time passes, so you think if something hasn’t happened in a while it’s inevitable, which isn’t true because the probability resets every time.”

“That's right, and what can you tell me about precursor events?”

“There are things that happen before a hazard, like when a small ground shake happens before a big one!”

“Exactly, there’s a few others, like when the ground creeps before a landslide, or when a volcano bulges, and hopefully you’ll never see this, but before lightning strikes there’s a moment where your hair will stand on end, and your fingers may tingle. There’s also cloud rotation before a tornado hits.”

“Woah, that sounds scary”

“It is, but most places have protection in place, lighting rarely strikes most sentients, and if you are ever in a situation where you are at risk, you should be able to recognize it, and redirect it with your ‘saber, it’s a rarely used skill but it can be worthwhile to learn. We also must understand how to warn the public about upcoming disasters, if you are ever planetside and sense a disaster coming, you must know how to spread an alert without causing mass panic. Something that could very well make the situation worse. The best thing to do is to inform the leadership of a planet so they can release information in a safe way, some planets are slightly jaded to examples, and they might refuse to evacuate if there’s only a ‘chance’ that the disaster hits, the way warnings are handled can impact people’s perception of a place, this is why it’s so important to work with local governments on how to warn the public.”

“Seems like a lot of talking to people, and not a lot of doing something”

“Unfortunately this is often the case, knowledge can help with making decisions dear one, but we cannot control people, we must know risk, which is the product of probability of an event and the consequences of it, but we are not often the ones to determine acceptable risk, not in these cases. There will be countless cases throughout your life as a Jedi where it will be your job to determine what the adaptable level of risk is, but there will be just as many cases where the ultimate decision is not up to you.”

Anakin wrinkled his nose, he visibly thought for a few moments, but eventually he relented and let Obi-Wan continue.

“Some natural hazards are linked, and can happen together, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes are frequently linked, and some hazards are linked to other things like what type of rock in an area aligns with weather or not a rock slide will happen. Flooding happens in drainage plants and ground quakes occur near planetary faults.”

“Seems like maybe people should not build in disaster zones.” Anakin huffed

“Very true, do you remember what we said earlier, sentients can turn disasters and catastrophes, by building in dangerous areas, or making faulty equipment, or refusing to listen to warnings, they can put more and more people at risk and a dimple disaster will become a catastrophe. This directly increases with population. A population growth rate is called a PGR, a natural growth rate is the births and deaths in a group without including migration, this NGR can be applied to entire planets, or countries within a planet, the overall growth rate is the same but also takes migration into account. We can understand doubling time though the law of 70, do you remember what that is?”

“Does it take the population 70 years to double if it’s growing at 1% per year, and 70/2 years if it’s 2%?”

“Yes my dear, that’s perfect, and do you know how to minimize the consequences of a disaster?”

“There’s two types of way to do that, right?”

“Yes, can you remember what they are?”

“Oh, um, reactive was one right? And that would make the other anticipatory?”

“Perfect, what’s the difference between them?”

“Reactive is the response to an event, it’s search and rescue, and rebuilding and emergency care, and anticipatory is like preventative measures, so it would be not building on a floodplain, or making stronger buildings?”

“Exceltnt!” Obi-Wan let his pride at his padawan leak into the foce, Anakin lit up like a firecracker and smiled wide. “Do you remember the different types of effects of a disaster?”

“Direct and indirect!! Direct would be death or injury or people who had to move or building damage and indirect is like emotions and money and stuff like that.”

“Yes my dear, and can hazards be beneficial to anyone?”

“Oh yeah! There are forests that need fires right? So can they continue to exist? And sometimes floods move materials so plants can grow, that’s so weird to think about.”

“Well I think you understand the first unit of your lessons well enough, how far are you going for your first exam?”

“We’re going to chapter 4!” Anakin announced

“Well, my little one, that may take us a while, do you want to go over all of it tonight?”

“Yeah! I can do it!” Anakin insisted, Obi-Wan nodded

“There was never any doubt, the second chapter is on earthquakes, so we’re starting with the geologic timescale, can you tell me about dating?”

“Of course Obi, there’s relative dating and absolute dating, relative is older but no one knows how much older because they’re both ancient, there’s also force dating which some psychometrics can do. Um, relative dating uses the position of rocks because rocks get older the deeper you go, and it uses a lot of principles, where absolute dating uses radiometric dating which uses the elements. Planets like Naboo are layered and that means we can get a lot of information out of the rocks. Oh! I know some of the laters, Naboo has a solid inner core, and a liquid outer core, and a mantle which has a lot of iron and magnesium silicate rocks, and it’s density is varied, and it’s 80% of the planets volume, and then the crust which is on the top and divided into the ocean crust which is only a few Km thick and is dense, and the continental crust which is super thick and less dense after that there’s the lithosphere, which is between the crust and underlying rocks, and the plasticky upper part of the mantle and it has convection movements.”

“Good job my dear, heat flows from the center of the planet through conduction which is a physical transfer between molecules, rocks are not very conductive, and through convection which is vertical moment and occurs between more liquid or plastic regions. Can you tell me about plate tectonics?”

“Oh yeah, that's the thing that makes planets look like puzzle pieces right? Because the big chunks of land move and we can look at the seams in the planets to understand how they move?”

“Yes, exactly; most planets have ocean ridges which function like the seams from which moment happens. The sea floor frequently separates and it explains the way the magnetic and true north poles periodically flip on planets like Naboo.”

“So how do the movements happen again, Master?”

“Ah yes, there’s mantle dynamics which includes basal drag which is based on friction, and slab suction which involves local convective currents and results in a downward pull in subduction zones. And then there’s gravity based movements, slab pull is viewed as the greatest single force acting on the planets, gradual substance of increasingly thick and dense crust results in lateral include, thern there’s ridge push which is the gravitational effect of an elevated mid ocean ridge” Obi-Wan took a breath and glanced back to the ‘pad in his hands “plates can move in a divergent way which is separating, or convergent which has two plates moving towards each other, they can also transform which involves two plates sliding past each other. The most common example of transforming is associated with the mid-ocean reide offsets. Most planets have very slow plate motion, the plates on Naboo move at the same rate our fingernails grow. Or the same rate human fingernails grow. Some areas are hotspots where volcanic centers show up, they’re generally mixed in their location relative to the core. Motions of surface plants also leave trails of volcanic features, like islands of seamounts.”

“Wizard” Anakin said “and can you tell me more about gorundquakes?”

“Yes my dear, most of these happen at plate boundaries, they can, of course, also occur far from these boundaries but they’re far less frequent there, plate tectonics are frequently related to hazards in planets that have them. They will often develop volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and it also develops mountains and hills, there are quite a few relatively flat planets that have been performed to support life. Valleys are also a frequent consequence of these movements. Volcanoes are formed by surges of magma from deep within the cross; this happens far beneath the surface and is often associated with subduction zones and any mid ocean ridges that may exist. They’re fed with mantle plumes”

“That’s chapter two done right? We can do chapter three now?”

“Of course, you did very well, chapter three is all about earthquakes so we'll be continuing on the topic we just discussed.”

“Yeah, wait let me start! Faults right?” he waited for Obi-Wan to nod before continuing “ok, ok, faults are places where the crust is weak, and a semi planar fracture means there’s movement only on one side, where faulting is the rupturing of a fault, stress is the force applied to a fault and stain si the physical change in shape of a rock. There’s three types of stress, compression which is shortening, tension which is stretching and shear which is twisting or tearing, and then there’s two types of strain for each stress folding which is bending and faulting which is breaking.”

“Perfectly done little one” Obi-Wan said “a dip-slip fault is the section where rock moves vertically and a strike-slip fault is where rocks move horizontally. One is due to stress and the other to tension. A normal fault in downward movement of a hanging wall, and a reverse fault is an upward movement of a hanging wall, there are also alderal fauls, which can be left or right. And do you know what these movements can result in?”

“Ground quakes!” Anakin announced

“Very good my dear, faults frequently result in such quakes, there’s also elastic rebound which is when the crust moves after the release of energy. Ground quakes come in cycles, can you explain them to me, little one?”

“Of course Obi! The first stage is when stress builds, it’s inactive, the second stage has small quakes and elastic strain starts to accumulate, then there's the first which is the forshock that might not happen and the fourth which is the main shock and any aftershocks that happen. Not all ground quakes have preceding smaller shakes, and not all have foreshocks and these irregularities can make them impossible to predict but it’s good to know anyways!”

“That was a very good explanation and what do you know about seismic waves?”

“There’s the body waves, which are the P waves which are primary, and they go through solids, liquids, and gasses, and the S waves which are sheer and only go through solids. Then there’s survival waves that result in from the body waves when they arrive a t the survive they move slow and damage a lot of stuff, the Rayleigh wave is elpical and like ocean waves and a love wave is horizontal and moves perpendicular to wave movement.”

“And we can tell how damaging the quakes have been based on their magnitude, the Richter scale is a good way to measure the maximum ground shaking due to the S wave, its logarithmic however it does not work perfectly for massive quakes, so it’s used as a loose scale and then refined later on. It has a tendency to announce large quakes as too small, and because they’re exponential this can be a dramatic difference in the sheer scale of a quake.”

“Oh that’s why we use the moment magnitude right?”

“Exactly. And the amount of shaking is extremely dependent on local conditions, several pallets have local ‘did you feel it’ programs which allows people to report whether or not they felt the quake, this lets local governments develop plans for rebuilding and gives us important information on the quake.”

“That seems smart.” Anakin said.

“It is very smart” Obi-Wan agreed “now more parts of ground quakes, the depth of focus is how far between the focus and shaking, the deeper the focus the less skating you’ll get, the direction of the rupture shows which direction the focus is and the distance to the epicenter is how far someone is form the center of the quake, the father the less shaking. Since most ground quakes appear at plate boundaries, we can see that quakes are associated with subduction zones, there are also megathrust earthquakes which is the release of massive amounts of built up dress amongst the fault interface that was created by the subducting place. With this in mind, which regions are most at risk, Ani?”

“Um that would be those at the faults, the intraplate quakes are less common, and rocks tend to be stronger and less fractures so they’re super damaging, it’s rare but when it happens it can be a problem both because the material transfers energy better and because people are less prepared.”

“Very good, and how are ground quakes linked to other hazards?”

“Fault scapes can form cliffs, and resonance can make some buildings fall because they have the wrong vibrational frequency, and ground shaking can also damage critical structures, pipelines can be damaged, and they can also cause landslides and tsunamis and other stuff. Like liquefaction, or fires, or disease outbreaks.*” Anakin explained, he hesitated for a moment before continuing “we can minimize the amount of damage by doing a forecast which is probability over a given period of time, and prediction which could provide a place and time and magnitude but we can’t really do that because planets are not super predictable. So we need to abscess risk and do super quick alerts and make buildings that take periodic damage into account.”

“That’s a very good way to explain it, Anikin, and that’s the end of chapter three, so we can move to the final chapter now.”

“Tsunamis, right?” Anakin asked, his nose wrinkled, in clear disbelief. “I still don’t really get them,” he admitted.

“That’s right, this section has some holo-videos, perhaps that will help you visualize them?” Obi-Wan suggested.

“Maybe,” Anakin admitted, his voice was soft, “I do remember some stuff about tsunamis, they’re big waves, and they can happen because of earthquakes, or landslides of volcano collapse or volcano explosions or planetary impacts.”

“That is all true, my dear, ground quakes are especially known for causing tsunamis, it can be broken down into a four stage process, where upload causes the displacement of water, the waves spread rapidly and ravel very fast, then the waves slow near land and the runup of the wave goes onto land, this is where the wave transforms form something that’s not all that notable to something far bigger. Tsunamis in the deep ocean are rarely noticed, as they can travel very fast and won’t do much more than a regular wave, they can travel almost as fast as a fighter jet. Do you remember the warning signs of a tsunami, dear one?”

“Yes Obi, sometimes the water will go super far back, and the beach will look like there’s no water at all, but that also might not happen, it’s still good to know in case I ever see something like that.”

“Very good, and the greatest risks for coastal regions are?”

“Ground quakes, landslides and volcanoes.”

“Excellent destruction from causative events, induction with forceful movement of carter and the embers are all primary effects where secondary impacts are fires, chemical spills, pollution, disease and a type of pneumonia that comes from the bacteria that lives in mud covered salt water.” Obi-Wan explained, Anakin nodded

“Is there any way to prevent them, it seems like they’d just be a really big wave.”

“Unfortunately, dear one, there is now way to prevent most disasters, Tasmania included, that said there are ways to mitigate the effects, warning, structure, land use, tuneup maps, probability analysis and education. Unfortunately not all structural controls work well and some can make the event wose.”

“Then why do we use them?” Anakin asked, Obi-Wan laughed in response

“It is better to do our best to prevent the loss of life, than do nothing, not every solution will work, and sometimes things will fail, but that means we can do better next time, that is not to say it is a good thing when an attempted solution makes things worse, just that it happens sometimes, and trying is almost always worthwhile”

“I guess that makes sense.” Anakin admitted “my teacher said something about how planets which get a lot of tsunamis often have early warning systems in place.”

“Very good, and that's true, these systems let us know when danger is coming and can save countless lives. They can also help set up emergency operations centers, and get warnings to places all across the planet, they can also promote community awareness and teach people what to look out for and what not to do. Now, let’s see what those holovids show, shall we?”

Obi-Wan opened up one of the holos, and let it play out, as a group of Twi’leks stood uptop a building, slowly a surge of water started to climb the sea-wall that was just across the way from them speeders traveled over a nearby bridge that sat just above the sea-wall and harbor. The camera panned to show the road the bridge followed, as it traveled behind the building the group was perched on. Speeders traveled the road they hurried off to wherever they were going. The holo turned back to face the harbor, and boats in the harmer moved and one by one crashed over the wall, then, starting from the far edge and traveling up the way, the surge of water breached the wall, and just kept going. Like an endless amount of water, it poured over, and washed everything in its path away. Anakin watched in horror as the image panned to show the road from the bridge, entirely sumbered.

“Oh…” he said, his shock permeating the force. “Those people aren't ok, are they?” he asked.

“No, my dear, unfortunately this is part of the reason it’s so important to have education about the dangers of these disasters. The bridge would have been the safest place for them to be, and instead they traveled beyond safety. And as such they were lost. It's an unfortunate part of all this, and why we must study it, so we can help prevent such losses.”

“I understand, Master, it’s still a little hard to believe but… I don’t think I want to see something like that in person.”

“That is quite an understandable response dear heart** and I think that’s plenty enough for tonight, I think you have a decent understanding of the material, and I’m confident you’ll do well on your exam.”

“Thank you, master,” Anakin replied.

*the blue shadow virus arc but a fucking earthquake distroys the lab and everyone just dies because oh god its in the air now.

**bro I live in a desert, my entire class watched that video. I'm fairly sure it’s the tsunami in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture in eastern japan. I can’t find the video I was talking about but if I do I'll post it. Anyways, was terifying, I haven’t seen that much water in over 10 years, the wrost part was seeing a biker on the road next to the sea wall, and then seeing that same road covered in water and realizing that biker was dead.

#college #study fic #natural disaster class

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anthurak · 2 years

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Not the Bird You’re Thinking Of...

When thinking of Team STRQ as a ‘previous generation’ version of Team RWBY, it feels like a pretty common held take among the fandom at this point that Raven was the ‘Blake’ of her team, in the same way it seems pretty clear that Summer paralleled Ruby and Tai paralleled Yang. And it’s certainly been easy to draw some links between Blake and Raven, particularly when paralleling Blake’s relationship with Yang to Raven’s relationship with Tai.

I mean I’ll freely admit that I myself was one-hundred-percent on-board with this take back when the end of Volume 3 seemed to pull a ‘history repeats’ trope with Blake abandoning Yang in a way that felt very similar to Raven abandoning Tai. Which continued through Volume 5 where it seemed like the story was setting up Blake/Yang as a foil to Raven/Tai, with Blake returning to Yang, where Raven didn’t return to Tai.

However, more recently I’ve started to question how well this current interpretation of Team STRQ=Team RWBY actually works with what we now know of the characters. Like if nothing else, this current setup of Summer=Ruby, Tai=Yang and Raven=Blake leaves Qrow being the equivalent to Weiss, which I think we can all agree is… a head-scratching comparison to say the least.

Now to be fair, I do think the parallels between Summer-Ruby and Tai-Yang are still solid. Rather, it’s the supposed parallels between Raven and Blake that I’m questioning.

See, when you start looking past the surface-level ‘Raven did something similar to what Blake did’ parallels and start comparing these two as actual characters and people, things start getting pretty sketchy.

Yes, both fit the ‘dark, edgy loner’ trope, but beyond that are some serious differences. Blake is quiet and withdrawn whereas Raven is brusque and standoffish. Blake often acts humble while Raven often acts superior. And whereas Blake is so often self-deprecating and wallowing in self-pity for any wrongs she believes she may have committed (see Volume 4), Raven tries to blame others for her mistakes and runs away from responsibility. Ask yourself, does it really make sense that Blake could feasibly grow into the kind of person we see Raven as in Volume 4 and 5? Personally, I don’t think it really does.

And the best part is, do you know who IS so often quiet, withdrawn, brooding and has shown a serious self-deprecation and wallowing-in-self-pity problem in recent volumes?

Qrow.

So yeah, I actually think that it’s QROW who makes a way better parallel to Blake on Team STRQ than Raven does. And let’s not forget that Qrow ALSO put his absolute trust and faith behind a leader who ultimately let him down in a huge way. Even their weapons feels similar from a certain point of view, both having a sword-mode, the gun-form of Qrow’s weapon functioning like a handgun, and the sickle-form of Blake’s weapon more or less serving as a miniature scythe. Plus, I feel like growing up into basically the James Bond of Remnant fits Blake way better than Raven.

Oh, and this shift ALSO fixes the confusing element I brought up earlier. Because you know who was brusque and standoffish and acted like she knew better than everyone else at the start of the show?

Weiss.

Just as Qrow makes a way better parallel to Blake on Team STRQ, I think Raven likewise makes a very good parallel to Weiss. Certainly a better parallel than Qrow does. When we look at Raven in Volumes 4 and 5 and consider what we’ve heard about her, I think it makes way more sense that she would have been more like Weiss in the teams Beacon days. Oh, and let’s not forget that Raven’s weapon is a dust-infused sword with a rotating chamber just like Weiss’s.

And when we start extrapolating these changes to the character dynamics of Team STRQ, I think we start seeing a LOT of interesting parallels to the dynamics of Team RWBY. Particularly when we think of Team STRQ as the ‘failed’ version of Team RWBY who made the wrong decisions.

Like one of the things that made Qrow paralleling Weiss so confusing is that what little we’ve heard of his relationship with Summer doesn’t mesh that well with Weiss’s dynamic with Ruby. But with Qrow paralleling Blake, suddenly the way he talks about Summer makes a LOT more sense. Qrow seems to hold a great admiration and respect for Summer, saying ‘she was always the best of us’ and seems to have also had a close, platonic affection towards her. Which lines up very well with how fiercely loyal Blake has shown to be towards Ruby in recent volumes and in particular their conversation in Volume 8 when Blake tells Ruby how much she admires and respects her.

And of course, even the scant amount of info we have about Raven’s relationship with Summer makes a lot more sense paralleling to Weiss’s and Ruby’s relationship. Like if we start looking at Raven as at least partially representing a version of Weiss who lost Ruby, I think a LOT of her behavior and actions start making a lot more sense.

Now the one wrinkle with this whole idea I know a lot people are going to bring up is; ‘How can Raven be the Weiss of Team STRQ when her and Tai’s relationship parallels Bumbleby?’

Well consider this: What if Raven and Tai didn’t actually HAVE a relationship? If we start working from the concept of Team STRQ being a version of Team RWBY who made the wrong decisions, what if Raven and Tai trying to get together was one of those? I’ve brought this up in other posts, but I have a hunch at this point that Yang was an unplanned pregnancy. The product of what was supposed to be some one-night-stand between Raven and Tai which drove them into trying to force a relationship that one or both of them didn’t actually want. Which in turn is at least one of the major reasons Raven fled her team after Yang was born.

Raven’s and Tai’s relationship was never going to work because they’re NOT actually the parallel to Bumbleby on Team STRQ. The parallel to Bumbleby on Team STRQ is Qrow and Tai.

Even from what little we’ve seen, I think Qrow and Tai actually do make sense as a kind of ‘failed’ Bumbleby. A version of Blake and Yang who were never able to open up about how they felt for each other and have just been dancing around their feelings for so long they’ve just given up. A version of Blake who’s fully internalized the idea that he doesn’t deserve to be happy and the man he loves would be better off without him, and a version of Yang who at this point has just given up. And you know that parallel of Raven running away from Tai? Well I’d say it’s pretty clear that Qrow has been running away from Tai just as much.

This also smooths out any prospective reconciliation arc between Raven and Tai. I’ve seen a fair bit of debate since Volume 5 as to whether or not Raven and Tai ‘should’ get ‘back together’ or not after everything that’s happened. Instead, with this setup the reconciliation arc becomes Raven and Tai recognizing that they were never going to work as a couple and being able to accept each other as Teammates and family.

All in all, I think this interpretation of Team STRQ’s parallels to Team RWBY lines up with the characters much better. With Qrow we have an equivalent to Blake who parallels her character traits much more smoothly, and with Raven we have, well a parallel to Weiss that actually works. (let’s be honest; Qrow NEVER worked as a Team STRQ equivalent to Weiss).

Oh, and if anyone familiar with my other theories is wondering if my attraction to this interpretation of Team STRQ is at ALL influenced by the fact that it positions Summer and Raven as being both partners AND parallels to the relationship between Ruby and Weiss, and leaves things open for a certain relationship between these two that in turn sets up a certain possible origin for our main heroine AND presents foreshadowing for Ruby and Weiss themselves getting together?

You are EXACTLY right. XD

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powerbottomblake · 4 years

Note

Do you think CRWBY would have the guts to have Penny admit she has a big old crush on Ruby, the same way Ilia did for Blake? Because I feel like the girl does have a big old crush. LIke a big fat one.

I think it’s less a matter of guts than a matter of intent.

As I said before, nuts and dolts as an intense, formative platonic bond for both Ruby and Penny is still a very valid reading of their relationship till now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much into n&d and the romantic coloring of it is there if they want to take it there, but I don’t think that was the original plan.

If we take bumbleby as an example, you can see how RT had them planned from the get go, down to their very character designs being complementary. Ilia, as well, was intended to be the first officially introduced lgbt character. I don’t see that kind of intent in n&d. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen! Sometimes some subplots and relationships grow organically from the writing without first being planned that way. Becky Albertalli, for example, saw the response to the Leah/Abby storyline (or the potential there that the readers picked up on) and realized she had unwittingly planted the seeds for what would be the sequel to Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda and would be a great f/f storyline (check it out if you haven’t already btw).

So RT could totally go over what they’ve put out so far and be like oh. This is something that developed organically and could definitely lead to another great lgbt storyline, which, paired with Penny’s trans coding would be incredible. But I honestly wouldn’t fault them if they didn’t take the story there.

But also yes Penny has a big fat crush on Ruby and she fills the Classic RWBY Love Interest Prerequisites that is:

- she Sees and is Seen by Ruby from the very get go; Ruby just immediately sees to the heart of Penny, regardless of her having a metallic body she’s always affirmed how Penny is real and human to her. And Penny is inspired by Ruby’s kindness and courage and nobility. Tbh a great moment is Penny immediately pegging Ruby’s semblance before she herself was aware of all it entailed; surface level it’s a great joke, but it also speaks volume abt Penny’s ability to grasp what makes Ruby’s soul.

- Parallel/complimentary struggles and arcs! Ruby has to contend with being one of the last specimens of an otherwise extinct line of warriors that could be key to saving the world, Penny has to learn how to basically be Remnant’s equivalent of a superhero. They’re in unique positions to understand each other best (which is actively being reflected rn)

I don’t know how this turned into an N&D manifesto but yeah basically I don’t know if they were planned to come off this way nor would I be miffed if RT ultimately doesn’t go there with them but. The seed is there, and it’s been growing, and it’d be kinda neat if it did end up flowering.

#rwby spoilers #I'm sorry anon I think you expected more of a joke reply and I was like #will anyone have a breakdown over n&d and did not wait for an answer #;/ bear with me #Anonymous

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nitewrighter · 4 years

Note

First Meeting of Genji and Tracer maybe?

I haven’t forgotten all the kiss prompts but I wanted to gear-shift to something a little more punchy!

-------

“I don’t know about this…” Genji mindlessly brushed his fingers along the handle of Ryū-Ichimonji as he walked down the hall, “I’ve never really thought of myself as a teacher...”

“You said you wanted to get off the bench,” Reyes walked alongside him, both hands in the mono-pocket of his hoodie. He had a way of carrying himself that made it easy for the eye to scan past him, despite being head of Blackwatch, but Genji drew the eye, bare skin and metal, and stark black, white and red prosthetics, and so in their walk virtually all Overwatch staff in the hallway gave them an unnaturally wide berth, first a natural reaction to Genji’s appearance, then a flinching recognition of Reyes. “This is the best Jack and I can do for you,” Reyes went on, “Besides, she was in the RAF before this, so it’s not like she’s coming into this with no combat knowledge.”

‘The best Jack and I can do for you,’ Genji glanced away from Reyes, his eyes narrowing in thought, So you show Jack one hand with me, while keeping the other behind your back with McCree. I’m the ‘accountability’ agent, but McCree and Moira... they’re still Blackwatch. They’re still working. His ‘real’ agents. Genji wondered where McCree was now. Was it an ‘errand’ this time or a ‘vacation?’ It wasn’t as if it was sanctioned by Jack either way, but it wasn’t like Jack would look too closely or question it so long as the cyborg ninja was accounted for.

“Hey,” Reyes spoke and Genji was forced to pull himself out of his bristling silence, “Being a part of Overwatch isn’t just cutting through shit with a sword. You have to show you can work with people, and not just Blackwatch.” Reyes gave a short snort, “Though, let’s be real, saying you worked with Blackwatch is a bit of a stretch.”

Genji kept his eyes fixed away sullenly. “So she’s not the only one learning, here,” he mused.

“Now you’re getting it,” said Reyes, smiling.

“You don’t know when Blackwatch’s suspension is ending, do you?” Genji’s voice was level but it wiped the smile from Reyes’s face in an instant.

“Can’t say that I do,” Reyes flicked his own eyes forward, down the hall, “But that doesn’t mean I’m sitting on my hands, Shimada. You can believe me when I say I’m working on ways to get you back out there, because Talon’s only going to get bolder while we’re wrapping ourselves in red tape. But you have to show me, Jack, and all these UN pearl-clutchers you can adapt. Do you understand?”

“Mm,” Genji gave a single nod as they exited two automatic doors out to the training area, where a cluster of training bots where doddering around in various directions.

“Had ‘em cue up your usual warm-up,” said Reyes, putting his hands on his hips, “Think benchwarming got you soft?”

Genji gave a short scoff before drawing Ryū-Ichimonji from his back, but Reyes could hear the smile in his breath beneath his faceplate.

----

“Wow... Blackwatch!” Tracer’s eyes were wide as Mercy and Winston stood next to her in the elevator, “I heard all about the--I mean, everyone heard about Venice but--blimey! Are we sure it’s all right?”

“We’re approaching this as a sort of... rehabilitation from suspension,” said Mercy, “And don’t worry, I’m very well-acquainted with your future teacher and I can assure you that Genji Shimada holds himself to a very high standard as an agent.”

“I know that but....I don’t know if I’m cut out for any of that ninja stuff,” Trace glanced down at the chronal accelerator glowing in her chest, “This thing doesn’t exactly make it ea--easy to sneak around.” A brief ripple of glowing blue chronal feedback bloomed around her on the word ‘easy’ and her shoulders bunched up self-consciously, “Sometimes I don’t know if I can pull off that... speed-up thing I did back with the prototypes...”

“The accelerator reacts to your nervous system,” Winston chimed in, “We can worry about safely discharging the chronal distortion later, but it’s perfectly safe and stable as it is right now! All you need to worry about is keeping a cool head!”

“Cool head,” Tracer said firmly, “Right.”

“But if anything feels wrong you should tell us immediately,” Mercy quickly added.

“Gotcha, gotcha,” said Tracer, nodding. The three of them stood in a nervous, excited silence for a few seconds.

“Is he nice?” Tracer asked, looking at Mercy, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can deal with the ‘tough love’ types, but I guess I’m just not really sure what to expect with all this Blackwatch stuff...”

“Oh he’s wonderful,” said Mercy beaming as the elevator dinged and the doors opened, “And I think, while both your situations are very unique, he’ll definitely understand what you’re going through. He’s basically had to re-learn how to coordinate his body, too!”

Tracer’s shoulders slumped with some reassurance as they stepped out into the open air of the training area, “Well that’s a relief,” she said, with a lopsided smile.

“Oh yes. He’ll be a great teacher. He’s patient, and attentive, and really quite funny once you get to know him, and he’s very---”

Mercy was cut off by a snarling, roaring, cybernetically warbling scream as a red, white, and black blur rushed past them on the training grounds. Tracer, Winston, and Mercy watched in some combination of awe and terror as Genji Shimada tore through a batch of training bots like a hurricane.

“Very--um...” Mercy’s words turned halting as Genji dove and slid under one bot and became a whirlwind of blades and kicks, slicing up the training bots closing in on him, before sending the poor training bot he had dived under into the air then springing into the air himself. His wires whipped around him as he twisted in the air, sending the training bot flying back with a kick that made it shatter against a wall.

“Very--” Mercy tried to regain her composure and speak quickly but winced as she was cut off again by the screech and clatter of metal, the loud scream of a broken vocal box on one of the training bots as Genji jammed both sword and wakizashi into it before ripping it outward and rendering the training bot an explosion of broken metal parts. Mercy looked sharply over to Tracer, whose mouth was hanging open in a petrified gawk.

“He’s very...” Mercy was trying to eke words out of herself as Genji sliced off the head of one training bot with his sword then stabbed it through with his wakizashi before pivoting and smashing another training bot’s head with the skewered head of its compatriot. “...enthusiastic?”

Genji’s breaths were ragged and his forearms were quaking with how hard his hands were gripping his sword and wakizashi, surrounded by the sparking broken bits of training bots, his shoulders rising and falling with his breaths. Tracer, Winston, and Mercy all flinched to attention at the sound of clapping next to them and looked to their right to see Gabriel Reyes stick his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistle shrilly before clapping some more.

“Attaboy, Genji! Still got it!” Reyes called out to Genji and Genji seemed to pull himself out of a blood-drunk haze (or at least the robot-destroying equivalent of a blood-drunk haze), looking over his shoulder and then flinching to awkward attention himself as he noticed Reyes was now accompanied by Mercy, the gorilla, and... the newbie.

His student.

Who looked about ready to either throw up or piss herself or both from what she had just seen him do.

Reyes was still clapping and smiling obnoxiously, Genji awkwardly lifted his wakizashi (smaller sword was less threatening, right?) and gave a small wave.

“Uh... yo,” he said.

“Er--excellent form, Genji!” Mercy raised her voice so he could hear her but it came out as a squawk, her desperation to try and diffuse the situation obvious in every intonation, “Very... efficient!” She had that ‘everything is going wrong but for the love of god be strong, Angela’ deliriously forced smile on her face, which he had seen both at 3 AM in the lab and at press conferences going down in flames.

“Thank you?” said Genji, sheathing both his sword and moving to walk toward them but then stumbling over a piece of broken training bot. He quickly recovered, straightened himself up to full height and walked briskly over to them before giving a stiff bow.

“So glad you could join us, Oxton,” said Reyes, turning to look at Tracer, his hands on his hips.

“Reyes?” Mercy’s voice was steel wire-tight, “May we speak?”

“Sure, Ange, what--” Reyes started but Mercy grabbed him by the loose sleeve of the hoodie and practically dragged him through the doors of the training area’s control room.

“Wait, shouldn’t we--” Tracer started feebly after them but the steel doors of the room slammed behind them. Tracer, Genji, and Winston all vaguely made out the muffled sounds of Mercy yelling at Reyes on the other side of the doors.

“What were you thinking?! What was that?!”

“What are you yelling at me for? I just thought he should get a little warmed up and the newbie should get some idea of--”

“Some idea of what?! We’ve only barely scratched the surface of the effects the chronal disassociation is having on her physical abilities and you’re throwing up these warzones like---”

“Hey, I just set up his usual training bot session, Doc, you got a problem with Genji’s style, you take that up with him--”

“I don’t have a problem with Genji’s ‘style’--! I--Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing---! Is this some other play?! Are you--”

Winston cleared his throat. “We should probably...”

“Right..” said Tracer a little sheepishly.

The three of them edged away from the steel doors. Genji glanced over at Tracer, who didn’t seem to know whether to even look at him as they walked themselves out of earshot of the argument.

“So you’re the new recruit from the flight program,” said Genji, folding his arms and trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Ah...y-yeah!” Tracer blurted out. She cleared her throat and stuck her hand out, “Lena Oxton! Callsign Tracer! Reporting for du--” blue light suddenly flared brightly around her from the glowing object on her chest and she seemed to catch herself, clearing her throat, “er... reporting for duty,” she said extending her hand again, which had somehow jerked back to her side with the blue glow.

Genji moved to extend his organic hand, found that that would be awkward with the hand Tracer had chosen to shake with, then hesitantly extended his prosthetic. She shook his hand so hard it jostled up his whole arm before she caught herself and withdrew her hands to her side, clearing her throat.

“Ah so that’s...” Genji started.

“Yeah it’s a thing,” said Tracer, glancing down.

“Well...” Genji gestured up and down himself, “This... is also a thing.”

“I can see that,” said Tracer with a bit of a nervous giggle. They both gave a glance to Winston.

“Oh!” Winston perked up and started unconsciously signing as he spoke, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. Winston. I’ll be on the science team overseeing Tracer’s condition with the chronal accelerator. Along with Doctor Ziegler. So we’ll be watching while you’re training together!”

“I see,” said Genji, “And you’re...”

“From the moon,” said Winston.

“From the moon,” Genji repeated, both of them silently agreeing that they didn’t have to go into the ‘gorilla’ part of things. He glanced back at Tracer. “Look--” Genji started but then caught himself, “I--if I scared you back there...”

“You didn’t scare me!” Tracer blurted out.

Both Genji and Winston gave her steady looks and Tracer stiffened her shoulders slightly, “I mean... y’know it’s... nothing I can’t handle. Really!” she put her hands on her hips and huffed, “You’re pretty tame compared to some of the things I’ve seen,” she said. She was trying to inject an adventurous sense of swagger into her voice, but her youth undermined a lot of that.

Genji tilted his head slightly, studying her, and she made eye contact but didn’t sustain it for too long. He was used to that at this point. The red eyes were off-putting for a lot of people, but then his eyes flicked to Winston, then down at the chronal accelerator glowing in Tracer’s chest. There was something simultaneously familiar and alienating standing in their presence, and hearing the faint muffled sounds of Ziegler and Reyes arguing on the other side of the door, there was a spark of kinship between the three of them. Three people who wouldn’t have any place in the world without Overwatch.

“So how do we start?” said Tracer.

“Start?” said Genji, “Now?”

“Well, Doctor Z said you already went through all this stuff to re-learn coordination with all your...” Tracer gestured up and down at him, “Whatnot. And I figure, the sooner for me, the better, right? So lesson one, Teach! Let’s hear it!”

“Uh...” Genji rubbed the back of his head.

“Perhaps you could begin with assessment?” Winston suggested, “Establish what level of combat training Tracer should start with?”

The fastest way to do that is sparring, Genji thought and he got a horrifying mental image of Ziegler and Reyes emerging from their argument in the control room only to walk in on him punching Morrison’s beloved time-hopping newbie in the face.

“The first step to training is.... establishing the training space!” Genji blurted out. He vaguely remembered some lectures from his Shimada clan trainers indicating something similar, but the force that propelled those words from his mouth were more of the ‘70% panic’ variety.

“Establishing the training ground?” Tracer tilted her head.

“You can’t train in a cluttered space,” Genji pointed at the countless broken bits of training bots strewn across the training grounds, “You can start by cleaning those up.”

“...isn’t that your mess?” said Tracer.

“Who’s the teacher here?” said Genji, folding his arms.

“Right! Of course! Sorry!” said Tracer with a sharp salute before zipping off in a blue streak. Genji flinched hard at how inhumanly fast she moved and she seemed to catch herself as well, skidding to a halt on her heels. “Winston!” she called out excitedly, “Did you see that!? I did the thing! I did the speedy thing again!! I didn’t even think about it!! You’re such a good teacher, Genji!”

“I know,” said Genji, trying to look off stoically as Tracer zipped around the training grounds, picking up broken training bot bits and laughing between flashes of blue light.

“...you don’t know what ‘the speedy thing’ is, do you?” said Winston, very quietly.

“No,” Genji replied, also very quietly.

“You’re making this up as you go along,” Winston said flatly.

“It’s called ‘adapting,’” said Genji. He could still feel Winston’s eyes on him, skeptical. “I can adapt,” Genji said, mostly to himself as Tracer threw a bunch of training bot parts into a recycling bin with a loud clatter.

#overwatch #overwatch fic #genji shimada #tracer #angela ziegler

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paradife-loft · 4 years

Text

ngl it’s been really rubbing me the wrong way, how I’ve seen discussion about the alteration of plot/character elements from MDZS to The Untamed that not only claims that transition reduced moral complexity/greyness, but outright eliminated it.

like I just. did we watch the same show?? - and ok, fair, if this is just a case of me reading “no moral complexity was allowed for censorship reasons” and taking it at literal face value when it’s meant to be a bit of an exaggeration for rhetorical effect, that’s. well, I would argue that perhaps clarity is more important than rhetoric in fandom-general analytical posts compared to casual conversation Being Cranky With Your Friends, but. Assuming that I can take the words at face value as advocating the point that they literally convey -

look. yes. certain Good Guys’ actions were softened (oh look, WWX is now rather less of a mass murderer! that’s fun! LWJ has more explicit concern with doing the right thing overall, as opposed to Only Protecting WWX No Matter What!), while Bad Guys’ actions were made more obvious or explicit in their severity (the Jin clan hosts war crimes as a party game! to a majority of viewers, JZX^2, Qin Su, Jin Rusong, etc.’s deaths were intentionally planned and committed murders!*).

but I think it’s truly a mistake to look at those instances and then just ignore all the other layers that are still retained in the show? nonconsensual golden core transferring still happens! WWX does still torture a whole bunch of people to death; the fact that they’re not as “innocent” as the pledge conference cultivators doesn’t make that not a bad thing to do? LWJ still fights and injures a bunch of his clan elders over - something; it’s not entirely clear; but probably not the explicit protection of a batch of civilians at that point, considering nobody ever actually says anything about any of the Wen remnants as the beneficiaries of his stand in the Burial Mounds. we still have instances such as “NHS being repeatedly callous about fatal collateral damage in his revenge quest” and “Jiang Cheng arguing for turning over a bunch of civilians for slaughter to save his shidi”.

and most notably on the other side - a lot of the alteration to JGY’s circumstances to make him look “more culpable/evil” are actually not that substantive. like, I see the relative timing of Madame Qin’s revelation cited a lot - and while yes, I agree it’s kind of annoying of a change to make - does the incest being accidental really make that situation so much more grey and blameless than the weight of being trapped by a massive web of obligation and potential consequences and so knowingly going through with the marriage does? likewise, so many “explanations” of JGY’s crimes and their supposed intentionality are put in the mouths of other characters who have no actual way of knowing the truth of what they’re saying. it’s supposition and hearsay - variably reasonable depending on the item in question, but are we really going to argue in this narrative that a character saying something without them and/or us having seen it ourselves, is equivalent to proof that events actually definitely happened that way?

ultimately, my point is - sure, censorship rules mean black and white are meant to be portrayed in more clearly defined ways, and some of the characterisation and narrative changes made in adaptation were probably related to that. but since when are censors the most accurate, knowledgeable, or close readers of a text? queerness wasn’t allowed in The Untamed either, and look how well that worked out! the fact that the more obvious and surface-level content and messages have to conform to external rules in an artistic work, generally means that more complex and subversive content gets layered in through subtleties, implications, and other less-flashy aspects of a work. yeah, you might need to dig for them a little more than in a comparative non-censored work. but that doesn’t mean that in the hands of a capable, passionate team of creators, those elements just wholesale stop existing. it’s a frustrating disservice to the story in The Untamed and the people who worked on bringing all the characters to life to claim otherwise, even though god knows there are plenty of elements to be critical of, frustrated by, unhappy about, in terms of adaptation decisions made and fan reactions to them, depending on one’s own personal preferences.

anyway, that’s my rant /o/

#rambling #no good things for the poor sad cultivators #op #media analysis #I guess???#this doesn't get into everything I could say on this topic but AUGH I wasn't even intending on writing this today sooooo #(also not pictured: the massive digression partway through that's just me unfurling a giant scroll of JGY apologism)#('unlike in MDZS he's just pure evil in CQL!!!' WELL ACTUALLY...)#....but that's part of what I was meaning to get back to Actually writing today sooooo

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bonjour-rainycity · 4 years

Text

Odin’s Ward ~ Chapter 5

Link to previous part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/630063393754284032/odins-ward-chapter-4

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word count: 2240

Warnings: None

Y/n: 18 // Loki: 20 // Thor: 24

Y/n’s POV

Jovial music fills the air, encouraging the plethora of people in attendance to dance. Since I came of age weeks ago, I am eligible to join in the festivities. Today is Thor’s birthday, and Asgard has spared no expense. Food and drink line every available surface, people don lavish dress, and the hall boasts various shades of red and gold. The King and Queen sit at the high table, eyes sparkling in humor.

Thor’s booming voice cuts through the music, and all sound ceases immediately. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me here tonight.” He stumbles a bit, clearly under the influence of alcohol. “I—I….” He purses his lips, trying to gather what he wishes to say. His friends begin to chuckle, but everyone else knows better than to laugh at the Crown Prince. “I am so happy that this party is happening.” He licks his lips and leans on the nearest person for support. “I love you all, and I know you all love me.” A cheer goes up at that, and I can’t help but join in. Thor is behaving utterly ridiculously, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy myself. “Thank you for being here, and enjoy the festivities. Music!” At his command, the music begins once again, filled with a vigor it didn’t quite have before.

“Lady Y/n! What a delight it is to finally have your luminous presence at one of Asgard’s little gatherings.” Fandral saunters up to me with a sultry smile. “Might I be so bold as to beg a dance?” He offers me his hand.

“A dance is fine,” I respond. “But I will not be joining you in your bed this evening.”

His eyebrows shoot up and he freezes. Then, he bursts into laughter. “How charmingly direct. I shall endeavor to change your mind.” He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles.

“And I shall endeavor to watch you fail.” I keep a smile on my face so he knows I’m still his friend, then take his arm and allow him to escort me to the center of the floor.

Asgardian dances are more complicated than the ones I saw on Alfheim when I was younger, but I have had nearly a year of practice during my lessons with Queen Frigga and her ladies. Fandral keeps me occupied for the next two dances, twirling me around and stepping on my toes due to his level of intoxication. Still, I laugh along with him, enthused to finally be allowed to attend the festivities.

When the second dance is done, Fandral bows to me and I curtsy in response.

“Lady Y/n, thank you for your company. Perhaps I shall encounter you later this evening?” He waggles his eyebrows in time with his words.

A laugh barks past my lips. “You wish!”

He chortles good-naturedly and takes his leave, already looking for the next person upon whom to bestow his ‘charms’. A man with light blonde hair shyly asks me to dance, and I accept. He’s nice enough, but too quiet to hold my attention.

Three dances in a row is a little tiring, so I curtsy to the man and excuse myself, going off in search of a drink. I find one of the many stations to the side of the room and pour myself a glass of water. Before I can take a sip, a series of hard claps on my back causes me to tumble forward, effectively spilling water all over the table.

“Hey!” I whip around to yell at whatever idiot caused the incident.

I’m met with the chest of a grinning Prince Thor. “Lady Y/n! I’m so glad you could make it. Are you having a good time?”

Knowing now that he didn’t mean to cause me to spill my drink and that he’s just too strong—and drunk—for his own good, I let it go. “I am! Happy birthday, Your Highness.”

A radiant smile lights his face. “Why thank you! Allow me to fix you a drink.”

I’ve never had alcohol before, but now is as good a time as any to try some, so I nod eagerly. Thor grabs a cup about the size of my face and fills it with a mixture of sharp-smelling liquids.

“My creation is complete!” Cheers erupt from the ten or so people around us, and I can’t help but laugh at Thor’s exuberance. “Drink up, Lady Y/n.”

Shrugging, I bring the goblet to my lips and confidently take a gulp.

The sting has me doubles over and coughing before I can even properly swallow. Thor laughs heartily and takes the goblet, patting me on the back until I can stand up straight.

“A valiant effort, Lady Y/n,” he decrees, and the people respond with enthusiastic claps.

A smooth voice comes from behind my left shoulder. “Brother. Do you think it wise to begin Lady Y/n’s evening with one of your more…powerful concoctions?”

“Ah, Loki!” Thor claps him on the back and even Loki sags a bit under the weight. “My well-meaning brother. It would be so sad to let this drink go to waste. Besides, Lady Y/n handled it well, didn’t you, Lady Y/n?”

“Oh, yeah,” I respond with manufactured enthusiasm, my eyes still watering from the sheer force of the drink.

Loki sees through my facade and eyes me warily. “Very well. I shall not let it go to waste.” He deftly plucks the goblet from Thor’s hand, presents it to him with an exaggerated bow, stands up straight, and downs the entire cup without taking a breath. The group surrounding us reacts wildly: jumping up and down, cheering, tripping over each other. Loki maintains his composure and proudly presents the empty cup. He doesn’t so much as grimace. I stare at him in disbelief, and he offers me a smug grin. “All in due time, Lady Y/n, shall you be as strong as I. Now, brother,” Loki turns to Thor, “I wish you the happiest of birthdays. Would you now permit me to steal Lady Y/n from your presence?”

Thor guffaws and begins making himself a drink, nodding absently.

Loki offers me his arm and we walk in tandem to the opposite edge of the room. I frown, realizing something. “I never did get my water.”

With a flourish of his hand, Loki conjures a goblet from thin air and hands it to me.

I drink gratefully. “Thank you. I must say, your ability to down that entire drink was impressive! I could have done it myself with a bit more practice.”

The gleam in his eyes tells me he very much doubts that, but retains enough politeness to refrain from saying so. “I’m sure.”

I take a sip of my drink and lean casually against the stone pillar behind me. “Too bad you didn’t actually drink Thor’s concoction.”

Loki blinks. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

I give him a long look from over the side of my shoulder. “So you’re saying it’s not stored away in whichever secret dimension you favor?”

His lips twitch as he fights a smile. “My dear friend, it is rude to question a prince of Asgard.”

“Is that a threat?”

He’s fully grinning now. “Perhaps.”

“Mm,” I respond, not taking my eyes from his. “I will keep that in mind in the future. Perhaps until then, however, you could humor me with the truth, just this once.”

What follows is quite a lengthy staring competition. Feeling my eyes begin to burn, I make a face that causes him to break with a laugh.

“Alright,” he concedes. “You have me.” With a sigh and a playful roll of his eyes, he procures the drink he pretended to consume earlier.

“Ha! I knew it!” I point a finger at him, solidifying my victory. “You liar.”

He grins. “Trickster god, you mean to say.” He takes my outstretched hand in his. “Since you have found me out, I do believe I must occupy the rest of your evening. I’m afraid I cannot allow you to be left alone to spread word of my deceit.”

“No.” I try to bite back my smile and fail. “I’m sure you can’t.”

“Then may I have this dance?”

I shrug, pretending not to care. “Only because you’re the Prince of Asgard and you’re so important.”

With a roll of his eyes and a noise of playful exasperation, he leads me to the center of the room. The music starts and he draws me only as close as propriety allows. We sway and spin in time with the music. He’s far too graceful for my liking, so I try to trip him about halfway through.

“Why you—” He cuts off with a laugh as I spin away. He chases after me, but each time I deftly avoid his grip. We weave in and out of the other dancers. Some laugh, some grimace, but no one interferes with our game.

With a quick glance back, I see Loki just behind me. Intending to speed up to evade capture, I instead crash into an innocent bystander.

“Oh wow, I am so sorry, I—Loki!”

He laughs with abandon, throwing his head back and circling his arms around my upper body. “Silly girl, thinking you can escape me.” Still laughing, he pulls me once again to the side of the room.

“How-how did you do that?!” My voice is made higher with surprise.

He leans in conspiratorially. “I have learned to create doubles using my magic. There’s still a lot to perfect, but I feel as if I could one day be quite skilled.”

“Yes,” I laugh along. “And then you can continue to catch unsuspecting women who are just trying to enjoy a simple dance.” I do my best to put on an innocent air but can’t quite manage it.

“Mm, that will surely be the case.” He rolls his eyes yet again. I’m certain it is one of his most practiced skills. I tell him so.

“Well,” he responds with a fake huff, “I wouldn’t have to get so much practice if I didn’t have such an exasperating woman in my life.”

I shrug. “Not my fault it worked out like this. You should have better social skills, maybe then you could score better friends.”

He chuckles wryly. “Perhaps. In the meantime, however, I will just have to learn to cope.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Poor you.”

We stand in comfortable silence for a moment, taking in the scenes around us. Out of nowhere, Loki grabs my waist and turns me so that I can see the far right side of the hall. “Y/n, look!” His voice is equivalent to that of a child discovering a wonderful gift has been left for him.

I immediately see why.

Thor, who is quite drunk at this point, is making a fool of himself trying to catch a woman’s attention.

“It seems as though my brother is trying to convince that poor maiden to accompany him to his bed.” It doesn’t escape my notice that Loki’s hands have not left my hips. I swallow and do not mention it.

I don’t intend to be so quiet when I speak, but I can’t force any more volume behind it for fear that my voice will begin to shake. “She won’t refuse him. Most women here tonight are trying to earn his affections. Haven’t you noticed? They’re doing the same to you.”

He scoffs. “No, they’re not.”

“Yes,” I counter, a little too forcefully. I demure. “It would be quite advantageous to gain the attention of one of the princes.”

Loki grins. “How jealous they must be of you.”

“What can I say?” I put on a haughty air, feeling much more comfortable in the realm of humor than intensity. “I’m just that important.”

We chuckle at our shared joke and return our attention to the spectacle.

Thor has now succeeded in getting the woman to take his arm. Two seconds later, however, he trips over his own two feet and takes quite a stumble. Loki laughs so hard he has to lean against the pillar for support. This causes him to take his hands from my hips, and I suddenly feel cold.

The unnamed woman kindly helps Thor from the ground and tries to tug him out of the ballroom. A light that I am quite familiar with enters Loki’s eyes.

“Loki, no—” before I can stop him, Loki conjures up an extra pillar in front of Thor’s face, causing him to smack straight into it and go crashing to the ground. Loki practically explodes in laughter. Thor begins to suspect something is amiss and whips his head wildly around the room in search of his scheming brother.

“Ope!” Loki quickly grabs me and sprints to the dance floor, burying us in the array of couples. Nearly breathless with laughter, we take turns twirling around so we can see Thor’s progress with the woman. Tired of all the antics, she leaves Thor standing by himself with a frustrated look on his face.

“You are bad,” I scold, turning back to my favorite prince. I’m sputtering too hard to put any real reproach behind my voice.

Loki just winks and twirls me once more.

A/n Let me know what you thought and if you would like to be added to the tag list :)

Masterlist

Link to next part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/631916582484017152/odins-ward-chapter-6

Tag list: @80strashbag @dark-night-sky-99

#loki #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki x reader fanfic #loki x reader fanfiction #thor #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel reader-insert #thor fanfiction #loki reader-insert #loki x reader #loki x yn #loki x y/n #loki x female reader #asgard

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owl-with-a-pen · 4 years

Note

Hi! I just read the fanfic about Brainy and Nia going to the future and meeting their daughter, I know you posted it a long time ago, I'm just new to tumblr, so if you can I want you to do a fic about the future, where Brainy's daughter and Nia is 5 years old. And it would be cool to see the antics that her daughter does.XD

- Sorry this took so long to fulfil, but yes! I’m sure she’d get into all sorts and this story probably only scrapes the surface! Thank you for the prompt x

Nia had always preferred the night over the day; maybe it was just her Naltorian side talking, but she’d always felt there was a certain peacefulness about the night-time that just couldn’t be replicated in daylight.

That definitely hadn’t changed since Nova had come into the picture.

The daytime had always been busy for a number of reasons. Balancing work and family life, balancing family and hero life - balancing work, family and hero life. But, now that Nova had reached an age where she was starting to explore her natural curiosities, Nia and Brainy hadn’t had the luxury of focusing on anything else. At five years old, they couldn’t let their daughter out of their sight for one second of the day.

The second the sun went down, though?

Nova’s sleeping pattern had always been pretty steady, and once she was out - she was out. She’d definitely gotten that from Nia’s side of the family. After all, Brainy didn’t really need all that much sleep, although he had admitted to her on more than one occasion that he enjoyed resting at her side, retreating to his inner network at hours Nia would otherwise be sleeping, working on small tasks and calculations reminiscent of an actual dream-state. In that way, he could still be close with her during the night, and Nia valued that time together immensely.

Of course, the fact Brainy didn’t actually need those extra hours had made him the best dad ever when it came to late-night wake-up calls courtesy of one baby Nova.

She still wasn’t old enough for them to know for certain the extent of her abilities; Brainy had predicted they wouldn’t fully develop fully until her teen years. Honestly, though? Nia didn’t care what powers Nova had; she was perfect no matter what.

Nia watched from the doorway that evening as Nova cuddled against Brainy on the bed. Her blonde hair was getting so long now, falling in relaxed waves down to her elbows, and the light green tone of her skin was almost washed out entirely by the soft purple of her nightlight on the bedside table. She was curled into Brainy’s chest, chewing idly on her thumbnail, her dark eyes scanning along inquisitively to the passages he was reading aloud to her. Nia smiled privately to herself; Brainy really got into character when reading Nova to sleep, making a big show with grand gesticulations and silly voices, even when the book of choice for tonight was an account on quantum mechanics from Carlo Rovelli’s collection.

Nova had a unique taste in literature, that was for sure and, while she was definitely getting a taste for mathematics and physics, she also still enjoyed simpler story telling. Nia and Brainy had decided to switch up who read to her each night. Sometimes, they’d choose something on Brainy’s bookshelf, and other times they would go for stories catered for a younger – human - mind, like The Far Away Tree, or even folk stories like Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks.

Nova really liked Goldilocks; Nia must have read it to her at least twelve times this month alone.

As Nova let out a big yawn, relaxing further into her dad’s side, Nia caught Brainy’s eye, jerking her chin towards the door.

He nodded his understanding, continuing his narration as Nia ducked out of the room, heading towards the living room where Alex was waiting for her, already working open a bottle of red.

“How is she?” Alex asked, sizing up her wine glass as she began to fill it up generously.

“She should be asleep soon,” Nia said. “But, uh, Brainy sometimes runs Q and A sessions with her if she stays awake through a whole chapter.”

Alex snorted. “Only for Nova would I find that concept adorable.”

Nia collapsed onto the sofa, snatching her wine glass immediately. She reached out expectantly to Alex, grinning when she rolled her eyes, ditching her own wine glass to fill up Nia’s.

“Why, thank you,” Nia said, tucking her legs up beneath her.

Alex tipped her own glass with a wry smile. “It’s my pleasure, really.”

Nia took a long sip, savouring the rich taste. They couldn’t exactly go off the walls with a toddler sleeping next door, but right now, anything that could offer her a brief period of relaxation, Nia was more than eager to accept. She swirled her glass thoughtfully. “You know,” she murmured, “Brainy’ll probably need something a little stronger to take the edge off.”

“Oh, way ahead of you,” Alex said, shifting to the edge of her respective sofa to grab a bottle she had stowed away inside her backpack. She placed it on the coffee table with a flourish, giving Nia the opportunity to try and decipher the alien script scrawled across the label. “Kara recommended this,” Alex said, raising a finger. “Please do not ask me what it’s called, because I will not be able to pronounce it.”

Nia snorted, taking another sip of her own regular alcohol. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

“He better, this stuff wasn’t cheap.” Alex smirked, leaning back into the sofa. “How have you guys been, anyway? I feel like this is the first time we’ve seen each other in months.”

Nia opened her mouth, only to frown. Had it really been that long? All the days had been blurring together recently, and yet each one seemed to be separated by something inexplicably unique in its own right – courtesy of one overly curious toddler.

Nia wasn’t even sure she could remember the last time she’d visited the Tower, and going out for patrol or even something as simple as date night was so far off the table right now, it might as well have been in another galaxy. There wasn’t a sitter in the city willing to take on a genius, alien five-year-old with a penchant for mischief.

To Alex, Nia only shrugged. “Nova’s just been needing a lot of our attention lately. Well, all of it, actually. Or else she’ll burn the apartment down.”

Alex’s eyes widened. “Wait, like seriously burn the apartment down?” When Nia pursed her lips, Alex’s mouth fell open. “Is that normal?”

Nia rolled her eyes, leaning back into the cushions. “According to Brainy, yeah. Coluans express themselves through their intellect, and Nova’s been flexing that muscle a lot lately. Brainy thinks it’s a good sign, that she’ll probably rise to the twelfth-level, but we don’t exactly have much for a frame of reference, y’know?”

“Well, you have Brainy,” Alex considered. “How was he raised?”

Nia shifted uncomfortably, averting her gaze. She took a long sip of her wine to fill the silence. “Uh,” she said softly. “That’s sort of a… sore topic, actually.” She bit her lip, running her thumb along her glass’s neck. “He had robot caregivers for the most part.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

By the subdued look on Alex’s face, Nia knew she didn’t want to butt in with any more questions on the subject of Brainy’s upbringing. Brainy had certainly shared a portion of his childhood with his friends, at least enough for them to know that his parents were not a topic up for discussion if he could help it.

Even with Brainy occupied with Nova in the other room, Alex didn’t appear comfortable to continue the direction of their conversation.

Nia chuckled softly, trying to clear the air. “Anyway,” she said quickly, steering them back on topic, “there isn’t an earth-equivalent to a robot nanny here; well… except for…” She stopped herself suddenly, resisting the urge to grin.

Alex narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Except for what?”

Nia shook her head, pressing a finger to her lips to keep from laughing outright. The wine was definitely starting to do its job - not thirty minutes ago, thinking about this would have only stressed her out. She reached for the wine bottle, eager to keep this high going for as long as humanly possible, topping up her glass. As soon as it was full, Nia took another long swig, breathing deeply as the wine warmed her chest. “Kelex,” she said on her next exhale, unable to keep the smile from her voice.

Alex laughed incredulously. “Wait, what? Kel- Kelex? From the Fortress?” She shuffled to the edge of her seat, almost conspiratorially. “Doesn’t Brainy hate that thing?”

Nia shrugged half-heartedly.

Alex’s eyes widened. “Why does he hate that thing?”

That question seemed to ground her, at least. Nia winced. She was pretty sure they were skirting back along unsavoury territory. “He was never totally clear with me,” she admitted, staring down into her glass, “but I’m pretty sure Kelex reminds him of his own caregivers. They – uh – didn’t exactly get along.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it doesn’t even matter. Brainy was happy to entertain the idea, but the second Kara brought Kelex over, Nova was obsessed with the thing. She rewired it in like… twenty minutes.”

Alex stared. “She’s five, right?”

“She’s also half Coluan,” Nia reminded her, toasting her glass in Alex’s direction. “Dismantling machinery is better than any toy I could buy her.” She closed her eyes at that, pulling a face. “I left her in the bathroom for ten minutes today to shower and by the time I got out, she’d turned my hairdryer into a blowtorch.”

Alex winced into her wine glass. “Oof.”

“She’s just curious,” Nia said quickly, rubbing idly at her forehead. Was she really getting a wine headache already? God, she was really out of practice. “She’s exploring her intellect,” Nia said eventually. “It’s healthy for her and I wanna encourage that, I do—” She sighed heavily. “It’s just…”

“Exhausting?”

Nia smiled bleakly. “That obvious, huh?”

“Then, take a break,” Alex insisted.

Nia stared at her levelly. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Hey,” Alex said with a smirk, pushing the wine bottle over to Nia’s side of the table. “Start with this. Finish the whole thing. Trust me, I have more.”

When Nia laughed, Alex glanced up at her, eyes flashing with a smile. “And, if you guys need a real break, you know that Kelly and I would be happy to help out.”

“You sure about that?” Nia asked warily. “Remember what I just said about the blowtorch?”

“You think a bit of fire’s going to scare me off?” Alex challenged. She leant back, gesturing to herself with relaxed emphasis. “Don’t forget, I shared a bathroom with an incredibly overpowered alien for years. Hell, I used to work for a super-secret government organisation that kept alien prisoners.” She placed her glass back onto the coffee table, folding her arms with a confident nod. “I’m pretty sure Kelly and I can handle a five-year-old super genius.” She winked. “And, if we can’t, we can always rely on Auntie Kara.”

Nia nearly snorted into her glass. She remembered a few choice stories from Auntie Kara revolving her valiant attempt at babysitting for Cat Grant’s son when she’d still been a PA. Something about him ending up on a train that had had a bomb strapped to it? Considering Nova already knew her Auntie Kara was Supergirl, the novelty of being saved from a near death experience would probably still hinge on traumatic, rather than invigorating.

Although, Nia had to admit, the idea of a break – however small – sounded pretty great right about now. She loved Nova with all of her heart, but having even just a few hours with Brainy to herself where she was actually conscious enough to enjoy them would have been amazing.

Still, she couldn’t help but picture Alex and Kelly struggling to figure out how to appease Nova’s more unique interests.

She smirked to herself, pressing her lips against the rim of her glass. “It’s your funeral,” she murmured.

Alex’s cheeks were already a little rosy from the wine and Nia knew she probably wasn’t faring much better. Still, before Alex could promise away any more of her free time, Nova’s door opened and, a moment later, out crept one very dishevelled looking Coluan.

Nia beamed from ear-to-ear. She stood, pausing when the world pitched a little around her. Wine drunk. There was no denying it, she was definitely wine drunk.

After carefully placing her glass on the coffee table, Nia made her way over to the bedroom door. She ran her hand down Brainy’s arm, squeezing gently. “Is she asleep?” she whispered.

Brainy’s expression was warm. He smiled softly, bowing his head. “I believe her excitement today tired her out more than she anticipated.”

Nia chuckled. That was the least surprising statement she’d heard all day. She turned towards the door, peeking inside. Nova’s nightlight was still on, enough to illuminate the profile of her round face snuggled against her pillow where she’d half cocooned herself in blankets only seconds after Brainy had no doubt tucked her in.

Her little mouth hung open slightly, silent breaths escaping her lips. Nia could spy the ears of her own childhood teddy bear poking out from beneath the blankets, hugged tightly to Nova’s chest.

Nia squeezed Brainy’s arm once more before sneaking into the room, summoning a swell of dream energy in her fist to keep from tripping over any mislaid toys or, more likely now she thought about it, machine parts.

Nia smiled; Brainy had promised to fix Kelex for Kara tomorrow. Despite his grievances towards the robot, he still felt guilty over the extent to which Nova had indulged her curiosities. They’d already sat her down to explain to her why what she had done wasn’t appropriate behaviour, and Nova had seemed to understand. Enough that she’d pouted when they’d told her she wouldn’t be able to go with Brainy to the Fortress to help fix Kelex in the morning. The last thing Nia wanted was for Nova to get her hands on the kinds of weapons Kara and Clark had hidden there. Nia had nearly blasted a hole through the wall on accident in controlled conditions when Brainy had been training her, she could only imagine what kind of destruction Nova could cause if she was set loose in there.

It was strange to think all of that had only been a few hours ago. Now, Nova slept peacefully, odd ends of blonde hair strewn across her face.

Nia reached out, tucking those strands behind Nova’s ears. She perched herself on the edge of the bed, pressing a kiss against her daughter’s forehead. Nova scrunched her nose slightly before relaxing again, and Nia had to bite her lip hard to keep from making any sound.

She was perfect. Even with the chaos today had brought, Nia wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

“Sleep tight, Firestarter,” she murmured fondly.

When Nia returned to the doorway, she found Brainy waiting for her. She grinned, linking her hand with his. “Come with me,” she said, tugging him along towards the living room. “We have alien wine.” She raised her voice enough for Alex to hear. “And guess who just offered to babysit?”

#supergirl #supergirl fanfiction #brainia #nia nal #brainiac 5 #alex danvers #oc: nova #my prompts #anon #i'm basically breaking through my writer's block with force of will #i really liked the idea of alex just being like i know exactly what brainy and nia need: alcohol #honestly what a legend

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ardenskyedarcy221b · 5 years

Text

from our family to yours

read on AO3

for @hailing-stars and @ciaconnaa for their unending support of me. love you 3000 besties!

“I come bearing presents!” shouts Peter, stepping through the front door of the cabin he calls his second home, juggling his backpack and several Target bags. “Who missed me?”

“Petey!” his little sister’s ear-splitting screech precedes tiny feet stomping down the stairs as if she were an entire stampede before he has two feet inside and the door shut behind him.

Peter hauls himself fully through the threshold, makes sure the glass door latches, quickly deposits his belongings on the ground. He braces himself.

It doesn’t take Morgan long to launch herself at his knees.

Peter catches her easily, swinging her around and pulling melodious giggles as a result, until Morgan’s arms wind around his neck and she knees his side as she locks her legs around his waist. He beams at her.

Her eyes squint with the force of her smile. “Missed you,” she mumbles once she burrows into his neck. “Don’t like it when you leave me.”

“Mmm, I missed you, Mo-kitty.”

Morgan yanks away, brows furrowed and looking like a dark-headed version of her mother, and professes, “I’m not a kitty, Pete!”

Peter’s laughter mingles with Tony’s, who Peter glances up to see pushing himself up and off the sofa and sporting a wide grin.

“I could have sworn you were a cat! You act just like one.”

“I do not,” she says with all the seriousness of a professional attorney, though the uptick lips ruins the aura. “I’m a princess who slays dragons.”

“Woah ho! Well excuse me.”

“You’re excused.”

Tony snorts as he tugs on Peter’s shoulder so he can pull the teenager into his chest, squeezing him tightly first then planting a kiss on his temple.

“No, Daddy! Pete’s here to see me.”

Tony’s wide gaze finds and holds Peter’s as they share a moment of commiseration. Then Tony winks.

“Are you a kidnapper?” he asks his daughter, tugging once on her ponytail.

“What?”

“I asked if you’re a kidnapper.”

“I’m not!”

“So you can’t keep Pete from me. Otherwise that would make you a kidnapper.”

Peter snorts once.

“Daddy,” she drags out the final vowel, head lolling backwards and dramatically rolling her eyes. “I asked Petey to come, not you.”

“And yet, you’re both in my house.”

“Actually, it’s Mommy’s house sooo,” she ends her sentence with a shrug.

Peter tucks the feisty five year old under his chin and attempts to hold in his belly laughs. Morgan fights it at first, though she’s quick to act like a spider-monkey and cling to him if it’ll mean she has all the claim to him.

Tony rolls his eyes.

“What’s in the bags, Petey?”

“Ah-ha! No treats before lunch! You can do whatever you two wanna do after you eat.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Um, excuse you, little miss; I’m the cool parent, what kind of nonsense are you saying?”

“Petey agrees with me.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Ouch. Taken out by both of my kids.” sniffs Tony. “You’re lucky I already made sandwiches and brought out those blueberry bites Mom made; otherwise, I’d say no lunch.”

Peter rolls his eyes and sets off for the kitchen. “You’re all talk, old man.”

“Hey now,” protests Tony, “there’s no need for that kinda behavior in front of your impressionable sister. She repeats everything she hears.”

“All talk, old man,” parrots Morgan as she pulls away from Peter’s chin, grin wide and mischievous and not bothering to hide her giggling amusement, batting her eyelashes at her father, though Tony doesn’t see her. “Mommy says same thing.”

Peter imagines Tony rolls his eyes as he leads them into the kitchen. He feels the magnitude of it.

As Tony veers toward the island where there is a smorgasbord of food, Peter steers toward the kitchen table and tries depositing Morgan in her designated seat. Only the little girl is doing a great impression of having sticky powers and Morgan stays attached to his waist and neck.

“Can I sit with you?”

Peter raises his eyes at her.

Her lower lip juts out into the beginning of an impressive pout.

Peter sighs.

Morgan beams.

Peter pulls out his own designated chair with all the drama required to get his sister in a fit of continuous giggles until she snorts and they plop down. Morgan makes herself comfortable, twisting on his lap until she can smile up at him. If Pepper were home, Morgan would sit in her seat; but because she’s on a plane home from Beijing, Tony explains, and both Tony and Peter have an extremely difficult time telling the little girl no, Morgan gets what she wants.

Tony doesn’t even blink when he comes over with plates: simply sets two on one placemat and heads back for his own.

Morgan grabs her sandwich and bites into the middle.

“Will you tell me a story?”

Peter eats around her, hoping he doesn’t drop crumbs in her hair. “What, like right now?”

Her expression is the equivalent of a duh noise and Peter bops her nose for it.

“Once upon a time, both my kids ate their lunch quietly. The end.”

“Daddy!”

“You asked for a story; I gave you a story,” comes the cheeky reply from Tony as he finally pulls out his seat at the kitchen table.

Morgan glares at him. “I asked Petey for a story,” she emphasizes the name.

Peter cuts in before Tony aggravates Morgan so much she ends up in tears of frustration. (He knows from experience that this time of the day is notorious for meltdowns; Morgan thinks she has outgrown naps, but her behavior has the tendency to disagree with the little girl.) “Do you want a real story or pretend one?”

Morgan tilts her chin in the air, eyes squinting close as she thinks. As her eyes pop open she cries, “A Spider-Man story!”

Tony groans.

Peter grins. “Did I tell you how Spidey accidentally let an animal loose at the zoo?”

Brown eyes nearly eclipse his sister’s face as they widen at his words. “You what?”

Her words are echoed by her father, though the baritone isn’t a tone of wonder but one of exasperation.

Yeah, maybe Peter shouldn’t have told this story at the table since he spent all week making sure Tony didn’t hear about it. Well, the last thirty-six hours. Same thing. There went his longest record of keeping a secret that wasn’t his secret identity. Oh well, best get on with it then.

“So Spidey is at the zoo, right? And he’s helping a little girl just a little bit older than you, Mo, find her way back to her parents. She said they were supposed to be at the penguins exhibit.”

“Oooh, I love penguins!!”

“I know you do; that’s what I told the little girl that my baby sister loooooves them.”

Morgan’s smile turned into a wide, pleased grin. “So what happened next?”

“Is this really a story you should be telling her?” interjects a wary Tony, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“All my stories have a moral to them.”

“Doesn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, I need to tell this story. There’s valuable life lessons to be learned today,” Peter finishes with a firm nod, shifting his attention back to Morgan and flashes her a wide smile. Her giggles are hidden behind her hand she slaps to her mouth, and Peter huffs out a snort of laughter. “SO, back to what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—”

“—I’ll ground you—”

“No you won’t.”

“Mommy says you’re all talk, Daddy.”

Tony groans, long and loud and dramatic, head tipping back until it plonks against the back of his chair.

Peter carries on, “I may have accidentally let loose a penguin or two.”

“Oh no!”

“You WHAT?!”

“Stop interrupting me,” says Peter, flapping his hand in Tony’s general direction, not daring to meet what will surely be steely brown eyes, and continues, “but it’s okay! I’m Spider-Man. I took care of it.”

“Petey!” squeals Morgan, “what happened?!”

“So there may have been an incident where everyone wanted Spidey to feed the penguins and for future reference I am not able to stick to ice and reinforced glass is nothing against a clumsy superhero.”

Tony makes a high pitched noise as Morgan titters in amusement.

“Have you ever tried to catch a runaway penguin before, Mo?” Peter asks with all the levels of seriousness he can muster, which isn’t very much.

“No,” she shakes her head. “I have tried to catch Gerald when he escapes his pen! He ran out of his fence one time on Daddy though; it was pretty funny.”

“Funny for everyone but him, I’d imagine. So, I’m running after a penguin—“

“Why didn’t you use your webs?”

Peter makes a face. “Apparently there are surfaces I cannot stick and the same goes toward my webs? I guess. I dunno. You’re such a smarter cookie than I am, Mo; because I didn’t think it through.”

Tony snorts, “He finally admits it.”

“This is the important bit!” whines Peter with an over-exaggerated tone. “She needs to learn the moral of the story.”

“What’s a moral?”

“Well,” starts Peter, “I guess it’s kinda like lesson learned from a story, between what’s right and what’s wrong. Does that make sense?”

At first Morgan nods and Peter believes he explained it well enough for his little sister. Until she shrugs on top of the nodding movement and Peter bites back a groan. Tony was just telling him over the phone at the beginning of the week Morgan had picked up a new habit: Peter didn’t believe him, though he isn’t sure why. Now he understands how frustrating it is to see the little girl acting willfully oblivious. The glint in her eye says it all: Morgan thinks she’s being funny if she acts oblivious. Peter hopes it isn’t a long habit.

The little girl opens her mouth to speak but Peter cuts her off.

“Okay, moral of the story always fix your mistakes. Make sense?”

“Yep!”

Tony rolls his eyes, not bothering to hid his wide smirk as he says, “Alright, finish eating.”

Morgan takes another large bite.

Peter leans across the tabletop and stage-whispers to Morgan, “Maybe next time I’ll tell you about my shark tank adventures.”

Tony barks, “Absolutely not!”

Peter sputters out a cackle while Morgan snickers behind her hand.

Rest of lunch passes uneventfully.

Until it’s time for Morgan’s nap and Peter can’t say no to telling his little sister a story and gets dragged upstairs and he finds himself cramped on a twin bed with said little sister wedged up against him, looking up at him and awaiting a new story with all the patience of an expectant five year old.

“Tell me a story.”

“Once upon a time, Morgan had to take a nap but she couldn’t stop talking so her heroic big brother Peter hypnotized her and she still didn’t go to sleep because she is sooo stubborn.”

Morgan’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Tell me a different story.”

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Morgan—“

“No, she can’t have my name!”

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Rosie—“

“Nooo, I don’t wanna hear a story about a little girl.”

“Once upon a time, there was a little boy named José and he loved to ride his bike. His bike was red and blue after his favorite superhero and he loved riding it every single day. What happens next?”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?” asks Peter, shifting around to stare down at the stubborn child practically glued at his side. “You’re a great storyteller!”

Morgan makes a face.

“Tell me what happens next; I forget.”

And so the next forty-five minutes go until Morgan falls asleep.

It takes three minutes more for Peter to feel comfortable enough to slip out from Morgan’s hold and tiptoe out of her bedroom.

“I’m surprised she fell asleep,” is his greeting from Tony once Peter crests the bottom step.

Peter doesn’t reply until he plops down next to his mentor and snuggles into the older man’s side, “She really loves her stories.”

“That she does.” nods Tony, wrapping his arm around Peter’s shoulder and tugging him closer into his side. “What goodies did you bring this time?”

“Pajamas.”

“Oh, boy.”

And they leave the conversation untouched after that eloquent reply.

Television remains turned off, though FRIDAY provides holiday music as gentle white noise, as Tony and Peter catch up. Peter admits he’s ready for his midterms despite feeling overly prepared and stressed from the mounting work.

“I’m proud of you, Pete.” the words are strong, sure, and are spoken with the warmth of a parent unleashing his tenderness freely upon his child. “You never cease amazing me. To have you in my life is one incredible thing; but the fact Morgan gets to grow up with you as her older brother... I’m one lucky dad to have two extraordinary children. No matter what you two become, continue to become.”

A soft smile unfurls as the teenager settles more firmly against a shoulder and chest, closing his eyes at the bubbling emotions stirring inside him. Peace. Harmony. Belonging. All things he has struggled tremendously over since his return, and Tony’s lengthy recovery; flighty feelings he now tries his damnedest to relish whenever they appear. More frequently, and not taken for granted.

Of course the peace is always broken when a five year old is underfoot. Morgan sleeps all of ninety minutes, at most, before she’s zooming downstairs and climbing over the back of the couch to nestle between her brother and father.

“Presents!!” she screeches directly into Peter’s ear canal. “Petey, please!?”

Peter blinks away the fuzzy-ringing sensation.

“Morgan, you know better than to scream in Peter’s ears.” starts Tony.

Wide eyes grow larger, comically on such a cherubic face, as the five year old professes, “I’m just excited.” at her father’s raised eyebrows she tacks on, “Sorry, Petey.”

He presses a kiss to her forehead. “S’alright, Mo-kitty.”

She pouts, curling down her lower lip, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, you know where his stuff’s at, Morgan.” Tony says after a beat of his daughter’s prolonged dramatics.

Morgan shifts as if to jump off Peter’s lap and Peter lifts her with enhanced deftness, keeping her from kicking or elbowing him or Tony in her quest to track down goodies, and Peter sets her on her feet. Morgan pays no attention to how she’s on the ground. She shuffle-sprints toward the front door and dives right into the Target bags.

“Oooh, jammies! Daddy!” she crows.

Tony pokes Peter in the side.

Peter yelps, immensely ticklish in that spot. He jumps up and away from his mentor, turning to scrunch up his face at the other man, before trotting over to assist Morgan.

If anyone says Peter went overboard on their family pajamas, he’ll just point to Tony and say the man’s never taught him control. Peter is stoked about them and honestly he wants them out of their bags quick so Morgan can amp up his excitement.

Morgan pulls out Peter’s pjs first and Peter is quick to explain the white blob,

“It’s a unicorn, Mo.”

“Oh!” she hands it to him.

Peter shakes it out and holds it up against his body, making certain that the hood is situated enough for Morgan to see the attached horn.

“A unicorn?” questions Tony from behind.

“Oh, just you wait,” smirks Peter and notions for Morgan to dig into the same bag. “I almost got us matching pjs because I liked yours so much.” he tosses his unicorn footless pajamas onto the couch and turns back to see Morgan pulling out a colorful creation, directing at her, “Do you know what that is?”

She makes a weird noise at the back of her throat, like she wants to scream and speak at the same time. Then she professes, “It’s a DRAGON!”

“She’s the slayer of dragons.” whines Tony.

“Exactly!” Peter preens with a little wiggle of excitement. “Look, it even has a tail!”

“Pete!”

“Yeah, Mo?”

“Am I gonna be a princess?”

“No. I hope I picked out something better for you. Go ahead and see, in that last bag.” he encourage,.

Morgan digs into the next bag and positively shrieks. “It’s a mermaid!”

Peter had settled on mermaid pajamas for Morgan simply because her favorite color is blue and Peter was a fan of the tail’s design. And the children’s section didn’t have as much to choose from in the variety Peter wanted. Needs must, and all that jazz.

“Let’s put them on NOW!!!”

“Morguna—“

“Mo—“

“NOW!”

Since both are pushovers, Morgan gets what she wants, though it may have something to do with the fact Morgan immediately started tugging her sweater over her head.

Ten minutes later they were all bundled up in their footless pajamas (footies in Morgan’s case), hot chocolates in hand, and sitting on the couch bickering over what holiday movie to watch.

Morgan wins with the newest Pixar classic.

They’re halfway through the second movie, though there’s more singing and jumping around the living room than sitting and enjoying the movie, when Pepper wonders into the house. There is too much chaos for Pepper’s entrance to steal away anyone’s attention. Volume from the movie is up higher than usual; and even then Morgan and Peter’s singing is heard clearly. Tony is roped into singing the choruses.

So of course the first thing Pepper says is,

“Why’d you start chaotic Christmas without me?”

“MOMMY!” shrieks Morgan, jumping onto the couch so she can scurry up the back and throw herself into her mother’s arms.

Pepper catches Morgan, juggling her around until the child is situated at her hip. “What new outfit do you have on; Mommy’s never seen it before.”

“Petey got it for me, see! I’m a mermaid.”

“And it’s blue! How nice of him.”

Peter grins big over at Pepper and she laughs upon seeing his own getup.

“He got one for Daddy, too!” continues on Morgan, patting her mother’s cheeks for her full attention. “Daddy’s a dragon! And I’m the dragon slayer!”

“Oh, poor Daddy.”

Tony stretches over the couch’s back, pouting identically to his daughter’s infamous expression. “Yeah, poor Daddy. He’s been stuck at home with two rowdy heathens! He’s a withering dragon.”

Peter snorts, “Quick, someone give him hugs and kisses!”

Morgan wraps her arms around Pepper’s neck and proceeds to offer a kiss to her mother’s cheek.

Tony scoffs, smile blossoming despite the faux-hurt expression.

Pepper’s head tosses back, laughter shaking her frame.

Peter drops down next to Tony, resting his head against Tony’s shoulder. “Hi.”

“Oh, look! Someone has come to love on the poor, withering away dragon!” croons Tony, wrapping both arms around Peter until he’s snug in his embrace. “A unicorn’s love is the purest of them all.”

Peter snorts loudly at that proclamation.

Morgan cackles madly at the noise, for whatever reason she is always overcome with immense pleasure whenever anyone snorts in laughter. “He sounds like a pig.” she whisper-shouts at Pepper.

“Kinda weird for a unicorn!” comes Peppers reply.

At the reminder of their pajamas, Morgan whips around and says, “Hey! Daddy, you can’t snuggle my unicorn!! He’s mine!” and then she promptly attempts throwing herself out of Pepper’s arm and onto the couch.

Pepper doesn’t let her go.

Tony begins raining kisses down on Peter.

For his part, Peter pretends to squirm away, hoping to rile up his sister

Morgan falls for it: immediately squawking and wiggling away from her mother in an attempt to attack her father. After a few moments, Pepper allows Morgan to climb onto the couch and she latches onto her dad’s prosthetic arm.

“Noo, Daddy, Petey’s my unicorn!”

“I knew him first; he’s mine.”

Pepper barks out a surprised, “Tony!”

Tony and Morgan squabble over who Peter belongs to for several loud moments. Peter laughs hysterically between the both of them. Pepper wonders up behind the couch and combs her fingers through Peter’s hair and says,

“What if I claimed Peter as my own?”

Tony gasps.

Morgan squeals, “Can’t! He’s mine!”

Peter tugs Morgan into his lap. “Oh yeah? And what if I said I’m my own man?”

Morgan’s brows furrow at that proclamation.

Tony, thankfully, switches the conversation, “Hey, Mo? Why don’t you ask Mom to put on her special jammies at the back of our closet?”

Pepper backs away from the couch. “No way.” she says with all the dignity of a composed CEO not afraid of anything, shaking her head and swishing around her ponytail. “You promised you’d never bring it up again!”

Peter bites his lip, “I didn’t get Pepper pjs because you said on Monday she wouldn’t be back until next week!”

Tony shushes him, “It’s okay. I did say that. But Pep has a black cat footie pajama set in our room that she loves to wear.”

Peter turns around to stare incredulously at Pepper, “You do?!”

Pepper mouths at her husband, “I hate you,” before turning her attention to Peter, “I do. I’ll be back; give me ten minutes.” and she trudges up the staircase.

Morgan and Peter share a commemorating look of victory.

Tony claps his hands. “Finally! I’ve been wanting to do a family portrait forever!”

Peter throws his head back with laughter, “You seriously wanna do family pictures in pjs?”

“When have I ever been conventional?”

“Fair.”

Morgan jumps out of Peter’s lap and begins bouncing on the cushions once more. “We need to start the movie over! We missed ten whole minutes!”

“We can rewind it,” her father soothes.

“Nope,” she shakes her head, “gotta start it allllll over. I said so.”

“And your word is law?”

Morgan nods.

Tony sweeps her into his arm, to the tune of Morgan shrieking, and says between kisses, “How about I think about it while you clean up your mess? I want our picture taken in front of the fireplace.”

Morgan glances that way and pulls a scrunched up face. “Do I gotta?”

Peter stands up and offers the little girl his hand, “I’ll help.”

So Peter and Morgan clean up.

Pepper comes back down, decked out in her black cat pajamas. Peter retrains from commenting on her, admittedly awesome, ensemble. Tony, on the other hand, immediately begins flirting with his wife as Morgan and Peter finish their task.

After a few moments, Pepper puts an end of Tony’s comments by directing them all in front of the fireplace.

“One serious and the rest are silly,” Tony says as his sits in the middle, pulling Peter onto his left side. “Think you can manage all that, FRI?”

“Well within my purviews, boss; I am more than capable of taking family portraits.”

“Excellent! Morgan, you sit with Mom, alright?”

“Yes!”

“Say goofball on the count of three,” FRIDAY directs and begins counting down.

“Goofball!” echoes four voices.

Tony puts the serious picture up on the company website. And if May ends up being bombarded with several silly pictures ten minutes later, well, Tony and Peter both know she won’t mind.

#irondad bingo #fluff #christmas fluff #tis the season #pajamas #self indulgent #my writing #ardenspews #thanks for all the love and support!!!

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what-even-is-thiss · 5 years

Text

Off of Land, Out of Water, Part 2, Help

It’s part 2 of the mer au. Let me know if I need to add warnings. 2,721 words

Abstract: Logan and Virgil relearning some things.

Part 1 Next

2. Help.

Virgil held onto Logan’s arm for a while at Logan’s insistence.

“You didn’t sleep, you shouldn’t be swimming much.” he had said.

For once Virgil didn’t protest.

They got to the school, a low building in more shallow waters where people went to memorize the history of merfolk. Undersea people had no written language so a select few with good memories were chosen as young children to learn trade secrets, history, how the systems of government worked, and yes, any interaction they had ever had with humans. Logan was appointed as a a history scholar but always felt he would be better at memorizing things found in science and math and magic. The masters had insisted, however, for whatever reason, that he learn history. So that is what he did. The names and places of all merfolk from the central Atlantic region, their ancestors’ place of origin, their previous migration patterns, the major things that happened in their politics and history were all in his head. Soon, if he passed this test, he would work as an archivist. Keep relics safe, answer merpeople’s questions about their family history when they came to the school. When he’s older he’ll take on an apprentice and teach them everything he knows. Literally. All that was ahead of him though. For now in this moment he had to start reciting.

And his chest was feeling weird.

“Virgil, I don’t like to use this word more often than I have to, but my chest feels weird.” Logan said casually as they waited outside the stone exam room where people had carved many pictures in the stone walls of teachers being eaten by sharks or stabbed with spears.

“Your chest feels…. weird?” Virgil asked.

“Yes. Strange. Odd. Queer.” He also made a low humming in his throat in mer language to further solidify his point that whatever he was feeling definately wasn’t ordinary.

“Like are you anxious?” Virgil asked, a horrible note of hope in his voice.

“Hardly.” Logan said. “I know everything I should. But my lungs, my inner gills, I…”

Virgil suddenly grabbed Logan’s arm and started pulling him away.

“Virgil! The test!” Logan exclaimed.

“No time for tests! Your stomach is going to start hurting soon! I knew it was you. I just knew it. Oh God, why did it have to be you?” Virgil said.

Logan swore very loudly with a whistle and a click as his stomach started hurting just as Virgil had predicted. His head went light. People made extremely disapproving noises as Virgil pushed them out of the way. They knocked a decorative rope made for graduation season and New Years off of a building. Virgil was moving upwards at a dangerous pace, somehow not bothered by the change in pressure, his black and grey scales and pale skin both began to reflect real sunlight rather than the bottled kind.

“Virgil take me to a healer!” Logan called, trying to fight his way out of Virgil’s grasp.

But it was no use. Even on Logan’s best day and Virgil’s worst Virgil was still stronger, bigger, and had a much tighter will than him. His fear made him unstoppable. Logan could vaguely hear shouts and other confused noises behind him as his skin began to feel gross. Just really, really gross. The shimmering light of the surface became visible. Everything was expanding too quickly. Somehow Virgil didn’t slow down. His desperate grip on Logan’s arm began to draw blood. Logan’s stomach reached critical levels of pain. Oxygen bubbles began forming in his lungs.

“Surface… too… fast…” Logan managed. His vision went blurry.

He blacked out.

……….

“Keep walking, Virgil.” dad said. “The car’s that way.”

“Dad… it…” Virgil started.

He fell to his knees.

“Verge!” his mom yelled.

Through his blurry vision Virgil thought he could see her straight curtain of bleach blonde hair. The boardwalk was hard and yet somehow soft under his knees.

“Mom, what’s wrong with him?” Virgil heard his brother say.

“Be quiet, Roman. We need to think. I told you we shouldn’t bring him to the ocean until he’s grown. I told you!”

“I told him to not touch the water, Jen!”

“What…” Virgil tried. “My stomach… Mom?”

He fell fully onto his side. His lungs were starting to burn.

“It wants him now, John! There’s no one around! That witch made sure of it! Do it!”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen yet! He’s only thirteen!”

“Look at him! The ocean doesn’t care! Do it!”

The air suddenly felt very dry despite the sea spray around him. For some reason Virgil knew this had to do with when he had stood in the waves despite his parents’ warnings. Though why suddenly being sick would be related to that he didn’t know. He felt his heart increase to a dangerous pace as some arms belonging to he didn’t know who began pulling his clothes off of him.

Virgil cried. But he couldn’t cry. Some hands, he didn’t know whose, threw him into the air. He felt water engulf his naked body. He couldn’t move his legs apart. He gasped in a mouthful of salt.

He blacked out.

……….

Logan opened his eyes and tried looking around. Everything was heavy except for his lungs which were horribly light. It was almost as if they didn’t exist. His body hurt. The surface under him was hard. All he could see was blurry grey shapes.

“Vir-gil?” he asked. He tried to whistle out his friend’s mer name but found that he couldn’t. His mouth felt strange. His hair felt strange. His skin felt strange. His tail felt… His…

“H… huh?” he asked nobody in particular.

A hand on his back helped him sit up.

“They’re called legs.” said a familiar deep and ominous voice.

“My teeth are…”

“Not pointy. Take it slow. It’s hard to adjust.”

Logan ran his tongue along his teeth. Most of them were flat. They had become… what’s the word? Omnivorous? Flat? Annoyingly small?

“I’m going to put something on your face now.” Virgil said. “I borrowed them from my younger brother. They’re his old prescription. It’ll be better than nothing.”

Virgil carefully put some kind of glass and wire thing on Logan’s face over his eyes and Logan stopped seeing a blur and finally saw his friend’s face. His black hair wasn’t floating around, nor was it plastered to his head with water. It was dry. Before now Logan hadn’t even known what that word truly meant. He ran his fingers into his own hair. Dry. He looked at Virgil. Down his body. He was…

“You are…”

“Human. Yeah. Try looking down.”

Logan looked down.

“Okay clearly that isn’t natural.”

His friend laughed. “You said you know how full mammals reproduce.” Virgil said. He lifted up his shirt and pointed to the large inverted scar on his stomach. The one Logan had asked about every time he’d seen him for the past ten years. “That’s how I got this scar. From being born. We call it a belly button. Or, a navel I guess.”

Virgil jumped up and went to what Logan recognized from drifting junk he had seen in the ocean to be an ice chest. He looked around and saw that they were under a cliff face, or he assumed it was a cliff face from carvings he’d seen. He also slowly realized that he was physically human now and that according to what he’d heard about human customs....

“You need help putting these on?” Virgil asked, pulling some clothes out of the ice chest.

“Most likely. I’ve never had to… um…”

“You’ll get used to it. Don’t try to understand anything yet. Trust me. It isn’t worth it.”

Virgil gently helped his friend into a pair of boxers and some jeans. He brought out a polo shirt.

“You’re about my younger brother’s size so I brought some of his clothes. Hope you like polo shirts. That’s basically all he wears. Well, except for things with cats on them.”

Virgil instructed Logan on how to put a shirt on, helping him put his arms through the holes.

“Now, before I see if you can walk, word to the wise, don’t take your shirt off in front of people. Almost every human that has ever lived has a belly button, and you don’t.”

“Why?” Logan asked. “What is any of this? What is happening? What are you?”

“Okay, L. Clearly you were lying when you said that you know how mammals reproduce. I’ll have the talk with you later. I’ll have a lot of talks with you later. For right now, I’m gonna help you stand.”

……….

“That’s it. Put your entire body into it.” she encouraged.

Virgil clicked out her name angrily and huffed, but he moved his tail nonetheless.

“That’s good. You’re getting better at pronouncing my name!” she whistled.

“I’ve been thinking about a human name for you. I decided. I’m gonna call you Val in human.” Virgil said.

“If that makes you feel better. I don’t need a human name though.” Val said.

“Am I done yet?” he asked.

“Do you think you can swim next to me?” she asked.

“Ugh, fine.” Virgil spat. “You’re too happy.”

“So you keep telling me, guppy.”

“I’m already an adolescent!” Virgil hissed, showing his teeth.

Sometimes instincts really did override what he’d learned as a human. Even though he was, for all intents and purposes, physically a merman now, he did age a bit faster than other merpeople. A merman his age would normally be figuring out social rules and not have any hormones to speak of. The equivalent of a human nine year old. Virgil, on the other hand, was now supposed to be learning how to be an adult, which he couldn’t do when he didn’t know how to move around or speak in full sentences. He was supposed to be wrestling his younger brother and defending him from their mom, going to his older brother’s music recitals and hating it, learning how to cook from his parents, crying over final exams, worrying about which high school he was going to. Watching Gators football games and cursing as he stabbed himself in the eye with a mascara brush for the first time.

But instead it was like he was a toddler all over again.

Val and Verge swam slowly together in silence to the edge of the reefs where her house was, dangerously close to human civilization. Virgil was exhausted.

“Why am I even here? Why can’t I just stay human?” he asked as she held him tight when he was ready to sleep.

“It’s because of what came before us, guppy.” Val said, running her fingers through his hair. “It’s just something you got caught up in. I’ll tell you soon.”

……….

“I am so heavy.” Logan said, rubbing his injured knee.

He had knees now. He… no, don’t process that. Save it for later.

“Everyone’s heavy. It’s just more obvious on land.” Virgil said, holding his hand out again.

Logan took a deep breath of briny sea air and pulled on his friend’s hand. He managed to stand with some help.

“We can carry you to the car if you can’t make it.” Virgil said.

“No. Cars sound horrifying and I’d rather know that I’m able to get away from it. And your brothers. They don’t sound agreeable. Let me go.” Logan said.

“Alright, but I hope you know that almost nobody learns to walk in one day.” Virgil said.

“I’m not a child!” Logan exclaimed.

“Yeah that’s what I said too.” Virgil said as he let go.

Logan looked down at his feet now trapped in things called “tennis shoes” and took a breath.

“Just focus on not falling down.” Virgil said.

“You’ve already said that. And I have a good memory. I…”

“Yeah, I know L. Just look up. Look at me. Step forward. Just one step for now.”

Logan looked up. Virgil was a lot bigger than him even as a human. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. He wanted to take a step towards Virgil to point at him and tell him that this wasn’t fair. He tried to do that but took two steps and fell into Virgil’s arms instead.

“Further than you got last time.” Virgil said.

“You’re never this patient.” Logan grumbled into Virgil’s chest.

“I have a long term memory, you know. Swimming isn’t easy to learn as an adult. Or a teenager.” Virgil said. “Come on, we’ve got another hour before they get here. Maybe I can see you fall face first into the rocks a few more times.”

Logan tried standing up again.

“Virgil, how long were you… before we met?”

“A hundred days.” Virgil said. “Just living with Val, learning how to exist again. It was another year after that I got to visit my family again.”

Logan took a step forward.

“I can’t wait a hundred days. Much less a year.”

He took another step forward. Then another. Then he fell over again. Virgil caught him before he hit the ground.

“Well at least you’re giving me a good arm workout today.” Virgil grunted, lifting his friend up again. “God, Patton is rubbing off on me. I just looked on the bright side of something.”

“I don’t know who that is, but he’s clearly corrupting you.” Logan paused. “That was a joke.”

“I know, dude. You don’t have to tell me every time. He’s my younger brother.”

He sat Logan down on the rocks.

“Well I suppose I know where you go when you leave without any warning now.” Logan said, rubbing his face underneath the glasses. He clicked his tongue in a small curse. Some equivalent to “Crud” or “Shoot.” in mer speak.

“Yup.” Virgil said. “Florida. Lucky you.”

“That sounded suspiciously like sarcasm.” Logan said as he rubbed his suffering knees.

“It was.”

……….

Virgil focused on breathing slowly. He swam up cautiously.

“You’re shaking, buddy. Come on, you’ve been growing. They’re gonna want to see that.” Val said.

“I can’t.” Virgil said, stopping suddenly. “I can’t.”

He turned around. Val grabbed him by the arm.

“Hey, you survived the first day of school and talked to the elders. You can do anything.” She said.

She gently ran one of her hands along his neck and to the base of his spine, a gesture he recently learned was used to soothe people when they were nervous, especially between parents and children. He nervously flicked his tail at that realization. How did Val see him, really?

“They’re your family. They want to see you.” she said. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve become. And next year? You’ll get to visit them properly. Go on.”

She gestured upwards. Virgil swallowed.

“Alright, but I won’t like it.”

“Sure you won’t.”

He swam cautiously upward on his own. It had been so long since that day at the boardwalk where everyone had suddenly disappeared and his stomach had started hurting. The day he had been thrown in to appease the ocean and hadn’t seen his family since. How much did they know? How could they forgive him for not listening? How could he forgive them for not telling him why he couldn’t touch the water? Could he explain everything to them? How he looked like a freak even down there? How badly he wanted to come home? How badly he wanted to stay?

He caught sight of the correct pile of rocks and aimed for it. Two almost familiar figures were peering into the water. He broke the surface.

“Virgil, baby!” his brothers were pushed aside and almost fell into the water as his mom knelt and hugged him around the neck.

Virgil blew the water out of his lungs and smiled with all his teeth despite how embarrassed he was at the size of them. He saw his dad standing behind them and when it was his turn he hugged even harder. If merpeople could cry Virgil knew he would be doing it.

“Hi dad.” he whispered into his father’s shoulder. “Hi.”

Patton and Roman both smiled at him from behind their parents’ tearful babbling. Roman gave a wave. The same one he did whenever a piano recital was over. Virgil sighed. It was alright.

#roman said a thing #mer au #sanders sides au #sanders sides #roman wrote a thing #analogical #platonic analogical #fanfic #fan fic #fanfiction #fan fiction

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comickergirl · 6 years

Text

Alright. Let’s give this a shot.

SPOILER-Y DISCUSSION OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, INCOMING:

I figure the best way to do this is chronological; my prior attempts have not been chronological, which might account for their feeling a little...all over the place and unorganized.

This will also be a good test to see how much of the film I remember.

RIGHT THEN: First and foremost, (and we gleaned this from the trailers, obviously) MEMORY-LOSS PLOT. Which is Classic Carol™. She’s lost her memory like. Four times.

(her poor brain D:)

All of this to say: The premise of the movie, a kind of reverse origin story in which Carol figures out who she is, in a very literal but also figurative sense, was a great way to go, IMO.

Love all the moments from Carol’s past. I was admittedly surprised that we didn’t get more of that? But what was there was effective and given the amount of ground the movie had to cover, I think it was sufficient.

So after the dreams** we get the early morning fight with Yon-Rogg (who I was absolutely certain was Yon-Rogg, in spite of all the back and forth speculation and Marvel attempting to ‘hide’ his identity) and there’s exposition, obviously, and the set up of Carol’s struggle with Yon-Rogg’s forced Kree values clashing with Carol’s humanity but MORE importantly...

PHOTON BLASTS.

Love the way they render the energy pulsing just below the surface of her skin. Looks so cool.

Then: Chit Chat Time with The Great Intelligence!

I thought for sure it was gonna be Helen Cobb.

BOY WAS I MISTAKEN. (More on that in a sec.)

Favorite Visual #1: The slow pan of Starforce and the excellent shot of Carol’s helmet as they swim to shore on Torfa.

The whole rescue mission sequence/Carol’s kidnapping is...Truly a Highlight, in my opinion.

I mean!

She’s running around the enemy ship! Without her boots! Pummeling the Skrulls with unwieldy metal shackles! And growling in their faces!

#BOSSOFSPACE

Also, comic connection alert: Carol was kidnapped and experimented on by the Brood, which resulted in her stint as Binary.

So, back to the movie:

Talos man.

TALOS.

We’ll get to him later.

Okay what month of 1995 does Captain Marvel take place in? Because I was honestly offended that no one, and I mean NO ONE made a Buzz Lightyear joke re: Carol’s outfit and being a member of STARCOMMANDFORCE who checks her wrist communicator to try and make contact.

(Toy Story came out in November so if this takes place in the summer I GUESS I will let it slide.)

But otherwise dug all of the 90s references.

The little Gameboy sound when she calls Yon-Rogg!

(Also, train chase was great but I’m trying to save time though I do feel inclined to mention Kelly Sue DeConnick! Bringing some quality side eye! Very nice.)

Young Fury + Carol = excellent buddy cop combo, 14/10 would take an entire spinoff of their wacky 90s road trip adventures.

‘You look like someone’s disaffected niece’ might be favorite line in the film.

Let’s pause for a moment and appreciate the score, shall we? Pinar Toprak CRUSHES IT; the Captain Marvel theme feels like something out of The Rocketeer but with about 400% more sci-fi synth and I LOVE IT.

**Love the piece of score played when Carol wakes up. (Appropriately titled “Waking Up” I think, on the soundtrack.)

I also like the songs they picked for the movie? This is probably the complaint I’ve seen most often, that they feel obvious and easy, but. I dunno. I was never expecting something like Guardians of the Galaxy? So I wasn’t mad about it.

(In related news, I’ve been listening to “Connection” on repeat ever since the special look trailer dropped.)

Anyways.

GOOSE.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE.

MY GOOD FLERKEN GIRL.

(So, yes, breezing past the bar interrogation--though I do like the ghostly images of Carol’s past that crop up--as well as the trip to Pegasus, again in the interest of time.)

(WAIT. NO. THE TAPE JOKE.)

(Okay for real. Moving on.)

So then. THEN.

The Rambeaus. And the feelings.

Unpopular(?) opinion: I love that this big budget action movie focuses on female friendships and platonic relationships instead of romance THERE I SAID IT

ALSO LIEUTENANT TROUBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spelled Lieutenant right on the first try. Just sayin’.

But in all seriousness, I love the time we spend in Louisiana. We get a lot of good stuff. Carol getting answers from Maria, Talos arriving with his soda (milkshake?) The standoff with Goose.

(Oh, and how could I forget Maria bidding farewell to the neighbor, shutting the front door as Carol continues to glower???)

‘What’s happening?’ ‘It’s loading.’ XD

Favorite Visual #2 (Chronologically, but actually the one I like best in the movie) The Pysche-Magnitron Light Speed Engine explosion.

(Thank you, Marvel, for changing it to ‘light speed engine,’ which is much easier to spell than Psyche-Magnitron)

But yeah, that was the visual that sold me, in the earliest trailer. I wish I had some profound reason for that, but the truth is I just love blue-glow-y stuff.

BUT ALSO

(And, okay, an additional spoiler- warning because this is a big one. Like. Big.)

...................................................................

Seriously, go away if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

................................................................................................................................

MAR-VELL iS A WOMAN

LIKE THIS WHOLE TIME. EVERYONE WAS SO FOCUSED ON JUDE LAW. And then there was that blip, right before the release, when Annette Bening revealed she was the Great Intelligence, again after months of secrecy so we were all like, HA we know the TWIST.

BUT NO. NO WE DID NOT.

Well played, Marvel. Well played.

This was something I was thinking about before the film came out; I just kind of assumed, because of the lack of an apparent ‘Mar-Vell,’ that Carol would be the first and only Captain Marvel in the MCU. And she basically is, b/c we have no indication that Dr. Larson was moonlighting as a superhero, but regardless this is SO COOL. SUCH A GOOD TWIST.

(A quick Google search on how many ‘L’s are in Mar-Vell led to a serendipitous discovery: an article on the gender swap decision, and apparently it came very late in the game. Like. ‘Already looking at guys to play Mar-Vell’ late in the game. *insert themoreyouknow.gif here*)

Right, okay, back to Feelings:

When Carol’s like: You don’t know who I am! I don’t know who I am!

I was. Emotional.

(Brie Larson is perfectly cast and does a wonderful job.)

Maria’s pep talk? Also caused emotions.

And Maria got to come on the mission! I was pleasantly surprised, and really glad that the visit there wasn’t like. Just a pit stop, you know?

RIP Science Guy, we hardly knew ye.

Again, jumping ahead, but may I just say: It was truly an Experience, watching this movie with folks who had no idea what a ‘Flerken’ was.

Both my friends at the first screening I attended, and then like. Half the theater at the second one. XD

The whole row was like: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT when the tentacles came out.

So yeah, Talos and the 180 on the REAL villains: Nice. The enduring complaint leveled at the MCU is a lack of compelling villains. (I guess Talos technically doesn’t count as a villain by the end of this, but. We’re going with it.) And Carol’s commitment to helping the Skrull refugees lifts plot elements from my favorite portion of the DeConnick run, so. YEP. LOVED IT.

(I was also trying to determine if Talos’ daughter was perhaps meant to be like. a Tic expy. Did it say ‘Tic’ on the pinball machine? Or ‘Tig’? Or something else entirely?)

Loved the...mind prison? sequence. All of it. “Come as You Are,” the Great Intelligence rockin’ out in the jacket, Carol’s Big Damn Hero moment. Brilliant. Spectacular. Amazing.

“My name is Carol.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS

(Or does she say her full name? I can’t remember.)

And then the subsequent fight scene where Carol’s like. Simultaneously kicking butt but also enjoying all this newfound power/strength? A+++++

Favorite Visual #3: Carol sitting on the railing with the lunchbox.

Sad to see Minn-Erva go, but. Was so cool that Maria gets her own hero moment.

And then this big ol’ fight scene where Carol DESTROYS SPACESHIPS WITH HER BARE HANDS.

Favorite Visual #4: Carol going Binary in the red, blue, and yellow suit with the helmet FLYING THROUGH SPACE, LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

All of the visuals from this portion are so on point it’s like they’re pulled straight from the comics.

Favorite Visual #5: When Carol’s staring down Ronan and she like. Does that thing, where you hit your palm with your fist? (IDK the technical term there) And there’s this awesome energy burst and AGAIN, BLUE GLOW-Y THINGS. I love.

I’m pretty sure there’s an interview where Brie Larson talked about watching Indiana Jones? And wanting to be the female equivalent of that.

WELL, that’s the movie I immediately thought of when Carol blasted Yon-Rogg into a boulder, mid-goading.

(Y’know, like the scene in Raiders where Harrison Ford was too sick/tired to do the fight choreography, so he just. Shot the bad guy.)

ALSO, when she drags his sorry butt across the desert? I was IMMEDIATELY reminded of Kara dragging Astra into the DEO.

DANVERS GIIIIRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLS

*ahem*

THE FAMILY DINNER AT THE END?????

LITERAL FOUND FAMILY OF ALIENS AND SOLDIERS AND SUPERHEROES JUST. HAVING DINNER. PLAYING UNO. WASHING DISHES AND SINGING "PLEASE MR. POSTMAN”?

Thank you, Marvel, for this beautiful gen fic material.

WHOOPS I forgot the costume colors bit. (Admittedly confused it with the ending wherein Monica gives Carol her jacket back. Sans ketchup stain.)

So backtracking ever-so-slightly...

Let’s see if I remember this right: We get

Red and gold (Binary send-up, possibly? Or maybe the original Ms. Marvel costume?)

IDK what to call it....Lite-Brite? (♪ makin’ thi-ings with lii-iii-ight ♫)

Black and Gold (bathing suit costume?)

White and Green (original Mar-Vel/Kree colors)

That last one’s the only one that’s like. Obvious and deliberate. I’m just guessing with the others.

BUT CLEARLY I am ABSOLUTELY ONTO SOMETHING with the Lite-Brite.

BACK TO THE ENDING Lt. Trouble gives Carol her jacket and that’s my fav look, out of all the costume variations we see in the movie. I mean. I love the black and green, admittedly, and the helmet looks SO GOOD for being something that should be ridiculous, but my go-to answer for superhero costume design is: add a leather jacket.

Favorite Visual #6: Carol in the suit and flight jacket, floating above Earth, ready to go save the day.

AND THEN SHE’S OFF.

Ooooh, ooooooooh, but we can’t forget the scene. The scene that I’m certain ticked off The Continuity Police. (You know the types.)

See, remember when Marvel was like, ‘Carol’s the first Avenger!’ and haters were like, ‘UH HELLO IT’S STEVE????!????’

And then Marvel was like, oh ho ho ho, we meant LITERALLY the ENTIRE INITIATIVE IS NAMED AFTER HER CALL SIGN AND SHIELD STARTS LOOKING FOR SUPERHEROES BECAUSE OF HER ERGO SHE IS THE FIRST die mad about it.

That was so very, very satisfying to see.

(Also I guess she’s a literal Captain in the air force? If the rank on the jet is legit. Pretty sure she’s a Major in the comics, though. But I assume this change is to help sell the ‘Captain Marvel’ name.)

And then, friends. And then.

I was fully prepared to leave the theater, uncertain of when we’d next see Carol.

EVEN AS THE MID CREDITS SCENE PLAYED. I was like. ‘Well, they’re gonna cut it off before we can see anythINOHMaNTHERESHEIS!!!!!!’

‘Where’s Fury.’

*insert aesthetically pleasing keyboard smash here*

BRING ON ENDGAME.

And before we wrap up here, one final note:

The Space Stone, sought after by Trickster Gods and Mad Titans alike, was for a brief time, nothing more than a glorified furball.

FIN

(Nope, wait. One little anecdote before we go: of my core group of buddies, I am the Comics Nerd, and thus I am often consulted after we’ve watched a Marvel movie. So I had to explain that YES, Kara Danvers had the last name Danvers first, but she was adopted, and her GIVEN fake name was Linda Lee, so in all fairness, the same-name thing is a little less plagiarize-y, b/c ‘Linda Lee Danvers’ does not necessarily match up as well as ‘Kara Danvers’--which wasn’t even used until really recently--to ‘Carol Danvers’. ...Honestly, I was just really happy they called out the connection MY WORK HAS NOT BEEN IN VAIN XD )

Also, I sometimes get replies on posts like this which is totally fine BUT, I would ask that folks keep really spoiler-y stuff out of ‘em. At least for a little while.

#captain marvel #captain marvel spoilers #MAJOR SPOILERS #PLEASE BLACKLIST THIS AND SKIP IT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET #long post #hark! a text post!

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mittensmorgul · 6 years

Note

Hello there. I know that this might sound a bit subversive but I have to ask if I m the only one a bit wirded out about jack's self preservation? I like him don't get me wrong but when he resurected Cas in my opinion it was for protection (against Dean). His want of killing Michael even if it kills Dean (its not the same as for sam and lucifer)

Hi there! I… haven’t heard it phrased quite that way. I think it’s a lot more complicated than this.

First off, Jack didn’t resurrect Cas, and I think this is an incredibly important differentiation to make here. Jack called out to Cas, unconsciously, with his power, and Cas “woke up” from what was supposed to be “eternal sleep” in the Empty. Cas was still effectively trapped there, and would’ve remained trapped there except for the fact that he raised a ruckus and continued to fight against the Empty Entity, until the entity agreed to release him. Jack didn’t make that happen. That was Cas’s fight on his own behalf here. All Jack did was ring the cosmic alarm clock that made the rest of Cas’s fight even possible.

I also have never heard anyone suggest that Cas called out for Cas for “protection” against Dean. I mean… that’s… really reductive. What Jack overheard was this:

Dean: Look, I know you think that you can use him as some sort of an interdimensional can opener, and that’s fine. But don’t act like you care about him, because you only care about what he can do for you. So if you wanna pretend, that’s fine. But me? I can hardly look at the kid. ‘Cause when I do, all I see is everybody we’ve lost.Sam: Mom chose to take that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack.Dean: And what about Cas?Sam: What about Cas?Dean: He manipulated him. He made him promises. Said 'Paradise on Earth,’ and Cas bought it. And you know what it got him? It got him dead! Now you may be able to forget about that, but I can’t!

I don’t think his reaction was one of fear, especially considering Jack fear of his own powers and whether his powers potentially made him inherently evil. Dean’s words that Jack overheard weren’t about Dean being afraid of Jack, or hating Jack, but of the personal emotional pain he experiences that in his grief, are all traceable back to Jack. I don’t think Jack is afraid because of this, but heartsick that he might be in any way responsible for this pain he sees/hears/feels from Dean. And he wondered if he might really have been responsible for Cas’s death after all, because he really had no idea.

And I think Jack’s line of thinking regarding killing Michael even if that meant killing Dean too? Yeah, that’s based 100% on his own personal observations OF DEAN, and really on a surface level knowing that– had Dean been there to weigh in on it– Dean would’ve said the exact same thing. Like, back in 10.09, ,when Dean was terrified of what the Mark of Cain could turn him into:

DEAN: If I do go dark side, you got to take me out.CASTIEL: What do you mean?DEAN: Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever. And don’t let Sam get in the way, because he’ll try. I can’t go down that road again, man. I can’t be that thing again.

He even knew Sam would try to save him, and he begged Cas to do it anyway. But we KNOW Jack is serving as a mirror to all of TFW. And we know (from 10.19) that Dean even admitted to himself (via the hallucination of Benny in Purgatory that was actually just a bit of Dean’s subconscious) that he could never really force Sam or Cas to have to kill him, not because they couldn’t or wouldn’t, but BECAUSE IT WOULD BREAK THEM.

BENNY: Oh, I-I’m sorry. I forgot… about your plan. You gonna get Sam and Cas to put you down? You really think that they’re gonna keep that agreement? Come on. Dean, let’s say they do. Do you think they will ever recover from that? It will ruin them. This little backup plan of yours, I know you’ve been thinking about it for a time, I know it’s been gnawin’ at you. You can’t leave that job to them.

Dean had already admitted to himself that he couldn’t put that burden on Sam or Cas, knowing it was a horrific thing to ask of either of them. But when he offered something very similar to Jack in 13.02? It hadn’t been so much a threat as a promise, because Jack WAS terrified that he would become evil, or be manipulated into doing evil things with his power, like Asmodeus nearly tricked him into doing in that episode. He didn’t know enough about his powers or the world to know right from wrong, good from bad. He struggled with those concepts for a good long time, and still does to a degree… But Dean said to Jack the one thing that would’ve given Dean himself comfort back in 10.09– I will not let you go darkside and murder the world. I will be here to stop you if you do.

And yeah, in that moment Jack was afraid, and said as much to Sam, but heck… after that Jack actually began to consciously try to understand his own power (sure in 13.03 he pushed back against Sam’s strict teaching methods and scared himself… but heck, he clearly now understands what Dean was trying to tell him back in 13.02). Remember, this entire confrontation was prefaced by Dean’s horror that Jack would just sit there calmly stabbing himself to watch himself heal again. Dean grabbed the knife from him, protecting Jack from himself, and then took the burden of stabbing himself out of Jack’s hands:

Dean: You know, my brother thinks you can be saved.Jack: You don’t believe that.Dean: No, I don’t.Jack: So… if you’re right?Dean: If I’m right… and it comes to killing you… I’ll be the one to do it.

Dean didn’t say it with malice. He said it with finality. Even though at the time they had no idea if it was even possible to kill Jack by any known means, you know? In Dean Logic, this was supposed to be a comfort, to take this weight of fear off Jack’s shoulders, you know? Because Dean has BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, HAS THE BLOODY T-SHIRTS TO PROVE IT. From all sides of the coin, going all the way back to John’s orders to him in 2.01– if you can’t save Sam, you’re gonna have to kill him. As the least emotionally invested person in Jack at that time, Dean stepped up and announced he would do the do should it become a Jack Murdering the World situation.

Because Dean knew himself in 10.22 that Cas could never follow through and put him out of his misery:

Castiel: Maybe you could fight the mark for years, maybe centuries like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever, and when you finally turn, and you will turn, Sam and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I’m the who’ll have to watch you murder the world, so if there is even a small chance that we can save you, I won’t let you walk out of this room.

Cas would’ve stayed by his side to bear witness to Dean’s ultimate destruction rather than kill him. And that’s why Dean walked out. He knew he had no failsafe, that he was essentially doomed to destroy the universe, and nobody would stop him (and he knew he couldn’t stop himself– Cain became what he was when he tried to take his own life with the First Blade and was reborn as a demon, after all… Dean couldn’t kill himself… which is why he went to Death in 10.23).

So yeah, to Dean? That statement would’ve been a comfort.

But let me underscore this point too: DEAN POSSESSED BY MICHAEL IS NOT THE SAME AS MoC DEAN “GOING DARKSIDE” OR JACK “TURNING EVIL BECAUSE OF HIS POWERS.”

Honestly? In the depths of his possession, drowning and failing to claw his way to the surface, we don’t know if Dean would’ve begged for death or begged for life. When he’d said yes, it had been in part to save Jack’s life (as well as Sam’s, as well as ensuring that Lucifer was stopped now that he had Jack’s immense nephilim power source and was intent on destroying the world as we know it). For all Dean knew, Lucifer had already killed Jack and Sam, but he knew he had to try to save them. And I think Jack does bear some measure of personal guilt over this fact. He’d been the one to trust Lucifer. He’d felt confident enough in his own power not to see how Lucifer was ready to betray him for standing up to him.

Jack’s already lamented the loss of his powers because he was unable to save Dean or defeat Michael.

I in no way think Jack’s insistence that Cas accept that he might have to kill Dean in order to defeat Michael was predicated on a fear of Dean. Or even on anger at Dean for having said yes to Michael. But Jack’s understanding of humanity, and his understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, is… not fully developed yet. We’re watching him go through the emotional equivalent of adolescence here, considering he was ready to run away from home because he didn’t think he should be treated like a kid in 14.03. He may have been parroting back things he’s heard Dean say in similar situations before, but he doesn’t understand the nuance.

Also, Cas needed to hear that from the other side of the table, you know? Just as Cas was unable to verbalize his objections to killing Dean back in s10, now he’s had a chance to have considered that scenario. He knows how Dean (and Sam, but we’re talking about killing Dean specifically here, so I’m gonna pin this one on Dean for now) had been willing to stay by his side and fight Ramiel in 12.12 despite having no real hope for his survival. They refused to give up on him. And in 12.10, Dean had a chance to banish Ishim and save himself, but the risk that Cas wouldn’t survive being banished was too much and Dean had essentially surrendered his own life even on the uncertain chance that saving himself might hurt or even kill Cas. So. In 14.02:

Jack: Cas, Michael has to be stopped.Castiel: I know, and he will be, after Dean is –Jack: No, Dean doesn’t matter. You’re all so focused on trying to save Dean. And I get it, I understand, but if he can’t be saved, if it comes down to him or Michael… Michael has to be stopped. Caged or killed –Castiel: And if that means that Dean dies, too?Jack: Then Dean dies. I know this Michael. I’ve seen what he’s done to an entire world, and so have you. If stopping that from happening here means that Dean has to die, then… Do you think he’d want it any other way?

Cas… really has to think about that… because this isn’t a question with an easy answer. Jack makes it sound so simple, but Cas knows from personal experience that it is in no way that simple.

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zedecksiew · 6 years

Text

Fixing Spells

“Fuck every detection spell,” Scrap Princess says. Yes! They are so boring.

She’s not into spells like Dispel Magic, either. Neither am I? In baseline D&D, spells that cancel things are just so: “Oh this thing is cancelled now.” Shrug.

I think these spells are boring mainly because they have no materiality.

Detection spells be like: “Yeah that stuff you wanted to detect. You see them glowing in your detect-o-vision.” Beyond that they don’t do anything.

And Dispel’s worse! It’s the exact opposite of Hey Something Happens In Imagined Space.

So, hey, let’s fix that. In order, here’s:

A detection spell that’s a glorified get-a-dog-to-sniff-this-out-for-you deal; A detection spell that physically affects stuff you want to detect; A debuff spell that’s actually a summon spell; A cancel spell that’s actually a summon spell (these two should be one spell, probably, but whatever); and A dispel but that causes miscasts, instead of outright cancelling magic.

Reveal Magic Level 1 Duration: 1 turn per level Range: 30ft per level

Animal swarms unconsciously sketch the invisible flows of the world. Fish school in math models, birds flock magnetic fields, rats track pestilential urges.

You tweak the minds of a single type of swarming creature. Any present are now unerringly drawn to all magic within range -- swamping charmed persons, enchanted gems, a jinn’s passage, so on.

Intelligent swarming creatures get a save.

Command Illusion Level 2 Duration: 2 rounds per level Range: Hearing

To cast an illusion is to tell the world a fiction about itself. You shout over this story, telling a version that better suits your purpose.

Speak a single-word command. All illusions within hearing distance obey this command, even if their form would otherwise prevent them from doing so -- trees dance, walls flee, dragons wank, so on.

Summon Curse Level 3 Duration: Permanent Range: Touch

You call bad intent from the upper airs. It streams out your fingers, coagulating into a bird made of yellow phlegm. 3HD, flies.

Target a single creature. The phlegm-bird tries to stuff itself down your target's throat. If successful, your target suffers:

1: Thin blood. Hurt, bleeds 1hp a round. Heals at twice normal rate. 2: Hazard blindness. Unable to see beings that mean them harm. 3: Insomnia. Every day, saves or suffers -1 to all rolls. Cumulative. 4: Piquant soul. Supernatural predators always know their location. 5: Innocence. Inability to use or understand language in any form. 6: Itching. Itch itch itch! Disadvantage on physical and social actions.

Cast as a ritual, this spell be used to curse an inanimate object. The bird soaks into the target object. It curses the object’s owner.

Extract Curse Level 3 Duration: Permanent Range: Touch

Like venom from a bite you drain a curse from an affected creature or item. This curdles into an animal of your choice, made of yellow phlegm.

3HD, abilities as per its shape. If drawn from an item, it wields or wears said item, and must be in a shape suitable to do so.

Intelligent, belligerent. Prefers to stuff itself down the throat of its creator -- the person who cast the initial curse.

Unravel Magic Level 3 Duration: Instantaneous Range: 120ft

If reality is fabric, spellcraft is a weaving art. Target a single instance of magic within range. With a mystic needle you pick its weft. It is undone.

Spells fizzle. Summoned creatures Permanent effects are disrupted for d6 hours. Magical objects or creatures lose their supernatural abilities for d6 hours. Sentient ones get a save.

Unravelled is not destroyed. Centred around the target, magical energy is warped into:

1: An explosion of iron nails. Damage equivalent of a shrapnel bomb. Carpets all ground within 10ft per target level, like caltrops. 2: Blood. Blood! Spewing from the target -- soaking clothes, spraying faces, slicking surfaces up to 5ft per target level. Save or retch. 3: Ego transference. Minds of creatures in sight of the target round-robin bodies, in alphabetical order. Lasts 1 turn per target level. 4: A temporal pocket. Creatures in sight of the target are frozen in time; 1 round per target level. What if bystanders nick your stuff? 5: Vital force. Washes over all beings in sight of the target. Invigorating -- heals d4 hp per target level, and may exceed hp maximum. 6: A zombie. Closest dead body of HD equal to target level rises, attempts whatever task the target magic was originally cast for.

Cast as a ritual, in a place of power, this spell may be used to permanently dispel a magical effect, object, or creature. No side effects; takes a week per target level; fails if interrupted.

Probably a better way to do that Unravel Magic side effects table is to crib WFRP’s Chaos Manifestations list, but I was lazy.

Mainly prompted by this neat thread by Zak S on G+.

( Image sources:

http://www.rojakdaily.com/news/article/2344/the-rise-and-fall-of-raja-bomoh-sedunia-nujum-vip https://giphy.com/gifs/true-detective-birds-matthew-mcconaughey-7mGqPjCKDn3ck https://www.pinterest.com/pin/332351647477105156/ http://nafassakti.blogspot.com/2012/03/himpunan-35-rahsia-keilmuan-ilmu-ghaib.html http://psychodollyuniverse.tumblr.com/post/169270536731/the-shining )

#magic #fantasies #rpgs #spells #writing

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streaks-of-lavender · 6 years

Text

Ouran High School Host Club AU

So, since I apparently matched the sides to host club members in an unusual way, I decided to give a more in-depth explanation. Which of course means I went way overboard and it got so long I’m debating whether or not I should put it under the cut. Anyways, have some rambling character analysis. Also, SPOILERS. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE. FOR THE OURAN MANGA AND ANIME, AND FOR THE SANDERS SIDES. You have been warned.

I’m gonna tag @not-so-innocent-bi-sander because I can’t stop bugging her, apparently.

Patton: While Roman would normally be the obvious choice for Tamaki, I went with Patton, because pairing Roman and Tamaki feels like taking them at face value and personally I don't think it does their characters justice. Patton seems much more fitting for Tamaki. One of the things made apparent about Tamaki throughout the anime and the manga is his inherent goodness. Yes, he can be dramatic and annoying at times and often doesn't think things through, but he has a heart of gold and it shows. Everybody loves Tamaki. He brought the host club together. All those people who were hurting and broken that normally would never have given each other the time of day, they were all brought together by one thing: Tamaki and their love for him. Tamaki is giving and kind despite his stubbornness and drama. I think he has a lot of similarities to Patton. Patton is the dad who loves all his children (the other sides and Thomas) unconditionally. At the same time, he isn't afraid to call them out when they need it. He's silly and fun and everyone loves him, even if they underestimate his intelligence at times. An obvious parallel is that Patton is the dad character, while Tamaki insisted throughout the series that the host club was a family. Slightly more serious, Tamaki and Patton will both push people away and lie about how they're doing because they don't want anyone to worry or be a burden. This is more apparent in the host club manga than the anime, but it's still there. There's also Kyoya. Tamaki wasn't afraid of Kyoya, he didn't back off when Kyoya tried to push him away. He forced his way in and was quick to call him out on his bullshit. The two became best friends and had such a beautiful, unique relationship. Patton and Virgil were pretty much the same way. Patton wouldn't take no for an answer, he was the only one willing to see Virgil as he truly was. He refused to let Virgil talk bad about himself. And when Virge left, Patton was the first one to notice. Basically, Patton and Tamaki have the most similarities in my opinion. They have a lot of love to give, they bring people together, they're silly and fun and dramatic (Patton can be dramatic, too. It's not just Roman). To me, they seem like an obvious match.

Virgil: If Patton is Tamaki, then who could Virgil be except for Kyoya? They're best friends no matter how irritated Kyoya (aka Virgil) pretends to be. And there are notably comparable things about Virge and Kyo. Kyoya spent his whole life trying to meet impossible goals, friendless, pushing people away, constantly being told he wasn't good enough by the people who were supposed to care about him. Sound familiar? Virgil went through the same thing for a long time (see: everything leading up to Accepting Anxiety parts 1 and 2). And then Patton came into his life the way Tamaki came to Kyoya. Tamaki was like Kyoya's savior. He showed him that his family was wrong, that he was enough, that he could be his own person and it was okay. And Kyoya loves him so much. For proof, go back to the episode "And so Kyoya Met Him," in which Haruhi asks how on earth Kyoya and Tamaki are friends and Kyoya then proceeds to monologue for a good 20 minutes about how the two met after staring at Tamaki and smiling for a solid 15 seconds (Moxiety shippers, have some fuel). Patton was the only one who was never scared of Virgil, who accepted him from the start, who wasn't about to let anyone hurt his dark strange son, even Virgil himself. Patton loved him all along even when the others didn't. And now the two are best friends, and you can bet that Virgil will do anything to protect his dad. Somehow, despite all their differences, the two just work. They fit perfectly. Tamaki and Kyoya. Patton and Virgil. It works.

Roman: Oh, Roman. What to do with you? He's a total drama queen who needs constant attention, sometimes isn't very nice, butts heads with the others, but still tries his best. Hikaru. Hikaru, Tamaki's rival, Kaoru's beloved twin, hot headed, impulsive, a bit rude at times, but genuinely cares about his friends. Neither of them exactly have the best track record. They've (unintentionally) hurt the people they care about, but they feel bad and want to fix the situation. They're the characters with the most room for growth in my opinion, and they're trying, gosh darn it. Sure, they make mistakes. Sure, they can be ridiculously impulsive. Sure, they speak without thinking a lot of the time. But they try so hard. Hikaru and Arai or Tamaki or even Haruhi. Roman and Virgil or Logan. They messed up. They hurt people. And they're trying to make it right. Haruhi actually slaps Hikaru at one point when he goes too far. The sides and Thomas can't touch each other, but Thomas has given Roman the verbal equivalent (Accepting Anxiety part 2). Overall assessment of characters: sometimes problematic but doing their best. Very good boys. Hikaru is loved by his family, especially his brother. And by Tamaki. Patton as a side loves Roman, and Patton as Tamaki loves Roman as Hikaru. At one point in the manga Hikaru got sick and fainted while on a class trip, and when Tamaki found out, he freaked out and instantly went to see him and make sure he was okay despite being all the way in Tokyo. That is definitely something Patton would do. But Hikaru and Kaoru have a special bond, which leads into our next person, Thomas.

Thomas: Thomas would definitely be Kaoru. He can be somewhat naive at times, but often he's level-headed when the others, especially his brother, aren't. He has a special relationship with Hikaru. Kaoru loves him so much, but also isn't afraid to call him out when necessary, much like Thomas with Roman. A lot of the time the sides (besides Patton) can be a bit rude to Roman, but Thomas is generally really accepting and quick to show Ro how much he cares. Much like Hikaru and Kaoru, their relationship is cute and sweet and it just works really well. Similar to how Thomas is at the center of the sides, Kaoru doesn't really have an extreme to match anyone else. He's just happy to be there with the people he cares about. That sounds like Thomas to me.

Haruhi: This one took some debating, but I finally decided that Logan would be Haruhi. They're both very smart, but they're not really good at the whole "social interactions" thing. Haruhi cares for her friends, but is also quick to get frustrated with them and doesn't really understand how people work. Like, she's compassionate, but she's also blunt and often oblivious. She seems to have a hard time reading the mood. Before the host club, she spent a lot of her time alone just studying because she didn't see the point in other things. The club helps her with that the same way the sides help Logan. Both of them struggle with seeing things from a different perspective. They'll write things off that they don't see the value in. But they try, they want to learn and improve, and their friends are happy to help them with that.

Hunny: Deceit would be Hunny. I'll be honest, I don't really have as much solid reasoning for this one. Hunny seems cute and sweet and innocent on the surface, but he's actually incredibly smart and powerful. That boy knows exactly how to manipulate people into giving him what he wants. So yeah. Deceit.

Mori: Jamal. There's really no reasoning behind this one. I ran out of sides and I greatly appreciate Jamal. He's cool. That's it. (Side note, I’m really, really sorry if I spelled his name wrong. I couldn’t remember. If it’s wrong and someone knows how to spell it right, please tell me.)

Renge: Joan. Because it would be really funny. That’s all.

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ruffsficstuffplace · 6 years

Text

The Viridian Vanguard (Part 30)

Note: I know I used “many” thrice last chapter, but it turns out it’s hard to make a number of unique, distinct weapons for Fascist Magical Space Hippies; think of ways to artfully demonstrate their effectiveness in one-to-one matches with a semi-experienced, talented human user whose opponent is essentially a human target dummy; while also trying to keep within self-imposed chapter lengths to avoid author burn-outs.

So, hope you don’t mind this chapter’s selection for the melee weapons, which hopefully gives the general idea of how the Fae have modified or made similar designs to humans, or works completely their own. The next chapter will either be a continuation of melee weapons, or move onto ranged weapons, depending on how many of these crazy ideas for weapons/ways for Jaune to get his ass kicked that you folks want to see.

“Are you sure you want to continue with this plan, Jaune?” Pyrrha asked, her voice modulated by the comm-unit inside her visor. “Even for training weapons, these seem awfully dangerous still, and that isn’t even going into the mediums I’m using!”

“I’m sure!” Jaune replied, making a thumbs up with his gloved hand, the surface still scarred from all his elemental mishaps earlier. “We’ll never get anywhere if neither of us ever get serious!”

(“That’s the spirit, Jaune!” Yang cried from the benches on the side.)

Pyrrha sighed. “Alright, if you’re sure...” she muttered.

From his position on the side of the dirt circle the two were in, Taiyang raised the dueling horn to his lips. “Fighters ready?” he asked.

“Aye!” Jaune and Pyrrha both cried, readying their weapons.

“Then fight!” Taiyang cried, before he blew the horn, starting a long series of one-on-one duels between Jaune and Pyrrha.

The first set of matches were with Fae equivalents of traditional human weapons, but with the advantage of the former’s engineering, materials, and of course, elemental mediums.

Pyrrha’s first chose was a Khopesh and shield, the blade infused with elemental earth. The two of them exchanged simple slashes and thrusts for a few moments, Pyrrha gracefully dodging and deflecting Jaune’s inelegant attacks, Jaune blocking with his sizable shield, or enduring her direct attacks.

It all seemed like a standard sword duel, until Pyrrha activated her weapon’s element, and caught Jaune’s sword in the hook of her blade.

Clang!

Jaune’s sword stuck to Pyrrha’s Khopesh, now magnetized. Pyrrha yanked backwards, Jaune staggered forward and tightened his grip, the two of them started wrestling and kicking up dirt, until with a swift bash of Pyrrha’s shield to the side of Jaune’s head, his sword flew out of his hand.

Pyrrha pulled back, deactivated the medium and dropped Jaune’s sword, before she spun back around and aimed a chop right at Jaune’s neck!

Thwack!

It stopped dead on the armor there, a great deal of sturdy material before even getting close to nicking his skin, but that didn’t stop him from making an incredibly undignified noise.

Taiyang blew the horn, Pyrrha carefully removed her sword; Jaune gasped, instinctively grasping at his neck and stepping back.

“Are you alright, Jaune?” Pyrrha asked as she sheathed her sword.

“… Yeah…” Jaune replied, calming down now. “Just… surprised. Straight for the killing blow, huh?” he asked, rubbing at the fresh nick with one hand.

“This is ‘full out’ sparring,’ after all,” Pyrrha replied. Her voice softened as she asked, “Would you still like to continue? I’m afraid I can’t pull back, as the other fighters at the Pits certainly won’t.”

“Yeah, I’m still game!” Jaune said, nodding as he put his hand away.

“Are you sure?” Pyrrha asked.

“I’m sure,” Jaune said. “That is why we’re wearing like an inch’s worth of armour all over, right?” he said, spreading out his arms.

“Right.” Pyrrha replied, before she stepped out of the circle and back to the collection of weapons on the side.

For the next round, she decided on a spear loaded with elemental water. For the sake of fairness, Jaune was given his own without the medium, though while Pyrrha could hold it straight and confidently, he could barely keep it steady.

“Will you be alright fighting with this, Jaune?” Pyrrha asked as they reentered the arena.

“I’m good!” Jaune said. “I’m trying to learn by experience, aren’t I?”

Pyrrha slowed down and looked at him for a few moments, before she nodded and continued on to her starting place.

Taiyang blew the horn, Pyrrha attacked immediately, aiming thrusts at Jaune’s chest, blocking his own jabs with her shield, or smacking his spear away with her own. It wasn’t long before Jaune lost his grip on his weapon, and was reduced to holding his shield up in front of him with both hands, trying to remain standing as Pyrrha stabbed him in the legs.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

It seemed like the match had reached a stalemate as Jaune blocked or powered through most of Pyrrha’s thrusts, until she activated the water medium in her weapon.

Thrust.

Jaune cried out and stumbled as he was stabbed in the ankle.

Thrust.

His shield rang as it blocked a blow meant for his chest, the force sending him staggering back till he was almost out of bounds; Jaune desperately flailed his arms, trying to keep from falling back.

Poke.

Pyrrha gently hit him in the thickest part of his breastplate, sending him falling flat on his ass, and out of the ring.

Taiyang blew the horn, Yang came up to Pyrrha as she put the spears away. “Word of advice: don’t do mercy if this were an actual match,” she said. “Folks love their epic, brutal finishers, and if you’ve got someone on the ropes like that for most of a fight, make sure everyone knows how bad of an idea it was to mess with you.

“Caring for your opponents is before, after, and outside of a match, not during it.”

“Noted,” Pyrrha said, before she looked at the vast array of weapons laid out before her.

The hours went by, and nearing the end of that set, Pyrrha started going for more exotic, “crowd-pleaser” weapons, like nunchuks infused with elemental air. Even just loading it with a fresh vial had the whole weapon sparking and glowing ominously.

“Are you sure you’re not gonna hurt yourself with those things?” Jaune asked as he watched Pyrrha carefully practicing with simple, practical swings.

“Not entirely, but our armour has proven itself quite durable, so I wouldn’t worry too much!”

“Alright, just be careful!” Jaune replied. “I don’t want you to accidentally shock and knock yourself out.”

“The concern is much appreciated, Jaune,” Pyrrha replied, before she got into a combat stance, one rod held firmly in her hand.

Taiyang blew the horn, and almost immediately, a miniature, violent thunderstorm erupted inside the ring.

Jaune couldn’t even prepare a single attack before Pyrrha rushed in, electricity arcing through the air as she swung her nunchuks, the rods landing on his armour and shield with explosive, thunderous force. The strikes were so many and so fast that everyone on the sidelines could barely watch the fight for all the sparks and electric discharges flying out.

With a sharp, piercing cry, Pyrrha pulled her nunchuks back and kicked Jaune in the chest!

Jaune went flying and crashed into the dirt, a smoking, twitching, slightly blackened heap; Pyrrha staggered and almost lost her balance as some of the leftover charge coursed into one of her legs.

“Oh, Great-Grandma, is he going to be okay?” Pyrrha asked as she rubbed her ankle, watched as Nora and Ren jogged forward with the first aid kit.

“Yes, actually!” Ren replied as opened it and put on a pair of non-conductive mender’s gloves. “We Fae have treatments for all sorts of things.”

“Yep!” Nora replied as she did the same, before she started pulling out equipment. “Cuts, bruises, all kinds of poisons, burns of all three degrees, crushed or blocked airways, partially severed limbs, fully severed limbs, internal bleeding, organ failure, chafing—we’ve got a treatment for pretty much everything!”

“I see...” Pyrrha muttered as she carefully pulled out the air medium from her nunchuks, before holstering it.

They took a break to allow Jaune to recover, along with Pyrrha rehydrating, refueling, and reviewing what weapons she’d already tried, and the many more she hadn’t. With her new experience of how vastly different Fae designs and elemental mediums could change even the most familiar tools and styles, she decided to go into Fae weapons for the next set.

For her first choice, she tried out Spiderdancers, a pair of weaponized gloves that covered her arms from the elbows down. “This is a beautiful and fascinating weapon,” Pyrrha said as she unwound some of its steel-silk fibers between her fingers, practiced weaving and tying them together using the needle-like points over her fingers. “I’m aware of the philosophy of copying designs and ideas from nature, but this is just a level beyond all that I’ve seen before...”

“Try your best to keep from getting too entranced by them,” Ren said, armed with his own pair. “These can very easily turn against their own users, not to mention how easily they cut and resist being cut themselves.”

“I will,” Pyrrha said, before the two of resumed practicing.

“You’re really going to fight me with just a bunch of strings?” Jaune asked as they returned to the circle. “I mean, yeah, they’re made of metal, but still—it’s just strings!”

“To be fair, with enough creativity and skill, anything can be turned into a lethal weapon,” Pyrrha replied as she went into a wide, low stance.

Jaune looked at her dubiously, before he shrugged, and readied his own weapons again.

Taiyang blew the horn, Jaune charged at Pyrrha with an overhead slash!

She brought her hands together, tying her silk-steel threads together, before stretching them out above her like a sheet!

Twang!

Jaune’s blade bounced off of the steel-silk; surprised, he staggered backward. Pyrrha didn’t hesitate to rush in and begin her counterattack, starting with wrapping her threads around his sword. Everyone watched as she proceeded to disarm him, before beginning to tie him up, binding his limbs to his body or into odd, painful angles. It was an inelegant, inefficient job with plenty of wasted steel-silk thread as Jaune managed to flail and free parts of himself, but eventually he was completely immobilized in a razor-sharp, messy cocoon.

Finally, Pyrrha straddled him, making a new sheet of steel-silk, wrapping it around Jaune’s neck from behind, and turning it into a garrote.

Taiyang watched Jaune struggle and squirm as he was strangled for half-a-minute, occasionally glancing at Ren with a vital scanner, before he finally blew the horn again.

Pyrrha snapped the threads of her garrote, Jaune wheezed. She climbed off of him, instinctively reached out with her hand, until she noticed just how convoluted and twisted her threads were. “Uh...” she muttered, sheepishly glancing at the side.

“I’ve got this,” Ren said, coming by with gloves, scissors, and a large seam ripper. “Try not to breath too deeply or squirm, Jaune, that will just make things worse,” he said as he knelt by his side.

Jaune whimpered, and did so.

“Holy hell!” he cried after he was freed, sitting on a bench with his helmet off, examining all the nicks and cuts all over the surface of his armor. “How is this even legal to use against other people?!”

“Literally thick skin!” Nora said, chuckling as she whipped up a large bowl of armour reinforcer paste. “Believe me, you wouldn’t believe what the most senior of senior watchers can survive, even without trying to defend themselves! Oh, did you watch any footage from the Eve attack?”

“Hard not to,” Jaune replied, “it was on the news everywhere 24/7, you could hardly find someone not talking about it.”

“Then you know that part with Taiyang and the giant Death Laser?” Nora asked as she started spreading the goop out on the cuts.

Jaune’s eyes widened. “… That was him…?!”

“Yep!” Nora replied casually. “Though I guess he’s not that good of an example, seeing as he’s been out of training for over a decade and a half. If he’d been at full capacity, he could have probably taken that Cinder Fall on and then some.”

“… Uh… huh...” Jaune muttered weakly.

Jaune’s armour repaired, Pyrrha put away the spiderdancers and tried Wingblades instead, the folding sheets spanning almost the entire length of her arms. “These are so beautiful...” she muttered as she spread them all out, admired the mid-morning sun glinting off the metal.

“Wait till you slap on some fresh paint and decorations on these bad boys!” Nora said, chuckling. “It’s why they’re one of the most popular weapons for choreographed fights!”

“And in the Pits also, because of their effectiveness in actual combat,” Ren added, wearing his own set and demoing it.

And after Taiyang blew the horn, both Pyrrha and Jaune would find out just how effective.

Jaune rushed forward with a slash!

Krsshh!

Pyrrha blocked it with the folded blades of one arm, sparks flying off Jaune’s sword as it slid right off and away from her. She unfolded the blades of her other arm and aimed a slash at his neck!

Jaune raised his shield, briefly wondered why there was no screeching noise of metal on metal, until Pyrrha grabbed his shoulder and kneed him in the crotch.

The several layers of armour there absorbed most of the blow, but it sent him staggering back nonetheless. Pyrrha hooked her knee into his leg, tripped him and sent him falling to the ground. Jaune landed on his back, limbs sprawled by his sides, he watched as Pyrrha prepared to fall on top of him, one arm of blades coming down on his neck like a guillotine.

After some praise from Yang at “what could have been a shoe-in for the highlight reel!” and another check to ensure that Jaune’s neck and armour were still fine, Pyrrha exchanged the wingblades for a King’s Claw, a nearly arm-sized blade that could transform into a pair of pinchers, with a heavy blunt edge on the opposite side.

“You sure you want to be using that?” Jaune asked as Pyrrha brought it into the circle. “That seems like it’s too heavy and big to be much use in an actual fight.”

“It’s surprisingly light, actually!” Pyrrha said, making wide, fast swings with it. “Maybe not as graceful, speedy, or versatile as your sword, but that doesn’t seem to be the point of it,” she said, before she got into a combat stance, holding the main body of the blade before her like a shield.

Jaune readied his own weapons, Taiyang blew the horn, and yet another match began.

Jaune charged first, aiming a thrust at Pyrrha’s head!

Krrsshh!

She blocked it, angling her arm and the claw so Jaune’s blade would slide away from her, before she punched him in the stomach with her other arm. Again, Jaune’s armour absorbed most of the blow, but the brief opening was all Pyrrha needed to wind up her arm and bring the blunt end crashing into the side of his head.

Thud.

Jaune staggered from the force of the blow, Pyrrha bashed his head again, then started slashing. Jaune reeled from each hit, huge gashes appearing all over his armour, his shield and sword getting knocked aside as he tried to block or parry, getting closer and closer to the edge of the arena, until he was once more desperately flailing his arms to keep from falling out.

This time, however, Pyrrha didn’t hesitate to thrust and pull the trigger for the pincers, trapping Jaune’s neck between them.

Jaune choked, bashed at the blade with his weapons, dropped his weapon and tried to wrestle it open, before he was desperately slapping at it. Pyrrha freed him, and he promptly fell out of the ring and onto his rear.

“Okay, now THAT was an appropriately badass way to finish a lopsided fight, I approve!” Yang said, applauding.

With Jaune needing to have another medical check for possible neck injury, and his armour definitely needing reinforcement once again, Pyrrha took the opportunity to choose and practice with one of the more versatile and complex weapons, a Grasping Vine Staff.

“If you were a weaver, the grasping vine could be an actual, living plant you control with your magic, which would be awesome, but since you’re not, you’re just going to have to make do with magitech controls,” Nora said as she demonstrated it to Pyrrha, making the staff curl, tighten, whip out, and do the rest of the impressive range of motion it had, thanks to the segmented design of the shaft and the flexible fibers keeping them together.

Pyrrha nodded. “It’s very impressive, and I don’t doubt it’s effectiveness in real combat… but can I ask why this feels like the Fae version of an animal control pole?” she asked.

“Because it is!” Nora replied cheerfully. “Lots of weapons are useful as tools and vice versa, don’t ya know?”

“I suppose I should have realized that...” Pyrrha muttered, before she continued practicing with it.

Sometime later, the two of them were back on the field, Jaune’s armour fully repaired. Pyrrha still had one concern, however: “Are you sure you want to stick to your sword and shield?” she asked. “We’re fighting one-to-one in a flat, circular arena, I’m going to have a severe advantage over you with my reach compared to your sword.”

“I’m sure!” Jaune replied. “These weapons are my family’s lucky heirlooms, you know!”

“Are you really sure?” Pyrrha asked.

“Yes,” Jaune replied as he went into a combat stance. “Now that I’ve had to think about it and practice, I’m sure I can fight better now.”

“If you’re this confident!” Pyrrha said, before she pulled the staff from her back.

Taiyang blew the horn, and the two fought once more.

Pyrrha struck first, thrusting several times at Jaune, before repeatedly striking him on the arms and his head. Jaune blocked some of the attacks with his shield, powered through the pain and the rest of the sharp blows as he charged at Pyrrha, closing the distance and swinging out with his sword!

Pyrrha easily dodged out of the way, thrust her staff towards his one of his legs, snared his ankle and pulled. Jaune stumbled but remained standing, Pyrrha started shuffling around the arena and yanking him right along with her.

He whacked at the shaft with his sword, tried to wrench his foot free, swung and thrust at Pyrrha, but the wood and the fibers wouldn’t give, its grasp was just to strong, and he could barely reach her, let alone get the leverage for a proper strike.

Pyrrha braced herself and swung her staff, trying to send Jaune out of bounds! Jaune stomped a foot in the ground, stopped himself, then yanked back with as hard as he could!

Pyrrha cried out, pulled towards him; Jaune let out a cry as he aimed an upward slash at her neck!

… Which missed as Pyrrha ducked her head, the blade sailing above her, before she let go of the staff and rammed herself into Jaune, sending him stumbling out of the circle.

Taiyang blew the horn, Pyrrha picked her staff back up and released its grip on Jaune’s leg. “Are you alright, Jaune?” she asked. “I doubt it could have been comfortable, having your leg constricted that powerfully for so long.”

“I’ll live...” Jaune muttered, rubbing idly at where the staff had held him. “Any weapons feel like the one for you, yet?”

“A handful, but I’d like to be thorough about this and test as many as I possibly can,” Pyrrha replied. “We might be here all day, at the most idealistic estimates. You don’t mind, do you…?”

“No, no, I really don’t mind!” Jaune said quickly. “Anything for you—and for Weiss, and Yang, and everyone else, ‘cause they’ve been so nice letting us live her and all!”

“That’s much appreciated, Jaune,” Pyrrha said, patting him on the shoulder, before she holstered her staff, and walked back to the collection.

As she started inspecting her options, Jaune quietly wondered just what he would be facing next...

Note: Spiderdancers usually come in two pairs, one for the arms, one for the legs. There is sometimes a fifth used for a tail, or attached to the back as extra leverage or storage for silk-steel spools. And for fairly obvious reasons, very young Fae wishing to train with them start with regular, non-metallic threads.

Though Wingblades were developed for flying Fae, it wasn’t long before Air Weavers took notice and started developing a version that could be easily used by flightless folks. While it remains one of the most popular foci of choice for said class of weavers, there are many watchers that enjoy it for its versatility, its freedom of movement, and of course, its looks.

A King’s Claw is more properly known as a King Crab’s Claw. Though the Fae explicitly copied the infamous defense mechanism of said species, many liberties were taken and limitations hit; aside from size reductions and ergonomic considerations, it was difficult to make the pincer mechanism shatter bone and sever limbs like the animals themselves without severe drawbacks to the other aspects of the design, or inconvenience to the user.

The Grasping Vine Staff is also useful for agriculture, tending to plants or animals; law enforcement; alchemy; construction; childcare; cooking; wilderness exploration; and a whole host of other uses that are far too long to list here. Modifications to the shaft, the fibers, and the control mechanism are extremely common and widespread, and oftentimes encouraged.

For those curious, the Grove’s shed really is the size of your average storage shed in a backyard—it’s just that there’s a few miles worth of waterproof, reinforced, temperature-controlled bunker storage underneath it, as storage for all the things that the residents of the Grove have acquired and can’t or don’t want to dispose of for one reason or the other.

#rwby #white rose #the viridian vanguard #fanfic

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prudencepaccard · 6 years

Text

truly bizarre interaction that was like the intellectual equivalent of that thing at the karaoke bar

where this one guy who was part of a friend group I ended up hanging out with at a bar became progressively more deadpan hostile and competitive with me to the point that I finally returned his (explicit) challenges with a lighthearted plea for solidarity and then he claimed there was no competition but he’d LITERALLY SAID THERE WAS

it started with him asking me what my diss was on. I said “the imaginary of the bagnes metropolitains in the nineteenth century” and then used some synonyms in case he didn’t know what I meant because that happens sometimes, people only know one term so I was like “i.e., the bagnes metropolitains and the bagnes portuaires“ and he still seemed not to get it so I was like “travaux forces [hard labor]” and he was like “in what era?” and I repeated “the nineteenth century” and he seemed confused so I thought I’d address the most common source of confusion and said “not Guyana, not the colonies d’outre-mer, the bagnes metropolitains” and he was like “you mean Cayenne?” and I was like “not, precisely not that, the thing that preceded that” and he was like “Ah but that’s not travaux forces, that’s the bagne”

and I was like first of all, what, second of all I said “the bagne” first thing already but seriously what

and he was like “it’s not the same thing, travaux forces is anachronistic, we still have that today”

and I was like “but that was also a specific term used back then, a contemporary descriptive term. Along with the peine des fers. It’s in the code penal and it was used popularly. LIke you’re right that it’s not as specific as bagne but it’s not incorrect to use it interchangeably, they’re part of the same repertoire. Also I said bagne already”

and he’s like “well I didn’t hear you, sorry. And this isn’t an insult or anythiing but I’m just saying it’s wrong, French is very nuanced”

and I’m like “yes but it’s actually a very specific and correct term in this particular context. I get that there could be ambiguity potentially but since I’ve already estavlished that I’m talking about the bagne then travaux forces is a precise and apt term”

and he’s like “prisoners and bagnards aren’t the same thign”

and I’m like “yes but the word travaux forces can describe both. There’s overlap in some of the vocabulary and that’s one of the words in the middle of the Venn diagram. I get what you’re trying to say but you’re going too far”

“no, I don’t agree, you can’t use that term, it’s wrong”

“listen let me find an analogous example in English...so like, we use the term hard labor to describe actual practices today, right? but it’s still correct to say Oscar Wilde was sentenced to hard labor in the Victorian era”

“well how about the word slavery? would you use that interchangeably with travaux forces?”

“no, because it’s not juridique”

“aha see they’re three different things!”

“no they’re not that’s my point, there are two categories, travaux forces and the bagne have things in common with each other whereas slavery is in its own category”

“but they used the word slavery back then for the bagne too! [implying, I guess, that if it’s incorrect to say slavery for the bagne it’s incorrect to say travaux forces too]”

“only ona metaphorical level, the bagne was never characterized as slavery in legal documents etc. Travaux forces is a technical term”

“hey sorry I need a smoke” and then he just ended it there

and then later he asked me how many languages I knew. I’d already complimented him on his English and been genuinely impressed that he knows/dabbles in four languages which is more than I study seriously

but he was still just...like this. I told him I was only fluent in French and English but that I’d studied Russian in college and Mandarin as a middle schooler. I was very clear I suck at Russian and have forgotten all my Mandarin. Nonetheless later he made a reference to me speaking four languages and I said I didn’t and he kind of rolled his eyes and shrugged

and eventually he just...started quizzing me on words. Like do I know what this means, do I know what this means, it was super weird and confrontaitonal. And if you know me you know I have a SERIOUS complex about Getting Credit For PRecisely What I Know No More No Less. You also know that I am quite intellectually generous and will never be the first to start a competition but I also don’t like to lose so if I’m challenged I’ll be extremely petty and not my best self. While meanwhile trying to remain as collegial and kind and generous as possible under the circumstances. it’s weird like that

so there was this mix of me desperate to prove I knew a word when I did and ALSO being super chill and genuinely not insecure if I didn’t because I’m Happy to Learn. And BOTH these reactions seemed to spur him on. I think if anything the latter annoyed him more...like punching a too-yielding surface

That second act, btw, seems to have started when he said something slangy to his friend and then said “I ebt you don’t know what that means” and I said “yes I do!” (but like in a cheerful relaxed way because I didn’t know how weird this was going to get) and it turns out that I’d misheard what they’d said, like it was a good guess. But also he misunderstood what I’d misheard and said no I actually said XYZ which as another thing I didn’t hear him say at all (let alone mishear) and which had I heard it I actually WOULD have known what it meant becuase unlike the expression I’d (actually) misheard I knew what it meant. It was “entraver que dalle” which means “understand nothing” and it’s an expression I know from the title song of the movie “Rififi” (which I love so much I bought a lead sheet of it from the 1950s off French eBay and brought it to Marie’s Crisis. Unfortunately the key’s a bit high for me though). It goes “Vous avez l’air d’entraver qu’dalle, a mon histoire quand je vous parle, du rififi...” etc. Ironically about explaining slang. Anyway I like that phrase because it’s delightfully old slang but I’d never heard it said IRL for precisely that reason. So obviously I was kinda eager to show that I knew the expression and how etc. But he was just not returning the ball at all. Like I tried to do some wordplay like “I’ve always wondered wtf the origin of that expression is, it’s so weird, like [*”translates” it laterally in French by substituting synonyms for “entraver” and “dalle”--”enchainer que pave”] it’s a strange combination of words” and he shurgged and was like “yeah but it doesn’t work like that. It’s idiosyncratic. Like “bagne”

BRO

but fellas hands down the worst part was when I was right about someting and he made me doubt myself/concede part of the point because I didn’t want to be both wrong and arrogant (you know how much I hate that). So anything I was less than 100-percent-sure-I-can-cite-sources (i.e., anything intuitive or inferential or built on a foundation of knowledge that yielded a conclusion greater than the sum of its parts) was forfeited and UGH

like at one point he used the word “decortiquer” and asked me “do you know what THAT means” and yes I absolutely do, it’s not even slang/langage courant

and he was like “WHAT”

and I was like “explain, analyze”

and he was like “no”

and I was...confused ebcause...what do you mean “no”? So I thought hm maybe I’m missing some nuance and somehow that made me totally wrong? so I continued like “well like--reduce to its elements--”

and he’s like “omg guys look I can’t even define it in French and she’s doing it in a non-native language fuck”

and it’s liek WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM I DIDN”T WANT TO EVEN PLAY THIS GAME YOU STARTED IT

like who challenges someone to a contest and then pouts because they other person won

(not that you can “win” a conversation!!! irjfiejrdfi FUCK THIS)

and possibly-showing-off-but-also-trying-to-overcompensate-because-I-don’t-know-what-he’s-doing-here I continued like “it’s from Latin ‘cortex’ which means bark [ecorce in French] so when you decortiquer something you’re stripping off the bark and exposing the heart of the tree/matter”

and he just flatly goes “no I don’t think that’s the derivation”

and I’m like “maybe not, I might be saying nonsense”

“that’s not the derivation”

“what is it? if you know, I’m curious about what the etymology really is”

“I don’t know but it’s definitely not that”

(I’m home now. googled it. and

welp.jpg)

then it just kept getting worse like he used the word “branlee” to describe what I was doing to him and then asked me if I knew what it meat and I neede dmore info so I was like “yes--wait” and he was leike “DO YOU OR DON’T KNOW” and I was like “well is it like ‘se branler’ or ‘ebranler’? same root?” and he was like “NO” and in hindsight it definitely is but whatever I DON’T MIND BEING WRONG OR LEARNING THINGS

and after he gave me a definition which made it clear he felt we were in competiton and he was losing--plus some EXTREMELY passive-aggressive “it’s a really common expression, it’s frankly surprising you don’t know it, blah blah” which I responded to with a cheerful “yeah I have a lot of lacunae then that! thanks for helping me!” and he with “yeah it’s really weird you didn’t know that” and me with “I know lol” and him with “I’m glad I could help you learn some French at least”--I finally was like “this branlee thing though, that’s really not what I’m doing! can we be solidaire instead?” (but like as nonconfrontationally as possible) and he was like “oh it’s not a competiton I’m just saying French people are like that”

well either way KNOCK IT OFF

#don't use the word #please

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