#seriously be as mad and trolling as you like but death wishes like every other day over fandom??? be so for fucking real

[flowercrowngods]

not being hateful is literally the easiest thing like i’m sorry for you but i have love and joy left in my life and don’t have to resort to being a toxic garbage waste of a person who wishes death upon people for not talking about your fav characters as much and in the exact way as you want 🫶

[crookswithbooks]

Cultural Curiosity

Dave has an obsession with Karkat’s hair and Karkat doesn’t mind it one bit, despite his protests. 

Karkat wasn’t even sure how they’d gotten into this situation. Dave had commented on his messy tangles, eyeing them scrupulously from behind his shades, and the next thing he knew the human had wrestled him onto the couch and was jerking a comb through his hair.

“This is unnecessary,” he huffed, wincing as Dave pulled through a particularly difficult knot. “I can brush my own fucking hair.”

“Shut up. This looks like a rat nest.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, I’m serious man. Any second now an army of tiny rat children are going to come crawling out of your hair to go scavenge for food or some shit.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Shut up, I’m hilarious.”

Karkat sighed, relenting to the unforgiving comb. It was painful at first, and there was a lot of death threats exchanged within the first couple minutes, but after a while the comb started to make progress and the gentle running of the spikes down his scalp became almost calming. At this point the comb was useless, but Dave kept running it through the curls, humming almost unconsciously as he did. 

After a moment, Karkat opened his eyes reluctantly and muttered, “This is really fucking pale, you know.”

“What?” Dave sounded distracted, as though he had forgotten for a moment that the troll was there, an odd thing considering he was fondling his head.

“You know, moirallegiance?”

“Oh, your weird troll bromance.”

“It’s not your human ‘bromance’, Dave. There’s a lot more involved than whatever dumb alien friendship you guys have. For instance, this isn’t something you would do with John, is it?”

“Well, no, but that’s because—”

He broke off whatever he had been about to say, opting instead to abandon the comb and start running just his fingers through his hair. “Never mind. Dude, your hair is so fucking soft. Is that a troll thing?”

“Not… not exactly,” Karkat managed. He was finding it difficult to concentrate as Dave continued, sinking into the relaxing touch. Karkat had never been a very touchy-feely troll, and even when he had a moirails, he and Gamzee never did this kind of stuff. Then again, Karkat and Gamzee’s relationship probably wasn’t the ideal example of good moirails. Even when he and Terezi had their brief fling, or whatever the fuck that mess had been, it had only contained a couple chaste kisses thrown in-between the chaos of their lives. He never realized how nice it felt to have someone just there, gently touching you, holding you. Not to mention, humans were so fucking warm.

Only through great force of will did Karkat prevent himself from sinking back into Dave’s arms and falling asleep. He hadn’t felt safe enough to fall asleep properly in so long, and the fact that Dave was causing his peaceful, relaxed state made him feel… well he wasn’t exactly sure. Strange. He couldn’t tell if it was in a good or bad way.

His internal debate was interrupted as Dave began scratching the sweet spot at the base of his horns, and from that moment on Karkat was gone from this world. He closed his eyes, not even bothering to care what they looked like in this moment as Dave continued running his fingers through his hair, both of them content to just let the moment continue.

They stayed like that for a while, just the two of them curled on the sofa, practically in each other’s arms. If anyone had walked in at that moment, Karkat wasn’t sure what he would do. Deny everything? Freak out and yell at people, his solution to most problems? He couldn’t even imagine moving from the position he was in, if he was being honest.

He tried to remind himself that this was Dave, his friend (by the vaguest of terms), and that humans didn’t have moirallegiance. What did Dave even think they were doing here? Was this a friend thing? What did he even qualify this as? Karkat liked to consider himself an expert on love, but in reality he had no idea what he was doing. And for some reason things were extra confusing with Dave. Every time Karkat looked at him, he was filled with this overwhelming warmth, and when it grew too big for Karkat to deal with he just pushed it aside, smiled and took Dave’s hand, telling himself this was normal. Because he didn’t want to have to think about if it wasn’t normal, didn’t want to face what that warmth meant. He didn’t want anything to have to change.

Unfortunately, he was only allowed to relax for so long before Dave stopped suddenly, frowning down at him. “Dude, are you fucking purring?”

Karkat stiffened, immediately pushing himself out of Dave’s arms. “No. Fuck off. Trolls don’t purr, we’re not fucking meowbeasts.”

“Then what was that sound you were making?”

Karkat tried to think back. Had he been making a sound? If he had been, it wasn’t like he could be blamed for anything he had done with Dave’s magic fingers pawing all over his scalp. He vaguely remembered, in his state of relaxation, allowing contented growls to rumble from his throat. But that was different, and not at all like the weak purring of meowbeasts.

“For your information,” he started, crossing his arms, and Dave rolled his eyes at the promise of what was sure to be a long and angry lecture. “I was growling, not purring. It is a defense mechanism long installed in our species to protect ourselves in states of defenselessness. I was only—”

“You felt defenseless?” Dave leaned forward, subsequently cutting him. An infuriating smirk played at his lips. Karkat regretted saying anything at all, but it was too late to pull his words back now. So instead, he settled on the next best thing, a solution that had never before failed him.

“Fuck you Strider.”

“Maybe later.” The words were spoken casually, no different from any other of Dave’s euphemism filled jabs, but for some reason Karkat felt embarrassing red creeping up his neck. It didn’t make any sense and Karkat was in no mood to dwell on it.

“Whatever,” he huffed, slipping off the couch. “I have important leader business to attend to anyway. I don’t have time to sit around and be insulted all day.”

“I wasn’t insulting you,” Dave protested. “I think the purring—sorry, growling, thing is cute.”

“Cute?” Karkat scoffed, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean cool,” he quickly corrected. “I didn’t mean to piss you off, is what I’m saying. You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”

Karkat stared back at him, debating internally. Dave seemed genuinely apologetic about the whole thing, and Karkat did miss the feeling of those fingers in his hair. Not to mention, he had been lying earlier; he had absolutely nothing going on. Being a leader was not exactly a needed skill when you were sitting on a meteor for three years doing nothing.

Dave sat back after a minute or so of this same staring, raising his hands in surrender. “It’s cool, I mean, if you don’t want to, don’t force yourself—”

He was interrupted by Karkat’s body, dumped unceremoniously back into his lap. Karkat’s lip was turned out in what was undeniably a pout and he was glaring intently at the side of the couch, refusing to meet Dave’s eyes. “Fine. But only because you so desperately want me to. I would feel bad about denying you.”

“I don’t—” Dave started, but broke off at the look in Karkat’s eyes, pleading him not to say anything. “Alright, yeah, you got me. Thank you, oh great leader, for submitting to my wishes. How can I ever repay you?”

“Seriously, fuck yourself right in the ass.”

“Not unless you watch me.”

Dave laughed as Karkat shoved him roughly, and the evening slowly descended into playful madness.

Karkat couldn’t say he was unhappy about it.

[freshneverfrozen]

Tincture - Chapter One

Or, the one where your author lets us do what Ubisoft wouldn’t. Also, the tropey one.

When her home is burned by a mad Dane, a healer must decide if her fate lies with forgiveness or revenge. 

I’m back from the dead to inflict on you all an AC Vahalla Reader fic literally no one is asking for. Is it Reader/Ivarr? Reader/Basim? Reader/Hytham? Who knows? No, like seriously, I don’t know.

Multi-chapter Fic

Pairing: Reader +...uh, Ivarr? You expect me to choose?

Rating: M for mmm, slow burn erotica.

On AO3:

Part One, Two

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

CHAPTER ONE:

Snow burns. No one had ever told you. It is a scalding cold that stiffens your bones and cracks your teeth, and you are glad the moment the last flurries are behind you.

The people whose company you learn to keep are never as bothered by the snow as you. Their eyes shine like ice and their faces are shadowed and grim. They had not taken to you easily, a foreigner like them, but unlike them, you did not earn your place through rended flesh and broken bones.

You mend their flesh. You set their bones.

Eventually, they began to call you something other than ‘troll’ and ‘witch’. Eventually, your hut is traded for a slant-framed house at the edge of a village that survives both Saxons and Danes. 

‘Healer’ they call you, and it’s just as well. You left your name behind in a faraway place. 

You count a spring with them and then a summer. But just as the north-country snow melts, time changes all things.

One gray morning, when the mists are heavy over the moors, something besides the creeping cold wakes you. Wood creaks under a layer of furs as you sit up in your bed, rubbing sleep from your eyes and straining to hear again what drew you from sleep.

There is only yawning silence. It stretches past the walls of your house and over the hills. Beyond your walls, the wind is still, the farm animals not yet restless, and the corner fire is long dead past the comfort of crackling embers. 

No, you realize. It has not been noise that has awoken you.

A feeling swirls in your gut. That’s it. A pack-and-run instinct that you have trusted before. And just that simply, it occurs to you that life here is over. You can rebuild. But you must first survive.

‘Witch,’ they once called you. ‘Uncanny’ would be closer to the truth.

The floor is chilly beneath your bare feet as you slip from your bed. You grab nothing, not food, nor tincture. With a hand to the cord that holds the small draw-string pouch around your neck, you know you will have only a few pieces of silver. That, and your life, will be enough.

You have felt this feeling before. This knowing.

You take only your dark woolen cloak from the back of a chair and, wrapping it around your shoulders, you peek past the hung sail-cloth that serves as a door and out into the foggy blue of early morn. 

Quiet. Still. A calm before a storm.

Yes. You know this feeling. 

You melt from the shadows of your home, around the side and between the stables and granary. You know the families. Saxons on one side, Danes on the other. One has children. The other an elderly mother. She had been the first in this place to call you ‘healer’ when you eased the ache in her old bones. 

Silently, you move on swift steps until cold mud from the cart path gives way to tall grass that stings your feet. There, you crouch. You move a little further and listen for nothing. The further you go, the more guilt turns your stomach. So many are still asleep in their beds. You are their healer.

But you cannot save them. 

Near the edge of the field stands an ancient oak, out of place and far from its brethren in the forests to the east. It stands among the high grass, a field’s width from the village. You lower yourself against the gnarled base, settling down until all can see of the village are the plumes of smoke from the hearth fires drifting into the sky. Your feet are chilled to numbness, caked in mud and grit, but your hands shake too badly to massage the feeling back into them. 

Instead, you wait, and you exhale your breath between your knees so that it does not rise above the grass. 

And you do not flinch when the first of the battle cries pierce the air. You had known they were coming. Danes. Different from the peaceful breed settled here. 

Screams follow smoke, and then follows the wafting scent of blood and shit on the wind.

You had known.

You sink lower against the tree and in an awful moment, wish that you might freeze. When the wishing is unanswered, you try not to listen as the screams grow fewer and farther between. The terror of the butchered turns to gleeful cries from the invaders. How long has it taken? The sun has yet to clear the sky. Another sacking done in England. Danes killing Danes, killing Saxons, killing all. But not you. Not yet.

And then you hear it.

A sound separates itself from the victory din. It begins as a rustling through the grass, not soft as your steps had been, but moving quickly and toward you. A wayward Dane? A survivor?

Lie still, you demand of yourself as your muscles seize on instinct. You press yourself deeper into the dirt. A fool would run. A dead fool. Whatever comes, it cannot know you have hidden yourself here, tucked yourself away amid the roots and reeds.

A set of shoulders and a dark head above them glade over the tall grass. He is a Dane. You can smell the blood on him, see the gleam of it against the shaved side of his scalp. At his nearness, your heart pounds until it rattles your teeth, but you do not take your eyes from him. If he spots you, and only then, you will run. It will be the death of you.

But he cannot see you. Not here. But even as you think them, those thoughts sound like lies.

The Dane curses, and it is then that you hear the slosh of liquid against clay walls. His steps are burdened. Carrying something. He shakes the bulk in his arms and you hear the splatter of something wet over grass and smell the cloying scent of oil and pitch.

They mean to burn the fields.

And you with them.

Why harvest, when you can ransack? Why spare lives, when it is easier to take gold from a corpse? 

You are a healer, but you would kill them all if you could. 

The Dane moves off, his back to you now. His shoulders are slim, his body lightly armored. If you run, there is every likelihood this one will overtake you. But you cannot wait, not as you hear him call out in his rough language for fire. A torch. You will have to slip away or face certain death in this snare.

You shift, quiet as a hare in the underbrush, and begin to move eastward. Wet ground seeps into the thin fabric of the under-dress you had escaped in, but you ignore the spreading damp against your chest as you crawl. The sound of a horse’s braying and the noise of hooves through grass drives you forward. You know without looking that someone has brought the Dane his torch.

The crack of a mad laugh sets your teeth to grinding. The Dane shouts, “Let the ravens pick their fill through the smoke!” 

“Careful that you do not burn with the fields, Ivarr,” says another voice, too full of reason to earn anything other than ridicule.

The Dane laughs again and soon, the rush of fire catching fuel overtakes the sound of him. It spreads and crackles at your back, wind carrying the heat, carrying the flame. Toward you. 

You’ve no choice but to run now. 

You’re going to die after all. By fire or the swing of an axe, it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead. Perhaps, this is punishment for leaving the others unwarned. If that is so, you are cut by the bitter thought that the divine has been swift in retribution.

Heat licks at your calves sooner than you expect and you push to your feet. The forest is a league away, over crag and hill and the sludge of the moors. You will never outrun them. But perhaps the flame and smoke will hide you  -- 

“Aha! Look there! One last sheep left to gut!” The bark of the Dane drives the breath from you. “Give me your horse!”

“But Ivarr -- “

A snarl from the Dane is all you hear before the noise of your bare feet beating over grass drowns out the rest. The moors. You need only make it to the moors and then the muck and hollows will slow him. 

With a gasp of relief, you clear the field, legs burning and catching beneath a skirt heavy with mud. Another small hill lies ahead, this one rocky with moss-covered stones. You dart up the first slope, casting yourself over one rock just as you hear the thundering of hooves nearing. 

The Dane laughs, a hollow, delirious sound that you have heard before from madmen you could not cure. You glance back, your eyes drawn to the sheen of teeth. His is a gruesome smile, crooked and jagged like a jack o’ lantern on Samhain. Fear boils away the cold as you register just how near he is, and you spot a hand sweeping at you from the back of a dappled horse.

“Where will you go, foxling?” he jeers. “Run! Run faster! This is no chase!”

A protesting snort from the horse ruffles your hair as you near the top of the hill. The beast proves a blessing, and you throw yourself from its path just as the Dane reaches for you again. With curse, he flails at the air, and before he can turn his mount, you are struck with an idea. 

Instinct has always served you well and as it beckons, you listen. Leaping with a snarled cry, you catch hold of the Dane’s outstretched arm. Your weight and the momentum of the horse unseats him and for a moment, a very brief one, your eyes lock with his. They widen, surprise sparking behind the wild blue of them, and in the instant before he falls, you think you see a grin turn his lips. 

He strikes the ground with a thud, crying out as the horse’s hooves catch his legs. You leap over his body as it rolls, your fingers twisting into the mane of the horse. One bound and then another, and you find your purchase, swinging yourself up into the saddle. You look back over your shoulder, eyes narrowing in focus on the Dane as the horse rocks beneath you. He staggers to his feet, yards away now, and he laughs.

“Well done, little fox! Run, while I catch my breath!”

His laughs grow louder, wilder, and when you turn from him, you dare not look back again.

.

………………………………………

.

There might as well be snow. 

English nights are cold when spent in nothing but a damp shift and cloak. The horse, at least, makes good company. The village is three nights behind you now, three nights that you feel in your empty belly. On the first, you had not slept, fearing the mad Dane would appear from the shadows. The second had passed in the cradle of old ruins. The third, you had found an abandoned home.

Now, with morning blooming outside, you saddle the horse, a mare whose name you do not know. You had spent the night considering names for her, to replace whatever the Danes called her, if it had been anything at all, but in the end, you decided on nothing. You’ve little fondness for all the names given to you, so you will not do the same to her.

She is simply the mare, as anonymous as her rider.

A starving rider, you think grimly as you swing into the saddle, with your stomach growling to remind you that wild raspberries do not take the place of bread and mutton. 

“Will you share your grass?” you ask the mare as you lean forward to scratch between her ears. “You do not seem as starved as I.”

She snorts as though to say too late, and with a glance at the earth below, you see that she has eaten the greenery to nothing.

Muttering through a smile, you say, “Ah, payment for saving my hide. I understand.”

A half-day’s ride brings rain. You pull your cloak tighter around yourself and take solace in knowing bad weather means fewer travelers, and fewer travelers mean less likelihood of bandits. It is by that reasoning alone that you are surprised to see two figures crest the hilltop ahead. Both ride horses of their own and as they near, you cannot make out their faces for the sodden white hoods they wear.

Better unfriendly than dead, you adjust your own hood, and hunker lower over the saddle. You guide the mare off the path to make way for the riders. Monks? They look like men of the Cloth, perhaps on their way to one of the Saxon holdings. If so, they are riding into Dane territory. 

But that is their problem, not yours.

Your teeth grit as one slows his horse as they pass. 

“Traveler,” he says, his accent strange, as foreign as yours. “Is it this way to Fremdeleigh?”

Fremdeleigh is ash and ember now.

In your hesitation to speak, you cut your eyes upward beneath the edge of your hood. Looking at the man, a length of curling dark hair falls about a dark, trimmed beard. More than that, you cannot see. The other rider, slightly smaller, hunched as though the ride has pained him, turns his face away. Of him, you can see nothing.

The man is waiting, and should you hesitate longer, you risk more questions. “Fremdeleigh was that way, yes.”

The man is quiet for a stretch. 

“Was?” His voice...such a simple questions gives you chills. It is a dangerous voice, one that has you wishing for highwaymen rather than priests. If they are priests. The knives and daggers strapped about the men are not lost on you.

“Perhaps it is, if it still stands. Danes took it three days past.”

The men share a look, though you doubt they can see one another’s eyes. You make to move the mare forward.

“A moment,” says the man. “Do you come from Fremdeleigh?”

“Why do you ask this? What is left of it lies down this road. Brave the Danes, if you must go there.”

“Perhaps I make a habit of braving Danes?” Charm settles in the man’s voice too late. It does little soothe your wariness. “And I ask to know what sort of Danes they were.”

Needling man. You should not let his prying bother you, but Fremdeleigh is not so far behind you that the question’s answer is easy to face. 

“The wicked sort,” you reply, and at this, you think you catch a snort of agreement from the second man. “Now, safe travels to you both, strangers.” A rolling growl from your stomach accompanies your words, and you quickly turn your face away.

You have just set your heels into the mare’s sides when the first man calls out, “You’ve a hungry look about you. Perhaps you would trade answers for a meal?” 

Another dinnerless night feels more than you can stand. But a part of you would sooner starve than risk a camp alone with these men, who are perhaps not as godly as their robes would claim. 

The man seems to read your thoughts. Surely, he has figured you to be a woman by now. An easy target, if he wishes it. “We will not harm you, this we swear. We want only your time and to ask a few questions.”

“Men have done worse to women with smaller promises than that one,” you reply. 

The rain is coming harder now. The mare throws her head. If you do not get her beneath the shelter of trees, she may take herself. Your stomach growls again. The pain of emptiness is setting in. You consider your choices for a moment -- a hungry, endless ride through this weather or hooded men, armed to the teeth. Before the man can refute this -- indeed, it seems he’s rather reluctant to argue this at all -- you make up your mind. 

“Remove your hood,” you say, “I would know your eyes.”

The twitch of a smile appears beneath the beard. “As you wish.”

He raises his hand and pulls down the hood, revealing a head of thick, black hair to the elements. He is a foreigner, and farther from home than the Danes had been. His skin has the dark cast of men from the east, his eyes darker still. 

They are a killer’s eyes. You know it the moment they meet yours and a prickling begins at your neck. But this one is not rabid like the men from whom you had fled. He is a killer, but something tells you he hunts more dangerous prey than you.

“Very well,” you say when you can stand to hold his gaze no longer. “Answers for a meal.”

“You are no longer worried we will kill you?” he asks. You do not think he is as surprised as he feigns. 

“No,” you reply simply. 

The other man, smaller and quieter, shakes his head beneath his hood. This one thinks you stupid or mad, but he winces before he decides to protest, and just as silently, he settles over his saddle and looks away.

.

……………………..

.

The thick trees are shelter enough for the three of you. Several times, as you watch the men set about tying off their horses and building a small fire beneath an outcropping of rocks and a fallen log, you reconsider your foolishness. But when one of the men, the quiet one, retrieves bread from his satchel and places it before the fire, you are finally coaxed down from the mare.

“Here,” he says, handing you the bread and a helping of...dried fish, you realize as you unwrap the parcel. “It is fish.”

You know fish when you smell it. This one does think you stupid, after all. Perhaps he is right. But obvious though the words are, you are surprised to hear that his voice is softer than that of his compatriot. It is better suited to a poet than a man strapped to the teeth in blades. As he pulls away, you get a glimpse of his face, still hidden beneath the hood, and find it younger than the other man’s.

“A Dane’s meal,” you reply, glad your eyes are shielded by your own hood.

“A Dane’s meal is still a meal.” He turns away and sulks over to the far side of the fire. His movements are hitched, a hand going to his side as he lowers himself down. You see no blood on the white of his robes, so perhaps his is an old wound. The healer in you nearly as what ails him, but you hold your tongue and take a bite of bread.

The other man moves more quietly than you would like, crouching beside the fire, his eyes and expression hardly warmed by its flames. He tries to smile at you, but seems to know that will not earn him any faith, and after a moment, his expression slips back into something cold and unreadable. 

“I am Basim,” he says, “This is my...friend. You may call him Hytham, if you wish, though I cannot promise he will hear you over his groaning.”

“I am fine,” says the other man, but you know a lie when you hear it.

You swallow your mouthful. “Strange names to hear in England.”

“Strange times,” mutters Hytham. 

Basim’s eyes run from your feet -- still bare -- to your face, and you fight the urge to draw in on yourself. The urge passes as you realize there is nothing lecherous in the look; it is...appraising. It sees more than you care to reveal, and you make up your mind to eat quickly.

“You have the look of someone who is running. Can I assume it is from Danes?”

“You knew that when you offered this meal. What is it you really wish to know, Basim?”

His lips twitch again. Is it an uncontrolled tick, you wonder? A man like this strikes you as one who has very little outside his control, so perhaps the smiles, if that is what they can be called, are intended to put you at ease. 

“We are looking for our friend. We have news for her.”

Looking for a Dane.

You frown at the dried fish and cast a wary-eyed look at Hytham. “A Dane’s meal, after all. You should have just said so.”

“Would you have taken the first bite?” asks Hytham.

You make a face and it is then that you learn that Hytham does not hide his smiles so easily as Basim. You look back to the other man. “I saw little, I’m afraid. One Dane chased me. That is his horse.”

“You stole his horse?” Basim raises a brow. 

“He deserved worse. He was scarred. A bigger man than he looked. Another called him Ivarr. That is the only name I heard.”

“That is name enough,” says Basim. He sits back on his heels and gestures to you. “Please, eat.”

As you take another bite, you’ve half a mind to ask if they are friends of this Ivarr, but doing so will open the door to more questions and both these men seem the sort to prefer asking them. You have made it this far; you’ll not have your throat cut for nosiness. As you eat, the skies darken, until midday could be mistaken for night, and thunder rolls overhead.

Hytham’s voice draws your glance. You had thought the man dozing as the conversation waned, but he is awake, though his mouth is set in a bitter line. “That’ll be Thor, or so I’m told.”

“You should have stayed in Ravensthorpe,” Basim says, but his scolding is gentle. 

“I tire of four walls. I am fine.”

Liar.

He stretches out his legs, but the motion seems to pain him. He catches you looking. “It has been a long ride.”

“A long ride on an injury, even an old one, can do a man more harm than the change of scenery will do him good.” You shove the last bite of bread into your mouth and swallow. Hytham -- and Basim, too, you notice -- eyes you cautiously as you stand. Or you think he does. He tilts his head, hood slipping until you can see a little more of his cheek. You kneel beside him and ask, “What is bothering you?”

“Not an old injury,” says Basim, “but not a new one, either.”

“Let me look. It will be my thanks to you both for sharing your food, and it will pass time in this rain.”

“Are you a healer?” 

“I was. Before Fremdeleigh burned. I will be one again once I am settled.”

“I am fine.” Hytham’s jaw takes on the proud jutt of someone determined to let their pride outweigh their sense. At last, he has enough of the hood, and sweeps it back so that he can glare at you properly. You had been right. He is younger than Basim, perhaps younger than you, though the handsomeness of his features is weighed down by a pain you had only glimpsed beneath the hood. 

Despite Hytham’s potent scowl, you shake your head. “That’s the third time you have said so and each time, your whining gets louder.”

A rich crack of laughter from Basim startles you both. “Perhaps I should leave you to her and I shall ride to Fremdeleigh?”

“I should think he has learned this whining from someone,” you reply, and this quiets Basim. “Best you stay and hold him down. In case any bones need re-setting.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hytham tells you quickly. 

“How would I know? You will not let me look.”

“I am -- “

“Fine! You are ‘fine!’” you snap. “Pass the time in pain, then. Have your raider friends look after you. Three days ride from now.”

This pales him. His eyes -- you could not name their color if you tried -- flick to Basim. “Three days? You said it was two.”

“I thought it was.” Basim holds out his hands, but somewhere in the dark of his eyes, you think he knows better. “A simple mistake.”

“You do not make mistakes,” grouses the younger man. He looks back to you. “Have a look if you wish. Or spare me the slow death and kill me now.”

You smile. “I can do either.”

“A healer and a horse-thief. Strange company to find on the road.” Basim stands, drawing his hood over his head. “Swear to me you will not kill Hytham...” He pauses, his eyes flicking to you, and you realize that he has neither asked your name, nor have you given it.

“You are leaving?” asks Hytham, voice rising above the patter of rain. “Leaving me with this stranger?”

“I am riding ahead. Something tells me I leave you in capable hands.”

“No,” protests Hytham. “I can ride.” He gets to his feet. You watch as he grits his teeth through whatever pain plagues him. He holds his ground, even as you stand to reach for him should that change. 

“Follow when you can. And you,” Basim looks to you, “If our paths do not cross again, go well. I would be careful returning to Fremdeleigh, were I you. If what I know of Ivarr is true, he will care less for his horse, and more about the woman who dared take it from him.”

Return to Fremdeleigh? The possibility had not occurred to you. Fremdeleigh is gone. 

Hytham’s protests cease as Basim reaches his horse, lifting himself into the saddle with a grace you’ve only seen in woodland creatures. He waves once and is soon vanished beneath the forest boughs. Hytham spins on his heel, brushing past you, and drops back down by the fire with less swiftness than which he had stood. You know the sight of a man wounded in more ways than one, and some wounds, even you cannot heal.

Instead, you set to business. “Off with this,” you say, tugging at his tunic. He scowls, but the fight has gone out of him. When the tunic is removed, bared skin is revealed to you. The man is, without doubt, not a priest. His chest and arms are wiry with muscle, a few faint scars marring the skin here and there. It is only a happenstance glance that you notice one of his fingers is missing, cut cleanly at the knuckle. 

“You move like a man with broken ribs,” you say, “How long ago did this happen?”

“Months.”

“And it still pains you so?”

“It is the cold.”

At this, you smile. “Foul stuff, the cold. Breeds barbarians.”

Hytham tries not to smile, but that, too, strains him. His friend’s departure -- if that is what Basim truly is to him -- has left him sullen, but he withstands your prodding well enough. Only when your hands run down his sides does he shy. 

“I am --”

“Do not say ‘fine.’” 

Instead, he says nothing.

His skin is warm to the touch, a good sign for the circulation, and you notice that your roving fingers leave gooseflesh in their wake. 

“The bones have set.” You sit back, drawing your feet under you. “Unless you would like me to break them again, this pain will revisit you. If I had my stores, I could make something to ease the burden, but those burned with Fremdeleigh. For now…” You cast your eyes about, at last coming to rest on the sash that had been removed with Hytham’s tunic. “Give me a moment.”

A moment turns into a few minutes. Hytham eyes you warily when you ask for his sash, but agrees, only to panic when you near the fire with the fabric in hand. He is quieted when he sees what you are doing. You wrap a few cooling coals in the material, testing their heat against your wrist, and returning to his side when you are finished. 

“Press this here,” you tell him, “It will soothe the ache.”

“For a time?”

“For a time.”

Bitterness clouds his expression, but it is short lived, disappearing with a nod. “Thank you, healer.”

Your fingers flex at the word. You had not thought to hear it again so soon. Last time, it had taken a year, maybe two, after you had lost everything to find yourself again. As Hytham’s eyes meet yours, you wonder if, perhaps, the Danes were not as thorough in their destruction as they had hoped.

Hytham’s eyes study your face; they are keener than you had given him credit for, and you feel them pulling at the edges of what you wish to hide. 

“What will you do?” he asks. “Could there be anything left of your home?”

“In Fremdeleigh? I doubt it. If I returned, I would likely only find Danes.”

“The Danes are not all so bad.” His smile is wry one, a little more honest than you would like. Either it or the fire has given a pretty flush to his cheeks. “You were unlucky to cross Ivarr. He is a menace.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him.”

“Will you go to Fremdeleigh? To find Basim?”

Hytham nods. “He is testing me. To see if I will return to Ravensthorpe, or follow him. I am good for more than reading scrolls and maps.”

“You look as though you are good in a fight.” You tap a finger to one scar that runs over his shoulder, paler than the rest of his skin. He glances away when you say this, like a maid who has been she is pretty. “It would be a risk to return there. Not when I’ve no promise that there is anything left to salvage.”

“A shame,” says Hytham with a smile, glancing at you, only to look away again. “All this bread and...fish,” his nose wrinkles, “is going with me.”

“Speak plainly, priest.” Your teasing is less pleasing to him than the idea of dried fish, and he waves you off with a flutter of a four-fingered hand. “If you’ve an idea, let’s hear it.”

“Return to Fremdeleigh. Recover your stores if you can. And if you can, come with us to Ravensthorpe. A healer is always welcome, especially one who is not empty-handed.”

“Healer?” You raise your brows with a laugh. “In Fremdeleigh, I am a horse-thief. What if this Ivarr recognizes me?” 

“He cannot recognize you if he does not see you.”

“Spoken like a man who watches the world from beneath a hood.”

Perhaps it is the firelight, but you think you see Hytham’s ears flush a deep red. “Do as you wish,” he says after a moment. “I ride when this rain stops.”

So it is that when the rain stops, you go with him.

[selanpike]

Abandoned Trollcops/Problem Sleuth fic

i’m bored so i’m posting this old trollcops concept i wrote a couple years ago

i meant to have it be this big sprawling thing, including all the trolls and the beta kids and team sleuth and the crew, but it was way too big for me, so all i ended up writing was the first three chapters--basically, the intros for sleuth, pickle and ace. 

i don’t plan to return to it. i still can’t get my head around the whole thing. but i like what i wrote, and maybe you might like it too? so here u go.

Chapter One

Spending any amount of time with Spades Slick is dangerous at best, you knew that. You also knew that you were making things worse by spending so much time with him, but you were counting on bruises and stab wounds, not this.

The interrogation room is sickeningly bright. The lights make it impossible to know what time it is outside. You know it was close to sunrise when they brought you in, but you’re not sure how long you’ve been here. Even the ticking of a clock would be a welcome reprieve from this boredom. You wish they’d just throw the book at you already.

The door finally opens, creaking a little as it does so. Apparently the Alternia Police Department can’t even afford a can of WD-40. Two officers walk in. You recognize them from your various interactions with the police in the past few years--Sergeants Terezi Pyrope and Sollux Captor. Sergeant Pyrope pulls up a chair and sits down at the table across from you, lacing her fingers together. You can’t read her expression through her opaque red glasses. You’ve heard that she’s blind, but she seems to stare right through you.

“Problem Thleuth.” Sergeant Captor reads from your file, standing behind his partner. “Thirty-five yearth old. Prothpitian. Failed out of polithe academy at age twenty-four. Ith that right?”

“I wouldn’t say failed,” you say, choosing your words carefully. “I jus’ didn’t like how y’all--I mean. I wasn’t a fan ‘f the bureaucracy.”

“Is that so,” Terezi says.

You nod.

“So you dropped out and became a private investigator,” she says. “Is that right?”

“You know the answer to that,” you say, rubbing your temples. “Don’t pretend like we’re strangers.”

The silence that breaks out is painful. You run a hand through your hair, quietly wondering if your hat is okay, wherever they’ve taken it. Why the hell did they take your hat? What sort of monsters would mess with a man’s hat? This sort of shit is why you could never cut it as a cop.

“You’re charged with being an accessory to arson,” Pyrope tells you. 

“Do me a favor ‘n arrest th’ guy who actually did th’ arson-ing,” you mutter.

“The alleged perpetrator is one Thpades Thlick,” Captor says, reading the file. “Damn, man. Thpades, really?”

“I ain’t an accessory t’ nothin’ that asshole does,” you say, slamming a hand on the table. “I was tryin’a stop that goddamn arson!”

“We have multiple witnethheth who thay they thaw you making out with the thuthpect before the fire broke out,” Captor says.

You wilt under their stares.

“I was tryin’a distract ‘im,” you say, weakly. “He’s a dangerous customer, after all. ‘S the ol’ honey pot maneuver, y’know?”

“It didn’t work,” Pyrope says, grinning her sharp-toothed grin. 

“N--no,” you admit.

Sergeant Captor hands Pyrope the file, and she makes a show of flipping through it. It’s a pointless gesture since you know damn well she can’t read it. You try to look at what’s written on the pages, but she pulls the file away so she can give it a good long sniff. You slump over, leaning your arms on the table, thinking about how fucked you are, and what you’re going to do to Slick to get back at him for this. They’ll put you away for ages for this, you just know it. The APD have never been fans of yours, and you’re sure they’ve been waiting for the opportunity to put you away. 

You jump when Pyrope snaps the folder shut. She puts it down on the table, sliding it to the edge.

“I’m going to admit,” she says, slowly. “That, considering your history of making trouble, we took this opportunity to get a warrant to search your office.”

“You--you what?!”

“Well, the thusthpect is thtill on the looth,” Captor explains, and you wonder if you punch him hard enough if he’ll stop with that goddamn lisp. “We had to check and thee if there were any clueth ath to hith whereaboutth.”

“And what did you find, huh?” You’re raging mad now, and you aren’t bothering to hide it. “A whole bunch of jack shit. Or are you going to charge me with possession of a deadly writing implement or something?”

The two of them stare at you for a moment, and then Pyrope pulls a photo from her jacket. She places it in front of you. It shows your evidence wall, a large corkboard you’ve set up in your office to collect clues in the murder you’re investigating.

“So, what? You gonna charge me with murderin’ th’ District Attorney now?”

Pyrope and Captor look at each other, then back at you.

“We’ve been investigating the DA’s death too,” Pyrope says. “But we haven’t turned up a thing.”

“And here you are,” Captor adds. “With evidenthe we never even thought to look for.”

You grin a little. “Oh darlin’s, are you jealous?”

“We know Kingpin was behind it,” Pyrope says, and her voice is uncharacteristically devoid of humor. “Like he’s behind every other high-profile murder in this city. I’m sick of him making a mockery of this force.”

“Stop bein’ such a joke, then.”

 She stands up, slamming her hands on the table. “Take this seriously!”

You raise your eyebrows and wait for her to get to the point.

“We’re willing to offer you a deal,” she says. “We’ll ignore this latest… indiscretion, and you’ll help us put Kingpin behind bars.”

You laugh.

You can’t believe they’re actually coming to you for help. How many times have they impeded your investigations? How many times have they told you to buzz off, leave this to the real cops? How many times have they told judges not to accept your evidence, or straight up confiscated your evidence and claimed they found it themselves? And now they want you to help them?

“Sorry, sorry,” you say, still chuckling. “I musta misheard. Y’ couldn’t possibly be askin’ for my help. I mean, I ain’t a cop or nothin’. I ain’t got no authority.”

“Don’t be a jackathh,” Captor snaps.

“This is in your best interest,” Pyrope says. “You are, after all, still under arrest.”

She does sorta have you, there.

---

You have your hat back when Sergeant Captor takes you outside, to the back of the department. The sun has definitely risen by now, and you’re treated to all the sounds of the city waking up.

“Thith whole thing ith completely off the record,” Captor tells you as he closes the door behind him. “Honethtly, I think it’th dumb ath hell, but at leatht if you get into trouble, nobody’ll blame uth.”

“As long as I don’t trail it back to you,” you add.

“Obviouthlly,” Captor says. He pulls out his phone and types into it. “But we need one of ourth with you. Making thure you’re not fucking up too bad.”

“I’d really prefer we skipped that part,” you say, fixing your hair and trying to find just that right angle at which to wear your hat. “I don’t need no cops following me everywhere. It’ll slow me down.”

“Think of it like exthtra security,” Captor says, still typing into his phone.

The door opens and a short troll walks over, hands shoved in his pockets. He isn’t wearing a uniform, save for a badge he has hanging on a lanyard over a ratty red hoodie. He approaches you and Captor, then squints at you.

“I know you,” he says.

“I get around,” you reply.

“You’re that drunk fucknut that’s always making a scene in Crew territory.”

“Guilty as charged. Y’all’re jus’ gettin’ me on ev’rythin’ t’day!” You nudge Captor. “Sorry officer, looks like y’ gotta charge me for another crime.”

Captor groans and rolls his eyes. He slaps the newcomer on the back and mutters, “Good fucking luck,” before heading back inside.

You wait for the door to click shut before you say, brightly as you can manage, “The name’s Problem Sleuth. Solicitations for my services are--”

“I’m sorry, do I look like someone who gives a fuck?”

You drop the friendly act. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Vantas,” He says. “Karkat Vantas. I’m the undercover guy. I figure I got stuck with this because they figured I could tell the Captain I’m investigating you.”

“‘N I’m sure she’ll buy it,” you add.

“Yeah.” He sniffs, and looks you over in more detail. “I don’t think I’m the only one they’re gonna hand you. I know for sure they said they’re putting my partner, Nepeta, on this case too.”

You rub your face. “Great. Good. More cops, beautiful.”

He asks for your phone, and you exchange numbers. You then tell him to find something else to do with his day, because you’re going home and going the fuck to bed. This investigation can wait until tomorrow. 

---

It’s well after 8am by the time you get home, and all you want to do is sleep for ten years. Pickle and Ace will bitch about you not being at the office, but you can’t bring yourself to care. They’re already going to bitch when they hear about this new arrangement, so what’s a little more?

Unfortunately when you walk in, you find Spades Slick rummaging through your refrigerator.

You toss your keys onto the table and sit down. He turns around, cold pizza hanging out of his mouth, and slams the fridge door shut behind him. 

“I figured they’d have ya’ in th’ slammer a few weeks,” he explains through a mouthful of pizza. “So y’ wouldn’t mind if I ate yer food ‘fore it went bad.”

“Y’ couldn’t possibly post bail for me?”

“Fuck no. Who do y’ think y’ are, my Crew?” He moves his mug of coffee from the counter to the kitchen table, and then sits down across from you. “So who’d y’ call. Th’ stickbug? Did ‘e hafta give up his booze fund for th’ month?”

“No, nothin’ like that,” you say, reaching over and taking the coffee. Obviously sleep isn’t happening anytime soon, so what the hell. “They let me off.”

There’s a loud clatter as Slick’s chair falls over, and a knife is at your throat. It always amazes you how fast he is. You raise your hands in a conciliatory manner as he snarls at you.

“You fuckin’ snitched, didn’t you?”

“Slick, my most precious of darlin’s,” you say. “I would snitch on you all day, ev’ry day. But that ain’t what happened.”

“Bullshit!” The knife presses harder against your neck, and you feel blood beading along the blade. “Th’ APD don’ jus’ let people go, ‘specially not when they been with me. Th’ fuck did you do?”

“They hired me.”

He looks at you like you just sprouted a second head. He doesn’t move the knife at all.

You go on. “They’re investigatin’ Kingpin. They wanted my help.”

He finally pulls the knife away, but he doesn’t sit back down. “Great. Jus’ what I need.”

“Yeah, Slick,” you say, sipping the coffee. You’re not surprised that it tastes like shit. Slick probably isn’t used to brewing his own. That’s what he has lackeys for. “It’s exactly what you need. You want Kingpin outta th’ way? Jus’ let me ‘n the cops handle it.”

“Kingpin’s mine,” he growls.

“‘Scuse you.” You put the mug down. “‘M sorry, but did you know th’ stiff we found last week? No. Fuck no, y’ didn’t, ‘cause he was th’ law, ‘n he was my fuckin’ friend, not yours. Kingpin’s mine. He owns this fuckin’ apartment, my fuckin’ office, he’s got me by th’ balls without even tryin’ ‘n he murdered th’ DA ‘n none’f that’s got anythin’ t’ do with you.”

Slick narrows his eye at you, before pocketing his knife and stealing the mug back. He chugs the coffee down. 

“Fuck you,” he says, slamming the mug back onto the table. “I’ll do it my fuckin’ self.”

“Right,” you say as Slick grabs his jacket and makes for the door. “So I guess I’ll see ya’ tomorrow, then?”

He grunts in response, and slams the door behind him as he leaves.

You know he’ll be back. Partly because you know he can’t resist making your life miserable--the two of you have been caught up in your fucked up little dance for too long, and he’s not about to give that up--but also partly because you know he can’t take down Kingpin on his own. He’s tried for months to do things his way, to just murder his rival crime boss, but Kingpin is careful, and he’s elusive. In the end, the best way to go about bringing him down is to turn the city against him, to get the law on your side. If you can get an arrest warrant on him you can have the whole of the city’s resources helping you track him down. You could freeze his assets, plaster his face on every bulletin board in town. You’ll leave him no place to hide.

You’re going to do it. Your name is Problem Sleuth, and you are going to bring down Mobster Kingpin’s criminal empire.

The APD are definitely going to steal the credit when it’s all said and done, though, and that fact makes you sick to your stomach.

Chapter Two

> Be Pickle Inspector.

You feel as though you’re being punished for Sleuth’s poor life choices.

Nepeta Leijon is a new hire at the APD. She, and her friend Karkat, used to be common criminals. Pickpockets, for the most part, although you remember seeing a few other items on their rap sheet. You’d encountered them once or twice. Never up close--their crimes were never complicated enough to necessitate your intervention--but they’d show up sometimes as witnesses.

Uncooperative witnesses.

You were aware of their being hired. Something about the APD seeing them as valuable assets for undercover investigations. You see the logic, but you’ve never been a fan of undercover operations. You stand out too much. You’re too tall, too gaunt, too recognizable. Your preferred method has always been surveillance. You set up cameras and wiretaps all over the city, in all the seedier bars and meeting spaces. Nothing escapes your omniscient ogle.

Nothing except Kingpin. He’s careful. He doesn’t discuss anything important on the phone, least of all the phones in any of his businesses. You can’t figure out where he lives or where he holds any of his most secret of meetings. Even if you could, he always has too many guards patrolling his places, making it impossible for you to sneak in and plant anything.

It was infuriating before, but now with the death of the DA it’s got you on the end of your rope. And now they want you to babysit this rookie cop? How the hell are you supposed to get anything done?

You asked Sleuth what he did to invite this upon you, but he won’t tell you. You suspect Slick was involved. Slick is always involved these days. 

You have a solution to this problem, though. Well, not to the Sleuth-Slick problem, there’s no solving that, but the Nepeta problem was easy: let her work on transcribing your recordings so the two of you can finish them twice as fast. It leaves you with just enough free time to make tea and doodle in the margins of your notes. 

You’re halfway through a wonderful drawing of a horse wearing a bonnet when your phone rings. You have specific ringtones for every person who calls you often enough, and you put your head in your hands when you hear this one. Nepeta notices, and watches you as you sigh and answer the phone.

“I’m busy enough,” you whine into the receiver.

“That’s a shame,” says the smooth, dark voice of Diamonds Droog. “And here I had something I thought you’d be interested in.”

“What is it?” you ask.

“Meet me on the corner of 34th and Feldings,” he says.

“D--do I have to?” you say, clicking your pen. “Can’t you just, just tell me? On the phone? Like a normal person? I p-promise the line’s secure.”

“34th and Feldings,” he says again. “Now.”

He hangs up. You put your phone down, put your head on your desk, and groan loudly. Why is this your life? All you wanted to do today was transcribe audio logs and not interact with anybody. You even packed a lunch so you wouldn’t have to go out and talk to any fast food workers. 

Without your realizing it, Nepeta has picked up your phone and unlocked it. You make a mental note to change the passkey and not let her see you input it next time. “Diamonds Dickhead?” She makes an exaggeratedly surprised face, and puts your phone back on the desk. “Is that who I think it is?”

You stand up and fix your tie. “I have to go out.”

“Oh! Let me get my coat.”

“No.” You grab your own coat, put it on, and start buttoning it. You make a deliberate effort to put the buttons in the right holes, and you’re secretly glad you haven’t had much to drink yet today. “S--stay here and, and keep transcribing.”

“I’m paws-itively sure that’s super important,” she says, putting extra emphasis on her pun. You’ve noticed that she likes cat puns. In less infuriating circumstances, you’d think it was cute. “But I’m not here to help you so much as to watch you.”

You smooth your hair out and put your hat on. “That’s a terrible idea. N-no, you should just stay here, and not tell a soul I went out. U--unless I don’t come back. Then tell Sleuth. Understood?”

She grins a catlike grin and says, “Nope!”

Droog is never going to let you hear the end of this.

---

34th street is where his tailor is, so Diamonds Droog didn’t have to go out of his way to meet you. It is also clear on the other side of town relative to your office, so you had to go especially out of your way to meet him.

This is par for the course, and you make an effort not to look exhausted when you get there.

He’s waiting for you on a street bench outside his tailor’s, smoking one of his expensive cigarettes. You approach him, but don’t look at him directly. You stand behind the bench, facing away from him, pretending to read a bulletin board. Nepeta follows along, but she sneaks a few glances at Droog when she thinks you aren’t looking.

He breathes out a long puff of smoke before speaking. “Is the detective business so bad that you had to take up babysitting?”

“I n--needed the second job to, to support my tea habit,” you respond.

“That’s a funny way to say whiskey.”

“Oh, no. I steal that all from m-my boss. You see, he has a wealthy patron with a vested interest in, in keeping him too drunk to make good decisions.” You lean back onto the bench, crossing your arms. “I’m s-sure you don’t know anything about that.”

“I’m sure I don’t. Can she leave?”

“I don’t know.” You look down at Nepeta. “C-can you leave?”

“I can, yeah,” she says.

“A--are you going to?”

She shakes her head.

“Sorry,” you say to Droog. “It’s a, a long story.”

He pauses and takes another drag from his cigarette. He taps some ash out on the ground, then reaches into his jacket pocket. You have just enough time to hope that he isn’t pulling out a weapon with which to kill the witness you’ve brought along, before he pulls out a couple of photographs. He passes them to you. They all depict various old-looking artifacts. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen some of these in the museum.

“All of these have gone missing in the past month,” Droog explains. “Obvious signs of a break-in, but no evidence pointing to a culprit.”

“D--do you think Kingpin was involved?”

“Absolutely.”

You scrutinize the photos further, and notice that all the artifacts share a theme. Every one of them either depicts a horrorterror, or symbols associated with said terrors. “This, um. It looks like your sort of thing.”

“Hardly,” he says. “The four of us get our magic from the Terrors, but we don’t need trinkets like this to channel Their powers. They give it to us freely.” He illustrates this by producing a small purple flame in his hand. “Kingpin, though. He’s Prospitian, like you. He doesn’t have the connection to the Terrors that we Dersites have.”

You think about that as you pocket the photos. “Do you think he’s trying to make a pact with the Terrors?”

“Perhaps,” he says, extinguishing the flame. “It’s possible he’s seen what we can do and wants that power for himself. I doubt he’ll be successful.”

You wonder whether it would be possible for a Prospitian to make a pact with the dark gods. You’re almost tempted to let Kingpin try, just to get an answer. It’s not your best idea. If nothing else, these robberies give you one more thread you can follow in your attempts to get any charge at all to stick to him.

“I’ll look into this,” you tell him. “Call me if--if you hear anything.”

“As usual,” he says, before standing up.

He smooths out his suit, throws his cigarette to the ground and snubs it out with his heel. Without once looking at you, he strolls away. Nepeta waits until he’s out of earshot before she says, “You know, Mister Detective, you don’t act much like a detective.”

“H--how’s that?”

“All the wiretapping, and purr-tive meetings with shady guys,” she says. “You’re more like a spy.”

You let out a small laugh. “Don’t say that one to the others. They’ll start coming up with spy names for me.”

“Pickle Inspector’s okay for a spy name,” she says. You start walking, and she follows you. She has to trot a little to match your walking stride. “Spies don’t put ‘spy’ right in the name! It’s too conspicuous.”

You’re enjoying this flight of fancy, despite yourself. “I’ll need to imagine up some clever gadgets, to uh, to get me out of pinches.”

“And you’ll need a car,” she says. “A fancy one, that turns into a submeowrine.”

“And a, a dangerous love interest,” you add.

“Oh? You don’t have that already?” She grins up at you. “You and Diamonds Dickhead had an awful lot of chemistry. You aren’t caliginous?”

“What?” You shove your hands in your pockets and look towards the street. “No. Obviously not. Th-th-that’s just, just gross, ew.”

She giggles, and you don’t like the knowing look she gives you. You reach into your jacket, produce a flask, and take a long gulp. It doesn’t help your mood any. It just reminds you of the last time Droog caught you drinking in the middle of the day, and had the audacity to call you “pathetic”, as if lots of people don’t drink before noon on a weekday.

She’s still giving you that look. Fuck.

“A--anyway, the, the case,” you stutter, trying to get back on the subject of work.

“I know somebody,” she says. “That might help.”

“Who?”

She shrugs. “Old friend of mine. She knows all sorts of things about old stuff like what got stolen.”

“That would be, it’d be really useful,” you say.

“I’ll call her when she gets off work,” Nepeta says, adjusting her hat. “In the meantime we can get back to listening to your wiretaps. The part I was on was pretty juicy.”

You’re relieved she’s so easily given up the subject of Droog and gotten back to the task at hand. She might, despite your initial misgivings, be useful to have around.

“I’ve also started a shipping chart for everyone you’re surveilling,” she adds.

After she explains to you what a shipping chart is, you are simultaneously horrified, and intrigued at the new avenues this gives you when cataloguing and interpreting your data.

Chapter three.

> Be Ace Dick.

Once upon a time, you were a police detective. You like to give Sleuth shit over his lack of occupational experience, but he seems to think that his two weeks of police academy are all he could need. For someone who brags about his charisma, he really doesn’t understand the importance of making connections.

You haven’t been working on the Kingpin case with Sleuth and Pickles. You think they’re out of their league. Kingpin’s ruled this city since Sleuth and Pickles were still in grade school, they didn’t stand a chance. So while they ran around on their fool’s errand, you were out hitting the pavement, solving more sensible cases and keeping the agency afloat. Sergeant Pyrope was a rookie when you left the force, but she remembers you. Whenever you have a case that requires some APD know-how, you hit her up. There’s a little diner next door to the station that’s popular with the coppers, and that’s where she meets you to give you the low-down on some two-bit drug dealer who skipped out on a debt.

You buy her a second coffee once she’s said her piece and you’ve finished writing it all down. Then you tuck your notepad back into your coat pocket and say, “So I heard y’ gave Sleuth a job.”

She shrugs, grinning. “It should be worth a laugh. He always says he can do better than us, so let’s see it!”

You shake your head. “Here ‘m always tryin’ to tell him to stay off that case, and you’re just eggin’ him on.”

“So you’re not going to help?” she asks, before taking a sip of coffee.

“Hell no,” you say. “I quit the force to get away from that malarkey. You at least payin’ him?”

She laughs. “Do you think he’s going to ask?”

“He damn well will, because I’m goin’ to tell him to,” you say, jabbing a finger at her. She can’t see the gesture but she usually can tell that you’re doing one. You’re not sure if she hears the movement or somehow smells it. You don’t know how her weird sense of smell works. “We got rent to pay, missy. If he’s runnin’ around chasin’ Kingpin he isn’t doing other cases.”

“We’ll have to set up a collection,” she says. “I’ll put a little can in the break room. ‘Pay Mister Candy Corn’s rent’.”

Detective Vriska Serket walks over, whacking your hat off your head as she passes you to sit next to Terezi. “Can’t be too much, right? Doesn’t he live in a cardboard box?”

“That sounds right,” Terezi says. “But in this city that’s what, 500 bucks a month?”

“Depends on how new the box is, probably,” Vriska responds.

Terezi nods. “Either way, Kingpin owns it so it is absolutely drafty and leaks in the rain.”

“I’m not opposed to makin’ jabs at my dumbass not-boss,” you say as you straighten your hat out. “But I’m serious. You’re payin’ him. And Pickles too, if you got him involved.”

“We do,” Terezi says. “He’s got poor Nepeta bored to tears.”

“That’s a lie,” Vriska says, taking Terezi’s coffee and putting it in front of herself. “She started writing fanfiction about those counterfeiters on seventieth street. I’m going to try and convince her to submit it as evidence.”

“While that is hilarious, don’t. The Captain doesn’t need to know about any of this.” Terezi takes her coffee back and chugs down the remainder before Vriska can make another attempt. She coughs. 

“Now there’s an idea,” you say. “If you don’t pay up, I’ll go let Captain Peixes know what you’ve been up to.”

“Why Ace,” Terezi says, leaning forward. “Are you threatening me?”

“Might be.”

“Maybe if the Captain finds out she’ll get embarrassed enough to put me on the case,” Vriska says.

“Gettin’ tired of solvin’ murders?” you ask.

She throws her arms up in the air. “The only interesting crimes are the mob ones! All the regular crimes are just dumb shit, there’s usually a witness or a camera or something, there’s no challenge!”

“I thought you liked racking up wins,” Terezi said.

“I fucking love racking up wins,” Vriska says. “But I want ones worth my time. Kingpin’s the biggest baddie there is, I gotta get in on that.”

“Maybe you should let her follow Sleuth instead of that angry kid,” you say to Terezi.

She snickers. “No, I’d give her to Tootsie Roll Frankenstein.”

Vriska slaps the table. “You think you’re kidding around but I’d love having that guy work for me! He’ll do all the tedious boring shit so I have more time to pound pavement and beat in faces.”

“I’m glad you appreciate Pickles’ special sort of appeal.” You stand up, straightening out your suit. “Thanks for the tip, Pyrope. Now please stop takin’ advantage of my teammates.”

She salutes at you, and it’s dripping with irony. “No, I don’t think I will. You’re welcome to come get taken advantage of, though!”

“Fat chance,” you scoff, getting out your wallet. You pull out a few bills, enough to pay for your coffee and Terezi’s, and drop them on the table. “Take care of yourselves, ladies.”

“Tell Sleuth if he gets evicted I just got a washing machine and he might fit in the box if he gets on all fours!” Vriska calls as you leave the diner. You hear the two girls snickering behind you.

They laugh, but you know the APD’s pay is shit. You do much better for yourself working as a private dick. The lack of benefits are a kick in the nuts, but at least you don’t have to deal with all the paperwork and politics, and every now and then you got a client who paid you a ridiculous sum for some dumbass thing. Sleuth could do as well as you. He’s certainly got the sleuthing skills for it. He just keeps wasting his time worrying too much about justice and too little about the real world.

You figure he’ll learn eventually. Kids like him always do.

[likeawildthing]

tell me s’more

9,100 words of light-hearted Summer Camp fun, a day late for the August @jilychallenge! A03 <> FFN

eleven.

James rolls the window up, down, and up again until his mom intervenes, flipping the window lock switch so the window is stuck halfway down. He ducks to avoid the wind and settles for bouncing his feet on the back of her chair. That lasts about thirty seconds before she pushes her seat back an inch. James notes the warning and stops.

She should understand his excitement, because he’s going out of his mind with anticipation—eight glorious weeks of summer camp. Hogwarts! The promise of adventure outweighs the weird name.

He’d normally reject anything his parents showed any enthusiasm for on principle, but his uncle (who James trusts implicitly) told him about an abandoned mine shaft, endless s’mores, and even gave James his vintage camo jacket for capture the flag.

Mostly, the prospect of an entire parentless summer with Sirius is going to be awesome (even if they’re in the Michigan UP with spotty cell reception).

 He unconsciously taps his mom’s chair again (apparently), because before he knows it she’s reclined her seat all the way back. He’s squished, pinned, but not painfully so. She’s cackling evilly. He knows from experience that she won’t relent until he promises to either keep his feet off her chair or switches to his dad’s side of the car.

In a blinding stroke of brilliance, he gives her a double Wet Willy instead. She shrieks and pulls her seat up immediately. He’ll pay for that before the day is out—she might raspberry him in front of Sirius, or cry.

Doesn’t matter, worth it.

The drive would be more bearable with Sirius, but his parents had insisted on flying. And James’s dad forbade him to ask “how long” before they’d even left Chicago. Now, the GPS marks their progress as they meander through boring Wisconsin. His mom tells him that when they get to Cokeworth, they’ll be close.

His dad unlocks the window controls, and his mom rolls her eyes, and James daydreams about using the pocket knife his dad had slipped him that morning to carve his name into his bunk while he rolls the window up, down, and up again.

 - - - - -

Lily swings back, forth, and back again on the rickety swing, picking shapes out of the clouds, tuning out Petunia. Petunia, who glares at the long processional of flashy cars and rants about elitism. It’s the same as every year, first Friday in June, start of summer camp. Pet’s only ranting because she’s jealous she’s not going to Hogwarts.

(God, Pet, who cares if rich kids are going to rich camp? She doesn’t even like being outside anymore, but it’s that she’s left out that bothers her.)

Never mind any of it—the day is glorious after months of snow, and Lily wants nothing more than to swing and feel sunshine on her face and not be in school.

Their mom teaches summer school, but this year Pet was declared “big enough to look after them both.” Lily loves Jessica P., the neighbor who normally comes over and watches them and takes them to the movies.

(Jessica P. approved endless ice cream and always sided with Lily.)

Dad said Pet’s only job was to make sure Lily did not get “seriously maimed or injured, whatever that means, not to boss her around every second of the day. He also said Lily was perfectly old enough to go off with her friends in the mornings, or to the gas station or park by herself. He also said not to tell mom that last part.

None of that has stopped Pet from bossing her around every second of their first day alone (nothing new), but Lily is old enough to ignore her (also nothing new).

So aside from chores and Pet’s bossiness, it’s going to be an amazing summer. Once the pool opens, Pet will be too busy swooning over Owen to pay her proper attention. And Lily got an iPod in January and Lizzie has promised to show her how to steal music. Pet will calm down (or get distracted, or both), and then Lily’s got weeks of new music and swimming and popsicles and adventures ahead of her.

How cool could a stuffy old place full of rich city kids be, anyway? If it’s the sort of place this new version of her sister wants to go, then Lily wants nothing to do with it.

Probably.

And okay, capture the flag would be awesome, but what’s it to her?

Lily puts her earbuds in and pumps for the sky—not even Pet’s incessant whining will ruin today.

James is a Gryffindor (obviously), which means he sits in the Lion sections of the mess hall, at lodge, and at campfire. He’s the youngest of his seven cabin mates, though it hardly matters because Sirius it there. James’s bunkmate, Remus, is cool even though his name is Remus. Everyone calls him Lupin to make up for it. James goes by Potter, which makes him feel older than he really is.

Camp is so much more than his uncle and parents had told him. James can already speak Pig Latin, eat seven marshmallows at once, and light a fire.

(Ok, so he just threw the match on the fire frank had built, but still. Awesome.)

He put up a solid enough defense during Round 1 of capture the flag that his captain moved him to offense for Round 2—youngest in living memory!

Frank, James’s counselor, is the coolest person James has ever met, despite the fact that (at seventeen) he’s practically an adult, and even though he does armpit checks to make sure they actually showered with soap every night. Frank calls Pete’s armpits weapons of mass destruction, which is hilarious and also true. Pete (who can’t be called by his terrible last name Pettigrew) pretends to shoot missiles, which is maybe trying too hard to be cool. But he can do armpit farts and burp the Canadian national anthem, which demands mad respect.

Hogwarts is, hands down, the best place James has ever been. School’s okay, but everyone here is relaxed and wants to have fun (the best parts of school, in James’s opinion). No one except McGonagall minds if he breaks the rules, or even bothers to enforce them.

He doesn’t even mind the singing.

James loves it all so much—completely unironically—that he’s too busy to be homesick. Almost. He writes to his mom every week and looks forward to his candy-smuggled care packages, whatever the camp rules say. But he’ll never tell anyone, not even Sirius (especially not Sirius), that his raggedy stuffed dog (Cat) is squished at the bottom of his sleeping bag. And though he doesn’t care cuddle Cat and give his secret away, James’s toes rub against the scraggly fur at night. (It’s almost good enough.)

And while he hasn’t found the mineshaft yet, he’s snuck out three times. Sure, Frank did bust him each and every time, but some things can’t be helped.

James will work out a workaround and do some proper exploring before the summer ends.

- - - - -

Although Lily doesn’t like like anyone, Carlie Ray Jepson almost makes her wishes she did. Almost—Owen broke Petunia’s heart into a “million tiny pieces” (even though they weren’t even dating!), and she’s been even more insufferable than usual.

If liking someone means carrying on like that, no thanks! God!

Summer had started out great with half a dozen sleepovers and swimming, but now her only friend within walking/riding distance, Lizzie, is grounded for piercing her little sister’s ears. So Lily’s bored out of her freaking mind. She could play Club Penguin indefinitely, but the Evans house only has one computer and, whatever mom says about sharing, Petunia’s been pulling rank to torture her Owen Sim in weird, creepy ways.

Lily spends most of her days at the park, or scrounging for enough change to grab a treat from the gas station, but one day while exploring she finds a rundown fort-ish structure in the woods. It was maybe once a fort and could definitely be one again. An amazing one.

(It probably belongs to an axe murderer or is cursed and Lily will die a violent death, but that’s a risk worth taking. It’s mysterious and interesting and suits Lily perfectly.)

And OK, she might be a little too old for a fort, and Pet would say she’s seen Bridge to Terabithia too many times, but who cares?

Being the little sister means almost everything she owns belongs to Petunia first, and what she owns outright still has to be shared. Lily feels the same way about this that she does her iPod.  Anyway, Petunia would ruin this in the same way she’s ruined everything lately: by being rude, or snobby, or distant.

Puberty has ruined her sister, and their friendship, and Lily vows that it (puberty, being a troll, etc. etc.) won’t happen to her. Her mom has urged her to be patient, and one day she’ll understand, but no thanks? Lily will stay eleven and a decent human being, thank you very much. God.

For now, she’s got another month left of summer and a fort to make awesome for when (if) Liz gets ungrounded.

- - - - -

Whatever James said earlier, it’s not like James wants to sneak out of camp. It’s that every adult in his life has conspired against him and he’s left with no other choice.

James doesn’t mind mice, but Frank did not appreciate one running across his face in the middle of the night. (Wimp!) The mouse infestation was blamed on James’s candy stash. And yes, there may have been a correlation, but to blame it entirely on the sweets was bad science without investigating other contributing factors. No one else saw it this way, however, and McGonagall wrote home to all Gryffindor 1 parents kindly asking that they stop sending sweets.

James’s mother stopped immediately, and his dad stopped when caught out by James’s mom. Even his uncle sent his regrets.

When hunger pains struck at 3 am last week, frank threw an apple at his bunk. Ridiculous.

And then James’s commissary privileges were restricted when his second secret stash was found.

All of these were annoying and insulting, but the final straw, the one that really did James in? The brainless decision to eliminate chocolate from campfire.

1.       Graham crackers and one pissant marshmallow does not a s’more make.

2.       2. Sacrilege.

So, again, with every adult in his life conspiring against him (even Frank, who at 17 barely counted as one), James really feels that he hasn’t been given any other choice.

The opportune time to sneak out is all swim, when the Gryffindor counselors are on break and the counselors in training and lifeguard are left to keep fifty kids from drowning. Even they have figured out that James and Sirius cannot be trusted alone together, but James bribes Pete to fake a stomach ache.

James then volunteers to take him to the nurse.

The plan works beautifully. They, the youngest Gryffindor boys, have pooled their resources with the idea of sending him and Pete to the gas station. They change clothes in the woods and hike out using the map his uncle had sent as a peace offering.

X marks the spot. The sweet spot. (Sirius had punched him when he told that joke, but Pete laughs when James tells it again.)

The laughter stops when Pete, anxious about what his mother will say should they get caught, heads back when they take two left turns even though the map only said one. Then it’s just James. He’d barely paid attention during orienteering, but the thought of another s’more-less campfire keeps him going.

He’s got the map, nearly $30 in loose change and small bills, and the rest of the summer at stake.

As his giant nerd dad would say, onward and upward.

- - - - - 

Lily’s painting her fort a pathetic sort of pink—red front door paint mixed with white trim paint, thanks to dad’s borderline hoarder tendencies—when a boy wanders by. As her fort set deep in the woods, this is unusual. And boy is a loose term, as he looks a little bit deranged and a lot bit disheveled.

Also, he greets her by asking whether she is a mirage.

Deranged or not, he’s the most interesting thing to happen to her in ages. Or at least a week (since Lizzie got herself grounded again.)

Once they both establish that neither is an axe murderer, and that he’s from Hogwarts, and he’s lost after wandering in the woods for hours, and she not only knows where he is but where he wants to go, he—James Potter—starts talking and does not stop.

He promises to pay her in candy if she guides him to the gas station, even more if she can guarantee safe, but discrete, passage back to camp. Lily would have done this free of charge, but she’s not stupid. She pretends like it is a big burden and negotiates a decent haul. He balks at her $5 price, but at the end of the day, she points out, he’ll have $25 more in sweets than he’ll have without her assistance.

It’s impossible to argue with that, although it’s clear he wants to, so they fist bump and she leads the way.

While he’s got no shortage of confidence (a bit too much after having got lost in the woods and thinking you were near death when the road was literally a quarter mile away), he’s far from the vomit-inducing scum Pet has always made his sort out to be. As he prattles on about Hogwarts, his enthusiasm is infectious, even if she only understands about half of his references.

At the gas station she carefully selects her sweets. An argument breaks out as to whether the $5 included tax, but as he did not specify this, Lily gets exactly $4.98 in candy with only a twinge of guilt. (That isn’t enough to make her put anything back.) She insists that he gets Peanut Butter Cups for s’mores. He cringes and argues, but buys them when she insists that she won’t lead him back to camp unless he gets them.

But when it comes time to pay, he comes up short. $30 short to be exact. Best as he can figure, he threw out the money, along with all of his supplies, when he panicked in the woods. GOD.

It was a stupid thing to do, and she tells him so, but he’s so despondent she doesn’t have the heart to be angry with him any longer. She pulls her own $5 from her pocket and tells him to pick a sweet to keep. Only because he’d been through so much and, if he’s right, he’s in for a world of hurt when he gets back to camp.

(His half hour excursion has turned into a two hour ordeal.)

On cue, Frank (who is, to Lily, to her older cousin’s ex), bursts into the gas station. It’s clear he’s been running—he’s all red and puffy in the face, and he can’t exactly speak because he’s trying to catch his breath. He holds up a single hand to James, who sets his candy slowly on the counter and puts his hands up (as if it were a bank robbery).

And it sort of is. Lily feels like that scene in the Lion King when Simba gets in trouble, except she’s Nala. Without another word, James follows Frank out the gas station, presumably back to camp.

Summer’s nearly over, and its’ been dull, and as Lily eats her PB cup, she wonders if Hogwarts might mean something to her after all. Not for Potter (a proper twit, all things considered), but all the things he’d talked about—the games, and the campfire, and the archery and kayaking and capture the flag—those sound divine.

And ok, summer camp (and Hogwarts in particular) sounds like a little bit of a cult, but for the first time Lily wonders what it’d be like to join.

twelve.

Cokeworth news, like that for most small towns, consists of the local school’s honor roll and the library’s updated summer hours. So when the local summer camp changed ownership and the new owner lowered tuition to encourage local campers, it was News.

It was certainly News in the Evans household. Lily had surprised even herself in begging to go. She hadn’t given Hogwarts a ton of thought over the school year, but Petunia had grown increasingly distant and the idea of spending another summer with her is unbearable. Besides, Lizzie is too good at getting into trouble to rely upon for consistent summer fun.

And despite her parents’ reservations—the length of time away, the tuition (even reduced)—Lily got her way in the end. Petunia was angry because her parents had vetoed her trip to Disney (which was, as her mom pointed out, only 5 days and twice as expensive as camp), but Petunia wouldn’t have any of it. She hissed horrible things to Lily when their parents weren’t paying attention.

But Lily was going to Hogwarts, and she was thrilled about it, and Petunia couldn’t ruin that for her.

Anyway, she would have been just as annoyed to have Lily hanging around all summer.

After a tense dropping off with her sister, Lily bade farewell to her parents and headed to Gryffindor 1. Her counselor Alice was cheerful and friendly, and Lily was thrilled to see schoolmate Mary MacDonald in her cabin. They weren’t close, as Mary was a year younger, but it would be nice to see a friendly face.

- - - - -

If it’s even possible, James is more excited to return to Hogwarts than he’d been to come in the first place. Although his parents may disagree, the ride up is triple fun because Sirius joins them.

He’s got Frank as counselor again. They’d made a truce last year when Frank had agreed to reinstate s’mores, proper s’mores, if James agreed not to sneak out anymore. At least he didn’t have to worry about that again. (Frank definitely had to worry about the sneaking out though.)

Besides, his dad stocked a respectful stock of snacks in a rodent proof container.

As camp begins, James enjoys a certain level of notoriety for his gas station stunt the previous summer. Whether good or bad, he doesn’t care—at least everyone knows his name. (As it should be.)

The three people he cares most about—Sirius, Peter, and Remus—are all together again. He’d kept up with them all throughout the school year, and the first night in the dorm is like coming home. Not that school friends aren’t great, but most school friends just don’t get camp. Even Sirius had told him to shut up about it when he went on about it too much.

Even if Sirius isn’t as hooked on camp as James, he’d follow James anywhere.

The others balance out his and Sirius’ collective stupidity, and they’re both funny in their own unique ways, and it’s just—they’re better together than apart. Most importantly, this year they’re the older Gryffindor 1 boys.

It’s going to be awesome.

- - - - -

Dumbledore, the camp’s new owner, is wildly eccentric, but to Lily that seems a prerequisite for the job.

Hogwarts is so much more like a cult than Lily had ever imagined, but it’s an amazing cult.

One she doesn’t quite belong to yet, but desperately wants to. As one of only a handful of local kids, Lily didn’t now the camp language, camp jokes, or layout. Apparently some prominent families had pulled their children in protest at the change, and others weren’t thrilled with the newcomers. Mostly though, everyone is nice, and Lily ignores those who aren’t.

Each camp day is like two weeks in real life, so she makes friends fast and her indoctrination doesn’t take very long. She and Mary do roll their eyes at one another when one of the other girls complain about rich kid problems, but that’s the worst of it.

Lily’s so busy sunup to sundown that she barely has time to consider life out of camp.

She loves arts and crafts and field games. She can find a path through the woods better than anyone else in her cabin, though she can’t paddle a boat to save her life. Even the cafeteria food, which the snobbier kids complain about, is a thousand times better than the garbage her school serves during the school year. In truth, there isn’t anything Lily doesn’t love, but her favorite is capture the flag.

Capture the flag is also James Potter’s favorite, and he insists Gryffindor lost last year because he was banned for the (infamous) gas station incident. Lily thinks he’s just a little full of himself.

To knock him down a peg, she scares the Gryffindor 1 boys one night by telling them about Dogman. Sightings date back almost a century and Lily adds in all the right details, like the glowing red eyes and her perfect impersonation of the howl. If they knew anything at all, they’d know Dogman is an LP monster, but they don’t and they fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

Rumor has it the boys slept with their lights on for days.

Lily feels bad, but not that bad.

- - - - -

Priority number one is to get a proper map of the place. By midsummer all known parts of camp are marked and the southeast quadrant is charted a little at a time. The map is Lupin’s brainchild, James just does the art.

He tries to pay attention in orienteering but he still can’t reliably tell east from west. His real takeaway is to always have Lupin with him if he’s in the woods.

After Dogman, James sleeps with his flashlight for two days until Frank takes his batteries.

James’s favorite part of the summer so far has been fleshing out his vocabulary, as he and his friends have properly discovered swear words and use them liberally when the little boys aren’t around. Frank calls him out of he uses too many “fucks” in a day, but otherwise lets them be.

He (weirdly) draws the line at their making up dirty lyrics to the camp song though, because sacrilege.

James’s real sore spot this year is capture the flag—he’s been put on defense again and has to prove himself before he’s allowed to switch back. And even though she saved his life last year, Lily Evans is bossy about defense strategies. 

(Even though she’s never played before this summer. And yes, her ideas are generally good, but it’s the principle of the thing.)

Tonight’s the last round of the summer, and he’s in charge of defense, and he’ll be damned if they don’t win.

- - - - -

It’s the last round of the year and Potter’s got a stick up his ass about being in charge again.

He’s actually a brilliant strategist (though she wouldn’t tell him that, his ego doesn’t need a boost from her). It’s that way he assumes he’s in charge that rubs wrong with Lily. And it’s not that they aren’t friendly—the girls mostly keep to themselves and Lily told Olivia the truth about last summer, who told everyone else, and James had been a bit embarrassed about all of it. Come to find out he’d told a different version of events to the camp. Lily hadn’t meant to embarrass or contradict him, but he hadn’t been overly thrilled about it.

They steered clear of each other in general, but not tonight. Because the Golden flag is on the line and they’ve got to kick some serious ass.

His strategy is, as usual, brilliant, and she’s too keyed up to make a fuss. As she’s the lightest person who isn’t terrified of heights (Liam W. got stuck during Round 3 and his wails gave their position away), Lily climbs into a pine and starts lookout.

 Everything’s going fine until she carelessly climbs too high in an effort to see more. Her branch cracks and she falls out of the tree. James, in the tree just to her left, hops down and comes to her aid. She’s done something to her ankle she can’t stand on it. Neither of them know what to do, but it hurts so much she starts crying.

Just then, the crack of a branch alerts them to someone else’s presence. She didn’t shriek, and she doesn’t cry out now, however much it hurts, but it feels like Round 3 all over again.

But then, something happens. She and James make eye contact, then nod in mutual understanding. The golden flag is more important than an injured ankle. She mouths “go” and he doesn’t wait for her to change her mind, sprinting off to the left so he can assess the danger and reinforce their defenses.

It is fractured, she finds out hours later, but they win.

- - - - -

Maybe Evans isn’t so bad after all.

 thirteen.

Third year, James finally understands why most camp activities are separated by gender—he and his mates discover girls. He doesn’t like any girl in particular, but it doesn’t matter. Frank gives a long, awkward speech on day one about dorm etiquette and allows as much shower time as necessary to keep the cabin “decent”.

Second week, James  earns a lifetime ban in archery when he accidently shoots Flitwick in the foot. It wasn’t his fault the girls were playing volleyball in the next field over.

- - - - -

Despite her best efforts, Lily grows boobs and hair in places she’d never dreamed. (It’s awful.) Her personality doesn’t turn to sour grapes like Petunia’s, whose distance only grew in the last year, but she doesn’t feel comfortable in her own skin and some days, she hates everything.

She grew about three inches over the school year, making her taller than the Gryffindor boys her age. It drives Potter nuts and she loves it. Her mom says her arms and legs need to catch up, but her paddling strokes (which had gotten better by the end of the year last year) are off, and her kick doesn’t connect with the soccer ball in the right way.

Even capture the flag feels like a lost cause.

Her friends are all going through the same thing, and the awkwardness Lily felt the summer before is gone. These are her friends, her people, and she’s been fully indoctrinated into cult camp. Now she’s the one reliving inside jokes and making up songs about the cute older counselors. Growing up is awful, but at least she’s not alone.

- - - - -

Frank teaches James how to play guitar, but the triumph of the summer is finding the old abandoned mineshaft. Sirius calls it underwhelming. For James it’s the principle. It’s been on his camp list for two years of searching, and he’s glad to have it crossed off.

While he’s still shit at orienteering, he has most of camp memorized so it hardly matters.

- - - - -

Stephanie Pearson brought an Ouija board and claims that, like her great aunt, she’s a clairvoyant. The girl has watched too much Ghost Hunters, but what else have they got to do? Scaring each other shitless is one of the best things about camp.

The planchette moves, honest to god, spells out the name of the ghost who definitely-doesn’t­-but-maybe-does haunt the old latrine. Mary swears it wasn’t her, and Lily knows it wasn’t her. And it’s all so ridiculous, but Stephanie has a fit, admits she was never a clairvoyant-anything, she made it all up, and throws the Ouija board out the window.

They sleep with the lights on for two days.

- - - - -

She can build a better campfire, but James Potter is taller than her by the end of summer.

fourteen.

It began simply, escalated quickly, and ended abruptly when James accidentally fell through the Gryffindor Girls’ 2 dorm skylight. (He doesn’t break any bones, though that might have garnered more sympathy from his mother when she received the bill to replace the window.)

And even though his punishment, sharing laundry duty with Evans, will last for the rest of the summer, James doesn’t regret a single decision he’d made.

- - - - -

Alright—Lily had started the prank war against the boys, but it had been a total accident.

She hadn’t meant to leave her cinnamon sugar toast by the boys’ clothesline. She will never, ever tell anyone this, except maybe Lizzie, but she’d seen the swim trunks, gotten distracted thinking of certain boys in them, and left her toast on the post from which the clothesline hung.

By the time word spread around that Lily Evans had sabotaged the boys clothesline with fire ants, causing several boys to get bit you-know-where, she’d earned an astonishing level of notoriety for the second summer in a row.

To admit it had been an accident wasn’t something Lily’s honor would permit.

Besides, the boys would never believe her, retaliation was coming whether she took credit for it or not.

They retaliated swiftly (and rather amateurishly) with cicadas in the girls’ sheets. The girls responded with water guns in the middle of the night, which led to a sprinkler in their cabin in the middle of the next.

The girls looked to Lily as their de facto leader, citing her strategic brilliance. Lily felt rather lost, but her lovely counselor Alice (also Frank’s girlfriend, in interesting developments since last summer!) helped her along.

Things turn when the girls steal the boys’ chocolate for campfire night. Although Lily knows she’s stoking the fire, tucking the spent wrappers into Potter’s pillow, she doesn’t care until she and her friends return from swim to find dismembered doll heads screwed to their bunks. In a bold and dangerous move, the girls, under Lily’s direction, steal the golden flag from the boys’ bunk even though it’s their week to have it. The girls send them go on an hours’ long scavenger hunt to earn it back (giggling as the boys enduring a series of humiliations including, but not limited to, a botched haircut and racing around the pool in ill-fitting heels).In the end, they discover that it had been under Potter’s bed the entire time.

Lily expects something big in response, and rightly so. She even hears the boys on the roof, but she damn well expects Potter and his mates to keep off the skylights.

Well.

Dumbledore, who permitted rather a lot, negotiates a ceasefire with all parties involved. And, while Lily will have to wash the boys’ dirty laundry every Sunday for the rest of the summer, she knows the prank war will the stuff of camp legend.

So, worth it.

- - - - -

James proudly sports a ridiculous reverse mohawk that he can only hope will grow in by start of school.

He doesn’t even think about resenting her for it—Evans beat him fair and square and he respects that. And though he scribbles them out every time, he finds himself using his newly re-acquired drawing pencils to doodle her initials in the corner of his chord sheets.

fifteen.

Lily gets a ukulele for Christmas and, by the time camp starts (and about a thousand YouTube covers later), she’s convinced herself she’ll be the next big camp star. Problem is, she can’t actually sing. That’s never stopped her before, and no one at camp can sing anyway. Star might be stretching it, but she has to intervene or Potter will start taking over campfire.

(Fake it till you make it, right?)

It’s not that he’s bad at singing. He wouldn’t be terrible at singing. She’s always had a deeply weird, intense rivalry with Potter. Ever since that first day in the woods, she can’t shake the feeling of trying to outwit him. And while the prank war had ended in her favor last summer, it had technically been a draw rather than an outright victory.

It’s that he’s good at everything and she sort of hates him for it. Or wants to. It’s hard to hate Potter, but he’s not god’s gift to the world. He’s not. His ego is bigger than Shaker Creek after a good rain and he doesn’t need to add “lead campfire” to the list of reasons to inflate it. (Even if he’d look good doing it. She can admit as much. She’d be an idiot not to.)

So it’s not that she wants to poison him with iocane powder, but it’d be nice to win outright for once.

She plays and sings—badly, but at least she’s having a blast. And that’s what camp is all about.

And at least she looks cute, thanks to Mary’s ability to fishtail braid, because she secretly hopes that hot, funny counselor-in-training Dan (Divine Dan) will notice her. Potter can hold his own with a guitar, but Dan is tall and likes the same movies as her and he’s in a band. She wishes he’d sweep her off her feet and canoe into the sunset. (Or at least take her to the canoe shed to make out.)

It’s not like everything she does is to get Dan to notice her. Mary corrects her every time she insists this, saying it’s only about 80%. Yes, she’s wearing make-up every day, even at camp. And yes, she pretended to know nothing about archery so he would teach her. But it’s 60% at best.

She’s at camp, after all, there’s still plenty of fun to be had. Having a summer crush is a nice, nice bonus.

(And having a cute braid, a new push up bra, and a ukulele can’t hurt in getting his attention.)

- - - - -

James sets his marshmallows on fire during four consecutive campfires, distracted by Evan’s strumming and her bigger tits and her hair shining in the firelight. He doesn’t ask her out, because he knows she has a thing for Dodgy Dan. (And he grits his teeth a lot because Dan is stringing her along, and he wants to intervene but it’s definitely not his place.

He doesn’t ask her out, but he sort of wants to. A little. (A lot.)

He’s such an idiot, but she let him paint starry night on her ukulele. Asked him to, actually. He likes her even though she went to show Dodgy Dan just after he’d finished. And he likes her even though she’s a bit of an idiot, insisting on eating her s’mores the wrong way.

But doesn’t that make him the idiot?

His friends say yes, especially Sirius. He can’t disagree, but he does minimize the whole thing. To distract himself, he insists they cause some good old-fashion, non­-prank war mischief.

They’re at camp, after all. What’s the point in wasting the summer pining over a (gorgeous, funny) girl?

Garbage bag slip-and-collide is born during after a burst of inspiration during free time one Tuesday. Like any game worth playing, the rules are overly-complicated and subject to change, and the chance for injury is exceedingly high. They last two hours—with a dozen others joining in, even Evans—before McGonagall discovers them.

She chews them out for half an hour, shouting about the liability and a gross misuse of camp property until her voice grows hoarse and James offer to get her a drink of water so she can keep going. Sensing impending doom, Dumbledore finally intervenes. They have to replace the broken laundry carts and apologize to the activities director for taking the helmets without permission (used and borrowed at Evans’s insistence), but that’s the worst of it.

The nurse patches up Davies’ cut, so no lasting injuries.

Still, the Marauders (a nickname they’d picked up from Frank last year for their night-time explorations) sneak into town to get some more garbage bags and pop up games happen throughout the rest of the summer.

- - - - -

Lily is paired as co-captain with James Potter for Round 5.

She’s not against it, or him. Any mind that can come up with the best game in years, slip-and-collide, can strategize a winning strategy for capture the flag. And she can (and does) criticize Potter for his ego, but she’ll never question his dedication to winning capture the flag. His mania in that is matched only by her own.

But camp is half over and she doesn’t want to subject herself to two weeks of bickering while they prepare. And the more time spent bickering, the less time she can hang out with Dan.

Still, in the name of recapturing the golden flag—currently in Ravenclaw possession, humiliating to say the last—they set aside most of their free time to strategize. They agree only that she’ll lead defense (he doesn’t have the patience for it) and he’ll lead offense (she doesn’t have the physique to brutalize the enemy) before they’re at loggerheads.

The year before, their counselors had insisted on using rock, paper, scissors as a mechanism for solving disagreements. Lily suggests trying it now, for civility’s sake. They use it strategically when presented with equally good ideas, but differing opinions as to which is preferred—mainly flag and player placement.

It’s true that they know each other well enough to predict what the other will do. (James prefers to change it up but she guesses his pattern, and Lily prefers scissors, always.) They try to fake each outer out—it never works. They sometimes have to go to ten rounds before someone wins.

Still, it’s better than bickering unnecessarily.

Sometimes Lily won’t budge from her position, but Potter listens and even changes his mind a few times. He turns out to be funny in a different way up close—cornier jokes, almost dad-ish in nature, a bit awkward and goofy because his arms and legs are too big for his body and he’s always bumping into things. And he’s less bro-ish without his friends around to egg him on.

It’s a different version of Potter, an easier one to manage. One she doesn’t mind at all, actually.

At the very least, it makes planning for capture the flag easier. They’re able to plan a solid strategy with minimal bickering and get everyone on board.

- - - - -

Lupin calls their bickering flirting, Pete calls it foreplay, and Sirius’s response is always muffled because he gets a pillow to the face.

Frank just rolls eyes. James can’t prove it, but he suspects Frank and Alice arranged the co-captains thing.

(He’s not complaining—it’s been brilliant. Why they hadn’t been using rock, paper, scissors for the last several years, he doesn’t know.)

(Because Evans is fun to poke fun at, and she can dish it back twice as much.)

- - - - -

The match isn’t without hiccups, but Gryffindor wins the round.

(Just barely. Owen P. tripped and nearly lost the Ravenclaw flag he’d just grabbed and James Potter, his relay, had to bust ass in the opposite direction to get it from him. And then, when he was outrunning three Ravenclaws, he fell eight feet down a hill, and wrist is sprained, but they win and she’s over the moon.

Lily hugs him to the exasperated nurse’s station to get a sling.

- - - - -

James is the hero of Gryffindor. It makes him (as Sirius says—ten shades of loser), but of the celebrations afterward, the one that matters most is the hug Evans gives him. And that she volunteers to accompany him to the nurse’s station to get bandaged up.

James is always on his toes with Evans, trying to get the upper hand. What that looks like, he has yet to figure out. He does know that, while he’ll only admit it to Cat, he’s a bit depressed when their co-captainship is over (even if the end result is a victory).

She just wants to be his friend. He sees that. He can do friends.

Friends is a hell of a lot better than nothing.

- - - - -

Lily’s joy over their victory is gives way to heartbreak because Dodgy Ducking Dan is in love with another CIT, Kaylee Peterson. Or at least Mary saw them heading toward the canoe shed (holding hands!) after dinner.

And even though she and Dan weren’t dating, he’d definitely flirted with her.

Mary tries to be sympathetic but, while the other girls spend the night vilifying Kaylee, Mary shrugs and says it’s not like summer camp romances are forever, and it would’ve ended at the end of next week anyway when camp ended.

Intellectually, Lily knows this—she’d spent the summer before (when she wasn’t pranking the Gryffindor 2 boys) pining over Jake P., a Ravenclaw. They’d kissed twice, and it had been nice, but it also hadn’t been a big deal. Their romance had ended with camp, no big deal. But this was different—she’d really liked him. And he’d said she was so good on ukulele, and had bought her a Reece’s before campfire.

(And if that isn’t leading a girl on, what is?)

It does occur to Lily that she’s acting a bit unhinged, pretty much exactly like her sister did not so many summers before. The only thing she does with this information is imagine torturing a Sim Dodgy Dan in horrible, creepy ways. She doesn’t have a computer at camp, so she settles for making a little voodoo figure of him in arts and crafts.

Lupin declares this wildly unhealthy and calls for an intervention.

An intervention at summer camp looks like this: bribe the CITs with soda to look the other way, take an off-trail night hike over the hills, bushwhacking past the frog pond and out to the old lake in the corner of the property. Canoe at midnight. Tip over in the lake, getting soaked, because you are stupid enough to get into a canoe with James Potter. Sing at the stars, even though Pete makes fun of your terrible voice. Laugh until you almost pee your pants. Brave the haunted outhouse because you will pee your pants if you don’t piss soon. Ignore that Mary and Sirius definitely left to make out (trust that they will find their way back). Bid Pete and Lupin a good night when they give up and head back to bed.

Take Potter to your long-abandoned pink fort. Find that it has been painted blue by parties unknown. (Or green, it’s hard to tell in this light.) Reminisce about the first time you met, about life outside camp, and art and movies and favorite vines and food and families and what a shit singer you really are. Talk until the coldest part of the night sets in and you realize the counselors will set out a search party for you soon.

Talk for another hour for good measure.

Finally yawn and stretch and stand up, because if you don’t leave soon you won’t be back before everyone wakes up. Wish the next fort occupant happy daydreaming and fortifying. Head back to camp, slowly and a little bit reluctantly, but a tiny big happier than you were at the beginning of the night. Full, at any rate, though of what you aren’t sure.

Still indulge in a good cry in bed, because sometimes boys can be complete assholes.

Amend that later, because sometimes (some) boys can be kind of amazing.

Although she and Potter have followed each other on social media (as camp friends do), they exchanged numbers and promise to keep in touch throughout the school year. It’s going to be interesting, being friends with Potter, but she’s not not looking forward to it.

sixteen.

CIT James obeys the rules, listens to his counselor faithfully, and never sets a bad example for his charges, the campers. This is the lecture he receives from McGonagall on day one, anyway. The serious façade lasts about as long as it takes for Frank to say both hello and holy-shit-I-thought-it-would-be-Lupin in the same breath. After that, it’s business as usual.

His parents had floated the idea of skipping camp this year, going on an extended family vacation somewhere, but James had scoffed. Where else would he rather be than camp? His friends take the piss about the CIT thing but they’re back at camp, too: Sirius as a lifeguard, Lupin as Gryffindor 1 CIT, and Pete as an archery assistant under Flitwick.

Even though they don’t have any real authority, they enjoy late curfew, unstructured free time, and access to the staff areas. (Not that restrictions have stopped them from doing exactly as they pleased before. It’s just nice that they may get have less tellings off from McGonagall this summer).

The only tradeoff is no capture the flag—campers only. James still plans to coach his boys to victory though.

James takes over for swim, lunch, and from lights out ‘til midnight. He also helps with wake up, breakfast, and morning activities. The rest is free time.

It’s going to be a fantastic summer, because Evans is a lifeguard.

He’d known it intellectually, but actually seeing her on the lifeguard stand for two hours every day is a different story. He neglects his charges more than once because Lily Evans is in a swimsuit all day, every day. He does his best to avoid staring.

(Although, to be fair, he is always staring at her, swimsuit or not.)

To avoid being a complete creep, he mostly sits by Sirius’s lifeguard stand, pining.

They’ve transitioned from competitors to friends (competitive friends) this year, having kept in touch throughout the school year. His summer crush did not end at the end of the summer. It’s grown into something more, he doesn’t know what, but his throat goes dry and his hands sweat and he feels like he’s perpetually making an ass out of himself. He’s not used to being out of his depth, but that’s exactly how he feels with Evans.

- - - - -

Coming back to Hogwarts wasn’t even a question Lily had asked, but she second guesses herself by the end of week one.

Camp isn’t the same without Mary, who took a job at Meijer in April. And being on the caregiving end of things has changed her perspective. Her CIT friends are still in that in-between stage of not-quite-campers, not-quite-staff, but she is firmly in the staff side of things. Her her car insurance isn’t going to pay for itself, so she’d joined as a lifeguard rather than a CIT.

It’s okay, but all the boys are staring at her, and some don’t even try to hide it. She gets it—pretty girl in a swimsuit—but it’s exhausting. She often retreats to the staff cabin to avoid the male gaze.

James Potter keeps staring at her, too, more than his usual even though he’s putting in a good faith effort not to. Thing is, she likes it when he stares (though she’s putting in a good faith effort not to).

They’d never been exactly unfriendly, but a year of late night Skypes (and a Chicago meetup over the New Year) solidified their friendship. The flutter in her stomach when she catches him staring, the way she laughs at all of his jokes (even the unfunny ones) indicate a big flashing more than friends neon light, but Lily remains cautious.

They’re friends, good friends, and she doesn’t want to upset that.

Anyway, she’d ruined most of her summer pining over a boy and she’s determined not to let that happen again.

Still, she can admit that when James joins her most mornings for second breakfast after he’s done with morning crew and before she readies the pool for the day, it’s the highlight of her day. She and James are the official campfire starters now, because James is in fact the best but McGonagall won’t leave him unsupervised with any kind of fire starting paraphernalia. And when Frank officially passes on sing-a-long leader baton to him, she’s genuinely happy for him and tells him so.

It’s going to be an interesting summer.

- - - -

During week three Sirius threatens to drown him if he keeps whining about Evans without doing something about it.

He’ll drown himself if he can’t sort it out. He said he wouldn’t waste another summer pining after her, but this is less pining and more active, mutual flirtation. (If he’s not imagining things, according to Lupin and Pete.)

Most interesting, she’s flirting back. Others have noticed and pointed it out. He didn’t dare believe them at first, but the evidence is stacking up in his favor. She turned down not one, but three date requests (that he knows of). She brought him cereal the other day when he didn’t make their standing breakfast date.

The Gryffindor 2 campers take bets on when James will make his move.

Sirius’s idea isn’t a bad idea, all considered. He hasn’t got any better ideas. It’s not a very good idea, but Sandlot is one of her favorite movies and he can always play it off as a joke. She’ll get a kick out of the reference, and maybe it’ll break some of this tension between him.

So the next day while Sirius is on break James pretends to drown. Although he’d watched the scene over and over the night before he goes off script, begging Evans to him before he sinks to the bottom of the deep end.

Never one to back down from a shenanigan, she rises to the occasion, making a big show of pretending to rescue him. She drags him out of the pool, calls his name. He doesn’t stir, just pretends to be on unconscious. He can’t see her, but he hears her intake of breath when she figures out what he’s doing.

(The scene, of course, is that Squints kisses the girl while she starts giving him CPR. It’s “highly problematic,” as Lily says, but they both find it hilarious.)

He can’t see her, but he knows she’s deciding what to do.

James’s heart skips a beat when she says “stand back” and starts administering CPR. It hurts, she’s not exactly going easy on him—and the anticipation builds in James. He’s about to make his move, whatever that move will be, when—

—someone licks his face?

- - - - -

Lily descends into a fit of giggles as the mangy camp dog, Cleo, covers James’s face in slobbery kisses.

He sputters, jumps up, and gives them both a betrayed look. All of the kids had jumped out of the pool when she’d rescued James, even though, by the time she started doing CPR, most of them knew it was a joke. His eyes were closed, but the smirk on his face gave the fact that he was definitely not unconscious away. She tells him it serves him right (and it does), but she’s laughing and she knows she’s flirting.

Everyone else does too—Lily realizes her fatal mistake in delighted expressions of the campers’ faces; this will be all across the cap by dinner. She shouldn’t have reacted to him like this in a pool full of kids, or at all.

Like most things with James Potter these days, she just can’t seem to help herself.

- - - - -

Sirius offers to pay Lily to be a counselor next year if it means she’ll wear more clothes. She’s going to go after the counselor position anyway, but she makes a mental note to negotiate a hefty bonus from Black, later.

As staff, both James and Lily are subject to the Wheel of Doom—a decade’s old torture device in which anyone who receives mail must take a spin and suffer whatever minor humiliation the wheel dictates in order to receive it.

Because it’s a camp tradition going back decades, staff receive a lot of mail from campers, their campers. Sometimes alumni send a letter to “Gryffindor 2 counselor” not even knowing who the recipient will be. But the real drama is the letters staff send to each other—deodorant coupons, toenail clippings, crusty old socks.

Sirius sends James something so awful he never pulls it out of the envelope and burns it at campfire that night.

Lily is careful to mess with everyone except James for the first half of the summer. After his stunt at the pool, campers are openly teasing her now, sometimes alone but definitely when they’re together. She decides to take matters into her own hands. They’re in this awkward neither wants to ruin their friendship holding pattern and something’s got to give.

Because they are friends, but there’s more. She lives for second breakfast and late 3 a.m. woodland chat sessions. She adores his stupid made-up constellations and insistence for hiking when he can’t use a compass to save his life and his sideways grin and endless thirst for adventure. He’s brilliant and funny and the darling of the camp, a fixture.

She’s not wasting her summer pining after a boy; he’s one of the reasons she loves camp in the first place.

So, after a summer of no letters, she sends James Potter a picture of the Sandlot cast with the words “game on” scrawled on the back. The spinner wheel renders judgment; he puts on his sweatbands and leads the camp in a quick aerobic session.

(No reason she can’t have fun in the process.)

Next day, he receives two guitar pics (each in their own envelope) and takes a pie to the face.

On day three she sends three letters—a ransom letter (letters cut out and everything) for Cat, a legitimate hard copy photo book of Cat going around camp, usually with Lily’s purple nails present somewhere in the frame, and his own map of the camp (with a post-it on top spelling out “1am, tonight” next to the canoe shed.

- - - - -

He’s half-impressed at her gall, half-embarrassed that the entire camp now knows he sleeps with a stuffed animal. And while he knows no harm will come to his childhood best friend, he didn’t know anyone knew about him in the first place.

He shouldn’t be surprised, not when it comes to Evans, not anymore.

And it’s pathetic, but his main takeaway—as he’s in a tiara dancing to Dancing Queen in front of the entire camp—is that Lily Evans must like him an awful lot if she’s willing to invest that much time and energy into a prank.

He doesn’t notice until after dinner that the last back of the post-it is signed with “X O –your favorite lifeguard.”

[tongue-tied-ties]

I finally got through all 200,000 words of that freaking epilogue and GOD HAVE MERCY I SHOULD HAVE WENT CANDY AND THEN MEAT.

Overall though, I like it. I like it alot! I mean there are some things I feel weird about which like.......aren’t the things everyone else feels weird about apparently.

SPOILERS BELOWWWWW~!!!!

So it’s alot easier to get out of the way what I am weirded out about than to explain the many things I did like. 

- I feel weird about the xenophobia thing and how it’s being treated. Like it’s being treated like a huge issue but like non-issue all at once?? I guess that’s because from John’s perspective he’s just too busy being weirded out or suffering to truly get involved. Like I sincerely hope nobody on the team thinks standing by in a situation like this is a valid stance in any way. But it also happens in real life so like, I get it. I think this bothers me because these kids were heroes. But also they were heroes out of necessity and because they were main characters. Like that’s honestly it. They had a mission and fulfilled it and they were hailed as heroes.

- Hussie presenting xenophobia as both a joke and a serious issue and sometimes it’s hard to tell what position the comic is trying to take which makes me uncomfortable. 

- I think it’s in character, but I hate that Karkat alone had to defend himself every time Jane was being the #worstTM. I hate that Roxy just standing by knowing good and well these are the stakes every single time was never fully addressed. I wish somebody sat our beautiful bae Roxy to let them know that like this is shitty too?? Like you saying this is simply politics when a literal extinction is happening is shitty why didn’t anyone tell them that in stone cold, super serious terms for the love of GOD it bothered me so much. 

- Alright anytime Dirk used any sort of like reddit NiceGuy Are you triggeredTM 4-chan bullshit language it turned me all the way off. Like incel, beta, cuck?? Misgendering our void icon?? Yea. Cancelled but also not cancelled because I haven’t been this shook or excited over a villain in so long.

- Gamzee. Just...yikes all around. I’m not sure how I feel.

- JAKE DESERVED BETTER. HE REALLY FREAKING DID JUST SAYING. JAKE DIDNT DESERVE THIS MADNESS. Omfg i never hated anyone as much as I did Dirk when he snapped Jake’s psyche in half forcing him to love Dirk. It was so fucking iconic though and I’m still mad y’all. So many feelings. Oh god and when Jane like........did him wrong?? What le fuck? Jake i’ll be your friend, come here mate. Please let me hug my boi who I didn’t stan before but i stan now.

- Those kids.....I love those kids give them a good future, please. I’m begging hussie let John be a good father.

- I think the kids grew because they were with each other, and they fact they didn’t stay together and let each other be isolated kinda makes this make sense to me but it does feel like with some characters the growth went out the window. But also....people can regress especially if they stop after like one epiphany or whatever, so I see how this happened.

- Dave redirecting what should have been the core political issue (freaking extinction/controlled population of exclusively the trolls) to the economy every single time. Like Dave baby you were never the most racially sensitive dude (coming from a black girl who watched you say negrocity, call black people not shining shoes revolutionary (which could be read as irony in context but still) in the same rap, which, YIKES!) but like try please?? Hussie freaking fix this.

- I oddly feel weird about them getting rid of their flesh bodies for their ultimate forms and I’m not sure why but I honestly don’t want all bots. I can’t even explain that in a way that makes sense.

- Jade. Like....everything she did was a big yikes and honestly I’m reading the main story again to see if there was a character trait that led to her behavior. Cuz Dirk literally always had an overbearing personality and it was never truly addressed leading to what happened. Jane never really stopped with the whole business and control thing and she never really seemed to care for the trolls one way or another so I can kinda see it.

- Honestly?? I’m happy for the form of happiness that some characters had but MAN was it just the slowest most excruciating march towards that end. In candy, it felt like I was literally feeling John’s twilight-zone stir-crazy rise up in me as I read through. I think a “benefit” from reading Meat first is that like.....damn I ended up agreeing with Dirk. Like all of this shit was largely avoided and addressed sooner when Dirk was in charge and I hate/love that I’m saying this! Like what the hell y’all that's so brilliant to me. In Meat, I just.....wanted them to be free to make their own choices and when I was nearing the end in Candy, I realized they weren’t so damn isolated and I was happy that some of them finally got to heal.

To segue into I liked it starts on the same point my dislikes end.

 - I felt so frustrated by everything that was happening which.....dear God is great writing because if I was John feeling this for years instead of the solid day it took me to get through Candy I’d be handling it way worse than John. I almost wished that Dirk would come in and take charge because they were just.....fucking up on every level. With Meat, I wanted what was in Candy and I wanted them to have their fucking free will to choose instead of these awful circumstances Dirk forced them to be in.

- DAVE. DAVE. DAVE. Fuck I love dave just so much, he felt the most home to me the entire time. When he fought back in Meat to make his own choices I was so proud of him. When he decided to join the revolution I was proud of him, when he finally admitted he was gay I was proud of him. When he just existed and seriously thought about what he wanted and needed to work through he felt like he authentically was trying to figure himself out the entire time in both Meat and Candy and I was so proud of him. Honestly will always have my heart.

- NUBS MCSHOUTY. From awkward bottom to rebel leader he is just a breath of fresh air every time he speaks because it is always a freaking mood. LIke yes, the extinction of your people is awful and you should say it. Yes, people who stand by and just sidetrack the conversation into semantics is awful and you should freaking say it. Yes! Yes! Yes! omfg. YOU ABSOLUTE FREAKING ICON

- Dirk. I.....ugh I know this is controversial but I love everything that happened. Our Dear walking God complex becomes literal God and it all goes to hell. Our friend the control freak, controlling the narrative when he reaches his ultimate form. Ou dear Dirk who always needs something to fix horribly fixes the narrative. When he revealed himself and said “but you already know that don’t you” in his iconic yellow text color me FREAKIN SHOOK. Like literary reveal of the gods (specifically this god ha). Nothing will shake me the same holy shit I was horrified and the horror never stopped. Omfg shook Dirk just freaking shook. So since I read meat first I was like “holy cow was he always like this?” But like, the one dirk that was decent freaking killed himself with his last wish being for relevance and like.....of course he’s like this?? It’s Hal, Caliborn, ARDirk, Brain Ghost Dirk and Dirk One who honestly was only half decent most of the time. All of these pretentious beings in one? Oh yea edge lord self masturbatory train dead ahead. AND I LOVED IT, the absolute fear and horror as he took the narrative back from Calliope was horrifying, his increasing disdain after the reveal, the moment he forced Jake to fuck everything up for the resistance was ICONIC oh my god I was so here. I was loving it so much I was scared I was being controlled by Dirk.

- Jake was always passive and like.....it manifested so bad. I mean I thought he stepped up when he finally, defeated the felt crew but like....of course, one battle isn’t going to solve a lifetime of posing and passivity. I don’t know why I never considered the horrible implications. I do wish he grew a full spine in one of the epilogues.

- Regardless of how I perceived her in canon, Epilogue!Jane was never painted as a hero ever. THANK GOD cuz Epilogue Jane is doing some really bad stuff.

- Roxy - our voidey babe exploring their gender identity and deciding in both that they don’t care for their assignment in some way, valid. Having all stages of their identity and the stages respected (in what I viewed as a great and fully addressed way as a cis black girl) is surprisingly refreshing when I look at Roxy alone and not the transphobic stuff Dirk was doing which was icky and Caliborn-ish.

- Rose and Kanaya being happy in Candy. Like it seemed so OOC but Rose also was literally dealing with something that ENTIRE TIME. When she was little it was the alcoholism of her mother, when she was in paradox space it was from horror demons to literal death, to life-threatening situations to being the seer she needed, to her own substance problem etc etc. Being non-essential freed her from that and we got to witness her still be the badass, freedom fighter she became. And I just love the thing she chose without needing to, without absolute necessity, was to raise their daughter AND fully immerse themselves in troll revolution against an oppressive regime. Fuck yes Rose, you deserve some fucking peace without debilitation or circumstance. Rose in Meat shall never be spoken of because that is so so so sad honestly. She was dying and like...Dirk took advantage of that which is tactically freaking genius considering Rose is usually who can pull these dorks together into action but damn Dirk.

- Fuck you know what I’m gonna say it. Dirk is the best villain holy shit he is honestly, truly smart and manipulative and somehow charming in this sick sick way God I hate/love him right now. I’m.....omfg still shook.

- I honestly just loved how intertwined it is, how twilight-zone/gritty it felt. Every literary craving I didn’t know I was having was fed and in the best/worst way. I’m hooked and here for wherever this is going. Also, I typed it above and I’ll type it again. I didn’t realize it but these kids, while they ascended as Gods were not heroes. I don’t think the kids really cared about their denizens much ever in canon. They fulfilled their mission and we handed them the hero stamp because we’ve followed their story. They are simply people who had a mission to fulfill and did that mission in whatever capacity you choose. They are ultimately really flawed human beings who were traumatized to hell and back with no real devices on how to deal with it properly. Of course, when you give flawed humans God powers, a world to rule over and nobody really holding anyone accountable bad things are bound to happen. They grew because they were in a situation where they had to and they were removed too soon for them to keep that growth. Fanfic or not, canon or not, essential or not, I think these are valid outcomes, within the context of who they are.

[xtisumi]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Hope you enjoy the long journey that is reading ur bday msg mwhahahaha @aoutd 

*Sorry for this super long post, but this is for you so I know you’re going to appreciate it! Anyways I’m splitting this msg into three parts just because there’s a lot that I have to say and I want to organize it a bit so you could understand it easier! With that being said...

- Part One - 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY dude I’m going to say this a lot throughout the post so sorry if it loses value but IDC I FUCKING LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH. You’re one of the best gifts life could have ever given me. You’re one of the greatest human beings, dude to me you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met and I’m just so fucking grateful that in less than a year we managed to become best friends. You’ve been so amazing to me and sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve you :( However I’ve enjoyed every single second that we’ve hung out. Whether it was watching Haikyuu!! or trolling you in ToS, teaching you how to play golf and later minecraft. Our random playful fights on discord or sitting in a call with you till 5 am just talking. Our first time rocket riding or when you first showed me BTS. I’ve enjoyed every single second being in your comforting presence. I fucking mean it when I say you make me the happiest person alive!!! Hopefully you enjoyed having me in your life :3 DUDE everything about you MAN HOLY FUCKING SHIT just I love everything about you like you truly are one of the most stunning, amazing, dorkiest, prettiest, smartest, strongest people that I know. You deserve the fucking universe and I just like fuck I just wanna wrap my arms around you and bury my head in your shoulders and just cry to you about how much I love you. I wanna feel the warmth of your body and be comforted by your energy and just be there hugging you and not wanting to let go :( I’m so happy we were able to meet and I hope you have the greatest birthday you’ve ever had!!! One day I’ll be there in person for your birthday. 

- Part Two - 

So I want to change the tone up a bit and kind of reflect on some things. If some parts are more serious than gay, I’m sorry but I wanna address some things. First thing I want to mention is that so far we’ve had an amazing friendship, everything about it seems perfect but we’re both mature enough to know even our friendship has flaws. If we want this to last then we both need to be mature about future complications. So far we never really fought or got genuinely mad at each other and I really hope it stays that way but like I said we’re both mature enough to understand that there will be times where we fight or argue and may cause problems. I’m bringing this up because the easy part was getting to that bff level while now the hard part is ensuring we last forever. I have faith that if fights occur we both will act like adults and own up to our actions and we get through any altercations that can cause turmoil between us. Dude ily and this friendship too much to see it end over pity shit so here’s to us working any trouble out together as adults <3 Now I wanna just talk about what you and your presence have meant to me. Kelly you’re by far one of the best things to ever happen to me. In every aspect you’re just too amazing and stunning and it’s just sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve you in my life. You’re one of the best humans on this planet and you’re fr a God. I love everything that you and your friendship has bestowed onto my life. You have no idea how grateful I am to have met you and how lucky I am to be living at the same time as you. Dude I’m serious you have made me cry in private because of just all the feelings I have for you. I love you so fucking much that it pains my heart and at times at night I cry because you simply exist. Not to get emo but I fear not death itself but what follows death... The earth is 4.5 billion years old and I only lived 20 years of that and I don’t remember the moment when I took my first breath. So when I die will I even remember my life? Will everything be blank and my existence transcend beyond this realm and into an empty void? This scares me because when I die I might forget you and my own life. I only have one life to live and I just so happened to have fallen in love with you. Now I know you just want to be friends and I respect that but the reason I’m saying all of this is because even as friends please let us make lifetime memories that I can cherish even in my final moments. I don’t want to ever forget you but if death causes us to forget each other and the life we lived then please let me have more memories with you. For about one year worth of being friends, we made some amazing personal memories and I really want to continue making new ones. You became a big aspect of my life now so I don’t want to feel like there’s things that we weren’t able to do. Another thing is we really got to meet up soon. Before 2018 I asked if you saw us meeting irl and you said probably. I never brought it up the subject that we should meet especially throughout the summer since tbh I’m not ready to meet you and also the vibes you give off rn makes it seem that you would see it more of a drag. Hopefully in 2019 we do meet up and you feel so excited to the point you’re running through people just to get to me :3 Seriously I want you to show me Chicago because I hardly explored it myself. Also I promised your little angel of a sister that when I meet you I was going to give you the painting I made for her ^~^ speaking of your siblings (you should feel more happier than I should) but I’m glad CoolGuy and your sister actually love me. It fr warms my heart knowing that they like me and even though I don’t know your other brother, I hope he sees me in the same way that your other siblings do :D I wanna meet your little sister one day and give her the warmest hug ever dude she fr an angel and I love her so much and even though she already knows... I want to tell her in person how much I love her older sibling Kel

- Part 3 -  

Okay sorry switching the tone a bit or whatever. Part One being that standard gay msg you’re familiar with and Part Two being some weird shit idek. So for this final part, I wanna just make this something that can bring the biggest smile on your face!!! What better way to approach it by stating that I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH IT ACTUALLY HURTS MY HEART ON GOD. I love that you’re a dork, I love your stupid giggle when we talk, I love making you smile, that damn fucking smile is something I will see with my own two eyes, I love your cheesy jokes/remarks, I love your personality, I love the fact we’re so similar and how we can relate to each other. You’re seriously the best fucking friend I could ever ask for and I’ll always cherish this bond that I was able to make with you dude. I’m never going to find someone else like you. Okay time for some cheesy lines to make you do that damn adorable giggle 

- If you were a flower, you’d be a sunflower (my fav flower and it shows that you’re my sun ^~^)

- If you were a book, I’d never put u down jk I’ll slam u on my desk and read u all night long LMFAO jkjk

- If you were a restaurant, you’re ass would fr be a 5 star one cause GODDAMN you’re a whole ass meal. Like the gods fr ain’t have to go all out on creating u :p the fact ur single is fr the 8th wonder of the world

- If I was able to listen to your voice at night, I’d finally be able to sleep with your monotone ass voice LMFAO jkjk I love hearing that warming and comforting voice. Not to be thirsty on main but like I’d fr would love to be in your arms and have you talk with that lovely voice and help me sleep :( 

Dude I’m fr so blessed to have met you and I’m just the happiest when I’m with you. Being fr posts like these could never fully grasp how much I actually love you and I just wish for the best for you! I fucking can’t wait to see how successful you’re going to become. You work so damn hard and I’m so fucking proud of everything you’ve achieved so far dude I know this is a weird request but please let me, if possible, be invited to your college graduation :( Like I want you to come to mines as well dude but yeah I want to be there in person and just see your little ass walk on that stage and get the diploma and degree that you’ve spent hours busting ur ass off for. I would fr cry dude being serious like that’s my little Kells, everyone look at them look at how amazing they are :’) Hopefully you love this message and also I hope you do have an amazing birthday <333333 One day I will fill that void in your life and tell you in person how much I love you

Believe it ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️     

*U call me Naruto from time to time so here’s a perfect gif of how I would actually be irl smiling at ur beautiful ass <3

[bloojayoolie]

Adam Sandler, Alive, and Animals: Johnny Boy 'limbo', Marston Arthur More Organ Holland Hoseas Before Broseas swagalicious crunchy outside, self-deprecating chewy center - "how many licks does it take the squad's favorite disaster scrappy damsel squares up at a moment's notice can never seem to get their shit together to get to the center of my depression" goth jock dropout just wants to settle down - - dumbest smart person alive - denies being moe - "wanna know how I got these scars- wait where are you going" - makes 50+ post twitter threads nobody reads just needs a break - "Actually, correlation is not causation" - thinks they're charming, is actually charming - constantly forgets their age - "back in my day - only one who knows what the fuck they're talking about incredible artist, thinks their stuff is 'okay' still needs to shut the fuck up - one shot, one kill - "once I go viral it's over for you hoes" - has a 'Home Is Where The Heart Is' welcome mat-liked by practically everybody - productive procrastinator can never hold down a relationship - Instant Uncle, Just Add Baby suffers from chronic pushover syndrome "no questions, dammit, no questions" - jokes hit too close to home - Good bad influence - weed friend Make It Work Guy Fieri Will Billiamson Bad Santa -always knows what to play at a party - adopts everyone on sight - great with kids, great with animals, wants to hold your baby - scientific evidence good girls want bad boys - tsundere - burns salads - "have you eaten today" - owns etsy account, too busy to make anything - punches self for fun - professional alcoholic - always needs to borrow money - terrible drunk, never remembers what happened that night walks around the house in their underwear gives great hugs needs seven showers group's unexpected therapist patronus is secondhand embarrassment just wants to be part of the family "MCDONALD'S! MCDONALD'S! MCDONALD'S!"* is the party cultured, well-traveled and stylish; made for Instagram - *gestures to all of you* "we need to do something about this" - always starts drama, yet always seems to avoid it bad taste in literally everything, banned from recommending outings - will always have squad's back iron constitution, never gets sick - "say that to my fucking face" - may seem Mad, is actually Sad petty *pulls up in drive-thru, orders single starts the day with horoscope readings - Chaotic Loyal black coffee, leaves t" FUCKS.EXE STOPPED WORKING 'mSorry Ms. Jackson tOh) Bastard Millennial Green Hat McGuy "join team chat" - fashionable at all times, even when going to the grocery store can't do crime if you ain't cute -only dates fictional men won't leave the house for days need lives on cow tales and TVTropes says they can hold their liquor regularly tells squad to hydrate can't actually hold their liquor too nice for own good living boke and tsukkomi routine to shut up yesterday social interaction, naps for ten years it's basic hygiene and laying beneath the stars -"please stop talking" exhausted after two minutes of maybe they're born with it, maybe soft spot for animals, slow dancing cooler than you . living proof the scariest people frat brotryhard nerd gem fusion come in the nicest packages graceful loser, even more graceful winner - "what day is it again" nobody sees clapbacks coming until it's never learned how to drive every day is roast session day - "I'll roast you, I'll roast them, I'll roast me fuckin' self" - Has never completed No Nut November sings in the shower - adores Linkin Park late - "are you ready yet" "almost" - allergic to idiots Adam Sandler Regina O'George Let Me Speak To Your Manager - retired mom friend, back from retirement ages every time someone references a vine instead of responding normally - smokes sixty packs a day Goof Troop social norms are for dweebs just wants to play videogames - No Drama? No ProblemTM -"Local Mean Girl Refuses To Be Toppled From Throne" - loses shit over small things -THIS close to cutting someone and snack in peace shoves people in lockers to show affection forgets not to swear in front of other never forgets a birthday shaped like a friend only one in squad who can cook only one in squad who can drive people's children the queen of throwing down "fuck, sorry about that" given up on romance savwy businessowner resident gossip big problems are Whatever - needs therapy - Favorite Songs Are 'Find Me Somebody- smells amazing To Love' And 'Before He Cheats' common sense frequently left on read - hasn't seen most popular movies - a matryoshka of pain - wishes you didn't look like a dump truck knows Wicked by heart - only one in squad who does taxes Songs Are unforgiveable weeb - villain origin story is that stubborn chin hair that keeps growing back - always says 'gg' after every game incredible skin care regimen - "just drink more water" award winning sailor mouth - Big Hair, Don't Care "What's My Age Again" by Blink 182 World's Saddest Violin Bullshit Magician Expletive Noises Looks like a million dollars, is probably worth a million dollars - family person, loves everybody keeps Twitter on private - meows back at their cat - extroverted introvert -feels guilty for not logging into Animal Crossing for nine months thinks existence is kind of funny invented the word 'dapper - the living embodiment of when you try your best but you don't succeed' - just wants to be loved and cherished -great with animals, never scratched the life of the party, when they're not launching into drunken diatribes -smartest smart person alive -stays up until three in the morning thinking about the meaning of life - an essential addition to any squad - reads at 10,000 miles per hour wants to stab Banksy hates stan culture hoards comfort food beneath their desk gets sentimental over their Neopets used to hoard Beanie Babies - hates answering the phone - silently lurks in Twitch chatrooms - needs more friends - stylish drunk with two hollow legs - never fails to speak their mind great at impressions -not-so-secretly depressed - regularly confuses main for private "just forget I said that haha" preserves their right hook for justice - stared into the void, got bored quotes movies when provoked - "That's just, like, your opinion, man." the most perfect teeth Baby Boy...Baby Talk Shit, Get Hit Mr. Krabs A Dog - soft outside, softer inside - never ashamed to cry - weak spot for pups, needs to pet every dog they see -only one of the squad that's been punched squad's resident cheapskate needs to seriously reconsider things trolling game out of control A dog - never seems to accumulate debt, also never tips the waiter took college prep in high school - can't fight to save their life - surprisingly terrifying comebacks - multilingual gg ez clap" oves Bon Iver, Death Grips and Beyonce equally - Kappa Kappa KappaRoss CoolStoryBob workplace's local kissass likes to give gifts to sad friends living embodiment of a flower crown talks during movies home life is a mess - needs a vacation, too self-conscious - doesn't flush toilets in public bathrooms to take one - adopted by everybody - "Oh, I won't report you...yet" believes they were born in the wrong era - has never yelled once - in love with the smell of old books - wishes on stars when no one's looking leaves breadcrumbs in butter a well-rounded tool - nobody knows why they keep getting invited"Poverty is a state of mind." champagnesuperhoeva: red dead redemption 2 tag yourself masterpost now all in one spot for your convenient bullshit needs tag your chronic pain, tag your panic attacks, tag your existential crisis  I am all of these yet none of them at the same time

[satelliteofmstielove]

K17 Time of the Apes

                                                    Monkey wrenching

General notes

          Ah, more Sandy Frank. That name just warms my heart. Oh wait, that’s the rage at having to watch another one of these things. Okay, so maybe it’s not quite that bad, but man, it’s not good. This is the last Sandy Frank episode for KTMA, giving us two seasons of freedom from the hot dog dropped on the beach, until Season 3 when we get to watch almost all of these movies again, but with better riffing.

          Like Cosmic Princess [K10], Fugitive Alien [K12], and Mighty Jack [K14], Time of the Apes is actually assembled from pieces of a TV show. The original show was called Saru no Gundan (“Army of Apes”) and aired in the early ‘70s. Apparently, it’s not too bad, if Planet of the Apes adaptations (one might say “rip-off” instead, but hey) are your thing. I can see how, without bad dubbing and half the story cut out, it could be a fun watch. In this form, however, it’s…well, it’s on MST3K.

          This episode is unique- Joel’s not in it! I don’t know the detailed backstory, but I guess he had to be out of town that week, so they just taped the episode without him. Having just Tom and Crow in the theater makes for a slightly different feel. Let’s go watch some monkeys, shall we?

Prologue

The Mads are having trouble getting the Joel on the phone. Unfortunately for them, the bots are in a trolling mood and aren’t being much help.

It sounds like the Mads send Time of the Apes as retaliation for the bots’ unhelpfulness. Something similar happens in several later episodes, such as Hobgoblins [907]. It seems like Pearl was especially prone to this.

Mr. Potato Head is back on the desk this week. Dr. Forrester takes out his anger on it by ripping off its nose. Or maybe he just felt like dressing it up differently, at that exact moment.

Movie pt. 1

Does anyone else automatically sing “Sandy Frank, Sandy Frank” along to the opening music? I can’t help myself.

Crow sits in Joel’s usual seat.

At 3:06, Tom already says he feels kind of a void without Joel in the theater. He’s also not too happy about sitting right next to Crow, it seems. He tells Crow maybe he should empty his load pan because he doesn’t smell very good. So…did anyone ever figure out what a load pan was actually supposed to be? I’m not sure I want to know, now.

I never noticed before how peppy the music in this section of the movie is.

Crow doubts the monkeyhood of the animal at 5:41. Tom thinks it’s a possum, Crow guesses lemur. Crow was closer- it’s actually a loris.

6:55- Crow continues his already storied career as an incorrigible punster.

Servo mentions Joel’s absence again at 7:16, wondering where he is.

At 8:32, Crow’s already got this movie’s number.

Wow, this advanced scientific compound’s wiring does not seem up to code.

Crow mentions doing experiments in science class at 10:10. I know it’s probably just a joke, but Joel probably would do experiments with the bots for fun. Probably not “destroy the monkey freezing plant” experiments, though.

At 10:48, Tom mocks Crow’s time as a Christmas tree from several episodes ago, which Crow does not particularly appreciate. He compares being frozen to “drinking a Slurpee real fast.”

Tom also calls commercial at 11:23.

When Johnny starts calling for his uncle at 13:10, the bots start up calling out other names. Sort of a proto version of a joke they’d use in multiple later episodes, most memorably in Pod People [303]. They start it up again at 16: 27.

Some of the camera movement and editing choices in this movie are so strange.

Tom begins whistling at 18:47. After a little while, Crow asks him how he gets his “blowport” to pucker to make that sound. Tom says it’s a special program, but…Also, if anyone knows what song(s) he’s whistling, I’d be interested to know.

At 20:48, Crow says Joel should be there, and Servo says he’s getting a little concerned.

Trace has made Josh laugh at least three times so far in the episode. He’s on a roll. Has been for the past few episodes, actually.

Crow mentions Joel’s absence again in a riff at 22:36.

I don’t know why, but Crow’s little “Mm?” at 23:18 is adorable.

The bots decide to go look for Joel as they leave the theater.

Host Segment 1

The bots discuss where Joel might be, and go over where they’ve already looked. It’s sort of cute how they don’t know all the rooms on the ship.

They quickly degenerate into arguing, unsurprisingly. They really are like young siblings.

Crow calls Tom a “spasmodic crofisator” (crophysator?), a term that would be used again at least once in Season 1. It sounds like an insult but I’m not sure what it means. Maybe they don’t know, either.

Gypsy shows up to break up the fight, carrying Joel’s jumpsuit in her mouth. Does Joel only have one jumpsuit? I always sort of assumed he had at least a couple. But I guess in KTMA he only ever wore the one on camera, so maybe he did only have one. He only had one on camera in Season 1, too. Actually, the only season where he clearly had more than one jumpsuit was Season 2, where he had at least 5- teal, bright red, cyan, light green, and his classic maroon one, which he wears in every episode after it first shows up in Godzilla vs. Megalon [212]. Mike wore the same green one throughout Season 5 (unless you count the navy one in Mitchell), got a royal blue one (Zombie Nightmare [604]) and a teal one (The Creeping Terror [606]) in Season 6, and then switched between the three of them for the rest of his time as host. You know, in case you wanted the brief jumpsuit history of MST3K.

Crow doesn’t know what a pod bay is either. Tom is not taking things seriously and activates a “wah-wah-wah” noise. Does that satellite have those built in?

Apparently the only possible conclusion one could reach after finding Joel’s uniform is that he’s floating naked in space. They don’t seem too concerned for his safety, just more interested in seeing him in an embarrassing position. These are the monsters you created, Joel.

Movie pt. 2

The way this is cut makes the story feel really choppy. Was is this bad in the version they used for the Season 3 episode? Probably.

The fire in the movie makes Crow sneeze at 28:52. Somehow. I wonder if Trace is a little sick- his voice cracks, too, at 29:08.

TV23 time and temperature at 35:41. 6:42, and 56°. I wish they’d tell us AM or PM, but I guess the people actually watching when this was on wouldn’t need to be told that. It was probably PM, since they taped during the day and played them in the evenings. I’m not sure if they showed them at other times on the channel as re-runs or not, though. Tom from mst3ktemple.com would probably know.

At 37:24, the bots start talking about how good it is to get your shoes off when you’ve been on your feet for a long time, despite the fact that neither of them wear shoes and only one of them could. (Unless you count that time from Danger Death Ray [620] where Tom wore the shoes on his head and hands. I don’t.)

Crow starts singing about taking the “ape train” at 46:41. It annoys Servo, but apparently Crow has to do it or his head will blow up. Personally, I think he may be exaggerating.

Immediately after, at 47:01, Tom mentions Joel void again. Crow says they’ll just go look at him through the telescope when they get out of the theater again. I guess that means they did locate him outside at the end of the last host segment, even if we didn’t get to see it.

Movie thing- why does the action scene on the train have such slow, ponderous music? I guess it’s not really that much of an action scene anyway.

Host Segment 2

Crow’s wearing Joel’s jumpsuit, which is ridiculously adorable. I wonder how he managed to put it on. It probably would have been entertaining to watch.

Servo and Crow discuss the implication of Joel being stuck outside, with themselves being the only ones who could let him in, all the while ignoring his pounding on the door outside. They like the idea of forcing Joel to do their will in exchange for saving him from the dark vacuum of space.

What does Crow have against breadfruit plants? Do they take up too much of Joel’s time?

Predictably, Tom’s still on about babes.

Crow also suggests sending him adrift with a sextant, charts and a toaster. Servo objects to losing Lucille the toaster, something about four toast slots. I hope hope hope that it’s just because he’s likes making four pieces of toast at a time and not for some other reason…speaking of which, what kind of fun does Crow think Joel would have with the toaster? I guess he’d tinker with it. He wouldn’t have anything else to do, since the sextant and charts sure aren’t going to help him navigate anywhere in space.

The bots decide the pounding they’re hearing is space barnacles that need removal, to justify messing with Joel some more, but get Movie Sign before they get a chance.

Movie pt. 3

At 51:41, I agree with Tom- I’ve never seen anyone that unconcerned about a UFO.

Josh sneezes at 54:12. Crow/Trace says “gesundheit.”

Tom forgets Godo’s name at 57:05. Usually forgetting how to say characters’ names is Joel’s thing. I guess someone had to do it since he’s wasn’t there.

Did Sandy Frank even attempt to make this part coherent? Was it 5 pm on a Friday and he was just like “Eh, this is good enough, those kids won’t know what’s going on anyway”?

Servo calls commercial again at 1:01:43.

At 1:03:23, Crow is unimpressed by Tom’s joke.

1:04:46- Servo mentions Joel again, though I’m not sure whether he means Joel is a naked ape, or someone who is going back to his country. Is he saying that’s why Joel went out into space in the first place? I guess it could be.

Tom and Crow discuss the Academy Awards at 1:06:12.

The cliff in this flashback is, like, the least treacherous cliff ever. You could walk up that.

Host Segment 3

Cambot plays some old footage of Joel (from Invaders from the Deep [K01], with the long hair and turquoise jumpsuit- wait, he did have another jumpsuit in KTMA. Does that invalidate my whole spiel about jumpsuits from earlier? Oh nevermind). It freaks out Tom and Crow for a second because they think they’ll be in trouble. Have we ever seen this part before? I can’t recall if that little bit is in the snippets video of the three missing episodes.

Inevitably, the bots get into another argument, this time about whether the Joel behind the door was real or simulated. Usually the human has to break up the fighting. If something else didn’t interrupt, I wonder how far it would escalate.

Anybody know who that was behind door #2? Whoever it was, he terrified the bots. Maybe just because he was huge? Or perhaps they don’t like baldness.

Things get a little trippy when Tom starts playing with the laws of reality. He seems to have that power. He does something similar in Gunslinger [511], and Crow doesn’t like it any better then than he does here.

Movie pt. 4

At 1:15:17, Crow and Servo talk about whether or not humans have the same number of hairs on their bodies as apes. Crow thinks so, Servo doesn’t believe it.

I think we’re all starting to get impatient along with Crow. This is dragging on forever.

Down to 54° by 7:45, so I’m guessing it is PM, at 1:27:24.

Ah, we’re finally back on track- Wizard of Oz reference #14 at 1:29:23. I knew they’d return someday. The last three episode haven’t had any, at least that I could find, so my original theory about there being a WoZ riff in every Joel episode has been disproven. I still predict that there will be at least one in every Joel ep in the series proper, though.

The impatience continues.

At 1:31:20, Servo says that if Joel were there, they’d have run out of monkey puns much earlier. Is that because they’d have said more of them in a row to annoy him, or because Joel’s presence discourages the creation of monkey puns?

Something about Tom’s timing at 1:32:07 is just great.

Very brief Wizard of Oz reference #15 at 1:33:55.

Movie thing- So they do explain how they got back to their own time, it just makes NO SENSE. I wonder if Tom still feels like exploding.

Servo forgets Godo’s name again at 1:36:16, calling him Gobo.

1:36:58- uh, what other organ were you thinking of, Crow?

Tom falls over onto Crow as they start to leave the theater, but manages to get back up.

Once again, I can’t not sing the Sandy Frank song along with the credits.

Conclusion

We get a rare outside shot of the S.O.L., along with floating-(semi)-naked-in-space Joel, as represented by an action figure of some kind. I…don’t really think Joel would look like that with his shirt off, but hey.

Tom and Crow contemplate life without Joel. They only seem to recall all the mean stuff Joel has done to them since their creation, but they still do say they miss him a little.

They also talk about how they actually like each other, although that “You’re the greatest” remark from Crow could have a bit sarcastic. Hard to tell. I prefer to interpret it in a positive light.

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Alexandra Carr is now in the credits as the Fan Club Coordinator and Production Assistant. She’d continue to be on the show’s staff for a long time.

Joel is also still listed as starring in the episode even though he wasn’t there, just like Trace was still credited for Crow in the eps where he was gone.

At least in the copy I linked, the sound on the tape starts flipping out in an amusing way at the very end.

Thoughts on the Movie

          This movie is…really goofy. I won’t go in-depth, since we have to watch it again in a few seasons, but man. Actually, it’s quite refreshing after two confusing 70s TV-movie dramas in a row. It’s not really any less confusing, but it’s much more entertaining to watch. This is also the second movie in a row with a really annoying child, although Johnny is much more amusing in his annoyingness than the kid in City on Fire (Gerald? Was that his name? I don’t care enough to go check). That kid was just not very good, whereas Johnny is not that terrible, he just kind of a spaz. Fits in with the rest of the movie, I guess.

Review

          This was a pretty solid episode. Of course, the definition of a solid episode in KTMA versus Season 1 and beyond is quite different, but this one measures up to what they’ve done so far. Josh and Trace kept the energy nicely throughout. The two of them always played off each other well (favorite riff- Crow: Let’s buy these guys a tripod, whadda ya say?). This episode didn’t provide nearly as many laugh-out-loud moments as the last one, though, which reinforces to me that three really is the magic number. Something about having all of them together brings it up to the right level. The movie itself was pretty lively this week, which probably helped make up for losing a riffer. If it had been say, Cosmic Princess with only Tom and Crow, it might not have worked as well.

[selanpike]

Unfinished Trollcops thing

I remembered I had this thing, and figured I’d post it because it’s good, but it is never going to get finished.

I had this idea that I wanted to write a big Trollcops AU fic, from Team Sleuth’s perspective, but it sort of collapsed under its own weight. I wanted to include all the trolls, plus the kids, PLUS Team Sleuth (including the girls), the Crew, Kingpin.... I couldn’t find things for all these characters to actually contribute, and also, I’m not great at writing all the trolls!!

But I did write the first three chapters, which were the introductions for Sleuth, Pickle and Ace respectively, so here u go. Abandoned Trollcops fic.

Chapter One

Spending any amount of time with Spades Slick is dangerous at best, you knew that. You also knew that you were making things worse by spending so much time with him, but you were counting on bruises and stab wounds, not this.

The interrogation room is sickeningly bright. The lights make it impossible to know what time it is outside. You know it was close to sunrise when they brought you in, but you’re not sure how long you’ve been here. Even the ticking of a clock would be a welcome reprieve from this boredom. You wish they’d just throw the book at you already.

The door finally opens, creaking a little as it does so. Apparently the Alternia Police Department can’t even afford a can of WD-40. Two officers walk in. You recognize them from your various interactions with the police in the past few years--Sergeants Terezi Pyrope and Sollux Captor. Sergeant Pyrope pulls up a chair and sits down at the table across from you, lacing her fingers together. You can’t read her expression through her opaque red glasses. You’ve heard that she’s blind, but she seems to stare right through you.

“Problem Thleuth.” Sergeant Captor reads from your file, standing behind his partner. “Thirty-five yearth old. Prothpitian. Failed out of polithe academy at age twenty-four. Ith that right?”

“I wouldn’t say failed,” you say, choosing your words carefully. “I jus’ didn’t like how y’all--I mean. I wasn’t a fan ‘f the bureaucracy.”

“Is that so,” Terezi says.

You nod.

“So you dropped out and became a private investigator,” she says. “Is that right?”

“You know the answer to that,” you say, rubbing your temples. “Don’t pretend like we’re strangers.”

The silence that breaks out is painful. You run a hand through your hair, quietly wondering if your hat is okay, wherever they’ve taken it. Why the hell did they take your hat? What sort of monsters would mess with a man’s hat? This sort of shit is why you could never cut it as a cop.

“You’re charged with being an accessory to arson,” Pyrope tells you.

“Do me a favor ‘n arrest th’ guy who actually did th’ arson-ing,” you mutter.

“The alleged perpetrator is one Thpades Thlick,” Captor says, reading the file. “Damn, man. Thpades, really?”

“I ain’t an accessory t’ nothin’ that asshole does,” you say, slamming a hand on the table. “I was tryin’a stop that goddamn arson!”

“We have multiple witnethheth who thay they thaw you making out with the thuthpect before the fire broke out,” Captor says.

You wilt under their stares.

“I was tryin’a distract ‘im,” you say, weakly. “He’s a dangerous customer, after all. ‘S the ol’ honey pot maneuver, y’know?”

“It didn’t work,” Pyrope says, grinning her sharp-toothed grin.

“N--no,” you admit.

Sergeant Captor hands Pyrope the file, and she makes a show of flipping through it. It’s a pointless gesture since you know damn well she can’t read it. You try to look at what’s written on the pages, but she pulls the file away so she can give it a good long sniff. You slump over, leaning your arms on the table, thinking about how fucked you are, and what you’re going to do to Slick to get back at him for this. They’ll put you away for ages for this, you just know it. The APD have never been fans of yours, and you’re sure they’ve been waiting for the opportunity to put you away.

You jump when Pyrope snaps the folder shut. She puts it down on the table, sliding it to the edge.

“I’m going to admit,” she says, slowly. “That, considering your history of making trouble, we took this opportunity to get a warrant to search your office.”

“You--you what?!”

“Well, the thusthpect is thtill on the looth,” Captor explains, and you wonder if you punch him hard enough if he’ll stop with that goddamn lisp. “We had to check and thee if there were any clueth ath to hith whereaboutth.”

“And what did you find, huh?” You’re raging mad now, and you aren’t bothering to hide it. “A whole bunch of jack shit. Or are you going to charge me with possession of a deadly writing implement or something?”

The two of them stare at you for a moment, and then Pyrope pulls a photo from her jacket. She places it in front of you. It shows your evidence wall, a large corkboard you’ve set up in your office to collect clues in the murder you’re investigating.

“So, what? You gonna charge me with murderin’ th’ District Attorney now?”

Pyrope and Captor look at each other, then back at you.

“We’ve been investigating the DA’s death too,” Pyrope says. “But we haven’t turned up a thing.”

“And here you are,” Captor adds. “With evidenthe we never even thought to look for.”

You grin a little. “Oh darlin’s, are you jealous?”

“We know Kingpin was behind it,” Pyrope says, and her voice is uncharacteristically devoid of humor. “Like he’s behind every other high-profile murder in this city. I’m sick of him making a mockery of this force.”

“Stop bein’ such a joke, then.”

She stands up, slamming her hands on the table. “Take this seriously!”

You raise your eyebrows and wait for her to get to the point.

“We’re willing to offer you a deal,” she says. “We’ll ignore this latest… indiscretion, and you’ll help us put Kingpin behind bars.”

You laugh.

You can’t believe they’re actually coming to you for help. How many times have they impeded your investigations? How many times have they told you to buzz off, leave this to the real cops? How many times have they told judges not to accept your evidence, or straight up confiscated your evidence and claimed they found it themselves? And now they want you to help them?

“Sorry, sorry,” you say, still chuckling. “I musta misheard. Y’ couldn’t possibly be askin’ for my help. I mean, I ain’t a cop or nothin’. I ain’t got no authority.”

“Don’t be a jackathh,” Captor snaps.

“This is in your best interest,” Pyrope says. “You are, after all, still under arrest.”

She does sorta have you, there.

---

You have your hat back when Sergeant Captor takes you outside, to the back of the department. The sun has definitely risen by now, and you’re treated to all the sounds of the city waking up.

“Thith whole thing ith completely off the record,” Captor tells you as he closes the door behind him. “Honethtly, I think it’th dumb ath hell, but at leatht if you get into trouble, nobody’ll blame uth.”

“As long as I don’t trail it back to you,” you add.

“Obviouthlly,” Captor says. He pulls out his phone and types into it. “But we need one of ourth with you. Making thure you’re not fucking up too bad.”

“I’d really prefer we skipped that part,” you say, fixing your hair and trying to find just that right angle at which to wear your hat. “I don’t need no cops following me everywhere. It’ll slow me down.”

“Think of it like exthtra security,” Captor says, still typing into his phone.

The door opens and a short troll walks over, hands shoved in his pockets. He isn’t wearing a uniform, save for a badge he has hanging on a lanyard over a ratty red hoodie. He approaches you and Captor, then squints at you.

“I know you,” he says.

“I get around,” you reply.

“You’re that drunk fucknut that’s always making a scene in Crew territory.”

“Guilty as charged. Y’all’re jus’ gettin’ me on ev’rythin’ t’day!” You nudge Captor. “Sorry officer, looks like y’ gotta charge me for another crime.”

Captor groans and rolls his eyes. He slaps the newcomer on the back and mutters, “Good fucking luck,” before heading back inside.

You wait for the door to click shut before you say, brightly as you can manage, “The name’s Problem Sleuth. Solicitations for my services are--”

“I’m sorry, do I look like someone who gives a fuck?”

You drop the friendly act. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Vantas,” He says. “Karkat Vantas. I’m the undercover guy. I figure I got stuck with this because they figured I could tell the Captain I’m investigating you.”

“‘N I’m sure she’ll buy it,” you add.

“Yeah.” He sniffs, and looks you over in more detail. “I don’t think I’m the only one they’re gonna hand you. I know for sure they said they’re putting my partner, Nepeta, on this case too.”

You rub your face. “Great. Good. More cops, beautiful.”

He asks for your phone, and you exchange numbers. You then tell him to find something else to do with his day, because you’re going home and going the fuck to bed. This investigation can wait until tomorrow.

---

It’s well after 8am by the time you get home, and all you want to do is sleep for ten years. Pickle and Ace will bitch about you not being at the office, but you can’t bring yourself to care. They’re already going to bitch when they hear about this new arrangement, so what’s a little more?

Unfortunately when you walk in, you find Spades Slick rummaging through your refrigerator.

You toss your keys onto the table and sit down. He turns around, cold pizza hanging out of his mouth, and slams the fridge door shut behind him.

“I figured they’d have ya’ in th’ slammer a few weeks,” he explains through a mouthful of pizza. “So y’ wouldn’t mind if I ate yer food ‘fore it went bad.”

“Y’ couldn’t possibly post bail for me?”

“Fuck no. Who do y’ think y’ are, my Crew?” He moves his mug of coffee from the counter to the kitchen table, and then sits down across from you. “So who’d y’ call. Th’ stickbug? Did ‘e hafta give up his booze fund for th’ month?”

“No, nothin’ like that,” you say, reaching over and taking the coffee. Obviously sleep isn’t happening anytime soon, so what the hell. “They let me off.”

There’s a loud clatter as Slick’s chair falls over, and a knife is at your throat. It always amazes you how fast he is. You raise your hands in a conciliatory manner as he snarls at you.

“You fuckin’ snitched, didn’t you?”

“Slick, my most precious of darlin’s,” you say. “I would snitch on you all day, ev’ry day. But that ain’t what happened.”

“Bullshit!” The knife presses harder against your neck, and you feel blood beading along the blade. “Th’ APD don’ jus’ let people go, ‘specially not when they been with me. Th’ fuck did you do?”

“They hired me.”

He looks at you like you just sprouted a second head. He doesn’t move the knife at all.

You go on. “They’re investigatin’ Kingpin. They wanted my help.”

He finally pulls the knife away, but he doesn’t sit back down. “Great. Jus’ what I need.”

“Yeah, Slick,” you say, sipping the coffee. You’re not surprised that it tastes like shit. Slick probably isn’t used to brewing his own. That’s what he has lackeys for. “It’s exactly what you need. You want Kingpin outta th’ way? Jus’ let me ‘n the cops handle it.”

“Kingpin’s mine,” he growls.

“‘Scuse you.” You put the mug down. “‘M sorry, but did you know th’ stiff we found last week? No. Fuck no, y’ didn’t, ‘cause he was th’ law, ‘n he was my fuckin’ friend, not yours. Kingpin’s mine. He owns this fuckin’ apartment, my fuckin’ office, he’s got me by th’ balls without even tryin’ ‘n he murdered th’ DA ‘n none’f that’s got anythin’ t’ do with you.”

Slick narrows his eye at you, before pocketing his knife and stealing the mug back. He chugs the coffee down.

“Fuck you,” he says, slamming the mug back onto the table. “I’ll do it my fuckin’ self.”

“Right,” you say as Slick grabs his jacket and makes for the door. “So I guess I’ll see ya’ tomorrow, then?”

He grunts in response, and slams the door behind him as he leaves.

You know he’ll be back. Partly because you know he can’t resist making your life miserable--the two of you have been caught up in your fucked up little dance for too long, and he’s not about to give that up--but also partly because you know he can’t take down Kingpin on his own. He’s tried for months to do things his way, to just murder his rival crime boss, but Kingpin is careful, and he’s elusive. In the end, the best way to go about bringing him down is to turn the city against him, to get the law on your side. If you can get an arrest warrant on him you can have the whole of the city’s resources helping you track him down. You could freeze his assets, plaster his face on every bulletin board in town. You’ll leave him no place to hide.

You’re going to do it. Your name is Problem Sleuth, and you are going to bring down Mobster Kingpin’s criminal empire.

The APD are definitely going to steal the credit when it’s all said and done, though, and that fact makes you sick to your stomach.

---

Chapter Two

> Be Pickle Inspector.

You feel as though you’re being punished for Sleuth’s poor life choices.

Nepeta Leijon is a new hire at the APD. She, and her friend Karkat, used to be common criminals. Pickpockets, for the most part, although you remember seeing a few other items on their rap sheet. You’d encountered them once or twice. Never up close--their crimes were never complicated enough to necessitate your intervention--but they’d show up sometimes as witnesses.

Uncooperative witnesses.

You were aware of their being hired. Something about the APD seeing them as valuable assets for undercover investigations. You see the logic, but you’ve never been a fan of undercover operations. You stand out too much. You’re too tall, too gaunt, too recognizable. Your preferred method has always been surveillance. You set up cameras and wiretaps all over the city, in all the seedier bars and meeting spaces. Nothing escapes your omniscient ogle.

Nothing except Kingpin. He’s careful. He doesn’t discuss anything important on the phone, least of all the phones in any of his businesses. You can’t figure out where he lives or where he holds any of his most secret of meetings. Even if you could, he always has too many guards patrolling his places, making it impossible for you to sneak in and plant anything.

It was infuriating before, but now with the death of the DA it’s got you on the end of your rope. And now they want you to babysit this rookie cop? How the hell are you supposed to get anything done?

You asked Sleuth what he did to invite this upon you, but he won’t tell you. You suspect Slick was involved. Slick is always involved these days.

You have a solution to this problem, though. Well, not to the Sleuth-Slick problem, there’s no solving that, but the Nepeta problem was easy: let her work on transcribing your recordings so the two of you can finish them twice as fast. It leaves you with just enough free time to make tea and doodle in the margins of your notes.

You’re halfway through a wonderful drawing of a horse wearing a bonnet when your phone rings. You have specific ringtones for every person who calls you often enough, and you put your head in your hands when you hear this one. Nepeta notices, and watches you as you sigh and answer the phone.

“I’m busy enough,” you whine into the receiver.

“That’s a shame,” says the smooth, dark voice of Diamonds Droog. “And here I had something I thought you’d be interested in.”

“What is it?” you ask.

“Meet me on the corner of 34th and Feldings,” he says.

“D--do I have to?” you say, clicking your pen. “Can’t you just, just tell me? On the phone? Like a normal person? I p-promise the line’s secure.”

“34th and Feldings,” he says again. “Now.”

He hangs up. You put your phone down, put your head on your desk, and groan loudly. Why is this your life? All you wanted to do today was transcribe audio logs and not interact with anybody. You even packed a lunch so you wouldn’t have to go out and talk to any fast food workers.

Without your realizing it, Nepeta has picked up your phone and unlocked it. You make a mental note to change the passkey and not let her see you input it next time. “Diamonds Dickhead?” She makes an exaggeratedly surprised face, and puts your phone back on the desk. “Is that who I think it is?”

You stand up and fix your tie. “I have to go out.”

“Oh! Let me get my coat.”

“No.” You grab your own coat, put it on, and start buttoning it. You make a deliberate effort to put the buttons in the right holes, and you’re secretly glad you haven’t had much to drink yet today. “S--stay here and, and keep transcribing.”

“I’m paws-itively sure that’s super important,” she says, putting extra emphasis on her pun. You’ve noticed that she likes cat puns. In less infuriating circumstances, you’d think it was cute. “But I’m not here to help you so much as to watch you.”

You smooth your hair out and put your hat on. “That’s a terrible idea. N-no, you should just stay here, and not tell a soul I went out. U--unless I don’t come back. Then tell Sleuth. Understood?”

She grins a catlike grin and says, “Nope!”

Droog is never going to let you hear the end of this.

---

34th street is where his tailor is, so Diamonds Droog didn’t have to go out of his way to meet you. It is also clear on the other side of town relative to your office, so you had to go especially out of your way to meet him.

This is par for the course, and you make an effort not to look exhausted when you get there.

He’s waiting for you on a street bench outside his tailor’s, smoking one of his expensive cigarettes. You approach him, but don’t look at him directly. You stand behind the bench, facing away from him, pretending to read a bulletin board. Nepeta follows along, but she sneaks a few glances at Droog when she thinks you aren’t looking.

He breathes out a long puff of smoke before speaking. “Is the detective business so bad that you had to take up babysitting?”

“I n--needed the second job to, to support my tea habit,” you respond.

“That’s a funny way to say whiskey.”

“Oh, no. I steal that all from m-my boss. You see, he has a wealthy patron with a vested interest in, in keeping him too drunk to make good decisions.” You lean back onto the bench, crossing your arms. “I’m s-sure you don’t know anything about that.”

“I’m sure I don’t. Can she leave?”

“I don’t know.” You look down at Nepeta. “C-can you leave?”

“I can, yeah,” she says.

“A--are you going to?”

She shakes her head.

“Sorry,” you say to Droog. “It’s a, a long story.”

He pauses and takes another drag from his cigarette. He taps some ash out on the ground, then reaches into his jacket pocket. You have just enough time to hope that he isn’t pulling out a weapon with which to kill the witness you’ve brought along, before he pulls out a couple of photographs. He passes them to you. They all depict various old-looking artifacts. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen some of these in the museum.

“All of these have gone missing in the past month,” Droog explains. “Obvious signs of a break-in, but no evidence pointing to a culprit.”

“D--do you think Kingpin was involved?”

“Absolutely.”

You scrutinize the photos further, and notice that all the artifacts share a theme. Every one of them either depicts a horrorterror, or symbols associated with said terrors. “This, um. It looks like your sort of thing.”

“Hardly,” he says. “The four of us get our magic from the Terrors, but we don’t need trinkets like this to channel Their powers. They give it to us freely.” He illustrates this by producing a small purple flame in his hand. “Kingpin, though. He’s Prospitian, like you. He doesn’t have the connection to the Terrors that we Dersites have.”

You think about that as you pocket the photos. “Do you think he’s trying to make a pact with the Terrors?”

“Perhaps,” he says, extinguishing the flame. “It’s possible he’s seen what we can do and wants that power for himself. I doubt he’ll be successful.”

You wonder whether it would be possible for a Prospitian to make a pact with the dark gods. You’re almost tempted to let Kingpin try, just to get an answer. It’s not your best idea. If nothing else, these robberies give you one more thread you can follow in your attempts to get any charge at all to stick to him.

“I’ll look into this,” you tell him. “Call me if--if you hear anything.”

“As usual,” he says, before standing up.

He smooths out his suit, throws his cigarette to the ground and snubs it out with his heel. Without once looking at you, he strolls away. Nepeta waits until he’s out of earshot before she says, “You know, Mister Detective, you don’t act much like a detective.”

“H--how’s that?”

“All the wiretapping, and purr-tive meetings with shady guys,” she says. “You’re more like a spy.”

You let out a small laugh. “Don’t say that one to the others. They’ll start coming up with spy names for me.”

“Pickle Inspector’s okay for a spy name,” she says. You start walking, and she follows you. She has to trot a little to match your walking stride. “Spies don’t put ‘spy’ right in the name! It’s too conspicuous.”

You’re enjoying this flight of fancy, despite yourself. “I’ll need to imagine up some clever gadgets, to uh, to get me out of pinches.”

“And you’ll need a car,” she says. “A fancy one, that turns into a submeowrine.”

“And a, a dangerous love interest,” you add.

“Oh? You don’t have that already?” She grins up at you. “You and Diamonds Dickhead had an awful lot of chemistry. You aren’t caliginous?”

“What?” You shove your hands in your pockets and look towards the street. “No. Obviously not. Th-th-that’s just, just gross, ew.”

She giggles, and you don’t like the knowing look she gives you. You reach into your jacket, produce a flask, and take a long gulp. It doesn’t help your mood any. It just reminds you of the last time Droog caught you drinking in the middle of the day, and had the audacity to call you “pathetic”, as if lots of people don’t drink before noon on a weekday.

She’s still giving you that look. Fuck.

“A--anyway, the, the case,” you stutter, trying to get back on the subject of work.

“I know somebody,” she says. “That might help.”

“Who?”

She shrugs. “Old friend of mine. She knows all sorts of things about old stuff like what got stolen.”

“That would be, it’d be really useful,” you say.

“I’ll call her when she gets off work,” Nepeta says, adjusting her hat. “In the meantime we can get back to listening to your wiretaps. The part I was on was pretty juicy.”

You’re relieved she’s so easily given up the subject of Droog and gotten back to the task at hand. She might, despite your initial misgivings, be useful to have around.

“I’ve also started a shipping chart for everyone you’re surveilling,” she adds.

After she explains to you what a shipping chart is, you are simultaneously horrified, and intrigued at the new avenues this gives you when cataloguing and interpreting your data.

---

Chapter three.

> Be Ace Dick.

Once upon a time, you were a police detective. You like to give Sleuth shit over his lack of occupational experience, but he seems to think that his two weeks of police academy are all he could need. For someone who brags about his charisma, he really doesn’t understand the importance of making connections.

You haven’t been working on the Kingpin case with Sleuth and Pickles. You think they’re out of their league. Kingpin’s ruled this city since Sleuth and Pickles were still in grade school, they didn’t stand a chance. So while they ran around on their fool’s errand, you were out hitting the pavement, solving more sensible cases and keeping the agency afloat. Sergeant Pyrope was a rookie when you left the force, but she remembers you. Whenever you have a case that requires some APD know-how, you hit her up. There’s a little diner next door to the station that’s popular with the coppers, and that’s where she meets you to give you the low-down on some two-bit drug dealer who skipped out on a debt.

You buy her a second coffee once she’s said her piece and you’ve finished writing it all down. Then you tuck your notepad back into your coat pocket and say, “So I heard y’ gave Sleuth a job.”

She shrugs, grinning. “It should be worth a laugh. He always says he can do better than us, so let’s see it!”

You shake your head. “Here ‘m always tryin’ to tell him to stay off that case, and you’re just eggin’ him on.”

“So you’re not going to help?” she asks, before taking a sip of coffee.

“Hell no,” you say. “I quit the force to get away from that malarkey. You at least payin’ him?”

She laughs. “Do you think he’s going to ask?”

“He damn well will, because I’m goin’ to tell him to,” you say, jabbing a finger at her. She can’t see the gesture but she usually can tell that you’re doing one. You’re not sure if she hears the movement or somehow smells it. You don’t know how her weird sense of smell works. “We got rent to pay, missy. If he’s runnin’ around chasin’ Kingpin he isn’t doing other cases.”

“We’ll have to set up a collection,” she says. “I’ll put a little can in the break room. ‘Pay Mister Candy Corn’s rent’.”

Detective Vriska Serket walks over, whacking your hat off your head as she passes you to sit next to Terezi. “Can’t be too much, right? Doesn’t he live in a cardboard box?”

“That sounds right,” Terezi says. “But in this city that’s what, 500 bucks a month?”

“Depends on how new the box is, probably,” Vriska responds.

Terezi nods. “Either way, Kingpin owns it so it is absolutely drafty and leaks in the rain.”

“I’m not opposed to makin’ jabs at my dumbass not-boss,” you say as you straighten your hat out. “But I’m serious. You’re payin’ him. And Pickles too, if you got him involved.”

“We do,” Terezi says. “He’s got poor Nepeta bored to tears.”

“That’s a lie,” Vriska says, taking Terezi’s coffee and putting it in front of herself. “She started writing fanfiction about those counterfeiters on seventieth street. I’m going to try and convince her to submit it as evidence.”

“While that is hilarious, don’t. The Captain doesn’t need to know about any of this.” Terezi takes her coffee back and chugs down the remainder before Vriska can make another attempt. She coughs.

“Now there’s an idea,” you say. “If you don’t pay up, I’ll go let Captain Peixes know what you’ve been up to.”

“Why Ace,” Terezi says, leaning forward. “Are you threatening me?”

“Might be.”

“Maybe if the Captain finds out she’ll get embarrassed enough to put me on the case,” Vriska says.

“Gettin’ tired of solvin’ murders?” you ask.

She throws her arms up in the air. “The only interesting crimes are the mob ones! All the regular crimes are just dumb shit, there’s usually a witness or a camera or something, there’s no challenge!”

“I thought you liked racking up wins,” Terezi said.

“I fucking love racking up wins,” Vriska says. “But I want ones worth my time. Kingpin’s the biggest baddie there is, I gotta get in on that.”

“Maybe you should let her follow Sleuth instead of that angry kid,” you say to Terezi.

She snickers. “No, I’d give her to Tootsie Roll Frankenstein.”

Vriska slaps the table. “You think you’re kidding around but I’d love having that guy work for me! He’ll do all the tedious boring shit so I have more time to pound pavement and beat in faces.”

“I’m glad you appreciate Pickles’ special sort of appeal.” You stand up, straightening out your suit. “Thanks for the tip, Pyrope. Now please stop takin’ advantage of my teammates.”

She salutes at you, and it’s dripping with irony. “No, I don’t think I will. You’re welcome to come get taken advantage of, though!”

“Fat chance,” you scoff, getting out your wallet. You pull out a few bills, enough to pay for your coffee and Terezi’s, and drop them on the table. “Take care of yourselves, ladies.”

“Tell Sleuth if he gets evicted I just got a washing machine and he might fit in the box if he gets on all fours!” Vriska calls as you leave the diner. You hear the two girls snickering behind you.

They laugh, but you know the APD’s pay is shit. You do much better for yourself working as a private dick. The lack of benefits are a kick in the nuts, but at least you don’t have to deal with all the paperwork and politics, and every now and then you got a client who paid you a ridiculous sum for some dumbass thing. Sleuth could do as well as you. He’s certainly got the sleuthing skills for it. He just keeps wasting his time worrying too much about justice and too little about the real world.

You figure he’ll learn eventually. Kids like him always do.

(i can’t remember if this ace chapter was even finished but EYY THERE U GO)