I'm planning out a Drifting Stars fic rn, so here's a snippet of the first chapter because I need to post something about this fic. This is a first draft so it may change but I'm pretty happy with it for now
“Woah, woah, hey what’s going on? Stanford!”
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Stanley watched, anger melting to fear as his twin brother began to float backwards, as if being pulled by some invisible hand towards the glowing machine
He watched as his brothers face contorted into an expression of fear he had never seen on his face before. All those years, and Stanley had never seen his bother look so afraid. Not like this. Not even as a kid hiding himself from the other kids their age, as a teenager watching him out the window of a house no longer a home, not even just a few minutes prior, so overcome with paranoia that he would think Stanley would ever want to hurt him. No, Ford had never looked so scared in his life, and Stanley had never known a fear like this himself
“Stanley! Stanley, help me!”
“Help me!!”
His brother, his twin brother, was floating away too fast and too slow all at once. His brother, who had grown up with him, who had abandoned him, who had came to him for help when he didn’t know who else to trust, was floating backwards into an oblivion of light, and Stanley felt powerless to do anything
“Oh no, what do I do?”
“What do we do?”
“Stanley! Stanley!”
Ford was thrashing in the air, desperately trying to push himself forward, but to no avail. He kept drifting backwards, and now he was beginning to submerge into the portal, the light around him rippling like he was being lowered into a pool
“Do something!”
“We gotta do something!”
Stan looked around for something, anything that he could use. A rope, a pole, something for Ford to hold onto, to keep him out of whatever hell was on the other side of the portal, but there was nothing he could use. And his brother continued to drift backwards, slowly being consumed by swirling blue light
“Stanley!”
“Grunkle Stan!”
Stan looked at his great-niece, his sweet great-niece who wore hand-made sweaters, and knitted him “Our Hero” banners, who named a pig Waddles and was so excited to start highschool, and he saw the same fear in her eyes as his brother all those years ago
He was held back by more than his own uselessness this time, gravity crushing him into the pipe behind him, keeping him in place, keeping him from running forward, from shutting down the damn portal, keeping him from saving another piece of his world pulled into the unknown back by the same cruel hand that had held his brother
“Grunkle Stan, how do we stop it? How do we save her?” Dippers voice was so far away yet so clear, and yet Stan couldn’t say a word
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen
She was just a kid
It was like 30 years had never passed, and he was still the same piece of shit who couldn’t protect his family
She was looking straight at him, and the look on her face would be burnt into his mind for the rest of this life. Begging him to do something, anything, to help her somehow
“Mabel, grab something! Anything!”
But he couldn’t
“I can’t!”
Goddamn it, he couldn’t do anything
“We gotta shut it down, we gotta shut it down!!”
Curse this stupid gravity, he had to help her!
“I can’t move, dude!”
He couldn’t take losing one more person
“Help me!!”
Not her, please god not her
“Mabel!”
No, no, no!!
“Dipper!!”
Blinding light. Complete silence.
Then everything came crashing down at once. And Mabel was gone
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i need to talk about how much i love the pjo show's way of introducing annabeth's character's backstory, specifically through her getting used to percy's chronic loyalty
the way she attacks him with a hug both times she thought he might've been gone forever??? (the arch and after he returns to chb) this girl who doesn't hold her breath over people staying around for her, who is so so relieved everytime percy comes back to her
the way she is absolutely appalled by percy's insisent reassurance. his "i'm perfectly comfortable with that, people make mistakes" his "people who love you shouldn't treat you like that" his "you are better at this than me, you just are" this is just percy being percy, always seeing the best in people, and never once treating her like she has to prove anything to him to be treated with care
and she's so caught off guard every time!! she tells grover to tell percy to pull himself together. she tells him "i guess so" when he asks if he has to earn it with her too. she is IMMEDIATELY at a loss for words when percy tells her that she's the one meant for the quest. that she's better at this. that he's not trying to sacrifice himself for his own glory, it has nothing to do with him, he's only thinking of her
and that's so new to annabeth!! someone who isn't trying to make her prove anything! someone who from the beginning saw her worth! not someone like her mother, who would see her die because she felt embarassed by her. not someone like her father, who loved her at first and because of someone else, began to not(or at least she thought so). not like Thalia, who made her prove herself, who for all valiance, still died, still left her. not like Luke, who promised family, and then betrayed her.
she's not used to someone who stays just for her
or in her own words,
"He's not like that, he's better than that"
i love annabeth chase
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