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funnyifwebothgotitwrong · 11 months

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Oh oh oh oh oh oh something just hit me like a ton of bricks so that I just sat straight up in bed. (I'm not usually up at the time I started writing this.) Bear with me please:

Ed's & Stede's relationship in episodes 2x06 and 2x07 is now at THE SAME kind of crossroads that Ed's & Izzy's relationship was in 1x03 and 1x04.

Let me explain.

Last year I read a wonderful tumblr post that detailed how Ed & Izzy's relationship in the first two episodes we see them in is like that of an old married couple. In the sense that they suffer a break down in communication, that is apparently typical for people who have known each other very well for a very long time. The gist of it was that they basically think they know what the other person is going on about, don't really listen, and thus always talk at cross-purposes.

Now let's have a look at where they were in episodes 1x02 and 1x03: we know that they have pirated together for more than 20 years. We don't know how much of that time was as Captain and First Mate, but even before that they must have lived on the same small ship and worked together. They really do know each other well, and most likely intimately (again, sailing ships are not that big, chances are that Izzy had a front row seat to Ed's "sexual dalliances" with Calico Jack or any other, and vice versa, not to mention any other stuff that might have been going on in their lives.) But some time ago, we don't know how long - could be a couple of months, could be a few years - Ed started to get bored and frustrated, while Izzy stayed content. And here is where the communication started to deteriorate. Because Izzy doesn't get Ed anymore, for him it looks as if he has become erratic and unpredictable, which in turn frustrates him. And while Ed tries to convey to Izzy what he feels, we know from 1x03 that he does not do that in the clearest of terms. Probably because he had to figure it out for himself first, it's not that easy identifying vague feelings of discontent in yourself and locating their source, especially 150 years before psychology was even invented.

Now the two most important conversations between Ed and Izzy, that basically spell out for us, the audience, what is going on between them, are the one about the clouds (to which we only get the cypher key toward the end of the episode) and the one where Ed finds Stede's model ship of the Revenge.

Izzy: "Now we really should discuss a plan of action--" (to avoid being captured by the Spanish.)

Ed: "Izzy Izzy Izzy come look. Those clouds. Do they look like Frankfurters to you?" (I don't think you have to worry, a fog seems to be coming on.)

Izzy: "They look like clouds, boss. Can we just focus on--" (What the fuck are you on about? I'm trying to talk to you about the impeding doom of the ship! This is important and you are going on about one of your weird fancies!)

Ed: "Yes, they look like clouds, because they are indeed clouds. But if you just put some fucking imagination into it, man!" (For fucks sake Izzy, I'm trying to get you to think! The solution for our problem is right there!)

Izzy: "I suppose they look like sausages." (Fine, I'll play along. Maybe then we can finally talk about the important stuff?)

Ed: "Frankfurters. Yes, exactly. It's like pulling teeth with you sometimes, man." (ARE YOU GETTING IT NOW, MAN?!? I am already working on the solution to your problem, and if you just fucking listen to me and think about what I am telling you, you would see it, too! Why do you always have to make it so difficult?)

This is not a conversation about their own relationship and general situation in life, but it demonstrates clearly what goes wrong in their communication. Izzy thinks Ed is just being weird again and doesn't care about what Izzy thinks is a big problem for all of them. Ed is perfectly aware of the problem, but tries to get Izzy to see the solution he is working on for himself, rather than telling him outright, and is frustrated when Izzy makes no effort to do so. And it is implied that for a while now, all of their conversations are going down that way. They don't understand each other (anymore).

The next one really goes down to the bones of the problem, though.

Ed is excited by the display cabinet he finds and tries to show Izzy. Izzy is still frustrated because Ed doesn't seem to care that they've got a problem. So Izzy keeps talking at him about a plan while Ed already has one in the works and would rather focus on this fascinating new kind of pirate they have discovered; finally, something that isn't boring! And then Ed actually becomes pretty clear for once: "We always need a fucking plan, alright! And then what, then we fucking execute the plan, and then we get another plan, then what do we do? We execute that, and so on, and so on, and so on, and again, and again, and again, IT'S ALL SO FUCKING BORING! I'm bored out of my skull man, is this all there is? I shouldn't be bored, I'm fucking Blackbeard!" Now Ed could hardly have been more honest about his feelings, but Izzy is still stuck in their rut, Ed is being weird again, so yeah, great, he's bored, but why does that mean all the work has come down to him? He only thinks about their current situation, he believes Ed's feelings are temporary, he doesn't realise Ed is talking about their whole lives. That he has been feeling this way for a long time, that that is what makes him "weird" or "erratic". Because Izzy doesn't feel that way. Izzy is fine with their way of life. And he can't imagine why Ed would feel any different. But they still have this problem that Ed is refusing to discuss with him. And then Ed starts talking about dying to end the boredom, and that is when Izzy gets completely lost. ("Yeah, cause that makes sense"). Again, he is frustrated, because he doesn't understand what is going on with Ed. He didn't used to be like that™.

Now it is unclear if Ed at this point has just started formulating the next plan in his head, the one where he fakes his death to escape the boring life of invincible Blackbeard, or if his affinity for suicidal ideation that we see in season 2 is already at play here, too. Maybe a mix of both. But either way, Izzy doesn't get it (yet), and he doesn't understand why Ed doesn't seem to get him, as well. Izzy wasn't the one who changed!

We, the audience, later receive a lot more information by way of Ed's first conversation with Stede, where Ed expresses himself clearer and freer than he ever could with Izzy. He's bored, because nothing is a challenge anymore; he's frustrated, because he's stuck in this line of work that bores him; and on top of that he finds the whole cult around the persona of Blackbeard rather ridiculous. ("Nine guns???")

In a later episode, when Izzy is so frustrated with Ed's "erratic" behavior that he wants to leave, we experience a moment of how clear communication could look between them. Ed finally tells Izzy about his plan to fake his death, kill Stede and take his identity. But he only does that because he wants to appease Izzy and stop him from leaving, and the fact that he already has genuine feelings of affection for Stede is not mentioned. (Maybe because Ed himself isn't even sure about it yet?) And Izzy is too blinded by the opportunity of becoming Captain himself to think more deeply about Ed's wish to retire. He most likely thinks Ed does this because he was presented with the unlikely opportunity to bow out of the job on a high without having to die or being hunted for the rest of his life, so why wouldn't he take it? He doesn't connect it with Ed's boredom, still doesn't realise that Ed's decision also comes from a longing that he has already harbored for a long time.

Which is why, when Ed realises his feelings for Stede and starts looking for other ways to change his life, Izzy is again at a loss and just defaults to the easiest explanation: he blames Stede. Stede must have changed Ed, Stede must be responsible that Ed suddenly doesn't want to continue their old, familiar life as The Dread Pyrate Blackbeard and his first mate, or at least change it to the retired pirate Blackbeard and his successor, Captain Hands. And then he makes his first really big mistake: he forces Ed to choose, thinking their shared history together makes him safe.

This is how their story escalates, and we all know where they ended up. Betrayals, threats, mutilation, shooting at each other. The fact they are able to stay on the same ship together is a minor miracle. They have history, they have love, but they are done with each other.*

Now, Ed & Stede.

When Stede and Ed meet, Stede dreams of being a successful and famous pirate, but isn't really good at becoming one, to put it mildly. Ed, at the same time, is a very successful and famous pirate, but doesn't want to do that anymore. That's them at the very beginning of their relationship, so anyone who didn't see the current blow-up between them coming, hadn't been paying attention.

Now at first that doesn't really matter. Ed teaches Stede about pirating, Stede teaches Ed about life as an aristocrat, where he can have beautiful things and enjoy life without having to rob and kill. Their differences at that stage actually give the other the very thing they so desperately need. And they start to change, but at first that change just moves them even closer together - Stede becomes a better pirate without having to give up his fancies and the luxuries on his ship, and Ed gets to enjoy said luxuries and the rather peaceful and comfortable life Stede and his crew live on the revenge, while still being basically the great pirate Blackbeard.

But the first time this causes friction in their relationship is also in season 1. After Izzy's betrayal and the Act of Grace, we see Ed contentedly giving in to their new situation, shaving off the beard that was quite literally his trademark, folding stuff; and, after Stede reciprocated his love, looking forward to run away with him to lead a peaceful, private life in China. But Stede is disturbed by all these changes, because Ed is giving up what he himself so desperately wants. Just like Izzy, Stede doesn't really understand it. Why would Ed do that? Just for him? He might have understood that Blackbeard was bored and frustrated before, with the monotony his life had become, but they'd changed that, right? They were pirates together, that's not boring or frustrating, right?

Which is why it is so easy for Chauncey - about who, we have to assume, Stede still hasn't told Ed - to use it to feed Stede's own insecurities - Stede will never be a great pirate, and now he has even ruined someone who was a great pirate.

Again, we all know where that ended - Stede going back to his family out of a feeling of guilt, and Ed going back to pirating - how could he run off to China without Stede now - because that is the only option he has. And boy, does he turn it up to 11. Talk about putting your feelings into your work.

But then they reunite, they talk, they come back together and even finally spend what I think we all imagine as a very emotional, romantic night together, albeit with some other messy stuff in the mix.

Only the elephant in the room is still there.

And in 2x06 it starts to get interesting, because Ed tries to tell Stede.

Telling the kids that they are not pirates but own an inn together, that is Ed trying to let Stede know that that is what he wants. I want to own an inn with you, lead a peaceful life, not being pirates anymore. But Stede doesn't pick up on that. He just assumes Ed came up with that on the spot to be a better example for the kids, no more, and he "plays along".

Then Ed tries again at the beginning of 2x07.

Ed: "How about we just avoid all near death situations?" ("I don't want us to be pirates who are in danger all the time!")

Stede: "Nice idea. Not bloody likely in our line of work." ("Aw, it would be a great world if you could be a pirate and not be in danger all the time. But we both know that's not the case, we both know we are pirates, and pirates are in danger. So alas, we are going to be in danger all the time.")

Stede is happy. He is finally where he wanted to be. He's become a great pirate (or is at least well on his way), and he is with his love. And in his bliss he doesn't really listen to Ed when he tries to let him know that he wants something different. Why would anyone want to change something that is so perfect?

Just like Izzy, back then.

So, as I said, the blow-up had been coming a long time; and it actually went tamer than I feared. Ed not feeling understood (because he isn't) and running off to become a fisherman, Stede probably feeling like he had a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, unable to assemble the puzzle pieces of what he had missed due to pure shock, and both being upset and angry with each other. Ed's "why don't we stop now, before we say anything we can't take back" is surprisingly healthy, while Stede having to shout "you're a coward" after him anyway makes me want to shake him like a rattle. But we know where Ed is, he hasn't dropped off the face of the earth, they can come back together and continue their conversation after some thought and introspection, having realised that there was something they should have talked about a lot sooner and maybe trying to see where the other man is coming from.

I think part of the solution will arise from what happens in the last minutes of 2x07, when Stede's pirate fantasy starts crashing down around him - similar to how Ed's fantasy of aristocratic society in 1x05 first gave him a high and then crashed as well. Stede needs to get it out of his system, but ultimately, being a pirate is not who he is. He was able to grow and change, to become a better pirate, a better Captain, but he has to realise that he doesn't have to become more manly, less sensitive, or give up the beautiful things he loves, and that Ed loves him exactly as he is. That piracy is a fantasy, one that Ed lived and knows the worst parts of its reality, that he doesn't want anymore and that Stede wouldn't want either, once he fully experienced it. And he needs to understand what Olu told him in 1x01 - that piracy is something different when you never had another choice. Because Ed never had another choice. But Stede could give him one. After all, they have always been happiest together when they met in the middle, and they can have that - away from Stede's aristocratic life, away from Ed's piracy.

At least, that's what I am hoping for them (and, well, I trust David Jenkins, so yeah**).

So Ed's & Izzy's long term relationship broke apart because Ed wanted to retire and Izzy, who couldn't imagine being anything other than a pirate, didn't understand or support him.

And Ed's & Stede's new love is in danger because Ed still wants to retire, and Stede, who loves being a pirate and can't imagine why anyone wouldn't, didn't understand him... But maybe he will?

"He is a complicated man."

Yes. And hopefully one of you succeeds in figuring him out and give him what he needs, where the other one failed.

*= oddly enough, the violent destruction of Izzy's mental image of "Blackbeard", that we witnessed partly during the first 3 episodes of season 2, could be the very thing he needed to finally see the person "his" Blackbeard turned into while he wasn't looking. He might finally come to be able to understand Ed.

**= honestly? I think that is what Izzy's journey about learning to care for the crew and being accepted by them is all about. And he is not only training Stede to be a Captain, he is also learning from him. How to be more sensitive, more supportive, Stede's "people-positive management style". Because once Ed & Stede fake their deaths and retire to the countryside to open an inn, Izzy will have another go at being a Captain - this time one that his crew will not be trying to throw overboard after what accumulated to basically 5 minutes of his reign.

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mrswinnie04 · 1 year

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Do you know something about j2 videos kissing in restaurants?

Hello anon! :)

You know, I joined the tinhatter community about two months ago and this question/topic was something I stumbled across almost immediately. There wasn't a lot of content on these "videos" but there were one or two blogs that did quality analyses of these rumors (I would recommend them to you but I cannot remember/recall what blogs they were *cries*).

Anyway, I have not seen these videos for myself. I also have never come across any blogger that has actually seen these videos themselves. Thus, as far as I know, it seems these videos are mere rumors.

However, and I truly emphasize the stress in this however, I believe it quite likely that someone has seen J2 out in public being quite affectionate with one another. For all of you tinhatters out there, I know most of you have probably come across someone on twitter/tumblr/Instagram who has posted about seeing Jensen and Jared out and about in Austin at bars, resturants, etc... Seeing them in public is inevitable, they live in Texas. They are bound to be seen. However, what makes some of these encounters quite interesting is the stark display of intimacy many of these fans claim to see between J2 whenever they are out on date-nights or hanging out with friends.

So, do I know if these videos of J2 kissing in restaurants actually exist? No, I don't. However, I find it extremely likely that someone out there has caught/seen J2 in a moment of intimacy while they were in public. As a tinhatter, I find it inevitable. Yes, our boys are very good at "bearding" and keeping their PR images up well, however, we have seen in countless interviews/cons that the boys have an abundant amount of love for one another. Hell, "personal space" isn't a word that exists in either one of their dictionaries when it comes to one another. Thus, even if these "videos" don't exist, it is likely that someone's probably caught the boys kissing (whether that be in a restaurant, night-club, or in public).

I think the most interesting thing that I've found from the supposed rumor of someone catching J2 kissing on camera, is that these videos were said to be captured (approximately) during season three's break/after season three.

Whenever it was, one of the blogs I read on this topic noted that if these videos were to have spread during this time, it would make sense as to why PR brought in Gen in season 4. It makes sense why PR would force a "beard" down Jared's throat:

To cover up these rumors. To cover up these sightings. To try and squash tinhatters or any suspicious parties.

If any of you have read Speak the Truth, you will notice the rushed/interesting timeline of J2's "marriages" and "engagements". I mean, if you thought it was weird how fast the boys were suddenly "dating", "engaged", and then "married", well, I've read that these videos might be the reason. And If this is true, I think this should show us all just how caged these boys really are. How neither of them truly have free reign over their lives. Over their love.

It's heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking to think that a video(s) could have so much power over the boys in the worst way possible.

So, if these videos do exist out there somewhere/if anyone has ever seen it, it is my hope that all of us tinhatters do the right thing and not spread the video/make sure it isn't being spread.

We are fans of J2. We love them and their love dearly. They deserve respect and privacy. They deserve to come out/be together on their own terms and conditions.

So, cheers to J2. Cheers to their love and admiration for one another.

Thank you for the question, anon! I enjoyed answering it :)

————————————————————

P.S. J2 were probably so head-over-heels for each other during the time these alleged videos were leaked. I mean, If it happened while they were filing season three, that’s during the time our boys were falling in love with one another🥺🥺

LOOK:

These pictures have my whole heart💗

(Thank you to another few anons for helping me confirm this but bottom-right pic is photoshopped, unfortunately, but it was too cute not to add🥺🥺 thanks for your help though! Just wanted to make sure I confirmed that part💗💗 love ya’ll)

#j2 #j2 tinhat #spnfan #spnfandom #supernatural #dean winchester #jared and jensen #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #jensen and jared #padackles #j2 love #j2soulmates

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phantomoftheorpheum · 3 months

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PLL: OS (Summer School) 2x07 thoughts

*Spoilers for 2x01-2x07 of Summer School + the trailer for the final 3 episodes.

Okay, this is it, y'all, the last chance to make any predictions! I suspect this is going to be very long.

Unfortunately I have a lot going on rn, so I'm pretty exhausted and I fear this will not be my best, but I'm going to do my best to push through the brain fog. If I struggle with expressing my thoughts, at least you'll know why.

I think, for the final analysis of the season (I will post something about 2x08, but it will probably be a much shorter post, since I don't anticipate doing much speculating [outside of loose threads]) I'm going to break things down by girl, but fully go through every character most closely linked to each girl, then move on to stuff that doesn't fit well in those categories. Okay, let's do this. I hope you're ready for overthinking. (P.S. there are weird breaks in the formatting because of tumblr's limits of how long a single block of text can be).

Faran

I'm starting with Faran because she is both my personal favorite, and because I think she may be the simplest to talk about. So while it does feel like Faran's gotten to grow this season, a lot of her story is really an internal journey for her character development, and I think a lot of it isn't super directly linked to the BR plot. Despite her character getting a lot of physically strenuous scenes, I think her confidence/emotional strength was what was really tested this season. So like I said, aside from being linked to the church through the characters outside of the girls that she interacts with the most, Faran doesn't feel super tied in to the BR motive. I've really enjoyed Faran this season (and relate to a lot of aspects of her personality), but her story does feel a bit peripheral to the main events of the season (which is fine, tying to deeply tie villain motivations back to each of the girls in this plot seems like a lot. It worked with their moms, but would be harder to do repeatedly). That being said, there are characters and plot lines attached specifically to her, so let's take a look at those.

Henry - I think he's irrelevant. He was mentioned one time this episode. I think this is just a character (or maybe more the relationship) they just wanted to cycle out. He's felt doomed (figuratively speaking) all season, and if he doesn't make any kind of appearance in 2x08, that doesn't feel like a loose thread. I've never hated or loved Henry (and I think that's a bit of the problem and the reason they've basically written him out), he's just kinda there. And now he's just kinda not there. If they have a third season, I could see him possibly making very minor appearances (depending on the availability of the actor), but it does just feel like the show is pretty done with him. Considering his connections to Kelly's church, it is possible he "sold the girls out" in some way, but that just feels unnecessarily complicated, tbqh. This is probably the last time I will talk about him at all, unless he pops up in an important way next episode.

Coach Rhodes & Stringbean - It feels like this storyline was here to close out Faran's arc of finding herself and feeling confident/comfortable in her strength, both physically and mentally. Obviously Coach Rhodes has Faran's number, and they still haven't explained the info showing up on SpookySpaghetti, but that always felt like a distraction anyway (Coach Rhodes, I mean). I'll be surprised if he has any kind of important role.

Greg - I guess it's time for me to really talk about Greg, because I've mentioned him and Faran/Greg a little over the course of the season, but mostly in passing. It now feels like it's time. Listen... Greg is (I think) in my mind benefitting massively from the fact that I didn't bother to rewatch season 1, because I don't think I have as many negative feelings about him as people who that season was fresh for. I barely remember him in season 1, so I've forgotten a lot of the stuff he said/did, so basically season 2 Greg exists in my mind by himself. BUT, please don't get me wrong, he is still annoying and problematic and I think they've rushed (and cut) key stuff they really needed for a good redemption arc for a character like him. And I do think he needs a redemption arc if they want to move forward with him as a protagonist, even a background one. In the scheme of the show, sure, Greg is probably not the literal worst (I don't think he's murdering anybody, anyway), but the show has also made him intentionally an example of toxic masculinity, misogyny, etc. etc. etc. and because the show has chosen to center a lot of these topics, then ignoring that Greg has spent the majority of his screen time as an embodiment of all those things, just having him say a few "Sorry, I'm better now," kind of lines just doesn't cut it, imo. I actually really respect the idea of taking an incredibly privileged, toxic, and even harmful character and deconstructing them, to show that it's hard and it's a process and that people can change, but it's not easy to unlearn all that stuff. It can be fascinating, and also a reminder that, as hard as it might be for us to like someone like Greg, the message that "once a shitty person, not always a shitty person," is ultimately, if executed thoughtfully, a positive. So yeah, I think that kind of storyline can be done well, but it takes time, which is something this show lacks in a lot of ways (lots of characters, lots of elements, very few episodes). Personally, I think they should have played the long game with Greg, if they really wanted to turn him into a protagonist and possible love interest. I don't know why they wouldn't, except maybe that he's going to be sacrificed to add to the body count of the finale and so they knew they didn't have time to do a developed arc with him.

Faran/Greg as a ship - If you told me I had to write a follow up to season 1 and make Greg a love interest for Faran, here's what I would have pitched- Use season 2 to show that he's questioning things and people around him (maybe we introduce his gay cousin [I know that was a Riverdale reference, but that could have been anyone] who's visiting for the summer and he's someone Greg already loves/respects who calls out his inappropriate comments and toxic masculinity). Show him listening and absorbing the thoughts/behavior of the people that he's now surrounded by (his cousin at home, Faran and Ash [and Shawn if he existed enough to be anything] at work), instead of his usual group of friends from school. Show him becoming unsatisfied and embarrassed with the way that he's been acting. Make him realize, now that he's starting to open his mind a bit, that he does really respect Faran, shown through interactions of them working together. Have them clash at the beginning of the season, but also have them talk and have friendlier moments, because they're stuck together at work and there's a lot of just sitting around, basically. Let us, the audience, watch him change, while Faran maybe doesn't see it that much, because the change is slow. If you have to have Faran/Greg "romance" in season 2, make it casual. Faran will have spent enough time with Greg by mid-season that she's friendly-ish with him, but after her breakup with Henry, she's just looking for a FWB kind of situation and, now that she's seen a slightly better side of him, she thinks Greg's kinda hot. She sees him shirtless all day, she finds that their bickering has evolved into less serious topics and now it's evolved into some sexual tension, she doesn't see him as a real romantic option, but he and Kelly are broken up (which I would have had happen earlier), so why not? Get them to a point by the end of season 2 where you've set up a "he's completely smitten with her, but she thinks it's just casual and it doesn't even occur to her they could be a real couple," dynamic for season 3. If you get a season 3, great. If you don't, that's okay, too. That way, you still get your ship in season 2 (and it's PLL, they tend to have to have their ships), but it doesn't feel entirely unsupported, and you can continue to have that relationship evolve into something deeper, OR you can have it fall apart easily, whichever direction you want to go if you get renewed because there's groundwork for either (scenario one, Faran develops feelings, scenario two, she doesn't and realizes he has and that ends things). So that would have been my pitch if you told me I have to try to make this ship work (would I have pitched this ship in the first place? no, I wouldn't have, but that won't stop me from trying to retroactively work out how it could have been handled), anyway.

As it is, I really don't get the Faran/Greg thing from a pacing/storytelling/character POV. I get the tropes that they're leaning into with this relationship. I get that there's limited time. I think I entirely get what the intent was. I just don't think they've done enough with Greg's character or his relationship with Faran to support where we are now with them. Mostly. I said last week that I thought it was good they cut the 2x06 kiss, because while I could see where they were trying to go with things, it just didn't feel like they'd managed to actually get those characters to a place where it makes sense, but now I kind of want to take that back because I think this felt even weirder? Like I don't know what was said in the 2x06 conversation that led to a kiss, or what other Faran/Greg content they might have cut from earlier in the season, but I just didn't feel like they'd had enough legitimately friendly interactions (yeah, Greg apologized to her that one time, but they've not really talked about anything of substance with each other, ever) for them to suddenly be legit hanging out and hooking up. When Greg said, "You know why," I thought to myself- Yeah, I do, but what if I didn't know about the cut kiss from 2x06 and/or I haven't been paying that much attention to the show, would I? That conversation makes a lot more sense with the context of that not being the first time they've kissed, but since that scene was cut, I guess it canonically is and hhdfjshfkjsdfs. Because romance is not central to the plot, and you have 5 main characters, this is the perfect opportunity to plan multi-season romantic arc that doesn't ruin anything if it's not resolved, and I just think they should have taken that. Y'all, I want to be very clear that my critiques of the show come from a place of fun for me. I like thinking about how things that I believe are particularly weak elements could have been different. If I weren't enjoying myself, I wouldn't be watching, and I definitely wouldn't be making posts like this. So when I say I think something is done poorly, that doesn't mean that I'm horribly upset or I don't like the show. I just like talking about what could be done better. The only time I am legitimately annoyed (and it's more frustration than anything) is when I feel like I just cannot understand what/why/how the creative decisions were made. I don't think Faran/Greg has been handled particularly well (too fast, too unsupported, not enough change on Greg's part, etc.), but I do think I understand what the intent/goal was, in this case, and so it doesn't bother me as much as it easily could.

Kelly

I'm giving Kelly her own section this time, and I think it makes sense for it to follow Faran's, since their plots are tied together this season.

Kelly's actions are quite interesting to me this episode. She seems to be genuinely investigating the Bloody Rose plot, and she seems genuinely suspicious of her mother. And also she could be dead now. (I do not think Kelly is dead, because if she is, then Faran didn't have to find her right away. I assume Faran will be able to save her, tying up the "Faran rescuing people from drowning," arc).

The question remains- is Kelly genuine? She does a lot of things in this episode that point to "she doesn't know what's going on," like calling Sandy's mom and asking where she is, questioning her mom about who she blames for Karen's death, locking her mom up and fleeing her house. All these things are consistent with actions a character would take if they don't know what's going on and are trying to find out.

My problem with this is... I think that there is a plan from the BR team (I'm calling it a team, because I think it's minimum 2 people and likely 3 or more) to frame someone (or someones) for the Bloody Rose attacks, so also all of those actions (along with a possibly faked attack intentionally witnessed by Faran) could be part of Kelly setting up her mother as a fall guy (so in this scenario, Kelly is playing out the "concerned friend & investigator" role by doing things like calling Sandy's parents to establish actions that would make her seem innocent). When you think about it, it would make sense. A lot of the BR stuff ties back to the church, which her mother has a major role in. Whoever BR is, they were able to convince people that their victims are still alive and not trigger a murder investigation or search parties. Whoever BR is, they are covering their tracks. Mrs. Beasley would be a great fall guy if Kelly were involved, and Mrs. Beasley is abusive towards Kelly, giving her motivation to frame her.

So, for that reason, I haven't cleared Kelly from my list. That being said, her behavior this episode does more likely point to her innocence, as it's a simpler explanation and allows her to stay in the show as a sometimes protagonist, sometimes antagonist. I also think this episode makes it pretty difficult to think Mrs. Beasley and Kelly are involved. If they were, a lot of their conversations don't make any sense.

However, if Kelly is involved, I can't help but wonder if her BR attack was staged (I mean, she may really be injured à la Billy and Stu) because she was tipped off about the girls beginning to close in a bit by Faran's conversation with her. She could also be pissed at Faran for her thing with Greg (though since the show seems to have cut a lot of that, it's probably not that important to the plot) if she somehow found out about that.

Mrs. Beasley is obviously incredibly suspicious at this point, but since PLL properties favor twist villains, she may very well be too suspicious. She blames the girls for what happened to Karen (and what warped thinking, that this happened to Karen because of the video is. Ma'am Karen's doom did not start with a video, it started when your husband r**ed Angela), which is certainly motive. She also specifically ties Karen's death to The Orpheum, which is another arrow pointing at Tabby's storyline. Anyway, obviously she's growing roses (but literally anybody could go cut some) and she's connected to the church and we know she's hurting Kelly, so... But those reveals are all pre-finale, and also all of those things would be a great way to frame her.

The timing of Kelly's attack is difficult to pinpoint. It looked like it was daylight when she locked Mrs. Beasley up, and Kelly is attacked after dark. It's not totally clear, but I think the only side characters with alibis during this particular attack are (actual Rose, Mouse's grandmother, Shawn, & Greg). Since I believe that there may be multiple people dressing up as Bloody Rose, this isn't really helpful. (Finally a BR attack where it seems like Shawn has an alibi, though).

Mouse

This is probably going to be a pretty short section, since Mouse doesn't have a ton going on, though there are some interesting implications in her story this episode.

So... how did Mouse get exposed on SpookySpaghetti? It still feels like there's someone with inside info on the girls (phone numbers, their redemption house info, now this), but as far as we know the only character who knows Mouse made the Angela video is Ash. Are we supposed to believe people just recognized her/her voice (which tbf, was not particularly disguised)? Or was the laptop she was brought a trap? (or even if it wasn't, could someone have remote access to Mouse's computers?) Is someone tracking her digital info, and possibly even watching her through her webcams? It's interesting because we've only seen this happen once, but Mouse accepted that video chat with Bloody Rose, so could the point of that have been for Rose to gain access to her computer? That's never come back around.

Speaking of Mouse's computer, we did meet her "computer teacher" this episode, and he is clearly a character who would be capable of all that, but it feels waaaay too late for an important introduction.

Ash - Again, I don't have a lot to say here. The fact that he knew about the Angela video does look not great for him, particularly with the leaked phone numbers, since he's someone who probably had all the new numbers at that point. The girls say they didn't give the numbers to anyone, but I think they mean new people, because they were all still talking to their boyfriends, so I assume they were excluding people they really trust. But... I just don't see how Ash fits in as a good villain for this season. He's been very background and the biggest part of his story is Pride vs Hell House, and that just feels really genuine. He's nowhere near the top of my predictions.

Mouse's Grandmother & Rose - I am glad that this plot point is going to get addressed to some degree, because I've been wondering why they had Rose jump off of a bridge. It would have been really easy to just have her be unwilling to speak to the girls or not coherent when they found her. Whether or not she actually is Rose Waters, and what her connection to stuff might be, does still feel like it needs to be resolved. I don't have much new to say about Mouse's grandmother. I suppose she might have known Rose back in the day, since her daughter obviously knew Angela.

Imogen

There are a few elements to Imogen's storyline this season that need to be addressed in the finale, the most obvious being if BR is pretending to be her mother and why.

I still think we're building to Imogen stabbing someone (quite probably Johnny), just not sure whether that's going to be a hallucination, a bad guy, accidentally a good guy, etc. I don't think the fact that she's had two meltdowns where she's grabbed knives and Johnny has talked her down from both of them is in any way an accident (rule of threes).

I'm still unsure why they introduced Rebecca, when it's had absolutely nothing to do with anything (I guess it's informed Imogen's mental state and kept her relationship with her mother at the surface). I just don't see how they tie it in with any sort of satisfaction because we've literally met this character one time.

In general, I'm honestly really not sure how Davie ties in to everything, unless she doesn't, really, but it's part of the storyline BR is crafting for a film or something.

Johnny - He's continued to be super chill about all the stuff Imogen is throwing at him. Out of the three new love interests, he is the least developed, which I think makes him the least likely to have a big twist reveal (though I do have a theory that includes him, but we'll get to that later because there's a lot of other stuff I need to bring up first), but that shot of what appears to be Imogen dragging his body across the creamery floor is something. I've thought it is most likely a nightmare that she has (because if he was revealed as a villain and killed or injured, why would she need to move his body? Surely under those circumstances she'd just call 911, like do we think Imogen is going to hide a body this season???), but I also kind of expected it to be in tonight's episode. I think I also instinctively discredit it a bit because if it is real & what it looks like, that feels very spoilery and I would never put something key like that in a trailer, but also sometimes they really do put stuff in a trailer that you probably shouldn't. Since I have no new information on his character, this is about all I've got for you on this one.

Imogen/Johnny - Johnny has one point in his favor with me, and it's a small point, which is that he got the 2x06 Greg treatment this episode, AKA they gave him a shot were Imogen leaves and then he's all smiling and smitten. There's literally no one there to see it. But I only give that a tiny bit of weight because it could just be editing. The choice to linger on him in this moment feels weird if he's going to be evil, but weird choices happen sometimes. It also makes me very nervous that Imogen keeps talking about how safe she feels with Johnny. That seems like terrible foreshadowing. I just really want Imogen to not have to relive the trauma of dating people who have literally always had an ulterior motive.

Small note, but- "Stop analyzing me." Imogen, I love you, but do you know what a therapist is for?

Dr. Sullivan - Okay, this is still a big thing, even though we got some kind of explanation out of her in this episode. It's hard to know how honest she's being. Even without her vanishing and the rose petals appearing, her past with this situation didn't feel resolved. Archie murdering her son for revenge against Dr. Sullivan for simply not reporting his situation doesn't totally line up to me. Like I get that she should have done something, but he had apparently already escaped at that point, so... She's from Millwood. Did she know the girl's moms? Did she know Davie? We know she knew Rose. Also Imogen couldn't find anything about her son online. He has a gravestone, so it feels like he's real (though she could have scouted the cemetery and found a Sullivan and then used that person's first name in her explanation to Imogen), so that makes me question if Dr. Sullivan is Dr. Sullivan. I mean, I know that Dr. Sullivan is a character from the original and she is definitely actually Dr. Sullivan, but with all the theories around twins, could she actually be Dr. Sullivan's twin, impersonating her to gain access to the girls (would also explain why she was so willing to risk her license by recording the girls without their consent)? But that feels overly complicated, too.

Obviously Imogen has that dream where Dr. Sullivan is BR and impersonating her mother. But Imogen's story is so intertwined with motherhood, she clearly spends part of the season looking up to Dr. Sullivan as a kind of stand-in mother figure, and Dr. Sullivan and Davie do look a little alike. This is clearly unresolved, but I'm conflicted in where I think it's going. It could be more about Imogen's personal journey, and I would probably assume that if BR hadn't (probably, we didn't actually see it) been wearing a Davie mask.

Dr. Sullivan's flashback scenes were weird, like tv (or film) recreations, rather than legit flashbacks (another SpookySpaghetti film? Or possibly the movie BR might be making?) and what was with Archie's mask in the flashback??? That looked like a Christian monster mask, rather than the A mask we're used to seeing. That's another reason I wonder if the "flashback" might be a dramatized recreation for the film. And is that supposed to be Archie's "real" face?

I still haven't forgotten that someone pushed her down the stairs (according to her) and we've just avoided bringing that up again.

"Something about Rose compelled me," is a very interesting wording. It's also very "The power of Christ compels you!" feeling.

And then, obviously, she disappears and the rose petals are left behind. So presumably she's either been kidnapped by BR or she's in on it. I'm still very conflicted about this character.

Noa

Here we are again. That's it.

Okay, no, I'm actually going to talk about it. I'm not going to continue to go on about all the stuff leading up to this episode because I have discussed it in length in previous posts. Yes, I'm still frustrated with this storyline, and yes, that's still mostly because I cannot figure out what the show is trying to say/do here. Either Noa is getting set up for a big fall/surprise, or they genuinely didn't see how this arc was going to be received. It's one or the other.

While I can understand why Noa would feel so connected to Jen and why she might grow apart from Shawn and why this love triangle situation happened in the first place, what I struggle to understand (from a character perspective) is how she'll go from casually discussing the fact that she's been cheating on Shawn (those are her own words, it's not like she's in denial about her actions), then crying and seemingly genuinely feeling guilty, but then she'll turn around and think she's justified in smashing up his car because... he was angry at her and Jen for their affair?

Characters respond to things emotionally, and I do think Noa is someone who operates on her gut instincts, rather than spending a lot of time thinking things through, but what in holy hell was she thinking? Of course he's gonna be really pissed, Noa. You cheated on him (and it's not even addressed if he's aware this happened while she was in juvie, too), literally moved the person you're cheating with into your house under his nose, asked him for 2k to bail out the person you're cheating with, continued to instigate a sexual relationship with him instead of breaking things off, didn't actually do anything when the person you're cheating with literally robbed his own house (which he may also still not know), then dumped him without even being honest about why. But he's the bad guy because... he yelled at the person you were cheating with a put a hole in the wall? Wild. And like... listen, someone putting a hole in the wall in anger is a red flag to me (irl), but considering the circumstances and his lack of a history of violence, if we are supposed to think this in any way warrants Noa then smashing his car (which like... at least equally big red flag irl as punching a wall) then I don't get it.

So that brings me to the fact that I'm not convinced Shawn actually did damage the wall (he does not specifically deny this when confronted, but he's also a little distracted by the fact that his ex is smashing out his car windows). I mean, who the hell knows? We literally only have Jen's version of events and she's got a history of lying and twisting situations around to suit her ends. We also don't know what her reaction to being confronted by Shawn was. Her pattern in confrontation that we've witnessed is to get angry and accusatory with the person confronting her. She also basically taunted Shawn to his face with the comment about not getting much sleep, so why would I believe she didn't intentionally escalate that situation as well? She hardly seems like a character who would sit there and be all shaken up by it.

All that being said, if Jen is going to get majorly exposed as a villain, then this storyline will make a lot more sense to me. I'm frustrated with this storyline because I feel like I don't feel the emotions they imply we should with things like the cinematography, lighting, music, editing, etc. but if that is an intentionally contradictory choice, then that removes my frustrations. I mean, it's still a trope I don't particularly enjoy the journey of, but at least it will have been on purpose. And that's the thing I've been asking myself this season, is this on purpose? If it is, then great. It's not my kind of storyline, considering I really dislike love triangles, but they did what they wanted to do. If it's not, then someone missed the mark big time.

I'm going to discuss Jen further in a later section, so I'm not going to give her character too much attention here, but I do have one thing-

"Some lies are helpful," 👀 okay, Jen, are we gonna find out about yours? Is this going to be a "Well, yeah, I originally came here for nefarious purposes, but now I actually love you, so it's all good, right?" type of thing?

Shawn - If he's not a villain, then sorry bro, this has been a rough season for you.

Tabby

We've made it to Tabby! Our ultimate final Final Girl of season 2! At this point, it very much does seem like Tabby is at the absolute center of all this (which is why I am the most suspicious of characters directly tied to her) and that probably means some really not fun things in store for her in the finale.

We already know (from the trailer) that she's going to fall down the steps at Christian's house. She's also MIA from the riot at the Orpheum scenes (Riot At The Orpheum sounds like a PATD cover band or something, lol), so I think she's getting a lot of solo screen time in the finale.

This may not matter, but I wanted to note it here that Wes calls the owner of the movie theater "Mrs. Orpheum," which stuck out strangely to me. "The Orpheum" is a super common theatre name, so I have to assume this is a nickname (and not her actual name) Wes is using to refer to their boss, so then... considering how much is centered around Tabby this season, who actually owns the theater? And could they be behind the LLC that turned Imogen's house into Redemption House? Clearly whoever owns this place has a ridiculous amount of money, considering they're running a 35 mm capable theater that appears to have practically no customers.

Wes - So. Yeah. How likely do we think it is that Wes is dead now? Or at least kidnapped? His storyline is clearly completely unresolved (masks in his apartment, mysteriously missing for days, no BR attack alibis, his relationship with the film festival stuff, etc.) and he pretty much either has to be evil or is being framed. Him suddenly moving away (I mean, I don't think he's gone, but he did clearly tell Tabby he was leaving, so it's not like that was entirely fabricated) makes me wonder (assuming he's not BR) if he's been threatened to do so somehow. I also have no idea how Tabby is not suspicious of him. He's been acting weird, you have no idea where he is most of the time, you know he's a total asshole, and you found masks at his place and evidence he was using SpookySpaghetti, but he's not on your BR suspect list??? He's ridiculously suspicious! So suspicious, in fact, that it makes me slightly less suspicious of him. But the fact that no one has brought him up as a suspect circles me back around to being super suspicious of him again. While I'm considering some other options heading into the finale, if he were behind BR (though it has to be more than one person, imo) I wouldn't be shocked. He certainly has potential motive (I mean, if you're a terrible, terrible human being, which he is) with his film storyline and his "things are so hard for straight white men these days," mentality. I just don't love this theory as much as I did before the show started pointing at him so hard.

Mrs. Langsberry - I don't think I need to talk much about this. If she is part of the BR plot, we all know why. She has also been confirmed as a member of Kelly's church, so she does have links there, and it seems like someone on the BR team must be directly involved with the church.

Christian - I didn't want to be so suspicious of him, but we're here now. Also, Tabby, I love you, but someone is dressing up in special effects makeup and masks, both a horror mask and a hyper realistic one (we think) and your response is, "I'll ask Christian if he knows anybody," with absolutely no suspicion of him?? Like, WHAT??? And then you spent the night at his house??? I absolutely could not sleep in a house I knew had all those terrifying masks in the basement, particularly if someone was dressing up in masks and trying to kill me and friends?? I also think we spend a lot of time with Christian this season (without learning much about his past or him having his own separate arc), which makes sense if Tabby's the center of the story, but also if Tabby is the center of the story, then the villains are more likely to be directly connected to her. I also wondered why Tabby didn't question Christian suggesting they leave town together (don't you think some parents might have some opinions on this?), and because I am very suspicious of anyone the girls are not suspicious of, it made me think, "Are you trying to set up a situation where people won't think to miss her right away?" Like with Sandy or Pastor Malachi.

When Tabby asked Christian if he would help her make her movie, I thought, if he is part of the BR plot, and if that plot does involve making a movie, wouldn't it be absolutely wild if he responded to this with, "Already done." (like saying it in a friendly, 'of course' kind of way, but then meaning it literally). I feel like that's the exact kind of fun/silly thing this show would do. And if he's not involved, what a missed opportunity to creep your audience out and make them spiral (but I'm doing that anyway, so) about his character.

I want to be super fair, since I just wondered how Tabby is not suspicious of Christian and how she felt comfortable staying at his house (also where are anyone's parents? Like at least with Noa we understand why there's no parental supervision, but everyone else just stays over at their SOs place anyway?? this is one of those things I just have to not think too hard about because I don't think there is a good explanation), all of that applies to Imogen with Johnny and Noa with Jen, as well.

While horror has always been referenced in this show, it really does feel like horror films are making a huge appearance in different ways, and it just feels fitting for this to be Tabby-centric.

Speculation & More

With the "trio of villains" imagery on the poster (that has literally predicted the first 4 tests, so seems very relevant), I can't help but wonder if it could be as simple as all 3 of the new love interests. Johnny, Christian, Jen, all in it together. They're all new in town and we haven't met any of their family, so they're all pretty mysterious. I have at least one big thing about each of them that bothers me.

With Johnny it's simply those shots from the trailer (well, plus my incredibly far fetched theories about set decor and his line about his dad, but I wouldn't call either of those things compelling evidence), which make it seem like he may die in the finale (or at least be incapacitated), and since it seems to be Imogen that is possibly trying to cover that up, that doesn't bode well for his innocence. I can't think of anything that's been mentioned about him that would indicate motive, so I would have to assume that he's related to someone (like Chip) and has a revenge motive. But the shots from the trailer could still all be a dream.

With Jen it's the contradictory ways they've portrayed her storyline with Noa, and the fact that we know that we cannot assume she's being honest. It's not been specifically brought up a lot, but she could easily have a financial motive to be involved. Her stealing has been a consistent part of her character, and she says this is because she and her mom need the money. I don't know whether or not to believe that, but regardless of why she needs/wants money, it seems pretty clear she is a character who could be tied to the events of the season for financial gain (or it started that way and she regrets it, but is in too deep). It's also possible production just didn't realize how unpopular this love triangle would be (but it's hard to imagine, when they were emphasizing how loving/trusting Shawn is all season, like it feels very intentional, but then sometimes it doesn't) and the contradictory tone is not intentional.

With Christian it's his special abilities (horror makeup), the fact that he fits well into the "someone is making a movie" theory, and that he's directly tied to Tabby this season. His motive would presumably be film related (though there could be a personal element as well, since we know basically nothing about his past). But he could be a red herring or a fall guy.

Anyway, my problem with these three as a trio of villains is that it doesn't obviously connect back to the church in any way that I can think of, and I think it needs to. I guess all three of them could be supporting villains with someone else as "Rose," or maybe only one or two of them are involved.

Another consideration is that any of the love interests could be secondary antagonists, not in on the BR plot (or aided it without realizing how serious it was) and they will have a separate villain reveal (like Chip last season).

I certainly haven't forgotten about the online faction of the BR cult, particularly since it looks like they're rioting next episode (The Reckoning?), but how specifically they tie in, I don't feel confident in predicting. If the film theory is true, then I suppose their purpose could be to provide a "grand finale" for the film. I mean, it's kind of hard to get extras when your film is also an actual murder project, so brainwashing people into creating a big action sequence for you is the next best thing, I guess.

Dr. Sullivan's past just really feels like it also needs to come back around and be resolved, and I keep forgetting about the fact that she vanishes in this episode because I'm thinking about so many other things.

I'm bothered that I don't feel confident about where they're going with the Davie stuff.

I am putting a certain amount of faith in the show that they heard the criticisms of season 1 and the villain reveals will be characters we've spent a lot more time with. They have seemed to take other feedback (like the Ezra thing) and apply it to season 2, so I'm hoping this is the case for this, as well.

Anyway, I think this is all I've got right now. If you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me! I know this was a long one. I probably didn't need a whole "if they had to have Faran & Greg as a couple, here's how I would have done it," section, but Faran is my favorite and I've criticized Noa & Jen loads this season, so I gotta be fair and call it like I see it. If I think of anything else, I'll do a part 2, because this post is clearly long enough.

EDIT:

This literally doesn't matter, but I forgot to mention it & didn't want to make a whole new post about it, but I just now noticed Christian's movie on his name tag is Attack the Block, which is a absolutely ridiculous, underrated film, imo.

CLARIFICATION: I called all of the 3 new love interests "new in town," but I'm not sure that's really accurate. Christian is new in town, Jen (I think) lives elsewhere but reasonably near by because she mentions having to come to Millwood for summer school and clearly does not usually attend their school, and Johnny we really don't know. I didn't get the impression that he's recently moved like Christian, but we don't know where his house is, and none of the girls seemed familiar with him (and Millwood seems pretty small) and he mentions Rosewood when he's asking that girl out, so I kinda assumed he might be more from the Rosewood area. Anyway, "new in town" might only technically apply to Christian, but the point that all their pasts are pretty unknown still stands.

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voidwaren · 2 months

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starting off my (attempted) kick back into Tumblr/regular fanfic posting with a good ol' WiP Wednesday for Oak and Mistletoe. can't really remember how I did these, so, uh. I present you with the first bit of chapter 10, which is chugging along to completion. (kinda.)

Something was bothering Stiles.

Well, okay, something other than the multitude of bullshit he was currently experiencing. Besides the curse and the constant pain and the surprise anchor bond (which Derek STILL hadn’t said anything about, the asshole), Stiles was restless for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint. Something felt off. And not in a “I’m about to start spewing carnations again” kind of way. More in a “disturbance in the force” way.

Something just—wasn’t right. And he couldn’t figure out what it was.

“I swear to god, Stiles,” Erica growled as she reached out and clamped a red-taloned hand on his good shoulder. “Are you actually incapable of sitting still for two damn seconds or is this all a conspiracy to get you mutilated in the name of some sanity?”

Stiles blinked down at the nails as they sank into his shirt. “ADHD, so, actually, yeah, I’m genetically incapable of that,” he said first, then, after prying the hand off, “but I wasn’t moving.” And he really wasn’t. He was busy staring off into space while Erica, Isaac, and Allison shuffled through some of the books they’d unearthed from whatever musty hole Peter was calling his room over at the loft, pondering why the hell he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling of unease that had plagued him for over twenty-four hours at this point.

“You’re vibrating like you’re about to launch into space,” Erica informed him, still in her annoyed tone, but now with a tinge of something Stiles couldn’t place. Dropping her elbow in front of him, she perched her head in her hand and stared him down. “Spill.”

“Excuse me?”

“Leave him alone, Erica,” Isaac said, but in a distracted, monotone way that implied he didn’t actually care if she listened or not.

She did not, in fact, listen. “Don’t play stupid,” she pushed. “Spill.”

“Thank you for thinking I’m playing. Spill what?”

“Is it the curse? Did the seal break?”

Oh. She was asking why he was acting weird. He made a face. “Not really something I’m up for discussing with you.”

“Is it the curse?” Erica asked, and Stiles was somewhat touched to realize there was a note of distress in her tone.

That feeling was shattered immediately when Isaac said, without looking up from his book, “It’s probably the anchor bond,” and Erica’s face immediately lit up with glee.

“Oh my god, he told you?”

“No,” Stiles gritted out, “he didn’t.”

She made a noise of disgust, of which Allison echoed at a slightly softer volume. “Seriously? He’s being such a baby about this!”

That got Isaac to look up. “Hey,” he protested, “sometimes admitting to something like that is hard.” He paused. “Especially when someone else is involved and you don’t want to come between them.”

Stiles didn’t miss the way Allison snorted, just before Erica overtook his attention again.

“Who the hell else is in your life, Stilinksi? And don’t say Lydia. We all know it’s not Lydia.”

If it was, the curse wouldn’t have waited forever to activate. Stiles loved that that particular information was well-known within the group now.

“No one else,” Stiles admitted with a sigh. “I’m just pissed he hasn’t said anything ye—”

Cut off abruptly by Erica slamming her palm against his mouth, Stiles reflexively made a noise of indignation, only to realize a beat later the reason for the swift action.

#teen wolf #sterek #Oak and Mistletoe WIP #wip wednesday #work in progress wednesday

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sasaranurude · 11 months

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Coly, the company behind Mahoyaku and Stand My Heroes, have announced a new game. Some friends and I realized that despite looking somewhat generic at first glance, it's got a handful of intriguing things going on with it! So here's a quick kind of long introduction to/my thoughts on Break My Case!

First: the website! The music on the site is really good! Go listen while you read this post!! There are 12 people listed as composers in the credits page, and it seems most every VA involved has at least a bit of experience with singing or music projects. The tone is a bit dark for a rhythm game (though I'm not ruling that out entirely), but otherwise it seems like there's gonna be a music focus. Cool! As far as other staff goes--the main scenario writer is also the writer of Stand My Heroes, and the character designer is Utako Yukihiro, who also did some work for B-Project.

The story concerns a cafe with a myriad of eccentric employees that runs an after-hours service where they solve problems. The exact nature of all this is left pretty vague.

And the draw for a game like this: The characters! Interestingly, they're divided into different departments at the cafe. What exactly those departments do isn't clear yet. As for the characters themselves--the more we looked at them, the more we liked them, lol. Quick summaries about what intrigued us about each guy. Note that these are not translations, none of us are fluent in Japanese (we all know just enough to get by with the google+jisho combo lol), and this should all be taken with a grain of salt.

The Main Office, consisting of Ai Kosaka, Yuzuru Kise, and Roka Suoh. (Names are listed in western given-family order because that's what the site uses for romanized names.) Roka is the one who owns the cafe, is the oldest character in the bunch at 36, and is that fun "mysterious guy with unknown backstory and an endless amount of weird acquaintances, who acts incompetent but might actually be hypercompetent" type of trope.

On account of the whole acting-incompetent thing, Ai and Yuzuru run the actual cafe business. And normally I won't be including fullbody character art in this post but I have to make an exception just this once.

Anyways.

Tumblr won't let me put four images in a row. Come on man. I wanna maintain the BMC's site style. Why are you mean to me. Anyways. The Simulation Department, consisting of Kou Ayato, Mao Ukyo, Akehoshi Hinomiya, and Yuragi Kanno. "Simulation" is its English name given on the site, but the Japanese given would probably read more like "relationship department".

Kou is a footloose playboy and Mao is a serious intellectual type, but apparently Kou will ask Mao to pretend to be his girlfriend so that he can avoid trouble with women. That's gay. I love that. (Mao is a guy [as far as we know], he just likes makeup--he's not the only one in that cast who does, either!) We all want Mao's outfit.

Akehoshi was a sleeper hit in the group chat, because his bio has a sentence about how he's the most normal-looking-yet-dangerous employee at the cafe, and also explicitly describes him as being like a dog, and naturally we all went crazy for the silly puppy as soon as we realized that he was in fact a silly puppy. Yuragi, on the other hand, likes cats. Such a classic for his character design trope, lmao.

The Administrative Department, consisting of Taiga Tsukimoto, Haruhi Ichikawa, and Sei Okiya. Taiga looks cool but if you look at his fullbody he's wearing awful sweatpants and apparently he cries while watching anime. I love this for him. Haruhi is a streamer because that's like an obligatory character trope now I guess. Sei was very popular in the group chat for being the single most suspicious character in the cast. What's his problem.

The Watchdog Department (or enforcement department, if you translate the jpn) consists of Shizuka Fushimi, Takeru Mikado, Soyogu Shinkai, and Shinobu Aizawa.

My friend described Shizuka as a "wet looking glasshole" and yeah. ok. unfortunately he does look like that. But it's ok he's allowed because his bio says he prefers quiet, orderly places with plants and no people and keeps to himself in common spaces but his own room is a complete mess. AKA he's an autism king. So I like him.

Takeru was obviously a hit because look at them. Takeru and Mao talk about makeup together, apparently. CUTE! Shinobu is the most fashionable guy in the cast and his bio says he has a few screws loose, which is amazing. Good for him. I have nothing to say about Soyogu I think I forgot he existed until I was putting this post together and I only looked at these all guys a few hours ago

The Negotiation Department, with Kiho Arima, Kyoya Shido, and Riku Tateshina. I described this group as "grandma, grandpa, and Columbo" and then the group chat couldn't call any of them anything else. And I do mean grandma. Because. ok. another fullbody. Because oh my god we have to look at Kiho.

GIRL. WHAT. IS. THAT. YOU'RE WEARING A CARPET. YOU'RE WEARING A COUCH. kiho is apparently a fortune teller and my friend acted as if this excused the outfit but i DONT agree i don't think anything excuses this. WHAT IS THAAAAAT

Kyoya is an artist and Riku is a psychologist so honestly this is a really fun bunch of jobs going on in this department. Riku is described as someone who falls in love easily, and he's most interested in Ai (from the Main Office, the very first guy in this post). We couldn't tell if the implication there is that he's in love with Ai, or if he falls in love with random people and yet his true attention always drifts back to Ai. Both of these options are gay.

The ST (special tasks) Department, with Yomose Onda, Yu Nina, Kamiya, and Urara Manami.

Yu had his life saved by Tomose and has now dedicated himself to him, to the point of being ready to die for him. YOU GOTTA LOVE THAT. INCREDIBLE TROPE. UNBEATABLE. GAY AS HELL. All we know from Tomose's side is that he's "fond" of Yu. That's fine I'm sure you can learn to love him. Or learn to hate him. Whatever's more entertaining.

Kamiya has no memory, hence the singular name. I'm sure whatever's going on there is weird and interesting. Urara is the youngest character, at 20. THAT'S RIGHT. THE YOUNGEST CHARACTER IS 20. THERE ARE ZERO TEENAGERS! THE AVERAGE CHARACTER AGE IS AROUND 26. THIS SHOULDN'T BE AS NOTABLE AS IT IS BUT THAT'S GACHA GAMES FOR YOU. Anyways I like Urara because I think he looks like an angry kitty.

Anyways, that's the gist of what we know about BMC--or BreMai, if you wanna go for something closer to the jpn abbreviation--right now. More info might drop at/around Animate Girls Fest, since they seem to be giving out game beta codes there. I don't know if I'm completely sold on it just yet--coly did just have a detective-themed gacha game fail a few months ago with &0. But we're not even completely sure it is a gacha yet, or what kind of gameplay it might have otherwise, so... there's a bit of hope. Maybe it'll be a weird cool dark rhythm game! Who knows!!!

#suchobabbles #break my case #joseimuke

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animehouse-moe · 1 year

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Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 3: Hidden Inventory 3

I'll be the first to say it, this episode is markedly better than the prior two. It's better in quite a few different ways, though is still peppered with quite a few complaints. Would I say that things are looking up? Probably not, no. Would I say there's a chance at this adaptation getting better as we go on? Quite possibly, yes. It's a very weird spot, but this episode does well almost because it doesn't try to be Jujutsu Kaisen, rather it tries to move as far away from it as it can, and it's in the pieces that are central to JJK that you understand something is wrong. Confusing yes, but hopefully I can break down my thoughts into more detail with this post.

I like to call what I've just described the "Tanya The Evil Effect". It's an aspect where the depiction of a story and its events ends up so far deviated in tone and experience, that when under good direction and work you can still value and appreciate it as something disparate from the source material.

The episode director isn't in over their head this episode, Gosso isn't hamfisting excessive and incoherent direction into the content at large, there's just a lot of stuff that greatly divorces this episode from Gosso's vision at large, and is part of why it remains successful.

I still think there's things that are silly and pointless changes for the sake of cutting corners, like this sequence of Kuroi and Geto talking where they're static in the anime vs in motion in the manga. It's just one of those simple things that provides context and agency to the situation. Why would Geto and Kuroi be standing still if Amanai is in danger?

If you take a closer look at the episode, it's actually quite odd. There's a lot of direction that's bog standard, just characters in frame standing still. But then you get random bursts of direction that are surprisingly solid, like this piece of Amanai behind the fence/bars, symbolizing her isolation and feeling of being prisoner to her role as the Star Plasma Vessel. Arguably one of the only scenes that makes proper use of the change of scenery from the rooftop rendezvous of the manga.

Anyways, onto Okinawa. I'm disappointed, but also surprised. Incredibly sad to not see Gojo's summer hairstyle on display, but I also feel like with a lot of these scenes, this is the closest we'll manage to S1/manga humor parity.

Alright, back into disappointment mode. Very sad that they didn't include this pose/panel for Haibara and Nanami. Why don't we just continue to strip the characterization and style of this cast more, MAPPA? Also, poor Haibara man. Nanami's already a lost cause sadly, but I at least had a bit of hope for Haibara in spite of the early showings of their character design. Even worse than I was expecting to be honest. The energy and slightly goofy nature just does not exist within him in the anime.

Have to shout out my boy Asta/Tadano though. Love seeing Gakuto Kajiawara getting more and more VA roles.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Okinawa. This is now a drama anime, plain and simple. The framing/layouts/etc are all very much drama leaning, and it's well done. It's just that compared to what the manga offers.... it's, well, decidedly not it. Also, unsure why, but random scenes in the episode are very low-res? I know Tumblr compression does not help at all, but this scene in particular is incredibly grainy and odd. There's also something wrong here in how dull Gojo and Geto's colors are in the shade compared to how vibrant the scene is in the light. I wouldn't call it bad compositing, but the color design doesn't feel quite right. I mean, the second image is of them in the exact same spot under the shade, but it looks so much better? The environment art is sharper in their vicinity, the character designs are more detailed, there's proper shading, and the colors seem way more accurate/realistic.

Maybe I've just gotten used to the poor compositing/coloring of the series to be honest, because at first glance I didn't actually think it was as inconsistent as I'm finding it to be.

Also, shoutout MAPPA hating on Geto again man. This dude is just stepped all over through these episodes and it hurts me so much. His expressiveness is totally stripped away from him and replaced with some hollow smile that I'm sure anime onlies can even tell carries no weight. Like please tell me, who are these two people in the anime??? It just hurts, and it's the tip of the iceberg for the issues with faces and expressions.

Personally speaking, I think this one is the biggest failure from MAPPA. They literally did this exact defeated smile Geto loves to wear in JJK 0, and they can't repeat it for S2? It's just so painful to see them totally mismanage the characters despite having simpler designs so they can "be more expressive".

That's enough bemoaning what's happened to poor Geto, allow me to return to why this episode is actually better (though it only really borders on good) than the prior ones: that drama feel. They extend what's displayed in the manga of Amanai and co's Okinawa trip, and it's pretty well done. I'd say as a manga reader though? I don't really care, and I don't think it adds a great deal to the experience in the first place with how they chose to add things. The scenes are pretty and some of the best displayed in the episode though, of course. The good old MAPPA special of placing insane effort into original pieces while giving the source material the cold shoulder.

Okay, one little piece of criticism (though it's actually sorta big). MAPPA just can't keep their little paws off of messing up characters for some reason. It's a simple thing, I know, but it's also why I'm complaining about it. There was no need. No need to have Amanai place her hands behind her back, to do something that her character never did even once in the manga. But they do, and it changes the tone of Amanai simply walking through an aquarium, to Amanai placing more thought in the experience. A very frustrating and needless change that weighs down the actual potential displayed in the sequence at large.

Anyways, what makes this piece of the original adaptation good? Well, the use of the symbolism of fish was already strong in the manga thanks to Gege, as its used to further show Amanai's isolation and the lack of a group that she can exist alongside/be with. That part remains clear in the anime thankfully. The piece that adds to it though is the parallel between the aquarium and its customers. They place the idea of Amanai's isolation compared to the fish on top of the people visiting the aquarium. Sounds a little odd maybe but I'm bad at explaining, but the point is to show the isolation Amanai feels from seeing the fish (and whales) in the aquarium as a palpable and noticeable thing that she actively experiences.

Of course, I'm not without complaints, but I feel like it's easier to let it slide if you don't look deeply at this sequence. If you see it as something untethered to Amanai's character, the weird extra cuts of the fish swimming freely in the aquarium is fine, but putting it alongside the context of Amanai's character it's pretty confusing and excessive. Why spend all that time fixating on the movements of the fish trapped in an aquarium, relegated to their current fate? Feels like a tone deaf movement for some odd pursuit of artistry that neglects the function of the sequence.

Alright, on to the next butchered character/sequence! Toji and Gojo. Man, I knew what to expect considering they showed viewers as much of the "good" stuff as they could, but I didn't think it was going to get this weak.

I knew Toji was going to suffer, but I mean, how different can you really get and still call it the same character? What a weird shit-eating grin in the anime versus the far more creepy and naturally twisted smirk that rests on Toji's face. It's just incredibly bothersome to see them fail so miserably with reactions that are so important to characters.

And I mean, they do it again, and again, and again. The whole flashback sequence is meant to be played off like horror, and up until the reveal is well done. It's got tension, a cheesy horror soundtrack. It's got the potential to actually do something with the appeal it's aiming for, but it ultimately fails because what is Toji's reaction here? It's supposed to be the thing that he fears/despises/disgusts, but all that shows on his face is plain surprise? Compare that to the manga, and you see how flat and lifeless this reaction is.

Okay okay last one before I move on. What kind of pose is this? He's so relaxed and standing like he's already superior to Gojo, like he knows he could win effortlessly. It is absolutely not the pose and expression of a man set to go up against arguably the most feared sorcerer of his time.

Anyways, action and stuff. I don't think it's terrible. As I'd already established though it's not JJK action. It takes well done choreography and layouts, and reduces it to flashy cuts that viewers can barely piece together in time. What's more worth talking about is how dim and over processed the sequences are. They just end up looking so out of place no matter what MAPPA tries to do. Also man, the S2 OST really does stink. Even in a tense action sequence there's just zero heart in it. Such a massive flop compared to the electric work on S1 and 0.

Okay, yes, Keiichirou Watanabe's animation for Gojo's Blue is well done. But, if the camera wasn't having a seizure I'm sure it would be better received. Of course, same issues in regards to the prior statement about action with the dimming and over processing too. Wastes a lot of potential that the cut had to be a genuinely great piece of animation in the context of JJK. It still undeniably is, beneath all of the additional oddities that bury it, but it's pretty far removed from JJK.

If you want to understand what I'm saying, take a look at Hanami vs Yuji and Todo (Watanabe did the cut of Hanami's massive branch attack). Yes, the compositing is better for Gojo's blue, but take a look at the camera work. How much effort it places into keeping the duo in frame, how hard it tries to keep things cohesive and easy to follow. It's a night and day difference that shows the importance of a director in delivering the best version of someone's animation.

Anyways, here's Gojo's Blue sequence, as a video. Too long to make into a reasonable quality gif, and also insanely flashy and all over the place so nicer than having seizure material auto-play in two places at once.

Alright, so uh, Gojo dies, Toji pulls up with the gat and domes Amanai right in front of Geto, following it up by announcing that he killed Gojo. And then the episode ends. Honestly? I loved the ending just cause I know it'll cause so much chaos for viewers.

The episode overall though? It's weird that I think it noticeably better than the prior two when I've complained about so much, but maybe it's one of those things where the closer you get to being correct, the more faults you find in the thing being examined. Regardless, it feels like Toji's been incredibly nerfed from a viewer's perspective compared to the manga (alongside Geto and plenty of others), and honestly I had next to no hype for their actual sequence because it all felt so disjointed. The pacing of it felt off, and the action just didn't grab me with it's super flashy, highly processed, up close and personal so you can't quite tell what's going on combat. I'd say it's still a flop compared to what S1 would offer in comparison for big moments, but it's also done better on average when compared to the prior two episodes.

Pacing is of massive concern now though. We're three episodes in, with a total of five. It took us three episodes to make 8 chapters total, and we've got 6 though more likely 7 chapters of content left to cover for this arc, with only 2 episodes remaining. "Oh that's not too bad", except for the fact that there's the massive upcoming fight alongside us still having to get through Toji vs Geto. Even with the 6 instead of 7 chapters, even if they don't add any original content, they're speed-running at a minimum of 3 chapters for the last two episodes, which is pretty damn bold.

Is Hidden Inventory/Gojo's Past going to hold on and make it to the end in its current state, or will it rush itself to an early grave? Next episode will certainly be the deciding factor, but whatever it is, I'm not exactly hopeful of where we're going to be left.

#jujutsu kaisen #呪術廻戦 #jjk #sorcery fight #gojo satoru #geto suguru #toji fushiguro #anime review #anime and manga #anime

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attackfish · 1 year

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A thing I've noticed is that most people who aren't in the biological sciences, and even a lot of people who are have this tendency to think that evolution is much cleaner and more purposeful than it is, for example if an organism has a trait, that trait must be doing something for the organism, and evolution must have selected for that trait, and that trait must be the best possible version of it for that organism's specific circumstances.

In reality of course evolution is very messy, and is the process of adapting what an organism has or can cobble together, to best meet an immediate need. And genes are connected to other genes in weird and wild ways. A fairly well-known example is the fact that floppy ears are connected to a bunch of other genes in canines that are related to domestication, so when we domesticated wolves into dogs, or they domesticated themselves, or however that process worked, floppy ears came along for the ride, even though they have no evolutionary advantage, and even a minor disadvantage.

So there is this post going around Tumblr about zombies, and why humans are afraid of them, and why we are afraid of things that look human but aren't quite human in general, and it goes through people talking about how it might have been because of other human species that were dangerous to us, and maybe this is a response to that danger, and then somebody else went no no it's probably rabies, because rabies is very dangerous and will make you look like a human but suddenly very dangerous to everyone around you, and you might as well already be dead because you will be dead very soon, and you can make other people be dead very soon too.

And yeah I am willing to admit that the human response to other humans that aren't acting right, that just seemed off in that undefinable way, was probably very useful at helping us avoid contagious disease. Though it is important to note here that the original zombie fear, where it came from in folklore, was a fear of being made into a zombie. This fear arose specifically in populations of enslaved Africans and their descendants and it was a fear of a slavery more total than even their current state of subjugation. It wasn't a fear of hordes of undead monsters, it was a fear of being taken over and used, and having your very self violated, of having death be no escape from slavery.

But anyway, I don't think that the uncanny valley arose to protect us from rabies or any other contagious disease, though it may have been a useful trait for that reason. the uncanny valley doesn't just apply to humans, a very popular type of horror monster is like X but not X, like a deer but not a deer, like a dog but not a dog, like a house but not a house, like a room but not a room. Given my last two examples, it's clear that the thing that this is like, doesn't even have to be alive. Somehow I don't think that's to protect us from rabies.

If you want my guess, and I am a lay person and this is a guess of somebody who is moderately interested in the subject, I think it has more to do with the fact that our brains have evolved to become pattern finding, categorizing meat machines, and this has all kinds of benefits to us, keeping us alive, helping us together food helping us find shelter keeping us out of danger etc etc etc. And our brains really really do not like it when it cannot categorize something, when something breaks a pattern, and it can't find a new one to put it into, or find a new box that this thing belongs in. And we feel that attempt and failure to categorize a thing, as The Uncanny. It's less a separate trait, and more a peek into how your brain actually works.

Again, this is a guess from a lay person, but even if I'm not correct in this instance, it really is important to keep in mind that evolution is messy, haphazard, and works only with what it has, and only sometimes is there a neat correlation between a trait and an evolutionary pressure which that trait evolved to fit.

#posts i created

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fountainpenguin · 7 hours

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Small 'Fic Posting News

I moved a lot of early FOP character studies and warm-ups to my unrevealed Riddle WIPs collection on AO3, so they're easily on hand for me to tag and post when I feel ready.

A lot of these are things I enjoyed, but didn't feel comfy sharing back in 2016/17. They're cool to look back on and I'm ready to let them go. Some are suggestive, some are emotionally intense, some are very simple character studies, so as always, tread with care.

I also think they're neat because they don't build on each other, so they're pretty low-brainpower reads (imo), which some people may like.

I don't expect to post one of these old things every week, but they'll probably show up on Mondays or Wednesdays or something like that (Once Life of a Loser stops posting on Wednesdays, which is in two weeks).

As per the norm, M and E works will be under the ScarletPenguin pseud, so if you know that's not your cup of tea and you see the email, you can delete it without needing to open it or check tags.

These old pieces will be exclusive to AO3 (Organization, easier for my brain, etc.) On the off chance anything becomes a Prompt, it will go on FFN.

Not planning to do Tumblr announcements or cover images for them. They're off to the side for the people interested. Might shout out a few favorites, though.

AO3 series to subscribe to or avoid at your preference:

🌈 Rainbow Train - All FOP 'fics that aren't 130 Prompts (i.e. It will include these old pieces). 🖤 Off the Rails - Stuff that doesn't fit my main AUs (Cloudlands, City Lights, Reedfilter). Most old pieces will go here since they're non-canon now. ❤️ Red Train - Romantic or sensual works (All FOP AUs).

Additional reminder:

🚂 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash - Everything in this one-shot series is G or T. If you feel uneasy about Rainbow Train, you can filter M and E stuff out by subscribing just to this one!

Under the cut, I have examples (i.e. screenshots of these WIP titles and summaries like what you would see when scrolling AO3) to help people get a feel for the vibe.

Suggestive or gross summaries & commentary; proceed at own discretion. Obviously, #ridspoilers.

Reminder - These are WIP screenshots. The pieces will have proper tags and meta before they're posted. Titles may also change.

Bonus disclaimer: If you see a line in an old WIP that seems familiar... I do yoink things from these sometimes because I wasn't planning to post them, yes <3

This will be the first one:

Exactly what it says on the tin- Super simple.

Here are a few more examples (No specific order)-

A scene from Frayed Knots I've always regretted cutting even though it was for the best, but y'know what? It deserves to be shared because it's funny :)

Another moment from canon translated into my style! There's also a "Flappy finds out Gary and Betty knew about magic the whole time" bit somewhere in here that I had to throw out after "Solo" happened.

I will not apologize for my deity break-up drama. I might apologize for Prince Thursday's seasonal torment, but he's the nature spirit of Leaves, so-

Unpleasant non-con / dubcon situations... We know how this goes.

And the obligatory sequel to the above. That pixie sure can character arc!

Very cursed flirty pixies, my beloved...

Do you have any idea how weird it feels to post pre-reincarnation pieces out of context... skldjf...

It's gross! It's goofy! Cupid's ancestors took her mobility aid because they're unpleasant people! We just keep winning!!

Uncut version of the Ambrolara scenes! I sadly cut some of my favorites lines from "Hate That I Love You" because it would've crossed the line... but I love them....... my cursed OCs who are awful for each other.

No one understands Sanderson's mind, not even me 7 years later... He can do whatever he wants forever.

Foop's romantic scenes during the late-Prompts era are some of my favorite warm-ups... He's here, he's queer, he's having a mental breakdown spitting and crying over his dad not noticing him sneaking in a girl, he was forced to marry someone he desperately does not want to be intimate with, he loves his mom, he's losing the power struggle against his alt personality, he's this close to losing his inheritance, he calls his wife his mistress's name... No one is doing it like him. Probably because he's doing SO bad!!

The preview scene you see in "Trouble Beyond Paradise" finally broke me... It's been a favorite since 2017 and I just really want to share... That one's a multi-chapter and I hope you guys like it. I love Foop/Anti-Marigold and their weird situation... Like, of COURSE if Poof has severe anxiety about accidentally forcing them into dubcon, Foop's genius idea is to get the first time over with before Poof/Goldie can bind them into it. So funny. They are silly little guys... the people have a right to know...

Very old anatomy study. It's about bees ripping apart when they mate. It's... sort of cute? Mostly horrific and full of pain and sobbing? :'D If you pick this up, you will very quickly see why I never intended to post it, but... It's 2024, baby! Welcome to my mind...

- This one will likely get a new title, so be careful if this is one you want to avoid. - Where is that post that goes like "Why do all my ace friends write the most bizarre sex scenes?" followed by "Have to throw in something interesting for us." sdfkj. Yeah... It's me, I'm that guy. And this kind of guy.

And more!! I hope you like reading these old pieces, but if they are not your thing, that is perfectly fine. Some of these are not even my thing, but sometimes you have to write it to know that! Sometimes you knew that and wrote it anyway because ??? idk.

I think it's neat to see my style change over the years. I hope you get some joy out of them, even if they're hyperspecific.

#FAIRIES!#ridwriting #ridspoilers #ScarletPenguin #dead dove #fic announcement #I think that's all I want to tag here

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kirchefuchs · 1 year

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GET CLOVERED MOTHER SHUCKER

NEHEHEH

Okay, break from the fish talk show. Time to talk about my week! That's a very pretty clover btw.

Okay so first off, I did join the Narrator Swap discord for the month of June and I posted my first art for it two days ago. That has been super fun and I can't wait to get my partner for next week!!!

Now the big thing was yesterday. Because yesterday was my oldest brother's birthday and he wanted to bring us to a convention, so some of us joined him for that, myself included. I don't know if this is surprising or anything, but this was the first big convention I've ever been to and my goodness, it sure was something. I didn't know a whole ton about the convention going in so I didn't go to any of the panels. (Though my sister in law told me they had a Sandman panel, but I lowkey forgot and only remembered 30 minutes after the panel started. Pretty upset about that). Anyways! I did end up getting some cool things, though most of what was being sold seemed to be more anime focused there were some other cool things I found.

I ended up getting two charms, an Ineffable Husbands one for myself and a Dreamling one for my sister. I also go a really cute Blackbonnet print signed by the artist (it's so cute!!), a little sewn keychain of my favorite little dragon Figment, a really cute Ponyo sweater, and an adorable strawberry frog keyboard for my computer (cuz I really needed a new one).

So overall, a super fun experience!! I definitely have determined that next time I go to a big con I definitely need to look into everything happening the day I'm going and figure out what events I want to participate in. Also, I should probably try to finish up some of my more casual cosplays, such as the Narrator or the RK900 hoodie I've been very slowly working on. This is because I went to this con in my Ghostbusters cosplay. Since I had a proton pack I couldn't have my backpack with me, which got kinda annoying when I had some downtime and didn't have my sketchbook to draw in. So more casual cosplays would work best for me.

Another thing I've discovered. I walk really poorly. My legs and ankles are so sore right now because of how I walk and how much I was walking yesterday. I realized a few hours in as my feet were starting to hurt, that I walk in such a way that I have a little bit of a limp and it puts a lot of strain on my left leg. Along with that, when walking my ankles are very fluid in their movements in such a way that I tend to put more pressure on the outer edge of my feet. In short. I'm super unbalanced and it wrecks my ankles when I walk like this for a while. So. Oof. This explains why every once in a while one of my ankles kind gives out and I either fall or almost fall. It's very rare, but it happens sometimes. Don't really know what to do about that other than trying to be more conscious of how I'm walking.

So that's about if for con related stuff I guess, though this next thing is a tiny bit related I guess. I have noticed recently, both on Tumblr and at the con, that Trigun Stampede is really popular right now. I don't know much about the anime though my sister did show me an episode or two of the original Trugun series. I did notice a lot of really cool art of Vash while at the con, along with some amazing cosplaysm there was this one person selling the cutest little tiny acrylic standees of him and I kinda wanted one, but I felt like it would be kinda weird to get art of a character from a fandom I'm not in. Anyways, this whole thing has a point. That being, I talked to my sister about it and she said I definitely should watch both Trigun series, sooo.... might end up doing that in my free time. I will probably start with the original Trigun then watch Stampede, cuz that just makes sense to me. I don't know how into it I will get, but I guess we will have to see.

I will have you know you most likely won't have to worry about me dropping TSP since I have a lot of people, both friends and you guys, keeping me into it. So don't worry!! I will not stop drawing TSP art for a long while!!! I just thought that would be important to say.

But yeah, that's kinda been the hughlights of my week. Fun things :)

#ask #kirche rambles

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bard-llama · 11 months

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WiP Thursday AKA I was busy Weds: Petty Drama at Kaer Morhen

So I'm running out of things to post because I have been absorbed in this fic that has decided that it will both be very long and that it will not be separate chapters/the chapters will be massive. Like seriously, it's already 17.5k and we're in the first of 4 arcs/chapters. So figured I'd share a few scenes. (Warning for length 'cause I have no restraint.)

Summary: Before going to find Ciri, Geralt sought out allies to help him in the battle against the Wild Hunt, the battle to save his daughter. Unfortunately, he didn’t think to share the list of who all he was inviting with anyone – and it turns out, <i>many</i> of his friends actually hate each other. Nonetheless, they must work together to fight off the coming army.

(Apologies in advance for the formatting. Gods I hate how tumblr has changed.)

Arriving at Kaer Morhen

Now, finally, Roche and Ves were winding up the road to Kaer Morhen – and it turned out, they weren’t the only ones who had come to Geralt’s aid. In fact, quite a number of people seemed to have gathered in the keep to defend Geralt’s daughter – but neither Geralt nor his daughter were actually present yet.

“Once they arrive, it’s go time,” Eskel, one of Geralt’s witcher brothers, explained. “The Wild Hunt won’t be far behind.”

“How does Pretty Boy know so many people, anyway?” Lambert, another witcher, groused. “Even witchers from other fucking schools!”

“Oh?” Roche asked, genuinely curious.

It was at that moment that the fucking witcher who had killed Roche’s King walked in as if Geralt hadn’t said that he’d ‘dealt’ with the Kingslayer. Roche’s knives were in hand instantaneously, even though his odds of winning against a witcher weren’t great.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Eskel held his hand up. “We’re all here for the same purpose.”

The Kingslayer looked him over with little change in his expression, as though Roche had both gone unrecognized and been judged unimportant.

Roche snarled. “He killed Foltest!”

Eskel and Lambert both blinked in surprise. “He did?”

The Kingslayer shrugged shoulders that were ridiculously thick with muscle and even without the witcher mutations, he could probably take Roche down easily.

That didn’t mean Roche wasn’t ready to fight.

Ves stood beside him, blades at the ready, prepared to back him. It made him hesitate, swallowing hard. He was willing to go down fighting – but he couldn’t bring Ves down with him. The Kingslayer could probably kill them both without breaking a sweat.

Roche grit his teeth so hard his temple ached. This was Foltest’s killer. He couldn’t just let him get away.

But he also couldn’t get Ves killed. Not to mention, they were about to face an invasion by the Wild Hunt and the more bodies they had, the better.

Even if one of those bodies had murdered Foltest?

His hand was wrapped so tightly around his dagger that it was shaking, knuckles bloodless.

“Vernon Roche,” said a voice behind him that he hadn’t expected to hear ever again.

He whirled around. “Iorveth!”

Sure enough, the elf who had long been his enemy stood in the doorway of the witchers’ keep, looking at him with an arched eyebrow and half a smirk.

“Geralt invited you!?” Ves sneered in disbelief.

Iorveth tilted his head in greeting. “He failed to mention who else he was asking.”

“Yeah,” Roche grunted, noticing suddenly that his heart was racing in his chest. Why? Because he was ready to fight the Kingslayer… right? It couldn’t be just because Iorveth had appeared. “You and the fucking Kingslayer,” Roche grit out, turning away from Iorveth to glare at the hulking witcher.

It occurred to him that that meant turning his back on Iorveth, but he didn’t really think anything of it until Iorveth stepped up beside him, glare just as fierce as his own.

It was weird how standing shoulder to shoulder with Iorveth and Ves both just felt right.

“Letho,” Iorveth spat, hands on the hilts of his swords.

“Still alive, elf?” the Kingslayer greeted casually.

“No thanks to you.”

The Kingslayer just shrugged.

“Okay,” Eskel began, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Clearly Geralt knows a lot of people who hate each other. But you came for a reason, and that reason isn’t to fight each other. So you can leave or you can stay, but there will be no fighting except against the Wild Hunt.”

Ves growled, low in her throat, gaze darting to Roche’s. Roche licked his lips, aware that she was asking for orders. Which option would they choose? Would they leave – leave Geralt in the lurch? Or would they stay – stay and fight alongside the man who had murdered King Foltest?

“Fine,” Iorveth agreed to the terms, and suddenly the decision was easy to make.

“We’re staying,” Roche confirmed, though he didn’t let up in glaring at the Kingslayer.

Ves grumbled under her breath, fingers tight around the harpy talon she was wielding. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was one of the poisoned ones, too.

Would poison even work on a witcher?

“Great,” Eskel said tonelessly. “So let’s all lower our weapons, yeah?”

It was difficult to do so and it happened slowly. The whole while, the Kingslayer – who had never bothered to even reach for his weapons – looked unconcerned.

“So, just to be clear,” Lambert said, “all of you are enemies? And yet also friends with Geralt? Seriously?”

“Fucking witcher neutrality,” Ves muttered.

“Well,” Eskel said, looking exasperated, “come in, I guess. We have no idea how many more people to expect, but there’s plenty of room. The others are around somewhere.”

“How many others, exactly?” Iorveth asked, tension in his shoulders.

“So far? Nine,” Lambert grunted. “Mostly annoying sorceresses.”

“Oh?” Roche perked up, stepping into the living area and wondering if–

“Roche!” Triss Merigold, King Foltest’s favorite Court Mage, beamed at him from the other side of the fire. “It’s good to see you alive,” she said, too genuinely.

“You too,” he murmured, stepping closer.

Given permission, she lunged at him in a hug. “I’ve been hiding out in Novigrad,” she said. “It’s been awful.”

“Yeah,” Roche agreed. The way all their lives had gone since Foltest’s death was definitely awful. “We’ve been fighting Nilfgaard.”

“Of course you have,” Triss squeezed her arms around him and pulled back with a smile. “And – is that Iorveth?” she asked suddenly, looking past his shoulder.

Iorveth, the fucking bastard, waved.

“Apparently Geralt has a lot of friends,” Roche huffed. “Including the fucking Kingslayer.”

Triss’ face was grim. “Yeah. But we need all the help we can get.”

Roche’s grunt of agreement was begrudging.

Keira, another of Foltest’s mages, wiggled her fingers in greeting. She was looking a little worse for wear, actually, and she must have been able to sense his thoughts, because she scowled at him.

“Triss chose Novigrad to hide in. I chose Velen.”

“Ah.” Roche, who had been fighting in Velen the past several months, understood immediately. Velen was a fucking shithole. And he should know – he’d been born there!

“Who else is here?” Ves asked.

“Oh, well, there’s Yenn, she’s another sorceress. Yennefer of Vengerberg,” Triss said. “And Vesemir. He’s an older Wolf Witcher. Then Zoltan and Dandelion, you’ve met them. Ermion is a druid from Skellige and he apparently came independently of the new Skelliger Queen’s brother and childhood friend, Hjalmar and Folan.”

“The – Skellige has a Queen?” Roche blinked. News had been a little slow out in Velen, but damn, how did he miss that?

“Cerys an Craite,” Keira nodded. “The jarls chose her as their Queen. She’s working to unite the Isles.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah. Her brother brags about her a lot, even though he got passed over for King.”

“Huh.”

“It’s annoying,” Keira said, and Roche’s lips twitched.

“That everyone?”

“Oh, and Avallac’h,” Lambert said. “He’s an elf, but not like a normal elf? I dunno, he’s very holier than thou about it.”

“Not like a normal elf?” Iorveth repeated, tone unimpressed.

“I am Aen Saevherne,” a voice said and Roche turned to see a tall silver-haired elf walking down the stairs that led into one of the towers.

“What does that mean?” Roche asked with a frown. He’d researched a fair amount about elves during his former work as a Scoia’tael hunter, but he could recall nothing of an ‘Aen Saevherne’.

“The best translation would be ‘elven sage’,” Avallac’h said.

Iorveth’s eye narrowed. “You have magic?”

“Beyond what you are capable of understanding,” Avallac’h said, and his standoffishness turned off more than just Iorveth, who glared.

Iorveth’s hatred of all things magic was rather notorious, actually. And here they were, surrounded by magic users – sorceresses and sages.

“There are other elven mages,” Roche pointed out. “So what makes you different?”

“I am from the world of the Aen Elle,” Avallac’h said proudly.

Roche, to whom that meant absolutely nothing, asked, “what are the Aen Elle? ‘Cause you’re Aen Seidhe, right?” he directed at Iorveth.

Iorveth hummed in agreement, watching Avallac’h carefully.

“On my world,” Avallac’h said, “it is elves who are the conquerors. We have never been subjugated.”

Iorveth’s fingers curled around his swords again.

“To be fair,” a new voice said, and Roche turned to see the dwarf he’d met in Flotsam when all the Kingslaying crap went down. Zoltan Chivay, standing next his ostentatious bard, looked them over with an arched eyebrow and continued, “elves were conquerors on this planet, too. Humans just did it better.”

“Chivay,” Iorveth spat with even more venom than the Kingslayer had gotten. Roche was surprised.

“Iorveth,” Zoltan responded flatly, unimpressed.

“You know each other?” Triss asked in surprise.

“Unfortunately,” they both said.

“How?” Dandelion the Bard asked, seemingly just as surprised as all of them.

Zoltan shrugged, “I’ve lived a long time.”

Iorveth scoffed softly, still glaring bloody murder. It was a glare that hadn’t been turned on Roche at all, Roche suddenly realized. The Kingslayer and Zoltan were openly hated, but the way Iorveth looked at Roche was different.

What did that mean?

“For fuck’s sake,” Eskel said, exasperated. “Does Geralt know anyone that doesn’t hate each other?” He shook his head. “Anyway, you guys can take any free room you come across. Make sure you check for cracks in the walls. We’re working on getting the keep patched up before the battle.”

“Great,” Roche said flatly. “Thanks.”

When Iorveth and Roche are catching up after ending up rooming together

“So you’re like… legit now? Except for the part where the rest of the North still considers you wanted?”

“The ‘rest of the North’ is basically just Redania now,” Iorveth pointed out, “and they have bigger concerns.”

Roche frowned. Iorveth wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Once, Temeria had been the forefront power in the North. And now…

“Why?” he found himself asking in a whisper.

“Mm?”

“Why did you help kill him?”

“Him – Foltest?” Iorveth checked, unconcerned.

Roche’s eyes narrowed. “Who else?” he bit out. “You helped the Kingslayer escape after killing my king.”

“And then got betrayed by him,” Iorveth pointed out.

“But before that betrayal, you were working together,” Roche said. “Why?”

Iorveth held his head high. “King Foltest was a threat to elves everywhere. Now he’s not.”

“Now Temeria is falling apart,” Roche snapped.

“Boohoo,” Iorveth scoffed. “Temeria was built on the ruins of my country, dh’oine. But you don’t even know what we were called, do you?”

Roche blinked. “Uh. No?”

“Dùthaich,” Iorveth said. “My country lasted five millennia before humanity destroyed it. So forgive me if I’m hardly heartbroken that the kingdom that replaced us has fallen.”

“It hasn’t fallen!” Roche protested. “Not yet!”

“Because you and your men are fighting off Nilfgaard?” Iorveth’s arched eyebrow was dubious, and it made Roche scowl.

“Yes. We will do whatever we must to save Temeria.” Roche closed his eyes with a sigh, acknowledging, “who’d ever have thought that we’d change positions, huh? Me as the rebel fighting against the odds and you all official now, serving a human monarch and everything.”

Iorveth snorted. “Don’t think anyone saw that coming.”

“And yet, here we are.” Roche rubbed his face, tired and worn. It had been a long time since he’d had something as comfortable as a bed to sleep on, and weariness pulled at his body.

“Here we are,” Iorveth echoed, and he could feel the weight of the elf’s gaze on him, though he couldn’t seem to manage opening his eyes to look. Iorveth huffed an amused breath. “Go to sleep, Vernon. I’ll wake you for dinner.”

If he had any sense, Roche would not decide to sleep with his enemy right there – but somehow, letting himself drift off to sleep was easy.

And Iorveth kept his word, though deciding to wake him up by playing a loud note on his flute right in Roche’s ear was entirely unnecessary.

“Dinnertime,” Iorveth smirked.

“Motherfucker,” Roche swore.

Iorveth laughed, leading the way out of their room and back down towards the common area of the keep.

Dinner was interesting. Roche chose to sit next to Triss and Keira, because he actually knew them, and they were sitting across from Dandelion and Zoltan, who he found acceptably friendly. So he didn’t think anything of it when he took his seat – except Iorveth sat next to him, glaring at Zoltan once more.

When Ves showed up, she leveled him with an unimpressed look and squeezed into the space between him and Triss when Iorveth refused to move.

Roche rolled his eyes with a huff, shoving Iorveth over so that he could scooch aside and leave Ves more room.

Iorveth grumbled, but moved closer to the Skelliger archer that was sitting across from what was apparently the brother of the Skelliger Queen.

The witchers all sighed, taking their seats with the Kingslayer farthest from Roche. Thank fuck. The standoffish elf and a dark haired sorceress who must’ve been Yennefer of Vengerberg sat at the end of the table, and she waved her hand with a murmured spell until the stew started dishing itself out, bowls floating down the table to sit before each of them.

Roche thought it was pretty cool, honestly, but Iorveth had a sour look on his face, glaring at his food like it might bite him.

The Skelliger Queen’s brother – what was his name again? Something with an H? – laughed. “Yeah, it’s weird,” he agreed. “But it tastes the same.”

“It’s a rather frivolous use of magic,” the druid sitting next to Dandelion sniffed.

“Yeah, but it’s still cool,” the other Skelliger said.

“It’s practical,” Yennefer of Vengerberg’s sharp voice corrected.

Triss met Roche’s gaze and rolled her eyes, passing him some bread. He bit back a smile, amused.

So this was who they would be fighting the Wild Hunt with. It should prove interesting.

The fact that a fight didn’t break out over dinner was, frankly, miraculous and entirely due to the oldest witcher’s fiercely disappointed gaze that made all of them falter. That probably said something deeply psychological about all of their relationships with father figures, but Roche decided it wasn’t worth dwelling on.

They made polite conversation (stiffly, in some cases), and Roche paid attention to all of it, eager for information that could help him get a sense of his companions.

He was already learning a few interesting things.

Dandelion and Zoltan had apparently been to this mythical land of equality that Iorveth was helping to build, and the way they talked about its Queen was eye-opening, though for Zoltan, his praise of the Dragonslayer was interspersed with snide remarks about the Scoia’tael. What was interesting was that Iorveth’s praise was just as open, even though this Dragonslayer was a human.

How the fuck did this human woman convince Iorveth to not just unite his people and bring them to her aid, but actually build this country alongside her?

“Saskia is not like any dh’oine you’ve ever met,” Iorveth said easily.

Roche crossed his arms. “Oh yeah? What makes her so special?”

“She has integrity,” Iorveth said, voice flat. “She actually lives by her values and respects all people as people.”

“So what’s she doing affiliating with you?” Ves asked sharply.

Iorveth’s spine went straight in offense, and Zoltan barking a laugh did not help. “She has a point.”

“Zoltan!” Dandelion hissed, shooting a glance at Iorveth, who looked ready to kill and was not faltering under Vesemir’s disappointment. “Vergen would have fallen without the Scoia’tael’s aid.”

Zoltan sniffed in disdain and Iorveth’s glare sharpened. “All we have ever fought for,” Iorveth bit out, “is the right to live in peace.”

“Ha! And what do you know of peace? You’ve been at war for two hundred years!”

“And you’ve colluded with murderers for two hundred years,” Iorveth spat, lips twisted with disgust.

“And what are you?” Zoltan snorted.

“Everyone here has killed,” Hjalmar, the Skelliger Queen’s brother, pointed out. “We’re literally here to fight a war.”

“Well,” Lambert said, “except the bard. Actually, why are you here again?”

“Excuse you,” Dandelion sniffed. “I am here for an even more important reason – to chronicle the fight against evil itself!”

“How much of this chronicle will be founded in fact?” Triss asked sardonically.

Hjalmar snorted. “Geralt insists half your songs are bullshit.”

“More than half,” Yennefer said.

Dandelion tutted. “It’s called creative liberty!”

Roche couldn’t help his smile, biting back a laugh.

“So,” Triss began, looking between Zoltan and Iorveth, “you’ve known each other for two hundred years?”

“No,” Iorveth half-snarled, “it’s been two hundred years since we’ve spoken.”

“I could have happily gone another 200,” Zoltan said.

“Likewise,” Iorveth growled.

“So you knew each other well, then,” Ves observed. She seemed intrigued by whatever was making Iorveth so stiff and combative and Roche internally groaned. This was definitely going to end badly.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Zoltan grunted.

“It is only in fairly recent times that elves and dwarves have come to be allies,” the druid from Skellige observed.

“Indeed,” Vesemir stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “I seem to recall that when I was young, there was a great kerfuffle over an elf and a dwarf daring to be together romantically. It was a big deal. Lotta people from both races disapproved.”

Iorveth cleared his throat, looking determinedly down at his stew, and Roche frowned. “Wait a minute.”

“No,” Triss breathed. “No way.”

Iorveth’s face and ears were slowly turning red, and Zoltan was also pointedly not looking at anyone.

“You and Iorveth!?” Dandelion shrieked. “Really!?”

Zoltan coughed, not answering.

“Damn, never would’ve called that coming,” Keira laughed.

“Huh,” Vesemir gazed contemplatively at both Iorveth and Zoltan. “If I remember correctly, both of those involved were said to be minor celebrities.”

“Oh?” Dandelion looked curious. “Well, Zoltan’s a very well known warrior, but Iorveth’s notoriety came later, didn’t it?”

Iorveth’s lips pressed together like he was resisting correcting them. Which kind of made Roche think that they weren’t completely off base.

“You’re a musician, aren’t you?” Roche asked, nudging Iorveth. “Ever get famous from that?”

A muscle in Iorveth’s jaw flexed.

“Damn, okay,” Lambert chuckled. “So how’d you end up hating each other?”

“None of your fucking business,” Iorveth snapped.

“You’re the one airing out your drama,” Ves said.

Iorveth’s growl was impressive enough to raise hackles around the table, but instead of attacking, he retreated, grabbing his bowl and pushing away from the table, stomping off.

Zoltan very obviously rolled his eyes, muttering, “as dramatic as ever.”

He refused to say anything more on the topic and the conversation moved on without Iorveth, though Roche couldn’t help but dart looks at the door the elf had left through, feeling oddly worried. Not that Iorveth needed – nor wanted – his concern, but…

The next morning

By the time the sun rose, they felt it was safe to venture out in search of fresh food. Roche was sure they both had food supplies – but he, for one, was sick and tired of jerky. The prospect of even just leftover stew beat army ration packs. By a lot.

They were in luck – not only was there leftover stew, but apparently the Skelliger druid was a fan of baking and there were fresh pastries, too.

“Help yourself,” he invited.

“Thanks,” Roche murmured, biting into warm bread with a pleased little sigh. Yeah, he had missed real food.

Iorveth led the way to the dining hall, where they sat next to each other at the big empty table. Iorveth was more conservative in picking at his food – but Roche devoured it quickly and then was left debating if he could go back for seconds.

“Here,” Iorveth grunted, holding out his bread.

Roche blinked. “You sure?”

“Are you hungry or not?” Iorveth shrugged.

Roche was, so he took it – just as Dandelion and Zoltan walked into the dining hall with their own bowls of food. Dandelion didn’t seem to notice much – but the way that Zoltan looked at Iorveth and the way Iorveth’s ears turned red made Roche think there was something unspoken going on.

“What?” he asked.

Zoltan just shook his head, taking a seat across from them. “So, what’ve you been up to since the whole Kingslayer business, lad?” he asked Roche.

Roche shrugged. “Fighting off Nilfgaard. Not terribly exciting.”

“Have you heard what I got up to?” Dandelion asked excitedly. “To help Ciri, I pulled off a heist!”

“You failed in pulling off a heist,” Zoltan clarified. “And Geralt and the rest of us had to save your ass from the Temple Guard.”

“Eh,” Dandelion dismissed. “Details.”

Zoltan rolled his eyes expressively. Roche couldn’t help his snicker.

He’d finished his stew and his bread – and Iorveth’s bread, too – but honestly, he was still hungry, so he slipped back into the kitchen with a murmured explanation and got more food. When he returned, Iorveth and Dandelion were talking about music, and for some reason, Iorveth’s words stuttered when Roche plopped the bread he’d fetched for the elf on top of his bowl.

“All good?” he asked warily.

Iorveth flushed, nodding and picking up the thread of his statement – but again, the way Zoltan was looking at Iorveth and the way Iorveth continued to turn redder made Roche think there was something more going on.

“What?” he asked Zoltan.

Zoltan shrugged. “Good bread,” was all he said. But there was a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips and Iorveth cleared his throat, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

Roche frowned. “Uh. Yeah, it is.”

Dandelion didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss, enthusiastically greeting the witchers who filed in with their own bowls of food. Roche glared at the Kingslayer on principle, but was largely ignored.

Lambert yawned widely as Eskel greeted the rest of them. “Good morning.”

They all mumbled greetings back, and in that time, Ves and the sorceresses appeared, looking far more put together than was reasonable for such an early hour.

“Saw someone approaching the keep,” Ves told the witchers.

“Another one?” Eskel groaned.

“Another blade at our backs is a good thing,” Vesemir reminded him, pushing up from the table to go open the gate.

“Who do you think it is?” Dandelion asked. “I mean, Geralt only knows so many people… right?”

“More people than I woulda thought,” Eskel mumbled and Lambert snickered.

Several minutes later, Vesemir returned, followed by another witcher, though this one had a cat medallion instead of a wolf. “This is Aiden,” Vesemir began.

“Seriously!?” Eskel threw his hands in the air as Lambert straightened. “How does he know so many other witchers?”

Lambert coughed. “Um. Actually.”

“He said he was here for Lambert,” Vesemir said, leveling a raised eyebrow on the youngest witcher (who was probably still at least twice Roche’s age).

“Yeah,” Lambert agreed, explaining nothing. “Food’s through there.” He pointed at the kitchen and Aiden glanced at the rest of them, amusement on his face, before shrugging and going to grab a bowl.

“Since when do you have a friend?” Yennefer asked, not at all quietly.

“Rude!” Lambert huffed. “I have plenty of friends!”

“Yeah?” Eskel challenged. “Like who?”

“Like Aiden,” Lambert frowned at him, crossing his arms. “And Mathies of Novigrad and Alicia Typ and Tiphany Holga and–”

“Aren’t those all bartenders?” Dandelion asked. “I’m pretty sure Mathies of Novigrad works at the Golden Sturgeon.”

“And Alicia Typ is at the Seven Cats Inn,” Zoltan nodded.

“Oh fuck you,” Lambert scowled.

“Supplying alcohol is precisely what makes them friends,” Aiden said, reappearing in the dining hall and sliding into a seat next to Lambert.

“What about Tiphany Holga?” Vesemir asked, the look on his face like he was deciding how disappointed he should be in Lambert.

Roche could answer that one. “Might not be the same one,” he prefaced, though the name was fairly unusual, “but the only one I know is a whore in Murivel.”

There were some raised eyebrows around the table and he shrugged.

“Whores make the best spies.” That and his mother, Madame of the Clarabelle brothel in Vizima, liked to make Roche hand out pamphlets on worker’s rights when he traveled to other places.

“That is true,” Iorveth said.

“Huh,” Zoltan said. “Noted.”

“See, I told you my patronage of the various pleasure houses across the continent is for a good cause!” Dandelion laughed.

“Yes,” Triss said, a slightly patronizing smile on her face, “I’m sure the whores learn a great deal of intel from you.”

“Actually…” Roche had to say.

“Yeah, see!” Dandelion pointed at him. “I totally supplied good intel for Roche in Flotsam!”

“You wrote your reports in iambic pentameter,” Roche said. “But the information was good.”

Iorveth tilted his head. “Dandelion spied for you?”

“Yeah, on Loredo, the shitstain who ruled Flotsam. He’s dead now.”

“Good riddance,” Dandelion and Zoltan both said.

“Wait,” Triss said, “is that why Dandelion almost got hanged in Flotsam?”

“Absolutely,” Dandelion said far too quickly.

“Loredo said it was because you burned down a watchtower,” Roche said, lips twitching.

“Seriously!?” Triss – and several others – groaned.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Dandelion insisted. “Honest!”

“So how did you burn down a watchtower?”

“Really, it was their fault for leaving a candle unattended!”

“What, did you trip over it?” Iorveth asked sardonically.

Dandelion flushed. “No!”

“...seriously!?” half the room asked.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Dandelion said again.

“Wow,” Aiden laughed. “You’re Dandelion the Bard, right? I’d heard stories, but…”

“How does Geralt put up with you?” Lambert asked bluntly.

“To be fair,” Keira interjected, “does he?”

“Geralt always shows up just in the nick of time!” Dandelion enthused.

“In the nick of time to save this idiot’s ass,” Zoltan said.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Yennefer snorted.

“Hey!” Dandelion pouted and the rest of them laughed.

“How do all of you know Geralt, anyway?” Eskel asked. “I mean, I know he’s got a thing for sorceresses, but what about the rest of you?”

Yennefer, Keira, and Triss all puffed up in offense.

“Geralt’s an old friend of Clan an Craite,” Hjalmar, the Skelliger Queen’s brother, said, startling those who hadn’t noticed his arrival. His friend, Folan, waved tiredly to them. “And Ciri’s practically clan herself! We had to come!”

“Yes,” the Skelliger druid – what was his name? – agreed, coming into the dining hall with a final batch of pastries. Roche took several. “Cirilla was my ward as a child, but I have also known Geralt for a very long time. Since before he became a witcher.”

Everyone paused, staring at him. “Really?” someone asked, barely any breath to it.

The druid dipped his head. “We met when we were both very young. He stayed with the Druid Circle in Ard Skellig for a time. We became good friends. After he left, I did not see him again until after the Trials. After he had been changed.”

“Oh.”

An awkward silence fell for a moment and Ves broke it by loudly explaining, “we met Geralt when he saved King Foltest from an assassin.” She glared at the Kingslayer, who had no doubt been in league with the other witcher assassin.

“Oh, is that where the ‘Geralt killed a king’ story came from?” Eskel asked.

“No,” Roche scowled, “that happened when someone murdered the King and left Geralt to take the blame.”

“Hardly my fault he was the only witness,” the Kingslayer shrugged. “Was a surprise to see him again, though.”

“...you knew him before that?”

“We fought the Wild Hunt together.”

“You did?” Iorveth asked, clearly surprised. “You’ve fought the Wild Hunt before?”

“Yup,” the Kingslayer said casually. “The School of the Viper was founded to defeat the Hunt. It was lucky Geralt ran into us during his hunt.”

“...Geralt was hunting the Wild Hunt?” Vesemir asked.

“This was before his amnesia,” the Kingslayer said. “He was chasing the hunt to rescue Yennefer of Vengerberg, who had been taken.”

Yennefer grimaced.

“Does that have to do with how we saw you and Geralt die in Rivia?” Dandelion asked, voice unusually sombre.

“Say what!?” Roche wasn’t alone in yelping.

“It was terrible,” Triss said quietly. “There was a pogrom. Yennefer and Geralt both – we were just in time to see it…”

“About six months later,” Eskel murmured, “we found him outside Kaer Morhen, with no memory of who he was or where he’d come from. Or that he’d died.”

“So… what happened?”

“Ciri,” Yennefer said. “I don’t know how she healed us, but she brought us to a kind of… pocket universe, almost? It was strange. Good, but strange. Until the Wild Hunt appeared.”

“They took her,” the Kingslayer filled in, “and Geralt followed. He found me, saved me from a slyzard attack. In return, I shared what I knew about the Hunt and joined him in his quest.”

“And then?” Keira asked.

“We found them,” the Kingslayer shrugged. “We fought them. They weren’t wraiths, as we’d always thought, but mortal beings who bled under our blades.”

“Oh, well that’s something at least,” Iorveth hummed, and Roche had to admit – he felt a little bit better about signing up to fight the Wild Hunt knowing that they could actually be killed.

“So what happened?” he asked.

“There were too many. Then Geralt made a deal with the leader of the Hunt – his soul in exchange for Yennefer’s.”

Triss inhaled sharply and Yennefer’s expression was almost pained.

“Indeed,” Avallac’h, the standoffish elf who had arrived at some point without any of them noticing, said. Roche was not the only person to jump. “Gwynbleidd rode with the Hunt for a time, though he does not remember it, nor is he likely to.”

“He said he’d recovered his memories!” Dandelion said.

“His memories, yes. But not memories of the Hunt.”

“So… how did he escape?”

“Zireael,” Avallac’h said simply, as though that meant anything to any of them.

“...Swallow?” Iorveth translated uncertainly.

“It’s what he calls Ciri,” Eskel explained.

“And who is Ciri, exactly?” Ves asked. “I mean, Geralt’s daughter, yes, but…?”

“Ciri is… special,” Yennefer said. “There is a power in her blood that is matchless amongst all others.”

“She is the Lady of Space and Time,” Avallac’h said.

“...and that means–?”

“The Elder Blood gives her the power to traverse the spheres,” Avallac’h said.

“Like… she can travel through time!?”

“Theoretically, yes. She has certainly traveled to worlds at different points in their existence. Whether she has visited her own world’s past, I do not know.”

“Are you fucking for real?” Lambert sputtered.

“Zireael’s power is unlike anything you have ever seen before. It spans beyond your ability to comprehend. It is–”

“–exactly why the Wild Hunt is after her,” Yennefer interrupted.

“Indeed,” Avallac’h agreed. “The damage they could do with her power at their disposal is far greater than you can imagine. Eredin intends to subjugate all living beings under his power.”

“Eredin. That’s someone in the Wild Hunt?”

“The leader, and King of the Aen Elle. Though he arrived at power through treachery and deceit. We cannot let him take Zireael.”

“Okay,” Roche agreed solemnly. They’d already been planning to protect her, because she was Geralt’s daughter – but if she was more than that, then that just gave them extra motivation.

“So the Wild Hunt are… elves?” Hjalmar asked.

“Aen Elle elves,” Avallac’h nodded primly. “Their purpose is to find and capture slaves to serve the Alder Folk. Now, though, they are interested only in Zireael. She would change everything for them.”

“How so?”

“The Wild Hunt travels to various worlds, and abducts its inhabitants. They do so through the power of their Navigator, Caranthir. He is able to create stable portals that a vanguard like the Wild Hunt can move through.”

“And Ciri changes that… how?”

“Zireael’s power more than outshines Caranthir’s. With her, they could portal entire armies at once, enough to conquer a world.”

“Wow,” Lambert said. “So what you’re saying is, Ciri is mad powerful.”

“That is correct.”

“Wild.”

“How did Geralt end up with a daughter like that?” Iorveth asked.

“She’s his Child of Surprise,” Yennefer said with a small smile.

“Her mother had powers, too,” the druid said, “though not to such an extent, I do not believe.”

Roche blinked. “You knew her mother?”

“Indeed. I served her grandmother for a great many years.” Something sad crossed his face.

“...who’s her grandmother?” Ves dared to ask.

“Queen Calanthe of Cintra,” Hjalmar was the one to say. “Married to Eist Tuirseach, Jarl of Skellige. That’s how I know Ciri. When we were little, she used to spend the summers in Skellige.”

“Wait,” Roche said slowly, “Geralt’s daughter is Cintra’s Princess!?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“You think you know a guy,” Iorveth muttered under his breath and Roche had to bite back a snort.

“How do you know Ciri, then?” Vesemir asked Avallac’h.

“I have tried to teach Zireael how to harness her power,” he didn’t answer.

“...right,” Vesemir said eventually, the look on his face dubious. He wasn’t the only one.

“So how’d you get involved in this?” Eskel asked Iorveth. “Aside from apparently knowing and despising several other of Geralt’s friends.”

“Letho killed Foltest,” Iorveth said, glaring daggers at the witcher again, “and then went to ground with the Scoia’tael as we prepared to attack Henselt. Before Letho betrayed us and slew many Scoia’tael,” he growled, “Geralt accompanied Vernon to confront us.”

“And me,” Triss interjected, frowning at Iorveth. “I was there too. And stopped you from killing Geralt and all of us!”

Iorveth just shrugged. “Geralt eventually came to assist the Scoia’tael in our task, and fought at our side in Vergen.”

“‘Course,” Roche couldn’t help but say, “he also fought at our side, so really, that witcher neutrality is kinda bullshit.”

Eskel snorted.

“Some bullshit,” Lambert laughed. “You’re all here, aren’t you?” Roche did have to concede that. He was here – even though Geralt had also worked with Iorveth and the Kingslayer… he was here, because Geralt had asked him and defending Geralt’s daughter was worth it.

Later, in the famed Kaer Morhen hot springs from Iorveth's POV

Admittedly, Iorveth had been hoping to find Vernon in the hot springs at some point during this journey – but he hadn’t been expecting for that time to involve Vernon overheating and very clearly ignoring his health.

Iorveth hadn’t thought about it before fussing over Vernon – but the way Vernon slapped his hands aside quickly reminded him of their proper dynamic. He was Vernon’s enemy. He wasn’t supposed to worry about the dh’oine.

Not even when it was clear that Vernon had lost a lot of weight from the last time Iorveth had seen him.

Iorveth knew food was hard to come by while hiding out in the forest as an outlaw rebel – but he hadn’t really previously put together that that was what Vernon was doing. Their roles had solidly flipped – and now Vernon was the one starving in a fight against the odds while Iorveth was associating with human royalty.

It was weird.

Still, Vernon retreated quickly, making it clear he did not want Iorveth’s concern, and Iorveth drew back, trying to pretend that didn’t hurt.

Of course Vernon didn’t want his concern. Why would he? To him, Iorveth was just another enemy. One who he was sharing a room with, yes – but even that, Vernon seemed to attribute to Iorveth being weird more than anything else.

Iorveth could live with that. He knew he didn’t have a chance, after all. But seeing Vernon once more, when he’d truly thought he might never do so again…

“Oh,” Dandelion said, and Iorveth abruptly remembered that he was not alone. “He doesn’t think you’re together,” Dandelion said slowly, “but you want to be.”

Iorveth cringed, unable to protest, but also fully aware that his affection was hardly a good thing.

“Hmm,” Dandelion hummed. “Well, at least now he knows it’s an option. But we can do better than that!”

Iorveth blinked. “What?”

“Well, obviously you need help wooing your man,” Dandelion flapped his hand, then brought it to his chest with a flourish, “and I am a connoisseur of wooing! So surely I can help!”

“I – what?”

“Well, he didn’t even realize that he was being wooed!”

Iorveth’s mouth opened to protest – and then he closed it, recognizing a losing battle. Instead, he sighed and asked, “why would you help me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Dandelion shrugged. “This romance has the makings of a marvelous ballad! But it must have a happy ending!”

“…is there any way I can convince you not to sing about my love life?” Iorveth asked, already despairing.

“Nope!” Dandelion popped the ‘p’ enthusiastically. “So, let’s talk plans! What have you tried so far? Obviously you’re sharing a room – and you gave him food, which he reciprocated!”

Iorveth flushed, remembering that moment. He was positive it meant less to Vernon than it had to him – but having gone without enough food for so long, sharing it was a big deal. And for Vernon to fetch more food and offer him a roll back…

Well. To Vernon, it didn’t mean much. But to Iorveth, it kind of meant everything. And from the way Zoltan had looked at him and Dandelion’s words now, it was clear that had not gone unnoticed.

Which was embarrassing as all hell, and Iorveth flushed darkly, sinking down to hide in the hot water. “I’m not – I’m not wooing him,” he felt the need to point out.

“You should be,” Dandelion replied easily. “We all might die soon. May as well shoot your shot, right?”

Iorveth frowned at him, but he was already enthusiastically coming up with ideas on how Iorveth could better show Vernon that he loved him.

Sighing, Iorveth resigned himself to the loss of his dignity.

Which was good, because Zoltan Chivay entering the hot springs definitely meant that his dignity would be dying a painful death. His relationship with Zoltan was… complicated, and there was a great deal of bitterness on his part due to the way they’d ended things last they’d spoken… but Zoltan also knew him better than most people alive could claim to, which meant he could see right through Iorveth’s attempts at maintaining poise.

“What trouble are you getting into now?” Zoltan asked Dandelion with amusement on his face, only glancing at Iorveth in greeting.

Iorveth internally groaned.

“Zoltan!” Dandelion grinned brightly. “You’ll join us, won’t you? We gotta help Iorveth win his man!”

The amusement on Zoltan’s face increased and Iorveth could feel his ears flushing. “You really don’t,” he tried to protest, but Dandelion ignored him.

“Vernon Roche, huh?” Zoltan asked. “Really!?”

“Shut up,” Iorveth grumbled, blushing brightly enough that now he was the one on the verge of overheating.

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Zoltan shrugged, unconcerned. “But he has no earthly idea that you’re interested.”

“He’s not supposed to,” Iorveth had to say.

“Well, that’s dumb,” Dandelion said. “How can he respond if he doesn’t know?”

Iorveth opened his mouth to answer, but wasn’t sure how to point out that Vernon very likely wouldn’t respond positively to affection from his enemy.

“What about Saskia?” Zoltan asked. “Does she know about him?”

Iorveth flushed darker, nodding jerkily. Yes, she did – and it had been embarrassing beyond belief for her to confront him over his ‘obvious crush’. Which, he contested, was not obvious at all – but she hadn’t been swayed.

“And?” Dandelion prompted.

Swallowing hard, Iorveth thought about how to answer. The actual truth was that Saskia, as a dragon, had no interest in monogamy with him. In fact, there were several other people she was interested in (including Zoltan, but for his own peace of mind, he ignored that), though she had minimal time to pursue anything at all.

“Saskia is human,” he lied, picking his words carefully, “but she grew up in Vergen around primarily dwarves. Older dwarves, too,” he added, because while most of those in the Scoia’tael had been pretty young, Vergen was an old city and there were still some dwarves living there who had been at its founding. “Culturally, she shares more in common with dwarves than humans.”

Not least because she’d actually spent relatively little time around an average human. Most of her exposure had been through joining the army and going through officer’s training under King Demavend of Aedirn. Which meant that occasionally, she did things that she thought was ‘normal human behavior’, but that actually gave everyone in the vicinity heart palpitations. Like that time she had walked through fire before Iorveth had known she was a dragon and was thereby largely impervious to fire (and, in fact, drew strength from it).

“Dwarves are great,” Dandelion agreed cheerily, “but what’s your point?”

“Dwarves are polyamorous,” Iorveth said bluntly.

“Ooooooh,” Dandelion nodded while Zoltan hummed in agreement. “So there’s no expectation of exclusivity?”

Iorveth shook his head, flushing. It wasn’t like his regard for Saskia wasn’t commonly known – but it was still embarrassing for his love to be the topic of local gossip. His love for Saskia – and his love for Vernon.

Most people were probably surprised he was even capable of such an emotion. He still kind of was, honestly.

It was one thing for Saskia, who inspired him and brought out the best in him. But Vernon Roche? The man who had once been in charge of eliminating the Scoia’tael?

And yet, the same magnetic draw that Saskia held, Vernon had. He couldn’t ignore either one of them for a second.

And not just because it might lead to missing the knife when it came to stab him in the back. With Saskia, he was confident there was no hidden knife at all. With Vernon… well, he wasn’t sure, but he kind of hoped that there wasn’t one.

Vernon had willingly slept in his presence. Multiple times, even. And just as Iorveth hadn’t attacked Vernon while he’d been vulnerable – Vernon had not attacked him. That meant something… didn’t it?

“So what’s Saskia think of Roche?” Zoltan asked, lips twitching in what was definitely amusement at Iorveth’s plight.

Iorveth scowled at him. Truthfully, Saskia’s thoughts could be summed up as ‘if you think there’s something worth loving about him, Iorveth, then I’m sure there is’, but Iorveth was absolutely not admitting that.

“Why do you even care?” he demanded.

Zoltan shrugged. “You and Roche aren’t that different,” was all he said.

Iorveth’s eye narrowed into a glare.

“Mortal enemies who succumb to their feelings of true love~” Dandelion’s voice was singsong. “Oh, it’s so romantic! Definitely has the makings of a hit!”

Iorveth was horrified. And mortified. “Please no.”

“Yeah,” Zoltan sighed, patting him on the shoulder with a large hand. It was the most they had touched since their last fight 200 years ago. “That ship has sailed. There’s no reining him in now.”

“Oh gods,” Iorveth muttered, sinking deeper into the water to hide his red ears.

Zoltan laughed and Iorveth would be lying if he said the sound didn’t make something in his chest hitch – but it also, 100%, made him hate Zoltan even more. Asshole.

“It’ll be beautiful!” Dandelion insisted. “I already have the beginning melody. And a strong chorus shouldn’t be hard. Hmm, something about the journey from hate to love.”

Iorveth’s groan was despairing. There was no way this would end well. But what the fuck – they were probably going to die in a few days anyway when the Wild Hunt came. And… it was kind of nice that they were helping him. Annoying and embarrassing and obnoxious, definitely – but also nice.

Dandelion had the perfect plan for how to woo Roche. It was a subtle plan, one that could be built upon – but it was perfect!

What was it? Well, everyone knew there was nothing more romantic than the dulcet tones of his voice in a sweet love ballad. As such, any time Iorveth and Roche were in the vicinity together, Dandelion broke out his best love songs.

“Seriously?” Lambert burst out after a full day of this. “We’re about to fight for our lives against some weird fucking elves and you’re singing about true love? Really!?”

“Lambert doesn’t believe in true love,” Aiden added in an undertone, earning himself an elbow in the gut. He didn’t seem to notice.

“What?” Dandelion shrugged, tuning his lute. It was just the slightest bit off. “Do you want something more upbeat? I can do that.”

“That is so not the issue,” Keira muttered, but her lips were twitching with amusement.

“No, no, it is an understandable criticism,” Dandelion said generously. He thought about his options, humming a few lines before hitting on the right one. “All right, let’s go energetic!” He strummed his lute hard, opening with a long vocalization.

“Ugh,” Lambert groaned, and Dandelion was above pettiness, but he made a note to get back at Lambert for that at some point. Maybe a White Wolf ballad with a cameo?

“So,” Triss said loudly before any of the witchers could get violent, “why are you singing love songs?”

“Why, my dear Mage Merigold,” Dandelion said grandly, “because love is in the air tonight!” He paused thoughtfully. That had the makings of a good lyric.

“Where?” Lambert grumbled.

In the corner, trying to avoid drawing attention to himself, Iorveth was blushing darkly – and also keeping his own attention focused on Roche, who was bobbing his head absently as he cleaned several knives, Ves sitting next to him.

“Everywhere,” Dandelion answered Lambert with a bright grin. “For in the face of almost certain death, there can be no force more powerful than love!”

Eskel snorted. “That sounded almost profound.”

“Because it was!” Dandelion pouted.

Zoltan snickered. “What’s everyone’s favorite love song, then?” he asked.

Lambert’s scoff was disbelieving, but Keira appeared amused and answered. “I always liked The Power of Love,” she said, and Dandelion was delighted to take the prompt and dive into the song.

Keira laughed, singing along with the upbeat melody. Lambert’s emphatic groan just made Dandelion grow louder.

“What about songs from different areas?” Roche asked when they finished. “Know any good Temerian songs?”

“Of course!”

“I was always a fan of La Vie en Rose,” Ves said, meeting Dandelion’s eye with a smirk like she knew exactly how much he hated playing horn. The song could be played on lute… but it had been made famous on trumpet. The people expected a trumpet.

“That really needs a piano accompaniment,” he hedged.

“I think we have a very old piano in storage somewhere,” Vesemir mused.

Internally panicking, Dandelion searched for a distraction. (He had a trumpet and could play the song, of course… but trumpets sucked. They always made his lips hurt.)

“You know that was originally an elven song,” Iorveth said haughtily.

“Nu uh,” Ves frowned.

“But it’s French,” Roche said, head tilted in consideration. “French was the first language of the human settlers of Temeria, I thought. Not Elder Speech.”

“True,” Iorveth nodded, and Dandelion was hit with the sudden thought that he had been there when all this had happened. Weird. “It was adapted from a song in Elder. Beatha an Ròs.”

“Huh. Are the lyrics very different?” Dandelion couldn’t help but be curious.

He knew he’d walked into a trap the moment Iorveth met his eye. “Not sure,” Iorveth said casually, “haven’t heard the human version in a lot of years.”

Ugh. Now he was going to have to play it, wasn’t he?

The others seemed to have picked up on Dandelion’s reluctance and Triss encouraged, “why don’t you play it, Dandelion? Then Iorveth can compare.”

Her words were innocent, but the twitching at the corner of her mouth proved that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Dandelion pouted.

“Are we having a concert?” Hjalmar wandered in and asked, looking enthused. “I play some mean drums!”

“Yes! Let’s have a concert!” Dandelion jumped on the excuse. “We can showcase hits from different areas! What’s Skellige’s best love song?”

“Hmm,” Hjalmar actually stopped to consider it.

“Red is the Rose, for sure,” Folan, his friend, said instantly. He began a soft melody, voice surprisingly nice.

Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows, Fair is the lily of the valley; Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne But my love is fairer than any.

“Eh,” Hjalmar interrupted. “I mean, it’s good, but is it the best Skelliger love song?”

Folan frowned, and Dandelion sensed an argument on the horizon. Usually he would disrupt such a thing – but if it could get him out of playing trumpet…

“Maybe Galway Girl?” Hjalmar suggested.

“Red is the Rose is way better!” Folan insisted. “It’s soft and romantic and slow enough to dance to.”

“You can’t dance to that!” Hjalmar put his hands on his hips. “The most you could do is sway awkwardly and that’s boring!”

Triss and Keira both bit back snorts at that.

“Plus, the song is sad! It’s about two lovers being unable to be together!”

“To be fair,” Folan said calmly, unbothered by how worked up Hjalmar was, “most Skelliger love songs are actually tragedies.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Folan nodded. “There’s a lot of going off to war and being separated and stuff. At least, that’s most of what Draig Bon-Dhu sings.”

Dandelion tried not to scowl at the mention of the Skelliger bard that totally hadn’t beaten him in a competition.

“What about Aedirnian love songs?” Zoltan asked Yennefer, who looked up from the book she’d been examining.

“What?”

“Know any good Aedirnian love songs?” Dandelion pounced on the opening Zoltan had provided.

“Mostly boring court songs,” Yennefer said dismissively. “Or your ridiculous twaddle,” she aimed that remark at Dandelion and he sent her a shitfaced grin.

“I believe you mean my incredibly moving and talented compositions, thank you very much.”

Yennefer snorted derisively.

“Where else do we have people from?” Triss asked, looking around. “Letho, you’re originally from Nilfgaard, aren’t you?”

“Technically,” Letho the Kingslayer drawled, “the School of the Viper is located in the Tir Tochair mountains on the border of Geso.”

“Aren’t the people of Geso known for being particularly… barbaric?” Iorveth asked sardonically.

Letho’s smile was all teeth. “That’s Gemmera, actually. Famed for the ferocity and strength of their warriors.”

“It’s all Nilfgaard,” Keira dismissed with a sniff.

“So’s half the North,” Letho said genially.

That made everyone scowl, arguments breaking out, and all in all, while they had undoubtedly learned more about each other, very little wooing actually happened that night.

Dandelion sighed and strummed a forlorn melody. Several people were shouting at each other, so there was little point in gracing them with his wondrous voice.

Hmm. That gave him an idea for a ballad about the woes of having one’s voice ignored. The tragedy of it was downright heartbreaking, and the crowds of Novigrad would love it, he just knew.

Distracted from his quest to help Iorveth woo his man, Dandelion pulled out his notebook and began to compose, to the background of loud yelling about where Nilfgaard could stick it.

Ves' POV of soaking in the hot springs with the other women

“So, Ves,” Triss said eventually as they soaked. “What’s going in with Roche and Iorveth?”

“What do you mean?” Ves asked, playing dumb mostly because she had no idea how to answer.

“Well, they’re supposed to be enemies, right?” Keira arched an eyebrow. “And yet, they’re sharing a room? And they bicker like an old married couple.”

Ves grunted. She couldn’t deny that, unfortunately. She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know what Roche is thinking,” she said, “letting that viper so close.”

“I think Letho is the viper,” Triss joked. “But it’s certainly odd. I’ve barely seen them apart from each other since they arrived!”

“Ugh,” Ves agreed. The Scoia’tael scum had certainly been sticking too close for her tastes. She didn’t know how Roche stood it.

“Pretty sure the ridiculous bard has interpreted their enmity as love,” Yennefer said.

“Ooooh, is that what the love songs were about?” Triss shook her head with a laugh. “Dandelion truly is ridiculous.”

“I mean, I can’t blame him,” Keira said. “They act like they’re in love or something, don’t they?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Ves dismissed. “Roche could never love an elf.”

“Well, he sure acts like it,” Yennefer replied, voice cool. Weren’t there rumors that she was part elf?

“Okay, but what about Iorveth and Zoltan? No one saw that coming, right?” Triss arched an eyebrow. “If an elf and a dwarf can have so much history…”

Ves frowned, the thought settling uncomfortably. “Technically, they never actually confirmed everyone’s assumptions,” she pointed out, but it was a weak defense.

Keira snorted. “Never would’ve thought a killer with Iorveth’s reputation could turn so red.”

They all chortled at that, recalling the way the elf’s ears and face had flushed a dark scarlet.

“Zoltan, of all people, too!” Triss giggled. “I mean, he hates the Scoia’tael! His type is – is Dandelion, for fuck’s sake!”

“Well, we don’t know what Iorveth was like before fighting humanity,” Yennefer pointed out. “Maybe he was like the bard.”

“No way! Iorveth!?”

Yennefer just shrugged. “He was, apparently, a famous musician. From what I’ve seen, Dandelion is rather representative of such a career and the type it draws.”

“Well,” Triss said slowly, “you’re not wrong. But… really!?”

“What I wanna know,” Keira said, “is what’s up with Lambert and Aiden?”

“Oh?”

“I mean – Lambert isn’t exactly the friendliest guy around. And this guy appears, the only one that Geralt didn’t invite? That says something.”

Ves’ lips twitched, grateful to be off the subject of Roche. “What about Aiden’s response to Lambert complaining about love songs? He ‘doesn’t believe in true love’? That says something.”

“It does!” Keira agreed emphatically. “But what is the question.”

As they began to theorize, Ves couldn’t help but think about their implications about Roche. It couldn’t be true. Surely it couldn’t be true.

How could Roche love an elf? A Scoia’tael elf, no less!

He couldn’t, was the answer. He knew what they’d done to her. He could never sympathize with them.

Nonetheless, she had to admit that Iorveth’s behavior did kind of point to being interested in Roche, even if Roche could never reciprocate.

“Ves?” Triss called and she realized that she’d zoned out. “You okay?”

She nodded, flushing slightly – but most of her brain was still distracted with the question before her. “Why doesn’t Roche tell Iorveth to fuck off?”

Keira laughed. “If anything, he probably wants to tell Iorveth to fuck him.”

“You take that back!” Ves snarled.

“Whoa, whoa,” Triss held up her hands placatingly. After a moment, she added, “Keira has a point, though. I mean, I don’t think Roche would actually go for Iorveth… but him and Iorveth acting like an old married couple is very much mutual.”

“You don’t think he would?” Yennefer asked. “Because Iorveth is an elf?”

“A Scoia’tael elf!” Ves spat.

“He doesn’t seem like he minds,” Keira shrugged, and Ves scowled heavily at her.

“The Scoia’tael are nothing but disgusting barbarians,” Ves snarled. “Roche would never sully himself with their ilk.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Yennefer asked.

“How about a bet?” Keira proposed.

“What?”

“You’re certain Roche could never go for Iorveth,” Keira said simply, “we disagree. So… how about a bet to see who’s right?”

“I’m not gonna bet on Roche’s love life!”

“But you don’t think there’s anything going on there anyway,” Triss pointed out. “So why not find out for certain?”

Ves’ lips pursed. “You do remember we’re here for an actual purpose, right?”

“Yes,” Yennefer said primly, “and when the Wild Hunt comes, we will be ready. But in the meantime, we may as well entertain ourselves.”

“...what would this bet look like exactly?” Ves hedged.

Keira shrugged. “We could help Dandelion’s ridiculous matchmaking attempts and see if it works?”

“It won’t,” Ves said firmly.

“Then there’s no harm in trying, right?”

Ves frowned, disliking the idea, but not really having a good reason to disagree. They didn’t really need her agreement anyway.

“Fine,” she spat. Then she decided that she’d soaked for long enough and rather wanted to be away from these people now. Maybe sorceresses weren’t that bad – but they had to be wrong about Roche. They had to be.

Later, from Triss' POV as she and Keira conspire on how to set Iorveth and Roche up. Also, there are some notes where I haven't got the words quite right. Please ignore. (and suggestions welcome)

It was really silly, but right now, what Triss missed more than anything was Foltest’s wine collection. She’d become accustomed to enjoying drinks that actually tasted good.

Witchers, it would seem, did not care if it tasted good or not. They did not invest in high quality liquor.

So when Keira suggested a drinking game to loosen Roche and Iorveth’s tongues, Triss didn’t exactly leap at the idea. But it would be nice to have an evening of fun, even if she would have to scrape all of her tastebuds off come morning.

“Yeah, all right,” she agreed.

If they were going to die soon, they deserved to cut loose for a little bit beforehand.

Vesemir declined with a heavy sigh. “I’ll start brewing a hangover cure,” he said, longsuffering.

“You could participate,” Triss offered.

He chuckled. “No, I think I shall avoid admitting to all the folly of my youth.”

“Indeed,” Ermion, the Skelliger druid, said when asked. “I believe I am too old to relive those days.”

Avallac’h said nothing, ignoring her when she’d tried to invite him. She didn’t feel the need to try too terribly hard.

Hjalmar and Folan were positively delighted at the opportunity to get shitfaced, and they eagerly gathered everyone up to play, letting the witchers sort out what alcohol they had available.

It was fairly late by the time they finally settled down, sitting around the fire with their drinks of choice. Not that there had been much choice, but at least shitty wine was better than Lambert’s home-brewed pepper vodka. Even if Dandelion and Zoltan were both drinking it without a change in expression.

It was still better than Lambert’s other concoction – the gauntlet, equal parts spirit and White Gull. It could get even a witcher wasted and would likely kill an ordinary human. It was for that reason that only the witchers elected that one.

Roche and Ves, predictably, were drinking Temerian rye. Keira sipped the same wine Triss was drinking and was managing a better job of not showing her disgust than she was. Hjalmar and Folan had brought some kind of Skelliger mead, and they were generously sharing with Iorveth, who passed around a pipe in return. Elves were always said to have good weed, and she could now confirm it.

It had been a long time since Triss had gotten high. Much less cross-faded.

The stresses of preparing for a battle they were likely to lose bled off her with each hit, and she was the one to actually start the game.

“Never have I ever,” she began with deep gravitas. The others fell silent in response, waiting to see if they would need to drink. “Streaked naked through a crowd.”

Dandelion huffed, as she knew he would, but obediently took a shot. Hjalmar did too, grinning and looking prepared to regale them with the story.

Wanting to avoid that, she nudged the person next to her – who just so happened to be Iorveth, because he was always next to Roche these days. He was sitting a little too close now, even, and Triss held back a smirk.

“Name something you haven’t done,” she prompted the elf.

“Uh. Never have I ever…” he paused to think and Triss elbowed him again, for extra motivation. He grunted, shifting away from her, but did finally finish, “slept with a sorceress. With good reason.”

Triss scoffed, taking a large gulp of her wine. She wondered if he realized who else would drink at that. Keira, Dandelion, and Roche were the only other ones, and Roche’s face was a little red as several people turned surprised looks on him.

Triss watched Iorveth’s face as he put the dots together and turned a scowl on her. It was actually mildly terrifying, but she refused to be cowed, smirking instead.

“Never have I ever,” Roche said loudly, and from the look on his face, she knew this one would be targeted to try to divert attention from himself. “Had a wanted poster issued for myself.”

Iorveth rolled his eyes, drinking his mead. Lambert and Aiden also drank, which successfully drew attention away from Roche.

“Why aren’t you drinking, Kingslayer?” Ves barked.

Letho smiled genially. “I was never caught. There were no wanted posters for me.”

“What about now?” Roche asked, eyes narrowed.

“The Emperor don’t bother with writing down his enemies’ names,” Letho said, entirely casual.

On the sidelines, Yennefer snorted. She wasn’t part of the game, instead preferring to read what she was pretending was some old archaic text but what Triss was pretty sure was actually erotic love poetry.

It earned Yenn some glares, and she shrugged, not bothering to look up from her book. “He’s right. Wanted posters indicate that you can’t keep order on your own. Nilfgaard does not use them often. They simply pay the right people and make the problem disappear.”

“Charming,” Lambert said. “Next.”

Ves pursed her lips, glaring at Letho. “Never have I ever been paid to kill a monster.”

The witchers all drank, and then it was Dandelion’s turn. He nudged Zoltan. “Never have I ever lost all my money in a gwent game and had to auction off my trousers.”

Zoltan laughed, taking a long swig. Lambert also took a drink, which earned him a few looks.

“I remember that,” Aiden chuckled.

Zoltan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shot a grin at Dandelion, words clearly designed to target the bard. “Never have I ever [something absurd Dandy has done].”

Dandelion drank – but so did Lambert, and several people arched their eyebrows.

“I was very drunk,” Lambert shrugged.

“When was that?” Aiden asked.

“Remember? That time outside Mirt.”

“Oooh,” Aiden laughed after a moment, “yeah, you were shitfaced.”

“Exactly how often do you two work together?” Eskel asked, frowning at them.

Lambert shrugged, not answering. “You’re up, Skelliger,” he said to Hjalmar.

“Never have I ever slept with anyone not human,” Hjalmar said. The nonhumans in the room, predictably, drank. So did all the witchers, which brought up the question…

“...do witchers count as human?” Triss reluctantly asked.

“I say no,” Aiden shrugged.

Triss took a sip of her wine. Dandelion, Keira, Roche, and Ves also had to drink, though the look on Ves’ face indicated she wasn’t happy about it. It was probably best not to ask.

“That was a good one,” Folan said cheerily. “Got almost everyone!”

“So what’s yours?” Hjalmar’s grin showed off a gap in his teeth.

“Hmm. Never challenged my sister to a race in front of everyone – and then lost.”

They all laughed as Hjalmar drank with a grumble.

“You’re up, Letho,” Eskel prompted.

“Hmm…” Letho’s smile was sweet and Triss didn’t trust it for a second. “They say you’re a whoreson, don’t they?” he said conversationally. Roche’s spine snapped straight. “Never have I ever had sex for money.”

Roche’s fingers curled into a fist, but he took a drink, and Triss noticed that Iorveth actually looked surprised.

“What if it wasn’t for money, per say?” Dandelion asked loudly, and Triss was pretty sure he was intentionally drawing attention away from Roche’s clear discomfort.

“I did once sleep with a woman to steal her necklace,” Aiden said contemplatively.

“Ooh, was that the sapphire one?” Lambert’s laugh was more of a cackle than was probably appropriate. “That one sold for a lot.”

“Mmhm,” Aiden hummed, grin turning wicked. “Never have I ever jumped off a roof for a bet.”

Lambert rolled his eyes and drank. Dandelion also drank, and was entirely shameless about it.

“All right,” Lambert cracked his knuckles, waggling his eyebrows at Eskel as he said, “never have I ever slept with a succubus.”

Eskel flushed lightly, grumbling as he downed his drink. Dandelion and Zoltan also drinking wasn’t really a shock, honestly – Geralt almost certainly would have, too, were he here – but Letho was a surprise.

He just smiled, saying nothing in the face of their curiosity.

Eskel glared narrowly at Lambert. “Never have I ever [something ridiculous Lambert did in a fit of anger or something].”

Lambert scowled, taking a drink.

“My turn,” Keira said, looking each of them over contemplatively. Triss hoped she was thinking of how to target Iorveth and Roche, because that was supposed to be the whole point of this.

Plus, it was fun.

“Never have I ever written a poem or song,” Keira said. Dandelion drank, of course, but Iorveth did too, and the look Roche cast his way was curious.

And then Lambert surprised all of them by taking another shot.

“...really?” Eskel asked, dumbfounded.

“I was super drunk,” Lambert defended. “It wasn’t very coherent.”

Aiden didn’t say anything, but the way he bit his lip against a smile made Triss wonder.

It was her turn again and she thought about what to say. The whole point of this was to help push Iorveth and Roche together, so…

“Never have I ever,” she hiccuped, “had sex in a tree.”

“Really?” Iorveth scoffed. He drank – and so did Zoltan.

“Seriously!?” Dandelion’s voice was a little too high pitched.

Neither of them met anyone’s gaze.

Iorveth cleared his throat. “Never have I ever had a business venture fail in less than a day.”

Zoltan scowled, drinking.

Roche looked between them, something odd in his expression. But when he spoke, it was clear who he was targeting. “Never have I ever,” he said, voice a tad mischievous, “worn a fancy ball gown and spilled wine all over it.”

Triss’ frown may have more resembled a pout as she drank. What was interesting was that Lambert also drank – and at this rate, the witcher was going to end up the first one wasted. Him or Dandelion, who drank as well.

“Really?”

“It was a lovely dress!” Dandelion said. “Shame the wine couldn’t wash out.”

Zoltan laughed. “You looked stunning, as I recall. Until you tripped and fell out the window after spilling the wine all down your front, anyway.”

“Lies,” Dandelion said easily. “I still looked smashing even then!”

Now they all laughed, turning to Ves for her turn.

“Never have I ever,” Ves began, glaring at Iorveth, “been chased out of town under threat of death.”

Iorveth’s look was cool as he drank, accompanied by all the witchers – oof, Triss maybe should have guessed that – and Dandelion and Zoltan, who, honestly, she had expected.

“What about you, Dandelion?” she asked, trying to move them on.

“Hmm.” Dandelion shot what he probably thought was a sly look at Iorveth and Roche. “Never have I ever shared a room with my sworn enemy.”

Iorveth and Roche both rolled their eyes, drinking. Surprisingly, Keira also took a sip and Triss looked to her friend in surprise.

“At Aretuza, remember?” Keira said. “Way back.”

“Ooooh, yeah. Whatever happened to that girl?”

“Nothing interesting, I’m sure,” Keira said tartly.

“All right,” Zoltan hummed, considering his words. Then he smirked slightly and said, “never have I ever kissed a royal.”

From the way he was smirking at Iorveth and how Iorveth rolled his eye in response, Triss figured that was targeted at the elf – but it had some other casualties. Slinging back her own drink, she caught the look on Ves’ face as she glared down at her shot glass – and saw the way her fingers shook as she reached for it.

Roche stole it out from under her, downing her shot and his own. The set of his jaw very clearly dared anyone to make anything of it.

There was surprise on several faces, including Iorveth and Zoltan’s. Dandelion, who had also taken a shot, swayed into Zoltan’s shoulder, barely held up.

Folan coughed loudly. “Does kissing Hjalmar’s sister as a kid count? She is Queen now.”

“It counts!” Hjalmar said immediately, and something loosened in Triss’ shoulders as their collective attention turned the Skelligers.

“My turn!” Hjalmar's voice was gleefully. “Never have I ever… had an orgy with more than five people.”

There were some laughs in response as Dandelion, Zoltan, Roche, Ves, Keira, and Triss all drank.

“You lucky bastards,” Lambert muttered.

“Hmm,” Folan chewed on his lip for a moment. “Never have I ever fallen in love with someone I shouldn’t,” he said, and Triss wondered if he’d caught on to their attempts at getting Iorveth and Roche to loosen up.

Iorveth glared at everyone as he drank, much to Roche’s clear surprise. Dandelion let out a exaggeratedly lovestruck sigh, as if fondly remembering the one that was prompting him to drink.

“What kind of question is that?” Hjalmar scoffed. “Bro, you’re totally in love with my sister!”

Folan flushed red. “There’s nothing wrong with that! We grew up together!”

Triss giggled.

“Your turn, Viper,” Keira prompted.

Letho’s smile was slow and cold. “Never have I ever,” he drawled, “gotten my second killed.”

This time, Iorveth’s scowl was murderous and Triss winced, remembering the beaten form of the elf who had pleaded with her and Geralt to warn Iorveth of the way Letho had doublecrossed him. Ciaran hadn’t lasted long enough to see the Scoia’tael reclaim the prison barge he’d been on.

“Hey,” she snapped, “let’s keep it friendly, guys, come on.”

Letho just shrugged.

Aiden cleared his throat a little too loudly and obligingly moved the game along, targeting Lambert as he said something about drunkenly falling out of a tree. Lambert retaliated, but next was Eskel, who seemed delighted to poke fun at Lambert.

At this rate, Lambert was likely to be the first to drop out, and he clearly knew it from the way he half-pouted, grumbling under his breath.

Keira and Triss both designed their questions to highlight the way Iorveth and Roche were sitting with their shoulders pressed together, helping keep the other upright. They were all more than slightly soused at this point, though the Skelligers had drank less than the rest of them.

“Man, our lives are clearly not interesting enough!” Hjalmar lamented before adding, “never have I ever lived more than 30 years.”

“Oh come on,” everyone except Ves and Folan grumbled, taking their shots.

“All right,” Zoltan said, “Dandelion’s done.”

“What?” Dandelion protested. “I’m fiiiiiiiine,” he slurred. “I could do thish all niiiiiight.” He tried to stand and promptly collapsed onto the floor in a sprawl. “Or not.”

“Should we help him up?” Keira asked uncertainly.

“Nah,” Zoltan said.

“I like the floor,” Dandelion giggled. He then began to drunkenly hum various melodies, actually providing kind of a nice backdrop for the game.

Lambert was the next one to drop out, slumping heavily onto Aiden. Aiden laughed and bowed out, dragging the no doubt heavy carcass of the drunken Wolf upstairs.

Keira’s eyes followed them curiously, but Triss was distracted by Roche getting her with ‘never been seasick’. Vision going double, she decided maybe it was time for her to concede as well.

Iorveth and Roche dropped out after the same statement – never been knocked out, of all things. They stayed in place, holding each other up and giggling stupidly at the rest of them.

The look on Ves’ face clearly showed her displeasure with this, but she didn’t seem to know what to do. She’d drunk a fair amount, but still seemed surprisingly stable, words not slurring at all when it was her turn.

It only took a few more questions to knock out Keira and Eskel both, leaving the Skelligers, Ves, Zoltan, and Letho as the last ones standing.

And that's all!

You know, I was gonna talk about the plan for where the fic is going, but this is already super long oops. It's gonna be fun, though. I'm approaching the end of the 1st arc, then we have the Battle of Kaer Morhen and its aftermath, which includes Roche receiving a message from Dijkstra about the opportunity for a 'Free' Temeria. Since several of those present have kingslaying experience, this leads to Vernon Roche, Ves, Iorveth, Letho, Zoltan, and Dandelion all going on a road trip to Novigrad together 😂😂😂 I'm looking forward to it. There's going to be much drama and some angst and some eventual reconciliation and making out lol

#wip wednesday #rorveth #iorveth x roche #the witcher

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aphra7 · 8 months

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Danger v. Danger

My origin story is purple ponytail Butter Jungkook. I was hooked by the lip the moment he autoplay sauntered across my screen while I was innocently scrolling Facebook (of all places) and then YouTube suggested ON and one video led to another and the next thing I knew I’d forked $22 over to Weverse so that I could call myself a card-carrying ARMY. Literally the same day. And then Sowoozoo (Miami JK) happened and someone on Reddit was like “hey you should watch My Time” and I have been mainlining Bangtan ever since. But it took me forever to explore content as far back as the Dark & Wild era because when I went back that far, Jungkook was just so damn young. It was too weird.

Yeah haha very funny.

With time, however, I realized that my true primary affections lay with Jin, because Jin is total husband material, and he was already a hot grownup when Dark & Wild came out. Problem solved!

Not sure how I slept on this Seokjin. Forgive me, my darling.

I still love you, Jungkook. It’s just, I’m married now.

Anyway, all of Dark & Wild is great, but I have an inordinate fondness for Danger. First, it sounds like a long-lost Michael Jackson song, and I am an OG MJ fan. Second, the guyliner. So good. Finally, my absolute favorite form of BTS content is performance videos, and there are a million bazillion performances of Danger.

My original plan was to rank every performance of Danger, and I began that project, but it turns out that Tumblr won’t let me link that many videos in a single post and its UI sucks too bad for me to break what I already have into multiple posts. I might still finish someday, but in the meantime, why don’t we put the video for Korean Danger up against Japanese Danger and see who wins.

First up: Korean Danger

youtube

This video features members doing things that are things other members do. Jimin is boxing instead of Jungkook. Jungkook is playing the piano instead of Yoongi. Taehyung is cutting his own hair instead of Jin. Jin is wearing a muscle shirt instead of Namjoon. Namjoon is brooding, which is something he does, but he is also tattooing himself, which I cannot in five million years imagine him actually doing. Only Yoongi (basketball) and Hoseok (dancing) are engaged in on-brand activities.

The angst is so thick, it’s chewy.

Something is wrong; there’s a palpable sense of unease throughout that isn’t resolved. The lighting is mood and the stakes seem high. They are all suffering, but you don’t know why. You can almost see HYYH and its neverending cycle of misery* on the horizon.

They’re… in danger.

* Don’t @ me. I love HYYH.

The challenger: Japanese Danger

youtube

What is with this thumbnail?

I usually avoid Japanese versions of Korean songs because they weird me out, but I love that BTS often goes to the trouble of making separate, fully-realized videos for the Japanese versions. They look incredible in this. The lighting is better than in the Korean video. (I’m a sucker for high contrast.) The choreo is much easier to follow and the vibe (other than dance Hobi’s accusatory expression, seriously, I never want to be on Hoseok’s bad side) just feels different. And there’s a storyline. The underground club gang fight/dance battle subplot with Tae waiting fruitlessly for some girl (probably) to message him back is low-stakes, easy to follow, and satisfyingly resolved.

Also, how cute is baby JayKaaaaaaaayyyyyyy?

The club sequence begins with young thug Jimin busting the door open (I cry) and ends with Tae apparently triumphing in a rap battle. (Did Tae write this storyline?) It’s so good! There’s a happy ending! I love this story! Who needs girls? Not rap king Taehyung!

The verdict:

I realize this is a spicy take, but based purely on the videos, Japanese Danger is the superior Danger.

The settings are better.

The styling is better.

I can see the choreo better.

Jin is extra super hot in this version. It’s not just me, look at the comments. BACK OF THE LINE PEOPLE HE’S MINE

There’s an actual story instead of just “wow these guys sure do have a lot of feelings.” Not that there’s anything wrong with guys having a lot of feelings.

The climax of Japanese Danger is Tae winning a rap battle. The climax of Korean Danger is… he cuts his hair. Which I can’t take seriously because I watched the behind so I know he accidentally did cut his actual hair and not just the forelock toupee, so it makes me giggle every time.

The only better things about Korean Danger is it’s in Korean (I will only suffer through the disorientation of listening to the Japanese version for the sake of watching the video) and Namjoon’s hair. I love his edgy Japanese Danger hair, but I have a real soft spot for the soft serve/Marilyn Monroe look.

Who in their right mind would give Namjoon a tattoo gun?

I take no pleasure in this verdict. I’m Korean-American and never willingly admit that anything Japanese is better, ever, due to the traditional enmity between our peoples. I will entertain arguments in the comments, if anyone has any. But I’m not wrong.

헷갈리게 하지 마

#bts #bangtan #danger #dark & wild

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tempesttz · 3 months

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unnecessary rant about an

unnecessary (but very odd) debate

i know this is not my usual post but tumblr just suggested me another account (as it does), so i went to check them out. openly endogenic, wonderful. inclusive, check. "if i block you, you're probably not inclusive enough." sure? then i scrolled down a bit more, and... tw: mentions of discourse, nazis, the holocaust, and ai art. i'm also just not very nice, so tw for that too.

".....ai art is still art and arguing otherwise is spreading nazi bullshit regardless of if you personally like it or not...." ....what? at this point i'm thinking okay, op has no clue what a nazi is or something. right? right??? there was a link, so i, an unwitting fool looking for more elaboration on this take, clicked it.

"blocked a long time follower because they were being reactionary. here is your reminder that regardless of your stance on copyright, as soon as you start regurgitating that ai art isn't art, you are spreding the rhetoric authoritarianism. you are being reactionary and conservative. in fact, you are literally spreading nazi shit. read up if you have the spoons for it: link here. the focus should be on mitigating harm to those more directly impacted, not on trying to erase the art now exist.s not on ai arts legitimacy as art." i'm not going to just sit here and say "oh wow weird take, point and laugh guys." that would be weird and frankly no better than places like r/fdc and r/systemscringe. so instead, we're gonna break this down: first off: what is degenerate art? well, let's check their wikipedia link.

"Degenerate art (German: Entartete Kunst) was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art." okay, so op is claiming that dislike of ai art is comparable to the suppressing and banning of large amounts of art in nazi germany. which is a wild take. but why is it wild? 1. ai generators clearly do not experience much suppression or banning in places considering that they are an active threat to artists. 2. the main issue with ai image generation is that it is stealing from actual artists to create their images and putting people who have trained for years to hone their skills at risk of losing their jobs. this diminishes the amount of artists who will actually pursue a career in that field, thereby reducing the amount of actual artists and directly harming the art community. 3. a lot of people will lie about being ai "artists," attempting to claim the work as actual art. 4. the concept of comparing something like this to the holocaust in general is just... wildly insensitive, frankly. this should be common sense, but there seems to be a distinct lack of it here anyways. 5. people are allowed to have opinions? you can think ai art is a valid form of art. i'll think you're weird, but that's a valid opinion. some people don't think certain genres of music are art. some people don't think certain kinds of art should be considered art. for example, those pendulum paintings that were everywhere, and might still be everywhere. i saw a lot of discourse about those. some people did not consider them to be art, or at least not on par with things like large, dedicated paintings. does that make the people who have that opinion nazis? .....no????? there isn't a moral to this post. it probably shouldn't exist. i just saw this and needed to rant, and decided to make you all my unwitting victims, lol. if you agree with op, then... i don't know, have a nice day? maybe stop conflating something like ai art (which is basically inconsequential unless you are in a community it effects or witnessing a downgrade of media quality due to its usage in production) to the holocaust (one of if not the worst historical event to this day in history)? okay wait, i have a moral! you can dislike things or have an opinion without it having to be taken to the total extreme. for anyone who read through this entire thing, thank you for sticking around! have a cookie. 🍪

#ai art #tw discourse #discourse #syscourse #perhaps?#systems discoursing #tw #just tw for this entire post #stay safe out there folks #what tags does this even GO in????#ramblings #consider this my formal apology in advance to pluralblr #for this post #anyways i blocked op lol no i will not share their user

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ayamari-no-goshi · 2 years

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And think of him as Living - Duke’s chapter

AO3 — > Companion to this fic, To Join the Whispers

Fandoms: Danny Phantom (DP) / DC universe

Summary: THIS IS A CROSSOVER. What was supposed to have been a normal mission to stop members of the League of Assassins became something so much more when their family accidentally tangled with a ghost. And sometimes, the details leading to the resolution were obvious to some while completely missed by others. Companion chapters to ‘To Join the Whispers’ written from the POVs of some of the others

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, and questionable mental health

Parings: none

Notes: originally uploaded to AO3. Cross-posted to tumblr

“You’re Martian Manhunter!! I’m so happy to meet you! I’m a big fan!”

Duke watched in fascination as Danny floated in front of J’onn J’onzz and held out a hand to shake. Even though he was trying to contain himself, his ghostly tail, which sometimes replaced his legs, twitched like that of an excited cat. Even though the kid from Amity Park had been acting as a hero for at least a year, he hadn’t had any interactions with other heroes before they waltzed into his home. It was nice to see someone else get starstruck.

In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure why Manhunter was there. He had seen him and Bruce talking a few minutes ago, so maybe it was Justice League stuff. Though he vaguely remembered someone, probably Bruce, talking about how a ghost’s ability to manipulate its body might be similar to that of a Martian’s, so maybe it had something to do with training. Even if it wasn’t, Danny was thrilled. One thing he did remember was Jason mentioning that Danny would like to meet the guy at one point.

Speaking of Jason, he was watching the interaction from across the room. Just like Bruce’s other kids, his expression was hard to read, but the core in his chest gave him away. Sure, it was much harder to see when he was in his human form, but it was still there. Though it took Duke a while to get a hang of it, the intensity and, for a lack of better word, its pulse gave him an idea of his mood. Right now, he seemed content, if not pleased. As weird as it sounded, it made him more human.

Out of all of the Bat kids, as they were often called by the other heroes, Duke had the fewest interactions with Jason. Part of it was due to the very clearly unresolved issues between him and Bruce (Duke knew better than to ask even if he was dying to know) that often kept him out of the city. The other part where due to the whispers of how he died and what he did when he came back to life. And since he rarely stayed long enough to chat after a mission was done, it didn’t help get rid of the negative whispers.

Then there was the glow which only Duke could see. When his powers first started coming in full force, he nearly stumbled when he first got a look at Jason. The faint sickly green glow of something followed his blood and laid in healed breaks in his bones. Bruce, Cass, and especially Damian had traces of the stuff in their bodies from their past interactions with the Lazarus Pits, but it was everywhere in Jason. He kept that information to himself, but when he saw how it seemed to flare when Tim was shocking him with the weird belt from the Fentons, Duke realized just how badly the stuff affected him.

But after the whole half-ghost thing happened, Duke really started seeing Jason’s humanity shine. His newly formed core helped express his emotions, even if his face and posture didn’t. While it didn’t help the others, it at least helped Duke better interact with him. Jason wasn’t as antisocial as he sometimes came across, and the one-time Duke asked him for help with an English paper after Alfred suggested it, his core absolutely shown with excitement.

Amazed, Duke offhandedly mentioned it to Bruce after he got a ninety-eight on that paper. With an unusually soft smile, Bruce mentioned Jason was loved literature and had done exceedingly well in school. Duke never would have expected the Red Hood was a straight A student. When he asked Dick about it afterwards for a confirmation, a distant expression momentarily appeared. He explained that if Jason hadn’t died, they expected he would have become a professor or even a lawyer. He even remembered overhearing Donna talking about him maybe going into the medical field on a mission. It was so strange to imagine Jason could have had such a different life.

Then there were the interactions with Danny. There was an openness between them that was rare to see among any of the Bats. They all had theories as to why they were becoming so close: shared experiences with death, a shared rough childhood, Jason not wanting to scare Danny away, weird ghost things, etc. But whatever it was, it was becoming increasingly common to see the two talking and joking with each other. And since Jason wouldn’t usually say anything if the others decided they wanted to join into the conversations or help with training, it helped break away some of the the walls he’d built around him. It helped show Duke that Jason was just a guy who had trauma, a lot of trust issues, a seemingly unlimited supply of zombie jokes, and an aversion to being touched.

They still couldn’t get Jason to willingly use his powers in front of them. He’d only do that during training if it was just Danny and Bruce in the room, but that was a work in progress. Duke was just glad he wasn’t the only one in the family with weird powers anymore. One of these days, he was going to have that conversation with the second Robin, and he was looking forward to it.

Speaking of which, as he watched Danny fly over to Jason to tell him something, Duke had to wonder if they were ever going to let his status as a halfa be known. If Danny was going to be trained by Martian Manhunter, then having Jason train with him too would make sense. Well, it would make sense to anyone but a Bat. To them, secrets kept them safe, and this was a big one. Heck, Duke was pretty sure the only reason people in the hero community knew Jason was back because they’d seen him as opposed to hearing it from say Dick or Tim.

“Thank you! This is the best day ever!” Judging by how tightly Danny was hugging Jason, he must have been the one to get the meeting with Manhunter in motion. Even with him being in his ghost form, Danny’s core shone with unbridled pleasure.

Jason’s, on the other hand, pulsed strangely as he stiffened. Was it shock? It settled after a moment, and he ruffled the teen’s hair before trying to get out of his grasp.

It didn’t work. Danny just laughed and latched on harder. As childish as it seemed, Duke recognized it as a tactic Danny sometimes used to get Jason to use his abilities, particularly intangibility. Another favorite tactic of his was to steal some of Jason’s gear left on a table and launch into the air in hopes of being chased. The kid liked using his powers, and it seemed this was his way of trying to show Jason how to have fun with them. And strangely, Jason’s powers sometimes malfunctioned after these attempts. Bruce theorized there was an unconscious call and response that happened between their energies when this happened, but he was hoping to ask Frostbite about on when the older ghost next visited the cave.

However, Jason didn’t take the bait. With his own devilish grin, he hit a pressure point under Danny’s ribs which caused him to crumble to the ground. Openly laughing, he was nice enough to help the teen up before excusing himself. “You don’t need me to hear stories about Mars. Go have fun. I’ll be upstairs.” After pushing Danny back over to J’onn, he headed over to the stairs.

If Duke wasn’t mistaken, Jason’s core was flickering. He’d seen it before when Jason accidentally transformed or one of his powers malfunctioned. Yep, he wanted to duck away from anyone before it happened. Catching Danny’s attention, Duke gestured that he would follow him to make sure everything was okay. The teen nodded in understanding, but a troubled expression replaced his previous smile.

…

“Hey, Jason? I know you’re in here. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Duke cautiously knocked on the door to the library before opening it. Instead of going immediately after the older boy, he gave him about fifteen minutes alone. Since his powers were still a major sore spot for him, Duke figured it was better to give him some space before trying to talk to him about it.

Ducking his head inside when he didn’t hear anything, he caught sight of Jason’s glow. At first glance, he was sitting in his favorite spot reading a well-loved book, but after a moment, Duke realized he was hovering a few inches above it. Crap, he was staring. He needed to not do that if this was going to go well.

“Danny’s worried about you,” he supplied when Jason raised an eyebrow at him.

Sighing, he slid a bookmark in the book before closing it. “I know.” While he didn’t move from his spot, Jason rubbed his chest as his core pulsed. It was more noticeable than it had been when he was down in the Cave. “I was content to just watch, but the dumbass wanted me to join him. I hate when he does that.”

“Does what? The hugging thing? I’ve noticed it flickers,” Duke tapped his chest to let him know he was talking about the core, “after he does that.”

For a moment, he thought he might have said something he shouldn’t have as Jason’s eyes narrowed and seemed to glow, but thankfully relaxed his expression and leaned backwards. “Should have figured you could see it.”

“It’s noticeable,” he admitted. “But if it makes you feel better, I can see Danny’s and Vlad’s too, but only if you’re visible. When you guys go invisible, all bets are off.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” A ghost of a smile appeared on Jason’s lips, and Duke took that as a win.

“But seriously, what’s wrong?”

“You guys know I can feel when Danny and other ghosts are nearby?” There was a hesitance as he spoke. “It’s kinda of like a mood ring, but instead of colors, it’s like there’s a whisper of intent. He does this thing I can’t explain when he does that, and he knows he does it. It’s like he’s broadcasting, ‘It’s okay. It’s safe. You can stretch.’”

“Stretch?”

Jason pointed at his chest. “It’s not a good way of explaining it. ‘Relax’ or ‘let go’ might work better. And this stupid thing responds to it like a beacon, and I can’t stop it yet. Danny keeps telling me I need to work with these powers more…”

“Man, I get that.” Flopping on the nearby armchair, Duke to sound as earnest as he could. “I know it’s not the same thing, but I nearly lost my shit the day the x-ray vision kicked in. Do you have any idea what it’s like to see things normally and then just see bones when someone’s talking to you? It took a heck of a lot of practice to figure out how to get things under control. You guys know I still have trouble with the glimpse of the future. What?” Although Jason’s expression had remained neutral, his core pulsed in a way Duke understood to be questioning. “Surprised that the eye thing is new? I don’t really think I had these abilities as a kid. If I did, they weren’t really noticeable.”

“Yeah, but I’m not always in the loop with things going on in Gotham.”

Crap. The questioning pulses gave way into something more muted and sadder. He wanted to have an actual conversation about their powers. “Is anyone except Oracle completely in the loop with things in Gotham? Too much goes on here. I swear the city’s cursed.”

“There are rumors it is.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Jason shrugged. His core was starting to brighten again, and he stopped floating. “We’ve heard a lot of things over the years. Bat gods, vampires, wizards, rumors there’s a fucking Lazarus Pit somewhere under the city…” He spoke through his teeth as he mentioned the Pit. “I once told Bruce that Gotham’s evil. I don’t think she was originally, but too much happened here.”

“Speaking of the Pit, I thought I heard that you have to drink ectoplasm or something now?” The look of disgust on Jason’s face almost made him laugh. Almost. He still snickered.

“It has the worst texture.” He sounded so offended. “I’ve had to eat a lot of questionable things… but that, ugh! Alfred was kind enough to listen to Danny’s suggestion to mix it into a smoothie. I learned that day that even bananas can’t magically fix all smoothies. Frostbite is apparently trying to find an alternative for me. I really hope it’s a pill or something cuz there’s no way I can walk around carrying that stuff with me. If Bruce keeps me here much longer, I might take a stab at it myself. What about you? Anything you have to do?”

“You mean food and stuff? Other than eat better? I didn’t realize why you guys eat on the fly so much until I started patrolling.” That was true. With how much they trained, it was sometimes hard to keep up with meals. There were times where he had no idea how Bruce, Dick, and Tim didn’t starve. “But powers-wise, I just have to practice with them regularly. Things have gotten a lot easier since I started that.”

A comfortable silence fell between them before Duke eventually spoke up. “Can I ask why you don’t want anyone to see your powers?”

When Jason shifted, Duke expected him to either flip out or leave, but instead, he sat in a contemplative silence for a few moments. “Did you ever look in the mirror and realize that you don’t know who or what you are anymore?” When Duke shook his head, he continued. “I already lost myself once, and I don’t want to lose the few pieces I got back.” Sighing again, he stood. “Now that everything’s settled, I might as well go back down. Danny’s going to be too worried about me to enjoy his chance at talking to J’onn. The kid’s gonna turn me into a sap at this point.”

“So you did set up their meeting!”

“I just happened to mention to Bruce that Danny loves astronomy and was a big fan of Martian Manhunter.” Although he shrugged, Jason did sound pleased with himself. “He’s still a kid, and I think he forgets that sometimes. I don’t want someone else to look back and realize they never had a chance to live.”

…

After their conversation in the library, Duke decided to do a little bit of digging into Jason’s past when he thought he could get away with it and not get in trouble. When he said he had a rough childhood, that was putting it mildly. Due to his dad being jailed, he somehow managed to help keep himself and his mother off the streets until her death at an overdose when he was ten. Then he lived on the streets for two years until the fateful meeting with Bruce. Even before becoming Robin, Jason had too much responsibility. Maybe that was part of why he went off the deep end when he came back to life.

Speaking of Jason, he seemed to be in the library again. Seriously, did anyone in this family ever sleep? But something was off. Even for his human form, his glow was unusually dim. No one had said anything about weird developments, and he looked fine earlier in the day. Should he say something to someone? Maybe. It probably wasn’t a good idea to do that until after he spoke to Jason first though. It was probably nothing, probably.

So, he found his way to the library and stopped in. While a bit grumpy and a bit pale, Jason seemed to be okay and was surprised when Duke mentioned the change in his core. Though troubled, he thanked him for the information. That by itself should have been the first warning something was seriously wrong.

When he returned to the manor after class, the entire building felt wrong. There was a palpable sensation of fear and pain along with a supernatural chill that made the hairs on his neck stand up on end. Something happened. Was it an enemy?

He called out in hopes it was just another prank war between Tim and Damian. Those two were wicked when they got into it. The last time it happened, he nearly tripped one of the more dangerous rigs from Damian. Seriously, how did these people think this was a normal way to live?

“Greetings, Master Duke.” Alfred’s sudden appearance made him jump. Sheepishly, he turned to see the butler standing in the doorway. His eyes were twinkling in the way they did when he managed to sneak up on any of them, but the amusement hadn’t spread to the rest of his face. That was a bit concerning.

“Hey, Alfred. What’s going on? Did someone get hurt?”

“Master Jason has seemingly fallen ill, and as I believe you can tell, it seems to have affected the entire manor.”

“Hmm… he told me he was okay earlier, but his core looked weird.”

“What do you mean? You’re actually able to see it?”

“Ack!” Bruce’s sudden appearance scared Duke more than Alfred had. After catching his breath, he turned to see just how frazzled the man was. The slight frown and furrowed brow combined with a slightly ruffled shirt and matching jacket suggested this situation took his immediate priority. It wasn’t something he’d seen very often. Don’t get him wrong, Duke knew the guy loved his family, but openly showing his emotions was not something Bruce Wayne seemed to be able to do. “Seriously, Bruce. But yeah, it was really dim earlier.”

“Master Bruce, wouldn’t it be prudent to phone Master Danny?” Bruce almost looked sheepish at the suggestion. He nodded and excused himself. Chuckling fondly, Alfred glanced over to him. “I’m about to make some refreshments and start on some cookies for later. Would you like to help?”

“I thought I was banned from the kitchen.”

“I believe you can help me crack eggs without setting anything on fire.”

…

Danny appeared in the manor about an hour later. He was sporting a healing black eye, but it didn’t seem to bother him as Bruce filled him in. After Alfred relieved him of kitchen duties (he was totally going to gloat about how he didn’t torch anything), he along with Dick, Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph, and Babs had been waiting in various places on the first floor. Duke told himself he was listening because he was worried, but he knew it was curiosity. The others? He was pretty sure they wanted blackmail material more than anything else.

During the wait, the unsettling feeling in the manor had gotten worse. It was making all of them jumpy. There was talk that maybe Jason developed a new power and was messing with them, but Tim confirmed that Jason hadn’t been out of his room in a few hours. In fact, Jason hadn’t seemed to have moved at all whenever someone went in to check on him.

“You mean to tell me you forgot this was the day he died?” they heard Danny snap from the staircase. That didn’t sound good. So, Duke did what anyone else in the home would do and peeked his head out so he could look.

“This is the first time he’s been in the manor on the anniversary.” Bruce sounded uneasy.

“You need to pay attention to this type of thing! For ghosts, death is just as important as life. This is his first Deathday as a proper halfa, and it sucks. Like, royally sucks. Do you have any idea what it’s like to relive every excruciating detail of what happened to you when you kicked the bucket? I was electrocuted, and let me tell you, it wasn’t fun feeling like my entire body was cooking from the inside out as a hole to another dimension opened on top of me for a second time.” Danny gestured widely before he let his hands drop.

“Is… is this going to happen every year?” Dick stepped out of his hiding place and moved up the stairs.

Danny stared at him for a moment before shaking his head. “I’ve been told it does. Most of the ghosts I know throw parties on theirs since it’s the day they started their new lives, so I know they aren’t bothered by it anymore.”

“But…?”

“But when it comes to halfas, I don’t know. The whole being still kinda alive throws things off. Ask me again next August, I’ll be able to tell you then. And to make things worse for Jason, he’s technically died twice. I don’t know if he’s going to go through this again when the anniversary of Vlad being a crazed-up fruit loop comes around.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” If Duke wasn’t imagining things, Bruce sounded worried.

“Keep an eye on him.”

…

While Danny elected to keep watch during the entire thing, the rest of them decided to keep watch in thirty-minute shifts. It wasn’t very long, but the supernatural chill of Jason’s room prevented any of them from being in there for too long. No matter how many blankets or jackets they wore, the cold seemed to seep into their very bones.

It was Duke’s turn at the moment, and with everything he’d witnessed in the last couple years, this was one of the more unsettling situations he found himself in. If it hadn’t been for Danny’s reassurances, Duke would have been convinced he was watching over a corpse. Jason was curled up on his side with his arms covering his head. He hadn’t moved once since he’d been in there, but his eyes were open, unfocused, and glowing. His chest didn’t seem to be moving, but if Duke stayed quiet enough, he was convinced he could hear faint death rattles. Then there were the glowing marks on the visible areas of his skin that slowly appeared and faded. Tim said something about them being a type of scar. Really the only sign he was still functioning was his core which violently flickered on occasion.

He still didn’t know the full extent of Jason’s injuries from when he died. After all the talk about death and ghosts, Duke was starting to get morbidly curious, but he still couldn’t bring himself to look at the reports. Asking just seemed rude and kind of offensive.

Not wanting to think about it anymore, he decided to ask Danny, who was in his ghost form, about his meeting with Martian Manhunter. The teen brightened up and spent several minutes fanboying over the entire encounter and the couple training sessions they had in Amity. Since some ghosts could shapeshift to an extent and Danny occasionally altered his body without really knowing how it was done, Manhunter thought he might be able to help. He thought it was helping and wished Jason would join in.

“With how much Jason has trained in like everything, I’m surprised he won’t,” Duke admitted. Jason had skills the rest of them did not, and no one knew how he got them.

“We’re working on it. I know part of it is his lack of trust in himself, but he’s also having a lot of trouble adjusting to being a halfa. Can’t blame him on that. It took me months before I was comfortable using my powers on my own let alone when my friends were around, and they were the ones who watched me get fried.”

“Is that why you tease him?”

“Yep.” Danny popped the ‘p’. “He knows he needs to use his powers to stay in control of them. You know… now that I think about it, I don’t know if any of the other heroes know he’s a halfa now.”

“Probably not,” Duke agreed. “He regularly works with two others who are about ready to storm the manor to get him back.”

“Do you think they’ll be okay with…?” Danny made a vague gesture.

“Probably. I mean, the one’s an alien.”

“What? That’s so cool!”

As a comfortable silence fell between them, Duke noted that the room didn’t feel as cold as it had. Actually, it was starting to get unbearably warm, and Jason was beginning to shift. Minutes later, the heat stopped, and Jason started screaming as his core flared with the strange sickly color that used to run in his veins before it was replaced with clean ectoplasm of his core.

As his screams died down, he shot out of bed and transformed. There was a tense moment as his shoulders heaved as he glanced around. Duke wasn’t entirely sure if he saw them or not. But he knew what a cornered animal looked like, and Jason looked just like that. He… he should go get Bruce while Danny tried speaking to him.

As he dipped into the hallway, Bruce was already at the doorway. Dick, Tim, Steph, and Cass were behind him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, Damian was taking his time following behind them.

“What happened?”

“He’s awake, but I’m not sure if he’s aware of his surroundings.” After a slight pause, he added, “For a moment it looked like the corrupted ectoplasm in his body flared. It’s settled, but I don’t know if that’s going to mess with him or not.”

“You know, for a bunch of vigilantes who pride themselves on being quiet, you sound like elephants.” At Jason’s voice, they turned to see him in the doorway to his room, wearing a crooked smile. His voice was raw and there were bags under his dull green eyes. Danny was at his side, supporting him. Even with him being in his ghost form, his skin looked pale and sickly, though the green scar markings from earlier were no longer there.

Dick rushed forward and pulled his brother into a hug. “You idiot. You scared us!”

“Todd, Pennysworth told me he is expecting you for tea in ten minutes. Do make sure to make yourself more presentable first. Death isn’t an excuse for looking like trash.”

“Damian!”

For a moment, Duke thought Jason would absolutely loose it, but instead, he laughed. It was deep and surprisingly rich; a laugh Duke didn’t think he ever heard before. And if he wasn’t mistaken, some of the color seemed to come back into his face. “Well, guess that means I gotta drag my sorry ass down there. I’ll freshen up, but,” he pulled on his tuft of mismatched hair, “I don’t think I can fix this right now.”

“Don’t even try to force yourself to change back,” Danny scolded. “Let it happen when it happens.”

“Alright mom.”

“Say, I know we’re all happy you’re among the living and all, but can you eat regular food like that?” Steph pushed forward and poked at him.

“I…” Jason blinked a few times before glancing at Danny. “Can we?”

“Huh? Of course! You just have to be really careful not to accidentally swallow the silverware, but if that happens, you can just reach into your chest and pull it back out. But I don’t think Alfred would appreciate you doing that.”

All of them just stared at the teen. Was he joking? Duke really hoped he was joking, but when it came Danny, all bets were off.

“Right. Well, no costumes in the house.” Jason shooed Danny into the hall but stumbled at the loss of support.

Tim cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Guess you’re not quite up to doing things yourself yet. We should help.”

“Nope, fuck off.”

“Don’t be like that, Little Wing.” Dick pushed him back into the room with Tim following. It was always a little weird to hear Dick call Jason ‘little’. The guy was a freaking tank and as tall as Bruce, but it seemed like that nickname was something special between them.

Bruce chuckled fondly as the door closed and stopped Danny from trying to follow. “They’ll be along shortly. But there is a rule that we don’t wear our uniforms in the manor. You can stay in your ghost form, if you want. I’m sure Jason would appreciate it. Duke, do you think you have some clothes Danny could borrow for the evening?”

“They might be a little big, but sure. Follow me this way.”

============

Notes:

I'm not entirely certain when Duke's powers started. Most of the information I have suggests it was after he became a vigilante, but I'd think some of the more mundane aspects would have started before that. His powers definitely got a major upgrade afterwards though.

Gotham is canonically cursed. Regarding the Lazarus Pit under Gotham, there has been a couple references to it outside of Arkham-verse.

The thing about bananas and the smoothies... I actually hate bananas. Part of the reason is that they overwhelm other flavors. If you give me a smoothie with a banana in it, I will only taste the banana. In this universe, ectoplasm will overpower anything else... except maybe onions.

#Danny Phantom #dp #dp au #dp crossover #danny phantom crossover #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc #To Join the Whispers #danny fenton

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