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korra-the-red-lion · 3 years

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Conflict.

Here’s a super random fic I wrote for Legends of Tomorrow! The pairing is Astra x Behrad x Spooner. This literally comes from me and my friend @sapphictv saying that Astra has two hands haha. I hope you enjoy!

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Astra, former queen of hell, badass sorcerer-in-training, killer of men and women alike, was very frustrated that she was unable to come up with a solution to this problem on hand. And what, you might be asking yourself, is that problem exactly?

In fact, it was two problems.

The first problem came in the form of Behrad Tarazi. The idiotic stoner who took nearly as long as his insipid sister in the shower slowly worked his way into her life with his charming smile and easy out look on life. Not mention, he looked damned fine in a suit. Astra would never admit it out loud, but she probably would have jumped him that day hadn’t she had amazing self-control. After her slip up of showing a sliver of interest in him that time, he only took that as a means of encouragement, something Astra would have never done intentionally.

The next problem was that of Esperanza “Spooner” Cruz. The frustrating little gremlin first sparked something inside of her when she was the first to support her after she had been tricked by that bastard Crowley. Then of course there was that hug they shared during the Galactic Bowling Match. Astra found herself constantly amused by the tiny woman’s feisty nature and even meaner tongue, unless it was directed at her of course. Even then, however, caused something warm to stir inside her chest at the thought of being the center of focus for Spooner.

So, needless to say, Astra was very angry. And nobody liked when Astra was angry.

So far, she had broken the coffee pot, told Nate to stop talking about Indiana Jones, punched the wall (though that had been an accident, mostly), and set fire to Gary (that had been intentional). Right now, she was seething alone in her room as she flipped through her books to see if there was a spell to help her remove her feelings for the two idiots on board the Waverider.

“Ugh, there’s nothing here!” she raged as she threw the book across the room.

Ava poked her head into the room with a small frown on her face. “Uh…hey, Astra? Is there something that’s bothering you? You just seem to be in a mood today.”

Astra rolled her eyes with an annoyed sigh. “Why would you think that? I’m obviously fine.”

“Hm, okay.” Ava took one look around the room when she noticed the spell book near her feet. She picked it up and took a quick look through it as Astra grabbed another one to get angry about. “’A spell to help you get rid of human emotions. Warning, side effect may include death,’” Ava read aloud. “What’s this about?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” sneered Astra.

Ava frowned again as she nodded. “Right. Are you sure there’s nothing bothering you?”

Astra was just about to tell Ava to do something very vulgar when she sighed in defeat. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

Ava crossed her fingers over her heart.

Astra fell back into her pillows with a dramatic huff. “I believe that I may have…developed a crush on Behrad.”

“Oh that’s-”

“And Spooner,” Astra cut in.

Ava’s eyebrows shot up into her hair line. “Oh. OH. Okay, wow. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“How did this happen?” Astra grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it. “I’m suppose to be the bitch on board, and now I’ve been reduced to a wallowing puddle of misery.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing, Astra,” said Ava. “Maybe you could talk to them about it?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Oookay,” Ava twisted her mouth as she thought what to suggest next. Seeing as her only real relationship came in the form of one Sara Lance, she probably wasn’t the best person to help with this. However, Ava was a thinker, and she figured that there was a logical solution to Astra’s problem. When the idea popped into her head, Ava couldn’t believe how intelligent she was.

“I have an idea,” she said with a grin.

“Does it involve killing both of them and pretending that these feelings never existed?” Astra asked, with one eye peeking out from under the pillow.

“Even better.”

Astra doubted that there was something better than murder, but she decided to go along with it for now.

God, how she was probably going to regret this.

XXX

Astra decided that she was going to kill Ava once this was all done.

Her idiotic master idea was awful. Ava figured that if one of them made the move first, then that would be the one she should date. Simple enough, except in involved them being dumped in Star City to go on a ‘mission’ that Ava created specifically for them. When Zari got word that her brother was leaving without her, she got all annoyed and followed after them, so already the plan was falling apart. Oh, and she brought Sara with her.

Just kill her now.

Spooner scowled as she kicked an empty can away from the trio. “Why are we here again? I don’t sense any aliens nearby. Are we sure Ava got the details right?”

Behrad gave her an easy smile as he pulled out a joint. “Dude, just trust in Ava. She hasn’t really led us astray yet. Besides, it’s nice to get away from the Waverider every now and then.”

Spooner rolled her eyes. “I was enjoying my evening, but whatever. I’m going to grab something to drink,” she indicated the convenience store with a jerk of her head. “Y’all want something?”

Astra realized that this was her chance to be alone with either of them, but since it seemed Behrad was more concerned with his weed at the moment, it meant that she had a better shot with Spooner. With a heavy swallow of her pride, Astra flashed a smile at Spooner.

“I’ll go with you.”

Spooner shrugged but didn’t argue, so the two women walked into the brightly lit germ palace together. It took nearly all her willpower to not sneer nor gag at the sight of the pimply teenager behind the counter. His eyes most certainly went to look at her breasts, and Astra started to raise her hand to turn him inside out when Spooner grabbed it, interlocking their fingers together. Astra’s mind went blank as she started at their hands as her heart thumped uncomfortably in her chest.

“Please don’t try and kill the child,” said Spooner softly as she led them over to the cold shelves. “We’re here for a mission, remember? Besides, teenage boys are stupid, so it’s not worth getting all upset about.”

Astra had barely listened to a word she had said, as she was too focused on the hands. Were hands always this warm? Were you always able to feel a pulse in someone’s hand? Was her hand sweaty?! A million other thoughts zoomed through her head like a NASCAR. It wasn’t until Spooner snapped her fingers in her face that Astra joined reality again.

“Sorry?” she asked with a couple blinks of her eyes.

Spooner’s mouth quirked upwards in amusement as she pointed to the doors. “I asked what drink you wanted, carino?”

Astra didn’t speak a lick of Spanish, so she wasn’t sure what that last part was supposed to mean. Although she was curious, she didn’t ask. Instead, she reached for the can of iced tea silently. Spooner watched her with a thoughtful look on her face as she grabbed her own can of Coca Cola. She grabbed something at random for Behrad and together they went to the counter. The pimply monstrosity rung everything up and told the price with an obnoxious voice crack. Astra spared a glance at Spooner to see if it was okay to at least turn him into an opossum or something, but a quick shake of the head told her no. How disappointing.

It wasn’t until they left the store that Astra realized that they were still holding hands. She felt a surge of panic as they approached Behrad, but luckily Spooner left got just as they got there. She handed him the can of Dr. Pepper, which he took gratefully.

Over the comms Astra could hear Sara saying, “No, she hasn’t made a move yet. I’m getting really bored of waiting.” Stupid Sara.

Behrad cracked up the sugary drink with a gleeful look on his face. “Thanks Spoons! How’d you know Dr. P was my go-to soda?”

Spooner rolled her eyes, but her smile gave away her amusement. “Because I’ve lived with you for awhile now, dumbass.”

Astra watched this exchange with interest. Suddenly she was nervous. What if the two of them liked each? What if this was all for nothing? What if in her own self-absorption, she never realized the two of them had romantic feelings for each other? Now Astra was upset. She disguised her sigh of unhappiness with a grunt as she stalked further ahead. She could hear the two of them talking behind her, but she chose to ignore it.

Eventually, they made it to the area where Ava was going to send Gary to attack. Astra sat down moodily as Spooner did a perimeter search for safety. Behrad sat down next to her and nudge her with his shoulder.

“What’s eating you, Astra?” he asked kindly.

Astra glanced at him, which was a mistake. He looked so gorgeous under the streetlight. She turned away, disgusted by the blush she could feel on her face as she mumbled, “Nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” Behrad scratched at his chin thoughtfully. “But I’m not going to push you to talk about. I just think you should know that I’m always here if you need a shoulder to lean on.”

Oh, how tempting was the offer to rest her head on his broad shoulders. Astra wished with everything in her heart that she could do that. She settled for a nod of acknowledgement instead. She frowned in thought as she turned to him.

“Behrad, can I ask you something, actually?”

Behrad had his can of soda halfway to his lips when he nodded. “Go for it.”

Astra wished her heart wasn’t racing as quickly as it was. Her throat felt dry as she asked, “Is there anyone on the Waverider that you have a crush on?”

The look on his face matched that of a deer in headlights. Slowly, he nodded as he looked her way. “Yeah, I do. But don’t tell Zari, okay? She’ll never let me live it down.”

Astra nodded. “Can I ask who it is?”

Behrad looked nervous as he ran a hand through his hair. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before finally settling on a nod. As he worked on the courage to tell her who it was, Astra could feel the blood pounding in her ears as her hands shook with anticipation. But just before the words could come out, there was a shout of surprise as Spooner ran over.

“Guys, the trouble is here!”

Dammit, thought Astra angrily. She thought that she had a couple more minutes before the arrival of that buffoon. With a huff, she stood to her feet to help get rid of the nuisance when she saw with wide eyes that a large grotesque demon stood in front of them. This was not part of the plan. It turned its fiery red eyes in her direction and bellowed.

“ASTRA, I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME!!”

Now, Astra had done a lot of really terrible things while she was the queen of hell. It’s not like she remembered every single one. That was the case with ugly over there. She didn’t recognize him at all, but he clearly knew who she was.

Spooner pulled out a massive ray gun and fire several bullets at the beast. Behrad hopped into action by activating his totem and blasting sharp gusts of wind. Astra wasted no time in shouting out an incantation, summoning an army of shadow monsters to fight under her command.

While it wasn’t easy, eventually the demon got sent back to hell. Astra felt very wobbly on her feet as the draining effect of magic took a hold of her. The last thing she was aware of was the two of them calling her name as she crashed to the ground.

XXX

When Astra came to, she was lying in the med bay. That wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising was her two guests.

Spooner and Behrad were both sitting next to the bed/resting spot/pod/whatever the hell you wanted to call this thing. Behrad was sleeping, his head lolled to the side as drool trailed down onto his shoulder. Spooner had been cleaning her knife when she realized that Astra woke up. She stomped on Behrad’s foot and instantly reached for her hand.

“Astra, are you feeling okay?” she asked tenderly.

Astra nodded, because she was pretty sure her voice wasn’t going to work at the moment.

Relief flooded both their eyes as Behrad scooted his chair closer. “Man, I’m so glad to hear that. The way you used magic was so badass, but when you feel I totally freaked out.”

Astra’s eyes flickered between the two of them and the conflict she felt instantly came back full throttle. How was she ever going to chose between the two of them? There was just no possible way. Astra in this very moment decided that she was going to never date either of them and just life the rest of her life out miserably.

She gently pulled her hand out of Spooner’s. Astra stared at the wall, not looking at either of them. Spooner and Behrad shared a look before Spooner poked Astra in the face. Hard.

“Ow!” Her hand went for her cheek. “What the hell was that for?”

“What’s going on?” Spooner’s tone left no room for argument.

“Nothin-” the look on both of their face shut her up.

“You can’t lie forever, Astra,” said Behrad calmly. “We aren’t leaving this room until you tell us what’s up.”

“I refuse,” she sneered.

“You made me do this,” said Spooner seriously. “Gideon, play ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ please.”

“As you wish, Ms. Cruz,” said Gideon’s voice over the intercoms. The Bonnie Taylor classic started blasting in the med bay. Worst of all, the two of them started to sing along to the torture. Astra only lasted 30 seconds before she begged them to stop, promising to tell them what they wanted to hear. The music shut off, leaving only heavy silence in its wake.

Astra clutched the arms of the chair and sent a prayer to her mother as she worked up her courage. “I…I like both of you.”

Behrad beamed. “Aw, I like both of you too!”

“Not like that!” snapped Astra. She sucked in a deep breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I meant I like both of you in a romantic way. Ava had planned this meeting so I could decide which one I wanted to date, but I now realize that it impossible. I’m sorry for putting us in danger.”

Astra was afraid to even look over, but she forced herself to do so. Spooner was watching her with a thoughtful expression while Behrad was still smiling. Astra was confused as to why he was until he reached for her other hand and grabbed Spooner’s too.

“Well, I know it’s a big commitment, but I’d be do down if all three of us dated,” he said cheerfully.

“HUH?” Astra was beyond confused. When she grew up, couples were just that: a couple. How did a relationship between three people even work? Was Behrad high?

But when Spooner gave an easy shrug and said, “I’d be willing to try if y’all are,” Astra was at a complete loss.

“Is…is that even allowed?” she hated how quiet her voice was.

“Yeah,” Behrad grinned. “I mean, polyamory is a thing, after all. If we all put in the work and promise to be honest with each other, I don’t see why we can’t make it work.”

Astra started at the two people who she adored more than nearly anything in the world in shock. They both were willing to do that for her? She leaned over and kissed Spooner first, not at all surprised to discover that her lips were chapped and dried. When she kissed Behrad, his lips were moister and softer. While both kisses were different on her lips, the excited jolt she felt from both of them was the same. Astra couldn’t believe her luck. She even giggled when the two of them kissed in front her.

Was this what love really felt like? Astra wasn’t entirely sure, and even though she was very nervous about it still, she was ready to see where this went.

#dc's legends of tomorrow #legends of tomorrow #lot #astra logue #spooner cruz #behrad tarazi #astra x spooner x behrad #writing #polyam relationship

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adultswim2021 · 3 years

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Ephemera Week (2002)

It’s still ephemera week, and we’re still talking about John K. I said most of my piece on him in the last post, so don’t expect there to go full bore on this one, except I forgot to say he’s animation’s Jerry Lewis. His current stuff is basically Hardly Working. I will not elaborate, because I’m being mean to you0.

MARCH SPECIALS!

In March, Adult Swim advertised a run of one-off specials. A couple of them were already covered because they fell under the parameters of “Adult Swim original production”. They were Welcome to Eltingville (March 3rd) and Saddle Rash (March 24th).

Day in the Life of Ranger Smith | March 10th 2002 - 11:00 PM (Originally aired on Cartoon Network in 1999)

This was one of two specials commissioned by Cartoon Network re-imagining Yogi Bear. The artist what took this assignment was John K, who I REEEAALLY skewered in last night’s post, didn’t I?

This is about Ranger Smith harassing animals and writing them up for violating park rules, basically. It’s short! I remember liking it at the time! Okay, maybe I’m going crazy here, but I distinctly remembered a part at the end where Ranger Smith is in bed and he solemnly confides in the viewer that the noises of wilderness give him nightmares and then it just ends. Did I imagine this? It does end with him in bed, but this doesn’t happen in the version on YouTube (which is from the Adult Swim airing). Huh.

Boo Boo Runs Wild | March 10th 2002 - 11:15PM (Originally aired on Cartoon Network in 1999)

Boo Boo Runs Wild was another one of these stand-alone Yogi Bear John K specials. This one was 30 minutes long. The Ranger Smith short was a brief 7 minutes; I’m guessing they aired a couple Capt. Lingers or something to fill time.

This one is about Boo Boo reverting to his feral nature and causing BIIIIG problems! This special would later go on to be kind of a weird trolling thing Adult Swim would do where they aired it every Sunday for a few months, even promoting regularly. This was like 2006, I think? They’d also air it as part of April Fools. Is that Adult Swim admitting this special sorta sucks? Does it sorta suck? Again, I liked these at the time and REFUSED to actively rewatch these for this write-up. Sorry.

The Jetsons: Father and Son Day/The Best Son | March 10th, 2002 11:45PM (Originally aired on CartoonNetwork.com in 2001) Our John K rock block ends with a pair of Jetsons shorts, Father and Son Day and The Best Son respectively. This is kinda the same deal as his Yogi Bear shorts, but these were exclusive for Cartoon Network’s website. I remember watching them on there. They are as bad as you’d expect late-period John K internet shorts to be, though the second short is a superior version of Spielberg’s A.I. (in that it’s shorter).

Night of the Living Doo | March 17th, 2002 - 11:00PM (originally aired on Cartoon Network, 2001)

Night of the Living Doo originally aired as wraparound segments during a Halloween Scooby Doo marathon on Cartoon Network. It’s kinda like an episode of the Scooby Doo Movies, which shoehorned in a guest star each episode. Suddenly my man Dick Van Dyke be running a carnival and shit. That’s the Scooby Doo Movies. At the end of the night they played all the wraparound segments in one uninterrupted sitting, so the viewer could appreciate it as an actual full-on Scooby Doo episode. Night of the Living Doo functioned both as an extension of that series as well as a parody. The guests were Gary Coleman, David Cross, and the very cool band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It was all very self-deprecating and had jokes about the absurdity of Scooby Doo tropes. Well trod territory by this point, sure. But this is better than most irreverent Scooby Doo things. It didn’t hurt that I was a HUGE David Cross fan when this aired. Is this where I tell the stupid-ass story about getting mad at a message board guy for not liking David Cross? Sure. Okay, yeah. When this aired on Adult Swim a guy on Kon’s (hi Kon) message board posted something about not finding David Cross funny, shrugging that he didn’t get the hype. He cited this and his appearances in the Men in Black movies, and nothing else as proof for his lackluster comedy skills. It’s kinda like deeming Eddie Murphy as a bad comedian after watching Dr. Doolittle.

The point of this special is that David Cross is a little wooden and stilted, like in the old Scooby Doo Movies episodes. This poster revealed that he never heard David Cross’s stand-up or seen Mr. Show, explaining “I don’t watch puppet shows” A response that still baffles me to this day. Why Mr. Show isn’t a-- WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT? I’m not even sure if there was EVER a puppet on Mr. Show*. David wasn’t even a guest on Crank Yankers at this point! SO WHAT THE FUCK? To this day whenever mutual pals from that board get together and watch a movie or show and a puppet appears we make a joke about this guy. Good story? No? Fuck you.

Other stuff about this show: When it originally aired on Cartoon Network it was a little bit longer than the Adult Swim version. There’s a missing scene. I think it’s David trying to play an improv game with a mummy or something. At one point I had it on tape, but I’m not sure I kept it. Sorry.

*sorry to be coy here, but I do know of at least one puppet on Mr. Show, episode 204 there is brief footage of Grass Valley Greg putting on a puppet show for his staff. This CAN’T be the source of the confusion, can it? It’s literally like, 5 seconds.

MAIL BAG

This’ll teach me to skip a day cuz this really piled up. Thanks, guys. I love all the attention. It is my favorite thing.

I never really saw oblongs as something for the hot topic set. They had Invader Zim and Squee for that kind of shit. Oblongs feel like it was always directly targeting me: the shut-in comedy nerd who would appreciate will ferrell and the sklars being in a thing. Since they ended up doing the exact same show with Janeane Garofalo and David Cross a few years later it seems like that was the goal.

Yeah, I guess that also makes sense. There were a few elements that were kinda gothy but this show was mostly just Angus Oblong ahem, clowning around (puckering mouth to stifle laughter like Chris Elliott in Cabin Boy)

What are your thoughts on the other adult animation blocks of the past couple decades? Spike's notriously failed attempt. Animation Domination. Apparently Syfy has had their own going?

Spike was irredeemably bad. People think this shit is easy. Animation Domination is sorta legit, but it’s anchored by mostly crap. That ADHD thing was kinda good and underrated. Is that still going on? I wish I were more diligent about watching/recording that. Some of them bumpers were good. Also, we mustn’t forget MTV’s oddities. They were kinda the first cable network to court Adult Animation as their thing. They deserve some kind of credit for that. I’m sure they’re doing fine.

I'm having a nice big thing of spaghetti for dinner with some chicken parm? Jealous?

I’ve never had those are they good

What does Ephemera mean? Why is this happenening? Why aren't you talking about 10 Home Movies episodes in a row like a good boy.

In dude time, my friend. In dude time

What would be your Adult Swim dream come true?

Having a complete archive of Adult Swim blocks on a harddrive like Don Giller has with his Letterman archive. Even the commercials and shit. I know of a guy who was a regular taper of the entire block from night 1 but I’m not sure he kept up with it when they went nightly. I should ask him if he still has his tapes, huh?

That or they bring back the BUILD YOUR OWN DVD thing but with blu-rays and you can make your own bumps, which was a different thing they had. THEY SHOULD COMBINE THEM. And you can master it in SD if you wanna put 10 hours of stuff on a disk.

All this is archival bullshit dork shit. Real answer: Clay Croker comes back from the dead and every block is hosted by Space Ghost. That’d be it, right?

If anyone has genuine/better answers please write in with them I wanna keep this conversation going. ‘kay?

McDonalds reintroduces limited edition Adult Swim Toys. You can get them all (plus an extra to keep wrapped for collectors purposes) but you have to spend 20 dollars at McDonalds to grab them all. This is the last day of the promotion. You have to personally eat everything you buy but you can take it home. You can only buy one of each food item. What are you getting? I know the longer the mailbag message is the quicker you are inclined to give some glib remark but indulge this one for once.

Oh wow. I’m literally going to take this seriously. I’d roll in as breakfast was ending. Get myself a McChicken Biscuit and a Bacon Egg & Cheese McGriddle, hashbrowns and a Coffee. Gobble that knob on down. Wipe my mouth with a napkin. It’s lunchtime, bitch. Big Mac, Large Fries, BIG ass soda. You feel me, dude? Lemme tally up. Okay, probably need more. 20 piece nugget. Take that home cuz I’m probably gonna have to save some for dinner. That’s probably 20 bucks right there, especially if you go to the McDonalds on Burnside where all the menu items are more expensive because of the amount of security they have to hire (did you know that different McDonalds have different prices even in the same city? I didn’t until very recently). If this somehow doesn’t satisfy my price point I get a Vanilla shake and eat it anally DURING my BIG D squirt sesh, so it’ll spend as little time in my body as possible. Wait, do I get something for this? I might do this tomorrow just cuz. It sounds like a funky thing to do

Do you think you'll open an Adult Swim mueseum at some point? You seem to be the only steward of its history.

Unless I’m hired to by a large corporation, probably not. Also I don’t think I actually have much in the way of merch other than DVDs. I stopped being a DVD completist at some point around Freaknick The Musical. Oh, I never EVER bought a Robot Chicken DVD, EVER. I literally had a nightmare once that one appeared in my collection.

Hey! Please keep us abreast any time you put more of your garbage on eBay. Maybe you can put your wedding dress on there, you big girl.

Fucking sexist/trasphobic behavior.

Check out my eBay auctions I got season 18 of NCIS up there and some other things :)

The Ripping Friends blow chunks. I don't care if a rapist or the opposite of a rapist (a virgin who volunteers, lol) made it. It sucks a high hard one like when Ozzy banged the Cheiftan's Wife in that Black Sabbath TV Funhouse cartoon. Tell me more.

Tell you more?

Name one rap song you tolerate lol. You can't say anything by weird al or marky mark.

I guess I like the song the pest sings from the motion picture The Pest

Are there any good podcasts on adult swim?

The official one hosted by Matt Harrigan is good, but I’ve only bounced around on it. I don’t know if there’s any formal recap ones. I simply don’t know!

HE'S GIVING HIGH HARD ONE TO CHEIFTAN'S WIFE? UH OH!

Buddy, you are BANNED for LIFE from my MAIL BAG! You drive me CRAZY!

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #night of the living doo #boo boo runs wild #yogi bear #jetsons #ephemera

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imagining-everything-around · 4 years

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I Love You

Pairing: Mark Sloan x Reader

Summary/Request: Mark and Reader have been very close friends, but he realizes that he wants more after she is shot during the shooting. (We’re gonna pretend that Mark and Lexie were never a thing) (In this one you are a Neuro fellow) (And I’m definitely changing quite a bit about what happens in the episode)

Authors Notes: This is my first fic ever... I hope you guys like it.

Trigger Warnings: Shooting, injury, cursing, blood

“Hey Callie you coming out with us for drinks tonight?” you called to your best friend.

“Who’s all going?”

“Just me and Mark so far, I thought that we could just have a nice night... you need to get your mind off of she who must not be named.”

“I don’t know...”

“It’s decided. You’re coming”

“Ugh... fine”

“Let’s go”

You and Callie finish up your charts and go to find Mark.

“Your ready to go?” you call to him after you find him at the nurses station talking to some nurse, no doubt flirting, and although you had seen him flirt with countless women tonight your stomach had a weird feeling.

Was this jealousy? No, no, Mark is your best friend... this was just being tired or something.

The three of you drive over to Joe’s where you find a table.

“I’ll get the first round,” Mark says confidently walking towards the bar.

While he’s standing there waiting for drinks you catch yourself staring at him and not listening to a word that Callie is saying.

“I’m sorry what was that?”

“Did you hear a word that I said... whatever. Who are you staring at?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re staring at the bar at someone, but the only person that I see is Mark,” she gasps, “(Y/N)(L/N), were you just staring at Mark?”

“What, no I wasn’t, whatever”

“Mm hmm okay...”

-The next day-

“Oh my god, Mark, I am exhausted.”

“It’s only 9 am, how are you going to survive today?”

“Yeah I have no idea-” you’re pager goes off.

“Crap, I’ve gotta go, see you later?”

“Yeah see ya, bye”

You run to the elevator to catch it before it closes, breathing a sigh of relief once you make it in. You’ve basically been running the neuro department even though you’re only a fellow, ever since Shepherd became chief of surgery you had been running the department along side Dr. Nelson, more commonly referred to as “Shadow Shepherd”, but with that came a lot more stress and running around the hospital for you.

As you get on you notice a man already on the elevator.

“Excuse me could you tell me where to find the chief”

“Dr. Shepherd? He’s uh probably in his office”

“Yeah, I’ve been to his office before, I can’t seem to remember how to get there, I keep going in circles”

“It’s in the east wing. That’s over by labs across the cat walk”

“I’m sorry that’s-”

“You just uh cross through the patient floor on three and then follow the signs to the main lobby and then you should find it no problem.”

“Thank you”

“Mmm” you say lost in your own thoughts.

As he gets off of the elevator, he turns to you and says, “have a nice day”

“You too,” you smile back at him.

The elevator closes, and you have only moments before you are out the door of the elevator to answer your page in radiology.

“Hi Dr. Nelson what do we have?”

“Well-,” right before he tells you what’s going everyone’s pager begins to go off. You look down at it, “Is this a drill?” you whisper to Dr. Nelson. The two of you look around.

“I don’t think so”

You go to close the door, but right before you do you catch a glimpse of the guy from the elevator out in the hall. You hesitate before ducking below the window, because in your experience at this hospital there is no shortage of irony and cruel jokes, so it would be fitting that someone that you helped would be the reason the hospital is on lock down, and in that short amount of time he sees you.

Shit

Maybe he didn’t see me. Maybe he’s not the problem

“What happened (Y/N-”

Fuck

The door swings open. “Are you a surgeon?”, he says looking you dead in the eye, pointing a gun at your forehead.

“Y-yes”

He takes a moment, looks around the small room, and says “I won’t kill you because you showed me kindness earlier today, but you’re still a surgeon and for that -”

Bang

There are no words to describe the pain that you felt. You brought your hand to your stomach looking down at the red liquid that was gushing out of you.

“(Y/N), (Y/N)!”, you hear Dr. Nelson saying, his face above yours.

You could barely hear him, but your mind wasn’t on him. The only thing on your mind was Mark. You knew that there was nothing that you could do right now, but all that you hoped for was that he was safe and that he hadn’t encountered Gary Clark.

“Oh God,” you gasp before passing out.

“Ok Jim you can do this..,” Dr. Nelson says quietly to himself, waiting for a little bit and then quietly walking out into the hallway in order to find supplies to keep you alive. As he’s grabbing everything that he thinks he’ll need, he hears somebody , and it sounds like they’re in a lot of pain, but he ignores it because he knows that if he were to go out there you would definitely die, and while he wasn’t a fan of you upstaging him, he did consider you a friend, so he took back off to the room that you were currently bleeding out in.

When he gets back to the room he begins to get to work, digging up the knowledge from his internship and residency that would help him. He began to panic, because even though he was an attending, he was only one person and the way that things were going he was not going to be able to do this himself. After fully examining the wound he decided to pack the wound and go see if there was anyone else on the floor, and he ran back to the room that he had heard the moaning coming from he tried to open the door, but it was locked.

Of course

He knocked because he could tell that there were definitely people in there, and he just needed one other doctor. He knocked again. No answer.

“Please, I need some help” he pleaded in hopes that the people in the room would realize that he was not the shooter and would get some help. “This is Dr. Jim Nelson, I’m a Neurosurgeon here and one of my colleagues Dr. (Y/N) (L/N) has been shot and I need an extra set of hands-” The door burst opened and he was greeted with the sight of Mark Sloan looming over him.

“Did you say Dr. (L/N)?”

“Yeah, um-”

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“Follow me”

The two attendings ran through the hallway not caring if someone heard them or if Gary Clark came back.

When they entered the room Mark froze. He looked at you laying on the ground in a pool of your blood.

“Oh god (Y/N)” he whispered.

However, he knew that if he didn’t move quickly you would bleed out and die, and he could not let that happen.

As he and Dr. Nelson began to work, he realized that he had left Lexie and Alex alone. He turned to Dr. Nelson, and said, “I need you to go back to the room and tell Dr. Grey to come here, can you handle Dr. Karev? He has a gunshot wound, and we have him stabilized for now, but should something go wrong...”

“Yeah I’ve got it”

As soon as Dr. Nelson left Mark let a single tear slip. He loved you. Like really loved you and, he had never realized until now. He always knew that he loved you as a friend would, but in these moments that you were on the brink of death he began to realize that he would die without you. You had always been a light in his life and if youe died here he thought that he would not be able to go on. Thankfully Lexie coming in to the room snapped him out of his thoughts making him focus on the task at hand. Saving your life.

The two of them worked tirelessly to stop any bleeding, and while they had stabilized you for now both of them new that if they didn’t get into an O.R. you would die.

While Mark generally didn’t believe in God or anything like that, he thanked every single God and his lucky stars that it was soon announced that the shooter had been taken down, and because of that the lock down was lifted. He swooped you up into his arms and ran to the elevator telling Lexie to get any medical personnel she could find to an O.R.

When he got there he laid you onto the table and quickly scrubbed in. As he was finishing he was met with some familiar faces that were going to help him, and as he was going to walk in he heard the familiar voice of Callie Torres.

“You’re not going in there.”

“What are you talking about, I have to. I have to be with her. I have to help her.”

“Listen Mark you are not going to be any help to her. You are a mess. You are just going to have to let them do their jobs, I’m sorry”

Mark realized that he was crying and after he felt one tear he broke down. Callie then took him up to the gallery to watch, which was one of the worst experiences that Mark had ever been through.

“I love her, Callie”

“What?”

“I love her, I always knew that I did, but I never realized that I love her love her. Now, I’ll never be able to tell her and she’s going to die.”

“Mark-”

“No! She’s going to die on that table all alone because I couldn’t help her”

“Mark you did everything that you could have. She’s going to be okay”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know. I just do”

Countless hours and after the seemingly longest surgery that either of them had witnessed, the surgical team was done. You were stable for now and alive.

After Mark and Callie came down from the gallery, they found Teddy who was the lead surgeon.

“What’s going on is she okay?” Mark asked desperately

“She’s stable. She’s in the ICU, and we’ll know more once she wakes up.”

Mark didn’t leave your bedside until you woke up. They even set up a cot in your room so that he could sleep in there.

When you began to wake up you look around and see Mark sitting beside your bed, your hand in his, asleep. You squeeze it gently in order to wake him up, and when it doesn’t work, you squeeze a little harder. He slowly looks up at you and when he sees that your awake he jumps up and runs to get a nurse.

After they extubate you and take your vitals, Mark is there holding your hand and kissing your forehead. You look at him and before you get a chance to open your mouth Mark says, “I love you, and I don’t mean like just as friends. I mean I am in love with you (Y/N). I was so scared-”

“I love you too”

“What?”

“Right before I passed out all I could think of was you and that I hoped you were okay... Mark I love you.”

He looked at you with the kindest eyes and kissed you gently, yet with passion. It was the most magical thing that you had ever experienced

#mark sloan imagine #mark sloan x reader #mark sloan #greys anatomy imagine #greys anatomy #reader insert #reader insert imagines

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rpmemesbyarat · 4 years

Conversation

RP meme from Scream Queens Ep 5 "Pumpkin Patch" (Note: Offensive content, use at own discretion)

The theme was "Let Them Eat Cake," so my dad bought me this foreclosed McMansion down the street, and, like, 500 of my closest friends came dressed in 18th century attire, and, oh, the pool was filled with this, like, caviar slurry. And then at midnight, we just burnt the house down. When the firefighters came, they were actually strippers, and they put out the fire with champagne.

So walk me through this, honey.

Well, as you can see, every pumpkin in the patch is artisanal.

Then we move past the ice sculptures of demonic peeing cherubs, and yes, they will all be peeing vodka and Red Bull.

I'm sorry. Corn maze?

It's just that doing an exact replica maze from The Shining would have taken us way over budget on man power alone.

I told you money was no object.

Well, apparently, one of them died or something.

Do you have any idea what's at stake here?

Okay, well, it's not my fault that some guy died in the '70s.

I am tired of your sad-sack, I'm-a-total-downer-all-the-time schtick.

I'm over it!

Oh, my God, why are you so depressed?

Why do I have to be the homely one?

Just a second, nutbag.

God, do I have to spell it out for you?

You're a weird, psycho lunatic who's gonna end up in an asylum somewhere, staring at a wall, trying to nurse a watering can.

That's it! I can't take this anymore!

That is such a Mary Todd Lincoln thing to say.

You scream "I'm done with you" kind of a lot, and yet you're still standing here.

I think you know you have a good thing going.

You get to bask in my starlight as I do all the work and you get to grumble behind my back about how disrespected you are.

There's the door.

There's the door, bitch!

You did not deserve to be spoken to like that. Ever.

That is bollocks!

Clearly this fake kidnapping is a play to get the sympathy vote. So Gone Girl.

This is the biggest candle night of the year!

I hate you right now!

Halloween is the greatest night of the year. Greatest night. Because on this night, even kind of shy, kind of homely girls dress up like total sluts. I mean, every costume is just a slutty version of something. Slutty teacher, slutty nurse, slutty nun. I saw a girl last year dressed as slutty al-Qaeda!

See, Halloween it's a night for dudes with killer bods to walk around with our shirts off. And it's totally appropriate, as long as we call ourselves gladiators, Chippendales.

I have no idea how you got into this college.

Look, we'll just hang out and play charades!

This cannot be happening!

Hey, what about Black Hairy Tongue Disease? I mean, does nobody here care about Black Hairy Tongue?

What about my pumpkin patch?

I blame you for this.

[NAME], nice boobs.

Join me in saying you are not afraid!

Just baking some cookies for the neighborhood trick-or-treaters.

Uh, they're toenail cookies.

Pink fur coats worn in all weather, my idea. Flapper dresses made out of feathers, also my idea. Oversized sunglasses worn everywhere, my idea, my idea, my idea!

So why are you baking toenail cookies and giving them to children?

Okay, whose side are you on?

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. I'm what you call

a "switch-hitter."

Wait, are you bisexual? Because that's what "switch-hitter" means.

Do you mean "double agent"?

What are you writing?

Do you know how big Halloween is in the candle community?

Is this an ant farm?

There's a mom ant, Deborah, who mostly just lies around and she has about 100 husband ants, who come around and give it to her good, which she really enjoys. And then there's about a million sterile daughter ants who feed her and are her slaves. So, an ideal family.

She'd win. And then I'd beg to be her second-in-command, while quietly pull the strings behind the scenes like Dick Cheney.

This plan involves a lot of circuitous logic.

Oh, my God! Those are, like, $100 each!

They're the highest quality candles that can be purchased retail.

What a brilliant and revolutionary idea.

Are you cheating?

This is a clear violation of the honor code.

You must be new here.

Who are you calling?

I'm gonna get you fired.

At least you wore something nice today.

Remember to smile for your mug shot.

I'm burping uncontrollably like Robert Durst.

They'll know I'm guilty!

I'm next in line and in charge here.

You can sum up my viewpoint on this with one word; indifference.

We are her only hope.

Sometimes, in order for a person to achieve their full potential, they have to do things on their own.

I am in charge here!

I love that you're a man.

This is the most sensual song ever written.

We need to do this right now!

I just saw her boobs.

Oh, a salad date is, it's like, it's more casual than dinner, but more formal than coffee.

Whose pants are these?

You know, you're a human being with feelings and needs, right?

Enough about me and my confusion and sad dead feeling inside.

It just really hurt my feelings.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure my so-called friends are the ones that turned me in so I'm just feeling, like, super alone right now.

Man, I am your biggest Instagram fan!

I just think you are a style genius.

I will never be able to repay you for the kindness you've shown me in here.

Besties for life, I say.

Your bail's been posted.

I knew you'd bail me out.

Can I just say what a relief it is to be able to share it with somebody and not feel judged?

You know, I mean, all my girlfriends are like, "That's immoral." "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Ashamed? What the hell you got to be ashamed for?

You should be proud.

I could've lost my job.

I mean, it lasted, like, 45 seconds, and the whole time, it just felt like I was getting stabbed in the abdomen.

I tied him up and I kept my uniform on and proceeded

to read him his rights. My favorite being "You got the right to remain sexy."

Give me some!

You know he's sexy!

That was one of the best nights of my life.

Well, I've already contacted the police department, despite the fact that a person can't be considered "missing" until at least 72 hours has passed.

That's morbid.

I've already hired an investigator.

What, are you two a couple now?

What the hell are you doing?

You sold me down the river, bitch.

Wait, Gary Coleman's parents stole his kidneys?

I would never say that, because I'm pretty sure that never even happened.

Why does ratting me out sound like exactly something you would do?

You know, I've never thought of myself as a killer, but I am seriously considering ramming this pick into the back of your eye socket.

Maybe you'll get your head sawed off.

You have cameras in my room?

I have eyes everywhere, bitch.

The name of my future perfume is Revenge.

How is that something you just happen to know?

That is stupidest thing I've ever heard.

What's the password?

I just can't eat any more of these.

This ain't The Marriage Ref! This ain't Judge Joe Brown! We ain't on the Maury Show! We ain't standin' in line trying to get tickets to Dr. Phil! I am not Steve Harvey, people, and this ain't the Family Feud!

I'm tryin' to catch a killer.

Help me get the spy gear in the car!

How can you promise?

We're in a maze, you don't know where you're going!

I always knew it would come to this.

Why are we doing this right now?

I forgot the flashlights!

What am I supposed to do with this?

This is so creepy.

It smell like booty in here.

I'm getting a nervous feeling in my stomach.

I might start farting. If I cut some, you promise not to tell anyone?

Oh, my boob!

Stay where you are! I'll come and get you!

Ooh, this is nice.

It's really beautiful.

It looks like you just crossed some stuff out and wrote that in in marker.

Okay, can we talk about that for a second? Because it just happened a few hours ago, and I'm still really traumatized.

I need some cheering up right now.

Excuse me, darling, I'm exhausted.

Wait, we need to hear what happened to you.

Just wondering where you find a house with a pit. The market for them would be pretty limited.

Did you escape, or did you kill him?

I've always had a thing for bad boys.

That got way out of hand.

#rp meme #rp memes #rp starters #roleplay memes #roleplay meme #roleplay starters #scream queens

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agentmarymargaretskitz · 4 years

Text

Please Don’t Come Back Chapter 3

Gary dreams of his past and wakes to find he's not alone. Ava makes a plan to find out the contents of Gary's file, but is faced with a temptation.

AO3

Skid.

Crash.

Shatter.

Gareth’s head was spinning when he opened his eyes. He was still processing what had just happened, what he had just done. There was something trickling into his hair and his hand came away with some blood when he put it against his head. Slowly, he turned towards where his father had been sitting in the car. A gasp slipped out of his mouth when he saw the wrong angle of his bloody head. Gareth watched his chest and noticed there was no rise or fall.

He’d be like that for a while. Gareth realized he had an opening.

The next thing he knew, he was running away from the car and the bridge, sneakers slapping the pavement. The cold wind bit at his exposed skin and he nearly slipped on ice a few times, but there was not time to stop. Gareth didn’t look back until he finally made it back to the house and up the steps into his room. This had been something he’d been wanting for years and he didn’t have much time. His father was slowly coming back with each passing second. When he fully came back and dragged himself home, there was no way he could be there.

Grabbing the backpack, Gareth moved quickly to shove in a change of clothes and his toothbrush. He ran to the bathroom and pried open a tile near the floor. Once it was off, he yanked out all the money he’d saved in a bag with a lone movie stub and two comic books. As he stood up, Gareth noticed in the mirror his head was bleeding and grabbed a roll of gauze from the cabinet. Right from the back and not at the front, otherwise Father would be more suspicious.

His heart beat in his eardrums as Gareth stripped off his jacket and put on a warmer one. The sneakers were traded for boots that he could run in. A pocketknife, a box of matches, and ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ were stuffed in the backpack as well. Finally, he tugged a black hat over his hair and the bleeding wound before running towards the entrance he’d come in. If the bus timetable he’d memorized was correct, then he could catch the ten pm in enough time.

When he wrenched the door open, Vandal Savage was standing there, face still covered in blood as he stepped inside.

“Going somewhere, my boy?”

~~~

Gary flinched as he woke up from the nightmare. His muscles felt frozen beneath the blanket he’d dragged over himself on the couch. Right now, he faced the ceiling, but would he see his father if he turned to the side? A whimper slipped out as Gary forced himself to turn his body to stare at the chair his father had been sitting in the previous night. As he should have expected, the chair was completely empty. No one was there, but somehow it unnerved him even more.

Slowly, Gary sat up and pulled his glassed off to rub his eyes. That nightmare hadn’t tormented him in months. His father always stopped him in the dream, but Gary had made his escape from him that night in reality. He had made it to the bus, gotten out of town, and spent the next week trying to throw his father off his scent. During that time, he’d balanced tending to his injuries from the car accident with finding his uncle. It hadn’t been an easy endeavor, but he did make it to the doorstep a week later.

It had been a decade, or at least since his mother’s death, since Uncle Jeff had last seen him when he opened that door and found his only nephew exhausted, hungry, and half-freezing. Instead of turning him away, Jeff and his partner Stacey had taken him in. They’d taken care of him, helped him change his last name, go to high school, and found someone he could work through his issues with. Both had done so much to give him his life back. He had been able to have it for himself and not his father, even though he still looked over his shoulder for years.

A clatter from the kitchen startled him. There was someone else in the house with him. Snatching up the knife he’d pulled out of the wall the night before, Gary moved over to press himself against the wall. He inched his way across slowly, nearly yelping when he heard the toaster pop. Just before he could get close to the corner, someone stepped out from it and shrieked. A cup of coffee crashed to the wood floor, spilling liquid and scattering a few chunks of pottery.

“Gary!” Aunt Stacey had a hand to her chest. “Oh, I wish you’d made some noise!”

He took a breath to calm down. There was no threat, just his aunt. “I’m sorry about that. Are you okay?”

Stacey nodded. “Aside from my mug, but that’s spilled milk. Or spilled coffee in this case.”

“Good,” he nodded before a chill ran up his spine. “Wait, have you been here all night? Did you hear anything? Did you see anything?”

“No, no, no, I just got back half an hour ago. I was coming back from a small business trip when Jeff phoned me from his campsite. Said you were going to be coming by the house. So I woke up early, drove here, and figured I’d come see my nephew. Glad I did because someone knocked over the mailbox.”

Gary whirled around and moved towards the window. Pulling the curtain aside, he saw Jeff and Stacey’s mailbox on the ground, although it looked more torn off than knocked over. He walked back quickly to his aunt and hugged her. He had only been worried about the house last night, but if his aunt and uncle might be targeted if his father was still lurking in town. Something was going to have to be done to protect them.

“Oof, you’ve missed me too,” he heard Stacey say. “That’s a tight hug there.”

Gary loosened his grip and let her go. “Sorry. I’m just really glad to see you.”

“I am too, sweets. But your foot’s in the coffee.”

Gary stepped back, glancing down at the puddle his foot was in. He’d barely missed piercing his foot on a shard of the mug. That was probably for the best given his hand was still healing up from Ray and Nora’s wedding. He didn’t need to add another injury to the list.

“I’ll clean it up. I was the one who scared you.”

But Stacey waved him away as she started picking up pieces. “I’ll get it. You just go get yourself some coffee.”

“I don’t mind. I can go and grab paper towels.”

“Gary, go get your coffee! Besides, there’s toast that’s getting cold. I’m perfectly fine cleaning this up. When I hit eighty-five, you can start cleaning up after me. Not before!”

Gary listened and headed to the kitchen, smiling as he poured two fresh cups for himself and his aunt. She always pulled the eighty-five card on him whenever something like that happened. It used to be a way to make him calm down when he accidentally messed something up. The first time he’d broken a plate here had made him forgotten that he was safe and wouldn’t get hurt until Stacey had told him he could pick up after her one day when she got too old. She’d taught him different ways of managing the panic and fear when it built up after that.

“So, what’s going on?” she asked once she trudged back into the kitchen and dumped the pieces into the bin. “And don’t say nothing, okay?”

Gary plated the toast and passed her a slice. “You know?”

“You’re a hugger, but that hug was desperate. Not to mention you were making noises in your sleep.”

He dipped his head and reached for a banana. It wasn’t going to do any good to hide that he was upset, but he couldn’t tell her exactly everything that was happening. “I had a dream about my father last night.”

Stacey’s face turned serious. “Go on.”

Gary picked his next words carefully, making sure to avoid the immortality, his father being back from Hell, and the Loom of Fate. “He had found me again. He wanted me to hurt my friends. He took me away from everything I had built for myself. Then he left, and everyone was looking at me like I was him. Everyone I care about seeing him instead of me.”

“Was it just last night you had this?”

“Yeah,” Gary sipped his coffee. “They’ve been on and off for a while though. Sometimes I wake up and wonder if it’s really happened.”

“Hm,” Stacey started nodding. “Well, first off, that dick’s dead and gone. He’s not going to be bother you anymore, Gary.”

He took a giant drink from his mug, not ready to drop that bomb.

“You built your own life after everything you suffered with him and no one can take that away from you. And even if your father was around, he wouldn’t get away with ripping you away from everything. Everyone who cares about you would fight back, and so would you.”

He gave her a half smile at that, but Gary wasn’t sure who else beyond her, his uncle, and maybe John would be willing to fight for him.

“And if anyone thinks of you as anything like your father, they’re mistaken.”

“But what I did-”

“You regretting it is proof that you’re not like him, Gary. It was winter. That road was icy, you were a new driver- fifteen, Gary, you were fifteen! And it was night too. It was a combination of bad odds. I never met your father, but Jeff’s told me enough to know he was a mean old snake who treated you more like a soldier than a son. I don’t care what it took, I’m glad you got out of there.”

She paused and took a deep breath. “All that pain and hurt he put on you could have made anyone give into it. You could have been just like him, but you never did. Instead of being a monster like him, you’re been kind and caring. That’s something I’m proud of. It’s something you should be proud of. And anyone who can’t tell the different from you and your father isn’t worth keeping around.”

Gary smiled. “Thanks, Aunt Stacey.”

“All I did was remind you of you are,” she patted his hand. “You’re still seeing Dr. McConnell?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Aunt Stacey nodded. “But let’s put a hold on the sad stuff for a while. You told me you were travelling a little with that John fellow? Any new developments on that front?”

~~~

While she’d been falling asleep the night before, Ava had been constructing her plan to unearth the redacted information buried in Gary’s file. By the morning, she had a basis for two plans. The first plan was talking to Behrad and see if he could get through the encryption that Rip had set up to hide the information from her. It meant telling Behrad what John had told her, that Gary feared his father would come back as an Encore. Thankfully, the totem bearer was happy to help her out. He had been worried about Gary since the wedding and wanted to figure out what had sent him running for the bathroom.

The second plan was more of a backup if Behrad couldn’t figure out how to dislodge the information from Gideon. Ava would go back to the day that Gary’s file got redacted by Rip and sneak into the Time Bureau. Once there, she would sneak into Rip’s office and replace the complete file with the redacted one she had in her possession. That way, she could get Gary’s file without having to rush to read the information or breaking time to find out who his father was. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d done a StabCast episode on Gary’s father if he really was an Encore.

Ava wasn’t proud of herself for having that thought, but it still lingered.

Thankfully, she had the perfect window of opportunity when she went with Mick to give Lita childhood memories of her father. He didn’t mind her going off for some personal business while he spent time with his daughter when she brought it up. So Ava had put on her old Bureau suit and pin, taken a courier, and programmed the device to the date Rip had signed on the form to redact information from her and Gary’s files.

Ava’s arrival didn’t set off any alarms thankfully. The agents she ran into assumed that she was returning from or awaiting a mission. It was also too easy to fall back into her old stiff attitude she’d had before meeting Sara, so no one picked up that she wasn’t 2017 Ava Sharpe. As she strode down the hallways, she tried to remember what her past self was doing on this day. Best case scenario, she was on a mission. Worst case-

“Come on, Gary!”

Ava whirled towards the sound of her own voice. Her past self was dealing with Gary getting up from the floor and retying one of his shoes. They were just barely down the hall and hadn’t seen her. Noticing the cubicles to her left, Ava ducked into one and yanked her hair out of its bun to hide her face. Then she waited for her and Gary’s past selves to pass by, listening carefully as they walked past.

“So, what do you think?” past Gary was saying.

“Gary, I’m sorry,” past Ava sighed, and present Ava lowered her head a little more, pretending to be reading the redacted file. “My team is already full. Go find someone else.”

“Please! McNeil said yes, but he forgot he’d said yes to Dawson before me. I still need a group for the bowling outing on Friday. I’ll help you win, I promise.”

Past her stopped six feet from where Ava was sitting. She watched the 2017 version of her snort and shake her head. “Gary, I’ve seen your aim. You’re lucky if you even strike a pin.”

“Oh.”

Ava felt guilty just watching it play out. Past Ava seemed to recognize that it had been a little harsh.

“You can be our cheerleader, okay? And Evans hasn’t been feeling well lately. If she calls in sick Friday, you can take her spot.”

Past Gary seemed delighted by that and thanked her profusely before she reminded him that they had to go check out the new brief. Once they had rounded the corner, Ava picked up the redacted file and slipped out of the cubicle in the direction of Rip’s office. Thankfully, he wasn’t inside when she arrived. There was also no telling how long that he would be gone for, so she needed to search quickly. His desk was the first place for her to start. After carefully moving a few papers, Ava finally found the forms on top of Gary’s file and her own.

“Finally,” she muttered, slipping out Gary’s file and replacing it with the redacted one she’d brought.

Her own file was resting there, tempting her. Ava knew enough truth about herself and had accepted it. But what else was there in her file about her origins? Were there details about the other Avas before her? Suddenly, she was regretting not bringing her own redacted file to swap out with the original.

No, she’d come for Gary and John’s request to find out who his father was.

But it was also right there. Maybe she could just take the form for its redaction too. Rip had treated her like she was disposable. She deserved to have a look.

She started to slide it forward before something clicked in front of her. Ava looked up slowly from the desk to see Rip Hunter shutting the office door shut behind him. His other hand lingered near his memory flasher.

“Agent Sharpe,” Rip greeted in a voice that was too calm for her liking. “What are you doing here?”

#legends of tomorrow #fanfiction #gary green #ava sharpe #vandal savage #rip hunter

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ginnyzero · 4 years

Text

Completely Harmless Ch. 40

Completely Harmless An SSO SilverGlade Re-imagining Story (Or Fix it Fan Salt fic) By Ginny O.

When Lily and her friends wanted to buy horses and were directed to the Silverglade Manor and its myriad of problems, they didn’t expect to start a revolution. They were just a bunch a stable girls. Completely harmless. Right?

A/N: Things are only canon if I say they’re canon. Pre-Saving the Moorland Stables compliant for the most part. Posted in its entirety on my website. Posted in 2000 to 4000 word bits here. Rated T for Swearing Word Count 177,577

Chapter Forty Onward to Firfall!

Lily nodded at the foreman of the North Link site and looked curiously past him at what they were doing in the hills. It looked like a tunnel. Hadn’t there been a perfectly fine road around here? She pursed her lips and shrugged. There was too many boxes and debris for her to really tell what was going on.

“What do you want now?”

“To give you payment for work with actual permits,” Lily said. “And cookies.”

The foreman’s brow furrowed. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

“Fresh baked cardamom cookies,” Lily opened the box and waved them towards him. “I mean, I can eat them all myself.” She reached into the box.

“No!” The foreman shouted and then flushed catching himself. “What do you need?” His eyes strayed to the cookie box with longing.

“Bulldozers and excavators. We’ve got skips on route from Jorvik City. We need equipment.”

The foreman rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t keep loaning you our equipment.”

“Then no cookies,” Lily pouted and shut the box getting ready to tuck it back in her saddlebag.

“Where?” The foreman barked.

“North of Dundull,” Lily smirked. She had him now. “The road to Firfall has had an avalanche. We want you to help dig it out for shillings and cookies.”

He plucked at his lip and eyed the box of cookies. “That is more than one box of cookies type of job.”

“How many boxes?” Lily asked.

“Ten,” the foreman said firmly.

“Done,” Lily grinned. She handed over the box in her hands. “We’ll lead your men there. Linda, come give this guy half his payment!”

Linda was on the phone with the Baroness. She handed over a sack of shillings to the foreman. “Other half on completion of the work,” she said as she nodded to whatever the Baroness was saying.

The foreman took the shillings, juggling the box of cookies into his other arm.

“Do you want your cookies now, or would you like to wait until we stop for lunch?” Lily asked. “Ten boxes of cookies is quite a bit.”

The foreman bit his lip. “I’ll wait,” he said as he rummaged in the box and ate half a cookie in one bite. His eyes rolled upwards. “I’ll go get the men together,” he said around the cookie and jogged off.

They made quite a parade as they left North Link, turned east at Silverglade Village, and crossed the bridge to get to the Fire Path to head towards Mistfall. The Silver Drakes on their horses were in front and to the sides of the machines. The Baroness’ car and Bjorn’s truck followed in the rear.

Meeting the Flying Foxes near Dundull, they turned North up what was little more than a logging road. At the site, there were several Rangers. They weren’t happy to see the G.E.D. uniforms. But there were several skips already in place for the debris.

Agnetha got out of her truck and revved her chainsaw. “Girls, latch onto the bushes and drag them away as I cut,” she said.

The girls took ropes out of their bags and the work began. The bulldozers treads were able to get up and over the broken stones and dirt and pushed it towards southern Mistfall. From there, the excavators picked it up to dump it into the skips. If there were bushes or brambles, Agnetha and Bjorn took them with their chainsaws, while the girls dragged them to the skips and dumped them in.

They broke for lunch. The Silver Drakes brought out the promised cookies for the G.E.D. workers.

After lunch, they went back to work. By evening, the Baroness was able to drive through Rovar’s Gap. The lights of the car hitting the forest trees on the other side.

Linda paid them and it was another odd parade back to North Link.

The Baroness insisted on inspecting the North Link work site herself. After being given cookies, and being paid a fair amount for a day’s labor, the foreman couldn’t refuse her. Not that it was wise to refuse Baroness Silverglade. They were right next to her lands and if she cared to not look the other way, they’d be gone like the oil field was gone. And they well knew it.

The road continued northwards as it should while G.E.D. were digging into the mountain towards the west. Their equipment and the debris from the tunnel blocked the road more than their excavations did.

The Baroness gave the foreman a look and ordered him to keep his workings to one side of the road so people could pass and put one of the trainees on directing the traffic. She would send someone back to make sure her orders were being obeyed.

The foreman didn’t bother trying to bluster. He hung his head, nodded, and that was that.

It had been an interesting day. Maybe they’d get some answers tomorrow about what had happened by the Weeping Widow. But no one was betting on it.

Pauline made a schedule about who was to take care of Techno each day. It was another addition to their daily chores. Not that any of them minded. Techno was a friendly dog who enjoyed the horses’ company.

The contractors were setting the walls up onto the footings they’d put into the concrete floor when they’d poured it. This apparently required a small crane. Things were moving right along and the Riding Arena hadn’t been vandalized for the second day in a row.

The grapes took priority over Firfall though. They spent the morning helping Agnetha spray the moldy grape vines (masks on, safety first) and planting roses at the end of each row of grapes. Like Agnetha had explained to the Baroness, the roses were more sensitive to fungus and rot and the like, so they’d be affected by any blight before the grapes. They’d just have to be inspected.

“Like everything else,” Elsa drawled.

Once the grapes, the Manor’s livelihood, were done. They took the transport to Dundull so they could ride up to Firfall with the Flying Foxes.

The road was long and littered with logs.

“We’ll have to clear those,” Sonja said. “If we want traffic between the towns.”

Lily nodded.

The road went between two lakes and between those lakes and another one to the north, they found the town of Firfall nestled in a fir forest. It had stone houses with large logs as bracers. In fact, it reminded Lily of a mix between Valedale and Firgrove architecture. Though it had a Tudor flair to it that those two villages lacked.

There was a stable of course.

The stable master waved at them and introduced herself as Genevieve Goldtooth. “Welcome to Firfall! You’re the first visitors we’ve had in an age.”

“That’s what happens when Rovar’s Gap has an avalanche over the winter,” Sonja said. “I’m Sonja, this is Luciana and Rania. We’re of the Dundell Flying Foxes Riding Club.” She gestured at the rest of them. “And these are our friends the Silver Drakes Riding Club.”

“Lily,” Lily said and held out her hand. “I’ll let the others make their own introductions.”

“My, there are a lot of you,” Genevieve murmured looking at them all dazed.

“Well, we’ve never been to Firfall,” Lily said cheerfully. She sobered. “Actually, as much as we’d love to explore your village. I’m here on a job from the Baroness. Dark Core has an illegal mine site to the mountains north of here. We’re worried that their dumping is putting toxins into the water. I’m here to take samples for Professor Hayden.”

“Oh, you must see our Medieval Faire first and we’ve got a pub with great food and a bunch of little shops and even a medieval market. We also have Irish Draught horses if you’re interested.”

“That sounds great,” Pauline said.

Genevieve was happy to show them around. Lily slipped away and took her samples and the north and southern sides of each lake. She capped them and labelled them for Hayden and snuck back in time for chips and burgers at the pub.

There were a couple of farmers around, Gary Goldtooth was the biggest and he kept pigs.

There wasn’t a lot of arable land around Firfall. So they relied on keeping animals like sheep, pigs, cattle, and chicken, for which they traded for grains. They kept vegetable plots of course and there were berries in the woods. Along with truffles, that’s why Gary kept pigs.

They all nodded.

“Central Jorvik is Jorvik’s breadbasket,” Genevieve dropped the information casually.

“That makes sense,” Lily said.

They thanked her for her time and rode back to Dundull.

“Well,” Luciana said. “That’s all very interesting.”

“I bet it won’t take long for word to spread that there’s a stable open in Firfall.” Pauline grinned.

“And I’m not going to take that bet.” Lily rolled her eyes.

“Why not?” Pauline pouted.

“You’re emailing pictures to Linda. I’m off to Valedale.” Lily smirked at Pauline and caught the first transport to Valedale.

Linda and Alex were talking with Professor Hayden as she approached. Starshine, the white and grey stallion, huffed alerting every one of her presence.

Linda smiled up at her. “Lily!”

Lily leaned down and passed her water and soil sample vials to Hayden. “Samples from Firfall, Professor.”

He grumbled but took them. He set to work checking them both for contaminants. All the while he muttered that he loved bugs and this wasn’t his job.

“Yes it is,” Lily said. “I’ve watched Bones.” She paused and tilted her head. “Okay, maybe he had more than one degree, but he was a bug and dirt guy and you have to know whats in the water and dirt because that’s where your bugs live. Healthy water and soil, healthy bugs.”

Hayden glared at her. “Young whippersnapper, don’t tell me how to do my job.”

“I wasn’t telling you how to do it. I was merely pointing out contrary to you whining which is very unbecoming, that it is in fact your job.”

“No respect these days, none.”

Lily sighed dramatically. “You have a valid coping mechanism in place for it. Who am I to stop you from complaining?”

Linda and Alex restrained laughter.

Hayden finished and slapped the new reports onto Linda’s clipboard. “These are for the Baroness. Not that she’ll know how to read them.”

“Then write notes in proper English so everyone can understand,” Lily looked up at the sky as if she could read the future in the clouds.

Hayden grabbed a butterfly net and stomped off.

“You shouldn’t be so mean to him,” Linda scolded.

“I’m barely being mean. He rants about youth all the time and wants us to respect him.” Lily snorted. “He’s a grouch. If he was nicer, I wouldn’t poke at him so much.”

Alex glanced about for Avalon and lowered her voice. “Is there a place that’s secure where we can all meet?”

“All?”

“I guess, we want to talk to all the riding clubs.”

“You do know that’s close to 150 girls at the moment. I’m not sure even the Council house in Silverglade can hold that many. Let me get on the phone.” Lily pulled her phone out and sent a President wide text about places to hold a meeting that was secure and could hold everyone.

Ingrid volunteered the Flea Market building in Firgrove. No one was using it at the moment and it was big enough to hold over two hundred people.

“Okay, when?” Lily asked.

“Is now all right?”

Lily sent out more texts. “Now seems good. Though Loretta says she’s got an argument in Moorland about which thirteen girls are forming a club in Firfall.” Lily muttered. “Handle it, Loretta. No. This isn’t my fault.”

“Are there any campers left?” Linda asked and cocked her hip.

“I’m not sure,” Lily rubbed her forehead. “I mean. Mr. Moorland could be replacing them as fast as they go.”

Alex chuckled. “Maybe.”

Lily’s phone kept buzzing and presidents checked in with saying they’d bring chairs or snacks or drinks.

“There isn’t room for almost two hundred horse at Firgrove,” Lily muttered as she texted exactly that.

The Timber Wolves were already on it setting up a temporary paddock out near the Fire Trail past the mine. They had rolls and rolls of fencing and poles.

“Usually we only convene the Presidents,” Lily explained. “And Vice Presidents.”

“We want to clear the air all at once.”

“Then if you want to get there first, we better go now.” Lily tucked her phone away.

They took a transport over to Firgrove and got their horses settled with Felicity at the stables. She looked baffled. “Are we having a convention?”

“Yep,” Lily said.

“Huh. Well, I’ll have Ma Anna send pastries and a bunch of hot drinks.” Felicity smiled at them.

“Thanks,” Alex said. “You think anyone will bring Cheetos.”

Linda rolled her eyes. “You and your Cheetos.”

The Firgrove Flea Market was a huge log building among all the different cottages. Ingrid waved them inside. “The others are walking up. We’ve got more chairs coming and we put up some tables for refreshments.”

It took a bit for everyone to arrive and actually get settled. Most of them goodnaturedly help set out chairs and made sure there were enough cups for beverages.

Ginny apologized to Lily that Elise Kemball couldn’t make it. She hadn’t yet moved to New Hillcrest to join the Club.

“You can fill her in later if you need to,” Lily said. “I’m not sure what Linda wants to talk about anyways.”

Alex did get a bag of Cheetos. Maya had sent them with Tan.

Linda clutched her clipboard looking slightly nervous.

“Okay ladies,” Lily spoke up. “Welcome to Firgrove. Thank you Ingrid and the Timber Wolves for hosting all of us. And there are a lot of us. Horse girl power!” Lily shook her fist.

The girls cheered at that and laughed.

“Now, I understand that there are going to be more of us soon as the road to Firfall has opened up and more girls from Moorland Summer Camp want to form a club near its pristine lake and quaint medieval style town complete with it’s own medieval fair and tourney! Which all sounds very exciting to me.”

The girls clapped and cheered more.

“More girls to join our horse army!” Lily gestured. “But, we all know that were stable girls, completely, perfectly, prettily, eh, mostly harmless. We’re a sisterhood that while we compete with each other, when push comes to shove, we ride together. Now, this isn’t my meeting. May I introduce to you, the lovely Silverglade Equestrian Center Manager, Linda Chanda and her friend Alex,” Lily paused.

“Cloudmill,” Alex supplied in a low voice.

“Alex Cloudmill, whose little brother James is part owner of Fort Pinta stables. But she’s the better sibling.”

More laughter.

“Linda, Alex,” Lily gestured and stepped to the side.

Linda cleared her throat again and shuffled her clipboard and book holding them to her stomach. “When Lily said almost 150 of you, I didn’t expect it to look like so many.” She shifted up her glasses. “Um, I should have prepared notecards. I guess we need to start at the beginning and there are a lot of different groups you’ve noticed on Jorvik. You’ve no doubt run into G.E.D. or Dark Core or the Keepers of Aideen as you’ve been working or riding about. They aren’t hard to miss.”

The girls settled in and nodded.

“So, um, you might not know that G.E.D. stands for Global Energy Domination. Not very subtle, pretty much what they say on the tin. They’re trying to take over Jorvik and the rest of the world’s energy resources. So, they’ve been mining and searching for things around the county and probably all around the island.” Linda fiddled with her clipboard.

“Like in Hillcrest,” Ginny spoke up. “They’ve got the entire town barricaded off.”

“They’re searching for things around Jarlaheim too, crystals,” Josefina said.

“And we chased them out of Moorland and the Silver Fields,” Lily nodded.

“They have dump sites all over too,” Ingrid added.

“They’re currently digging west into a mountain by North Link,” Lily said. She crossed her arms. “They barricaded of the West Jorvik Highway northwards. The Baroness has ordered them to keep one lane free going forward to restore traffic to the North Golden Hills Valley area.”

Loretta spoke up. “So, I’m going to have more girls fighting over making clubs up there next?”

“Probably,” Lily said dryly.

“G.E.D. are easy to spot. They’re as unsubtle as their name. The other group that has been causing trouble is Dark Core. Especially on the Moorland South Beach and South Hoof Peninsula North Beach, and in Valedale. Their motives are murkier than G.E.D.,” Linda said and shifted again. “Before I explain more about Dark Core, I need to explain the Keepers of Aideen.”

“The druids,” Melissa said sourly.

“The Keepers of Aideen aren’t druids in the way that other cultures understand druids. They don’t worship nature in that fashion though they are supposed to be fiercely protective of it and the horses of Jorvik.” Linda bit her lip.

Alex snorted. “Supposed to be.”

“What the Keepers are, are the protectors of the knowledge of Aideen, the Goddess of Jorvik. I’m sure you’ve seen her statue in Aideen’s Plaza if you’ve gone to Jorvik City. The Keepers of Aideen believe that Aideen gave life to Jorvik and that she bestowed magical powers upon her chosen ones and they are her Soul Riders.”

FOR THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE MY WATERMARK AND CONTACT INFORMATION. THANK YOU. I get it. Some of you might get excited and want to see this stuff in the game, especially the clothes, tack, and pets. However, the only way I want to see this in the game is if I get paid for it. If I see it in the game and I’m not paid for it, there will be hell to pay. You think I’m salty. I’d be angry. Personally, I’m not going to send this info to SSO. If you do, leave my contact information there! Don’t give them any excuses to steal.

Now, I’ll know you haven’t read this note if you leave me comments about how ‘salty’ I am about the game and if I hate it so much I should do something else. I am doing something else. It’s called Mystic Riders MMORPG Project. Mystic Riders however is a very baby phase game. You can check out our plans on the game dev blog. (Skills, Factions, Professions, Crafting, Mini-Games, 25+ horse breeds!) If you know anyone who would be interested and has money or contacts about game making, direct them to the blog.

#star stable #star stable online #sso #fan fic #jorvik reimagined #star stable salt #completely harmless #silverglade reimagined #many nods to ruth westside #i hope I remembered everything they've said in game about firfall #it'd help if they stop changing their minds

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noradarhkpalmer · 5 years

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Nora, who is nesting and a little out of control because of her hormones and Ray try to build the nursery, but our sweetest scientist is too clumsy to actually build it and they build it together?

Yarn over, pull through. Yarn over, pull through. Yarn over, pull through. Dammit why wasn’t this working. Nora sighed and played back the instructional video on what should be a ‘Super Easy Baby Blanket’ tutorial only to find she’d been missing a crucial step the entire time. Nora felt tears prick at her eyes and she gathered up the skein of yarn, her failed project with the hook still attached, and threw it against the wall of the nursery, nearly hitting Ray as he walked in.

“Hey... what’s wrong?” Ray immediately went to her and dropped to his knees. He looked back to see what she had thrown and took her hands in his. “The tutorial frustrating you again?”

Nora nodded. “Tori will be cold and we won’t have a blanket for her and she’ll get hypothermia and I’ll just...”

“She will not get hypothermia. Gary already crocheted her a blanket, remember?” He gestured to the pink, purple, and blue blanket folded up in a corner with bedding they needed to put on the crib... that wasn’t even put together yet.

“But her own stupid mom can’t even make her a blanket to keep her warm! What kind of mother am I?” Nora reached for a tissue and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “I’m already a fuck up of a mom!”

Ray shook his head. “Hey now, no absolutely not. You’re going to be a wonderful mom. Your ability or inability to crochet her a blanket does not dictate your overall parenting abilities. The fact that you love her enough to want to make her something to keep her warm means you’re gonna be an amazing mom.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m gonna put the crib together and I want you to take a deep breath, maybe go lay down for a little bit, and video chat with Gary so he can help you if you wanna try the blanket again. I’m sure he’d be happy to help.”

Nora sucked in a shaky breath and nodded. “Will you help me up? I’m too big.” Her lip wobbled. “I can’t even be your sexy pregnant soon-to-be MILF, I’m such a--.”

Ray helped to pull her out of the rocking chair Sara and Ava had gifted them. “Sexy pregnant soon-to-be MILF. But you’re already someone I’d love to...” Nora cut him off with a kiss and cracked a smile even through her teary expression.

“You’re too sweet to me, Ray Palmer.” She squeezed his hands. “I love you. I’m gonna go take a nap, good luck with the crib.”

“Hopefully when you wake up, our daughter will finally have a place to sleep.”

“Well she’s still gonna be sleeping here for the next six weeks so don’t put too much pressure on yourself.” She ran a hand over her swollen belly and smiled. “Alright, I’m off to take a nap.” She pecked his lips once more. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He smiled and watched her leave. Ray pulled out the box that contained the crib pieces and pulled out the instruction manual. Surely for a man with four PhD’s this couldn’t be too difficult?

xxxx

A man with four PhDs, none of them in Swedish, sat among the pile of cherry red wooden crib pieces red faced with frustration.

Who in the world made this instruction manual? He’d also gotten about five splinters in the hour and a half he’d attempted to put together his daughter’s crib. Guess Tori was going to have to sleep in a cardboard box!

No.

His daughter would sleep in a crib. Ray sighed and tried to reorganize the pieces by size, not by what the instruction manual told him to. The puzzle that was his daughter’s crib didn’t become any clearer.

“Need some help, Dr. Palmer?” The bright smile of his wife greeted him. She looked refreshed, well rested, happy.

“Hey...” He smiled up at her. “How was your nap?”

“Great, now you look like the one that needs a nap.” She smiled only slightly sympathetically and tried to hide her laugh.

Ray shook his head and tossed the instruction manual behind him. “None of these instructions make sense.”

“Did you try a Youtube tutorial?”

“All of them were in Swedish.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I wanted to have this done for you.”

Nora crouched to meet his eye level. “It’s too bad you don’t have a wife with magic who can wave her hand put it all together perfectly.” She sighed and pursed her lips.

Ray let out a small laugh. “Are you okay with that? I really wanted to do this for us... to show how much I want this.”

Nora sat down across from him, wood piles between them and took his hand. “Ray,” she couldn’t help her grin as she placed her free hand on her belly. “I think the fact that you were okay with us trying to start a family even before we got married and you were totally okay with me finding out I was pregnant right after we got home from the honeymoon and you’ve been present physically and mentally with me every day since, shows me how much you want this. Every time I wake up and you’re talking to her and you’re excited and you’re telling her how loved she’s going to be, I know that you want this. I never felt so loved and so wanted until I met you and I know that our daughter is just as loved and wanted and we haven’t even met her yet.”

Ray tangled their fingers together. “I just want to be a good dad. What kind of parent can’t put together the place where their child is going to sleep?”

“The same kind of parent who struggles to crochet their child a baby blanket to sleep in?” Nora cocked an eyebrow.

Ray was quiet for a moment, understanding the point she was trying to make. “That’s fair. I understand. So, what, I crochet her a blanket and you magically put together her crib?”

Nora laughed and shook her head. “Whatever you wanna do, babe. If it’s important to you that you put this together without magic and by yourself, I’ll let you. I promise. But I just want you to know you’re going to be an amazing father regardless.”

Ray pushed the wood piles out of the way and pulled Nora into his lap. “What if we tried to put it together, together?”

“Well seeing as it took two of us to make the human that’s going to sleep in it, I think that’s a great idea.” She grinned and kissed him softly. “And maybe after we can go to the bookstore and use the giftcards Mona and Gary got us to buy her more books?” She smiled up at him cheekily.

Ray glanced behind Nora to the growing stack of books next to the dark cherry wood chest of drawers they had for their daughter that would match the crib they were eventually going to build and shook his head, smiling. “I think we should put together her bookshelf first before we get her anymore books.”

“But I want her bookshelf to be full.” Nora pouted.

“It’ll be overfull if I let you step foot into a bookstore for her again.” He tickled her sides.

“That’s not true, Raymond Carson Palmer, and you know it!”

“It is true, Nora Anne Palmer, and you know it!” He tickled her sides again.

Nora squealed and elbowed him playfully. “Please I just want our daughter to be well-read!”

“Mmmhmm okay.” He kissed her softly and ceased tickling her. “Crib then bookstore.”

Nora threw her arms around Ray’s neck and kissed him. “You’ve got yourself a deal mister.”

They managed to put together the crib with no magic, even got the bedding on the mattress then went to the bookstore where Ray and Nora walked out with so many books, Ray knew they were going to need a second bookshelf. But he didn’t care, because it was for his daughter, and he’d do anything for his daughter and the woman carrying her.

#darhkatom #ray palmer #nora darhk #ask #prompt #legends of tomorrow #fanfic #mine #for noelle #i love you enjoy

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davetheshady · 5 years

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🌟 how about chapter 4 of waiting for the bus in the rain 🌟 and only partially because i showed up to yell about the last few paragraphs when it first dropped. also just because i love Julie content and it's the very middle of that fic

::blows dust off inbox:: So! Now that I’ve back from traveling through three countries and recovered from trying to leave most of my arm skin in one of them (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: don’t go so fast you flip over on the Alpine Slide, particularly if you’re in the actual Alps) here’s some DVD commentary on Chapter 4 of Waiting for the Bus in the Rain! It’s chock full of my stylistic hallmarks, i.e. way longer than I expected.

(Note to my sister: THIS IS FULL OF SPOILERS. GO READ MY STORY FIRST YOU LOSER)

There’s a Sheriff’s Secret Police officer outside Julie’s window. Considering she’s in her office on the second floor, this is fairly impressive. But when they scream and scrabble against the glass after accidentally kicking over their ladder for the third time, Julie’s had enough.

Even when they’re not under suspicion of using the scientific method, Julie has to deal with WAY more (attempted) surveillance than Carlos ever does. This is partially because she doesn’t have amazing hair, but also because Cecil doesn’t narrate large chunks of her life over the radio that the SSP can copy down and submit as a report.

vulnerabilities include fire and cold iron

and according to the literature high velocity cheese wedges but i’ve never seen anyone test that

My hand to God. Probably my number one complaint about fantasy as a genre is that everyone takes stuff from Celtic mythology so seriously when half of it is just. Completely bonkers.

Originally, most of the relevant exposition about fairies was provided by a different character entirely: Carlos-f’s misplaced smartphone, an AI who Julie called Hex (yes, like in Discworld, hell yeah science wizards) because she refused to give Julie her name. Hex provided such ringtones as “Dark Horse” and “Double Rainbow” and would occasionally get distracted by lists of numbers. Hmm…

I changed it back because 1) it was a detour and this chapter was long enough already, 2) Julie and Carlos’ friendship is one of the main throughlines and having them talk to each other was better for the story, and 3) him texting during the middle of a battle is hilarious. But as far as I’m concerned, Hex is still canon.

Andre yawns on the other end of the line and asks, “What time is it?”

“Quit whining, it’s only—” Julie looks at the clock.

Shit.

“—3:00 AM,” she finishes defiantly, because she still has her pride. Embarrassment pricks at her like flying embers settling on bare skin, because now Andre knows she was so out of it she didn’t even bother to try keeping track of the time, and he’s going to think she couldn’t sleep because of feelings, which is both correct and incorrect, because she wasn’t even trying to sleep since distracting herself by going over the minutiae of their data while the Sheriff’s Secret Police scream and fall in the bushes is better than listening to her cats prowl around while lying in her quiet apartment by herself, and any moment now he’s going to feel bad and decide to humor her and answer her in a voice filled with cloying pity and say—

“Would Hiram McDaniels count as one respondent, or five?” He yawns again.

A good chunk of Julie’s inner turmoil just, like, boils down to a recurring loop of that Tim Kreider quote about “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” She doesn’t consciously WANT the rewards of being loved, it just kind of… happens… and then she’s stuck with incredibly loyal life-long friends… and now she not only has to deal with her own feelings but theirs too, which is pretty much her worst nightmare…

Fortunately, since she’s already gone through the mortifying ordeal of being known, they do frequently pull through and offer the kind of support she knows how to accept.

“Give TV’s Frank a kiss for me.”

“I’m not kissing my cat for you,” says Julie.

I mean, she’ll kiss the cat. Just not on request.

And yes, all her cats are named after the Mad Scientists’ sidekicks on Mystery Science Theater 3000. ~foreshadowing~

When she opens the door of her workshop later that morning, she finds that someone has been by to leave her a breakfast tray. Well, “tray”, in that it’s a textbook, and “breakfast”, in that it’s a French press, a stale churro, and her blood pressure medication. But the French press is completely full with still-warm coffee, so overall she’s going to count this as a win.

This appeared pretty early in my drafts: it’s just such a funny mental image to me and also encapsulates Julie and Gary’s relationship pretty well, i.e. a string of question marks who somehow get along.

The naturally suspicious part of her wonders if he deliberately provoked her reaction to the flamingo to gather more information about it. The naturally analytical part of her points out that Carlos is more likely to gnaw off his own hand than put someone in danger, especially when he could just put himself in danger instead.

Julie is just a tad cynical, so she’d definitely think of potentially negative interpretations of her friend’s actions. But it’s not actually a possibility she dwells on in any real sense, and every time she interacts with Carlos-f (not to mention Carlos-0) she trusts him implicitly. She wouldn’t admit it in a thousand years, but she considers Carlos one of the few genuinely good people in the world: not because he never makes mistakes or creates personal disasters, but exactly because of those things. She knows he’s a flawed person, and that everyone is flawed, so that makes him genuine – which means every time he’s tried to do the right thing at personal cost, over and over, that was genuine too.

Basically, there’s a reason why in the last chapter she automatically references “scientist means hero” with “Fuck, I’m turning into you!”

“So,” she says. “Nilanjana. Do you need new pronouns, or anything?”

“Does anyone need any pronouns?” asks Gary contemplatively, which Julie takes as a ‘No’.

“Should I drop ‘Gary’ entirely? Do you want me to change your name in our paperwork?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “I don't know, man,” he concludes. “I don’t really believe in labels.”

Gary has galaxy-brained from “gender is a social construct” straight to “identity is a social construct” and beyond.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asks Julie.

“I think so, Dr. K,” says Gary. “But how will we get three pink flamingos into one pair of capri pants?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xrnIXQ3iQ

What happens when the wave function ψ is the same as the physical system it describes, and what happens when that physical system collapses?

i.e. what would happen if common misperceptions of the Observer Effect were actually the correct perceptions?

Julie can’t help it: she snorts. “Passionate? Me?”“Well, yeah,” says Romero. “You really care about the things that interest you. You get really involved and angry and never quit or back down.”“Oh,” says Julie, then blurts, “You like that I’m angry?”“I… don’t like it when you’re unhappy?” says Romero. “But – it’s part of you, so… yeah, I guess I do, because it’s how you are. Why? Is – is everything okay?”She’s spent a lifetime having people tell her to stop being angry. No one’s ever told her she’s fine the way she is.

There have been many, many, MANY thinkpieces about how women are socialized not to express anger, often even to themselves. That was never going to work for Julie, who after all is powered by constant low-level rage, but that just means she had to deal with the backlash from not adhering to social programming instead (on top of additional backlash from being a woman in a male-dominated field). Of his own free will, Romero not only rejects that social programming, but also clearly spent time thinking about her empirically to determine that her anger is a positive force instead of a random and horrible personality trait.

He’s a Good Dude.

When she was in elementary school, her third grade teacher had been fond of saying, “If you’re bored, it means you have no imagination,” at least until Julie had decided to deal with her boredom after finishing her science assignment, her homework, and the rest of the textbook by seeing what happened if you jammed a paperclip into the electric socket. (The answer was certainly not boring and, in fact, probably the most exciting and practical thing they learned that year.)

That used to be my aunt’s favorite saying. I personally did not copy Julie’s response, but it is based on research done by one of my friends. (It’s okay, he was very careful about safety and made sure to use rubber-handled scissors to poke random bits of metal into the outlet. Apart from a classmate’s socks catching on fire, everyone was totally fine.)

She wakes to the sound of Cecil talking about the other week’s marathon, which may or may not have been mandatory, whoops. Carlos has texted her an emoji of various hadrosaurids gathered around a campfire singing “We Are the Champions”.

PREVIOUSLY IN NIGHT VALE:

EXT. - THE LABS

Thousands of citizens stream down Main Street, driven relentlessly forward to the Narrow Place. The Harbingers of the Distant Prince hurl themselves towards the building again and again, only to be rebuffed by the wards. Charred corpses lay scattered around the perimeter. Green storm clouds gather overhead as their anger grows.

INT. - LAB ONE

ANDRE

Did you hear something?

JULIE

[not looking up from her welding]

No.

Carlos, meanwhile, has NO idea his emojis are not in fact standard.

“I liked him,” says Josie. [...] “He was trying to do… something, I forget what. I hope he figured it out.” At Julie’s incredulity, she says, “Some people, they’re rough around the edges, but they try. They hope for something better and keep going. That’s important.”

“What if you go where you’re not supposed to?”

“Then you come back and fix what you can,” says Josie.

“What if you can’t?”

“Then you find someone to help you,” Josie replies. “Oh! I love this song.”

She turns up the volume of the radio and treats everyone to the aria from Shastakovich’s Paint Your Wagon.

Vocals by L. Marvin

Angels chilling at your house are, of course, part of the standard retirement package for former Knights of the Church. Old Woman Josie used to carry Esperacchius and passed it on to the Egyptian, after which it went to Sanya. She and Shiro were buds and saw Elvis in Vegas (and also, interestingly, several times in the Ralphs).

Anyway, if you want to suggest that a character is subconsciously mulling over an issue, I recommend having them ask some leading questions without describing their reactions and then change the subject.

“It’s come to my attention,” she begins, then has to stop and clear her throat again. “It’s come to my attention that we have a pretty good thing going on. So I was just wondering if you’d like to keep doing this, you know. For the indefinite future. With me.”When he doesn’t say anything, or look at her, or move at all for that matter, she removes her hand from under her thigh where she’s been sitting on it and points at the lease. “I highlighted where you have to sign,” she says, somewhat unnecessarily. “If you wanted to.”

I think this is the only time we see Julie nervous about anything when her life is not actively in danger.

You can’t write a romance arc without including some degree of emotional vulnerability – it just wouldn’t be satisfying. On the other hand, how that emotional vulnerability manifests is REALLY dependent on the person, and if you don’t base it firmly in their character it wouldn’t be satisfying, either. (I’m REALLY picky about romances in part because of this.) Julie’s not the type to pine or swoon or be filled with self-doubt*, but she is bad at feelings, and unfortunately, she’s determined that an equitable relationship with Romero requires some kind of tangible, committed expression of them. So she does that as best she can. It’s not actively harmful to her, but it does require a stretch out of her comfort zone.

* ::cough::Carlos::cough::

Yes, Julie has technically registered their equipment with City Hall, in that they’re listed as alternatively “electronic abaci” and “databases” and she’s claimed they only use the internet for checking email. Until now, they’ve coasted on general good will towards Carlos/his hair and the fact that all authority figures have been functionally electronically illiterate since the Incident in the community college’s Computer and Fire Sciences building.

Look, I could have SWORN there was an Incident at the Computer and Fire Sciences building specifically mentioned in canon. Can I find it anywhere? No. Did I listen to an episode that was subsequently erased from history? Possibly.

This time, someone picks up. There are a few seconds of sleepy fumbling, followed by “Hello?” in more vocal fry than voice.“Cecil!” she says. “Is Carlos there?”“Are you in fear for your life from the long arm of the law?” Cecil mumbles.

her current ringtone

“Julie, I said hold on!”“I am holding on,” she snarls as the rumbling stops. “It’s a diagnostic. 75% efficiency? Am I the only one who cares about proper maintenance in this town?”

This combines two of my favorite things: people focusing on hilariously inconsequential details during a stressful situation, and Julie lowkey engaging in supervillainy. Nikola Tesla did not design earthquake machines so Night Vale could install shitty ones they can barely use. STANDARDS.

“I probably wouldn’t have destroyed Weeping Miner,” she says eventually.

“I know,” says Carlos.

“I could have, though,” she says.

“I know that too,” says Carlos.

[...] Carlos shifts. She looks over; he briefly catches her eye and says, “So could I.”It’s not the same. Carlos would probably feel bad about it, for one. But she feels some of her anger dissipate anyway. At least she’s not the only one dealing with this bullshit.

Subconscious concern --> conscious concern! Getting back to Julie’s cynicism: she doesn’t think there are very many good people in the world, and that excludes her too. Sure, she’s risked her life to save others, fight baddies, and make sure the dangerous technology she’s developed doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, but she knows she has selfish reasons to do them, like protecting her friends and making sure the town/world isn’t destroyed so she can keep doing her research.

But at the same time, the fact that she has been dwelling on the ethics of her situation ever since Chapter 19 of Love is All You Need, that she is genuinely bothered that she’d consider destroying a neighborhood, and that she’s talking about this with Carlos, who considers them to have a similar dilemma, suggests that deep down she is dissatisfied by her cynical model of the world because the data isn’t quite matching up. Which, of course, means she needs more data in the form of Chapters 6 and 7.

On one side is a large picture of Carrie Fisher giving everyone the finger

I think Space Mom is mandatory at protests now.

This whole section (especially the rain) was heavily influenced by the March for Science, which both Ginipig and I went to in 2017. You too can make a difference and also give yourself writing material!

“Any more words of wisdom, Usidork?” she asks instead.

USIDORE, WIZARD OF THE 12TH REALM OF EPHYSIYIES, MASTER OF LIGHT AND SHADOW, MANIPULATOR OF MAGICAL DELIGHTS, DEVOURER OF CHAOS, CHAMPION OF THE GREAT HALLS OF TERR'AKKAS. THE ELVES KNOW HIM AS FI’ANG YALOK. THE DWARFS KNOW HIM AS ZOENEN HOOGSTANDJES*. HE IS ALSO KNOWN IN THE NORTHEAST AS GAISMUNĒNAS MEISTAR AND HAS MANY OTHER SECRET NAMES WHICH YOU DO NOT… YET… KNOW.

* Hoobastank

He blinks at her in polite incomprehension. “I don’t want to miss the Life Raft Debate,” he says. “It’s important to support your department.”

Several universities hold yearly Raft Debates, where representatives from the different disciplines have a debate about which of their respective areas of study is the most vital for humanity and thus should get to take the one-person life raft back to civilization from the desert island they’ve all gotten stuck on.

I should inform you that at my alma mater the Devil’s Advocate, who argues that none of the subjects are worth saving, has won multiple times.

Without taking her eyes off her opponent, Romanoff thrusts out her hand. Dr. Aluki Robinson (Associate Professor of Ornithology) passes her a harpoon, its ivory barbs almost glowing in the dim light.

Nauja and Aluki are both from Cold Case, because no one deserves to be stuck in Cold Case where we’re apparently supposed to be deeply concerned about the main character’s sexual experience but only vaguely perturbed by the powerful white and white-coded women stealing Native American children to brainwash them to their culture so they can be fed to the system seriously WHAT the FUCK Jimbo

ANYWAY, in this universe the Winter fey of Unalaska are discharging their obligations to help the Winter Court against Outsiders by sending some of their people to monitor the prison in Night Vale. This also gets to highlight the fun of an unreliable narrator! Julie is generally not one of those, because she’s a smart and observant person who will happily question everything, but even she has her limits when she’s out of her element. In the case of this story, there are several minor details to suggest there is some Winter and Summer court drama going on in the background (the chlorofiends, an entire academic department of shapeshifters, Molly and Mab personally overseeing bus routes) and most of it just goes completely over her head.

During his undergraduate career, Gary had elicited a considerable amount of interdepartmental discussion about his desire to be exempted from lab regulations for wearing appropriate – or any – footwear in the lab, which evolved into a considerable amount of interdepartmental discussion about whether wrapping your feet in duct tape immediately before said lab time constituted appropriate footwear.

This was based on one of my mother’s students, who eventually resolved the situation by commissioning a handmade pair of moccasins he placed on his feet immediately before entering the lab.

“The scientific method is four steps,” says Carlos with a cheerful inevitability as the officers start shouting panicked instructions into their walkie talkies. “One, find an object you want to know more about; two, hook that object up to a machine using wires or tubes; three, write things on a clipboard; four, read the results that the machine prints.”

This is a direct quote from the book. Was this entire subplot about the scientific method ban designed just to come up with a plausible retcon for why someone with actual scientific training would announce this over the radio? It sure was!

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:

1. “Step one, cut a hole in the box,” calls Wei.2. “No, step one is collecting underpants,” says Gary.3. “Step four: make a searching and fearless moral inventory,” says Julie.4. “And then step five, acceptance,” Andre finishes.5. “You see, the first level is ennui, or boredom. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody or something specific – nostalgia, love-sickness… At more morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for. A sick pining, a vague restlessness. Mental throes. Yearning. And at the scientific method’s deepest and most painful level, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause.”6. “It’s how you decide whether to fix the problem with duct tape or WD-40,” says Julie.7. “I think,” says Osborn, “that it’s a divine machine for making flour, salt, and gold.”

8. “Don’t be absurd,” says Galleti. “The scientific method is two vast and trunkless legs of stone standing in the desert!”

9. “And they say the scientific method is—”

“—the quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality associated with sitting around a fire in the winter with close friends,” puts in Dr. Chelsea Dubinski, Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

10. “Or is it the special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do?” asks Galleti.

This section was also a chance to write about the rest of Night Vale’s scientists, of whom we still know so very little. There’s enough of them that there’s a whole science district, and the community college seems pretty well staffed, but the fact that Carlos made such an impact when he rolled into town suggests that they were either pretty lowkey or indistinguishably weird from the rest of the town.

“I don't feel alone,” snaps Julie. “I feel like shit, and I know why I feel like shit, and the thought of outlining that in excruciating detail is, oddly enough, not making me feel any better!”

One of the things I wanted to address in this story (inspired by Ghost Stories, which I uhhhhh did not care for) was the shortcomings of a lot of narratives about grief. Because many of them are not only oversimplified, but also not everyone processes grief in the same way. It’s not necessarily a linear narrative of where you go through the five steps and then you’re totally over it: it might take a long time, or you might be fine until some other, unrelated setback triggers you, or it might be a cyclical process as anniversaries roll around. Grief lingers. Related to that, helping people deal with their grief isn’t always as simple as sitting down with them and offering a sympathetic ear. Some people don’t process their feelings well verbally, and the emotional labor of formulating all your grief for another person’s consumption can be nearly as traumatizing as grieving in the first place, and VERY difficult to do when you’re already feeling down.

On top of that, I think general American culture is just. Real bad at dealing with grief. Which means we don’t have many positive models to base our responses on, either as grievers or as people supporting the grieving, and if you don’t fit those models at all it just makes the process that more difficult because everyone’s stumbling around in the dark.

“Does it always feel like this?” she asks.“Which part?” asks Carlos.“We won,” says Julie. “Methods have lived to science another day. We can do our work without interference. All we did was lie about what the name meant, but…” She taps the lab table with a pencil. Another secret violation of the law. “It still feels like we… lost something.”“We did lose something,” says Carlos. “It was just a name, but names are important.”

One of the reasons I love writing Carlos and Julie’s friendship so much is because it’s such a relationship of equals. They’re both hypercompetent, pragmatic, and a little ruthless; their skill sets don’t have much overlap (at least, not yet) and their personalities aren’t at all similar, but they get each other and it’s so sweet. When they wander out of their respective areas of expertise, or stumble across some kind of dilemma, they feel comfortable asking each other for guidance – they can admit their ignorance and drop their public facades of Having Their Shit Together because they trust each other.

“I want—” Her mouth opens and shuts again, wordlessly. Her scowl deepens.Then she narrows her eyes and says, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.”

Molly being a huge Trekkie is pretty much my favorite thing from Ghost Story (not to be confused with Ghost Stories)(although thinking about it, swapping their plots would be kind of amazing??), so of course I wanted her and Julie to interact in a way that showed off what huge nerds they are.

But yet another element I wanted to include in this story is the background detail that ~the masquerade~ must be maintained because it’s too dangerous for humanity as a whole to be fully cognizant of the supernatural – which tends to get a little lost in the sauce, because the supernatural is consistently super duper powerful and our heroes (most of them pretty supernatural themselves) generally avert disaster by the skin of their teeth. But here’s Julie, just a regular human who’s capable of producing terrifying technology, has no concern for the rules and traditions of ancient regimes unless they’re inconveniencing her, and who would be perfectly fine with upending the status quo just to see what happens. Regular humans just aren’t more flexible about change than the supernatural, they’re even curious about it sometimes – which must be terrifying to something like the Winter Court, which has been devoted to maintaining the same strict balance since forever. Regular humans can do stuff like tell a story so well it inspires the Winter Lady to subvert her magical restrictions and remind her of her own humanity.

Julie grumpily emails him a rough summary of her thoughts on Troy Walsh and her conversation with Molly and heads up to her office to pull up everything she has on both the bus garage and the man in the tan jacket.

Bullshit secretkeeping (“I can’t tell the other main character this important plot point, it’s better if they don’t know”) is one of my least favorite tropes and I avoid it at all costs. It’s such a stupid way to add tension. It can maybe work once, but after your character has inevitably watched it backfire spectacularly, you can’t repeat it ever again unless you want to imply they’re a dumbass who never learns from their own mistakes and apparently doesn’t care that it clearly puts everyone in more danger. ::looks pointedly at a certain book series::

Also, it’s almost always much more interesting to have characters try to share important information. If they don’t succeed, it coats everything in ironic horror as the outcomes one person tried to avoid happen despite their best efforts. If they do succeed, it means everyone is fully cognizant of the potential danger even as they are still prevented from acting on it properly, like because they (e.g.) get kidnapped in the middle of the street.

King City is not in the correct dimension. The man in the tan jacket seems to know something about this, but up until a year ago he wasn’t drawing attention to it. He was busy poking his nose into everyone’s business, ingratiating himself with the powerful and the influential, dealing with them in secret…basically, the SOP of your typical Night Vale authority.Like the Night Vale Area Transit Authority, with its bus route to… King City.They had a job and they chose to keep it, Molly said.“Fuck,” says Julie. “He was working for them!”

In retrospect, it’s hilarious to me how much of this fic was powered by spite. Ghost Stories and Cold Case both really bothered me. The resolution of the Man in the Tan Jacket storyline, meanwhile, felt pretty underwhelming – not because what Finknor came up with wasn’t interesting, but because it barely engaged with the few plot points they had already established. Like, when TMITJ shows up in the podcast he interferes with the Mayor, he’s connected to the city under Lane Five, he surfaces during the Strex Corp arc, he interacts with a whole bunch of series regulars in an ominous fashion… Yeah, that probably came from Finknor dropping him in more or less at random, but the end result was that during the first several years of the show it seemed he was an active driver of whatever his plot was supposed to be. In WTNV: The Novel, though, he’s much more reactive and impotent. This wouldn’t necessarily be bad if this change was acknowledged as part of his storyline, but… it’s not…

(And I get that it can be difficult to come up with a plot for an element you didn’t intend to be plotty at all, but like: there wasn’t THAT much material they had to account for. I should know, I had to look it all up to write THIS story.)

I think this was especially frustrating because it ends up feeling like a “have your cake and eat it too” on the part of Finknor: it’s not automatically bad when fans care more about the show’s continuity than the creators (creators have different concerns, and a lot of time that means they’re using the creative latitude to do something neat), but the novel was very much presented as “finally, a resolution to that one mystery you find cool!” which is… pretty much a direct appeal to the fans’ care about the continuity. So to then ignore or retcon so many aspects of the continuity without any story payoff for it feels like a cheat.

(Ultimately, though, my inspiration to actually sit down and write mainly sprang from 1) all the lovely comments about how so many people loved my OFC, which as someone who started lurking in online fandom in the early 2000s was both mind-boggling and heartwarming, and 2) lol those ladies have the same name. I learned nothing.)

She gets the call at 21:27. She goes to the hospital, although there’s not much point. The human mind is the most powerful thing on the planet and it's housed in a fragile casing of meat and bone.

I’ve mentioned a few times (possibly more than a few)(probably more than a few) that I didn’t like the WTNV live ep Ghost Stories, and that’s because the ~big reveal~ is that Cecil’s story was actually about a personal family tragedy, and once he’s able to admit that, everything is hunky-dory. As I recall, it went something like this:

WTNV: hey remember that time your mom died and your family was thrown into chaos

ME: WELL NOW I DO

WTNV: and on that note, good night everyone!

Needless to say, everything was not hunky-dory.

But on top of being emotionally compromised for the whole following week, I was also professionally annoyed. Prior to this live show, we’d had a few cryptic references to Cecil’s mom and could reasonably infer that his relationship with his sister was strained. Critically, though, neither was their own clearly-defined character (compare to the treatment of Janice or Steve Carlsberg), these were not frequently recurring elements that would suggest they weighed heavily on Cecil’s mind, and it wasn’t even obvious that their backstory WAS particularly tragic. So the emotional lynchpin of this live show was mostly new information about Cecil regarding characters the audience had no connection to.

Tragic narratives are powerful not only because they evoke intense emotions, but also because those emotions are supposed to go somewhere and do something: provide catharsis, reinforce the artist’s philosophy, make the audience ponder the meaning of life... In using a tragedy as a plot twist, your ability to give it the proper emotional arc is very limited, because you have to misdirect from its existence while building it up, and then quickly progress from upsetting emotions to those more appropriate for concluding the story. That’s not impossible, but Ghost Stories immediately throws a wrench in the works by splitting the audience’s emotional journey away from Cecil’s: he already knew about the tragedy and the people involved with it, so the plot twist acts as his emotional catharsis... but only his. When the twist itself is the first time the audience realizes there ARE emotions, and that the first 85% of the show was completely unrelated to them, there’s simply not enough time for the audience to have them, process them according to the story’s weird ramblings that kinda imply fiction based on real life is more important than genre fiction like horror (PS: that’s a WEIRD take for a fictional horror podcast), and reach their own kind of catharsis without it being horrifically rushed. Particularly when they’re having a WAY more emotional response than the character due to their own personal tragedies which they were not expecting to have to think about during a fun podcast live show about ghost stories.

As stuff like this points out, you can’t just sprinkle in character deaths and expect quality entertainment to sprout: there has to be a purpose to putting the tragedy in the story (even if that purpose is to highlight how purposeless tragedy can be in real life). I’ve always been VERY critical of the assumption that tragedy is ~more artistic~, both in historical lit and modern pop culture; sad emotions aren’t inherently more meaningful than happy ones. Merely including tragic events isn’t deep; you have to do the work and make it deep, in its context and development.

So: on to ::gestures proudly:: probably the worst thing I’ve ever written!

From an aesthetic standpoint, I leaned into the Night Vale house style in this section because I found it to be really effective at conveying the enormity of the tragedy for Julie: it’s pretty blunt, just like her, but the focus on oddly specific details, the narrative distancing, and the lurking sense of existential horror seemed a fitting demonstration of how badly the emotional gutpunch disrupted her narration/life.

And I really wanted it to be an emotional gutpunch. (But not a surprise: even if I hadn’t warned for it specifically, Julie mentions Romero dying all the way back in Ch. 10 of Love is All You Need.) This is in part a story about grief and mourning, so the loss that caused it needed a central place. I wanted it to be powerful enough to retroactively fit in with how upset Julie is in the opening chapters and to add real tension to the devil’s bargain the feds want to make with her in the next chapter. But most importantly, I wanted it to be so significant to both Julie and the audience that the end of the story has an impact. Loss doesn’t get “cured” – but it seems to me like it’s not supposed to be. Loss is a part of life; love, in whatever form, helps give you strength as you grow and change from the experience into someone new, and this is also a story about the love in friendship.

I think a lot about the ethics of writing tragic stuff, because when you get right down to it, ultimately art boils down to poking your fingers in someone’s feelings and stirring them around. People get really invested in the stuff you are responsible for creating, and making someone feel bad for no reason isn’t being an artist, it’s being a dick. But I’m very happy with how this turned out, and hopefully didn’t traumatize anyone who didn’t want to be traumatized.

(I do feel bad for everyone who was reading as I posted that had to wait an entire year for the next chapter, though. I wanted to get something up sooner, but I had to wait until I sorted Chapter 6 and Chapter 6 was just. The worst. WORDS ARE HARD. People who read WIPs are braver than any Marine.)

hmu for more dvd commentary!

#muggle-the-hat #love is all you need to destroy your enemies #ask dave #welcome to night vale #the dresden files #fic #writing

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themurphyzone · 5 years

Text

Absolutely Disastrous Ch 14

Ch 14: Anchors Aweigh! Setting Sail to Dewford Town!

Milo, Melissa, Zack, Amanda, Lydia, and their Pokémon emerged from Petalburg Woods without serious injury. Diogee had been a huge help in predicting where flaming tree branches and Slakoth would fall, while Milo’s pocket masks were great tools for avoiding smoke inhalation.

Since the local fire departments already had their Water-types combating the flames and rescuing the local wildlife, they didn’t stick around and continued on their way to Captain Jack’s seaside cottage.

“Breaking news! The Rustboro Gym and Contest Hall have been destroyed, the Petalburg Woods is on fire, and Ace Trainer Kayla has nicknamed her Kecleon ‘Cleko’. What a beautiful nickname for a beautiful Kecleon! It’s a better name than before, how fortunate for Kayla and Cleko to experience the bond that unites trainer and Pokémon!”

Melissa muted her PokéNav, which was now reporting the detailed shopping habits of students at Lilycove Prep.

To be honest, it was kinda creepy.

The cottage overlooked a beach, where many fishermen hooked Magikarp and Tentacool. Zack latched onto Milo as a human shield, which made walking up to the cottage awkward.

“I need to lay down a ground rule so Captain Jack doesn’t have an incentive to try and strand us on an island: don’t ask why he has a Chatot instead of Wingull,” Milo said. “He’s a bit touchy about that.”

With that last bit of advice, he knocked on the door and accidentally put a large hole through the middle. Then the rest of the wooden slabs splintered into pieces.

Captain Jack chased Gary around a table, completely ignoring their visitors and broken door.

“Hey, Captain Jack!” Milo waved. “Sorry to interrupt, but when you’re done with your game, could you please take us to Dewford?”

“Milo said you could give us a lift to Slateport,” Amanda added.

“That was the last strawberry, Gary!” Captain Jack complained. “You know perfectly well it’s the last harvest of the season!”

Gary twittered and fluffed his tail in Captain Jack’s direction. “Gary deserve! Like getting on nerves!”

“I’m a reasonable man. I’ll just take the last clementine as payment,” Captain Jack said with a sly grin.

“RAWK! BAWK!” Gary screeched.

Captain Jack finally took notice of Milo and his friends, then quickly clamped his hands around Gary’s beak. Gary flapped his wings in protest. “Gary, keep your fowl beak shut around children!” Captain Jack exclaimed. Gary glared at him. “And no, taking the last clementine does not qualify as cruel and unusual punishment!”

“Uh, sure. Melissa, Zack, and I would like to go to Dewford please. And Amanda and Lydia are heading to Slateport,” Milo said.

“The CEO of Mahlson Corp asked us to do a few favors. Do you know Captain Webber by any chance?” Lydia asked.

Captain Jack frowned. “Ah, yes. The guy who snapped his fingers and claimed it was okay when we capsized on an island because he couldn’t predict the ocean currents properly. The guy who claimed it was okay when he was promoted because his father knows the first cousin of the fleet admiral and I got stuck on potato peeling duty for five years! The guy who opened the oven when I told him not to and utterly ruined my puff pastry so that I could never show my face at a dinner party again!”

“We probably shouldn’t open that can of Wurmple,” Melissa whispered.

“Anyway,” Zack said slowly, hoping to get Captain Jack focused on navigating and not some years-old grudge with a fellow seagoer. “We just wanna head to Dewford and Slateport.”

“Take the plunge! Take the plunge!” Gary squawked.

“You don’t mind if we take Gary’s favorite vessel, right?” Captain Jack asked.

“Nope, we don’t mind at all!” Milo said.

When Gary’s favorite vessel turned out to be a very old and very foreboding ship, Milo realized that his friends cared deeply about their mode of transportation.

“Next time, I’ll be the negotiator,” Melissa muttered, deftly avoiding a loose wooden board that promptly crashed into a storage area below.

Amanda helped Zack into another life jacket. He heavily resembled a traffic light with the three life jackets he’d already donned.

“Don’t you have enough life jackets?” Lydia asked in concern.

“Welcome to the S.S Plunge,” Captain Jack said proudly, kissing the faded lettering on the captain’s door. “No storm, stone, or iceberg can strike her down to Davy Jones! She’s virtually unsinkable!”

Everyone followed Zack’s example and put on another life jacket.

“I’ve never been on a ship that wasn’t sinking before,” Milo admitted as Captain Jack undid the restraints that tied the S.S Plunge to the docks. He caught Zack’s bewildered look, then realized that was probably not the best reassurance to give someone who was deeply afraid of what lurked below. “Sorry, Zack.”

“I’ll be fine,” Zack shrugged. “Though let’s try to keep the fish Pokémon out of the boat, alright?”

“Do you have Jellicent in Hoenn?” Lydia asked. She peered at the ocean closely. “We’re always told to avoid their territory at sea. It’s said they make homes out of underwater ship graveyards, and if you wander too close, they’ll drag you down into the abyss where you’ll never be seen again.”

“We don’t have Jellicent here,” Melissa said. “I’ve only seen them when Milo and Sara begged me to stay for an all-night Dr. Magnezone marathon.” She rubbed her arms in embarrassment. “I was jumpy for days after that...”

“Episode 79: ’The Depths of Bermuda Bay’,” Milo said, grinning at the memory of Melissa clinging to a pillow when the red-eyed Jellicent flitted across the screen. He’d seen her face runaway Camerupt with nothing but a stuffed Snubbull and a lanyard, but seeing her afraid of a puppet where the stitching was highly visible was downright surreal.

That particular episode was infamous for its creepy imagery in the Dr. Magnezone community.

Lydia sighed in relief. “I’m glad. Their tentacles creep me out so much.”

The S.S Plunge shuddered and lurched forward, sending everyone crashing to the floor.

“Sorry!” Captain Jack said hastily over an intercom. “She’s just pulling out of port. We’ll be in Dewford in an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes!”

“Since we have a while, who wants to help me record the events that happened so far?” Melissa asked. “This’ll be a great baseline for the life story I plan to sell.”

One hour later, Milo and Diogee had settled into their niche of driving away hungry Wingull while everyone else helped Melissa remember the important things. They had fun embellishing their run-in with Team Magma in Rusturf Tunnel.

“So then Torchic and Shroomish are hanging on by a thread, an inevitable defeat drawing closer, then Marshtomp suddenly appears to save the day!” Lydia exclaimed.

“Or we could say that Treecko used his speed to confuse them, allowing Milo to swoop in and take both Gary and the briefcase,” Amanda suggested.

Zack rolled his eyes. “Why do all your suggestions involve Milo and his Pokémon ultimately defeating Team Magma? What are Melissa, Bradley, and I doing?”

“You were incapacitated due to the Whismur,” Lydia replied. “Besides, the leader of the group is always the one who does the confronting. The rest of the party usually gets preoccupied with other things.”

“Since when is Milo the leader?” Zack asked.

“Since he got the gene for good charisma,” Melissa replied. “Keep ‘em coming, everyone. These are gold so far!”

“Zack, look! I’m king of the world!” Milo laughed as he ran up to the bow of the ship, spreading his arms wide as the cool sea breeze whipped around him.

Zack stood a safe distance away while Diogee held onto Milo’s life jackets with his teeth to prevent him from falling. Upon closer inspection, the railing didn’t hold much integrity.

Milo stepped back just as part of the railing broke off and dropped into the rippling ocean below. Then the ship lurched again, and Diogee lost his grip on Milo. Milo stumbled over the edge, though his fall was broken by a lifeboat.

“Milo overboard!” Zack hollered. Milo heard Zack’s frantic footsteps as he tried to figure out a way to help.

“Zack, it’s okay! I have a grapple!” Milo yelled, He waved the rope above his head and threw it as far he could. He tugged, frowning slightly when the line didn’t feel tight enough to support his weight.

He pulled back to try again, only to jump out of the way as a blur suddenly crashed into the lifeboat and made the entire structure sway. Milo braced himself against the seat until the rocking stopped.

“Sorry, Zack!” Milo apologized as he removed the hook from the hem of Zack’s jeans.

“The Charmander are singing...” Zack giggled, still dizzy from his fall.

Don’t worry, we’ll get you up, Melissa had texted.

Ten minutes later, everyone clung onto life preservers and tried to keep the saltwater out of their mouths as Captain Jack towed them into Dewford Town.

Dewford Town: Trendy phrases! Trendy surfing! Trendy fishing! Are you on the cutting edge of Hoenn trends?

The billboard featured a supermodel and her Marill striking a flashy pose.

“It’s been five minutes, and I’m already sick of hearing the word ‘trendy’,” Melissa said. “Amanda and Lydia are so lucky.”

Amanda and Lydia only spent enough time in Dewford to change into dry clothes before hurrying back to the S.S Plunge. They hadn’t been interested in exploring since they heard three different people declaring their everlasting love for potion festivals.

Captain Jack agreed to come back to Dewford when he finished taking Amanda and Lydia to Slateport. Thankfully, he had no hard feelings about the damage the S.S Plunge sustained during their little voyage.

Besides, Milo had grown up on Dr. Magnezone. He could handle a little obsessiveness based around trendy sayings.

“BIG LAUNDRY! I NEED MERCHANDISE OF BIG LAUNDRY!” someone screeched into a megaphone.

“Big laundry is so two days ago,” a posh man sniffed. “Potion festivals are in.”

“Potion festivals should be incorporated into everybody’s daily lives!” a woman sobbed. “I can’t live without potion festivals!”

Then again, Milo knew what Dr. Magnezone fans were talking about.

“I don’t know nothin’ about paintings! And we wouldn’t tell ya cause youse obviously one of dem potion festival wackos!”

“We be makin’ ye talk, landlubber!” a familiar voice snarled.

As Milo, Diogee, Melissa, and Zack headed south, they caught a glimpse of a trio in blue bandanas and scruffy, cheap pirate clothing from a Halloween store cornering an old woman against the sand dunes.

“Do you know who we are?” the only woman in the trio taunted, pointing to the skull-like ‘A’ in the middle of her bandana. “Team Aqua, scourge of humanity! We take what we want, and that includes information!”

The third member of the trio remained silent, coolly watching his teammates try to wheedle information out of their would-be informant. His bandana was set low over his eyes, hiding all but his dark, prominent eyebags from view.

Diogee jumped between the old woman and the Aqua members, crouching low and growling.

“I thought Officer Elliot carted you off,” Melissa said to Patchy, who stepped back after Diogee waved his horn at him.

“Aye, but there be only three sea shanties a man can take,” Patchy leered. “I know ye three scallywags. And I be not the forgivin’ type.”

He threw a Poké Ball and released an aggressive-looking fish Pokémon. Zack eyed the razor-sharp teeth warily before sending out Treecko.

“Zack, stick to long-range attacks,” Milo advised. “Carvanha has the Rough Skin ability. Its skin is super abrasive and can really hurt Treecko if you use contact moves.”

Zack nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll be careful.”

“Mari! John!” Patchy barked. “I be needin’ assistance!”

Mari eagerly jumped in with her Masquerain, and Melissa sent out Torchic to cover Treecko’s weaknesses. Patchy and Mari forgot the old woman entirely, but John intercepted her as she tried to sneak off and whispered something in her ear.

The old woman pointed frantically at a nearby cave, and John let her go with a curt nod. She muttered something about potion festival hooligans before rushing back to town, unwilling to stay any longer than she had to.

“What are you waiting for, John?” Mari called. “Send someone out already so we can crush ‘em!”

John crossed his arms. “Not worth my time and effort,” he grunted harshly. “Unlike you bozos, I choose my battles wisely.”

Carvanha barely managed to intercept a Fire Spin intended for Masquerain.

“And I also pay attention to what my opponents are doing,” John added.

Mari growled. “That was cheap, you brat!”

“Not my fault. You gave me the opportunity,” Melissa shrugged. “Fire Spin again!”

“Oh no you don’t! Use Water Sport!” Mari yelled.

Bubbles formed along Masquerain’s body just as Fire Spin engulfed it. Melissa pursed her lips when the bubbles cushioned the majority of Fire Spin’s damage.

Meanwhile, Carvanha bit down on Treecko’s tail and refused to let go. Treecko winced but didn’t cry out in pain, and Zack was watching the thrashing Water-type carefully in case it flailed in his direction.

“Torchic, get Carvanha off Treecko!” Melissa shouted.

Torchic scored her feet against Carvanha’s side, and it let go of Treecko with an angry snap of its teeth. Torchic hopped from foot to foot, chirping in pain from Rough Skin.

Torchic and Treecko lost their footing due to Masquerain’s Gust, slipping against the sand as they struggled to their feet.

“Melissa, we need a plan!” Zack said frantically as Treecko was hit by a Hidden Power from Carvanha. It didn’t seem to be a type that was super-effective against Grass, but it still did a number on Treecko.

“I’m trying! But she just has to have Water Sport and—Torchic, roll!”

Torchic narrowly avoided a Bubble attack, then sent an Ember at Masquerain. It managed to clip the edge of Masquerain’s left wing, but didn’t do enough damage to slow it down.

“Treecko, Bullet Seed on Carvanha!” Zack ordered.

“He be an annoyin’ one,” Patchy said. “Use Rage!”

Carvanha charged at Treecko, its body illuminated by a dangerous red light. Treecko fired a barrage of seeds to counter, but Carvanha broke through after a brief stalemate and slammed into Treecko.

Treecko skidded across the beach, landing partway in the surf.

Diogee snarled as Zack shouted at Treecko to get up, but Milo held him back. Diogee’s interference would be heavily frowned on by both sides, regardless of their morals.

Torchic held her opponents at bay with Fire Spin for now, but she would eventually be overwhelmed.

“You have to help, Treecko!” Zack insisted. “We can’t let these Aqua goons win!”

“Who’re you calling goon, brat?” Mari snarled. “Just for that, you’re going down first! Finish that Treecko with Gust!”

“Don’t let that Gust hit Treecko!” Melissa yelled.

Ember interfered with Masquerain’s ability to produce a wind blast strong enough to knock out Treecko, but Torchic was wide open for Carvanha.

“Argh, Bite that wee chick and don’t let go!” Patchy crowed.

Carvanha clamped down on Torchic’s head and brushed its fins against her feathers, its Rough Skin crippling her further.

Melissa reluctantly held up Torchic’s Poké Ball, ready to forfeit her part in the battle. Torchic wouldn’t last much longer at this rate.

Diogee took several steps towards the surf, and Milo followed to make sure he didn’t jump into the middle of the battle. Diogee seemed incredibly curious about the white, glowing body lying in the surf. The body grew taller, and a white, leafy projection grew from its head.

“Zack, Treecko’s evolving!” Milo called.

Zack gasped as the white glow faded and his Grovyle’s brilliant green and red scales shone in the sunlight.

Grovyle shook the water out of his leafy tail, then fixed his opponents with a stern glare.

“Can you still fight?” Zack asked.

Grovyle slashed the air in confirmation.

Zack grinned, and while Mari and Patchy floundered for strategies on how to deal with Grovyle, Torchic cried out as a blinding white glow covered her body.

Melissa shrieked with glee as two long arms tipped with sharp claws emerged from Torchic’s torso. “Dislodge that Carvanha, Tor-no, Combusken!” she screamed triumphantly.

Combusken yanked a shocked Carvanha off her head, and Patchy screamed in rage as she drop-kicked it straight into Masquerain. Masquerain squealed as Carvanha slammed into it. Rough Skin dug into its wings, and the ability had suddenly become a hindrance for the Aqua Goons.

“Turn off Rough Skin!” Mari shouted at Patchy, glaring daggers at him.

“Lassie, I would, but-”

“Well?”

“’Tis beyond me mind.”

“THEN FIGURE IT OUT, SEAWEED BREATH!”

Grovyle disappeared, then reappeared behind Masquerain as it shook sand out of its wings. The Grass-type slashed downwards, and Masquerain slammed into the sandy ground, too exhausted to continue.

“That was Aerial Ace!” Milo shouted. “Grovyle knows Aerial Ace! That move is super cool! My dad’s Absol knows it!”

Zack grinned. “Awesome.”

Mari huffed disdainfully as she recalled Masquerain. “Patchy, you better beat them for me.”

But Carvanha stood no chance against a powered-up Fire Spin and Bullet Seed combo and fainted without landing a hit on either Combusken or Grovyle.

Patchy recalled Carvanha, but he didn’t seem too angry with his loss. “Eh, ‘tis a good fight,” he said.

“This isn’t over!” Mari howled. “John, let me borrow your Pokémon! It wouldn’t take much to beat them now!”

“You lost valuable time by taunting instead of attacking,” John stated coldly. “You lost it when your opponents evolved. You didn’t take advantage of Combusken’s Flying-type weakness, nor did you rely on Masquerain’s strengths.”

Mari opened her mouth to protest, but John beat her to the punch.

“My Pokémon don’t tolerate incompetence.”

“Aye. He has a point, he has,” Patchy agreed. “The scallywags won fairly, and ‘tis a disgrace to claim otherwise.”

Mari let out a wordless scream of rage and stalked off. Patchy followed her, though he kept his distance.

“Boy.”

Milo blinked, then realized John was addressing him. It was hard to tell since his eyes were hidden. “Um, me?” Milo awkwardly pointed to himself.

John snorted. “No, the piece of seaweed to your left. Yes, I’m talking to you. You have an Absol.”

Milo glanced at Diogee, whose eyes flitted between Milo and John, unsure of the Aqua member’s threat level. “He’s a great partner,” Milo finally said.

“Keep him close,” John advised. “You might need him a lot sooner than you’d expect.”

“Of course,” Milo agreed.

John trudged away, kicking up sand as he grumbled about his ridiculous coworkers.

“I don’t get those guys at all,” Zack said.

Melissa released Combusken from a celebratory hug and made a note on her phone. “Maybe I should add another charge for every questionable hire Dakota makes for his team,” she mused.

They made a brief stop at the Pokémon Center to heal Combusken and Grovyle, then began asking the locals for directions to Granite Cave. Unfortunately, most of them believed they were either potion festival hooligans or big laundry punks and refused to give them any useful information.

“Is there anyone in this town who isn’t crazy?” Melissa sighed, throwing a rock into the ocean in frustration.

“WHOO-HOO! HEY, YOU ON THE BEACH! MOVE IF YOU DON’T WANNA GET SWAMPED!” someone shouted.

A strange figure rode a giant wave, surfing rapidly towards the beach at an alarming pace. Diogee dragged Milo out of the way as Melissa and Zack took cover behind a cluster of boulders. The wave crashed onto the beach with a resounding roar, depositing a speedboat that had been painted to resemble a heavily fortified castle and its rider on the sand.

The rider took off her helmet and squeezed the water out of her long, blonde hair.

“Veronica?” Milo gasped.

“Long time, no see, Milo!” Veronica grinned. Diogee circled her excitedly, and Veronica laughed as she stroked his head. “Aw, Diogee’s grown so much! You’ve been taking real good care of each other!”

“You know each other?” Zack asked.

Milo nodded. “Melissa, Zack, this is Veronica. She was the best babysitter I’ve ever had! Haven’t seen her in like, a lot of fortnights, but she’s still awesome! And she gave me this backpack!”

“I always wondered why you were attached to that thing,” Melissa remarked.

“Last babysitter standing,” Veronica stated proudly. “I’ve also added pizza delivery girl and Dewford Gym Leader to my skillset. You up for a challenge, Milo? Cause I have a Knuckle Badge with your name on it.”

AN: The S.S Plunge is the name of the ship that takes Dakota to the Island. It’s in the background when Dakota is at the docks and looking for the ship.

ORAS’ default trendy saying is Potion Festivals. Unfortunately, you can’t mix and match to get the dumbest or most risque sayings like in Gen 3.

Team Aqua returns! I was listening to Heroes of Hoenn while writing the battle scene. It helps if you really want that triumphant feeling.

The anime does establish that Rough Skin has an off switch, but Patchy hasn’t figured that out.

Veronica is awesome.

#absolutely disastrous #oras au #pokemon #milo murphy's law #melissa chase #zack underwood

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fannishcodex · 6 years

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Look I’m enjoying all this talk of Blue Morpho, and speaking of him being bi.

Tbh I have a rareship: Blue Morpho(Vendata)/Red Death.

Red Death is like the first and only person to show real respect or any positive feeling for Vendata at all, and that just gets to me.

Okay tbh I’ve sorta shipped this since season 6, just through the vaguest of hints and because it sounded interesting to me.

In season 6, it mainly revolves around some vague indications that Red Death could’ve known the original Blue Morpho.

It’s indicated that Red Death’s been around a while, maybe even long enough to have known Blue Morpho. That’s about it, an indication leading to fun speculation.

But then there’s the fact that Red Death goes straight to the Morpho cave not long after he gets involved with the Blue Morpho case and the false threat to his wife and daughter. Nothing has still been made of this in canon, but it’s like Red Death simply knew the Morpho’s base of operations the whole time. (It may just be glossed over, but it’s fun to speculate, and good for fic.)

Red Death does seem like a generally chill and nice dude--but I sorta feel like he does have a soft spot for Monarch in S6. And like that feeling’s grown stronger after S7--to me it felt like Red Death had a particular soft spot for Monarch and his group--Gary/21, Dr. Mrs. (Granted, I also think he’s interacted with them the most so far? But also if that’s the case, that could say something too.)

Like in S6, Red Death first gives Monarch just a warning. Though a little threatening warning, it’s still relatively mild, and preceded by genuine praise for Monarch’s antagonist work (something he rarely gets). Red Death later takes it remarkably easy on the Monarch and 21 for their Blue Morpho and Kano activities, and even helps them out with advice and literal action (though he says it helps sate his violent instincts too--chill and nice dude he may be, but also still vicious, but I find that an interesting mix and fitting for VB.)

In S7, that continues, Red Death still actively helps Team Monarch--there’s no direct interaction between him and the Monarch again this season unfortunately, but Red Death is still helping him and Gary, and now Dr. Mrs. too, in the S7 premiere. Red Death seems to bond further with Dr. Mrs. in a later S7 episode later as they become co-workers on the Council, and seems to partly screw with that rival villain guy because he insulted her.

I’m just saying maybe Red Death starts with a soft spot for Monarch and his group (and later seems to just bond with them more directly and more for their sakes) because he knew Blue Morpho back in the day.

And I headcanon Blue Morpho and Red Death fell into one of those possibilities in VB that’s cropped up--protagonist and antagonist on surprisingly good terms. Morpho was an unregistered vigilante and prone to being harsher with antagonists, but headcanon he wasn’t unreasonable, and could be more civil with those he felt could do that too. Headcanon Red Death has some different opinions in VB and could successfully navigate those with tact and such--shorter story, unlike most in organized supervillainy, headcanon Red Death would have respected and been fascinated by Morpho’s refusal to register.

Headcanon Red Death does figure out Morpho’s identity, but he likes Morpho enough to not take advantage of that and keep it a secret. He tells no one.

Headcanon Blue Morpho and Red Death did have a thing for a while, before Blue Morpho ever met his future wife. Think something like Batman/Catwoman conceptually. But they did amicably separate, and then Morpho got married, while Red Death remained fond of him, and still held something of a torch tbh, but was respectful of Morpho to never push it.

And again, season 7--with the reveal that Red Death worked with Vendata and respected him, which just made me ship it way harder, even though I believe Red Death had no idea Vendata was Blue Morpho until season 7.

Like on a visceral level, it was so nice to hear someone speak of Vendata with respect when I’ve had to hear a lot of the Guild--looking at you Red Mantle and Dragoon, you two honestly crack me up, but omfg why so mean to Vendata jfc you didn’t even know he was Blue Morpho until S7--insult him for what seems like no reason. I think Red Death was the only one to say anything directly positive about Vendata.

So, S7 had Red Death and Vendata working together. And I keep thinking, how long?

I think S7 diner flashback tries to have Red Death as a sort of young upstart, so you’d think he’d be too young for Blue Morpho’s time. But S6 indicated an older age for him in my mind, and S7 later gave me vibes of Red Death being quite old, with his talk of older villain traditions. And what is Red Death? Again, he’s like this sketetal skinned man--he seems more demonic if anything. He does seem to have supernatural powers, and that horse he rides on? I headcanon Red Death is not quite human, rather supernatural, long-lived, and that his mind may age differently (along with probably seeing the world even more differently from others in VB). Hence he may act more like a young upstart in the diner flashback though he’s actually far older. Heck, maybe so old and with a certain distance from average humanity, maybe he was like, “I’ll just go along with what seems to be the trend these days for this current stab at villainy.” Like he’s such an otherly being, he actually approaches it like another role to play, which could say something about the themes of roleplay in VB (Red Death even talks about “becoming lost in your character” in S6--so Red Death does imply his awareness of and use of roleplay like that). I can see him being this literally otherly being and approaching his supervillainy in like stages during his long life--literally here’s his 70s stage, and here’s his being-on-the-Council stage. (But his wife and daughter inspire new feelings in him. And feeling like he’s otherly doesn’t mean he’s not nice and chill--heck, it could be more why he’s like that. He may be more chill than other humans because he isn’t entirely one. That’s part of what does feel otherly to me tbh--how chill he is.)

After that aside:

Headcanon that maybe Vendata and Red Death worked together for a while. Like Red Death expresses respect for him in the diner, but he doesn’t go into the entirety of their relationship because the current context doesn’t ask for it, and it’s still private.

Red Death has no idea Vendata was Blue Morpho. He does look different without his mustache, and Red Death believed the news of his death. The only similar thing Red Death recognizes without learning the truth for years is that Vendata stirs feelings similar to what he felt for Morpho.

(Headcanon Red Death was aware of Malcom, but thought he should leave him alone with normal people in child care services, assuming he would be taken care of. Red Death was at least aware that Blue Morpho did not want his son near the world of superheroes and supervillains, and wanted to honor those wishes.)

Vendata feels some familiarity for Red Death, but no memories really trigger. But that familiarity feels comfortable, and draws Vendata to Red Death.

Headcanon that Red Death helps Vendata enter supervillainy, and they work together for a relatively long time, they’re allies. They become friends, and more.

Then the Massacre.

I think S7 implies Red Death was disturbed by the Massacre, especially the loss of his own comrades; and I think it implies that Red Death believed Vendata was the ultimate culprit.

Headcanon there was even more to it, like Red Death will only let some of the above out in public, but internally he was far more disturbed by the whole thing. He was really distraught over the loss of Stab Girl and the others. He thought Vendata had caused the Massacre that ended up including Stab Girl and their other allies as collateral damage. Red Death blamed him for it. On some level, Red Death does respect Vendata’s determination to kill the object of his extreme hatred, Jonas; but more strongly, Red Death feels betrayed and disgusted with what he thinks Vendata did to their team for that goal.

Communication breaks down. Red Death strongly believes Vendata is responsible, that he hated Jonas enough to do this. He never actually talks to Vendata about it. He does feel the need for it; but it’s an emotional time, Red Death is emotionally distraught, and in that state is turned off by Vendata’s lack of emotion. He knows Vendata has trouble showing it, but at that point Red Death has less patience for it and more revulsion. Red Death is further repulsed when Vendata seems to be confused by Red Death’s behavior--Red Death storms off, feeling that Vendata should know. Should realize why he’s upset.

Red Death believes Vendata did it, doomed their friends and allies to kill Jonas, and assumes Vendata is aware of what he thinks. But Vendata has no idea. Vendata does have trouble processing emotion because of the whole cyborg thing, and not being a very well built cyborg due to Jonas and later Dr. Z. Vendata feels the loss of Stab Girl and the others and sees Red Death is distraught, but has trouble being the most comforting presence, and has no idea he should be denying something or the real source of Red Death’s turmoil and anger with him.

Red Death leaves Vendata. Between his respect and lingering fondness and understanding of hatred and knowing they were in a dangerous line of work, Red Death would not take direct revenge on Vendata, he couldn’t. But he couldn’t stay with him either.

Vendata accepts this, without fully understanding why.

Vendata and Red Death just drift further away and remain apart in the years after the Massacre. Red Death meets and falls in love with his future wife, has a daughter, and feels like he understands Morpho better.

Vendata joins the Council. And Red Death wonders what it would be like if he had a seat too. Time’s cooled his rage somewhat--and things are different now. Married, with kids. But things are different--Red Death feels more keenly how he’s drifted away from Vendata.

Red Death finally checks up on Malcom, and though he knows Morpho would have been distressed by it, he’s pleased that Malcom’s become a super villain.

When Vendata expresses a difficulty connecting with people and his Council members criticizing him for that, he does think of Red Death years ago.

Vendata and Red Death did get in touch a few times, only a few brief phone calls that were simply small updates of each other. Vendata did keep track of Red Death through Guild records. He felt happy when the records changed to reflect Red Death’s marriage, though also a little sad. (It wasn’t just regret over an ex--memories of Red Death from his time as Blue Morpho, memories of his wife were almost triggered. Almost, but not quite. Just vague feelings behind that stirred, but not memories.)

Headcanon that when Red Death realizes Vendata was Blue Morpho the whole time, he thinks “ohfuck.”

Yeah, so, I ship it. Also I find that I could literally shorten a name for it to Red/Blue cute.

@danvssomethingorother

#venture brothers #red death #the blue morpho #venture bros #blue morpho #not a reblog

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fullmetalirin · 6 years

Text

FMA Brotherhood: Episode 19

FMA Brotherhood Episode 19: "Death of the Undying"

Kain Fuery manages to save Hawkeye, with Mustang coming to defeat Gluttony. Alphonse meets up with the group and they pursue Barry, who chases his body into the depths of the third laboratory. The group splits into two teams. Mustang and Havoc are ambushed by Lust, resulting in both men being grievously wounded and left for dead. Lust then confronts Barry, slicing him to pieces. Hawkeye, believing Mustang to be dead, desperately shoots Lust repeatedly with minimal effect. Before Lust can kill Hawkeye, Mustang appears, having cauterized his wounds, he repeatedly incinerates Lust until her philosopher's stone is depleted. No longer able to regenerate, she crumbles to ash. Barry's soul survives, but his blood seal is scratched out by his human body, which kills both of them. Edward returns to Resembool and heads toward the Rockbell residence where he sees his father Van Hohenheim at the grave of his mother Trisha Elric.

Mustang flashes back to Hughes' death when Riza doesn't respond and freaks out.

Then we cut back to Ling expositing. Oh joy.

Gluttony is strangling Riza. She's emptied her clip into his head but he's not dying. It's pretty gruesome, we see his wrecked eyeball. She empties another clip and pushes him back a little, but they're out of ammo again. For some reason, they just stand there like idiots instead of running. Fortunately, Mustang steps out of his teleporter and uses magic to generate force out of nothing to throw Gluttony out the window.

Riza yells at Mustang for saving her because lolwomen. Later she does thank him and then he's the one telling her to keep in professional, because women are just crazy nagging hags who don't say what they mean and need strong manly men to keep their heads in the game.

I really don't like the cracked-skin effect on the homunculi. It looks so fake, like a low-res CGI model.

How did Alphonse know where they were? Did Ling tell him?

Al informs them about homunculi's powers. Despite this they're going to continue to waste all their ammo shooting Lust later, because they're idiots.

Mustang uses Barry's rampage as an excuse to investigate the laboratory, which is clever. Barry doesn't kill anyone because serial killers are such polite people. Al has cartoon face during this, which I guess is appropriate since he really doesn't fit in here.

Lust shows up and Havoc gets distracted by her jiggle physics when he looks at her tattoo. As Tumblr helpfully explained to me, this is actually groundbreaking feminist representation because while it looks indistinguishable from normal anime objectification see it's actually making fun of Havoc for being a pervert and no, Tumblr, it's pandering. Perv pandering doesn't stop being perv pandering just because a woman drew it. But okay, sure, it's not that bad by the very, very low standards of anime, so maybe I can put up with it as long as it doesn't…

…do… that.

Guys, this is not making fun of perverts. Havoc is a hero and Lust is a villain. This is letting perverts be in on the joke. Tumblr, please for the love of God shut up about Brotherhood being so tasteful in its depiction of boobs, because it's not.

Anyway. Lust taunts Mustang about Hughes' death and then… looks actually pained when he shoots her (where Gluttony barely flinched). Why did she do that if bullets actually hurt her.

There is some gross banter about getting Lust on her knees. I'm sure this has also, through some strange Tumblr alchemy, been transformed into groundbreaking feminism.

Then Lust shows off her Philosopher's Stone because the author needed a way for the characters to learn a homunculus' weakness and couldn't think of a way to do it that didn't involve handing Lust the idiot ball. I've heard this is slightly less stupid in the manga and she only does this after Havoc gets injured, is that true?

Like I said before, this reveal utterly baffles me. So after all that buildup, the homunculi are just... monsters powered by magic. That’s so boring. They can no longer be used to ask questions about personhood and humanity -- I mean, maybe they could if the show actually committed to them being alien and different, but it doesn’t. What this comes down to is just that Philosopher’s Stones and rulebreaking magic is cool, so the homunculi have them so they can be cool boss monsters. Except they’re not cool. In OG, they were puzzles that required special knowledge and preparation to defeat; that’s cool. In Brotherhood, as we’re going to see, you beat the homunculi by just punching them in the face until the author decides they’ve run out of HP. They’re just damage sponges. And just as I revile damage sponges in video games, I revile them in TV shows too. Characters just throwing the same attacks at each other for five episodes is not interesting.

I also hate that this means Philosopher’s Stones are absolutely everywhere in this continuity instead of something actually special, a theme that will continue.

Lust says homunculi still have human feelings. Wow, what a dumb idea that no one would ever want to read about. It sure is a good thing Brotherhood decided to completely forget about this and just make homunculi boring boss monsters, huh?

Then, despite Lust using her claws as instant-kill ranged attacks in every prior fight scene, she now switches to sloppy, easily-dodged melee swipes, because Lust is really hogging the idiot ball today.

Mustang says he can decompose the water into hydrogen and oxygen to create an explosion even with wet gloves. This is totally inconsistent with what we're previously told, which is that creating oxygen is the easy part for him. He shouldn't need a spark to manipulate the air content, that should be a separate thing. This just seems like the author showing off a trick she remembered from chemistry class. It sure would be interesting if alchemy actually worked like this all the time, but Mustang never needs to do anything like this elsewhere.

Then despite having just been told that homunculi don't die when they are killed they walk right back into the room, because the idiot ball's really getting around today.

Cartoon when Mustang complains about being treated like a match. Because a climactic battle is definitely the time for that.

Then Lust FINALLY uses her spear-claws and stabs Havoc through the spine which, in a rare appearance of consequences, actually does paralyze him until the epilogue when Dr. Deus ex Machina heals him because consequences are for losers. I'm also a bit unclear on how she severed his spine without also severing his aorta.

Mustang realizes he can use Lust's Philosopher's Stone to heal Havoc and rips it out of Lust's chest. Lust screams in agony, implying this does actually hurt her, so again, why did she show it to him?

Lust's body disintegrates, but she's able to reform around the Stone. It's really gruesome. Somehow this does not crush Mustang's hand in the process, but she does finally stab him… nonfatally, because she's got the idiot ball again.

Bradley shows up outside.

Lust says Mustang was a candidate for sacrifice but she's killing him anyway. Uh, did she run this by the others? She then leaves him for dead instead of finishing him off because the idiot ball is strong this episode.

We then catch up to Barry, who tells us souls reject incompatible bodies. Al freaks out at this, but fortunately this will never matter for him.

Lust shows up to whine about how she has to kill Al. No, you don't. Just leave. You control the government. Bradley can give you another hideout at a moment's notice. The most important thing hiding here was you, and you just blabbed all your secrets anyway. Just cut your losses. You idiot.

Lust once again taunts someone into shooting her and once again staggers and screams in pain, because the idiot ball's terminal now. Shouldn't she also know she's running out of lives and this is maybe not the best idea right now?

Al vows to protect Riza because he’s tired of watching people die. It’s a nice moment that also happens way, way too early in his character arc. I like Al as the childish, out-of-his-depth foil to Ed’s easy confidence. This moment works better as a climactic ending reversal than as an offhand detail a third of the way through the story. If he’s just another noble heroic alchemist, he’s redundant with all the others we already have.

Meanwhile, Riza is hysterical and ineffective because she's a woman in a shonen anime.

You know, more seriously, I would like to point out that giving a female character awesome gun skills doesn't actually mean anything in a story about how non-guns are really awesome. We see a lot of great gunplay from Riza, but it's always alchemy that actually saves the day and gets all the focus. It's moving the goalposts. Sure, we'll give the woman a cool skill… that we will then choose to make useless in the context of the story. It's such tedious faux-feminism, going through the motions so you can say, technically, that you have a "strong female character" without actually doing anything to respect them or integrate them into the narrative. For every "strong female character" in Brotherhood, there's a male character who's stronger. Women are still, fundamentally, supporting characters – they're awesome because part of the male fantasy is an awesome support staff, but the boys get to be more awesome and the boys get to be who the story's actually about.

I really want us to start being more critical of representation like this. Treating strong female characters like a list of checkboxes is so totally wrongheaded. Characters don't exist in a vacuum. A skill that's impressive in one narrative or one power level may be completely meaningless in another. We need to look at characters within the context of the narrative they inhabit, relative to other characters and the framing of the work.

To prove my point, our resident Gary Stu has just appeared to show Riza up and beat the boss fight literally without moving a single step.

BUT TELL ME AGAIN HOW THIS SERIES IS GOD’S GIFT TO FEMINISM.

Mustang is using Havoc's lighter for a starter, despite explicitly establishing that it was busted earlier.

Mustang fireballs her again.

He also drew a perfect transmutation circle in his own blood and perfectly cauterized his internal bleeding despite explicitly saying he doesn't know medical alchemy. Now that his jacket's opened, we also get to see he's been hiding a Superman physique this whole time. You could put this in a parody of male power fantasies and I'd say it was too unbelievable.

Mustang fireballs her again. We get a gruesome close-up shot of her skin burning off.

Mustang fireballs her again.

Mustang decides he can kill this regenerator monster powered by the thing that supposedly has infinite energy by just killing her enough times, because he's read the script.

Mustang fireballs her again.

We get a closeup of her Philosopher's Stone, and coincidentally also a closeup of her tits.

Mustang fireballs her again.

And again.

I'd like to point out that every single one of these fireballs is ENORMOUS. Alphonse has to create a stone wall to hide behind so Riza isn't charbroiled too. We can see the entire room lighting up. I'd also like to point out this is in a SEALED UNDERGROUND ROOM, and FIRE REQUIRES OXYGEN. OXYGEN IS NOT INFINITE. If he lights the whole room on fire, he is DONE. HE USED UP ALL THE OXYGEN IN THE ROOM. HE CANNOT KEEP SPAMMING FIREBALLS. And I don't care what fanwank you can pull out to justify this, because the bottom line is that someone winning a fight by endlessly spamming the same move is terrible writing. This is not a climactic boss fight, this is just the Gary Stu showing off how awesome he is.

And through all of this Lust has done absolutely nothing except writhe and scream in agony, because Mustang is a Gary Stu therefore fire stunlocks everything. Only at the very end does she actually try to attack him, remembering she can spear people through the brain just in time for him to kill her while her spear is INCHES away from his face, because he's very awesome.

Also, HOW IS HE NOT BURNING HIMSELF HERE. HOW. HIS ARM IS IN THE EXPLOSION. HOW.

Meanwhile, Lust can still talk but somehow not extend her spear one more inch. Her Philosopher's Stone disintegrates, so the woman has nobly died to teach us that you can kill homunculi by just hitting them until they run out of HP, because that's so interesting.

And then Mustang collapses from his wound now that it no longer matters, invoking the very important power of the Not-Sue: see, he did all that while he really was one step away from death, that totally makes him less sueish and not more!

Mustang ignores Riza to praise Al for protecting her.

Bradley, our other resident Gary Stu, is revealed to have been watching the whole thing. He for some reason does not kill Mustang, thus establishing who has the greater Sue power.

Winry is sulking and hoping the man comes back safe because that's her purpose in life.

Then we end with more Barry, because we really needed that. His body is somehow still not dead, and erases the seal on the one part of the armor that stayed intact, killing them both. What was the point of this?

Then the show remembers Ed is supposed to be the protagonist. We cut to him for five seconds to discover Hoenheim has conveniently returned to Resembool at the same time as him.

Conclusion

A lot of people tell me that OG was misogynist garbage and Brotherhood is super progressive.

I don't know what anime they watched, but I just saw the sole female antagonist – and let's take a moment to reflect on the fact the sole female antagonist is Lust – die a gruesome, disgusting, sexualized death less than a third of the way through the story because she was too busy flashing her tits to actually fight, for no other reason than to show how awesome a dude is.

This is my breaking point. There is no coming back from this. I don't care how awesome Olivier is. Anyone who recommends this show as full of ~great female characters~ without thinking this content deserved even the teensiest of caveats is not anyone whose judgment I trust.

And sure, let's be real here, I watch anime, I'm willing to put up with some misogynist crap if there's something else worth my time. But this has established, very definitively, that there absolutely will not be anything worth my time. Lust, as we will see when we continue with OG, was an incredibly important and complex character in the original anime, absolutely crucial to the narrative of the homunculi and many of the things I loved about the story. And this is what Brotherhood does with her.

And that's not even the only awful thing about this episode! Ed wasn't in it at all! Mustang's takeover of the narrative is complete. He's the one who got to solve the mystery, fight the villain, and save the day, pretty much singlehandedly. And I'm sorry, but even if he wasn't an insufferable Gary Stu, Mustang just doesn't interest me as a character as much as Ed. I like him as a deuteragonist to Ed's protagonist, not the other way around. So no. This episode really hammers in that there is absolutely nothing here for me.

But lucky you, I read a plot summary of all the episodes after this, and I know the very next one is something I want to complain about too! So we'll keep going for one more episode. One last nail in the coffin.

#fullmetal alchemist #fma #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma 2003 #liveblog

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serendipitouscontaminant · 6 years

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@intearsaboutrobots asked oh g o s h, how bout forgetting to eat and ray (he's very busy ! doing science !)

This is for Bad Things Happen Bingo. This is my card.

Bingo square: Forgetting to eat

Content notes for grief and canon character death. Strangely enough, this is 70% comedy.

____

Guess We’ll Never Know

Ray is doing science.

Normal.

Ray is doing science in silence, literally locked in the lab.

Less normal? That's debatable, apparently.

Nate is convinced there’s something fishy going on here. Sara agrees. Zari and Mick both say to just leave Ray to do his thing. He’s a scientist, of course he’s going to lock himself in the lab sometimes, it’s not that weird. Nate and Sara counter that, yeah, that might be a stereotypical scientist thing, but it’s not a Ray thing. Ray loves spending time with other people, and he’s gung ho about living healthy, and when he gets really, possibly unhealthily, into something science-related, he usually at least tries to talk someone’s ear off about it.

He’s not the kind of guy who locks himself in his lab for nearly a week when there’s absolutely nothing even vaguely life-threatening going on, other than the Legends all living on the same ship, which might count.

Zari says that they’re being overbearing and they should just let Ray do what he does best, he can take care of himself and she could swear that she’s seen him in the halls a few times, probably going to get food or something.

This leads to the whole team trading Ray sightings and arguing as to whether they’re actually just making things up, right until Nate points out that they’re acting like Ray’s Bigfoot or something, and once you can switch out a conversation about your teammate with a conversation about a cryptid just by changing a single detail, in this case said teammate’s name, there’s a good reason to worry. He has a point, Constantine, who has no dog in this fight and has been playing both sides for a lark, says.

Mick says that this is all stupid, and walks away. Classic Mick.

However, in spite of Mick’s unceremonious exit, it can comfortably be said that at this point all opinions have been swayed towards ‘we should be worried.’

Well, not Constantine’s, because he cannot emphasize enough how he has no dog in this fight. He saves dogs for people he really cares about, and none of the Legends are there yet other than Sara. He quite likes Sara.

In spite of this doglessness, Constantine is the one to check on Ray, mostly because everyone else is debating on how to best check on Ray even though they could always just ask Gideon how he’s doing or go down there with no fanfare, two options that they have helpfully forgotten—much like how they have forgotten to be reasonable or efficient over what should quite frankly be low-stress decisions for a prolonged length of time—in the name of the continuation of the narrative.

Besides, they’re stir crazy without any actual missions. They’ll argue about anything at this point, and since Ray hasn’t been around (a pressing issue), there’s nobody to, say, arrange a catastrophic game night, which would at least get out everyone’s pent up energy.

…This is mostly because, while Constantine is a surprisingly affable and competent board gamer, he wins every game, and Mick is a terrible loser, Sara is a terrible loser, Zari is easily frustrated and also a terrible loser, Ray has the rules to literally every board game in existence memorized word-for-word and will not budge on them, and Nate, for all his ability to remember every single major fire in the United States since its inception, secretly still doesn’t really know how to play Monopoly, and is not above knocking the entire board to the floor to keep anyone from finding out his dark secret, even though fessing up would possibly spare everyone from having to play Monopoly, which would quite frankly be one of those acts of everyday heroism the Huffington Post is always on about.

(Mick knows about Nate’s Monopoly problem, though. How? Unclear. Mick just knows a lot of things. Why does Mick not tell? A mystery.)

Anyway, Constantine goes to see how Dr. Palmer’s getting on, mostly because he, like everyone else on the game nightless ship, is very bored and has nothing better to do. He is also a bit curious. He also feels a vague sense of doom about the whole situation, though that may just be the vague sense of doom he feels roughly one hundred percent of the time.

When he steps into the lab, he finds papers tossed everywhere, three whiteboards (well, ‘whiteboards’ is a little generous for what are more large plexiglass rectangles covered in scribbles, but that is not an issue at the front of John’s mind), and no less than thirteen empty cans of a drink called ‘Monster’.

He takes a step inside the lab (a can of Monster crunching underfoot), meaning to make his presence known to Ray, who currently has his back to him and is writing some equation on a fourth and comically large high fashion not whiteboard. (Too long, John has better things to do than think all those words over something so stupid.)

John is not sure when exactly this whiteboard was created or whether it did in fact exist before Ray went into this fit, because it really is excessively enormous, given that Ray is standing on a stool to scrawl mumbo jumbo on it, and Ray is six foot three.

“Hello, Dr. Palmer,” John says genially, only not fazed by this situation due to the fact that he consistently deals with different, more life-and-limb-threatening situations that border on the absurd, or catapult over the border and into the wide field of ‘what in the bloody fucking world is even happening, look like you know what you’re doing, John, you fear nothing’. He gauges that to be genuinely fazed, the cans of Monster would have to become actual small monsters.

Ray jumps and yet somehow doesn’t fall from his perch, even when he twists around to look at John, though he does sway dangerously, and John steps forward experimentally, wondering exactly how squished he will get if he tries to catch Dr. Palmer once the man inevitably loses his battle with gravity.

Ray’s hair is mussed and unwashed, his fetching chin is covered in stubble, his clothes are several days old, he’s shaking, and his eyes are full of the pure manic energy of a man who does not consistently drink large amounts of caffeine, and yet has made the unfortunate and currently inexplicable decision to replace half his blood with energy drinks.

“Constantine!” he says, voice both welcoming and edgy. His smile is so wide that John can see just about all of his teeth. The smile, paired with the general mad scientist vibe he’s emitting, makes him look like a serial killer, the kind that dresses his victims in fun outfits and then poses them in a whimsical manner while leading the police on a wild goose chase. He will never be brought to justice. “How’s it going?”

“You’ve been here for nearly a week,” John says. “Your friends are both worried and being utterly inconvenient about it.”

“A week,” Ray says, vibrating. “Wow!”

These are the last words he says before his eyes roll into the back of his head, and he falls to the floor.

John is briefly on high alert, given that eyes rolling into the back of the head is not a good sign in his line of work, but he quickly realizes that the good doctor is lying quite still and is happily unpossessed.

Wow indeed.

John wanders over to him to see if he’s just out cold or dead. He is thankfully just out cold, because even John would feel bad if Ray were dead. His gluten free cupcakes really aren’t so bad, and he very much enjoys winning all the games. He never wins against Gary.

Ray’s pulse is impressively fast. “Gideon, dear,” John says, “I think the others may want to see this.”

“Way ahead of you, Mr. Constantine,” Gideon says.

Of course.

It takes a matter of minutes—more than one, but less than five—for the others to rush in. Well, Mick doesn’t rush in so much as amble, brow furrowed in what might be annoyance and might be concern. (It’s both.)

Ray wakes up in under five minutes, which is good. He’s bleary-eyed and rubbing his head, and he’s discombobulated enough that he doesn’t really protest when Nate and Mick bodily drag him out of the lab, though he does give his enormous whiteboard a sad look, as if saying goodbye and promising to come back soon.

John stays behind, surveying the lab. He suspects that whatever happens in the medbay will involve feelings he’s not particularly interested in, so his work here is done.

In the medbay, Ray has finally found his voice again, and his voice isn’t happy about the saline drip he’s getting. He and his miraculously nonexistent concussion would rather take some laps around the ship.

“Actually, Dr. Palmer, I would suggest you eat,” Gideon says.

“Pish posh!” an actual human being named Ray Palmer says with zero irony. “You keep telling me that!”

“Because it keeps being true,” Gideon replies, dry as the toast that Ray could at least have tried to force down the past several mornings.

It turns out that, much like Bigfoot sightings, the Ray sightings were the product of wishful thinking. He really had not existed outside of the lab for all that time except to go to the bathroom. He even had Gideon make him seven six packs of Monster before going in.

And yet no food or water.

When Nate points out that astonishing oversight after hearing that Ray did prepare himself for his science fit, sort of, Ray shrugs sheepishly. “I forgot.”

“You, Mr. Three Square Meals a Day, just straight up forgot?”

“Yeah. There’s...I don’t have another answer, I really did.”

“Okay, so why did you go full absent-minded professor?”

Ray doesn’t answer the question, though a troubled look does flit across his face for about five point two seconds.

Instead, he decides to go back to the food thing.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Ray says, clearly in a vaguely dreamlike and yet incredibly awake state. “I’ve transcended it.”

There is a beat as the others process the non sequitur and general insanity of that statement, and then chaos as everyone starts talking over each other about how stupid that very thought is, right up until Zari’s voice manages to break through.

“You’ve transcended hunger?” Zari parrots for about the third time. “Ray, take it from someone who knows—you’re just starving.”

“I feel kind of sick, actually,” Ray says in a polite rebuttal. “So there’s that.”

“Raymond, of course you feel sick, you’ve been overworking yourself and living off caffeine,” Nate says, all long-suffering hypocrisy.

“Oh, as if you don’t do the exact same thing, Mr. Do As I Say Not As I Do.”

“Yeah, I’m vetoing that nickname. And seriously, this isn’t really like you.”

“Actually, I was totally like this. I mean, I’ve been totally like this before. I missed work because I was so focused on work.”

“Yeah, but you’ve kind of...grown out of that. Or at least you weren’t like this about it other than when you were all imposter syndrome about your suit. I mean, buddy, I get being obsessed with your work, but you fainted. You’ve been mainlining energy drinks. It’s been six days. Even when you get weird and obsessed, you usually at least interact with...anyone. And energy drinks are like...caffeine and sugar. You somehow think both of those things are bad for you. Also, it’s been six days. This isn’t Ray behavior.”

“Oh, like you really know me,” Ray snaps.

His outburst causes only vague confusion. “...I do really know you, Ray. We all do. We’re on the same ship and the same team. We have literally met you as a child.”

Ray flounders. “Okay, you might have a point. But I’m just...this is important! I’m brushing up on nuclear physics! I mean, not that I’m not good at nuclear physics, I’m possibly amazing—it’s healthy to recognize your own talents—but I’ve really been leaning on the engineering side lately, not so much the theoretical, and now without...” he trails off and swallows hard. “Without Marty, I’m catching up. There are some questions I never got to ask him and now...” his voice breaks, and he runs a shaking hand through his greasy hair, “I have to figure them out myself.”

Silence settles over the room like a shroud, and Sara, without even thinking, looks over at the corner of the room where no one is, half expecting to see a familiar form sighing in a put upon way and pacing back and forth like a ruffled chicken.

Maybe Stein could’ve talked some sense into Ray.

Sara clears her throat and Nate looks down at the floor and Zari looks up at the ceiling in the way people do when they’re trying not to cry and Mick just stares at nothing because he’s staring at memories instead—he and the professor made a weird amount of memories in this medbay—and Ray swipes at his eyes. “If he was still alive, I could just use the temporal communicator to ask him, but he’s not, and I never got to ask him, and I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it all out.”

“He had more...time, Ray,” Sara says, and the words sound so ridiculous (he didn’t get enough time, he didn’t) she wants to laugh until she cries and then probably never stop crying, for Martin and Rip and Leonard and Laurel and even Jax, so far away and with half of him dead and gone. She doesn’t do any of that. She soldiers on. “He had more time to get it all figured out, and when you have...more time, so will you.”

And eventually, she absolutely does not say because no one says it, you’ll have even more time than he did, if everything turns out right.

Ray laughs a little. “That implies that I’ll ever be as good at theoretical nuclear physics as Marty.”

“Maybe you won’t be,” Zari chimes in. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not a genius and it doesn’t mean you’ll, what? Let us all down because you’re not him? You’re not him. You’re you.”

“He’s never coming back,” Mick offers in a grumbling undertone from where he’s leaning against the far wall. “You can’t replace dead people, and you suck at trying.”

He meets Ray’s eyes, and Ray remembers that time that they tried. He manages a smile. “I know.”

He sighs heavily and says, “I really went off the rails for a second there, didn’t I?”

Sara shrugs. “Happens to all of us.”

“I should eat,” Ray admits. “I can’t believe I forgot. I mean, I can, but that’s why I have alarms.”

“What happened to those?” Nate asks.

“I think I spilled Monster on my phone.”

“That checks out.” Nate heaves out a sigh. “Okay. Let’s go to the kitchen, big guy. You can go back to bothering us about three square meals again. And water intake.”

Ray agrees, because hydration is very important, no matter what the Ray who’d forgotten that Marty wasn’t actually just a call away seemed to think, and he only sways a little on his feet when he stands up after getting the saline drip out.

Constantine is in the kitchen when the rest of the team traipses in, sprawled on a chair and reading some kind of velvet-bound tome with his feet propped up on one of the other chairs. He looks up at the other Legends and says, “Ah, you’re back, then?”

Ray attempts one of his usual smiles, but it takes more work than usual. “I’m back.”

He wanders to the middle of the kitchen and just kind of stands there while the others wait for him to have a cardiac event or maybe pass out again.

Instead:

“What should I eat?” Ray asks the world at large, waffling. He really is not hungry, and he really does feel kind of sick to his stomach, like one might after drinking eighteen cans of a brand of energy drink he remembered seeing on a billboard in Star City.

“Waffles?” Nate suggests. “It’s breakfast.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, bro. Six days after last time you ate breakfast.”

Ray sighs and murmurs, probably to himself, “I just haven’t been able to figure it out without him.”

Nate and Sara share a look. It’s not a happy look. Trace amounts of the absences on the ship have traveled into every part of it, including the oxygen, and sometimes it hurts just to breathe.

“Grapefruit,” Ray says decisively, distracting everyone from their separate waves of grief for just a moment. “I want grapefruit.”

Very suddenly, everyone realizes that they also kind of want grapefruit, even though none of them can remember the last time they had it. Still, all of them—other than Constantine, who’s feeling a bit odd about the whole vibe in the kitchen right now, from Mick’s surprisingly glossy eyes to the way that Gideon’s already prepared a giant bowl of that infernal fruit even before Zari comes around to ask for it—know exactly where the craving is coming from.

(It’s an attempt to at least calm that empty ache in their stomachs that isn’t hunger, the one for Martin, because grief makes everything revolve around what—who—just isn’t anymore and somehow still is everything, like all of them have become planets orbiting a black hole, only surviving getting sucked in and pulled to pieces by a miracle of metaphorical pseudoscience, or maybe just each other.)

Zari plops the huge bowl of grapefruit halves down on the table, and Ray’s the first to take one. He digs his spoon into the fruit and sighs in pleasure when he takes a bite, clearly coming to the realization that his miraculous lack of hunger paired with queasiness is indeed actually the feeling one gets when starving. He gets through two grapefruits before he slows down at all.

All of them realize, while eating their breakfast, that, objectively, they don’t like grapefruit.

It’s still somehow delicious—though, Mick says critically, his is a little tart.

(They would all be horrified if they knew that somewhere on their Earth lives a woman—one they know and love, even!—who eats her grapefruit with salt, but there’s no one here who can share that particular little anecdote, and so the story goes untold.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898194

#legends of tomorrow #legends of tomorrow fic #ray palmer #fic tag #badthingshappenbingo #team legends #prompt: forgetting to eat #long post #long post on mobile

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cyberkevvideo · 4 years

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Throne of Night - New Special Material: Gunzarak (True Mithral)

In Book 2, the (unfortunately) last published book for Throne of Night, we were introduced to the concept of “true mithral”, also known as gunzarak. It was a special processing of mithral that allowed you it to mimic some of the properties of adamantine. We even got a really interesting weapon in the form of an axe. We were also given a minimal amount of lore that this style of processing was a closely guarded secret to a specific clan of dwarves, and that its secret had long been lost over time.

Sadly, that’s all we got. It can be assumed that in Book 3, where we see the party finally find the lost dwarven city, that we would get either a sidebar or even an appendix that explained what true mithral was, and its pricing for armor and weapons. Sadly, this would not be the case. At least as of today’s entry.

Today, I’m going to give you my rundown on how I would have released it. I would like to say that I did not come about these numbers willy-nilly. I contacted some friends and acquaintances from the table top industry, who far more adept and knowledgeable at this kind of thing than I (not to mention decade long veterans) , and had them give me their opinions, then I went marketed it to more than a half-dozen players to get their take on it.

As always, for space reasons, I’ll be cropping the encounter build.

All images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus

I do not have a Patreon or a Kickstarter, but I do have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who are looking to support me monetarily. There is no pressure or obligation to do so.

Finally, before I get to it, I hope everyone’s staying safe right now.

Deep within the Zaraketh Mine, after solving a dwarven puzzle, what appears to be a mithral greataxe can be found by the party. To their astonishment, it’s actually an axe made of a new special material, gunzarak.

The provided lore says: But for all the dark elves’ skill in working this strange metal, it was in the forges of Dammerhall that the dwarves learned the secret of elevating mithral to its full potential. They could create an alloy that was lighter than aluminum, stronger than adamantine, as perfect a metal as this world has ever known. This was gunzarak (in dwarvish lit. the true gift of the earth) or “true mithral”. Even the drow had never seen its equal and it was Dammerhall’s gift to the world. Even today, centuries after the last sword of true mithral was forged, many a dynasty counts among its greatest heirlooms these dwarven blades and armors.The secret of making ‘true mithral’ was lost with the fall of Dammerhall. The dwarves too jealously guarded their secret and when calamity fell, the secret was lost. Perhaps there will never again come forth a smith capable of making gunzarak. Perhaps this jewel of dwarven lore is forever beyond the kin of mortals.

As written, the magic axe reads as thus:

The Axe of Horath Rocknose Aura moderate conjuration and transmutation; CL 10th Slot --; Price 27,320 gp; Weight 6 lbs. DESCRIPTION This is a +1 keen dragon-bane greataxe made of gunzarak (true mithral). It counts as both being made of adamantine while possessing the weight reduction of mithral. For the purpose of damage reduction it is considered as both an adamantine, silver and magic weapon. CONSTRUCTION Requirements Craft Arms and Armor, creator must know the secret of working true mithral, keen edge summon monster I; Cost 13,660 gp

Given its stats, it’s obvious that this was to be a major boon in Book 3. It can also be assumed that if the axe is shown to the stone golem blocking the secret passageway to Dammerhall, that’s part of the key needed for bypassing the guardian.

From a designer stance, this item has a few issues in the math and wording, but that’s okay. What’s important is that you can still discern its capabilities and what the author was trying to convey when he made it.

With what’s provided, and a little reverse engineering, we are able to deduce that, theoretically, gunzarak is worth 775 gp/lb. This is a little more than 1.5x what mithral costs (500 gp/lb.). That sounds reasonable enough.

Over the past month, I’ve had multiple discussions with some fellow game designers, as well as a bunch of players that I know. The reason being is designing special materials is a balancing act that many aren’t very good at. The conversations went from “treat this like a magic item and make the lowest cost be 1.5x the price and add the highest base, or at least add an additional percentage to the total price” to “adamantine in Pathfinder 1e and 3.5 was overpriced, so unless that gets fixed, you won’t get a proper price for this material.” What was also mentioned was that it was nice that this replicated both mithral and adamantine as a whole, like a magic item, what was special about it? What made it its own material that people would covet? Sure it was both mithral and adamantine, but you could find magic items that would made things better and cheaper, or even psionic powers or spells that could do it better, for cheaper, and not have any sort of weaknesses short of being dispelable. “True silver”, another special material (from Paizo), is processed to the point it was immune to rusting effects, so why wouldn’t true mithral have something similar, if not exactly the same? Again, all valid arguments.

In the end, after all the conversations had completed, this ended up being the final numbers and abilities. As such, I’d recommend the additional property be added to the axe in Book 2.

Gunzarak (True Mithral) Mithral that's been masterfully refined and processed, making it lighter than aluminum and stronger than adamantine. Armor: Heavy and medium armor are treated as one category lighter. ACP is reduced by 3 (to a minimum of 0), Dex bonus is increased by 2, and ASF is reduced by 10%. Grants untyped damage reduction 1/— (light), 2/— (medium), 3/— (heavy) Weapons: Ignore hardness of less than 20. Considered adamantine and silver with regards to bypassing DR. Special: Always considered masterwork. Immune to rusting effects. Hardness 20; Hit Points 30 per inch Armor Costs: Light (+6,000 gp), Medium (+15,000 gp), Heavy (+22,000 gp) Weapons and other items: 775 gp/lb.

It shouldn’t need explanation, but just in case, “rusting effects” include that of rusting monsters and the rusting grasp spell. Also, true mithral isn’t adamantine, even if it counts as such, so it won’t have the same ‘hit points per inch’.

I know that some people are going to argue that it’s way too cheap, but it’s honestly not. Adamantine is way too overpriced, and you fail a single save against a rusting effect and that PC is out their armor. Not to mention, given any other price point, you’re better off taking mithral armor and wearing a belt of Con for the additional hit points or something that can regenerate your heal in some way. Anything else would just be considered a waste of money. I know, the players I talked to schooled me pretty hard in that regard, and broke down the math. Not to mention, if you allow 3PP products in home games, a psychic warrior with the biofeedback power has DR 2/— for 1 minute/level, and can augment that to make it even higher. If you can turn that same power into a permanent magic item, it costs 8,000 gp to buy, but only 4,000 gp to make. It’s about being practical with your money at higher level, and crafting items takes a long time when it’s in the high, high thousands.

That said, if you feel it should be significantly higher, like say: Light armor +6,500; Medium +16,000; and Heavy +28,500 gp, which were the original prices I was suggested to go with, then so be it, but don’t be surprised if the party tries to sell the items for something cheaper and more practical, and bank the rest of the gold. Even more so if they’re playing with the kind of GM who is very strict about the wealth table, and being even 1 gold piece over it means you’re ��broken” and no longer allowed an allowance until such time that you become high enough level to earn gold again. And, yes, those GMs absolutely exist, and players take that into consideration when it comes to their purchases. I will mention that my original prices were actually lower (14k and 20k for medium and heavy), but I was quickly talked out of it.

Again, this is what the decision came to be after multiple conversations with fellow TTRPG game designers (most having previously worked for Paizo) and players who’ve all played in very confining and restricted wealth games. In the end, we were all able to walk away happy. I have absolutely no idea how much Gary originally intended this material to cost, and I’m more than curious, but he had connections with Paizo as well (namely the director and lead designer, Jason Bulmahn), so it’s possible that our numbers aren’t all that different.

Segway: For anyone curious what a more practical cost for adamantine would be, Purple Duck Games published it as 750 gp for light weapons, 1500 gp for one-handed, and 3000 gp for two-handed. Armor was 4000, 8000, and 12000, respectfully. When it came to gunzarak, it was quoted as likely being 6000, 12000, and 18000 for the different armors. Weapons would probably start at 800 gp, to make it more of a round number, and different from adamantine. Mithral was also dropped to 350 gp for light weapons, 700 for one-handed, and 1400 for two-handed. Armor was 1000, 2000, and 3000. It sounds cheap, but the new Pathfinder 1.5 system they developed removed arcane spell failure.

Getting back to the original subject though, in Book 3, the party was supposed to discover the art of how to process the mithral, and I would bet that like in Book 2, the axe the PCs find is a key to a safe or another puzzle, that has that exact formula for how they’d do it. As to what that process is, I’ll leave it up to the GM. Their game, their rules. They would know best how it should be done in their own home games in their own home world.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

With that, the “Throne of Night” AP is complete. At least for now. All the known monsters have been identified and given stats (or linked to stats), the gunzarak is fleshed out a little more, an alternate race (that we should have seen in Book 3) was provided, a couple of extra monsters were added for additional encounters, more items were designed or showcased, and Mike’s fantastic art was shown off. Not to mention an entire AD&D adventure converted to Pathfinder 1e to help anyone finish their game without having to rely on books that don’t exist, and still give the AP some sense of finality. If there’s any more than that, I’ll do them as they come by may. At the very least, there’s more than enough to do your own game and give it a respectful ending.

If anything more if required, I made a resource page and posted a link on the Paizo forum for everyone to access. It has all of the relevant posts, additional adventures that could be used, suggestions and ideas from other GMs who homebrewed the rest of their own game, etc. A treasure trove of information for anyone needing it.

I thank everyone for coming with me on this journey.

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timelordthirteen · 7 years

Text

From My Drowning Heart - Part 2

Mr. Gold/Belle French, Explicit

Summary: The bride who ran away comes home. For the prompt “runaway bride” at @a-monthly-rumbelling

Chapter Summary: Belle runs away again, and so does Gold.

Notes: Okay I changed the rating, because I know me and there’s only one place this can go, and I have plans. At the time I started this, I had no idea where it was or if it was going. It was just a momentary one-shot thing. I should know me better by now, right? So I think I have the backstory decided, though there is still some wiggle room on the finer details. I'd like to keep the chapters shorter, since that makes my brain plan better, at least where fics like this are concerned, and if I put this out for prompts it means I can make them fit easier. I hope that's okay with everyone? :)

[AO3]

Belle stumbled as the heel of her shoe sunk into the mud and stuck. The strap around her ankle slipped, but the buckle caught, digging into her ankle. She lurched forward, grabbing the post of the road sign and almost spun herself around. The wind gusted and wobbled the sign back and forth, throwing rain in her face.

Leaving Storybrooke.

She was running again.

This time it was for completely different reasons, but that didn’t make it any better. She was a two-time runaway bride and there was no coming back from it. It might as well be stamped on her forehead for everyone to see. She left one man she loved at the altar, and almost married a man she didn’t love at all.

Well, she thought she loved him.

Then she made the terrible mistake of coming back to Storybrooke, of thinking that it was possible to get married in the only place that ever felt like home. She hadn’t counted on seeing Gold again, and of course once she had that had changed everything. In one instant it all had come back, the sunny day, the smell of the flowers, and way her dress made that soft swish sound when she walked.

Her reasons were sound at the time, she wouldn’t marry someone she didn’t trust, and Gold had broken it too many times to be forgiven again. But that didn’t make her feel less awful, or erase the sound of his desperate voice calling out to her. In that instant, she believed he loved her, really truly loved her, and that their relationship was more than a byproduct of another deal. The pain was too sharp then, so she ran. Even now every memory she had of that day was a pile of what-ifs saturated with regret.

Belle sniffled and wiped her hand across her nose, feeling the sticky smudge of tears and mucus and ruined makeup. The wind howled and pushed at her skirts, bunching them around her legs. She tripped again and just barely caught herself on the guardrail, her palm pressing against the metal edge, the cold stinging her flesh. She cried out and then fell to her knees, the ground squelching under her weight.

Wetness seeped into her dress, ruining the fabric and lace, and making it cling to her stockings. She closed her eyes and a broken sob escaped, but she quickly clamped a hand over her mouth to prevent any more. It took her a moment to collect herself, but once she had she realized she’d run out of town in her wedding dress, and had nowhere to go. It was like a scene from some cliche romance novel, a dramatic page ripped from Austin, except there was no Mr. Darcy walking through the rain to find her.

Her whole body sighed and sagged, and she thought about just laying down and letting herself roll into the ditch, wondering how long it would be until someone found her. A sound from behind her made her turn around, using the guard rail to push herself to her feet.

A black car rumbled towards her, the headlights blinding her as she tried to get out of the way. She almost fell backwards over the guardrail to get away from it, but the vehicle quickly slowed and pulled over to the shoulder of the road. Her stomach sank and a sick, terrified feeling twisted her gut as the car came to a stop.

The window rolled down and Belle staggered again in the soggy roadside. She bit her lip, looking up and down the road, wondering where she could possibly go to escape this moment, but it was impossible. She looked at the car again, biting her tongue to keep from making a sound as her eyes moved from the door, up to the open window, and finally to the face of its driver.

Gold’s mouth fell open as he leaned into the passenger seat. “Belle?”

For the next four days, Gold kept to himself as much as possible. He sent Mr. Dove to make the rounds collecting rent, and went only between his house to the pawn shop. He starting using the old coffee pot in the back workroom, and even tipped Ruby extra to deliver his lunch so he could avoid encountering Belle at Granny’s again. It seemed a bit childish, but he reasoned that it was better for both of them if they just pretended they’d never seen each other at all.

Memories left in the past. Emotions buried. Status quo maintained.

He learned that she was back for her wedding. It was a bit of a shock, though he'd noticed the ring, that she would come back here for the event, though he knew how hard it was to leave behind the place you thought of as home. Her father and friends still lived here, so he supposed she might as well, his feelings be damned. Her fiance’s name was Gary or Gareth or something, and the whole thing seemed to be happening rather quickly.

There was a an evening spent wondering why their engagement had been only two months, according to Leroy, but he wasn't in any sort of denial. His brain circulated enough what-ifs to dispel any lies he might tell himself about not caring that the woman he loved was marrying someone else. He'd found out quite accidentally from Dr. Hopper, that it was taking place today, Saturday, and despite the fact that all he had to do was stay in his shop or his house, he felt compelled him to be anywhere but Storybrooke.

At first, he thought about driving down to Boston, maybe catching a plane to New York, and seeing Neal. But the last time he’d dropped in unexpectedly on his son, the visit hadn’t gone well, and his desire to stay in his son’s good graces far outweighed wanting more miles between him and Belle’s wedding. There was something sort of cruelly poetic in the fact that it was he who was running away this time, even if it was for different reasons.

Truthfully, Gold could never find fault with Belle or her actions. She could have stayed and listened to his explanation, but ultimately, he had been up to his old ways again and broken her trust. Did it really matter if he’d done it to protect her, or if he’d do it all again just the same? That was the sort of bastard he was, and she deserved far better. He wouldn’t begrudge her any happiness, even if it wasn’t with him, but he still wanted to be hidden away at his cabin when the moment came and the bells called out from the old church.

Sighing, he guided his Cadillac around the corner where the speed limit changed and Main Street became the highway, on the way out of town. He started to speed up, when he noticed something on the side of the road. He frowned, angling his car towards the shoulder and the billowing white object. The windshield wipers squeaked, and suddenly he saw a person - a woman in a white dress - and he hit the brakes as swiftly, but gently, as he could.

The window streaked as it rolled down, wet from the rain, and his heart started pounding as he leaned over. His eyes went wide as the woman met his gaze, looking every bit like a frightened, trapped animal. His mind kept telling him it couldn’t be, that this was not happening. It was all some whiskey induced dream he’d wake up from, alone in his cabin, to find it was Sunday and he’d drunk the weekend away. But the spray of cold rain that hit him through the open window felt very real.

His brow furrowed and he hesitated, wanting to reach out to her, but thinking better of it. He open his mouth and barely managed, “Belle?”

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #belle x mr. gold #from my drowning heart #fic #my rumbelle fic #angst #upon angst #i'm so sorry

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ficdirectory · 7 years

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Blink (An AU Fosters family fic) Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

Jesus wakes up to the sound of the coffee-maker running. It doesn’t freak him out. Because back Then, he was the one who made the coffee. Jesus was the one who did everything chore-related. If somebody else is doing it, it must mean he’s okay.

He glances around. Sees Mom at the table in the kitchen. “Hey. Morning,” he calls.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she greets, picking up her coffee and walking to the living room. “Can I join you?”

“Sure,” he says, patting the space next to him.

Earlier this morning feels like a dream, especially since Moms don’t even know he was gone. But the memory of Pearl’s voice, with the cold, and the gradual brightening of the sky is clear:

You were a child, Jesus.

This is not on you.

Just like that, he feels heavy again. (Does grief usually weigh a ton?)

“I’ve been missing you these past few days. I miss talking to you. Hearing what’s on your mind. Is there anything you want to tell me?” Mom asks, concerned. She can see the shift that just happened on his face. Even if she doesn’t know what it means, she knows enough to check in.

“What if you don’t like what I have to say?” he asks carefully. “Will you get mad?”

“Family disagrees, my baby. I won’t get mad. I might ask questions. I might want to explain what my thought process was, if you’re interested. But I’m not mad now. I’m okay,” she reminds him.

It’s not like when him and Mama sit together. Jesus and Mom each keep their own space. They don’t touch. They’re alike in the ways they cope badly with stress. It’s kinda comforting when it’s not terrifying. Knowing he’s got something in common with someone he doesn’t even share blood with.

“I’ve been mad at you,” he confesses.

“You have?”

He nods.

“You wanna tell me why?” she asks.

Jesus checks out her hands. Her face. Calm. “You ran a background check on Pearl.”

“I did,” she confirms.

“You ran one on Pearl but not on Mrs. Mitchell or her son…” Jesus elaborates, looking away.

There’s a big pause and Jesus holds his breath.

“That must feel like a big betrayal,” Mom says, surprising him.

“It does,” he nods. “Because Pearl’s good. And He wasn’t.” Jesus risks a look at Mom’s face. “I know He searched for me, Mom.”

Her mouth opens. Shocked.

“He told me all about it when He did it. It was only a little bit after. Maybe a week. Told me He got to talk to you and everything. I felt so jealous. I held that pin thing, that you guys had made with my picture on it. I wondered if you held onto it, too. If you gave it to Him… I really wanted you to find me, Mom,” Jesus admits quietly.

Mom takes a slow deep breath. “I really wanted to find you, too. And I’m so sorry He fooled me.”

“He used to look at us in the yard…” Jesus admits.

“What?” Mom asks, trying to keep her voice down.

“Me and Mariana. She thought He was looking at her. Now, I think He was watching me. But we were so used to creepy dudes from when we were little, you know, that we didn’t say anything.”

Mom looks like she’s having a hard time taking in everything, so Jesus waits. Maybe this was too much. Maybe he should stop. But he has more to tell her. Because if Pearl wasn’t a dream this morning that means he really did call Dr. H. way early, and she really did tell him to be sure he let his moms know how he was feeling, and that he needed to come in right away Monday morning.

“So, it’s kinda our fault, too, I think…” Jesus ventures, wanting Mom to feel better.

“No, it is not your fault. He was dangerous, and Mama and I should have been paying closer attention.”

“It’s okay,” he says, even though it’s not and they both know it. “You were the one who found me. It just took a little bit long.”

“Four years too long, Jesus. Listen, I know it feels unfair that no one checked His background. It is. It was a failure on my part. That doesn’t mean that checking out Pearl wasn’t the right thing to do. It’s what parents should do when adults spend time with their kids, because when we can’t be there, we want to know you’re safe.”

“I am safe with her,” Jesus nods.

“You had a tough night last night, yes? How are you feeling today?”

His mind reels. First the shower from hell if hell was made of ice and then the terrible Isaac memories sneak-attacking him in the middle of the night, and then this morning with Pearl. He remembers Mom’s word from Monday night:

“Raw. Guilty. Like, heavy.”

Mom just listens.

“Dr. H. said I should tell you that. And that I need to come in right away on Monday morning.”

“So you were able to touch base with her. That’s good. I’m proud of you. I’m proud that you’re reaching out to people when you need them.”

Jesus is quiet. He never knows what to say when Mom praises him, because it always feels weird. If not from Before then from when he was super young, and the only messages he and Mariana ever got were how they were in the way, and bad, and all that.

“So, can I?” he asks finally. “You know...go in in the morning on Monday instead of afternoon? I know we’d be tired from coming back and we all have school but...I really need this, Mom. It’s been really hard for me here.”

“Jesus, yes. Of course. It’s something you need, so we’ll make it work. Now, how do you feel about a hug?”

“Um...I’m pro hug.”

“You are? Are you also pro forehead kiss?”

“Yes...I mean if you want me to have them, I am.”

Mom wraps her arms around him and then takes his face in her hands and kisses his forehead a bunch. “For all the rawness, and the guilt and the heaviness…” she whispers.

“Thanks,” he sighs, a little relieved.

“Pearl…” Mom admonishes two seconds after she has picked up the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I tell you what?” Pearl asks, aggravated already. How her mom can put her on the defensive immediately remains both a mystery and a special skill honed just by her mother.

“That that boy you’re hanging around with is the one missing from San Diego!” she exclaims.

Pearl doesn’t know what to say to this, so she stays quiet. Too much of Jesus’s privacy could be compromised if she said anything.

“It was all over the news. Jesus Foster. Stefanie’s son. Frank’s grandson. It was such a shock when it happened. I mean, I’d never met any of the adopted kids, but still! How are they doing now? I remember Stefanie of course from when you were younger, but having a tragedy like that happen will change you…”

Pearl grits her teeth. “Yeah, I know all about that…” she wants to say, but doesn’t. She doesn’t want to open this can of worms.

“How long are they staying?”

“They’re leaving soon,” Pearl says. This much she can admit to, and hopefully dissuade her mom from making the two hour drive from the cities to interrogate Jesus, Stef and the family.

“Well, tell me. How does he seem? Jesus? Is life very difficult for him?”

“Mom, it’s really none of our business how his life is.”

“Well, he apparently thinks it’s your business. Going grocery shopping with you. You know Gary thought he recognized him, but he gave some kind of false name. You know, now that I think about it, I’m positive it’s the one he used when he was living in LA.”

Pearl is on the fast track toward irate. Her mom’s tone is beyond aggravating. As if Jesus had a choice in his own abduction. As if he had a choice in what he was called while he was there.

“You know, the news reports suggested he’d struggle with all kinds of things. His poor family. Having to deal with all of that. They deserve a vacation.”

“Is that how you feel about me, Mom?” Pearl can’t help asking. “Did I ruin your life, too?”

“What are you talking about?” Mom sounds offended now. “This conversation isn’t about you.”

“Isn’t it?” Pearl asks.

Gracie’s here, thank God. Or Pearl would be struggling much worse than this. She’s lying across her lap. Gracie’s always ready for Mom’s calls.

“Of course not. But let’s not pretend that a daughter living at home until she’s twenty-four is anything any mother wants. I wanted to see you go to college. Get a job. Get married. Have kids. You barely graduated high school.”

“Wow…” Pearl laughs to hide her tears. “Well, thank you. I’m glad to know I’m such a disappointment to you.”

“It’s not how you planned your life, either,” Mom defends. “You wanted to be a teacher, and now you’re knitting.”

“It’s a job,” Pearl insists.

“It’s a hobby,” Mom shoots back. “You can’t make a living doing that.”

“I’m doing fine.”

“It seems like quite the opposite. You can’t even live on your own without that dog, and now you’re making a spectacle of yourself walking around with some former missing child.”

“Living my life doesn’t make me a spectacle,” Pearl maintains.

“It does when you get yourself--” Mom stops herself just short, but Pearl hears the words anyway. Challenges her.

“What, Mom? Get myself raped? I was sixteen years old. All I did was give a guy a ride.”

“...That’s not all you did…” Mom mutters under her breath.

“Oh my God… Are you serious right now? You honestly don’t believe me? What if Gladys told you the same thing? You’d believe her!”

“Of course I would.”

“So, why does my word carry so much less weight than anyone else’s?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Pearl’s quiet, trying to stifle her tears.

“No. You know what? Don’t. I don’t need to hear it. I already know. I know exactly what you think of me.”

“Pearl…”

“Bye, Mom,” Pearl says, and hangs up the phone.

Gracie’s here, licking her face, but it doesn’t help. Her mom is blaming her. Her mom who stood by her side after it happened. Who was there through everything. Not always patient. Not always understanding. But this...Pearl never imagined this.

“Is this my fault?” she asks Gracie tearfully.

Gracie cries and licks her face. She gets that it’s always tough for Pearl to talk to Mom, but it has just reached a new level of unbearable. She thinks about Jesus not so far away, and aches for him. Tries to think about other ways to cope that are not sleeping for days.

Char’s at work and so is Pav. Jesus is right next door, but God, he’s already having a hard time. Does she really wanna add to it? Plus, hasn’t she already told herself she’s not about to rely on him the way he needs her. It’s not fair to him.

So she turns to Gracie:

“You know I didn’t want it to happen, right?” she sniffs, wrapping her arms around Gracie.

Gracie makes a sympathetic noise.

“You know giving him a ride was a mistake?” Pearl tries, her voice breaking.

Gracie is as devastated as Pearl is by the turn things have taken.

For a while, Pearl just lets herself cry. Inconsolable at the thought of her mother’s blame heaped upon her own shoulders when she already carries enough guilt for several lifetimes. Doesn’t she know Pearl plays that moment over and over in her mind? Doesn’t she know that Pearl gets that if she had just made a different choice, things could be entirely different now?

She doesn’t love her issues. She lives with them most of the time. Pearl knows that without them she likely would not have met Jesus, or Pav or Char, who have all quickly made space in Pearl’s heart as deeply important people, and close friends. But she would let all that go, if it meant her mom could love her fully again. That she could believe that Pearl’s judgment was sound, or at least, to try to understand how a well-meaning naive teenager might make the wrong call in just trying to do the right thing.

Pearl stares at her phone, and the screen blurs with tears.

#fic: blink #fosters fic

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