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literallyjustanerd · 5 months

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The Sun Still Sets In Summer

Omega wants to join The Rebellion, and Hunter must learn to let go.

Fresh off the finale, and the epilogue got me feeling things. Mostly feeling that Hunter would not have let Omega go without a whole lot of struggle first.

This is just part one, the finished fic will have a chapter for each season :) I really wanted to explore Hunter's state of mind and thought process when faced with Omega growing up and wanting to leave for The Rebellion.

Set post-TBB finale, beware of spoilers!

Words: 1,022 Content: angst, communication issues, overprotective dad Hunter, implied PTSD

The sun is still warm, though the wind carries a slight chill. Just enough to nip at Hunter's fingertips, an omen of the coming winter. Still, he keeps the window open for the view. Pabu is ablaze with reds and yellows, the changing leaves incandescent under the setting sun.

He’s enjoying the warmth on his face when Omega enters, laden with a heavy basket of produce from the market.

“Careful with those. You look like you’re about to tip over,” Hunter chuckles, only briefly glancing up from the filleted fish on the cutting board.

“Lyana says it's a good harvest this year,” Omega replies brightly. She sets the basket down next to the fish with a barely-disguised grunt, and hops up to sit on the counter. “Even the meilooruns are cheaper than usual.”

“Don't tell Wrecker, they'll be gone in a day,” Hunter jokes. “Get down from there and help me with dinner.”

Hunter had never thought of himself as someone who would enjoy routine, let alone thrive on it. But in the years since they had found their peace on Pabu, he has been lulled by the simple, easy rhythms of daily life, found comfort in the small rituals they create. He rises early in the morning. He works, he tends the garden. He sews patches in his family's worn clothes. And he's never been happier.

Omega hops off the bench and pulls out a pot to start on the vegetables. As she does, she flicks on the subspace radio and tunes it to her usual station. The music puts a bounce in her step as she slices the vegetables and sets them in the pot to stew, and Hunter can't help but smile. It’s a familiar song, a tawdry pop tune Hunter had always found overloud and irritating. A favourite of Omega’s, though, and she hums along as they work side by side. The moment is mundane, like so many thousands over the last five years. They have never stopped feeling like blessings.

“Wrecker and Cross should be back from the docks soon,” Omega says, giving the pot a shake. “Think they were going to help Shep repair some of the ships after their haul.”

Hunter adds the first fish to the pot as the song fades out. It's replaced by a news bulletin, read in a strong, stern voice.

At the first mention of Ryloth, the sun's warmth is stolen from the room. Hunter glances to the side: Omega's hand has tightened on the pot handle, frozen in place. There's an anxious flutter in Hunter's ear: Omega's pulse has quickened. The radio speaks of the smothered rebellion on Ryloth as a cause for celebration. The announcer espouses the joy of a coming peace, of unity within The Empire's broad embrace. Under the flowery language, Hunter can hear the Twi’leks’ desperate struggle for freedom.

‘Rebel extremists have attempted to retake the system's capital, though losses have been minimal. Sources say Imperial casualties are far outweighed by those of the insurgents.’

“I've been speaking to Hera.”

Omega's words bring a lump to Hunter’s throat. She's not looking at him, not even facing him. Her words are icy around the edges. “It's getting really bad out there.”

He can't say he hasn't been expecting this for some time. But not now. Please, not now. He's not ready.

“Omega—”

“They need pilots. The Rebellion are doing what they can, but people are still suffering.”

“The Rebellion will find its volunteers. People will go. Your place is here,” Hunter says, his tone clipped. The scrape of his knife against the fishscale grates against his nerves. It only drives his hand harder on the blade.

‘Imperial reports predict that the rebel terrorists on Ryloth will be eliminated within the month.’

“People out there are suffering. They’re giving their lives. How am I supposed to sit here when I know I could be helping?”

The sun through the window is losing its battle against the horizon. The room has begun to dim, the light turned cold and blue.

“It's not safe for you out there.”

“I know it's not! That's the point, I—”

“I said no, Omega!” Hunter’s knife impales the cutting board, cleaving the fish's neck from its body. His words are harsh, a barking command, and it feels discordant, out of place. Hunter hasn't used that voice in years. Not since the battlefield. As much as he instantly regrets the outburst, it still has its desired effect: Omega has fallen silent, her protests all but dried up in her throat.

For longer than Hunter can bear to count, neither of them move, neither speak. His jaw is tight, his nerves frayed against the silence. The sharp staccato of Omega’s heartbeat hammers in his ear. She inhales softly, trying to smother it, but still Hunter can hear how her breath trembles. Outside, the last dregs of warmth have abandoned them, the sun slowly drowning in the black ocean below. Hunter wants to apologise. He wants to explain. He wants to take his little girl in his arms and hold her so close to him, have her bury her head in his chest like she used to after a nightmare, trusting him, asking him to keep her safe.

But many seasons have passed since she had last needed him for that kind of comfort. And now when she hugs him, her head reaches higher than his.

He wants to apologise. He does. But the words don't come. They're smothered, crushed between the weight of the past at his back and the future ahead. His mind swims, a sordid mess of tangled thoughts and feelings he can't hope to decode into anything logical. So instead, he reaches up with unsteady hands, and closes the windows against the twilight chill. He switches off the murmuring radio. He continues slicing fish. Over his shoulder, he hears Omega move. She bends to the bottom cupboard to pull out plates and cups, and, stoic and wordless, with eyes downturned, she begins setting the table for dinner.

For all his guilt, Hunter can't help but feel relieved that the conversation is over.

#hoping to have the rest of this done in the next day or so :)#me: i love these characters! also me: how can I hurt them in the most profound way #tbb #tbb s3 #the bad batch #tbb fic #tbb omega #clone trooper hunter #hunter and omega #drabble

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quaranmine · 1 year

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The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Eight)

July, fireworks, and some insight into someone we don’t actually know much about.

Chapter Eight: 5,436

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

HEY Y'ALL! Those of you who follow me on tumblr have been kept pretty well apprised of this chapter's progress, but it's good to be back. I've struggled with this chapter a lot, not out of any fault of its own, just because real life decided to beat me over the head in July and August.

Anyway, this chapter has a few content warnings. CW for past injury, car accident, death, and as always…grief. Nothing graphic but it beat me over the head while I was writing it oof.

Finally, as a disclaimer—there is information in this chapter about wildfire survival. I’m not an expert, and some of these topics are quite literally life or death in real life. I’m an entry level environmental scientist whose only professional experience is in topics entirely unrelated to this. While I have done my research on this fic and done my best to always present accurate information, I am not a reliable source. This is a Hermitcraft AU fanfiction. Please do not take or substitute anything I say in place of information from actual professionals, lol.

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

»»———-　　———-««

July 1989

It’s July, and there’s a complete burn ban put in place for Shoshone and the other national parks and national forests that surround it. If you ask Scar, it should have been put into place two weeks ago. The scattered storms and rain in May and early June has done nothing for the landscape now, which is dry and still full of theoretical tinder from years of fire-suppression activities.

It’s July, and it’s sweltering outside. The main radio chatter during the daily weather conditions report says the temperatures have been record-breaking in the region. This is unsurprising to Grian—his cabin feels like less of a lookout and more of a greenhouse these days, with the inescapable sun taking great advantage of all the windows. He’s not really cut out for the heat of the summer. It makes the days feel listless and blend together, but at least it cools off in the evenings.

The fire season starts to ramp up in other ways too. There’s a fire reported in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, located immediately to their southwest, and officials seem concerned it will grow quickly with the hot, dry temperatures and wind. Elsewhere around the country the picture seems just as bleak: fires in the 1989 season have already burned hundreds of thousands more acres than the same time period in 1988.

Apparently, the Two Forks lookout had gone unstaffed for several years prior, before the Yellowstone fires last year caused the agency to consider hiring more staff. The fires last year also, coincidentally, increased the budget for this year’s activities.This seems to have been a prudent decision, because the season is shaping up to have a spark indeed. They’re keen to use Grian as much as possible.

Grian can’t see the smoke column from the Bridger-Teton fire on the horizon; it’s too far away. Instead he starts to notice that his visibility on the horizon is worse now, as the haze in the sky slowly grows. Distant mountains that were once brown and green are now wispy tones of flat yellow and gray. The Trout Fire still burns steadily in the distance. It’s a stubborn nuisance to the Forest personnel, but not a big enough fire yet to garner any worry. There’s more than enough worry to be passed elsewhere.

All of this would be enough on its own, but another contender has just stepped into the ring: Independence Day.

The 4th of July is on a Tuesday this year, which means Grian and Scar get the wonderful privilege of working overtime all weekend watching the mountains, and holiday pay for the day itself. In all likelihood, people will be just as likely to celebrate on Saturday or Sunday or Monday as on Tuesday. Mary, a lookout in a more northern section of the Forest, has already called in to report a few incidents in her sector. The extra pay is welcomed; the responsibility for idiots is not.

Fireworks are strictly banned, of course. The acknowledgement of that, however, requires campers to actually care in the first place. They do not.

And so the month begins.

»»———-　　———-««

Fire is, both philosophically and literally, one of the most important things humanity has ever been able to harness. It can be the difference between life and death, and yet it is both life and death. Fire fosters warmth and light and power and life. Fire caresses life and leaves behind destruction.

Shoshone National Forest exists as part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest mostly-intact temperate-zone ecosystems in the world. It’s part of a great chain of protected lands and wilderness spaces in the northern Rocky mountains. Shoshone is the second piece of that puzzle—just as Yellowstone National Park was the first national park to be established, the neighboring Shoshone National Forest was the first ever national forest to be designated in the United States.

It is also, like the other lands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, fire-dependent. Plants and animals living in such ecosystems are often adapted to their local fire regime, which is the expected pattern, frequency, and intensity of the fires in their area.

Lodgepole pines dominate the middle elevations of the Shoshone National Forest, and are the poster child of a fire-dependent species. These trees produce cones that are sealed with a tight resin that relies on fire to melt it. Fire is, therefore, essential to the reproduction of the species. But fire is also essential to their life cycle in another way: just as fire is necessary for the baby trees to sprout, lodgepole pines are very easily killed by fire.

And if the fires kill the weaker Engelmann spruce found in Shoshone’s higher elevations, that’s okay too—it just leaves room for the much more tolerant whitebark pine trees to grow without being outcompeted. Fire similarly benefits wildlife in Shoshone by diversifying the forest understory, encouraging growth of new plants, and providing dead tree snags for shelter.

It kills, but it also supports life.

The history of Shoshone National Forest and fire has its bleak moments. In 1937, a lightning strike started the Blackwater Fire in the Absaroka Range, a range of mountains located predominantly in the national forest. Dry weather and high winds turned the fire into one of the deadliest wildland firefighting stories in American history, with 15 firefighters killed and 38 injured.

Labor laws are written in blood. Safety rules and best management practices are, too. Although no fault was assigned for the tragedy—a rigorous investigation deemed the situation was out of anybody’s control—the Blackwater Fire would ultimately change the landscape of wildland firefighting. It is remembered in the Ten Standard Firefighting Orders, a set of systematic guidelines developed by the US Forest Service afterward to reduce danger for firefighters.

These orders are still in use today.

So what is a lookout’s role in a wildfire, other than keeping watch for it? Historically fire lookouts were used as firefighters themselves—expected to hop on a horse and head straight to a fire after seeing it, tools in hard—but in modern times lookouts are primarily used for providing updates. A lookout’s job is not complete once a fire is spotted and reported. They are expected to provide constant updates on its size and location, as well as assist firefighters and smokejumpers from their position. This work is very important—so important that sometimes fire lookouts don’t evacuate the scene until a helicopter is required for their rescue.

And what if you’re a hiker? What if you’re on the ground? The prospects aren't good: hikers should just avoid being caught around a wildfire at all costs. Survival odds are, unfortunately, low.

But what if you can't avoid it?

Try to determine which way the wind is blowing and remain upwind of the fire. Fires also burn fastest uphill, so seek lower ground. Fires will burn cooler and slower downhill. Try to find a safe spot from the fire, something that would burn less easily such as a rock slide, a large meadow, or a lake. Crown fires burn tall and hot in the tops of trees, so even a meadow will be safer than a forest. Cover your nose and mouth with clothing to protect your airways. Huddle close to any large object that can buffer the ambient heat. Lay face down. Don’t attempt to outrun the fire.

Sometimes, setting your own fire is an option. Burning out an area large enough for you to lie in can allow the wildfire to move around the already burned spot—but this attempt is best saved for a grassland. Forests take too long to burn. And if the fire is close, and if you can see a safe, already burned spot through it, and if the flames are less than five feet tall, the best option might be to just run through the fire.

Jumping in water is an option, but that might not save you. Superheated air, smoke inhalation, and lack of oxygen in the area is a primary concern. Fires move faster than most people can imagine. Fires can create their own wind, their own weather.

Fire, above all, should always be respected.

»»———-　　———-««

“Draw something for me,” Scar says suddenly into the still blue air of the dusk. “And, dude, turn your light on already.”

“Huh?” Grian says. He frankly doesn’t mind sitting in the dark while there’s still a little light left in the sky to adjust to, but his hand reaches automatically for the lantern’s switch before he even really processes Scar’s words. With a soft click the cabin is bathed in warm tones. Really, the reflections on the windows only obscure their visibility now that it’s mostly dark, but it’s undeniably more cozy now.

“Ah, it’s good to see your little light in the way over yonder,” Scar says. “You’re like my little firefly in the mountains!”

Grian rolls his eyes at that. “What did you mean by ‘draw for me’?” he asks, blocking any spontaneous attempts at poetry Scar can make.

“I mean, I’m bored. And I know you’re bored. It’s been a long day.” He hums a little to himself. “Figured you might wanna do something to pass the time.”

Scar’s right, it has been a long day. It’s the 4th of July, and they’re in it for the long haul. Grian thinks they should have just been allowed to sleep and clock in later in the day—who sets off fireworks at 8 AM?—but the fire season doesn’t rest and neither do they. Now, it’s evening, and this is where the real monitoring begins: after dark.

Unfortunately, it’s also when the morale to keep sitting at the desk is starting to dip precipitously. Firewatching after dark is difficult and typically something they aren’t required to do. As a lookout, he primarily looks for smoke, not fire. Fires themselves are often too small or too tucked away for their light to be seen, and at night the smoke blends into the dark sky. But fireworks, fortunately, tend to announce themselves gaudily.

Mostly, it’s the sheer personal resolve to pay attention that takes the greatest hit. Scar’s idea isn’t a bad one, there’s just one significant snag:

“I don’t draw,” Grian reminds him gently.

“But you used to,” Scar persists.

“I drew houses,” Grian corrects, even though he knows that his drafting is far from the only thing he’s practiced over the years. “For work. It’s not the same.”

“Well, then draw your lookout,” Scar says and then seems to almost cut off his own thought with a—”Ooh, maybe draw mine instead!”

“I can’t do that.” It’s a black and white statement of fact, but Scar doesn’t agree.

“C’mon,” he says. “You definitely brought your materials with you, I know it.”

“You don’t have any way of knowing that.”

“You have to have a pencil and a notebook, right? How do you take your notes for the morning reports?” Scar says this in the sort of way where he knows he’s right. He says it playfully, like it’s a silly mistake right under Grian’s nose.

“Okay, fine,” Grian says, trying to imbue an eye-roll into his words. “I get it.”

He’s not really sure why he picks up the yellow legal pad from the corner of the table, or the pencil in the cup. He tears the top sheet off where he had, in fact, scribbled some notes earlier about temperature and wind speed.

The thing is, Scar can’t even see him. He could lie to Scar and say sure, of course, I’ll do it, and Scar would be none the wiser, miles away on the horizon.

He picks up the pencil. The notebook stares back, blank except for the faint lines.

He does try to draw his lookout first, from memory. He thinks of it the way he always does in memory—a snapshot, perfectly clear image his mind took one day. In his mind's eye, the lookout starts to rise over the horizon in the late afternoon sun while he hikes up the hill towards it. He doesn’t have a ruler in the tower, so he carefully uses the spine of one of the old paperbacks as a straight edge to run his pencil against.

It just…doesn’t look right. First of all, angles are off. He’s messed up the two point perspective somehow and he doesn’t have his usual drafting materials with him anymore. But it’s more than that. The lookout, despite being bathed in golden light in his visual memory, just doesn’t feel inviting. It’s just intimidating. A place where, despite its natural beauty, Grian just sees his worst days play out over and over again.

He crumbles the paper again and tosses it to the side. He grabs the radio again.

“Scar, you paint don’t you?” Grian says. “You’re an artist.”

“Well, I guess if you say so,” says Scar slyly, “one could refer to me as a bit of an artist.”

“Why?”

The bluntness throws Scar. “Huh?”

“Why do you do it?”

“Why am I an artist?”

“Yeah. What made you start?”

Scar is quiet for a long time. Not too long to be worrying, but enough to seem…contemplative. He finally replies, “You know, I always liked it. In school I’d always get recruited to help with posters and stuff ‘cause I was one of the better ones at art, which maybe said more about them than me because I wasn’t an artist then. I didn’t practice. I didn’t know anything.”

There’s another pause, but not as long. Grian doesn’t interrupt.

“It wasn’t really until after my accident that I started pursuing it more. It was somethin’ to do! And one of the nurses told me it might be meditative. Help me out a little.”

“Did it?” Grian asks softly.

“I think so,” Scar says, and then with a little bit of a chuckle he adds: “But I don’t think I have to tell you though that sometimes a drawing frustrates you so much you want to throw it across the room! It isn’t all meditation. But I think that’s the point.”

Grian flushes a little. Scar’s comment is truer than he knows; the crumpled evidence of his most recent drawing attempt still sits on the floor by his chair. He reaches for the pencil again, and looks at the page once more. Maybe he will try to draw Scar’s lookout. He won’t tell that to Scar, of course, because he’ll be insufferable about it, but maybe he’ll try.

Grian doesn’t really know exactly what Scar’s lookout looks like. It’s far away, and he’s looked at it in the binoculars a few times, but the details are always fuzzy and hard to make out; each shake of his hand jolts the image at that level of magnification. And it’s far too dark for him to look again, so—so he improvises. Scar’s cabin is not on a tower like Grian’s is. It's situated on a large piece of rock at the top of a mountain. It doesn’t need to be on a tower, because there’s nothing around it tall enough to block the view, unlike the trees next to his tower. He fills in the details as he remembers, and creates new ones in the place of things he forgot.

The soft scratch-scratch of the pencil is lost to the noise of the radio again. “I broke my arm pretty badly at the time—needed surgery on that—but it wasn’t my dominant hand so I still painted. I like doing landscapes, mostly,” Scar says. “Pretty things. I grew up in nature. My dad and I went camping a lot. I missed it. I…wanted to do that again. Didn’t know if I would do that again.”

“I would love to see one of your paintings,” Grian says.

“I don’t really think they’re worth getting excited for,” Scar says, doing a bit of regrettably predictable artist’s humility. “But I’ll mail you one, if you want. Oh! Maybe you’ll even get a little surprise. Jellie likes to help me sign a few pieces, whether I want her to or not…”

The idea of a painting signed with a paw print is so utterly charming to Grian that he almost suggests that Scar should do it with all his paintings as some sort of signature flair. Then it occurs to him that it might be hard to wash a cat’s paws, and starts to ask Scar about what he does—in his cabin in the middle of nowhere with no running water—when a sparkle catches the corner of his eye.

Grian whips his head around just in time to see the sparks die. “Ugh,” he radios. “I just saw a firework. Super far away though.”

“Well, I was surprised neither of us had seen anything yet. Go ahead and mark the general direction of it even if it’s out of your district. Hopefully if there’s a fire someone else closer will catch it, but you could always check on it in the morning.”

Grian wanders over to the firefinder in the center of the room. Conveniently reminding him of which direction it was, several more fireworks go off in quick succession—golden, blue, red. It’s too dark to take a real reading, so he just points the sight in the general vicinity of the celebrations and takes its azimuth. He’ll spend extra time tomorrow examining this direction.

As he takes the measurements, a thought drifts into his mind. It’s something about the convergence of this specific job, a job nobody’s ever heard about in a Forest overlooked because of its more popular neighbors, and the wistful quality of Scar’s voice when he spoke about the subjects of his paintings. He found this job advertised in a newspaper. How did Scar find it? Who trained him to do this?

He sits back at the desk, and starts to sketch in the mountains around Scar’s lookout. This, he remembers well. He knows the familiar fold of the hills and peaks like the back of his hand, even after a little more than two months on the job.

The question circles his mind.

“Scar,” he says finally. “You know why I came here. To this job. To this National Forest. I’ve…made that really clear, whether I wanted to or not. But I don’t think you’ve ever said why you came.”

“Oh,” Scar says. His voice is quiet. “I guess I haven’t.”

Grian lays the radio down on the table, giving Scar space to speak. There’s something about the way Scar acknowledged him that sounds like he’s been exposed. One thing Grian has come to learn about him is that he’s a smoothtalker, and an excellent actor. Scar has dramatic flair in spades, and if he really wanted to, he’d spin a captivating tale for Grian about the totally-true events leading up to his place in this forest. It’d be as truthful as his name.

He doesn’t, though.

“People come out here for a lot of reasons, but not every person can stick with it. It’s lonely, for sure. And, of course,” he chuckles, “the bugs are pretty bad. I’ll tell you right now, I’ve seen more than a few volunteers and new lookouts suddenly get afraid of the dark when it’s just them and no one else for miles,” Scar says. “But the people who stay tend to fall into two categories.”

“What are they?”

“People who are running from something and people who are looking for something.”

There’s no need to question which category Grian is in. Not when he’s already laid his whole soul open for Scar to pick through and deeply intertwined himself in this mystery.

There’s only this: “Which one are you?”

“It’s hard to say,” Scar replies. “But I think I was running away.”

And Grian wants to say from what? but he doesn’t. And he wants to be sitting in Scar’s lookout right now, or anywhere but here, but he isn’t.

He sets the pencil down, temporarily abandoning the drawing he’s been scratching this whole time. He looks straight ahead through the window, but the glare from the lamp on the glass just reflects his own face right back at him. In the shadow where his head is, he can pick out the faint outlines of the hills beyond.

“You can’t run from yourself though,” Scar says. “‘Cause it just follows you. And being alone with yourself just makes you face it faster. I think my mom was right. She was worried about me. That’s why she made me take Jellie to keep me company.”

“I think I need to meet this Jellie,” Grian says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Scar doesn’t typically sound so serious, and it’s a little jarring. “She sounds pretty fantastic.”

“She is, she’s—hey, what about meeting me?”

“Nah, I think I prefer the cat,” he says. Cheeky.

“Well, I can’t say I don’t agree,” Scar says. He sighs. “I guess I should just talk about it, right? You can ask me whatever you want. ‘Cause the more I ramble, the less I talk about it, and the less I actually answer your question. Which is the fun of rambling! If you say enough words people forget about what you’re distracting them from. Oh, but I don’t know why I’m telling you that. A true salesman never gives up any secrets. I’m only a salesman in the winter, though. What am I selling now? I guess I’m selling myself. Wait—no, not like that, don’t you dare be laughing over there, G-man!”

Grian says nothing, and he isn’t laughing. He just lets Scar’s words fill the space. He doesn’t ask anything else. It feels hypocritical to do so. He’s dying to know everything, of course, but he also knows what it’s like—that looming weight on your neck from the pressure of well-meaning friends who just want to talk when all you want to do is be alone. If Scar has come all the way out here, then he must really have wanted to be alone.

Scar seems to rattle himself out of it on his own. “I’m stalling again,” he says, voice like lead. “I’ll just start. It’s okay. It’s been 10 years. I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Grian says. “I was just curious. You know all this about me but I didn’t know anything about you. But if it’s a…thing then you don’t have to.”

“No, no,” he says. “It’s fine. I already told you a lot of the story. I just left out some pieces.”

“It’s a slow night,” Grian says. “Only a few fireworks. Plenty of time to talk, if you want…or plenty of time to just watch.”

“I appreciate that,” Scar replies. He takes a deep breath. It’s a funny thing, that. Grian can’t see Scar’s face—he has no idea about anything, even what color hair he has—but he knows the sound of Scar’s breathing.

“I told you about my accident,” Scar begins. “I told you about how it nearly killed me, about the hospital, about taking up painting. And I told you about the way I’m still in pain, even years later. I don’t think it’s ever going to fully go away. But that wasn’t really the whole truth, or the worst part. The worst part was that I wasn’t the only one in the accident.

“I should have been, though. I was the one driving. I was just running an errand, but I was living with my parents at the time so I asked my dad to come with me to help me pick something out. I don’t even remember what it was. And I don’t remember the accident, either. I only know what they told me. I read the accident report. But there’s a wall of glass between me and what happened. Apparently, we hit some black ice in the road and it spun the car into the other lane. We got hit by a truck. It happened so fast. He didn’t know what was coming either.”

Scar pauses there. Grian tries to take in the story. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That sounds terrifying.”

Scar’s voice breaks on the next line. “The doctor told me my dad was dead when the paramedics arrived. They think he probably died instantly. I don’t remember that, though. I don’t remember anything. I just—I just woke up a week later in the ICU. That’s what I remember. Everything was just so fuzzy and hurt so bad. I could tell something was up but I was too tired. I slept. They waited three days and made my mom break the news.”

“Oh, Scar,” Grian says. “I’m so sorry.” But everyone is sorry. They’re always sorry. It doesn’t do anything. So instead he adds, “You must have been so scared. It must have been confusing.”

“It was ten years ago. I’m fine,” Scar repeats, and Grian doesn’t comment on the way it sounds like a lie. Maybe it isn’t a lie on most days of the week, but it certainly is tonight. Scar continues to talk. “I don’t know why that’s what messes me up the most. That I caused it and I don’t remember it. That it’s my fault but I didn’t know for so long.”

“It’s not your fault,” Grian says gently. “It was an accident. That’s what accidents are, they’re not on purpose. So it can’t be your fault.”

“And you’re right, G-man,” Scar says. His voice wavers. “I already know that. It isn’t my fault. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I didn’t know about the ice. I know it’s not my fault but…it’s really hard to believe that, isn’t it?”

Grian swallows against a lump in his throat, and flicks his eyes down to the table. It’s the hardest thing in the world, just below staying alive.

“I just think about everything I could have done differently. Why didn’t I just go alone? Why didn’t I wait until the next day? What if I was driving slower? Would the difference of one mile per hour, or five, or ten have been the difference between life and death? What if I had reacted faster, or better? What if I saved the car from spinning? If I had left just one minute earlier, or five seconds earlier, there might not have been traffic in the oncoming lane. If I had left three hours earlier, maybe the temperature would have still been high enough to keep the ice from refreezing.”

He stops to take a breath. “It doesn’t ever stop. And it doesn’t bring anyone back. The worst is thinking about the things you did and the things you didn’t. Like maybe I would have told him I loved him that morning if I’d known that was the last day I’d see him. Or maybe I wouldn’t have stolen $20 from him and then lied about it when I was 8 years old. Or maybe I would have asked him again to tell me about his funniest story from when he was a teenager. But that’s just how it is, I think. It all comes back to you.”

“How do you deal with it?” Grian whispers.

“Badly,” Scar says, and for once he doesn’t sound like he’s on the brink of tears. “You go forward. And then backward. And then forward again. You live through it.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You’re already doing it.”

“I’m not doing it very good.”

“That’s the only way you can do it.”

There hasn’t been any more fireworks since they started talking. The night outside is dark, with only the slightest sliver of a new moon. Millions of tiny stars glitter in the sky in nearly uninterrupted view. It’s a beautiful night out there, hot and still, but Grian stays in the four walls of his cabin. Enclosed.

Scar speaks. “One of my steps was coming back here. I think, in the end, it was a step forward. This place gives me comfort. I always liked this part of the state. My dad used to take me camping out here all the time, like once a summer. Sometimes we went to Yellowstone National Park. Sometimes we went to Grand Teton National Park. Sometimes we went to Bridger-Teton National Forest. And sometimes we went here. It’s the quietest here.”

“It sounds like you were close with your dad,” Grian says. “It sounds like fun.”

“It was,” Scar says. “My dad was cremated. It was a while before I was out of the hospital, and it was a while before traveling somewhere wasn’t an ordeal. We saved some of his ashes for closer to home, but we made a special trip out here and scattered a little in each spot.”

“That sounds nice…” Grian trails off. “Like he’s still here, somewhere. In a place he loved. In a place with you.”

“I think I fell a little in love with this place then, in a way I didn’t when I was just a child. Or maybe I was just antsy. I wasn’t doing very good, I guess I can tell you that. There was too much guilt and familiarity at home. I wanted out. I wanted to be anywhere else but there. It took me two years after the accident to make it but I came here.”

“So,” Grian says. “Running from something. I see it.”

“Yeah,” Scar says with a huff of air. “Not that great at running these days though! I mean, I’m barely a hiker anymore without being wiped out for a few days! My mom thought this job was a terrible idea. She thought the last thing I needed was to be alone. I guess you know what that’s like.”

“I didn’t even tell my friends or my mum I was taking this job,” Grian admits. “They’d freak out. The reaction from people I knew back in Colorado was bad enough. So I just sent ‘em a letter the first week I was here. A ranger told me I had mail at the main office but I don’t want to check it.”

“They’ll give it to you at the end of the season if you don’t come pick it up,” Scar says. “You can read it then, after you’ve already done it.”

“Was it what you needed?” Grian asks abruptly. “Being alone.”

“I needed it. I think—sometimes everything in your head makes you want to avoid people. You feel like you need the silence of an empty room to just let it all fall out and fix itself. It helps. But only for a little while, because it never really fixes itself. After a while it just eats you up.”

And Grian wants to say, I think it’s eating me. And he wants to say, I think I am not alone enough, I still need more space, I still need more time. And he wants to say, Everything will be fine, I just need to find him. And he wants to say, I don’t think I would have lasted this summer without you.

“I didn’t have anyone to talk to my first summer as a lookout,” Scar admits. “But you have me. And I think—Grian, I know you think you’re alone, but you aren’t. And I know you think nobody understands, but I do. I’m trying to.”

“Oh,” he says. Oh.

There’s tears suddenly welling up in his eyes, and Grian rapidly tries to blink them away. He sees it in the incessant chatter that had annoyed him on the first week. He sees it in their radio channel, the one just for them to talk on, the secondary channel that ensures the main frequency is always open for real emergencies. Scar’s been cultivating the perfect landing spot for Grian to fall into, before he even knew Grian needed it.

“It’s not actually two different things, is it?” Grian finally responds. “Running away from something, and looking for something.”

And Scar says, “I don’t think it is, in the end.”

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

#hermitcraft #grian #goodtimeswithscar #hermitcraft fanfic #hermitcraft fanfiction #hermitcraft au #hc_firewatch_au #quara fanfic

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pidge-it-up-archive · 1 year

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i won't do the dance (but we can dance together)

[Good Omens Season 2 Spoilers - 2,559k words - read on AO3]

“Oh, excuse me. Sorry, I must- Oh, please be careful, sir, I’ve kept this coat in pristine condition until now, I- Oh, my.” The angel sighed in defeat. Of course, no demon would ever care about how clean his suit have been for years, or would ever do the kindness of stepping aside so he could get around easier.

Aziraphale really couldn’t blame them. He too would be grumpy if he were to live under these situations. The smell was awful, in a way no human or divine language could describe. And it was hot, but not just “temperature” hot. More like the train on a hot day with no air conditioning or windows, during rush hour, full of constructor workers who haven’t showered in forever, millennia after millennia.

The first, and only, time he was here, his mind was somewhere else entirely. He was so focused on not ruining things, on following the plan, and not being discovered that everything else faded from existence. But now he was an outsider and incredibly lost, so everything was overwhelming.

For half a second, Aziraphale thought about taking a deep breath to calm himself down — a habit he had developed after so many years living within humans, even if oxygen was unnecessary for him — but was able to stop himself by the miracle act of “thinking things through”. He settled for only counting to 7 in his mind. He got this.

He walked through the crowded corridor for… he doesn’t know how long, honestly. Time in Hell is substantially different from time in Heaven or Earth. Felt like a lot, though. Too much.

But then, finally, he reached a more open (not less crowded) space, a bigger hall that led to multiple directions. “Oh, bugger. Maybe this is a terrible idea. He couldn’t be… He wouldn’t be-”

“Angel.”

Aziraphale shuddered. How wrong it was coming out of anyone’s but his mouth. He turned around. “Hello, yes?”

“You are an angel. You are not supposed to be here” The demon was a few inches shorter than Aziraphale, skin pale like an albino lizard.

Aziraphale smiled politely. “Yes, I’m highly aware of that.”

“How did you get here?”

“You see, it was actually quite easy, I always thought it would be harder. All I had to do was take the elevator down, and it led straight here. A huge security breach, if you ask me. For both our sides.”

“Right, yeah, sure. What do you want?”

“Oh, right!” Aziraphale shifted his weight from one foot to the other, “I-”

“He’s probably looking for his boyfriend.” A voice came from behind him. Aziraphale had to give his all to now roll his eyes to the back of his head as he turned once more to face another demon, one familiar this time.

“I- I wouldn’t put it like that. He’s not-”

“Heh, of course you wouldn’t. Neither would he, I believe.” Furfur grinned, the two tips of his tongue flaring out for a second. “Hello, Aziraphill.”

The angel’s jaw locked. He didn’t like the demon’s tone. “For the last time, it’s Azirap-”

“Don’t care. So, was I right?” Furfur rounded him with a mocking interest. “Are you here for you dear, well, ex?”

Aziraphale took a deep breath, too angry to even care about the foul odor that made his eyes sting. He had to, or all his angelicness would go down the drain as soon as he closed his fist. “Is Crowley here?”

“What if he is?”

“Is he, or not?” The angel’s tone came out harsh, and as he spoke, a tiny eye opened with an incandescent blue iris staring down the demon, right below his right eye. It blinked, and it was gone just as fast. But Furfur saw the rage it held.

“Y- Yes. He is.”

“Take me to him.”

The demon grimaced. “Follow me.”

As the demon turned away, Aziraphale deflated. So Crowley is here, after all. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

For years, he had followed Crowley's steps from Heaven, looking after him the best way he could. And god, was it hard. Maybe the hardest thing he had done in ages. Because in the first few years they were apart, Crowley slept. He got his apartment back and as soon as it was all back into place, he got under the covers and slept.

It broke Aziraphale to see it happening. It broke him when he would check on him and he had tears accumulated at the corner of his eyes. But there was nothing he could do. Both have chosen their path, and Aziraphate wasn't going to back down on his decision. He couldn't, not when he knew what was at stake.

So he settled for this torturing "routine" for 3 years. He would do his work and then, once a month (or a week) (or day, depending on how anxious he was feeling), he would check on Crowley.

But then, one day, when he tuned in to check on Crowley, he was gone. He then tried the bookshop, then the park, then the Ritz, then TaddfieId, then everywhere they had the tiniest history together, then the stars. He even went as far as to check a few zoos for a particular black snake. But every time, everywhere, all he found was nothing.

After 4 years of fruitless searching he had to face his least favorite outcome (of course, his real least favorite was actually far too terrible to even think about and, therefore was completely ignored): Crowley was back in hell.

Well. Fine. Again, they both made their choice.

But then, a meeting with the archangels and the Metraton happened, and their plan was laid out, and it was terrible, and all his opinion and thoughts were dismissed as nothing, and then, finally, after 7 years, he understood. And God, how he hated himself. How he despised how stupid he had been. He had been played with beautifully, and everyone else had seen the strings but him.

"Supreme Archangel". Nothing supreme about it. He had less power than the queen of England.

So as soon as he left the meeting, he made a B-line to the elevator and pressed "Down" with a capital D.

As he followed Furfur, his mind raced with billions of scenarios, a few more likely than others. What would it be like, to see Crowley after all this time? Sure, this wasn't the longest period of time they had apart, but their separation was very… unique this time. What would Crowley do? Would he turn him away?

And what would he even say? Where would, could, he even start?

"Here we are," Furfur's voice brought him back to the present.

"Oh," The angel stopped almost too late, not bumping into the demon by an inch.

Aziraphale looked up. They were in front of an old large wooden door, with rusty iron patterns adorning it. It was antique and resembled the old doors they had in heaven before the place took a more clean design approach. It must have been beautiful, once. Maybe it was still beautiful even if it was almost falling apart, but Aziraphale didn't know if calling something beautiful in Hell even made sense.

"Worst of luck, Azripastel," Furfur grinned before opening the door.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. "Okay, now you are doing it on-"

"Oh, what now, you blithering idiot?”

Oh, lord. His voice. Aziraphale didn't know what it felt like to be suffocating. To have your lungs prived from the oxygen it needs to service. So he also didn't know how it felt to finally be able to breathe again, how hopeful, desperate, and relieving that first intake of air actually is. But if he could guess, it must feel something like that.

Listening to Crowley's voice was like breathing again. But then, he looked ahead, and he was breathless again.

"Crowley?” He spoke tentatively, as if he wasn't close to discorporating. Because Crowley… God. Crowley.

He was… Was divine a word he could use? Was it allowed? No, right? Because he had refrained from even using "beautiful" to describe a door in hell, so certainly… But what else could he call him? What else would be even fitting for the scene he had before him? Of course, there were other words, but they were not words he used. He couldn't use them or else he would lose his mind and all sense of self.

Well, it didn’t matter. All he knew and cared for was that right there, in front of him, sitting shir- oh, god- shirtless and leg-spread on a throne, one leg over thrown over its arm, hiding absolutely nothing in those sinful (may She forgive me) leather pants, sipping mindlessly from a glass of red wine, was Crowley. Crowley, Duke of Hell. No sunglasses.

The demon smirked at him, and his eyes were cold. "Well, if it isn't the Ssssupreme Archangel!" Crowley hissed his title.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale spoke again, and like an asteroid trapped in the sun's gravity, he took a step further into the room without even realizing it.

“Stop,” Crowley spat at him like Aziraphale was an overexcited dog, ready to jump. And like an obedient dog, Aziraphale stopped. Crowley shifted, sitting up straighter, and as he did, the sound of the several chains and necklaces he wore tingled. For some reason, that made Aziraphale shiver.

Aziraphale had never, in the history of forever, seen Crowley hold himself like that. Not as an angel, when he was the most adorable creature She has ever made. Not as a demon, or as the snake of Eden. Not even when they faced Satan together. Because Crowley, no matter how powerful he was, he never wore it like a crown. But here… Now? Oh, here he understood why people sinned.

“Why are you even here?” Crowley turned up his nose.

“Oh, I’m-”

“Not you, you idiot. Him” Crowley signed with his head behind the angel. “This isn’t a fucking party. Fuck off, Furfur.”

When Aziraphale looked back to see the demon leave with several complaints on his tongue, he was able to finally take a look at the place. It was crowded with stuff, but not like Hell crowded. It was… Almost like Aziraphale crowded. There were books, and instruments, and plants, and notebooks, and furniture, and ammulates, and paintings, and all sorts of things. All in bad shape, of course, it was almost like the air in Hell consumed things, but… it was there nonetheless. The style. He couldn’t help but smile when he looked back at Crowley.

“Oh, you are sssso full of nerve, aren’t you?” Crowley showed his fangs.

“Sorry,” the angel grimaced. Aziraphale didn’t remember ever even seeing them. They made him look so… Pretty. “I just-”

“Stop, stop, stop. Sssstop.” Crowley shifted again, leaning forward on his elbows, resting them on his knees, the wine glass hanging loosely between his hands. The chains tingled again. “I don’t know why you’re here, but if the best apology ever invented by… I don’t know, someone, doesn’t come out of your mouth right now, you can take your fanssscy grey suit back to where it belongs and leave me alone for the rest of eternity.”

“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale stepped closer. At each step, Crowley’s eyes gave away a bit. One tiny sparkle, one at a time.

“I mean it.” Aziraphale was now within his reach. “And it’s not just a little dance! Because you can have the whole Royal Ballet dancing with you and that wouldn’t cut it.”

“I know, darling. I know.” Aziraphale was now so close that Crowley had to look up, but not for long.

Aziraphale was oddly proud for an angel, he would admit. But as he knelt before Crowley on that throne, he didn’t feel one ounce of pride. He knelt, one knee then the other, and sat on his heels. He gently took the glass of wine from Crowley’s hand and sat it aside, then took the demon’s hand in his.

He took his time feeling it this time. It was so fast, at the ball. But now he could feel it and see it properly. It was a beautiful hand. The black nail polish and the rings were a new addition, but it was slender, surprisingly smooth, and cold. So cold. He unconsciously tried to rub it a bit.

“Snake blood.” Crowley’s voice was low on his throat now. Quiet.

“Right, of course.” Aziraphale looked up and met his eyes.

It was like a different being completely from mere seconds ago. His eyes shone with the most pure tone of gold to exist in the universe. Hope suited him well. “Crowley, I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the things I said. And for how I have said them. But I won’t do the dance, I’m afraid. Because I wasn’t wrong, but neither were you. But we weren’t right either. It’s a mess, really. But you were right about something. Heaven is not- Not what I thought it was. And they have something bad planned, and I- I need you.”

“So… That’s it? A couple of not-even-that-pretty words and you expect me to help you? After everything?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other’s eyes for a couple of moments before Crowley sighed, taking his hands off Aziraphale’s. The angel didn’t understand how his hands felt colder at the lack of the touch. Crowley reached for the glass of wine, and got up, rounding Aziraphale, who followed him with his eyes from the floor, brows furrowed as he tried to understand if Crowley had or hadn’t forgiven him.

Crowley went to a shelf near the exit and grabbed something. The place was so messy Aziraphale took a while to see what it was, but when he did, he sighed in relief.

“You are unbelievable, you know that?” the demon said, opening his sunglasses temples with his chin.

“Y-Yes!” Aziraphale jumped to his feet. But before Crowley could put his glasses on, Aziraphale stopped him, holding his wrist back. “Wait.”

“What?”

“Thank you. And I- I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He stepped closer and put his hand on Crowley’s chest. He was warmer here.

Crowley’s pupil widened and he swallowed dry. Aziraphale couldn’t help but follow his Adam’s apple and wettening his lips. Crowley must have noticed because when he spoke, his voice had the tiniest glint of a smile behind it.

“Oh, I’ll hold you up to that promise, Angel.” Crowley smiled, really smiled, for the first time in seven years.

Crowley put on his sunglasses and snapped his fingers. The huge door stormed open, hitting the walls on the corridor, and nearly not killing Furfur, who was stubbornly waiting outside. “Furfur! My guy!”

“Me?” The demon glowed.

“Yeah, go tell Shax she can have her room back.”

“Wh-What?”

Crowley gulped down the wine, and threw it over to the side, near Furfur’s head. “I’m off this shit hole!” He turned around with an easy smile on his face. Oh, how smiling came easy when Aziraphale was near him. “You coming, Angel?”

He reached out his hand, and without a second thought, Aziraphale took it. “Of course.”

When their hands were securely interlaced, Crowley snapped his fingers and they were out of there. They had a world to save.

END?

>> This short fic was inspired by Joops's Art.

#good omens season 2 #good omens fanfic #fic by pidge it up #good omens #crowley as duke of hell is so hot #inspired by art #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #crowley is a simp for Aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley

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lockwood-fic-recs · 11 months

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Do you have any recs for fics with wellbuilt AUs ?

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask :)) ooh, who doesn't love a good AU? Not sure if you're asking for AUs built over time (long multi-chapters) or well-built oneshots, so I'll provide a selection of both! There's too many good AUs to fit them all in here, so there may be a part 2 of this list coming in the future 👀 stay tuned! There's also lots of good soulmate AUs that we recommended in this post <3

I'll be your new favourite tune by barronsfever | T | 14 Chapters (In Progress) | Locklyle with Background Ships | No Warnings

Actually, Lucy hated Lockwood and Lockwood had no idea why. He finally won her over during their joint school musical, just to run away in the end. Now, they're together at the same university and working together on yet another musical. Lucy has shut herself off completely, afraid to get hurt again. Lockwood is doing his best. [Enemies-to-Lovers Fake Dating at College AU]

2. No One Cares About the Nightwatch by Nomolosk | T | 23 Chapters (In Progress) | Locklyle | No Warnings

Lucy Carlyle is a Listener, a failed agent, a runaway, and now works the nightwatch in London. One might think her life a failure from start to last- but Lucy has goals. She will get a grade four certificate, and reapply to all the best agencies, and her life will get immeasurably better. [Nightwatch!Lucy AU]

3. Sink or Swim by WaitingForMyHogwartsLetter | T | 31 Chapters (In Progress) | Cot3 | No Warnings

When a turtle washes up on the beach after being caught in an illegal net, local freedivers Lockwood and George take it upon themselves to find out who’s responsible. It turns out they’re not the only ones interested in getting justice for the sea creatures affected. Enter: Lucy Carlyle, anonymous environmental activist and local mermaid. [H2O: Just Add Water AU; Mermaid!Lucy]

4. Pros and Cons by chahakyn | T | Oneshot | Cot3 | No Warnings

George, Lockwood, and Lucy have heists to pull off. There's no time to fall in love. And yet, it still somehow happens. [Now You See Me AU]

5. Perfectly Incandescently Happy by OceanSpray5 | G | 13 Chapters | Locklyle | No Warnings

After the death of her best friend, Ms Lucy Carlyle is given the opportunity to be sponsored for the 1815 London season by Norrie's aunt. Instantly compared to the Diamond due to their astonishingly similar looks, she befriends Lord Lockwood quite unexpectedly yet is left wondering if she was a fool for believing he'd look twice at a mere country girl. [Regency/Bridgerton AU]

Bonus: the longest fic in our fandom is both a) completed and b) an AU. If you want to binge a slowburn AU, then this fic might be for you:

Renegades by WaitingForMyHogwartsLetter | T | 50 Chapters | Cot3 | Warning: Graphic Violence

When a virus kills off half of the nation’s children, the ones left alive aren’t as lucky as they thought. With powers they can’t control and fear of what will happen to them, order and danger go hand in hand as detainment camps pop up all over Britain. Lucy takes refuge in the haven known as 35 Portland Row, but safety is uncertain as long as someone else is pulling the strings. [The Darkest Minds AU]

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larsnicklas · 4 months

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is it bad to say im truly not that devastated bc i didn’t want them to advance without boes :/ altho it sucks that demmer never got his chance to come back. also i’m on holiday starting yesterday and now i can actually enjoy it without my every waking moment being consumed by fear. like i’m upset but we move. cats 4 cup

no i felt the same way! lol. i think disappointment is also tempered by the fact that they overachieved on reasonable expectations from the start of the year so it feels like (and genuinely was) such an enormous step forward that nobody can possibly say they didn’t have a great season. i also think for me personally, with the exception of the caps, any loyalty to teams i have is rooted in the players i love and so the absence of any of my favorites really affects how badly i want them to win lol. the loss of demmer already stung a lot bc he’s like the only other goalie i’ve genuinely loved since h.oltby 😭 and then with brock done for the year i was kind of like. okay actually i don’t want to do this without them!!!! with brock particularly it’s like. that’s the guy that was the FIRST bit of light… the first spark of hope…. and after him came pete and quinn and so on and so forth but he was that first shift into a new core. he deserves to be a key part of any deep run and i know that’s not how sports work and you can’t guarantee anything but he’d already made such a huge mark in the first 12 games of the postseason i just know he would have had more signature moments!!!

i also think for me it was like. you run an assessing eye over the most important player on your team, the guy who tilts the ice for you on any given night, and he is so very clearly fighting through being quite banged up. and so realistically speaking how much more did quinn have left in the tank, you know? he did a good job even with any limitations from injuries but i just am not sure there was another quality round, much less a strong final in him lol. like i do believe he would have continued playing until physically unable/shut down by docs but the quality of play would have not been to his (very high) standards.

and then uh while i’m airing this out!!! when the c.anucks go deep i want ep in a good place physically and mentally and idk that he was either this postseason!! he’s such a game changer like when he’s at his best he is an incandescent player and one of the most exciting guys in the game. and obviously one of my particular favorites! any actual success the nucks see i would like him to be an enormous part of it, which i know he can and will be!

at the end of the day it always sucks to lose but there are so many good things to have come out of this season, including getting into the second round on the first try for this particular group. this experience is going to serve them so so well in the future and i bet they will all be itching to get back on the ice for the 2024-25 season ♡

#meg.askbox #sorry for the essay!!!! 😭#and yes GO CATS ‼️

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bardicbeetle · 1 year

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nine people you want to know tag game

thank you for the tag, @catchingbigfish <3

three ships & first ship: ooooh, obviously we have to start with Doctor/Master from Doctor Who because, hi, I might not still be writing if that mess hadn’t kept me so completely unhinged. David/Michael/Star from the Lost Boys. Kairi/Vanitas from Kingdom Hearts. And the first ship I am aware of shipping, fun fact, is Quirrelmort from the Starkid musicals.

last song i listened to: God Forbids by Shayfer James

last movie i watched: Princess Mononoke because I was having a rough day and needed to zone out to studio ghibli while I played breath of the wild.

currently watching: re-watching Doctor Who while my partner sees it for the first time. Currently on the last couple episodes of Season 9 (Just finished Hell Bent and Heaven Sent, which IMO are when 12’s era really picks up and captures my attention again. Now we are onto the Christmas specials)

currently consuming: day old brown butter doughnut from a local bakery + a very large cup of wanderwood tea.

currently craving: unemployment that doesn’t result in imminent doom

working on: Safe in the Dark (final draft? gods i hope so) / That Witch Lives and Breathes (chipping away at draft 2 here and there) / Forever Onward, Scion (a fanfic series about the player character from hit 2008 childrens’ mmorpg: Wizard101) / Through Another Lens (lost boys Michael Kills AU) / Time Marches On (Kairi-centric KH fic following her training under Aqua)

currently reading: Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis which I am loving so far.

Tagging: @abalonetea / @incandescent-creativity / @authoralexharvey / @loopyhoopywrites / @mariahwritesstuff / @captain-kraken / @albatris / @pens-swords-stuff / @fictionalbullshitter and anyone else who wants to steal the questions :D

#the games we like to play #tag games #the magician cries #larkspur will write later

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warningsine · 1 year

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When the first season of GLOW ended, it was on a cliffhanger. Over 10 episodes, Ruth (Alison Brie) and Debbie (Betty Gilpin) had crafted new identities as Zoya the Destroyer and Liberty Belle, two women wrestlers with an intense, Cold War–inspired rivalry. In the final episode, Zoya and Liberty Belle faced off after weeks of training in a thrilling, meticulously choreographed bout. At the end, they took a minute to acknowledge how well it went. They both smiled. Ruth tentatively asked Debbie if she wanted to get a celebratory drink. Debbie’s smile immediately fractured. “No,” she said. “We’re not there.” Ruth’s face fell. The credits rolled.

It was an odd, disconsolate note for the series to end on given the triumphant nature of the final few scenes, as the stars of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling wrapped their first TV shoot. But it was a realistic one. In the pilot for GLOW, viewers met Ruth, an out-of-work actress, and Debbie, a soap star turned stay-at-home mother, only to discover at the end of the episode that Ruth had been sleeping with Debbie’s husband. Debbie, incandescent with rage, confronted Ruth in the warehouse where GLOW was rehearsing, prompting the show’s wily director, Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron), to imagine how sparks might fly between the two women in the ring. Debbie was cast as Ruth’s arch rival. The question underpinning the season was whether wrestling would bring the friends back together, or whether Ruth’s behavior was ultimately unforgivable.

Television has centered female relationships before, often in quartet form (Girls, Sex and the City, The Golden Girls), or in ways that are riven with tension (The Handmaid’s Tale) or codependency (Broad City, Grey’s Anatomy). Insecure thrives on examining the relationship between Issa (Issa Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji). But GLOW does something different. It treats the relationship between Ruth and Debbie like a romantic one, elevating it above any other partnership in the series. Their breakup as friends is the core event that precipitates their casting on the show, and it’s conceived as seriously and as thoughtfully as a romantic breakup. Debbie’s final “We’re not there” affirms that they might have made progress as coworkers, but they’re a long way from fixing the damage that Ruth has done—and they might not make it.

The second season of GLOW, which was released in its entirety late last month, continues to foreground Ruth and Debbie’s relationship, culminating in a moment of violence and a furious, ugly fight in a hospital room. One of the questions for the writers in Season 2, GLOW’s co-showrunner Liz Flahive told me, was whether Ruth deserves happiness, and if she does, whether Debbie, who is going through a divorce, should have to watch Ruth be happy. It’s a question that branches out from something the show considered in its first season: Can Ruth, who’s revealed so early on to have betrayed her friend so egregiously, still be sympathetic? As a character, Ruth defies simple likability: She’s ambitious, pretentious, and frequently ridiculous. But in Brie’s hands, she’s also engaging, insecure, neurotic, and brave enough to be rooted for. “Look, people do really mess things up,” Flahive said. “And watching a character try, for better or worse, is so compelling.”

For the first half of Season 2, the dynamic between Ruth and Debbie remains unchanged. Debbie, in addition to channelling some of her anger into her bouts as Liberty Belle, redirects her energy toward her professional ambitions, negotiating a raise and a promotion to producer. Ruth, for the most part, meekly takes whatever Debbie throws at her. At work, they interact politely but struggle to make eye contact. When Ruth is asked out by a cameraman, Russell (Victor Quinaz), she accepts a ride home with Debbie instead, taking whatever crumbs she can get. “Is it going to bother you if, um, I go out on a date? Do you mind if I meet someone?” she asks Debbie. “I don’t care what you do,” Debbie replies quietly, before going on to deride Russell in a way that makes it clear how much she does care.

As the season continues, the tension between the two women comes to a head first when Debbie rails at Ruth for running away from a casting-couch situation that might have saved their show. “Feminism has principles,” Debbie spits. “Life has compromises.” Then, after a furious, despondent Debbie encounters her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, she intentionally fractures Ruth’s ankle in the ring. The event restores a degree of balance to the relationship that enables one of the most excruciatingly realistic TV fights between two friends in recent memory, in which buried resentments are dug up and toxic patterns thrown out. Gilpin, conveying Debbie’s commingled rage and guilt, is hypnotic in the scene, equally furious at Ruth and at herself. Ruth, emboldened by a growing sense of her own victimhood (and by a Valium–Klonopin cocktail), strikes back. Their relationship, she poses, is built on how Debbie savors her success against Ruth’s failure. It doesn’t justify Ruth’s infidelity to her friend, but for the first time in the series it suggests how it could have happened.

The scene is so potent because it’s so familiar. Friendships between women rely, often, on the unsayable—the secret comparisons, the petty jealousies, the familiar patterns of behavior. A fight with a friend can feel as emotionally draining, as unbearably cruel, as a fight with a partner. By putting Ruth and Debbie’s tangled relationship at the center of GLOW, the show comprehends this dynamic, almost to the detriment of the supporting characters (it’s the rare Netflix show that has so many stories to tell that it could stand to be longer). It uses the tension between two former friends as fodder for both character growth and narrative progression. But it also takes a realistic view of female friendship that television often sugarcoats. TV friendships, Emily Reynolds wrote in the New Statesman in 2016, tend to be idolized and cherished in a cutesy Galentine’s Day, yas-queen, matching-bangs kind of way. Ruth and Debbie are different. GLOW never guarantees that their friendship will recover, or that it should. What it does do is assert its significance in the first place, and emphasize how devastating its breakdown is to each of them.

#since kpg mentioned that she watched the first episode i want to revisit the show too <3 #glow

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ooops-i-arted · 2 years

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@ofcoming4th said: Until this episode I didn't fully understand your dislike of this character - after watching I wanted to kick her very hard for being such an ass and so little help.

After her appearance on BOBF where she actively chases Din away from seeing Grogu and giving him the mithril, oops I mean beskar shirt? I now hate the unfeeling idiot. I'm surprised Filoni had the shirt passed on to Grogu, I'd assume he'd have his dream girl make a bikini out of it.

Lmfao I just spit out my drink at the bikini comment. I'll give Filoni this, though - once George Lucas wasn't involved anymore, Ahsoka suddenly got appropriate clothing.

I USED TO just be indifferent. Tried TCW, hated the way they treated my beloved prequel characters, found her underdeveloped and annoying but hey, I'll just skip it like I did the Yuuzhan Vong books! I watched Rebels instead and loved it, great characters, new perspective of the universe, tighter character writing, disliked Ezra at first but 5 episodes in I would fistfight anyone on his behalf because he had his character developed. Except.... Ahsoka kept showing up. Okay whatever. But then the season 2 finale. Rebels is an ensemble show of 6 characters. Only 3 were in the finale and those were SHOVED ASIDE SO AHSOKA COULD CONFRONT VADER AS A RESOLUTION TO TCW, ANOTHER SHOW. Which is still stupid because it's just a rehash, we KNOW Vader has issues with connections because of Obi-Wan and Padme, the real prequel trio already showed that. But by now you wouldn't know it because Ahsoka has fucking replaced Padme (even though no one in their right mind would've given Anakin an apprentice to begin with, the whole premise is contrived!). And even though one of the main characters of the show is blinded and the other blames himself, we get almost zero descending action involving them. But we have time for a long, sad shot of Rex mourning The Best Jedi Padawan Commander Who Left The Order But Also Still Totally A Jedi Somehow. I was so incandescent with rage I STILL haven't finished Rebels season 3 and 4. (And now we're only getting those characters again in her upcoming show.) (Did I mention she implied-died-maybe in the season 2 finale but was brought back with contrived time travel in a later season? And the finale of Rebels had her in white dressed up like Gandalf? Stay the FUCK away from Gandalf, you orange hobgoblin.)

She's there because she's Filoni's pet and that's it. Especially in BoBF when the conversation SHOULD HAVE been between Grogu's actual teacher, Luke, and Din. Because "are you doing this for you or for him?" could be a poignant character moment but all we got was Ahsoka dismissing a much better character with her smug-ass face instead of any actual reflection on Din's part.

(I'm also fucking salty because I wrote a Super Special Awesome Jedi Apprentice when I was 11. She was The Best At Everything and had Special Visions Of The Future and got Multiple Lightsaber Colors Because She Was That Cool and Obi-Wan (my favorite character) thought she was The Best Ever and His Favorite Person but.... I was 11. Filoni is getting bucketloads of money and his ass kissed for the same level of writing I had at 11. Except MY CHARACTER died in Order 66, and actually adhered to the Jedi Code instead of Ahsoka's Have It Both Ways schtick. Also she was apprenticed to Obi-Wan, since apparently Filoni missed Anakin graduating to Actual Child Murderer in AotC and that Anakin is not teacher material in general.)

This was therapeutic thank you for giving me a chance to bitch lol.

#this is an ahsoka hate blog #anti ahsoka #anti ahsoka tano #replies #ofcoming4th

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keithal · 1 year

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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you've written :)

oh hello! beloved enterprisery this is my fave game to do of all time, so thank u for this :D three things before we get into it: (1) out of respect for u, the first two will be iwtv fics, (2) most of these are my least popular works LMAO and (3) this got pretty long. sorry abt that.

hell and you: modern day devils minion w old man daniel and armand. sometimes i forget how much i like this fic and then i'll remember "i wrote a fic abt armand being daniel's sugar daddy, LOL." it's very funny to me personally. i especially love this bit i threw in:

He fills the apartment with the smell of his cologne and something underneath that it can’t quite mask. A smell like water left to stand too long or flowers left too long in a vase.

i like the idea of vampires smelling like death. i can forgive this tho bc i think in the later installments of the vc anne rice said vampires smell like mayo? which is ... well. at least much more attention-grabbing than what i did.

damn these vampires: an armandaniel fic that takes place immediately after the season finale. this fic was majorly inspired by a thought that woke me up from deep sleep. armand and daniel have history. armand (i'm guessing) blocked daniel's memories. but didn't wipe them. daniel can't access them, but they're still there. so how funny would it be if daniel was jealous of louis being w armand but has no fucking idea why.

He smokes one on his walk back to the penthouse, thinking of how he had stood there in the aftermath, staring at Rashid—Armand—hovering over them like fucking Mary Poppins, his hand interlocked with Louis’s, and—instead of doing what a Pulitzer-winning, seasoned journalist of his caliber should’ve been doing in the face of being this royally fucked over—absurdly, inexplicably, Daniel noted the position of Armand’s thumb: on top.

i make myself laugh.

keep on keeping on, dean winchester: deancas s13 au where jack is a baby. i can't actually think of a part of it that stands out without any context (which, in my opinion, is a good sign), but i can say that i enjoy this part quite a bit:

Friday morning, as they’re making their way through the sticks toward the interstate, Sam says, “Hey, guess what I bought,” and holds up a dusty Sing-A-Long CD. “Fuck no,” Dean says. “We are not listening to Metallica all the way to Sioux Falls with a baby in the back.” “He likes it! Right, Jack?” he calls over his shoulder. Jack makes an incandescent gurgling sound. “See? Kid knows any music made after 1979 sucks ass.” “Singing in early childhood is important, Dean. It helps kids with language development, memory, and emotional regulation, and it entrains their social visual behavior.” “Thanks, Spock. You’re the pride of the Federation.” “Dean.” “Dude, I’m just saying, we can entrain his social visual behavior with the classics. We don’t need that baby crap. It’s the 21st century. All we need is Zep, Cash, some AC/DC—”

i worked really hard to capture dean's voice--like, harder than i've ever worked to scrub my own voice from a piece of writing. the amount of references and sayings in this bitch? sheesh.

i'm also very happy with how the relationship btwn jack and dean developed. one person who commented made a very intelligent observation that even i hadn't realized: i made dean see himself in jack. and it makes sense, doesn't it? jack's mom died bc of the supernatural; he wasn't allowed to process this loss at all; and he was left in the care of a father who'd lost a spouse. a father whose grief made him mean and treated his son like an object (hence the "it" pronouns used in the beginning).

anyway! very happy w how it turned out :)

long live the kingslayer: an elriel mission fic. i've spoken abt it like. a million times by now. and i still love it <3 there's just so much real estate to work w when it comes to elain. she's so underdeveloped that anything u say abt her is almost always pure conjecture. it was so much fun to take a character i loved so dearly and write a story where she was never punished for being who she is.

i'm still very fond of this part in particular:

“Wait,” he said before she could leave. His voice was nearly as hesitant as his expression, flickering between uncertainty and a strange, boyish shyness that was captivating on him. He reached into his leathers—where, she couldn’t know—and pulled out a small container. “Here,” he said, placing it in her hands. She opened it. Inside was a smelly, yellow ointment. “A salve,” he explained, “for your hands.” An unnameable feeling seized her. She hadn’t thought he noticed, never dared mention it out of fear of what he’d think, and this whole time he’d been carrying this salve with him. A salve for her hands. It was a terrible idea. She knew it as soon as it came to her, but she grabbed Azriel by the ears anyway, drew him down to her height, and kissed his cheek. She felt his skin go warm, and she imagined how surprised he must look, how shy. When she pulled back, she saw that his face was indeed dark with color, avoiding her gaze. Simultaneously pleased at her reaction and embarrassed by it. He was magical, she thought, and she loved him dearly. Loved him so much that it broke her heart. “Thank you,” she said. “This will be invaluable.” Finally, a smile from him. Unable to resist it, she brushed the back of her hand over his cheek, fond, and said, “I’ll leave you to rest.”

a lot of acotar fans hate it when ppl write azriel to be soft and shy and not particularly dark at all. me, personally? i think that’s boring. azriel was born into an abusive and violent home and suffered unimaginable torture at a very young age. he developed powers meant to protect him from the horror of his daily life, and those powers made him a great spymaster/torturerer. but it's so obvious that azriel hates his position within the court. he's starved of intimacy and tenderness. he has an extremely reserved and kind nature. it's a much more meaningful to have a character like that find someone who recognizes his gentleness and desire for gentleness in him and offers it to him. those characteristics don't make him any less of a man.

god never wrote a good play in his life: a god/chuck character study written in second person. i genuinely don't know how the toxic sibling relationship btwn amara and chuck doesn't make more people absolutely fucking insane. this story is chuck-centered, obviously, but i don't think anyone realizes WHY i did that. i don't like chuck! i didn't like writing from his perspective! i did it bc all of supernatural is chuck-centered. even when it isn't quote-unquote "his" story, it's still his. the point of the whole thing is for the reader to do what chuck/the show doesn't: break out of what's being told to u! look at the other characters! namely, look at amara.

chuck tries to scrub her from the story completely. the fic is 3k long, yet chuck doesn't mention amara at ALL unless she's onscreen. and even when she is onscreen, we can't trust a fucking thing he says! as exemplified here:

Maybe that wasn’t how it happened. Maybe you and your Sister were perfectly capable of creation. It would be absurd if you weren’t. Surely it wasn’t possible that you couldn’t create anything together. If you were in harmony, that should have implied you, together, would excel at it. She was an eccentric mind, designing balls of gas and entire solar systems that resembled you, right where all your rings met. (The most terrifying thing She came up with was the collapse of a star, where it became a gaping black mouth that swallowed everything in sight. You and I, She explained, perfectly in balance.) You were far less excitable, putting all your focus into the one planet you’d claimed as your own, but as you watched Her in those moments, you privately invented jealousy. Maybe you were lying about the lying. Perhaps They did give you counsel in a lapse of generosity, and your essence catapulted as you realized you would have to choose. Or possibly that day went like every other. Maybe She never met Them, and you only met Them much later, once you had shoehorned Them into part of your story. So instead of revelations and sacrifices, your Sister told you about centripetal force as you floated, listening, your rings spinning in slow, lazy circles, and you told Her about how little you cared for all this science and math She liked so much. Where is the pathos? you asked, and She sighed much as an exasperated older Sister should, and you realized that you loved Her very much. Or maybe you didn’t.

WHY? why is that? it's because the longer she's in the story, the worse chuck looks.

amara loved chuck from beginning to fucking end. she was born loving him. she chose him, always, over and over again. and chuck knew this! he used it! he would dangle the possibility of him finally loving her back to get her to do what he wanted. and what does chuck do abt this? abt his story, the first to ever exist? he recreates it. michael & lucifer; cain & abel; dean and sam (all men, curiously). to ... what? prove that he isn't the only brother to have not loved his sibling back? that in his position, u would've done the same?

i could talk abt that fic all day. best thing i've ever written.

#thought abt cutting this down after seeing how everyone else was doing it but then decided this is my blog #mutuals #keith writes #keith gets a question

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