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owletstarlet · 4 years

Note

For a prompt, maybe a Tanunatsu college AU? I'm sort of picturing something where Natsume is visiting the shrine for a weekend and Tanuma is trying not to focus on the fact that his boyfriend now has earrings

(*insert profuse apology for how long this took here* I had initially wanted to get this posted in time for @natsumeweek as one of the prompts was “future” but I guess this is more an early happy-September-birthday-to-Tanuma fic...

ao3 link in the comments.

When the doorbell rings, it’s a near thing for Kaname to not spill his tea all over the keyboard. He has to remind himself several times on his way to answer it not to look as ludicrously eager as he feels, as though his heart might float right on up and out through the top of his head, in case it’s a mail carrier or a maintenance worker at the door.

It isn’t.

It takes all of a second and a half before Kaname’s got his arms full of him, face buried in his hair.

“Hi,” he mutters, voice muffled against the top of Natsume’s head.

“Hi,” Natsume says back, and Kaname can hear the grin in his voice, feel the arms coming to rest around his waist.

They stand like that for several seconds, in the genkan with the door wide open, and Kaname can feel all the tension he’s been holding for six weeks bleed out of him. Eventually, he asks, “How was your flight?”

“I liked it.” His voice is just as muffled against Kaname’s shoulder. “Sensei didn’t.”

“Really?” Kaname finally pulls back enough to see his face. He looks well, relaxed and smiling, the barest dusting of freckles across his nose from time spent outdoors, and it’s almost enough to push a month and a half’s worth of swirling images and morbid what ifs out of his mind. “You’d think Ponta would enjoy flying.”

Natsume rolls his eyes a little, but there’s something fond in the set of his mouth. “He complained the whole time, about being stuck in human form, and kept saying it was unnatural or something to be up so high where he couldn’t even see the treetops past all the clouds.”

Kaname grins at the thought. “Where’s he off to right now?” He pulls Natsume into the genkan, finally lets him go so he can get his shoes off.

“Probably off getting drunk. Or begging snacks off Touko-san. She was pretty happy to see him.”

Natsume’s been up in Aomori for a little over a month, on a few jobs with the Matsuokas. Field training, as Natori had cheerfully put it to Kaname over the phone. And Kaname hadn’t been thrilled about that, but had felt marginally better to hear that Natori would accompany him for most of the trip.

The Matsuoka clan wasn’t particularly prominent or large, but they were well-funded and well-connected. It was Natori who’d reached out to them over a year ago, once Natsume had given his slightly grudging consent to it. Since then Natsume’s been living two and a half hours away in a spacious apartment and attending a university to which the Matsuokas happened to be generous donors. In exchange for this, and their tutelage, Natsume accompanies and assists them with exorcisms. They’re apparently pleased enough to have him, and Natsume’s told Kaname that they haven’t asked him to do anything he’s opposed to; it’s often either binding a harmful entity or else simply sitting down to listen to whatever it is the troublesome youkai-of-the-day is after. But despite Natori being on good terms with the head of the clan, he’d had to make it perfectly clear that Natsume had no interest in longterm recruitment. Or, at the very least, that potential adoption into the clan was to be a decision that Natsume would be entirely free to turn down.

Kaname himself, meanwhile, hasn’t gone anywhere since graduation. Natori had floated the idea of Kaname joining Natsume, that the Matsuokas be perfectly willing to take him on. And, admittedly, the prospect of learning how to defend himself, and others, with the basics of exorcism under his belt had its appeal. Especially since a big factor in Natsume’s own decision had been an ugly encounter with some cave-dwelling youkai that had landed him in the hospital for weeks, an incident which had ultimately led to the truth--or parts of it, at least-- spilling out to the Fujiwaras. Kaname still has nightmares about it.

It was ultimately the prospect of being able to go with Natsume while he was out on a job instead of having to sit around and fret about it that had had Kaname prepared to agree to the offer. But then Dad had needed knee surgery, and a complicated one at that. And Kaname learned very quickly just how much work it takes to run a temple essentially on one’s own. Theirs was part of a larger organization of temples in the prefecture, who had arranged for Dad to be sent here in the first place. To be fair, they’d been as helpful as they were able, and are still paying Dad a salary. Another priest would come two or three days a week to fulfill necessary duties and rites and enabling them to stay at least partially open to visitors while Dad recuperated, and a maintenance worker would show up once a week to help Kaname care for the actual grounds. But Kaname still typically spends the better part of his week at the desk of Dad’s cramped office poring over order forms and spreadsheets he doesn’t always understand, attempting to balance the books of a little temple that barely takes in enough revenue to stay afloat even with the organization’s support. He’s gotten better at it, and Dad’s helped a lot, but even though he’s recovered enough to receive visitors and resume some of his religious duties, Kaname still tries to keep him out of the office most days so he can get some rest.

Still, Dad worries, not only that Kaname is overworking himself but about how his friends have all gone off to school, how he rarely leaves the temple grounds unless he’s running errands. He knows about Natori’s offer regarding the Matsuokas, Kaname’s discussed it with him. And though he’s made it clear that it’s ultimately Kaname’s decision he’s made it equally clear that he likes the idea—both for the sake of Kaname’s mental health and for the prospect of him learning how to better protect himself. On occasions when Dad’s pushed himself too hard and worn himself out, Kaname has threatened to accept the offer but go on to major in accounting just to get hired on by the temple organization and then end up right back home. But he has to admit, he’s been dreaming of it—of the airy kitchen that always smells just a bit like the tea Natsume drinks in the mornings, of the sun-dappled corner where Sensei likes to curl up and nap, of the balcony overlooking a cityscape both unfamiliar and beautiful in its own way, the mountains that look blue in the distance. Of waking up to Natsume’s cheek squashed against the pillow beside him, safe and whole and wonderfully there. He’ll probably have to wait until the next academic year begins, but he thinks it wouldn’t be so bad at all.

“I have something for you,” he tells Natsume now, scooping up the backpack Natsume had set down while taking off his shoes. Natsume smiles, tilts his head just a bit in question. But when he does, Kaname sees something, a glinting just beneath his hair on one side. He blinks, steps forward to brush Natsume’s hair back. “What’s—”

And when he sees what it is, he thinks his face must do something odd, because Natsume’s smile has faltered a bit, turned sheepish. “I actually thought you’d have noticed them already,” he says.

“I left my glasses by the computer,” he murmurs, and he thinks he’s staring. He should probably stop staring. “And your hair’s gotten longer anyways.”

Natsume shrugs, looking a touch pinker than before. “It’s just on the one side.” A pause. “It doesn’t look weird, does it? I don’t really trust Natori’s opinion.”

“It’s not weird.” The answer is immediate, almost embarrassingly so. He realizes they haven’t moved from the genkan, and that he hasn’t quite managed to quit staring, so he takes Natsume’s hand and tugs him towards the kitchen. He hopes his palms aren’t as clammy as he thinks they are.

There are two hoops in his left earlobe, side by side, one silver and one gold, catching the light from behind strands of pale hair. They’re subtle enough—Kaname doesn’t think the tip of his little finger could fit through either—but the sight of them makes the air stick strangely in Kaname’s throat.

“Did they hurt?” he asks, a moment later.

“Not really.” Natsume takes a seat at the worn kitchen table, hand hovering up near his ear in a way that’s half considering, half self-conscious. “Right when they do it, yes, but not so much after.”

Kaname goes to get Natsume a drink, but pauses with his hand on the refrigerator door, considering. “Any particular reason you got it done?” he starts, tone as light as possible. If Natsume’s already shy about it, Kaname doesn’t want to make it worse, but he can’t pretend he isn’t curious. “Just because you wanted to, or…”

“No, I—I mean. I don’t hate it, but there was a reason.” The shade of Natsume’s cheeks is on just this side of salmon when Kaname glances back, and it’s so frankly adorable that Kaname has to turn his back again, not trusting himself to keep a straight face. “Do you remember the farm in Aomori I told you about?” Natsume continues. “The owners had called the Matsuokas for an exorcism because their livestock kept getting sick so we stayed for a few days.”

“I remember.” He also remembers all the grim visuals his own imagination had served up over the course of those three long days, until he’d gotten the text that all was resolved and that Natsume was safe and whole and on a train away from that place.

“The family had a connection to a lesser exorcist clan that sort of fizzled out a few generations ago. And Sayaka-san—ah, the wife—was really her aunt and uncle’s only heir because they didn’t have children. They were both exorcists, and she’d inherited a few things from them.”

“Did the angry ayakashi have something to do with that clan?” Kaname asks, setting two cups of lemonade on the table and sliding into the seat across from Natsume. And god if it doesn’t do something to him, to see Natsume right there, right across from him, pale fingers wrapping easily around the lumpy clay cup Kaname made in middle school, afternoon light through the window settling in his hair and glinting starlike off those new tiny hoops in his ear and every day, Kaname wants this every day. Just this. He swallows, hard, forces himself to pay attention because Natsume’s talking again.

“It actually had nothing to do with them. The farm had been owned by her husband’s family anyhow, but. The land the farm sat on was at the center of some dispute between two ayakashi, some territory thing they bicker about every hundred years. All Sensei and I really did was get them both to agree to meet each other, and they mostly sorted it out themselves from there.”

Kaname blinks. “The Matsuokas didn’t do anything?”

Natsume shrugs. “They didn’t really need to. Sensei worked out what was going on pretty quickly, and didn’t really wait up for their help. He thought the exorcists barging in would just make things worse.” He pauses to take a sip of lemonade. As soon as he does, his eyes light up. “Ah—your lavender! You got to harvest it?”

Kaname feels a grin touch his lips as he watches Natsume take a second, larger gulp of the lemonade, in his face all the bliss of an elementary schooler who’s gotten his hands on an ice cream pop at the park. He’s a bit surprised Natsume didn’t notice the smell straightaway when Kaname had poured it, but to be fair the entire kitchen smells a bit like lavender most days. “I did. I’ll tell you about it later. Finish your story first.”

He does, after yet another hearty gulp. “When it was all resolved and we went to tell the family, Sayaka-san wanted to give me a gift. I told her not to, because it was more Sensei than me, and Hiiragi helped too—Natori sent her with me because Sensei didn’t want him there either—they made sure neither of the ayakashi could get away until they settled the dispute. I asked a couple of questions, mostly because I wasn’t sure what was going on—it was something about a sacred pine grove—but it wasn’t like I resolved things for them.”

Kaname doesn’t need to hear the specifics to be soundly convinced that Natsume’s not giving himself near enough credit. He takes his own sip of lemonade, the tartness of it tempered by the softer herbal taste that lingers on his tongue. “What was the gift?”

Natsume smiles, a bit rueful. “Earrings.”

Kaname points. “Those?”

“No, these were just to get the piercings done, but I can show you later. They’re talismans, and pretty effective ones from what Sensei could tell. It’s a set of six, they’re little round polished stones in all different colors. I’ve got the types of stone written down somewhere and what each of them is useful for but I don’t really remember. Sayaka-san had inherited them from her aunt and uncle.”

“Did she know what they were for?”

“Vaguely. Enough to think she didn’t have as much use for them as I might. They’d just been sitting in a box in the house, and she was really glad the problem was fixed, so. She insisted. But Natori also insisted on paying her for them.” His mouth twists. “She didn’t love that, but I think he had a sense of how valuable they were, and didn’t want anyone trying to step in and claim I’d gotten them illegitimately. I like Yasuda-san and Tanaka-san—they were the clan members that went with us—and I really don’t think they’d do something like that, but I guess it’s better to be cautious.”

Kaname’s not sure how to feel about that. “That’d technically make them Natori’s then, right?”

Natsume huffs a short sigh. “I did try to make him take at least some of them, but he said they’d do me more good than him, that he’d feel better if I wore them at least some of the time. Also that his agent would kill him anyways if he showed up with holes in his ears. So he took me to get mine done, instead.” His hand’s inching upwards again, like he can’t decide if he wants to touch his ear or hide it from sight.

Kaname reaches across the table and intercepts his hand midair, lacing their fingers together in a move that’s objectively more awkward than suave, but it makes Natsume’s lips twitch nonetheless, and that feels like an achievement. “What’d the Fujiwaras say?” he asks.

“Well when I explained why I got it done, they were all for it, but.” Lips pursed, he looks equal parts embarrassed and affectionately exasperated. “I think it sort of amused them. Touko-san said it looked ‘very handsome’ and had me promise to clean them really well, and Shigeru-san cracked a few jokes about rock stars.”

“I mean—”

Natsume shoots him a withering look. “Don’t you start.”

Kaname agrees with Touko; can picture the barest hint of mischief touching the corners of her wide, delighted smile. “Will you get the other side done?” he asks. “If you’ve got six.”

He shrugs. “Natori said two at a time would be fine. And both sides seemed a bit…”

There’s a dozen different adjectives Kaname could fill in at the end of that sentence, none of them remotely close to what Natsume looks to be thinking. If he had showed up with both sides done, Kaname’s quite sure that his own reaction would’ve embarrassed them both.

“I did think—” Natsume starts, then seems to need a moment to rally himself before continuing. “If you wanted,” he begins again, looking rather more at some spot on Kaname’s cheek than at his eyes. “You could take some of them.”

“Oh.” It’s safe to say that’s not an offer Kaname had anticipated. “I’m not…I’m not an exorcist, though.”

“Neither am I,” Natsume counters, his fingernail tracing idly across the back of Kaname’s hand where their hands are still twined together across the tabletop. “Not really. And you are good at cleansings and banishings, anyways.”

“That’s…it’s kind of just a matter of showing up and remembering the words, but thank you.” He’d been practicing a bit of that at Dad’s suggestion and with his help, and had genuinely found the memorizing to be the most arduous part of it all; he’d taken to muttering the trickier, more unwieldy bits of sutra under his breath to practice while watering the plants or doing housework, most days.

“You’re good at it,” Natsume repeats. “I don’t want to make you feel like you’ve got to go and put holes in your ears if you don’t want to but I thought…” he trails off, looking uncertain.

“Thought what?”

He lets out a tight breath, then says, the words jumbling together a bit as though he’s afraid he’ll lose his nerve if he doesn’t get it out quickly, “I thought you could use them if you still wanted to come apprentice with the Matsuokas too.”

“I do.” He surprises himself with the immediate answer, but it crystallizes inside him even as he says it. “I will.”

Natsume’s eyes go round. “Really?”

“Really.”

Natsume smushes his lips together for a moment before speaking again, the taut look on his face suggesting there’s something before him now that he’s not sure he ought to hope for. “But…your dad—“

“I think Dad’s close to packing my bags himself if I don’t get out of here soon and go do something that doesn’t involve spreadsheets and invoices.” He feels himself smile. “I’d need to wait for the new school term, and don’t think I can do much to help out an exorcist clan, but…”

“You’ll do fine,” Natsume interjects, in a murmur. “I told you that.” And he had; as nerve-wracking as it is for Kaname to consider that he’d be literally blind to so many of the youkai the clan would be taking on, Natsume had said that he’d already met a handful of respected exorcists who worked for or alongside the Matsuokas whose sight for the supernatural was even less than Kaname’s. Some, even, with no sight whatsoever—who, like Dad, could compensate for that fact with knowledge and technique and become formidable in their own right. It’d been a comfort to know, but Kaname can’t say he’s not nervous about getting someone hurt because he couldn’t keep up, or excusing himself to go be sick behind a tree in the middle of some crucial binding or ritual because his body wouldn’t tolerate it.

Still.

“I want to go with you.” It’s out of his mouth before he can even find it in himself to be embarrassed about it. He’s staring at their hands, his own wrapped tightly around Natsume’s cool fingertips like he’ll find himself alone in the kitchen if he lets go.

Some of the creases in Natsume’s forehead soften. “That apartment’s too big for just me,” he says, with a tiny smile, looking down into his cup. “As long as you don’t get yourself eaten.” He pulls a slight grimace. “Or recruited.”

The first option’s more likely than the second, Kaname thinks but doesn’t say. “I won’t if you don’t,” he says instead.

“No chance of that.” Natsume taps the side of his cup with two fingers. “I think Sensei would rather eat me himself than consent to working for an exorcist. It puts him in a bad enough mood to be mistaken for a shiki as it is.”

Natsume had been very clear from the beginning, that his only reason for working with the Matsuokas was to learn to protect people, though Kaname also knows that means doing so without having to harm any ayakashi that ought to be left well enough alone. Kaname’s not sure why any of that has to be mutually exclusive from pursuing exorcism as a career path, but he’s certainly spent less time with exorcists and clan politics than Natsume has. And he can’t say he wouldn’t appreciate Natsume choosing a less dangerous day job.

“You’re sure?” Natsume’s asking him, now. His expression hasn’t changed much, but behind his eyes Kaname can see the years stacked upon years of learning to brace himself for rejection.

“I am."

***

They’re on the veranda now, legs hanging over the edge, the tips of Natsume’s socked toes not quite brushing the mossy carpet below. Heaped on the floorboards between them is what Kaname now realizes is probably an excessive amount of lavender: dried blooms in a glass jar, loose stems fastened with twine into bunches, yet more blooms rather poorly sewn into cotton sachets with simple blessings Dad had helped him write tucked inside. And finally, currently perched atop Natsume’s head where Kaname had placed it on a whim a moment ago, a carefully twisted wreath of pale purple and silvery green.

“You don’t have to use it all,” he tells Natsume, tapping lid of the jar. “Or take it all. It’s a lot.”

Natsume gives him a small sidelong grin, and with those slitted eyes catching and holding the afternoon sun as if it belongs to them, Kaname has to remind himself to breathe.

“Did you leave any for yourself?” Natsume asks wryly.

A soft snort. “Plenty. I had no idea they’d bloom so much this year, after how pitiful it was last year. I harvested most of them twice.”

Kaname’s got a literal dozen plants, the seeds a gift from one of Dad’s associates who’d gotten them on one of his frequent trips to a network of temples in Hokkaido. Kaname had sprouted them in egg cartons and had done his best with them, knowing that plants more suited to a milder climate far to the north would be finicky to say the least. It had taken two years to coax a decent harvest from them, and that had taken digging up a long strip of garden space to fill in with the sand and gravel they needed, and then painstakingly potting and repotting them all to move them between the flowerbed and a sunny storeroom he’d cleared out at the rear of the house when the weather grew too wet. Dad had joked that they’d bloomed so well this year because Kaname had spent so much time mumbling sutra while tending to them, but whatever the case it had been deeply satisfying to cut and hang the bunches of long fragrant stems up to dry when they’d been so scraggly the year before.

Natsume takes a sachet into his hands, holding it gently between his fingers up to his eye level. It turns a faint purple where the afternoon sun lights it from behind.

“I’m not sure it’ll do any actual good in protecting you,” Kaname says, watching him lightly touch his fingertip to the outline of the card where the blessing is inked. “Taki would be better for that. But it’ll make your pillowcases smell nice, at least.”

Natsume brings it up to his face, letting his eyes shutter as it covers his nose and mouth. “It smells like your room,” he says softly. He reaches up to where the wreath is settled in his hair. “This too.”

“Well I’ve got the one on the wall near my bed,” he says, certain he’s failing to sound casual when there’s that rare, unveiled softness in Natsume’s eyes. His tongue feels heavy and strange, and there’s a sensation like so many soda bubbles fizzing and popping in his chest, but he somehow manages to say, “The smell’s relaxing, so I like it there, but. You can put it anywhere you want. Sorry for not tying it so neatly.”

Natsume takes his hand off the wreath, sets it over Kaname’s, fingertips chilled from the refilled cup he’d carried with him. “It’s a good thing the apartment has a big veranda.”

Kaname chuckles, shakes his head. “Not big enough for a dozen large pots. Where would we hang the laundry?”

“We’ll fit them.” Natsume shrugs, tips his head back, looking utterly serene. “Won’t you want them for your tea?”

And that’s about when Kaname can’t take it anymore. He turns, cups Natsume’s face in both hands, and kisses his parted lips.

For the space of a breath, Natsume’s motionless against his mouth, but Kaname barely has the time to start to wonder if he’s done the wrong thing before he can feel the cool grip above his elbows, practically taste the featherlight sigh between lips that have opened wider to move with his own.

When they part, a long lightheaded moment later, Natsume’s reaching up towards his own hair, brows scrunching together, cheeks marvelously flushed under Kaname’s fingers. “Isn’t this poking you in the face?” He taps his makeshift crown.

“Yes,” Kaname says simply, leaning in to peck the very tip of Natsume’s nose.

Natsume bites down on a smile, not quite managing to look disapproving, and not moving to take it off, either. “All the flowers will fall off.”

I’ll make a better one, is what he means to say. What comes out of his mouth instead, entirely unbidden, is, “I missed you.” His voice snags oddly on the last word, and he swallows hard. A month and some change does not warrant falling to pieces on him, Kaname tells himself sternly, a handful of colorful nightmares notwithstanding. He’d made enough of a scene when he’d nearly tackled him at the door, hadn’t he. Still, he doesn’t trust himself to speak until Natsume does, his throat feeling suspiciously thick.

Natsume, for his part, looks a bit stricken, at first. And Kaname has the sudden thought that he’s grappling with the idea of being missed to such a degree in the first place. But the expression shifts soon enough into one of concern, and warmth.

“You won’t have to, for long,” he murmurs, after pulling Kaname back in for a gentle brush of lips across his cheekbone. “I won’t, either.” A lingering pause. Then, “…ah, sorry. That’s got to be stabbing you in the eye, right?”

Kaname blinks when Natsume abruptly pulls away, feeling muzzy and untethered and wanting very much for Natsume to be kissing him again until he realizes that Natsume’s gingerly lifting the wreath off his head. It catches on his hair despite his best efforts, enough to tug a few blossoms loose, and enough to knock aside those strands that have grown out just long enough to fall past his earlobes.

And Kaname couldn’t have pretended not to stare if his life depended on it.

His hand’s up, fingers outstretched before he even realizes. “Can I, um. It’s not going to hurt you or anything if I—”

“No. Go ahead.”

But Kaname’s only just touched the tip of his finger to the outermost hoop—the barest amount of pressure enough to make it lie flat against the bottom of Natsume’s earlobe—when Natsume sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, ducking his head out of Kaname’s reach.

Kaname snaps his hand back, distressed. “I’m sor—”

“No, it tickles.” Natsume straightens back up, rubbing at his ear with more vigor than he probably ought to whether it’s fully healed or not, leaving the metal gleaming against reddened skin.

Kaname raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

The glare Natsume shoots him is truly remarkable, though the effect is somewhat dampened by his mussed hair, the crumbly bits of lavender that have fallen onto his shoulders. Kaname throws his hands up, a picture of innocence, tucking this particular scrap of information away for a later date.

“For what it’s worth, though…” he starts, once he is well and truly sure that Natsume won’t try to scoot himself several meters down the porch and out of his reach; his arms are wrapped loosely around himself and he’s smiling again, though warily. But at that moment Kaname finds himself so thoroughly arrested with love that he couldn’t have launched the anticipated attack if he tried. “For what it’s worth. The earrings look good.”

#I didn't mention it in the fic but I need you all to know #Nishimura is absolutely thrilled by this development #'let me touch them' 'no'#natsume yuujinchou #natsume's book of friends #natsuyuu #tanunatsu #tanuma kaname #natsume takashi #owlet's fanfic #lizzyeleven #prompt fic #ask meme

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vagrantblvrd · 4 years

Note

maybe some more superhero content where matt is the tech guy but his super power is actually really great for super villains (he can force apathy on people or something). he is never cleared for field duty because hes really good at computers and look at all the donuts he eats, no way hes going in the field. shit happens and he is and he just wipes the floor with the villan of the week. and everyones like "fluke!" and he keeps doing it. "like its hard" and everyone is :(((( because its matt

Oooh, yes, but also, also. Whilst wandering the wilds of Superpower Wiki I came across Fear Manifestation?

Matt who can see both his and other people’s fears and bring them to life.

Just.

Imagine a wee little Matt Bragg discovering that’s his power?

This sweet little kid, all adorable and the whatnot and idk, maybe he saw a scary movie he was way too damn young to watch.

Or maybe a family member’s watching a horror flick thinking Matt’s asleep. Maybe he’s at a friend’s for a sleepover and one of their family members is watching the horror movie, whatever it is, Matt gets up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and sees this horrible, slavering thing on the screen and he has nightmares about it for ages, right?

Knows it’s not real, tells himself over and over again the way his parents did when they realized what was going on with him. Reminds himself it’s just a movie monster and can’t hurt him. Rubber and plastic and fake fur and fake blood and an actor in a suit, you know?

Same as some of his favorite characters in other movies and shows and nothing to worry about.

Except for that time it was?

Matt at a relative’s house for the weekend/summer and strange place – let’s make a farm with lots of trees and other things to cast strange, spooky shadows at night. Skeletal branches scraping against the glass of the spare room he’s sleeping in and owls and other night birds and animals going about their business and strange and unsettling to a city kid like him.

Has a nightmare about the monster, running, and running and running in the dark woods like in the movie. Stupid kid legs too short, slow, and it’s gaining on him and the last thing he sees before he snaps awake is the monster leaping on him, jaws opened wide and blood on its fangs from its last kill and where are his parents????

Poor, wee little Matt Bragg freaking right the fuck out and stumbling out of bed, steps slowing, faltering when he remembers where he is.

At his grandparent’s farm, miles and miles away from home and the closest city.

Dark spooky woods just beyond the farmyard on one side, cornfields on another. Big old barn behind a vegetable patch, and chickens and so on. Long winding dirt driveway leading to a small road and a couple of miles from the next farm over.

The farmhouse is unfamiliar to him, but he thinks he remembers the way to his grandparent’s bedroom. Knows they won’t be mad at him for waking him even at this late an hour, and even if they were he wouldn’t mind because it’s mean they’re safe, he’s safe.

Only.

The hallway doesn’t look, feel, right when he steps outside his room?

Ceiling too tall and he’s small still, a kid, but it’s not right.

The wallpaper’s different, not the pastel blue with pink roses his grandmother told him his grandfather picked because she loves roses. The light fixtures are different too? Not the polished brass and frosted glass but something colder, harder.

And -

There’s no window overlooking the vegetable patch at the end of the hallway, nothing he recognizes from his grandparent’s farmhouse.

“Oh,” he says, small little voice in a big, dark hallway, “oh, no.”

He does recognize it, because it’s from that movie he knows he wasn’t old enough to see any part of.

The one with the creaky floorboards under his feet and that light further down that flickers like a dying heartbeat.

Glowing red eyes that take form between one and the next.

Red and mean and this low snarl that rolls into a growl.

Click of the monster’s claws on smooth hardwood as it moves toward him, that slow, slow stalk of a predator that’s seen prey and poor, wee little Mat Bragg is frozen to the spot because this can’t be real.

But it is.

Or at least real enough that when the monster snarls again and launches itself down the hall at him he screams bloody murder and runs.

All the way back to the spare room he’s staying in where he slams the door shut and hides in the closet.

Hears it collide with the door, snapping and snarling and clawing at the wood while he curls down into corner of the closet and squeezes his eyes shut hoping it will give up, go away, that it’ll stop.

Claps his hands over his hears and recites the rules to the last game he learned to himself, card game his grandparents taught him before dinner.

He can hear yelling, so he presses his hands to his ears harder, but he can still hear the yelling. And then a gunshot, big, booming thing he recognizes, knows.

And his fear for his grandparents, his grandfather and that shotgun of his, has Matt uncurling, getting to his feet.

Worried about them, and he’s reaching for the doorknob to the closet door when the door to the bedroom slams open. Draws a yelp out of Matt and has him ck backpedaling as footsteps come his way and the closet door is ripped open -

“Matt?”

It’s his grandfather, looking as scared as Matt’s ever seen him, shotgun in his hands and staring at Matt like he can’t believe he’s okay.

And then, okay, and then.

Matt’s grandfather coaxes him out of the closet, promises him it’s safe and Matt believes him because his grandfather’s one of the strongest, toughest people he knows next to his grandmother and mom, and when he steps into the bedroom -

“…”

Because the room is untouched, sure, but the door?

Almost broken in two, clawed in two, huge gaping wounds in the wood where the monster tried to claw its way in.

The hallway beyond is the same Matt remembers from before, pastel blue and pink with touches of yellow and green, and the same light fixtures.

Seems the way he remembers it, normal farmhouse in rural South Carolina, and just.

Yes.

So, that’s how Matt discovers his powers and it’s not something he ever forgets, you know?

Gets worse as he gets older, realizes he can do that but with other people’s fears?

Like.

Slightly older Matt Bragg at school and bullies and this menacing figure with ham-sized fists and a rough voice and angry words and Matt’s bullies look so small next to them?

Things like that, and it’s.

He collects them, too.

Each new one slotting itself into his head, making a new home for themselves and sometimes he wakes up screaming because he’s dreaming someone else’s nightmare, fear.

(If he’s lucky, it stays a dream. Sometimes, though, sometimes they crawl out of his head into the real world and things, people, get hurt.)

Matt’s grandparents talk to his mom, his dad, the take him to specialists who teach him how to control it, because it’s that or lose his damn mind.

So he learns to control it.

Slips up from time to time, because he’s still a kid and feelings are hard, but eventually he learns to adapt.

Gets weird looks from people for being as easy-going as he is, weirdly apathetic sometimes?

But it is what it is.

He ends up working with small superhero teams here and there, a knack for computers and tech and people like him are always in demand, you know?

Superhero teams would be lost with out their techies and support staff and Matt gains a reputation as one of the better ones out there.

Catches the eye of a team in one of them big cities people are always talking about?

“Matt, what the fuck?”

Because Jeremy and old friends from way back. One of the minor league teams Matt worked for and this asshole with the impenetrable skin and bullheaded stubbornness to match. Jeremy’s new team needs another techie seeing as how they’re getting to be a little too much for one poor bastard to look after?

So Matt packs up his belongs and moves to the big city – “You’re impossible,” - and gets a tour from Gavin who’s far too relieved to meet him.

“Oh, thank God, you have no idea what it’s like,” like he really believes that.

(Matt’s known Jeremy for years, if what the asshole’s been telling Matt about his new team is even a little bit true, if they’re all like him in the worst possible ways then yeah, Matt fucking well knows.)

Anyway.

Matt starts working for this new team, big league players as these things go. Fight top-tier supervillains and a whole slew of lesser ones jockeying for position among the worst of the worst.

Have a whole city under their protection and a shiny space station all their own that should be fully repaired by the end of the year.

(Platform for an orbital death-ray in a past life, and Ryan and Trevor are quick to reassure everyone the death-ray is no more. Really, guys. :D?)

Anyway, anyway.

New team and all these new fears taking up residence in Matt’s head, you know?

Hi, hello, and I’ll just be living here now, right next to that monster that still gives you nightmares even now, don’t mind me.

Aside from all that, fears and nightmares living inside his head and all, Matt’s pretty easygoing? Affable.

Learns to put up with Gavin’s shit and loves giving it right back to him, the two of them kindred spirits in the way they sometimes want to throttle their fucking teammates?

Like.

Maybe don’t automatically resort to Heroic Sacrifice when there’s still time to come up with alternatives? Don’t be that asshole, okay? It’s a goddamned downer, and that’s before the funeral.

Should be a little worried (horrified?) at the fact that Gavin has secretly had the entire team and support staff microchipped, but when someone gets abducted or goes MIA it cuts down on the Drama and techie-side dramatically.

(Legal? Probably not, but everyone turns a blind eye to it seeing as how useful it is, and really, if Gavin went supervillain on them? The fact he could pinpoint their exact location whenever he wanted would be the least of their worries, so. Yes.)

Anyway, anyway.

Matt settles into the team incredibly quickly, realizes he likes it there?

Like.

Before all this he was just working a job, no real attachment or sentiment to go along with it. Dealt with some real assholes, all ego and no substance and all that over the years. Good people who stayed silent when they should have used their voices to do good and all that, just about everything you could think of, he’s seen it, dealt with it.

But these assholes?

He’s personally invested in them.

To the point he makes an effort to address their fears, see what he can do because some of them -

It’s not fixing them, not whatever horrifically simplified way of talking about it you’d think, just.

Stuff.

Things.

Something?

Something.

Little pushes here, a pointed question there. Outside perspective, non-judgment and that space their fears have made for themselves in his head...shift.

Go from something truly awful, something that could break a person who never deserved it into something smaller, more manageable.

And then, okay, and then???

All those lesser villains and supervillains, well sometimes one of them has real potential, you know? The makings of greatness, and everyone knows being great doesn’t always equate to being good.

Comes in and picks members of the team off one by one, clever and patient about it. So much so no one realizes it’s a concerted effort until it’s almost too late?

Incidents and accidents and seeming bad luck that takes out their heavy hitters at the start, has them calling on reserve members, has Gavin in the field which is a rare fucking occurrence, and not something the others like to see?

But, again, heavy hitters down for the count or missing altogether and their ranks thinned down to near nothing.

Gavin’s a little like Matt – not the same category regarding their powers, God no, just.

Gets underestimated far too often.

Doesn’t look intimidating like some of the others, isn’t some musclebound brute of a figure or anything, but he’s smart.

Clever.

Enough to know there were things Matt wasn’t saying, those long nights in the base nerve center worrying about the others where they’d talk about powers and such.

Little hypotheticals Matt would propose to counter Gavin’s and just.

Something to what he didn’t say, and anyway, anyway.

There’s a call, trouble in the city their team is sworn to protect and they’re the only two in the base who aren’t badly injured, off on what they all know is another wild goose chase searching for the asshole behind all this hurt.

Just the two of them and Gavin takes out a coin he carries around for some reason.

Ryan knows, though, doesn’t he. Gets this little half-smile when he sees Gavin rolling it across his knuckles and a story Matt’s only heard bits and pieces of from the others.

Trevor’s laugh and a glance up, up, up at wherever that shiny space station is in orbit at the time.

Michael’s heavy sigh and put upon scowl, thumbnail rubbing at at scar on his eyebrow in unconscious habit.

Lindsay fucking losing her shit, wheezing something about fucking idiots and...catsuits?

(Either literal catsuits, which, uh, no thanks? Or the kind that Gavin has hanging up in his closet, puts on when the team goes all-out in training and drag Gavin out even though he’s better suited for shadows and stealth rather than head-on tactics.)

And on and on, and one day, one day Matt will get the whole story out of these assholes.

Gavin takes out that coin of his and gives Matt this little grin, smirk.

Just the two of them in the base’s nerve center, lights down low and dread weighing heavy over all of them.

(Sometimes good doesn’t triumph over evil, sometimes the bad guys win. It’s happened in other cities before, will again because that’s how these things go, isn’t it.)

Gavin flips his coin, hand coming down to cover it before Matt can make out if it’s heads or tails and laughs as he heads to his quarters to suit up.

It’s a thing of theirs, that coin flip.

Loser grabs the coffee, or delivers bad news to an overworked and understandably cranky team. Goes and does the thing no one else wants to, can.

Something shifts in Matt’s head, big and mean and angry. Slavering jaws and glowing red eyes and claws that can tear through steel. (Matt’s seen it.)

“Back in a jiff!” Gavin says, suited up and ready to head into the city (their city) with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and he’s a goddamned liar because he doesn’t come back, does he?

No he does not, the asshole.

Leaves behind in the dark, all these fears and nightmares in his head.

That monster from his nightmares as a kid? First one he remembers and with him all this time later, less a nightmare and something like a constant...constant.

Something help ground himself when he loses control and can’t tell nightmare from reality and the other way around.

Movie monster made real, and something he’s lived with for a long damn time, learned to make his peace with and all that.

Besides.

He has all these new fears now, doesn’t he? Less fantastical in some ways but no less horrifying to contemplate, because.

This, his team? (Family?) They play a big part of his newest ones.

Still.

No time to think about that, not with some asshole broadcasting some stupid diabolical scheme to the entire city. Cruel and smug and gloating, and Matt’s missing teammates strung up behind him awaiting death by public execution or whatever it is he’s babbling about.

And Matt, okay, Matt.

Doesn’t have a suit or mask to call his own, never really needed one, you know?

Techie like him?

Yeah, no.

No suit, no armor.

Just Matt and a head full of fears and nightmares, and people don’t give him a second glance between good old Matt making his way to the asshole’s lair and the whole city in peril deal.

The ones who do? Hired goons and personal henchmen in matching uniforms? Well, wouldn’t you know what interesting fear they all have?

There are a few you’d expect, dying old and alone and heartbreaking in that respect, but others?

They’re things that step out of the shadows, slither in some cases, with big teeth and claws and the screaming just gets them more excited.

Matt doesn’t kill them, those hired goons and personal henchmen, God no, but they won’t be getting up anytime soon.

(Fear will do that to people, sometimes.)

Works his way up, up, up to a building rooftop and why, Matt wonders, why do they all have to be so goddamned theatrical about this shit?

Anyway, though.

There’s Matt in his hoodie and jeans and worn sneakers he swears he’ll replace soon, really.

There’s Matt, and then there are more hired goons, personal henchmen, and his team, all strung up. The asshole behind this bullshit.

And then, you know, and then.

That nightmare monster that’s been with Matt all these years?

Stalks out of the shadows with its glowing red eyes and sharp fangs and sharp claws.

Stands at Matt’s shoulder, rumbling growl and -

There’s screaming, because there always is, you know?

Big fucking thing like that appearing out of nowhere?

Yeah.

Matt looks up at it, and he knows, he knows, mercy, but in all honesty he’s not really feeling it after all the bullshit this asshole’s put his family through, and yet?

“Try not to kill them,” Matt tells his nightmare monster, and turns his attention to the asshole in the dumb suit.

Smiles when he hears it snarl, rush of displaced air as it races towards the line of stunned hired goons and personal henchmen and then he’s got other things to worry about.

It’s not graceful, not dignified what happens next because Matt doesn’t have the training, skills, the rest of his team does, you know?

At best he’s picked up enough to defend himself if some dick tried to mug him when he’s out and about, but he’s no hand-to-hand specialist. No martial arts master. Nothing fancy like that.

Gets knocked around a little, which, ha, part of his genius plan because fist to cheek and bingo.

“Oh,” Matt says, smiles up at the asshole through bloody teeth. “That’s a nasty fear you have, huh?”

Something about an aching, yawning void, and anger? Voices that claw at the mind, unravel sanity and the poor, stupid bastard who thought he was clever enough to outwit whatever dwells at its heart.

A deal struck out of arrogance and something close to ignorance, and a debt long owed and it shouldn’t exist in their dimension, you know? Impossible, because there are rules, and yet -

It’s the poor stupid bastard’s worst nightmare come to life, and Matt’s powers and there they are.

A furious scream, and clumsy rush like the asshole thinks he can put a stop to his fate if he just kills Matt, but he doesn’t.

Trips, a spot of bad luck or something else, and Matt sidesteps and there’s that aching, yawning void and all that anger.

Swallows him right up before it vanishes, space where it is rippling and warping and Matt has to look away because it isn’t right, how the world works and then it’s gone and it’s just.

Matt and his asshole team scattered about and groaning and unconscious hired goons and personal henchmen and -

“Hey,” Matt says, woozy, exhausted. “Good job.”

Matt’s nightmare monster snorts, tosses its head and fades away.

He feels it settling in the back of his mind as he passes out, familiar weight in the back of his head.

AND THEN.

Everyone collectively loses their shit because what the actual fuck, Matt Bragg?

Matt being like, “So, uh, hey, there’s a thing I forgot to mention?”

And the whole story about his powers comes out and, uh.

The thing where Matt saves the day again and again with his nightmare monster buddy/using some baddie’s fears against them and the others are like “We had that, Matt Bragg” which is a blatant lie as they were about to be lasered in half or whatever, idk.

Yes???

This totally got away from me and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, but yes???

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#ragehappy #superpowers au #prompt fills #Anon #uh #yes #hope this is somewhat close to what you wanted???#technically not a fic #vagrant fic #:D???#Anonymous

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jq37 · 5 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 15

Love Wins!

Welcome to an insanely chaotic episode of Fantasy High--even by the very high standards of this show. How chaotic you may ask? Well, the first thing that happens is that Bill Seacaster point blank shoots Gilear to death for being in a relationship with Hilariel. Full dead. He is full dead. Strangely, his plan to bring him back as a janky devil does not do much to comfort Fig. Imagine that.

Bill’s pirates are looting the Bottomless Pit (Gorthalax’s domain in Hell) and Vraz orders Fig to make them stop. When she instead orders Vraz to eat her ass, Vraz nullifies all warlock deals Gorthalax made and brings none other than Johnny Spells (and his greaser pals) to join the fight!

Really, this fight is insane and it’s better served by a highlight real than a play by play so I’m just gonna give you some bullets:

All the PCs rolled super low initiative this fight which really kinda screwed them. Like Fabian was down to 16 HP one point and it was like, “Lol, this is the end of round 1.” YIKES.

A big part of this fight was just surviving long enough to get to the second level of hell and rescue Riz’s dad which I think was probably good for morale because the thought of this fight dragging on for more than a couple of rounds exhausts me.

Fabian rolls off against Johnny right off the bat for the Hangman’s loyalty and Fabian wins with a 25 (and by coming out the gate with the word ENSLAVED which isn’t the word *I* would have used but a 25 is a 25 I guess).

He also has to contend with fighting Allistair who has a massive hole in his head filled with fire from Wicklaw eating his brain. It seems like Chungledown Bim is in hell too based on how Allistair keeps saying he’s gonna get him so he can shit in Fabian’s mouth. Of course, Fabian gets the better of him, but not before he deals out a fair bit of damage.

Adaine uses an Arcane Hand plus her portent roll to just whole-ass throw Johnny off the ship. Like, he gets back up but it’s so funny to instead of fighting an enemy to just throw him off a set piece (see eg: Bloodkeep ep2).

Kristen Revivifies Gilear and Bill, the mercurial sunuvabitch is like, “We love the same woman! I just want her happy!” and gives him a gun. Kristen immediately is like, “Bro, you need to hide,” and Gorgug protects him while he does so (in a sarcophagus that has a 50/50 shot of being launched as ammo).

Penelope shows up to the fight, eyes all black, wearing a shredded prom dress, and with shards of silver embedded in her forehead like a crown. Dayne and Daybreak also join the fight as messed up Harvestmen! It’s a veritable Smash Bros lineup of people the Bad Kids have killed!

Adaine and Fabian are christened the “Posh Squad” which is important to me, not to the fight.

Adaine gets to counterspell a counterspell from Penelope, one of the sexiest things you can do in D&D.

Fabian declares toxic masculinity dead. Shortly afterward, he makes Brennan eat a die when Daybreak tries to Frighten Fabian, a condition he is immune to due to his eyepatch I gather based on the table reaction.

Daybreak’s punishment in hell is a complete lack of self-awareness of why he’s there. He still thinks he should be sipping Mai-Tai’s in corn heaven with Helio while Kristen and Ragh are attacking him with gay spit (their words, not mine). Gay spit and, also, a ton of radiant and thunder damage.

Ragh gets some emotional catharsis by getting to body Dayne before Gorgug decapitates him. Very important step in the stages of grief. Decapitating the source of said grief.

Penelope gets Sparta-kicked off the edge of the boat by Fabian after Ayda dispels her protective globe and Riz shoots Daybreak again for old times sake. Unfortunately, Penelope Misty Steps back up and Daybreak is hurt but not killed. Ayda does a cool Dr. Strange teleportation thing and does a bunch of damage to both of them. Fabian finishes off Penelope with a sheet/sword combo and between Booming Blade and a Psionic Blast (does she have this ability as a Bard or as a Warlock? Relatedly, when she felt something leave her was that her Warlock deal being nullified or was she feeling the deals leave her since she is sort of the temporary Gorthalax?) Fig destroys Daybreak. Johnny just falls off the ship with no PC intervention because he sucks.

Bill also falls off the ship but Fig (with an assist from Gorgug) saves him and steals a scroll from Vraz on the way back up. By the by, earlier in the fight, she also had Baby Invisbly steal a random item from her.

Anyway, as they reach the end of the end of the fight, Bill loads Riz into a canon (!) and shoots him into the city, hopefully towards his dad (to the distress of his party). He crashes through the window in a familiar looking building and, when he finds a hallway that he’s pretty sure leads to his dad, he goes towards it.

He sees a familiar light coming out of a doorway (the interrogation room light) and a doorway next to it that is slightly open with steel thrones in it. There’s a two-way mirror between the two rooms and if he goes into the open one, he can see who is in with his dad. After checking for illusions and finding none, he stealthily walks in and sees, in the other room, his dad with a hulking pit fiend (30 ft tall, winged, almost dragon-y devil).

The pit fiend is questioning Pok about any regrets he had in life and Pok answers very uncharacteristically from the man we saw in the video saying he had nothing but high hopes for baby Riz. He says he had no regrets, his job was just a job, and that he only had a kid because Sklonda wanted one before going into a snarling goblin rage. The pit fiend smiles at that and says that Pok has promise so they won’t create a lemure out of him (a lemure is a weak, blobby devil). Two devils in the room with them whip him unconscious and then leave the room to go send more people to deal with Bill.

Riz Misty Steps into the room and does a self-imposed Wisdom check to steady himself after what he just heard--Nat 20 baby. Then, he opens his Briefcase of Holding, ready to scoop his dad into it when, the two lesser devils open the door and catch him in the act. But Riz persists in the scooping. They try to grapple him and he rolls a Nat 1 to avoid it. He *still* tries to get him dad. But then he notices, his gun is missing.

BLAM. The devils heads are blown clean off. He turns and he sees his dad has taken the gun--his gun originally--and shot the devils. Pok, who is amazed that Riz is there and no longer feigning apathy for the situation asks for an extraction into an earpiece, causing a halo to appear over his head and a beam of holy light to come down like a tractor beam.

“Wait,” says Riz. “You’re an undercover angel?”

“You got it, kid.”

Murph goes feral. The table goes feral. I go feral. What a way to end an episode!

And now for an all-Dad round of superlatives:

Detention

Bill Seacaster for KILLING GILEAR

I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain myself here.

Honor Roll

Pok Gukgak for Officially Joining the Fantasy Fathers of the Year Club

Here either.

I will, however, add a Hell Yeah!

Random Thoughts

If you haven’t seen it yet, the trailer for S5 of Dimension 20 just dropped and I won’t spoil it but, from the looks of it, it is gonna be a doozy.

“Do not metagame with my freaking Dad!” Oh to have the support of an NPC Emily Axford has decided to imprint upon.

Gorgug: It’s been one year. We’re sophomores.

“We support you as a DM and as your friend but also you’re our enemy.”

I think it’s very interesting that with just a little space and time from his dad, Fabian is finally having the proper reactions to his dad doing what I will charitably call shenanigans.

The level of distress and outrage from Emily when Gilear got shot was just *chef’s kiss*. I aspire to create an NPC that provokes that level of reaction from one of my players. Similar energy in a different direction from Ally when Daybreak attacked Tracker.

“Adaine, the jocks are being feisty! Get out of there!”

Vraz calls Fig “the Faithless” as her devil title and she insists on instead being called, “the InFaethable”. I wanna know how long Emily’s been sitting on that one or whether she came up with it on the spot.

Fabian upon seeing Johnny: Fuck off dude. I have too much going on right now.

Brennan being the eternal DM mood: How do I get out of this?

Very wild how little time has passed since Leviathan. Like, Fabian’s had this whole arc and grown so much but, like, OF COURSE Allistair still wants to murder him! It’s been like two days.

“I want to crumple up Gilear like a wrapper.”

A seven is a Murph 10.

The very specific way Brennan does foley for sword fighting (“Clang! Cling! Clang!”) is so funny to me.

Cannot overstate how much of a power move it was for Kristen to go, “I’ve been PRAYING FOR YOU,” at Daybreak and knock him on his ass.

I feel like I bring this up all the time but I love when Brennan is counting dice for a ton of damage and all the PCs are BSing reasons that it’s not a big deal like, “He’s just getting D4s,” or “Well I should get advantage for the reason just made up,” with everyone else fully playing along. ”

Allistair Ash, man. He is fascinating to me. I am so curious about what Brennan had planned for him originally because I feel like we barely scratched the surface before things took a TURN. He had two little moments in this ep that made my heart break for him a little: (1) When he says to Fabian, “If I die, I just come back a little bit worse but, if you die, you’re stuck down here with me.” and (2) when Fabian kills him and Bill grabs his soul and is like, “You know it’s gonna cost you X gold to revive you,” and he sighs and says, “Put it on my tab I suppose.” Like, I know he spent all ep trying to kill Fabian but I can’t help but be like, poor guy. He just has this pathos in his haplessness. I’m surprised Fabian didn’t make more of an effort to connect with him instead of being like, kind of like, “I will throw hands if I must.” Talking is a free action my dude. Anyway, I would love to see Brennan’s DM notes for this guy.

Lou was really doing some expert D&D with all the second winding and bonus actioning and burning spell slots for extra damage he was doing. He was like, “My initiative is trash so I have to do approximately a million damage per turn.”

Lol at Ayda asking if it’s weird to talk about sex stuff in front of friends in a group that involves both Kristen and Adaine.

Fig wishing she could do something cool in front of Ayda as if Ayda didn’t try to flood Hell on her behalf last week. My girl. You’ve already locked that down.

Not really an issue that’s we’ll run across during the run of FH but tieflings live 20-40 years longer than humans according to the official D&D lore. So lets say Fig lives to be 120 years old. And let’s say she sticks with her high school girlfriend and marries her. It’s possible they die at around the same time and then Ayda has to Deal With That in her next life but that’s not what I’m interested in. What happens if you’re a full elderly woman and your partner phoenixes into a child? What are the ethics of that? How do you deal with that? Chronomancy?

The horrified, “Love wins!” from Daybreak.

Is there a reason the viewing room Riz was in had thrones in it or is Hell just very about the ~aesthetic~

Every time a DM asks for a HP total, my entire being clenches in prep for a Power Word Kill.

“I’m gonna need a Dexter--”/”Counterspell.”

“You guys murdered me too but we hashed it out.”

I totally forgot that the Bad Kids lied that Ragh had shat his pants until the moment Adaine was saying it this episode. Freshman Year was WILD.

Also, just wanna take a second to talk about the elevation of Ragh from this side-note bully to a fully fledged, likeable character with depth and and an arc and gay spit. D&D is crazy.

Summoning Boggy via Bloody Mary is such a delightful image.

So, Kalina is the one that led Riz down the path that led to him finding out Pok is an Undercover Angel (!!!), which means one of three things: (1) She knew but miscalculated hard, (2) she didn’t know and made a different but also big miscalculation, (3) she did know and she’s doing some kind of 4-D chess thing we don’t know about yet.

Ayda hitting Fabian with a portent and then swooping in and saving Adaine. So clutch. What a good NPC to befriend.

Speaking of, I think we all kinda figured, but Brennan officially said on Twitter or the Discord (I don’t remember which) that Ayda is autistic. Like, I was pretty sure but I didn’t wanna assume.

Lol at the absolute lack of respect Kalvaxus got in this episode.

Pok as an Undercover Angel is SO GOOD. Like, I didn’t think he was really bad for a second but I never could have guessed he was an UNDERCOVER ANGEL. That’s such a dope combination of words. Undercover Angel (which my computer keeps trying to correct to undercover agent which isn’t wrong to be fair). Man. I love this. I love this for me and I love this for Riz. Riz deserves this. After so much crap in his life and so many mind games from Kalina and all this turmoil, he deserves to know that not only is his dad a good person who loved/loves him, he’s SO good that he’s an ANGEL and he was such a good spy in life he still is a secret agent in death. God, what a reveal. I can’t believe Riz got Spy Kids-ed TWICE by the same parent. Can’t wait to hear what exactly is going on with him.

Wait, what’s goblin heaven like? Which god is sanctioning this? Who is he working for exactly?

This episode, Kristen and Gorgug rolled 1 Nat 20 each, while Riz, Fabian, and Brennan each got 2. On the flipside, Adaine got 2 Nat 1’s, Fig and Fabian each rolled 1 that was cancelled, and Riz rolled 1 (in addition, Murph rolled two more which were lair actions and one of which was cancelled by a luck point so they don’t really count but it was very funny so I wanted to note it).

#fantasy high #fantasy high live #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #wow a recap that isn't a million pages for once #turns out I can do it

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somerandomg33k · 4 years

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I still don’t know who to vote for?

This election is going to be a weird and frustrating one. It is the first presidential general election where I am an Anarcho-Syndicalist. And this election in the darkest timeline has a Fascist as the incumbent. But the candidate that is opposing Donald Trump is Joe Biden. Almost everyone's last pick in the primary. The only worst candidate during this primary was Michael Bloomberg, who was trying to buy his way into the election. Possible to take votes away from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but that is damning with faint praise that Joe Biden is better than Michael Bloomberg.

The most likely results of this election are either the continued reign of a dictatorial Fascist, causes and continuing chaos and mayhem, or just straight up Neo-Liberalism. We are going back to a normal under Obama, which was terrible as well. Just not as awful as under Fascism. And we won't fix the problems that allowed Trump to rise to power. Since those are core systematic problems that the current Democratic Establishment is not interested in correcting. And the Republican party is just worse as they are OK with Fascism. Some of them want Fascism.

And let's not forget, serval people have very good personal reasons not to vote for Joe Biden. Joe Biden helped co-wrote the 1994 crime bill. In some issues, he was to the right of Regan on drug enforcement of the Drug war. He was always the most conservative Democrat in the Senate during his time there. He voted against busing 19 times. That is why many Leftists say that Joe Biden is Republican-lite. He is just the 'correct' color for Liberals and is the candidate the Democratic party chooses. So yea, there are two Republican tickets this election. The difference is one is not Fascist. Liberals know this. They are just in denial or flat out refuse to believe it. Because boy, don't say that Joe Biden and his running mate are anything but Progressive to them. Because they really hate that. "I think it is unfair to Joe Biden to judge him by International standards. I would prefer that he is judge by American Political standards," one Liberal said. Why can't Liberals admit that America's Political standards are shit?

Liberals have to believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are progressives because they can only think of voting for progressives and progressive causes. They can't accept they are voting for a Conservative on the Democrat ticket, because they would have to admit that the Democratic party has moved towards the right as has American's Overton Window. Joe Biden is against Medicare 4 All. On that issue, he is to the right of Boris Johnson and other conservatives of the UK and Canada. Liberals have to believe they are voting for progressives on the Democrat ticket. Because if they didn't, they would lose faith in the whole Ameican Electoral system as well as Reform. It is almost like Capitalist Realism. People can imagine the end of the World before they can imagine the End of Capitalism. Liberals probably have an easier time visualizing the end of the World before they could imagine a different system than the current governance of Liberal Capitalist Democracy.

Let's not forget, something we already know, that Joe Biden is a bit creepy. He is a Patriarch and treats women differently than men. Whenever he meets families at the White House who have sons and daughters, he would say to the sons, "You have a critical job. You got to protect your sister from all of the boys. That is something my Dad told me." The women must be protected, and it is the men who must do the protecting. Joe Biden has a habit of creepily smelling women and girls' hair and touching their bodies on the waist and shoulders. Serval women have said that Joe made them feel uncomfortable. And this was all before Tara Reade allocations. #IBelieveTaraReade.

As for Kamala Harris, she did put trans women in men's prison, which resulted in one of them getting killed. "Kamala Harris couldn't do a thing." Is something Liberals need to stop saying. What they really mean is, "Kamala Harris choose to uphold an unjust system by blindly following rules instead of using her power and influence to change them." She attempted to block two Trans women's requests to get gender confirmation surgeries. Which, as far as I know, she hasn't really made amendments for. She wasn't good about slowing down The New Jim Crow. She was fierce to Sex Workers too. One of my comrades said, "As a trans woman and a Sex Worker, how should I feel about voting for Kamala Harris." She increased convictions for things like merely drug procession. She also wanted to jail parents for truancy. She has been called the Democrats Top Cop. Someone who is "Tough on Crime." Just like how Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were in the 90s. And that still has devastating effects on Black and Brown communities.

So many people have many good reasons not to want to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And Liberals want to think that they simply "have their flaws." Again, I think it is just all to make it easier for them to be excited to vote for them. All of those issues, including their voting record on increasing Military spending too, are "merely flaws." And they will also shame people into voting for Biden/Harris with, "It is the lesser of two evils." Which again, is more of an indictment of the system we have. "But we have an election, and we should all vote." So we can't talk about changing the system right now during an election. So when can we talk about change this entire system? And Just like with 2016, "A vote for a third party or a no vote is a vote for Trump."

Further shaming us into voting for Biden/Harris. "Do you want four more years of Trump?" FUCK YOU AND SHOVE THAT DISINGENUOUS QUESTION UP YOUR ASS!!

Merely bringing up all of these complaints are being associated with supporting Trump. Another by-product of the binary way of thinking with the Two-Party system and First Past the Post voting. Liberals have 'accepted' Biden/Harris is the ticket. And they honestly wish we do too. And since we are vocal with our complaints, they hate us for not 'accepting' Biden/Harris is the ticket. They hate us for not 'accepting' the way the system is as it is. "I have accepted all of this. Why haven't you?" This can explain how so many Liberals would go "URG" at the thought of Joe Biden as President back in January during the Primaries to skipping to the polls to vote for Biden for the General Election. "Well, he won the primary." "I get to vote Trump out of Office" is more what it is about and not how great Biden is. They tell themselves how great Biden and Harris will be as a recon.

And with all of the shaming us into voting for Biden/Harris, instead of voting for the Green Party or not voting, it completely ignores the fact we did vote for Hillary in 2016. She 2.8 million more votes. But it is the Electoral College that gave Donald Trump in the win. Plus, in Washington State, my state, four of the Electors didn't vote for Hillary Clinton when they were 'supposed to.' Washington State is likely to go blue again. So I don't know if it is essential for Me to vote for Biden/Harris. The fivethirtyeight poll from Sept. 22 shows Washington voting for Biden at 58% vs Trump at 36%. A 22 point difference. I think I can safely vote for Howard Hawkins and feel like I didn't help Trump win. But that won't be what Liberals think.

Now with all that said, Donald Trump is still a Fascist wannabe Dictator. He is almost the worst. His administration is just letting massive amounts of people died because of Covid-19. He is encouraging people to shoot BLM protestors. He told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," at the first Presidential Debate. He said there wouldn't be a peaceful transferal of power because there won't be a transferal, but a continuation. Donald Trump has sewn doubts about voting by mail. He will doubt any kind of election results where he doesn't win. So Liberals argue we most vote in such high numbers to show that it is the will of the people they want him out of office. To which he can easily say "Fake News." He did doubt the 2016 popular vote results claiming 3 million "illegals" cast fraudulent votes.

Another convincing argument is we most show that Trump's ideas can't win elections. Because if it continues to win elections, more people will adopt Trump's views and policies. It is sort of convincing. But since a Qanon supporter will win a seat in the House of Representatives, becoming a rising star in the GOP Party. The GOP Party has backed Trump throughout his time in office, Trump's views and policies will continue whether he wins or not. Even if Trump loses, we are not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. Trump base will still be here in this White Supremacist CisHetro Patriarchal Ableist country of the United Corporations of Imperialism. Who will always vote for the GOP and are not going away. Many Democrats will even speak highly of them. Nancy Pelosi prays for the Republicans. Liberals believe having an opposition is part of a functioning Democracy. Will the GOP no longer be Fascist? I doubt it.

"We have to get rid of Trump at all costs." I understand that urge. But the system gave us Trump and protected him. So how is voting and participating within the same system supposed to help? I know that Liberals think voting is very powerful because "So many people had to fight for their basic right to vote." And that is all true. The GOP only wins because of dirty tricks like gerrymandering and voter suppression. Hence, Trump is encouraging his base to watch the polling stations for "suspicious people wanting to commit voter fraud" and "rig" the election. It is straight voter intimidation and is happening already in Virginia. Part of the convincing reason to get Trump out of the White House. Biden will not encourage White Supremacist of all types to commit acts of violence against "The Radical Left terrorists" and "Antifa." Antifa is not an organization; it is an idea. Even Biden got that right.

Knowing how terrible Trump is, brings me back to Biden and how bad he is. Not as bad. Trump and Biden aren't the same. Trump is a Fascist while Biden is a Neo-Liberal, and Neo-Liberalism isn't Fascism. Neo-Liberalism just leads to Fascism, as we have already seen with Trump. I simply see Neo-Liberalism worse than how Liberals see it. Not enough to make a false equivalent, but still. Remember, if Trump loses, he could pull a Grover Cleaveland and run again in 2024. Imagine that.

What bothers me the most about Liberals changing their opinion of Biden, by the mere fact he won the primary, is that Biden is granted votes from Democrats and Leftists. I am sure Democrats do love old Uncle Joe. There were a lot of memes from the Obama years. And many Liberals just love Obama. Even though they fully well know about his War Crimes. It is that acceptance that I don't have in me. "Well, he is the candidate. So I will support him to get rid of Trump." And what makes it worse, Biden isn't really offering anything as well. He is against the Green New Deal. He is against Medicare-4-all, even during a Pandemic. What is Biden/Harris offering? Even Biden, when asking these questions and about his record, says, "If you are questioning whether to vote for me or not, you ain't black."

So Leftists will get nothing and will receive all of the blame for of Trump winning if we don't vote for Biden. "If you are questioning whether to vote for Biden or not, you must want Trump for four more years."

Remember, I live in Washington State. A super blue State. If I live in any battleground state, even within a ten points difference, I would vote for Biden/Harris. But since Biden is ahead by 22 points in my state, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, I am considering voting for a third party. Howard Hawkins of the Green and Socialist party is closer to my position. I would prefer there is no State at all and no President at all. Especially no single person having that much power, especially being the 'leader of the "Free" world' by virtue of being the President of the United Corporations of Imperialism. If the President of the United Corporations of Imperialism is the 'leader' of the 'free world,' then how come the World doesn't get to vote in this election. The UCI, Imperialtopia bombs the hell out of the middle east so much, I think the middle east has a right to have a say in our elections.

I do have to acknowledge those platform holders, people with a Youtube channel, a Podcast, or have a large following on Social Media, feel the need to tell people to "to out and vote. Vote as if your life depends on it because for some, it actually does matter." Although for some people, much won't change materially for their lives, like the impoverished and the disabled. For some, it is life or death. For others, it is a shit show, regardless. But platform holders want Trump out of the White House. They don't know who lives in what state. They don't know if their audience's votes matter or not. Since they are speaking to a vast audience, and they must keep it simple, they have to say, "VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!"

But, I am thinking, if they acknowledge that some votes are more important in some states than others, they will have to admit the whole in the United Corporations of Imperialism is unjust. Votes are weight more heavily in some states than in others. The whole system has to change. But that can't happen in a year. However, folks can vote on Election Day. So, it is easy to encourage people to vote instead of organizing to abolish the Electoral College. It would take too long to do it. It would take a lot of effort. So even bother trying. Liberals would rather pretend that isn't the case and just badger and shame people into voting for a candidate they have 'accepted' won the primary, even though Biden was one of the worse candidates in that field. Everyone's tenth or so pick.

With all that said, vote for whoever you want to or whoever you feel comfortable voting for. I won't vote shame anyone. Except if you vote for Trump and the GOP. Then you are a Fascist because you are voting for a Fascist and the Fascist party. Pure and simple.

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b0sscrew · 4 years

Text

Pokemon au!

Another Ducktales AU! Shocker!

Welcome to the inevitable crossover! There are three versions of this (trainers, human trainers, and reverse gejinka) but we'll just focus on the human trainers first because I'm not comfortable with showing my Ducktales drawings yet! This is just for fun and not definitive. I'm going to be doing this like a real adventure! We'll be following the triplets as they travel the region of... Americaw... Sure, we'll go with that for now.

I want this to be a story in many parts. I also want all their adventures from the cannon to be here as well, except it's just the kids facing them most times. Like let's say all the battles are monsters and baddies they've actually fought in cannon. That would be fun!

Oh, let's bring characters into the mix. Let's say that Webby is the boys' rival and best friend. Violet is also their rival but on a slightly lesser scale(mostly to Huey). Boyd also becomes a rival of sort later on(mostly for Louie). So that only leaves Dewey, and to be honest, I'm not sure. I think Webby would be his biggest rival but he doesn't have a secondary rival. I might just make my own rival for him too be honest, but I wish I knew who to put that's around his age. (Also, I realize Boyd is Huey's best friend but Violet is literally his rival in an episode.) I already have an idea for Lena so I can't add her to the rival crew anyways.

Let's talk about the Duck family.

So I decided it would make the most sense if Della and Donald shared custody of the boys. Donald is still Uncle Donald, don't worry. But since Della is always busy with the league they decided it would be easier to just have them both raise the boys. Donald is basically a stay at home dad while Della is constantly working as one of the core members of the elite four. Della is a flying type expert and Scrooge's favorite relative.

Feathery is an amazing boy! He's constantly working with the elite four as the Regions main professor. He's so excited about all pokemon, but his favorite are water types, because they make him giggle like a little kid. He's Huey's favorite uncle and the only adult he can truly relate to. Feathery is still the biggest sweetheart but now everyone takes him seriously and hang on his every word, even if he doesn't realize it.

Gladstone is one of the sole reasons the champion is still the champion. Because of his luck no one has gotten past him and his grass types. If he didn't have his luck people wouldn't have this issue, but he's cursed with it so he literally can't lose. Of course every Pokemon he has ever caught has been a shiny because they seem to gravitate towards him. The only time he can't find one is when he wants to give one to his family. I guess that's just his luck.

Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in the world. Despite being part of the elite four, he doesn't really have to do anything. Since he's challenged after Gladstone his battles are few and far between. So he began running his company's full time. Although he does have to leave his work to protect the region at least once every two week. He is the most loved of the elite four and also the most hated, with all his enemies. Good thing he's the best of the league.

Region time!

So, Americaw is based off the world of Ducktales and all the places they've been to by the time of the season three hiatus. I also decided you can find any pokemon in this region (even if characters share pokemon sO MaNY TIMES!), and some come earlier than we're used to. Most of the region is mostly forests with ruins but later on is more of the places we know and love, victory road and the league is even one of my favorite places in the entire series.

Gym leaders, baby.

Gym leaders are characters that are associated with the McDuck clan, mostly working for them in some way. I also tried to put a twist on everything and some of the gyms are ones you wouldn't expect for that character. Let's go over them real quick, shall we?

Owlson, the Normal type gym leader. I thought she was perfect for this because she does technically work for Scrooge now. There's nothing too special about her except that she really wants things to go right and she doesn't have room for silly things. I thought she would be fun as a first gym so the kids could get a taste of the adventure ahead of them. She uses a Hoothoot (to harken to her being an owl) named Natasha, and she has a Porygon (to harken to her being a buisness woman) named Charity.

Ludwig Von Drake, the Poison gym leader! As goofy as the man is he is very competitive. He works with Gyro and Fenton on many projects but has his own lab away from them. I think he works the best for poison because than he could be more of a chemist than the other two scientists. He's also the gym leader we see the least of. He's always in a rush to finish his project just to get on the next one thats probably even more dangerous. He uses a Grimmer (chemicals) named Paul, and a Toxel (science in general) named Corey. He also has a Rotom, named Walker, that just helps around the lab.

Fenton, the Steel gym leader. Since fenton is a superhero I thought he could take his typing from Gizmoduck. He's the main one out of the three scientists that makes weapons and items for the police force. The military forces also thank him very frequently. But since he has so many idea's there's no way for him to do them all. He usually overworks himself because of this and it's obvious to anyone who so much as looks at him. Even so he is the most optimistic of the gym leaders and goes nowhere without a smile. He uses a Pawniard (Gizmoduck) named Hero, an Aron (Robots) named named Titanium, and a Scizor (Gizmoduck strength) named Bromine.

Gyro, the electric gym leader. I thought Gyro fit best with electric because of presumably obvious reasons. Gyro is the wildcard of the three scientists and will do anything for science. He can't count how many times he's almost accidentally killed himself with an experiment. He might seem like he's the only one that slows down out of the three scientists, but you're dead wrong. He probably works the hardest and has the most unhealthy habits out of all of them. He's the best scientist in the region and refuses to give the spot up for anything. He's currently trying to find a way to turn his blood into coffee. He's as brutally honest as ever, and still full of himself, but will admit defeat. He uses a Magneton (robots) named Maggie, a Rotom (Lil' Bulb) named Tom, and a Vicavolt (robots) named Vic.

Duckworth, the ghost gym leader. He might be a ghost but that just makes him better at his job. He's extremely neat and gets annoyed if a picture is tilted. He doesn't hesitate to greet challengers with a smile and even give them tips during battle. When he looses he still acts like a gentleman. He loves his work and refuses to leave life without "good reason". He uses a Gengar (his demon form) named Káge, a Banette (being able to poses things) named Mary, a Polteageist (because he's fancy) named Green, and a Mismagius (just because he's a ghost) named Lady.

Lena, the psychic gym leader. I told you she had a job. But I also know this typing might not seem like it fits. But trust me, it does. Her magic is what I imagine when a pokemon is Psychic type, so I thought it was perfect. She's rough around the edges when you first meet her but she grows on you once you get to know her. She's loyal to her friend's and already knows the kids once they get to her gym. I believe she is the only one that doesn't work for Scrooge in the cannon. She's basically the same she was in the show. She uses a Hypno (dreams) named Dreamcatcher, a Hatterene (being trapped by magica) named Princess, an Espeon (her necklace) named Garnet, and a Lunatone (the eclipse) named Lunar.

Launchpad, the dragon gym leader. Plot twist! Let me explain before you start yelling at me. I wanted Della to be the flying type specialist, so I had to do something else for Launchpad. It took me forever to figure out what to give him, I even considered the option of repeating flying, before I finally remembered dragon. It hit me that it was perfect! The dragon type embodies everything he loves. Flying? Boom, dragons fly! Superheros? There's a dragon that looks like it was made for a superhero. Airplanes? There's plenty of those. Acting like a child? How about one that looks like a child's imaginary friend! The list goes on! The dragon type was perfect because it's so loose. Anyways, back on track. He uses an Altaria (clouds) named Fluff, a Salamance (superheros) named Comic, a Noivern (DW) named DW, a Flapple (childish) named Flapper, a Drakloak (Sunchaser/Cloudslayer) named Sunchaser, and a Duraludon (vehicals) named Crash.

Ms. Beakly, the dark gym leader. She's a freaking spy, of course she's dark type. She's the hardest gym to beat, even for final gyms. She's tactical and knows (almost) every trick in the book. She'll point out what you're doing wrong and still beat you if you do everything right. She doesn't go easy on anyone so you better be prepared. Despite all of this she is one of the kindest people you will ever meet. When you loose to her she has a plate of cookies for you to take with you when you leave, and if you beat her she gives you an item that'll help you the most with the league, plus cookies for your travels. She loves Webby so much, enough to teach her almost all of her tricks. She's a good woman. She uses a Tyranitar (strength) named Tyrone, a Pangoro (capabilities) named Gordy, a Grimmsnarl (I just thought it fit) named Grimm, a Malamar (that expression) named Mal, and a Honchkrow (spy) named Krow.

I love this idea and can't wait to expand apon it. I alread have so many ideas that it's hard to not spoil any plans I have. I just hope I don't overdue it. I want it to kinda be like a little more serious version of the pokemon anime. Not too serious, but I want it to be like what you'd find in ducktales (just maybe a tiny bit less kid friendly).

Well I hope you enjoy my idea and have fun with it. Well anyways, have a great day!

Also, here's a picture of the HDLW designs.

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hexlikesramennoodles · 6 years

Text

All Yours (All Mine)

Pairing: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington Rating: T Warnings: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse Word count: ~2.3k

At some point during their off again friends, on again fuckbuddies phase, Billy had rolled over in bed and said to Steve, You know, you’re pretty and all, but you’re also kind of weird-looking.

It was the kind of comment that was intended to be as insulting as it sounded. They had a routine, and they stuck to it. A routine where Billy would end up in Steve’s bed and things would shift for a night, and then they’d come full circle. Billy would try his best to put his foot in his mouth, letting slip to Steve something like, I’ve had better sex with girls or don’t think this means I actually give a damn, Harrington and instead of walking home with a full belly of pancakes (or whatever other stupid romantic venture Steve has in mind for their mornings after, Billy never stays long enough to find out), Billy would walk home with a split lip and bandy legs, and that dangerous shift—cosmic, spiritual, physical, personal—would be corrected.

It’s better that way, Billy reasoned. Saner. Neither of them can afford to get too comfortable.

“What are you drawing?” Steve asks.

His foot is touching Billy’s under the table, in full view of the cafeteria. Billy doesn’t look up. His chocolate pudding sits unopened next to his elbow, the fingers of his other hand curled protectively over his napkin, hiding it from Steve’s line of sight.

“Nothing,” he huffs.

Steve arches an eyebrow, plastic spoon protruding from the corner of his mouth. He looks fucking adorable. Billy presses the tip of his pen into the napkin, rendering the shape of Steve’s lips in violent navy slashes. It’s not his best work. He’s no Van Gogh.

But. It’s something.

“Show me,” Steve says. He’s got that look in his eye. A wet shine, like light winking off a sharp edge. He knows Billy well enough by now to just understand.

They’re more on than off, these days.

“Shut up,” Billy says, wrenching his hand away. “Sit still.”

Steve slumps back in his seat, rolling his eyes at the ceiling as if he’s saying, get a load of this guy. Billy ignores him. Tries to. The spoon of Steve’s pudding cup rolls between his lips. He slips it out and licks it clean, licks the handle, sticks it all the way into his cheek with a loud squelch.

Billy scribbles on his napkin. He draws porcupine quills for Steve’s ridiculous hair; big, flat gingerbread buttons to match Steve’s doe eyes. His stomach rumbles. They’d left Steve’s house together that morning, Steve wheedling Billy the whole way. C’mon, Billy, at least have a bit of bacon. He may as well have been asking Billy to stay. Asking him to let himself be coddled, spoiled, babied. Like Billy’s some empty-headed broad who needs to be reassured by that sort of thing. Come on, Billy, lemme make you breakfast, huh? Come on, Billy, sell your soul to me, be mine, all mine. What’s the worst that could happen?

Wouldn’t Steve like to know.

He does know, but only the carefully curated snippets that Billy feeds him. He knows that Neil counts his calories and weighs him twice a week. He doesn’t know that if Billy’s not up to par, Neil gives him a smack on the chops. One smack per pound gained. He doesn’t know that Neil’s all lean, mean muscle, with a thumping lefty. Billy’s thicker around the middle, stockier. Steve doesn’t know that Neil says Billy gets it from her. It’s never ‘your mother’, it’s always Her.

“Am I still allowed to read my comic?” says Steve.

“Do whatever the fuck you want,” Billy says, still scribbling. “I don’t give a shit.”

“Uh-huh. Sure,” Steve says, insolent, but low enough that Billy can pretend not to hear him.

Just for a second, he dares to look up. Steve’s distracted, pudding wobbling from the end of his spoon as he turns a page. He’s holding one of Billy’s comic books open, flattening the spine against the table with his palm. It’s one of those Chose Your Own Adventure rags, its pages bisected into maze-like algorithms of different scenarios that you trace with your finger. Steve loves them. Billy used to love them, too—when he was about twelve years old. He collected them and stored them in a wooden chest in his room, not just the ones where the reader gets to decide the outcome of the story but issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, MAD, Weird Tales Magazine. Turns out, Steve didn’t grow up with any comics; his parents only read National Geographic, and hold anything lesser in high contempt. When Billy gave Steve a whole binder’s worth of his old comics, he informed Steve it’s only because he felt sorry for him. That it’s pretty pathetic, Steve never having read The Amazing Spider-Man until he turned eighteen.

“My nose isn’t that big,” Steve says.

He leans all the way over, hand moving from his comic book to push Billy’s aside. His mouth contorts into a bemused frown as he takes in the picture Billy’s drawn on his napkin, the little stick figure Steve staring back up at him from behind a pair of smudged Ray Bans.

“Yes, it is,” Billy says. Patiently, like Steve has the cognitive capacity of a second grader.

Steve tugs the napkin out of his grip. “It’s huge!” he exclaims. “You literally drew a triangle for it. I look like a witch or something.”

Billy balances his pen on his upper lip and waggles his eyebrows. “You know what they say about guys with big noses.”

“They’ve got big dicks?”

The pen drops from Billy’s lip. He glares at Steve with mock reproach. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Harrington.”

Picking the pen back up, he draws a tiny speech bubble next to stick-figure Steve’s mouth: Hey, asshole! Stick-figure Steve is shaking his fist at some unknown aggressor. It’s how Steve looks when he’s mad enough to give Billy a smack on the chops of his own: eyebrows scrunched in a furious line, teeth bared, face blotchy. About as intimidating as an angry kitten.

“You like my nose,” Steve says softly.

His foot brushes against Billy’s under the table. Comfortable, warm. Billy wants to ignore the shiver that runs up his thighs, but it’s difficult. Less than four hours ago, Steve was kissing him there. Starting with Billy’s ankles, mouthing over the balls of his feet and his calves before moving gradually to his knees, then his thighs. He’d stopped maddeningly short of his groin, laughing when Billy had bucked his hips and called him a cocktease.

As if Steve knows what he’s thinking—as if Steve’s thinking of the same thing, of kissing Billy’s thighs, the two of them sprawled in a cozy tangle on Steve’s sheets—he draws his foot up, somehow worming the tip of his sneaker underneath Billy’s jeans. Billy imagines kicking him in the shin, just for the hell of it. Steve should know better. Especially when they’re in fucking public, in front of a hundred of their own classmates, for fuck’s sake.

“It’s weird,” he insists.

“That’s why you like it,” Steve says. He licks his spoon again, slower. The hair on Billy’s thighs is standing up, tingling as if charged by static electricity; he presses them together, almost groaning at the sensation of denim dragging against his skin. He’s vaguely aware that he’s watching Steve’s mouth avidly, his own mouth tasting arid, parched for something that can’t be quenched with water.

He wonders if Steve ever sees himself. If he ever looks in the mirror before leaving the house and asks his reflection, hey, is this even appropriate?

Because if Steve had any decency, any sense of shame, he would. And he’d also stop staring at Billy like that—eyes heavy at the corners, bottom lip jutting out around the edge of the spoon. When Billy had called him weird-looking, what he’d really meant was confusing. Steve’s nose is slender but somehow bold, angular; his cheekbones are high, and his mouth is pointy and pouty but also, not. It’s a man’s face but there’s a softness to it, too; a femininity that strikes Billy as not only personally offensive, but downright fucking nonsensical. He doesn’t understand how someone can be so oddly proportioned yet so in proportion at the same time.

Billy likes his life ordered. He likes things to fit neatly into their little boxes; it means he’s in control. It means that Maxine is scared shitless of him and his dad’s a bastard for all eternity and Susan’s Susan and Steve Harrington is off, not on. Inside this strict, organized reality of Billy’s creation, Steve’s foot certainly wouldn’t be touching his knee right now and he wouldn’t have brought him an extra pudding cup because Billy refused to eat the bacon and eggs Steve cooked for him that morning and Steve wouldn’t even prefer Billy to be a little heavier, he’d want Billy to be more responsible with his weight, have some respect for his body—

“You like my mouth, too,” Steve’s saying. “And my hair. My eyes, of course you like my eyes. Why else would you have gone to all this effort?” Crooking the spoon upwards, he reaches across and taps the stick-figure Steve with his pointer finger. “You like me, Billy.”

God, Billy’s created a fucking monster.

“You’ve got pudding on your face,” he blurts out.

The words aren’t Billy’s words. They don’t come out nasty—they’re not even remotely scathing. Things have shifted again, but Billy can’t tell if it’s in Steve’s favor or not. He has as much to lose as Billy does, after all.

Steve smiles at him, gentle. He doesn’t swipe the stray pudding from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand; doesn’t stammer or withdraw or furrow his brow. It’s as if Billy’s shown his hand already, but that frustrates him, because he doesn’t know when. He can’t even tell if Steve’s bluffing, trying to back him into a corner he’s not aware of. Shit, Steve’s not bluffing. He can’t be. That wouldn’t be playing fair.

Steve lifts the comic book, placing it next to his ear. “It’s all yours, Hargrove,” he says.

He cups his chin with his hand, waiting. Billy’s stared at Steve’s hands for perhaps as much time as he’s stared at his face, trying to figure out how it’s all supposed to work. He suddenly wishes he could draw better, so he could get Steve’s hands on paper properly. Immortalize them, or whatever.

He thinks he could teach himself to draw Steve’s hands. He knows them off by heart; knows their feel and their weight and their specific warmth, how they look around Billy’s neck. The marks they leave behind, deep, ingrained marks, like flowers pressed into the pages of a book. Billy can touch them and think, look: here Steve was, is. Here you can be loved, if you know what’s good for you.

For as long as Billy can remember, his father has called him a mistake. Said he’s mismatched, crooked, wrong like Her. Steve’s hands are crooked; so is his hair. But he makes Billy laugh, and, when Billy asks for it, he makes him cry. Tenderly. When he does that, Billy doesn’t feel so wrong; he feels stripped naked, made anew. That, by holding him and kissing him and smiling at him like he is now, Steve’s drawing all the bad blood out. Hands wringing him clean.

Steve shakes the spoon at him, his mouth and eyes shining with strange, cryptic light. They’re mismatched, Steve’s eyes. One has slightly more hazel in it than the other. Billy’s chest is heavy and warm, as if Steve’s placed his foot over his ribs instead of his leg. They’re mismatched, him and Steve. Whatever the fuck they have, on or off, is scrapped together haphazardly from different pieces of their lives, like an old quilt sewn from other old quilts, scratchy and smelly and a little ugly, but snug nonetheless. Good shelter for storms and shadows.

Billy leans forwards, closing in on that secret space between Steve’s mouth and his ear. All around them rises a rabble of voices like vapor from the forest floor, kids laughing and catcalling to one another across the cafeteria. Steve holds the comic book upright, shielding both their faces. When Billy kisses him, he tastes the sweetness on Steve’s lip from where his pudding spoon missed his mouth, but it was never about that. When Billy said, You’re kind of weird-looking what he really, really meant was, I like you, a lot, and when he kisses Steve now what he means is, All mine.

#this is cheesy but i saw the ultimate steve harrington gifset and i just #his face confuses me #but it also intrigues me #and i can imagine (or want to imagine) poor billiam being equally confused/intrigued/turned on #harringrove #my writing #tumblr ficlet #steve harrington #billy hargrove #apologies to those reading this on mobile #in that ugly af font

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musicprincess655 · 5 years

Link

Ryuu’s lungs burn and his heart beats too, too fast in his chest. He’s never been the best runner, and running for his life doesn’t offer the same motivation to him as it does to other people. After all, he’s been running for his life for almost twenty years now.

Gin doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him, but he knows that she knows he can’t keep this up for much longer. No matter how much he wills himself to keep going, his body is going to give out.

Atsushi is keeping pace easily, enough that he can even talk while he runs, and Ryuu hates him for it right now.

“How are we going to escape?” he asks. “We can’t run all the way to the wall.”

No, they can’t. Ryuu and Gin had been hoping they’d have more time to hide out, if their plan to steal a police car didn’t work out. It would take longer to get out of No. 6, and that’s always dangerous, but they wouldn’t attract the kind of attention they would with faster methods.

“There,” Gin says, voice so soft Ryuu isn’t sure Atsushi even hears her, but he reacts when she points. Ryuu nods, ignoring whether Atsushi is on board or not. It’s not a perfect solution, but it sure is a solution.

They’ve gotten close enough to the developed area that there’s a car they can steal.

Well. Car is a generous term. It’s a small truck, probably used by gardeners, but it’ll get the job done.

The door is unlocked, and Gin slides into the driver’s seat while Ryuu and Atsushi run to scramble into the other side. It’s only a two-seater, and Ryuu and Atsushi have to awkwardly perch in the one seat so Gin has the room she needs to drive. The keys aren’t in the ignition, but it takes Ryuu and Gin together less than a minute to get around that. Then they’re off down the road as fast as is reasonable, as fast as will keep them from getting noticed.

And finally, Ryuu can breathe, just a little. He glances over at Atsushi, squished between Ryuu and the door, breathing already recovered. He doesn’t look much different from the last time Ryuu saw him, still unremarkable except for his eyes. They’re somehow both purple and gold, an unusual color that almost looks like sunset.

But more importantly…

“I’m taller now,” Ryuu says. Atsushi blinks those big, stupid doe eyes of his at Ryuu.

“What?”

“I’m taller,” Ryuu repeats. It’s childish and petty, and he knows Gin is rolling her eyes behind him even though he can’t see it. “You made fun of me for being smaller than you last time. Now I’m taller. Aren’t you supposed to be the one with plenty of food? You’re the one inside No. 6.”

“You’re talkative,” Atsushi says.

“I never said I wasn’t,” Ryuu shoots back.

“Why are you back in No. 6?” Atsushi asks, instead of staying on the subject. “And how did you pull this off? Did you know they were going to arrest me?”

Ryuu holds up one of the robots he stashed in his pockets. It’s almost indistinguishable from a real mouse, and that’s what makes it unnoticeable. Only close examination will reveal the tiny whirring sound of its motor.

“We keep an eye on everything in No. 6,” Ryuu says.

What he doesn’t tell Atsushi is that they figured out he was in danger just over six hours ago. It was a tight timetable, and it may or may not have contributed to the plan being less than perfect, but that’s an argument Ryuu isn’t going to lose when they get back, because he’s just not going to have it.

“And you came back to save me?” Atsushi asks.

“I don’t like owing people,” Ryuu says. It’s an understatement. Atsushi doesn’t need to know that, either. “Now we’re even.”

“But why now?” Atsushi asks. “Why would No. 6 go after me now? I’ve been saying stuff like that for years. What changed?”

Ryuu doesn’t answer. He’s not really a big picture kind of guy. Pulling off a plan in less than six hours to rescue an accident-prone idiot that Ryuu just so happens to owe a life debt to? No problem. Postulating on the mentality of an oppressive government? Not really his area.

Gin makes a frustrated noise behind him, and Ryuu finally pays her some attention.

There are cop cars speeding at them, coming from the gate to the outside. It’s a good thing they were never planning on leaving through the gate, anyway.

Gin turns the car sharply, sending Ryuu and Atsushi crashing into the door. Neither of them has a seatbelt on, considering they only have the one and it won’t stretch over them both. And unfortunately, this seems to be the part where they really should have a seatbelt on.

“The sewage facility?” Atsushi asks, realizing a few beats late what the plan is. “We can’t get through the gate without an ID.”

“You have no imagination,” Ryuu tells him, bracing his arms against the dashboard. This is probably going to hurt.

Gin slams the car through the gate, and while the engine makes some very unhappy noises, it keeps running, so she steers them into the facility.

“They’re going into lockdown, we won’t make it,” Atsushi warns. A metal grate is dropping in front of all the windows and doors. Gin guns it.

“Get down,” Ryuu growls, forcing Atsushi’s head down below the dashboard. It’s not the best protection, but when sliding under the grate takes off the top of the car, it also doesn’t take off their heads.

The car is toast, though, and rightly so. Ryuu stands from the wreckage of broken glass and twisted metal, ears only ringing a little. They’re very nearly home free.

“This way,” he says. Gin follows him, silent as a shadow, and Atsushi follows much less so.

“The sewers?” Atsushi asks.

“A perfect backdoor for people like us,” Ryuu says. Luckily, there’s enough of a lip on the side that they can still run. They don’t have to swim through this water.

Alarms blare, and Ryuu can hear people descending into the facility, but as long as Atsushi doesn’t slow them down, they shouldn’t have a problem escaping.

Ryuu and Gin could find their way through these tunnels in the dark with their eyes closed, and sometimes they have to. As far as smuggling goes, sewage tunnels are essential. Ryuu has spent so much time travelling through them that he knows them like the back of his hand.

Atsushi is doing less well. He keeps blinking his eyes, like he’s trying to force them to adjust to the darkness, and even though he would probably be faster than Ryuu if they ran on the surface, he’s not nearly as fast down here.

“Keep up,” Ryuu instructs harshly. “We’re not even halfway there yet.”

The sewers might be the safer path into No. 6, but they’re certainly not the fastest. It’s a long route that involves backtracking and mazes, turns that take them around where on the surface they could just go straight.

It’s more of a relief than usual when they haul themselves out of the sewers, up into the dying light of the day. They’re outside the wall, and that makes them safe, or as safe as anyone can be in a world like this.

Atsushi sprawls out on the ground, the sunlight slanting across his face to match his eyes. Ryuu leaves him to it for just a moment, but staying out in the open isn’t the safest thing they could be doing.

“This is the West Block,” Ryuu says. Atsushi’s eyes blink all the way open, and he stands to look around. His eyes widen at the warren of shacks that make up this slum. “Welcome to reality. Good luck in it.”

“What?” Atsushi’s eyes are still wide, but fear has suddenly crept into them, and Ryuu hates him for it. That fear he holds inside is so obvious, and it’s like he’s begging to be killed.

He won’t last a week out here, but that’s not actually Ryuu’s problem.

“I’d say stay out of trouble, but I don’t think you actually know how to do that,” Ryuu says. “So have a nice life, whatever’s left of it.”

“You’re just leaving me here?”

“You saved my life, I saved yours,” Ryuu says. “Transaction complete. We’re done here.”

“No, wait-”

“Making new friends now?”

Ryuu closes his eyes and only just barely keeps from screaming in frustration. The absolute last person he wanted to run into right now.

Dazai surveys them coolly, no emotion other than amusement leaking through. Chuuya sits on the wall behind him, leaning back on his hands casually.

“What are you two doing here?” Ryuu growls.

“You and Gin left so quickly, and I was curious,” Dazai says. “You usually plan so carefully when you go into No. 6. I wanted to see what was worth the risk.”

Of course Ryuu couldn’t hide this from Dazai entirely. Dazai knows Atsushi exists, and knows that Ryuu wants to square things with him, knows how badly Ryuu hates owing anyone. Not that Ryuu’s actually told him any of this. Dazai just knows things.

“Just tell them you were worried about them,” Chuuya growls. Ryuu believes that Dazai worried about Gin, but he probably would’ve been thrilled if Ryuu hadn’t come back. “Shitty Dazai.”

“Dazai?” Atsushi pipes up. “As in Dazai Osamu?”

Ryuu wonders if Atsushi realizes the danger he just walked into. If he can see the way Dazai’s face changes, morphs from simple amusement to something much colder. It’s not an easy shift to spot, but Ryuu’s had six years to learn Dazai’s moods, and six years to fear the darker changes.

“Who’s asking?” Dazai asks. His voice is light, airy, and a lesser man wouldn’t notice a difference. Ryuu might not have to wait for the West Block to kill Atsushi. Dazai might right now, if Atsushi can’t explain himself.

“My dad has a file on you,” Atsushi says. “He never let me look at it, but that’s the name on it. Dazai Osamu. A suicide victim.”

Dazai’s mind works faster than anyone else’s, which means he gets to his conclusions before Ryuu realizes the train wreck that is coming to destroy his life.

“You’re Fukuzawa’s kid?” Dazai asks. “Adopted, I’m guessing, since I would’ve known about you back then.”

“Yeah, that’s…you know my dad?” Atsushi asks. Damn it all. Ryuu will never be rid of him now.

“He used to let me hang around the detective agency,” Dazai says. “Gave me a place to hide from my guardian.”

“Then you…you weren’t a suicide victim,” Atsushi says. Ryuu can practically see him putting the pieces together. “That was faked. Because…you did something, and No. 6 came after you.”

“And he’s clever,” Dazai says, approval obvious in his voice. Ryuu bristles. He works so hard for the slightest glimpse of Dazai’s approval, and Atsushi gets it just for showing up?

“It makes more sense that you’re alive,” Atsushi says. “I think he always wondered, you know? He’d always pull that file out when he had a rough day. Or when he had to deal with Mori-san. Which I guess made it a rough day.”

“Ah, so you’re acquainted with my guardian,” Dazai says, voice gone cold. Ryuu just barely fights down a snarl. Of course they’re already getting along like a house on fire. That’s not fair, but Atsushi has already proven himself luckier than Ryuu, not that he appreciates it at all.

“Guardian?”

“Yeah, he’s…” Dazai trails off, apparently lost for words to describe Mori.

“He did a less than stellar fucking job of instilling a moral compass in Dazai,” Chuuya gripes in the interim.

“Slugs should be seen and not heard,” Dazai singsongs at him.

“Mackerels should be fried and eaten,” Chuuya shoots back, kicking Dazai’s shoulder so hard he stumbles. Chuuya jumps down from his perch on the wall. The dents his feet make don’t seem to line up with his size, but Ryuu is used to that by now. “Let’s take this inside. If you’re keeping that kid, we should get him out of the open for now.”

Ryuu tries desperately to signal to Chuuya no, please don’t because if they bring Atsushi inside, he really will be here for good, and the only thing Ryuu will be able to do is kill Atsushi himself.

“Oh, we’re keeping him,” Dazai says. “I can’t wait to hear how Fukuzawa’s kid ended up out here.”

“Come on, let’s get inside,” Chuuya says. “Ryuu, where’s your sister?”

Ryuu looks around for Gin, but she’s nowhere to be found. She’s probably already inside, though. Ryuu did wake her up to go save Atsushi, and she needs the sleep now.

“Sister?” Atsushi asks. “You have a sister?”

“Yes,” Ryuu grits out. “Make sure you thank her later. She did help save your life. You owe her one.”

“But the only ones that saved me were you and Gin,” Atsushi says. Ryuu tries to count backwards from one hundred, just to see if that will help. It doesn’t. But he has to keep it together in front of Dazai, especially now that Atsushi is Dazai’s new favorite. “Unless…wait, Gin is a girl?”

And that’s it. It doesn’t matter how much Dazai wants to keep Atsushi around. Ryuu is going to end up killing Atsushi himself.

#shin soukoku #sskk #akuatsu #atsuaku #bungou stray dogs #bsd #my writing #no. 6 au #systasis

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thebibliomancer · 5 years

Text

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance ep 3 liveblog

“What was sundered and undone”

Just a stream of thoughts.

The Order of Lesser Service.

Everyone is dunking on Brea.

“The order of Lesser Service is not a punishment. Its an opportunity to lift yourself up by performing the lowliest of deeds.”

Its not a punishment but Brea can’t leave and a possible task is to chew up roots and spit it into baby Nebrie’s mouths. It SOUNDS like a punishment.

“I’ve never met a princess before. I imagined they’d have shinier hair.” EVERYONE is dunking on Brea.

So the Order of Lesser Service is TOTALLY not a punishment but you have to wear a jester hat and also this other Vapran gelfling girl Juni was sent to the Order for hanging out with a boy of a different clan.

It really sounds like a punishment.

“I always thought I’d make a fantastic princess, I have the hair for it. Its very shiny.” I kind of like Juni.

So the service for the day is to swan into a Podling village and force cleaning on them.

They seem awfully happy throwing mud at each other. And bellyflopping into the mud. And eating the mud. And rolling in mud.

“There is no filthier creature in all of Thra than a Podling” cool cool cool cool racism, Gelflings.

Yeah it seems gross but its what they like? So don’t be dicks about it, geez, Gelflings.

They seriously seem upset by all this forced bathing. Leave them alone!

Theres a lot of paternalism here is what I’m getting at.

Seladon just spent five minutes complaining about Brea while Cool Sister Tavra is just trying to hone her sword and mind her business.

Tavra really is the Cool Sister. The Cool Very Patient Sister.

“I can’t be washing Podlings, I had a vision that the world was ending or beginning!”

“Sounds like heatstroke”

“FUCK YOU ITS NOT HEATSTROKE”

Brea cuts a deal with a Podling to not wash them and the Podling immediately dives into the dirt to make dirt angels.

Live your truth, Podling. Live your beautiful truth, you actual potato.

Deet: “What if we fail?”

The First Podling Paladin: “Pssh”

Hup has to explain to underground elf Deet that actually Gelflings are pretty racist against each other and may not listen to her just because she’s an underground elf.

“It may be hard at first but like anything else in life, it just takes time to adjust” -dramatically removes blindfold to make a point-

Rian knows that just because you’re on a quest to save the world and are carrying a plot critical item, doesn’t mean you can’t stop to do a random act of kindness sidequest.

“Thank the harvest we have the Skeksis to keep us safe” Dramatic ironyyyyyyy

Rian immediately gives up the game by protesting that the Skeksis killed Mira.

“We protect the lords. The lords protect the crystal of truth. All lies!”

And he ditches all his castle guard gear so he’s not so easily identified in the future.

Brea trying to hide. While wearing a jingly hat.

Tavra: “You ran away? Good.” Such the Cool Sister.

So news of Mira’s death has filtered to the Vapra by this point. And since Rian is of the Stonewood clan, ooo its time for factional tension I guess.

Cool Sister Tavra has to try to keep the peace between her sister.

Tavra: “I think you and Seladon are more alike than you realize.”

Brea: “That’s a mean thing to say!”

Tavra: “Well, you’re both very stubborn!”

Also both Brea and Seladon can tell from Tavra’s silence when she wants to say something.

“The bonds of sisterhood can be tested… but never broken” Awww, Tavra!

Deet, you’re the most sunny person possible considering you’re an underground elf.

There’s a cool ominous pillar full of swords and Hup wouldn’t let Deet ask someone about it.

“Look at that filthy green Gelfling” well fuck you too, background character.

The Stonewood Gelfling at the bar try to rearrange so there’s no room for Deet but she’s oblivious to bullying and just squeezes in anyway.

Apparently a Fizzgig are just fizzgigs. So Kira was like a pokemon trainer who names her dog Dog.

“Go crawl back into the nest you came from you dirty Grottan” and then they shove her. I think she’s less oblivious to bullying now. But also Hup doesn’t approve of that behavior and launched himself across the bar and beat up EVERYONE.

That’s what a paladin is, Avatar.

“Rascal hole” wut.

I was just thinking that there’s been a dearth of Skeksis so far and BAM scene: castle, in saunters SkekSil.

“Not talk. Just listen.” ‘Hey wanna know about this cool beetle that eats eyes?’

“Noooo never use on gelfling. Only on Skeksis who misbehave. Did you hear screams last night? Friend Scientist was naughty, so saw peeper beetle.”

Chamberlain is one of those people who uses friend ironically, I think. And the nicer the term of endearment the more worried you should be, Gurjin.

“Think Gelfing. If Skeksis do that to Skeksis, imagine what Skeksis do to Gelfling that will not talk.”

“Tell Chamberlain where Rian is.”

“Never!”

-actual affronted gasp-

Librarian: “Weren’t you sent to the Order of Lesser Service?”

Brea: “I ran away. I gotta go steal from my mom”

Librarian: “You wut”

OH HEY FLYING SCENE! Wonder how they did that.

Seladon: “So the person Brea mindwiped is here. There’s been a murder at the castle. Creatures going mad. And there’s a bunch of Gelfling worried about the Blight.”

All-Maudra: “I had to send Tavra on a dangerous mission. And Brea to the Order of Lesser Service. My daughters… gone.”

Her other daughter Seladon: “.... wtf mom”

Seladon gives her mom a pep talk to break her out of her funk.

All-Maudra: “You’ll be a great All-Maudra some day. … Straighten your wings. You look like a lopsided unamoth.”

It was almost positive reinforcement for a second but you just had to undermine it, huh?

And then Brea breaks into the room to do a Theft like right after they leave.

So the Brightest Jewel is part of the chandelier? Of what significance?

Scientist: “Treacherous, perfidious Skeksis! Oh, soon… soon they will all see!”

The guy was a Mad Scientist by default of being a lizard nightmare man but he’s going Mad Scientist “they laughed LAUGHED but I’ll show them all” from his default level of Already Mad Scientist.

He’s also saying all this out loud while Chamberlain is just standing behind him.

Chamberlain: “How is friend skekTek? Good? Mm?” You’re a card, SkekSil.

Oh, cool. Scientist replaced his eye with a cybernetic prosthetic.

Chamberlain found some lab assistants for the Scientist called Gruenaks. I guess this is why the other Skeksis managed to put up with him for so long. He backstabs them all but then gives a shoulder rub and goes ‘lol sorry’

First he’s sour, then he’s sweet. Sour Patch SkekSil.

Chamberlain: “So, we are friends? All is forgiven?”

Scientist: -grudgingly- “It's a start”

Deet is off to see the Maudra Fara and is very tired of the myths that the Grottan Gelflings are all dead. Or bats.

And then Rian shows up. Holy crap, two of the protagonists in the same square mile!

Deet: “He’s much dirtier than me, why does he get to go in?”

Guard: “Because Rian is one of us! Unlike you!” Rude.

So the Rascal Hole is just an oubliette type prison dealie. And its right in the Maudra’s court, like she’s a Jabba.

Maudra Fara: “Your return puts the Stonewood clan in a dangerous position. The Skesis have declared you a traitor to Thra.”

I have to wonder how news travels so fast. Do they have female gelfling couriers sent out to all the clans to spread the word? Is there a fantasy telegraph? I guess even a courier on a landstrider would run fastere than Rian’s tiny little legs.

Rian: “The Skeksis are the traitors! They lied to us about everything!”

Fara: “I will not tolerate heresy from a murderer”

Will you tolerate heresy from a counterfeiter? Whats the crime threshold here that will allow you to tolerate heresy?

Heresy is “belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine” so are the Skeksis literally the religion of the Gelfling? I guess the Crystal holds a massive spiritual significance to everyone of Thra and the Skeksis as the Lords of the Crystal would have a level of respect but heresy?

Rian: “I have soul goo that proves I didn’t kill Mira!”

Rian: “Dreamfast with me” which should solve everything but Rian’s dad arrived first and told Fara what the Skeksis told him that dreamfasting spreads the Madness.

Good job derailing this guaranteed plot resolution, Chamberlain.

“You are my father, why don’t you ever believe me?” I can’t wait for Rian and Brea to meet so they can commiserate over bad parents.

-Rian sees chandelier, sees rope, thinks Flynn-y thoughts-

Oh wow thats an awful lot of chandelier. And they’re full of fireflies instead of fire. Because you don’t want puppets anywhere near fire.

And Rian did do the thing where he cuts a rope and lets it carry him to escape.

Aughra: -sees the castle, reflexively- “Bah!”

Skeksis spa day???

Emperor: -applying cream and looking into a mirror- “Ah, beautiful!”

Aughra: “Skeksis?”

Emperor: “Oh shit mom’s home!”

Scroll-Keeper: “AHHH I’M NOT DECENT!”

Aughra: “PAH” -rinses her eye in his bath just because-

Aughra: “I’m unwell because Thra is unwell. I’ve come to see the Crystal, see what ails it.”

Skeksis: “NOPE CRYSTAL IS FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE”

Aughra: “Everything is well? You speak and know nothing! Or is it you know and speak nothing?” Well wordplayed, Aughra.

-starts poking the Scroll-Keeper’s belly with her staff so he has to splash her to get her to back off-

It turns out her interrupting their banquet by being kidnapped in the movie wasn’t her being upset. She’s just that rude at a constant level.

Show her the Crystal before she traumatizes the Scroll-Keeper more.

Wow, the Emperor tries a very daring guilt trip on Aughra. Having gotten her addicted to space, he criticizes her for neglecting Thra and leaving the Skeksis to take care of it.

Emperor: “Then go back to your travels and we can go back to caring for the many you left behind.”

Emperor: “Guards. Throw this useless old crone out of our castle forever!”

The Gelfling guards of course do the “i thought she’d be taller” routine.

A Guard: “My grandfather said she cursed his village with ear mites because they forgot her birthday.”

B Guard: “Well I heard she sneezed and a mountain crumbled.”

Aughra: “Its all true so stay where you are or you’ll suffer the wrath of all eight and a half fingers! BAH!” -they flinch- “BAH!” -flinch again- “Ninny wheelers. Ingrates.”

And then the guards just let her wander off on her own.

-wanders past crystal. Stops. Wanders backwards-

She is not happy with how they redecorated the Crystal with EVIL.

Apparently Past Aughra recorded a message into the Crystal for Future/Present Aughra?

And Aughra tells Aughra “The moment Skeksis possessed the Crystal they abused it.” Aughra is a bad judge of character, apparently.

So the corruption of the Crystal creates the Darkening. And the Crystal or Past Aughra also replays the footage of Mira getting turned into soul goo.

“Gelflings return to Thra when they die. That is the natural order. But when Skeksis consume essence cannot return home. Thra is out of balance, thus the Darkening spreads faster.”

Eating souls is bad for the environment. Gotcha.

“You have lost the Song of Thra.” So now Aughra is off on a quest too. Like Earthbound except singing to the Skeksis isn’t going to make them feel so bad they leave.

Deet is still trying to figure out a way to rescue Hup. By wandering around aimlessly.

What a cute random tree snake rabbit. I keep expecting it to be actually huge and try to eat her.

Dammit Rian, you startled the random tree snake rabbit!

But hey, now two of the protagonists are in the same vicinity and ACTUALLY interacting.

Of course, Rian is massively paranoid now.

Rian: “Who sent you? Maudra Fara?”

Deet: “Maudra Argot! Well, actually it was the Sanctuary Tree.”

Rian: “??? oh.”

Deet has decided that since Rian cut in line in front of her, he has to help her rescue Hup. But he can’t what with being on the run from everyone and having broken all of the chandelier at Maudra Fara’s throne room.

Rian: “It won’t light, the ground is too wet”

Deet: “We’ll see about that.” -instantly succeeds-

Castle living has made you a bad camper, Rian.

Rian: ‘Holy shit the one person who hasn’t heard the lie about me being a murderer!’ -Deet has an epiphany and runs off- “Aww =( .”

It was nice to have two whole protagonists in the same conversation for two whole minutes. =P

Brea returns with the Brightest Jewel. And finds that Onica is now Elder Onica.

Elder Onica: “I served as Cadia’s apprentice for many trine. His memory loss allowed me to give myself a long overdue promotion.”

Hey, whatever works.

Brea was assuming, as I was, that the Brightest Jewel was payment. Which offends Onica because Stereotypes about Sifa. (Sifa Sea Faring? Boo) But the Brightest Jewel is actually a chrysalis and the answer.

Brea: “Oh. …….. I don’t understand.”

Onica: “A great many things.”

EVERYONE dunking on Brea today.

“This is the chrysalis of an Imperial unamoth, the totem animal of your clan.”

Onica: “Ask your question”

Brea: “Ask the moth??????”

Oh thats a pretty moth. Annnnnd it just flew off.

Onica was pretty cool.

Sooooo, wait. Wait. Brea is trying to learn what a vision means and is following a moth.

Annnnnd the moth turned into the symbol on the All-Maudra’s throne and opened a secret passage. Thats some good good fantasy nonsense.

Although I thought the throne room was not on the ground floor so where could a secret throne passage lead?

Questions, questions. Too many questions...

#dark crystal #dark crystal age of resistance #liveblog #episode 3

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judithasskickergrimes · 6 years

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The North Star

Summary: 'There are so many names and so little to remember them by. She wants to be as strong as they all were. And she hopes she can make it further than they could.' / So many are gone. Judith remains. And she tries to remember them all as best she can.

AO3 / FanFiction

Her first memory is of his voice and the stars.

It’s only about a snippet in her head, like so many others from when she was little- like of Aunt Maggie, before she stopped coming to visit, tickling her to make her laugh, or of her dad’s scratchy beard as he kissed her forehead- but she still recognises her first memory best of all. It had been dark, and she was in his arms. They pointed up at the sky together, to the bright, flickering dots.

He was talking, she knows, but she can’t remember most of the words. She’s not even sure she truly recalls the part she does know, or if she only does because her mom told her about it afterwards. But she can still hear the sound of his voice- the softness whispering in her ear, and the memory is… good. Content. Peaceful.

She is afraid she’ll forget her dad’s scratchy beard and his warm kisses.

She is afraid she’ll forget the softness of her brother’s voice.

‘He was showing you the stars,’ Michonne told her once. ‘I heard him telling you about the North Star, in case you ever got lost. He wanted to make sure you were always safe.’

But how would it keep her safe if she were trapped outside the walls, all on her own and surrounded by walkers? Judith doesn’t understand at first, and it takes her a while to do so.

It isn’t until she is eight and Michonne finally lets her go out scavenging with Aunt Rosita and Uncle Aaron that she begins to realise why it matters. They are cut off by a herd moving in from the east, and have to take a detour- a long one. The sight of them all, even at this distance, safely tucked away in the trees and beyond their scope, fills her with dread.

She can’t remember the days on the road, when she was very little and they hadn’t found Alexandria. She doesn’t remember the people Michonne tells her about; Aunt Maggie’s sister Beth, who used to watch over her when she was born, or Tyreese, whom Aunt Carol says helped to protect her when she was separated from her family. Sometimes Judith wishes she could remember being that small. There are so many names and so little to remember them by. Judith feels like she should know them, and the harsh world beyond the walls where they all died. She should remember what it feels to be out here, so as to adjust now. She wants to be as strong as they all were. And she hopes she can make it further than they could.

But it is fanciful dreaming of a childhood safe behind the walls, protected by loved and lost ones alike. The world outside is more than she believed it could be, and as she and the group hurry along a lesser trodden path through the woods, the reality sets in.

She is just a child. She’s smaller and weaker than the rest of the group, and scared after all. Her original excitement at being allowed to come turns to exhaustion and fear. She knows her mom will probably send patrols out to look for them, and might not let her do this again.

And RJ? RJ will cry. He’s still such a baby, even if he is four. He’s started drawing with her recently, and once Uncle Eugene had shown them how to make paper aeroplanes, their home had been filled with them, whizzing down staircases and soaring out of open windows. Until one had hit RJ in the face, anyway. Then there had been a flood of tears.

But she won’t see him cry tonight. Because Aunt Rosita is saying that they will have to camp out, and soon the group is trudging through the undergrowth towards a known cabin serving as an emergency outpost. Judith stays close, her hand never straying from the hilt of the revolver at her side. They only come across one walker loitering near a stream, and hear a few more in the distance along the way, but as the night draws near something about their presence becomes far more ominous than before. She tries not to stare at each tree as the sky grows darker and darker, because once they stop looking like trees and start looking like they could be anything at all, the outside world becomes all the more frightening.

She begins thinking about him. She wonders how afraid he was, during all that time on the road. He had been little too, when it all started.

She has been practicing for this moment, she tells herself. She has trained each day with the katana, ever since she was big enough to carry it and old enough to be careful not to cut herself. Her mom taught her how to be safe.

And he did too. He told her about the North Star, and how could guide her.

And so she looks up to the sky and peers through the canopy of leaves, hoping to catch a glimpse of it.

She isn’t sure she spots it, for there are so many up there and the trees hide most of them, but the light brings her to that night in her brother’s arms, pointing at the stars together, and she imagines his voice in her ear once more, leading her home.

They find the cabin. Judith feels strangely light and calm. Suddenly, things aren’t so bad. The stars are easier to see in this small clearing, and as Uncle Aaron puts a hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze, she smiles.

It will be fine.

She is almost nine when Michonne tells her and RJ about Andre.

It is a slip of the mouth, one Judith has heard before. She knows everyone does it from time to time- they address those who are no longer here, or call people by the wrong names. She sees it in the days and weeks following a supply run gone wrong, and when an old man grows sickly and begins talking to a wife who isn’t there. And she has seen her mom do it before, when RJ wouldn’t stop running around the house as a toddler once and when she had been reading both children a bedtime story.

Sometimes, very rarely, their mom calls RJ Andre. And then she becomes very quiet, and doesn’t say any more for a long time. Judith doesn’t ask why.

‘He was your brother. Before you were both born,’ Michonne tells them one night, as Judith draws a picture of her family- her whole family.

‘Where is he?’ RJ asks.

Judith knows the answer easily enough. He must be where the rest of their family is.

‘Heaven,’ she tells him, and Michonne nods.

‘Sometimes it’s hard to talk about people,’ their mom tells them. ‘It can be very sad. But I want you to know. You should know.’

Judith adds another face to the picture that night. Up in the clouds, above the drawings of her, RJ and their mom, of Aunt Maggie and Hershel, Aunt Carol, Uncle Daryl and many more, she puts a little boy who looks like RJ next to that of her other mom, who died so she could be here, her dad, and the boy with her hat and an eyepatch, who always smiles in her pictures.

(She remembers him smiling, even when there were tears. Even when he said goodbye.)

Michonne lets her leave again with the groups who go outside the walls. And again. And again. Judith learns not to fear the dark as much, for they usually make it back before the sun sets. And although her stomach still twists in fear when the night does fall, or when a walker emerges from the shadows, rasping and gurgling as it staggers towards the group, she holds her head high. She will get better at this. She will never feel safe out here, but that’s fine. She has a home waiting for her, and stars to guide her.

Even if she doesn’t know which way to go, she feels them all watching from above, beaming down at her.

‘That one,’ Judith says when RJ turns five, ‘is Dad.’

She points up at a dot in the sky, shining brighter than those around it. Uncle Aaron says the ones that are brighter are closer, or so big that they outshine all the others. She can’t remember which one this is- maybe Sirius?- but it’s close, she thinks. Closer than most of the others, anyway.

‘Dad?’ RJ asks, lifting his head up from her shoulder. The two are curled up in the rocking chair on their front porch, and Judith feels an odd tingling in her chest each time she points at a different star and RJ copies her.

‘Um hmm,’ she says. ‘Rick. Like you.’

She says this to make him smile, because ever since RJ was old enough to know that he was named after their dad, he has been happy about it. He never got to meet Rick, so Judith guesses this helps him feel close to him anyhow.

A star nearby glistens and she looks to it next, her fingers threading through and twisting the curls of RJ’s hair absent-mindedly. She isn’t sure how to tell him about this one. ‘That’s Lori,’ she tells him.

‘Who?’

‘My- our other mom.’ RJ won’t get it. She can hardly go explaining it all to him now- that Lori wasn’t ever his mother, and that she never got the chance to be Judith’s either.

‘There’s Andre,’ she continues as another star catches her eye, and RJ squirms happily beside her. She tries to imagine this long gone brother of theirs, a brother she knows deep down isn’t hers by blood, and an image of another RJ jumps into her head, just as it does in her drawings. She understands these things now, but also that it doesn’t matter. She has family in many places; all around her and up above.

‘That’s Uncle Glenn,’ she says next, pointing at another. She thinks she might be able to remember him- just possibly- as one of the shadowy figures at the back of her head, carrying her or watching over her. But there are so many of them, and she’s never quite sure.

She picks out a few more, all of them random and unknown to her. As long as they shine brightly and RJ can spot them too, that’s all that matters.

‘There’s Hershel.’

RJ twists around to squint at her. ‘He’s not in heaven.’

‘Not him. Aunt Maggie’s dad.’

‘Oh. I don’t remember him.’

‘Of course you don’t,’ Judith says. ‘You never met him.’ She doesn’t mention that she can’t remember him either.

RJ rests his head against her once more, pointing his finger and choosing stars for her.

‘Who’s that?’

‘That’s Sasha.’

‘And that?’

‘Tyreese. And that one’s Beth.’

The two go on and on, picking out stars and naming them. Judith’s throat feels tighter than before, and Michonne’s words echo in her head; sometimes it’s hard to talk about those who are gone, and it hurts. She can feel how it starts to burn, and she understands. But her mouth still stretches into a grin. She remembers another face that once smiled through all the sadness, one eye shining at her in the darkness of the tunnel just as the stars do in the sky, and her own eyes begin to blur.

‘What about that one?’ RJ asks, and Judith blinks the tears away.

He’s pointing at one she does know. It isn’t as bright as some of the others they’ve picked out, but RJ must recognise it from some of his sister’s drawings. She likes to sketch out the constellations she learns about, and she always makes the curling end of the Little Dipper a different colour to the others- sometimes blue, sometimes purple, sometimes red- so that it looks special.

She remembers something as hazy as her sight when the tears form again. Something deep and flickering, like the dots of light above. In it, she is very small, pointing just as she and RJ do now.

And in his embrace, her elder brother points with her.

His voice is soft and warm. She feels safe.

‘That’s the North Star,’ she knows he is saying, and she repeats the same to RJ. ‘If you get lost at night, just find that star.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s special,’ Judith murmurs. ‘It helps guide you home.’

The two rock back and forth slowly, quiet for a little while. They both watch the glimmering star.

‘Does it have a proper name?’ RJ asks eventually. ‘Like a person?’

Judith nods, and keeps smiling as she lets the tears fall.

‘That one,’ she says, ‘is Carl.’

#the walking dead #twd #judith grimes #michonne #carl grimes #rick grimes #rj grimes #fanfiction #fanfic #renzfics

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reformedkingsmanagent · 6 years

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(YES THIS IS A SUPER LONG POST. I’M SORRY FOR THAT BUT I HAD TO EXPEL EVERYTHING. I PROMISE IT’S A GOOD READ. EVEN IF IT’S JUST TO FIND FAULT IN. I’LL TAKE IT.) (also pretty please send me your thoughts or add to this even if it’s not in support of the bionic boy. I’d really love to hear it all)

Because it’s been a really really really really really long time since I’ve posted any proper discourse on Charlie as a character and I was admittedly inspired by the brilliant round of discussion concerning Vaughn’s grave misuse of Whiskey as a character (which you can find here, please read, these people are grand and most importantly: RIGHT), here’s some rushed thoughts in no particular order.

I’ll admit, when I watched TSS, it ended and I was gung-ho in Eggsy’s corner. I think we all were. There wasn’t any natural opposition worth arguing over, really. The villains were really, really wrong, and Eggsy was purely correct in what he was fighting for.

I didn’t give Charlie a second glance. (Can you believe that? Ha, me either.) They wrote him too one-note. Sure, he was pretty handsome, but not someone I’d think about for more than a second as his rudeness towards the golden boy, Eggsy turned me off, big time.

So imagine my great surprise when I go see TGC in theaters and I’m left stunned in my seat while I panic about my friend sitting beside me immediately judging me the moment I open my mouth and utter the words “I didn’t like Eggsy so much this time.”

Except what I really meant to say was “holy shit, Charlie got an upgrade.”

Because let’s be real, he did! Not just in appearance, though that was a bonus, but you can tell Ed really tried to give Charlie more dimension, even with what little he was given to work with.

In TSS he was a bratty posh rich boy with no real stake in the fight who gave up at the perfect spot to advance the plot (though I have tons of thoughts about how that all could be read differently).

TGC let him grow. There’s a year we don’t know about, but obviously he’s been through a LOT. We see him waking up in Valentine’s bunker, MISSING AN ARM and HOBBLING OVER MANY MANY MANY DEAD BODIES INCLUDING THOSE OF HIS FAMILY. That’s not something I’d probably ever get over, let alone survive.

(Can you imagine his family seeing him get zapped, possibly going over to console him and wake him up, only for their heads to go ‘pop’? Because I sure can.)

We still know nothing about how he got fixed up with all his new gadgets besides that Poppy’s guys made them, we don’t even know how he came into contact with Poppy or how long he was alone, injured, before he got help.

We do know Poppy was aware of what Valentine did, and probably what caused his demise (Kingsman), so did she stop by to investigate? Was she somehow already there and immune from the head-popping incident? Did she come across a gravely injured Charlie and take him in? Or did they cross paths some other way, possibly after he recovered?

If she found him and took him in right away, it wasn’t because of his connections. He couldn’t SPEAK. He couldn’t tell her all the insider information he had access to, he didn’t even know her plans.

So there had to be a level of care there on Poppy’s part. And sure, through seeing how she was looking after him, Charlie came to care for her too, probably using her as a surrogate mother figure after stumbling over his own mother’s headless body in the bunker.

The kid’s gone through some trauma. We have to give him that.

For holding a knife to Eggsy’s neck and otherwise being a non-issue, his whole family got killed. Yeah, them being there was probably a decent justification for what happened to them, but...is it though?

How do we know the circumstances that put Charlie there? His mother there? His brothers there? (Don’t fight me, he has to have brothers with how he acts) His father we can assume made some sort of deal with Valentine. It’s obvious Charlie’s dad’s got connections, what with securing Charlie as Arthur’s candidate in the first place, and we can assume they’re both a bit shady after it’s uncovered that Arthur’s a traitor, but I’m sure Charlie didn’t know the details. At least, not all of them.

His story would’ve ended there if not for Eggsy (ACCIDENTALLY) saving his life, which Eggsy was less than pleased about.

YOU DISAGREE AND BICKER WITH SOMEONE AND THAT’S JUSTIFICATION FOR KILLING THEM?

I’m sorry, does anyone else think that’s a bit...weird? No? Just me? I’m sure this won’t be palatable for most people, but these are things I think about during subsequent re-watches of these films, from an incredibly biased perspective.

So let’s make that clear in case my blog’s existence didn’t already give it away.

YES I AM BIASED. SO FUCKING BIASED. I LOVE THIS BOY AND THINK HE DESERVED BETTER.

Alright. Sorry. Back to it.

So great: Charlie survived, and spent a year recovering (possibly all of it spent with Poppy). He got his voice back via a strange device, and he got a brand new shiny arm to match.

Once fully in Poppy’s retinue, he was finally utilized for a plan she’d been working on for a long time. Those antidote production facilities don’t pop up overnight. The stockpiles of it don’t appear in a few days. Enough for almost the whole population, all across the world? This took planning. I’d even argue this was well underway before Charlie got on board. Him having inside information about Kingsman only helped Poppy feel like it was finally the right time to go ahead with it all.

And it’s not as if he was immediately spilling the beans. Eggsy was established, comfortable even, before Charlie showed back up again. Meaning he kept some of the information to himself until he really trusted Poppy, or, they planned this confrontation for months. Making sure Charlie was ready.

And this is very important:

Making sure Charlie wouldn’t go after Eggsy in blind anger for what happened to his family. Making sure he was focused singularly on their goal of getting the information out of that taxi.

You have to notice some things about the cab fight.

First, Charlie was after the console in the back. Had Eggsy unlocked the cab and left, that would’ve been the end of the encounter. Of course, Eggsy wouldn’t just give up trade secrets like that (which I totally agree with), so instead he forces Charlie into the cab to attempt to get rid of him.

Second, Charlie was not trying to kill Eggsy. He just wasn’t. Flashy fight scene aside, the only moments where anyone was in real danger were:

Eggsy shooting at Charlie (Did he just magically understand that the arm would protect him? No)

Eggsy about to get sandwiched between the two cars (was Charlie driving? No)

And Eggsy swiping at Charlie with the poisoned blade in his shoe, the very same weapon he used to kill Gazelle.

We can assume Charlie wasn’t intending to kill the cab driver. Honestly. He was just saving himself. But yeah, sure, I’ll give you that one.

Charlie’s thrown from the cab, his metal arm left behind, but he’s still breathing. Regardless, he succeeded. In gaining information. Information Poppy wanted.

Did Charlie know what Poppy planned to use the information for? Most definitely. So yeah, while I can sit here all day and tell you he didn’t personally push the button, I’ll give you that too. I can imagine Poppy doing it in a protective, motherly way. The way she watches the progress with Charlie. She announces to him that it’s been dealt with. And then gives him a gift.

Yeah, I know. Arm-Ageddon.

He gets this mere days before the final confrontation. This weighs into how ineffective he seems. He’s not had any time to train with it. He’s had the lesser version of the arm for much longer, but it’s lighter, smaller, less obvious, and less useful in a fight besides for self-defense.

What time has he had to train with the new arm? To get used to the heft of it? Pretty much none, when you think about it. He’s been travelling around for Poppy, for Clara, and most of this movie takes place across a few days. I’d say he’s doing his best adapting.

His whole fighting style has changed. He relies upon it HEAVILY and chooses to anchor himself as opposed to staying flexible and on the move. He’s a heavy hitter now, kind of tank-y, but we don’t get to see much variety. Because there’s not time to explore its many new functions.

In between all this we get a glimpse of how Charlie’s changed. We know nothing about the extent or actual status of Charlie’s relationship with Clara. First, she’s his ex. Then she’s his girlfriend. I get it, it’s “complicated,” we just don’t know. Was she with him before V-Day? Did he bring her on with Poppy? Or did he meet her through TGC?

Who knows.

The bigger takeaway is that despite whatever is going on, they are mostly apart and he definitely warned her about the spiked drugs. Does she listen? No. But what does he do? He personally sees to it that she gets the antidote. She gets cured.

And I’ll put money on Poppy not having a clue.

Why? Because it’s risky at this stage. Also, an antidote was taken by Eggsy as a result, and Charlie didn’t know what became of it. But he had to report it to Poppy just the same. Destroying that stockpile wasn’t his call to make. But was he ordered to get rid of it? Most definitely.

So yeah, sure he’s angry with Clara for hooking up with his mortal enemy and leading him there, but he’s more angry with Eggsy. He doesn’t yell at Clara, though she definitely knows she’s messed up, instead he focuses his anger on Eggsy. He knows if they get away with the antidote he risks his position at Poppy’s table. And that’s the last thing he wants to do.

Because Poppy = mom, and that’s exactly what Charlie needs.

We also get to see how polite Charlie is.

He’s nice to Poppy. He tries to get her to perk up and gives her bits of motivation when she’s down. He indulges her silly hobbies like bowling and going to Elton concerts for two.

He thanks the guy for opening the door at the antidote stockpile because even though he’s absolutely pissed off, he knows it’s not to be directed at him.

He’s trying, okay?

Alright, I know this is stupidly long at this point and I feel like cutting it down so it’s something people will actually read but. I just can’t do that.

Still, I’ll try to wrap this up.

Charlie doesn’t give up Poppy’s information. Whether he knows about the password or not is irrelevant. He struggles against Eggsy, but ultimately he accepts his fate. You can see it in his face.

He laughs. He laughs because he knows it’s unavoidable. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t throw a fit. He accepts it.

Quite different from him being tied to those train tracks, don’t you think?

If that’s not growth, then I don’t know what is.

And let’s point one other thing out.

Poppy’s plan would’ve worked and there would’ve been FAR LESS CASUALTIES if not for the dick president refusing to sign. So while a bit misguided, we can say that not all those lives lost are on Poppy’s hands either. Not that she’s a saint, she grinds up people and feeds them to her employees, but she’s not 100% culpable.

I do absolutely think quite a few people would’ve died simply based on the logistics of getting those documents from point A to point B, it would’ve been drastically reduced. We can’t know for sure.

Holding the population hostage? Super shitty.

Not signing the documents because you’re a holier-than-thou dick? Also super shitty. Just saying.

And if you REALLY want to put this in a grey area, what about Tequila? Not gonna open that can of worms, but the idea that Eggsy and co. are 100% pure isn’t fair. So can we allow a tiny percentage of acceptance of Charlie? Because in the grand scheme of things he’s really no villain. An obstacle? Sure. But a villain? No. Does he have reason to be now if they somehow bring him back for a future film (PLEASE)? YEP.

Charlie’s not a hero. Not even close. Does he have reason to be angry though? Hell yes. Does he do a relatively good job at controlling himself? Yep. Did he deserve an apology, or even a chance at possible redemption? Absolutely.

He reacted to hearing Merlin over the walkie talkie, so there’s some part of him that doesn’t totally hate Kingsman…

Give the boy a shot. Please.

#charlie hesketh #KINGSMAN #STUPIDLY LONG WASTE OF A POST BUT #I was inspired #everybody deserved better this time around #I can't even think about what they did to roxy without burning anger #healthy discourse is good for the community #I think #I love you guys please don't be mad at me for this #if you think I'm wrong that's valid and fair #I'd love to hear more opposing opinions

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jamiebluewind · 6 years

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Bluewind's Massive List Of Fic Recs

Here are some of my favorite fics. Please be mindful of the tags on the fics as I was unable to note them all myself. Let me know if any are abandoned, if a link doesn't work, or if you just want to share a fic I might want to add to my list ^_^

Also, I didn't have time today to add all the Tumblr ones, so click here to see all the fanfiction under my fic rec tag.

Also also, if you get a minute leave a little comment on the fics you enjoy (especially for the AO3 writers who tend to rarely get noticed if at all).

The Hidden Rose by jamiebluewind (wc 10196): Warning! Please read the tags! Roman will be okay. He can handle the self loathing building up inside of him. He can ignore the weight pressing down on his shoulders as he plasters on a convincing fake smile. He can hide his pain from the others. He'll be okay... until he's not.

A Different Side Of Hogwarts by notalwaysthevillian: Four boys travel to a magical school to learn to be wizards. A brave muggleborn, a nervous pureblood who doesn't quite fit in, an intelligent loner with his nose always in a book, and the friendly ball of fluff that keeps them all together. Can they survive their classes and everything that seems to try and pull them apart?

In The Witch's Nest by a_forgotten_note: Virgil is considered bad luck. Nobody wants to adopt him and everybody who does returns him due to the fires that always happen around him. Then one day, two loving men come into his life and show him what he never knew existed. They do their best to teach their new son how to use his magic. One could expect no less from the two Ilvermorny professors.

To Build a Home by AValorousChoice: Nobody ever wanted Virgil. Nobody had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in adopting him. He never believed he was good enough for a loving family. Then one day, Patton and Logan walked into the orphanage and changed everything. (I love this one so much. Angst and fluff and well written)

This Love Hate Relationship by insanelycoolish: Roman has followed The Witching Hour since he was in high school. Last time they were in town, Roman not only got to meet the lead singer of the band, he kissed him as well. The band (Virgil included) is in town once more. Roman drags along his friend Logan for moral support as he tries to find the answer that's been plaguing his mind for a year: Will Virgil remember him and their kiss?

Keep Him Safe by Whatwashernameagain: Warning! Adult content, so please read tags! Officers Logan and Roman are unlikely friends. Roman is a flamboyant flirty rainbow and Logan is... decidedly not that. When their regular stop closes, they decide to try out a new place. The pastry shop is owned by a sweet bubbly man that quickly pulls in all who meet him with his genuine kindness. However, pain can be hidden beneath a smile. Meanwhile, a gang is quickly growing in power. (a mixture of fluff, angst, and dark undertones)

A Lesson in Practicality by ResidentAnchor: Four seemingly random strangers all answer an ad to move into a downtown apartment. After a few month together, they all realize they've been hiding a secret from one another... they each have a unique special ability. Can they keep living their day to day lives in a house full of superpowered humans? Will their powers bring them together or cause a rift between them? And how long until somebody starts running around in tights?

Patmalian by patentpending: Patton loves Logan more than anything. He just doesn’t understand why his friends are lying or why they’re saying there’s something wrong. He’s not obsessed or deluded. He’s just in love. Desperately, terribly, helplessly in love. (will stomp on your heart and you will say thank you)

Out Side Observations: The sides become real. Thomas is left scrambling as he tries to figure out how to handle the situation. The sides are not much better off. (linked to current newest chapter so yall would have the links to all the previous ones)

Illuminated by altruistic-skittles: Most humans are born with a soulmark that glows in the presence of their soulmate. Some are platonic. Some are romantic. Those without one or with a faux one are often treated badly by society. This is the story of a group of men trying to find where they belong.

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by I_Live_In_A_Trash_Can: Warning! Dark themes so please check the tags! Three superheroes face off against vilian Nightmare. Patton tries to become friends with a lonely guy named Virgil.

Partial Prints by satan_copilots_my_tardis: Warning! Basically all the warnings so check the tags! Patton is a serial killer who feeds victims to Virgil who is a monster who eats people, Deceit is a demon, Roman is a muse, and Logan is the poor human caught in the middle. (for god sakes read the tags)

An Unconventional FamILY by EmPhoenixCat: Warning! Dark themes so check the tags! Human Logan adopts a vampire (Remy) and a werewolf (Roman). Virgil is a good kid despite being possessed by a morally gray demon.

Another Line That Comes With Age by SmolTownFangirl: Warning! Graphic depiction of violence so please read the tags! Roman takes care of his 3 sisters despite his dad being king of the assholes. Patton and Logan are teachers. Virgil is their son.

We'll Be Together Never (Forever) by Lady_Akuma_Wolf: Warning! Extreme abuse/neglect so please read the tags! Patton befriends a mostly elective mute outcast said to be Soulless. However, Patton believes Virgil's soulmate is just shy (unlike his own dramatic soulmate Roman). Virgil isn't use to kindness especially since his own parents are abusive assholes.

Could You Imagine by FebruaryFun: Imaginations take physical form. Logan is not taking very good care of him imirage Virgil and needs a helping hand.

Blank by Shay_Nioum: Logic is gone. There's only Apathy. The other sides are heartbroken.

A Whole New World by mandeebobandee: Virgil and the others were just watching a movie. Now he's lost in the real world.

Fanged Friend by Demon_Wr1ter: Warning! Graphic violence so please read the tags! Virgil is a vampire with three great roommates. Now all hell is breaking loose and he's scared of killing one of his friends.Fangs by TessaTheDreamer: Warning! Assault so please read the tags! Logan was turned into a vampire. At least he's already a nightowl.

The Seeds We Sow by ResidentAnchor (wc 67435): Warning! Graphic depiction of violence so please read the tags! In one kingdom, magic is embraced. In another, it's outlawed and those with any magic are executed. Prince Logan has to travel to the other kingdom for a meeting.

Even Nobody Has A Tale To Tell by AlliDaMeme: Warning! Abuse so please read the tags! Roman isn't happy with who he's being paired with for a group theatre project. Virgil the dark loner. Patton the boy that always smiled. Logan the nerd who skipped two grades. Dex the dangerous delinquent. What none of them realize is that everybody has a story to tell and not all of them are happy.

Behind the Yellow Door by FangirlOfPower: A story of Deceit's adventures in the Light Sides' version of the Mindscape. He's usually very confused, especially by idioms that are taken literally.

Family Matters by IRegretNothingAndEverything: Warning! Abuse so please check the tags! Virgil runs away from an abusive home only to be scooped up by a strange collection of two adults and the runaways who became their children. Now if he could only save his little brother.

Ceremony of Innocence by Acantha_Echo: Warning! Abuse, violence, and isolation, so please check the tags! Sir Roman is captured by the evil warlock terrorizing the lands. Locked away in a cell with his only company being a kind man in glasses and the handsome servant who brings them food at night, Roman struggles to find a way to protect the kingdom and save the others.

The Witch's Secret by Arcadian_Skye: Roman rushed back to meet with the other sides. He was going to regret fighting the dragon witch with so little time to spare before brainstorming with the others. Pain. Glass breaking. Darkness. Will the injured prince find someone worth fighting for?

Blanketverse by SoDoRoses (FairyChess): Wet Blanket and Life Of The Party: Roman wants to host a party in his realm. Virgil feels like a wet blanket (when he's not worried about having a panic attack). Personal Space: Patton won't go near Logan and Logan worries why.

adventures in gender by riverblujay: Virgil discovers they're nonbinary. They're later joined by Roman resulting in the two bonding.

It's Still a Good Life by IsaacTheGreat69: Logan is in pain after a breakup. Virgil is supportive. (Analogical)

Silk Gloves by Dorktapus42: (more of a jacksepticeye/markiplier egos fic with mentions of Sanders Sides). A hectic day in the life of our favorite silent grayscale boy, Jameson Jackson aka JJ.

Powerless by patentpending (wc 187953): Warning! Graphic depiction of violence and mental abuse so read the tags! Almost everyone in the world has a superpower. The unabled 0.04% are treated as lesser and subjected to bigotry. Virgil has tried to fight back against the system that oppresses people like him, Patton, and Logan. When Patton’s bakery is targeted in a hate crime, he finally snaps. With the help of a mysterious sponsor, Virgil becomes a villain, ready to remake a broken society. The only thing standing in his way is the world’s most powerful superhero: The Prince.

Overworked and Underpaid by IsaacTheGreat69 (wc 7349): Thomas has been really busy and hasn't been seeing his friends. Virgil gets hit hard by the stress.

A Stitch a Day Keeps The Bad Thoughts Away by ShadeCrawler (wc 8407): Virgil has found serenity in knitting. Whenever he knits, he tries to make the other Sides a gift. It never ends well.

Love and Other Fairytales by SoDoRoses (FairyChess): Wickhills is a town that never stays in the same place forever. The people there do there best to keep themselves safe when surrounded by fae and other magical creatures. Not all beings are kind. Not all gifts are wanted. Not all paths are safe.

lavender for luck by lovelylogans (wc 66391): (LAMP) Virgil's uncle castes spells, reads fortunes, and listens to houses talk just like Virgil's father when he was alive. You see, the Fae family is born with both magic... and a curse. Those who fall in love with a Fae and have that love returned all die, so Virgil refuses to ever take that risk.

How not to be an idiot about your feelings by Tiili97 (wc 5475): After staying up for 3 days studying, Virgil convinces Logan to get some sleep. Logan wakes up the next day not remembering that he had randomly kissed his roommate on his way to bed.

The Low Light by a_forgotten_note: Warning! Graphic violence and sexual conduct so please read the tags! Logan is a cold-hearted vampire who runs a funeral home with the help of Patton who takes care of the daytime business. Patton's boyfriend Roman is... there. While out walking the graveyard, he happens upon a boy being stalked by a ghoul. Virgil survives and gets entangled in the world of nether creatures and the sudden influx of vicious ghouls in the small town.

Second Chances by callboxkat: (Sequel/series page) Roman is homeless and just trying to survive. With no room left at the shelter, he was tossed out and left to fend for himself on the streets. A former high school rival offers to help.

The Last Days by EdgyCatSkull (wc 10383): Warning! Major Character Death so please read the tags! Patton, Logan, and Roman have lived in their apartment together for years, along with a fourth reclusive man. While the three grew closer, the other never even told them his name. But one day, the man they had started referring to as simply Anxiety came out of his room and began to bond with the other three men. Maybe there is a reason, but one Virgil would rather leave unspoken. With Roman's play coming up and everybody seeming very happy, it would almost seem like things would finally work out for them... almost.

Of Course by A_Travis: Anxiety existed in a gray area of not good or bad. Just gray. When he lends a hand to the others, he only has one response.

Lovesick by Jackfruit: Roman can smell lovesickness and Logan REAKS. Logicality

Ever After by creativenostalgiastuff: Virgil is death and must guide souls to the afterlife. (very sad)

What? by just-an-anxious-mess: The sides are acting strange

Chemically Imbalanced by NyxWordsmith: Warning! Read the tags! Roman’s first mistake was taking Mr. Sanders History class, expecting an easy ride. His second mistake? Hitting on his son. (very lose adaptation of the sides and so much angst)

Stains of a Soul by sanders-sides-fics: Warning! Abuse so read the tags! Virgil is torn. He loves writing to his soulmates and the marks on his arms from their replies. His parents don't. They called having three soulmates unnatural. He's punished. Insulted. His pens are broken. He just wants to make his parents proud.

Scribbles by SketchyNebula: Virgil watched as the ink appeared on his arm followed by a second and a third. His soulmates. He would never muddy their relationship with his presents, but as he watched the happy colors take up every last inch of blank space on his arms, he couldn’t help but be happy that fate chose him to be lucky enough to witness it. The unfolding of this relationship was going to be something akin to a fairy tale and if that was the only light in his dark existence that fate would grant Virgil, then he would take it without regret.

Silence and Duality by xaandiir: Warning! Read tags! Children make mistakes and the Sides were no exception. When Thomas was young, they locked up the one who was hurting him. They thought they were only protecting Thomas. Now that Fear is out, they have to face he consequences of their decision.

On Impossibility by theotherella: Student body president Logan is in a precarious balance of power. In order to save the football team, he was forced to cut the unsusessful theater program. Roman hates him for it. Virgil isn't too happy either. Logan is fine.

A Virgil Affliction by creativenostalgiastuff: Warning! Read tags! Thomas has high anxiety over his friends moving. Virgil becomes overwhelmed with all of the changes in Thomas’ life. He struggle to cope and starts taking it out on everyone and everything. What will help them get through this tough time?

Innerworks by Prplzorua: Warning! Author may not be able to finish! Because of an "Incident" Anxiety falls ill, Thomas won't speak, Logic is mad, Morality is just trying to be a good dad (they tell the best jokes) and Prince is trying to figure out what in the world is going on.

Inks and Tallies by Skittlesun: Roman has an odd tattoo client asking for tally marks

Sleeping on Secrets by novusavis: Virgil is worried his curls will make the other sides not take him seriously, so he tries to hide them

Splat! by Listless_Songbird: Patton hears a curious noise coming from Roman’s room and peeks in to investigate

Mimicry by On_Sonnshine: Warning! Dark themes and violence so read tags! Virgil looks broken as he confesses something terrible that happened. Roman sees red.

Patton Will Fight You by RLCinderella: Virgil talks bad about himself. Patton did warn him. (Pure fluff)

Wynken, Blynken and Dad by SilversEdge: Virgil is having trouble falling asleep, so Patton decides to help (Pure fluff)

Neuro Logical by musicmuse0609: After being insulted by Roman, Logan decides to do some research to figure out why he's so different. Discovering the reason only seems to cause him more stress than before.

Love hurts by TheGhostOfBenjamin: Warning! No comfort so read tags! A merman falls in love with a human. One needs air, the other doesn't. How far will he go to get to his loved one?

Everyone can leave by Vampirtulpe: Warning! No comfort so check the tags! The sides and Thomas have been stuck on an imaginary island for months. Roman is convinced that he will find the exit, but what if everybody doesn't want to leave?

Must Be Dreaming by rosesandstuff: Remy loves kissing his boyfriend, Roman. However, when it’s obvious there’s something much weighing on Roman’s mind, Remy stops so they can talk.

Unspoken by IronWoman359: Warning! Read tags! Virgil stomps off in a downpour after he and Logan have a fight. When tragedy strikes, will Logan get the chance to make amends.

Noose - Oneshot by imthederpyfox: Virgil walks into the woods with a rope and a piece of paper. A noise in the distance startles him.

Love at firtht thight by shiverfawkes: (analogical) Virgil is use to not being taken seriously. He has a strong lisp which causes "s" to sound like "th". Then he meets a boy at his new school who changes that.

Silence Is Your Loudest Scream (I Don't Know Why You're Hiding) by maxiswriting: Roman is an actor. He can hide the truth behind a wall of convincing lies. The dark thoughts aren't there. He's fine and happy for the others. Everything's fine. (LAMP)

Lessons by DemonicPresence (wc 2732): Roman loves guitar. Logan doesn't understand why.

High Five by periwren: Virgil is a shy lonely school kid that always gets picked on. His classmates have made it a new game to jump scare him and eventually it all ends in tears.

Cat's out of the Bag by YouDontKnowMeIDontKnowYou (wc 2262): After wandering into the imagination to find Roman, Virgil turns into a cat. He's not happy about it. Hilarity ensues.

Nail Polish and Princes by novusavis (wc 3207): Virgil has trouble with his hands shaking. It makes it impossible to cleanly paint his nail, so he decides to ask Roman for help.

The Kind of Pain That Doesn't Hurt by warcatscat: Warning! Read tags! Roman has bad habits. He knows that. He knows they're not good for coping. But when everything else is so deeply overwhelming, what else can he really return to besides old habits. They die hard, right?

The Betting Pool by Skittlesun: Drama teacher Roman Hart and music teacher Virgil Knight have this little game they like to play. The objective? Make the other blush first. Place your bets!

Did You Lock The Door? by periwren: Warning! Sexual situations so read tags!Patton and Deceit just want to fool around without the other finding out, but the other sides keep spoiling their fun. Hilarity ensues.

The Smell Of Leather Jackets And Alcohol by Sp00nhater: Warning! Extreme child abuse so please read the tags! Virgil and Roman are very different. Roman is popular and loud. Virgil is a quiet loner that's feared. A class protect forces them to work together and brings some dark truths to the surface.

It's Only Logical by TSTrashCaptain: Warning! Sexual conduct and past abuse so read the tags! When Logan (a florist with a PhD in botany), decides to hire someone to work the counter in his flower shop, he assumed it would be no big deal. His life would continue to be calm and as predictable as Roman unsuccessfully flirting with the emo owner of his favorite coffee shop. He could never have expected what a disruption one single Dad could make to his neatly ordered life.

#bluewind's fic recs #bluewind talks #fic rec #masterlist #fic masterlist #fic rec masterlist

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your-iron-lung · 6 years

Text

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 7

AKA ‘Danger and Dread’; also readable on AO3!

Story Synopsis: Some weird low-key occult parties start popping up that Steve can’t in good conscience ignore and takes it upon himself to investigate. Billy gets caught up in the consequences of his meddling, and isn’t it funny? For all the strange things the Upside Down has thrown his way, it’s werewolves that Steve has trouble accepting exist.

Chapter Word Count: 5049

Pairings: Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Horror-ish

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Next Chapter: 8

Notes: i was hit hard with another bout of writers block, but i was also accepted into the artist alley for this years raleigh supercon and ive been struggling to get some material done for that! updates may be even more sparse than usual until after that con rolls around ehe. so uh ENJOY THIS WHILE IT LAAAAASTS

Because the owner of the towing company that had taken Steve’s car knew his father, and partly because he’d shown up with the chief of police to retrieve it, they were allowed to pick up the BMW without charge. Whatever fines Steve would normally have had to pay were waived, but that didn’t mean the owner let it go without question. The fact that Steve had arrived with the chief of police was enough of a question on its own, but that fact coupled with the fact that there was enough blood to paint nearly the entire passenger side of the car red when he’d towed it brought forth questions the man felt he deserved answers to.

“What’s all this about?” he’d asked, looking from Hopper to Steve after he’d pulled the car off the impound lot for them. He’d stood with his hands on his hips, brow creased with concern and curiosity. When he spoke, the cigarette in his mouth bobbed up and down haphazardly. “Was someone killed in there? You taking it in for evidence? Lil’ Stevie here in some kinda trouble?”

He’d laughed as he’d said it, but the look in his eye said he seriously wanted to know. Steve didn’t know what he was and wasn’t allowed to say, so avoided eye contact and kept quiet.

“That’s police business,” was all Hopper had said, but the brevity with which he spoke seemed to deter the man enough from prying anymore into their business.

“I should tell your dad,” he’d said with an annoyed sneer that said he mistrusted what they were doing, but he’d wandered back and away into the small building that served as his office before either of them could tell him not to.

Not that it would matter much in the long run; Steve’s dad was going to know all about it soon enough. He was due back from his latest business trip by the end of the week- clear weather permitting- and his imminent return was the main cause of one of his greatest points of anxiety. He was sure that there was going to be nothing, absolutely nothing he could say to his father that could possibly begin to explain why he’d put his expensive, valuable car through hell, but he felt that he might be able to justify it since Billy’s life had been on the line. There was no way of knowing how his father was going to react until he did.

Standing by the passenger side door, Steve stared in through the window at the mess waiting for him inside. Billy’s blood was crusted and dried, splattered over most of the dashboard, drenching the interior with a saturated reddish-brown colour that almost matched the paint job of the exterior. It was gruesome to look at, and held his attention for a few seconds before he was able to finally look away, wondering in the back of his mind how on earth Billy had managed to survive when he’d lost so much blood. He didn’t think it was humanly possible, but then again, he had failed biology; the human body was capable of more things than he was evidently aware of. He felt the weight of Hopper’s hand on his shoulder and begrudgingly stirred out of his ruminations.

“We got work to do, pal,” Hopper said, voice kind but stern with purpose.

The sky was looking heavy and grey, waiting to unload a fresh load of snow upon them. They were lucky that it hadn’t snowed the night before, but they were going to have to hurry if they wanted to investigate before the area lost all the important details to a fresh snowfall.

“Yeah yeah, the sooner the better,” Steve muttered, shrugging out of Hopper’s touch as he walked around the side of the car towards the driver’s side, where once again he found himself stalled, staring in at the blood coating the interior.

Touching the door handle was like reaching out to touch a forbidden object; it was something he didn’t want to necessarily touch, but needed to in order to fully access his car. He felt like a little like that archaeologist from that one movie Dustin had forced him to watch (“Come on, Steve, we live in Indiana! How do you not know about the Jones?!”) in that moment, with the amount of care and trepidation he utilized when he finally opened the door. His face pinched up immediately in disgust as the smell of the trapped air flooded out to greet him. The whole car stunk of slightly sweetened, old metals, and he was repulsed with the realization that the foul stench was the stink of Billy’s blood. It permeated throughout the vehicle, and he wondered how the fuck he would even begin to clean it. The smell alone was nauseating, but the sight of the large, brown spot where the blood had pooled in the passenger seat was almost worse.

There was going to be no cleaning that. It was far beyond the point of saving, he knew, as he slid into the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel. The owner of the car lot left the key in the ignition for him, and as he turned it to start the engine, he was once again hit with the understanding that Billy had almost died in his car.

The stress, the smell- all of it combined became disconcerting to the point where he wasn’t sure he was going to able to drive; the memories of the attack and just how badly Billy had been injured kept surfacing to the forefront of his mind. His own arm was beginning to throb, the wound pulsating under the bandages and around the stitches again. He didn’t realize he was clutching the steering wheel so tightly until he released it, immediately easing the pressure that had built up in his arm. Shaking himself out of his slight crisis, he looked into the rearview mirror and saw that Hopper was in the cab of his truck, ready and waiting to follow him.

He turned the radio on and kept the volume low before putting his car into gear, driving it away from the towing lot and towards the place the party had been held.

All the while he was driving- all the while with the stench of Billy’s dried blood plugging his nostrils- the only thing he could think about was, surprisingly, his bat. Not of his father’s wrath when he’d finally have to show him the car, or of his mother’s concern when she saw his injuries, or even of the lies he’d have to concoct in order to placate them both- but his bat.

It was the third time it’d had been used to save a life- be it his own or his friends’- , and like hell if he was going to just leave it out there to rot or be collected and shelved as police evidence when he might still have need for it. He wanted it back in his possession; felt lesser without it. After all, it was the only reason he’d been asked to help with the crazy monster bullshit that had happened the last time something monstrous had spawned in Hawkins.

As they pulled up alongside Billy’s camaro, thankfully still parked on the side of the road where it had been abandoned the night before, he thought about what he could say to let Hopper go with him back into the woods to retrieve what was his.

The body of Hopper’s truck swayed on its frame as he put it into park, and Steve followed suit, cutting his engine as the chief got out and gave Billy’s car a cursory examination, looking in through the windows to make sure it hadn’t been ransacked by looters overnight. Steve’s fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly again for a moment before he stepped out of his car to speak with him.

“Point me where to go and you’re home-free, kid,” Hopper said, looking over the hood of Billy’s car towards the forest line that didn’t seem nearly so intimidating in the daylight than it had when Steve had peered into its depths last. He couldn’t help but feel that the calm tranquility it emitted now was a lie; he knew it harbored secrets it did not want to share, and monsters it didn’t want found.

But it was stupid to think that the forest could take sides like that. It was a neutral force that just happened to be the place where whoever-the-fuck was trying to start shit.

“Well, uh, see, it’s not really a straight shot,” Steve said, shaking himself from his thoughts as he closed his car door and adjusted the way the coat’s sleeves were rolled back. It was cold, and too much of his forearms were exposed. “You can get real turned around in there if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“And you do?” Hopper couldn’t help but scoff, turning towards him with a bemused expression on his face. “Look, if there’s something to be found in there, then I’ll find it. Trust me. You can go home, I’m letting you off the hook.”

And Steve did want to go home, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to handle a night alone without the protective assurances of his bat. Billy’s words from the night before replayed themselves in his mind: ‘Let’s say it is following you- you go home and, what, it just magically loses your trail? You don’t think it’d just follow you back?’ If he went home without it, he would surely lose his mind by just imagining the creature lurking around in the constructed shadows provided by the tree line around his house.

“It’s fine,” he said, shrugging casually in an attempt to appear indifferent. “I’ll lead you out to where it happened then leave you to it. Get out of your hair, or whatever. I left something out there I want to get back, anyway.”

“What’s that?” Hopper asked, stepping back from Billy’s Camaro as Steve walked by him, leading the way to the path that they’d followed to start their trek into the woods.

“My bat,” Steve said over his shoulder, ignoring the pink splotches in the snow that had been left behind during their frantic escape.

They followed the trail of blood that had, thankfully, not yet been snowed over; the splatterings of blood serving as a better guide than Steve was currently being. He trailed a few feet behind Hopper, turning his head this and way and that as he surveyed the area, waiting to catch a glimpse of whatever was living out there. Everything about the forest looked the same even though he’d only ever been through the area at night, but despite that, he felt as though he wasn’t in the same patch of woods he’d been in before. Everything may have looked the same, but nothing else was.

There were sounds, first of all; sounds of wildlife that had been mysteriously absent the night of the attack- not that the forest had been particularly lively that time of night, but there were still expected sounds of nightlife that hadn’t been present. During his walk-through with Billy, it had felt like they’d wandered into an uninhabitable bit of land, but now it was thriving. Birds were chirping, singing bright, energetic songs while other small rodents made their presence known through their chittering and scurrying, claws scraping against tree bark as they ran up their trunks. Even the wind blowing through the evergreen tree branches created gentle, calming noises as the branches rustled against one another lightly. If not for the blood, Steve would have sworn they were in the wrong place.

But the blood stains were still there, even if all the other ominous warnings and dreadful wrongness of the forest had dispersed. Whether or not that made the forest currently safe for them to be in was unknown to him, but he was calmer knowing that the set-up was at least different. If the creature that had been stalking him was planning on ambushing him again, he’d at least be able to recognize the signs of warning before it happened. With that less-than-comforting thought in mind, they kept walking, feet crunching through the hardened snow as they slowly plodded along, acting as though they were taking a leisurely stroll the woods instead of conducting an actual investigation. Soon enough, Steve saw his first landmark: the place where he and Billy had stumbled upon the dismembered arm.

The snow was disturbed around the dried pool of blood, but the arm was no longer where it had been. He stopped walking, his stomach sinking as he stared at the vacancy with confusion.

“What’s up?” Hopper asked, turning around when he heard that Steve had come to a standstill behind him. He glanced at the place Steve was staring at, but didn’t see anything that stood out to him besides the blood; didn’t understand the location’s importance.

“There was- last night, we found an arm there.” Steve pointed at the place it should have been, remembering how the fingers had begun to turn blue from the cold when they’d found it; how it had been frozen, stuck clawing at the sky. Hopper frowned. “I guess whatever it was came back for it,” Steve said, throat dry.

Hopper stepped forward and crouched low to the ground, inspecting the disturbed snow and the large collection of dark blood around it. He wasn’t a tracker by any means, but being the chief of police for a small hick town meant he had to have some knowledge about animal tracks. A lot of the time he got it wrong and made amateur mistakes (he still wasn’t quite able to discern the difference between fox and coyote prints), but even he could see that the tracks he was looking at weren’t man made- or made by any animal that could possibly live in the area. They were huge, indicating that the animal itself probably stood taller than he did. Nothing that big was native to the Indiana area.

Steve was watching him as he awkwardly shuffled forward in order to get a closer look at the long, dragging prints that had frozen into the snow. Five toes existed in a line, sloping down at an angle that looked almost human, if not for the fact that they were absurdly long. Beyond that, though, he couldn’t pick up on any other resemblances, as the toes were the only part of the print that were clearly defined; the rest of it beyond the mid and hind-foot were lost to the weird, shuffling gait the creature used to walk.

“Can you tell what it was?” Steve asked, hovering behind him. There was a hint of hopefulness in his voice that Hopper unfortunately had to quash.

“Let’s just keep moving,” he said, knees groaning as he used a nearby tree for support as he stood back up.

Mute with disappointment, Steve continued to follow after Hopper, who was now relying on the deep-cut grooves left in the snow that the creature had made when it abducted Billy and ran with him to the clearing. The blood was too sporadic here; spread and lost in larger quantities that didn’t necessarily lead them in a straight line. Hopper whistled lowly at the sight- a somber sound that was out of place amongst the birds’ constant cheering.

“No wonder kid almost died,” he said upon taking his first step into the glen, not having meant to speak the thought aloud. Looking around the area, he saw the charred remains of a fire pit and followed the black scorch marks lining the surrounding tree bark with his eyes, up and up, impossibly high. “Musta been some fire.”

Even some of the branches at the top of the canopy looked burnt and blackened, meaning the fire must have been, what, 20, 30 feet tall? When he took his eyes away, looking back to Steve to ask him about it, he found him on the other side of the fire pit staring down at something and walked over to join him.

The bat laid half submerged in the snow after hastily being tossed away, poking up from the drift at an angle where only the barrel could be seen. What to Hopper at first looked to be rust that had grown over the pointed ends of the nails was quickly realized to be blood, as it spread down the length of the handle to the grip. There were even small, torn bits of flesh that were still stuck on the sharpened bits of metal. As Steve went to pick it up, Hopper said, “Looks like you hit it pretty hard; it can’t have gone far from here with an injury like that. I’ll call my deputies and have them search the area; with any luck, it’s probably already bled out and died.”

Steve let out a grim laugh and shook his head, gripping the handle of his bat tightly. His wound throbbed with the pressure he exerted, remembering the feeling of swinging the bat into the creature’s ribs. How the bones had cracked, but then restored themselves almost immediately afterward. The weight of it in his hands was reassuring, and he looked upon it fondly, as though he were looking at a copy of his favourite movie or album instead of the lunatic weapon. Hopper shuddered, but couldn’t say it was because of the cold.

“If it’s well enough to have come back for that arm, then it’s not dead yet,” Steve said, turning his sad, brown eyes to Hopper forlornly.

Billy was released from the hospital two days later and resumed going to school that Wednesday, arm splinted, wrapped, and held in a sling. He looked terrible; exhausted by the strain of his injuries and the duration of his hospitalization. Dark rings hung low under his eyes, and the dark purple bruises that had encroached up his neck were taking on a diseased, sickly sort of yellow-green hue as they began to heal.

No one said anything about his injuries to his face, but people didn’t spare Steve that same courtesy. Comparisons were made between the wounds on his and Billy’s bodies, with considerations being taken to remind him of how similar they were and how they were each focused on the arm. Rumors quickly began circulating that they’d done it to each other in some sort of catastrophic fight that Steve had somehow, miraculously, won, which soured Billy’s mood considerably. He stalked about the halls angrily, full of resentment despite the fact that Steve denied these details when presented with every chance he could.

But he never offered up any other explanation for what happened to them; wasn’t sure how secretive he was supposed to be about it even though Hopper’s investigation of the woods hadn’t turned up anything substantial. They hadn’t found the arm or the creature, and still had no idea what it was or if it was related to that dark other place they called the Upside Down. The fact that Billy hadn’t said anything about it yet either made him all the more reluctant to share the details about the supposed ‘bear attack’. Steve chalked Billy’s unwillingness to speak on the matter up to the immense amount of pain he must have been in, but he couldn’t have known that it extended beyond that- that something else was taking priority in Billy’s life.

In the dark, you can sense that something's following you. You can’t see it, but you can hear it, masking its steps by walking in synchronized time with you, each footstep carefully being placed in sync with your own. You’re not sure if it knows that you know it’s there, and are honestly too afraid to turn around and see what the hell it is. It could be anything, and although it’s being stealthy with its footfalls, it’s art of subtlety ends there.

It’s growling. A low, humming sound that makes you think of someone impersonating a wolf more than it actually being a wolf. It sounds more human than animal, and the idea that someone is behind you, making noises like that, is enough to make your skin crawl. Are they back there, crawling behind you on all fours? Plunging their bare hands and feet into the cold snow to keep up the appearance of the animal they’re trying to imitate?

If they are, you don’t want to know, but you can’t escape the thought now that you’ve pictured it- a pale, hairless, naked body lurching after you on their hands and feet, lips curled away from blunt and missing teeth as they keep up their growling, trying to ward you away from their territory.

You keep going forward, too afraid to turn around even though you’ve forgotten where it is you’re trying to get to. Hell, you can’t even remember why you’re out here, alone and wandering through the darkened forest at night, dressed so poorly for the weather you’re beginning to freeze. Your boots aren’t thick enough to keep the chill from creeping into your toes, a burning sensation overtaking the tingling feeling they’d been exhibiting thus far. You hope it isn’t frostbite.

Behind you, you can hear that the breathing of whoever it is behind you suddenly change. They stop growling for a moment, breath hitching raggedly as they begin to pant. The sound of something rushing in the snow towards you has your heart banging in your chest, beating a desperate rhythm. You’re afraid that it’s going to ambush you, but you can’t bring yourself to run away. Frozen in place, you stand still as the thing approaches you from behind, their hot breath suddenly on the back of your neck, the humidity that comes with it forcing your skin to bump up at the sensation. All your instincts are telling you to make a run for it, but your feet hurt too much, they’re so cold.

The thing behind you isn’t moving, just growling lowly in the back of its throat while it breathes on you, or smells you, or whatever the fuck its doing. You’re not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but if it hasn’t attacked you yet then it's probably not going to anytime soon. You decide to keep walking, plowing forward steadily despite the fact that it feels like your feet are on fire. They’ve never hurt so bad, except once before when you were a child and idiotically went walking barefoot down the beach during midday in the summertime. The sand had been soaking up so much heat that it blistered the bottoms of both your feet. Your mother had had to take you to the hospital, upset that your father had given you permission to go alone, barefoot of all things.

Up ahead, vaguely in the distance, you can see a faint glimmer of light flickering through the spaces of the trees ahead of you. You want nothing more than to make a run for it, but you know better; it’s too dark to see clearly, and it’s likely that you’d just run into a tree in your haste. Fighting against the panic that’s trying to consume you, you keep your legs going one at a time, slowly making progress towards what you recognize now to be a fire.

Soon you’re able to hear voices, soft and low in the distance, and a spark of hope ignites in your chest. The thing that’s been breathing down your neck backs off when you get closer to the gathering, and this time it doesn’t bother disguising the sound of its feet stepping away from you.

With the thing’s retreat, you decide to take your chances. You run for it. You’re unable to tell if it’s following you, as the sound of your heart beating and the sounds of the party ahead of you become too all-consuming. Is that the sound of your feet slapping in and out of the snow, or the creature’s? Thin tree branches whip at your face, cutting thin lines into your face as you hurry past them to get to safety.

It feels as though you’ve been running for hours, sucking the painfully cold air into your lungs, paining your chest. A cramp wracks your side as you get closer, forcing you to slow down before you step into the clearing, a strong taste of blood rising up your throat. The bonfire ahead of you is roaring, flicking its sharp tongues up into the air and casting its brilliant warmth upon you. No one in the group assembled around the fire looks nearly as alarmed as they should be, but in a way you’re kind of glad for that. If they’re not afraid, then there’s no reason for you to be, right? The fire is safe, and you are finally in its protective glow. Someone steps forward and takes your arm, guiding you forward and closer to the fire. Everyone at the party seems to be speaking at once with voices that tumble over one another, but they all seem to be saying the same thing: they’re all so glad you’re here. Real glad you could make it out here tonight, Billy.

Feeling safe now that you’re by the fire, you feel brave enough to look over your shoulder at whatever it was you think was following you, half-convinced now that you’d hallucinated the whole thing. As your eyes adjust to peering into the looming gloom of the trees, at first you don’t see anything, but then it appears to you all at once- a tall, dark, bulky shape that’s staring at you with full, bright, completely white eyes. Your self-assured smile falls from your face as it suddenly moves, darting behind a tree and leaving your line of sight.

You turn around to ask if anyone else saw it too, only to find that you’re alone. Everyone that had been there with you is gone, having left you alone by the fire that somehow has been reduced to nothing more than a small pile of a few dying embers.

You take a few steps back, fear surging through you again as you look about the clearing to try and find someone- anyone- to help you, when you hear it coming for you.

Hushed, quiet steps are approaching you from behind, rushing out of the woods towards you. Again your fear has rendered you immobile; left you too afraid to even turn and meet your fate as, out of the corner of your eyes, you see two monstrously long and distorted hands slowly reaching out of the darkness to grab you.

And as you begin to scream, you still refuse to face it-

The scream that rose through his throat in the dream tapered off into a sharp gasp that brought him into wakefulness. Lying in bed, covered in fever-sweat, he panted and stared up at the ceiling, confused at first as to where he was, half-believing he was still in the hospital despite having been released days ago. Billy’s chest heaved as he turned his head towards the wall, relief flooding through him when he realized he was only in his room, safe in the confines of his father’s house. He felt the racing pace of his heart begin to calm as he closed his eyes, already forgetting most of the details of the nightmare, though the back of his neck still prickled with the remembered feeling of- what had it been?

He couldn’t remember anymore.

When his heart had finally returned to a normal pace, he felt that he could probably fall back asleep. He allowed himself to relax, his arms draped across his stomach when the sounds of a tortured scream erupted from the living room. Billy’s eyes shot open again as he sat up abruptly, groaning at the pain that flared in his arm with the motion. He waited for most of the pain to subside before standing up, the screams from the other room unrelenting in volume or agony.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered bitterly before standing up and storming out of his bedroom.

Initially jumpy because of the faint after-feelings the nightmare had left him with, Billy was now only twitchy with anger. This wasn’t the first time he’d caught Max watching one of those freaky horror movies she loved to watch at an unreasonable volume. He’d made sure to tell her the last time she’d pulled a stunt like this that he wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore. Purposefully having left the implications of what he’d do to her if he caught her doing it again open to interpretation, the promised punishment had been enough to keep her from doing it for a while, but she must have been feeling ballsy today, or certain he was knocked out from all the pills he’d been prescribed to take.

Lumbering into the living room, hair wild and eyes angry, he caught her sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring enraptured at the TV. The screaming continued as he approached her, practically having to shout to be heard over the movie as he began to demand, “What the fuck do you think you’re-”

The words he’d meant to reprimand her with dried out and died on his tongue, his throat seizing up as he finally saw what the man in the movie was screaming about on the TV.

“What?” Max asked, reaching forward to hit the pause button on the VCR, freezing the movie on a gruesome scene.

She looked annoyed at having been interrupted, but the look on Billy’s face turned her expression into more of a quizzical one. “What, Billy?”

“What the fuck are you watching?” he all but whispered, his eyes trained intensely on the frame she’d paused the movie on.

“‘American Werewolf in London’; why?” She spoke with a sneer, a slight smile curling up around the edges of her mouth as she interpreted the expression on his face to be one of fear. “You scared, Billy? Werewolf got your tongue?”

She couldn't have known just how right she was.

#harringrove #harringrove fic #billy hargrove/steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington #werewolf!billy #slow burn #longfic #stranger things

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cto10121 · 7 years

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mulling over my recent rewatch of the hungarian retj (rómeó és júlia) some more and while it’s still one of the best versions of the show, some things just stuck out like a sore thumb, such as

the choreography. now, i’m not in any way an expert or even amateur on dance, but 90% of this duda éva mess featured the dancers hopping around like bunnies and doing weird YMCA-style hand movements like some nineties nightmare. lehetsz király is especially an offender, but verona had some questionable choreography too. i’ve never liked the choreography in this version much, but in this rerun it was somehow more glaring. i guess since then i’ve gone back to the french choreography and since redha was directly inspired by jerome robbins’ work in west side story...well, yeah...

the part where one of the capulet servants gets kissed by a hyper rómeó after le balcon and the servant recognizes rómeó as a montague becomes unintentionally amusing when you consider that in this version, the differences between the montagues and capulets in terms of clothing and physical appearance are subtle and minimal at best, nonexistent at worst. how the hell did she recognize rómeó as a montague???? by his blue blouse? they’re not color coded, so blue wouldn’t automatically mean montague in this world. so what gives?

speaking of which - ditching the color-coded dress, while it arguably adds more ‘‘realism” (not really, imho), muddles the action a lot. in the original french, you always knew who was what, and not only that, but there were strong characteristics in their dance that differentiated them more. the montagues were wild cards, the capulets more restrained and scheming. it affirmed the divisive reality of the feud. in the hungarian, most of the feud is fought by the head of the families, which is a reversal both of the french and shakespeare. during la vengeance, if it weren’t for benvolio’s presence on one of the sides, i wouldn’t have known which side wanted to protect romeo and which side didn’t. they were all dressed in the same sleek dark leather costumes. i guess that was the subtle ‘‘point” of the production, but unless you show a difference other than clothing, all you’ll have is just people of the same ethnicity, same gestures, same choreography doing shit to each other and little understanding of why. so though the hungarian actually brings out the feud more and its violence, the french is actually more convincing

that orchestra. this may be due to the poor sound engineering of the dvd that privileged the singers than the instruments, but it still sounds awfully tinny and weak. the strings were so thin they were threadbare; the tempos were all over the place. songs that are definitely not meant to be played fast were played fast and other parts were slowed down to an excruciating degree. the arranger cut out the solos in the latter part of the choruses, so the hungarian versions feel more repetitious than even the french, even when they add new lyrics. they obviously got more of their budget toward the FIRE ACROBATICS and neat stage effects

the acting. better than the french, obviously, since these are theater-theater people trained to do everything all at once. the script gives more of a plot and story to the musical-operetta than the french, which was more concert-based. but because of the dramatic needs of the story, the singing on stage suffered A LOT. imagine almost 3 hours of shouting and belting and everyone running around like kids high on candy. my ears were ringing at the end something awful. the french had pacing problems too, but that was because the addition of extraneous songs that could have been cut (le pouvoir, le poète, however much i like the latter) and some lazy directing. the hungarian has more ear fatigue; the energy that they establish is not maintainable for long. as a result, damien sargue sang much better, with better expression, than attila dolhai, who sounds like an operatically trained singer. hommonay zsolt as párisz was also operatically trained, it sounds like, but even at times didn’t sound good at all, especially during la folie, which should have been a picnic for him. at least the chorus was consistently good.

everyone’s an asshole except résj. this production went back to the original shakespeare characterizations for some of the characters, particularly for the capulets and the nurse, so yeah. but where shakespeare was more nuanced and realistic in his portrayal of the capulets, here they’re mostly unlikable dysfunctional assholes. paris was a sleazeball (though the show tried to say he cared about juliet enough to want to die in her tomb hahahaha no), capulet a doddering fool, lady capulet chronically unfaithful to the extreme, the nurse bawdy and particularly tactless, and tybalt a walking talking disaster on two legs, an epileptic severus snape if there wasn’t one (even my dad thought he'd make a great snape, so it’s not just my hp-addled brain) plus incest issues with his aunt and cousin. lady montague is fierce as fuck, but of course her role is lesser, benvolio acts almost exactly like mercutio except he has a more puppy-ish air and mercutio is more eloquent and cynical. mercutio was closer to the original shakespeare, which means he could be a douchecanoe at times. all in all, the only truly sympathetic characters are rómeó and júlia, which would be terrific (kill the trend of making them into stupid horny teenagers DEAD, i mean it) if it didn’t feel so cheap and vaguely manipulative. of course you’d sympathize with them - they’re the only ones who aren’t crazy, high, mentally troubled, or into the stupid feud in the first place. of course, they’re entertaining to watch, much like you would a trainwreck, but the melodrama does reach a point of incredulity.

speaking of résj, while they’re cute and all, (if way too old) they tend to feel almost extraneous to this production, so focused on the feud and violence as it is. this should have been called egy orült villág or something like that because that’s really what it was.

the song order. the show does make it work, barely, but it’s still jarring and strange, even after all these years. i can’t get over c’est le jour and c’est pas ma faute switched around, and tu dois te marier following verona must have been one of the strangest decisions they’ve ever made. i would have liked to have been there in the room where they decided on this order. it isn’t really intuitive, just the opposite. it did solve some of the pacing problems of the french, but musically i think it suffered a lot. gyulölet and szívbol szeretni being close together was weird as well, although the former made for a good number. how strange

the ho yay is incredible in this version. like, purposely fanfiction-y. i never paid much credence to the tycutio and bencutio shippers of the shakespeare fandom, but someone in this production obviously did. mercutio is out-and-out bi, but you can probably read anyone in this production as such. tybalt is an atomic bomb of repression so of course he gets read as such. it adds nothing to the production except, of course, the pleasure of seeing attractive people being all over each other. those wily fangirls are at it again

OH I HAD NEARLY FORGOTTEN - in párisz halála, paris’ death scene, he says that he believes rómeó was here to desecrate júlia’s grave, as in the original shakespeare. rómeó actually had to tell him straight-up that júlia was his wife. but in la folie, the people were all crying that júlia’s death was rómeó’s fault, so obviously paris would have known that they had been together. so what gives? why wouldn’t hungarian paris make that connection and tried to turn him in on the basis that he was responsible for júlia’s death, officially ruled as a suicide? this is verona, after all, where everyone knows everything about everyone, and especially in the hungarian version they found out awfully quickly about résj. in the french, you sense that the capulets are in denial about the rumors (though french!capulet seems to hint that he knows based on his bitter ‘‘et je maudis tous ces amants’’ line) but the hungarian family seemed to have believed it quickly. so yeah, that’s a strange plot hole. i’m guessing galambos attila had to write this le duel reprise quickly and just fell back on shakespeare since there is no french equivalent.

#i'll just tag this #romeo et juliette #romeo es julia #rómeó és júlia #why not #this version had some good points though #the backstory on tybalt and his father was pretty on point #i liked it so much i used it for my version although i added a twist

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camphalforacle · 8 years

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pjo au!!!

Ok so the au is pretty intricate so my plan is to do a post for each character’s backstory and then do another post for the plot! I’ll also probably do some miniposts on character relationships in this au that get glossed over- this post will be about Lance

Lance is a son of Aphrodite (and great grandson of a son of Poseidon), Pidge is a daughter of Athena, Keith is a son of Ares, Shiro is a son of Jupiter, Hunk is a son of Demeter, Allura is a daughter of Bellona, and Coran is a centaur (like Chiron)

Ok so the Garrison is a safe house where demigods can go (Roman and Greek) run by older demigods and others (Coran, Alfor, etc.). The Garrison offers academics for demigods, boarding, training, and pretty much everything in between

Alright so I want to delve a little bit into Lance (like i said this will be a bit lance centric before I get into actual plot)

Lance has been there the longest out of almost the entire group (Allura has officially been there the longest, her father was the grandson of Justice and she grew up only ever knowing the Garrison as home)

Lance arrived at the Garrison when he was nine. Lance is the oldest sibling of 7 and he was the only demigod out of them (the poseidon blood in all the kids wasn’t potent so no one had any powers or the like). But because Lance was a full on demigod he kept attracting monsters to his house, and he felt really guilty, so his mom took him to the Garrison where he stays full time (only writing some letters back and forth with his family)

To say he’s homesick is an understatement

At the time of this story he’s 19 and yea he’s got insecurities…

When Lance first arrived to the Garrison he thought things would go great for him, he imagined glory and training to fight monsters… but that didn’t exactly go as planned

Lance was automatically labeled the stereotypical Aphrodite kid and this kind of branded his life there

Lance always tried desperately to break the idea that all Aphrodite kids’ were airheads and only cared about makeup

He studied so hard in his classes, and trained even harder. He brushed off his homesickness and just put in all the effort he could

Yet he was still one of the last picked for capture the flag and even then he was given little responsibility

Sure, he fit a lot of the stereotypes, he was a massive flirt, his pride was his skin care routine, and his saturdays were spent watching rom-coms with his other sibling

But he still was a good demigod- he was an excellent sharpshooter and if anyone let him prove himself instead of brushing him off they too would see his talents

Though the campers will admit that he has an exceptional ability with the pegasi- especially a grayish mare named Blue, who only has one wing and was too scared to let anyone near her before Lance showed up

Then when Lance is thirteen in walks two new demigods- Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane

At the time Lance had few friends (other than his siblings) despite his seemingly outgoing personality. He mostly was too afraid that he’d have to leave them like he did his family, so the majority of his time was spent hanging with Coran, creating wild variations of common card games (Allura was also a constant for Lance, she was two years older than him and Coran’s niece, so they ended up forming a brotherly/sisterly bond with one another- which definitely entails Lance braiding Allura’s hair all the time and especially before she goes on a quest)

Shiro was 17 at the time and Keith 13, they had been foster brothers coincidentally and their foster mother may or may not have been a monster in disguise

Lance despises Keith from the start- he’s everything he’s not

Keith is a son of Ares, he barely has to work to match right up to Lance’s fighting abilities that took years of practice and he’s instantly respected by fellow campers

So yea, Lance declares a rivalry on him and Keith is honestly just really confused because he’s barely even had a conversation with the guy ??

Shiro ends up being a bit of a star at camp, being one of the few children of the Big Three

He’s powerful and has especially skill in controlling lightning and storms, Lance immediately looks up to him

And then not even a week into Keith being at the Garrison he gets a quest

AND LANCE IS FLOORED

because he’s been there for four years now ?? and where is his quest at ??

Coran makes sure to calm Lance down a bit and it works mostly, but it still leaves a lasting impression and Lance can’t help think that it means something (maybe he is just a stereotypical Aphrodite kid after all)

Alright so it’s almost a year later after all this, Lance is keeping his rivalry going with Keith, and he’s chilling with Allura, drinking some lemonade playing a card game when he meets a new demigod, Hunk Garrett (son of Demeter)

They’re basically instant best friends (and Coran is a proud dad bc look at his son finally making friends!!)

Hunk is one of the best things to happen to Lance, he reminds Lance of his mom which provides an even greater sense of home to the Garrison

Hunk is the first person that Lance takes to try and befriend wit Blue

It takes awhile but eventually Blue takes a liking to Hunk (especially after he shares his famed oat cookies with her)

Hunk is Lance Protection Squad (you know how Demeter went apeshit on those people that trespassed in her woods- yea thats Hunk when people try to disregard Lance, etc)

The friendship is just really good for both of them and they make an awesome power duo (especially in capture the flag- which no one suspects)

However, there’s this one time when Lance is going through a rough spot. Keith had gotten another quest (Lance still was holding out for his first) and when he came back he was praised by everyone. However, he got injured on it and has to sit out for capture the flag that night. The Ares Cabin reluctantly adds Lance to their team, but ensures that he knows it’s only because Keith is injured

And yea that reinforces a lot of insecurities that Lance was just starting to get over

Hunk tries to console his friend after the game by bringing him some comfort food, but Lance just snaps at him and tells him to throw it all out- he doesn’t want it, and Hunk does just that

Lance is shocked

Hunk is shocked (he would never waste his food)

And that’s how it was found out that Lancecould charmspeak

Lance immediately apologized, he felt awful for snapping at Hunk and even worse for forcing him into something. Lance and Hunk come to an agreement not to tell anyone about it, but it terrifies Lance. He hates that his voice can make someone go against their will (he makes sure to never give anyone orders)

Then just a couple months after Hunk arrives, so does a new demigod, Pidge Gunderson, child of Athena

For some reason Lance just has this overwhelming feeling that he has to be friends with this little shit

To say Pidge is unwelcoming to the idea was a major understatement

But eventually Hunk and Lance grew on Pidge

They became known as a trio, never separating from each other

They were each other’s best friends for nearly five years when a great prophecy was given

It called for six demigods

apparently, there had been an underground resistance group composed of gods and demigods that wanted to overthrow Olympus

they were known as the Gods Allegiance to the Lesser Revered Authorities, or GALRA for short

So Lance finally got his wish to go on this quest and three of his best friends were going with him and so was his hero! But then there were the downsides… like the imminent death of the whole thing

And the worst of all- spending an indefinite time with Keith Kogane

#pjo au #voltron #vld #lance mcclain #pidge gunderson #hunk garrett #takashi shirogane #keith kogane #allura #coran #voltron: legendary defender #lance (voltron)#pidge (voltron)#hunk (voltron)#shiro (voltron)#keith (voltron)#allura (voltron)#coran (voltron)#langst

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