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writing-in-april · 3 years

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MGG Characters Masterlist

This is my Masterlist for characters that Matthew Gray Gubler portrays. They are sorted by fluff, angst and smut and from first posted to last. Requests are open for this actor. Upcoming fics are on my main Masterlist. ♥️=Author’s Favorite⚠️=Major trigger warning Main Masterlist

Spencer Reid x Reader

SERIES (2+ chapters):

Chronological series:

The Five Stages of Grief : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer going through the stages of grief after the death of the Reader. (ANGST) ♥️⚠️ —completed—

- Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader meets a mysterious man at the library during book club. ♥️ -in progress- -prompt/request—fic swap— (18+)

Unlinked series:

Spencer Reid & Letters: Group of fics exploring how Spencer and different types of Readers correspond through letters and their relationships.(Fluff- may contain angst & smut in the future) -in progress-

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Ghost Story : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer tells Reader a ghost story before the power goes out.—request—

- Curl Recovery : Post Prison Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Curly Hair Reader: Spencer’s hair took a beating in prison along with the rest of his being. Reader helps Spencer gain a little back of what he lost. ♥️-Hurt/Comfort-

- 9 o’clock : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Barista Reader: Reader is an owner of a coffee shop and learns the identity of her late night regular as well as the reason why he likes so much sugar in his coffee.

- Dahlias :Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer over analyzing what type of flowers to get for Reader for their first date ♥️-fic swap-

- Happy Coincidences : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: You keep running into Spencer before work will you ever get his number? -request-

- The Best Time To Wear a Striped Sweater: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Where does Spencer’s striped sweater go after the first episode?—1000 follower celebration—

- My Knight in Shiny Armor: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader is a fantasy novelist and writes Spencer into their story. ♥️ —fic swap—

- The Melody Lives On: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Seeing Spencer after so long apart makes past feelings come to the surface again.

- Cinematic Coincidences: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer can’t bring himself to go on another date that’s been set up for him- so he stands his date up. Spence seemingly can’t catch a break and runs into the date he stood up. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Origins: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader (Reader is from a specific geographical location): Reader feels homesick after a particularly gruesome case. Spencer can’t buy a plane ticket, but he can try to help recreate part of home with them. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Question and Answer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Garcia gets Reader to answer some questions about their feelings for Spencer. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Shining Bright Above You: Spencer Reid x Male Reader: Spencer finally gets to go out with his boyfriend after getting out of prison and gets to see the light despite the overwhelming darkness. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

- Unwinding in the Vines: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader can’t get enough of cuddling Spencer. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Manicured: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer finally lets Reader paint his nails. -30 fics in 30 days-

Blurbs/Ficlets:

- Lactose Intolerant: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader : Spencer loves dairy despite his allergy, it comes back to bite him and reader takes care of him. ♥️

- Spooked: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader really wishes Spencer hadn’t picked a haunted house as a team bonding exercise.

- Four More Months & No More Months Spencer Reid x Pregnant Female Reader: Spencer talking to their baby while Reader pretends to sleep.-1000 follower celebration-1250 follower celebration-request-

Angst:

Oneshots:

- Jinxed : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader : Reader is deeply affected by a case and is comforted by Spencer, at the end of the case Reader gets injured. (ENDS HAPPY)

- Too little Too Late : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer isn’t sure what he’s fighting for anymore and feels abandoned by Y/N and his team. Set post Revelations. Major Trigger Warnings ⚠️ (SAD ENDING)

- A Greek Tragedy: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader (Masc. coded) :Spencer and Reader’s lives now resemble a Greek tragedy after Spencer returns from his kidnapping. ♥️⚠️(Hurt Comfort) (Light at the first of a tunnel sad ending)-prompt/request-

- Off the Table: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Based off the Ariana Grande song off the table. Reader wants to ask Spencer- I’d love off the table? ♥️⚠️ —1000 follower celebration— —request-

- Converging Parallels: Spencer Reid x Female Single Mom Reader: Spencer goes to a support group Penelope suggested after the death of Maeve. He quickly connects with a single mom who’s experiences have been similar to Spencer’s. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Tiny Vessels: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer is done lying to himself about his true feelings for reader, but isn’t done lying to them. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

Smutty (not full on smut, smut is further down):

Oneshots:

- Yeah: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: When Reader’s favorite song comes on while they’re out at a bar with the team, Reader can’t resist wanting to dance with Spencer even if it outs their secret relationship. -request-

- Training Wheels: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Years ago Spencer taught Reader to drive despite the fact that he hates driving. When they become good at driving enough to learn how to ride a motorcycle they get Spencer to come along for a ride.

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Spencer Reid x Reader:

x Gender Neutral Reader:

- Georgia Peach: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer sees reader eating a peach and goes a little crazy. ♥️ -request-

- Helping hands: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: After a bad case Spencer needs help shaving after getting injured, he gets help from the least likely person to help in his life. ♥️ (Enemies to lovers) -prompt/request-

- Slapped: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader x Elle Greenaway: impromptu little fic that @sparklinspence and I ended up writing quickly in the reblogs about Spencer getting his cock slapped while away on a case. ♥️

x Female Reader:

- Surprise Pretty Boy :Sub!Spencer : Spencer Reid x Female Reader : Reader hasn’t had any sex in what feels like forever, so she seduces Spencer. When they get to Reader’s apartment she has a surprise waiting for him.

- Solaris: Sub!Spencer : Spencer Reid x Female Reader : Spencer and Reader finally get a vacation, so they go and see a Russian film called Solaris. Reader coxes Spencer into getting freaky in the theatre.

- Painted Nails: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer’s dom paints his nails for date night and she goes crazy at the sight of them.—-request—-

- Plot twist: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader buys a new pair of heels but they aren’t for her. ♥️ —750 follower celebration—

- Keep Reading: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader brings a surprise for Spencer at their picnic date. -♥️—750 follower celebration— —prompt/request-

- Braided Brat: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer lets Reader braid his hair, he can’t help but tease her. —750 follower celebration—

- Pleasent Surprise: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader asks Spencer if she can try to be more dominant in the bedroom. —750 follower celebration—

- Guest Lecturer: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: gets Spencer riled up during class while he’s guest lecturing. ♥️—750 follower celebration—

-Taking care: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer needs Reader to help him relax after some people were unkind to him —750 follower celebration—-request-

- Good in Red: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer really likes the color of your lipstick. ♥️ —1000 follower celebration—

- Green with Envy: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer gets mad over something reader can’t control and a fight ensues- plus heavy makeup sex after the fight.

- Soured Nostalgia: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: When Reader moves their stuff in to Spencer’s apartment they find photos that he kept over the years. One photo of the past springs up memories of Spencer’s precious relationship with Elle. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

-Erotica Explained: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer finds Reader’s erotica writing. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

Dom!Spencer Reid x Reader:

- Star Trek vs. Star Wars: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader Smut: Spencer and reader get into a heated argument over which is better Star Trek or Star Wars, Reader in turn breaks some of Spencer’s rules. —fic swap—

- The Case of the Missing Coffee: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader Smut: Spencer gets on Reader’s nerves just a little too much one day.—fic swap—

-Occupied: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer and Reader get caught in a bar bathroom by one of their coworkers after Reader couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. -500 follower celebration- -prompt/request-

- Birthday Spankings: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: A normally shy reader decides to tease Spencer on his birthday thinking she could get away with it —request—

- Poker Face: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader thought she could get away with speaking her desires out loud as long as they were in a different language. Turns out, someone could understand her. ♥️

- April Fools: Dom!Spencer (not as harsh as others): Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer needs to one up Reader just as he’s about to loose a prank war. —30 fics in 30 days-

- Dressed in Crimson: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader:(Royalty AU)Spencer is a stable boy with a passion for learning and Reader is the princess of the palace that he serves in. They’ve been in a secret relationship, the two grow restless about not being able to be out in the open. ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Non specific dom Spencer Reid x Reader:

- Russian Roulette: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Unsub Reader: Reader and Spencer formed a relationship during an investigation, turns out she was the unsub they were looking for. Spencer finds the Readers hiding place cornering her, but he can’t let her go yet. Major Trigger Warnings ♥️⚠️ (SAD ENDING)

- Mismatched: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader is Spencer’s roommate and they have been pining after each other for a while. One morning they finally get to act on their feelings.

- The Big Bluff: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer goes up against a professional poker player. ♥️-500 follower celebration-

- Any Iteration: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader is nervous that this new iteration of her won’t be something Spencer will like. ♥️

Blurbs:

- A Snowy Morning After: Part One, Part Two: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: After being snowed in after a one night stand, Spencer wants to go for a round two. -1000 follower celebration—30 fics in 30 days-

Chip Taylor x Reader (MGG character from 68 kill)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Chipped: Chip Taylor x Gender Neutral Reader: Chip Taylor watching Beauty and the beast for the first time with Reader. -500 follower celebration- -prompt/request-

Angst:

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Chip Taylor x Reader:

- Party Play: Sub!Chip: Chip Taylor x Female Reader: After Reader gets Chip to voice one of his deepest desires Reader takes him to a play party Reader’s friend hosts. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

Raymond Wadsworth x Reader (MGG character from Suburban Gothic)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Unsolved: Raymond Wadsworth x Gender Neutral Reader: Raymond runs into the buzzfeed unsolved duo investigating the same place he is, plus their cute camera operator. -500 follower celebration- -prompt/request-

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Raymond Wadsworth:

- Spooks: Sub!Raymond: Raymond Wadsworth x Female Reader: Raymond starts sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong at the next haunting he’s investigating. ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Angst:

Oneshots:

Blurbs:

- Birthday Blues: Raymond Wadsworth x Gender Neutral Reader: Raymond wants his partner to come back from the dead.

Franklin x Reader (MGG character from Beginner’s luck)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Bowling Ball Baby Franklin x Pregnant Female Reader: Franklin and Reader get into a fight about him not being there for Reader’s pregnancy. He has a unique way of apologizing.♥️-Hurt/Comfort-

- Gutter Balls Franklin x Male Reader: While meeting up for a friendly game of bowling with Franklin’s team some very rude people try to insert their opinion on yours and Franklin’s relationship. (Has some angst but is v happy). —request—

- Chili Cheese Fries: Franklin x Gender Neutral Reader: Franklin tries to make bowling alley food taste better during a first date. ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Angst:

Smut:

Oneshots:

- The Owner’s Office: Dom!Franklin: Franklin x Female Reader: Franklin won’t stop pestering the owner of the alley about getting a discount. —1000 follower celebration— —prompt/request— ♥️

Lesley Smith-Juniment x Reader (MGG in Hot Air)

Fluff:

- Unintentionally Unrequited: Lesley Smith-Juniment x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader holds in their love for Lesley after his broken engagement. -30 fics in 30 days-

Angst:

Smut:

-Will be adding more characters in the future-

#Masterlist #y/n #self insert #spencer reid x reader #franklin x reader #raymond wadsworth #chip taylor x reader #chip taylor #Spencer Reid #franklin

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writefightandflightclub · 3 years

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Trial by Fire (Part 1/3) Santiago “Pope” Garcia x GN reader

Summary: You’re finally introducing your new boyfriend to The Boys. It must be intimidating for your guy because, hello? Not only are they literally lethal, as well as infeasibly handsome, but they’re hella protective of you to boot. They want the best for you so, naturally, they make your guy run the gauntlet the whole evening. Santiago, though? Well. Given that he is secretly in love with you? Let’s just say he doesn’t handle the situation very well at all.

Genre / tropes: angst, friends to lovers, love confession.

Author’s note: I wasn’t planning on writing this (in fact I’m writing the opposite, where “Santi has a new girlfriend and you don’t take it well” as a series, loosely based around the 7 deadly sins); but, in the meatime, I wrote this to get back into the swing of things after a lil break. It’s just a quick one, but there will be a second and final part, if you want it! Let me know!

Word count: somehow, 4.4k.

Warnings: language, angst, best friends arguing, Santi being an asshole.

Rating: T

The boys aren’t being as awful as you had anticipated, at least. For the most part, they’re actually being pretty friendly, and although they’ve transitioned into grilling Dean about every aspect of his life, they are at least listening intently and smiling at his answers. All except for one fucker, of course; and, naturally, surprising no-one, the fucker misbehaving is one (1) Santiago “Pope” Garcia.

The group - the boys, yourself, and Dean- are huddled comfortably around the blazing warmth of the fire pit in Frankie’s yard. The dancing, oranged flames cut through the dark and cold of the crisp night, as you sit upwind of the smoke on scattered, mis-matched camp chairs.

Whilst the others are evidently enjoying the evening -faces painted with smiles, body language open and leaning-in to chat to Dean- that fucker Santi is leaning back in his chair, his jaw twitching in seeming aggravation, his arms folded, and his intense eyes needling your beau. In this dim light, with the firelight licking over the sharp planes of his face, he looks every bit like a trained killer about to leap out of the shadows and garotte someone. Well… a very petulant trained killer. His call sign should have been Mr. Grumpy Pants, you think idly.

What’s up with him this time?! you wonder.

He gets these moods sometimes. And, when it strikes him, he can be a little bit hostile - despite the fact he’s a puppy underneath it all. You had hoped that for once, maybe he would suck it up, and yet, your hopes had been in vain, it seems.

Every time Dean speaks, or touches you, or even laughs at another of the guys’ stories, Santi’s expression sinks further and further through layers of distaste; and, by this point, he’s eyeing Dean as though he’s a war criminal the squad have been sent to take-out. You half expect him to leap up and take down Frankie any second for fraternizing with “the enemy”, if you’re honest.

Truth be told, you’ve had just about enough of this. Your friend had better buck his ideas up, sharpish, or he’d be reminded very swiftly that you were Delta Force too.

For now, trying to ignore the bastard, you look back at Dean, and the sight of him in animated conversation with your buddies causes at least some of your aggravation to fall away. Things have been going well between you and Dean, even if you do say so yourself. Originally from Michigan, he now worked as a lecturer at a nearby music school. He was also a banjo musician in a bluegrass / synth power-pop mash-up of a band, which (sort of) explained his retro-inspired mop of brown hair and his thick dark moustache - majestic enough to rival Frankie’s. True, he wasn’t your usual type, but he was honest, and sweet and kind... Plus, he’d never killed anyone with his bare hands, which was rather refreshing too, if you were honest.

Safe to say, so far, things were working out. So well, in fact, that you’d recently met his parents for the first time while they were in town. So well, in fact, that -after keeping him purposefully away from the boys for as long as you feasibly could- you’d now brought him to meet your family. That’s what this squad was to you, after all. Your family.

Remembering sporadic moments from the past few months together, you smile gently as you listen to Dean talk. You watch him seamlessly integrate some tailored conversation starters you’d fed him ahead of time, and you gently squeeze his thigh in an act of reassurance and appreciation. He is feeling the pressure, you can tell, although he is handling it well. To be fair, you think, who wouldn’t feel the pressure? You’d been nervous enough to meet his parents, but this? A bunch of Delta Force guys and an MMA champion? This squad was lethal; literally -you’ve lost track of your combined kill count, though Will probably hasn’t, you are sure.

Aside from that though, most of all, they are your family. You need them to like Dean and vice versa, and you know that isn’t necessarily a given. You are a tight-knit group, with little hope of outsiders grasping the full extent of your decade’s old in-jokes, or the intense camaraderie instilled by facing a hail of bullets together. Plus, as the baby of the group, they were protective as all hell of you.

It came from a good place, you knew: they wanted what was best for you. But, there was a reason you’d delayed this meeting... It’s not as though they were threatening or anything. They didn’t do the whole “if you hurt our buddy, I’ll kill you” thing, for example (at least, not while you were present – you couldn’t vouch for what happened when you were out of earshot). However, after introducing a succession of boyfriends to them over the years, the squad had developed a well-rehearsed system for sizing-up your new squeeze. In the past, not all of your squeezes had made it through the gauntlet. It was a trial by fire, to be sure, and you were pleased that Dean has not yet been burned.

Of course, whilst the boys’ approval didn’t mean everything to you, you couldn’t deny it was important; perhaps especially this time, with this guy. And, out of all of the group, Santi’s approval meant the most to you. Always had. Probably because Santi meant the most to you, full stop. You simply couldn’t imagine having someone in your life that didn’t get on with your best friend. And, so, you are not overly thrilled at the reception Santi is giving Dean right now. The reception he had been giving him all evening, in fact. And the more you dwell on it, the more an anger bubbles forth from you. Even though you try to push it down, and focus on Dean, that fucker in the corner of your eye sends you.

“What’s wrong with you tonight, Garcia?” you blurt out, a little louder than intended, causing the amiable chat and giggles to stall, all eyes turning to you - then, in turn, following the direction of your fiery gaze over to Santi, who shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

Now, he leans forward. Looks back at you with a rare venom in his eyes. With a smug curl of his mouth, he dips to pick up his beer from the floor and takes a swig - buying himself some time. Trying to brush you off. Still, your gaze does not relent as he rests his elbows on his thighs, bridging his fingers together in the space between, thumbs sticking in the air.

Now, he engages, and he looks directly at Dean, his eyes sweeping dismissively over the entirety of his form. Now, he speaks, his voice filled with far more bitterness than the situation merits. “Nothing at all. I’m fucking peachy. So, Dean. You play the motherfuckin’ banjo?” he offers, and yet, it sounds far more like an accusation than a question.

What the fuck is up with him?

Wilting a little beneath Santi’s stare, as the ex-operative squints his eyes in his direction, Dean casts a helpless, sideward glance at you from his place in the circle, and yet, you are so stupefied by anger that you can do little to help.

“I think what my dear friend means to say -” Frankie dips in valiantly, smacking Santi pointedly on the thigh, likely hoping to smack some sense into him too “- is why don’t you tell us more about your music, Dean?”

Frankie’s eyes and smile are soft when he looks at you, surreptitiously exchanging a pointed look -what’s up with that pendejo?- and you are grateful that at least some of the evident tension is diffused when he picks up the slack in the conversation.

Santi and his mood swings be damned, and, feeling bolstered, Dean continues on.

“Actually, it’s going pretty frickin’ well with the band. It’s a side-gig to my lecturing job, but we’re planning a tour during summer vacation. The States -east coast- and Western Europe for now. Maybe headlining a couple of small festivals, if that pans out, who knows.” Dean relates, humbly.

“That’s great, man,” Will chips in, helping Frankie get things back on track. “We’ll have to come down to a gig soon, hear you play.”

“Actually, we have something to tell you about the tour, don’t we, babe?” Dean says bashfully, and he looks at you expectantly, waiting for you to pick-up the thread. You’d talked about it before coming today, and it had seemed like a great idea at the time, but suddenly, now that the announcement is imminent, your mouth is dry - as if filled with cotton. Still, you force a smile, and you’re not sure why, but you look anywhere else but at Santi as your lips form the words. “Yeah – kinda big news, fellas. I’m going to join Dean on the Europe leg of the tour. I’ll be leaving you losers behind for a few months.”

Dean’s face cracks into a smile and he reaches for your hand, looking made-up at the prospect. Still, while you will yourself to be fully present in the moment, you find yourself focussed on looking anywhere but at Santi, sure that his stare must be boring into the side of your head. You hadn’t told him yet. Unfortunately, at Santi is where just about everyone else ends up looking, as the fucker abruptly pushes his camp chair back and stands, storming indoors before anyone can hope to fathom it.

You exchange glances with Frankie, Will, and Benny, with Benny thankfully stepping-in this time to distract Dean from the obvious, and asking him which stops you two will be making, and which sights you plan to see.

“Look, man, don’t mind that tool. Got any sightseeing plans?”

What is Santi’s problem? Why can’t he give Dean a chance? Yes, you’ve made some mistakes in the past- been hurt, and Santi had helped you pick up the pieces -every time- but you had a good feeling about Dean. A really good feeling. Can’t he see that too?

Frankie throws a concerned glance back towards the house and motions as if to stand, but you beat him to it, wanting to get to the bottom of this. “I’ll go,” you insist, motioning for Frankie to stay put, and with a quick promise to Dean that you’ll be back soon (and a silent plea to your boys to take care of him in your absence), you do just that, walk-jogging across the grass.

When you step inside to the kitchen, you find Santi stood, hunched over the counter, his palms clasping the surface tight enough that his knuckles pale, and his head hung low, his shoulders rising and falling as he takes in exaggerated breaths.

“Well?” you ask pointedly, with zero tolerance for his bullshit. “What’s going on with you? Wanna explain why you’re being an ass to my boyfriend?” you challenge to the back of him, and he instantly whips around at the sound of your voice.

“I’m being an ass?” he asks indignantly, his eyebrows shooting towards the top of his head.

“Yes. In a nutshell. Yes,” you hiss, any other interpretation feeling impossible. You fold your arms and purse your lips, making it plainly evident that you are waiting for some explanation. And, oh boy, it had better be good.

Instead of explaining though, Santi simply huffs out breath, gesturing angrily out of the window. “That guy, really? That’s the guy you’re gonna go all in for? Go to fucking Europe for?”

That guy, you mouth silently, completely stupefied for a moment. You’re not sure exactly what your so-called friend is insinuating, but you are clear that you don’t like it one bit.

“What is your fucking problem?” you ask, punctuating your words with motions of your hands, as if you are trying to strangle the air in-between you in lieu of his neck. “Dean’s a catch. He’s hot, he’s sweet, he’s a nice guy. He’s there for me. He takes care of me.”

“Like I don’t take care of you?!” Santi exclaims, his voice rising and abrasive; and then, immediately after the words tumble forth from his lips, he steps back imperceptibly, as if startled by his own outburst, his hand rasping over the stubble on his chin.

“What in the...? This isn’t about you, you ass!” you bite back, face scrunching up in confusion. Your fingers come to your temples as you grow increasingly lost-off and perplexed, and seemingly, your riposte only makes Santi double down on whatever the hell he is complaining about.

“Who’s the one who’s always been there for you, hmm? Who picks up the pieces every time you make yet another dumb shitty choice with another shitty guy?” he rambles, gesturing his hand towards you dismissively.

You step back from him this time, just a little, tears spiking instantaneously in your eyes at such an unnecessarily cruel blow. He’s right, in a sense: you had always relied on Santi to heal you, not to hurt you - and yet here he was dealing these painful, incoherent blows out of nowhere.

“Shit, Garcia. If it’s that much trouble to be there for me don’t bother next time,” you snap, your voice breaking as the swell of anger and hurt and adrenalin sends tears spilling over your cheeks. “Don’t worry though, I don’t think I’ll need you again. In fact, I have a feeling this guy might stick. So, maybe? Maybe you should think about the fact that the only shitty guy around here is you.”

“You really think he’s good enough for you, hmm? He’s really who you want to end up with?”

You listen, aghast, as his tirade keeps coming. However, as Santi’s voice breaks with emotion part-way through his second question, you can’t explain it, but you feel an intolerable sadness in the pit of you. Even though you’re not sure what’s causing all this, what you’re barrelling toward, you want to thrust this sadness away from you. Push him away from you. You want to push away the knot in your stomach for fear that if you tug at that thread, you might arrive at an answer to his question.

Exasperated, overwhelmed, you roughly paw tears from your cheeks, not knowing where all of these feelings are coming from, in either direction. “Fuck, I... I don’t understand what this is. I don’t get it!” you say, waving your hands, palms-up, through the air. “Is this some macho bullshit? Have I pissed you off somehow?”

At that, the wave of Santi’s anger crests and breaks; as you wonder if you annoyed him. Then, as suddenly as his anger came it is waning, his eyes pooling with rare tears now. With a huff of breath he tears off his damn cap, tossing it aside to run a hand through his grizzled hair.

“No. No,” he backtracks a little, palms up in surrender. “You haven’t... I.... I just...” He pinches his lips in-between his teeth and looks up at the ceiling as his words trail off, perhaps trying to steady his voice before continuing. Or, perhaps he has nothing else to say to you. Perhaps he’s said enough.

You examine him. Still pissed as all hell, but worried now too, and ultimately, your love for your best friend slightly edging-out the anger. It’s rare that anything affects him like this, and you can’t help the sudden rush of concern.

Cresting too, you exhale a tightly held breath into the now silent, taut space between you, and your body sags - just a little. You chew over your words a moment, but when your voice comes back the volume is lower, your tone softer - and, although it cannot be considered friendly, by any stretch, it’s the best you can do right now.

“You know what,” you offer, generously, wrapping your arms around your own middle, stroking your forearms with your own fingertips. “I’m giving you a pass. You don’t even want to give Dean a chance? Then just leave, Santi. Just go. I’ll give the guys some bullshit excuse that doesn’t leave you looking like a total ass, because I’m not a dick to my friends. So just go, okay?” You pump your eyebrow at him indignantly and await a response, your manner stiff and unyielding.

Santi closes his eyes and knits his brow together, something like regret finally passing over his face and he shuffles guiltily from foot-to-foot.

You puff out air through your teeth and shake your head, as you observe this Delta Force hero; the bravest man you know in many ways, but still too cowardly to tell it like it is. To admit that he’s in the wrong. You are afraid to say that even as his gaze comes back to you, misty-eyed, you have little sympathy for his plight. You are sure it is of his own doing. You are almost as sure that he won’t open-up.

“You know,” you begin, breaking from your position and gathering up a fresh cooler of beers from the fridge, turned away from him as you speak. “I brought Dean to meet my family. Do you understand that? I didn’t have parents and siblings for him to meet. I have you guys. You’re my family.”

Still nothing. Nothing but silence greets you. Nothing but a pained expression on his face, his brows drown together and the artificial light of the kitchen highlighting the harsh planes of his face as you look over your shoulder at him, waiting for some reaction. Some admission of guilt. None comes. He simply slots his hands into his jean pockets, looking sheepish.

“So,” you continue, greeted with a brick wall, “fuck knows why you don’t want me to be happy, but I am. I’m happy with him. Thanks a ton for shitting all over that.”

You don’t even bother to look towards him this time, instead placing the last of the clinking, condensation-adorned bottles into the carrier, resigned to head back out without him, and without any apology.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, and your head whips towards him in surprise.

He looks it - sorry. He looks apologetic. Deeply so. He looks sorry for this, for every way he’s ever slighted you, for every time he’s hurt you, even in ways and moments you never knew about. He looks sorry down to the pit of him, and it catches you off-guard when you see it freely offered there in his eyes.

Even so, this is a stubborn man. There’s an apology, but there’s no explanation. Nothing to explain his behaviour. So, even though it seems genuine, it also doesn’t seem like enough.

It doesn’t appease you, and yet, all you can bring yourself to do is sigh deeply.

You know Santi better than anyone, but there’s always been a part of him that has seemed out of reach, even to you. You’re not sure -never have been- whether to be scared or excited by those unknown parts of him. Not sure whether the impasse hints at buried secrets too dark and deep to bear, or whether it hints of a possibility of something more. Something deeper or something better you could have together, if only he would let you in. You don’t know, and you never have, but all you are sure of is that you have constantly teetered on the edge of that abyss, too much left unknown to know all of him, however much you may have wished to. He’s entitled to his secrets, of course, but you hate how they hurt him.

With a little sympathy now, you examine his watery eyes, and when your voice comes back this time, it is softer and slower than you intended. More tired than you expected.

“You know, Dean wants to be with me. And he tells me so.” You casually dip down to pick-up the cooler handle, eyes still fixed on your best friend. “He might not be Delta Force… he might be a banjo player from Michigan… but even he’s brave enough for that.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Santi says, bristling all over again, his hand rasping angrily over his stubbled jaw, and yet, you decline him an explanation. Instead, keeping your own secrets now, holding back, you head towards the door, beers in hand.

Still, you turn back to him. You might be angry, but you still care for him -more than you could say.

“If you figure out what’s up with you, let me know, and I’ll be there for you. Whatever you’ve got going on, you know that, right? But this? This isn’t okay, Garcia. You might think that I make dumb choices -you ass, by the way- but I’ve watched you hit self-destruct so many times instead of dealing with your feelings. Maybe you should look at your own life, huh, instead of shitting all over me for trying to be happy? Shit, at least I fucking try.”

His eyes shift from side to side in the room, the muscles in his jaw twitching, chin jutting forward, and his thumbs locked in his belt loops. He can’t quite bring himself to meet your gaze; at least not until you are disappearing through the threshold; until it’s almost too late. Why can’t he ever manage anything unless it’s too late?

“Wait!” he pleads, but you cut him off, before he can speak. Even though, truth be told, you’re not sure he would muster anything to say at all, even if you gave him a chance. He’s so used to holding back.

“No,” you say firmly. “Forget it, I’m done. I still love you- you’re my best friend. But, fuck, just go home, and get out of my sight, Santiago. I’m so pissed with you right now.”

And so, you turn away, and when his words finally do come, they are spoken to the back of your head. They are spoken without you ever seeing his lips move, and you wonder if he ever said them at all, or if this might be some cruel trick of the night. Some witching hour spell. That is, until you turn towards him and you see the words painted clearly on his face too.

“Fuck it. I’m in love with you.”

I’m in love with you.

Why can’t he ever manage anything unless it’s too late?

You’re not sure what reaction he was expecting, but you almost choke on the sudden lump in your throat. You feel a taste of bile rising-up into your mouth. An intense, resurgent anger fills you, which near makes the room spin, and makes your hands and your legs tremble.

Even if a hidden, unconscious part of you has been waiting, hoping for these words all these years, when they finally come all you can feel is... royally pissed off.

“Oh. No. No. No,” you repeat, words gradually increasing in volume, looking at Santi as if he has mortally wounded you, rather than offered that confession. “You do not get to do this to me.”

You see a hard swallow bob down his throat, a near-instant regret on his face, and your heart pounds in your chest as you reel with the implications of his words.

The coward. The fucking asshole. He waited until now? All the times things had gone to shit, and he waited until you were happy?

“All the times...” you accuse, your tone as bitter as the taste in your mouth, the metallic tang of blood as you feel a rushing in your ears. “All the fucking times. All the chances, Santi, and you do this now?” you continue, your finger sawing through the air, wagging accusations at him, even as your voice wavers, as your hands notceably tremble. “No. Fuck you, Garcia. Fuck you.”

You want to cry, or scream, but you are too angry. So angry, that it eclipses anything else which might come to light. So angry that you almost come full circle again, beginning to stabilise out at eerily calm.

Santi looks down at the floor, and exhales air, chuckling disbelievingly to himself, then lightly nodding his head, lips pressed tightly together. His feet shift agitatedly below him as he brings his endlessly familiar eyes back up to meet yours. This time when he looks at you, it hurts. You remember bullet wounds, and you swear that was nothing compared to this.

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say to me, hmm? Fuck you, Garcia?”

“What the fuck were you expecting?” you say, launching your words before you realise the implications of them. Yes, you know fine well that your boyfriend is sitting outside, likely wondering where you have got to. But, if you had the wherewithall to have thought about it, you would know exactly what Santi was expecting, despite all of that. You would know that a part of him must be expecting, hoping, that when he told you, you might reciprocate. That you might love him back.

And, would that be so outside of the realms of possibility? Would it be so hard to imagine that the deep, magnetic, and unshakeable friendship you shared could be something else? Something more? That you could tip over the edge you had long been teetering on? Maybe it could, or maybe it could have, but right now, you can’t see past the flashbang he has just dropped over your life, and it is clouding your vision.

You were happy. You are happy. Fuck him for doing this now.

Why would you fall into the unknown for him, if you never knew whether he would catch you? If you never knew whether ruin or safety awaited you if you let yourself tip? He always held back.

What the fuck were you expecting?

Your words linger in the space between you, and in lieu of any other lifeline, realisation dawns on Santi’s face. Realisation that, although he jumped, you are not intending to catch him either. But how could you catch him, with your arms already full?

And, so, he slowly nods his head once again, his eyes beading with glassy tears and his hand grazing over his chin in a self-soothing gesture. Wordlessly, he sets his jaw and he abruptly replaces his baseball cap on his head, padding a few steps forward to stand opposite you, sucking all of the breath from your lungs. This time, when he looks at you, you see all of your past, but you still can’t see beyond that. The abyss still scares you too much.

Like this, facing each other down, eye-to-eye, the silence in the room grows sharp as a knife, refined to a point. So, when Santi abruptly turns to leave in a sharp, determined trajectory, without so much as looking at you, it is as if he has dragged the blade across your skin in an equally swift motion. As if he has left you open and bleeding-out, having delivered a mortal wound with the act of his exit. You’ve felt like this on the battelfield before, and in life, yet he was always there for you. Always there to patch you. To pick up the pieces.

Instead of screaming open-mouthed for help, this time, you simply watch him go, and now you are the wordless one, mustering nothing but a gasped inhale of breath before your vision blurs with tears - as you watch his hazy form disappear along the hall and out of your sight.

“Santi,” you call pathetically, your voice small and weak and teary, barely making it past your throat, and he doesn’t hear you. He doesn’t hear you but even if he had, you’re not sure anymore if he would have stopped.

When Santi slams the front door behind him, you shudder with it in its frame, your hand coming to your chest as if to hold your heart inside your opened-up ribs, and you close your eyes against the jarring sound, tears spilling down your cheeks, your face screwing-up into a shined, contorted grimace.

Entirely lost, now alone, you bizarrely wish for the room to be filled with anger again, instead of the intolerable sadness - which all too suddenly takes hold of you as your emotions crest and break. It is all you can do to stumble forward a few paces and hunch over the countertop, finding yourself in the exact position you had discovered Santi in. You stand, bracing yourself with your arms, fingers clutching the edge of the worktop, and your head slumped forward, tears freely spilling out of you as your chest heaves.

You wonder whether he’d held himself in this same position because he had felt an intolerable sadness too. An intolerable sadness at seeing you happy.

Suddenly you could understand it.

That fucker. Santiago “Pope” Garcia.

I’m in love with you.

The words echo in your mind, but this time, if you’re honest, you’re not wholly sure if they’re his, or yours.

PART TWO IS HERE

#santiago pope garcia x reader #santiago pope garcia #santiago garcia x reader #triple frontier #triple frontier x reader #triple frontier fanfic

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limitlessgojo · 3 years

Text

Blood Bound: Red Strings of Fate (Ch 4)

Warnings: Action, Coarse Language, Fighting, Descriptions of Blood

Previous Chapter: What's Your Ideal Type?

Next Chapter: Special Grade

Tags: Soulmates AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Fem!Reader

Taglist: @lessie-oxj, @rizzo-nero, @whoreuc

Notes: If you want to be tagged for every update, please mention it in the comments below ty. Double update this week since the story is moving along fast.

CHAPTER 4: Cherry Blossom Storm

You finally reached your classroom. It wasn’t large as there were only 4 1st year students who enrolled this year. A black board, some desks, and a huge view from outside.

“Wowww, the campus view from here is so pretty!” You quickly made your way to the open window. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom. It is spring and the school year starts in April.

Noritoshi stood by your side and stared at you. “Yeah we have a pretty good view here. The view from the roof is much better if you would like me to show you?”

“Sure.” you replied absentmindedly. You reached out a hand towards the petals and flowers blowing in the wind and used your technique to pull them to you. You stared at the cherry blossom in the centre of your hand.

You turned to Noritoshi with a hint of mischief in your eyes. “Have you ever felt what it was like to be in the midst of a flower storm?” He stared affixed at the way you freely used your cursed energy.

He grew up understanding that cursed energy is limited. It has a slow recharge and should not be used meaninglessly. And here you were, using yours without a care in the world.

But then you must have a lot if you look as relaxed as you are now. Plus he can sense the huge amount of cursed energy swirling around you. It was one of the reasons why he immediately walked up to greet you when you both first met.

“I don’t, would you perhaps show me?” he asked. You grinned at him, “Please bring me to the rooftop.”

The rooftop was a marvelous view. At about 4 stories high, you could see the surrounding forest around the campus, as well as the more urbanised city from a distance. You beckoned Noritoshi to the center of the space and he stood in front of you.

Then you put both palms up, one diagonally on top of the other in kind of like a v shape before whispering, “Tornado: Soft Blossom Style”. Immediately a wind channel formed in your hands and attracted the flower petals and loose cherry blossoms that have fallen from trees. They spun around both of you faster and faster until you were both in the midst of a mini flower tornado.

“What a sight.” Noritoshi smiled up as he could smell the petals from up close. He reached up to pick a flower, but they were moving way too fast. So you caught a few full undamaged blossoms and placed it in his hands. “My mum has similar abilities with plants. She taught me how to control them like this.” You admitted.

You released your technique and the petals slowly drifted downwards like a gentle flower shower. “Clear skies with a hint of flower fall.” You said out of nowhere. Noritoshi couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that as he pocketed the flowers. “What a weather report.”

You smiled at him not noticing the figures by the door who were attracted to your mini flower storm. “Waaaa~ What’s all this for?”

You quickly turned to see two girls. One with blonde hair and one with short dark green hair that was almost black. “Nishimiya, Mai.” Noritoshi senpai called out.

Ah, so more school mates. The short blonde ran out and reached up for the petals, while the other followed from behind.

“Hello, I am an incoming first year here. Tsuchimikado Y/N, It is nice to meet you.” You greeted them with a bow.

“Ahhh, that Tsuchimikado huh?” to which you looked back up to the taller pretty woman with short hair. “The name’s Mai. Zenin Mai. Looks like we’ll be fellow classmates. Please take care of me.”

Zenin?! Whoa now there are two students here at Kyoto Jujutsu High who come from the Great 3 Jujutsu Families.

“Nishimiya Momo, 2nd year student. Just call me Momo senpai, Tsuchimikado chan. We saw the flowers from down below and just came to check what’s happening.”

“Is it okay if I address you as y/n chan?” Momo senpai asked. “Yes y/n is fine senpai, I don’t mind too much. I’ll be in both of your care!” You smiled at them.

“So what are you both doing up here Kamo-kun?” Momo turned to him. He calmly replied “I was bringing her around campus. She wanted to see the view from the rooftop.”

“Ahhh. So what Todo said about both of you being on a date wasn’t true then?”

You solemnly vowed to beat that man up the next time you see him. He knew what he was doing and he was provoking you very well. Still, it didn’t stop you and Noritoshi from both flushing hard, “It’s not a date!” You both exclaimed at the same time.

Mai was smirking. “Okay then. By the way, Y/n chan, our uniforms have arrived. I was just walking with Momo to the office to pick it up. Would you want to come along?”

You brightened up, “Of course I’ll go!” To which Noritoshi came up behind you and smiled as he leaned down to reach your height. “I have some other errands to do, you can go ahead with them.”

“Ah, th-thank you again for showing me around. I think I am more familiar with the place now.” You bowed again. He shook his head, “I’ve already got something better from you,” as he motioned to the flowers on the ground. “Now if you three would excuse me.”

After he left, you quickly blew all the flowers off the roof and towards the ground. “I made a mess without thinking.” You worriedly said. “Y/n, don’t worry about it. C’mon let’s go.” Momo pulled you along.

Mai just stared at the space where a bunch of petals were at a moment ago. ‘A natural born talent huh.’ She thought with a bit of jealousy as she turned to follow you guys.

◇◇◇

“Here you are!” The window handed you and Mai your uniforms. “Thank you so much!” You smiled at them. You looked over the custom made fits and everything seemed correct.

You had requested for pants and a short sleeved top along with a cape over it. You can also wear your favorite haori if not the cape. The top and the cape both have the Jujutsu High Buttons on them.

You had lunch with the girls and chatted with them, getting to know them a bit better. You discovered that Momo senpai was also admitted based on her family lineage. “Y/n chan, you also got in via your family?”

“Yes I did! My family is a bit small, but we are descendants of-”

“Abe no Seimei.” Mai finished for you, You turned to look at her in surprise before realizing that she was from the Zenin clan, of course they have a lot of information on the rest of the Jujutsu society.

You nodded at her. “You’re from the Zenin clan right Mai chan? Is that how you know Noritoshi senpai?”

“Yes, the big 3 Jujutsu clans have always been in touch with each other, so we know each other from a while back.” She replied.

You’re definitely not jealous that she knows Noritoshi. Definitely not.

“Noritoshi senpai? You don’t call him Kamo senpai?” Momo asked curiously.

“Ahh, he told me to call him that…?” You hesitantly asked. Momo’s eyes sparkled dangerously.

“Reaaally?? Mr. ‘I only care about studying and being the next Kamo clan head’ Noritoshi said that to you?”

What.

“Next clan head what?!” You were surprised. The whole time you were so casual with him, making him bring you around. Should you have been more formal?

“Ah, you didn’t know.” The two other girls stared at you in growing amusement, while you flapped around nervously.

“Oh my gosh and I was so casual with him?!” you panicked. “Should I be more formal with him from now on?”

Mai shrugged. “Dunno. I honestly don’t think he minds. He and Todo, they’re both a pain in the ass.”

“Have you also met Todo senpai? He asked me what my ideal type was earlier! So odd.” You said, to which Momo senpai just groaned out. “I’m classmates with both of them and they’re definitely a huge pain to deal with. Todo is just obsessed with his favorite idol Takada chan. Just ignore him, it will do you good. Trust me.” she added as an afterthought.

“If you say so.” You replied. The girls were nice, you were happy that there were some people you would get along with for sure.

◇◇◇

“Utahime sensei,” Noritoshi called out by the door to the staff room. “Coming! Just a moment!”

“Oh, it’s just you Kamo. What is it?” Utahime asked as she leaned against the door frame.

“There is this book I was reading, but I found some essential pages torn out. I borrowed it from the library.” He handed the volume over to Utahime, who checked it.

“Tsk, tsk. How could we have missed that? Must be a very old untouched volume. ‘The Tales and True Records of Soulmates’”. She looked up at him in curiosity. “What did you need it for?”

He cooly replied with the strongest poker face he had, “My father told me to be well versed in all forms and matters of Jujutsu. Some origins of special powers were known to originate from soulmate or fated pairs, and thus it piqued my interest.”

“Ah. I see,” Utahime hummed. “Well, we can’t do anything about it, but I can ask the library heads if they know of the origins of this book, so that we can locate the missing pages. But if you’d like I can help you locate more books on soulmates? If that helps? But I can’t go now. Maybe next week after class starts.”

“Yes, if you could please do so. Thank you sensei.”

Noritoshi returned to his dorm, and upon remembering the flowers that you had gifted him from the little flower show from earlier. He brought them out, smiling and touching the soft petals.

Then set to work on pressing and preserving the flowers in a thick book.

Blood Bound: Table of Contents

#kamo noritoshi #kamo noritoshi x you #noritoshi fluff #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #noritoshi x reader #jjk x oc #noritoshi x you #kamo noritoshi x y/n #jjk kamo #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk imagines #blood bound #red strings of fate

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years

Note

Any thoughts on Grant Morrison's Action Comics run? Beyond T shirt-and-jeans Superman being great.

That whole run reinvigorated my love of the character.

There have been numerous thoughtpieces about New 52 Superman, how he worked and how he didn't but these two entries really do a great job of summing up why Morrison's take on Superman was great. Morrison laid the foundation for a new generational Superman that DC completely fucked up and ran into the ground. I'll always be bitter about that, even if I had tapped out of reading the New 52 Superman books by the end due to how bad they got. Editorial and their idiotic mandates were what screwed over the potential of this take in my eyes.

Now I get that it wasn't to everyone's taste, but I cannot fathom how anyone could ever claim that Pre-Flashpoint Superman was better. If you liked Byrne's reboot better, your guy already got rebooted after Infinite Crisis. For someone like me who really enjoyed the Johns/Busiek era, that era's potential got spoiled after Johns & Busiek left, with New Krypton imploding and the awful Grounded taking it's place. When you get to the point where the best Superman book is the one starring Lex Luthor, it's time to reassess the franchise and figure out where the hell it went wrong.

Which is exactly what Morrison did. For this new Superman, Morrison mined all the best ideas of every Superman era to really give what I consider the ideal "base" for Superman. They also took pains to address common criticisms about Superman, working to correct his pop culture image. People have been complaining that Superman is "too perfect", "too unrelatable" for a long time, so Morrison addressed that. They gave Superman his balls back, and let him reacquire that Golden Age edge he had originally.

There are a lot of complaints you can make about Morrison's Superman, but I don't see how you could accuse this guy of being "flawless" or "bland". He definitely had a personality that you could describe, love him or hate him. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Clearly holding himself back, but unafraid to occasionally let loose. Flaws that were patently obvious, Clark had a temper here that could get him into trouble. There was a real showcase of anger here, of Superman being furious at the way people were treated by the rich and powerful, then doing something about it that I ate up.

I read this run just as I was coming into my teens and it hit perfectly for where I was in life. Did not want a Superman who would smile and tell me it gets better, I wanted a Superman who looked you in the eye and told you he felt that same anger, and then encouraged you to go out and do something about how you felt. That was what this run delivered in spades, and it expanded what I believed could be done with Superman.

While it totally blew my mind to see Superman acting this way the first time I read Morrison's Action Comics run, in retrospect it really isn't that different from how Superman has acted even under Byrne. One of the few traits I've seen carry across Superman incarnations in the comics is that he has a temper underneath that affable nature. "Don't tug on Superman's cape" as the old song goes. This run simply elevated that to the forefront of the character again, for the better in my eyes given I believe "Wrath" is Superman's Deadly Sin.

In fact, one of the strongest features of this run is that Superman gets actual character development over the course of the run, analogous to what Batman underwent in Morrison's Bat-Epic. While the Bat-Epic was merely Morrison re-canonizing Batman's entire history, and applying a retroactive character development storyline that culminated in Morrison's current Batman work, their Action Comics run had them attempt to craft something similar for Superman from scratch. What that meant was Morrison attempting to draw on the most important traits of every Superman era and incorporate those into this new take. So Superman had the Golden Age temper, compassion for the oppressed, and cockiness. The Silver Age supergenuis, proud scion of Krypton who cherished his Kryptonian nature, member of the Legion of Superheroes, and participant in stories that weren't afraid to get weird. Superman's wrestling with his place in the world, the importance of Clark Kent, and making journalism a key part of the character strike me as all being hallmarks of the Bronze Age. From Post-Crisis we got that Clark views himself as human and loves his adopted parents, considering them as equal to his birth ones.

One of the big frustrations for me with the endless origin stories for Superman, is that so many of them follow a predictable and stale formula where Clark puts on the suit and is essentially ready to go. Doesn't interfere with human affairs, is modest and humble, restrained in usage of his powers, it's like Clark has meta knowledge of what he "should" be, despite that he shouldn't have any foreknowledge of what a "superhero" should look like. He operates the same way at the start as he does in the modern day, and that's really boring to me. This Superman, because of the difference in powers and attitude, operated extremely different from his "present day" incarnation. Dangling Glenmorgan over the edge of a building isn't something a fully powered and mature Superman should do, but it works great to make his early days different and exciting to read about, it makes returning to that era something you can do different storytelling with. This run is the only time where I really cared that Superman is "supposed" to be the first superhero, because figuring out what that means here is a big part of how he develops.

We all know the common complaint that Superman is "too powerful" and that "nothing can hurt him" (funny how Thor never gets hit with those accusations), so Morrison made sure to show that this take on Superman could be beaten even if he could never be defeated. Events conspired to force Clark to use his brains as well as his powers to overcome the challenges in front of him.

Examples include him using his heat vision to fry Lex's equipment and escape the military, using his rocket ship to defeat Brainiac, and rallying the population of Metropolis to banish Vyndktvx. Not to say that Clark never used his brains before to win, but this run was very upfront and in your face about how important Clark's intellect is to triumphing over his foes. Can't take seriously the complaint that Superman is too overpowered when Morrison constantly showcased how even a very powerful Superman could get his shit wrecked by his Rogues.

Another example of Morrison addressing criticisms is Kryptonite. A lot of people poke fun at how convenient it is that pieces of Superman's homeworld follow him all the way to Earth. Isn't that a bit of an asspull? So Morrison made Kryptonite the power source of Superman's rocket, giving it a perfectly natural and believable reason both for it to end up on Earth, and for Lex & the military to get a hold of it since Pa Kent gave the military the rocket. That's still my preferred explanation for how Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

It also provides a better explanation for all the different Kryptonite variants. DC can handwave away the different types as a result of Lex experimenting or the different "forces" on Earth such as magic or the Speed Force or whatever creating the different variants. That to me is much more believable than Kryptonite travelling all across the galaxy yet still ending up on Earth somehow.

There have also been a lot of complaints about Superman's villains, and Morrison diligently set about reworking them. By far one of my favorite aspects of the run, was the villain revamps. Nimrod felt like a clean revamp of Terra-Man, making him into Superman's Kraven the Hunter struck me as a patently obvious route to go, wild no one has followed up on that or used him since. Metallo felt like a good synthesis of Johns take of him as an Anti-Superman weapon, and the sympathetic aspects of Corben's origin that are always there, I liked that Morrison didn't make him a total bastard before his transformation like Johns did. Brainiac got some sympathy added to him in that the collected worlds that were already marked for damnation, thus he was "saving" them in a fashion. Clay Ramses embodied toxicity as a wife-beater even before becoming Kryptonite Man, and I thought his backstory was a great way for Clark to still deal with "real" issues via a manner he could punch. Ramses is still the best take on Kryptonite Man. Vyndktvx felt like the greatest realization of the threat Mr. Mxyzptlk could pose should he decide to get serious since Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, plus I'm a sucker for stories where superheroes fight the Devil. Drekken and Superdoom took the only interesting aspects of Doomsday (his ability to evolve and that he can kill Superman respectively), and were much more interesting characters.

And oh my God, speaking of Superdoom, that part of Morrison's Action run has aged like fine wine. I don't know if they caught wind of DC's plans for the character, or if they were just prescient, but everything that Superdoom is playing on is still sadly all too present. What Superdoom is as a character is a condemnation of what DC keeps doing with Superman: killing him off or making him evil.

When you realize what Superdoom (demand for a more violent and "realistic" Superman) and Vyn (WB/DC) stand in for, it makes the frustration Morrison is channeling much more palpable. Those two plotlines are all DC can think of to do with the character, returning to those again and again. Endlessly attempting to recapture the high of Batman and Doomsday beating the shit out of Supes in The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman. Overcoming these two obstacles is Superman's greatest challenge as conceived by Morrison, because both are out to corrupt and ruin the very idea of him. It's not just a physical death he faces, but a metaphysical one as well. Sadly it's a threat Superman just can't seem to lick in the real world, with more and more takes on "Evil Superman" coming.

Lois and Jimmy are great here, because Morrison actually made the investigative journalism aspect of Superman important. Lois is an active participant in the story, trying to break in to the base where Clark is being held by her father, competing with Clark for stories (I love how Morrison writes the banter between the two of them), and generally being classic Lois. Jimmy though benefitted from being positioned as a peer rather than as a kid in comparison to the two, something I wish the comics had carried forward. It looks like My Adventures With Superman is going with that interpretation at least, so I hope others do as well. Jimmy being Clark's roommate really adds to their bond, and I wish we had gotten more stories with that status quo.

Investigative reporter Clark Kent was so actively used here that it feels jarring reading other Superman runs where they tend to downplay and ignore it. Following Clark as he travels to different areas of Metropolis and actually interacts with people, instead of hovering above them as Superman, makes him feel human. Watching Clark actively pursue stories aimed at bettering peoples livelihoods, and seeing how those stories crossed with the superheroics, was one of my favorite aspects of the run. It's one unfortunately few other writers seem all that interested in, especially the New 52 writers who followed Morrison (I know editorial probably bears a lot of blame for that though).

Besides all that, this run was a lot of fun! The Legion of Superheroes showed up, their connection to Clark restored, and they got to play a big role in Clark's adventures! Krypto the Superdog! Martian colonies! Memorizing all of medicine, Superman performs a lifesaving operation! Lex using a "bullet train" to knock Clark out! 5-D imps! Rampaging robots from beyond! A Phantom Zone Halloween story! John Henry Irons suits up as Steel and kicks ass alongside Clark! Every Superman Rogue teams up to try to kill him, but Lex Luthor saves his life because that's a privilege he reserves for himself! Showcasing their trademark love for the Supermythos, Morrison took us on a tour of Superlore that demonstrated the depth and width of what could be done with Superman. Meanwhile the backups by Sholly Fisch excelled at giving us smaller, more human stories about Superman (the one where Clark meets Pa again via time travel "after" Pa has died always gives me a lump in my throat to read).

Ultimately this didn't get to be the foundation for the next generation of Superman stories as it deserved. Johns made New 52 Superman the scapegoat in Doomsday Clock for a lot of storytelling choices he did over in Justice League, something that pisses me off to no end. You want to tell me that this guy "didn't relate" to people, didn't inspire "hope"?

Like hell he didn't. This guy was Superman in every way that mattered and he deserved better than to be framed as the scapegoat for all the stupid decisions DC made about what to do with him. Greg Pak was able to do some great work with this version after Morrison, and just like how Gene Yang got a redemption work starring Superman, I hope to one day see Pak return to the character. Would love to read a Black Label Superman story by Pak that follows his take on young Superman.

All wasn't lost however. Against all odds, and Rebirth trying it's damndest to sweep everything under the rug, it looks like parts of this era have actually survived to the current Infinite Frontier era. With Morrison being heavily involved no less, both as an ideas guy and as an actual writer.

Superman & the Authority is explicitly Superman coming full circle back to the attitude displayed by his young counterpart under Morrison. Janin has outright said that the costume Clark wears here is reminiscent of the t-shirt and jeans era of Superman, and this book so far feels saturated with an energy level from Morrison I haven't seen in their work for hire since they left Action. Reaching old age and realizing he never really delivered on the high ideals of his beginnings, it's Superman putting together a team to hopefully succeed where he couldn't alone. Scathing in how it criticizes the superhero status quo, this has been extremely entertaining to read. Wish Morrison was writing 12 issues with this team, and that ultimately it will be up to PKJ to deliver on the potential is a drawback (although I've loved PKJ's Action run so far), but I'm glad to see DC finally treating Morrison and their ideas with more respect than was shown during Rebirth.

Jon meanwhile feels like an even more explicit attempt at redoing New 52 Superman. There's the updated new suit, designed to appeal to a new generation with it's streamlined look. Positioning Jon as a Superman who wants to tackle the "real" issues, with Taylor explicitly comparing him to Golden Age Superman which as I mentioned was an era Morrison tried to reincorporate into their reboot. There's the Legion of Superheroes connection which played an important role in Morrison's reboot. The rumors about Jon's sexuality are interesting, hinting that DC is willing to go outside the box with him in a way they never would with Clark. I'm excited to see what kind of Superman Jon ends up becoming, if he can deliver on the promise of the New 52 Superman all the better.

This run deserves to be remembered and to have the lessons it tried to teach respected. Probably my favorite mainline run on Superman, I hope more people come around to liking it as time goes on.

#superman #grant morrison #action comics #new 52

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harley-style · 3 years

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mcyt brain rot for you all

this is both anysis and headcanon and au scenario, all blended together. you're welcome :D

----------

i have this headcanon,,,, cobbled together by some tumblr posts i read,,,, but some of them point out that wilbur is like, good at manipulating people as well to a point, right?

so i was thinking. what if his reach extended far beyond what anyone thought of? *what if wilbur's influence spread to dream?*

i know we've discussed this before (or sparrow analyzed it idk) but like. hear me out. this headcanon has to do with how wilbur wants to create a narrative. pit it against dream and his presumed original desires to create a safe happy place for his friends. wilbur's insistence that dream is the "tyrant". what if wilbur saw how dream was pointedly staying out of conflict, decided, "i dont like that," and began twisting the storyline and pulled dream's strings (pointedly off camera bc headcanons, babyyyy) so that dream would eventually fall into ruin, as the disgraced tyrant?

and dream...he KNOWS what wilbur's doing. to him specifically. and he's struggling so hard at the beginning, judging by his soft, passive demeanor when wilbur asks about the tnt.

i think, that somewhere along the line, dream lost sight of where his boundaries lied, and falls right into wilbur's plot pit and became The Villain. and he's like, fuck. I went and done it, oh no.

and....it worsens.

i had this whole scenario in my head that dream fully embraces the villain role, plays wilbur's game and completes the "narrative"...but is so fed up with wilbur and his stupid fucking ploys that he...bends the rules a little. changes shit up.

something...oh, a little like "lets speedrun my fall into villainy" bc it wouldn't be dream without the speedrun.

fast forward to prison. maybe if dream finally gets to resurrect wilbur. and wilbur is Not Pleased with how dream has decided to handle his narrative.

but its like. dream doesn't give two shits about wilbur's goddamn narrative anymore. he **played wilbur's game**. he's done with his role. he's given them peace, given them a happy end.

sure, he's given the rest plenty of trauma, but hey, it all turned out okay in the end, right? theyve got their happy ending. theyve BEATEN the big bad nightmare. his role is OVER.

but wilbur doesnt like it. doesnt like the lengths dream went to. it wasn't supposed to be like this. dream wasn't supposed to turn out this much of a *monster.*

and dream laughs. "will, wilby, wilbur," he croons madly, in his pretty little cell, preening like a cat. "i dont care," he hisses. "you fucking wanted this. you WANTED me to be this way. right? mr. revolutionary man? come on now, dont tell me you never expected this."

and wilbur tries to protest, but dream cuts him off.

"no. NO. dont' play your stupid littke games on me wilbur. you udnerstand? im DONE. im so sick of your bullshit, your countries your wars and your stupid fucking "story". I WANTED PEACE AND SAFETY. ALL i asked was "hey, don't be jerks, we're all one big community," and you didn't even have the DECENCY to just adhere to those rules, not even a little bit! you -- i let you in here because of TOMMY, you know that? the reason you even got to BE in this world was because tommy "vouched" for you. said you would be a great addition. and tommy-- i loved that kid back then, you know? he was bright and annoying and he made the server FUN. you took that brilliance, took that kid, and turned him against me, against ALL of us -- for what? independence? I HANDED YOU INDEPENDENCE AND YOU SPAT IT IN MY FACE LIKE IT WAS THE MOST VILE THING YOUVE EVER RECEIVED. i didnt even ENFORCE my rules, they were so loose literally EVERYONE broke them at some point.

but you? you had the audacity to call me a tyrant. to call me selfish, greedy, controlling. and then you declared war. the pet wars, the first disc wars weren't even close to the intensity you brewed during the revolution.

you had this little ideal in your head. and ill have to hand it to you, it was certainly impressive. but you didnt need to press it, to pressure it on the people of my server. you did anyway. you created this plot, this scheme to paint me as the villain, as the final boss. and you know what? FINE! if this is what it takes for them to be safe and happy, i'll be the villain.

but don't come in here expecting me to play that role again. i DID my part. i united them. my work is over.

but you, wilbur? heh. you get to deal with ALL the consequences of your war games. you'll be the one dealing with tommy's nightmares, tubbo's anger, everyone's hatred, fuck, you even get to deal with the egg!! isnt that nice? i was willing to deal with the egg, you know, it appeared before the whole election thing. but since you're here, you may as well take over. because you're SO great at directing them, you know? better than i ever could.

point is, wilbur, you don't get to use me as the tyrant, the final boss, the bad guy, and the villain anymore. when i said i would be putting the most powerful person in here, I wasn't fucking lying!"

"but tommy said you were going to put him in there!"

"you know, with the amount of times ive practically lied to that kid, im surprised he still believed me. i was never planning to put him in here. no one else would be put in here. hell, even techno and phil would just have gotten stuck here for about a week. i had guidelines, you know. i put them in a book somehwere, in one of my bases. no one was supposed to get unfair treatment. unfortunately i seemed to have pulled the short end of thr stick. that seems to be all that im doing these days."

"dream—"

"no. don't do that. don't pull me into another one of your plots wilbur. i don't want to hear it. you got your villain. your villain is gone, wilbur.

it's time to be the hero. :)"

basically my points here are like.

-wilbur made a narrative that dream didnt agree with

-this narrative painted dream in a negative villian light so dream basically said "yeah fuck that" and spedran his role

-headcanons galore i really do like the idea of dream creating that prison for himself to be locked in

-once wilbur is back he visits dream and explains his displeasure that dream went and did the things he did bc 1) hurt a lot of people personally and 2) did not adhere to the villain role wilbur specifically assigned to dream

-additional mentions: both wanted peace but in different forms. dream wanted peace for peace's sake but wilbur wanted peace after struggles. dream genuinely loved everyone on the server, but had to shed those attachments because to him, PERSONALLY, it would be a weakness towards his "villainous" role. his threatening of tubbo in front of tommy so tommy can "be the hero like spiderman and batman" shows that he knows exactly how empowering attachments are. lastly, dream only began manipulating people after the pogtopia arc. he mostly stayed the neutral party during it, and was just reacting with plans among plans during the lmanburg revolution.

-additionally, wilbur really wanted to stay dead, but dream said "haha no" and alived him again bc if he has to be the one to inflict trauma onto people then wilbur has to suffer leading the efforts to recovery.

hi @dreamsclock u keep giving me brainrot so im tossing this at u thank u goodbye i hope u dont mind the tag

#dream smp #dsmp #roleplay #au idea #dreamwastaken #wilbur soot #villain dream #will dreamsclock see this #idk #dreamsclock

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starstruckkittensweets · 2 years

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Chapter LVII (“AWWW”)

A/N: Ooh, another OVA chapter! I was super excited but also super nervous to write this one out, mostly because I had to find a good balance between original story and established episode. I didn’t want this to be just a written version of the episode, but I also didn’t want it to drag on for too long with unnecessary chatter. But I’m happy with the way it turned out in the end. So I hope you guys enjoy!

Fandom: Attack on Titan Pairing: Levi x Mia (OC) Words: 9.7k

Warnings: OVA #1 spoilers, graphic descriptions of corpses, brief blood and violence, mentions of minor character death

Taglist: @omg-lexiloveyou, @ataraxia101, @super-peace-fangirl, @mr-robot-x, @unusversuscanicula, @cyborgnate

If you want to be added to the taglist, just let me know and I’ll add you in!

|LVII|

The expeditions started up again in the middle of May. And finally, on the morning of the 49th Expedition beyond the Walls, I rode out with the rest of the Scouts towards the gates of Trost District, with my squad right behind me.

It would feel good to be out in the fresh air again. The last year had been absolute torture, watching my comrades heading out to fight Titans without me, not knowing if I would see any of them again. I hated watching Levi and Hanji leave the base with their squads, but I knew better than to beg them to stay behind. At least now, I could watch out for them myself. I didn’t have to worry about either one of them getting hurt when I was nowhere nearby.

Hanji was also excited for my return; she hadn’t stopped talking about it for weeks now, partly because she was actually happy that I was going to be back in the field, and partly because she wanted my help in capturing a live Titan this time around. Of course, I thought to myself with a sigh. That’s just like our Hanji.

I knew Levi’s thoughts on the matter; they could be summed up in one simple annoyed look, as though he was ready to pull her cape over her head himself. Honestly, I couldn’t help but agree with him on this. I loved Hanji with all my heart, but I could only go so far in defending her wild and dangerous antics.

Edel pawed anxiously at the ground. I gave him a pat on the neck, shushing him as I combed my fingers through his mane. I could feel him relax a little beneath me, grunting before tossing his head lightly. He was still eager to get a move on, to race out beyond those gates and get on with the mission at hand.

And from what I could tell, by the sighing woman with the messy ponytail beside me, he wasn’t the only one.

The heavy bells tolled throughout the district. A handful of Garrison soldiers gathered above the Wall, preparing to raise the gate for the Scouts below. The sun was warm on my face, a line of sweat already starting to form against my brow.

“…I can’t stand the waiting!”

Hanji sighed once more, kicking out her legs in the stirrups of her horse’s saddle. The reins were loose in her hands, her shoulders sagging beneath the forest green cloak of the Survey Corps, with the black and white emblem of the Wings of Freedom beaming in the afternoon sun.

She turned her pleading gaze to Levi, who stood on the opposite side of me, with his squad close behind him. “Hey, Levi?”

“No.”

“…But I haven’t even said anything yet…”

I bit back a snicker as Levi sent a sideways glare her way. “You want me to help you capture a Titan, right? Forget it. I don’t care to go to that kind of trouble.”

Hanji’s eyes were wide (as though she was surprised by Levi’s answer in any way), before turning her attention to Mike, who was standing beside her with his own squad, as well.

“How about you, Mike?” But he only shook his head in silence, causing the brunette to roll her eyes with a smile. “Oh, well. The same old, boring men with the same old, boring answers. Looks like we’re on our own, right Mia?”

“Wait, what?” She had such a hopeful look in her eyes, that I almost felt bad for shaking my head at her. “Sorry, Hanji. Not this time.”

“Aw, but why?!”

“Hanji, this’ll be my first expedition in months!” Ever since I’d nearly lost my leg in that Titan skirmish in the Forest of Giant Trees, but there was no need to bring that up now, especially not in front of my squad. “I don’t want to worry about that kind of stuff. At least, not on my very first one. Maybe I’ll help you out on the next mission.” Or maybe I won’t…

Besides, I’m pretty sure Levi didn’t want me anywhere near those Titans. Slaying them in the field was one thing, but acting as bait in order to capture them? That was something else entirely. Not to mention, Hanji tended to go for the Abnormal ones; she rarely liked studying “normal” Titans. The weirder they were, the more she loved them.

“Fine,” she sighed, leaning back in her horse’s saddle, “just don’t cry to me when you get left out of all the fun…”

Believe me, I’ll be fine.

At the Garrison soldiers’ signals, the large gate began to rise up from the ground. The horses pawed at the ground, the Scouts around me tensed up their shoulders. And Hanji was still sighing dreamily from beside me, still lost in her own little world. As usual.

“The 49th Expedition beyond the Walls now begins! Advance!”

At Erwin’s booming voice, and his white horse’s determined whinny, the Scouts surged forward and towards the opened gate. Edel was quivering beneath me, all too eager to head out into the fresh air once more. The poor boy had been just like me these past few months: cooped up inside with no chance of leaving for expeditions. But now that was over, and the two of us were free to head out with the rest of our comrades once more.

The heat of the sun blazed across my face. The sky loomed over the fields beyond, over the dirt trails and quiet rivers and into the forests in the distance. Not a Titan in sight—at least, not yet. I knew better than to hope for miracles out here.

Still, it was good to be back. It was good to feel the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, my squad at my side, the Scouts galloping behind me, and the—

A blur of green flew past me, whooping and hollering with joy. Of course, even without Erwin’s shout of her name, I knew exactly which Scout had already broken formation.

Of course—leave it to Hanji to act like a child during these missions.

I glanced over at Levi, and he only scowled in return. The message was clear: looks like we’re babysitting her once again.

|~|

The goal of this expedition, much like the many others that had come before it, was to set up a line of supply bases for future expeditions and travels. Usually the Scouts used abandoned villages and downtrodden castles for their supply bases, stocking them with extra food rations, blades, ODM gear, and flare guns. They also served as a safe haven of sorts for any soldiers who happened to get lost on the front lines. If they happened to be separated from the main unit of Scouts, they could always retreat to the nearest supply base and signal for help.

Unfortunately, no such soldiers had been lucky so far. Hence, the reason for more supply bases—to ensure the success of future expeditions, as well as bring home any soldiers that may be out there.

The left flank of the formation suffered casualties in the beginning of the trek, with at least ten soldiers killed by the surrounding Titans. Luckily we were able to regroup and head further east (which was really west of Trost District), which led us to one of the surrounding villages just about an hour away from the outskirts of Wall Rose. At Erwin’s command, the soldiers disbanded and began unloading the supply wagons.

One of the equine veterinarians from Mike’s squad nodded to me, so I handed Edel off to him with a tight-lipped smile. It was common practice for the vets to check up on the horses during expeditions, to make sure everything was still running smoothly, but still, I never liked handing my boy off to anyone else. I preferred to check his hooves and clean his coat and feed him and brush him myself, and not let someone else do it. Still, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t dedicate this precious time to my horse; they needed me to help unload the wagons into the nearby houses.

Crates upon crates of food and water canteens were stored into the wagons nearby, with each one labeled with thick black paint along the wooden surface. Reggie and Emily were quick to help me with loading them into the closest house, while Gretel and Murphy were occupied with replenishing their gas canisters. Evan was busy with the other equine medics; on my recommendation earlier this year, he was training to learn how to become one himself. It only made sense, considering his natural talent and love for horses.

“So many,” Emily groaned as she lifted another crate, trailing behind me as I pushed the door to the house open. “What’s even in these, anyway?”

“Dried vegetables, some fruit, honey, dried meat… You know, the usual.” Reggie wiped the sweat from his brow as he set the final crate down on the floor. “At least it won’t spoil once we leave it here. It’ll last a few months, maybe a year if we’re lucky. Then we’ll just have to replenish when we come back.”

The two of them fell silent over that. Neither of us wanted to say what we were really thinking—that someday, when we did come back to this village, Wall Maria would once again be under humanity’s control.

But it wasn’t in the cards. At least, not yet. There were too many Titans within Wall Maria to begin with, and we had no way of sealing up the shattered gate in Shiganshina District to prevent even more from pouring in. Until we found a way to plug up the hole, there was no hope of reclaiming Shiganshina District and the rest of Wall Maria.

My chest tightened at the thought. As quickly as I could, I headed out towards the wagon and pulled out another crate, this time one filled with canned goods. Thinking about Shiganshina only brought back bad memories. I didn’t need to get distracted when I was on a mission like this.

Save that for when you get home, Wolf.

“Oh, come on, Erwin!”

Hanji’s shrill voice caught my attention, over in the nearby tent set up the other Section Commanders had built. From what I could tell, it looked like the logisticians of the supply squads were in a meeting with the Commander—and their superior, Hanji, was caught in a heated, albeit one-sided, argument with said Commander.

“I know setting up supply bases is a top priority, but I thought figuring out what the Titans really are is the Survey Corps’ primary goal! For that, we absolutely need to capture a Titan!”

She’s still on about that? I rolled my eyes and busied myself with yet another crate.

I mean, it wasn’t as though she was wrong. The Titans were still a mystery to humanity, from their origin to why they acted the way they did, and even their strange habits, like why not as many of them seemed to venture out during the night as they did during the day. But we just didn’t have the time to study all of that right now, especially with the royal government breathing down our necks (no thanks to yours truly, I’ll admit). The last thing they were going to do is help fund our Titan capturing missions.

Besides, the last time the Scouts had actually managed to capture a Titan had been well over fifteen years ago, back when Hanji and I were still in the 90th Training Corps. And that had been at the cost of twenty soldiers, not including the ones who’d suffered injuries. From a certain point of view, I could see where Erwin was coming from. He simply didn’t have the manpower to spare for such a silly scheme; not when there were bases to be replenished and territory to be charted.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Reggie whispered, leaning in close to my shoulder, “but is Section Commander Hanji still going on about a live Titan capture?”

“Unfortunately.” But I had to smile at the boy’s question. Ever the polite gentleman, I guess. “But she’s always been like that, even when we were cadets. She just doesn’t think about the consequences of what might happen if she goes through with it.”

It wasn’t as though I was a saint, either. I was well aware of my impulsive nature (Levi would be damned if he ever let me forget it), but I knew better than to go chasing after Titans like an eager child. I had my kids to look after, and I wasn’t about to put them at risk for a Titan capture unless I knew they would come out completely unscathed. And of course, that was never a guarantee—the last expedition had taught me that through and through.

Even now, I found myself touching the thick white scar on my thigh, still feeling that Titan’s hot breath on my face and the taste of blood in my mouth.

“Still,” Reggie continued, smiling lightly, “a real live Titan to study from? It sounds interesting…if it wasn’t so dangerous…”

“I have to agree with you there, Hertz. It sounds helpful, but not for the price of our soldiers.” So unless Hanji can figure out a way to capture them without losing Scout lives, I’ll have to sit those little missions out.

With the other soldiers’ help, the three of us were able to unload the wagons in no time at all. Meanwhile, Gretel and Murphy assisted the other Section Commanders in stashing spare gear, flare guns, and blades into the sheds and stables, while Reggie and Emily joined Petra and Oluo in replenishing their gear. The lookouts were stationed on the rooftops, scouting for any possible Titans that may be lurking in the distance. Luckily, neither of them had spotted anything yet.

At least it’s calm, for the moment. A chill ran down my spine as I reached up and ran my fingers through Edel’s mane. Moments like these never lasted long out here. It was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose, whether it was a lone Titan or a whole swarm of them.

The wind was gentle. Edel snorted softly against my palm. The Scouts were moving through the village fluidly, putting the finishing touches on the base and its supplies.

Crack!

A red stream of smoke shot into the air, from one of the houses at the edge of the village. Mike lowered his flare gun, glaring in the direction of the forest beyond.

“There’s one in the forest! Everyone, on alert!”

Immediately, the Scouts leapt into action throughout the village. Blades were drawn, supplies was shoved into the houses, and the horses were untethered from the fences. I threw Edel’s reins over his head and led him away from the fence, tightening the girth around his stomach. He grunted at the motion, ears pricked forward in the direction of the forest.

I knew it. Too good to be true, huh? It’s always like that out here, isn’t it?

“Section Commander, wait!”

Moblit’s scream brought my attention to the white tent once more, just in time to see Hanji swing herself up onto her horse and dig her heels into its sides. With a happy cheer, she yelled out, “I’ll go help myself, Erwin!” And then she was galloping past the wooden fence surrounding the village, towards the looming forest ahead.

I nearly dropped Edel’s reins altogether. My palms grew sweaty, my breath quickening in my throat.

That…that fucking idiot!

Before I could even think, I pulled myself onto Edel’s back and urged him forward. I barely had time to yell to my squad to “Stay there!” before I was racing towards the forest, fighting to keep Hanji’s green cloak in my sights the entire time.

No way am I dragging my kids into this mess. If she wants to chase a Titan, that’s fine by her—just don’t expect me to bring my squad into it!

Still, I wasn’t about to let her go alone. Hanji was a pain in my ass sometimes, an utter nightmare of a friend when she didn’t get what she wanted, but she was still my friend. She was still the person I trusted the most, besides my sister and Levi. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I’d let something happen to her during this expedition.

It’s better if I go alone and just bring her back myself. Erwin can reprimand me when we get back. But I can’t let her go out there all by herself. Not when she’s—

“Wolf, slow down!”

Edel snorted and jerked his head as a familiar black mare came into view on our right side. My eyes flashed up to Levi, eyes fixed into a sharp glare, as he held one of his blades in his hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the other members of his squad lingering close behind, with Petra and Eld towards the front, and Oluo and Gunther bringing up the rear.

“I swear,” he growled, and I felt another shiver crawl up my spine, “you’re just as fucking stupid as she is. Are you trying to get yourself killed, too?”

“I’m not going to let Hanji get killed, that’s for sure.” I dug my heels into Edel’s sides, urging him to pick up the pace. “Chew me out all you want when this is over. Right now I’m going to make sure she’s safe.”

Edel stiffened beneath me, and I could see Mischa’s big brown eyes darting from side to side. They both hated whenever Levi and I argued like this. And from the looks of it, the members of his squad felt the same way. Petra was already wincing at the tone of my voice, as Gunther diverted his eyes as quickly as he could.

I wasn’t in the mood to fight with him over this. I knew he was only trying to protect me, especially after what had happened in my last expedition, but I wasn’t about to sit on the sidelines as my best friend of fifteen years rushed into unknown danger. Even if she was stupid for it, I wasn’t going to let her get herself killed, even if it meant risking my own life in the process.

“Fine,” he spat out, although he looked none too happy about it. We’ll talk about it later. “Just stick close. We’ll cut them off at the edge of the forest.”

Petra’s eyes went wide at that. “Them? Does that mean the Section Commander’s already found the Titan?!”

“Knowing Hanji, she most definitely has,” I replied with a groan.

How tall is it? Is it an Abnormal? Is it ignoring her and heading straight for the base? Or is it chasing her right now as we speak? A thousand possibilities raced through my mind, none of them pleasant to think about.

“Our main objective is distraction,” Levi addressed to his squad. “Do not engage unless absolutely necessary. I don’t want any of you getting yourselves killed for Shitty Glasses’ sake.”

Yeah, of course you don’t. Despite the weight of the situation at hand, I had to admire his affection for his squad. While he didn’t show it that often, it was clear that he cared about them, in his own silent, special way. The last thing he wanted to see was any of them get hurt on this mission, just as I didn’t want to see my own squad get hurt in the process.

Through the sound of the horses’ hooves pounding on the forest floor, it was easy to keep track of Hanji—not by sight, but by the sound of her happy voice, as well as the sound of a Titan’s deep groans. At Levi’s signal, the six of us headed left, towards the edge of the forest and into the fields nearby. That was when I saw them, prancing through the field: Hanji on her horse, yelling something over her shoulder as the Titan in question lumbered after her.

It was only a six-meter class, with huge eyes and a bulky chest that looked way too big for its body. Not harmless by any means, but taking it down wouldn’t be as hard as taking down a fifteen-meter one, if it came to it.

Levi was quick to retrieve his flare gun, before shooting a smoke signal directly across the Titan’s line of sight. The red smoke was enough to make it slow down in its tracks, its wide eyes trailing over to our little group.

“Hey,” I could hear Hanji yelling at us from a distance, “don’t interfere!”

But even with a more controlled group of people close by, it payed us no mind. Instead of following the six of us, the Titan continued its trek and headed straight for Hanji, much to her glee.

My hands tightened around Edel’s reins. Shit, what’s its problem?! Why isn’t it going for us instead? Why is it stuck on Hanji? Did she do anything to provoke it? It doesn’t seem like an Abnormal; the majority of them head for large groups of people, anyway. So then, why would it be going for Hanji in the first place?

“Damn it,” Levi growled under his breath. “Spread out a bit. Be prepared to corner it.”

The six of us split up wordlessly, with Oluo, Eld, and Gunther heading in one direction, and Levi, Petra and I heading in the other. The squad formed a loose half-circle around the Titan (and Hanji), guarding them in from a distance. At least we seemed to be alone out here—so far, there were no other Titans nearby, either in the fields or in the forest.

Suddenly, the Titan slowed to a stop, panting heavily and swinging its large head around. Hanji jerked on her horse’s reins, circling back to face the Titan. I reached down to the blades resting at my waist, preparing to attack if the Titan went for her.

But instead, it bolted straight back into the forest, completely ignoring the humans around it.

“Hey, wait up!” Hanji was quick to follow, urging her horse to go faster. “Don’t leave just yet! What’s wrong?!”

Levi only groaned, as Petra and I raised our eyebrows at each other. What kind of Titan ran away from humans instead of towards them? Even if it’s an Abnormal, they’re all driven by a desire to kill us… So why is it ignoring us all of a sudden?

“Captain!” Eld motioned towards the trees with his arm. “Should we follow her or fall back?”

“Regroup and follow,” Levi ordered, and Mischa snorted as he dug his heels into her sides. Without another word, he led us across the field and back into the trees beyond.

But the Titan’s actions weren’t sitting well with the rest of the squad. I could hear them mumbling to themselves, even over the thunder of hoof beats, about the Titan’s strange behavior. A thousand questions bubbled up in the back of my mind, but I kept my mouth shut. Thinking about it now would do us no good, not in the heat of battle. There would be time to worry about all of that later on, after we got back to the base.

“What’s that dumbass think it’s doin’, lumberin’ on back home?”

“Even if it’s an Abnormal, there’s something strange about it!”

“It doesn’t match any pattern that’s been reported thus far, so it doesn’t match up to the other Abnormals we’ve encountered…”

“Still, doesn’t the fact that it diverges from every pattern make it an Abnormal in the first place?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Levi’s voice cut through them all, as he slid one of his blades out from the holsters on his waist. The sharp snap of steel sent a rush of adrenaline through my body. “We’ll kill it here.”

Of course. It’s not as though we can bring it in for questioning. At the end of the day it’s still a Titan, humanity’s most dangerous enemy. Keeping it alive would pose a threat not only to the rest of the Scouts, but to the citizens within the Walls, as well.

The Titan’s footsteps were growing fainter the further we rode into forest. Every tree appeared to look the same, every groove in the ground made me wonder if we’d just passed it before, or if we were just going in circles. The forest seemed endless, and for a brief moment I wondered if we would ever find Hanji in this mess of trees and bushes.

“Wolf,” I turned my attention to Levi at the sound of my name falling from his lips, “let us deal with this one. Don’t go rushing into danger like your shitty friend.”

“You don’t have to baby me,” I snarled, already moving to grab the blades at my waist. “I’m perfectly capable of taking out a Titan on my own.”

“I never said you weren’t—”

“Captain, look! Up ahead!”

At Petra’s voice, the two of us glanced up at the path ahead—and my jaw dropped as I saw a curtain of trees parted, with clear footprints (and hoof prints) marked in the soft dirt below.

Hanji!

“Let’s move!”

Edel snorted against the reins as I urged him towards the curtain of trees. A large clearing spread out before us, with a tall tree looming over us in the center. Little white flowers were sprouting from the ground, and the dim sunlight through the shadows bathed the ground in a soft blue hue.

The Titan was right next to the tree, swiping at the ground with a meaty arm. There was a whoop as Hanji lifted herself from the ground and onto one of the tree’s branches, before bouncing back down to the grass below.

Shit, she’s gone fucking mad! Get away from it, Hanji!

“I’ll take care of this, captain.” Ever the showoff, Oluo was quick to slide his blades out of the holsters on his waist. Levi made no move to stop him; he was quite confident in his soldiers’ skill in the field. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have chosen them in the first place.

Oluo perched himself on his horse’s back, sending his wires out and into the Titan’s nape. In the blink of an eye he swung himself forward, his blades bared towards the nape of its neck.

“Wait, don’t!”

A split second of hesitance, of Hanji’s scream and Oluo’s baffled look—and suddenly the boy was writhing around in the Titan’s meaty fingers, yelling and screaming out for help.

Levi was moving before I could even process what was happening. A green and black lightning flash, bursting forward at incredible speed and slicing the Titan’s arm off with one clean sweep of his blades. The Titan groaned out as its arm fell to the ground, with Oluo still clutched between its fingers. Levi reeled himself around, latching his hook into the Titan’s nape, before tearing out a chunk of it with the twin blades in his hands.

I pulled Edel to a stop in the center of the clearing, alongside Petra, Eld, and Gunther. The three of them kept their hands above their blades, ready for any other Titan threat that could possibly be lurking nearby.

Levi gave Oluo a sideways glance as he slid a familiar white cloth out of the belt of his uniform. “Are you alright?”

Oluo sniffled from between the Titan’s limp fingers. “T-thank you, captain!”

A heavy breath passed through my lips. The Titan was dead—Oluo was safe, and so was Hanji. Although…she wasn’t exactly looking like the most grateful soldier in the world right now…

She was clutching at her head, fingers threading through messy brown strands, as she sank to her knees in the dirt. Her voice was soft, almost uncharacteristically gentle as she mumbled to herself, seemingly unaware of the six other soldiers standing around her, catching every word that fell from her lips.

“But this little one was my precious test subject… Maybe if we’d just captured it, humanity might have taken a step forward!”

Of course, your main concern is the Titan at hand…

I barely had time to blink before Levi was stomping his way towards her (his blades now clean of any spatters of blood). I could only watch in awe with the rest of his squad as he grabbed a fistful of the front of Hanji’s shirt, bringing her face up to his as close as he could.

“Shut up, you four-eyed bitch!” I could see Petra and Eld wincing at their captain’s sharp tone, out of the corner of my eye. (And honestly, I wasn’t doing much better myself.) “If you want to become Titan shit, then I won’t stop you. But don’t you dare endanger the lives of my men!”

Despite how often she pushed his buttons and irked him to no end, I’d never seen Levi lose his temper with Hanji. It was rare that he ever snapped at her like this, eyes slanted and spitting out insults left and right. The most he’d ever do to her was teasing and off-handed comments meant to get under her skin, just as she did to him. But now… I had never seen him look truly pissed before, as he did right now.

“…Titans don’t shit,” Hanji replied uneasily, and Levi’s scowl slowly melted into one of confusion. “They don’t have any digestive organs, you know…”

…I hardly think this is the best time to joke about something like that, Hanji. No wonder Levi is so pissed at you.

Perhaps it was the nervous laughter spilling from her mouth, or maybe it was the realization that nothing he could say (or any of us, for that matter) would get through to her and make her realize that what she’d just done was incredibly reckless. Whatever it was, it made Levi loosen his grip on the front of her shirt and toss her back onto her knees in the grass below.

“At least you’re safe,” I mumbled, making my way towards my friend. “Can’t wait to hear what Commander Erwin says about you going rogue like that, though.”

“Both of you going rogue, that is.”

I glared at Levi, before reaching a hand out to Hanji. Wordlessly I pulled her to her feet, all the while feeling Levi’s silver stare burning into my back. I was definitely going to get chewed out for this later tonight, from the Commander and the captain. There was no doubt about it.

I could only hope that it wouldn’t lead to another pointless argument that jeopardized the mission at hand; unfortunately, the two of us had a habit of getting into petty spats when we were beyond the Walls.

“C-captain?”

Levi’s eyes were on Petra instantly—and my mouth tightened when I saw her freeze up, clutching her hands to her chest.

“What is it?”

She swallowed hard, her eyes never meeting the captain’s, even as she responded, “D-do you think the Titan did that? But…no…how could it?”

What is she looking at? I slid my eyes along the clearing, but I couldn’t find any more Titans. Just the seven of us, our horses, and the large tree standing in the center.

“What do you mean, Ral?” And why do you look so pale all of a sudden?

She raised a trembling finger towards the tree, the same one that loomed over the rest of the clearing, surrounded by little white flowers. From the way she was pointing, I realized there was a little hollow area carved into the bark of the tree—and something was resting inside.

An animal? No, it was too large to be one. Besides, the only animals that roamed the southern parts of Wall Maria (or what used to be part of it) were rabbits and birds, along with the occasional sheep or goat that escaped from its pasture. It couldn’t have been a Titan either, even a smaller one. If it was, it would’ve already tried to attack us by now.

Hanji was the first to move towards the tree, and I was quick to follow her, with my hand resting on the handle of my blade. But the closer we got to the tree, the more my fingers began to quiver—and my stomach dropped like a stone to my shoes.

It’s a human.

Long dead, by the look of its skin and tattered clothes, but a human nonetheless. Only the body sat upright in the hollow of the tree, its head bitten off at the nape. The familiar emblem of the Survey Corps beamed against the shredded cloak, draped over the soldier’s shoulders. The skin of its hands were withered away, with edges of bone visible through the shadows.

Oluo shrieked in fear, Gunther groaned in disgust, and Petra slapped her palms over her mouth. The only ones who didn’t appear to be bothered were Levi and Eld, although the latter’s jaw was clenched tighter than usual.

Hanji leaned into the hollow, shifting the bloodied cape over the corpse’s shoulder to read the patch embedded on their left arm. “The emblem from the 34th Expedition,” she read off the armband. “So this soldier died a year ago…”

The 34th Expedition…

My hand fluttered down to my right thigh, just above the straps of my gear. The scar was tingling, as though it had been burned.

“The name of this soldier,” the sound of Hanji’s voice softened to a whisper as she read off the emblem, “…Ilse Langnar.”

My throat tightened. Ilse.

I hadn’t known her personally, but I always saw her during meals in the mess hall, chatting away with some of the soldiers from Mike’s squad. She had been an older Scout, maybe a few years younger than me and Hanji. Still, we wore the same cloak when we went out beyond the Walls, slept under the same roof, bore the same Wings of Freedom with pride every day of our lives. I remembered seeing her just a few years ago, about a few months after Levi had joined the Survey Corps, smiling as she and Moblit conversed as they cared for their horses in the field. She was a nice girl with a fiery side that came out in the field, and not to mention a cute band of freckles splayed across her nose.

And now she was dead, headless and rotting away in the hollow of a tree.

To think she’d met her demise in such a gruesome way… It was enough to make anyone sick to their stomach.

“I don’t understand,” Hanji was shaking her head as she pushed herself away from the tree. There was a slight shake of her hands as she brought them back to her sides. “Why would a Titan do something like this?”

I don’t know. Titans had always been beyond our comprehension, always killing us without hesitating for a second. Then again, they always ate the entire human being—or at least, they tried to. Sometimes when they couldn’t eat anymore, they just spat out the remains before looking for their next meal. Not once had any of us heard of a Titan biting only the head of a human off, before storing its corpse into a tree in the forest.

“They’re monsters,” I sighed, picking at a loose thread of my cloak. “Isn’t that enough of an explanation?” Hanji bit her lip, unsatisfied with my answer.

The soft sound of footsteps brought my eyes to Levi, just as he straightened himself up from the ground. Clutched in his hand was a small brown object, dusted with loose blades of grass and flecks of dirt.

“…What’s that, Levi?”

There was a crinkle of parchment—it’s a book, I realized with a shudder. Identical to the one my father had left for me in the nightstand of his office, the same one I now carried with me in the left breast pocket of my jacket.

His eyes were wide as he flipped through the torn pages, frantic marks scrawled across the surface. His voice was grim as he whispered, “Ilse Langnar’s military achievements.”

Hanji was the first to step forward, hand outstretched for the book. “Let me see.” There was the slightest hint of a plea in her voice, her brown eyes glimmering behind those shiny goggles.

Levi was silent as he handed it over. I leaned over Hanji’s shoulder, eyes fluttering over the pages as she began to turn them one by one.

It was definitely Ilse’s handwriting; I recognized it from all the paperwork I’d gone through in the past few years, listing the names of each soldier, where they came from, their skill levels, and their signatures. The pages were slightly damp, probably from the early morning dew, and little brown stains had begun to seep through on the corners.

The writing was messy, slanted, too hard to read in a rush. But a few words stuck out to me, through the black marks of her pen: Titan, horse, Scout, spoke.

“You can look at it later,” the two of us jerked our heads up at Levi’s voice, watching him as he made his way back to his mare. “It’s too dangerous to linger out here. Let’s head back to base while it’s still quiet out.”

His squad obeyed without a word. Hanji glanced down at the notebook in her hands, then up to me, and finally pocketed the book in her jacket. “Later,” she mouthed to me, and the two of us headed for our horses, who were grazing in the center of the clearing.

But then she clenched her jaw, eyes darting around the clearing before she headed back towards the tree in the center. I pressed my hand against Edel’s neck as I watched her reach into the tree hollow, stripping the corpse of both its jacket and its cape. Both were caked in dirt and blood, but she didn’t seem to mind as she held them both to her chest.

“For her family, if she has one.”

Of course she had a family. All soldiers had a family, waiting patiently for their return, dreading the day an official would stop by their house and inform them of their husband’s or wife’s or child’s passing. But it was better to bring them a memento rather than a body. No use in bringing home a headless corpse to Ilse’s family, to remind them of the gruesome end their daughter had faced. The Wings of Freedom, sewn onto the back of her cloak and jacket, were a much better symbol to remember her by.

Levi led the way out of the clearing, his squad at his heels, with myself and Hanji taking up the rear. But before we slid back into the trees, I stole a final glance at the corpse in the tree, grimacing at the sight of her bloody shirt and ragged skin.

So long, Ilse.

|~|

Erwin wasn’t pleased when our little group returned back to the base. Hanji had received the worst of his scolding, with Moblit adding in his two cents every once in a while as he clutched at his hair from the side. The poor man looked so exhausted, so done with everything in general. Hanji was definitely going to get an earful from him when we got back to Trost.

My kids had been more understanding, if a little confused. At least they were happy to see us all come back unharmed, for the most part. I would have to explain it to them once we got back to the main castle within the Walls. I couldn’t scare them with details of Ilse’s demise when we were still out here, still at the mercy of the Titans.

The Commander had simply given me a cold look before turning away. No harsh words, no berating—just the look of utter disappointment. I let out a sigh, thinking the worst was over…until I saw Levi lingering behind him, with his arms crossed over his chest.

…Fuck.

At least the captain had the good grace to wait until nighttime, when most of the Scouts were either asleep or busy standing on watch. The base was silent for the most part, with the occasional gust of wind rustling through the trees. A line of white tents had been set up, with my squad settled comfortably in one of them. I bit back a laugh when I saw Emily’s arm stretched lazily along Gretel’s chest, with her leg thrown over poor Murphy’s elbow.

Someone’s a messy sleeper. Gretel’s not going to like that when she wakes up. Gretel preferred to be left completely untouched when she slept, always hating to sleep near anyone, including her squadmates…even though she slept like a log through even the loudest of nights.

A familiar shadow danced across the white sheet of the tent. I grimaced, recognizing the texture of Levi’s undercut through the side of the tent, before pushing myself off the ground completely. I had kept my ODM gear on for the night, with my cape wrapped around my shoulders for some extra warmth. Silently, I motioned for the larger tent in the center of the base—the same on Erwin and Hanji had been arguing in earlier—and the two of us headed towards it, with Levi’s boots scuffing against the dirt.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” it was hard to keep the sigh out of my voice as I spoke, “so just get it over with.”

The sheet fluttered as Levi pulled it against the entrance, essentially trapping me inside. Now it was just the two of us, far away from the sleeping cadets.

“You’re an absolute dumbass.” Ouch. “You should’ve at least waited until Erwin gave the order to follow her.”

Suddenly I felt like I was nine years old again, being scolded by my mother for playing too far away from the gates of Shiganshina District. Or worse, my sister.

“I know, I know.” I raked a hand through my hair, wincing as my fingers snagged on a couple snarls towards my nape. “But it’s done now, and nothing bad happened. We’re both fine.”

“This time.”

The two of us stared at each other, neither of us moving an inch. Those sickening memories of that expedition hung over our heads, taunting us, laughing at us, from the emblem that had been sewn on Ilse’s jacket.

Okay, I’ll admit it—I fucked up. Maybe I shouldn’t have raced after Hanji and left my squad in the dust like I did. Maybe I should’ve waited for Erwin’s approval before rushing after her like a suicidal bastard. Maybe, at the end of the day, I was no better than Hanji for my reckless attitude, and that maybe, we were really one and the same when it came to danger and adrenaline.

So careless with our lives.

But was Levi going to hold it over me for the rest of my life? Getting him to open up after I’d nearly lost my leg to a Titan had been absolutely painful. I couldn’t imagine repeating that process if I’d somehow gotten hurt by that Titan today. What if it had grabbed me in that clearing instead of Oluo? If Levi had been pissed with Hanji over Oluo’s life…I shuddered to think how he would act when it was my life at stake.

“Fine, you win.” I stepped forward, curling my hands around his shoulders. His jaw was clenched, his mouth set in a hard, tight line. “I was stupid, alright? I shouldn’t have gone after her like that. Maybe I should’ve waited, so we could’ve gone together, and you didn’t have to chase me down like you did. I’m sorry, alright?”

His expression was unreadable, his eyes nothing more than silver slits. Finally he sighed, his chest heaving against my own, as he hung his head and relaxed against my body. Midnight tresses tickled my face; rough hands palmed at my shoulders from under my cape. I shivered as he pulled me close, securing me against his chest in those strong, warm arms that reminded me of home.

“I promise I’ll be more careful, okay?” My voice was muffled against his hair, but I was sure he was hanging onto every word I said. “It’s just…I didn’t like seeing Hanji run off like that. It…it scared me.” Just like seeing me run off probably scared you. “I won’t rush into things like that again, unless I absolutely have to, alright?”

He mumbled something against my shoulder, too soft for me to catch. But when I shifted my head to kiss his forehead, I heard him loud and clear:

“I don’t want to see you die.”

My lips froze against his skin. My mind raced, thinking of all the words I wanted to say, in how many different ways I could say them… And yet I couldn’t find my voice.

The two of us had been dancing around the issue of death, ever since that terrible expedition. Neither of us had brought it up since; it only brought pain and tears and screaming into the mix. There was no time to deal with all of that…so we just never spoke of it. We shrugged it off and moved away from it, as though we could avoid it for the rest of our lives.

But we couldn’t. Not with the lives we led. Not with our duties as soldiers. Someday, whether I liked it or not, we were going to die. Levi was going to die. I was going to die. Whether we died at the same time, or I watched him die, or he watched me die… It didn’t matter. It still brought that gaping hole in my chest, the one that made me want to curl into myself and cry until I had no more tears left to spill.

That day, during the 34th Expedition… I could’ve been in Ilse’s place, devoured by a Titan before being left to rot in the hollow of a tree.

“You won’t see me die,” I kept my voice soft as I clutched at his shoulders. “I won’t let that happen.”

I knew I was only giving him false hope. I was only giving myself false hope. I was powerless when it came to death; I had no say in when my time would run out. But at least I could spare Levi the pain of seeing it happen. The man had suffered too much already, he didn’t need anything else weighing him down.

Suddenly he scooped me up in his arms, pressing me against the table in the center—slotting himself in between my thighs, pressing his chest against my own. His mouth was hot against my ear, his voice soft as he whispered, “You promised.”

My stomach rolled at the memory. I had promised him—back at the hospital in Trost, with my leg bandaged up and burning with agony, and Levi’s face nestled in the crook of my neck. I promised that I wouldn’t leave him, that I wouldn’t be like everyone else in his life. He had begged me not to go, but to stay with him, to stay for as long as I could.

Because deep down, a part of him just couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to me.

Oh, well. We were both guilty of that feeling, weren’t we?

“I promised,” I whispered, moving my mouth across his neck. I wrapped my legs around his waist, tugging him closer to my body. “I’m not going to leave you, Levi. But you have to let me be a soldier. That’s what I am, and you know it.”

My life was a fleeting thing, a gift the world could take away at a moment’s notice, because it was just that cruel. I knew that, if and when it came down to it, I wouldn’t hesitate to give my life up for my kids, or Hanji, or even Levi. I had people waiting for me to come home, but if it meant buying my kids or my fellow soldiers a few more precious years of life…then I was more than willing to pay the price.

Especially if it came down to saving Levi’s life.

“You don’t have to throw your life away, brat.”

“I know, and that’s why I made you that promise.” I dug my fingers into his hair, savoring every bit of warmth his body offered me. His hands, his mouth, his chest—everything that assured me that he was here, with me right now. “I won’t leave you. But you have to promise me the same thing, alright?”

I had to be selfish—just this once. If Levi could make me promise not to leave him, the least I could do was make him promise the same thing. I never wanted him to leave me—not now, not in ten or twenty years, not ever.

He brought his mouth to mine in a fervent kiss. “I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

My lips trembled against his own. “And neither am I.”

I couldn’t tell you how long we stayed in that tent. A few minutes? Maybe an hour or two? It didn’t matter to us, in the end. We just kept holding each other against that table, hugging and kissing and whispering soft promises to each other. His fingers slid through my hair, his mouth left a trail of kisses across my collarbone. I brought him closer to my chest, pressing kiss after kiss against his forehead, in the spot where his bangs parted.

We ended up leaving that tent when neither of us could speak anymore. He slid his fingers through mine and led me into his own tent, the soft light of the lamp shining against our bodies. Silently, the two of us curled up against each other on the sleeping bag, with his chest pressed against my back, and his arms wrapped around my waist.

Promises made, words left unspoken. There was still so much more I wanted to say, but fear of the outside world kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to ruin the moment between us; I didn’t want a stray soldier to happen upon our sleeping forms, or a wandering Titan to crash through the base. I didn’t want to say or do anything that may take me away from him. The last thing I wanted was to suffer a fate like Ilse’s, full of regrets and fear and fruitless dreams of a better life.

My hands trembled against Levi’s, as he draped a blanket over the two of us. He gave me a kiss, just below my ear, and suddenly I was out like a light.

|~|

The Scouts returned to Trost the following day, just as the afternoon sun began to wane. Luckily we suffered no additional casualties, and we’d left the supply base secure and stocked with goods. The horses were tired, the soldiers looked exhausted, the wagons’ wheels were in dire need of repairs—but overall, it had been a successful mission.

Hanji had knocked on my door in the middle of the night, just as I was preparing to settle in with Levi. He was none too happy about our nightly routine being interrupted (nor was he a fan of Hanji’s teasing when she saw him with his hair all mussed up). But I told him to wait in the bedroom for me as I finished up with her, giving him a light kiss on his cheek before he left.

My bespectacled friend was quick to hand me a little clump of papers; immediately, I recognized the messy scrawl in her handwriting. “A proposal for continuing Titan research,” she explained in a rush. “And I want you to back it up before I give it to Commander Erwin.”

I grimaced at her tone. “Hanji, I can’t just sign off on something like this without—”

But then she was holding up Ilse’s journal, the leather cover worn away from years of use and decay. “That’s why I want you to look at this first, before you agree or disagree to anything.”

So I did. With Hanji peeking over my shoulder, I started to flip through the little journal, scanning the pages with lidded eyes, as Ilse’s last memories came to life before me.

Some words were scrawled out in a haste, the letters all different sizes and shapes, but somehow still legible. She must have been running when she wrote these. No one could keep their hand steady when they were on the move.

Ink splotches laced the corners of the pages. Some letters ate up entire pages, obviously written in a hurry, stringing together to form words that could only be described as desperate. And suddenly, on one of the last couple pages of her journal, a passage jumped out at me:

It spoke. The Titan spoke. That can’t be. It uttered words have have meaning. “Subjects of Ymir.” “Lady Ymir.” “Welcome.” I’m sure of it—the look on this Titan’s face changed. It adopted a pose that indicates respect for me. For the first time in human history, a connection has been made with a Titan!

…It spoke?!

“I know,” Hanji whispered as my jaw clenched up. “There’s more, though.” I was curious to keep reading, so I did—and I felt my gut twisting with every word I read.

Caught over big mouth stink many teeth but not sharp breath hot and moist

And then there was nothing. Just a blank page, with bits of moss clinging to the parchment.

My chest felt hollow. I remembered the feeling of what Ilse had described all too well, from that exact same expedition. My hand fell to my thigh as I recalled the Titan’s horrid breath, washing over me as it dragged me towards its mouth. It was all too familiar—the feel of its teeth, the stink of its mouth, the all-consuming terror that came over me as I wondered if this was really the end for me…

Only, I had been lucky enough to escape that fate. Ilse hadn’t.

“As far as I’m aware,” Hanji’s voice was gentle in my ear, “this is the only recorded case of a Titan actually speaking like a human being. Even if we don’t know what those words mean, they were still understandable to Ilse. And that’s why I want to propose a live Titan capture, to find out more about how these creatures work.”

It was almost too much to handle. A Titan actually speaking?! It was almost laughable. But Ilse never seemed like the kind of soldier to lie about stuff like that, especially in what appeared to be her final moments. If she had witnessed it and recorded it, it must’ve been true.

But then there were the words it had uttered. Subjects of Ymir? Lady Ymir? None of those were common words within the Walls. Perhaps Ymir could be a name, but I wasn’t sure. And neither was Hanji, from the look on her face.

This was a huge piece of information, left lying around for the past year or so in the forests beyond Wall Rose. I could see Hanji’s urgency in requesting a Titan capture, in order to prevent more soldiers like Ilse. A Titan who could understand humans and was fully aware of what they were actually doing to them…it was a human’s worst nightmare, soldiers and civilians alike.

Still, I couldn’t risk it. I still had my priorities in order—or rather, five of them.

“Hanji, tell me this.” I took in the sight of her brown eyes, beaming brightly behind those shiny glasses of hers. “If I sign off on this, and you take it to Erwin…can you promise me that no lives will be lost in this proposal?”

She gave me a smile, messy hair falling over her face. “Actually, I can. I’ve been working on a plan for capturing Titans, without using as much manpower as you may think.”

I quirked an eyebrow, skeptical but intrigued nonetheless. “Alright, I’m listening.”

“Um… You might wanna bring Levi out here, too. It does include both your squads, after all.”

Her confession only heightened my suspicions, with the mention of my kids. Still, I motioned for Levi to join us in my office, and the two of us sat down in silence as Hanji began to explain her plan.

|~|

Five days had passed since Hanji had visited us in the dead of night. Four days had passed since she’d handed in her proposal to Erwin, with both my signature and Levi’s scrawled along the bottom. After hearing her plan for capturing Titans (and realizing just how much she had thought about this before telling me), I was inclined to sign off on the proposal. Levi was the same, more or less, although he mentioned later on that maybe it would finally get Hanji to stop pestering him.

Finally on the sixth day, Hanji’s proposal was approved—and her joyful cheer could be heard clear across the Walls. The mission was set to take place at the end of the month, with both the Special Operations Squad and the Elite Reconnaissance Squad assisting in live captures of Titans lurking beyond Trost District.

But as I watched Hanji prance through the halls of the castle, eyes bright and limbs trembling, I remembered the promise she had made me: that not a single human life would be lost during this mission. I was keeping her to that promise, waiting for her to make good on it.

Just as Levi was holding me to mine, and I was holding him to his.

But if those promises could buy us just a little more time in this world, enjoying the simple pleasures of the lives we had…then that was good enough for me.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #slow burn #levi x oc #levi ackerman #mia wolf #oc x canon #romance #a wolf with wings #wolves of the walls saga #oc story #oc insert #levi x mia #volume i #aot fics

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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The Three Caballeros Ride Again Review!: And Ladies (Ride of the Three Caballeros)

Saludos Amigos! I’m back with yet another comics review! And we’re back on The Ride of the Three Cablleros! Thanks again to WeirdKev27 for commissioning this retrospective. It’s going to get pricey and I greatly appreciate it. PREVIOUSLY ON RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS

In short.. a bunch of short segments of varying quality, a very thirsty Donald hitting on ladies, the first appearance of Panchito and some very good music. A fun time was had by all. Along with a LOT OF drugs by the Disney Animators. The film wasn’t a huge success, but out of the 6 package films, it was a fan faviorite alongside the Mr. Toad and Ichabod movie, and thus was rereleased quite a bit, as well as being one of the first of this era to end up on VHS due to it’s cult popularity. As for Panchito and Jose they’d get plenty of success overseas, with both getting solo series in their respective home countries, Jose himself having just resumed having comics again this year, and being rightfully massive characters. But despite being a hit with fans across the world.. in the US... they were pretty much shoved in the Disney Vault for a few decades. Jose would show up on the Wonderful World of Disney, in it’s various forms, three times after the Three Caballeros while Panchito just vanished aside from reuses of the Three Caballeros footage. Their careers in the US just sorta vanished for a few decades. But as suddenly as they vanished, our boys returned triumphantly. Naturally being the most used out of the duo, Jose would show up for the first time in decades during Mickey Mouseworks, a show full of new late 90′s produced Mickey Mouse shorts, all but two of which would end up being recycled for the much more popular and well loved House of Mouse, which would feature the triumphant return of the Cabs to animation after so long away. We’ll get to that next time, as just a year before the Cabs had already reunited in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in one of Don Rosa’s best loved tales. The Ride of The Three Caballeros was something Don Rosa had wanted to do since he got the job writing Duck Comics in the first place. As he explained in the back of the complete library edition named after this tale, Uncle Keno isn’t the biggest fan of the Donald Theatrical shorts. Having experienced the Carl Barks comics first, and having built his career around them later, he just wasn’t a fan of the goofier, angrier, less nuanced theatrical short Donald, often feeling like he was an entirely different character from the one he loved. And.. honestly he’s not wrong. Both were built for entirely different kinds of comedy: While both did slapstick, Slapstick, along with standard comedy shenanigans, was the main weapon in Shorts Donald’s comedic arsenal. Barksian Donald, while not immune to slapstick, was more like a well built sitcom character: Multi layered, sympathetic when he needs to be, but still having tons of faults to be exploited for laughs and to play off other characters. As a result while I like Donald in the shorts I do prefer Barks version of him, and the shorts Barks did are usually the best of both worlds, combining Donald’s everyman schtick with his slapstick schtick. Of course later cartoons would pick one or the other or combine both, but I do get his point and at the time he wrote this story the only cartoon show starring Donald was.. Quack Pack.. which I can only imagine his reaction to seeing that train wreck.

But as you can probably guess there was one exception and it was The Three Caballeros. Don genuinely enjoys the beautiful music and the wonderful chemistry the three have. So after a trip to Mexico gave him the perfect setting and the fire in his belly to finally do it, he finally wrote the story. And since they weren’t Barksian characters and hadn’t had any other apperances in decade, Don also took a dive into their comics. Since Jose was more of a fancifial freeloader in his comics, Don decided to ignore this characterization and go with his own based on the film: A latin playboy and lounge singer. And i’m okay with him doing that, as unlike say with Marvel and DC when they destroy a character, Disney characters are both more fluid continuity wise and his is still rooted in a version of the character, and he’s fully accepting and apologetic that some fans hate him for this. Also for some damn reason they redesigned Jose at some point in his Brazil to look like this:

This is far from the dumbest comic book costume change i’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most lame, as his original outfit is dapper, stylish and fits the Brazilian version of him well. And it’s not like you CAN’T update the classic Disney characters with modern appearances. Quack Pack, which has somehow come up twice in this review, did so great with Donald and Daisy, giving them new clothes and a haircut in Daisy’s case but both still look great. Same with Goofy for Goof Troop who just wore a dad sweater and bow tie, which puts him in the small but significant club of “Bow Tie Wearing Characters who have defined my life” with Opus the Penguin and the 11th Doctor. You can update a classic character’s’s appearance without coming off like...

Which given Jose’s outfit there is horrifyingly similar, says something. Anyways, Rosa had more use for Panchito’s stories, which had him as a cowboy protecting small towns with the help of his trusty steed Senor Martinez. Rosa loved both aspects and thus used them here, with Martinez getting a makeover to fit Rosa’s style better. Rosa is also the one to popularize Panchito’s last name, having found it on a scrap of research, not realizing the character’s last name was not at all widespread and thus giving him a canon one that has stuck to this day, and sighing in relief when he finally got conformation from another fan this name was indeed something Disney had used after loosing his research scrap. So with the two boys characters set, a plot set up and a whole sequence planned we’ll talk about on the way “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!” was born. How good is it? Well join me under the cut and i’ll tell you.

We open in Mexico, specifically near the Barranca Del Cobre, aka The “Copper Canyon” of the Sierra Madre, a natural land formation simlar to the Grand Canyon that Don Rosa saw during his trip and thought would make a great setting. While larger than the Grand Canyon, Rosa figures in his notes it simply isn’t as popular because it’s more isolated than the Grand Canyon and that, combined with it having trees inside distracting from it’s rugged beauty, makes it much harder to build a tourist industry around. The four are headed to El Divisadero, because this comic is determined to kill me with it’s difficult to spell names apparently, where Huey, Dewey or Louie spouts off for no particular reason about the currently being built Chihuahua El Pacifico Railway. Seriously the boys might as well be the security guard from Wayne’s World in this comic, their role for most of their brief page time is just to set up stuff for later. I mean i’m fine with setting up your setting but there are better ways than just spouting off tons of exposition apropos of nothing.

Donald has driven the boys here for a Woodchuck Jamboree. I did actually look into Jamborees, as before this it only had ever come up in one of my favorite movies of all time, Moonrise Kingdom, and mentioned occasionally in the Ducktales Reboot. Jamboree was first used for a worldwide scouting Jamboree but has gone on to mean a huge gathering of scouts, with the Boy Scouts of America having one every four years, so odds are it’s just a big yearly or quarter yearly thing for the woodchucks. Still it would be nice to see a big gathering like this in the series, especially since several of our cast are involved in them, including the possible power trio of Huey, Violet and Boyd, and Della and Launchpad could easily be slotted into the plot as seen in this season’s premiere.. as could Dewey and Louie if they really want to since according to Frank their members.. they just aren’t nearly as invested as their brother, and thus don’t do Woodchuck stuff unless he drags them into it, as seen with “Day of the Only Child” in the series itself. It does make sense: Dewey doesn’t have the survival instinct or patience for camping, and Louie hates effort, the out doors, and doing things for anything but profit. Scouting is all of that. So the boys have driven all this way for the Mexican Jamboree, as they’ve been carefully raising their tarantula Tara, and the Tarantula Breeding Badge is only given out in Mexico, which is plausible: Different branches of a worldwide organization would have different awards and what not in different countries. And Tarantula’s are also native to mexico so that makes sense.. and I want you to apricate that I’m afraid of spiders, not cartoony ones, for instance, this is adorable.

Galvantula4Life. But real life ones or realistic looking ones? Yeah no fuck that. So I had to go to the Wikipedia entry and see several horrifying looking sizeable spiders for this one tiny fact. Your welcome. Tara ends up on Donald’s face with the boys assuming Donald is sad to see her go instead of you know FUCKING TERRIFIED A GIANT SPIDER IS ON HIS FACE. This gag does not work.. but probably because as I said i’m afraid of spiders and this is my nightmare, you little sociopaths.

The boys however worry about what Donald will do for the weekend as they prepare to board the bus to the Jamboree... why it’s meeting in an out of the way town like this I have no idea, but i’d guess plot convince. They realize he has no friends, which Donald shrugs off, and they REALLY shouldn’t say to his face, but ruminate on it once he leaves to do whatever after vaguely talking about friends he had in the past.

I like this scene even though it annoys me a bit: Ilike it because it does set up how Donald really DOSEN’T have any friends in the comics. It’s part of WHY Rosa was drawn to the Cabs: Their one of the few equal relationships donald’s ever had, people who treat him as a partner, in both sense probably, a friend, a true amigo. As the boys point out Scrooge is a monster to him in the comics, paying him 30 cents an hour which I actually put into an inflation calculator to get an accurate read on how little that was by 2020 standards.. and it’s 3 dollars an hour. Hence why I call him a monster, why that bit hasn’t aged well, and why Rosa REALLY, REALLY should’ve retired it. It dosen’t help reading that knowing Disney largely treated Rosa the same way is cringe inducing at best, if not for any fault of his own. It being cringe inducing for an employer horribly mistreating and underpaying his employees though is his fault, he’s a grown ass man, even in the 90′s this had to be a problem, be better.

And yes i’m being hard on Don Rosa but just like with the comics thing, I simply expect better from the man given just how much respect I have for the guy. His art is gorgeous, his research is immaculate, his knowledge of old films is wonderful and his love for them so infectious i’m tempted to seek the ones he’s mentioned in notes out. He’s a truly wonderful guy and one of my faviorite comic writers.. but I have to treat him fairly like I do ANY of my idols. Just to prove that, I love Grant Morrison, especially his run on New X-Men, but a lot of it hasn’t aged well including some of the language and the entire subplot with Emma manipulating Scott into having an affair when he wasn’t in the best mental place and she knew that and was acting as his therapist, and treating that as a regular affair REALLY doesn’t play well nor should it have. I love Al Ewing, with all my heart and soul, but his run on Ultimates, while having some great worldbuilding and a spectacular cast, ultimately wasn’t very good after the first arc. Not terrible but not good. John Aliison, of Scary Go Round and Giant Days fame, while impressive has had plenty of stories I just didn’t like for various reasons and will probably get into some day and some parts of his stories haven’t aged well. It’s the hard but necessary part of being a critic: You have to be objective and see all the parts of a creator’s creation, not just the ones you like and call them out when they screw up. To me being a fan isn’t about just blindly loving something, it’s about knowing WHY you love it and being willing to call out faults while still thoroughly enjoying the work. There’s a fine line between being blindly loyal to someone, which has created Zach Snyder's awful cult of personality that I hate so much, and being an overly critical shithead and I hope I’m straddling that line.

Back on the scene after that filibuster they point out Gladstone, who himself is a monster to me for how he doesn’t lift a finger to help his nephews or cousin, and constnatly flaunts his luck to Donald, and is a bit more than teasing especially since he tried to, you know, steal your house once boys. That’s canon.. that’s a barks story so it’s canon here. You.. You remember that right? He tried to steal your house. And we will be getting to that one next month, just you wait. Finally the Daisy part that annoys me slightly. The boys being sexist.. was sadly the style at the time this story is set, the 1950′s, and thus plays better for me than it does in Ducktales, as their just little boys and don’t know better. Them assuming Girlfriends aren’t like having friends, while accurate though does bother me a bit, but only because the way this story treats Donald’s relationship is PRETTTTTYYYY bad and this sets that up. But we’ll get to that. Thankfully this foreshadowing of terrors to come is quickly forgotten as we get a GENUINELY great two panels of Donald lamenting his lack of friends. It just works really well, selling his loneliness and how isolated he truly feels without any, which while I have friends I can relate to as I only really hang out with on regularly.

This is what I was talking about. While I will point out Rosa’s flaws.. their truly outweighed but his artistic mastery. In just three panels he really has a truly emotional and heartrending scene, and just that one close up among them is all we need to get the true depths of Donald’s loneliness. I can be hard on the guy, but it’s because he’s one of the best there is, best there was, and best there ever will be and thus I hold him to a high standard. But with that we transition to...

Or rather first his boss at the hotel, whose pissed his headliner has skipped out on him again to woo a lady, and while he plans to fire the guy, only isn’t throttling him because he figures one of his “Senorita’s” boyfriends will do that for him. And while I do like Jose as a playboy i’m not really fond of him trying to have sex with someone in a relationship, as it puts both him and the person he’s having an affair with in a really bad light. It does fit the character, I just don’t have to like it. As for this particular Senorita, it turns out her boyfriend is a notorious Bandito and is thankfully out of town. So yes, Jose is essentially acting out Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans.

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Naturally just like the song, said Bad Man returns, Alfonso “Gold Hat” Bedoya, a machete wielding baddie who while understandably pissed about another man making time with his girlfriend, is less understandably about to murder Jose. Though unlike the song, Alfonso’s Lady, rather than help Jose, encourages her boyfriend to murder him and clearly has a fetish for cheating on her boyfriend with various men and watching as he kills him which.. Jesus. This is why while I don’t LIKE the idea of Jose hitting on women in a relationship it does work here, as he’s still not nearly as bad as either of these two, so it evens out. Jose escapes with his umbrella but crashes.. right into the back of Donald’s car. Rosa, Alfonso’s lady, encourages him to murder both of them for funsies, and being a brutal thug, Alfonso obliges and shoots at the car. And since, to quote the duck himself, Donald doesn’t like being killed “Even a little”, he books it out of there.

Alfonso doesn’t peruse them though. He’s on the trail of a treasure hunter who has a map to the lost town of Tayopa, which contains untold silver, but before he can do that he has important buisness to get to.

I fucking love that gag and that Rosa snuck more adult gags in there knowing plenty of Duck Fans, such as myself, are grown men, women and others who can handle this sort of thing, while still slippnig it past the kids.

Donald, once the fear’s worn off a bit, starts to wonder WHY he’s running when he’s not the one who pissed off the guy, and ignores Jose’s good point about the fact Alfonso really dosen’t seem like a guy who sees nuance.. until Donald sees a wanted poster for Alphonoso and keeps driving. He eventually gets far enough away to feel safe.. and confront the guy who got him into this mess.

Now kiss. While sadly, they do not, we do get a lovely warm reunion between old pals. Rosa keeps their past vauge as, correctly, he pointed out in his authors notes that the Cabs movie really had no plot, accurate, so instead just vaguely alluded to Donald having known the two in his pre-daisy and boys past and likely had similar adventures to the movie, but adapted more for Rosa’s barksian universe. Jose explains he often finds himself cash poor and thus hits the road to drum up some money, and Mexico is a great place for that as it has plenty of tourist money.

Though as Jose talks about their past we get the most uncomfortable running gag of the story.

While Donald’s paranoia here is played for laughs.. it just.. isn’t all that funny that Donald’s relationship with Daisy in the Rosa canon is apparently sooooo deeply unhealthy that just HEARING about him having a romantic past before him, as Rosa confirmed this was pre-daisy in his notes, causes Donald to panic and worry she actually somehow heard this. It just isn’t funny.. it speaks of MASSIVE relationship issues and some form of domestic abuse on Rosa!Daisy’s part. It’s stuff like this why there’s only a handful of Donsy relationships I like: Her treating him like shit is reduced to a punchline, instead of being used for character growth. It’s also why I’m deeply dreading covering “Legend of the Three Cablleros” at the end of this retrospective. I just don’t like when Disney media treats Daisy expecting too much of Donald or being hyper jealous of him as hilarious and while I take this more as the story not ageing well rather than barks fault, as since then Domestic Abuse against Males has become a more widely known and talked about issue, it still doesn’t’t make it plesant. It just makes this not entirely his fault. Just like it’s not Stan Lee’s fault this panel is both deeply hilarious and uses a now kinda racist term.

I named an entire youtube channel after that.. we all have our regrets. I also bring it up since currently Harry’s become terrifying villain Kindred... and thus the current big bad of an entire Spider-Man run and the being hopefully bringing one more day into the light and hopefully leading to it’s undoing.. once had a goofy mustache he genuinely referred to a “Fu Manchu Face Fuzz” that for all we know he regrew under the mask.

Donald fondly remembers the old days of being a badass adventuring team and decides, screw it, let’s go show that Gold Hatted Paloka whose boss.. but being Donald ends up driving them into The Copper Canyon instead. Our heroes end up lost in the canyon and , fitting for Donald get shot at. I can only imagine his thoughts right now.

Their mysterious attacker threatens them.. before revealing himself to be Panchito, whose glad to see his friends having mistook them for Alfonso. Turns out HE’S the mysterious treasure hunter Alfonoso was after, to no one’s surprise. We get another deeply unfunny “Daisy’s only a thousand miles away gag” as the boys reminisce and get introduced to Panchito’s horse, Senior Martniez. He also tells the boy about his map.. but how he’s hit a snag as the lost town where the silver, from a silver mine.. is now buried under pounds of volcanic rock, a volcano having erupted. This is artistic license as Don Rosa admits there aren’t any known volcano’s in Mexico, but that they also still haven’t found that missing town, so this was his explanation. All is not lost as Donald’s globetrotting with Scrooge meant he knows his history.. and thus spots an old mission which, at the time, were used by preists as cover for secret mines. Donald naturally bungles his way in and we get the much better running gag of the Cabs thinking Donald did something amazing when he really just wondered into slapstick. They end up down the shaft, with Jose deciding Donald can’t do all the work, and finding a secret entrance under a sanctum sanctorum.. a religious thing I have no idea what it ii s but is clearly where Dr. Strange got the name. Regardless they find some old kegs filled with pure silver. As Panchito puts it:

And he did ideed. In a nice moment that shows off his character, Panchito has no hesitation for sharing the wealth: He wouldn’t of got this far without his friends, and he wont get the Silver cashed in without their help. He also fires off his guns in celebration.. forgetting their in a cave, a gag I genuinely like.

After some off screen loading and hoisting, the boys are slowly on their way out of the canyon, with Donald’s Car and Senor Martinez pulling the cart with the silver together. With some downtime the three talk about what they’ll spend the money on.

About what you’d expect. A big beautiful music venue

For Jose, and a nice ranch to retire at for Panchito. Both despite being wondering souls would love a simple place to call home, in their own personal styles. While they are BIG goals, their also likeable and understandable ones: Jose just wants to stop having to do all these tours and carouse and party and perform at home. Be his own boss, and live his own dreams instead of working for whoever will put up for him. Panchito just wants to retire from being a wondering hero to a peaceful life of farming, an honest reward he well earned. And Donald?

This is easily one of my faviorite moment’s of Rosa’s, one that really cuts to comic donald’s character: Sure he can be lazy, a trickster, hot tempered, and overconfident.. it’s why we love him.. but at the end of the day he genuinely loves those boys and their his first prority and I can see why the reboot took that trait and made it his defining one. They may annoy and frustrate them and he may pull a switch on them, 50′s after all.. but he loves his boys and knows they’ll do great one day and despite his spendthrift ways when given big money.. their all he can think about. Sure Donald probably has his own personal dreams, but instead of going big and retiring he’d probably just take only a small sliver of that money to open a humble hot dog stand or something, so he could have something of his own to provide them, while still giving most of the money to their college. Scrooge is who we all want to be.. Donald is who we are at our core: Flawed people who just want to do our best. It’s why I love the guy so much. The boys rest in the small town of El Divisadero, which like the town we started in is a real place, though both are much smaller, even as of 2000 when Rosa made his visit, so he had to embelish slightly. THey stop at a local watering hole only to find Alphonso. While Jose is naturally worried, Gold Hat has moved on to Panchito and wants to know why he’s here. However Donald thinking quickly says he’s part of their nightclub act, and we get a rousing version of the three cablleros, which when reading this I synched up to the song. I won’t put it here, as it’s too big for tumblr and it really works more as a whole, but needless to say, it’s the highlight of the comic. While Rosa did have doubts about putting a musical number in a comic, and it’s often trickey, he makes it work with the energy, vibrance and number of gags, that compensate for the music not being there. There’s tons of great gags, from Donald getting thrown out window, to the stone faced crowd who only cheers when Alphonso ends the number by whacking the three with one of their own guitars. Alphonso quickly realizes what’s goin on, finds the silver, and then hyjacks the train. The boys take off after him in the car, as Donald triumphantly states “The Three Cablleros Ride Again!”. The three head after Alphonzo, who finds them when trying to release the other cars to increase speed, and then shoots at them. It seems hopeless... until donald gets launched into the air, into a cactus then back into Alphonzo knocking his guns out in a great bit of slapstick. The Conductor, likely not knowing about the others or not carring, detaches the cars though, so our heroes and villian are now sent rocketing through the world’s most dangerous railway. Which, as you’d probably already figured out, is very real and what inspirited rosa to use this setting and thus indeed wind through dangerous mountainsides and over thin cliffs like a real life Donkey Kong Country level. Eduardo still has his machete though and easily beats Jose’s umbrella, but some more Donald slapstick and him apologizing to daisy about the senioritis as he wishes her goodbye seriously GET SOME COUPLE’S COUNSELING IF THAT EXISTS IN THE 50′S. It puls his sombrero down over his head, and with jose’s umbrella top landing on it, carries him off where he ends up in a lazy asshole sheirff’s jail for a gag. The boys however continue going back.. and the railway is unfinished at this time in history and while they save the silver, their fucked. But Donald has a plan, running to the back of the cars to get his car, and while it has trouble starting, Panchito throws some chilie’s in the tank to get it moving again. The boys find the silver.. but when one barrel spills they find out it’s not actual liquid silver.. but quicksilver, which was used for silver refinment. So while i’ts shiny, and toxic so of course Jose sticks his hand in before knowing what it is, it’s worthless. Probably. The boys.. all have a nice laugh over it. I love this moment. Sure the boys lost their dreams.. but like Scrooge, the three belivie theirs always another rainbow. What matters is the journey they had and the reunion that restored their friendship. Donald also muses the boys are smart enough to get their own scholarships anyway, so it’s no big loss.. but he does have to get back to Disvadero as the jamboree ends tonight and Jose agrees as he now needs a job again. The owner balks, understandably since Jose missed a performance to get laid and then disappeared overnight.. but the Hotel Owner is visiting so as long as he can provide a big act he’s good, and while Jose is worried as he already gave them his best, the boys naturally pitch in to be the cablleros once more. After all

So we close on Huey, Dewey and Louie returning, still worrying about donald, when they find him on stage. We then end on a truly heartwarming and great last few panels.

Final Thoughts: What else can I say? This story is beautifully drawn, as usual for Rosa, well paced, fun and really fleshes the Cabs out from the movie. It has a warm, fun adventurous tone and it’s nice to see Donald in the lead since Rosa usually did Scrooge stories and thus Donald was the justifiably surly sidekick instead of the main man> here he’s in the spotlight and gets to show just what he’s made of, while still being the hilarious mess we all know and love. The story honors the original film well, while forging it’s own path and is beautifully built into history. My only real complaints are the nephews being annoying, Alphonso’s somewhat overwrought accent, and of course the daisy gags.. but it’s all HEAVILY outweighed by one of Rosa’s finest hours and easy enough to ignore. Check this out if you can. It’s a classic for a reason.

If you liked this review, you can commission your own by messaging me on here or at my discord technicolormuk#655 for five dollars a comic story or animation episode. Whenever the ride resumes next, we’ll coming on down to the house of mouse to see the boys return to the screen. In the meantime keep an eye on this space for regular Ducktales reviews every Monday, including once this run ends as I intend to start playing catchup, loud house reviews whenever, my tom retrospective that’s returning soon, and my retrospective on the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with chapter 2 of that also coming soon. Until then, there’s always another rainbow.

#the three caballeros #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #donald duck #don rosa #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros ride again #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #daisy duck #mexico #comics #reviews #elmo keep

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star-felled · 3 years

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Cats 2019, but I try fixing the horrible script

Victoria in bag yeah whatever been there done that

Jellicles are and Jellicles do Je

Maybe the Jellicles introduce more of themselves and Misto's like "yeah that's my name lol but I'm also called Quaxo" segwaying into The Naming of Jellicles, OR cut out the song to make room for Pekes and Pollicles. Depends on how much runtime you're willing to have

Have Macavity watching but like not super obvious. He's watching from a distance instead of blatantly talking to Vic this time

Demeter can be worried about trusting Vic but if Munk trusts her then Dem trusts her

Misto's like "oh yeah almost time for the ball" Vic is like "wtf" and Munk explains and leads her to Jenny

NO EATING COCKROACHES

Tugger's still there, Jenny's like "how tf did you get inside my house. stop terrorizing the mice"

Tugger goes and does his song or whatever, Vic's expression is like "wtf is up with him" but Misto just shakes his head and calls him a bore

Tugger go "here Vic lemme show you how to have fun" and Vic lets herself go loose!! (and unfortunately joins Tug's fanclub)

Misto's like "UGH FUCK NO TUGGER NOT ANOTHER KIT (lovingly)" but everything's cancelled by Griz showing up

They do the Griz thing

Maybe Vic tries to touch Griz when Munk gently pulls Vic back, then she asks why Griz isn't cool anymore, but gets interrupted bc NO MORE "WENT WITH MACAVITY" HALF-ASSED EXPLANATION

A local building alarm goes off and Dem's like "MACAVITY" and Vic is like "WHO" and gets dragged off (spoiler alert it wasn't actually Macavity)

When they think they're a safe distance away they start Bustopher Jones but better

Maybe it could be like "ok we get you kits are scared but Jones is a respectful mature man he would take care of you" ((I oh-so desperately want Misto to excitedly agree bc uncle Bustopher hcs are the cutest))

LET MISTO FOLLOW THE MAN AROUND GODDAMMIT

When the rest of the cats are distracted Vic slinks off and meets Jerrie and Teazer. they cause chaos and honestly good on them

I like to think that, instead of the whole Vic getting stuck on bedpost thing, the twins try to bring her through the window but when they land they're caught and get reprimanded by Munk

Misto goes up to Vic like "that was fucking stupid of you now let's go meet ol doot"

Vic is like "uh okay (I've learned not to question things at this point)" and follows them, when she sees Deut she gets that fatherly vibe from him and starts to understand why they trust him

Deut goes "ohoho who do we have here" and when everyone excitedly introduces her he'd like,,, nuzzle her and go "welcome to the clan"

She's mystified and immediately trusts this man with her life cuz who wouldn't

Victoria watches Pekes and Pollicles performance bc it's a bop

Maybe bonding moment between Vic and Deut after the show where he's like "theyre a mess but they try and I love them for it"?

Tugger's like "DAADDDDD CAN WE START YET" and they start dancing,, Vic is all awed and then Deut goes "c'mon you're one of them now" and nudges her forward so she can join

It's a blast but in the middle of it Vic notices Griz in the background, so when everyone else goes to sleep she sneaks off Yet Again, this time Jemima following her cuz curious little kitten

They hear Griz sing and see her try to dance like the others, and they were gonna go invite her but then Deut taps em on the shoulder and says "we gotta wait for the others to accept her" except super vague. the kittens have no clue what he's on about but accepts it anyway cuz it's ol doot

I think keeping the choice be an audition sorta thing is fine, it kinda felt like that in the musical. just no more solos, no more solos ple

They're all just now waking up but Misto and Gus are Extra awake. like y'know when you go downstairs at like 7 am to get cereal, expecting no one else to be there but then There Is. they do that lil talk they do in the movie, dunno what I'd alter there quite just yet? Misto would be less outwardly anxious for sure though, gotta let the boy keep his calm

When it's like "ok who now losers" maybe Misto could start singing for Gus and hand it off to someone else after a line or two? then Gus gets his part and maybe we see some subtle character development coming out from Misto. show don't tell y'know that sorta thing

Gus is like "ok that's cool but I can think of another person to start singing now" and takes a seat when Munk gets the hint to start the next song

SKIMMMBLESHANKSSS THE RAIIILWAAAAY CATTTT THE C

The fake train they build gets fucking destroyed and it's bc MACAVITY

He runs around wreaking havoc, starts fighting with Munk but when Munk puts up a better fight than he expected he kidnaps Deut

Probably would've restrained Deut in some way before running around bc the guy could very easily beat him up

Anyways Macavity retreats and everyone's worried for Munk and Deut

Victoria's like "OH YEAH RIGHT WE HAVE MISTO" and he's like "????? you're asking me to teleport THE HOLY CHRIST HIMSELF??????" and starts mentally panicking

Tugger comes in like "oh but you OUGHT to ask mr mistoffelees the original conjuring cat there can be no dou

Bc he's hyped up Misto brings Deut back first try and gets more confidence in his abilities, we love a character arc

They go back to make the Jellicle Choice but then OH THERES GRIZABELLA and the clan is gonna kick her out but Victoria's like "no let her sing!!" but bc she's new no one cares but then JEMIMA goes "let her sing it's almost time!!! just this one bit plssss" and bc it's Jemima and they love Jemima they let Griz sing

Then she gets picked and cat god takes her away or whatever

Ol doot does the speech but like addressing the clan instead of breaking the 4th wall and then the movie ends and we DON'T have to deal with 10 minutes of end credits

✨ The end ✨

Extra notes / Things I'd change

Add in the bg interaction!!! That's what makes the 1998 version so fun, it allows the chorus cats to have so much personality despite only being bg characters

Pls for the love of all that is holy make the chorus cats more easy to distinguish and recognize, not only do they look different from the costumes of every other production Ever, they also all look the same as one another

If Misto still did that excited thing at the beginning of The Gumbie Cat I'd lose my marbles I think

Let Tugger interact with his dad more!!! Munk got so much interaction with Old Deut in the movie which I LOVED but Tugger got??? Nothing????? I get that Jason Derulo is expensive to keep on set but if you can put that much effort into that audio system you barely even used 4/5 of the functions of, you can spend a little on letting Tugger love his dad

We got so many Misto and Tugger interactions in the 2016 revival, is it too much to ask for that back... . ... .. ..

That's about it I think, I mostly made this for myself bc I've been thinking of making a fic based off this and wanted to give myself an outline :) I really like the idea of giving Victoria a story as to how she joined the jellicles but...... it was butchered so terribly..... .... .........

Anyways!! If you've got anything you wanna say or add on I'd love to hear it :DD (no pressure though ofc ^^)

#cats the musical #cats 2019 #cats victoria #please tell me thats the right tag to use for her ple #long post

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Many Saints of Newark Is a Trashy Gangster B-Movie, There’s Nothing Wrong with That

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When I first walked out of The Many Saints of Newark, my initial reaction was to call it a B-movie. What I didn’t say at the time, however, was how much I love B-movies. While I saw the flaws in the film and couldn’t wholly endorse it to cinemagoers spoiled by the perfection of The Godfather, Goodfellas, and New Jack City, I can wholeheartedly recommend it to people like me. Those who appreciate the low-budget gangster movies sometimes because of their warts. A majority of fans of The Sopranos will have the same reaction: Meh, The Many Saints of Newark could have been better. So when’s it playing next? I plan to see it again, more than once, on the big screen.

In one of the film’s quieter moments, the Soprano family is gathered around a TV set, watching the classic Key Largo (1948). The specific scene on the screen begins when Humphrey Bogart’s cynical combat veteran Frank McCloud defuses a tense situation with the gangster Johnny Rocco. Played by Edward G. Robinson, Rocco is very loosely based on Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the godfather of organized crime, who had been deported and barred from American soil. He is suffering the same doubts Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) worries about in the pilot episode of The Sopranos: Are the best days of this “thing” over?

All gangsters want, as the black and white film explains, is more. Will they ever get enough? They never have. I don’t suppose they will. It is the same for gangster genre fans. We want more. And it doesn’t have to be great. “I don’t want it good. I want it Tuesday,” Jack Warner famously said about the gangster films his studio excelled in. Warner Bros. invented the gangster genre, and I felt a thrill when their name came first on the screen during The Many Saints of Newark. WB’s Key Largo is a prestige film. It’s got John Huston directing, he’d go on to make amazing mob movies, culminating with his magnificent Prizzi’s Honor. Key Largo boasts an A-list offering with top stars like Lauren Bacall, Claire Trevor, and Lionel Barrymore. And it’s a pairing of two legends who take their performances seriously, and believe in the art of acting: Bogart and Robinson.

But Bogart and Robinson made four B-movie gangster classics before they made the prestigious Key Largo: Bullets or Ballots, Kid Galahad, Brother Orchid, and The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, which was so badly scripted that the two leads took to calling it “The Amazing Dr. Clitoris.” I’ve seen it eight times. Are there holes in the story? Of course. And they don’t get any better after the third viewing. What does get better is watching the performances of two professional actors in films they are on record as saying they did not like. Twice, as it turns out, because it was revived as a radio play a few years later, according to the book Bogart, by A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax.

Robinson played a psychiatrist, studying Bogart’s gangster, and the two characters bond while keeping a wary distance. This is very similar to the dynamic between Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) on The Sopranos. She even worried the mob boss was using their therapeutic sessions in the furtherance of crime, something Bogart’s character did in the B-movie gangster film, King of the Underworld, which is awful and I never miss. I love that movie, not in spite of Bogie’s misunderstanding of the meaning of “the moronic type,” but because of it. He doesn’t do that in other movies, even in the masterful B-movie gangster comedies, It All Came True and All Through the Night.

But Bogart also made Dead End (1937), a quality piece, which happens to be my favorite film, ever. Based on the play by Sidney Kingsley, it spends a lot of its time in the same way The Many Saints of Newark does: teaching the young generation how to be gangsters. This is seen even more blatantly in the film Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), which paired James Cagney with the Dead End Kids. But threads of this even reach the juvenile delinquent movie Blackboard Jungle, also not a big-budget film, but realistic enough to show the teenagers were actually moving swag for bigger names.

It happens in real life, the mob looks to street gangs for promising young movers. Future dons make their bones wearing colors. Gangster films capture this. From Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes) in Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City to Spike Lee’s Clockers, original gangstas groom carbon copies. Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) sees potential in young Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini) during The Many Saints of Newark. Great potential.

When Tony and his young gang hijack the Mr. Softee truck and give out ice cream to kids for free, it feels like The Sopranos creator and The Many Saints of Newark co-screenwriter, David Chase, was chasing the feel of the East Side Kids. Old Bowery Boys movies were aired weekly in the New York/New Jersey area when Tony was growing up, and all those movies were made by the icon of B-Movie studios, Monogram Pictures.

Monogram Pictures sat on Hollywood’s “poverty row,” and churned out pictures as fast as Detroit made cars. The Bowery Boys comedy troupe made almost a picture a month alone. But just like the Warner Brothers assembly line occasionally manufactured transcendent art, some of the cheapies are magnificently crafted. Sopranos fans should watch Angels in Disguise, one of the lesser-known gangster comedies, directed by Jean Yarbrough in 1949. It is, if not the first, one of the first mock-documentaries, and it is a good bet David Chase saw it, more than once. Leo Gorcey is even more of a master of the malaprop than Carmine Lupertazzi Jr. (Ray Abruzzo) on The Sopranos.

Monogram Pictures also caught the attention of French directors François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, who structured films based on their model, according to the book The Films of Jean-Luc Godard by Wheeler W. Dixon. It is no wonder, the studio’s almost-no-budget 1947 quickie Dillinger turned RKO contract player Lawrence Tierney into an icon of film noir. The Fall Guy, from the same year, dared to coke up the star Leonard Penn, and we’re not talking soda pop.

Also in 1947, 20th Century Fox’s low budget Kiss of Death introduced the screen audiences to the sadistic Tommy Udo. The role earned Richard Widmark an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and the admiration of “Crazy” Joe Gallo, whose insurrection against the Five Families of New York crime was the basis for Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.

Low budget studio production paved the way for the independent film movement in America, which The Many Saints of Newark proudly emulates. Director Alan Taylor recently admitted to Den of Geek that he’s “drunk deep at the well of Scorsese,” and we can see Mean Streets all over the Sopranos prequel. Also in evidence is Barry Shear’s Across 110th Street (1972), which pitted the Italian mob against Black gangsters; John Cassavetes’s 1976 indie classic, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie; The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), directed by Stuart Rosenberg; and Abel Ferraro’s King of New York (1990).

The Many Saints of Newark is also too closely related to Wim Wenders’ 1977 gangster film, The American Friend, which cut corners on plot points as much as it did on budget. Logic is replaced by street smarts, and continuity is a game of three card monte in B-movie gangster films. The Many Saints of Newark is not exempt. There is a scene where one mobster’s mistress is sleeping with the rival for his turf. Except for one rude stare, the audience doesn’t see it coming. But how it turns out, with the convenient surf and turf to cover the evidence, is telegraphed from a mile away.

Movies

Once Upon a Time in America Is Every Bit as Great a Gangster Movie as The Godfather

By Tony Sokol

Culture

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Real-Life and Pop Culture

By Tony Sokol

Arthur Penn’s genre-redefining Bonnie and Clyde came out in 1967, the same year as The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Roger Corman spared every expense for his B-movie mobsterpiece. There are scenes where it is visibly apparent that a fleet of vintage background cars are just the same few automobiles driven in circles around the set. I’ve seen both movies multiple times, and enjoy them equally each time.

Just because The Many Saints of Newark isn’t a perfect film does not make it less of a classic. It certainly doesn’t make it less appealing for repeated viewings. The film follows a grand tradition of gangster filmmaking: street legal over mainstream currency, it could have fallen off the back of a truck. I would love to see whatever scenes were cut to make it fit into a two-hour viewing, because the film felt rushed. But I will watch it again.

The Many Saints of Newark premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on Friday, Oct. 1.

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themattress · 3 years

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OUAT AND ME: SEASON 5

Story - The story for the first half of the season is the Dark Swan Saga and the story for the second half is the Underworld Saga. The Dark Swan Saga is split between a flashback story where the main characters travel to Camelot to help free Emma from the Dark One curse and a present day story where they are back in Storybrooke with no memories of their time in Camelot and Emma appears to have become a full-on villain who seeks to claim the power of the sword Excalibur for herself. The Underworld Saga is a direct follow-up to the Dark Swan Saga, as the heroes brave the dangers of the Underworld, a limbo zone between life and death that curiously appears to resemble Storybrooke, in order to retrieve a fallen friend.

The Dark Swan Saga...should not have happened. Or to put it more clearly, Emma should not have ever been the Dark One and Storybrooke should not have been a setting here at all, as it ends up ruining the potential inherit in a Camelot-based arc. And that potential is all over the place, everything about this show's interpretation of Camelot is subversive and unique and reminiscent of OUAT at its best, and yet it takes further and further of a backseat in favor of Emma as the Dark One....whenever it's not taking a backseat to elements from Disney/Pixar's Brave! Yes, this is a problem I neglected to point out when talking about Season 4: the Disney influence on the show that was always there in moderation has started to become more pronounced, and it's to the show's detriment. Brave isn't even an adapted story, not even loosely like Frozen was, it's a pure Disney/Pixar invention. And yet the show is linking it to Camelot and the legend of King Arthur!? Frankly, I find that to be a little insulting.

And on top of everything, the arc pulls a plot twist in the last third that is completely unnecessary and merely overcomplicates things while pleasing virtually no-one: Emma isn't evil at all, but Hook is because she turned him into a Dark One against his will in Camelot when he was dying of a mortal wound! Given that the arc was doing an equally asinine thing with Rumple in claiming that he had become a pure hero worthy of pulling Excalibur from its stone because he threw some magic dust at a bear, this twist just adds to already mounting frustration. And then they pull ANOTHER twist where after Hook comes to his senses and has his big self-sacrifice moment, we learn that Rumple was still evil all along and has invalidated Hook's sacrifice to destroy the Darkness by taking it all back, becoming the Darkest Dark One who is more powerful then ever before, with Belle being none the wiser.

So after that bullshit is through, we get the Underworld Saga and...it's honestly the best that OUAT has been since Season 3! It seriously feels like the Neverland Saga and the Wicked Saga mixed in a blender, and while that's not always ideal, for the most part it works perfectly. Many of the characters begin to feel like their old selves again, we actually start to get moments of hope and happiness back even amidst the bleakness of the setting, Zelena finally begins changing for the better, we get an influx of returning characters who - for the most part - it's great to see again, and we are provided with an excellent Big Bad, Hades.

But sadly, it was not to last. The Underworld Saga ends with a highly questionable decision, in the third-to-last episode, leaving just a two-part season finale left. If that decision hadn't been made and the show hadn't been renewed, we could have had ourselves a blowout finale that left most viewers satisfied. But because neither of those things happen, we instead get a weak finale which sets the stage for weak finales in the next two seasons as well, and all three of these finales hold elements that could have worked blended together into one finale, but are underwhelming when taken on their own. If there was any need to confirm that this show's best days were long behind it, this absolute joke of a finale was that confirmation.

Characters - Misery, misery, misery. That's what you've chosen.

* This is Emma Swan's worst season, bar none. From beginning to end, the writing is all about Emma Torture Porn, putting her through metaphorical and literal Hell and turning this once proud hero into a punching bag. No matter what she does, no matter what choice she makes, it's always the wrong way to do things and she is endlessly shamed for it. This is a natural follow-up to what was happening in Season 4, where the definition of Emma's role as "the Savior" underwent a drastic shift. Initially, it was simply to break the Dark Curse, but then Emma took control of her own destiny and redefined it to mean the protector of the residents of Storybrooke so that they can maintain their happy endings or be free to obtain them. But in Seasons 4 and 5, it suddenly got redefined as Emma being personally responsible for giving everyone their happy endings, her own happiness be damned. That's why she was obligated to sacrifice herself to the Dark One Curse for Regina, and why her being the Dark One instantly causes her to be treated as the worst Big Bad to ever menace Storybrooke despite barely doing anything actually villainous. In fact, "Emma gets punished for doing good" is a pretty recurring theme at this point. It's tiring to root for such a perpetually miserable heroine, and so while other things hold my investment in this season, Emma is sadly not one of them.

* Snow and Charming have one good episode in the Dark Swan Saga, but that's not enough to make up for what utterly boring characters and utterly horrible parents they are in every other episode. The fact that they don't lift a finger to find Emma, talk to her, and get her to see reason when they think she's evil is beyond disgraceful, especially when it happens in the same arc where them being written as surrogate parents to Regina is taken to a whole new level of creepy. Like, a sickening level of creepy. They are suddenly written well, in regards to their parentage of Emma and in regards to everything else, in the Underworld Saga, but again, the show not ending means that it's not going to last into the next story arc.

* Henry really comes into his own this season. Being written like a teenager instead of a child does wonders for his character, as even amidst fantastical fairy tale backdrops and with the magical position of Author, he struggles with real teenage issues that anyone who is or has ever been a teenager can relate to. He experiences his first crush, struggles with trying to stand as more of an equal with the adult heroes, and even undergoes what's basically a crisis of faith. And now that he's past puberty, Jared Gilmore is a much better actor than he's been in the past, finally selling the material that's written for his character the way it needs to be.

* Regina starts off in full Mary Sue mode, following up naturally from Season 4. "The Price" is an episode that is everything wrong with her character in microcosm. However, after a few episodes pass she settles down into a relatively inoffensive, bland character for the most part. In The Underworld Saga, there are even times when she is downright likable, which almost distracts from how ludicrously good she has it in a place that is allegedly full of her resentful victims, whom she does absolutely nothing to help. Unfortunately, because of the questionable decision that was made by the writers in the penultimate episode, the two-part finale brings her full circle, with both said finale and the show going forward suffering for it.

* If Rumple had a return to form in Season 4, then Season 5 makes the issues with his character in Season 3 look miniscule by comparison. His imp self, whether featuring in flashbacks or as the form the Darkness takes to needle Emma or Hook into embracing it, is still a delight that Robert Carlyle clearly enjoys playing. But his human self, Mr. Gold, is handled atrociously. First he is an over-the-top coward beyond what he ever was in the past, then insufferably smug about being a "hero" even though he doesn't deserve that position, then it looks like he might just make the final turn to good before he swings in the opposite direction and becomes the Darkest Dark One, and as the Darkest Dark One he is a cold, abusive dickwad who isn't fun to watch and Robert Carlyle doesn't seem to be having as much fun playing, as he starts phoning it in on more occasions than is usual for an actor of his caliber. It's only in the last five episodes, when Belle is taken out of the picture by a sleeping spell, that he suddenly regains some of his former glory and becomes engaging again, but even then the series not ending deprives him of a conclusion at a point where he could have one, so we're stuck with the Darkest Dark One for a whole 'nother season.

* Hook is mostly great in this season. In the Dark Swan Saga, he is badly handled and often behaving insufferable in the Storybrooke parts of the story, culminating in his turn as Dark Hook which, while Colin O'Donoghue performs it amazingly, was highly unnecessary and only serves to convolute an already heavily loaded arc at the last minute. However, in the Camelot parts of the story, he is on top form as a romantic hero, complete with his original pirate garb. And he really gets to shine in the Underworld Saga, where we see him be brave in the face of bloody torture, recover from depression and rediscover hope, find closure with his older brother Liam, confirm his and Emma's relationship as True Love, and finally be resurrected by Zeus after being ordained a True Hero by him. He sadly has precious little to do in the finale and next season will totally forget about all this, but taken on its own, it's good stuff.

* How do you solve a problem like Belle? Put her to sleep, apparently. Yes, after having her re-enter a romantic relationship with Rumple (following a ridiculous, not-fooling-anyone tease that maybe she won't take him back), Belle learns that she's been duped again since Rumple had taken back the Darkness before she slept with him. But it's too late now - she's pregnant with his child! And she learns this from Rumple, at the same time he reveals his deception to her and finally gives her a "This is who I am, take it or leave it" ultimatum. She spirals into an erratic mess, tries to redeem another bad boy romantic interest only to end up condemning his soul to the River Styx, and then puts herself under a sleeping spell after giving Rumple the extremely poorly-worded order to "do whatever it takes" to get her and their unborn child out of the Underworld safely. Rumple then literally objectifies her by placing her in Pandora's Box, which he lets slip through a portal in the season finale. And that's literally it. The writers aren't even trying with Belle. They just don’t care about her. She's done as a character.

* Robin Hood's soul is obliterated. I know it's weird to start off like this, with the last thing that happens to him in the season, but that really does overshadow what little else he does in the season where he was ironically made an "official" regular. This is the culmination of the misuse of his character: being made Deader than Dead by his rapist's psycho boyfriend. And yeah, the next two seasons retcon this fate, but when Season 5 is taken as is, then you enter the finale on a sour note because the bleakest thing possible happened to someone who really didn't deserve it, all so that Regina can make certain developments that would have better off not being made. It again makes me wish that Season 5 was the final season, since then there would be no option to make those developments and Robin could be spared. But as it stands, it's the last indignity inflicted upon the legendary hero, and on Sean Maguire.

* Zelena is promoted to regular this season, to the surprise of no-one. What is surprising is that the writing issues she had in the previous seasons are all but absent here. Zelena is an incredibly entertaining, funny, deliciously wicked, sympathetic, nuanced and ultimately redeemed character this season, with Rebecca Mader doing some of her best acting work. Her joining forces with the villainous King Arthur, her giving birth to her child, her tragic romance with Hades, and her reconciliation with her mother and sister are all highlights.

* Hades, the Big Bad of the Underworld Saga, is the best Big Bad this show has had since the Neverland Saga's Peter Pan. He's devious, underhanded and hateful, but he's also funny and smooth and, when it comes to Zelena, legitimately romantic. Greg Germann's performance is naturally the glue that holds it all together; he is just so charismatic. Hades is also a great example of a nuanced villain who doesn't end up getting redeemed, as in a great twist the curse that Zelena's True Love's Kiss breaks, a curse to stop his heart and dull his feelings, was put on him by Zeus for a damn good reason, as he is an absolutely sadistic psychopath with his heart beating. The only downside to Hades (besides the needless Disney-esque fiery blue hair effect they occasionally use on him) is that his defeat is rather anticlimactic, hinging entirely on the fact that he forged the only thing in existence that could kill him. If he hadn't made such a monumentally stupid blunder, taking him down would have been much harder. His actual death scene is well-done, but in context it’s pretty silly.

* Camelot introduces an onslaught on new characters: King Arthur who is reimagined as an insecure, self-righteous tyrant, and his wife Queen Guinevere whom he has under mind control so that she's unwaveringly loyal to him. There is also the short-lived Sir Percival, the even shorter-lived Sir Kay, and Sir Morgan who ends up being the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Sir Morgan's daughter, Violet, is Henry's adorkable new girlfriend. The nearby kingdom of Dunbroch gives us Merida and her father King Fergus, whom was surprisingly allowed to get killed off. And we even have some returning characters like Sir Lancelot (not killed by Cora after all), Mulan (suddenly a lone mercenary despite having last been seen joining the Merry Men), and Ruby (and oh boy, I'll get back to Ruby soon...)

Two absolutely pivotal characters to the show's overall lore are Merlin and Nimue. Merlin, who contrary to usual depictions is a young black guy, is the Sorcerer who was constantly alluded to in Season 4, responsible for such things as the position of the Author. His ex-lover Nimue became the first Dark One through drinking in the power of the Holy Grail and then perverting it for murderous vengeance. It was Merlin who reforged the Holy Grail into Excalibur afterward, then breaking it in half and creating the Dark One Dagger out of the top half. Nimue, meanwhile, is the closest to a Big Bad that the Dark Swan Saga has apart from Emma and Hook, influencing them as an avatar of the Darkness prior to her actual soul, still bonded to the Darkness, rejoining the land of the living alongside the other dead Dark Ones. With her ashen-gray face and creepy monotone voice, Nimue is a truly unsettling figure.

* While there are a few new characters encountered in the Underworld such as Hercules, Megara and Zeus, the main attraction is all of the returning dead characters they were able to get back on the show. Neal, Cora, Henry Sr., Peter Pan, Cruella De Vil, the Blind Witch, Prince James, Milah, Liam, Gaston, the Sorcerer's Apprentice....even obscure characters like Stealthy and Claude! Some are utilized better than others, but it's great to see all of them.

And then there's one living character whose return I could have done without - Dorothy Gale, who is even blander as an adult than she was as a child! And to add insult onto injury, the writers clearly set up a gay storyline between Mulan and Ruby in the Dark Swan Saga, only for Disney to apparently step in and not allow it since Mulan is in the Disney Princess lineup and her in a gay romance is bad for the brand (then why'd you allow her to have feelings for fellow Disney Princess Aurora then!?), and so out of nowhere we get the Ruby/Dorothy romance in the span of just a single episode. Watching Meghan Ory desperately attempt to act like she's in love with the wooden actress who plays Dorothy is painful to watch, and this being Ruby's final appearance just hammers how how utterly wasted this poor character was.

* The two-part season finale brings another unwelcome return: the Dragon from the abominable "Selfless, Brave and True" episode of Season 2 (like Lancelot, he is retconned into having survived). We are also introduced to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Land of Untold Stories in which they reside...and as I'll detail in my next post, this is a place and a concept that is so wasted, even by the standards set by this show, that it's mind-boggling. Last and most certainly least, we have the Evil Queen that Dr. Jekyll's serum brings out of Regina, with Lana Parilla in full camp mode while playing her. And after a fake-out where it looks like she's dealt with, she's shown to be alive and will be our next antagonist. Joy.

Atmosphere - Whether you like this season's atmosphere or not, there is no denying that it has distinct atmosphere: dark and morose and foreboding, to the point of bleakness, coupled with a sweeping epic and romantic feel. I personally feel like this atmosphere is perfectly appropriate when the stakes are raised so high and the show is dealing with two of the oldest mythologies in the world, Arthurian and Greek respectively, but it seems that too frequently the show doesn't know when to hold back and reign it in a little. This is especially the case in the final two episodes of each arc (not including the two-part season finale). I must definitely give props, however, to the designers of the Underworld's version of Storybrooke, or as fans liked to call it: "Scarybrooke". With the decaying buildings, red sky filter, and broken clock tower in the middle of the street, you really feel like the characters are traversing an eerie new world even though it's technically the regular old Storybrooke set that is being used.

Also, despite being featured in the wretched episodes "The Price" and "Dreamcatcher" and has the first part of the wretched finale named after it, I really like the usage of the song "Only You" by Alison Moyet. It adds kind of a (suitably romantic) theme song to the season.

Episode Quality - While the Dark Swan Saga may not be a good one overall, its episode quality is a mixed bag. "The Broken Kingdom" and "Nimue" are easily the best episodes, since they are almost exclusively focused on Camelot. "The Dark Swan" and "The Price" are easily the worst episodes, starting the arc on off the worst possible foot. "Dreamcatcher" and, especially due its Brave connections, "The Bear and the Bow" are vey weak episodes, while "Siege Perilous" and, in spite of its Brave connections, "The Bear King" are surprisingly strong episodes. And then there's the Dark Hook trilogy of "Birth", "Broken Heart" and "Swan Song", which have some amazing visuals, brilliant acting, and dramatically thrilling moments, but they unfortunately can't shake off just how badly the Dark Hook twist affects the story. I never liked the idea of making Emma the Dark One, but if the show was going to do that, then they should have gone the whole way with it rather than pull this kind of bait and switch.

The first four episodes of the Underworld Saga, dedicated to saving Hook, are its strongest: "Souls of the Departed", "Labor of Love", "Devil's Due" and "The Brothers Jones" flow really well into one another and all have their share of memorable moments and interesting character development. "Our Decay" and "Sisters" are also strong episodes, although they have some drawbacks such as a well-acted but painfully uncomfortable scene between Rumple and Belle in the former and the inexplicable wasting of Prince James in the latter. "Her Handsome Hero" and "Ruby Slipper" are the only truly weak episodes in the arc, and even they have their moments, usually courtesy of Hades. Finally, the climactic "Firebird" and "Last Rites" are of the same quality - everything that transpires in the Underworld is fantastic, but everything that doesn't is flawed. The flashback in the former is completely nonsensical and does Emma's character a huge disservice, which is especially a shame when her present-day material is some of her best in the season. The Storybrooke-based events in the latter culminate in Robin Hood's death and I've already made my thoughts known about that, but the quest in the Underworld shared between Hook and Arthur is something I never knew I needed, with Colin O'Donoghue and Liam Garrigan's chemistry being off the charts and the resolution we get for both the Underworld and Arthur's character being absolutely perfect.

And then there's the two-part finale, "Only You" and "An Untold Story", which I think actually holds up even worse than it did when it first aired. Emma revealing to everyone else that Hook is back alive, Rumple absorbing all Storybrooke's magic into the Olympian Crystal, Emma and Regina's argument that makes Henry think Regina is regressing, Henry blaming magic for everything and setting out with Violet on a quest to destroy it, and both the heroes and Rumple reacting accordingly all happens within the first 10 minutes. Just 4 minutes later, Emma and Regina are in Boston, Henry and Violet are in New York, and Snow, Charming, Hook and Zelena are in the Land of Untold Stories. And then, despite all this rushing, we end up spending 7 fucking minutes on a woe-is-me, martyr complex speech by Regina to Emma in Neal's old apartment. Regina and her angst ends up slowing down the second part as well, as the process of her using Jekyll's serum and separating the Evil Queen from her (encouraged by a re-idiofied Snow) goes on forever. The final scene being the Evil Queen's return, with her promising to be the next Big Bad to threaten Storybrooke, is the exact opposite of how to get me hyped for next season. At least with Season 4′s finale, there was the promise of going to Camelot in addition to Emma as the Dark One. What does this finale have to accompany the Evil Queen factor? Mr. Hyde and his invisible friends? Weak!

There are some elements in this finale that work and that I would have liked to see in a series finale at this point - Henry and Violet hanging out together, Rumple with his Olympian Crystal plot, Neal having some posthumous relevancy, the Land Without Magic outside Storybroke being a setting, and the full-circle element in regards to "New York City Serenade". But none of those things are worth how they were utilized here, alongside the reappearance of the Dragon, the wasting of the Land of Untold Stories, and Henry's cringe-inducing speech about believing in magic that Jared Gilmore probably won't be putting on any career highlight reels.

Overall - Season 5 is probably the most personally frustrating season of the show to me. I love it, I hate it, I find joy in it, I find despair in it, I can enjoy it for what it is while also agonizing over what it could have been. The one consistent I have in regards to it is that it should have been the final season of the show. If Adam and Eddy had allowed that, they still would have had enough goodwill from viewers to potentially do more in the OUAT universe afterward (ex: more spin-offs like Once Upon a Time in Wonderland; maybe one where they could utilize their Land of Untold Stories idea which seems tailor-made for an anthology series). Because as lows as this season's low points are, its highs are not going to be matched by the next two seasons, and that was the death of OUAT as a profitable franchise.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #OUAT and Me #Opinion #Analysis

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charcubed · 4 years

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Frank Hudson, Greta, Margaret, & Mary

(PSA: If you’ve been tagged in this post, it’s because I’m crediting you or linking to a meta you wrote! I particularly linked a lot of things at the end I think could be tangentially related. No pressure to read all of this!)

Please allow me to take you on a journey in which I present a theory:

Mary is Frank Hudson’s daughter from a relationship with another woman, and part of her motivation (as a villain, as Moriarty’s agent/possible successor) is to get revenge on Sherlock for having killed her father all those years ago and ruining the drug cartel empire.

I was calling this a crack theory, but uh, given that I’ve now written thousands of words connecting weird dots, I’m gonna say maybe this is potentially not as far-fetched as I initially thought.

Before Sherlock series 4 came out, we were given this delightful niche little “clue” in a Youtube video on the official channel:

It’s always struck me as odd that this was specifically shown in a video advertising / leading up to series 4... when it seemingly never connected to anything. Why this, of all things?

Let’s review what we know about Mr. Frank Hudson.

• He was sentenced to death in Florida; Sherlock ensured his execution. (ASiP)

• He was executed for double murder and the execution was via lethal injection. He was arrested for “blowing someone’s head off.” (TSoT)

• According to Mrs. Hudson, about their relationship: “It was just a whirlwind thing for us. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I just got sort of swept along. And then we moved to Florida. We had a fantastic time, but of course I didn’t know what he was up to” and “It was purely physical between me and Frank. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” What Frank was “up to” included a drug cartel and “all the other women.” (TSoT)

• Mrs. Hudson was a typist in Frank’s drug cartel (and an exotic dancer, which is in YouTube videos in-universe). This is also the scene where she’s present to hear enough to figure out that Mary shot Sherlock; in the original script, it’s made obvious that she was eavesdropping even after walking out. (HLV)

• We’re also given repeated reminders in TLD that Mrs. Hudson was/is somewhat of a badass. She tells Sherlock “you’re not my first smackhead, Sherlock Holmes,” and whether or not any of that (the revolver, the kidnapping of Sherlock, the car) is actually literally real, I take it mostly as a blatant reminder that Mrs. Hudson has a past filled with “not good” people.

A lot of this info is given in more comedic moments... but I think because it is repeatedly mentioned with consistent detail, especially largely in season 3 when Mary arrives (partially to mirror John/Mary’s doomed relationship), it shouldn’t be swept aside.

Speaking of Mary, let’s get into it.

In ACD’s The Sign of Four, Mary Morstan’s story centers heavily around the loss of her father. That’s also the story that involves the Agra treasure, and Mary notably receives 6 pearls in the mail as part of the mystery. Keep all of this in mind because it’s going to be relevant as we go.

First, let’s roll all the way back to The Abominable Bride.

(All transcripts I will be quoting are from the inimitable Ariane DeVere.)

Giles, & Morse Hudson

The abominable bride herself–who I trust we all know mirrors Mary at this point lol–stands on the balcony and aims her guns at people on the street while saying “You?” / “You, or me?” One of the people she aims at is this man, who is listed in the credits as Giles. I always found it odd that he was named, so I decided to look him up in relation to Sherlock Holmes.

“Giles” connects to Giles Conover, the criminal in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes movie The Pearl of Death. That movie is loosely based on ACD’s The Adventure of the Six Napoleans. In the movie, Giles (who is not in the ACD story) stole the Borgia Pearl and hid it in a bust of Napoleon. In case there’s any doubt, we can know for a fact that Moffat and Gatiss are familiar with this movie because they referenced it in TGG previously; the Golem assassin is a nod to The Creeper.

So I was like, why that movie specifically? What’s significant, and how would that connect to the bride?

And as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now... they later referenced that movie again in TST. The writers called back to both the ACD story and the 1944 movie, very specifically.

Referenced movie details I noticed in TST include the following: Sherlock calls Lestrade “Giles.” The Borgia Pearl (movie phrasing, as opposed to “the black pearl of the Borgias”) is mentioned multiple times; we’ll go back to that. We are also pointedly told by Ajay that one of the members of AGRA was killed via a broken back, which is how a murder happens in the 1944 movie.

As for TST’s references to the original Napoleon story by ACD... there are many, but there’s one thing they pointedly didn’t reference (unless I missed it) that I find interesting: in the ACD story, 3 of the 6 busts were at the shop of a Morse Hudson. Beppo, the criminal in the story, worked at Morse Hudson’s shop to have access to the locations of those 3 busts. Even in The Six Thatchers version on John’s blog, Beppo is the criminal but Morse Hudson was not mentioned.

So I thought... alright, Morse? What morse code have we seen in the show? Well, there’s UMQRA, from The Hounds of Baskerville.

I poked around and some genius anon on @inevitably-johnlocked‘s blog once said that if you encode UMQRA with HOUND using a vigenere cypher, you get BAKED. Mary bakes her own bread, according to Sherlock’s deductions in TEH. The abominable bride, in the above scene, shoots at/into a bakery.

Edit: @rosie_ww on Twitter aka @silverybees pointed me to this, from THoB:

SHERLOCK: You’ve been to see Mr Chatterjee again.

MRS HUDSON: Pardon?

SHERLOCK: Sandwich shop. That’s a new dress, but there’s flour on the sleeve. You wouldn’t dress like that for baking.

(Friendly reminder that shortly thereafter we find out that Mr. Chatterjee has other women)

Does this morse code / BAKED business necessarily mean anything by itself? No, and of anything in this post, it’s the biggest stretch. But it’s still kind of wild, because let’s recap so far:

• We have Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, a story which is heavily referenced in TST

• TST heavily connects to Mary / AGRA (we’ll get to how specifically)

• TST also heavily connects to The Pearl of Death, which connects to TAB

• And not only that, but The Pearl of Death connects to the exact scene in TAB where the bride shoots @ Giles and the bread shop. The bread shop could connect to the UMQRA morse code in the show... meaning “Morse” (code, and therefore Hudson) could then connect to Mary.

Morse Hudson -> The Six Napoleons -> TST -> The Pearl of Death (“Giles” etc.) -> TAB (“Giles”) -> Mary, the bride

Oh what a tangled web we weave. That’s a Hudson to Mary.

But let’s keep going. Better stuff to come.

The Black Pearl of the Borgias In TST

Let’s play the game of following the trail of the Black Pearl. Shout out to @miadifferent and @impossibleleaf, because their combo post here I came across was very helpful for showing me the best way to write this out to make it easily understandable. I will be quoting / paraphrasing them below!

The first time we hear about the Pearl, it’s from Mycroft, who connects it to Moriarty’s final activities:

MYCROFT: In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations over 70 assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias, which is still missing by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical.

We also learn that the Pearl is somehow connected to London.

HOPKINS: Interpol think, the case of the Borgia Pearl trail leads back to London, so..

So we have Moriarty -> Black Pearl -> London...

And next up, there’s Sherlock’s “fake” deduction about Greta Bengtsdotter (who has always very obviously made us all think about Mary.)

SHERLOCK: Your wife is a spy. That’s right. Her real name is Greta Bengtsdotter. Swedish by birth and probably the most dangerous spy in the world. She’s been operating deep undercover for the past four years now as your wife for one reason only: to get near the American embassy which is across the road from your flat. Tomorrow the U.S. president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment insider her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilize the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable thus precipitating World War 3.

The name “Greta” is derived from the name Margareta, which comes from the Greek word margarites. It means pearl. Further versions of this name are Margarita / Margaret / Maggie.

Thus, we add her in: Moriarty -> Greta -> Black Pearl -> London

So when Sherlock finds the AGRA stick in the busts of Margaret Thatcher, he says to Mary...

SHERLOCK: I was so convinced it was Moriarty, I couldn’t see what was right under my nose. I expected a pearl.

Sherlock expected to find a pearl (Greta / a spy), but instead he found AGRA/Mary’s identity. He actually found what he was looking for, but he just didn’t recognize it.

And it actually still makes sense:

Margaret Thatcher’s bust -> Black Pearl -> Greta (“pearl”, spy) -> Mary (spy) -> AGRA memory stick

That’s how it went in the plot. It’s a subconscious connection.

So what’s ACD have to say about all that then?

This is the point where I remind you...

So all of this does have connections back to ACD canon; who is surprised?

But what do we know about Mary’s past from the show’s canon in His Last Vow? Let’s look at some other reminders.

SHERLOCK: By your skill set, you are – or were – an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You’re on the run from something; you’ve used your skills to disappear; Magnussen knows your secret, which is why you were going to kill him; and I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him.

MAGNUSSEN: All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh! She’s gone a bit... freelance now. Bad girl.

Mary’s not English; she could be Swedish, she could be American, but regardless–Sherlock deduced she’s a linguist in TEH. And either way, she’s worked for America.

Americans crop up a weird amount in BBC Sherlock (and ACD canon too really), and usually in negative contexts. I just want to highlight one American connection from The Abominable Bride, about Emilia Ricoletti:

SHERLOCK: So she decided to make her death count. She was already familiar with the secret societies of America and was able to draw on their methods of fear and intimidation to publicly – very publicly – confront Sir Eustace Carmichael with the sins of his past.

HOOPER: He knew her out in the States. Promised her everything... marriage, position – and then he had his way with her and threw her over, left her abandoned and penniless.

Also, where was it that Mr. Hudson had his drug cartel? Oh yeah. Florida.

We’ll go back to that.

More Margarets In BBC Sherlock

So we’ve officially got one connection where Margaret relates to Mary. TST makes that pretty clear.

Now, where else have we encountered the name Margaret in the show?

Three places (at least, that I’ve caught):

1. A Study In Pink.

The first victim of Jeff Hope the serial killer is Sir Jeffrey Patterson. He was having an affair with his personal assistant Helen, despite being married to his wife Margaret Patterson.

It’s a well-known fact in this fandom that the victims in ASiP are considered mirrors for John Watson, highlighting things that would lead to his own unhappiness/death–possibly even by suicide. (TJLCE video) So, let’s say Jeffrey Patterson is a mirror for John.

Helen the personal assistant (who says “I love you”) is, perhaps, a mirror for Sherlock. She’s wearing a deep purple shirt.

Does that connect Margaret Patterson, who insists her husband was happy, to Mary?

MARGARET PATTERSON: My husband was a happy man who lived life to the full. He loved his family and his work – and that he should have taken his own life in this way is a mystery and a shock to all who knew him.

[looks at John’s unhappiness in HLV after a month of marriage, looks at series 4 theories about John faking his suicide / trying to commit suicide, laughs nervously]

Well. Moving on.

2. The Hounds of Baskerville.

Project HOUND was a CIA Classified / American project that Major Barrymore was involved in. The Major is apparently a fan of Margaret Thatcher, and the password to his laptop is Maggie. Sherlock types “Margare” then hesitantly backtracks and writes Maggie and it works. It’s worth noting that in the script it was drafted to just be Margaret.

3. The Sign of Three.

MRS. HUDSON: My best friend, Margaret – she was my chief bridesmaid. We were going to be best friends forever, we always said that; but I hardly saw her after that. [...] She cried the whole day, saying, “Ooh, it’s the end of an era.” She was probably right, really. I remember she left early. I mean, who leaves a wedding early?

So in BBC Sherlock, the name Margaret is connected to...

• The Margaret Thatcher busts in The Six Thatchers, which connects to Mary/AGRA/pearls/Greta the Swedish spy

• Margaret Patterson, the wife of a mirror for John who was the victim of murder that masqueraded as suicide. This Margaret insists that the John mirror was happy in their marriage, but the John mirror was having an affair with a Sherlock mirror

• Project HOUND, of the CIA. I find this exceedingly interesting because the name "Margaret” has connections to Moriarty/Mary, and this could mean it’s safe to guess that this case is/was connected to the wider Moriarty web. We see Sherlock hallucinate Moriarty when drugged by the fog, sure, but otherwise Moriarty’s handiwork supposedly isn’t involved in this case... but maybe it was indirectly, by Mary in the CIA. Just ruminating.

• Margaret was Mrs. Hudson’s best friend, who left the wedding early when Mrs. Hudson and Frank got married

Re: that last bullet point, here is what I am suggesting as a possibility: Margaret was one of Mr. Hudson’s “other women.” Margaret left the wedding early because she was sad about the marriage, obviously, but maybe she wasn’t in love with Mrs. H like we would naturally assume (per Sherlock leaving the wedding early because he loves John). Maybe Margaret was in love with Mr. Hudson.

Maybe Mary is the daughter of Margaret and Mr. Hudson, and (as previously stated) she’s motivated to get revenge on Sherlock for killing her father and ruining the drug cartel empire. Who knows what would’ve happened to her mother Margaret, in that case, too.

This is speculation, of course, yes. Yet [waves to all the ridiculous web of connections I’ve delved deeply into, and the Frank Hudson hangman] can you blame me?

But, maybe you’re wondering... why would I think she’s the daughter of a Hudson specifically, even aside from all this Margaret stuff?

Well.

Hudsons In ACD Canon

Where is the name “Hudson” used in ACD canon, other than for Mrs. Hudson?

Three places (that I’ve caught; my ACD canon knowledge is limited):

• Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, as discussed above; not mentioned in BBC Sherlock canon for some reason, yet strongly tied to the story that inspired TST.

• A name drop of “Hudson” in The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips.

Quick run-down of some aspects of this case: the client, John Openshaw, asks Holmes for help because a series of mysterious letters seems to be connected with the recent suspicious deaths of his uncle Elias and his father Joseph. The letters included 5 orange pips, and KKK on the envelope. When his uncle received his letter, he burnt a bunch of secret personal papers. One paper survived; it’s on that paper that we see Hudson’s name, associated with the KKK, and otherwise oddly unrelated to the case.

Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:

“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.

“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine.

“9th. McCauley cleared.

“10th. John Swain cleared.

“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”

Here are other ~features of interest~ in this case to me: Openshaw’s uncle Elias was a planter in Florida for many years. Florida is mentioned by Holmes as a “notable” state where the KKK formed a branch; the others are Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Georgia (hello to Tbilisi, Georgia being in TST seemingly at random). It is also mentioned that the fear of someone or something is what drove Elias from America to England. There’s also a very random name drop of “Mary” in this story that doesn’t relate to the case, told as part of Openshaw’s story, in which I can only assume Mary was a maid?

OPENSHAW, QUOTING UNCLE ELIAS: “They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’

The fact that the name Mary manages to be in this cracks me up.

The orange pips / secret societies in America / etc. all heavily tie into The Abominable Bride, and the women’s hoods were visually reminiscent of the KKK. Sir Eustace’s line in TAB of “Death” (when he receives the pips) is a direct quote from Elias in this story when he receives his pips–and a quote that Mary echoes in TST when she completes Vivian Norbury’s sentence in the aquarium.

VIVIAN NORBURY: I’m just like the merchant in the story. I thought I could outrun the inevitable. I’ve always been looking over my shoulder; always expecting to see the grim figure of...

MARY: Death.

So, in summary we have: a name drop of Hudson in a story that factors in Florida, Georgia, pips, secret societies, the KKK, and even a name drop of Mary.

• Hudson is the criminal in The Adventure of the Gloria Scott.

This case is the one Holmes credits as his first case, and it inspired his future profession. He’s telling Watson the story. It happened in his university days and centers on his friend Victor Trevor (TFP says hi, lmao). More specifically, it centers on Victor Trevor’s father. I won’t go into all the details, and the plot summary on Wikipedia is good if you’re curious, but–

A quick run-down of some ~features of interest~ in this case: Mr. Trevor the elder is being blackmailed by the criminal Hudson because of their old criminal past together with others. Hudson is threatening him with exposure / public shame, and Mr. Trevor is forced to employ him. Victor gets pissed about it and eventually upsets Hudson enough that Hudson leaves in a very “this isn’t over” kind of way. Later, Mr. Trevor dies from a stroke after receiving a letter that threatened him via a skip code. It is a skip code of specifically every third word, beginning with the first.

Full skip code message: "The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."

Decoded message: "The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life."

(It’s not a game anymore...)

Who do we have in show canon who recognizes a skip code on sight of specifically every third word, beginning with the first?

All together now: Mary.

(Bonus points for “Save John Watson” being the phrase Mary says in her creepy posthumous DVDs. Bonus points x2 for the fact that this text was sent by Magnussen, the “Napoleon of blackmail,” to Mary when he was supposedly trying to find Sherlock’s pressure point. But anyway!)

Another feature of interest about the Gloria Scott case: Holmes deduces that Mr. Trevor was once connected to someone with the initials J.A. whom he wanted to forget, guessing it was an old lover. Mr. Trevor momentarily faints in shock. Holmes guessed this based on an old arm tattoo that Mr. Trevor had tried to get rid of, where the initials are blurry. This later turns out to be wrong, because Mr. Trevor’s previous name was James Armitage–J.A.–when he was a criminal, and that is the reason behind the tattoo. (JA? AJ / Ajay? Much to think about)

The J.A. tattoo deduction was referenced in The Six Thatchers, when Sherlock deduces that the client had a Japanese girlfriend he is now indifferent about.

SHERLOCK: You’ve got a Japanese tattoo in the crook of your elbow in the name ‘Akako.’ It’s obvious you’ve tried to have it removed.

KINGSLEY: But surely that means I wanna forget her, not that I’m indifferent.

SHERLOCK: If she’d really hurt your feelings, you would have had the word obliterated, but the first attempt wasn’t successful and you haven’t tried again, so it seems you can live with the slightly blurred memory of Akako, hence the indifference.

I’m bothering to highlight this in TST because after Sherlock explains it, the client remarks upon it being “simple”... and that’s when Sherlock immediately launches into his ~fake~ long-winded deduction about his wife being Greta the spy, as I already talked about above. Wild.

One last fascinating thing about the Gloria Scott: this case is referenced in 2 other ACD stories–The Sussex Vampire (John texting in TST), and The Musgrave Ritual (TFP). Gotta love that.

So, uh, what if Mrs. Hudson’s “case” (getting her husband executed) was one of Sherlock’s “firsts” that inspires him to become a consultive detective full-time? We’re told in ASiP that he ensured Frank Hudson’s execution “a few years back.” The inexactness of that year amount drives me bonkers, but I think it’s potentially plausible.

Short Coda: Ghost Stories...

In Mr. Trevor’s reply to Holmes’ (incorrect) J.A. tattoo deduction, he includes the following line:

“Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”

Mark Gatiss talked a lot about ghost stories. In the Sherlock Chronicles book (which I own) teasing series 4, he said, “I can certainly give you one word. Ghosts...” and in this interview he said “There’s a conspiracy theory about everything and they’re almost the modern equivalent of ghost stories. And the great thing is, you can have all the tropes of a ghost story. . . There are lots of people in happy marriages who turn out to have terrible secrets or to have done some awful deed in the past that must be paid for in the present. In Doyle’s stories, those are the ghosts you need to worry about.”

And here are the lines we get from Holmes in The Abominable Bride about ghosts (that aren’t literal):

You may, however, rest assured there are no ghosts in this world... Save those we make for ourselves.

We all have a past, Watson. Ghosts – they are the shadows that define our every sunny day. Sir Eustace knows he’s a marked man.

The avenging ghost – a legend to strike terror into the heart of any man with malicious intent; a spectre to stalk those unpunished brutes whose reckoning is long overdue.

While typing, I’ve now galaxy-brained my way to the realization that Mrs. H was canonically an “abominable bride” to Frank Hudson and literally murdered him (with Sherlock’s help), just like the women in the special. She’s also shown as one of the women ignored/disparaged in the special (”I’m your landlady, not a plot device”) but just isn’t shown in the crypt/society. So that’s, uh... interesting.

In (Semi-)Conclusion: A Summary

We have the following significant points at minimum:

• A Frank Hudson clue in a series 4 video

• One reference where Mary is undeniably connected to a Hudson who was a criminal in ACD canon (skip code)

• One ACD Hudson who was heavily connected to The Six Napoleons story, aka The Six Thatchers

• One ACD Hudson name-dropped in a story that heavily connects to The Abominable Bride, and Florida

• A bizarre pile of evidence that all Margaret mentions in the show could relate back to Mary the ex-CIA spy, in some way or another

• A Margaret connected to Mrs. Hudson who could’ve been in love with Frank Hudson (in Florida)

• The overall theme of s4 being ghosts from past deeds and un(happy) marriages coming to haunt people. And lest we forget, “ghost” Mary literally haunts Sherlock and John after her “death.”

Does that cover it? I feel like that covers it.

Of course, I absolutely could be reading into a ton of things that are unrelated, but... Who is to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Random Related Stuff

Not required reading, but while poking around, I’ve found other things that could or could not connect to the above theory. I’m just gonna... info dump it right here. It could all be meaningless, it could all connect, it could be unrelated! You decide! Lots of meta links involved below, so credit where credit is due.

• I knew I wasn’t the first to come up with this concept/possibility of Mary being a Hudson. While building this post, I ran a search and came across this old one by @the-7-percent-solution, who posited there’s a letter game at play of AEIOU involving Mary’s monstrous regiment of various characters and connects Amo/Love to Mary. I love this concept, and while I do think there are other elements/aspects in play for the plot besides just this, that post still has pieces that can work nicely; doesn’t matter that it was written before TFP aired.

• Frequently thinking about how Sherlock said “Mrs. Hudson? Leave Baker Street? England would fall,” because what does Mrs. Hudson do in TLD? She leaves Baker Street.

• All of the above cursed elements haunt me. (Arwel’s Instagram post was April of this year.) Note: there’s another tweet Arwel jokingly posted of this photo years ago, but that tweet’s caption was connected to Brexit based on dates / my memory (i.e. “England has fallen”), so I’m not including it lol.

• In TFP, when Mrs. Hudson is vacuuming, she’s listening to Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” The lyrics we get are “666, the Number of the Beast. Hell and fire was spawned to be released.” The other time 666 is mentioned was by Mary in TST, in reference to Rosie.

• Mrs. Hudson is in the center of the 221B promo pic for series 4, as noticed by @sherlocks-salty-blog.

• This cursed pic of Mary’s "ring from her past” on top of a series 4, episode 3 script (??) that Amanda took has haunted me since she tweeted it. Mary wears this ring on-screen in TEH, and you can see it when Sherlock deduces her.

• The Gabrielle Ashdown passport (in TST) is from America.

• Janine (who many of us notice is likely involved with Mary / Moriarty of course) often wears pearls, as @sherlockmeta noticed. Mary also wears pearl earrings in series 4 promo shots but never in s4 episodes (that I can find/remember). I also always think that Mary and Mrs. Hudson are dressed very similarly in s4 promo images (see all promos here).

• @raggedyblue discussed how Sherlock’s window deduction in TLD sounds a lot like Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen in 221A, and how a sheet of paper being pinned/folded is an opposite element in ACD’s The Sign of Four. The re-folded paper was a map leading to the AGRA treasure, and Mary found it in her father’s desk. Brilliant catch. Of course, in the show, the paper says Miss Me which is also heavily connected to Mary.

• The mystery of the little girls with blond and braided hair, as compiled by @ebaeschnbliah, is also going to haunt me. I suggest reading the post, but minor summary: during s4 setlock, there was filming with Ben and Mark at Ogmore Castle with a little girl "wearing a skirt or dress, and her hair was blonde and in pigtails,” and she was running circles around Sherlock. There are two separate reports from people who saw this and mentioned it had to do with Mary; at first glance it bears similarities to Eurus scenes we got in TFP, but seems different in description. This also brings to mind the little girl with blonde braided hair in TEH at the bonfire, who notably wears a bright red jacket just like Mary. And there’s also a doll with blond braided pigtails in Magnussen’s mind palace.

• @gosherlocked has posts about “The Children of Sherlock” (part 1)(part 2) that highlight how children are frequently victims in this show. Metaphorically, I find this interesting if Mary plays a role of a “wronged child” avenging her father, regardless of age.

• Let’s talk music in TLD–or at least, one piece of it. When Mrs. Hudson drops the teacup, Mozart’s “Andante From Piano Concerto #21” plays. That specific second movement was used in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan. Sweden, of course, immediately reminded me of Greta the spy (aka Mary) being Swedish. After I realized this info, I ran a search to see if anyone else had mentioned this movie and I found this post, where @tjlcisthenewsexy and @possiblyimbiassed discussed how it’s a story of 2 doomed lovers who die via suicide-by-revolver. This is significant because Sherlock drops a revolver to catch the tea; death replaced by (gay) love?

• Speaking of Sweden: in The Game Is Now, Sherlock is abroad in Sweden. This is mentioned more than once: first, in this audio message between Sherlock and Mycroft (“Sweden sends its regards.” “It does?” “No, not really.”). This audio message also includes “This is not an international game of sardines.” Fish reference? Aquarium?

The second Sweden mention is visually, in this video. See below. (Also, in both, the characters say “real people,” which I can’t help but feel is a fourth wall break of them being fictional?)

I hate this Sweden stuff specifically. Thank you.

This post is so much longer than I expected it would be, thank you for reading all of this if you did, Johnlock is real, Mary is a villain, etc.

Come yell at me on Twitter @CharCubed!

Also, I made a secret sideblog @frankhudson to just reblog meta or info I might want to be able to find later lmao. Feel free to poke around if you want.

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faejilly · 4 years

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I was tagged by @la-muerta & @facialteeth & @thedivinemissema for the WIP/Title Game

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and i’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

AND THEN by @shadoedseptmbr @msviolacea & @ravenclawnerd for the “stories you want to write... but for some reason haven’t yet”

so this will be a mish-mash of both? The WIPs will mostly have blurbs in this case (to fit the second meme) but you are still welcome to ask follow-up questions, if you’d like ;) Assuming you make it through the list, it is uh. Not Short.

Anyone who would like to play with their WIPs, please consider yourself tagged in either or both of these. :D

Misc Fic Folder:

“untitled document” - where I’m working on fictober fills so I have word-counts for my GYWO tracker. I am not working on these because Brains Are Dumb and also Going Back To Work Is Exhausting

I made a file called “YULETIDE!” which has nothing in it but I’m determined to finish this year so that is definitely technically a thing in the Unending WIP List of Doom worth mentioning. (Tho obviously that’s all I could say even if I had started, because anonymous.)

“coda-fics, rewatch!” -yes, that exclamation mark is important! it’s to keep me motivated! (it didn’t work). Much like untitled, this is for putting stuff so I can do word count tracking even if I don’t know what I’m doing. Currently I think it just says “MARYSE” because I was working on my SH 1x6 coda-fic and then got distracted and haven’t typed anything up yet. (Yay notebooks? Boo notebooks? Not even sure at this point.)

WNIP (works not in progress) Folder:

“TOG” - I had one vivid mental image of how Nicky & Joe met (blood-stained evil smiles?) but then no idea for a follow-up story and also the fandom is insane and I’m not sure I want to deal with all of *gestures vaguely* all that

“Shan Xia Notes” -for a TTRPG that never quite got off the ground; she was a semi-tragic selkie who was still in love with the evil queen/lady who stole her skin and I got to play her for like one session and she was surprisingly chaotic neutral, which wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. But the game never really got off the ground, so I never had enough info to really delve into writing backstory fic

“post-Kruschev” -Kruschev’s List was the last episode of Scarecrow & Mrs King, and I was debating writing an epilogue in place of the s5 we never got, to try and tie up some loose ends, but the fandom’s three old-ladies in trench coats and I never quite worked up the gumption to get it anywhere

“Code Realize warm as silk sequel” -there is literally nothing in this file except “SEX! Only a little angst” because I wanted to write some “we can’t actually touch each other” smut but never actually did. 🤷‍♀️

BioWare (also all Not-In-Progress Anymore)

“seb/adelaide”, “Theia” & “DAI Erana” -these WIP folders were cannibalized for ficlets for the last few times I did fictober, and while originally I had ideas for longer epilogues for all three of them, at this point I don’t think any of the remaining bits could support a story any longer.

”whispers in the dark” -Maia Ryder never really got much fic at all; the cancellation of any further Andromeda stuff was really disheartening, and at this point I’d have to play the game again, and I don’t think I’m gonna manage that any time soon

”TSP” -a Mass Effect 3 Shepard AU collab project that kind of went off the rails, and our mutual brains/lives never quite seem to line up so we can try and rebuild it ”Ngaio & Tane” -my one truly ruthless Shepard (Alliance background, who romanced Traynor) whose father Tane Shepard was, I think, in PsyOps, and I wanted to figure out their complicated relationship but never really did know where I was going with it

”JE Zu & Yaling” -so I’ve rambled about my Tragic Sagacious Zu Romance Thoughts regarding Jade Empire more than once (#Icy Yaling should have most of it) but apparently I want to yell about it more than I want to actually write it? Whoops.

”CI sequel: 5 times fic?” -Cruel Intentions is a kinkmeme fill that I started and then it sat for like five years before I actually finished it, and I liked the ending, but it does leave a giant fucking question mark in terms of how those people got from there to where they are after the game, and I kind of wanted to write a proper h/c fic rather than just... leaving them wallowing in all that trauma?

But I didn’t. I don’t even remember for sure how I wanted to frame the 5/1 of it all, besides it being something sad about allowing people to see you or touch you in some way. (Prayers maybe, since I think there was definitely some Sebastian & Fenris & faith stuff going on in there.)

“candles” -Merribela prompt fill that I never was happy with? Not sure what I might do with it at this point, so it’s just sitting there all sad and lonely and neglected-like.

Shadowhunters

pt1: WIP LIST ONLY

“Persuasion” -so I keep trying to write Persuasion AUs in many fandoms because it’s my favorite Austen, but I think I like it too much, I have no real solid concept of how I’d transform it, and if I don’t have anything else to say about different characters within that framework, I have no push to actually write anything? Also this SH version of it suffered from MASSIVE scope creep when I started outlining and it got too big for me to handle so I like, killed it twice? Whoops. This one is really probably never gonna happen.

“oosdt sequel” -I wanted to write more about the Forest That Eats People and Magnus & Alec as Guardians Between Worlds, and also some background Magnus’ Found Family & Lightwood Family Feels (maybe some clizzy?) and I left a Madzie plot-thread dangling from the first one on purpose even but I think this one had too many ideas and not enough focus so it’s sort of sprawling all over a doc with a lot of “???” in it

“procedural-ish” -this was originally going to be a sex-farce. and then it turned more serious. and then maybe kind of copaganda which was uncomfortable in terms of the Everything That Is The News in 2020, and then maybe it was more a Mafia AU and at that point I had self-inflicted tone whiplash and I wished the voices in my head were a little more forthcoming about their plans so I stopped before I brained myself on my computer monitor in frustration.

“I had rather a rose than live forever” -I started a reverse!verse Malec (Shadowhunter!Magnus, High Warlock!Alec) for bingo last year, and I couldn’t quite get it together in time, so I made a moodboard inspired by the bits I’d started instead. I may see if one of my prompts from Bingo this year help me finish it?

“fall fright fest (practical magic au)” -exactly what it says on the tin! almost exactly a year old & neglected! IDEK ANYMORE (I talked about this one with the WIP meme last time tho: here)

“priest!kink theology?” -I thought it was gonna be smut? I like priest!kink. I have made other people like it and yell at me even! But then I kept diverging into demon!Magnus thinking about Priest!Alec’s faith and as usual, IDEK ANYMORE *laughs*

(If they’re remotely canon-adjacent or divergent, a bunch of these are in here because I need to rewatch the show to get the pacing/timing/tone right and I haven’t, and I don’t know why, because I enjoy the show, but BRAINS! Are Dumb! So I guess that’s it?)

“I do” -I have tried to write this damnable Malec arranged marriage fic like six different times. I have signed up for fic exchanges and bangs with it, I have rewritten massive sections, trying to change tone or structure or POV or whatever, and it basically comes down to they like each other too fast and I keep not gutting it enough to get back to a useful pace, but by the time I realized that I was on take six and kind of sick of it. I may get back to it eventually

“wing!fic” -canon divergent in early s1, trying to deal with the consequences of Simon’s kidnapping as the Truly Serious Event that it should have been. It uh. Got heavier than I expected with those consequences (considering it was originally just supposed to be Alec’s wings flirting with Magnus) and also see above re: rewatching for pacing.

“2x20 aftermath/date night/pandemonium porn“ -yes that is the actual wip title. It used to be “spite fic” because I was originally inspired by fighting against a lot of fic!Alec characterization that was clearly based more on the books and ATG syndrome than the Alec in the show, which is the Alec I know and like and want to read about. BUT, pacing and etc. again, I think. Also I have somehow entirely lost my knack for writing porn, which makes it difficult to finish something originally intended to be smut!fic. Or even teasing almost!smut.

“rubbish heap” -so this is about three different fics that I realized complemented each other really well so they’re now all in the same file as I try to turn them into the sequel of “with an if in its soul”. It includes amnesia, parabatai lore shenanigans, a s3 rewrite, and some truly awful Owl adjustments that make me wince in horrified authorly delight and pain. BUT, as with the other ones in this file, the scope is large and I normally write short-fic and I kind of just threw up my hands in exasperation. I may have to break it back up into the three different fics instead, if I ever actually want to write it. Them? But also I need to take better notes on s3 to make sure I have what I need in here.

SH Pt 2: Started posting or not yet in hiatus because it’s actually almost ready to be a thing in the real world! maybe!?

“kisses (firsts)” -I actually started publishing this one, a “series of firsts” that was supposed to be kind of relationship milestones and kind of an excuse for smut, and then there wasn’t that much smut and I lost momentum and also dear lords & ladies the timeline is stupid, wtf. I may not ever add to this one, tbqh. It doesn’t stop in a terrible place, and they’re all ficlets so they stand alone all right.

“clizzy epilogue” -this is blank atm, it’s more a reminder for me to keep poking away at my “girls who can’t breathe air, only fire” collection BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO ACTUALLY GET TO THE CLIZZY AT SOME POINT

"mer!alec" -pts 2-4 of a series, but apparently having an actual plan gets in the way of me *writing* the thing, and I haven't managed to throw the half an outline far enough away from my brain to be able to write again. Or something like that.

"ibhww" -if broken hearts were whole is a soulmate fic I started a million years ago, and purposefully set aside to finish some other WIPs because I thought they'd be quick, and now it's just buried under two and a half years of regret and shame so it's hard to get back to it

"iafy" -i am for you is a delightful & frothy semi-epistolary fluff piece that also just lost momentum because Life & 2020 & etc. It's far and away the most popular thing I've ever posted on AO3, which also makes me feel weird sometimes, and I feel like the fact that there's no grand conclusion planned, just a bit more fluff and settling in, might end up being disappointing? Basically, it's the first time I think I've psyched myself out about reader expectations, and until I get over that I'm going to have trouble finishing the last couple chapters. (There really are probably only two more chapters though. IT’S SO CLOSE, I wish I could just... write it. And yet?)

“fake-hating” -I do not like fake dating as a trope that much, I just do not get it, but I love outside POVs and arranged marriages and there’s this delighful tumblr post about how they wished there was more fic about people who were together but had to pretend they werent’, and uh. This may be that? Eventually? I’m not exhausted by my failure to finish it yet, so it’s still in the regular folder rather than the hiatus folder, even though nothing’s been posted for it.

AND I THINK THAT’S IT?

Not as terrible as it could be, but still. MANY WORDS THAT MAY NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. Posting the equivalent of one’s old ratty sketchbook is always a weird feeling. :D

#on writing #writing memery #unending WIP List Of Doom

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scone-lover · 4 years

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@findingniamho

HAHAHAHA thank you so much for this ask!!! ❤️ This is exciting. Honestly the Egghead fight was one of the most entertaining scenes to write. (Coming up with all the puns was an egg-celent time.) Rereading it just now was like an out of body experience 😂

Link to the original chapter here - passage & commentary below the cut!

So I have to start with how this scene was born. This is a Simon scene. He’s had a couple fight scenes with Vampire, but I wanted to show him off as the superhero of the city. What was he doing before Vampire appeared on the scene? What are his strengths and weaknesses? Despite the scene’s silliness, it’s also one of the first where we start to get a sense of what Mayor Mage is up to.

So I knew I wanted him to do the typical defending-the-city thing, and showcase him and Penny as the dread companions power duo.

Besides the plot stuff, my main goal was to make this scene as ridiculously, stereotypically comic book-ish as possible. 😂Hence, Egghead the Villain.

Most of the credit for Egghead goes to my friend -- they’re really into DC and helped me with a lot of the plot stuff in this fic and making things semi-realistic. (Every time you read a clever plot point, it was probably them. 😂) For this non-Vampire fight, my friend suggested a gangster who was doing crimes and bribing the police. Hence this exchange--

“Okay, okay, um-- fuck. Did you call the police?” She huffs. “Yes, and I think they’ve been fucking bribed, because they pretended they didn’t even know who Egghead was! Can you believe that?”

I made him a repeat villain because honestly, I just thought it was more compelling that way. They know who he is already, Simon can grumble about him, they have egg-themed quips at the ready, etc. 😂

As for the name, Egghead. I love how it came together because Simon is a baker, and I was able to work a couple baking jokes in there eventually. But in reality, it was me begging my superhero expert friend (named t below) to help me out with crafting this villain and coming up with some witty exchanges. A transcript of our conversation with the brainstorming and some of the rejects--

t: the gangster has a nickname right? he has to if he’s a supervillain t: make it a gimmick t: like if he has a red outfit call him mr. red or something t: he has a flamethrower and call him dragon (this made it in, later) me: Vampire already has a flamethrower t: they can be forced to fight him together me: Vampire is at home studying bc he’s a NERD t: ok he can be bald and simon can call him egghead me: THANKS I HATE IT t: simon throws him on the ground at the end of the fight - that was over-easy me: I hate you where do you get this shit t: I mean it’s typical superhero stuff t: he wears yellow and white and deals crack me: This fic is so food themed I love it t: that’s your villain. that’s it. t: listen, if the Flash can have an ice skating villain, YOU CAN HAVE EGGHEAD. And he was born.

(And yes, The Flash does have an ice skating villain. AND SHE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ICE POWERS.)

Okay, let’s do this! Warning that this is definitely going to go through more than 500 words of the chapter. 😂

Men dressed in black suits with bright yellow pocket squares. And larger men around the perimeter, wearing grey and holding flashlights. It looks more like a business transaction than anything; there are briefcases and money being passed back and forth, hands being shaken. “Hey!” I call. There are six men, and they all turn to stare at me, and then make a run for it. The flashlight beams dart wildly and I hear a few of them clatter to the floor. Everyone starts yelling at once and looking for an escape.

I basically watched an episode of Brooklyn-99 and crafted the warehouse drug deal based on that.

“Don’t move. There’s only one exit,” Penny says in my ear. “And you’re standing in front of it.” I stand my ground, but no one comes near me. The suited guys stay slightly behind the muscular ones. Finally, one of them steps forward. “Mage’s Head Boy. Come to tell us off?”

This scene was also an opportunity to have Penny in Simon’s ear! I wanted them to work together more closely than just talking about superhero stuff - I wanted Penny to be invaluable to Simon’s superhero success and in on the action, too. She’s kind of modeled after Oracle from Batman throughout this fic.

Mage’s Head Boy is a pretty transparent CO reference.

There are times when I’m grateful for my ability to just have muscles and growl at people and make them disappear, and there are times when I wish I was witty like Vampire. This is definitely the second. I can’t think of a response to that. Luckily, I have a best friend with a head full of wit. “Tell them to fuck off,” Penny says. Then again, maybe not. What would Vampire say? I get hot and frustrated in the face of danger. He seems to get cooler the higher the stakes get. I fall into a fighting stance. “You wish.” The guy takes a step backwards. “But since I can’t bring you to the police, I suppose I’ll just have to teach you a lesson.” “That was good,” Penny says in my ear.

I obviously had to work a bit of Baz jealousy / crushing into this. I like the idea of Penny being super blunt. She’s smart and sometimes witty, but more often she just says it like it is. “Cooler the higher the stakes get” was a direct reference to the similar line in Carry On. With Simon’s last line - this scene was all about showcasing him as a “typical” superhero that you’d find in a comic, fighting a classic comic book villain. So I gave him one of those cheesy lines.

I’m surrounded. There must be fifteen or twenty of them. Eight huge muscular guys, and the rest in suits. They form a loose circle around me. Almost all of them wield knives, but I don’t see any guns so far.

I knew from the outset I wanted this to be a one-against-many fight. At this point in the story I’d set up a good dynamic for Blade vs Vampire, but not so much Blade vs. other city threats. What makes him a trustworthy hero? Simon’s origin story is that he got news attention by fighting off a group - so putting him in this group fight setting was a chance for him to shine.

A man steps out from the shadows. He’s bald, with a straight, dark mustache, and he’s wearing a pristine white suit and a shirt the colour of an egg yolk. “Egghead,” I say in what I hope is a threatening tone. The name sounds absurd. I’m glad the mask covers my mouth, because I don’t think I can keep a straight face. Penny coughs. Benedict Eggerton, better known as Egghead, is a drug lord who wears yellow and deals… crack. (I know.) (He got into crime early; his parents were poachers.) (Okay, I made that one up. I can’t help it.) I put him in jail earlier this year, but he escaped and fled north.

I was laughing so hard while writing this. You can see in the text exchange above where the suit and nickname came from. I was trying to come up with what his first name might be (my first idea was Sunny). I was so amused when I finally thought of Benedict. 😂 The poachers line is also from my friend T, and the “north” is a reference to Scotland, which comes back later as the Scotch Egg joke.

I draw my weapon, trying to look as menacing as possible. “I remember your blade being bigger,” he says, eyeing my kitchen knife. “Is it too cold for you in here?”

PFFFFFT I LOVE THIS JOKE okay so. I originally made Simon forget his sword because I thought the fight would be too easy - and going back to what I said above, he’s kind of returning to his “roots” with this fight - that spark he has that makes him a hero. And then I wrote the line “I remember your blade being bigger.” TO BE CLEAR, this was not originally intended as an innuendo.

And then my friend said something like ‘he should turn up the heating in this warehouse then’, and I was like OH DING DING DING PENIS JOKE! 😂I’m oblivious sometimes. I’m glad I realized in time because this is honestly one of my favorite villain lines I’ve ever written.

I really, really wanted to give the “too cold” line to Vampire. It would be perfect for him. But Simon always has his normal sword with Vamp, so Egghead it was. And he instantly became an icon. 😂

I twirl the knife between my fingers. “I can crack you anyway.” “Good effort,” Penny whispers. “But a bit rough on the delivery. 'Take a crack at you' might have been better...” “Sword or no sword,” I continue, “you’ll be an egg wash by the end of this.” “What?” Penny says. “Is that a baking reference?” Egghead cracks his knuckles, and his men rush me.

Much like Penny does later in the scene, I had a tab open of egg-related words up while writing this. I had to work in the baking reference. But a terrible one. There’s a French term for whisking eggs that basically translates to “beating eggs into snow” - and I wish it was a thing in English, because, you know, Simon Snow. Oh well. 😂

I Google a list of ways to make eggs. Simon needs to win this fight, but more importantly, he needs to get some egg-themed one-liners in there to show them who’s boss. Chances like this don’t come around very often.

Listen, Penny is very dedicated. I love the idea of heroes just being quick-witted and coming up with these ridiculous quips on demand. But ultimately, I thought it was funnier - and more in character for Penny - to do this. (Even though her Superhero name is Quickwit, oops.) She has the world of Google at her disposal. Egg puns may not seem important, but superhero image and reputation is half the battle.

Simon is being attacked from all angles, but he fights like a whirlwind. The bulky guys attack first, mostly with their fists. Simon kicks their legs out from under them. He throws them across the floor like they weigh nothing. “Behind you!” I say. Simon spins around and disarms the man behind him, twisting his arm, and I hear a shout through my earbuds. He grabs the guy’s knife and kicks him in the stomach, sending him sprawling. Simon Snow faces fifteen men with nothing but two knives, looking like he’s ready to explode.

I loved writing this from Penny’s POV. I am used to writing fight scenes from the POV of the person fighting, so this was definitely a cool challenge. It’s part of why I brought Penny into the scene in the first place - so I could show Simon in third person. Almost like we’re watching a movie and getting some overhead shots. From his POV, you don’t realize quite how awesome he is. So getting to showcase him like this was really fun.

I still have to wonder how Shepard knew… well, everything.

Don’t tell anyone but I didn’t know yet either

“He’s Scottish,” I tell Simon. “Scotch Egg.”

I know. This one’s bad.

He’s a blur of gold and white in motion. He throws his knife—I have no idea where he learned to do that—and it embeds itself in one of the men’s legs. He rolls across the floor, picking up two more discarded knives.

I don’t do a ton of plotting/outlining with fight scenes, but one thing I decide in advance is where and how everyone gets hurt. I didn’t want Simon to win the fight too easily, but I did need to injure him somehow. So it wouldn’t be too easy, but also to serve as a counterpoint to the socks thing later.

I watched a lot of action sequences to write this fic, especially with the trickier one vs. many scenes.

Simon tosses him like a sack of flour.

Couldn’t resist the baker!Simon reference.

“Hard or soft boiled,” I whisper. “Which way is it gonna be, Egghead? Hard or soft boiled?” Simon shouts. He whispers to me, “That was stupid.” Egghead raises an eyebrow. “Last chance to leave us alone, Blade.” I consult my list of egg dishes. “Give up before you get scrambled.” Simon twirls his blades. I love it when he does that; he looks like Deadpool. “It’s your last chance to surrender before you get scrambled.”

I loved the hard or soft boiled line at first. And then I wrote it down and said it out loud, just to check, and it sounded SO DUMB. 😂I almost took it out, but then figured—Simon is probably not going to think this through, either.

Maybe the Deadpool line was a bit on the nose here, but I wanted to give readers some really vivid imagery of what Simon looks like right now with these dual wicked blades kitchen knives.

“I prefer my eggs… poached,” he says.

Even though Egghead has turned out to be quite a serious villain—there are guns, drugs, and a backstory—he is, after all, original master of the egg puns. He would never turn down this opportunity.

Egghead scrambles (ha) to his feet

I think Penny is just me in this.

“Over-easy,” I whisper.

“That was over-easy,” he says.

Not my best. But it had to be in there.

I’ll skip the serious bits, since the plot there is pretty self-explanatory, to this:

I wish he’d asked what we serve, because I have so many egg puns at the ready. Eggs-ecution. Hash-ing out justice. Karma served hard.

My beta ashspren gave me this line, and I could not be more grateful. Imagine the chapter without this. It would be a shame.

Here are a few egg puns that didn’t make the cut, SADLY:

You're washed out, egghead

*Egghead gets angry* hey, it was just a yolk

I had to go "beat" some eggs

*uppercut* Sunny side UP!

I'll bash in your Eggnoggin’

Some people are just bad eggs

Sorry this is so long—this has been a purely self-indulgent experience. Thanks so much for this ask, I really enjoyed writing this and I hope you like it! ❤️

#ask #fanfic asks #ask game #dvd commentary #holding out for a hero #heroverse #hero fic #superhero snowbaz #the golden blade #hfh #behind the scenes #bts #writing things #hfh behind the scenes

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vmheadquarters · 4 years

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We’re still playing our game of written hot potato! Dozens of your favorite authors are taking turns to tell a Veronica Mars mystery story. Each writer crafts their chapter and then “tosses” the story to the next person to continue the tale. No one knows what will happen, so expect the unexpected!

Follow the “vmhq presents” and “murder we wrote” tags for all the installments, or read the story as it develops on AO3. --Chapter Twenty-Six of MURDER, WE WROTE is written by @jeanie205. And stayed tuned next week for Ch.27 from @nevertothethird - tag, you’re it!

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX by @jeanie205

Business hadn’t exactly been booming at Mars Investigations lately, and even though she knew her dad was right, that the PI business, like almost everything else, was cyclical, Veronica still chafed under the inactivity.

She’d filled in her time the past few days with a flurry of office organization and some paperwork she’d been putting off for weeks, interspersed with a couple of bread-and-butter infidelity stakeouts. But either the unfaithful spouses had gotten stupider over the years, or Veronica had just gotten a lot better at sussing them out. Because while the pay had been good - great, in fact - it hadn’t taken her long to come up with the Money Shots.

So now she was at loose ends again. Even Mac had taken the day off after completing her update of the MI website, which she’d told Veronica was “a disaster.”

“They aren’t going to hire you if your site looks like it was designed in a high school IT class,” Mac had said, shaking her head.

For as much good as it’s done so far, Veronica thought, sitting alone in her office with nothing to do.

Her glance fell unconsciously to her bottom right-hand desk drawer. The deep one.

Well, maybe she didn't exactly have nothing to do.

There was a case of sorts, if she wanted to count guessing the ending of a whodunit written by the least likely mystery writer she could ever have imagined. An activity that Veronica had so far found not particularly entertaining. Mostly because the plot was already so convoluted that she doubted the eventual reveal could ever make much sense.

On the other hand, she’d become rather fond of Ruby Jetson, and knew they probably owed her for helping to exonerate Logan of murder. Besides which, she had promised.

With a guilty sigh, Veronica pulled open the drawer and hefted out a thick envelope.

Ruby had brought her the manuscript nearly a week earlier, eager to know if the story was good enough to “fool” the seasoned detective. Although she’d shown up without an appointment, Veronica had taken the time to read several chapters, Ruby smiling delightedly whenever she’d frowned in puzzlement.

“I knew it was a good mystery,” Ruby had boasted gleefully. “That even you wouldn’t be able to figure it out.”

By then, it had become apparent that Ruby expected her to read the whole damn book right then and there! Thank god Mac had soon caught on and poked her head in the office door, reminding Veronica about “her appointment.”

Ruby had looked disappointed when Veronica carefully re-stacked the loose manuscript pages and slipped them into the large envelope, stowing everything away in her bottom drawer.

“I’ll finish it soon,” she’d promised faithfully.

But she never had, although Ruby had called every day, looking for an update.

“Hurry up, Veronica,” she’d complained only the day before, the exasperation clear in her voice. “I need to send it to my publisher.”

Veronica had been surprised. Ruby already had a publisher?

As she slipped the manuscript out of the envelope, quickly flipping to the red post-it she’d left to hold her place, she fleetingly wondered who in hell might actually want to publish Ruby’s novel.

Picking up where she’d left off, Veronica noted the same peculiarity that had struck her the week before. Ruby’s chapters often varied so wildly in both style and format that it was almost like they’d been written by different people. She paused in her reading, considered for a moment if Ruby might have some kind of dual personality disorder. After all, the woman did have two names.

Or... maybe the answer was much simpler. Maybe Ruby had a collaborator, the same person, Veronica thought with growing certainty, who’d passed along all the personal information that Ruby could never have dug up, no matter how much “research” she’d done.

And that was another thing. Veronica’s annoyance rose as she came across yet another intimate-sounding encounter between book-Veronica and book-Logan. Ruby had promised her faithfully that the names in her roman a clef-slash-murder mystery would definitely be changed in the next draft. Veronica sure as hell hoped she followed through. Otherwise, the fledgling author was going to be bombarded with lawsuits. And Veronica Mars would be at the head of the line.

She sighed, turning back to the story just in time to find that... Ruby had killed herself off!

Or at least, she’d killed off Della Pugh.

Veronica’s eyes narrowed in surprise at this fictional turn of events. Was this some sort of symbolic “killing” of her original self so that her Ruby persona could thrive? She shook her head, finally deciding she was no better as a psychologist than she was a literary critic. She flipped quickly to the next chapter and soon wished she hadn’t. A delusional, Veronica-obsessed Duncan Kane was not exactly pleasant company.

Veronica was considering with wry amusement how the man himself might view his portrayal (should he ever see it) when she was startled by the ringing of a phone. Not the office land line but the cell phone that she had to dig out from the depths of her well-loved but totally inconvenient studded black leather bag.

She might not have even bothered had the sounds of the Perishers’ “Sway” not told her it was Logan calling. She’d assigned him that ringtone in a burst of nostalgia the same day she’d updated his photo from pukka beads to dress blues.

The fact that he was calling was in itself unnerving. If Logan wanted to communicate with her during the day, he almost always texted. So of course her mind went immediately to the worst-case scenario.

“Logan! Is everything okay? Is my dad...”

“Veronica!” Logan cut in on her abruptly. “Are you watching the news? Turn on the news!”

“Wh-what? You mean, like... CNN?”

“No. The local news. It’s a breaking story on a continuous loop.”

“Okay.” Mystified, she grabbed the remote from a drawer and powered up the wall TV that she hardly ever used.

And there was that creepy newscaster, the one who invariably reminded her of Vinnie Van Lowe.

“... a tragedy right here in Neptune last night when promising new writer Ruby Jetson was murdered in her own home.”

Veronica gasped. It couldn’t be!

“Veronica! You still there?”

“Yeah, Logan, I’m here. I can’t... I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it. And there’s more. Keep watching.”

Onscreen, the newscaster was just beginning the introduction of an “important witness” to the tragedy.

“We’re fortunate to have with us here in the studio the man who discovered the body of Ms. Jetson. Neptune’s very own school principal turned book publisher, Mr. Van Clemmons.”

Veronica nearly fell off her chair. Holy shit! Clemmons was Ruby’s publisher?

She quickly turned up the volume, desperate to hear every word.

“I understand you were about to publish Ms. Jetson’s first novel, Mr. Clemmons?” the Vinnie-clone asked in that fake tone of sympathetic interest that all newscasters somehow managed to perfect.

Clemmons nodded.

“That’s right. Of course, I’d known her as Della Pugh back when she was at Neptune High, but she’d made some changes in her life, and if she preferred to be Ruby Jetson, who was I to say she shouldn’t?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. Right, Van. You were always so forward-thinking.

“And the book?” the newscaster encouraged, refusing to be shifted off-topic by anything about the actual victim herself.

“Well, ah, Ruby came to me with the idea. Some kind of murder mystery. Very popular genre, of course. But the story was to be based on people she’d known in high school. I thought it sounded... promising. And she was just about to deliver the first draft. Said she’d finished it but was waiting for some feedback from a trusted friend.”

Veronica blinked. A trusted friend?

She wrenched her mind away from dwelling on the sheer... unexpectedness of Ruby regarding her as a friend, because Clemmons was still talking and she didn’t want to miss a word.

“Ruby kept delaying turning in the first draft, so I stopped by last night to see if I could... hurry her along.”

Clemmons paused briefly, and for the first time looked visibly shaken.

“And that’s when I... found her.”

The newscaster nodded slowly. “Not a pleasant experience.”

“No, indeed,” Clemmons agreed.

“And the book?” Vinnie’s doppelgänger was not to be thwarted.

Clemmons shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen after all. Only Ruby had copies of the manuscript, but there weren’t any in her apartment. And her laptop was missing, too.”

“The police...?”

“Didn’t find anything, either.”

“So the book won’t be published.”

Clemmons shrugged. “I can’t publish what I don’t have.”

The newscaster paused to make sure that viewers caught the significance of his next question.

“Do you think it’s possible that poor Ruby was killed because of something in that book?”

Clemmons hesitated. “I suppose it could be,” he said finally. “But I guess we’ll never know. If there ever was a manuscript, it’s gone forever.”

Veronica stared at the screen for long seconds before she muttered the words under her breath.

“No, Van. Not quite fucking gone.”

She switched off the television and picked up her phone. “You still there, Logan?”

“No, I’m here,” he said, appearing suddenly in the office doorway. “Thought maybe I should come by.”

She nodded, and as one their eyes fell on the loose pages still sitting in the middle of Veronica’s desk.

In seconds, she’d scooped them up and shoved them back into the envelope. But this time, the manuscript wasn’t crammed unceremoniously back into that deep bottom drawer. This time, Veronica opened their rarely-used safe and locked the thick envelope securely inside.

Veronica thought Logan must have sensed how shaken she suddenly felt because he was across the room like a shot, and in seconds she was wrapped in his arms.

“I’m sorry, Veronica,” Logan said softly, breathing the words into her hair.

“Yeah, me, too,” she murmured into his shoulder.

Then she took a deep breath and stepped back from Logan’s arms, determination stiffening her spine as she gazed up at him.

“Somebody killed Ruby over that damn book, Logan. And we’re gonna figure out who the hell did it.”

#veronica mars #veronica mars fanfic #vm fanfic #vmhq presents #murder we wrote #round robin

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