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sxveme-2 · 3 years

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blueberry pancakes // bucky barnes

Description: A single mother. Juggling being a mom, a full time pediatrician, and a difficult ex who believed now would be the best time to finally be a father. A soldier ripped out of time. Ex-assassin turned superhero. Learning how to balance a new domestic life with handling demons of his past, while facing the trials of the future. a love story began over something as simple as chocolate chip pancakes with hidden blueberries.

Disclaimer: I do not own any original Marvel characters! All canon plots and canon characters belong to Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios. This is an original work. You may not publish it anywhere else

Status: Edited

Note: Takes place after endgame. I have elected to ignore Tony's death and Steve's leaving. Did not happen. Quick Reminder! My works are only published here, AO3 and on Wattpad, thank you.

Chapter Eight: The One With the Party

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 3083

Now, nothing in Lily's life ever really came easy, quick, or without some sort of repercussion. It was as though the universe had decided that she hadn't been through enough in her fairly young life already. Hence why it didn't surprise her when the communication between her and Bucky fell off, or more so, never really started. The day at the cafe had been nice, they didn't exactly speak and they were at separate tables, but even Rose noticed the shy glances her older sister would send to the man across the way. Which of course lead to teasing and taunting the rest of the night and for a few days.

Three weeks later, she hadn't seen him. It didn't help that the hospital had scheduled Lily for multiple shifts of overtime and staying late. Which resulted in Hunter spending extra days at Scott’s, and Lily not being at the cafe as often as she typically was. Flu season had come around and all parents believed their kid may have something more serious, but it was simply a lot of flu vaccinations, the odd time an appendicitis surgery. Routine procedures, just a lot of work.

On a chilly day at the end of September, for once, Lily could wake up without having to go to work for twelve hours or more. Her son snoring gently beside her after crawling into her bed from a nightmare the night before, and Joey snuggled at the end. Her deep green eyes fluttered open as the phone on her nightstand buzzed like crazy. Rubbing her eyes, Lily's other hand reached out to grab hold of the device, blurry eyes seeing Bucky's contact pop up on the screen.

With a groggy voice and a confused expression, Lily slid her thumb across the screen to answer, "Hello?"

"Lady Lily! It's Thor! Son of Odin!" a booming voice yelled into the phone, startling the young blonde. Her eyes glanced to her right to check to see that Hunter still laid fast asleep, and to ensure it stayed that way, the doctor slipped out of the bed and out into the hallway. When she closed the door, Thor continued his yelling, "I have stolen sergeant Barnes’s cellular device! I have overheard him and Captain Rogers discussing his feelings towards you!"

Lily winced at the loud voice radiating through her ear. She hadn't met Thor officially, just seen him with the others at the table weeks before. Personally, Lily wasn't interested in blondes, but no one could deny an attraction to the god. You could be the largest lesbian in the world and still would not mind getting down and dirty with the son of Odin. But of course, for the most part, Lily had only been staring at Bucky. And it didn't go unnoticed to many, especially the other Avengers

"I'm sorry? His attraction?" Lily muttered, still attempting to wake herself up from the much-needed sleep she had been woken up from. She wrapped one arm around herself while resting the other elbow on her hand, shivering slightly at the cool temperature of her home.

"Yes! This is lady Lily correct? If so, then I have an invitation for you! Sergeant Barnes does not know about this, nor does anyone else. But it is our dear friend Sam Wilson’s birthday!" he continued to boast, resulting in Lily holding the phone an inch or so away from her ear, "and I believe it would make Sergeant Barnes happy if you came. And bring your friend and sister! Sam has a small thing for lady Rose."

Before Lily could even answer, there was a crash on the other end of the line and the call went dead. Lily could only assume that Bucky had noticed the conversation taking place and shut it down, leaving Lily with a possibly life-changing decision on her plate, but she didn't know that yet. All she knew, was that Gen and Rose would go to any lengths to get Lily to attend the party, saying things like 'it'll be good for you' or 'you can see your loverboy again'. And Lily couldn't deny, she'd love to see Bucky again. But she'd be damned if she admitted it out loud.

-----

After walking joey, the three Osborne’s loaded into the car and drove down the busy roads of New York to Gen's cafe. Scott was picking Hunter up for the weekend, which meant that Lily was free for the night anyway, so maybe the party wasn't such a bad idea? But if you could deduce anything about the blonde, it's that she hated large gatherings and commotion. It made her anxious and paranoid about something that could go wrong. Plus, last time there was any real party like this in her life, she had been shown a video of her husband locking lips with a young brunette who looked about half his age.

"Hunt why don't you go see if there are any treats you can bring for Leila in the back," Lily whispered to her son with a gentle smirk on her face, "I have to talk to aunt Rose and auntie Gen for a few minutes." she continued, ruffling the boy’s hair and sending him on his way to the kitchen around the corner.

The two girls that were sitting opposite of Lily looked at her with matching skeptical expressions, both of their left eyebrows perked with interest as Lily sent her son away. Whenever this happened, Lily usually seemed to drop a ball on the two. Whether it was when she announced her pregnancy, being chosen as valedictorian, or when she shared the news of her divorce. Typically things that Hunter wouldn't understand, or wasn't old enough to know or mature enough to hear. But this was mostly so he didn't grow saddened at the idea of his mother hanging around his idols.

"So I was woken up by a strange phone call from Bucky Barnes," Lily began, and the two girls across from her simultaneously dropped their jaws. Lily held her finger up to signal that she wasn't finished with her story and for them not to jump ahead and get crazy ideas, "but on the other end was actually Thor. He invited us to Sam's birthday party tonight."

This caused shit-eating grins to replace the curious smiles on Gen and Rose's faces. Rose clapped her hands together, while Gen just shook her head in disbelief. These two women were Lily's closest companions in life. Rose was her biological sister that she had no choice but to deal with, sure, but their relationship was more than that. It was deeper and held more meaning than a simple sister relationship. They could lean on each other in times of need and never kept secrets, as far as the other knew. Most kids with multiple years between them aren't as close or never really bond, but Rose and Lily always clicked. Mostly because of their opposing personalities, which was the same as Gen. Gen was Lily's sister from another mister. From the moment they met, they were perfect, and things hadn't changed in all those years leading to this.

"Well, obviously we're going!" Rose exclaimed, pulling out her phone, "I will get the best dresses from my agency and ensure we look unclockable!" the younger Osborne sister beamed while excusing herself to make a few calls, to make sure they looked as good as she pictured. Rose seemed to forget that Lily hadn't agreed to go, but deep down, the eldest Osborne knew she didn't ave a choice.

"This is great! It'll give you a chance to see Bucky again," Gen winked, sipping her coffee. This was typically how the cycle of Gen's setups began, sort of. Lily would stumble across a guy that seemed interested in her, and Gen would stop at no end to get the two on a date. Of course, Lily never really seemed to have any interest in the guy that her best friend set her up with, but maybe this time was different. Maybe Bucky was different. And that's what Gen prayed about as well, "Maybe get to know him a little more. You get chatty when you're tipsy."

Lily Osborne drunk was a sight to see. All of the fear and anxiety she felt seemed to melt away with the ice cubes in her cup. That's why it was called liquid courage. One of the main signs of Lily being intoxicated was her desire to sing. for years, Lily sang in the choir, but always turned down solos, despite being one of the most talented singers that her school had ever seen. She was terrified that people would laugh at her, but if she was home alone, she sang like an angel. Her voice was soft and supple, and her ability to harmonize was unrivalled. Both Gen and Rose secretly hoped that the avengers would be able to be blessed with the sound of Lily's voice because it truly was as angelic as she was.

"I don't know if I even want to go. You know I don't do parties, let alone one hosted by the king of parties himself, Tony Stark." Lily sighed, twisting the straw in her lemonade around as she nibbled on her bottom lip. Her eyes glanced up to see Rose beaming out the window of the cafe, saying something to a designer or somebody on her phone. She looked so excited, and Lily didn't want to be the one to take that away.

Not after the past few weeks, Rose has had.

"C'mon, Lil," Gen sighed as if reading her best friend’s mind. the brunette reached her hands out and cupped Lily's frail and nimble ones, a soft and gentle look on her face, "Rose is excited. For the first time in weeks. Plus, nothing will happen. I'll be there, and so will Rose. Plus, I doubt Mr. Winter Soldier would ever let anything happen to you anyways. Buddies totally whipped."

"Mr. Winter Soldier? really?"

-----

After Scott had scooped Hunter up from the cafe, Lily stole the two adult women away from whatever they were doing, leading them to the car. But, Lily apparently wasn't allowed to drive. It was around two now, and Lily had to get back home to take joey out on his afternoon walk. But no matter the protests she gave, the younger sister was the one behind the wheel and had control over where they went either way. Lily accepted her fate and leaned back in her seat, attempting to figure out where Rose was have taking them.

Recognizing upstate new york, Lily glanced over towards the blonde that sat next to her. The young mom had figured out exactly what Rose was planning in that mischievous head of hers. One thing with all Osborne’s is their ability to not only think on their feet but figure out what was happening around them without anyone telling them. the art of deduction, in a way. But not that advanced, just piecing together their surroundings and doing the math. And with where they were, Lily knew that Rose had the genius idea to take the two other girls to a hair salon to get all nice and done up.

"Yeah no, I can do my hair," Lily stated, crossing her arms over her chest and putting her foot down. No way in hell was she letting another person that she didn't know, do her hair. She had a perfectly good hairdresser down in the suburbs of Manhattan and was fine with just going there for when she needed a haircut. And today? She did not.

"Let me check again...Gen?" Rose swivelled in her seat to look at the back where Gen sat, attempting to hold back a laugh, "Which one of us is the doctor and which one is the stylist?"

This caused Gen to let her giggles escape as she rested her velvety hand on Lily's shoulder, leaning forward towards her best friend, "Rose makes a fair point. You specialize in children's health, she specializes in adult fashion. C'mon, it'll be fun."

Once again, despite her protests, Lily was overpowered and dragged into the salon. The moment she was asked what style she was looking for, she answered, beating out her younger sister in deciding what would look best. She requested a simple hairstyle, possibly a ponytail of sorts. The hairdresser nodded along and got to work. Luckily, no hair was cut off or changed, and it was a simple styling appointment for her and the other girls.

Half an hour later, the three were back in the car, this time, with Lily behind the wheel. The three sang along to the radio as they returned to lower Manhattan, where the suburbs laid. Lily had managed to convince Rose to do her makeup instead of a hire professional, claiming Rose had the same talents as they did. It was true, Rose was a wizard with a makeup brush. Plus, it was fun to see her sister so focused on something like this. All of the pain of the past few weeks forgotten as she created a beige smokey eye on Lily, an a darker version of the same thing on Gen.

After she glanced in the mirror, Lily didn't believe it was her. She looked matured and awake, instead of the typical baby-faced ball of stress she was on a day-to-day basis. She stared into the mirror with a shocked yet elated look on her face, enjoying the feeling of confidence that rushed through her. She was Lily Osborne, full-time doctor and mother, older sister to two siblings, and a survivor of a toxic relationship. But it seemed that all of that confidence shattered when Rose pulled in a rack of dresses for Lily to try on. All tight around the hips and bust, made for girls with hourglass figures who hadn't given birth to a baby. Something that Lily wouldn't be caught dead in.

"Not happening. I refuse."

-----

Compromise. that's the lesson of this section. Taking other’s options or opinions and your own, and finding a common ground. That was the foundation of Rose and Lily's relationship. Learning to compromise with each other to keep the peace. And that was the result of their dispute of the dresses Rose had brought in. Most of them were sleek and tight, almost like a second skin. And as pretty as Lily felt all done up, she didn't have near enough confidence to rock one of the body-con dresses her sister had brought.

In the end, she decided on something a bit more classic and Lily-like. A lake blue dress with spaghetti straps holding it up. It had silver lace decals spread all across both the lower plunging neckline and a-line tulle skirt that hit just below Lily's mid thigh. A piece of mesh fabric kept the cleavage that Lily had tucked in, instead of placing it on display like the majority of the cocktail dresses Rose had brought in. The deeper blue helped extenuate the green of Lily's eyes, which was complemented by the light golden shimmer that laid atop of her eyelid. Her lips were a pink nude with a touch of gloss to create a shiny effect, and her hair was pulled into a pony connected by two criss-cross pieces of hair, with two strands falling forward to frame her face. One word to sum it all up, breathtaking. Lily radiated in her outfit, and anyone who saw her would have no choice but to agree. And if they didn't? They were either delusional or lying to themselves because she was stunning.

Rose, on the other hand, was embracing the small window of time she had left without showing the baby bump. She adorned a burgundy lace dress that hugged her curves like a glove and came to a halter top point around her neck. Her golden blonde hair laid across her shoulders in a curly river, with deep red lips to compliment the dress. Her eyes were done a bit darker than both Lily and Gen's, making her forest green eyes stand out as well. Rose and Lily were blessed with the looks of their mother. High cheekbones, plump lips and a perfectly sculpted nose that tends to make most jealous. Although Rose knew her worth and understood her beauty, Lily had a harder time coming to terms with it due to the anxiety that plagued her mind. It created a constant reminder that she just wasn't enough, and to try harder.

Gen stayed true to her out-of-the-box aesthetic and wore a suit jacket dress that reached her mid-thigh, with a pair of bright yellow pumps to create a splash of colour in her outfit. Her braids were pulled into a high ponytail, and a darker smokey eye created a glowing ring around the amber eyes that she was blessed with. Her plush and plump lips were painted a deep maroon, and she looked like a businesswoman who had men falling at her feet. When in reality, she was the most easy-going and relaxed person you would probably ever meet, and would rather die than ever be stuck behind a desk at a corporate job.

The three ladies corralled themselves into Lily's car and began their journey towards the avengers compound a bit before the event started. Rose had instructed Lily to leave at a time that would make them fashionably late, to keep Thor guessing whether or not his invitation was accepted or not. Plus it built up the suspicion of the others around the man. Somehow Rose knew all of this, and Lily guessed it was because of her extensive work in the fashion industry. Having to tell people what will make them look their absolute best. Both fashionably, and socially. And who was Lily to argue?

When they did arrive, Lily let out a shaky breath before turning off the car. There was no turning back now. They had drove all of this way, and Lily knew Rose and Gen would be pissed if she chickened out now. Plus, she doubted that they would even let her. Honestly, the two would drag her in by her toes if they had to. Out of Lily's best interest of course. They wanted her to move on and live her life outside of work and Hunter.

"Come on Lil, let's go get the tinman to fall in love with you."

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universe-n-3276 · 3 years

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Carrying the Moon

Epilogue

He shouldn’t have been there. He knew that if someone found him on the school’s rooftop, he would immediately be lectured by the headmaster, who obviously would call his parents, and he could already imagine the concerned look on his father’s face. Whenever he did something stupid, that man always had the same look painted on his face, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. But the boy couldn’t help it. He needed it. When he felt things overwhelming him (it often happened during the lunch break), he needed to feel the comfort that arose from watching his schoolmates from above, small as ants, move around frenetically.

On the roof of the school, alone, the noises and people around him were far away. The air was fresh, and the perspective changed completely. Three months earlier, during his last exams of the semester, he had begun to feel different. Everything he felt was amplified. He was full of energy and able to do anything. He had been awake, night after night, writing, planning, drawing. During the day, as he answered all the quiz, he felt confident, he knew everything, then the verdicts came. He had failed all his tests and in his mind, his teachers were trying to set him up, they wanted him to fail. He had fought furiously with his parents, and it was weird because he was used to talking with them, and not screaming his lungs out, but he was only a sixteen-year-old, and teenagers usually argue a lot with their parents, right?

Then during the Christmas break, he had started to spend whole days locked in his room, until he no longer wanted to go out or get out of bed, and after that moment there were only doctors, pills, and worried looks. He hated feeling that way, he hated not being able to control it. He felt as if an alien had moved into his brain and had taken control over it. He just wanted to feel like before, he wanted to go back to being the happy and carefree person he had always been. The boy heard the door open behind him and turned quickly, hoping he hadn’t been caught, but he immediately recognized a familiar face and raised a hand in greeting, allowing himself to smile a bit. He wanted to be left alone, but he liked Eva’s company. The girl had auburn, straight hair, very fair skin, covered with freckles, and blue eyes, identical to her father’s.

“Hero David Driesen-IJzermans, you’re so weird.” “I did nothing.” “School is supposed to help you develop your social skills, you know? And you spend your time here alone.” “I'm not feeling well.” Eva's lively gaze softened. He walked over to Hero and placed a hand on his back, moving it in a circular motion, to try to give him relief. “You should call your fathers.” “I called Charlotte. My dad is busy at work and my papa has always a stupid worried look on his face when something happens, and I don't wanna see it.” The girl nodded, and was silent for a few moments, staring down at the schoolyard full of their classmates enjoying their free-time. “Have you told Camille you're hiding here?” “No. I broke up with them.” “Why?” “We weren't right for each other.” Hero bit his lip. Breaking up with Camille had been difficult. He had thought about it for a long time, not knowing if it was the right decision if it was really what he wanted or that sense of impatience was just a side symptom of the disease. “You know, since our parents have these great stories about being with their soulmates since they were teenagers, I always feel under pressure. What if I won’t find that ineffable love?” “They always say when you know, you know, so don't worry too much about it.” The boy gave Eva a small smile as he retrieved his ringing phone from the pocket. He looked at the screen, picking up his backpack from the ground and put it on his shoulder, happy to finally get out of that school that made him feel caged. “I gotta go now, Charlotte is here. Bye Ev.” “Bye, weirdo.”

Hero didn’t remember the exact moment when he was told that Charlotte was his biological mother. It was as if he had always known, and it had never been strange. He had seen movies where the main characters discovered as teenagers that they had been adopted, and were traumatized by the idea that those who they had always believed their parents were strangers. He just couldn't put himself in those people's shoes, because he was convinced that a family went far beyond the DNA and that all the love and the affection he had received from his parents since childhood, were what would tie them together for the rest of their life. Charlotte had given him life, but only with his fathers, he felt safe. However, Hero knew, he was lucky to know who his mother was. To be able to talk to and see her every day. He knew his story, and he didn't have a thousand question marks floating in his head when he thought about who he was, or where he came from. He knew why Charlotte had decided to let him be adopted, and he knew, it wasn’t his fault. Since he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder three months earlier, he understood her choice even better. Sometimes he had talked to Eva about the fact that they had both been adopted, but the affinities of their stories ended there. She didn't know anything about her biological parents, she didn't know her story and this made her suffer, even though she was grateful for the love, she had received from Jens and Lucas since she was a child. Eva had lived in a foster home until she was adopted by the two boys at the age of five, and because of this, she still had memories of when she felt abandoned and alone in the world. Hero had never felt the same way. He had always had two parents, an aunt, two uncles, four grandparents, and eventually, a sister. There was no space to feel alone. When he came out of school, he saw Charlotte waiting for him and smiled at her, walking in her direction. When they were in front of each other, she promptly squeezed him in a hug, and Hero immediately felt some of the tension vanish. He was sixteen and most of his friends shunned their family, trying to spend a lot of time away from home among their peers. But since he had his first episode, he felt comfortable only with his family. He knew, he could finally let his guard down because they would take care of everything. “Thanks for picking me up, Aunt Charlotte.” “Anytime, baby. Let's grab some hot chocolate, okay?” Hero nodded slowly, following Charlotte who had started walking. He had heard so many stories about her. When she was young, his aunt was the life of the party, ready to joke around. She hadn't changed much over the years. Charlotte was a funny person and always had a smile on her face. She lived with her girlfriend Ellie in a house by the river. They had no children, but Hero knew they were both very happy with their busy lives. When they sat facing each other in the cafeteria, waiting for their order, Charlotte looked Hero in the eye, and the boy suddenly felt exposed, as if there was no way could he have lied without the other noticing. “How are you feeling?” “I felt a bit overwhelmed at school, but now I'm fine.” “It was the same for me, but I pushed myself so hard all the time, just to fit in, that after some time it almost felt normal.” “Should I do that too?” Maybe Charlotte had the answer to all of his problems. Perhaps following her footsteps would lead him to regain his lost normality. So when Hero asked that question, his tone came out far more hopeful than he wanted. The woman looked at him sweetly and reached out to stroke his cheek. “No, baby. I know how it feels like you have no control over your mind or your body, but it’s not like that. It’s like learning to drive a new car: everything is new at first and you are scared but eventually, you’ll get used to it.” “So I'll be able to control this thing, eventually?” “Not really, but you will know how to deal with it, and also, all the people around you will know what to do to help you.” Hero sighed, looking down. He felt trapped in a tunnel with no exit. “It's frustrating.” “Yeah. But if you go to therapy and take your meds, it will be fine. You’ll know when something is coming. Everyone has symptoms. But don't worry, okay? We’re all here for you. We're gonna get through this. I promised.” “Thanks, Aunt Charlotte.” -

After spending a few hours with Charlotte to clear his mind, Hero had made a decision. He knew, he had to talk about it with his parents first, and this made him a little anxious, but he was sure that talking about it with his dad would help him more in deciding what to do. Hero was very attached to his dad, and unlike many teenagers, he felt free to talk to him about everything, without ever being judged. While he was waiting for the elevator, he closed his eyes and suddenly felt all the tiredness envelop his limbs. It was a weird sensation for the middle of the day. He had always been a boy who liked people, and yet the disease made social interactions physically exhausting. After half a day with his schoolmates and teachers, he just needed to rest. Going home and doing homework in those conditions was complicated. He couldn’t focus. The only thing he wanted to do was simply lie down to recover some of the energy lost during the day. Even before the elevator doors opened, Hero could hear the voices of his uncles. They were bickering as usual, and he couldn’t help but smile. Jens and Lucas have always been two of his favorite people in the world. Thanks to them he had learned to skate as a child, even though he often found himself in the midst of their deathly competitions to decide which one of them was more skilled on the board. “This damn stroller. Why you had to pick this monstrosity, uh?” “It was the safest one, Jens.” “It's bigger than our car and we barely fit in the elevator.” When the doors opened, they revealed the two men comically squeezed in a corner, to make

room for what was truly the largest stroller Hero had ever seen. Inside that gigantic thing, there was Lilith, a little girl of just six months, with thick raven hair and big chestnut eyes. “Hey, kid!” Jens was the first to notice Hero, and as soon as he managed to get out of the elevator, he gave him a high-five. Lucas took the stroller out and joined them. “Are you okay, baby? You look tired.” Lucas could spot the tiniest detail of one’s face, and Hero knew this very well. There were rare times in which he had managed to get away from his uncle’s gaze, and in fact, Eva had also stopped trying to hide anything from him. “And you should still be at school, right?” Hero still hated to talk about his illness, and it was wrong, especially because they were his uncles who had known him forever and knew exactly what he was going through. Lucas and Jens had been close to Charlotte when she was struggling. It should have been easier to say I felt a little overwhelmed today, so Charlotte picked me up and I just wanna rest even though it's only two in the afternoon. But he still couldn't, so he just shrugged, hoping the two would understand. Lucas stroked his cheek, giving him a look full of affection. “It's gonna be fine, Hero. And we are all here for you, okay?” “Yes, if you need anything, just call us, or come upstairs. Our door is always open for you.” Hero smiled, extremely grateful for the safety-net around him. He was surrounded by people who cared so much about him. They would never leave him alone, even in their darkest moments. He thanked his uncles and waved them goodbye, doing the same with little Lilith who had watched the whole scene from her huge stroller. - When he walked into his house, he immediately heard music coming from his papa's studio. Since Bowie, his sister, was born, Sander had decided to focus on her and work more from home. His sister was a little brat, and the fact that Sander spoiled her didn't make things better. The two spent hours playing with paint and soiling clean clothes and furniture with it. Hero had never been particularly talented with pencils and brushes, and perhaps for that reason, he believed in his heart that his papa preferred to spend more time with Bowie. He couldn't help but be a little jealous of their relationship, and of how Sander was able to show affection to the little girl. The boy knew, he was also deeply loved by his papa, but lately, there was something off between them. He knocked on the open door of his father's studio to get his attention, and the man looked up, giving his son a warm smile. “Hey, you're back early!” “Yeah, I didn't feel good and I asked Charlotte to pick me up.” “You could have asked me.” Hero shrugged, avoiding Sander's gaze. He hated to see the disappointment on his face, but his papa couldn't understand what he was going through. Charlotte, on the other hand, could. “How are you feeling now?” “Tired. I think I'm gonna get some rest.” “If you need anything, I'm right here.” Hero nodded, giving his father a small smile. As he made his way to his room, his sister darted past him laughing, without even saying hello and he frowned, thinking she was the strangest girl in the world. When he entered his room, he quickly walked over to the desk. He took off his backpack, placing it on the floor, and got rid of the sweatshirt he was wearing, already anticipating the moment when his body would finally touch the bed. He turned, but his expression changed immediately when he saw a huge stain of red paint standing out on his favorite blanket. Hero reconnected the dots. It wasn’t a hard task, after all. “BOWIE. I SWEAR TO GOD. I HATE YOU SO MUCH.” He closed his eyes and tried to regain control of himself, trying to breathe normally through his nose, while thinking he had to move quickly before the paint would run through the blanket, ruining the sheets and mattress. “What happened?” Sander appeared from the door with a frown on his face, followed by Bowie that was hiding behind his legs. Hero looked at them both, furiously, while a thousand thoughts were crowding his mind. He wanted to keep screaming all his anger, but he didn't. Instead, he started to roll up the blanket, being careful not to spill the paint around. “Your favorite child made a mess.” “Hero, what are you talking about? I don't have a favorite child. You two and your dad are my favorite people in the world.” The boy didn’t argue. He kept undoing his bed to the mattress, in silence. When he noticed that his father was doing nothing to leave him alone in his bedroom, he decided to speak up. “Where's dad? I wanna talk to him.” “He's still at work.” Hero was tired and angry, and in moments like that, it was like his emotions were exploding inside of him uncontrollably. He hated feeling that way as if everything he had inside was about to get out of his hand at any moment. Despite fighting against it for most of the time, sometimes he couldn’t help but let go. He looked at his papa's face and clenched his jaw when the other's eyes held his gaze with the same intensity as if they were a mirror of his own. The boy wanted to say everything he had been holding inside for months, all the thoughts that were hurting him. The things that kept him awake at night. Why don't you love me as much as you love Bowie? Why don't you ever want to spend time with me? It's because she is really your daughter and I’m just... He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away, suddenly feeling too fragile to be able to withstand such a fight. Once again he had been betrayed by himself. “I don't get why he's always at work, while you are here.” “You're being rude, and you know I work here so I can be with you and your sister.” “Yeah, with my sister, of course. Whatever, I want dad now.” “Hero, you can also talk to me.” “I need to throw these things in the washer.” “Okay. Let me help you.” - Later that evening, he was hiding in his room, tucked under clean blankets, with the light on, because he wanted to avoid, in every way, turning his bad mood into something worse. Hero heard a knock on his door. When he turned to look at his visitor, he was delighted to see his dad's face. He sighed in relief and sat up against the headboard. The boy was happy to finally see him. He had needed his presence since he left for school that morning. “Hey, baby.” “Hi, dad.” “How's your day?” Robbe sat down on the bed, hugging him tightly, making that annoying lump in his throat reappear, and his eyes becoming instantly watery. They released their embrace and Hero shook his head, trying not to look his dad. Robbe sighed, placing his hands on the boy's shoulders. “Hero, what’s going on? Papa told me what happened.” “Snitch.” “He's worried about you. He loves you as much as I do, you know that.” “But he loves Bowie more because she’s your biological daughter.” “Baby, what are you talking about? You can't be serious!” Hero shrugged. Saying that sentence out loud was all he had been trying to do for weeks, but now it was like finding himself suddenly naked, in front of a crowd that was staring at him. He couldn't add anything else or speak up, because, yes, he was serious, but when he felt his dad's arms wrap him in a hug, he felt a little less stupid. “You can't even imagine what your papa did for you when we were young. He gave up everything for you. His relationship with me and with his sister. He was ready to drop out of uni, just to find a job and take care of you.” “I didn’t want to be rude to him. I was just pissed because Bowie made a mess in my room while he was supposed to watch her.” “He can get lost in his work sometimes.” “And I also don't know how to talk to him. With you, it's easier.” “We can call him and you can try to talk with both of us.” “Fine.” When Sander walked through the door, following Robbe and holding his hand, he had his usual worried expression painted on his face. He sat on Hero's bed, and Robbe did the same, on the other side of it. Hero, somehow, felt calmer, safer, there sat between his fathers. “Sorry about earlier, papa.” “It's okay, don't worry.” Like a suspicious cat that suddenly jumps in your lap, Hero approached his papa, leaning his back against the man’s chest, and Sander began to card his fingers through his son's hair, looping his waist with the other arm. Hero closed his eyes, relaxing. He realized that the distance he had felt between him and his papa was probably yet another trick of his mind and that for all that time, it would be enough for him to reach out, and bring down the walls that he had created. “I think I should drop out of school. I’m overwhelmed all the time and it’s really hard for me to focus. When I get home I’m too tired to do my homework. I feel like I'm failing at everything and it gives me anxiety.” There was a long moment of silence in which Robbe and Sander looked into each other's eyes, and Hero was sure that somehow, after years of marriage, the two had discovered a way to talk telepathically, because he had seen them do that so many times. “Your mental health is our priority.” “Definitely, and we understand that you need your time to adjust to your illness, to understand how to live your life with it.” “Thanks.” “But, maybe we can consider other options, you know?” “Like what?” "Homeschooling, for example." It wasn't a bad idea. That way he would adjust his schedule according to how he felt. “It's a good idea, but I don't know if I can start something new right now.” “It's okay, baby. We can take it day by day.” “And if it gets too much, we can also take it minute by minute.” Hero turned his face to look his papa in the eye, and smile gratefully at him. He liked the idea of not having to think about the future and being able to focus only on the present. It made him feel grounded and for the first time in weeks, his mind wasn't drifting. Robbe held Hero in his arm, kissing his forehead, while Sander hugged them both as they did when he was still a little kid. “My baby boy.” “Our baby boy, Robbe.” “Yes, our baby boy.” Maybe Hero would always be a fish out of water among his peers, because of his illness or because it was just what he had always been. Having been loved so deeply since he was born, had led him to be free of being himself because his parents had always pushed him to express his personality and not to apologize for who he was. Reality hit him very hard when he found out that people usually prefer predictability and labels. The world doesn't like unpredictable things. Hero loved to live his little utopia, in the arms of his parents, in which he was free to be himself, with his illness, his moment of euphoria, and his depression. He was free to express his ideas, to love immeasurably, to cry, to feel sad or happy. In his little utopia, he felt safe and knew that if he fell, someone would always be ready to catch him. At that moment Hero knew that, although he’d always carry the moon inside of him, thanks to the love surrounding him, eventually, the sun would shine again.

[previous]

#wtfock #wtfam #carrying the moon #epilogue #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #van der stoffels #drijzermans #sobbe

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Dad Fluff: Bad Day

CW: Chronic pain, referenced past torture, Mina is sickeningly cute, and all of the things she does in here are things I have personally witnessed a four year old doing. (I was actually the four year old who did one of the things in this piece - guess which one!)

Danny is busy pitying himself when he hears Mina wake up down the hall. He’d had this idea of what parenting would be like, and lying in bed with agonizing pain ripping up and down his back isn’t it.

Instead, as he’d waited and waited for them to be matched with a birthmom, Danny had pictured waking his daughter (or son - they hadn’t known which the baby would be, yet) with homemade breakfast.

He’d seen himself as being already on his second cup of coffee, settling down at the kitchen table to watch tiny legs swing on chairs too tall.

Danny had pictured asking his child what they had dreamed about the night before, and lying about his own nightmares with ease by then. Never letting on that when his baby needed a nightlight, he still did, too.

Some days - most days, even, he tries to be honest with at least himself - he is exactly the father he wanted to be. But then there are days like today, where his four year old daughter starts singing to herself in her room down the hall and Danny can’t get up to greet her.

“Hosanna, hey-sanna, sanna superstar,” Mina sings brightly in the joyful off-key caterwauling of very young children, and Danny finds a smile. It’s faint and faded and it doesn’t last, as a new spike of pain rips up the right side of his back where a knife once broke off inside him, but he decides to count that one single smile as his first victory for the day.

He should have told Nate to call off class, he really should have, but… the thing was, Nate’s been working on this lecture he’s really excited about - something something World War I and horror in popular culture, there’s a book, something something there’s always a book - forever and his students are all hyped up for it and Danny having a bad back doesn’t seem like a reason to ruin everyone else’s day, too.

It felt like doing the right thing then - pretending to be peacefully asleep while Nate quietly got ready and let himself out the front door after putting Toto out in the fenced-in yard - but in the moment it means Danny lying in bed, in the dark he tells himself he no longer fears because he’s in too much pain to turn on the light, waiting for his daughter to give up waiting on him to come to her room and come looking for him herself.

“Hey-sanna, hosanna, sanna superstar,” Mina sings, and then there’s a pause. Danny closes his eyes against the angry tears, tries to tell himself to stand, but when he moves his legs his back screams at him to stay still and he gives up, letting out a soft, half-broken sob.

“Daddy?” Mina calls. He can hear the sound of her turning the doorknob, the soft sound of the door opening up. “Daddy? Do you hear me singing?”

“Yes, baby,” He manages, his deep voice hoarse and a little cracked. “I’m… I’m in my room, Mina, honey. Can… can you, um, come here?”

Silence, and then the padding of tiny footsteps down the hall, until his own bedroom door slowly opens. He can close his eyes and picture her going up on her toes to turn on the light, and the sudden brightness soothes something that is always jagged in Danny in the dark.

Grown man, afraid of the dark, Abraham whispers in the back of his mind, never quite gone, the ghost that left a parting gift of pain. My fingers never leave your mind.

Around the side of the little dresser his daughter peeps at him and Abraham’s voice is gone as quickly as it came. Mina chases all his ghosts away.

She’s wearing her matching unicorn pajamas that are probably too small by now, but he can’t bear to make her give them up. Her hair is a halo of textured black curls around her head - Danny is supposed to give her back her braids, today, the ladies down at the salon they go to showed Danny and Nate how to take care of hair so very different than their own

He can’t braid her hair if he can’t fucking sit up.

Mina takes him in with wide brown eyes, the largest feature in her tiny round face. She’s starting to lose the toddler babyfat but only just, and the resemblance to his own younger brother in the first days Danny was adopted is… uncanny, sometimes.

Like now, when Mina looks at him and knows what she is looking at.

“You didn’t turn on the light,” She says, softly. “You don’t have your light on the wall. Are you sick?”

“I’m… I’ll be okay, honey. I just have, um, my back hurts… pretty bad today. I thought I’d handle it, but…” He groans without meaning to, it feels like so much energy just to talk. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m not… not gonna be much of a daddy today.”

Mina frowns at him, her big brown eyes locked on his.

It isn’t supposed to be like this.

Abraham found a way to leave him one last goddamn gift, a present he never unwrapped or asked for and would do anything to give back.

“I’ll get your phone,” Mina says seriously, and comes further in, dragging RiffRaff behind her, the stuffed giraffe with a neck long enough to approach pure absurdity. A gift from Ryan, one among many.

She moves quickly across the floor with her little bare feet padding, a flash of brown stomach showing as her too-small shirt rides up. She has to stretch up again to pull Danny’s cell phone down from the bookshelf, and he watches her, thinking, by next year you won’t have to go on your toes, by two years you won’t want me to be the first thing you see any longer, by thirteen you’ll be slamming doors in my face, will I still be lying here with my back refusing to let me be the parent I wanted to be for you?

“Sad Daddy face,” Mina says, slapping the cell phone down next to him. “Dad would poke your nose.”

“He would,” Danny says, and manages a small smile. “Honey, I’m trying, but I think we have to call Dad back home from work. I can’t… I can’t get out of the bed. I’m sorry, Mina, but it’s not… it’s not gonna work today.”

“Yes it can,” Mina says, with a stubborn set to her jaw she gets from Nate, not that Nate has ever noticed he does it. Danny finds a small smile, at the sight. Adopted or not, Mina is Nate Vandrum’s daughter through and through - already reading some words, already curling up with a book to turn the pages and make up stories about the pictures she sees on the page. Already a serious little girl, a tiny adult.

“I don’t see how,” Danny replies, shifting minutely in the bed, just trying to move onto his side, hissing when his back protests once again.

“We do like when I get sick,” Mina says, softly. “I can open the fridge all by myself and my stuffies and my loveys can sit with us and we can do like when I’m sick.” She considers, and he sees a sudden gleam of mischief in her. “I can have my screen?” She asks, sidling a little closer to the bed.

Danny swallows, and looks down at his cell phone. It’s 7:30 in the morning. The lecture Nate has been planning for happens for his 10 AM class, and he can move his office hours maybe if Danny gives him enough notice to put up a sign…

Hey Nate, he texts, keeping his eyes on Mina, who watches his texting with interest and a clearly increasing certainty that she is going to get exactly what she wants out of this. Bad back day. Fine rn but cn you come home after lecture plz?

“Gonna get to watch princesses,” Mina says, with evident delight. “And eat Lunchables.”

“Sssshhhh,” Danny says, but he can’t quite hold back his own smile in response to his daughter’s. “Daddy being sick isn’t supposed to be something you look forward to, baby.”

His phone vibrates in his hand and he glances down.

Danny, please use full words, that drives me up the wall when you type like that.

“I can’t believe you took the time to write that out,” Danny mutters to himself, but his smile widens even more. He can feel the stretch of scar tissue along his nose and jaw, even this long after Abraham’s death the marks are there, fading but never gone. “Mina, only your Dad uses correct punctuation in his f-... his text messages.”

“Writing is important,” Mina recites in her best impersonation of Nate, pitching her voice hilariously low. Danny laughs out loud despite the way the motion seems to stab whole new little daggers up and down his spine. He’ll be damned if he’ll let a little agony stop him from appreciating his daughter.

Another message comes in and he glances down.

I’ll be home by 12:30. Bringing ramen from the place you like and gyoza for Mina. Do you want me to just cancel and come home now?

No, fine. Just after lunch is good.

Whether Nate believes him or not, he doesn’t know, but he drops back to lay his head down on the pillow, watching Mina watch him right back. “Okay, honey. Dad will be home after lunch. So we just have to… to make this work for a few hours, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy. I’ll be right back.” With that, Mina throws RiffRaff onto the bed next to Danny and goes running back out. All he can do is lay there, feeling spectacularly useless, while he listens and hopes that she isn’t taking this moment to color on all the walls or break a bunch of things or learn how to set the house on fire.

When she finally returns, she is dragging her small travel suitcase - the one with some kind of cartoon character whose name he can’t remember - behind her like an overworked flight attendant at the end of a long day. “Okay… Daddy…” Mina says, comically out of breath. “I brought… everything.”

He realizes she never actually zipped the suitcase when she simply overturns the whole thing and Danny stares, trapped on the bed, as it opens up and dumps a chaotic mixture of toys and food and her favorite blankets onto his bedroom floor.

“Jesus Christ, Mina,” Danny whispers, eyes wide.

“Jesus Christ, Superstar,” Mina sings happily in response. Not a single note is on key, and Danny thinks maybe adoption doesn’t matter and Mina is his child too. “Do you think you’re what they say you are? Okay, Daddy, I got… I got us stuff for sick. Can I get up on the bed with you?”

Danny looks at the roughly mound-shaped pile of things on the floor, then slowly up at his daughter. “Can we… can we do something about all your stuff first?”

“It’s your stuff, too. Look!” Mina digs into the pile with enthusiasm, and the first thing she pulls out is Danny’s bottle of pain medication.

Hi, I’m Daniel Michaelson, and my baby brings me my fucking pain meds. Pin the medal on the father of the fucking year.

“Oh my God,” Danny whispers. Someone is going to psychically know this happened and he’ll lose her, and he can’t lose her, not because of his stupid back, not because of goddamn Abraham fucking Denner-

“I pushed a chair up to the counter and climbed up and got in the special cupboard,” Mina says seriously, giving him the bottle. He takes it with shaking fingers, his heart so gripped with guilt it’s like it has to work harder to beat. “Where you keep medicine. I can open the lock now and I put my feet in the sink!”

Danny is going to hell for being a bad father, he knows it. He knows it, and he knows your four-year-old stood in your sink to dig out your fucking pills, you fucking whiner is going to be the first thing the Devil says to him.

Maybe he’ll get to suffer right next to Abraham.

Maybe Abraham’s the demon set to make him sorry for everything all over again.

“Daddy, stop,” Mina says, looking a little nervous at the look on Danny’s face. “Dad always gets you medicine when your back is bad. Am I in time-out?”

“Um. Uh… no, honey. Just… just don’t do that, um, again. And don’t ever, ever tell Dad you know how to get into the medicine cabinet. Okay?”

“Okay.” Mina drops back down to the pile, and brings up a small bottle of the cold brew they buy in a pack of six at the store. She hands that to Danny, too, taking to her work with perfect seriousness. All he can do is watch her as he swallows two pills dry and then washes them down with the coffee.

There.

An hour, and he’ll be able to move around in the bed, at least, even if he’ll still hurt too badly to get all the way up. His back is like that - on bad days you can’t get rid of the pain, only make it a little less debilitating. Most bad days he can keep himself moving through sheer momentum, and everyone tells him he must be feeling better and he doesn’t know how to tell them that his baseline changed, back when Abraham first held him captive - he and Nate in the woods in Canada.

Long before the blade broke off in his back, there were days of bruises, battering, and beating. He starved and never slept and hurt like hell.

People think pain ebbs and flows, but the tide is never fully out for Danny. There is always a whisper of oceanwater promising a later tsunami.

While he lays there watching her, Mina picks out her stuffies and loveys, one by one, and begins to lay them throughout the bed. In the backyard, distantly, Danny hears Toto barking - the high-pitched bark that means he’s treed something again. At least somebody is having fun, Danny thinks.

“Okay, Daddy,” Mina says, laying a series of stuffed animals carefully around his head and lightly against his shoulders as he forces himself to shift onto his back on the bed, closing his eyes against the way the pain drains all the blood from his face and his fingers, leaving everything cold and numb as it’s his spine where the nerves light up in fire. “You can have RiffRaff today, and Mister Bones, and Zombie Monkey, and She-Ra, and Ugly, and Bo. I’m going to keep the rest.”

Danny takes a deep breath. “Honey, did you leave any of your animals in your room?”

“No,” Mina answers with a shrug. She clambers back down and comes back with her tablet, which she smacks down a little too hard on Danny’s stomach. He winces and hisses, and her eyes go wide. “Oh, your tummy is sick? I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“N-No, baby, it’s okay. It’s… yikes. I’ll pull a, um, a movie up for you, okay?”

“Princess movie!”

“Can we… watch literally anything else, baby?”

Mina juts her lower lip out and sets her jaw. “Princess movie, Daddy.” She says, stubbornly. When Danny responds with silence and a raised eyebrow, she lets the pout go and gives him a disarming, charming smile instead. “I mean, Daddy-can-I-please-watch-princesses?” She asks, batting her eyelashes and everything, the words all run together the way she always does when she has to ask nicely.

Danny sighs, but it’s with a smile on his face. “Yeah, okay, honey. What else do you have on the floor?”

“Um, some toys, and… this!” Mina holds up two matching Lunchables in the air like she’s declaring victory.

Honestly, she probably is.

“Lunchables for breakfast, huh?” Well, there are worse things in the world, Danny thinks to himself. At least it’s not drugs, right? Yeah, there’s a good bar for good parenting, whether or not your four year old prefers Lunchables or… cocaine or something.

“I need these fucking pills to kick in,” Danny mutters, not realizing he’s speaking out loud until Mina turns to look at him, wide-eyed.

“Daddy,” She says, sounding absolutely scandalized. “You’re not supposed to say that word anymore, Dad said-”

“I know what Dad said,” Danny says, gesturing carefully with one arm, moving as few of his back muscles as possible to do it. “Climb on up here, honey. Let’s do Lunchables. I’ll put a dollar in the jar when I can stand up, okay?”

She nods and climbs up with him. Danny carefully opens the Lunchables for her with his teeth gritted. There’s another thing they didn’t tell him, before it was his life - that sometimes even doing tiny things like tearing the perforated opening off the side of a cardboard Lunchables box could hurt so badly. People think they know what a backache is.

They don’t know.

But then Mina takes the Capri Sun and puts it aside and makes herself a tiny ham-and-cheese sandwich using the little cracker in the box, and some of Danny’s stubborn self-pity starts to slide away, eroded by her cheerful smile. “Elsa with the water horse?” She asks. “Can we do that princess movie?”

“Frozen 2,” Danny corrects absently, scanning through the Disney movies on the tablet with casual swipes of his finger. She never asks for the new princess movies, only the ones from before she was born. Once the movie starts, the sound small and tinny coming from the tablet, Danny settles himself back against the pillows and hands her the screen. She pulls out his arm - he holds back the sounds of pain at the stretch of muscle - and then snuggles in against his side, pulling RiffRaff back into her own lap, her fuzzy black hair brushing softly against the roughened scar tissue on Danny’s neck.

He manages to turn his head and kiss her, on the top of her head. “Just a few hours until Dad gets home,” Danny whispers. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’ll be a better Daddy tomorrow.”

He hopes.

Mina is watching the opening previews and doesn’t look at him or even seem to hear what he said.

By ten, Danny’s been able to get up and use the bathroom, at least, and brush his teeth. That’s his second victory, he decides, in a day where they don’t come easy.

Around eleven, right in the middle of Nate giving the lecture he’s been working so hard on, Danny and Mina fall asleep listening to The Princess and the Frog, a firefly singing to the evening star.

Nate comes home at half past noon with the ramen in hand. He sets it down on the kitchen table and lets Toto back in, the scruffy shelter dog all wagging tails and half-wild jumps. Nate gets him slowly calmed down, and listens. “D-Danny? You around?”

Nothing.

“Mina? Baby? Where are you and D-Daddy?”

Still nothing. Nate frowns - Danny hadn’t answered his text asking what kind of ramen he wanted, and he’d thought maybe Danny was playing with Mina in the toyroom and hadn’t heard - but when he checks, they aren’t in there either.

Finally, he heads upstairs, and halfway up he realizes he can hear the tinny sounds of music coming from their bedroom. He stops in the doorway to stare down at a small, scattered pile of plastic horses, a tiny baby doll, dollhouse furniture, and at least one Pegasus next to his daughter��s suitcase for when they travel to see Danny’s parents.

There’s a soft exhalation, and he turns to look at his husband and daughter asleep on the bed.

The tablet has been discarded, off to the empty side of the king-sized bed. It’s still playing the menu for one of the Disney movies, although Nate can’t remember which one this menu screen is for.

Danny is on his side, with his knees curled, some of the age fallen off of his face His hair is a mess of bright red with hints of silver over his eyes - he’s had silvery strands in his hair since Alberta, the first time Abraham held him - and spread out across the pillows. His hands aren’t up to cover his head - he hasn’t done that in a few years now.

Instead, he has one hand curled up against himself, and the other arm flung over his sleeping daughter. Mina has her head under his chin, on her side as well, and her face is buried against his neck and his collarbone. The two of them breathe nearly in unison, and they are absolutely suffocating in Mina’s favorite stuffed animals and the remains of empty Lunchables packages.

Next to the bed, on the side table, is a half-drunk bottle of iced coffee and Danny’s pain medication. Nate swallows - Danny never takes pills until it’s so bad he can’t move or Nate forces him to. Too afraid, even now, that taking a few pills would lead him right back to relying on fuzzying up his mind to shake away the memories that still threaten when the room is dark.

Nate considers just closing the door and heading back downstairs to eat alone, but Toto comes barreling past his legs and runs into the room, taking a bodily leap onto the bed, all forty pounds of him trying to wriggle between Danny and Mina to try and lick both their faces at once.

Danny jerks awake, eyes fluttering and blinking rapidly, pushing instinctively back Mina groans and rolls over, scooting away, trying to slip right back to sleep the way kids sometimes do.

“H-Hey, Toto,” Danny slurs, getting his hands on the excited dog and gently moving him back. “Hey, bud, how did you get inside…”

“I let him in,” Nate says softly, and Danny turns to look at him. His face is pale and drawn, but the smile when he greets Nate is real.

“Oh, hey,” Danny says, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Sorry to call you home early, I just-... it’s just not a good day for my back. Mina and I decided to… to just take a break in here-”

“Danny, you’ve been in here all day, haven’t you?” Nate sighs. “Don’t l-lie to me.”

“It’s fine,” Danny says, shaking his head. Mina groans again, but her eyes are open now, and she rolls back over. “It’s fine, I’ll do better tomorrow, I’ll… I’ll try harder-”

“Danny,” Nate says, firmly, and it’s only then that Danny seems to realize what he just said. His face pales a little more, making the healing muzzle scars stand out in a ring around his face. “You don’t h-have to. I don’t m-m-mind coming home.”

“Hello, Dad,” Mina says blearily, scooting back to Danny now that Toto is safely sitting far enough back to give her spot back to her, snuggling right back into him. “Did you bring food?”

“I d-did, honey. Have you and Daddy had fun this morning?”

Danny winces, guilt written clearly across his face. “I’ll be better tomorrow, I’ll do better, I can... can try harder-”

“Danny, stop it,” Nate says, a little more edged this time.

“We had so much fun, Dad,” Mina says cheerfully, and Danny turns to look at her, surprised. “We ate Lunchables for breakfast. I always want to and you never let me! And Daddy said a bad word so he has to put money in the jar again-”

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t tell,” Danny says with fake anger, and Mina makes a face at him until he smiles.

“And I got to have all my friends in your bed even though I’m not supposed to and we watched princess movies and I got to pick the movies and Daddy played Stuffy Fight with me!”

“So you d-did have fun,” Nate says gently, and Mina nods.

Danny sits back, closing his eyes briefly, and Nate watches the way his face stills, and knows he’s holding back emotion that wants to write itself there that he doesn’t want to show. Nate sits down, lightly resting on the side of the bed, and slides a hand behind Danny’s head, leaning in to give him a kiss.

“Don’t s-sell yourself short,” Nate says gently. “You’re a g-g-good dad, Daniel Michaelson. Even on b-bad days. But… call me n-next time. Listen to me. You’re a good dad.”

There’s a pause.

Then Mina leans slowly over and says, “I got Daddy’s pills down from the cabinet for him.”

Nate turns to look at her, blinking, as Danny groans and puts his hands up over his eyes. “Oh my God, Mina, I did not ask you and you promised not to tell-”

“Okay,” Nate says, with exaggerated patience. “I am going to pr-pretend I did not h-h-hear either of the things either of y-you just said, and go g-g-get the trays and our r-r-ramen and gyoza. Please n-n-never explain it to me. Ever.”

Danny nods without taking his hands down.

Nate gets all the way downstairs, gets the food settled on the TV trays, and Danny has slurped up his first bite of noodles when Nate finally sighs and says, “You know wh-what, I lied - I need to know exactly how you explain-”

“I didn’t tell Daddy until after I did it,” Mina says brightly, picking up the little fried dumpling with her fingers.

“... and there it is. Let’s eat b-b-before I panic, at l-least.”

“I know how to open the special lock! I can open under the sink now, too!”

“... okay, too l-late, I’m panicking now.”

#whump #I feel like I want to call this parenting whump #emotional whump #trauma recovery whump #tw: chronic pain #tw: references to past torture #original fiction #dad fluff #epilogue #mina vandrum #mina and her dads #writing #oblique references to things that haven't happened in the Bad Arc yet

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yunaffie · 5 years

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Shu Takumi interview

Several years ago, Official Nintendo Magazine UK (now no longer existent) had an interview with Shu Takumi and it was even on their website. Now their website is no longer around, but I did manage to find the interview on the Wayback Machine and I figured I’d repost it to make it easier to find, as well as give people who haven’t seen it yet the opportunity to do so.

On the day that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies is released, Takumi talks to us about his best-loved series

Shu Takumi's most famous creation, Phoenix Wright, is famed for his 'turnabouts'. These whiplash-inducing twists of logic see him step into the unknown in order to seek his client's innocence; he's essentially a chancer, blagging his way to victory. Talk to Takumi, however, and you sense that he leaves nothing to fate. His stories are intricately plotted, his jokes laser-targeted and his heroes full-bodied personalities.

In a medium in which storytelling starts and ends with 'man hates thing, man shoots thing', Takumi is a rare exception to the rule. With his latest yarn, Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, on the horizon, Associate Editor Matthew Castle was lucky enough to cross-examine one of gaming's definitive voices.

Matthew Castle: Before we start, just for any readers who might not know who you are, could you tell us about your role at Capcom?

Shu Takumi: I'm a director, which means that I propose ideas for new titles, design the games, write the scenarios and direct the projects. In addition, I mutter complaints and, when the intense pressure of an impossible schedule finally gets to me, escape into a fantasy world of my own creation [laughs].

MC: Before developing Ace Attorney you worked on Dino Crisis. How does one go from dinosaur survival horror to virtual courtrooms?

ST: Dino Crisis was the brainchild of my then boss, Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami. Working on his projects taught me not only how to make games, but also how to think about them. After Dino Crisis 2 wrapped, Mr Mikami gave me six months in which to create any kind of game I wanted.

I was still pretty wet behind the ears, but as I'd originally joined Capcom with a desire to create mystery and adventure games, this was a huge chance for me to make my mark as a creator. In the end it took a team of seven 10 months to produce the first GBA Ace Attorney title. Having the freedom to create exactly the kind of game I wanted was amazing and it was a real pleasure to work on that project.

MC: Can you remember when the idea of Ace Attorney first came to you? How did your bosses respond to the idea of a lawyer-based adventure game when you first described it to them?

ST: It was in 2000 when Mr Mikami said I could make my own game and my original idea was a fairly typical adventure with a detective as the main character. Most mystery adventures have the player choose from a number of different dialogue options for their character in order to progress the story, but I wanted a new gameplay style that enabled players to deduce for themselves what was happening, rather than just selecting canned responses. I developed this into the concept of facing off against the suspect in a crime and exposing the contradictions in their statements.

I was sure my new idea would be a fun and original take on the genre, so I started to revise the main character, since a detective would be too traditional for such an original concept. I asked myself, "What kind of professional would face off against a suspect and expose their contradictory statements?" The answer, of course, was a lawyer and so the Ace Attorney concept was born.

Incidentally, I wrote the game design document at home during my summer holiday straight after Dino Crisis 2 finished. One day, I got a call from Mr Mikami. Despite having supposedly given me free rein to design whatever I wanted, he warned me off doing a game about courtroom trials!

MC: Ace Attorney paints the police and legal profession in a silly light. Have you ever had feedback from lawyers or policemen about your portrayal of them?

ST: A few years ago I had the opportunity to speak with some police detectives and they told me that their real-life investigations are nowhere near as absurd as those that were depicted in Ace Attorney. I thought to myself, "Well, I had sort-of guessed that already..."

I've never had feedback from any lawyers, but I imagine it would be the same. They'd tell me they don't scream out "Objection!" as vigorously as our characters and I'd think to myself, "Well, I had sort-of guessed that already..."

MC: Every Ace Attorney game is full of great characters, so when you wrote each sequel how did you decide which people to bring back?

ST: The first time a previously featured character returned in a later case was Larry Butz. Phoenix defended him on a murder charge in the very first case of the first game and he showed up later in the same game as a supporting character in the fourth case.

He wasn't originally planned to be a recurring character, however. The schedule for designing and drawing a new character for that case was so tight that there was a serious risk we wouldn't make it in time, so we decided to reuse an existing character simply to save time on asset creation. Thus, Larry made his encore appearance, which ended up being a well-received element of the first game's storyline, so from the second game onwards, we started bringing old characters back intentionally.

How we choose who to bring back is simple: it's usually either characters who are popular with fans, or those I am fond of [laughs].

MC: For all the madness, there's something traditional about the mysteries at the heart of Ace Attorney. Did you draw on any classic crime writers for inspiration?

ST: You could say that there is a mixture of the spilled blood of victims, the guilty tears of killers and the sweat of hard-working detectives flowing through my veins... To put it less graphically, from the time I came across the Sherlock Holmes series as a child, all the way through to my university days, I've been obsessed with reading classic murder mysteries. It's safe to say that Ace Attorney would not exist were it not for Perry Mason.

When writing the cases for the games I've found inspiration in the works of GK Chesterton, Ellery Queen and Anthony Berkeley, to name but a few. And I can't leave out that modern classic of the genre, Columbo.

MC: How hard is it to devise a juicy twist and to hide it from view? In storytelling you often want to obscure the details, but videogame design often requires clarity. Did you find it hard to rectify those two things?

ST: They say that it's harder to create a puzzle than to solve one and that's certainly proved to be the case in my experience. For the first game, with my lack of experience I found it less like a challenging task than a hobby with which I became obsessed.

You need to control the information presented in the game so that there is a single right answer for the player to deduce, but also weave in plenty of initial inconsistencies for them to uncover and our trademark 'turnabout' twists to confound their expectations. This is where reading all those mystery novels in my youth has really paid off.

MC: Having worked on four Ace Attorney games, how did it feel to step away and work on Ghost Trick? Were you nervous to leave that safety bubble?

ST: I first started working on the Ghost Trick concept in 2004, after the completion of the original GBA version of Ace Attorney 3. The third game was supposed to be the last one, but plans changed and I ended up working on the first DS Ace Attorney, which, as you know, was the first Ace Attorney title to be localised and released in the west. My next project after that was Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, so by the time I got around to finishing Ghost Trick it was 2010, six years after I first thought up the concept.

I certainly felt a lot of pressure when making Ghost Trick, as it was a brand new IP and I had just left the Ace Attorney series, but I was grateful for the chance to take on a new challenge.

MC: Ghost Trick featured some incredibly gruesome murder concepts - death by giant roast chicken is my favourite. From where did you draw inspiration for such a huge variety of deaths? Did any not make the cut?

ST: I feel that the most violent way of murdering someone is by directly shooting, stabbing or strangling them, so for Ghost Trick I wanted to have more indirect ways of killing someone, with a darkly comical, more symbolic feeling to them.

Combining this approach with the fact that the Nintendo DS screens are not the largest, or most high-resolution displays out there, it became important to make sure that whatever death we were presenting to the player was visually easy to comprehend. So being crushed to death by some giant object was a perfect fit for our requirements, whether it was under a big rock or a huge roast chicken.

As far as cut ideas, there was going to be a stage where the victim had been crushed by a huge safe that fell from the ceiling, but time restrictions meant the whole stage was cut. I do love having giant objects fall on people, don't I? That's probably the influence of Tom and Jerry on the young Shu Takumi showing through.

MC: More importantly, how did your team react as you presented these death ideas to them. Was anyone worried for your sanity?

ST: Yes, and not only that, but I also made it my goal to cause the team to worry for my sanity whenever I presented an idea, because if they were, it meant it was a good one. I would hear a little voice in my head saying, "You win!" at times like that. The more "You win!" moments one can have in life, the better.

MC: There were nods in Ghost Trick to Ace Attorney - Missile the dog, for example; a character who looked like Wright - do you see the two games as existing in the same universe?

ST: Those are really just coincidences: the guy who looks like Phoenix actually only has the same colour suit on and the dog is not the same breed as Missile, which, coincidentally, is the name of my pet Pomeranian.

Ghost Trick takes place in what is obviously a much more fantastical world than Ace Attorney. You may have noticed that the level backgrounds in Ghost Trick never have any kind of writing in them. This was an intentional design choice to prevent the game's setting from being identifiable as taking place in any particular country or era from the real world.

MC: Could you imagine an Ace Attorney/Ghost Trick crossover? Any deaths that we couldn't prevent by way of possession could then go to trial in a courtroom...

ST: ...or Phoenix Wright could be killed and Sissel could prosecute his killer in court! Whatever form it might take, a crossover between these games is something I would love to see happen.

MC: When you return to Ace Attorney after a period of absence - whether it was to write Apollo Justice or Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney - how easy do you find it to slip back into that world and that writing voice?

ST: Writing for Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney was the first time in several years that I wrote in the voice of Phoenix and Maya, but those characters are so dear to me that I carry them around everywhere in my heart, so it was very easy to pick it up again. It was like a reunion with old friends and was a very pleasurable and nostalgic experience for me.

MC: When you came to write the scenario for Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, how hard was it to make those two universes gel? Layton's world traditionally dispels the paranormal, while Wright tends to embrace it.

ST: I worked together with Level 5 to develop the world in which the crossover takes place. It took quite a lot of time for both sides to find a setting into which we were happy to place our biggest characters. The starting point for me was when I wondered to myself if one could still use logic to solve a case in a world in which crimes could be committed using magic. I really liked this idea, so it was hard, but fun, work to design the court sections of the game around it.

MC: Putting all diplomacy aside, who would win in a battle of the wits between Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright?

ST: If you ask me, I don't think Phoenix would be able to hold a candle to Layton in a real battle of wits. However, we all know that the hand of fate somehow always manages to bring a 'turnabout' in Nick's fortunes, no matter how sticky the situation, which means, well, sorry, Professor, but you're out of luck!

MC: With Ace Attorney 5 and Ace Attorney Investigations how does it feel to see your characters in the hands of other Capcom employees? We imagine it must be like a parent sending their child to school for the first day.

ST:

That's an apt comparison. I do have mixed feelings about it sometimes. For instance, I was really surprised to see that after we focused on the new character of Apollo in the fourth game, the Dual Destinies team decided to bring Phoenix back. Ultimately, though, having creators other than myself take the helm of the series is a valid choice, as it brings new directions and new story possibilities.

The team on the new game have looked at what the essence of Ace Attorney is, and as long as they can give the fans another great game to enjoy, I'll be happy. After all, the fact that the series is still going over a decade after I made the first game is something I couldn't possibly have imagined in the first place.

MC: Have you seen the Ace Attorney film? If so, what did you think of it? Was it funny to see characters you sketched out all those years ago in the flesh?

ST: I saw it, and I even got to make a little cameo when the film company invited some Capcom staff to visit the set. You can see me briefly in the spectators' gallery in the final court scene.

It was really something to see the story I wrote for the first game brought to life on the big screen by real-life actors.

And those costumes! They were such perfect recreations. The director, Takashi Miike, is an expert at making existing works from other media into entertaining live action films and he did a great job with Ace Attorney. I highly recommend that everyone reading this check it out, if they can.

MC: This interview is part of our 100th edition and we're looking back over some of our magazine highlights. Looking back over your own career, what is your personal highlight to date?

ST: As a creator, the greatest compliment to me is when someone tells me that they played one of my games and enjoyed it. In the course of the press tour for Ghost Trick in 2010, many players from around the world expressed their love of Ace Attorney to me and it's moments like those that make me glad I became a game creator. Also, I'm deeply honoured to have been asked to take part in this special issue and having myself, my team and our work considered a highlight of your magazine's history. I'd like to thank you on behalf of everyone at Capcom. This opportunity is in itself a highlight for us.

MC: Many of our readers are keen to know, what's next for Shu Takumi?

ST: Game projects are a complex balance of so many factors: what I want to make, what players might make of my concept, what Capcom as a company wants from the game, and also broader trends in the gaming industry. My next project is in the preparation stages and I still don't know myself what form it might take by the time it's finished.

Whatever happens, though, I'll be pouring my heart and soul into it and working towards that eternal goal of hearing positive reactions from the players at the end of all the hard work.

#ghost trick #ace attorney #shu takumi

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lady-hammerlock · 5 years

Text

Through the Looking Glass - Chapter Six (Telltale Batjokes & DC Comics Crossover)

AN: Not a lot to say this time, except the warning for sexual harassment is relevant again. There’s going to be stuff in the next couple of chapters that I know a lot of you have been looking forward to seeing through, so stick around for that.

CHAPTER SIX

“So, do you have any other brilliant ideas Mister Wayne?” the Joker said. He was slumped as far down in the Batmobile’s passenger seat as he possibly could be, his body contorted in such a way that he could easily take his frustration out on the dashboard with his feet.

He did exactly that, kicking it a few times and ultimately making very little difference to anything except maybe to his own mood. Served the dashboard right; existing at him.

He expected Batman to tell him off in response. A good lashing out would have been ideal, perhaps even a punch or another twist of his arm like the one he had experienced in Arkham, but he would have settled for even a gentle verbal rebuke.

He wasn’t even given the slightest telling off however. Instead Batman, or what passed as the Bat in this pathetic universe, just stared at the road ahead, seemingly lost in his own thoughts and paying absolutely no attention to what the Joker was doing beside him.

“Perhaps we could go and talk to someone else who has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” the Joker said. “That sounds like an absolutely charming way to spend the time to me. What do you say old pal?”

Still nothing.

This really wouldn’t do.

The Joker already knew that he was going to have to make some changes to this version of Gotham. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to do it just yet; whether explosions or acid or just a few well-placed assassinations would do the trick, but he did know that there was no point to any of it if the Bat wasn’t going to come out and play in response.

Which meant he had to find some way to make the other man snap.

That was proving to be more of a challenge than he would have thought.

Back in his own world the Bat had all sorts of delicious weaknesses that he could exploit. He seemed to gain a child, or sidekick, or partner, or whatever the hell they chose to style themselves as, every year or so, and he was never quite as careful with them as he should have been. Barring that there were all sorts of allies for the Joker to go after; women that were rumored to have gotten a little closer to his Bat than was healthy, especially when the Joker was paying attention, or do-gooders that simply didn’t understand that doing good in Gotham led to nothing but bad luck for them.

There was none of that here though; no allies as far as the Joker could tell, except for ‘John Doe’, pathetic excuse for a Joker that he was, and he was in another universe, so there wasn’t much that the Joker could do to threaten him right now. Poor, sweet, insufferable John seemed to have stolen the entirety of Bruce Wayne’s heart as well, although whether either John or Batman had realized that was anyone’s guess, so the Joker had a feeling no other love interests were going to show up that he could play with. The Bat seemed to care about his butler, but said butler was in another country, so that marked him as a less than ideal target as well.

There had been that phone-call to Gordon back at Arkham. The Commissioner and his Bat had always worked closely together in his own universe. Perhaps good old Jimmy Gordon was worth considering. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time the dear old Commissioner had made himself a target.

The Joker found himself smiling as he thought about it. Ah, such fond memories. It had all gone so well the last time. He and Batman; holding each other in the rain and laughing.

When his Bat… or rather, Bruce Wayne (the longer he spent with the man the harder it was becoming to think of them as being the same person) finally did speak up, his words were not at all what the Joker had anticipated.

“Do you need a drink?” Batman asked, pulling his cowl roughly off before continuing. “I need a drink.”

And oh my. That was certainly enough to bring a smile to the Joker’s face.

After his initial outburst John Doe became quiet as they drove through Gotham City. Bruce wondered if he should say something, but had no idea what he could possibly say that would actually make things better. John had clearly come from a much kinder, more functional version of Gotham City. There wasn’t much Bruce could do about that, except continue to promise John that he would get him back home as soon as possible.

He was just considering whether their next move should be paying a visit to the Justice League and if so, what in God’s name he was supposed to do with John in the meantime (because letting John into the Batcave was one thing; letting him follow Batman into the Watchtower was another completely) when he turned a corner and found that the road ahead had been completely blocked.

A twisted mess of unnaturally large vines and greenery had formed a roadblock about as high as a single story house. The largest vines were about as thick as Bruce was tall; large enough that slamming into them at the speed they were currently going would cause more damage to them than the vine.

Bruce slammed a foot down on the brakes, and turned the wheel sharply. He caught a glimpse of John Doe tensing and clinging to his seat as though his life depended on it.

The Batmobile skidded to a stop, barely feet away from the tangle of vines.

“You all right?” Batman asked, glancing over at John once more.

“Uh huh,” John replied.

Bruce watched the other man carefully for any sign that he knew what was going on. If they were lucky then this would just be Poison Ivy. If not…

“All right Bat Brain!” a shrill, high-pitched voice demanded from somewhere among the tangle of vines. “You get out of that car nice and slow, all right? And bring Mistah J with ya if he’s really in there!”

They weren’t lucky.

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy emerged from somewhere behind the vines, Harley brandishing her hammer as though she had every intention of using it if Bruce and John didn’t do exactly as she asked.

Bruce glanced over at John. It was hard to tell how much of what was happening made sense to him. He looked terrified, although that could be because of the giant vines that had just appeared in the middle of the road or the fact that a woman with green skin had appeared and was controlling them, just as easily as it could be because he had bad memories of either Harley or Ivy.

John was clutching at his seat belt. He seemed to notice Bruce’s eyes on him, and looked straight at Bruce, pleading wordlessly with him. To what exactly? To protect him from Harley and Ivy? There was only one way to find out.

Bruce left the Batmobile, and found John quickly scurrying after him.

“Great!” Harley exclaimed as the two of them stepped away from the Batmobile. “Just the men I wanted to see! Now quit hiding behind the Bat you coward! I’m feeling like you and this hammer of mine need to get better acquainted!”

“You see, the two of us heard a rumor that you brought the Joker into Arkham,” Ivy said, twirling a tendril of vine around in her hand as she did so. “And that when you left, he left with you. Neither of us liked the sound of that, so we came to investigate. I told Harley not to worry. That there had to be some sort of mistake, and yet here we are, and here the two of you are.”

“What the hell are you doing with that freak!” Harley said, pointing at John with her hammer. Considering that John was still doing his best to hide behind Batman, it meant that she was pointing her hammer at Batman as much as at her actual target.

“Let me at him!” Harley said. “I don’t know what he’s planning or how he’s gotten to you Batsy but you know you can’t trust him!”

It was only Poison Ivy’s hand, placed gently on Harley’s shoulder, which stopped her from throwing herself right at John and attacking him.

“How did you hear about the two of us visiting Arkham?” he asked. Harley and Ivy had managed to intercept them remarkably quickly.

“I still got friends in Arkham ya knucklehead,” Harley said. “Ones I might have been on my way to er… visit.”

“You mean break out.”

Harley grinned and shrugged. It certainly wasn’t a denial.

“You still haven’t answered our question,” Ivy said. “What are you doing with the clown?”

“This isn’t who you think it is,” Batman said.

“Of course not,” Poison Ivy said, tossing her hair back over one shoulder in the most dismissive manner possible as she did. “Because two of those psychos running around Gotham is exactly what this city needs.”

Behind Bruce John let out a small whimper. He wondered if the other man knew Poison Ivy and Harley back in his world. If so, they didn’t seem to have left a particularly positive impression on him.

“All right,” Bruce conceded. “He is the Joker, but he’s a Joker from another universe. Not the one that you’re used to. An accident made him switch places with the Joker from our universe.”

Damn it. He was getting sick of having to explain this to everyone he met. And he thought having to defend the regular Joker from all of the people who tried to kill him was exhausting.

“So you’re helping him get back home?” Ivy asked. “You’re going to switch them back?”

“Of course,” Bruce said.

“Why?”

Bruce frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“When you send this Joker back home we’ll get our version of the Joker back, right?” Ivy asked. “I don’t know much about this guy but the fact that he’s spent the entire time cowering behind you rather than being an absolute asshole already makes me like him more than the one I’m used to. Are you sure you want to swap them back?”

“I’m not about to let the other universe deal with that monster,” Batman growled.

“Why not?” Ivy asked. “I know you love playing hero and all, but a universe you’ve never even seen is hardly your responsibility.”

“No. But the Joker is.”

Poison Ivy just rolled her eyes in response to that.

Harley hadn’t said much during Batman and Poison Ivy’s exchange. Instead she had slowly been walking closer to Bruce, her mallet held behind her back. Now it seemed as though she was trying to peak behind Batman and get a good look at John.

Bruce heard him let out another squeak and move slightly more to one side, tugging part of Batman’s cape along with him as he moved.

“Wait a minute,” Harley said, coming to a stop right in front of Batman. “Are you scared of me?”

She pointed her mallet in what Bruce could only assume was John’s general direction.

“You are! Is there a reason you should be scared of me?” Harley continued, taking a couple more steps. “You know something Pammy? I think this guy’s got a guilty conscience. You recognize me, don’t ya?”

“Nope. Absolutely not,” John said, and even with his limited knowledge of the other man, Batman could tell that he was lying.

“Tell the truth John,” Bruce said. “You know Harley, don’t you?”

“Well, I mean… Not this Harley, obviously…” John said, finally emerging from behind Batman and looking more than a little sheepish as he did.

“Quit avoiding the question!” Harley snapped, making John startle and grab hold of Bruce’s arm. “You got a girl named Harley back in your universe too, don’t ya? Did you twist her mind too!? Did you ruin her life too!?”

It was only Bruce deliberately putting himself between Harley and John that stopped the woman from grabbing him and doing who knew what to him.

“Harley,” Bruce said softly, attempting to calm the apparently murderous woman down. “As far as I can tell John Doe here isn’t the villain that our universe’s Joker is.”

“Yeah, newsflash Batsy,” Harley said, still trying to duck around Batman to get to the man in question. “A guy don’t have to be a supervillain to ruin a girl’s life like that. Just an asshole, and there’s plenty of those around.”

“I didn’t do it!” John finally squeaked as Batman tried to stop him from hiding beneath his cape. “At least, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t!”

“Yeah!?” Harley demanded.

“I mean, I did fight you once,” John said, as Harley tightened her grip on her hammer. “But that was because you were working with the bad guys! And I tried to get your attention, but I was never mean about it! I mean, you were the mean one! Making me do things all the time!”

“Would the two of you just stop!?” Batman said, finally snapping and forcibly pushing the two of them apart.

It seemed to work. For the moment at least the two of them seemed content to stand on either side of Batman and glare at one another. Ivy meanwhile hadn’t moved at all, instead leaning back against the vines and watching the interaction with a look of open amusement on her face.

“If John and his Harley don’t get along in their universe then that’s something for the two of them to work out,” Bruce said. “Not you.”

“Yeah… I don’t know about that,” Harley said, glaring at John as she did so. “Tell you what; you tell me what happened between you and the other Harley and then I’ll decide whether or not I need to pummel your brains out. How does that sound?”

The Joker had been excited. Delighted even.

Emphasis on had.

When Bruce had announced that he needed a drink, the Joker had expected alcohol, and that had been a positively delicious idea in his opinion. There were all sorts of things that a clever clown might get up to when his love-slash-sworn-enemy was all drunk and relatively defenseless.

Clearly, there was a big difference between ‘getting a drink’ and well… getting a drink.

The Joker glared at the cream covered concoction that Bruce Wayne placed in front of him. He had changed back into civilian attire, before dragging the Joker to a small, independently run café, where he had proceeded to order them both coffee.

Not alcohol. Coffee.

And the one that Bruce had ordered for him had sprinkles on top.

Bruce could tell that the Joker wasn’t happy, even before he opened his mouth.

“You can’t possibly be serious Mister Wayne,” the Joker asked from over the top of the drink. “Is this really the sort of thing the two of you do here? You go on coffee dates and I drink… this sort of monstrosity?”

“You don’t want it?” Bruce asked. “Sorry. I just assumed you’d like the same thing as John. I can get you a normal coffee instead if you’d like.”

“No need,” the Joker said, grabbing the drink and starting to down it in the most aggressive manner Bruce had ever seen.

“Although I should warn you Batsy,” the Joker said, as he ran a finger through the cream on top and then sucked the cream off in the most lascivious manner possible. “I do tend to get a little… excitable when I’ve had too much sugar.”

Bruce felt something brush against his leg beneath the table, and soon realized that it was the Joker’s foot; a foot which was slowly trailing its way up Bruce’s leg, heading towards…

Bruce cleared his throat and pushed the other man’s foot off his thigh as subtly as he could, hoping as he did that no-one else in the café had noticed what was happening.

“What are you doing?” he hissed at the other man.

“What do you think I’m doing Batsy?” the Joker asked, as he shoved another cream-covered finger into his mouth.

“Stop calling me that!” Bruce hissed beneath his breath. “Someone might hear you.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that now,” the Joker said as his foot continued what it had been doing earlier. “Would we Batsy?”

Bruce groaned and rolled his eyes.

“What is it going to take to get you to behave?” he asked, trying as he did to ignore the point of the Joker’s shoe as it journeyed over his thigh.

“I don’t know,” the Joker said, as he swiped another dollop of cream off the top of his drink. “Why don’t the two of us find that out together, hrm?”

He grinned over at Bruce, and Bruce had a very hard time trying to figure out whether the Joker was trying to flirt with him or threaten him. Either way he wasn’t particularly happy about it.

“I have handcuffs in the car,” Bruce threatened back.

The Joker’s eyes and mouth both went wide, clearly excited by the news. Damn it. Of course the Joker would misinterpret that as flirting.

“Oh really?” he purred as he leaned forward on the table. “Well why didn’t you bring them with us? It would have made this whole date a lot more interesting.”

“This isn’t a date!” Bruce snapped. “This is just us getting coffee. I need the caffeine.”

His mind immediately went to the first time he and John had come to this particular café. John, who had still been smitten with Harley at the time had asked for advice, Bruce had come to the unfortunate (or so it had seemed at the time) realization that he was falling in love with John, and, he would later discover, that had also been when John had realized he was Batman.

It had certainly been an eventful night. Had it been a date though? Bruce wasn’t sure, but either way it seemed like more of a date than whatever was currently happening between himself and the Joker, no matter what the man across from him was attempting to do with his foot.

“Oh,” the Joker purred again. “I think you need a lot more than just some caffeine… Batsy…”

He was doing it just to annoy Bruce. There really was no other explanation.

“Well, whatever it is I need,” Bruce snapped. “You removing your foot is probably a large part of it.”

“I won’t,” the Joker said, digging the tip of his shoe into Bruce’s thigh so hard that it hurt. “Not unless you give me a good reason to.”

“Well I might be able to do that if you’d just tell what the hell it is that you want from me!” Bruce said, standing up and slamming his hands down on the table.

He immediately regretted it. There were only a couple of other people at the café at that time of the afternoon, but the people that were there all glanced over in Bruce and the Joker’s direction.

“There you are,” the Joker said, leaning forward on the table and grinning up at Bruce. “Just like that Batsy.”

Bruce didn’t know what he was supposed to react to first. The lascivious way that the Joker was batting his eyelids and smiling at him, the fact that the Joker had called him ‘Batsy’ again, or the fact that the Joker had all but confessed that he wanted nothing more than to make Bruce angry.

“Come on,” Bruce said, stepping back from the table. “We’re leaving. It’s clear that I can’t trust you out in public.”

The Joker didn’t stand up from the table however. Instead he picked up his iced coffee and took a long drag from it, making sure that the straw made a loud slurping noise as he did so.

“Come on,” Bruce hissed again, looking around nervously. The rest of the café’s patrons had returned their attention to their food or their phones, but that probably wasn’t going to last if the Joker kept misbehaving like this.

“Oh, but I’m just getting comfortable,” the Joker said, batting his eyes at Bruce again.

“You want me to manhandle you, is that it?” Bruce said, trying to keep his voice low. “You want me to forcibly drag you into the car. Well, I’m not going to.”

He turned, and continued to walk towards the car. He could just wait there until the Joker finally grew bored and decided to join him. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about the Joker calling him ‘Batsy’ in front of other people, or about him doing inappropriate things with his feet beneath the table.

“Leaving me unsupervised Mister Wayne?” the Joker called out before he had left the café. “That isn’t very wise you know.”

“You’re not going to do anything,” Bruce said, forcing himself to sound more confident than he felt. He knew now; the Joker wanted nothing more than his attention, and if Bruce wasn’t there to give it then there would be no point and the Joker would give up.

At least, that’s how Bruce was hoping things would turn out.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that Mister Wayne,” the Joker said. He sent one last wicked grin in Bruce’s direction, before jumping up from his chair and climbing onto the table; knocking over the remains of his and Bruce’s drinks as he did so.

“Attention Gothamites!” the Joker announced loudly, throwing his arms wide as though he was on stage.

“What are you doing?” Bruce hissed, but the Joker wasn’t paying him any attention.

“I have a very important announcement to make! Trust me, you’ll all love it!” he said, and it was only then that he turned to face Bruce again, giving him an absolutely wicked grin as he did.

“You see, it involves the identity of one Caped Crusader, Gotham’s truest and most beloved hero!”

Bruce had to stop him. It didn’t matter that he’d essentially be doing exactly what the Joker wanted. He couldn’t let him reveal the truth, no matter what it took.

He reached up and wrapped his arms around the Joker’s waist, pulling him off the table and into his arms as swiftly as possible.

“Sorry about that folks,” Bruce said to the people who were now most definitely paying the two of them more attention than Bruce would have liked. “My friend here forgot to take his medication. We’ll be leaving now.”

He made a mental note to the leave the wait staff an extremely generous tip the next time he visited.

The Joker squirmed in his arms, flailing and writhing in such a manner that Bruce honestly couldn’t tell whether he was trying to escape from Bruce’s grip or press closer to him. Bruce twisted his arms back, holding onto them tightly, and forcibly marched the Joker in the direction of the car, trying to ignore the mixture of delighted cackling and pleased groaning that the Joker let out as he did.

Eventually he managed to get the Joker into the car, but not before they had both gained a few new bruises. Worse than the bruises though, or the fact that Bruce had come so close to all of Gotham discovering his secret identity, was the knowledge that he had just lost. He had just done exactly what the Joker had wanted him to, and Bruce couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t happen again.

John Doe had barely finished telling his story when Harley Quinn apparently decided it was time to try and squeeze the life out of him. Not in anger however, which came as something of a surprise to Batman. In fact it seemed to be an attempt to comfort John, despite the fact that Harley seemed to be far more upset by John’s story than John himself was.

“I’m so sorry!” Harley cried as she ran a hand over John’s hair. “I didn’t know that our places were switched in your world!”

“Switched?” John just managed to squeak out.

“Yeah,” Harley said, before turning around, still clutching John tightly and pouting at her partner. “Pammy, I’m the bad guy in John’s world. Ain’t that just the worst?”

“That doesn’t make you a bad person dear,” Ivy said.

Harley pursed her lips and seemed to think about things for a moment.

“So by that reasoning John here isn’t a bad guy either,” she said.

“Maybe not,” Ivy agreed, before fixing her eyes on John. “Although I’m not convinced yet. Just because he wasn’t responsible for corrupting you doesn’t mean that he’s innocent of everything else.”

John swallowed nervously, before Ivy continued.

“Have you ever blown up a building?” she asked.

“Once…” John muttered. “But it was an accident.”

Ivy frowned.

This wasn’t going well. Bruce found his hand moving to his utility belt. He had been hoping after John had told his story that the two of them would be in the clear as far as Harley and Ivy went, but it looked like they weren’t out of danger just yet.

“You ever killed a kid?” Harley asked, her arms still wrapped tightly around John.

“What?” John asked. “No! At least… I don’t think so.”

“How many people have you killed?” Ivy asked.

“Twelve,” John said, cringing as he did, as though it hurt him to actually talk about it. “Wait… No. Sixteen. I think. Yeah. Sixteen. Most of those were in self-defense though! Or accidents!”

He looked as though he was trying to convince himself as much as Harley and Ivy.

He looked over at Bruce then, and Bruce could see the other man’s heart breaking a little; as though John was absolutely sure that Batman would want to have nothing to do with him now that the truth was out in the open.

Sixteen was, in the grand scheme of things, a lot of lives for one person to have taken. Compared to what Batman was used to dealing with however…

“Ah hell,” Harley said rolling her eyes. “I’ve killed more people than that. So’s Pammy! I ain’t proud of it mind you, but if you’ve only killed that many then there’s no way you’re as bad as our Mistah J.”

Poison Ivy seemed to have relaxed a little as well.

“Do you think the two of you could look after John for a short time?” Bruce asked. He found himself questioning the wisdom of the idea as soon as the words left his mouth. The three of them could get up to a lot of trouble together, but at least Harley and Ivy would know to be on their guard around him, and would be able to subdue him if anything went wrong.

“You want us on babysitting duty?” Harley asked, finally letting go of John as she spoke. John took the opportunity to scurry away from her and back towards Batman, apparently not nearly as much of a fan of the hug as Harley had been.

“Why?” Ivy asked. “You seem to be doing a perfectly good job of taking care of him so far.”

“There’s something I need to take care of,” Batman replied.

Harley and Ivy glanced at each other for a moment. Harley shrugged, but neither she nor Ivy looked particularly convinced one way or the other.

In the end it was John himself who made the decision.

“Can’t I er… Can’t I just stay with you instead?” he asked Batman.

“Not this time,” Batman said.

“Can I stay at the manor or something instead?” John asked. “Alfred will be there. It’ll be just the two of us. Ooh! I could help him cook!”

John seemed quite enthusiastic about the idea, but while he had been behaving himself perfectly well up until that moment, Bruce wasn’t sure he was ready to leave John alone with Alfred just yet.

“Why don’t you want to stay with Harley and Ivy?” Batman asked.

John glanced pointedly over at Harley, who was currently in the middle of a very frantic whispered conversation with her partner.

“I know she’s not the same Harley that hurt me, but that doesn’t mean I want to be alone with her,” he hissed when Batman didn’t say anything.

“You wouldn’t,” Bruce said.

“Psh, yeah,” John scoffed, folding his arms tightly in front of his chest. “I’d be with her and her girlfriend. Nothing better than being a third wheel.”

Bruce sighed. It didn’t seem as though he was going to be able to convince John, and he really didn’t want to force the other man to stay with someone he was uncomfortable with. He’d just have to find someone else to watch John while he visited the League.

At that moment the conversation between Harley and Ivy escalated, and while Bruce hadn’t been paying any attention to the rest of the conversation, he couldn’t help but hear what Harley said next.

“I’ve been there too Red!” Harley shouted. “I wanna help him!”

Ivy had her hands placed firmly on her hips and she looked anything but impressed as she looked back over at Batman and John; John, who had started clinging to Batman’s arm again.

“You can’t help everyone,” she said, her tone more fond than annoyed. “Besides, I get the feeling the best thing for John here is going to be to get back home as soon as possible. Isn’t that right John?”

John scoffed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Obviously.”

“You don’t want to stay with Harley and I, do you?” Ivy asked, while Harley pouted next to her.

“Not really,” John admitted.

Harley’s pout just grew.

“I want to get home to Bruce,” John said, immediately cringing when he realized his slip-up.

“Ooh,” Harley immediately replied. “Who’s Bruce?”

John hesitated for a moment, looking backwards and forwards between Batman and the two women a couple of times before continuing.

“A friend,” he replied. “A really good friend. He helped me out when no-one else would; helped me realize that Harley was no good for me, and waited while I was in Arkham and…”

John broke off with a strangled noise that sounded suspiciously close to a sob.

“I think it’s time we went home,” Batman said, placing a hand on John’s shoulder and hoping that it did more to comfort John than Harley’s hug had.

“I’ll find someone else for you to stay with,” he murmured to John, low enough that Harley and Ivy wouldn’t be able to hear it. John nodded meekly in response.

“As for the two of you,” he said, turning his attention back to Harley and Ivy. “You’d better get this mess cleaned up right away.”

Ivy frowned at him, but then reached over and placed a hand on the vines that were stretched across the road. As soon as she did they started to retreat back to either side, until eventually they left the road completely clear.

“And remember,” Batman added, before the two of them could scurry off and get up to who knew what sort of mischief, “if there’s a breakout at Arkham I’ll know who to blame.”

Harley waved an arm dismissively at him, as though she really didn’t give a damn what he was saying.

Bruce gently guided John towards the Batmobile, hoping silently as he did that he wouldn’t have to deal with Harley breaking out anyone too dangerous on top of everything else that was happening. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about the real Joker popping up in the middle of all of this and throwing a spanner in the works, as he so often did.

That particular thought caused a pang of something inside his chest; something that was far too complicated to put a name to, but which made him anything but comfortable. He already knew that they were going to find a way to reverse the effects of the Looking Glass. It was only a matter of time.

“Oh hey!” Harley yelled, waving enthusiastically at the two of them as they got into the Batmobile. “Good luck getting back to your Bruce John! Make sure ya give him a big ol’ hug when you see him again, okay?”

John gave Harley a thumbs up.

Bruce wondered if he had somehow managed to miss an important part of John and Harley’s conversation. It certainly felt like they were communicating on a level that excluded himself and Ivy, although Ivy didn’t seem to mind.

Harley gave John two big thumbs up in return, before John ducked into the Batmobile and the two women moved off to one side of the road.

Bruce waited for John to say something about the encounter, but the other man seemed to be lost in thought. By the time he did say something the two of them had left the two women far behind, and John’s words were not what Bruce had thought they would be.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

“For what?” Bruce asked. By this stage he had been so lost in thought trying to work out who he should leave John with while he visited the Justice League that he had absolutely no idea what it was that the other man was supposed to be thanking him for.

“For not making me stay with them,” John said. “I mean, I’m sure that Harley is nice and all, but…”

He trailed off. Bruce wasn’t sure whether he was expected to say anything, so the Batmobile fell silent once again, at least until the car’s comm system crackled to life a moment later.

“Sir,” Alfred began.

“Alfred,” Bruce replied.

“We have unexpected guests at the manor,” Alfred replied. “I’m not sure how they’re going to react to your current guest, so I thought the two of you should be prepared.”

“What sort of guests?” Bruce asked.

“It’s Master Dick and Master Jason sir,” Alfred replied. “And they’ve been asking a lot of questions about John.”

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#my fic #batman telltale #batman the enemy within #batjokes #harley quinn #poison ivy #harlivy

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 5 years

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Supernatural stars cover EW to celebrate 300 episodes (and an epic reunion)

Samantha Highfill

January 16, 2019 at 12:00 PM EST

“REUNION TIME!”

Jared Padalecki is making an announcement. It’s early December, and he and his Supernatural costar Jensen Ackles are preparing for their final two days of filming the 300th episode (Feb. 7) as demon-hunting brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, respectively. As they walk onto the Men of Letters set on a rainy Thursday, they come face-to-face with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a personal friend and the man who brought Papa John Winchester to life in the show’s pilot (and left the show after season 2). “It’s the culmination of 300 episodes,” Padalecki says of Morgan’s return. After all, John’s disappearance kick-started the brothers’ road trip.

“DAD’S ON A HUNTING TRIP, AND HE HASN’T BEEN HOME IN A FEW DAYS.”

Standing in his little brother’s college apartment, Dean Winchester first uttered those words in the pilot, and in doing so, launched Supernatural’s — and the brothers’ — first big mystery. “I had a good feeling about the show just reading the pilot,” Ackles says. “It had grit, the characters were well-written, and the story had miles to go.” Although he couldn’t quite predict how many miles the journey would be.

Supernatural premiered on The WB in 2005 and has since become the longest-running show in The CW’s history. The idea was simple: two brothers hunting monsters from urban legends, the kinds of things you’d hear about while sitting around a campfire. Bloody Mary? They killed her. Hook Man? Yep, him too. But it didn’t take long for the writers to understand that they might have to broaden the scope of the show if they wanted to get 20-plus episodes (much less 300). “We quickly realized that [conceit] would run out in a hurry, so even early on we expanded our horizons of what the show could be,” executive producer/co-showrunner Robert Singer says. But just how far could they stretch? And would they even get the chance?

Despite surviving the 2006 WB–UPN merger that created The CW, it took years forSupernatural to land on solid ground. “Bob Singer and I were fighting for the show’s survival at the ends of the first three seasons,” says creator Eric Kripke. “We’d have a meeting with the network that we informally called the ‘explain-why-we-should-give-you-another-season’ meeting.” And yet there was something about those conditions that felt right for a show about two humans trying to save the world from superhuman forces. As Dean recently said in a season 14 episode, “Impossible odds—feels like home.” But the land of impossible odds isn’t simply where the show (and the Winchesters) lived in those early years. It’s where they thrived. “In the beginning we almost mischievously wanted to see what we could get away with,” Kripke says. “There weren’t a lot of genre shows on The CW. It was mostly Gossip Girl and 90210. We were always like the goth kid at the back of the class that no one really wanted to pay attention to. So on this little weird horror show, we really got to push some boundaries that hadn’t been attempted in TV. There was no one saying, ‘That’s too crazy.’” So they took risks. They wrote a Groundhog Day-style episode called “Mystery Spot” that saw Dean die more than 100 times in one hour. They created “Hollywood Babylon,” an episode where Sam and Dean investigated a haunted horror-movie set. They produced “Ghostfacers,” an episode shot to look like a reality show about ghost hunting. “We always felt like we were on tenterhooks a little, but it helped us in a way,” Singer says. “We said, ‘If they don’t like us, let’s be bold.’ ” And in season 4, they made perhaps their biggest, boldest decision yet: They introduced angels (and therefore a much more religious story line) into the fold, which Singer identifies as the show’s biggest turning point. “I was concerned that would be a bridge too far,” Padalecki says of the angelic decision. “I wondered, ‘Are we going to turn o a lot of the people that came here to watch a scary movie?’” Kripke himself had fought the idea for years, until a pre–season 4 epiphany came to him while he was washing his face, of all things. “I realized the supernatural world was unbalanced,” Kripke says. “There was only evil. So I walked in the writers’ room on day one of season 4 and said, ‘Okay, there’s going to be angels…but they’re dicks!’”

Thus began what Kripke, who’s since created Revolution and co-created Timeless, still believes is one of the best hours of television he’s ever written: the season 4 premiere. “Lazarus Rising” introduced Castiel, the show’s first and longest-lasting angel. “Right before my scene, [then writer] Sera [Gamble] said, ‘Your life is about to change,’” remembers Misha Collins, who plays Castiel. He adds with a laugh, “I was like, ‘You’re so full of yourself.’” But Collins’ life did just that when he shifted from being a guest star to a series regular as his character survived multiple deaths — and even a brief stint as God — to become someone Sam and Dean consider family. “Angels completed the mythology,” Kripke says, and with them, the show was able to build to what writer-turned-showrunner Gamble refers to as the “regularly scheduled apocalypse” at the end of season 5. It was good versus evil. Michael versus Lucifer. Dean versus Sam. And for a while, everyone believed it was the end of the show. But when the network gave them a renewal for season 6, the writers were left to figure out what the heck comes after an apocalypse. The answer? Anything they wanted.

“A benefit of genre is we have such a huge runway in terms of ‘anything can happen,’” then writer and current co-showrunner Andrew Dabb says. “A medical show is limited in the scope of what they can do. We’re not.” So the next few seasons saw Supernatural push even more boundaries, with alternate realities, meta episodes (“The French Mistake,” anyone?), and new villains. That’s not to say everything worked, but that’s the beauty of a long-running show with a devoted audience — everything doesn’t have to work. “Fans would forgive sins of certain episodes because they love watching Sam and Dean,” Singer says. Because saying Supernatural fans like Supernatural is like saying Dean likes pie. It’s not about liking it. It’s about loving it. “I don’t think we have casual fans,” Singer says. “They live and breathe this show.” The #SPNFamily gathers all around the country (and globe) for multiple conventions each year, and every July they ll the largest venue, Hall H, at San Diego Comic-Con. It’s those fans who are devoted to Sam and Dean, even when their Impala might take a wrong turn. “The show’s ability to evolve and adapt is what’s led to it lasting 14 years,” Dabb says, adding, “Theoretically there are still a bunch of Leviathan out there running around that we never dealt with, but we don’t talk about that.”

Limitless options and viewer forgiveness aside, there is one rule the show has to follow — outside of standards and practices, that is. “I credit Bob Singer for instilling from very early on the idea that the show can go anywhere as long as the characters stay true to themselves,” former showrunner Jeremy Carver says. “The core of the show is the bond between the brothers.” With Sam and Dean as its foundation, the show can make episodes like season 11’s “Baby,” which was shot entirely from the perspective of the Impala, or season 13’s “Scoobynatural,” an animated crossover with Scooby-Doo and the gang. “One of the fun takeaways of watching Supernatural is that if you can imagine it, there’s probably a little town somewhere in America where it’s happening,” Gamble says. “It’s unlike any other show, really, in the history of American television.” And 14 seasons in, it’s still finding ways to surprise fans by, say, bringing John Winchester back.

“DAD?”

Standing next to his little brother in the Men of Letters bunker, Dean can’t believe what he’s seeing. This time he’s not enlisting his brother to find Dad, because Dad has come to them. And he hasn’t changed much. His beard has more gray in it and his face is thinner, but it will surprise no one that John comes back with a rifle in his hand. (Sorry, Walking Dead fans; the rifle came before Lucille.) But John isn’t the only one who’s changed. Standing across from him, Sam and Dean are no longer the kids who crammed toy army men into the ashtray of the Impala, or even the young men who went looking for him in the pilot. They’ve grown up. Their lives, quite simply, have changed. The same can be said of the actors themselves. In fact, Ackles is currently two years older than Morgan was when he filmed the pilot. “That’s how full circle it all is,” Morgan says. “Like a father would be, I’m very proud of the guys. It makes me get choked up because they’ve done so well here. Episode 300? That’s unheard of.”

As for how John comes back, let’s just say things get weird — don’t they always? — and there’s an altered reality at play. “Our guys are put in a position where they essentially can have a wish granted,” Dabb says. “They’re actually expecting something else, but [John’s return] comes from a place of want by Dean. The need for closure is really what brings John back into their lives.” But John isn’t the only person who comes back into their lives. As with any altered reality, not everything changes for the good. Without getting too specific, whatever brings John back also causes the return of Zachariah (Kurt Fuller), the no-BS angel who saw Sam and Dean as nothing more than thorns in his side. (Like Kripke said, angels are dicks!) Speaking of angels, this reality also affects Castiel in… certain ways. This time the boys are dealing with a different (though not entirely unfamiliar) version of their friend.

But for Morgan, who’s been asked for years about returning, it has always been about bringing John back in the right way. “The relationships between these three men were so open, so if I was going to come back, it would be nice to have some closure, especially with Sammy,” Morgan says. And before the hour’s over, both boys will get a moment alone with Dad. “This episode gives Sam a chance to forgive,” Padalecki says. Ackles adds, “For Dean, the whole episode is a dream that he doesn’t want to wake up from. But he knows he has to.”

Back in the bunker’s kitchen where Padalecki declared “reunion time” just hours ago, Sam and Dean are sitting around a table sharing a bottle of whiskey with their father and catching him up on everything he’s missed. Yes, they’ve saved the world (more than once). Yes, Lucifer has a son. But most important, John’s late wife, Mary — the woman he spent his life trying to avenge — is alive. Right then Mary rounds the corner for the moment she never saw coming, but in a strange way has always been waiting for. “Everything’s right in the world in this bubble of time,” Samantha Smith, who plays Mary, says of the couple’s reunion. “It’s very romantic.”

But as the Winchesters know a bit too well, all good things must come to an end. And when this is said and done, Sam and Dean will return to their life, driving down crazy street next to each other. Because despite the show hitting 300 episodes, nobody’s ready to call it quits just yet. “I don’t think we’re ready to throw in the towel,” Ackles says. “We’ve still got a little gas in the tank.” Put another way, Sam and Dean still got work to do.

#long post #spn spoilers #spn 300 #spn 14x13 #entertainment weekly #spn cast #good dabb #kripke #spn

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borrowedbackpack · 5 years

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Today I am 22. Kind of. I’m currently in the future so I’m not sure if it counts or not. Anyways, some interesting things happened after I published the blog yesterday, so we’ll pick up from there:

Yesterday, post blog, Kathmandu, Nepal:

First, I had to go rain pants shopping (the #2 garment in Iceland!) because tomorrow I’m going Trekking and it is going to Rain. So I went to the first trekking gear store I saw (there are 10 million of them here) and requested some nice rain pants. Turns out, “rain pants” is not a term here. So finally we put our heads together and figured out that I needed some waterproof pants. Then the guy looked through stacks and stacks of waterproof pants and found some nice “North Face” and “Gortex” pants. He oddly (flatteringly) judged my rain pants size as small (and a Nepal small at that…) so then I got to try a bunch of plastic pants on in front of everyone until we came across a sort of appropriately sized pair. After knocking it down to a reasonable price and getting a lovely pink towel thrown in, I found myself to be the proud new owner of a pair of $30 counterfeit rain pants that sort of fit and make me look like a cross between a construction worker and 80’s ski jumper (photos soon, don’t worry).

Next we went to a bookstore that featured an impressive collection of Archie comics. Not much to say on that, really. I just really like Archie comics.

Then we went out for Tibetan food and got enough food for a family of four for less than $10. For some reason, Christopher thought it would be a good idea to order the Tibetan “butter salt tea”. Turns out, butter salt tea is not actually delicious. What a surprise. Everything else was delicious though. Except for the thing that I thought was a small green bean that turned out to be a Fire Vegetable of Spicy Death. Then it started to monsoon. Luckily, I am accustomed to the monsoon season, as I experienced it in its full glory at my summer job this year.

Momos! Noodles! Spicy death vegetables :(

Tea skin. I tried to make Christopher drink this so not to be Rude and Wasteful. He would not. Then I tried to drink it. I also could not. In conclusion, I do not recommend this beverage.

Because it was monsooning, we then returned to the hostel to wait for it to not be monsooning anymore. Sadly, this is where things went horribly wrong. I accidentally tricked myself into thinking that if I just rested my eyes for like 30 seconds during 90 Day Fiance (I think I actually had to close my eyes in exasperation when Avery mentioned for the 300th time that she’s going to move to SYRIA to be with her true love Omar From The Internet….) I would not fall asleep and everything would be good and fine. Obviously, this was false. Because there I was, sleeping away at 6:45pm. And then there I was, a few hours later at midnight am, ready to be up for the day. Things continued to go horribly wrong from here. I tried to go to the bathroom, only to find that it was already occupied by the fastest, largest, and longest antennae’d bug I had ever seen. I did not scream. I simply closed the door calmly and decided I would revisit the horrible beast in the morning. Only then I couldn’t sleep because I was worried that the horrible beast would find its way out of the bathroom and into my bed. Or backpack. Or ear. So then I had to wake Christopher and send him to murder the bug. Because I like to exaggerate sometimes, I decided to open this request with “there is a three-foot-long insect in the bathroom”. I quickly realized that that description was not going to help my cause, so I revised it to “I need you to kill the bug in the bathroom. It is so fast.” And he did. But not with much enthusiasm, I must say. Anyways, I have received word that the bug’s remains have been laid to rest in the “Health Soap” wrapper in the bathroom garbage can. So don’t go in there.

Present Day, Nepal:

To start off my birthday right, I FaceTimed my family in beautiful giant bug-free PA. This was nice because it gave my brother Duncie the chance to make a ride hand gesture at me and not wish me happy birthday. Next we went for pancakes at a hippie restaurant where you sit upon pillows on the floor and eat organic vegan stuff and don’t wear shoes. I love a shoe-free establishment. While I was there and not wearing shoes, I really had to pee because I’d been boycotting the site of the horrible bug murder. I was en route to their hippie bathroom when one of the hippie guys came chasing after me and made me wear his own personal flip flops to the bathroom. What service! Next we almost got run over soooo many times. Tuesday is a very busy day in Kathmandu, apparently. Then we went to a place called the Garden of Dreams. Which is a garden that you might dream about because it is so nice. But so so so so so so so hot. And humid. Then it rained a little bit which was nice and cooling. And I did my favourite kind of shopping, the kind where you find some beautiful shiny stuff and/or fabric layers that tickle your fancy and pay what you feel like. Like today one guy just asked me how much I’d like to pay. And then I was like “1000” and he was like “okay”. It’s not an amazing business model tbh.

Plant life.

Then we went to a place that can only be described as a naan garage. Like a gross, dirty garage where they make delicious naan. All the kinds of it.

My bottle of Purell straight up quaking at the sight of the filthy naan garage. I will let you know in about 48 hours if he was up for the job. (P.S. I did look up the reviews for this place. Like I’m not out here just trying to get a horrible food borne illness. Anyways, they were all positive regarding the food but most people were not big fans of the location/decor/general building. e.g. “the food is incredible. But the building is so hot. It is like hell” etc).

NOTE: BorrowedBackpack is only BorrowedBackBack for a short time. Tomorrow I am going trekking for 2ish weeks and will not be taking my computer because it is very heavy and there won’t be wifi anyways. I will be keeping a Paper Blog while I am internet-less and turn it into normal blog form upon my return.

Re: Trekking: tomorrow we have to fly to the Most Dangerous Airport in The World to start our trek. So that’s rough. Anyways, I’m living large today in case I don’t cheat death tomorrow. Also I’m staying loose so I’ll be able to remain in the Brace Position for the full 35 minute flight tomorrow.

#naan garage #nepal #travel #bugs

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thelancecosmic-blog · 5 years

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Hallie & The Lance Cosmic

Kane. . .Kane!

He locked eyes with Edward Asher. They sat across one another in the snow. A small dwindling fire placed in the middle.

I'm gunna get some more sticks. Kane stood up to leave.

Sit down & tell me what bothers you.

You shouldn't be here. I'm alone at last then you show up out of nowhere-

I didn't ask to be here pal. I was sent because it's my duty.

Kane dismissed him & broke the circle.

That's fine. No big deal. Asher hit Kane upside the head with a snowball.

Tho half his stature at best Kane marched right up to Edward. He then leaped into the tree above them and shook loose enough snow to bury him.

You shouldn't play games with a goblin kid. They always win.

The ere sound of a horn blast hit their unsuspecting ears.

It's the winter orcs. His folded back.

Asher noticed the tears in Kanes soul as well as the wounds upon his body. He knew then what they had done & what they would continue to do if they were caught.

She was only seven Edward. You had the chance to grow up. Kane turned back to him. She didn't. . .

I understand now Kane. I understand. You want her memory to live on. I think I can help.

The Dark Scythe appeared within Ashers grip through a tezeract of purple lightning.

I have seen that weapon before. It was hers. She used it to fight of her attackers before-

Are you certain?

There can be no doubt. They sent you here to master the weapon as she did.

It may be our only way out of here. Asher swung and with a ripple tore through the fabric of reality. They could now see the infinite cerebral cortex at the center of the mind. All life was present and visible to them as tho stars in the night sky.

This is the one. Asher pointed out the largest & brightest red dwarf amongst them. Such a strong mind must have the answers we seek. He reached out.

Wait. Maybe we shouldn't touch, that one.

It'll be fine. It's not like it can see us from here-

DIE!

The Dark Scythe shattered before their very eyes. The only thing keeping Edwards mind safe was now gone in an instant & the vision faded.

Kane was the first to regain consciousness. N-no! He staggered towards the unstable weapon.

You were ment to save them!

Kane! Don't-

I was meant to save them!

It was to late, The Blood Energy still present within the blade cut him & corrupted his soul. What stood before Asher was no longer Kane. Only a shadow remained.

The storm ragged on within house Westonbrook as Ricktor lay his daughter to bed. Much consumed his thoughts. . .

He had found Hallie asleep on the couch again. Something her mother never would have allowed, were she here. He simply lacked the strength to tell her the truth. The Omni War had spilled over into their lives.

Hallies mother was dead.

Ricktor kissed his child good night one last time, before exiting the room to find the front door wide open at the base of the stairs.

H-hello? He cautiously aproached the unguarded entrance & quickly bolted it shut. Perhaps Hallie had opened it with the hopes of witnessing her mothers plane touch down.

This was not to be. . .

Ricktor noticed the claw marks upon the floor; The Arkin Wolf was inside their house.

Something switched in Ricktor. A courage that had been previously unknown to him sparked, once he saw the creatures reflection within his wifes portrait.

It was hiding in the rafters.

Watching him.

Upon reaching a nearby desk we swung the heavy object as hard as he could just in time. The edge struck beneath its jaw, knocking the creature to the floor.

Utilizing the opportunity Ricktor bolted up the stairs, narrowly escaping its clutches.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs he noticed the second Arkin Wolf couched patiently beside Hallies room. It curiously glaced within, only to have the rug pulled out from under it.

Ricktor grabbed his daughters hand and ran for the window. With a loud CRASH! They both landed in a nearby tree. He desperately clung to both his child and a nearby branch however failed to hold on, but managed to break Hallies fall.

The Arkin Wolf lurched out of the house only to find Ricktor had already started his old pickup and was attempting to flee in the rusty pile of garbage. . .

It then perused the vehicle taring off the tailgate and sending them all into a tailspin, which resulted in its own grievous injury.

Is there no end to your hatred of us? First my wife now my-

The lone wolf watched helplessly as Ricktor retrieved a shotgun and pointed it at its head.

I know this won't stop you. Remember my face monster. BANG!

Hallie opened her eyes. . .

The first thing she saw once she regained consciousness was Hector. The strange Hawks frantic attempts to resuscitate her weren't helping tho she was happy to see a friendly face.

What happened?

They shot you with a cannon.

A camera?

No, a cannon. Are you even listening?

My ears are* ringing.

That tends to happen to people who charge head first into the Anubite Fortress of Doom.

I'll make a note of that. She stood up and dusted herself off.

We'll don't try it again?!

The glitching anubite guard readied the leaver a secound time. BANG!

Hallie swayed to the side, narrowly avoiding the projectile. She then charged the defenses at high speed as they prepared to fire another round from the super weapon. Hallie jammed The Lance Cosmic within the barrel of the gigantic gun, unleashing a massive energy blast directed in the opposite direction. Needless to say she then made quick work of what few anubites mannaged to survive the carnage.

Hector dove down from above. You flew! You flew! I had no idea you could move so fast!

Neither did I.

The Lance Comic dissipated.

I'm not sure anything can withstand such an overwhelming force.

None but you! It's plain to see why you were chosen to wield such a mighty weapon. You're a great improvisor.

Hallie & Hector reached the tall silver doors at the center of the fortress.

Hallie. I need to tell you something.

Can't it wait? We've almost made it out of here. Isn't that the objective? To reach our destination at any cost?

The price is woven within Hallie.

I don't understand.

When you walk through those doors you'll find who you're meant to be. Nothing more. Nothing less.

You'll be there won't you?

Hector nodded. No.

I'm not gunna leave you here Hector. I swore I wouldn't, and I meant it.

I know. Which is why I can't stay. When you leave this place you'll no longer be Hallie Weston.

Hallie looked to the core for answers.

Who will I be to them?

. . .Pandora.

She opened the doors & entered. Hector would remain alive in her heart far beyond The Veil. Always. . .

Every color whether visibal or not was present and alive upon it's surface. Some saw spinning spirals, others saw feilds filled with every kind of flower. Internal mechanisms spanning on and on for eternity with no end to their intricacy.

The wheels to The Veil, they stopped turning.

The screams of Kanes victims rang out across the chaotic missile sylo. A loud symphony unto his gloriously renewed ears. Blood poured down like rain upon his flawless features that knew not pain or sadness ever again. He had been reborn with the crimson tide.

All movement ceased from the armed personnel throughout the facility as living shadow & razor sharp claws tore them apart. None survived.

The Alpha Sentrys confronted Kane by cornering him within the confined yet volatile space. There was nowhere left to run but through them.

A taste of your own medicine? Adam summoned Tecton through a tesla coil of blue plasma. He then swung the hammer blasting Kane with enough concusive energy to stun the creature.

With a blazing fire Trinity brought forth her battleaxe Devils Tail, swinging it down upon her target with the intention of splitting him in two.

Kane caught the blade mere centimetres from his face & tossed Trinity aside as tho weightless. Having survived the attack & easily incapacitated the two siblings there was only one wielder left.

It was Hallies turn to strike. She attempted to flank Kane only to have her mind invaided & sent into convulsions. The splitting pain was to much to remain standing as she began to loose consciousness.

Remember to see with not just your eyes, but also your heart. A voice said.

Hector? I can see you. I can see - everything. Hallie got back on her feet immune to Kanes trap, success rested upon her shoulders now.

Infuriated by this, Kane turned Trinitys mind against her friend. Hallie pivoted as Devils Tail came crashing down where she once stood. The race to prevent Kanes escape had begun.

Recognizing Tecton as the solution to his predicament Kane then summoned over Adam to begin utilizing the weapon whilst his twin keep Hallie occupied. With a mighty swing the thick cement walls began to crack under the tremendous force generated by the hammer.

The temperature within the sylo began to rise as The Lance Cosmics potential was finaly tested against a worthy opponent. Trinitys fury & grace bested Hallie handily due to her lack of fear. They could have all died but instead Hallie was the one left cornered & running out of options.

The stone split apart & the light of the sun rushed in reaching Kane for the first time. His mind began to clear but for a moment when the sound of slithering & firearms woke him from the trance.

The weak willed & simple minded could do little to resist his influence. Upon invading their minds he had the guards take aim at Adam within his new exit & watch for signs movement. Rather than wait & see what happened next, Kane climbed the defensive barrier & ran into the woods. A shadow set loose upon the world.

Hallie screamed in agony then brutally headbuted Trinity into submission. She simply couldn't allow such a threat to breath free air at last, even at the cost of her own personal safety.

Running straight for the gapping breach she then slid down, kicking Adams legs out from under him just as a hail of bullets was fired in their direction. She spun The Lance Cosmic with such speed as to form a barrier between her & the corrupted guards while she made her way toward the gate. Slashing through it like paper she evaded getting shot in order to peruse Kane in the ultimate hunt for survival.

Time slowed to a crawl as both sides refused to relent to the other in a contest of will that lasted ages to those involved. Had it not been for a single waterfall which mannaged to halt Kanes progress he would have never been caught.

Upon scaling the cliffs side Hallie approached the resolute animal, unwilling to cooperate or consider surrender he blasted her off the edge with all his might before stopping temporarily to gather more energy.

She was gone. Was he free from persecution at last? His sanity began to reform itself in time to witness the last sunset of Apex Eternal.

Hallie spun her weapon near the base of the cliff before impact, tearing open a vortex through the dimension. She then reemerged beyond her nemesis & having used her momentum to great effect she decapitated him.

Kane was dead. His lifes struggle was finally at an end.

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jewishlensnart · 5 years

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So it’s the holiday season, which in a lot of households means presents. You know who has more merch than almost any other Flash villain (1. being Reverse Flash as of my last count)? Captain Cold!

Have a Len lover in your life? Need to give your family gift ideas? Peep this list, y’all!

I used to own...basically everything with Len on it. I had the largest Flash collection in the southern US until about 3 years ago, when I sold the vast majority of it, and gave away even more. These reviews come from in-hand experience. Let’s start with the Original Lad:

DC Direct Captain Cold

Holy macaroni, was this figure terrible. Yes it was comic-accurate at the time, but you could not pose it, you could not keep it standing, and the face when you removed the glasses? Nightmare fuel. Still, it was a figure from 2001, and they really were doing their best, so I’d have to rate this guy a 2 out of 5.

These next two came out around roughly the same time, but could not be more different in quality. First up, DC Direct Justice Captain Cold

Strictly speaking, this figure was beautiful. Yeah it was in the hyper-realistic style of Alex Ross, who I’ve never been a fan of, but it was toned down in a way that made it less uncanny valley. The figure had stubble painted on, and if you removed the hood (which you technically could but shouldn’t), he had hair under there! But still, this was a DC Direct figure from 2008, so it had all the same flaws that a figure from that time period tended to have: absolutely a bitch to pose, hard to keep upright without the base (I let mine lean against the wall whenever I needed the base for even more precarious figures), joints prone to snapping if you worked him too hard. Still, by far my favorite of the DC Direct/Collectibles Len figures, if not my favorite full-size figure. 4.5 of 5.

Meanwhile in big box stores across the nation, DC Universe Classics was releasing their best wave yet, wave 7. Man, I had that whole thing aside from Aquaman; Big Barda, Flash, Kid Flash, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and of course, Captain Cold

This is the ugliest Len figure. Hands down, the least visually appealing. Which is a shame, because it’s also one of the best! Completely comic accurate until you hit the upper torso/head area, a ridiculous amount of articulation, with the single best cold gun of any of these figures...but jfc that expression. The weird poncho/hood always bothered me too, because while it was almost comic accurate, something just threw it off the track and made it look more ridiculous than cool. 3.5 out of 5.

After the New 52 hit, DC Collectibles released 2 Captain Cold figures in rapid succession, one that was packaged alone, and one that came as part of a 7-figure set

Can you spot the differences? There’s just one: the Len from the 7-figure set is in a dark blue suit, and doesn’t come with the ice mace and ice dagger. Like all DC Direct figures before them, these DC Collectibles figures are pretty to look at, but offer very little in the way of articulation. They could be hard to keep upright, which was annoying, as neither came with a stand, and do not try to take off the hood. Nothing under there. Still, they were very pretty depictions of a popular redesign, so I feel alright giving these guys a 3 of 5.

DC Collectibles spat out a final Len figure for the CWverse line back in 2015

As a big fan of Wentworth Miller and his face, I feel this figure could have been better. I mean, I’ve seen Arrowverse figures that are spot on, and this one just is not. Maybe it’s because the goggles obscure a good portion of the face, I don’t know. That being said, I love this figure, and it’s actually one I re-bought at a convention recently, along with the Heatwave figure from the same line, that hadn’t been released when I’d started selling off all of my toys. The costume is show-accurate, the figure comes with an extra set of hands, and the gun is just really cool. This is a solid 4 of 5 figure.

These next toys aren’t action figures per say, as they don’t do much in the way of action, but they’re cute and I like them, for the most part.

Funko took over the market and the world back in 2010 when it first introduced the Pop Vinyl figures, but it took a hit TV show to get Flash villains other than the Reverse Flash into production. There are 3 Captain Cold Funko products currently out, the two Pop Vinyls and a Re-Action figure

Now, I love the first Pop Vinyl. The round, lifeless black eyes of the Pops have freaked me out for a long time, but with Len in his sweet goggles, this Pop is perfect for me. I actually have him on a shelf in my closet. The variant...look, I like how they included the actual real-life hairline Wentworth Miller has, but those creepy eyes just kill it for me. The Re-Action figure, by the way, is garbage. They’re supposed to be based on the lines of toys that came out back in the 80s, but all that means to me is little to no articulation, weird molds that look nothing like the character they’re supposed to be, and few if any accessories. Why is he wearing a tie??? Just. The worst. 5 of 5 for Pop 1, 3 of 5 for Pop 2, and 1 of 5 for the Re-Action figure.

There are a bunch of figures that came out before Funko’s reign that have little to no articulation, and here they are:

Action League Citizen Cold, from the Batman: The Brave and the Bold line

I love a good boy??? 5 of 5, absolutely perfect. No you can’t pose him, but he already comes in a dynamic, interesting pose. This is my absolute favorite of all the non-poseable figures, and I miss mine all the time.

Imaginext, a line of toys for very young superhero fans, made a New 52 Captain Cold a few years back

Honestly, Imaginext toys are ridiculous, and I love every single one of them. They’re great toys for little kids, and yeah, Len is completely bald underneath that hoodie and ice gun backpack, but he has a snowball cannon to compensate with, so who’s the real loser?! 5 of 5, beautiful.

Did you kno w that back in 2011, McDonalds put out a line of Happy Meal Young Justice toys featuring Captain Cold??? Did you want to know? Too bad, you know now.

My dad’s dog chewed up his ice projectile, rendering the actual immobile figure completely useless...but I still really like it??? Like, it’s a toy that came with food that I sweet-talked the counter guy into giving me. It’s a worthless little nothing of a toy...but I still like it. 3 of 5.

Pocket Heroes were a weird little line of 3-inch figures that came in two-packs. One of those packs contained Flash and Captain Cold

You can basically only move their arms and legs, and while this figure comes with a cold gun and a remarkably ripped set of abs and pecs, the design never really appealed to me. 2.5 out of 5.

I collected MiniMates once upon a time. 2.5 inch figures that were basically fancy LEGOs? Deal me in! ViniMates are uh. Not that.

ViniMates are 6-inch figures and I Do Not Like Them. Being made of vinyl makes them almost completely free of articulation, so the post you get them in is the one they stay in. Also, this one is based on the show-interpretation of Len and it seems to be smoldering at me. Don’t like that. 1 out of 5.

On the other end of the vinyl spectrum, the Mini-Mezitz line from Mezco is simply delightful.

Mini-Mezitz were 2-inch figures with articulation in their arms, legs, and neck joints. I love mine, and they have been hanging out on the top of my bookcase for like 7 years now. 4 out of 5, absolutely weird-dorable.

Eaglemoss once put my blog on the front page of their website without telling me, back when I was actively snapping pictures of my Flash collection. The Eaglemoss lead figures, once you get past the fact that yes, these dudes are made of painted lead so maybe handle with care, are a good staple in any collection. Captain Cold got two

Both Eaglemoss figures came with information booklets about Captain Cold, though the chess piece New 52 version focused almost solely on his New 52 history. They’re both very detailed, and I really like them. 3.5 out of 5.

I never watched Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid...but I saw this weirdass thing in a HomeGoods one day and just kinda. Stopped and stared.

He’s a train. Len is a train now. Don’t like it. 1 out of 5.

So there’s this company called Kotobukiya. They’re most famous for their bishoujo statues, but they make guys too. I had the Flash Kotobukiya statue, back in the day. I was not collecting Flash stuff when they made a Captain Cold one.

I’m actually apparently getting this as a gift from my boyfriend for Hanukkah. He finally got access to my wishlist. This statue is based on the Francis Manapul New 52 redesign, and it is what we call Big Sexy. Frankly, I give it a 5 out of 5.

No offense to Wentworth Miller, but my favorite Captain Cold TV appearance is always going to be his role in the JLU episode, Flash and Substance.

The JLU figures were all godawful, but hell if we as a fandom didn’t gobble them up back in the day. I had all the available Rogues, Len, Heatwave, Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard, “Justice Lords Flash” (who was really just Reverse Flash, let’s be real), Mirror Master...it’s the most complete set of Rogues you can get, actually. But they were terrible figures; the Dorito-like shape of the shoulder to waist ratio combined with the narrow feet of the figure guaranteed that these toys would not stay upright without a stand. They had no articulation, and most came without weapons. But you could get three-packs of them in Target for like $12, and they were designed with children in mind, so. 3.5 out of 5, because frankly, the Timmverse designs will always tug at my nostalgia strings.

Captain Cold is available in two official LEGO forms

The first is from the Mighty Macros line, and features Len vs the Flash in a racecar vs snowmobile race. It’s very cute and easy to build. The second is the more challenging Gorilla Grodd Goes Bananas set, which also includes Flash, Grodd, and strangely enough, Batman and Wonder Woman. I never owned that set, and it’s pretty hard to find these days, regularly running $80 and up. Both sets are a 5 out of 5, though, because LEGO does not mess around when it comes to quality fun.

I saved my favorites for last. In the 70s, there was a line of toys called MEGOs, which were plastic-bodied toys with cloth suits. Mattel, and later the Figures Toy Company, would both do their own versions of Captain Cold

The first version, by Mattel, is amazing. Mine is literally sitting next to me as I type this. I took him to Universal with me when I won a trip to Halloween Horror Nights back in 2015, I take him to the movies with me when I don’t have anyone else to go with, he’s my little buddy. My dad’s dog, again, chewed his left arm completely off at one point, but I don’t care. I love him. As for the Figures Toys version, I actually won a fairly cheap auction for him earlier this week, so we shall see! I don’t know if I like how he has the whole “Super Friends hypothermia Len” look going on, but I do like how his costume isn’t just cheap, tearable vinyl. We shall see what’s under that hood soon. I give the Mattel one a 5 out of 5 for the years of joy he’s given me. The Figures Toys one is pending, but I’m gonna give a tentative 4 out of 5, because it really does look nice.

You could get Len in other forms, like as a game piece in the Heroclix and Dice Masters games, as a paintable figure for a Batman tabletop roleplaying game, as trading cards, as a set of guitar picks, as a card holder, as a very hard to find but still lovely statue from DC Direct, in official pin form from Funko and Fansets, on an old 7-Eleven cup, and of course, in the pages of the comics...but I’ve always liked toys, so that’s what I decided to go over. Hope y’all enjoyed this, and maybe got some ideas for your own collections.

#Len Snart #Captain Cold #Flash Rogues #toys #long post #image heavy

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e350tb · 5 years

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Steven Universe: Marooned Together - Chapter Twenty-Three

(with thanks to @real-fakedoors for proofreading!)

Okay… testing, testing, one two three, is this thing working?

It is? Awesome.

Hi. My name is Jeff Fryman, second Mayor of New Earth, husband of Dockmaster Peedee Fryman and possessor of the largest comics collection still in existence. (Is that important? I think that’s important.) I’m making this log to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the foundation of New Earth.

It’s sort of hard to know what to feel about that. See, if it’s fifteen years since we founded New Earth, it’s fifteen years since we lost the Earth. Everyone who was alive back then lost someone, lost more people than anyone can image. I mean, Peedee lost his dad and Ronaldo, and… and I lost mom…

But on the other hand, nobody could have imagined how successful New Earth’s ended up being. We’ve got houses and electricity and clothing fabrication, and Lenny says we might have that food synthesizer by next year! We… we should all be dead! We should’ve eaten each other or something, but we survived!

So how do we mark this? Are we celebrating? Are we commemorating? I… what do I call this? What do we do?

I… I’ll get back to you.

“I just can’t think of anything!”

Jeff sat on the couch, clutching his head, as Peedee and Blue Pearl considered his brief rant. He had a week to go before the anniversary, and the poor Mayor had nothing. Peedee felt for him - his husband looked haggard and worn, his eyes rimmed from lack of sleep. He was clearly thinking hard about this - in fact, Peedee wondered if he was overthinking it.

“Maybe we should ask around?” Peedee suggested, “See what people wanna do? Maybe they just want to keep it low key, or maybe they want a party…”

“But if I do that, it’s not a surprise!” exclaimed Jeff.

Peedee nodded sympathetically.

“I don’t think you can do this as a surprise, honey,” he replied, “I… I think you better just let people know it’s happening.”

“It could bring up bad memories,” Blue Pearl added softly.

“Yeah, what Blue said,” nodded Peedee.

He shrugged.

“How about we take a walk around and ask people what they think we should do for New Earth’s anniversary? Maybe they’ll come up with something we can use. It’s worth a shot, right?”

Jeff scratched his chin, nodding thoughtfully.

“That could work,” he said, “I’ll talk to Stevonnie about it - they’d probably be up to help with that.”

He sat up, smiling and snapping his fingers.

“Yeah!” he said, “That’s perfect!”

The Diamond’s Lament was, to put it simply, a nightmarish excuse of a bar. On the outside, the wooden paneling was worn and any attempts at paint were peeling; it certainly leant itself to the tried-and-true vibe that was inherent in much of New Earth. However, within the creaky tavern doors -- there was an equally underwhelming bar, just like you might expect. It was only after a conversation with the landlord, who was consequently also the barkeep, that Stevonnie truly came to appreciate how many stories were told by the crooked floorboards, the dim lighting, the jaded look on the faces of many customers.

Simon, the landlord, was an old Londoner who was in his late fifties - when the world had ended, he had been in the British military. Those days were long past, and from his demeanor, Stevonnie could tell he didn’t miss it one bit. Now his job was to run the Diamond’s Lament, to grow vegetables and fruit under sun lamps in the back, to operate New Earth’s general store from a window at the southend of the ramshackle building. It was a busy life, but it kept his mind of things.

“My mind,” he said, “Has been uneasy since long before the Cluster. The work keeps my mind off things.”

They spoke for a while on Simon’s ideas for the anniversary - he admitted he had few ideas and would need time to gather his thoughts. Their conversation was interrupted by some new patrons - Commander Lewis and a couple of the Human Resistance. When he saw them, Simon’s expression darkened.

“Bloody fools,” he muttered, “Playing soldier.”

“What do you mean?” asked Stevonnie.

Simon shrugged.

“There were a couple of old military people on New Earth when it started up,” he replied, “Me, Franks, I think two other officers, couple of soldiers. Now me, I just wanted to put soldiering behind me; thought I might be able to have a decent night’s sleep if I did. But Franks, he was adamant that we had to ‘do something.’”

He shook his head.

“Franks is an idiot,” he said, “But his heart’s in the right place, deep down. It’s the others that scare me. Franks wanted to fight back and he’d take anyone willing - but a lot of the people he got…”

For a long pause, Simon studied his hands, reliving some sort of memory to which they were not privy. Judging by his expression, Stevonnie wasn’t sure they would want to be.

“Be on your guard,” he warned, “These are kids who think soldiering and uniforms are glamorous, being groomed by a bunch of hateful bastards who’d shatter every gem they could get their hands on. Keep your distance, kid.”

Stevonnie swallowed, looking back at the resistance members. One locked eyes with her - he grinned, slowly running a finger over his neck.

“Whatever this is,” Simon spoke up again, “It has to be a repudiation of everything those people stand for. I don’t care what else you do, but give them a good kick in the rear.”

“I’ll let Jeff know,” Stevonnie nodded, “Maybe we can make it a celebration of human and gem harmony?”

“I reckon that’d be a brilliant idea, kid,” Simon said, smiling.

Behind them, a cry rang out as the resistance members raised their glasses.

“To the glorious victory!” they cried.

Simon cringed and turned his back away.

“Ain’t no such bloody thing,” he muttered, heading into the back room. “In war, there are no real victories.”

The Diamond’s Lament sold drinks, but there was very little stock left of the old spirits of Earth. There was a facsimile of beer on tap at the counter, watered down to almost comic levels to keep supplies going, and a strong synthetic rum that took a lot of getting used to, but, increasingly, New Earth was forced to rely on new methods of obtaining a ‘buzz.’

“We need to celebrate our food and drink,” said a Topaz as she swept the floor (they called her Spot, because of the big round gem on her stomach), “There’s nowhere humans are more creative in then making what they eat.”

“And working out new ways to get drunk,” muttered Peedee.

Jeff suppressed a giggle at his husband’s quip.

“What do you think’s most important?” asked Jeff.

“Well, you have to show off the Paste,” replied Spot.

Jeff shuddered. The Paste had been one of the sole sources of food in the fraught early days of New Earth - a tasteless, slimy, sickly grey substance that could mass produced from one of the transports they’d taken from Blue Diamond. The mere mention of the Paste could send a chill through the strongest heart and the strongest stomach - it had been replaced as soon as alternative food sources could be found. Nobody, nobody at all, missed the stuff.

“Apart from that,” Spot continued, “You need to mention all the scavengers who go out to get our food supplies. They don’t get enough gratitude, y’know? Think of what we wouldn’t have without them.”

“Well, Jenny’ll like that,” mused Jeff.

“Hey, come to think of it, has she met back up with Stevonnie?” asked Peedee, “I think she keeps missing them.”

Jenny Pizza had become a scavenger; she took a small capsule on long voyages to find supplies for New Earth. It was difficult and dangerous work, but enormously rewarding - not just for New Earth itself, but for the scavenger, who got to see a much wider universe than most others in the little settlement. The downside was long periods of loneliness in space, but for many, the wonders of the galaxy made it worth it.

Jenny knew Stevonnie was back, and Stevonnie knew Jenny was alive, but life of a scavenger left precious little time for reconnection. There was always something that needed doing.

“We’ll, that’s something we’re definitely doing,” declared Jeff, “All the scavengers in port get the night off.”

“...they work to their own schedule, Jeff.”

“Yeah, but I’m declaring a public holiday, so they’re not allowed to work.”

“I have one more thing,” added Spot, “But this is a more general thing. I think we need a discussion about Reddick Berries.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure if we can do that on the anniversary, but I’ll keep that in mind…”

Lapis stared at the little green-yellow berry in her hand. It was about the size of a grape, and felt juicy and cool to the touch. It had a mild sour smell and a smooth texture - it didn’t look half bad, but it didn’t look like much to worry about.

“So, this is a Reddick Berry?”

Buck Dewey nodded from the other side of the stall. Lapis had never really known Buck, but she knew enough to realise that he’d changed dramatically. He had grown mutton chops, making him vaguely resemble a nineteenth century outlaw. A long, nasty scar ran over the middle of his face, from the middle of his right cheek to just under his left eye. He wore a long coat over an old sweater, everything patched and worn - he could get new clothes, he said, but the ‘hobo/cowboy’ look he was running with just ‘fit,’ apparently.

These days, Buck ran a market stall, selling wares picked up by scavengers that weren’t necessarily vital, but were in demand. Payment was done by barter - a customer gave Buck something valuable, and Buck gave them as much stock as the object was worth. As a result, haggling was the order of the day in New Earth’s small market.

“Sure is,” replied Buck, “We used to get them from a planet near Titanicus XIX-XII, but we’ve started growing them in house.”

“You mean in shack?”

“Hey, I’m thinking of adding another storey.”

“So,” asked Lapis, turning the berry over in her hand, “What does a Reddick Berry do? And why’s it called that? It’s green…”

“It’s named after the woman who discovered it,” replied Buck, “And it’s a hallucinogen.”

“...halluci-what?”

Buck shrugged.

“Back when old Earth was destroyed,” he replied, “We lost all our supply of lot of things humans enjoyed - tobacco, cannabis, things like that. We used to use them to calm down, or to get into an altered state of mind. So when we found this it was like… yeah, man.”

Despite changing neither his tone nor facial expression, Lapis could detect Buck’s emphasis.

“Reddick Berries are the most popular ‘cause they’re a communal thing,” continued Buck, “They create a sort of psychic connection between minds under the influence of the berry, so that the visions and hallucinogens are shared. If you do it right, it gets pretty cosmic.”

“You can do it wrong?” asked Lapis.

“Doing it with strangers is dangerous,” replied Buck, “You never know what inner demons might come up, or what they could do to your mind while you’re connected. You can’t die, but a lot of people who aren’t careful can get traumatised real bad.”

“So it’s like fusion, but more dangerous.”

“Maybe,” Buck replied, “I don’t know. I’ve never fused.”

He reached into the basket and handed Lapis a second berry.

“Give it a go, see what you think,” he suggested, “And take this one for your barnmate. I reckon you’ll enjoy it.”

“Uh,” Lapis scratched the back of her head, “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this.”

“Sure, no pressure,” replied Buck kindly, putting the berry back, “But if you ever change your mind, the offer still stands. Family friend discount.”

Lapis titled her head.

“I’m not your family.”

“No, but I consider Steven an honorary brother,” replied Buck, “Which makes Stevonnie an honorary sibling. And if they like you, that’s all I need to know.”

“I…”

Lapis gave Buck a small smile.

“Thanks.”

Buck smiled back.

“Anytime, sister.”

“We had three doctors when we started, and one of them was a vet.”

Stevonnie sat across from Doctor West, the head doctor at the New Earth General Hospital. Like everything else, this building was ramshackle, painted a sterile white that did little to hide the hodgepodge of wood and corrugated iron that made its walls. It was not long for the world - New Earth’s builders, including a couple of skilled Bismuths, were in the final stages of construction of a new hospital, which was supposed to be a bigger and a little more windproof.

West was an old man; he intended to retire once the move to the new hospital was done. Once he had been a colleague of Doctor Priyanka Maheswaran (“I must say, I’m really sorry about what happened to your mom.”) He had been a relatively junior doctor, an assistant to Doctor Stromberg. Now he was bearded and grey, and his hands shook when idle. His time was coming to an end, he said, and it was time to bow out gracefully.

“So what did you do?” asked Stevonnie.

“We had a lot of volunteers,” replied West, “A lot of them we’d never have expected to become a doctor.”

He pointed over his shoulder at a Ruby in nurses’ scrubs, washing her hands in the staff room sink.

“They were willing to learn, and we were willing to teach,” he continued, “But a lot of the medicines, we had remake from scratch. Thank god for the scavengers or we’d never have been able to do it. Even now, we’re short on a lot of things - and we have to deal with new infections now. Feels like an arms race, sometimes.”

He took a sip of his drink, remembering.

“The worst crisis I remember,” he continued, “Was Grasseye. It got brought in by a scavenger - basically, it caused fungal growth under the skin; you’d notice it because it’d come out over your eyes and through your gums, and eventually it’d clog your vital organs. It was horrible. We lost thirty people to it, I think.”

He shook his head.

“Thank god for the gems,” he said, “Every tech they bring us is a miracle. We stopped Grasseye because a Peridot worked out a cure from an isolated fungus sample. We have vaccines, insulin, all those things because they made them for us.”

He shrugged.

“It’s still touch and go sometimes, but we make it because we work together,” he said, “New Earth works because humans and gems combine to make it work.”

“Because we need each other,” said Stevonnie.

“Bingo.”

West sat back, templing his hands.

“That’s what I’d say to Jeff,” he continued, “Don’t make this about mourning; we’ve mourned enough. Don’t make it a celebration of New Earth and human survival because some of those idiots in the human resistance will take it the wrong way. Make it about us - about the relationships we’ve formed. We’re all family here - how about we celebrate that?”

“Homebase to Acheron, Homebase to Acheron, come in Acheron.”

“Peedee! You taking over for Lenny today?”

“Nah, this is a personal call. You got a moment to swing back to New Earth? Jeff’s holding an anniversary event and we figured we could use it to reacquaint you with Stevonnie.”

“Well, I was heading back anyway, and I’ve really been looking forward to meeting ‘Vonnie again. Sure, I’ll be on the ground in twelve hours, tops.”

“Appreciate it, Jenny. Let me know when you land.”

“Hey, Peedee, before you go; tell Vidalia I’ve found something very special for her.”

“What, for the museum?”

“Mmmmmmaybe?”

“Sure, I’ll tell her! She’ll love that! Okay, see you soon, Jen.”

“You too, ‘Dee, you too.”

Click.

A stretch and a sigh.

“I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she sees you…”

“...last year we saw the end of food rationing for the last staple foods… no, using food twice in the same sentence sounds awkward.”

Jeff stood in front of the dirty mirror in his room, clad in a dark green suit and tie. He had just shaved for the occasion (and managed to cut his cheek, damn it,) and was going over his speech notes for the night ahead (not that night really differed from day here, but it made sense to stick to a twenty-four hour day cycle when half of the population was human). He was already deeply anxious - this was an important event, and he was still finding holes in his speech in the eighth reading.

“Hey Jeff!” Peedee stepped into the room, “You ready?”

Jeff turned, and caught his breath for a moment. His husband was dressed in a sand-brown tuxedo, shirt and tie roguishly abandoned and replaced with a long-sleeved shirt that exposed a glimpse of his chest hair. He grinned at Jeff’s reaction.

“I, ugh, uh, hot,” stammered Jeff.

Peedee chuckled.

“Blue Pearl’s waiting on us,” he said, “We gotta run.”

“Yeah, yeah, I just…”

Jeff took a deep breath, adjusting his tie.

“Yeah,” he said firmly, “I got this.”

He stepped up to Peedee and wrapped an arm around his, grinning goofily.

“Let’s do it.”

Jenny Pizza couldn’t help but feel a little bit underdressed.

Everyone else had dressed in their bests, which, on New Earth, translated to clothes that looked presentable thanks to the fabricator, and here she was, fresh from her ship in her scavenger clothes; an old, cropped khaki jacket with the sleeves cut off, a pair of rough canvas trousers and dirty brown leather boots, the stains of sod and sweat still caking her body. Her biceps, toned and muscular from years of intensive physical activity, glistened slightly in the lights of the crowded Diamond’s Lament.

A pasty, thin officer of the Human Resistance, clad in a tight black dress uniform that he had probably designed himself, sneered at her unkempt appearance. She ignored him - she doubted he’d ever done a day of hard work in his life, never mind doing anything to help keep New Earth running.

“Jenny!”

Jenny turned around and, without even enough time to catch her breath, was pulled into a crushing embrace by Stevonnie. She laughed, hugging her old friend back.

“Stevonnie!” Jenny replied, stepping back after a moment, “So it’s true - you’re keeping the fusion gig up, full-time?”

“Yeah,” nodded Stevonnie, “I…”

“Awesome!” said Jenny, “And where’s the girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” asked Stevonnie, “What do you mean…”

Their eyes widened and they raised their arms, blushing furiously.

“Wait, no, Lapis isn’t… we’re not…”

Jenny laughed again, slapping a hand on their shoulder.

“I know, I know, I’m just messin’ with you!” she replied.

“Stevonnie, Mayor Jim says he’s speaking in…”

Lapis appeared from the crowd, trailing off as she saw Jenny.

“Oh, uh, this is your friend… Kenny, right?” she asked.

“Jenny,” the girl corrected gently, extending her hand.

“No, I’m Lapis,” replied Lapis, gently tapping Jenny’s hand, “Anyway, I’ve got a seat up the front when you’re ready.”

She walked away, leaving Stevonnie and Jenny alone.

“Blue, huh?” said Jenny, “Well… if you did decide to date her, you could do a lot worse…” She grinned teasingly.

“I… Jenny!”

Jenny laughed and playfully punched Stevonnie’s arm.

“Kidding!” she said.

She leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially.

“Just between you-me,” she hissed, “I got a little something planned for tonight.”

She winked and turned around, disappearing back into the crowd.

Stevonnie blinked, tilting their head.

“...huh,” they said, “Wonder what she’s up to…”

“Yo, ‘Vonnie?”

Stevonnie turned. Amethyst had walked up to them, a perplexed frown on her face.

“You seen V?” she asked, “I was gonna ask her to sit with me n’ ‘Dot, but I can’t find her.”

Stevonnie shrugged and shook their head.

“I’m afraid not,” they said, “I did see Jenny though…”

“Cool, cool,” nodded Amethyst, “Let me know if she turns up, alright? Last thing I want is for her to have to listen to that Curator guy talk about train numbers or army buttons or something all night…”

She walked away, leaving Stevonnie once more with the promise if they saw Vidalia, they would point her in Amethyst’s direction

“...okay, Jen’s ready when you’re done…”

“...right, yeah, okay…”

Jeff took a deep breath.

“Here we go.”

Jeff stepped out onto the stage, passing the musician that had been singing before him on the way. He stopped in front of the microphone, smiling awkwardly as the whole room applauded him.

“Thank you, Dan,” he said, briefly turning to the singer offstage, “Well, it’s been…”

God, he thought, he didn’t deserve it - New Earth worked because of them, not because of him.

Wait.

That was it!

Jeff grinned and tucked his speechnotes back into his suit pocket.

“Okay,” he said, “I had a speech about milestones and food rationing and everything being better, but I think I have a better idea. I wanted to make a speech about how we work together - as humans and gems - to make something better for us all. And I don’t want to do that by talking statistics.”

“When we came to this place, we had nothing,” he continued, “And had lost everything. Some of us were lucky - we had husbands, wives, families - and some of us weren’t.”

Buck Dewey looked down at the floor, his shoulders sagging.

“We survived,” continued Jeff, “Because there were gems willing to defy their own Homeworld to make sure we survived. Who helped us gather food, build shelter and infrastructure; they risked their lives for us for no reason other then the faint promise of freedom. We owe them everything.”

There were a few annoyed grunts as members of the Human Resistance angrily began to file out - to his credit, Captain Franks did not, awkwardly watching Commander Lewis shove people aside as she went for the door.

“And now, look where we are,” said Jeff, “We have a port. We have a hospital. We have stores, markets and… and we make our own food! I mean, sure, that two-headed ox thing isn’t actually a cow, but it tastes the same, right? We’re building new buildings - real buildings! And all of this happened because we built a community.”

He looked across the room once more. He saw a young man and a lilac sapphire at the same table, sharing a drink. He saw Lenny and the hulking jasper Carl, the latter lifting a little girl up to help her see. He saw a woman and a light-yellow pearl, arms around each other, a faint blush on their cheeks. And at the front, he saw Stevonnie and Lapis, a partnership that had managed to survive and thrive alone on their little island. There were dozens of other little stories of cooperation scattered throughout the Diamonds’ Lament, testament to the heart of their home.

“So this is who we are,” said Jeff, “We’re not just gems, we’re not just humans. We’re not Earthlings and we’re not from space. We’re something better. We are united. And our very existence is a triumph, a message to the entire galaxy; we are still here! And as long as we’re together, no power in the universe can destroy us! Because we represent something more powerful than any weapon, any fleet, any Diamond!”

He allowed his voice to echo in the dead silence of the room.

“We,” he continued at last, “Are hope. And that is a light that can never be extinguished.”

He chuckled to himself.

“After all,” he said, “There are still little miracles happening across the universe, every day. Isn’t that right…”

He turned to the backstage and grinned.

“...Sour Cream?”

The man that emerged from behind the stage had been cleaned up as best they could. Jenny had found him on a lonely desert planet, the last survivor of a small transport pod that had been bound for the Zoo (or, so she guessed.) He had been thin, almost skeletal, and his eyes had been sunken - a long, long beard underlined his face. Even after a meal, a shave and a change of clothes, he still looked worn and haggard, stumbling as if in a dream onto the light of the stage.

His mother walked behind him, her remaining arm over his shoulder, waving somewhat awkwardly with her limb enhancer. Onion - now tall and lanky but otherwise not so different from before, and quiet as always - brought up the rear, his expression impassive as ever.

The audience regarded Sour Cream and his mother - their eyes fell on the limb enhancer that replaced Vidalia’s arm, and Sour Cream’s dry skin and sunken eyes. These were the scars they bore, the price they’d paid for survival, a living tribute to the sacrifice that had created New Earth and kept it alive. The tension in the air was palpable - Jeff wondered for a moment if he’d done something wrong, if he should have kept this private, if…

“This is my son.”

Vidalia spoke into the microphone, her voice wavering slightly.

“I lost him for fifteen years,” she said, “And now he’s back. And the ship that brought him back was made by a gem, and flown by a human. We found him because we let our world’s combine. And I know some people say we shouldn’t but working together…”

Her voice cracked.

“We brought my boy home.”

There was nothing else to be said. Vidalia pulled her son into a embrace, burying his head in her shoulder. Tears fell unashamed from the eyes of both mother and son as they held each other, fifteen long years of separation finally over. Nobody in the crowd dared to make a noise, to interrupt this moment of sorrow and pain and sheer, unbridled joy.

It was unfathomably unlikely, almost statistically impossible, and yet here it was - a family reunited after having been split across the cosmos.

Jeff was right. Miracles still happened.

“...so, I remember finding this in Dad’s stuff - uh, Greg Dad - and he told me mom wrote it? Anyway, I practiced it, and I remember it off by heart now…”

Stevonnie sat on a homemade piano in the back of the now empty Diamond’s Lament. The event was long over now - it was just them (and Simon, scrubbing down the counter), and they were about to leave for the warp pad. However, seeing the piano unoccupied, Stevonnie had felt a sudden urge to give it a play.

“So, these are the lyrics?” asked Lapis, looking down at the quickly scribbled words on the napkin they had handed her.

“Yeah, yeah,” replied Stevonnie, “Just… uh, join in when you’re ready.”

They cracked their fingers and began to play. The sound wasn’t great - the piano had seen a lot of playing, and it was vaguely tinny and high pitched. It gave the tune something of a melancholy feeling. They played the song without singing at first, then took a deep breath.

“Okay, here we go…”

They began to sing.

“If I could, begin to be, half of what you think of me, I could do about anything, I could even learn how to love…”

Nervously, Lapis looked down at the words and joined in.

“When I see, the way you act, Wondering when I’m coming back, I could do about anything…”

They both broke into smiles, and Lapis put a hand over Stevonnie’s shoulder, their voices echoing in union in the empty bar room - human and gem, intertwined.

“I could even learn how to love like you… Love like you… Love me like you…”

#steven universe #marooned together #stevonnie #lapis lazuli #jeff #peedee fryman #blue pearl #buck dewey #jenny pizza #amethyst #vidalia #onion #jeffdee

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pdchronicles · 6 years

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Long Post about Trolls in WoW

I have, for a very long time, had an issue with the way Trolls are portrayed in World of Warcraft. On the surface, this must sound like a rather pretentious and borderline entitled statement to make, and I understand that. I’m not trying to sit here and tell Blizzard how they should portray a group of people that they’ve created in their own game and in their own intellectual property. Instead, I’m trying to explain a potential that I see in them. I’ve mulled over making a post about this in a place where someone at Blizzard might actually see it, but I’m concerned it will come off as a bunch of complaining in an already saturated echo chamber. I’m also not confident enough in my own ability to effectively capture my thoughts and articulate them into carefully ordered words. Before I continue, be aware that I’m going to be referencing things that I’ve seen in BfA’s beta, so there will be heavy spoilers in this post. I was prompted to make a post like this after seeing the outdoor content that will be released with the new Warfront feature in Arathi Highlands. Before this content was datamined, we learned that Witherbark Village got an overhaul in its design, with new assets added to spruce the place up and make it look quite nice, and very Troll (even Zandalari) themed. The Warfront content includes a quest to kill 20 Witherbark Trolls in order to drive them out of Arathi Highlands. The quest for both the Alliance and the Horde are the same, albeit with slightly different text. Here is the quest text for the Horde-side quest: “The bloodthirsty Witherbark tribe has always refused to join the Horde... and now that the Horde holds Arathi, we will succeed where the Alliance has failed. Drive the forest trolls from the Highlands.“ In a war between the factions, wouldn’t it make sense for the Horde to try to gain any allies that it could? A bloodthirsty group of Trolls seems to fit right into the Horde that Blizzard is currently portraying to us. It’s right there in the quest text. The Horde’s mentality here is “if they’re not with us, kill them”. It’s true that this convenient alliance has been done before, such as way back when the Orcs aided the Darkspear Trolls. Or, when the Taunka joined the Horde in Wrath. And it’s likely being done again with the Zandalari, because I don’t understand how they would join a Horde led by an undead unless the circumstances were incredibly dire. (More on that later.) However, I think the only thing more tired than “convenient alliances” is the “Trolls being driven away from their home” trick. Darkspear by the naga. Drakkari by the Scourge. Amani by the elves. Frostmane by the Dwarves. And so on, and so forth. I think that it’s totally in-character for the Alliance to want to drive the forest Trolls out of Arathi. However, I think it would make more sense for the Horde to try to work with them, even if it’s just leaving them be and perhaps encouraging them to attack the Alliance for them. It’s possible that I’m stuck clinging to an idea about the Horde that is no longer relevant. Before we had Garrosh, who was interested only in orc superiority, and before we had Sylvanas, who cares only about herself, we had a Horde that served as a refuge for the people of Azeroth who suffered because they were different. This was something that I could relate to, deeply, because I have always felt different myself. I’m a gay man living in a predominately conservative part of the United States, a country that seems on the brink of a moral crisis, where the people in charge, if they had their way, would deny me basic human rights in the name of their religious beliefs. I live in a country where the current “president” jokes that his vice-president wants to “hang all the gays”. I don’t think I need to explain this in any more detail to show how my own feelings of being an outsider made me relate to what the Horde was. They were a group of misfits who banded together to help each other because the other people around them hated them and didn’t want them to be a part of their world. The Horde feels much different now. I struggle to both relate to it, and feel like I’m a part of it. Still, it would be nice to see a little bit of that from time to time, and the situation in Arathi Highlands offers a small opportunity to do so. Another reason I felt I needed to rant about all of this is because I’m simply tired of the Trolls being the go-to bad guy fodder. As if it wasn’t obvious, they are my favorite race in the Warcraft universe. I love the fact that they are one of the oldest sentient civilizations. Zuldazar is the oldest city, still standing, in the world. They mastered magic before the elves. Elves are descended from Trolls, the magic of the Well of Eternity mutating them into what they are. Trolls, through their Prelates of Rezan, also mastered the art of the holy warrior before Human paladins ever came into existence. The Amani Trolls hunted down the C’Thrax and sacrificed almost everything they had to defeat Kith’ix. They saved the world. Trolls are the oldest (we think) non-Old God or non-Titan created beings on Azeroth. They called the Titans “The Travelers”, and they witnessed the Titans first battle with the Old Gods. Trolls never enslave anyone. When the lower castes of the Zandalari wished to leave the Empire and go out into the world, the Zandalari encouraged them to do so. These lower castes would eventually become the Gurubashi, Amani, and Drakkari tribes. It’s because of these tribes that the Aqir haven’t destroyed Azeroth. The Trolls’ persistence at hunting them down forced them to split up into separate groups themselves: Azjol-Nerub, Ahn’Qiraj, and the Mantid Empire. That was quite the history lesson, but it helps to articulate my point. The Trolls have a long, deep, and varied history. This makes it an absolute travesty that they are used for little more than villain fodder and comic relief in the game itself. Every circumstance of the Trolls doing something evil can be traced back and attributed to one thing: Desperation. They are constantly losing their home to outside invaders. The first example of this was the elves, who stole the Troll’s lands because they wanted the magic within it. The Great Sundering, a fault of elves, caused terrible destruction, death, and starvation for the Trolls. In desperation, the Trolls called out to their gods, and these calls were answered by Hakkar, and this led to even more suffering. The Drakkari killed their own gods for their power in a desperate attempt to stop the Scourge from destroying their tribe. I could go on like this for a really, really long time, but I think you get the point. For a people so ancient, with so much history, and so much potential for their culture, they deserve better than to be slowly and efficiently erased from existence. But, that’s what’s been happening over the course of WoW’s history. Just look at the Darkspear. They have gotten so little development that we don’t even know who’s leading them right now. We don’t even have very many of them left to be candidates for the role. The elephant in the room, of course, is the incredibly disappointing end to Vol’jin’s character arc by unceremoniously killing him off by a random demon in the opening act of Legion. There are so few notable Darkspear characters that Blizzard invented a new one, just so the Alliance could kill him during the Battle of Lordaeron. They have already killed off so many of the Tribe that they had to invent one...to also kill off. This, in a game that felt the need to add two more “races” of playable elves in a game that already has two. And a new class that’s only playable by elves. I have never understood this direction. With all of this on my mind, I hope you can see where I’m coming from when I say I’d like to see something other than “kill the Trolls” in a quest. But, let me shift gears here, and maybe be a little more optimistic for a while. I’m thrilled that the Zandalari are being added as an allied race for the Horde, and I’m excited that we’re going to get to explore and experience Zandalar. I do think it’s unfortunate that these things are being added to the game now, because the faction war is really putting me off. More specifically, the direction of the Horde, and Sylvanas leading it, is really dampening my enthusiasm and I’ve been really struggling to get past that. It’s going to be really depressing if their methods for getting the Zandalari to join the Horde will be to make them suffer so incredibly that they have no choice but to ally with them. But hey, I said this was supposed to be optimistic now, so let’s get to that. In the novel Shadows of the Horde, Vol’jin mentions that King Rastakhan has a plan to unite all of the Trolls once more. This plan is only hinted at, but it’s described well enough that it is clear that whatever this plan may be, it is different from that of the Prophet Zul. Vol’jin denied Zul’s offer of joining with him (along with the Drakkari, Farraki, and Gurubashi), and the events of BfA fully reveal what Zul’s plan ultimately entails. (Hint: It’s not good.) King Rastakhan’s plan appears to be different from this, and doesn’t seem to involve any of the shady shit that Zul’s been up to over the last several years. In that same novel, while Vol’jin is conversing with the spirit of his father Sen’jin, the elder Darkspear seems to indicate that perhaps it is time that a Shadow Hunter once again leads the Trolls, like it was before the formation of the first Empire of Zul. Fast-forwarding ahead to BfA itself, there is an area in Zuldazar that is sort of a Troll embassy. It’s a place where a representative from the different Troll tribes meet, each tribe represented by speakers. The Amani, Farraki, and Gurubashi, being the largest of these tribes, have their own specific areas. The other, smaller tribes all hang out together. The existence of this area might just be for flavor, but I like to believe it has some other purpose. It could be there to give further merit that King Rastakhan is working on a plan to unite the tribes once more. In addition to this, there is a Zandalari NPC in Zuldazar who offers to give you a glimpse of your future, in a way. One of the possible things that she tells you mentions the unification of the Troll tribes.

Again, it could be here for flavor. But, why? I’d like to think this is another hint that Rastakhan has some sort of plan for the Trolls, and that we, the player, could be a part of it. And since this is seen during the Horde leveling experience only, it means it’s the HORDE player that could be a part of it. The optimist in me hopes this is foreshadowing an eventuality where many, if not all, of the Troll Tribes join the Horde. Naturally, there are a thousand holes that can be poked into this. But like the Trolls I love so much, all of this wishing and hoping is a result of desperation, because we’ve been given so very little in regards to the Trolls for years now. Blizzard just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to making Trolls suffer. It doesn’t stop in BfA. Nazmir is an entire zone dedicated to killing Trolls (Blood Trolls), and there is no option or hope of saving them. The Zandalari, in turn, are made to suffer through the murder of several of their most revered Loa by both the Blood Trolls and Zul’s fanatics. It’s questionable whether King Rastakhan will even survive the expansion. These thoughts, this negativity that I have has been plaguing me for a very long time. It started in full with Vol’jin’s death. I don’t mind admitting that watching that happen made me cry, if that’ll better articulate how strongly I feel about this race of misfits. I’ve felt a pang of sadness and regret every time I’ve watched Blizzard unceremoniously kill off a Troll character before they could be fully developed or their character arcs brought to a meaningful conclusion. Zuni. Torunscar. Zul’jin. Vol’jin. Durja. Zin’Jun. Not to mention the countless “cannon fodder” NPCs. The voice line of a dying Troll on the Broken Shore yelling “Da pain!” still fucking haunts me. Blizzard’s portrayal of Trolls is heartbreaking. As you can probably tell, I care a bit too much about this. Trust me, I recognize that. I’ve been dealing with this in a number of different ways, not least of which is continuously reminding myself that WoW isn’t for me. It’s for a huge audience of different people with different interests and different passions, and it’s unfair of me to expect my own desires to be fulfilled. At the end of the day, my point here is that I see incredible potential for amazing stories and it frustrates me that I seem to be in the minority about that. Games are an amazing medium and they offer this unique ability to make the player feel like a hero. That feeling is the main reason why I play games in the first place. The real world is complicated, ugly, confusing, and it’s not always clear which choice is the right one. In games, it can be different. You can see the wrong and you can stand up against it or help to fix it. I’m finding that more and more difficult to experience in WoW because I’m playing a race that I feel its creators care very little about. In an attempt to wrap this up, because I’ve been at this for way too long already, I want to see what Blizzard has in store for the Zandalari. Their portrayal will likely decide if I still stay invested in WoW to any degree, or if I finally leave it behind for good. None of the characters I have exist canonically in WoW’s story any longer. Why the hell would I put them through that? But, I still enjoy the gameplay and getting inspiration for my own stories from Blizzard’s creativity. This is their game and their story to do with as they please. I’m just hoping they recognize the potential that they have with the Trolls and start utilizing them for something better than they currently are. Thank you for reading.

#warcraft #trolls #spoilers #rant

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theliterateape · 3 years

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When Reality Punches Ideology, We Must Embrace the Flaws in Our Perspective

By Don Hall

So many Americans are convinced that the Coronavirus is a hoax. Even as the number of cases skyrockets, they refuse to wear masks or social distance or bother to acknowledge COVID-19 as a thing.

In a CNN interview I saw, a frontline nurse describe these patients as being so firmly persuaded it’s all a bunch of hooey that as they lay dying of the disease, they can’t wrap their minds around the fact that this hoax is killing them. They aren’t angry at Trump for minimizing the danger or at their respective state governments for denying the existence of it. They are angry at the unreality of reality as it smacks them in the lungs.

Ideology has its limits and those limits come into stark contrast when we are suddenly confronted with reality that contradicts it.

A long-time stance by conservatives comes from Milton Friedman of the Chicago School of Economics. The idea, firmly planted, is that if government releases businesses of regulation and taxation, the savings will ‘trickle down’ the pyramid to the masses. This guiding principle has fueled more tax cuts and deregulation than any other idea.

The problem? Over the course of fifty years it has been proven to be false time and time again. Even Friedman disavowed it. Taking away the emotional hyperbole of pitting the wealthy against the rest of us, the simple truth is that this economic model has been tried in many countries and failed every single time.

This repetition of failure has not changed the conservative perspective. Like an anti-masker dying of COVID, the disbelief would be almost comical were it not for the dire consequences of continuing to dry hump the ideological twist. Adherence to this model has destroyed the middle class, stymied wages, eliminated the power of unions, and helped create the largest income gap in the history of, well, fucking history.

This sort of disconnect between the real and the certainty of zealots isn’t new nor is it specifically American. When the Roman Catholic Church was informed that Galileo Galilei had engaged in proving Copernicus’s theory that the sun was the center of the galaxy rather than the earth, they simply excommunicated him. When reality didn’t mesh with their superstition, superstition won.

This year the rhetoric thus spoke: if more people voted, the country would defiantly demonstrate how progressive and liberal it truly was. The writing on the digital wall told us that “people of color” (of whom, apparently no longer includes Asians) would vote Blue overwhelmingly. The polls (which we had already seen have their heads swirlied in the giant toilet bowl of Election 2016) convinced us that there would be a “Blue tsunami.”

Reality throat-punched the rhetoric and then stuck its cock in its ear.

Exit polls in Philadelphia found that Latino voter support there for Mr. Trump leapt to 35 percent this year from 22 percent in 2016. In Texas, Latino turnout soared, almost entirely to the benefit of Mr. Trump. Muslim voters also confounded Democratic strategists with their support for Mr. Trump reaching 35 percent. Trump received a larger percentage of the black vote than any other conservative candidate in history.

Asian-American Californians opposed the affirmative action measure in large numbers. Prominent Latino nonprofit and civil rights organizations endorsed the affirmative action proposition even as all fourteen of California’s majority-Latino counties voted it down. In rural Imperial County, in the southeastern corner of the state, 85 percent of the population is Latino. The voters there who gave Joseph R. Biden Jr. a nearly 27-point margin of victory went against the affirmative action measure by 16 percentage points.

Looks like race is a piss-poor metric for figuring out what matters to people. Looks like race is less important than the economic benefits of a candidate. Looks like categorizing people by their racial make-up isn’t as wonderful an idea as the Progressive Left thought.

It’s hard to square the whitewash of white supremacy when so many non-white voters reject the basic premise. When millions of voters who are not white vote for the obvious racist candidate there has to be a more nuanced and data-driven rationale. If the Progressive Left can say with a straight face that Biden won because of black votes or black women votes or Indigenous votes then they must accept that Trump came far closer than expected because of black votes or Latino votes or Muslim votes.

As the anti-masker denies the reality of the disease and the conservatives deny the failure of ‘trickle down’ economics, so the Woke deny that their singular focus on race is rooted in fantasy.

It’s fine to fail even on an epic playing field. If you refuse to learn from that failure, you’re an ideologue and an idiot to boot. A real world example is the Trump Right. He lost the presidential election resoundingly yet they are so ideologically bent that a lunatic refusal to acknowledge it renders them all useless and dangerous at the same time. If the Progressive Left wants to distinguish itself from these cartoonish morons, they must embrace the failures and learn.

More rhetoric spills out to indicate that Trump’s power grasp is indelibly harmful to democracy but it isn’t and won’t be. More people voted in this election than in history. That suggests nothing less than a healthy democracy and the institutions built have the staying power we give them. Trust is given, not earned, and trusting that good ideas will prevail over superstition and ignorance is the kind of trust we on the left of the spectrum need to give our citizenry.

Economic equality, climate change, Medicare for All. These are the ideas that resonate with the multicultural Left of Center crowd. Police reform played well across the board but #DefundThePolice was a boner for most of the country. Medicare for All is widely accepted but socialized medicine scares the shit out of Cuban Americans who still have Castro in their mouths. The Green New Deal would be far more accepted if the screed were not so much in favor of eliminating the jobs of millions without a moment’s pause.

Reality has smacked the Woke across the gonads. Will they embrace the flaws in their message? Will they soften the rhetoric in order to genuinely persuade instead of shame? Can they?

Unlikely but that’s pretty much the same tune sung throughout history. Zealots gonna zealot and all the facts in the world ain’t changing their minds nor their message. That’s why it’s good that they represent the smallest slice of the American Left.

#COVID deniers #Trickle Down Economics #Galileo #The Progressive Left

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quranreadalong · 6 years

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ARMED CONFLICTS OF EARLY ISLAM PT 5

By the summer of 628 AD, Mohammed is out here feeling like Alexander the Great, sad that there are no more worlds to conquer. He’s dealt with pretty much all of his enemies, barring a few incidents of stamping out dissent. Around this time he is also finally let back into Mecca, courtesy of the treaty, to perform the pilgrimage. And then he looks north, south, and east, and remembers that there is, in fact, a big world out there, and he wants all of it!

This period (late 628-mid 632 AD) begins a dizzying series of raids and conquest expeditions--it’s not clear what the exact chronology here is, because so much happened in such a short span of time. Ibn Ishaq says there were 38 “expeditions” in total from 623 to 632, with most occurring in the second half of that time period; Mohammed personally fought in nine of them.

To avoid overwhelming ourselves here, let’s start with the usual crap: the attacks on various clans in the Hijaz and Najd. In the twenty months or so leading up to the conquest of Mecca, Mo sent some of his top fighters out with forces of a few dozen men each to “spread Islam” far and wide. Umar was sent to harass a Hawazin clan of Turbah (~100 miles east of Taif), who fled before he got to preach the good news to them. Abu Bakr was sent into Najd to deal with some people who persisted in their disbelief. A raid finally took down our spunky Banu Thalaba underdogs.

Some more Ghatafan clans were raided; as per usual, the evildoers fled and the Muslim army grabbed their shit. An attempt to convert the Banu Sulaym with 50 fighters went slightly awry when the clan showered the armed missionaries with arrows. An attempt to convert the Banu Murrah clan near Fadak went similarly awry, resulting in another force coming back later to slaughter everyone they could get their hands on and steal everything they could find. One guy tried to save himself by converting under knifepoint, but was killed anyway, which displeased Mohammed. Some poor Hijazi clan called the Banu al-Mulawwih got murdered to shit for no stated reason. Al-Tabari:

After they had milked the camels, set them to rest by the watering trough, and had stopped moving around, after the first part of the night had passed, we launched the raid on them. We killed some of them, drove away the camels, and set out to return. ... The battle cry of the companions of the Messenger of God that night was "Kill! Kill!"

Al-Tabari’s volume on this time period is called the “Victory of Islam”, and that is really what it is. This whole section is really the beginning of solid Islamic control of Arabia. A few more raids similar to the ones above followed throughout 628 and 629, and during this time period you also begin to see the first clans outside Mohammed’s immediate vicinity start to convert to Islam and ally themselves with Mohammed. The Muslims are seen as the top dogs now, and people think it might be a good idea to join them to avoid the whole Kill! Kill!ing thing.

By the second half of 629, Mohammed’s men had established a pretty firm grip on the entire Hijaz and Najd. It was time for the Muslims to expand their vision. Mohammed began sending letters to various leaders, both Arab and non-Arab, and sent his men to deliver them. Some went to the Gulf coast in eastern Arabia; some went north to the Byzantines and Sassanids; some went across the sea to East Africa. Unfortunately, we do not know what the letters said, as all alleged copies of them have been found to be inauthentic, and the traditions around them are pretty obviously legendary. But the letters themselves evidently were sent.

According to the colorful al-Waqidi, one such letter was given to the leaders of the Ghassanids, who were the northern Arab allies of the Byzantine Empire. They were unenthused by its contents and chopped the head off the individual who gave the letter to them. Ibn Ishaq does not mention this event, but he does mention what happened next: the Muslims tried to attack the Ghassanids and it was a miserable failure. Mohammed’s ex-adopted son (...long story, we’ll see him later in the Quran) Zayd and his cousin Jafar both died in the battle. That was called the Battle of Mutah, which is comically exaggerated (100,000+ people! Including the emperor of Byzantium!) in Islamic sources. More on that later in the surah.

The northern Arab cities, allied with the Ghassanids but living outside their protection, would soon pay for this. Mohammed sent some troops to attack an ally of the Ghassanids, the Banu Quda, who lived north of Wadi al-Qura. Most fled, the others died. Ibn Ishaq also records Mohammed sending a force to attack the northern city of Dumat al-Jandal, instructing his men to “fight everyone in the way of God and kill those who disbelieve in God”, excluding children. Amr ibn al-As, one of the late-arrival opportunists, led an attack on a place ten days north of Medina called Dhat al-Silasil in order to “convoke the Arabs to war on Syria”. (Tabouk, the large conquest expedition, was the following year.)

Other attacks in late 629 involved a comical chase of a coastal Bedouin tribe, wherein the Muslim army lost sight of the fleeing enemy and ended up almost starving to death, only surviving by eating a beached whale; the assassination of a random clan leader accused yet again of “planning to attack Medina” (truly remarkable how many people plotted to attack the city yet none ever did beyond one nigh-bloodless siege); and yet more attacks on Ghatafan clans, convincing many of them to “embrace Islam”.

One event in this era was far more important than anything else. Having firmly established Muslim supremacy in the entire area, Mohammed turned his thoughts to Mecca. Things were fairly peaceful at the moment and the Quraysh were clearly the submissive partner in the relationship, but the issue was that Mohammed was not in charge of Mecca, and this was a problem. He began amassing forces to take the city as quietly as he could, diverting the attention of spies by having his men attack random other targets.

In late 629, the attacks between the Khuzaa and Bakr clans that we talked about in #59 were used as a pretext by Mohammed to accuse the Meccans of breaking the Treaty of Hudaibiyya. Mohammed himself had already broken the treaty several times, of course, and the Quraysh went to Medina to try to settle the matter peacefully, but it was too late. Mohammed wasn’t interested in maintaining the treaty, and he finally had his excuse to get rid of it. He assembled a massive army, said in Muslim sources to be 10,000 armed men strong, and marched on Mecca in four columns, one through each of Mecca’s points of entry.

Abu Sufyan, the Meccan military commander, tried in vain to convince Mohammed not to take the city, knowing that a military confrontation would be unwise. The largest force the Quraysh had ever assembled was smaller than Mohammed’s army, and that included their now-vanquished Jewish allies as well as now-defeated Ghatafan clans. The Quraysh do not seem to have had a standing army of even a third of their enemy’s numbers. The situation was hopeless and the Meccans knew it. They had held out as long as possible, but this was the end of the line.

The conquest of Mecca was fairly anticlimactic for this reason. Minor skirmishes did occur, but by and large the Muslim army simply marched their way to control of the city. When confronted with this inevitability, Abu Sufyan surrendered and “embraced Islam”. Mohammed’s first enemy had been brought low. Mohammed’s home city was now in his hands.

The first thing that Mohammed did after taking Mecca was to purge the Kaaba of all signs of polytheism, destroying its idols. Temples devoted to polytheistic gods were shut down and destroyed. He then executed those few brave, dumb old enemies of his who did not throw themselves at his feet and convert to Islam on the spot, including a slave girl who mocked Islam in songs and an apostate named Abdullah ibn Khatal, who was found clinging to the Kaaba. Ibn Ishaq:

He [Abdullah] had two singing-girls Fartana and her friend who used to sing satirical songs about the apostle, so he ordered that they should be killed with him.

(The other one begged for her life and converted.)

The conquest of Mecca was a big deal. It wasn’t just that Mohammed’s last real enemies were now completely defeated, it was that he won. The Quraysh had always been Enemy #1, even when Mohammed turned his attention elsewhere, and now they were at his feet. That was it--there was no other force in the region able to stand against Mohammed’s men, and everyone knew it. Conversions skyrocketed thereafter.

And the 'Arabs (other than Quraish) delayed their conversion to Islam till the Conquest (of Mecca). They used to say "Leave him (i.e. Muhammad) and his people Quraish: if he overpowers them then he is a true Prophet. So, when Mecca was conquered, then every tribe rushed to embrace Islam

By the time Mohammed marched his men into the downtrodden, half-starved, and frankly pitiful city of Mecca, his ranks were already pretty swollen from the converted and/or conquered tribes. He gained a couple thousand new soldiers from the newly-converted Quraysh and their allies, and various delegations soon came to pledge their loyalty to the Hijaz’s new top warlord. Others resisted, but it was futile. They were beaten down without a second thought until everyone got in line. Dilly-dallying was no longer acceptable; it was the Islam Train or the Death Train for Arab polytheists.

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify to La ilaha ill-allah (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah) and that I am the Messenger of Allah, and establish regular prayers and pay Zakat.'

And that is the very unhappy ending to our tale and the end of the beginning of the Islamic conquests. Hunayn was shortly after Mecca’s conquest, then more raids and sieges (including the siege of Taif) in an attempt to cleanse Arabia of polytheists, going all the way into Yemen and into northern Arabia. Tabouk was after that. By this point, so many people had been made to “embrace Islam” that a significant portion of Mohammed’s troops genuinely didn’t give a shit about the religion and were just going along with this because the alternative was being conquered by him, and these are some of the people he whines about when he talks about the fighters who didn’t go with him to Tabouk. This whining makes up the remainder of surah 9.

After Mecca was taken, Mohammed sent his men out to neighboring areas to destroy polytheistic temples and encourage people to “embrace Islam”, with the first temple to be destroyed being the temple to the goddess Uzza in between Mecca and Taif. Temples and shrines to various other gods, including Suwa and Manat, were destroyed in short order. Mohammed would send his merry men to destroy temples straight through until the end of his life, with the large Dhul Khalasa temple (halfway between Mecca and Sanaa in Yemen) being one of the last. He sent 150 men to take down the temple and kill anyone they found inside of it. The surrounding tribes tried to defend it, but were defeated. A poetess of the crushed people memorialized the incident in a depressing poem, according to Ibn Ishaq:

They came to defend their shrine, only to find Lions with brandished swords clamoring for blood. The women of the Khath'am [local tribe] were, then, humiliated By the men of the Abmas [a Muslim clan], and abased.

Al-Tabari offers a typical account of how the remaining holdouts were brought into the loving embrace of Islam:

The Messenger of God sent Khalid b. al-Walid in the month of Rabi' II, or Jumada I, in the year 10/631 to Banu al Harith b. Kab in Najran and ordered to invite them to Islam for three days before he fought them. If they should respond to him [with the acceptance of Islam], then he was to accept it from them, and to stay with them and teach them the Book of God, the sunnah of His prophet, and the requirements of Islam, if they should decline then he was to fight them.

Khalid departed and came to them, sending out riders in every direction inviting them to Islam and saying, "O people, accept Islam, and you will be safe." So they embraced Islam and responded to his call.

The demolitions of polytheistic places of worship are summarized in depressingly straightforward sentences in works like the Book of Idols, written around 800 AD:

The Quraysh as well as the rest of the Arabs continued to venerate Manah until the Apostle of God … he dispatched ‘Ali to destroy her (idol). ‘Ali demolished her, took away all her [treasures], and carried them back to the Prophet.

Allat continued to be venerated until the Thaqif embraced Islam, when the Apostle of God dispatched al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bab, who destroyed her and burnt her [temple] to the ground.

Ruda was a temple which belonged to the Banu Rabi'ah … It was destroyed by al-Mustawghir.

When the Apostle of God captured Mecca and the Arabs embraced Islam, among the delegates who came to pay their homage was Jarir ibn ‘Abdullah. He came to the Apostle and embraced Islam before him. Thereupon the Apostle addressed him saying, “O Jarir! Wilt thou not rid me of Dhu al-Khalasah?” Jarir replied, “Yea.” So the Apostle dispatched him to destroy it … he was met by the Khath'am and the Bahilah, who resisted him and attempted to defend Dhu al-Khalasah. He, therefore, fought them and killed a hundred men of the Bahilah, its custodians, and many of the Khath'am; while of the Banu Qubafah ibn ‘Amir ibn Khath'am he killed two hundred. having defeated them and forced them into flight, he demolished the building which stood over Dhu al-Khalasah and set it on fire.

The Apostle of God had, after the battle of Tabuk, sent Khalid ibn al-Walid to destroy [the shrine of Wadd]. But the Banu ‘Abd-Wadd and the Banu ‘Amir al-Ajdar resisted Khalid and attempted to defend the idol. Khalid, therefore, fought and defeated them, and then destroyed [the shrine] and demolished the idol.

Al-Fals continued to be worshipped until the advent of the Prophet, at which time 'Ali ibn abi Talib was dispatched to destroy [the shrine].

There are no records indicating that Arab polytheism survived the seventh century. It was entirely destroyed by Islam, and those who resisted its destruction were killed.

During Mohammed’s lifetime, the conquests reached all the way east, into the Gulf island of Bahrain; to the south, into Yemen; and to the north, right against the border between Arab territory and the Byzantine Empire’s lands and vassal states. With the majority of Arabia in the grip of Islam when Mohammed died of illness in 632 AD, the rest of the Divine Mission was left to his successors. Abu Bakr came first, and half of his brief tenure involved beating down various other self-proclaimed prophets and getting breakaway apostasized tribes back in line. When Umar took over two years later, the Islamic armies were able to fully dedicate themselves to the Out Of Arabia conquests, and.... well, you know the rest.

So, that’s it for our depressing history lesson. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I sure haven’t... ☹

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#historylesson #quranreadalong #surah 9 #at tawbah

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feministfangirl · 7 years

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Hey I just that evil smiling picture of you playing dnd. I was wondering what you did to become a good dm, I've been curious about playing the game for a while and I think I have to be the dm if I want people to play with lol. Thanks for any help

I promise I didn’t ignore you! I’ve been real busy this week, and wanted to treat this question with the respect it deserves. Thanks for asking me…and assuming I’m a good DM, lol. I try to be good by following the cardinal rule: if you and your players have fun, you win! It’s easy to think it’s you v. the players as a DM, but really it’s a story you’re all making together, you help keep it going smoothly but it belongs to all of you. Once you look at it all from that perspective it gets less stressful, for me at least. Now I know it’s kinda weird since I did kill my players in that picture you saw going around… But that was a one shot. And there were ample opportunities for them to reverse the tide, but the dice were not on their side. Anyway. I’m sure you’re looking for more concrete answers. Here are the most important things I did in learning to DM. 1. Watch D&D gamesI watched Critical Role for a few weeks. After years of being afraid to DM, Matthew Mercer made it look easy and fun. He told fun stories and had varied characters and his players were so invested! The more I watched the more I wanted to play. And the best part about watching Critical Role is that there are 102 episodes and counting. Tons of material to mine for ideas. Another good one is The Adventure Zone podcast. It starts out a little slow for my tastes but once you get into it it’s AMAZING. I love the story in this one, it’s a great way to show you don’t have to stick to typical fantasy tropes to have a great game. Any genre can be a fun game. While watching, I paid attention to what kinds of rolls the DM called for in situations, how many monsters you could throw before combat gets hazy, how hard it is to DM for lots of people, how long combat takes, how to describe effects based on dice roll, and most importantly, when to stone face your players and when to laugh like the evil genius you are. 2. Get tips from expertsOkay, so, now you think you could probably do the thing, but you don’t want to screw it up right out of the gate. I spent years too scared to DM because it seemed like there was too much to know. I went looking for words of wisdom and found the aforementioned Matt Mercer’s GM Tips. It’s a great series of videos that are short and helpful, split up by topic. Another great series of videos is anything from Matthew Colville, whose Running the Game videos are probably the second largest influence on my work as a Dungeon Master (after Matt Mercer). I also read tons of articles from the official D&D website, like the Sage Advice column. I read every Unearthed Arcana article and thought about how those adjustments compared to the Player’s Handbook. I signed up for the Roleplaying Tips mailing list run by Johnn Four, whose advice is probably the third largest influence on my DMing. I heavily recommend it also because it’s great to get a reminder to work on D&D every few days when a new tip arrives in your inbox. Seriously the best mailing list I’ve ever been on. He also answers questions and solicits answers from the community, so he’s a great resource for obscure wonders.3. Join a communityThis kind of follows from the previous point about advice from Johnn directly. If you’re really struggling with the density of the Core Rulebooks and are daunted by the many columns and tables, a community can help explain things. For instance, I had a lot of trouble parsing how exactly XP adjusted values work. I asked online, and someone helpfully pointed out the reference and made an example so I’d get how to use it myself. Tumblr is good, but I prefer reddit for D&D things. Some great subreddits are r/DMAcademy, r/DMToolkit, r/DnDBehindtheScreen, r/mattcolville (yes, that same Matt Colville), r/UnearthedArcana, and r/worldbuilfing.

There are a number of other forums specifically for D&D that I have accounts for but never use, mostly because I am still recovering from my forum days… I won’t date myself and say how long ago.4. Google is your friend!I google everything I need for D&D. Sometimes, even though I know the information I want is in my PHB, the book is on my shelf and I’d have to search for the info. The internet can tell me what I need to know NOW. So! Here’s my advice for googling D&D stuff, along with some of my favourite links.

Rules: Include ‘5e’ or ‘fifth edition’ along with the keyword you’re looking for. This will reduce your chances of ending up on a site intended for players of another edition.Spells: Don’t google them, go to dnd-spells.com. Seriously. This website saves my life every time I play D&D. You can also make spellbooks for your characters and then generate pdfs before your game! It’s MAGICAL!Monsters: Homebrew monsters can be fun but be careful when implementing them in your game. If you need help building encounters (like I do), use Kobold Fight Club.Images: Google image search can get you really general or really specific stuff. If you want random images to inspire you you’re better off looking at something like The MET.Names: There is one site to end all sites for this. For all other generators, see donjon.5. Steal like an artistI have a lot of fun watching, reading, and playing other types of media and thinking, “I’m going to steal that for my game.” I love comic books for example. Recently, I decided to put Iron Man into my game. Not for any reason, just because it would be fun. I didn’t simply put Tony Stark as a rich human noble into my game and wait for my player to meet him so I could do my best Robert Downey Jr. impression. I thought about what makes that character exciting and recognizable and transported it into the steampunk world of my campaign. I changed his name and race. I made him an Artificer, a Gunslinger protective of his prototypes (*waves at Taliesin*), who could also build Mech Suits that are as much works of art as they are feats of magical engineering. I gave him an assistant with a romantic love triangle and let him loose in my world. It was so much fun to watch my player figure out my inspiration! Not every NPC needs this level of detail, but all your choices should circle back to 'How well would this work in MY world?’ By taking inspiration from the things you love, filling in the 'gaps’ to breathe life into your universe should come easily. I didn’t know Tran Intubi (Tony Stark) had a gallery of retired mech suits in his Tower but I described as such in-game. The description came naturally when I had a base inspiration to rely on.I hope that was more helpful than long-winded!

#dungeons and dragons #d&d #critical role #dungeon master #game master #dnd #DM

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