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osamusriceballs · 1 year

Text

Private Tour

Tsukishima x fem reader

Warnings: None

Words: ~ 2,1 k

About: Musuem guide Tsukki- idk, he's kinda cute, kinda flirty and mean, and kinda awkward. He's Tsukki~

A/n: The way I looked up actual information about that museum and Sendai city- no way I'm LEARNING THINGS BY WRITING A FANFIC WHAT THE HECK-

"I can show you around, Miss."

You look up at the very first time you've been hearing English words ever since you started walking around in the Sendai City Museum.

A surprisingly tall, blonde guy looks down at you- a pair of stylish glasses sitting on his nose, as well as a slightly arrogant look on his face if you’re being honest with yourself. A look at his name tag reveals that his name is "Tsukishima" and after looking at him dumbfounded for a few moments, he bites the inside of his cheek, exceeding a mixture of annoyance and regret. "Do you not speak English, Miss?"

You blink a few times before you finally nod, feeling embarrassed by how long you have been staring at him. "Uhm- yes I do."

"You've been walking around aimlessly for quite some time. Our security guard put you on the "watch" list, but I figured you simply don't speak Japanese and don't understand the structure of this museum."

You stare at him again, impressed by his flawless pronunciation- and after realizing what he just said, you keep on staring but with heated cheeks.

"Oh... I didn't want to cause problems. I don't speak Japanese, you're correct. I'll take a leave then." You nod and slightly bow, appreciating that he deemed you as "not suspicious enough to get her kicked out by the security guards, but still weird enough to politely kick her out myself". You quickly turn on your heels, avoiding to look at the very security guard that probably put you on the "suspicious" list, as well as that blonde museum guide that apparently wants to get you out of there as well.

"Wait, wait- I didn't mean it like that-" a few big strides form the tall man, and he has already caught up to you, extending his long arm to stop you before he quickly steps in front of you.

You stop abruptly, confused by his effort to catch up to you and the deep irritated frown on his face. "It's fine. You don't need to apologize." You reassuringly smile and lift your palms to show him that it's really fine, it’s not his fault after all, but he bites the inside of his cheek once again. A habit?

"I meant the offer. I can show you around."

It's your time to frown now at his sudden persistence-

You look at him intensely for the first time, trying to figure out his intentions at this point. The sleeves of his white dress shirt are rolled up, and his upper arms seem surprisingly muscular- he generally makes a very fit impression to you. His blonde hair is curled, slightly falling down onto his forehead, and even though it should look messy like this, it's rather cute and handsome on him. He looks really intelligent- probably the combined effect of the intense look in his pretty brown eyes and his position as a museum guide. He's actually very attractive-

"Please." He adds after a few seconds, the word coming heavily from his lips, and you’re somehow convinced that he's genuine with his offer.

"Um... okay. If you insist. But if you're just being polite, there is no need too. I've already seen most of the exhibit, I don't mind leaving now."

He nods after your words and slightly bows, his face looking a bit more relaxed now that you've accepted his offer. "Follow me."

His arm rests behind your back, almost touching you for a second to guide you the way towards the entrance. " My name is Tsukishima Kei. We'll start in chronological order of the exhibit, it's easier for you to get into the topic that way."

"How do you know my age?" You ask him dumbfounded, simply following this man wherever he leads you. "The security guard checked your ID when you entered."

The way he nonchalantly states it makes you stunned for a few seconds, but you're quick to recover from it. "What's your age then? And your birthday?"

He rolls his eyes at your words, but you don't feel real annoyance from him. "Why should I tell you that?"

"Isn't it unfair that you know my birthday and I don't have the chance to know yours?"

He hisses quietly and rubs the back of his head, and you wonder if he already starts to regret talking to you. "September 27. 1996."

"Oh." You nod at his words, actually surprised that he seems so talkative and considerate now. He suddenly stops, and you find yourself standing in a big room that you have passed before. You remember your attempt to read the pretty engraved information on the walls, but quickly giving up when you notice that there were very few words written in English. Is the way you fidgeted with your phone for an eternity and (futilely) used a translator why you were put on the "watch" list?

"Have you heard of Date Masamune?"

You purse your lips to suppress a smile- an embarrassed smile when you recall where you've heard that name before. Tsukishima raises a brow and takes your lack of response as answer.

"You've heard that name. From anime I guess?"

You slowly nod, avoiding looking at him at all cost, but a sudden snort makes you look at him- and you realize that he's laughing. You would be mad at him for making fun of you, but his laugh sounds surprisingly cute and so contrary to the cold persona that he has displayed so far that you don't find it in you to get angry. He regains composure after a few seconds and clears his throat before he turns back to being serious and bored- but the short glimpse at this side of him makes your stomach tingle.

"He actually found the city of Sendai. He was a regional ruler during Japan's Azuchi–Momoyama period and the early Edo period."

"Really? He found this city?" You look at him with raised eyebrows, impressed by the new information.

"He did. However, the Sendai area has been inhabited a very long time before that actually. The story of this city mostly began at around 1600 though."

"With Date Masamune?" you ask, and he nods with a pleased hum. "Correct."

"I would assume that you led me here to show me his battle armor?" you gesture towards the metal suits in front of you, and he nods once again. "Correct again."

"See, I don't need you, I can figure it out on my own." You try to joke to lighten up the mood, and much to your surprise, his lips turn into an amused curl at your words.

"Sure. You want my name tag and show around the next group of visitors?"

"Y/n Tsukishima doesn't sound too bad, does it?" You grin- and freeze when you realize the meaning of your words. He coughs, a slight redness now tainting his pale cheeks, and you quickly avert your gaze.

"I guess it doesn't." Your breath stocks at his words, and now you definitely don't have enough courage to look at him.

"Tell me more about his battle armors. Why are there so many? I can't believe he's worn all of them." You quickly try to turn his attention to something else, and he turns his body towards the exhibition again.

"This is his original battle armor." He gestures towards a black armor with a crescent moon on top. "The design is also used in most anime depictions of him." He side eyes you at the comment but you decide to ignore it, not wanting to tell him that he nailed it. "But some of these armors have only been worn for ceremonies. And the ones in the back are from Toyotomi Hideyoshi." You try to keep your poker face when he drops another familiar name, but he is too smart to not notice how you tensed up for a second.

"I guess you know him too?"

"I uhm... I wouldn't mind learning some historically accurate information about him." You're certain that your cheeks are burning at this point, and you're relieved when he just settles for a small chuckle.

"Don't worry, I'll give you an overview about his life and influence on Japan. I need to make sure that someone who tries to steal my job and my last name knows about Toyotomi Hideyoshi."

"I'm not trying to steal anything here, just to make that clear." You shoot him a burning glare, but he doesn't mind it at all.

"I know at least two security guards who think otherwise."

You look at him blankly, and he returns your gaze with the same blank expression- until you both start laughing.

He has a pleasant laugh and voice- that's what you realize after your conversation with him so far. You're convinced that you could listen to him talking all day- maybe he should voice one of these audio guides?- and you find yourself even more attracted to this man, to his intellect and his wit.

A small group of men suddenly catches your attention though, and you slowly stop laughing- especially when they suddenly gesture towards the two of you-

"Oya oya, what's with that look on his face?"

"I've never seen Tsukishima smile like that- is that his girlfriend?"

"Oyy, Tsukki! You promised us a tour, didn't you?"

"Don't bother the other visitors, Bokuto-san."

You're stunned at the way Tsukishima immediately pales and tries to hide his face- that tall tree of a man with bright blonde hair trying to hide himself with a measly attempt like that?

"Do you know them?" You point towards the group, and he "tsks" and nods finally. "Yes. I didn't expect them so early though."

"Oy Tsukki, will you play with us later? It's been a while, I want to show you my new skills."

"What are you doing here?" Tsukishima's tone significantly changes compared to the way he has been talking to you. No more friendly and polite note, just annoyance and embarrassment.

"We told you we would come, didn't we, Tsukki?" A tall man with black hair and a lazy grin wraps an arm around Tsukishima and rubs his head, effectively messing with his blonde hair.

"And who is that young lady over here? Your girl?"

"Kuroo-san, you're embarrassing him." Another guy with glasses comes up to the front, quickly followed by a very energetically walking man with broad shoulders and white hair.

"Tsukki, introduce us to your girlfriend!" His smile is almost blinding, but you're too perplex after the sudden commotion to answer him- "We’re leaving." Tsukishima shrugs his shoulder until the tall guy lets him go, and you're stunned when Tsukishima suddenly wraps an arm around your shoulder and guides you a few steps away before he removes his arm quickly.

"I'm sorry for that."

He scratches the back of his head and avoids eye contact when he finally brought you out of their reach, clearly flustered by the unexpected situation he just found himself in. "It's fine." You reassure him and try to stay focused on him, and not on the way the guys started talking about the two of you way too loudly, the words "Tsukki's cute girlfriend" making their way too your ears way too often.

"These are... acquaintances from me. Don't mind them. They are fools sometimes."

"They seem nice actually. You should introduce me someday; you don't want to withhold your girlfriend from your friends after all." You attempt to joke to lighten up the situation, and he quickly glances towards you again, his glasses reflecting the white light from the lamp above when he does so.

"I thought you already had my last name? I feel like we skipped a few steps here."

Your cheeks heat up at his words, and you find yourself lost for a suitable reply, only for him to smile again. "Let's start with step one."

His left hand moves into his back pocket, and he fishes for his phone, handing it to you after quickly unlocking it- and you manage to get a short glimpse of his dinosaur background before he presses the contact button.

"I- Can you-" he bites the inside of his cheek- you start to believe that he's suppressing a hiss with that habit whenever he's irritated or doesn't know what to do- and you quickly save him before his cheek turns bloody at this point.

"I still need to learn more about Hideyoshi. If you promise to be my private guide next time too?" You reach for his phone and he willingly gives it to you, now suddenly lost for words. Tsukishima nods, silently watching you while you type in your number, and you read it three times to make sure it's correct before you hand it back to him.

"Here you go. Will you be here tomorrow too?"

"Yes. I'll be here till 5 pm. You can come whenever; I'll make time for you."

You smile at his words and walk towards the exit, shyly waving at the group of men that are still watching you both, and they happily wave back when they notice you leaving.

"See you tomorrow, Kei."

"See you tomorrow."

You finally turn but you don't miss the smile on his face though when he reads your contact’s name.

"Tsukishima y/n."

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raaorqtpbpdy · 12 days

Text

The Nuanced Relationship between Hunter and Prey

Skulker finds a creature like he'd never encountered before, but it's weak, and stupid. If he wants his hunt for it to be worthwhile, he'll have to wait until it's stronger, and maybe nudge it along.

For the prompt: After half-dying in the accident, Danny wakes up in the ghost zone and is raised by Skulker [From @roundaboutnow]

Read also on AO3

[Warnings for canon-typical violence and death threats]

There was a lot of worthwhile prey in the Ghost Zone for the hunter who knew how to look. But none quite so unusual as the one Skulker was currently stalking.

He'd almost overlooked the thing, weak and wounded as it was. It looked, on the surface, like an ordinary ghost, with nothing especially noteworthy about it. But Skulker of all ghosts knew that things could be more than they appeared to be on the surface, and for some reason this pathetic fledgling ghost was causing the sensors in his armor to go haywire.

Body heat, they were saying. Heart beat. Blood pressure. Blood.

This creature was no ordinary ghost.

But it was weak, and wounded, and there was no glory in hunting prey like that, so Skulker took the thing, whatever it was, to his lair to nurse it back to health and hunt it when it was once more strong and worth hunting. He laid the creature down on a bed of soft animal furs, and examined it.

Chemical burns and Lichtenberg figures splayed out across the thing's sallow flesh. Unusual injuries for one who looked to have died so young and so recently, but a ghost was still a ghost, even a weird ghost like this, so an ectoplasmic poultice should promote healing just as well as if it were covered in regular cuts and bruises.

Skulker had met young-looking ghosts before, although of course, most of them were, chronologically, much older than they looked. He'd also met plenty of ghosts whose deaths were related to laboratory accidents. In all his many years hunting across the Infinite Realms, he'd never met a ghost to which both features applied. This... whatever it was... was a curiosity in many respects.

Finally, after what would have been a few days, if the Ghost Zone had days or nights, the thing awoke. It was still weak, of course, but it was conscious.

"What are you called?" Skulker asked it.

"Um... Danny?"

"No, what are you called?" Skulker repeated.

"I... I don't know what you mean," the thing, Danny insisted. "Who are you?"

Skulker sighed in frustration. "I am Skulker, greatest hunter in all the Ghost Zone, and once you are well enough to run, whatever you are, you will be my prey."

"Oh..." Danny said, speaking and blinking slowly.

Evidently it had not regained full command of its mental faculties yet. Skulker resigned himself to wait longer before he could expect a proper hunt with this one.

"Rest now, Danny, whatever you are," Skulker commanded. "I will not kill you before you next awake."

"Thanks I guess," Danny said, eyes already drifting closed. "And I'm a boy."

So it was a he, then. Skulker supposed even that information could be valuable to him. A good hunter should know his prey well, after all.

When Danny next awoke, Skulker had a rejuvenating meal ready for him. Ghosts didn't need to eat, just like they didn't need to sleep, but when they were weak or injured, both could still aid in recovery. A Zone-born ghost like Skulker made for a pretty lousy cook, of course, but it didn't necessarily have to be good food in order to help.

Danny's eyes were still foggy and uncomprehending, but he was able to sit himself up to eat the soup Skulker had made him. He didn't appear to taste it as he sipped and swallowed, but his movement grew steadily less leaden as he ate, and he glowed a little brighter.

"What is your kind called," Skulker asked him again, paraphrasing slightly in the hopes that the boy would understand.

"I don't know what you mean," Danny insisted.

"You are no ordinary ghost, boy," Skulker clarified. "You're heart still beats, your lungs still breathe, and you having a heat and lungs to do that in and of itself makes you unlike any ghost I've yet encountered, but you are a ghost. You glow and fly and your veins are shared by both blood and ectoplasm alike. It as if you are half one and half the other. Half a ghost, and half a boy."

"Oh," Danny said, and fell unconscious again. Though, this time, Skulker was fairly sure he'd just fainted.

When he awoke again, he seemed stronger, so Skulker sent him into the jungle, and the hunt was on.

But Danny moved like a frail baby bird. He couldn't even stay upright when he flew, nor did he attempt to turn invisible, not that doing so could have saved him. His behavior was strange. He sought out a water source first, though the lake he found was occupied by ghost-eating piranha. He kept stopping to look at the plants, putting a few of them in his mouth for some reason before promptly spitting them out. Was he... trying to find something edible in Skulker's treacherous jungle?

How odd.

Perhaps his mind still wasn't all there, if his priorities were this out of order.

When Danny was nearly snapped up by a carnivorous plant, Skulker swooped in to save him. He may have been healed, but the half-boy was not nearly fit to hunt yet. There would be no glory in killing him if he would just as easily let himself be eaten by a plant that couldn't even give chase.

"Evidently, I was mistaken," Skulker told him, once they were back in the cave he called his home. "Prey that cannot survive on its own is no prey at all. To hunt you now would be like hunting a hamster that escaped its cage."

"Hey! I know how to survive in the wild!" Danny argued indignantly. "My parents made sure to teach me, and they even took me and my sister survival camping in the woods. First you find a source of water, and you build a shelter, and figure out which plants are edible—"

"The wilds of my domain are nothing like your earthly woods," Skulker interrupted. "The only thing edible in that jungle, as far as the jungle is concerned... is you."

Danny visibly swallowed, his eyes wide with fear.

"Well," he said, his voice shaking. "If you want me to survive until you can hunt me, then you'll have to teach me to survive, now won't you?"

Skulker growled under his breath, but the prey had a point. "Very well," he agreed.

He began to teach Danny about his domain. Warned him of the dangers in the rivers, the monsters lurking beyond his sight, the plants the would kill him if he ate them and the plants that would kill him by eating him. After a few hours, Danny yawned, and his eyelids started to droop.

"Do you tire, whelp?" Skulker asked curiously.

"Yeah," Danny said, yawning again. "It's been a long day. I'm kinda hungry, too."

"Ridiculous," Skulker scoffed, his mechanical lips warping into a sneer to match the tiny ectoplasmic mouth underneath. "Ghosts do not require food nor sleep, so we don't get tired, or hungry."

"I guess my body hasn't realized I'm a ghost yet," Danny replied. "You got anymore of that soup?"

"It's cold, but yes," Skulker replied. "I suppose I'll make you a bowl. Maybe you still haven't fully recovered and that's why your body wants food."

Danny nodded consideringly as Skulker started a fire near the mouth of the cave to warm the leftovers.

"If nothing in the jungle is edible," he asked. "Where did you get the ingredients for the soup?"

"I traded some of them," Skulker replied, "though some did come from the jungle. Nothing was a bit of an exaggeration. There are some fruits that grow which aren't poisonous, and a skilled hunter like myself knows how to hunt for food as well as sport, not that I need to, usually."

"Do you ever fish?"

Skulker scoffed. "Sit by a lake and wait for hours until my prey is foolish enough to kill itself on a hook? There's no thrill in such a passive activity."

Danny hummed thoughtfully. "I guess... but I always thought it was fun when my dad took me fishing. It could get boring, I guess, but it was fun, too. We didn't always catch anything, though, 'cause my dad's voice is really loud and he'd scare all the fish away."

Skulker rolled his eyes and made a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh. He really didn't care about what activities this mysterious creature used to partake in with his father.

"Fascinating," he replied sardonically, and handed Danny a warmed bowl of soup.

Even though he was fully lucid now, the boy slurped it up like he couldn't taste how bad it was—and it had to be terrible. Skulker had never cooked before in his existence, or eaten for that matter. He'd just thrown a bunch of random edible things in a pot and let it stew until he got impatient.

"How... does it taste?" Skulker asked, curious despite himself.

Danny furrowed his brows and swished around the mouthful of soup he'd just gulped up. "A little crunchy for soup," he said at last. "I think some of the vegetables didn't cook long enough. A little... watery, I guess? Weirdly sweet? Over all it tastes fine. But I haven't eaten all day, so I'll be honest, I could care less what it tastes like."

Skulker hummed thoughtfully, unsure what he wanted to do with this information, or why he'd bothered to ask.

"Hey, if I go to sleep, will you kill me?" Danny asked, putting his empty bowl on the ground next to him.

Skulker let out a weary sigh, not his first since picking up with wayward thing, and surely not the last, either. "I would sooner kill a newborn faun," he replied. "Sleep well, Danny. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

Danny snorted. "Okay, Dread Pirate Roberts."

"I'm no pirate," Skulker sneered, both confused and indignant. "I am a hunter, the best in the Realms."

"No, I didn't mean..." Danny started to say. "It was a reference. I guess you don't watch a lot of movies around here, though. Never mind. I'm gonna pass out now."

He yawned again and laid down on the furs where Skulker had nursed him to health. For a few minutes, Skulker watched as he nuzzled and adjusted his body to get comfortable before eventually falling asleep.

It was hours before the boy awoke, but once he did, Skulker sent him back out into the jungle to be hunted again. He fared better this time, not immediately shoving his hands into a lake full of spectral piranhas was a step in the right direction, at least, although he still insisted on trying to find food, water, and shelter, according to what his parents had apparently taught him about surviving in the wild.

When Skulker felt confident the boy wouldn't die immediately if he stopped watching, he went back to his cave to give young Danny a proper head start. It wouldn't be a very interesting hunt if he didn't have to work for it a little.

It had started raining by the time he set out to stalk his prey. It was so easy to find the young ghost's trail that Skulker almost considered dragging him back to the cave to give him a lesson on hiding his tracks. But he'd waited long enough, and he was not known for his patience.

As he followed the trail, soon enough, he heard laughter up ahead, and he burst out into a clearing with weapons armed.

"Skulker, this rain makes my skin feel all tingly. Is it safe to drink?" Danny asked, as if he didn't have a dozen rockets aimed right at him. "Look, these curly leaves collect the rainwater like cups so I won't have to go to the lake with piranhas in it."

"I'm not here to teach you, whelp," Skulker jeered. "The hunt is on. Are you going to fight back or not?"

Danny blinked owlishly at him.

"How?" he asked.

"Wha—how?" Skulker sputtered, incredulous. "You are a ghost! Use your powers."

"You mean like... fly away?" he asked.

"Flight is not the only ability you now possess. Invisibility, intangibility, and a whole host of powers unique to you are now within your grasp, but you must reach within yourself to access them."

Danny stared, obviously not comprehending.

"Fine," Skulker relented, disarming his weapons and letting his shoulders slump in disappointment. "To kill a creature unable to defend itself would be... anticlimactic. I wouldn't want this hunt to be a disappointment, so I will teach you how to use your powers to defend yourself."

Danny looked excited, and Skulker scowled and added:

"But after that I'm definitely going to hunt you! Your pelt will hang upon my wall!"

"Gross," Danny said. "So is the rainwater safe to drink or what?"

For about the thousandth time, Skulker sighed. "Yes. The rainwater is safe to drink."

"Nice!" Danny plucked one of the spiral leaves and drank greedily. "Hm... tastes kinda citrus-y. Oh, and I found some of those fruits you mentioned. They're pretty tasty on their own, but I don't know why you'd put 'em in soup, because they're way too sweet for that. I bet they'd make a good fruit salad, though."

"I have no intention of making fruit salad," Skulker told him. "I am going to train you, and then I am going to hunt and kill you for sport."

"Why go to all the trouble? Why not just kill me while I was still unconscious?"

He scoffed. "And what would be the sport in that?"

They returned to the cave that served as Skulker's home-base, but this time, Skulker led the way down a tunnel Danny had never entered before, and at the end of it was a larger cave, lit with green torches, where Skulker trained and tested new weapons and suit upgrades. He gave Danny a few moments to take it in, his mouth agape as he observed the various scorch marks on the pitted cave walls. Then, their training began.

After a few hours of training, Skulker had successfully taught the boy how to fly properly, how to turn invisible, and basic intangibility—although intangibility was a power that could only be utilized to its it fullest capacity outside of the Ghost Zone, in the Human Realm.

"Does that mean that I can go back?" Danny asked.

"What?"

"You said intangibility works best in the human world, that means ghosts can go there somehow," he pointed out. "Does that mean... that I could go back someday? And see my family again?"

Skulker didn't answer for a long moment. The whelp seemed so hopeful, and he didn't want to dash those hopes. A killer he may have been, but he wasn't a monster.

"No," he said finally. Because he wasn't a liar, either. "You will not be able to return because your fate is to become my prey. You will die before you get the chance."

Danny sagged in disappointment.

"It's unlikely you would have been able to, anyway," Skulker tried to comfort him. "Openings to the human world are hard to come by. Even if I were to let you leave and attempt to find a way into the Human Realm, it would likely be a century or more before you were successful. Anyone you knew in life would be long gone."

"Oh... I see."

Danny's movements became sluggish after that, and he wasn't catching on as quickly as before. It was unclear whether is was despair or lethargy that slowed him, but Skulker decided to stop the lessons for now.

"There's no point training when you can barely raise your arm," he said. "Go to bed, rest well. I shall hunt you when you wake."

"Okay," Danny agreed with a yawn. "See you in the morning."

There was no morning in the Ghost Zone, nor no night. There was no sun and no cosmic rotation to produce such things. Time passed in a relative way, so that one could accurately guess how much time had passed by virtue of the fact that it passed only as quickly or slowly as they thought it was passing.

Some realms mimicked night and day with shadows and glowing orbs of mysterious origin, but Skulker saw no need for that on his island. The natural landscape of the island synthesized weather patterns, mostly rain, but occasionally strong winds, twisters, and earthquakes. Though earthquakes weren't exactly weather, Skulker supposed.

The rain from earlier was coming down in buckets now. It had been for hours, and it showed no signs of stopping. Skulker's armor was water resistant, but it wouldn't hold up in weather like this. The torrential downpour would doubtless cause a short-circuit, or a glitch, and then Skulker's true form would be trapped in a useless metal statue. Or, if he managed to eject in time, be completely defenseless, and at the mercy of the bloodthirsty creatures of the jungle.

If the rain didn't stop, he'd have to postpone his hunt for another day.

Maybe that would be for the best. He'd taught Danny how to use basic ghost powers, but they had yet to tap into any of his unique abilities, and with a creature such as Danny, the unique abilities would be what made the hunt most interesting.

It was still pouring when Danny finally awoke. He yawned and stretched and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked at Skulker, who was watching him intently.

"Let me guess," he said. "You're sending me into the jungle so you can hunt me again?"

"Not today." Skulker stood, and let Danny back down the tunnel to the larger cave used for training. "You've learned the basics, but that's hardly all there is. In addition to the standard ghost abilities, most ghosts also have powers unique to them. Now, I'm going to teach you how to tap into yours."

"Cool," Danny said, sounding awed. "What are your unique powers, Skulker?"

Skulker scowled. The truth was, he didn't have any. He may have abnormally high intelligence for a blob ghost, but he was still a blob ghost, and without his armored suit, there was nothing special about him.

"And why would I give my prey the advantage of knowing what I'm capable of," he said instead, because he wasn't so stupid as to give his prey the advantage of knowing his weaknesses, either.

Though Skulker's pure ectoplasm core didn't afford him the unique abilities of ghosts with elemental, emotional, or conceptual ectoplasmic cores, he had always been a curious thing, and had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He could apply almost any information he had gleaned in his travels and studies to the hunt. As such, he knew enough to guide Danny through the process of discovering his own unique powers.

"A ghost's power comes for our core," Skulker explained. "The nature of a ghost's core varies from one to another, and no two are exactly alike. Close your eyes and focus inward."

Danny nodded and closed his eyes. He was... breathing... slowly, deeply.

Skulker had noticed him breathing before, but it had never been as pronounced as this. It seemed deliberate. For a moment, Skulker was distracted, watching the boy breathe steadily, and he wondered what the purpose of it was. Perhaps he would have the chance to ask later, but for now, he had to focus on the task at hand.

"Can you sense the energy pulsing through you from your core?" Skulker asked.

"I think so..." Danny said, his eyes still closed, though his nose scrunched up as he tried to concentrate and talk at the same time. "It feels... kinda like a second heart, a little lower and to the write, and beating more slowly."

"Interesting," Skulker said.

He'd never heard it described like that before, even by other ghosts that had once been human. Skulker himself had never had a heart, so he couldn't have compared the two, but he filed the information away for later. If nothing else, he now knew more or less where this creature's heart was located, and if the heart was comparable to a ghost's core, than perhaps it was as vital.

"Tell me, how does the flow of energy feel?" he asked.

"Like... ripples on a lake," Danny replied. "The come from my core and move out until they stop just under my skin, like reaching the shoreline."

"Good." Skulker nodded thoughtfully.

The ripple analogy was familiar to him. He'd heard it before, from the sirens of the Bottomless Sea, when he'd studied underwater navigation with them on his hunt for the kraken. After he'd killed it, he'd had to leave in a rush. He hadn't realized it was a beloved mascot of the Bottomless Sea. He'd only been able to bring back a single tentacle of the massive thing as a trophy. He never did find out what had happened to the rest of it.

"Try to make those ripples stronger. Let them push past the shoreline in waves."

As Skulker watched, he saw Danny's glow begin to pulse, brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer. Then, all at once, he glowed so brightly as to force Skulker to avert his eyes, and when the light faded, Danny looked... different.

"Did something happen?" Danny asked, opening his eyes. "I think I made something happen."

He looked around the room, perhaps assuming that he'd caused an explosion or something, despite the lack of a boom. Upon seeing nothing amiss, he looked confused, then turned his gaze downward, at his own hands. It was then that he realized what he'd done.

"I... I'm human again," he said, amazed.

It... looked to be true. He was neither glowing, nor floating. His once ectoplasm-green eyes had turned blue, his shock-white hair a dark black, even the colors of his jumpsuit had inverted.

It looked true.

But it couldn't be.

Skulker consulted his instruments. They scanned his surroundings automatically every few seconds, so he didn't have to wait long before they scanned Danny in his new form.

"No," Skulker said, his tone solemn. "You're not."

"What? But... look at me!" Danny insisted.

"I see what you look like," Skulker said. "But you are not a human, not really. Your core is still there, pulsing with ghostly energy. The blood in your veins is still infused with ectoplasm. "You're as human as you were before, and as ghostly. Only your outward appearance has changed. On the inside, you're the same."

Danny's face fell and he put a hand in the center of his chest where his core would be.

"You... you're right," he said dismally. "I can feel it. I look human, but I'm still..."

"Half ghost," Skulker confirmed. "You're still a one of a kind specimen who will make for exceptional prey once you're not so pathetic. Let us keep training."

Once Danny learned that he could switch between two forms, Skulker had him practice going back and forth, changing from one to the other at will, without having to think too much about it.

When it came to unique abilities, this had to be among the most unique Skulker had ever observed. He had heard of ghosts who could disguise themselves as humans before. It wasn't common, but it wasn't the rarest ghostly ability either. It was, however, merely disguise. They would look superficially like humans, but could be spotted under scrutiny, and internally, they were still ghosts all the way down.

With Danny, it was different. He truly was as much a human as he was a ghost, a perfect blend of the two, inside and—apparently—out.

Once he had his transformation down pat, Skulker had him try to unlock other abilities.

At first, trying to connect with his core, only resulted in switching forms again, no matter what he did, but after a while, he discovered that he could use ghost rays, another relatively common ghost ability. Notably, however, his ghost rays were green.

Ghost rays had different colors depending on how powerful they were, with blue being the weakest and green being the strongest. Skulker himself couldn't use them though he could synthesize the effect with his technology, it was too weak to be worth the effort most of the time, such a pale blue as to almost be white. Meanwhile, Danny could shoot out bright green ghost rays without even straining himself too much.

Once this ghost-boy realized even a fraction of his true power, he would make for worthy prey indeed.

The spent the remainder of their time before Danny grew tired again working on his aim, with a short break in the middle for Danny to eat the rest of the leftover soup.

"If you're too tired to keep training, then go to bed so I can kill you tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah," Danny agreed, rolling his eyes.

Granted, Skulker didn't know a lot about human, or half-human sleep patterns, but it seemed excessive to him. Danny would barely stay awake for twenty hours, before going to sleep for a whole four or five. And he had to eat every single day, too, which also seemed like a lot. Perhaps he would talk to Danny about it, make sure he wasn't just being lazy and gluttonous.

This time, when Danny went to lie down on his bed of pelts, he first changed into his human form, then peeled off his jumpsuit to reveal a t-shirt and a pair of polka-dotted shorts underneath. He fell asleep faster than usual, Skulker noted, and wondered why.

It was still raining when next he woke. The storm didn't seem to be dying down at all.

It wasn't entirely unexpected, to be honest. When the weather changed like this, it often lasted for weeks. It was a bit frustrating, but Skulker supposed there was plenty more left to teach Danny until the rain let up. And the more skilled he was, the better the hunt would be.

Danny didn't say anything when Skulker led him straight into the training cave rather than sending him out into the jungle.

They worked on ecto-energy manipulation, and they tested the limits of Danny's ghostly strength, speed in flight, stamina, agility, and durability until Danny asked for a lunch break.

"There's no soup left," Skulker said.

"That's okay," Danny said. "I'll just go out and find some of those edible fruits and stuff from the jungle. I know how to forage."

Skulker narrowed his eyes, and the mechanical lenses on his suit followed.

"And how do I know you won't try to run?" he asked.

"Where would I even go," Danny asked. "The Ghost Zone is infinite, and this is the only realm of the bunch I know anything about. If I tried to run, I think I'd die pretty quick. Again, I mean."

Skulker frowned, but he supposed that made sense.

"You could always come with me, if your worried about it," Danny added.

Skulker turned up his nose, "I couldn't be bothered," he said, turning his back to Danny. "I have some housekeeping to do anyway."

"You mean cave-keeping?" Danny joke.

"Weren't you going somewhere?"

Danny laughed as he flew out the cave mouth into the rain.

Despite Danny's claims that he couldn't really go anywhere else, Skulker didn't fully trust the boy not to try and live out on his own in the jungle. While he waited, Skulker did some maintenance on all his hunting trophies, keeping them from getting to dusty, or faded. He was proud of them, and liked to keep them all in good condition.

It felt like a long time had passed without Danny returning, and Skulker was about ready to hunt him down rain or no rain. Even if it hadn't been planned, if his prey was on the run, then he was loathe to let it get away.

Just as he was preparing to leave, however, Danny returned, beaming. He shook the water out of his hair, splashing Skulker with it. Luckily, Skulker's armor was water resistant, even if it couldn't hold up long under rain as heavy as it had been.

"Did you know there's a tree at the edge of the island that grows rainbow fruits?" Danny said excitedly, producing one of the fruits in question for Skulker to see. It had a shimmering, luminescent skin, and the colors shifted and changed as he watched. "I wasn't sure whether I should try one or not, but I figured I already lived once, and they're super juicy and sooo good. I must've eaten like ten of 'em. You should try one!"

Skulker took the fruit from Danny's hand to examine it before placing it on a nearby table. If only to himself, he would admit that he was intrigued, but he would have to remove his helmet to eat, and he didn't think it wise to reveal his true form to someone he still planned to hunt.

"Ghosts like me don't eat," he said. "Come, let us return to training."

Danny looked crestfallen, but he followed without argument.

They kept training. Danny discovered the ability to make ecto-energy constructs, the same thrumming, powerful green as his ghost rays. Truly, the boy's raw power was a sight to behold... and he didn't even know it.

The rain was still coming down in torrents with the end of the storm nowhere in sight when Danny went to bed with the usual promise that Skulker would most likely kill him when he woke up.

Once he was sure the boy was fast asleep, Skulker picked up the rainbow fruit from the table and took it to his trophy room. There, he lifted his helmet and took a bite. The fruit itself was nearly half as big as he was, but that didn't matter as he took another bite and another, until all that was left was a shiny, silver pit.

He'd never tasted anything before, but he couldn't imagine anything tasted as delectable as that rainbow fruit. And had it not been for Danny, he would never have known the flavor.

Perhaps, keeping the boy around wouldn't be so bad after all.

The days continued like that, as the rain did.

Danny would wake up, Skulker would train him until he got hungry, then he would fly out for an hour or so to find some new root, fruit, or berry in the jungle and bring some back. Skulker would always refuse, but leave it on the table to eat in secret. He was sure Danny noticed that the food kept disappearing when he slept, and since he kept bringing it, he must've assumed Skulker was eating in private, although Skulker couldn't guess to what exactly Danny thought about that objectively strange practice.

Slowly, after teaching Danny about his powers, Skulker started teaching him strategy, tracking, how to find his opponent weakness and exploit it. If Danny thought it was odd that the lessons were getting progressively more advanced, he didn't remark upon it, only made as many puns as he could while they trained.

Then when Danny grew tired, Skulker would wish him goodnight in the form of a death threat.

Then, after weeks, the rain finally stopped.

"So, Skulker, what's the lesson today?" Danny asked upon waking up.

"No lesson today," Skulker replied.

He was conflicted, of course. How could he not be after spending so much time with the boy, training him, accepting his edible gifts. He was proud of how much Danny had learned and grown, even fond of him. But he was only ever delaying his hunt until the rain stopped.

"Today, you go into the jungle alone, and become my prey."

This was always the plan.

"What? Seriously?" Danny asked.

"Yes."

"You're actually gonna hunt and kill me now? After all those weeks of work?"

"This is what we were working towards."

"But... Skulker—"

"Run and face your fate later, or stay and perish here and now," Skulker said, his voice monotone and cold, even to his own ears. "It makes no difference to me."

When Danny didn't move, Skulker armed a small rocket on the back of his forearm and took aim.

Danny shook his head, uncomprehending and betrayed.

He ran.

Skulker waited, giving his prey a head start.

He would typically give his prey about half an hour. But when a half hour had passed, Skulker didn't move. He kept waiting. Then an hour passed. Then two.

A part of him hoped that Danny had taken the risk to leave the island altogether, but another part of him knew he hadn't. He knew that the reality of the situation still hadn't sunk in for Danny. It hadn't quite sunk in for Skulker either.

But he was a hunter, the greatest in the Ghost Zone, and no head start, no matter how long, would spare his prey a swift demise.

After two hours, Skulker finally left the cave, and the hunt was on.

Danny was much better now than the last time Skulker had tried to hunt him. There was no trail to follow through the thick brush of the jungle, but Skulker knew this island like the back of his metal hand, and he knew Danny just as well.

He went straight to the clearing where he'd found Danny on his second hunt, the one with the spiral leaves that caught rainwater. After weeks of rain, most of the leaves were filled to the brim, but one of them was half-empty. Danny had been here.

Most ghosts drew power only from the ectoplasm around them and their own cores, but Danny was no ordinary ghost. He could also gain power by eating, drinking, and sleeping, and he knew this. It was why, every time Skulker sent him into the jungle, he would start trying to find food and water. Above Skulker's head, some of the branches had been broken, no doubt where Danny had flown up through them.

Skulker flew up through the canopy, looking for more gaps between the branches that might indicate where Danny had flown through. None. Meaning he had reentered the jungle at the lake, where the trees didn't fully cover.

Skulker followed.

As he lowered himself toward the lake surface, he looked this way and that for any sign of Danny's path. The water level was higher than usual due to the recent rain, the same was true of all the rivers and creeks on the island as well. The water now encroached into the treeline, thick trunks jutting out of it, unbothered by the damp.

Then, suddenly, his arms were slammed into his sides as a bright green, ectoplasmic rope wrapped around him from behind. There was no mistaking it. The rope was one of Danny's ecto-energy constructs. The kid had him.

A mighty pull forced Skulker out of the sky and plunged him into the lake. Fully submerged, his suit would short out in no time, but Skulker managed to eject just before he hit the surface, his true, tiny form flying backwards toward the trees.

He saw a streak of gray shoot out from the trees to intercept him, and a white glove wrapped around his middle. Skulker looked up to see a smiling Danny, and he couldn't help the pride that swelled in his chest, despite his failure.

"You're a lot smaller than I was expecting," Danny remarked. "Does this mean I win?"

Skulker laughed, and for once when the squeaky, high-pitched sound met his ears, he couldn't care enough to cringe at his true voice.

"You got me whelp," he said. "Well done."

"Will you stop trying to hunt me if we go home now?"

"Yes," Skulker agreed. "You've bested me for good. Now let's go home. There's still plenty more to teach you."

"Maybe I'll even surpass you and become the greatest hunter in the Ghost Zone."

"Now, don't get ahead of yourself ghost-boy. I earned that title over a long several centuries. You won't take it from me that easily."

The two of them returned to the cave, Skulker got into his spare suit of armor, and they returned to their usual routine of training—with a few changes. The two of them would fly over the jungle together now, and Skulker would show Danny features he'd never seen before. Danny was teaching Skulker how to cook a little—though by his own admission, he wasn't much of a cook himself, so it was more like they were learning together.

Danny even talked his way into going fishing together. It was as boring as Skulker remembered, but bearable with company. Piranhas weren't exactly the tastiest meal, though.

This comfortable routine continued for months, broken up only by the occasional hunting trip, which Danny was only allowed to join if he promised to only observe, and not get involved. He always got involved anyway, but as long as he wasn't hurt, Skulker wouldn't get too upset.

Then Skulker caught wind of a portal to the human world. One with had been opened from the other side, and even when it closed, it would reopen. When he returned to the cave, he looked dolefully at his charge. He knew how badly Danny wanted to return to the human world, but he wasn't sure he could bear to see him go.

"Danny," he said, "If you could go to the human world, would you even think about coming back?"

"I mean... you said portal were really hard to come by," Danny replied. "Would I even be able to?"

"For argument's sake, let's say you could come back whenever you wanted, and you'd be able to go between the to whenever you wanted to," Skulker proposed. "Would you?"

"Well... yeah, I think so," Danny said. "I want to go home, but... this is kinda like my home to. I wouldn't want to never see you again.... Why are you bringing this up all of the sudden?"

Of course. Danny was too good a kid to just leave and never look back. It was why he wanted to go back to the human world, too. If he kept this a secret, Danny would only resent him.

"I've heard rumors about a man-made portal between the Human Realm and the Ghost Zone," Skulker told him. "One which never permanently closes."

"Really?" Danny asked. "Let's go!"

"Now hold on," Skulker said, holding up his hands to calm the boy. "If you're going to go to the Human Realm, you'll need a ghostly name. You have a human name already, but you're not just a human. I should've had you pick out a ghost name long ago. Have you given it any thought?"

Danny smiled brightly and nodded.

"Yeah, actually," he said. "Since I'm half human and half ghost, I thought that I should have a name that's both human and ghost, just like I am. When I was fully alive, my name was Danny Fenton... so... I thought my ghost name could be Danny Phantom.... What do you think?"

Skulker maintained a stone expression for a moment, just to keep Danny on his toes, before breaking into a satisfied smile and nodding approvingly.

"I think it suits you."

#danny phantom #dp #danny fenton #skulker #fic #things i wrote #phic phight #phic phight 24

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nanistar · 1 year

Note

may i ask why you hate mapleshade? like is it more of a fandom thing/author thing or do you just not like her character? sorry if thats a weird question lol

i think the idea behind her character is cool but the erins are the erins and they fucked it up imo. also the way the fandom treats any discussion about her and other characters in her book is so annoying i cannot stand going into the mapleshade tag on tumblr

which is a shame cause like i said, i really like the concept of her character and i feel like it had alot of potentional

not a weird question, i get it. i gotta start by saying i have no ill will against people who like mapleshade or even like the points i'm about to say. btw! sorry this is long i got really into it

starting chronologically (according to canon, not publication)(publication order is: all ivypool darkforest books (2011 and prev) crookeds promise (2011), great battle (last hope 2012, she permadies here) and maples vengeance (2015)

i actually really liked mapleshade's vengeance, all things considered. it comes last in the mapleshade storyline according to publication date, and up until then we really didn't know much about her, and i believe this is where she gets a personality other than "random DF lady" and "rude ghost villain". the erins are not good writers by any means, but i felt that mapleshade's internal monologue and the way she saw the world was genuinely pretty decent. they portrayed her as obsessive and manipulative and as an unreliable narrator. it was one of the first books i read upon returning to the fandom in 2018 and it was a thrill to read, because i hadn't been spoiled on it.

the erins have a habit of writing surprise/accidental pregnancies as plot points, which has the implication of like… flings/one night stands. it's best not to think about it. it's pretty obvious upfront that appledusk is not as in to her as she is in to him, but she doesn't see it. she talks about him in her narrations as a sweet and loving man and talks about their family and future together, but when we the readers finally see him, he's calloused and doesn't really care about her. i think she even sees him with reedshine at a gathering and gets mad before she thinks "oh he's just doing that so no one gets suspicious" (not quoting or anything, i havent read the novel since 2018) girl. their relationship was obviously just a fling to him, but to her they were in love. i liked the way this was written as opposed to all the other times in warriors weve seen a man have a hissy fit because a girl rejected him. (ashfur is the glaring example but also crowfeather, brambleclaw) her denial and refusal to accept what she was seeing (that she was the side piece) was the interesting part.

she has her children and then ravenwing spills the beans. why on earth would he do that? why would it benefit the clan or anyone? from a logistical standpoint, thunderclan lost 3 potential new warriors and mapleshade never implied she was going to riverclan. anyway, he didn't even have proof. he just assumed. i think he rightfully got what was coming for him, since if he would have kept his mouth shut, 7 cats including himself wouldn't have died. sorry mini rant i don't like him. anyway we know the rest of the story. kits die, maple kills ravenwing for telling her secret, she kills frecklewish for not helping (no, she couldn't have jumped in to save the kits without probably dying herself but she COULD have stood up for maple in thunderclan, and she was upstream so she could have yelled out and warned maple of the flood but im NOT getting into that and i dont care) and then she goes to kill reedshine but kills appledusk instead. did he deserve it? he was kinda a dick but mapleshade was like stalker-obsessed with him (i think she uses the phrase "my appledusk" in her narration but i might be wrong) after what was ostensibly a one night stand. perchpaw wounds mapleshade to the point where once she flees the scene, she dies of blood loss. cool

the story of a mothers love (and a mother's loss) is an age-old tale. in a franchise where all female characters are doomed to become boring cookie-cutter mothers, this loss and violent rage was awesome.

everyone told me to read crookedstar's promise, because it was the best super edition. i.. do not agree with that. tbh i thought it was long and boring and went nowhere. crookedstar suffered many tragedies in his life, and he lost everyone he loved, and then the book suddenly ends with him going "im ok (:" and dying. (i was reading a pdf and not a physical copy so it was VERY abrupt for me. i legit sat there like.. so that's it? i read 500+ pages for that?) i can't really blame mapleshade for this (since shes not real) but it does factor in. her idea of revenge against appledusk was to torture an injured baby? who then grew up and had no idea who the fuck appledusk was? why not raise him and give him the love he craved so that when the time came, he would be more likely to do her bidding?? her motives here make no sense. not super important. anyway.

and then she's seen occasionally in the dark forest and she tries to drown ivypaw for no reason once. idk she was obviously just a background character in these scenes (since they came first) but the fans saw a female in the dark forest and were like. thank god a woman. can you blame them. then the erins built her up from that.

anyway mapleshade has this generations long story of manipulating younger cats, and a POV book where she's obviously obsessive, controlling, stalkerish and chooses brutally uncommon violence as a way to get back at those who wrong her. (she unburies ravenwing's body so crows can eat it, and she uses adders to kill frecklewish, despite the fact the snakes could easily go for her.) she puts HERSELF in danger to do these things because she's impulsive, she justifies all her actions to herself by saying its revenge for her children and in the end, she pushes the last remnants of the kittens she thinks she's fighting for away. this is a cool story about a woman who's pushed to the edge and takes everyone down with her. for ONCE its not a man with deadwifepain.

and what does the fandom do

they girlbossify her. they fight over if she's in the wrong or not (she is. she killed people.) they take everything about her that made her compelling and turn her into "grr my husband cheated on me and me kids are dead. sad." she gets turned into the most basic, boring, cookie cutter "evil" lady. she kills people for fun and not because she had a reason to or a goal (in her mind). she suffers the most tragic kind of loss that there is and gets no time to grieve before she is run out of her home, and her reaction to this is pure RAGE, and the fandom turns her into this boring, slay QUEEN!!! (not the pregnant cat kind), always been evil, always been hardcore, ~So CrAzY~, "my eyeliner is sharp to stab men" girlboss. where's the nuance. where's the passion!!? she's a miserable, impulsive, manipulating failure. she blames others for her mistakes and bad judgment and punishes others for her shortfallings. she can't be vulnerable and broken, she can only cry because dead kids and then kill evil husband and evil husbands wife. she's even sometimes portrayed as like "boss" of the dark forest, wrangling all the men. barf.

so to answer your question, it's the general fandom* portrayal that i hate, but i honestly wouldn't trust the erins with her at this point. (the erins are influenced by their fans, for example (old person voice) back in my day, firestar and scourge being brothers was just a fan theory.) i'm glad they permakilled her in the great battle so they cant bring her back to ruin anything. actually thinking about her to write this out and reflect on why i don't like her made me sympathize for her. i like text mapleshade with a little bit of fanon sprinkled in for flavor.

and hey. usually when the fandom adopts a character, they're right. the fandom likes to get really in to random bg/side characters and give them lives they would never have in canon. but sadly (or not, depending on your opinion), when those get popular and breach containment, they spread everywhere and suddenly people think this IS canon. look at how many of us thought that brambleclaw killed hawkfrost directly after he killed hollyleaf, because that was the easy way to portray the great battle in MAPs, only to have someone point out, years after this has become the common sequence of events, that brambleclaw actually hunts him down, brings him back to camp, and then murders him POW style!!!

*btw. im in no way saying that all mapleshade-based projects or aus or whatever are bad, even if she is sexy girlboss in them. some of my favorite maps portray her like that.

anyway. TLDR:

everyone say "i'm sorry mapleshade"

#mapleshade #sorry this is long and if i got facts incorrect i dont really care #apologize to mapleshade for what weve done

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bellysoupset · 9 months

Note

yo dude i know you just worked your ass off on that vince fic (i can tell bro bc holy shit, like i genuinely think thats my new favorite all time fic i'll go back to for years to come), but rn im just so 🤩🤩 rn with the idea of the football boys playing a game, like maybe a little for-fun game of football, maybe they go to a recreational basketball/baseball field to play a little game that isnt football in their freetime, and someone gets hurt or sumn? damn idk what it is with me and suggesting seeing these boys hurt but GODDDD ITS SO 🤩🤩🤩🤩 (also probably vince wouldnt be the hurt one, as he just got absolutely smushed. he may not even be in said setting bc he's still having to not do anything due to the last fic, if everything is in chronological order)(IH MY GOD WHAT IF VINCE WAS STAYING WITH JONAH AND LEO AND LEO WAS OUT PLAYING THE GAME WITH THEM AND COMES HOME HURT AND THE TWO ARE LIKE "damn not you too")(if you decide to go thru with this ask, please dont feel rushed bc i dont want you to get burnt out yk? take your time 💪💪💪)

"Finally, I see the sun," Vince groaned, causing Leo to roll his eyes.

"It's been literally ten days, you drama queen," he said, removing his baseball cap and pushing his hair back, away from his sweaty forehead, then planting the cap back down, this time facing back.

"Ten days of captivity," Vince said, dramatically rubbing his good hand over his face, "is good to be out of jail."

"I'd like to think my food is a little better than jail's," Leo scoffed, turning around and walking backwards towards the field, "are you sure you wanna stay and watch? Doesn't sound very fun to me."

"I was going stir crazy in that apartment," Vince winced as the limping pulled on his wounded side. He was definitely dosed up on painkillers, but there was still a dull throbbing on his side that the drugs couldn't chase, made worse by all the hopping around, "even sitting and watching you guys play is better fun than watching another episode Rachel's bad romantic decisions."

Leo grinned, turning around so he could run ahead and join the remaining guys on the field and Vince took his time limping towards the bleachers. His shirt was covered in sweat by the time he sat down.

He didn't know all the players. Leo, yes, Spencer and Mikey from the team too. The other people he didn't know, it seemed they were an weird rag tag team of people's various acquaintances. By the way Leo waved to some of them, he guessed they were colleagues from the law firm.

It didn't matter, Vince was just overjoyed to be out of the fancy apartment and smelling freshly cut grass, with the sun shining down on him. He had not been made to sit around, there was too much energy running through him during all hours of the day and the worst part of this whole accident had been no longer being able to hit the gym or the field or, hell, he'd even take Wendy's hot yoga classes at this point.

"Hey!" Luke's voice startled Vince and he turned on the hot stone bleachers in order to see him. Luke jogged closer, "good to see you out of bed."

"You have no idea," Vin nodded, studying his best friend, "you good? Bella said the bug was brutal."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Luke had a huge smile on, much like Vince he hated lying about, although he looked a little paler than normal and his voice was scratchy, "wish us luck."

"Make them cry, captain" Vince teased, raising both thumbs up, his left one cradled in his chest since his arm was still resting on the sling.

Lucas tipped his baseball cap in a cowboy-esque way, "you got it, man."

They were playing baseball and Vince didn't much care for it. It was much too american for him, aside from football he had always been more fond of soccer, something he had in common with Jonah. In fact, Jon had proved to be a bit of a soccer addict, Vince had found in the past week living with him and Leo. He knew all the leagues, yelled at the TV and got sullen when his team lost. It was quite amusing to Vin that, for once, he wasn't the one with the blood pressure skyrocketing through the roof.

He leaned back lazily, barely paying attention to the game, enjoying the warmth. Now that he was sitting down for a bit, the ribs' aching had quieted down.

For the next two hours he watched his friends sprint across the field, shouting at each other, ignoring the yelling from the opposite team. Vince blamed it on the drugs and the sun scorching down, but he was feeling sleepy in no time. He cursed at it, it was such a bummer that everyone else was right and he needed to rest, when all he did was rest now.

"Time!" he heard Lucas say, voice booming. He had that characteristic about him, where he could speak loudly and be heard by everyone without looking like he was screaming.

The group dispersed and Luke jogged back to where Vince was sitting, Leo close behind him.

"Are we winning, son?" Vince teased, causing Lucas to chuckle and shove his knee.

"Didn't make 'em cry, yet, but we're winning," he said, competitiveness rolling off of him. He glanced past his shoulder and frowned, "why are you pouting?"

Vince looked away from Luke, to Leo, and raised his eyebrows. As Lucas said, the blonde had a big frown on and he was squinting at the grass. He angrily rubbed at his forehead, "I don't... I don't feel so good."

"Shit, LU-" Vince shouted, using his good hand to shove Lucas' arm, who leaped forward just in time to catch Leo as his knees gave up.

"What the fuck?!" Luke squealed, his voice breaking. He grabbed Leo by the armpits, manhandling him to sit on the edge of the bleacher's step, "Leo? Leo, c'mon, open your eyes-"

"Not fainting," Leo slurred, pushing Lucas' frantic hands away from his face, "nauseous."

Vince grimaced as he scooted closer, having to prop all his body weight on his right arm in order to lower himself to the step under his, where Leo was sitting. He grabbed Leo's shoulder and then moved his hand up to his neck and cheeks. Despite the fact his cheeks were blazing red and his hair still damp with sweat, his cheeks were dry and his skin felt cold, "oh kid," Vince sighed, "I think you got heatstroke."

Lucas, still looking nervous, cupped Leo's face too, hunching on himself to look him in the face, "aww, why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

Vince watched as Leo's throat bobbed dangerously and he glanced at Luke, "I think you better move..."

He barely had time to say this and Leo was folding in half, vomit jetting out of his mouth and covering the grass under them. Lucas jumped out of the way just in time, but not quick enough to avoid getting the tip of his sneakers covered in orange sick.

"Shit, Leo..." Vince sighed, holding on the back of his friend's muscle shirt, "okay, get it up, you'll feel better in a bit... Luke, can you drive us back...?" Vince voice trailed off as he realized that Lucas had a hand holding Leo's shoulder, but the other one was firmly pressed to his mouth, eyes shut, face pale, "uh... Luke?"

"Sorry-" he said in a muffle manner, then let go of Leo and staggered away from them, bracing against his knees and retching.

Leo groaned, almost falling off since Luke had let go of his arm and Vince squeezed his shirt a little tighter, "don't worry about him, he's fine..." he said, while Leo coughed up another round of brown liquid, "you're fine, right?!" Vince said a little louder and Luke raised a hand, thumb up, while still gagging mercilessly.

Leo spat, then leaned back and almost fell, his head meeting Vince's wounded shoulder and causing him to bite down a scream. He breathed through the pain, as the poor man groaned and leaned his head against his bicep.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I just-"

"It's okay, you can't help it," Vince said, voice strained, "we're going home, just- Here," he winced, reaching back to where he had been sitting and grabbing a water bottle, "take some sips."

"Won't stay down-" Leo groaned, taking the lukewarm bottle and then looking up as Lucas' heaved again, this time managing to bring up a pathetic amount of puke, "is he okay?"

"He's fine," Vince said, rolling his eyes, "drink your water."

Ahead of them Lucas straightened up, belching deeply into his fist and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, walking back to them, "sorry..."

"Since when you get sympathy sick?" Vince asked, while Leo took the smallest sip of water, gagging around the bottle's finish.

"I guess I'm not feeling a hundred percent still," Lucas' cheeks turned pink and he rubbed at his chest, "I'm better now, don't worry."

"Not worried," Vince lied, while Leo let out a moan again, hugging his stomach.

"This is awful, I feel really dizzy..."

"You just need to lie down in a cool place, get some electrolytes in you," Vin rubbed his nape, then glanced at Lucas, "can you drive?"

"Yeah, of course," the brunette nodded, although Vince wasn't feeling very reassured by how milky white Lucas looked. Sadly, there was no other option.

"C'mere," Lucas said, carefully side stepping the puddle on the ground and looping an arm around Leo's waist, "lean on me."

"I'm sorry I made you sick..."

"That was on me," Luke waved him off and Vince gestured for them to go ahead, since getting himself out of the bleachers was a struggle on its own.

By the time he reached them, Leo was sitting inside Luke's car, with the a/c blasting, while Luke was leaning outside of it, an arm wrapped around his stomach.

"I'm fine," Luke said preemptively, "I should've listened to Bell," he let out a sick burp, spat on the gravel and kicked the little rocks to cover up the mess, "really, stop looking at me like that."

"I'm just worried," Vince shrugged, or tried to, only to hiss as it pulled on his shoulder and ribs, "I can call Wendy if you can't drive. She's got the day off..."

'I can drive," Luke shook his head, "I just overdid it with all the running around and the mess..." he gagged fruitlessly against his hand, "I'm good."

"Clearly," Vince agreed sarcastically, then limped to the backseat.

Leo was slumped on the passenger seat, head leaning back, taking some deep, measured breaths.

"Hey, kid," Vin reached in and squeezed his arm, "just hang in there, this is going to pass soon."

Leo nodded, but he still looked dangerously pale, lips pressed in one thin line.

The drive was uneventful, Vince glancing nervously from Leo to Lucas and wondering how their evening had downgraded so quickly. Just as they got close, Leo suddenly hiccupped, slapping a hand over his mouth as a burp slipped out and with the other one he pushed Lucas' thigh "pull over-" his voice was muffled, punctuated by another belch at the end and Luke cringed, turning on the sign and pulling to the side of the road.

At least it was an uneventful Saturday, so the street was almost empty. Leo pushed the door, but didn't even have time to get out. He stuck his head out and coughed up another stream, letting out a whimper.

"Aw, kiddo..." Vince sighed, shoving himself in the space between the driver's seat and passenger one, so he could grab the back of Leo's pants and keep him sitting down. Lucas was no help, despite the guilty expression he had on, he had pressed his forehead to the steering wheel and was gulping nervously.

"It hurts..." Leo groaned, coughing and panting, "my head hurts so much."

"I know, I'm sorry," Vince said unhelpfully, rubbing his back, "get it up, Leo..."

He heard another pitiful whine and then more hurling, followed by a sigh, "I think... I think I'm done."

Or empty, Vince thought, keeping his hand on Leo's back. He glanced at Lucas and cringed. His friend's face was firmly in the gray territory, jaw clenched.

"Take a deep breath, I bet the carsickness isn't helping your situation," Vince said, squeezing Leo's bicep and fighting the anxiety inside of him. He hated not being able to help. He should be the one driving.

"I'm good," Leo slammed the door shut, "I just wanna get home."

"Just a couple minutes," Luke mumbled, his voice all thick and weird, "sorry, I-"

"It's okay, Luke," Leo said tiredly, "Jon gets sympathy sick too, I get it..." he rubbed at his forehead, "just drive, please?"

Once they finally arrived, without another incident, Vince almost groaned as he realized now there was twice as much walking around to be done. He sucked it up, carefully stepping out of the car and offering his good arm for Leo.

"Lean on me, kid," then to Lucas, who was just stepping out of the car, "no. You're not coming in, you're going straight home. Shooo."

"How do you intent on looking after him...?" Luke frowned, despite the pained lines on his face, "Vin, I can-"

"I'm fine," Leo groaned and while Vince could feel his grip was a little too tight for someone who was fine, he knew Lucas wasn't going to be any help, "go home, Luke. I'll text you later."

"...Promise?" Lucas glanced between the two of them, torn between wanting to help and feeling too sick.

"Yeah, we're fine," Vince nodded, ignoring the throbbing on his side, "go home. C'mon, Leo..."

The blonde waved one last goodbye to Luke, then slumped against Vince. Vin could tell he was trying to be mindful not to rest his full body weight on him, but he was doing a poor job of it. He bit down a groan, wrapping his good arm around Leo's waist and resting his back against the inside of the elevator.

"Shitty day," he groaned, causing the blonde to let out a tired chuckle.

"That seems to be a pattern lately," he mumbled, face pressed to Vince's bicep, "it's not as bad as it was out there."

"Good, you just need to rest a bit," Vin reassured him, breathing deeply through his mouth as pain spread all the way up his shoulder. They all but stumbled inside the house and Leo headed straight for the couch, while Vince braced against the desk near the front door and took deep, measured breaths.

"Vin? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he lied, wiping the sweat from his upper lip, "probably just due my meds... Sit down and turn up the A/C, I'm gonna get you some water."

He didn't dare walking all the way to the bathroom to grab a washcloth. Instead Vince filled up Leo's gym bottle with cold water and then wet a dishcloth, deciding he'd rather face Jon's judgment than to walk all that distance. He limped back to the couch and met Leo's worried gaze, "I'm fine," Vince said, handing him the bottle and sitting down too, "here, lie down."

"You don't look very fine," Leo grumbled, but he was too lethargic to do anything about it. He took a gulp of the cold water and let out a relieved sigh when he rested his head on Vin's lap and the cold dishcloth met his forehead, "this feels much better."

"Uhm," Vince smiled, moving on the couch so he could put his feet up the coffee table. His sprained left foot was killing him, "c'mere, kid."

Easy like that, all the times he had done this to his own sisters came rushing back and he found himself playing with Leo's hair, combing the blonde strands and scratching at the scalp, "you're due a haircut," Vince mumbled, eyes slipping closed as he felt Leo relax against him.

"Jon says longer is hotter," he said quietly, "I've always wanted this, you know?"

"...What?" Vince frowned, opening his eyes and glancing down. Leo seemed almost asleep, the stress taking it's toll on him, "Leo?"

"Family," Leo sighed, cuddling closer and moving the wet cloth to cover his eyes, "it's almost weird to have it."

"Oh..." Vince's heart dropped and he squeezed the blonde's shoulder, fighting a smile, "well... Get used to it, Leo. This is your life now."

#mywriting #sickfic #heatstroke #emeto #sympathy sickness #leo wagner #lucas atwood #the fic in which Vin is like okay this is my brother now period - like legally i'm adopting him

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cookinary · 13 days

Text

I redrew (and redesigned) my Portal boi because he definitely needed a refresh!

Sum details:

His mask broke during the long fall in Portal 2 but he kept it anyway

I'm going with the stupid "Portal 2 happens 50 000 years into the future" theory because it's complete nonsense and I fucking love it so, because he spent so long in the Relaxation Vault, he got very pale (he was already pale in Portal 1 but not as bad)

For the same reason, his hair grew pretty long (he shaved it after escaping)

He got the massive burn scar on his left arm from an energy pellet grazing him

Oh yeah, trans rights also

And I just realized that I never shared his backstory here so it's under the cut if you're curious!

In chronological order:

Mitch creates Aperture

He puts Ophelia at the head of the entire facility

Ophelia realizes that Pedro would make the perfect test subject so she wipes his memory -it's the first and only time that a full memory wipe is done on a subject- She then realizes that watching him test would make her feel bad so she gives him the mask to hide his face. That way, she can watch him test without any remorse.

After a few tests, she puts him in a cryo-chamber (because she wants to put him through much harder tests that have not been invented yet)

Mitch and Denny are (forcefully) hired as test subjects but are brainwashed. They are both put in cryo-chambers

Not long after, Ophelia decides to turn herself into an android so she can live forever and control the entire facility. The scientists warn her that this can cause severe memory loss and mild insanity. She does it anyway and loses all memories of her human life. She now has full control over Aperture.

Judging all the scientists useless, Ophelia floods the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin

Portal 1 happens

At the start of Portal 2, Pedro is woken up by banana Pedro (who is a core in this AU) who wants to help him to get out of here.

Basically the same story happens. But Pedro eventually encounters Mitch and Denny who try to take him down. He kills them in return (Denny didn't have his long fall boots)

They finally get to Ophelia. Though, contrary to Wheatley (who got corrupted by the mainframe), Core!Pedro was actually planning to take Ophelia's place from the beginning. He stuffs Ophelia in a potato battery (she appears as an hologram being projected from the weird eye/circle thingy on it) and sends she and Pedro down the elevator shaft

Pedro's mask breaks during the fall, which leads Ophelia to realize that his face feels familiar after they reunite

While going through old Aperture, Pedro and Ophelia learns the truth about themselves (thanks to all the pre-recorded messages)

The rest of the game happens pretty similarly, except that at the end, after shooting Core!Pedro into space, Ophelia tries to get Pedro back to testing (after all, he IS the perfect test subject). Pedro refuses and attempts to destroy her. He fails, but Ophelia gives up and lets him go as she does not want someone who will try to destroy her 24/7

Basically like in Blue Sky, Pedro ends up in a small town where the people help him back to full health. He settles here and eventually finds out he has great cooking and baking skills and gets his own little cake shop (I'm not sure I still want this to be the post-game for this AU but I'll leave this here anyway)

These notes date back to 2020 HOLY SHIT IT'S BEEN 4 YEARS

#My Friend Pedro #Portal AU #Portal #after escaping he gains some weight from eating too much cake #BECAUSE HE DESERVES ALL THE CAKE OKAY #he went through so much shit #and also UNLIKE in Blue Sky; Core!Pedro does NOT get a redemption #he does NOT deserve one #actually Pedro willingly let go of it during Portal 2's climax #fun fact: if Wheatley was there instead of the banana core; Pedro would go to the Moon to save him #because Wheatles is precious <3 #you can find my old art of him by searching through the Portal AU tag on my blog btw!#anyway #toodles

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bettsfic · 9 months

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possibly dumb question but… what exactly is structural editing and how do you do it? i assume it’s shifting the order of stuff around in a draft but how do you do that to end up with a cohesive story that flows in the end? it sounds very daunting!

not a dumb question at all!

structure is, at its core, the organization of a story. for the most part, stories are organized chronologically. we are given information in the order of time passing, and often at the same time the narrator experiences it.

if your story is chronological, structural editing will mostly involve major turning points for the story, ensuring that your tension (even if it is a very loose tension) is escalating. for the most part, writers focus on the escalation of external events while drafting, but the internal escalation sometimes needs to be reorganized or totally re-envisioned. your narrator's epiphany lands after the sequence of events that would prompt that epiphany. i know i have a terrible habit of making my characters realize important things far too early, and in revisions i have to move that realization later, which, yes, involves cutting and pasting and changing the order of things, but also affects the narration based on what the character does not yet know, and sometimes even the action of the story.

so it's cyclical logic in that way, which is why revision can be so hard and frustrating: if you change the character's inner growth, that may affect their actions in the story. if you change their actions in the story, it may affect the rate of their inner growth.

an example is the fanfiction italicized "oh." in other words, the moment your narrator realizes their feelings for their romantic interest. let's say in drafting, you put it in the climax. the narrator spends the story grappling with their feelings, then realizing them, acting on them, and then the romance culminates in a confession and/or a kiss and/or sex, and the story ends.

but how would their behavior change if "oh" was the inciting incident of the story? if they figure it out during the exposition, or maybe even before the story begins, and spend the rest of the story pining, with some other conflict keeping them from expressing their feelings?

very often my developmental edits for people involve something like, "your resolution is the inciting incident of the story you're really trying to tell," which no one ever wants to hear. but it's a good practice when pre-writing to ask yourself if the end of the story you're trying to write is actually the end of the backstory.

drafting (or what i sometimes call the discovery stage) is the order in which your story arrives on the page, and revision is working with what you've written to figure out the order of what must be known. one of the hardest parts of writing is figuring out what your reader needs to know and when they need to know it in order to have the contextual information and emotional priming of what happens thereafter.

although i do very much love when weird shit happens that makes me go ??? and *then* i'm given context in a form of a reveal, or what i call an illuminating moment that casts light on the previous events of the story. many people mistake this for a "twist," which is when the story sets up an expectation and subverts it meaningfully.

of course, you're not obligated to write chronologically. in fact i don't anymore. i prefer framing devices, long backstories, multiple timelines, and alternating points of view that sometimes overlap in time and space. a lot of writing advice will tell you these things are bad. they're not. they're just hard to pull off, because it requires an extra step: telling yourself the story in the order it comes in, figuring out the cause and effect sequence, fixing the cause and effect sequence, and then figuring out the order you want the information to be revealed in beyond the constraining device of time. never let anyone discourage you from experimenting with structure. it can be fun and challenging as both a writer and a reader.

tl;dr: structural or developmental revision is the process of putting your story in the order of the clearest escalating tension and stakes, both internally and externally, with an eye on the organization of the information revealed in the story as the reader would experience it.

#writing advice #structure

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preservationofnormalcy · 6 months

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Hi there, 15 increment time traveler here. Relativistic Scheduling got in touch with me in the future, present, and past, and in all 3 had previously (and has and will tell me) TO mention the 2025 incident, which I didn't know but after getting told to apparently rewrote the message I sent because of new knowledge and all that really fun headache inducing timeline shenanigans. As the preparation time given to the Office is what actually made it so that they could sort it out. Dreamwalker part was on me though. Sorry.

Anyways, turns out I'm getting ripped through time because I pissed of a wizard in the future. They threw a few dozen things at the wall, but looks like I'll have to wait a while while they sort it out. Apparently I'm interesting enough of a case a few high standing Temporal, Thaumaturgical, and a few other fancy words ending in "al" that I can't spell want to study me. Or maybe it was just one who was all of them. My memory started getting fuzzy 7 pages in.

Anyways, sorry for causing the scramblers to go haywire. Weird situation with that. Shouldn't have caused them to trigger that hard given what I know of scramblers.

Yeah, I….ugh, I hate nonstandard chronological tenses. I had apparently at some point in the past week had already received a report about this on my desk, and flipping through it is a chore. My intern is trying to turn the pages and they’re….out of order? Not really out of order. Relativistic Scheduling has an esoteric numbering system to catalog when items are meant to be in their proprietary ordering system. It has something to do with measuring subjective time against an objective measurement they have in their office. Page one seems to go to page six, but then seven and eight just fine, but then it goes to page….three hundred and twenty, but this is clearly a twenty-page stack. Then it loops back to page 2. I don’t even have to read page 3, I apparently had already read it yesterday. You really pissed that guy off. Amanda set aside time in her schedule last week to interview you, so look forward to that. She’s usually too busy. She often brings pecan cinnamon rolls, I miss those.

Wait…why did that set off my scramblers? It’s supposed to be just coghazzes and things above my clearance, and I have…a lot of clearance.

Jenny, can we - yeah, again. Please. Chou isn’t allowed to block my messages. Thank you.

#office for the preservation of normalcy #ask #nonstandard chronology

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 1 year

Text

Doctor Who, but Chronologically 28

Fun fact! If we were watching normally in a normal order, Rose would have just left, and this would be a Christmas special. But we're not. Instead we suffer on.

Last episode was 1913 - this time we're jumping a whole year, to 1914. Small jump! So this shouldn't be too weird. After all, we had a lot of discussion in the previous episode about what 1914 would be like.

It's Twice Upon a Time. Lol

OKAY so there will be a LOT of new questions here, Jesus. We begin with old Hartnell footage! Fun! Which fades into David Bradley playing the First Doctor as he refuses to regenerate and tries to die instead. Turns out Capaldi is here doing the same thing?!? So interestingly, we've now seen Capaldi's first AND last episodes. Fascinating.

("708 episodes ago", reads the caption, showing Hartnell grouching about. "Lol", says I.)

Anyway, there are two (2) main threads here, and one is the relatively minor but fairly fun (albeit very hole-y) sci-fi plot; the second is Double Doctor Fun, but unfortunately this was written by Steven Moffat who thinks 60s Man = Misogynist UNLIKE CAPALDI OBVIOUSLY so it goes, um, badly. I'm getting ahead of myself, hang on:

Mark Gatiss is pulled into the same moment in time as the Doctors because they're causing a timeline error. He was, in fact, about to be shot in the head by a German soldier in WW1, but then time froze around him, so he climbed out of his crater and got pulled here; I can't help but feel the director could have made some better choices, though, because on climbing out of the crater we're treated to multiple shots of other soldiers just drinking tea and chatting in their trench rather than, you know, helping Mark Gatiss. This is not how we work as a team, lads. Where's Tim when you need him.

It emerges that glass people are taking people from the instant before they die, harvesting their something, and then returning them to their timestream to die and avoid fucking up history. Harvesting what? Well, for zero reason other than "The Plot Requires It", we don't find out right away. But both Doctors climb aboard Capaldi's TARDIS (there are some fun quips about the size of the windows that must have given several folks on Gallifrey Base a dry orgasm) and promptly get abducted by a spaceship shaped like a Sims plumbob. It's the glass people.

... and then Bill turns up.

... and Capaldi FREAKS THE FUCK OUT.

Because it turns out that Bill! Is dead! After having turned into a Cyberman! And choosing to die to save others!!

MASSIVE NEWS. What a strange choice to tell us this before showing her conversion and death. Honestly, you'd almost think this is a terrible viewing order for this show.

Except this Bill is a copy, but with all her memories, so this kicks off a running theme about how memories maketh the man except the Doctor disagrees. But this Bill also says she didn't die because she pulled a woman in a puddle called Heather so now I have a LOT of questions.

The glass people show them the original forms of the Doctor from Hartnell to Capaldi, and call him the Doctor of War because Moffat really loves his Mary Sue elements. They escape the plumbob, jump into the original TARDIS ("Aren't the windows the wrong size?" asks Bill), and run away to try and find out who the original person was that the main glass alien is mimicking. This is to find out what the glass people are actually harvesting. For literally no reason at all, the glass people didn't just tell them that.

Meanwhile! The First Doctor is a raging misogynist who keeps suggesting the women clean the TARDIS, and Capaldi is in an agony of embarrassment trying to stop him! And it's funny, sure, these are good actors, but FUCK OFF AND DIE IN FIRE. That is NOT the First Doctor. The First Doctor was a gentleman who respected all the women he knew and met, and his favouritest and best friend in all the world was Barbara, and like fuck did he devalue them like this. It was the men he used to devalue and see as brainless useful muscle. Meanwhile, it's fucking Capaldi who straight up abuses the women he meets including his companions, and it's Matt fucking Smith who yells "Do as you're told and go back to the TARDIS!" at Amy (who complied meekly, let's all remember.) This is absolutely fucking enraging. Hartnell was LESS SEXIST than anything Moffat puts out, and yet here's Moffat acting like he's a bastion of progression fuck off fuck off FUCK OFF

(ahem)

Actually I'm not done because then there's a "men's browsing history" joke Jesus FUCKING Christ okay I'm done

Anyway, after a last bit of misogyny for good measure, which Bill somehow wins by looking the First Doctor in the eye and going "I'm a lesbian and I get more pussy than you", making David Bradley's monocle fall out in spite of him not even wearing it at that point, they land on a sort of fantasy red war torn forge planet inhabited by mutant octopuses. Capaldi inexplicably tries to make Bill stay in the TARDIS. Naturally she puts up token resistance and then obeys.

Anyway, Capaldi goes up the tower. There's a Dalek! We know those, we saw them by the Pandorica in the second episode, and also once in the Doctor's dream journal in the last episode. This one is called Rusty.

"Remember when I shrank down and went inside you and showed you that Daleks are bad?" says the Doctor. "Good times."

I don't remember that. That has not happened yet. Intriguing.

Anyway, Rusty the Good Dalek shows them that the original glass alien woman is a researcher from the year five billion and 12. What they're harvesting is memories, so that the dead can then be resurrected of sorts to speak again through the glass bodies.

"Oh," says the Doctor. "Not evil."

One can't help but feel most of this episode was extraneous and could have been avoided if the glass aliens had just... said that.

Anyway, Bill is also glass, and also knows all of this, so again, she could also have explained this.

They return Mark Gatiss to die in a crater. Except the Doctor shifts the timestream by a couple of hours, so the 1914 Christmas Armistice kicks in and saves him, which is just as well, given that the rest of the army was uselessly drinking tea like 20 yards away. It's genuinely quite moving. Also it turns out he's a Lethbridge-Stewart! Nice touch. The First Doctor has a moment of sagaciously staring into the middle distance and saying "So this is what it means to be a Doctor of War," which is nauseating but you know, fine. He wanders back to his TARDIS and regenerates into Robin Hood in the TARDIS files.

Meanwhile Capaldi heads back to his own. Last conversation with Bill, who tells him that the most important thing about a person is their memories. "Look," she says, "I'll prove it," and turns into Clara.

Except??? It turns out??! The Doctor had somehow FORGOTTEN CLARA (so many questions)

Then Nardole turns up as a glass alien too, so I presume that means he's dead and all. "I have glass nipples and invisible hair," he volunteers, and I think I will never not have questions about Nardole.

Anyway, the Doctor flies away to regenerate alone. He has a great monologue, right, and Peter Capaldi is of course an absolutely superb actor, just completely nails it, except for the fact that the monologue does not remotely suit this Doctor.

"Never be cruel!" is his opening line.

Yes you read that right. Mr "Clara you're so ugly and stupid." Mr "If you try to fight off your abuser you're a child who needs to grow up." Mr "I mock and belittle women until they cry and then accuse them of sulking." Mr "I make fun of people's cultural artefacts." That guy. That guy's opening line is "Never be cruel!" Followed swiftly by "Always try to be nice! Never fail to be kind!"

Fucking hell.

Here's a good bit though:

"Never tell anyone your name. No one would understand it anyway. Except children. Children can hear your name, if their hearts are in the right place, and the stars are too. But nobody else, ever."

Fascinating! We have heard nothing so far about the Doctor's real name.

Also he includes "Never eat pears!", so but for a deleted scene in Human Nature/Family of Blood this is a two-parter about the Doctor not liking pears.

And then; Regeneration!!! The first one we've seen!! We saw Capaldi's first episode, but he was post-regen then; this is our first on screen. Destroys the TARDIS, lads. Just completely fucks it up. Doors everywhere.

And we get Whittaker! A ring drops off her finger. Wonder if that was important?

Anyway she immediately crashes the TARDIS and falls out to her death

SO MANY NEW QUESTIONS?!?!?????

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest.)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up (unless she’s Missy)

The TARDIS has blown up (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” NEW INFO: Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

What has happened to all these companions and where are the new ones coming from?

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

What’s With The Silence?

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Who is Captain Jack Harkness? (Is he the one who gave the companions a warning about the lone cyberman?)

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window?

What’s with the Doctor’s future involving getting shot by an astronaut?

Is Amy pregnant and why is it inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

Who did the Doctor lose to Cyber Conversion?

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What’s with the Weeping Angel statues, and why can’t you blink at them?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi. NEW INFO: Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

What happened with Amy’s pregnancy?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill's puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor's name?

#doctor whom #and yet we are continuing #long post

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petrichoraline · 14 days

Text

We Are Ep.2 thoughts in chronological order

what peem did in the car trying to convince phum to part their ways is what the youth calls ✨a yap sesh✨ (he tried ig) (this is what this post is as well)

we're probably never seeing phum use those things he bought ever, he'll just keep hanging around in his engineer shirt

peem has so many ppl ready to square up for him including his auntie and he is recognised by tan as someone who loves his friends very much (which makes the fact tan has sold him away for time with his crush TWICE even worse lmao)

i don't really get phum's insistence on not telling anyone about being phum's "slave", not even tan who got him into the mess or his best friend but it's just his ego ig (aside from plot reasons)

i find pun more relatable now - tags along for the funsies and gets happy around fire

not convinced the beans and pork scene wasn't an ad but im not sure how cause i didn't clock any labels

the scene where peem brings in food and laughs with q feels like improv or breaking left in lol

fai missing cause of upset stomach might be some sort of foreshadowing and i'm a bit worried bout her

the professor is handsome <3 and could pas off as chimon's sibling in a show

q absorbing those noodles was very satisfying idek why lol

peem and q's friendship is in the background but the show still constantly makes it a point that they are really good and loyal best friends

i thought "oh theyre gonna make the sharing food a thing in the future" so when boys showed up i was like "ah, we're doing it immediately? bit boring" but then he didn't share!! joey never shares food!! i think he will in the future though, him being a foodie is a constant thing so i'm guessing we're using it as a sign of compromise in the name of love or smth

satang playing this type of character felt a bit much in the first episode but i think he's getting more comfortable with the role as the show progresses and it look more natural; i'm glad his character isn't the googly eyed mentee and he actually teases a lot and snaps back but knows when to stop playing because q isn't the most patient person. (matt having to jump in like "bro he's serious" was so funny cause i hadn't clocked that either hahah)

the way we can see q flustered at certain points but seemingly unbothered at others is fun because his reactions aren't entirely predictable at this stage as we're still getting to know him. also it's mad cute when he clearly doesn't know what to do with himself

idk how he hasn't asked toey bout why he's in art yet, ig they're just now starting to properly get to know each other

toey took one look at q's back and decided "that's a cool ass aura to base my entire future around!" and tbh that's very young adult of him

q regularly asking about peem's work being submitted, he's honestyly worried <3

the way i cheered for peem burping in phum's face and then went "oh he came back :(" bahah

phum is definitely already planning his day and schedule around peem, i don't think he'd ever tell his friends because he wants to actually keep it going so one of the reasons is to not run into his faculty friends including tan and the second is to have lunch with his unconscious crush AND I AM VERY HAPPY WITH THIS STUPIDITY

thought peem could overhear the convo behind the car and realise what he was exchanged for but nope, he just dipped; i think that might be a plot point for later

phum not knowing tan has a crush on fang is so weird cause he genuinely acted like he knew while taunting tan, i don't have an explanation for that

fang is their p'!! i was so conviced he was the little brother, ig because of his big round eyes and the way phum acted all protective (that just makes phum cuter tbh)

what is the age difference between bar owner and prof cause i ship it

it took me a bit to realise the nongs were there instead of the full arts gang and i was glad to see toey and q together (also the green sweater is beautiful on toey, hope it makes a comeback)

i was ready to believe fang had some sort of falling out with tan with the way he treated him but tan beaming and enjoying a dreadful setting (no talking, awkward sitting around in a bar with mid music and alcohol) shows that man is glowing just from being in fang's presence (i hope he reaches ridiculous levels of lame for him)

i was screeching when i realised where things were going with wasted peem and seeing him n the bench outside had me exctaticcc (ofc he didnt book a taxi. and ofc they cant just order one for him noww could they)

phum cockblocks but he kinda has to cause there's no reason for fang to be there otherwise; once the ridiculous proposition of him taking peem home comes up he doesn't really fight it at all - he wants to be with peem, sure, but i think he's also pretty okay with tan and fang being a thing

the way i was screaming "just buy the flowers rich boy!!! he wants to go home" and then the kid went to get more lol

ofc he couldnt just leave the flowers in the backseat, peem just has to have them in his lap.. and the seatbelt scene was so predictable but it's too much of a classic with all "figuring things out" parts of a romance that i can't complain

it makes absolutely zero sense aside from people liking people (cause fang knows what he's doing too) that phum would drive peem to his house - a place where tan has sleepovers at all the time and phum hasn't been to before. fang is his brother and they can sleep at the same place as well even if they don't live together but nope. also THAT CAR HAS EMPTY BACKSEATS, if phum wanted to he would've forced them to ride with him to keep an eye on tan

fang is probably planning to launch a big revenge attack on peem and that'd be so funny, those four can get way too entangled, i could get DRAMA out of their plans and schemes (this show is more hidden agenda than hidden agenda was)

tan's energy with fang reminds me of the duracell bunny lmao it's late at night and they've had a few drinks but his mind and body are all focusedon wooing fang (who is playing nonchalant but has probably had a crush on tan as well)

also no way he was just gonna leave tan on the street lol

toey and q aleady work so well together, toey knows his effect on q more or less and q doesn't shy away from being at least a bit vulnerable as of rn; i think they can be one of the best if not the best couple if they have a proper storyline; im certainly enjoying it the more than i thought i would

the fake blush on both toey and peem is ridiculous esp up close but ig they're cartoonishly drnk anyways

auntie took note and now doesn't do facemasks at night, otherwise it would've been an amazing first meeting

"he likes to whine" and she's the one who can't leave the room from complaining sm lol auntie is so cute

ahh, the mandatory "a look around the room shows me you're truly passionate about what you do and you're deeper than i thought" scene..thankfully he didn't mutter "you like painting this much, huh" to nobody cause i was ready to yell HES AN ARTS MAJOR like he kicked you in the balls for a reason doofus

theyre giving us so many closeups of these two and i keep thinking "this is so drama/y im embarrassed" but i have no shame, if it's fun it's fun (and it's pondphuwin, youre not gonna hear me complain about looking at pond's face for too long or from too close)

reaching out to touch his face was a bold choice thoughh i lost it

man down badd man down baddd he was called an asshole and started gleaming like a light bulb

#we are the series

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fandoomrants · 2 months

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welcome back to ur fully hp obsession <3

it's just...i really respect ur opinion but as someone who ship Wolfstar for so many yrs I think i have to say sth

This story (harry potter) has so so SO many ships, like everyday we get a new pairing ...you can't tell me the only reason why wolfstar has been so popular for nearly 20 yrs is bc we didn't get interaction between marauders... otherwise what? prongsfoot would be the most popular one or Wolfstar would not be this popular? because we always knew that Sirius and James were extremely close. it's literally there..in the books...we know that.

I never understand the "Sirius was closer to James" argument...yes they were so close but that didn't stop James from falling in love with lily (shocking right? these days ppl tend to forget that this man was in love with someone that is not reggie and they got maried and had a child who this whole series is about)

And yes Sirius was taller than Remus ...ty for mentioning , love u <33

Hi, yeah, soo first of all, thanks for this ask, actually! I mean, I share my thoughts and I appreciate it when someone actually takes the time to read it and especially when they have something to say about it! I'm afraid that's gonna be one very long answer coming at you.

Second, I feel the need to start with this here cause likee, these things I wrote are just a bunch of random canon facts (plus one I just think makes sense) that I realised after going through some stuff and they sent me into a near depression episode because I have totally forgotten most of these things thanks to fanon and I think I'm not the only one. I actually lost a bit of sleep that night.

Third, I knew my wording in that part of the post was weird and was going to create the wrong ideas. So don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Wolfstar. Likee, to me they make sense and I hate what happened in the end. I just meant they're a popular ship because we really get to see lots of interactions between them. And the reasoning is that we got to see these interactions between them as adults, with one of their best friends already dead and one of them (and later the other) aware that it's another one that killed him. We basically get to see only their dynamic and that's what started the ship.

But about what I said that maybe they wouldn't have been that popular if we had seen more interactions between all four of them was based on if we had seen the whole story in chronological order. Without the knowledge that James is going to die or that Peter would betray them.

And I don't think if that was the case, people would have shipped James and Sirius much more. I'm a firm believer that there is this level of platonic friendship that is so strong that there is absolutely no way it can be seen as something else, and this is exactly the type of friendship between Sirius and James. Why I mentioned the closeness between them was just because a lot of people somehow seem to forget that they were the closest ones and instead seem to believe that Sirius and Remus were the closest ones because we first saw them interact as adults when the others weren't around. Not to also mention the Prank or some other things that might have made people a bit wary of the ship. So I think that if we had seen the story in that order, maybe they would have still become a popular ship but not as fast or maybe there would have been people shipping the two of them with other people too, maybe even Peter. Or maybe we would have seen evidence of them being closer to canon than we thought!

I also want to say that in any case, I have things which I love and ship but I also don't mind other people's ships and I don't judge, even if I don't see the appeal myself and I might even read things that have such ships in the background, as long as what I ship is not in any way harmed (e.g. read a fic where one of the people in a ship I have is with someone else). Like, I might dislike a ship only if it is abusive or there is something that's really not okay with it. As I shared a post earlier, there are some ships I don't entirely understand but this doesn't mean I hate them. In that trail of thoughts, I also understand most of people's hcs and somewhat fanon facts that everyone accepts and I don't mind these at all.

Finally, again thanks for this post! I plan a second part where I'll also mention that in addition to Sirius being taller, he also had short hair.

Feel free to ask again or, yk, just send a DM.

#hp #harry potter #marauders #marauders era #wolfstar #sirius black #remus lupin

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randomfoggytiger · 8 months

Text

X-Files Collector's Edition: The Field Where I Fix-It Fic-ed

Ahhhh, The Field Where I Died-- quite an impressive idea, not quite an impressive execution. These fics, however, make me glad that it exists in its own, weird little corner.

Dedicated to the one anon that wanted a TFWID fic list~! :DDDD

Loose chronological order below~!

**Note**: Will ghost edit this post later. ;)))

eponine119’s I Do Not Want To Believe

""I was powerless to do anything but watch as he rose in the field next to me, his chest covered only by his thin blue shirt. No bulletproof vest to save his life. And I knew he was going to die.

Worse, I realized, he wanted to die. To be with her. So that history would repeat itself. What could I do? "Mulder!" I shouted at him as I had so very many times before. It was no use.

Cringing inside I watched. Waiting.

No shots rang out. He disappeared into the building.

No shots rang out. I ran after him.""

Post TFWID Scully realizes that CSM is the contradictory lynch pin to Melissa Ephesian’s story. Mulder, meanwhile, believes their own bond broke the chain that linked he and his “soulmate" in tragedy.

@alienbaby-babymama/ABBM515’s Soulmates

""You okay, partner?” Scully reaches out to squeeze his bicep. She’d seen the same forlorn look on his face during his hypnosis session.

“Although this didn’t end how any one of us wanted it to, it was nice to know.”

“Know what?”

“That I’m not alone,” Mulder turns to look at her, “and neither are you. Never one without the other. Kismet.”

“Even if I don’t believe in that line of thinking, I’d have to agree.""

Post TFWID Mulder is glad that he and Scully loved each other every lifetime; and is willing to wait for the “right” moment in this one.

Nicole van Dam's Forgive and Forget

""Perhaps it wasn't the initial meeting that caused him to question her position as a new partner. Just the mere apprehensiveness that lived in him since he was a small boy. It only took a day, one day of her trying to convince him she wasn't sent to watch him; to gauge his work.

She was sent because it was just the way it was supposed to be.

How did he know to trust her to tell her his life; his problems; his fears? How did she?""

TFWID Scully is resigned to Mulder and Melissa's connection... but ponders more deeply on her own.

@wendelah/wendelah1/avesuvianface’s (Gossamer, LJ)

With Regret

""The deep connection I feel to Mulder isn't because we knew one another in a past lifetime. Even if we had, what possible difference could it make?""

Post TFWID Scully has regrets.

LuvMulder’s Tonight I Watch You Dream

""You sleep fitfully beside me as I write, your brow furrowed in the solitary pain I have witnessed so many times since I first walked through your office door. On this night, at this moment, high above the earth, I feel you dream; yet, for the first time since I've known you, I doubt it is Sam you see. Unconscious oblivion, the softness of night and shadow are but words, failed promises that bring you no peace as we head back to our lives, far removed from the grassy fields of Apison, Tennessee.

I'm glad to be going home. We deserve a week of bad coffee and boredom--alone--in the clutter of our basement sanctuary.

I need. I sense....questions.

My friend--are we forever changed?

I am so afraid.""

Post TFWID Scully feels like she’s failed Mulder, unable to take the same leaps of faith that he asks of her.

@happenstanced's (Ao3) For Eternity

""Scully, look at me.”

I lifted only my eyes, looking up from under my lashes. Tears must’ve formed and were threatening to fall because his expression softened more than I thought was possible.

Uncharacteristically, I blurted out the one thought that had consumed me.

“Did you mean it?""

Post TFWID Scully is avoiding Mulder’s eyes… and he calls her on it.

Anne Haynes’s (Gossamer) Greater Meed

""She had known he would come to her to talk more about what had happened to him in Tennessee. She hadn't been sure when it would happen, but she'd known it WOULD happen. It was as inevitable as predestination.

He put the sack on her kitchen table and shrugged off his coat, folding it over the back of a chair. "It wasn't about past lives, was it?" he asked with no preamble.""

Post TFWID Mulder has a nagging thought that something is off… and realizes that CSM was already alive during WWII. He expounds about his "stuck" psyche with Scully over ice cream; and she assures him that, of course, his life does means something.

Thalia D'Muse's Day to Give Thanks

""Mulder placed the cassette in his pocket, his mind completely enraptured by the tiny book in his hand. It resembled other small pamphlet-style books one might see at the check-out counter, exclaiming 'Lose 5 Inches In 10 Days' or 'Your Astrological Forecast'.

But the title of this one threw him. The cover was a faded blue with a white seagull, its wings spread across the entire page. Dark blue letters across the top told Mulder the title: 'The Writings of Richard Bach'.""

Post TFWID Mulder turns down Thanksgiving with Scully to brood over his loss and confusion. One of Scully's books enlightens his outlook, giving him hope.

Stephanie Lutz’s The Wheel

""He tilted his head back and looked up into the night sky. There was no moon, no stars. Heavy storm clouds had closed in as the sun was setting, blocking any chance of romantic night lights. Appropriate, he thought. Was she out there, somewhere, waiting for him now? As if in mocking answer to his question a smattering of raindrops struck his face.""

Post TFWID Scully lets Mulder have space to process before forcing comfort and understanding on him. He wants to believe; but she reasons they’ll always find each other, no matter what.

Meredith’s (Alt.) The Favor

""There are parts of that experience I can't let myself forget. My mind was influenced by outside elements, but in my regression I did see some truths. It's just taken me time to sort them out for myself."

She couldn't bear to ask which ones.

"She played a role," he continued in her silence, "and so did you. I just had to figure out where the truth ended and the deception began.""

Post TFWID Mulder and Scully assist Langly on a family member case involving a psychic. He’s already processed his feelings about the episode; and the two discuss how they get each other.

story_monger’s Searching Souls - Chapter 1

""No, stop, what are you doing?” Scully snatches at the bills, but Mulder slides them out of her reach, and before Scully can react the bartender has swung past to scoop up the pile.

“You can owe me a pizza or something,” Mulder promises her. He touches at her back. “C’mon, it’s getting late.”

Scully putters her lips and slides off the stool.

Post TFWID Mulder picks up and drives Scully home, rebutting her personal projection ideas and shocking her into believing his theory (even if only for one night.)

Christina M. Simmons‘s Near Death Experiences 01 & 02

""Eyes stared up at her from the yellowed tint of an ancient photo. Eyes that could have been green, or grey, or blue. A young man in a Confederate uniform, stern-faced... barely thirty, if that. It was the eyes that captured her, though. The expression in them.

Skeptical.

As though he didn't quite believe the camera would work. As though he wouldn't be satisfied until he saw the finished print.""

Post TFWID Scully decides that eternity is not long enough to debate her and Mulder’s ideas, seeking proof in Sullivan Biddle's journal for Mulder’s sake (and her own.) When there is only evidence to the contrary, she is reassured by his easy acceptance of her unbelief.

stellar_dust’s (Ao3) Instinct, With Better Light

""... You weren't in love with her, in this life."

"No .. no, I wasn't. If we'd met under different circumstances, ... maybe I could have been. But you're right, I wasn't."

"She wasn't in love with you, either."

"No. But she wanted to believe.""

Post TFWID Scully suggests that maybe Mulder and Melissa Ephesian were trapped in a terrible cycle because they weren’t “meant” to be.

@saintbellamys/starsonfire's First Dates and Soulmates

""A comfortable silence and then, "Do you ever think about it?"

Scully glanced at him with curiosity, her nose almost brushing his neck. "Think about what?"

"Our lives. If they could've been different. You told me once that it seems like there could only be one choice and the rest were wrong. There are signs and everything leads up to all these moments.""

Mulder takes Scully on their first date. While stargazing, he explains how wrong he his first soulmates theory was.

@sunsoakd/agenderleadingplayer’s I Wouldn't Change A Day

""And you know you're supposed to want to say yes. You know that part by heart know, know that she would want you to say yes –

Wouldn't she?

– but instead you think about it for a minute, a minute and a half, two. And the answer is no, because if you answered yes then who would she have? And you don't, you think, want to make it seem like you saved her from anything; you didn't, you didn't, she saved herself, you just helped when the tears came down too hard, but...

The answer is still...

"No." It's said with an exhale, an air of finality to it. No, I will not die for you, no I will never, because us, together, that's our whole deal, isn't it? Together. That's the deal, that always was.""

Scully asks (boyfriend) Mulder if he’d die for her. No; but Mulder knows she already has for him.

RocketMan/Darkstryder’s Mine 01, Mine 02, Mine 03

""In one brief flickering instant I could see the pain all behind her eyes. If I hadn't been looking directly at those sharp blues I wouldn't have even seen it. But I did. Fear and pain and hurt. She hurt for me. No.......she is hurting because she thinks I couldn't be her soul mate.

Even Scully wants a soul mate.

"You're mine," I whisper....""

AU-- Post TFWID Scully feels cut off from Mulder, sad and lovesick. When he realizes, he quickly corrects her misconception… then almost bungles it further. (But that doesn’t stop them from living their lives out together, finally gaining the afterlife in the next.)

Diadem’s Somewhere

""It was special. We had to say goodbye the following morning, and neither of us wanted to leave the other behind. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders as we walked down the main street of the little town.

We started talking about the Ephesian case. I don't know how we got on to it, but suddenly Mulder was asking me if I believed in past lives and reincarnation.""

AU-- Mulder and Scully finally admit their feelings… and then Mulder is shot. As he dies, Scully insists they will get this right when she finds him again.

@ghostbustermelanieking/skuls‘s a roll of stars and fade to black

""All but the third, but the M.O. is the same for all the cases,” says Skinner. “Trace evidence proves that all three victims were at Forrester’s apartment at one point or another. It's open and shut. He lured these people into his apartment, drugged them, and kept them for hours before allowing them to return home. We have him on kidnapping and use of an illegal drug.”

Mulder turns over restlessly in bed, sheets tangling around him. “Do we know why he did it?” Scully asks, watching Mulder out of the corner of her eye. She is worried about him. First the attack by Samuel Aboah, and now this. They end up in the hospital entirely too much.

“The notes found at his apartment included recaps of the victims’ time at his apartment, based what seems to be some kind of past life experiences specific to each victim....” Skinner clears his throat awkwardly. “We're confirming this theory with the victims now.”

AU-- A rewrite of the episode: Mulder, druggily flashes back to his deathbed in another life-- Sergeant Sullivan Biddle at his bedside-- and uses those recovered memories to probe deeper. Scully and Skinner, meanwhile, try to make sense of and solve the case.

Diana Alexander/Teresa Horne’s Not What It Seems

""It had all happened so fast that it makes my head spin. In fact, the memory is only a blur. Though the thought of giving Mulder up tears my heart to shreds, I could've done it. I could've accepted that Angela was his soulmate eventually, and left them both alone. I could have gone out and gotten a life. He never would have been burdened by my feelings, and I would have gone on, no matter what the cost.

I felt a trickle of blood run down my neck and glanced down. The knife had grazed my neck before Mulder realized what his "beloved" Angela was about to do. He aimed the gun and shot her. It could have been merely a reaction, what he was supposed to do under the circumstances.""

AU-- Mulder’s soulmate puts a knife to Scully’s throat; which leads to a more personal (if implied) revelation for him.

Erin M. Blair/Erin Blair’s Miss Series 04 - Miss You Four

""The truth is within our hearts and our love for each other.

I'm thankful that we're all together as a family. It will make us stronger somehow. When you told me of your epiphany that we were meant to be together, I knew then we were meant to be. I knew we were the true soulmates. Our souls connected through the spaces of time.""

AU-- S9 Mulder has returned with Will in tow; and spends his days, heart very full, watching his soulmate have everything she could ever have wanted out of life.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

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