#as much as he disliked jack there's definitely a part of him that wishes he never died

[five-rivers]

Cracked Clay Cup Chapter 15

@greatbigolhampuckjustforme

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“Only one left,” said Danny, uneasily.  Working by the process of elimination…  If any of the people on this list were his actual, biological parents, as Frostbite had feared, then it was these two.  

Jazz, obviously, wasn’t his mother.  He’d known that from basically the moment they’d met.  Vlad, Frostbite, and Pandora had confirmed that fact, and their stories had matched too well with each other for them to be lying.  Unless, of course, the whole trial was a lie and they were all working together, and Danny was hesitant to go down that path.  

The Observants, too, could be crossed off with ease.  The Observants were public and impersonal enough that Danny had remembered them despite his amnesia.  He’d never heard of them having children.  And their behavior during his trial… well.  Maybe they’d behave that way around their actual children, but Danny doubted it.  

Vlad hadn’t even claimed to be his father.  Of course, he’d also heavily implied that Danny’s biological parents were dead.  So there was that.  He was also a liar.  So there was that.  But, again, Danny didn’t think Vlad was his actual parent.  The Dairy King would have told him if he was.  

Frostbite and Pandora had also denied any blood relationship with him, although they still both wanted him to pick them.  Pandora did, at least.  Frostbite had seemed more lukewarm about it.  Maybe even cool, to use a pun.  Not that Frostbite disliked Danny.  He was participating in this to help Danny.  Just… Yeah.  

Then there was the trio, which, um.  Yeah.  Definitely not.  

So.  If his parents were actually involved, and not dead, then they had to be these two.  Unless Pandora or Frostbite or Vlad was lying about not being his parent, which he didn’t think any of them would do, because that would be counterproductive.  Wouldn’t it?

Double-think made his head hurt.  

“Yes,” said Clockwork.  “Only Jack and Maddie Fenton are left.  Then, when you have seen them, you must make your decision.”

“And I can choose anyone?”

“Yes.  You may choose anyone you wish to choose.”

“Hm,” said Danny.  He spread himself out over the couch and dropped the file folder on the coffee table.  “Anyone, anyone?”

“That is the policy, to ensure that children are placed appropriately.”

“So, like, if I decided I wanted to go with the Dairy King but not Vlad…?”

“That is a possibility,” said Clockwork.  “As in, you could choose for Dairy King alone to have custody of you, with the understanding that Vlad would likely still be a significant part of his social circle and afterlife.”

“Huh,” said Danny.  “What if I picked, like, Ember?”

“You could do that.”

“But you wouldn’t recommend it, huh?”

“My recommendation is immaterial,” said Clockwork.  “I am a neutral party.”

“Yeah, but I can still ask you questions.  What if I want your opinion?”

“I am not allowed to give it.”

“Right,” said Danny.  He looked over the file.  “You know, they have, like, the least stuff on their little cheat sheet out of anyone.  Except the Observants.  Theirs was really… lackluster.”

“Indeed?” said Clockwork, with just the faintest inflection at the end to turn it into a question instead of an agreement.

“Mhm.”  Jack and Maddie, no listed last name, didn’t have much written on their page of the file.  Apparently they liked making cookies, stargazing, needlepoint, sewing, and… that was it.  Nothing about jobs, titles, other interests, other things they enjoyed.  Nothing.

The stargazing was a good point, though.  Danny was pretty sure he liked stargazing.  If only he’d had a chance to do it…  Ugh.  Being stuck inside was getting more and more annoying.  

Distressing.  

Almost as distressing as Frostbite thinking that Danny’s biological parents were abusive.  

“You said before, everyone is, like, vetted?  So they won’t be… dangerous?”

“That is correct.”

“But the Observants still were allowed to do whatever it was they were trying to do.”

“Unfortunately, persons who possess authority will on occasion use that authority to put themselves in even more positions of authority.”

“Except you can’t tell me any of your opinions.”

“Correct,” said Clockwork.  

“You’re funny.”

“Not many would say that.”

“That’s because you’re really– really oblique about it.”

“Perhaps.”

Danny sighed.  “I should just go right away, shouldn’t I?  I should stop agonizing about this.”

“It is up to you, Daniel.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

Danny made no move to get off the couch.  “What are you doing over there, anyway?”

Clockwork twisted his hands around to show Danny a net of white string.  “I’ve taken up lacemaking.”

“Ugh, see, I’ve been wasting so much of your time that you’ve picked up a new hobby.  That’s crazy.”

“I wouldn’t say that it’s new,” said Clockwork.  “Lace has been around for a long time.”

“New to you, then.  Like, your original hobby is making clocks, right?”

“I also enjoy candlemaking and gardening.  But this,” Clockwork held up the lace, “was always within my plans.”

“Uh huh,” said Danny.  

“It is almost time for lunch.  You could stay until then.”

“See?  I’ve wasted the whole morning.  I came back last night.  And that was a day trip.”  He sighed.  “What would lunch be?”

“I was planning on fried rice, using the remaining rice from last night.”

“I thought you’d made a lot of rice that time,” said Danny.  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

.

Jack and Maddie’s house was… Well, it looked like it had been a normal house.  The entryway was done up with plain tile, and opened up into a high-ceilinged living room.  Danny could see a set of stairs leading up one side of the living room to the second floor, where there were a number of doors.  On the ground floor, there was an open doorway leading into a kitchen.  

That was all fine.  However, the walls, ceiling, and floors all looked like they’d been torn apart and put together again.  Sometimes with proper tools like plaster and drywall, and sometimes with cardboard and duct tape.  There were dark squares and ovals where picture frames may have hung.  He could see an electrical outlet that had been pulled out of the wall and hastily put back in, without all the wires fitting.  Near his elbow were the remains of what looked like a doorbell.  Bits of insulation hung out of gaps between the original walls and the repairs.  

It wasn’t quite as strange or as messy overall as Ember, Skulker, and Technus’s place, but the contrast was… weird.  Everyone else was obviously trying to put their best foot forward and had cleaned up or acquired a whole new house.  This… this was not that.  

At least, he hoped it wasn’t.  Because if this was their best, then what was their usual?

He turned his attention to the two humans who had been waiting for him to arrive.  They were human.  The man was tall and broad, with dark hair.  He was wearing overalls over an orange button up.  His sleeves were rolled up, and he was scratching at a rash on his arm.  The woman was slim and much shorter, her auburn hair cut in a chin-length bob.  She had a pale blue blouse on, and dark jeans.  

He caught their eyes, one after another.  

“Hi,” said the woman, in a wavering voice.  “Welcome home, Danny.”

“Um,” said Danny, “hi.  Are you Maddie?  The file didn’t really say which one of you was which… or really anything about yourselves…?”

“Yes,” said Maddie, with a painful smile.  She looked like she was about to cry.  “I’m Maddie, this is Jack.  We’re so happy to have you here.  So happy.”  She took his hands in hers and squeezed them.  

“Okay?”  He looked around.  “So…  You’re remodeling?”

“Yes,” said Maddie.  “We’re sorry about that, but all of this came as such a surprise.”

“A big surprise, son,” said Jack.  His voice sounded rough, like he’d been crying.  “All of the important things are done, though!  Everything’s safe!  Just not very pretty, that’s all.  Just looks different.”

“Like you,” said Maddie, quickly.  “Not that that’s a bad thing, is it?  We’re very–  The ears and the tail– Those are new but not bad.  This is just like that.”

Danny nodded, hesitantly.  “Right.  That’s cool.  So, um.”  He looked around the entryway again.  “Show me around?”

“Right, right,” said Maddie.  “Of course.”

“Sorry about that!” said Jack.  “It’s just that you grew up here and all.  You don’t remember that, but it’s hard for us to remember it.  To remember that you, er, don’t remember.”  Jack patted Danny’s shoulder gingerly.

“Yes,” said Maddie.  “We’ll– We’ll do the main floor first, then the bedrooms upstairs.”

The tour of the ground floor went much as expected.  He saw the living room, a number of closets (which looked like they’d been ransacked), the garage (suspiciously empty), a bathroom (strangely untouched), a dining room (dusty), and the kitchen.  

His initial impression of the kitchen matched his impression of the house in general.  Normal, but hastily altered.  There was a long strip of torn-up wall near the refrigerator.  The microwave was brand new to the point that the box it came in was still sitting next to it.  There was a door-sized patch of new wall that matched up with scratches on the floor that strongly suggested the patch had been a door up until fairly recently.  

This… this was suspicious.  Should he ask about it?  Play dumb?

“Now, up to the rooms!” said Jack, sweeping Danny out of the kitchen.  

“Usually,” said Maddie, “your sister Jazz would be here, but right now she’s away, so it’s just the three of us.”

“Why?”

“Why what, Danno?” asked Jack.  

“Why is she away?”

“College,” said Maddie, quickly.  “She’s a couple years older than you are, so she’s away at college.  The two of you were very close, though.”

“Best friends!” shouted Jack from his position at the top of the stairs.

Well, there was that confirmation.  Jazz was definitely his sister.  

… Jazz actually looked a lot like Maddie, so that was also a point in favor of Maddie and Jack being his actual parents.  Which, uh.  Did being shady run in the family?  Did he come off like this to other people?  He hoped not.  

“Which one was her room?” asked Danny.  

“This one,” said Jack.  Then he pointed towards a room two doors down.  “And this is yours!  You two shared the bathroom, but she’s not here, so it’s all yours, too!”

“Cool,” said Danny.  He slipped past Jack to the door and opened it.  

The walls and ceiling of the room were a pale blue gray, glow in the dark stars just barely visible in contrast.  Posters for bands and spaceships were taped to the wall, some of them in better repair than others.  There was a dresser with a drawer sticking part way out, the sleeve of a shirt stopping it from fully closing.  Model rockets, most of them clumsily made, sat on shelves beside other knick-knacks.  A corkboard on the wall had schoolwork, ribbons, and a few crumpled tickets to movies and concerts pinned on it.  A scooter and telescope were propped up in one corner.  

“They had us take down your photographs,” said Maddie.  “But we left everything else the way it was.  Except for cleaning.”

“Something about being biased!  As if knowing things is going to make you biased!  Maybe if we’d known–”

“Jack, honey,” said Maddie.  “Not the time.”

“Oh, right, sorry, son.”

Danny nodded, then stepped in to walk a circuit of the room.  This room, more than any of the others he had stayed in, felt lived in.  Like it was a home.  

But he couldn’t forget Frostbite’s warning.  Or the chaos downstairs.  

“So, um,” said Danny, before he could wimp out.  He held the pocketwatch in one hand.  Just in case.  “In the kitchen, you have a door covered up.  What’s with that?”

“Uh, nothing,” said Jack.  

“Just an unfinished basement,” said Maddie, her smile going brittle and fake.  “That’s all.  It wasn’t– It wasn’t safe down there.  For children.  It wasn’t built right.  So we decided to just cover it up.  To show that we’re prepared to keep you safe.”

There was a mad science lab down there, wasn’t there?  

What if that was where he had died?

Danny swallowed and pasted on a smile.  “Cool.  So… what do we do together?”

They stared blankly at him.  

“You know, for fun?  Or hanging out?”

“We used to stargaze together a lot,” said Maddie.  

“And we’d go fishing!” boomed Jack.  

“Yeah, but we can’t really do either of those, right?  We’re stuck inside.”

“That’s true…  But we do have our movies, don’t we?  And some games.”

“Righto!” said Jack.  “I’ll go get the stuff!”

.

The movie they had finally settled on was a space documentary.  Watching it was nice, even if the popcorn was a little burnt.  

Watching Jack and Maddie try to cook dinner afterward, though…  They seemed to keep reaching for things that weren’t there, or bumping into each other, like they expected there to be more room, or, well.  The food looked presentable enough, but there was a mess.  A big one.  

Still, the macaroni and cheese looked and smelled fine.  

“One of your favorites!” said Jack, proudly.  “After this, we’ll have some fudge!”  He served Danny a scoop bigger than his head, then took a big ceramic mug from the cabinet and filled it with soda.

Danny mentally shrugged and picked up his fork.  If he couldn’t eat it, he couldn’t eat it.  

“So,” he said, after eating a few bites, “how did the whole ghost thing happen?”

“Pardon?” asked Maddie, looking a little pale.  

“Well, my situation is a bit weird, isn’t it?  I was just wondering if you knew how it happened.”

“No,” said Maddie.  “I’m afraid not.  It’s a mystery to us, too.  Like we said, we were surprised by all of… this.”

That was weird.  If Jazz knew, shouldn’t they know, too?

Or maybe they just didn’t want to tell him.  

He fiddled idly with the mug.  There were clumsy, childish stars and moons painted on its side.  

“Do you like it?” asked Maddie.  “You painted that.  We went to one of those pottery places for Jazz’s seventh birthday.  You were both so young back then…”

“I did?” asked Danny. 

“You did,” said Maddie.  “If you look at the bottom, you’ll see your initials.”

Danny held the cup up over his head and looked at the bottom.  The letters DJF were painted on the bottom.  

“What do the J and F stand for?”

“James Fenton,” said Maddie.  “James was Jack’s father’s name.”

“And Fenton?”

“Our name.  Our family name.”

“Huh,” said Danny.  He set the mug back down, but kept his fingers looped around the handle of the mug.  It was… grounding, somehow, to touch something from his childhood, from his past.  “Do you know why this, um, trial was started?”  He took another bite of the macaroni and cheese so he had something to do with his other hand.  

“No,” said Maddie, quickly.  

“Maddie…”

“We don’t.”

Alright, then.

It was suddenly very hard to swallow.  

“We don’t know.  We don’t know why any of this happened.  But we’re so glad you’re with us again.  We’re so glad this is almost over.”

“I know!” shouted Jack, suddenly, making Danny, already tense, jerk sideways in alarm.  “When this is over, we can go back to that place and make another–”

Danny had still been holding the mug, and when he flinched, he took the mug with him.  He fumbled it briefly before it hit the ground, interrupting whatever Jack was saying and plashing soda everywhere.  

“Oops,” said Danny, stricken.  “Sorry.  I’m really sorry, um.”  He had telekinesis.  Why couldn’t he just–  

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Jack, kneeling and picking up the pieces.  

“I can do that,” said Danny.  “You don’t have to–”

“No, no, I’ve got it,” said Jack.  “We’ll just put it right back together!  A little superglue and it’ll be as right as rain.”

“I’ve got the mop.  You just stay there and eat, okay, Danny?”

That was, like, the exact opposite of what he wanted to do.  He wanted to do something to help, but something about the situation held him paralyzed.

“Yeah!” said Jack, rinsing the shards in the kitchen sink.  “We just need some glue, then we’ll put it right!”

“Make sure it dries first,” said Maddie, maneuvering a large mop.  

“Oh, right!”

He put the pieces on a dishtowel and began to pat them off.  Danny, slowly, reluctantly, began to eat again.  

“What were you saying before, Jack?”

“Oh, I was thinking that we could go back to that pottery place after all this.  Make a few new pieces.  It looks like we’ll need it, huh?  What do you think, Danny?”

“Um, it sound like it could be fun?”

“Then it’s a plan!  We’ll have to rope Jazz in, too, when she’s back in town!”

Speaking of Jazz…  Danny had to wonder why she was competing separately from these two.  She definitely wasn’t at college, after all.  Was it because of what Frostbite had said?  Or some other rule of the trial that Clockwork hadn’t mentioned?  Or just a strategy to give the family two chances?

He had no idea how to ask those questions.  

But then… maybe there was something in Jazz’s room?  Or even in his room.

“Want to help me put this back together?” asked Jack.  “I’ve got to go find my tools, so if you could just arrange them…”

“You both need to eat first,” said Maddie, “before our food gets cold.”

“Right you are, Maddie!”

Danny had, somehow, lost most of his appetite, but he ate anyway, knowing that if he didn’t he’d be hungry later.  When he estimated he’d eaten enough, he pushed aside his plate and went over to the shards of the mug.

It had broken unevenly, which meant that it would be easier to figure out what went where.  He started sorting the pieces, and as he did so, he felt himself start to calm down again.  

Jack ruffled his hair when he was about halfway through, making Danny freeze, his ears canting backwards.  

“I’ve got the super glue!” he said before sitting back down at the table.  

They worked together to put the mug back together after that, stars reemerging from scattered shards.  It was… peaceful.  Sort of like watching Clockwork work in his workroom.  Eventually, the mug was, more or less, together, although the cracks were still very visible.

“There we go!  Just like a puzzle, huh?  How’d you like working with your old man again?”

“It was good,” said Danny.  

“Yeah, it was good,” said Jack, beaming.  “Maybe I’ll show you how to h–  Ahem.  I’ll show you how to knit next!  I do love knitting.  And needlepoint.  Fiber art is great, Danny.  Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“That sounds nice,” said Danny, smiling.  Then he yawned.  

“Oh, wow, you’ve got some fangs in there!  That’s new.”  He cleared his throat.  “It’s getting pretty late, though, isn’t it?  You should get into bed.  You’ve had a long day!”

Danny wasn’t sure how long the day had been, but he was tired.  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“We have your toothbrush and everything up in your bathroom,” said Maddie.

“Thanks,” said Danny.  “I’ll go up, then?”

“Wait!” shouted Jack, making Danny jump again.  “The fudge!  Can’t go to bed without fudge!”

“I’m actually pretty full…”

“Nonsense!  There’s always room for fudge.”

So, they ate fudge, and then Danny went upstairs to the bathroom.  

As promised, there was a toothbrush, floss, and a hairbrush already set out.  There was a cabinet set into the mirror, and another under the sink.  

He hesitated for a moment before opening the one over the sink.  There was a bottle of aspirin and a few boxes of bandaids, but it was otherwise empty. Next, he looked under the sink.  Mostly, there were cleaning supplies.  But there was also a large first aid box.  It had a bright green stain on one corner.  

Danny sucked in his lips, then pulled it out and started to look through it as he sat on the closed lid of the toilet.  It looked like it had been used frequently.  Most of the refillables were mostly empty.  

What had happened that he’d used so much of this?  Because it had to be him.  No one else living here would have left an ectoplasm stain on the lid.  

Frostbite’s claim was looking more and more plausible the more he learned.  

He closed the lid and put the box away.  He was going to give the Fentons the benefit of the doubt until he got actual evidence one way or another.  Frostbite had said that he’d never actually met them.  So.  

Jazz’s room.  While he was still mostly awake.  It was getting late.  

He walked through the wall into the room next door.  Jazz’s room was… less empty than he would have expected, given that she had her own house.  But it looked like someone had moved out of the room in an awful hurry.  More of the drawers in the dresser were opened than closed, clothing was strewn over the bed, the chair had been knocked over, the desktop computer tower had been opened up and the hard drive removed.  

Danny searched the room, but didn’t find anything but a note in Jazz’s handwriting, something about reminding him of a school assignment.  Everything else was just… clothing, books, his sister’s knick-knacks.  Nothing important.  

Defeated, he went back to his room, curled up in his bed, and went to sleep under the fake stars.  

.

Danny was going to give the Fentons a week, just like he’d given everyone else, unless they did something really unbelievable or dangerous, like the Observants, or forgot to feed him or something.  He’d already decided that, and he’d stick to it, even if they were being sketchy.  

So, he stuck with Maddie’s frantic baking, and Jack interrupting himself whenever he, apparently accidentally, mentioned engineering or science.  He let it go when they dodged his questions about what they did for a living.  He knitted with Jack, and watched documentaries and movies, and helped Maddie make lunch and breakfast, and slowly started working through the comics he’d found in his room.  He listened to Jack as he monologued about this and that and letting the broken mug ‘set.’  He helped with the ‘remodel’ as much as he could, and looked for clues about what, exactly, Jack and Maddie had removed.  

He also searched his own room, but the Observants, or whoever had prepared the trial, had been very thorough when making sure there was no direct physical evidence of Danny having ever lived here.  Not only were there no pictures, the schoolwork on the walls was old enough that Danny couldn’t say if the handwriting really was his, and it wasn’t like he’d found a journal or anything anywhere.  There was just a feeling.  

What he didn’t do, though, was look through the walled-off door in the kitchen.  

If there was a mad science lab anywhere, it was there.  And if a mad science lab was here, it was probably where he had died.  He…  Didn’t really want to see that.  He wasn’t sure he could see that and stay… reasonable… with Jack and Maddie.  

But… he had to know.  

So, just the day before he’d ‘scheduled’ himself to leave, he stood in front of that patch of wall and stepped through.  

It was predictably dark.  But Danny had both good night vision and the ability to create balls of light, so he called one up.  

The basement wasn’t unfinished.  It was, in fact, a mad science lab.  

He hated being right.  

It wasn’t just a mad science lab, though.  It was a half destroyed mad science lab.  Shelves had been knocked over, machines had been partially disassembled.  One area in particular looked as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it and then dumped ectoplasm and something gross and brown on it.  He couldn’t even tell what some of that stuff was.

And then there was the inactive portal.  

Danny floated towards it, despite remembering Vlad’s warning about his portal.  It looked almost exactly the same.  Maybe a little less shiny, but still…

He yanked himself away from it, not liking how it seemed to grab his attention, and floated over to where filing cabinets had spilled over.  He grabbed a piece of paper at random and read it.  Then he read it again.  Finally, he dropped it back onto the pile.  

Jack and Maddie made their money inventing weapons.  Good to know.  

He floated over to the particularly wrecked area.  Was this the result of a weapons test?  That would make sense… sort of… so much of this was just meaningless without context, and he couldn’t get context.

There were papers here, too, in a binder half embedded in one wall.  Danny pulled it free easily and started to read it.  

When he realized what he was reading, he almost dropped the binder.  This was–  But it had to be for an animal, a dangerous animal they were hunting, or–  There were animal ghosts.  Frostbite even had the skins and furs of a few.  

Danny’s hands were shaking.  He wasn’t sweating.  Ghost form was good for more than his looks.  But he was shaking.  And his tail had fluffed out to its fullest extent.  

His eyes wandered down the pages, shying away from the worse things, until, finally, he reached a name.  

It was his.  

Phantom.  

He turned to the last page, skipping most of the binder, and read–

This time, he did drop the binder, and he gagged, too.  No.  No, that didn’t happen to him.  He flew backwards, over the bloody mess that had–  He ran into one of the walls, and an alarm started up, a broken thing, clearly not working quite right.  

Danny fled up the stairs, through the shut, metallic door, through the hasty drywall and into the kitchen.  The kitchen, where the alarm was also blaring, and Jack and Maddie were walking through the door in matching bathrobes.  

“Were– Were you in the lab?” asked Jack, uncertainly.  

“You,” said Danny, struggling to get the words out.  “You–”

“Are you hurt?” asked Maddie, reaching for him.  “Do you–”

“No!” shouted Danny.  “Don’t touch me!  Don’t come near me!”

She backed off, immediately, raising her hands so he could see them.  He hated that it did make him feel better.  

“Danny,” she said.  “Danny, I don’t know what you saw–”

“I saw what you did.  You hunted me down like– like an animal.  You tried to– to–” Danny sagged against the counter, one hand clutching the pocketwatch.  He should just hit the button.  He should hit the button now.  But part of him needed to know why.  

“It was a mistake,” said Jack.  

“A mistake?  You didn’t do that by mistake.  You can’t just trip and then do that.  There’s planning there, and preparation–”

“No, no,” said Maddie, “not–  We didn’t know it was you.  You didn’t look like yourself–”

“I don’t look like myself now, are you going to do it again?”

“No,” said both Jack and Maddie, vehemently.

“But you would’ve done it to someone else, is that it?”

“That’s,” said Jack.  “Not anymore.  Not anymore, son.  We’ve made mistakes.  We were wrong about so, so many things, but we’re trying.  We’re trying, and we never wanted to do anything that would hurt you.”

“We’re trying to make amends,” said Maddie.

“By hiding this?” demanded Danny.  “By pretending you didn’t do it?”

“Only because this is our only chance,” she said.  “It’s our only chance, and you didn’t even remember.  What good would apologizing have done?”

“More good than this.  Why did you even do it?”

“We’re scientists,” said Maddie.  

“We just wanted to know how ghosts work,” said Jack.  “But we’ve sworn all of it off, forever.  We even took out the anti-ghost security system!  We don’t want to have anything to do with something that hurt you.”

“You hurt me.”

“Please, Danny, you have every right to be angry with us,” said Maddie, “but give this family a chance.  We know it’s our fault that things turned out the way they did, but…  We’re sorry.  We’re sorry, and we love you, and we want to fix this, and doesn’t that count for something?”

“We want to be a family again,” said Jack, openly crying.  “We want to show you what that’s like.  What it would be like, now that we know.  You are our family, Danny.”

“Family,” repeated Danny, suddenly feeling cold, as if all the ice in his core had built to an unbearable level.  

He turned around, towards the counter, eyes flicking back and forth until he found what he was looking for.

Danny picked the repaired mug up off the kitchen counter.  “This cup,” he said.  “It’s like this cup.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jack.  

“Please,” said Maddie.  “We know that what we did was wrong, and we want to– We just wanted to move past it.  We want to be a family again, Danny.  We always just wanted you to be safe.”

Danny shook his head and turned the sink on.  He put the cup under it and filled it with water.  That done, he turned off the sink and he set the cup on the counter.  It leaked, horribly.  Some of the cracks leaked slowly, seeping water.  Some, near the bottom, spurted.  

“It’s still a cup,” said Danny.  “But you can’t really use it like one anymore, can you?  It’s not– It’s probably not even safe to use anymore, is it?  With the glue, and the cracks.”

“But it’s still something you made,” said Jack.  “It’s still something important, isn’t it?  It’s worth saving, for the memories.”

“Maybe,” said Danny.  “But you still can’t use it to drink.  You, um.  You have to get another cup.”  He wiped tears from his eyes.  “You can remember it, and it can be good to remember it, but it won’t work anymore.  It can’t be fixed.”

He turned back to them.  

“Please, Danny,” said Jack.  “Don’t go.  We love you.”

Danny gave them a tiny, pained smile, then said, “Goodbye.”

#danny phantom #phic #phic phight

[krotiation]

Even though I don't think Timothy would ever miss Jack per se I imagine that his death still left a void that Tim doesn't know how to fill

Because what exactly do you do when the man who essentially dictated every aspect of your life is now dead? What can you even do when you're still wearing his face? Fuck if Tim knows

#y'all get what im saying here? #as much as he disliked jack there's definitely a part of him that wishes he never died #cause things would have been a whole lot more simple if he didn't #i imagine that post-casino tim is just couch surfing at moxxi's enjoying his unemployment #he can live out his identity crisis in peace now #maybe he'll pick writing back up #lord knows he's gonna need a hobby now that he doesn't have to sneak around a casino and rummage through trash for food and ammo anymore #he's just gonna have a couple of mental hurdles to get over tho cause let's be real #you can't be that close to jack without getting some insecurity instilled in you #that's the jack effect baby #timothy lawrence #txt

[jawabear]

hello again i know you wrote NSFW alphabet for captain, you could write one of ghost or konig. you can choose, thank you.

KÖNIG NSFW ALPHABET

Not my GIF

A/N: I absolutely made him out to be the subbiest sub ever. Sorry about that. I will do a Ghost one as well as I’m planning to do all the boys, but my head was full of König. (Wish something else of mine was full of him). Please respect that these are just my though and may/will differ to yours.

Genre: smut

Warnings: AFAB!reader, explicit sexual content, very kinky, König is a sub.

Summary: An A-Z of König’s bedroom antics…

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

He’s usually the one who needs aftercare but even so, he will make sure you are okay. That you feel as fucked out and blissful as he does. If not he will do anything he can to make it so. Then he will whispered to you how much he loves you, stroke your hair, cuddle you, and sometimes even sing to you in his mother tongue.

B = Body part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He loves everything about you. But if he really had to pick (and he dislikes himself because of the choice he makes) he would choose your pussy. He cannot get enough of it. Not even to fuck or taste. But he’s just mesmerised by it. He loves to stare at your pussy, even better when you touch yourself.

He likes his fingers. Their long, pretty, and reach that spot inside you that makes you shatter under him. But he also likes his cock. He’s quite proud of it.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Will come anywhere you want him too. Inside, your face, your mouth, your chest, himself. Anywhere you tell him to come he will.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He’s a little narcissistic in that he loves to look at his own cock. He loves to touch it and play with it, he likes to watch it get hard. That being said, he did once try to suck himself off. Though he was big enough so he could reach but he really hurt his back trying to bend that way and was out of commission for two days. To this day only he knows the true reason for his back pain.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

He’s had a fair few sexual encounters. He knows what he’s doing but half the time it’s you doing it to him. But he definitely knows what pleases him.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

When you ride him. He loves when you’re on top. When you dominate him. He loves seeing your tits bounce in his face. He loves to hold your hips while you ride his cock. It drives him nuts.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

I feel like his personality is naturally sort of goofy? He’s quite bashful and teasing. I wouldn’t really say he’s serious or funny in the moment, he just sort of himself?

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

I have a feeling he’s pretty void of body hair so there didn’t much going on down there. He likes to keep himself clean.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

When he’s in the mood, he is an absolute sweetheart. He will take his time to ensure your pleasure is met and to tell you how much he loves you. That’s when he’s in control for the night, or you it’s just want some sensual love making. But he is a sweet precious boy to you.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

A big masturbator I think. He’s such a desperate and needy boy. He always needs release and with get himself off when ever he can. Always, always thinks of you when he touches himself. Likes to edge himself too because he likes when you do it. But it’s never as good as you.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Dom/sub - goes without saying. But he is a huge switch. He prefers to be subby for you but if you ask it of him, he will the roughest, hardest fucking dom there has ever been. (Probably. He likes to think so anyway)

Edging/denial - he likes to edge you, but he LOVES when you edge him. He loves when you have complete control over his pleasure. He loves being a subby boy for you and letting you ruin him by denying him his orgasm.

Choking - he loves to be choked by you when you fuck, or edge him. Especially when you edge him. He likes when you make him cry and beg to let him come.

Mommy kink (or mummy for me ‘cause England) - like i’ve said, he’s a subby baby and has a mommy kink. Loves to call you those kinds of names like ma’am, miss, mistress etc.

Praise - he likes to know he’s doing a good job. Loves when you praise him for eating your pussy or how you compliment his big cock. It gets him so hard and so near the edge.

Squirting - he loves to make you squirt. His fingers can reach the spot that makes you squirt and he loved your face when you do. He loves to feel you gush around his fingers or on his face.

(I just think he’s really kinky. Probably the kinkiest of the CoD boys (apart from Gaz but I’ll do that soon))

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Literally anywhere he can have you. The bedroom, shower, briefing room, gym, sometimes even out in a mission if there’s enough time. He’s a menace and has to have you.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

He’s is horny all the time so it doesn’t take much to turn him on. You could literally breath in his direction and his cock is inside you. But there’s a certain look you give him, your bedroom eyes as it were, and that melts him. Makes his knees shake and he’s completely at your mercy.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs)

He’s up for anything but if you say no then it’s a no. He won’t try and persuade you more if you don’t like his idea. He wants to do right by you. Your pleasure is his priority.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Will die if he can’t eat your pussy. He loves when you go down on him, it’s a treat when you do. But he would kill and burn the world down if he was kept from being between your thighs.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

It depends on you. You set the pace most of the time. So he favours hard and fast. And then stopping right when he’s on the edge.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He’s a quickie guy. He will fuck you at any given moment even if there’s little time. He will make you come in seconds if he has to. Anything to be inside you.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

He’s up for anything. So whatever you want to do, he’s willing to give it a go.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

He can go for as long as you need him too and longer. He won’t stop until you’re done. Even when you leave him in the edge because you’ve come first and had enough. He will remain on that edge until your ready to go again.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

He’s open to it. He likes when you use vibrators or plug on him. He likes when you make him walk around base with a vibrator in his ass that you control.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He is a big tease. Even if your edging him to the point of tears, he’ll still have something to say. Something cocky just to make you edge him more.

“This…is nothing” he pants, his back arching of the bed as he tried to chase his fading pleasure “I’ve edge myself harder before” it was a lie, but you didn’t know that. “Do better”

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He is loud. Cute little whimpers and moans. He begs a lot and his voice is always high when he does. When he’s topping you, he growls and grunts at you. He doesn’t bother to hold back his noises.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He likes to dress up. Not like cross-dressing but like give him a bunny suit or some shit and he’s all over it. He wants you to humiliate him deep down. But he’s too shy to be publicly humiliated even though he likes the idea….

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Y’all already know our boy is hung like a fucking horse. A nice long dick with a pretty little curve to it. Such a pretty dick he has…

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

I think I’ve made it clear that he is READY from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep. He is always hard for you, even when he shouldn’t be. But he secretly loves the humiliation of having a hard on in meetings.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterward)

He’s actually surprisingly quick to fall asleep. After he’s made sure you’re okay and fulfilled, it doesn’t take him long to doze off. Usually on top of you. He likes to cuddle you when he sleeps.

1/2/23

#König #konig #konig smut #konig x reader #modern warfare 2 #fanfic #smut

[raythekiller]

Hihi! May I request headcanons for EJ, Jeff, and Toby describing their relationships with others creeps? Who theyre closest, who they dislike the most etc. Thank you!

🗒 ❛ Relationship With Other Creeps HC ༉‧₊˚✧

Featuring: Jeff The Killer, Ticci Toby, Eyeless Jack

#Notes: I tapped a little bit into their relationships on my last post but here's a little more in-depth about it. also i only mentioned Sally in EJ's part but I like to think everyone has a soft spot for her <3

˗ˏˋ back to navigation ´ˎ˗

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Jeff The Killer

It's a little hard for this motherfucker to get along with anyone for... Obvious reasons. Most people in the manor can't stand him and the feeling's mutual, but he gets along fine with Ben and Toby. Mostly Ben, he actually bullies Toby a bit because he thinks he's weird, but Ben befriended him and now they're a trio.

He especially doesn't like Nina and Jane (obviously). Other than that, he likes to bother EJ whenever he gets the chance just to try to get him pissed off for once (which never works and he gets punished by Slenderman).

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Ticci Toby

Again, gets along with mainly Jeff and Ben, though he's slightly icky about Jeff. It's more the type of superficial friendship where you mess around together but don't actually trust each other with secrets and stuff. He does trust and vents to Ben quite often, though. He has the opposite kind of friendship with Hoodie, where Hoodie helps him with his issues all the time but they don't really hang out much. Cool uncle situation going on. He also hangs out with Nina quite often.

He basically only doesn't get along with Masky, and trust me, he tried to. Masky just treats him badly because of jealousy and there's not much he can do to make the situation better, and eventually he started disliking him just as much.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Eyeless Jack

He's extremely quiet and introverted, so he doesn't really interact much to have many relationships around the manor, good or bad. He does hang out with Jane quite a lot (normally having some debate or reading books like the two nerds they are) and he adores Sally. Definitely lets her dress him up as a princess when they have tea parties. Most people actually like him since he cooks some amazing stuff for everyone, but they don't really know him on a personal level.

He doesn't like Jeff for constantly bothering him and pretends he doesn't like Toby and Ben as well since they're kind of a package deal, but he actually doesn't mind the other two when Jeff isn't around to rile them up and they're just acting normal. He actually wishes he could befriend Toby, since he thinks he's a good kid, but doesn't want to seem weird about it.

#ticci toby headcanons #jeff the killer headcanons #creepypasta #creepypasta headcanons #eyeless jack headcanons #ray.writes #eyeless jack #jeff the killer #ticci toby

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Just wanted to let you know that I read your meta and find it so spot-on and enlightening - this message is just me, nodding along.

My gf and I watch OFMD and as a victim of bullying, she sympathises a lot with Stede’s position. My closest friends in school were all bullied as well. To us, it feels natural to conclude that Jack’s a toxic, abusive bully and that his (limited, thank God) role in the narrative is at least in part to show us what that means - for Stede, who refuses to put up with it now that he has a choice and for Ed, who has to learn the hard way that if he sides with Jack, he becomes just another bully, someone who’ll naturally backstab others and limit himself to having ‘fun’ in destructice, toxic ways. It takes courage to step away from, especially if you think that’s all you deserve; it’s easier (in an awful way) to just play along and resign yourself to the fact that you aren’t strong enough to choose better which, I guess, is what many do and one reason why bullying can persist and be so destructive. We watch that episode very rarely, actually, because the bullying behaviour is just too well-portrayed and it’s honestly uncomfortable to watch at times (as it should be). Also, apologies if any of this reads awkwardly, English is not my first language. Thanks for sharing all your insights!

Thank you. Honestly, one of the reasons I dislike Jack and some of the fanonization of him as much as I do is because he seems so obviously a bully to me. He isolates Stede, he mocks him, he gets others to join in mocking him and to make him feel low. He’s there to tell Stede “Ed doesn’t really like you, I know who Ed is, Ed thinks you’re ridiculous, everyone thinks you’re ridiculous.” And he makes it look (to Stede) like that’s what Ed thinks too. And Ed starts to see that and the damage he is causing, and how he really does have to decide to either become Jack or not.

I do know what toxic friendships feel like and how they work and how horrible it is to be manipulated by someone and not have anyone outside believe you. So it does, admittedly, bother me to see how some people have minimized Jack’s harm or argued that his bullying isn’t all really bullying. I find it upsetting, which has definitely fueled my own discourse over the past few days.

This stuff is INTERESTING, though, and I really wish things hadn’t gotten as heated as they did (and some of that is very much on me).

Anyway, thank you. I think most folks are ignoring me on this now, which is fine.

Additional: the hardest part in a lot of ways is how Ed participates. It hurts when someone who is supposed to be your friend seems to side with your bully. Someone said that Ed tries to include Stede, but…maybe Stede really doesn’t want to play and he shouldn’t have to. That moment when he leaves the ship is so heartbreaking from Stede’s perspective because to him it really does say “we were never really friends.”

#ofmd meta #ofmd #reply

[pickypickypeak]

I am curious what your take is on this "star boy the shape shifter" after seeing your nice reply to that clown. Even if the idea remained I have a funny feeling about it in my spirit.

Thank you for the ask!! People will cling on anything just to hate on another Disney movie (without even watching it nor caring about Disney in the first place lol), they think it makes them look cool I guess?

Honestly, I like the concept of human Star. I know we don’t know for sure if he was gonna be a love interest, even though the demo version of At All Costs strongly makes me think so. Even having him as a platonic friend to Asha, not necessarily a love interest, had potential in my opinion, but an old fashioned love story would have been nice for the Disney 100th (we arguably don’t have one since Tangled). Especially the shapeshifting part would have been so fun to see in animation! I’m imagining some sort of fusion between Maui and Jack Frost lmao

HOWEVER, unlike some people who, clearly, are just in love with the aesthetic of it and were searching for yet another reason to sh*t on Disney, I’m not PISSED at the writers for changing that. First of all I’m pretty satisfied with what we got: as I said previously, I definitely don’t consider Wish the BEST Disney movie, but still a quite enjoyable one with nice characters, animation, and music. Secondly, we don’t know the full original story, we don’t even know if they had one when Starboy was considered. Maybe it didn’t work, maybe they were just exploring ideas and some concepts of him as a human were made. It’s not like this is the first time a cool scrapped concept appears in an art book lol, Disney art books are filled with those.

Also, I feel like people need to understand that it’s perfectly fine to say “you know what this would have been cool. I’m making a fic/fanart/headcanon” instead of immediately going “oh my goddd!!! this would have been SO much cooler than the actual movie, which I haven’t seen, based on this specific scrapped concept art and some ai art I’ve seen on tiktok!!!” I know it’s not EVERYONE acting this way but, sorry, most complaints I’ve seen are coming from these people lol. Fortunately I’ve also seen a few comments from people who genuinely wonder what the movie would have been like if they went with Starboy without making tragedies, as well as people making fanarts out of creativity and not hate for the actual movie (which is not deserved come on. You can dislike it ofc but it’s not some immoral monster like some people paint it).

So that said, I’m glad people are having fun exploring concepts and making fanarts, I’m all for it! Long post but I took an opportunity to express all my thoughts on the topic lol

#wish #wish disney #wish 2023 #disney wish #disney #I still don’t know how to tag it #star boy #star wish #asha

[astridhoff03]

Iron Flame - Review

Burn. It. Down. Indeed. No, but I really enjoy the second part of the Fourth Wing Saga Even though I have to forgive Rebecca Yarros that she killed one my favorite Characters. The only thing I criticize is that the Love story is in both books to much. And there’s pointless smut also, which for me personally doesn’t feel like a real romantic-releationship more like a physical one. People will I hate me if I say that, but I don’t care about Xaden Riorson. I couldn't form an emotional connection with him because when I look at him I’m just seeing Rhysand and Darkling again. And the Darkling and Rhysand are similar but are characterwise very different, Xaden is a decent character but he doesn’t have what grabbed me when I read about Rhysand or the Darkling. But there are more things I really like then dislike, Violet for example she’s still a very good protagonist and I like the things she’s going trough trough out the book. It’s always interesting with her because she’s smart but also really caring. Some people compare her to Hiccup from httyd, I get they are similar, but I think personally that Hiccup is more complex and more relatable than Violet, don’t get me wrong she’s cool but doesn’t stick out that much, than Hiccup, Celaena, Feyre, Nesta, Zoya or Inej does. As I said before I don’t really care about her Relationship with Xaden that much, don’t get me wrong I like Love-Stories and Romantic stuff in books as in movies very much but at some points I had the feeling that Violet was over focused on Xaden. I know there life’s where attached to each other thanks to their Dragons, but even Feyre from ACTOR wasn’t that over focused on her mate or want to fuck him before a fucking War starts. Their Relationship is definitely the weakest part of the book and should be more in the background, I think that would’ve done overall great story wonders. The political stuff and the Dragon stuff is actually more interesting. Maybe the other three books will get me invested in Xadens Character, if it’s not his Perspective. Apropos Dragons I have to give credit to Tairn and Andarna, they were fantastic. I also really like that we see the see more of the releationship Violet has with her Dragons. But overall I have to confess I like the Dragons from httyd much more, they feel more real. I also really Love Violet and Sloanes relationship near the end, I just wished Violet would be more of a Mentor figure maybe some kind of a sister for Sloane when they resolved their conflict. Syrena and Cat I also liked, but Cat was a bitch until the end happen. But I like that Violet and her now accept each other. I just wish the side characters weren’t that blend. You know very little about them. The political that was going on was also very interesting, Navarre is a very fascinating Kingdom. The ending is very dramatic with Violets Mom sacrificing herself. Sorry but Idk why but I would’ve leave it with this ending instead of Xaden again and his red eyes and the whole scene with Jack. But overall I can recommend it, it’s enjoyable but I personally prefer the first book more. I also never saw so many roasting Videos on YouTube that for 2 hours straight. I mean yeah the Emperyean Series is a little overrated but it has potential and Rebecca Yarros is talented, the only thing that holds the Books a little back is the relationship between Xaden and Violet and also Xaden. But I wish Rebecca Yarros still the best, because I know writing, figuring out where the plot goes, plant Plottwits in it and at the same time make the characters complex and compelling is hard work. But if I were her, I would have waited a little longer to develop and figure more things out and get more feedback.

#fourth wing #iron flame #violet sorrengail #xaden riorson #fourth wing garrick #catriona #catriona cordella #rhiannon matthias #ridoc gamlyn #sawyer #fourth wing Imogen #mira sorrengail #lilith sorrengail #burton varrish #dain aetos #syrena #violet and xaden #violet and tairn #andarna #onyx storm

[biblioflyer]

Legacy should be more than legacy.

A wish list for Legacy that embraces as best as it can the warring tribes of Star Trek and could avoid another "The Last Jedi" scenario.

People who have read my Season Three commentary will know that I am far from the last person to cry "memberberry" (did I spell that right? I actually really dislike the concept.)

In processing the broad swath of fandom reaction, it breaks down into a few categories worth thinking about:

People who enjoyed it and see no flaws.

People who enjoyed it in spite of the flaws.

People who disliked it for narrative reasons.

People who disliked it for "meta" reasons.

I would say I'm firmly in that second category. Take for instance Jack Crusher. There's a lot of commentary about him that strikes me as bizarre. A backlash to the implication that there is a portion of the fanbase that is uncritically fawning over him. A segment of the fanbase that I have yet to encounter, although I will admit to not having sought it out.

My initial reaction was to dislike the character for both narrative and meta reasons. Narratively I thought his very existence ran counter to a lot of preconceived notions I had about what the "definitive" version of Jean luc and Beverly are, whether or not they'd even conceive, and if they did how they would handle it. Frankly I felt their relationship had largely been put to bed late in TNG's run and in a very mature way. Not everyone who loves each other needs to be in a relationship or actively bonking. This is a lesson I myself have learned in the fallout of relationships after coming to terms with certain incompatibilities while retaining affection for the whole person in spite of the illogic of maintaining a conventional romantic relationship.

The meta reasons are that he's rather clearly "replaced" in some sense both Elnor and Wesley, although they are both alluded to in the dialogue. I do believe its reasonable to assume we were meant to insert either Elnor or Picard's ex post facto reconciliation with his memories of his father into what is left unstated when he says he would never have been his father. Beverly also references losing both a husband and a son to the stars that Picard was infatuated with.

However, I held my own feelings about this loosely enough that the character was able to prove to me that he "deserved" to exist. That he could be an interesting part of the story.

I was not any less disappointed by the absence of Elnor and Wesley not showing up at all seems completely daft, but the narrative made a satisfying argument to me that Jack could have a place in the story if I was willing to give a little.

As I told the Anon who messaged a while back to say I was being snotty to people who prefer more plausible and immersive worldbuilding and less of the camp and contrivances (and presumably the "memberberries" although I would not want to put words in your mouth if you're still following):

Star Trek belongs to all of us. I believe in a big tent fandom.

Which is why I think that if there is to be a "Star Trek Legacy" it needs to not so much move on from fan service, but to be holistic in its fan service. A particular kind of TNG fan got love bombed by Season Three. I find no sin in this but this also isn't the ideal format for an entire series.

I have repeatedly made note that I think the entire Enterprise-G stuff is not ideal. I don't think the starship service pathway makes sense for Seven, Raffi, or Jack. I think it does a disservice to their character arcs and the broader argument that Star Trek Picard has been making that Starfleet is not the sole source of moral authority in the universe. There are other valid ways to do much needed and good work in the universe. The Fenris Rangers being one example. Jack and Beverly acting as a sort of "Doctors Without Borders" in space being another.

I also don't believe in petty retcons and I do recognize the symbolism of re-christening a heroic ship that is already filled with heroic people "Enterprise" in order to say that what makes Starfleet great isn't its scientific acumen, how many cool gadgets can be stuffed into a frame, or the number and potency of its phasers and photon torpedo launchers, but rather the courage, grace, and openness of its people.

It is in someways symbolic that a path that began with the Federation putting itself between the Romulans and the Synths has now hit another mile marker: with a crew of people who are willing to bend rules in the name of radical decency we are returning to a more "bottom up" Starfleet.

That we arguably already have this in the form of Strange New Worlds is beside the point.

So duly noting that I would have preferred something more like Star Trek La Sirena with our more anarchist characters doing their own thing in their way plugging the gaps that Starfleet can't plug for itself for all of the reasons that Shaw continuously argued, I'm going to lay out a vision of how Star Trek Legacy could be awesome.

Now do DS9

I've long been captivated by the idea of a show that is inspired by the Global War on Terror and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, but not in the same way that Enterprise or Picard were. Originally my thought was that the post Dominion War Cardassian space would be a good setting for this. Show the reconstruction and the painful work of trying to knit Cardassian society back together and trying to create something that is both pluralistic and functional.

Now I am skeptical of the potential of the real world analogs of post war Cardassia (Iraq and Afghanistan) to have been successful regime changes even under conditions of maximum cultural sensitivity on the part of the occupier and the prudent allocation of resources rather than wildly throwing money at problems in ever growing boondoggles that are utterly useless to the people on the ground but sound logical to the vulture capitalists and well intentioned but largely clueless political scientists infesting the State Department and the staffs of politicians. Consequently I would be very wary of normalizing the idea of military occupations.

However, Starfleet is a good vehicle for exploring the ins and outs of trying to rebuild a society shattered by war. Something that is even more relevant than it was when DS9 first started dabbling in this with its stories centering Bajor.

Now if we're to keep going under the assumption that its been more than two decades since the Dominion War, we could update this to the Romulan resettlement zone. Dropping this storyline like a hot potato after season one is one of my great frustrations with Picard because I desperately wanted to see explicit confirmation that the Federation had indeed been thoroughly shamed into rediscovering its wide eyed, do gooder spirit.

With Discovery and Picard ending, there is a space for a serialized narrative show. While I am very wary of this based on how not great the meta-narratives of Discovery and Picard have been and the addiction to epic stakes, I think it could be done and done well.

So an opportunity presents itself to tie up other loose ends.

Nazi Hunting and Church Committees

Give me more Raffi/Worf buddy cop action.

Give me accountability for Section 31.

Give me justice for the Romulans.

Justice for Elnor!

Put Seven, Raffi, and Jack's skillsets and personality to their best use.

How?

Bring back Sloan.

Whoa whoa whoa. Don't click away. Hear me out. You've read this far.

Project Phoenix? That wasn't for Kirk.

Here's the setup. Section 31 was lobotomized by Sloan's death. By its very nature Section 31 was set up in a set of cells with no one but Sloan knowing the full picture. Independent cells were able to keep going after but after the agency's existence became public knowledge, their existence became ever more precarious. Their list of allies in Starfleet growing ever thinner as their collaborators were exposed or burned Section 31 to prevent exposure. They needed Sloan or at least the contents of his head to find more safe houses, caches, and closets with skeletons in them.

Laris catches wind of Sloan via old contacts. This time its Jean luc who is off world on business and doesn't need to know the details.

With the assistance of Worf and Raffi, a team is assembled to pursue Sloan. The Enterprise-G as it happens, is already there on an errand of mercy making good on almost two decades of back owed aide.

Already aboard? At least two individuals with relevant knowledge and an axe to grind:

Elim Garak, plain, simple reconstruction and conflict resolution specialist.

Julian Bashir, frontier medicine and medical infrastructure reconstruction expert.

If the performers are down for it, I'm okay with canonizing them as queer representation. I'm not necessarily a big shipper in general, but I'm not anti-ship.

Elnor's affinity with the Sisters of the Absolute Candor would also feature in as the Sisters are about as likely to love Section 31 as they do the Tal'Shiar.

Jack is...slightly expendable. Not because he's a bad character but because I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how he's not redundant skills wise. His knowledge of the less savory parts of the galaxy would be a bit fresher than Seven and unlike her, he's not the Captain. Overall I think that he should hew closer to his mother in this role because I think the Jack that was doing orderly work was more interesting than action hero Jack. Him being a legitimate counselor would also be an interesting twist as we have yet to see a male mental health worker in Trek IIRC.

For more like this check out my other essays reevaluating Star Trek Picard and interrogating the widely held fandom criticism that Picard made the Federation into a Dystopia.

#star trek #star trek picard #star trek legacy #Enterprise-G #Jack Crusher #seven of nine #raffi musiker #fandom commentary #big tent fandom #worf son of mogh #laris #Julian Bashir #plain simple garak #elnor #luther sloan #section 31

[veeveex3]

TWST Dorms Playing Splatoon 3

in honor of sploon 3's release, this! (I might so this again but with obey me characters idk tho) (also, I like how this is more self indulgent than all the romantic x reader shit I've written lmaooo)

Heartslabyul:

Ok, so first of all, since there's 5 members in heartslabyul but only 4 people allowed on the same team, I think Riddle and Trey would play the least since they're both the busiest and they switch places

Riddle, being that he doesn't have much experience with video games, probably plays with the regular splattershot

Trey probably uses the n-zap bc it's a simple weapon and also because he likes the tacticooler

Cater says he's a charger main but doesn't know how to use a charger (based lol)

Deuce likes using splatlings, specifically the heavy splatling, because they're basically machine guns and he thinks that's badass

Ace likes the splat dulies because of the cool little rolls (also I just realized Floyd calls him crabby and the special for the splat dulies is the crab tank

ADeuce I feel are really aggressive players who don't really pay attention to inking the ground, leaving Cater and Trey / Riddle to ink the base

Riddle would just camp at base since he somehow has really bad aim but he does alright

Cater tries to do cool no scope tricks but he, again, doesn't know how to use a charger so he just keeps dying

Trey's just average at the game, but he does really well under pressure

Deuce keeps trying to do his special but Ace refuses to booyah back like the little shithead he is (affectionate, maybe)

Savanaclaw:

Y'know how this is a team game, right? Yeah, Jack seems to be the only one who remembers

Leona plays the carbon roller since it's a faster than a regular roller and has autobombs that kill people for him while he sits in his ink

Ruggie, like Ace, also uses the dulies simply because funny roll go brr

Jack also uses a roller but he uses the dynamo roller because it can kill people easier and it makes him feel strong

Since they're one person short of a team, they'll either ask Yuu to join or they'll join with a random user

Leona doesn't really play much but when he does, he really just inks the base and sees how many cheap kills he can get

Similarly, Ruggie also tries to get a bunch of cheap kills but he also plays the game normally sometimes

Jack just plays the game normally and gets frustrated when he sees Leona just sit there trying to bait people out with autobombs

Octavinelle:

Probably the most insane 3/4 of a team

Azul is a fucking try hard and is definitely a e-liter main

Floyd is a fucking maniac and uses the aerospray

Jade is normal, sorta, and uses the bloblobber

Again, since they don't have a full team, they'll either ask Yuu, or beg Jamil or Idia to join their team (neither of them do btw)

Yeah, but playing against Octavinelle is a fucking nightmare

Floyd is a menace in his ugly ass outfit spawn camping people or trying to start squid parties for funsies

Jade, despite seeming like the normal one of the three, is really good at the bloblobber and usually gets the most kills, if Floyd doesn't

And Azul does the 360 no scopes Cater wishes he could do

Scarabia:

Despite Jamil hating disliking Kalim, they work pretty well together

Kalim would main the octobrush and make little hearts when he's not failing at using the zipcaster (same)

Jamil mains the tenta brella since it has the respawn beakon, which Kalim uses a lot, and since it doubles as a shield, which Kalim also uses a lot

Neither of them are bad at the game, it's just that Kalim's a little airheaded and sometimes doesn't see when people are trying to kill him

And Jamil's really good, as he is with most things, and is able to fill in the parts that Kalim lacks in

Since both dorms only have two members, Scarabia and Ignihyde pair up a lot and they're almost as bad as Octavinelle

Pomfiore:

I feel like Vil only really plays because it's a popular game that would make him look good

Also, probably uses the splat brella just cuz it's one of the cuter weapons

Rook definitely uses the bow weapons and gets a little too excited when playing with them

Epel uses the blaster for the opposite reason that Vil uses the brella: flames

Since Vil, again, doesn't play very often, Rook and Epel either ask one of the duos to play with them or Yuu if they're available

Epel, just like ADeuce, is really aggressive and Vil, surprisingly, isn't against it since no one would probably recognize Epel playing (minus the apple-themes user name but still-)

Rook is also pretty aggressive but he also likes to protect Vil even though that's not how the game works but go off

Vil is pretty decent at the game and is just surprising average overall

Ignihyde:

Arguably the best Splatoon 3 players in NRC (even though that's pretty obvious y'know)

Idia, being the gloomy samurai that he is, uses the splatana wiper (and is somehow good at it despite it being a pretty ass weapon???)

Ortho uses the slosher just so he can build his special (missiles, yay!)

Like I said earlier, they tend to team up with the Scarabia duo since they both have two members on their teams

Since Idia is, obviously, cracked at the game and Ortho's a baby robot, they obviously do well when teamed up with Jamil and Kalim

Overall, they're just good at the game I dunno what else to say lmao

Diasomnia:

idfk know how to describe they're dynamic like-

Malleus "I don't fucking know technology" Draconia plays the hero shot replica since he wants to show people that he finished the main story

Lilia plays with a different weapon and different gear every time to spice things up

Silver uses the splatana stamper because it's a cool sword weapon and he likes swords

And Sebek also uses the splatana stamper because he wants to show Malleus that he's the better splatana stamperer

So yeah, literal chaos especially considering Sebek indirectly sabotages the team by being glued to Malleus, who forgot how to use his weapon, the whole time

Silver keeps trying to stay awake but fails to do so, sometimes in the final minute of the game

Lilia is the only reason they win, despite having completely random gear each round

Bonus Content:

All of the sophomores having a squid party except for Azul and Jamil, who are fighting

Cater, Kalim, and Lilia writing little messages and drawings to each other

Floyd's locker changing every day and somehow repeatedly getting worse

Trey spending way to much time making his locker look nice

Idia completing the main campaign + after alterna in a single day

Idia also hosting a competition between dorms knowing damn well he's gonna win

Silver and Sebek having an epic (?) sword fight for literally no reason

Riddle almost breaking his switch lite because ADeuce aren't focusing on inking the ground

Rook using the mailbox to write poems

Ace, Ruggie, Floyd, Idia, and Lilia using the mailbox to draw something among us related

Ruggie spending his free time in salmon run and trying to get as much money as possible

Vil spending a lot of time making a cute outfit just for the gear to be garbage

ADeuce, Jack, and Epel doing salmon run while Ortho, Sebek, Yuu and Grim watch

Yuu comparing Grim to Judd and lil Judd and getting him a little bowtie and flags

Malleus asking Yuu for help with the main campaign (mainly so that they can spend time together)

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst headcanons #heartslabyul #savanaclaw #octavinelle #scarabia #pomfiore #ignihyde #diasomnia

[katsotherworld]

My thoughts and ramblings for book 4 of HON: Untamed

(These are chronological throughout the book but are very random and I'm just posting it for fun.)

I knew that my gay friend was naturally the weakest link in the don't talk to Zoe chain. Sadly the twins answered me and not gay and therefore more sensitive and polite Damien.

Carmel colored used for Shawnee.

Aphrodite being just a place holder for humanity and Earth for Stevie Rae is really heartbreaking honestly. She may be a bitch but thats partially trauma.

"Swishy and fluttery" to describe gays, but Jack and Damien aren't that kind of gay, or Damien isn't and Jack is a little more. (Yeah, gotta love the gay writing.)

What hot guy scale. The bad boy hot guy scale.

"Kinda sexily sweating"

Stark's gift is such a mind bending and terrifying power. Like the ramifications of that kind of power is so untangible.

Humanity is different than being human.

Knowing what is to come is a little distracting because I don't remember enough to know things. Like I think Stark "dies" during this conversation but I also can't remember exactly.

"Sworn off sex, sex? I mean guys. And sex with guys." (Non direct quote)

And THERE IT IS! I fucking knew it.

"I just found you" -James Stark, thats heartbreaking. "I should have kissed more than just your hand, I thought I had more time."

Duchess is the most heartbreaking part of this whole ordeal.

Even the Nuns are feminists

"Kinda skanky" "kinda?" "I'm trying to be nice." "Ok, so am I." (Just more slut shaming.)

"I have to choose my humanity. And its not always as black and white as it may seem." -Stevie Rae to Zoey about being a Red Vampyre.

I can't remember Shekinah very well. I don't think she sticks around very long tho, I remember some characters and who dies but I can't remember exacts on most things.

"What if we outed you?" Why is the first assumption being gay and not the very obvious red marks?

Aphrodite getting so mushy about getting Maleficent is one of the cutest things ever. She is mean and hateful but not really because her own fault, she just needed the right environment.

I wish they would have acknowledged what happened to Zoey with Loren as sexual assault/rape.

God, Eric is unbearable.

I do not know this play like at all so I definitely don't understand the parallel at all. Gosh, thematic shit sometimes flies over my head, even with the AP Lit training lol.

Making out in front of the entire drama class is so dramatic and stupid lol.

Them forgetting lucifer was a fallen angel is hilarious as a Supernatural fan.

Kalona's obsession with cherokee women is probably because of Nyx's affection for the cherokee women.

The saw movies being scary is so stupid to me.

"Ok, that's majorly freaky."-Jack "It's totally queer"-Shawnee "And she doesn't mean that in the f-g sense"-Erin.

Zoey often forgets she can call upon all of the elements, like if something is attacking you call upon fire and make things burn.

Neferet is such a good actress.

Why isn't Shekinah reacting more to an adult vampire imprinting upon a fledgling?

The use of Cherokee legends, stories, and what not (idk what the correct usage of language for the use of Cherokee stuff is) is interesting, I like it cause I am Native but also having lived in Oklahoma is interesting.

Them underestimating the Ravenmockers on listening in to conversations was a huge misstep.

I love how much Aphrodite looks up to Grandma Redbird.

"Gay Tornado"

Of course Eric offered to give his blood for the cleansing ritual.

I'm waiting to see if my seething hate of Eric is justified through the whole story or not. If its just teen me remembering disliking him or if he earns it properly.

Zoey should have immediately thought of Stark when Neferet disappeared but I can see where she'd oversight that, but like, that's a GIANT mistake.

I love the descriptions of the rituals and the explanations for aspects of it, and it makes sense that Zoey would need parts of some of it explained to her.

Is this the first time Stevie Rae's tattoo was described? With the nature motifs, I can't remember.

Shekinah isn't very smart is she?

They had literally every piece of the puzzle but they never put it together.

Like they knew Stevie Rae would die at Neferets hands, that the earth would bleed, that Neferet was the Queen Tsi Sgili, that Kalona would be released, like they just didn't think anything through.

Poor Stark once again killing someone because his gift and it being someone Zoey knows and cares for. Then they just left him there.

Not me just chanting Kalona lol.

Like I'm just chanting Kalona in my mind lol.

Why would Nyx ever want them to bow to a man? Like its very matriarchal in the whole thing so why would Nyx send Erebus to be worshipped.

I know why I didn't remember Shekinah, she didn't last past a book.

All hell breaking loose in Tulsa on New Years isn't too out of normal lol.

#kats thinking things #house of night #house of night untamed

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

Disclaimer: This post is going to be Anti Moffat for anyone who’s reading and is a fan you’ve been warned.

S7E4 is The Power of Three and the first thing I thought about was Charmed lol but this episode was decent.

First of all the plotline is practically non-existent, and it’s solved in the most hand wavy way possible haha. I don’t know if the Shakri are from Classic Who, but they and their cubes were underutilized. Honestly it felt like the episode was focused on the Ponds and it’s the one that has developed them as characters the most out of nearly 2.5 seasons I’ve seen them in. I have already been spoiled to their finale, I know that they get trapped in the past but I don’t know any details beyond that. I really wish we’d seen more of their home lives before instead of just in the few episodes before they’re gone though. I feel like I am going to be sad when they’re gone b/c I’ve grown to like them, but it’s a superficial feeling if that makes sense, I haven’t connected with them at all. If I’d seen more of this side of them throughout their entire run things might be different. Seeing Brian again was nice and him telling them to go save worlds was very reminiscent of Wilf telling Donna to travel the stars. I didn’t like the dramatics of showing Amy and Rory discussing leaving their TARDIS life behind and making it seem like they were leaning towards stopping their travels only for Brian to reveal at the end that they actually didn’t want to leave the Doctor. Rory even said something like “I’m going to miss this”.

That being said I kind of like the dilemma presented to us in this episode with the Ponds having a “regular” life and their Doctor life. This is the first time I’ve seen companions being in limbo. Sarah Jane and Martha left the TARDIS life behind (or at least Sarah Jane did in School Reunion b/c that doesn’t seem to be the case in Classic Who) while Rose and Donna both wanted to stay forever. I find it sad that Amy says the Doctor was never really a part of their lives and that he seems to find it bothersome to even attempt it quitting after just one hour of waiting. 

Nine said he didn’t do families but I still feel like he tried in his own way to sort of be a part of Rose’s home life. He sat around in Jackie’s flat when the Slitheen invaded and sure he was antsy but not like Eleven was in this episode. He even relaxed later in the series having lunch with Jack, Rose and Mickey at one point and that’s only what we saw on screen. Ten was most definitely deeply embedded in Rose’s life, I really do think he saw the Tyler’s as family. He even had Christmas dinner with them shortly after regenerating! We didn’t see Eleven doing that until just a few episodes ago when he’s known the Ponds for so long. 

It saddens me that Eleven is written this way and I suppose you could say that after having lost so much as Ten he is now very firmly in the ‘no families’ territory, but I also feel like it has much more to do with the showrunner wanting it to be this way and that’s why we haven’t really seen their home lives at all.

I said it before but I wish the Ponds story had ended last series when he dropped them off to avoid placing them in danger. It takes away from the Doctor making such a massive mature decision when he keeps taking them away for weeks at a time and to keep returning to them for years of their lives. I really disliked how in this episode it was explained that the reason he kept returning to them was b/c Amy was the first face he saw. It’s a cute sentimental thought on the surface but you’re telling me the Doctor regenerates, sees a random person, and he’s going to keep going back for them? It feels like the Ponds have overstayed their welcome and to pad things out while they leave they had to put in this storyline of the Doctor taking them out on trips every once in awhile as they try to hold on to their home lives and the only explanation for it was that he saw Amy many years ago. I guess my biggest annoyance that I really started to think about in the last episode is why Eleven doesn’t just go find another companion who wants to be full time or several companions who are part time or call ahead to schedule visits. Considering he arrived for their anniversary on the right day he and the TARDIS could actually land rather precisely if need be.

Kate Stewart is the Brigadier’s daughter, she seems nice, and I liked the actress so I’m looking forward to seeing more of her. Overall the episode was alright but four episodes in and I’m really hoping the rest of the series blows my mind b/c I’m really having to push myself to watch these episodes.

#doctor who #anti moffat #moffat salt #dw watch #my ramblings #moffat didn't write the episode but i'm going to keep the anti tags just in case #the power of three #wondering if chibnall is the one that had the idea of brian or if that was moffat though #b/c he really would have wormed his way into my heart like wilf if i'd seen him since S5

[cceruleans-archived]

talk about us - lincoln and jack

What they define their relationship with your muse as:

Lincoln will swear black and blue that the relationship (if you could call it that) isn't even worth labelling and defining. He honestly has so many residual feelings (some good and some ugly) and it's a very conflicting time for him.

Something they like about your muse:

He likes her endless persistence when she's determined. It's what made him pay attention to her in the first place and there's this sense that the drive for her to do whatever it is that she's focused on at the moment is also a quality that could have potentially been directed to him - hence the conflicting emotions.

Something they dislike about your muse:

Probably that she mercy killed him. Put a real damper on those emotions.

Their first impression of your muse:

When he first saw her across the field or whatever all those years ago in Medieval Europe, he thought that she looked like a painting come to life, and at that point in his life, he wasn't really that interested in art but he definitely thought she looked like one of those really pretty paintings in the family home.

Their impression of your muse now:

There is a lot of anger that clouds his impression of her, and he tries not to dwell or think about it, because so much time has passed, but it's really hard for him not to feel that underlying rage, and it really shapes the way he feels about her.

How they feel about your muse:

Mostly anger and he wishes it could be indifferent and it was a large part of why he turned his humanity off for a good solid two centuries but he knew he had to turn it back on eventually and the feelings came flooding back.

Something they are hiding from your muse:

A lot of unspoken words, a lot of unshared feelings and he's not even sure where they start or end so they'll remain hidden.

Something they wish they could to tell your muse:

Genuinely, there's nothing that he wishes he could say - he's not the sort to hold his tongue but there are things that he feels and wants her to know, but doesn't want to verbalise them.

#( answered meme ) #c: lincoln dalton #m: lincoln dalton x jack taylor

[ruby-whistler]

The "redemption questionnaire" - the survey results.

Hello! Welcome back to the results of this survey, which is now closed - I really didn’t expect this amount of interest and am thankful for the ability to collect this much data on the subject.

Now, the reason I made this survey in the first place was this post crossing my dash. It talks about people wanting to see characters or people who they dislike suffer, even if healing is completely possible or even the better option - it’s about people denying that there is such a thing as bad people “deserving” things that we humans need to function, such as being loved.

This post talks about fictional characters, but despite that fact, it made me lose my faith in humanity just a bit. I am a pretty cynical person, but I also consider myself quite empathetic to existing and fictional people alike.

So, I got curious, and wondered - in the Dream SMP fandom specifically, is there a way to get input as to what people actually think about the issue of redemption?

[ tw for brief mentions of torture and abuse ]

So, the goal of the survey was get information to answer certain questions;

Do people think that some characters shouldn’t be redeemed or are irredeemable because of their actions, however don’t hold this true for others?

Are there people, who despite disliking certain characters, still believe that they deserve healing?

Would people want characters to suffer or even die for their actions rather than heal and be happy?

Do people think certain characters in the story don’t deserve to be happy?

Now, I did get some responses that were asking to include or exclude certain characters from the main three (Quackity, Dream and Wilbur - all names are talking about the characters only), however there was a very specific reason I chose these people.

Quackity and Dream have both done actions that have similar weight, while Wilbur serves as an outlier; someone who hurt people in more indirect, but still impactful ways. All three of them have been hurt - Wilbur mostly by Eret’s betrayal, Quackity by Schlatt and others, and Dream by Sam and Quackity. All three have contributed to a toxic and harmful environment, which in turn hurt them back even more and drove them deeper into becoming destructive.

Such a comparison between them would test the fandom’s ability to separate their feelings from in-story morality, as well as bring double standards to light.

Let’s see the demographic part of the survey first, as to see what we are working with;

Of the 390 people partaking in the survey, 44.9% like the direction the Dream SMP plot is heading at the moment, 3% do not and 52.1% are not sure.

Of the characters whose redemption arcs are most anticipated, 71% of participants are expecting a BadBoyHalo or Eggpire redemption arc, Niki/Jack and Wilbur coming close in second and third with 59.2% and 51.8% respectively. As for the main trio of this survey, Quackity lands with 28.2%, Dream with 43.3% and Wilbur with 51.8% of participants thinking a redemption arc for them is likely in the near future.

I would like to express right now that the characters included in the “possible redemption” section do not in any way, shape or form reflect on what I personally think about the characters. I don’t think certain characters need a redemption arc, however I left in the option in order to let people pick it if they wish to do so.

As for the healing arc question, quite understandably, Tommy and Tubbo are the characters most expected to get a healing arc in the upcoming storylines, sitting at 76.2% of participants. Niki and/or Jack come in second with 62.1%, and Quackity, Wilbur and Dream land at 25.4%, 45.9% and 42.8% respectively.

For the aforementioned questions, 3.6% or participants thought none of the Dream SMP characters would get a redemption arc, and 5.4% thought none of them would heal - and with the track record the story has so far, I honestly cannot blame them.

Now we move more towards the main trio;

48.7% of participants have positive feelings towards Quackity’s character, and 23.1% have negative ones. The majority of the participants (66.2%) think that his actions are intentional and hurtful, but interestingly enough, only 25.4% say they find them inexcusable and awful.

For c!Dream, 51.5% feel positively towards him and 35.7% do negatively. Luckily, 53.8% find his actions inexcusable and awful, while 40.3% find them intentional and hurtful.

c!Wilbur breaks the trend with 58.7% of people feeling positively towards the character and only 17.2% feeling negatively, however such a discrepancy can be expected when we compare his actions (found 65.1% of the time to be intentional and hurtful).

I want to preface this next section by saying that I have nothing against people who find redemption arcs unappealing, or wouldn’t find them narratively appealing in the specific story. These answers will be counted as merely neutral ground in the upcoming questions; you are completely valid if you think certain character arcs would not fit the themes or style of storytelling, or if you want bad people to stay bad for the sake of conflict.

However, 79.5% of people find well-done redemption and healing very appealing within the story, and 19% like it for certain stories and characters, so this shouldn’t impact the results on a large scale.

1. Do people think that some characters shouldn’t be redeemed or are irredeemable because of their actions, however don’t hold this true for others?

People’s reasoning for not wanting characters to heal varies, however the contrast between c!Quackity and c!Dream in this scenario is very intriguing.

Despite the two having done comparably disgusting things, one with more and one with less selfish reasons but neither excusable, both classifying under abuse, the people who think c!Dream shouldn’t get a redemption arc (9.7%) because of his actions greatly overshadow the people who think c!Quackity doesn’t deserve a redemption arc (1%) because of his actions. Hell, even c!Wilbur’s percentage is higher, sitting at 2.1%.

This is extremely surprising considering the demographic - and seems to hint at the fact that people who think positively of c!Dream are far more likely to think that c!Q and c!Wil deserve redemption and healing (despite the common argument that both have hurt him greatly) than it is the other way around.

Even sending a bad message is a lot higher with c!Dream (30.5%), despite the fact that c!Quackity’s actions and him as a character could be similarly triggering, and he himself sits at 2.6% of participants. Of course, this question could be partially taken as what he went through in prison making him better, which would definitely be a bad message to send, but considering the percentage (42.1%) of people who don’t want Dream to be redeemed, that’s still insanely high.

Overall, people from a very balanced demographic of people who are positive and negative towards the three characters, only 52.6% want Dream redeemed as opposed to the 83.8% with Quackity and 86.7% with Wilbur - and the reasons given seem to be largely based on bias and double standard, or even hypocritical in context.

For the fandom, this question’s answer seems to be yes, although from the people who are c!Dream positive, this sort of thinking seems to be of a much lesser extent and amount towards characters they dislike.

2. Are there people, who despite disliking certain characters, still believe that they deserve healing?

Let’s look at some of the comments given to this answer;

“On the one hand I do want Dream to recognize that his actions have hurt people, but I really don’t want torture to have ‘made him better’ or for the people he hurt to have to forgive him.”

“as much as I hate c!quackity and dislike c!wilbur, I believe that evil is not something you are, its what you do and as such I think every person deserves to heal and grow.”

“Quackity is the closest - he's spiraled far, but we got to see some of what he could be as a more moral man. Dream's arc would be....incredibly difficult to pull off, and while everyone deserves a chance to change, not everyone who does is ever owed forgiveness. And Wilbur....I dont know what would make him want to get better, but I want him to.”

“I wouldn’t like some of these characters to get redeemed(c!Quackity), but I know everyone deserves a chance at redemption because no one is mentally stable and not traumatized.”

“bastard men. on a serious note ive noticed a lot of evil in dsmp come from the perpetuation of the cycle of revenge and punitive punishment and i think excluding someone from them would. just not be a good message. and yeah c!dreams motives and methods being seen in separate characters is just proof of this - nothing that made any of these men villains are unique to them, and they are all shit-infested holes other characters can fall in.”

“i think every character on the smp has done horrible things and is morally grey, but i think everyone deserves the chance and the ability to heal and try to be better.”

“listen, i love big q, and i know he doesn't mean it, Wilbur also deserves better (far from tommy tho, they're not good for each other rn) and dream can go f**k himself, the only "healing " Arc that would ever make sense is if he escapes the prison and f**ks off to the middle of nowhere (wich is unlikely)”

“Even if I don't like some of the characters they deserve a chance at healing and moving on”

“Controversial opinion but Wilbur has been pretty shady from the start, so a redemption/healing arc just wouldn't make sense to me. He antagonized Dream to sell drugs.”

“i would like to qualify all my answers towards redemption as that they are /all/ allowed to get better, just not necessarily near those they've hurt. those they've hurt are under no obligation to forgive them or be involved in that.”

“REDEMPTION IS POG F**K IT EVERYONE GETS REDEEMED THE ONLY BIG BAD THAT EXISTS IS SYSTEMIC”

“Clarifying about my wilbur answers. A character can only get a redemption if he wants to change. Wilbur doesn’t want to change. I still think he deserves to heal but not to be redeemed. Those are two very seperate things”

“PLEASE JUST LET THEM GET HELP. ALL OF THEM.”

“i'm at sort of an impasse with c!quackity & c!wilbur. i don't like c!quackity in the slightest. i think he has great potential for a redemption arc, but i probably wouldn't be interested in watching it. on the other hand, with c!wilbur, i actually would watch his redemption arc, but i don't see it happening any time soon.”

“I answered " he deserves to heal and get better despite the actions he's commited; everyone deserves to heal and get better " for c!Wilbur but I partially Disagree with the "Everyone deserves to heal and get better" part. simply because some characters are irredeamable eg : c!dream”

“If c!Wilbur gets a redemption arc (I hope he does) I really hope it comes with learning that ethnostates and nationalism are not poggers. I'd be worried about the message it would send if he didn't learn that & it only focused on interpersonal stuff instead.”

“maybe a bit weird that i want c!dream to have a redemption arc but not c!q or c!wilbur, but hear me out. c!dream is being tortured in pandoras vault and we all know (no matter what the c!dream antis say) no one deserves torture. we have something to sympathize with with c!dream. with c!q and c!wilbur, i cant think of anything to sympathize with …. im not trying to say that c!dream is better than them, or that he didnt do bad things, but i sympathize with him much more than i do with c!q and c!wilbur because q and wilbur caused their own problems while a lot of dreams problems come from other people”

“We have both seen Wilbur and Quackity be relatively good people, or at the very least morally Gray people who had genuine love and care to those close to them. While with Dream we have never seen that, as he has always been focused on chaos, fun, and power.”

“I just want everyone to be happy and get along. C!Wilbur to get his problems fixed. C!Quackity to be happy and not have to worry about being the next c!Schlatt. C!Dream to finally tell us his side of the story and potentially join the syndicate?”

“Redemption isnt something any one can say is deserved or not”

“For me the main difference is thay wilbur and quackity (although having done bad things) did them out of grief or bc they felt like it was the only thing they could do for a sense of security (both after they lost something important to them). Dream on the other hand went out of his way and hurt others maliciously when he DIDNT have to or there were other less horrible/long-lasting actions he could done”

“The message that some people dont deserve to learn and grow from their past mistakes is harmful”

“listen.. i really hate c!quackity and c!wilbur right now so.. erm..in emotionally, i don't want them to have redemption arc because i hate them..BUT by using my brain i know that is a stupid excuse, everyone deserve redemption so..yeah sorry if it confusing you but honestly..the reason i hate them so much is probably because of the arc they on so..give them time and i think i will say i welcome their redemption arc with an open arm”

“i answered twice for dream because i have mixed feelings, while i think he is an atrocious person, i believe personally that forgoing forgiveness from others, he deserves to be happy and healthy and heal. hes clearly got issues of his own, and while it doesnt excuse his actions he also deserves the basic right to heal”

“I personally regard redemption as the act of simply becoming a better person, seperate from whether or not they are accepted or forgiven by their victims. With that definition, I think there is no being "deserving" of a redemption arc, it's something that everyone is entitled to if they chose to. Therefore, everyone, and I mean everyone, in as something as morally gray as the Dream SMP is capable of becoming a better person. It doesn't mean they get rewarded or forgiven for it, it just means they are capable of change and are able to fulfil character potential beyond being a villain.”

It seems to me like there definitely are a lot of people in each side of the spectrum, so this test seems to have come back positive; however, there are more questions that we have yet to answer.

3. Would people want characters to suffer or even die for their actions rather than heal and be happy?

Here is probably a good place to mention this questionnaire was more of a psychological experiment than a survey. Most of the answers were specifically designed and in such an order that would get your mind thinking about certain things before shoving your psyche into a difficult question.

Well, here comes the moment of truth; what sort of redemption arc do people prefer? Would they rather the character get better and reap the “rewards” (which are actually simply things every human being needs and deserves; love and happiness), atone for their actions but not get to be happy, or would they like them to suffer or be punished instead? Do people really treat basic human needs as “rewards” for being a good person; or are they only reserved for characters that were never bad people in the first place? Remember; all of these characters have inarguably gone through pain during their life. Just how much do people enjoy punitive justice, and should I literally just stick to my corner of the fandom for my own good?

The answer probably won’t surprise you!

Starting off, 82.8% want a happy or neutral ending for Quackity, 59.4% of which think he should experience good things in the end. 54.4% of participants want a happy or neutral ending for Dream, 62.7% of which think it should lead to him being happy and loved. 89.2% of people want a happy or neutral ending for Wilbur, 49.4% of which lean towards happiness over closure.

17.2% of participants would prefer Quackity to experience pain as part of his redemption arc. 8.5% want him to be mentally tormented by the weight of his own actions, and 5.6% think he should be punished before being allowed to get better.

For Dream, these percentages are way higher- and here is the funny thing, I thought that pretty much no one would say he should suffer before healing, because he’s already suffering for his actions indirectly by being abused by people who hate him for them. However, 7.2% of people think he has yet to be punished enough for his crimes in order to deserve being redeemed. 21.5% want him to suffer under the weight of his own actions, and 6.9% would want him to die instead of getting a happy ending. Overall, 45.6% would prefer a redemption arc for Dream in which he is subjected to pain or punishment.

10.8% of participants would want Wilbur to have a more difficult character arc, with the percentages pretty evenly divided between the options.

4. Do people think certain characters in the story don’t deserve to be happy?

“Deserving” basic human needs, or not deserving them for being bad people/being bad people in the past, is something I don’t personally agree with, however this is tumblr, not thought police, so let’s just look at the survey results.

While 68.5% of participants believe all of the characters in the story deserve to be loved and happy, only 66.2% think Wilbur does, 61.5% think Quackity does, and 38.5% think Dream does.

Let’s look at some closing thoughts on the subject as a closing note;

“I want everyone to have a sort of personal redemption. Where they realize they have hurt people. But I think it’s difficult. I mean Dream abused a child. Quackity tortured Dream relentlessly. I think the redemption arc that is the easiest is one for Wilbur because of cc!wilburs acting and emphasis on his characters mental health. But I think Wilburs also done so much f**ked up shit too. I think it’s difficult. I just think the redemption arcs are really really difficult.”

“i genuinely can't help myself, i want everyone to have the chance to be better.”

“i think that wilbur, quackity and sam should be redeemed because we as an audience know that they all believe they're doing the right thing and regret/didn't enjoy hurting people with their actions. but with c!dream, there's a lot more evidence that he knew what he was doing wrong and actively enjoyed doing it.”

“everybody deserves to heal. if someone wants to be better and strives to be better, who is anyone to deprive them of that?”

“I don’t like some of these characters and their actions, but everyone deserves a chance to heal. To work through their trauma.”

“dream doesn’t deserve shit, quackitys probably gonna keep riding the las nevadas train until it crashes and burns and wilbur should move on from being “the villain” and stop seeing everything as black and white”

“No one is beyond deserving help. That's not how the world works and that's not what the story should show in my opinion.”

“narratively, i want redemption and happy endings for all characters but morally, i really despise some of them and i'm also really conflicted about some of them as well”

“I want my faves to be better and I think it's the best possible option for everyone involved, even the characters they've hurt.”

“c!wilbur and c!quackity go to therapy. c!dream get hit by another train /hj”

“Hurt people hurt people. If given a chance to distance yourself from your victims and abusers, if given a safe environment with a support network of people you haven't formerly harmed, you can then heal and let the others heal. Live and let live, but living is harder for everyone when we don't give others the chances they need to grow and change themselves.”

“all of them deserve to find growth and happiness but under no circumstances are those who have been hurt by them obligated to be involved in any aspect of that arc. most obvious example- c!dream is allowed to grow and realize that what he's done is awful, but c!tommy is not obligated to forgive him or even be near him.”

“They can all improve and get better and be better people …. They all deserve a chance to be better and be happy. However. Wilbur and dream should get their "redemption" arcs away from esp. Tommy and all the other people they hurt. Big Q. should get his redemption arc away from Dream and stuff. If the prison was less focused on detainment and more focused on rehabilitation and then Dream had no contact with Tommy for example that's a scenario that I'd like.”

“is quackity actually considered a villain in this story? What has he done wrong lol Create a casino? be emotionally manipulated? have rejection sensitive dysphoria? I don't think he's a good person based on his current actions but i don't think hes a villain. I think he's trying hard to become something hes not. … I hate c!dream and I don't think he can ever get better. hes a manipulator gaslight gatekeep girlboss and i think he deserves to stay in prison and rot. watching the tommy exile arc would make me so angry that i had to stop watching.”

“i'm so CONFLICTED about this! i want the angst, but god the angst has been going on for a LONG time. honestly, i think the conclusion i would be happiest with would be for c!dream, c!quackity, c!sam, c!tommy, and c!wilbur to calm down, get some therapy, and stay VERY FAR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. god damn, it's like they WANT to get more traumatized,,”

“the loathing i feel directed at c!dream specifically is so goddamn strong. my god i hate that guy. uhhh regarding quackity no i dont feel like he shouldnt feel ANY pain or anything hes done some f**ked up stuff but i mean..? with the exception of the torture hes the most redeemable guy up there for me which is probably because we have seen his entire downward spiral.”

“I have to admit that although I strongly believe no one on the Dream SMP deserves to be tormented and deprived of their healing and happiness, I feel really icky about c!Quackity. I really hope that the ccs find a way to make his redemption logical and satisfying to watch. If that is not the case, I will still welcome it with open arms, but secretly I will be a little bit salty about it.”

“For the last question bit there i wanted to check more then once because i want them all to feel guilty and tormented for what they have done.”

“Yknow.... basic human rights... to be happy and loved isn't something that should be deserved it should be something that everyone is allowed to obtain for themselves and it shouldn't be allowed it should just be…”

“While i think that all of the characters should the chance to get redemption and healing, I’d probably be less likely to watch redemption arcs from c!Quackity and c!Wilbur than c!Dream, just because I dislike them. Not to say that they shouldn’t get them, because I hope they do, I’m just more like to be going “Good for them” in the distance.”

“I JUST WANT THEM ALL TO BE HAPPY PLEASEEEEEEEE -dr3”

“for the final question it doesnt provide a none of the above option or a some of the characters but not all option. since I dont think c!Dream deserves to be happy and loved but I do the other two (to some degree) but answering "all of the characters .. " I feel Includes c!dream who I ultimately just really hate and want to have nothing but a fictional death!”

“therapy. therapy for everyone.”

“f**k c!dream <3 i honestly don’t think people who abuse kids (or anyone) for fun should ever be redeemed i think they should just rot in a hole somewhere”

“It would be hypocritical to say that one character deserves redemption more than another, especially considering they've all done (almost equally) horrible things. Either everyone deserves redemption, or no one does.”

Conclusion: in the end, this is all the ways in which we like to enjoy fiction. However, for some completely unrelated reason, I am now about 45.6% less likely to attempt to interact with anyone outside my immediate group of friends in the fandom.

Thank you for reading!

#dream smp #dsmp fandom critical #tw abuse ment #tw torture ment

[blookmallow]

rating spirit halloween’s new animatronics for 2021

or at least what’s showing as New Arrivals on the site for me. looks like we got 15 new arrivals listed here and im HYPE about them so here we go

the caretaker

pretty standard reaper character with a Gravedigger theme to it. hes... fine? nothing about this particularly stands out to me, but i dont dislike it at all. i like his gravestone. would be good for a graveyard set. i guess ill give him... 6.5/10

mr. dark

at first glance he also just looks like a standard reaper character (or voldemort. he definitely looks like voldemort now that i think about it) but it turns out he SPRINGS UP RIDICULOUSLY TALL LIKE A CURSED WACKY INFLATABLE TUBE MAN and the spring motion in the video is actually really fucking fast so, while this isn’t a lot different from other jumpscare animatronics, i gotta give him credit bc i guarantee this would have scared the fuck outta me in person. according to the site he’s almost 9 feet tall at his full height 

i expected him to jump out and scream but i did not expect. That. i feel like if you put him up on a stage or something to make him loom over people even more he’d be very menacing indeed. would also be really good if you put him behind something so you don’t see him until he's suddenly There

i like him, 8/10 springy spook man 

click for more 

grave grabber

pretty much just a zombie but he’s cute i like him. i like the green eyes. i dont know what it is about him in motion but the video makes him kind of endearing to me for some reason and i dont know why. 6/10

ophelia

at first for some reason i thought the monster’s name was ophelia but i think that’s supposed to be the name of the victim? i think the idea here is “girl haunted by a Nightmare” but the fact that the monster itself is so small and doesn’t actually have a body for the most part makes this unintentionally hilarious to me 

like. it. it’s so small. it’s just a little shoulder demon. it’s so cute 

psst. hey do we have any more cheetos

anyway i like how the girl’s eyes move back and forth but the sounds she makes are uncomfortable and she just looks so. stiff and solid and there doesn’t seem to be any movement at all other than her eyes and the monster peeking out so it’s just kind of weird to look at. it’s an interesting concept but the execution is just strange and unintentionally hilarious. 7/10 bc i still think its really funny 

someone should buy this and mod it into chrona and ragnarok 

harriet hustle

WE DID IT KIDS WE FINALLY GOT A FEMALE CLOWN ANIMATRONIC im so happy i could cry i wish my store had her set up i want to meet her  

i love how they have her hanging upside down like this, it makes it so much more visually interesting than the figures that just kinda stand there looking spooky, even though she doesn’t really Do much (she just swings and her head moves around a little, just laughs, doesn’t have spoken lines) 

i love her outfit i love her hair shes SO cute i love this little murder gremlin i love her i love her 

im still waiting on spirit to give us a female clown figure that isn’t “creepy little girl” (ive commented before on how their only female figures tend to be either the Old Hag or the Creepy Little Girl and not a lot else) but i absolutely love this all the same 20/10

this one is fun too because we also have: 

henry hustle

according to the description he’s actually harriet’s dad!! we have an evil clown father and daughter duo here and im LIVING for it

i dont think ive ever seen spirit do characters that are related to each other like this that’s so cute,

apparently his wife/harriet’s mother left them and ran off with the ringmaster. he’s a single father clown trying to raise his evil daughter clown and i support him wholeheartedly

there doesn’t seem to be any more animatronics on this storyline, we don’t have the mother here and the only ringmaster animatronic they have is the rotten ringmaster who was released previously, but i doubt he’s the homewrecker ringmaster in question. he Could Be. imagine if your wife left you for That. we dont even know if henry’s wife was also a clown or not. spirit halloween clown lore going on here

anyway i absolutely LOVE this clown, he does something INCREDIBLY STARTLING AND UNEXPECTED which i dont want to spoil for you. go watch his video and see what he does its great 

my absolute favorite type of halloween animatronic is the “does something completely unexpected” category and this one is ALSO a clown and a GOOD clown at that

and he’s got this great vintage clown style i really like, i love scary clowns like this that actually look like they could believably be a real guy and not just some kind of mutant Clown Monster 

and hes got cards!! card suit motif!!! i love it i love him this is a great clown 20/10 for him too

w. raith 

we have this one at my local store and listen to me. im completely obsessed with this ghost

it’s pretty much just a ghost but it’s SUCH A GOOD ghost. especially in this photo here with proper spooky lighting and everything. i would absolutely LOVE to see this in a haunt attraction, it looks SO good even in bright store lighting. i feel like this under the right lights and in the right environment could look SO fuckign cool  

the shredded rag look!!! the ethereal glow!! the weird jellyfishy movement!!! the classic wooOoO oO o o ooo noises!! this may perhaps be the ideal ghost. it is without flaw. a perfect specimen. i fuckign LOVE this ghost i want it so badly but i do not have the space or the money for this thing 15/10 w. raith my beloved. my true love. maybe one day 

buzzsaw

at first i was slightly disappointed to see that this guy didn’t have an actual name, but then in the description apparently his name is Bill “Buzzsaw” Jackson and his backstory is he tried to be a wrestler but it didnt go very well so he grafted weapons in place of his hands. i guess. you know, to be better at wrestling. i dont really understand it and i definitely would not have gone with “disgraced former wrestler” as the concept for this guy  

but anyway we have mr jackson at my store right now, he’s Big, i like him. he doesn’t really move very fast and doesn’t jump at you, he just kinda swings his saw around. for some reason he just seems friendly to me and i dont know why. makes me think of like an uncle dressed up for halloween rather than an actual murderer guy. i dont know i cant explain it but i like him hes my friend 8/10

wacky mole

this guy’s also at my store this year, i didn’t know his name was wacky mole fsdgjsdg

he’s listed as a new arrival, but i thought i remembered seeing him before, and the description says he’s a returning fan favorite, so. i guess this is a re-release 

anyway pretty standard Scary Monster Clown. his teeth look like candy corn. i like it but i think they should just Be candy corn. i like his colorscheme and his silly giant buttons. light up eyes are always a nice touch. he doesnt really stand out but hes overall a pretty good clown. 7/10

grim

good ol’ classic skeleton. he’s pretty nicely modeled though and i highly recommend watching the video for this guy because he moves REALLY well for a spirit animatronic, he’s got a way wider range of movement than most of them do and his head moves really nicely. one of the benefits of a skeleton animatronic is you don’t have to deal with lip movement, so his jaw movements match with his lines a lot more realistically. i like the animated glowing eyes too, it really gives him a lot of personality. he’s really interesting to watch. like, it’s just a skeleton, but it’s a really really good skeleton, so, 8/10 

BEETLEJUICE!!

i love love love franchise character animatronics and spirit has so much great beetlejuice stuff this seems well suited to them but looking at it............. hm. hm

he just looks so. stiff and his face comes across like, deer caught in the headlights to me. it Does Not look very natural but it looks slightly better in motion (he just swivels from side to side and says a few phrases but it somehow looks less. shellshocked when he’s moving) 

maybe not the greatest execution but maybe he looks better in person and im still hype to see him so 8/10 regardless 

night stalker

we have this guy at my store too, im still not really sure what’s going on with his arms (did he just rip loose from them and leave them behind? did someone do this to him? i dont know) but i love a good spooky scarecrow. love his Wiggles. hes a pretty good boy. 6.5/10

here we have another pennywise, it pretty much just pops out at you, but it’s still pretty good. i like the full size one they had before better, but this one’s slightly cheaper and would be easier to integrate into a haunted house attraction since he comes with a built in set piece. it looks good but doesn’t do much. 7.5/10 i guess 

GHOSTFACE!!!!

FUCK YES I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS

please. please spirit halloween set him up in my store so i can see him

anyway hes got kind of the same issue beetlejuice has where the figure just. looks kind of stiff, and he looks more like a spooky ghost decoration than like, A Person. he doesnt seem to have any lines or anything either, he just kinda pops out. but then again i guess whenever we see ghostface in person in the movies he doesn’t usually talk anyway. i dont really know how id make this better but it seems a little underwhelming somehow. still hype to see it though. 7/10 i guess 

now if we could just get a jack torrance and a bela lugosi dracula id be content 

i would LOVE to see Red from Us but i doubt they’d do one. my other horror beloved is norman bates but i know if they made one of him it’d just be him in a dress waving a knife around (not that i wouldn’t still be hype to see him, but, y’know) (anyway. tangent. moving on) 

mr. howle 

it’s. a werewolf. he howls. that’s....... about it 

it’s a very nice looking werewolf, it’s a well designed figure and definitely looks very imposing, but it’s... just a werewolf. there’s not really anything particularly interesting or creative here. its a perfectly good werewolf. i dont have anything to say about this. 6.5/10 

i also just am not a werewolf person so maybe someone out there who has a greater appreciation for werewolves might like him more 

#spirit halloween #spirit 2021

[thefactsofthematter]

Royalty au?

ah yay i have SO many thoughts on this one!! this is definitely one that’s made up of a lot of vague ideas and not much actual plot, but it’s slowly and steadily coming together - the tag for this au goes over the basics!

i think my favourite part is the really unsubtle character foils that are javid’s roles. you’ve got davey who grew up in a poor farming community, joined the military out of total desperation to help feed his family, was surprisingly good at being a soldier and is incredibly well-respected, and is very very private when it comes to his personal life— he contrasts with jack, the literal heir to the throne of their kingdom: he grew up exorbitantly wealthy but fairly isolated, he’s desperate to connect with anyone so he’s a pretty open book when it comes to how he feels, and despite his status, the people around him have very little respect for him.

deep down, jack’s got a lot of heart, but even davey initially sees him as this spoiled brat who won’t listen to anyone and acts only in his own interests— that’s true to an extent, since jack isn’t exactly a very nice person when we meet him, but a lot of that stems from the fact that no one really believes in his ability to be any better, so he’s given up trying. a lot of his behaviour is a cry for help, but no one is listening, not even his own family - his brothers think it’s funny that he’s such a train wreck, and medda is so deeply frustrated with him that she just doesn’t have the patience to try and understand him anymore, which makes him try even harder to push her away.

both jack and davey are craving love and support, and they’re jealous of what they think the other has - davey has a few close friends, but he hasn’t seen his family in years, and he can’t understand why jack isn’t that close with his when they’re right there. jack, on the other hand, thinks davey has all this freedom - he lives independently, he’s got a career that he’s good at and respected for - but at the end of the day, davey was forced into his circumstances by poverty, and he’d much rather be at home with his parents and siblings, teaching at the school in their village. they both have to put in some work to get over their initial dislike of each other and find some understanding, but they’ll slowly realize how well they balance each other out, once they start to learn the truth about the other.

this was. a lot. but here’s a little passage from what i’ve got so far! it’s part of the first scene w jack and his family, so forgive the exposition-heavy dialogue tags:

"Oh, come on, Jack," Charlie teases. He's eighteen and an absolute nuisance, always happy to show off that he's the golden child that everyone wishes Jack would be. "It won't be that bad just to have a bodyguard— it'll be a bit like having a babysitter or a governess! Won't that be fun?"

"No, it surely won't," Jack huffs. He's hardly touched his dinner, too annoyed to even be hungry. If it weren't impolite and unbecoming for a future king to storm out of the room, he'd have done it by now. "It'll ruin my life."

"That's awfully dramatic," Medda says, biting back an amused grin, which only serves to make Jack feel more patronized. "You know, if you acted your age, maybe you wouldn't need a babysitter."

He catches Race snickering at that— only fourteen years old, the kid knows it's not his place to interject when the adults are arguing, but he's got no shame in laughing along like the obnoxious little thing he is.

"I do act my age," Jack huffs, after shooting Race a glare, "and that's what you have a problem with! Any other young man could could go to the bar in the evenings and no one would mind in the slightest, but because I'm /me/, suddenly it's not allowed.”

#aaaaa i’m literally so excited about this characterization #and this didn’t even TOUCH on the fantasy element but i’m pumped about that too #royalty au #tysm for giving me a reason to ramble about this!!!

[ultraintrovertedgryffindor]

Sweet Pandemonium - Gally (The Maze Runner) Part 5 of 16

That fact that I’m more consistent in these posts than I am with my schoolwork...RIP my college education 🤪

~~~~~~~~~~

(not my GIF :) )

To think the day wouldn’t get any weirder, and yet, Jeff seemed to drop the bomb that made your head spin.

“What?” You stuttered. You thought you only hallucinated the girl saying your name before, in the Box. “No, that can’t be right, man.”

Jeff shrugged. “I heard what I heard.”

“Geez, were you stung by a Griever or something?” You snapped, making Jeff hold his hands up in fake surrender.

“We should both go talk to her then if that’s the case. Plus, you’re a girl too. It might make her feel more at ease.” Thomas suggested.

“Oh, you noticed?” You huffed.

Thomas gently grabbed your upper arm, forcing you to walk with him. “Look, I know this situation is weird. Really weird. But we need to find out what she knows, why she’s here, and if she feels the way we do.”

You lightly shook your head, running your fingers through the knots in your hair. “I don’t know...this whole thing is messed up. I still have no clue why we feel connected in some way, man. Ugh, I feel my headache coming back...”

“Hey, I don’t either. But we should at least try to understand, okay?” 

You sighed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I mean, two strangers going up to talk to her at once, don’t you think she’d feel a bit ambushed? I would.”

“Yeah, okay, fine. But stay at the tower, alright?” You nodded reluctantly, Thomas giving you a reassuring smile. “Okay then, let’s go.”

Gally glared at Thomas as he walked up to the tower with you by his side. “Hey, it’s Thomas!” Thomas called up to the girl, and she stopped throwing rocks at the Gladers.

The girl peaked her head over the side of the tower, and you gave a little wave. “I’m going up, alone.” Thomas announced, giving you a light nod.

All the Gladers started to saunter away as Thomas carefully ascended the ladders of the tower. “Man, is this what all girls are like?” Fry voiced.

“Hey!” You pretended to be offended.

Fry paled at your tone, suddenly becoming a stuttering mess. “Well, I mean, well, I didn’t mean, uh, you just, uh, it’s like you’re one of us. Not like a boy! Uh-”

“Chill, Fry.” Gally chuckled, waving him off. “He’s got a point though. You definitely weren’t this hostile when you came up.”

“Probably cause I wasn’t constantly harassed with questions I didn’t know the answer to.”

Gally rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Come on, let’s leave the Greenies alone.” He said, turning around, giving you a look of confusion when you didn’t follow suit. “What?”

“She might need back up.” You shrugged.

Gally snorted. “From that shank?” When he saw you were actually staying, his amused face fell. “Something about girls gotta stick together or something, huh?”

You smiled weakly. “Something like that.”

Gally huffed, throwing his arms up weakly. “Fine. You know where to find me.” He said then walked away, catching up with the other Gladers.

It was a few minutes of waiting before Thomas called out for you. “You can come up.”

“You sure?” You asked, only for Thomas to wave you up as a response. “Alright then...” You mumbled to yourself, climbing the sets of ladders.

You almost gasped when you saw the girl holding a machete by her side. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Thomas quickly reassured you.

“I’d very much like it if she put the machete down.” You said with a nervous chuckle.

The girl reluctantly handed the blade over to Thomas, and you felt safe enough to fully enter the top of the watch tower.

“You’re Y/N then?” The girl voiced.

You nodded. “Yep, that would be me.”

“This is Teresa.” Thomas introduced.

“Wow, she remembered her name already?” Thomas nodded. “Well, nice to meet you, Teresa.” You said, her name flowing off your tongue perfectly.

Thomas handed you a couple vials of blue liquid, and you looked to him with confusion. “What’s this?”

Thomas immediately huffed, leaning back defeatedly. “I was really hoping you’d have some idea.”

You furrowed your brows together. “Why would I know?”

“Teresa and I already talked about this. It seems like we’re the only ones that are different.”

“What, different how?”

“We feel connected, you and me, Teresa and I...and we can remember certain things too.”

“Can you remember anything?” Teresa asked, and you quietly sucked in a breath.

“I have these weird dreams...but, I thought they were just dreams, you know. I saw you, Thomas, in my dreams. And I heard this woman speaking-”

“Saying that wicked is good?” Thomas interrupted, making you blink in shock.

“Yeah...” You whispered softly.

All three of you seemed to not know what to say after that. Looking out the tower, you saw Gally from afar, looking at the three of you sitting together with his arms crossed. Seeing him in a dream felt even weirder to you almost, especially since he was struggling from what you could decipher. But you felt no reason to give out that information, knowing that Teresa and Thomas couldn’t be able to tell you even if they wanted to.

You looked down to the vials in your hands, seeing the W.C.K.D logo that seemed to be everywhere around the Glade and the Glade’s supplies. “What do you think these do?” You voiced, not really expecting a real answer. “There’s a needle at the tip, like a syringe or something.”

“I thought about that too.” Thomas paused. “Maybe they could help Alby.”

“We don’t even know what it is though.”

“Probably not gonna damage him anymore than he already is, could it?” Thomas shrugged.

“I suppose it’s worth a try.” You stood up. “We should tell Newt.” You reached out a hand to Teresa, offering her a smile. Giving back a smile, she took your hand and you lifted her up.

You, Thomas, and Teresa all walked to the Med-jacks, seeing Newt already there watching over Alby. “What is it?” Newt asked.

“These were in Teresa’s pocket when she came up.” You said, handing the vials to Newt.

“We think it can help Alby.” Thomas said.

“We don’t even know what this stuff is. We don’t know who sent it, or why it came up with you. I mean, for all we know, this thing could kill him.” Newt fussed.

“He’s already dying. Look at him. How could this possibly make it any worse?” Thomas said. “Come on, it’s worth a try.”

Newt looked on at Alby, debating it for a minute before he finally gave his answer. “Alright...do it.” He said to Thomas, handing him a vial.

Thomas quickly went over to a struggling Alby, situating the syringe to his skin. “Okay...”

Everyone jumped in shock as Alby suddenly grabbed a hold of Thomas. “You shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t be here!” Alby screamed at him, his eyes open wide in fear.

You and everyone in the room quickly went to hold Alby down as he fought to free himself. “Get the syringe!”

Teresa quickly injected the syringe into Alby, him immediately calming and passing out. “Well...that worked.” Jeff said.

“Geez...” You exhaled a shaky breath and placing a hand over your chest, feeling your heart beat rapidly. “I, uh, need to take a breather.”

“Okay, from now on, someone stays here and watches him around the clock.” You heard Newt say as you exited the room, walking out of the building to take some needed deep breaths.

It was dark out, and you could feel the weight of your tiredness hit you as the cool night air blew past you. You were actually looking forward to sleep. But then seeing Gally walk up to you made you remember you couldn’t sleep in your comfortable hammock that night. “Hey...” He said.

“It’s time, huh?” You weakly smiled.

“Hey, I’ll try to make it up to you, okay?”

“No need, Gally. I broke the rules, plain and simple. Shall I go get Thomas?” You asked, pointing back to the building you just exited.

Gally rolled his eyes. “No. I’d prefer to walk with you without that shank.”

“Well,” You motioned in the direction of the Slammer, “lead the way, Captain.”

You noticed Gally glancing at you from time to time on the way to the Slammer. “What?”

Gally sighed softly. “I just really wish I didn’t get you punished for something stupid...”

“And what about Thomas?” You smiled playfully.

“That shank actually deserved to be punished.” He scowled.

“Why do you hate Thomas so much?” You asked, starting to get really annoyed all of a sudden.

Gally shook his head disapprovingly. “He’s changing everything. He’s gonna destroy everything, everything that we’ve worked so hard to build. He’s probably gonna get us killed. And that girl...who knows what she’s gonna do.”

“The girl’s name is Teresa...”

Gally stopped walking half way to the Slammer, turning to you with a slight glare. “What you said about Thomas...did you mean that?”

You were rendered speechless. You had no idea how Gally would react if you buckled down on your feeling about Thomas...and now Teresa. Would he start to dislike you too? “I...” You stuttered.

“You said you felt like you knew him. Why?”

“I...I really don���t know why. It’s just a feeling...”

“And the girl, Teresa, what about her? I heard she was saying your name too. And you all were talking up on the tower.”

You sighed, reluctantly nodding, not being able to lie to Gally. “I don’t know what’s going on, Gal...” You whispered. He kept his typical harsh expression plastered on his face, his grip on his torch tightening slightly. “I guess you hate me now, huh...” 

Gally sighed through his nose, turning back to continue walking to the Slammer.

You tried not to tear up as you kept following after him, trying not to trip over roots and twigs that littered the ground as Gally kept his torch in front in him.

Gally opened up one of the Slammer doors, waiting for you to get in the makeshift cell, avoiding your eyes.

You walked up to the cell, but stopping in front of Gally. He didn’t even look at you. “Gal...” He briefly met your gaze. “...I’m sorry.”

Gally didn’t say anything as you entered the cell, taking a seat against the back wall. He paused for a moment, keeping the cell door as he looked at you. He took a deep breath, “I don’t hate you, Y/N.”

You looked up at Gally, who already locked you in the Slammer for the night. You gave him a thankful smile. The torch was the only thing illuminating his face, giving his features a soft orange glow from the fire.

But it was enough light to see he gave you a smile back before he left to go get your Slammer buddy.

Usually, spending the night in the Slammer would be extremely uncomfortable. It was, but with Thomas in the cell next to you, it wasn’t too bad. Plus, Chuck brought you food, which you told him to remind you to give him a giant bear hug when you got out in the morning. Or just let him have half of whatever Frypan would cook up the next day.

Thomas was excited for his first proper run, which you thought was absolutely insane. But after overhearing his and Chuck’s conversation, you felt a burning passion to escape the goddamn maze, if not for you then for Chuck.

Thomas seemed like he could find a way out.

Only living in the Glade for just over a month, you never had enough time to adjust to the idea that you’d be trapped forever. You still had hope, and hopefully it was a good thing. Unlike Gally, someone who’s been trapped for so long he’s grown used to being in the Glade. It almost seems like he’d forgotten that he was even trapped, it’s home to him now.

The thought that Gally had lost hope a long time ago made you incredibly sad. None of you deserved to be trapped in the Glade. It might’ve been silly, but you really had hope for Thomas, for him to finally be the one to get everyone out of this mess.

The thought alone kept your hope ignited for a better future, and you wanted Gally to be in that future. 

You just hoped he felt he same, even if you had a different perspective than he had.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m starting to forget how to movie goes lmao. I’ll have to rewatch it😂 

#the maze runner #tmr gally #gally x reader #gally #sweet pandemonium series