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brucenorris007 · 1 year

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AGH!

I have another brainworm today, courtesy of scrolling through @gayemeralds blog last night and seeing their take on the Sonic films, which I haven’t even watched except for a few clips this morning. And it may or may not be apparent at this stage, but when my brain sees something broken in a fandom I love, IT STARTS SPITBALLING WAYS TO FIX IT, so... Here we are again.

(I’mtryingtoworkonONEFICrightnowandtumblrjustkeepswaggingfixationsinfrontofmystupidbrainadfadfasdflsdafjslik)

Primary issue with Filmverse Sonic: the themes don’t match. Not within the canon of the filmverse, but against just about every other iteration of Sonic that’s ever existed; there’s a de-emphasis on freedom and exploration and more of a focus on security, home being a single place, and finding happiness staying still.

NOW, part of the reason for that is that Sonic is given good cause to feel more nebulous about a nomadic on-the-move lifestyle than other incarnations, as the opening of the first movie shows us. Instead of running being his personal freedom, it’s framed as necessary for his safety against a threat that’s immediately made very tangible, so the idea of not having to run anymore and finding a place he can return to would be a source of comfort, not unrest for him (barring dealing with the trauma of his guardian sacrificing herself for him, natch.)

Simple enough to remedy, methinks; if you want to maintain Longclaw’s role in the story–and actually, the first few minutes does pretty decently setting up the ‘chosen one AND just some guy’ dichotomy for Sonic–then just spice things up with a little subtlety.

How about Longclaw realizes one day that a threat, may or may not be made clear it’s the Echidna tribe, has found the island and so she pulls one of the cons parents sometimes do; “Say, Sonic, I think we should play a game today. You’ve been good about staying cooped up, I know it’s hard. How about you take these rings and see if you can hide out on a different world? I’ll come looking for you in a little while; make sure you do a good job hiding! Take some extra rings in case you get lost.”

Obviously, she doesn’t follow, Sonic waits her out until he realizes she isn’t coming, he might find his way back to Mobius and discover her fate or he might not; in any case, he still ends up on Earth, running from his past (and from those looking for him, whether or not he knows it) and in doing so, learns to find comfort in being on the move.

Bonus, that initial betrayal of his trust makes him wary of bonding with anyone, adults in particular. Also, if the movie knows what its doing, don’t reveal all the origin stuff outright in the first five minutes; hint at it throughout and then give the audience a WHAMMY when he finally talks about feelings because he learns to trust later in the film, or even in the second film.

Alternate opening: slow fade in, a scene of grassy knolls, gradual pan out to reveal a highway and power lines, confirming we’re on Earth and not Mobius. Still shot, music, then SHOOOOM! blue blur tearing past breaks the soundtrack.

Cut to a stretch of highway farther on, SFX tell us the blurs’ moving from stage right and going to come into shot; a car appears in eyeline first, and the streak of blue leaps into bushes off the main drag.

Car passes. Spines pop out. Green eyes glance after the car’s rear bumper. Sonic’s voice starts narrating over his actions.

“I know what you’re thinking; you’re wondering, who’s that handsome blue devil?” etc. etc.

Maybe that’s just me. ANYWHO. That explains Sonic’s fierce independence and initial wariness to interact with others and why he feels the way he does about a static life in the same place. We’ve gotten rid of that part of the “happiness can be found standing still” theme. The other portion stems from Tom’s existence, which was another complaint and I’ll get to that, but first!

What breaks Sonic’s status quo of hiding and self-isolation? Who does he interact with first?

Maddie.

He finds an injured animal–bird, rodent, any small critter he could actually carry–and being the inherently good dude he is, wants to help. He tries on his own, since anything else would require approaching humans, before he admits the problem is beyond his capabilities and he looks for a vet: hence, Maddie.

Maybe initially he goes at night to help him avoid being seen, before it sinks in that people and even vets have working hours and so he camps out as near town as possible while remaining hidden until it opens and drops off the injured critter at the back door and making a racket to guarantee someone will find it. He only watches the place long enough to assure himself that the birdie’s been helped properly before he runs again.

He hopes that’s the end of things, that he doesn’t have to put himself at risk of being seen again, but no; he keeps finding wayward, inexplicably weak/injured creatures in the forest (OOH, this can tie into Robotnik) and so against what he thinks is his better judgement he keeps making drop offs.

At some point, he becomes just a touch too comfortable with it, because the animals are getting help each time and he isn’t getting caught, and one night he naps a little longer than he means too outside the back door to the clinic and Maddie sees him. *Cue awkward beat of silence as they both realize several things, and Sonic wants to flee but he can’t move too fast before he passes off the injured birdie*

Lacking anything else to say to the bright blue talking hedgehog that’s been dropping off nearly half of her recent patients, Maddie politely asks if he’s had any problems he wants looked at. Sonic gives her a wary glance and a shake of his head before disappearing again.

Contact established, an acquaintance and subsequent friendship can develop. Sonic lingering longer at drop offs, checking in on his tiny rescue critters, Maddie inferring that he likes being off the grid and takes pains to hide lingering quills or other traces he leaves behind without meaning to, she starts smuggling snacks into work because she doesn’t know whether this skittish little friend-shaped creature last ate, inevitably Sonic shows up at her door injured himself.

Maddie reaches a point where she realizes Sonic should probably be exposed to more interaction/socialization/beings who can talk to him than the quasi-daily five minutes he spends with her.

Enter Tom.

Now, whether or not Tom needs to exist in the filmverse at all is up for grabs, but let’s run with the thread of keeping him. First and foremost, he cannot be a cop, or at least cannot stay a cop unless he’s only there for a minor comic relief part and showing police ineptitude when it comes to or compared against Sonic. SO.

We make him a liiiiiiiitle bit of a human parallel to the blue blur. Let’s say he’s... a few years younger. Not a teenager by any stretch, he still lives on his own, but he’s lost; emotionally, spiritually, whatever. Got his own sad story to tell or not tell, pretty new to the force, certainly not a sheriff. In limbo w/ no family, not unlike Sonic, not particularly interested in being a cop but applied to for the job “For security, I guess. We need to put down roots, right? (he said, sounding only marginally sure at best)”

Closet nerd–might be relevant for second film when he meets Tails and they can mutually geek out over ancient stuff–secret desire to explore the world, possible amateur history buff, and the last thing he shares in common with Sonic is that he’s friends with Maddie. Since Tom doesn’t take his job all too seriously and, in Maddie’s words “Only thinks he’s a grown up” she figures he’s the ideal person to just hang out with Sonic a little. “Y’know, if you want to talk to somebody while I’m at work.”

(Also, Tom’s holding onto a power ring that’s since lost its luster, though he obviously doesn’t know what it is and this could help break the ice between him and Sonic so they have more than superficial conversations and also tie into lore about the emeralds being on Earth later and Tom’s obviously not got some super important lineage or anything he’s just some guy like Sonic but the ring found its way to him and adfsdfsdf MOVING ON.)

Then, Robotnik. He’s.... very very clearly characterized in the films to cater the stories toward young children to get them into Sonic. Or to be what some people think cater more toward young children; it’s not that kids wouldn’t like the other incarnations of Eggman that already exist.

The aim of his portrayal’s another issue: fact remains, he’s only just kinda gets a pass as Eggman. There’s not really much trace of the hyper-calculating straight up mean bastard we all know Robotnik is. He does mean things, sure, but I mean... eh. Rather than investing quite so much in him being funny, nudge that aim slightly to the left closer to unhinged. Because as anyone on this site will tell you, unhinged leads to some downright hilarity.

Make his status as a respected intellect on Earth more begrudging, establish somehow that a lot of people think he’s lost a fair bit of the plot because he’s held the existence of Mobius as a pet theory for years and no one’s listened to him. Remember when I mentioned him earlier? Have him doing experiments and screwed up things to the wild critters because his machines have detected traces of peculiar energy signatures lingering around them; energy that emanates from Sonic.

Also, that guy who apparently... makes him coffee? Simps for him? Haven’t watched the films, and even seeing clips I don’t remember his name, but HO BOY THE POTENTIAL THERE. You could take either the Snively route from SatAM or something closer to the comics/games and have one of the extra clips at the end of the first film’s credits (or in the midst of the second film before revealing Eggman’s returned) be the crony’s robotization. It’d be so easy to frame things in a way that’s funny enough on the surface for kids while the millennial fans will be laughing for entirely different reasons (”WHAHAHAHAHAAAAT THE FUUUHUHUHUUUCK!”)

Ahem.

Finally, the plot: my brainworm hasn’t quite progressed that far yet. But Robotnik would somehow discover evidence of Sonic’s existence and thus get an absurd amount of funding for hunting the hedgehog from the government, the police get involved, Tom Does Not Like how the police handle getting involved, Sonic ultimately grows enough to declare that he’s made friends and/or trusts the humans who’ve helped him, decides to start fighting instead of hiding, beats Robotnik (sends him to another world? I think that happens at the end of the first film?) and Tom is called in for doing some or many things against orders/regulations/whatever and he’s told he’s on suspension.

Then, in a subversion of every other scene we get when a cop is being suspended, when he pulls off his badge and looks at it and we get the close up shot of him holding it–contrary to every other such shot I can remember–it’s dirty. Damaged in action instead of something pristine, something to feel conflicted about. Someone says “It’ll be detailed and good as new when you come back.” Tom ends his role in the scene with “Don’t bother. I don’t want it.”

And he makes his exit.

Movie closes out (I thought maybe a spark between Maddie and Tom could model for Sonic a different kind of love than the one of a guardian or a friend, but it’s not essential) with the question of what Tom and Sonic are going to do now that the former’s quit his job and the latter’s existence has been outted.

Tom: “I dunno. But actually, I’m... I think I’m okay with that.” (Growth enough to let go of the idea that he could fix his restlessness by tying himself to one spot)

Sonic: “Lay low, I guess. Might pop over to another world for a bit,” (in response to sad looks) “I’ll definitely visit, though. Need my chili dog fix.”

“Nothing else?”

Cue Sonic opening his mouth for a wisecrack, and instead he chooses to let some vulnerability show through on his face. Maddie discreetly pulls out her phone to take a picture, realizing she doesn’t have any of her two friends in the same place at once.

Click.

Tom, for some reason, blinks, looking a little dazed, and Sonic refuses to make eye contact with either of them. They say their goodbyes and he speeds off.

Cut to Maddie checking her camera roll, only for a small miracle to greet her.

An almost perfectly captured millisecond of Sonic hugging Tom.

Soundtrack fades in over Tom driving into the sunset, driver’s side window rolled down and most of his life packed in the bed of the truck, a map for South America splayed open in the shotgun seat, the power ring hanging from a string around his neck. Close out on Sonic narrating again, introducing himself, upbeat tone notably more genuine than at the start of the film.

“I’m Sonic–Sonic the Hedgehog!”

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rohirric-hunter · 4 years

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The surface level magic worldbuilding of TtS is a fic writer’s dream, honestly, because I can write basically anything, chalk it up to magic, and have it be consistent with canon.

As a theorist, however, I absolutely detest it because I’m over here like

trying to find a set of consistent behaviors for the Moonstone.

#tts #like okay #canon gives us a very simple dichotomy #the sundrop heals #the moonstone destroys #except!#the moonstone is also indestructable??? for some reason??? i guess you could chalk it up to not being weak to itself #but now were in theory territory like i just made that up #it makes logical sense but theres no canon precedent for it #anyway the sundrop isnt usually indestructible but it can be when its borrowing its power from the moonstone #which is a thing that it does for some reason #it looks like when its vessel is destroyed or damaged it can either go dormant or transfer itself #but again thats pure conjecture!!!! i dont KNOW that #theyre supposed to be two halves of a whole but when rapunzel and cassandra fight rapunzel is clearly more powerful #is that because the sundrop is more powerful than the moonstone?#is it because the sundrop is borrowing power from the moonstone?#is it because rapunzel has more experience wielding the power?#WHO KNOWS #although personally i would guess the latter because in their next confrontation cassandra came out on top #but eh #why did rapunzel lose access to the healing abilities of the sundrop #was it because her hair was cut???#was it because she used it to bring back a dead person #potentially something she wasnt supposed to be able to do #unlikely given the finale but hey #and dont even get me STARTED on the red rocks

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witcher-trash · 3 years

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Weekly Witcher Fic Recs 3

(I have a lot this week haha) All Your Life (lambert-centric, angst, complete, mature, 1k) Lambert is a parrot. Lambert is a parrot and it’s eating him alive. Lambert is a parrot and there is nothing he can do about it.

Cat in the bag (aiden/coën/lambert, complete, mature, 15k) Aiden gives a cheeky little grin. “I’ll write down the recipe for you once we’ve survived this entire mess.” “If we survive.” Lambert sighs as he shrugs his shirt back on. Their plan does have a reasonable chance of success, true, but the risk is still substantial and a lot of it depends on factors he can’t really control. “We will.” Coën radiates the same optimism and calmness that he displays in the face of almost every adverse situation, something that Lambert has come to rely on more than he sometimes likes to admit. “Well, let’s see it this way – if it goes wrong there is a good chance that all of us will be dead, so not much to worry over, no?” Aiden adds cheerfully. * Coën and Lambert take a contract to protect a king from assassination. A straightforward contract, really - until it turns out that one of the supposed assassins, a Cat School witcher, has decided to go rogue. Now, the three of them have to figure out whether they can trust each other and how to keep both themselves and the king from getting killed.

Crimes Against Gwent (lambert&geralt, complete, teen and up, 2k) Lambert leaps from his chair at the dining table so forcefully that it topples backwards with a loud clatter, and quickly rounds the table to tackle Geralt, bowling him over without any regard to their surroundings. Geralt’s chair tips back with the both of them in it, creaking and then slamming to the wooden floor. The two of them tumble backwards, rolling onto the plush rug in the living room as they grapple with each other. Geralt has the audacity to laugh, full-bellied and genuinely happy, and it makes Lambert squawk indignantly. The older witcher shoots Lambert a grin and Lambert lunges again. or, Geralt “cheats” at gwent.

Following the Thread (aiden/lambert, wip, 25k, explicit) Lambert thinks Aiden is dead, and killing Jad Karadin is just the final step in that journey. That is, until the truth comes running him down. Aiden is very much alive, he's just missing, and Lambert will do anything to find him and to set things right. If they happen to fall in love along the way, no one is complaining.

Hug a Witcher Day (geraskier, complete, teen and up, 14k) Jaskier writes a new song ‘Hug a Witcher Day.’ It gains insane popularity and Geralt finds himself hugged by random strangers on one particular day every year. He doesn’t mind the hugs. And yet, He realizes that Jaskier has never hugged him. Not on that day, not ever. Oh, but Jaskier looks like he gives great hugs. What can a witcher do to get one from his bard?

Leave You Behind (eskel/lambert, complete, explicit, 2k) “I won’t leave you behind, i promise.” He sounded so sincere. Lambert took a deep breath and nodded, steeling himself for Eskel’s inevitable departure. He’d take the lands to the south this year while Lambert headed west. Neither were sure what Geralt would be doing - perhaps he’d be too distracted by destiny to make much of a dent in outstanding contracts at all. ++ It’d taken decades for the two of them to finally get together. And now that Lambert finally had him, he wasn’t sure he could let go

Living Like This (geraskier, teen and up, wip, 9k) Based off of the ‘Robber: *wakes me gently* ‘You live like this?’’ meme. Geralt is a single father, jobless and down on his luck. One night, a masked man breaks in to his apartment meaning to steal from him only to find that there is nothing there to take…

Love is an Ongoing Process – series (geraskier, mature, wip, 40k) Netflix Canon-related Geraskier falling in love over the years series. It has all the following tropes: Bed Sharing, Geralt Apologizes, Geraskier Slow Burn, Witchers Senses and Pining. Divided in one-shots in a series instead of chapters in a single fic in an attempt to prevent myself from writing too much.

my dearest love, i'm not done yet (jaskier/yennefer, complete, mature, 5k) It's a funny thing, really. A last memory. As if every memory before that counts for nothing, as if that last one will define a love of a life. As if she would love him less if she saw him in agony. As if her heart wasn't already given away and thrown aside with the most violent way. As if the sound of the bottle shattering on the floor wouldn't wail in her ears forever. or A death for a life, a potion and four days. Yennefer wishes it was that simple.

number one wiener eater (aiden/lambert, complete, 8k, explicit) When Lambert loses the hot dog eating contest that he’s won for the past three years in a row, there’s nothing he would love more than to find who beat him and punch them in the face. Unfortunately, he was too busy throwing up to know who the winner was. All he knows is that he’s kind of maybe in love with the guy who held his hair while he puked.

Sometimes I Can See the Wounds (geralt/eskel, complete, teen and up, complete, 3k) Eskel is wounded in a hunt, and no one in the three towns he passes on his way back to Kaer Morhen will give him aid. He arrives at the keep in bad shape. Geralt has a bit of a breakdown about it. This is very soft with a soft ending.

The Alchemist. (aiden/lambert, complete, teen and up, 3k) "This person is known only as ‘the Alchemist’ and neither I, nor any of my associates, have been able to gather any more information on him. I require someone to locate this person and… dispose of the problem.” In which, Lambert is offered a contract and finds what he thought he'd lost forever. Written for the Save A Witcher Bingo! The prompt was secret identity.

There Must be More to Life. But What? And Why? (iorveth/roche, mature wip, 2k) The universe is bound and determined to make Vernon Roche enjoy retirement, even if it means forcing his hand in the matter.

Three Bells, Each With a Separate Sound (aiden/lambert/voltehre, complete, explicit, 30k) In a dank cave in the Blue Mountains, a stripling just barely past the cusp of manhood looks up at a cyclops looming over him and raises his arm in a futile effort to ward off the massive hand as it swings towards him. On the banks of a river, hundreds of miles and precisely five decades later, to the day and the hour and the ticking second, a man raises his hand to deflect the arrow hissing towards him and knows he’s going to be too slow. Both of them have the exact same thought as their deaths approach: Lambert is never going to forgive me.

Tired Of Chasing Ghosts - series (arnaghad/erland of larvik, guxart/keldar/vesemir, wip, explicit, 18k) "A feast," Erland replies. "A revel." Any and every joyful memory from Skellige he harbours involves some kind of celebrational drinking. If it could tie together wind-whittled seamen and -women that mistake insults for proclamations of affection, it can tie together this young collection of witchers. "A revel... with dancing?" Arnaghad sounds pensive, but underneath that, Erland can hear the first inklings of ideas sprouting to life. "Yes." "Alzur-" "Doesn't give a shit," Erland cuts in. "And neither does Cosimo." Only then does he step back to give Arnaghad the space to ponder. "Think about it. Find me after dinner in the stables." In which: Erland wants to make a home out of Morgraig and Arnaghad makes an exception. A song you know's begun - series (geraskier, wip, 200k+, mature) Jaskier wasn't exactly sure what he had expected Kaer Morhen to be like but the keep was everything and nothing like it. The place was a dichotomy. Magnificent and sad in equal measures in its derelict state. Silent but full of noise. Cold yet filled with warmth. But most importantly, it was Geralt's home. Seeing him so relaxed, the sharpest edges rounded down with the knowledge of being safe and surrounded by his family was a beautiful sight to behold. Jaskier wished he too would relearn what safety felt like.

#the witcher #geraskier #lamden #iorveth/roche #geralt/eskel #fic recs

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winterscaptain · 4 years

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anyway we could get a worried!hotch blurb when you’re in the hospital after getting injured? i’m a sucker for anything fluffy with hotch

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader

i LOVE worried!hotch. i am always happy to oblige, anon! this is.........not a drabble lmao i got excited. its a little angsty but then its really cute i promise

i hope you like it!! it’s a common scenario with a widely accepted structure, so i was excited to put my own spin on it :)

words: 1939 warnings: swearing, canon-typical injury, medical setting, a very worried hotch

masterlist | requests closed

+++

You weren’t sure how this case slipped from the team’s control so quickly, but somehow you were alone, on the floor with two black eyes and at least three broken ribs. It was hard to breathe, and something really didn’t feel right.

The unsub was unconscious beside you, felled by a well-placed kick to the jaw. You crawled to your cell phone. Slowly. Painfully.

The coughs that shuddered from your lungs were wet and heavy and you could barely see. You turned your phone on and called Penelope, falling unconscious before you could say anything. With any luck, she would be able to find you with just that much.

+++

Hotch’s knuckles were white where his fingers strangled the steering wheel. His only focus was the coordinates he just received. Ignored was Emily’s death grip on the handle above the door. Ignored was JJ leaning into the front over the center console, getting more tactical information from Derek, who was still at the precinct. Ignored was the ache in his clenched jaw.

The door to the house nearly fell off its hinges when Hotch kicked it open, the SUV forgotten on the lawn behind him. Emily followed, striding through the house and clearing every room before moving on.

Hotch made a beeline for the basement, the door carelessly left open. The lack of sound acutely disturbed him, and he pushed away images of Haley’s body, laying silent on the floor of their guest room.

Silence, he knew, often meant unpleasant surprises.

JJ’s light footsteps followed behind him as he descended. He saw the unsub right away, stirring at the foot of the stairs. JJ branched off, checking the unsub’s pulse before rolling him over and cuffing him. She called for Emily, but the rushing in Hotch’s ears made it hard to hear anything.

He knelt beside you, finding a pulse and rattling, labored breathing. There was blood weeping from wounds laced across your side, arm, and thigh. He put pressure on the worst of it, his white button-down a lost cause. stained red to the elbow.

Images of Haley and Kate flashed before his eyes, and blinked them away, violently shaking his head.

“Call medics! Now!” He lifted your head, supporting it in the crook of his arm as he did his best to cover your wounds with his bare hands.

You coughed, your consciousness returning for a moment, “Aaron.” and there was blood. “Aaron...”

“You’re okay, honey. It’s okay. I’m here. Medics are on their way, I promise. I love you. You’re okay. I love you.” He wanted that to be what you heard, so you weren’t scared, so you stayed awake.

So much blood.

+++

The waiting room was quiet. Hotch sat with his elbows on his knees, blood still spattered on his shirt, staining his hands, streaked across his face. He’d done his best to give the paramedics the space they needed to work, but it was hard to watch as you struggled for breath.

One of your ribs had punctured a lung, collapsing it. They said surgery would be a couple hours, but there was a good chance you’d make it. “A simple patch,” the nurse said.

Aaron stared into nothing, his eyes close to crossing as the tiles blurred in front of him. Belatedly, he realized the blur was tears.

A hand on his shoulder startled him. Dave.

“It’ll be alright, Aaron.”

He barked a quiet, humorless laugh. His voice was raw when he replied. “How can you know that?”

“Because I know you.” Dave paused. “And I know there’s more to it than what we all see in the office.”

A bag was dropped at Aaron’s feet, in front of a pair of boots.

“Hotch, you need to get cleaned up.” Derek’s voice was shockingly gentle.

Aaron looked up for the first time in what felt like hours. JJ, Spencer, and Emily stood a little off to the side. With a sigh, he heaved himself to his feet and snatched the bag from the floor.

It was hard for him to wash your blood from his hands and face. It felt like a piece of you, washing down the drain. His hands shook as he washed them over and over, well above his elbows.

As much as he hated to admit it, the soft grey cotton of his shirt felt much better against his skin than his sticky, stiff dress shirt. He mechanically slipped on a pair of worn jeans and sneakers, thankful he thought to pack them in the extra compartment of his go bag.

One of your sweatshirts was at the bottom of the duffle, probably from the last time you spent an unsanctioned night in his hotel room.

He held it to his face, your familiar smell overwhelming his senses. When he placed your sweatshirt back into his bag and packed away his soiled clothes, his hands weren’t shaking so much. His breath came easier.

The air conditioning felt cool against his bare arms when he finally left the bathroom, returning to the huddle in the corner of the waiting room. JJ was doing her best not to pace. She was seated, her leg bouncing and the inside of her cheek firmly planted between her teeth. She looked ready to jump to her feet at any moment, which probably explained –

Derek, sitting beside her, his arm looped through hers and his legs splayed out before him.

Dave sat with his head bowed, and Hotch was near-certain he was praying. Emily sat beside him, her head on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, but she wasn’t sleeping. Her brows were far too drawn for that, her mouth too tense. She was picking at her nails. Again.

Spencer, of course, was reading, but he couldn’t sit still. He shifted and shuffled every few minutes.

+++

“Goddamn it.”

Hotch smacked the vending machine with the heel of his hand. It had already eaten five dollars, and his patience was admittedly running thin. It was the fourth hour of your surgery, and he was feeling the weary weight of constant vigilance.

“Hey. Hotch.” Emily trotted up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me.”

She gently fed another bill into the machine, and a bag of chips met their match and landed at the bottom. She handed the bag to Aaron and guided him to a nearby bench.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you two, or should I take a guess?”

Aaron sighed and pulled a hand down his face. “Do we have to do this right now?”

“It’s as good a time as any. Neither one of us are going anywhere.”

“Prentiss...” He trailed off, not sure where to start. He looked over at her. “Emily.”

She shuffled closer to him and mirrored his posture, her elbows resting on her knees, fingers loosely laced. “Just start from the beginning.”

So he did.

He told her about meeting you in the elevator for the first time.

He told her about the way you tripped up the stairs just outside the entrance to the office the second time you saw each other, your files scattering on the snow-dusted concrete.

He told her about the way you made him laugh.

He told her about your first date a few months later, and how he couldn’t get you out of his head.

He told her how you were with Jack, how often his son asked to see you and the way you always gave him your full attention.

He told her about your transfer into the unit, the dichotomy between the joy of having you beside him and the fear for your safety in the field.

He told her that he loved you, in so many words.

“I feel alive,” he said. “I can’t lose –“ He cut himself off and swallowed thickly.

“That’s not gonna happen. It’s not. You’ll both go home at the end of this.” She bumped his shoulder playfully. “And I am the authority on near-death experiences, here.”

Aaron gave her a small smile in spite of himself.

Emily stood and brushed imaginary crumbs from her pants in an authoritative and decisive fashion. “Now, I’m getting you some coffee. Eat your chips, Hotch. Try to taste them, too.”

She’d only taken three steps, when -

“Hey, Emily?”

She turned over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

+++

You opened your eyes to the image of Derek sitting next to your bed, peering at you.

“Jesus Christ, Morgan.” You couldn’t help but jump a little, and your ribs twinged. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He grinned at you. “So. You and Hotch?”

You rolled your eyes, and even that hurt. “Seriously? How long have you been sitting there waiting to ask me that?”

“Three and a half hours.”

You opened your mouth to retort, but Aaron stepped in before you could draw breath. You watched him as he crossed the room with purpose and set his coffee down.

Ignoring Derek entirely, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to your lips, then your forehead. He took your hands in his and pressed kisses to those, too.

“Feeling better?” He asked. The transformation of the man who walked through the door and the man that held your hands was stark. His eyes were softer, brighter, his shoulders lower.

You nodded, smiling fondly at him. “Much better, now.”

A noisy sigh erupted behind you. “Guys...c��mon.”

You looked back over at Derek with a smile, the shadow of Aaron looming over your shoulder.

+++

At the end of it, you were fine. Your lung was repaired (for the most part), your wounds mended. The hardest part was taking time off, and the physical therapy.

Physical therapy sucked.

Most afternoons found you spending time with Jack at the apartment. As soon as your arm was strong enough to manage a controller again, you spent hours playing his favorite games with him while the team was away on cases.

Your office at home had become essentially a satellite BAU hub. The team phoned you in to almost every case, and you took a great amount of joy curating maps and profiles from your office. The display was rather beautiful, at the end of it. Notes and photos and maps all over the walls.

There were footsteps behind you as you finished pinning a post it to the board. “Hi, jet-setter.” You turned around and quirked a smile at him, admiring him in one of his new suits. He walked toward you, leaving his briefcase at the door.

He framed your face with his hands and you leaned into him. He kissed you gently, and you slid your hands under his suit jacket. The light, spicy scent of his cologne hit your nose and you smiled against his mouth.

“I missed you out there,” he said, his lips traveling down your neck and jaw.

You huffed a laugh, and you planted your hands in his hair. “I was on video with Penelope the whole time.”

He hummed into your skin. “Not the same and you know it.” He pulled back, running his hands over your upper arms.

You watched him take stock of you, his eyes tracing over the scars on your forearm, your pinkie that wouldn’t quite sit straight anymore, and the nebulizer on your desk behind you. “I’m alright, Aaron.”

He kissed your cheek and wrapped his arms around you, holding you to his chest. “I know.” Your hands curled around the fabric of his dress shirt at his sides. He tucked his head and pressed his lips to your skin. “I know.”

+++

tagging: @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @wandaswitxh @hurricanejjareau @fics-ilike @ange-must-die @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @dr-reid-ismyspiritanimal @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @saintd0lce @good-heavens-chris-evans @davidrossi-ismydad @angelsbabey @gublergirls @writefasttalkevenfaster @venusbarnes @vintagecaptainspidey @micaiahmoonheart @ogmikis @thatreallyis-americas-ass @marvels-agents100 @newtslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @joemazzello-imagines @pinkdiamond1016 @sebbybaby0 @wannabewinchester67 @pan-pride-12 @hotchlinebling @lee-rin-ah @sunshine-em @word-scribbless @jdougl-love @sageellsworth05 @emmice9

#aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #hotch #tali writes fanfiction #anon reply #i'm not even gonna pretend this is a drabble #so i wont tag it as such lmao

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syn0vial · 3 years

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important question number 3 what do you have on boba and sintas vel 👀 - lekkui

i have... some things! honestly, i wish sintas’s portrayal had been a little more solid in the EU. it varied wildly between writers and in certain comics, she had little more characterization than “beautiful, tough bounty hunter chick.” i hope if they revisit her in new canon, they give her a more nuanced, more consistent depiction. also i’ll be ignoring said comics for the purposes of this post bc it’s my blog and i’m too sleepy for salt right now

but yes, onto the bullet points!

for those unaware, sintas vel was a female kiffar bounty hunter who boba tried to start a new life with when they were teenagers. they both got out of the bounty hunting game and settled down on concord dawn, where they got married and had a daughter, ailyn. boba was 16 and sintas was 18 at the time.

one of the things i find most interesting about the two of them, especially when they were teenagers: ailyn was consistently the more logical and level-headed of the two of them, while boba was always more emotional and impulsive. tragically, it’s this impulsivity that leads boba to fuck up so badly and, ironically, to transform into the emotionally detached asshole we know later on.

but yeah, this dichotomy is seen pretty early on in a flashback-by-proxy, in which we learn that the whole romantic run-away-together-and-get-married-and-start-a-new-life-somewhere-far-away plan? 100% BOBA’S IDEA.

in particular, we get the briefest snippet of an exchange where boba is trying his hardest to convince sintas that this would be a good idea. and, no exaggeration, it goes like:

sintas: “i mean, it’s kind of very obvious that you don’t know what you’re doing--” boba: “THINGS I KNOW: YOU’RE GOOD AT SHOOTING THINGS. YOU’RE PRETTY??? I TRUST YOU A LOT. see this is a good idea :)”

TEENAGE BOBA FETT: PURE OF HEART, DUMB OF ASS

anyway, boba fett and noted-morosexual sintas vel make their way to concord dawn. here’s some things we know about their relationship before everything went to shit:

nicknames! they referred to each other with the first syllable of each others’ names: bo and sin. very cute :)

they got married using a traditional mandalorian wedding vow. neither of them had any idea what the mando’a meant, bless their hearts.

as a marriage token, boba gave sintas a small red heart-of-fire gemstone tied on a simple leather cord. it was the best he could afford which, at the time, wasn’t much. however, it had significance to sintas as a kiffar; kiffars are near-humans whose members possess an unusually high occurrence rate of telemetry, or the ability to read memories from objects. heart-of-fire gemstones were said to be among the best for storing such memories.

SHIPPY FIC WRITERS TAKE NOTE. three words to describe boba in a committed relationship: PROTECTIVE. AS. HELL. absolutely unwilling to tolerate so much as a dirty look towards sintas. maybe even a little paranoid. kind of understandable given how much grief he’d already endured in his short life.

it didn’t save them

ok, fair warning, here’s the point where shit gets traumatic, so if you want to know nothing but the relatively happy stuff, STOP READING HERE. also, CWs for manipulation, sexual assault, murder, and imprisonment, bc nobody in this canon is allowed to be happy :(

last chance to turn back!

ok. onto the traumatic shit.

so! boba and sintas are doing fine. operation stop-being-teenaged-bounty-hunters-and-try-to-pass-for-normal is going pretty well! not only do they have their own functional little family unit, but boba has a job as a journeyman protector. basically think of them as like. mando frontier lawmen. and on top of that, boba has been taken under the wing of his superior officer and son of a local magistrate, lenovar.

we don’t know much about lenovar (like, is that his first or his last name, for example...) but we know that boba and sintas trusted him and that boba in particular looked up to him as both a friend and mentor.

however, lenovar was not what he seemed. once he had the young couple’s trust, he managed to get sintas alone and raped her.

in the aftermath, sintas performed some brutally pragmatic mental calculus: lenovar was a high-ranking journeyman protector and son of a magistrate. she and boba were two struggling teenagers with a baby, escaping checkered pasts. retaliating against lenovar would likely destroy them. which meant not only that she couldn’t retaliate against lenovar; she had to make sure boba wouldn’t, either.

so. how do you keep your extremely protective, impulsive former-bounty-hunter husband from flying off the handle and murdering your rapist?

you don’t tell him about it. you don’t tell anyone about it :(

argh just reading this i’m feeling salty that we get so little of sintas’s perspective on any of this. it’s all just “how did this make boba feel? how did it affect boba’s life?” and it’s like GOOD GOD. this woman is now maybe 20 years old, making the absolutely-gutting decision to keep her sexual assault a secret from her closest friend bc it’s the only way to protect her and him and their daughter from being steamrolled by the system. and like, nobody thought to expand on that?

nope, we just get a comic where she’s needlessly sexualized and drawn to look young enough to be boba’s daughter despite the fact that she’s older than him and ugh

OKAY. enough salt. moving on.

sintas’s plan works for all of a year, at which point boba somehow finds out the truth. and everything goes straight to hell.

boba, finding out that sintas kept her sexual assault by lenovar a secret for a whole year (and remember, boba was probably continuing to work under and look up to lenovar during this time), is utterly furious. of course, he wants nothing more than to murder the shit out of lenovar and is only further enraged when sintas tries to logically talk him out of it. in his anger, he proceeds to verbally torch ALL the bridges in their relationship, at one point even cruelly questioning if ailyn is even his daughter. he then storms off and makes good on his threats to kill lenovar

in the aftermath, boba was branded not just a murderer, but the murderer of his superior officer—an even more serious crime. yet, despite repeated interrogations, he refused to say why he had done it, fearing that doing so would drag sintas down with him. he only insisted that he felt no remorse for killing lenovar and that lenovar deserved to die.

in the end, his efforts didn’t save sintas—the courts seized all of what meager assets they had, leaving them all penniless. boba was then exiled from concord dawn and wouldn’t see his wife and daughter again for fifty years.

after everything that happened, boba was a changed person. it’s as if that spark of optimism and dare-i-say goodness that had survived his father’s death was snuffed out, leaving only a cynical, angry shell, laser-focused on violence because it was the one part of his father’s legacy he hadn’t yet failed.

sintas and ailyn, meanwhile, struggled to pull themselves out of poverty, with sintas reluctantly returning to bounty hunting to support them. ailyn never forgave her father for abandoning them, which led to its own equally-disastrous tragedy some decades down the line.

moral of the story is to listen to your wife and don’t make her sexual assault all about your stupid need for revenge. like, i get that the rapist needs to die but maybe like... work with your wife and make it look like an accident? don’t be an impulsive fucking inconsiderate idiot? maybe realize that your wife probably just endured the most hellish year of her life to protect YOUR dumb ass?

honestly, as frustrating as teenage!boba is, you can’t even be that angry at him bc like... he and sintas were both victims reacting imperfectly to absolutely shit circumstances. lenovar is the real villain here.

never going to be over how tragic it is that these two kids tried so fucking hard to derail their villainous origin stories, only to be forced onto even more brutal tracks bc the one adult they should’ve been able to trust in their situation ended up being a predator :(

#snowberry-pie #sintas vel #boba fett #lenovar #the fact that sintas was never spotlighted as a perspective character in the EU....... criminal

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

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Do you like it when people play with Light/Dark dichotomy that wasn't there in canon? (i.e., inventing political movements or different types of magic)

Fun fact, I actually kind of hate it.

Well, not kind of, I do hate it. A lot.

There’s two main sources of trouble for me: 1) everyone has a dying need to make everything in the universe Star Wars despite canon having very much not been Star Wars 2) people usually aren’t nearly as creative and clever as they think they are and rather than tell a story get wrapped up in explaining how gray Harry’s magical core is today.

The dark and light bit tends to reduce people down to very... simplified versions of themselves. The author usually tries to finagle a way into saying that dark magic is clearly distinct from light magic (it never really was) but more than that you only have these two types of people and Harry is usually some mystical third who is gray. And his having gray magic is very important for reasons that the author tries to explain over multiple chapters but never really manages to.

It distracts from the story in a usually needless and boring way. Worse, in most cases, it is the story. The entire plot is just that Harry has gray magic. That’s it, the end, nothing else. Tom Riddle or Snape or whoever might show up and make you think there’s a plot but then they sit around to discuss the new magical system we must be introduced to.

And then the author feels like the audience might not quite understand the new magic/soulmate/whatever system and actually will give us an entire chapter long author’s note where they explain their magic/soulmate/whatever system that’s 9 times out of 10 nowhere near as complicated as they think it is.

With light and dark you also get these weird characterizations where half the population are sadists/insane because of the color of their magic. The other half are goody two-shoes who are the victims for said sadists or else are holier than thou. This is weirder than JKR’s a quarter of the population being evil because they were sorted in Slytherin (boo hiss). The characters are simple, they tend to lack any depth, and instead of them carrying the story it’s Harry’s angst of he thought he was light but he was really dark.

While authors inventing political movements/different magic systems is not usually quite bad it suffers from the same issues. The author gets so wrapped up in explaining their new cool thing to us that they forget we have a story to read here. Instead of the plot moving forward I get to read about the innerworkings of Harry’s new neutral underground movement and how it’s very different from the Order of the Phoenix or the Death Eaters. Or I get to hear about how the Wizengamot also has Tories (they don’t, guys, the Wizarding World is basically a feudal nation that pretends it’s a democracy and certainly has very little to do with how British Parliament operates).

Most damning of all, all of this stuff doesn’t usually add anything to a story. It’s not necessary for the story they’re trying to tell, it’s not something even organic to Harry Potter, it’s just something the author thought was super cool. And when it is necessary, well, that’s when the cool new thing is the plot and that’s not good either.

So, yeah, there’s my two cents.

I’m sure I just offended a great many people out there.

#ask #anon #harry potter #light and dark magic #magical cores #seriously guys though i do loathe this stuff with a passion

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arahul-abyssia · 3 years

Text

Looks like it's September again (already, somehow), so that means that it's Nintember again, which means I'll be writing again! Same dealio as last time, one story per five prompts, up to six writings total. (And I'll be putting most of each under a cut, because mobile users can't skip posts)

And for my first entry for @starprincesshlc and @jklantern 's wonderful little event, I shall once again be attempting to twist some modicum of continuity, characterization, and canon-compliance out of a world that clearly cares scarcely for all three.

The Great Act

~~ Art, Green, Dizzy, Fire, Strength ~~

It was the loud buzzing of his phone’s alarm clock that dragged him from his slumber. He awoke to find himself sprawled across the couch, which was in no way long enough for his lanky body and spindly legs. As he blearily reached out and slapped at the coffee table, hoping to find the rude device by pure luck, he also blearily reached out and slapped at his memories, trying to figure out what series of events had led him there. For a moment, they floated just out of reach, and then suddenly flooded back to him all at once.

Oh. Right. It’s all over.

Another sporting event had come and gone, and as usual, in spite of all the effort he put into training and practice, he had ultimately lost to the same people he always did. No matter the sport, no matter the plan, no matter the time, they always won. And why shouldn’t they? The heroes always win in the end, always securing victory against the villains.

And he was one of them: the purple-clad counterpart, mirror, and supposed rival to one of the land’s most revered figures. Meant to oppose, and meant to lose.

He was Waluigi.

The name still sounded absurd to him. He had no idea how two men whose names were ‘Mario’ and ‘Wario’ and who naturally served as near-perfect foils of each other, had managed to meet and form such a publicizable rivalry without any deliberate effort, but such was the case. However, the notion that the brother of one had his own doppelganger in the brother of the other (or cousin, they never did manage to keep that story straight), with the same dichotomies of name, body, and personality? That was simply and utterly ridiculous, far beyond even the realm of ‘too good to be true’. And yet, if anyone had caught on, they hadn’t made it known to him.

Lost in thought and routine, he realized he had reached and opened his wardrobe, where numerous sets of that purple hat, shirt, and overalls were staring him in the face. In a sickening sense, they were the centerpiece of a great work of art, the fabrication that was his entire public existence, the character that he and Wario had constructed so that he might further be the ‘evil counterpart’ to everyone’s favorite red-clothed fire-throwing hero. Mario was stout and a bit fat, Wario was stouter and fatter; Luigi was tall and a bit thin, so Waluigi was taller and thinner. Mario had an M as his emblem, Wario had an inverted M; Luigi had an L, so Waluigi had an inverted L. To any casual outside observer, it was perfect.

But unlike Mario and Wario, whose rivalry had been formed in their youth, Waluigi had never even met Luigi until Wario had made him his sporting partner. The most he had known of the legendary Mario Brothers was just that: they were legends, for the countless adventures and quests they went on. In truth, despite how much he played it up during each and every game, he bore no true grudge against the man he was supposed to hate; Wario had, for a time, convinced him that Luigi’s presence in the public eye was somehow detracting from his own, but he had long since realized that that wasn’t the case; in fact, it often seemed like Luigi himself was being snubbed by the public, with the vast majority of the glory placed upon Mario, no matter how much Luigi contributed.

And yet, despite his existence being little more than a convenient story, despite the stress that constantly acting like a jerk brought, and despite always losing at the games no matter what, none of it brought him any sadness: for all its ups and downs, he felt himself to be rather good at keeping up the act, and the sports were, at the end of the day, still fun.

So why do I still feel so… bad?

Routine and thought had once more brought Waluigi elsewhere, and he found himself once more on his couch, now dressed in his usual outfit, with some sort of drink in his hands, probably coffee or tea; he didn’t care to determine which at that moment. His eyes casually wandered around the room as he brought the mug to his lips.

Then, just as the liquid touched his tongue--apparently he had managed to make tea out of coffee beans--the answer came to him. All across the room’s walls and shelves was sporting equipment of every sort--tennis racquets, shin-guards, helmets, golf clubs, old kart wheels, giant dice blocks, a probably excessive number of deflated balls--and absolutely no other sort of decoration. He leaned forward to place the mug on the table, and in doing so noticed his gloved hands and violet sleeves. Who wore the outfit of a character that they supposedly were not, every single day? Apparently, him.

He didn’t do anything else. He had let the character that was Waluigi consume his life to the point that had no idea who he was outside of it. He had nothing that he did when sports weren’t involved. Wario didn’t dedicate all his time to his rivalry; he owned an entire video game company--an unstable and poorly-run one, certainly, but it was nevertheless another use of his time. Mario and Luigi had their own grand adventures, of course, which is also what Peach, the Yoshis, Bowser, and his horde of minions were all typically involved in.

They all had lives outside of the games, and what did he do during the interim times? He either tried to practice, on his own, in the few suitable locations that he could find when the world was arranged for adventure, in a vain attempt to not lose as bad when the next game came around, or he wallowed in his home, doing absolutely nothing of any import.

But what could he do? Waluigi was never anything beyond a fabricated counterpart to both Wario and Luigi, but he could not remember, even slightly, what or who he was before he embraced that role. That nearly all of his memories prior to his first meeting with his partner were lost to him, was, he shuddered to admit, rather unsettling. Not even his old name--if he even had had one, he could not recall anymore--would reveal itself to him, and it was not as though he could simply find out through some external means: he was never the best at record-keeping, and to really sell their act, he had had his name legally changed to “Waluigi” and all references to his previous identity erased.

He shook his head, attempting to clear his mind of thoughts. There was little sense in worrying and fretting over who he was in that moment--the chance of any sort of useful epiphany emerging from it was even slimmer than he was.

Ugh… better just try to distract myself…

The first suitable option to catch his eye was the TV remote lying on the table. He quickly grabbed it and flicked on the set, and was immediately assaulted by the cheery enunciation of the Lakitu news anchors on the aptly-named Lakitu News Channel. He recalled that that was the channel he had left the set on last night, after he had gotten quite fed up with the incessant and inane blathering about the events of that day’s final matches, and it took only about five seconds to figure out that they were still on that topic. Scowling, he began flipping through the various channels available, hoping to find something interesting enough to block out the melancholic thoughts that were biting at his mind, like a hundred tiny Muncher and Nipper Plants.

After a painfully long series of more newsrooms--all talking about the exact same thing, of course--and unappealing shows--Half of these are for children and other half would just make me feel even worse!--he stumbled across some sort of advice segment hosted by a Birdo (was it the Birdo? He couldn’t tell). With absolutely no better options, he resigned himself to sit back and listen halfheartedly to whatever trite tips she tried to provide; maybe they’d be amusing enough to at least give him a small chuckle.

“I hope you all enjoyed our lovely guest! Now, before we move on to the submissions from all you wonderful viewers, I’d like to reiterate some old, but tried and true, advice, which I hold very close to my heart.”

Oh, here we go…

“Something which you probably hear very often is to always be yourself, or to always be true to yourself…”

Feh, I can think of several people who definitely shouldn’t do that…

“But it may be that you don’t like who ‘yourself’ is, or perhaps you don’t know what self you even have to be true to…”

Hah! As if… uh…

“And to that end, I’d like to say that there is always room for change. There’s always a way to make something new of yourself, to alter the parts of you that you want to, to become a different, better person. ‘Yourself’ can be whoever you want it to be; never are you locked along one unending bleak path. Try new things! Experiment! Don’t let yourself be trapped in an endless cycle.

“Believe me when I say I have personal experience with this: I’ve done so many different things over a rather short period of time, trying to find what I wanted to do with myself, who I wanted to be. Even now, I’m still not entirely sure if this is my supposed ‘calling’…! But I never got anywhere by doing nothing: it was on me to break out of my shell and search for myself, and now it’s on you to do the same.

“You don’t have to begin drastically, with a flying leap of faith--I think we’ve all walked over enough cliffs by now to know that!--but, if this is the sort of mindset you find yourself in, why not try taking some small steps today? It could be as simple as wearing a new outfit, or talking to someone new, or partaking in a new pastime.”

Birdo continued to elaborate on her point, but Waluigi--or, whoever he was beneath that--had stopped listening. He wanted to make some snark about what she said; he wanted to rationalize how what she described couldn’t ever apply to him; but, he found that he couldn’t. He had attempted to follow similar advice long in the past, and failed, but something about the way she phrased it, managed to affect him more deeply than he had thought possible. It was as though her words had dug beneath his shields and layers and pierced something somewhere in his core; pulled a lever, turned a handle, flipped a switch.

A strange sensation washed over him, one he could only describe as a blazing fire--nay, an inferno--igniting within him. He had felt the touch of flame countless times over the years, but not even the innumerable rage-fueled volleys he had endured, all combined into a single force, could compare to what now burned in his soul.

He leapt up from the sofa and ran to his bathroom. Staring at him from within the mirror was a character, a costume, a facade. It was not who he was. He grabbed a towel, dampened it, and proceeded to scrub away the pink paint on his nose; Wario and Waluigi’s noses were defined by that bright rosy color, but his was not. He then tore open a cabinet and grabbed his bottle of mustache product; normally, it was used to create the signature angular mustache of Waluigi, but today, it would shape the hairs into something softer and curlier. Whether that was what he would ultimately like did not matter: he was experimenting! He was changing himself!

Though the man that stared back at him from the glass now bore a much different visage, it was still framed by the purple cap and shirt, yellow emblem, and dark indigo overalls. He tore them off, then opened his wardrobe once more and threw all the copies of that same outfit to the ground. Hidden behind them were old clothes that he hadn’t worn for many, many years. He grabbed the first garments he saw--a casual dress shirt and gaudy neon-yellow shorts. Did those go well together? It didn’t matter. Without hesitating, he put them on.

He quickly glanced in the mirror again: the ensemble was nearly complete, but just missing one last touch. He thought on it for a moment, then stricken with brilliance, hurried to his modest backyard, where the roses he performed with in the games grew. He plucked one from its bush and affixed it to his hair, then ran back to the mirror to observe himself one more time.

His mismatched get-up would likely garner many stares from others, though he wouldn’t mind them at all; if he had anything in common with Waluigi, it was that they both loved being the center of attention. Even still, that’s not what mattered. A whole new day lay before him, a whole new day to be someone new, someone different; to move on from the cycle he had been stuck in, to take a whole new step forward.

He returned to the sitting room and turned off the television, then went to the front door. Taking a deep breath, he turned the handle, threw it open, and marched into the daylight, the daylight which felt far fresher and warmer than it had in a long time, though even it held no candle to the flame that continued to blaze within him.

Ready or not, world; here I come!!

#nintember #my writing #godss there were so many directions i thought about taking this #eventually had to just choose and commit to one #straight up wrote a great deal of a different take before scrapping it #writing is... a time

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bestworstcase · 4 years

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my most controversial tangled opinion is that the sundrop/moonstone lore isn’t confusing, it’s just a soft magical system in a story that wanted a harder one.

what i mean by this is: there are zero theoretical limits on the powers of the sundrop and moonstone, but their actual established powers are nebulous and controlled by vague concepts (“faith” and “feelings”) without any hard explanation. this works as long as the magic is a mysterious quest object and its actual use is largely incidental, but once cass takes the moonstone, the magic becomes a central component of the plot and the system fails.

for those unfamiliar with the soft/hard magical system distinction, in the most general terms, a hard magical system is explained—it has defined rules and limitations so the audience can understand How It Works—while a soft magical system isn’t. neither is better than the other per se, but which type works best for a given story depends a lot on how the magic is used in the plot.

to give an example, bending in avatar: the last airbender falls into the “hard” category. bending is a martial art with a strong spiritual component; there are four types of bending, each tied to one of the four nations; with one exception, benders can only bend a single element, and the exception is explained and given his own set of rules, like the requirement that he must learn the four types of bending in a particular order. even the last-minute introduction of a fifth type bending is logical within the context of the universe: humans learned the other four types of bending from powerful magical creatures, so the lion-turtle’s ability to gift energy bending to aang follows the established rule for how humans acquired bending abilities in the first place; and aang himself has long been established as valuing and prioritizing the spiritual aspect of being the avatar, so it makes sense that when he entreats the spirits for a way to defeat ozai without killing him, the spirits basically go “sure, here.”

and of course, we the audience need to understand these rules, because bending is integral to the plot and to the way characters solve problems. if the characters in atla were constantly pulling new powers out of their butts to deal with the problem of the week, would that be as satisfying a story? characters do discover new powers (katara’s healing, toph’s metalbending, iroh’s lightning redirection, hama’s bloodbending), but when that happens the series is quick to establish how those powers fit within the framework of what we already know. we see this happen in fanworks too, because the audience understands the underlying mechanics and we can extrapolate new powers that fit within the defined rules, eg: could a sufficiently skilled and motivated firebender manipulate the electrical signals of the brain? taking control of a pre-existing electrical discharge and manipulating elements inside the human body are both possible, so i don’t see why not.

now back to rta.

the magical system in the series is very soft. for the purpose of this discussion, we’re going to focus on the sundrop, moonstone, and zhan tiri, because those are the core pillars of the magical system—the assortment of enchanted artifacts that pop up are sort of tangential and irrelevant here.

let’s start with what we know.

the sundrop and moonstone are two halves of an ancient cosmic power (hereafter ACP). the ACP was destroyed by an unknown calamity, the two drops fell to the earth, and they have been longing to reunite ever since.

whether this “longing” implies a degree of sapience or if it’s simply an attractive force like a pair of magnets is never specified, but based on the way the two forces behave i think the magnets explanation makes more sense.

the sundrop and moonstone are said to be inverses of each other. the sundrop heals, the moonstone harms. simple enough.

...but the moonstone also has a secondary protective ability, which it gifts to rapunzel in the form of her unbreakable hair. and the moonstone has the black rocks, which seem to exhibit both the destructive and protective/invulnerable facets of the moonstone’s power.

and the the sundrop also has a secondary destructive ability in that it. explodes.

so...

sundrop heals ↔ moonstone harms sundrop destroys ↔ moonstone protects

now this internally contradictory set of powers for the drops does make sense when you remember that they were originally just one thing. the ACP was theorized to have basically unlimited powers of destruction and creation, so it makes sense for its two halves to exhibit that duality within themselves as well.

if we consider the wording of the four incantations (and the events of BVA), we can kind of get a sense of what else the drops might be able to do:

i think there’s a strong argument to be made for understanding the healing/decaying capabilities of the drops as temporal manipulation. the sundrop doesn’t “heal” so much as it reverses time so it’s like the damage never happened (“make the clock reverse!”)—which incidentally would explain how gothel stayed fertile for two thousand years a lot better than “healing”—and the moonstone’s decay does the same but in reverse, so fast forwarding rather than rewinding.

they both alter/manipulate fate (“change the fates’ design”/“end this destiny”). this may be a metaphorical reference to the temporal manipulation thing, or it could be that the tangled universe truly is deterministic and the drops powerful enough to literally change fate.

a case can be made for a third dichotomy of sundrop faith ↔ moonstone will. by which i mean that the sundrop runs on belief/faith while the moonstone runs on feelings/willpower. the sun incantation focuses on hope (“and let our hope ignite”) and eugene having faith in rapunzel in LAF is what allows her to activate the sundrop nuke even without the incantation. meanwhile, the moon incantation focuses on willpower (“bend it to my will”) and in BVA, the moonstone is shown to react intensely to cassandra’s feelings and is also able to manipulate the feelings of other people (meaning that, presumably, the sundrop could also inspire faith).

...but notice, here, how much of this is postulation. very little of this is explicit textual information; instead, i’m drawing connections between the lore given in LAF and the things that we see the sundrop/moonstone do on screen in an attempt to line up what we see with the loose, vague framework of “two halves of a broken whole that are opposites/complements of each other.”

and i really think this is what people mean when they say the sundrop/moonstone lore is “confusing.” unlike in a hard magical system like atla, the series dedicates no time to explaining how it all works. it’s just There, and while we can make some extrapolations based on what we see, it’s not really a system that is meant to hang together in a coherent, rules-based way. and—unpopular opinion—that is FINE. hard systems are not innately better than soft systems.

do i personally have a preference for hard systems? yes. are hard systems in vogue in modern fantasy? also yes. does that make soft systems inferior to hard systems? no. can i suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy a fantasy story with a soft system? absolutely, yes, though no force on earth can stop me from picking over it with a fine-toothed comb to develop a personal theory on how it all works, or from breaking it down into its component parts and then building a hard system from scratch for my own fanworks like i did with bitter snow.

but—the key thing is—it’s not confusing if you go into it with the understanding that the magical system is soft. the nebulous vague what you see is what you get thing is a feature, not a bug.

the same goes for zhan tiri. i’ve already expounded at great length about her canon lore and i’m not going to get into it again, but suffice it to say: she’s some sort of powerful ancient shapeshifting demon with nature-based magic, a side helping of dream/mind-based magic, and a penchant for deceit and manipulation. and again, the underlying mechanics of any of this are not explored, because rta has a soft magical system.

but farran, you said rta needed a harder system, so why are you now saying that soft magical systems aren’t bad?

i did say that, yes, but it’s not because soft systems are bad. it’s because soft and hard systems are different tools used to accomplish different things, and rta as a series tells a story that, ultimately, would have been better served by a hard system rather than a soft one.

let’s start with cassandra’s control over the moonstone. in RR, she uses its powers instinctively and effortlessly. then, she loses that ability, and zhan tiri tells her that it’s because she needs to focus on her rage because that’s what the moonstone responds to (this is an obvious lie ziti uses to get cass to wallow in her anger, but the basic principle that the moonstone responds to emotion appears to be sound). and then, in BVA, cassandra’s fear about attacking rapunzel causes her to spontaneously manifest a completely new ability that sends magical fear-empathy rocks all the way to corona where they start giving people nightmare visions and petrifying them.

that’s huge! we had no idea the moonstone could do something like that. but then they go away and cass never uses them again. why? who knows!

next, zhan tiri (off screen -_-) evidently tells cass that it’s not actually a matter of trying harder to master the moonstone’s power, she needs to use the moon incantation to unlock it. this is inconsistent with what we’ve seen before (RR and BVA proved that she could access the full range of the moonstone’s power, she just doesn’t know how), and could be explained by zhan tiri lying again... except that when cass recites the incantation it works as-advertised.

and “mastering the moonstone’s power” turns out to be... black rocks and lightning, but bigger and more elaborate. that’s it. there’s no expansion on the withering incantation, or the empathy-rocks or petrification abilities introduced in BVA, it’s just black rocks and a light show. and black rocks shaped like dogs that one time in plus est.

the same thing happens with the sundrop. it glows and it blows things up and it heals things and that is all it does. it just does it... bigger, and flashier, after rapunzel recites the sun incantation.

and when zhan tiri acquires both of the drops, something that we are told grants her the (undefined) “ultimate power,” she... uses them to make rocks, but they’re golden now. what do the golden rocks do? who knows! and she uses the decay incantation, which works exactly as it did when rapunzel used it except faster and bigger and not uncontrolled.

and then she’s beaten by whacking her over the head with a frying pan and tricking her into clapping her hands together, which blows her up. and then rapunzel takes the unified drop and revives cass everyone before letting it fly off into space. yay!

but... do you see the problem here? why so many people felt so dissatisfied with the lore surrounding the drops and zhan tiri in season three? people say it’s “confusing,” but i think that describes a symptom, not the root of the problem. a good, well-utilized soft magical system doesn’t cause confusion; it blends into the story and doesn’t call attention to itself. it’s like... lighting. it’s just there and it just works and it enriches the story but we don’t question it.

whereas a hard magical system is an actual component of the narrative, almost like a character in its own right in the sense that we understand what makes it tick. there are rules, and we understand the rules, and because we understand the rules we can make predictions about what influence or role the magic will have in the plot. to use atla as a very simple example again: when iroh teaches zuko how to redirect lightning, we can predict that this ability will become a vital form of defense against azula and ozai. atla sets up lightning bending, then sets up a defense against lightning bending, and we don’t need to wait around for it to happen to understand that this is going to become Very Important later.

now compare this to rta season three. a whole episode is dedicated to establishing that the moonstone is connected to cassandra’s emotions in a pretty significant way. after bva, there was a lot of speculation about how this fact would play out in the events to come; speculation about other types/colors of rocks and what effects they might have; speculation about how this would tie into cassandra’s emotional arc; speculation about how zhan tiri’s manipulation might interact with the moonstone’s emotion-based magic. and... absolutely none of that happened, because that was rules-based speculation built on the assumption that rta’s magical system had definitive rules. and that was an assumption made because, in s3, rta’s soft magical system started to behave as if it were a hard one. ie, it jumped into center stage and went “look at me! i’m important.”

except it was still a soft magical system with no definitive rules, so any rules-based speculation was impossible and pointless. it is like trying to build a house out of beams of light. you can make a house shape, but if it rains you are still going to get wet.

and i made this mistake, too! i also made the assumption, after BVA, that answers were coming and we could expect the magic to continue to develop into, if not a hard system, at least a hybrid one, and a lot of my speculation after that point came from a place of expecting answers (and trying to unravel the answers on my own before the series showed them to us).

but rta’s magical system just was not built that way. it wasn’t set up to play this central role in the plot, it didn’t have definitive rules, it didn’t have a preexisting framework that could be used to expand and elaborate on characters’ abilities in a naturalistic, predictable way, so... as is often the case with mis-used soft systems, the magic just got vaguely Bigger whenever the narrative called for escalation, and the “ultimate power” ended up being completely underwhelming because it was just More Of The Same, But Make It Yellow.

as... a point of comparison here, because i’m struggling to articulate what i’m driving at, let’s consider my take on the sundrop/moonstone lore—the hard magical system i created for bitter snow.

1) magic is drawn from a powerful magical entities (deities, demons, spirits).

2) magical abilities are based on the abilities of the patron.

3) the sundrop and moonstone are artifacts belonging to/created by a solar deity (huma) and lunar deity (turul). they are basically teeny tiny shards of those deities that fell to earth when it was still a molten lump of raw material and then molded it into a world capable of supporting life. the drops themselves can serve as direct conduits to huma/turul, and both have extensive root systems; the sundrop’s roots support the outer crust of the earth, while the moonstone’s roots (the black rocks) form the inner core.

4) the magic of the sundrop is restorative, and it also “casts” a shadow in the form of destructive magic. the restorative/destructive magics are always equal (hence the “shadow” metaphor). the restorative magic heals, creates and nourishes life, offers strength. the destructive magic is the opposite: it destroys, it kills, it weakens.

5) the magic of the moonstone is transformative. it takes the sundrop’s “shadows” and refashions them into the black rocks. it adapts, it moves, it alters things. it is neutral, centered, and stable in comparison to the sundrop’s intense extremes.

6) both huma and turul (and by extension the drops) are also connected to zhan tiri, as all three formed very early in the beginning of the cosmos. like huma and turul, zhan tiri’s magic is centered around change; hers is corruptive. zhan tiri’s magic manipulates strengths into weakness, and weakness into strength. it gives by taking away. it feeds.

7) to put these three types of magic into more concrete terms: let’s say alice, bob, and carol all break their arms. alice calls on the power of the sundrop to heal herself, and her arm is instantly and perfectly repaired, but some destructive, uncontrolled magic is unleashed into the world to balance the scales. bob, meanwhile, calls on the power of the moonstone, and it transforms the broken arm into solid stone; the pain is gone and the arm is no longer broken, but it is also no longer, strictly speaking, a human arm. and finally, carol entreats zhan tiri for healing, and zhan tiri sets the bone but also infuses it with her own magic, so it festers/grows into a well of power for carol.

now, if we apply these rules to a plus est en vous type of situation where zhan tiri claims both of the drops for herself, what does that look like? it’s the power to instantly unmake and re-make the entire cosmos. it’s the power to transform the entire world and everything on it into stone or ice. it’s the power to cure every disease and heal every injury suffered by every living thing on the planet instantaneously, and to inflict those same sufferings on everyone and everything with a snap of your fingers. it’s, literally, limitless. (it also fuses zhan tiri, huma, and turul into a single entity called jinarche but that is a little beside the point for the purpose of this discussion.)

and... how do you beat a creature like that? well. you sort of can’t, on paper, but in practice the overwhelming shock of the fusion of that much power into a single being would cause a few minutes of intense disorientation and that creates a window of opportunity to break the fused power apart again... but this isn’t a “win” scenario either, really, because when you do that it is going to cause an explosion of power violent enough to shred the entire cosmos so it is basically hitting the reboot button on the whole universe.

so, operating within the bitter snow magical system, the key to defeating a zhan tiri who wanted to acquire the sundrop and moonstone (and fuse with huma and turul in the process) would be to stop her before she gets her hands on both drops. because of the framework created by this hard system, the plot of this alternate plus est en vous is all about preventing zhan tiri from acquiring the drops, because the second both of them are in her possession it’s game over even if you manage to kill her. you either get an unkillable, omnipotent god or you get the entire universe self-destructing. the stakes are that high.

*deep breath*

with this in mind, let’s wrap this back around to canon. when zhan tiri takes both the sundrop and moonstone, what... are the stakes?

in TOTS, when zhan tiri revealed her plan to take both drops for herself, did the stakes feel high? we are told at several points that the drops have the potential to destroy the world, but does the stinger at the beginning of TOTS feel like an “oh, shit, the literal planet is at stake here” moment?

does zhan tiri in plus est feel like a super-powered demon who has just acquired the ultimate power of creation and destruction? no! the golden rocks and turbo-charged decay incantation don’t even feel like an escalation over the cassandra vs rapunzel battles in CR and earlier in plus est—in fact, frankly, they feel like a downgrade by virtue of being less flashy!

the series has given us no frame of reference for what the ultimate power looks like while simultaneously providing no internal scaffolding on which to build that kind of escalation. this is the biggest downside of a soft magical system—it’s really damn hard to keep raising the stakes if you don’t have the basic framework of “here’s what the rules are, here’s the limitations.”

back to bitter snow: neither zhan tiri, turul/the moonstone, nor huma/the sundrop on their own are powerful enough to rip the whole universe apart. zhan tiri is the most individually powerful of the three, and while she could probably destroy the planet if she really put her mind to it, that would take centuries to come to fruition. it would be a matter of planting the right seeds, worming her magic into the right cracks, growing and feeding and hollowing it out from within, and then hitting the pressure points at just the right time. it is only in combination that these three become strong enough to just unmake the whole cosmos in the blink of an eye. this kind of escalation is possible because i know what the limits are.

in a soft magical system version of bitter snow, it’d be more like “well zhan tiri is really powerful, the sundrop and moonstone are pretty powerful too, if you put them all together they’d all be... like, Really Really Really powerful.” because the whole point of a soft magical system is that it’s vague. it’s not supposed to have this level of clarity and precision in how it works. this doesn’t make escalation impossible, just super difficult, because it’s so easy for escalation or new powers to come across as plot contrivances (BVA) or deus ex machina or purely aesthetic in nature like the gorgeous and dramatic fight in CR or the golden rocks zhan tiri uses. and from an audience perspective, there is literally no way to guess what might happen next because there are No Rules. you can predict character beats and plot developments, of course, but you can’t make accurate assessments about the magic.

and when you’re using a soft magical system in this way, where escalating stakes based on magic use are integral to the plot, you are basically inviting your audience to go “hey, wait a minute, how does this work...?” for the same reason audiences try to analyze and understand why characters are acting the way they do.

and that’s why rta’s magical system ultimately failed. not because it’s confusing, but because it was too soft for what the story wanted to do with it.

#rta #farran rambles about worldbuilding for thousands of words again #only semi-coherently rip i have a lot of thoughts and only a vague idea of how to articulate them #anyway!!!#tldr: rta has a soft magical system #soft magical systems are NOT bad #but rta used magic in a way that would have BENEFITED from a harder system

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floxalopex · 3 years

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So... it's about spacebats.

There was a post on twitter. I asked if it was canonically confirmed that Hordak and the clones are really "spacebats", since I've once read a post in which a fan said the showrunners denied it. Look, I'm crazy. Maybe I'm wrong.

Anyways. Me and the account I talked with (if you are here, hi dear💜) agreed that they have too many similarities with bats. So even if it's not confirmed it's canon in my heart.

Spacebats have, according to my answers:

-large hands: bats are in the order of chiroptera (kheiros=hand; pteiros=wing). Plus the claws. I had originally headcanon their hands to be bigger than their feet, but honestely they need a good lever to apply their body weight. Feet are very complicated organs (yes, organs) and they need to satisfy certain physics requests in order to allow erect position. So, claws on both hands and feet. Same size.

-looking at the design of the spacebats (especially Horde Prime) I've noticed some kind of disproportion. They have shorter femur. Or at least, shorter than us. Bats have shorter inferior limbs. We had too longer arms to climb, then they became shorter and shorter. But we never had "hand wings". So that's the only reason I can find for the disproportion to exist in the first place. It's very little after all and sometimes animation inconsistency deletes it too.

-I'm neutral towards the headcanon of them having devil tails (in fanfics). Who cares, I mean you can have more caudal vertebrae and that's okay, even humans have it sometimes. Our bats don't have long tails, but who knows the other bats "in the universe". Etherian bats/Imp's brothers have long tails. About the wings headcanon mmm not so much. They are extra limbs for them. But as I said, same goes with Angella. It's creepy to me, but I know people love the Angel/Devil dichotomy.

-large shoulders and so⤵️

-"fat tiddies": as I said, those may actually be just larger pectoral muscles. You know, to fly you need those. As I said on twitter if I were to imagine a humanoid form evolved from bats I would think about the spacebats.

Now, compared anathomy, biological anologies and homologies apart.

Let's talk about physiology.

Premise: I'm not a vet. I'm not a doctor yet. So, more expert tumblr users, correct me if I say something wrong.

So, as I said. To fly you need big muscles on the thorax, shoulders and chest area. And not any muscles.

You infact need a lot of red muscle, so a lot of mytocondria, so a lot of energy.

As my beloved Barbascura said (an Italian youtuber, he is an organic chemist, I love him) bats...are complicated.

They live a lot considering their stature. Because in general there's this rule *the smaller you are the shorter you live* in biology. They are a very valid exception to this rule. So are we, but we worked on it a lot. Healtier life style. Hygene. More food. Science. Medicine. You know.

Now, the longer you live the higher chances to develope cancer you get. The more your cells (and so mytocondria) work the higher chances to develope cancer you get.

So, why are bats one of the most efficient specie in being able to avoid cancer? Why don't they fall ill that easily? Why a mammal, who techincally has not the physiology to fly, has this ability? They need energy, their bodies are, in theory, super stressed. So why aren't they constantly set on fire? How the heck do they live this much?

So, when a body goes through inflammation it produces ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species). So, radicals. Highly reactive molecules who have the tendency to basically trigger any chemical reaction possible. They can be useful to defeat a pathogen, but only in a very low quantity. If you produce too many ROS you can end up having them attack your proteins, the membrane of your cells, or...even DNA.

Yes. I guess you now understood what I'm going to talk about.

So. Hordak's sickness has been long analyzed by fans. People who know way more than me and are able to write better. So go check on them, not me.

So far, the most recurring ideas have been that he suffers from some kind of auto-immune disease (vitiligo), in a way similar to psoriasis and he has a rare muscular atrophy. I still lack a lot of knowledge and experience in the field (in my country medicine is a 6 years long nightmare, I'm just a second year and we start at best at 19) but the aetiopathogenesis of these condition is pretty much unknown. Best hypothesis: a) auto-immune b) genetic malfunction and/or predisposition c) both. And other hypothesis have been made of course.

So, what has that to do with ROS?

Simple: as I said an extra level of these molecules can even cause damage to DNA, even to the immune system. Am I trying to find out the cause of the unknown and alien disease of a cyborg fictional spacebat? "Adora: no! ...Maybe!"

I'm just giving ideas.

Anyways, we were saying that bats need a lot of energy. Energy=ROS. ROS=problems.

Plot twist: those thingies are filled with ROS. No, they rarely have cancer, they rarely have problems in general. No fever, no flu. Or at least is very rare (vet colluegues I call upon thy).

So? Well, they found out a very complicated reparation self mechanism in bats, way more complicated that the one you can find in ordinary mammals. Basically it's not like their DNA doesn't get damaged; it does but it gets fixed immediately.

This of course in functional individuals, which Hordak sadly is not.

Humanoid bats/spacebats don't fly anymore, but maybe their methabolism didn't change much. Another specie with a great tollerance to ROS is the furless mole, who by the way (again) doesn't develope cancer, lives a loooot given its size, and plus can live without oxigen for hours.

Now, the point of all this mess is: could it be that, in general, spacebats don't go through oxidative stress despite the high production of ROS. Maybe despite evolving and not needing to fly anymore they have however still used this high radical tollerance to live more and without cancer. And so on.

But maybe Hordak lacks this mechanism and that is why his DNA got damaged, you know, the defect in his cloning. And that's why my baby is suffering.

This mechanism also allows bats to be more immune to viruses (yes, covid, no baby bats it's not your fault we stupid humans eat you). So maybe Hordak is truly more susceptible to viruses in general.

Idk, let me know.

#hordak #spacebats #horde prime #spop #bats

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dotthings · 3 years

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Let’s just talk about all the TFW bonds in this ep.

I liked how Cas and Sam won’t give up hope and caring, working together to find the other way Cas was already taking the initiative looking for. I think we saw their similarities in this ep, why they’re friends. Both of them were very full of heart, contrasting with Dean’s cold spinning downward in a way that is so contrary to his nature. Which was the whole point, as I said out last week, he wasn’t OOC, there was a very good reason and Dean was giving into his rage and vengeance against Chuck. So much so that his anger at Chuck--at finding out his whole life has been a manipulated lie--was threatening to devour everything in its path, which is exactly what Chuck wants, because Chuck is the supervillain of the story, this is the ending Chuck says he wants, and he orchestrated events around Dean to drive him to the brink. It was heartbreaking and horrifying to watch. Dean and Jack’s cozy Impala talk made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end because it was shot and acted and presented like it was this soft moment but it was anything but. It was terrifying. Dean was trying to soften his harsh words earlier. “Jack isn’t family.” Holy sheeeet. “He’s not like Sam or Cas.” While I appreciate the equating Sam and Cas here, I do, but let’s not get too hasty because I didn’t buy for a moment Dean doesn’t regard Jack as family and it felt jarringly wrong because it was meant to be wrong. That just isn’t Dean. Not after this story the canon has put us through emotionally from Jack’s birth to here. Fandom yells of OOC, well, duh but not bad writing, the whole point was to show the wrongness and of course that isn’t how Dean is. I don’t care if someone likes Jack or hates Jack or their opinion on Jack but that moment wasn’t meant to ring as Dean’s inner truth and that Dean and Jack scene in the Impala was meant to have that uneasy dichotomy. Awww look Dean and Jack bonding....as Dean coldly explains to Jack why he has to die to destroy Chuck and Jack calmly nods “I understand.” I was H O R R I F I E D. Nope, I did not go through all this, with my heavily critical eye on Jack in S13, and then the canon story evolving in ways that softened me until I understood, through the story, why Jack and his “more dads than most” mattered for me to just sit here now going YUP TOTALLY FINE THIS IS COOL DEAN’S DEF COOL WITH JACK KILLING HIMSELF TO DESTROY CHUCK.

Anyway, I kept saying before this ep aired, it’s not going to sustain, Dean’s gonna break and so he did. Because no, that is not the way. And Sam knows it and Cas knows and deep down Dean knew it all along but he was spiraling big time while the megavillain of the piece basically rubs his hands together with glee.

And Chuck’s favorites, his pet toys Sam and Dean, whose bond I’m sure delights him but mostly while he gets a kick out of seeing them be miserable and them destroying each other in every other world, because draaaama, that bond is what saves Dean. But not because all Dean cares about is Sam. Dean’s anger and need for vengeance was consuming him so deeply all he cared about is Chuck. To the point where he pulled a gun on Sam. He pulled. A gun. On. Sam. He’d destroy Sam rather than give up his shot at using Jack to destroy Chuck. H O R R I F I E D.

It’s been a while since I’ve broken down crying this much about Sam & Dean but Sam’s speech talking Dean down broke me, and it’s true of them, all along. Not the dysfunctional parts or the darker aspects of that bond, not all they are, but that simple truth of that brotherly bond between them and Dean who watched over his younger brother. Trying to shield him from everything, including John, damn I was so impressed the show said that part about John out loud, bluntly.

Meanwhile part of Sam’s appeal to Dean is Sam frantically begging on Eileen’s behalf because Eileen would wind up re-deaded and all that talk about everyone goes back to where they came from and Dean kept turning to look at Cas. Dean and Cas stared at each other a couple of times. So there’s that Saileen-Destiel paralleling again, just won’t quit will it. Eileen would be re-deaded. Cas would revert to his factory setting I assume. This Cas would cease to be this Cas. And Jack, the son TFW all adopted, I don’t know. Not existing in the first place. The son who at that moment is about to go nuclear from the cosmic bomb inside of him.

*puts head down on knees and takes deep breaths*

The bond between Sam and Dean wakes Dean up, brings him back to himself--much like in Nihilism, but not alone. Sam wakes up Dean, pulls him back to himself, the Dean who loves all the people he loves so deeply and would never trade them away for vengeance.

#Castiel #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Jack Kline #Sam and Dean: A work in progress #Destiel #Team Free Will 2.0 #spn #supernatural #spn meta #supernatural season 15 spoilers #MY HANDS WERE SHAKING WHEN THIS EP WAS OVER JFC

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itsnothingofinterest · 4 years

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Running through Hypotheticals: could Hawks have brought Twice in alive?

I may regret coming back to this topic but I can’t resist arguing against a bad defense for heroes’ immoral actions. A lot of Hawks fans have tried to justify the murder of Twice by setting up the false dichotomy that Hawks could either kill him or let him go, believing that taking him in alive forcefully was impossible from the word go and Hawks was justified in thinking that. If it’s not apparent: I don’t agree; and I want to go through the encounter to prove Hawks could’ve apprehended Twice without lethal force. Or at a minimum, I do not believe he was at all justified in believing otherwise. And in the interest of fairness, I won’t be including anything used to contain/move Twice besides what we already know exists and are commonly used in villain transport; i.e. normal police equipment and hero escorts. So no quirk-nullifying cuffs or anything like that.

(Going in, I will admit to my bias: while I like Hawks as a character, I don’t much like him as a person; and a good portion of my enjoyment comes half from the tragedy of his actions and half from giving him shit, especially for killing people. That said, I tried very hard to stick to the facts in discussing if he was right or wrong to think he had to kill Twice.)

My reasoning comes down to one major factor; it’d be a faster method because he would have no reason to hesitate like he did. To run everyone though it, let’s start from where he first explicitly hesitated; which is here, the moment he first goes in for the kill:

Of course, you could debatably start from an even earlier point. Hawks spends a lot of the early encounter trying to talk Twice down because he’s going into it with the mindset that Twice is too dangerous to let live, and he is trying to avoid killing him but seems to be under his own false dichotomy that Twice needs to come quietly or die. (We have evidence that he had this mindset going in because he seemingly brought a tape recorder to record Twice resisting.) Without that mindset going in, Hawks is under no obligation to talk to Twice or let Twice get his final words in, saving a lot of time; especially when you remember that Twice started the encounter pinned.

But anyway, pick your starting point and replace all of Hawk’s dialog with him punching or kicking Twice’s head into the ground until he’s unconscious.

From there flying Twice outside should be a simple matter, but I suppose I should acknowledge the worst case scenario; Dabi still comes in and we reach this point, but with the difference that Twice is unconscious.

Now in canon at this point, Hawks thinks to himself that despite his bad position, he could still get Twice out of there if he just doesn’t move.

(Side note: avoided his vitals my buttocks, you were prevented from hitting his vitals when Dabi stopped you from stabbing him in the head.)

So if we’re exploring a scenario where Twice cannot move, then Twice is capturable in that scenario. Or, at least, we know Hawks believes that.

Not that I think this specific point matters anyway. This is mainly a discussion on if Hawks was right in assuming Twice couldn't be brought in alive, because that’s something he believed from the start and affected his actions during the incident. Including elements that Hawks couldn't know ahead of time into the discussion, like Dabi’s intervention and Hawk’s subsequent injuries, feels like cheating. But I suppose if Hawks still brings him in then it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, now that we’ve proven Hawks could’ve brought Twice outside to the heroes and police; there’s just the matter of a suitable hero escort, one capable of subduing Twice if he wakes up. Near as we can currently tell, this is the main method heroes use to ensure villains don’t escape mid-transit to jail.

Now I think the fandom has a habit of overselling Twice’s abilities, calling it unstoppable and the like. The reality is that there’s probably plenty of heroes that could counter him; so there’s probably somebody at the mansion raid who’d be up to the task. But I understand that “somebody” isn’t a good answer to the problem of (what I understand to be) the perceived biggest hurdle in bringing Twice to prison. Is there anyone we can think of that that we know could counter Twice, preferably someone Hawks would know to be at the mansion raid and be available to act as the escort?

Oh hey Hawks, you’re not busy, right? Especially since you kept at least enough of your wings to fly in this scenario.

And thus, Hawks has every reason to believe he could eliminate Twice as a threat without eliminating him as a person. And thus, the fact that he didn’t do that means I will continue to give him shit over it.

Thank you for coming to my Ted-Talk.

#bnha #twice #jin bubaigawara #anti hawks #dabi #analysis #quirk analysis

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deadmomjokes · 4 years

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For me, part of being asexual means that I get really, REALLY grouchy about a lot of romance in media. Rather, the obsession with romance, sex, and sexuality in media. I am that person that will roll my eyes and turn off a movie if it looks like it’s turning into some steamy nonsense, and I will never willingly sit through a romcom even if you paid me. Sex scenes? I’m out. Passionate kissing? Peace, I’m going to the kitchen, want anything? Call me back when the actual story gets back on. Ridiculous ‘ooh they have such SEXUAL TENSION and chemistry, let’s see how close we can get to making them kiss and just have them breathe heavily in each others faces to get our audience all bothered’? I will end you all. I HATE when books or movies or shows throw in a romantic or sexy subplot just for the lols, at least what I perceive as the lols. Basically, a romance has to be really super duper well-crafted for me to get behind it and not be just utterly enraged or completely turned off from the story.

(Also please note that when I use the term romance in this context, I’m using it as a catch all for ship-based storylines that, due to our culture’s obsession with sex, usually include or hinge on sex or kissy scenes.)

That being said. When a romance is done well, and I mean really well, I absolutely 100% lose my mind. I feel that mess in my soul.

So with that introduction, allow me to lay out a few of my favorite (and, in some instances, most maddeningly painful) romances/canon ships in media.

(read more because I went off. like I said, I feel this way too deeply when it’s done well.)

Winry Rockbell and Edward Elric in FMA:B. Slow burn, mutual pining, mutual cluelessness, what’s not to love? So soft and tender and funny all at the same time, and the mad respect Ed has for Winry is absolutely delightful. She does her own thing, and he’s totally supportive, just as she is of him. And a happily ever after??? UGH, I can’t, it’s perfect. The most straightforward and least convoluted of my whole list, and it’s comparatively easy to breeze through. FMA:B is great anyhow, so do yourself a favor and go watch it.

Audrey Parker/ Nathan Wuornos in Haven (with major caveats). Caveats first: they went overboard with the sexy stuff in my opinion. It got too smutty for me, but my tolerance for that stuff is super low, and it did still air on TV, so evidently it wasn’t as bad for the target audience as it was for my sex-in-media-repulsed self. I also find the final seasons to get a bit stale and repetitive in terms of them trying to advance the love story narrative (all the plot points for it got addressed in earlier episodes/seasons, so why are we going over it again??). They also have a bit of an issue in some episodes with dragging out conflicts because the characters just won’t talk to each other like adults. But overall, taken as a whole, it hits hard. Again, we have a slow burn, mutual pining dynamic that starts as a genuine platonic friendship, and transforms into a dimension and time defying chosen soulmates love story for the ages. The things they would do to save each other, even if it means they can never be together, just so they have the joy of knowing that their beloved is okay. The tiny ways they take care of each other- Audrey testing Nathan’s coffee to see if it’s too hot, Nathan slowing down so he doesn’t out-pace her, it’s just adorable.

Faramir and Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings BOOKS. This is an interesting one because it happens really quickly and between two minor characters. But Tolkien did this really interesting thing where he established these two characters separately, and then brought them together and played off what we knew about each of them in context of everything else that had happened with the main story, and suddenly it has, as one of my professors would say, “the illusion of depth.” Faramir absolutely falls head over heels for Eowyn but won’t act until she can deal with her own crap and be emotionally available. Eowyn realizes that she was hung up on ideals, illusions, and false dichotomies. Faramir has been through a lot and is looking for peace. Eowyn is looking for who she really is when she realizes she has more than two choices in life. They find healing together, and in the process, find what they were looking for in each other. And all that happens in the space of, like, 4 pages. I LOVE IT.

Sam Carter and Jack O’Neill in Stargate SG1. This one will hurt you to no end. You will hate life. But gosh dang if they aren’t perfect. This is the slowest burn and most mutual pining of all slow burn mutual pining ships to ever grace media. I’m talking 8 seasons of these two sharing feelings but being unable to express it for one reason or another. What are those reasons, you ask? Jack is her superior and respects her too much to put her in that position. No fraternization on the team. Sam has career aspirations, he won’t ruin her life. He’s got his own issues to work through and knows he isn’t emotionally available. Sam is clueless for a while, then when she realizes she has feelings for him but it couldn’t be because of their work dynamic and because he’s still dealing with his own crap, she tries to move on but keeps coming back to the unspoken fact that she still loves him. To the point that she breaks off her own engagement to a great guy because she realizes she was only trying to move on-- and wasn’t successful. They are clearly in deep for each other, and yet they keep making excuses why they can’t say it.

In the whole series, they never officially get together, and I HATE THAT. There are multiple alternate realities and timelines where they are together, and happy, but in the main timeline, they can’t get over themselves, and it hurts so bad because they’re so perfect. Jack knows she’s the smartest person in the room, and he supports her and defends her and listens to and defers to her. He respects her first as an expert, then as a colleague, and then as a woman whom he deeply loves even though he can’t find it in him to love himself. She appreciates his experience and leadership, and trusts him implicitly. She knows she’s got more book smarts, but relies on his judgement and ability to remain calm under pressure. She also knows she can be real with him, and he knows that when she calls him on his BS he better listen. She is his conscience, and he is her backbone. And in between episodes where they’re clearly pining for each other, and even during, they’re really great friends and a great team. I could seriously write an essay on why this ship is both perfect and intensely frustrating, but then again, you could just watch a great and classic series and see what I mean for yourself. (Then you’d also get to meet the perfection that is Teal’c, and watch Daniel Jackson’s transition from Milo Thatch in Space to sassy beefcake demigod who still loves archaeology.)

Beren and Luthien, Tolkien part 2, electric boogaloo. A love so powerful it transcends death, fate, hell and heaven all at once. It’s kind of wild and not what you’d expect if you’ve only read LotR (or only seen the movies), because it’s more a classic fairy tale than anything, but hot dang if it isn’t still one of the most powerful, moving, deeply impactful love stories in all of writing. It’s even a “love at first sight” narrative and I STILL fall hard for it. This story legit moves me to tears every dang time I read it, or even think about it too hard.

It starts as a simple “forbidden love” story, but these two loved each other so much that they defied one of the most powerful kings in all the world at that time (who was also Luthien’s dad, oopsies), defied Satan himself and marched into Hell just for the chance to be together, and then changed the very way the world works forever just so they could stay together and not be parted. Luthien is a total BEAST, while never giving up her gentle, loving, and tender nature. For the love of this man, she defies her father’s wishes and breaks herself out of her own dang tower to go rescue her prince instead of the other way round, she sends Sauron (yeah, he’s here too!) scurrying with his tail between his legs, wrecks his house, and frees all his slaves and prisoners just to try and get to Beren, drags his butt out of heck part 1, then willingly walks into literal, actual Hell with him and proceeds to enchant Satan and all the demons within. Then she gets her bf outta there after he loses his hand, and goes back to face her father unafraid. Basically, Beren undertakes a literally impossible task just for the chance to be with Luthien, but Luthien is the one that makes it happen because she loves him too much to sit around knowing he’s going to die. She’s willing to die with him rather than live without him, but more willing to dare death to come at her and get some because ain’t no way she’s losing him.

Then, at the last, when all should have been their happily ever after, everything goes wrong and she loses her beloved, and instead of mourning forever, she yeets off her mortal coil out of pure “Oh no you didn’t, not after all we went through” just to go stand before the God of Fate and the Dead and plead with him to change the rules of the universe itself just so that she can be with Beren. And he does it, because their love is so strong. Just for them, all of existence is rewritten so that they might never be parted.

And if you don’t think that’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard, consider also: these two crazy kids were so wonderful that the Goodest Boy in all the world, a functionally immortal and super-intelligent dog sent from heaven itself by a literal god, willingly turned on all his masters and spontaneously learned intelligent speech just so he could help them out and be their Good Boy til the bitter end, thus (in Tolkien’s mythos) starting the whole “man’s best friend” thing with dogs. So yeah. And, uh, Tolkien based it on him and his wife, to the point of ripping their first meeting frame-for-frame from real life. It’s too much y’all.

Anyhow, this post is way, way too long, but I was just feeling the need to get that out there. Maybe I’ll have more in the future, but for now, this is what was on my mind. Particularly the last two.

#long post #romance #asexual #stargate sg1 #haven #fmab #tolkien #lotr

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leroiloup · 4 years

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The Axe

⚜ Who wants a horror story in spooky month ?? This is a bit different because it’s not written from Klaus’s POV. Instead, I invented a new character who shares the tale. ➥ Canon compliant : April 1918 ✥ Trigger Warnings: violence and gore | allusions to the real life serial killer

New Orleans is riddled with legends and ghost stories ; perhaps more so than any other city in the world. While swapping ghastly fun tales over the campfire, what many fail to realize is that the most horrific of these accounts are in fact true. There is evil that lurks in this city –– and has since its very inception. How do I know this for certain, my curious reader ? Because I have witnessed what may be the bloodiest night in all of New Orleans history ; I witnessed the massacre that no one knows about –– executed by the legendary Axe Man, himself. But to tell this tale, you must understand one simple and yet unfathomable truth : he was no man, at all.

- –– he was a beast.

It was April, 1918. The magnolias were in full bloom ; their floral scent painting the streets of the French Quarter with the usual jubilance that spring evoked. What the occupants of the Crescent City didn’t know, was that while they toiled about in their daily business, there lay an entirely clandestine world just under their noses ; fantastic beings and creatures, that the humans believed to belong only in fiction, called New Orleans their home. The problem was the like humans, these creatures were never at peace. Each faction sought dominion over the bustling, delta metropolis –– resulting in tension, skirmishes –– - and at times, war.

It was at this time that a coven of the blood drinkers had pressed upon the Quarter, seeking to take the throne. They had heard of the Mikaelsons, but were too naive to believe in the Original Vampire Family. Ego driven, they simply thought the Mikaelsons to be an older family who held power under false pretenses. Tensions grew, and petty deeds from both sides escalated until one night, the interloping vampires made a crucial mistake : they made it personal.

No one could have known the deep ties that the middle sibling held with the werewolves. Yet when the heads of the local pack members showed up on the front door step of the Abattoir, the one known as Klaus had found his breaking point. No longer would be entertain his older brother’s want of diplomacy ; the petulant vampire coven had to be punished –– nay, obliterated !

I stood on the street corner, peddling my warnings to the humans that God shall smite us all, when it began. Not a threat to any, I may as well have been invisible to any faction, making my account complete and without obstruction. The sun had well past set and the moon was near full, allowing its silvery glow to illuminate the empty cobbled street. Slaying vampires would best be done in the day when they cannot emerge in the sunlight –– making them trapped like sitting ducks. Perhaps Klaus preferred the challenge ; perhaps he wanted to boast his power ; or perhaps he wished to revel in a bit of fun in this bloodshed.

The first sign of trouble was the fog ; thick, cold, and penetrating. It filled the small crossroads, surrounding the long since abandoned pub, seeping in through the boarded up windows. I was smart enough to find my way to a back window where I could peer in through a crack in the wood to witness it all. There were twenty-three of the undead that milled about the old bar –– no doubt working on the next step in their nefarious plot. The room stilled as the fog settled over the dust ridden floors. It crawled up the walls, pushing everyone towards the center of the room as they looked about with worry stricken, wide eyes.

With a loud bang, large wooden beams fell into place over the back door, effectively locking it. The front door swung open, causing a few of the vampires to jump in surprise. In sauntered the devil, a chillingly pleasant grin upon his features. One fair haired man stepped forward, mustering what authority he could in his gait. ❝ You and your family have had enough of our warnings, Klaus, ❞ he said in a clear, commanding voice. ❝ Dispense of these parlor tricks and leave this city with your head. ❞

I cringed, for I had the perfect view of the angelic blue eyes as they twinkled with a menacing, predatory glee. Klaus said not a word, though his expression and relaxed demeanor spoke volumes. His hands clasped behind his back and he straightened. In unison, the entire group of twenty-three vampires gasped in horror. A few then screamed in terror. Judging by their glazed over features, it was evident that they were witnessing nightmares that only they could see. I understood perfectly that these vampires knew not of the vervain herb to protect their minds. The Original painted a tapestry of grotesque fantasy in their minds with such vivid detail that they all believed it to be true. I can only image what scene unfolded before them, and how long it must have seemed to last. In truth, it was only moments later when Klaus’s laugh rang through darkened room and they were all snapped out of their stupor.

❝ Enough ! ❞ their leader proclaimed as he foolishly stepped towards Klaus.

Rather than lash out physically as I would have guessed, Klaus leveled his eyes with the leader and said, ❝ Hand me that axe over there, will you, sport ? ❞

At once, the vampire obeyed. He went to the corner where a few different tools were left behind and fetched the old, yet sharp, axe. With a bewildered look, he offered it to the Original. One last smile was given to the group before a woman, clearly compelled by her own fear, darted for the open front door.

Klaus moved in a blur, faster than the wind itself, and swung wide with the axe. Her head flew clear off her shoulders and was launched into the crowd, hitting one of the poor fools who’s screams echoed in the dilapidated building. From there, all hell broke loose. Though vastly outnumbered, Klaus proved his prowess in picking them off as though they were but lambs. The front door remained open as though in taunt, giving them hope that would never be fulfilled.

The axe was as hungry as his fangs –– both dripping with blood as limbs were severed, hearts were plucked, bones were crushed. I noted with apt fascination that a few had even managed to taste the sweet air of freedom beyond the open door before they were met with the axe’s unforgiving blade. Klaus, himself, moved with the grace of one expertly trained in traditional swordplay. The dichotomy of the elegance in his movements and the brutal, rudimentary tool in his hand created a picture more sinister than it ought to have been.

Though it felt like hours, in mere moments the room was painted with a fresh coat of ruby red –– the carnage of pieces and innards of the vampires littering every surface. Only one shuddering and quaking voice was left. I barely recognized the once stalwart leader of the coven as he cowered on his knees, covered in the remnants of his peers. ❝ I-it’s true, ❞ he stammered. ❝ Th-the Original F-amily. You– you’re –– ❞

❝ –Not to be trifled with, ❞ Klaus interrupted, speaking around blood soaked fangs –– his dark, devil eyes filled with satisfaction. ❝ I suppose there’s something to be said of leaving a lone survivor to carry on the tale. Congratulations, mate. ❞ With that, he turned and began to head towards the front door. Before exiting, the Original paused and reconsidered. ❝ On second thought –– - ❞ Before more warning could be given, he moved with such a rapid ferocity that I didn’t know what had happened until I heard the thud of the severed head bounce off the wooden floor. Poetic, given the leader’s earlier warning to the Original.

With that, Klaus went along his way, axe over his shoulder and humming the upbeat tune of Mournin’ Blues under his breath as though he weren’t covered in the gore of twenty-three vampires. I crept around the side of the building just in time to see a wayward traveller making his way down the street. The homeless man beheld Klaus with wide, wild eyes, filled with fascination. ❝ It’s a good night for jazz, isn’t it, mate ? ❞ Klaus said jovially. He then handed the blood soaked axe to the human before sliding his hands in his pockets and strolling down the street, whistling the happy tune to himself.

The human had a look in his eyes as he beheld the axe that unsettled me deeply. One thing was clear : that night was only the beginning for the sharpened blade’s gruesome appetite.

#ᴡ ☾ kʟᴀᴜs cʜʀᴏɴɪᴄʟᴇs ﹕ oɴᴇ sʜᴏᴛ #ɢ ☾ ʜᴏʀʀᴏʀ #ᴛ ☾ pʀᴇ tvd #ᴠ ☾ cᴀɴᴏɴ

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inevitably-johnlocked · 5 years

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Hey! Will go on a 10-day trip soon and I was thinking i would like to save some fics just in case i don t have data over there. Share some longer stories? (also really loving your blog, million heart emojis from me)

Hi Nonny!

Oh gosh, that’s exciting!! I love long trips! And lucky for you I LOVE long fics, because they’re perfect for a long trip! (that and I have SO MANY FICS for 20 to 25 and 25 to 50 that I had to choose one or the other for you, LOL).

Lucky for you I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to share that very list!! BUT if you prefer some longer fics, check out these past lists I made:

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug. 2019)

Otherwise, I think these fics will be perfect for your trip! And as always, I sort them by length so if you want longer fics, check out the bottom of the list and work your way up, or just want something that will last you a plane ride or a day of relaxation, check out the top to bottom!

—–

NOVELLA-LENGTH FICS: 25 to 50K w. (Aug 2019)

Among the Secret Things by Kate_Lear for coloredink (E, 26,073 w., 14 Ch. || Angst, Drama, Amnesia) – Sherlock would be the last person to describe himself as given to flights of fancy, but at the look on Lestrade’s face he could swear that something inside him curls up and dies. Part 1 of Among the Secret Things

Dropping the Act by jadztone (T, 27,258 w., 10 Ch. || Parentlock, Fake Relationship, Mary’s Family, Post-S4, Cuddling & Snuggling, Bed Sharing, Pining, Christmas) – Sherlock and John are quite happy living together with Rosie in Baker St. They might be even happier if they didn’t act towards each other like their love is only platonic. Mycroft brings troubling news in the form of Mary’s parents wanting to know just what their grandchild’s home life is like. The boys decide to spend Christmas pretending like they are in love in order to seem more like a "normal" family. It's easy enough to pretend when all you're doing is dropping the act.

And A Doctor by StillWaters1 (T, 27,393 w., 6 Ch. || Friendship, Doctor John, Whump, Soldier / Doctor Dichotomy, Five and One) – It was only when people actually saw John working as a physician that they began to understand: that it wasn't just about bullets and IEDs and trauma care under fire. That "doctor" actually covered a pretty wide field. And that John was bloody good at covering ground. 5 times Dr. Watson treated others and 1 time he treated himself.

Don't Leave Anything Out by lookupkate (E, 27,422 w., 24 Ch. || Letters / Epistolary, Misunderstandings, Angst, Happy Ending, Alternate Meeting, Sherlock in Love, Pining Sherlock) – The first letter John writes home from Afghanistan is meant to go to a woman he went on only one date with. How it ends up in Sherlock's hands is completely innocent. What happens next is not. What do you do when you find out the person you're in love with has been lying about something as monumental as who they are? What do you do when you're the one who lied?How on earth do you put the pieces back together?

Vena Cava by SilentAuror (E, 27,452, 1 Ch. || H/C, Infidelity, Angst, HLV Fix-It, Romance) – Sherlock has been shot in the chest; John has been shot in the heart. Though everything is broken, they do their best to heal the wounds that Mary left on them both.

Trust Me, Trust Nobody by BlueMoonOnTheRise (T, 27,751 w., 10 Ch. || Kidnapping, Friendship / No Slash, Adventure, Trust Issues) – Whatever he told Mycroft, John trusted Sherlock almost instantly. When a new case shows up - smattered with the usual thrill of danger, death and cool logic - such trust ends up pushed to its very limits...

26 Pieces by Lanning (E, 28,236 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Torture, First Time, Happy Ending, Schmoop) – Mycroft gives Sherlock the apparently simple task of solving a puzzle box containing a stolen microchip. It isn't simple.

Silhouettes by allonsys_girl (E, 28,585 w., 7 Ch. || Canon Compliant, POV John, Heavy Drinking, Sad/Depressed John, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Reunion, Foot Jobs, Blow Jobs, Infidelity, Cheating, Drug Use/Abuse, Anal, Switchlock, Rimming, Parentlock) – Sherlock and John find comfort in each other's arms, but as ever with these two, it's not your typical relationship. It's fluffy at the beginning, gets deeply angsty in the middle, gets porny at the end.

Hellfire by testosterone_tea (E, 28,596 w., 9 Ch. || Fantasy / Magic / Mages / Elementals AU || Mage Sherlock, Elemental John, Developing Relationship, Torture, Powerful / BAMF John, POV Alternating, Dark / Blood Magic, UST, First Kiss) – Sherlock is a Mage that gets involved with a case involving Dark Summoning rituals, leading him to John Watson, a man with Berserker blood. The only thing is, Berserkers have been extinct for centuries. And of course, nothing involving Mycroft and his interfering ways is ever simple. This time, even Sherlock may have bitten off more than he can chew.

An Experiment in Apathy Series by belovedmuerto (G to E, 28,701 w. across 13 stories || Empath John, Empath-by-Proxy Sherlock, Epic Bromance Becomes Romance, Angst, Nightmares, Experiments, Trauma, Dreams) – "No man is an island, John. You less so than most." A sequel to the EiE Series, wherein John and Sherlock explore their relationship.

To be Loved by You by TwisterMelody (M, 28,775 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, H/C, Friends to Lovers, Post-HLV, Infidelity, Character Death) – Too many times they had confessed themselves in the darkness, leaving it there, never to speak of it again. But this is different. This love deserves the light of day.

To Mend Icarus by AlessNox (T, 29,186 w., 14 Ch. || Post-TRF, Friendship, Drama, BAMF!John, Emotional Turmoil, Introspection, Harry is in this Fic, Angry John, Happy Ending, Queerplatonic Relationship) – After a case lands John Watson in court, he tells Sherlock that he is leaving. Not understanding why, Sherlock decides that the only way to learn the truth is to investigate his flatmate, Dr. John Watson. A revision of the story Mending Icarus.

The Wisteria Tree by SilentAuror (E, 29,773 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S3, Emotional Love Making, Amnesia/Memory Loss, Sherlock Loves John So Much, Sherlock POV, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending, First Times, Hurt/Comfort, Est. Rel., Retirement) – Sherlock wakes up from a month-long coma only to discover that he has no memory of the previous six years to his own shock as well as John's...

M Is For Moriarty by ElvendorkInfinity (T, 29,882 w., 12 Ch. || Suspense, Mystery, Case Fic, Worried Sherlock, No Slash, Whump) – A figure at the end of the hospital bed; a needle in the dark...Moriarty has John, and Sherlock must follow the paper trail through London to find him before time runs out. Sequel to BANG.

"finally kiss the bloody idiot" by Salambo06 (E, 29,812 w., 13 Ch. || Mutual Pining, Declarations of Love, First Kiss / Time, Angst, Misunderstandings, Fantasies POV John) – Inspired by a fic idea on tumblr : "John and Sherlock know the Yard has a pool going for when they’re finally going to get together. It’s been running forever, and it’s worth thousands of pounds. It’s all fun and games, hahaha, until they find out Lestrade is in dire financial straits (dog needs emergency surgery, he’s putting his kid through gymnastics training, I don’t know, something), and they decide to fake a relationship to win the pool for him. Sherlock figures out the day and way that Lestrade thinks it’s going to happen, and they act it out. It’s all for a good cause, fake relationship style, until it’s not." Part 1 of The Pool

Another Auld Lang Syne by DiscordantWords (M, 30,234 w., 31 Ch. || Post S4, Mutual Pining, Alternating POV, Introspection, Parentlock, Christmas, New Year’s, First Kiss, Past Drug Use, Angst with Happy Ending, Drinking, Sherlock Whump) – There had been years of missed chances.

Hitting the Water at Sixty Miles an Hour by what_alchemy (E, 30,568 w., 5 Ch. || Fake Rel., Roadtrips, Slow Burn) – “You love your mother, Sherlock?” John watched the muscles in Sherlock’s jaw jump. He nodded in one sharp jerk.“Then we’re going to her party and making her happy.” John let out a resigned sigh. “As a ruddy couple, you bastard.”

The Kissing Disease by cottonballz_of_death (E, 30,856 w., 15 Ch. || Sick Fic, Angst with Happy Ending, Case Fic, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Jealous Sherlock, Body Image Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional H/C, POV Sherlock, Oral / Anal, Thong, Frottage) – John brings home a boyfriend, shocking Sherlock, who long ago gave up hope that his straight flatmate would ever take a romantic interest in him. In a bid to reconnect with John, he tries to infect himself with a "harmless" virus. Neither of them is prepared for the emotional fallout that results.

An Acquired Taste by kinklock (E, 31,059 w., 4 Ch. || Vampires AU || Vampire Sherlock, Misunderstandings, Bat!Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Humour, Magical Realism, Fluff and Angst, Blood Drinking, Holmes Family, Slow Burn) – At Montague Street when Sherlock was forced to sate his body’s needs, he was at least able to wander about the flat as much as he pleased. At Baker Street, it was mini-bags in a mini-fridge and bedroom confinement.

Shallow Grave by SilentAuror (E, 31,672 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Angst, HLV Fix It, Infidelity, Pining Sherlock, First Person POV Sherlock) – Starts as Sherlock's plane is taking off at the end of His Last Vow. When he finds out that Moriarty is alive and that he's being recalled from his mission, Sherlock decides that he should have told John how he felt before he left. So he walks off the plane and kisses him.

Love or What You Will by miss_frankenstein (T, 31,987 w., 11 Ch. || College/Uni AU || Professor John, Ph.D Student Sherlock, Pining John, Poetry, Falling in Love / Slow Burn, Light Angst, Happy Ending) – John is an English professor who specializes in War and Post-War Literature and Sherlock is the brilliant yet impossible Ph.D. student assigned to be his TA because no one in the Chemistry Department is willing to put up with him. And - somewhere between Waugh and Plath, e-mails and takeaway, novels and villanelles - they fall in love.

Here Comes The Sun by JennLynn77 (E, 32,126 w., 15 Ch. || Post S4/TFP, John Whump, Caring Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Emotional Sex, First Time, Virgin Sherlock, Switchlock, Cuddling/Snuggling, Surgery/Injury Recovery, Endearments, Anal, Hand Jobs, Porn with Feels) – John suffers an injury and needs surgery. Sherlock, and those around him, help John recover. Along the way, John and Sherlock realise what they mean to each other, and what they've had together all this time.

The Midas Touch by flawedamythyst (E, 32,231 w., 1 Ch. || Magical Realism, John has a Magical Cock, Dub Con, Healer John) – John Watson has a medical condition that means everyone he sleeps with is instantly healed of all illness and injury. This causes complications when Sherlock breaks his arm, and even more complications when Sherlock falls in love with him. Yes, this is a story where John has a literal magic healing cock. It's a lot less cracky than you're probably imagining. Warning: Contains complex issues of sexual consent, although not between Sherlock and John.

Five Times They Kissed for a Case, and One Time They Kissed for Real by fleetwood_mouse (M, 32,406 w., 6 Ch. || 5+1, Slow Burn, Fluff / Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers) – A stolen ring! An artful blogger! And many more adventures for your enjoyment.

A Study In Auto-Signatures, Sniper Dolphins, and Sex Holidays by cwb (E, 32,690 w., 8 Ch. || Case Fic, Post S3, Evil Mary, Dev. Rel., Honeymoon, Epistolary, Bottomlock, First Kiss / Time, Fluff, Secret Agents, BAMF!John) – John and Mary go on their sex holiday, and Sherlock is grumpy and pining about it. Part 1 of HOT DOLPHIN SEX

a good old-fashioned happy ending by darcylindbergh (E, 32,731 w., 26 Ch. || Christmas, Frottage, Comfort, Est. Rel., Fluff, Insecure Sherlock) – For Christmas this year, Sherlock wants to get John something special: something every fairytale deserves. Part 2 of things fairy tales are made of

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish (M, 32,961 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas, Fluff and Angst, H/C, Post-TRF, Case Fic, Mild Gore, Sherlock Whump) – The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.” The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” One of these lists is not John Watson’s. If John Watson were to put what he really wanted in list form, to live in a land somewhere beyond ‘almosts' now that Sherlock Holmes has indeed returned to him, he would never be able to look his flatmate in the eye ever again.

Chaperones by MissDavis (T, 34,114 w., 7 Ch. || 11 Years Post-S4, Fake Relationship, Parentlock, Disney World, Bed / Room Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, First Kiss, Obsessive Sherlock, Insecure John) – Right. Of course. Everyone assumed they were a couple and no one would question it. John put his elbows up on the table so he could rest his head in his hands. "You want to pretend to be a couple so we can chaperone a trip to Disney World with Rosie's class and you won't have to share a room with a stranger?" "Exactly." Sherlock beamed at him. "Don't worry about the cost. The Birmingham case last month paid more than enough to cover expenses for all three of us."

Pater Noster by SilentAuror (E, 34,256 w., 2 Ch. || Case Fic, HLV+, Family Trauma, Sherlock POV, Villain Mary) – During the autumn that John is staying at Baker Street again after Sherlock was shot, he ruminates over the similarity between Sherlock's shot and the one that killed his father when he was fifteen. Cold case meets series 3 fix-it. Part I takes place entirely within His Last Vow, Part II takes place starting at the end of HLV and continues after.

Bedtime Stories by Liketheriver (M, 34,388 w., 1 Ch. || Emotional H/C, Romance, Angst & Humour, Bed Sharing, John First Person, TRF, John Whump) – John's POV during Season 2 and beyond when Sherlock takes up semi-permanent residence in his bed. A collection of codas and missing scenes wrapped up into one long fic and topped with a bow that takes the story beyond Reichenbach and into happy territory once more. Part 1 of Bedtime Universe

carrying up his morning tea by darcylindbergh (E, 34,504 w., 5 Ch. || Post S3, Minor Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Wakes/Funerals, Estranged John, Pining Sherlock, Depression/Insecurity, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Pain/Injury, Reconciliation, Awkwardness, Loneliness, Scars, Heavy Angst With Happy Ending) – His fingers tremble as he dials and he can’t force them steady. Familiar number, even though he hasn’t used it in two years. He isn’t even sure he should be calling it now, but she’d asked. She’d made him promise.

Inexplicable by emmagrant01 (E, 34,664 w., 6 Ch. || Body Swap, TSo3, Magical Realism / Artifacts, Infidelity, Angst) – So what was in that matchbox, anyway? John and Sherlock find out, the hard way.

Where Else Would I Be? by cwb (E, 34,910 w., 10 Ch. || Retirementlock, Domestic Fluff, Falling in Love, Parentlock, Fluff and Smut, Reminiscing) – John and Sherlock's five-year-old granddaughter spends the weekend with them in Sussex. Sherlock happily indulges her whims, and John takes care of them while quietly revisiting the past thirty years of their lives together.

The Yellow Poppies by SilentAuror (E, 34,952 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Nightmares, HLV Fix-It, PTSD, Trauma, POV Sherlock, Doctor John) – Sherlock is threatened and assaulted in the hospital immediately after having been shot in the heart, first by Mary, then by Magnussen. As he recovers at Baker Street with John and plans the attack on Appledore with Mycroft, he fights to work through the trauma caused by these two visits. Set during His Last Vow.

LHR-HNL by scullyseviltwin (E, 35,066 w., 7 Ch. || Hawaiian Vacation, Post-TRF, Friends To Lovers, Slow Burn, Just Talk Already, Drinking, Mutual Pining) – In need of an endangered flora sample, Sherlock and John must make a trip to an unexpected destination.

That Partitioning of the Things of Youth by wearitcounts (E, 35,353 w., 7 Ch. || Humour and Angst, Post-TRF, Fake Relationship, UST / RST, Friends to Lovers, Jealous John) – Victor Trevor is in town, and nobody's happy.

The Wrong Wagon by DancingGrimm (E, 35,663 w., 20 Ch. || Alternating POV, Molly x John [Molly pines for John], Public Sex, Casual Sex, Obliviousness, BAMF!John, Awkwardness, Angst & Humour, First Time, Virgin Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock) – Molly sees John in a new light and realises that she may have hitched her horse to the wrong wagon...or something like that. John pines for Sherlock and worries what he will think if he ever finds out. And Sherlock doesn't know what Molly's up to...but he knows he doesn't like it.

Classified(s) by blueink3 (E, 36,153 w., 4 Ch. || Wedding Date AU || Fake Relationship, Jealous, PIning, H/C, Idiots in Love, Happy Ending, Mary is not Nice) – Clara's American father is the ambassador to some such territory that Great Britain probably used to own, but she (and Harry’s undying love for her) is the reason John is getting on a flight at 12:30pm, flying across the second largest ocean in the world, and pretending to be in a perfectly happy, healthy relationship with an undoubtedly perfectly coiffed stranger. See, Clara is not only American (and wealthy to boot), she's also best friends with John’s ex-fiancée. Whom she's placed in the wedding party. As Maid of Honor. And John just happens to be Best Man. Bloody brilliant.

The Boy Who Drank Stars by kinklock (E, 36,157 w., 4 Ch. || Howl’s Moving Castle AU || Witches and Wizards, Slow Burn, Magic, Jealous John, Happy Ending, Bed Sharing) – “I’m looking for a castle,” John informed the scarecrow. “A moving one.”Except that, as it turned out, it was not a moving one at all.

we have never seen a greater day than this by Lediona (T, 36,420 w., 7 Ch. || A Royal Night Out AU || WWII / VE Day, Prince Sherlock, Soldier John, Alternating POV, First Kiss, Bittersweet Ending, Homophobia, Dancing) – Peace. At long last. It’s VE Day and Prince William desires to join the celebrations. It is a night of excitement, danger and the first flutters of romance.

Malediction by MapleleafCameo (M, 36,680 w., 11 Ch. || Ladyhawke AU || Magical Realism, Romance, Curses, Eventual Happy Ending) – Cursed to a half-life, John and Sherlock must fight the forces of evil to be reunited once again.

Nothing to Make a Song About by emmagrant01 (E, 36,833 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, First Time, Reunion, Jealous John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending) – When Sherlock returned from his faked death, John could not forgive him for the deception and broke off their friendship. Ten years later, John returns to London in search of yet another new beginning. Sherlock, not surprisingly, is waiting.

A Promise Made to Be Broken by PlantsAreNeat (E, 37,018 w., 7 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Pining, Slow Burn, RST, Eventual Relationship, POV Sherlock) – A young John makes an ‘if we’re still single at 40, we’ll get together’ pledge to a woman who ends up all wrong for him. She keeps reminding him of the promise, and won't let go of it. John asks Sherlock to pose as his boyfriend at a family wedding, so as to dash her hopes permanently. Sherlock, who has at last acknowledged his feelings for John, reluctantly agrees despite knowing how painful it will be to ‘have’ John, but not keep him.

The Unfinished Letters by SilentAuror (E, 37,391 w. , 1 Ch.|| Post S3 / S3 / HLV Fix it, Angst with Happy Ending, Romance, Infidelity, Depression, Case Fic, POV Third Person Sherlock, Love Confessions, Pining Sherlock, Letters) – A fire at Baker Street leads John to read something he was never intended to see: a notebook of half-written, unfinished letters Sherlock wrote during his time away...

Turn Left at the Park by Glenmore (NR (E), 37,409 w., 28 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting / ASiP Divergence, Case Fic, Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Loneliness, No Mary, Possessive Sherlock, Fluff & Angst, Nightmares/PTSD, Sherlock Saves John, Sherlock Whump-ish, Doctor John) – So what would have happened if John hadn't walked through the park and met Stamford?What if, instead, he walked around the park and just went home?

Goodness Gives Extras by mydwynter (E, 39,629 w., 6 Ch. || Fluff & Angst, Case Fic, Oral / Anal, Humour, First Time, Miscommunication, Snark, Christmas) – Christmas time. 'Tis the season to settle down with a drink, some food and a present or two, and to enjoy the quiet relaxation of the holiday. Instead, there's a case that drags them all over, missing presents, disappointed kids, angry parents, and a freak snowfall. On top of that John has to deal with Sherlock, who is being even more of a prat than usual. He really shouldn't have expected anything different.

Act IV by SilentAuror (E, 39,707 w., 1 Ch. || First Person POV Sherlock, HLV Fix-It, Indifelity, Angst, Drama) – After Sherlock is shot, John moves back into Baker Street. They spend the autumn together as John tries to make sense of his life and make some important decisions about both Mary and Sherlock. Canon-compliant, excerpts from His Last Vow.

A Week is Just Seven Days Isn't It? by scifigrl47 (T, 39,906 w., 4 Ch. || Humour, Friendship/Bromance, Stroppy/Bored Sherlock, Undercover/Army John, Texting, Pining-ish Sherlock, John Whump) – When John heads overseas for a week, Sherlock's forced to fend for himself. It goes about as well as anyone could have anticipated. Which is to say, very, very poorly. Don't worry, things'll be fine in just seven days.

(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea by DiscordantWords (M, 39,968 w., 7 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It || Grief / Mourning, Victor Trevor, Friendship, Sherlock is Not Okay, Nightmares/Flashbacks/Panic Attacks, Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, John Comes Home) – Baker Street is very much the same. Only different. And Sherlock is just trying not to drown.

Only To Be With You by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (M, 40,768 w., 4 Ch. || Black Mirror / Future AU || Character Death, Future Technology, Sickness/Cancer/Illness, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending, First Person POV John, Pining John, Heart-Wrenching Angst) – I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black. I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

The Curious Adventure of the Drs. Watson by ShinySherlock (M, 40,883 w., 14 Ch. || BBC & ACD Fusion || Victorianlock, Time Travel / Magical Realism, Friends to Lovers, Love and Kissing, Romance, Body Swap) – What if ACD Watson and BBC Watson switched places... “Imposter!” Hands clenching the lapels of John’s coat, Holmes shoved him anew. “Yes!” John agreed, nodding, and then grimacing. “Sort of!”

There's Someone On Your Shoulder by halloa_what_is_this (NR, 41,215 w., 6 Ch. || Pining Sherlock, Introspection, Daydreams, Sherlock Loves John So Much it Hurts) – Sherlock trips and falls head over heels in love, makes a lot of lists and stares, stares, stares.

The Semantics of Crop Circle Formation: a case study by Sherlock Holmes [unpublished] bycanolacrush (M, 41,710 w., 9 Ch. || Sherlock POV, Aliens, Wordplay, Casefic) – “Look at these photographs,” I said, gesturing to the wall of crop circles. “What do you observe?”“Crop circles,” John replied.“Obvious. What else?”“Are…are those intestines surrounding them?” “Yes. The majority are bovine and ovine in origin. The farmers who have acquired these crop circles in their fields have also had a tenth of their livestock murdered and arranged thus.” “Why?” John said, presumably in a rhetorical fashion. I detest rhetorical questions. “That is what I must find out, John.”

Resistivity and Relative Charge by liriodendron (E, 41,770 w., 8 Ch. || Synesthesia, Angst, Case Fic, Romance, Est. Rel., Homophobia, Religious Content, Victor Trevor, Mild Jealous John, Mild John Whump) – In which Sherlock Holmes meets an old acquaintance, John Watson doesn't enjoy a trip to the country quite as much as he thought he would, and the past absolutely refuses to stay where it belongs. Part 3 of Conductivity

Right Hand Man by SilentAuror (E, 42,031 w., 4 Ch. || H/C, Injury, Slow Burn, Infidelity, Mary is Not Nice) – When John's left arm becomes paralysed after a car accident, Mary asks Sherlock to take him back to Baker Street to recuperate, as she's about to give birth. Despite the fact that the search for Moriarty is ongoing, Sherlock takes John in and takes responsibility for overseeing his rehabilitation as he adjusts to the loss of his arm.

In the Still of the Night by SilentAuror (E, 42,234 w., 1 Ch. || S4 Fix It / Post-S4, Sherlock POV, Angst, Drama, Romance, Virgin Sherlock, Awkwardness, Misunderstandings / Miscommunications, Case Fic, Travelling, Pining) – As locals on the Northeastern coast begin to report UFO sightings, life at Baker Street becomes significantly awkward as John brings up his desire for more than friendship and Sherlock refuses him. They embark on the investigation from the confines of the tiny cottage Mycroft has rented for them, attempting to navigate both the clues of the case as well as their own inability to communicate...

Guidelines by WithLoweredVoices (M, 43,018 w., 15 Ch. || Winglock || Angels, Fantasy, Angst, BAMF! John, War, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Jealous John, Falling in Various Ways, Needy Sherlock) – The Good Soldier, one of the oldest and strongest of the fallen, is offered a bargain: to live as John Watson and to Guide a fledgling archangel so that he will stay on the path of good. Of course, Sherlock Holmes has different ideas about his destiny. Fantasy AU. Warnings for violence, occasional gore, and a whole load of hurt and angst.

Bloody But Unbowed by BeautifulFiction (E, 43,211 w., 8 Ch. || Abduction, John Whump, Mild Torture, Background Case Fic, Friends to Lovers, Post-TRF / S3 Rewrite, Hurt/Comfort) – When a familiar argument threatens to destroy the last remnants of John and Sherlock's failing friendship, both men are left questioning their worth to one another. Before either of them has the chance to make amends, circumstance intervenes. John is left at the mercy of his abductors, and this time, he's not sure Sherlock will bother coming to his rescue.

The Soul Remembers by i_ship_an_armada (E, 43,636 w., 10 Ch. || Oblivion AU || Post-Apocalypse, Movie Fusion, Science Fiction, Action/Adventure, Angst, Dreams, Bittersweet Ending) – John Watson is the lone security repairman stationed on a desolate, nearly-ruined future Earth. His dreams are plagued by a tall, dark-haired man, and when his dreams meet reality, he will be forced to question everything he believes is the truth about his life.

The Case of the Vanishing Pants by SwissMiss (E, 44,025 w., 6 Ch. || Post-TRF, Case Fic, UST, Homophobia, Friends to Lovers) – Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the course of a case.

Sentenced by SarahKnight (T, 44,777 w., 30 Ch. || Dev. Rel., Alternate S4 Canon, Drama, Angst, Pining, Feelings are Hard) – Virtual series 4 opener. Sherlock's in prison being targeted by a murderer, John's married to a pregnant assassin and Moriarty's back.

Left by lifeonmars (M, 45,153 w., 9 Ch. || Magical Realism) – John Watson is left-handed. He’s tried not to let it affect his life, but as any Lefty knows, that’s almost impossible.

The Real Great Perfumers by shelleysprometheus (E, 45,355 w., 68 Ch. || Case Fic, Alternating POV, Gay Sherlock / Bi John, Canon Compliant with Divergence at TRF, Friends to Lovers, Oral / Anal, Pining, First Kiss / Time, Dev. Rel., Drugging, Body Worship, Bathing, Love Confessions, Travelling, Bottomlock, Cranky Sherlock, BJ’s, Alternating POV, Jealous John) – The case, this case. This extraordinary, fascinating, scintillating case. A house. Designed entirely by its eccentric owner, built by no less than five hundred expert tradesmen in the heart of Marrakesh. A house that had, seemingly not only driven its owner out, but also to his quite unpleasant death. And a perfumer, a chemist no less, the very thought of the secrets that house could reveal, would reveal was irresistible. Sherlock had to have this case ... and it seems, he also had to have John! Part 1 of the Forethought and Fire series

Corpus Hominis by mycapeisplaid (E, 47,709 w., 12 Ch. || Casefic, Fluff, Romance, Frottage) - John knows the human body intimately. He’s had plenty of opportunity for study as a doctor, soldier, and lover. There’s one particular body, however, he knows very little about. When Sherlock launches himself head-first into a new obsession and they get sent on a case in an unlikely location, the pair discovers each other’s bodies with confusing yet delightful (and sometimes hilarious) results.

The Norwood Love Builders by flawedamythyst (T, 47,798 w., 9 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Slow Burn, Post TRF Angst) – Sherlock and John go undercover to solve the murder of Joanna Oldacre, but things are complicated by the many feelings John has been repressing in the wake of Sherlock's faked death and return.

The Pieces That Fall to Earth by Itsallfine (M, 49,513 w., 84 Ch. || S4 Fix-It, Epistolary, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Parentlock, Past Abuse, Coming Out, Questioning Sexuality, Mental Health Issues / Therapy, Angst, Happy Ending) – John and Sherlock have hit rock bottom, but with all their armor stripped away, they can finally speak honestly, seek healing, and find the truths that matter most.An epistolary post-s4 fix-it fic. Now complete.(This fic is rated T except for one very clearly marked and easily skippable chapter, which is rated M.) Part 1 of The Pieces that Fall to Earth

Holmes is where the heart is by Rose de Sharon (T, 49,636 w., 13 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Post-TRF, Reunion Fic, Bromance, Empty House Inspired, Adventure) – Three years after the Reichenbach Fall. On the anniversary of Sherlock's death, John pays a visit at 221 B Baker Street… and he gets the shock of his life.

Bedroom Tales by Junejuly15 (M, 49,950 w., 22 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Through the Years, H/C, Military Kink, First Kiss / Time, Romance, Insecure Sherlock, Voyeurism, Post-TRF, Ficlets, Fluff and Angst, Fix-It Fics) – Bedroom Tales is a collection of John and Sherlock ficlets. They are set at various stages of their relationship and are in no particular order. Some are fluffy, some sexy, some angsty, there is hurt and comfort, romance and love. What unites them is that they all play in a bedroom, but not necessarily the one in 221B.

A Love with No Name Series by aceofhearts61 (M, 49,955 w. across 20 fics || Ace!Sherlock / Straight!John, Queerplatonic Relationship, Cuddling/Snuggling, Soulmates, Caretaking, Platonic Romance) – In which Asexual!Sherlock and Straight!John are platonically in love life partners.

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #long fics #my fic recs #e-rated fics #Anonymous #long posts #25 to 50k words

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diveronarpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, RACHEL! You’ve been accepted for the role of GONERIL with an FC change to Katie McGrath. Admin Rosey: There are so many nuances to Grace that I think are difficult to capture -- her voice, her mannerisms are so unique to her but in the span of a single application you’ve been able to give us all that and more. Your plot points make me so excited for what is to come, while your paragraph sample had me head over heels for the Grace that you put in front of us. Veronesi, we finally have our Daly sisters gathered together and we’re ready for them to wreak havoc! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Rachel

Age | 21

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | Probably a 7/10? I’m on my computer a lot but it sometimes does take me a while to get through replies because I am a bit of a perfectionist. Inspiration comes in fits so there will definitely times when I rip through a ton of writing and others where is just isn’t coming as fast.

Timezone | PST

How did you find the rp? | I’m pretty sure I saw a teaser for this when y’all were first starting/again when you revamped but I was not in a place where I had the time/energy to write as much as I wanted so I filed it away and then forgot about it until now, when I finally have the desire to get back into writing!

Current/Past RP Accounts | Whiskey Bishop (past)

IN CHARACTER

Character | Goneril / Grace Daly

What drew you to this character? | Grace wasn’t the character that first caught my eye, but boy did she keep it. I’m a sucker for bull-headed women and Grace’s self-centeredness and bloodlust really drew me in. Goneril canonically is kind of a righteous bitch, played much more one-dimensionally than I’d like; this is where I think the shades of Grace’s character really grab me. She’s ruthless but not reckless, cold not from an absence of love but from too much - Louis Daly’s principessa, first born, beloved, spoiled like milk left too long in the sun of her parents’ affection. This is what intrigues me most, and what I think will be the most difficult part of her to work through for me as a writer. I’ve written characters that are hardened because they had to be, but none that truly chose wickedness simply because they could…. I hope to draw out Grace’s self-confidence and self-centeredness and see how far personal gain can really get her. She’s very calculating but also impulsive; the second she sees an opportunity that benefits her and determines the ends justify the means, she’s all over it. It’s dichotomies like this that really capture me and I think it’ll be interesting to work out all the ways she’s human, despite her seeming attempts not to be.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | These turned into more of little character studies and possible engagements to further Grace’s character than specific plots - I’ve tried to condense the ideas at the start into more specific playable beats that could become direct interactions!

DOMINION: Playing the long game, working her way up to a power grab that consolidates to herself - what is step one? After all, everyone must start from the beginning…

There are three things Grace Daly is sure of: she was born, she will (eventually) die, and that she alone dictates her life. She’ll take direction, sure, but she knows what she wants. There is always, always something bigger, something better, just out of her reach, something she wants desperately to have. Maybe it’s a fault in how she was raised, never wanting for anything, but now - now she burns with righteous fire for that which is denied her: control. Grace is power-hungry and doesn’t care who knows it. She sold her soul to one devil and sold it again right out from under them when a better price arose. Traitor is too harsh of a word; call her opportunistic. If they look down on her now, well. Let that teach them to underestimate.

There will come a day when Grace will rule - not as a right hand, not as the shadow behind the throne - but as her own. This was a right she was born into, and one that she will claim. Her time with the Capulets was merely a step towards this goal, for how better to know your enemy than to have been amidst them? Now, one step forward, she aims her sights higher, looking to rise beyond that which has been set for her. She starts slow. First step: usurp her captain - a thing she sees as inevitable, with his penchant for drink and her particular brand of determination. She’ll do the grunt work, get her hands dirty like the rest - she will continue to do so even as captain, as advisor, as underboss, as boss herself. Henry is but a minor bump, easily smoothed over, easily moved beyond. She knows there is more for her in the Montagues than simply obeying him, and she will take her future with both hands.

FAMILY: What blood really stands between the sisters? How far is she willing to go - what acts against her own kin can she truly justify?

However much she claims indifference towards her sisters, they are her foils, in some ways. The blood shared between them is a regretful thing, nothing that compels her towards compassion, least of all love - still, Grace is reluctantly connected to them in name and in action. In some ways, the three sisters together make one whole person - Grace’s ruthlessness tempered by Catherine’s compassion; Regina’s apathy filled by Grace’s overconfidence; Catherine’s timidity balanced by Regina’s ability to get shit done. They compliment each other and highlight the others’ flaws in equal measure. Each is a product of the other and their shared home, however much they may want to distance themselves from it.

I would love to see Grade engaging with Regina and Catherine, as each draws out a different side of her. Regina inspires a jealousy in Grace that she is loathe to name - they inhabited in the same spaces, took to the life of the mob in equal footing, yet somehow Regina has pulled ahead of Grace, received recognition even without recognition - it infuriates her. Regina is a machine, dispassionate where Grace is cunning, engaged, though they both get the same results. Grace wants to be noticed, to be known, but there is a seductive quality to Regina’s invisibility, her strange innate ability to act just beyond everyone’s view. They are so similar - it seems like they are the same but Grace got oversaturated while Regina got drained. I can almost imagine them as children, Grace acting twice as large and loud to make up for her sister’s quiet nature, a feedback loop that kept them going on divergent paths to where they are now.

Catherine, on the other hand, seems like Grace’s polar opposite, yet they too are so similar. They operate on their own personal moral codes, though the ends their aim for are differing. Grace acts selfishly, Catherine selflessly - both aggressive in their approach, adamant in their own righteousness. Grace wanted a companion once she found Regina too quiet, saw her fire echoed in Catherine, but where she herself grew bottle sick on her parent’s love, Catherine drew it wholeheartedly into herself. I would love to draw out where their codes of personal honor clash, especially as it relates to Grace’s abdication to the Montagues - Catherine’s engagement with the Capulets rests on her sense of familial honor, but what is that worth now that her sister has (to many - never to Grace) dragged her name through the mud? How far does familial love stretch, for both of them?

If it came down to it, would Grace balk at enacting violence against her sisters? Would she be able to watch them die? Could she kill them herself, if it was asked of her? She talks a big game of disconnect, but I think that there is something about both of her sisters that tugs on a long buried part of her self-dedication, one that would make her question just what the means to an end entailed.

BLAME: Shouldering glory is easy, comfortable - what will happen when she has to take on the mantle of blame?

While external interpretations of honor mean almost nothing to Grace, she absolutely must stay well respected for her ability to get results. What would happen if she majorly messed up a job, or let herself be compromised, or something of the sort? If she causes unintended ruin that does not further her own goals? She doesn’t care about anyone’s trust (is there anyone that merits having hers?), but having fallen out of whatever trust is associated with getting results would, I think, really rattle her. Having to prove herself again, and again, and again, because of a stupid mistake, or consideration for an action ceased just a moment too soon - it would infuriate her. Would it turn her to a self-distrusting, indecisive figure (which she’s seen all too clearly in Henry)? Likely not, but it certainly would heighten her scrupulous calculation for her actions. She still acts on instinct, but with an extra second or two of hesitation that wasn’t there before, moments that could serve as the killing blow to all that she’s worked for.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes! Grace has totally made some enemies and I’d honestly be surprised if nobody tried to hurt her.

IN DEPTH

In-Character Para Sample:

When one wants a job done, one comes to Grace Daly. Her hands are dirty, drenched in years of sin she will never - needs never - absolve. She looked death in the face years ago and smiled, sharp, welcoming the inevitable as violence settled itself around her shoulders like a cloak. A weight that to some seems unbearable, crushing them down, is to her an extension of herself, something always meant to compliment whatever goodness was passed to her from her parents. Like civet balances the sweetness of perfume, so blood fortified Grace’s bright resolve.

She cannot complain about her work for the Montagues - being the muscle is fun, in a sickening way, acting enforcer of the laws of the streets. Even as she rose above simple soldier, Grace was not averse to dipping her hands back into the muck. If you need something done, do it yourself.

Disturbances in the ranks, a supplier stepping too far over the line - who better to quash it than the turncoat herself? Her reputation precedes her, in many ways, and more often than not she can beat out the kinks without much trouble.

[ For every few jobs done right, there is one that goes wrong. No, nothing is every truly wrong, irredeemably broken, just more difficult, the wrong sort of spectre arriving before her to the scene. ]

The man before her had spat at her - traitor, puttana crudele, perché dovrei ascoltarti? - so confident in her degradation that he presumed a rank above that simply was not there. What choice did Grace have but to put him in his place, then? This was why she had been sent to him, after all - one too many missteps, just enough hubris to be considered insubordination. A shipping contact, a nobody, someone that never should have registered beyond the receipt of goods on time. He fancied himself something more, and in doing so outstepped his utility. When an ox can no longer pull the plough, carry what is required of it, the farmer does not coddle it in its useless state. Why then should anything else be expected for such a pawn as this? When something no longer works, it is gotten rid of.

Put down.

She spares him no moment for negotiation - what little regard she could have had was dissipated from the start with the smoke from the bridges his words burnt. She does not draw it out. He does not deserve her time, though there is no want for effort. Just as he did not respect her status, he does not expect such savagery from so small a person, let alone a fallen woman, too blinded by his overconfidence to see that she is the knife up the sleeve that slides, smooth, between your ribs. Her first blow changes his tune, but she is better than him in all ways and makes it clear.

Broken, bloodied, he lies crumpled at her feet, a swift dispatching of rightful vengeance turned his words from barbs to pleas, begging for one last chance, empty promises of a return to clean ranks and subordination. To her, these mean nothing. Perhaps words of supplication may work on a lesser man, but this was how Grace Daly gained her name. Ruthless, frigid, no words cracked her polished exterior. Her hands were stained, bloody, and she did not bother to clean them.

One final kick in the ribs. He turns his face to her, hands rising to beg, and something in her eyes stills him. Her patience is wearing thin. His judgement has been meted out, to be executed at her hand. This - suddenly, terribly - the man knows.

She smiles as his frantic murmurs turn to prayer, the last plea of a dying man.Desperately calling to a god that would not hear, spilling the name of the one present. Ave Maria, gratia plena -

Her smile was a slow, twisted thing, sharp and cruel and tight, measured like the raising of a gun - gratia plena - like the pulling of a trigger.

- Gratia -

In the sudden silence she stands, angel of death come to collect. They will get their absolution, she thinks, turning away. But who said this god was kind?

Extras:

Character tag

Aesthetics: sunsets like a bruise, the glow of a cigarette cherry in a dark alley, meticulously organized desks, chrome, red lipstick, steel-toed boots, blood oranges and ruby red grapefruits, stilettos (the dagger and the shoes), silk slips and leather overlay, amber, teeth bloody from a split lip, lily of the valley perfume, to-do lists, silver jewelry, fingernails clipped short.

*I’d also like to request here a FC change to either Katie McGrath or Crystal Reed - I know they have more resources than Valeriia (though her face is very striking!) & also I think they both (Katie especially) look more like the actresses that are faces for Regina and Catherine… I’m happy to chat about this, or have y'all pick between the two for who you’d like to see most on the dash, whichever is best!

#accepted #accepted: goneril

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