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zv5x · 3 years

Note

I'm curious, if Reader died or got knocked out in last fic with Poly!Spirit and Sen-

Reader is alive, just passed out from pain! The reason it happened so quick and without much effort from Spirit is cause, you know, demon powers. I know this isn't a request for a part two and was just a simple question buttttttt I'm extra as fuck and I wanted to do one anyways, so I'll just get it over with here! Hope you all enjoy!

Request status : open! 💕

tw !!! Be careful guys, Senpai goes a little crazy in this one lolz

( :̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅:♡:]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅)

Spirit couldn't help but feel a great deal of pity as he glanced over at Senpai. The look of fear and uneasiness on his face was clear as day, and he nervously played with his loose-fitting tie as he stared at (Y/N) who was unconscious on the bed. Chains held their arms and legs to the bedposts, so there was no chance of escaping.

Spirit hummed, giving (Y/N) an empathetic pat on the leg, before choosing to address Senpai. "I know this isn't the sight you wanted to come home to, but-"

"W-what happened to them? D-did someone hurt them?!" Senpai managed to sputter out, despite the fear eating his body alive. Spirit sighed, as he couldn't help but become slightly irritated as soon as Senpai lost his cool like he was now. Nothing could get done when you're overrun by panic, but he was glad he was at least there to keep everything together. "Did they..." Senpai paused for a second, his past fear slowly draining from his face, replacing it was an expression that even Spirit couldn't fully read. "Did they try something funny again...?" Senpai asked in a low tone, and Spirit made a small noise as his response. The room was consumed by silence for a few moments, before Spirit decided to answer his question for real.

"I suppose you could say that." He said calmly and quietly, not really caring to expose the whole truth of what (Y/N) had done just yet. If Senpai asked for clarification or specification, then he would absolutely tell him, but he just didn't see it as needed at the moment. Senpai groaned in annoyance, stomping on the floor a single time. Spirit only rolled his eyes.

He didn't even bother to take his eyes off of (Y/N)'s "sleeping" form as Senpai made his way towards the two of them, stopping in front of the bed and crossing his arms. "What did they do?" Senpai asked quietly, almost in a whisper, in a tone that implied that maybe he didn't even want to know, but was just simply curious. Spirit shrugged.

"It was nothing too painful, just a punch to the nose. It didn't even hurt for a minute, really." Senpai looked at the entity standing next to him in a mixture of shock and disgust, absolutely baffled by the fact that their darling (Y/N) would ever do something like to that to either of them. He just didn't get it, and frankly, neither did Spirit. Really, they were just trying to help, but their (Y/N) just wasn't listening. It made things so much more tedious than they needed to be. Senpai growled to himself and made his way onto the bed. Spirit looked on in confusion, arching an eyebrow as he watched Senpai set himself down on (Y/N)'s chest, straddling it. He adjusted his position slightly, wriggling to make sure he was in the most comfortable position possible, before raising his hand to above the side of his head and bringing it down forcefully and quickly, slapping (Y/N) in the right cheek. Spirit even flinched himself, as the slap was hard enough to make a loud sound on impact.

However, Spirit couldn't feel too bad. He did try warning (Y/N). Senpai would be a lot harsher on them than he ever would be.

(Y/N) gasped as they woke up from their unconsciousness, Senpai glaring down at them as he watched them do so. It took them about a minute for their eyes to fully adjust to everything going on at the moment, especially since what caused them to wake up was so...violent...

"Well...good morning, honey." Senpai said through gritted teeth, and (Y/N) instinctively tried raising their arms, only for them to be held back by the chains. They swore at Senpai and demanded for either him or Spirit to release them, but that did nothing but anger Senpai further.

"You're lucky me and Spirit as so nice to you, if you were acting this bratty towards anyone else, your throat probably would've been sliced..." Senpai snicked sadistically, only for his slight amusement to completely vanish as (Y/N) leaned up towards him and spit in his face.

Senpai stumbled back, instinctively grabbing a tissue off the bedside table and wiping his face quickly and roughly while whining in disgust. Spirit bit his lip and took a step back, fully expecting Senpai to completely lose his shit within the next few seconds. Senpai began to hyperventilate, looking at the tissue with a look of pure distain. Senpai suddenly slammed the tissue to the side and pulled the table drawer open, his eyes set on a certain black rectangle. He pulled it out and held it up so (Y/N) could see it, and their eyes widened with fear and regret, instantly recognizing it as a taser.

"Do ANYTHING like that again, and this is going straight into your neck, understand?! God, how many times do we have to fucking TELL YOU, (Y/N)?!" Senpai screamed, punching the sides of the bed harshly. (Y/N)'s breathing was quick and heavy, the fear on their face as clear as day. Tears pricked at the corners of their eyes as they were reduced to the bearer of Senpai's rage, Spirit standing in calm silence as Senpai yelled on about what they had been trying to tell (Y/N) for almost a year now.

"You're so fucking GULLIBLE! Without us you'd probably be fucking dead on the side of the road! You think you can just go do whatever the fuck you want with whoever, and then treat us like we're fucking disposable trash?! You sick WORM." Senpai went on and on, even at one point grabbing (Y/N)'s shoulders and shaking them harshly. He was pissed, and Spirit saw his anger as justified. "We're doing this all for YOU! We love YOU! We NEED you, and you need US!" Tears began to fall from Senpai's eyes just as (Y/N) began fearfully sobbing as well, but Senpai's tears were more of frustration and anger than crippling fear. "We love you (Y/N), please, we just want to take care of you, you're our everything! Please!" Senpai choked back sobs as (Y/N) continued crying themselves. "Nobody else can love you like we do, they just can't keep you safe like we can, we'd do anything for you, we just want you to be happy..." Senpai sniffled, but (Y/N) didn't respond.

Spirit didn't feel bad for (Y/N). They wouldn't be here right now if (Y/N) would just learn how to listen. They were doing this for love, for repayment for all the effort (Y/N) put into making sure they were alive and well. (Y/N) saved them. Before Spirit knew it, Senpai seemed satisfied with the agressive lecture, and replaced his seething anger and flowing tears with a cutesy giggle and a wipe of the eyes. "You're just so hopeless, (Y/N)...but that's fine, some people just aren't meant to take care of themselves!"

It was almost scary how quickly Senpai could switch between moods, but who was Spirit to judge? Rejection was never in Sen's programming, and he was meant to be a hopeless romantic almost all of the time, so he really couldn't blame Senpai for having...less than stable moods.

"You're so lucky you have us dolly, where would you even be without us?" Senpai gushed, and Spirit couldn't help but agree. The two of them could tell (Y/N) clearly wanted to detest that, but they didn't care. Their input was irrelevant, since they didn't at all know what they wanted or needed.

Senpai hummed happily, curling (Y/N)'s lips upward in the shape of a smile with his finger. The skin of his digits were soaked at this point, as tears were pooling from (Y/N)'s eyes as they tried squirming away so desperately from his vice grip. Spirit cupped his one cheek with his hand and held (Y/N)'s trembling one in his other, smiling almost as brightly as Senpai.

They deserved this. They deserved something nice after that that bastard put them through. And, this was it. Their present, their compensation, their reward.

Their soulmate.

Senpai giggled, and Spirit followed soon after, the two of them looking at each other as if they were reading the others thoughts perfectly. Senpai turned to (Y/N), that smile still just as strong as it was before.

"Now, go on...tell us you love us~"

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fanfictiondreamscape · 4 years

Text

To Grab the Gold

Request: Could you maybe do a yurio x reader where the reader is a skater in the girls league at the same level as him. And though she almost always wins gold like her brother victor she’s always hard on herself saying she could do better. Either headcanons of how he would handle it or a Scenario please and thank you!!!!! Love work by the way!!!!!!!

Title: To Grab the Gold

Genre: fluffy, strays a lil into angst-y territory (but it should be fairly short)

Pairing: Yuri Plisetsky x Fem!reader

Notes: Okay, so thank you for this request! I’ve always wanted to write something about the reader being a sibling of Victor or someone, so this gave me the prime idea!

Otherwise, I feel as if I can relate to this idea in itself - being hard on yourself. It can literally be seen on this blog. It’s so nice and it makes me so happy to see that people enjoy the work I put out. So, I will thank you for that.

That said, I went with headcanons. Small warning, though:

These ideas will stray into territory that can be triggering. I would give it a specific label, but it is simply amplified insecurities, so if you deal with that - please proceed with caution.

KEY: (Yuri = Plisetsky, Yuuri = Katsuki)

Below the cut!

we have to cover this before anything else is said:

the figure skating world is brutal.

with that in mind, seeing as you had managed to jump the ranks as quickly as you did, people knew you as a formidable competitor.

yuri in particular knew how fierce of a competitor you were, seeing as he had trained with you and your brother victor under yakov for as long as he remembers.

so yes, while you two did grow up beside each other, you never really talked to anyone besides yakov, victor, and mila (from time to time)

in short, you two barely knew each other despite growing beside each other.

funny occurrence when you consider that he was of the few that knew of your habits when skating.

in similar fashion to your brother, you were almost a natural on the ice, and the way that you moved even off the ice was graceful yet intimidating.

it frankly shocked the other people competing against you in the senior division in which you debuted.

yuri was beside you the whole way.

literally.

when victor had made the claim that he was going to coach yuuri katsuki, he had suggested that you join him and train under him for the year.

you reluctantly agreed, though you also avoided saying anything to yakov as you weren’t as straightforward and recklessly fearless as victor is.

that said, yuri was a little disappointed and jealous.

he knew it was baseless, you were victor’s younger sibling, after all

what right did he have to keep you here?

what really bothered yuri was the fact that victor had made him a promise.

and he intended to make sure he kept it.

so when he showed up at the local ice rink out of the blue, you were left jaw-on-the-floor.

were you really surrounded by people that were purely impulse and nothing else?

you didn’t let the event prevent you from working on your senior debut pieces, though.

while yuri and yuuri were being coached by victor, it was only when they were done for the day that victor stood by and helped you with your senior debut.

you already had high expectations, after all - if you couldn’t hold up, what would happen?

you and yuri are the best new entries, so if either of you couldn’t hold up, what would go down if victor decided to quit coaching for competing in the next season and you had to go back to yakov?

what about if you had failed to grab even silver in your debut?

you knew you could do it, and you wanted the satisfaction that came with the draping of the medal around your neck, standing on the highest pedastal on the winner’s platform.

at least, that’s what you were trying to convince yourself to do.

you had been trying and failing to do an even more advanced jump than what you usually did.

and you wanted to use it in one of your routines

but the best you could do was the mount.

your landing was flawed at best, and a wipeout at worst.

it was starting to get to you.

many things swung around in your head.

‘is it my weight? is it being distributed incorrectly or did you just gain some?’

‘maybe it could be the routine itself. is it good enough to shock a crowd and win the gold?’

‘or, maybe, it’s just the fact that victor wasn’t able to focus and help you when you needed it most?’

the ideals that had been drilled into your head differed greatly from victor’s

and the fact that you had the expectation to live up to his abilities was starting to get to you for once.

normally, you’d just brush it off, but your competitive nature kicked into full gear and you felt the overwhelming need to avoid disappointing and losing.

you loved the feeling it brought to you. what else was there to say?

that, and you knew how victor could get when he had expectations.

just because you’re his family, doesn’t mean that you are exempt from his expectations of nikiforov gold.

which is why you worked your ass off.

you lost weight in favor of toning, you made sure to reach the rink before and after the three males entered and left.

more often than not, you would be eating a meal in your designated room in at the hot springs later at night, after your daily workout.

the new jump that you had been trying to accomplish was barely coming along

your routines were starting to slack.

you didn’t know what was going on, as things like this were normal, but they never reached this extent.

either way, you worked and worked and worked.

eventually, you had begun to skip dinner

you had begun to lose sleep

you had started to pass out at random times.

despite how much you tried to hide it and play it off as if everything was normal, everyone that saw you could tell that wasn’t the case by any means.

yuuri was trying to get you to stop and relax, but in your work-induced mindset led to you lashing out at him. no matter what he did, nothing worked.

yuri and victor had been aiming to get you to relax and stop working as well, but even they knew that you wouldn’t do that unless some more powerful entity forced you to.

that, and the sheer amount of disappointment that had started to rain over your being was starting to transform into anger.

you were beginning to have outbursts, your were beginning to perform as if you were a simple novice.

you were beginning to look as if you were going to fall apart after a single breath.

you failed to realize and care about your wellbeing until you wiped out on the ice and couldn’t get back up.

you were lucky that yuri had stayed back to get something he forgot, otherwise you might’ve been stuck there all night.

which is why you had to face the music and realize that this wasn’t the way to go about it.

he had made quick succession in making sure that you were okay as soon as he was exiting the rink and saw you passed out on the ice.

he panicked, frankly, but he made sure to get you off the ice and on a bench before calling yuuko over to tell her to call victor.

everything was moving fast, and he swore he could feel his heart racing in his ears as he saw you still on surface.

you looked pale, a weird mix of purple-blue and green, and the image left him speechless.

victor and yuuri rushed over to the rink as soon as they could, and when yuuri saw you his jaw fell to the floor

victor, on the other hand, ran to your side and picked you up.

he was able to notice the way you fell limp.

long story short, you looked dead.

it scared him senseless, and yuri could understand the sentiment.

over the time that he had spent in Japan, he had grown to appreciate the amount of work that you had put forth to succeed.

sadly, even he didn’t know that you would push yourself to this extent.

and he now knew why he became even more drawn to you.

you took pride in your abilities, but he never knew that you pushed yourself this far to achieve whatever goal you had set for yourself.

this event was what forced him to become aware of his feelings for you.

he could now realize why he always watched you, mesmerized at the way you carried yourself.

and he now understood why he wanted to make you feel safe.

after you were taken to the hot springs and taken care of, victor and yuri stayed by your side as you were still unconscious.

a warm towel was resting on your forehead and you were covered with a blanket.

for extra measures, they had even kept a small heater beside you to make sure that you didn’t freeze while resting.

“yuri, can i ask you something?”

“ah- what is it. victor?”

“if she decides to go back to yakov, watch over her for me.”

“...”

“i can tell. she has taken a liking to you, and i know you have taken one to her.”

“...”

“she trusts you, yuri. and after this, i fear that this could happen again, so please. make sure she takes a break.”

“...i promise, victor.”

“...thank you, yuri.”

victor left after that, patting yuri on the back

(he wondered what he failed to notice, despite his overprotective nature when it came to you.)

yuri sat there, overnight and into the next morning.

yuuri and victor came in to check on you, brought him breakfast, but everything the next day seemed to slow down.

eventually, you woke up, but you were lost. you were even more disappointed than you were before.

if you needed the cloth on your head changed out, yuri did it.

if you needed the heater turned on, he did it.

if you needed literally anything, he did it or got it for you.

otherwise, he’d just be silent and act as a safespace for you if you ever needed it.

similarly to how he might handle insecurities that you may have, he would be very careful with the subject.

he’d be a little awkward, though he’d power through for your sake.

after a few days of just relaxing and stretching, doing some light exercises (and i mean E X T R E M E L Y light exercises), he’d do some slight skating with you to calm you down.

if you wanted to see something from him on the ice, he’d do it for you.

hell, he even did his developing competition piece for you so you could have entertainment in analyzing his technique and ability.

he loved seeing the way your face would light up when you would watch him perform.

eventually, the time passed by.

you came to realize yuri plisetsky as himself completely, aside from just facing the persona that he projected to the media, people he worked aside, and to his fans.

it made you realize what you had been feeling the whole time.

you had been put on light work by victor, as he didn’t want to see this happen to you again, so weeks had passed before you went through your intense debut routines.

it was only on the night that the competition for who victor would coach came up that you were able to go through even a snippet of it.

yuri, following his loss, was distraught.

he still powered through the night, though.

when you saw him after the event, you asked him to join you on the ice.

you had a speaker set up on the edge of the rink, playing some lofi music to make sure the mood had stayed calm.

you two just skated around, no real reason as to why except to settle from the day.

“hey, yuri.”

“hmm?”

“you were amazing. as usual, but...”

“...but?”

“...i wanted to thank you.”

he stayed silent to let you continue, but you knew that he was listening. his skating had ceased just the slightest as he had been slightly ahead of you in the rink.

“i...i made a stupid mistake by failing to pay attention to my health, and i wanted to thank you for helping me.”

the silence that followed was comfortable, and as the both of you were very hesitant to say what loomed over your hearts, you were both already aware of what the both of you did meant.

‘i love you.’

the rest of the time in the rink was passed by you and him holding hands and making rounds around the rink

he even slipped some fancy ballroom moves in, making you flush and laugh. he did the same alongside you.

the next day, there was something melancholy in the air.

and even though you had told him that you wouldn’t be returning to yakov for the season, you did emphasize that you wanted to continue talking to him.

“hey, yurio!”

“how many times do i- don’t call me yurio!”

“not gonna happen. either way, before you leave, promise me something?”

“what is it?” (it was gentle, and the scene made victor, yuuri, and yuuko gush)

“i better see you on that pedastal kissing that gold medal, plitsetsky.”

“only if i see you up there as well. though you better be careful, or i am going to ignore it.”

“got it, got it. now...promise me?”

“i promise.”

#yuri plisetsky #yuriplisetsky #yuri plisetsky x reader #yuriplisetskyxreader #yurionince #yuri on ice #yurioniceyurio #yuri on ice yurio #yurio x reader #yurioxreader #yurixreader #yuri x reader #plisetsky x reader #plisetskyxreader #yurionicexreader #yuri on ice headcanons #yurioniceheadcanons

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goblinconceivable · 3 years

Text

braindump: betty/daniel

I’ve been living with them for a while, notes taken, a few stories significantly started but there’s a gelling issue, which I’m hoping is at least partially down to a lack of proper braindumping. So, in no particular order and certainly not comprehensive:

Frankly I also got too hooked on the last 2 eps, which is likely where I’m blocked. It’s an abrupt emotional twist for them (esp Daniel), and in trying to make sense of that I’m losing focus on the 4 previous years.

- I’m a little bit obsessed in the scene where Betty tries to convince Matt she’s fearless by pointing out her bang-less-ness. And then runs into Daniel, who is at that moment half brain-washed, but yet when she asks about her fearless quotient his response is immediate and natural and entirely lacking in irony: “no bangs.” It’s a tiny little moment that shows how well he not only knows her, but understands her. Without judgment, without fanfare. Were I to have a husband, this is the sort of response that would confirm I’d married the absolute perfect guy for me.

- They’re too close for mirroring to be an important indicator, but there are two scenes that stand out in this vein: the first is when Betty thinks he may have pushed Christina down the stares and steals the video. She’s backing out the door, and he follows, matching her step for step. I love the direction choices because from her perspective there’s a sense of menace, Daniel as potential villain is stalking her. But from his guileless perspective he’s talking to her and if she’s moving, so is he. The second is from the penultimate, talking about Trista, where Betty’s rolling back and forth and he moves with her, rather than simply turning his head. It signals his full engagement in the conversation, seeking her attention, and is why the scene plays as flirting rather than their normal banter.

- That bulletpoint was getting a bit long, so second point on the flirting is that it plays against Betty shutting down the conversation “none of my business,” leading to the fight over involvement in each other’s personal lives, leading to the revelation that they know each other at that deep personal level so very, very well. Which was a very clumsy leadup to Daniel’s revelation during Hilda’s wedding speech, that could have been handled so much more deftly but those last two eps were quite rushed, I don’t know when they found out about the shortened season but it feels like they’d planned for more space and had to jab in exposition.

- Becaaaaause: they narratively broke his ‘aha’ moment onto “know you better than you do” while the strength of the message is really in the “do anything to protect them.” Which is, I believe, where they cut to his softened expression. Not coincidentally, this is precisely what a lot of fan-readings of the characters focus on: Daniel will do anything to protect Betty. Bobby might have said he’d throw himself under a bus for Hilda, but Daniel HAS done that for Betty- in fact literally doing so would probably have been easier than publicly shouldering the blame for the Tornado cover and giving away the profits. Due to the fact that he had time to consider the consequences and did it anyway.

- Which is tidy segue into an admission that I’m flying mostly blind on the Molly arc because I basically skipped all her scenes, but it’s my understanding that Daniel doing this was a pivotal moment for them. Ie, she was impressed that he did this thing. I mean, I really appreciate that he spent the whole press conference scene looking for Betty, so the show in no way undercut their relationship. But then they very clearly built the Molly relationship on the foundation of not only the man Daniel had become due to Betty, but choices he was making in large measure for Betty: it’s not that he saw Betty beaten down and resolved the situation: he was upset but lost, she yelled at him, and THEN he resolved the situation by taking the bullet. Did I break grammar by ending up with two colon’d clauses in the same sentence? It’s a braindump, ain’t gotta be pretty. XP

- Quick sidebar that the same thing happens with Alexis. She was expecting to come back to one brother, but then listens in on his pep talk with Betty and finds she’s returned to a different brother. This may be where I got the “an assistant” phrasing, if so, my bad. But basically, she was impressed with Daniel’s actions, not understanding that it was Betty specifically inspiring his actions.

- Follow that a step further and did Molly ever acknowledge how important Betty is to him? Legit question. I think her line here was about him doing it “for an assistant” (?) rather than even “his assistant,” establishing Betty as a non-entity for her. (Quoting a summary but I think I’m in the ballpark.) And I’m sure I’d have read about it somewhere if she brought Betty up during their discussion on who he’d date when she was dead.

- Just one last note on Molly, (okay it’s a multi-part though it veers off her as a character) but a possibly incorrect beef is that I hate the Daniel/Molly relationship because there’s no interesting or even real conflict? It’s perfect? I’m supposed to think this is magical “true love”? Molly has apparently been engaged for years to a man she doesn’t really love (and um... that’s lazy not strong), and helps inspire a vengeance filled betrayal by her ex because she’s so awesome everyone loves her? But she comes out squeaky clean because any emotional cheating on her part is balanced and thus “justified” by Connor falling for Wilhemina. And then the only “conflict” is that she’s dying, and is perfect throughout it? That’s... weak.

-That poem thing WOULD have been an interesting point of conflict but it was resolved by Betty’s intervention, rather than within the relationship. Which actually is an incredibly interesting beat. The problem with that being it’s so entirely consistent with the role Betty plays in Daniel’s life that it’s treated as just another beat, as if it doesn’t MATTER that a fundamental moment of intimacy and growth of vulnerability in Daniel’s very important romantic relationship is a door opened by a third party. There’s a strong argument to be made for something but I broke off to write the next point and now can’t remember what that strong argument is. I might remember later. It may have had something to do with Molly being a stepping stone in Daniel’s arc, but the cult-thing was so long and dominating that it didn’t work, it tied him too tightly for too long and coinciding with a loosening of his relationship with Betty there was flailing.

- Quick one: Daniel’s fast-forwarded and time-bounded relationship with Molly is the analog to Betty’s time-limited relationship with Henry. Which is a discussion I would like Daniel and Betty to have. Esp. noting that Betty and Henry had issues they worked through together (ice cream foreplay being one.)

- Player! So going back to a happy place, when Betty’s on the phone trying to fix the apartment situation and the camera pans onto Daniel just leaning against the doorway: this may be a legitimate little moment of “squee!” There’s so much denial in his laid back attitude at Player, but I still love watching how the informality of the environment reflects in the informality with Betty. He gives her free reign, and there’s many answers to “why,” and I (almost) don’t want to go into them because I totally adore how this Daniel is basically a College!Daniel only he’s latched onto Betty, who, meanwhile, is just being Betty. OMG how different his life would have been if he’d met Betty in college...

- Okay I actually don’t feel like going into whys, it’s just an arc to enjoy. With a small mention of how he TOTALLY was playing with the MODE book and handed it to Betty knowing she’d understand and use it to get them back in. Such a crazy subtle manipulation, to the point where I’m not sure it wasn’t almost entirely subconscious on Daniel’s part.

- The YETI recommendation letter. What I love is that this is another time when Daniel fvcks up, but fixes it, and more importantly displays competence and ingenuity alongside authentic caring and effort. Here’s the thing: YETI wanted Betty, even if it was just a quota thing (which it wasn’t entirely, at least one of the board was generally enthused.) So all that was necessary was to have them re-label her as from Player. Daniel knew this and did this. And told Betty that. BUUUUT that point was purposefully (by script and character) overshadowed by the gesture of the lengthy rec letter he put significant time into. Whose real audience was... wait for it... Betty. He even did a second draft! Which is more time and effort and a cleaner product.

- Also flaking on her practice run. I also enjoy how he (finally...) bounced back into the office clearly having forgotten her schedule, but having mentally shifted from Molly-space into Betty-space. He’s enthused, he’s engaged, he’s sort of bantering and I’d like to see where that scene would have gone if she hadn’t immediately gotten the acceptance call.

- So there’s this moment somewhat early on, pretty sure when Betty’s taking the writing class, and wants Daniel to give her feedback. And he’s all “why?,” coming from his “I don’t actually know what I’m doing” place. She responds that he’s her friend and wants to know what he thinks. And he does a little double-take at that word. Because until that point Daniel totally sees Betty as HIS Friend, and they’ve referred to each other as friends, with a little “f,” and he believes that. But it wasn’t until this moment that he even considered that HE might be HER Friend. Presumably because he doesn’t believe he has anything to offer her, beyond the power he holds as EIC and her boss - ie, “here run this show” and other such responsibilities.

- Which is a recurring theme. Pronounced on relationship stuff especially. When she asks him for input on the Henry vs Gio situation, when she’s trying to date the playwright. His response is always “I’m in no position to offer relationship advice/judgment on relationships.” He sorta dodges the first and is permissive on the second. I don’t know where to go with that so I’ll leave it (for now).

- When he was supposed to be in Rio, Betty wasn’t even at MODE, she was working for the “enemy,” and he was sending her regular postcards? First, they’d have been postmarked in New York and presumably with local stamps, so I’m not 100% on Betty not cottoning on. But it’s super cute that he was thinking of her when he was incommunicado with literally everyone else. Did he want her to figure it out (subconsciously)? It’s an act of reaching out, but also of convincing: he’s created a fictional narrative of being in Rio, fed and embellished by the media and swallowed by coworkers, but it’s through Betty that he’s establishing the fiction in a definitive way. He wants HER to believe it, because if SHE believes he’s there and having a good time, then he can believe it too, with a small piece of his imagination.

- Same convincing as in Player. BTW, how did all those messages on her phone work? He was 99% totally hiding the situation from her. a) why wouldn’t he just call her from his phone, as he always did in the past? b) he was creating another fictional space. Where her “number” was literally on a post-it on his temporary assistant’s monitor. It’s all play: “call Betty” happens many times, and every one is the act of doing it while knowing that he’s not really doing it. c) Betty does not point out that he should have been confused he never heard back, or more to the point, that he never heard her voicemail message. d) he was in a state of limbo waiting for her to come back, nothing is real until she does. At which point there’s lovely dramatic tension since he both wants her to fix it and get them out of there, and wants to draw her into this new reality and thus make it feel viable.

- 100th Anniversary edition. I love the idea that he’s hep on her writing his bio because he needs her name, at least, to be next to his. His identity as EIC is predicated on her being his partner, and needs that shown, even if it’s functionally an “in joke” because it’s not like she can be featured. In musing over his thoughts while flipping through the book right before deciding to quit, I usually come back to a realization of the transience of the role, but I want it to be a gutpunch of how he assumed, without being aware, that Betty would be next to him in picture, and that’s what they were heading for.

- I’ve actually got through most of my notes, so just a couple more. Daniel is super impressionable. He did what Becks told him to in the pilot. He did what Natalie told him in the cult-situation. Both against his better judgment - his look after Betty when he kicked her out for being “drama he didn’t need” - that’s the same look when he told her to clock out and was dragged off by the not-16-year-old. I’m too tired to go check the pilot, but assuming similar look there. He does what he’s told by anyone telling him to do something, but he WANTS to be rescued from the bad influences, who are so often so forceful.

- Final scene: okay so it turns out quick a lot of my thoughts are trying to understand Daniel. His growth is blatant and deep. So a second round will be more Betty-focused. ‘Cuz I identify strongly with her and don’t have a lot of surface questions about her motivations, but I’m LOST on side of the romantic coin. And plus she deserves a close look regarding how she grows during the series.

- I watched at least part of the reunion and very much like how AF answered the question of the final scene versus what EM says. Because I think they each, as actors, see it from the perspective of their characters, which means it was played authentically and grants insight. AF basically says that she saw it as Daniel coming to say thank you, and how it came down to Betty teaching him that he was good enough. Which came across a little funny because her phrasing implied they’d never talk or see each other again or something and that’s an alarming finality. But also implies that Betty really did see moving to London as a significant parting of ways, something that started as soon as she became an editor and their relationship changed. Probably before.

- She then challenged EM as to why Daniel didn’t say goodbye (as if she didn’t know and hadn’t thought about it? I’m guessing this was panel performance: asking the question “in character” and throwing the question to the other relevant actor.) But anyway, EM’s answer was “Because things were just starting.” Which is blatantly a shippy answer, and he even explains Daniel’s “revelation” as when he “really saw Betty for the first time through and through.”

- At some point in these things you’re like: oh but I thought of something else, and only stop when your brain falls asleep.

- I thought of something else. And then I forgot it. My brain is failing! But not yet failed.

- After Betty gets her braces off there’s this scene near the end, at the shoot. Daniel sees her and crosses quite purposefully to talk with her. He wants to banter and share this exciting moment with her. And the scene goes a little strange when Betty kinda goes “yeah, going now bye.” I expected more eye contact, a big smile, more conversation. That’s Betty. That’s them. But instead it’s a little awkward so Something Is Happening Here. Is she self-conscious? Did she see and hear something in Daniel’s look and comment right after she was detached from the bra and isn’t at this moment comfortable with him? Is this all fallout from her dream in which she and Daniel slept together/he thought she was a bad person/rejected her only they chose not to explicate this/cut a useful scene/thought I’d get that right away but I’m obtuse? I don’t think it’s the last one because while I can be horribly obtuse, I don’t think it was coded. But that’s what the obtuse would say.

- At any rate they don’t pick up on it again, next scene (next ep) they’re back to normal.

- But Daniel does immediately chase after Amanda and let go of her. Which is payoff for his convo with Betty earlier where she sort of disdainfully asks if he WANTS a more serious relationship with Amanda. I did sort of wonder if he actually does, but Betty’s judgmentalness is what convinces him he doesn’t. Usually I’d say Betty understands him so well she knows he doesn’t, but they’re not as close at this point, Betty is living her own life much more, so I dunno.

- But I don’t actually think Daniel was falling for Amanda, or that the show wanted us to think that was ultimately a viable path. Because of that moment when he’s in a car, calls Amanda, says “I really need to see you” and she turns him down. It parallels his text to Betty when Molly died. One text and Betty came over. This was an actual distressed voice convo and Amanda doesn’t care enough about him to be there, which is really great development for Amanda even though we don’t see her! She previously went after Matt when he was in jail, she’s interested in Tyler here, she’s not totally pining for Daniel!

- Daniel of course was using Amanda and their earned if mild emotional intimacy as a crutch, trying to fill the space Betty left. Also note when Amanda turned him down for sex and he stayed to “hang out,” - this is not supposed to be an analysis of Amanda but I wanna note I like that moment because it felt like she was pleased to think she wasn’t just sex to him, while still being over him romantically. Because she does care about him.

- Or for pete’s... I have this bad habit of writing notes which I later look at and am like... “huh?” This is a fic idea, from Daniel’s POV: “Betty had moulded him, often by sheer force of her iron will, into being a man who almost deserved Molly. And he'd turned right around and become a man who would never deserve Betty.” And I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT THE SECOND HALF MEANS. Specifically.

- Wedding dancing. Happens twice. Hilda’s wedding, we know what that is. But at Daniel’s wedding. I like that he wasn’t 100% Molly focused, ‘cuz, shipper. And I know why the show had Matt cut in, because gotta keep things moving. But isn’t it a thing that you don’t cut in on the groom/bride? It’s their day. Daniel just sort of nonverbally asks Betty if it’s okay (to leave her with Matt), but can’t help a) thinking he was a bit put out and b) want Molly to see his expression looking at Betty and have some sort of “aha” moment where she - do Molly and Betty have any scenes together? I don’t remember seeing any and I think I did skim through all the eps, but I need to do that again.

- Ooh, one of the things I forgot en route! I like that Betty has revolving love interests, because that’s textual argument for Betty never having feelings (romantic) for Daniel. Which is super, super important in this iteration of the story. There’s a couple moments - pilot and the first bridge scene - where she arguably has a momentary crush, which quickly settles into a developing platonic relationship.

- Jump back to Daniel finally seeing Betty as a true equal = romantic feelings. It’s a thing. Look my brain is deteriorting and wording is hard! So there’s two sided imbalance throughout. Daniel always saw Betty with this veneer of youth, and a great deal of his use for her is helping her “grow into the woman she’ll be.” And that’s the roadblock in him seeing her as a romantic possibility. Which was initially quite awesome because he was sleeping with people younger than her, even the “she’s actually 20″ girl was younger than Betty. And yet always saw her as in many ways more mature and competent than her. And double-yet he still saw how much further she could, and would, grow. His belief in her knows no bounds.

- Meanwhile Betty sees him as... someone who’s also becoming. Who has great potential. Bullying him into it if necessary. And because he’s guided by her, she can’t crush on him, he’s like her pet. Were she to have a crush, much less fall for him, it would have been horrifying. She needs to have a moment when she sees him as a true equal, someone who - look, everyone is always still growing so it’s not like he needs to be fully formed, and it’s a little murkier what the moment would look like when she finally sees Daniel “for the first time.”

- ‘cuz as noted, Betty has been there for pretty much every important moment of growth and crossroads in every facet of Daniel’s life. Whereas Betty consistently had many things and relationships in her life Daniel was not involved in. She’s always been way more self-reliant (not the word I wanted, is there one that starts with c?) It’s why they did sort of need to peel away through a chunk of S4, because Daniel needed to learn to cope without Betty propping him up, because it’s like a Miranda-thing:

- “I don’t need Gary. But I want him.”

- Daniel has to be able to be find without Betty before Betty can see him as a viable romantic partner. She has to see something she never has before. Daniel saw that the seedling he’d been protecting was not only strong enough to survive on its own had grown up and bloomed (process begun early in the season when he was being overprotective and she shut that down). For Betty... I guess Daniel... ... ..... it didn’t happen in the show. As EM noted, for Daniel, the ending was the beginning. Because his moment isn’t leaving MODE, that’s just the corresponding moment to Betty shaking him off. His moment is further down the road when he puts into practice everything he’s learned and ... something answered in fanfic because it’s spec and I’m tuckered.

#daniel x betty #detty #ugly betty #meta #braindump #my brain literally has nothing except #i got nothing #what a satisfying feeling #to have removed everything and set it in a magical tardis of a post

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chifrany · 3 years

Text

Children of the Entity

Prologue

So much agony. So much pain and death that were moving into centuries. Truly it was a testament to the strength of those still engaging. But the Observer could feel it, their despair, they were losing hope and soon would just become husks. Too bad, he enjoyed a lot of them.

Suddenly though a tinge, an idea put forth by the Entity. Another option, they had enough food, and it hungered for something else. Something new, Observer listened as it explained its idea and was just as intrigued. “Of course, my Entity. I’ll get to creating it right away.” And so he got to building.

The first thing he decided to make in this realm was two buildings. All three stories high with eight rooms on each floor. Much like an apartment complex. The top of the apartment having one large room, just cause he was curious to see how they would divide that. For extra aesthetics he decided that one house will be pink and one blue.

Satisfied with the look of the place, he moved on, making a long rounded building where he put an old style kitchen where they could make a fire and store food they may find, a door that would lead down to the cellar also in place. This room they also added tables and a few couches considering some recreational things but deciding against it. Another idea coming to mind.

With this he started work on the next building. A magnificent, temple looking building where he made alters and a display of the Entity the best they would know him. “If they want more blessings, then they can pray for them.” He explained simply.

After that it was just to create the world, which took the most time, most of the biome was the forest but the Entity was giving him a lot of free reign in this world. So he created a few other biomes as well as slowly starting to drag in animals from the real world. After that he slowed a little with worldbuilding refocusing on the trials as he considered who all he was going to bring in.

An obvious choice was the Survivors supposed leader Dwight. Bringing up the display of the male, he could see him there gently comforting one of the newest survivors. It was still so fascinating that this loser of a man became their leader. But the Observer could sense his wariness, so the next time the fog arrived it would claim him as well.

After looking at him he decided to instead inspect the other four that had been here longest. Meg, Nea, Claudette and the loner Jake. Claudette was the group’s resident healer often teaching other survivors how to heal themselves, while Meg got them running and Jake, well he was a unique case, highly respected by the other survivors but if he noticed he didn’t seem to care. As for Nea, she was a dedicated teammate and one of the most skilled survivors often escaping.

Yes all four were perfect. The fog would claim them next.

They wanted fifty for this to work, it was the number the Entity had given him and the hunt to find the perfect ones had finally started. After those five he then also decided to take Laurie, David and Quentin. Staring at Bill he also decided on the old man, knowing that the Entity could age him down, and decided to grab Ace as well.

After this he was almost getting bored of watching the survivor, so as the fog claimed those ones and had them moved to their newest home. Where they would slowly wake up, at first not knowing why cause the Observer only wanted to explain this once to the whole finished group. No, now he set his sights on the other side of the fence. Killers.

There were many that were starting to lose their spark and will to continue on. No amount of pain and torture cutting through. So he decided those ones were the perfect candidates, first one he went for was the silent Wraith, the fog claiming him as he slept and carrying him away to the new realm. He considered Freddy but that man was restless and frankly annoying and he doubted their goals would be met if he took him.

So instead he went to one of the longest standing killers. Evan Macmillan, aka the Trapper. He seemed angry like always and the Observer couldn’t wait to see what he did in the new realm. So fog moving in it took him as well. The next killers he grabbed was the little teenage ones, the Legion, the isolation seemed to be messing with them. Whatever the Entity did to them making them too bloodthirsty and feral to even be around themselves.

He could feel their loneliness and despair though, especially in the lonely hours between trials. There was that time where they decided just to mix them up as one being but it did not go over well. Panicking them and breaking even more of their hope then was expected. So they were an obvious choice to grab.

There was a few more he considered but he decided to go back to the survivor side, this time taking Adam, Jeff and Kate. After a moment of careful consideration he also decided on Jane and Zarina. The two reporters deserving of it. It seemed that people were starting to notice that other survivors weren’t showing up again. It was amusing to see their confused and alarmed looks. To freak them out even more he decided that the ones in the new realm deserved their old clothes so he just absorbed them up as well. Chuckling at the alarm of the group.

He wondered at this point who would rise up to be the next leader and perhaps wasn’t that surprised when he saw the soldier Jill step up. Ordering for everyone to be calm. This despair and fear was addicting to watch but the Entity was impatient. Wanting him to get on with his choices. Spoil sport. The Entity thought with a sigh. Smirking as he decided Jill and her closest friends were a good choice as well.

So Jill, Chris, Leon and Claire would be the next one the fog claimed. He decided to take another set as well when he looked over and spotted Steve, grabbing him Nancy and Jonathon. With that once more he decided to see what the killers were up to. One he found interesting was Amanda, she explored occasionally, one of the killers that seemed to have no fear about it. Despite having her own realm.

He watched her as she visited Ana, deciding to take the Huntress and also after she visited the Twins and the Spirit. He hesitated on the Spirit but decided to take her. As for Charlotte she was an alright candidate but he wasn’t sure he wanted to include the brother. For obvious reasons, the entities loud voice calling the two one though solved that debate. Charlotte and Victor would be counted as one Entity.

With that he claimed them before deciding he had watched the Pig for long enough and taking her along as well. Again he felt the Entities impatience so sighing he figured he would grab the last of the killers chosen and looking around he decided on: Deathslinger aka Caleb, the young vampire Arius, the brute Kazan, the Hillbilly in the corn, the therapist Eradius, the cult leader Finch, the screaming Nurse Sally, the star Ji-Woon, cannibalistic Lisa who they would attempt to cut through to who she once was. The last one she decided on was Talbot, who they also would allow to return to slightly more normal, not even the Entity could fix the damage that was done to this man.

The Observer was about to leave the Killers realm and return back to the survivors when he paused, staring at the cloaked figure of Danny. The killer exploring the MacMacmillian Estate before he just seemed to sit down a soft sigh escaping him. Another moment of watching the Male and he decided to bring him along as well.

And with that he returned to the survivors realms, this one he decided just to grab the last they needed, these ones being the surfer Haskell, the architect Felix, the cult girl Elodie, the quiet one Cheryl, the brave cop Cybil, the biker Yui, Yun-Jin who he was sure was going to make it interesting with her counterpart, and finally the gamer Feng. With that settled they all were dragged into the fog.

A few had been living at the little area for a few weeks. The killers mostly avoiding the survivors which was amusing for the Observer to see. Still for the first time in a long time with the fog around him he approached everyone being given the thought to come to the temple. The ones just grabbed simply awakening in said temple. Once everyone was gathered and looking quite confused did the Observer step out into view.

“Greetings Children of the Entity.” He called, the entity seemingly pleased at the name he gave them, “The time of killing and death is over. You have all been chosen to be apart of a new step in the Entities Realm.” Someone went to speak but the fog quickly silenced anyone who dare say anything. “This will now be your new home, for one whole year starting from today, you can live, laugh, rebuild whatever you humans desire.” He assured. “However there is a catch, we want to feel something new in this realm, another powerful emotion, love.” He explained. “If you can feel true pure love by the end of this year, you will be allowed to stay indefinitely in this new world. If you do not, you will simply disappear.” He stated being purposely vague on that point.

“You may also get the Entities favor by praying in this temple. Good luck Children, and enjoy your new world.” With that the fog swallowed the Observer up as he returned to his own area. Observing the immediate aftermath of his announcement with a grin. This truly was going to be an interesting chapter in the Entities Realm.

#danny johnson #dead by daylight #frank morrison #dwight fairfield #jake park #david king

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wenttworth · 4 years

Text

growth;

Jon said Martin's name in a wide variety of ways since they met. All of them had done something to those nervous butterflies in the pit of his stomach, from killing them off slowly to sending them to a wild frenzy.

Although they first woke several months ago now, they were no closer to relaxing like they had for any of Martin's other crushes. Martin had taken one look at the small man stood in front of him, dark eyebrows furrowed over dark eyes, slightly greying hair to his shoulders tucked artlessly behind one ear, clocked the colourful stains on his fingernails that came from scrubbing at them with cheap nail varnish remover, and had been overwhelmed for more than the time it took to finish the conversation. He'd never met anyone before who quite so markedly ticked every box of 'his type'.

This way just made Martin spring into action.

"Oh, that's his 'spiders, Martin' call," he muttered.

Tim grinned at him as he leapt to his feet. "We could always lock him in there with it," he said. Sasha snorted and Tim leant forward to prop his chin on his hands. "Maybe he'd die of fright. It would lend more credence to some of these tales." Shaking a statement derisively as he fixed his eyes on Martin's.

"Martin." A slightly more panicked Jon called from his office.

"It's not fair to play with people's phobias," Martin said. Tim just kept smiling at him.

Jon was stood back from his desk, anxiously staring at a tape recorder, upon which an impressively large spider was sat. Well, large by British standards.

Martin was well used to this process by now. He calmly scooped the spider into his hands and pointedly did not look at Jon as he scurried away from him.

Jon only relaxed when Martin had thrown the spider out. "Okay?" Martin asked.

Jon stared at him for a moment, before giving an abrupt nod.

His hands were shaking, and there was a pale undertone to his brown skin which worried Martin more than it ought. "Do you want some tea?" he continued gently.

Jon blinked. "Please," he said. "Thank you, Martin."

The butterflies flurried to life.

"I have a crush on Jon," Martin announced, louder than he should, with more certainty than he could have mustered four drinks ago.

Sasha made a face halfway between pity and a grimace. A pitying grimace? That was an oxymoron, surely. "Martin, you can do so much better than Jon."

Sasha didn't know about his forged CV, and Martin pointedly did not think about it, did not look down at his body that had never felt right, did not think about anything but the thankful smile Jon had given him when he had passed him his tea. "You got that the..." he swung an index finger left and right. "You got that the wrong way round."

Sasha sighed, and sighed even louder when Tim dropped between them and immediately swung his arms around both their shoulders. But she still smiled at him with something that, though not love, was something still close. "Am I interrupting?" he asked. Martin shook his empty beer bottle.

"I just thought we should invite Jon to some of these evenings," Sasha chirped.

Tim didn't seem convinced, and Martin very carefully sent her a glare. There was no way Tim hadn't picked up on his crush on Jon, but he still wanted to maintain some illusion of self-prepossession, and had enough pride to not want to admit it. "He's our boss now, Sash. It would be weird."

"Just remember that he has no firing power. Whatever we say or--" teasingly meaningful look at Martin, "--or do, he can't do anything about it."

Martin squinted at her as Tim protested between them. “We can’t go out with our boss, Sash. That makes it a work thing.”

Martin would much rather Sasha and Tim not come to an evening with Jon, but that was frankly a little rude to say when they had known him much longer.

“Next thing you know she’ll be inviting Elias.”

Martin shuddered and Sasha smacked Tim over the head.

“Please don’t,” Martin insisted. “He was so weird about Jon’s cake; it made me feel way too uncomfortable.”

Sasha cackled, “The boss with an insatiable thirst for cake,” she boomed in a voice that wouldn’t be out of place in an action movie trailer voiceover.

“What will he eat--��

“No, consume, Tim.”

“Oh, good idea! What will he consume next?!” he continued in an imitation of the voice, only marginally more impressive.

“Don’t,” Martin begged, but he still laughed.

There was something...unnerving about being in the institute alone after dark.

Less unnerving than being stuck in his apartment, only his overactive imagination and the handful of paperbacks for company, an eldritch entity with worms for fingers, hair, guts tapping at the door and tempting him to join her embrace.

He would be so loved, she had insisted. So adored, held in the grasp of a million creatures, a part of something so much bigger than just him. Thank anyone who listened that he had a horror for anything that writhed.

He tried to scare himself sometimes, to relieve the boredom between gaps of writers’ block. Moving a torch so the beam threw uncanny, elongated figures a shadow against the wall. Creeping through the hallways and muttering horror stories under his breath. His poems took on a decidedly spooky feeling, less purple prose about the rain in the city, the warmth of someone’s touch. He would wait until everyone, even Jon and Elias, had left to twist his way through the halls, watching for any small, wriggling worms to crush with triumph against the floor.

At least, until tonight.

He was sure someone was creeping around, too. Sticking to the shadows and tapping slow rhythms against the hardwood floors. He always seemed to just catch their shadow as they disappeared around a corner. It took only an hour of building up his nerves, pushing the horror narrative that was constructing itself in his brain, before Jon appeared in the kitchen.

Martin immediately poured boiling water over his hand, yelping as it burned.

“Martin!” Jon exclaimed, rushing forwards to inspect the burn and quickly dragged him to the sink, shoving his hand over a jet of cold water.

“Is it you who’s been creeping around here all evening?” Martin asked, more than a little snippy from the pain in his hand.

“Creeping?” Jon exclaimed, annoyed and indignant. “I haven’t been creeping anywhere, I was walking around the institute!”

“Yes, but quietly. I thought Jane had come back!”

Jon’s furrowed brow relaxed, and he sighed. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew I was here.” It was a moment later that he let go of Martin’s hand, pointedly ordered him to stay where he was and informed him that he was going to locate a first aid kit.

It made Martin feel uncomfortable, in all honesty. He didn’t want to be taken care of by Jon. By all accounts, it should be the other way around. There was no reason for Jon to be in the institute outside of a normal work day. There was no reason for him to be anywhere but at home. Martin should insist. Should urge him to leave.

The selfishness was stronger this time. He didn’t want to be alone here. Not when everything was so uncertain.

He watched the water fall and drip around his hand. It was already blistering, even under the cold. That would hurt tomorrow; it was his dominant hand.

“C’mere,” a soft voice said behind him. Martin turned--Jon was like an assassin when he was barefoot-- and held out his free hand for the first aid kit. Jon frowned at him. “Don’t be stupid; I’ll put the cream on.”

Martin could only be relieved that he was too gobsmacked to blush as Jon took his hand with a gentleness that struck him speechless, and with soft fingers--thin and small against his hand--rubbed the cream in small circles until it absorbed. He cut out a small bandage after, placing it against the burn with even more gentle movements. “You should be more careful, Martin,” he said.

Martin was still speechless, sat at the break room table as Jon finished up making the tea Martin had started and brought it to him. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Uh…” Martin stammered. Maybe it was something about the evening light that softened Jon so much, something about the casual, comfortable clothes he wore, his hair in a dishevelled bun on top of his head. “No. I was going to make some ramen.”

Jon wrinkled his nose at the instant ramen packet that had been left on the side ready for his dinner. “No you’re not,” he replied. “I have enough for the two of us; I’ll make us something.”

“Really?” Martin asked, a little disbelieving.

“What?” Jon barked, squaring his shoulders.

“I… I didn’t expect it, is all.”

“Oh.” He relaxed again. “It would be rude to just make something for myself.”

“Jon?”

“Hmm?”

“Why are you here?”

Jon let out a sigh. “It’s...I’m worried. I don’t know when Jane will reappear, and every time I leave the office or my flat I’m looking over my shoulder to see if she’s coming after me. At least here I know I can…” he trailed off. “I feel safer here? Or at least, like I have more control.”

“Where are you planning on sleeping?” Martin asked. Maybe a bit forward to tell him that he didn’t mind if Jon wanted to share the cot. There was probably just enough space for the two of them, and it wasn’t as if he’d never shared a bed with a friend before. Just never with a friend he had such a strong crush on.

Jon started clattering around the tiny kitchenette, pulling spices from the cupboards and vegetables from the fridge. “I set up another cot in my office,” he answered. Martin made to join him to help with preparing the vegetables, but Jon waved him away insistently. “I’m doing this, you’re hurt, Martin.”

So instead he watched as Jon’s practiced hands pulled the ingredients together, a heavenly aroma coming from the pot. He was more relaxed than Martin had ever seen him, going so far as to hum a tune under his breath and laugh at some of the things Martin observed. What resulted was remarkable; Martin had never had the time or patience to cook anything other than the bare minimum. Whatever dishes he may have learnt from his mother were made impossible when she fell ill, his father’s spiced curries a faded memory long in the distance. If Martin remembered rightly and trusted his nose, it wasn’t far from what Jon was cooking.

The selection that was placed in front of him would have made a king’s mouth water.

“Who taught you to cook like that?” Martin asked, wondering and almost swooning when he tasted some.

Jon watched him for a moment, a small smile playing around the corners of his lips before joining him. “My grandmother. She lived in Bangladesh until she was in her forties, and never adapted her cooking to the UK.”

“Which I can only thank her for now,” Martin replied.

“She taught me from a very young age. I think I was cooking curries before I could read.”

There was a fondness in his voice that made Martin’s chest ache. Jon loved his grandmother, that much was certain.

Would he have felt any differently, had he had any connection to his father?

Jon was furrowing his brow at the menu above the counter. “Do you want your usual?” Martin asked.

He blinked. “I wanted to try something different but… I forgot my glasses.”

“Oh.” He cast a glance at the board again. The writing was large, easy for Martin to read even from the other side of the restaurant. “You… you really are blind, aren’t you?” he added.

Jon glowered. “I didn’t choose to be.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Jon replied immediately. The butterflies leapt into action at just how confidently he said it, the confused twist of his mouth as if he were also surprised by the confidence of his reply. A small pause, and he turned away, pressing his lips together.

Martin copied him, half to hide the blush that was very obviously painting his cheeks, probably clashing something awful with the pink shirt he’d had the lack of foresight to wear. “Okay,” he said carefully, pushing down on any waver to his voice.

“For this, at least,” Jon added nonchalantly, a careful smile in his voice.

“Flatterer,” Martin muttered.

He picked two of the sandwiches and carried them both back to a table, Jon trailing behind. “We’re not going back to the office?” he asked.

“No,” Martin said, with a confidence he barely felt. “I could do with a break from that place.”

Jon sank into his seat, watching Martin as he cut both sandwiches in half and split them. “It’s almost Christmas, so I went for the Christmas flavours,” he explained.

“I… I don’t celebrate Christmas,” Jon said.

Martin shrugged. “I know. Neither do I; I just enjoy British Christmas dinners.” He didn’t seem entirely convinced, and Martin hid a smile. “The other one is spiced lamb.”

“Oh,” Jon said with a much happier tone, picking up one of the sandwiches and digging in.

“So?” Martin asked once they were on their way back to the Institute.

“The Christmas one was good,” Jon admitted, only with a little reticence. “Still preferred the lamb, though.”

It could have been minutes or days that Martin and Tim were sat in the corridors. The walls changed sometimes, varying from one garish pattern to the next, undulating in impossible fractals. It had been giving Martin a headache, but now?

Well, he was used to it, he supposed.

Tim had his head on Martin’s lap, humming a song under his breath that seemed repetitive but forever changing. The sound bounced off the walls almost visibly, as if the waves were making the fractals warp. The horrific silhouette of the entity was still watching them, impossibly long limbs and fingers that reached like willow branches.

“Kinda wish it would do something,” Martin said.

It shook its hands and Martin snorted.

“What?” Tim asked. Martin gestured to the silhouette. “Ah. Yes, I know what you mean.” Sitting up, he patted his hair until it was back to the artlessly dishevelled look he usually sported. “Should we go for another walk? Maybe we’ll find the exit this time.”

The laugh the entity gave grated like a spoon against a china cup, nails on a blackboard, a knife on a metal sheet. Martin clenched his jaw as it made his teeth ache. “Sure,” he said, brushing himself off as he stood up.

It didn’t seem like the entity moved, but somehow it was always in the corner of his vision whenever he scanned for it. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that whatever it was, it was dangerous, but that was the thing about fear, wasn’t it? When repetitive, it lost its hold on you. He and Tim had been here for hours or days or years, he was accustomed to it now. If it was planning on killing him, surely it would’ve happened by now.

Also at this point he would welcome death just to escape the maddening boredom.

The corridors circled, never changing angle, no slope, but somehow never doubling back on itself. The light was always different, the fractals and colours shifting and undulating maddeningly.

Hours, days? Maybe decades at this point, Martin sat. Tim joined him after tapping on a wall and a mirror. “Hey, it’s like one of those funhouse mirrors!” he exclaimed.

“Are you sure that’s not just you?” Martin said, warbling his voice mockingly. The entity was still observing them, the glint of a wide, unnaturally white smile made of sharp teeth.

“Excuse you, I am unbelievably attractive,” Tim said, dropping to the floor. He was lounging against the wall, arms crossed over his stomach, his legs comfortably settling against Martin’s.

“Urgh,” Martin grunted. “I can’t believe I have to be stuck here with you, of all people. Wish it was…” he trailed off. “Wish it was Sasha,” he continued. “Or Sasha as we thought--”

“Don’t,” Tim interrupted, all teasing vanished from his voice. “I can’t think about that here and now, okay? And we can’t…” he gestured at the entity, who chuckled. “Not in front of that thing. I know it hasn’t hurt us yet but honestly? It’s only a matter of time.”

“Okay,” Martin said.

“And at least you’re not stuck here with Elias and his--”

“Insatiable thirst for cake,” Martin continued, joining in Tim’s laugh.

“And Jon and…” his face twisted. “Whatever is going on with him.”

Martin’s mouth went dry. In all this, he’d almost managed to forget everything with Jon. He twisted the hem of his jumper. The butterflies hadn’t gone anywhere. Maybe they were worse, actually. It was a worry fueled by vanity, but he hoped that Jon wasn’t too troubled about his and Tim’s whereabouts. Tim’s, at least. He probably wouldn’t worry about Martin, after everything.

“Jon is… going through something. And he doesn’t want our help but I still want to give it to him.”

Tim sighed. “He’s a paranoid idiot.”

They would probably die in these corridors. Maybe that was okay. “I’m in love with him,” he admitted, burying his face in his hands.

Tim let out a short laugh. “Oh. Oh no. I thought it was just a crush?”

“It was but then…” Something changed? Jon changed? “It’s not just that anymore.”

“Oh, Martin, that’s so stupid!”

“Loving someone isn’t stupid.”

“Hmm. I beg to differ when the person you love is Jonathan Sims.”

Martin pulled away, bringing his knees to his chest, and Tim smiled apologetically. “Martin, you can do so much better than him. He’s not a good person, right?”

Martin didn’t reply. He knew well enough that it wasn’t true. Jon was a good person. Good to a fault, utterly ridiculously good.

Tim sighed. “I know, you can’t choose love, it chooses you,” he said, air quoting until Martin slapped his hands down. He shrugged. “I thought I was in love with Sasha, but…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Tim interjected. “How about when we get out of this, we go for a drink? Just us. Away from all the madness which is Jon and Elias and… and Sasha, or whatever that thing--”

“Okay,” Martin interrupted, patting the part of him that he could reach which, currently, was his ankle. “We should do that.”

The entity cackled again, and Martin almost hit his head on the wall. “I wish that thing would stop being so annoying,” he projected, eyeing it meaningfully.

“Who knew! These terrifying fear entities are actually just badly done horror movie creatures,” Tim interjected. “How long are you keeping us?”

“Not much longer,” it replied, and Martin almost kicked Tim in the chest in shock. “You’ll want to be present. When the Archivist brings all to a close. It’ll be fun.”

It prickled in the back of Martin’s mind, and he let out a ‘huh’. “That’s basically what Jane Prentiss said to Jon,” he said to Tim.

Tim shuddered. “We’re in a relatively clean place here, Martin. Please don’t remind me of the worms.”

“I wonder…” he trailed off, before standing up again. A door had appeared, or revealed itself to have always been there. The entity backed away, gesturing to the door with another glint of a grin. Sharp teeth, impossibly wide mouth. Before long it was shrouded in darkness, and the white of its teeth and shining eyes were all that were visible. Martin shuddered.

“God,” Tim said. “I swear, that’s nightmare material for at least a month. Maybe two.”

“I wonder what we’re coming back to,” Martin mused.

“You look tired.”

Jon jumped what looked like half a foot out of his skin, spinning round and only relaxing a little when he saw Martin. “I don’t think I’ve been well-rested a day in my life, Martin.”

“That’s not an excuse to stop trying.”

Jon gave a wry smile, putting his head to one side when Martin placed the mug of tea he’d been carrying on the desk. “Thank you, Martin. And regardless, you’re the one who almost gave me a heart attack and I don’t see you apologising for that.”

“I’m...I’m sorry; I thought you’d heard me?”

Jon smiled again. “It’s fine,” he said. “How...how have you been?”

The question almost made Martin drop his own mug of tea. Jon had said it so carefully, like he was physically forcing himself to, but he still asked it, still looked at Martin expectedly as if he was actually interested in the answer. “O-oh! I… I’m okay?”

Jon waited for a moment. “The...the statements, are they bothering you as much as before?”

“I took your advice,” Martin replied. “The others are taking some on. Though I don’t know how long that will last.”

“They’ll continue,” Jon said, glum as he stared into his tea. “I wish no-one would, but…” he met Martin’s eyes again.

“You should take a break,” Martin continued. “We could go down to that sandwich place?”

Jon kept his gaze for a moment, much too short, much too obvious about what his answer would be. “I can’t,” he admitted, resigned, and holding up a statement. “This one needs to be digitised pretty...pretty urgently, I think. I know.” He placed it back on the desk, reaching for a tape recorder and brushing some cobwebs off it. “How…? I swear I only put that down a minute ago, how did the spiders get to it so quickly?”

“I could bring lunch back for you?”

Too desperate. Too obvious that he was worrying, that he wanted to take care of Jon. Too obvious that he lo--

“It’s okay, Martin. But thank you.”

His voice was painfully sincere, digging deep into Martin’s core with an intensity that made him blush. Thank… whoever was listening that Jon had turned back to the statement, placing the recorder close and starting the statement. Martin tried not to be too alarmed that he hadn’t even needed to press record.

The clock was infuriating.

Martin was sure it ticked slower now, when waiting by Jon’s motionless form. At least it was better than the incessant beating of the heart monitor for normal patients, just waiting to fade to that slow beep of the flat line. But this, the tick, tick, tick. Martin found himself timing his breaths to it, timing the tap of his foot, even his heart he was sure, was beating to that aggravating tick.

“I can’t wait till you’re out of this place,” Martin grumbled. “You couldn’t hurry it up, could you?” The joke was weak, punctuated with a gentle touch to the back of Jon’s hand.

He pulled it away in a rush, feeling like he wasn’t allowed anything so tender. Especially now that Jon was here and unresponsive and Tim was…

He found it difficult to finish that thought. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to acknowledge. And all that time, when Jon had been fighting his way through an apocalyptical scenario and Tim was… he’d been in the archives, fine and safe.

Fine because… Elias hadn’t told him anything he hadn’t suspected already. Of course his mother resented being taken care of, of course Jon wouldn’t care about his feelings.

“Come back, Jon,” he asked.

He didn’t know how long he’d have to wait, but he’d wait. He’d be here for Jon when he woke.

Jon was calling him.

Martin stared in part horror, part wonder at the name on his phone, the blank anonymous picture because there was no way he would ever have a photo of Jon on his phone, not now, not ever. But regardless. It was midnight, and Jon was calling him.

He waited until the phone went dead, and the notification popped up. No message left. Maybe it had been a mistake; it wasn’t the first time he’d been butt-dialed. Maybe he would have ended up as the unwilling participant of an embarrassing conversation.

But then it started again.

Maybe he was hurt. Maybe he’d tried calling everyone else, and no one had picked up. It could be any number of reasons. It had only been a month since he woke from the coma, and even if he was doing weirdly, preternaturally well, it didn’t mean that things didn’t go badly sometimes.

It rang out again, and Martin watched it for a few more minutes, warring with every part of himself.

Sentiment won, which he was sure he would regret the moment morning came, and he reached for the phone, unable to tear his eyes from the familiar letters that spelled Jon’s name.

Jon picked up within the first ring.

“Hi,” he said. Martin paused. “Are you there?”

“Yes? Why did you call me?”

There must have been… something in his voice, because Jon’s breath audibly caught in his throat. Something distant maybe. Hopefully.

“I just…” Martin waited, but he didn’t continue.

“Jon, if it’s not an emergency, you shouldn’t call. Especially at this time.”

“You can’t have been that worried that it was an emergency,” Jon snipped. Martin almost laughed out loud at his sudden annoyance. He could picture exactly how Jon looked right now, ruffled from lack of sleep and an angry furrow between his dark brows, hair spilling over his shoulders. He’d always been beautiful--Tim’s amusement at Martin’s confession aside--but these days…

Maybe it was the lack of time spent with other people. Everyone looked more beautiful to him these days.

“Sorry,” Jon said after another moment of silence. “I shouldn’t have snapped there.”

“Tired?” Martin asked.

“Yes.”

“You know what you have to do if you’re tired, right?”

Another sigh. He was probably twisting a strand of hair around his finger, now. He’d picked up that habit pretty soon after it grew out. “Not just that. I miss you.”

The butterflies would probably never die, at this point. Not until he did. “You said,” he replied carefully, flat, emotionless. Everything he wished he could be. Something that could ignore the voice telling him to say it back, to finally admit what they both knew but had never had a chance to say.

It would be so easy, if only for...

The reason. The reason that he was staying so far away. He rubbed his forehead. “Don’t call me, Jon.”

“Your voicemail message.”

“What about it?”

“I didn’t expect you to answer. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Another beat of silence. “Hang up, Jon,” he tried to command, hating himself all the more when it came out wistful.

“I’m here if you need me, okay?” Jon answered, hanging up the moment he was done.

Too bad, really. Hilariously inconvenient. The kind of dramatic irony that was only usually seen on crappy US sitcoms. There was no uncertainty in Martin’s mind; Jon had fallen for him the moment Martin had lost all hope, with no chance of regaining. Martin sat on his bed, and laughed until he cried.

See, the safehouse didn't start safe. To start, it was all cobwebs and scuttling legs and an insistent pull to the farmer they had passed who Jon knew had quite the story to tell. Something about the endless pit at the corner of his field of cows. He'd already lost so many of them in that gaping maw. Jon was digging his nails deep into the palms of his hands, wishing that Martin would take them but recalling how Martin flinched away from touch now.

Time. They all need time, right? Maybe a therapist, though how much they could communicate Jon had no idea.

He shook his head, repeated, "No, no, no," over and over. It was all...dark and webby. Jon could see eyes peering at him through one of the paintings on the walls. Martin gave him a blank look, the barest hint of concern hiding in the set of his mouth. He asked what Jon needed. Although Jon had the desperate thought, 'You, only you,' run through his head he didn't voice it. "A broom. Light. And to get that painting out of there."

"Wait here," Martin said. 'Don't go,' Jon thought.

Would he ever get to a point where this was all okay? Where it was a distant memory? Where he and Martin would grow old together? He had no gods to pray to, not anymore, but something in him still sent up a desperate little prayer.

Martin emerged with two brooms and the painting carefully covered up with his sweatshirt. There were goosebumps on his arms. He set the painting aside, handed Jon a broom, and carefully didn't look him in the eye.

He was fading at the edges. The pull of the lonely was still so strong, Jon could almost see the thin cords wrapped around his body, slowly but surely dragging him into the pit. Their nearest neighbours were 3 miles away, the nearest town a further 2 miles. The only living creatures near were four cows curiously watching them.

"Martin?" Jon asked. He brushed gentle fingers over the back of Martin's hand. God, he needed touch. He needed to feel Martin against him, needed to be held so tight he couldn't breathe.

Martin flinched away, but gave Jon a brittle smile. "Let's get rid of the cobwebs," he said, achingly gentle.

Jon gripped the broom tighter. "Yes."

The dust fell into his hair and against his face and clothes, making him sneeze with a frequency that alarmed Martin. He was banished to the garden within a few minutes as Martin continued, though Jon carefully listened, watched the movement inside the cabin as he worked his way around the rooms. Maybe this place wasn’t the best for someone so recently escaped from the clutches of the lonely, but where else?

“Where else can we go, we orphans of the storm?” he asked himself, sighing heavily and propping his chin on his knee.

“What?” Martin asked behind him.

Jon plastered a marginally more cheery look on his face, looking over his shoulder at Martin. He joined him on the wooden steps that led down to the small patch of grass which functioned as the cabin’s garden. Careful distance, as if he couldn’t bear to touch Jon.

“It’s nothing.” He turned away from Martin, watching a kite make regular circling turns, diving into undergrowth. The colours painted against the sky were a work of art, all reds and golds. “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”

Martin didn’t respond other than with a nod. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, it was just… allergies. Too much dust.”

“Right, I should--”

“Stay?” He didn’t mean it to come out quite so plaintive, quite so much laying his heart out with directions on how best to shatter it. If Martin left now, even just to sit inside, something would break. “Please,” he continued. He might as well beg, at this point.

Martin looked down at his hands where they were resting against his thighs. He was thinking...Jon’s breath caught in his throat. He was thinking about being in the hospital, watching Jon with no hope that he would ever wake up. How he felt like he was stealing something he had no right to when he touched Jon’s hand.

Jon reached out his hand, stopping halfway between them. This wasn’t… it, by any means. Martin needed time, maybe he just wasn’t ready to lay out his feelings. But he wanted to hold Jon’s hand, wanted...more. He paused for a long moment, before finally reaching, curling his fingers into the spaces left by Jon’s.

“Martin?” he asked.

Martin’s lips quirked at the sound. Not enough to be a smile, but not fake, either. “Jon?”

Jon edged closer by way of response, slowly resting his head on Martin’s shoulder, waiting for Martin to push him away. It took a while, at least, a while of tracing the lines on Martin’s palms and the branches of his veins on his wrists. A while of Martin remaining utterly still, as if this was borrowed time, and any movement might jolt him out of the reverie. A while until he relaxed the same as Jon.

Romantic, really. The stained clouds, the vast expanse of space, the slowly moving animals. In any other case, feeling like they were the only two people in existence would be good. Like some distant honeymoon, but this was far from a honeymoon. Jon may have pulled Martin from the lonely, may have bared his heart but Martin hadn’t responded. He had loved him. Maybe that was the important part. In the past, before fog and loneliness had stripped all warmth.

It was only then that Jon noticed just how cold Martin’s hand was.

He was staring in the distance, brown eyes dulled to grey, the lines of his body faded and wispy as if there was nothing to hold onto, nothing to find purchase on. “Martin,” he insistently cried, cupping his cheek, drawing him closer. “Martin, look at me.”

He obeyed, but sluggishly, as if Jon’s words were coming across a vast expanse, a valley or ocean. “Jon?” he echoed quietly.

“I’m here, I’m here. Don’t… don’t look away, okay? I’m here.” A gentle squeeze to his hand, though Jon felt like he might pass through. Martin took a deep breath, slowly reached up to twist a strand of Jon’s hair around a finger. “I never responded.”

A beat of silence. Jon traced a thumb across Martin’s cheekbone. “Responded to what?”

“I love you.”

Furrowing his brow. “That’s not right,” Martin said, quietly enough that Jon could almost expect that he didn’t think he would hear. How far was he, to Martin’s eyes?

“I love you,” he repeated, edging closer. “Don’t look away.”

A derisive smile. “That’s… no. I love you, not the other way around.”

The tense line of Jon’s shoulders suddenly relaxed, so sudden that he almost collapsed forwards. It would be a vain hope that Martin would catch him now, when he was so far away.

“Martin,” he called out again, waiting until Martin was looking at him. “I love you. I’ve loved you for...for much too long to only be telling you now.”

He blinked, the grey fog, filmy over his eyes, started to disperse. There was still...something. Some scar that probably wouldn’t heal for a long time, if ever. But colour was coming back to his cheeks, his dark hair and eyes starting to shine and reflect the red sunset again. His hand was suddenly firmly there, clasped tight between Jon’s fingers.

“You love me.” Not a question, but Jon still nodded.

“I love you,” he agreed. “How many times do you want me to say it?”

“I… A couple more times would be nice.”

Jon smiled, far from missing the way Martin shifted his weight closer. “Okay. Let me count the ways,” he recited, only a small lilt of teasing to his tone. “Your resourcefulness,” he started, bringing his hand up to kiss the knuckles. Martin froze, watching him with wide eyes. “Your kindness.” A kiss on his neck. “Your bravery.” His forehead, after a small struggle to get Martin to lean down so he could reach. Martin was laughing at his display by that point. “Your devotion.” Finally, reaching slowly, enough that he could pull away if he wanted. It had been a long time since Jon had kissed anyone, but regardless this all felt new. Even Georgie hadn’t been love, not really, but the young adult’s approximation of what love might be at some point in the future.

It only took a few flurried beatings of his heart before Martin kissed back, hands buried in his hair to keep him close. Only a few more slowly calming beats before he deepened the kiss, and Jon let him take the lead, pressing him against the bannister behind him. “That took way too long to happen,” he complained once Martin had pulled away, contenting himself with pressing kisses against his face.

“You were my boss, Jon. It would have been way too weird.”

“Honestly? I had no real power. I was just a glorified assistant.”

Martin laughed against Jon’s shoulder. “We knew. We all knew.”

Jon sighed, shifting around until he was more comfortably propped against Martin’s side. Best to watch the sunset for now, and how it played against Martin’s eyes. “We’ll be okay,” he promised. “We’ll get through this, we’ll…”

“We’ll be okay,” Martin repeated.

#this is what happens when you just shove 8 fics into one doc #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tma #my writing

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canyouhearthelight · 4 years

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The Miys, Ch. 64

A little bit of calm ahead of the storm, this week. When I set out to write this chapter, I had a very definite idea of what I wanted it to be, and determination for how I intended it to go.

This is not it.

About a paragraph in, Tyche and Sophia arched those eloquent eyebrows and told me they wanted a breather. Just for a moment.

And that is what this is. I’m really pleased with the result.

Much to my dismay, the plan quickly became putting me to sleep and tasking me with contacting Else. Tyche, who had seen my initial contact with the entity, was adamantly against the entire idea. So were Conor and Maverick – the idea of relying on the good behavior of a bacteria that could talk was an immediate non-starter for them. In the end, the Council voted unanimously to move forward with the plan.

“You’re insane.” Tyche turned away, throwing her hands in the air in disbelief. “That’s the only explanation. After a lifetime of being the sensible one, you have finally snapped and lost your mind.” We were alone in the medical bay, at her request, but we didn’t have very long before people returned.

“Tyche – “

“I knew it. I knew all that pressure Sandy put on you to be perfect wasn’t good for you. The anxiety, the depression, the frankly awful relationships….”

“Tych – “

“But this? Trusting your subconscious mind to a virus?”

“Bacteria, but – “

“WHATEVER! What if it isn’t sentient, hmm? What if it isn’t talking to you? What if it’s in your brain and killing you!?” Back still towards me, she was panting as her rant ended, arms dropped to her sides and head bowed. I waited patiently, realizing that she was reacting out of fear rather than anger. The room was quieter than it had been in days, the only sounds her harsh breaths and the soft noises coming from the monitoring equipment. However, instead of more words from her, I heard a noise that made my stomach drop and my heart nearly stop.

She sniffed. With the air ultra-purified as one could only expect from massive, living air filters, only one thing could cause the wet sound coming from my indomitable younger sister.

Tyche was crying.

“Mon soeur,” I tried, knowing I was probably butchering the pronunciation. “I know you’re worried, but you were here when Miys checked brain function: everything is working like it should, there is no myelin damage. As long as I am being continually transfused, Else seems to be satisfied with the iron in my bloodstream. It’s talking to me through the translation chip.” I tapped my temple for emphasis, even though she wasn’t looking at me. “I know you are against this, but the Council – “

She whirled on me, a murderous gleam in her still-wet eyes. “Space the damned Council! YOU told Simon to vote in favor. He was against it, completely. You begged him to vote in favor of this on your behalf. And who can argue against something when the person it is most likely to kill is in favor?”

I watched in silence, helpless, as my sister shook with the conflict between fear for me and anger at me. When she clenched her jaw, I continued. “Yes, I asked him to vote in favor. Because people could die if this goes on too long. Because I’m the only we know of who actually had a conversation with Else, instead of just hearing them and running or waking up. Because this may be our best shot and figuring out what our next steps are.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

“Hey, I don’t want to either. But the risk to me is minimal if I do this, while the risk to everyone on this ship is too much to bear if I don’t.”

“For once in your life, someone else – “

“You know good and damned well I’m not going to ask anyone to do something I’m not willing to do myself.”

She stared at me, a whirl of emotions crossing her face. Finally, she spat, “Fucking Empathy.”

I nodded mournfully. “I can’t just let other people die if I can do something to fix it. You know I can’t. I’m not wired that way.”

“And I’m not ‘wired’ to back off from this.”

“Then be there,” I insisted, catching her off-guard. “Conor and Maverick are already not talking to me. I know, in my heart, they will be here when it happens. But neither of them has your force of will. You’re pure spite, remember? I love them both, whatever powers that be know I do, but I don’t trust anyone else on this ship to tear the universe apart, bit by bit, if that’s what it took to make sure I come through on the other side of this.”

Tyche could only gape, caught off guard by my request. Eventually, she whispered, “Tenacity, Will, Persistence, and Passion.”

“Exactly. Pure, undiluted spite, the finest Humanity has to offer,” I smiled gently.

“Concentrated spite, thank you,” she corrected, her voice wavering even as she stuck out her chin in mock-indignation.

“Concentrated spite,” I repeated. “We all have our qualities that we are the epitome of, literally the best of each, in endless combination. But you, and you alone, are just a bundle of ‘never give up, never surrender’.”

She finally caved, groaning at the joke. “I really don’t know what you ever saw in that movie. But… I’ll be here. And I’ll make sure that Miys does whatever it takes so that you come out of this alive, and in current condition minus illness.” A hand waved at my entire body. “Even if they have to reconstitute you or whatever.”

“Not putting it past Miys,” I murmured.

She snorted. “If they could do that, they would have done it to the entire ship by now.”

“Doubtful.” I thought hard for a minute. “Until we knew the cause, there was no way to know that we wouldn’t just get re-infected.”

“But we know what the cause is now, don’t we?”

“Not really. We just know that the same bacteria were found eating the diving platforms in BioLab 2. But they never found out where that came from… it wasn’t from Earth, and it wasn’t in the Ark’s database, so…”

“So, it had to come from somewhere,” she finished, stepping forward to sit in the stool by my bed. “One of the planets we stopped at to fix the sensors?”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But that’s part of why I agreed to this whole, crazy idea. I want to know where Else came from.”

“You said they could only speak in words you already knew and said in the dream,” she pointed out, arching a brow.

I could only sigh. “Yeah, I thought of that. Essentially, when I go down, I’m going to be reciting scientific paper after scientific paper until they respond.” I winced at the thought.

To my credit, Tyche looked horrified. “That has to be the most boring dream ever.”

“I know.” Nodding, I dropped the last bit of somewhat bad news. “And this all has to happen within one dream. Their memory doesn’t seem to last very long.” Wincing, I glanced at her hesitantly.

“So that is why you are willing to do this?” She eyed me skeptically. “You’re more likely to die of sheer boredom than from Else.”

“Pretty much,” I chuckled. “The delay is just trying to find something that will put me to sleep, but in a lucid state, so that I can still talk to Else.”

“But – “

“They don’t expect me to actually memorize multiple scientific papers,” I clarified, cutting off her question. “As soon as I am in a lucid-dreaming state, they are going to start playing them directly into my ears, and I’ll recite the from there.”

“How do they expect you to – “ Her eyes widened in sudden realization. “Miys is going to tap into your implant…”

I nodded in confirmation. “And record from there. That way I don’t have to memorize, and possibly butcher, everything we learn on this trip.”

Tipping her head back, Tyche growled in frustration. “Fiiiiiiine. There is entirely too much going on for me to trust everything to go right. I’ll be here, threatening everyone within earshot to keep you safe.”

“That’s a pretty prodigious earshot.”

“Damned straight,” she winked. “I’ll raise hell to every reach of the Galactic Community. I’ll teach them about hell if I have to.”

“I don’t trust anyone else to do it right,” I deadpanned.

Gently, she swatted my shoulder. “But, after this? You have to promise me you’ll stop ending up in life threatening situations, okay?”

“Oh!” I cried. “Says the woman who took piloting lessons on everything possible!? The same woman who found out she had my stomach and immediately tried to break it!? This is the person telling me to stop putting my life on the line.”

“I wasn’t almost turned into rare roast-beast.”

“And I didn’t go fucking cliff diving!”

“You went skydiving to impress a girl.”

“At least I didn’t decide that it made perfect sense for my first flight to be Cross-Atlantic.”

“No, you just ate anything that wasn’t guaranteed to kill you for fifteen years.”

“And you ate the maggot cheese that even I wouldn’t touch.”

She gaped briefly before dissolving into laughter. “Okay, we have both done some really stupid shit.”

I gasped. “Yeah, we really have. Including getting abducted by aliens, almost blown up, I was nearly beaten to death, you nearly beat yourself to death…” I squinted at her playfully. “So this is really kind of par for the course.”

“No wonder I hate golf,” she deadpanned briefly before we both dissolved into laughter.

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#the miys #humans are weird #science fiction #original writing #space #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #aliens #found family #sisters #illness

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Psycho Analysis: Halloween Special Villains

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Ah, Halloween, that magical, spooky time of year where ghosts and goblins come out to play and children dress up in the hopes of getting some delicious Halloween candy. But what about all of us who are trapped at home on the night of this pagan costume and candy festival? What do we have to keep us entertained?

Why, Halloween specials of course!

If there’s one thing Halloween delivers on almost as well as Christmas does, it’s spooky Halloween-themed episodes of cartoons, where the show is allowed to get darker and more disturbing than it usually does in some cases. And what is any special without a special one-shot villain? Gotta have someone stirring up some Halloween trouble on this spooky night. And since these characters are usually one and done with little in the way to go super in-depth about, I’d figure we’d look at five of them at once! They are:

Jack O’Lantern from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Pumpkinator from The Fairly OddParents

Bun-Bun from Underfist

Fright Night from Danny Phantom

Ron Tompkins from Toy Story of Terror!

I’m sure some of you feel there are some glaring omissions. Where’s the Flying Dutchman? Where’s Stickybeard? Well, I decided that this time around I’d go with characters whose major appearances and debuts are Halloween episodes; both those guys had major roles in non-Halloween episodes as well, so I’ll be saving them for full reviews at a later date. Also of note: I am aware the story of Toy Story of Terror! does not take place on Halloween, but it is aired as a Halloween special, so I’m counting it.

Actor: So if there’s one thing these guys aren’t lacking in, it’s the actor department, and this isn’t a huge shock since when you’ve got a holiday special you want to splurge a bit, you know?

Jack has one of my favorite actors ever, the always-awesome Wayne Knight. Knight just has that sort of voice that’s perfect for smug jerk characters like Mr. Blik or Dennis Nedry, so really it’s pretty fitting for a pranking trickster like Jack, though I will say that it’s hard to match Knight’s voice to the human version of Jack when you see him in a flashback.

Ron Tompkins isn’t too far behind in the impressive VA department, being voiced by none other than Stephen Tobolowsky, who you may remember as the overbearing Ned Ryerson from GroundHog Day (and how can you forget him? You see him repeating the same scene about thirty times). He does a great job at making Tompkins cartoonishly evil and mostly enjoyable, a tall order for a character who steals toys from children to sell online.

And if you thought the list of awesome actors was done, boy were you wrong! Star Trek’s very own Michael Dorn voices the Fright Knight, and Dorn’s voice is absolutely perfect for a cool, evil, undead knight.

Bun-Bun is voiced by Dave Wittenberg who is an insanely prolific VA, playing characters such as Henry Wong from Digimon Tamers (AKA the beast season of Digimon) to none other than Kakashi from Naruto. I think it goes without saying a VA this versatile manages to make the role work.

And finally, we have the Pumpkinator, who is played by Dee Bradley Baker, and if I sat here listing all the notable roles this man has played we’d be here all night. But here’s a small sample: Appa, Momo, Squilliam Fancyson and Bubble Bass, Klaus the goldfish, Cow and Chicken’s dad, Cinderblock and Plasmus, the Alien and Predator in Mortal Kombat, Lion and Frybo, Numbah 4 and the Toilenator, Remy Buxaplenty, most of the animals in The Legend of Korra… you get the picture. This guy’s a legend. He’ll do any sort of role, big or small, so even if he’s not playing the most complex character here, he’s at least giving it a unique spin with his voice because man, this guy has RANGE.

Motivation/Goals: Jack has a rather simple motivation: revenge. You see, ages ago he managed to steal Grim’s scythe when he was about to be reaped, and bartered for the scythe’s return, asking to be made immortal. Grim reluctantly gave him this, but, as Grim is not someone who likes being tricked, also cut his head off. As anything cut off with Grim’s scythe is permanently cut off, Jack had to replace his head with a pumpkin (of course). This lead to him being shunned as a freak, which just made jis desire for vengeance even stronger; I mean, wouldn’t you want revenge if you could only go to the ding-dong grocery store to get pudding once a year?

If you want to get even simpler, the Pumpkinator is your guy! He exists simply to blow up planets. Tat’s it. He’s very much just an obstacle Timmy needs to overcome so that he can undo his wish for every Halloween costume to be “real and scary” before the consequences end up destroying the world.

Bun-Bun is rather simple as well: he just seems to be a jerk. But they don’t just make him a simple jerk, no, this is a Billly & Mandy spinoff so things have to be taken to their ridiculous extreme. Bun-Bun turns out to be behind numerous extremely petty actions that affected the lives of the main heroes, having haunted Hoss as a child and made him afraid of monsters, made Billy afraid of spiders which estranged him from his son Jeff, and, uh, sawed off Fred Fredburger’s tusks. The fiend! As you might guess, there’s no real rhyme or reason to this, it’s just goofy absurdist over-the-top sort of thing you’d expect from Maxwell Atoms.

Ron has a relatively simple motivation, but frankly it might be the most evil out of all of these: the man steals toys from the children who stay at his motel to sell them for monetary gain. Yes, this is more evil than attempting to blow up the planet, you heard me. I have no idea how sick and twisted you have to be to think that stealing toys from children is acceptable. Funnily enough, this is the same sort of motivation Al (who was played by Wayne Knight, funnily enough) from Toy Story 2 had, though Ron takes it above and beyond.

And finally that brings us to Fright Knight, Much like most of the ghosts on the show, Fright Knight seems to just want to cause a ruckus after he’s released, attempting to take over Amity Park when Danny foolishly releases him. Later in the show he is freed to serve Pariah Dark, and after Dark is beaten he joins up with Vlad. In his final appearance of any consequence he is seen serving the Ultimate Enemy in the bad future. Basically the guy is just a really cool overhyped henchman.

Personality: So let’s get the easy one out of the way first: The Pumpkinator doesn’t exactly have a personality, because it is a big generic doomsday villain meant to act as an obstacle for Timmy to overcome. However, when it returned later in the episode where Timmy goes to Unwish Island, it did have one notable personality trait: an undying hatred for Timmy Turner, It’s a pretty relatable trait the more into the series you watch.

Bun-Bun is also rather evil and simple. He’s just a petty jerk, as can be seen by his crimes listed up under motivation. There’s not much else to him, same with Fright Knight who, again, is mostly just an overhyped henchman who acts as the hardcore badass serving whatever big bad of the week is out to get Danny (or he would have, but more on that later).

Out of all of these, Ron and Jack have the most personality. Jack is an unrepentant prankster who, at least when alive, was heavily implied to just not get he was taking it too far with his pranks (“too far” in this case being tricking people off of cliffs, at the least), and simply morphed into a bitter, jaded, vengeance-seeking supernatural entity after hundreds of years of rejection by society and isolation. Jack’s honestly pretty tragic in that regard, though it obviously doesn’t excuse his actions.

Ron is just a straight-up jerk, putting up a facade of being a charming, friendly motel owner while stealing toys from under his guest’s noses. As the truth comes out about him, he becomes more cartoonish and hammy, which really doesn’t help his case at all, and in his final scene he actually does something so cartoonish he almost feels like he doesn’t belong in the Toy Story universe.

Final Fate: Funnily enough, Pumpkinator actually gets the happiest ending out of anyone here: after being unwished by Timmy, he goes to Unwish Island and, after Timmy eventually journeys there, gets to have fun tormenting Timmy clones for the rest of time.

Ron probably has the second happiest ending, for a given definition of “happy.” Bonnie’s mother calls the cops on him for his theft, and when they show up, he somehow manages to trick them, run away, steal their car, crash it into a telephone pole when backing up, and then run off before they even move a muscle. It’s ridiculously cartoonish, and there’s no way this guy is gonna be getting off easy after that little display.

Onto Bun-Bun. Bun-Bun made one simple mistake: he put any trust at all int Skarr. For those not in the know, Skarr was the “Starscream” to Hector Con Carne, always hoping to overthrow him and take over his world domination schemes for himself before he ended up retiring from that life and becoming a reoccurring character on Billy & Mandy. So, when he joins up with the villain by betraying Underfist, what do you think he does? He betrays the villain, pushing Bun-Bun into hot cocoa and melting him, using his power of treachery and backstabbing to help his team save the world. It’s pretty amusing in that classic Billy & Mandy way.

Good ol’ Jack ends up getting sent to the underworld this time since Grim wasn’t putting up with his crap anymore, and it seems Jack still hasn’t learned his lesson about pranking. When last we see him, he’s now tormenting demons, who all start moving in on him while he laughs at his dumb pranks. The screen cuts to black and we hear a squishing noise. It’s safe to say he won’t have to worry about that pumpkin head causing him problems anymore.

Fright Night is easily the most tricky one to talk about because his entire intended purpose in the show got aborted. After he was brought back to serve Pariah, he ended up under Vlad’s control by episode’s end, but for some reason, nothing ever came of this and it was never mentioned again – well, except in the “Ultimate Enemy” special, in which the Fright Knight cameos at the beginning, acting as something of the hype man for Dan Phantom, softening up Amity Park for Dan’s attack. After that, though, he’s basically out of the series, save for a couple of brief cameos here and there.

Best Scene: Jack has the flashback to his origins, because not only is it perfectly dark for a show’s Halloween episode, you have to give props to anyone who managed to outwit Grim, even if he did end up paying a steep price for it.

Ron has his aforementioned escape from the police. I do think it’s a bit too cartoonish and silly for Toy Story, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t pretty hilarious either way.

The Fright Knight has the aforementioned scene where he mentions he’s serving The evil future Danny. Considering that’s his last real role in the series, at least he got to go out on a high note, though it still sucks nothing ever came of the plotlines set up for him.

Bun-Bun’s best scene is when he revealed that he was the architect of most of the protagonist’s woes. Again, it’s just classic over-the-top Billy & Mandy silliness, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The Pumpkinator… just doesn’t have one. Sorry.

Best Quote: While most of these guys aren’t exactly a goldmine of quotes, Jack has one of my favorite quotes from anything, ever, and I even already referenced it above: “Three hundred and sixty-four days a year, I can't even go the the ding-dong grocery store to buy pudding! And do you know why?" The why, obviously, is the fact he has a pumpkin for a head.

Final Thoughts & Score: Frankly, this batch of Halloween hooligans is a very mixed bag. We didn’t fare quite as bad as Charlie Brown did on Halloween, but we only got one King Size candy bar out of this lot.

I guess let’s just start with the black licorice of the bunch: Fright Knight. God, I wish I could love Fright Knight, I really do, but considering the overwhelming quality of most of Danny’s rogues gallery and just the fact this guy was totally shafted and everything set up for him was ignored there’s just no excusing how lame this guy looks, Michael Dorn or no. He has a great design and a cool concept, and the ideas for interesting stories with him were there, but he ends up being a 3/10, saved only by his cool first outing, great voice work, and awesome design.

Worse still is the pile of weirdly flavored candy corn that is the Pumpkinator. He has a cool design, but he’s not much of an antagonist to be honest. He’s just a cool-looking robot who wants to blow up the planet. That’s about it. There’s really not much to say about this guy, and his only other appearance doesn’t really add much. I suppose he serves his purpose, but I have to wonder, why even bring him back if he wasn’t going to do anything remotely interesting? I don’t like generic doomsday villains at the best of times, but if you’re gonna bring one back, at least try and do something interesting with them to justify their existence, otherwise they’re just gonna end up getting a 2/10.

Finally, we get into the good candy! Let’s start off with the tasty marshmallow bunny we got, Bun-Bun (isn’t that more of an Easter candy? Weird). Bun—Bun is a funy, goofy, cartoonish villain, perfect for the first (and sadly, only) outing for Underfist. The fact they went above and beyond to cement him as this ludicrous mastermind who just screwed with everyone’s lives for no apparent reason other than the fact he’s a jerk is pretty funny. I don’t think he’s gonna win any Villain of the Year awards, but I think a 6/10 is good enough for this above average nuisance.

Oho, what’s this? A… candycane? Well, it’s a bit out of season, but it’s still tasty! And that’s kind of where Ron is. I do like just how unabashedly scummy he is, and there is precedent for people like him in the Toy Story universe, but I feel he takes things to a cartoonish extreme. For crying out loud, the guy has a trained iguana that acts like a dog! He feels like he belongs in a different series than this one, but again, I don’t really think that’s a bad thing, because at the very least he is funny. He gets a 7/10, a bit higher than usual just because I love how ridiculously nasty his whole scheme is. Stealing from kids, what the actual hell.

YES! A King Size candy bar! Just what I was looking for! It’s just a generic Hershey bar, but hey, that’s a lot of chocolate, so who’s complaining? And that’s Jack, he is simply put a perfect Halloween special antagonist. Most of this comes from his voice work, since Wayne Knight is a national treasure, but his backstory and concept are worth praising too. His origin story is something of a twist on the old legend of “Stingy Jack,” the origin story of the Jack-O’-Lantern appropriately enough. While obviously there are liberties, such as substituting Grim for the devil, it’s a mostly accurate retelling, something that would go over most people’s heads unless they’re really into classical folklore. Jack’s a lot of fun as a character, earning himself a nice big 8/10, only being held back from a higher score because despite being rightfully beloved by audiences, he never really had a major role again, getting a minor shout out in Big Boogey Adventure and… that’s it. I think Jack could have been a really entertaining reoccurring antagonist in the same vein as fwllow ensemble darkhorse Eris, but alas, it was not to be. Maybe if Underfist had been picked up he could have been brought back for that, but the fact is it just didn’t happen. Oh well, might as well appreciate what we got.

And that’s it for this batch of Halloween goodies. Halloween specials seem a lot less prevalent than Christmas specials, but they’re no less important or fun, and as you can see, they do produce at least mildly interesting villains, sometimes. If only they could produce a villain so devilishly Halloweenie that he could perfectly embody the spirit of the holiday…

Hey, what’s that at the bottom of the bag…

Wait… is that…

OH NO.

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leviathan-open-ur-eyes · 4 years

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All I ask of you

Here’s the story for @nightingalewitch hope you enjoy it~

Avery was getting stressed. Five trails in a row and not a single break. Most of the survivors she saw were not ones she wanted to go against. She didn’t have an issue with them, but some of them were just rude? Annoying? Insufferable? Yeah possible all of those. Avery hadn’t even bothered going back to her realm so instead she decided to hang out with Kenneth around the fire. Sure, there were others she could’ve chose but she didn’t feel like it. Most conversations went by quickly and she was awkward on her own without a conversation going the silence multiplied it. She took a seat next to Kenneth and placed her head in her hands. The man looked down at the red head he had come to know, “Long day huh Avery?” he coughed out, she sighed and looked at him, “Five trials in a row and I haven’t had a break yet. I’m hungry, tired and frankly I just want to go home and sleep for the next week.” Kenneth laughed and patted her on the back, “You can say that again.” But she didn’t. she just sat there and looked into the fire and felt its warmth. She wasn’t sure if this was still real. It felt like years being trapped in this hell. But there is no sense of time here in the entity’s realm, her phone is stuck at July 7th, 20XX and the time still reads 9:00 pm.

She couldn’t recall most of her past memories, the ones she did brought her happiness, sadness and nothing. She wishes she could reach out to her friends, to call them or hear their voices and not just the videos she recorded of all of them when they all spent time together. She smiles at that memory, she recorded everything they all did, from shows to cooking together to even Friday Movie Nights. Those were infamous in the Misfit household. Their basement was a movie lover’s dream, projector on the ceiling and a large wall to display the movies. Big bean bag chairs flooded the floors and piles of blankets were thrown into the corner by the door so that way when you entered you could grab however many you wanted and snuggle while watching whatever movie was picked for that night. God, she missed those days, she wondered if they were still doing them possibly without her… without bonnie… she wiped a tear from her cheek and stood up. “I’m going for a walk.” She said to Kenneth who nodded taking a sip of whatever he brought with him.

Before she could leave, she was stopped by Evan, he towered over her, tried to make her feel smaller than she already was but she wasn’t afraid of him. She didn’t even understand why the survivors were to begin with. He had nothing compared to the others, a typical whiny daddy’s boy who became just like his father. Avery knew his type and knew how to get under his skin. But she wasn’t in the mood for it… The trials had been horrible, for her at least, silence grew around the killers’ campfire as Evan got closer. “Heard you did poorly today, Avery.” The way he said her name made her skin crawl. She hated him, he never liked her as a survivor and would always go for her first. Kenneth mentioned that he enjoyed how she acted as a survivor, meek and scared. Like a mouse. It gave him a thrill. That thought disgusted her. “I did just as well as anyone else, Evan.” She spat his name as if it were venom.

“Really because if I remember correctly you failed to even stop them from leaving through the hatch. Not even a single kill how pathetic is that. Even Max over there can get a kill, can’t you freak?” Evan had called out to Max who shied away from them. “Leave him alone.” Avery said, she could stand getting picked on but when someone she considered a friend was dragged into it boy, she wasn’t having it. “Or what Belli?” Evan held his weapon up to her throat, “You think you can handle me?” it was a challenge. One Avery didn’t want to back down from. “She thinks she can.” Someone called from the campfire, looking over she noticed the legion sitting there looking amused, the three who wore masks removed them to get a better look at the fight. Laughter. It echoed around her and she grew more and more anxious as it did.

Kenneth stood up, put a hand on her shoulder, “Come on red don’t give in to…” it was too late, it had become too much and she lunged. It had caught him off guard as he fell onto the ground. She had him pinned beneath her, teeth bared and ready to rip his throat out. She could feel his weapon slashing at her back and arms. She felt him punch her in the ribs, but she didn’t give in. It was Kenneth who pulled her off of him, it was Kenneth who told her to leave and go rest up. He would take care of everything.

She stormed off into the dark woods towards the one large oak that stood out from the sea of trees. This is where she came to talk to the entity, she felt as if maybe the entity heard her, “I’m begging you. Let my trials be done for now. I don’t want to go back there… please?” silence filled the space where she stood, she wanted to cry, scream, something… but a voice echoed and granted her wish. She would have the night to herself… but like usual things come with a price. The voice told her she would have to put in more work or face being punished. Avery didn’t want to think of things to come. She was just so happy to be done. Running back to her realm she threw open the door, half expecting her friends to be there, but no. No one was there. Silence welcomed her and for a minute she just wanted to cry.

Sitting on the couch she leaned her head back and rested it on the back of it. She would need to clean up her wounds and she definitely needed to ice her whole left side. But she didn’t move instead she figured now would be a perfect time to get wasted. There was moonshine in the fridge, that could do the trick, she got up and walked over to the kitchen and flicked the lights on. Gens powered from today’s trials would keep the flow of things for days to come. She was thankful the entity knew of things that existed from everyone’s time. The entity truly is a god. She opened the fridge and took out a couple of bottles. Good old Max keeping the good times rolling. Avery didn’t bother with a glass instead she took the bottles and headed upstairs. She counted the rooms, Marceline, Elias, Toby, Cynder, Tomas and Sloth. She stopped at the last room; her hand ran over the door. Bonnie’s room. Avery knows there isn’t anything in there, no bed, no curtain lights, no desk no bookshelf no cute little plants she kept on the windowsill. Nothing. She needed to remind herself that. Avery took the doorknob and turned it.

The door creaked open and all that was inside was an empty room except for a few paintings on the wall and an empty bed in the corner all dirtied and molded. Avery shut the door and decided to head to her room. The one thing she did wish the entity would’ve given her in her realm is her memories. The rooms would all be there, filled with life, color and warmth. Though no one would ever live in them it would mean the world to be surrounded by the things she once knew. Her room was the only thing that held any life to it. All her old things were there, well most of her old things anyways, she walked over to the large beanbag and sat down. A movie might take her mind off of the stress. Avery thought of what to watch, horror? Nah it would dampen her mood and make it unenjoyable. Rom-com? She wasn’t used to those movies, too sappy for her tastes. Thriller? Documentary? Nothing seemed enjoyable, one movie she could watch without having to actually pay attention to it was Coraline.

Settling on that she got up and fished for the dvd. Once it was located, she popped open the case, took it out, and put it into the player. In a few seconds the movie started, Avery returned to the beanbag and opened the bottle, the taste of moonshine burned her throat, but it wasn’t meant to taste good it was meant to take the pain away. Avery just wanted to drink until she the world around her disappeared and she could soothe the aching that lingered inside of her. It was a mix of guilt and self-hatred. Guilt of leaving those she loved behind, guilt of getting the one she loved killed, guilt of running away. But was she really even sure Bonnie had died? Avery tipped the bottle again this time taking a small sip. It stopped burning now. If she could only contact them, she had so much she wanted to ask them and so much she wanted to say. But she knew that wasn’t possible and it hurt her. All she wanted to do now was curl up in her beanbag and sleep the rest of her life away. But the entity wouldn’t allow that, she would punish Avery for disobeying the laws she had set for everyone.

Before she knew it the bottle of moonshine was gone and her eyes were clouded, her cheeks flushed, and her movements felt sluggish. Did it matter that she was drunk? She didn’t have to go to trials anymore so who gives a shit if she blacked out. Avery was turning into an alcoholic, there wasn’t much to do here besides that, or drugs brought in by the legion. Hell, she even figured some of the survivors had some weed growing around their area. She figured maybe she would go for a walk just to clear her head. The feeling of drunkenness would wear off shortly as it usually does. So, Avery paused the movie, got up and headed down the stairs towards her front door. Opening it she was surprised to see Nea standing there, why was she here? Survivors never came to killer realms… at least as far as she knew anyways. Nea stood there, she was shivering, of course she would be she only wore a green tank top and black skinny jeans. To top off her outfit she always had on a beanie, it reminded Avery of her very own beanie the one she left at home that night… god she wished she had it now.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

Avery thought for a moment. “Sure.”

Avery moved out of the way and allowed Nea into her home. Shutting the door behind her she looked at her once former friend. “Why are you here?” the tone of her voice even made her want to leave. She would slap herself later for that. “I heard you got into it with you know who…” Nea said walking around the living room and towards the kitchen. She did so as if she’s been here dozens of times. “How do you know about that?” Avery looked scared as if a big secret had gotten out. Nea pointed at her arms, “Besides the obvious? Apparently, everyone knows…” She took hold of Avery’s hand and examined her arm, “You got a first aid in this place?”

“Upstairs… in my room.” Avery felt flustered telling her that.

“Well come on then I’ll patch you up.”

Walking behind Nea she felt a little embarrassed, she was bringing someone into her room, no one had seen her room here. She felt like this was a date. But it wasn’t Nea was just checking up on her. Maybe she would want to stay the night and watch a movie or two. If not she knew Susie wouldn’t turn her down. Her face grew redder. Girls made her nervous. Girls were pretty. Girls were beautiful and her? she was the complete opposite of that. Avery wasn’t pretty, or graceful, she was a tomboy. Most of her male friends considered her one of them. Hell, she even took hold of how they acted and made it part of her personality. Baggy clothes that never framed her figure correctly, crocs… not that there was anything wrong with crocs…. But she just never really fit the mold of attractiveness.

“So, do you wanna go in first? It is your room after all.” Nea was standing by the closed door, Avery nodded and opened it. Nea didn’t say much at first but she looked over every inch of her room, “This is your room?” she questioned, and Avery nodded, “Yea sorry it’s messy.”

“No, I love it! Its so big and spacious nothing like mine back home…” the words fell out her mouth and she stood there, “D-did you need the first aid kit?” Avery asked, “Oh yeah sorry.” Avery went into the bathroom and dug around under her sink for the first aid she knew would always be there. Bringing it out to Nea, “You want me to sit?” Avery asked. “Of course.” Nea chuckled. Avery sat on her beanbag and held out her arm for the girl. She began patching up her wounds, the peroxide burned but how gently Nea patted the cuts made it hurt less. “So, I was wondering if you wanted to stay over?” Avery’s voice was weak. But she was hopeful.

“Oh? I’ve never been asked that before. But sure, why not.” Avery felt her stomach do flips she was happy and excited, “You can have my bed tonight, we can watch movies and I’m sure I can make popcorn or something to snack on.” Her mouth felt like it could keep talking, just pour everything out to Nea but she decided to just stop talking. Nea smiled, she hadn’t felt like this in a long time, perhaps she could talk to Avery like old times. “You know you may have traded sides but you’re still the goofy lovable nerd we came to know.” Nea said and Avery felt her face flush. “I missed you guys….” Avery needed to talk, get it off her chest. She couldn’t always confide in Kenneth; he wouldn’t always understand how she felt or why she missed being a survivor. “I miss Dwight, Meg, Claudette and hell even everyone else. Even the ones I haven’t actually met yet.” Nea looked up at the redhead, “They miss you too.”

“How’s Jake? You know I don’t get him often in my trials to even apologize to him.”

“He’s okay… mostly hurt. Losing you kinda hurt him. He was really close to you.” Nea spoke softly. “It hurt us both.”

“I’m sorry. I thought she was going to let me go…”

“And you believed her?”

Avery looked at Nea, tears were in her eyes. The promise of seeing her loved ones again was too good to pass up. Now she lives her life as a killer. And she regrets ever believing the entity.

“I’m sorry.”

Nea finished bandaging up Avery’s wounds. She stood up and walked in front of the girl. “S-so do you want to watch movies or what?” Avery smiled, “I was watching one already if you wouldn’t mind me restarting it to finish it with you.” Nea nodded and then realized she would have to sleep in her clothes, shrugging she began to take off her pants, Avery who had went over to restart the movie didn’t even notice until she turned around to grab the other beanbag in the opposite corner. “Y-you want some pj pants? I have some.” She wasn’t worried about her being without pants she just didn’t know if she could handle seeing Nea in her black panties. “No, I’m good. Let’s get this movie night going!” Avery swallowed and pressed play.

Nea couldn’t focus on the movie, she was here to see if Avery would come with her, back to being a survivor. Sure, she would have to adjust back to that life, but it sure beat the hell out of having to kill her friends over and over again. How would she do it though? She didn’t want Avery to cry herself asleep night after night, she was all alone here and it tore at Nea’s heart. The movie had ended, and Avery got up to put on another one, this time Nea’s choice. As it began playing Avery spoke, “This has been the best night ever.”

“We’re just watching movies it’s nothing that great.” Nea joked.

“Sure but at least I get to spend it with you.”

Nea’s heart sunk.

“Avery, you don’t know...”

“I know I was hard to deal with sometimes,” Avery said. One thing Nea knew about Avery was how much her self-hatred could overpower anything she felt. Even Nea’s reassurances on how much she wasn’t. “I know I was a problem child,” Avery persisted, fighting back tears in her eyes. She had looked so happy just a moment ago and now she looked like the world just dropped all of its weight on her shoulders. “I’ve caused so much shit for Oba. That’s probably why my mom left me. Why she forced my father to leave me behind while they went and had a happy life without me. I can’t blame them. I mean, look at me. I’m a monster… I deserve to be here. I deserve this.” Avery looked like she wanted to scream or throw something, but she didn’t have the energy. “I can’t even imagine all the shit I put you through, Nea. I don’t even know why you’re here… with me, someone who murders you over and over again for fun. How can you still look at me the same?”

Nea held back her wince. She went over to her and knelt down. She didn’t want to hear those words. She wished she could stay with Avery forever. Protect her from anything this world would throw at her. But even she knew that was selfish. Nothing could protect them.

“Avery, I care about you. Deeply,” Nea said firmly, and the words were truer than Avery would ever know. She tried to meet Avery’s gaze, but the redhead was staring at her floor. Nea continued, “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”

“I want to believe that. And I wish I could,” Avery stood up and paced about her room. Her claws extended, ready to dig into something or someone. Nea took a step back in fear of her. Avery took notice and it seemed as if she would laugh but she didn’t she just continued on, “But everyone who says that leaves. My father told me that and he left. Bonnie said that too...”

The tears streamed down her face, she looked so pitiful, Nea wanted to hug her. Kiss her. Tell her everything would be okay. But even she knew it wouldn’t be. Avery ran a ragged sharpened finger over her bare arm, with a swift movement she sliced her skin, Nea watched as she did it a few more times before she finally ran at her. Nea grabbed her hand, “Stop! You don’t have to do this to yourself!”

Avery winced away from her touch, Nea reached up and cupped her face in her hands. “Can we talk for a little bit?” Avery nodded.

“I need to tell you something now and I need you to listen to me okay? I don’t know why this has been eating away at me, oh my god I’m so dramatic like I don’t know…. I’m just here trying to get you to hear me out, but I’ve had the biggest crush on you for so fucking long like I’m not even joking like the first time I saw you I was like who is that cause you are 110% my type. Like no joke I’m not even lying. You’re so attractive and like I just want to protect you. I would give my life for you. You’re so caring and so sweet and you just get along with everyone. Literally you got everything going for you not even joking like you have your shit together.”

Nea hadn’t stopped talking even if she knew Avery wouldn’t believe it, she had to try. “You're attractive you have a good sense of fashion you have like a good heart like I am so attracted to you not even gonna lie like I might be making a fool of myself right now if I am like lock me up take me away cause like you probably could tell cause I literally told everyone that like I was in love with you. Like that I’m actually in love with you cause like I never said it to you and you never said it back but like in my mind I was in love with you so like it probably got around and you probably like know that but I just wanted you to hear it firsthand that I love you but like I don't know how you feel. I didn’t know this could be that hard for me cause I'm terrible at like expressing my emotions like really bad and I feel like this is going really badly but I don't know, something about you like I don't know why…you literally have like so many people coming after you but like how are you single? Why am I acting like I have a chance like I don't know,” Nea laughed which made Avery smile a bit.

“Well honestly no I need to have a good mentality like why aren't we dating like why aren’t we engaged I'm joking. But honestly like I totally like respect what you feel if you don't feel the same way because in the end like I want you to be happy cause genuinely you are the sweetest person I've ever met and I only want the best for you I can't even express like how you make me feel and it's not it's not like we kissed… it's never been like anything romantic but you just make everyone around you feel so damn comfortable and I'm very confused because I felt no anxiety talking to you and I never felt judged or like I couldn’t say anything to you. No matter what I said you would understand or at least like even if you didn't go through it you would still like understand. I don't know I really don't know, and you asked the reason why I haven't dated anyone cause honestly like I couldn't. I have had the biggest crush on you forever and I can't bring myself to actually look at anyone else because I know you're the one that I want to be with. I want someone that you. I don't know maybe I just like the chase no I'm just kidding I don't like I don't know I don't want someone that's like super obsessive or something or clingy and I know you're not like that and you're so respectful like you compliment all my outfits even if they don’t look good. You actually like the outfit like it's not even like…” Nea was losing her train of thought she was just letting her feelings out. “you're such like a genuinely good person OK I'm telling you this I just wanted to let you know because I feel like it's been long overdue like way long overdue so yeah you don't have to say anything back and you don’t have to say you feel the same way cause you might not like there's so many people out there like it's so hard to find someone that's you like and they like you back like I get that but you know if we don't talk again after this I just want the best for you and like I may not be the best for you. But I love you Avery. Do you understand? I love you.”

Avery smiled and said, “I love you too.” She felt Nea pull her close and she hadn’t felt this warmth in a long time. It was like being hugged by a warm fire. The warmth wasn’t leaving her, why wasn’t Nea letting go of her? “N-Nea let me go… I don’t want to be hugged anymore…” but she couldn’t pull away. Everything was spinning, the world around her going dark and she shut her eyes, when she opened them she was back at the campfire. Kenneth looked down at her, “You enjoy your nap? You’re wanted for another trail better get going Red.”

#dbd oc killer #dbd oc x canon

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vegalocity · 6 years

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Here’s a gift to @thestarfan18 that’s not really a gift bc i’m also posting it for Selfish reasons.

Some of my best fics and ideas are made from plot bunnies that are more along the lines of ‘intrusive thoughts but with themes’ so this has been playing out in my head for the past few days and I thought ‘eh, might as well write it’ so it would leave me alone.

So happy Unbirthday Valentina! May your beard grow ever longer and your story grow ever more complex! (also sorry if the plot implications are super dumb, I have no idea if James even HAS a master plan beyond ‘1:kill halley 2:take throne 3:??? 4:profit)

The ground was cracked beneath Philharmonic Butterfly. His shoes were in near tatters, his chest and arms littered with cuts and bruises. His left eye was starting to swell, his cloud blue hair was singed at the tips. The cut on the back of his right hand—his bow hand if he couldn't hold a bow anymore how could he continue his lessons?—was deep enough he could see the sickly yellow-white of bone peaking out if he cared enough to look. And frankly the white hot pain that almost made him want to lop his whole hand off didn't make him want to look at all.

The flames that he had summoned without thought—inevitably stopping the eldritch entities his brother and great-aunt had summoned because nobody had known he could do it. Even him—had died down, the rocks that had been cracked both by his flames and Halley's magic had been charred to smoldering coals.

His hand was almost ripped open entirely, but his legs felt relatively okay, so he shakily got to his feet, ripping half the left sleeve off his shirt in the process for an impromptu bandage. His hand felt like it had the time he'd tried to fire lightning from the wand—well, the beautiful violin that was the wand when he held it—and it had bounced back on him. He used his teeth to tear the offending sleeve in half again, this time lengthwise. He hastily began to bind his hand, a little more strenuous than he had hoped granted he wasn't left-handed. But he was able to make sure the tendons were in the right places and wrapped his hand to ensure no further blood would make its way out, nor bone breaking. Phil considered himself rather enduring at that. A lesser man would have passed out under such pain.

And he only dropped to his knees to throw up from the pain after he was done so he considered that a success!

But that was the worst of his injuries, and now that he could actually gather himself enough to take in the rest of the world, he staggered back to his feet again to try and see out of the crater he'd fallen in.

If he'd seen correctly before everything went to hell, Great-Aunt Etheria had been swallowed with the portal, If he was in less pain he'd be a little more sympathetic to the idea of a family member being devoured by monstrosities not meant to be seen by mortal eyes; but he was in a lot of pain so he spat to the ground at the thought—a trace of blood in the spit from his bitten tongue—and thought bitterly to himself that the old hag deserved what she got.

Scanning around he was finally able to spot his sister. Her peach colored hair frizzy at the ends from the overload of magic that she'd let out with him to close the gateway. He couldn't see much more of her from his spot, other than the tip of one of her horns might have been cracked. Her wings had slid back to their smaller size no doubt, hidden by her hair, and the rest of her he couldn't quite make out from his spot.

Climbing from a crater with a hand that was maybe one cut away from massive muscular damage, heavy bruising up and down his body, and slowly loosing all sight in his left eye... well it was a little taxing. He nearly threw up from pain again when a block of cobblestone fell from it's tenuous spot and rammed heavily against his right hand on its way down. But all the same he didn't stop and wait to be helped out.

Halley was hurt more than he was, no one was coming for him if he waited at the bottom of this damned crater. And more importantly really, His sister was hurt and she needed him. Phil grit his teeth and finally—finally—he forced his left forearm to the top of the crater, pulling his upper body up with him.

He remembered how Halley went down, he'd just fallen into the crater the both of them had made when they’d closed the gateway, he'd been able to see the gateway closing almost perfectly. The hit to his head made him too dizzy to stand, let alone fight, but he watched their Great-Aunt be ensnared by something that looked like one of the aliens of Uncle Marco's Earth Movies. One of the alien creatures wasn't going back in without a fight and started shooting out its weird black appendages, trying to grab one of them. Phil had been just far enough away to avoid getting snapped up as well, but his brother had been less than lucky. James had gone full Butterfly, but his sword had been shaken from his hands so he had been relying on his magic alone.

And if what Phil and Halley had proven before, no single magic user was enough to make a match against these things. But then again, when had James ever thought himself as anything but better than the both of them at everything?

Halley had come to his rescue, she'd helped free him.

And when the creature spewed out some foul looking liquid, Halley—for some ungodly reason—pushed James out of the way, taking the hit to her side. Her scream was so loud the creature cringing inward from the noise had been enough to shut the portal entirely. Halley fell. He knew she wasn't dead, she couldn't be dead. But he needed to be there for her all the same.

His feet caught onto a stone that gave him enough momentum to push himself the rest of the way out of the crater (he really needed to do more pushups, his upper body strength was pathetic compared to his siblings) and began to shamble his way to his sister.

Halley was crumpled on the ground, she hadn't moved since she fell, and his gut dropped, but also for the fact that James hadn't left the two of them for dead.

His brother was hunched over his Sister and the light tingle on his cheeks as his marks turned to a pair of sharps was completely eclipsed by the hot rage that began to boil in his chest. He wasn't sure if he could run, but he could at least try.

“Get away from her!”

Well, it was more galloping, his left leg was a little stiffer than he'd hoped it would be. So he took a moment to stoop down and pick up a rock. James looked up at him and Phil took aim. His right hand throbbed as he gripped the stone harder, the pain spiked as he flung it forward, releasing the rock. But despite the pain his aim was true. The rock soared through the air and some how, for some reason, James' reflexes didn't kick in to catch or block it. He flinched away as the rock grazed his cheek, a small bead of blood cutting into his relatively unharmed flesh.

Phil was able to close the gap in that time thankfully, and gave a hard push to his older brother to get him away and crouch infront of Halley.

The left side of her face glowed with a sickly yellow magic, spreading like poison through the veins across her face. Her left cheek flower had turned a sickly greenish yellow and while she was breathing, it was a strained, shallow thing. Her chest rattling every so often in pain.

He shifted Halley a bit, wriggling his arm under her shoulders to pull her up a bit. Her head lolled back, mouth opening a bit at the weight shift but otherwise unchanged.

“Halley!” she didn't respond to him, he knew she probably wouldn't until he got her to their mother. Mom would fix this. He knew mom would fix this.

“Hold on Halley, You'll be okay.” He promised her quietly, he saw some movement out of the corner of his eye.

He glanced up, expecting to see Halley and himself alone in the wreckage, James fleeing the scene with the Wand in tow, But somehow, he wasn't.

James was actually getting closer to the two of them, the Wand—turned into the sword form he favored—still clutched in his hand from when he no doubt stole it from Halley's prone form, but he didn't look the least like he was about to leave. Or even that he was about to shove Phil away to finish the job.

No...he was looking at Halley as though she'd been replaced with a someone he didn't actively despise, dark brows raised high and face slack in shock.

“Is she.. dying?” he finally said, voice just barely over a whisper. “I couldn't... I didn't know what to check...” Phil clenched his jaw and held out his free hand.

“She'll be fine. Give me the wand, I need to get her home.” James' other hand went up to the grip of the sword and Phil looked him dead in the eye then. He felt a stringing in the corners of his eyes, and he hoped beyond all hope just a spark of Dad's rage face shone through onto him.

“James.” he stated calmly, but firmly. “Call me paranoid, but granted you just opened a gateway to hungry elder abominations, I feel like I can't trust you with the Family Magic Wand at the moment.” he made a grabby motion with his fingers and finally James relented, placing the sword in Phil's waiting hand. With a small shower of blue sparks it became the ornate violin that marked it as his.

He looked down at the violin, then at Halley. He needed two hands to play it, and his bow hand was injured. But Halley sure as heck couldn't prop herself up under her own power. He pinched his lips into a fine line and with a flourish the violin condensed into a small conductor's baton, the only hint at its magical properties being the family crystal, a deep blue gem affixed to the pommel. He slid the baton into his belt loop and then used his now free hand to prop Halley up from under her knees.

His muscles screamed in protest as he began to lift, the bruises up his torso throbbed and the cuts along his arms and chest threatened to open again, but no pain was worse than the one in his hand. Halley's head lolled and the infected side of her body pressed against him, but the weight and the grip sent sparks of agony up his whole arm. He'd probably have some kind of nerve damage in that hand after all this, wouldn't he?

James made a half-aborted motion towards them, as if he was about to try and help Phil carry their sister. He snorted to himself at the thought. Halley hung limply in his arms and just taking the first few steps his arms trembled and threatened to give in.

James stayed where he stood. Eyes on Halley and incomprehensible expression on his face. No doubt he was wondering how easy it would be to knock him out and kill Halley while he still had the chance.

Well Phil wasn't about to let that happen.

He shifted Halley in his arms, she looked so fragile, her skin starting to pale, the large bruise on the side of her face that wasn't infected with... whatever this was... was purple and bordering on a welt. His heart dropped at her stillness, his vision blurred for a second before clearing up.

“You know...” He found himself saying “All I ever wanted was for you two to stop fighting. I just wanted us to be happy. I never wanted to take sides in your stupid fights because I hated them in the first place.” he gripped Halley a little tighter as he began to walk. He couldn't hear the rubble disturbing behind him, James wasn't following them.“But the truth is she's always been too good to even compare to you.”

Some how, there was some motion beneath him at that. Halley groaned lightly and began to crack her eyes open. Well, not all of her eyes. Her right and center eyes looked no more than a little clouded from concussion, but her left eye, the one closest to the green infection, remained closed.

“Phil...?” She croaked out. “What's goin'....?”

“You're alright Halley.” He responded. “We're going home, we won.” She tilted her head in response, as though trying to look around him.

“Is... James..” she paused to take a rattling breath. “Is he okay?”

Phil grit his teeth. “He's just fine. We're all just fine.”

“Oh... okay.” Halley smiled weakly. “That's good.”

His cheek marks didn't change back, even as he smiled and kissed his sister's forehead, just above her center eye.

He was furious

And he planned to stay that way.

James didn't understand. He couldn't understand. He'd done everything right! He'd made his alliances, they'd set up their plan, they'd EXECUTED their plan, and his stupid sister had been right there for eldritch chowtime.

Phil had come too, but he could be avoided easily, after all James had no qualms with his brother beyond Phil being a little too spineless at times.

But the stupid little demon had been able to stop the portal. And killed their Great-Aunt in the process! Forget calling him Heirslayer, Halley was a Kinslayer! Wasn't that enough to get her off the throne?

He hadn't needed her help. He might not have had the wand on him, but he was still the most powerful of the three of them, he could have gotten the tendril monster to let him go without her. He didn't need her help, and he told her so repeatedly when she kept insisting on scratching and blasting at the thing holding on to him.

But then...

Then she said the thing he didn't understand.

“You may not value my life, but I still value yours!”

He thought she was happy to be heir, that she loved that she'd snatched the throne right out from under him. Every argument that had to him always just sounded like the little demon being childish and wanting to rub her victory in his face... he thought she was as excited about becoming queen as he was determined to not let a freak on the throne.

She hadn't even hesitated to push him out of the way when the creature spat out that disgusting liquid.

She lay crumpled beneath him and he could have easily put his hands around her neck and squeezed until she stopped that raspy attempt at breathing. It could have been over, he could have won before Philharmonic got in the way like an absolute tool.

So why didn't he? He'd just been leaning over her indecisively for what must have been minutes. And then he let Phil's stupid little rock hit him. The small little spike of pain that pricked his cheek had barely even processed in comparison to the sheer fury on his little brother's face. He'd never seen Phil so angry.

He looked a lot like dad when he was angry.

“You may not value my life, but I still value yours!”

Those words were... more difficult to parse out than he expected. It went against everything he knew about Halley... or maybe thought he knew.

Maybe he didn't know anything about her at all.

Phil walked off, Halley, probably dying a little bit, waking up only briefly before passing back out, James took a seat in the rubble and rested his chin on folded arms.

He needed to think.

#tomstar children #halley butterfly #Phil Butterfly #James Butterfly #thestarfan18 #vega writes stories too #vega draws #Star Vs Next Gen #i love me some political intrigue #which is why i love Valentina's triplets #there 90% political intrigue

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keithxhappiness · 5 years

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Voltron S8 Review (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR VOLTRON SEASON 8 PEOPLE!

OK, so I just finished Voltron Season 8. I had to watch it a day late because I went to see Into the Spiderverse (which was REVOLUTIONARY btw, I highly recommend seeing and supporting it!)

One of my biggest fears about watching it late was that something would be spoiled for me by twitter/tumblr/youtube, and although I got through it without any spoilers, I did see some general negativity surrounding the finale, without really knowing why though.

But after finishing it, I took a look at some of the comments to try to decipher what it was that made people think it was so terrible! So, here are my thoughts on the finale itself, and on peoples’ thoughts about the finale:

First, I would just like to say thank you to Voltron.

I have never been one for shipping battles, and I was never concerned with all of the controversy surrounding the political statements that could be made through the show.

My main focus was the story, and my connection to the characters, particularly Keith. No, not just because I think he’s insanely attractive.

Because, he reminds me of myself…I also struggle with trusting other people, and I often think I can do everything myself or that it would be easier if I took control of the situation. I’m not patient enough to give others a chance, which is something I recognize and am working to change.

So, Keith’s development embodies my own objectives. Which is part of the reason why I love him (the other being how HOT he is).

Keith aside, everything in this season was meant to display the core idea of this story: strength through unity. It is something I hope to truly experience one day, and I think it has been demonstrated beautifully throughout the show.

It is obvious to me that a lot of effort, thought, and work has been put into animating and producing this series, something that I am angered to see not appreciated enough.

Even when you don’t enjoy certain aspects of the story, there is NO DOUBT that the creators deserve respect. Respect needs to accompany criticism of the series, or else how can you possibly expect the creators to respect your criticisms?

So, to everyone who worked on Voltron, from the seeds of its creation to its conclusion, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and I wish you the best in all your future endeavours.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with next :)

I guess I shall split this next part of the review into things I didn’t particularly like, and things that I liked.

Starting with the things I personally didn’t enjoy (and some other commentary):

a) Allura and Lance:

Ah yes, the dreaded Allurance. Although I said that I wasn’t heavily involved in shipping in this show, I was unfortunately all too aware of the war waged within the fandom, which frankly, was more chaotic than the war in the show itself :’)

Other than Lotura, I didn’t ship anyone with anyone else, personally. And I understood the resistance to Allura and Lance becoming a couple. I didn’t feel any chemistry between the two of them, and particularly for Allura, I only felt that she saw Lance as her family, just as she saw all the others.

Like, when he confessed to loving her in Episode 1, I felt that her reaction was something akin to “UM, cool, cool. Same here." However, there is no denying that the seeds for this union were planted from the start of the show. It would be foolish to think that this wasn’t their plan all along, really.

But somehow, it just didn’t click. I can’t wrap my head around why, though! For me, I think that I prefer the idea of two characters coming together as friends, and then romantically, if they’ve been helping one another overcome some emotional trauma. You could argue that Lance was doing that for Allura, but it didn’t really happen until this specific season, and so, it didn’t quite establish the strength of their bond in time for their romance to feel like anything but just something that happened.

ALL THAT SAID, their scenes together were still very cute…and the Altean markings she left behind on his face BROKE ME. If only the strength of their union, and their mutual love for eachother, was established a little earlier - season 6, maybe - it may have felt more right.

And when she left him behind, I expected MORE from him, resistance-wise. I didn’t like that he just…let her go, after a few tears and a kiss. I wanted him to pull her back, to offer himself instead, or to see him destroyed when they were returned to their reality.

But, I’ve never experienced this type of loss before. And, maybe, deep-down, he knew that he could do nothing to stop her. I just…wanted to see more from him.

Even when she had absorbed the entity. His role was too, too passive. A few times, he’d go “Allura, um, I don’t think this is safe…maybe we should think about this…” and Allura would respond with “No, shut up I know what im doing”, and Lance would just shut up. I wanted him to pull her and shake her and force her to come to her senses!

b) Allura’s death:

I am really sad to say that I knew this was coming.

I can’t believe the leaks were real. I guess they didn’t technically spoil anything because there was also doubt surrounding their authenticity.

And even knowing that it would happen, I AM NOT OKAY WITH IT.

I am happy that they established very early in this season the lengths to which Allura would go to stop Honerva. It was always clear that she was ready to sacrifice herself. Even when she was saying her goodbyes, she seemed to already have come to terms with the fact that her path was ending.

But, that doesn’t mean I’m happy with it.

You know, it’s interesting, I always say that I hate “happy” endings. I prefer my endings to be bitter sweet - like green tea lemonade. So, for everyone to get what they want — that to me is just too good to be true, and bothers me, because real life does not have a neat little ending like that.

So, I knew the ending had to be enveloped in some amount of loss. But for Allura to lose her life, after all that she’s lost, I had hoped she would get to keep her future.

Even without her past, that she could move forward and forge a new world for her people, and get to see that world with her own eyes. IF ANYONE deserved this, it would be Allura.

And like other people, I was really mad that she never had an opportunity to say goodbye to Coran, who was essentially her father figure, or to her own father’s soul.

So, in short, I didn’t want the “death” of the show to be Allura’s….but we don’t always get what we want…

c) Honerva:

I hated her, and not just because she was the antagonist.

The hilarious thing was that Season 8 had the exact same plot as Into the Spider-verse :’) And I still don’t understand why anyONE, crazy, evil, or otherwise, thinks that it’ll be a good idea to travel between REALITIES to find another version of your lost family.

I guess IT’S TRUE that people would do anything for their family, but it seems ridiculous to me that they wouldn’t consider the possible consequences for themselves as well their own world. It’s like time-travel. You just don’t mess with that shit.

But I also hated her as the antagonist. Her objective to me was just not compelling enough…I didn’t really feel her love for Lotor or for Zarkon. I just felt that she was cray cray.

For example, consider Castlevania: a show that excellently protrays the antagonist (Dracula’s) loss. You see why Dracula loved his family, the kind of (immortal) life he could have had.

But other than a few scenes when they were in her consciousness, I just didn’t really believe in her love.

I didn’t want to see her reunited with anyone. I just wanted her to chill out and leave my babies alone.

I also didn’t like how easy it was for Allura to sway her at the end. She seemed so weak-minded and stupid, despite having all the power that she did.

WHY DID ORIANDE EVEN CONSIDER HER WORTHY?!?!?!?!

d) Some other things:

I wasn’t a huge fan of the amount of action comprising this season. I mean, not that it’s the show’s fault - this is a space opera about giant mechs, so obviously, there are going to be space and mech battles.

But I guess I prefer ground/hand-to-hand combat. It’s hard for me to follow mech fights, and I just like sword fights. This is a matter of personal preference, though.

BUT, I will say that because there were SO MANY Robeast/mech fights, there wasn’t as much time for character-character interaction.

So, that made me sad.

So many opportunities gone - opportunities for James/Acxa and Keith to interact (esp after the Ezor/Zethrid conflict), etc.

This season was really flashy, and while I like flashy, as I said before, I also value the emotional connections between the characters a lot and wish that a greater emphasis could have been placed on them.

Things I liked:

Keith being a fearless leader

Krolia NOT dying - thank goodness for that, that was really worrying me

When Keith made his speech in EP1, and Krolia and Kolivan were smiling proudly :))

Matt (sad to see his ponytail go, but he still cayuuuute)

Lotor, all of the little Lotor scenes (AH, I JUST WANT TO ADOPT HIM AND RAISE HIM WITH LOVE) - saddened not to have seen him returned :((

The pictures at the end - happy to see everyone happy and thriving!

AND EVERYTHING ELSE NOT MENTIONED!

All in all, I think it is absolutely absurd (in the Snape voice) not to watch the season just because you heard some negative things. Don’t be as easily swayed as the Alteans were. Watch it yourself, think for yourself, and form your own opinion. Regardless of what you didn’t like, you can’t deny that this show has been a wild, beautiful ride. PEACE.

#vld s8 spoilers #vld s8 #vlds8 #vld keith

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pixelpolaroid · 6 years

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Faded Fragments- Ch 21 (End)

<<First <Prev Epilogue

Rebuild and move on

The egos all stood outside the cabin watching as Jamie and Marvin stood by the old electromagnetic generator. None of them said anything, still a little awkward with anti standing literally a foot away from them. “Jackie!” Marvin called from the generator. “Are you sure you’re okay with still sharing a room with Jamie? You two can have your own.”

Jackie looked at Jamie who just shrugged. “No it’s fine. We’ve kinda gotten used to it at this point. It’d feel weird not living with the pest,” He joked. Jamie just kept looking down as he flipped the hero off. The others just laughed. Even Anti had trouble stifling his amusement.

“Okay!” Marvin said, clapping his hands together. “I think we’re ready Jamie,” The mute ego nodded and took a step back. Marvin stood in front of the cabin’s front porch.

The magician took a deep breath, mustering all the power that he could manage at once. Marvin surrounded the cabin with a ring of blue magic. The ring began to spin, picking up speed, growing as it did, until it got to the point where the entire cabin was encased in a vortex of light. The other egos shielded away from the blinding light as Marvin chanted his spell.

To the magician, it felt like forever, conjuring up all he could for this one spell. Their family was growing, they needed more space. This had to work.

Soon, the light evaporated, Marvin fell to his knees exhausted. Chase ran to his side once the spell finished. “You okay man?” Marvin was breathing heavily but eventually nodded.

The magician stood looking back at the cabin with a smile. “Guys, say hello to the Septic cabin 2.0.” He proclaimed.

The Egos all gathered around. It was way bigger and frankly nicer than the old cabin! As they slowly each began wandering in, Jackie came up behind Marvin. “You’ve outdone yourself again Marvin,” The magician just chuckled.

When they went inside, They found that all the furniture had been proper arranged Marvin made it so him, Chase and Schneep were on the first floor, and Jackie Jamie, and Anti were on the second. On the first floor however, Schneep had a proper clinic, with separate emergency room and recovery room. Along with his own office connected to his bedroom.

Jamie and Jackie ran upstairs and peered over the railing down at the others in the living room. “Hey Chase!” Jackie called from above. “Why don’t you break in that new kitchen and work on some dinner.”

Chase looked back that the kitchen. There was much more room for him to cook now. “You tease,” Chase called, starting to walk away. “But our moving in dinner is going to be so good, your words are not the only thing you’ll be eating.”

Marvin laughed at the playful exchange. His eyes moved when he saw Anti finally start to wander in. “I hope it’s okay that you’re upstairs.”

Anti just shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. It’s better than that old place anyways,” Marvin nodded in agreement, remembering the old rundown house he used to live in. Couldn’t argue with that.

“Oh speaking of which,” Marvin brought up. “What was the deal with that house anyways. You can’t tell me you couldn’t sense that something was off about it,” Marvin pried.

Anti sighed thinking back to it. “Yeah it was weird. I think that some powerful entities used to live there. Those bullet holes you found, there’s some story to them,” Anti looked around as the others all began to settle in. “I have to go back and collect some stuff at some, so I’ll try and find the bullets.” He told the magician.

Marvin nodded. “Sound like a good plan. If there are other entities, it might be a good idea to find out about them. But don’t worry about that now,” Marvin gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go check out your room. There isn’t much there, but I’m sure you can figure something out,” The glitch nodded and his body glitched into the light, going up to his room.

Marvin wandered into his own room now. He sat down on the bed and fell back, letting out a deep sigh. A knock came to the door suddenly. “Come in,” He called. Chase poked his head in, then stepped inside.

Marvin pointed to the wall between his and Chase’s room. The other man noticed another door connecting the two. “I added that just in case of emergencies.” He explained.

Chase raised an eyebrow. “What type of emergencies are you expecting?” He asked.

“I don’t know, I just thought it’d be nice to be closer. What did you need?” Marvin questioned.

“Right,” Chase refocused on why he came in. “You like your steak medium rare right?” Chase asked. Marvin gave him a questioning look.

“Yeah, but that’s not the only reason you came in, is it?” Marvin couldn’t help but take a quick peek into Chase’s mind, just to see what was bothering him. The magician’s face dropped slightly. “You’re thinking about what happened. Me getting attacked by Trickster, and Anti. It’s still bothering you, isn’t it?” Chase nodded.

“It’s just,” Chase walked over and sat next to the magician on the bed. “I was so scared that one of them would,” Chase cut himself off. “I just don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you,” He admitted.

Marvin sighed, looking down at his lap. “I’m sorry to have scared you, but if I’m being honest,” Marvin bit his lip, averting his eyes slightly. “I kinda cheated,” Chase looked at his confused, but then his eyes went wide in realization.

“You fucking looked into the future didn’t you!” Marvin didn’t say anything. Chase just rolled his eyes as he stood, making his way to the door again. “Well here I was scared for nothing. You know what, you’re not getting a steak,” He declared with a smile, marching out of the room.

“Oh Chase come on!” Marvin called under his laughs. “That’s not fair,” The magician followed Chase back towards the kitchen.

“Fine fine. Oh, by the way, I was thinking that we should invite the Host over for dinner one day. You know to say thank you,” Chase didn’t notice Marvin freeze in his tracks behind him, he just kept making his way to the kitchen.

“Oh right,” Marvin muttered. “The Host...”

---

When Anti opened the door to his new room, he was greeted by a familiar, but not so friendly face cloaked in the shadows. He was sitting on Anti’s new bed. “Need something?” Anti called. Light from the the hallway reflected off of his glasses as he stood.

“We may be letting you into our home,” Schneep began, his voice was low and each word held a weight of dread and promise. “But don’t think for a second that means we’re letting our guard down,” The doctor made his way over to the glitch until the were inches apart. “Because if one of them ends up in that new ER because of you, then you’ll regret making me stitch you back together,” Schneep tilted his head down, eyes locking with the glitch’s. “Understand?”

Anti felt a lump in the back of his throat.They were fundamentally the same person, but standing before the doctor like this, he felt so small. Anti nodded, holding his ground and pushing past the doctor. He kept his back to the door, until he heard the other’s footstep fade back down stairs.

The glitch collapsed on his bed, letting out a deep sigh as he did. He began hearing the static make its noises again. Telling him how dare Henrik speak to him like that. That he should show him who’s boss. Anti just rolled his eyes. “Shut up already,” He muttered.

Finding no use in just lying there, he decided to see what the others were up to. Also because he heard Jackie boy yell “Marvin I swear to god, I’m gonna kill you!” He had to go see what that was about.

On the first floor, the kitchen, dining room and living room were all connected in the big open room with the ceiling opened up to the second floor. Anti was leaning against the railing looking down as Marvin, who’s only protection from Jackie was the dining table between them. It was then he noticed that Marvin gave Jackie cat ears.

“Look now we match!” Marvin said, putting on his own mask.

“Marvin get rid of them now! Jackie demanded.

“Oh I don’t know, I think you look great as a cat,” Schneep called from his place on the couch. Jamie was sitting next to him, stifling a laugh.

Anti looked out on the scene before him, thinking about how any other day he would’ve been alone in that old abandoned house. He would have been trapped with nothing but the sound of white noise filling in the emptiness, but now, he had something else to fill that.

Before a smile had a chance to linger onto his face, Anti suddenly felt a strange sensation on his head. An odd tingling feeling spread until he realized Marvin was wiggling a finger at him. The glitch felt the top of his head, and two fuzzy cat ears were sticking up. Chase and Jackie were both staring up at him, both trying to contain their amusement. Anti glared down at the magician. “Oh you are so gonna get it now,” And ran down the steps to follow Jackie’s move.

The End...

So when I said this was the end, I may have lied just a little. I just mean that there’s going to be an epilogue (and you can probably guess what it’s gonna be about). However I was working on it and I know this chapter was long since I had to wrap everything up, but the epilogue is twice as long as my typical chapters. That’ll be coming out tomorrow sorry in advance for making it drag on for so long.

#faded fragments #marvin the magnificent #jameson jackson #jackieboy man #chase brody #antisepticeye #dr schneeplestein #'the end #septic egos #pixel writes

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years

Text

I want to use Star Wars to discuss my feelings on modern Spider-Man

SPOILERS for the Last Jedi coming up.

Okay so anyone who’s been following me for a while should be aware I hate Slott’s run and modern Spider-Man in general (a few exceptions not withstanding).

Often times I’ve heard my criticisms and complaints shot down or countered (even with people who’s preferences for Spidey echo my own) with the argument that I am biased in favour of the type of Spider-Man status quo I grew up with and that now I’m older I just don’t like the new stuff and am letting my biases taint that.

Obviously this most obviously manifests in the form of ‘you just don’t like it because Spider-Man isn’t married anymore’. Similarly I hear comments like “You only like Renew Your Vows BECAUSE Spider-Man is married in it’.

Here is the thing. Ever since 2006 or so I’ve made a very conscious effort to try and draw lines of distinction between what I critically evaluate and what I simply like or dislike.

As I define it, liking and disliking something is involuntary. It’s sit back consume a story and let yourself feel about it however you are going to feel about it. It’s something you can’t really help or control.

Critical analysis is a little different because you are really looking for points of praise or condemnation. That’s you looking at a story and really asking what it is trying to do and how well it succeeds at doing that whilst being aware of what you personally enjoy and do not enjoy but trying to rise above that.

One is subjective and the other is trying to be as objective as possible.

I place zero stock in the lazy post-modern notion that the latter is beyond all possibility and does not exist. Writing is a craft and human beings are biologically geared to tell and consume stories. It literally chemically stimulates us. It’s why jokes work. Jokes with no set up or pay off do not work specifically because the human mind is geared towards that construction. Similarly it is the reason so much of human culture relies upon a rhythm involving the number three. For whatever reason that number and rhythm just resonates with us. So yeah, objectively good and objectively bad storytelling are a thing although it’s not a one size fits all thing. Depending upon the genre or the intentions of the story the criteria for its success or failure can change. A romantic comedy and an action thriller don’t have identical criteria for what makes a good story within those genres.

Anyway, in a sense I always have 2 opinions on any given story I consume. One opinion on how good it was and one opinion on whether I personally enjoyed it and I do my utmost to NOT conflate the two. Of course there are happy instances where my enjoyment is in line with something being good or stems from the fact that it is good.

Star Wars is always my main example to demonstrate this.

From a critical point of view I can write you long essays on why A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back are such powerful movies that succeed at what they are trying to do and why Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are such bad examples of storytelling and filmmaking.

I can tell you why Revenge of the Sith from a storytelling/filmmaking point of view has a lot of problems that means at the end of the day it isn’t really a good movie, just better than it’s predecessor prequels.

However I can also tell you from the bottom of my heart that Revenge of the Sith is unquestionably my absolute favourite Star Wars movie, although I could only offer speculation as to why that is. For whatever reason I just adore that film more than all the other SW films even though I fully recognize it’s flaws for the most part and agree it’s inferior to the original trilogy.

And I do this with Spider-Man too.

The Death of Jean DeWolff from a strictly storytelling (not social/political POV though) is utterly fantastic whilst Spider-Man Torment is garbage. But I am indifferent to the former whilst I adore the latter, likely due to nostalgia.

I have nostalgia for Spider-Man Torment but I have taken enough of a step back to really look at it and recognize it as mostly a mess by an artist with no experience writing trying to put out 5 issues worth of what he thinks would be kewl.

I do not think it’s good. I just like it is all.

So then we come to the modern era of Spider-Man and Star Wars and I’ve noticed more than a few similarities between the latest movie and the last several years of Spidey comics.

Namely that there is a clear division within the audience, with the majority displeased with the content but nevertheless often drowned out and dismissed by it’s protractors, chiefly int he form of professional critics.

Now in my view, most professional film critics are much more qualified to do their jobs than most ‘professional’ comic book critics. I’m of the opinion most film critics frankly forget that part of their jobs is to actually try and look at the film a bit more objectively than everyone else as opposed to just throwing out their own preferences for or against it and passing it off as coming from an enlightened place. But nevertheless I believe in their analytical abilities more than your average comic book reviewer on places like CBR who I thoroughly disbelieve have any really noteworthy experience or qualifications to analyse literature at all.

To make matters worse, whilst I’m uncertain if this is an issue within film criticism as well, comic book criticism has the huge problem of having a vested financial interest in being supportive of the companies output and agenda no matter what. When the EIC of Marvel has/had a regular column on CBR’s website you should be able to tell they’re not going to be honest or accurate in their evaluation of Marvel’s output. This is why for any faults you can come up with about it, smaller fan driven sites are usually going to be more honest and even handed with their reviews of titles.

Film criticism isn’t like that in my view and if a film sucks or a critic doesn’t like it is more likely than not that the film is going to get slated.

The flipside to this is when a film that is aggressively and obviously bad gets praise and, as has been explained by other people more learned than me, this has a lot to do with critics living in a bubble due to their job. A film that is bad but subverts expectations is likely to hit more with critics than general audiences because critics see so many films that the tropes, formula and usual tricks become stale to them as they grow more desensitized to them. I love Disney movies but make me watch Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and a few other movies like that in one day and I’m likely going to love something subversive among their canon much more.

This is a massive component to the Last Jedi’s generally favourable place among many professional critics. It very deliberately subverts expectations and critics reacted positively to that because it was so refreshing for them. Refreshing to the point where they were willing apparently to forgive the films numerous and serious problems. Perhaps the most serious of which was its complete and utter betrayal of the core defining philosophies of the Star Wars films as a whole and of one of it’s most central figures, Luke Skywalker.

Closely tied into this is the fact that whilst professional critics have probably seen other Star Wars movies, probably liking at least A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, statistically it’s unlikely that many of them, let alone anything close to a majority are fans to the point where they really spend any amount of time thinking about the movies after throwing out their reviews for them.

I regard anyone with any interest in a story they’ve consumed to be a fan of said story but there are degrees of fandom. Whilst the 5 year old who just got done seeing A New Hope is 100% a fan it is foolish to argue they are fan to the degree as the 20 year old who has seen all the movies, written essays about them, dived into the expanded spin-off material and otherwise thought a lot about the franchise. Which isn’t saying older fans are MORE fans of something than younger ones.

Case in point. Joe Quesada wrote a Spider-Man story that totally betrays the character and the defining philosophy of the series despite being a fan for longer than a sizable chunk of it’s readership.

My point is the majority of Star Wars fans DON’T like Last Jedi precisely because being blunt about it, they think about Star Wars more than the average critic and actually know much more about it.

They also see the film on two levels and prioritize both whilst critics only look at it on one of those levels, or at least prioritize that level above the other. Those levels being the film as an entity unto itself as well as part of a larger story.

Film critics look at Last Jedi as a film unto itself more than they look at it as a sequel to the Force Awakens and apparently pay little mind to its place within the soon to be 9 film saga. For them the here and the now is absolutely the most or only important thing whereas for fans the here and now is 100% important but the past movies and broader universe is equally important.

Now of course it is not JUST film critics who’ve praised Last Jedi. Non-professionals, including some fans (casual or otherwise) have as well. But in my observations thus far it is interesting to note that most people of this group are either rather young or decidedly older.

In other words non-professional proponents of the Last Jedi are either people for whom the experience is rather formative in their history and relationship with Star Wars or people who statistically are much more likely to be cynical and jaded about...well most things in like actually.

Which makes sense because for the former group they’re more likely to be impressionable and lack developed critical evaluation skills and are just hyped about seeing a rousing special effects driven action flick on the big screen. Meanwhile for the latter group the film’s cynicism likely speaked to them and was offering something new in a film franchise where they’ve believed they’ve seen all they can. Plus even if they are older that doesn’t mean they’re particularly good about analysis and can therefore not see how the film is in fact rather derivative in various ways.

And as I said for these proponents of the movie the loud cries of defiance over the Last Jedi from the majority (and yes, it is the majority) of Star Wars fandom the primary tactic against detractors is to delegitimize their complaints. Mainly through deriding them for being too in love with nostalgia or recognizing that things need to ‘change’ and ‘be new’.

This is all eerily echoes countless examples I’ve witnessed within Spider-Man fandom.

· Professional critics not actually that familiar with the franchise heaping praise upon the latest issues mostly because it’s new to them and because they prioritize the quality of the latest content over the bigger picture (a bigger picture they aren’t necessarily invested enough in to properly criticise the latest work).

· Newer fans who honestly don’t know enough about the franchise to see the problems in the latest material that is formative to their relationship with it.

· Older fans who’re jaded and therefore supportive of taking the franchise in ‘new’ directions, even if those directions aren’t actually that new at all and overall damaging.

· Fans basically tricked into seeing something flashy and ‘cool’ and generally a novelty as representing legitimate quality.

· Delegitimizing the majority of fans who’re detractors of the material on the grounds that nostalgia is blinding them.

Just using Slott’s run as a microcosm of this (because he is not the be all and end all of modern Spider-Man) we can see people fall all over his stories for being ‘new and fresh’ because they’re so used to what they perceive as the ‘standard’ Spider-Man.

Street level, every man, limited gadgets, Bugle cast, down to Earth stories etc.

So when Spidey is suddenly Doc Ock, or a tech billionaire, or dating Mockingbird it seems like something innovative when it isn’t.

It’s a selling out and throwing away of the core values of the character and series just like Last Jedi was.

You can be new and innovative whilst still respecting those.

And it is stories like the ones I grew up on, the ones that these pro-Slott/modern Spidey fans use to attack fans like me, that prove that.

Spider-Man returning to college. Harry Osborn dying. Peter becoming a teacher. The rise of Venom. Spider-Man marrying Mary.

This mostly respect the core values of the franchise whilst still innovate something new that can challenge the character(s).

They aren’t novelty for the sake of it and they are much more subtle than the flash nonsense Slott throws out.

Which brings me to the fundamental lack of self-awareness and analysis of the ‘you just don’t like it because it’s not what you grew up on’ bullshit defenders of modern Spidey throw out.

It’s a convenient argument to shut down all debate because it seemingly applies to everyone equally. You are only praising to criticising this thing because it is in line or out of line with the version of the series from when YOU were growing up. So your words mean nothing you are being a biased idiot, there is nothing wrong with this new stuff.

But people are rather hypocritical about that now aren’t they.

Because it’s blatantly obvious, rightly or wrongly, that there is a clear cut narrative at play within Marvel and within fandom in support of Marvel’s stance.

Stan Lee/Ditko era Spider-Man when he was in high school is sacred, post high school Spider-Man is less sacred but still pretty sacred (especially the MP Trilogy and MJ’s introduction). Roger Stern Spider-Man was good. Death of Gwen Stacy is good. The marriage was bad. Everything in the 90s was bad. Everything else doesn’t matter at all except for everything post 2008 which has all been good.

When you have multiple people within Marvel talking about how Spider-Man is defined by youth and the marriage was a mistake because of that and the Ditko run (especially when he was in high school) gets referenced more than literally anything else that isn’t the MP trilogy or Gwen Stacy’s death.

So the ‘your childhood is blinding you’ argument already has a few cracks in it doesn’t it. It’s clear that there IS a quality judgement being made about different parts of the franchise by Marvel itself. Which is particularly galling because it’s blatant that post-OMD Spider-Man is essentially a gigantic nostalgia trip for the creators involved to recreating THEIR childhoods in direct reaction AGAINST the ‘wrong’ directions Spider-Man went in after whatever period they stopped considering the story legitimate.

And in addition to that hypocrisy fans and creators will lambast whoever points this out and accuse them of doing the same thing if they do not consider post-OMD Spider-Man ‘legitimate’.

But there is the rub isn’t it.

There are genuinely incredibly strong valid reasons for NOT considering post-OMD Spider-Man legitimate in the grand scheme of the series much as there are totally valid reasons for not considering Last Jedi legitimate or a selling out on Star Wars’ core values and philosophies.

The big one is that One More Day literally created a new alternate timeline meaning there are two distinct versions of the characters in play, a clearer watershed line in the franchise than anything else in it’s history. But even beyond that post-OMD Spider-Man has time and time again aggressively gone against the defined characterization and established intentions and philosophies of the Spider-Man franchise as a whole. I’ve already spoken about stuff in Slott’s run, but even the notion of Spider-Man as a representation of youth is anathema to what happened in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s run on the character and the broader character arc for Peter Parker across the decades. In particular his becoming married as this is clearly in line with aspect of the Stan Lee run.

Marriage is a responsibility and responsibility is the entire point of Spider-Man’s first ever appearance. Responsibility to family is clearly conveyed as a major priority within the Lee/Ditko/Romita run as Spider-Man is chiefly motivated by how he failed his father figure and strives to do right in supporting his mother. Later he tries to support Gwen Stacy whom he has ambitions to marry and to whom Lee originally intended him to wed. Even Mary Jane is first mentioned within the context of her becoming Peter’s wife someday. And of course his big three villains within the Lee run are in various ways tied into family dynamics. Doctor Octopus is associated with Aunt May. Norman Osborn is the father of Peter’s peer and friend Harry and their father/son dynamic is key to both characters. J. Jonah Jameson is introduced to us as admonishing Spider-Man in support of his own son John Jameson, the first person Spider-man ever saved as a superhero.

The notion that finding a Spider-Man story or run that undercuts and sells out on the Spider Marriage to be bad merely because you have childhood nostalgia for it is ridiculous because the Spider Marriage itself is very strongly tied into the core philosophies of the series.

It’s just as stupid as admonishing someone for being blinded by nostalgia for Return of the Jedi if they found Luke Skywalker’s characterization and direction in Last Jedi to be wrong and anathema to the series.

In summary:

No, this stuff isn’t strictly subjective.

Yes people can be blinded by nostalgia.

But no, that doesn’t mean they’re beyond capable of seeing things as what they are.

Yes, their nostalgia CAN be in line with the objective reality of a piece of storytelling.

Fact is that on a story telling level Last Jedi AND post-OMD Spider-Man have precious little redeeming value.

Both sell out the characters and core philosophies of the franchises for the sake of shock and novelty and are therefore objectively bad examples of storytelling.

#Spider-Man #the last jedi #last jedi #star wars #star wars the last jedi #Star Wars: the Last Jedi #luke skywalker #disney #peter parker #stan lee #steve ditko

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kaitiemakesshit · 6 years

Text

By The Powers That Be

I spent my Saturdays the way most haggard and weary husbands do; clutching a purse while seated on any available surface I could find, waiting to finally go home. Only I was not a haggard and weary husband, but a haggard and weary bigender babe holding the purses of my two best friends. We were in a local indie clothing store that they knew and I knew we would be leaving empty-handed. But I also knew that it wouldn't stop us (read: them) from spending a minimum of two hours browsing all the clothes and knick-knacks. The inventory rarely changed but we stopped here during every trip downtown regardless. I highly suspected that Marcie had a crush on the hipster girl who ran the cash register.

My only saving grace was my tablet, which I was reading one of over a hundred books on. I was an avid, voracious reader and would usually be reading several books at the same time. In this case I was absorbed in Lord of Shadows, the latest book in my favorite series. I generally preferred the show over the books, but that was because the show was so damn amazing. The books were still greatly enjoyable, even if the older ones weren't that great.

I was just getting to a good part when I sensed a presence next to me. I glanced over to see a woman sitting next to me on the display couch. A double-take revealed that she did, in fact, look exactly like Jane Lynch in a crisp, white linen suit. I was baffled. I didn't know where Jane Lynch lived, but surely she wouldn't be anywhere near a dumpy little suburb like Campbell. Nor did I imagine she would sit next to me and stare at me with a smile that said she had many secrets and I knew none of them.

“Hello,” she said. Her tone was quite friendly, but I was still on edge. This didn't seem right.

“Um, hi.”

She cocked her head and studied me up and down. “Is this really what you're willing to settle for?”

I puzzled. “Excuse me?”

She gestured around at our surroundings. “Do you really want to settle for this...mediocrity?”

“...I don't follow.”

A snort. “I've been watching you for a long time and—“

“That's...really creepy.” I leaned away from her.

She shot me a glare that shut me up. “And I noticed that you have so much potential. You could be so much more than this. Why are you settling?”

Everything about this was unsettling me. “I'm happy with the way things are.” At her incredulous look I added, “...Mostly.”

“Well I'm going to change that,” she said. The smile was back and even more unsettling than before.

I nervously scooted away from her, as far as I could get on the couch, and clutched my friends' purses tighter. “I'd rather you didn't.”

She reached out to touch my cheek, to which I flinched away. “Tough shit, kiddo.”

“I gotta—“

I had started to say that I had to go, but out of nowhere my legs suddenly felt like jelly. I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up without falling flat on my face. I desperately looked around for my best friends in hopes to call them over to rescue me, but they were both occupied. They were separated and were talking to two different people that made me even uneasier. They wore the same white linen suits as Jane.

My attention was taken back to Jane as she stood up. She seemed too tall, much too tall. She took my face in her hands and I whimpered, finding myself unable to pull away. I couldn't move a single muscle.

“I don't want this,” I pleaded, afraid of whatever she was about to do. My mind was flooded with images of knives and guns or whatever else one could commit acts of violence with.

“You'll thank me later,” she said softly, stroking my cheek with her thumb.

“Who are you?”

“You may call me Jane if you wish. The short answer is that I am a member of the Powers That Be. We watch over all the universes. Normally we're not supposed to interfere, but...I think an exception can be made. Just this once.” She winked.

“Bullshit,” I blurted. She made herself sound to be some all-knowing entity, but those didn't exist. I believed in a lot, but this was hard to take.

“You'll believe eventually.”

Before I could respond, a feeling came over me. My skin fizzled with what felt like static electricity, making the hair on my arms and neck stand up on end. My vision went blurry, despite my glasses still being firmly planted on my face. By the time my vision cleared up, it was dark and Jane was gone. I don't know how it got dark so fast, because it had seemed to take only a few seconds. But there was darkness and I...wasn't in the store anymore.

The couch and I were still together, but my friends' purses and the store and Jane were long gone. Instead I was in a smelly alley like I'd never seen before. The jelly feeling in my legs was now gone, so I jumped up and walked out of the alley, clutching my purse like it was my last life line. Which it might very well be.

Glancing around, I found myself in a small commercial district of some kind that I didn't recognize. How did I get here? Where even was here? I tried to ignore the growing dread in my stomach as I looked for anything familiar. Nothing. But...

Suddenly I heard screaming. I nearly jumped out of my skin and looked around for the source. A couple stores down there was a woman on the ground, screaming in terror at the hulking figure above her. They were dressed all in black and had her pinned on the sidewalk. I had my phone out before I could fully comprehend the situation and I was shouting, “HEY!” as I approached. Most attackers and rapists ran at the sight of trouble, and surely they'd see me dialing 911 and run for the hills.

They didn't.

The attacker whipped around to look at me and I froze in my tracks. The owl demon. The owl demon from Shadowhunters. Surely it had to be someone in a cosplay or something. Just so happens that a fan of the show is also a rapist asshole. That theory was quickly disproved when he suddenly appeared in front of me, fast as The Flash. I screamed and took off running away from him. I didn't look back to see if he was chasing me, because quite frankly I didn't want to know. I didn't even look back to see if the woman at least got away.

It was in that moment I wished I wasn't such a lazy slob who spent all day on her ass. All I could think about was how I couldn't run very fast and how I was probably going to trip and fall on my face and die. I never tripped, but I did get knocked off my feet sideways into a wall. It was a brick wall too, so all the air got knocked out of me. As I gasped for breath, the owl demon loomed over me. This was it, this was how I would die. Or get possessed. One of the two.

Just as it reached for me, an arrow suddenly lodged in its shoulder. It let out a loud, angry noise and clutched at the injured shoulder, whipping around to see the offender. I stared in shock at Alec and Isabelle Lightwood as they stood across the street, Alec's bow already notched with another arrow.

“Get away from them!” Alec commanded.

The owl demon growled and zipped over, lunging at them. Isabelle knocked it away with her whip, sending it skidding back on the pavement while Alec sent another arrow flying into its chest. The owl demon, to its credit, yanked the arrow out and quickly disappeared, off to places unknown. As soon as it was out of sight, Alec and Isabelle ran over to where I still sat on the sidewalk against the wall.

“Are you alright?” Isabelle asked me with concern as she knelt down next to me. Alec stayed standing, looking around in case the owl demon came back for another try.

I was dreaming, this had to be a dream. I was still back on the couch in the store, having somehow passed out while waiting for my friends. These thoughts ran through my head as I gazed into Isabelle's deep brown eyes and nodded.

“Just stunned.”

“Come on,” Alec said as he reached down to grab my hand, hauling me to my feet. “We'll take you home.”

“I don't live here,” I blurted before I could entirely think it through.

“Where do you live?” Alec asked.

“California.”

“What are you doing in New York then?” That was Isabelle.

“Good question,” was my reply. They both looked at me like I was insane. Which I very well might be.

“I don't understand.” That was Alec.

“It's a long story. Short version is I'm here against my will. Or I'm dreaming. One of the two.”

“Well...Why don't we take you somewhere safe and you can tell us the full story.”

“I don't...think that's a good idea. You'll think I'm insane.”

Alec and Isabelle shared a look, a look that was meant to convey “We know more than this person”. In reality, I was in on it, in a really weird sense. “Why don't you let us decide that,” Alec said as he and Isabelle led me off.

“Where are we going?” I asked curiously.

“A place called The Institute. Normally your kind isn't allowed in there, but I think for this we can make an exception.” Isabelle explained. I had an unfortunate flashback to Jane. She said she was making an exception for my case as well. I wanted to complain that I shouldn't be allowed in the Institute, but I wasn't sure if I should tip my hand just yet.

“You guys don't have to,” I said sheepishly.

“Where would you even go?” Alec inquired. He took my ensuing silence as answer enough. “Exactly.” He did have me there.

After what felt like hours of walking, but was probably only several minutes, the Institute was in sight. Alec and Isabelle didn't start relaxing until we were walking up the pathway towards the doors. Alec opened the door and ushered Isabelle and I inside. Immediately we were accosted by a Shadowhunter I recognized as the asshole one.

“Who's this?” he said, clearly displeased with what he was witnessing.

“Izzy,” I explained.

He sneered at me before turning back to Isabelle and Alec. “Did you seriously bring a mundane to the Institute?”

Alec could barely contain an eyeroll. “She was being attacked by the owl demon and she has nowhere to go. What did you expect me to do, Raj?”

“Anything but bring it here!”

“Did you just call me an 'it'?”

“Raj,” Alec said warningly.

“I was gonna offer to leave until you called me an 'it'. I have a gender. I have two in fact.”

“What?” was the general consensus from everyone else.

“It's called being bigender. I identify as male and female, so I respond to both male and female pronouns. Just fyi.”

There was a beat of silence as everyone processed this. Then Isabelle spoke. “You owe us a story, if I recall.”

I groaned. “You have to promise not to lock me up after.”

“I think we can handle it,” Isabelle chuckled.

“Right.” I hesitated. “So basically I was sitting in a store waiting on my best friends when this woman who looked exactly like Jane Lynch approached me. She said she was a part of this thing called The Powers That Be and that she was going to help me live up to my potential. She touched my face and next thing I know I'm here in New York and the owl demon is attacking someone.”

“How do you know—“ Alec started.

I held up a finger. “Not finished. Where I come from, all of this—“ I gesture around us. “—is a TV show based on a book series. You guys are Shadowhunters who protect mundanes from the Shadow World which is filled with Downworlders like vampires and werewolves and warlocks. You're Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, you live here with Jace Wayland-slash-Herondale and Clary Fairchild, are friends with Simon Lewis who is a vampire who's dating a werewolf named Maia, and you're currently dealing with attacks by the owl demon who's working for an unidentified greater demon.”

“How do you know all that?” Alec asked me suspiciously.

“TV show, like I said.”

“Right. Do you know who the greater demon is?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

Before I could reply, there was a rumbling from the sky outside despite it being a clear night. “...I don't think I'm at liberty to say.” There was more rumbling, but this sounded almost...pleased.

“So not only is it crazy, it's useless,” Raj snorted.

I glared. “Stop calling me 'it'.” He ignored me.

“Well she's staying here whether you like it or not. It's our job to keep mundanes safe, and that's exactly what we're going to do,” Alec said firmly. There was no arguing with his tone, not even Asshole Raj. He looked decidedly displeased, but remained silent. I stuck my tongue out at him because I am a mature adult.

“Come on, I'll take you to your room,” Isabelle said with a smile, taking my arm and leading me down a long hallway. Eventually we stopped at a door which she opened upon an empty bedroom. It had no signs of anyone staying in it, like a new hotel room. I guess this is where I would be staying until they decided I would be safe to let loose on the streets. “This will be your room.”

“It's nice,” I said appreciatively as I walked inside and looked around. The walls and floor were a dark wood and the lights cast a soft, yellow glow. The bed was made with crisp white sheets and a slate gray comforter.

“We'll figure out the clothes situation in the morning.”

I arched an eyebrow. “I'm not gonna be here that long, am I?”

“Just until the owl demon is dealt with.”

“So an entire season. Fantastic.”

“Get some rest. I have a feeling you'll need it.” And with that ominous warning, Isabelle left.

I sighed, slipping off my shoes and my jacket, climbing into the bed. The Powers That Could Suck My Dick were at least kind enough to alleviate my insomnia, because I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next morning I woke up bright and early, a first for me since my school days. I reluctantly climbed out of bed and slipped my shoes back on when there was suddenly a knock on the door. “Come in,” I called.

It was to my great displeasure that Raj popped his head in. “Alec wants to see you in the library,” he said, sounding even less happy to be talking to me than I was to him.

“I don't know where that is,” I said as if it should be obvious, which it should be.

Raj rolled his eyes. “Come with me, mundane,” he huffed, opening the door wider so I could fit through.

“Wow, I'm not sure if that's better or worse than 'it',” I quipped as I very reluctantly followed him.

“You shouldn't be here.”

“You don't say.”

Raj stopped in his tracks and turned to loom over me, trying to be intimidating. I am angry to admit that it kind of worked. “You don't understand anything, do you? You're just a child bumbling in things you don't understand—“

“Look, asshole. I didn't ask to be here, okay. I was brought here against my will.”

“So you say.”

“What even is the point of this? I'm stuck here for as long as Alec and Isabelle say, so why are you yelling at me as if it'll get me to leave?” I said, waving my arms about angrily. He was really getting my blood boiling and I desperately wanted to punch him.

“Don't touch me, mundane!” Raj growled, recoiling as if he'd be set ablaze at the slightest brusgh.

“I'll do worse than touch you, you little—“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” came a familiar voice as a body stepped between me and Raj, the angry, spitting cats. It was Clary, and I was mildly shocked to realize that she was shorter than me. So tiny and yet could so easily kick my ass. “What's going on here?”

“Alec wants to speak with the mundane. He's in the library. You take it,” Raj spat before skulking off. I flipped him off behind his back, though I wouldn't have minded if he'd seen it. My pulse raged through my veins as I turned to Clary, who was now stuck with me, it seemed.

“I would say he's not as bad as he seems, but he really is that bad,” she said sheepishly. My anger ebbed a little, mostly because she was so tiny and cute. Even if she could kill me in seventeen different ways with her pinkie finger alone.

“Yeah, I've gathered that much,” I snorted. Clary turned and started down the hall, motioning for me to follow her, which I did. I wasn't in much position to say no to these folks. They were kindly letting me stay here for safety until the Powers That Be decided to send me home. Which would hopefully be very soon.

“So Alec and Isabelle filled me in on your story,” she said as she walked, passing various other Shadowhunters. I couldn't see her face, but I could tell by her tone that she was dubious at best. I couldn't really blame her. I still wasn't convinced this wasn't a dream or a hallucination.

“I know it sounds super crazy, but I swear it's true. I can prove it.” I jogged to catch up with her at her brisk pace and lowered my voice. “I know about the wish.”

I knocked into her after that, as she stopped suddenly in her tracks, a look of panic on her face. “What wish?”

“The wish to bring Jace back,” I whispered. “But it's okay, I won't tell anyone, I swear.”

She cleared her throat and straightened her back. “Good,” she said, moving again. I fell into step behind her, trailing like a lost puppy relying on someone to guide them. She eventually led me through a large set of double-doors into what I could only assume was the library. It was a giant room full of books, it was a safe assumption.

At the center of the room was Alec and Isabelle, no doubt doing some research on the owl demon or trying to puzzle out who the greater demon was. They both looked up as we approached, and neither looked too shocked to see Clary leading me instead of Raj.

“I was summoned?”

“Yes,” Alec said as he stood up straight. “I had some more questions for you.”

“Fire away.”

“I wanted to get a better idea of what your world is like,” he said.

“Just like this world, only minus everything supernatural,” I said with a shrug.

Alec, Isabelle, and Clary all looked as if that was the weirdest thing they'd ever heard. “Not even magic?” Isabelle said.

“Nope. I mean, there's illusionists, but no real magic. Angels? Probably don't exist. Vampires, werewolves, warlocks? Definitely don't exist. Magic? I wish.”

“So it's nothing but the mundane world?” Alec said incredulously.

I nodded. “Basically.”

“It can't be,” Alec said. “There probably is but you don't see it. Like here. Mundanes are perfectly in the dark about our world.”

“I—“ I paused. What if he was right? What if there was some secret supernatural world that was being kept secret via magic and other suck tricks. I mean, a supposedly all-powerful being just sent me into the world of my favorite TV show (supposedly), maybe such things were common and I was just glamoured against seeing it. I shook my head. “My head hurts.”

Clary, the closest one to me, put a hand on my shoulder. “It's okay. I felt the same way when I learned about the Shadow World for the first time.”

“I'm still not convinced that this isn't some kind of dream or hallucination, but this is just...” I shook my head again. “This just can't be real. It just can't be!”

Alec, Clary, and Isabelle shared a look between them that clearly said they worried for my intelligence/sanity. Alec approached me and gently took my hand...and sliced a knife across my palm.

“Ow!” I yelped, jerking my hand away as blood began spilling from the open wound. Clary hurried to my side to tend to it.

“Alec!” Isabelle scolded. Alec paid her no mind.

“Still think this isn't real?”

“You're a dick!” was my witty reply as Clary searched for something to stop the bleeding. Isabelle walked over with a handkerchief and pressed it against the cut in my palm. I hissed in pain.

“It worked, didn't it?” Alec shrugged, crossing his arms.

“That doesn't make you less of a dick.” He snorted.

Eventually the bleeding stopped and Isabelle and Clary got it bandaged up. I flexed my palm and winced. It stung like hell, and I wanted to slap Alec with it. I know it would probably only hurt more, but it made me feel good on the inside to imagine it.

“We need to take her clothes shopping,” Isabelle said once I was no longer in danger of bleeding to death (thanks Alec).

I piped up before Alec could. “I don't have any money.”

“Why can't she just borrow some from the others here?” Alec asked.

Isabelle gave him a Look. “She's a mundane, Alec, not a Shadowhunter. Shadowhunter clothes are made for fighting. And she needs underwear.”

Alec was clearly done at the mention of underwear. I was done at the mention of underwear. “Alright. I'll grant you guys some funds and you can take her shopping.”

Isabelle smiled pleasantly and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.” She turned to Clary and I, the former apparently getting roped into this. She didn't look too put off though. She actually looked like she might enjoy it. I guess even Shadowhunters enjoyed shopping trips. “Come on, let's go. We have a mission to do.”

“Wait, don't you need the money?” Alec called after us as Clary and I trailed after Isabelle, who was walking out of the room.

“No need. I have your credit card,” Isabelle called smugly over her shoulder as she sashayed out of the room.

“Hey!”

#u: shadowhunters #chapter 1 #untitled bc whatthefuckever #type: story

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sopewriters · 7 years

Text

Won’t you be (Mine)?

Pairing: Ravi | Wonsik X Reader [Teacher!AU]

Genre: Fluff, humor

Word Count: 2.6K

Warning: Lots of dick jokes. I’m sorry, and they’re all extra lame.

Inspired by the beautiful look Wonsik had going for him in VIXX’s performance of Black Out.

EDIT: i’M CRYING AT WHISPER HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT I’M CRYING

Teaching has always been a stressful job. You know that. And even though you’re just a substitute—carefully handling the job in the main teacher’s absence—you just want the earth to swallow you right up. Just as a small favor, that’s all.

Of course, life must go on. The earth doesn’t love you that much and, honestly, neither does whatever higher power it is out there that thrust you into this life of misery, so you’ll have to deal. Teaching a bunch of freshmen, then, it is.

You wouldn’t mind this so much, very frankly; biology has always been your favorite subject, and it comes to you with an ease only possible of many, many nights of studying, along with a desk romance with your favorite cup of coffee. No, the problem here is the fact that you need to teach a bunch of stupid, giggling teenagers who’re just starting to get the hang of being mature about the basics of humanity: reproduction. And, if that isn’t bad enough, you need to deal with having a huge migraine on top of everything. Like life doesn’t already suck.

So, you’re already in a pretty terrible mood when you show up early for class that day. You angrily curse their teacher and his stupid business trips a couple times in your head for good measure, then immediately flush guiltily because you actually don’t mean it, please don’t die and come take these kids off my hands.

“Hey, Ms. _______!” Some kid calls as he gets inside, and you give him an obligatory wave and smile back, barely managing to hold yourself back from yawning in his face. That’d be weird.

The rest of the students eventually file in, and you squint around the room, dimly cursing whichever entity out there that has managed to make the lights so bright. Well, it looks like everyone’s there, so you’re good to go!

“Hey guys,” You attempt to say warmly, through the pounding headache, “How was your weekend?”

Right. Forgot to mention that: it’s a Monday morning. The perfect combination now, truly, isn’t it?

You get a mixed response, of course, going from ‘brilliant!’ to ‘bullshit’ to ‘why life’. You’re personally inclined to agree with the latter option, though you don’t make your opinion known, choosing to keep it to yourself instead.

As expected, the reactions to what you’re about to teach are sort of the same. You hear a couple of groans—dim and muted from the back—along with a couple of eye-rolls: standard stuff. Of course, there are still those few kids who flush at the mere mention of the topic, and you know they’ll get to the point where they won’t even bat an eye at it, eventually, but…

Annoying.

You start off simple, with the structure of the vagina. Point out the basic stuff, after drawing it on the whiteboard for everyone to see, and answer any genuine questions if they come at you. It’s when you project the diagram of a penis, that the problems begin.

Okay. So it’s not even the class’ fault, you’ll admit.

The door swings open, and this guy with dark hair literally storms his way inside, looking a little angry, a little sad, and 98% done.

You raise an eyebrow at the unexpected intrusion, and mentally cower in your head. Why can the world not leave you alone for once in your life?

“I’m sorry, did you need something?” You snap out irritably, “Class started easily 20 minutes ago, and you clearly don’t seem interested, so please either get inside quietly, or just leave.”

The guy looks surprised, watching you with an obvious ‘are-you-talking-to-me?’ expression that makes you want to roll your eyes. Seriously, you hate students, they should all just take a vacation from school. Forever.

It’s silent when he takes in your words and understanding, finally, that yes, you’re speaking to him. His eyes drift to the whiteboard, before tracing the tired lines of your face, the lingering frown on your lips, and something in his eyes grows alight.

“Why, yes, Ms. ________.” He grins mischievously at you, expression clearing, and your gut sinks, “I have a bone(r) to pick with you!”

You know when it was silent before? Well, it couldn’t beat the eerie stillness of the class now, with all the students staring at the two of you, a mixture of awe and fear swimming in their expressions. And, a lesser person might crack on the pressure, might actually want to leave the class and never look back, with a student, but you are not that person. No.

You crack a smile at the kid, whoever they are, because okay, that was a terrible joke and should never be repeated again, but it’s also kind of funny. You know you might be acting a bit unprofessional, but who’re you kidding, most of your professors in college were actually worse. You’ve seen it.

“What do you need, kid?” You raise an eyebrow at the male, taking in his pink dress shirt and black trousers, briefly wondering why he’s dressed like this, “Since you so obviously want to be a pain in the ass?”

You hear a couple of shy giggles, and you cockily stare down the black-haired intruder, whose smile only widens at your retort.

“Well, that pun was difficult to swallow,” He jokes back, and you need to bite back your smile, headache almost entirely forgotten, “But I recently found out my dick is pi inches long?”

“Wait, what?” You’re thrown off by the sudden change in conversation, “That’s pretty small.”

“Actually, I beg to differ,” He interrupts, smiling privately, “It means it’s not bigger than 3 inches but is also infinite…crazy, right?”

“Nah,” You wave your hand, grinning at him without abandon, “It just means it’s irrational and everyone hates it.”

You hear a couple of chokes in the background, even as he grins fiercely at you, eyes shining bright. Of course, that’s also when you remember you have CommitmentsTM which you should probably be attending to right now.

“Anyway.” You say again, rolling your eyes, “If you’ve got nothing else to say, either take a seat or leave?”

“I guess I’ll see you after class, then?” He smiles at you, the curve of his lips suddenly seeming a lot shyer than before, “Till then, Ms. _______.”

He actually leaves then, and you want to chuck a book at someone but also simultaneously thank him for lessening your stress, even if by just a smidge, and with questionable methods.

“Wow,” Someone calls from the back, “I didn’t think you and Mr. Ravi were that close!”

“Oh, we’re not, actually, I—” Something clicks then. An integral piece from that sentence.

Mr. Ravi?

Suddenly, the formal clothes make more sense. He looked so young, though, there’s no way! But one look at the class’ excited faces confirms that, yes, you just had a dick joke battle with another instructor. Wonderful. Might as well add that to your resume.

“Uh….” You try to wipe the deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression from your face, before the kids can actually pick up on it, “Well, let’s get back to the actual topic, right?”

Despite the embarrassment, the tiny smile on your lips never leaves.

“Busy?” You’re sitting at your desk, eyeing a stack of papers in trepidation, when the door swings open. You lift your head slightly, only to actually stand up, spine ramrod straight, at the sight of the man with black hair from before.

“O-Oh, n-no.” You stutter, making his eyes widen behind his glasses. They’re a new edition, but they really bring out his eyes, not that you’re looking or anything.

“Are you… alright?” His mouth parts in silent understanding, and he smiles bashfully, cheeks pink, “If this is about the thing earlier in class, I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. I was just trying to make you look less… stressed?”

“Uh, no, it’s fine.” You choke out, before sighing burying your head in your hands, “I’m just…kind of “embarrassed, to be honest. I didn’t even know you were a teacher!”

“Hardly anyone ever does, the first time they see me.” He quips, before hesitating at the door, “Can I…um, can I come inside?”

“Y-Yeah, of course!” You say hurriedly, and he slips inside, “Why’d you come to class earlier?”

“Oh,” He looks faintly surprised, the slightest tint of pink highlighting his cheeks, “Right. The principal asked me to send for you.”

“Oh, are you his secretary?” You try to ignore what the calling could mean, “I didn’t know—”

“Uh, no, I teach English.” He interrupts quickly, before stammering out, “G-Gosh, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to be rude…”

“No, you weren’t—I mean, it wasn’t…” Floundering for words, you decide to just give up already, “You’re fine.”

Fine as hell, actually but, no, bad thoughts.

“Uh…right.” He says, looking just as uncomfortable as you feel, and why do you need to mess everything up again? “Well, can I see you at lunch, then?”

“Lunch?” You repeat stupidly and, at his nod, bob your head up and down rapidly, “yEAH OF COURSE.”

He doesn’t make any odd comment about your sudden incapacity to function; just gives you a tiny little grin and walks out.

It’s after he leaves that you scream into your book. Not for too long, though, because your next class is arriving soon.

You’re reasonably happy, you decide, as you reflect back on the events of the day, sipping on some orange juice on your couch at home. The meeting with the principal went well; he wants to take you on as a teacher, permanently, based on your good work. And even if those kids were literal devils in the making, you wanted the job.

To add to the wonderful list, you had lunch with Ravi, without accidentally spilling something on yourself, or on him, or on anyone. You’d count that as a win.

Even better, he wants to have lunch with you tomorrow too. And the day after. And the day after that. And forever, and you guys can get married and have two kids and a hamster or, wait, maybe a turtle because those are cuter and—

You cut yourself off, blush rocking your face. You’re getting ahead of yourself, and this crush is getting way out of hand. You literally just met the guy today! But his hair, and his eyes, and his lips, Christ—

But, as the days pass by, slowly but definitely, you start to like Wonsik more and more. That’s his real name, apparently, not Ravi.

“Call me Wonsik.” He tells you one day, as you visit him in his classroom, “The kids call me Ravi because they think it’s cool.”

You find that it is cool, but Wonsik is even sweeter. You don’t tell him that, though.

“What’re you doing?” You ask curiously, as you lounge in one of the students’ chairs after school. Wonsik is hunched over stacks of paper, frowning at the little bundle he’s reading over.

You don’t admit it out loud, but he looks really cute like that, tapping the pencil against his lips absent-mindedly, lost in thought. He snaps out of it at your question, though, and you’re a little sorry to see it go. But it makes you feel better to have his eyes on you instead, just as intense.

“I gave the sophomores an assignment on Hamlet.” He says distractedly, “On Act III, Scene III.”

“What?” You frown, “What was that part about again?”

“It’s the part where Hamlet nearly kills Claudius, but doesn’t.” He explains, before catching himself and staring at you with wide-eyed disbelief, “Wait, you’ve read Hamlet?”

“Well, yeah.” You shrug uncomfortably, before diverting the topic, like your blabber-mouth is wont to do, “And anyways, isn’t that the circumcision scene?”

“The what—” Wonsik manages to choke out, but you cut in quickly.

“It’s a tricky thing, it is.” You say brightly, trying to avoid his flushed gaze, “Have to do it right, else you can nearly chop the poor thing’s ding-dong right off—”

“Ding-dong?” He finally gets in a word edgewise with a surprised laugh.

“Well, yeah.” You blush, but your mouth lacks a filter, “Apparently it’s a superstitious thing, something about not being savable or something if you don’t get it done—”

“Uh, ______,” Wonsik grimaces, “Can we not talk about potential castration? Please?”

“Oh right.” You say awkwardly as he forces a tight smile at you, before going off on a tangent about something else entirely, as he turns his attention back to his papers.

He’s smiling though, looking entirely less stressed than before, and you find you can’t stop the mirror grin when you notice it. It feels nice, spending time with him like this, especially with your busy schedules.

“Lunch tomorrow?” He asks, catching you by surprise, and you stare wordlessly at him, mouth parted in shock, “I…I know it’s not a weekday and stuff, but…”

“Are…” You catch your voice, just barely, before croaking out, “Are you asking me on a date?”

“M-M-M-AYBE.” He stutters, and you find yourself staring wide-eyed at the mess of a man sitting across you, “Y-Yes?”

“Oh my gosh.” You breathe out, just as he flushes red-hot in embarrassment and buries his head in his arms.

“I’m sorry.” He moans pitifully, making you gape at how different he’s being, “I messed it up!”

“Hey, weren’t you all confident and chic and stuff?” You inwardly wince at your wording, and Wonsik looks up at you, looking entirely discomforted, “I mean...I, uh, I’d be happy to?”

It’s not supposed to come out as a question, and this is going for bad to worse, aND ALARM BELLS ARE RINGING, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, EVACUATION ADVISED—

“I WANT TO GO OUT WITH YOU!” You finally screech, unable to take the voices in your head; only after you’ve screamed it out, do you realize how it must sound. You slowly trail your eyes upwards, meeting Wonsik’s surprised cocoa ones—and he’s smiling.

“You’re cute.” He reaches forward to pinch the lobe of your ear teasingly, and you whine out in embarrassment.

“That was really sudden, okay?” You point out logically, “A-And besides, weren’t you the one who was too busy stuttering to even ask?”

“W-Well…” He draws out in an incoherent mutter, “yourereallyprettyandrejectionsoshy.”

“What?”

“You’re really pretty and smart and stuff, so I wasn’t sure you’d want to go out with me.” He sighs, finally, “Happy?”

“W-Wow.” You say, “But yeah. You’re the one who’s totally out of my league.”

“You’re kidding.” He rolls his eyes, and you don’t feel like arguing with him, so you reach out and pluck off his wire-rimmed glasses with your fingers.

“Hey!” He cries, reaching out for them, but it’s too late. You’ve figured everything out, and you can’t hide your shock at the revelation.

“These are fake?!” You cry out in dismay, “I trusted you!”

“They look really cool!” He defends himself, though he doesn’t deserve to, “My friend told me they look nice on me!”

Well, they do, but that’s not the point.

“You’re so basic.” You shake your head solemnly, “I’m embarrassed.”

“Well, you’re going to have to bear with this basic person for a long time, if I can help it.” Wonsik smiles at you, but it’s not bright and dazzling; no, it’s demure, quiet, yet speaks volumes. You reach out to tangle his pretty, pretty fingers with your own.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Written By: (dying) Midnight^^

#kkreationsnet #kreativewritersnet #wonsik fluff #ravi fluff #vixx wonsik #vixx ravi #vixx fluff #vixx ravi fluff #vixx wonsik fluff #ravi scenarios #kim wonshik #vixx kim wonshik #kim wonshik fluff

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orange-you-say · 7 years

Text

the chains of harrow quest was really, really bad imo

(spoilers for literally the entire quest under the cut)

the quest starts out really promising - an abandoned steel meridian vessel, the crew slaughtered and the red veil insignia scrawled on the wall in what looks like blood. something really really wrong is happening here, a feeling amplified by a sudden red veil ambush after the spending the whole mission in eerie silence. then, when rescuing palladino, rather than fight against clear and defined red veil agents, you’re pitted against a force composed of some sort of shadow figure that shuffles about with no label. you’re hard pressed to spot them before they’re in your face because the level is also ominously dark, allowing them to blend in with the shadows, usually only seeing their red health bar when targeting them

after you rescue palladino you next investigate an abandoned corpus vessel. it’s the same deal as before - pitch black, eerie silence, with strange shadows dancing along the walls, looking almost human. you think you know what to expect this time, especially as you’re crashing a red veil seance - they’re gonna try to fuck you up, and you’re gonna have to fuck them up first and steal their sacred relic so palladino can try to get through to their god-figure rell.

the neat thing is that that isn’t what happens. the veil agents are all already dead, with their sacred artifact sitting in the center of the room. you nab it and get ready to head out, but you’re stopped. something is talking to you. it’s not happy you took the sacred gizmo.

and that’s when rell appears and all hell breaks loose

the shadow figures are back, and the veil agents are reanimating, which on their own would be easy enough to deal with - their defensive stats aren’t particularly noteworthy, and they drop after a couple of hits. the problem is rell. rell is a particularly ill defined shadow man with glowing red eyes who stands out for two other reasons. the first is that he has little minions that will chase you down while he catches up. the second thing that sets him apart is that he doesn’t have a health bar. you can’t kill him, and the doors are all chained shut. so you’re stuck in a room with shadow monsters and zombie edgelords and what amounts to about eight different horror movie monsters in one really pissed off god-figure who’s immortal. it’s great, it’s different, it takes away your ability to cheese it with a silly high amount of damage. it removes the sensation of being overpowered from you, which warframe struggles with in a lot of areas. anyways you escape and get back to your ship after palladino warns you that you can’t kill him, and that marks about the point where the quest starts going downhill

the next three missions of the quest are the same mission spread across different tiles - go to a room, use a kinetic siphon trap that simaris sold to you assuming you’d use it to capture prospective sanctuary candidates, and shoot the physical manifestation of one of rell’s emotions until it’s weak enough for the trap to absorb a la danny phantom. it’s boring, it’s grindy, and it would be painfully dull if it weren’t for rell following you and trying to murder you the whole time. it’s a very nice touch, as are his remarks on each emotion as you trap them, but the justification for it - apparently doing this will help him regain his “true self”, as well as the fact that you must capture a total of nine emotions over three missions, make it tedious and irritating.

finally, once rell’s emotions have been contained, you are asked to go to the red veil temple and straight up murder rell because apparently capturing his emotions did absolutely nothing to help him and now it’s his time to pass on, so off to destroy his vessel you go. this has the potential to have been a really touching moment in which we see rell’s humanity restored and free him from his prison after an epic showdown with who you’ve come to understand as “dark rell”. instead, you get a really obnoxious and painful sequence where you must fend off waves of veil agents between rounds of shattering the chains around rell’s vessel - as your operator. this could have been relatively simple and painless, albeit a little too easy, but instead you are forced to use the most fragile unit in your arsenal, and the enemies aren’t going easy on you. the veil agents will throw dagger users at you, and then bows that can take out a significant chunk of health (enough to kill me every time they hit me, but i never got hit by them at full health so idk how much damage they acutally do), followed by veil agents who are just straight up reskins of the shadow stalker with lowered stats. to top it off, “dark rell” or “the man in the wall” is floating around like an asshole and will pepper you with balls of fire periodically. it’s a really painful mission that perfectly captures how lacking in any ability at all the operator is - something that we’ve all been complaining about since the War Within dropped, so DE really has no excuse for how poorly thought out this was. the only positive side to this mission is that death didn’t set you back in the slightest - you respawn a few seconds later with the map exactly as you left it, right down to the number of hit points that asshole had left before he killed you, and keep going

level design notwithstanding, the lore to the quest also leaves a lot to be desired. over the course of the quest, we learn that rell was a tenno who was “different” (autistic), and for this, margulis cast him out. we already know margulis is a character of questionable morality from how she sealed our memories and abilities in the War Within, but this feels much more like a character being driven by the plot, rather than the other way around like it ought to be. margulis loved the tenno, and it seems odd that rell was the only tenno out of many who was “different”.

(and frankly, i find it incredibly frustrating that DE didn’t have the guts to outright say “margulis rejected rell because he was autistic” and instead left plenty of hints and implications that he was. it’s 2017, warframe is set even further in the future than that, we can say that characters are autistic without having a meltdown, and we are certainly above the idea that autism is grounds to reject someone is an acceptable plot device)

anyways margulis deciding rell wasn’t good enough for her apparently turned out to be a good thing, because he goes on to become an expert in void related knowledge which he shares with his disciples, who will eventually form the red veil. he also takes it upon himself to protect the system from what he calls the “man in the wall” - an entity hinted to be the “something out there, watching us” the tenno’s father talks about in TWW. because he knew he would eventually get old and die (which finally starts to answer my questions about tenno mortality - at the very least, people think the tenno are gonna age over time), he chose to permanently transfer his consciousness into the Harrow warframe

let’s back up a second here. rell wasn’t good enough for margulis. he wasn’t allowed to be put in cryosleep and dream with the other tenno. he never received a precursor to the warframe, and yet somehow he happens to have his own warframe? something doesn’t add up here, and it’s never going to be addressed.

after declaring that he must be chained up in the depths of the red veil temple for all eternity, he slowly starts to deteriorate into “good rell” and “bad rell”. “good rell” is who rell is - the clever, knowledgable, autistic child who was ostracized and made to be an outsider. “bad rell” is the man in the wall.

wait, what?

it turns out, while aboard the zariman, after his mother sends him away for his own safety as she succumbs to the madness all adults aboard the ship did, the other tenno still refused to acknowledge him and continued to exclude him. this resulted in him feeling incredible isolated and alone, which allowed the man in the wall to slip in and manipulate him. “bad rell” is nothing more than the man in the wall breaking free after rell’s mental state begins deteriorating. killing rell has apparently retrapped him - inside our own operator’s mind. (this last sentence is purely speculation on my part, given some of the weird things that happened after returning to the orbiter post quest)

this quest starts off strong gameplay wise, but deteriorates quickly in much the same way the Glast Gambit did, and has lore that’s more messy and contradictory than the current US administration on pretty much anything. it also raises a lot of questions for the few that are answered. what exactly is the man in the wall? where did it come from, and why is it so hostile? how did rell get a warframe, and why did his mind deteriorate, when Silvana, who didn’t even share the tenno’s powers, retain her mental stability, if not her ability to think quickly? why did rell’s emotions get free, and why didn’t capturing them do anything? for that matter, how did rell’s emotions attain physical manifestation and separation from their host? how does harrow actually play into all of this? is he really just a glorified set piece, or did his abilities in particular serve some purpose to rell?

honestly this quest was a mess and a disappointment all around

#warframe #honestly between the war within the glast gambit and this quest DE's been kind of a mess lately #octavia's anthem was okay but it had it's own share of issues #such as sentients in the void #also DE plz give us combat ready operators i'm begging you

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