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ultraclops · 3 years

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Day 3: Be True To Yourself

Aka me literally just infodumping about my Ocs because I love them ♡

Brought to you by Colorvision! Yep, I decided to get off my lazy butt and color traditionally today :)

First off, Tiara Depurrnaire (She/Her)! A Sweetypie cat who's partially related to the Snugglemagne family and, in my timeskip AU, Adorabat's future girlfriend. Like Adorabat, she lost her leg to a monster while wandering the King's dungeons. She aspires to be just as brave as Adorabat but lacks the gall, being content to watch and learn from the sidelines. As they both get older Tiara realizes that she is a lesbian, and develops a mutual crush on Adorabat that turns into a relationship. As she ages, Tiara' aspirations to become a hero fade, and she settles for becoming a ballet teacher. She learns to be brave in her own way and unconditionally supports her monster-slaying adventuring partner, no matter how their paths diverge.

T H E Y (Also I need to post my full adult Adorabat design sometime)

Next up is Sherbet (They/Them), a Sweetypie rabbit who makes ice cream for a living! I don't really have a backstory for them but I believe they realized they were nonbinary in their younger years (around early middle school age) and have fully embraced their identity! They don't let anything get them down and are eager to cheer up the citizens of Pure Heart Valley, one ice cream cone at a time. They're also good acquaintances with Badgerclops and Adorabat, for obvious reasons. Their eyes function similarly to Badgerclops', as they only open when they feel strong emotions.

Next (and honestly one of my favorites) is Moa Nola (Xe/Xem), an agender Oriental Shorthair cat who, surprisingly, isn't related to the Mao clan. Xe originally started off as a joke character based on the misspelling of Mao Mao's name in "I'm Mao Mao", but I eventually grew attached to xem and gave xem a full-fledged backstory. Xe comes from a family of fishermen, but after xyr father was killed in a monster attack, xe decided that xe wanted to become a legendary monster hunter. Xe created xyr cloak after xyr first successful monster fight. After being mistaken for the son of Shin Mao too many times, xe used it to xyr advantage and began going under Mao Mao's title for a while. However, after being stopped by Mao Mao himself, xe dropped the act and began looking for a new sense of purpose. Ironically, xe starts collecting antique ventriloquist dummies similar to Mr. Din Danalin.

Following up on the "based on a misspelling" theme is Rhapsody (She/They), a femme-aligned nonbinary Sweetypie vampire bat inspired by Adorabat's name being mistranslated as "doorbat" in YouTube autocaptions. She is Adorabat maternal cousin, as their mother is Sonara's sister. Rhapsody was heavily impacted by Sonara's death, but rather than becoming tough like Adorabat or overprotective like Eugene, she became more reserved out of fear that they could be next. In other words, she became a doorbat (haha funny). With the arrival of Mao Mao and Badgerclops, plus the defeat of the monster that killed their aunt, Rhapsody begins to come out of her shell and indulges in their biggest passion - music. Like Adorabat she learns to use their voice as a weapon, but hers is more of a siren's song than a sonic screech. In my timeskip AU, they leave Pure Heart Valley to become a popstar, writing songs inspired by her childhood memories and their home. It's obscured by the flag but the marking on her chest is a bleeding heart, emphasizing her passionate drive.

(Rhapsody's kid and adult forms [kinda old])

+ OCs of mine I didn't feel like making alternate drawings for:

Buzz-Buzz (Zhe/Ze/Zhey), a demigender Sweetypie bumblebee bat who protects the bees of Pure Heart Valley! Despite zer small stature, zhe is actually an adult, just naturally small. Zhe also grows herbs on the side and volunteers at the Pure Heart Valley hospital. Primarily because zhe has a crush on the head doctor there... (I did not make zer to selfship with Cuddlestein. Nope. Not at all.)

My Badgermao "fankid", Sai (They/He/It)! I say "fankid" in air quotes because they're from an AU where Badgerclops' spare arm became corrupt and gained a conscience. Their robot arm is actually their body - the rest of their body is a projection of light, similar to the gems from Steven Universe! They have masculine programming (as their AI was made using Badgerclops's DNA a la Cortana from Halo), but identify as agender and use they/he/it pronouns. Originally they began as a blank slate with no personality aside from the programmed personality Badgerclops gave them, but they eventually grow their own personality and moral compass as they analyze the Sheriff's Department's work. Just like Badgerclops, they have a passion for building robots and weapons, and can even modify themselves to fit the situation! Most of their creations are usually for fun, though.

Anf the last one I have a reference for but not the least, Karma Vesper (She/They)! This one is actually my self-insert, lol. She is a biro-ace demigirl Javanese Cream-Point Cat! Her necklace was a gift from her family, and her hood was a gift from her mentor. After her village was ambushed by criminals, she became a wandering hero, and accidentally stumbled upon Pure Heart Valley while following a report of increased monster activity. At some point during her adventures alone she realized that she was biro-ace, since she felt no sexual attraction but still felt romantic attraction. Around the time she came to Pure Heart Valley she realized that she never really felt, like, 100% a GIRL girl (if that makes sense) and began identifying as a demigirl. (Yes this is my hidden self-actualization story :>) She enjoys researching gemstones and ancient artifacts, and the Ruby Pure Heart immediately caught her attention once she laid eyes on it. While she is still a wandering hero, she has a temporary residence in Pure Heart Valley, where she stays to research the Heart's powers as well as assist the townspeople. Her and the Sheriff's Department didn't start out on the best terms since Mao was worried she was trying to replace them, but they tolerate each other now.

+ the OCs I don't have references for:

I did have a reference for these guys but idk where it is rn ;-;. Anywway, my most recent OCs and also some of my favorite OCs are Bernard and Pierre, a black bear and polar bear respectively (both use He/Him)! They are both gay and in a healthy relationship & live in a cabin in the forest together. They are just. Two old gay granddads and I love them. Anyway! They both met after an accident which caused Bernard to blow out his left knee and Pierre to lose his left hand; they had been best friends since, and boyfriends later on! Bernard is a baker while Pierre is a wood carver, although they indulge in each other's interests as well. For the most part they just stay in their cabin in the forest, but they leave to buy groceries and sell their products.

And the final OC I'm gonna talk about is Storm Mao (They/Them)! They're from an AU where Mao was born in a litter of five, like his sisters. Ever since Storm were young, they felt like weren't "normal" compared to their siblings. They didn't feel like a girl or a boy. After Mao came out as a trans boy, they began questioning themselves further. Eventually they decided to ask Contacts Sister for help, as she was among the smartest of the Mao children. Contacts explained to Storm that there are people who don't identify as a boy or a girl, and Storm realized they weren't alone. Since then, they started identifying as nonbinary and began using they/them pronouns, and their family supported their decision. Aside from them and Mao, their litter siblings are also LGBTQ+ - Mamoru (He/Him) is AroAce, Bernadette (She/Her) is bi and Zhijun (He/Him) is gay. I'd talk about the AU more in a separate post, if anyone wants me too^ ^;;

If I remember any other LGBTQ+ OCs I have, I'll reblog with them ✌

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poisonheadcrabsalesman · 3 years

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More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers.

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist. The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence.

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives.

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology.

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework.

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives?

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists.

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year.

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years.

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network, lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt.

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”.

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts.

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back!

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books.

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t.

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat.

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful.

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier.

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

#this is not coherent but it needs out of my brain #John - has different characterizations based on what media he's in #Me - my writing must be in character or I Will Die #also me - we don't talk about halo 5 but i will loot its corpse for bits of lore I like #im sorry for being like this #my writing #Therapy time #John 117 #this is not a halo blog #haha this was peer reviewed nonsense #thanks yall for enabling me #i have even more ideas for the infinity sitcom folder now

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thebigqueer · 3 years

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Sunlight

(Credit for the characters goes to Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex)

The summer heat has been unbearably warm, so weighted with temperature that it has forced us down onto our knees in the grass. A beam of sunlight fans over our faces, illuminating our scars and stories.

Obscure Object’s body absorbs the sunlight, and it makes her glow from within. The golden light threads itself into her red locks, creating a wall of fire that cascades down her back. She is one with the sun. I would not be surprised if she were to tell me that she was a creation of Apollo, cast down from Olympus because her beauty was too much for the gods to fathom. She could replace Aphrodite herself.

Obscure Object turns her face to me, letting a strand of fire slip over her ear and across her face. A smile eases over her lips. Her tan shoulder flashes in the sunlight. “It seriously sucks that you have to go to Greece,” she murmurs, her voice pouring over me like molten gold. “I want to take you to my summer house. We could have so much fun.” She leans into me, and against her lips I see the promise of a secret. Her mouth grazes my ear as she whispers, “And my parents won’t be around as often. Parties and stuff. We could sneak in all the booze we want.” And, as an afterthought, she adds, “Also, boys.”

I laugh and throw some dirt at her. She screeches. “Your parents are already out most of the time, and you drink more booze than any fourteen-year-old should,” I tell her, tipping my chin to the dark bottle in her right hand for emphasis.

She scoffs and takes another sip. Obscure Object is a graceful creature - every move she makes is on purpose. As her pink lips pucker against the rim of the bottle, I can only think that the booze is being sucked up for an important reason. It’s her mission. She must accomplish it.

And, for a second, a spark of jealousy bursts in my core. I want to be the bottle. I want to be the drink she sips from. I want her lips against me.

She hands the bottle to me but I shake my head and she takes it back, placing it gently at her side. “God, Callie, you need to loosen up a bit. We’re going to high school. Everyone does it.”

“Maybe you’re just a part of the herd.”

“Herd? Did you just compare me to a cow?”

“Moo.”

Now it’s her turn to throw dirt in my face. Specks of brown fly in the air as she lurches towards me, but the alcohol makes her sluggish. Her body pushes with all its might and her red hair flies, creating a halo over her hair, but I’m already three feet away from her before it hits me. She scowls in my direction, and I respond by sticking my tongue out. She groans and turns back, whipping her hair behind her. It flashes in the light again. I wonder how it doesn’t burn her as it touches down against her back once more.

I scoot over, finding that the distance between us is too much. Obscure Object’s bare shoulder brushes against mine, spreading its warmth to me. Electricity dances between us where she touches me, and I feel as though Zeus himself has struck me with a lightning bolt. I would not be surprised if he did.

Her golden fingers gingerly push her hair away from her face. Once again I am in the glory of her beauty: the freckles, the light eyes and the eyebrows. Being so close to her I can see that her face isn’t quite as symmetrical as I thought - an uneven eyebrow dances over her forehead, and I realize that she is not as perfect as I thought she was.

Which makes her even more human to me. Even more attainable.

Her eyes bear over my own face, searching across each and every crater of my skin. First my eyes, then my nose. Next my ears, my chin, my cheeks, my lips. Finally over my dark hair. She smiles again and reaches over clumsily, almost falling over my body. Her fingers graze over my dark strands. “Callie, you have such pretty hair.”

“That’s not what my parents tell me. It’s usually in my face.”

“Yeah, it is. But it’s still pretty. Like… you don’t really care.” Her fingers push my hair away from my face, and now I’m getting a clear view of her. A ripple of shock washes over me as I realize how close we are. Merely inches away from crashing into her. “But you have an even prettier face.”

“I wouldn’t really say that,” I say bashfully, turning my eyes away from her.

“I would. It’s, like, dramatic. In my face. But in a good way.” For a second, I let her words soak into my skin, allowing the warmth of them to seep into my ears. But then she takes another sip of her booze, and ice drips over me, cooling down all my systems. How do I know she means any of this when she’s getting drunk right in front of my eyes?

Her fingers detach from my hair and lay in her lap, but her eyes never leave my face. They continue digging deeper, deeper, looking into my organs, my mind, my body, searching for some secret identity. I wonder if she’s found out about me even before I’ve discovered me.

She sighs and takes another sip. The glass clashes with her teeth for a second, then she places it down again. Her eyelids flutter. “Callie, have you ever wondered what it’s like to kiss a girl?”

Now I know she’s drunk. She would never speak so openly like this, not if she were sober. Sometimes I can’t tell which version of Obscure Object is better - her dazed and doped version, or her sober and sophisticated one. When she’s like this, she becomes more free, more unlatched from the world. She becomes a new entity all together, not quite human. A new, free spirit, untethered from her mind and body and no longer in control of her actions. Reckless.

A warm blush bleeds over my cheeks. “Well, I have. When I was eight.”

She nods, but I can tell from her dazed eyes that she’s barely processing that information. “I’ve always wondered. Do you think it’s any different than with a boy?”

I consider her question, weighing my answer in my mind. “Well, maybe not. Are boys and girls so different? Aren’t we all human? Why does gender matter? All that should matter is who you’re into. I guess if you’re into girls, you’re going to like to kiss girls more.”

“Do you care if someone’s into girls, Callie?”

“Not really, no. It’s love. Why should I care?”

As she interrogates me, a bubble of hope grows in my chest. What is she saying? Is she admitting something to me?

“Interesting,” she murmurs, still staring at me. Her eyes drop down to my lips again, and I can see the gears turning in her head, considering her options. She’s calculating her next move.

She tilts her head. “Can I kiss you?”

Obscure Object doesn't’ give me a qualifier; she doesn’t say “just for fun” or “just for practice.” She only says “Can I kiss you,” as if there is no shame in doing so. A flash of light bursts in my brain, and my chest blooms with warmth. Can she kiss you, Callie?

“Yes,” I whisper.

And she leans into me, pushing her burdens into my arms. Her tan arms dangle over my neck sloppily, as if she can’t even bother to sit up. Hesitance lingers in the air, burning my skin, angering my soul. Come on. Tell me you feel the same.

Then her lips crash into mine, and the world explodes around us. I gently glide my arm over her waist and pull us into a better posture, if only to make it easier to feel her, to touch her, to be in her arms. The heat of her body scorches my skin, almost like a branding. I am no one’s but hers.

And soon we find a rhythm, dancing to a silent song. Her lips touch mine softly at first, feeling the territory, and then she dives into the ocean, ready for whatever storms are going to come. Lightning strikes my body; electricity sparks in my fingers. I’m bursting, overflowing, feeling. I want more, more, more. I want to soak her up, drink her in like alcohol, be the smoke that she drags.

Her soft lips fit perfectly into mine. Pink on pink, passion on passion. We’re quiet here in her backyard, and I suppose that’s expected - we are not meant to be known to the world, not meant to be ourselves. So we must hide in secrecy, bathe in our solitude. The world does not want us, but that doesn’t matter when we want each other.

She pushes against me, her stomach on my own, chest against chest, arm against arm. We’re melting into each other, becoming a new being all together. Our molecules separate and join again, connecting our bodies together. We are Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, becoming one body, one being, breathing to a single lung, beating to the same heart. I know her. I feel her. I am her.

Then, it all stops. A block of ice forms in my chest as she pulls away, and now I’m alone again, alone in my own body, my own mind. We are no longer one. We are separate. We are too far.

A dazed smile creeps over her features and her eyelashes flutter in the golden sunlight. “That was fun. I’m tired now.”

And with that said - without even waiting for a reply from me - she lies over the grass. The sun’s rays spill over her, golden spots glimmering over her body. A small pink smile pulls at her lips, but after a few moments, her breathing becomes steadier and the smile flashes away, giving way to her dreamscape.

And I am alone again, forced to deal with the crushing pain once more. The pain of knowing that she may never feel the way I do, may never understand the things she does to me.

The light catches against her hair once more, creating a halo of fire around her head. It burns bright against the green grass. I edge my finger closer, closer, and the flames lick against my fingertips. She is on fire. She is burning me up, turning me to ashes.

Memory is a funny thing. Two people can go through the very same experience, but one may just not ever remember it happening. Memory is subjective, and only some people have the gift of it.

Unfortunately, this means that between my sober self and her drunken being, I will carry the weight of the memory.

She will not remember our kiss when she wakes up; she will not even remember that we are made for each other. For the moment, I am her lover, but in a few hours, I will once again be her best friend.

So I lie beside her. If I only have the next few hours to pretend I am her lover, her muse, then so be it. As long as I don’t have to hide anymore.

We can be together, just for a few hours. Just for a little bit.

#okay i wrote this out because i read middlesex and i'm so in love #my writing #tw drinking #tw alcohol #tw alcohol mention #tw drugs #tw drug mention

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cadisflya · 3 years

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“ i’m willing to sell myself to the devil for love. “

BELLADONNA OF SADNESS PROMPTS / ACCEPTING

𝚆𝙸𝙻𝙻'𝚂 𝙵𝙰𝙲𝙴 𝙶𝙻𝙾𝚂𝚂𝙴𝚂. He tightens his grip on the ratchet in his hand, pressing the skin-warmed metal tight into his palm until it aches. Immediately, he misses the soft ringing click of the gear and pawl inside, and the silent pressure of pulling it back towards him. She likes to slip in and watch him work, watch him living, like coexisting with the action makes her an active participant in the process. They provide that for one another: the feeling of participation in something that would be impossible when one was alone. The something isn’t specific. Love, she’s always saying. Always silently asking for it.

Will knows she only asks him because she feels safe in the awareness that she’s in no danger of ever receiving it from him, and this is her favourite kind of suffering. Finding the courage to call only when you’re certain no one is home. He accepts it. Providing her with that certainty is rewarding for him, even as they continually nurture a feedback loop of quietly desperate non-intimacy. He feels safe in it, too. That generates an approximate kind of love, doesn’t it?

This time, she’s done what she’s done deliberately. In the soft hint of her voice is a question, and it reminds Will of both the thinness of the impression of their closeness and the thinness of the unspoken agreement that keeps them apart. Maybe she saw his picture in the paper, but Hannibal Lecter isn’t the devil. He’s just the man Will loves.

Will glances up at her, eyes lurid and past blue, and sees the soft cleft cut of her beautiful dark hair. Circe Invidiosa with her covetous eyes, offering her silver cup to someone else’s lover. He imagines a severely sweet sauce made from red berries, citrusy, sharpened with a ruby port. No—you knew her intimately. She cared for you. That care should be communicated within the personalization of the presentation: black caviar, blinis topped with soft cuts of tenderloin and crowned with beluga sturgeon roe. Munch’s Madonna with her crimson halo cresting like a disc of dawn above her head. Hollowed out from the spine, filled again with soft moss and small, white flowers spread around like stars.

For Will, she would be Christina Olson, in the grass, seated in the half-shadow of the open door, face turned always away.

On the train tracks. Posed beneath the train. Eyes open, glassy with sky. They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox. It might have saved her life.

Will imagines the kiss he’d receive when opening the wine, how Hannibal would pause above him while exiting the kitchen to set the table for dinner. The Doctor would be delighted. Immensely self-satisfied, and that mood would flavour the air as well as the food. A person could sit beside him utterly senseless, seeing and smelling and tasting nothing, tongue-cut or blinded, and enjoy still—just by the motiveless energy of his enjoyment. Will draws up the idea of witnessing Hannibal that way again, all the sensual intensity of real experience, and the warmth of the affection he would feel is rising in a flush up his throat now—because time and distance are irrational measurements when place inside the confines of something that allows no space or separation.

Nothing about it is truly transactional at its root because nothing else has any genuine value. The doors to heaven and hell are adjacent and identical, and at either end is the ecstatic bliss of true communion. God, the loss he feels is delirious. Massive. It comes into the shed and draws Will’s throat closed, and his breath breaks in a soft, airless inhale.

Wind cuts through the open door and Will turns his back to it reactively, suddenly, putting his body between her and the weather and breaking his own mental inversion. They’re facing one another now. Blanche is sitting on the toolbench between the woodstove and his worksurface, where the intake and fuel system of the Ford are laid out piece by piece in an orderly array. He has removed each component, down to the last washer, and stripped off the tacky crust of dirt and oil and cooked antifreeze, cleaned the threads, scraped the cracked remnants of old gaskets and sealant away, until what remains is aged in appearance but new in function. Acceptably refurbished, but only with absolute efficiency.

Nothing has to be beautiful. He can barely stand beauty anymore.

Will dips his head without responding and continues working. The labour continues at its selfsame pace for a moment before he stops, arm jarring, though the discord is not visible on his face, and pulls the glove from his right hand as he comes around the table towards her. It’s a conclusive call to motion. Perched up on the bench, she’s a head or more taller, and Will has to tip his head back to look into her eyes. He lays his ungloved hand on her thigh, over the liquid texture of her satin skirt, ignoring the way his insides grate when the rough surface of his thumb catches on the delicate fabric and pulls. Blanche puts her arms around his shoulders, and Will smiles softly.

He runs his nose along her cheek and accepts the sigh it earns him.

“I love you.”

In the constructed confines of the created moment, it isn’t entirely untrue. This is a lovely thing. She’s cool in his arms. Will takes her chin in his hand and turns her face to kiss her.

#nezhnosts #ic.#implied cannibalism /#god this is so #disjointed but i've been trying to fix it for like an hour and #i CAN'T so take it from me before go actually insane #:(

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the-irish-mayhem · 4 years

Text

Fosterson Fic Rec Masterlist: Multichapters

The Main Reclist has been split to fix the links that tumblr decided to break if there were too many of them in a single post. I’ll be keeping the main reclist updated (even if the links appear broken) as well as maintaining this list and the list for oneshots.

I need help expanding this list! If you have any favorites or fics of your own of your own you don’t see included in this list and you’d like to submit for consideration, please drop me a line.

List updated April 2020. New additions marked with **

Updated during this wild quarantined time, which should serve as a reminder to everyone to APPRECIATE YOUR CONTENT CREATORS! Leave all the comments and kudos to show our love for everything they do. Big thanks to everyone who recommended and/or created content for this amazing ship.

Rated G/K-K+

**The World has Turned and Left Me Here by alwaysaprilia: Jane Foster’s mission is impossible: build a wormhole, save the world. Thor Odinson thinks his task is even more impossible: keep Jane Foster alive long enough for her to accomplish her mission. AKA: What-to-do-when-the-damsel-in-distress-keeps-distressing-you. Rec: This is such a lovely little AU fic, brings in such an expansive world so succinctly and smoothly. | 16k | In progress

**Unspoken by igi_pigi: Post bringing his brother back to Asgard from Midgard, Thor is told by Heimdall that Jane Foster has decided to stop looking for him. [Set after Avengers1.] Rec: Angsty, with some nice Frigga content. | 4.8k | Complete

**Overlapping Spaces by khilari, Persephone_Kore: Thor returns to Earth a month after the Chitauri invasion to keep his promises -- to see Jane again, and take her to see Asgard, even if the rainbow bridge is still undergoing repairs. Not that Jane is complaining about watching the repairs. But she wasn't expecting Loki to be haunting the palace library, even in psychiatric care; and Loki wasn't expecting to make friends with Thor's mortal girlfriend. Rec: If you’re looking for a good, long Jane-centric fic that also features endgame fosterson, a well written Loki, and really interesting take on Asgardian culture, this is the fic for you. | 107k | Complete

IW Coda by hariboowrites: THOR AND JANE FOCUSED CODA TO IW bc i am who i am. Rec: We all need a fosterson followup to Infinity War, and this one has an ending that made me scream internally with excitement. Make this the opening of the next Avengers movie pls. | ~4k | Complete

Five Times Jane Was Kinda Jealous And One Time Thor Was by shinyopals: ‘Hello, Jane,’ said Thor. He gave her a smile that would move mountains and definitely still made her stomach flutter. ‘This is Rachael and Amanda. They wished to give their regards for my help during the Convergence. Although of course without you we would have been hopeless.’ He turned back to Rachael and Amanda. ‘This is my dear friend Dr Jane Foster, of whom I was speaking.’ Dear friend? Jane blinked. They’d been sleeping together for a couple of weeks and had had a slightly awkward conversation to establish where they stood with each other (what Jane called dating exclusively and Thor called a courtship). “Friend”, however “dear”, seemed a bit of an understatement. Sometimes dating a gorgeous world-saving alien prince has its drawbacks. Rec: BURY ME AND HAVE THIS JEALOUSY FIC PRINTED ON MY TOMBSTONE. I usually don’t like the toxicity most jealousy fics are infused with, but this one is so pure and wonderful. I could read it every damn day. | 14k | Complete

The Arizona Banana Famine by Niobium: Thor experiences the simpler side of Earth. Rec: Absolutely hilarious. Thor + shenanigans of living on Earth and trying to hide his identity + Jane helping him to varying effect. | 7k | Complete

Non Est Ad Astra Mollis e Terris Via (there is no easy way from the earth to the stars) by Rozilla: Jane Foster keeps out of social media mostly, but does keep a blog for all things science. With a few personal posts thrown in. Edited (with sarcastic asides) by Darcy Lewis. Rec: Fosterson is mentioned often, but Jane’s voice is incredibly worthwhile. | 10.4k | Complete

Hidden resonances by kes: After the vision Wanda Maximoff gave him, Thor had more questions than answers, and so he sought truth with Jane, in a cave beneath the mountains. Rec: A really great fix-it taking place during AOU, plus some fosterson feels. | 6k | Complete

Time and Trouble by shinyopals: Frigga thinks she knows exactly what to expect from the rest of her life. Then one son perishes and returns, whilst the other falls for a mortal woman who’s like nothing Frigga could have predicted.(Frigga’s POV from the end of Thor right through to post-TDW.) Rec: BLESS ALL FRIGGA-CENTRIC FICS. Great outside perspective fosterson, plus a TDW fix-it. | 14k | Complete

If You Want To Live series by hariboo: They lost Loki when they sunk Manhattan. Three years laters Loki finds them and that’s really when everything begins. This is that beginning. Rec: Terminator fusion AU that you didn’t realize you needed until now. Knowledge of the Terminator films is helpful but not required. The 'needing each other’ that comes along with a desperate post-apocalyptic situation really lends itself well to fosterson. It also hurts a hell of a lot. I wish it wasn’t finished. | 5k | Complete

Fabulous Baking Sisters or How to (not) Get Over A Norse God in 730 Days by Rozilla: After seeing Jane in a slump one too many times, Darcy decides to get her into stress baking… and soon regrets it. Rec: A lot of Jane/Darcy brotp, but lots of fosterson goodness especially near the end. The phrase “sex coma” is definitely used. | 8.5k | Complete

Waking Ease by Salmon_Pink: Thor/Jane, rated G. Set after Thor: The Dark World. Written for Comic Drabbles, prompt "halo”. Rec: very, very short, but cute. This is a part of a larger series by this author, but this is the only fosterson chapter I’ve seen so far. | <1k | In progress

Hold the Sun by writerblocked: Thor and Jane (and everyone else) share a meal. Rec: A nice peek into regular life, complete with some touches of angst and fluff at the same time. This story, like the above rec, is a part of a larger work that does not solely include fosterson. | <1k | Complete

If She Is Worthy by Mr. Chaos: During the battle with The Destroyer, Mjolnir returns to Thor’s hand. But what if Selvig hadn’t pulled Jane away? And what if it wasn’t just Thor that had proven himself worthy? Rec: Jane kicking ass and taking names with Mjolnir. Nuff said. Downside? A giant twist at the end and still waiting for a sequel. | 4.5k | Complete

A Story of Us by me: Short and sweet prompt fills. All feature Thor and Jane as the main couple and are all just ridiculous fluff. Rec: A collection of my prompt fills from tumblr. It wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 26.2k | In progress

Rated T

The Foster Edition series by asoulofstars, MissChrisDaae: What happens when Jane Foster is in the Battle of Manhattan? In short, it changes everything. Rec: FIXING MARVEL WITH JANE FOSTER IS THE BEST, NAY, THE ONLY SOLUTION I WILL ACCEPT. | 60k | In progress

Game Changer by asoulofstars, MissChrisDaae: In the aftermath of the Convergence, Jane and Thor return to Earth in search of the scepter, and the Avengers slowly begin to reassemble. Across the cosmos and on Earth itself, enemies begin to gather, enemies that threaten everything the team has ever fought for, and Jane is faced with something just as daunting, but far more personal. Evolving from a mortal to a goddess. From a spectator to a player. From a scientist to a queen. Rec: A fluffy setup for something big, I can feel it. | 8k | In progress

A Magical Solution to the Einstein Field Equations by shinyopals: Jane Foster has got enough on her plate, what with being a full time researcher, giving lectures, applying for grants, writing books, and consulting for Stark Industries. When Thor drops off the face of the universe and leaves her on Earth with no clues as to where he is, she doesn’t know what to do or how to find him.Then an attack on Stark Industries changes everything, and she finds herself getting thrown into a life that she’s previously only watched from the sidelines, and where getting punched through a wall is suddenly just an average day of the week. Rec: THE MOST PERFECT RAGNAROK AU TO EVER EXIST ANYWHERE EVER. EASILY ONE OF MY FAVORITE FICS OF ALL TIME. | 56k | Complete

Ace in the Hole by MissChrisDaae: Working alongside Selvig on Project PEGASUS, Jane manages to escape when Loki arrives, bringing with her the data on the Tesseract, and making herself SHIELD's biggest resource in combating the rogue trickster. At least until her semi-boyfriend finally makes good on his promise to come back, and she finds herself caught in the middle of a war. And she might be a key part in stopping it. Rec: MOAR JANE IN THE AVENGERS. MOAR JANE BEING VALUED IN THE MCU. MOOOOAAAAAR. | 11.5k | Complete | Part of The Foster Edition series

Wild Card by MissChrisDaae: Separation is, for Thor and Jane, a little easier in knowing what's happening to each other, but they have their own trials to face. In the midst of a war, Thor learns of a force greater than anything he has ever faced, one that could change the fates of both himself and and the woman he loves. Nothing is certain, and the burdens of his family, his life, and his love are weighing heavily upon him. Working with Betty Ross, Jane works to understand the secrets of the universe, unaware of the fact that she's being tested with every move she makes. When she temporarily moves to look after her mother's house in London, she and Darcy come across the Convergence. And, for the third time, Jane's life is turned upside down by an ancient force from another realm. Rec: Canon divergent Fosterson is my freakin JaaaaAAAAm. Also BETTY ROSS. A great replacement for canon if you’re feeling Salty. | 33k | In progress | Part of The Foster Edition series

Dancer in the Dark by MissChrisDaae: Jane Foster has always been a member of the corps de ballet, and has never voiced complaint until one night when she indulges in the fantasy of being the prima ballerina. A mysterious voice calls out to her, tempting her, coaching her, offering to make her a star, and she accepts. Months later, the prophecy comes to light when the star of the company becomes mysteriously indisposed. Jane is suddenly cast into the spotlight, becoming an immediate success, but she only has eyes for Thor, the young scion to the ballet's greatest patron family, who has been masquerading as a stagehand in order to continue a longstanding liaison with her. But Jane's made a deal with something far worse than the devil, and now he's coming to claim his due. Rec: A ballet AU that reminds me a lot of Black Swan tone-wise. Warning though, there is a love triangle that includes Lokane. | 9.6k | In progress

Five Times Having An Alien Prince's Baby Sucked A Lot, And One Time It Didn't by shinyopals: It was the doctor’s turn to look nonplussed. ‘Dr Foster,’ she said quietly, ‘you’re around four weeks pregnant.’ ‘No I’m not,’ said Jane again. She was pretty sure she’d remember if Thor had reappeared for some awesome sex a month ago. He had not. She’d gotten through enough batteries to prove it. Jane isn't quite sure how this all happened. She just knows it's a lot of work and it keeps taking her away from her Physics. Rec: The Definitive™ Fosterson babyfic. I’m generally not much for babyfic because I’m not much for babies. But I’ve read this so many times and it’s so incredibly wonderful. | 24k | Complete

Strange Earth series by Niobium: The apocalypse has come and gone, leaving the Earth strange and altered in its wake. What was once a thriving world of magic and science has become a tractless, untamed Wilderness teeming with dangerous creatures born of warped energy pouring through rents in the fabric of space and time. Society has withdrawn into magically-walled Wards to keep itself safe as it seeks a way to reclaim the planet before it’s twisted beyond all recognition, and its Seers and Champions struggle to protect humanity and one another. Rec: An incredibly imaginative ghost hunting AU. Great world building, and fantastic interaction between Jane and Thor. | 12.6k | In progress

The Obloquy of Newness by Niobium: Jane just wants to present her findings and maybe win a Nobel Prize. That would be a lot easier if all these xenophobes, science deniers, and robots bent on world destruction would stop getting in the way. Or, Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, and what they were up to before, during, and after Avengers: Age of Ultron. Rec: A really delightful companion to AOU. | 17.4k | Complete

Sex Ed For Asgardians (Isn’t Exactly Necessary) by shinyopals: 'It’s a condom,’ Jane said eventually, reminding herself she was an adult in an adult relationship, albeit a very new one with an alien forty times her age who could hardly be expected to know what Earth birth control was like. Jane and Pepper learn that some myths and legends are true. Rec: I have no idea why this wasn’t on the reclist before. It’s hilarious and also really heartfelt. I love Respectfulinthebedroom!Thor. I love the open communication between them. Lawd. | 3.4k | Complete

Pedulum: Beginning by hariboo: Kept apart, with worlds between them, Jane and Thor do not give up on one day finding each other again. Rec: Exquisite buildup to a reunion. Both Jane and Thor are in-character with their own agency, but its obvious they’re nuts for each other. | 28.5k | Complete | Part of in progress series, Pendulum

Pendulum: Between by hariboo: Having found each other again doesn’t mean things have gotten easier for Thor and Jane. In some ways things are only getting more complicated. At least now they can face whatever comes their way together. Rec: Continiation of Beginning (recced above). Nuanced, sweet, messy, fantastic character dynamics, and with a great plot. | 56.8k | Complete | Part of in progress series, Pendulum

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Guardians of the Galaxy by Maybug: Jane Foster and Thor are finally getting married! Most couples go a little crazy when they’re ecstatically happy, unfortunately for these two going crazy involves knocking a hole in spacetime and marooning themselves and two of Jane’s friends on a desolate and dangerous planet halfway across the galaxy. Meanwhile Darcy, Sif and Bill are trying to find them in Skuttlebutt. Will they survive? Will they make it to the wedding in time? Will Thor’s attempts to communicate with Groot drive everyone crazy? Will Darcy get to witness Jane’s brief Goth phase? Will Jane’s friend Sayed get over his Star-Trek inspired fantasies about green-skinned alien women? Find out in the next exciting installment of Journey into Mishap! Rec: Part of a really great series by a great author. Humorous and kind of cracky. Mixture of MCU and comic canon. Just one chapter short of completion. | 12.7k | In progress | Part of Journey into Mishap and the Fosterson Files

Welcome to the Fall by Niobium: The Avengers pick up the pieces in the aftermath of Sokovia. Inter- and post-film gap-fillers and ficlets, with varying POV characters. A couple of them are slightly canon divergent and will be labeled as such. Rec: A really solid piece of prose, careful of canon while building upon it/improving it. The fosterson is handled really well. | 5.5k | Complete

The House of Foster by ArticulatioHumeri: She had set out to study wormholes. Never would Jane Foster have thought that it would lay the foundations of a family clan. Rec: Great fosterson moments, and with proper time devoted to them. A good, long read. Probably the longest fic I have on this list, and the longest Marvel fic that actually legitimately features Fosterson prominently. | 224k | Complete

The Measure of a Man by fayedartmouth: Thor is banished to Earth. Reclaiming his worth is harder than he thinks it will be. AU of the movie Thor. Rec: By now, y’all know I love fics where Thor was on Earth longer than in canon. This is probably my favorite, because Thor is incredibly well-written, and the cultural/personal struggles he encounters are written fantastically. The fosterson is incredibly organic and lovely. | 140.7k | Complete

Towards the Storm by iwillavengeyou: Jane Foster is worthy. Jane Foster is the Mighty Thor. But was she always this way? This fic seeks to examine Jane’s path to picking up the mighty hammer Mjolnir, and her journey as a heroine who, underneath it all, is only human. Rec: One of the few fics I’ve been able to find and enjoy that deals with Jane’s place as Thor in the 616 universe. I like the story’s trajectory, but it has since been orphaned. If anyone wants to... ya know... pick it up... that’d be swell. | 1.5k | In progress

As You Wish by MissChrisDaae: After the apparent death of the only man she will ever love, Jane finds herself the unwilling bride-to-be of the kingdom’s icy hearted crown prince, whose interest in her is almost as unnerving as the man himself. Before the wedding can take place, Jane finds herself in the hands of three kidnappers, her life in danger, and a mysterious figure in black pursuing them. Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles. What more does a story need? Rec: THE PRINCESS BRIDE FUSION THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED UNTIL NOW. Also Sif is Indigo Montoya. If the fosterson wasn’t enough to get you to read it. | 21.3k | Complete

Girls’ Night by Maybug: With Thor in Asgard and the other Avengers away on a mission, Darcy, Betty, Pepper and Jane decide to have a girls’ night. A certain supervillain has other plans, but it’s nothing they can’t handle. Rec: fosterson is background, but you all know I can’t resist a good Marvel ladies asskicking story. Story is mostly from Jane’s POV, so good insights on fosterson. | 11.2k | In progress

Thor 2 Rewritten: The Shaded Tree by kes: Rec: A series of oneshots and short multichapters that rewrite the second Thor movie. Not everything is over fosterson, but it’s always an undercurrent. Worth the read. Such a great alternative to canon. | 44k | Incomplete, abandoned

don’t need no ammunition (ain’t the bridge that’s falling down) by anthropologicalhands: Thor (2011) AU. After the battle at Jotunheim, something goes wrong and Sif finds herself stranded on Midgard. Jane is still chasing bridges and wants to know how this strange woman got in her atmospheric disturbance. Darcy’s psyched…and a little freaked out. Meanwhile, Thor and Loki embark on an quest (actually: intergalactic road trip) to rescue Sif. Thor has to prove himself. Loki is having an identity crisis. Do the math. Rec: Great interactions with everyone. Jane and Thor are still absolutely smitten despite the different circumstances. Loki/Sif is also a main pairing. | 39k | Complete

Fate Has Brought Us Together by asoulofstars: A series of one-shots detailing the lives of Thor Odinson and Jane Foster. Set after the events of Thor: The Dark World. Rec: We all know I’m a sucker for fosterson fluffies. The chapters are generally short and sweet. Read for smiles and butterflies and rainbow puking. | 9.9k | In progress

We Have Joyed To Be Forlorn by Niobium: Jane Foster’s life carries on in the wake of the Convergence, complete with exciting new research prospects, a displaced and grieving alien, considerations on the functionality of magic, and massive shakeups in world espionage. Or, The continuing adventures of Jane Foster, from the end of Thor: The Dark World to just after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Rec: What it says on the tin. I highly recommend reading anything by this author. Both Jane and Thor are done justice to, beautifully. Lots of cutesy Fosterson that feels very real and not just like a fangirl threw up on a page. Really a gorgeous story. | 13.8k | Complete

Rowing in Eden by ancarett: The Bifrost is no longer broken but is becoming unpredictable: delivering its travellers far afield. With Midgard’s link to Asgard at risk, Jane and Thor have to restore stability to the wormhole or risk being separated forever. Rec: Jane and Thor doing science together and being cute together. Features all the Avengers. | 34.5k | Complete

Fundamental Forces by nayanroo: In an attempt to rein in the son that remains to her after Thor’s banishment, Frigga arranges a marriage between two old friends in the hopes that they can work together to heal an eroded realm. On Earth, a prince searches for identity after his world is turned upside-down. And in the darkness, something stirs. Rec: mostly a Loki/Sif pairing story, but there is enough fosterson to give a rec. Even if it wasn’t, I’d still rec it somewhere else. One of the most well-thought out stories I’ve read (part of an amazing series, which contains gratuitous fosterson) with incredible characterizations. Great plot, monstrous word counts in chapters. | 181k | Complete | Part of in progress series, The Kingsverse

When the Stars Fall Up by Nyxelestia: Loki is not so foolish as to let his pride get in the way of his plans. And Thor learns there is a lot more to being a king than being brave. Rec: Despite a Loki-heavy intro, we get some good Jane/Thor in the second chapter. It’s incomplete, and hasn’t been update in a long time, but I feel like it is going somewhere good if it is continued. | 7.3k | In progress, possibly abandoned

Watchtower by me: When research on the Tesseract begins, SHIELD recruits Jane Foster instead of Eric Selvig to harness the other-worldly artifact. When Loki raids the facility, he takes over the mind of the mortal woman his brother loves. The Avengers with Jane Foster in Eric Selvig’s place. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. (although tbh I’m tempted to take this off the rec list because I hate the way I wrote it so much XD) | 56k | Complete

Let Me Follow You Down by me: Jane is sick of her family always pushing her towards a relationship. She thinks she’s figured out the perfect solution. Fake Dating AU. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 24k | Complete

Rebuild All Your Ruins by me: Ragnarok AU. Despite his hunt for the Infinity Stones taking him far beyond Jane’s galaxy, Thor had always managed to get word to her that he was safe. When months pass without any word from him, Lady Sif arrives with a dire message: Thor has gone missing, Heimdall has been removed from his post as Gatekeeper, and the Warriors Three wonder if their king is truly Odin. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 11.2k | In progress, slow updates because it’s me and I’m garbage

Rated M (these won’t contain the smuts unless otherwise noted)

**Stalemate by igi_pigi: "It appears we're at a stalemate, Miss Foster." He meets her eyes at last with his bloodshot ones. "My association with you will continue to doom you with mortal dangers at every turn. And you will continue to inexplicably not hold me blameworthy for it." (Alternatively, how it should have been instead of how it was in Thor3.) [Well after Thor2.] Rec: PAIN. LOTS OF IT. Contains some smut | 8.7k | Complete

Symbiosis: Part I by SteeleHoltingOn: Jane and Thor have to decide if they can make their relationship work. She’s a scientist. He’s a prince. It’s the ultimate of long-distance relationships. It seems that Odin isn’t (wasn’t?) the only Asgardian who is unhappy with Thor’s fascination with Jane. Rec: An amazing look at Thor and Jane post-Dark World building their relationship, as well as all the pitfalls and heartache that comes with that. This author really plunges their hands into the nitty gritty problems with Jane and Thor, their cultural differences, their age/lifespan difference, and so on, yet it is still clear how much they love each other and their determination to make it work. | Contains some smut, but nothing very explicit | 92.5k | Complete

Symbiosis: Part II by SteeleHoltingOn: Loki ascends the throne of Jotunheim. He might have been lonely, but for the little hitchhiker in his head. Thor and Jane have their hands full with their daughter, Val, and the demands of Asgard and the Nine Realms. Rec: A lot of Loki, but also copious amounts of married Fosterson. As someone who isn’t always Loki’s biggest fan, especially when it comes to fan portrayals, I can say that this one is very true to canon and is an incredibly interesting read, and is balanced well with Jane and Thor-ness. The political drama is done very well. The plot planning seems meticulous and is absolutely admirable. I still have the same praise for it as its predecessor. | Contains some smut | 41.4k | Complete

Terrestrial Constellations by NightOwl360: For Jane and Darcy bringing Thor back to Earth is only the beginning of the adventure. Relationships are never easy, the past is always just a step behind, and sometimes the people we know best have the biggest secrets. Rec: Great characterization of Jane and Thor, and fabulous buildup until they meet again. Packed with not just fluff, some inevitable angst, as well as an intriguing storyline. Only downside: I’m pretty sure it’s been abandoned, and on a hell of a cliff hanger. | 78k | In progress, possibly abandoned

The Poetic Edda (was almost entirely wrong) by PhoenixVictoria: In Which: Thor is from a warrior culture (and Jane Foster understands); Loki is badass (but also kind of a puppy); Thor grows a pair and fixes his mistakes (and is a good brother); Loki is a slut (and is a good brother when he has no knives); Darcy Lewis is The Geek Whisperer (which really turns Loki on); And the Odinsons have no idea how to act in front of the media (and wouldn’t care if they did.) Rec: Almost entirely for Thor. He is so well-written in this. Loki and Thor fixing the damage they’ve done, and Jane being a great person. I love this so far (it is a WIP). Later chapters make Tasertricks a thing, so a heads up if you’re not into that ship. | Contains some smut, graphic imagery of torturing/punishment | 81k | In progress, possibly abandoned

One and the Same Thing by MissChrisDaae: Jane Foster is born to the bloodline of the Alchemysts, and the first woman to be inducted into the order. After the murder of her mentor, Jane becomes the first Alchemyst to mix the study of alchemy with that of magic, trying to enhance the art and find a way to avenge him. This is seen as bastardizing the craft, and she is cast out of the order, still working her craft as she wanders the realm. Forbidden from using the title of Alchemyst, Jane instead calls herself Ástkona Óþekktur, a Mistress of the Unknown. On her travels, she picks up an apprentice in Darcy Lewis and the two women meet another very unusual pair: the crown prince, Thor, and his foster brother, Loki, on the run from Amora, the sorceress who murdered Thor’s father and usurped the throne, the same woman who killed Jane’s teacher. Finding common ground, the four agree to join forces in taking down the Enchantress. Even if Jane won’t admit it, she finds herself drawn to the older prince, and Thor seems to be returning her affections, much to the annoyance of Loki, who sees the Ástkona Óþekktur as an unneeded distraction from what matters. If they win the war, there may still be something left to lose. Rec: You can see by the description that this is way AU. Incredibly imaginative, with a good characterization of Jane. | 33k | Complete

The Salt Skin by hariboo: One day Sif walks to the edge of the Bifrost to see compelled to see where Loki had fallen. At the same time Jane is testing a way to open the Bifrost. By accident Sif falls to Earth, what happens after she never would have expected, and then she finds Loki. Post-film. Rec: I can’t believe I haven’t recced this yet. A long, Sif-centric fic that is respectful to fosterson is hard to find, but this one hits all my must haves. Jane and Thor are beautiful idiots, and the outside view of their relationship is great. Very well-written. Loki/Sif is also very prominently featured. | 44.4k | Complete

Off The Grid by Shawn30: As stated by Phil Coulson in 'Agents of Shield’ episode 1-15, "Thor is currently off the grid.” So the question is, where are Thor, Jane, Darcy, and Eric post 'The Dark World’? Rec: This person was one of my FAVORITE fic authors of all time because of their Star Wars fics, and then THEY WRITE A FOSTERSON STORY. I was over the damn moon. There’s a unique take of all the characters, and there’s promise of really great things coming from this story. This fic would be a wise investment. Only problem is that sometimes their fics have very slow updates. Contains some smut | 15k | In progress, possibly abandoned

Lost in a World Full of Terrors by psychollama: Inspired by typhoidcandy - “After Darcy attempts to perform one of Loki’s spells, things go awry and she’s sent to another universe. In this medieval-like universe, Loki is King, Thor is banished and living in the forests, and Jane is an arrow wielding rebel. Can Darcy make it home before the real Loki finds out what she did? Or before medieval Loki captures her and either kills her or makes her his slave?” Rec: A different take on a medieval AU. The first and only chapter is very fosterson-centric, and sets up the action nicely. Jane and Thor are handled very well in the different context. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2013, so I fear it has been abandoned. |4.4k | In progress, possibly abandoned

Stop All The Clocks series by Della19: Rec: NOT fosterson centric. This series is, I think, the first thing I read on AO3, and I was blown away. This person has constructed a great world around Supersoldier!Peggy Carter, and I rec the whole series, as the world and the characters are all vibrant and well-rounded. The stories, while connected, can easily be read as standalones. The fosterson, when it’s a larger focus, is absolutely lovely. | 49k | In progress

Rain Upon the Ashes by me: Medieval Fantasy AU. An ancient evil threatens Yggdrasil. An illegitimate heir sits upon the throne of Asgard, and an unknown menace seeks to destroy the Royal Family. Thor Odinson, true heir to the throne and banished years before, emerges as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, further endangering his family. Known publicly only as the Raven, Jane Foster, once a high-born Lady of Midgard, finds herself fighting a war when she once only desired to see the stars. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 33k | In progress, slow updates because it’s me and I’m garbage

Rated E (these will contain the smuts unless otherwise noted)

The Secret of Mind and Memory by capitainpistol: Jane and Thor wake up to an empty Asgard and zero memory of their pasts or each other. PWP. Rec: The Amesiacs Who Are Instinctually Drawn to Each Other AU that I never knew I needed in my life. I can’t wait to see how it ends. | 2k | In progress

Love in a Time of Tentacles (or How We Hired Out Our Sex Parts To Tentacle Monsters in Exchange for Remaining in Space) by Rozilla: Jane and Thor’s ship is left drifting in space and the only option is to take up the offer of a Bio-Engineering corporation to submit their bodies to science. Science in this case being mostly tentacles. It’s a good thing Jane’s into this sort of thing. Rec: I hope you’re into wild space porn because that is exactly what this is. Woop woop. Mind the warnings. | 13.2k | Complete

Edging Towards the Light by Shawn30: Thor and Jane navigate the treacherous relationship waters of ambition, duty, passion, and love. Rec: SMUT WITH PLOT YUM. A unique but plausible take on Fosterson. | 30k | In progress

Play Along Prisoner by Rozilla: You’re so used to being not listened to, put down, doubted and generally made to feel worthless when you work twice as hard as everyone else, sometimes you need a hobby like this one. Especially when you have such a willing participant. Rec: AU, Domme!Jane and Sub!Thor. Mmmmyes. Mind the warnings. | 15.3k | In progress

For The Days Inbetween by Simple.White.Lie: Heroes are seldom allowed happiness, and far too often Duty comes before Love. That only means he must fight even harder for that which he desires. Rec: While it isn’t always the prime example of great writing, this fic is still very good. It is a long multichapter which features gratuitous smut (hurrah!) while still maintaining good plot. Jane and Thor’s ups and downs as a couple are well written, and if you’re a sucker for married Fosterson, check this one out. | 79k | Complete

On the Outside by Simple.White.Lie: The King and Queen of Asgard are not prepared for the dish Fate has served for them. To be tossed out like a ship in the wind is more than their hearts can take. Their love is something to fight for.. Isn’t it? Rec: Sequel to For The Days Inbetween (recced above). Both stories feature a very strong Jane, which is a big plus. Again, while the writing isn’t always stellar, it is a worthwhile read. | 33k | Complete

Thor Pwns Walmart by charis2770: Jane and Thor have found a way to be together at last. It’s all she could have wished for, and then some. But it’s playing heck on her worldly possessions! Jane takes Thor shopping at Wal Mart so she can replace all the things which have been torn or broken during their reunion. And buy more pop tarts. This turns out to be an adventure. And hotter than you might think. Rec: Okay, holy high heavens this story is well done. The author does BDSM amazingly, and I recommend their other stories, too. Mind the warnings. Also, if BDSM isn’t your thing, I still recommend the bits in between the smut because it is hilarious and perfect. | 35k | Complete

Stealing Away by charis2770: This is what happens when the Black Widow puts herself in charge of planning a weekend getaway for four friends, three of whom happen to be Super Heroes, and one of whom has an unfortunate tendency to be a little hard on Midgardian buildings. Rec: a continuation of Thor Pwns Walmart, and also features a good deal of BDSM Clint/Natasha. This author remains a good example of how to properly write good BDSM. Mind the warnings. Also, if BDSM isn’t your thing, I still recommend the bits in between the smut because it is hilarious and perfect. | 30.4k | Complete

#fosterson #jane foster #thor #jane x thor #thor x jane #fic recs #fosterson fic rec masterlist

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ittybittytatertot · 5 years

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I think a good emotional arc for Halo in S3 would’ve been:

-Gabrielle and Motherbox were murdered at the same time but they were merged a la Firestorm. Like Firestorm, like Cyborg, Gabrielle isn’t completely dead though her memories are temporarily messed up and she’s having an identity crisis as opposed to needing to learn how to talk or whether or not she likes gifts again.

-Also, though she regains her memories of English gradually, she is fluent in Arabic from the get go. Still creating a language barrier, but not making Halo completely passive in the first few moments we meet her.

-Gabrielle had a meta ability which was triggered by the traumatic incident. The healing factor, the force fields, etc are all Gabrielle. The ability to open Boomtubes and to counter Fatherboxes are the only powers the Motherbox contributed. (I would also make clear that Halo never dies, even if her heart stops or whatever. Her healing factor is too powerful and her brain function never stops)

-Though she’s lost many of her memories, Halo remembers wearing the hijab, she remembers praying, she remembers to eat halal. She becomes more serious about practicing her religion in order to regain her memories.

-When those memories turn out to be painful and tragic, she copes by deciding to invent a new persona completely new from Gabrielle, Violet.

-She would gain those memories back before Oracle finds her name, so she’ll have already created this other persona and decided to reject her past.

-This will be a major point of growth for her as she comes to terms with her trauma and learns to heal mentally just as she already can physically.

-Her still being the same person before merging with the Motherbox (which we, the audience, would know about either through seeing it happen or through Halo getting flashes of memory) would be partially shown through her continuing to act as a Muslim even though she insists to those around her that she is not Gabrielle.

-Having (assumedly) lost her family, Violet puts all her heart into creating a new family among Forager, Brion, and the other Outsiders. Much would stay the same there except with way less flirting.

-Or possibly (and more angstily) she flirts with Brion as another way to distance herself from her traumas only to eventually admit that she’s a lesbian, just as she would eventually admit she isn’t a separate person from Gabrielle.

-When the stuff with Victor happens, it marks the half-way point in Halo’s arc of self discovery and acceptance. She is the one to explain she was merged with a Motherbox (because she’s since recovered those memories, and the Motherbox database in her brain has helped her piece together what happened), this gives her more agency in her own story.

-But when the Outsiders ask if that means she really is Gabrielle, she rejects the idea and makes up a lie that she’s just the Motherbox now, but we the audience can tell it’s not the truth.

-Down the road, whether it’s getting a crush on a girl or the team asking her to do something a Motherbox could but she can’t because she isn’t Actually a Motherbox or Tara’s betrayal or something else, Halo admits the truth. That she’s been Gabrielle all along. She finds power and strength in coming to terms with her past and helps defeat whatever problem is happening, be it the final battle or a fight building towards that.

-Then she bonds with Jaime and Victor over all of them having alien technology fused with them in some way.

This isn’t a theory about what will happen, just what I’d have liked to see. If you are Muslim and have feedback on this I would love to hear it since I am not!

#yj halo #violet harper #gabrielle daou #young justice #yjo

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years

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ADVENTURES OF THE OUTSIDERS #33-36 MAY - AUGUST 1986 BY MIKE W. BARR, ALAN DAVIS, PAUL NEARY AND ADRIENNE ROY

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

The Outsiders come to the aid of Markovia, but are captured by the Masters of Disaster.

Looker must battle the Masters of Disaster alone while Baron Bedlam reveals the identity of his newest ally--a clone of Adolf Hitler.

The Outsiders must face the Masters of Disaster, Baron Bedlam, and a secret Nazi super-weapon, as Madame Ovary attempts to restore the memories of the Adolf Hitler clone.

The Outsiders, on a stipend from the Markovian government, leave Gotham to set up shop in Los Angeles, and Looker joins them after realizing she must separate from her husband.

REVIEW

The Looker situation is quite complicated. In truth, neither of the two can be blamed for what’s happening.

I wasn’t expecting the Masters of Disaster so soon. But I really wish this was their last confrontation with the Outsiders. And are they involved with anyone in the world?

Cloning Hitler. This plot has nothing to add to the story. If you take this one out, there are no consequences. The one thing he helped do, was opening that secret passage in the castle... but... come on, it’s not like it was a gate to another dimension. Bedlam already knew where it was. And in the end, that gun is destroyed in one panel.

This one is funny. I created a character named “Madame Ovary” more than ten years ago. I never imagined that someone would have used that name... in such a serious comic-book. And it doesn’t make that much sense in this situation.

Now, the moment that really ruined the whole story for me:

This is just poor taste. Let’s go panel by panel of this apparent black room (no backgrounds). Bedlam’s uniform has two swastikas, and the Nazi weapon also has two. Just in case you didn’t realize we are talking about Nazis.

Then, the idea that a young girl would bring Hitler back to life, and they will know he is completely back after he kills the poor Jewish girl... who are these characters? They are not anti-Semitic themselves... so why do they enjoy this senseless cruelty? And what is the point of bringing Hitler back anyway? It’s clearly not helping with the communists.

Now, this is the moment I was fearing. Hitler sees the videos of the Holocaust, realizes he was responsible and then kills himself. That’s improbable. And to be fair to this character, I don’t think Hitler would have killed the girl himself. It would have been nice to think that perhaps he wasn’t really Hitler, but just a fresh clone with a conscience. But as I said, this plot has nothing to do with this story. I mean... it’s nice to see Hitler kill himself again... but this is a story that would fit best in a horror anthology.

And now we are redeeming Hitler. Also, this is the second time Brion kills Bedlam (and I know he comes back after this, so there’s another chance to kill him again).

The different reactions from these characters are good. Looker in particular looks sad because her own marriage is in trouble. Halo is overreacting considering that she barely knows the happy couple, but hey, she is not even human.

Now, what does this mean? Everyone knows Clark Kent is Superman but Lois? This is still technically pre-crisis (it was published just before Man of Steel, but the timeline is all screwy, as the end of this volume leads to beginning of the next one, and that one happens a year before (1985). In any case, I understand this is a meta-joke, but it’s really not helping this story. There were many other attempts from Mike W. Barr to make fun of these characters in previous issues (Batman in particular). It’s strange because he is one of the many Batman writers. Then again, people do not remember his Batman fondly.

As I said before, no one is at fault. Gregg should accept his wife, after all, he married the person and not how she looks like (even if she looks beautiful). At the same time, it doesn’t seem like Emily is the same person inside. She admits that she has a problem that in real life would be similar to the people that go through plastic surgery over and over because they need to look perfect (to the point of disfigurement). I think this is an interesting topic that really fits a medium of oversexualized beautiful characters. And to be fair with Emily, even if she managed to go back as she was before, it would make her miserable again, always thinking she is not the ideal wife. But she really needs is therapy, but when you are remade beautiful and super powered... well... what can you do?

I am not entirely happy with Alan Davis art in these issues. Paul Neary is now inking, but the comic looks incomplete at times. It’s just not consistent enough.

I give the story a score of 4

#alan davis #adventures of the outsiders #the outsiders #dc comics #comics #review #1986 #modern age #looker #markovia #hitler #metamorpho #halo #katana #black lightning #geo-force #masters of disaster #baron bedlam

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just-breathe-fight-cf · 5 years

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FIVE FEET APART

Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis

Summary: Seventeen-year-olds Stella and Will, both suffering from cystic fibrosis, realize the only way to stay alive is to stay apart, but their love for each other is slowly pushing the boundaries of physical and emotional safety.

For Alyson

--R. L.

We dedicate this book, and the movie, to all the patients, families, medical staff, and loved ones who bravely fight the battle against cystic fibrosis every day. We hope the story of Stella and Will helps to bring awareness to this disease and, one day, a cure.

--M. D. and T. I.

________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 1 - STELLA

I trace the outline of my sister’s drawing, lungs molded from a sea of flowers. Petals burst out from every edge of the twin ovals in soft pinks, deep whites, even heather blues, but somehow each one has a uniqueness, a vibrancy that feels like it’ll bloom forever. Some of the flowers haven’t blossomed yet, and I can feel the promise of life just waiting to unfold from the tiny buds under the weight of my finger. Those are my favorites.

I wonder, all too often, what it would be like to have lungs this healthy. This alive. I take a deep breath, feeling the air fight its way in and out of my body.

Slipping off the last petal of the last flower, my hand sinks, fingers dragging through the background of stars, each pinpoint of light that Abby drew a separate attempt to capture infinity. I clear my throat, pulling my hand away, and lean over to grab a picture of us from off my bed. Identical smiles peek out from underneath thick wool scarves, the holiday lights at the park down the street twinkling above our heads just like the stars in her drawing.

There was something magical about it. The soft glow of the lampposts in the park, the white snow clinging to the branches of the trees, the quiet stillness of it all. We nearly froze our butts off for that picture last year, but it was our tradition. Me and Abby, braving the cold to go see the holiday lights together.

This photo always makes me remember that feeling. The feeling of going on an adventure with my sister, just the two of, us, the world expanding like an open book.

I take a thumbtack and hang the picture next to the drawing before sitting down on my bed and grabbing my pocket notebook and pencil off my bedside table. My eyes travel down the long to-do list I made for myself this morning, starting with “#1: Plan to-do list,” which I’ve already put a satisfying line through, and going all the way down to “#22: Contemplate the afterlife.”

Number 22 was probably just a little ambitious for a Friday afternoon, but at least for now I can cross off number 17, “Decorate walls.” I look around the formerly stark room I’ve spent the better part of the morning making my own, once again, the wall now filled with the artwork Abby’s given me through the years, bits of color and life jumping out from clinical white walls, each once a product of a different trip to the hospital.

Me with an IV drip in my arm, the bag bursting with butterflies of different shapes and colors and sizes. Me wearing a nose cannula, the cable twisting to form an infinity sign. Me with my nebulizer, the vapor pouring out of it forming a cloudy halo. Then there’s the most delicate one, a faded tornado of stars that she drew my very first time here.

It’s not as polished as her later stuff, but somehow that make me like it more.

And right underneath all that vibrancy is…my pile of medical equipment, sitting right next to a hideous green faux-leather hospital chair that comes standard for every room here at Saint Grace’s. I eye the empty IV pole warily, knowing my first of many rounds of antibiotics over the next month is exactly and hour and nine minutes away. Lucky me.

“Here it is!” a voice calls from just outside my room. I look up as the door slowly creaks open and two familiar faces appear in the small crack of the doorway. Camila and Mya have visited me here a million times in the past decade, and they still can’t get from the lobby to my room without asking every person in the building for directions.

“Wrong room,” I say, grinning as a look of pure relief washes over them.

Mya laughs, pushing the door open the rest of the way. “It honestly could’ve been. This place is still a freaking maze.”

“Are you guys excited?” I say, hopping up to give them both hugs.

Camila pulls away to look at me, pouting, her dark-brown hair practically drooping along with her. “Second trip in a row without you.”

It’s true. This isn’t the first time my cystic fibrosis has taken me out of the running for some class trip or sunny vacation or school event. About 70 percent of the time, things are pretty normal for me. I go to school, I hang out with Camila and Mya, I work on my app. I just do it all with low-functioning lungs. But for the remaining 30 percent of my time, CF controls my life. Meaning when I need to return to the hospital for a tune-up, I miss out on things like a class trip to the art museum or now our senior trip to Cabo.

This particular tune-up just happens to be centered around the fact that I need to be pumped with antibiotics to finally get rid of a sore throat and a fever that won’t go away.

That, and my lung function is tanking.

Mya plunks down on my bed, sighing dramatically as she lies back. “It’s only two weeks. Are you sure you can’t come? It’s our senior trip, Stella!”

“I’m sure,” I say firmly, and they know I mean it. We’ve been friends since middle school, and they know by now that when it comes to plans, my CF gets the final say.

It’s not like I don’t want to go. It’s just, quite literally, a matter of life or death. I can’t go off to Cabo, or anywhere for that matter, and risk not coming back. I can’t do that to my parents. Not now.

“You were the head of the planning committee this year, though! Can’t you get them to move your treatments? We don’t want you to be stuck here,” Camila says, gesturing to the hospital room I so carefully decorated.

I shake my head. “We still have spring break together! And I haven’t missed a spring break ‘Besties Weekend’ since eighth grade, when I got that cold!” I say, smiling hopefully and looking back and forth between Camila and Mya. Neither of them returns my smile, though, and both opt to continue looking like I killed their family pets.

I notice they’re both holding the bags of bathing suits I told them to bring, so I grab Camila’s out of her hand in a desperate attempt to change the subject. “Ooh, suit options! We have to pick out the best ones!” Since I’m not going to be basking in the warm Cabo sun in a bathing suit of my choice, I figure I can at least live a little vicariously through my friends by picking out theirs with them.

This perks them both up. We eagerly dump their bags out on my bed, creating a mishmash of florals and polka dots and fluorescents.

I scan Camila’s pile of bathing suits, grabbing a red one that falls somewhere between a bikini bottom and a single piece of thread, which I know without a doubt is a hand-me-down from her older sister, Megan.

I toss it to her. “This one. It’s very you.”

Her eyes widen, and she holds it up to her waist, fixing her wire-frame glasses in surprise. “I mean, the tan lines would be pretty great--“

“Camila,” I say, grabbing a white-and-blue-striped bikini that I can tell will fit her like a glove. “I’m kidding. This one’s perfect.”

She looks relieved, grabbing the bikini from me. I turn my attention to Mya’s pile, but she’s busy texting away from the green hospital chair in the corner, a big smile plastered on her face.

I dig out a one-piece that she’s had since swim class in sixth grade, holding it up to her with a smirk. “How’s this, Mya?”

“Love it! Looks great!” she says, typing furiously.

Camila snorts, putting her suits back in the bag and giving me a sly smile. “Mason and Brooke called it quits,” she says in explanation.

“Oh my god. They did not!” I say. This is news. Amazing news.

Well, not for Brooke. But Mya has been crushing on Mason since Mrs. Wilson’s English class sophomore year, so this trip is her chance to finally make a move.

It bums me out I won’t be there to help her make a killer ten-step “Whirlwind Cabo Romance with Mason” plan.

Mya puts her phone away and shrugs casually, standing and pretending to look at some of the artwork on the walls. “No big deal. We’re going to meet him and Taylor at the airport tomorrow morning.”

I give her a look and she breaks out into a huge smile. “Okay, it’s a little bit of a big deal!”

We all squeal with excitement, and I hold up an adorable polka-dot one-piece that is super vintage, and right up her alley. She nods, grabbing it and holding it up to her body. “I was totally hoping you’d pick this one.”

I look over to see Camila glancing at her watch nervously, which is no surprise. She’s a champion procrastinator and probably hasn’t packed a single thing for Cabo yet.

Besides the bikini, of course.

She sees me notice her checking her watch and grins sheepishly. “I still need to buy a beach towel for tomorrow.”

Classic Camila.

I stand up, my heart sinking in my chest at the thought of them leaving, but I don’t want to hold them up. “You guys have to get going, then! Your plane is at, like, the ass crack of dawn tomorrow.”

Mya looks around the room sadly while Camila twists her bag of suits dejectedly around her hand. The two of them are making this even harder that I thought it would be. I swallow the guilt and annoyance that come bubbling up. It’s not like they’re the ones missing their senior trip to Cabo. At least they’ll be together.

I give them both big smiles, practically pulling them to the door with me. My cheeks hurt from all this fake positivity, but I don’t want to ruin it for them.

“We’ll send you a bunch of pictures, okay?” Camila says, giving me a hug.

“You’d better! Photoshop me into a few,” I say to Mya, who is a wizard at Adobe. “You won’t even know I wasn’t there!”

They linger in the doorway, and I give them an exaggerated eye roll, playfully shoving them out into the hallway. “Get outta here. Go have a great trip.”

“Love you, Stella!” they call as they walk down the hallway. I watch them go, waving until Mya’s bouncing curls are completely out of sight, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be walking out with them, off to pack instead of unpack.

My smile fades as I close the door and see the old family pictures pinned carefully to the back of my door.

It was taken a few summers ago on the front porch of our house during a Fourth of July barbecue. Me, Abby, Mom, and Dad, goofy smiles on all our faces as the camera captures the moment. I feel a swell of homesickness as I hear the sound of the worn, rickety wood of that front step, creaking underneath us as we laugh and get close for the picture. I miss that feeling. All of us together, happy and healthy. For the most part.

This isn’t helping. Singing, I pull myself away, looking over at the medicine cart.

In all honesty, I like it here. It’s been my home away from home since I was six, so I usually don’t mind coming. I get my treatments, I take my medicine, I drink my body weight in milk shakes, I get to see Barb and Julie, I leave until my next flare-up. Simple as that. But this time I feel anxious, restless even. Because instead of just wanting to get healthy, I need to get healthy. For my parent’s sake.

Because they’ve gone and messed up everything by getting divorced. And after losing each other, they won’t be able to handle losing me, too. I know it.

If I can get better, maybe…

One step at a time. I head over to the wall oxygen, double-checking the flowmeter is set properly, and listen for the steady hiss of the oxygen coming out of it before I pull the tube around my ears and slide the prongs of the cannula into my nose. Sighing, I sink down onto the familiarly uncomfortable hospital mattress, and take a deep breath.

I reach for my pocket notebook to read the next thing on my to-do list and keep myself preoccupied-- “#18: Record a video.”

I grab my pencil and bite it thoughtfully as I stare at the words I wrote earlier. Oddly enough, contemplating the afterlife seems easier right now.

But the list is the list, so, exhaling, I reach over to my bedside table to get my laptop, sitting cross-legged on the new floral comforter I picked out yesterday at Target while Camila and Mya were buying clothes for Cabo. I didn’t even need the comforter, but they were so enthusiastic in helping my pick something out for my trip to the hospital, I felt bad not getting it. At least it sort of matches my walls now, bright and vibrant and colorful.

I drum my fingers anxiously on the keyboard, and squint at my reflection in the screen while my computer starts up. I frown at the mess of long brown hair and try to smooth it down, running my fingers through it over and over. Frustrated, I pull my hair tie off my wrist and resort to a messy bun in an attempt to look halfway decent for this video. I grab my copy of Java Coding for Android Phones off my bedside table and put my laptop on top of it, so I don’t show some serious under chin, and can have a shot that’s remotely flattering.

Logging on to my YouTube Live account, I adjust the webcam, making sure you can see Abby’s lung drawing directly behind me.

It’s the perfect backdrop.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, hearing the familiar wheeze of my lungs trying desperately to fill with air through the sea of mucus. Exhaling slowly, I slap a big Hallmark-greeting-card smile on my face before opening my eyes and pressing the enter key to go live.

“Hey guys. Is everyone having a good Black Friday? I waited for snow that never came!”

I glance into the corner of my screen as I turn the camera toward the hospital window, the sky a cloudy gray, the trees on the other side of the glass completely barren. I smile as my livestream count goes steadily past 1K, a fraction of the 23,940 YouTube subscribers who tune in to see how my battle with cystic fibrosis is going.

“So, I could be getting ready to go on a plane to Cabo for my school’s senior trip, but instead I’ll be spending this holiday at my home away from home, thanks to a mild sore throat.”

Plus, a raging fever. I think back to when I got my temperature taken on intake this morning, the flashing numbers on the thermometer blaring out a strong 102. I don’t want to mention it in the video, though, because my parents will definitely be watching this later.

As far as they know, I just have a nagging cold.

“Who needs two whole weeks of sunshine and blue skies and beaches when you can have a month of luxury right in your own backyard?”

I rattle off the amenities, counting them on my fingers. “Let’s see. I’ve got a full-time concierge, unlimited chocolate pudding, and laundry services. Oh, and Barb talked Dr. Hamid into letting me keep all my meds and treatments in my room this time! Check it out!”

I turn the webcam to the pile of medical equipment and then to the medicine cart next to me, which I’ve already perfectly organized into alphabetical and chronological order by the scheduled dosage time I plugged into the app I made. It’s finally ready for a test run!

That was number 14 on today’s to-do list, and I’m pretty proud of how it turned out.

My computer dings as comments begin rolling in. I see one mentioning Barb’s name with some heart emoji’s. She’s a crowd favorite just as much as she’s my favorite. Ever since I first came to the hospital more than ten years ago, she’s been the respiratory therapist here, slipping candy to me and the other CFers, like my partner in crime Poe. She holds our hand through even the most bone-crushing grips of pain like it’s nothing.

I’ve been making YouTube videos for about half that time to raise awareness about cystic fibrosis. Through the years more people that I could have ever imagined began following my surgeries and my treatments and my visits to Saint Grace’s, sticking with me through my awkward braces phase and everything.

“My lung function is down to thirty-five percent,” I say as I turn the camera back to me. “Dr. Hamid says I’m steadily climbing to the top of the transplant list now, so I’ll be here for a month, taking antibiotics, sticking to my regimen…” My eyes travel to the drawing behind me, the healthy lungs looming over my head, just out of reach.

I shake my head and smile, leaning over to grab a bottle from the medicine cart. “That means taking my medications on time, wearing my AffloVest to break up that mucus, and” -- I hold up the bottle -- “a whole lot of this liquid nutrition through my G-tube every night. If any ladies out there are wishing they could eat five thousand calories a day and still have a Cabo-ready beach body, I’m up for a trade.”

My computer dings away, messages pouring in one after another. Reading a few, I let the positivity push away all the negativity I felt going into this.

Hang in there, Stella! We love you.

Marry me!

“New lungs can come in at any moment, so I’ve got to be ready!” I say the words like I believe them wholeheartedly. Though after all these years I’ve learned to not get my hopes up too much.

DING! Another message.

I’ve got CF and you remind me to always stay positive. XOXO.

My heart warms, and I have a final big smile for the camera, for that person fighting the same fight that I am. This time it’s genuine. “All right, guys, thanks for watching! Gotta double-check my afternoon and evening meds now. You know how anal I am. I hope everyone has a great week. Bye!”

I end the live video and exhale slowly, closing the browser to see the smiling, winter-formal-ready faces on my desktop background. Me, Camila, and Mya, arm in arm, all in the same deep-red lipstick we’d picked out together at Sephora. Camila had wanted a bright pink, but Mya had convinced us that red was the color we NEEDED in our life. I’m still not convinced that was true.

Lying back, I pick up the worn panda resting on my pillows and wrap my arms tightly around him. Patches, my sister, Abby, named him. And what a fitting name that became. The years of coming in and out of the hospital with me have certainly taken their toll on him. Multicolored patches are sewn over spots where he ripped open, his stuffing pouring out when I squeezed too hard during the most painful of my treatments.

There’s a knock on my door, and it flies open not even a second later as Barb busts in holding an armful of pudding cups for me to make my medication with. “I’m back! Delivery!”

When it comes to Barb, not much has changed in the past six months, or the past ten years for that matter; she’s still the best. The same short, curly hair. The same colorful scrubs. The same smile that lights up the entire room.

But then an extremely pregnant Julie trails behind her, carrying an IV drip.

Now that’s a big change from six months ago.

I swallow my surprise and grin at Barb as she places the pudding at the edge of my bed for me to sort onto my medicine cart, then pulls out a list to double-check that the cart has everything I need on it.

“What would I do without you?” I ask.

She winks. “You’d die.”

Julie hangs the IV bag of antibiotics next to me, her belly brushing up against my arm. Why didn’t she tell me she’s pregnant? I go rigid, smiling thinly, as I eye her baby bump and try to subtly move away from it. “A lot’s changed in the past six months!”

She rubs her belly, blue eyes shining brightly as she gives me a big smile. “You want to feel her kick?”

“No,” I say, a little too quickly. I feel bad when she looks slightly taken aback at my bluntness, her blonde eyebrows arching up in surprise. But I don’t want any of my bad juju near that perfect, healthy baby.

Luckily, her eyes travel to my desktop background. “Are those your winter formal pics? I saw a bunch on Insta!” she says, excited. “How was it?”

“Super fun!” I say with a ton of enthusiasm as the awkwardness melts away. I open a folder on my desktop filled with pictures. “Crushed it on the dance floor for a solid three songs. Got to ride in a limo. The food didn’t suck. Plus, I made it to ten thirty before I got tired, which was way better than expected! Who needs a curfew when your body does it for you, right?”

I show her and Barb some pictures we all took at Mya’s house before the dance while she hooks me up to the IV drip and tests my blood pressure and O2 reading. I remember I used to be afraid of needles, but with every blood draw and IV drip, that fear slowly drifted away. Now I don’t even flinch. It makes me feel strong every time I get poked or prodded. Like I can overcome anything.

“All righty,” Barb says when they get all my vitals and finish oohing and aahing over my sparkly, silver A-line gown and my white rose corsage. Camila, Mya, and I decided to swap corsages when we went stag to the formal. I didn’t want to take a date, not that anybody asked me anyway. It was super possible that I would need to bail the day of, or wouldn’t feel well halfway through the dance, which wouldn’t have been fair to whomever I could’ve gone with. The two of them didn’t want me to feel left out, so instead of getting dates of their own, they decided we’d all go together. Because of the Mason developments, though, that doesn’t seem super likely for prom.

Barb nods to the filled medicine cart, resting a hand on her hip. “I’ll still monitor you, but you’re pretty much good to go.” She holds up a pill bottle. “Remember, you have to take this one with food,” she says, putting it carefully back and holding up another one. “And make sure you don’t--“

“I got it Barb,” I say. She’s just being her usual motherly self, but she holds up her hands in surrender. Deep down she knows that I’ll be absolutely fine.

I wave good-bye as they both head towards the door, using the remote next to my bed to sit it up a little more.

“By the way,” Barb says slowly as Julie ducks out of the room. Her eyes narrow at me and she gives me a gentle warning look. “I want you to finish your IV drip first, but Poe’s just checking in to room 310.”

“What? Really?” I say, my eyes widening as I move to launch myself out of bed to find him. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me he’d be here!

Barb steps forward, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me gently back down onto the bed before I can fully stand. “What part of ‘I want you to finish your IV drip first’ did you not get?”

I smile sheepishly at her, but how could she blame me? Poe was the first friend I made when I came to the hospital. He’s the only one who really gets it. We’ve fought CF together for a freaking decade. We’ll, together from a safe distance, anyway.

We can’t get too close to each other. For cystic fibrosis patients, cross-infection from certain bacteria strains is a huge risk. One touch between two CFers can literally kill both of them.

Her serious frown gives way to a gentle smile. “Settle in. Relax. Take a chill pill.” She eyes the medicine cart, jokingly. “Not literally.”

I nod, a real laugh spilling out, as a fresh wave of relief fills me at the news of Poe being here too.

“I’ll stop by later to help you with your AffloVest,” Barb says over her shoulder as she leaves. Grabbing my phone, I settle for a quick text message instead of a mad dash down the hall to room 310.

You’re here? Me too. Tune-up.

Not even a second goes by and my screen lights up with his replay: Bronchitis. Just happened. I’ll live. Come by and wave at me later. Gonna crash now.

I lean back on the bed, exhaling long and slow.

Truth is, I’m nervous about this visit.

My lung function fell to 35 percent so quickly: And now, even more than the fever and the sore throat, being here in the hospital for the next month doing treatment after treatment to stem the tide while my friends are far away is freaking me out. A lot. Thirty-five percent is a number that keeps my mom up at night. She doesn’t say it, but her computer does. Search after search about lung transplants and lung-function percentages, new combinations and phrasing but always the same idea. How to get more time. It makes me more afraid than I’ve even been before. But not for me. When you have CF, you sort of get used to the idea of dying young. No, I’m terrified for my parents. And what will become of them if the worst does happen, now that they don’t have each other.

But with Poe here, someone who understands, I can get through it. Once I’m actually allowed to see him.

The rest of the afternoon goes by slowly.

I work on my app, double-checking that I worked out the programming error that kept coming up when I tried to run it on my phone. I put some Fucidin on the sore skin around my G-tube in an attempt to make it less fire-engine red and more of a summer-sunset pink. I check and double-check my “At Bedtime” pile of bottles and pills. I reply to my parents’ every-hour-on-the-hour texts. I gaze out the window as the afternoon fades and see a couple about my age, laughing and kissing as they walk into the hospital. It’s not every day you see a happy couple coming into a hospital. Watching them holding hands and exchanging longing glances, I wonder what it would be like to have somebody look at me like that. People are always looking at my cannula, my scars, my G-tube, not at me.

It doesn’t make guys want to line up by my locker.

I “dated” Tyler Paul my freshman year of high school, but that lasted all of a month, until I came down with an infection and needed to go to the hospital for a few weeks. Even just a few days in, his texts started to get further and further apart, and I decided to break up with him. Besides, it was nothing like that couple out in the courtyard. Tyler’s palms were sweaty when we held hands, and he wore so much Axe body spray, I would go into coughing fits every time we hugged.

This thought process is not exactly a helpful distraction, so I even give number 22, “Contemplate the afterlife,” on my to-do list a try, and read some of Life, Death, and Immortality: The Journey of the Soul.

But pretty soon, I opt to just lie on my bed, looking up at the ceiling and listening to the wheezing sound of my breathing. I can hear the air struggling to get past the mucus that takes up space in my lungs. Rolling over, I crack open a vial of Flovent to give my lungs a helping hand. I pour the liquid into a nebulizer by my bed, the small machine humming to life as vapors pour from the mouthpiece.

I sit, staring at the drawing of the lungs while I breathe in and out.

And in and out.

And in and…out.

I hope when my parents come to visit over the next few days, my breathing is a little less labored. I told them both that the other one was taking me to the hospital this morning, but I actually just took an Uber here from the corner a street over from my mom’s new place. I don’t want either of them to have to face seeing me here again, at least until I’m looking better.

My mom was already giving me troubled looks when I needed to put my portable oxygen on just to pack.

There’s a knock on my door, and I look over from the wall I’m staring at, hoping it’s Poe stopping by to wave at me. I pull the mouthpiece off as Barb pops her head in. She drops a surgical face mask and latex gloves onto a table next to my door.

“New one upstairs. Meet me in fifteen?”

My heart leaps.

I nod, and she gives me a big smile before ducking out of the room. I grab the mouthpiece and take one more quick hit of the Flovent, letting the vapor fill my lungs the best I can before I’m up and moving. Shutting the nebulizer off, I pick up my portable oxygen concentrator from where it’s been charging next to my bed, press the circular button in the center to turn it on, and pull the strap over my shoulder. After I put the cannula in, I head over to the door, pulling on the blue latex gloves and wrapping the strings of the face mask around my ears.

Sliding into my Converse, I push my door open then squeeze out into the whitewashed corridor, deciding to go the long way so I can walk past Poe’s room.

I pass the nurses’ station in the center of the floor, waving hello to a young nurse’s assistance named Sarah, who is smiling over the top of the new, sleek metal cubicle.

They replaced that before my last visit six months ago. It’s the same height, but it used to be made of this worn wood that had probably been around since the hospital was founded sixty-some years ago. I remember when I was small enough to sneak past to whatever room Poe was in, my head still a good few inches from clearing the desk.

Now it comes up to my elbow.

Heading down the hallway, I grin as I see a small Colombian flag taped on the outside of a half-open door, an overturned skateboard keeping it propped slightly open.

I peer inside to see Poe fast asleep on his bed, curled into a surprisingly tiny ball underneath his plaid comforter, a suave Gordon Ramsay poster, positioned directly over his bed, keeping watch over him.

I draw a heart on the dry-erase board he’s stuck to the outside of his door to let him know I’ve been there, before moving off down the hallway toward the wooden double doors that will take me to the main part of the hospital, up and elevator, down C Wing, across the bridge into Building 2, and straight to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

One of the perks of coming here or more than a decade is that I know the hospital just as well as I knew the house I grew up in. every winding corridor, or hidden staircase, or secret shortcut, exploring over and over again.

But before I can open the double doors, a room door swings open next to me, and I turn my head in surprise to see the profile of a tall, thin boy I’ve never seen before. He’s standing in the doorway of room 315, holding a sketchbook in one hand and a charcoal pencil in the other, a white hospital bracelet like mine wrapped around his wrist.

I stop dead.

His tousled, dark-chocolate-brown hair is perfectly unruly, like he just popped out of a Teen Vogue and landed smack in the middle of Saint Grace’s Hospital. His eyes are a deep blue, the corners crinkling as he talks.

But it’s his smile that catches my eye more than anything else. It’s lopsided, and charming, and it has a magnetic warmth to it.

He’s so cute, my lung function feels like it dropped another 10 percent.

It’s a good thing this mask is covering half my face, because I did not plan for cute guys on my floor this hospital stay.

“I’ve clocked their schedules,” he says as he puts the pencil casually behind his ear. I shift slightly to the left and see that he’s grinning at the couple I saw coming into the hospital earlier. “So, unless you plant your ass on the call button, no one’s going to bother you for at least an hour. And don’t forget. I gotta sleep in that bed, dude.”

“Way ahead of you.” I watch as the girl unzips the duffel bag she’s holding to show him blankets.

Wait. What?

Cute guy whistles. “Look at that. A regular Girl Scout.”

“We’re no animals, man,” her boyfriend say to him, giving him a big, dude-to-dude smile.

Oh my god. Gross. He’s letting his friends do it in his room, like it’s a motel.

I grimace and resume walking down the hallway to the exit doors, putting as much space as possible between me and whatever scheme is going on in there.

So much for cute.

#cysticfibrosis #Cystic Fibrosis Awareness #cystic fibrosis #advocacy #Cystic #Fibrosis #book #five feet apart #five #feet #apart #Rachael

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anneapocalypse · 6 years

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On Carolina, Epsilon, and Mutual Isolation

@blaze-edge asked:

Okay, Anne, question abt your 'AIs always isolate their hosts' post. I've kind of been thinking abt it on and off since I read it, but was it Epsilon that really isolated Carolina from the Reds and Blues? I could totally be missing smth here bc my memory is bad but wasn't she the one that convinced him to go out and find the missing Freelancer tech? I know you said that Carolina didn't stop to get to know everybody until after Epsilon was gone but that was also after everything on Chorus was all wrapped up. No more mercs with Freelancer gear they shouldn’t have, no more Hargrove, no more civil war. Say, if after s10 they’d all actually gone back to Blood Gulch, do you think Carolina would’ve stayed isolated? Genuinely curious abt your thoughts here.

This is a good question and it’s going to be a complex answer, and a long one.

First, I feel like I can’t really answer this without addressing that elephant in the room, the authorial decision to leave Carolina out of the first half of the trilogy. I mean, I could but I’m not going to. Carolina’s isolation from the Reds and Blues during the first half of the Chorus trilogy can be discussed without addressing the decision to keep her offscreen almost entirely during that time, and I realize that they are two separate discussions; I just want to address both of them.

So, let’s get the Doylist side of things out of the way first. If you’re not here for that please feel free to just skip ahead to the Watsonian section, which will be loudly delineated for your convenience below!

Authorial Decisions and the Problem of the Epilogue

It’s entirely possible we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all if not for the season 10 epilogue. Watched in isolation, it’s incredibly obvious that the epilogue was written with no idea what season 11 would be about. The dialogue that leads into the epilogue suggests not that the Reds and Blues are stranded on a strange planet, but that they have gone home to Blood Gulch.

Carolina: What about your teams? What will happen to them?

Church: Well there’s still one place we haven’t visited. Somewhere we can make a home.

Carolina: Show me.

And when next we cut back Epsilon and Carolina, it’s the epilogue, now shot in Halo 4, in which Carolina and Epsilon are overlooking a vaguely Blood Gulchy looking canyon as the Reds and Blues run around below.

Carolina: Seems like they’re getting settled.

Church: Yup.

Carolina: So I guess everything is finally getting back to normal.

Church: What passes for normal around here, sure. What can I tell ya? We’re home. I mean, they’re home.

So anyway, this didn’t happen.

There’s no plausible continuity in which this conversation actually takes place on Chorus after a devastating ship crash in which the Reds and Blues are the only survivors out of thousands, on a planet they know nothing about. The above dialogue has been retconned to the point that there is no way to reconcile it with the canon that followed. This scene was clearly supposed to indicate that the Reds and Blues had returned to Blood Gulch, and Carolina and Epsilon were about to leave on a new mission of their own, knowing that the Reds and Blues were home and safe.

It’s not a question of “Is this action in-character,” it’s a matter of “Outside of its intended context, a context that no longer exists, this dialogue straight up does not make any sense.” I am that obnoxious person who will go to just about any lengths to reconcile continuity for the purposes of my own writing, and I am saying here and now: as of season 12 canon, the above conversation did not happen. Like we’re past Recovery One and into season 9 trailer levels of did not happen.

So to answer one of your questions from an out-of-universe perspective: Yes, if the Reds and Blues had actually returned to Blood Gulch, Carolina and Epsilon would still have left--because that was the original intent. The Reds and Blues were going to be back in Blood Gulch, and Carolina and Epsilon were going to leave.

In spite of retconning all the content of that conversation that established the obviously-intended setting, tone, and context of that epilogue, the decision was made to keep the point of Epsilon and Carolina taking off and leaving the Reds and Blues without saying goodbye. (Without saying a word, and yet somehow Wash and everyone else seem to be aware they just ran off on their own, instead of being worried they might be, you know, in trouble, or dead.)

And thus we have a season and a half where Carolina and Epsilon are not only shoved offscreen and denied further character development, but the one piece of characterization we can draw from their actions paints them both in what is almost certainly a much worse light than that epilogue originally intended.

When they do return--well, we’ll get to that, but I think it bears remembering that Carolina on Chorus is so detached from the Reds and Blues onscreen that we have discussion spanning years in this fandom over which team she is actually on, because while blocking fairly clearly aligns her with Blue Team (yes, even on Chorus), she has so few meaningful interactions with other members of Blue Team that in the minds of a lot of viewers, she might as well not be there. And it’s no coincidence that Carolina’s season 13 subplot is almost entirely isolated from the rest of the main cast, and has very little to do with Chorus directly.

And by the time we get to season 13 and Miles starts consciously trying to give Carolina character development, he’s dropping things that, while Feels™-inducing, have not been properly planted throughout the trilogy. Carolina thinking of the Reds and Blues as family is planted very hastily in the beginning of season 13. Her physical gesture of comfort toward Kimball strongly suggests familiarity between them, yet this has not been set up at all, as they have barely shared screentime or even spoken one on one. And because these elements have not been properly planted, their payoffs are confusing, and become difficult to interpret in-universe, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Even Carolina fighting side-by-side with Wash in “Great Destroyers” comes very much out of the blue, when there has been almost zero interaction between them for most of the three seasons. And this, I think, highlights the greatest narrative tragedy for these characters, which is that neither Epsilon nor Carolina ever get any real resolution with Wash. There is no conversation about their histories, no sharing of their pain, no acknowledgment of the ways they have been hurt and hurt one another. Wash and Epsilon never discuss what happened between them in Freelancer, to the point that we, the viewers, still don’t really know--and Epsilon dies without the show ever giving them that closure. We don’t get to see Wash’s initial reaction to Carolina being alive, and so we don’t really know how he feels about it at the time. We see them fight together with near-seamless cohesion at the end of 13, but their relationship lacks a kind of emotional continuity that can only come from letting them acknowledge their shared history directly.

So all of that is why we are where are. From an in-universe perspective, then, what can we take from this mess?

ALL ABOARD THE WATSONIAN TRAIN, PLEASE MIND THE GAP.

Here’s what this post is actually about:

Carolina and Epsilon’s relationship during season 10 and the Chorus trilogy, and how, while they are positive forces in one another’s lives in some ways, they also keep one another isolated.

I say “keep one another isolated.” Two critical points here:

It goes both ways.

They’re both already isolated when they meet.

To expand on point 2, by the time Carolina meets Epsilon, she has been isolated for a long time. She watched her team fall apart around her in Freelancer, was betrayed and attacked by multiple teammates, was left for dead by her own father, and spent several years in hiding before resurfacing to find closure. Carolina’s relationship with Epsilon by no means creates her isolation. What it does is prolong it, by delaying the formation and reconciliation of other meaningful relationships in her life.

Equally important is Epsilon’s own isolation, though it’s a bit more subtle. @epsilontucker pointed out once that Epsilon coming to identify as “Church” following his reactivation by Caboose didn’t just happen--it was a process. Epsilon’s struggle is that he both is and is not Church. He takes on the Church identity as bestowed upon him by Caboose. He accepts Caboose’s stories as if they were his own memories (which creates its own problems, notably passing on Caboose’s dislike of Tucker and causing significant friction between Tucker and Epsilon). But he is not Alpha. Nor does he have Alpha’s attachment to the rest of the Reds and Blues, not right away. Epsilon spends most of season 8 figuring out his own identity and pursuing his own goals--most notably, recreating Tex from his memories--and as recently as the end of season 8, Epsilon says of the others, “You know, they’re not really my friends.” His time in the memory unit, while surrounded by facsimiles of the Reds and Blues, is devoting to resolving his relationship with Tex. And when the Reds and Blues pull him out of the memory unit, he’s not terribly pleased. He only really makes an effort to connect with the others in 10 out of a mistrust of Carolina and Wash, and that connection, as we will discuss, is tenuous.

I want to make it clear here that I don’t believe either of them at any point do anything deliberately to hurt one another. Epsilon loves Carolina. In fact I think he loves her as dearly as he has ever loved anyone--yes, including Tex. And I think Carolina cares deeply for him too. Relationships can have unhealthy elements without warranting that a-word. This is not an abusive relationship; I wouldn’t even go so far as to call it a toxic one necessarily, though it might have toxic elements at times.

I would characterize it as an intense and insular relationship, of the sort in which two people may both mirror and intensify some of each other’s bad habits--and in their case, these habits have an isolating effect on both of them. I’ll stress again that I think the effect in their case (and probably in the case of other human-AI partnerships too, but that’s another post) is reflexive. It’s not just one of them doing it to the other, consciously or otherwise; it’s the effect of their partnership on both of them.

It’s true that a lot happens on Chorus, and all the characters are kept busy. But that doesn’t prevent, for example, Wash from having significant moments with Caboose and Tucker, or the Reds having moments with one another. Carolina and Epsilon’s isolation is somewhat unique to them. And it begins long before Chorus.

Present-Day Season 10

Carolina and Epsilon first connect mid-season 10, when Epsilon, concerned about her plans for the Reds and Blues, covertly follows her to the site of York’s death in hopes of learning more. His plan backfires when he reveals himself accidentally and incurs Carolina’s very justified anger for invading her privacy at a deeply personal moment. But by sharing York’s salvaged logs, Epsilon is able to get Carolina to open up.

This encounter changes both of them. Carolina decides that Epsilon can be trusted, and starts making him her first point of contact. While her relationship with Wash is already rocky, this certainly uh, exacerbates it.

Once Epsilon gets close to Carolina, he discards the connection he’d begun to build with the Reds and Blues almost immediately. He starts riding around in Carolina’s armor and withholding information from the others just as she does. Far from bridging the gulf between Carolina and the Reds and Blues, Epsilon exacerbates the situation by simply jumping over to her side, becoming impatient with the others for not blindly following along. This culminates in the disastrous attempt at a mission briefing in the holochamber, where Carolina resorts to threats of violence to maintain control of the situation, and Epsilon viciously lashes out at the Reds and Blues, alienating everyone, even Caboose.

In this scene we see both Carolina and Epsilon react to a situation that brings up past trauma for both of them. The Reds and Blues rejecting her authority is reminiscent of Carolina’s old Freelancer team fragmenting, losing cohesion, becoming insubordinate, and in a few cases outright betraying her. His companions walking away from something so important to him clearly brings up something painful for Epsilon too, evident especially in the way he lashes out at Wash.

I do want to note a difference in how they react: Carolina threatens, but she’s straightforward. Epsilon fights dirty. When he’s angry at his friends, he dredges up whatever he can think of to hurt them, and I think this is again, a side effect of the fact that he both is and is not Church. He has the knowledge of their history, but doesn’t yet have the affection that comes with time and familiarity, and that can be a very ugly combination. Though Carolina is stunned to see Wash turn on her, it isn’t Carolina who drags up painful history to hurt him back. It’s Epsilon. Though we’re missing a lot of context for what exactly happened, we know that his removal from Wash wasn’t Wash’s choice, and so there’s a sense of something distinctly unfair about what he says.

“So that's it, you're just gonna turn your back on us? No, no, you're right. You know, I guess I should've seen that one coming. It's not exactly like you're new to the concept, is it?”

Carolina and Epsilon’s past traumas resurface in this scene, and they both react very badly, and hurt the people they care about and who care about them. This is the paradox, perhaps, of this kind of intense and insular relationship. Carolina and Epsilon find that they relate to each other deeply, as they uncover the shared pain of their histories with Project Freelancer and how those histories intersect. And in a very real sense, they do need each other--Epsilon needs a friend he chooses for himself rather than one attempting to mold him into the perfect best friend they want him to be. Carolina needs someone who will go to bat for her even when she is far from being her best self.

But neither of them, at this point, are healed enough or self-aware enough to recognize the harm they are doing others. Rather than balancing each other, they amplify each other’s pain and also each other’s displacement of that pain. They’re both Churches. They share some of the same bad habits. Like shutting people out emotionally, and like lashing out at people close to them when they’re hurt.

And so they lash out at their companions, including the one person in the best position to understand and sympathize with both of them, the one person who has been supporting both of them even when they’re hurting him, who does not object until he feels he has no other choice: Wash.

Wash understands what both Epsilon and Carolina have been through in a way the Reds and Blues simply cannot. Whatever he went through with Epsilon, we can only imagine it was deeply traumatic for both of them. Whatever his emotions about Carolina being alive after he thought she was dead for so long, it’s enough that it drives him to want to help her, right up until he simply can’t go along anymore, and we shouldn’t discount what it probably costs him to stand up to her. Wash needs resolution with both of them, desperately. But neither of them will allow that resolution to happen, because in clinging so close to each other, they shut everyone else out, including Wash.

Of course, it doesn’t end there. The Reds and Blues show up after all, and help Carolina and Epsilon make it to the Director. It’s made clear, though, that they’re doing this for Church, not for Carolina. It’s Caboose’s sadness over losing his best friend all over again that prompts Tucker’s change of heart, and then one by one the others follow. Even Wash, it’s pretty clear, goes along not for Carolina or for Church, but for the Reds and Blues. After all, they gave him a second chance, and if they’ve decided to make this their fight, then he’ll be at their side.

And though no one says it to her directly, Carolina surely knows this. She knows they didn’t come for her.

In some ways, Wash was lucky. The worst things he did were worse than what Carolina did--Wash, after all, actually pulled the trigger. Twice. But what he did was witnessed only by the Reds and Doc. And it’s Caboose who forcibly adopts Wash into Blue Team--Caboose who knows nothing of what Wash has done, and simply longs for a surrogate best friend. He puts Wash in Church’s armor and calls him Church. Who Wash is and what he’s done is basically incidental.

But everyone gets to see Carolina at her worst, and so she doesn’t get the kind of forceful adoption Wash does. And season 10 ends, not with Carolina having become one of the Reds and Blues, but with Carolina and Epsilon standing alone--and then deciding to leave.

I start from season 10 because I want to make the point that Carolina and Epsilon are not isolated on Chorus because they leave at the end of season 10. They leave because they are already isolated--because neither of them feel like they belong.

It’s true that it’s Carolina who suggests hunting down stolen Freelancer tech. However, I think what Epsilon says before she ever makes that suggestion is equally important. Even though practically speaking this conversation has been mostly retconned out of existence, it’s still worth paying attention to because it shows where both Carolina and Church are emotionally following season 10.

“What can I tell you,” Church says. “We're home. I mean, they're home.”

Even the blocking of the shot reinforces this sentiment. Carolina and Epsilon are standing alone at the cliff’s edge, watching the Reds and Blues from a distance, commenting on how things are getting back to normal for them. And however we might reinterpret or overwrite this dialogue to make it fit with Chorus canon, one thing is clear: neither Carolina nor Epsilon believe that this is their home, that they belong.

With Carolina, it’s easy to see why: she has not been a friend to them and she knows that even in the end they did not come for her. Epsilon is bit more complicated. Why, after his friends risked so much to come back for him, twice, does he decide to leave them? I think Epsilon, at this point, still feels that his position on Blue Team has been usurped by Wash. And after the way he treated his friends, I think he still feels a certain amount of shame. He’s not sure he belongs.

And so the two of them hang back. Neither of them so much as speak to any of the others after the confrontation with the Director. We hear them thank each other for what they’ve come through together, but not the others. They have a conversation in which they reinforce each other’s sense of not belonging, of being unwanted by anyone but each other. And then they leave, and don’t say goodbye--almost as if they don’t really believe they’ll be missed.

Which, as we later learn, is not true.

But I think the ways things end in season 10 leaves both Carolina and Epsilon feeling like they only really have each other. And this begins a pattern of them sticking to each other while keeping everyone else at a distance.

Season 12

We get a brief snippet of Carolina and Epsilon’s time wandering Chorus alone, and from these flashbacks we can gain a few insights about their relationship as well as how they’re doing individually. Epsilon’s bullet time sequence, in particular, tells us a lot. We learn that Carolina does not sleep well and has nightmares about Sigma--whose memory is still a part of Epsilon, with whom Carolina shares brainspace. We see Epsilon himself eager to brush off these difficulties, insisting to himself, “She’s fine, don’t worry about it.” We see that he can’t fully control the manifestations of his own fragments, as seen when he has to push away Omega. We see that he gets flustered by the many voices talking at once, even though they’re all him.

And we hear him say that he gets lonely sometimes.

Incidentally, there’s never any clear indication that Carolina knows Epsilon talks to his own fragments this way, or that she can hear him doing it. It’s also worth noting that she doesn’t actually take all of his advice in the ensuing fight (she vaults over the door and uses it as a weapon, rather than staying in cover behind it) but this might be just because they briefly lost connection.

All of this lays the groundwork for the cracks that will start to show in Carolina and Epsilon’s bond in season 13.

It is when Carolina and Epsilon return to the story, and to the Reds and Blues, that we see the continued effects of their prolonged isolation.

It’s clear they still do care about the Reds and Blues. The minute their intel leads them to believe their friends are in danger, Epsilon says, “We have to go back,” and Carolina doesn’t disagree. Yet as soon as they are reunited, Epsilon is calling Tucker a “whiny bitch” for being upset about being left alone and kidnapped by mercenaries.

Initially Carolina largely stays out of their bickering. Soon after they all reunite, she runs off with Epsilon to study the new weapons, rebuffing offers of help. She barely says anything in season 12 that isn’t tactical. The rest of Blue Team’s beef seems to be with Church, and Carolina largely seems to agree, not speaking up to take sides, and no one directs their anger toward her even though she left them just as much as Epsilon did. No one seems to have any feelings about Carolina, positive or negative; emotionally, it’s almost like she’s not even there.

But this is where we come back to Epsilon’s staggering lack of empathy toward his supposed friends. His behavior toward Tucker in particular is shitty in a way that Tucker absolutely does not deserve. The data transfer disaster at Crash Site Alpha brings the tension between Tucker and Epsilon to a head, when Tucker aborts the transfer early out of fear for all of their lives, and Epsilon explodes at him--insisting he knew that they only needed a few more seconds, even though a minute before, he said he didn’t know how long it would take.

(Tangent: Tucker’s comment about how Church couldn’t find the zoom on the sniper rifle could only be about Alpha, therefore Tucker is still trying to apply what he knows about Alpha to Epsilon, and he hasn’t fully grasped the fact that Epsilon has different capabilities than Alpha because Epsilon actually knows he’s an AI.)

It’s not just that Epsilon doesn’t know what Tucker’s been through while he and Carolina have been gone. It’s that he doesn’t care. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t try to understand, and when Tucker tries to explain, Epsilon insults and belittles him. Once again, Epsilon consistently hits below the belt when he’s angry, lashing out at people who care about him using whatever he knows will hurt them. And as soon as he realizes his behavior is making things uncomfortable with the whole group, he declares that “shit’s getting weird” and runs off with Carolina to avoid dealing with it. Even Carolina sounds exhausted when she announces they’re going to check the perimeter.

Tucker is then guilt-tripped by Caboose into apologizing for basically nothing, because Caboose always takes Church’s side (and the codependent nature of Caboose’s relationships with his best friends could be an essay in itself).

This is the first time (and the only time in season 12) that we see Carolina bring up Epsilon’s behavior. She doesn’t quite call him out, but she does express incredulity that Epsilon never actually apologizes to Tucker, despite his own conscience (in the form of Theta) telling him he should. Epsilon deflects this super hard with the whole “We’re dudes” thing, which Tucker then goes along with. Playing his refusal to apologize as a sign of masculinity is, intentionally or not, really manipulative and really effective against Tucker who is struggling hard with his own insecurities in season 12.

It’s really no surprise that Tucker has already started leaning on Wash as an emotional support as soon as they’re reunited--despite the tension between Tucker and Wash back at the crash site, and despite how he has missed Church. Tucker misses Church right up until he remembers what the present Church is actually like.

Which brings us back to Wash, whose distance from both Carolina and Epsilon is perhaps the most glaring of any character. Of course there’s no guarantee that he would have a real conversation with either of them even if they weren’t joined at the brain--he is, after all, not great at “emotional stuff.” But it certainly makes it more difficult.

When Carolina chastises Wash for accepting Freckles from Locus, Epsilon joins in, neither of them quite understanding what Freckles means to Caboose, and what getting him back for Caboose meant to Wash. There’s no question that Carolina and Epsilon care about Caboose; we see this in the way Carolina (and presumably Epsilon since he runs her armor mods) springs into action on a wounded leg to save Caboose from a pirate. It’s not a lack of caring. But there’s a disconnect there all the same.

In episode 17, Carolina and Epsilon lay out three options for their next step with both armies converging on the capital for a final fight to the death. It’s Wash who comes up with the fourth option of putting the Reds and Blues on the ship home while he and Carolina stay behind, an option Epsilon and Carolina hadn’t yet heard, suggesting the three of them didn’t discuss these plans all together.

Carolina and Wash seem to have no problem working together, and Wash doesn’t even particularly seem to avoid Epsilon (note how he follows Carolina off to patrol the perimeter after Epsilon’s outburst in 12.16, knowing full well Epsilon is with her). They just don’t talk. And we see firsthand with Tucker just how impossible it is for anyone to talk to either Carolina or Epsilon privately.

There’s an additional significance to the option Wash presents, in that it very likely represents a worst-case scenario for everyone. While we can’t know for sure, this option seems incredibly likely to get everyone killed--the Reds and Blues by walking straight into a trap, the Freelancers and Epsilon by simply being outnumbered and outgunned. I think there’s a really important message we can take from the fact that they consider that option, and reject it. “Never split the party” is an adventure game truism for a reason. The first half of the Chorus trilogy involves the party being split into multiple pieces and while we get some great character development out of that for the Reds and Blues, ultimately the goal is to get everyone back together because together they are the strongest. This is an important theme, and comes up even more prominently in season 13.

The cooperation between Tucker and Epsilon to entrap Felix at the end of 12 is a high point, and shows that, however incomplete their reconciliation might have been, their teamwork is vital to their success. It’s the first time Epsilon rides with anyone other than Carolina since season 10. And I think it’s worth noting that it was Tucker who reached out to smooth things over, not Epsilon--and if Tucker hadn’t done it, it probably wouldn’t have happened at all.

Still, season 12 closes with Epsilon and Carolina celebrating their victory alone, down at Kimball’s thinking spot and away from the others, for no apparent reason.

It’s clear that Carolina has developed some positive feelings toward the Reds and Blues, but it’s also clear she’s still holding them at a distance--that she still doesn’t really believe herself to be one of them. As for Epsilon, he really seems to consider her his team, even more than the Blues. Both of them seem to believe, genuinely, that they mostly work better on their own.

It isn’t inherently a bad thing that they’re close. But it also make it very easy for them to emotionally shut everyone else out--after all, they always have each other. They are literally in each other’s heads. Carolina struggles to open up as it is--why should she make the effort to express her feelings to anyone else, when Epsilon already knows what she’s thinking? And Epsilon seems to feel the same, remaining so closed off in his conversation with Tucker that even Carolina notices.

But even if they do only open up to each other, is that really a problem? Well… yeah. For both of them, and for the rest of their team. Epsilon’s friction with Tucker has real consequences. Perhaps if he and Carolina were actually communicating to the others what the two of them pass back and forth automatically in their shared brainspace, Tucker wouldn’t have panicked and aborted the data transfer early. What they’ve missed and what they do not share creates a rift between them and the rest of the team, and that affects how they all work together.

We see even more why it’s a problem in season 13.

Season 13

Early in 13 we finally do see Carolina forming some connections with the Reds and Blues--not just running missions, but laughing and joking with them. (It’s also worth noting that this is the first time since the reunion that we see them form squads for missions not based on their Red and Blue teams; Carolina’s out working with Sarge and Tucker.)

This scene shows us that Carolina is getting more comfortable with the group but still has a long way to go--particularly evident when her attempt at a joke goes over like a lead balloon. All this time since season 10 and she hasn’t actually been around the Reds and Blues long enough at a stretch to have picked up on the fact that “bow chicka bow wow” is Tucker’s personal catchphrase. Her sense of humor and desire to be playful is emerging, but she hasn’t worked out all the social dynamics of this group yet.

We can see right from the beginning of this season that something is eating at Carolina. That she’s still pushing herself hard in training might not be particularly noteworthy, but there’s more than just her usual perfectionism behind it. In season 12, she doesn’t really let on just how rattled she is by Felix getting the jump on her; it’s in 13 that we start to see that it’s still really bothering her. She sounds uneasy when Wash talks about them taking care of the mercs, and at the portal she’s eager for a rematch even with a construct of Felix. She needs to find her confidence again.

It’s Carolina’s experience inside the portal that highlights just why she’s so rattled. Separated even from Epsilon and forced to watch all of her friends new and old die, Carolina is forced to face her greatest fear, and face it alone. It’s not just a fear of failure. It’s a fear of letting everyone down, losing everyone she loves.

That fear closes Carolina off. From everyone, including Epsilon. When pressed about what she saw, she responds with her primary defense mechanism, anger. Though she and Epsilon share a certain amount of brainspace, it’s clear they don’t share everything, because it’s not until much later that Carolina tells him what she saw.

Epsilon is able to keep things from her, too--despite everything we, the audience, learned about him from his bullet time sequence in 12, Carolina herself does not seem to realize Epsilon is having processing issues until late in 13.

And it’s these things, the things they have kept both from each other and from everyone else, that cause problems for Carolina and Epsilon at a critical point. The intense, insular partnership that has allowed them to shut everyone else out has also allowed both of them to avoid introspection--to avoid being honest even with themselves and with each other. The portal fractures Carolina’s already shaken confidence, and it takes only a few strategic words for Sharkface to seed doubt in her mind. While she and Epsilon argue over strategy, it’s Dr. Grey who comes up with the plan that saves them.

This tension culminates in the disastrous confrontation with Sharkface on the mountain, when Carolina takes his bait and leaves her team behind. I want to recall their season 12 dynamic here--both in the flashback episode and directly following the fight with Felix. In both cases, Carolina and Epsilon both blame each other for what goes wrong. There’s a playful, teasing element to that, of course. But we can hear a similar tone in their smug banter after Carolina knocks Sharkface down the first time, when Epsilon chides her for stroking her ego and Carolina retorts, “Oh please, like you’re one to talk.” Neither of them are particularly wrong there, either. But they’re both so busy ribbing each other that neither of them notice Sharkface rising out of the snow--and he gets the jump on both of them.

And as the tide of the battle turns, Carolina panics. I don’t think there’s any other way to interpret her calling for all of her armor mods at once--especially since some of them, like the adaptive camo, don’t really do her any good in this situation. She overestimates Epsilon’s raw processing power, and yes, she absolutely pushes him too hard. Certainly no harder than she pushes herself. But being made out of numbers means Epsilon can’t push through the pain of an injury and deal with the consequences later. When his memory space is gone, it’s just gone.

And thus their teamwork breaks down, Epsilon fails at a critical moment, and Carolina falls off a cliff.

This, a near-death experience, is what it takes to get them to share their deepest struggles even with each other.

To Carolina’s credit, she’s the one who pushes for a serious talk, and even then, she has to pry it out of Epsilon. He puts up one hell of an effort to avoid the subject and deflect with humor, something Carolina has never appreciated at tense moments. (You see the same thing with York during the Freelancer seasons.) There’s something heartbreaking about how difficult they both find it to open up like this, because when you come down to it, what’s holding them both back is the very same thing.

They’re scared. That’s what it comes down to for both of them, just fear. They won’t be able to protect the people they care about at the critical moments. They’ll fail. Everyone they love will die, and it will be their fault. Carolina still can’t let herself be emotionally vulnerable in front of the Reds and Blues or even Wash, yet she is so terrified of losing them that instead of standing with them and fighting alongside them, she throws herself at danger like a human shield.

Carolina’s always been a doer and not a talker. There’s not a lot of setup for her calling the Reds and Blues family. But from another angle, we might say it’s been there in her actions, in her almost reckless protectiveness of them. The only way she knows, perhaps, to show that she cares.

And Epsilon’s not so different. But his terror, I think, is of losing her. Carolina isn’t really anything like the Meta, nor did Epsilon really know much about either the Meta or Maine. But underneath that comparison is simply his fear of losing her--of being unable to keep up, unable to protect her. And this fear makes a lot of things about Epsilon fall into place--his defensiveness, his fudging numbers, his pushing his friends away--even the abandonment issues we hear in his outburst at Wash all the way back in season 10. Epsilon was created by loss. It is woven into the very fabric of who he is. He can’t lose Carolina too, and he can’t admit how scared he is of exactly that--not even to himself.

This scene is, without a doubt, a huge step forward for both of them. It’s a harsh wake-up call, a sign of how much growing they both still have to do.

And it doesn’t fix things all at once, either. Here’s a hot take: Carolina’s entire second fight with Sharkface is tactically unnecessary. Hear me out. When Sharkface finds her in the city, Carolina is flanked by Wash and Kimball. It’s true they’re in a hurry. But if we look at what happens in the very next episode, we get a perfect demonstration of the fact that Kimball and Wash could take down Sharkface on the spot with a few seconds of concentrated rifle fire. He’s well within range. Instead, Carolina deliberately sends them off, choosing to confront Sharkface alone.

I think the real reason for this is less a need to defeat him on her own, and more a desire to apologize and offer mercy. But this also suggests that she doesn’t think Wash will go along with that. A chance to confront their past together could be really powerful for Wash and Carolina, especially if they could agree to try and end it without killing him. After all, both of them fought Sharkface and his grudge is ostensibly against both of them. But Carolina still believes she has to face him alone.

So Carolina and Wash don’t get to share that moment, don’t get to face their past together, and ultimately Sharkface doesn’t accept her mercy and dies anyway.

There’s something really sad about that.

The ride out of Armonia to escape the nuclear blast serves as sort of a do-over for their stalemate at the portal site. It demands a moment of seamless teamwork from Carolina and Epsilon, in order to save themselves and their friends. They succeed, but not without cost, as Epsilon crashes after performing the maneuver.

In a way, this scene also validates Carolina’s feelings as expressed earlier--they cannot afford not to push themselves, not with so much at stake. Just as Carolina saved Caboose without hesitation even at the cost of reopening her leg wound, Epsilon helps her use the bubble shield to save all of them, even though it pushes him past his own limits. It’s complex moment, one that validates their worst fears, but also their capabilities. And of course, it foreshadows the ending to come.

“Great Destroyers” is a turning point. At long last, Carolina and Wash fight side by side, and their teamwork is near seamless. Though we haven’t seen them talk, or demonstrate much emotional vulnerability to each other, there’s a deep sense of camaraderie and trust in the way they move together as a team, proving themselves a match for the mercenaries. It’s significant, I think, that Carolina doesn’t rely too heavily on her armor enhancements during this fight--though Epsilon is with her, his presence is understated, taking a backseat to her connection with Wash.

It’s a powerful demonstration of the value of teamwork and trust over high-tech equipment, one of the major recurring themes of Red vs. Blue.

Following the destruction of the Purge Temple, Carolina sends Epsilon with the Reds and Blues to the Communication Tower. It’s the last time she ever sees him.

It matters that Epsilon’s sacrifice is not to save Carolina, but to save the Reds and Blues. I think if push came to shove he absolutely would have done the same for Carolina alone, and that’s not in itself a bad thing. But Epsilon, like every iteration of Church, has a tendency to hyperfixate on one person. Like I said above, his greatest fear isn’t losing everyone. It’s losing Carolina. And probably his greatest flaw throughout his arc, in season 10 and in the trilogy, is the way he treats his friends, especially Tucker. That’s why his ultimate resolution comes not from saving Carolina, but from saving Tucker and the rest of his friends--while trusting Carolina to be okay on her own.

The victory at the end of season 13 comes not from Epsilon and Carolina working alone, but from both of them connecting with their other teammates--Carolina with Wash, Epsilon with Tucker. They win not by working as an isolated pair, but by working with their team. That victory comes at great cost, as all their victories do. But it is still a victory.

Conclusions

Overall I think the biggest thing to be taken from from Carolina and Epsilon’s whole arc is that as strong as their bond is, shutting everyone else out actually weakens it, and weakens both of them in turn. They are at their best when they don’t isolate themselves, but form and maintain connections with their whole team.

Season 13 sees both Epsilon and Carolina confront their worst fear, one they share: failing to protect the people they love. And so it’s important that the season closes with both of them overcoming their fear, and successfully protecting the Reds and Blues. But it’s also important that their biggest obstacle in doing so--both facing their fears, and protecting their friends--has been the way they have allowed their relationship to isolate them from their friends in the first place.

Epsilon finds his resolution in sacrifice. Carolina’s isolation does not yet fully resolve in the Chorus trilogy--which is okay, because her story isn’t over. It took us until season 15 to really see Carolina acting like family with the Reds and Blues, and to see her share a moment of emotional closeness with Wash. But she does get there.

Her relationship with Epsilon is important, and no doubt has affected her profoundly. But it’s not the only important relationship in her life, and shutting everyone else out has limited her growth. Taken as a whole, I think Carolina’s emotional journal from season 10 to season 15 shows us that her healing cannot be complete without her opening herself up to genuine connection with others as well.

#agent carolina #epsilon church #red vs blue #avian dentistry #blaze edge

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eri-223 · 6 years

Text

Destiny 2: Reprise

For @saltineofswing.

You are Taeko-3. You have been eaten. Not just eaten: you have been digested, stored like fat for the hungry machine of the Hive. Where am I? You ask yourself. Your voice does not echo, not even with the imagined/true tenor of yourself inside your head. You are almost entirely sure that you are paralyzed and alone, and your own inner voice is comforting.

You expected death. Your fireteam looked for you before you disappeared. Of course they did. When they stopped calling, you knew what they thought and almost believed it yourself. You are dead. You are a Guardian, so this doesn’t scare you much. It’s the becoming that scares you, the steady press of time toward a webbed-foot Caliban monster-future.

But you know that future, the dark and short one, won’t come.

You think something other than death might be coming for you. You put up your hands to meet it, and all of your senses with them. That is what it means to be a Warlock, for you: to unite all of yourself in a single direction, body and mind.

The mind is the difficult part.

There are so many aspects of the mind, after all. Facets, slates, translucent panes. Why do you imagine your own mind as a crystal? Why do you see your own thoughts as lattices, as liquid suspended? You are not used to interrogating your own thoughts. Action is better. However, you are almost certain that you did not feel this way before all of the confusion, before the sense of interacting with the world through a radio that doesn’t transmit. Action, now, seems like it will require more planning than usual in order for it to be possible. You rarely relied on thought alone before, but now you will have to. Your philosophical identity is a set of tools in unpracticed hands, and your thoughts bounce away from the fact that you are bodiless. That can’t be right. That cannot be factored in. It must be factored in.

What was that? Did you hear that sound? Is this thing on? Maybe it was nothing. You hope it was something.

There must be a point at which bravery is no longer a choice. One must be brave or one must be underfoot. Would it be bravery to jump away the moment someone hits you?

Euclid-319 thought bravery was a choice. He thought that he had often chosen cowardice.

This was one of the reasons he sat alone. Ikora Rey gave Euclid a small space in the Tower, a temporary gantry-turned laboratory. It was a place where construction frames once lifted rebars up to make the stairway above. Because of the method and balance of its construction it had walls on all four sides. Like an empty crawlspace on the edge of the Tower, it hung there without any windows to remind the occupant of the vertical drop nearby.

What were the others doing during the Red War? Euclid imagined one of his friends, their face blank with the failure of his imagination, and tried to picture them living while he was split/dead/cancerously alive. Surely Jolly would have been doing something heroic in that time not long ago, but he couldn’t quite conjure her. And Yarrow, she would have been doing useful things, probably, not separating mind from body in a nuclear sacrifice. Euclid’s body had become an enemy of sorts, sent on its own desperate, twisted journey. He had not been used to thinking of himself as just a mind, but that experience had been forced upon him and he had … learned from it? He had certainly experienced it. There it was, logged in the memory banks.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Ikora, if she had kept to her schedule. (Five minutes late — standard for a sentient being.) Euclid flexed his wrists over the books he was using as a headrest, lacing his fingers together and turning the joints until he heard the smooth and satisfying shush of metal rubbing together. He couldn’t bring himself to read the books that had been returned to him, not really, but collecting them and putting seed packets in the pages to mark his place was comfortingly familiar. He had been killed and cured and self-immolated and cured again, and still he felt … self-conscious, around his Vanguard. He created a careful remove between himself and his monstrosity, and so she might see him as like a child and … no, that wasn’t sound either. Euclid shook his head, popped his joints again, and watched as Constant (old, many-lived, loyal and tired as a hunting dog) opened the door.

Ikora Rey nodded to the Ghost as she entered the room. Euclid missed his gardens where she had once visited him, but the Vanguard made the crawlspace warmer.

“Good morning, Euclid,” Ikora said.

“Good morning, Ikora! Tower’s still standing, huh?”

She didn’t smile.

“I’ll put the seed packages back,” Euclid said. “I found them on the shelves …”

“They’re actually for you.”

“Ooh!”

“I thought it might be nice for you to have a bit of home. Claim a spot on the garden ledges if you want. You can use my name if anyone complains,” Ikora said.

He looked at her evenly. Both of them knew that he was effectively confined to the Tower, the Vanguard studying him even as he studied the new emanations of the machine-deity. What effects might the Traveler have on plants brought from Venus, life forms used to being closer to the Sun and farther from the Light? Which way will sunflowers turn?

“I talked to Kass the other day. She says you’ve been talking to Jolly, that you’re okay,” Ikora said.

“It’s good to have some friends,” Euclid replied.

Euclid came to terms with the fact that his body roamed, mad, while his mind seethed inside the magic-magnetic field of the shard of the Traveler. He came to terms with the fact that the blood of Guardians was on the hands. It still cast a layer of dark irony over all of his appreciation, though.

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Ikora said. “Eris and I have been researching the ways in which Savathûn’s Hive lock Guardians into these crystal shells. Taeko-3 and her fireteam were instrumental in determining what exactly the Hive are doing on Titan. If I remember right, you were part of her cohort when she was first raised.”

“What have you found? Is there a way to revive her?” He thought he was babbling, possibly even asking for impossibilities.

If Ikora’s patience thinned, though, she did not show it. “The blueprint of her body and her spirit still exist within the shell. You, with your understanding of Exo brains and Void Light, are the perfect person to try to bring her back.”

“Yes! I mean, I’ll do it. If you need the help.”

It would be so good to help with something again. For a long time he had felt like a machine from which no energy escaped, turning and turning on his own wheels, pushing the fire he generated into his own mind. This could be a project that could occupy him, could keep him from dwelling on the transformation from which he himself was still healing or re-forming. Taeko hadn’t been the easiest Exo to understand, not when she seemed to switch from aggravating him to praising him with a rapidity he could not match — but he had missed her. He had carefully stored her memory in a kernel of his and told himself, over and over, that she was now just a talisman he had imagined for himself.

“I will bring you what we recovered from Titan,” Ikora said. “I’ll expect regular reports.”A stern, promise-making look. She would not let him catalog plants alone any more. She was right to do that.

“Of course. Of course! Right away.”

“We have already brought the crystal to the Tower,” Ikora said. “With your brilliance and the resources we have left, we might be able to reverse-engineer the power crystals.”

“My brilliance. Hah.” Was the bitterness going to come out now? No need to inflict this on Ikora, but — fine. She was still his Vanguard, despite the way they had learned to stay away from one another as a show of support. He made a conscious effort to regulate his movements, despite the strong urge to pop another joint in his hand. “As if it could make up for, ah, what I did. After the occupation.”

“Yours was one long, strange story among many.”

Would it help to think of it as a story? All of this was real, wasn’t it? How did his story compare to Ghaul’s? Was it larger or smaller, less or more catastrophic? Or … no. Ikora meant to reassure him, to smooth over history.

“I hope it was one that did not make too much of an impact on your, uh, the rebuilding efforts. Of the Tower,” Euclid said.

“I hope it did.” Ikora smiled.

You died on Titan, under the briny waves and the old hulks waiting for their crews to pilot them. You died with a sword in hand and a halo made of Light.

You woke up with your internal chronometer reading zero.

All around you is green and purple light, swirling. It’s oddly flat, though, like paint on the outside of a sculpture. The colors don’t move closer and farther away. They play out as if on a screen.

Maybe they are the paint and you are the sculpture, able to look only inward through to the other side of yourself.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

The voice comes from outside, beyond the screen. You imagine a Hive Knight, hunched over with a knife in hand, but then you recognize the tremulous voice.

Hello?

“There was the, I mean, you know there was the war. You saw some part of it, I think? In as much as the Hive knew about it? They were on Titan before Ghaul, but the buzz afterward … someone stirred the nest.”

Euclid? Oh Light, something went wrong and they sent him in after me. Light, he came into the tunnels after me.

Light. Euclid?

“Ikora said I could use the battery but this, how long has this been here? Whose emergency power am I using? The first Vanguard’s? The Golden Age’s?”

Flip the switch, Euclid.

“Okay, this crystal matrix interpreter is set — doing what I told it to do, huh! Things that work, a brave new method in engineering.” He gave a tremulous laugh.

For all you know, the power is already on. He’s just second-guessing whether he deserves to use it.

“Good. This is good.” He has to convince himself, but that doesn’t take long. Afterward his voice is stronger. Maybe you can hear a shuffle, a click, like metal against metal or clothes against metal. He is sitting down or leaning against a feature of the room. It’s a small room.

“Now I just have to wait,” Euclid said. “I don’t mind waiting. I can water the plants outside, although should I leave this room? Something might go wrong if I leave this room. Someone recognizes me out there, and … maybe … maybe not.”

I know you’re a hermit at heart, but why would things go badly if someone recognized you?

“You don’t … listen to me, talking to myself! Ikora wouldn’t want to hear this. Taeko doesn’t … I bet she doesn’t know.”

You know what, she doesn’t. Why don’t you tell her, Euclid?

Taeko-3 thought maybe she could feel her limbs now. At the very least there was an impression that the colors around her had gained dimensions. The world she inhabited now contained the width and depth of arms and legs, making herself her own compass. It contained time, linear and marching, in a way it had not before. If she had to stay here, trapped in a body instead of a crystal and unable to move, she might go more mad than when she had barely registered herself at all. Better to go to sleep (that horror-sleep of the Hive, but still, it had not hurt) than to lay paralyzed. Where was her Ghost? What if she had woken up without them?

“Yes hello Taeko, while you were away I was the sphinx guarding the entrance to my own brain and also my mindless body killed some Guardians, and also I might have saved or, uh, delayed a large portion of the City from being overrun by Cabal legions.”

You what? Of course you did. You made it worth it, you old obsolescent brilliant machine… Thanks, for letting me know.

“That will have to be it.” He sighed. “But how can I explain it to her if I don’t understand it myself? That’s the key. To find out what happened.”

More cloth rustled. You guessed that he stood up. Your sense of having a body was slowly returning, although the prickling feeling and the sense that power wasn’t sparking from your brain to your limbs quite right were more worrisome than reassuring.

Don’t spend the rest of the day, however long it is, trying to diagnose your malaise, you wished for him. Go tend your garden, Euclid, you old obsessive. Go see the Sun over the City. Go to the Crucible and prove to yourself that you aren’t going to break.

It sounds like you’re partially responsible for anyone surviving to see that view.

Ikora offered to bring Euclid whatever other resources he might need to recreate Taeko’s mind, so the room filled up with a power bank and a lab table. He studied Eris Morn’s research and Commander Sloan’s field reports, digested all the data on the new nests on Titan. After 48 hours, he knew that he could clip the Hive crystal into an Exo body and set Taeko like a jewel. She would not be exactly the same, but she would be able to walk and talk and live. She would probably not have a Ghost, and he had worried himself so much about that until he thought about Eris.

Unless he was wrong and he was just giving one of Savathûn’s batteries an Exo-suit, to cause chaos in the Tower or to stand swaying silently like an industrial machine…

He would have liked to say that it worked on a day he didn’t expect, using a technique he didn’t expect. Then he could have run to Ikora shouting “Eureka!” Then he could have thanked some force of heat or Light for the victory instead of carefully piecing together the fact that yes, he had done it all correctly. The plan was his whether it flourished or burned.

Taeko, of course, was ever her own. Her green-plated body lay on the table, covered in simple robes.

Her eyes flared. They had been tinted green when the new body was built, but for a moment the horror of the Hive-glow returned to Euclid and he considered, terribly, telling Constant to stitch him up a gun out of the air. When the initial power surge faded she began running diagnostics, though, the twitches and stretches he had been expecting her to do. He stepped back, eager for the moment she would be ready to speak.

She sat up on the table. Her feet almost touched the floor. “Hello?”

“Oh, it’s you!” Euclid said. “I mean, of course it’s you. I … you should probably know that I rebuilt your body. And you’re in the Tower. And you’re not optimal yet, but your self-repairs are yours, you know, so, I didn’t want to touch that —”

“I know, silly.” She hopped off the table and took a long look at everything — at the corner where Euclid sat for rare and fitful sleep cycles, at the potted plants (more every time Ikora visited with a basket under her arm), at Constant. “I’ve been listening to you since you …”

She looked directly at him for the first time.

“Since you told me you were outside your body for a while.”

That isn’t exactly what happened, but Euclid doesn’t correct her. “I’m, uh, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Real talk? Me too. About both of us.” She paused for a moment. “But … are they alive?” She said it flatly, maybe curious, not angry and certainly not full of relief.

Who? The Hive? Would he have to tell her that the broods still shrieked on Titan? Euclid hesitated, his hands hovering just above the table. He spoke softly, apologetically. “Who?”

“My Fireteam. Caliban.”

“No. I’m so sorry, Taeko, I —”

She didn’t avert her gaze. “No, it’s okay. I thought so. From what you said, I just …”

She looked at Constant again and then flung her arms around Euclid, a hug so unexpected and with all of her weight behind it that he staggered backward, almost fell against a shelf full of bean sprouts and pine sprigs. “We won!”

Light, how can she celebrate so soon after her own freedom from paralysis? Doesn’t the joy have to wait, doesn’t he have to make sure he has not irreparably broken his relationship with the Vanguard first? Doesn’t he have to watch for the next war, the next slip, the next Vex poison-neurotransmission?

Maybe not.

Taeko slipped away, back to the center of the room near the table. She raised her fists. “I know what I heard, and in among all of the stuff you said, I heard we won.”

Euclid put a hand on his own chest, where a flesh being would have a heart. Artificial muscle was sheathing him properly, nothing bare that should not have been. The bonds between his body/shell and his soul/Ghost were strong, kept humming by the energy of the unified mind/self he felt with as much certainty as the metal.

Still, he felt as if something in him was falling apart. He had missed her so badly, even as he had struggled to understand the things she said that he tried so hard to interpret. The teasing, the jokes, the way she would lean her shoulder against his as if they were both as strong as the City walls, not machines ready to fall apart.

Maybe the feeling of anxiety wasn’t anxiety at all.

“I think you were very brave to rescue me,” she said then, sobering, and very little else mattered.

#Destiny #Euclid-319 #Taeko-3 #writings #Ikora Rey

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jemmafitzsimmons · 7 years

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Written for @thefitzsimmonsnetwork‘s Fanfiction Friday Challenge - For Science. Prompt: Fitz and Simmons invent something together.

Synopsis: Imprisoned in space, Jemma is determined to find a way to communicate with Fitz, but she needs his help to make it happen.

Title from Dear Evan Hansen. I would also recommend listening to the song Only Us from the musical for additional FS feels, as I listened to it on repeat while writing this.

Today was the only day her plan was going to work. Jemma had memorized his schedule, as random as it seemed, and figured out their lunch breaks would align on this particular Tuesday. Well, whatever day it was, as it was getting more and more difficult to remember the days of the week after so much time spent on the unfamiliar base. She had sometimes imagined what it would be like to work in space, but her current predicament was not what she had in mind. Being taken against her will with the team was one thing, but to be separated from everyone and forced to perform labor without any context for what they were trying to accomplish was draining. She honestly didn’t mind the work, as simplistic as it was, but what was truly agonizing was being separated from the most important person in her life for what seemed like centuries.

When she made her way into the common area with her lunch tray – a modest meal, but it would suffice – it only took moments for her to spot him in the corner of the room occupying a table by his lonesome. The sight of him made her heart sink – she had hoped he would connect with someone on the base while he worked, maybe make a friend or two, but that obviously wasn’t the case. Nevertheless, she welcomed the opportunity to finally have some alone time with him, even if it would only last a few minutes.

After approaching his table casually, she carefully placed her tray down on the surface opposite his, not wanting to startle him, as he appeared to be concentrating rather intensely on the sad excuse for a sandwich on his plate. As she sat on the bench, he glanced up quickly before returning his eyes to his tray.

“Fitz,” she whispered, reaching out her hand across the table before thinking better of it and pulling it back into her lap. The last time she held his hand was on their way to the diner before they were taken, a far off memory she held onto each night while she tried to find sleep in her dark cell, his own cell many hallways away. She worried herself sick thinking about the nightmares that most likely plagued his mind, but today he appeared okay, or as okay as he could be. At least he was eating.

When he didn’t respond, she took a deep breath before trying again. “How have you been?”

Finally, he raised his head, and she could look into his eyes for the first time. He didn’t seem to be on the verge of breaking as he did when she found him in the containment pod after AIDA’s escape. His eyes were still tired, his face sporting a heavier beard than she was used to seeing, but it was still him. And if she looked close enough, she could see a sliver of hope shining through.

He swallowed hard before forming a response. “I’m alright,” he said softly.

She nodded, knowing she wasn’t bound to get much more out of him at this point, so she leaned forward to speak more intently. “I know we only have a few minutes, so I won’t waste any time.” Scooting onto the edge of the bench, she reached her hand under the table to find his knee, pulling out the small objects she had been hiding up her sleeve all morning. “I figured out a way for us to communicate, but I need your help to complete it.”

His eyes narrowed, but once he placed his own hand on his knee and took the objects from her, she saw recognition cross his face. The small plastic identification cards were identical to the one hanging from his belt loop. They weren’t simply used for accessing their living quarters and assigned work areas – they were also small tablets to communicate with leadership on the base, the closest thing to a smartphone any of them had encountered since being taken prisoner. The messages were never anything more than changes in schedules or new assignments, but the ID cards provided a rare opportunity that Jemma jumped on immediately. Even if there wasn’t a way to escape the base, at least she could create a way to connect with Fitz.

Jemma pulled her hands back and placed them both on the table in front of her. “It would be a private network. Only the two of us. But I would need you to set up the connection and install the fingerprint technology. Mine’s already scanned – I just need you to calibrate it properly.” She heard him sigh slightly, but she continued. “I based the technology off of Fury’s toolbox, so only we can operate them. To anyone else, they would simply look like blank ID cards.”

As she explained her plan, he managed to slide down the bench a bit in order to discreetly place the cards in his pocket. But when he straightened up, he shook his head.

“Jemma, it’s too dangerous.”

“We’ll be fine,” she insisted.

“How did you even get your hands on these?”

She paused, knowing he already knew the answer. “Elena.”

“Of course,” he muttered.

“No one is going to find out. They’re small enough to keep with our own ID cards undetected. Plus, our cells don’t have security feeds. I’ve checked – it’s just the hallways, so they won’t even see us using them. And even if they did, it would just look like we’re communicating with our supervisors.”

“Jemma.”

Unable to resist the urge any longer, she reached her hand across the table and placed it on top of his, squeezing it gently. “Please. I just want to talk to you.”

He stared at their hands for a moment, a dazed look on his face before he nodded ever so slightly. “Alright, I’ll look at it.”

Giving his hand another squeeze, Jemma tried her best to downplay the smile that threatened to consume her face. The guards at the common room entrance were already giving them wary looks, and she didn’t want to push that suspicion any further.

Fitz returned his eyes to his tray and pulled his hand away to pick up the uneaten half of his sandwich. “But I’m not making any promises,” he mumbled before taking a pathetic bite.

Three days passed without Jemma hearing a word from Fitz, but she knew it would be too dangerous for him to approach her with the calibrated card directly. She prayed he didn’t simply abandon the plan altogether, deeming it too much of a risk for her life, it being her idea to steal the cards in the first place, but she still hoped he would follow through.

On the fourth night since seeing Fitz that day, Jemma stretched on her small cot attempting to find a more comfortable sleeping position when she heard what she thought was wind whooshing past her cell door. She turned her head, but saw nothing at the door, not even a silhouetted figure standing outside. At this point in her imprisonment, she figured her mind was getting the better of her and she was simply hearing things, but upon closer inspection, she saw what appeared to be a small rectangle that had been slipped under her door.

Lurching off her cot, she scrambled to collect the card off the floor, and then quickly gathered herself in the center of her mattress to unlock the tablet feature. She placed her thumb at the bottom of the card and a screen lit up, granting her access. Without hesitation, she typed out the first message and hit send, hoping with everything within her that his calibration worked.

Fitz?

Already impatient for his response, she typed out additional messages to keep her mind from racing of all the ways this could go wrong.

Are you there?

Please say something.

Anything.

A few minutes passed without a response, so Jemma sank into her pillow, figuring the connection didn’t work within their cells and their tablets were useless. Fitz had probably tried everything he could before returning the card to her, so she wasn’t too disappointed - more frustrated than anything else. But a few seconds later, the tablet lit up next to her pillow, creating a small halo of light within the dark cell. Jemma propped herself up on her arm and picked it up, squinting her eyes at the screen. The short message was enough for her breath to catch in her throat.

I miss you.

Jemma placed her hand over her mouth to stifle the whimper that almost escaped. She truly didn’t know what he was going to say, but those three simple words seemed like the very thing she needed to hear.

With shaking hands, she typed out her response.

I miss you, too. How are you feeling?

It didn’t take nearly as long for another message to come through, Jemma never taking her eyes off the screen.

I’m okay.

That well, huh?

I’m getting there.

Taking in a shuddering breath, she let out a subtle sigh of relief. Fitz was never one to exaggerate his own progress, preferring to stay quiet. But this small acknowledgement brought her a comfort she didn’t know she needed.

That’s good.

What about you?

I’m okay.

That well, huh?

Jemma couldn’t help but chuckle. If they had been sitting next to each other in that moment, he would have probably elbowed her in the ribs.

Shut it.

But not really. Keep talking.

I’m glad you’re okay.

Me too.

Suddenly, she felt the need to tell him a million things at once - how it was okay if he truly wasn’t okay, and how she wanted to be there for him in any way he needed. They hadn’t spoken about the Framework or anything for that matter, and they were long due for a conversation about the state of their relationship. But for now, she settled on a simple message that summed up most of her current feelings.

I miss your voice.

I miss your smile.

I’m smiling right now.

It wasn’t a lie. She was smiling, even if the tears collecting in her eyes were making it difficult to read the screen.

We’re going to figure this out.

I know we will.

You should get some sleep. We can talk tomorrow.

I’ll try. It’s not the same without you here.

I know. Like I said, we’ll figure this out.

Goodnight Jemma.

Goodnight Fitz.

At once, the messages disappeared, a feature she assumed he added for additional safety. Clutching the tablet to her chest, she pulled the thin blanket around her and sank deeper into her pillow, a sudden calm washing over her limbs and mind. Even if she couldn’t reread the messages, as she often used to do when he sent her texts with mission updates, a small comfort and reminder that he was okay and coming back to her, just the feeling of the small object sitting against her heart was enough for her to know that he was there - just a click away.

#fitzsimmons #thefitzsimmonsnetwork #fstag #fsfic #aosficnet #fanfiction friday #agents of shield #leo fitz #jemma simmons #fic #mine #mel writes #oneshot*#easy on the science and heavy on the feels?#i didn't know about the in-between bits the gory bits of queue and the gory bits of me

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angrycollectordaze-me-blog · 5 years

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Assignment代写：The narrative strategy of gossip girl

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的assignment代写范文- The narrative strategy of gossip girl，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了《绯闻女孩》的叙事策略。美剧《绯闻女孩》自开播以来，迅速流行，吸引众多受众，其叙事策略起到很大作用。巧妙的蒙太奇手法是《绯闻女孩》剧很显著的艺术特色，蒙太奇给《绯闻女孩》创造了独特、多样的影视时间和空间。此外，《绯闻女孩》剧采用开放性的叙事结构，编剧鼓励观众的参与反馈，根据观众的喜好决定人物的去留和情节发展。

Since its debut, gossip girl has become rapidly popular and attracted many audiences, and its narrative wisdom plays a great role. The play presents three narrative strategies: "subversive" narrative perspective, "creative" montage narrative and "open" narrative structure.

A narrative is "a detailed description of a series of facts or events and the determination and arrangement of their relations". Roland barthes, a famous semiotic theorist, said: "narration itself has no distinction between behavior and purpose. Narrative can be said to include everything of human language, because narrative is an ancient phenomenon that transcends history and culture after the invention of language by human enlightenment. Therefore, as long as there is information exchange, there is narrative, and any material is suitable for narrative.

As a basic way for human beings to understand and reflect the world and themselves, narrative is the basic means of creation of all narrative works of art. Therefore, to attract the audience, the most direct way of TV drama is to adjust the storytelling method and effectively tell the story. American TV series gossip girl is a youth idol TV show that integrates fashion and Internet. The show shows the life of a wealthy kid at a private school on Manhattan's upper east side, and in a flamboyant way shows the psychedelic youth filled with money and high society. The play follows the fast pace of American TV series, without any delay, and has the characteristics of The Times and youth. The students use their mobile phones and computers to browse the "gossip girl" blog, and use their mobile phone text messages to get and spread the latest gossip.

Since the broadcast of the show, it quickly became popular and attracted many audiences, and its narrative wisdom played a great role. The play presents three narrative strategies: "subversive" narrative perspective, "creative" montage narrative and "open" narrative structure.

Narrative perspective, also known as narrative aggregation, is a specific perspective to observe and tell a story in narrative language. It is about the interrelationship between the narrator and the story being told: "what is the time relation of the narrative to the story? Is the narrative mechanism inherent in the story space, or just the opposite? How present is the narrator in a narrative?"

The TV series basically adopts a single third-person "omniscient narrative", and the camera is the ubiquitous eye, that is, the perspective of merrier's "music conductor" in the early film start-up period. The narrative perspective of contemporary American TV series breaks this creative convention and USES multiple narrative perspectives imaginatively, giving audiences a new and novel experience. Instead of narrating as Mary's soul in desperate housewives, gossip girl features a mysterious character who never appears on the show.

The teenage characters use their mobile phones and computers to read "gossip girl" 's blog and send gossip and photos to "gossip girl" via text messages. "Gossip girl" is gossiping about the secrets and actions of upper east siders, especially the show's main characters. "She" is not only the disseminator of gossip, but also the observer and witness of the characters' life in the play. But they can't find out who "gossip girl" is in the real world, and the character's identity is one of the show's biggest cliffhangers.

The show opens with the words "gossip girl" : "hey guys, gossip girl is here. I have the biggest news in history to share with you... "The narration of the special identity of" gossip girl "is more observed and involved in the plot, and it is placed in the same narrative discourse context with the dialogue of the pictures and characters. Through her unique way of seeing the world and examining the upper class society, audiences can experience the plot more deeply. The narration of "she" in the play is concise and pithy at the same time, full of humor and humor of black humor, and its mysterious tone is unforgettable.

The clever combination of narration and picture plays the role of metaphor and summary of the theme. At the end of episode 10 of season 1, for example, the voice-over reads, "people often say that no matter what the truth is, people only see what they want to see." Lily sees Serena and Dan dancing together, as she did with Rufus when she was a teenager. "some people might look back and realize that their desires were always the same," she says. Blair and Nate used to love each other a lot. "some people probably always knew what was going on." Chuck, who lost Blair and his heart to his own scheming, wants to leave, "and there are people who will run away so they don't have to look at themselves." The theme of the episode is summed up in the same part of the picture and voiceover.

When the voiceover is involved in the narrative context ontology, it strengthens the enlightening and thought-provoking role it can play in the interpretation of the theme, and then reflects on its own life. For example, at the end of episode 11 of season 2, the show is celebrating Thanksgiving, and the scenes of Nate and Chuck, Serena and her boyfriend, Blair's family and Rufus' family are cut to show gratitude for friendship, romance and family ties. Finally, as Vanessa sneaks open Jenny's letter, the voice says, "but I'm most grateful that people do unforgivable things even on days of greatest devotion."

In addition, the clever montage is a significant artistic feature of gossip girl. Montage is the main means of narration and expression in film creation. According to the content to be expressed in the film and the psychological order of the audience, a film is shot into many shots respectively, and then the separate shots are assembled to narrate the plot and depict the characters. Montage was first extended to the film art, and later it was widely used in the derivative fields of visual art.

It can be said that as long as there are film and television works, montage will have the space to exist and play an important role. Montage has created unique and diverse film and television time and space for gossip girl.

In season 1, Georgina broke Serena with her appearance

A quiet life. When Georgina threatens Serena, Serena reminds her friend of the ugly past. The present tense, when Serena cries to her best friend, and the past tense, which is made up of flashbacks between the characters, create two completely parallel time and space that drive the plot. In this parallel montage, the viewer searches for logical connections and gradually learns why Serena left Manhattan for boarding school.

In episode 7 of season 1, Chuck was absolutely mesmerized by a beautiful woman dancing on a dark bar stage with her back to the camera. But the story doesn't go on here, it goes back to two days ago, starting from two days ago. Flashbacks are used here to tease the audience with a glimpse of the plot, so that the audience's confusion and curiosity at the beginning of the series can be relieved with the development of the plot.

Season 1 episode 3, ivy week is coming up, and the main characters are going all out. From the beginning, the characters begin their morning grooming with a cross montage, to sitting down at school to listen to the teacher's announcement. The main characters sit in the auditorium in the present tense, crisscrossing the events of their morning

Blair's dreams reflect her subconscious unease and anxiety and serve as a metaphor for the plot. For example, in the fourth episode of the first season, Blair watched Serena steal her halo from tiffany's window. As the show progresses, Blair blames Serena for stealing her mother's love and honor.

Narrative structure is how the story is told. In the traditional closed TV series narrative mode, each episode has a beginning, development and ending, and the narrative structure is typical closed. The result of a structured story always follows the end of the broadcast, and in most cases, the audience can expect the result. American TV series adopt the system of separation of production and broadcasting, and the form of shooting and broadcasting at the same time, which directly brings the unpredictability and infinite possibilities of the plot development of TV series.

Gossip girl adopts an open narrative structure. The scriptwriter encourages audience participation and feedback, and decides the characters and plot development according to audience preferences. Writers can also adjust their plots and even add or subtract actors, depending on current events or unforeseen circumstances. For example, the actor who plays Georgina in the play has a full schedule, so her scene in the play ends with "she runs away with a man who claims to be a Russian prince."

Of course, in addition to the above interaction with the audience and meeting the needs of actors, the role of open narrative structure is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.

The open structure allows the imbalance and uncertainty on gossip girl to play a role, leaving suspense. By creating "suspense" Settings of multiple narrative lines to promote the development of the story, the audience always maintain a high level of interest and expectation. For example, in the first six minutes of the first season, the writers reveal the "suspense" Settings of multiple narrative lines: the mysterious return of Serena, Rufus' marriage problems, Dan's emotional direction, Nate's emotional entanglement with Serena, Blair's friendship with Serena, Eric's reason for being in a nursing home, and who is "gossip girl"? It was a secret "she" would never tell. None of the characters can find out, and the character's identity is the main suspense. In addition, the series will leave a huge suspense at the end of each season, allowing the characters to go to an unknown fate, so as to stimulate the anticipation of the audience. For example, Chuck's soulful speech at the wedding at the end of season 1 won Blair's heart. So how will Chuck and Blair's relationship evolve next season? At the end of season 2, Georgina returns to New York and asks Blair to be her roommate at NYU. Carter Baizen returns to New York with the secret of Serena's biological father. At the end of season 3, Georgina returns, claiming to be pregnant with Dan; Chuck was shot. What happened? These suspense points undoubtedly hold the audience's attention.

The open structure introduces new characters and storylines each season, creating suspense that keeps viewers tuned in. The appearance of Vanessa in season 1, Lily's baby with Rufus at the end of season 2, Serena's father, and so on, has thrown the cast into a new situation that continues to unfold in multiple episodes. In each season of the broadcast, the story plot is compact, each episode has a relatively complete plot, but the suspense, plot intensity is gradually increasing, to the next season, the writers have to add new characters to inject new vitality into the plot. However, it is precisely because the addition of new characters sometimes connects with the main character, which leads to more complicated emotional relationships. Therefore, some leading characters leave negative images of emotional unspecificity and fickle character for the audience. Even though many characters are set in the two sides of good and evil, it is a major feature of the play.

The open structure leads to the unification of the virtual and the real. Such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, the protagonist will also be on TV "holiday"; The two actresses were inspired by two of New York's hottest talking heads, Tinsley Mortimer and Lydia Hearst. Every season, even every episode has a different music, and most of the popular music; In the play invited many current flow star guest star.

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