#i like that there is some unsaid stuff one may read in various ways when it comes to Bi Han's family matters

[not-so-anonymous-scotch]

The Killing Type, Chapter 5, 1.9k words Bdubs/Etho, M rating, violence/gore & respawn death

Wow, its been a lot longer since I wrote for this than I realized. I suggest maybe refreshing on the very short chapter 3. I claimed at first this fic had no continuity but really i mean it doesnt go in chronological order. This is all connected and this chapter is a huge callback.

read it above, or below the cut!

It wasn't in Etho's plans to make his way over to the Arena. He wasn't the one going around bribing and intimidating, he wasn't like that. But he knew who was- it was Bdubs, literally no one else could be doing it and the rumours were enough confirmation. Etho knew that just approaching Bdubs should be enough to get him to back off, so no harm in a visit with unsaid intentions. As he walked towards the immense structure, Etho looked up at the impressive handiwork for a moment. Still unfinished but more finished than he could ever achieve. His appreciation for the builder's work could be taken outside of his grudge for the crimes he committed.

Past the pillars, Etho quietly made his way along the edge of the center-most ring. The faint name tag of bdoubleo100 could be seen under the bleachers- in the storage room no doubt. He peeked around the edge, a break in the walls that led through a narrow doorway. It wasn't hard the hear a sign of activity, the slamming of various chests opening and closing was not very quiet. Etho didn't even need to step carefully as he walked in, Bdubs seemed far too occupied to pay attention to his surroundings. It was only when Etho came into clear view of Bdubs crossing the hall with some supplies that the other caught him in the corner of his vision. While Etho stood composed near the doorway, Bdubs had stopped in his tracks to stare at him, eventually straightening up and quickly shaking off the surprise in his expression.

“Well,” Bdubs started after clearing his throat, “I didn't expect to see you today. Why not give me a heads up? Could've... uh, tidied up.”

Etho could hear the nervousness that crept into Bdubs' voice, and stayed put. “Do I need an invite?”

Bdubs went and put down the things he was holding. “Well yeah! Can't just have you coming in here whenever. I gotta know. Walkin' in here like you own the place, taking stuff, doing as you please...”

There was a pause of silence to let Bdubs hear what he had just said.

Etho stepped further into the storage room. “Mhm... So, I uh... I heard about you going around the server...”

“Oh did you now?” It was time for him to be a bit to be cocky. “And what did you hear?”

“Something about... I think, bribing?” Etho said, keeping his eyes on Bdubs.

“Ah, yes. That.” Bdubs said casually, leaning against the wall across from him.

“...So, you have been bribing?”

“Pfft, of course. You expect me not to play dirty after you killed me?” Bdubs gave a short laugh, “Come on now- I may as well do it after that!”

“You stole from me, and I killed you because of that. You know you were in the wrong.” Etho glared over at Bdubs, crossing his arms.

“Sure- but, you didn't need to do that, you know.” Bdubs waved his comment away dismissively, stepping closer to Etho. “I thought we were pals and all...”

“We are pals.” Etho sighed, breaking eye contact for a moment. “But I deserved to get a kill on you.”

Bdubs hummed in amusement. “Oh, okay... And do I not deserve to get a kill on you? Huh? Shouldn't I get to kill you? Wouldn't that make it fair?”

“No. And I mean, even if I said yes... Not sure if you could anyways.” Etho looked back him, smiling under his mask.

“You don't think I could?!” Bdubs exclaimed, appalled by the accusation. “Boy, I will kill you right now!”

As Etho answered with a soft chuckle, Bdubs turned around quickly and grabbed the nearest sword. “Go- Go, get out there an' I'll show you..” Bdubs waved the sword at Etho as he moved towards the doorway.

“You're going to kill me?” Etho calmly walked backwards. “Will it make you feel better? Because we're still gonna do the trial.”

“Yeah, it'll make me feel better.” Bdubs laughed, “And maybe this can be your bribe to make me change my mind for the trial...!”

Etho felt the sword prod at him again, causing him to step out of the hall a little faster. Bdubs led him towards the open clearing of sand, a perfect place for such an event. Etho remained unarmed and simply willing for Bdubs' wish- though knowing him, it wouldn't be as easy as Bdubs would like to think.

“Alright then,” Etho started, “you barely got a hit on me last time, so I'll save you the energy. Just do it.”

“Ohh no- in that case, I'll be sure to savour it.” Bdubs smiled, stepping forward with confidence.

Bdubs knew Etho would still try to avoid him. Try to dodge, get out of the way, and potentially even try to stop him despite his lack of weapon. He knew that. Leading with his sword out, Bdubs was swift to go at him. Etho leaned out of the way, watching it pass by his side. As Bdubs picked up the pace, so did Etho. It was an impressive dance from Etho's end, dodging and weaving between the silver blur of swings. He wasn't free of harm though- a couple frantic swings nicked his arms and sides but it wasn't nearly enough.

“You fricker-- stop!Get over here!” Bdubs voice was breathless as he became more annoyed and tired.

He bounded forward with more intent- his sword wielding arm raised and his other reaching out for Etho. It was quick enough that Etho had his eyes on the sword, as Bdubs then grabbed Etho by the arm to hold him in place. There was a brief moment of worry from Etho, but he acted just as quick. He took the proximity to swipe Bdubs off his feet, tripping him. The pair fell together, Etho's back hitting the coarse sand below and Bdubs' landing atop. Bdubs failed to get his strike as they lost balance, struggling to regain himself as the breath was knocked out of him.

Bdubs coughed from the dust that picked up from their impact, leaving him vulnerable. While Etho was still blinking the sand from his eyes, he reached up to grab Bdubs and the hand the held his sword. There was a struggle as Bdubs processed what was happening, but before he knew it Etho had rolled him off and onto his side. That sword wrapped around his fingers but Bdubs had lost the advantage, and soon enough Etho ripped it from his grip. The scuffle had Etho panting as well, but he had confidence as he sat over Bdubs, armed with the weapon that could have confidently killed him if held by the right person.

“God- goddammit.” Bdubs hissed, out of breath and to exhausted in that moment to struggle.

Etho's smirk was all too obvious behind the mask. “This is kind of sad, Bdubs.”

“Oh shut up.” He huffed. “Come on, this was my bribe! One where I'm satisfied, and let you win the trial...”

There was a short laugh that fell from Etho's lips. “Sure but, this- this is a better bribe. For me. One where I get to kill you again. I know you must like it at this point- right?”

“But you already killed me.” Bdubs glanced away, continuing a little quieter. “Ya know, it gets a bit stale after a while.”

There was a hint of jest in his eyes as they stayed there for a minute, unmoving.

But eventually there was a shift underneath him, as the look in Etho's eyes changed. Bdubs knew he was not in the right position now, and struggled against the grip Etho had on his wrists. It wasn't too hard to free himself of that, but Etho was quick to ready his sword. Bdubs was already wriggling himself out from under him, making Etho bring some jabs down at the ground. Each one just barely missed as Bdubs leaned one way or the other, but Etho straddled his sides enough to keep him close.

Just one wrong move. One wrong move and- in the frantic shifting from side to side, Etho's sword hit. Not exactly in the place he wanted, but it hit. He'd pinned his sword right on Bdubs' wrist. An awkward place, but he'd use it. As Bdubs cried out, trying to pull himself away, Etho dragged it down from there. With the place it cut, more blood than usual started spilling from the wound. A nasty cut running down his forearm, dark glistening red revealed from under the skin.

Bdubs was always good at containing himself. He didn't like to react strongly to a cut or a wound. It was embarrassing, especially in underneath of Etho. But the sounds that escaped his mouth could not be stopped, and it revealed his pain. Very horrible pain. When Etho pulled the sword off, Bdubs quickly hugged his arm against himself.

“Fucking hell man!” Bdubs closed his eyes tight as his shirt became smeared with red. “You couldn't have just killed me right there?!”

“I was trying to, but you kept moving!” Etho stated, at first uneased by Bdubs' current struggle, but not enough to act differently.

“Okay, yeah-” Bdubs' whines of pain broke through words as he spoke. “Oh lord, you must be enjoying this one, huh?”

Etho hummed, locking gazes with Bdubs' ever painful expression. “Well, I'm not really trying to torture you here.... But yeah, of course it was fun knocking you down. And stabbing you. Do you want me to kill you now?”

For some reason that pulled a smile from Bdubs, even as he winced. “Do you wanna kill me now? Thought this was your bribe to take.”

“Do I...?” It was intentional to drag out his answer, watching as Bdubs seemed to falter more and more.

“Etho, come on now,” Bdubs' voice wavered, “get it over with. Kill me right now. Just kill me. I need get rid of this damn cut.”

“Okay, fine.” Etho shrugged. “Wouldn't want to wait another ten minutes for you to just... bleed out.”

Bdubs was still tilted on his side, holding arm close. When Etho brought the sword back into view, he felt Etho's other hand press on his shoulder. He forced Bdubs onto his back, fully engaged as he looked up at him. Bdubs didn't even brace for the pain with how much his arm was searing in what already felt as bad as it could possibly get. He simply watched Etho's face in that second of a moment before his sight went dark with a final blow.

The body dissipated, but the blood was still there. There was a lot of it, far more than usual, and he couldn't help but think about it. Warm and sticky against the material of his pants. The way that wound on Bdubs' arm bloomed open. A blatant scar to reveal where everyone could see- until it healed up in a few more respawns. But ever visible until then.

Etho blinked, noticing the chat fade in.

<BdoubleO100>: i respawned at spawn!

<BdoubleO100>: did you break my freaking bed??

<Etho>: no lol. you forget to set it?

<BdoubleO100>: i dont know but i am going to kill you when i get back there

It was time to leave. Or play a game of cat and mouse. The latter was forever the likelier choice.

#bdoubleo100 #ethoslab #hermitfic #mindcrack #bdubs #etho #YES this chapter IS in mindcrack!! its the trial!

[delirious-and-slightly-murderous]

For the WIP ask game: please tell us something about Procrastinating Painter and exasperated but horny manager?

Hi Anon!😊 So glad you asked about this one.

So this is, at its core, a character study. 

A little tidbit of information about me: I am a master procrastinator. And not only when it comes to writing but in all aspects of my life too. I am lazy. If I can do it later, I will do it later. And I'll keep pushing it back as much as I can until I can't anymore. Thanks to this I've become a master at finishing projects with very little time and a deadline hanging like a sword of Damocles over my head. I work best under pressure. That's why I sometimes lose interest in my fics so easily. If I don't have a deadline it's very hard for me to get stuff done.

Soooooo, all this to say that one day, while I was despairing over my WIPs I started thinking about the different ways an artist or creator can deal with procrastination. And then, because every idea I get now mostly concerns or can be applied to Berlermo, I said to myself: But what if Andrés was a master procrastinator like me?

And BAM!

This thing was born. (Also I find it kinda ironic and hilarious that a character study in procrastination ended up as a WIP, don't you agree?).

So the basic idea is that Andrés is a moderately known and successful painter. He's not as successful as he could be because he's very particular and picky with his work and who he works for. So he only paints when he wants to and what he wants to. Which would be fine except that he is a procrastinator so his work is scarce.

Enter Martín, who is Andrés' best friend/agent and kinda friend with benefits. He is the one in charge of making sure Andrés gets stuff done even if the man in question does not want to. This means that Martín lives in a constant state of awe at Andrés' genius and talent, and also exasperation because of his laziness and inability to do what he's told. Also he is very much in love with Andrés and hates himself because of it.

So the fic in itself would cover the span of a month while Martín tries to get Andrés to work on an important commision for a famous gallery. From him we would see his struggle with perceived unrequited feelings for a man he feels he cannot fully come to understand. Andrés would procrastinate and we would see all his process and struggle with it. Until a couple days before the exhibition when Martín is about to kill Andrés, his genius strikes and he goes and produces a masterpiece (a masterpiece that may or may not be inspired by Martín).

So mostly it would focus on the art, the feels, the procrastination, and then the mad rush to get things done in time. (And I'd like to think I'd write it with a very oniric feel to it. Oh and also smut, so very like soulful and poetic smut. But well I don't think that's gonna happen.)

(Oh and also a happy ending where they end up confessing their feelings because I'm weak like that😁.)

So here have a snippet:

Martín started pacing and swore as he narrowly avoided walking into a bucket of bright red paint. 

The room was positively tiny and he still couldn't understand why Andrés insisted on spending all his time in it like some kind of recluse. The monastery was big enough to accommodate docens of people at one time but Andrés was happy to cram himself in the tiniest, most uncomfortable room he could find.  

He wondered how Andrés could live like that. The room was cramped, cluttered with books, canvases, sculptures and various bits of artistic trash. It looked like a museum's warehouse, if museums threw invaluable works in a warehouse without thought or care to what became of them. As he walked he deftly avoided discarded pieces of paper, empty paint tubes and old brushes. It was dirty, paint and dust covered every surface. The space not taken up by art supplies was used by a mattress on the ground shoved unceremoniously into a corner, a small coffee table and an enormous oak work table that seemed to be the centerpiece of the place.

Amongst all this chaos there stood Andrés, serene and unperturbed, unaware of his surroundings. With a brush on each hand and one clenched between his teeth. Before him a half painted canvas stretched like a vision of doom. The colors bleak and depressing. A mirage of untold horrors that sucked the life out of the area around it. The air seeming to grow heavier, dense and charged, stilted and dead. 

Martín could feel it in his bones, the emotions Andrés put into his work always expanding and resonating within him, turning him into a vessel for what Andrés couldn't say.

He was choking on an invisible weight and fought against it to unfurl his tongue from the dry cavern of his mouth and produce a sound. He knew the other man wasn't happy and that his intervention would only make things worse. But he had to shatter the looming tension before it swallowed him whole.

"Why don't you find another place. Maybe an apartment closer to the city."

Andrés didn't stop in his work but his shoulders tensed imperceptibly and the fingers of his left hand started drumming against the brush he wasn't currently using. He shook his head softly, his motions fluid and liquid. A delicate movement of silk floating in water.

"I'm not moving in with you Martín."

Martín closed his eyes, the bright hot pang in his heart a familiar caress at this point. He was like an addict, his feelings for Andrés a raging force that ravages his body and leaves him empty and aching. And still he willingly comes back for more, each time climbing higher with the knowledge that when he hits the ground it'll be more violent than before, the pieces impossible to pick up.

"That's not what I'm asking, you know it's not."

Andrés dipped his brush in a mug near his hand, washing out the dark paint, flicking the brush and creating a splatter of black bottomless dots, giving birth to a galaxy in the space that separates them.

"Don't ask things for which you know you won't like the answer."

Andrés' strokes become forceful then, the brush colliding against the canvas in an uncontrolled manner. The anger and frustration behind the movement captures Martín. He feels like a chick standing at the precipice. He can jump and take flight, taste the freedom and exhilaration of the wind rushing through his wings. Closing his eyes and diving not knowing if he's ready to fly the possibility of the deadly agonising crash a dark shadow at his back.

He was saved from having to make the choice by Andrés humming lowly in his throat.

"I love you Martín, but I'm not going to give up my life for you."

That familiar caress is back and the little chick is safely back in it's nest. The precipice dissolving and the unforgivable ground surging up to meet him, ripping him away in a manner more painful than any death. He shrugs, hunching in on himself, knowing the matter is closed and forgotten.

"Pass me my coffee." He demands, plastering a fake plastic smile on his face. While Andrés chooses to ignore the burning heat of things left unsaid that slowly melt the plastic away. Leaving behind a partially uncovered picture of a grotesque truth.

"I'm painting." Came the absent minded reply, the willful ignorance of man with a staggering lucidity of all the consequences of his actions.

Martín got up stretching legs that felt numb, forced to carry the weight of an unfathomable burden. He slowly walked towards Andrés, his steps the slow and lifeless cadence of the condemned, prolonging the inevitable in their approach to the gallows. 

He took his mug and took a long and deep sip of the liquid inside. He became aware of his mistake when Andrés turned to him with a steaming mug in his hand and a confused frown wrinkling his brow. 

Martín immediately opened his mouth, the dark paint water running down his chin like vomit, maring his shirt and staining skin and teeth. In the sickly pale light of the naked bulb, with the shadows under his eyes and the lingering hurt in his being, it made him look like a corpse throwing up thick and rotten blood.

Andrés laughed, the sound had a hysterically joyful quality to it, a discordant note in the gloominess of the room. It immediately invaded them, running through every crevice, every nook and cranny, injecting light and giving back the life that had been sucked out by the oppressing darkness.

The room changed completely, becoming bright and warm without suffering any real physical changes. It was infectious, contaging Martín and changing him from the inside out without his notice.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a comfortable silence. And the next time Martín stopped for a visit the room felt warm and homely, cosy and welcoming. He also found that the mugs had marker scribbles on them. One read 'Martín' the other 'Paint Water'.

It put a small smile on his face.

Well Anon, it's really shitty right now and needs a lot of polishing and editing, but I hope you enjoy this and that it doesn't disappoint.☺

#berlermo #I actually like this one a lot too #It's mostly me projecting my feelings onto Andrés and Martín #my feelings and insecurities #but well #i hope one day I manage to do it #and that it comes out good #but I'm not great with character studies #so 🤷‍♀️ #this might die a languid death in my docs #martin berrote #andres de fonollosa #la casa de papel #alternate universe #lcdp #procrastination #fanfic #ask game #ask

[third-rail-vip]

20 OTP Questions

Tagged by @tarberrymentats​ thank you so much for the tag! <3

I’m going to tag @minuteminx​ @asaara-writes​  @pchberrytea​ @mayihavethisdanse​ @potatocrab​ @laurelsofhighever​ and anyone else who wants to, tag me because I’d love to see your OTPs!!

I might have gone a bit overboard, so I’ll put most of this under the cut…

Mac x Ivy

1. Who can outdrink the other?

Oh, definitely Mac.  They learnt that the first night they met, not that she was trying to keep up it’s just Ivy is a thorough lightweight.  He didn’t like questions, she can’t help but ask them, so the deal was one shot per question.  She is smol and cannot hold her booze.  Two centuries on ice and she seems to have lost some of the tolerance she built up in college.  Magnolia had to tell Mac to make sure she got to the Rexford ok.  Of course, en route she picked up multiple jobs and talked Fred into giving them 500 caps for going to Hallucigen.  Mac was gobsmacked, it was the beginning of a beautiful if unexpected friendship.  

These days if you give her too much, you’ll find her sat on the floor in the corner of Railroad parties with Tinker Tom talking conspiracy theories.  

2. Who says “i love you” more?

Probably Mac, but not because he loves more, but because he’s definitely the more vocal of the two of them.  Words are one of his main love languages.  Plus, he’s lost a partner before (which Ivy hasn’t) and there were things unsaid in that relationship that he’ll always regret, so he knows the importance of telling the people you love how you feel, and telling them often.  Ivy is more of a show than tell, even though she’s the type to fall first, she’s been hurt before by exactly that so she’s slower to use the words and breaks them out less often.  She shows she loves him through her actions.

3. Who has trouble sleeping alone?

Very much Ivy, not that Mac doesn’t to some degree, but this is a scary new world for Ivy and she feels very much safer having someone there.  She was a wreck when he was away in the Capital Wasteland and really struggled to sleep at all.  She is more likely to not be able to get to sleep if she’s alone.  Mac is more likely to have a disturbed night, waking up feeling an absence.  

4. Who swears more?

Ivy.  She may look sweet but she really can have a foul mouth.  She will basically swear for Mac as well.  He’ll cut himself off and she’ll fill in the blank.  She resists the urge, or at least desperately tries to pick other words at the last second when the kids are about.  It doesn’t always work well.

5. Who does more of the housework?

It’s shared.  Ivy makes more mess though, she’s clean but untidy.  She seems accumulate way more stuff than Mac does, and boy does she spread it around the house.  She’s also very distractible, so he can get back and find a half-risen loaf in the kitchen, which she’ll have left, having had a thought about something she wanted to draw while it was still in her mind.  So, the sketchbooks are out in the living room, but then she’ll see a sketch of Mac and remember she was going to fix the arm on his duster again.  And so on and so forth.  Mac isn’t without guilt, there are always comics on various surfaces, left open (taking up maximum room) to show Ivy or the boys the best bits.  If Codsworth had lungs, he’d hyperventilate.  She will tidy up after herself though, when she realises she’s left everything all over.  I mean, nobody wants to hear a Mr Handy cry pre-recorded tears.

6. Who forgets their anniversary?

They don’t technically have an anniversary, actually getting together was a bit of a messy and protracted process.  The easiest date to remember is Halloween when they first met in Goodneighbour.  Maybe one day they’ll have an official anniversary for something else, but for now.

7. Who steals the duvet in their sleep?

Sometimes they can have a bit of blanket tug of war going on depending on who got into bed first.  Ivy was nesh even before the war, but two hundred years on ice has done her no favours.  She gets criminally cold hands and feet.  If they were just sharing a bed before they got together, Ivy would 100% steal that duvet, but these days she just wraps around her mercenary and they sleep like a little two person blanket burrito.  

8. Who keeps the other awake at night with their snoring?

Neither keeps the other awake.  Mac is the one who snores, but they are little damn kitten snores, like his sneezes.  If anything is going to keep Ivy awake, it’s him falling asleep first and her just silently going “awwwwww” at her adorable boyfriend.  

9. Who finds stray animals and begs the other to let them keep them?

This is totally Ivy and cats.  They have dogmeat of course, but he’s his own man and he’s always welcome with them, but he’s not really theirs.  Ivy love cats, she will sneak off to play with settlement cats when she should be doing far more minutemen type activities.  They are definitely slowly accumulating cats at their most regularly visited settlements.

10. Who usually makes dinner?

Ivy enjoys cooking most out of the two of them, and she’s rather good at it.  Getting better all the time as well since her and Codsworth are doing their best to remember and collect pre-war recipes, or at least work out how to make equivalents.  Mac is a reasonable cook, but over the years he’s generally been happy to exist on pre-war ‘just add water’ kind of food, rather than cooking from scratch, which is definitely Ivy’s jurisdiction.  But if she’s cooking, and if he can persuade Codsworth to leave them to it, he loves to cook with Ivy.  Even more so when the kids want to get involves too.  

11. Who plays their music out loud?

Oh god, they both do.  The pipboy radio is always going.  Turning it right up and singing along is almost mandatory. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might catch Ivy playing the guitar or the piano and singing.  She’s usually shy about it, but she’s good.  She’s performed once at The Third Rail as a birthday present.

12. Who hogs the bathroom?

Given the opportunity of a hot shower in Vault 81, you will lose Ivy for so long you’d think she’d drowned.  Drenching herself in enough scolding hot water to supply a minor settlement, truly is the most self-indulgent of self-care.  Mac isn’t the biggest fan but he can be persuaded.  The only time he’ll hog the bathroom is when it’s time to keep that goatee in tiptop condition.  He’s very particular about it.  

13. Who gives the most compliments?

Like with saying ‘I love you’ most, Mac is definitely the one who lays on the compliments.  He learned early on that Ivy isn’t used to being complimented like that, or at least, it’s been a very long time since she was treated that way.  He’s almost made it a personal mission to set that right.  How easily she blushes at them is just an added bonus.  

14. Who usually starts/causes arguments between them?

They aren’t an argumentative couple, from past experience, Ivy does not cope well with that kind of confrontation within a relationship.  They are more likely to snark if something has annoyed them, but are actually really good at reading each other’s body language for when something they’ve done has upset the other.  But if it comes down to it, Mac is more likely to be the one to get into a more heated discussion about something that’s upset him.  Ivy is the one to calm a situation.  The only time they’ve had an actual stand up row was during Blind Betrayal.

15. Who isn’t afraid to embarrass the other in public?

They aren’t afraid of a bit of public bantering, and will definitely play up for an audience if they’re in the right mood.  Ivy is a little more inclined to publicly tease Mac in one way or another, but that might be more because Mac suspects she can deal it out better than she can take it, rather than her being the more equipped to do it.  Although when it comes to quietly flustering her in public, that is very much Mac’s jurisdiction.  

16. Who gives the other cringeworthy pet names?

There’s a definite teasing edge to most of the nicknames they call each other, they’re both more comfortable with being called them when there isn’t too big of an audience around.  But I guess Mac would be more embarrassed by Ivy’s habit of calling him anything beginning with ‘sweet’ – it’s not good for his tough mercenary image, you know.  Mac doesn’t care who hears him call Ivy ‘angel’, he’s being calling her it for so long (way longer than they’ve been together) but he might draw the line at shouting ‘kitten’ across Diamond City marketplace.  Most other names they call each other are more along the lines of compliments or abbreviations of their names.  

17. Who fusses over the other when they get sick?

Ivy is definitely the more diligent medic, and a very well qualified worrier.  So when Mac is hurt, she’s all over that, and he regularly jokes that she carries enough gear to set up a small field hospital with her at all times.  Not that that habit hasn’t saved their asses on multiple occasions.  Mac is more likely to get genuinely scared if Ivy is badly hurt or sick because of past experience.  When it comes to just being a little bit poorly, Mac will milk it like an absolute drama queen.  Ivy is a soft touch and will let him.  But she’s also very good at telling when he’s better and is just looking for extra attention.  She’ll make up ‘treatments’ to see if he’ll keep up the charade and how committed he is to being waited on hand and foot.

18. Who finds it impossible to stay angry at the other for long?

For a guy who can mature a grudge like a fine wine, Mac has never ever been able to stay mad at Ivy.  Not even in those early days when she was ‘useless’ and they barely knew each other.  Mac melts at those big brown eyes, even if he tries to keep the frowns on the surface, all the anger goes in an instant.  It’s rare for her to get angry at him, but if the hurt is real then she can hang onto it until he’s shown that he’s earned back her trust.  It took him a while to win her back after coming back from the Capital Wasteland having not sent word at all since he left.

19. Who clings to the other for comfort when they’re sad or scared?

Ivy would be the first to cling to Mac when she’s scared, in fact she was, after very early close call.  That experience rather reinforced Mac as a safe place for her, bearing in mind she’s known him from just a week after escaping the vault, he’s definitely been a grounding presence for her.  When something is wrong, the first place she will seek comfort is in his arms, even from long before they were together.  Mac doesn’t break down until they’ve known each other for a lot longer, but he feels safe enough by then being that vulnerable with Ivy – it’s difficult because he has always had a habit of putting himself in a protector role in so many of his relationship with people that allowing himself to be seen as scared or even sad is difficult for him.  But once those floodgates are open, nothing would stop him from seeking comfort from her, even when things are awkward between them.

20. Who is more ‘physically passionate’? (hugs, kisses, or maybe more…)

When it comes to big public displays, it would probably be Mac (not in the early days though, he was definitely more private then) but he likes it known that they’re together – especially to that one dude from diamond city security who keeps hitting on her.  Ivy is more for subtle displays in public; holding hands, cheek kisses etc.  Although there was one incident…anyway.  Privately they are equally likely to be all over each other.  

#otp 20 questions meme #this turned out big! #mac x ivy #then i met you #maccready #robert joseph maccready #ivy kendrick #maccready x sole survivor #maccready x f!solesurvivor #sole survivor #my art #gorgeous screenshot by mayihavethisdanse

[fourdaysofrain]

By Any Other Name

Summary: 5 times Peter called Mr. Stark Tony, and one time he called him something else entirely. 

(Still set in the Irondad oasis between Homecoming and Infinity War)

Read on AO3

i. in the lab

It started, as most of their personal conversations do, during a late night in the lab. Peter was alternating between working on a history worksheet and his web-shooters, switching between the two projects when he ran out of steam. Tony was idly tinkering with a box of scraps while he waited for FRIDAY to process his newest idea for nanotech, which would take at least another hour. It was a gentle kind of silence that filled the room, only broken by various lab noises that they had both since learned to tune out-- a whir here, the ting of a fallen screw there, the soft scratching of a pencil on paper. 

“Hey Mr. Stark,” Peter said, his voice easily carrying over the room, “What was the main catalyst for World War I?”

There was a short pause while Tony switched his attention from the growing pile of machinery in front of him to the teenager across the room before he answered, “Franz Ferdinand’s death.”

“Thanks,” Peter responded as he quickly wrote something down, “that’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure about his name.” He laughed to himself softly, but it faded when he looked up to see Tony looking at him intently.

Tony took a breath to center himself before speaking. How could he tell the kid every time he called him Mr. Stark, it just reminded him of shitty fathers and childhoods spent masquerading like adults and drinking to avoid the stares of students and professors alike and-- he cut off his spiral with a short sniff. He decided casual was the best way to approach this. 

“Hey kid, why do you still call me Mr. Stark?”

Peter blanched as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. 

“It’s just that you’re a billionaire and a literal superhero, and May raised me to be respectful, I guess. There’s nothing more to it.” If it weren’t for the slightly more hysterical than normal nervous laugh that followed, Tony might have believed him. 

“You call Rhodey by his first name,” Tony countered, “well, technically by his middle name, but the point stands.”

“That’s different because Rhodey’s not--” the man who spends all of his time either protecting me or poking fun at me, my childhood hero, my quasi-dad parental figure type person “--my mentor.” 

“I can safely say that as your mentor, and given that you are also a ‘literal superhero,’” he rolled his eyes, successfully getting an annoyed smile from Peter, “I hereby grant you the ability to call me Tony.” He punctuated his words with a quick flourish of his hands. 

Peter sighed before making hesitant eye contact, tapping his fingers against the leg of his jeans, “Okay… Tony.”

“That wasn’t too bad, was it? The world is still standing, the clock is still ticking,” now it was Peter’s turn to roll his eyes, “and speaking of the clock still ticking, looks like we let it tick a little too long. Time for bed, Spiderling.”

Peter reacted quickly to the change in conversation, “I can’t go to bed yet! I still have a few questions on this worksheet, and it’s due tomorrow!”

“You should have thought about that sometime before--” his eyes flitted to the clock and back, “--12:30 am. Jesus kid, you really do have to get to bed. Don’t want you taking after me too much.” 

Tony tried to keep his tone light and joking, but it fell flat. Peter and him made eye contact for a second that seemed to stretch towards infinity before Tony looked away, pretending to study something on his desk.  

“I mean, red and gold aren’t my colors, but I could manage,” Peter joked. 

Tony chuckled at that, letting himself live in a world where his biggest regret was Iron Man’s suit design for a few moments. 

“C’mon kid, flattery will get you nowhere. Let’s close up for the night.” He didn’t bother with clearing the scraps off his desk, he would go back down to the lab after making sure Peter went to bed. 

“Please let me finish this, I promise it’ll be less than five minutes. I’ll even use FRIDAY so I can go even faster!”

“Kid, only you could make cheating sound like a good thing,” Tony took a beat to decide, as if Peter didn’t already have him wrapped around his finger, “Alright, just don’t tell your aunt that I let you stay up so late, it makes me look irresponsible. Or Pepper, for that matter. Thank God she’s still on her business trip or we would both be in trouble.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Stark-- Tony. I’ll be out of here soon.” 

Tony huffed out a laugh at the kid’s antics as he walked across the room to grab some more tools. 

True to his word, Peter finished his homework in record time, thanks to FRIDAY’s seemingly endless database of information. Just as Tony was relaxing into the steady back and forth of their conversation, he heard the harsh zip of Peter’s backpack.

“Alright, it’s all finished, so I can go to bed now,” Peter said, looking pointedly at Tony. 

“What’s with the look?”

“I think if you’re forcing me to go to bed, you should too.” Peter normally lost his filter when he was tired, so Tony shouldn’t be surprised that he’s getting rightfully called out.

“How about this-- I’ll walk you up, and then you can pretend I went to bed and not listen to my footsteps as I come back down here.” 

Peter rolled his eyes but saved the witty comeback. He instead just walked to the door with his backpack and looked back at Tony like a dog getting ready for a walk. The imagery made Tony laugh to himself. 

“Alright, I’m coming. FRI, put the lights to 50% all the way to Pete’s room.” A quick confirmation from the AI was all he needed to open the door and lead the way to the bedroom wing. He slung an arm around Peter, grasping his shoulder as the kid walked sleepily beside him.

They walked in amicable, or just tired, silence until they got to Peter’s door. May let him spend the night enough times that Peter finally felt comfortable enough to take ownership of the room, instead of having everyone pretend it was the guest room. It had a small whiteboard on the outside, reminding Tony of his days in the dorms at MIT. Tony smirked when he saw that someone, probably one of Peter’s Midtown friends, had drawn a spider building a web in the corner. 

“Last stop, Underoos,” Tony said, softly breaking the silence. Peter mumbled a thanks as he went to open the door. He looked at Tony expectantly for a beat before walking into his bedroom. 

“Goodnight, Tony,” came Peter’s voice from inside as the door closed behind him. Tony frowned. He sounded disappointed. He shrugged it off as lack of sleep.

“Night Pete,” he replied.

He stood still in front of Peter’s door. He wanted to go back to the lab to work on his newest idea for nanotech. He knew FRIDAY would be done with rendering the new models by now. Nonetheless, he signed before continuing down the hall to his own bedroom. That damn kid. 

ii. in the kitchen

The kitchen was filled with the aroma of warm spices. Peter followed it like a cartoon character after a pie. He expected to find Pepper, or maybe even Rhodey, baking something to share with everyone. He wasn’t prepared to see Tony Stark wearing an apron with the Mark VII’s arc reactor printed on the chest while singing proudly along to the music playing through FRIDAY’s speakers. Peter could have sworn he saw that apron at a tourist shop somewhere downtown. He walked into Tony’s line of sight, causing him to stop singing and tell FRIDAY to turn the volume down, though he didn’t look at all embarrassed at being caught. 

“Hey kid, have you ever had my famous molasses cookies? They’re an old Stark recipe. My mom taught me, her dad taught her, his dad... et cetera. It’s passed onto the firstborn. Top secret stuff.” He shot a silly wink across the room. 

Peter shook his head, still shell-shocked from seeing Tony acting so… domestic. 

“Well, today’s your lucky day. The first batch just came out.” Tony motioned to where a dozen cookies were sitting on a wire rack, and Peter eyed it hungrily. 

“Thanks, Mr. Stark!” As Pete moved to the counter to grab one, Tony stepped in to block his way.

“What’s the magic word?” he asked playfully. 

“Please?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’ with a smirk, “for me, it’s Tony.”

Peter shook his head as he said, “Sorry. Thanks, Tony.” He was rewarded with a clear path to the cooling cookies. He walked over and grabbed one, nowhere near as excited as he was a few seconds earlier. Tony frowned.

“What’s up, Pete?”

“Nothing,” Tony fixed him with a hard stare, and Peter took a second before continuing, “it’s just that calling you Tony is weird for me.” He grabbed a few cookies and a napkin, and sat at the counter across from Tony, not eating them yet.

“Why would it be weird? It’s my name, right?” Peter nodded, so he continued, “Mr. Stark is what everyone called my dad, or what people trying to brown-nose called me. Neither of those options makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You’re better than them, kid.” A flash of guilt went over Peter’s face, but Tony convinced himself he imagined it. 

“It’s just I already had the habit of calling you Mr. Stark, so it’ll take me a while to get used to it. No biggie,” he ended with taking a bite of a cookie, “Oh my God, these are insane! Why have you never made them before?”

Tony wasn’t entirely convinced but was willing to let it slide for now. 

“Next time, I’ll teach you the recipe so you can make them yourself,” he said casually.

“Um, didn’t you say the recipe was for Starks only?” Peter looked up from his cookies to Tony, his eyes wide and innocent. 

“Yeah well,” Tony scratched his eyebrow, searching for what to say, “just don’t tell TMZ and I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Peter smiled softly to himself as he continued to eat. Tony failed to suppress his own warm smile as he started to scoop out the next batch. The unsaid message was heard loud and clear.

You’re family. 

iii. at home

May and Peter were eating take-out at the table, May’s failed dinner residing somewhere in the dumpster outside. The clinks of their silverware and their warm conversation filled the apartment. 

“So what are your plans for this weekend? Ned seemed excited about something last time I saw him,” May asked as she took another bite. Peter made sure to swallow his own mouthful of food before responding.

“He got a new Lego set, and I’m going to help him build it on Sunday. But Friday night I’m going to spend the night at Tony’s, he said he already cleared it with you, and then Saturday I’ll probably be patrolling and doing homework all day.” Peter looked at May to find her smiling at him. He gave her a confused look.

“It’s so funny to hear you call him Tony. Like he’s a high school friend or something.” Peter laughed along with her goodnaturedly. 

“He said Mr. Stark makes him feel like his dad, so I’m getting used to saying Tony.”

“I can imagine. If you called me Mrs. Parker I think I’d have to kick you out.” May and Peter shared a playful smirk.

“Yeah well, that’s different. You’re my aunt, he’s Iron Man!” Peter still couldn’t hide his feeling of awe at personally knowing the Iron Man. May just smiled sweetly at him. 

“And being your aunt is the closest to a superhero I ever want to be,” May said as she reached over and rubbed his cheek, “and speaking of Tony, you should invite him over for dinner sometime. I’m willing to let him try to win me over after seeing how much he matters to you.”

Peter blushed but nodded. May hummed in response, and they kept eating dinner.  

iv. at the front desk

Peter swore under his breath. He’s supposed to be working on Dum-E and U’s little brother right now, but he has to get to the lab first. He was in the lobby of the tower (Tony decided not to sell it after the whole plane crash incident), and couldn’t think of how to get past the front desk. His suit was still being repaired in the lab, so he couldn’t just crawl up the side of the building. Happy didn’t drop him off today, so he couldn’t use his ID card, and his phone died on the cab ride over, so he couldn’t just text Mr. Stark-- Tony.

He’s gotten better with calling him Tony, but it still feels clunky and strange on his tongue. And now, he had the added guilt of making Tony think of his dad every time he messed up. They didn’t talk about it much, but Peter was good enough at understanding subtext to know he wasn’t a good person to be reminded of. He hated to see the hurt look on his face when he couldn’t say Tony with the same excitement as Mr. Stark. But how do you explain to someone that using their first name makes you think of your dead uncle?

Peter knew he’s had a lot of trauma in his life, especially regarding the death of family members-- specifically, parental figures. 

He called Richard “Dad” because that’s what he was, and that’s all he thought mattered at that age. He taught him to tie his shoes, he was there when he was born, and he heard his first word. But then, he died. And Peter moved in with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. 

He called Ben by his first name because Dad was already taken. It was a simple decision. They had a conversation one night where Peter said he saw Ben as a father in every way except for the title. Ben’s eyes had been misty as he gave him a hug goodnight that evening. Then Ben was also taken from him, and he was left to mourn with Aunt May. 

Enter Tony Stark. Peter has known him since just a few months after he got bit by a spider and fell into the persona of a crime-fighting vigilante. In the short time he’d known him, Tony had already made a big impact on his life. An upgraded suit, access to a high-tech lab with the supplies to make anything he could ever want, and, of course, another sort of father figure. Tony isn’t as confident in his emotions as Ben, or as outwardly paternal as Richard, but their bond is already much stronger than a standard mentor-mentee relationship. 

It’s depressing to even think about, but Peter is running out of ways to address the influential men in his life. Richard got the title, Ben got the first name, which leaves an awkward “Mr. Stark” leftover. It didn’t make sense, Peter knew that, but calling Mr. Stark by his first name just made him think of all the times he called Ben by his. But he’d gone through worse, and he could handle saying Tony, for his sake. 

He shook his head a bit before finally walking up to the front desk. The best way out of the woods is through, after all. He smiled awkwardly at the woman behind the front desk, knowing he must have seemed very out of place. 

“Can I help you?” she said, looking at his nerdy graphic tee and jeans dismissively over her glasses.

“Yes, thank you, I’m just here to see Tony.” Peter tried to give his best I’m a sweet kid, please help me smile. 

“Tony…?”

“Sorry, Tony Stark. I’m supposed to be in the lab with him right now, but I was running late so I had to take a cab, and my phone died so I can’t text him,” he started to trail off, looking for any reaction in the receptionist. 

“Cute,” she said, her bored expression not changing, “but Mr. Stark is very busy right now. You can check the website for when he does meet and greets. If you have any fan mail, you can leave it with me and I’ll send it to his office.”

“No I’m--” Peter cut himself off by running a hand through his hair, “I’m not a fan, I’m serious, can you just tell him Peter’s in the lobby?”

“Listen kid,” and wow did it sound much icier than when Tony said it, “you seem really sweet, but do you really expect me to believe that not only does a middle schooler get to spend one-on-one time with the owner of SI in his personal labs, but he’s on a first name basis with him, too?”

“I’m in high school,” Peter said, but his confidence had already wilted. He wished that he and Tony had actually set up his internship documents instead of continuously putting it off, so he could just scan an ID and walk in. 

“Sure. Do you have any other stories, or do I need to call security?”

Peter murmured to himself as he started to turn away, stopping when he saw the receptionist’s face finally change from bored to shocked. Not a second later, he felt a steady hand clap his shoulder. He instinctively looked behind him, only to see Tony, sporting a pair of sunglasses and a suit. 

“That won’t be necessary, Miss…” Tony checked the nametag of the receptionist before continuing to speak, “Debbie. Peter here just got a little lost. He’s a high school intern, who I still need to issue an ID to.” 

“I’m so sorry Mr. Stark--” Tony cut her off with a raised hand.

“No need to apologize, I’m glad you’re doing your job well. We’ll be going now.”

Tony led Peter to the elevators, leaving the shocked receptionist blinking to herself. Peter waited until the doors slid shut behind them before he spoke.

“Sorry Tony, I left my suit in the lab, and then my phone ran out of battery on the way here--” Tony cut him off by ruffling his hair as he took his sunglasses off.

“What’s with people and apologizing to me today? FRIDAY let me know when you walked in, I just had to finish some boring meeting before coming down.”

“Oh. Okay, cool.” Peter bounced on his heels awkwardly as the elevator slowed to a stop.

“And,” Tony smirked down at Peter and tapped the sunglasses in his hand when he looked up, “I heard and saw everything through FRIDAY. So if you do have any fan mail, please make sure it gets to my office.”

Peter groaned. He would never live that down. 

v. on a rooftop

Peter swung to the top of a nearby building and sat with his back leaning against the roof entrance, letting out a huge sigh as he finally got to relax. He slid his mask off and closed his eyes to work through the withdrawal of adrenaline as he waited for Tony’s inevitable lecture. Thankfully (or not), he didn’t have to wait too long. It was only a matter of minutes before he heard the Iron Man suit touch down next to him. He heard the faceplate lifting before Tony’s voice cut through the silence. 

“Are you hurt, Pete?” Peter was too tired to try to analyze his mood through his voice. He just shook his head from side to side. 

“FRI, do a scan for me.” He couldn’t hear FRIDAY’s response from where he was sitting, but it must have proved he was okay because Tony just huffed and walked to his side.

“Sorry,” Peter muttered.

“Kid, you can’t just apologize and keep doing the same thing over and over. I told you to not meddle with this… goblin guy. If you’re really sorry you wouldn’t keep going against my direct orders.”

Peter just muttered under his breath as he turned to face away from Tony.

“Hey, we’re having a conversation here, look at me,” he ordered.

“Are we?” Peter swung his head back to face Tony, feeling some of his exhaustion fall away at the prospect of an argument, “because it seems pretty one-sided to me.”

“No, you don’t get to do that,” Tony pointed his finger accusingly, “you could have been hurt, you could have died today Peter, are you willing to face that? What would have happened if I hadn’t shown up?”

“I would have been fine,” Peter said, stumbling as he stood up. Despite himself, Tony automatically started to move to help steady him before he was waved off, “I can handle myself.”

“I wish I believed that.”

“I wish you did, too.”

Tony broke eye contact first, stepping back and rubbing his face as he sighed. 

“Kid, you remind me too much of myself, which just makes me end up feeling like my dad. You have to listen to me when I tell you to do something. I do, in fact, have a reason behind what I say to you. If you died out there, I’d--”

“You’d what,” Peter interrupted, his temper rising, “you’d feel sad? You’d be guilty? You know what’d I feel if I died? Nothing. At all. So stop trying to guilt-trip me--”

“Guilt-trip? That’s not what’s happening here. Jesus kid, I’m just trying to say that you have people who care about you, and you need to take care of yourself.”

“Yeah well people caring about me won’t stop me from doing the right thing. He would have killed plenty of innocent civilians who also had people that cared about them if I hadn’t stopped him.”

“Listen, I know you think you know what’s best for you and what’s best for the world, but you’re 16, you have no clue what the world can do to a person.”

“I have no clue what the world can do to a person?” Peter was definitely angry now. His filter completely gone, he continued, “My parents died when I was six. I was there to see my uncle die. Aunt May and I were barely living paycheck to paycheck before I met you. My first girlfriend’s dad tried to kill me. Next time try taking the silver spoon out of your mouth before you try to talk to me about knowing what the world can do to a person, Tony.”

The name shot out like a bullet covered in ice. Peter’s shoulders were still shaking with his heavy, angry breaths. He looked up to see Tony’s face passively blank, the same way it looked when Peter asked about his black eye on the way back from Germany. He instantly felt a wave of guilt. 

“Look, I’m sorry--” Tony silently raised a hand, cutting him off. 

“I know you’ve gone through a lot, Peter. I’m willing to ignore that outburst. I also know that you feel like you need to save the whole world, but you can’t. No matter how good of a hero you are, there’s always going to be people you can’t save.”

Peter looked to his feet as Tony let his final statement float in the air for a beat.

“That’s why I put you on the bench sometimes. You have to let the people who have already lost fight the battles where they’re going to lose more. You’re still young, and you have to let us protect you. Me, your aunt, Rhodey, even Happy. We all want the best for you, kid. You’re going to be the best of us. We want to make sure you stay safe for long enough so we have someone to pass the torch to.” A beat passed before Peter nodded and put his mask back on.

“I think I’m just gonna go back home now.”

“I can handle that,” Tony said cooly. Peter walked to the edge of the roof, about to jump off, when he looked back over his shoulder.

“Tony?” he heard the clink of the faceplate moving back into place before he saw Tony turn around. They looked at each other across the roof for a beat, through the safety of their masks, before Peter continued. 

“Thank you.”

vi. in the lab (again) 

It was just an average weekend. That is to say, an average weekend for someone who was bitten by a radioactive spider and then taken under the wing of the local billionaire/superhero. Peter and Tony were tinkering in the lab together on Peter’s Mark III suit. The sun was just starting to dip under the horizon, momentarily painting the whole room pink. 

“I don’t know if I want the instant-kill mode anymore,” Peter said hesitantly. He looked over to see Tony’s hard stare focused on FRIDAY’s hologram of the suit between them. 

“Non-negotiable. You don’t have to use it, but I’ll sleep better knowing you have it.” Peter looked away, suddenly wanting to change the subject. 

“What about the web-shooters? Do you still think I need all 576 combinations?” His attempt to lighten the mood worked and Tony looked over at him with a smirk.

“Have you tried all of them yet?”

“Well,” Peter looked to the side as he tried to remember, “I think I’ve used at least 6 different ones.”

“We can keep them until you’ve tried them all, then.” Peter coughed something that sounds suspiciously like “helicopter mom” and Tony jokingly tapped his fist against his shoulder. 

“You still like the red and blue?” Tony asked, “I tried adding different colors in different marks of the Iron Man suits, it keeps things fresh.” Peter screwed his face up in concentration, or maybe in disgust at remembering the Mark XXVII’s color scheme. 

“I want people to be able to recognize me still. So let’s stick with the same general design.” Tony nodded his head as he typed something into the projected keyboard in front of him and the phrase “similar design” showed up on a growing list of points next to the suit’s hologram. 

“How’s your… stickiness working? Is the suit getting in the way?” Peter sighed in frustration.

“I wish I knew how it worked so we could figure out how to help it, but the suit doesn’t bother it. As long as I don’t think about it too hard I can stick to anything.”

“Next week let’s experiment with the ‘anything’ part,” Tony said as he pushed away from the desk they were sharing. He tapped Peter’s shoulder as he walked behind him, “Be right back, coffee break.” 

Peter nodded, his focus on the suit. His brain was going a mile a minute trying to figure out what to improve. He remembered that his phone’s touchscreen couldn’t register his fingers in the suit, and they could easily put conductive material in the gloves to solve it. He turned around to get Tony’s attention.

“Hey, Ben--” and he instantly closed his mouth.

Time froze. Tony turned at the noise, and they both stared at each other like two deer in headlights. The amicable silence in the lab turned oppressive. Peter could pinpoint the exact moment when Tony remembered that Ben was the name of his late uncle by how his eyes went from squinting in confusion to wide in shock. They were both somehow blushing and pale as a sheet at the same time, seemingly stuck in that position for hours. Peter tried to think of the best excuse to leave the lab as soon as he could. 

“I forgot something in my bedroom,” Peter said, starting time back up again. He quickly skittered to the lab door.

“Wait,” he felt himself stop at Tony’s words, even though he wanted nothing more than to escape this situation, “as much as we both would much rather ignore what just happened, let’s… talk about this.” At least Peter wasn’t alone in his agony. He slowly turned around to face the awkward conversation head-on. They both stood in silence before Peter finally spoke.

“I’m sorry Mr. Stark, it’s just--”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Tony said, setting his coffee mug down on the counter, “you don’t need to apologize. I’m telling you right now that I’m not offended or upset with you at all about this. I just think we should talk about why it happened.” Peter sighed and ran a hand nervously through his hair as Tony looked anywhere but his face.

“Well… you know how my parents and uncle are dead?” Peter looked over to see Tony’s eyes snap to his as a mix of confusion, sadness, and sympathy. He chuckled a little at the sight before continuing, “sorry, that was a little harsh. But they are. Dead, that is.”

Tony’s face didn’t improve. Peter had to psych himself up a little bit more and took another breath to compose his thoughts. 

“Wow, I am just saying… words. But, um, yeah. I called my dad ‘Dad’ because he was my dad. Obviously,” Jesus Parker, get it together, “and then Ben was like a dad to me in so many ways, but I called him by his first name because ‘Dad’ was already taken, you know?” Realization was starting to dawn on Tony’s face.

“Kid…” Peter waved him off and continued, looking pointedly at the ground, trying to ignore the shameful pricks in the corners of his eyes.

 “And then you came in, and you do so many things that remind me of them, Mr. Stark,” Peter paused, tears starting to pool up in his eyelids. He forced himself to look at Tony, “so many things. And I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I just latch onto people in my life, and I don’t let them go. Even for a moment. And I’m projecting this idea of all the expectations of people I’ve lost in my past onto you, and that’s not healthy for me because I’ll just be disappointed when it turns out you--” 

Peter’s emotions were coming out of him like air rushing out of a balloon. It’s like calling Tony by his uncle’s name took the cork off a bottle that was now pouring all of its contents down the sink. He couldn’t stop talking now, even if he wanted to. He tried to hide his shaky breaths with a sigh, and Tony looked at him sadly, knowing to let him finish before speaking.

“And I just-- hm. I called Ben by his first name because I couldn’t call him dad. And I called you Ben because I’m just--” he cut himself off as his voice filled with more emotion, and started to pace anxiously around the lab, “--I see you as a father figure, okay? Ben was my father figure for over half my life and calling you by your first name when I already see you in the same light just made my wires get crossed. It’s not the end of the world or anything. It shouldn’t have to be this big secret. I’m an orphan one and a half times over, and you’re-- You’re a superhero, my honest-to-God childhood hero, and you take care of me in so many ways. You make me do my homework, you yell at me when I get myself hurt, we watch movies together, you ruffle my hair and call me kid, am I supposed to just treat you the same as any other adult in my life? 

“I know that’s a lot of pressure for you, and I know that we’re both shitty with talking about our feelings but this has just been festering inside of me, and every time I call you Tony I just think of Ben, and I--” a sob, this time not hidden at all as he sat down on a nearby bench, “--I miss him so much, Mr. Stark. Every day. I’m never going to get over that. And I called him by his first name. So I can’t call you by your first name, and I’m never going to call you Dad, and I’m sorry. I just-- They’re taken. And now calling someone by their last name will just make me think of you and I’m just so screwed up that I can’t--”

Peter sobbed again, dropping his head into his hands. He kept starting meaningless syllables and cutting himself off with heavy, ragged breaths. Tony quickly went over and sat next to him. He cautiously placed a hand on his back, trying to move it in circles like he remembered Rhodey doing to him when he found out his parents passed away. Peter’s breath slowly became more even as he gathered himself. Tony decided this would be a good time to say his piece. 

“Okay, first of all, I want to make sure you are absolutely certain that I am not going anywhere. You’re going to have to put up with me for a very long time.” Peter smiled softly through his tear-stained face at that, which Tony counted as a win as he continued. 

“Kid, I know I don’t say it a lot but I do care about you,” Tony hoped he didn’t notice the waver in his paper-thin voice, “I do love you, Peter. In a very paternal way. Don’t ever be ashamed of seeing me as a father figure, because I suppose I see you as a… son figure.” Tony took a second to rub his eyes and steady his breath. He looked over to see Peter’s face red and puffy, but full of adoration, and warmth, and just pure love. Tony swore he felt ten years get added to his lifespan instantly. He wanted to take a picture and tie it to the end of his suit as he flew above the city, showing off to the whole world what love looks like. 

“But you have to let me know when you’re hurting, Pete,” he continued, making sure Peter was looking at him still, “you have to. Especially if I’m the cause of it. I don’t care if I’m about to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and the last time we talked was an argument where you said you hated me. If you need help, I will be there in the blink of an eye. You just have to tell me. Tell me what is going wrong so I can fix it. It’s what I do. 

“And as for what you call me, Mr. Stark is perfect. I thought I-- well. It used to remind me of my father, but now it’ll just remind me of you.” He finished his small speech with a smile directed at Peter, his eyes wet but sparkling with love as he looked at his kid. 

They sat like that for a few minutes. Just basking in the warmth of their shared love as the pink light of the sunset faded and FRIDAY turned on the overhead lighting. Tony eventually decided to break the silence. 

“All those emotions certainly tired me out,” Tony joked, getting a grin from Peter in return, “You ready for bed, Pete?” 

“I’m ready to lay in my bed on my phone for a few hours before actually falling asleep if that’s what you mean.” Tony rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“Okay whippersnapper, I’ll never understand your generation.” 

Tony opened the lab door and led them both out into the hallway. They walked to the bedroom wing without saying anything, the comfortable silence they had in the lab still covering them like a warm blanket. They stopped outside Peter’s bedroom as usual. 

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Underoos,” Tony said as he turned to go to his bedroom.

“I love you, Mr. Stark,” Peter blurted out, causing Tony to turn around, “I didn’t say it earlier. But I do.”

Peter was biting his lip nervously as Tony felt his heart beat a little quicker. He smiled warmly at Peter, more genuine than he had smiled in a long time. 

“Oh, come on over here, kid. I think we’re there.” 

Tony opened his arms and Peter practically ran into him. 

“Watch the spider-strength,” He grunted as Peter laughed and tucked his face into Tony’s chest. His nose was just barely brushing against the metal border of his arc reactor. The blue light made Peter’s hair look like a painting. 

Standing there, with Peter’s arms wrapped around him, Tony knew that he would do anything in his power to make sure he stayed safe and happy. He felt a fierce fire deep in his chest that almost dared the world to send something at him, just to let him have something to prove his strength to. He felt like he could take down an entire army. Like he could climb to the top of Mount Everest without even breaking a sweat. 

But instead, he just wrapped his arms around Peter and took a deep breath, committing this feeling to memory. 

“I love you too, kid.”

Tag List: @ironfamjam

#wooo im real proud of this boy #feel free to yell at me about it! #irondad #spiderman #spider man #iron man #irondad and spiderson #tony stark #mcu #peter parker #tony stark has a heart #art writes

[thetriggeredhappy]

49-"Take off your shirt.” for SniScout?? :3c

bet yall think i’d get saucy, joke’s on you, instead i got sad. (post-comics in the tf2 timeline, warnings for traumatized boys)

49.) “Take your shirt off.”

Sniper didn’t previously hang out in the watchtower so much. He was more used to hanging out in and around his camper. But a lot of things changed when he went home and found his parents dead. Maybe too many.

The watchtower, though, it was nice. He’d gotten quite a few things up there for the sake of comfort. A cooler, a mattress for when he couldn’t stand sleeping in the camper, a shoddy table and some empty crates for chairs, blankets and tarps. A stack of magazines (both ammo and reading material), one of the dimestore books he’d picked up however many years ago that he could practically recite cover to cover, and a few packs of cigarettes as well as a lighter. He hadn’t smoked much back Before—always thought it was terrible sniping etiquette. The glowing end of a cigarette was a dead giveaway to the position of one’s head. But he’d picked up the habit around the same time he realized the phantom pains in his chest probably wouldn’t be going away any time soon.

He liked it up in the watchtower. Closed space and all. Quiet. The addition of the various furniture and the like just gave him a good excuse to keep staying up there.

He probably couldn’t have dealt with getting all those things up there alone. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

Scout took to hanging out with Sniper, and was happy for the extra work to do. He said he needed to be kept busy, even more than he had Before. Sniper didn’t question it. They’d all developed habits. He didn’t call out Scout on the way he’d started crossing his arms more, sitting with his back to the wall. The way he clearly didn’t enjoy being alone, always perched himself near the window. In return, Scout didn’t ask why Sniper hardly slept in his camper anymore, why Sniper stayed away from water.

They didn’t talk about it. They just didn’t.

There were a few things they’d broken silence about, at least a little bit. Mainly their shared complaints about having to do the whole routine Medic assigned them with each of their wounds, a salve that needed to be reapplied every day to try and help fade their scarring a little bit.

They took to something of a routine. An excuse for Scout to not be left alone for too long. A reason to make Sniper talk to someone for a period of time; he knew he’d gone back into his shell over the course of all of those months alone in that too-empty house, and probably needed the human interaction, or else he’d end up right back in his hermitage. Scout was nice enough to inform him that he appreciated his company fairly regularly, so at least there was that. Unless Scout was just trying to be polite. Sniper tried not to think about it too hard.

Regardless.

Generally the routine would go about the same. But today, Scout was a bit late. It only took a few moments to understand why.

“Hey,” Scout said, pulling himself up from the ladder in the same way he always did, favoring his right side as he crested the edge. “Sorry I’m late. Got some chips.”

Sniper caught the bag when it was tossed to him, and Scout settled on the windowsill as he looked them over. “These all for me?”

“I mean, if you want. Not that hungry,” Scout shrugged.

Sniper nodded, put the bag on the ground by his leg. He wasn’t that hungry either. He was never sure if it was for the same reason as most of the others.

“Well, seein’ that I’m late an’ all, wanna just cut right to it?” Scout asked, half a sigh.

“May as well,” Sniper shrugged. “Take your shirt off.”

Scout started pulling himself free of his shirt as Sniper went to pick up the tube of balm from the table.

Sniper could pretty well handle treating his own scars, what with them all being on his front and the underside of his biceps. But Scout could only handle some of his own, given how it curved awkwardly around his side and a bit up his back. And he added that since he couldn’t really feel much of the area around where the worst of it was, it was hard to do the application of the scar treatment… stuff. So he’d asked Sniper, nervously, eyes averted, if he could maybe help. So he did.

Even now, a good few months after What Happened, a good two months after he’d started the little routine of helping Scout, Sniper was still taken aback by the scarring, the wound. It left a nasty pit in Scout’s side, his ribs poking out abruptly beneath his skin from the wound in a way that made Scout look almost sickly, starved. Were they the types to talk about it, Sniper might’ve chided Scout about how visible the ribs on his non-wounded side were, would’ve told him to try not to skip meals. But they weren’t the types, and Sniper wasn’t a hypocrite regardless, so instead Sniper was left to bite back the worry that crested in his chest every time he caught sight of the progressing visibility.

“Okay,” Scout said, lifting his arm and tilting himself so that Sniper could set to work. “My question of the day.”

“Shoot,” Sniper said, warming the lotion-like substance between his hands. This was the other part of their routine—Scout would always bring Sniper a question, something to try and get Sniper to open up a bit. The questions were never invasive, always lighthearted, sometimes even joking. They worked well.

“Do you believe in paranormal and supernatural stuff?”

“Dunno,” Sniper replied, setting to work on the backmost part of the scarring, making sure to try and get the lotion in the worst of the pitting. “Not really sure what counts.”

Scout hummed. “Okay, then what about UFOs and stuff? You believe in those?”

“Yes. Because anything can be an unidentified flying object. That’s just a classification of object. Not somethin’ to be believed in,” Sniper replied.

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“That’s what UFO stands for. Unidentified Flying Object.”

“…Oh. Well, okay then wise guy, how about aliens an’ stuff? You believe in those?”

Sniper started working his way slowly around to Scout’s front, where Scout could probably handle doing this himself, but Sniper did it anyways. “Infinite universe. Assumin’ we’re the only place where life’s happened would be awful cocky.”

Scout huffed a laugh. “Okay, like, smart aliens, though,” he elaborated further.

“Intelligent life?”

“Yeah, that.”

Sniper shrugged. “Hard to say. Probably a good chance of it.” He paused for a moment, putting a hand on Scout’s shoulder to tilt his torso a bit. It was hard for him to doubt much of anything these days, after he’d visited the lost land of New Zealand. “Doubt it’s ever been here, though, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

“There was this one just batshit dude I met,” Scout started, the ‘in jail’ modified remaining unsaid. “He kept goin’ off about like, how aliens made the pyramids, and stone hedge—“

“Stonehenge.”

“Yeah, that. And all this other stuff too. Kept sayin’ there was no way anyone could’be built all that stuff, and started goin’ off about Area 51 and all that.”

“What’d he say about Area 51?” Sniper asked, smearing the last of the scarring, the minor stuff near Scout’s navel that was already fading fairly quickly.

“Dunno. That’s around when Spy killed ‘im.”

Unprompted, Sniper got more lotion on his hand, eyeing up the other scar on Scout’s chest. “Lunatic.”

“Who, Spy or the dude?”

“Both.”

The other scar on Scout’s chest, he didn’t talk about. Sniper knew the one down on his side he knew was what left Scout dying in a hallway alone, but this one he was fairly sure was more recent. Shortly after Scout had started visiting Sniper every once and a while, before he asked for help, there’d been a few days where Scout had his upper chest wrapped in gauze and didn’t come by.

It was large, spanning in a wide circle about the size of a dinner plate, right across the middle of Scout’s chest. It had discoloration across parts, crinkled like a burn, pock-marked from Scout picking at it.

Sniper started on that one, and Scout’s gaze fell to one side, aware that Sniper had kind of a thing about eye contact sometimes.

“Uh,” Scout started to say, and Sniper’s fingers tickled with the vibration of him speaking. “Engie was sayin’ somethin’ weird today.”

Sniper hummed in question.

“About…” He hesitated. “About… us all maybe bein’ dismissed. Sent home.”

Sniper faltered, but kept his expression stoic. “Hm. Why?”

“Miss P…” And there was another hesitation, as had been happening pretty much every time Pauling came up in conversation. “…We were kept here because there weren’t much of anyone left except us. But I guess she’s bringin’ on new people.”

Sniper frowned. Hummed again.

“I dunno. He just… mentioned it.” Scout kept staring off to one side. “Where would you be headed?”

“Dunno,” Sniper said. “Home, I suppose.”

“Alone again?”

Sniper hummed in confirmation.

“Think there’d be room there for a friend?”

Sniper looked up at him. Somewhere along the line, Scout had shifted from not looking at him to not looking at him.

“You’ve got folks,” Sniper said, not sure how else to say it.

Scout hung his head. “I… I can’t go back there,” he said quietly. “I… I just can’t. I even think about lookin’ my Ma in the eye after all that and I just… I can’t, okay? Just figured it was worth askin’. Not good for you to be out alone like that. Two birds, y’know?”

“You really ought to go see your mum,” Sniper said carefully.

Scout laughed humorlessly. “And tell ‘er what? That her youngest son died and… and…”

They didn’t talk about it. They just didn’t. They didn’t.

“And what?” Sniper asked.

“Doc said it wasn’t real,” Scout managed. “That none’a it was real.”

“Said the same to me,” Sniper replied.

They didn’t talk about it.

“I’m gonna sound fuckin’ insane,” Scout half-laughed, hanging his head further, cradling it in one hand.

“You won’t,” Sniper assured. “C’mon. Tell me.”

Scout didn’t lift his head. “I saw God.”

Silence. “What?”

“I saw God, man. I…” He shook his head, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Fuck, I don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”

Silence. Silence. They didn’t talk about it.

“I saw my parents.”

That got Scout to lift his head, eyes wide. “Huh?”

“My mum and dad. I saw ‘em. Talked to ‘em. Made peace.”

Scout just stared at him.

“There…” Sniper’s eyes fell to Scout’s chest scar. “There’s plenty of room at the house. Back in Oz. You’re welcome to stay there if that’s where I wind up goin’.”

“And if it’s not?” Scout asked, voice as raw as his scar looked.

“Then you’re still welcome to head out with me, if that’s really what you want.”

Scout’s eyes fell, his shoulders sagging in relief. “Thanks,” Scout said quietly.

It was quiet between them for a few seconds. Sniper capped the tube, setting it aside. He picked up a box of cigarettes, pulling one out and setting to light it.

“.I don’t know how long I was layin’ there,” Scout said. “I kinda thought nobody was ever gonna find me. I’m gonna be fuckin’ annoying, I ain’t gonna hardly ever leave you alone.”

Sniper managed to put up a smile. “That a promise?”

Scout laughed. It almost sounded real this time.

Almost.

#sniperscout #speeding bullet #tf2 #team fortress 2 #shut up me #my fanfiction #my writing #only six of these left!! #almost through with them!! #hell yeah

[themuffinbee]

Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast

Additional Tags: Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Scars, Touching, Caleb is touch-starved, He also has a crush on Jester, He does not know either of these things, Touch-Starved, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Widojest 

Summary:

What if a certain inquisitive cleric and a certain scruffy wizard had taken watch together in that crystalline cave on the way to Xhorhas? And what if she wanted to get a better look at what he’s been hiding under those bandages?

A little missing scene that could have happened in episode 50.

A/N:  Many, many thanks to Jadesabre301 ( a.k.a. Jade_Sabre on Ao3) for beta-ing this fic. She’s an amazing beta AND a fantastic writer, go read her sweet, fluffy Widojest stuff!

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

A stream of droplets trickled down the side of the bubble, no doubt from one of the jagged crystals gleaming up above. On the other side of the magical hut, the Mighty Nein slumbered away under the cover of Caduceus’s stone shell, the air punctuated with an occasional snore from Beauregard.

Caleb scratched at his arms.

Try as he might, he just couldn’t help but dig under his bandages to get at an itch that wasn’t actually there. Their current surroundings were stunning, true, but the glittering shards covering every visible surface only served to stoke unpleasant memories. Some much more recent than others.

“Hey, Caaay-leb, whatcha thinking about?” his companion whispered to him in a singsong melody.

Five minutes and forty-six seconds. Jester had lasted longer in the silence than he had expected.

“Oh, nothing much. You?”

“Just trying figure out if there’s a way to hollow out a cake, like, a small one, and fill it with the jelly they put inside doughnuts,” she replied, plopping her head onto her hand and tapping her chin, “The problem is, it would glop all over the place when you cut into it, and maybe make the cake all soggy.”

He pondered this for a moment, more than happy to escape his own thoughts, “I don’t know much about baking, but what if you made it thicker with some kind of starch? Or gelatin? Would that work?”

Her eyes brightened. “Maybe! I don’t know too much about baking either, but it would be delicious, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded. “That it would.”

“Thank you!” She paused, brows beginning to furrow. “I was also trying to make sense of the last few days. Things have gotten pretty crazy.”

Caleb stiffened and made a vague noise of affirmation, gaze drifting off to the side. His mind flashed to all of the things he had said, and left unsaid, two days ago. A subtle sense of panic began buzzing along his nerves, years of practiced self-preservation taking hold in an instant.

Change the subject, you don’t want to open the door to this conversation.

He could ask about her mother, but that might make her sad…Maybe her art? Better yet, asking her about the Traveler might–

“You know, that’s actually why I wanted to keep watch with you tonight.” She scooted closer to him. “I have a question for you…”

Scheiße. Too slow.

Thinking back, he should have turned her down the moment she volunteered for second watch right after he did. She had been far too eager, raising her hand with such force that she practically jumped off the ground. Why hadn’t he suspected anything then?

“…And you don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to.” She waved her hands in front of her. “It’s totally fine if you don’t.”

He cleared his throat. “Jester, I don’t think I–”

“Oh, and I wanted to thank you,” she cut in.

“Thank me?” He frowned. He had done nothing worthy of special thanks.“Whatever for?”

“I wanted to thank you….” she plunked her words out one by one, like a child practicing an instrument “…For trusting us. I know that must have been pretty difficult.”

She beamed at him, and he felt something loosen and tighten in his chest all at the same time. That had been happening a lot as of late. Far too often, actually.

That needs to stop.

He swallowed and cast his eyes to the ground, “Ja.”

Why was she looking at him like that? With those violet eyes filled with sincerity and a smile so warm it could melt winter itself within half a second? He had revealed that he had been lying to the Nein for months, using them as a shield, a front, and she thanked him for it?

She would never look at him like that if she knew what he was, everything he had done. His general allusions of being trained to torture were the least of his sins in his past life.

She doesn’t have to know any more than she already does. It’s not too late, change the subject.

Gluing his eyes to a pebble by his foot like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, he asked, “So, what was your question?”

It was a rare thing for him to ignore his instincts. After all, his abundance of caution had kept him safe for years, kept him from getting caught, from getting killed. Tonight, however, he found himself rebelling against his better judgment. Whether it was out of curiosity or masochism, he had no idea. Maybe he was just tired of hiding, of peddling in secrets and lies, of fearing what she thought of him.

“Well, you see, I was wondering if it would be all right,” she leaned in and whispered, “if I could take a closer look at your arms.”

Caleb blinked. “You what?”

“Your arms,” she motioned to his threadbare bandages, “I’d like to look at them. I just wanted to check them out, healing being my thing and all.”

Well, that made perfect sense, now didn’t it? It wasn’t the worst thing she could ask of him, not by a long shot. He had expected the ever-inquisitive cleric to dig straight into the sizable holes he had left in his story. But still…

“I’d really rather not, they’re a bit of a…uh…a bad memory.”

“Oh.” Jester’s face fell a tad, then brightened once again. “That’s okay. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

He frowned. “Why do you want to look at them anyway? They’re far beyond healing, there’s nothing you could do.”

“Well…” she began rummaging around in her component pouches, “I figured, now that we may be coming up against some big bad magic guys, it might be a good idea to know if they have a little extra somethin’–somethin’ up their sleeve, and maybe how it works, you know?

“Aha! There you are!” she whispered in triumph as she pulled out a tiny striped lollipop, a miniature version of her confectionary Spiritual Weapon. She held it out to him. “You want one too?”

“No, but danke.”

“You sure? They’re reeeally good,” she half-sang in that cadence of hers. “I got a bunch of them in Nicodranas right before we left, so they’re still pretty fresh.”

He shook his head with a wan smile and a small chuff of air through his nose that might be construed as a chuckle.

This seemed to appease her. Jester nodded happily and popped the sweet in her mouth, speaking around the candy. “Could I ask you another question instead?”

No.

He sighed, watching his fingers fiddle with the hem of his coat to keep them from tugging at his bandages. “You can ask, but you may not get an answer.”

This is a bad idea.

“Yeah, of course.” She nodded and thought for a second, “Do you think there are more people out there like you?”

Caleb looked up, “Do I think what now?”

“You know, others. People that ran away from the Assembly or the Academy?”

“I…I don’t know. I hadn’t ever considered it.”

He hadn’t. Not really, anyways. When he had first been thrown into the institution, he had near-feverish fantasies of Astrid or Eodwulf getting thrown in with him, of them being together once again and escaping far from the reaches of the Empire.

But it had never happened.

There had been no rescue party. His hope has been crushed into dust long before the end of those eleven hellacious years.

“Well,” Jester continued, “if there are others, maybe we could help them. That’s why I was wondering about your arms. If, like, they still had magic stuff in theirs and wanted to get it out. Who knows? Maybe even Yeza has some, since he was working for the Cerberus Assembly.”

“I see.” This conversation hadn’t gone the way he was expecting at all.

Then again, nothing ever seemed to go the way he expected if Jester was involved.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before the cleric fished her sketchbook and pencils out of her haversack.

“I’m going to make some drawings for the Traveler for a little while, is that cool?”

He nodded but said nothing, staring off into darkness as a flurry of thoughts whirled between his ears.

In his five years on the run, he hadn’t even dared to hope that there may be someone else like himself out there. The power of Trent Ikithon and the Assembly had grown to near omnipotence in his mind, their controlling influence in every realm of the Empire being an insurmountable barrier against other dissenters.

Hell, even someone like Pumat Sol was a member of the Assembly. The genial firbolg may have spoken well of the organization, but that brief flash of fear in Pumat’s eyes when he talked about Headmaster Oremid Haas spoke louder.

No, it was doubtful there was anyone else.

Caleb turned his attention back to Jester as she flipped through the pages of her sketchbook, catching glimpses of the Nein’s various exploits recorded in ink and graphite. Every once in a while, he would spot sketches of Kiri, Nila, Shakaste, and so many others. Though he may not entirely understand it, Caleb knew the cleric’s drawings were more than doodlings for her metaphysical best friend; they were prayers to her god. It was staggering, really, the number of portraits she had etched into those pages, the number of people she managed to care for all at once.

Consternation gave way to uncertainty, and perhaps the most minuscule bit of guilt, as he thought about what she had said, that the scars of his past could aid someone in the future. Granted, the chances of that were slim to none. Even still, he had told her not seventy-two hours ago that he believed in her, that he trusted her…What was the harm in testing that faith out a little?

You’ll ruin everything. Don’t taint your friendship more than you already have.

But she already knew what his arms looked like, didn’t she? There was nothing to hide. At least, not on this front.

“…All right,” he whispered, his voice almost inaudible to his own ears.

“Hm?” She looked up from her drawing. “What was that?”

“I said all right, you can look at my arms.”

Her face split into a smile, “Really?”

“Really really,” he responded, shrugging out of his coat and unwrapping the bandages at his elbows before he lost whatever speck of courage he had managed to gather.

Idiot. You’re as big a sucker as that candy she has in between her teeth.

Jester scrambled back over to him until they were sitting knee to knee, watching with an intensity and focus normally reserved for her sketches. With an absent-minded crunch, she bit into the lollipop and placed the stick back in its wrapper.

Fighting off a small wave of nausea, Caleb held his arm before her.

She gently took hold of it, “Now, just tell me if you change your mind and I’ll stop, okay?”

He nodded, then held his breath.

Jester closed her eyes and whispered something he couldn’t quite make out, a prayer on playfully reverent lips. Her eyes opened, and a quick flash of green light filled her irises before it burned away like verdant embers.

Smart girl, casting magical detection like that. Caleb knew she wouldn’t find anything; he hadn’t felt the sting of magic under his skin for years, but it was a good thought nonetheless.

He was mostly fine for the first few minutes, surprisingly so, as he watched her turn his arm this way and that. But as the process went on, he noticed the look of focus on Jester’s features sink into an expression of uncomfortable concern. Her lips pursed together as she took in the numerous faint scars spidering across his skin, the corners of her mouth dipping as her eyes and fingers met with each wound.

Soon, she asked to see his other arm, to which he obliged without protest. However, a sick feeling had begun to eat away at the insides his stomach, like he was watching her search through a pile of filth and rotted garbage.

Then it happened.

Memory and present merged into a single vision, as they so often did for him. This time there were no screams of anguish rending the air as ash and the smell of burning flesh gagged him from the inside out. No, this was much quieter, but just as sinister.

Instead of her fingers sliding over the faded remnants of his past sins, Caleb saw Jester inspecting a crystalline rainbow consuming his flesh one inch at a time. He nearly cried out and pushed her away – he couldn’t let them take hold of her too, encasing her fingers in a prismatic prison that would eat its way up her arms, her chest, mouth, eyes. Hollow laughter rang out from somewhere in the depths of the cave, a sound he wished he could forget.

It’s not real. He’s not here. Götter verdammt noch mal, es ist nicht real.

Willing his arm to keep from shaking, Caleb took a deep breath and hoped she didn’t notice how it shuddered in his lungs. He trained his gaze on his boots, knowing that closing his eyes would only make the vision worse. How long had it lasted? Ten seconds? Three? Less? It was hard to tell.

“Caleb, are you sure you’re okay?”

Damn. He looked up to find her staring at him, concern etched into every inch of her face.

“Caleb, we can stop. You don’t have to do this.” She looked back down at his arm. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not, it’s not you…It’s…It’s a bad memory, like I said.” His words were a halting mess, but even the simple act of speaking them helped ground him to reality.

A memory, yes, that’s right. Only a memory. She was safe, he was safe, there was nothing to fear. Only a series of faint scars on skin as white as bones.

“That doesn’t make much of a difference if I’m the one bringing back the memory, and it looks like it’s worse than just ‘bad.’ It’s okay, I’ll stop now.”

Her grip slackened on his arm, and a whole new kind of panic took him. He knew only one thing, and that was he did not want her to let go. If she let go, then he had failed her, broken his word, lied to her. Not too long ago, he wouldn’t have cared a wit if someone were disappointed in him. Why did he care now?

“Wait, hold on. You’re almost done, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but–”

“Go ahead and finish. It’s no good to leave the job half done.”

“Are you sure?”

Her fingers were barely touching him now, like birds perched on a branch, ready to fly off at any moment. She needed a sign that he was actually okay, not paltry words that could be guilty lies as easily as earnest truths. With a slow, deliberate motion, he relaxed into her hand until his arm was flush with her palm.

He held her gaze with his. “Yes.”

She looked at him for a moment or two, trying to find any sign of uncertainty. Then, one of the corners of her mouth rose into a half-smile. “You know, recently, you look different, Caleb.”

He frowned, more than a little confused by this assertion. “I look exactly the same as the day I met you.”

“No, not physically. Well, maybe a little, in a way.”

“Jester, you are not making very much sense.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You seem… lighter, less heavy. I don’t know…You’re different, but a good different.”

“If you say so.” He didn’t feel any lighter. If anything, he felt tired from carrying around too many secrets for too long, but maybe that was her point.

“I can see it. ” She gave him another appraising look and nodded. “Yup, definitely a good different.”

He shook his head, knowing he was more pleased than he should be at that nonsensical assessment, “You are a very silly tiefling.”

Her teeth flashed in the low light. “Good.”

Now more grounded in the present, Caleb felt his heartbeat slow in his chest, the wave of panic and nausea subsiding. As he watched her resume the study of his scars, he could see faint specks of light in her hair and on her skin, reflected from the glittering walls of the cave, mixing in with the myriad of freckles on her face. The tip of her tail curled and uncurled idly at her side, a behavior he found rather reminiscent of Frumpkin. Her face wore the same look she had while painting, with one pointed incisor peeking out as she bit down on a cerulean lip. It was as though every fiber of her being was directed only to what was in front of her, like nothing else mattered or even existed.

And then there were her hands, inkstained and delicate, but also strong and steady. Cool fingertips trailed against his skin, more soothing than any healing balm. Each gentle touch was a ripple of sensation, leaving tingling goosebumps in her wake while relaxing the muscles beneath. It was almost too much for him, and yet still somehow not enough.

It had been…what? At least sixteen years since he’d had real physical contact with anybody else? No sleeves, bandages, or gloves acting as a barrier? He had forgotten how nice it was to feel another person’s touch in the most basic of ways, especially when said person exerted such care with every movement.

“You know, you…” The words were out of his mouth before he realized he was speaking.

“Hm?” She looked up, eyes glowing amethyst in the dim light. “What did you say?”

That was a good question, what was he saying? He felt his voice wither away, somehow forgetting how vocal cords were supposed to work.

“You…ah…” He fumbled, unable to transform the half-thought, half-feeling into any kind of verbal sense. He was fluent in four languages, gods damn it, yet words escaped him. It didn’t help that she kept staring at him with those eyes, neither did the sudden realization that their faces were much closer together than he had thought. “Um…Du bist ein guter Kleriker.”

That was definitely not Common.

She wrinkled her nose with a grin. “What?”

“What I meant was…” He backtracked, trying to find the right term.

“Yes?” She wiggled her shoulders back and forth in a little expectant dance.

“Just that…You’re good at being a cleric, at healing.” That still wasn’t quite right. “ You have…I think they call it a nice bedside manner.”

“Well, of course!” She waggled her eyebrows with a wicked grin. “I grew up at the Lavish Chateau, after all, so I know a lot about bedside manners.”

An inexplicable heat rushed into his cheeks and his mind went as blank as unused parchment. He could hear the echo of her words from two days ago bounce around in his brain: “Are you secretly in love with me?”

No. Of course not. That would be…

Caleb coughed into his free hand. “I don’t think those are quite the same thing.”

“You never know, there are some preeetty crazy religions out there.” She gave him one of those mischievous little smiles, the kind that always made the corners of his mouth want to tug upwards as well, then her eyes softened. “And thanks, that means a lot.”

He nodded, hoping she couldn’t see the furious flush across his face.

“Now, Ha-err Widogast.” She settled back and raised a finger in the air. “I’d like to ask some post-examination questions. You’ve been really good about everything, so I’ll try to keep this quick, I promise.”

He sighed. “We really need to work on your Zemninan.”

“Is that a yes?” She pressed her hands together in playful supplication with imploring eyes, leaving his arm cradled in her lap. “Please?”

Gods, how was he supposed to say no to that face?

He blew out a long breath, somehow feeling amused despite himself. “I wouldn’t expect anything else. You would make as decent an Expositor as our monkish friend over there.”

She grinned. “I’d be pretty good at it, wouldn’t I? Too bad those Cobalt guys aren’t anywhere near as cool as the Traveler.”

“It is most certainly their loss.”

“So…That’s a yes?”

“Ja.”

“Ja. Okay, good.” Her hand slid under own and up his arm, her fingers grazing a scar on his wrist. Another small shiver shot across his skin. “Do you know how many you have on each side? Scars, I mean.”

He cleared his throat. “Thirty-three on the left, thirty-five on the right.”

“Mhmm, that’s what I counted.” She nodded. “Do you have more anywhere else?”

“There are four more on each upper arm,” he answered, then added, “There’s also one on each calf.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Oh? Why just one on each?”

“Ah, well, they, uh, they made it harder to walk.” He hoped she’d be satisfied with that vague of an answer, he didn’t want her to know the more gory details.

She looked as though she might press him further, then paused. She thought for a moment before asking, “What kind of crystals were they?”

His vision from a few minutes before flashed to the front of his mind. “It was hard to tell…They came in an array of colors, but most of the ones I saw weren’t cut, or even polished.”

“Rubies? Emeralds?”

“Sure, rubies and emeralds seem likely.”

She paused for a second. “What about aquamarine, or maybe fire opal?

That was…oddly specific.

“Perhaps? I’m no geologist or jeweler. Like I said, the few I saw were all sorts of shapes and colors, and all in their rough forms. We were never told what they were, or what they were supposed to do. It might have skewed the experiment otherwise.”

“Okay,” she responded, but said no more.

After several seconds of silence, he looked up to find her staring at his upraised palm with her mouth scrunched up to one side, as if she were trying to remember something.

“Jester?”

She blinked a few times. “Oh! Sorry, I was just…thinking.” She set her shoulders and flashed him a smile, but it was tighter than usual.

“What about?” It was a rare thing for the talkative tiefling to drop out of a conversation like that. “You went pretty far into your head for a moment there.”

“Well,” she began, “you remember how Orly told me about those magical tattoos?”

“Ja, you were pretty excited about those for a while.”

“And I still am, they’re really cool! But it just hit me…” she trailed off, one of her fingers absently tracing small, rather distracting circles on his forearm. “It just hit me that they’re basically the same thing as what you had, the only difference is that the crystals are ground down and inside the skin, instead of under it.”

“There are…definite similarities, yes.”

“Isn’t that kinda a weird coincidence?” Her finger stilled its movement, and he told himself he did not feel disappointed.

“I’m sure that the practice of tattooing with gem dust had been around long before I ever went to Rexentrum. The Assembly most likely took something perfectly harmless and…changed it to suit their purposes. It’s sort of what they do.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” She nodded, but still looked a tad uneasy. Which, in turn, made Caleb feel uneasy.

“Or,” he continued, leaning forward with a conspiratorial whisper, “are you worried that our trusted navigator might actually be a spy for the Empire?”

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Yes, that’s it exactly! It’s a perfect cover!”

He raised his eyebrows. “We cracked the case?”

“We cracked the case!” She grinned up at him and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear before glancing back down at his arm. “So, um, where did they go?”

“The crystals?”

“Yeah, like, did you learn how to shoot them out like a superpowered porcupine, or did you absorb them and that’s why you’re so good at magic?”

“No, they, uh, they were removed.”

“Like, a surgery? And they were put in the same way?”

“Ja. They knocked us out with a potion, inserted or removed the crystals, then a cleric healed the cuts over afterward, just enough to close the wounds.” Then he hesitated before saying, “If we ever did meet anyone with something similar, it most would most likely require certain tools and training to extract the crystals.”

“Oh.” She deflated a little.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No, no, it’s good to know.” She contemplated his arm for a few moments more. “There was something you said…about the crystals themselves.”

“Yes?”

“How did you know what they looked like if you were asleep during the surgery and the cuts were healed up?”

“Ah…Ja, uh, the crystals were supposed to stay under the skin. But that’s the thing about experiments.” He rubbed the back of his head with his hand, tugging at his hair. “They don’t always go as planned, especially when you add magic to the mix.”

Her hands, the ones that had been so gentle and sure as they inspected his scars, stiffened around his wrist. “Supposed to stay under…?”

Realizing just what he had said, Caleb bit the inside of his cheek.

Scheiße.

Her eyes widened and a slow, unsettled look crept across her face as she began to pick apart his statement. Though she may play the fool, Jester was far from stupid. There were only so many ways to interpret what he had said, and none of them were pleasant.

Scheiße, Scheiße, Scheiße.

Caleb could have kicked himself. Jester had such an abundance of natural charm, it was like she cast a Friends spell every time she spoke. He never should have forgotten that, never let his guard down so easily. He had always had a soft spot for the cleric, but when did he allow her to have so much power over him?

With an almost excruciating slowness, Jester ran her thumb over his palm. His breath stuck to the inside of his lungs.

She opened her mouth once, twice. Finally, she asked in a voice almost too soft to hear, “Did it hurt?”

Never had he thought a single question could make his insides ache like they did right now. Sadness rang through her voice and struck him straight to the core. “Oh, Jester.”

This was a mistake.

He cleared his throat, trying and failing to swallow back an emotion he did not care to name. “I think that’s all the questions that need to be answered tonight.”

She raised her eyes to meet his. “That’s a yes, isn’t it?”

Looking at her small form, shoulders drawn in and tail now tucked underneath her, Caleb wanted to lie. He never should have agreed to be truthful with these people, and especially not with her. Instinct begged him to go back to the way things had been, all protective lies and secrets to spare their feelings, as well as his.

It was too late for that now, though. He had tasted the briefest bit of honesty, and bitter though it was, it was also warm and reassuring. These stupid, crazy people had woken him from the half-life he had been living and sustained his tenuous existence with a kind of security he had long forgotten. They had come to embrace his dirty, intentionally unpleasant self and placed their trust in his singed hands.

If Jester, who always wore a clown’s mask for the sake of others, could reveal to him an honest sliver of her own pain and worry like she had that night in Darktow, then he could pay her the same respect now.

“Ja.” His whisper sounded more like a rusty hinge than a voice. “Ja, it hurt. It hurt like hell.”

Before she could formulate a response, he moved his hand down to wrap around hers and looked her dead in the eye, “But you know what? They don’t anymore. It’s in the past now, they’re healed. You don’t need to worry over them.”

A half-truth was better than none at all, he supposed. His arms were indeed as healed as they were ever going to be. As for his past…Well, he would cross that bridge when he got there.

Or burn it forever.

She nodded and smiled, and he hoped to whatever gods there might be that those weren’t unshed tears lining her eyes. “Sorry I asked so many questions, I know it sucked. I just – I worry about you, Caleb.”

“I know.” He squeezed her hand, only now realizing that he was still holding it. Then he heard himself say something he would definitely regret later. “I’ll tell you the rest someday.”

The next thing he knew, Jester had leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, seeming to not at all mind his mud-smeared coat. “Thank you.”

Caleb did not move to embrace her back, but felt a smile curl at his lips as he took in her warmth. “You’re welcome.”

A few moments passed before she gave him one last squeeze and leaned back, a happy smile in place and not a tear to be seen. “Okay, I really am going to make a few sketches now.”

He nodded and grabbed at one of the bandages he had shed onto the ground, now somehow rough and heavy in his hands.

As he began to wrap his arm up from palm to elbow, Caleb realized it was so much more difficult than it had been before, his own fingers seeming to protest by fumbling and bunching up the fabric. With every turn around his arm, Caleb found himself wishing he never had to put the confining wrappings back on again, or that he had never taken them off for her in the first place.

His scars now hidden away under neat, suffocating rows of weathered gauze, Caleb glanced over to where Jester sat curled up once again with her sketchbook, drawing away with joyous fervor.

A fading warmth lingered from her embrace, and he never wanted to forget the feeling of it. He committed to memory the way the air had felt on his secluded skin, the full movement of his wrist and fingers after being freed from their bindings, the goosebumps that had formed under her cool fingertips.

Maybe next time he removed his bandages, he would leave them off for good.

#widojest #caleb widogast #jester lavorre #fic #critical role #cr #fluff #angst #hurt/comfort #my fics

[sending-the-message]

I'm the only one left on my floor... - Part 2 by mordecains

Part 1

I need your help.

Let me explain what happened yesterday evening.

“Subject: RE: [no subject]

Please tell me you have something to do with this damn bird with the camera. If you know what’s going on, please, please tell me.”

I didn’t bother to put a signature, it was pretty apparent this person knew who I was. Their email came in from one of those emails that looks like they get automatically generated by an anonymous survey response system, with probably 25 random characters using a random few characters as the domain.

Anyway, I was obviously taken aback by my discovery of what Mordecai was. I initially thought it was infrared I was looking at, but it occurred to me you can’t see infrared under normal circumstances. But, I definitely saw soft, glowing red light, so it was safe to assume that Mordecai was a camera. I’m not sure if I’m more amazed that they managed to make a recording device so intricate in that it could fly and behave (for the most part) like a normal bird, or if I’m more upset I couldn’t tell it was fake. Well, that doesn’t matter anymore, because now I know the truth.

I wasn’t gonna stick around any longer.

I make my way to the exit. The way my building is set up, the stairwell is only for emergency situations. Otherwise, even heading down or up a single story, you have to use the elevator. So of course, I try the stairwell first. If an alarm goes off, then good. I wouldn’t mind seeing another human right now, even if it’s a rather unique “emergency”.

Locked.

I head over to the gates, the ones that we have to badge through once we get off the elevators. They’re completely powered off.

Usually, once they detect proximity on the office side, they open. This time, they didn’t. The sliding doors are made out of polycarbonate, and, well, I’m not the strongest guy in the world. I try to kick through them, but these things are pretty sturdy. Figures.

At this point is when I really begin to lose composure. I panic. The lights are still on, so I know that the electricity is still on as well. These gates are the only things that are powered off. I’m not the type of person that will chalk that up to a coincidence, especially not in this situation. I head back to my desk, sit down, and try my hardest to think.

There has to be a way out of here.

An email comes in.

“Subject: RE: [no subject]

i gave you an opportunity to get out. you didn’t do so, and now you’re in this position.” The email reads.

I realized from a couple of comments (and 20/20 hindsight) that I missed an obvious message from the letters that were capitalized in the previous two emails sent to me. I realized that if I had recognized that message sooner, I could’ve left the building. I was able to leave the office and change floors, and would’ve surely been able to get to the first floor and out of harm’s way. Instead, I missed it altogether.

The email continues.

“you are in a situation where you are completely on your own. but not if i can help you. there is a way to get out, a way that few people in your situation have discovered.”

Few people in my situation? As in, this has happened to others?

I begin my reply.

“Subject: RE: [no subject]

Who are you? What do I need to do and what is happening? I need an explanation, I’m losing my mind.”

Immediately after sending, my “guardian angel” sends another email.

“Subject: what you are a part of

you are a test subject. the company you work for also works privately with a group that studies behavioral sciences. why they work with them, i don’t know. what i can tell you is this:

they watch you. you’ve noticed by now all of the cameras within the building, which obviously is not unusual in a secure office like yours. they watch through those. that bird that sits on your ledge is the closest camera they have to you. they use it periodically to see you up close and personal, and obviously you never caught on. they examine your day to day behavior and use it for god knows what. now, here is your situation going forward:

you are expected to die. they will inform of you this in a matter of minutes, and will probably even outline how you are going to die. they do this, likely because they want to see how you react to a situation like the one you are in, knowing that you will be dead within their given time frame. they monitor you, but not in the way that you think. they surveil you, absolutely, but they do not restrict you from much more. you can use your phone and call others, you can use the internet to communicate with others, much like you are doing with me. but they establish rules, rules that must be followed or else you face an immediate consequence. they will detail those in their email, and let me know what they are when you find out (so long as it doesn’t break one of the rules). i do not know if they change or stay the same each time.

what they do not tell you is that you have a chance to survive. most of the time, they don’t have to. to my understanding, people will typically break a rule and end up dead anyway.

i refuse to let that happen to you.”

As I finish reading the email, I don’t quite know how to react. Am I scared? Yes, but the confusion is what sets in deeper. Why? What is this about? Is this even happening? This is the kind of thing that you only see in movies. Do companies like mine really do this kind of stuff?

My questions are soon answered.

“Subject: Blue Jay

Our dearest Michael,

Please forgive us. We apologize greatly for the feelings of fear, confusion, and stress that you are certain to be feeling right now. While intended, it’s not a part of the experiment we necessarily enjoy. However, it is vital to the understanding of human behavior.

We cannot tell you why we are doing this, only what we are doing and are going to do. We have monitored you since you have arrived at the company, examining your behaviors and your habits. We’ve learned that you keep to yourself, and that you tend to be a loner by choice. We’ve noticed that you buy an orange juice and honey bun from the vending machines on the mornings that you presumably skip breakfast.

No, we are not watching your home, we know that is on your mind. We also know what else is on your mind.

Yes, you are going to die. In 5 days at the most. We apologize for this as well. We’re aware that this is unfair to you, but what you must understand is that you are doing a magnificent public service for society. You will not die in vain.

The building you are in is completely empty, as you noticed. The tenants of the building have all been informed that there is a widespread mold issue, and thus they have been relocated for the time being. Your manager tried to contact you over the weekend and inform you of the relocation, however we intercepted the text and responded for you, letting him know you would not be showing up to work this week due to having the flu. He was not involved in this, nor was anyone around you during your time here.

The way you will die is carbon monoxide poisoning. We have altered the ventilation system to where it does not actually ventilate. There will be a source for carbon monoxide, and it will slowly become more and more concentrated as the hours and days pass. You will not find the source. You will experience hallucinations and various effects of the poisoning before you succumb to it, as is necessary for this study. The last of our communication to you is important. These are the rules you must abide by:

You are allowed to use your phone and internet as normal. We repeat, as normal. You are not allowed to contact your loved ones or your colleagues for any reason other than normal conversations that would naturally take place.

We are aware that you may want to share what is happening to you with the outside world. All we ask is this: You do not use your real name. You do not provide the address or location of where you work. General metropolitan area is fine, but you must not specify the actual region of the metropolitan area. You also may not describe a specific view from any windows.

You cannot contact emergency services or authorities, for obvious reasons. This includes members of the media.

You may try to escape, as that is a crucial point of emphasis in our study. However, understand that you will fail to do so.

Michael, the key here is what has been left unsaid. That is what we are looking for. We are attempting to see how you think outside the box, pardon the irony, and how you may come up with ways to approach this situation while still following the concrete rules outlined.

We will let you know if you are about to break a rule. We want you alive for as long as possible for the sake of our work. However, if you break a rule, the consequences will be swift and deadly. Please, do not break a rule. CO poisoning is a much better way to go than the alternative.

Good luck Michael.

Your buddy, Mordecai”

This is where I need your help. The person writing me has yet to respond to my forwarding of the rules to him. Yet, what sticks out to me is “what has been left unsaid”. You, the readers, are not my loved ones or my colleagues. You are anonymous to me, as I am to you. If they mean what they say, I can use you. I do not know how to approach this situation. I ask you all for input on the matter.

What should I ask my guardian that may be useful? Obviously, he escaped, so he must have some valuable insight. Or was he even a subject like myself?

Are there any loopholes in those rules that I may be able to exploit?

Please, comment and tell me what you think I can look into. I need to figure out a way out of this.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

[sparklyjojos]

Do you think JJN makes a dichotomie between religion/faith and science/logic? With Dio+Pucci on one side and Kars+Jorge on the other?

(oh wow, that’s a deep question I didn’t expect to get, thank you anon)

I wouldn’t say it’s a clear-cut divide.

On one hand, you could look at the novel and say that there’s a dichotomy, that the narration glorifies logic and isn’t favorable to religion/faith, especially organized religion (I mean… Dio Jesus… the mothman-related mass suicides and other events with people blindly following what they believed in felt like a biting commentary too).

But on the other hand, I really don’t think there’s a dichotomy or conflict between faith and logic in this book, as much as they seem to carefully interact and support each other. The conflict is more about how humanity’s drive to find out How Stuff Works or Why Does X Happen, which propels both science/logic and religion/faith, is not bad by itself, but can lead to very, very bad things, especially if the correct premises lead to wrong conclusions. As in, believe what you want, but even then please don’t forget to fact check. And maybe don’t restart the universe because some vampire dude dressed up like Jesus.

(read more for super long thoughts on faith vs logic, a whole lot of tangents – like, half the post’s a tangent – and me rambling about this book’s concepts of Faith and Meaning and Stories and pretty much trying to explain What I Think This Book Is All About. Also Terry Pratchett’s there for some reason.)

JJN is built around the concept of the Beyonds, which are pretty much personal gods shifting the universe’s narrative to theirprotégé’s favor. They do exist, and the one character who’s unflinching in his faith in them from the start and taken for delusional by other characters, Tsukumojuku, is the one who’s ultimately right. English Jorge survives specifically because he listens to him and starts believing in his Beyond. But also Tonpetti’s prophecies hold true, Kars confirms the existence of souls, and almost everyone and their uncle in the English Jorge part are presumably Christian, though they may not be particularly practicing. When Pucci uses the Bible to interpret the phrase ”fig tart” to mean Kars, this interpretation is true.

So, point number one: faith is not something that’s bad or wrong by itself, or something that only the antagonists have.

Science and logic is found on both sides, too. Pucci is an astronaut, after all. For the chapter or so when Funnier Valentine’s around, he’s the logical, calculating villain with a spaceship and a gun, who ultimately gets defeated by some emotional teenager who struggles with basic algebra but is burning with spirit.

Kars is a bit complicated, because while he sure is a lot more on the logic/science side of the equation, he also appreciates the human tendency to make up stories, and their not-very-logical drive to care about one another. He’s actually super quick to start believing in the Beyond, too, pretty much as soon as he sees Jorge’s memories. But then again he also often chastises other characters for believing in things, so… I guess he’s just being the usual mess of a person that he is. I’ll come back to him later in the post.

(a tangent, but now that I think about it… one of the things I love about canon Kars is that he’s put firmly on the “nature” side in the nature vs science conflict (most obvious when he fights cyborg Stroheim), though he’s sort of a scientist on his own. The striking thing about JJN Kars for me was that not counting that one paragraph where he has wings, he *never* transforms using animal parts. It’s all very machine-like. I wonder how it relates to him being away from Earth life for so long, and his character development.)

—

Now, the thing about Japanese Jorge is that he connects both of these things: logic and faith.

He’s a detective, someone who thinks deeply and analitically about the world, connects facts, always searches for the logical solution to a problem, and is “doubtful by occupation”. Even his favorite genres seem to be mystery and SF. He doesn’t seem to be a follower of any religion. [EDIT 26/12/17: I may have fucked up here – now I remember Jorge yelling “Namu-Amida-Butsu!” near the end of the book, which may suggest him being some sort of Buddhist.]

But he’s also the one to believe that everything has meaning, that everything happens for a reason, and that various events are the universe’s signs for him (well, they are, but he doesn’t know that Beyonds are a thing at that point). He argues with Rohan that mere synchronicity is not a thing, that the random connections are never random. He’s the one to say that Light Dancer Kars’s “fake, meaningless” existence does in fact have meaning when our Kars is baffled as to why. This situation repeats with parallel Kosaku – when Jorge is happy that Kosaku could protect his family, Kars asks “Why are you so hang up on a fake man from a parallel world?”.

Maybe there is a sort of a logic/faith conflict between the teams of Kars&Jorge and Dio&Pucci (though in the end it seems to be more like “logic+belief” against “ignorant belief”)… but there is also a bit of a complicated logic/faith conflict between Kars and Jorge themselves, at least when it comes to the Meaning of Things.

Possibly because of Jorge’s deep belief in that meaning, and because as a happily adopted child he understands that being “not fully the real thing” doesn’t actually matter, he seems to be pretty much immune to existential angst from the very start. Especially when compared to the walking talking Existential Karsis by his side. What’s Jorge’s answer to Tsukumojuku asking: what if you’re the fake one, a copy, a substitute, not the true detective, not the true Jorge Joestar?

Fine, I’ll be the fake, whatever. Your friend, this other Jorge Joestar, he can be the real one, it’s cool. Ha ha ha. It won’t change who I am. Why should I care?

Have I mentioned that I love Jorge yet? I love Jorge.

—

The book goes strong with the idea that Everything Has Meaning – in part because we give it meaning, because it’s a human thing to do. We like to, perhaps need to think we have an important role to play, that we’re a main character in our own story, that everything happens for a reason, and maybe even that there is something up there looking out for us. If we were to rely just on cold dead logic, what appeal is there to life? There has to be a deeper meaning. Whatever it is for us personally, it’s important. Faith is important, sometimes even in completely improbable things. As Penelope said:

Really crazy things happen in this world. And if something this crazy can happen, miracles, dreams, hopeless desires… all of those things might come true, too.

Still, searching for this meaning, for the connections between events, may turn destructive, especially when connected to strong emotions like fear. When the people on La Palma fear that the dreadful night from years before may happen again and thus “create” the Mothman, when Pucci clings to the belief that the metal plate that killed his family had fallen from space – even if it wouldn’t be physically possible – because it fits the narration in his head, when English Jorge and Lisa Lisa create a monster simply by expecting a monster to exist, they fall victim to the human tendency to make up stories, string the events of our lives into a narration, and expect new events to follow that narration.

And yet, for all their “side effects” – for all the confirmation bias, and maladaptive defense mechanisms of some Wounds, and being prone to manipulation – we need to have stories, and to see our own meaning in them.

As English Jorge learns, to believe in Beyond means to believe that you are the main character of your own story. And that means you aren’t helpless, you don’t have to lie down and wait for others to save you. You can break out of the locked room made by your own fear. You can act, and your actions matter.

— 

Having meaning is so important to us, that if what you thought was your meaning is taken away from you, it’s deeply terrifying. Even Tsukumojuku is unsettled when his Beyond leaves him. But he’s perfectly fine when he understands hiss role in the Beyond’s plan, even if it’s a grim one.

As for characters who couldn’t deal with loss of their meaning that well, we have two different alternate Karses who’d been told they and their worlds are fake. One of them (the single braid one) turns his shock and fear to wrath and rampages through the world, thirsty for blood of Funny Valentine, yelling “So you’re the one who created this world? I did not give you permission, and I will not allow it!”, a roundabout way of expressing “if I don’t matter, I’d rather not exist at all”.

The other is the Light Dancer Kars. After discovering he’s not “real” and doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, he intends to commit suicide. But just seconds before it, he stops, and instead dances. He makes a mandala out of light, and tells our Kars and Jorge that he understands why he’s been clinging to life for so long, and that he can see our Kars is not special and feels the same sadness that he does (which begs the unsettling question: could this mean that our Kars, and the entire loop of universes from the novel, are all fake as well, though maybe a little closer to the “true” universe than the Light Dancer’s world is? Probably not… though it’d explain the disrepancies between the book and canon, and would actually be a fitting plot twist). At the end, the Light Dancer tells our Kars to rejoice in his suffering, or even: to rejoice because he may suffer.

Our Kars is lost in thought after that. Something unsaid has happened between the two, some sort of quiet understanding. You could argue how it influenced our Kars, and Jorge for that matter. Even if our Kars is doomed to forget the Light Dancer minutes later via Bites the Dust… there still was a point to the Light Dancer. Maybe because Jorge remembered him. Or maybe solely because he existed. He had meaning, even if logically he shouldn’t have mattered.

And the mandala that the Light Dancer makes, his overall attitude, and the possible reference to the First Noble Truth? That’s some heavy Buddhism influences. And thus we wrap around to the “Kars is on the logic/science side and not at all on the religion/faith side”, and say, well… maybe not that one particular Kars.  [EDIT 26/12/17: also, all Stands of Our Kars have three heads and six arms, and Jorge notes they look like Ashura statues]

But our Kars is not all that very logical himself. Just like in canon he’s still a massive hypocrite. For all his talk about how utterly stupid and deadly exposing himself to outside forces during atmospheric entry would be, he sure has no problem doing exactly this and almost dying mere kilometres away from Earth, just to save three humans he’d known for all of four hours, seemingly without any reason other than “just because he could”.

After all, this is the kind of a guy who’d launch himself into a rock wall and bounce off it several times like a pinball just so a bunch of tiny, short-lived, meaningless flowers may live just a little bit more. And then he’d go play the cold calculating chessmaster who doesn’t care about anyone or anything.

And that’s why we love him.

—

If I had to sum it up, I’d point to what Funny Valentine says after revealing Jorge is a Singularity.

Feel free to doubt as you like. You thought a while before answering, right? Do as you always do, and don’t let those wheels stop spinning. I don’t want you to have faith in me. I want you to have faith in yourself. I want you to believe that there is no one who can take your place.

Think critically, but still have faith. Have faith, but still think critically.

And that is it, pretty much.

—

—

(and now for something completely different)

I joked before about how Pratchett-like this book gets at times just because of narrativium and weird names (“Darlington Motorize” is only a step away from “Adora Belle Dearheart”, and don’t let me get started on “The Funniest Valentine was the first person in history to be named The”). But it also really did feel like I was reading something that came from the same place as Hogfather, with similar commentary on the nature on humans as story-telling animals and their burning need for both logic and faith, and giving meaning to things around them.

(And supernatural beings gaining life solely because you believe in them. And physics-breaking powers working simply because they seem like something that would work in a story. And a protagonist facing the villain armed with just a fire poker and the sheer power of belief. And–)

I’m mentioning this because I thought about some cool Hogfather quotes to end this post with, to show what I think may also be a theme in JJN.

Also just because I can and if you haven’t read the Discworld novels, then what are you doing with your life.

HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.“So we can believe the big ones?”YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

.

“Now… tell me…”

“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN’T SAVED HIM?

“Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?”

NO.

“Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to believe that. It’s an astronomical fact.”

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

(…)

“Really? Then what would have happened, pray?”

A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.”

#Anonymous #jorge joestar #jorge joestar spoilers #hcs meta and stuff #in which the jorge joestar novel turns out to be actually pretty deep #long post #very long post #guess I could add more things but I'm tired of editing this so... #that's what you get #a pretty off topic ramble #jorge tag #light dancer kars

[awed-frog]

Hi! I've just read your meta masterlist written for someone who wanted to convince their friends that deancas is real. First of all - thank you, what a treat to have it all in one place. The best Matrix red pill of them all. Second of all - "the entire S8, which was basically a demented Jane Eyre AU" - could you elaborate on that? I'm mighty interested.

Hi! Thanks for that - uhm - it’s missing a lot of stuff, though. I’m sure there are better masterposts out there, and I actually looked for them, but all I could find was fanfiction stuff.

As for the Jane Eyre thing - I should say I’m a fan of the Brontë sisters, so it wasn’t supposed to be an insult or anything, but it’s hard to deny that those kind of novels (particularly Wuthering Heights) are over the top and überdramatic and there’s almost an unhealthy focus on love and falling in love and what happens if you lose that and how your life can never be complete without that one person who means everything, and if that person is your foaming-at-the-mouth insane half-brother, so be it. And the thing is, Supernatural seasons often hinge around powerful and borderline soap-operish themes (the whole ‘almost orphans desperately looking for their father while killing things’ was very Dickens, in a way - if Dickens had been high on opium and cocaine and stuff, that is), but S8 really went above and beyond. I mean, even without the big love story for the fucking ages supporting the entire narrative arc, it was full of OMG and oh no! moments - 

Sam is all alone in the world and may have found love but oh no! his brother’s back from the dead and super pissed and oh no! the woman he probably loves is actually not a widow and OMG what next?

Hunter Dean found himself a new best friend but oh no! he’s a vampire drawn to human blood but OMG he’s promised to abstain forever and fight his own instincts every day for eternity but oh no! what happens if he can’t?

There is a way to banish all demons from the Earth but oh no! it’s a magic spell that requires a human sacrifice and oh no! Sam actually wants to do that and is it guilt or depression or martyrdom or OMG is he simply that heroic??!?

- so much Gothic extravaganza, the list could go on and on. But, as I said, at the heart of it all are Dean and Cas, and what’s going on with them is so sappy and romantic even Charlotte Brontê would have edited some stuff out.

Like, I don’t even know where to start. 

At the beginning of the season, Dean is precipitated in a world of darkness and monsters. He fights his way out for an entire year, and during that time he prays to Cas every night - Dean, who normally doesn’t pray at all. We know he’s tortured and desperate, because part of him believes Cas is dead (because Cas always comes when Dean calls, right?) and all of him knows it’s his own fault, because he forced Cas to fight even if Cas wasn’t in his right mind and Jesus, ALL the regrets and ALL the guilt. Then he finally finds Cas, who first refuses his manly and chaste affection and then pushes Dean to safety and chooses to die in that hellhole. This is so incredibly traumatic that Dean erases that entire memory as he makes his way into the real world (and, remember, we’re talking about Dean ‘I remember what was done to me in Hell’ Winchester here - I guess losing Cas was more painful than that?), which is just as lonely and brutal and hostile as the one he left behind (cue all the drama about Sam and Benny and Crowley killing everyone he can get his hands on). As he fights on, Dean starts to see Cas’ ghost everywhere, which is, like, standard behaviour for a Romantic hero or heroine but also legit what happens to you when your brain suffers such a heavy loss it can’t cope (if you’re not reading this alone at night, I recommend you check out this article about Japanese cab drivers picking up ghost passengers after the tsunami, and this BBC radio program explaining why it happens). This is obviously distressing for Dean, but then, as he’s fast approaching his breaking point, Cas actually shows up in person - he cannot explain how he found Dean, since Dean still has the anti-angel tattoo on his ribs, but wait - we know Cas can sense longing, right? so that’s why and if that isn’t the most tragic, romantic thing you’ve ever heard, get out. But there’s worse to come. Before that, though, we’re treated to a brief comedic interlude featuring the sappiest love trope ever - ‘all grown up’ - as Cas retires to the bathroom (and why) to clean up and reappears all handsome and clean-shaven, causing Dean an erection and much embarrassment.

(I still can’t believe that is a thing that actually happened, by the way.) 

Next, of course, there’s the whole ‘Cas has been trained and programmed to kill Dean against his will and beats him up in a darkened crypt and nothing can happen now everyone is doomed doomed doomed but wait I NEED YOU and BAM, suddenly the mind control is gone and even someone with the whole of Heaven’s power behind her can’t come between Cas and Dean and Cas will never hurt Dean and what the fuck is even happening?’ episode, which, again, how was that an actual thing? Sometimes I think we were all high during that season and we had a collective hallucination or something. And next there is all the ‘You didn’t trust me? You didn’t trust me, I almost died to get you out, I would have died, I did not leave you’ drama as Dean finally remembers what happened (he doesn’t, by the way: Cas heals his brain, and those memories come back), and meanwhile in the background there’s more over the top and dramatic stuff going down - Sam being weird and volunteering to die and Benny also volunteering to die and Dean can’t save anyone and can’t do anything and now BAM, turns out Cas is also dying, or leaving forever, anyway, and there was so much unsaid stuff between them I remember fainting and melting into my couch during various episodes and thank God for smelling salts. And after all this torture and torment and ALL the love and ALL the pain, the very last episode was the worst of the worst - Dean must basically say goodbye to the only people he cares about and would do anything to spare, because both of them are dying, and it’s a sort of Sophie’s choice too because Cas is gone and Dean doesn’t have time to focus on that because SAMMY and at the end we’re left with him half supporting his brother’s weight as they look up at a sky full of falling angels (and is Cas one of them or did they kill him already and aaaaargh).

So, look - I’m even leaving out stuff, and it’s still almost unbearably sugary and tragic - it’s not like they haven’t had other weird moments between them, but this season alone is more romantic than, say, the entirety of Jane the Virgin, who’s supposed to be about romance, or even Grey’s fucking Anatomy, where, sure, you get those random episodes where a train explodes and people are stuck all over the city and you can’t save all of them and surprise! you’re probably dying yourself BUT you also get some time to breathe in between and episodes where almost no one’s fighting and people are having sex and how come they never sleep, seriously? And what I just can’t believe is that we’re the only ones to have both sides here - Dean still doesn’t know about the thousand Deans Cas was forced to kill, or about those convoluted reasons Metatron had for cutting out Cas’ Grace, specifically, and Cas doesn’t understand how close Dean came to tell him those three stupid words which would have solved and changed everything, and he doesn’t get why Dean was hurt by his choice to remain in Purgatory, and how much, and he must ignore or disregard, by now, those random spikes in Dean’s arousals, because he assumes that’s what humans do or whatever and he probably never realized he should have hugged Dean back that time on the river bank, and what it meant to Dean that he didn’t. See? Tragedy and misunderstanding and Dean being an actual Gothic heroine and Cas being all Rochester-y about things (early Rochester, I mean, the one who was determined to be a martyr and could not believe someone as smart as Jane would ever find his old ass interesting in any way).

I know we always say it, but that’s honestly how I feel all the time - I don’t know what the hell they’re thinking here, because you cannot write a story like this, you cannot insert all these tropes and bend and twist and narrative so stuff will only work with the foundation of a Great Love, and not see it. You physically cannot, especially if you’re a trained screenwriter and this is literally your job. So they do see it, and what? I don’t mind the UST and the pain and the slow-burn (much), but I still wish they would make it clear that this is indeed where they’re going, because they can’t keep writing this shit and pretending they aren’t. It’s - if someone had written S8 as a Destiel - canon divergent after S7 fic on AO3, I’m not sure I would have read it. So gay that it’s almost OOC, I would have thought, and there’s not even the comfort of some smut - it’s all angst, all the way, and come on - even this show is not that gay.

Except it is, isn’t it?

Lucky us.

#ask #spn meta #destiel #deancas #spn season 8 #love tropes #love tropes everywhere #seriously #wtf

[writersriot]

The Outsiders Queer Subtext ft. Jally - Part 17

Monday, May 1, 2017

Sorry for the long absence! My usual update is stuck in my drafts lol so I’m writing a fairly quick insert to talk about the Greasers and the Socs as portrayed in the book.

Ponyboy is walking with Johnny, Two-Bit, and Cherry and Marcia after the movies. Pony is realizing that the Socs seem to be just like the Greasers.

It seemed funny to my that Socs -- if these girls were any example -- were just like us. They liked the Beatles and thought Elvis Presley was out, and we thought the Beatles were rank and that Elvis was tuff, but that seemed the only difference to me. Of course greasy girls would have acted a lot tougher, but there was a basic sameness. I thought maybe it was money that separated us. (Pg 37-38)

Now I think this is really interesting coming from Ponyboy. He’s fourteen (14!! Not 13! lol) and he still goes to school with Johnny, so he sees the Socs in that environment, away from the neighborhood rumbles. He seems to think that it’s mostly attitude and money that separates Greasers and Socs.

And I think about Darry sometimes, how he played sports and had Soc friends. I think Darry could have easily been a Soc, despite living in a Greaser neighborhood. The Curtis parents were a point of stability for the whole gang, so we know the Curtis boys have been in the gang for quite a while. I wonder what the parents thought of the fighting and everything, if they tried to keep their boys out of trouble or just let it happen because in a way, it was safer to have friends as backup in that neighborhood.

So what if the Curtis’ had more money and lived in a better part of town? Would all the kids have been more likely to be Socs? If their parents hadn’t died, Darry would have been playing sports, maybe going to college. Soda would still be in school, not feeling like the only thing he can do is work to help Darry support them. And Ponyboy wouldn’t be so stressed at such a young age. Money couldn’t have kept their parents alive, but maybe it could have made living without them a little easier. I don’t know.

So is it just money that separates Greasers from Socs? Cherry doesn’t think so.

“No,” Cherry said slowly when I said this. “It’s not just money. Part of it is, but not all. You greasers have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re sophisticated -- cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us. You know, sometimes I’ll catch myself talking to a girl-friend, and realize I don’t mean half of what I’m saying. I don’t really think a beer blast on the river bottom is super-cool, but I’ll rave about one to a girl-friend just to be saying something.” She smiled at me. “I never told anyone that. I think you’re the first person I’ve ever really gotten through to.”

She was coming through to me all right, probably because I was a greaser, and younger; she didn’t have to keep her guard up with me. (Pg 38)

I just have to laugh for one second that Ponyboy is not even close to being a threat to Cherry. A fourteen-year-old Dally would have been a very different story. So I just want to say how much I love soft Pony and Johnny, okay? I mean, they’re tough but they’re also Soft and I love them both.

As an important aside, Cherry describes talking to her girl-friends just to talk, pretending she likes something just because that’s what they all do. Now, she means it as an example of how the Socs don’t feel anything and barely care about anything. But I see it as having another level of meaning.

How much of our teenage years do people spend pretending to like something or be a certain way just to impress or be liked by others? I feel like that’s a basic tenant of high school life no matter how much we might try to be ourselves. And if someone like Cherry pretends in her everyday life, how can we say who else is pretending or not?

‘Cause you know who ends up pretending or just trying to be like others more often than not? Queer people. Especially baby queers who may only have an inkling that they’re different and that might scare them. I know I did this, pressured into relationships, as did many queer kids I knew at the time. So many people think they’re straight because it’s the only option they know, especially in this generation growing up in the 60s. Thank you, heteronormativity. I just wanted to point that out, to consider in the whole of the book. Especially when Ponyboy as the narrator is fallible and may not fully understand all the dynamics of the gang.

(I could imagine a shy, quiet Johnny just starting to realize his feelings in how he idolizes Dally, while Dally is like “fuck no” all as he is dying over Johnny’s existence.)

So anyway, according to Cherry, the Socs are cool and emotionless while the Greasers run hot and feel everything. The Socs have money, have privilege, have anything they could want so that means they have a difficult time finding meaning in anything. That’s the basis of why Socs get into trouble, fucking shit up and fighting. The Greasers really have nothing but each other, so that’s what they fight for because no one else will do it. They don’t have money, they barely have family outside their gangs, so all they can do is rail against the world.

That was the truth. Socs were always behind a wall of aloofness, careful not to let their real selves show through. I had seen a social-club rumble once. The Socs even fought coldly and practically and impersonally.

“That’s why we’re separated,” I said. “It’s not money, it’s feeling -- you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.” (Pg 38)

I want to call a little bit of BS here just because money and the following privilege is a huge part of how the Socs and Greasers live every day. It’s in how they are raised by their socialite parents to have everything except maybe what they really need to care about, like love. It’s in how they might have nothing but a group of friends to watch their back, and how they will throw down everything for love of their chosen families.

It’s a stereotype that money and privilege beget this cool, aloof behavior of not caring about stuff, but here it seems to have some truth to it. And we know people who struggle every day for every little thing they have can be some of the most empathetic and giving people. I see a lot of this in these characters. I want to say Socs fight to maybe feel something while Greasers fight to numb themselves. It’s a fascinating dichotomy that still exists in various ways today.

And I can’t leave this comparison without talking about Dally. So knowing this is what Pony thinks about Greasers, how they feel too much too violently. . .what I want to know once again is why does this kid think Dallas Winston is a cold, emotionless bad guy? I mean, yes the seventeen-year-old acts like he’s seen and experienced everything, and hell, maybe he has. He fucks shit up and rolls little kids because it’s all he knows. Out of all the gang, he probably causes the most trouble. So by Pony’s reasoning here, that would likely mean Dally feels more than anyone else. He’s been through so much shit from such an early age, and he acts out because he can’t handle it. I just. I’ve said this all before and I’ll say it again, but I can’t with Dally. I love him. He is not Soft like Johnny, but he is Tough in a way that makes me want to protect him. Dally is Tough because inside he is vulnerable and Soft.

Yet Pony seems to think Dally cares about nothing and no one, when time and again Dally proves the opposite to be true just by how he treats everyone in the gang, especially Johnny. Dally cares, but Pony somehow doesn’t see it?? This is why I can’t necessarily take Pony’s narration seriously because he only sees his part of the story, and the text on the page only hints at the stuff Pony doesn’t experience. So a lot of important reading of The Outsiders depends on the subtext, and catching the hints and extrapolating on what is unsaid as much as what is stated outright. SE Hinton might not be aware of what kind of subtext she was setting up when she wrote this as a teenager. . .but I sure as hell see it and it’s queer af.

That’s all for now. I meant this to be short but it still took me a few hours lol oh well.

Until the next part~

#outsiders queer subtext series #jally #ponyboy curtis #cherry valance #dallas winston #greasers #the outsiders #se hinton

[mrmichaelchadler]

Thumbnails 8/15/18

Thumbnails is a roundup of brief excerpts to introduce you to articles from other websites that we found interesting and exciting. We provide links to the original sources for you to read in their entirety.—Chaz Ebert

1. 

"Austin Pendleton and Ann Whitney on 'Calumet'": The two brilliant veterans of stage and screen chat with me at Indie Outlook about various highlights from their extraordinary careers, including Alex Thompson's wonderful short film, "Calumet," which will screen in Chicago next week.

“[Indie Outlook:] ‘What I love about Stephen Cone [and Alex Thompson]’s work is it’s so much about the pauses between words. What is left unsaid is often most revealing.’ [Pendleton:] ‘That’s very well put, and not everyone who writes screenplays really writes like that. When there’s unstated personal stuff about a character, I find it productive to leave that to the actor and not probe them about it. Part of the potency of an actor’s performance is the privacy of it. If there is a part of a character that is mysterious, the actor is obviously going to their own understanding of things to define it. If an actor asks me questions when I’m directing, I’ll try to answer them, but I also say, ‘Look, if this doesn’t work for you, try something else.’ An actor can draw upon something that is actually from their own life, or they can imagine themselves in the situation of their character. If their imagination is evocative enough, it will work for them, but it’s definitely not the director’s job to interfere with any of that. All the director says is, ‘Here’s what I want you to do,’ and then sometimes if it keeps not working, you will say to the actor, ‘Whatever you are using for this from your own life or your own imagination doesn’t seem to be working for you. So let’s talk about the scene.’ Perhaps I will say something about the scene that will encourage you to go to something else in your life or your imagination. What a director should not do is try to be included in that privacy.’”

2. 

"Keeping Up with Hugh Grant": An excellent analysis of the celebrated actor's versatility, courtesy of Martha P. Nochimson at Eye on Media.

“Ironically, ‘A Very English Scandal’ is, in many ways, ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ seen through a glass darkly. There are small superficial similarities between the performative pretensions of Jeremy Thorpe and those of St. Claire. St. Claire calls Florence ‘bunny,’ and Thorpe uses the same pet name for Norman. Since the term of endearment was a key word in incriminating letters written by the historical Thorpe, it is impossible that this is anything but a nice coincidence. Thorpe’s linguistic mannerisms, however, may not be. They are similar to St. Claire’s, particularly his playful affectation of pronouncing ‘very, very’ as ‘veddy, veddy,’ and may well be Grant’s invention, and may well signal that he understood the ironic echoes of St. Claire in Thorpe. It is also ironic that Ben Whishaw plays both Paddington Bear to Grant’s predatory Phoenix Buchannan, and Norman Josiffe/Scott to the predatory Thorpe. Much more crucially, despite the serious under and over tones of both films, there is a comic spirit of absurdity that surges through both of them. The shrieks that Florence emits when she opens her mouth to sing, her manic passion for potato salad, and her impenetrable naiveté about her life in the face of all evidence is impossible to witness without laughing out loud at the same time that her plight touches us. Similarly, the comic timing of Thorpe’s homosexual seduction of Norman and his Monty Python-like effortless reversal into homicidal mode when he runs out of ways to silence his male lover leave us chuckling at the sheer calculation of the former and easy bloodlust of the latter.”

3.

"The Score-Only Version of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' is a Revelation": According to the ever-reliable Jim Hemphill at The Talkhouse.

“This special feature is exactly what the description promises, an edition of ‘The Last Jedi’ stripped of all its dialogue and sound effects, accompanied only by John Williams’ score. Based on Johnson’s tweets about the release, he wanted to put out this version so that people could fully appreciate the breadth and depth of Williams�� music, which is indeed awe-inspiring – no mere pastiche of his previous work in the series but, like the film it supports, a stunningly inventive leap forward that honors the earlier films while moving the saga in surprising, gratifying directions. Yet the ‘silent’ edition of ‘The Last Jedi’ is far more than a tribute to Williams’ talent; by removing the dialogue and sound effects, Johnson has given his film a newfound purity in which all of its big ideas having to do with memory, legacy, regret and hope are amplified and made more intellectually and emotionally penetrating. He’s also transformed it into an entirely new movie that has different pleasures and more poignancy than the theatrical version while retaining most of what made that movie great. In this sense, the relationship the score-only version of ‘The Last Jedi’ has to the original is similar to the relationship between ‘The Last Jedi’ and the previous films in the franchise.”

4. 

"Why Parkland survivors David and Lauren Hogg brought their activism to a book": In conversation with Ebert Fellow Joseph Longo at Entertainment Weekly.

“[David:] ‘I think what made me want to talk about it was realizing the [bias] that me and all my friends have got — because we’re a bunch of essentially privileged white kids — from the media. This has been happening in communities of color, been happening in Native American and poor communities for centuries. Think about it. The first mass shooting was Wounded Knee, if you really want to think about it that way. This has been happening for centuries in these communities, and now just because it’s a bunch of rich white kids that are being shot, we have to care about it? I think that we have to take an intersectional approach, because not being intersectional is what’s gotten us to this point. We have to be intersectional to end it here. I hope that people understand in different communities — like in Chicago on the South Side, or in Ferguson, Missouri, or in Liberty City, or in inner-city D.C. — we can’t tell people how we’re going to help them if we haven’t lived through it. We have to listen and understand and empathize with them. That’s what I hope people learn from this book — how to feel empathy for other people and understand that the way to help others that haven’t experienced, for example, gun violence the way that you have or ever experienced gun violence. Ask the people that are affected how you can help them and what you can do. Don’t say you’re sorry. Say, ‘I’m fighting for you. I’m here, and I will be voting on this issue to end it, so that I’m not affected by this and nobody else is.’’”

5. 

"The Problem with Seeking the Best for Your Kids": As observed by Courtney M. Martin of On Being.

“So where does a parent like me, someone at an ethical crossroads in a time of racial and class upheaval, look for guidance? I don’t read a lot of parenting books. When I finally get my girls to sleep, all I want to do is read about childless women on daring adventures. But in a fit of desperation following one of my older daughter’s tantrums, I did order a stack of them. Sometimes I’ll pull one off the shelf and search for some insight. Almost without an exception, they are completely devoid of any discussions of the ethics of parenting, beyond the virtues of raising an empathic, nonviolent child (which does poor kids, socially segregated from your peaceful, compassionate kid a whole hell of a lot of good, it seems to me.) There isn’t even a stack of books to order and fail to read when it comes to my aspiration to parent in a way that actually challenges structural inequality. There are books on anti-racist parenting, most of which are painful to read. They feature endless lists of questions for self-reflection — ‘What are all my reference-group identities (race, ethnicity, national or regional origin of family ancestors, religion, gender, political affiliations, economic class, sexual orientation, ableness)? What does each mean to me? Which ones have most affected me at different points in my life?’ This barrage of broad and overwhelming questions appears to be a hallmark of books aimed at white people fumbling to think and talk about race. I understand the authors’ intent — of course we can’t challenge structural racism if we haven’t scraped the scales from our own eyes while looking at our own lives. But that scraping, it seems to me, is never going to be inspired or internalized by a bulleted list.”

Image of the Day

Jay Jones of The Los Angeles Times unearths the mysteries of Egypt, as portrayed in Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 version of "The Ten Commandments," in the dunes of the California Coast (including the sphinx head pictured above).

Video of the Day

With ailing legend Aretha Franklin at the forefront of our thoughts, let's take a look back at her show-stopping performance at the Kennedy Center from three years ago, where she reduced President Obama to tears with her rendition of "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," sung in honor of Carole King.

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