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blakelywintersfield · 3 years

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Minors

Okay so, I originally wrote this in response to this post (my friend's reblog is linked instead of the original because OP either deleted it from their blog I guess?), but I feel like this constitutes as its own post.

I know this may sound like an overbearing parent "don't trust strangers on the internet" talk, but like. I don't think a lot of you understand just how quickly a situation can escalate; it's scary. I mean that not in a condescending "you think you're untouchable you stupid little child, you don't really know what the world is like" way either, but as in, I don't think internet safety is being taught realistically, so those things you're told to watch out for are far-fetched or already seem suspect.

Predators don't work the way TV shows joke that they do -- most predators aren't going to try and message you at random posing as a teenage girl and attempt to strike up a friendship. A lot interact in community spaces like tumblr, where some level of anonymity is allowed, and it's not odd for there to be people of both minor and adult ages. They interact with a variety of people -- not just targets. They will have full-fledged social circles. Their blogs and social interactions will look like literally any other person's on here.

Then, of the different blogs they follow, they end up interacting a lot with a certain user. Maybe the kind of humor clicks, or similar opinions, or interests. Nothing out of the ordinary; that's how people make friends. Maybe then they start by sending an ask, or a message, or whatever, and that continues for a bit until you two are kind of acclimated to one another, and then, as far as everyone is concerned, it's just a new friend! Neat! That's how you make friends on the internet. They most likely did this with their other friends on tumblr. Nothing weird. In this hypothetical, the minor party has their full name and city public.

But then this person you make friends with -- the way you would any other person on this website -- turns out to be 10+ years your senior. Which like. Honestly, you don't have to cut them out of your life and block them immediately, but you inform them you're 10 years younger than them. A responsible adult would respond to that knowledge with anything from the range of "oh holy shit you're baby uhh I feel a little weird interacting with you so personally" to "oh goodness you are a youngling I will now enter caregiver/parent-like mode". And there will be an established tone from there of "we may still interact but there is going to always be a set emotional distance". It'll have a different dynamic/feeling to the friendships you have with people your age. And it should. Both parties can still care about each other! But this isn't someone you would like. Hang out one on one with. You wouldn't hang out with your mom's friend one on one, or at your teacher's home alone. That'd be weird, right? That should be the same kind of vibe you get with any adult "friendship" you make online (I put friendship in quotes because I feel like... there's a better term for it, or should be one that establishes that adult/minor relationship, but if there is I can't for the life of me remember it).

But maybe that person doesn't go down that path. Maybe it comes off that way at first, but there's a subtle level of emotional manipulation that is subtle enough that you're not certain you can accuse them of being manipulative. "Oh wow, you're so much younger than me... do you still want to talk to me / be friends / etc.? I can leave you alone now if you want." Warning sign #1: they are pressuring you to make the decision; they are placing responsibility on you. And it might feel a little mean to just drop communication all of a sudden because of age -- you got along fine before. Why should that change anything? That's a rational thought process, but it's also the one that benefits them too.

So hypothetically, you say "no it's okay, we can still talk. we were talking just fine before we found out each other's ages so why should that change?" And then maybe the conversation continues normally from there. But then they continue interacting with you as your peers would. You guys talk about stuff that's been stressing you or your problems, just like you would with your peers. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Warning sign #2: That form of emotional connection isn't normal with an adult/minor relationship. I have minors that follow me. They have talked to me about their problems, and I've offered advice and wisdom; I don't condemn that because, well. As adults, we should help guide the younger if asked. But when it comes to my troubles, I limit how much I discuss with them. I don't bring them up myself (it's often brought up by the other party because I'll post about it on here, like a vent post or whatever). And while I don't brush them off with a short "don't worry about it", I make it clear -- I appreciate that you care enough to make sure I'm okay (because their sympathy / care is just as valuable as an adult's), but even if I'm not okay, the burdens and problems surrounding my troubles will be dealt with by me. I don't ask them for advice. I don't goad them for sympathetic words. And it's not that I believe they couldn't give good advice, or their sympathy means less, but an adult should not be relying on a minor for those levels of emotional labor. That established emotional connection where both parties exchange advice and comfort is how predators manipulate their victims because it's subtle and seemingly harmless, and difficult to paint them as a bad person when you have that level of emotional trust.

And once that emotional connection is established, that's when things can escalate, and get scary, quickly.

One day while talking they will probably bring it up -- the way one of your peers would. Something along the lines of "hey can I tell you something?" or "there's something I want to tell you but I'm afraid you won't want to talk to me anymore if I do" etc. etc.; with that peer/peer dynamic, that'll make you anxious, sure. You'd probably get anxious if they were your own age and said that too. So then, it comes out in some form that "I like you, but like... as more than a friend" or "I think you're really cute; I have for a bit now actually" or something similar. Obviously then it's uncomfortable.

But then you realize -- this is an adult. This is someone who has access to transportation. This is someone that doesn't have to report to someone (i.e. a minor can't just say "I'm going out of town for a week bye!" like your parents would, or SHOULD, be like "uh okay where are you going, who are you going to be with, why, etc. etc. etc."). And they know your full name and a general idea of where you live. You could just block them then and there and remove that information from your blog. But what if they already saved it? What if they already used one of those websites where you can look up a person's address by name for $5? What if they already know where you live, and they had planned on asking to meet up? They might know where you live. And you can't confirm or deny that they know. You can't say for sure if you removed that information before they saved it and used it for that purpose. Suddenly, there's the very real possibility that a pedophile that admitted to being attracted to you knows where you live.

Then what do you do? You should tell your parents or a trusted authority figure. But you're also a teenager and there's the likelihood that your parents might brush it off, or get angry with you, and you might get your internet taken away, etc., which is stressful because that takes away a major social area. To build upon the anxiety with that, there's the risk of unknowing if this person does know where you live, and if they do, if they are just unstable enough to do something drastic, like, y'know. Kidnap you. Because they know where you live. And they may know your school schedule too. And if your parents or trusted authority figure doesn't know about this situation, you may end up a missing child never found at worst, or found with far more trauma (5 years of life being kidnapped as opposed to a few months) that could've been avoided had someone known the situation.

But to 100% ensure your safety, it would have to be reported to the police. Because your parents can't do anything about the fact that a pedophile on the internet might know where you live. They can't confirm or deny that they know, and if they did, there's not much they can do other than keep an eye out for someone that looks out of the ordinary. But if they're most likely not home at the same time you are all the time. So, having the police involved ensures your safety -- if you open a case. You can report it to the police, and they'll ask: do you want to press charges (because it could be considered a form of child endangerment). If you say no, then that guarantees if you are kidnapped, that person would be the first they'd look to as a suspect. But to avoid that kidnapping risk at all, you'd have to say yes. And you're a kid that's now having to get involved in court just to avoid any risk to your safety because a pedophile may or may not have your address and may or may not be someone that would abduct their target, and so even if they didn't have your address and wouldn't kidnap you, you are now in a legal situation, which is. extremely. stressful. As someone's who's dealt with the court system a lot it's stressful no matter what.

And sure, you could omit the last step. But then you'll have that looming anxiety for as long as you're a minor that there is a possibility this person may show up at your house at some point. And that anxiety is fucking torture. I know it firsthand, I know all of this up to the legal portion firsthand, because this is exactly how I got tangled up with a pedophile in high school. That anxiety can make you paranoid. It impacts your sleep, which impacts your emotional tolerance and your concentration. It looms and there's nothing you can do to get rid of it other than convince yourself "they probably don't have my address; they probably won't find me". And that logic becomes sounder as time passes. But it requires time to pass, and in the meantime, you sit in constant suffering suspense.

It's just not fucking worth it, okay? You might think "this would never happen to me" but like. I was the fat emo weirdo in high school, literally considered attractive by no one and told so by peers and I still had it happen to me. So don't think "I'm not appealing enough" or whatever. Put self-esteem issues aside here, because to them, you're underage and at a power dynamic disadvantage not just physically, but most likely emotionally too. They care that you're a certain (under)age and can be manipulated into sexual acts. They will target you no matter how ugly you think you are or how unattractive your peers have convinced you.

So please. As an adult, that went through this situation (and could've had it turn out a lot worse tbh) -- do not disclose your real name (especially last names), location more specific than country, phone number, or school publicly online or to anyone you cannot 100% trust. I practice half of these in adulthood just to err on the side of caution since a full name and phone number alone could be used to find my address, and there are some preeeeetty unstable people out there. As a minor, absolutely no one needs any information unless you plan on meeting them in person, which should only be done after you've gotten to know them extremely well and both parties' parents know and are involved. It doesn't need to be on your public profile, and it shouldn't be on your public profile. I want your social media experience to be as enjoyable as possible, I don't want you feeling like you have to constantly keep an eye out for predators. But to keep yourself as safe as possible, don't purposefully make that information public. It's simple, but it’ll help you avoid so much potential stress.

Please stay safe.

#safety #internet safety #minor safety

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subterfugespecialist · 3 years

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Led to You

As a child, everyone finds their "soulmate guide," an animal meant to lead your soulmate to you. And one morning, Janus and Remus wake up to see a stranger's guide in their homes.

Written for Day 3 of @dukeceitweek : snakes/bugs

AO3 link

Pairings: Dukeceit, Familial Creativitwins, Platonic Loceit, Moceit, and Dukexiety

Warnings: Some Remus-typical violent thoughts, scorpions/tarantulas/snakes

Word count: 4228

Janus woke up to something brushing against his hand. He groaned and batted Dusa away while muttering "Five more minutes"

But when it brushed against his hand again, he noticed it was definitely not the headbutt from a snake. His eyes snapped open and he glanced down to see a fucking scorpion on his bed holy shit-

If his roommate asked if that was him that made the high pitched squeal that morning, no it wasn't.

He scrambled out of bed to look around for something to try and trap the scorpion under, but he didn't want to get near it what the fuck-

Janus paused. The scorpion was staring at him. At least, it looked like the scorpion was staring at him. It at least didn't look like it was trying to attack him.

Did... did it wave?

Now that Janus had calmed down, he noticed the scorpion was a deep, emerald green. Janus didn't know much about bugs, never had a reason to, but he never heard of a green scorpion before.

Could it be...?

"Hey, Logan?"

Footsteps came from the kitchen down the hallway.

"I was wondering when you were going to call me in," Logan said as he opened the door, his deep blue raven perched on top of his head, "What happened?"

"Can scorpions be green?"

"Why would I know that, Janus?"

"Because you know everything."

"Why are you asking?"

Janus pointed to his bed, and when Logan looked down he jumped back with a startled shout, disturbing the raven on his head.

The scorpion turned towards Logan and, yeah, the scorpion definitely waved.

After calming himself (and his bird), Logan slowly approached Janus' bed.

"...While I have heard of scorpions glowing green under ultraviolet light-"

"Oh, so you did know, you asshole-"

"I haven't seen a scorpion that looks like this, no," Logan said, crouching down next to the bed, "Is Dusa here? She was not under her heat lamp."

"Dusa? Come here, darling."

Dusa didn't crawl out of hiding, and Janus' room and the living room under her heat lamp were the only places she liked to be first thing in the morning.

"I guess she isn't."

Logan's raven, Minerva, hopped off his head onto the bed to examine the scorpion. She leaned down and the scorpion gently bumped heads. Minerva let out a happy chirp.

"My soulmate guide is a scorpion."

"Fascinating," Logan muttered as the scorpion and Minerva playfully chased each other around the bed, "I haven't heard of a bug guide before."

Janus glanced at the clock and put his hand down on the bed. The scorpion immediately ran onto his palm.

"I have class in an hour," he said as he cupped his hands and lifted the scorpion, "So how do you feel about business, corporate, and commercial law?"

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Remus woke up to Roman screaming. After a moment of debating whether to go back to sleep or not, he decided that, yeah, he probably should go check on the well being of his brother. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Remus trudged towards the living room to see a snake curled up on the couch, with Roman's robin perched on its head.

"Peter, please come here!" Roman pleaded. But the little bird seemed perfectly content on top of the snake. The snake started to slither off the couch, making roman shout again. The robin flew onto Roman's hand and he relaxed a bit as he held the bird to his chest.

Roman took his gaze off his brother back to the snake and- oh look at that it. It was headed towards him.

"Remus stop standing there what is wrong with you-"

The snake was around four feet long with yellow-and-black stripes. Quite gorgeous, really.

Remus decided he wanted to pick it up.

He knelt down and outstretched his arm (as Roman continued to shout at him), letting the snake crawl up and around his shoulders. The snake nuzzled its head against Remus' cheek.

Roman stared at him, eyes wide and mouth opened.

"What?"

"You're insane."

"And you're a chickenshit. You've lived with a scorpion as a roommate your whole life and you're gonna freak out over a snake guide?"

"How was I supposed to know it was a guide!?"

Remus stepped over and placed a hand on Roman's shoulder. "...You're a moron."

Roman shoved him.

"Peter was fine. And we should be expecting to find strange animals in our apartment at this age."

"Oh, piss off to find your soulmate and stop bothering me for a while."

"Gladly."

Remus turned to go back to his bedroom.

"...I'm really happy for you, you know."

Remus stopped and groaned. "Roman, no sentimental bullshit before nine."

"But I mean it. You deserve this."

"...Thanks, you idiotic bastard."

Roman gave him a gentle smile as Peter hopped onto Remus' head and nestled into his wild mess of bedhead.

"Also you screamed like a little girl."

"Fuck off-"

Remus cackled as Roman shoved him again. Peter gave Remus a petulant little peck on the top of his head.

Peter flew back over to Roman while Remus held out his arms go guide the snake in front of his face.

"Are you gonna lead me to my soulmate?" Remus asked with a large grin, which only grew wider when the snake nodded.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Janus was very much enjoying having a scorpion on his shoulder. People instinctively stepped away from him, even more so than with Dusa, meaning he didn't have to fight his way through the crowded sidewalks.

The scorpion had been upset that Janus didn't follow its directions. It scuttled frantically from one shoulder to the other. It calmed only when Janus explained he had to go to class, but would follow its directions immediately after.

Janus was stopped in his tracks, though, by a corgi running up to him and jumping on his knees.

"Hi, Peachy," Janus said as he scratched behind her ears. The scorpion crawled down his arm in curiosity.

if someone's guide was a common house pet like a dog or cat, they were issued a special white collar to show they were a soulmate guide to be allowed in public places along with service animals.

But this dog didn't have such a collar. She was just a dog.

"Hey, Janus!" someone called out. Janus looked up to see Patton jogging down the sidewalk, his guide right beside him.

"Hello, Patton. Hello, Cookie," Janus said to his friend and the capybara standing next to him.

Patton had been Logan's friend first, and Janus hadn't been too keen on his... optimistic personality at first. But dammit, the guy's too sweet.

"Miss Peachy! What have I told you about running off?" Patton said with a light scowl as he reattached her leash. But of course, unlike a guide, she couldn't actually understand. She jumped off Janus' legs to go lick the capybara's face.

Janus didn't understand the appeal of keeping animals that weren't your guide, but to each their own, he supposed.

Patton's eyes fell to Janus' shoulder, and after the instinctive fear vanished a large smile took over his face.

"Oh! You've got your soulmate guide!!"

"Yep," Janus said as he resumed walking down the sidewalk. Patton followed.

"Ohmygosh, this is so exciting!" Patton exclaimed, practically bouncing as he walked, "How long have you been out trying to find them? Do you think you're close?"

"I'm going to class, actually."

"Really? Gosh, you've got more self control than me," Patton laughed, "I don't think I'd be able to wait."

"I've got exams soon, Patton. I can't risk missing anything."

"Oh, I'm not trying to change your mind! You do what you think is best. But aren't you excited?"

Janus was convinced Patton was smiling so hard his face was going to get stuck like that. But when Janus didn't answer immediately, his frown dampened.

"Hey, are you okay, Jan?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh, honey. You're nervous, aren't you?" Patton asked as his smile turned empathetic, which Janus thought was almost worse than excited.

The scorpion nuzzled against his neck, which was an odd sensation for sure, but Janus appreciated the sentiment.

"Of course I'm not nervous. I have no reason to be."

Patton tilted his head down slightly and gave him that look. The soft-smile dad-friend look that meant you were about to be comforted, whether you like it or not. Janus sighed.

"Okay, fine. A little," he conceded. He probably should be worried about how close that scorpion and its stinger was against his neck as it cuddled closer. But he'd never heard of a soulmate guide killing anyone, so he chose not to.

"Oh, sweetie," Patton said in that annoyingly soft tone. He wrapped an arm around Janus' and led him over to a bench. Peachy promptly hopped up to sit on Patton's lap while Cookie plopped against Patton's legs, giving Janus a soft nudge with her nose.

"It's not a big deal," Janus huffed, "I just think its reasonable to be nervous about meeting some stranger I am now expected to spend my life with."

"You have every right to feel what you're feeling. Such a big life change can be scary. But I'm certain your soulmate will understand your reservations and will go at any pace you're comfortable with."

While yes, the idea of a soulmate was a pleasant one, it was also a bit... concerning, to say the least. Janus was quite happy with where he was in life, and he wasn't too keen on the idea of something changing it all completely.

He was a bit surprised Logan wasn't his soulmate. He was the perfect roommate: neat, consistent, punctual. And Janus felt enough fondness for Logan that he was sort of expecting to wake up one day and have their guides just push them into each others' arms.

Alas, apparently not.

Janus bit his lip, debating. It would be good to talk about his worries. And as much as Janus pretended, he was actually quite fond of Patton.

"Patton, what if we don't work?"

"What do you mean, hon?"

"This person is supposedly meant to complete me. To make me better. But I'm perfectly fine the way I am now. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. What if I meet them and they just want to... to fix me? Because I'm expected to change for them?"

"Janus, your soulmate is meant to compliment you. Not complete you. You aren't missing any parts of yourself, because you're already your own complete person. And you certainly don't need to be 'fixed.'"

The scorpion crawled down to Janus' hands, and Janus ran his thumb over its back to pet it.

"But what if... what if we meet and nothing happens? Everyone always talks about their 'immediate romantic connections' but I don't buy it. What if we're doomed to always be strangers? After all, I'm not particularly good with people, Pat. What did I call you when we first met? A-"

"An annoying, self-righteous, dependent puppy with no boundaries?"

Janus winced. "Yeah. That."

A gentle smile grew on Patton's face as he held his arms out for a hug. Janus hesitated for only a moment before accepting.

"You don't need to worry about anything. Soulmates don't always mean romantic. Even if you don't feel romance at first, even if you never do, you two are going to share a tight bond and a special relationship different from anyone else you know. Nothing gets to take that from you."

"...Thank you, Patton. For taking the time to talk to me."

"Of course! What are friends for?"

Patton gave him a soft smile, and Janus gave him a rare, genuine one in return.

"Oh! I hope I didn't make you late for class!"

Janus looked at his watch. "I'll be fine if I hurry. Thank you. Again. Goodbye, Cookie. Bye, Peachy."

Peachy didn't react. Cookie gave him one last gentle nudge.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

The snake in Remus' arms couldn't guide in front of him like Roman's bird would or any sort of animal with wings or legs. While he could let it slither on the ground, it would be dangerous with how busy the sidewalk was. And Remus really didn't need to return the snake to his soulmate all squished.

So it was wrapped around his shoulders, reaching down his arms, and rested in his hands, guiding him down the street like a compass.

The snake turned back to look at Remus.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked as he kept walking, the snake shaking its head urgently. Only for someone to grab the back of his jacket and yank him back, pulling him off the street and narrowly missing oncoming traffic.

"Watch where you're going, asshole," the person muttered. Remus turned, ready to start shit, but instead broke into a goofy grin when he saw Virgil.

"Hey, emo!"

Besides Roman, Virgil was Remus' only friend. Most people were too put off by Remus', well, everything.

And Virgil had been too, at first. But the two bonded over their soulmate's guides being creatures most of the public feared and the stigma that came with that. And now he was used to Remus' bullshit.

"And hey, Helena," he said to the tarantula sitting on Virgil's shoulder.

"So. You found your soulmate guide," Virgil said. The snake reached over to inspect Virgil and he scratched under its chin, the snake then nuzzling against Virgil's cheek.

"On your way to find your soulmate?" he asked as the snake and tarantula started inspecting each other.

"Yep!"

"Are you nervous?"

"Nope!"

Virgil squinted at him, searching for any sign of dishonesty, but all he saw was the normal, excitable Remus.

"Shit, you're lucky, man. I've been psyching myself out over meeting mine."

"But aren't they, like, made for you?"

"Supposedly. But you know me. I can't stop thinking about all the bad things. Like what if they don't like me?"

"Well, that would be a them problem."

Virgil let out an amused huff. "Really? You wouldn't be bothered?"

"Well, yeah," Remus said as he watched the snake and Helena play peekaboo behind Virgil's neck. "But like, it's not like I'm not used to people not liking me. And if I don't know this person, what would I lose, really? So actually, this can only go up for me."

Virgil cast him a sad smile. Remus hated it.

"It'll be good for you," Virgil said as the two crossed the street. "You are a strange fucking creature, but you're a good dude. Mostly. Partially? Mostly."

"It'll be good for you, too, then. Cause you're better than me."

Virgil nudged him with his shoulder.

"Ultimately, I know it will be. My brain just hates me."

"You and me both, emo."

The snake curled back against Remus after booping Helena and resumed its role as soulmate compass.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Remus ended up on his old school campus.

Ew.

He had dropped out, and he had hoped he would never have to step foot back here again. Oh, well, C'est la vie, or whatever the fuck.

Though you needed to swipe a student ID to unlock the doors, Remus knew if he yanked hard enough the doors would give. He had managed to make it through a whole semester without his ID after he lost it.

A grimace grew on Remus' face as he walked back into the Taylor Building for the first time in over a year. It was named after his least favorite professor, and he had a lot of bad memories in this building.

Time to find his soulmate and get the fuck out.

He was just about to head upstairs when someone shouted at him.

"Excuse me! Only students and faculty are allowed in this building."

Yeah, Remus supposed he didn't look like the typical law majors that took up a majority of the classes here. Not with his spiked leather jacket and ripped jeans. He turned to see who had yelled at him.

And speak of the devil.

"Hey, you're Taylor!"

The man straightened his shoulders.

"Yes, I am. Were you a student of mine?"

"Yeah! I hated your fuckin' guts."

The man looked like he had been slapped before a sneering look of recognition appeared on his face.

"Remus Kingsley."

"Aw, I'm flattered you remember me. Especially since I dropped out. You encouraged me to, remember? Right after you called me a, what was it, 'moronic good-for-nothing- imbecile that would never amount to anything?'"

"You need to leave immediately."

Taylor had reached out to grab Remus but he bolted up the stairs, making sure he had a tight grip on the snake.

He wasn't about to give up on his soulmate that easy.

As they ran down the upstairs hallway, Taylor continued to shout at him. But Remus wasn't worried. He was clearly much faster.

He turned to see the disheveled man chasing behind him and laughed. This was kinda fun!

Then he had to turn around and run face first into the chest of a campus officer.

Well, bitchtits.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

Janus' class was nothing out of the ordinary, except that his surrounding classmates had inched as far away from this as they could, and Janus was enjoying the extra space.

The scorpion had been still on his shoulder for the most part, settling in where Janus' neck and shoulder met. But now it stood, rushing down Janus' arm to the desk and running around in circles.

"What is it?" he whispered.

Right after he asked that, shouting was heard down the hallway. The professor and students all turned their heads in time to see someone running past the door, laughing, with Professor Taylor chasing after them.

"...Okay, then," The professor said, "Now back to your review material."

Janus hardly listened as the professor spoke. He was more focused on the scorpion that kept switching between running in circles and scuttling onto Janus' hand.

When the professor dismissed the class, Janus hung back. He preferred to let the crowd of students leave before him instead of trying to fight his way through.

By the time he walked into the hallway, it was mostly empty. Janus was holding the scorpion in the palm of his hands and it jumped to get his attention. It gestured with its body to go down the hallway.

"Alright, let's go."

The scorpion led him down a couple of hallways, and Janus heard shouting and the sound of running footsteps against the tile.

A man ran around the corner, his neon green combat boots skidding on the floor as he tried to stop. He had a mustache above a wild grin, with a streak of white through his hair.

He also had Dusa wrapped around his neck.

Janus stared. The man stopped in front of him.

"Fluffy!" he said to the scorpion in Janus' hands, who was alternating between running in circles again and hopping in excitement.

He looked up at Janus with a manic grin. "Hey! I'm Remus. I'd love to stop and chat but I'm afraid I've found myself wrapped up with something."

Two campus officers rounded the corner.

What the fuck.

Janus took the scorpion - Fluffy - in one hand and held it against his chest, grabbing Remus' wrist with the other and bolting.

Remus let out a delighted laugh as he let Janus pull him down the hallway and down a set of stairs.

Jesus, what did Janus get himself into?

He was heading towards one of the student parking lots, cutting through the Union. There would be lots of students and he hoped they could get lost in the crowd. But with two idiots running across the yard with a snake and a scorpion, people were parting a path for them. Which made them more obvious but at least let them through.

When Janus looked behind him, he couldn't see the officers, but he didn't want to risk it. It wasn't exactly hard to identify them: one with a large scar on the left side of his face and the other, with, well, a lot of fucking identifiable traits.

Logan would probably get mad at him for this, but Janus was sure he would be forgiven that same day if he made Logan thumbprint cookies. So Janus let go of Remus' hand to dig in his pocket, finding the spare key to Logan's car he gave Janus only for emergencies. Janus would consider this an emergency. Logan probably would not.

Janus unlocked the car and Remus got in without question. Remus hardly stopped laughing.

Great. So his soulmate was a maniac.

Janus pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street, gunning it out of there as Remus shouted in excitement.

"Fuck, yeah, dude!" he yelled. His seat-belt was not on, by the way.

"What the hell did you do?"

"Trespass, technically. But it would've been fine if that bitchass Taylor hadn't come along. And then I maybe assaulted an officer, but could it really be assault if I just whacked him when he tried to grab me? Anyways I already have three offenses - I guess four now - and I didn't want to go to jail or anything so I started running-"

"God, I'm going to miss my next class," Janus groaned, "What if they try to find me tomorrow?"

"How's your track record?"

"It's clean. Unlike someone, I don't get caught."

"Psh, then you're probably fine. you're a white law student."

Janus took a deep breath as he tried to collect his thoughts. What was even happening right now?

"...Okay, I may have fucked this up," Remus started, and he at least had the decency to sound sheepish, "I didn't mean to drag you into this mess, even though I was purposefully... searching... for you... Shit, I didn't even think about that. I don't think a lot, actually. I mean, I wasn't even paying attention on the way to find you. I almost got hit by a car. Could you imagine, Fluffy leading you to me only to find your soulmate and guide squashed by a car and our blood and guts everywhere-"

"Remus."

"Sorry, sorry," he groaned as his hands went to grab his hair, "I was really excited to meet you, and even when being chased by police my dumb brain only wanted to focus on finding you because I don't have many friends cause most people get weirded out since I can't control my thoughts or my mouth so, like, all the weird shit that pops int my brain just comes right out and I was really looking forward to meeting someone who wouldn't leave-"

"Remus, it's okay," Janus interrupted, "Deep breaths, okay?"

Remus took a couple deep breaths.

Then Janus let out a short laugh. He felt bad for laughing, but he couldn't help it.

"...What?"

"I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. The situation just caught up to me: You're my soulmate, we just ran from the police, and we just took my friend's car and wow. Can't say this is how I expected this to go."

Remus grimaced. "Sorry."

"No, actually. This is better than the sappy shit I was thinking about."

Remus perked up a bit. "Yeah?"

"Is it always like this with you? Am I sentenced to spend my life digging you out of trouble, now?"

"Yeah, probably."

Janus laughed again as he pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center. He had no clear idea where he was going, and at least this place had plenty of people and plenty of parking. When he stopped, the scorpion hopped off his shoulder and scuttled to Remus.

"Hey, Fluffy," he said with a smile as he put the scorpion in his lap.

"Hey, actually, let's talk about that," Janus said, "You named your scorpion Fluffy?"

"Yeah. I named him that to trick people. Scared the shit out of my mom when he first showed up. 'Hey, meet Fluffy,' then I pull a scorpion out from behind my back. It never gets old."

Janus couldn't stop smiling, and he was sure his face was disgustingly close to Patton's in terms of fondness, but he couldn't do anything to help that.

"I'm Janus. The lovely lady on your shoulders is Dusa."

"Janus. That's a badass name," Remus said as he scritched Dusa under her chin.

"Thank you for your help today, Dusa," Janus said with a grin as she slithered back over to wrap around Janus, "And you, too, Fluffy."

"Fuck yeah. Thanks guys. Shit, Dusa was awesome. I'm pretty sure that while I was running, she flicked her tail to open a door and it hit one of the officers in the face."

Janus glanced down at her. "You are an enabler."

She stuck her tongue out.

"Well, since we're already here, would you like to go on a date or something? It seems like you have stories to tell," Janus said as he gestured to the mall in front of them.

"Yeah," Remus said with a fond grin, "Are you hungry? I'm starving. Wanna go to the food court. On me. We'll have to be careful, though. I'm pretty sure I'm banned from this mall."

Janus stared at him before bursting out laughing again. This was his life now, and how exciting that thought was.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to."

Thanks for reading! Requests are open in my inbox. Hope you enjoyed <3

#sanders sides #dukeceit week #janus sanders #remus sanders #dukeceit #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #platonic loceit #creativitwins #platonic moceit #platonic dukexiety #janus fic #remus fic #dukeceit fic

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tenspontaneite · 3 years

Text

Across Shared Skin (Chapter 1/?)

When Callum was born, Sarai pored over every inch of his skin by candlelight until she found it: a tiny, diminutive patch of discoloured skin on the back of his tiny, diminutive left hand.

(Second of two pieces written for @falling-for-you-a-rayllum-zine) (Soulmate AU. For the ‘AU’ chapter. Only this instalment was written for the zine; future chapters are all new. Piece length: 7k. Ao3 link)

---

It was an interesting skin tone. Pale and purplish, almost, plainly evident against the ruddy colour of his newborn body. She wondered if, across whatever distance separated them, her son’s soulmate had noticed the corresponding shift on their own hand. She wondered how much older they were. She wondered many things that, in the end, only the passage of years would be able to answer. But for now, there were observances to meet.

She fetched a pen, and in the tiniest script she could manage, drew lines of ink carefully across the back of her son’s hand. Callum, she wrote, and left it at that.

Others might include a birth-date, or kingdom of residence, or the names of the parents. But Sarai was wary, and wrote only what custom dictated. The name.

She wasn’t expecting a response right away. For all the prominence of the mark’s location, it was late, and whoever waited on the other end might well be asleep. She had expected more to be waiting until morning, at the very least. But, mere minutes later—

Clear and careful, a name unfolded on her son’s skin, directly beneath the one she’d written.

Rayla, it said, and nothing else.

Sarai mulled the name over. It was unusual. Foreign, certainly, though that didn’t guarantee anything about how far away the girl might live. In the end, she nodded, and committed the name to her memory. It might be years until Callum could communicate with his soulmate himself, but until then, he deserved to know her name.

She left both names on Callum’s hand, and set him gently down to sleep.

---

“He might not be a human.” Lain attempted, yet again, looking down for what seemed like the hundredth time at the name on his daughter’s hand. “Elves use the common script, too. And the name—it’s not unusual. It would fit in well with any of the communities that use Draconic more than we do.”

Tiadrin sighed, and eased the glove once again onto Rayla’s squirming fingers. It wasn’t proper to have one’s mark visible in public, but children so often disliked restrictive coverings. “They didn’t write the primal.” She said, flatly, and that was a tired statement too. “What elf wouldn’t write the symbol of the primal their child was born to? It’s tradition.”

The name and the symbol were obligatory. All else—birthdate, location, family—was optional. But there should have been a symbol. Moon, or Sun, or Sky, or Earth—even Ocean—there should have been a symbol. But there wasn’t, and in its absence, they’d omitted Rayla’s moon. If her soulmate was a human, it would keep him safer. It didn’t seem prudent to declare arcanum to a human audience of unknown prejudices.

Lain was quiet, watching as she covered up the damning ink of the unaccompanied names. “He might not be a human.” He repeated, more softly. “Perhaps they omitted his primal for security reasons. Perhaps he’s the son of someone important.” His brow furrowed. “Perhaps he’s a Startouch elf.”

She snorted. “Fat chance of that. And even royalty declare their children’s primal.” She bent down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “No, Lain. Our daughter has a human soulmate, and we’ll just have to live with that.”

He frowned, resignation and concern written more clearly on him than the names on Rayla’s hand. “��We can’t let anyone find out.” He said, eventually, defeat weighing on his every word. “She’d never be able to do anything without someone questioning her loyalties. She’d be shunned. We can’t let that happen to her.”

Tiadrin nodded. It went without saying, really. “We’ll tell Runaan and Ethari. Everyone else…” She mulled the name over. Callum. It could mean ‘hard-skinned’. It could also, if derived from Columba, mean ‘dove’. Either way, it was a plainly Draconic name, and Moonshadow elves didn’t tend to name their children for Draconic. Others, though… “We’ll say he’s a Skywing elf.” She decided, and her husband hummed approvingly.

“What about Rayla?” He asked, then. “What will we tell her?”

She went quiet. “…I can’t lie to my own daughter about her soulmate, Lain.” She admitted. “We’ll just…have to impress on her the importance of discretion. Children aren’t always the best at keeping secrets, but…”

He held silent for a moment, then smiled. “She’s a Moonshadow elf. She’ll be fine.” He said, and she wished she could share his confidence.

“We’ll see.” Tiadrin said, noncommittal, and left it to that.

---

Once or twice in his early years, Callum experienced little hints of the shared skin between himself and his soulmate. Here and there, he felt phantom fingertips against the back of his hand, the weight of unfamiliar cloth, and—once—the sharp sting of a scratch from some sort of animal across the skin. It healed quickly, as all blemishes on soulmarks did, but he’d gone crying to his mother from the unexpected pain anyway.

People were circumspect about their soulmarks, and that was part of the background hum of culture that he was raised to. He wasn’t to show his soulmark in public. He wasn’t even to say where it was. He wore fingerless gloves, on both hands, to disguise it—and, at least until he was able to talk to her, he wasn’t even supposed to tell anyone her name.

He did, though.

He finger-spelled it out to Aunt Amaya, albeit clumsily. “Her name is Rayla,” he said, almost solemnly, with the motions of his hands. She smiled at him indulgently and raised a finger to her lips in a ‘hush’ motion.

She wasn’t the only person he told. He told the officer of the Standing Battalion who was watching his mother and Amaya’s latest sparring match. He told the baker that they went to buy sweets from. He told near everyone he met, when he was going through the typical three-year-old’s phase of desperate interest in the phenomenon of a soulmate, and his mother sighed at him for it every time.

Again and again, he asked her to write something to Rayla. To ask questions, to find out something more about her, anything. He had a soulmate, and he wanted to know more about her than her name and skin colour.

“It wouldn’t be right, Callum.” She told him, patiently. “Only soulmates should speak through their skin. You’ll just have to wait until you can write to her yourself.”

Callum scowled, and set back into learning his alphabet very vehemently indeed. Because that was the thing:

It wasn’t proper for someone else to write to your soulmate for you. It wasn’t even proper to be walked through spelling out an introduction. When you first wrote to your soulmate, you were supposed to do it yourself. And you were supposed to wait until you were good enough to manage basic conversation, too.

Callum didn’t want to wait until he had words to communicate with. So, one evening, in abject defiance of custom and propriety, he took off his glove and doodled a little flower on the back of his hand. He fell asleep feeling particularly pleased with himself, and somehow, didn’t consider that writing upon shared skin might garner a response.

He woke to a tiny, clumsy flower-doodle scrawled beside his own.

---

Rayla was something of a lonely child. She didn’t have friends her age, having never meshed well with the other children. She didn’t play like the other children did, preferring instead to train with Runaan, or go off sneaking into the forest alone. She didn’t socialise and the closest thing she had to friends were the adoraburrs she brought home by the armful. So, really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she became so taken with her soulmate.

It started when, one day, Rayla ran up to them with her expression so bright it was impossible not to smile back at her. And then they saw what was on her hand, and Tiadrin had to restrain a surprised laugh at the neat little flower doodled on her daughter’s hand. “Oh, well,” She managed, and shared a glance with Lain. “That’s…” She remembered, for a moment, that this was a human, but… “That’s incredibly cute.” She sighed in the end, because it was, and Rayla was so charmingly pleased with the tiny drawing. “Congratulations, Rayla.”

“It’s only a flower,” said their rambunctious, headstrong little girl, but there was no hiding how delighted she was. “He didn’t even write anything.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know how, yet.” Tiadrin said, while she tried to remember how old Rayla’s soulmate was. “He’s not quite four, and that’s very young for writing.” She shook her head. “Well, I suppose we’d best get you your skin-inks, if you’re going to be talking now. Or drawing.” Suddenly, she levelled her daughter with a penetrating look. “Remind me what you know about talking to your soulmate, Rayla.”

She stilled for a second, and fell from her childish delight into the more bullheaded determination that accompanied her through her training. “Nothing ‘bout elves, or Xadia, or where we live, or anyone’s names, or magic, or assassins.”

Lain reached out and ruffled her hair. “Good girl.” He praised, and she beamed at him. When she was older, no doubt, she’d chafe against those restrictions. They’d make it very hard to talk to one’s soulmate about anything of substance, after all. But for now, she was content.

Rayla puffed up. “I’m gonna draw him an adoraburr!” She announced, and both of her parents made despairing noises.

“Rayla, honey, adoraburrs are magic.” Tiadrin explained, patiently, and her daughter’s face fell. Evidently, this might be more challenging than they’d thought.

(Rayla drew the adoraburr anyway. Adoraburrs were everywhere, after all. What could it hurt?)

Callum kept up a clandestine exchange of doodles with his soulmate for months before his mother found out. Rayla always used some sort of weird ink that washed off his skin really easily, while his ink lingered in faded outlines for days after he scrubbed it off. It was that which caught him, in the end.

“Callum,” his mother sighed, a little despairingly, at the evidence of many successive generations of doodles on the skin of his hand. “You’re supposed to wait until you can write.”

He made a face at her from the side of the bath, where he really should have expected he’d be caught. “It’s not hurting anyone.” He muttered, chagrined. “We’re just drawing.”

She pursed her lips, reluctantly curious. “She draws back? Or does she write?”

“She draws.” He admitted. “She got this weird ink that washes off easy.”

After a brief correction to his grammar, she shook her head. “Skin-ink. It’s made to wash off. I’ll have to get you some, I suppose.” She watched him almost tiredly for several long moments, then said “I’ll not stop you from drawing to each other, Callum. But this means we’ll need to have your security lessons earlier than normal. There are things you’re not supposed to talk to soulmates about—things that could hurt the kingdom. Do you understand?”

He didn’t. But he pretended he did, to make her happy.

In the end, she held the skin-inks hostage until he could dutifully rattle off the list of things he wasn’t supposed to talk about. This included: local governance, anything about how much food people had or where the food or water was kept, anything about the military (this being especially relevant, considering his mother and aunt), anything about the nobility, and a laundry list of other things.

When he was older, he’d understand the rationale behind it; that the careless words of children to their soulmates could reach the ears of adults who knew how to use them. A complaint about always being hungry might not mean much to the soulmate—but to an adult, it might indicate famine in a neighbouring kingdom. It might indicate weakness. And there were many such ways to damn one’s nation.

Of course, by the time he understood, he was himself a member of the nobility—a prince of Katolis. The damage an unwary prince might do with spilled secrets was potentially catastrophic, and so the lessons were drummed into his head until he almost felt wary to so much as touch the nib of his pen to the back of his hand. It would be so easy to give something away.

But, for now, he was only a child, and the ink on his skin held no secrets. He drew flowers, and birds, and cats, and dogs, and horses. His soulmate drew flowers, and weird circles with eyes, and animals that either had spikes on their heads or extra ears, and occasionally she attempted birds too. She wasn’t very good, but the drawings were from her, so he treasured them anyway.

He just wished he could write already, and talk to her properly.

---

Callum tugged on his mother’s sleeve and requested a writing test every week. And, every time, she looked over whatever she’d told him to write, praised his progress, and said, “Not yet.”

Not yet, every time. It meant ‘you are not yet at the level appropriate for talking to a soulmate’, and Callum thought it was an exceptionally annoying standard to hold someone to. It wasn’t like he and Rayla weren’t already sort-of talking, with their pictures. What did it matter if his spelling was bad or his handwriting messy or his letters extremely slow to form? But his mother was adamant.

Time passed, and in the wake of the great upheavals in his life, Callum wished more than ever before that he could talk to his soulmate. His mother married royalty, and she was crowned Queen, and Callum named prince, and in the overwhelming confusion of trying to adapt to life in the castle he desperately wished he could talk to Rayla about it. He didn’t have anyone to talk to, really. The only kids at the castle were Lord Viren’s children, and he didn’t know them well enough to confide in. But Rayla was his soulmate. He should be able to talk to her, right?

…But then, he realised, when his mother started to hesitate a little before saying “not yet,” he wouldn’t be able to talk to Rayla about this, anyway. His mother marrying a King, and him moving into a castle…that was big, important stuff. The sort of stuff soulmates weren’t meant to talk about, if they didn’t know for sure which kingdom they were loyal to.

That realisation left him sour and solemn for days. Still, he wanted to be able to talk to her about some things, even if not the big stuff that he wasn’t allowed to mention. He thought he was getting close to being pronounced ready, but…

In the end, Rayla lost patience before he did.

When Callum felt the scrawl of pen on his skin, it was an automatic reflex to duck away to somewhere secluded to peel off his glove and watch. This time, though, the scrawl just…kept going, as he headed for a secluded spot among a few trees, and he thought she must be drawing something unusually large and elaborate.

He just about fell over when he removed the glove to find words there.

The handwriting was messy, and slow to form. He was slow to read it. But it was unmistakably words.

Are you ever gonna write? Rayla asked, through their shared skin, and he stared at the back of his hand with his heart beating so hard it made his head feel weird and dizzy and hot. She was talking to him! Really talking!

After a moment, she underlined ‘ever’.

He panicked for several long minutes about what he should do. Mom said he shouldn’t. She said ‘not yet’. But that was about him making contact. The younger soulmate was supposed to do it first, after all.

He hesitated, rummaged for his pen and inks, and finally wrote Sorry. Mom won’t let me yet. It took him a long time. The letters were huge and messy and barely fit on the shared skin. For the first time in his life, he felt embarrassed for his handwriting, and suddenly understood why his mother might be saying ‘not yet’.

There was a pause as she wiped off her skin-inks and both sets of words vacated his skin. In her impatience, she left a vague inky smear behind. But you just wrote now, she pointed out, and – and his face burned, he felt unbearably shy and unbearably excited and nervous all at once…was this how people normally felt when they talked to their soulmates for the first time?

He ducked his head, flushed, and scrawled You did it first. He accidentally wrote over some of her letters in the process.

She washed off the inks again. Yeah, cause you were taking forever!! She paused, then added a few more exclamation marks for emphasis. I was so bored waiting.

After a brief pause where he carefully sounded out the word ‘waiting’ to figure out what it said, he wrote Me too.

Waiting had been annoying, and senseless, and stupid. Maybe it was a bit embarrassing to put bad handwriting on someone else’s skin, but…shouldn’t that be up to them to decide? If she still wanted to talk even though his writing was bad…then wasn’t it okay?

She had contacted him. He couldn’t be blamed for that, right?

…And it wasn’t like he hadn’t already broken tradition by drawing, anyway.

As soon as she washed their ink off, he started writing again. But we’re writing now, so I guess it’s okay?

Finally! Rayla wrote, in a quick and victorious scrawl, and also drew a little smiley face next to it. It was fairly delightful.

I’m Callum, he offered, a little shyly, after a moment. This, at least, he had practiced a lot.

I know. She wrote, the letters blocky and cheerful. I’m Rayla.

I know, he scrawled back, and imagined that on the other side of their connection, she was smiling too.

---

Callum learned a lot of things about his soulmate, in the weeks after she opened contact.

He learned that she liked to go exploring in the woods, which her town was inside. She wouldn’t say much about her town, but he got the idea it was pretty small.

He learned that she spent most of her time ‘training’, and while she wouldn’t say what she was training for, he gathered that it involved weapons and fighting and—apparently—being able to jump and flip around a lot.

He learned that she loved her parents and had two sort-of uncles who were married to each other, and one of those uncles was the one who trained her.

He learned that she absolutely detested water, and was terrified of it, and even the prospect of a bath was completely awful to her.

He learned that she was stubborn, and determined, and occasionally so blunt it was kind of rude. He learned that she didn’t really have friends, and while she put on a good show of not caring about that…

We’re friends, though, he pointed out to her, and felt the warmth of her fingertips lingering beneath the words for several minutes before she replied.

Yeah, she said, and that was all.

---

Rayla learned many things about her soulmate, in turn.

He was kind of shy, and got nervous easily, and wasn’t very good at talking to the kids where he lived. He had moved towns not all that long ago, and really wasn’t used to it yet, and found the new place kind of big and scary. He loved his mother an insane amount, and…didn’t seem to have a father. His mother had remarried, though, and had a baby on the way. He was cautiously excited about that.

He wasn’t good at fighting, and though he’d started sword lessons, he hated it and wished he didn’t have to do it. He took a lot of lessons—with tutors, instead of at a school—and wasn’t terribly keen on those, either. What he did like was drawing, and even though they could write now, he kept drawing things for her. Because he wanted to.

I want to draw stuff for you, he wrote, very firmly, and Rayla’s heart fluttered too much for her to think of objecting.

In all, he was really nice, considering he was a human.

...Maybe he wouldn’t be so nice, though, if he knew that she was an elf.

---

Callum was a shy and often tongue-tied boy out in the halls and grounds of the castle. In private, though, he never seemed to stop talking. And, unsurprisingly, one of his absolute favourite topics was his soulmate. As such, Sarai found out very rapidly when they’d started writing, and honestly wasn’t surprised by it at all. Only a little exasperated.

Time passed and Callum chattered, and Sarai grew to know a lot about her son’s soulmate. But there were things about her that she didn’t know. That she hadn’t even guessed about. Until…

“She spells things weirdly.” Callum confided, one day, while she was brushing his hair. “I tried telling her she was spelling stuff wrong but she just said that I’m spelling stuff wrong. Like ‘color’. She puts a ‘u’ in it. And she spells ‘mom’ with a ‘u’ too. It’s so weird.”

Sarai paused, brush stilling in his hair for a second, before she made herself complete the stroke. “Oh?” She said, lightly, allowing no trace of her unease into her voice. “That is odd. Does she spell any other words like that?”

Callum thought for a while. “She uses ‘s’ instead of ‘z’ a lot?” He ventured. “Like…she’ll spell ‘realize’ with an ‘s’. And sometimes she uses different words for things too. She calls pants ‘trousers’. I think maybe she’s from a kingdom where they say stuff different?”

“The common tongue does change a little, depending on where it’s spoken.” Sarai agreed, by all appearances unbothered. “So more likely than not, your Rayla speaks and writes with her regional dialect.” She paused, and carefully, she asked “Did she ever say where she was from?”

She could almost hear Callum’s face scrunching up. “No,” he admitted. “I guess she’s had security lessons too. I know she lives somewhere in a huge forest, though. She talks about it a lot.”

Sarai hummed, with the usual fond interest, and didn’t ask him to tell her more. He would, in time; he loved talking about his soulmate. If she asked, it would only make him suspicious. He was a bright boy. He’d notice. “Maybe one day she can give you tree-climbing lessons.” She suggested, and then that was all he could talk about for the next hour.

She listened more closely, after that. And, slowly, day by day, the clues started adding up.

“She says she lives inside a tree!” Callum declared one day, absolutely astonished and absolutely delighted and wanting her to know all about it. “A tree big enough that they could carve a house inside it! That must be so cool!”

Sarai agreed easily that it was very cool, and did not mention that there were no trees so large within the Pentarchy.

“I still draw her stuff, even though we can write now.” Her son said cheerfully, maybe a few weeks after the treehouse revelation. “She draws back sometimes, but she doesn’t like doing it because she doesn’t think she’s very good at it.”

“What does she draw?” Sarai inquired, and was presented with his hand, the skin-ink a little smudged around the shape of a fuzzy ball with a cute little face.

“Mostly these round fuzzy things.” He confided. “Sometimes she draws them stacked on each other.”

For a moment, she couldn’t answer. She stared, silent, at what was unmistakably an adoraburr, one of those creatures so common and omnipresent in Xadia that sometimes their charred fuzzy bodies were found fallen into the crevices of the Breach. Viren frequently received shipments of them. Apparently they were useful in some spells.

“Cute.” She commented, in the end, and knew by her son’s abrupt quietness that she hadn’t quite managed to hide her reaction.

She went to Harrow, almost as soon as she let Callum go out to play.

“I think Callum’s soulmate is an elf.” She said to him, without preamble, as soon as they were in private. He froze, and studied her, and watched her with wide eyes as he exhaled. He reached out and took her hand.

“Tell me everything.” He said, and she did. She explained the dialect, and the treehouse, and the adoraburrs, and every other clue her son had cheerfully rattled off at her over the months.

They brought Viren in. He agreed, from his acquaintance with stolen Xadian texts, that the dialect matched. He mentioned that there were enormous forests in Xadia not all that far from the border, and that they were home to a number of communities of Moonshadow elves. There might be other great forests elsewhere, of course. But that was the one he knew of.

From there on, she started noting down everything. The vague idea of ‘maybe she’s a Moonshadow elf’ went from ‘possible’ to ‘very likely’ when Sarai relayed the soulmate’s enthusiasm for a monthly community dance that—when she checked—turned out to fall on the full moon, every month. (Coincidentally, Callum had stopped complaining about his ballroom dancing lessons. She’d have found this much cuter if not for the circumstances.)

“The history texts I have say that Moonshadow elf tradition places a lot of emphasis on dancing.” Viren told her, almost apologetically, when she came back with this latest report.

“There’s no sense denying it any more, is there.” Sarai said, wearily, rubbing at her aching temples. Her son’s soulmate was an elf. Perhaps a Moonshadow elf, even, and those were some of the deadliest and most vicious elves there were. Combined with all of Callum’s mentions of his soulmate’s training…

Harrow laid his hand on her arm in warm, wordless reassurance. “What do you want to do?” he asked, quiet, and she sighed.

“I don’t know.” She admitted. In the end, it took a long talk with her sister before she made up her mind, and even then…it was hard to know what to do. How to react.

“He should know.” Was Amaya’s brusque opinion, expression laced with sympathy as she signed. “He’s a prince now, and he needs to know to watch his words around this soulmate of his. It’s a shame, but he’s hardly the first person to have an enemy for a soulmate.”

“There’s that.” Sarai agreed, glumly, and tried to stop worrying about what it meant for her son’s future, that his soulmate was an elf.

It was hard, telling him. Hard to sit him down and inform him, very seriously, that she was near certain that his soulmate was an elf. It was hard to watch the way his expression went…blank, almost. Closed-off, for a few seconds before it became confused and vulnerable instead.

“…What does this mean?” He asked, quiet, and she wasn’t sure what to tell him.

“It means that you need to be very, very careful what you tell her.” She said, in the end, because that was what she knew. “Her people are at war with ours, Callum. I won’t tell you to cut contact with her—she’s your soulmate. You couldn’t. But…” She exhaled, and shook her head. “I’ll get you some reading.”

She sent him off with a number of historical accounts about the tragedies of loyalty and heartbreak that could come from soulbonds divided by war, and wished that fate had been kinder.

---

Callum was quiet for days, after he learned the truth. He read through the books his mother gave him, even though they were long with tiny script and big words that he didn’t know, and felt more and more upset at the possibilities they implied for his future.

His soulmate…was an enemy. An elf. One of the people Aunt Amaya called bloodthirsty monsters.

He was short and brusque in his replies to her, for a while. He looked at the almost purplish hue of the shared skin with new eyes, and wondered what she looked like. Did she have horns? Pointy ears? The wrong number of fingers and toes? He’d wondered what she looked like before, of course, but…never in terms of how inhuman she might look.

She caught on to his strange behaviour very quickly. Did something happen? She asked him, through their skin, her handwriting its familiar blocky scrawl. You’ve been all quiet.

He wasn’t sure what to say. Wasn’t sure how to reconcile his feelings towards Rayla, his closest friend and his soulmate, with the knowledge that she was an elf. Kind of, he wrote, in the end, heart heavy. He wished his mother hadn’t told him. He wished he didn’t know. I found some stuff out, and I don’t know what to think.

There was a pause while she washed the ink off. And then: Do you want to talk about it?

He didn’t. Not then. So he passed the following weeks, reading her usual reports of daily life, and wondering what exactly she was training for, day after day after day. Why such long hours, when she was so young? Who exactly was she planning on using those combat skills against?

They were heavy thoughts for a child as young as he was, but there was hardly any escaping them. He tried to focus on happier things, like his mother’s pregnancy, and the nigh arrival of his younger sibling. He tried to think of how Claudia was pretty and friendly and fun to talk to, and definitely wasn’t an elf. He tried to think of a lot of things that weren’t his soulmate, and failed fairly thoroughly.

In the end, after weeks of stilted conversation, he couldn’t take it anymore, and sat down with skin-ink and pen to write: You’re an elf, aren’t you.

She didn’t reply for a long time. But eventually, he felt the tickle of a pen-nib at the back of his hand, and retreated into private to peel off the glove. Yeah, she’d written, and nothing else. Not for a few minutes. Then: You’re a human.

It wasn’t a question. He hesitated, wiped off the ink, and wrote You knew?

Yeah, she said again, and then haltingly explained. Apparently, elves wrote their children’s names to their soulmates just like humans did, except they always included some sort of magic symbol, so her parents had known he was human the second his name came through without it.

He asked what hers was. He probably shouldn’t have, and she probably shouldn’t have answered, but she did. She drew a little symbol, and he took it carefully to his mother.

“Moonshadow elf,” she concluded, with honest sympathy, like someone offering condolences. “Like we thought. I’m sorry, Callum.”

‘I’m sorry’, like it was a death-sentence.

He sighed, and put his glove back on. “I’ll be careful.” He promised, quiet, and left to be alone.

---

Both of them were quieter, after that. There was less idle chatter. Less writing about their days, their experiences, the things that annoyed them and the things they enjoyed. He still wrote—he didn’t think he could have stopped himself if he tried. But there was a wariness between them now that he hated.

Still. There were at least some advantages to having an elf on the other end of his soulbond. Investigating rumours, for one. My friend says elves drink blood, he wrote, one day, with a sort of morbid interest. Is that true?

What?? No!! She wrote, furiously, and then underlined it twice and circled it for good measure.

She reciprocated, sometimes.

Is it true humans have extra fingers? She asked, and he responded by drawing his hand onto the back of his hand. Weird, was her response to that, and despite everything, he couldn’t help but smile.

---

I heard that in Xadia everything is magic, he wrote, one day. Is that true? What’s it like?

She hesitated a long while, then wrote I’m not supposed to talk about magic. Or Xadia.

It hurt, a little. But in the end, they both had their security lessons, and their people were still at war. There was nothing to be done.

Eventually, he wrote what had been on his mind for months, now. I wonder how we’ll meet, he said, with a twist of emotion that was half unease and half interest. It was on his mother’s mind, he knew, and it was certainly a thought he kept coming back to, for good reason.

Soulmates always met eventually, whether or not they contrived to. Even if they tried to avoid it…it would happen someday. His mother was worried about it. The circumstances under which a Prince of Katolis might meet an elf were almost exclusively unpleasant, after all. But he entertained childish thoughts of peace treaties and reconciliation, and clung to them, as unlikely as they might be.

I have no idea, Rayla answered him eventually, and he wondered if she was worried, too.

---

The next year or so was eventful for both of them. Callum’s little brother was born, and he instantly became utterly enchanted with him. He wrote to Rayla at considerable length about how tiny his fingers and toes were, how fuzzy his hair was, how he didn’t have a soulmark yet at all. He never wrote his name, because names were forbidden, but Rayla seemed entertained enough by the stories anyway.

Some time later, Rayla went quiet for a while, and was plainly subdued by something. Eventually, she admitted that her parents had agreed to taking a job that meant they had to go away. She wouldn’t see them more than once a year now, if that. Whatever job it was, it was supposedly an honour; but that didn’t help how much she missed them. She was living with her uncles, now.

You can write letters to them, maybe? He suggested. It wasn’t as good as the real-time writing between soulmates, but it was better than nothing.

I guess, she said, but didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it. Her life changed, but Callum’s went on.

---

And then Callum’s life shattered around him.

He shut himself in his room and cried for hours, burying his face in his hands, until tears were streaming between his fingers and his chest hurt and everything felt so awful he had no idea how to cope. How could he? She was gone.

Not much could carry across shared skin. But evidently, enough of the salt-water managed it for Rayla to be alarmed. By the time he checked what she’d written, the tears had smeared and diluted the inks, but the words were still recognisable. Is something wrong? She’d asked, hurried enough that it looked alarmed. Are you crying?

He nearly collapsed, when he went to get the inks. Could hardly see through tears when he wrote, lopsided and awful, My mom is dead. Writing it was terrible. An admission that it was real, it had happened, she was dead.

Rayla didn’t know what to say to that, and he could tell. She wrote I’m so sorry, Callum, and asked if there was anything she could do, if he wanted to talk about anything. But there wasn’t, and he didn’t. Mom was dead. What was there to talk about?

Eventually, perhaps for lack of anything else to try, Rayla drew him a little flower. She’d done it to try to make him feel better, and—and somehow, that made him start sobbing all over again.

A long way down the line, she asked him how it had happened. He couldn’t answer. Of course he couldn’t. That the Dragon King had killed her would reveal too much.

But saying ‘I can’t talk about that’ was revealing in its own way, too.

---

Years passed them by. Callum slowly pieced his life back together around the hole his mother had left, and learned to cope with the loneliness of being without her. His brother grew, and started talking, and swiftly became the dearest person in Callum’s life…except, perhaps, for the elf on the other end of his soulbond.

In many ways, things stayed the same. Callum hated his training and Rayla loved hers. He loved drawing—and became very good at it—and Rayla continued to hate water. She remained as stubborn and headstrong as ever, and she remained his friend.

Sometimes, he had no idea what he’d do without her. Soren was kind of an unpleasant friend, most of the time, and Claudia was always too occupied with her books or lessons or brother to answer his attempts to socialise. He had Ezran, of course, but without Rayla…he could only imagine how lonely he’d have been.

Sometimes he remembered all over again that she was an elf, and felt weird about how much he depended on her.

He still wondered how they’d meet.

---

King Harrow and Lord Viren, with very little warning, departed Katolis and rode into Xadia. There, they killed the Dragon King, and his son the Dragon Prince, and returned covered in a glory that Harrow’s bearing didn’t reflect. Callum wondered if the revenge had felt as hollow to enact as he felt to receive it. The one who killed mom is dead now, he thought, and didn’t feel vindicated. Didn’t feel happy. He just felt…empty. What was the use of it, so many years after her death? She was still dead.

He wished he could talk to Rayla about it. But if names were a forbidden topic, then revealing that his step-father had ridden into Xadia and killed their King…that was plainly out of the question. So he told her nothing.

He wondered if it was his imagination, that she’d grown quieter anyway. When she wrote, she seemed unhappy. Preoccupied, too.

Weeks passed, and she admitted that she was going to be travelling soon. She didn’t say why, or to where, or what for—all of that was proscribed. But she gave it as warning, anyway, that she’d be able to talk less while en route.

In the month that followed, the brevity of their contact left him lonelier than ever.

---

“You must be careful, Rayla.” Runaan said to her, in private, where the other assassins couldn’t hear. “For the first time, you are venturing into the human kingdoms. You must take particular care to avoid meeting your soulmate.”

“Everyone meets their soulmate eventually.” She muttered back to him, fingers resting reflexively over the guard on her left hand.

He was unmoved. “Yes. But, with luck, you can avoid it taking place on this mission.”

It was, in fairness, a very important mission. She sighed. “I’ll do my best.” She promised, though it wasn’t exactly within her control.

When the Full Moon was nigh, and the bindings tight around her wrists, Rayla broke into Katolis Castle and went looking for her quarry.

The first non-soldier she found was a young human boy, maybe around her age. She didn’t know how old Prince Ezran was, but she knew he wasn’t an adult, and…according to what she’d been taught, this boy was wearing pretty high-quality clothes. If he wasn’t Ezran, he should at least know who was.

She chased him. She cornered him. He said, “I am Prince Ezran,” and looked up at her with a resolve and solemnity that didn’t quite manage to mask his fear.

It hit her, then, looking down the length of her blade towards the face of this human boy waiting to die. It hit her that—that he was afraid, that he didn’t want to die, that he was a person, as much as she was, as much as her soulmate was, he was a human just like Callum and she was here to kill him—

But…she had to do it. She had to. She’d bound herself, it was her mission, it was the justice that the Dragon Prince deserved. She had to.

It was in the midst of trying to talk herself into it, and him trying to talk her out of it, that a child’s voice emerged from behind a painting.

It said, “Callum”, and she only had a moment for her blood to freeze before, at her feet, the terrified human boy, the boy who had claimed to be Prince Ezran, the boy she’d been about to kill—

He answered. He responded. It was his name.

What were the chances that she’d meet someone named Callum—the correct age, the correct species, everything—and it wouldn’t be her soulmate?

The painting edged open, revealing a younger human boy with some sort of weird pet. A pet she’d heard descriptions of, held in the arms of a child she’d been hearing about since he was born, looking worriedly between her and the boy she had at swordpoint—

She realised she’d been frozen for too long. She realised that, one way or another, she had to be sure. She reached over, and hit herself hard on the back of her left hand.

The human, in an instant and involuntary motion, flinched and gripped the back of his own left hand. Her heart thudded, and— it only took him a second to realise—

His eyes went wide. He glanced wildly between her and his hand, undoubtedly registering that she was a Moonshadow elf, that she was the right age, that she was—

“Rayla?” He squeaked, and if she hadn’t already known for certain, that would have told her.

She lowered her sword, utterly struck by how much of a disaster this was.

“Shit.” She said, succinctly, and stared at the astounded face of her soulmate.

What in Xadia’s name was she supposed to do now?

---

Notes:

I’ve adored this piece ever since I wrote it in Whenever, Early 2020. Really, really thrilled to be able to share it with everyone at last. As you can tell, it ends on a pretty rude cliffhanger. It’s always invited follow-up, and I think I knew from the moment I finished it that I’d be continuing it someday. And so I did! Eventually!!

According to my discord message history, I began writing chapter 2 in February this year, 2021. I probably wrote the following two chapters within a mad haze in the same week or two, knowing me. The chapters are uncharacteristically short, considering my usual habits, but it felt right for the story. I’ve completed up to the end of chapter 4, and have nothing written after that yet.

Minor edits have been made from the zine version, including some formatting, but nothing drastic. Writing this piece in general was a challenge. There was so much I wanted to include – about the differences in Callum’s life, about Ezran’s soulmate – that I had to cut out because of the word count restriction. Ultimately I opted not to edit that back in for the online version, and simply fill it in organically through the rest of the story. There’s some really interesting stuff, and the story as a whole is going to be wildly canon-divergent.

Some worldbuilding details: - platonic soulmates are considerably more common than romantic ones - there’s some cool weird soulmate metaphysics re: magic

I think I’ll keep it vague and let everyone discover how I’m doing soulmates for themselves, though. Hope everyone enjoyed! Would really love comments on this one; I’ve been waiting so long to share it and I’m so excited.

(also I’m fully aware that the fic’s acronym is ASS, and I’ve decided to embrace this)

#rayllum #rayllumzine #tdp fic #soulmate AU #tdp callum #tdp rayla #god I'm so excited for this fic you don't even know #I've been sitting on the extra chapters for months now #Across Shared Skin

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fellowstrangetownappreciator · 3 years

Text

The Strange Case of The Strangetown Metamorphosis

There is a mysterious Sim that appears in Strangetown.

That's like saying "there is a fish that appears in the ocean", I know, so I'll be a little more specific.

They are an adult whose memories show inconsistencies with those of their family members. Something is missing!

Alright. That's also not saying much, that's like half of the premades in vanilla, non-clean hoods.

They are immediately recognizable by their appearance and, dare I say it, have distinguishing features unique to them.

Well, that also kinda fits everyone...

They feature in more than one installment of the series.

Again, not that helpful. I mean, almost everybody from the base game hoods is (for better or worse) represented in TS3 or TS4.

They appear in TS2 for PSP!

Hmm...

They are a member of a wealthy family connected to science and paranormal.

And...

They are somehow connected to (possible) cloning.

I imagine that now you’re probably rolling your eyes and asking: Why didn’t I just simply say I was going to talk about Bella Goth?

Because... I’m not!

It’s Loki Beaker. In this mini-essay I’m going to speak about Loki, what is the mystery around him, what hints are there and what are some of the theories and which one do I fancy.

It’s basically a routine round of the popular game “connect EAxis’ oversights and glue them together into a headcanon”.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to:

The Mystery of Loki Beaker!

0: Preface: Loki who?

“As soon as he perfects his latest invention, Loki is sure to get the recognition he knows he deserves. In the meantime, he keeps himself busy by trying to assemble a nuclear reactor out of common household items.”

On the first glance, Loki as a Sim seems quite straightforward. He is a Knowledge Sim with a very eccentric personality. All his trait points are in the extremes, as you can see:

He is a scientist, a competent one at that, as proven by his high career level and the fun fact that some of the game’s horrible machinery you can buy for Aspiration points is attributed to his creation.

(It explains why are the Beakers the only ones who have the stuff lying around by default. It is normal for a Strangetown family to own a non-buyable reward object or two but those are career rewards, the Beakers are the only one who canonically own Aspiration points rewards.)

Even though he knows his stuff when it comes to his profession, he is very corrupt and tests his questionable projects on his captive, Nervous Subject.

To say that Loki is unpopular would be an understatement. No one but his wife Circe likes Loki, even his own sister is indifferent towards him. Yes, he has a sister. Her name is Erin and she also lives in Strangetown with a colorful collection of roommates.

Nothing mysterious about him so far. (apart from his eyebrows)

1: Characterization fallen apart

And then The Sims 3 happened. It was actually quite late into the game’s life cycle, the early 2013, when a beautiful nordic-themed world was released on TS3 Store. Its name was Aurora Skies and it featured Loki, Erin and their parents.

TS3 Loki is a child and Erin is a toddler.

Now I haven’t actually played Aurora Skies. I own (and love) TS3 but the price range for the Store worlds is too high for me, content-to-money wise. So there might be some hidden clues about the Beakers in their house or relationship panels that I haven’t been able to inspect but... not to sound cynical but I doubt it. I doubt such attention was given to detail of this family in Aurora Skies, as they don’t even have individual bios.

But... that is... fine? I mean, we have Loki’s TS2 bio...

Nope. Sure we do. And it would be fine if hair color and ambitions weren’t the only thing Loki and his younger self (from now on referred to as smol Loki) had in common.

Let’s take a look on smol Loki’s personality.

The first noticeable thing is that there is not a trace of Loki’s trademark villainy. He’s not Mean Spirited, he’s not Evil, he’s not even a No Sense of Humor Sim. His extreme neatness and hyperactivity are nowhere to be seen either. While it is true that TS3′s capabilities of defining personality are very limited as it picks “outstanding points” rather than a position of each trait on a scale, and it only has 5 slots (and tiny teeny 3 for children), it doesn’t make any sense still for the devs not to pick some more loki-esque traits for the precious slots they had.

Unless...

They didn’t care about Loki’s personality and there were no deeper intentions.

Unless the devs were trying to purposefully show us new angles of his character that either got suppressed while he was growing up, or manifest in ways that TS2′s scale system wasn’t able to show.

Could the Lucky trait in particular have had something to do with the change?

(Also, those traits of smol Loki are reason why I usually go for a Family Secondary Loki in TS2 and thus make Strangetown the purgatory of two unstable blonde Knowledge/Family sciency guys.)

We also must not omit that even though smol Loki didn’t display any of them, he still had all of Loki’s signature traits in him, as Loki in TS2 has his actual personality synced with the genetic one, meaning that there was something in there that caused him not to act so mean that got lost as he grew up. In other words, something brought up the worst in him.

And that’s not all. Smol Loki is not a regular TS3 child. You see, in TS3, premade children aren’t particularly known for being highly skilled experts. Neither are in TS2, for that matter, and it’s okay. It’s realistic.

Smol Loki has a skill maxed.

It is very rare for a premade regardless of age to already start with a maxed skill and I personally don’t know of any other premade children that do.

And it’s writing.

What does writing have to do with Loki? Does Loki write? Probably he has to, those academic papers aren’t gonna spawn out of thin air, but that’s not what the writing skill in TS3 (or the hidden writing skill in TS2) are about. They’re about creative writing only.

Ok, ok. How high is Loki’s Creativity skill, then? In TS2, skills are much broader, they more resemble skillsets than individual skills, and writing categorizes under Creativity. Bring out the skill panel!

Two. He has 2 points in Creativity. That is... low. That is actually very low, especially for a Sim that has supposedly been writing for fun since childhood. (and was a prodigy, while we’re at it) It is safe to say, I think, that if the player doesn’t make him do it, Loki doesn’t write anymore and he hasn’t been doing that for a long, long time.

While I would cynically admit that the dissonance in personalities might be just the lack of damns given from EAxis’ side, this seems to me too on the nose to be unintentional.

They would have no reason to bring the Beakers back without the “evil scientists” thing in mind. I mean, that’s what they’re iconic for. That’s what they’re recognizable by. (apart from their eyebrows)

So the person who was in charge of creating smol Loki probably knew they were recreating “Loki the mad scientist”.

So when they were picking the skill they use to demonstrate that this kid is gonna go far, they thought... “evil scientist = writing”...?

I would understand going for Creativity in general. I mean, Loki’s an inventor. That comes with the territory. But creativity as such isn’t really a skill in TS3. It’s divided to different activities.

Wouldn’t it make more sense just in general to pick logic, then? I mean, Loki isn’t that extremely logical by default but it is his second strongest skill and a feature unmistakably connected to being a scientist.

That’s what leads me to believe that writing plays a role in the story and it was chosen on purpose.

So how did a sweet little family-oriented boy talented with words transform into the ruthless catboy inventor we know and love?

And that, my friends, is the mystery of Loki Beaker.

2: A closer look at our environmentalist friends, the Beakers

If we want to get the full picture and come to a satisfying conclusion of some sorts, we need to inspect smol Loki’s surroundings. Maybe there is a clue to the continuous force or a traumatic event that shifted smol Loki’s direction in life?

Loki’s and Erin’s parents are named Gundrun and Bjorn. Even though their age would still allow it, they’re not present at the start of TS2′s Strangetown play, they’re long dead. Bjorn died before Erin became an adult and Gundrun died shortly before her son’s engagement to Circe. Because they died by the time Loki had (presumably) already long enrolled in his current life-path, we can safely rule out any tragic early death of parental figures scenario as a possible answer.

Gundrun is the only Beaker that canonically also writes. She has 5 points in the writing skill. She also shares some traits with Loki, namely the smarts and ambition.

But she has little to do with science and is way more business-oriented which is a trait she shares with Circe’s ancestors, for example her father. Maybe the families knew each other from business ventures even before they moved to Strangetown? It is stated in their memories that Loki and Circe first met when they were children. But I digress!

Anyway, I don’t see anything in Gundrun that would suggest any abusive behavior towards her son that might have triggered his drastic change. Possibly but not necessarily she might’ve been a bit absent but nothing out of ordinary.

And now the father, Bjorn.

Bjorn is the sciency half of the couple and works as an Aquatic Ecosystem Tweaker. Again, he has zero traits that would raise any red flags and he shares 4 out of 5 traits with either smol Loki or Loki. (I don’t know if Loki is a “natural cook” but he cooks quite well, so I think that counts.)

What’s interesting about Bjorn, though, is his speech that serves as a flavor text for the Aurora Skies store page.

(Image transcript: “Do it for science! Science is everywhere around us, but at Aurora Skies it’s not just something you learn; it’s something you do! We need bright young minds to make the dreams of the future a reality. Even now we’re finding more uses for garbage to help the planet. Charging batteries, powering machines - the sky is the limit. Just this last year we created a modified Hot Air Baloon using garbage as fuel and turning it into pure air with a pine breeze scent. Now you can have efficient travel and an amazing romantic adventure with no cost to the ozone (or your nose)! Every year we’re creating more and more exciting things in the world of science. Garbage-powered hearts, heart-powered cars, solar-powered cats; what will you think of next! It’s all up to you. Do it for Science! Did you know? Hot Air Balloons are an epic form of travel based around the simple principle that hot air is lighter than cold air. They lift in the air based on the heat system in the balloon. Increasing the temperature of the air inside the balloon makes it lighter than the air outside and the balloon begins to float. More air is required to lift heavier things; that’s why the balloons have to be so huge! How cool (or hot!) is that?”)

From this piece of text we can see Bjorn’s passion and dedication to “green” science. Nothing in his traits suggests he fakes it, so I think it’s safe to believe that this peppy idealist is a glimpse into Loki’s father’s genuine self.

He might have encouraged his children to follow in his footsteps (”We need bright young minds to make the dreams of the future a reality.“) and smol Loki, who later in life seemed to have similar levels of enthusiasm (science is his One True Hobby), might have been receptive to that.

Now just close your eyes for a second and imagine an alternate reality in which Loki picked up where Bjorn left and instead of a energy-refilling machine that electrocutes you if you’re not happy enough, he invented “solar-powered cats”.

Still no hints on what could’ve messed Loki up, though.

Let’s take a look at the parents in TS2. Even though they’re not present and aren’t even resurrectable, they’re still coded in the game for purposes of genetics, memories and family trees, so some of their characteristics are salvageable.

And by the Watcher, they were both Romance Sims.

They were workaholic Romance Sims who cared about the environment and liked recycling (and Hot Baloons).

And they were both extremely Nice and very Sloppy, if their personalities on wiki are something to go by. Which they unfortunately aren’t, at least not completely because most ancestors don’t simply have “their own” personalities and use presets instead, so they tend to be quite similar.

The same goes for most of the Beaker clan, unfortunately. Fun fact is that there is no Knowledge Sim in sight (before Loki, of course). Maybe they weren’t a scientist family, but a bunch of Romance Sims who used to spend their free time in between woohoos saving the planet with eco-science. (3 out of 6 of Loki’s and Erin’s ancestors were Romance Sims, 2 were Fortune and 1 was Family)

But! There is one outlier. Her name is Gertrude Beaker. She is Loki’s paternal grandmother.

And similarly to her grandson, she certainly has a personality to remember.

She doesn’t use a preset, this is a personality that someone went and manually assigned (...or generated) for her. And she is Neat, Outgoing and doesn’t have a nice bone in her body. But unlike Loki, she has a sense of humor (which makes her even more dangerous, in my opinion) and is extremely Lazy.

She is a Fortune Sim and the only Beaker who shares the darker sides of Loki’s personality. (to be clear, I don’t mean their taste for cleaning but the round 0 of Nice points)

Because she doesn’t feature in TS3 at all, it is safe to say that she wasn’t in her grandchildren’s lives until the family moved to Strangetown. Could she be the corrupting influence on smol Loki?

As far as personality comparison goes, she seems to be the only possible culprit, the only one who’s personality shares the same unpleasant qualities he became infamous for. But! That’s not saying much. There is no evidence she actually did anything.

There’s not even any evidence that she ever met her grandson, given he has no memory of her dying which means she might have died before he was even born. That would be a solid evidence on the contrary and would rule her out. But I’m leaving some maneuvering space for theories here because she is the only Beaker ancestor with custom personality, after all, and that is suspicious.

That’s all the Beakers we know of if not counting Atom and Ceres, who came after Loki, so they’re not relevant to the question of his childhood. Or... are they?

3: And that’s when the trouble began

Another part of this question that might help us discern what happened to Loki is the when. All we know so far is that there is a big void of unknown between smol Loki and regular Loki and the point of transformation happened in there somewhere.

Thankfully, we have something to give us an idea. It’s this snapshot in storytelling pictures for the Beakers:

It shows smol Loki destroying a dollhouse. It seems to be in an impersonal environment of some sorts. The cheapest bed in the game is against a bare white wall, the window is hid behind blue curtains and there doesn’t really seem to be anything else but the dollhouse, a teddy bear in the background and that... very unpleasant bed.

It clearly tells us that Loki’s shift started in his pre-teen years.

And seeing that room which is definitely not in the Beaker Castle at 1 Tesla Court, it makes me think of a hotel or a cheap apartment the family was staying in while moving from Aurora Skies to Strangetown. Maybe the castle-like something the household inhabits at the start of the game wasn’t a property of the Beakers at all, maybe that was where the Salamises used to live and now it belongs to Circe?

Anyway, could it had been leaving Aurora Skies that sent smol Loki down an existential crisis and settling in the not exactly welcoming environment of Strangetown, enrolling in a local school, that sealed it?

But why all the stuff with writing? This would work with any other hobby but somehow it had to be writing and it’s our task to find out why.

4: Not your average tragedy

Now in our search we already have some ideas but it wouldn’t be thorough if we didn’t take into account smol Loki’s actual personality. I mean, we went into what traits he doesn’t have but what about those he has?

Namely Lucky and Family-Oriented.

I think Lucky is a very interesting choice. There’s nothing inherent about Loki Beaker that would make you go “that’s one lucky guy!” (if you don’t count his relationship with Circe as a stroke of luck, that is) and the same goes for smol Loki.

But... it could be a clue. His metamorphosis either couldn’t be triggered by trauma because he’s lucky and it would avoid him, or it must’ve been something tremendously horrid so he’s lucky he’s still alive.

Now we know we are searching for something that happened in his late childhood, verging on the start of his teenage years. His family was going through the turmoil of moving to a desert and he has already known his future partner Circe. Meanwhile Erin-

Oh, wait. Erin.

Smol Loki was Family-Oriented which implies he would probably have a good relationship with his little sister, as he would’ve naturally inclined to protect her and help his parents take care of her. But!

Not only do they have an amicable but distant relationship as adults but Erin seems to forget that Loki even existed in her childhood.

He has the usual set of memories of a sibling growing up well but she doesn’t, she has no Loki-related memories at all, not even of his marriage, which was a quite recent event.

Could the reason for Loki’s “downfall” be somehow related to his sister? Was there a dramatic event in which she lost a part of her memory?

5: Theories!

Ok, we’re finally here! Now I try to present some theories about what might’ve happened.

1. Burdens of the golden child

In Aurora Skies, Loki used to be the little wonder every relative was gushing about. With his father as an acclaimed scientist and a very liked person in general, there was little to no adversity his son had to face. He followed his passion and having nobody to really compare himself to, nor anybody who would terrorize him, he prospered.

But then the Beakers moved. Strangetown was... different. It was way smaller than Aurora Skies, so everybody inherently knew everybody and everybody had to interact with everybody... because the small space of a desert community didn’t leave them with any choice. And it was bleak and unfriendly. No one except for the Salamises knew the Beakers, so they found themselves under scrutiny from their new neighbors.

So Loki, who used to live thinking he was unique, was now sitting everyday in a much smaller classroom with Pascal and Vidcund Curious, whom he was immediately being compared to. But he wasn’t like the Curiouses. He was a kid of a scientist but wasn’t a science kid. He didn’t have much in common with Pascal who approached him and tried to befriend him at first but he wanted to. In Strangetown, nothing seemed to be cooler than being really, really into science. Pascal’s and Loki’s communication attempts were rather poor, though, and in the end, they never made friends. Loki slowly began to disdain the oldest Curious boy and it culminated a few years later in high school when Pascal made an attempt to woo Circe. It was even worse with Vidcund. Ever since Loki’s first day at the new school, Vidcund had been eyeing him with a disgusted look and Loki became quick to reciprocate.

In Strangetown, nothing seemed to be cooler than being really, really into science. Even Circe was on it! She was the only person his age he has know in Strangetown before his family moved in and he liked her. Not “like” liked her, yuck! But he thought she was cool. Her family used to visit the Beakers in Aurora Skies and they played together. She was a friend! Or so Loki thought. She seemed to like hanging out with the Curiouses much more.

In Strangetown, nothing seemed to be cooler than being really, really into science, yes. But not in the eyes of Buzz Grunt, the son of a general who lived in Strangetown. Their family were the self-proclaimed protectors of the hood but at the same time they weren’t shy to show a strong distaste for all that made Strangetown an important desert settlement in the first place. And little Buzz, although Loki doubted he understood the nuances, was very fond of asserting his dominance over his less sporty and hyper-masculine classmates.

Suddenly jealous of the Curious brothers, under pressure from both the adults and his peers comparing him to them and bullied by Buzz, Loki’s social life fell apart. He started having problems... and he came up with solutions. He has always liked science but from back then on he hyperfixated on it to prove everybody who picked on him for being a worthless parody of a science kid wrong.

Not only his social life and self-confidence were busted, though. Moving away from Aurora Skies to Strangetown that had much higher prices for housing because of the limited space, the living standards for the Beakers lowered. It was chaotic and uncomfortable. Plus, almost everybody in Strangetown was loaded. Why, Circe and her parents lived in a small castle! Loki felt like they’re the only “poor” family around and it played into his new-found insecurities.

And then there was Erin’s accident. She suffered a severe head injury and even though she fortunately survived, she was never... the same. She had issues with her memory. Loki tried to convince himself that he’s big enough not to cry but when they were visiting Erin in the hospital and she didn’t recognize him, he cried. It was his little sister! And... it was all his fault anyway! If he was quicker and pushed her to safety, she would’ve been fine! Or even better, he wished the car would’ve hit him instead.

Loki was becoming more and more snappy, focused on his grades and projects, unavailable. The siblings never mended their relationship, Erin, even though she recovered, never got to make new memories with her brother. Not remembering them growing up together, he was like a stranger to her. A scary mean teenage boy she didn’t know and, even though she was a very friendly child, she was too intimidated to willingly spend time with him. And Loki was always busy and moreover, he felt guilty and inexplicably angry, so he postponed approaching her, until it was too late, he was in college, she was in high school and it was too awkward.

And... there was no time to write anymore.

2. Gertrude the Neat and Mean (and Lazy)

Ok, Loki doesn’t have any memories of his grandma. But hear me out! Erin does not have any of him either and yet they met. This theory doesn't require any additional write up – he simply got under the influence of his 0 Nice points granny and she cultivated him to be just like her.

My personal take: This is maybe my least favorite theory of them all, even though it is quite straightforward. It doesn't take much into consideration and demonizes Gertrude, who as far as we know, might not done anything wrong.

3. The accident

This theory takes advantage of TS3's canon sciency machinery, namely Cerebralizing Brain Enhancing Machine 2.0.

It can, among other things, change a Sim's personality. There is (quite unfortunately, in my opinion) no chance of consequential failure in the actual game, the most it can do is to (non-fatally) electrocute your Sim. But...

Imagine smol Loki sneaking into his dad's laboratory, most probably at his workplace.

He was curious. Ever since his father showed him all the equipment in there, all he could think of was the machine that made people smarter.

Maybe it could make him smarter?

I mean, Loki knew he was already quite smart. At least, he's been told he was and he had no reason not to believe it.

But he could be even smarter.

He could be like his dad. Or his mom. Or Erin. Everyone was talking about how clever young Erin seemed. Loki was proud of her but part of him just wanted that, too.

So what if... he went to dad's laboratory, just for a little while, and made himself smarter?

He made all the necessary preparations. It meant to memorize dad’s schedule, so he knew just the time when he could sneak into the laboratory. It also meant to get a good costume so he won’t be recognizable on the security footage!

And then finally, he was ready. To infiltrate the laboratory was easy enough but it only made Loki more nervous. He was on the edge but determined. He wanted to make it big in the world. He needed to seize the opportunity. And fear... fear was there to be ignored! Hands, stop trembling!

His confidence grew a bit once he got to the machine itself. He knew how to run it thanks to his dad and it made him feel competent and ready.

Little did he know that there was a huge oversight. Although Loki could operate the technology on a very basic level, his knowledge went nowhere near deep enough for him to detect that the machine has yet another set of settings and those currently expect an adult user. It wasn’t configured for a child patient.

But unaware of that, the boy in his patchy dinosaur costume climbed on top of the machine and with his eyes wide open and his heart racing he connected the Brain Enhancer to his system. Then, with his hand sweating, he pushed a button on a remote he was clutching to.

When Bjorn, alerted by Loki’s screams, rushed into the laboratory, it was way too late.

As his terrified father was calling the ambulance, the child was alive and even still awake. He was too weak to cry. He just watched Bjorn, wishing for death and looking for signs of wrath in father’s eyes.

There were none. Only fear.

Physically, Loki Beaker managed to recover just fine. With the power of advanced medicine and plastic surgery, the burns he suffered were reduced to nothing but almost invisible scars.

But inside, he was never the same. Literally. Even though the procedure backfired horribly, it still worked to some extend - but even that extend was warped. Loki succeeded in giving himself the Genius trait but several of his traits were replaced also, including the Lucky trait that probably saved his life.

6: Conclusion!

I like Loki very much. (no sh*t, who would’ve guessed) He’s a very controversial and over-the-top character who tends to be rather unpredictable in the actual gameplay. I started writing this giant thing to find an answer to his backstory that would satisfy me and hopefully also some of you.

With a heavy heart I conclude I’m not successful.

First I have to admit I originally planned to present 5 theories instead of 3 but I scrapped 2 of them.

First was about Atom time traveling and replacing Loki, creating himself again and again in a time loop (would explain the huge personality difference between smol Loki and Loki-Atom) and it was very far-fetched but fun, alas I realized it was out of character for Atom, since he seems to love his sister and his Plumbot so much he would hardly leave them behind to pull that off.

The second was about Nervous and the corrupting power of Death he has inside that would slowly drive Loki and Circe “evil” even though it’s unclear whether they first adopted him with being a lab-rat in mind. But it would not make sense since a change like that would be visible on their personality panels. That’s not that important, though. What made me not include this theory is that it feels uncomfortably victim blame-y. It’s not directly since it wouldn’t be Nervous’ fault anyway but any attempt to shift the blame from Loki and Circe in this situation feels uncomfortable.

(To be clear, I don’t think the Beakers deserve demonization. In my opinion, the best way to treat them narrative-wise is like eccentric people capable of feeling love and doing good things sometimes, yet irredeemably self-centered, morally bankrupt and deserving a lifetime in jail for child abuse they have done on Nervous. Not one-dimensional but still villains and still objectively bad people.)

And those 3 theories above? They could’ve been better.

I think I like the first the most, even though I still feel like something is missing. I just tend to like relatively grounded explanations and this one doesn’t feature the supernatural nor any deus ex machina gadget.

What about you? And do you have any other theories? Sky’s the limit! It’ll make my day to hear them!

Whatever your takes are, they’re all valid.

#loki beaker #strangetown #premades #the sims 2 #the sims #simbrl #headcanon #ts2

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nighttimepixels · 3 years

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TALK TO US ABOUT MASS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN AN INSANE MASS EFFECT/SHAKARIAN TRASH PERSON SINCE 20-FUCKING-11 AND LEMME TELL YOU THOSE FEELINGS HAVENOT TARNISHED A SINGLE FRACTION IN THOSE TEN YEARS OH MY GOOOOOOODDDSSSS!!!!!!!

I DEMAND A PLAY-BY-PLAY UP TO THE MINUTE OF YOUR REACTIONS TO EVERYTHING!!!!

you are so valid and I totally see why everyone I've ever mentioned it to loves the hell out of it

aksdjlsdfj I meannnn if you want to hear my rambling about it then hell yeah

Okay, gonna put this below the cut to save everyone else XD also- since I'm not leaving this Mass Effect obsession anytime soon, if you're not interested in seeing occasional posts about it, please feel free to block the tag "night plays ME"~

(mild spoilers ahead??)

((also for real I mean it when I say this is rambling as hell lol, apologies and no stress if absolute no one reads all this))

OKAY SO Mass Effect 1-

Stars help me, I was honestly hooked right from the start?? Like even in Legendary Edition (the combined trilogy just re-released in one "can play it on one system + minor improvements", for anyone who doesn't know) where it's smoothed out, of course it's obvious that ME1 is a decade old... but the foundation for these relationships are all there and gods I love them already.

Like - Kaiden right off the top is a delightful good fightin lad, what the hell. I've heard that he's viewed as 'bland' by a good portion of the fan community but I dunno, he's a delight and even more complex by the time 2 rolls around and you encounter him on Horizon, it was honestly Ashley I was way more meh about - mostly because before you can learn about her family history/etc, she comes off as hella xenophobic and I was immediately offended for my growing space family that she didn't like/trust all the aliens around, pfff.

(she gets redeemed a bit through further actions/evolving thoughts, but I thought in retrospect it was a bummer that they didn't flip the order there, give her a chance to be liked before the complicating factor of being so rude about aliens >:c that then she could grow from... ah well. Apparently she has a good arc but uh, let's just say I chose Kaiden at the "key junction" in the latter part of the game so I won't be seeing anymore of Ashley uh... anytime soon, haha.)

Garrus??? Is??????? The ABSOLUTE best???????????

I liked him from the start, I'm always a bit of a sucker for a rogue-detective "the system won't bring this bastard to justice, so I've got to" type and all their moral shadiness XD But he just gets better, honestly, and where I'm at in ME2 (right before the Reaper IFF mission, as of typing this, with everyone's loyalty!) I am only digging myself deeper into this hole-

-*wheezing* okay anyways -

Wrex is AMAZING I love fightin' middle-aged krogan bastard, gods. Liara is great too, I'm a sucker for a wlw relationship (playing fem!Shepard, so) - buuuut I'll admit she's a bit more one-note in ME1. Last week while I was still on ME1 I remember hearing (while trying to dodge spoilers) that her arc is really good, though. I think they leaned a little hard on the 'innocent but sexy' sterteotype on her (so despite the yikes aspect of a few of the things I've learned in ME2, lol, I actually really like the complexity that's been added to her character.)

Saved Liara first, so by the time I got to Noveria and had the standoff with Benezia there was the chance to have emotions over Liara having to face her TwT and of course, I made the questionable but quality decision to free Queen Rachni heheh. no ragrets

More than a blow-by-blow of my choices though I totally wanna take the chance to say that even in the mild jankiness of ME1 (goddammit, the Mako.... please..... please just go up this impossible cliff I just want to resource hunt-) the way that the lore, both obvious/key to main plot and the lesser/filler/background/world-building kinds... I just love it. It incorporates it well, you can go ham in the codex learning more, or just dive into the basics - it's clearly a complex galaxy (and they do an even better job in 2 of fleshing it out further), and it never really felt overwhelming. It was pretty natural figuring it all out-!

Plus the interesting implications of resource hunting amongst the sapient races, and the little side missions you better bet I did every one of- there's so much rich depth in the story if you do 'em!! (And that lead with that Keeper side mission...? Looking back, damn, clever foreshadowing-!!!)

And oh my gods, Ilios??? hell yeah. I loved that mission so much, especially having Garrus & Kaiden with me when talking to the hologram/computer, and more than anything, that last sprint in the Mako trying to get to the jump before it closed-???

yeet the boi-

Also mannn I love a good setpiece, and having to go up the side of the elevator, space-side?? such a cool setup!!

Plus it felt good having been Paragon enough (as simple as the good v bad vibe system is, I don't hate it, lol) to avoid one of the Saren fights, ngl. And the er, "second fight" with Sovereign-Saren.... hell yeah

... I'll admit I had to double check my choice re whether to save the Council. I did in the end, but I swear, sometimes the way they phrase things I'm like ".... okay but Garrus is right, defeating Sovereign is more important than these few leaders??????" woops. Listen, priorities, is all I'm saying..... (￣ヮ￣|||)ゞ

'Course later they emphasize (in ME2) that there were 10,000 people on that same ship and I was like well I wouldn't have second guessed if I'd known that, I mean c'mon-

Also I did indeed romance Liara in this one, so I got that scene ;Dc But,,,, I also knew by the end that I was totally gonna romance Garrus in 2 since he's an option then finally,,,,, lemme tell you the guilt as I waffled over whether to romance Liara bc of it. hahaha.

Aaaaand Mass Effect 2-

So I'm only up to right before the Reaper IFF Mission, so I don't know the ending, etc etc lol. That said, I've just finished every side mission I've found with the exception of the Shadowbroker Quest and the Arrival Quest (I've heard the latter basically leads into ME3, and the former is best either right before the Omega 4 jump or in postgame).

So from the start - fuck yeah fuck yeah what a high adrenaline start Shepard noooooo but also yes save Joker aH-

The motion comic too hot damn nice job

I loved this setup, seriously - especially forcing Shep into this situation, having to work with/for Cerberus, and the compelling reasoning given behind "why" they do what they do (I especially found it a good point that the Salarians have the Task Force, the Asaris the Commandos, the Turians the- etc... like, true, when you put it like that, having a similar group advancing human interests/solving human interstellar problems is pretty reasonable...). That said, I love too that it really isn't shied away from how Cerberus is nonetheless fucked up - or its at least done fucked up stuff.

Listen, I still think some messed up stuff is gonna be revealed in 2's endgame......... after that Horizon mission and the Collector's ship???? TIM I SEE YOU YOU SHADY MF-

aaanyways lol...

I'm so so glad on a gameplay level they nixed the Mako style exploration. A few Hammerhead missions are fine and a lot more focused than the slippery ass navigation in that glorified ATV, pfff. The probes are a neat way of getting after similar resources - and more importantly, having good levels and some good hubs (the Zakera Wards, Omega, Ilium, etc) is way way more fun than having a more 'sprawling' space that is.... a lot of empty nonsense, lol.

Then there's the fact that we get Joker right off the bat and you can interact with him so much - and him and EDI??? Get out gods I love them. Kasumi is so right when she says they sound like a bickering old married couple lol. I have a terrible feeling that some shit is gonna happen with EDI..... but I don't think she's evil as-is, at least.

Side-eying the hell out of those "access forbidden" parts of her that she doesn't even know.... and the fact that her AI core has a locked door access................... something's gonna happen gdi LEAVE OUR ADOPTED AI ALONE.

(Also Joker pls stop fracturing your thumb on the mute button)

Also please save me there are so many hot aliens in this game,,,,, the xeno/monsterfuckers really comin' through strong in the sequels............... doin' the lord's work........................................

In general, I love how many levels ME stepped up in two with complexity and interwoven narratives!! Like, to the point it'd be almost a drag to replay ME1, even though it was fun going through it (if occasionally a bit tedious with the cookie cutter rando planet science/mine facilities, lol). Like, just from how fun and interesting ME2 is, mostly! more of all the pre-introduced races, plus new ones, plus more filling in of intragalactic politics, and more interesting implications of all these space-faring races mixing....

Also gods WREX and his planet holy shit,,,,, fuckin' hell yeah my man get their shit together and also adopt Grunt yes good-

And Mordin??? My singing semi-evil scientist best friend forced to confront his choices more than he thought he ever would have???? With some of the best ongoing general report chatter of all the companions??

(when I tell you I choked on my coffee when I talked to him after confirming romance choice w/ Garrus and that 'pamphlet' and 'anaphalactic shot if ingesting-' kajsldkfjsldfjk)

Like, fuck, the fact that they actually dive into the mixed morality and horrors of the genophage, and you can confront Mordin on it, for good reason, yet he still stands his ground, until finally some bits of his loyalty mission seem to... affect him, and I'm guessing might set up things for 3 with him? Unsure, but either way, damn, the fact that they start to dig into it...

And Taliiiii my beloved forbidden alien wife TwT her loyalty mission was SO GOOD. I love how varied they all are?? Getting to defend her and discover what she'd unwittingly been a part of-!!

Zaeed is a bastard but tbh I love that he is and that he's unapologetic in him - and Kasumi omg, best thief. A heist?? Gods, yes- I love our couch lounge chats XD

Samara is..... illegally.......... she's an illegally powerful and beautiful and eloquent MILF...........................

(.... listen I'm sapphic as hell and I'm kicking my own ass for picking her up last aksjdlfksjdfl - but her loyalty mission, damn. And seeing how there's this interesting cultural subset, and the struggle with the Asari in that they unquestioningly accept/respect justicars, but also know that the impact outside their culture is a diplomacy nightmare waiting to happen-)

,.,,,,,T,,, Thane,,,,,

I am weak for morally implicated murder dads okay?? And that voice??? His mannerisms?????? How you first see him, and that prayer after assassinating her...???????? And his history/his people's history with the hanar, gods I love how messy it is, it feels so much more real!

Also Jack is a mess and I love her (and want to get her some therapy, omg), and her and Miranda nearly duking it out after you've done both their loyalty missions??? so good and makes a lot of sense-! Honestly I would love more interactions between teammates on the ship, but there's already so much the devs had to balance I can't blame 'em for minimizing, heh. But suffice to say I also love Miranda and Jacob, even if I'm softest for my alien crew XD Hell yeah Jacob, we'll get loud and spill drinks on the citadel indeed TwT

.... I could write a whole essay on how much I love Garrus oTL Perhaps because he and Tali are the throughlines from 1 on your 2 crew, I have some of the strongest feelings about them... but genuinely, he was one of my favorite companions in the first game, and how you find him as Archangel in two? Getting to help him fight his way out after he's gone nearly 48 hours straight fighting off three gangs alone, jfc. His vengeance quest and what can happen there.... That line? fuck me, that line -

It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey? I don't know what to do with gray...

How DARE you come for my heart like this, devs holy shit

(also, some other choice faves so far from the series from him include We can disobey suicidal orders?? and This wasn't in my training manual... [in 1, if you have him with you @ th Thorian fight] and his whole.... pop the heat sink - in his romance ;Dc)

asdasdfksadjfkl like I said I can write an essay on him PFFF suffice to say I'm very looking forward to his romance scene and where things go in 3

But yeah gods I'm just gonna keep rambling if I'm not careful lol. Gods I don't even know what to talk about it's all so good and while I can understand people roasting the obviousness of Paragon V Renegade (v neutral) choices/alignments, I think they do a pretty damn good job in 2 of pushing it further - to the point that there were some times that I accidentally got renegade points and I wasn't that mad, haha. There's so much fun in the interactions that I just have a good time anyways~

I have so many thoughts about TIM (The Illusive Man) and Cerberus.... theories evolving galore............... and like, what the hell!! Omega 4 going to the center of the galaxy is such a cool twist, goddamn - though my heart still breaks at losing Kaiden (his line if you haven't romanced him?? about feeling like he lost a limb when he lost you??? holy shit.... but I also can't blame him for not trusting Cerberus to the point of it affecting his ability to trust Shepard... like fuck Shep go after himmmm) I'm really excited to see where that goes since he comes back in 3, and what the fuck happens with Cerberus bc while I love the fact that obviously there are a lot of people in it for the right reasons, doing good work, there are those that are doing the opposite, and I have a very bad feeling about where TIM will end up landing....

All that said though I need to do the Reaper IFF mission (where I'm lightly spoiled as to getting That Boy, but not how/what happens to make it so - just that it's apparently wise to have all your side missions done before getting him...) and the actual Omega 4 jump. So we'll see what happens and what I think about it from there heheh!

.... major kudos and genuine props if you made it here to the end, I am so sorry for not editing on condensing all this, and appreciate you so much ;w;

#night answers #night plays ME #(yes that's a purposeful pun lol)#((i sure have played myself by starting this series its so good aksdjflskjfd))

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shera-dnd · 3 years

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So remember when I mentioned that one of my projects was a whole ass AU based on a single line from some song lyrics? Well that’s the project!

Because why not take the lyrics to Smile and turn some of that shit very literal?

Also get ready because this fic is gonna be flowery as all hell.

Anyways there is the AO3 link up top and here is the fic itself for those who’d rather read it here

Camps and tents were set, and arenas had begun construction in the cold fields just outside the walls of great Atlas, the city of innovation, riches, and splendor. This could only mean one thing, the Vytal Festival was fast approaching and with it the nobles, knights, and representatives from every last human nation in Remnant.

In an official capacity it was a seven day long celebration of their long lasting peace. In practice people always arrive long before the festival proper, and then start a few festivities of their own until it is time for the main event, meaning the festival itself could easily span a full month of revelry.

That meant a crowd of strangers, countless new faces that no single person could ever keep track of, all gathered outside the gates of Atlas for weeks. Which made it the perfect time for a young fae to play her tricks. Honestly, the lords of men should all be thankful that she wished only to partake in their revels.

The fae woman gathered her belongings in the nearby forest, and checked her reflection in a little pond she had found. Of all the members of her court, she was the one that had achieved mastery over glamours with the most ease, still she planned on spending weeks among the humans, so she had to make sure everything looked perfect.

The face that greeted her was unfamiliar, but also perfectly human. Her skin was a shade darker than the pasty atlesians she would be mingling with, and little freckles marked it in incidental little patterns. Her long wavy hair was kept in a neat little braid even as little strands insisted on rebelling. Her eyes were a beautiful grayish blue, but carried in them an uncharacteristic exhaustion for someone her age.

This was all calculated of course. She had to be beautiful and fair like it was expected of a proper noble lady, but she couldn’t allow herself to look too perfect, or the humans would find her unsettling. It took an experienced hand to craft a face that struck such balance and was still so well suited to the fae that hid behind it.

Satisfied with her work she donned her human clothes - a simple, but charming dress of blue and gold, and a matching shawl to keep her warm - and made her way into the fields beyond.

Her kind had described the city of Atlas as a scar upon the natural world, a hungry parasite starving its host of all it needed to survive as it slowly expanded to consume ever more. The very epitome of all of humanity’s crimes given shape in stone and metal.

She knew these accounts to be true, of course, but standing before it now she found it difficult to not feel awed at the majesty of it all. The city was grand indeed, but to say so felt like an understatement. Grandiose structures rose above the city’s imposing walls and reached towards the sky above. Every inch of them was white marble and polished silver.

And yet it all felt colder than the harshest winter, as if this city was meant to be beheld in awe, not lived in. Every tile, every brick, every unnaturally clean stone, it all declared a single message.

“You’re not welcome here.”

She did what she could to ignore the city beyond and focus her attention on the fields that stretched before her. All around tents and camps were being set, and music could be heard even at such distance. This is what she came here for.

Delicious smells washed over her as she approached the gathering crowds. Many of the smaller camps had brought food from the nations beyond, and prepared their meals around their own campfires, or sold them to passers by, and she was more than happy to purchase quite a few of these unique delicacies.

Around her musicians and artists, from nations all over the world, prepared to perform before what would soon grow to be the largest crowd in all of Remnant. For now they were all street performers, travelling bands, nameless bards, and the occasional trickster claiming to have mastery over the magical arts.

Except some of that magic was very real. Their glamours were good, but no illusion could hide a fae’s true nature from one another. So she saw their faces as clear as crystal and they, in turn, saw hers. They were fae of the seelie courts, living a secret life among the human crowds, and she was the sole unseelie that walked among them.

It was in that moment of distraction, taking in the faces of her fellow fae, that she found herself being pushed aside with considerable force. She turned around, ready to curse whichever fool was responsible for this, only to find a very apologetic looking woman.

The woman in question had dark skin and long curly red hair. Though she wore no armor, her white and green clothes were clearly expensive and finely made. The presence of a staff in her heraldry betrayed her as a Knight of the Winter Maiden.

“My apologies,” the knight blurted out, “are you hurt?”

Something about the way she carried herself made it very hard to stay mad at her.

“I’m well, thank you,” she replied, “but please, do be more careful.”

“I’ll try to,” the knight assured her, before adding, “I don’t believe I have seen you around Atlas before.”

“This is my first time in the kingdom actually,” she lied with ease, “I’m Ilia of the Menagerie Isles.”

“Salutations, Lady Ilia,” the knight beamed as she bowed respectfully before her, “I’m Penny of House Polendina. I would be delighted to show you around the festival grounds, but right now I’m needed for a tournament.”

And with another bow Lady Polendina dashed away with just as little care as before.

Huh, a tournament, she had said? Now that seemed like a good way for Ilia to spend her time.

Said tournament was taking place in the only fully constructed wooden structure around. It was just a simple set of stands with enough space between them to form a somewhat proper arena, but having a proper space to fight in seemed to have gotten many of the knights’ hearts pumping with excitement. So much so that there seemed to be some sort of commotion waiting for her by the entrance.

Multiple men seemed to be arguing with a knight in perfectly white armor, or more accurately shouting at them, since they did not appear to say anything and just tried to make their way around the men and into the arena.

“Lady Schnee!” One of the men called and Ilia froze in her tracks. Years living in the courts around Atlas had left her with a burning hatred for the name Schnee.

With pale skin, and paler hair, the woman who approached them looked like she had been sculpted from a block of ice, and the look on her face was at least as cold as one. Lady Schnee was as severe and uncaring as her name would indicate.

“What is it you want?” She demanded.

“This stranger refuses to take off their helmet, or tell us their name, but they insist on joining the tournament,” the first man explained.

“Do you have reason to deny them entry, or are you simply insistent on wasting everyone’s time?” She said, with a tongue that was twice as sharp as that man’s sword, and thrice as sharp as his wit.

“My lady, the Vytal tournament was created exclusively for nobles and knights,” the other man tried, but a stare from her made him shrink in his armor.

“Do you think me stupid? I know the rules of the Vytal tournament,” she rebuked, “this is not the Vytal tournament, this is an excuse for bored fools to hit each other with swords. If you believe them unworthy of such noble competition, then perhaps you should prove so in the arena, instead of wasting everyone’s time with your pointless pratling.”

With that the men scattered and Lady Schnee made her way back into the arena. Though the white knight’s face remained hidden by their helmet, there was still a sense of amusement with how they held themself after this. Ilia certainly knew who she would be rooting for today.

With that out of the way Ilia joined the crowd by the stands as they watched the knights take turns dueling each other. Neither Lady Schnee, nor Lady Polendina seem to partake in the fighting, though they both took their roles as judges and organizers of the event. Though only Lady Polendina showed any excitement at her role.

Soon enough the duel Ilia had been looking for was about to begin. The white knight versus the loud fool from earlier. While the fool armed himself with a heavy shield and a heavier blade, the white knight seemed to prefer a lighter approach to combat, fighting only with a long and thin sword.

Unfortunately the build up had been much longer than the fight. In but three moves that felt almost like a single fluid motion, the knight had stepped through their foe’s defences, and placed the tip of their sword against his neck. The duel was over, and the crowd sat stunned.

It quickly became clear that no duel would live up to that one today, but that did not mean the crowd could not find entertainment in the matches that followed. Even though the white knight had not shown such swift brutality again, they quickly took the position of crowd favorite as they continued to win duel after duel.

That was until there only stood one soul who had not been bested by their blade. A knight in pure black armor, adorned with valean heraldry, and armed with a pair of shorter blades. Though that knight also hid their face, something about their stance seemed familiar to Ilia.

That sense of dejavu only grew stronger as the duel itself finally began. The swiftness of their movement, the lightness of their feet - even in full armor - the way the twin blades danced around them with ease. Ilia had only known one person who fought like that, but that simply couldn’t be her.

It made no sense.

Distracted as she was by that familiarity, Ilia was caught by surprise by the end of the duel. The knight in black had managed to pierce the white knight’s defense, and had a blade firmly pressed against their neck. The white knight put their blade down and conceded.

The crowd cheered as both knights offered each other a respectful bow and the white knight marched away from the arena.

Lady Polendina hopped and skipped her way to the middle of the arena, gesturing for the crowd to quiet down for a moment.

“It is with great pleasure that I announce the winner of our warm up tournament,” she announced and the black knight took that as their cue to pull their helmet away.

Though the face under it was unquestionably human, and clearly untouched by any magical glamour, there was no doubt in Ilia’s mind as to who she was. That may truly be impossible, but she had only known one woman with golden eyes like those.

“Lady Blake, of the Knights of the Fall Maiden!”

#rwby #prismatic ponytails #bumbleby #nuts and dolts #ilia amitola #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #medieval au #fanfic

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purplerose244 · 3 years

Text

My thoughts on Seabound!!! 🌊🌊🌊 (3/4)

SPOILERS ALERT!!!

Yep yep yep, I'm liking this season a lot! 😍 Although I hope we'll get into a more frantic situation now, like with more battles and more bonding moments (Nya and Maya hopefully, but with Bentho too 🦈🦈🦈)! We got half a season to go, I'M READY!! 😎😎

Alright, here we go!

GENERAL THOUGHTS

I do like the season a lot, maybe MoM was a little more cohesive? Idk but it's not a big complain, I still love it so far 😍

Also maybe I would've liked more interactions between Nya and Maya about how they've been apart for so long, they had a chit chat but I would've loved even more. Maybe with Nya saying that it was fine and she grew up only to realize she is still hurt by that, even though it wasn't Maya's fault. I still like how they did it, I wished there was more that's it 🤷‍♀️

While I do make sense to Maya's behavior, that while it seems a little different from Hands of Time it had its logic in my opinion, maybe Ray feels a little weird? He seems less courageous than before, and it was established that he is a hothead like his son so that came off as unusual 🤔🤔

But I do love the fact that he's here and he's bonding with his son, for real, I've been waiting for this for so long so I'm happy nonetheless 🤩

Maybe I'm just easy to please and I take all I can get idk 😅

THE STORM AMULET

Oh, are we gonna address the wind element? It feels like we haven't really seen a Morro reference since Hands of Time, that would be cool! 😍 I mean, why even mentioning the wind then 😅😅

Well what do you know, they tracked them, who saw that coming?... me, I saw that coming... we all did probably 🤷‍♀️

Jay took upon himself making a quick recap on how Ninjago will be destroyed this time, thanks Bluebell 👌

Yep nyeheh electricity makes Nya go crazy for sure ❤💙 ... wait it wasn't a Jaya pun?

Jay wear your seatbelt please, you risk you life enough 😅😅 Pff lol "are we there yet" and they are actually there, biggest plot twist I've ever heard of 😂

LEGO HUG 💜💜💜

And with someone who might as well join the League of Jay apparently 💙

I liked The Island yet it was not as exciting as I hoped for, but now understand the meaning of it. The ninja helped the keepers and they are all allies. Without The Island the moment where Mammatus gives Nya the amulet wouldn't be as meaningful

Is it just me or Nya looked even more gorgeous during that moment?... just me huh? Okay then 😂💕

Wait that's a fake? Wait... UNCLE POWERS?!? OMG THAT I ACTUALLY DIDN'T SEE COMING 🤯

Here I thought he was just messing around, he always makes things harder 😅 Or maybe better? I mean, they kinda missed a bullet on this one...

BENTHO IS SO SWEET AND COOL OMG HE IS ALREADY OUR FRIEND 💙🦈💙🦈

Jay somehow had his own TV show in the past and yet he's got that horrible acting skills wth 😂😂😂

Kalmaar is a very cool villain, like, deeply evil. Not only he's calculated and merciless, he stops at nothing to get what he wants. And the people that get in the way? He wants them to suffer because they had dared to confront him 😳

And yes the voice does help a lot, I'm sorry I'll keep saying it until the season is over 😂 (or even beyond? Please cast Giles again LEGO 🥺🥺🥺)

Awww Nya no my poor girl 😢 Jay wanted to hug her to comfort her he is so sweet my SHIP ❤💙❤💙

MOM PEP TALK MOM PEP TALK!!! 🤩🤩🤩 How cool was it?

Like, this isn't even Maya asking Nya to believe in herself, this is her saying that she KNOWS her daughter can do anything when she puts her mind into it. FINALLY SHE SEES HOW AMAZING WATER GODDESS IS 💜💜💜

MORE LEGO TEARS OMG THIS SEASON IS FILLED WITH TEARS 😱 Which... kinda makes sense considering it's a water based season 😂

Nice one, and now? NOW WE GO BACK TO KAI COLE AND RAY YAS!!! ❤🖤❤🖤

RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX

That is... surprisingly Egypt theme like? It feels like a title coming from the Fire Chapter of season 11... well we got two fire elementals so 😍😍

SPARRING KAI AND RAY

I REPEAT SPARRING KAI AND RAY!!! SPARRING KAI AND RAY!!! ❤❤❤ Lol Ray got old, but how can someone blame him? He did touch death while aging in Hands of Time, I'm just happy he is alive 😂

Yep, master prankster Wu, that's what I love 👌👌 I always thought Wu had become a father figure for Kai at the beginning, so seeing Ray and Wu in the same picture feels very wholesome to me 😚

Ah, uncle Powers, I both love you and hate you so freaking much 😌😌 But you make cool slides nonetheless 😂

ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME WITH BEAUTIFUL SMITH INTERACTIONS??

BECAUSE I LIKE IT KEEP GOING 🤩

Oh no you guys are stranded on an island whatever are you going to do?? It's not like you had already before and managed to survive (Skybound) or you got stranded on a rock in a sea of sand filled with giant monsters (Fire Chapter) or you were on a freaking COMET in SPACE (Rebooted). Yeee, this is the worst yet 🙂

I'm starting to think these ninja are just a bunch of drama queens so no matter what happens, it's always hopeless 😂😂 I feel like I'm kinda right on this one honestly 😛

Whoa whoa WHOA WHO IS NYAD THIS SOUNDS VERY COOL???

Aww I like that, while Ray told his kids stories about dragons and how they traveled through the Underworld, Maya told them about Nya the first water master that could summon whales 💙❤💙❤

Pff imagine if it turned out Nya was the master of fire, carrying a very water based name? Lol

Maya: I would know if it was possible!

Nya: Yeah, like she knows that I can control a bit of ice because it's frozen water

Maya:...

Maya: YOU WHAT

I find both interesting and very annoying that this explorers club thinks so highly of themselves, to the point the deny to aid even the FREAKING SAVIORS OF THEIR FREAKING LAND 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Misako got good reflexes after all, Kai was probably ready to melt this guy's face 😅

Oh, so a trial by Sphinx is a challenge? A mental one? A cultural one? A physical one? Idk but Misako is actually taking charge and that is cool I guess 🤷‍♀️

Okay this is kind of weird, how is Ray so afraid? Is it because there's fire?... did he... did he grow afraid of fire for some reason? Because it feels a bit off for now, but if there is a deeper meaning that could be interesting 🤔

Wait is that the riddle from Decoded? That's fire right?

IT IS FIRE 🔥🔥🔥

Lol at least in this one Kai wasn't completely ignored 😂 I know my flame babe isn't the most rational person, but I do like that it was an answer connected to his element where he used his head!

Ah Clutch, you really got no backbone 😅 And apparently you're the only explorer who doesn't, dang look at the others go! I'm having a bit more respect for them now 😚

LOOK AT SENSEI GO FINALLY!!! 😍😍 FIGHTING SCENES HECK YES!!!

Kalmaar: I'm your conquerer

Wu: so after skeletons, the serpentine, nindroids, the Stone Army, Chen's army, ghosts, oni, more snakes but on fire and people from a game, that makes you the tenth. Have a free cookie

Kalmaar:...

Wu: you're not special

Is this a little throwback to Possession too? Nya seems to always control better water when she doesn't actually think about it. When her feelings are free, so are her powers 🌊🌊🌊

Also this opens up more possibilities! Creatures connected with other elements might get summoned too! I would love something like that 😍😍

This was NEAT, or maybe I just missed Kai that much ❤ What's next??

PAPERGIRL

ANTONIAAAAAAAA!!!! MY GIRL IS BACK!!! All my girls are back in this season, I'm so happy 😍😍😍 And if she is here, sweet little Nelson has to be around and I cannot wait! Bring in the purple ninja! 💜

Owww Antonia's last day as a papergirl? Nooo why??

She's got a job at the... DAIRY DRAGON??? OMG OMG OMG IT'S THE ICE CREAM PLACE BRAGI TOLD US ABOUT ON TWITTER!!! 🤩🤩🤩 I remember the post, he was asking about names for the place and ice cream flavors. Now I can't wait to see what did he choose 🍦🍦🍦

UNAGAMI BABY HI HONEY!!! 🙋‍♀️ I hope he's doing great 😘😘

This is so cool honestly, Antonia got her own character arc going on! Living in a chaotic city like Ninjago City must be pretty dang exhausting 😅

Was... was that Dareth in the garbage can? Am I wrong? Poor brown ninja 😅🤎😅

SPINJITZU SWIRL, BANANAKHAN, ORANGE SERPENTINE, I'M DYING 😂😂😂

Their friendship is so wholesome, I'm so happy they are still together no matter what happens 💕

I thought Kalmaar wasn't much of a fighter but DANG he's got skills! Also the fact that he uses tentacles makes the fight very cool to watch! 😚😚

RAY RUNNING IN AFTER KAI GOT HURT HECK YES ❤❤❤

Well at least you tried Ray 😅

Ah, little cameo of the original Weekend Whip, always nice to hear it again... AND DO THE WEEKEND WHIP!!! 🌪🌪🌪

EVEN NELSON GOT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I'M SO PROUD 💜

I don't even know what is cooler, the kids being mad lads on their bikes, Kalmaar driving a TRUCK or Kai going full parkour on the buildings to follow them 🤯

I'm sorry... am I the only one that during the Kai and Kalmaar talk kinda thought of Jestro and Clay? I miss my boys from NK, they're even more at odds now 😭😭

KAI YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE OR EVEN TRY TO DIE GET BACK HERE AT ONCE 😱😱

Kalmaar just loves to make everyone feel inferior, gotta be his hobby 😶

Oh good Kai is back

OH NOT GOOD KAI IS NOT BREATHING?!? FLAME BABE I TOLD YOU YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE 😱😱😱

Antonia, Nelson, you guys are now my heroes. You saved my fave, I'll be forever in dept with you ❤❤❤ Am I being overdramatic? Most likely, but Kai is one of the few that didn't almost die or did die in a dramatic situation and he is also my absolute favorite character so that... kinda keeps my sanity in check in this show 🥴

I wonder... does he still not know how to swim? He saved Lloyd in Possession but I wonder if he was only trying to float on the surface... THAT'S TERRIFYING

This episode was so adorable, I love Antonia and Nelson so much 💜💕💜💕 It's nice to see what the other people of Ninjago do while everything goes mad 🤣

Wait hang on my Ninjajan is a little rusty

"Ninjago City. City that never sleeps" well if that ain't the truth 😂

MASTER OF THE SEA

Like Master of the Mountain? Wait are we going back to Shintaro?? VANYA?? ANOTHER BEST GIRL RETURNS??? 💛

Hey hey hey, we got a full Nyad backstory! I really like when they do these little drawn shots, they feel more like legends! And... the ending sounds terrifying? Like, they wouldn't let Nya sacrifice herself and die... again... right? 😱

Bentho: and the world was in balance, until now because of my brother

Lloyd: and the Overlord before of course

Bentho: the what now?

Lloyd: the evil one my grandpa the first Spinjitzu Master fought?

Bentho: YOUR WHAT NOW

Why do I like this offscreen "hiiiyaaa" that sensei Wu does before actually going into the scene? 😂😂

No matter if they come from the underground or the sea, these are all snake-like creature with the same intellect 😅 Kalmaar and Garmadon would have a lot to talk about, sea king dealing with his minions does remind me of Lord Garmadon in season 2 a lot 😂😂

KAI AND RAY FIGHTING TOGETHER KAI AND RAY FIGHTING TOGETHER ❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥❤

OMG Kalmaar is such a brat and petty villain I love him so much 😂😂😂 Yes I didn't even mention his amazing voice!... AH DANG IT 😳😳

*Misako kicks Kalmaar and is actually useful* 🙆‍♀️🙆‍♀️🙆‍♀️

*Misako gets taken as hostage immediately after* 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

KAI LITERALLY JUST GOT SAVED FROM DROWNING WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO HIM!!!... and Ray and Cole and Wu of course, I care okay 😅

OMG that face 🤣🤣🤣

That some meme material right there

Whoa Vincent that voice just got super up when the Unsinkable showed up, it kinda sounded like Jay's lol

NO NOT BENTHO!!! 😢😢😢

Kai: Nya talks to whales now? (I snorted so hard at this 😂😂)

HECK YES NYA GOT THE AMULET!! 😍😍😍 ... we got, like, four more episodes to go so something needs to happen in between... do I need to be scared? I feel like I need to be scared 😅

Jay starting a fire then blaming Kai?... this is so in character I got chills 😂😂

SHARK BOY IS STAYING TO THE MONASTERY THIS IS SO PRECIOUS!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 I want all the shenanigans and we need to write fanfictions about more shenanigans and AAAAHHHHH 🦈🦈🦈

Bless these two fire idiots

They own my heart ❤🔥❤🔥 Also Vincent, this is supposed to be a fun little gag moment, your amazing voice acting is kinda distracting me 😭😭😭

ANOTHER LEGO HUG

YOU GUYS ARE SPOILING ME OVER HERE HECK YES 💙🌊💙🌊

Maya learned that her daughter is capable of everything, I love that. Nya simply understood that she doesn't have to give up when something gets difficult. She is AMAZING and can do anything she puts her mind into. She simply has to hold on until the end 💪💪💪

Omg Benthomaar playing billiard with the guys I already love this 😍😍

YES IT IS SHINTARO!!! THE UPPLY ARE HERE OMG!!! HI VANYA YOU LOOK AMAZING GIRL MISS YOU I HOPE YOU'RE DOING OKAY!!! 💛💛💛 ... I just really like Master of the Mountain okay 😅

I love how Vanya doesn't even question it. It comes from Cole and he said it needs to be protected? Done and done 👌

Wait what, did something fall?

IS THAT THE FAKE?!?!? WHAT HOW WHEN??? UNCLE POWERS??? OR KALMAAR DID SOMETHING??? SOMEONE??? I'M LEGIT CONFUSED AND EXCITED??? 🤯🤯🤯

Well dang, I didn't see that coming, now what Seabound? What do you have for me?

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riversofmars · 3 years

Text

The final chapter! It's been a wild ride! As sad as I am that this story is coming to a close, it also always feels like a great relief when a long, complicated adventure gets wrapped up before spinning out of control lol. I hope the ending will be as satisfying for you as it was for me to write it.

Chapter 15: When the Ends Justify the Means

Gallifrey, during the Time War

The Dreadshade’s explosion was disorienting and gave the Twelve the opportunity to flee the Panopticon. Gravely injured, she staggered down the corridor without a destination in mind, her only goal was to put as much distance as possible between the Doctor and herself. She wanted to die in her own time. She had miscalculated and she was about to pay the price, her body was already fizzing with regenerative energy. She had one more regeneration left - twelve to thirteen - but was it worth it? All her personalities seemed to have an opinion. All things considered, the Twelve had been good at keeping them in check but as her physical strength was waning, so was her mental resolve.

“You have been a disappointment,“ the Eleven was of course the first to comment on their demise.

“You didn’t last two minutes,“ the Four added, equally as condescendingly.

“What an embarrassing miscalculation with the Dreadshade,“ the Seven huffed, as if that could never have happened to him.

“Never could keep your mouth shut, could you,“ the One scolded.

“Shut up, all of you,“ the Twelve snapped, wincing in pain as every cell in her body started to burn up. “Maybe this is it, maybe we should just put ourselves out of our misery…“ It was certainly worth considering. She was tired of the eternal struggle and she didn’t want to become just another voice, trapped in the back of the mind of a mad man.

“One last try,“ the Nine insisted and the Six added:

“Make them all pay.“

“But how?“ The Twelve stumbled. She collapsed against a pillar. She had made it to the Matrix chamber. Surely, no-one would assume she was there. She felt the ancient power of the Matrix reach out to her. Maybe she wouldn’t regenerate after all. Maybe she would just enter the Matrix and that was that. She could feel its power engulfing her and images started flashing before her eyes. Exciting, thrilling images at that: The Citadel in ruins, Gallifrey on fire. The Twelve laughed at how beautiful a sight it was and how much she longed to see it being accomplished. They had always treated her as the outsider, the black sheep, the one that had gone wrong. They deserved to pay.

“Look at my work, Doctor, and despair!“ There was a man with dark hair and beard, and with him a blonde woman whom he had addressed and who appeared devastated at the sight in front of her.

“All this death… finally makes you happy?“ She turned to the man and the Twelve felt like she was looking right at her. She recognised the Doctor, even with a new face and a very different one at that. She looked so much older than the Doctor she had last encountered.

“Ecstatic,“ the man answered with a wide grin.

“And has it calmed all the rage?“ The Doctor demanded, leaning in closer, baring her teeth like a wild animal, intent on intimidating him and ready to leash out.

“I don’t think anything could ever do that,“ the man answered almost thoughtfully and the Twelve felt the sentiment in her very bones. She had tried to be better, in some small way. Not like the Eight but… better. And where had it got her? The rage was burning more fiercely than ever before and she smiled, a little at first and then, her face contorted into a wide grin as her skin started glowing. She had seen the future, she knew what she would be working towards. She would make them all pay.

“That’s right, that’s it. Burn Gallifrey to the ground. Make them pay,“ the Three was utterly delighted at the prospect, and even the Five had to admit:

“I’m partial to a beard, that is a future I’m keen to experience.“

“Fine, one last time. Just to make them pay,“ the Twelve giggled and regenerative energy burst out of her skin, shaping her body in accordance with the image she had seen.

——

Unknown Location

The Doctor spun her sonic in her hand as she regarded the Thirteen.

“It took me far too long to catch on, that’s on me. I did think it odd when you hardly spoke to Kate and Martha at all, considering that we do know each other pretty well. But the complete lack of your other personalities surfacing did have me fooled, you’re really not that great at controlling them. But when I realised who you are working with, you were bound to have taken a neural inhibitor from Gallifrey just in case,“ the Doctor explained with a triumphant smirk. “Neat trick, that you put a bandage around your arm like the Master had, that was clever.“ It had been a believable ruse.

“Your epiphany comes far too late as always, Doctor. The trap is sprung, you’re here, where we want you,“ the Thirteen snarled, slowly regaining control of his personalities again upon their chaotic release.

“What do you need me for anyway? You were right there on the TARDIS with me the entire time, why not kill me when I had my back turned? Why bring me here?“ The Doctor fixed her eyes on him.

“We have been carrying out very important work here,“ Padrac announced. “We will bring back the Time Lords and since your son’s DNA clearly doesn’t cut it, we are having to go back to the source once more.“ Padrac had hoped they would be successful with the Doctor’s child but clearly the genetic inheritance of River Song muddled the results somewhat.

“The Time Lords are gone. For good this time. You can’t just bring them back,“ the Doctor’s eyes shot to him.

“You watch me,“ Padrac smirked. “And your precious humans, no less. I did give it some thought, you know, and I figured: what a poetic justice. You’re the reason our people are dead, so I’m going to take your favourite race from you in turn.“ The Doctor recognised an age-old bitterness in him and she wondered if maybe part of him had been aware of the passage of time while in stasis, plotting his revenge and his anger festering over millennia.

“Giving them immortality hardly seems like taking them from me,“ she shot back.

“Not all of them of course. Just the ones that prove themselves worthy,“ Padrac carried on to explain.

“You mean, anyone that will follow you,“ the Doctor concluded, and the blond Time Lord nodded:

“People like Daniel Barton were more than eager to join the course.“

“I bet,“ she huffed. People like Daniel Barton would never miss out on an opportunity such as that. She returned her attention to the Thirteen: “And you? Out for your own skin? Twelve regenerations aren’t enough for you, are they, so close to the end?“

“You owe me a few, yes,“ the Thirteen chuckled.

“And for your last one, the Master’s face… how did that happen?“ The Doctor asked as it seemed like an incredible coincidence, even if they were working together.

“Oh this?“ The Thirteen pointed to his face and snarled: “Thought it was me, when the Matrix showed me the destruction of Gallifrey. Silly mistake. I so hoped it would be me to do that… small disappointments. Suffice to say I’m looking forward to getting a new face once we’re done here.“

“And the Master? Pulling the strings? What’s in it for him?“ It remained the one mystery she still couldn’t figure out. The Master had destroyed the Time Lords, why would he want to help Padrac bring them back? The Master had killed the Eleven, why now align himself with the Thirteen? It made no sense. “Where is he?“

——

“Stay where you are,“ River insisted, keeping her gun on the Master.

“River!“ Jack exclaimed, delighted to see her and worried she might make a foolish decision. “No need for that,“ he assured her, trying to make her lower the gun.

“Jack, what are you doing with him?“ River frowned.

“We’re escaping, he released me, and we’re just getting Ryan and Graham,“ Jack tried to explain but everybody else found that incredibly hard to believe.

“He released you?“ Graham asked, incredulous.

“Yes, that’s what I was just about to tell you,“ Jack nodded, looking into disbelieving faces.

“There is really no need, Professor Song,“ the Master spoke up at last, focusing his eyes on River who stared back at him with unveiled distaste.

“You bet there isn’t. You don’t know who you’re dealing with,“ River spat, good and ready to pull the trigger.

“Professor, contrary to what you might believe, I am here to help, and I’m glad to see you received my message, even if it needed redirecting a few times. Couldn’t risk being traced,“ the Master was patient to explain.

“That message was you?“ Yaz looked to River who appeared just as stunned. The only reason they had been able to find their way here had been a message, relayed through the Archangel network, with spacetime coordinates and passage codes. The person that had sent it had even been kind enough to lower the protective force fields around this place. They had presumed it was Jack’s accomplishment.

“I think you’re thinking of the wrong person.“ The Master frowned, realising the mistake.

“The wrong person?“ River echoed and he nodded:

“I’m not the Thirteen. I am the Master.“

“The Master? No, impossible, I have met the Thirteen and the Master and you are most definitely…“ River started, and he interrupted her firmly, they didn’t have time for this.

“We have the same face,“ he explained upon realising the last face of his that River Song had seen, had been Missy. The confusion could be forgiven.

“Who’s the Thirteen?“ Ryan, Graham and Jack exchanged confused glances. “That’s most definitely the Master.“

“How is that possible?“ River asked and the Master took a step closer to her, her gun pressing into his torso.

“I will tell you but first, you put the gun down, there is somewhere we need to be“, the Master insisted. “I will explain on the way.“

“He has been helping us so far,“ Jack said, hoping to assure everyone around.

“Why would I trust you? You are just as bad as the Thirteen…“ River started, slowly wrapping her head around the fact that two of her spouses' enemies were involved in this convoluted plot.

“I’ve had children… so has the Doctor, before now, I mean…“ The Master answered, and it was an explanation enough. “And when you’ve lost a child… you don’t let that happen to anyone else, your friend or your enemy.“

“Where are we going?“ River lowered her gun.

“To save your son,“ the Master explained. “And your wife, though I am less keen on that part.“

——

“The Master?“ Padrac echoed and nearly started laughing. “What has he got to do with anything?“

“He’s in on this, isn’t he?“ The Doctor frowned, confused by his reaction.

“The Master? You seem to forget he killed my eleventh self!“ The Thirteen laughed. “He’s better off running, if I get my hands on him, I will kill him.“

“Then how did he willingly swap places with you?“ The Doctor looked in between the other two Time Lords.

“Coward. He stole my TARDIS on Demon’s Run, without him there would have been no need for me to stoop so low and impersonate him,“ the Thirteen snarled.

“Hang on, you mean you’ve come straight from Demon’s Run without your TARDIS and you haven’t been back here?“ It was Padrac’s turn to look confused now.

“When would I have had the opportunity to do that?“ The Thirteen looked at Padrac bewildered.

That’s when it dawned on Padrac that there was an unbidden guest in their midst. He slammed the communicator on his wrist.

“Lock down the base, check on the prisoners,“ he ordered but there was no response. “Hello?“

“Something the matter?“ The Doctor grinned when the penny dropped for her too. She was not the only one that had fallen for the old switcheroo.

“The com-lines are down. What have you done?“ Padrac yelled at the Doctor.

“Me? Nothing, but I think I may have underestimated my oldest friend,“ she grinned in return.

“Ma’am?“ Strax took the opportunity to tug at the Doctor’s sleeve.

“Yes, Strax?“ She asked.

“Do you think now would be a good time to…“ He nodded towards the guards.

“Now would be a perfect time to,“ the Doctor nodded in confirmation, and Strax didn’t need to be told twice. Neither did any of the others, they threw themselves at the guards, and a wild fistfight broke out.

“Imbeciles, subdue them!“ Padrac shouted but with Jenny and Vastra in possession of swords, momentum quickly shifted.

That was when Padrac panicked, drawing upon his last resort. It was a mad gamble but he dashed to the wall controls and lowered the temporal grace field. With a blinding flash, the grenade that Strax had engaged before went off. Padrac was most disappointed when he realised it had only been a flash grenade with the purpose of disorienting the enemy. The Doctor’s friends weren’t mad enough to gamble their lives after all. It was enough to disorient them as advertised, and the Thirteen grasped his opportunity. He surged forward and wrapped his arm around the Doctor’s neck, pressing a knife to her throat.

“Doctor!“ Vastra exclaimed when she got her bearings back and realised what was going on.

“You’re coming with me!“ The Thirteen snarled.

“Calm down everyone, it’ll be fine!“ The Doctor shouted to her friends.

“Surrender or the Doctor dies!“ Padrac shouted.

“Nah, that’s your problem, we’re out of here,“ the Thirteen pulled the Doctor along, and Padrac realised he had backed the wrong horse.

“Just you and me then?“ The Doctor huffed at the Thirteen, shooting her friends reassuring glances. “Why not! Lead the way.“ She allowed herself to be dragged away down the corridor.

“Do something!“ Padrac was shouting panicked commands at his few remaining soldiers but to no avail, he was cut off moments after by the arrival of more unbidden guests.

“Show’s over, Padrac,“ the Master snarled but it was River that struck him down with a right hook that sent him flying. And just like that, the fighting was over.

“Professor Song!“ Vastra exclaimed in delight as Strax set about putting handcuffs on the unconscious Time Lord. That had been quite the right hook.

“Yaz!“ Jenny called in relief and Gwen was quick to rush to their friends as well:

“Jack! Ryan! Graham! You’re ok!“ There was a moment of elation in victory.

“Vastra! Jenny! Strax!“ River was overwhelmed. “Kate, Gwen, Martha, Mickey… wow, that’s quite the…“ She looked around the room, noticing one very important person amiss: “Where is the Doctor?“

“The Thirteen took her…“ Kate answered quickly and picked up her gun. Now that the temporal grace field was gone, they were of use again.

“This way Professor.“ The Master wasted no time to drag River along.

——

“What do you think you’re doing?“ The Doctor asked as the Thirteen forced her onto a stretcher, strapping her to it. They found themselves in what the Doctor could only presume to be the main laboratory at the heart of the base.

“Shut up. I can do this,“ the Thirteen hissed as he turned to the instruments but seemed at an utter loss.

“No you can’t, you haven’t been here, you don’t know anything about the research, you were in the TARDIS with me,“ the Doctor reasoned.

“Shut up!“ The Thirteen snapped again. “I need to focus.“ His voice was tense, his posture jittery, and his eyes darted in between the instruments indecisively. The Doctor saw her opportunity. The Thirteen was slowly panicking.

“You’re going off the rails, it’s all going wrong, isn’t it, you can’t focus,“ she said, poking the bear.

“Shut up!“ The Thirteen roared, with the Six taking over.

“Can’t do it, can you? What are you even doing?“ The Doctor sensed she was on the right path so she pushed on as the Thirteen picked up a syringe. “Not that one.“

“I don’t need you to be conscious,“ the other Time Lord spat with the Seven emerging, his movements more purposeful.

“Yeah you do, cause you need my help,“ the Doctor insisted and the response was quick and violent:

“I don’t need your help!“

“If you don’t, then why haven’t you done it already?“ The Doctor put on her best condescending smirk.

“Doctor!“ A voice called from the door and the Doctor allowed herself a sigh of relief. She had no words for how happy she felt for hearing her wife’s voice again and to see her rush towards her, followed by ample reinforcements.

“Hello all,“ she smiled though she only had eyes for River. For a moment she even forgot about the Thirteen and her own precarious situation. Her hearts burst with joy of seeing her wife alive after having presumed her dead for so long.

“Step away from her.“ It was the Master’s snarl that drew her back to reality. The Master of all people advanced towards the Thirteen who was his spitting image.

“I don’t think so, no no no, I've got to finish this.“ The Thirteen shook his head and quickly retrieved his knife to press it to the Doctor’s throat again.

“Get away!“ The Master repeated, his voice low and threatening.

“No, you get away!“ The Thirteen exclaimed, his eyes darting around the room, and he slammed a button on the workstation.

Suddenly, out of a hidden dimension, a cot appeared.

“Phased a few seconds out of time, clever.“ The Doctor balled her hands to fists as she laid eyes on her son for the first time. River gasped in surprise and the Master squared his jaw, watching as the Thirteen picked up the child as a means of defence. River was about to go for him but the Master held her back.

“Out of here, all of you!“ The Thirteen barked. “Don’t make me do something you’ll regret!“ The Doctor exchanged a glance with the Master and forced her mind into sharp focus. She couldn’t allow emotions to cloud her judgement, not now, not when River was barely holding it together. The Doctor looked to her wife, the expression of pain and longing on her face broke her hearts, as she struggled against the Master’s firm grip.

“Someone help me out of this!“ The Doctor called and Vastra was quick to oblige as the Thirteen watched with mad determination.

“Don’t try anything!“ He threatened and the baby in his arms started crying.

“I’m going to kill you,“ River growled trying to reach for her gun but the Master continued to restrain her. He glanced to the Doctor who took a deep breath, deciding on the best course of action. She knew how to deal with a mad man, she had plenty of practice.

“See, here’s the thing, whatever you’ve been doing here, I can’t let it continue, all of this, it needs to go,“ the Doctor said, facing the Thirteen. She focused on his face, rather than the crying infant in his arms. She couldn’t get distracted. “So what we’re going to do is blow this whole place up.“

“You can’t,“ the Thirteen spat. “Not while I have your child!“

“Yes, we can. You’ve drawn the short straw in this standoff. We can blow this place up anytime. I’ll regenerate, so will the Master, so will my son! Really, it’s just you that’s left, isn’t it, and you will die a proper death this time,“ she stated, her voice low and threatening.

“Get everyone else out of here and get the Sontaran to rig the place,“ the Master called to Vastra. The Silurian shot a quick glance to the Doctor who just nodded in confirmation.

“Out of here, everyone!“ Vastra ordered and Kate relayed her order, they had to trust that the Doctor knew what she was doing.

“I’m staying as well, I’m not going anywhere until I have my son,“ River announced and stopped struggling at last. She realised her wife knew what she was doing and she chose to trust her. The Master, in turn, let go of her.

“There is a compromise to be made here, Thirteen,“ the Doctor took a step towards the renegade, demanding his attention as the room emptied. “You’re scared of dying, I get that, I can help, we can help. The Master has expertise in this too, we can give you another circle of regenerations but only once you hand my son over to River.“ She looked to the baby who’s hair was beginning to turn to soft curls, reminiscent of his mother’s. “Or we go the nuclear option.“ Her eyes snapped back up to the Thirteen. “What the hell, time for a new face.“

“I was looking forward to getting to know this one,“ River commented with a sigh.

“Sorry, love.“ The Doctor gave a soft smile, and the Master went along with it as well:

“Ah what the hell, I don’t want to be left looking like him anyway.“

“Fine, fine!“ The Thirteen exclaimed, feeling the pressure but panicked again when the Doctor stepped closer: “No, no, don’t come closer, you give me what I want first!“ He demanded. “You have no way of knowing whether he will regenerate or not! His DNA wasn’t enough to replicate the process, what makes you think the little mudblood can even regenerate? You fix up the serum first!“ He gestured towards the medical instruments.

“Alright look, here…“ The Doctor held up her hands appeasingly and turned to the workstation. She picked up a syringe. With all eyes on her, she drew up a sample of her own blood and placed the syringe back on the tray. “If you run it through the sequencing process and then generate the serum, it should work.“

“How do I know you’re not trying to trick me?“ The Thirteen spat.

“That’s the sort of thing you’d do, I’m not like you. Now, you haven’t got much time.“ The Doctor took a step closer and held her hands out to him. The Thirteen made no attempt at handing over the child. The Doctor pulled out her screwdriver and returned to the work station. She soniced it once she found what she was looking for and pressed a button. “Start a countdown and blow up this place in five minutes,“ she spoke into the newly restored intercom, and only seconds later Kate replied on the same channel:

“Affirmative, we’re out of here, Doctor, starting the countdown for five minutes. Good luck!“ The line went dead with static.

“See?“ The Doctor turned back to the Thirteen. “Clock is ticking, time to make a decision, hand over my son.“

“No, no, no, it’s a trick,“ the Three pushed to the forefront of the Thirteen’s mind.

“No tricks but a ticking clock,“ River announced, taking a step towards him. “You still have time to get out of here with the serum.“ She pulled her gun on him for added pressure but she didn’t dare fire, her eyes fixed on her son. The Thirteen was right of course, there was no way of knowing whether their son was actually able to regenerate. It stood to reason as she had been able to herself at some point too, but it was not a given. She couldn’t take the risk. She trusted her wife knew what she was doing. She had dealt with the Thirteen far more frequently than the Master or she herself had.

“Feeling the pressure yet?“ The Master for his part appeared to be enjoying the sense of impending doom as he took a twirl.

“What are you doing?“ The Thirteen shrieked.

“You were never good under pressure, none of you were,“ the Doctor commented. “Four and a half minutes.“

“Stop it!“ The Thirteen shouted.

“Why, are we confusing you?“ The Master laughed.

“Give them the child!“ One of the Thirteen’s personalities shouted in near panic. “No, don’t, kill them, get out of here, kill the child and run-“ Another protested. “No, don’t, stop it, we can’t keep going like this, thirteen is enough, no more, please!“ Yet another interrupted pleading, until the Thirteen regained control. “Shut up all of you!“ He yelled, pressing a hand to his temple.

“Eight! Was that you?“ The Doctor recognised the voice that had pleaded for them to stop.

“Yes, but I can’t hold on, they’re all fighting amongst each other, too much-“ The Eight was there, distinct amongst the other voices, but the Thirteen forced him back: “Back in your box, Eight!“

“Some of you are reasonable, Twelve, you know this is just a stupid way to go! Seven, you too! Eleven, after everything, your desperate struggle for survival, are you really going to let it end like this?“ The Doctor saw her chance and the Thirteen was staggering now, disoriented.

“Four minutes,“ the Master interjected.

“Eight, come on, you can do it,“ the Doctor implored him.

“No. No, no, no, no,“ the Thirteen whimpered.

“Doctor, we need to do something.“ River was getting nervous, they weren’t getting anywhere.

“Help me,“ the Doctor said and River turned back to the Thirteen.

“Eight, remember when we met? The Doomsday Chronometer? You were trying to stop Padrac and your future self then, you can do it again now,“ she drew his attention away from the Doctor. She tried her best to recall the Eight when he had been himself. Kind, helpful and good, perhaps the Doctor was right, perhaps he could do this one last thing for them. “You are a good man!“

“NO! Shut up!“ The Thirteen yelled but River’s words cut through the chatter. “Professor, I’m so sorry, I can’t…I… don’t want to keep doing this anymore, please, you have to stop this.“ The Eight was back and he staggered forward.

“Three minutes,“ the Master announced.

River rushed forward and met the renegade Time Lord half way. The Eight held on just long enough to hand over the child and River pulled her son into her arms.

“It’s okay, Eight, it’s okay, thank you!“ The Doctor let go a sigh of relief.

“You are an embarrassment, we will bury you…“ The Thirteen shouted, wrestling control from his past self and River didn’t hesitate. She pointed her gun at him and shot him square in the chest.

“River!“ The Doctor exclaimed, shocked. “What have you done?“

“What the Eight wanted,“ River answered as she watched the Thirteen drop to all fours, his lives and energy spent. There was no golden hue, no fizzing of energy, not this time. They didn’t hang around to witness what happened next, their time was up.

“Let’s get out of here before the place blows up,“ the Master grabbed both of their arms and pulled them along, back to the TARDIS that they had two and a half minutes to get working again. With all the shields and suppression fields lifted, it was the easiest job of the day.

——

The TARDIS

“How… are you doing…“ The Doctor took a step towards River as the TARDIS launched and made for Torchwood Two.

“Good… we’re both… good…“ River managed a little smile as she smoothed back her son’s curls. “We should run a scan, maybe, make sure he’s really, properly, okay…“ She hummed but for the moment, she contented herself by holding him close. He had settled in her arms as if he had never been away.

“I can’t believe you’re really here…“ The Doctor breathed, looking at River in wonder. Against all odds, her wife had returned to her. It had been a most painstaking adventure but maybe, just this once, the end justifies the means.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…“ River met her eyes and the Doctor just smiled.

“Things got away from us a little bit, didn’t they,“ the Doctor sighed and River chuckled.

“All is well that ends well.“ She reached out and cupped her wife’s cheek. “Thank you for coming for us.“

“Always,“ the Doctor promised and pressed a soft kiss to her wife’s lips.

“Do you want to hold him?“ River asked and the Doctor bit back tears.

“Yes, please,“ she whispered and River passed their son to her. She rested her head on her shoulder as she watched her wife and son get acquainted. The Doctor swallowed and took a deep breath, struggling for composure as she ran her hand along her son’s cheek and the baby reached out, curling it’s little hand around her finger.

“He will need a name,“ River hummed and pressed a kiss to her wife’s cheek.

“Master Junior!“ The Master called from the console and River and the Doctor looked around, the perfect family moment ruined. They had completely forgotten he was even there. “Sorry, were you not quite done yet? It’s not like she’s in any state to come up with a name now anyway,“ he snarked. “I’ll have us arrive in six hours time then, shall I? Give everyone a chance to get back to your little base yeah?“ He gestured to the TARDIS controls. “Am I the only one who thinks practically around here?“

“This doesn’t undo what you did on Gallifrey…“ The Doctor spoke at last.

“No, I don’t suppose it does…“ He retorted without looking at her, his voice surprisingly reflective.

“But it’s a start.“

——

Torchwood Two Hub, 21st Century

“Thank you all so very much,“ the Doctor looked around the room to her numerous friends who had managed to make their way back to their base. She was beyond relieved to find them all with only minor injuries from the fistfight and in good spirits all round. They had won!

“It has been a pleasure,“ Kate took it upon herself to speak for all of them. They all shared the same sentiment.

“I couldn’t have done it without you, any of you. I’m sorry if… I was a bit much to deal with at times…“ The Doctor looked around the room into knowing faces.

“That’s an understatement…“ Yaz huffed and everybody laughed. In victory, the bumps and bruises they had sustained along the way were forgotten. What mattered was that the Doctor’s child was safe. The little boy was sleeping peacefully in River’s arms after they had checked him over and he turned out to be completely fine.

“Sorry, but are we going to forget all the Master’s crimes because he did one nice thing?“ It was Martha that felt she needed to be the voice of reason as she pointed to the Master who was hanging back, staying close to the door as if ready to make an escape at any point. It was obvious from his body posture that he didn’t feel he belonged here.

“No, but I am under the impression the Master is eager to make amends,“ the Doctor announced looking around to him.

“I am?“ He frowned and she nodded.

“He is,“ she confirmed. She had had a little bit of time to consider the best course of action and she felt confident she had found it. “There is a TARDIS in the wreckage of that place… you will find it, repair it and for your first trip take Madame Kovarian and Padrac to suitable new homes.“

“Where might that be?“ River asked. She herself would probably have opted for executing both of them, a sentiment the Master surely could get behind, but she knew it wasn’t the Doctor’s way. She was still upset with her for having shot the Thirteen but she had come around to see her reasoning. The Eight had asked for a release, and it was the only thing they could do for him, after he had returned their son to them.

“Stormcage for Madame Kovarian, I was thinking, time she found out where her schemes led River and how thoroughly unpleasant prison can be when you haven’t got the luxury of a Time Lord bailing you out now and again,“ the Doctor answered. “And I think Padrac would like to return to Gallifrey, wouldn’t he? To the ruins of it. Let him try and rebuild there.“

“I suppose so,“ the Master huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. It wasn’t the most unpleasant task. He would enjoy dropping Padrac on the dead rock that was their home world, it seemed like just punishment, and while he didn’t have much of an opinion on Madame Kovarian, it was a favour he wouldn’t mind doing the Doctor and her wife. All things considered, he would walk out of the arrangement with a TARDIS of his own so it seemed worth the trouble.

“And, as hopeful as I might be that you have changed your ways, I am not inclined to believe it just yet. So I would suggest an entourage of Torchwood and UNIT agents? I’m sure they would appreciate your help in dealing with the frequent incursions they face,“ the Doctor carried on, a winning smile crossing her features.

“Come on, Doctor, that’s not…“ The Master started to protest but she shook her head.

“No, you’re not getting out of it. You have amends to make. Remember my time as a UNIT special advisor? Let’s say it’s your turn now.“

“How long for?“ The Master huffed.

“Until I am satisfied that you have repaid your debt. You have destroyed one of my homes, now you can do your bit to protect the other,“ the Doctor explained sternly. “At least while I take some time away to be with my family.“

“Anything else?“ The Master sighed, exasperated.

“That’ll do for now, I’ll be in touch. I would have said you can drop Vastra and the gang on your way but I suppose they might want to get home sooner rather than later.“ The Doctor smiled at Vastra, Strax and Jenny who this fateful adventure had started with. “Come on guys, let’s drop you home.“ She nodded for them to follow out of the hub and back to the surface where her TARDIS was parked. “And you, my brave, wonderful friends…“ She beamed at the remainder of her companions, words failing her for how grateful she was to each and every one of them.

“I’m sure we will do just fine with our new recruit.“ Kate gave her a reassuring smile.

“No doubt about it,“ Jack confirmed with a grin, as did Gwen, the Osgoods, Martha and Mickey.

“I’m sure you will.�� The Doctor winked at the Master who rolled his eyes and held his hands up appeasingly. He seemed to have no intention of making life hard for them.

“Fam, I think you’ve found a new home here.“ The Doctor turned to Ryan and Graham who had walked over to join the Torchwood and UNIT agents.

“Well, someone needs to look after Earth while you go on paternity leave,“ Graham joked and the Doctor chuckled and nodded. She was glad to see them doing so well, it was an incredible joy to see them all working together. “What about you, Yaz, are you staying with them or…“ She wasn’t sure how to approach the third member of her fam. Yaz had wanted to keep travelling with her but this would be a bit different going forward, at least for a time.

“You know what, Doctor… I think I’d like to go with Vastra, Jenny and Strax… if they’ll have me of course…“ Yaz looked to the Paternoster Gang with a sheepish smile. It had been quite the adventure they had been on together and she had given the matter a lot of thought. She wasn’t quite ready to give up on the life of adventure yet but the Doctor would need to spend time with her family now. After their epic adventure through space, solid ground would make a nice change. Fighting crime in Victorian England sounded like just the adventure she needed next.

“You are welcome to stay for as long as you like,“ Vastra smiled.

“How come?“ The Doctor asked, genuinely surprised and curious in equal measures. She would have expected her to want to stay with Torchwood but she had clearly underestimated the journey she had been on with the Paternoster Gang.

“I’ve had enough of space and age-old feuds for a while… I think I’d like to discover more of Earth and focus on more human monsters for a while. What can I say, I’m a trainee police officer… who better to learn the trade from than a real life Sherlock Holmes,“ Yaz grinned, delighted at the idea. She knew that she could always call upon her and hatch a lift back to her time when she was good and ready.

“Well in that case, next stop Victorian London!“ The Doctor grinned and bid farewell to the protectors of 21st Century Earth.

——

“Professor, I just want to say… I’m sorry we weren’t better guardians to your son.“ Vastra felt the need to apologise one more time as they found themselves outside the front door of Paternoster Row.

“You are the bravest, most loyal group of friends anyone could wish for. You have crossed all of time and space to bring us back together, you saved me from Demon’s Run, you have done more than I could ever ask of you.“ River took Vastra’s hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze. She understood the Silurian was a creature with an honour-based belief system, but surely she had to see that any debt she thought she owed her had been repaid tenfold.

“We’re just glad everything turned out alright,“ Jenny smiled, looping her arm around her wife’s.

“Everything turned out just fine,“ the Doctor assured them.

“Ma’am, will we be having visitors, shall I prepare tea?“ Strax asked and Vastra looked to the Doctor and River.

“Would you care to come in? I’m afraid the kitchen is still a bit of a mess but I’m sure Strax can manage,“ the lady of the house asked.

“We will get out of your hair for now,“ the Doctor chuckled. “But we will be dropping by, don’t worry.“ The Doctor gave Yaz a kind smile, hoping she would enjoy the change of scenery and the young woman mirrored the gesture.

“Look after yourself and your family,“ Yaz smiled and the Doctor nodded, sharing a glance with River, intent on doing just that.

“Let’s go home.“ The Doctor reached for her wife’s hand and pressed a kiss to her son’s head before they headed back to the TARDIS.

END.

-------------------

Author notes: Okay, so first of all, thank you very much for reading!!! I appreciate each and every one of you and your lovely comments, ideas and opinions, they honestly make my day and bring me so much joy, it keeps me writing and knowing you enjoy my sometimes confusing and ridiculously complicated stories, that's just the best!!!

I really hope you found the ending satisfying and that I wrapped up all plot points properly. I'll leave you to imagine what adventures the Master gets up to with UNIT/Torchwood and whether he can stay on the straight and narrow, how Yaz gets on in Victorian London with the Paternoster Gang and of course how the Doctor, her wife and their son navigate family life together! I don't now if I will ever revisit this universe, probably not for a while, but I left my options open (hence them not watching the Thirteen die and the Doctor leaving the sample behind, who knows maybe they find a way of dragging themselves over there, making the serum and getting more regenerations before everything blows up, Time Lords take forever to die :P).

I had several different endings planned for this along the way (The Master was going to be evil and behind it all when I first set out. At one point I had planned for River to go back in time and abduct the baby from Paternoster Row and replacing it with a flesh avatar - that's why I gave her the Clocksmith's TARDIS in the first place :D - and she was going to drop him off with the Eighth Doctor at Bakerstreet...) but in the end, this felt like the one that fit best. I really wanted to have the Master working with UNIT and mirror the Third Doctor's time in exile that way. So yes, all in all, I really hope this worked for you!!

Last but not least, I'd be delighted if any of you chose to check out the big project I'm going to be focusing on now: A Numbers Game (I'll probably be posting the next chapter tomorrow!). I realise it's a bit of a departure from my normal stuff but I'm very excited about it and the storyline will be as timey-whimy and confusing as this one lol. Also, you've now spent plenty of time with one of the Eighth Doctor's best villains, why not spent some time with Eight and his companions and read about them fighting Daleks with Thirteen, River and co? Plus, there will be more of UNIT, Torchwood and the Fam teaming up! :D

Anyway, enough self-promotion :D Again, thank you very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

17 notes · View notes

asterekmess · 4 years

Note

honestly, my fury at the lack of werewolf culture/history/worldbuilding is worthy of its own post. Let me know if by some ungodly chance, you actually wanna hear my thoughts on it // Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

ohmygod yes, pls, enable me.

SO.

I think I mentioned b4 that Teen Wolf hates werewolves.

This is a show about werewolves like, yeah, sure, they do other plots and stuff. But the main character is a werewolf. The vast majority of the cast are werewolves (at least in the first half of the show). But think about it. What do we actually know about werewolves? They uhh, they shift on the full moon. But like, what about the full moon? Cus’ Scott gets handcuffed to a radiator and he doesn’t shift and break out until the moon comes out from behind the clouds and he screams like it’s excruciatingly painful for him. But then Derek and his Betas are underground during their full moon, and they shift like it’s all fine and dandy (they’re furious, but there’s no pain) and it doesn’t matter whether they can see the moon or not. They, uhh, they’re allergic to wolfsbane/it’s poisonous to them (btw it’s poisonous to literally everyone, just the scent of it is enough to cause seizures and hallucinations in humans. It’s a whole other frustration that they won’t make up their fucking minds abt it. It’s one thing to say that this is some parallel universe where wolfsbane doesn’t poison humans (bc lydia makes them hallucinate with the punch but injesting that much wolfsbane should kill you, and Stiles straight pulls a plant out of the ground; should’ve caused itching, burning, a cough, nausea, fever, headache and More hallucinations) and yet Jackson has to see a doctor and gets told he’s got Aconite Poisoning. So WHAT IS THE TRUTH?) but apparently not enough for Derek not to be able to plant a wolfsbane plant and massive cord of roots (which he would’ve had to tie together himself) in a revenge spiral around Laura’s body. But just being around it causes wolves to lose control. But also there’s supposed to be different strains that do different things? And also sometimes you burn the wolfsbane and it becomes the cure, or you have to burn it out of them or you just cut it out of them? Make UP Your MIND or at least ACKNOWLEDGE that different strains do different things. They get stronger on a full moon. But does that mean they get infinitely stronger with every full moon they experience? Does that mean they get weaker during new moons? They’re stronger in packs. Okay, but they never establish what the fuck a pack is. Is it an agreement? Is it a magical bond? Scott just sort of says people are in his pack. Does that mean they are? Do the humans he knows make him stronger? Just how strong is this bond? Derek makes a claim that “You have your own pack now” so is that a joke, was he mocking scott? Or is he saying that there’s no need for an Alpha and just being a beta with some friends counts as a pack? Apparently they have some kind of...animal magnetism or mind control? Derek uses a funny voice and a guy wakes up from a near coma to look at him with seemingly no control. Peter can force Scott to shift up. Derek forces Isaac to shift down. Derek has an insane amount of control over dogs and makes one lose its fucking mind from like a hundred feet away? Scott makes one calm down, but derek sends attack dogs running with their tails between their legs. Is it actual control or is it just a persuasion? Is it just intimidation? I haven’t even gotten to culture. You’re telling me that we get an entire episode of Allison discovering the entire story behind the Argent clan’s origins as werewolf hunters, why they started, how her name means Silver and apparently that’s where the entire myth of silver hurting werewolves comes from, but we don’t get to know anything about the first werewolves? Where they come from? If they’re a form of evolution or just straight magic or if it’s a curse or a gift from the gods? There’s an entire hidden werewolf population with packs all over the world, but somehow there’s literally no wolf culture? No moon worship? No specific terminology (Alpha, Beta, and Omega are terms used by a really fucking stupid biologist who studied frantic wolves in captivity and cast aspersions on the entire species. He’s been disproven a Thousand Times. NONE of that Alpha, Beta, Omega shit is right. Packs aren’t Hierarchies of Dominance. They’re families. They’re led by two wolves, yes, an “alpha pair” that’s literally JUST THE PARENTS. THE ‘BETAS’ ARE THEIR KIDS. This terminology makes sense if used by HUNTERS who consider werewolves to be mindless dumb animals. WHY THE FUCK would werewolves use it to DESCRIBE THEMSELVES?) besides the absolute minimum of ‘I caught a scent?’ Are you serious? Then there’s werewolf ages. Oh my god that was so fucking lazy. Saying that werewolves don’t age like humans, but that Cora is seventeen “by human standards” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I’ve seen theories that go so many different ways. The idea that Werewolves live really long lives because of the superhealing. The idea that they live really short lives because their healing just burns through their body really quickly. The idea that their lifespan is directly correlated to the amount of damage they take because they can only heal so much, so wolves who get hurt a lot age faster than wolves who don’t. There’s NO explanation! You’d think it might be an interesting point for Scott to find out that he’s gonna live to fucking 200 years old. (How old is Satomi again?) That sounds like something a Teenager would be daunted by. We see them make fun of Stiles a few times because he believes werewolf myths about silver, and then because he believes Peter when Peter tells him he lives in a series of underground caves. But like...why not? THESE ARE WEREWOLVES why did you just make them humans with extra facial hair? Where are the traditional mating rituals (or even the concept of a mate/life partner, can you imagine how interesting that would’ve been? If Scott found out Allison was his mate? Or if he suddenly had all these weird urges around her, like rubbing their foreheads together or cuddling her way too much or wanting to bring her food? That would’ve been fascinating and hilarious as subplots for their romance!) where are the full moon runs or pack get-togethers? Where are the aversions to perfumes or cologne? Where are literally any animal behaviors besides AGGRESSION? Where is the den-making? Can werewolves eat fast food or does the grease bug them? Talia was a famous Alpha bc she could full shift. Does anyone know why she could do that? “Evolution” is a bullshit answer, let’s be real. It’s shitty writing and it put Derek through so much more than he deserved. THEY ACCIDENTALLY ESTABLISHED that ALL HALES can full-shift! IT’s NOT EVOLUTION. It’s BIRTHRIGHT. Talia fullshifted. Peter full-shifted (though his was distorted into the monster thingy. That wasn’t anything like Deucalion’s shift. It was a FULL SHIFT) Laura could full shift bc she did it after she died. No other werewolves on the show turned into full wolves after death, even if they died with wolfsbane in their system? MALIA could full-shift into a coyote. LITERALLY EVERY HALE except Cora and that’s bc she got booted back to South America COuld FULL SHIFT (and it never happened after they lost all of their wolf powers, that coud’ve been an interesting plot if they didn’t FUCK IT UP.) But still there’s no explanation, or even just acknowledgement? You don’t have to spell it out for us, but at least SAY “Hey, so the Hale family is really powerful and all of us can full-shift. Not sure why, but it’s neat.) I’m still stuck on rituals. Routines. Werewolf mores. Social cues. Are there certain smells they’re supposed to ignore? Is it polite to pretend you don’t hear someone coming up to your house until they knock? Do they have rules about waiting until the Alpha eats before they start eating (much like how lots of traditional households wait for the father to dig in, or whoever is head of household)? Is it tradition to homeschool werewolves for the first few years until they learn control? Are there seriously no rules about biting humans? You don’t have to talk to their parents or have a specific conversation with them? And if werewolves are so dominance/hierarchy based, then you’re telling me there’s no “second-in-command” or respectful greetings that are supposed to be used for an Alpha? There’s absolutely no form of werewolf government or ancient laws or anything except a big spiral that is universally recognized as a sign you’re gonna kill people? What was the wolfsbane around Laura’s body for? Why make the spiral out of that instead of just drawing in the dirt or something? We make a lot of jokes about Derek being bad with his words, but so is Peter and so is Cora. And they’re the only born wolves we interact with (except Satomi who ALSO isn’t a chatterbox) What if that’s not just because they’re all traumatized and cranky? What if they’re just speaking on a different level? Scents and body language are integral to wolf interaction. Like how we say that Peter has that conversation with Derek’s eyebrows? What if Derek’s so fucking pissed all the time because he hates talking to Scott because SCott ISN”T LISTENING to his body language and scent and chemosignals? He tells Scott to use all his senses, and Scott does it fucking once to say that Peter felt “Angry” and never again. What if Derek is Talking PLENTY (with his body and movements and reactions) but Scott just isn’t paying attention? Isaac seems to understand Derek just fine. Erica and Boyd never complain that Derek is lying to them or ‘keeping something’ from them? What if the reason Scott always thinks Derek’s hiding something is because he isn’t reading the rest of Derek’s conversation and he assumes that the empty feeling is Derek lying. Even STILES seems to understand Derek. He’s human, but he goes totally wolfy. He already uses body language a lot and while he gets mad at Derek he never has to ask what the fuck derek is saying or what he’s holding back. I digress. I wanna know why no other packs came to help Derek and Laura after their family died. I wanna know why Emissaries and Druids are so incredibly important to the supernatural/werewolf world but Derek barely knew they existed (Especially when it’s established that he know tons of lore about other species.) and even though every single pack should have an emissary, they never handle who is the emissary for Derek’s pack or for Scott’s pack (Once again, is an emissary bound to their pack somehow or is it just an agreement?). I wanna know why Derek knew Satomi and trusted her but for some reason never felt like he could ask her for help? Centuries of hiding and living amongst humans with almost no wolf behavior to their name, but none of these packs interact? There’s Druid Vets and Hunter cops and Emissary counselors. But no werewolf doctors? No werewolf teachers? Absolutely no werewolf society? If Derek was worried about Paige not accepting that he was a werewolf unless she became one, what does that say about his experience with humans? He says “there were people in my family that were perfectly ordinary in that house” who died in the fire. But wouldn’t he talk to a human pack member about his worries, if he had one? Or even a bitten pack member? He admits he doesn’t know how to train a Bitten wolf. He’s never been called out by a human pack member for using phrases like ‘caught a scent’ or for reacting to things he shouldn’t. Does this mean Derek’s family was entirely werewolves? No humans in the know? No bitten wolves? He has a huge thing about keeping the secret and never letting anyone in on it unless they get dragged into it. Did Derek’s pack have some kind of prejudice against humans? Was Derek raised to believe humans were weak or cowardly or something, that he thought this beautiful girl would automatically hate him and expose him if she were to discover the supernatural without being forced into silence by self-preservation.

Lots of times, it’s easy to forget in this fandom that so much is missing, because we’ve been filling in the gaps for so long that some stuff is practically canon. It’s generally assumed that the Hales were homeschooled before high school. It’s generally assumed that there’s some kind of bond that marks people as pack. We instinctively add in mentions of Scent and the use of the shift (growling, claws, a hint of fang, flashing eyes) as part of the casual communication between characters. We add in scent-marking and territory boundaries and specific roles in the pack. We do all of that and never think twice because it’s already in all the fic. But we did that. The show gave us nothing. It spent an entire season talking about the nogitsune and the oni and how they’re summoned and what kitsune fox tails are for, but we never got to find out why wolves can do the pain-drain (or even if it dissipates the pain or just transfers it to the wolf doing the draining) or if Derek Hale EVEN HAS A DAD.

#personal #rant #Meta Ramblings #it's not even anti-scott #Anonymous #go for it

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ace-in-a-shopping-cart · 4 years

Text

Day 23

Prompt: At a certain age you switch bodies with your soulmate for 24 hours.

Word Count: 2,076

Main Taglist: (Send an ask to be added or removed!) @starlocked01, @spoopy-turtle, @lizluvscupcakes, @more-fandon-than-friends, @i-cant-find-a-good-username, @vindicatedvirgil, @star-crossed-shipper, @justaqueercactus, @gayboopnoodle, @sanderssidesweirdo, @the-sympathetic-villain, @8-writes, @lizzy-lineart, @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun, sirprplsnail

Soulmate taglist:(Send an ask to be added or removed!) @elizabutgayer, @melodiread, @tsshipmonth2020, @mikalya12, @8-writes, @lizzy-lineart

CW: Food, implied abusive household, one (1) curse word.

Virgil rolled over, hand smacking to turn off an alarm he didn’t remember setting. Eyes opening, he found the world to be fuzzy and out of focus. He noticed the sheets surrounding him were softer than anything he’d ever felt before. Glancing at the side table, he noticed a white notecard sitting atop a black cylinder. Reaching forward, he picked up both items. The cylinder fell open and a pair of glasses tumbled to the sheets. Virgil picked them up and put them on, groaning in relief at being able to see, the eye strain he hadn’t even noticed disappearing.

Looking down at the notecard, he found neat handwriting on it. ‘Greetings! My name is Logan Croft. I am 20 years old. If you are reading this, that means you are my soulmate and have turned 18. You are free to eat anything that is in the kitchen however I must ask that you refrain from eating peanuts of any kind throughout the day as I am severely allergic. My schedule for the day is on the kitchen table. Happy birthday.’ Great, he thought. I thought I had another year until this.

Virgil rolled out of bed, moving to the mirror propped in the corner to look at the face he’d be wearing for the next twenty-four hours. His hair was slightly mussed from sleep and his night clothes hung from the tall and lanky frame. Lifting the shirt, he was surprised to find a muscular abdomen. He turned, sorting through the closet for something he could stand to wear for the day. It was filled with business casual to formal which made Virgil think he was a business major of some sort.

Thinking that he’d decide after breakfast, he walked to the kitchen and found the schedule. Picking it up, he found a loaf of bread and made some toast as he read over it. Glancing at the kitchen clock, he saw that the first class was in twenty minutes. He grabbed the toast and ran back to the bedroom, not wanting to be late for class. The class list seemed more in line with a marine biology major than a business one but he still put on a polo and jeans. He would have attempted the tie but he’d never been taught how. Then, with toast in his mouth and the schedule in hand, he quickly pulled up a navigation app and was out the front door.

~~~~~~

Logan woke to a loud and annoying song blaring near his ear. He sat straight up in bed, taking a second to notice that his vision wasn’t blurry before he turned to riffle under the pillow. He felt a rectangle and pulled it out, finding a phone that was quite a few years past its usefulness. He swiped it open and turned off the alarm, the music cutting off.

He slid off the bed, feet hitting a cold floor, before looking around the room. He found a clean, if bare, room with papers strewn across a desk in the corner and a purple hoodie tossed over the back of the desk chair. He moved over to the desk, picking up a paper to find math equations scrawled over them, the name Virgil Stern written neatly at the top.

“Hello, soulmate.” He whispered quietly to himself, the voice raspy with sleep. He glanced up, seeing his reflection in the cracked mirror covering the closet door. There were dark circles much larger than he knew was healthy under his eyes.

Before he could get a better look, a voice cut through the silence. “Virgil, if you don’t get down here soon you’re gonna be late and I’m not waiting for you!” The shout from outside the door was combined with pounding.

Logan took that as his cue to dress. Picking up the hoodie, he made his way to the closet and threw on a tattered looking shirt and some ripped black jeans. Slinging the hoodie over his shoulders, he snatched up the bag next to the chair. He found a list on the desk that seemed to contain what was needed for the day. Seeing the class schedule on the back, he shoved it into the bag.

He heard footsteps outside the door and tore out of the room, running down the stairs. “I’m coming!” He called.

“It’s about time!” The woman standing at the door exclaimed. Logan ducked his head, passing her on his way out. He stood uncertainly on the walk, not knowing what to do. The woman waited for five other teens to pass her before she closed the door. Logan silently followed the others to a minivan, sliding in with the ones who looked closest to Virgil’s age.

~~~~~~

Virgil got through the first class just fine, taking as detailed notes as he could. He had no idea what was going on or what his soulmate might need so he wrote down everything that seemed important, which meant he was one step away from writing down the whole lecture. He was on his way to the next class, searching the sides of buildings for names, when he heard someone call Logan’s name.

Turning, he saw someone running toward him so he slowed down slightly. When the person caught up with him, they looked like they were about to time travel to the past. Virgil couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is it dress like a pirate day and no one told me?” He immediately wished he hadn’t spoken.

The stranger just put their hands on their hips and laughed. “Logan, how have I not told you about the most recent play I’m in?”

Virgil just chuckled. “Uh, you might have at one point. I’m not myself today.”

The stranger laughed with him. “You could say that again. So, did you and your soulmate swap?”

Virgil sighed. “I have no idea how to act like Logan.”

The person laughed, sticking out a hand. “I’m Roman, his best friend. I go by they/them pronouns.”

Virgil smiled, shaking their hand. “Virgil; he/him.”

Roman smiled. “Cool. Logan also goes by he/him. Come on,” they began walking and Virgil fell in step, “We have classes near each other so we usually walk together anyways.”

Virgil smiled. “So, what’s your play about?” Roman launched into a detailed explanation of it while Virgil was just glad to not have to think or do anything besides walk and listen for a few minutes.

The peace was over as they arrived at the next class and Virgil once again had no idea what was going on. He followed along and took notes just short of being the transcription for the lecture, trying to get down everything. Luckily, it didn’t look like Logan had any classes after this so he was free to meet up with Roman and simply follow them around as needed. He ended up spending the rest of the day sitting in the theatre while Roman ran lines and did the costume practice. He even got the chance to meet Roman’s soulmate, Patton.

~~~~~~

Logan was in his own personal hell. He had to deal with so many rowdy people in one car, high school again, and people who obviously didn’t care about his soulmate. For goodness sake, none of them had even mentioned that it should be Virgil’s eighteenth birthday. They should have known it was coming, they should have asked about it, done something. Instead, he got a lecture in the car ride about needing better sleep habits.

When he got to the school, he was almost instantly attacked from behind. Muscle memory moved the body before he even thought, throwing the person over his shoulder and flat onto their back in front of him. Logan took the few seconds while the person was getting up to wonder why that was the first instinct.

“Hiya, Verb!” The person said, dusting the front of their clothes off.

Logan straightened his backpack and frowned. “Am I supposed to know you?”

The person laughed. “Wow, looks like your soulmate is a year older than you, Virge. Or, I guess I should use your name, Virgil’s soulmate?”

Logan began walking into the building and Virgil’s friend followed. “My name is Logan. I’m assuming Virgil’s eighteenth birthday is today as I’ve been twenty for almost five months.”

The person snapped, reaching a hand out to shake Logan’s. “Well, my name is Remus but Verb normally calls me Stinky. What should I call you?”

“Logan will suffice. I’m assuming we have the same classes? I don’t know this school’s layout.”

Remus nodded. “Yep! Just stick with me and you’ll be fine, friendo!”

They went through the rest of the day at each other’s sides. Logan took as detailed notes as he deemed necessary, the important things from what he remembered. At lunch, he was informed that Virgil and everyone around him thought that he was turning seventeen today instead of eighteen. When he asked about that, he was told that Virgil had been in the foster system for a while and had to repeat a grade due to bad home life disrupting his grades.

The end of the day came and he went back to the front of the school with Remus, having to pack himself into the van with the other kids. He sent a quick, “Bye, Stinky!” for show before the door closed. He spent the rest of the ride in silence but his thoughts were racing. His mind was made up as they arrived at home, Logan instantly going up the stairs to do Virgil’s homework for him. On a scrap piece of paper, he wrote his phone number down before pausing.

Carefully, he began writing in his neatest handwriting. ‘I don’t know you yet, but I want to. I want to know what your laugh sounds like when I’m the one making you laugh. I want to know what you think about late at night. I want to know you. I want you to know me, to know whatever you want about me, to know my darkest secret and know I give it willingly. I want to know you and be known by you. I can’t wait to meet you, no matter how long it takes. I hope you had a good birthday and that Roman took you out for ice cream or something. I hope you know you are loved and appreciated.’

He went about making the bed and neatening up the room as much as he could. If he couldn’t be there to wish his soulmate a happy birthday, he could at least give him a nice present. That present might not be an expensive item, but it could be finished homework, a clean room, and a good night’s rest.

~~~~~~

The end of the time came and they swapped back at midnight. Both soulmates’ best friend filled them in on the events of the day and everything their soulmate did. After all, it was a few years before they met again.

When they did, it was by complete chance, as most soul meetings went. It was outside an aquarium. Logan was just getting off his shift and Virgil was going to the donut shop across the street from it. Logan saw him and paused. “Virgil?” He called.

Virgil turned, trying to find the voice that had been his own for a day and still populated his dreams and evenings, the nightly calls coming to mind. His name was called again and he saw the figure standing across the street. He waved and watched as Logan came across to him, a smile on his face. “Logan, hi.”

Logan couldn’t help but reach forward, hand brushing Virgil’s in a silent ask for permission to hold it. Virgil’s smile grew as he turned his hand to take Logan’s. “You know,” Virgil began, “I was just about to grab a donut if you wanted to join me?”

Logan smiled. “I’d love to, soulmate.” The word was said as both an endearment and a promise. A promise of a life spent together, of days starting and ending with each other, of a shelter and a place to relax without having to hide any part of himself. An endearment of love, of someone worth loving, and that was all that Virgil needed. If he hadn’t been in love with his soulmate already, he would have fallen in that moment for that one word that held so much.

#tsshipmonth2020 #soulmate au #analogical #logan sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #angst with some fluff thrown in for variety #ace writes

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aerial-aspie · 3 years

Text

An Autistic Point of View 2

Hi there! It's Hazel and I'm first going to talk about what it's like to me to be autistic.

So for me I got diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the age of 14 and it has helped me understand a lot of my traits, which now I can articulate to you.

I'm obsessive and I mean very obsessive, once I find something I really really like it's all the occupies my brain day and night, everyday and sometimes to the point where I can't focus because all I want to think about is my obsession. A few examples of this was Vocaloid, BTS/K-pop and right now Genshin Impact.

During lessons, I struggled to stay 100% focused at all times because my brain always likes to drift off into dream land and I have to make a big mental effort to reign myself back into reality. This problem affect me when I used to take Chemistry (it was far too hard for my pea brain anyway) and the moment my brain switched off, BOOM! I'd missed a ton of information, even if it was only for 10 seconds.

However, now, after changing subjects and finding the right ones for me, I'm finding it much easier to control my need to daydream and can focus much better.

Next, I am forgetful. Imagine a sieve but only the unimportant information (normally to do with what I'm obsessing over) stays and everything else falls through, no matter how important it is to me. I hurt my knuckles over lockdown learning and needed to ice them frequently and it was very important, however, 2 seconds after remembering I needed to do that, you guessed it! I forgot about it.

Forgetfulness is hard, especially when at school because I need to drill my theory into my brain so hard because I will forget so easily. As well as at school, I have my phone and Alexa full of reminders to tell me to simple tasks such as to update this blog or to practice my piano or else I'd forget.

Lets throw in a weird one now. To be honest even I have no clue if this is an autistic trait but it's certainly something that affects me. When studying or reading I can't listen to any music with English lyrics. Why? Because I focus on the lyrics and draw myself into them and then struggle to concentrate when working because I can understand what's being sung. So my playlists involve game soundtracks, a few screamo bands (you can't understand what they're saying anyways) and Asian pop.

One thing that was said through my diagnosis is that it's possible I could have anxiety for life and as of writing this I'm currently trying to get therapy or medication for it.

Anxiety is isolating, it's painful with its physical side effects (which manifest in chest pains for me), it gives unneeded stress over problems which to others seem minor, it gives me panic attacks which range in severity, it gives a fear embarrassment, of messing up, of standing out, of being DIFFERENT.

Everything about myself I scrutinise, I'm trying to give up chocolate because it gives me so much extra stress that I believe it's unhealthy for myself. I must present myself in a way where I don't seem rude or impolite as I'm scared of how everyone will react. If I get into an argument or something I believe is an argument, I beat myself up about it and I feel like I hurt everyone around me.

I believe I'm a constant annoyance, when I'm around people I'm comfortable with I'm a chatterbox and you can't shut me up. But it makes me self conscious, am I talking too much? Is everyone just being friendly out of obligation? Are they all secretly annoyed at me? Are questions I ask myself daily and blame myself at some points for not being normal.

My brain sticks to the past and words echo my mind for sometimes years giving me fears that others would even know of. Such as the lessons about heart disease in biology always play in my mind to the point I want to give up chocolate because it's giving me so much stress as my brain is like OH MY GOD YOU ATE CHOCOLATE NOW YOU'RE GONNA DIE! And then I get stressed and get chest pains which only further add to it.

Now we got the heavy topic out the way lets move on! Autism has led me to have a fine motor coordination disability which has affect me my whole life, I can't handwrite well, I struggle opening tins, peeling vegetables, unlocking the door to get in my house, using scissors, folding things and the list goes on (and let me tell you it's long).

But you get the gist, I struggle with a lot of things and it can take me a much longer amount of time to work out things than someone normal.

I'm also extremely disorganised, actually that's a lie. I'm extremely organised but it doesn't look it. My room is a mess and I know that but I could tell you where everything is in seconds because it's what I call 'an organised mess'. I organise things but it's not neat, it's just where my brain decides is a good place to put things.

My school bag is so organised to point I don't like people touch it because I know where everything is and it has to be in the same pockets or else I'll get upset because it just has to be there and that is something no one can change.

However, even though I'm on that point of organisation, I still get stressed about if I have forgotten anything even though I never have.

Part of my autism is physical traits too, I am born with weak muscles in many places, the ones I know of so far are my wrists, knees, eyes and lower back. Because of this I can't handwrite long essays and have to have computer support to help me with this problem. With other areas, it's places I know I need to be careful when training at circus because I discovered my weak back after crucifix rolls on a cloudswing went wrong (it's a type of error that will always happen when learning this move) and I locked up my spine, from then on I've never done that move ever again.

Whilst being quite extroverted (only around people I'm comfortable with, if not I'm extremely shy) I'm actually very sensitive to things. I can't be touched suddenly or at my waist or I will flinch or flail and let me tell you, as I martial artist I do hit extremely hard in reflex. I also am sensitive to loud noises when I'm not expecting it, such as seeing war horse the stage show where the sounds of gun shots and explosions were played so loud that I had a panic attack in the theatre. However, at concerts, I'm fine as I'm expecting this loud noise and I know what is coming.

A weird thing I find about myself is that I'm very contrasting, I'm highly emotional but don't understand emotion. My first emotional response to any emotion is to cry and yes it is extremely embarrassing to cry in front of others (I believe crying in public should be normalised not shamed). Yet I can't understand emotion such as when people are sad, I don't realise it and happily talk to them and then feel like they hate me because they ignore me and then beat myself up for not realising they're sad when they tell me so. But it's not just sadness, being talked to in a firm voice, to me means they're angry when they're not, criticism means everything I've done is stupid and you get the point.

However, not only do I not understand emotion normally, I actually at times can't feel it, I get excited before a concert but when it starts I feel nothing, everything I feel just disappears and my mind is blank, so I actually have to force myself to be happy and then my brain realises I'm happy and I don't have to put in effort to sustain an emotion.

Now last but not least (remember how I said I was forgetful, it's already come into play here that I can't even remember if I've covered everything about my Asperger's) I can't do instructions, if I'm given a list of items I need to take, a long list of instructions to follow with no physical copy to reference by the time the last instruction has been said, I've already forgotten the first one and this has been fatal when I've ended up with really bad sunburn because I forgot to bring sun cream because the list I was given was too long to remember.

And that's it folks, my autism is a nutshell that's probably missing some stuff but it's as much as I can tell you from the top of my head and if I remember more stuff I'll make sure to post it.

Thanks for following!

#autism #autistic experiences #being autistic #autistic culture #autistic problems #actually autistic #autistic life

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your-turn-to-role · 4 years

Note

hi okay i hate sending asks to people without knowing them but you seem kind so im trying: during the break, i’ve been working my way through VM, and i’m at episode 75. my question, because i’ve read some of your more recent meta, is “what’s Percy’s deal?” i know he’s loved by the fandom, but i can’t find myself relating to him, and i find his assertions that he’s the only one with a plan offputting. is there more context you can give to me about percy’s character that explains his motivations?

aww, thank you!

(and yeah, asks like this are totally fine, i totally get that anxiety, good job on sending this!)

i mean, first off, you don't have to like a character everyone else does? if you don't relate to percy you can just, not relate to percy, that's fine

(and to be fair, as much as i love him as a character, i would not want him as a friend, because he's a very flawed person that has a lot to work on, but in fiction those traits are interesting to watch rather than difficult to deal with)

but, percy's deal! the short answer is people generally like him because taliesin's funny and charismatic and he does morally grey right, which is rare and a fun thing to explore (also in his relationships with other people, the entire vex-vax-percy-keyleth square is full of neat parallels and opposites and interesting things and i have whole essays in my head on all six combos there)

i don’t know which posts you’ve read so i’ll link this one here too, just to cover a couple more of the generally unnoticed aspects of his character, and things i like about percy

he’s also far from perfect, as you’ve noted, he does tend to believe he’s the smartest person in any given room, because he’s young and clever and used to being that, which you’re allowed to find off putting, but i will say i find he does that less than a lot of characters of his general archetype? he listens to pike, he listens to keyleth, he listens to vex, he respects when they have more knowledge than him on a particular subject, he’s not above asking for help. and generally most of the arguments he has with keyleth on that subject aren’t him asserting he knows more than her, but more a matter of principles and values (they’re a really interesting pair that way, they have similar backgrounds, both children of royalty running away from the crown, but they’re such opposites. percy is a natural leader who would rather anyone rule than him, keyleth fumbles her way through all of it but sticks to it because she doesn’t want to let anyone down, percy is a pragmatist, keyleth is an idealist, they both are too focused on the big picture but in two completely different ways, i could write a whole other post on this, but to get to my point, they wouldn’t be such good balances for each other if percy didn’t absolutely respect where keyleth is coming from)

for the long answer, i’m gonna break this down into parts and try to get to the core of percy's character and why he is the way he is

(under the cut bc this gets long)

1 - heavy trauma

like... this is the really really big one. percy, at age 17 or 18, had his entire life up to that point completely destroyed. his family was killed, his friends were killed, people he trusted like family (professor anders, who was a more present figure in percy's life than his actual parents) betrayed him and helped the briarwoods, he was imprisoned in his own castle's dungeons and tortured for information, they threw his siblings' bodies in there with him to make a point, cassandra helped him escape but as far as he knew she died helping him. he has two years of his life after that he straight up doesn't remember, his hair turned white from the stress of it.

trying to go after ripley the first time didn't work, he was captured and left to starve in a prison cell, for the first few months of travelling with vox machina he genuinely believed it wasn't real, because realistically no one was gonna come save him, this was just a hallucination of his dying mind. returning to whitestone he was forced to confront the fact that literally everyone he ever knew growing up (with the sole exception of archibald) was either dead or working with the briarwoods, and even after retaking the city there's a lot that can never be repaired.

and he's just... never really dealt with any of this? like, he gave vox machina the technical details of what happened to him in the briarwood arc, because they needed to know that information, but the first time he actually started processing his trauma, the first time he admits it out loud to anyone, is the final episode of campaign one. before then it had been occasional snide or handwavey comments, and like, he'll let himself feel the anger over it (in the beginning of the story he encouraged it, because then he didn't have to feel anything else), but he's never processed the grief, never admitted to himself how badly that affected him

which means he's got a lot of pent up emotions in there that he just keeps burying, and sometimes they come out in unhealthy ways. having so much taken from him also makes him really motivated to keep the things he does have - he’s got some deep set abandonment issues and takes any kind of betrayal really badly, don’t know if you’ve got up to the scanlan stuff by the time i post this, but that’s something to keep in mind as to why he acts the way he does there. (and it’s not more explicit because percy was raised nobility, keeping a brave face through anything is part of who he is, he tends to cover emotions he’s insecure about in snark or indifference or, for the intense ones, anger, because those are the things he thinks he’s allowed to show, but the real emotions show up occasionally, when they’re particularly strong, or if you’re reading between the lines. he really does care a lot about vox machina)

2 - legacy and loyalty.

speaking of nobility, it's hard to do a character study on percy without mentioning whitestone and the house of de rolo. this is the number one thing to percy. he was raised to respect title and name, and most importantly, raised to respect the people he represents - both the townsfolk of whitestone and also percy's ancestors and future de rolo generations. whitestone is more important than any one life, he has a duty to protect and serve it, and that comes before any personal wants he may have. it's also important to him for family reasons - he was a pretty lonely child, but he loved reading about the history of the city, all the weird ghost stories whitestone had even before the briarwoods. it probably made him feel more connected to all of that, this is the place he belongs. and after his family dies, it becomes even more important, because this is his connection to them. the soul of a city lives as long as its people, by protecting what's left, he keeps a little bit of what came before

(and also in just tidbits to understand percy's character, he sees all cities and man-made things the same way - in a world where some races live for centuries or millennia, their history exists mostly by word of mouth, you can physically talk to people who were around 500 years ago and get their take on things - humans don't have that, they get 100 years at most, so the things they build are vital to their heritage. this is how you keep people alive long after they're gone, by honouring what they created. and especially for someone so concerned with legacy and history, percy literally says abandoning westruun would be blasphemy, because the place people grew up is important, yes it's better that they live, but letting the city be abandoned and destroyed would be an irreparable act of violence.)

this is the number one thing on percy's mind when evaluating anything about himself, where do i come from, and what do i leave behind? which is a question that has a lot of moments to be tested, because of my next point...

3 - pragmatism and terrible thoughts

when it comes down to it, percy is a very ends justify the means kind of person. he finds it very easy to square away any kind of collateral damage as long as it gets him to his end goal. see: trial of the take, where he's fine to catch his friends in the blast radius of a new bomb design because he's so excited that it worked, preparing to fight vorugal and resigning himself to potentially having to kill innocent people to kill the dragon (he wasn’t okay with that, but he would do it), also his conscious decision to let ripley go, knowing she would lead to the deaths of thousands because it was her or the briarwoods and he wanted revenge

(this is by his own admission his lowest point and worst mistake, because as mentioned, he thinks about the consequences of his actions near constantly, he knew she would reproduce his guns and they would lead to a whole new form of warfare. but in that moment he was just blinded by grief and way too emotionally burnt out and did not have the capacity to care. and he spends the rest of the campaign and honestly probably the rest of his life trying to make up for that one)

he's also, by his own admission, someone who has a lot of bad thoughts he doesn't act on, he's very clever and creative and ideas for ways to use those skills for violence or vengeance come easily to him (like, percy as an actual villain would be ripley but worse, ripley's intelligent but a very direct point a to point b kind of thinker, percy has multiple times criticised her lack of imagination, a percy with her lack of morals would be terrifying)

(honestly this is why i was seeing percy so much in taliesin's narrative telephone, because "sometimes i wake up having dreamed of a terrible thing, and normally i just file that away for things that i would never do, because i wanna maintain friendships, but then LIAM did something to me." and the whole being absolutely fine with throwing the rest of the cast under the bus just to enact revenge on liam was quintessential percy)

but we’ve seen the pragmatic anti hero everywhere, anyone can be a terrible person, and have reasons for it, that alone doesn’t make an interesting character (at least not for me)

what does, is my last point

4 - trying to be good

i still vividly remember when i first watched campaign one, being really surprised at how much percy asked for help? like, i went in expecting the usual full on demon possession storyline, i expected percy to hide how bad it was, i expected him to make poor decisions without realising he was doing it until he was in too deep to back out

and like, he had some of that. but at the first sign of things being out of his control, he asked his friends for help. he let pike greater restoration him. he told vax to kill him if things ever got too out of hand. he was really, genuinely scared about what he got himself into and what he might do because of it. there was never a point where he pretended, even to himself, that making a deal with orthax was okay. the minute he realised there was a demon involved, he was working to stop it. and yeah, by the time he realised it was already a bit too late, there were already some things out of his control (and also taliesin kept having the worst rolls against the whitestone corruption which was really fun on a meta level), which is how things got as bad as they did. but honestly, all things considered, there’s very little to criticise about the way percy handled himself in the briarwood arc.

and he keeps doing that, trying to get better. he struggles with it, he struggles a lot, against his anger issues, against all the trauma, against the fact that he really doesn’t want to be here and things would be so much easier if he were dead. but he recognises he holds grudges too easily, so he starts actively trying to forgive those who’ve wronged him (this is something he and vex have in common, and something they were working on together before they were together, which probably helped a lot in getting them to that point as well). he recognises he makes poor decisions when he’s angry, so he starts learning to step back in those moments and leave the decisions to someone else. he has never not owned up to his mistakes, he takes responsibility for everything he’s done, and if he notices a problem he can’t solve himself, he asks for help.

and i find that fun to explore. like, percy’s been likened to hamlet in the actual show, and i was the kid who got super obsessed with hamlet when i was like 15 because i was in that same mental space of suicidal self hatred and existential melancholy but also thinking i was the smartest person in any given room and being too young to have gotten over the arrogance that makes you ignore everyone else’s needs for the sake of indulging your own problems. and then i got older and realised there are smarter ways to go about things, like having empathy and appreciating the light in the world and not being a dickhead to people because it makes you feel better, and maybe hamlet can be justified and in the wrong at the same time. and while there’s some stuff i won’t spoil for you, percy after ripley kills him is definitely starting to learn that, which you rarely see in the hamlet archetype, bc everyone’s like “ah yes so Deep so Important who cares what bad things this person did they had Trauma and are Clever”

well, percy cares about the bad things he did, and cares about not doing those anymore. so like, he’s still a disaster of a person bc he’s like 23 and no one has their life together at 23, especially not someone in percy’s situation, and honestly i find that fun to watch as well bc i like watching characters make stupid mistakes and do stuff i’d never approve of in real life, and as i mentioned at the start, taliesin makes captivating and funny characters. but yeah, that’s generally where percy’s at, most of the time

#would you believe me if i said this was the second shorter attempt at answering this ask?#i honestly tried to pare it down but this hit at least 6 or 7 separate essays in my head that all wanted to be included #and then i had to figure out how to combine them #my brain keeps giving me more things i should add but i think this is enough to be going on with for now 😂#but hey anyone who likes listening to me talk about percy know i can keep going #this is my word MINIMUM #(and it's still over 2k im so sorry)#but yeah hope this helped!#cr1 #percy de rolo #cr thoughts #text #meta #ask #megabees3

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cursewoodrecap · 3 years

Text

Session 22: Five-Dimensional Man-Go

This is a session I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. I get to introduce three of my favorite characters in the entire campaign.

In the real world it’s been a while, but this was the session we officially welcomed a new chaos goblin player to the table. And damn, am I glad we did.

Valeria goes to Hoeska’s armor smiths for some upgrades, and accidentally kicks off a goth fashion montage. Her new armor has gorgeous black detailing with purple rose accents, accessorized with a brand-new Shusva-skin bag with matching claw clasp. Gral picks up a fancy Shusva-leather cloak and belt. Shoshana, realizing that a vampire’s castle is basically a Hot Topic, gets some fishnet arm warmers to accompany her fang necklace. We also get some healing potions and hope they aren’t made from lost souls or anything.

Valeria resummons Aethis, who pops back into existence in a burst of glitter that’s entirely incongruous with the local grim aesthetic. Apparently celestial gators are only mildly inconvenienced by fatalities.

As we hitch up the horses to get back on the road, we find out Ser Boris is also preparing to head out. “Woods full of many nasty creatures. Must keep hunting! Maybe I find way down to Barroch, I have heard monsters are attacking workers there.”

Gral perks up at the name of his people’s capitol. “I’m sure the orcs will treat you well. What kind of monsters are they dealing with?”

“Wolves, bears, maybe werewolf? I will find out when I get there! Cursebreakers do not have much of working relationship with orcs, so info is scattered. That is why I must investigate!”

While he heads south into orc territory, we’re gonna go north toward Sturmhearst to look into all the Key nonsense Professor Bjork told us is goin’ down. It’ll be a long trip; it’s on the coast, and we’re well into the heartland of the wood. As we get closer, we’re gonna have to look for new maps, too – the patchwork of safe zones and Curse disasters changes rapidly, and the roads that were passable a month ago might be deathtraps today.

We trek for several blessedly uneventful days. One night, in a region where a sizable number of halflings have settled, we have the fortune of seeing an inn on the horizon as night starts to fall. A sign proclaims the Fusilier’s Rest, a combination winery and inn located on a lush vineyard. Valeria’s kind of suspicious of anything too plant-based right now, but the rest of us totally want a winery tour.

We hitch up our wagon next to a post labeled Valet Parking. Aethis parks themself in the stables. Looking at the place, with its rather low doorframe and quaintly painted décor, we suspect Demish wine snootery instead of weird plant cults.

We duck through the door and take in the scene. It’s on the upscale end of totally normal, with locals sitting around eating and a huge pot of Demish onion soup bubbling on the hearth. The old halfling bartender is wearing pieces of a worn but well-cared-for blue-and-gold uniform. Two polished old pistols hang within reach on the wall, along with a pristine old Fusille musket in a place of honor behind the bar. Shiny medals in a handmade case are proudly displayed atop the bar.

As is D&D protocol, we look around for any notably wacky characters. We find them in the corner: an old man with unkempt white hair and multi-lensed, colorful glasses, engrossed in a game of Man-go against a young human doctor. We know he’s a doctor, because he’s got a stubby-beaked Sturmhearst mask pushed up to expose a tired but friendly face. His coat might once have been a lab coat, but it’s since been patched and sutured together so many times that it’s probably done a full ship-of-Theseus. His right arm is in a makeshift sling, and he’s nursing a small glass of Kevan vodka; probably the closest thing they have to rotgut moonshine in a wine-snob place like this.

We’re like, neat. Let’s eat soup.

Valeria orders a local vineyard wine and chats with the bartender about it. “The man who runs it is a madman; he thinks he can grow good wine grapes in Valdia. But he pays my sister well, she does her best.”

“Oh, don’t listen to René, his sister does marvelous work! No halfling will admit that wine grown outside Demionde will be more than spoiled grape juice,” teases one of the local barflies.

Gral asks Valeria who’s winning the Man-go game. The old man is rambling pleasantly, barely paying attention, and he is absolutely crushing the young doctor. The doctor looks like he’s totally aware he’s being taken to the cleaners, but he’s gonna let the old guy have his fun. As the game draws to a close, the younger man smiles ruefully and hands over a few coins. Meanwhile, the old fella, his eyes magnified to mismatched sizes by his funky glasses, spots our most conspicuous party member.

“Kyr! How’s the wine?” he calls, beckoning her over.

“Quite good actually!” Valeria chirps. “Was that the Kiloni maneuver?”

“Yes, or a variant I picked up somewhere! The Killam maneuver…kilometer…kilowatt? Something of the sort.”

Valeria very much wants to play him, and the old guy’s defeated opponent is happy to trade her his spot. The young man’s propped up leg hits the ground with a suspiciously loud clunk as he vacates his chair for her.

The old man peers up at her, bright-eyed even behind multiple layers of glass. “So what brings a Knight of the Rose here?”

“We’re headed to Sturmhearst, actually!”

“I see! I’ve heard the roads between here and there are pretty tricky to travel, you know.”

“No kidding. Do you have an updated map?”

He snaps his fingers. “No, but I just came from there! I’ve got an old map and I can easily update it for you kids. René is on night watch, I’ll leave it with him so you don’t have to stay up waiting for me to finish it. I know a route that’ll get you there lickety-split and safe as trousers! Now let me guess, you played at the clubs in Aurentium? You have the look about you.”

“Not the clubs, precisely…”

“Ah! Street rules, then!”

Valeria, who played Man-go against literally everyone who would have her, shrugs. “Maybe?”

“René, we’ll need some cups and a dumb hat!” the old man calls.

The young doctor wanders over to the bar and gets a refill, settling down next to Shoshana. “Hey, wanna bet on their game? The old guy’s pretty sharp.”

Shoshana laughs. “Oh, my friend is definitely gonna lose. I’ll put a silver on her, though, out of loyalty.”

It’s an odd game to spectate. Valeria falls behind early on; an insight check shows he’s not cheating, he’s just VERY good. Oh, and also Valeria’s assuming an entirely different set of house rules than this guy, and it’s tripping her up. Wait, are we doing street style, or dock style? Anyway, Valeria’s wearing the dumb hat now. At one point they both spit on the board.

“Y’know, I’ve never seen anyone from Sturmhearst take the mask off,” Shoshana says to her new drinking buddy, watching the game with confusion.

“On the clock, it’d be a safety hazard! But off the clock, eh, it’s fine. Some people get more elitist than me about it, I’m a hometown Valdian through and through.”

(You’re from Joisey, I’m from Joisey! What exit?)

“I haven’t actually been to the university since the Curse started, but I’m heading back to research some stuff I found out up in the Grammelsmarsh swamps. Some real disconcerting stuff regarding undead, and the like. The locals refer to it as the Wailing Wight.”

Shoshana gives him a once-over, rolling a decent Perception. He’s scruffy, though that could mostly be from hard travel, and definitely looks like he’s had a rough time of it. His arm’s in a sling and the little exposed skin Shoshana can see has more than its share of nicks and scars. His gait when he walked over was slightly uneven, one leg making a suspiciously heavy thunk against the wooden floor. Over his shoulder, he’s carrying a long, heavy case sealed with tar for waterproofing.

Hold up. She points to the case. “Do you have an alive guy in there?”

“…Uh.”

“You hesitated, and that’s not great.”

“Uh…no. No, I do not have an alive guy in here,” he says awkwardly.

“Okay, because the last time there was a weird bag, there was a whole-ass dude in there, and it turned into a whole thing.”

“N-no, no no no, there’s no person in the case,” he protests, not quite meeting Shoshana’s judgy cat eyes. He definitely doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, even though the case has started gently twitching.

Meanwhile, old Man-Go man has proved himself quite fluent in Draco-Aquilian, though with an unmistakable mammalian accent. Gral butts into the lively conversation when it winds back to Valdian. “It seems like you’re rather well traveled. What is your profession?”

“Oh, y’know, I go here and there. I’ve been around. There’s so much to see out there!”

Valeria smiles. “I can’t fault you there. Anything in particular you’re looking for?

“I go wherever the winds take me, mostly,” he says, as if Cursewood travel isn’t the most dangerous hobby since they invented pyromancer cookoffs.

Valeria, impressively, only loses the game by a little. The old man jovially shakes her hand and promises to go get started on that map to Sturmhearst for us, springing to his feet with surprising deftness for his age and bustling up toward his room.

Gral and Shoshana, meanwhile, are busy makin’ friends with the doctor guy. “What swamp were you fighting undead in?”

“The Grammelsmarsh? It’s downriver of Mornheim.”

“Ohhh! We heard some, uh, adventurers did a purifying ritual on the river. It might help your situation?”

“That’s great, but…I dunno. Once you mix in swamp gas, things get a lot more interesting.”

“The explosions kind of interesting?”

“…Sometimes.”

The players have noticed that our doctor friend here is, like…not an NPC, there’s another guy at the table (the same player as Isadora! :D), so we start sizing each other up as travel companions.

“You seem like a pretty decent guy,” Gral says, immediately insight checking.

“I mean, you guys seem on the up-and-up too?”

Shoshana winks at him. “Well, I’m not that up-and-up but these two are very diplomatic and important.”

“If you’re also headed up to Sturmhearst, it might make sense for us to travel together? I’m not very quiet,” he admits, knocking on his knee with a clang, “but if you-“

“Hello!” Valeria, hearing clanking, has clanked over loudly to join. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Uh, hi! I’m Vigdor. I’m a doctor! I mean, you knew that, with the, uh-“ He points to his bird mask. “If you need any balms or salves – I mean, I’m mostly a surgeon, but I know some herbology.”

Is that so! We chat about Dr. Ulmus and Dr. Kjeller. Everyone loves Dr Kjeller!

“I’ve heard of Dr. Kjeller! I haven’t met the guy, but he’s the leading expert on troll physiology. Getting him to come lecture hasn’t worked out so far.”

We ask René the innkeeper about any local threats. Apparently this town’s gotten lucky; the biggest threats recently have just been bandits and one overaggressive badger.

“Oh yeah, one of my cats fought one of those, it went badly,” Shoshana remembers. “For the badger, I mean. I have weird cats.”

(The inn also has cat. His name is Jean Clawed.)

Eventually we all head upstairs. As the night bears on, the girls fall asleep, presumably after painting each other’s toe claws and gossiping. Gral’s still awake, practicing his lute in the rare luxury of a single room, when he pauses. Something doesn’t sound right.

Putting his lute aside, he listens cautiously at the window and feels a deep dread grow in his stomach. The faint scent of ozone drifts in the air. The crickets and night birds have gone dead silent, and in the unsettling quiet he can hear the terrible growling, piping sound he’s heard twice before: once in a house in a hole, and once as Bullbreaker’s expedition faced its destruction.

With great urgency and no volume control, Gral sends a Message to a sleeping Shoshana: “RED ALERT, KEY SHIT’S HERE.” Shoshana wakes up and kicks Valeria.

Gral then sends a Message to our new friend Vigdor, more calmly. “If you have weapons, get them now. Something is happening, it’s going to be dangerous.”

The early warning lets Vigdor and Valeria armor up, Shoshana helping Valeria buckle on the heavy pieces in a hurry. Meanwhile, Gral sprints downstairs, casting Mirror Image as he goes.

René the innkeeper is cleaning his fusille with practiced precision, humming an old marching song. Gral can hear something moving in the kitchen behind the old halfling, so he pops another stealthy Message cantrip. “This is the orc from earlier. I think something bad is in the kitchen – I’ve heard that noise before. Hold on tight to that musket, I’m going in.”

“The back door is locked, I would have heard someone come in,” the old soldier whispers back.

“These things don’t use doors,” Gral hisses.

A 17 Persuasion convinces René, who loads a bullet into his musket. “Where are those friends of yours?”

A heavy clank from upstairs answers that question, as Vigdor and Valeria thud toward the stairs. Gral scopes out the room and sees, on the bar, a big leather map case. The map from the Man-Go guy! Then he peers into the kitchen and, yup, that’s a fleshhound, all right.

Everyone else upstairs bursts into the hall just as a second fleshhound emerges into existence next to them. Shoshana, without hesitation, hits it with a gout of flame. Its strange ethereal flesh solidifies for a moment, but then it shakes itself and charges forward, its displacement energy restored.

Meanwhile, the one downstairs doesn’t aim for Gral or René, trying to run past them. Gral plays a discordant note on his lute, using his Minor Key at the opposite frequency to its vibration and preventing it from displacing, before he strikes. A spectral, scarred orc swings a warhammer down on the creature, Thrice-Burned’s ghost getting some payback as Gral’s blade strikes true.

René takes a shot with his musket and crit-fails, understandably freaked out by the writhing mass of teleporting tentacles, the wild shot careening directly into Gral. Luckily, it only pops a Mirror Image, but everyone upstairs hears a frustrated yell of “NO. FRIEND! ME FRIEND!”

Vigdor dashes past Valeria to the stairs, his previously-motionless arm reaching out of its sling to slap her on the armor with a resounding clash of metal. A silver Jotunn rune glows through the cloth of his sleeve, and she feels Protection from Good and Evil snap into place over her. She takes the cue and stabs the hound, rose vines bursting from her trident and stabbing their long thorns into its oddly flickering flesh.

The pupils on the Eyegis snap to the space behind the beast. Our normal eyes see nothing, but the Key-aligned shield’s eyes see a magical gate, faintly connected to the hound.

As a member of the Order of the Rose, Valeria’s trained to deal with fiendish incursions. This isn’t a portal to the Hells, but she thinks it might get closed similarly. As she charges forward to deal with it, everything seems to move twice as fast as it should: the Key’s spatial distortion has made certain areas the opposite of difficult terrain, where you can move double your speed. Nyoom!

Shoshana zaps it with lightning and heads downstairs to help Gral, who’s being slapped by tentacles. The zapped one flees toward the portal, but Valeria Sentinels and stabs it to death. The downstairs hound gets its tentacles into the real Gral.

Vigdor moves to Gral’s aid, ripping away the last of his sling and clamping a large circular blade to his forearm. With the pull of a ripcord, it loudly whirs into motion. As the Buzzing Butcher slams into the displacer hound with a gory squelch, he asks about sneak attack, like a rogue!

A very, very loud rogue.

Gral breaks away from the hound’s tentacles and looks around. Through the windows, more fleshhounds have appeared outside. The space outside is warped – leaving this inn is going to be very difficult while all this nonsense is going on. The lights of the vineyard seem miles away.

However, Gral realizes, the hound responded to the sound of his lute. And when he used his Minor Key he caught a glimpse of the portal it came through. He begins to play again, using the Minor Key to try to take control of it. The GM allows him to burn a 3rd level spell slot for a colossal roll of 33. He moves the portal inside a wall, to temporarily block anything coming through.

René takes a shot at the remaining hound and misses.

Valeria, upstairs, draws her chained sword and spends a 1st level slot to try to close the portal, the same way paladins close Infernal gateways. The chains of Rack extend from the sword and stitch the portal shut.

(Gral and Valeria each gain inspiration for using Portal Trixx!)

A Thing Occurs at initiative 0, and we hear strange piping coming from the stables. We’re kind of occupied, so we trust Aethis to bite anything that bothers the horses.

Shoshana sprints down the stairs and to the bar. Aw, there’s another flesh hound coming in from the kitchen. Her Chill Touch misses, and the new monster slaps Gral.

Vigdor nyooms through a Zoom, which makes some Really Weird doppler effects happen with his clanky leg and his buzzy arm. He slides across the bar like an action hero and slams his saw down, missing the hound and showering the room in a hail of splinters.

Valeria is still upstairs, and it is LOUD downstairs. She’s gonna dash to get the heck down there and rejoin the festivities.

Gral Phantasmal Forces the new fleshhound, and in its mind, horrible liquid tendrils emerge from the soup pot and constrict around it. The soup rises to the defense of the Fusilier’s Rest!

René gets his wits about him and takes a pistol shot at the nearer fleshhound, tagging it with a bullet and keeping it in place. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. OUR POLICY IS NO PETS! I will not make an exception for you, you do NOT seem particularly polite!”

The fleshhound grabs the map case off the bar and starts to run for it. René hits it with the butt of his rifle. The second hound can’t attack Vigdor since it’s too busy convincing itself soup isn’t dangerous, so Vigdor’s free to draw his pistol and unload a Sneak Attack bullet into the fleeing hound’s back.

René reloads his musket. It’s been a long time since he’s done it under fire, but the Royal Fusilier Corps of Demionde does not half-ass their training.

The portal the hound’s heading for bisects a wall now, so it might be hard for the hound to get through. Before it can worry about that, though, it comes face to face with Valeria, who’s ready to rumble. She kills it, dropping the map to the ground, and skitters through the Zoomy Zone to try to trident the second hound. It displaces out of the way.

Gral seizes control of another portal, and this time decides to use it to see what’s going on. He tries to hop out to the stables, where that weird noise is coming from. He enters a weird nether space full of the flickering bodies of fleshhounds, writhing and blinking, which the DM calls the Threshold. Gral accepts psychic damage to see what’s going on, and the patterns become clearer as the Key takes hold temporarily in his brain. These portals all connect to each other and the Threshold at the same time. Whatever’s out in the stables, making that eerie piping noise, is tied to the portals – it can’t fully exist in our realm. So if you close all the portals, it’ll force that thing to leave; if you drive it away, the portals will close. Either way, the Key’s influence on this place will fade.

Oh, and that thing out in the stables? It’s the Lurke r again.

Gral’s old enemy wrests control of the portal back from Gral, who stumbles back out into the inn, reeling from the sudden whammy of Key taint.

Shosha shoots lightning at the nearest hound, which retaliates by leaping through her, disrupting her matter with its own. It’s a highly unpleasant experience. A new hound jumps out of the portal next to Valeria. As Vigdor, Shoshana, and René all attack, Gral shuts another portal with his lute’s magic. “Guys, there’s something horrible in the stables!” he shouts. “If we bust enough portals it’ll go away!”

The Lurker continues to make mysterious dice rolls, but apparently it’s rolling poorly, so we don’t quite find out what it’s up to. It peers through one of the last few portals, only visible to Gral and the Eyegis. It’s hard to get a good look at, fifth-dimensional as it is, but it’s weirdly humanoid, actually? It’s surrounded by floating lanterns and holding some sort of pipe or flute.

(The DM notes that Jean Clawed is awake and doesn’t see why any of this is his business. He’s capable of using the portals; he’s not Key tainted, that’s just how cats are.)

We exchange blows with the remaining hounds, Chromatic Orbs flying and chainsaws buzzing. René bayonets a hound to death, for the honor of all NPCs.

Gral powerslides on his knees across the Zoomy Zone, playing a complicated riff, woobling himself right through the fireplace into the kitchen. He spends another level 3 spell slot to get the portal to dance itself shut. “And that was Through the Fire and Flames!”

René reloads his gun. Shoshana blasts the hound with fire, so Vigdor’s action goes off and he chainsaws it to death, the body and spine getting caught in the spinning chain. FATALITY.

The searing light of Shoshana’s fire casts sharp shadows on the walls of the inn, which begin to writhe and re-form, swirling together into a lithe, snarling feline shape that springs toward the Lurker. It pounces with an odd, broken yowl that’s incredibly familiar – although Valeria and Gral have only ever heard it once, from underneath an overturned laundry basket.

Vigdor, who’s never met a flesh-hound OR a cursecat before, makes an arcana check to figure out what in the seven hells is going on. It seems some sort of entity is thinning the barriers between realities? Its very essence seems to be intermingled with portal; it cannot fully leave the portal or exist in this realm. Like a malevolent, sentient pair of curtains.

He’s like okay, curtains sound like something I can chainsaw. It’s curtains for you, see? (Fun fact: if he rolls 21 or higher on attack roll with chainsaw, he gets sneak attack regardless of other circumstances. Because it’s a goddamn CHAINSAW.)

The Lurker turns its attention directly on us, or at least to the enormous hissing cat hellbent on ruining its day. Gral, still strumming furiously, realizes the Lurker’s only got a couple of portals left. He’s closed a portal already; he’s gonna try to close all of them for good. The DM imposes disadvantage and a brutal pile of psychic damage, but Gral is unphased, hitting a power chord that shakes the entire inn.

The Lurker screeches and reaches for him, the space around Gral beginning to warp, but it’s too late, the portal slamming shut against it. The Zoomy Zones vanish; the portals close, the strange atmosphere fades. The road looks to be the size it was before instead of an endless stretch of packed earth; the vineyard is once again an easy ten-minute walk away.

His big solo complete, Gral sways and collapses unconscious. Valeria runs over and Lays On Hands so he doesn’t die, while Vigdor starts casting Mending on the destroyed bar furniture. Shoshana, meanwhile, just stares dumbstruck at the place where a huge spectral cat is dissipating into shadowy smoke.

“…Schmendrick?”

René is holding himself together, but he’s an old man and it’s been a while since he fought this much. He took a bit of damage; Valeria pat pats him some HP. “Thank you, Kyr. I…I need to check on my other guests. The old man with the Man-Go game, we must find out if he lives.”

Valeria accompanies him upstairs. Rack’s glowing rose vines are still visible, stitching the portal shut; it’s healing more quickly than Valeria’s used to seeing. The door to the old man’s room swings open under Valeria’s cautious knock. The bed is unmade but empty, and the old man’s luggage is gone. The only things left are a generous tip on the counter and his odd multicolored glasses.

As Vigdor steps outside to clean viscera off his chainsaw, Gral scopes out the stables. There’s evidence of disturbed earth around the grounds, but nothing conclusive. Aethis seems to be unbothered.

We reconvene without much to show for our investigation. But we have one last clue: Why were the hounds so interested in the old man’s map? We spread it out on one of the bar tables and crowd around. It’s a map of Valdia, but the path it shows us to take to Sturmhearst makes No Sense. It’s not even contiguous! It tells us to start here and wander north, and then the line cuts off next to some scribbled equations, the route picking up again elsewhere, where he’s drawn a symbol we don’t recognize – and so on, in strange and nonsensical disconnected paths.

Shoshana, on a hunch, puts on the multicolored glasses the old man left behind. Like 3D glasses, they reveal the hidden image. Through the kaleidoscopic lenses, she can see remnants of the Key’s influence all around the inn; the fading Zoomy Zones and closing portals light up in ultraviolet. The map, meanwhile, has gained an entirely new dimension, like a layer of holographs. NOW the shortcuts make sense – they route through other dimensions along the z-axis, with additional symbols and labels giving helpful hints.

To be honest, it does look like a much faster route. And one of the notes says it leads to the “Drowned City” – hey, isn’t that where Bullbreaker ended up? But we’re all rightfully wary of hopping right back into another flesh-hound portal disaster.

We now have the Extradimensional Map and the Stranger’s Glasses.

Oh! The map has a note for us: “Happy Journeys to a fellow master of the game. Your friend, T.T.”

We immediately rifle through our notes and realize he may have been Professor Trevor Twombly, Headmaster of Sturmhearst. Vigdor, did you know that guy?!

Vigdor didn’t recognize him. Maybe the guy looked like Twombly, if you squint? There were a lot of old men at Sturmhearst, and they wear masks most of the time? Also he had distracting glasses? So, like…maybe?

As we bicker, Vigdor snags the glasses off the table and heads to his room, opening up his case and taking a look. The lenses don’t reveal anything new about the object inside.

Unfortunately, the poor rogue didn’t bother to stealth. “Whatcha doin’ in here?” says Valeria, who followed shortly behind.

“Um, just looking at my leg, seeing if anything is weird-“

Valeria immediately checks Vigdor’s lower limbs for wounds. “I can help! An extra pair of hands can always-”

“No, no! I think I’m okay! Really!” he protests. He glances into the case again, clearly torn, and sighs. “Let me explain.”

He lifts a whole human leg out of the case, kicking and twitching.

“This is my leg, and I’m taking it to Sturmhearst. I’m not sure if it’s wholly mine anymore.”

Through his torn pants, Valeria can see a clunky clockwork leg to match his buzz-saw arm.

One player immediately yells “FULL METAL ALCHEMIST.” Another player says it again, in a slightly different voice.

Dr. Vigdor Gavril has joined the party!

#the cursewood #session recap #the key #valeria argent #gral omokk'duu #shoshana bat chaya #vigdor gavril #schmendrick #trevor twombly

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masquerade-story · 3 years

Text

Chapter 1 - Moving In

"Whose dumb idea was it to go camping like this anyway?" Grey grumbled, smacking away a tree branch that seemed determined to get friendly with his face.

Walking behind him, his twin sister Lillian rolled her eyes and poked the small of her brother's back. "Yours. It was your idea."

"Oh please Crystal! Please oh please might we go live at the haunted house in the woods where we'll certainly perish! I, Dorian Grey Duvall, swear on my sister's honor to let you protect me!" Rayne fluttered her eyelashes, lowering her voice to sound more like Dorian. She yanked the handcart she was dragging over a set of roots, careful to steady its contents before resuming her walk.

"Has to swear on my honor cuz he doesn't have any of his own left after the last time," Lillian snickered, while Grey pointedly ignored their teasing and continued clearing the overgrown path.

Bringing up the rear with a digital camera trained on everyone's back, Crystal grinned and panned the camera to take in the large, dense trees, and huge, leafy bushes. "For a haunted forest, it's actually pretty nice here. Ah, more meadow rue! Specifically thalictrum rochebrunianum, neat."

"Gesundheit," Rayne said, eliciting giggles from the group.

"The lacy one over there with the purple flowers," Crystal clarified. "There's some rue anemone and meadow rue 'splendide' around here too. Don't touch the white flowery plant up ahead by the way, it's giant hogweed. The leaves and sap can give you phytophotodermatitis, making you blister up in the sun."

"Bro, how do you remember any of this? And as for you, you're a scary bitch," Grey cringed away from the plant in question while swearing at it, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at its pretty little flower clusters.

"I read a lot."

"Me too, doesn't mean I absorb any of it! I spent like six hours on Wikipedia the other day, don't even fully remember what I looked up."

"Was it about The Hobbit or Merlin? Cuz that's all you ever look up."

"Look, Lils. I know I'm walking in the front and all, but you don't need to stab me in the back like that. Also sometimes it's Pacific Rim, thank you very much."

"Was it Pacific Rim?"

"No it was The Hobbit."

The group talking and laughing were the self-proclaimed 'Fairy Rock' band Aos Sí Echtrae. Each of them wore a hiking backpack containing personal items, while Rayne also tugged along a sturdy handcart holding supplies and instruments with ease - a drum kit, harp, bouzouki, and keyboard piled up alongside some smaller instruments and the camping stuff Crystal insisted they bring along.

Though their banter was light-hearted and comfortable, they took their excursion very seriously. After all, they'd temporarily rented a locally infamous haunted house to use for a music video! It was a large investment, but they'd become popular online and had enough supporters that they were able to fulfill one of their member's dearest dreams.

Dorian Duvall, or Grey as he preferred to be called by friends, and his twin sister Lillian Duvall played bouzouki and keyboard respectively. Both had the same willowy stature, button nose and almond eye shape, but despite their similarities they both gave off very different impressions. Where Lillian looked soft and gentle, with large doe-like green eyes, and a kind smile, Grey had a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes and a roguish grin that he utilized with careless abandon. Lillian wore her sleek black hair long and loose, falling down past her waist and kept away from her face by a cloth headband, while Grey wore his hair in a high ponytail decorated with small braids.

As the one who absolutely loved haunted houses and anything spooky, it was Grey's idea to film on location for their new Halloween-themed album, Masquerade. Though it was the middle of July, they were hoping to get everything ready for an September promotional release before the album dropped in October, and so hurriedly set up for their video shoot in order to give themselves plenty of time for editing.

All four of them worked together to compose their music, write lyrics, and design stage costumes as well as fan merchandise. They also lacked anything resembling a lead vocalist, taking turns depending on what sound worked best with each song, and preferring harmonies rather than solos.

"Ray! There's a log up here!" Grey called out suddenly, kicking the fallen tree blocking their path. Rayne grunted acknowledgment, and shuffled around Lillian to help move the obstruction.

Rayne Rose played the drums, and also did a majority of the heavy lifting due to being the strongest person present in any room that didn't involve professional weightlifters. Her muscular arms were covered with watercolor flower tattoos, which she proudly showed off by refusing to wear any shirt with sleeves. Her curly hair, dyed a gradient of aqua blue and purple, was cropped close to her face for summertime weather. The short style purposefully revealed ear gauges and more than a dozen total ear piercings, matching the many piercings on her brows, lips, and nose.

The twins had fresh yet roguish charms, while Rayne had a more heroic air with heavy brows and an intense black gaze over lips naturally curved into an amused smirk. She dusted off her hands after tossing the log aside with little effort, while Grey panted for breath from the exertion of merely helping her lift it. Crystal, for her part, made sure to get the whole thing on video for future blackmail purposes.

Crystal Rose, Rayne's older sister, played the harp. Unlike her athletic and statuesque sister, Crystal was on the soft and plump side. Her long, wavy blonde hair was pulled back into a messy twist to keep it off her neck, the ends still pink from the last time she dyed it. Her face was round and childish, with bluish gray eyes above an upturned nose and broad cheekbones, unremarkable features made more charming by her innate overwhelming charisma and natural exuberance.

She was the kind of person that random strangers would strike up a conversation with, lost kids would try to hold her hand, wild animals would approach like an old friend, and when she raised her voice even the most crowded room would quiet down. She was also the kind of person who got carded when buying alcohol despite being thirty years of age, due to what Grey dubbed 'Acute Babyface Syndrome'.

"Anyone need to clean their glasses?" Crystal asked, pulling a cloth from her pocket to swipe hers clean. Aside from Rayne, who wore her contacts, Grey and Lillian both opted to wear glasses for the hike so they wouldn't have to worry about losing a contact forever if they tripped - a serious and ever-present concern for the slightly clumsy twins.

"I'm good!"

"Not yet, thanks."

"I'll take it," Rayne said, keeping her expression blank, and Crystal narrowed her eyes.

"If you wipe your sweaty face with the glasses cloth I'll push you into the patch of poison ivy over there."

"Ope, nevermind then."

The haunted house was a thirty minute hike from the nearest road, along a mostly uphill path that hardly anyone ever used and certainly wasn't wide or steady enough for any automobiles. By the time they reached the stone fence encircling the house's enormous overgrown yard, everyone except Rayne was ready to collapse.

"I'm gonna be so in shape after this if my binder doesn't kill me first," Grey wheezed, leaning on the stone fence and looking up at the haunted house of his dreams with a longing yet exhausted expression. It stood atop a hill in the distance, surrounded by several acres worth of mostly empty property speckled by a few large trees and scraggly bushes. Behind it was a small barn, a chicken coop that hadn't seen use in ages, and a greenhouse conspicuously lacking anything actually green. "A stone brick cottage in the middle of the woods overgrown by vines, a sagging peaked roof with exposed beams, and gaping windows whose panes are cracked like spiderwebs... Looks spooky enough! If the door doesn't creak ominously when we open it, I'm filing a complaint."

Rayne pulled the handcart into the yard, then glanced over her shoulder at Crystal, who was panning the camera up to take a wide shot of the house from just inside the fence gate. "How's it feel, Coco?"

Crystal frowned, furrowing her brows. All four of them believed in the supernatural after they all experienced several strange circumstances growing up, and Crystal had long proven to have abilities that most people would've considered fake nonsense.

She kept a dream diary after experiencing incidents where she'd dream events before they occurred, and wanted to prove to herself it wasn't a figment of her imagination. Whenever something weird happened, she was the first to alert everyone and get them away from danger before anything bad happened, and had an uncanny sense of whether people were lying.

"Hard to say. It does feel... Weird. The walk through the whole forest was fine, but as soon as I walked into the yard... The air's different."

"Really?" Grey raised his eyebrows, hopping over the fence and holding out his arms. He was the second most sensitive to any external oddities, with a particular penchant for finding rather nasty unexplained phenomena. After a few seconds he frowned as well. "No, yeah. That's a weird vibe for sure. It's like, the forest was fine and funky fresh, then you get over here and it's..."

"Musty," Crystal and Grey finished at the same time, and exchanged wry smiles.

"Could be trepidation from perceived fears," Lillian pointed out, gesturing toward the house. Though she also believed in the supernatural, Lillian also liked trying to find reasonable explanations before resorting to the occult. "The big empty windows feel eerie because people expect houses to be brighter and look more lived in, right? It's possible it's just a subconscious response to an old, dilapidated building."

"Dilapidated..." Rayne muttered, raising her eyebrows as she surveyed the house. She had a sensitivity to people's emotions and motivations, and could sometimes pick up lingering feelings from objects, but she didn't feel anything in particular coming from the building. "I don't think it looks that bad? We've lived in worse."

"It hurts me, physically, every time you and Crystal tell us about that kind of thing," Lillian sighed, patting her hand over her heart while Grey nodded next to her. "This place looks gross! It's horrible to imagine little Ray and little Coco in a place even worse than this..."

"Hey, they hired someone to clean the inside and arrange some basic furniture for us to use," Grey said. "It won't be fancy, but the interior shouldn't be too gross! And we'll sleep in the same room for safety! After all... This is the Corpse Consuming Cottage!"

"Ugh, that name..." Crystal and Rayne both cringed at the same time, while Lillian's eyebrows shot up.

"Wait, it's called what?!"

"Yup! Bad, right? But it's earned the name cuz of how many people have gone missing here. Poof! Gone without a trace! Every single person who's ever bought this place has disappeared, along with any family they brought along." Grey grinned, wiggling his fingers at his suddenly horrified twin. "I even made a spooky spreadsheet citing all my sources, aren't you proud? It's legit, this place is either hella haunted or hella cursed."

"Will we be okay!?" Lillian muttered, color draining from her cheeks.

"There's a loophole," Rayne said, and Crystal nodded.

"Yeah, we didn't buy the house. We're just renting. Supernatural stories are always big sticklers on rules, right? Chanting something three times, turning a certain way, walking a certain pattern. If buying the house is part of the problem, then renting it shouldn't be counted as the same thing because possession isn't being transferred." Crystal turned the camera to zoom in on poor Lillian's pale face, hiding her mischievous grin behind the lens. "Theoretically."

"Don't even pretend you aren't absolutely terrified too, Miss I Can't Go On The Haunted House Ride At The Amusement Park I Have A Doctor's Note," Grey scoffed.

"I don't like ghosts or wraiths or poltergeists or whatever wicked whatsits terrorize the night because I feel bad for them thanks very much, but..." Crystal glanced over at the house and frowned, furrowing her brow again. "I feel bothered but not... Threatened? Like there's something here watching but it won't hurt us."

"That's as good as a gold star to me. Let's crack this bitch open and make some lunch!" With renewed vigor, Grey fished the key from his shorts pocket and ran up the creaky old porch to the front door. "Come on in, it's nice and cool inside! Comparatively speaking, I don't think there's an air conditioner. Just fans. But it'll be clean!"

Like he'd promised, the interior was cleaner than the exterior condition belied. Furniture was sparse, but they were all fine wood antiques with a hand-polished sheen. Everyone dropped their backpacks in the foyer and stretched for a moment before getting to work.

"Water's on!" Grey called from the kitchen, where he set the tap to run. "There's dishes and cookware in here too!"

"Silverware?" Lillian called back, in the middle of helping Crystal and Rayne unload the handcart.

"Yup, as requested! I think they're all antique like the rest of everything here."

"Don't you dare break any antique dishes, Dorian Grey!"

"No promises!"

"Electricity works," Crystal said with some surprise, flicking a nearby switch after setting her harp case on the floor in the living room, alongside a towering pile of boxes holding personal things they'd had delivered via the realtor. She held her breath to listen for any crackles or pops, but the overhead light didn't give so much as a flicker. "Wires might actually be okay? That's surprising, this house is really old. Must've been recently renovated."

"Probably to try and reel in prospective buyers," Rayne said, setting down three drum cases. The rest of her kit was already unloaded, so she took a moment to glance around the living room with Crystal. "Inside looks much nicer than outside."

"We can make it look spookier with filters and editing," Crystal said, running her finger against the windowsill. When it came up without dust, she furrowed her brows. "They were real thorough cleaning this place."

"Found the terrifying cellar!" Grey's faint muffled cry echoed from somewhere in the house, followed by the sound of Lillian shouting his full name and charging off after him.

"Any cold spots?" Crystal shouted down the stairs after circling the entire bottom floor trying to find them. The cellar door was tucked into the kitchen's pantry, which was a full walk-in room rather than a little cabinet.

Since the house was so far from town, part of the rental contract involved the current real estate agent making sure the kitchen was stocked before tenants took over. All the shelves were packed full with newly purchased dry goods and spices, mostly sorted into pretty glass jars for aesthetic appeal.

"No cold spots, just some nice shelving, big old ground freezer and a wine rack! Fruit preserves and stuff but they didn't leave any complimentary wine. Zero out of ten, not recommended."

"What makes it terrifying then?"

"Big spiders."

Crystal grimaced and backed away from the cellar door, narrowly evading Lillian as she retreated up the stairs at maximum speed.

The house was surprisingly large. The ground floor had a large open kitchen with an attached breakfast room, a living room, a dining room, a sitting room, a study with empty floor-to-ceiling bookshelves alongside display cabinets, and a laundry/changing room attached to a bathroom with an enormous sunken bath large enough to be used as a hot tub.

"I would buy this house just for the tub," Lillian said, stroking the porcelain with obvious affection.

"Please don't," Grey muttered. "We're evading the horrible disappearance curse via fairy loopholes, don't you go walking into the trap face-first like that!"

"Fine, but when we leave, we're bringing the tub with us."

"Yeah sure that's completely feasible and not at all slightly insane."

The upper floor had five large bedrooms with attached changing rooms, two lavatories, and a walk-in storage closet. Rayne carried their bags into the master bedroom, then returned to the handcart to retrieve the extra supplies they brought - a couple of brand new air mattresses, blankets, boxes of instant food, tents in case the house was in worse shape than expected, a first aid kit, and little tools like scissors, binoculars, and lighters.

"This place is supposed to be super haunted and cursed, yet..." Rayne hummed to herself, patting the mattress in the master bedroom. Every bed in the house was neatly made, with clean sheets and blankets that still smelled like soap. "Won't need the air mattresses. They really worked hard to make this place nice, huh?"

Finally, the attic under the peaked roof had a few small gaps in the shingles, but otherwise lacked any signs of weathering or exposure damage. The only things occupying the space were a few cobwebs in the darkest corners. "Ugh, nothing for us to snoop through," Grey muttered, poking his head into the attic for only moment before heading back downstairs to start moving boxes from the living room into various bedrooms for later sorting.

Crystal and Rayne turned the fans on in all the rooms to start circulating air, opening windows on the shaded side of the house to catch any stray breezes, while Lillian and Grey got started on making lunch. The house which stood empty for so long soon filled with laughter, conversation, and the smell of good food.

"I just can't get over how unhaunted this haunted house is," Grey lamented, tapping a fork against his empty plate. "I've been looking and there's not so much as a suspiciously shadowed corner or creaky stair board!"

"Are you sure those disappearances were legit?" Lillian asked, gesturing for Crystal to pass the salt so she could douse her potato salad. "You checked the sources themselves, right?"

"I did! That's why it's so weird!" Grey drained the remaining water from his glass, glaring down at the ice cubes rattling at the bottom. "Other than the terrible cell reception, weak internet signal, and our gut feelings, there's really no sign of anything being weird. I was promised jumpscares!"

"You were promised no such thing," Rayne muttered around a mouthful of grilled chicken sandwich, deftly capturing some lettuce before it escaped her lips and hit the table. "The outside looks spooky enough for use in our video, we can think of this like a vacation and relax for a bit until we have to leave."

"There's a barn out back, maybe that's haunted?" Crystal suggested, but Grey shook his head.

"I already checked... It's clean as a whistle. No disturbed earth or rattling rusty tools or anything!"

"Would you feel better if one of us got possessed by a demon?"

"Maybe. It'd have to be a really good possession though, if you're not crawling on the ceiling I want a refund."

"Oh, you're paying us?"

"Hell no, a refund of my feelings. My feelings!"

"Speaking of feelings, how do you feel, Coco? Lils?" Rayne interrupted just as Grey was about to get dramatic. "That was a doozy of a hike. You guys alright?"

Both Lillian and Crystal suffered from several health problems when they were younger, and were still weaker than the average person because of it. They had to work harder to remain healthy than most people did.

Lillian, since her mouth was full, flexed her arm and gave a thumbs up to show she was feeling alright. Once her mouth was clear of food, she added: "Mostly just sore, but nothing a long bath and some music won't cure!"

"Coco?"

Crystal gave a start, realizing she'd been staring out the nearest window for awhile and tuning out the conversation. She turned back to Rayne and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, what was that?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Just feel a bit woozy, I think."

"Sensing something weird?"

"Honestly? I don't know." Crystal sighed, opening a can of grape soda and pouring it into her glass. "I still feel like we're being watched. And..."

She hesitated, then shook her head. No matter how Grey tried to cajole the rest of the sentence from her, Crystal kept the rest of her thoughts to herself. If she felt they were in danger she wouldn't be so tight-lipped, so they dropped the subject and started discussing their upcoming album instead.

After lunch they moved several beds into one room, turning the master bedroom into a big slumber party area. The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent getting video and photos of the house and its yard, trying to find the perfect angles for use during the actual performance recording.

Rayne gathered some logs for firewood after noticing a fire pit in the back with some carved stone benches surrounding it. Dinner consisted of an open flame barbecue using packaged meats they found in the fridge, and a few veggies and fruit rolled into foil packs.

"We've really gotta thank that agent lady," Grey said, reclining in his chair. "She really came through with the supplies! It's so good having a fully stocked kitchen from the start, I was worried we'd be having pancakes and instant ramen for days."

"I'll head to town tomorrow and grab more meat for the freezer in the cellar," Rayne said, chewing on a skewer of chicken. "It's got a little variety right now but I'd like to stock up so we don't have to make as many trips. You and Lils might be fine with rabbit food, but Crystal and I need that good good protein."

"We're natural carnivores," Crystal agreed.

"Is there anything else we need from the store?"

"Nah, I can't think of anything. There's like, four entire bags of toilet paper, and towels and wash cloths and soaps and detergent and even pads and stuff. Like, I know we paid for the service but the level of consideration is really impressive!"

Crystal stared into the flickering flames, watching the embers rise into the rapidly darkening sky only to flicker away among the stars. The strange feeling she'd had all day was building to a crescendo, swelling in her chest in anticipation of...

Something.

Rayne glanced over, nudging her sister in the arm. "Coco? You're out of it again."

Crystal nodded. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened again. Seeing her strange behavior, Lillian and Grey both fell silent.

Finally, Crystal heaved a sigh and poked at the burning logs with a long stick. "Remember when we first posted the video for our band? It was uploading and we were all watching the loading bar while holding our breaths? How it felt?"

"Don't get nostalgic on me old man," Grey muttered. Though his tone was teasing, there was an affectionate smile on his face.

Lillian nodded and smiled. "It was so exciting and terrifying at the same time. Maybe nothing would happen, maybe we'd be one of many bands that never got any traction. But maybe... Maybe we'd get lucky."

"It was kind of a relief too," Rayne added, gesturing with the skewer in her hand. "Like, we did it! We made our first song, and did our first video, and were gonna show it to the world. It felt really real right then. All our hard work."

"Yeah... And remember what I said?" When they all shook their heads, Crystal chuckled and poked the fire hard enough to send a flurried shower of sparks into the air. "I said it felt like a change was coming. For better or worse, something big was about to happen."

"Right, right! We'd either succeed in our dream or fail absolutely, with no in-between. That's what you said, yeah?" Grey sighed, patting his full stomach. "I remember. Man, that was heavy. I couldn't even sleep that night, you know?"

"Is it happening again?" Lillian asked, her voice even softer than usual. "That feeling?"

"Yeah. I've felt that way all day. I thought maybe it's cuz we never did anything as big as this, renting a house and doing a whole video shoot on location, that maybe I was worried about how ambitious our idea was, but..." Crystal bit her lip, poking the fire again. She made a point of avoiding their gazes, focusing on the burning embers and crackling logs. "I think if we stay here tonight, there's no going back."

Silence reigned for a few minutes. Then, quietly, Rayne whispered: "Are we in danger?"

"It's not like that. It's just... A massive change, that feels... Overwhelming. This is bigger than the previous time."

"Bigger than chasing our dream?"

"Yeah."

Rayne reached over to grab Crystal's hand, while Grey hopped up and sprawled across Lillian's lap despite her protests. He just laughed and said, "What's that matter? No matter what happens tonight, tomorrow, or whatever! We'll get through it together like we always have. You and me, sweethearts. Us against the world!"

Crystal smiled and gently squeezed Rayne's hand. "Yeah. We'll be fine, no matter what."

Once dinner was finished, the fire fully smothered and the leftovers packed away for later, everyone did rock-paper-scissors to determine order of bathtub usage. One by one, they soaked away their worries, changed into the pajamas they brought, and crawled into one of the master bedroom's beds.

As midnight ticked over, a single shaft of light from the full moon filtered through the room's lacy curtains, illuminating their peaceful faces. The sleeping occupants remained blissfully unaware of the tendrils of fog creeping along the ground, emerging from the forest to wrap the entire house in a dome of mist.

Several hours later, as the first rays of dawn burst from the horizon, they were finally awoken by a piercing scream.

#writing #chapter #original #original story #masquerade #fantasy #isekai

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llendrinall · 4 years

Note

(1) Draco, Harry, Hermione & Ron (aged 23) all are working on a case. Harry & Ron are Aurors. Draco & Hermione are both Healers & Unspeakables. The case is something like a bunch of Death Eater wannabes trying to resurrect the dark lord. So while busting in on their ritual all 4 are transported to their younger bodies at different times. Draco (5), Ron (7), Hermione (9), Harry (11) (The day before Hagrid comes to fetches him.)

(2) Harry and Draco were married so they use a phrase to each other so the other knows that they're the other and then plan a meet in the Room of Requirements. After confirming that Ron and Hermione (Married) are who they are too they go to the meet too. While each playing the roles they had the first time around. They then work out a plan for the war (Since Draco hasn't found a way back they plan to change things).

(3) Draco needs to play the bully/death eater and work to save the lives of the war victims. While Harry, Ron and Hermione work out the horcrux ect. Befor and during the war they secretly work to make preperations and stuff to minimize the damage while also playing their parts as school rivals. And they manage to minimize the deaths and they manage to save a lot of familiar faces. Sirius, Remus, Tonks, George ect.

(4) So after Harry kills Voldemort (He had an argument with Draco cuz Draco was worried he wouldn't come back this time) they're in the grand hall and everyone just sees the golden trio going to Draco with smiles. Ron gives him a handshake, Hermione a Hug, and shockingly Harry kisses him infront of everyone (Draco's parents are like "WTF?") And says "Told you i wouldn't die." "Shut up you bloody git". (In my head its a long fic with a LOT of stuff added. I just wanna know how you'd write this)

Mmh, yes this would be a long plotty fic, so I won’t detail the structure, just some of the elements I would use to build it.

First, I would have them go back to exactly one month before they turn 11. There is a very nice symmetry there and we avoid having Draco too long in his child’s body. An adult Draco in a 5-year-old body would be terrifying. Lucius would just flee the country.

So they go back to 11 minus one month. Harry and Draco have 1-2 summer months to get settled and start figuring things out, Ron gets around 7 months to think about family dynamics and draft a plan to contact his friends. Hermione has a whole year plus change to rage, study and come up with a definite plan to Get Things Right.

There is a beautiful tense scene as they board the train, because Harry and Ron don’t know if their friend is their old self or their young self. They are both very cautious around each other until Harry notices the way Ron looks at Scabbers and he knows. It just takes a couple of loaded comments afterwards to recognize each other.

Hermione barges in their compartment in her usual way and they have to drop some very heavy hints to remind her they are not alone. They can’t spook Pettigrew. Draco comes by, stares at Harry in silence for a whole minute and then passes him a note saying he can’t find the diary and also he ordered Dobby to go serve Harry, he should be waiting in Hogwarts. It is unclear whether Draco knows this Harry is the old Harry because Draco is, and has always been, kind of odd. It took them a while to discover it, but Draco is just a bunch or random powerful ideas held together with anxiety and fire. Harry loves him so much.

They go to Hogwarts. You would think that in this timeline Harry would be the most belligerent/hostile of them, but it is actually Hermione. Hermione is a nightmare student. She has a list of one hundred and fifty names and she is going to save all of them (except maybe Dumbledore and Snape). She has no time nor attention to waste in silly classes telling her what she already knows. She only comes to class sporadically, aces all her tests and hands out beautiful neat homework that barely took ten minutes out of her day to complete. Teachers hate her (or heavily dislike her), but they can’t expel her. It’s beautiful. The twins develop a crush on her.

Harry waits patiently until Christmas so Dumbledore can gift him the Invisibility Cloak and then announces that he is not going back to the Dursleys. Dumbledore insists. Harry says softly “by Jove, I will not” and Dumbledore thinks about that exchange for a week. He forgets about it when ten days later there is an incident in Transfiguration class and McGonagall discovers that Ron’s pet rat Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew.

(They were going to wait until Quirrell tried to steal the philosopher’s. Hermione insisted they couldn’t deviate too much of the original timeline or they would lose their advantage of knowing what was going to happen. If something was going to change, it was better to attach it to some other important event.

But Harry pointed out that it would be much easier to keep Sirius alive if he had some extra months of freedom and he didn’t have to live as a fugitive and Ron was certain that they would be fine even if they changed everything. It wasn’t just their knowledge of the events to come, it was their knowledge, period, their experience.

Ron is a man now, and adult, and he is kind of freaked out at the shenanigans they did when they were merely children. What were they thinking? Was there no competent adult to point out that were kids? It shouldn’t be up to them to rescue Sirius or Buckbeak, what in the seven hells.)

Anyway, Sirius is freed and Dumbledore is forced to explain everything about prophecies and love magic and blood protection early, because Harry insists he is going to live with Sirius. Harry agrees to go back to the Dursleys for two weeks, but Sirius has to come with him and no, he will not come as a dog, that’s demeaning. He will spend his time at the Dursleys as a human, thank you very much.

Sirius is the first adult to realize that there is something not quite right about Harry. The others had noticed that Harry was… special. But Sirius is the first one to see through, although he doesn’t know what he is seeing exactly.

Lucius still uses the Diary against the Weasleys, but this time Ron picks it up. Their first week back in Hogwarts, they all go for a nice excursion down to the Basilisk lair. They bring the Diadem, too. Harry speaks to the Basilisk and both horcruxes are destroyed.

The rest of the year is spent plotting. Draco takes on the role of the bully and plays it up to hilarious heights. He picks on everyone, and that’s everyone, except Neville and Luna. Funnily, Cedric Diggory is a big fan of him and always answers to Draco’s banter.

Draco suggests having a Duel Club to Lockhart. There has been no student attacks, of course, but Lockhart loves the idea and Draco wants the opportunity to fight Harry and make ridiculously sexually charged comments. They have five very nice duelling sessions until the curse of the DADA post acts up and professor Lockhart is unavailable the rest of the year.

(Harry tutors everyone in his year so this time people will actually now how to cast a protego. Ginny comes to the classes too and is by far his best student).

That summer, Ron has a very long chat with Percy explaining everything. Ron is now eight years older than Percy and understand why his brother fell to the Ministry and rejected his family. The Weasleys had pushed him that way, hadn’t they? Ron also understands that suddenly being nice to Percy and giving him recognition won’t work. It’s too late. But telling Percy they come from another timeline in which Fred died gets Percy’s attention immediately. Percy spends a whole weekend freaking out in silence (nobody notices, of course, and boy is Ron appalled at his family dynamics). Come Monday, Percy emerges relatively calm, all things considered. He has given himself a haircut and is resolved to infiltrate the Ministry.

The locket is destroyed that summer. They let Sirius and Kreacher do it.

They were hoping to have all horcruxes down before Voldemort rose back, but Pettigrew escapes Azkaban and Voldemort comes back a year ahead of schedule. (Early 4th year).

Dumbledore locates the ring. Despite warnings from all of them (and Snape) he still puts the ring on and gets a curse for it. Hermione says if he is going to be like that, she will take him from her To-Save list.

Barely eight months after Voldemort comes back to power, the Ministry is full of his followers. For now, Voldemort is happy with acting from the shadows, but soon he will want more and the four of them want to avoid open war as much as possible.

Percy sends Ron Helga’s cup, broken. Ron asks how he did it in case they ever find themselves in a similar situation (new timeline and all), but Percy only says that he asked politely. That means there are only two (two? Or is it one?) horcruxes remaining. Draco decides to speed things up, before Voldemort stars his terror campaign. He tells his father than Dumbledore has a mysterious ring with an interesting crest and that’s enough to have Voldemort attack Hogwarts with all his might.

It may not seem like a good idea, but if you think about it it’s much better to have dark wizards try to take over a castle than over a cottage where a half-blood family lives. Plus, now they don’t have to sweep Britain looking for Nagini. They can see her perfectly well down in the grounds trying and failing to eat Hagrid.

The battle draws on and almost becomes a siege. The Ministry comes to help, only they help Voldemort’s side, what with being infiltrated and all.

It’s still preferable to the years of the war.

Sirius has been put under a careful and insistent treatment of “Sirius, no”, so he actually stops when he is told to, he doesn’t follow Pettigrew to a trap and he isn’t killed by Bellatrix. Well done, Sirius! Another advantage of Sirius surviving, beyond the fact that he survived, yay, is that he gets to save Snape when Voldemort decides he might not be a good double spy after all. Snape hates the idea of owing his life to Sirius. It is very entertaining.

Neville kills Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna kills Nagini (and feels bad for it, and cries, sweet Luna, may she always have a soft heart). Peter Pettigrew dies in a freak accident in which both the giant squid and the twins are involved. Cedric Diggory bullies seven Ministry wizards into switching sides.

Things are going good. There are many wounded, more than the last time, but no dead, not on their side.

Harry knows he will have to die, again. And it will have to be Voldemort. He can’t risk having anyone else cast the curse (would they even meant it?). They have changed so many things… They can’t be sure that all those changes won’t coalesce in this one instant in time. They can’t be sure that Harry will make it back.

But Harry still goes, because that’s what he has to do. He tries to make things as similar as possible, act the same way, say the same things. Maybe having Sirius and Moody and Tonks and Lupin alive and well and fighting won’t matter if Harry just follows the script on this.

But just in case it will matter, just in case Harry doesn’t come back this time, he throws some ad lib.

“Hey, Tom,” Harry says, holding his thumb between his index and middle finger. “I’ve got your nose.”

Well, at least he can be sure that Voldemort means it when he cast the curse.

The honour of killing Voldemort falls on Hagrid this time. It isn’t pretty.

And Harry comes back. Draco forgives him just for having said that line.

#asks #harry potter #timetravel #Anonymous #verse: deaged #textpost

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