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verus-veritas · 3 years

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Legacy

Revenge, Technology, Mind Transference, with a dash of unrequited love. What’s not to love? /Verus

"Dude! P-please! I'm sorry! Whatever you think I've done, it must all be a mistake!" Andew yelled, thrashing against his confinements and eyeing the only point of exit in the room. His firm muscles were wet and taut against his clothes, and his handsome face flush red with terror and worry.

"Are you really sorry though? It didn't seem like it from the way you acted during Gavin's funeral. The sneers and laughter you made as his parents said their final words to him..." I said, hiding in the shadows. Only my feet and the contours of my body was visible for him to see.

"N-no offense. I just found it funny when the parents said they wish he'd atleast gotten a girlfriend before he passed away-" The same devious sneer returned on his perfectly handsome face, as he most likely remembered the scene in his head.

"Of course you found it funny. Because you knew he was completely gay. Gay, and had a massive crush on you for ages. He literally worshipped the ground you walked on, and spent most of his waking hours wishing he could be with you." I explained, slowly walking around him as I pulled out a flimsy latex cap with electronical nodes attached to it.

"And I let him. I did no wrong." Andrew talked back. His eyes following my figure until I stood directly behind him.

"No! You lead him on, made him believe you were actually interested in him. And then you destroyed him. You are the reason he ran out of the house crying, and you are the reason he didn't see the truck speeding towards him!" My voice was shaking as I quickly slapped the cap onto his head, accidentally pulling out a few strands of his hair.

"Ouuch! Get this thing off me!" He shook his head and began thrashing about again.

"You know. He really loved you... He said he was going to make you the happiest man on earth. Showering you with gifts and undying love, and be by your side forever and ever. That's why he trusted you so wholeheartedly and let you do whatever you wanted."

"Naive..." He quietly muttered under his breath.

"He was even fine with you staring and drooling over other girls. As long as he could stay by your side."

"What a fag..." I could hear him gritting his teeth.

"But that evening when you invited him over, only to have him find you in the bedroom hooking up with a random girl... that completely ruined him. You shattered his dream, his self-confidence, and his sensitive soul! He didn't know what to do and where to go, which is why he ran straight out into the traffic..." My voice was uncontrollably going up and down now, as I was unable to hide my emotions.

"Dude only had himself to blame. He should've known I only had him around for the free stuff he bought for me." Andrew snickered, as he looked down at the expensive shorts Gavin had bought for him a few weeks prior.

"How dare you!" I tried to punch his shoulder, but knew I was too weak to do any real damage against his hard muscles.

"Y'know... it almost sounds like you had feelings for him- Wait a minute! You're that pastry white kid that always walked around with him aren't you?! Hah! 'Ghost boy' we called you!" The tone in his voice shifted - with more confidence and arrogance. Back to the way he normally talked - a manipulative bastard at heart. "I see. So you best friend Gavin never had feelings for you, and now that he's gone you blame yourself for not having stopped him."

"......" I clenched my hands till my knuckles turned white.

"Hah! Maybe you really were a horrible friend. Have you thought about that you might be the reason he's dead?" He laughed, obviously enjoying the way he was toying with my feelings.

"...you have no idea..." I mumbled, as tears began to flow down my cheeks.

"Maybe you should be the one sitting in this chair - tied up and wearing this stupid cap on your head. Hehe."

I took a deep breath and calmed myself, before walking around him once again and turning so he could see me. See the real me... one last time. "I will. Soon."

"W-what do you mean with that? And why are you also wearing that ridiculous cap?" He asked. His tone in voice once again becoming panicked and anxious.

"You see. The reason why I'm so pale is because I spend so much time at home playing with my inventions and devices. Coding is one of my favorite things to do. And for the last few months I've relentlessly been working on creating this device we're both wearing right now. It was originally only meant to be used on you, recoding the patterns in your brain into loving Gavin as much as he loved you. While also erasing all of your bad traits and turning you into his ideal boyfriend... but there's no reason for that anymore, is there? So, I upgraded it into 2.0, which can now be used with two people."

"P-pff... yeah right... and what does this new version do then?"

"It can transfer the consciousness between two human brains. Even recoding the brain into believing the new consciousness have always been in control of its own body. All the memories, habits, and even muscle memory will be easily accessible to the new permanent owner." I explained, as I began fiddling with a machine by our side. The nodes on our caps lit up.

"Permanent?! Wait a minute. Let's say all of this freaky sci-fi stuff is actually real, what's going to happen to my consciousness?" Andrew asked, as he began to get more anxious by the beeping sound of the nodes on his head.

"All gone. Overwritten by mine. Erased out of existence with no way of restoring it." I answered nonchalantly. Flicking the last switched around, the device was now ready to be activated.

"What the fuck! Then you're basically killing me?! Get me out of here, you sick freak!" He began violently thrashing against the back of the chair, and flung his head around to get the latex cap off... but to no avail.

"Am I really though? Your memories, your body, and your relationships will all still be here, under my complete control. I'm just... discarding a small part of you that's no longer necessary."

"No...no... Help! HELP! SOMEONE!! THIS CRAZY MOTHERFUCKER IS GOING TO KILL ME!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, but the soundproofed walls would do him no good.

I flicked the final switch and walked over to him as the machine began buzzing. Standing in front of him, I suddenly sat down on his lap and grabbed hold of his face. I stared into his fearful yet piercing blue eyes and slid my hands across the cheeks and contours of his face.

"This beautiful face of yours that Gavin loved, I promise I'll take good care of it and cherish it until the day I die. It's the least I can do to honor my friend Gavin." I leaned forward and gently laid a kiss on his sweaty forehead, while holding him in place as he screamed for all he was worth.

"No! Noo! NOoO-Uoogguuughhhh" His scream turned into a gurgle as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. At the same time, my eyes went white and hazy as my pastry body slumped over and fell on the cement floor. Most likely cracked open its head or something from the sound of it.

"NgOOuoouughhgguuuhh!!!" Andrew's head flung back and forth as if to fight whatever was invading his head, but it barely took a minute before the thrashing suddenly stopped and his head slumped down.

His eyes were closed, his face flushed red from exertion, and the sweat and drool pooled down onto his expensive shorts. A further five minutes of stillness and blinking nodes passed before any activity was seen.

---

*Gasp*

I awoke to the cap on my head giving me a quick electric shock. In front of me laid my old withered body, lifeless and without a doubt stone dead. My throat felt dry and tired, and the ties on my arms hurt like hell. In fact, everything felt, looked, and smelt different. The smell oozing from my sweaty clothes that once smelt great now stunk in my nose. I could recall from Andrew's memories that he showered atleast twice a day. I showered atleast twice a day.

After some fiddling with the special knots in my back, I easily slipped the rope off. Massaging the sore parts on my wrist, I soon relished in how big and strong my new hands looked now. Hands who should've been holding Gavin's...

I explored further up till I reached my new bulging biceps. Squeezing them I felt how firm and taut they were. I never in a million years would have managed to get myself this big, but here I was, standing in the body of a perfect specimen. The body of the man who my friend loved, but who didn't truly love him back. If only I could've done this before Gavin died... Would he have loved me instead, or would he have hated me for what I had done? Well, atleast he would've been alive.

My focus went to my Andrew face, as I caressed the blemish-free skin and the small stubble forming on it. The face of the man I had hated for a while, the face of the man whose identity I would have to take over, and the face I would see in the mirror for as long as I breathed. It was one of the most handsome faces I've ever laid my eyes on no doubt, so I'm perfectly fine with that decision.

My hands continued to explore what was now mine; running fingers through my lush but wet hair, following the outline of my cobblestone abs, and shaking my strong and muscular legs awake from sitting too long.

Not long after I finally slipped the drool and sweat-soaked shorts off myself and watched as the tool between my legs arose to its new owner. It might not have been as long as my former one, but the very girth of it made up for it. As I enveloped it between my palms, I realized that no one had ever been as intimate with Andrew's tool as I was now, and no one would ever be. Not even Gavin would if he was somehow resurrected. Only I, Andrew would ever know how this throbbing member would feel in my own hands, the endorphins and pleasure its touch would send throughout my amazing body, and the ultimate earth-shattering orgasms I would experience as I edge myself to climax every day from now on.

The very thought of it immediately brought me to the brink of orgasm, so I quickly spread my legs apart and thrust the member fully through my grasp. It was all that was needed as I suddenly began shaking with pleasure and exploded shot after shot of Andrew seed all over the floor, myself and my former lifeless body."Ugh! Uuuugh! UUUuOOGggHH!!"

“.... Holy shit.....” I moaned, slightly shocked by the unfamiliarity of the new voice coming from my throat.

Reeling from my first ever orgasm in my new body and life, I sat back down on the chair and took a breather. I was sweaty, my crotch sticky, and my armpits stunk. Yet, I know I still looked glorious. How couldn't I? After all, I am Andrew. The man who Gavin loved, and who loved him back just as much, if not even more...

I will dedicate this new life of mine to worship and care for this body just as much as Gavin would have. His legacy, Andrew's body and life, and my consciousness have finally become one... and I promise I will carry them with pride and confidence to the grave... even if it is the only thing I will accomplish in this short insignificant life of mine.

#possession #revenge #selflove #love #dark #permanent #identity theft #mine

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tanakavox · 3 years

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Look into the mutiverse chapter 4

Thanks again to ExiledDarkness for writing the charcters reaction for this chapter. Please go check out his stuff. And if your wondering where Qrow came from, We forgot to add a scene for Qrow and didn't feel like going back.

This chapter is based of the Youtuber SomecallmeJohnny and his review of Super Mario 64. I had to cut it short because my laptod was acting up again and google docs was acting wonky, parts of the fic getting erased. Rest assure for the Somecallmejohnny fans, I won't just do his reviews. I have plans to do Super gaming bros reaction as well. And for those who don't know Johnny, go check him! Enjoy the reaction.

The screen lights up again and shows Jaune wearing a cap and hoodie and sitting on a bright red couch. He had a bit of stubble on his face and he was currently holding a controller in his hand as he turned on a device known as the N64.

"Oh? Jaune looks good with stubble." Blake comments. Everyone looks at Jaune and then back to the one on the screen. They all nodded in agreement.

"It's a go time! Super Mario 64!" He said in a high pitched voice with a bad accent.

The Jaune on the screen sighed seemingly tired. "Lady and Gents welcome back to the Super Mario marathon, And just like with Ocarina of time, this is a game that haunted me during the N64 lifetime. Jaune looked the the N64 sitting on his dresser and continued. "It was like the console itself was actively mocking me like: "Hey Jauney? How about you ditch that playstation and try me out instead?" The blonde's eyes lit up in anger. "Well I didn't have a job in 1996 you sensitive prick!" Jaune snapped at the console.

Everyone blinked at the sudden anger. Ruby turned towards JNPR and asked, "Are you okay Jaune?"

Jaune, still frozen from the sudden burst of anger from his other self, snaps back to reality and nods at the question. "Yeah, I think I understand what's happening here. But I'll stay quiet until I know for sure."

Jaune turned toward the screen and went on like nothing happened. "Last time I gave Mario attention, I was focused on what made the Italian "Plumber—"" He said with quotation marks. "—the video game icon he is today. Now we're gonna do it again only in 3d."

Jaune turned to his audience and smiled. "You guys ready for another Super Mario marathon?"

"Aha!" Jaune says as he slammed his closed fist on his hand. "This is me doing video games!"

Ren paused at hearing this information. "Then that explains the sudden burst of anger then." Nora and Jaune nod while the rest of the audience looks on confusedly.

RWBY look at each other before Yang hesitantly asks, "So why did he get so angry?"

Jaune laughs before scratching the back of his head. "I like video games but I hate it when I can't progress further into the game. Sometimes I get really into it, I guess."

"Here we go, Super Mario 64, the 64 being figureded to the console and not the 64 game in the series, Mario's first 3d game, and a launch title for the N64. It was highly praised and hailed as the 3d version of what Super Mario bros on the NES did for platemors at the time, Mario 64 did the same. But I came into the 64 train late, So I don't have what you call: Super Mario 64 memories. In fact my first 3d Mario game was the next game we'll be looking at: Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube. Jaune's expression darkened as he smiled hurmlousy. "But that can wait. Oh it can wait." The tone of his voice was bitter and venomous.

Everyone laughed now knowing the context of Jaune's anger towards video games.

"Alright booting the game up and the first thing you see is Mario's head. You know to really hammer in that this is Mario's first 3d adventure. You can even fuck around with the face a bit but it doesn't really effect the game it's just there for fun.

We're also greeted by Mario's new voice, provided by Charles Margent. Shockingly this isn't his debut as the Jumpman, that was in Mario Fundamental, a Pc game released a year before. Pretty sure no one heard of it before someone did a document on it.

"This idea of a floating Mario head, perhaps more infamously in Mario teaches typing two. A floating deformed head pop on the screen.

"Hey? Are you ready for Mario type?" It asked.

"Mother of God." Jaune deadpan in horror.

"Despite the new voice, Mario doesn't speak much. It's mostly hiyas woohoos throughout the game. And he only speaks a full phase when he completes a goal or he falls asleep on the job. It shows the red clad mario on the ground sleeping.

"Ha spatgai, Ha ravioli." The plumber mutters in his sleep.

Nora drools over the names of food. They sound pretty good right now.

"Charles as Mario is so absorbed into my head I can't imagine anyone else doing the role. It's not like the acting is amazing or anything, he's been voicing Mario for nearly 20 years at this point. If Charles stepped out of the role for any reason, the next guy would just try to simulate Charles' voice.

"It's weird that way," Ren piped up, "No matter what happens people are going to remember the original no matter how much the new one tries to be the old one.

"Hear hear ninja boy" Qrow cheered a bit and took a swig of his beer.

"Okay nearly forgot that I was looking at a video game, Sorry about that. Well let's look at that plot shall we?"

"I'm curious to hear about the kind of story this game might have," Ozpin said as he crosses his legs.

"Boswer kidnaps Princess Peach, Mario must go save her, now that didn't take long now did it?"

Ozpin blinked and sat back in his seat, a bit disappointed.

"I'll let it slide this time since they probably wanted to keep it safe for the first game in 3d. Hell, the menu theme is the main theme for the series."

Qrow snorts. "Fair enough. I guess you can't expect these guys to be that ballsy."

The entire game is set in Peach's castle. Boswer has taken the power star, which I believe gives the castle power? Jaune shrugged. I dunno what they do, it's not really explain and getting more powerstar allows you to get into more levels, and that's the name of the game here. Bowser had set up routine courses in painting.

"The courses tend to varies but nothing here gets too crazy like other Mario games. It's not until late game you go to more odd place like in a clocktower or riding rainbow.

"The game's openness is the first thing you'll take note of in Mario 64. You can start a mission with a hint on what to do,but there is nothing stopping you from just doing a different mission and grabbing the star despite not being the mission you clicked on.

There are a handful of expectations like racing against against Koopa the quick who not gonna show up unless you chose his mission, but most of the time you can go at it on your own pace. Eh, I didn't wanna fight King Bo-mb yet, I want free the chain chomp and get the star there. I could take down King twop, or I could do a well place jump and get this unrelated power star. And that's where a lot of Mario's replay value comes in, not just getting the power star but how you get them.

"Oh, this game sounds fun! I should get it if we ever get out of here." Nora exclaimed.

"With what money Nora?" Jaune asked. Nora looked at Jaune with a wide smile. "No." Jaune deadpan. Nora pouted at his response and turned to Ren with a wide smile.

"No Nora. And do not ask Weiss either." Ren said with his eyes still on the screen and Nora pouted again.

Peach's castle acts as a hub world, the place you're exploring and using to get to other stages to get more power stars. But in order to duke it out with Bowser, you need to get a certain amount of power stars to access the level. As a guy who doesn't care for hub worlds I don't mind Peach's castle. The levels aren't too far apart and there are things you can do in the castle that can help you increase your star count. Like a secret race track that gives you two stars if you're fast enough, or an underwater level that contains an easy to get star. It challenges you in a way that makes it still feel like a Mario game.

"It sounds pretty easy at first glance, but I can understand how annoying it can become if you mess up at least once or twice." Jaune says. Ruby, Nora, and even Ren nod in agreement.

The biggest change to the formula was the jump to 3d, like with Ocarina of Time. He still has to break boxes, stomp on enemies, the works but this game gave the man a few extra moves to go along with the change to 3d. The analog stick is used to move Mario, the further you tilled it the faster he moves, instead of the run button we knew from the past game. Mario still has the jumps he's famous for, but pressing the jump button can allow Mario to reach the heights he's never seen until this game without a power up. He can crouch and crawl but I've only used this a total of once. But you standstill and jump you can do a backflip, and if you crouch and run you can do a long jump which I love using so much and because you can do some real fancy shit with it, and it makes Mario move faster to boot. If you snap the anlong back and jump he can do a somersault and if you jump towards a wall, Mario can wall jump as well.

Nora makes a face at the detailed review. "All these moves and stuff sound annoying. Why can't games be as simple like they are now?!"

Ren sighs and begins to explain but Qrow cuts in. "It's because of games like these were like test models that you get to play the good quality games you have now. I remember playing Soaring Ninja back when he was literally unplayable and useless. Now look at him!"

Ruby and Yang gasp, Soaring Ninja was unplayable?

"I wouldn't be surprised if this move came from the gameboy version of Donkey kong. That remake has a fucklord of levels and a handstand jump for Mario. He still takes damage if he falls too far, so he's just a pale imitation. Jaune had Mario wall jump a wall to prove a point. "The Mario I know could fall from any height and take no dam-" Jaune cut himself off his eyes widening when he heard Mario grunt in pain and his health go down a bit. "WHAT THE FUCK! He took damage from a large height! Mario! What's the meaning of this?" He asked in bewilderment, looking at the floating Mario head from earlier."

"Oh nice computer you have here. Can I have it?" the Mario head asked

"No!" Jaune exclaimed.

Everyone's eyes widened at the scene. Ozpin checked his mug with scrutiny to see if he was still drinking the right drink. Looked normal enough.

"Peach's castle has 120 power stars in the castle, but you only need 70 of them to beat the game." Jaune had a strained smile on his face as he continued. But where the fun in just getting 70 power star and beating the game that way, it not like getting all the star is that time com- for fuck sakes yes it is!"

"Let's just get one thing clear, I fucking depise the 100 coin misson. It's as simple as it sounds, grab 100 coins and then grab the star that appears over your head. Lather rinse repeat, for all 15 courses. In a game that usually has you go to once place and grab the star, collecting these coins brings the game to grueling crawl. Mario 64 doesn't have a checkpoint system. It doesn't bother me much. The levels are usually small and with Mario's new moves getting the Power star is not only comartable, it's also pretty fucking fun. And then their these." That venomous tone from before came back. The screen showcased the blue coins that have appeared throughout most of the video so far.

"Aw it's one of those games! The type that needs you to waste your time actually going through all of what the game has planned for you before you get to the final boss! What a rip off!" Qrow exclaims, tossing his hands in the air. Jaune agrees, crossing his arms and trying not to join in on the rage.

"No amount of looking of cute puppies. can cotain the amount of rage i have when I fuck up these mission with a impeferct jump or when a enemey hits me from behind. It's not always a painful process, but sucks so hard cause the coins are either place so far part or because they're so goddamn scarce! "Gotta kill those enemies before the coins blink away and scatter when they spawn. These blue coins are 5 regular coin a piece but you gotta get them before they blink away and you only got one shot! Was there area I didnt search, an enemy I skipped, I did I fuck up somewhere since I only have 64 coins after look around what feels like for fucking ever?!

"And try not get the last coin in a dangerous area or impossible to backtrack to. The star will always appear right above Mario's head, so make sure it's a safe locati-GODDAMN!"

The star had appeared in a caged area that Mario couldn't reach.

Everyone laughed at the other Jaune's misery. The Arf viewing the screen feels relieved that he himself isn't on the receiving end. Or was he?

"Couldn't just tell the star to come to you Mario?" Jaune asked the Mario head on his computer.

"When a moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" Mario began to sing and Jaune facepalm when he didn't get answered. "When an eel lunges out…

"UNGAI?!" Jaune jumping up. A eel appeared and let out a roar and Jaune wasn't in his chair anymore, It being left spinning by how fast he booked it.

"That's amore!" Mario finished singing and chuckled. Get it? Amore eel? I said funny.

"Fuck you!" Jaune said from somewhere in the house.

All the immature audience members fell out of their seats in laughter while the more mature chuckled at the scene.

At the end of the day, I really shouldn't be going for all the Power star, and that's more of a technical issue, but I'm gonna bitch anyway. But despite the age, this game is still a treat to play even today. This has been Somecallmejohnny, and you guys have a Good Day.

Nora stretches and yawns. "Well, that was a nice one. Funny too! I wonder what's next?"

The end

#rwby #jaune arc #rwby ruby rose #blake bellodona #yang xiao long #qrow branwen #rwby ozpin #headmaster ozpin #rwby salem #rwby nora valkyrie #rwby lie ren #rwby mercury black #emerald sustrai #rwby qrow branwen #rwby oscar pine #somecallmejohnny #somecallmejauney #look into the multiverse

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writingithink · 3 years

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Tangled Timelines Chapter 4 Rated: T Chapter Word Count: 8,468 Chapter Summary: Their tour of Torchwood does not go well. Notes: Okay so it's been awhile, but I'm back! Life is still p busy and chaotic, buuut the muse is kinder to me when there's more sunshine, so ... *shrug* I can only hope the update is worth the wait XP Hopefully the fact that it's the longest chapter yet helps?

MASSIVE thanks to @hey-there-juliet for being an amazing beta, as always.

All mistakes are definitely mine, being as I cannot leave anything alone.

I own nothing.

Read it on AO3!!

<-Ch 3

They left the warehouse through a dingy corridor, which the Doctor suspected was actually a tunnel. The air felt stale and damp despite the ventilation shafts running above them. Plus, Yvonne was currently silent, not giving them an enthusiastic description of where they were or where they were going - likely an attempt to disorient them. Cheeky, really.

“All those times I’ve been to Earth, I’ve never heard of you,” he told her, mostly trying to figure out how that was even possible, and partly because hearing nothing but their echoing footsteps was starting to get on his nerves.

Rose was quiet, both verbally and in his head, as she continuously looked around them. Being escorted by armed guards through a creepy tunnel was putting her on edge. He squeezed her hand, but had a difficult time trying to project reassurance across their bond.

“But of course not. You’re the enemy,” Yvonne said. “You’re actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown.”

Wait, 1879?! Torchwood, 1879.

“1879,” the Doctor repeated aloud this time. “That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland.”

Just you?!, Rose exclaimed, outrage flitting through their connection. They don’t even mention me? Oh, that is just- just typical Victorian. I bet it’s because you said you bought me or whatever. I was just- just a thing. Good enough to be knighted and banished, but don’t get even a teeny tiny mention on this Charter of theirs?

I’m sorry, do you want to be declared an enemy of the crown?, he asked her. While he was able to keep his amusement off of his face, it was very apparent over the bond.

“That’s right,” Yvonne was saying, “where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf.”

“I guess she really was NOT amused,” Rose quipped.

“Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde,” Yvonne informed them.

Suppose it’s best that I wasn’t mentioned, his wife admitted over the bond. Imagine what would’ve happened if Torchwood did know about me and snatched me up, took me prisoner or something before we even met?

She actually made a very good point.

“But if I’m the enemy, does that mean that I’m a prisoner?” the Doctor asked, more than a little worried.

Earth during this time, from his perspective? Mostly harmless. Torchwood, however, had an awful lot of very not-harmless extraterrestrial technology. And while they couldn’t get into the TARDIS and couldn’t actually stop him from sensing where she was, they did seem to have a sporting chance of keeping them from reaching her.

“Oh yes,” Yvonne answered as they made a sharp turn and exited the tunnel to stop abruptly in front of a heavily enforced door. “But we’ll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this.”

The door slid open and she led them into what appeared to be some sort of laboratory.

“Now, what do you make of that?” she asked, not needing to be any more specific. There was no way that he couldn’t know what she was referring to, the way the sphere was hovering at the end of the narrow space, every single piece of equipment in the room trained on it. And it was decidedly wrong. More wrong than the ghosts, than Torchwood’s existence, than … anything on the planet , really.

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off it.

All of his senses were going haywire, forcing him to block out most of the bond in order to shield Rose from just how- how awful this thing was.

“You must be the Doctor,” he was dimly aware that someone was speaking to him. “Rajesh Singh. It’s an honor, sir.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, still unable to look away from the sphere.

The timelines were tangling up around it, some passing over it as if the sphere didn’t exist, others indicating direct consequences of its future actions, or inaction - who knows. But those timelines were the only real sign, aside from the fact that he could see it, that his senses were giving him to prove that it did, in fact, exist at all.

“What is that?” his bondmate asked, dropping his hand. “It’s- it’s-”

“We got no idea,” Yvonne had no qualms to admit.

The Doctor shut down even more of the bond (a difficult feat), activating senses that he rarely used and was sure would only serve to give Rose a headache (or worse) if they leeched over to her. He had some ideas, none of them good, but still needed to narrow it down.

“It’s wrong,” his wife proclaimed.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with it?” he vaguely heard the bloke - Rajesh - ask her.

“I … I can’t … I think I might be sick.”

His attention snapped back to his bondmate and the Doctor opened the bond a little bit more, as much he safely felt he could, attempting to comfort her while also determining exactly what she was sensing from the sphere. Rose was still new to telepathy, really, and there was a possibility that other senses were activating as well. Unfortunately, he also needed to figure out what the sphere really was, and couldn’t focus the majority of his attention on his wife as he walked up to the platform. All he could safely ascertain, without going too deep into her mind to focus on the task at hand, was that she wasn’t truly ill and that her mind wasn’t in any danger.

“Well, the sphere has that effect on everyone,” Yvonne said. “Makes you want to run and hide, like it’s forbidden.”

“We tried analyzing it using every device imaginable,” Rajesh explained as the Doctor re-blocked the bond and put on his 3D specs, hoping for once that he was wrong. “But according to our instruments, the sphere doesn’t exist.”

Oh, why couldn’t he have been wrong? The sphere was so steeped in Void particles that it almost looked as though it was made of the stuff.

Yvonne had said that the ghosts were a side effect. He was starting to get an idea of what may have happened.

“It weighs nothing,” Rajesh continued, “it doesn’t age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass.”

“But everyone can see it,” Rose pointed out in disbelief. “Touch it, I’m assuming. It’s there.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is absent.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop looking at it. It was … well, obviously it wasn’t impossible, but it should be.

“Well, Doctor?” Yvonne asked, snapping him out of it.

“This is a Void Ship,” he admitted, refocusing on the weakening barriers he’d erected around their bond, trying to reinforce them in order to keep his anxiety and fear from crossing over. The blocks wouldn’t last much longer, the mental energy to keep them in place would be too great, but he just needed a little more time to get a handle on himself. They would figure this all out. They had to.

“And what is that?”

He could feel his wife attempting to reach him and hated that he was keeping her out. But really, they needed to avoid the inevitable negative feedback loop, especially since he had to do his best to appear calm and collected in front of these people. The Doctor took off his glasses, but still couldn’t stop looking at the ship.

“Well, it’s impossible for starters,” he told them, unable to think of a better word. “I always thought it was just a theory, but it’s a vessel designed to exist outside of time and space, traveling through the Void.”

Finally able to rip his gaze away from the sphere, he turned away, sitting down on the stairs leading up to the platform. Yvonne and Rajesh were quick to flank him, forcing Rose to squeeze past them in order to sit next to him. The Doctor put his arm around her automatically, and his barriers crumbled away. It was easier to keep himself calm (well, more calm) now that he wasn’t looking at the thing.

“And what’s the Void?” Rajesh asked.

It’s the space between parallel worlds, yeah?, his bondmate confirmed, attempting to send soothing waves of reassurance across their connection and dutifully not complaining about being cut off.

“The space between dimensions,” he explained to the others after mentally agreeing with his wife. “There’s all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that - nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time.” The Doctor actually found himself feeling better, giving them a heavily edited lecture, separating himself from all of the potential ramifications for a moment. But only for a moment, before dread began to claw back up his spine. “My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell.”

“But someone built the sphere,” Rajesh pointed out. “What for? Why go there?”

Oh, he did love it when people asked the important questions.

“To explore?” he hazarded. “To escape? You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, end of the Universe, start of the next, wouldn’t even touch the sides. You’d exist outside the whole of creation.”

In a rare moment of complete synchronicity, he and Rose both thought of the Beast in the pit.

The Doctor hadn’t thought it possible, but the Void Ship suddenly seemed even more sinister.

Before time.

Perhaps a being could exist before time … if they crawled out of the Void. But how would that even work? He wanted to convince himself that it was impossible - had to be. But …

It doesn’t matter, Rose chimed in, easily getting his attention. We stopped him. Whatever’s in that thing, it isn’t that.

She seemed so certain of this that the Doctor couldn’t help but believe her.

“You see, we were right,” Yvonne said, smugly. “There is something inside there.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, frowning deeply as she smiled on.

His bondmate was now thinking of a different memory from Krop Tor. What the Beast had predicted for her.

The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon.

He could feel the beginnings of the negative feedback loop that he’d been trying so hard to prevent.

I told you, it was wrong, the Doctor insisted, trying to project his complete certainty of this fact. Their timelines were entwined - it was all or nothing. And he still didn’t trust what he’d glimpsed at the Olympics, couldn’t allow that kind of hope to blind him of the danger of their current situation, but he played the memory for her anyway. He needed her to believe it. They just needed to get through this.

“So, how do we get in there?” Rajesh asked.

Oh, how he hated it when people asked the wrong questions.

“We don’t!” he ordered, launching himself up off the platform. “We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?”

There would have to be a tear in the fabric of reality for it to come through now that his people were gone. And he was going to have to figure out how to close it before it got bigger.

A tear in the fabric of reality?!, Rose shouted in his mind as she got up to follow him.

“Well, that’s how it all started,” Yvonne unknowingly saved him from having to respond to his seething wife. “The sphere came through into this world and the ghosts followed in its wake.”

“Show me,” the Doctor demanded, voice clipped as he took Rose’s hand and marched out of the room.

You’ve known about this Void stuff the whole bloody time, she continued complaining over the bond. Why the HELL didn’t you say something sooner?

I didn’t want to worry you unless I had to, he admitted. When it was just those ghosts, I thought that maybe it would be a simple fix. But that ship is corporeal. It made it properly through. The ghosts haven’t, so I thought I might just be dealing with a potential crack in the Universe. An almost crack. Like when you drop a mug and it gets a tiny hairline fracture. It hasn’t actually broken, just damaged enough that bacteria can get caught in it. You shouldn’t really drink out of it anymore if you can help it, but if you wanted to you could still use it to store pencils.

They took a left and barely made it past the door before he heard Yvonne shout, “No, Doctor.”

He quickly pivoted, accidentally dragging his bondmate in a circle, and then purposefully held his head high as they walked past the door again.

So the ship broke the mug, then, Rose continued as Yvonne and one of the soldiers caught up to them.

Yup. The metaphor kind of falls apart a bit after that, though. I’ll think of something better, just give us a tick. And … I’m sorry. It’s not like I thought you couldn’t handle it or anything.

They were directed to a lift, and as soon as they got inside his bondmate let go of his hand and crossed her arms.

Honestly, the Doctor pleaded across their bond, I was hoping that I was wrong. That it just appeared like they’d crossed the Void.

She glanced his way before eyeing the screen that was tracking their progress up the floors at a rate that was much faster than he could recall lifts being in this time period. The further up they went, the more his senses were screaming at him that things were not right. Timelines were twisting into strange shapes, and what was an occasional flicker everywhere else was more like a strobe as they shifted in and out of existence. The Doctor felt increasingly grateful that the barriers around his senses were much stronger than the rest.

You really weren’t trying to keep me out of some plan you’re cookin’?

Absolutely not, he hastily agreed. Me? A plan? Bold of you to think I have one.

His bondmate covered her mouth with a hand as her laughter rang out over their connection. Much better. Well, relatively. They were still in the middle of a gigantic potentially-Universe-ending catastrophe, but who said he couldn’t still appreciate the little things?

Yvonne led them out at the 45th floor - the very top of the building. Or maybe skyscraper was a better word.

“Right this way, then,” she said, and while Yvonne had started off leading them, they soon matched her pace - the breach was so large that there was no way the Doctor could have missed it even without the escort.

Within moments they turned a corner and there it was. Dormant, but there.

“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne stated. “A hole in the world.”

The Doctor dropped Rose’s hand as he approached the tear. Even in its current state, he could tell how large it was - that it had been growing. He reached up a hand, tracing its edge. Tingly. Tingly, but the bad kind. His hairs stood on end.

Is that safe? His wife’s worry coated their bond.

It’s fine, he assured her. It’s closed … for now.

“Not active at the moment,” Yvonne continued, “but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up.”

So they made the hole, then? Why?!

He could tell that his bondmate was wondering the exact same thing.

“How did you even find it?” the Doctor asked, deciding to start at the beginning (so to speak), as he backed away to look at the rip in reality in its entirety.

“We were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it,” Yvonne answered as he put on his 3D glasses.

Oh. Oh. The edges were steeped in just as much Void particles as the ship - which was just about what he’d been thinking, but still. Anticipating and then seeing were two very different things. He didn’t want to see what it was like when active. It should have never been active.

Do they just have an unlimited budget, then? Country spending all it’s money on this?

The Doctor could tell that his wife wasn’t actually talking to him, but the thought was quite loud and quite irritated. He glanced back to see Rose standing a few feet behind him with her arms crossed, frowning as she glared at the back of Yvonne Hartman’s head.

“You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance?” he couldn’t help but ask. “How much money have you got?”

“Enough,” Yvonne blithely answered before walking away.

Well, that was … fair? He never had figured out all of the rules for money, especially for talking about money. Humans were just so … so weird. The Doctor took off his glasses and tried not to roll his eyes.

“Look who’s talking,” Rose whispered in his ear.

“Oh, speaking aloud now, are we?” he muttered back.

“Mmhmm,” she responded with a cheeky grin. “Gonna let me try out your 3D glasses? Aren’t these from when we saw It Came from Outer Space after the last time we failed to see Elvis?” Turns out third time isn’t the charm.

This time the Doctor really did roll his eyes as he passed his bondmate the glasses. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see Elvis Presley, really it-

He stopped himself from going down that train of thought. Much more important things to think about. Rose tilted her head as she stared at the breach, then turned toward him. Her jaw dropped.

“Doc-”

“Come on now, Doctor,” Yvonne called before Rose could finish her sentence.

“Yup! Coming!”

They both turned and followed their ‘tour guide’ away from the rip in the multiverse, his wife passing back the glasses as they went.

Why are those black things all over you, too? The, er, Void stuff, Rose asked over the bond.

They’re also on you. We’ve been through, remember? But we’ve just got a light dusting. Everything else, you can barely see the thing for the Void, he explained as they caught up with Yvonne only to be led into an office.

Rose paused by a window, pressing her face up against the glass as she looked down at the streets below them, while the Doctor … for lack of a better way to phrase it … wandered off. It was different, though! The rule was for Rose not to wander away from him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t wander away from … uptight know-it-all heads of shadow organizations. Whom his wife was- was guarding. While he investigated!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of interest going on at the moment. And everyone was ignoring him. He was able to get a good look at their equipment, though, so at least there was that. It was simple enough, but he doubted he’d have enough time to dismantle it before a bunch of soldiers with guns came and stopped him.

“Oh!” he heard Rose exclaim from around the corner. “Look, we’re in Canary Wharf!”

The Doctor quickly placed them in his mental map of London. Good to know. He wasn’t yet sure why it would be good to know, but it couldn’t hurt. The ‘ghosts’ were everywhere, so it wouldn’t help with that, but if he needed to contact UNIT at any point, they would need to know his position.

“Well, that is the public name for it,” Yvonne was saying as he headed back toward them. “But to those in the know, it’s Torchwood.”

Right then. And now they were in the know, so it was time they listened.

“So,” he began as soon as he entered the room, “you find the breach, probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe? Nah, you think let’s make it bigger!”

“It’s a massive source of energy,” Yvonne justified. “If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent. Look, you can see for yourself. Next Ghost Shift’s in two minutes.”

She began leading them away, yet again, and he was tired of the tour.

“Cancel it,” he ordered as Yvonne walked past.

She’s not gonna listen to ya, his bondmate oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

“I don’t think so.”

The timelines were stretching taught all around him, blinking in and out even faster. He’d experienced temporal tipping points, he’d experienced fixed points, but he’d never experienced something like this. It was fraying his every nerve and it was taking most of his mental energy just to keep the effects of the anomaly from leaching across the bond.

“I’m warning you, cancel it,” he snarled. Why couldn’t she just listen? Why couldn’t she see that her actions right here, right now, could stop the Universe from being ripped apart?!

Rose, unaware of his mental turmoil, recoiled slightly, eyes widening. He could feel her prodding around the bond, trying to get further into his mind, asking what was wrong and baffled at his lack of response.

No no no no no. Not right now, not when he was constantly erecting and re-erecting barriers. It would be too much, if she got in his head fully. Too much, too much, too much.

Yvonne Hartman spun around, showing some real emotion for the first time since they landed at her precious headquarters that she had no idea may as well be a tomb.

“Oh, exactly as the legends would have it,” she said, voice dripping with condescension. “The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the Rights of Man.”

“Let me show you,” the Doctor panted, racing back behind a glass wall just as he succeeded in forcibly pushing Rose out of his head. Their bond went silent. A sinking feeling permeated his being, but … later. He’d deal with it later, explain later. One problem at a bloody time. “Sphere comes through,” he announced, pulling out his sonic and pointing it at the glass, making sure Hartman watched as it splintered around the initial impact site. “But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that’s how the ghosts get through. That’s how they get everywhere. They’re bleeding through the fault lines. Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours, with the human race hoping and wishing and helping them along. But too many ghosts, and-” he gently poked the glass wall and the whole thing shattered onto the floor.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Maybe he’d gotten through to her.

“Well,” she finally said, “in that case, we’ll have to be more careful.”

He glanced at Rose, meeting her eyes for only a moment before she swallowed and looked away.

“Positions! Ghost Shift in one minute!”

In a few long strides, the Doctor avoided most of the glass, fully ready to beg.

“Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don’t do it.”

“You’re putting everyone in danger,” his bondmate chimed in, and he didn’t like the panic and desperation in her voice, so he didn’t dare turn and try to look at her again. Seeing Rose upset wasn’t going to help. “Not just London or Britain, but the whole world! Maybe the whole Universe!”

“We have done this a thousand times!” Yvonne shot back, as if that somehow made it better.

“Then stop at a thousand!” he shouted, timelines strobing in and out so quickly that he could barely think straight, barriers beginning to crumble and he didn’t have the energy left to build more, not if he wanted to figure out how to stop whatever Miss Hartman seemed determined to start.

“We’re in control of the ghosts,” she tried to convince him. “The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it.”

The Doctor stared at her, and came to a decision, though not the most ethical one. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and since he was no longer using all of his telepathic energy to keep his wife from stumbling into the minefield that was his mind, he could do something else. He could project towards Miss Yvonne Hartman. She worked right next to the breach, which means her brain was likely primed for this sort of thing. Universe ending? Fine. Fine. Let her end it, then. But could she make that call? Would she be able to live with herself … whether she lived at all?

“Okay,” he said brightly, breaking eye contact once the suggestion was made and practically skipping back toward the office.

“Sorry?” Yvonne asked, just as confused as he figured she’d be.

“Never mind. As you were,” the Doctor smiled, grabbing the nearest chair and rolling it over towards where Rose was standing, still preternaturally silent in his head despite the fact that his barriers were now almost non-existent.

“What, is that it?”

“No, fair enough. Said my bit, don’t mind me,” he replied, taking a seat and turning toward the nearest worker. “Any chance for a cup of tea?”

The woman at the desk ignored him, but she did turn toward Miss Hartman and announce, “Ghost Shift in twenty seconds.”

“Mmm, can’t wait to see it,” the Doctor said, over exaggerating his excitement, his clenched fists the only thing giving him away.

“You can’t stop us, Doctor,” Yvonne declared, though it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. Good.

“No, absolutely not,” he agreed, crossing his arms. “Come here, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks.”

His bondmate finally walked over to him, and he was quick to weave their fingers together. And just like that, every barrier he had, even the ones that were normally easy to maintain, fell away as if they’d never existed in the first place. Her eyes widened, a barely audible gasp escaping before she moved even closer, stumbling before taking a seat on his lap.

I thought-

She didn’t give him time to finish the thought.

Sod it! If this is as long as our forever might be, I’m not gonna spend it pretending that we’re not together, her mental voice a disconcerting mix of defiance, anger, sorrow, and fear.

“Ghost shift in ten seconds,” the woman at the computer announced.

Rose’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Nine.”

The Doctor locked eyes with Miss. Hartman.

“Eight.”

He could see the fear there, just under the surface.

“Seven.”

He raised his eyebrows, daring her.

“Six.”

I love you, Rose’s mental voice whispered across the bond, tentative, afraid to mess up the game of chicken he’d started, but also desperate with the need to tell him.

“Five.”

I love you too, the Doctor replied, squeezing her hand, eyes still never leaving Yvonne’s, grin still plastered on his face.

“Four.”

It was a staring contest, with the entire Universe at stake, and he could tell that the fact that he didn’t actually have to blink was beginning to unnerve her.

“Three.”

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon !

“Two.”

His respiratory bypass kicked in, though his smile didn’t falter.

The word ‘one’ was about to pass through the worker’s lips.

“Stop the shift,” Yvonne ordered. “I said stop.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing to not let on just how worried he’d been there for a second.

“Yeah,” Rose seconded, “thank you.”

“I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible,” Yvonne said, visibly shaken though doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it from her employees. “But the program will recommence, as soon as you’ve explained everything.”

“We’re glad to be of help,” the Doctor replied, not wanting to push her any farther. It wasn’t safe to use telepathy around humans at the best of times, and his mind was all over the place.

What?!, his wife screeched in his head.

Not you, he quickly backpedalled. We’ve been over this, remember? You’ve got the activated genes for it.

Not that, you plum! You went in her head?!

“And someone clear up this glass,” Miss. Hartman was saying, interrupting the silent row that was starting up between them. “They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess.”

“They’re not wrong there,” Rose agreed, standing up awfully primly and crossing her arms.

The Doctor pouted up at her.

I wasn’t in her head, it was just a projected suggestion. Just- just like really loudly thinking in her direction, he tried to explain. I’m a touch telepath, I can’t properly enter another mind without direct contact. Well, aside from you, obviously.

And that works? Thinking loudly at someone?, his bondmate scoffed over their connection, disbelief apparent.

When you’re a telepath? Yes. Sometimes.

And in his case, with great difficulty. Really, he’d just gotten lucky.

It was just luck?

The Doctor sighed before finally standing, forced to move out of the way by the workers who had arrived surprisingly quickly to clean up the glass. Right, no barriers at all now, and no mental energy to make more. Rose obviously still had her own, since he wasn’t getting a stream of endless random thoughts and feelings. Well, this was going to be embarrassing. Actually-

Do you have a headache right now?, he asked her, briefly glancing at the workers around them before taking her hand. The ones that were obviously part of the Ghost Shift program had started typing on their computers again.

No, not really.

How’s that?

It didn’t make sense. He felt awful, the Void and the shifting, snarled up timelines constantly grating at his senses.

I mean, for a second there I thought I might pass out, but then I just kind of … I dunno, turned off the weird stuff?

And oh, how he wished he could figure out exactly what she meant by that, but now - unfortunately - wasn’t the time. Glass taken care of, Yvonne was now entering her office, nodding at them to follow. They both glanced back at the wall where the Void sat, waiting.

“C’mon,” his wife whispered, finally giving him a smile as she grabbed the chair and pushed it in front of her.

His gratitude, the Doctor was sure, must have been abundantly apparent. He took a deep breath before they both followed Yvonne into her office. Rose took a seat in what had been his chair, so the Doctor took the other.

“No,” Miss. Hartman was quick to correct, hands on her hips, “that’s my seat. We’ll get another.”

He turned to his wife just in time to see her rolling her eyes while failing to suppress a grin. Yvonne made the request, and by the time he walked around the desk again, a worker was rolling another chair in. They were quite efficient, he’d give them that. Then again, they had still not managed to get him his tea, so …

They’re not getting paid to listen to you, Rose commented. They’d be paid to bring Yvonne Hartman tea.

The Doctor smiled at her sarcasm as he got comfortable in his new chair, putting his feet up on the desk and leaning back. Blimey, he was tired.

“So these ghosts, whatever they are,” Yvonne asked, getting straight back into it, “did they build the sphere?”

“Must have,” he replied, not that he really knew. “Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.”

Though if the ‘ghosts’ were following in the void ship’s wake, he was partly curious and mostly terrified to find out what was actually inside the craft. Hopefully just more of whatever the ghosts really were, but possibly some sort of weapon. Who knew? Hopefully they would never have to find out.

Rose began chewing at a fingernail, looking out the window.

“And the energy?”

He raised both eyebrows, though wasn’t completely surprised that these humans would gladly siphon power even while not understanding how it was being generated. Problem was, they shouldn’t be able to do any of it and wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the alien technology they had stolen. Timelines strobed in and out, faster and faster and faster.

“I could use some energy,” the Doctor replied. “Quite the day I’ve been having. Where is that tea?”

His wife took his hand, weaving their fingers together as Miss. Hartman gazed skyward for a moment before (finally) ordering the tea.

Is there anything I can do to help?, Rose asked.

I doubt it. Since you can’t sense all of this, and I would not want to show you, it’s not as if I can even-

Before he could finish the thought, his mind was suddenly full of Rose and light and love and over half of his senses cut off. There were no more tangling timelines blinking in and out of existence - there were no more timelines at all .

The Doctor blinked, trying not to panic.

Yvonne said something, but he wasn’t sure what. Wasn’t paying attention, as he realized that his wife wasn’t in his head.

No.

She had pulled him into hers.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, wiggling his fingers in front of his face. It was so strange. His mind was still in his body, but yet … not? There was a slight lag between thought and action - about 5 picoseconds.

You are amazing, he exclaimed over the bond.

Rose grinned, mind radiating smugness.

How did you even figure out how to do this?

They certainly hadn’t gone over it during any of their telepathy lessons. And he hadn’t yet had the chance to look for more specific information, being as he’d only just found out how it all worked.

I don’t know, Rose’s mental voice admitted, uncertainty coating the words. I just kinda imagined what I wanted to do and then … I don’t know.

Blimey, she was going to be a much stronger telepath than he was.

“I asked what you would have us do if you had your way. You said send it back, but how exactly do you propose we do that?”

Ah. Good question. And where things got downright complicated (not that they weren’t already). The Doctor gave Rose’s hand a squeeze and then let go, wanting to determine if touch was a factor in this newfound ability of hers? Theirs? He wasn’t sure, had only ever done anything remotely similar when invasively telepathically connected with someone, touching their psi-points. This was much, much different.

The connection held.

And most importantly, for the moment - overall it was completely unsustainable, not having access to most of his senses - he could think clearly.

“I’ll need access to your equipment, and a comprehensive list of exactly what alien technologies you have at your disposal, because there’s a chance you may have what I need to properly seal and contain excess void particles. And I’ll need the TARDIS.”

“A comprehensive list? Hah! Nice try, Doctor. The relevant equipment, I may be able to allow.”

“May?”

“Torchwood serves Queen and Country, and there are calls I would have to make.” Now she didn’t look amused.

“Make them,” he urged.

“And when they ask about the energy?” she requested, eyebrows raised.

Calculations raced through his head.

“Well, there’d have to be energy sending them back. So you’d have that, right?” Rose piped in before he could compare the results with historical precedence - took longer without his time senses.

Point was, his wife was right, pretty much. And now wasn’t really the time to get picky. They were going to have to compromise.

“A lot of energy in the transfer,” he agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Run the maths yourself, but reversing all of the particles will take up the energy of key commands, power usage normal, and the energy created by all of the particles reversing at once would be massive. Long term may not be what you wanted, but I also doubt you wanted to annihilate the planet and potentially destroy all of reality, so …”

The Doctor shrugged.

Got a little rude, there, Rose oh so helpfully pointed out.

“We’ll just have to see what they say,” Yvonne said, though she didn’t look convinced, even as she began typing quickly on her computer.

You’ve got to admit, at least it’s progress, he had to point out.

Yvonne looked away from her computer, immediately turning toward the ghost shift control area right outside.

“Excuse me?” she called, getting up from her desk, “Everyone? I thought I said ‘stop the ghost shift’.”

Both he and Rose turned toward where she was now shouting out of the doorway.

“Who started the program?”

Not a single person was reacting. The Doctor stood up, taking his wife’s hand as they slowly followed Miss. Hartman out of her office. This was not good not good not good, and he could really use access to a few more senses right about now.

“But I ordered you to stop? Who’s doing this? Right, step away from the monitors, everyone.”

I’ve not exactly trapped you here, y’know, Rose pointed out, thoughts laced with anxiety as she looked from person to person, blankly typing at their monitors.

“Gareth, Addy, stop what you’re doing right now,” Yvonne ordered, the words having no effect. “Matt, step away from your desk.”

The Doctor stretched his awareness, finding that he had more energy than he thought he’d had as he tentatively shifted across their bond, the action feeling like simply walking through a door in his own mind for all of the effort it took. With great care, he was able to selectively access more of his senses without too much discomfort from all of his time senses.

“Matt, step away from your desk! That’s an order!” Yvonne shouted, and he now sensed her building panic. “Stop the levers! Andrew!”

Workers ran in, trying to manually stop the levers without much success.

He could sense nothing from the employees controlling the program.

“Look at their ears,” Rose breathed, memories from their own trip across the void engulfing the part of his awareness still resting deeply within her mind.

Their ears.

He listened for another moment before pinpointing the one typing the fastest.

“What’s she doing?” the Doctor wondered aloud as he marched over to the one who Rose identified as Addy, making note of how deeply connected they still were but unable to properly address it. Didn’t have the time.

“Addy, step away from the desk,” Yvonne urged as both she and Rose followed him.

He snapped his fingers in front of Addy’s eyes, not getting a single reaction.

No one home.

“Listen to me,” Yvonne continued as Rose stifled a gasp before turning and waving her hand in front of the man across the aisle, “Step away from the desk - oh! The call’s connected!”

“She can’t hear you anyway,” he told her, dread forming in the pit of his stomach as he turned toward the monitor. “They’re overriding the system. We’re going into ghost shift.”

With great reluctance, well aware that the results would be exceedingly unpleasant, the Doctor reactivated his time senses. Because he needed to know what exactly was happening in order to fully monitor the situation.

“Hello, this is Torchwood One, calling mayday, threat level alpha, activation code eight- four- delta- whisky- zero- seven- foxtrot,” Yvonne recited over her comm.

Sensations slammed into him all at once, timelines knotted together and breaking off, the spin of the planet speeding up and slowing down at a rate unnoticeable to the humans. He zeroed in on the devices attached to Addy’s ears.

“It’s the ear piece,” he bit out, swiftly becoming overwhelmed by the activating void but unable to retreat. He couldn’t afford the luxury. “It’s controlling them. I’ve seen this before.”

Of all the parallel worlds, really.

“Situation is dire,” Hartman continued into the phone. “We are requesting backup immediately. The Ghost Shift has been compromised, the Doctor is assisting.”

Hey, that’s where Mickey is, his wife pointed out even as she placed a hand between his shoulder blades, offering him comfort for what would have to come next. With great reluctance, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He sonicked Addy’s ear pod, and within moments she and all of the other partially converted Torchwood employees screamed before collapsing at their desks.

“What happened?” Yvonne demanded, eyes wide in terror as she likely realized she’d lost complete control over the situation - welcome to his world, really. Typical Tuesday, that. “What did you just do?”

“They’re dead,” he informed her, not having time to sugar coat it.

Despite their connected minds, Rose reached down and felt around for Addy’s pulse point.

“Is it really …” his wife paused, finding herself unable to say it all out loud. “Again, but here? Or …”

The Doctor could feel her mind racing as he attempted to gain control of the ghost shift program. Yvonne’s attention returned to her call, though he stopped paying attention.

“I think I know exactly where they’re coming from,” he admitted, loathe to be the one to confirm her fears, but unwilling (not to mention completely unable) to lie to her.

“But … Mickey was- and Jake, and-”

An image of her parallel father flashed through both their minds as Rose clenched her jaw.

Every sense the Doctor had was positively screaming as the seconds ticked on by and the tear widened.

“We’ll figure it out,” he near shouted as it all became too much.

Just as he managed to apologize mentally, Rose seemed to breach his mind even as a large portion of his consciousness remained in hers. The pain seemed to dull, sensations cushioned by the added presence.

Please, please tell me you can’t feel this, he found himself pleading, both grateful for the respite and horrified that the pain might simply be being transferred.

M’fine, his bondmate assured him. I’m just trying to help you make barriers.

Oh.

Well.

Huh.

While he had helped her construct some in their initial training, the Doctor had to admit that the sensation of someone doing it for him was novel.

“They’re patching into our systems. What are those ear pieces?” Yvonne asked.

“Don’t,” he ordered as he continued entering commands into the system. It wasn’t overly complex, but the time crunch was a bit of an ask. As much as he wanted to spare her the horror, he couldn’t afford to make time for sentiment.

“But they’re standard comms devices,” Miss. Hartman insisted as Rose stepped away from the desk, getting a better look at the levers.

“Trust me, leave them alone,” the Doctor insisted as he raced over to another terminal.

“But what are they?” he heard her ask, but ignored the question.

There were multiple universes on the line, after all. And nothing he tried was working.

“Ugh!” Yvonne’s exclaimed. “Oh, God!” He had warned her. “It goes inside their brain!”

“What about the Ghost Shift?” he asked, needing their host-slash-captor back on track. The Doctor looked up from the monitor at the bright, terrifying tear in spacetime opening up mere feet away from them all.

“Ninety percent there and still running,” she replied, quickly joining him at the desk. “Can’t you stop it?”

“They’re still controlling it, they’ve hijacked the system,” the Doctor quickly explained, standing up and pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

“Who’s they?” Yvonne asked, and nope! No time to get into that.

“It might be a remote transmitter,” he continued as he scanned the area, “but it’s got to be close by. I can trace it.”

With that, he ran, following the signal, dimly aware that Yvonne Hartman was tagging along.

“Keep those levers down,” she ordered as they raced out of the room. “Keep them offline! Help is coming.”

Rose broke away from where she’d been helping the others holding the levers back, quickly overtaking Miss. Hartman but still hanging back slightly.

You weren’t tryin’ ta leave without me, were you?, his wife asked, her mental landscape pulsing with agitation.

Wouldn’t dream of it, the Doctor assured her. After all, she had complete access to every single thought in his head now. He was fine to leave it entirely up to Rose, whether or not to follow him into near certain death. Not like he could stop her any other time.

“You two, you come with us,” Yvonne ordered a pair of soldiers walking past, not that it would do them any good.

They all slowed down, following his lead as they neared the source of the signal.

“What’s down here?” he asked as they reached a section of hall blocked off by plastic.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Yvonne admitted. “I think it’s building work. It’s just renovations.”

“You should go back,” the Doctor told her, taking his wife’s hand before carefully passing into the cordoned off area.

“Think again,” Miss. Hartman scoffed, once again ignoring his advice. It’s as if she truly didn’t understand that he was trying to help her.

We’ll figure this out, Rose assured him this time, despite knowing that he was completely aware of the terror and doubt pulsing through her headspace.

I love you, the Doctor told her, hoping that it wouldn’t be his last chance to say it.

I love you, too.

It wasn’t long before they reached the source … though he couldn’t see anything. At least, nothing obvious.

“What is it?” Yvonne asked. “What’s down here?”

“Ear pieces, ear pods,” he finally began to explain. “This world’s colliding with another, and I think I know which one.”

“We’ve met them before,” Rose continued, just as metal footsteps began clanging from every direction, shadows appearing to circle them behind the flimsy curtains.

“Fell through a crack on accident. Should have been impossible. Now we know why,” the Doctor elaborated, shifting so that his wife was directly behind him - connected lifespans or not, he was the one who could regenerate (hopefully).

“What are they?”

“They came through first. The advanced guard,” he told her, trying to keep the fear out of his voice and doing a rather poor job of it as the creatures surrounding them ripped through the plastic. “Cybermen.”

Rose and Yvonne both ducked as the soldiers began to open fire, and he grabbed both their hands in an attempt to get away that was thwarted before they’d even managed to move more than a few feet.

“We surrender!” the Doctor quickly announced, raising his hands above his head to show he was unarmed as the sounds of gunfire faded. He swallowed, blinking a few times and not allowing himself to turn around.

“Yeah, we surrender!” Rose quickly followed suit, gaze straight forward.

He turned to Yvonne, raising his eyebrows and giving her a slight wave.

“I surrender,” she - finally - agreed through gritted teeth, throwing up her hands.

They were quickly marched back to the Ghost Shift area, escorted into the room with guns to their backs.

“Get away from the machines,” the Doctor shouted. “Do what they say. Don’t fight them!”

Before the scientists at the levers had time to move, they were shot down.

“We are the Cyberman,” one of their captors announced - likely the Cyberleader. “The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred percent.”

The timelines around them had become utter chaos within the past fifteen minutes - the Doctor wasn’t sure how he would possibly be able to see straight, never mind think properly once the breach was fully opened.

If it’s not helping, just let go, his wife insisted, tugging him back toward her mind. Despite the fight or flight responses bombarding her systems, it was still much simpler in there, cut off from the nauseating sensations of slowly crumbling dimensions.

Glad my primitive human brain can help, Rose’s (slightly sarcastic) mental voice echoed around him as the levers raised.

“Here come the ghosts,” he warned, bracing himself.

Even cut off from his time senses, the full activation was brutal. The Doctor could sense the barriers Rose had made earlier shatter, despite his primary consciousness being nowhere near them. He grimaced, doing his best to keep the pain of it from touching his wife’s mind. No wonder it was so easy for her to move him telepathically - he no longer had any defenses.

They shielded their eyes, watching as a growing number of spectral figures approached through the rift.

“What are we going to do?” Rose asked, clinging to his side as the strain of protecting them both inside her head began to wear on her.

His precious girl. So, so strong. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he didn’t know, but the most he could do was not say the words. The last thing he wanted her to feel was his own fear, but all he could do was put on a brave face. Everything else was transparent, an open book.

“Achieving full transfer,” the Cyberleader declared.

The Doctor watched as the forms solidified. “They’re Cybermen. All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world.”

“They’re invading the whole planet,” Yvonne stated, and he noticed the blinking light on her ear piece indicating that she was still in a call.

“It’s not an invasion,” he corrected. “It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.”

“You’re the ones who gave it to them,” Rose couldn’t help but point out.

Yvonne opened her mouth only to clamp it shut again as the nearest computer began to repeat ‘Sphere Activated’ on a loop, claiming each of their attentions as data flashed on the screen. The Doctor frowned, eyes widening as he tried to make sense of it all.

How did a Cyber Invasion lead to a Void ship?

How did a Void ship lead to a Cyber Invasion?

Calculation after calculation, and none of them added up.

“But I don’t understand,” the Doctor stepped forward, commanding notice, needing to know. “The Cybermen don’t have the technology to build a void ship. That’s way beyond you. How did you create the sphere?”

“The sphere is not ours,” the nearest Cyberman replied.

“What?”

But … it was active.

It had activated precisely when the Cybermen fully manifested out of the void.

Sure, it didn’t make much sense for it to be theirs, but if not …

“The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown,” the Cyberman continued.

“Then what’s inside it?” the Doctor asked, despite knowing that the answer wasn’t coming.

#ten x rose #tenrose #time petals #ficandchips #dw fanfiction #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #fic: tangled timelines #my fic

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iguessishouldbethankful · 4 years

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what do you think the sf team does in their free time? like... when they have a "day off" and get to relax? ♥️🐦

You ask me this and you don’t specify which generation of the team. SMH. Lmao I know you meant the current main one but I feel the need to kinda explore a little with all three gens? Let’s see how this goes.

Star Fox 1st Generation: (of note, it’s interesting how all of them but Pigma had established families)

James McCloud - Smoker, suave, not as energetic as his wigmate, Peppy. And yet, he had enough in him to keep following his friend around. But honestly, James interested were more quiet and work oriented. A workaholic. Mind always on the team and the responsibilities he took on. Almost a complete perfectionist with a calming nature. His hobbies outside of work were few, and most were made with spending time with Peppy, Beltino, Pigma, the Greys and their families. Forming a taste for alcoholic beverages with Peppy, and appreciating the retro military look of space ships with Pigma, and the techno babbles of Beltino. Honestly, it still surprises him that he was able to find a wonderful wife in the end considering how work oriented he was, and focused. Vixy was possibly the only thing that kept him focused outside of work the most until she passed away. Then it was just Fox. And their times together were mostly focused on military history, documentaries, a continuous path of learning and studying. It was fulfilling and relaxing for James.

Peppy Hare - A much younger Peppy would be a spry little thing. More in shape, physically stronger and beaming to high heavens. And of course, a young husband and father like James. For his free time, besides catching up with the Toads and the Greys, Peppy would usually just spend time with Vivian and little Lucy. Before them, he was mostly into bar hopping with James around Corneria’s capital. Dancing with the single ladies and flirting. He was much better at it than James, honestly. He’s also a really good dancer. But once he tied the knot with Vivian and had Lucy, his world became just the two of them outside of work. He’d take them to picnics and spoil both with flowers and stories and nothing but his time to give to them. He’d even read his newspaper out loud so Lucy would know what the subjects were. She loved the voices he’d make. His family was everything…

Pigma Dengar - First time I’m thinking about this fool before he went to the dark side. And honestly, I can easily see him being more relaxed on his own. In the hangar after a hard day’s work upgrading Arwings with Beltino’s help. A good pack of cigarettes, a deck of cards, a handful of dice or maybe online gaming to keep his mind off things. Hell, I still see him being the kind of guy that would sit down with the kids and show them how to gamble honestly. Fox, Lucy, Slippy and Bill… And both Bill and Lucy remember the nasty little betting tricks too. Pigma was very much into gambling and taking bets on his off time too. He would get a lot of money, lose a lot of it, but in the early stages, it calmed him. Working on older models of ships helped him too. It’s rather unfortunate that this is where Lucy got some of her fascination for old model space ships, because of the magazines and books Pigma would let her look at. Modding was a big part of his younger life and he enjoyed that before joining the team. It… went away when things got worse.

Beltino Toad - I headcanon that, even if Beltino wasn’t part of the team, he was still a very important external force that helped out a lot. Especially with Pigma. So I will count him into my headcanon piece. He’s into making little machine toys. Like making little machine creatures and devices. To him, it keeps his mind sharp and there is always a new project on his table to go home to that isn’t an all consuming one. In fact, it’s one he could share with Slippy when he was old enough to walk. It helped with the two of them bonding and getting into other geeky stuff. Hell, Beltino was the type of father that would get into anything Slippy wanted to get into, so after that, he was a goner. Trading card games to video games, even modding them on the computer and making his own became his hobby as much as Slippy’s. In a way, spending time with his family was his way to relax.

Star Fox 2nd Generation:

Fox McCloud - I see Fox as being rather similar to his father in many ways. At first, he didn’t have as many hobbies that were formed on his own. Most of them were things he got into with his friends, Slippy, Bill and Lucy. With Slippy, he actually tried watching some of the cartoons but instead he was into more live action fighters (similar to Power Rangers). And with Lucy, he got into model kits of space ships. He has a few still. Whereas with Bill, he got into sports like baseball and handball. Hell, all four of them were into playing against each other in any game. But once his father died, Fox became more sullen and quiet. His interests were more work focused with the occasional gaming with Slippy. His shell started to break after the war however. So gaming is something he’s into now, as well as reckless space racing which, much to Peppy’s dismay, is something he got into with Falco. And meditation. That he learned with Krystal.

Falco Lombardi - This bird has no chill. Joking, he does. Falco’s free time is dictated by what he feels like doing. Besides trying to not be the worst gamer in the team–and that doesn’t exactly relax him at all but he keeps doing it. But what he does enjoy is watching cartoons with Slippy. Funny enough, they both have an unofficial established bond over ‘anime’ series such as Dino Ball Z and Sailor Papetoon. Something about the sailors legs, man… Ahem. But out of everything, Falco is into anything that will give him a sudden rush. Flying for any reason, races, pushing his own limits in the cockpit. And outside of his Arwing, well… Falco is reckless due to him wanting that rush continuously. From bar fights to even amusement park rides. Not the best of hobbies, to want to feel the danger behind his actions, but it’s something he became addicted to in a way. Staying cooped up somewhere will only make him more aggressive due to ‘my thoughts won’t stop, I need to drown them’ so he needs to keep moving.

Peppy Hare - In comparison to his younger self, a much older Peppy is much more sullen. Quiet, always looking after the younger team. His free time is usually dictated by what he needs to show them–trying to find the patience to guide them when anything sparks off. But when things are quiet, he finds himself mostly contacting old friends such as Beltino and Pepper, especially after Vivian passed away. Sometimes he’d contact Lucy, ask her how the cadets are doing, how she is doing. However such things aren’t as often as him sitting down with either Fox or Falco to chat with them. And even then, strangely, he seems to bond a little more with Falco at times, taking the time to pry open the avian. Why? Just a hunch. They have quite a bit in common without either of them knowing. He’s also very much fond of tea. Don’t bitch at him about his leaf water, leave him be!!

Slippy Toad - Listen here. Slippy is a bucket of hobbies. When he’s not working on machinery, making new inventions for his team, guess what he’s doing? This guy is making games on his computer for fun, testing them with Falco on the side (because he knows the difficulty curve Falco secretly needs to get shit done in a game, and if Falco is able to complete a task, the games is way too easy). When not making or playing games, he is having forum/server discussions with some of his online friends about cartoons and shows he’s into. He will actually share this with Falco a lot if it’s something the avian is into as well. He will also get into online trading card games and goes into bidding wars over certain real cards that are mega vintage. He also has a toy figure collection he keeps around in his dorm on the Great Fox (most of them are at home with his dad though). He’s also into music. All of the music that slaps in the Great Fox? That’s all Slippy. Bless him. Lastly, one more thing. He owns a ukelele. He knows how to play it. That is actually the mostly relaxing thing he can do for himself when he does feel absolutely anxious. Just sit somewhere quiet, away from everyone and string away.

Krystal - She’s a bit more simple in comparison. Used to living on her own in the wilderness, most of her free time consists of returning to Sauria to help restore the planet as much as she can. Empathy work is also something she truly enjoys doing when the recipient permits her to do so. So far, Fox and Slippy permitted her to work on some of their mental wounds. And yes, taught Fox how to meditate and relax in the silence as she found out Fox was never comfortable being alone. Out of the entire team, she’s possibly the one that’s most comfortable being herself.

Star Fox 3rd Generation:

Marcus McCloud - Unlike his father and his grandfather, Marcus is actually much more active when it comes to fun. A bit of a sports jock when in school and the Academy, he very much enjoys exercise to keep himself in shape and to keep his mind off things that can get under his skin. He enjoys gaming as well, but nothing compares to Skipper and Abby. Still better than Falco though, lmao.

Abigail Hare - Possibly the edgiest out of the team. She’s into reading books because of her mother, Lucy, and most of them are dark and spooky. Why? No dad, it’s not a phase. She also enjoys cartoons and is into retro space ships like Lucy (and got to drag her father into it as well). Now, the one thing her and her little brother, Valentino Hare, share in hobbies is that they both are actual super into healthy foods. This is mostly due to the shared rabbit disease passed down by mothers in Vivian’s bloodline. After Lucy passed away, Falco helped his kids to get into a much better diet and it became a shared thing between all three.

Skipper Toad - The oldest of the Toad siblings. He had to fight his way to stay relevant and boy, he’s merciless when it comes to his energy. Non stop, naturally caffeinated young man. From video games to schematics for lunch, to learning how to hack into different systems and databases to get information in a more proactive manner, he’s pretty much into many things that keeps him busy all the time.

Falco Lombardi - Like Peppy, he’s much older now, mellowed out, widower and a father of two. Abigail is his oldest, Valentino is his youngest (and that one stays on Corneria under the watchful eye of General Peppy). Ever since Lucy passed on, he’s been much more attached to his kids than ever, constantly checking on Valentino while with the team, and making sure the new team is able to stand on it’s own two feet. He finds it amusing how he’s the ‘gramps’ now, even though he still gets guidance from Peppy along the way. Sometimes Fox as well, but most of their conversations are just casual updates on how the new generation is doing. Honestly, he’s still kind of reckless, mostly to keep Marcus on his toes and to teach Abigail how to fly much better than what the Academy taught her. Honestly, the new team itself is his free time. He’d trade his place in there for nothing in the universe.

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Writing Betrayal

It’s the third act of the story, your heroes are in the fight for their lives (sometimes literally) and absolutely nothing must go wrong. But wait, someone close and important has decided to change sides.

CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL

The horror. The gut punch. The characters are now in even more dire straights. People may be dead.

Now, how do you, as an author, go about writing this to get the most reaction out of your audience?

Firstly, you have to write the character into the story.

No one is going to care about the third cousin once removed if he never appeared in the story before this betrayal scene. Your betrayer should be one of the main characters of an ensemble, or someone your main characters hang out with quite a bit.

The main characters trusted this character, we should too. They were friends. The reader should feel like this character is their friend.

Example 1: Cypher from the Matrix. Cypher was one Morpheus’ crew on the Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus trusted him enough to have him handle setting up missions and standing watch keeping an eye on the Matrix. During the film, Cypher makes several come ons to Trinity, and expresses doubt to the new guy, Neo, about leaving the Matrix. (Foreshadowing) and is later shown actively betraying Morpheus to Agent Smith. Without those few scenes where Cypher is the ‘star’ of the movie, the betrayal wouldn’t have been as impactful.

Example 2: Elizabeth Swann from PotC: Dead Man’s Chest. Elizabeth is one of the heroes of the movies, if not the Heroine of the original Pirates trilogy. They follow her journey from a rather spoiled Governor’s daughter to becoming a pirate captain in her own right. We are constantly with her. She’s the good guy! And then, the kraken comes, the sailors have to leave the Black Pearl as the Kraken is after Jack Sparrow. And Elizabeth makes a choice, to betray her friend, the one in the last movie she stood between him and certain death and she MANACLES him to the MAST.

This betrayal of her own ideals and doing what is expedient over what is right is when Elizabeth truly becomes a pirate and has to spend the next movie fixing her mistake to assuage her guilt (Going into the cave of World’s End) before she can return and be willing to live on land again.

Secondly, give the betrayer a valid grievance.

When the betrayal pops out of nowhere because it’s an expected trope of whatever genre you’re writing, often the motivation of the betrayer is completely glossed over or not mentioned at all.

Your betrayer is the hero of their own story. They need to have a reason for doing what they are doing. It doesn’t really matter the reason. It can be as petty as they like, what matters is this reason is important enough to them that they are will to go against the people who love and care for them to attain it.

Of course, the betrayer may have never actually loved or cared for these people and just pretended. Valid option! Or maybe the betrayer isn’t betraying them at all and this is part of a grander scheme. Also valid option!

But there has to be a reason. “You didn’t pay me enough attention, give me the reward I thought I was due, I didn’t get the girl” are all petty but valid reasons.

Example 1: Cypher. Life outside the Matrix wasn’t what Cypher envisioned. He didn’t like the clothes, the food, and the accommodations. He wanted to go back into the Matrix even though it was fake. He was willing to kill everyone on the ship to do so. (Whether or not the machines would actually do this was never explored, though implied heavily they would betray Cypher in turn.)

Example 2: Elizabeth. She is facing the proverbial rock and a hard place choice! She either betrays Jack and leaves him for the Kraken and the crew is almost sure to survive. Or they take Jack with them and the Kraken ignores the Pearl entirely and comes after the life boat and they most assuredly all die. One life, or everyone’s life.

Thirdly, we need to like this character enough that we are rooting for them to not betray the main characters and be part of the team.

Likeability is a very alchemical thing. But if the character comes off surly, whiney, or downright skeevy (especially to the female audience) then it is less likely the reader is going to want that person to be part of the gang.

Example 1: Cypher. Okay, Cypher is not the best of examples because Cypher is honestly a bit skeevy. He hits on Trinity when it’s pretty clear she’s told him to back off already. However, when he’s talking to Neo about “why didn’t I take the blue pill” you and Neo don’t know if he’s just talking out his rear end or if he really means it. Cypher is trying to be friendly even.

Example 2: Elizabeth. She’s the heroine of the story. She’s done awesome things like parley with pirates, stab a pirate, sword fights, fake fainting to cause distractions. Basically, she’s been pretty cool the entire two movies as she sets off to save Port Royal/Will Turner in her noble way. This is excellent motivation!

Lastly, there should be some foreshadowing. OMINOUS MUSIC

This is kind of a culmination of everything before. Basically, you need to set up your betrayal. In order to set up the betrayal, the reader needs to spend time with the characters and they have to have a good shown motivation to betray the heroes. And we don’t want the betrayer to be twirling their mustache throughout the story because that doesn’t make the betrayal a surprise! There should still be clues. Things perhaps should be a bit off. Maybe there is a conversation about feeling underappreciated or they made the wrong choice. Maybe the character shows mild resentment. Or the heroes almost catch them in the act of doing whatever they are doing to betray them but the betrayer has an excuse to hand.

There needs to be something that the reader can go back through the story and go “ah, I see it now” before they’re finished.

Example 1: Cypher. Cypher and Neo have a conversation about Cypher’s thoughts on taking the ‘red pill.’ Cypher tries to frame it in such a way he’s encouraging Neo in the “we’re in this together” group think mentality. (Men do this a lot by assuming your thoughts on a subject when it is their thoughts they’re trying to impose on you in a bid to make you feel included.) You can’t tell at this point if Cypher means it or if he’s trying to figure out what Neo thinks or if he’s just talking. It is only later with the dinner with Agent Smith you find out he really does want to go back into the Matrix.

Example 2: Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s betrayal was foreshadowed more subtly than Cypher’s. Mostly by using a romance subplot where Elizabeth is torn between her love for Will and the feelings she has for Jack. The compass that doesn’t point north is the plot device here. (And the fact that Jack does return those feelings.) It’s her frustration with herself and in fact, with Jack combined with the intense need for everyone to survive, that has her throwing morals to the wind and betraying her friend Jack (and making Will think she no longer loves him because they don’t end up talking like adults. Ugh.)

There you have it, four pieces of advice to make your betrayals come off with plenty of emotional impact for the reader so it feels satisfying. This is, of course, all from the point of view of the good guys are being betrayed. If someone from the other side is betraying the bad guys, that’s a different kettle of fish entirely.

#writing tumblr #writing tips #writing advice #betrayal #writrblr

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laceypruett · 3 years

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Traveling After a Pandemic

If you knew the angst that went into simply agreeing on a title for this piece, you would laugh. This is our current world. We have a scarcity mindset, mixed with some fear over what we’ve been through this past year. I’ve had seasons of scarcity, fearfulness, and oh the worry. Worry laced everything in 2020 and tied it in a bow, so when I shared my potential title, I was met with, “but we’re still IN a pandemic.” Are we?

According to historians, pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the sicknesses or death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.

“When people ask, ‘When will this end?’ they are asking about the social ending,” said Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins.

In other words, an end can occur not because a virus has been vanquished but because people grow tired of panic mode and learn to live with a virus.

I chose the title I did, because, for me, it is the truth. The cool thing is that you get to decide for yourself, your family, and your life experience what is true for you. After this way-too-long discussion with some fellow authors, there was a moment when I said, “no more.” No longer will I live in fear, and no longer will I worry myself about what may happen. Death rates have plummeted (one of the medical ends to a pandemic) and the virus strand is weakening. This is great news! Precautions I’ve taken since last March can now soften a bit. I definitely won’t worry about things out of my control. An example of something out of my control… what others think of my life decisions.

When some of the world lifted their restrictions on air travel, my husband and I booked a few flights to some of our favorite places. “You’re going to travel out of the country, right now?” It echoed for several days, but it’s just one more reminder to make your own rules for your life. Yes, the pros outweighed the cons, for us, and that is enough. I wondered what it would be like “out there,” and what the experience would really be, and curiosity squashed fear. We considered our safety, security, and health, in this decision to fly internationally, and we booked accordingly. You see, for us, the world is vast and there’s opportunity to expand one’s life perspective with traveling and seeing the world. Staying at home doesn’t make sense to us, as a long-term decision, especially if health and vitality are the goal. We take good care of our health, and we take proper precautions, so for people in our situation, travel is an option. If you have the travel bug, I invite you to get out there again, too. I’ll explain why later in this article.

When the COVID-19 flu strand pushed us into a global pandemic, my husband and I were crushed. We had four trips we now had to cancel or that were canceled on us. Birthdays, anniversaries, France, Spain, British Virgin Islands, and Cabo San Lucas all vanished off the calendar. We were sad but worked to quickly shift mindsets. We would have different types of adventures for a while. We would make an adventurous life at home, under these new daily, safety standards. We would enjoy the Texas beach house more. We would spend time enjoying new hobbies, activities and a slower pace. The re-wiring of adventure expectations took some ebb and flow (especially by me—I already purchased new outfits for Spain and for France), and while I look back on the memories, we made last year, I am grateful for them. More on that later… let’s get to the good stuff. Traveling internationally, after a pandemic, was different but worth it. It’s easier if you plan ahead, set some new expectations, and give just about everything and everyone some added grace.

Here are my tips and awareness (based on separate trips to Cabo San Lucas, and Riviera Maya, Mexico, flying commercial airlines, and staying at a resort & spa property (not private residence):

1. Clean up your diet, increase your fitness routine, and be impeccable with nutritional supplements months before traveling. Do a 7-14 day detox if possible. This is key! Don’t travel with a weak immune system.

2. Don’t fight the masks. It’s happening, and it’s nobody’s preference. (At least, I don’t think anyone loves wearing them?) As of today, wearing a mask is required in all airports, on all commercial aircraft, and it was required in the lobby areas and restaurant entries. You can wear a mask whenever you want, but these are the places a mask was required. I wore a separate mouth and nose covering for the flight that met the required standards. It was more comfortable than my mask and worked well.

3. Bring your own anti-bacterial soap. At the end of each day, it felt nice to scrub away the day with an extra anti-bacterial protection. Even if you don’t usually use an anti-bacterial soap, use one now for ease of mind. One bar of Dial soap lasted 10 days.

4. Pack a pen! In addition to the usual customs and immigration forms, there’s a new COVID disclaimer form to fill out and turn in upon arrival at the airport and again at your lodging.

5. Bring your usual daily multi-vitamin, but add in the following every day: Zinc, an immune modulator, extra vitamin C & D. These helped me feel armed against new elements, foods, and the new environments.

6. Expect delays at check-ins. We arrived at the airport, our hotel, and even at restaurants that each had their own added health screenings or checks. The oddest one was a device you step into (think air brush tanning days) that sprays you with an antimicrobial solution. It’s light and dries quickly, and at its worst, just slightly annoying. They spray your baggage on arrival at the hotel with this solution, too. Some take your temperature, and some offer you (and expect you to take) hand sanitizer.

7. Make reservations! Most restaurants are requiring them to comply with the distancing needs of the tables (Mexico restaurants and bars filled up but we were spaced out really well.) Don’t expect to just show up, without a reservation, and get seated anywhere. If it happens, yay!

8. Hire private ground transportation. This minimizes your exposure to new taxi cabs and drivers each time you need to go somewhere. Walk whenever and wherever you can. Exercising keeps everything moving, even the bad bacteria and virus strands, and these getting stuck in our body cause the problems.

9. Tip generously, when appropriate. Hearing the stories of how this year has been for different people, really opened my eyes to the outlier issues we’re now facing, outside of the actual sickness. By traveling soon, you are helping to reverse some long-standing financial damage people and businesses are facing, due to closures and restrictions. Select local businesses, restaurants, foods, and entertainment when possible. You can immerse yourself into the culture of where you’re visiting, and meet some wonderful people at the same time.

10. Call ahead and ask what’s new due to the pandemic. Being aware of expectations, protocols, and changes will allow you to prepare yourself accordingly and to enjoy the experience better. None of us are at our best when expectations are not met. Proactively do some research and set yourself up for success.

Go explore! My soul came alive immediately as I started roaming one of my favorite areas of Mexico. Being in the elements, the sun, especially, taking in the sights, sounds, and feelings filled me up with vitality. Don’t wait any longer! Find your next adventure spot and start booking. I am grateful for our continued health, and we remain protective of it. You are in control of how you protect yourself, and it is possible to feel safe and protected while traveling the beautiful world again. Be respectful of others’ “house rules,” as everyone is trying to help everyone feel as comfortable as possible right now, and by respecting these efforts, we all get to feel a little more freedom.

For us, the pandemic was a temporary situation, not a permanent change to our way of life. This travel experience has been educational for us, as many things felt differently than what we’re used to, but necessary for where we currently are with pandemic concerns. While we hope even more of the restrictions lift and more countries open up to American travelers, we hope some of the new practices never leave. Airplanes, airports, hotel rooms, and bathrooms have never been cleaner! I see people giving everyone space and washing their hands longer. Que Maravilla! On that note alone, take a deep breath and go explore somewhere new. Let me know what you find!

#mexico #travel #healthytraveler #pandemictravel #eldoradoresorts #pueblobonitoresorts #detox #bewell #beyou #laceypruett

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racefortheironthrone · 4 years

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Thoughts on Powers of X #6

It’s Not A Dream If It’s Real:

We start with an extended return to Powers of X #1, which might come off as somewhat self-indulgent if so much of the issue didn’t come down to an exploration of how this encounter between Charles Xavier and Moira X radically transformed Xavier’s life. We need a full page of Xavier walking happily through the forest, in other words, because we are seeing the last truly innocent moment in his life.

One thing that I find more than a little frustrating is that, given their prominence in the circular framing device that Hickman uses, we’ve seen remarkably little of Rasputin, the Tower, and Cardinal. I’m really hoping they show up again in Dawn of X, although I recognize that it’s early days yet, because I feel like there’s a lot of unexplored potential there.

One thing that really changes on this read is how we read Moira’s expressions in light of what the current and previous issue/s reveal about her motivations. You can really see that Moira feels way more ambivalent and regretful about what she’s about to do.

What Happens When Humanity Stops Being Beholden To Its Environment?

But before we get to any of that, it’s time to close the books on our X^3 timeline. And while I’ve been rather critical of the pacing and characterization of this timeline in previous PoX issues, this is a significant improvement.

It begins with the Librarian going off to “feed the animals at the zoo,” confident that he’ll be unharmed because “my augmented brain is far more advenced than yours.” The Librarian’s intellectual arrogance and superiority complex - which (spoilers) will be his ultimate undoing, and quite possibly that of the Phalanx as well - is a running theme throughout this section.

Speaking of which, we get something of a debate where the Libratrian conintues to think of mutants as essentially mindless animals acting in “their nature,” whereas Logan insists on a language of resistance against slavery. Not surprisingly, the Librarian doesn’t have much have time for that kind of debate and instead wants to talk to Moira.

As befits both of their scientific natures, the two of them discuss the tension between “preservation” and “observation” in “controlled habitats” - and I’ll freely admit that I don’t know enough about zoology to have much of an opinion here.

However, the Librarian really changes tack from the scientific to the reliigous when he lets them know that “the Phalanx will descend and absorb the entirety of our post-human society...what was once our post-human society will exist forever as part of that godhead.” Again, I think it’s majorly counting your chickens to assume you’ll be part of the godhead rather than food for the godhead, but that’s what happens when you really go in for Pascal’s wager in a serious way.

In a surprise no doubt built on eavesdropping on Moira to understand her mutant powers, the Librarian doesn’t want Moira to die before the translation, because he needs to make sure that “if you live past my becoming god, then -- existing beyond space and time -- we will know you, forever. And I think it very likely we would not tolerate something like you having any power over something like us.” Here is the first real threat to Moira since Destiny in Life 3, that for the second time there would be a hostile force that would know about Moira’s past lives who could act against her before she has a chance to prevent it. And the Phalanx/Dominion are way more powerful than just Destiny, which suggests that Moira’s motivations may be driven now by her perception of the ultimate threats to herself and mutantkind.

In a fitting end that pays more than a little homage to the philosophy of identity, the Librarian is undone by his doubts over whether "the universal machine state” is “a fake existence,” because his post-human abilities allow him to perceive material reality on a deeeeeper level, maaaan, so would he be as happy as just an uploaded consciousness, even one that he sees as godlike?

And here we get the link between the transhumanism/singularity stuff and Moira/Krakoa’s mission of preserving mutantkind: can mutants prevent post-humanity from arising, and escape the cage into which science has placed them? I think a lot of Krakoan policy, from the offer of Krakoan pharmaceuticals on down, is aimed at keeping humanity happy in its cage.

At the same time, we shouldn’t feel too bad about the Librarian’s burgeoning existential crisis, because he is still a pseudo-intellectual racial supremacist who’s just as convinced that technology makes him superior to the racial minority he’s holding subordinate as an Victorian or Enlightenment-era phrenologist.

Let’s start with his argument that “mutants are an evolutionary response to an environment. You are...naturally occurring.” This is only kind of true, depending on which version of mutantcy’s origins one subscribes to. Even still, a reverse naturalistic fallacy is still a fallacy.

The more interesting idea, and it’s one I didn’t quite see coming is that post-humanity won when it used genetic engineering to make themselves superhuman, and used merely mechanical transhumanism - the Sentinels and Nimrods - to give themselves enough of a lead in the race against mutants that they could never catch up. Notably, this is not the scenario that took place in Life 9 - Nimrod the Lesser clearly didn’t have human afvancement in mind - so perhaps this is why humans need to be so careful about the Heller/Faust line.

Another important question that makes me question the rationality of post-humanity - if you have access to widespread genetic engineering, why not end the human/mutant conflict by switching everyone’s X-gene to positive? I feel like with the spread of CRISPR and similar technologies, this is a question that is going to have to be answered. (The answer is that bigotry is irrational by its very nature, but still.)

Proving once again that Monologuing Kills, Logan nails the Librarian to a tree with his claws - which prevents the Librarian’s knowledge from being incorporated into the Phalanx, and then kills Moira, which insures that the timeline reboots then and there, with the Phalanx getting none of post-humanity’s secrets.

Thus ends Moira’s Life 6...and I have to say I’m not really keen on the misdirect. Yes, it was likely that X^3 would be Life 6, since it was the one timeline we haven’t seen yet, but the misdirect requires you to believe that two Nimrods would capture Cylobel in the same way across the two timelines. The only thing that makes it feel less of a cheat is that apparently all the Cylobels look the same (which is something we saw more of in Life 9, so I guess), but that’s still a bit too close to feel satisfying.

Branching Humanity Infographic:

Speaking of infographics definitely written from a mutant perspective, this document really makes its perspective clear when it refers to humanity as an evolutionary dead end. (Which I’m not so sure about from a genetics perspective - we’ve seen before that humans can be carriers without expressing the x-gene, that the X-gene can spontaneously activate without parents who are carriers, that mutants and children can have children without difficulty, and that sometimes mutant-mutant pairings can result in non-mutant offspring, that doesn’t read like speciation to me.

Homo novissima -is described as a “manufactured branch of humanity not restricted by normal evolutionary constraints,” which really plays into the naturalistic fallacy something hard. Arguably anyone who’s not lactose intolerant can be described as homo novissima under those standards.

The idea that really blew my mind is the idea that there is a “paradigm loop between organic and technological constructs,” such that advances in the one give rise to the other in a leap-frogging way. This is really different from Hickman’s Transhuman and how HoxPoX has depicted the stark divides between Krakoan and ORCHIS technologies. I wonder where Hickman’s new synthesis will lead us?

It’s Not a Complement:

At long last, we actually get to see what it was like for Charles Xavier to “read” not just a thousand plus years of memories, but a thousand years plus years of memories that are devastating to his entire worldview. Given how much this issue talks about Xavier being “broken,” I would count this as the first time.

Moira, who has thrown her “pragmatic” switch all the way into the red to have this conversation,” barely bats an eye at Charles’ existential crisis and instead pivots to her larger message that “hard truths are what’s called for when dealing with radical realignments to old ways of thinking.”

The exchange that follows is extremely characteristic on both their parts: Moira is deeply pessimistic, stating that it’s not just that “we lose” but that “we always lose” (much more on this later); Charles, despite his initial shock is still a relentless optimist, thinking through scenarios that would allow him to continue his technocratic assimilationist vision of mutant rights.

In a very bittersweet move, Moira lays one on Xavier and lets him know that amidst all the complicated emotions she’s had towards him, “not once in all my lives have you changed...its not a compliment.” It is one of his most frustrating characteristics that Charles Xavier believes that, because he believes himself to be in the right even when he’s not, he’s incredibly resistant to change his mind.

Hence why Moira believes “I have to break that part of you,” the part that believes “in the goodness of others.” This is a really significant point - Moira identifies Charles’ compassion, not his pride and intellectual arrogance, as his weak point that she will have to go all Ivan Drago on. This is kind of a problem, because Charles’ compassion has always been fighting a pitched battle with his utilitarianism, so stripping that away produces a man who will do anything for the greater good.

The chief irony - and it’s one I’ve been surprised more people haven’t commented on - is that Moira’s decision here will directly result in what happens at the end of this book, because once you train someone like Charles to be paranoid and suspicious and even more of a utilitarian, he’s absolutely going to apply his new worldview on you. More on this in a bit.

A couple important things that are really worth keeping in the forefront of your mind when we get to the final confrontation:

First, Moira is dead-on when she describes Erik Lensherr as “your shade,” because the two of them are mirror images and have been for a long, long time.

Second, Moira’s plan includes Xavier and Erik fighting her.

Moira’s Journal Infographic:

Here we get an fascinating and frustrating infographic, as we get several pages from “Moira’s journal,” although to be honest it’s much more a Jane Goodall-style field notes on her attempts to influence the future by influencing the development of three men. (Which itself is a whole gendered thing, but also very much tied in to her observation and experimentation methodology in her earlier lives.)

Entry 5: “unlike myself, observation has not granted himself perfect recall of my past lives, and as I wil not permit him to read me a second time, he is now dependent on my interpretation of past-life events.”

As with his mind-reading of Krakoa, despite Xavier being an Alpha-level telepath, he doesn’t quite get the whole of the picture when he reads (unusual?) minds. This is crucial in understanding the power dynamic between them - the only thing that allows Moira to keep the upper hand is that Xavier is temporarily “dependent” on her, and that he hasn’t yet decided to violate her personal boundaries.

Also, the fact that Moira describes these psychic impressions - so key to Xavier and Magneto’s conversion to the cause - as “my interpretation” really raises the question of whether Moira is an unreliable narrator of her past lives...which is really quite scary given how much the whole enterprise rests on her being right about how things will go. More on that later.

But as I was saying above, one of the downsides of making Xavier even more of a morally grey actor is that it makes it way more likely that “he will even act against type” (and boy is Moira’s understanding of Xavier shown to be flawed by her belief that this would be against type as opposed to absolutely his M.O) by reading her mind without her permission.

All that Moira can hope for is that because she knows that “all he will be looking for is confirmation of suspicions he might already harbor,” she will be able to steer his inquiry away from things she doesn’t want him to know, although she does have a Plan B of coming totally clean.

Finally, as with the redactions, there is very much a running theme here (and throughout HoxPoX) of struggling over control of (imperfect) information at the heart of all conflicts.

Entry 14: “while we have become romantic, it is becoming clear to me that I am breaking Charles Xavier. And if I do break him, how will he become the man I need him to be in the coming days.”

Here Moira gets a little bit self-reflective, realizing that one of the downsides of her master plan is that you can’t “manipulate these men into doing what I needed them to do without any repercussions to myself.” Breaking Charles of his hope and idealism doesn’t, it turns out, make him any more controllable, because he’s going to act on his new nature, and Moira can’t guarantee that she won’t be the object of that action.

One interesting question that I’ve seen raised is whether Moira is referring to Onslaught here. How much of his (to be honest, really quite banal and skippable) turn to the dark side was due to repression and how much due to cultivating his worser nature?

Entry 17: “he had the most marvellous idea regarding the potential tandem of several mutants and what they could accomplish if they worked in harmony.”

I find this one particularly fascinating, because it gets at how the collaborative process of creating Krakoa came together. Charles is able to build on “the potential windfall of knowledge I represent regarding mutandom” to get the idea for the Resurrection system and the broader mutant power synergy approach to Krakoan technology; Moira then “used my experience in genetic modification” to figure out how to make the mutants the system required.

At the same time, my god does this entry make Moira and Xavier seem even more cold-blooded and unethical with regards to Proteus and Legion, because rather than those relationships coming as a “moment of weakness” (in Xavier’s case) they were pre-meditated. The only thing that makes this even slightly better is that, according to the timeline docs, Moira didn’t have a relationship with Joseph MacTaggart in her previous lives, so that she didn’t knowingly walk into an abusive relationship to birth a super-mutant.

Entry 22: “Magneto...with him, loyalty is something that must be constantly earned. He allows for no deviation of intent -- no wavering of belief. The idea that there will not be setbacks, and that his constant anger will remained tamped down, is a fool’s dream.”

Speaking of unethical actions...Moira trying to mess with Magneto’s mind, given what she undertands as his character, strikes me as pretty damn “casual[ly] arrogan[t].”

Likewise, Moira sees it as a “positive thing of note” that she’s managed to “imprin[t] the idea of stronghold in his mind.” While she notes that “it has always been there” - and she’s not wrong that Magneto has a thing for island, asteroid, and other separated bases. At the same time, it does help to explain why Magneto is so particularly gung-ho on the idea of Krakoa, which makes him their biological last line of defense.

Entry 29: “Apocalypse has made himself known to the world. Knowing him the way I do, and having aligned myself already with Xavier and Magneto, recruitment will not be an option until a much later date.”

Moira’s attitude to her ex suggests that the big blue-lipped boy’s Social Darwinist rage is basically the result of him being “in his raw, primal state,” and that he’ll mellow out once he has “f[ou]nd something to build on.”

We also get confirmation that the conflicts between various X-teams and [A] were quite real - although intended more at “the avoidance of an apocalypse event” than his destruction. More of a managed conflict, if you will.

Given [A]’s interest in recreating his Four Horsemen, I wonder who the Omega-level mutants he might have been looking for instead of the ones he ended up with.

Entry 48: “I have underestimated Xavier’s infatuation with the possibilities of what can be accomplished with mutant genetic material. Without my knowledge -- and against my advice -- both Charles and Magneto have traveled to Bar Sinister and recruited Sinister to our cause.”

This is the crux of the matter when it comes to the double-edged nature of breaking Xavier of his better nature; the more you do this, the more he’s likely to do underhanded stuff like this.

The central irony is that Moira’s complaint (as much as it resonates with women in the fandom as representing their own life experiences) that “what is this thing that men do, where they think they can shape the world to their liking - and bend others to whatever they will” absolutely describes Moira herself as well as Xavier and Magneto.

One ominous note, re the ongoing theme about timetables and schedules, is that Sinister is already producing chimerae, so merely leaving him alone might not change the outcome.

Entry 52: “We have lost Magneto.”

Speaking of consequences to manipulation, we see Moira’s attempts to reshape Magneto to “help make him a better man” (perhaps someone who would play nicely wrt to the Krakoan project?) backfire horribly during the events of Mutant Genesis.

For a short entry, this actually gives a really good window into Moira’s psyche, in that she’s more than a little bit prone to depression, when we combine her previous comment that “we always lose,” the trauma she experienced in her previous lives, with her immediate reaction that “I am just as bad as they are. If not worse.”

Entry 57: “I have decided to remove myself from the world.”

See what I mean?

This entry ought to remind us about one of the key aspects of Moira’s powerset: Moira’s ability to predict the future is contrained way more than, say, Destiny. The more Moira acts to change variables and try to produce her good ending, the less of a guide her memories of her past lives becomes. More on this in a bit.

it’s also a good reminder that Charles and Moira have been testing out their “husk...backup” system much, much earlier than poor Pyro thinks.

Tea for Three:

There is something wonderfully theatrical about this three-hander scene in that it all revolves around power dynamics and reversals: Moira starts out quite confident, hands-on-hips, reminding Charles and Erik that she doesn’t need them (I wonder which “of mankind’s greatest culinary cities” she has a backdoor to?), which Magneto responds to with a jab at her cynicism towards “the common kindness of others” and “assuming there’s always another shoe to drop.”

This next exchange gives me a real sense that, at least as far as the secret plan to secure Krakoa’s future goes, the Quiet Council are only really there to ensure that they “won’t be a deterrent to our broader plans.”

At the same timethe surface of collegial conviviality, everyone knows that “we’re all up to something” - note how quickly Moira goes from her confident posture to a more defensive crossing of her arms, even as Magneto shows off his dexterity with his powers, which is a nice visual detail in an otherwise very talky page.

One area of disagreement becomes quite clear: Xavier and Magneto really disagree with Moira about whether “we can do this without” Sinister. Once again I’m frustrated in not knowing what the Plan A was wrt to the genetic database.

But here Xavier really brings down the boom: “We promised to bring Destiny back.” This freezes Moira right up, and shows one of the main tensions in their (joint?) project, the conflict between radical unity and political necessity.

However, there’s a significant question mark about why Moira believes that “there can be no precogs on Krakoa.” On the face of it, Moira’s objection is due to her fear that Destiny might “tell everyone the truth” that “we always lose,” I don’t believe her for a second. I think Moira’s objection stems from their traumatic meeting in Life 3, and because Destiny “has ways of seeing me.” I think Moira is up to something that she doesn’t want Xavier and Magneto, let alone anyone on Genosha to know about, and doesn’t want Destiny letting the cat out of the bag.

Here’s where I think people slightly get things wrong about the state of play wrt to Destiny and the other precogs. While Xavier repeatedly says “we know,” I don’t think they’re actually agreeing with Moira so much as trying to patronizingly soothe her. After all, their final offer is that, while Xavier and Magneto will “put them all off” with “tomorrow, tomorrow, not today,” (paraphrasing a German rhyme from Erik’s childhood) eventually Charles and Erik will ensure that everyone will "know the truth.” This seems quite different from what Moira wants.

A remaining question: when did Charlex and Erik learn the whole truth, as Entry 5 suggested? Did they?

And here we get the core disagreement between Moira and Xavier/Magneto: she sees “the truth” as meaning “we always lose,” they see it as “until now we have always lost.” I have to admit I’m a little curious as to whether Moira really believes her own nihilistic message, because in that case, why go to all this effort, but I do think it’s importatnt that people remember that Moira’s powers at this point only let herself see backwards. The world has changed too much to predict the future.

Speaking of gender and condescension, though, the resolution of this argument is really pointed. On the one hand, Moira given credit for her contributions to Krakoa: “you shaped us into this, you made us into this, we are the perfect tools for an imperfect age.” On the other hand, she is very firmly ushered to the bench, because “now it is time for you step aside and let us do the good work for which we were created.” It does come across a bit like Adam talking to Herr Frankstenstein, as Moira’s manipulations come to bite her in the ass one last time.

And as mutant fireworks thunder overhead, Magneto and Xavier have one last confab, worrying about the future. Krakoa might not be enough to ward off mutantkind’s Ragnarok, but Xavier and Magneto are ready to do “whatever it takes” to see it through.

AND WE”RE DONE!

#xmen #xmen meta #powers of x #hoxpox #spoilers

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khtrinityftw · 4 years

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The Good, The Bad, and the Cards - A Brief Look Back at KH: Chain of Memories

It’s been 15 years since Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was released, and while I adore this game, I want to look back and highlight 7 specific elements worthy of praise that still hold up to this day and 7 specific elements that aren’t so good and helped derail the KH franchise going forward, the “Franchise Original Sins” as it were. So without further ado, here they are:

Positive: The Card Map System - I really love the usage of cards when it comes to exploring each world. Through the different cards, you get to create your own customized dungeon to crawl through, and the incentive to battle in order to collect cards you need to progress further in the level is a good one.

Negative: The Card Battle System - Unfortunately, using cards in combat isn’t done nearly as smoothly, and they complicate battles way more than they should. This is especially bad in the original GBA version of the game, where the cards are hard to make out on the small screen and the tiny, cramped arenas that you fight in make it all too easy to get backed into a corner while trying to shuffle through or reload your deck. This game could’ve done better.

Positive: Sora’s Story - The main scenario of the game is superbly written by Daisuke Watanabe. Like I said in my video review, he took what he was given, which was virtually nothing, and turned it into something. Sora’s character has never been explored in as much depth as it is here, with all of his raw strengths and weaknesses on full display. His bond of friendship with Donald and Goofy, his strong romantic interest in Kairi, his tortured clashing with “Riku”, his animosity toward Organization XIII, and the interactions he has with Namine toward the end are all handled perfectly. It really reminds you of just why you love this guy.

Negative: Riku’s Story - Reverse/Rebirth, otoh, doesn’t hold up so well. It tries its best to give Riku good character development, but too much of it is focused on practically everyone but Riku, the lack of anything occurring in the Disney worlds means that the story feels too light on content, and the conclusion Riku’s character is ultimately brought to contradicts what was established in the original KH and only creates further problems down the line. What’s more, this was the start of forcing Riku down our throats as the deuteragonist of the series, which is a role he was never suited for and that he only gets worse in overtime. So yeah, not a fan.

Positive: Organization XIII - Primarily the members introduced in Sora’s story; Lexaeus and Zexion are more useful as plot devices than as characters. Not only are Axel, Larxene, Vexen and Marluxia all excellent villains in their own ways, but the villainous arc they are part of is the best-written one in any KH game. Watching them work off each other and against each other in this dark but easy to follow political intrigue plot is one of the game’s highest points.

Negative: The Riku Replica - Don’t get me wrong, this was a decent character with a decent arc, but the execution was way too over-the-top and overstayed its welcome. Between Sora and Riku’s story, you have to fight this asshole six times! That’s just ridiculous for any boss in any game! And then there’s what the whole “replica” concept he introduced was used for in subsequent games, since Nomura just loves taking the simple and making it convoluted.

Positive: The GBA Graphics - This is one of the best-looking GBA games ever, hands-down. The fact that full cutscenes with PS2-style graphics were actually able to fit on the cartridge is simply incredible, and Square should really be commended for pushing the system to its absolute limits.

Negative: Console Spread - COM marked the first time that a KH game was put on an entirely different console than before, being a GBA game released and set in between two PS2 games. This wasn’t too much of a problem back then, since COM was only needed to fully understand the purposefully confusing prologue of KH2 and it ended up getting a PS2 remake anyway. But after a while, the sheer amount of consoles that KH spin-off games that are necessary to understand KH3′s story with became ridiculous. At this point, the only way you can actually get the full KH series is to own a PS4. If you don’t, then you’re out of luck.

Positive: Disney Expansion - Because this game re-uses Disney characters and worlds from the original KH, Daisuke Watanabe got to expand on things that weren’t really delved into in that game. We get more on Aladdin’s character, more on Alice’s character, more on Peter Pan and Wendy’s characters, more on Belle and the Beast’s characters and relationship…and perhaps most notable of all, more on Jiminy Cricket’s character. The Disney worlds and characters that we saw in KH are all enriched by their memory-based appearances.

Negative: An Influx of OCs - The original KH only had four original characters: Sora, Riku, Kairi and Ansem (five if you are counting Xemnas from Final Mix). COM introduced nine new ones: Namine, Axel, Larxene, Marluxia, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Riku Replica, and DiZ. Again, this wasn’t a problem with the game back then, especially seeing as two-thirds of those characters get axed before the game is through. But it started the trend of Nomura introducing way too much OCs that come to overshadow all the Disney and FF characters. Worse still, he refuses to truly let any of them go, as all six of those dead characters end up coming back to life later on, as do the two who went on to perish in KH2. This results in an overly cluttered canvas by KH3, to the point where no FF characters can appear.

Positive: Set-up for KH2 - This game’s existence did for KH2 what the later Dream Drop Distance should have done for KH3 but didn’t: it effectively set the stage for the following game. It gave all of the necessary foreshadowing for things like Nobodies, the Organization’s true goal, Xemnas, Roxas, Twilight Town, Namine being Kairi’s Nobody, and DiZ being the true Ansem while the Ansem we knew being an impostor. It also removed five members of the Organization from the board, with the sixth slated for removal in KH2′s prologue, which left the villain roster at a much more manageable number for the game’s main scenario. COM truly feels like the middle installment of a trilogy: the shit that happens in it actually matters.

Negative: Too Much Rehash from KH1 - There is so much from the original KH that is on repeat in COM. Beyond the same Disney worlds and characters being re-used, the stories in those worlds and with those characters match the original KH’s beat for beat, except with themes of memory inserted in and all context to the larger narrative removed so that they feel like filler. Both recycling from the first KH and Disney world visits being filler were not so bad in this game, but when it kept happening throughout the rest of the series, players grew sick of it. Furthermore, beats from the first KH still transpire in the main storyline of the game: Namine is in a role like Kairi’s, the Riku Replica is in a role like Riku’s, Marlxuia is in a role like both Maleficent and Ansem while Ansem himself comes back for more fun darkness times in Riku’s story, and we get sequences of Sora being separated from Donald and Goofy (this time it’s flipped and he’s the one who turns on them), the trio making an “All for One, One for All” promise as they put their hands on one another, and Sora making a promise with Namine that has Kairi’s good luck charm at the center of it. It’s all a little too much familiarity.

Positive: Atmosphere - As much as this game rehashes the previous one, it has a markedly different tone. It’s darker, more foreboding, more eerie, more psychological and uncertain. The white walls of Castle Oblivion and the creepy music playing as you go through them floor by floor really helps to sell this, as does a lot of the dialogue, memory-based insights into the characters’ hearts, and twisted machinations of the villains. It makes COM, well, memorable.

Negative: Convoluted Writing - That’s right, it all starts here. The writing for the original KH was smart enough to not actively dwell on the more ponderous elements of its story, keeping the narrative to a simple presentation while leaving the deeper lore as stuff for the player to think and speculate about it on their own. But in this game, it starts getting pushed to the forefront. Memory and darkness are the central themes of Sora and Riku’s story respectively, and yet neither of them quite make sense the way they’re explored. Memory is repeatedly said to be an aspect of the heart, to the point where removing it altogether would shatter a person’s heart completely. Except that this is not only confusing to basic logic that says memory is an aspect of the mind, but it gets contradicted by the following game, KH2, where it states that Nobodies that have no hearts act upon the memories of when they had hearts. Then we have Namine’s powers and how it relates to memories, which is nebulously defined here and ends up ballooning to ludicrous godlike degrees in order to make certain plot turns happen in later games, and you end up retroactively questioning why she didn’t just fuck with the Organization’s memories and shatter them in order to escape captivity all by herself.

Meanwhile, darkness is completely rewritten so that it can be a good thing if Riku isn’t afraid of it and uses it for a good cause...except that this is literally what he did in the first KH and it corrupted him. Darkness was unambiguously bad and something that should not be used in that game, but now it’s being revamped just to make Riku into a special snowflake with uber-awesome darkness powers. Future games continue going back and forth on darkness on whether it’s good, bad or neutral, whether it’s a natural force that needs to co-exist with light or whether it’s the source of all evil in the universe. And I again must remind you that this is only the start of how convoluted the series gets with its stories! By KH3, the series has become an absolute clusterfuck where nothing really makes sense or amounts to anything. There’s no real depth anymore, just pretentious nonsense that Nomura confuses for depth.

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mdelpin · 5 years

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Shadowlight Week 2019 Prompt: Command AO3 | FF.Net

This follows the events after High Hopes (Day 2: Symbols) and A Scent Like No Other (Day 1: Scents)

His Own Destiny

Summary: Sting and Rogue had no control. They were told when to sleep, when to rise and when to eat. Even their showers were monitored and were done as quickly as possible to avoid looking at the guild mark that had been placed on their left shoulders. A symbol that marked them the property of a man they abhorred.

Sting woke up in a strange room. He'd been placed on a bed, and he immediately scanned the dark room for Rogue, but he was alone. Sitting up almost defeated him as wave after wave of pain crashed into his body, alerting him to the fact that a healer might be needed. Sting remembered the loud crack he'd heard at Jiemma's last blow and worried he might actually have broken something.

How was he going to get out of this, and where was Rogue? Sting worried about his mate, remembering the man's words to the other boy who had helped him take out Rogue. He needed to get out of there and find him, then they could both attempt to escape. Ignoring his pain, Sting managed to get on his feet, holding his side and being careful to keep his breathing shallow. He stumbled towards the only door in the room. He used his senses to try to listen for anyone nearby, and when he was satisfied there was no one, he attempted to turn the knob slowly.

The door was locked from the outside. Sting tried to break it down, but all that managed was to cause him even more pain. He felt himself fading into darkness.

o-o

Rogue woke up in a dark room. His body ached from the initial attack, but he was otherwise unhurt. Getting up from the bed and looking around, Rogue noted that there was nothing else in the room but the bed, which seemed to be bolted to the floor.

As he made his way towards the door, Rogue used his enhanced senses to determine if there were others nearby. Finding no one, he courageously tried the door, turning the knob and walking out into a dimly lit hall. Rogue used it to his advantage and hid in the shadows as he explored, trying to make sense of his new surroundings.

Where was Sting? Rogue sniffed the air around him, trying to catch a whiff of his mate’s scent. After a few minutes, he was able to detect it and still hiding in the shadows he moved in that direction slowly, keeping his senses on alert for any others that might be around.

Rogue found another hallway similar to the one he'd just come from and following Sting's scent, he stood in front of the last room. He tried turning the knob to open the door but found it locked.

Rogue used his magic to turn into his shadow form and managed to slip underneath the door and into the room, finding Sting slumped over on the other side. Rogue solidified and panicked when he saw the bruises that covered the majority of Sting's skin.

He picked Sting up as best he could and moved him back to the bed, pulling the covers over him and standing next to him, with no idea as to what to do next. So he stood there and kept watch over him.

Sting began to stir, eyes snapping open as he smelled Rogue in the room.

“Rogue, you’re okay!” Sting exclaimed happily and somewhat loudly.

“Quiet!” Rogue hissed.

“But I was so worried,” Sting revealed a bit more quietly, “How did you get in here?”

“Shadows.”

Sting nodded feeling a bit dumb for asking such an obvious question.

“Where are we?” Rogue asked, “What happened?”

“You were right, that guy you tried to warn me about jumped us,” Sting stared at Rogue intently, wanting to make sure he wasn’t upset with him. Rogue sat on the bed and patted his shoulder soothingly.

“He had a kid with him, that’s who attacked you,” Sting explained, “Then he challenged me to a fight, said if I lost we had to join his guild.” Sting closed his eyes, still not willing to believe this wasn’t some kind of nightmare.

“So we’ve joined a guild?”

Sting nodded, “Sabertooth.”

Rogue sighed, he didn’t like this at all but looking at Sting’s body he knew that his mate had fought as hard as he could. They’d just have to play along until they could find a way out.

They heard someone coming and glanced at each other nervously. “Maybe we can overpower them and escape…” Sting whispered.

“Even if we did, you’re in no shape to run,” Rogue pointed out, “I’ll hide for now, but if they try to hurt you I’ll come at them with everything I’ve got,” Rogue warned before brushing his mate’s lips with his as he disappeared into the room’s shadows.

Sting watched the door open and immediately recognized the boy who had attacked Rogue. He growled at him.

“Calm down, I’m not here to hurt you. I brought you food,” The boy showed him the tray he was holding. Sting glanced at the food, sniffing to ensure it hadn’t been tampered with.

"Look, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about your friend, I had to do it, but I took no pleasure in it."

Sting continued to glare at him but relaxed a bit when the boy handed him the tray.

“Where’s my friend?” Sting asked, quickly realizing it would be suspicious if he didn’t ask about Rogue right away.

“He’s fine, he’s in another room. He should be waking up soon. I’m Orga,” the boy introduced himself.

“Why am I here, what does that man want with us?”

"Master Jiemma is determined to have the strongest guild in Fiore," Orga explained, "He watched you fight for a few weeks, and you impressed him. When he saw you reject all the other guild's offers, he decided to take you by force. He knew no one would look for you."

“So everyone else is here because they want to?” Sting muttered, not really understanding how anyone could be here of their own free will.

Orga turned to leave without answering, placing his hand on the doorknob hesitantly before adding, “Listen, I know it’s none of my business, but I saw you and your friend in your hotel room when Master Jiemma sent me to spy on you.”

When Orga saw the rage in Sting's eyes, he was quick to add, "I didn't tell him anything! But I wanted to warn you, if Master Jiemma finds out he'll beat both of you for sure, and as you already know, he won't hold back."

“Are you trying to be my friend?”

“There are no friends in Sabertooth,” Orga quickly clarified, “I’m only telling you this because I feel bad for what I did to your friend. Now we’re even.”

Sting could hear Rogue’s breathing hitch at Orga’s words and winced, what had he gotten them into?

o-o

“Get up!” Master Jiemma snarled at Sting, who lay on the ground bleeding as his sparring partner watched disinterestedly.

When Sting made no move to follow his orders, Jiemma got up from his chair and yelled, "Either get up and continue fighting, or I'll have to take it out on your friend. A Sabertooth wizard shows no weakness."

Sting struggled to get up, getting on his knees and fighting off the wave of pain as best he could. He couldn't bear to watch Rogue get beaten again. Even though Jiemma had determined Rogue strong enough to be a part of his guild he still wasn't above using him to keep Sting under control.

Rogue bore the beatings as well as he could, holding Sting’s gaze throughout as they tried to feed each other enough strength to endure the hell they’d been thrust into. As far as they could tell they’d been members of Sabertooth for about three months.

Jiemma pitted all the members against each other, and they'd already seen one death from a spar that had gone too far. Little by little, Sting and Rogue found themselves changing, the severity of their situation demanding they distance themselves from their emotions as much as possible to not go crazy. Even their feelings towards each other had needed an adjustment, the real fear that Jiemma would somehow find out about their relationship and use it against them making it necessary. So although they loved each other no less, they had to pretend to be no more than friends.

This included sparring against each other violently, nothing at all like the fun they used to have when they trained together. Every move was a concerted effort to please the Master enough so that he’d focus on other members for a while.

They were miserable, both longing for the carefree life they'd had before. Even when they hadn't had much, they'd still had each other. At Sabertooth, they had no one, they were back to having only their cats for company, and even that was dangerous. Rogue had to remind them to stay in the shadows at all times, afraid that if Jiemma noticed, he would do something terrible to them.

Everything was controlled for them. Sting and Rogue were told when to sleep, when to rise and when to eat. Even their showers were monitored and were done as quickly as possible to avoid looking at the guild mark that had been placed on their left shoulders. That mark hurt most of all, instead of bearing a symbol they were proud of, it marked them as the property of a man they abhorred.

Most of their days were spent training, doing anything and everything they could to be seen as strong in Jiemma’s eyes. The worst part was, to their disgust, they could feel themselves actively trying to curry Jiemma’s favor. That was the only time they were ever left to their own devices. Even then they were watched.

At night Sting longed to hold Rogue against him like he was used to, missing his mate's comforting warmth and the way his breath left a pleasant tickle on Sting's chest as he'd drifted off to sleep. When they'd shared a bed, it kept their nightmares mostly at bay, but now they were constant and in many ways hard to distinguish from their reality. Their biggest one was waking up to find the other gone forever, taken by the cruel hands of their Master. It was something they were determined to avoid at all costs.

After a year of this treatment, they were finally deemed trustworthy enough to take jobs representing the guild, but not together. One of them had to always remain under Jiemma’s watchful eye.

One day Jiemma sent Rogue, along with his daughter Minerva, on an errand. They were given a satchel full of money and instructions to retrieve a parcel. Under no circumstances were they to open the package and they were threatened with being beaten within an inch of their life if they returned without it.

They’d arrived at the train station, and Rogue sat on a bench, carefully guarding the satchel while staring at the oncoming train with dread.

“What if we just got on a different train?” Minerva who had been sitting quietly next to him proposed suddenly.

“What?” Rogue startled as he stared at her in horror, “Are you serious? He’d kill us.”

“Not if he can’t find us,” Minerva begged, “Just think about it Rogue, we could start a brand new life, leave this hellhole behind.”

Rogue knew that even though Minerva was the guild master’s daughter she got no preferential treatment. In fact, in some ways, she got it worse, but even so, he couldn’t tell if this was some sort of bizarre loyalty test or if she was desperate enough to do what she was saying.

He let the temptation wash over him, there was no way he could leave Sting alone while he ran off with someone else, even if Minerva had been the only person in the guild to be slightly friendly to him.

“I can’t,” Rogue said honestly, “If I were to leave, he wouldn’t think twice about killing Sting.”

Minerva bit her lip but had to agree.

They got on the correct train, but even through his horrible motion sickness, he could hear Minerva crying quietly beside him as she tried to keep his hair out of his face in case he had to vomit. She could have run out on him at any time, but she stayed and took care of him while he was weak. The guilt tore at his heart, there was an opportunity for one of them to break free from their chains, and he was selfishly keeping her leashed to protect his mate. He began to try to distract himself by thinking of ways he could help her escape.

They arrived at the station where they would have to change trains for the next leg of their journey. After Rogue had recovered, they went to get some food while they waited. He brought up his scheme then.

"What if we were to just take the parcel?" Rogue suggested carefully, "Help me get it and then I can return to Sabertooth with what he wants, and you can disappear."

“I can’t let you do that,” Minerva was already shaking her head, “He’d punish you.”

Rogue shrugged, “He’s punished me before, you might never get this chance again.”

Minerva bit her lip, he could tell that she really wanted to do what he was suggesting, but her guilt at what might happen to him was holding her back.

“I’ll be okay,” Rogue assured her with a nervous smile, “I’m a dragon slayer, remember? Tough as they come.”

"I don't know," Minerva hedged, but he could tell she was weakening. The train arrived then, and Minerva once again held his hair away from his face, finally looking through her travel bag and putting his hair up in a ponytail with a smile.

“You should show your face more often,” Minerva smiled, “You’re very handsome.”

Rogue blushed to the roots of his hair, not even Sting had ever called him that.

Minerva laughed good-naturedly. “Sting is very lucky.”

Rogue quickly tried to deny it, the blood rushing to his heart as he panicked at their secret being discovered. "We're just friends."

Minerva laughed again, “Yeah, right. I’ve seen the way you look at each other when you think no one’s looking. Don’t worry, I’ve never told anyone. It’s none of my business.”

Rogue's motion sickness kicked in again, and he remained quiet for the rest of the ride as Minerva talked about her mother and how she'd like to see her again. Once they got off this second train, they found an inn to stay overnight.

As they were getting ready for bed Rogue brought up the topic again. “Have you thought about what I said?”

“Yeah, I’ll decide after we get the parcel,” Minerva said before turning on her side and going to sleep.

They held on to each other as they slept, seeking the comfort they’d both been denied for so long.

In the morning they checked out of the inn and spoke only of how they were going to get the parcel from the person holding it for Jiemma. They stopped at the train station to buy tickets, trying to ensure a quick getaway. If they hurried they should have just enough time to get on the next train out. They walked to the address her father had given them and examined the building.

It was a store of some kind, the objects it sold not recognizable by either of them, but it had a large display window. They decided Rogue would go inside and ask for the parcel, then when he had it in his hand, he would go into his shadow form and disappear with the object. Minerva would be hiding outside but keeping track of the situation through the window, in case her help was needed. When Rogue came out, she would teleport them both back to the train station. They only hoped the object was not too big.

They ran the plan over in their minds a few times looking for weaknesses and when they were satisfied Rogue walked into the building. He was thankfully given a small box, and he wasted no time putting their plan into action. As soon as Rogue felt the object in his hand, he used his shadows to escape. He'd heard several men running outside of the store, but they hadn't been able to see him. He remained in his shadow until he saw Minerva waiting for him and once he reached her they were immediately teleported behind the building of the station house.

"Did they come after you?" Minerva tried to look calm, but it was obvious she was scared. They were defying her father, and both knew the stakes were high. Rogue shook his head, and she relaxed somewhat.

They could hear their train being announced and Rogue once again went into his shadow form before boarding the train as an extra precaution, since they were pretty sure Minerva hadn’t been seen. As far as they could tell no one was looking for Rogue and they weren’t sure what that could mean.

He materialized in the seat next to Minerva, and he quickly stowed the box they had stolen safely in his pack. She once again put his hair up, and they sat in tense silence, both realizing there was no turning back at this point. Minerva was deep in thought the whole train ride, not speaking until they had reached the station.

"Have you decided?" Rogue asked once his stomach had settled. They were running ahead of schedule, and there were lots of trains she could take to get away.

“I have to try, I might never get this chance again,” Minerva muttered almost as if she were trying to convince herself more than Rogue.

Rogue gulped, the enormity of what they were about to do already overwhelming him. “Don’t tell me where you’re going, that way I can’t tell him anything.”

Minerva nodded, her eyes teary as she thought of what would await Rogue when he arrived at the guild. “You should let me attack you. That way you can say I surprised you and got away. and you thought it more important to return with the package than to chase after me.”

Rogue thought that sounded like a good idea, he wasn't afraid of pain. He'd been Jiemma's punching bag enough times. He took a shaky breath and nodded to Minerva that he was ready. She got in a few good hits, and he made sure to get some defensive wounds, so it looked more believable. When they were both satisfied they said goodbye.

Minerva touched his face gently before leaving and gave him the first real smile he’d ever seen from the girl, “Thank you, I’ll never be able to repay you for this. I hope you and Sting can get away from my father soon.” She kissed his cheek and hugged him before teleporting away.

It wasn't until boarding the train back to the guild, he steadfastly refused to call it home, that he realized a few problems with their plan. They'd never considered how Master Jiemma communicated with the man they had stolen from. If they used lacrima, he was screwed. He wasn't looking forward to the beating he would get, but he could take it as long as it wasn't Sting who was beaten in his place. With mounting panic, he realized he hadn't considered that as an actual possibility until now, and he really should have. Rogue began to sweat profusely even before the movement of the train had a chance to make him sick and this time he did vomit.

He could only hope the fact that he had the package would buy him some level of leniency from his insane Master.

o-o

Jiemma got off the lacrima confused about what he’d been told, but no less furious that Minerva and Rogue had tried to make a fool out of him. How dare they steal not only from the dealer that he’d had to work so hard to get in with, but also from him?

Sting had been walking by on his way to eat when Jiemma grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into a wall. He was no stranger to Jiemma's abuse, but there was usually a reason and as far as he knew he hadn't done anything.

"Think they can make a fool out of me do they?" Jiemma roared, confusing Sting even further, but he had no time to think about it as he was once again grabbed, this time by the hair, and thrown even harder against the unyielding wall. He heard a sickening crunch as he hit, and howled in pain as his nose began to bleed.

"ORGA!" Jiemma bellowed, knowing that the large boy would use his magic to get there as quickly as possible. He wasn't disappointed, as moments later Orga was standing in front of him. Pointing at Sting's body, he commanded, "Prepare him," before storming off to the train station to await Minerva and Rogue's arrival.

o-o

Rogue wobbled out of the train slowly, stopping on the platform for a moment as he waited for his motion sickness to fade. He smelled Jiemma before he saw him, looking up quickly, Rogue spotted him and instantly knew he was screwed. There was a visible red aura surrounding the Sabertooth Guild Master, and he looked angrier than Rogue had ever seen him.

He took an unsteady breath and resigned himself to his fate, Rogue knew he'd get hurt, and he'd accepted it to aid in Minerva's escape. He hoped his regeneration had not kicked in too much since the injuries he had were the only evidence that his words might be true. He hurried over to his Master.

Jiemma looked around him and frowned. “Boy, where is Minerva?”

Rogue swallowed thickly, and after bowing his head slightly in a sign of deference, he began to recite what he'd rehearsed in his head. "Master, Sir, I tried to stop her, but she overpowered me." He showed Jiemma his injuries.

“Not here, you’re making a scene,” Jiemma hissed, before grabbing Rogue by the arm and roughly pulling him toward the guild.

In the time he had before they reached their destination Rogue prayed that Sting would be okay, that Jiemma would be so angry that he would decide to take his anger directly out on him, instead of his mate. He was shoved inside the guild, almost crashing into Orga who moved out of the way and gave him a look he wasn’t sure how to interpret. Rogue thought it had almost looked like pity.

Rufus appeared and told the Master they were ready and Rogue was led into a room he’d never been in before. Inside that room, a bloodied Sting was strung up. His arms were splayed out and held to the wall by handcuffs.

Rogue knew better than to show his dismay, Sabertooth wizards showed no weakness after all, but he was confused when Sting sniffed the air and glared at him accusingly. Why was Sting looking at him like that?

"Are you okay? " Rogue whispered low enough that only Sting would hear him, but his mate wouldn't even look at him.

Jiemma wasted no time, battering Sting relentlessly with his blast magic. Sting's body fought against his restraints as he convulsed from the impact, but he remained stubbornly silent.

“I’m only going to ask you this one last time, and you’d be wise to answer honestly,” Jiemma cautioned in a voice too calm to be interpreted as anything but dangerous. “Where is my daughter?”

“I don’t know, she attacked me and teleported away,” Rogue replied evenly, trying to appear braver than he felt.

"Well no matter, she'll be found soon enough, and she'd better not have spent any of my jewels," Although Jiemma still looked angry, he studied Rogue as if seeing him for the first time, "You know, I always thought it would be Sting who would betray me."

Rogue thought he detected a twinge of respect in the Master's voice and was immediately disgusted with himself for feeling pleased at the thought. What had happened to him in these last few months? He'd changed so much he barely recognized himself, and although Rogue knew some of it had been necessary to survive, he didn't like who he was becoming.

“It looks like I underestimated you. A mistake I won’t be making again. Where is the parcel?” Jiemma demanded.

Rogue had been staring at Sting worriedly, but he heard his Master and quickly grabbed the box from his bag and handed it over. Jiemma snatched it and opened it carefully, examining its contents.

He rubbed his chin with his fingers and looked over at Sting with a thoughtful expression before smiling in a way that froze all of Rogue's blood. He had a horrible feeling about what was going to happen next.

Jiemma turned the box around and showed the contents to Rogue and Sting. “Do you have any idea what these are?”

There were two crystals in the box, each about the size of the palms of their hands. They shook their heads.

"These are dragon lacrima, very expensive, very hard to get," Jiemma declared as he touched the lacrimas reverently. He gave them a moment to look at them before continuing, "You see boys, I learned something exciting after you joined our little guild. Apparently implanting one of these inside a person can give them the same abilities that you two already possess."

"Now, I'd planned to use them on Orga and Rufus so that we could have four dragon slayers in our ranks, but a thought occurs to me," Jiemma kept talking, and it was eerie, Rogue had never heard him say so many words in one day before.

“What do you think would happen if you implanted a lacrima on someone who already has dragon slaying magic?” He let the question hang in the air and when neither of them said anything he continued.

"My guess is it would make you stronger, but then again it could kill you. What do you say, boys, shall we find out? It’s never been done before." Jiemma proposed in an overly jovial tone.

Rufus came into the room and handed Jiemma some handcuffs, "The item you requested." He studied Sting and Rogue dispassionately before looking away.

Jiemma grunted in acknowledgment and handed the box to Rufus to hold as he walked over to Rogue. In a series of quick movements, the Sabertooth Master had grabbed Rogue's arm and clicked the cuffs shut, effectively separating him from his magic before hanging him up on the wall next to Sting. It was an extra measure he liked to take given Rogue's magic.

“I’ll be back soon to get started,” Jiemma declared as he left the room.

o-o

Sting had no idea what had happened or why he was being punished, but he'd been worried that something had happened to his mate, so when Rogue had walked in safely, Sting had felt nothing but relief. He'd immediately sniffed the air around Rogue trying to derive some comfort no matter how small from his arrival, and that's when he'd smelled it.

The scent he’d been accustomed to since the day they’d found each other had changed. It was now contaminated by the strong smell of Minerva and Sting had never felt more betrayed in his life. He wasn’t prepared for the blitz of feelings that assaulted him, much more painful than any beating Jiemma could ever administer. Sting’s world suddenly felt smaller than it ever had as he realized that the only reason he was being punished was that his mate had chosen another over him.

From the moment they'd been shanghaied into Sabertooth everything Sting had done had been for the sole purpose of keeping Rogue safe, to try to make up for his horrible mistake and to bide his time until they could escape together. He'd gone past his limits countless times when he'd wanted nothing more than to give up, just to keep Jiemma from devising new ways to torture his love. To keep Rogue safe, he would have gladly fought to his dying breath.

Sting felt his body react to the onslaught of blasts pummeling him, but he felt no pain. He listened to the words Jiemma and Rogue exchanged and watched as Rogue was placed next to him, and still, he could feel nothing but despair.

“Sting, why won’t you look at me?” Rogue’s voice was quiet enough that it could only be heard by another dragon slayer and though Sting heard the quiver of fear in it, it wasn’t enough to douse his doubts.

“You reek of Minerva,” Sting growled finally, lifting his head to confront his mate.

“What are you talking about?”

“You let her touch you,” Sting’s lips curled in disgust, “ And you chose her over me.”

"I would never do that!" Rogue denied, and Sting could smell the tears the other was trying to keep hidden, and he almost let himself think that maybe he was overreacting, there was no reason for him not to trust in Rogue after everything they had been through together. Almost, but then he got another whiff of Minerva’s scent, strong on his mate in a way only his scent should ever be. It wasn’t right, not when he hadn’t even been able to touch Rogue in any way that wasn’t violent for months.

“Sting no, I would never betray you,” Rogue swore urgently, “She asked me to go with her and I refused. I knew Jiemma would kill you!”

“Was that the only reason?” Sting challenged, “Nevermind, don’t answer that.”

“What?! No! Sting, you don’t understand,” Rogue launched into a desperate explanation of what had happened during his mission but Sting was done listening.

He was furious, and he let that fury take him over, it was better than wallowing in the hurt of Rogue’s betrayal. He heard Weisslogia’s words in his mind, almost like the dragon was pleading with him to reconsider:

There is someone out there the universe made just for you, a soulmate. ...once you find each other, you will want for nothing

What bullshit! Sting refused to heed words whose only purpose was to give him false comfort. Like a fool, he'd believed everything Weisslogia had told him. But he’d been young then.

Gazing deeply into his mate’s eyes, he feigned indifference as he spat the most hurtful thing he’d ever said, “I was wrong before, the only person I can truly depend on is myself.”

Sting watched Rogue crumble at his words and although he wanted not to feel anything, he knew he crumbled a bit too.

All he wanted at this point was to take back command of his life. If he were forced to be in this hellhole of a guild, he'd become its star. He would become stronger than Jiemma himself. It was the only way they would ever be able to get out.

The old man might see the implantation of a lacrima as some sort of deranged punishment but if there were any chance it could lead to him achieving his goal Sting would welcome the intrusion to his body. He would cast childish notions of love aside and strive to fulfill his new goal.

As he heard the door of the room opening he welcomed it. Sting was finally ready to become the Master of his own destiny.

A/N:This will continue on Sunday in It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn for the prompt Dusk/Dawn which may or may not be broken up into two parts. Not sure yet, it’s a work in progress!

#fairy tail #shadowlightweek2k19 #stingue #ftlgbtales #ft fanfiction #prompt: command #sting eucliffe #rogue cheney #stingxrogue #minerva orland #jiemma orland #orga nanagear #rufus lore #sabertooth #angst #betrayal #ftfanfics #my edits

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD1x11 – “Crystal Venom”

1x11 – “Crystal Venom”

The title of this episode is one of my least favorite episode titles from the entirety of the show. It feels so clunky to me.

We open with Allura talking to the hologram of the copy of her father’s mind. Clearly, she’s missing him and feels lonely in this 10,000 year later world she woke in. Through his dialog, the show continues connecting Allura to the theme of sacrifice. The show makes her character arc so bleak and dire all the time. Coran comes along to tell Allura she needs to rest; looks to me like she was resting. She was using the holographic system to give herself a pleasant environment to sit in, she was having some tea. Sitting in bed isn’t always the most restful action to take, Coran.

The team seeks to extract Sendak’s memories under the premise of getting intelligence about Galra troop locations. Of course, a person’s memory would be less reliant and less detailed than actual data, so I still can’t help but think it’d be more useful to try it get it from some Galra computer system. Pidge: “How exactly does this work?” Coran proceeds to skip over how it works and just says the information is stored on a data storage device once extracted, so question not answered. I like the time-lapse sequence of them waiting. Keith gets restless and goes to train. Pidge goes back to her lab. Hunk is hungry. Coran has a lot of other work to do. I love the one moment in the sequence where Lance is all up in Shiro’s face staring at him, and how through the whole sequence, Shiro stands in exactly the same spot. At the end, Lance wants to go off and get some chill. The scene does a fair job of tailoring each character’s exit to be character-specific.

Hunk gets attacked by the food goo dispenser, and Pidge comes to his aid. I guess it’s mildly humorous? Coran has assigned Lance to help him with ship maintenance. They’re cleaning the healing pods, and Lance gets trapped in one. I would totally freak out too, Lance! Keith is swordfighting, but the training robot won’t shut off. Obviously, the ominous lingering shot on the Galra’s purple crystal in Pidge’s lab means things are malfunctioning because of it. The episode does a nice job of building atmosphere for the episode, creating an almost ghost-story vibe to everything (even without Lance making it obvious by saying the ship’s haunted). Shiro’s talking to the unconscious Sendak definitely adds to the creepiness.

“The ship might seem like a fantastical, magical creature to you, but it’s really just a big embodiment of advanced, supernatural technology that cannot be explained by science alone,” Coran says. I really, really don’t like the bigger-than-science-can-explain fake-poignancy lines this show gives. The ship is the product of engineering; if you can’t explain it, then you wouldn’t be able to build it.

Hologram-Alfor wakes Allura up in her room. Seeing her room, yeah, it’s a big room, big bed, but it feels stuffy, so I don’t blame her for wanting to sit in a field of flowers, even if it was a holographic field.

Lance’s freaking out over the various things happening to him on the ship is so on point. I’m not sure if it’s bravery or foolishness on his part to go charging into the air lock because he hears obviously-not-really Coran’s voice saying he’s trapped in an airlock. Given malfunctions, it would make sense to be at least a bit cautious, which Lance isn’t here. But he is rushing in because he thinks someone’s asked for help, so that’s endearing. He ends up the one trapped though, and the airlock is in the process of opening.

Shiro continues his interrogation of the unconscious Sendak. He starts hearing Sendak’s voice, and it really freaks him out. There feels like there’s something more, something unexplored about Sendak’s taunt about how Shiro should join Zarkon. Aside from Shiro’s time as a gladiator, we don’t really know much of what happened to him for the year he was captured by the Galra. It feels like this taunt from Sendak is supposed to be referencing something about that time not yet revealed to the audience.

Hunk is hanging out with Pidge. Given that Pidge is a technology person and Hunk’s an engineer, it makes sense that their intellectual focuses would result in them spending time together, and thus potentially becoming friends. As much as I get Pidge would want to study the Galra crystal, that the Castle has a lot of needed repairs, as Coran’s said, I would think having two people skilled with technology like Pidge and Hunk helping him would make sense, but they’re not. I guess since the source of the problem is the Galra crystal, the episode does need them messing around with it. It turns off the artificial gravity in this room. Pidge asks Hunk if he “accidentally hit the anti-gravity switch.” Anti-gravity would be the opposite of artificial gravity. This is a space ship in space; there would be no need for an anti-gravity system since just being in space puts you in a low- or zero-G situation. This really is simple science that the show should get right. Also, the tables and equipment wouldn’t suddenly start floating upward just because artificial gravity was turned off. Unless something acted against the tables and the equipment to overcome the objects’ inertia, they’d stay where they were (and it can’t be the ship since the objects were moving with the ship already, so they have the same inertial reference frame).

Keith is still fighting the robot, but thankfully comes upon Lance as he’s being “sucked” out into space (you’re actually blown out, not sucked out). Keith saves Lance and disposes of the robot in the same action. They jointly freak out over their experience.

Allura’s sitting in the flower field talking to Hologram-Alfor, who tells her that he can take her home to Altea, and she wants to go. Cut to a different angle and perspective on the scene, and we see the mice watching her from her bed. If we’re to assume that the holographic system is limited to that one room she was in at the beginning of the episode, then she’s hallucinating here rather than looking at holograms. Or are their holographic projectors all over the ship sophisticated enough to make it look like one’s in a flower field outside of that one room? If the issue is that the Galra crystal is corrupting the Castle Ship’s systems, then it would suggest it would have to be the latter, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything to suggest there’s a ship-wide holographic system. If she’s hallucinating, is it supposed to be from her having performed the ceremony on the Balmera? Being drained of quintessence causes one to hallucinate? I don’t feel the episode is clear enough on this.

Pidge has Hunk kick her across the room trying to get to a control panel, but the gravity comes back on when the door opens, and Lance, Keith, and Coran come in. I like that Hunk and Pidge fail in their effort; it’s more realistic to not always succeed. They discuss the problem being the Galra crystal corrupting the system. Maybe Sendak just didn’t anticipate whatever compatibility issue that’s happening now, but the Galra did intend the crystal to power the ship, so it is a bit odd that it’s causing the ship to not work correctly when the point of the Galra using it was to power the ship. The nature of this crystal doesn’t really make sense to me. The Galra had taken over the Balmera in order to harvest crystals from there to use as power sources, so what makes this purple crystal Sendak had installed on the ship different?

Back to Shiro. “We’re connected, you and me,” Sendak’s ghostly, disembodied voice says. “Both part of the Galra Empire. You’ve been broken and reformed. Just look at your hand. It’s the strongest part of you. Embrace it. The others don’t know what you know, they haven’t seen what you’ve seen. Face it, you’ll never beat Zarkon. He’s already defeated you.” Shiro freaks out. He’s still got deep trauma from what happened to him during his year in captivity. I guess there are two possibilities here. One, Shiro is hallucinating Sendak’s voice because of his trauma. If so, then the things Sendak’s voice says are Shiro’s fears being expressed. Two, Shiro is not hallucinating but the ship’s corrupted systems is somehow creating Sendak’s voice and having it say things, potentially influenced by the memories being extracted by Coran’s process. In that case, it would suggest Sendak is actively taunting Shiro. Either way, this scene is a big part of why the writing not letting Shiro defeat Sendak in season 7 is disrespectful of Shiro as a character.

“Do you really think a monster like you could be a Voltron Paladin?” Sendak’s voice says. These verbal attacks on Shiro are so specific. I think this might be one of the show’s deepest scenes. This line is interesting knowing that in later seasons Shiro’s clone will wrestle with similar thoughts about being broken, being used by the Galra, wanting to be a Paladin but having people say he isn’t, having people call him a monster. I don’t know what to make of Sendak calling him a monster here though. I don’t see how it could be connected to the clone program. I guess maybe it’s just getting at Shiro feeling bad about what all he had to do to survive over the course of the year. He had been an eager space explorer and pilot, but he had to become a fierce, physical fighter to survive. Maybe he thinks that the brutality he experienced as a gladiator makes him a monster.

He punches Sendak’s tube, and it looks like Sendak wakes (but that could just have been Shiro hallucinating it), and he hits one button and it ejects Sendak into space. What is this ship’s system!!? Are all stasis pods on this ship set up to eject the people in them into space? Why would the two systems be connected like that? It’s a nice height of tension having Shiro eject Sendak, but I don’t see why the ship would be designed to work that way.

The ship continues to trick Allura, now having her piloting the ship right into a star. Pidge says the star’s about to explode, but I don’t know how she can determine that just by looking at it. Allura thinks the star is Altea, but through her hallucination, she can hear Coran’s voice. He gets through to her by asking why there’s no fragrance to the flower she thinks she’s holding. This makes it seem like the flower isn’t a hallucination but a hologram. We don’t see anyone else seeing the flower field though, so maybe Coran’s only going off of hearing her talk about the flower? Allura’s mind clears. Hologram-Altor tells her that he’s trying to kill them all because he doesn’t think Zarkon can be defeated. Hologram-Alfor briefly speaks with his normal voice to tell Allura to disconnect his power source. I would have liked it better if Allura doing so was solely her doing and not just her doing what her father tells her to do.

Coran says that if they disconnect the power source they’ll lose Alfor forever. Allura still decides it must be done. It is an emotional decision. I don’t see how it’s technologically realistic though; how would being not connected to a power source cause the data of the holographic program to cease to exist? It’s still really sad though.

“You don’t have to make this sacrifice,” Hologram-Alfor says. It’s a direct callback to the beginning of the episode when he told her that her being a leader would necessitate her making sacrifices. (Why the glass shattered just because the power was disconnected from the system, I have no idea.)

They escape just as the star explodes. Eh, it’s a cliché last-second escape, but it is beautifully animated.

I like hearing Allura afterward make clear that the hologram was not her father. It sort of marks her acceptance of her loss in a way that she had not been able to do before.

While I have a few small complaints about the realism of a few elements of this episode, and I don’t like the title, I do like the episode a lot. (I think because I like the episode as much as I do is why I wish it had a better title.) While the other characters do have their respective parts in the episode, the most emotional, impactful scenes are those involving Shiro and those involving Allura. While I’ve enjoyed a lot of the show up to this point, this is the first episode to make me really feel hit in my emotions.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 1 #vld 1x11 #commentary

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novarasalas · 5 years

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Second Look Review: The Last Stand Pts. 1 & 2

I’m having a bit of trouble with this one. Not just this one, but the rest of this season.

I think it would be easier for me if I hadn’t just been making clips from earlier seasons for my videos. Cause damn, this is a huge departure from when we started.

And I casually throw around the phrase “shit gets real”, but, this time, I mean it.

There’s now a sense of realism that this show only barley hinted at in the first episode.

And it’s just the stupidest thing, but the part that’s messing me up the most is that, now, we’re in the military. Of course I knew what the Galaxy Garrison was. It’s got ‘garrison’ right there in the name. But… I’m not a fan of military stuff, which is a bit hypocritical as one of my favorite movies is “Independence Day”. I suppose it’s hard for me to accept that, say...Lance, the goofy, dork of a child, is part of a military institution. He’s a soldier.

I mean, the Paladins have been through war stuff already. But now it’s Earth war stuff; things that are immediately familiar.

I uh...I have some hang ups. If I’m seeming a bit down on all this, it’s a me thing. The show itself is still good. It’s now just suddenly not my thing.

Let’s get down to it.

Part 1

First thing: I love the Holts, ok? Sam is already amazing, and Colleen is a spitfire. You can definitely see where Pidge gets it. If they could adopt me like, right now, that’d be great.

That said, Sam is extremely idealistic. The first thing he wants to do once he gets back to Earth is tell the whole world what happened to him.

Sanda shuts him down:

Sanda: If we told the world there was an imminent attack, we’d set off a global panic.

That reminded me of this, from Men in Black:

And it’s about aliens too. Nice.

She’s not wrong. At least, I don’t think she would be in our modern reality. My city is one sports championship away from spontaneously combusting...again (thank god our teams all suck). I’d really hate to imagine what would happen in this situation in the here and now.

And Sanda wasn’t wrong about sending signals into space, either.

Sanda: Any contact with alien species needs to be run through the appropriate channels.

In the end, she acquiesces, only for them to make contact with Matt, who tells them to stop broadcasting. Welp.

Sanda’s in an unenviable position. How would you react if someone told you that space magic is real and now there’s a risk of alien invasion, and a knockoff band of Power Rangers was your only hope? She didn’t excuse herself from the meeting to stand out in the hallway and scream, which is what I'd have done. But now she has to consider the safety and well-being of the entirety of the Earth, without causing mass hysteria throughout the populace.

There are no good answers. Not in real life. And this is uncharted territory for everyone involved.

So they build weapons in secret.

I have to say, I like how they’ve designed their new tech. They didn’t try to emulate Altean aesthetics, and instead stuck with a more conventional, modern Earth look.

War planes, energy cannons, and a particle barrier. They’re working on their own Castleship. They even have “the best pilots to come out of the Galaxy Garrison in the last year.”

But it’s not enough, and Sam forces Sanda’s hand, telling the Earth about everything. As it turns out that Sanda was wrong, and instead of panic, the world comes together to help save themselves.

And in the end, it’s too little too late.

What a bunch of losers.

We’re not given much of a timeframe on these events. At the beginning of the episode, the screen reads “FOUR YEARS EARLIER”. But where in those four years does the invasion happen? If Sanda had allowed for help earlier on, would it have made a difference?

I’m thinking….no. Sendak knows what he’s doing. The Earth was screwed from the start.

Part 2

So now you’ve found yourself being overrun by alien invaders. Yikes.

And these invaders have this to say about you’re ability to fight them.

Planetary surface reports indicate offensive capability, extremely low.

I wonder if they’d say that about us now. We still have enough nukes to blow ourselves up several times over. Does this future Earth still have that?

They’ve never said much about Earth in the Paladins time, so I came up with something on my own.

I think Earth is peaceful. And I think that because the general scope of the Garrison seems to be exploration, not military power. Of course, they’re not slouch in that department either. I can’t quite explain why they’d still have active military, except that ya know...shit happens.

The overall diversity of the place tells me this, too. If this was strictly military, I don’t think they’d be letting foreigners into their ranks. This is me, assuming again, that Lance is from actual Cuba, and Hunk is from actual Samoa.

Diversity, and bases all over the world. Also, the fact of everyone coming together to protect the planet.

And I think it might be because of this:

Veronica: It’s an older setup from World War III.

That’s pretty damn significant. And it’s the last we hear of it.

Did humanity learn it’s lesson after that? Was this war so bad that everyone found their chill in the aftermath? And is it recent enough to have been within living memory for a sizable chunk of the population?

I’m gonna say yes. Look at the chiefs:

At least four of them at the table have medals on their uniforms.

So my theory is this: World War III happened around 40 years prior. The ones with the medals were awarded these medals for their services during that war. The war was so bad that everyone wised up and stopped all that nonsense. They got rid of the worst of their weapons. Now, the people of Earth have come together to explore the universe.

….hey, why not? We might find out more in season 8. Or we might go right back into fantastic space battles.

Also, I’d like to say that Sanda is also a veteran. She’s just...such a hard ass. She didn’t get that way on her own.

She’s also the one in charge.

Aliens are attacking, Admiral! What should we do?

Why, send in the least effective of our attacking fleet, of course!

Sam: You’ve just doomed those men and women.

And one, in particular.

Yeah, Adam was actually doomed as soon as he was introduced as Shiro’s ex. I’m going to talk more about this at the end of the review, because otherwise it’s just going to throw off the flow.

So, the cities of the world are razed.

Again, I’m having a hard time with this. Military movies, disaster movies….I’ve lost my taste for them. I’d rather spend my time on something hopeful. I guess, in the end, it is hopeful, because we as the audience know that Voltron will eventually save the day. But this lead up is brutal.

So, did you survive the invasion? Or do you think you’d have been one of the ‘able bodied citizens’ taken captive?

I know I’m dead. I’m soooooo dead.

Probably not in the initial attack; they always go for the cities first, and I’m at the edge of nowhere. In the end, it wouldn’t even be the Galra that get me.

It’s my chronic illnesses. If I don’t get my meds, I’m done for. So when I see a story about invasion and people getting cut off and isolated, I get a bit...uncomfortable. And that’s a bit part of why I’m having such a hard time with the back half of this season. In my head, all I can think is “oh god, I’m boned. I’m sooo screwed.”

But who knows? Maybe in this future Earth they can cure what’s wrong with me. Or maybe there’s ways to prevent you from getting sick in the first place. Then again, they couldn’t really help Shiro, so...

….

Auuuggggghhhh!!!

This is bringing me down way too much! I gotta find something great…

Ah! The squad!

The aftermath of season 7 online was a mess. I saw way too many people complaining that adding these four was a waste of narrative. Those people have toe fungus and need to get a hair cut, because the MFE pilots are great. I wish we’d gotten to see more of them.

I made a video of her moments a bit back and talked about this there, but I’ll say it again: I love Leifsdottir, and I love that she’s autistic.

Also: Veronica

Rizavi: I like her.

Same, Rizavi. Same.

I wish I hadn’t read the reviews before season 7. I’d have loved to have gone in blind, not knowing that this is that Veronica, Lance’s sister. I’d have never guessed. She’s so professional.

I wonder if she was like her brother when she was a Garrison cadet. We later see a lighter side of her, and right after that, we see Serious Lance again. Yeah...I’m going with that. I bet Lance entered the Garrison, and the instructors all began lamenting “Oh god...not another one.”.

Also, have you noticed the diversity here at the Garrison? There’s a good split of men and women, and all kinds of varying skin tones. It’s great to see.

This episode does end on a high note, or rather, as high as it can, with a message sent to Voltron with the hope that they get there in time.

And Sam Holt gives a speech.

Earth has been conquered.

We are the last holdout in an evil occupation.

And we must face the facts: our supplies are running out.

They have hammered us and hurt the ones we love.

Our backs are completely up against the wall.

And nothing makes us more dangerous.

We only have enough resources for one last stand.

Regardless of the outcome, if we stand united,

we will let them know, the planet Earth, our home,

will not go down without a fight.

…

I still really like that movie, ok?

---

Now, about Adam.

When I went online after watching the season, I was expecting to hear a bit about his fate, but I never expected all...this. And anything I have to say has already been said better by many other people.

I’m firmly of the idea that the showrunners had nothing to apologize for.

See, like I said, Adam was doomed as soon as he was introduced. He was only ever meant to serve as plot device. Take away the approval for him to be Shiro’s ex, and you’re left with Shiro’s close friend who died at the hands of Sendak. It’s meant to make you feel bad; it’s meant to make you feel unsafe. His death tells you “This is war, and anyone can die.”

But then, Shiro was allowed to be gay. And now Adam wasn’t his roommate, he was his boyfriend.

The narrative needed someone who was close to a main character to show that war is hell, but not too close as to be excessively cruel to the audience. The narrative also needed someone to show that Shiro was queer. It’s just how things worked out.

This is something we’ll have to get used to as better representation begins to filter in. There will be missteps, and there will be hurt feelings. But it is progress.

There are good conversations to be had about this. But none of those conversations are happening here.

In the end, Adam was a brave man, who once upon a time loved another man. He died a hero.

In summary:

This was brutal. It actually happened: Sendak has done everything short of destroying the whole of the Earth. I had really, really been hoping that the fight would stay in space.

The episodes were well made, with a great bit of story to be told. But my own issues got in the way of me liking them. Ah, well...it happens.

...

The Garrison is all 70s aesthetic. I don’t like 70s aesthetics...

Next up: The boys are back in town.

#second look review #the last stand #sam holt #leifsdottir #ina leifsdottir #mfe pilots #voltron #voltron legendary defender #such a long post #it's like 2k words sorry

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notveryglittery · 6 years

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ssps prompt #9

summary: “And where was the last place you saw the object in question?” “I already told you, Lo– er, Detective Holmes.” words: 2,500 / ships: platonic logince, if you squint warnings: mentions of a previous injury/burn, illness, deceit, daggers/a sword, fighting, potion use, blood. notes: read prompts: #6, #7, and #8 or else you’ll be really confused! we’re almost there, guys!! shout out to nick for helping me figure out virgil’s deal with the dragon-witch! @sanderssidespromptsummer / read on ao3

Twenty hours later and Virgil was still bedridden.

He’d woken briefly twice, moaning about being too hot or too cold, before slipping back into a fever-induced and restless sleep. Logan couldn’t understand it. They weren’t supposed to be able to get sick, unless Thomas himself was ill, and wasn’t taking care of himself. Generally, the sides weren’t effected by such things, seeing as they weren’t technically physical. Virgil, however, was showing signs of… Well, that was the other thing. No matter how much research Logan had done in the last twelve hours (and only because Patton had forced him to get some rest), he couldn’t figure out for the life of him what Virgil had come down with.

There was no hiding the wound on his neck from Patton and Roman once they’d come to help. Logan had explained as quickly as he could to the others what Virgil had told him before falling unconscious. As such, they had him created a new room entirely next to Patton’s. It was easy to do something like this and they did so frequently, for group activities or planning in pairs, when they didn’t want to be effected by each other’s rooms, or didn’t feel like using the Commons. It was a simple guest bedroom but it was protected by the same rules: the Dragon-Witch could not enter it. Patton moved frequently in and out of it, forgoing using the door just in case, and Roman had to remind him to not sink in and out so quickly, as he kept getting dizzy afterwards.

Remy had stepped in eventually to help Patton lay down for a nap because Patton (the hypocrite) hadn’t slept a wink since finding out what happened to Virgil. He’d helped Roman to calm down as well when the former flipped his lid over finding out about the deal Virgil had made with the Dragon-Witch. Or… as much as he could find out, seeing as how Virgil hadn’t actually gotten around to telling Logan. He’d very nearly gone into the Fantasy Realm on his own to take care of this before Logan had stopped him. He had insisted on Roman not going alone, on there being strength in numbers, and really, Logan was quite sure the only reason Roman had agreed to wait, was because Patton was giving him a very stern look from behind his back.

“I’ll come with you,” Remy offered, sipping from his Starbucks tumbler. He’d been at it far more often than usual and Logan was beginning to wonder whether he was drinking coffee or tea. Remy hadn’t slept, either, but seeing as he was the Figment for sleep, it might not have been necessary. Logan added it to his list of things to look into.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to leave Patton alone.” Logan glanced upstairs, where Patton was currently taking care of Virgil. “We both know how he gets when Virgil is unwell.”

“Understatement,” Remy scoffed. “Alright, I’ll stay with pops, then.” He brandished his phone, eyebrows raising from behind his sunglasses. “Text if you need me.”

Logan promised.

Two hours later, with the sun midway through its journey in the sky, Roman and Logan headed into the Fantasy Realm. Roman was armed to the teeth, with his trusty sword, and a number of daggers hidden on his person. Logan carried with him a satchel, filled with potions Roman had retrieved from an apothecary in the nearest village. There was also a spell book and Roman had insisted Logan read from it while they traveled to the Dragon-Witch’s lair on horseback.

“I don’t know a thing about magic, Roman,” Logan countered. “I’m not sure I’m the best person for this.” Still, he thumbed through the pages. Anything was better than nothing.

“I know that, Specs,” Roman answered and his tone was hard. He’d been on edge for so long, Logan was surprised he hadn’t ground his teeth to dust. “Just look through it to try and find one that might help us. I can cast it if necessary.” Logan added that to his list of things he didn’t know about Roman.

“You’re capable of casting spells?” Logan asked.

Roman huffed, shooting him an amused glance. “Don’t sound so shocked. I’m capable of lots of things.” For a moment there, he sounded like himself again. “It’s only in my Realm, anyway.” He shifted in his saddle. “And a lot of good it does me when I can’t use it to simply teleport us to our destination.”

“I don’t understand,” Logan began, carefully. “This is your Realm. The Dragon-Witch is a creation of your own. Shouldn't you have full control over… all of this?”

Roman’s eyes narrowed and he scowled. “After today, I will. I allowed her too much free reign. It was…” He sighed and Logan was startled at how suddenly his mood shifted. It was as if the guilt on his shoulders was suddenly physical, weighing the prince down. “It was to challenge myself. If she had more… free will, then she might have proved a mightier foe. I am a presumptuous imbecile. I’ve learned my lesson, do not worry.”

It was silent for awhile longer. Eventually, Logan spoke, “you were being proactive. There’s nothing wrong with testing oneself in order to come out stronger in the end.”

They rode on. They made camp as the sun set. They woke as the sun rose. They rode on.

The mountain towering above them was intimidating but Logan was as far from frightened as possible. He had priorities and he trusted Roman. Leaving the horses tied to a nearby tree, they continued on foot. The path was treacherous but they kept an eye on each other. Roman’s anger kept his energy up and his senses were on high alert; that it had been so quiet on their entire trip was slightly unsettling and completely suspicious. Eventually, they came to the mouth of a cave. The entrance was lit with torches.

“This is it.” Roman muttered. He took his phone from one of his pockets (it was strange, seeing the device in such a medieval setting) and sent a text to Remy, letting him know their whereabouts. Logan took one of the torches and stepped closer. “Shall we?”

Roman took another torch and led the way. Logan followed close behind, keeping a tight grip on his bag. The potions were wrapped in cloth so as not to clang together noisily, but he kept them as still as possible, regardless. It grew cooler the further they ventured and Logan was glad to have worn a scarf instead of his usual necktie. Soon, the sound of bubbling liquid and wood crackling in a fire reached them. The tunnel opened into a wide cavern. In the very center sat a cauldron. Shelves stood against the walls, some hosting books, the others filled with bottled ingredients. A figure stood over a desk with their back turned to Roman and Logan.

“What are you doing here?!” Roman shouted and Logan startled at the volume.

They dropped the papers they’d been shuffling through and spun to face the pair.

“Deceit?” Logan asked in disbelief.

“I couldn’t ask the same of you,” Deceit snapped, gaze darting nervously around the space.

“It’s my Fantasy Realm!” Roman retorted, tossing his torch away and storming towards Deceit. Logan stood still, thoroughly confused. “How’d you even get in here!” He was pulling a dagger from his belt and Logan decided then that maybe Roman’s fury was misplaced.

“Roman!” He called, stepping carefully further into the lair. “He’s not our enemy.”

Deceit seemed to be holding it together but the smirk he sent towards Logan was not earning him any favors. “On my side, Logan? That’s not surprising at all.”

Roman came to a staggering halt, just an arms reach from Deceit. His grip tightened on the hilt of his weapon. “Have you seen the Dragon-Witch?”

“That delightful creature?” Deceit grinned but Logan saw no joy behind it. “She left only minutes ago. You just missed her.”

Roman released a frustrated cry and flung the dagger he’d been holding so tightly into a shelf. The book it imbedded itself into fell to the ground. “Would you stop talking like… like that! I… We need to help Virgil! So for once in your damn life, just give us an honest answer!”

Logan gestured impatiently in Deceit’s direction. “I suggest you listen to him.”

“She’s been out for half an hour,” Deceit responded after a moment. He bent to pick the notes up. “And I know why you’re here. It’s…” He hesitated, shuffling through the pages. “It’s what I’m here for as well.”

Roman growled, fed up by now with Deceit’s manner of speaking. He instead took to exploring the cavern, tearing through the shelves, looking for a solution. Any solution. Logan approached Deceit and looked over what remained still on the wooden surface. “Have you found anything helpful?” He asked, willing to accept what ever assistance they could get at this point.

“No,” Deceit told him softly. “There was a handheld mirror here but the moment I got near it, it disappeared.”

“And where was the last place you saw the object in question?” Logan asked, grouping more papers together, as if he would find the mirror underneath them.

“I already told you, Lo–,” Deceit paused, finally getting a good look at Logan. He smirked, “er, Detective Holmes.”

“What—” Logan began to ask before Deceit pointed to his scarf. It was the same one he used when dressing up as Sherlock Holmes. Logan frowned at him. “Very funny.”

“It was here.” He motioned to the table. “I don’t know if it just went invisible or if she could see me through it and teleported it to herself before I could take it.”

“… Do you mean to say, she might know that you’re here?” Logan asked slowly, turning on the spot to face the entrance of the lair.

“I suppose,” Deceit said without care, right up until Logan tugged on the end of his capelet. Deceit pivoted as well.

“Well, well, well,” the Dragon-Witch purred, “what a pleasant surprise.”

“You!” Roman bellowed. He yanked another dagger from his belt and flung it at her without hesitation. A wave of her hand had the projectile tossed away but Roman was already running towards her, sword drawn. She conjured a staff from thin air and parried Roman’s attack as he swung at her. “What have you done to Virgil!”

Logan dropped his torch and rifled through his satchel. Handing the spell book to Deceit, he sorted through the potions, trying to read their labels in the low light. “See if you can find anything useful in there, won’t you?” Logan requested. Deceit muttered something about what good it would do if he couldn’t cast magic but did as asked. The clanging of metal on metal rang throughout the cavern as Roman and the Dragon-Witch traded blows.

“How is the little storm cloud doing?” The Dragon-Witch queried sweetly. “I do hope he’s feeling alright. He hasn’t completed his end of our bargain yet.”

“And he never will!” Roman spat, “not so long as I am breathing!” Taking the last small knife from on his person, Roman aimed it for the Dragon-Witch’s side. She couldn’t block all of his attacks and the blade sunk into her skin. Roman twisted it as she gasped, faltering in her defenses. Roman pushed harder against her staff.

Quite suddenly, Logan appeared. Grabbing a fistful of the Dragon-Witch’s hair, he tugged her head back and, with her mouth open in agony and surprise, forced a potion down her throat. He backed away just as quickly, pulling Roman along with him as he did. When Roman began to protest, Logan held the bottle up for Roman to see. It was labeled Weakening. Sure enough, the Dragon-Witch fell to her knees. Holding her side as she gasped, a laugh trickled from her lips. “Aren’t you a brave little thing,” she sneered at Logan.

“How’s this?” Deceit asked, shoving the spell book in Roman’s face. Roman elbowed Deceit in surprise and the trait backed away, grumbling. The title on the page was in bold lettering: Teller of Truths.

“How’d someone like you find something like this,” Roman snarked.

“Roman.” Logan said, in his best scolding Patton tone.

“Apologies,” Roman amended, though he sounded like he only half meant it. He wasted no time in chanting the spell. Logan made yet another note to ask Roman what language it was in and when he had learned it. Sparks gathered at his fingertips before he held his hand out towards the Dragon-Witch.

“What was the deal you made with Virgil?” His voice echoed throughout the lair. Logan watched as the Dragon-Witch struggled to keep her mouth clamped shut, to resist answering the question. Eventually, the magic took hold, and though she spoke haltingly, she spoke true.

“To break your curse, his own would drain him of energy until every last drop of it was mine.” She hissed, narrowing her eyes. “He’d have been volatile because of it, negatively impacting your host, so that I could easier take over.”

Logan wondered how much of that Virgil had actually agreed to and how much of it had been fine print.

“Is there a way to lift his curse without creating another?”

“No.” A layer of tension fell over the Sides.

“Do you have anything in here that can do it?”

“…” It looked like she was going to bite her own tongue off.

“Do you. Have anything. In here. That can do it?”

“Yes.”

For the next ten minutes, Logan and Deceit brought various books and ingredients and potions over while Roman asked if any of them were what would break the curse. Eventually, Deceit returned, carrying a bottle with a viscous, blue liquid inside. The label on it was of a padlock.

Still bleeding from her side and growing weary from the effects of magic, the Dragon-Witch lowered her head when she saw it in Deceit’s hands.

“Will this lift Virgil’s curse?” Roman demanded.

“Yes.”

Roman’s eyes flashed red as he suddenly let the spell drop. He slammed the book shut. The Dragon-Witch tipped over, falling to her uninjured side. Her eyelids fluttered. “This won’t be the last time, my prince,” she promised, smiling sickeningly up at him.

“I know,” he told her, resigned. Gesturing for Logan and Deceit to leave before him, Roman followed out after them, walking out backwards and keeping his eyes on the Dragon-Witch until she was no longer visible. He ran the rest of the way out to find Logan preparing for the trip back down the path. Deceit stood awkwardly to the side, potion still held tight in his grasp.

“Forget the horses,” Roman said, waving a hand. Though they were all the way at the bottom of the mountain and not currently visible, Logan could only assume Roman had sent them back to their stables. “Put that,” he pointed to the antidote, “in your bag.” Logan carefully took it from Deceit, who was looking more uncomfortable by the second.

“Until next time, then,” Deceit began before Roman was taking one of his hands in his own.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Roman snapped, though there was no heat behind it. He took Logan’s hand in his other. “Hold tight.”

#sanders sides fan fiction #sanderssidespromptsummer #roman sanders #logan sanders #deceit sanders #dani writes

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yaelathewordsmith · 6 years

Text

One Moment In A Lifetime

hhhhh okay, first BNHA fic ever, hooray! No clue what the point of this is supposed to be, though, it’s just . . . words. Just ran away from me entirely. Exploring relationship dynamics, I guess? I don’t even know. Hope you enjoy anyway!

Summary: A battle goes wrong in a way it shouldn’t have, and Shouto is not happy. What he ends up receiving, though, is something precious he never expected.

Includes hurt, regret, friendship, and platonic love and care.

(reposted)

Shouto usually isn’t one to lose his temper. On rare occasions, yes, when he’s been pushed way over the edge or been offered insufferable provocation or has found himself in situations he can see no clear way out of. It had turned out, amazingly, that Midoriya Izuku (face like a blushing puppy, body like a Greek statue, voice reminiscent of nothing more than a shy deer, personality of an enthusiastically fanatic nerd) was one person who could actually get him furious and throw him off balance (the determination of a piranha that’s just tasted blood, too). Apart from him, though, no single person from 1-A gets him rattled. Bakugou tries - oh, does he try - but Shouto can easily deal with such overt displays of aggressiveness.

Any tendency to back down, to waver, show weakness, has been beaten out of him long ago. Now, he looks in the mirror and is reminded of a mountain lake - still and undisturbed. That’s not a bad thing, he thinks. If nothing else, it’s certainly a safe way to go through life; unaffected by little upsets, little irritations, reserving all focus and discipline for the things that really matter.

So it comes as a surprise, to put it lightly, to find that this - this - has upset him.

“You,” he snaps, whirling around, “are a reckless idiot. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Fire sparks in his left palm - not the best idea when facing Bakugou, but he pays that thought no mind. He won’t extinguish it. If he has to, he’ll beat Bakugou with his own element. He’d prefer to do so, in fact.

Bakugou backs down, though, looks down and away with a sullen scowl. It isn’t much of a surprise - Bakugou may be many things, but he’s not an idiot, and he never refuses to face any mistake he makes head on - but it exacerbates the itch inside Shouto, the itch to break something, burn something, create some outward manifestation of the frustration and lingering shock (not fear, he tells himself, not fear at all - and hates that he knows he’s lying) that’s burning somewhere deep in his chest.

Midoriya is crouched on the ground, wide eyes, anxious, tattered hood pushed back to hang limply down his back. “Uraraka-san, can - can you rate the pain on a scale of one to ten for me, please?”

Uraraka’s helmet is lying on the ground, pink visor smokey and splintered. One of her bracers is cracked, her belt is missing, and her boots are a maze of dirty scratches. The defect that draws the most attention, though, is the large, ragged hole in her costume on her left waist, where the skin is horribly red and blistered.

Still she smiles, as much as she is able, still she offers Bakugou no hint of resentment or anger in her clear eyes.

“M-maybe six?”

Bakugou snorts irritably, edging around Shouto with a defiant glare to crouch by Uraraka, a little away from Midoriya. He’s keeping his distance from her, Shouto realizes, aware of what he’s just done and ashamed of it, and understanding that makes him grudgingly extinguish the fire that was beginning to burn steadily in his palm.

“My explosions aren’t that weak, girl,” Bakugou growls. “They don’t burn me, but that don’t mean I ain’t aware of how much they hurt. I - “

He hesitates, glances up at Shouto, who stares back unforgivingly, and sideways at Midoriya, who still looks antsy and anxious.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, glaring at the dirt. “I should’ve been more careful.”

“You should have looked,” Shouto says, the words clipped, “to see who exactly was in your line of fire instead of blasting away because one villain pissed you off. Both Midoriya and Uraraka were already taking care of him. Do you know what his quirk is?”

Bakugou grimaces. “No, damn you, I don’t!”

“Any object, any tool, anything remotely useful will have an effect opposite to the one intended. Since you tried to roast that guy alive when Uraraka was in the way, and she used her quirk to move him, he had the opportunity to touch her and activate his own quirk. And that means no medicine, no cooling pack, not even my ice will help with the massive second degree burn you just gave her!”

Shouto doesn’t even realize how loud his voice has become until Bakugou gets to his feet, snarling.

“I already apologized, you bastard, what the hell else do you want?! Want me to go back in time and fix it? Hah?!”

“I want you to understand exactly what you - !”

“Kacchan!”

Uraraka’s soft voice cuts through the crackling air like a knife. Both Shouto and Bakugou turn instantly, watching as Midoriya helps her struggle into a sitting position.

She smiles again, weak and painful. “It’s fine, Kacchan, it really is, I swear. I know you didn’t mean to. Thank you for apologizing. And Todoroki-kun, I appreciate your concern very much, but please don’t yell at Kacchan. It’s not -” She sucks in a breath, wincing as Midoriya’s gently probing fingers touch a particularly painful spot. She dismisses his hasty apology with a slight shake of her head, and continues, “- it’s not necessary at all.”

Shouto huffs shortly, and Bakugou jerks his head away, scowling at the ground. “Whatever. I’m going to go check that the last of the fires are out.”

Midoriya looks up at that. “Kacchan, don’t forget to check on the guy with the knife quirk! I don’t think he’ll be able to cut through the rope, I don’t think they can reach his wrists from his fingers, but just make sure - “

“Shut the fuck up, Deku, I know!” Bakugou gets to his feet, hand brushing across Uraraka’s shoulder for a brief, hesitant moment, cheeks dusted light red as he does so. “I’ll check on all those assholes, you don’t have to nag me.”

He gives Shouto a glare, and Shouto gives him a cool look in return, but steps aside to make way for him. Bakugou understands, and he regrets it, and that’s enough for Shouto. For now, at least. Later, he will talk to Bakugou and demand to know what had him distracted, what had him riled up, because it’s not the first time he’s been careless like this. It’s been happening for more than a week now, and if he doesn’t get it together, they may not be permitted to work together anymore, as rookie heroes. He needs to tell Shouto what’s wrong, or he can tell Midoriya, or just anyone, but it needs to be worked out before anyone gets hurt again - including Bakugou himself.

That it’s I’ll-Crush-You-And-Any-Dreams-You-Ever-Had-Bakugou that this is happening to, of all people, is, of course, a minor consideration, no matter how worrying it is. Shouto is good at leaving personal desires out of the picture, focusing only on the final goal to be achieved.

He learned that a long time ago, too.

Freezing Bakugou into the world’s most bizarre popsicle until he agrees to talk to (to confide in) Shouto can wait until later, though. Right now -

He kneels where Bakugou had crouched, not sure if Uraraka will be uncomfortable with the idea of being around him, his fire, especially when it’s the reason that the buildings around them, in this part of the abandoned town, are scorched and soot-streaked.

“We need to get you help,” Midoriya says, all wide and earnest eyes. “Will you be okay while one of us goes, Uraraka-san?”

The corner of her mouth quirks up vaguely - it’s all she can summon of her earlier smile.

“Of course, Deku, I’ll be fine. It’s really not - as bad as it -”

Shouto reaches out without thinking, to steady her as she sways, but his touch is, of course, unneeded. Midoriya already has one strong arm around her shoulders, keeping her upright, silently urging her to lean back against the rough block of concrete that is part of a fallen pillar. Shouto doesn’t remove his hand from her arm, though. Useless as the gesture may be, it makes him feel like he’s helping somehow, providing her with some modicum of support and comfort, that he’s not entirely useless in the situation. And it - gives him some small measure of comfort.

“You’re exhausted,” he says. “You were fighting longer than we were, and using your quirk almost constantly. The burn is the worst of it, but that’s not all that needs attention. We need medical professionals, or at least transport to a medical facility.”

Uraraka makes a soft sound that’s something between a snort and a laugh, one hand brushing against her useless phone. “And we just had to run into someone with a quirk that disables electrical devices today, didn’t we . . .”

“I could carry you,” Midoriya offers. “We could be at the next town in ten minutes.”

Uraraka shakes her head weakly, brown hair limp over her eyes. “Already - nauseous from Zero Gravity. I - thank you for offering but - bounding up and down like that - “

“Right, of course,” Midoriya says instantly, forehead creasing with worry. “Then, Todoroki-kun? Is your quirk - ?”

“It’s possible, yes, I can do it. But it would be slower, it would also exacerbate the nausea, and I don’t want to take the risk of my ice worsening your injury. If even the slightest bit comes into contact, I think it would feel like - like fire, probably - “

Uraraka shrinks back at that, just a little bit.

Shouto forces himself not to clench his fist, and continues, “And anyway you’re not supposed to apply ice to burns.”

Midoriya exhales, short and sharp. “Okay. Okay, okay, then I’ll go, I’ll get them, since I’ll be faster. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? Todoroki-kun, you’ll stay with - ?”

“Of course,” Shouto says before he even finishes the sentence. Of course, because where the hell else would he be?

Midoriya nods and is in the air almost before Shouto can blink. The thuds of his jumps are loud, concussive, and fading rapidly. They only hear three before he’s outside their range of hearing.*

Uraaka slowly lets her head fall back, her breathing going shallow and her features scrunching up in a way that implies that she’s been trying far too hard for far too long to seem calm and composed, and has just allowed herself to break. To stop.

It hurts, in a dull kind of way, because this is someone bright and kind and good, someone Shouto has fought beside too many times to count, has trusted with his life and been trusted with hers in return, someone who is comrade and friend and just - just dear to him, he realizes, she is dear to him in a way few people are. A bond forged in battle is no easy thing to replicate. And so seeing her like this, in pain, and being unable to help feels like something is squeezing his heart, compressing it until every heartbeat is a subdued ache.

But there’s nothing he can do, so he keeps his hand on her shoulder and resigns himself to feeling jittery and uncomfortable as he waits for Midoriya to return.

There are flakes of ash floating by, the air horribly still. Stifling. The only sounds are distant crashes of rubble that’s decided to fall only now, and the faint grunts of the trussed up villains. Bakugou, Shouto can’t hear at all (for once). He’s executing his mission in unnatural silence. Shouto hopes, vaguely, tiredly, as exhaustion sweeps over him in a wave, that he hasn’t run into any trouble - or killed the guy who’d irritated him so much in the first place. That’s an odd quirk, to be sure . . . it seems ridiculous, frustrating, but are there . . . possible uses?

Shouto’s eyes snap open.

“Uraraka,” he says, softly, urgently.

She levers her own eyes open and blinks at him blearily.

“If my ice would burn you - would my fire cool you?”

Her mouth opens a little, shock sharpening the features of her face.

“I - it - it might? But . . .” She frowns a bit, getting that look of furious focus that only appears when she’s trying desperately to think. “But ice isn’t good for burns, so would it - how would it - ”

“I don’t know,” he tells her, left hand already itching to be set ablaze. “Would you - like to try?”

Her eyes flick up to meet his, and he catches a glimpse of dark fear in them before she forces it back, swallowing.

“If you don’t want to -” he says immediately. He doesn’t want to pressure her in any way.

But she shakes her head weakly, biting her lip. “I think - m-maybe we should. It- “ Her voice breaks on a rising sob. “It really hurts, Todoroki-kun.”

“Okay,” he murmurs, trying to sound as soothing as he can. “We’ll do that, then. If you feel the slightest pain, anything at all, tell me immediately and we’ll stop, yes? We’re going to take this slow.”

Uraraka nods, pushing herself upright. Shouto allows one small flame to kindle at the tip of one finger, holding it like it’s a baby bird.

“Ready?”

She nods again, eyes screwed shut. He moves it towards her side carefully, the sight of the red-gold light against her burned, angry-looking skin making him wince. But he presses on, moving closer, closer, until he’s less than an inch away, and she should definitely be feeling some heat now, even if nerves have been damaged. But she says nothing.

“Feel anything?”

She shakes her head, relaxing a little. “No heat, but there’s like - a cool breeze?” Her eyes fall open. “I think you were right, Todoroki-kun.”

He moves closer, gingerly, until it’s almost licking at her side. “Now? Is it too cold?”

“N-no, it’s - good. It’s - ohh -” She almost shudders in relief when he allows it to press against her entirely. “It’s like cool water, it’s perfect.”

Shouto sighs quietly. “Good.”

He allows the flames to envelop his hand entirely and, very carefully, lays it flat against the burn. He can feel her skin even through the fire licking at the underside of his palm, rough and puckered and blistered, and his mouth twists without him meaning to.

“Todoroki-kun, could you - here?” She points, and he moves his hand accordingly, thinking about how if he had Kendo’s quirk in addition to his own he could just enlarge his hand to cool the entire affected area. But he doesn’t, and he can’t, and so he ends up absently stroking the entire burn in controlled sweeps, taking care not to get too close to the cloth of her costume because he has no clue as to whether the villain’s quirk extends to the clothes of the affected person as well.

It’s - weird. Once the buzz of his shock and anger has worn off, now that he’s doing something useful, helpful, it’s just odd. The whole situation is odd, kneeling on ashy ground in the middle of a ruined town, stroking a teammate’s burn with a hand on fire. And it’s even weirder that he’s doing this for Uraraka, of all people, because he might not be the most attentive person when it comes to social relationships, but everyone who had been in their class knows that there’s something between Midoriya and Uraraka, something tentative and nebulous and undefined that the two of them are too embarrassed to address; something that lasted through all the years since UA till now. And so if anyone should be - uh, touching (petting, Shouto thinks, and shudders slightly, shaking the uncomfortable thought out of his head) - Uraraka’s waist like this, it should most definitely not be Shouto.

But . . . it’s Uraraka. And since it’s Uraraka (as adept at defusing uncomfortable situations, with soothing words and just the right gestures, as she sometimes is at creating them, with nervous chatter and flustered hands) the smile she gives him and the way she relaxes, peacefully, ensures that he settles down to his task soon enough, the repetitive motion soothing away the chaos of battle still churning in his mind surprisingly effectively.

It’s one moment in a lifetime, one incident among hundreds that Shouto will experience in a lifetime as a pro hero. Yet later, when he’s older and more battle-scarred, when the white has started encroaching onto the red half of his hair, it’s that moment he thinks of when he thinks of tranquility, stillness, peace - Uraraka with her eyes closed, head tipped back against cracked concrete, the rise and fall of her chest gentle and steady (when before it had been harsh, stuttering) because his hand on her waist, his flames, are washing her pain away, keeping it at bay. It’s that atmosphere that he remembers, smokey and heavy and silent but - quiet, and comforting, as the adrenaline in his blood slows to a halt and his whirling thoughts slow and settle around a centre of silence.

It’s a feeling he will only be privileged to experience a few times in his life, that feeling of true peace. And he will never tell anyone, but to himself, Shouto can admit that the reason he watches Uraraka’s back more carefully in fights after that, the reason he listens to her worry about how Midoriya might never like her back, the reason he helps her make horrible Valentine’s Day chocolate and trains with her more and reads the books she recommends and -

- and becomes something of a best friend -

- is that he’s grateful to her for giving him that, that single, precious period of peace.

Even if is just - one moment in a lifetime.

#reposting this because the read more thing wasn't working #au where bakugou lets uraraka call him kacchan #bakugou nearly bursts an artery when he comes back and sees what's going on #there goes the peace whoops #todo is best man at her wedding who's with me #yaelasbnhawriting #uraraka ochako #todoroki shouto #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #family #friendship #care and healing #writing #oneshot #well here goes nothing

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emperorren · 6 years

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What Reylo scenes would you want to happen in Episode IX? In the context of there being no limitations (PG-13 rating, things Disney wouldn't do, the plot (within reason))? Thanks!

(please excuse my lack of coherence but tlj, unlike tfa, left me with lots of question marks on the future evolution of reylo. It unexpectedly covered most of my preexisting predictions for this ship while also leaving their relationships unresolved, so I’m currently in the process of adjusting my predictions to the new circumstances and the changed dynamic and I’m just going to spitball in no particular order and no attempt at sticking to any coherent idea of plot)

number one on my wishlist is a deepening of the force bond in terms of what they can feel and how they can use it

I want the force bond to explored from different angles: what it means in terms of force lore, why it happened to them, what makes them special to the Force, how do they physically feel, how they deal with this intimacy they don’t understand now that they’ve hurt and disappointed each other so much. But I also want them to study it, as opposed to passively experience it. Perhaps try to manipulate the bond to either shut the other out or keep an eye or each other or (also) use it in an attempt to weaken the other in a duel

I want to see new visual ways to convey how the bond progressively grows and expands between them. So bring on all kinds of obscure lynchian visions, shared dreams, nightmares about each other dying, sensing each other’s approaching, tapping into each other’s conscience and deeply buried memories of their childhood and past abuse (that would be an awesome way to include a snoke flashback, as well as more details of rey’s parents), even better if the other’s present self is there to witness it too

at least an antagonistic duel filled with angst and rage and betrayal on either part, physical and raw and bloody. Yes I want to see some blood. (you said no rating limitations) I can imagine their duel to quickly turn into a battle of wills in which they try to overpower the other via the force bond

rey could use some of kylo’s signature tactics like the force stun and the force choke on kylo himself (which would obviously both terrify and turn him on)

even better if, at some time prior to this climatic duel, rey asked kylo to teach her to use those powers and he agreed—knowing fully well that she means to use them against him, but he’s self destructive like that and he is perversely fascinated by the idea of her being the fated angel of death who will finally put him out of his misery. Rey feels that and it upsets her in a similar way seeing him beat his own wounds on starkiller did

they’re both miserable without each other, but they don’t want to show it, so this leads to at least one scene in which Kylo tries desperately to pretend he hates Rey but as soon as she shows up all he can do is stutter and spit some badly rehashed insults while also looking like he’s about to cry. Rey can’t speak at all

perhaps this happens in the throne room while Renperor is sitting on the throne. Maybe they should continue the tradition of rey ending up in enemy territory (better if willingly), or maybe this time it’s Kylo who is captured by the resistance, and rey is conflicted about it and feels his pain as he’s wounded and kept prisoner, and after a while she secretly sets him free

arguing on the jedi texts via force skype

arguing on how to rebuild the legacy saber via force skype

kylo being an insufferable know-it-all nerd

more force bond shenanigans: feeling the other’s physical pain (maybe because they’re being tortured or beaten in combat) but not being able to see the other (since the force is mad at them and they’re mad at each other, the bond won’t work properly for at least 1/3 of the movie), and going crazy with panic while also being in unspeakable physical pain through the bond

the eroticism of the force bond should be amped up, pg-13 be damned. Give me all the awkward and increasingly bolder force-touching, feeling each other’s arousal at the worst times, teasing and taunting each other, the unresolved sexual tension getting more and more literal, seeing each other naked, rey and kylo trying to keep their forbidden psychic affair secret to their respective organizations, while also being more and more desperate for each other

Rey struggling with the dark side. Perhaps accidentally unleashing her powers in a moment of wrath and killing someone in the process, then plagued by guilt and blind panic going to Kylo for advice

Alternatively Rey having a conflict with Poe and/or Finn once they learn of the bond. Poe wants to keep her in custody or use the bond to lure Kylo in a trap. Rey is furious and she runs away (to Kylo). I can honestly see Finn being deeply hurt by Rey’s bond with Kylo, but ultimately choosing to support her. (this could also mean interesting things for the poe/finn dynamic

let’s be real: a version of the Most Tropey Reylo Trope, aka Stranded Together On A Mysterious And Remote Corner Of The Galaxy, HAS to happen in some form eventually

especially if one of them is injured when this happens. Let’s say both.

they end up on the Falcon together. they tend on each other’s wounds (more shirtless moments, probably). Rey cups Kylo’s face in a callback to Han’s gesture, traces his scar from his cheek down his chest. Major ship tease moment

perhaps this is followed by a galactic trip to either find some ancient artifact or to collect some crucial information to their understanding of the Force, the Galaxy, the Balance and their role in all of this, that would lead to some earth-shattering reveal

maybe they go find the Bendu to inquire about the balance, possibly after reading some cryptic line in the jedi books

at some point, they should go back to Jakku. Would really love to see Kylo’s walking with his billowy dark robes through a sand storm and them finding shelter in Rey’s old AT-AT and Kylo seeing the scratches on the wall

there should also be some sort of cliff scene or an equivalent, because I’ve become attached to that pre-tlj headcanon; though, clearly, now that their dynamic has evolved it wouldn’t make sense for it to play exactly like it would have for eight

in general I want them to be alone with each other on an inhospitable planet, better if connected to the dark side. Like Mustafar, or somewhere in the unknown regions (Malachor?)

Leia’s funeral. Rey helps Kylo connect with his mother one last time via the force bond, letting him touch her face with her hand.

Kylo cries in Rey’s arms.

Rey meeting the Knights of Ren?

probably some version of the forceback scene, though part of me believes tlj covered it with kylo killing snoke (note how the forceback has rain in it—foreshadowing the intense bond manifesting on ahch-to, and the “clan leader” could be a metaphor for snoke)

one of them (or both) will try to find a way to sever the bond permanently. maybe during the galactic trip hey learn of an ancient ritual and they agree to perform it and Kylo goes first but halfway through it Rey realizes it’s too painful (both physically for Kylo and emotionally for both of them) and she implores him to stop

“I can’t lose you”

Hux’s hostility only grows bigger and bigger and Kylo starts feeling threatened. Rey feels it through the bond, she panics.

Hux finds out what’s going on with them and uses it to set up a trap to kill two birds with one stone and get rid of both Kylo and Rey. Maybe he imprisons Kylo after neutralizing his force powers.

how would he? well since Hux really hates the Force for being an advantage he has no access to, it makes sense to me that he’d try to ~kill it~. Now I obviously don’t think anyone can kill the Force, but maybe accidentally stumbling upon some old sacred text or artifact or creating a device that allows him to permanently sever the tie that binds the Force to all living beings? i.e. destroying force-sensitivity?

this could easily be the ultimate evil to defeat, and the final turning point for kylo—learning that his “side” of the war is actively trying to destroy his most beloved driving principle, the very thing he’s in service to? That should make him reevaluate his allegiances and spontaneously ask Rey’s help to stop this. (I originally wanted Snoke to be behind this, but I gotta admit Hux works better, with his deep-seated resentment of force-sensitive beings)

sometime in act III there’s a huge battle and the resistance is being decimated and Rey is losing her fight and is almost unconscious and all hope seems lost and then suddenly Kylo’s ship appears and starts firing on the First Order and then he lands (a callback to the first time we saw him in the trilogy) and goes to join Rey while she’s watching all of this in a sort of semi-conscious slow motion haze and all she can think is, he came back for me

third time’s the charm, so there has to be a third offer, and this time the other will accept it. I’m not sure if I want Rey to be the one who offers Kylo, or Kylo to Rey

REYLO KISS. now I think we have VERY decent chances of actually seeing one in canon. But without the pg-13 limit? It starts as extremely sweet and tentative (Rey initiates it) and then deepens and SETS THE SCREEN ON FIRE. I’m torn between this happening in an intimate, quiet moment or during/after a fight (think the end of the praetorian guard scene for reference).

THEY FUCK. no rating limits. Unleash your imagination.

(better if they fuck while thinking this is going to be their first and last time, like the night before the battle that will decide both their fates, or kylo’s fate if he’s going to be executed by the resistance)

finally, i want to see them using the Force together. in some huge thing. Like stopping a death ray firing on a planet. (Coruscant or Naboo) Impossible? Maybe. But Kylo, alone, could stop a blaster mid air. Imagine what he could do with Rey

#valyriansword #asks #reylo #headcanons #*#episode ix looks amazing

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“Sedona”

Road trips were always fun, even if I didn’t get to go on a lot of them. I was invited to tag along for a visit to Sedona, Arizona, along with three other people - my younger sister Janice (19), Kenneth (25), and Matt (27). I was 23-years-old and a recent college graduate. For now, there was a little free time while I applied and waited to hear back from several employers.

Kenneth and Matt were doing this for their new ‘horror’ podcast, where they covered a variety of creepy, unexplained stories and phenomena around the world. Typical things you’d expect from an amateur horror podcaster. Several of the listeners recommended they cover the topic of certain ‘hot spots’ or zones that seem to harbor paranormal and downright strange activity. So to suffice, they decided to pay the city of Sedona a visit themselves, since they were adventurous like that.

The area had a reputation for being what’s known as a ‘spiritual vortex,’ a zone where people seem to be at a sense of peace, calming, and thought to bring healing capabilities to whoever stands in it long enough.

So why use it as the topic of a horror podcast? Well, it’s also known to be the sightings of many UFOs and other paranormal events from time to time that can’t quite be explained. Supposedly, there are other ‘zones’ like this in the world. Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. Taos, New Mexico. Aokigahara forest in Japan. The Bermuda Triangle. They all have the same thing in common.

Energy. Lots of peculiar energy compared to the rest of the world. Matt and Kenneth, being the urban explorers that they were, wanted to nosedive right into the heart of Sedona’s vortexes. The main one we planned on hitting first was Bell Rock, a large butte with one helluva peak that gives a panoramic view to die for.

Usually, I’d say fuck no to things like this, but then Janice agreed to tag along. As a matter of fact, she agreed without hesitation, as she was more adventurous than I was, always getting into things, in both a good and bad way. She also got into more trouble than I did. It was just me and her growing up, and you can imagine how much blame I’d get for when something unfortunate would happen to her. She was 100-percent on board, and even wanted to hike some of the trails with the two guys while she insisted I could stay in the van if I wanted.

Nope.

I knew Kenneth and Matt well enough to assume they were good people, truly, but older sibling instincts refused to let her go by herself with two older men. Even if I was overthinking it, that just wasn’t something I could afford to risk.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I knew of van dwellers and people who’d put a lot of effort into making their home on wheels look and feel like an actual home, but damn, Matt and Kenneth weren’t playing around. It was a high-top conversion van with more room than you’d expect from the outside looking in.

They fit a couch, beanbag, tabletop and chair, computer, mini-fridge, sink, mini-oven, and stovetop all in such a compact yet roomy living space. It was also decorated with various stickers and posters, and the floral pattern curtains paired nicely with the brown wooden interior of the walls.

What really set the mood, though, were the strands of LED lights taped around the corners and along the walls, each circuit lit in a combination of colors ranging from red, blue, green, and yellow, making it look like Christmas.

Janice and I were inside the back, sorting through our things and getting settled in.

“I’m glad you decided to come along,” she mentioned.

“What, you thought I was just gonna let you go by yourself?” I remarked.

“You know I’m an adult now, right?”

“Yes, and you’re still naive.”

She rolled her eyes at me.

“Think about it, me leaving you with two grown men?” I added.

“Um, have you seen the two of them?” Janice retorted. “Like, I’m just saying, I think even you could take them by yourself. Hell, even Mama could.”

“That’s because Mama can actually fight.”

“I can fight,” she argued, sounding offended.

“Eh, you talk a good talk.”

She scoffed. “Whatever, you know I can scrap when I need to.”

“Suuure.”

She hit me on the shoulder, as I teasingly smiled.

Then Kenneth came into the back where we were.

“Got everything?” he asked both of us.

“Yeah, think so,” Janice said.

“Sorry there’s not another bed for you to sleep in, Joe,” he said to me.

“Oh that’s okay, Janice will be perfectly fine on the beanbag in the corner,” I dryly humored.

“Ha-ha,” she remarked.

In one hand, Kenneth held two walkie-talkies by their antennas and raised them.

“Brought some two-way radios, just ‘cause,” said. “In case we feel like playing around or testing other points at the summit and other spots.”

“Ooh, sounds fun,” Janice sounded pleased. She then took note of the thing in his other hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh, this?” Kenneth said, raising the device for us to see.

It was a small wooden contraption in the shape of a triangle and what looked like a gemstone tied to the end of a string.

“It’s a pendulum,” he noted.

“What’s it for?” she asked.

He then walked over to the tabletop and placed the pendulum on its legs to stand freely, as the gemstone now began to swivel left and right on a single axis from the string.

“Well,” he started, “They say when you’re near a site that’s full of paranormal or high amounts of energy, the pendulum’s supposed to swing nearer in that direction or whatever.”

“Who’s they?” Janice remarked.

Kenneth looked at her then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said frankly.

Janice laughed amusedly.

“Apparently, that’s what it does,” Kenneth went on.

“What kind of rock is that?” she pointed.

“Oh, that’s amethyst. Supposedly it wards off bad spirits, so, you know, probably a good idea to have it around while we’re camping out there.”

“I thought the vortexes harbor good energy only?”

“They do, but, you never know.”

You never know…

“Oh that’s okay,” Janice said as she clasped her hands on my shoulder. “Joe here will protect us, because our grandmother said he’s special,” she said in a mocking tone and a big smile.

Janice then walked out of the van.

“O… kay,” Kenneth replied.

But I knew exactly what she was referring to.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We made a rest stop at a gas station seemingly in the middle of nowhere. No big-name shop like Shell or Texaco, but a compact blue wooden exterior structure with two gas pumps that look something straight out of the 70s. They did, however, have a good selection of snacks and drinks on par with a 7-Eleven.

Everyone used the restroom and got something of nourishment at the least. I decided to grab a water and head back to the van before everyone else so that I could light and smoke a cigarette (or ‘cancer stick,’ as Janice referred to them as). Soon after, Matt followed, while Janice and Kenneth were still in the station looking for something to buy, or probably laughing and bullshitting. Those two, I swear. They shouldn’t shut up the whole drive.

Matt and I sat along the edge at the back of the van with the door open. From where we parked, the view of a wide range of mountains and desert terrain was ethereal, something I wasn’t used to from North Florida.

“Those two are something, aren’t they?” Matt said as he cracked open his Red Bull.

“Hmm,” I scoffed, taking a hit of my cigarette.

“He is on the older tip, though, so…”

“I don’t care who she sees, if that’s what it is,” I responded. “Kenneth’s all right, I think.”

“No bad vibes from him?”

I shook my head. “Nope,” then took another hit.

“No bad vibes from me?”

I turned to him and glared into his eyes. The intention was to make him uncomfortable. My humor was dry like that. After a few seconds, I backed off.

“No,” I said.

Matt chuckled. “That’s good to know,” he said.

“At least I don’t think so.”

“Would you have tagged along if you thought otherwise?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Janice tagged along, so I did.”

“And if she didn’t?”

“If she didn’t what?”

“If she didn’t decide to come along, would you have still?”

I took another hit from my cigarette, taking in and exhaling the menthol, thinking of how nicely to put this.

“Honestly, probably not,” I answered. It was really definitely not, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“At least you’re honest,” Matt noted.

I shook my head. “It’s nothing against you or Kenneth or your guys’ podcast. It’s just… I don’t like to play with energies like that.”

Matt furrowed his brow. “Energies?”

I nodded. “The vortex?”

“But it’s supposed to be peaceful. You know, a ‘positive’ energy.”

“Yeah, it may be peaceful for some, hell, even most. But for others… you just never know.”

Matt paused, tapping his foot on the ground, then took a sip of his drink. After a while, he spoke again.

“Have you had bad experiences before?” he asked.

I looked at him. “No,” I answered.

“You believe in… possession? Or being overtaken by another force?”

“I believe in protecting your aura. At all times. Like you would your own life.” Matt nodded with content. “My grandmother, before she passed, told me when I was younger that me and a few other people in the family had ‘the gift.’”

“The gift?” Matt said.

“Like a… not necessarily psychic or anything like that, but that me and the others were just more… sensitive to certain energies. Vibrational frequencies, they say.” I shrugged. “I don’t know how true it all actually is, though. I don’t believe in absolutes. Angels, demons, gods, divine intervention. But that grey area always tests my faith every now and then…”

Then I saw the look in Matt’s eyes. Maybe he was wary or maybe he was regretting me coming along. Wasn’t too sure.

“Does Janice have the gift, too?” he asked.

“My grandmother says no,” I answered. “Then again, she never seemed to take a liking to Janice, for whatever reason. She seemed to cherish me more. I’m not surprised Janice is the way she is.”

“How’s that?”

“Just… free-spirited. Unhinged. Spiritual. Into yoga. Trying to find an inner peace and being one with the universe. Stuff like that. I see it as a way of compensating for our grandmother’s indifference. Basically a ‘fuck you’ to her.”

“Wow. What do you think might happen if you get near the vortex?” he asked.

I slowly shook my head. “I have no idea.“

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We hit the road again. About another 4 hours before we’d make it to Bell Rock. Janice and I played cards for a bit, chit-chatted here and there, and Kenneth, Matt, and I rotated between taking turns driving the van.

Eventually, we made it to the first stop, and found a good spot to camp out not too far from Bell Rock, according to Matt. We decided to take a short hike around the area, take some pictures and vlogs, etc.

Sedona is in a league of its own, I thought to myself. It didn’t seem quite like the typical American city I was used to. It was akin to stepping on Mars. Rock, sand, mountains, complemented with patches of grass and cacti. It felt like I was in another world entirely.

As we walked, I took note of a tall saguaro cactus surrounded by other shorter cacti and flowers. I told Janice it’d be a nice backdrop for a photo shoot. I had the good camera while she just had her phone.

She stood next to the tall plant - taller than her - and she began to strike various silly and some very Instagram-worthy poses.

“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Photographer,” she played around.

“My, my, madame, you’ve gotten fat,” I teased in a heavy French accent.

“Oh please!”

She really wasn’t fat in the slightest, I just liked to mess with her from time to time. She definitely was in better shape than the rest of us. I couldn’t knock her for that.

As I snapped various pictures of her, taking different angles, poses, trying to get better lighting, I got down on one knee, pointing the lens at just the right angle, finding the perfect shot.

“That’s money right there,” I commented.

“Well shit, watcha waitin’ for?” Janice exclaimed, holding her smile.

But before I could snap the photo, a loud ringing noise emerged in both of my ears. It crescendoed, then lowered, then raised in volume again, a pulsating sort of sensation. Regardless, the sound was distracting and unusual. Were my ears ringing? Probably, but they never rang like this.

“Joe?” Janice said impatiently.

I lowered the camera, where she could now see my face was disgruntled.

“You okay?” she asked, concerned.

I stood up. “Do you hear that?” I said.

“Hear what?”

“That sound. That ringing.”

She looked puzzled. “No…”

I turned my head in every which way across the desert, unsure of what I would even be looking for until suddenly, it stopped. The ringing was gone, and it fell silent. Only thing I could hear was the slight breeze of wind.

“Are you fucking with me?” she said.

“What? No, why would I be?” I said, seriously. I messed with her a lot, but not like that. Never pranked her once in her entire life.

She chuckled and walked past me to catch up with the other two, patting me on the shoulder as she did so. “Never mind, ‘gifted one.’”

I stood there for a moment. I didn’t understand what the heck just happened, but decided to brush it off and keep on moving down the trail.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I don’t remember how long I’d been asleep, but I woke up and found myself alone in the van. It was nighttime outside. Worried, I quickly got up and looked outside the window to check and see if maybe they were in the front.

Nobody.

I went out and saw that we were parked atop a sandy hill. They’d set up a small camp of some sort with three pull-out chairs and a large mat laid flat, which I already knew was Janice’s yoga mat. In the distance, I saw the three of them down about 23 yards away walking towards a mountain top. Could that be it? The vortex? I thought I told this chick not to leave without me, especially once they started the hike.

I saw Janice turn back to look, and she noticed me.

“Joe!” she called to me. I shook my head. “Come on! We’re gonna take some videos of the vortex!”

I thought about it. Really thought about it. At this point, I just decided F it. Something told me that she’d be all right. After my many objections to Janice going by herself with the two, finally, my intuition spoke to me. My gut never lies, so I knew I could trust it. Only this one time, though.

"I’m good,” I declined. “Go on without me.”

“You sure, bro?” Kenneth asked.

“I’ll stay behind and watch the van.”

“Ah, no one’s gonna steal it.”

I cocked my brow. “You sure about that? It’s a nice van.”

“Nobody’s gonna steal that junk.”

Matt hit him on the shoulder. “Fuck you,” he said, and Kenneth laughed.

I turned and started walking back towards the van.

“Whatever,” Janice spoke. “But you’re coming to take pictures with me when the sun comes up, ya hear?”

I raised my hand and gave her a firm thumbs up.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I laid on the comfy bed in the van with my noise-canceling headphones over my ears as I listened to music. The inside Christmas lights kept the area illuminated. Through the window, the night sky bathed in stars of various different shapes. I recognized the Sagittarius constellation, just aside from Gemini, but couldn’t make out much more from this view.

Abruptly, my ears began to ring again. The same one from before. It grew louder in pitch the more I listened. So loud to the point where I couldn’t even hear the music anymore. I removed my headphones and scratched and rubbed against my ears, wincing at the sound. The noise wasn’t exactly painful, but grew noticeably more discomforting.

I got up to look around, to see if maybe there was a device inside that might be the source of the noise, but it was hard to tell the direction from which it came. I checked the walkie-talkie to see if that could be it, but pressing it to my ear, I still heard the sound radiating from elsewhere.

I stopped for a moment to listen, and when I did, I realized it wasn’t exactly a ring, but more in resemblance to a hum. Crossing the line between the stroke of a chord of an instrument… or the audible sound of something else entirely that I couldn’t decipher at the moment.

Just as suddenly as the humming initiated, it ceased at once. The van fell silent. Dead silent.

I stepped outside again, finding it unusual that the same volume from within the vehicle matched the desert. Pure silence. It was almost distracting to all five of my senses. My body was confused.

I saw the three of them in the distance still, nearing the vortex, about to reach the edge any minute now to begin their ascent.

I decided to sit in one of the foldout chairs in front of the van and light a 'cancer stick.’ I gazed at the night sky where I could now see the full layout of the celestial bodies above. Breathtaking, needless to say. Out here where there were no city lights, the entire display of stars and constellations were there for us to take in. If anything, this was worth the long trip.

The pendulum sat just beyond where myself and the other chairs stood, in place of where I figured a campfire should’ve been. I was surprised to see that it swiveled just barely left and right.

“Hmm,” I laughed internally, taking another drag from my cigarette.

As I sat and smoked, I noticed that not only was there no noise, but likewise, even so much as a tiny breeze was nonexistent. I had no sensation of the air around me, no feel for any particular temperature, neither hot nor cold, dry or damp. It was as if I were sitting in a vacuum. How was the pendulum moving, now that I think about it? Couldn’t do that without the wind, right?

I took note of the smoke as I exhaled, following its trail. Bizarrely, the smoke didn’t merely dissolve into the air, but shot in a clear pathway upwards in a stream, curving inward in the direction south of me. Yet still, I felt no wind blowing in that direction. No wind whatsoever.

The humming resumed. Thrown off, the hairs on my neck raised at the abrupt return.

I could hear it clearly and audibly as I did in the van like it was right next to me. I looked around again to see if there was any possible direction for the sound to be emitting from again, but it was still very hard to tell. It was so strange.

When I looked down at the pendulum again, I grew wide-eyed.

The crystal stopped swinging entirely, and instead was pulled completely in one direction, suspended in an impossibly still state. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but I went over and kneeled to get a closer look, and saw that it did seem to be pulled at one clear angle, as though it were attracted to an invisible force - or a magnetic field of sorts.

I turned to face the direction the crystal was, which pointed directly to the van, and was taken aback by the lights inside. They each began to flash in a sequence that made it appear as though they were looping in a complete circle inside - a phi phenomenon. All of the colors - red, blue, yellow, green - alternated and moved down the line of each circuit one by one.

Could they do that? I hadn’t played with the settings or seen Matt show us any other sorts of tricks and sequences it could perform. Either way, how could they just do that by themselves? Did he set it from his phone? Impossible, I thought. They were way too far away for the Bluetooth to even work. Even still, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do so.

I turned to face the three in the distance again, seeing that they were now starting the climb up the rock. It was right then and there that I noticed something very particular about the structure as a whole. It had twin peaks at the summit, identical in shape, almost like cone pyramids, as the base took the form of a rocky pyramid. There also was hardly anything surrounding the vicinity. No grass, cacti, anything. Only barren desert and rock. Around where we parked and set up our camping site only lie a few remnants of any sort of vegetation. Then I knew…

We weren’t at Bell Rock at all. This was the wrong spot.

I looked back down at the pendulum, and to my shock, it was now pointed downwards at full rest. Not even swinging. I turned to face the van and saw that the lights were now completely off. My eyes narrowed. I put out my cigarette, dropping it to the ground and stomping out the bud.

Hopefully at least one of the walkie-talkies Kenneth brought was in the van. I opened the door to the back and entered, shutting it behind me. It was too dark now with the lights off, so I used my phone flashlight to search for it. Bingo, one was sitting on the table, and I grabbed and pressed the push-to-talk button.

“Janice, can you hear me?” I spoke.

I waited a moment for a response. Nothing. I pressed it again.

“Janice, can you hear me?” I said loudly and clearly.

A few moments passed. Then her voice sounded from the other end, readable but very staticky.

“What’s up, chickenbutt?” she said back.

I rolled my eyes. “Hey, I don’t think we’re at the right spot.”

“Whatcha mean?”

“I mean, I don’t think this is Bell Rock.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just look at the peak. It’s nothing like it. It’s not even shaped like it.”

“But Joe, I feel it. Like, we haven’t even reached the top yet, but I swear, I feel its energy, Joe. It’s real. It’s… it’s alive. It’s beautiful.”

I’m sure there was no doubt about it. I’m glad that whatever energy she was taking in felt good on her end, but whatever energy that began to overtake what now surrounded the campsite didn’t match hers. It felt wrong. I knew something wasn’t right. Something felt off…

“We’ve been climbing and… so f… ar it’s… been… ve… er… y…”

She was breaking up badly, as more static overpowered her transmission. Were they too far? I don’t know, but the reach should’ve been well within good range from where we were from each other.

“Janice?” I transmitted.

No answer.

Screw this. I reached for my phone in my pocket and decided to just call her instead. I waited as it dialed, putting the phone on speaker. Lo and behold, I heard her phone ring from inside the van. She left it behind.

“Fucking idiot,” I muttered.

I hung up the phone and dialed for Matt, when suddenly another transmission came through the radio.

It wasn’t Janice’s voice.

Under a heavy load of static, the hum faintly emerged.

In the corner of my eye, further from me towards the sink, a single red light remained on. It was the only thing illuminated inside the van. Then it shut off, but was quickly replaced by the one next to it, giving the illusion that the light was moving. It did the same thing again, inching closer towards my direction, as though it had a life of its own. As it inched over, the hum grew more and more resonant, feeling closer.

The single red orb trailed down the string of circuits until eventually, it was right across from me from where I stood. The light remained for a moment, burning brightly as I locked eyes on it.

And just like that, the humming ceased again, and the light suddenly died, fading to black.

In the blink of an eye, red lights filled every circuit along the van, a crimson luminescence engulfing the interior around me. Startled, I quickly tried to push the button again to call the others, but a loud error beep kept emitting along with a red light on the radio, letting me know that someone else was currently using the channel. I heard nothing, though.

Then the lights rapidly strobed in quick bursts of terrifyingly disorienting red flashes, as the humming returned louder than before, like the unified chant of hundreds of people around me.

Panicked now, I darted out of there and stood at the edge of the hill, waving my arms to get the three’s attention.

“Janice!” I called.

Curious, I looked at the pendulum again, seeing that it was now swaying side-to-side in a frantic motion, going haywire.

I glanced at the three turning back to face my direction. I doubt we’d be able to hear exactly what the other was saying. From what I could make out, Janice pulled out her binoculars. As she did so, I began motioning with hand signals for them to call it off.

I then jumped at the sound of Janice’s bloodcurdling scream across the distance.

I turned to the van. The red lights continued to emit for a moment, only for all but two of them to remain. From where I stood, they were positioned in a way that looked as though it were two glaring eyes peering directly at me.

Fearful, I slowly stepped back, eyes still fixated on the ones now staring at me. The amplitude of the lights began to grow, and diagonal lines curved inward from the glare, like the deadly eyes of a viper. I knew I didn’t have astigmatism. What I was seeing was unreal.

Janice’s voice transmitted through the radio again, clearer more than ever this time.

“Joe! Just run! If you can hear me, just run!”

I wasn’t paying attention as I kept stepping away, as the incline became too steep from where I stepped off. Before I knew it, I tripped and started to fall backwards, rolling violently down the hill.

Once I’d managed to stop myself, I forced myself up and turned to look behind at the van again. Those eyes… they kept staring into my soul. They were captivating and enticing. But I knew that if I stood there, I probably wouldn’t make it…

I ran towards my sister and the other two, as I saw the three of them were now climbing back down and racing my way also. I ran faster than I ever had before. I don’t know what was back there or what energy was inside the van, but I refused to look again for another second as I kept running towards the three of them.

When I finally reached them, Janice ran to me and tightly hugged me, squeezing the air from my lungs.

“Thank you, God,” she cried. “Oh, thank you.”

“What the hell happened?” Kenneth said.

I shook my head frantically. “I-I don’t know.”

“Did you see something?” Matt asked Janice.

She didn’t answer either one of them. She instead kept hugging me tightly, relieved that I was okay. And to think I was more worried about her.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We decided that it was time to go, and hit the road again very shortly after. Janice and I just wanted to get the hell out of there, and undoubtedly, so did Matt and Kenneth after us causing such a commotion. We contemplated whether we should keep on going with the trip and try to make it to the real Bell Rock, but it was still undecided. At this point, we had enough adventure, and likewise, Matt and Kenneth enough spooks for their podcast for sure.

After some time on the road again, we’d both calmed down, and Janice finally let up the nerve to talk.

“You scared me back there,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. I think you might’ve saved my life. I don’t know how, but I just feel it.”

Janice stirred, nervously rubbed her arm. It was what she always did when she was troubled by something.

“Why’d you scream?” I asked.

She grew fearful again. I didn’t know if she would even tell, her mouth opening, then closing, then opening again, until finally mustering the courage to speak.

“Back at the butte, when we were climbing and you called to me, I looked through the binoculars and saw something in the van behind you.”

Chills waved throughout my body.

“The lights kept alternating and moving in a weird circle in the van,” she continued. “Matt said that they were supposed to do that. They were all supposed to just stay whatever color they were. And then they turned solid red… and then I saw a figure in the van. Like, a silhouette of someone… or something. It was peaking back at you. Back at me, too, I think.”

“Jesus…” I muttered.

“The lights just blinked and then it was fucking gone. Whatever it was, it just disappeared. I know I’m not crazy, Joe. I know what I saw.”

I now realized the answer to Matt’s question earlier when I told him about my grandmother’s premonition about me, and as to whether Janice shared the same power that the others in the family also held. The answer was yes. She had the gift. I could only hear it, but she could see it. Whatever presence was near me in the van the whole time, she was fully conscious that it was there.

“I believe you,” I assured.

#nosleep #reddit #horror #scifi #scifi story #supernatural #mystery #mystery story #thriller #story #short story

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