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scriptaed · 3 years

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his side, her side finale | 00:00

genre: angst/fluff/implied smut;

pairing: reader x jungkook;

length: 4.6k;

synopsis: a collective snapshots in time shared between two, whose fates were undeniably intertwined and futures would never come to be.

No matter how infinite the pages could write itself, in the way that he catches her stealing glances from across the room or the scalding spark imprinted on her hand by the touch of his own, there really are only three versions to every story: his side, her side, and the truth’s side; and in your unsolicited albeit self-justified defense, the truth is, what was once seemingly perpetual is now merely trivial. The imagery that once had you kicking and screaming into your sheets at night, the fleeting moments that were shared by both but valued by one, and the inevitably incessant burden of jealousy brought upon by a fervent want that could never be had could only have been falsified by a break—spatially, temporally, and heartfully. The mind can only tug so much at one’s strings; and yet, to be bent, only time could prove possible.

...and that time is exactly what is needed by all.

her side;

“Are you joining us for dinner tonight, Y/N?”

“Huh? What?” your ears perk at the sound of your friend’s call.

“Oh, there she goes again,” your other friend interjects with the roll of her eyes. You almost collapse when she swings a hand over your shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to get your ears checked?”

“No, but I might have to get my eyes checked,” you joke, despite pulling in all the performance points you could win with a disdainful scan up and down her less than professional attire. Thankfully, your act is gleefully extended by her cheesy gawk of an expression. Putting up a merciful pair of hands in the air, you laugh, “hey, in all seriousness, it’s not my fault you guys keep drooling over boys.”

“Uhuh, so you’re trying to tell us that boy talk is what’s putting you to sleep?” your friend’s accomplice crosses her arms, raising an accusatory pair of brows.

“Yeah,” you say much too seriously so you throw in an airy laugh, “I mean, there’s more to life than boys, y’know?”

“Right, like…?”

“Like…” your voice trails off because, for some reason, your mind goes blank as you attempt to recall your lifestyle from your previous hometown. “Like… hanging out with friends! With you guys!”

“Gah! You’re only able to say that because you have dozens of boys chasing you around the office. Us, on the other hand, time just… it just keeps ticking…” the two of them sigh in synchronization and you feel the heat of her arms retract as she shakes the hand of her one and only sympathizer.

“Psh,” you can’t help but grin throughout the frown elicited by their vivacious performance, “you guys have plenty of time. Just enjoy life for now and I’m sure you’ll find someone along the way.”

“Wait, but seriously,” her voice suddenly rises from her previously sullen state, as does her head on her friend’s shoulder. She looks you dead in the eye, and, honestly, you almost feel as though your privacy had just been invaded. “You really haven’t ever liked anyone before?”

“Uh…” you scatter through the disarrayed files that were your buried memories, eyes squinting at the sun that peeks through the clearing sky after a day full of rainfall. “Elementary and middle school don’t really count… too busy studying in high school… college was full of fuck boys I couldn’t care less for… and at work…”

The more that you hear yourself ramble, the more the reality of your lonesome future settles into the already burdened shoulders of yours.

“At work? You mean here? Or do you mean your last job?”

“Well,” you frown, trying to recall every male colleague that had piqued even the tiniest of interest in you; and as the two of your friends lean in, you start to lean back, despite the charging light bulb that flickers from the unlocked recollection of two years ago. “There was a guy who liked me and told everyone at work that he liked me, which I thought was really weird… nice guy, kind of a nerd, but I didn’t like him that way. Who else? Uh, hm—”

—bzzz.

The vibration against your back pocket pulls the plug from your train of thought.

“Aw man,” you hear your friends curse in the background, “just when we were finally getting her to spill something.”

The name on your screen has your heart skipping with delight.

Yezi [5:20 PM] Hey, I know you’re gonna forget, so you before you do, we’re having dinner together tonight :)

“It’s okay,” your friend pats the back of the other, “there’ll be some cute enough boys for her at tonight’s barbeque, I’m sure.”

“Ah shit,” you curse under your breath, hastily typing a response before peering up at your friends like a deer caught in the headlights, “actually, guys, turns out I already made plans with my friend from home. I’m sooo sorry.”

“Oh, really?” the two of them gasp. “Isn’t that a two hour train ride from here?”

“Yeah, so I really got to go now,” your phone tumbles into your bag as you begin to widen your strides like a woman on a mission.

They shake their heads in unison, “no, no, it’s okay!”

“I’m seriously so sorry guys,” you say as you pant, the distance between you and your friends widening by the second and forcing you to whirl around as you pace backwards. “I’ll make it up to you next time and do whatever you guys want, okay?”

“Really? Anything?”

“Yeah,” your hands draw a wide, inclusive circle into the air, “anything.”

“Even a blind date?”

“You know what? Why the hell not?” you chime, whirling back around with your back on them and a smile hidden away. Skipping off into the opposite direction toward the train station, you exclaim nonchalantly, “new year, new me!”

Lately, either through a stroke of luck or a reset of a life in a new town, there’s been something spectacularly whimsical about tonight’s air; and when a zephyr passes by, lifting you to the tip of your toes to an invincible high and relaying the confuzzled whispers of your friends—

“—wait, it’s not a new year, it’s already April—”

—you finally acquire a two year long-sought sensation: golden.

“I can’t believe you almost forgot about our plans!”

“Hey, I had a reminder set on my phone just ten minutes after your reminder” you quip with pursed lips, “and I still made it on time, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Yezi prims with a stern look plastered across her face, gesturing, “with your hair and clothes damp in rain and your face smiling like a wagging, clueless beagle.”

“Well… beagles are cute, so I’ll take that as a compliment?”

She frowns, ignoring your remark, “did you not check the weather forecast?”

“I did.”

“So why didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

“I forgot.”

“Ugh, you forget everything these days,” she plants a palm to her forehead before returning to her plate, “well, I’m glad that at least you’re so carefree nowadays. You’ve finally settled into your new workplace, huh? You look so happy now.”

“You talk—” it’s difficult to speak with food being stuffed into your mouth “—as if I lost a loved one.”

“Well,” she grits her teeth, as if biting her tongue, and proceeds to slice the slab of steak, “I wouldn’t say that’s too farfetched.”

Frowning, your words come out muffled through puffed cheeks, “whaddya mean by dat?”

“You can’t tell me you forgot about what happened last time you were in town.”

“Uh…?” you furrow your brows, tracing into a forgotten yet familiar field you had long neglected for your own wellbeing. Last time you were in town, last time you were working here, last time you went out on a company party, last time you walked through this town’s treacherously embracing frosty breeze, last time you were dining here, last time you got wasted, not just here but anywhere, last time you shed tears… all the last times of this town shared only one similarity, a similarity you had subconsciously left behind at some point in your transition between the past and the now.

“Do I really have to say it myself?” she leans in, concerned. “I don’t want you bawling your eyes out again…”

Did she possibly mean… him?

“Jeon Jungkook,” she blurts, “there! I said it!”

Her utensils clatter onto her plate as she tosses her hands in the air in mercy, almost as if bracing herself for the storm after the calm, observing you intently but warily; that supposed storm, however and ever so fortunately, never arrives.

“Oh,” you utter, words slipping from your lips like sand through a palm, “I’m not crying.”

“You’re not crying,” she confirms, astonished.

“It doesn’t… hurt anymore?” you almost ask yourself.

“It doesn’t?”

“It doesn’t,” you utter, shaking your head. Just as she’s caught off guard, you lurch across the table to pinch her cheeks, “but that doesn’t mean I appreciate you bringing him up during a perfectly lovely night!”

“Sho—” she furrows her brows in combination to her squished cheeks “—he doesh make you shad shtill?”

“Well, he doesn’t make me elated,” you finally release her from your wrath, returning to stare downward at your food, “but I guess it makes me reflect fondly on the past. It’s kind of like a scar. I know how much it once hurt but I can’t feel it to the same magnitude anymore. Actually, instead, the happy, jittery moments are more vivid to me than the tears that were shed. Is that… odd?”

“Like… like what? Examples?”

Like when his arm bumped into yours for the first time on the walk after work, like when he discretely went out of his way to ensure your safety across the bridge home, like when he enamored over the ‘ripped abs’ of a fully nude female character design of an upcoming project whilst you stood awkwardly with a set of breasts in full display for the two of you, like when the two of you escaped to become the aloof, static noise of an unbefitting party, or like when he held you in his hands and kissed you at the stroke of midnight, the butterflies live on—even today—to shield you from the dampened blows struck by dull weapons of jealousy, insecurity, and remorse.

With time, the silver lining finally showed itself like a sun shining through after a stormy night. You’ve finally accepted the truths behind every weapon. She was pretty. They were pretty. She never wronged you. They never wronged you. They deserved his love. His heart belonged to whomever he desired.

He never badmouthed his peers and, as blunt of a man as he was, he never pointed out your flaws, even if that meant you would later return home only to find mascara flakes on your cheeks. He treated women like a gentleman, as contradictory as it may seem from his appetite demeanor; and while you fell for him for that, you also cursed him for that very reason. He didn’t owe you anything… up to a certain point until the lines were too blurred to decipher between the truth, the deserved, and the faulty. Be it Ji-eun or Jennie, you’ve come to terms with his relationships.

As much as your relations with him seemed to run on a fragile thread of fate, your time had run out and the window of opportunity had been shut—but hey, at least you had fun.

“Are you… smiling?”

“Hm?” you look up to find her staring at you in concern. Blinking blankly, you quickly clear your throat and retract the smile you had subconsciously adorned. “I am?”

“I… don’t know if I should be worried or not,” Yezi downs another glass of iced water and you’re about to follow suit until she almost chokes on her water, “hey—isn’t that Jennie over there?”

“Jennie?”

You almost curse at Yezi for teasing you over bygones that should’ve been left as just that, but she really wasn’t lying. You can’t believe your eyes when you whirl your head around to look through the darkened tint of the restaurant’s window panes. You might have never really spoken to Jennie, but that figure is undeniably Jennie.

“What is she doing?” you squint, struggling to grasp a clear vision of her silhouette under the dim, orange street light beside her. You could only catch a hint of her side profile but those cheeks and unique sense of fashion definitely belonged to her; on the other hand, the constant stumbling and the hand to her head, almost as if she’s about to collapse at any second, did not resemble her. “Oh, oh, hold on, wait, whoa—we should help her!”

You scramble to your feet and bolt out the door whilst Yezi takes care of your abrupt leave with the restaurant staff. A freezing blast of wind welcomes you as soon as you step into the sidewalk but you waste no time. Abandoning the cold behind you along with the past, your mind is set on aiding the collapsed woman on the streets.

“Hey! Jennie, hey!” you call out to her as you sprint to her side, dropping to the floor without caring to notice the shards of glass that consequently cut your knees as you carefully roll her limp body onto its back and away from the sharp hazards. The pain has you wincing and seething under your breath, but the conditions of the person lying before you has you even more concerned. Her skin is even paler than usual. Her chest rises and falls rapidly in an evident struggle. Your taps against her shoulder gradually become frantic shakes until all you can hear is your voice and the whispering commotion of bystanders behind you. “Jennie! Can you hear me?!”

“Y/N!” you turn around to find Yezi peering down at you from above. “What happened?”

“I don’t know but something’s definitely not right,” you say as calmly as you could, “call 911. I’ll call her family.”

“Got it,” Yezi nods, immediately dialing the numbers on her phone but pausing in the midst of the ring to face you, “wait, do you know anyone from her family?”

Gritting your teeth, you frown as you dig into your memories, “...no, I know she might have had a boyfriend back then, so he might know, but I don’t know if they’re still together and I don’t even know his number…”

“Do you know anyone who might know her boyfriend then?”

“Well…”

The ending trails of your voice are whisked away into the returning wind of that fateful night. Hands gripping at your phone and eyes staring at the stranger yet familiarity of a name that glares off the screen, it’s an inevitable force that has you stupefied yet marveled at the revival of a tugging string that ties you to him through the strangest, most meandering paths.

his side;

It was almost like a fever dream. Her name plastered across his screen and his eyes squinting through the glaring light that illuminates his room. It had been two years since he had any contact nor mention of her; and now, out of the blue, in the midst of a nap after gym session, she calls him for help. He couldn’t believe his ears when he first heard her voice, believing it all to be another one of those numerous dreams that had him regretting his past or questioning his choices. He shot straight up in bed, phone grasped and glued to his ears that blocked out the computer fan that ran in the background.

Even now, after throwing on a sweater and jacket and bolting out the door in a state of rescue, he can’t quite believe his eyes; because there she sits on the hospital bench, in the signature slumped boyish manner and the confused blank stare off into the distance that still has him quirking a smile in remembrance every once in a while. In her favorite white blouse and her only slack of black dress pants, it’s almost as if nothing had changed, almost as if she had never left.

It’s almost like time had bent to his incessantly subconscious pleas and reversed its works; but the almost will always be an almost, for as long as those hallmark vivacious eyes and those rekindled mien of ambition lives. As far as Jungkook knew, she left with a dreary heart and returned with a fiery purpose.

Despite all that, he can’t help but notice the way she fidgets in her seat, nearly sinking and avoiding all contact the second his presence had been noticed. Instead of the sheepish flickering stolen glances of the past, he finds himself at odds with the way she fights to return the locked gaze of his eyes. She fought so hard that she might have forgotten how to speak, rendering a soft chuckle from his lips because the girl he endlessly dreamt of might still live after all; and for the first time in a long while, Jungkook has to put forth the effort to fill in the silence.

“Why did you call me?” he asks plainly as he stands before her.

“Well, I didn’t know any of her friends except you…” he watches as she fidgets with her hands, gaze falling to the floor before returning to him, “are you going to visit her? I think the doctor should be okay with it if you’re her close friend.”

“No, Kai will be here soon,” he explains, finally bending down and placing the bottle of rubbing alcohol beside her on the bench. “I have other shit to attend to.”

“Oh, right,” she mumbles. The evident surge in annoyance amuses him that he just can’t quite wipe the smirk off his face. Turning her head, she continues, “you must’ve had plans with Ji-eun tonight. Sorry for the trouble.”

This is it. This is the moment that replayed on repeat like a broken tape in his dreams. This is his chance to mend the wounds he had inflicted upon the confessing girl who cried her eyes out on the cab home that one, indelible night.

An uncomfortable silence fills the air with the exception of the unscrewing of a plastic bottle and the gentle return of the bottle against the metallic bench, which is then followed by another staggering silence.

“We’re not that close and I’m not dating Ji-eun now.”

The girl turns with the quirk of a brow, especially when she spots him kneeling before her with a soaked cotton ball. “W-Wait what? Wait, shit, ow.”

“I don’t talk to Jennie as much as you think,” he states as a-matter-of-factly and continues to gently pat the cotton against the wounds on her knees. After hesitantly placing a band aid over the wound—something he had never done for anyone else nor for himself who just “sucked it up”—he finally lifts his gaze to interlock with hers, observing intently as if to soak the reality of it all in now before the inevitable tape begins to replay for the near future. “I broke up with Ji-eun before you left.”

“And...” she utters slowly, “why are you telling me this?”

Just like in the pool on that one night, her challenging eyes never budge and neither do his.

“I thought the past you would’ve liked to know,” he states. Head tilting to the side as if to get a better look, he remarks, “shit, you don’t look away anymore, huh?”

“Why would I?” she quips, snorting and finally breaking contact to stare off to the side. “It didn’t matter if I knew or not. It’s not like we were a thing.”

“Really?” Jungkook hums, gathering the scraps of cotton and paper before standing to his feet with a genuine soft sigh. It’s hard to brush off the two year old sinking sensation in his chest for something so nonchalant, but he manages to do it like he always does with that stoic look on his unreadable face. “Cause I thought we were.”

“What?” she gapes and he only gazes firmly back at her. “Why? It’s not like I… liked you.”

“Really?” Jungkook’s eyes flicker up at the ceiling for a brief second, lips pursing as he concludes the cards on the table: the unapologetic albeit risky truth or the defensive albeit purposeless self-deception. Unbeknownst to her, Jungkook had all the cards in his hands.

“Yeah,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze and shrugging, “and it’s not like you liked me.”

Peering down at her from above, the boy’s crooked grin gradually settles into the silence along with the usual unreadable mien that he wears on the daily. “How would you know?”

Finally turning to return his gaze, she raises a brow at him before uncrossing her arms and standing to her feet. One step, two steps until she stands before him as close as she could recall on that night, she utters the one mutual truth of the night.

“Because you never told me.”

The brief silence filled with tension seems to last an eternity, yet neither of the two could take their eyes off the other. A rush of thrill intermixed with panic floods his blood. His fight or flight system screams at him to obey the very laws he had followed all these years but his mind warns him that change is a necessity for this euphoric heat that radiates from this very moment. He’s never quite felt like this before: throat knotting and heart leaping nearly out of his chest.

“Let’s—”

“—I need to catch the last train home,” she blurts, quickly taking a step back to distance themselves.

Like a magnetic force that she is to him, her retraction almost pulls the breath from his lungs along with it.

“What?” he frowns, trying to steady his breath. “It’s 10 right now. My last ride is at midnight.”

“Yeah, well mine is at 11 and I still have to walk there,” she shrugs indifferently to the entire ordeal—something that Jungkook takes to the heart.

“What?” he mutters, “the station is right next to this hospital.”

“What can I say? I’m a slow walker,” she prims, bowing her head and waving her hand to bid farewell. “Thanks for the band aid and all the help today. It was nice catching up. See y—I mean, take care.”

He stands there in silence, too stunned by the constant turn of events. Distracted by the crestfallen weight in his chest elicited by his shattered hopes, Jungkook raises a hand in response to her pressed, upcurved lips. He can only mumble a seemingly indifferent, “...see ya.”

There she goes—as gracefully as she had reentered his life and as fleeting as she had left for a second time. All this time he knew his side of the story: growingly regretful, discovering a yearning he never knew was within his capabilities, and helplessly pondering over a past he could not change and wondering if she did the same. At some point in time, those feelings became a fragment in time and that person he wished she knew became a version of his present self. He moved on, he forgot the magnitude of the pain, but he never quite came to terms with what it all could have been.

And all at once, the very moment he stands before her, the past him whomst he had perceived to be temporary comes flooding back into reality—flesh, fervent, and feelings of an immensity he could never have been prepared for—and if he were to be honest, he thought it would have been the same for her.

He never really knew her side, after all; but at the very least, he desires to hear it from her, herself. She never missed him, she never thought of him from time to time, she never woke up from a dream of him so vivid that it felt so real that she was left with a melancholic loneliness in the air—those words would close the gap in his chest.

If there’s one thing Jungkook had absolute control over at this very moment, it’s the last chapter of their shared novel in time and this is not the conclusion he imagined.

Before he knew it, Jungkook finds himself sprinting down the train station. Across the coldly lit hallways, up and down the stairs instead of the ‘shitty, slow escalators,’ and cutting through the nearing midnight breeze of the platforms until the breeze finally brought him to the last unvisited area, his daunting final destination.

Checking his watch, Jungkook’s chest heaves as he holds his hands to his knees in an attempt to catch his breath. It’s well past 11 now, nearing midnight, and he’s standing at the platform in the opposite direction of her new hometown. To the mere bystander, this platform really didn’t make any sense; but to Jungkook and his inkling, perhaps by a disheveled and desperate state, every twist and turn of the wind brought him right where he believes he belongs.

Puffs of his breath mark the airy night as he watches his last ride pass by the rails before him. Every cart, every seat, he scans them all. No one. His heart sinks with each check, each flicker of the eyes, and he begins to curse himself for his state of delusion until the last cart of the train flashes by to reveal his finale.

And as if by some sort of invisible string, life had somehow led him to her once again.

Because there she sits, across the wide yet surely crossable gap of the railway, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap, as if she had been waiting for him all this time.

Jungkook stands there, stupefied by the works of fate, “why are you—”

“—hey, Jungkook!” she calls out to him, voice echoing across the vast, empty station. “What were you going to tell me back at the hospital?”

Taken aback by her question, Jungkook chuckles to himself in utter amusement; and as if by the magic sifting through the night, the nearby tower bells ring across the remaining distance between the two at the precise stroke of midnight.

“Let’s date!”

The boy’s zestful holler resembles more like that of a cheerful proclamation, for the way he holds his hands to his lips before throwing them freely into the air garners a giggle from his spectator. His voice projection accompanies the bells, perhaps too softly and thereby physically undetected, but she could hear him nonetheless.

“I liked you and I still like you so damn much, you dumbass!”

After witnessing the boy’s courageous display, the words she’s been waiting for but never knew she needed until their paths crossed once again for a limitless nth time slips from her like second nature, almost as if she’s practiced it in her dreams all this time. Her loud proclamation, however, slips beneath the bells like an accompaniment to a ceremonious work of fate.

The two of them stand on opposite sides of the platform, their confessions are far and wide and perhaps inaudible, but the dorky smiles adorning their lips as they gaze across at their inevitable final chapters serve to prove an undeniable fact.

Whether by sheer will or by this invisible string, whether by his side or her side, the truth is: their eternities will be forever tied, forever golden.

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anxiouslyfred · 3 years

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Created Holidays

for @dukexietyweek‘s final prompt of holidays

Summary: Remus used to create random holidays and get all the Dark sides celebrating them, but even though he tried to do the same when known, the holidays have stopped except for the ones on a normal calendar.

Today Virgil is going to change that, with Shelob’s birthday

Warnings: spiders, telling offs

/\/\

One thing Virgil had missed since being accepted and welcomed with open arms as soon as Remus was known to Thomas was the holidays, the celebrations, whichever you wanted to call them. It wasn't that the Known sides didn't celebrate things, but that everything was on a calender, predictable and in order. There were no mornings when you could come down to a bizarre breakfast and banners declaring 'Shelob's Birthday' or 'Cheese Rolling Day', or any manner of things Remus decided needed to be celebrated from films, stories, or random news articles Thomas might read.

He'd loved it when there was a 'Frozen day' weeks after the family movie night they'd shared, because it felt like the holiday were coming back. Except after 2 months Remus had stopped them all over again. He'd reduced them at first until they had just gone, and Virgil had no clue what could be influencing or controlling his friend to this extent.

Perhaps they weren't holidays with the traditions and history that Christmas or Halloween came with, but they were fun, and just a way Remus got his family to spend time together. That had been for a few years something Thomas wanted, that Patton had always been trying to encourage. Themed games and meals would only help with that, even if it came randomly rather than planned for weeks if not months in advance.

Still, Virgil knew something must have been said or done to stop Remus bringing his holidays out for everyone to share in. Whether or not he still held them in the imagination or his room was something Virgil kind of wanted to find out.

More than finding out though, he wanted them back, and if Remus wasn't going to do it, then Virgil damn well would. They deserved to bring their family time out from the hidden spaces of Thomas's mind and into the common areas, not matter what the light sides wanted.

With that in mind he began to plan, and felt some dark joy in deciding which holiday he'd like to bring back for them all. Patton would forgive him for it, surely?

/VR\

The first thing to make any of the other Sides suspect there was something different about the day was Patton's scream followed shortly after by his door being slammed.

It woke most of them up, and got the ones already awake quickly leaving their room to figure out what was happening, only to freeze in their doorways.

Virgil had only added a few spiderwebs and strands of silly string along the hallway, but in increasing density going down the stairs. It was only in the main common area that his decorations really took over, but before anyone other than Patton had seen them a delighted scream was ringing out.

“Shelob's Birthday!” Remus couldn't have moved faster if he was shot from the gun, but at least he stopped without throwing Virgil to the floor when tackling him into a hug. “Can't believe we haven't celebrated Shelob's birthday in so long. Better make this the best one ever. Hobbitsy Tacos and Limbus Bread for all.”

Virgil grinned, going to reply before a cough got his attention from the stairs.

“Remus, as I've stated before, there is not time enough in our lives to indulge in your-” Logan cuts himself off when Virgil starts hissing, eyeshadow darkening and growing down his cheeks.

“You don't have time for a family day, Logan? Yet when Patton suggests or simply decides to make a big dinner and insist on a family meal you drop everything for it unless there's a specific deadline to meet.” Virgil ground out, arms tightening around Remus, and moving them both onto the sofa.

Logan adjusts his tie, shifting uncomfortably in his spot. “That is not what this is. This is a nonsensical situation that has no reason to be celebrated beyond a whim of-”

“-Me! I did this because frankly following a strict calendar of celebrations is too many traditions and not enough family. Remus has always known how to bring our little family of Dark Sides into something fun to do with holidays and I was wondering why that had stopped when he was more than willing to include you all as well.” Virgil wished in that moment he could silence the others as effectively as Janus could, but talking over them to lecture their horrid behaviour would work.

Roman popped up then, seemingly having delayed reacting to the screams from 10 minutes before. “What the heckity heck, guys! A Prince needs his beauty sleep, and Remus I've told you a million, nigh a zillion times before that these-”

“That what? That you and Logan are the assholes responsible for Remus stopping trying to bring his family together? That you're the reason our random holidays stopped being created? Are you taking the blame for that, or should the next one play on your fears rather than one of the characters I loved reading about?” Virgil turned his glare to the other Creativity even as Remus pulled away to grab Janus and start cooking in the kitchen.

Neither Logan or Roman seemed willing to argue their points with Virgil combatting them so easily, clearly in defence of Remus. They share a glance though, silently frowning at the decorations around the room and remembering what had roused them that morning.

“Before you try to say I'm excluding Patton because of the nature of the event, I've already sent an apology to his room, as well as an explanation of what's happening; Specifically that I'm trying to bring something Remus loved to share with all of us back.” Virgil huffed out, catching the look. “Bad enough that you already try to treat him like a disease that shouldn't be listened to, you had to try and take away his version of family holidays as well.”

There are arms back around his waist before he could decide on whether they needed to apologise or just stay for the rest of the day. Remus nuzzled into his neck before twisting around Virgil to look at his face. “Games now?” He asked.

“Yep, games time now. What should we play to properly celebrate Shelob's Birthday?” Virgil smiles, posture completely relaxing as he turned away from Logan and Roman, leaning towards the coffee table expecting some type of game to be summoned to it.

Remus leaps over the back of the sofa, but remains wrapped around Virgil as an Operation game forms on the table, with the character looking distinctly dwarven. Janus is soon to join them, staring at Roman and Logan expectantly, although just what he's expecting they can't decide.

“Sit. Play. Some of these should be right up your alley, Roman. Everything is Lord of the Rings and fantasy or pure spider themed.” Virgil orders after a second.

/VR\

Through the day's games and snacks, Virgil had pulled Remus onto his lap, suggesting things they could do from previous times they'd celebrated Shelob's Birthday. They remained like that through attempts at cats cradle, passing the patterns made between their hands, and barely shifted apart when Janus declared the meal was done and brought out a pie that looked like it had spaghetti for the lid.

After the lecture from the morning neither Logan or Roman wanted to bring up the intimacy enough to ask about it though. As it stood they focused on doing a few things to include Patton in the day even while he was remaining in his room, too unsettled by the decorations to actually join in. It seemed to be the right choice to make since Virgil's warning and protective glares reduced as they carried on joining in with the holiday.

It was when they were all just relaxing after Janus over-ruled Remus's latest game suggestion that Logan finally had to ask, “So why did you decorate to such an extreme? I know you wanted to have Remus creating nonsensical family holidays again, but he has never decorated since becoming known more than a banner, and a few strings of decorations.”

“If there's one thing you need to know about Remus, it's that when he's accepted others have rejected a suggestion it takes nothing less extreme than a battering ram and a cheerleading squad to convince him otherwise.” Virgil snorted, shaking his head. “And there was no freaking way I was doing something that noisy, but decorations that are impossible to ignore? Well I saw how you all reacted to my room and I'm pretty good at it.”

“You used Patton's scream not only to get everyone's attention and figure out which of us convinced Remus to stop but also to make the point you enjoyed them.” Logan observed after a moment thinking through his words.

Virgil rolled his eyes, “Der.”

“And he's gonna help me make wonderfully unnerving decorations for my next holiday, aren't you, Aragog?” Remus piped up, wriggling back so his hair was tickling Virgil's chin.

“We better decide what it is early then, make sure I decorate for the right holiday.” Virgil replied, nuzzling his head down for a split second before getting dragged off upstairs. “Thanks for a great holiday. I guess we're heading to sleep now.” He called back at them, laughing as his arm was both yanked and bounced ahead of him.

There wasn't much planning done when they made it to Remus's room though, since the easy affection Virgil had finally allowed himself to show was now being reciprocated with wild lips meeting his, and bodies pushing each other against the door.

“Holiday planning can wait, We've got a better date.” Remus rhymed, beaming when Virgil just nodded.

At the end of the day, Virgil liked the fact they had the random family holidays back, but even more than that he loved his new boyfriend.

#dukexiety #dukexietyweek2021 #remus sanders #virgil sanders #protective virgil #logan sanders #roman sanders #janus mention #patton mention #made up holidays #cw spiders?

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sierraraeck · 3 years

Text

The Jailbird and the Mouse

Spencer x Fem!OC (Aundreya)

Masterlist

Summary: When Aundreya shows up to consult on a case, Spencer seems less than pleased to see her, but his actions tell a different story. Bonus chapter!

Category: Smut. Hate fuck. Apparently I’m incapable of writing a single thing without some angst, so we’ve got a sprinkle of that in there at the end, too.

Warnings: Cussing. Choking. Nicknames. Degradation. Cuffs are used. Unprotected penetration, female masturbating, oral (male receiving), fingering. Semi-public at the beginning.

Word Count: 8.5k

A/N: Okay so this is supposed to take place during How to Lose Friends when they are both in their fresh, post-prison forms and are beyond pissed at each other, but you don't have to have read that chapter or the series to understand this. Also, shoutout to @writing-in-april for looking this piece over and helping me make some edits!

Things to Know: All you really have to know is that Aundreya was a criminal who’d already been to and broken out of prison, joined the BAU, Spencer and her had a previous relationship, Aundreya got Spencer sent to prison, broke him out, then took the fall for something Spencer was being accused of that she didn’t do, getting herself sent to prison again.

I’d been called back to help the BAU solve a case. Fascinating how when it was convenient for them, I held some value. But, after that I was just easy to throw in a jail cell to be forgotten about.

I didn’t want to be there, but unfortunately I didn’t have a choice. So, I closed my eyes, and took a long, deep breath before forcing the door open. I had barely entered the room, barely had made eye contact with Hotch standing opposite me, before both my shoulder blades were shoved against the wall behind me, with long fingers wrapping around my throat.

“What is she doing here?” the hiss in Reid’s voice sounded exactly how I’d imagined it in my head preparing for this encounter. He looked almost as bad as me. His curls were going in a million directions, and I could only imagine the amount of times he’d run his hands through them, probably due to stress. His eyes were blood-shot, slightly puffy, and the dark bags underneath seemed more defined. The only thing that contrasted all of that, and let me know his head was still in it, was the darkness he now held in his eyes. There was nothing lighthearted or soft about them anymore, at least, not for the moment and certainly not for me. Plus, there was a red-hot rage I could see boiling at the surface. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror, a warped version of myself being reflected back to me. I’d seen the same fury and darkness in my eyes every morning that was in his now, and the irritation that radiated off him matched my own. Really, the only difference between Spencer and I, was he still had his gun and badge and I didn’t.

“I was invited to help consult,” I snapped through my somewhat restricted breath. “So you better get the fuck off me.”

He gave my throat one last tight squeeze before stepping back, his intense gaze never leaving me. I met his gaze with a wicked smile while brushing my fingers over where the ghost of his hand used to be. I wanted him to see that he didn’t affect me. Angry or not, he held no power in our dynamic anymore.

“Chambers, good to see you,” Derek mocked, giving me a side eye laced with suspicion.

“Can’t say I feel the same,” I deadpanned, then turning on Hotch. “So, why am I here?”

“We have reason to believe that a rogue gang member is kidnapping and killing ex-military if they refuse to join,” Hotch explained with seemingly no emotion, as if he was unaffected by my presence.

“Cool,” I deadpanned again before asking, “So why do you need me?”

“We wanted to know if you know anything or have heard anything-” Derek started.

“Heard anything?” I cut him off with a scoff, “You mean besides the constant clanging of metal bars when I’m not left in complete silence by myself? No, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Can you find them?” Spencer asked as if it would be a difficult task for me.

“So you do want my help,” I clarified.

“I want your skills.”

I let out a disgusted chuckle in response to his quip. Venom dripped from my words as I voiced my thoughts from only moments before stepping into the room. “Oh, I get it. You only want me around when it's convenient for you. Otherwise you just wanna give up on me and let me rot in a cell.”

“What was I supposed to do!”

“What were you supposed to do?” I asked in disbelief, eyes wide. “What were you supposed to do?” I mumbled to myself again in a mocking tone, rolling my eyes. I put my hands on the back of the empty chair in front of me I assumed had held Spencer at one point, and leaned in toward him. He’d retreated behind the table since releasing me, and I quietly snarled towards him, “I don’t know, but sitting there on your tiny, plushy ass, wasn’t it. I’m leaving.”

Spencer was back over to me in a flash, slamming his hand on the door before I could even reach for the handle. Someone got better reflexes. I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“We have a suspect list that we want you to review.” Hotch caught me before I pushed Spencer out of my way.

“Fine. Make it quick.” I looked over the list Hotch gave me that contained about 30 men, none of which rang any bells. “This was a waste of time.”

“Hold on, guys,” Garcia trotted in, “I just found something.” She was in such a rush that she initially didn’t see me, bee-lining it straight for Hotch. Handing the iPad over to him, her eyes lifted to take in the rest of the room. That’s when she noticed me. Her eyes grew to the size of beach balls, and her perfectly done lips hung open. I tried not to feel too hurt, knowing that my presence would come as a shock to her, but it still stung seeing her at a loss for words, possibly even scared. She’d really been the only person who still had any hope left for me, and I was starting to wonder if that was true anymore.

My voice softened as I greeted, “Hey, Penelope.”

She struggled for words, a few ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’ headed my direction, ultimately being saved by Hotch. “Dave, you’re with me. Prentiss, Morgan, I want you to go to the ME, Garcia we’ll need you on call, and JJ, Lewis, I want you to go talk to this man.”

“What about me?” Spencer asked.

“You’re going to stay here and watch her,” Hotch commanded. I started laughing at Spencer’s visible discomfort. Spencer glared at me before opening his mouth to argue, but Hotch stopped him with a voice filled with authority, “I know you won’t be able to focus out there if you know she’s still here unattended. Let’s go.”

When everyone had left and the door shut behind them, I sang, “Well if it isn’t Doctor Reid drawing the short end of the stick, yet again.”

“Just sit down and shut up,” he tried to order with confidence as he took his own advice, sitting as far away from me as possible. Not once had he looked me in the eyes since I’d initially walked in and he had attacked me. Sure, his eyes were on me, but they never connected with mine.

“Is that a demand, doctor?” I challenged him.

“No, but it could be. I just don’t want to be the one responsible for letting you get away.” He shrugged in his chair, resting the ankle of his leg on the knee of the other.

“So you’re just gonna trust me to do what you ask?” I questioned. Throughout the entire time I’d known Spencer, he’d never gotten super riled up over something, but this was a whole different Spencer, one that I didn’t recognize or know . He was more on edge, confident, and clearly willing to wrap his hand around my throat with no hesitation. A type of Spencer I was more than happy to get to know. And let’s face it, I’d been in prison for 15 months. There wasn’t a ton of action going on in there that I wanted to get involved with. I just wanted to see how far I could push him before he snapped. “You don’t trust me, and you know you can’t. I put you in prison, just because I could,” I shrugged, contradicting what I’d insinuated earlier for my own entertainment, “and you think that I won’t just walk away from you when given the chance?”

“You’ve had the chance. For the past three minutes and forty-six seconds you could have left and you didn’t. What’s keeping you here?” he smugly fired back. Oh yeah, he’s definitely going to be fun to mess with.

“What’s keeping you here?” I copied, “Why’d Hotch bench you again? Because you can’t focus when I’m around?”

“No one can focus with you around!” he huffed hotly.

“Not well, but they certainly can do better than what you’re doing right now,” I patronized, “What is it about me that makes you all so nervous, huh? I’m just another criminal who happens to be a former co-worker. I thought you were used to working with those day in and day out.”

“Criminals or co-workers?”

“Either.”

“None of them are like you,” he bit.

“Oh I know,” I ran my tongue over my lips, “So I’ll ask again, what is it about me that makes me so different?”

He looked up at me. In contrast to the first time he locked eyes with me, his expression was stone cold. “You were a part of this team, and you betrayed us. You betrayed me. I don’t know how I could’ve been so stupid to believe you were actually helping us! I just want to know why you picked me. You were going to take one of us down, why’d you choose me?” I could see the gears spinning in his head, and was about to answer when he frustratedly added, “Was it because you thought I’m the weakest?”

That’s it. That’s what’s always made him tick. And he used the present tense. We were still an entire table length apart, so I started slowly sauntering toward him. I prodded, “Is that what you think? You believe you’re the weakest on the team? Or do you just think that’s what I thought?”

“We all have our roles,” he responded, but not nearly as confident as he had been before.

“That’s not an answer,” I pushed.

“You still haven’t answered me, either,” he growled, and I decided to let this one go. We didn’t need to fully delve into his insecurities, no matter how much I wanted to.

“It was similar to that. You were the most afraid of me, I could smell it in the air.” I closed my eyes and pretended to revel in the stench of fear. “But, I could’ve gotten any one of them if I wanted.”

Spencer scoffed at that, “I think you overestimate your abilities.”

“I don’t,” I quickly fired back, “I could’ve gotten any of them, and to be honest, I was going to go after Derek, or maybe Emily, but then you spoke up from the corner of the room and I knew it had to be you.”

“Why?”

“Why this, Aundreya, and why that, Aundreya? Is that the only question you can ask?”

“Is it the only question you can’t answer?”

I was about halfway to him now, and decided to give him a little false hope. “I picked you, not because of your intellect, or how the rest of the team coddles you, or how relationship starved you are. I picked you because I could see something in your eyes that was different, something dark. And once I heard your full back story, I realized just how similar the two of us are.”

“We are nothing alike,” he insisted.

“Really? Because had you made one different choice or one thing went just a little bit wrong, you could have ended up just like me, with no family and no one to give a shit about you or what you do, except for the cops who just wanted you locked up and controlled.” I was dangerously close to him now, his head tilted to look at me, but he didn’t cower away. He actually seemed to welcome it. Which reminded me of something, “After knowing all of that, my past and everything I was, you still agreed to let me on your team.”

“I was the last person to say yes to you joining,” he informed me. This was news to me, but I couldn’t even be sure if he was telling me the truth. “I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to be working with us, but I was outnumbered and outranked.”

“No, you caved to their wishes,” I twisted his words to suit my needs, “Like you caved to mine.” I slowly reached down to place a hand on his chest. He eyed it all the way until I made contact with him, and it was like flipping a switch. He grabbed my wrist and held it close as he pushed out of his chair, the wheels spinning it wildly back into the monitor. He reached for my other wrist, which I let him grab, and held me against the wall, arms pinned next to my head. I did everything I could to not smirk. And he’s still caving.

“I didn’t want you here. I resisted the idea of you being around us,” he spat.

“Like you’re resisting the idea of being around me right now?” I arched an eyebrow, scanning him from head to toe, and I couldn’t help but let my gaze linger on a few spots. He opened his mouth to say something, but he shut it again, locking his jaw. I could see his genius mind at work, trying to come up with some way out of the little mouse trap I’d set up for him. I watched his eyes trail down to my lips and neck, soaking it all in. When his eyes met mine again, I tried to reach for him, but he forcefully slammed my hands back, pinning me to the wall again. Though, I wanted him to touch me this time. He was taking too long to make a move for my liking, so I decided if I couldn’t use my arms, I might as well use my legs.

All of his weight was already leaning toward me, so it wasn’t difficult to wrap my right leg around his waist and bring him all the way to me. The moment that they were within inches of my face, I attacked his lips. I was almost disappointed by the fact that he didn’t seem surprised at all, as if he knew how impatient I was and knew that I would force the first move. But, I wasn’t disappointed for long.

Spencer’s whole body was pressed against mine as he quickly swiped his tongue across my bottom lip, looking for entrance. I granted it, but I wasn’t going to give him the complete dominance that he wanted over the kiss. Instead, our tongues slid over each other’s searching for more than the other was willing to give. It was hot and messy, and he released his grip on my wrists, moving them to apply the same amount of force to my jaw. With my hands free, I made quick work of the buttons on his dress shirt, ripping it open. I was expecting skin and sighed when I found yet another shirt. This man and his layers.

Spencer took advantage of me sighing, giving him more access to my mouth, which I wanted to be annoyed about, but couldn’t care to be. I decided to make better use of my hands, running them down the sides of his body as he wrapped his behind my back. He pulled away from me so abruptly when I tried to massage him through his slacks, he basically dropped me on the floor. It was like being left out in a cold winter storm, just barely out of arm's reach of warmth.

Spencer shook his head, eyes on the floor, as if that would clear his mind of what clouded it, which was me. But I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “There. You got what you wanted.”

I gaped at him before retorting, “We both know it wasn’t just me who got what I wanted. I’m sure you had a hard time pulling away.”

He glared at me as he rolled the chair back toward the desk and took a seat, “Not really. I have important work to do.”

I stood there staring at him trying to compose himself. His face was red and he tugged at his pants before crossing his leg over the other. I pressed my lips together, but still failed to contain the small laugh that escaped through my nose.

“Sure,” I mocked, “Especially since everyone else on the team is already doing that work for you.” He didn’t look up from whatever papers were on the table, trying in vain to ignore me, though I wasn’t ready to have his attention off me yet.

I shut the folder that he was in the middle of reading, not like he was actually reading it considering how long it was taking him to flip the page, and sat right on top of it. He was about to reach for it again, but retracted his hand at lightning speed when my legs got in the way. I flashed another mockingly sweet smile his way, but he looked out toward the window, right next to the wall I’d just come from. I swung my legs back and forth off the side of the table just a bit, careful not to completely kick Spencer in the shin, though I couldn’t help but let my toes accidentally tap him a few times. As with all of the other times I’d touched him, he moved out of the way, uncrossing his legs with a perfect foot-sized gap in between his knees. I rested my foot in that small gap on the chair, rolling his body closer to me. Then, for no other reason than wanting to feel him squirm underneath me, I plopped down on his lap, my legs straddling his. I pretty much had him locked in his seat.

“What are you doing?” he questioned, a look of complete indifference gracing his face, but I knew it was just a front.

“Just making sure you’re doing your job,” I replied, winking at him.

“And… how do you think this is helping me do my job?”

“I’m making sure you’re paying attention to me,” I whispered in his ear seductively, lacing my fingers together on the back of his neck, “Plus, I’m doing what you asked me to. How did you put it? Sit down and shut-”

Using his thumb and forefinger, he pinched my cheeks and brought my lips to his forcefully. The kiss was just as hungry as the last, teeth clashing and tongues furiously fighting. He moved his long fingers onto my hips with a bruising grip, which I had absentmindedly started grinding against his. He pulled away from me for a moment, and his harsh tone reminded me that this was nothing like the last time we’d been together, when we’d both been a bit more innocent. “You never did have any manners at work.”

I smirked, “I know. Imagine my manners at home.”

A low, almost inaudible groan came from Spencer’s throat at my suggestion, but he tried to cover it up by moving my hair out of the way and latching his lips onto the side of my neck. I gasped at the contact of his teeth pulling at my soft flesh, paired with the feeling of his growing bulge pressed against my core. His fingers gripped my hips harder and moved them faster, drawing a small whimper from my lips. I felt him smile as he trailed kisses down my neck to my collar bone, leaving a single bite mark there. I tried so hard to contain my high-pitched moan when he moved one of his hands from my waist to pinch one of my nipples through my shirt.

But I was supposed to be the clear-headed one, so I forced myself to not get too wrapped up in the feeling. If I wanted to get to my end goal, I was going to have to leave him wanting more, which unfortunately in turn meant leaving myself in the same condition.

My hips had gotten faster along with Spencer’s hands, but when I felt him start to buck his hips up against me, I knew that he was getting close and it had to end. Immediately, I stopped my movements and untangled myself from him, but not before dragging a finger up the column of his throat, sneering, “Too bad. I could’ve helped you, had you done anything to help me.”

I left that open for interpretation, either as a jab to his masculinity or to what started my rage in the first place: being left in prison. He didn’t ask for clarification either, clearly too bothered by being left on edge. He did, however, follow up with, “Help you? Why would I want to do that? You’re a terrible person.”

I grinned as if receiving a medal of honor, “That I am, Doctor.”

I moved the lay down on the couch while Spencer attempted to refocus on his work. I made a show of sighing a couple times and rolling around ‘to find a comfortable position’ on the couch, just to piss him off. I could tell it was working based on his clenched fists turning white, and the way his leg was jumping. He was resting his head in his hand, which almost perfectly shielded my face from his.

He still wasn’t turning the page, so I offered, “Can you flip the page by yourself, or do you need some help?”

He wasn’t given the opportunity to respond, because Hotch, followed by most of the team, came barreling through the door.

“Colby Ulton, 43 years old, has a long record and wasn’t home,” JJ announced, following Hotch. It’d been a while since I had to deal with their inhuman pace when it came to talking about unsubs and profiles, so most of the stuff they said next flew over my head.

I was way behind in the conversation, but none of that mattered when Hotch turned to me, “Colby Ulton. I want you on him.” He'd barely gotten the command out before I was reaching for the door handle.

“I don’t.” The words were hot and dry and coming from none other than Doctor Reid. I rolled my eyes. He moved to step in front of the door, blocking my passage out again, leaning casually with his back against it, arms crossed. Our faces were barely centimeters apart.

“Why not?” I asked in a mock-curious voice.

“I don’t trust you. Who’s to say you won’t just run off? Then we’d let a high-profile criminal walk free. Plus, we’re not even sure he’s the right man,” Spencer pointed out. I was going to point out how I had just made that same argument about me leaving, and he refuted it himself only to bring it back up now, but I didn’t get the chance.

“He’s the best we’ve got right now,” Derek countered. I could tell he sort of just wanted me out of the room, but Spencer’s motives appeared very different.

He never took his eyes off of mine as he recited, “We think it’s a rogue gang member who’s either left or been kicked out within the past year. Ulton’s been in prison, which could mean he’s gone rogue, or it could mean he’s joined a new gang, one that, as you probably know, wouldn’t allow this type of acting out. Either way, he hasn’t demonstrated gang affiliated behavior in almost three years. Not to mention he had his tattoo removed and is out of our age range. I don’t think putting her on, most likely, the wrong man’s trail is worth the risk of letting her walk free.”

The room was silent as we all waited for someone else to make the first move. I decided to be that person. “So what do you suggest they do with me, hm?” I questioned, walking my two fingers up his chest with each word. Then I leaned in and made it very clear, “Because I am not going back to prison.”

I bit his earlobe on the way back, and I saw the way his pupils dilated just slightly at the feeling, “I’ll watch her for the night.”

“What?” Derek and I said at the same time, but our facial expressions were very different.

“Yes,” he stated, more confidently now, “She has nothing to do right now, but we might need her later in the investigation, so sending her all the way back to prison doesn’t make sense.”

“And you'll make sure she doesn’t escape?” Derek questioned.

“She hasn’t so far, has she?” Spencer challenged. When he got unnerved looks from the rest of the team, he assured, shooting a small smirk my way, “Trust me, she won’t.” How cute. He thinks he can wrap his skinny little fingers around my neck and pull a moan from me once, and all the sudden he’s in control. He switched our position, pinning me up against the door, clasping the handcuffs back around my wrists in front of me. I was starting to think he had a thing for pushing people into walls. It was his turn to whisper in my ear, “And you won't want to.”

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

When we arrived back at his apartment, I took a moment to survey the room. It looked almost exactly as it had the last time I’d been there. Books piled up everywhere, papers strewn all over the desk, a little dark and dusty, maybe a bit more worn, but nothing too out of the ordinary. The only difference was that it no longer suited him as well anymore. He used to be this shy, studious, loner-type that didn’t really like people, and he had a certain innocence about him. There was nothing innocent about him anymore. He didn’t seem shy either, much more confident; still studious and a loner though. However, I bet he liked having at least one person over at all times, or not being home at all. It meant that he didn’t have to be alone with his own mind, and after being in solitude myself, and knowing that he’d been in there too, that feeling of complete silence, utter aloneness, was something we’d never want to experience again. We were honestly perfect for each other in that way.

The other thing I’d noticed, based on what I'd seen of him within the last few hours and what I knew prison could do to a person, I guessed he went off of instinct rather than intelligence more than he ever had in his life.

Spencer had to take the time to shrug off his satchel and kick off his shoes, neither of which I even had. All I had was myself and what I was wearing, which wasn’t much. At least I wasn’t in an orange jumpsuit anymore.

“Wow, you’ve really renovated the place,” I snickered. Spencer didn’t say anything, just rolled his eyes and brushed past me. I forced my wrists outward a couple times, making a clanking sound with the cuffs, asking, “You gonna take these off?”

He faced me with a smirk and shook his head slightly, “Don’t think so.” Pulling out a chair at the puny kitchen table, he sat down, and I felt like we were much in the same position we’d been in at the office. I was in his home turf, if I could even call it that, but I wasn’t just going to let him be in charge.

I decided to go straight for the jugular, “Why’d you bring me home, Spence?”

“This isn’t home, not for you,” he snapped.

I scoffed, “Doesn’t look like it is for you, either, but that doesn’t change the question.”

“I told you. I didn’t want to risk you running away.”

“You didn’t want to lose me?” I inquired. He could hear the way I was rephrasing it to change the narrative, not like I was wrong, but he successfully dodged it.

“I didn’t want to lose an asset over the wrong man, tipping the right one off, and potentially risking him going underground. I’m just trying to catch an unsub,” he shrugged.

“You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?” I shook my head in amusement.

“You don’t?” he cocked an eyebrow.

“Of course I do,” I quickly answered.

“Then answer this,” Spencer squared his shoulders, now completely facing me, “Why didn’t you run the moment you got the chance?”

“I had three FBI personnel in the car with me, then a team of BAU agents surrounding me, and then was left alone in the same room as an agent who can shoot 100 on his test. I am many things, but I am not stupid nor am I suicidal.”

“How’d you know I shot 100?” Spencer followed up.

I smiled, “I know things.”

“How about all the chances you got when you were in prison? You’ve broken out plenty of times before, why not do it again?” He was leaning forward, and he seemed genuinely curious.

It was a good question, one that I actually hadn’t pre-thought the answer to. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting to even make it this far. “I was biding my time.”

“For..?”

“Leverage.” It was a simple word, but one that seemed to make a great impact. Spencer leaned back in his chair and contemplated my answer. It wasn’t a complete lie either, I just didn’t want to give away too many details.

Spencer finally whispered, “Against?”

I flashed him a wicked smile. “You.” His face contorted into something I couldn’t fully recognize, eyes narrowing. “You, Spencer. I’ve been waiting for you to make an error, a mistake. That was the one flaw in my plan, that while I picked the easiest to emotionally manipulate, I picked the hardest to mentally manipulate. And you don’t make very many mental mistakes, do you Spencer?” I asked, approaching him. I’m really hoping you’d like to cash one in right now, though. I could practically see the internal argument being fought inside Spencer’s head; one side telling him to give in, it wasn’t that bad, the other telling him to resist, that somehow, this would corrupt him further. I needed the former to win. “You wouldn’t let yourself get caught up in the moment, would you? You wouldn’t crack, take what you want, what you need, what you deserve against your better judgement. Because you’re all brain, Spencer. All brain, and no heart.”

That’s what did it.

Spencer literally swept me off my feet, tossing me onto the couch like a rag doll. His hand returned to my throat as if it belonged there, and he pushed open my legs with his knees. My hands may have been cuffed, but they could still be useful. I moved them to start unbuttoning his shirt when he swatted them away. He spat, “I’m not heartless. Not like you.”

“No,” I agreed, “You’re worse. At least I can admit to what I am. You just hide behind a badge and gun.”

Spencer shoved two fingers in my mouth, probably trying to shut me up. I smirked, running my tongue up and down the long digits, making sure to give him a preview of what was to come if he’d let it. His other hand trailed down the side of my body until it reached the waistband of the pants I was wearing. Forcefully, he yanked them down, taking my panties with them. I knew I was already pooling, but of course he had to rub it in. Snarky, he mocked, “For someone who talks a big game, you’re already looking pretty weak.”

I silently cursed my body for finding him arousing, and was about to have to come up with a clever comment when I saw Spencer pause. He was charging straight into this, and then he just stopped. I tilted my head, “Worried you don’t have it in you?”

Spencer met my eyes, and cooly stated, “I’m not going to let you be my mistake.”

Dammit. When I felt him start to pull away, I knew I had to say something to get him to stay. I needed to turn this into an advantage in his eyes, not just mine. “Why? So you can let this rage build up inside of you, eat away at your every thought, until you snap? What then? You lash out during a case, which causes someone to die, either because of your incapabilities or at your hand? And what for? Because you’re still mad at me? I’m right here in front of you, Spencer! You’re never going to get a chance like this again, so just do something!” By the end, it was a plea, and one that was brutally answered.

Spencer pushed two of his fingers inside me, already moving at a quick pace. I let out a small yelp at the sensation which clearly pleased Spencer. I attempted to refocus on unbuttoning his shirt, which became increasingly difficult because of how he was curling his fingers to hit that spot just right. I barely finished, pushing his shirt away from his shoulders when he leaned away from me, taking both of his fingers with him. I was about to complain until I saw him dropping his shirt to the ground and unbuckling his belt, pushing his own pants and underwear out of the way in a similar fashion as he’d done to mine. He pumped his fist over his shaft a couple of times before lining himself up between my wide open legs. He teased my clit with the tip of his cock, and I could feel the precum beading there. I bit my lip as I looked up at him.

Spencer’s eyes were blown when he quietly demanded, “Say it.” He wants me to beg. I was okay with him thinking he was in charge for now, so I played into it by shaking my head. He slammed my cuffed wrists against the arm of the couch just above my head, bringing his face so close I could feel his lips brush mine as he repeated, “Say it.”

It was more forceful the second time, and something about his hot breath on my face and the feeling of his hips trying, and failing, to stay still against mine pulled a whimper all too genuine from my lips, “Punish me.”

At my words, he slammed his cock in my entrance, setting a merciless pace. With no time to adjust to his length, the heat burning between my legs got fiercer. The sounds of his hips hitting mine filled the room, both of us trying to control our moans, not wanting the other to know how much we were really enjoying it. My back arched off the couch, sending my fingers over the arm, brushing over thin objects on the small table there. A pen and paper clip.

I pressed my lips together to contain the grin that just about took over my face. Looking down at Spencer, who was way too busy biting marks into my skin, I could tell he hadn’t noticed the detrimental error I’d just realized he’d made. I made quick work of unclasping the cuffs from around my wrists, but left them on loosely just for show.

The coil in my stomach was getting tighter and tighter, and while I usually would have tried to control myself, I let the moans tear through my lungs. This caught Spencer’s attention, perring up at me with a twinkle in his eyes, one that told me he thought he had me. He mouthed into my neck, “This too much for you to handle, Jailbird?”

I scoffed at his pet name. Alright Doctor Reid, you’ve had your fun. Now let me show you how to really be in charge. “Not in the slightest, Mouse,” I quipped. Before he could think, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and put my hands on the back of his head. I flipped us off the side of the couch, landing on top of Spencer. With the wind knocked out of him, I quickly grabbed his wrist, clasping one of the cuffs around it, looping the chain behind the couch leg, then synching the other around his free wrist. I placed his head on the ground and leaned back, tracing patterns on his chest.

It took him a moment to realize what had just happened, but I saw the moment the light went off. “You filthy bitch.”

I chuckled, “It seems as though that genius memory of yours forgot that I’m a criminally sound escape artist.”

He was fuming, but contained himself long enough to ask, “What changed?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Since last time? You had no problem letting me take control then.”

I simply stated with disgust, “I was soft then.”

“Who’s to say you aren’t still now?” Spencer challenged.

I laced my fingers with his as I pinned them to the ground, my turn to be the one looking down on him, faces only centimeters apart. We locked eyes as I explained, “You can see it too, I know you can. I wake up and see it in the mirror every day, and I see it in you too now. It’s in your eyes. That darkness. That feeling of destruction, of being broken, of being a monster. It’s there. I can see it like it’s my own.”

I expected him to snap at me. To argue with a clever quip. But he didn’t. Spencer leaned up as far as he could and kissed me. Not in the angry, predatory-like way that we had earlier, but really kissed me. I was so taken aback by the gesture that I practically jumped off him after a few seconds. I hated myself for letting it happen for even that long.

I stormed away from him, hissing, “Don’t try to get my sympathy now that you’re the one chained like a dirty animal. I’m not gonna fall for it.”

I saw something quick flash across his face before it hardened again. I could feel his eyes following my every move as I walked away, so I decided to make a show of it. I swished my hips back and forth, and even bent all the way over to pick up our clothes for no reason, just so he could have a perfect view between my legs. I heard the rattle of the cuffs against the couch and smirked to myself.

Tossing the clothes as far away as possible, I reached under my shirt to unclasp my bra, slipping it out one of the arm holes. I spun it around my index finger a couple of times before letting it fly off in the direction of the rest of our clothes. Toying with the hem of my shirt, I rhythmically moved it around my body so that he could only see some exposed skin at a time. I slowly pulled it higher and higher until I removed the garment completely. Standing completely bare in front of him, looking down on his naked body, I’d never felt more in control.

Spencer was drilling holes into me as I got down on my knees, crawling toward him. Again, his hands shot forward only to be stopped by the metal. I tutted, “Now, now, Mouse. That’s not how this works.”

I stroked a single finger up his length, and when it brushed over the tip, he squeezed his eyes shut. I wetted my lips as I wrapped a single hand around his cock, starting at an agonizingly slow pace, a stark contrast to the one he’d set earlier. I had barely started moving at a faster pace when Spencer started to buck his hips up into my hand. I slammed his hips back down with my other arm, giving him a cold look. His hips stilled and I knew he was getting desperate.

I flattened my palm against his lower belly, making sure he’d stay in place as I steadily picked up the pace. Spencer threw his head back when I swiped my tongue over his tip, and huffed when I retracted my hands, breaking contact all together.

I hummed, “Actually, this isn’t that interesting.” I scooted back on the floor, holding eye contact with his piercing irises as I spread my legs wide open for him to see. Neither one of us has had our release yet, so I might as well take mine and leave him high and dry.

I brushed my fingertips down my body, cupping my breasts on the way, until I reached my clit. I started to rub circles over the bundle of nerves, not realizing how close I already was. I let out exaggerated moans as I continued my ministrations, steadily pushing myself toward the edge.

“Stop.” It was barely a whisper, and I wasn’t sure if I even heard it, so I ignored it. Right as another moan ripped through my lungs, I heard Spencer say, louder and more demanding this time, “Stop.”

I was too close to stop. I barely had the mental capacity to smirk down at him before I felt my release crash over me like a tidal wave. For dramatic effect, I whined out Spencer’s name as my walls clenched around nothing, helping myself through my orgasm. Slowly coming down from my high, my head lulled back, release seeping into his rug.

Barely allowing myself to catch my breath, I leaned forward onto my knees, and looked at Spencer’s face, which was red with anger or desperation I couldn’t tell, but brought my lips down on his dick regardless. He grunted at the sensation, and I could feel the heat radiating off of him. I swirled my tongue around him until I couldn’t anymore, opting to just trace a protruding vein instead. I started to hollow out my cheeks when he bucked up into me, forcing me to take all of him in at once. He groaned when I started gagging around his length, and when I coughed after pulling off him, he had the audacity to laugh.

“Having trouble there, Jailbird?” Spencer smugly asked. I looked down at his length laying against his stomach and saw that it was a deep red, and had to have been painfully hard at that point. With that in mind, along with my recent release, I crawled over him.

I looked at him as I hovered my pussy just above his cock. “I wouldn’t be worried about me. I’d be worried about how you’re gonna take care of yourself with your hands cuffed if I decided I’m done with you.”

That threat wiped the smug look right off his face. I was already wet again, and allowed him to only barely feel what was waiting for him if he behaved, lowering myself down so his length was just brushing my lips.

His face contorted and then he said the word of my victory, “Please.”

Taking hold of his cock in one hand, I lined myself up, and slowly sunk down. He filled me up completely, a bit thicker than I remembered, and I sat comfortably in his lap. This was clearly what Spencer wanted, but there was no way in hell it was going to be that easy. I just sat there looking at him, and based on the crazed look on his face, he was expecting me to start moving immediately.

We stared each other down for a moment before his whole body jerked forward, hands yanking on the cuffs. It was my turn to laugh at his pathetic struggles, but I still didn’t have quite what I wanted yet. Raising my hips up, I quickly slammed them down, pulling the loudest groan I’d heard from Spencer. When I didn’t move again, he started squirming underneath me, and I asked, “What is it you want me to do, Mouse?”

Then he broke, his strangled pleas music to my ears, “God, fuck me, please, just fuck me!”

I grinned as I captured his lips in a vicious kiss, pulling his bottom lip between my teeth. Steadying myself with my palm on his chest, I lifted my hips up, only to let them fall back into his lap. I started slower than either of us wanted, letting myself adjust to his full size before bouncing freely on his dick. The sounds of our heavy moans filled the air, sweat collecting on our bodies.

I was honestly surprised at how long Spencer had lasted when he let out one final shriek before coming undone below me. He’d given up, completely relaxed on the floor as I started chasing my second orgasm. Spencer peered up at me through hooded eyes, and soon enough starting letting out cries, and I knew I was pushing him. I didn’t want to completely overwhelm him but I was so close…

I wouldn’t get there, not yet anyway, because Spencer did something I was not expecting. The couch hit the floor with a loud thud, giving Spencer the freedom to move his arms. He wrapped the chain of the cuffs around the back of my neck and flipped me over in one swift motion, almost identical to how I’d just done it to him.

I was completely caught off guard, and let a surprised squeak leave my lips. I was almost impressed. Almost.

As if he could see straight into my mind, Spencer remarked, “I’m a quick study.” His entire body weight was over me, and there was very little wiggle room for an escape.

I followed Spencer’s eyes as he scanned around the room, glanced at his wrists, then sighed when he spotted his pants. Must’ve been where he put the key.

I raised my pitch and snidely sang like a schoolgirl, “Whatcha gonna do Mouse? You gonna fuck me like the inmate you are, or are you gonna free yourself, hm?”

Pressing his hands down on either side of my perfectly laid out ones above my head, the chain between the cuffs digging into my forearms, he chided, “I’m sure I can handle you just fine with them on. I’m not quite done with you yet, Jailbird.”

My walls fluttered around his cock at the gravelly sound of his voice and the threat that accompanied it. It’s as if he’s chained to me. I shuddered happily at the thought.

“Is that what this is about?” Spencer hissed, clearly catching my pleased look and the way my pussy pulled him in a little more at his harsh words, “You just enjoy seeing me as some twisted killer?”

“I enjoy seeing you for who you truly are.”

I wasn’t able to form another coherent thought after that one, the pace Spencer was pounding into me like one I’d never felt. He fucked his cum from only seconds ago back into me, the wet sound of our mixing fluids filling the room. I could barely focus on where his hands had moved to, teasing my nipples, because the fire between my legs was jumping higher and higher. As it finally burned through me in the sweetest way possible, I reached to grab onto anything, the first thing my fingers found being Spencer’s hair. He growled when I tugged, but his pace never let up.

As I came down from my high, Spencer didn’t stop. The feelings were becoming too strong, too overpowering, pleasure bordering on pain. I tried to pull my hips away from his, but there was nothing I could do. To stop my squirming, he sat back slightly and pressed his large palms down on my hip bones. Moving also changed the angle he was slamming into me, now bottoming out with each thrust. I needed some reprieve.

“Spencer,” I whined, but there was a nothingness in his eyes.

His hands snaked up to my throat, applying massive pressure to my windpipe. “Is this what you wanted?” Spencer yelled, “Is this what you think I truly am?”

I was having trouble getting the air into my lungs, let alone respond. I wanted to force him to face his reality of being an ex-con, knowing how shitty it was to be on the inside and just letting me sit in there. A consequence of my own actions, but considering I was doing it to save him, I was looking for a little bit more effort on the getting out process.

But he’d left me in there. He didn’t care. He didn’t care despite the fact that he knew what I was going through, that I could tell he was still dealing with his own PTSD and not well, and that everything had changed for him. People looked at him and treated him differently. He was a different person. Corrupt. And he’d only been in there for not even three months.

I’d been in there for five times as long.

I wanted him to realize just how much damage him and his useless team were doing to me by not helping me get out. I wanted him to realize how fucked up that was, and how terrible of a person that made him. I wanted him to realize he was just as big of a monster as I was.

I accomplished that. But I underestimated how much darkness he’d really been holding back.

My head started to feel light, and I could tell I was on the brink of my third release. The sound of skin slapping skin was sinful and I couldn’t focus on anything other than the feeling of his tip hitting my a-spot, the way my legs were shaking around his body, the way the muscles in his back felt against my nails as I clawed them down it. My release came quicker than Spencer’s, who wasn’t too far behind me. His thrusts became shallower, as he spilled into me for the second time. It was as if all the energy had been drained out of me in an instant, along with my anger and hatred. Spencer rolled off of me, and I saw his figure weakly collapse to the ground.

It was an eerie calm, the sound of absolute nothingness, the only disturbance being our labored breathing.

I didn’t know how long it’d been when Spencer’s voice, the softest I’d heard it since the day’s start, whispered, “Are you okay?”

I glanced at him with a confused look. He let out a small sigh at my non response, collecting himself before walking over to his long forgotten pants for the cuffs key. After freeing his wrists, he walked back over to me and helped me up, ushering me to the bathroom.

I could tell he was examining me, but it wasn’t until I stood in front of the mirror that I realized why. “Look at those bruises around your neck, Jailbird. They suit you.”

The bruises were deep and already turning a nice purple. I scanned the rest of me finding more bruises on my hips, thighs, shoulders, wrists, and not to mention the bite mark on my collar. I scanned Spencer next, his only bruises coming from his wrists and the red marks I left on his back. “I wasn’t expecting that from you.”

He met my eyes in the mirror, “What were you expecting?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know.” I truly didn’t. I went into it knowing I wanted to force him to see everything he had, everything he was, but I guess I didn’t really think about what that would force me to see. My exhaustion started to give way to a heap of emotions, and a single, involuntary tear escaped my eye. Spencer brushed his fingers over my neck, simultaneously pulling my hair behind my shoulder.

He kissed the tender, bruised skin, and I remembered the times before, the times when it felt like we’d really been in love. I felt his breath on me as he mumbled, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I turned on my heels to face him, “You didn’t.”

I didn’t know what compelled him to confess what I never thought he would, but he sounded deeply ashamed when admitting, “I wanted to.”

“What stopped you?” I was genuinely curious. We’d hurt each other in the most extreme ways before today, getting the other sent to a cage in hell, betraying each other.

“I’m broken, but I’m not beyond repair, and hurting you would make me someone that I don’t want to be.”

I gave him a tired smile, and all I could muster was, “Pretty convincing.”

“I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“Don’t be, you didn’t. You couldn’t,” I assured him. It was the truth.

“I should’ve,” he bit, looking down at his hands, which were so delicately holding my waist I couldn’t be sure he was even touching me.

“Why?” I questioned, the seriousness evident in my voice, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He shook his head, and a stray curl or two tickled my forehead. “I could’ve.”

“I trusted you not to.” I clasped my hands together and rested them on his back.

Spencer’s shaky voice matched his glistening eyes as they locked with mine, “I just wasn’t sure. All I know is that I scare myself sometimes.”

I pressed my forehead against his own, “Well, then I guess we’re two people who have nothing to fear other than ourselves.”

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dinopopduck · 3 years

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Ezekiel Only Being Unaffected By Certain Kinds of Magic

Let’s just start with me saying this isn’t exactly a new theory. It’s the demigod thing, and it’s a fairly popular one. If you haven’t heard of this headcannon, I put as much as I can find here. If you have, I found a bunch of new stuff that I haven’t seen anyone else mention, so reading this isn’t a complete waste of your time, I hope.

I tried to keep this from becoming wordy, but it got really long anyway, because there was a lot to talk about here.

Ezekiel being unaffected by magic is sort of an ongoing thing in the show. He is influenced by it much of the time, such as by Santa’s Hat, Pan’s Flute, Prospero’s spell, lycanthropy, etc. When it comes to the stuff he was seemingly completely immune to, there is one link that connects them all.

Apple of Discord: Everybody knows this one. The Apple is a Greek artifact, meant to turn you into the worst version of yourself, and Ezekiel was only one completely unaffected. It’s blamed on “he’s already the worst version of himself” or whatever.

Zeus Lightning Bolt: the episode where Ezekiel ends up decked out in Greek armor, and is sent to pick up Zeus’ Lightning Bolt, which was freaking out and zapping everywhere. He picks it up just fine, and he’s then able to hand it off to Flynn. It may have been purely because of the Greek armor he was wearing, but Flynn did not seem so sure about that working.

Cindy’s Love Potion: Ezekiel is able to be near the potion without becoming obsessed with Cindy. At first, it’s blamed on him being obsessed with himself, then later Jacob tells Ezekiel that he was already in love with Cindy. It was an obsession, not a love, potion you literally spent the episode proving that blah blah, he didn’t even recognize her at first blah blah, anyway, I have a better reason.

There are two Greek mentions in this episode. First, the potion project itself is called Project Aphrodite, a Greek goddess. Second, the sunflowers; when asked, Jenkins mentions how sunflowers are a Greek symbol of unrequited love. In addition, “love” potions may have originated in Greece, or at the very least, were common enough to have multiple sites claim that, lol. At the end of the season, where each librarian uses their gifts to turn Apep mortal, this greek potion is what Ezekiel ends up using.

See a pattern here? Everything that he was completely unaffected by was Greek in some way. So, he has an immunity to these kinds of artifacts, but why? I vote demigod.

Anyway, moving on.

Here’s some magic he could have been immune to, or could not have been. Its pretty debatable.

Fortuna: Technically a Roman Goddess, but the show does acknowledge how similar they are to Greek Gods. He may have been affected by the spell, but broke out of it pretty quick. Some think he may not been affected at all; slot machines aren’t exactly fair, especially in a casino that exists to cheat completely. As for Ezekiel getting so upset over losing, what he says, “Not the guy that loses, I’m the guy that wins” sounds very similar to what he was saying in Point of Salvation, but that’s a whole nother topic.

Alternately, he was affected and this point shouldn’t be here. I don’t know, I’m not the writers.

Libris Fabula: He was a little bit affected, just far less than the others, as he acted pretty much the same. He did get a barely noticeable clothing change, became luckier than normal, and was just able to cast a spell for some reason? Speaking out that spell, it froze the guy, and a certain Greek God does have the ability to put people to sleep. Not really the same thing, but worth thinking about. Maybe. More on that later.

Most people think he was immune, but he could have just been similar enough to the character he was portraying that he didn’t need to change a whole lot.

These ones are barely worth mentioning, because have other reasonable (though I guess your definition of reasonable may be different from mine) explanations, but you could see them as magic immunity as well:

Silver Screen: Ezekiel gets into character the least, while Cassandra and Jacob are out singing and calling people by their character names. Maybe less affected, maybe just a spoilsport. Probably the last one.

Point of Salvation: Was the only one able to remember previous loops. Since they were in a video game, it’s explained that since he was the first through the door, he became the player while everyone else became NPCs. I mean, sure.

Christmas Thief: Saint of Thieves only used his truth telly power on Ezekiel’s mother, not him. Ezekiel did not feel obligated to say anything. Could just be that the guy wasn’t talking to Ezekiel. Or, earlier in that episode Ezekiel tells his mother he doesn’t steal anymore (at least for anything other than the Library, I assume, cause he still kinda does) and therefor that made him immune to the spell, since it only works on thieves.

Image of an Image: Both Cassandra and Ezekiel got their pictures taken, and Cassandra was the only one affected by the transfer spell. However, Ezekiel wasn’t one of the “chosen ones” because he snuck in, and jumped in front of the camera while Eve (one of the “chosen ones”, who was later able to be affected) turned away. Either that, or he just didn’t have time to feel the effect, since his picture was taken after Cassandra’s, and Eve’s was placed in manually.

That’s all the possible instances of magic immunity I could think of.

Next, we have some other stuff that is relevant to this point, but wasn’t necessarily artifact/magic immunity.

Prophecy Cube: Created by the Oracle of Delphi, who is from Greek mythology. This isn’t about whether Ezekiel was affected by something, as he was still able to use the prophecy glass/get stuck in the cube. Rather, it’s about the Zeus Challenge in the cube. They probably would have died in there, but luckily, Ezekiel had just happened to steal, and keep on him, the exact thing they needed to get through– a bunch of golden coins, and a prophecy that ensures at least one coin can’t be destroyed. Luck? Prophecy? Divine Intervention? Plot convenience? Okay its probably the last one but STILL

Also, Ezekiel getting pissed at Zeus.

Zeus’s Bolt (again?): There is a promo image I think for season 4? that has each of the Librarians holding their tools. Jacob had his axe, Cassandra had a notebook, Flynn had Excalibur, all normal, except for Eve and Ezekiel. Eve had this big staff thing I didn’t recognize, and Ezekiel had Zeus’ Bolt for some reason?

Lightning, just, in general: If there is wild electricity in an episode, Ezekiel is probably around.

Examples:

City of Light: Gets shocked and knocked backwards into Jacob by a very electrified fence, gets up right afterwards and is fine.

Broken Staff: The Zeus Bolt thing, you get it.

Image of an Image: Ezekiel electrocutes Jacob. Jacob was not really fine. He lived, though.

Point of Salvation: Ezekiel electrocutes Jacob part 2 Electric Boogaloo, but this time on purpose. He was not fine. He died. But don’t worry, he lived.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Mentioned a little bit above, Ezekiel, Jacob, and a student get stuck in the Zeus Challenge, and Ezekiel uses some coins he just so happened to steal recently. Throwing them on tiles shows whether or not lightning will strike if it was stepped on. Seriously, why is it ALWAYS Jacob?

The Dark Secret: Ezekiel is the one sent to wrap a cord around a lightning rod constantly being struck by lighting. “Why am I bloody doing this”, he asks? I mean, Zeus probably isn’t going to kill his descendent(?), right?

Werewolves: Have you heard of the Lycaon of Arcadia? It’s a Greek myth. Basically, this dude named Lycaon wants to test how smart and all-knowing Zeus is. To do so, he kills his own son, cooks him, and serves him to Zeus to see if he notices, ya know, no biggie. Zeus was like “wtf man” and brings the son back to life, and turns Lycaon into, you guessed it, a wolf. So, Zeus creates a werewolf of sorts, maybe one of the firsts. In Fangs of Death, Ezekiel just so happens to be the one (main) character to be turned into werewolf. So, if he was a descendant of Zeus, imagine how big of a “fuck you” that was to the god. That all being said, Ezekiel was turned by an Egyptian god, so that might not have been intentional. Also, they may have just been avoiding turning Jacob, because there is already a werewolf named Jacob and they didn't want another Twilight reference in that episode.

Family/Name: Ezekiel is adopted, and his adoptive mother mentions how she took him in off the streets. Because of that, we don’t know who his birth parents are, and whether or not he, or anyone else, knows is unknown. Soooo, we can take some creative liberties as to who his parents might have been.

As for his name, it carries some religious connotations. It should be remembered though, the meanings I’m talking about here are Biblical, not Greek, so again, might mean nothing for this argument. “Ezekiel” is “God’s Strength” or “God will Strengthen”. Jones might also be something like “God is gracious” or “God has favored”, thought different sites say different things. However, I’m pretty sure the name Jones came from his adoptive mother, and apparently Jones is a common last name in Australia. His first name is more relevant, because all of his siblings have themed names; Mercy, Charity, and Honor. So, either his mom named him differently because she knew something we don’t, or he already had the name before she adopted him. Either way, this probably means absolutely nothing. But what are we here for? To analyze a dead show like an English teacher analyzes the color of curtains in an 100 year old text. If it wasn’t for all the other stuff, I probably wouldn’t think about this too much.

Okay. So Greek stuff, lightning, and Zeus himself come up a LOT when it comes to this guy. So is Ezekiel the son of Zeus? Possibly, but a more popular theory is that he’s Zeus’ grandson. Because Zeus’ son just so happens to be Hermes; god of things such as luck, travel, money, trade, and most importantly, thieves. Oh, and animal husbandry/shepherds and sleep, I don’t know how much those apply but I will try.

Time for some comparisons, honestly most of these don’t even need to be explained so I’ll keep it short-ish, cause this shit has gotten way too long already.

Luck: Ezekiel, especially in the first season, likes to rely on luck, and tends to be very lucky in general. Examples where this is mentioned include Fables of Doom and Apple of Discord. “Smarter to be lucky then lucky to be smart!”

Travel: We can assume that he ended up traveling in his previous job (that being heists all over the world) fairly often, even before the Library. Becoming a Librarian with a teleporting door increased that of course.

Money: Steals very high-value items to sell. Also apparently likes to take money from his coworker’s wallets. And probably everyone else’s.

Trade: The aforementioned high-value pieces he steals are traded/sold for money. In Christmas Thief, we find out he kept none of the money or items, giving it away to others who needed it. That kinda fits this category, I think.

Thieves: I really don’t need to explain this. Unless you haven’t seen the show.

Animal Husbandry/Shepherds?: Basically the care of animals. Um, well he doesn’t keep cows or anything, but he has a tendency to “adopt” magical creatures that need help. Stumpy, Nessie Jr., maybe Frankenstein’s Monster as well?

Sleep: I mentioned earlier how Ezekiel froze a guy (not really in an icy way, just couldn’t move) by hitting him with his coin. Hermes is able to send people to sleep with his Caduceus (the snake wand thing). Yeah, it’s not really the same thing, though you could consider being frozen a kind of sleep. He could have just been lucky enough to find a magical coin, and lucky enough to figure out how to use it at the exact right time without even knowing what it did. It’s a stretch either way, really, and was never explained in the episode at all. Yeah, I can't find anything else that fits.

Hermes is considered to be a thief and trickster, and a lot of the things he is god of are Ezekiel’s main occupations. With all those similarities to Hermes, frequent events related to lightning and Zeus related things, and immunity to Greek artifacts, we can conclude that he is perhaps the son of Hermes, taking after his father in abilities and getting visits from grandpa.

Alternatively, his somehow IS Hermes, but I doubt that. He’d probably be way more powerful. He was also able to see the future with Prophecy Glass, which Jenkins claims is impossible for immortals to do (although in that case he was talking about a Prophecy Cube, but close enough). It’s more likely that he is a demigod.

Okay, that is all I can think of that is relevant. I binged the series about two months ago, and have been thinking about this theory. I went ahead and re-watched the episodes that I mentioned in more detail, as well as parts of others that I remebered. The reason I bring this up is because I may have missed things. I did not rewatch a majority of the episodes, more that I looked at a list of episodes on wikipedia and tried to remember what happened in them, watching clips and episodes if I needed to.

The show was cancelled, so we’ll probably never get a confirmation as to who Ezekiels’ birth parents were, and as such, you can’t prove me wrong! That being said, if I got any facts incorrect in this, please tell me so I can fix it. I’m not well versed on Greek Mythology, in fact I know basically nothing, and did the research as I went along. So again, there could be more. This is just what I found in like, less than a day of searching.

Join me next time on “How is Cassandra magical, where’d she get it from? Also, were we ever gonna meet her parents?” And “In the first episode of season 3, Jacob is just able to hit a heavy punching bag of its chain, across the room, at bullet speed, just because of a shift of his wrist, and later in that episode do the same thing to Apep, and it’s just…never addressed or spoken about again? Like wtf man?”

I'm probably not doing that

If you managed to get through all of this, thank you, and I hope this wasn’t too painful to read.

#the librarians #ezekiel jones #greek #hermes #zeus #this took so long #magic #magic immunity #theory #headcannon #demigod #curse of cindy #apple of discord #broken staff

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apples-r-rubbish · 4 years

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John (11 x reader) Part 1

Summary: The doctor was being tracked. So he decided to become John to blend into a small town. It would only be 6 months he said. Word count: 3.4k Warnings: violence mention and knives and angst AN: Hi! First fic ever uploaded to tumblr so I’m excited. Hopefully this is good and isn’t too long. Part 2 and 3 should be up soon. Hope you like it!! Also I wrote the reader as female in this so sorry, I’m going to try to be more inclusive in later fics :,)

It had been 2 years, 3 months and 16 days since you’d all arrived in the 1920s, in a quaint little village in the south. You had also been told it would be a maximum of 6 months you would spend here, and boy, how the Doctor was wrong. He was being hunted, by a species that wanted to harvest timelord energy so they could learn to regenerate. So he’d picked a random village and a random time period, given you all jobs, and rewritten his own biology in an attempt to stay safe.

“I’m going undercover as a human, I’m rewriting my genetic code to stay safe, everything non-human about me will be held in this watch, and hidden somewhere linked to me, there will be another fake one hidden with me or on the TARDIS. I won’t recognise it, I’ll barely acknowledge it, or just enough to the point where fake me won’t think there’s anything off about it.” He explained slotting the watch into a rather aggressive looking head contraption, and throwing a device at Amy “I’m becoming John Smith, a history teacher at a local grammar school, Amy and Rory, your job is to track the thing, it has a unique energy signature with that device. Rory you work in the local hospital and Amy you work in a shop. (Y/N), your job is to keep an eye out for me, make sure John doesn’t do anything ridiculous, or fall in love or in a deep hole he can’t get out of. You’re the secretary at the grammar school,”

You cringed at memories as you sat in bed. Thinking over the last 2 years and everything that had happened since, it was all a distant memory now.

“The TARDIS will be in an emergency state if you need her. I won’t know you or remember you. It’s to keep you safe and for your own good. It’ll be six months, at maximum, nothing to worry about, Ponds, (L/N),” he smiled cautiously as he put the device on his head. The thing connected as he screamed, and shook, the agony in face unbearable.

Eventually, you decided you had to get up so you didn’t lose your job, you put on a dress, strapped a cautionary knife to your leg for protection along with the sonic screwdriver so you knew it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands or just in case the thing decided to attack today. You walked to the school. The village was fairly spread out but with limited people, less than 1000 people, everyone knew at least something about everyone apart from the few of you that had been welcomed two years prior. God how you missed Uber, and being able to go on regular runs without judgement.

When you arrived you stored your coat and bag in a storage room, making polite conversation with your coworkers in your office. John wandered in and smiled at you. “Hello, Miss (L/N), how are you doing today?” He was more posh in this version of himself, he sounded southern and as if he had been educated at the grammar school years prior.

“I’m very well, sir, just a little tired today. How about yourself?” You had also taken this time as an opportunity to sound more from the time period, to blend in and look more authentic compared to your back story that was full of holes.

“Good good, sounds like you need more sleep-” He paused upon realising the implications of his words “I- I didn’t mean anything like that, I meant perhaps-” He was like this a lot, he stumbled over himself. Not as confident as the doctor in far too many areas. “Nevermind, Mr Smith, I knew what you meant. What did you come in here for?” you lips pursed together, when he had his memories back you were going to slap him so painfully hard he’d regenerate. He may have had the doctor’s face however, he was not him. Maybe this version of the doctor had taken a liking to you, more than the actual Doctor ever would. You had to stick close to him so you allowed it, although it was painful at points seeing a man you had fallen in love with, finally acknowledge your existence as someone else.

“I needed to check the staff file and I just wanted to chat with you.” So you talked for a while.

The school day went by relatively smoothly apart from a student vomiting in the hallway, and two students almost getting into a fight, everything seemed standard, as the previous 837 days had. Nothing new. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The village was small and were grateful for that, all the shops were local and the furthest house was a 45 minute walk away. Ultimately, you had decided to visit Amy and Rory as you did most nights as they understood the pain you were going through, trapped away from your time period without your family, and closest friend, whilst also being tracked by an alien.

“-and then he looked at me and said I needed to get more sleep,” You said between sips of wine and painful laughs

“I can’t believe he struggles with social interaction more as an actual human rather than a timelord,” Amy laughed, this was the tradition, when Rory was working the nightshift, one of you would visit the other, and you’d laugh and drink together.

“At least you get to see him consistently,” Amy added, “We barely do. Rory sees him maybe once every few weeks down at the pub, and I see him when he comes into the shop or at the hall. You at least consistently know he’s safe and happy,”

“Yeah but it’s not exactly him is it. It’s like you see a picture of someone before you know them, like you can acknowledge it’s them but they’re just missing the odd piece to them, like the smile isn’t quite wide enough or their hair is parted differently. It’s a version of him, without him. Without the timelordy, alieny bits,”

“Maybe so, but it’s something, and we don’t have a lot else right now,”

“God, I can’t wait to wear pants and jeans when we get back to our time,” You said standing and embracing Amy in a warm hug “I need to go home and get some sleep, long day tomorrow, my turn to check. Thanks for having me, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When you had arrived home, that's when you saw him, a boy from the school outside your door, mindlessly staring through one of your windows.

“Edward Gray, dear? Are you alright? What are you doing here?” You asked panic rising quietly through you

Seemingly snapping out of his trance “Huh? Nothing Miss, I must’ve got a bit lost and confused, that’s all,” He said rubbing his temples, the expression he gave you didn’t reach his eyes, as if he was struggling to believe the words himself.

“You might want to get home, make sure your mother knows you're safe. We don’t want her up worrying all night now do we? Run along dear,” You said as you unlocked your house and he turned and ran.

You settled into bed for the night, pulling out a notebook and writing down bits from your previous adventures you could remember, it wasn’t for Amy and Rory you would've been doubting the validity of your stories and doubting that the alien had even existed at all, and wasn’t just a random man from your work who paid attention to you, smiled at your jokes, and whose eyes were full of mystery.

More dreams, more memories, more days. You woke up with a jump, your alarm surprising you. More morning rituals. Breakfast, check. Shower and brushed teeth, check. Dressed, check. Knife, check. Sonic, check. It was a friday so it was your turn to check the TARDIS. It was abandoned in a shed in one of the in one of the many fields surrounding the village that had long been forgotten. She wheezed slightly when you entered, a half asleep acknowledgment of someone else’s company.

“Hello dear, I’ve missed you too,” You said in response, a tinge of sadness in your voice, another sleep wheeze escaped from the console. You replayed the message the doctor had given you. He animatedly explained all the points, once again, like clockwork: village, 20s, hunted, six months, keep watch, pears, stay safe, teaching, secretary, shop, six months. Nothing had changed, you kept quietly wishing for the audio to alter, or the video to change, it never did. It was still the same video, and your alien bestfriend promised 6 months and nothing more.

Somehow, you had managed to arrive early to work. The majority of your colleagues had not yet arrived. In moments like this you had begun reading in classrooms, specifically, John’s. There was something comforting about it, perhaps it was the doctor’s energy. Quiet times like this helped usually, sometimes they made the situation worse, the silence was sometimes unbearable as thoughts of your future life rumbled around your head. You had positioned yourself near a window and pulled out a copy of the Great Gatsby. Whilst you were engrossed in your book, the door opened silently, John slipping in without you noticing

“Miss (L/N)? What are you doing here?” He whispered, his eyes staring deep into your soul, at times like this, he was almost the doctor. You jumped, the sudden noise surprising you

“Ah, sorry, John, dear. I was just reading, I had a bit of time before the day began,” You started

“It’s alright, no need to apologize. What are you reading?’

“Mr Fitzgerald’s new book, I have heard nothing but good things,”

“Ah, I prefer the classics, great expectations and such.” Even as a human he was still so much of the doctor.

You stood up suddenly “Anyway, I need to go. I have my duties to attend to.”

John rambled “Stay! If you want to- I mean- if you would like you can stay here and read, I don’t mind and I’m sure the others wouldn’t mind, I’ll convince them it was my idea. even though it was anyway,”

You considered it for a brief moment, you shook your head, “I can’t, I have particularly busy day,”

“At least let me walk you home tonight then, if you’re busy throughout the day. I enjoy your company,” he said with a wink and then he caught himself and looked shocked that he had actually just done that.

“Fine. I finish at 5. But you must know the neighbours will talk,” You said in attempt to deter him

“Oh, let them, this small town loves gossip,” John smiled in a very doctorish manner. You nodded slightly. A small smile graced your lips, a tinge of sadness in your eyes, you prayed he wouldn't notice as you turned to leave the room. You didn’t see him silently stick his hand out in an attempt to comfort you, over feelings he would have no concept of. John Smith and his small smiles and sweet talk would be the death of you. The Almost Doctor. So close yet, so far out of reach.

You had the trouble of organising staff schedules that week and planning and writing assemblies for other teachers, you didn’t mind though it kept you busy.

“(Y/N), did you hear Edward Gray hasn’t shown up today,” One of your colleagues Mrs. Price had said, she was elderly woman, her hair greying slightly, her glasses rested on a chain that was always around your neck

“That’s peculiar, he was outside my house last night,” You began as you explained to the other woman. She sat in an awkward silence afterwards.

“According to his mother, he did get home ok, he just came in this morning. Must’ve just decided he wanted to wander the woods for a break,” She said with a nervous laugh and you followed suit before going back to clicking away at your typewriter.

The day eventually ended at 5pm as you said a brief weekly farewell to the other office staff members before heading to the front of the building. John Smith was stood at the front he gave you a wide small and small wave that you returned

“Mr Smith,” You said with a smile as you approached him

“Miss (L/N).”

On the way home, you chatted about anything and everything, you trying to fix the holes in your double life story, and the chameleon arch filling in the gaps in his. You were simply two half strangers sharing half truths with one another. If the Doctor were actually here he’d laugh. Occasionally, neighbours would nod their heads towards you in acknowledgment, none of them stopping to talk. One neighbor seemed off, you believed his name was Mr Roscoe and he was an older man from the village. He made intense eye contact with you both before bumping into the doctor aggressively, squaring up to him.

“Timelord, your days will soon be up. We will have your secrets soon enough,” Roscoe hissed. Adrenaline pumped through your veins, you pulled the knife from your leg and pointed it at Mr Roscoe’s throat.

“Good, God Miss (L/N), where did you- what’s going on? Why do you have a knife?” John stammered the chameleon arch kicking into overdrive.

“Shut up,” You snapped, he opened his mouth to speak, he decided against it, then closed it again. You turned your attention back to the older gentleman, “Leave him be. He is not what you are after. This is your final warning, approach any of us again and this knife is going right in one of your vital organs. Clear? Or will I have to do it as a warning?” You snarled anger rising with each word edging the knife close to the man as you waved it for emphasis.

“Crystal,” The man replied, void of tone. Before turning and walking away sending a sharp glare in your direction as he wandered off

“Do you mind if we visit your house instead I have a phone call to make?” You asked the knife away, smiling and acting like nothing had occurred, slipping your arm back around John’s. John simply stammered in agreement, still not entirely grasping the intensity of the situation.

John’s house was rather large for him, he’d claimed it was far too big for one person and that he ought to let it out, but it was close to his job and he could afford it and that he also preferred his own company.

You waited until he left his kitchen to call Amy,

“Hello, this is Amelia Williams,” She chimed

“Red, wolf, now,” You said breathlessly, it was code, you had invented, between the three of you, if people were around that couldn’t know about the predicaments you faced, such as John you would use it. Red was danger, wolf was alien. She breathed a curse into the phone

“You’re safe, I presume, stay that way and with him, time to locate the pin and the needle,” more code, you simply said a quiet yet nervous ‘yes’ into the phone. The pin being the watch, the needle being a decoy.

“What about your job? 2 years, wolf tracking was up to you,” You hissed

“I’m sorry. I think the battery died long ago, we have no idea how to charge it even with the TARDIS. Plus, he never gave us an explanation of how to use it,” You mumbled a brief apology for hissing and hung up, after she had made sure you were fine, in the overly complex code, you former companions shared.

“What was that about?” John asked reentering the kitchen and breaking you from your thoughts holding some glasses, a bottle and packet of cigarettes. “Sorry, just a small code with a code with a friend, letting her know I’m safe and with a friend incase she gets worried or tries to visit,” You explained quickly

He smiled at that, maybe he had bought it, maybe not, “You’re so intelligent.” He breathed half to himself, half to you “Come on time for a smoke and a drink to calm us down after that, erm, experience,”

You sat next to eachother on one of the few steps that led to his garden. “So why do you carry a knife?” Was the first question out of his mouth after he’d poured drinks

“An old friend, he had some issues, told me to protect myself, I just felt I needed to make sure I was safe,” You replied simply, “And I hate guns, so a knife had to do,”

“In the 2 years I have known you, (Y/N), I’ve learnt very little about you, other than today.” He sighed

“You don’t need to know a lot, there’s not a lot I can tell you really, a fairly ordinary life,”

“Do you smoke?” He said offering you the box, with a smile you accepted one and lit it,

“Not often, we’ll have to share this one, I can’t handle full ones this late.” You passed it back to him “my friend wouldn’t approve so I try to not,”

“Well you have to make your own decisions,”

“He wouldn’t approve of you offering, I mean” You corrected “Also maybe not me accepting,”

“I need to tell you something,” He began, “I have these dreams- and they’re about the future and they involve you and that quiet couple from the village. We travel to other worlds and I’m from another planet and we try to save people. And it matches some of what Mr Roscoe had said. How crazy is that?”

Shit. You hadn’t considered dreams “Well ultimately dreams are the subconscious filling the space so I would imagine it is perfectly normal thing to dream. And as for Mr Roscoe, he’s a confused old man, I doubt he even realised what he said, John,” You laughed nervously, the chameleon arch had already started fixing the damage

“You can stay overnight, if you’d like I have a guest bedroom set up and some spare toiletries, just so you’re not worried about getting home. Mr Roscoe put the fear of God in us earlier and I wouldn’t like that to happen again, especially if you’re walking home” Even now, when he wasn’t himself, he was still unbelievably kind.

“Ok, then I’ll stay,” You nodded, you did not want another Edward Gray situation

“So this friend of yours. Would he approve of you staying the night? Does he approve of much? It certainly doesn’t seem it,”

“Perhaps he would. Maybe with you, maybe not, it's difficult to say. He doesn’t approve of much and yet many things. Kindness and eccentricity are two things he absolutely loves. He’s a good man, a kind man,” You tried to explain, taking the cig back “He’s a pacifist. And when he smiles the stars seem to align. We travel together. Or rather we used to before I settled here. I’m waiting for him to come back.”

“Oh are you and him-”

“Uh, no, absolutely not. I did see him like that, he did not see me that way. He has no reason to, he carries the stars with him and the world on his shoulders. He’s got enough to worry about without me,” you stated, a small tear slipping from your eyes, John wiped it away quickly , taking the cigarette back and finishing it

“I mean, perhaps he could, view you like that. If I were him and I know I could never be, I wouldn’t hesitate. You’re wonderful, kind and beautiful, intelligent and astonishingly brave,” John smiled “and if he can’t see that, I’m sure someone else will.”

The silence after his words was comfortable. You didn’t quite expect it. The ferocious love in his voice, the warmth and kindness. It seemed so disjointed from the normal, nervous and awkward John. You rested your head against him, a form of acceptance to his words. He wrapped his long since abandoned jacket around you, along with his arm, trying to shield you from the cold. The drinks had been finished a while, and cigarettes long since burned to ash. You stayed that way for a while, at least in that hidden moment you could pretend it was him and that things weren’t about to turn terrible. At least you had now and the steps in his garden long after dark.

PART 2

#doctor who x reader #doctor who x you #11th doctor #11th doctor x reader #11th doctor x you #eleven x reader #Eleventh doctor x reader #self insert fanfiction #self insert #self insert doctor who #hope this is ok :)#Doctor who #doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction

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ranma-rewatch · 3 years

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Episode 27: P-Chan Explodes! The Icy Fountain of Love!

I’m...kind of sad to be here. We’re at the end of the Martial Arts Figure Skating arc. But all good things must come to an end, and I remember absolutely loving where this one goes. Will that till be the case? I have no clue, so next paragraph you can join me after I’ve rewatched the episode!

Okay so...that was still good. Definitely good. But...we’ll get into it later.

The episode once again picks off where the last left off, with Ranma making an epic declaration of his official relationship status with Akane and how he won’t let Mikado touch her. This tends Akane into a bit of a tizzy, but Mikado and Azusa laugh. It’s revealed that they’re known as more than just the Golden Pair, an unbeatable skating duo. They also have a reputation for splitting up the couples they fight.

They quickly set up their finisher which is made to do just that: the Goodbye Whirl (called the Break-Up Merry-Go-Round in the sub). It’s an absolutely ridiculous move that I love to death: it involves getting one of their opponents to grab the other, and then Azusa grabs one. Mikado lifts her and both opponents all into the area and twirl around as quickly as it can. The move always ends when one of the people in the relationship betrays the other, ending them flying in a bid to save themselves.

But that isn’t how it works this time around. While Akane is begging Ranma to let go of her, so he can be okay, Ranma refuses, making it clear he’s not going to let go. They hold on so long that Azusa gets busy and breaks contact, sending Ranma and Akane flying.

It looks like Akane’s going to be crashing into the rink wall, but Ranma maneuvers to take the damage instead. Akane cries over his seemingly unconscious form, calling him an idiot, when Ranma opens his eyes. It seems like he’s just fine, but just standing up causes him enough pain to make him start crying.

While all of that was going on, Ryoga managed to escape from his bondage and tries to pull off a cunning plan: dousing Ranma with water before jumping in and taking over as Akane’s partner. It only has one hiccup: he grab the wrong “girl”, and ends up throwing Akane out of the ring while taking Ranma in his cursed form as his partner.

The crowd isn’t happy with this change, even if Mikado is all too happy to fight this version of Ranma. They’re not upset about the substitution though, just that their costumes aren’t up to snuff. Luckily, there’s a whole fashion department waiting in the wings, who sweep in and fit the two for new outfits.

That done, it becomes apparent that Ryoga still doesn’t know how to skate, and so he and Ranma are easily taken into the Goodbye Whirl, and no matter what Ranma/Ryoga shippers tell you they don’t have the same bond that Ranma does with Akane. In no time at all, Ryoga socks Ranma in the face to betray him, and we get to see how the move is supposed to work: Azusa ensures the betrayer is smashed into the ice face-first, while Mikado picks up the “damsel in distress” to romance on the rebound.

Of course, this doesn’t really work well with Ranma, but even worse is that Azusa sees the collar on Ryoga’s neck and realizes that he must be Charlotte. This makes Ranma laugh, but sends Ryoga into terror. After all, Akane’s not far away, and he doesn't want her to know he’s actually her pet pig.

When Mikado tries to actually get back into the fight, Azusa smashes him with a mallet, since she doesn’t want Ryoga hurt now that she knows he’s Charlotte. (What a sentence.) The blow is so powerful that it shatters the ice rink, and sends Mikado out of the match on a stretcher. That means Ranma and Ryoga won...except now Ryoga wants to fight Ranma.

As the ice rink goes truly haywire, with water shooting out as geysers and freezing mid-air, they take the fight outside, ultimately going to a nearby pool. Akane follows, trying to get them to stop and demanding to know why they feel the need to keep fighting each other whenever they can. Akane falls into the pool, and when the fighters realize that she can’t swim, they dive down together to save her...with Ryoga realizing mid-jump that the water will activate his curse.

Akane wakes up later, recovering from nearly drowning, to hear that P-Chan helped pull her out of the water. Oh, and Genma in his panda form was adopted by Azusa as another cute animal named “Oscar” and he actually blushes at being called cute. End of storyline.

Let me try a compliment sandwich with this one. To start with, I just adore the chaos of this episode. Like I said before, the Goodbye Whirl is the kind of awesome, silly wonderfulness I come to Ranma 1/2 for in the first place. I love that we get to see it fail against Ranma and Akane, then succeed with him and Ryoga. The fact the fight quickly dissolves from there into utter nonsense, with the rink exploding and the fight going outdoors, it just feels fun and satisfying.

Speaking of satisfying, the fighting in this and the previous episode is all really well done. This is definitely a romantic comedy series, first and foremost, but I love how when they take the time for a martial arts match it can still feel kinetic and fluid and visually stimulating. The ice skating makes it all the more interesting, and just watching something as simple as Mikado circling the rink after being thrown aside is enjoyable.

It’s also a really funny episode. The conflicts between Ranma and Akane, Ranma and Ryoga, Ranma and Mikado, Mikado and Azusa, they all mix and spin and stir into a beautiful concoction, with both barbs and slapstick aplenty to amuse.

Now...into the less fun bits. To start with, as much as I enjoy the Ranma/Akane content in this episode, which yes I’ll talk a bit more about that later, there’s also a bit too much here in terms of jealousy and possessiveness, especially on Ranma’s part. I know it’s kind of a recurring part of the series, but I really dislike jealousy being framed as romantic, because it’s honestly not a healthy emotion and not a sign of a good relationship.

This next complaint is less solid, but it affects my feelings of the episode anyway. I...seem to have massively mis-remembered this episode? For some reason, I have very vivid memories that, once it becomes more Ranma vs Ryoga and the Golden Pair are out of the picture, that they fought on the broken rink.

Like, I can picture them struggling to stay on top of icy platform, with Ryoga especially trying to avoid falling into the water, and Akane interfering and like...what is going on there? Is that from another episode, and I mixed it up with this storyline? Or did my brain just make that up wholesale in the decade since I last saw this show?

Either way, it kind of sucks because...that felt more epic than what did happen? It’s strange to hold it against the show for failing to match the fake memories I made, but I dunno what to tell you, I can’t help being at least a little sad about this.

Okay, done with that stuff, back to what I like. Yes, there’s some tasty content here for my Ranma/Akane loving heart, and I ate it up. It was also nice seeing Ranma actually take damage from someone else’s move. He tends to be so much better than a lot of his opponents that they never really stand a chance of hurting him, but the Goodbye Whirl really came close to downing him.

Before we leave this storyline behind, it’s time to give a little Character Spotlight to the other half of the Golden Pair, Azusa Shiratori! Her Japanese voice actress is Naoko Matsui, and...the only other role I really recognize on her page is Monet from One Piece, but she’s been in a lot of stuff. In English, she’s played by Cathy Weseluck, who is also Shampoo. So check out Shampoo’s spotlight to see what other roles she’s done.

They both play Azusa pretty similarly, high-pitched and cutesy, but I think Cathy might actually play it up a little too much? But maybe that’s just because it’s the language of the two that I actually speak.

I was never a huge fan of Azusa to start with, just because she’s a bit...much. The combination of her high-pitched voice, third-person speak, repetitious dialogue, and extreme cutesiness is all just a lot. It’s just the type of thing that would grate on my nerves in too high doses, and the series tends to use a lot of Azusa when she does appear.

But, so far at least, I’m liking her more on this watchthrough. I still find her whole “naming things French people names and taking them” thing not especially funny, but I love the way she clashes with Mikado. They fight together wonderfully, but she has no problems kicking his ass or making him look like an idiot when she wants to. They’re a great double act.

Which is why it’s kind of odd that, while Mikado only has a few small appearances after this episode, Azusa will be getting more than that. They’re anime-only, but it seems she was popular, with fans, writers, or both, enough to get more screentime. I do wish she’d gotten a single-person move the way Mikado did, but that’s just one more complaint on how the show treats women to put on the stack.

So, this episode sadly didn’t quite live up to my memories of it. That said, it was still a fun mix of fighting and humor, so it’s definitely going to be in my top ten. But where exactly...hmm... I think it comes close to getting into the Top 5, but isn’t quite good enough to beat Shampoo’s introductory episode, sitting right below it and above the episode all about Akane’s haircut. That puts our current ranking at:

Episode 26: Close Call! The Dance of Death... On Ice!

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 25: The Abduction of P-Chan

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 27: P-Chan Explodes! The Icy Fountain of Love!

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen

As much as I’m sad to see this storyline end, we’ve got another one of my favorites coming up! It’s training time, so next week we’re getting some more Ranma vs Ryoga action with "Ranma Trains on Mt. Terror". See you then!

#episode 27 #P-Chan Explodes! The Icy Fountain of Love!#ranma saotome #akane tendo #ryoga hibiki #mikado sanzenin #azusa shiratore #ranma 1/2 #anime rewatch #anime analysis

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ohbeaby · 4 years

Text

Headcannons about how having pacts helps both parties. It’s always kind of bugged me that the boys just kind of accept having someone control them and it’s never really clear what they’re getting out of it. Soooo...yeah

Lucifer: Avatar of Pride

First off, if he’s going to make a pact with you it’s because you’re strong minded and someone he can see becoming powerful. He probably found you by how confident you were yet unaffected by his influence.

Once a pact is formed he will listen to anything you command of him, but don’t be fooled. This demon will kill you the second his order is complete if he finds you too much trouble to deal with. There are billions of humans after all, he could easily replace you if you attempt to abuse his power.

What he gives: Leadership and convincing people to do what you say. With his pact you will find that holding leadership positions is much easier and as such you will fly up the ranks of whatever industry you choose. You will also gain the ability to convince people to follow your orders no matter what that order is.

What he gets: Prideful are everywhere in places of leadership. He can easily influence those above and below the person he has made a pact with to kill them off or just play with their perceptions of themselves. He mostly just gets to have a condensed area of playthings that all reek of his sin.

Another thing he gets is a small boost in power. The more people he can mess with the stronger his influence will become and the more people he can overtake. This is the same with all the brothers.

Mammon: Avatar of Greed

Similar to Lucifer he prefers making a pact with someone who will be powerful. He targets those already influenced with greed though, so it’s less work on his part. Also similar to Lucifer he will just kill a human who he feels is abusing his power, though he seems to struggle to off the witches that control him in game.

What he gives: Great fortune and can trick people. This isn’t to say that the second you make a pact with him that you’ll win the lottery. You’ll just be offered higher and higher salaries, your bonuses will be much too large compared to everyone else. At casinos you’ll be able to fool people in poker and trick others into giving their money up in stupid bets.

What he gets: Making a pact with Mammon is signing a death wish. Once you start not gaining as much money he will just kill you and take everything you have. This boy is waiting for you to stop being useful to him so he can indulge in his own sin.

As I said before he gets a small boost in power the more people he influences. Though he is a bit too impulsive and impatient to wait to see how far his influence can go, he’s not after physical power after all, just belongings.

Leviathan: Avatar of Envy

Unlike the previous two brothers, Leviathan doesn’t care if you are a powerful person. He just wants to recruit you into his navy because not everyone makes it through his boot camp.It’s either you survive long enough to become a soldier or he just eats your soul.

What he gives: Never wanting and being good at new tasks. You will always manage to find deals on things you are wanting or someone will just happen to get you that thing you really wanted. Any task you pick up as well will be very easy for you to master.

What he gets: Recruitment into his army. Once you have agreed to a pact with Leviathan you have essentially agreed to go to boot camp the second you die. He will come and pick up your soul and shove you into a rigorous training session. Leviathan will not settle for less than the best for his army so if you don’t meet his standards he will just eat your soul and that will be that.

I would imagine Leviathan would take the most advantage of the power boost he gets from his pacts, after all it’s hard to find good souls for his army so he needs to influence as many people as possible. Reasons we don’t see him actually get summoned all that often is because his pact pretty much just keeps those signed into the contract happy anyways.

Satan: Avatar of Wrath

Satan only cares about how powerful a person is when he’s trying to get back at Lucifer. Otherwise he doesn’t really care. He also doesn’t make too many pacts just because he doesn’t want to have to deal with that many people, very similar to Belphegor in that sense.

What he gives: People can’t get upset with you and wisdom. Whoever does get a pact with Satan will find that people just don’t get mad at the person. They could commit horrible crimes and get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist if even that. The person will also have a ridiculous amount of wisdom, becoming the person people turn to for life advice since they just always know the right answer.

What he gets: Satan pretty much gets a free show and meal out of the deal. As the Avatar of Wrath he takes great pleasure in watching things get destroyed. He really only participated in making pacts after Diavolo and Lucifer made it so only they could travel freely to and from the human realm because he could no longer cause the destruction he so eagerly wanted to see. Essentially pacts to him are just a giant “fuck you to Lucifer, I’m going to do what I want”. Also sees humans as a free snack once he gets done.

Satan recognizes the boost in power he gets whenever he gains a new pact but doesn’t really see the point in trying to gain more power. He is already struggling to contain his wrathful ways and doesn’t really want to deal with too much of a power imbalance on top of it. He is the only brother that never gets involved with any sort of pact bets between the brothers, where they see who can control the most pacts, because they all know that if he got out of control he could potentially destroy the entirety of Devildom.

Asmodeus: Avatar of Lust

The Avatar of Lust is, unsurprisingly, very popular with celebrities and political figures with ill intentions. He loves to jump on their social media and gain massive amounts of followers.

What he gives: The ability to read people like a book and get anyone to spill their secrets to you. When you make a pact with Asmodeus you won’t even be manipulated or tricked by people and you’ll be able to find out anything you want. Nothing slips past you anymore and the worlds secrets are open to you if you just ask the right people.

What he gets: In short, just more people to sleep and party with. This man is all about living life sleeping with everyone and partying as often as possible. He loves himself and loves to be admired so he makes pacts with people with large followings so he can get the same attention on their social media and at parties. Once he sees that the person is no longer as popular he’ll just go ahead and kill them, after all it’s not like he wasn’t introduced to many other popular people who he can make pacts with. He’s probably the least likely to eat a human once he’s done with them.

Asmodeus probably uses his boost in power just to influence more people into loving and admiring him. He’s not really the type to make a bunch of pacts for more power, he really just wants to be admired and loved.

Beelzebub: Avatar of Gluttony

Beelzebub doesn’t care who he makes a pact with, that isn’t very important to him. Though he stays away from witches and sorcerers because he has seen how tricky they can be. Typically makes pacts with people who are into sports.

What he gives: Physical illnesses no longer harm you and quick recoveries from injuries. With Beelzebubs pact you will no longer get sick from diseases or be affected by terminal illnesses. You will also recover very quickly from injuries and be able to bounce back from seemingly fatal accidents.

What he gets: Power and a free meal always sound nice to him. He’s one of the most physically strong brothers and sees himself as the person who has to break up fights between all of them, he knows that he may need an extra boost in power if the arguments get out of hand. He also isn’t one to pass up on the chance for a free meal later on. When he kills the person it’s completely at random, it’s just whenever he starts craving.

Beelzebub is probably the only one, besides Lucifer maybe, to use his boost in power to keep peace in the House of Lamentation. He doesn’t see a need for more power for personal gain.

Belphegor: Avatar of Sloth

You will be hard pressed to really get a pact out of this guy, he just doesn’t care and would rather sleep than deal with people. He keeps maybe 2 pacts at a time and even then he tells the people not to bother summoning him for anything. Mostly makes pacts with students because they are too busy to even try and summon him so it’s a win for him.

What he gives: Awareness of everything and never wake up tired. You won’t need to be paying attention to anything anymore because you’ll know everything that’s going on around you, who’s in the room with you, what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, etc. You’ll also be able to sleep 30 minutes and feel like you’ve gotten a full nights rest. Very popular with students.

What he gets: Amusment and a free meal for Beelzebub because he just doesn’t care. Belphegor is similar to Satan in the fact that he mostly makes pacts as a “fuck you” to Lucifer. He also kind of finds it funny that the students who make pacts with him don’t always improve in school because they figured the being aware part would make it easier to cheat on tests, which isn’t always the case with everyone gets different versions of the test.

Belphegor is another that just honestly doesn’t care about power and in fact he doesn’t even really care about influencing others. He’s perfectly content just having one or two pacts that he can throw over to Beelzebub whenever he wants to give his brother a gift.

#obey me headcanons #obey me shall we date #lucifer headcanons #satan headcanons #mammon headcanon #leviathan headcanons #asmodeus headcanons #beelzebub headcannon #belphegor headcannons #pacts #pact headcannons

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jwslw · 3 years

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A silly story that just kinda popped into my head

The idea for this popped into my head while I was at work and I slapped it together over the course of several hours. I don’t think I’ll do anything else with it but, I thought I’d share it.

A Traveler from a Different Hungary

On Friday, June 12th 2015, a fatal vehicle accident occurred on 10th South Avenue in Great Falls Montana. As one of the busiest streets in Montana, fatal accidents are not uncommon and in the modern world many would sadly not regard it as worthy of notice were it not for the strange state of the victim and the strange interest paid to the case by officials from Malmstrom Air force base.

At ten o'clock that morning, a man named Antal Kovács was struck and killed by an oncoming Semi Truck. After a lengthy investigation by the city police the driver of the truck (name withheld to protect his privacy) was cleared of any wrong doing, maintaining to this day that he did not see Mr. Kovács until he hit the poor man. What I don't believe he has ever told anyone is just how literally he means that.

Mr. Kovács was rushed to the city hospital but, pronounced dead on arrival. Amongst the man's personal effects were a back pack full of period costumes, a wallet containing a large amount of currency of unknown origin, cards and paperwork identifying the deceased as a citizen of the (seemingly no existent) Greater Slavic Confederation, a ten shot .32 pistol of unknown manufacture, a journal written in a slightly archaic form of Hungarian, and a 12inch by 12inch by 4inch electrical device resembling a CB radio, but, it was seemingly damaged in the accident as the investigators claimed they were never able to make it work. Linguistic experts at the University of Providence were consulted to translate the journal but, nothing was ever publicly revealed, beyond the experts' assertion that the journal seems to have been part of an elaborate hoax.

While it is unknown when the personnel at Malmstrom became involved, several anonymous sources that claim to be connected to the police force insist they were called in after the journal was translated, only to confiscate everything as a matter of national security.

Now I suppose we come to my part of the story. I am a small time writer and academic in a small northwestern town, about a year ago, I began researching this story on a whim after a journalist friend of mind directed me to the case. Well she calls herself a journalist, the rest of us call her a conspiracy vlogger but, she does occasionally find some fascinating, and frightening things. For most of that time I felt like was repeatedly throwing myself at a brick wall. Everyone I contacted would either directly tell me that the story was nothing more than an attempted hoax gone wrong, or act like they knew something only to point me to another person that would. I had become quite discouraged until two weeks ago when a mysterious package with no return address arrived in my mail. To my surprise, it contained a manuscript that perported to be the translation of Kovács journal, with a note that read, “This is the translation as best as I remember it, the Air force took the actual journal and the translation as I'm sure you know, still I don't think anyone cares about the event anymore, so you should be able to publish it yourself if you would like--- A friend”. I do not know if I believe this story, but, I present this it here for the public to read and decide for themselves.

The Research Journal of Antal Kovács

Pages 1-18: Seem to have been forcibly ripped from the book, possibly as a measure of secercy.

Page 19:

Date; 11th March, 2010

I have finally succeed, after ten years of work, ten years of failures and set backs, my time travel device is finally complete and functional. I have yet to test the device on myself, but, test runs with the device and a camera secured to both inanimate objects and animals has shown that the spatial dislocation and automatic recall mechanism are functioning within desired parameters, however I still can not send the device into the future. I will have to run more tests, but, I should be ready to time travel myself before the end of the month.

Pages 20-26: Strings of calculations seemingly to solve the issue of not being able to travel forward in time, page 26 reads, “the calculations say I should be able to do it but, all attempts have failed.”

Page 27:

Date; 24th March, 2010

I have completed my first trip, I traveled backwards in-time 72 hours and trans-located from my home Sopron to Madrid Spain, and then back again with the automatic recall. I remained in the past for six hours, purchasing souvenirs and eating dinner, before returning to my home, as I have observed with my previous tests, using the automatic recall spending six hours in the past means returning to the present six hours after I left, tomorrow I will test the manual return mechanism.

Date; 25th March, 2010

Success, at 12:00 I went back in time almost a full year, spending a week in Naples Italy before returning to the present at 12:05. All tests indicate that a it takes four minutes to fully transition between time periods and I am not yet ready to see what will happen if to versions of myself exist within the same space/time coordinates.

Page 28: Scribbled calculations and shopping notes for the next trip

Page 29:

Date; 9th April, 2010

Close call “today”, I departed from my basement laboratory for intent on spending a month in the 11th century exploring the Congo region. However, upon my arrival I startled a formation of tribal warriors seemingly preparing for a battle, my sudden appearance caused much excitement among the assembled warriors, with much shouting and gesticulations in my direction. Finally the warriors seem to have come to the conclusion that I was a good omen and set off for their battle. Unable to contain my curiosity I followed the tribal warriors at what I hoped was a safe distance (as an aside, no it is not easy for a man who has maintained a mostly sedentary life, keeping up with a group of hunter gatherers is not easy). When we reached the battle site, the warriors I had followed engaged their enemy, the battle lasted for over two hours and while it seemed at several points that what I had come to think of as “my” warriors, would win the day, their opponents eventually drove them from the field. I don't know what what the survivors were saying as they retreated towards me, but, I really was not eager to find out.

Page 30:

Date; 22nd April, 2010

Was captured by a gang of bandits while exploring 13th century Ireland today, fortunately they were much more interested in the coins and food I had assembled for the trip and I was able to slip away while they squabbled over the “spoils”. Other than that it was great trip, and I was able to gather a significant number of covert digital photographs of daily life seven hundred years ago.

Pages 31-34: More calculations, at least two pages were heavily water damaged

Page 35: A hastily scribbled note reading “It seems the Western Interior Sea Way covered more of Cretaceous North America than geologists think.”

Page 36:

Date; 2nd June, 2010

Three near misses today, first I accidentally transported myself into the nest of what I believe was a Megalosaurus. Upon fleeing back to my lab, I made preparations to travel to ice age Siberia, where I was attacked by cave lions. Finally I traveled to 14th Century France where I was immediately spotted and pursued as a warlock. I may need to obtain some form of self-defense if I am to continue my explorations.

Page 37:

Date; 9th July, 2010

It took some effort but, I have obtained an army surplus bayonet, 7.65mm pistol and 11mm lever action rifle for trips to less settled time periods.

Pages 38-50: Several pages rendered unreadable from dried blood possibly caused by the accident.

Page 51:

Date; 15th September, 2010

I had to shoot an actual Neanderthal today. I was wandering the ice age Germany documenting the wildlife when I accidentally interrupted a Neanderthal hunting party, spooking the deer they were stalking. There were three of them, and all of them charged me, I fired two shots into the air which startled two of them but, the third kept charging, so I began to give ground until I was backed into a corner and I had to shoot him. I don't know if I killed him or not, I simply fired on him till he collapsed and I transported myself home.

Page 52:

Date; 1st August 2011

I have put off using the device for almost a year, and yet in that time I have never told anyone about my device, there is something I must do first. My own fumblings do not seem to have harmed history in any significant way. But, what if someone that truly wanted to alter history were to get there hands on my device. I have a plan I will go back to 1922 and assassinate Nikoli Simonov, the leader of the Russian army during the great war and the reason that Belarussia is not part of the Confederation today. After I have assessed the good or harm done by this action, I will return to 1922 and stop myself to see what happened.

Page 53-54:

Date; 7th August, 2011

I don't know were to begin, I just don't know were to begin. I traveled back to 1922 and, just as I had planned, I assassinated Nikoli, I watched him for weeks until I had my opportunity, and I took my shot. I narrowly escaped the guards and transported my way back to 2011, only to learn that in this new time-line, Nikoli's replacement proved to be an even more cunning tactician and the Confederation was crushed. I spent weeks or months of subjective time leaping from battle to battle, watching the battles, watching how different post war international politics changed. Finally when I felt I'd learned enough, recorded enough, I returned to 1922 Russia, ready to stop myself. I searched all of Moscow, but, never found myself. I was confused, I clearly still existed in this time-line, my house was full of my things, many of my friends still existed, they recognized me, they made the same comments about how withdrawn and hermit-like I'd become, that they made in my original time-line. Confused I returned to 2011 once again. When I returned the world was exactly as I left it before setting off to kill Nikoli. How can this be, every other point I jumped to was clearly part of my new time-line. Did my alternate self simply not embark on my grisly task? This will take further research.

Pages 55-60: More formulas, strange flow charts and seemingly unrelated strings of words

Page 61:

Date; 10th June, 2015

I have done so many things, if I have a soul it is well and truly damned. I burned down Doctor Alverez laboratory before she could begin her ground breaking research into radiation, I shot down the Chinese inventor Hu Xiang as he made his 1900 flight, I prevented Dr Grosman from formulating the theory of relativity, and so much more. Everytime the same result, I come back to an altered 2011 or 13 or, I don't even know any more, I've aged my self almost twenty years while only four have passed. And every time I jump around from decade to decade to see what has changed, only to finally go back to stop myself and I'm not there, but, when I return to the present, everything is as it should be. I think I have finally gathered enough data to reveal my invention to the world, but, I must perform my last experiment. I will alter the entire course of the Confederation, and its so simple, every school child knows the story, in 1213, Agoston Juhász, the man who would become the first leader of the Greater Slavic Confederation was riding through the Carpathian mountains and came to a fork in the road, one leading higher into the mountains the other leading into a pleasant valley. He chose to take the high road and that night a land slide wiped out the valley. My plan is to simply go back in time, convince him the high road is blocked. Once I've seen all I wish of the alternate future I have created, I will return, and my alternate self will never arrive.

Well, that's were the account ends. Is it true, damned if I know, I do know that Agoston Juhász means “Exalted Shepard” in the Hungarian language, and I'm not even certain if either word were in use as names in thirteenth century Hungary so take it as you will. As for me I'm going make sure my security system hasn't been mysteriously deactivated.

----Efrain Phelan, freelance writer

#fiction #time travel #original characters #alternate history

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elmerkasprzakguarantees · 5 years

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What Made Me so Special? -Almer

Albert came into Elmer's life before he could even remember, and quickly became apart of his already large family of 9 children. Albert, having befriended one of Elmer's older brothers, was six was he first met the rest of his newly made friend's siblings; while Elmer was merely three. Elmer found himself always following the two, as they played and ran throughout his family's small apartment, and this persisted as they grew older.

What started out as a fascination with this new found friend of his brother, grew to be a deep admiration. Albert had always showed him a certain kindness, unlike others.

"Stop following us, you weirdo; it's like you're obsessed with Al or something!" His brother had shouted at him outside their apartment complex when he was nine and Elmer was just six.

"I'm not!"

His brother shoved him onto the cement, having had grown to be a bully at that age. Elmer felt his lip wobble at the agression his brother had shown and watched helplessly as his brother stomped off down the sidewalk, commanding for Albert to follow at his heels. Albert had given Elmer a soft apology and helped him to his feet before turning to follow his friend. He truly did feel bad for Elmer, he was never a bother for Albert. He supposed that his friend did not share the same opinion of his younger brother.

Elmer was nine when he realized his admiration towards his brother's redheaded friend was not as friendly as he had assumed. He could barely hold his composure around the older boy, and found himself blushing anytime Albert tried to talk to him.

"Ew! You totally have a crush on Albert." his brother exclaimed, tossing a pillow off of his bed at Elmer. "That's gross, he's my friend."

Elmer's cheeks felt as if they were on fire as he tried to think of a way to defend himself. Instead opted for burying his face in the aforementioned pillow. Albert found himself blushing as well, more out of the awkwardness of the situation than anything, and gave his friend a playful shove. But he was quick to defend the other boy.

"Just leave him alone, dude. It's not like anything is going to happen, it'll go away."

Unfortunately for Elmer, it did not go away. Quickly, his crush on Albert became widely known information throughout his family, and became something the two could joke about as they got older.

"Is the S in your last name capitalized?" Elmer asked, sat at the kitchen table filling out a paper.

"That's something you should know if you intend on taking it someday." Albert had responded, wanting to catch the other off guard. Elmer smirked and was quick to give a rebuttal.

"Who's to say you won't be taking mine?"

Over the years, Elmer often wondered how he could possibly still harbor these feelings. Surely Albert couldn't be so great that these feelings persisted on the real version of him alone, he must be exaggerating how good of a person Albert was. Many occasions reminded Elmer of why he still held these affections for the other boy.

"What's got you so stuck in a rut?" Albert plopped down onto the couch next to a seemingly stressed Elmer.

"Homecoming is in one week and I'm the only one of my friends who doesn't have a date. They keep trying to console me but it just makes me feel worse!" Elmer gripped at his own hair, glad to not be bottling up the situation anymore.

Albert chuckled at how such a small problem was such a big deal to the younger boy, "You don't got a date? What do you mean? I'm sitting right next to you!" He had no romantic interest in him, but couldn't stand to see him so upset. Homecoming became something of dreams for Elmer, he and Albert went together to every formal dance, even if it was just as friends.

The years flew by faster than Elmer would have liked, and soon he found himself saying goodbye. Albert was going away for school, as was his brother.

"You better come and visit me." Albert whispered, throwing his arms around Elmer. They were stood outside the door of the family apartment.

"I think you should worry more about not being able to get rid of me."

And off both Albert and Elmer's brother went, Albert going out of state while the other stayed close to home. Visits went from every month, to just holidays, to special occasions, to none at all. The last time Elmer and Albert had seen each other was Elmer's graduation. Both went and lived their separate lives and had their own experiences. One often found themself pondering over the other, and within his college years, Albert found out that he was not straight. Eventually Elmer's crush faded until he let himself believe it was gone, he was probably never going to see Albert again, so why hold onto it?

5 years later

Albert broke open the envelope and read the invitation, his friend was getting married. He let a grin spread across his face, excited for his friend and at the prospect of getting to see the whole Kasprzak family after so many years. He hadn't seen any of them since Elmer's graduation. Elmer on the other hand, was terrified upon receiving the invitation, and had frantically texted his brother.

"Will Albert be there? Please tell me he won't be"

"He's my best man, of course he'll be there. Nervous to see your boyfriend?"

"I've finally gotten over him and now I have to see him again"

":p"

Elmer groaned, it wasn't that he didn't want to see Albert, he just couldn't stand the thought of having to deal with his unrequited feelings even more. Maybe if he just acted professional, he could deal with it. They would only be around each other for a few days, Elmer could deal with it, right?

He could not deal with it. The wedding came much faster than he would've liked, and now Elmer was sitting in a taxi on his way to the hotel. He didn't have much time left until he had to see Albert, and everything in him was conflicting. He desperately wanted to go early, just get a glimpse of that red hair, to hug the life out of the person he missed so dearly, to see Albert's cute smile and- oh no. Elmer pushed the thoughts away as quickly as they came, he could not let himself entertain even a sliver of those feelings.

Albert felt as though he was going to burst from excitement, he had arrived early to meet up with the family for lunch and was currently waiting outside the restaurant for them to arrive; the majority of them were already there. He mingled about among the people and someone gave his shoulder a soft shove.

"Waiting for your boyfriend?" His friend, the husband to be, teased, "I'm warning you, he ain't the dorky looking kid he was when you last saw him. You might get a taste for how he's felt over the past twenty years."

"If I somehow did end up crushing on him then I'd have no problems, since he already likes me." Albert replied smoothly, though there was a sliver of him that feared the situation.

"We'll see, he told me that he had gotten over you, but maybe that'll change."

The news that Elmer got over him was, surprising? upsetting? Albert didn't quite know what emotion he was experiencing, but it wasn't a positive one. He should be happy, the fact that he didn't like Elmer that way always made him feel guilty, but now that the boy's feelings had faded, it felt different. Almost like a little sliver of comfort was gone. In the distance, he heard a car door slam.

"Elmer!" A voice exclaimed, "Its so good to see you!"

Excitement buzzed throughout the family as they parted to let Albert through the crowd. He didn't stop to even look at Elmer, didn't say a word, just threw his arms around the brunette boy and tugged him into a tight hug. Elmer melted, to say the least, and any emotion he may have crushed, bottled, or discarded came rushing back into him as Albert's arms tightened around his shoulders.

"I've missed you, a lot." Albert pulled away to get a good look at Elmer and found himself almost starstruck and how impossibly good, Elmer looked. He was no longer the acne faced teenage dork who lovingly followed him around; he was, for lack of a better word, beautiful. Albert focused in on the dark constellation like freckles dotted his cheeks and nose that had been hidden by acne in his teenage years, he wanted to trace them and learn every constellation that dotted Elmer's face, what was happening to him?

Albert was staring at him, Elmer could tell, but he didn't care. It gave him the chance to stare right on back, taking in every new freckle, scar, and mark that hadn't been there the last time he saw Albert. He was quick to cast his gaze away, unlike the other.

"You look good." He managed out.

Albert was broken from his trance, "You look great, like really good. It's so nice to see you." He spoke quickly and a bit nervously, a soft blush spreading across his face. Elmer smiled, and everything felt like it was how it should be.

Lunch went by surprisingly smooth, and now the two found themselves back in Elmer's hotel room, Albert sprawled out on the bed with Elmer sitting next to him. The previous conversation Albert had had with Elmer's brother still couldn't worm its way out of his consciousness, and he couldn't figure out why.

"Your brother says you got over me, is that true?"

"The key word there is got, Albie," Elmer sighed, "I think I just convinced myself I had though." Albert nodded, satisfied with the answer. "How about you? Still single and straight?"

"Still single, less straight." Elmer choked on air, spiraling into a coughing fit. Albert laughed, "I've had some experiences since I've left."

"I do not want to hear about them." Elmer heaved, catching his breath. Albert just responded with another laugh. "You're telling me after all these years you're not straight!?"

Albert gave him a sheepish grin and nodded, "Maybe you'll end up getting your dream, cutie." He winked and rolled off of the bed. Elmer blushed furiously; Albert's sexuality was the main thing that prevented him from having any hope of anything actually coming from his crush on Albert, and now Albert wasn't straight. Elmer was doomed.

"Don't work yourself up too much about it." Albert had popped up off the floor, resting his chin against the edge of the bed, "You always stress yourself out, even though I know you can't help it." Elmer knew he was right, but instead of admitting it, he rolled his eyes and playfully shoved Albert's head off the bed. The redhead was quick to his feet and practically pounced onto the bed, tacking Elmer against the white linens. His fingers dug themselves into his sides, the brunette broke down into uncontrollable laughter.

"Stop!" He gasped, "No tickling!" This only prompted Albert to ticking him harder.

Soundless laughs and wheezes escaped from Elmer's mouth, and Albert laughed along with him. He slowly ceased his attack and lingered a second, before flopping to the side where he lay next to the other boy. Elmer's eyes were alight with excitement and his face was flushed red from laughing. Albert wished they could stay like this forever, and Elmer secretly did too. Albert let out a sigh and sat up, there was no mistaking the fact that he was developing feelings for Elmer, but it felt wrong, selfish even. Elmer held such a strong affection for him for two decades, and he was just now. beginning to return those feelings. He felt guilty, like he was leading the boy on, even though he did hold feelings for him. They were just so sudden they almost felt fake, even though he knew they weren't. Maybe they weren't new and he was just now accepting that he could in fact, have feelings for Elmer. It was all too confusing. Elmer noticed his change in moods quickly and, in a daring move, reached out to grab his hand. Albert smiled, and squeezed his hand softly, Elmer squeezed back.

"What made me so special? Why love me for so long?" It was a question that often crossed both boys minds. Elmer shrugged.

"I never really knew, I wish I did."

The answer didn't satisfy any curiosity, but he accepted it. Albert took a breath and felt his heartbeat quicken as he prepared himself for what he was about to say.

"I think I might be falling for you."

"You.... what?" Elmer was stunned, to say the least. He had dreamed of this day almost his entire life, but this was not how he imagined it going down.

"Falling, for you, I was worried about it happening before we met up again but i didn't think it actually would." Albert was blushing profusely, giving his hair a run for its money. He began to ramble nervously, "I understand if you think I'm a jerk for just now developing feelings-"

"Al." Elmer tried to get his attention.

"-and if you don't want anything to come with it because of how much I've probably led you on-"

"Albie." He tried again

"-and you even said you moved on once so maybe if you just ignore me you could do it again-"

"Albert!" Albert was broken out of his rambling worry, Elmer smiled at him "Be my date to the wedding?"

Albert broke out into the biggest grin Elmer had ever seen, "Hell yeah."

The wedding night was almost magically perfect. The ceremony went smoothly, Elmer would never admit the fact that he may have payed more attention to Albert than the actual ceremony, but it was true. Both boys were absolutely gobsmacked at how nice the other looked in their tuxedos, they danced with each other all night, and if anyone noticed their interlocked hands under the table at the dinner, they didn't say anything. Soon their night came to an end, and Albert watched out of the corner of his eye as the newly wed bride tossed her bouquet of flowers into the air. He turned to find Elmer in the crowd, who gave him a wink, holding the bouquet in his hands.

#fanfiction #newsies live #newsies the musical #elmer kasprzak #albert dasilva #Almer #elmer×albert #elmer kasprzak×albert dasilva #elmer newsies #albert newsies #my writing #newsies fanfiction #this is a long one boys

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rebelsofshield · 5 years

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Star Wars Thrawn: Treason-Review

Timothy Zahn closes out the newest Thrawn trilogy with a mixed tale of intrigue and divided loyalties.

(Review Contains Minor Spoilers)

Grand Admiral Thrawn has been called away from Lothal. Just as the campaign against the local rebels begins to heat up, the future of the Chiss admiral’s pet project, the TIE Defender is called into question. Director Orson Krennic is jockeying for some of the Defender’s funding for his own mysterious project, Stardust, and Imperial higher ups such as Grand Moff Tarking and even the Emperor himself are all too willing to pit these men against each other. However, when a series of accidents begin to set Stardust behind schedule, Tarkin proposes a wager. If Thrawn is able to solve the cause of these incidents within an allotted period of time, he will secure the funding for his program. He agrees, but in the process unearths an unexpected conspiracy not only connected to the Empire but to the Chiss Ascendancy and his former protégé, Eli Vanto.

It has been a special treat for Star Wars fans seeing veteran franchise writer, Timothy Zahn, return to reimagine his signature creation for the newest era of the saga. Zahn’s first of this latest batch of Thrawn novels, simply titled Thrawn, proved to be one of the best novels in the current canon and offered an air of legitimacy to the Chiss’s introduction to the Star Wars animated show, Rebels. Zahn reimagined Thrawn as an atypical protagonist, a shining beacon of competence in a sea of Imperial prejudice and bureaucracy. This continued into the novel’s follow up, Thrawn: Alliances, which saw the titular character teaming up with Darth Vader in the present while flashing back to a Clone Wars era mission with Padme and Anakin. While not reaching the heights of its predecessor, Alliances still shined with its fun character mashups. However, with the third installment in this makeshift trilogy, the cracks with this latest batch of Thrawn novels are beginning to show.

The largest narrative flaw with Thrawn: Treason is a quandary that has slowly become more and more prevalent with each passing entry in Zahn’s reimagining of this character: Thrawn simply does not make for an interesting protagonist. Part of what has always made Thrawn such a thrilling antagonist in his original Expanded Universe appearances and later in Star Wars Rebels was his impenetrable mind and analytical approach to combat. Thrawn was always three steps ahead of our heroes and approached tasks with a logic that was both alien but also brutally practical. Zahn with these novels has had the unenviable task of translating this form of malevolent super-intelligence into an entertaining and compelling lead character.

The result has been the more or less refashioning of the Grand Admiral into a sort of alien Sherlock Holmes. Zahn has structured all three of his novels as a sequence of problems and conflicts that require Thrawn’s uniquely capable solutions. Thrawn proved most successful at this by not only making the titular character an underdog of rationality in the petty and flawed bureaucracy of the Empire, but also focusing the narrative through his protégé Eli Vanto. Eli’s modest goals and everyman persona made for a relatable step into Thrawn’s alien worldview and helped guide Zahn’s procedural narrative. Beginning Alliances in a season of power, Thrawn’s only real barrier was stripped away. While its flashback sequences offered an atypical Clone Wars adventure with a fun team up, its present day narrative suffered through a seemingly unflappable Thrawn and a frustratingly clueless Darth Vader sidekick.

What was once his greatest feature, Thrawn’s competence becomes Treason’s biggest failure. Zahn keeps Thrawn’s alien nature and intelligence but jettisons any menace or personal flaw and in the process creates a sterile and boringly successful protagonist. While Zahn does his best to populate the novel with an eclectic supporting ensemble, Treason cannot shake the fact that its primary protagonist lacks any sort of narrative or emotional tension. Zahn continues to write Thrawn as the brilliant mind able to outthink everyone else in the room, but in this case it robs any scene of suspense or even genuine conflict. Thrawn’s success rate is close to pristine and never once does one feel worried about his success or his crew.

Zahn also seems oddly unwilling to challenge Thrawn on a personal level as well. This proves especially odd given that the marketed point for this novel was supposedly testing Thrawn’s loyalty to the Empire when faced with the presence of the Chiss Ascendancy. While characters do occasionally raise this question to the Grand Admiral, he never quite crosses over into any territory that would cause the reader to question where he may side. It hints towards a larger problem in that this current take on the character never really strays morally or ethically. At times it feels almost as if Zahn has forgotten that Thrawn was originally depicted as an antagonist. The clinical brutality present in Rebels or Heir to the Empire is absent, replaced with a hyper-capable and empathetic force devoid of flaw or challenge. It’s done the cardinal sin for any signature character and made them boring.

This is not to say that Treason is a completely disposable read. Despite its utterly dull approach to its central character, the novel does offer an enjoyable military science-fiction mystery. Zahn crafts a fun “down the rabbit-hole” narrative that starts with a relatively innocuous task and rapidly evolves into a conspiracy that involves three galactic governments and the upper levels of the Empire. While there are a few narrative jumps that are fairly hard to track, there is a fun feeling of trying to keep up with Thrawn’s logic and solve the mystery alongside him. The general plot structure in a way almost feels more akin to a Star Trek episode. The concerns of intergalactic politics, procedure, and individual alien culture are highly important to the story and don’t feel that far away from the sort of issues that might beleaguer the crew of the Enterprise. Come to think of it, Zahn’s Thrawn is rapidly becoming a less fun version of Spock.

Lore hounds are sure to appreciate the further unveiling of the culture of the Chiss Ascendancy and their enemies, the mysterious Grysk. Zahn keeps the details sparse but intriguing, teasing out reveals of information through his various point of view characters and the plot points of the novel’s key mystery. While it clearly will not happen given Thrawn’s near “Lost In Space-status” and the collapse of the Empire, the idea of Palpatine’s government having to successfully navigate conflict with two other capable civilizations is an interesting one and is fertile ground for future storytelling.

The true stars of Treason prove to be the novel’s supporting cast, of which newcomer Vice Director Brierly Ronan steals the show. Designed as Director Orson Krennic’s right hand man, Ronan is both a delightful piece of dramatic irony and a welcome wild card to the tidy plotting of Treason. Ronan’s pure adoration of Krennic is an enjoyably playful in-joke to Star Wars fans who know how petulant and self-absorbed the man can be and it makes for a refreshingly different world view. His shifting loyalties and mostly self-motivated goals also throw a needed wrench into Thrawn’s endless planning and deducing and frequently upend conflicts and turn them into new directions. He quickly becomes a character that one loves to hate and also a much needed narrative catalyst at the same time. His presence into every scene demands not only an eye roll but attention and what more could you want from a minor antagonist.

It also helps that Ronan becomes a fun foil for returning character, Eli Vanto. Eli’s good natured support of Thrawn and accidental importance proved to be the heart of Zahn’s first novel in this series and, once again, Eli is a standout. Eli enters Treason with the most dramatic baggage and carries with him some of the most personal stakes of the narrative. Having abandoned the Empire by request of Thrawn at the end of the previous novel, Eli now not only spends his days amongst an alien civilization that doesn’t understand him (in an amusing detail, the Chiss rewrite his name to make sense for their own culture turning him into El’ivant’o), but also with knowing the fact that his old home and family regard him as a deserter and traitor. It forces Eli to cover his tracks when dealing with the Empire but also still strive to impress and survive amongst the relative coldness of the Chiss. The dynamic transforms him and Thrawn into a two person bridge between governments and revives that enjoyable master/student dynamic that made Thrawn such a pleasure.

Treason proves to be a frustrating read as a whole. Its plot is entertaining enough and its supporting characters easily carry the reader through its length, but Zahn’s glass hands approach to his signature character is threatening to undermine what made these projects so fun to begin with. Perhaps the relatively truncated in-universe timeline of this story proved a detriment? There’s really only so much that can be done with the character between the span of a few episodes of Rebels. Regardless, if Zahn ever does get the chance to return to this character, we will need to see him challenged more. Let him make mistakes, let him be a little evil, and let him have something, anything at all, to strive for. As it is, Thrawn is starting to feel like a favorite toy, and nothing more.

Score: C

#Star Wars #Star Wars novels #review #reviews #Timothy Zahn #Thrawn #Grand Admiral Thrawn #Mitth'raw'nuruodo #Thrawn: Treason #Star Wars Thrawn: Treason

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glapplebloom · 5 years

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(Image came from this video)

One is one third the reason I am back to enjoy Dragon Ball after... GT... The other is the true continuation that ensured GT can never exist.

For those who don’t know, Dragon Ball Multiverse is a Fan Comic based on continuing where Dragon Ball Z left off. It is thanks to this series (as well as Kai and Abridged) that got me to re-appreciate the Dragon Ball series after GT left a bad taste in my mouth.

Soon after, Dragon Ball Super arrived. This continued where Dragon Ball Z left off before the 20 year time skip seen at the end of the series. And like Multiverse, they had their own Tournament where multiverses crossed over. I figured the fans of Multiverse would be ecstatic, but I was wrong.

I broke my own rule and read the comments, and they were not kind. Some criticized the comic for some of the actions they have taken, some even comparing it to Super, and others have defended it while taking it out on Super. So I’m going to take a look at three things to note...

1 - Tournaments

I enjoy tournament storylines. Its why I even got interested in Multiverse in the first place. But both have been criticized for having filler by having universes that were mostly fodder in comparison. So I am going to compare and contrast the two series.

Multiverse take on, well, Multiverse is the full blown Multiverse Theory: where any change in a timeline leads to a completely different Universe. So a lot of these are all What Ifs: What if the Frosts stood around, what if Babidi won, what if Bardock defeated Frieza, things like that. With all that in mind, initially your thoughts of front runners are Goku, Vegeta and Vegetto.

As the tournament continues, more front runners appear as Vegetto is taken out. On one side of the bracket, you know Goku and Vegeta are likely going to be in the Semi-Finals, even with Uub being taught by Goku and Cell’s training. On the other side, the creator's OCs known as XXI, his version of Son Bra and Gast are likely going to be heavy focus on the tournament.

The Tournament ends, according to a comment I noticed, with most of the competition sent away as Babidi has his mind controlled people attack those who remained. Kind of sad that the reason I even read the series is not going to have a proper conclusion.

Super, on the other hand, has its own take on the Multiverse. There are 12 universes, with only two being sister Universes where they share many things but diverged greatly. So things like Trunks is considered a different timeline. Also, their Tournament of Power is less a tournament and more a big team battle royal. So its not specific people who are Front Runners but the entire team itself.

Of course, you came in expecting its going to end up being Goku Vs Jiren (the “big bad” of this story line) to determine who wins. Along the way, we’ve seen some fun fights from most of the cast (if you see the Anime). While you knew it was going to come down to Universe 7 Vs Universe 12, you didn’t know exactly which members were going to make it.

The Tournament ends with a three on one battle with Goku AND Frieza, surprisingly, working together to eliminate Jiren from the match. And the surprise to everyone, Android 17 was the winner for being the last one in the ring.

With the Super Anime likely to come back with the success of the Broly movie and the continuation of the Manga, combined with Multiverse continuing beyond its tournament story line, how does these tournament factor to the future of these two series.

With the Mulitverse, we’re seeing it already as participants and guests are fighting Babidi’s mind controlled people. With the future it is likely XXI is going to be this series big bad and Buu having something going on with an Elder Kai. But honestly, I don’t see much beyond that I want to see.

In comparison, Super continues on with Goku being excited after the tournament. So likely, we will be visiting these universes in the future. And because of how unique they are in comparison to the What-If universes there is a lot of potential. Off the bat, we still have Vegeta wanting to see the planet Cabba came from. And honestly, I do want to see the Z-Crew visit those other worlds again.

2 - Broly

Before Dragon Ball Super: Broly, I was not a fan. To me, he represented the worse of the Dragon Ball Fandom: all about power levels and screaming. While the original movie did have things going for it, the later ones definitely ruined it.

Multiverse has three different takes on Broly: First is basically the Movie stripped down to basically screaming Kakarot and having “power continually rising”. He gets beaten by Vegitto and sent back to his dimension, never to be seen again. Second is Raichi’s ghost form, which had his power but Raichi controlled. Their final one is a Broly who became the ruler and was crazy. He got killed by Bardock’s planning, thus why Raichi can control him now. That’s pretty much all there is to their Brolys.

Super, on the other hand, had two takes on Broly. First is Kale, who is closer to Broly than the other one. Like Broly, she was a powerhouse who went Berserk when fully powered. Unlike Broly, she had something that helped her grow as a character: Caulifla. Their relationship (regardless of how you see her) gave her more depth than the original Broly and the Ability to grow. Their other take is Broly by name. He’s a guy who didn’t want to fight but his father raised to get revenge on Vegeta. It ends with him living a seemingly peaceful life back on the planet he used to call home and Goku visiting him willing to teach him.

Pretty much both Kale and Super Broly bring in a lot more than any previous Broly does, including Multiverse’s. Super Broly has an interesting story that is likely to continue and even Kale could possibly bring in more story. With the Multiverse, it just felt like fanservice.

3 - The Broken Base Character

Two characters that stand out in the wrong was are Bra in Multiverse and Jiren in Super. Both are super strong characters and in theory the strongest of the active competitors. But they do not have the fans enjoyment like other members.

Son Bra is the daughter of Vegitto and Bulma. Her biggest criticism is that she doesn’t receive any consequences. Nearly kills Vegitto. She feels bad but nothing changes. Lesson: Don’t kill this person. She failed and didn’t even get scolded. Tricked by King Frost so she can’t use her Super Form. Uses Senzu Bean and hidden trick. Surprise, Ginyu! Back to normal a few pages later. It does seem pretty bad that she hasn’t really shown any sort of character growth.

Jiren, on the other hand, is just boring. Ridiculously Super Strong despite us having deities to fight now. The design is boring. And his origin is not really that interesting, in either version. The Manga version is a little better to me, but that’s just my opinion. Also my opinion is that Jiren does get better in the end. Of course, by that point he’s running on fumes as well as everyone else.

The thing is both series have better characters. Gast is similar to Jiren but with a better reason for being stronger and able to have more to him than “Power is everything”. Meanwhile Toppo showed so much personality, desire and a unique story of him throwing away his pride to become a God of Destruction while Vegeta keeps his pride to defeat him. While the above characters do have problem, both series showed they could create something unique.

Multiverse has one disadvantage Super does not have: it is a fan comic. As true as they try to be, they still have some of the same trappings as others: making changes to benefit their work, boosting their favorites, having their OCs or their own interpretations be a big focus. And while having every other chapter focus on a different universe sounds interesting, they are not really brought up in the main story.

Conversely, Super is focusing on making money, so they try to make a show as good as they can. They fail at times, but they do try their best to introduce new (to Dragon Ball) ideas. And with the original creator giving them ideas and concepts (Beerus I have to say is a lot more interesting than anything DBM made), its hard for a fan comic to be considered their favorite.

So while I do believe Super is superior to Multiverse, its like comparing someone’s school fair to Disney World: its just not a fair comparison. They have a story they want to tell and they made the moves they did to tell it. And you have to respect them for that.

#other

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theartofbeinganerd · 6 years

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I absolutely love your stories!!!! And blog!!!! Thank you for sharing them!!! I’m still heartbroken over the finale... would you be able to write a fun fic about Fitz and Deke remeeting where Deke interacts with Fitz before he sees anyone else from the team and he is unaware of what happened to the other Fitz so both are confused, then Jemma comes and is happy to see Deke didn’t blink out if existence, and upset that Deke didn’t even say goodbye before leaving. Just some fun family fluff! :)

Aww thanks anon!! :) There is a lil bit of angst in this, just because of the subject material, but the family feels are still very much there! :D

Also, I know I said that I’d be writing all of my prompts in order for the Summer of Writing, but I figured I’d switch it up a bit and throw in a s6 spec prompt every now and then. I’m sure that’s a lot of what you guys are wanting to read right now, anyway!

(Ao3)

“Fitz!”

At the sound of his name, Fitz paused in hisexploration of their new base, the Lighthouse, whirling around and peering aroundthe corner of the hallway that he’d just passed by. There, he found a man that he’dnever seen before, grinning at him and waving, now picking up his pace to catch upwith him.

Unsure what to do, Fitz hesitantly stepped forward tomeet him, rubbing at the back of his neck as he tried to figure out how tohandle this. They’d been back at the Lighthouse for only a few hours now, andwhile Jemma was putting their things away in the bunk she’d said was theirs, he’ddecided to give her some time and have a more thorough look around – in thebrief amount of time that he’d spent there before cryo-freezing himself, hehadn’t seen much of the vast bunker at all.

Finally reaching him, the man, who had dark hair anda beard, greeted, “Hey! Where is everybody?”

Fitz briefly glanced at the empty halls around them,wondering if this man had made a mistake somehow or was talking to somebodyelse – even though that was a bit far-fetched, given that he had referred to him by name. “Uh…”

“I mean, I’ve been all over this place,” the mancontinued, seemingly not noticing Fitz’s obvious confusion or lack of response.He chuckled, patting Fitz on the shoulder and offering him a relieved grin ashe said, “I’m glad I found you, at least.”

“Everyone’s um…getting settled back in,” Fitz finallyreplied, eyeing the man warily and wondering just how much detail he should gointo. Obviously, he had to be involved with SHIELD somehow if he’d gotten intothe Lighthouse, and it was easy to deduce that he must’ve known the Fitzthat hadn’t made it out of Chicago, but thisFitz still had no idea who he was.

“Yeah, I actually stopped back in last week and no one washere,” the man went on, widening his eyes as he held out his hands helplessly. “Bigmission or something? I didn’t see anything on that…news thing you guys have.”

Fitz squinted at him slightly, making a bit of a face as heanswered simply, “Something like that, yeah.”

The man nodded sagely, agreeing easily, “Yeah, I thought so.And hey, great job on saving the world from falling apart, by the way.”

“Er…thanks,” Fitz muttered, even though he’d had nothing todo with that particular victory.

Suddenly, the man frowned, squinting at him in much the sameway that Fitz had been looking at him just moments ago. “You okay, man? You’reacting even weirder than usual.”

“Uh…”

“Deke?”

Jemma’s surprised, eager voice had them both turning, andFitz gave a silent sigh of relief to see her heading toward them. Clearly, sheknew who this guy was, and would be able to make this conversation (if it couldeven be called one) a lot less awkward.

“Jemma!” the man – Deke, apparently, which Fitz thought wasa rather strange name (but that didn’t mean much coming from a Leopold, did it?) – greeted her, a grinspreading across his face once more.

“Oh Deke, I’m so relieved to see you,” Jemma told him,stepping right up to him and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. “We weren’tsure what happened to you after we’d changed the timeline.”

Deke returned her embrace with only a brief second ofhesitation, admitting, “Yeah, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen either,for awhile there. Half expected that any moment, the world would crack apart,or I’d just disappear.”

Jemma stepped back, her smile still firmly in place – until hereyes narrowed in an expression that was veryfamiliar to Fitz. Then, she gave Deke’s shoulder a little smack, planting herhands on her hips. “I can’t believe that you didn’t even say goodbye before youleft! What if we’d never seen each other again?”

More than a little bemused by Jemma’s interaction with Deke,Fitz glanced back and forth between the two of them, the latter now lookingproperly chastised after her reprimand. “I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Dekesighed. “I just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, see as much ofthis world as I could before I lost my chance.”

“Wait,” Fitz cut in suddenly, causing both Jemma and Deke toturn and look at him, “you’re from the future? The one where the planetactually did break apart?”

Deke stared at him blankly, as though he’d just spoken in aforeign language, but Fitz noticed a flash of guilt crossing Jemma’s features.It was followed by a heavy sadness, then a brief resignation, only for herexpression to ultimately settle on determination.

“Um, yeah?” Deke said finally, glancing between Fitz andJemma, as though looking for some sort of answer as to what was happening. “You’veknown that for ages. What…what’s going on?”

Jemma released a quiet sigh, tucking a strand of hair behindher ear, and met Fitz’s gaze as she gestured toward Deke. “Do you remember whenI told you about…our grandson?”

Fitz, of course, remembered very clearly the briefconversation that they’d shared on the Zephyr just days ago, headed back towardEarth. He’d sensed that there was something she wasn’t telling him, something thatshe was holding back – more than just what he’d been told about them stoppingthe upcoming apocalypse, and then coming to wake him up.

But, he hadn’t pushed her on it, and had given her some timeand space, let her come to him when she was ready. After a bit, she’d done justthat, and had begun to explain everything that had happened while he’d been incryo-sleep, to explain about the version of him that had made it to the future,only to be lost after they’d returned to the present and saved the planet fromits impending doom.

She’d also mentioned them having a grandson that had comeback to the present with them, but she hadn’t gone into much more detail thanthat, let alone mentioned his name – and, well, Fitz had been in far too muchshock at the very idea to ask.

Quickly putting two and two together, Fitz turned to gape atDeke, looking at him with new eyes. This man was their grandson (well, their grandson from an alternate future, one wherehis future self hadn’t died and had instead lived to conceive his mother)? “This– he’s – our…?”

“Yes,” Jemma answered simply, taking a step closer andresting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“A bit, yeah,” Fitz replied a little absently, arching hiseyebrows and dragging a hand through his hair as he studied Deke. He didn’t look much like either of them (he didn’teven have an accent), and he wasdecidedly…strange, but that could just be because he was from a future where he’dspent his whole life in a bunker run by aliens.

“What is happening?”Deke finally burst out, throwing his hands up and shaking his head. “You’veknown that you were my grandparents since waybefore I left! Remember, you thought I was an annoying kid, and I thought youwere a grumpy old man? What, did you get your memory erased or something?” Whenneither of them spoke, his hands dropped to his sides and his eyes widened. Ina whisper, he asked, “Oh my god, did you really lose your memory?”

“I didn’t lose my memory,” Fitz told him flatly, folding hisarms over his chest and glancing at Jemma beside him, waiting for whatever hernext move was going to be. He didn’t really feel that it was his place to bethe one to tell Deke what had happened to the Fitz that he’d known, after all.

“Deke,” Jemma murmured, closing the space between them oncemore and placing a gentle hand on his arm, “there are some things that you…missed,after you left. Things that didn’t happen in previous loops.”

Deke frowned, his brow furrowing. “Well, yeah, because theplanet’s fine.”

“No, other things,” she corrected, shaking her head. “Fitzwas very brave, he helped Mack and May rescue Robin’s mother, who unfortunatelyhadn’t made it previous loops. But…”

She paused, and Fitz noticed her blinking rapidly to holdback the inevitable tears, and he watched as she briefly bowed her head in thegrief that was obviously still there, and likely always would be. Offeringsilent support, he slipped his hand into her free one, lacing their fingerstogether. Almost immediately, she gripped it tightly, gaining the strength tocontinue from him.

“But he was hurt very badly,” Jemma went on after a longmoment, raising her head to meet Deke’s confused gaze once more. “And…and he…wasn’table to survive his injuries.”

“What…” Clearly confused, Deke blinked, glancing at Fitzstanding right there beside her. He shook his head, obviously not comprehendingwhat she was telling him. “But he’s rightthere, I’m looking at him, I was talkingto him!”

“That’s where we were, why no one was at the Lighthouse,”Fitz explained to him, giving Jemma’s hand a supportive little squeeze.

“Fitz got to the future by putting himself in cryo-sleep,”she told Deke, “and when he…when we lost him, we took a trip out into space tofind the version of him that was asleep.” With that, she nodded her head towardFitz.

It took a moment, but then Deke’s grew wide and his mouthdropped open. He gaped wordlessly at Fitz for a beat, then slapped his handagainst his forehead, his voice rising as he asked incredulously, “Fitz died? He really just… And – and, this isa different Fitz? That’s why he doesn’tremember anything?”

“He’s not a different Fitz,” Jemma corrected, quicklyshaking her head, and Fitz had a feeling that she was so quick to correct himbecause it was something that she’d had to struggle with as well after losingthe version of him that she’d married, that she’d met Deke with, that she’dtried to stop the end of the world with. “He’s simply the Fitz that didn’tquite make it to the future to save us, because we weren’t there anymore.Really, he only lost a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, I…I guess,” Deke agreed hesitantly, eyeing Fitz asthough he was now a stranger – which, in a way, Fitz supposed that he was.

And, with that in mind, Fitz cleared his throat and held outhis free hand to Deke. “Um…hey, I’m Fitz. I’m…your grandpa, I suppose. Nice tomeet you.”

Deke’s eyebrows rose slightly as he studied Fitz and hisoutstretched hand, but after a moment the corner of his mouth quirked upslightly and he took the offered hand, shaking it. “Deke. Where I come from, Iactually called you ‘Bobo’, but…let’s just stick to Fitz, okay?” He paused,then added, “And, nice to meet you too. Again.”

“Bobo?” Fitzrepeated to himself under his breath, making a face. He glanced at Jemma then,and was surprised to find that there were tears standing in her eyes, but thata content smile was spreading across her lips. It was one of the few, trulyhappy smiles that he’d seen on her face since he’d woken up to find thateverything had changed, to find that she’d been broken apart by losing himwhile he’d simply been sleeping through it all.

And, well, if the three of them being a family (albeit avery…unconventional one) made herthat happy, if it put that smile on her face, Fitz would gladly accept Dekewith open arms.

“Why don’t we head to control, see who else is around? I’msure they’ll be pleased to see that you’re alright, Deke,” Jemma offered, gesturingin the direction of the control center.

“Sure,” Deke agreed easily, following them as they beganheading down the hall. “Oh!” Suddenly elbowing Fitz lightly in the ribs, he pointedout, “Hey, you don’t remember it, but you promised to teach me how to playcatch.”

Frowning and narrowing his eyes slightly at Deke, Fitzasked, “I did?”

“Yeah, definitely. Like, after the whole ‘end of the world’thing was over, you said you’d be happyto show me.” Deke nodded emphatically, arching his eyebrows high on hisforehead. “So, when are you free?”

Slightly bewildered, Fitz glanced between Deke and Jemma,who was trying unsuccessfully to hide her amused laughter behind her hand.

Well, it looked like being a grandfather was yetanother item to add to the growing list of things that he was going to have toadjust to now.

#shayna writes #fsfic #fitzsimmons #prompts #deke shaw #post 5x22 #season six speculation #fitzsimmons family #if there isn't any fs family feels in s6 #i'm gonna sue #you can't just dangle grandparent fs in front of us #and then take it away #you can pry this family from my cold dead hands aos #Anonymous

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oscopelabs · 6 years

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War Starts At Midnight: The Three Wartime Visions of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger by Josh Spiegel

Few filmmakers have made films as thematically rich as those from writers/directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the 1940s. From 1943 to 1949, Powell and Pressburger, better known as the Archers, made seven superlative films that leapfrog genres with heedless abandon, from wartime epic to fantastical romance to psychosexual thriller to ballet drama. Thanks largely to cinephilic champions such as Martin Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who married Powell in 1984), as well as home-media ventures like The Criterion Collection, the Archers’ films have received a vital and necessary second life.

While the Archers’ 1940s-era septet have recognizable throughlines as well as a reliable stable of performers, three of those films are cut from the same cloth, despite telling radically different stories with varying tones. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, and A Matter of Life and Death all take place, at least in part, during World War II, and all three films depict a nation at war, as much with other countries as with itself. When we think of British culture, we think of the stiff-upper-lip mentality depicted in popular culture for decades, typified by how Brits acted and reacted in World War II. But the Archers, in this wartime trio, debated the validity of fighting a war with that old-fashioned mentality, offering up films designed to be propagandistic enough to be approved for release but that also asked what it meant to be British in seemingly perpetual wartime.

* * *

“But war starts at midnight!” -- Clive Wynne-Candy

“Oh, yes, you say war starts at midnight. How do you know the enemy says so too?” -- Spud Wilson

The nuance of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was likely always going to make it a sore spot for the British government. Colonel Blimp was not original to The Archers; he was a comic-strip character created by David Low in the 1930s, meant to skewer puffed-up elder statesmen of the British military. The stereotype of a fatheaded, pompous fool had pervaded the national consciousness so much that Winston Churchill feared the Archers’ adaptation would revive the public’s critical perception of the military when support was needed the most. But while the title invokes Colonel Blimp, the lead character is never referred to as Blimp, and is much less foolish than he may seem when initially seen attacking a young British soldier in a Turkish bath. Powell and Pressburger used the character and the staid, fusty old notions of British militarism as a jumping-off point for a detailed, poignant character study.

Set over four decades, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp begins near its finale, as Great Britain struggles to gain a foothold over the Nazis. We first see our Colonel Blimp, the portly, bald, and mustachioed Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey), beset upon by younger soldiers in the club where he now lives as part of a training exercise. Clive is infuriated because they’ve started hours earlier than planned; before the smug young soldier leading the charge can explain himself, the two get into a tussle that speaks to why Powell and Pressburger wanted to tell this story. In the production of their previous film, One of Our Aircraft is Missing, the directors removed a scene where an elderly character tells a younger one, “You don’t know what it’s like to be old.” (The idea that this could serve as the thematic backbone to an entire feature was provided by the Archers’ then-editor, David Lean.) Clive’s rage at being taken off-guard leads him to thrash young Spud Wilson and teach him a lesson: “You laugh at my big belly, but you don’t know how I got it! You laugh at my mustache, but you don’t know why I grew it!”

And so, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp flashes back 40 years, a rare instance where a movie indulging in the now-hoary in medias res technique pays dramatic dividends. The rest of the film focuses on three points in the life of the man known first as Clive Candy: his time in the Boer War, the devastating World War I, and his twilight years of service as World War II ramps up. For a war film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp offers exceedingly little bloodshed. Powell and Pressburger’s film examines how such gruesome action informs men like Clive away from the battlefield, instead of depicting that action in full. Each section of Blimp shows how his noble efforts make him hardened and intractable over time, even against the tide of a truly tyrannical force. At first, Clive’s militaristic mantra is honorable: “Right is might.” But as the film reaches its third hour, he learns that his theory, one embodied by his nation, has been so cruelly disproven by the Nazi scourge that he and Britain must change their ways.

In the earliest section, Clive steps to the aid of Edith Hunter (a young Deborah Kerr), a British governess in Berlin who’s concerned about a German soldier spreading anti-British lies regarding their treatment of South African women and children in the Boer War. In so doing, and after insulting high-ranking German officers, Clive must duel with a German soldier chosen by lot, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). Watching a Brit face off with a German soldier might’ve felt appropriate, at least to the watchful eye of the British government. But Powell and Pressburger shrewdly show us the build-up to the duel itself, not the actual fight; instead, we see the aftermath, as Clive and Theo both convalesce in the same hospital, become close friends, and fall in love with Edith. Only Theo is lucky enough to win her heart; though Edith has as much love in her heart for Clive as for Theo, Clive only grasps his feelings once she’s left his life.

Portraying Theo, the film’s major German character, as surprisingly decent is one significant way in which the Archers brought nuance to what might have been another propagandistic WWII-era film. His innate humanity becomes heartbreaking as the film progresses. In the second section, Theo is a prisoner of war who’s initially too proud to admit his previous connection to Clive, before they reunite briefly. In the final section, Theo is older and much wiser than his friend, yet no luckier. He’s seen in a British immigration office, attempting to leave Germany on his own: his two sons have become Nazis and Edith has passed away. (“None of my sons came to her funeral. Heil Hitler,” Theo says grimly.) Theo then explains what drew him back to the UK, in a measured yet passionate soliloquy. No matter how many faults Theo sees in the Brits—after he reconnects with Clive post-WWI, Theo tries to point out that regular citizens “can’t be adjusted from war to peace as easily as you”—it is still a far kinder place to live than Germany. That the film’s most impassioned speech, expressing fondness for the British way of life, comes from a German is one of its many welcome surprises.

The film’s most haunting twist revolves around the women in Clive’s life. When Edith joins Theo in Germany, Clive is so shaped by her memory that when he settles down and marries the charming Barbara Wynne, she just so happens to look like Edith’s twin. Barbara, like Edith, passes away before World War II begins, but though Clive has aged, he hasn’t changed; his driver, Angela “Johnny” Cannon, looks just like Barbara and Edith, to the point where he introduces Johnny to Theo, fully aware that both men spot the similarity. Kerr, thus, is playing three strong-willed women, all of whom feel like perfect fits with the men of the film.

Clive, like his country, stays firmly and proudly rooted in the past, much to his detriment. When Theo, as an older man, reasons with Clive about how his way of waging war is outdated, it falls on deaf ears despite being a darkly accurate portrait of how WWII could have been lost: “If you let yourself be defeated by them just because you are too fair to hit back the same way they hit at you, there won’t be any methods but Nazi methods.” Only after Spud Wilson’s gambit to throw oldsters like Clive off their game in the training exercise does Clive begrudgingly realize that time has passed him by. The old-fashioned sportsmanship of battle could no longer apply for the Clive Candys of the world; at least this one realized it.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ends wistfully, as Clive surveys the literal waterlogged wreckage of his life, having lost his house in the Blitz. He, Theo, and Johnny stand by the debris, and he recalls Barbara’s long-ago declaration: “You’ll stay just as you are till the floods come.” As he looks at where his house once lay, he says to himself, “Now here is the lake and I still haven’t changed.” Livesey, one of the very best actors to work with the Archers, imbues that line with a fine blend of pride and heartache, as he does with the salute he gives to the passing, much younger army of his native land. This elder statesman isn’t quite Colonel Blimp, only grasping Theo’s warnings about the Nazis after it’s too late, but he can see complexities of his life where others might not.

It took The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, like the other films explored here, years to fully get its due in the U.S. While Churchill didn’t bar Blimp from release in the United Kingdom, he enforced an export ban on the feature because he saw it as a less-than-helpful presentation of the military at such a dire period. (Or, as some have wondered, he may well have seen the older Clive Candy as a critique of him. Of course, Churchill reportedly never saw this film, because that would have been too challenging.) A shortened version was released in U.S. theaters in 1945, cutting out the flashback structure. The truncated TV version, which runs just 90 minutes—the original is 163 minutes— was still able to excite a young Scorsese, who helped fund a restoration in 2013 for this classic.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was, perhaps, doomed for failure; its treatment of people perceived as the enemy could gain resonance only with distance from WWII. The British War Office and Churchill stated their antipathy to the production even before it began filming, refusing the Archers’ request to release Laurence Olivier from service to star as Candy. (Livesey, to note, is wonderful in the film, so the Archers’ loss is our gain.) But Clive Candy was able to weather attacks, and so too was Blimp, the beginning of a seven-year period where the Archers upended expectations, strove to break cinematic ground, and stayed true to their artistic principles. Here is the lake, and still, this movie hasn’t changed. It only grows with age.

* * *

“It’s a great thing to sit back in an armchair and watch the world go by in front of you.” – Sgt. Bob Johnson

“The drawback is…that people may get used to looking at life from the sitting position.” – Thomas Colpeper

Fourteen months after The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Powell and Pressburger released another film set during World War II, which presented both the natural wonder and beauty of England while calmly displaying the ways in which the war had devastated some of its history. A Canterbury Tale wasn’t a hit with critics or audiences in the late summer of 1944; by the time it was released in the United States, the year was 1949, and a movie about three young strangers who journey towards Canterbury Cathedral in the waning months of World War II needed new, American-focused framing scenes to entice audiences.

Over 70 years after its initial release, what can we make of A Canterbury Tale? The allure of this low-key drama is, like its setting, ineffable and mysterious. The three leads, waylaid in the small English town of Chillingbourne while they wait for another train to Canterbury, ostensibly try to solve a mystery whose solution isn’t that mysterious. Some aspects of this film—whose three protagonists were all newcomers—feel less like drama and more like the Archers trying to make UK citizens turn away from the dark days of World War II and remind them of their land’s own beauty. From the vantage point of the 21st century, A Canterbury Tale is an utterly fascinating and serene look at how small towns tried to maintain a community-wide calm in the midst of terror.

Bob Johnson (Sgt. John Sweet) is an American soldier on his way to Canterbury Cathedral to meet a fellow Yank and do right by his mother back home in Three Sisters Falls, Oregon. Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price) is a British soldier who seems outwardly as arrogant as Blimp’s Spud Wilson, even though his true passion is playing the organ. While he plays it at cinemas back home, he’d rather play the kind of organ in the handsomely appointed Canterbury Cathedral. Alison Smith (Sheila Sim) has been conscripted into the Women’s Land Army; assigned to a farm in Chillingbourne, she has personal memories from her time near Canterbury that she can’t help but unearth. These strangers are brought together one dark Friday night by happenstance: Bob misheard the station stop and got off early, but he and Peter end up helping Alison after she’s beset upon by a mysterious figure who puts, of all things, glue in her hair. Strangest of all, this isn’t the first time a young woman was attacked by “the glue man” in Chillingbourne.

In a more predictable film, this inciting incident would lead our trio down some dark paths in Chillingbourne, a name that portends something terrifying. But while there’s an unquestionably disturbing subtext to a man placing “sticky stuff,” as Alison describes it, in young women’s hair, there’s little in the way of conventional twists in A Canterbury Tale. When our heroes meet Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), the magistrate of Chillingbourne who’s coincidentally the farmer to whom Alison has been assigned, it’s immediately obvious that he’s the glue man. Our heroes use the summer weekend, as they wait for the next train to Canterbury, to build up evidence, but as the weekend progresses, Bob and Alison (and eventually Peter) lose interest in solving the case as they fall in love with the British countryside.

Unlike Blimp, A Canterbury Tale has an ensemble of disparate characters who mostly have never seen serious battle. So many of them are average people conscripted into action, trying not to admit how terrified they feel. A Canterbury Tale features no bloodshed, but Powell and Pressburger stuck to the notion of making the film feel like a document of regular civilians by casting few recognizable actors. Portman worked with the Archers on the earlier film 49th Parallel and was, at the time, this film’s most well-known actor. Sweet, on the other end of the spectrum, was the least well-known; this was his first and only role in a film.

Recently, much was made about how Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris, in which three young men who foiled a real-life attack, feature those three men playing themselves. When Powell and Pressburger cast their American character, they didn’t change his name to match the actor’s, but they might as well have: John Sweet was an Army Sergeant at the time, and his first-time performing style is always evident. Unlike the performances in The 15:17 to Paris, however, Sweet’s work is oddly charming. Watching him interact with the ensemble allows for the understandable awkwardness of his performance to take on a double meaning; Sweet is the outsider as much because he’s untrained as because he’s American. Bob Johnson is incurably curious and inquisitive, having so little awareness of British traditions, making his languorous journey through Chillingbourne all the more compelling.

By the close of A Canterbury Tale, all three of our heroes receive a blessing in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. For Bob, it’s a revival of a romance he presumes is finished. His paramour, who he figured had moved on, has instead joined the Women’s Army Corps in Australia and has responded to the letters he thought had been ignored. Even before that, the people Bob meets in Chillingbourne, from the boys playing soldier to the local mechanics and a fellow military man from Seven Sisters in England, serve as a kind of blessing. When we first meet Bob, he’s all too happy to get his visit to Canterbury out of the way; before the movie ends, he’s taken to running down the sloping hills of Chillingbourne with his new friends, an overgrown boy at play. Stopping in Chillingbourne brings him joy even before his love life is given a new chance.

Alison, too, becomes closer to nature as she explores Chillingbourne. Of all people, she finds herself associating with Colpeper, even after she’s correct in presuming that he’s the culprit. Her blessing arises from memories she has of spending a summer outside Chillingbourne in a caravan with her fiancé, now presumed dead. But before she can receive the happy news that her fiancé is alive and well, she has to almost commune with the Earth to try and move on. By the second half, Alison is so in touch with nature that she hears the sounds of music and voices in the hills, akin to the centuries-old pilgrims Chaucer wrote about.

Alison’s connection is validated and shared by Colpeper, with whom she’s convening in those same hills Bob runs down. Even after Alison confirms Colpeper’s nighttime habits, she admits, “I was very mistaken about you.” Their connection is more emotional than anything else; Colpeper tells her that hearing voices as she does only works “when you believe strongly in something.” Colpeper’s strong belief in respecting Britain’s history is how he became the glue man. After his historical lectures were met with boredom and few attendees, he made it so British soldiers had little choice but to listen about their homeland’s history. By giving the soldiers a bad name (other townspeople, including the young women, presume one of them is the glue man), Colpeper assumed he could make a small encouragement to the British military to learn about the land it defended. As he explains to Peter on the train to Canterbury, “There’s no sin in being a savage, but a missionary who doesn’t try to do his duty is a bad missionary.”

Though Portman’s enigmatic performance turns Colpeper frosty even here, the magistrate receives a blessing from an unlikely source: Peter. Though Peter is the most gung-ho of the three young people to find the glue man, he chooses not to give Colpeper away to the authorities after he receives his blessing: the chance to play the Canterbury Cathedral organ. But Peter’s decision to let Colpeper walk is portended in one of the wonderful flourishes thrown in by the Archers in the film’s lush black-and-white cinematography. While on the train to Canterbury, Peter scoffs in response to the magistrate asking him if he is an instrument of judgment and says, “I’ll believe that when I get a halo over my head.” Cue the train light creating a halo effect over him.

There is no action-heavy setpiece in A Canterbury Tale, which instead features plenty of images of the main characters taking in the beauty of Chillingbourne. Through Colpeper, we see how hard it is for regular people to both support the military in wartime and forgive soldiers their vices. Through Peter, we see how soldiers didn’t quite grasp that their presence in small towns threw other people’s lives into upheaval. You could argue that very little happens to the characters in A Canterbury Tale; all that does happen is that Powell and Pressburger let the audience watch these people’s unremarkable yet compelling lives, and that they each secretly want to find some purpose when they arrive in Canterbury. The heroes appreciate what it meant to be British in decades gone by, and reflect on how that impacts their actions in the present. A Canterbury Tale was a love letter to England, made as gorgeous by its rolling hills as by its people. Though it didn’t hit big originally, and additional footage featuring Bob reconnecting with his girlfriend (Kim Hunter, about whom more very shortly) didn’t help it translate in America, A Canterbury Tale is a truly entrancing story of how badly people needed their unique burdens eased in such a horrific time of history.

* * *

“This is the universe. Big, isn’t it?” – Narrator

It’s hard to decide which is the best Archers film. Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, perhaps their most broadly appreciated films in America, are remarkable leaps forward for Technicolor cinematography, while showcasing incredible performances, breathtaking set designs, and more. They are gorgeous films, featuring some of the most jaw-dropping images in the Archers’ filmography. But the film released the year before, suggesting the possibilities of what the Archers would do next, is just a touch greater. It is a film that was well-received initially, despite receiving a new title for its U.S. release; a film that’s only getting its first Region 1 Blu-ray release this summer although it offers some of the richest, most colorful images in Three-Strip Technicolor; a film that’s influenced everything from The Simpsons to Harry Potter. It is A Matter of Life and Death.

What if someone was supposed to die, but got misplaced? What if that person, with their extra time, fell in love before they were found by their bringer of death? This, in effect, is the concept of A Matter of Life and Death, in which Peter Carter (David Niven), a cheerful RAF pilot, is meant to die when he escapes his damaged plane without a parachute. Before Peter jumps, he contacts June, a winsome young American radio operator (Hunter), to share what he presumes are his last thoughts in the strangest Meet Cute ever. Peter jumps from quoting Walter Raleigh to brazenly declaring, “I love you, June. You’re life, and I’m leaving you.” But once Peter exits the plane, the damnedest thing happens: he wakes up on the beaches of England very much alive, after which he meets June in person, officially starting their relationship.

The whimsy of A Matter of Life and Death is clarified when we learn why Peter was apparently able to cheat death: his French conductor (Marius Goring, who co-stars in The Red Shoes) couldn’t locate Peter in the thick English fog. Peter is dismayed to learn that his permanent eternal presence is requested in the Other World, taking him away from June. She, of course, is concerned that her new boyfriend might be going mad; kindly local doctor Frank Reeves (Livesey again) believes Peter might be suffering from a brain injury. The perpetually unanswered question is just that: is Peter hallucinating the Other World because his mind is going, or is he really at death’s stairway?

Powell and Pressburger don’t answer the question, providing just enough medical details, down to the smell Peter notices when he speaks to his Conductor, that it might just be a mental malady. (I submit that Peter isn’t hallucinating the Other World because the film never answers one question: how the hell did he survive that fall from the plane?) The closing moments of the film suggest that either option is possible, when it’s revealed that the judge of the Other World’s court of appeals and the surgeon operating on Peter are played by the same actor.

But the mystery of Peter’s circumstances is not what makes A Matter of Life and Death so special. This is one of the most ambitious films the Archers ever made. It is a buoyant, bursting-with-emotion romance between two star-crossed lovers whose connection is straight out of a fairy tale. It is a film designed to help bridge divides between the British and the Americans in the immediate aftermath of World War II. (The story begins just six days before the European section of WWII concluded.) And it is, above all else by the finale, meant as a rousing and spirited defense of the British people. When the Other World allows Peter to appeal his case, he chooses the firm, well-spoken Reeves—who dies tragically in a motorcycle accident before Peter’s surgery—to plead Peter’s case, passionately arguing in favor of his client’s basic humanity.

In these spectral, spiritual moments, Reeves goes head-to-head with Abraham Farlan (Raymond Massey), the first American felled by a British bullet in the Revolutionary War, in arguing for Peter’s clemency. But it becomes clear that Reeves and Farlan are not arguing over Peter’s right to live longer than originally planned: they are debating what it means to be British and to be American. Farlan doesn’t think much of the romance between Peter and June, seeing it as another case of two people ruining relationships back home because they’re thrown into unexpected circumstances abroad: “Men and women thousands of miles away from the love they left behind. Minute sparks, instead of scorching flames.”

This is the Archers’ irreverent way of presenting the British and American states of mind post-WWII. It’s also a sign of their empathy as filmmakers: when Reeves argues that the current jury—all men from different countries around the world impacted by England’s imperialist rule at varying points of history—is unfairly biased, he asks for six American citizens. The reveal is powerful in 2018 as much as it may have been in 1946: the six American citizens are all immigrants, French to African to Irish. There is no one type of American citizen, as there is no one type of British citizen: this film is a dissertation on what it is to be human.

Visually, A Matter of Life and Death is unparalleled in the Archers’ work; the cinematography shifts from Technicolor (in the real world) to black-and-white (in the Other World), and the design of the Other World creates a series of gasp-inducing images. There is the impossibly wide shot of the attendees of Peter’s appeal, in a vast auditorium that reveals itself to be the size of an entire galaxy; there is the design of the literal stairway to heaven (hence its American title, Stairway to Heaven), which seems appropriately infinite without being terrifying; there is the moment when Peter’s fellow RAF pilot, waiting for him in the Other World, peers down to the vast center where files on all people from Earth are kept, and we see his silhouette from far above. The sense of scope and scale in moments like these should be teachable moments for anyone crafting some big-budget spectacle; this film’s moments of wonder were accomplished with a meager budget.

The grandness of A Matter of Life and Death—a movie that begins with the camera panning through the vast universe and closes with lovers reuniting happily—is coupled by its creators’ aims, to emphasize the humanity in people of different creeds and cultures. Peter Carter seems almost carefree in his opening scene, throwing slang left and right to the woman who he’ll fall for even as he expects to die. By the end, Peter and June are united by what Reeves deems the most powerful force on Earth: love. It’s a declaration that manages to be corny and life-affirming at the same time, much in the same way as Powell and Pressburger attempt to emphasize the universal qualities of mankind throughout the spiritual-court climax. In this film, as in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Canterbury Tale, to be British is to be human.

* * *

Unlike some of their British cohorts, such as David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock, most of the Archers’ films didn’t immediately hit big in America. Powell’s 1960 horror film Peeping Tom didn’t exactly end his career (he kept making films after that disturbing effort), but it garnered fiercely negative criticism. Over the last couple of decades, the Archers’ films have received well-deserved revivals. Last year, A Matter of Life and Death received a 4K restoration overseen by Scorsese and Schoonmaker, which is translating to the film soon receiving a Region 1 Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. (It is painfully overdue.) Before that, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and the operatic The Tales of Hoffman both received restorations, hopefully introducing more people to the wonder of these filmmakers.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale (which also deserves the Blu-ray treatment), and A Matter of Life and Death are the product of fertile creative minds who used the backdrop of World War II to explore vastly different worlds that all happen to exist in Great Britain. This trio runs the gamut of genres and emotions, all while showcasing the kind of soldiers who protected the United Kingdom throughout the first half of the 20th century. The raffish romantic lead of A Matter of Life and Death could easily have been the same kind of soldier to surprise the elderly Clive Candy in the opening of Blimp, or he could have just as easily stumbled across Chillingbourne’s glue man. He could have even been the young Clive Candy. These characters are distinct enough to exist within their own stories as they are to represent attitudes and personalities across all of the Archers’ films. These films encompass a vast universe, one that offers new wonders to cinephiles. Just as the pilgrims came to Canterbury for blessings, so too do true cinephiles receive blessings when they make the pilgrimage to watch Powell and Pressburger’s films.

#michael powell #emeric pres #the archers #the life and death of colonel blimp #a canterbury tale #a matter of life and death #british film #ww2 #world war two #cinema of world war two #1940s cinema #alfred hitchcock #david lean #oscilloscope #oscilloscope laboratories #musings #film writing

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steveramsdale · 4 years

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The infected blog 9.13

It’s Saturday morning, the rain is pouring down and we’re in a B-movie version of an end-of-the-world film.

The blog has a virus. Of course I have to mention it because it has impacted everything. My working week has been the strangest in my life (so far). However, there is other stuff, too. If you are stuck at home, self-isolating, this may brighten up a few minutes of your day. Feel free to comment below, I’m isolated too, so would be happy to chat. If you print this, you could cut it in to squares and use it as emergency toilet paper. Think of that.

Seriously though, it seems much of the world is waking up to the need to slow the rate/flatten the curve. The UK’s health service was already beyond stretched before this. I hate to think how the health service here in Uzbekistan will cope. Schools and other educational institutions have be closed but much of life goes on as normal. We (staff) have been expected to go in to work and will be again after our Spring Break. It’s not really how this drive to slow the virus is supposed to work. I suppose we are all learning how to live in the ‘new normal’.

We had prepared our students for the possibility of a shut down (not quite well enough, as it turned out), but we didn’t know for sure on Friday that we’d be shut on Monday. The message came over the weekend, along with the instruction that ‘staff are expected to be in school’. We are using Google Classroom at the moment and we had made sure our students were logged in. It has turned out to be more fiddly for them to open and submit their work than we realised. On Wednesday we got the message that staff could not go in to school for the rest of the week. On Wednesday we could collect any resources we needed. I’d left my laptop, so I had a really good, really early walk to go and get it.

This coming week was or Spring Break anyway and we are definitely closed for at least another week after the break. So we’ll see. Just about everything else in Tashkent is business as usual but that could change.

I think that should be it for the infection in this blog. In other news....

Do you remember geocashing? I wonder if it has started in Tashkent. Last Saturday morning I was out for a walk and saw About 10 - 15 adults near Ecorn. They were looking in hedges and ditches, phones in hand. I wondered what it was then remembered the, seemingly brief, craze of geocaching. I could not think of another explanation but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

On Sunday morning, I decided to have a walk and bus ride (early so it wasn’t crowded. I went to Antract for the first time for ages. I was the only customer. I need to get a second gas refill for my camping cooker and wanted to see if any shops in that area might have them.

Since we came back this year, Heinz beans have disappeared and I have hardly seen any alternatives. This was before panic buying. I saw some Bonduelle beans in a supermarket Mairi will remember, so bought two tins. I also found two tins of the Heinz variety when sorting the stuff I’d taken from the van before the winter.

There is a real culture of repairing things in Uzbekistan. Still looking for gas, I went back to my old stomping ground (the bazaar at Yunusabad krug) and decided to get a repair done. I have a bag for the things I need to carry - keys, wallet, phone, you know. For a while it has been developing a problem: two parts of the strap have begun to fray a little. It looked untidy and would only get worse. Otherwise, the bag is perfectly fine. So, I had planned for a while to get a repair done. Now it has happened. The repair man cut strips of suede/leather, glued them along the fraying edges and then sewed up the fabric. The suede is almost identical in color to the strap, and I am neat again. People do get things repaired here where we would throw them away and buy new. While I was in the little booth, two old, battered pairs of shoes were being repaired. In the UK, they would have been thrown away months ago, but here, through necessity or habit, things get repaired. These little booths are everywhere. I have had zips repaired in boots for Mairi and Emily this year. These boots were otherwise perfectly wearable and the repair would have cost more than a new pair of boots in England. Here it cost about £5.

One day this week, a driver thought I was about 45 and a colleague was shocked that I was a grandfather. I’m wearing quite well.

As you know, the van has been in for the final interior work. On Tuesday evening, a message came through from Viktor, the van interior man, that he was almost done. He said he’d let me know on Wednesday when to come, but no message came through all day.

I bought toilet paper. I was not panicking as I did it. Well, I was a little bit. The four-packs in the brand I bought before were only in peach, which is not right for my bathroom, oh no. So, on the shelf below, there were plain white rolls. I pulled out a pack, only to realise that they were eight-packs. A woman stacking the shelves immediately pulled a pack that had been behind to the front of the shelf. I wanted to put it back because I didn’t think I needed an eight-pack, but panicked and did not want to disturb her shelf-stacking efforts, so took it anyway. I should be fine until (if I can) I leave Uzbekistan.

This week, I have also been feeding a cat. This is the cat who’s rescue you read about in previous blogs. She is now fit and healthy. My former colleague, Dave, was going away as their break was before ours. The cat’s normal routine is to be fed and put outside in the morning. He then feeds her again, letting her in after work. Dave has an enclosed garden which she would struggle to escape from at the moment. I initially said that I would go once a day, after work, but the new circumstances meant I have been able to go twice a day. I can walk in about 10 minutes from my flat. For reasons known only to her, and many other cats, she does not go to the toilet outside. Dave has a litter tray in the house which she uses once back inside. For a tiny cat, she produces an unbelievable amount of poo. I’ll be going latter for today’s breakfast.

On Thursday, the message did come to get the van. The job Viktor has done is astounding. I now have a front seat that turns into the ‘room’, curtains, carpeted and matted flooring in the front, a new ceiling lining, I can’t describe the difference. I bought the curtain fabric and there was enough for him to put a piece of it down the middle of the re-covered front seats. There are pictures and videos on my FB page. It is an incredible transformation. I hope you’ll see it one day, if the borders open again.

I went over to NBU on Friday to show off the van to people who remember the original and too see other humans! It was nice, I could borrow WiFi and keep in touch with my three or four students who are doing any work.

One little grammar thing I noticed spreading here recently. A few years ago, TV chefs started explaining how they ‘reduce down’ sauces and soups. I complained about this as my family will tell you. In what other direction, except down, can things reduce? This unnecessary multiplication of prepositions has increased (up). You may have noticed two. The ones have heard a lot here recently are ‘return back’ and ‘reply back’. I spoke to my friend Viktoriya about it when she said return back. She speaks very good English and helps me with Russian. She realised that it was unnecessary to add the ‘back’ but told me that it is done in Russian, too - вернуться назад - also unnecessary. However, if that’s all I have to worry about, I’m not doing too badly. Someone once said to me: “If you keep correcting people’s grammar, you’ll have less and less friends.” I replied, “know I won’t, I’ll have fewer and fewer friends”. I I’ve lost touch with that person. In the interests of the integrity of this blog, I have to say that that conversation never happened. But it could.

Well, that’s it from me.

The cat and the van.

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trevorbailey61 · 6 years

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Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters

Civic Hall, Wolverhampton

Monday 20th November 2017

It is a dull and drizzly Monday evening and in Cardiff Deep Purple are about to take to the stage at the 7,500 capacity Motorpoint Arena as part of what we are told will be their farewell tour. With Jon Lord sadly passing away in 2012 and Richie Blackmore seemingly content to spend the rest of his days playing madrigals, this current incarnation of the band is as close as it is possible to get to the classic early 70s line-up and they even managed to get themselves into a studio to record a some new songs. Few, however, even amongst their most die-hard fans will want to hear them, instead they go for “Smoke on the Water”, “Speed King”, “Black Night”, the heavy rock based prog that became their signature. Despite forming earlier, sounding different and working their way through multiple line-ups, Deep Purple never seemed to escape from the shadow of the behemoth that was Led Zeppelin. Both had songs that helped to define their genre and era but Led Zeppelin’s were more memorable, both had the riffs but Page’s were the ones that were more instantly recognisable, both had charismatic singers but Plant’s bare chested image was always the more striking, both were bigger in America than in their homeland but Led Zeppelin were immense. Even now as the Purps take their last celebratory victory procession, the response is; yes, filling these arenas is impressive but just think what Zep would do.

That they don’t is down to Robert Plant. The journey that he has taken since the demise of Led Zeppelin is one of the most curious but ultimately most inspiring of any of the 70s rock legends and even as he approaches his 70th birthday there is little to indicate that his exploration is anywhere nearing its end. What that makes this all the more remarkable is that even during the final days of Zeppelin, Plant seemed to have lost his instincts, his feel for the music, his judgement, even his dress sense. I missed out on the opportunity to see Zeppelin during their reign, I was far to young to catch them in their early days and by the time my concert going had started, they were mostly absent as they preferred instead the huge money spinning American tours to those at home. I could have seen them at Knebworth but chose a family holiday instead, a decision I have long since regretted but Plant has always maintained that those concerts should have been cancelled due to how poorly prepared they were. Maybe then the thought of how good it could have been is better than the memories of how it actually was. With Page a junkie and Bonham drinking himself to his early death, the onus was on Plant to put together their final album, “In Through the Out Door”, which, smothered in synths as it was, gave an indiction of the direction in which he would be heading as a solo artist. This was the era of massive albums, the final throw before music became digitalised, and with the technology available to produce a bright clean pop sound many 70s veterans found a way to make the biggest selling album of their career. Bowie had “Let’s Dance”, Springsteen “Born in the USA”, Phil Collins “No Jacket Required” but despite respectable sales, particularly for the single “Big Log”, Plant never threatened to eclipse his former band.

Ironically, it may have been a brief reunion with Page that finally convinced Plant how misguided this had been. Together they had taken early Zeppelin away from being the purely heavy rock act that most of their pale imitators were by introducing at first the acoustic feel of English folk music and later African rhythms, Indian instrumentation and melodies and a host of other sounds that would later be referred to as World Music. This reunion led to “No Quarter”, an album that included a number of rearranged Zeppelin songs which would have convinced him of two things; firstly how shallow and undemanding much of his recent music had been and secondly that he could rework Zeppelin songs in a way that would still hold his interest. Thus began his restless musical exploration, taking in the North African sounds that he had explored with Page as well as journeys into the remotest backwaters of American folk. The sounds he created were often quieter, more delicate and intricate than the bombast of Zeppelin and required him to find new voices to tell their stories; the bravado and swagger would soon be a thing of the past, replaced by something more subtle and nuanced. He collaborated with people who would challenge him, Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin, producers T Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller and a host of crack American session players, even briefly relocating to Austin in the process. His musical quest, however, is built on a strong sense of place and returning home allowed him to reconnect with the band he first worked before his American sojourn. The Sensational Space Shifters have developed into a formidable outfit, allowing him to realise the songs that have come from such a disparate range of sources. While over 7000 filed into an arena in Cardiff, less than half that number made their way through the oppressive security at the Civic Hall and most, I am sure, wouldn’t have been too put out had he not included a single Zeppelin song; we understand what he is doing and we are here just as much for the new songs as the old ones.

There were, of course, some Zeppelin songs but these were mostly played without the deconstruction and reshaping that he has applied on previous tours. A gentle acoustic strumming accompanied “That’s The Way”, still magical, and “Gallows Pole” as on the album although the latter did gain a harder edge towards the end. “Whole Lotta Love”, as so often his final song, had its usual swagger which tonight was enhanced by the violin of Seth Lakeman who, as well as his support slot, had added some wonderful textures throughout the set. The first encore “What Is and What Should Never Be” built from its quiet and delicate verses to release the power of its chorus. The exception was “Misty Mountain Hop”, so different from the recorded version it it was only the words that gave it away. Plant added some context about how is was an attempt to recapture the collective spirit as the ideals of the Woodstock generation were fading but its reworking lacked the insight he has previously shown when he turns to his back catalogue. The best of the Zeppelin songs, however, was the wonderfully lyrical interpretation of “Babe I’m Going to Leave You” illuminated by Skin Tyson’s expressive acoustic guitar and Plant for once releasing the full power of his voice.

The last time I saw Plant was just after the release of his previous album, “Lullaby …. and the Ceaseless Roar”, a highly personal album made shortly after he returned from his exile in Texas. His sense of displacement is captured in the song, “Turn It Up”; “I'm lost inside America; I’m turning inside out; I’m turning into someone else” neatly expressing his disconnection from his surroundings. Appearing early, its stuttering rhythm gives a sense of someone struggling outside of their familiar surroundings. From this album he also includes “Rainbow”, a wonderful hymn to the rugged highlands of North Wales that inspired his excursion into traditional folk in his Zeppelin days, and his reworking of “Little Maggie”, illuminated as ever by Justin Adams’ exquisite finger picking. Where previously the disorientating drone of Juldeh Camara’s ritti had helped to create the mood of the songs, that is now done by Lakeman’s violin. In tone, his most recent album, “Carry Fire” shares many similarities with its predecessor suggesting his return home has also seen some tempering of his musical wanderlust. Whilst there may be a consistency in the sound, however, “Carry Fire” feels a lot less personal, being more settled has allowed him to observe the world around him and you get the feeling that he is not too impressed with what he sees. Opener “New World” sounds like a rebuke of the “Immigrant Song”, rather than heroic warriors, the destructive will of the settlers overwhelms the land, “The great white father’s word is law”. The theme of immigration also informs the title track, its wonderfully inventive arrangement and thoughtful lyrics providing a compelling highlight. Here he takes the perspective of the pressures that cause people to leave their homeland in search of a better, or more likely, safer life and their lack of comprehension of the hostility shown to them. It is rare for Plant to be this overtly political but the sincerity and emotion conveyed makes it incredibly moving. Similarly with “Bones of Saints”, performed as the middle of three encores, which covers how arms from Britain and other western nations are used in the atrocities carried out around the world, in particular at this moment in Yemen. It is a theme that Plant doesn’t shirk from in his introduction, overcoming his tendency to ramble to make his point clearly and directly. “The May Queen” is the lightest of the songs from “Carry Fire”, a repetitive, hypnotic trance whose folk origins are enhanced by Lakeman’s fiery violin. He also includes “All the Kings Horses” from “The Mighty Rearranger”, the first album to feature the musicians who were to become the Sensational Space Shifters, and a beautifully tender “Please Read the Letter” from his collaboration with Alison Krauss.

A dull, drizzly evening and in Wolverhampton the the audience are filing out through the limited number of exits that seem to be open. Filled to its capacity, the hall had been crowded leading to some tetchiness as people struggled to gain a view. The heat from all these bodies made it obsessively hot which, despite its recent refurbishment, the Civic’s air conditioning failed to moderate. Added to that a near septuagenarian rock star had decided that we really wanted to hear his new stuff. There were so many reasons, then, why it should have gone wrong but it didn’t and what we saw was a truly inspiring performance from an artist who is still at the very top of his game. One striking thing was just how quiet and receptive the audience were, the response to each song was as enthusiastic as Plant’s reputation requires but during the songs people were there to listen, quite something in a venue that is usually notable for the volume of its background chatter. The post gig euphoria is not the best time to make comparisons with previous shows but having had chance to reflect since, I have found few reasons to doubt my initial reaction as to this being one of the best shows I have seen him do. The template for how rock stars gracefully age is still in the process of being written but there are few who manage to do it whilst still remaining important and relevant. Plant’s travels, both physical and musical, may now be a little more limited in their scope but his music remains both intriguing and important.

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