#or all three of them just flat out ignoring a huge mechanic (standing in the crystal spots in dzemael darkhold) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teacupfulofstarshine · 3 years

Text

living in the real world (ain’t it fun) CHAPTER 10

CW: panic attacks, shouting, cursing, touch starvation, threats of bodily harm, self-deprecation, self-hatred, negative thought spirals, unsympathetic actions, unhealthy handling of emotions, unhealthy work habits, unhealthy emotional coping mechanisms

are you prepared for the roman/anxiety confrontation? i promise you are not >:3

huge thank you to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

wordcount: ~4.6k

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!!

Anxiety stays in Logan’s lap for almost ten minutes. No one speaks while he sits there, hugging Logan tightly. Logan tries to shift, but Anxiety whines and presses closer. “Is - can we stay?” he whispers. “I feel like if you let go of me, I’m going to float away.”

“You are likely touch-starved, to a fairly extreme degree,” Logan says.

“If you don’t want to touch me, you can let me go.”

“I will do no such thing.” Logan sounds almost offended at Anxiety’s implications. “You are hurting, Anxiety. I will not allow you to continue hurting if I can alleviate your suffering in any way. You are not hurting me by touching me.”

“You hate being touched,” Roman says. Anxiety presses his face further into Logan’s shoulder, hiding, and Logan turns to stare straight through Roman.

“I have a low tolerance for touch, Roman, much lower than you and Patton. But I require it to subsist, as we all do. Thomas is a human, and all humans need touch and social connections to survive. We represent his desires, his wants, his needs - we share them. I am not opposed to providing and receiving touch, but I am easily overwhelmed.”

“Lemme know when you gotta stop,” Anxiety says.

“I assure you that I will, Anxiety. However, I am alright, so there is no reason for you to move.”

Patton slides off the bed, kneeling next to Logan. “Anxiety? Kiddo, can I touch you?”

Anxiety turns to look at him, and Patton lifts one hand. “Just your shoulder. I wanna put my hand on it, maybe squeeze it a little. Is that alright with you?”

“Yeah,” Anxiety says, pulling his face out of Logan’s shoulder. Patton gently rests his hand on Anxiety’s shoulder, squeezing, and rubbing his thumb back and forth. Patton takes a deep breath, like he’s gathering his courage for something, and then he winces. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m just old,” Patton laughs. “As old as Thomas is, anyway. And that means I can’t sit on my feet for too long without them falling asleep. Gotta move around a little!” He shifts to sit cross-legged, wincing with Thomas when his knees crack audibly, and then he puts his hand back on Anxiety’s shoulder.

“Kiddo,” Patton says, and then, "Anxiety. It's my turn to apologize, okay?"

"You - you don't have to," Anxiety says. "You were trying your best, weren’t you? Just like Logan? I just misinterpreted your intentions, like I did with his, so -"

"No. I do need to apologize," Patton insists. "Is it alright if I apologize to you?"

Anxiety blinks. “You . . . if you think you need to, Patton.”

Patton looks serious, unusually so. “I do. I do need to.”

“Do you want to stay where you are?” Logan asks Anxiety. “You can move, if you like.”

“If you’re comfortable, I’m okay staying.” Logan nods, and Anxiety turns his eyes back to Patton. Thomas takes a deep breath, and Patton smiles gratefully as his chest swells with fresh air. He curls his free hand into a fist, squeezes it so Thomas can feel the indents of his nails in his palm, and then he relaxes it.

"Anxiety, I’m sorry," Patton says. "I - I'm at the core of Thomas’s emotions, and the stronger they are, the more affected I am. I experience all of them, but I try to only express the happy ones, because the negative emotions . . . I don’t really like them that much. I mean, does anyone? They make me feel all icky inside." Anxiety visibly deflates at that. "Wait - no, Anxiety, I didn’t mean - I wasn’t talking about you, I -”

Anxiety sighs, patting Logan’s shoulder before shifting out of his lap and sitting across from Patton. "You're not wrong, though. I am a negative emotion. I'm just - I bring Thomas down, I know that. And I bring everyone else down with me. I'm -"

"Stop!" Patton cries, and his face shines bright blue as tears pour down all of their faces yet again.

"Patton?"

"Anxiety, you - I - just listen, please? Listen to me? I can't - I want to tell you that the emotion you represent doesn’t have negative repercussions more often than not. I want to tell you that anxiety like Thomas’s is inherently a good thing, and negative effects are few and far between. I want to tell you that, but I can't because - because that would be a lie. But that's - that doesn’t mean - you are not a bad person, Anxiety."

Anxiety’s mouth hangs open in shock. “I’m -”

"- Not a bad person," Patton repeats. "Anxiety can be really difficult to handle sometimes. I know you know that better than any of us. But that doesn't mean that you are a bad person! When I told you that you were being silly it - it was because I - because you - I -”

Patton drags a hand down his face. “Anxiety, I was afraid to handle my own negative emotions. I pushed you away because - because - I was afraid that having you around would make it harder to conceal my negative emotions. I’ve been hiding them for so long that I’ve forgotten how to feel them in a healthy way, how to deal with them in a healthy way. I didn't want to admit that I had emotions that were anything less than the happy-pappy-Patton-pending sunshine that I project. And that was wrong of me. Just because emotions aren't happy doesn't mean that they're bad. And I never meant to make you feel invalid. I never wanted you to think that - that I don't value you or your contributions to Thomas, because you do contribute to Thomas. You’re more than the monochrome villain that we painted you as, and we - I - have done a truly abhorrent job of making you feel welcome or accepted or validated and -"

Thomas swipes the back of his hand across his eyes; Logan puts his fingers to his face and frowns when they come away wet; Anxiety scrubs his sleeve across his eyes. Patton pulls away from Anxiety’s shoulder, folding both hands in his lap before lowering his head. "I am so sorry that I tried to ignore the emotions that you bring to the table because I - I was afraid to feel them. You are not a bad person, Anxiety, and I made you feel like you were when you were just doing your job. And I - I will always hate myself for that. I'm - you don't have to, but if - if you can find it in you - I - I'm so sorry, Anxiety, I promise that I am, I -"

Anxiety surprises all of them by leaning forward and hugging Patton; Patton holds him back like he thinks Anxiety will shatter if he loosens his grip. “Pat,” Anxiety says. “You - you made mistakes, mistakes that hurt me. And it’s going to take a while for me to be okay with that. But you - you sound like you’re really sorry for hurting me.”

“I am,” Patton whispers.

“I forgive you,” Anxiety says. “I believe that you’re going to try and do better, and that’s - that means a lot, Patton. I forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

“And Pat?”

“Yeah?”

Anxiety leans back, staring directly into Patton’s eyes. "You don't have to hate yourself forever."

"What?"

"You said you would always hate yourself for making me feel like I was a bad person, but it wasn't just you. You know that, right? And I - you were doing your best, Patton. I mean, I don't know about Princey over there, but you and Logan appear to have been trying, at the very least, and I can respect that. I forgive you, Patton, and that means you don't have to hate yourself, right?" He looks anxious about the idea of Patton hating himself forever, and Patton smiles through his tears.

"Oh, kiddo." Thomas feels something warm swelling in his chest as Patton and Anxiety hug, again, and then Anxiety slides out of Patton’s lap. Patton stands up, pulling Anxiety and then Logan to their feet, and then Thomas turns to look at Roman, still sitting in the corner by the closet. There’s a strange look in his eyes, and Thomas tries to match it with the tangle of negative emotions sitting heavily in his stomach. It’s jealousy, he thinks, but there’s something else mixed up in it - sadness, he thinks.

“Roman?” Thomas asks. Roman flinches a little, looking up at him. “Are you okay?”

Roman looks away from Thomas, staring resolutely out the window. “Fine.”

“Roman, you also have to apologize to Anxiety,” Thomas says firmly.

"What's the point? I suck at it, and he's not gonna accept it anyway! He already said so. Yell at me all you want, I don't fucking care."

"Language," Patton says. Roman rolls his eyes and turns his back to them. Anxiety stands up, taking one, two, three careful steps towards him.

“Princey, I never said I wouldn’t accept your apology.”

“I tried! I already tried apologizing to you, and you rejected it!”

“It wasn’t a real apology,” Logan says calmly. “You apologized because you felt obligated to, not because you felt genuine remorse.

“Yeah,” Anxiety says, kicking the carpet. “I dunno what you think I am, Roman, but it’s - it’s probably not right.”

Roman, who has been fidgeting a little, sits perfectly, ramrod still. “What I think you are?” His voice is quiet, flat, and Thomas is a little bit scared of the sudden lack of emotion in his chest. “You want to know what I think you are, Anxiety?”

He stands up, curling his hands into fists, and when he turns around his eyes are furious. “What you are,” he spits, and Thomas is honestly surprised that fire doesn’t spew from his mouth, “is a menace. What you are is a disgrace! Every single time I come up with something beautiful, something wonderful, something amazing, every single time I push Thomas towards an opportunity that would only catapult him upwards, it is you who drags me down!”

He gestures to Patton and Logan, and the fire Thomas expected out of Roman’s mouth is now blazing through his chest. “Specs squared over there is at least capable of pretending to support my ambitions! But oh, no, not you, Anxiety! You just appear out of the shadows, like a villain, like a god damn demon, and you tear me to ribbons!”

Anxiety stands his ground as Roman gets closer, balling his fists. He’s putting on a brave face, but Thomas can feel his heart beating so fast it’s vibrating. As Roman gets closer, Thomas suddenly becomes acutely aware of the height difference between Roman, a young adult, and Anxiety, a child.

“You offer nothing!” Roman’s voice is venomous, and Anxiety isn’t the only one whose hands are shaking. “You don’t do anything useful! All you do is look for the darkness in a situation, and you refuse to see the light! Hell, you could be looking at the purest sunbeam there ever was - you could be looking at Patton himself and you would still find something wrong!”

“I’m not perfect, Roman,” Patton starts, but Roman is on a roll and he’s not stopping now.

“You’re pathetic! If you can’t find the darkness, you’ll create some just to ruin everything for everyone else! You refuse to believe in anything happy! All you do is look for flaws!”

“That’s my job!” Anxiety bites back.

“It’s a shitty job, and no one needs you to do it! We’d all be better off without you! Thomas, especially, would be better off without you! Your job is meaningless to me, and - and so are you!”

Anxiety’s whole body is shaking, but he steps closer to Roman, pushing his shoulders back. “Did you ever consider that maybe -”

“No! I don’t want to hear any more negativity out of you! Do you have any idea how happy I was when we woke up and I thought you hadn’t manifested?” Roman laughs, bitterly, dragging his hands through his hair and tugging it so tightly everyone else winces. “I thought I could finally create freely, finally help Thomas achieve his ambitions! And now here you are to ruin my life, yet again!”

“I don’t ruin your life on purpose, you know!”

“Oh, really? You coulda fooled me! We were all getting along just fine, and then you showed up, and we almost crashed the car! That could have killed Thomas, who you claim to be protecting! Then you ran away, which hurt Thomas, and then you bit me, which hurt Thomas even more! All you do is hurt Thomas! We were better off without you!”

Thomas isn’t sure when he stood up, but he’s on his feet, and so are Patton and Logan. Outrage is searing through all of them, but Anxiety stares up at Roman, face setting like flint. Before anyone else can speak, Anxiety leans forward, and sneers, “Got it all out of your system, Princey?”

Oh, this is going to be a disaster.

"Did it ever occur to you, in the midst of your little pity party, that what you wanted wasn't best for Thomas either?"

Roman bristles. "How dare you -"

"How dare I?! You think you know me? Well, I know you too, buddy! You run yourself ragged trying to come up with ideas constantly - if Thomas listened to you all the time he'd never get anything done in the real world! He'd stretch himself too thin doing too much and he'd kill himself, Roman! The only reason you haven't died yet is because you aren't fucking real!"

Anxiety lifts his chin, glaring directly into Roman’s eyes. He’s not backing down. "There's nothing wrong with being creative, Roman. But you push so hard that if I wasn't around to reign you in, Thomas would burn out! If that happened, he'd lose you completely! Do you even know what that feels like?"

"I - wh -"

"No! You don't! Do you know why you don’t? Because I keep it from happening! You like to play the big hero, the prince, the knight in shining armor, but I know the truth! You may swan around acting like you’re some grand protector of Thomas’s psyche, but the only one who actually does any protecting around here is me!"

Anxiety’s voice is starting to distort, to double and layer and twist the way it had when he’d first appeared and made Thomas pull over, and Thomas sits down, hard, nearly floored by the terror running through him.

“You think that I don’t know what you really think? I am Thomas’s anxiety! I am his negativity! I am self-loathing and hatred and fear and doubt and all the dark and dirty little secrets you hate about yourself, which means that I know EXACTLY what you think about me, because it’s what you think about YOURSELF!”

Roman’s face loses all color instantly. “Wh -”

“Roman?” Patton asks, soft and feather-light, and Thomas feels like he’s about to break.

“You HATE yourself! You think you’re not good enough for Thomas, so you consistently push yourself past your limits so that you can maybe, finally, prove yourself worthy of being his creativity! So that you can maybe, finally live up to this princely persona you’ve built for yourself to camouflage your massive insecurities! But you don’t want to DEAL with those insecurities, so you project all your fears and self-hatred onto me! It’s the perfect solution - I’m already a villain, right? Already the bad guy? Newsflash, asshole - YOU CAN’T JUST SHUNT YOUR SHIT OFF ONTO ME SO THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOUR PROBLEMS, ROMAN!”

Roman’s entire body is shaking. Patton has his hands pressed over his mouth; Logan is running his hands up and down his tie repeatedly, rocking back and forth. Thomas looks between them rapidly. “Roman?” Thomas whispers.

Roman drops to his knees, presses a hand over his mouth, and the freshly-ended tears spill over again.

Before anyone else can react, Anxiety kneels in front of Roman and hugs him. Roman sits perfectly still for a moment before his face breaks and his shoulders shake and he crumples against Anxiety like wet paper. Thomas’s chest heaves with his sobs.

“Roman -”

“I’m sorry!” Roman chokes. “I’m sorry, is that what you want me to say? I’m sorry, Anxiety, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“Roman, you’re panicking -”

“Oh, well spotted, Panic at the Everywhere!”

“Roman, stop!”

“Why?! I thought you wanted an apology from me? Well, here you go!” Roman pulls out of Anxiety’s hug and does a mocking bow before tugging at his hair again. “The great Prince Roman, reduced to an undignified, snivelling mess at your feet, admitting to all his faults and flaws and -”

“Jesus, Princey, BREATHE.” Roman’s chest is heaving, and he’s choking on his sobs, meaning the rest of them are as well. “Come on, you have to breathe, you’re gonna suffocate at this rate - Thomas, I need you to help me, please!”

“Wh - how can I -” Thomas is struggling to get air in, and he’s starting to get a little bit lightheaded.

“Listen to me, Thomas. Breathe in for four seconds. Logan, help him count?”

Logan nods, counting the seconds aloud and pressing two fingers against his carotid artery. Thomas, Anxiety, and Patton breathe along to Logan’s counts as Anxiety takes Roman’s hands and holds them tightly to keep them out of his hair. “You too, Princey, come on. In for four, hold for seven . . ."

They all sit and breathe together while Logan counts, in-for-four hold-for-seven out-for-eight. Eventually, Roman’s breathing evens to almost normal, and Anxiety squeezes his hands tightly.

“Prin - Roman.” Anxiety’s voice is still distorted, but it’s a little less harsh on the ears.

“What,” Roman says miserably.

“We need to talk about that."

“We really don’t.” Anxiety sighs.

“Roman -”

“Roman,” Patton says. Anxiety turns to look at Patton, whose face is shining blue and purple, and he shifts out of the way, letting Patton kneel in front of Roman. Roman flinches when Patton takes his hands, but he looks up at him anyway. "It's - it's okay to have negative feelings. And I know I’m the biggest hypocrite in the world for saying this, but you can't bottle them up or pretend that they don't exist. You have to acknowledge them and talk about them if you want to feel better. Ignoring them feels good in the moment, feels like you’re handling it, but . . . it just hurts everyone when it explodes. Because it will explode.”

Patton gestures to the room at large. “It did explode."

“I know,” Roman whispers miserably. He looks down at Patton’s hands around his. “I just - I hate this! I hate talking about the negative stuff. I’m the dreamy fantasy guy! I'm not supposed to feel like this! I’m not supposed to feel sad or unimportant or worthless or - or - or broken.”

"Fuck that noise," Anxiety says. "Not - not your feelings, but your feelings about your feelings. That came out weird - um - geez, I - Roman, what you feel . . . it's . . . it's not wrong. You aren't broken for having feelings that aren't good. Nobody feels good all the time."

"But - but I feel this way so much," Roman protests. "I - I should be better than that. And half the time there's nothing actually wrong with me anyway! The thoughts just show up, unwanted, and I just - I - it's stupid. I’m stupid, for feeling this way."

“Roman,” Patton and Thomas say.

"Roman," Anxiety says. "Whatever you feel isn't stupid. No matter how long you're feeling like that - hell, even if you always feel this way - it's still valid. It's not stupid or bad or wrong. You're not stupid or bad or wrong."

“But - but I don’t want to feel this way.”

“I don’t want to feel this way either, most of the time,” Anxiety admits. “I know my job is important, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its downsides. It has a lot of downsides, I’m not gonna lie. And it sucks, it sucks so much, Roman, but - but it’s - it’s okay.”

“How is any of this okay?”

“It’s okay to not be okay, Roman,” Anxiety says quietly. “It’s okay to say ‘I’m not okay right now’ out loud.” Roman stays silent, and Anxiety exhales. “Roman, you have to say it."

"Say what?" Roman mutters. He glares at Anxiety, but the words and the glare are both completely devoid of venom.

"That you're not okay. If you wanna feel better, you . . . you have to admit that you aren't feeling great right now. It's gonna suck, but you have to. It's important. And no one’s gonna think you’re stupid for saying it. I'm not gonna think you're stupid for saying it. Hell, I say it all the time. You have to say it, Roman, so you can start feeling better."

Roman looks to Thomas. “I’m not going to think you’re stupid, Roman.” Roman squeezes his eyes shut and stays silent for a long time, but Anxiety just waits, patiently. Finally, Roman breathes the words out.

"I'm - I'm not okay."

"And that's okay," Anxiety says softly. "It's okay to not be okay, Roman."

Roman looks up like Anxiety’s just grown a second head ". . . Say that again?"

"It's okay for you to not be okay right now, because you will be okay. You aren't right now, and that’s okay, because you will be."

Roman pulls his hands out of Patton’s, stands up, and offers a hand to Anxiety, Anxiety eyes it for a second before letting Roman pull him to his feet. “I am sorry,” Roman says - quiet, sincere, lacking all of the bluster and force of his earlier apology. "I - you're right. I was projecting onto you. And I said some - some truly unforgivable things, back there. Some truly ungallant things, things that any real knight or prince would never say. And I - I didn't - well, I meant them at the time, but now I recognize the error of my ways. I’m - Anxiety, I’m -”

“Virgil,” Anxiety says.

Everyone in the room does a double-take. Anxiety’s face turns from pale to pink to red, and he won’t meet anyone’s eyes. “My name. It’s Virgil. I just - you know everyone else’s, and I’m not hiding from you guys anymore, so - I figure you might as well -”

“Virgil,” Roman says, and Thomas’s heart aches at the tenderness in his voice. "Virgil, you - if you never forgave me, I would understand. But I want you to know that I am so, so sorry, Virgil. I - I tied you up, I dropped you, I told you all of the horrible things I think about myself because I hoped it would make me feel better. But now I just feel guilty, and horrible, and - and I am so, so sorry.”

"I forgive you, Princey.” Roman looks shell-shocked, but Virgil continues. “And for what it's worth . . . I’m sorry too. I know I can be harsher than I have to, sometimes, and I usually feel pretty bad about it afterwards. But I admit that I was a lot less careful with you because you always acted so above-it-all, and you so clearly hated me that it was easy to overreact and get carried away. We fueled each other’s fires, so . . . yeah. 'M sorry, too."

Roman opens his arms, and Virgil only hesitates a moment before stepping into them. They hug, Roman pressing his face into Virgil’s hair, and Thomas swears he hears Virgil’s shoulders crack with the force of Roman’s hug. Patton’s face is shining yellow, and Logan has shifted from rubbing his tie to flapping one hand.

Thomas feels his chest lighten, like some of the steel bands have snapped, but he knows that there’s one last apology that has to be made. “Virgil,” he says. Roman gives Virgil one last squeeze before letting go, and then Virgil takes a step back, looking at Thomas.

“Yes?” He still sounds hesitant, nervous, and Thomas wants to destroy that tone forever.

“Come over here, please?”

Virgil shuffles over, feet dragging against the carpet, and Thomas exhales. “It’s my turn now.” He gently takes Virgil’s hands in his own, and for the first time he notices how small and fragile they are. They’ve been building Virgil - no, not Virgil, Anxiety - up into a monster for so long, but his hands feel like bird bones in Thomas’s. He looks up at Thomas with wide eyes, and Thomas feels his heart break a little at the vulnerability he sees there.

He takes a deep breath, takes a moment to compose himself. He looks past Virgil and sees Patton smiling encouragingly, Logan nodding, Roman giving him a thumbs up. He thinks about what they’d all said, and then looks back at Virgil.

"Virgil, I'm sorry. Earlier, you said I treated you like you were something foreign, and you - you were right. People always talked about my anxiety like it was nothing more than a disorder, and I thought that way too. I was convinced that if I could just manage my anxiety, all the problems in my life would magically disappear. I . . . I think a lot of your villainization came from me. I looked at my anxiety and I saw nothing more than a flaw. But here, now, looking at you, I don't see a flaw. I see a strong, selfless person who constantly sacrifices everything to protect the people he loves - people who up until today have done a really shitty job of appreciating everything he does for them."

"Thomas . . ." Virgil whispers. His eyes are wet, but Thomas’s are finally dry.

"Virgil, you are important," Thomas says firmly. "You - you are so important to me. Sometimes you can be a little excessive, but I can see why you felt you had to be, given the way we all reacted to you. We can work on that together, we can work on all of this together. I'm sorry that I made you feel like I didn't want you here. And - and maybe I didn't want plain old anxiety, but I definitely want Virgil. You're not bad, you're just . . . you were just trying to do your job. You just wanted to keep me safe.”

“I wanted to keep you all safe,” Virgil says. “Even though you never thought of me that way, I have always considered you four to be my family. And I take the job of protecting my family very seriously.” He glances down at his body and snorts. “I mean, generally I don’t look like a fuckin’ twelve-year-old when I’m performing that job, but I’m still capable.” He looks back at Thomas. “I know I hindered you too much on more than one occasion, and I’m really sorry about that. Protecting you is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

"I know that now," Thomas says. "We can work on being a better family together, all of us, but honestly? There’s nothing wrong with who you are. I'm sorry I made you feel unwanted just for doing your job - just for being who you are. But I promise, I do want you here. I want you here exactly the way you are, because there's nothing wrong with the way you are."

Virgil smiles at him, a shy, genuine smile. Thomas lets go of his hands and opens his arms. “You don’t have to, Virgil, but if you want to, I -”

Virgil is in his arms before he knows what’s happening. “I forgive you, Thomas, of course I do, I was never mad at you, I just wanted to keep you safe I - I’m so sorry that I hurt you, I -”

“Stop apologizing, Anx - Virgil,” Roman says. “That’s gonna take some getting used to, but I’m happy to make the adjustment.”

Virgil twists in Thomas’s embrace to look at Roman. “I mean, I should probably apologize for biting you in the woods.”

“I mean, I was behaving like a jackass at the time, and I did hogtie you in said woods. So . . . call it even?” Virgil laughs, and it’s watery and weak but it’s enough to set off everyone else.

“Yeah, Princey. Call it even.”

#starshinewrites #living in the real world (ain't it fun)#ain't it fun!au #platonic TLAMP

83 notes · View notes

shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

02′s influence on Adventure

You’re probably reading the title and going “...what? Isn’t 02 the sequel to Adventure? How would a series be influenced by its own future sequel?”

The thing is, assuming that Adventure was written in a vacuum and everything in 02 a retrofit runs very contrary to how both series were produced, and how this kind of anime is produced in general -- Adventure and 02 share almost identical staff members, and were separated only by a real-life single week in airing time. 02′s existence was not a sudden last-minute decision that was tacked on at the end! In fact, Adventure being extended to a second series was decided seven months into its production, right around the end of the Tokyo arc (sometime around the third cour). Despite it being a rather tonally different series, 02 is really just Adventure’s staff...writing more.

This means that by the time production had moved to Adventure’s final arc, the staff was very aware that they would be on for another year writing a sequel to this anime -- which thus likely became the fuel behind many of its creative decisions, made specifically to pave the way for 02.

The ending

Yeah, so, this ending. You know this really famous ending? The one that’s had such an impact on franchise history that a lot of later things have even tried to imitate it in some form? The one that everyone cites as one of Adventure’s most famous scenes (for good reason)? This ending only exists because of 02. You know what actually would have been Adventure’s ending if 02 hadn’t existed?

The 02 epilogue.

The ending that we now know as the “02 epilogue” was actually decided on before recording for Adventure had even started. (They weren’t even sure about finalizing the character personalities yet!) All of the most substantial details about that epilogue -- the series actually being the adult Takeru’s novel, everyone in the world having a Digimon partner, and, as it seems, even Yamato and Sora getting married -- were decided on before 02 was even in the picture. Most likely, the only material difference would have been that the four characters introduced in 02 (Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken) and their partners wouldn’t have been involved, but everything else would have roughly been the same as the “epilogue” we know now. (This especially makes sense when you consider that one of Adventure’s major influences was the movie Stand By Me, which is extremely culturally influential in Japan as a “childhood summer adventure story”, and involves a similar timeskip epilogue with one character growing up to chronicle the story as a writer.) All of this was basically intended to tie into Adventure as a narrative of “a story of humanity’s evolution”, so this ending was envisioned as the “natural conclusion” of the story of Adventure as a whole. If anything from the original Adventure ending would have been retained in this hypothetical scenario of only Adventure existing, perhaps the sentiment of “parting” at the end -- but then it would still be followed by a timeskip epilogue 28 years later and everyone in the world having a partner.

But then it was decided that a second series would be made, and at some point they decided it would be a series set three years after the first, resulting in: this.

What this means is that Adventure’s ending was only ever intended as an ending for a single chapter in the overall Adventure series narrative. A lot of people like to pose 02′s existence or epilogue as something that “undid” Adventure’s ending, as if it was supposed to be some “ambiguous bittersweet” ending about whether they ever met their partners again, but...that ignores the real-life context of Adventure and 02′s production, where Our War Game! (which depicted an easy reunion with their partners, went out of its way to cameo Miyako in advance, and, for all intents and purposes, practically spoiled Adventure’s ending by depicting them as separated at all) screened before Adventure’s last episode aired, and there’s also the Adventure mini dramas that depicted more incidental meetings (and despite the constant fourth wall breaking and absurd crack content in them, yes, they’re intended to be taken as canon).

Again: in real life, the first episode of 02 aired one week after the last episode of Adventure. Even the real-life audience was likely well aware that this wasn’t going to be the end (and if they weren’t, they certainly would be when the promotional trailers for 02 started airing right after Adventure’s last -- and that’s assuming you missed all of the promotion appearing in real life beforehand, including at the end of Our War Game!’s screenings). The production staff all knew, because they’d already been working on 02 for months now -- they postponed their originally intended ending just to make this new one, after all!

So yeah, this line isn’t supposed to be just a vague “oh, maybe they’ll meet again” in an abstract poetic sense -- it’s completely literal, because it’s hinting at said gate opening again one real-life week later.

From both a story perspective and a real-life audience perspective, this ending was never meant to be seen as ambiguous.

Takeru and Hikari’s character arcs

02 often gets an accusation of being lacking in the character development department (one that I seriously disagree with and have been working very hard to counter), but this accusation especially gets levied often at Takeru and Hikari, who are often said to be “flat” or “kind of just there” in 02 (which, again, I object to; more on this below). This is often rationalized as a theory that the writers didn’t know what to do with them because they’d already been in Adventure, but...this, again, assumes too much that Adventure was written in a self-contained vacuum and anything in 02 was just an addition done after the fact.

There’s actually quite a bit of evidence that the last cour (or at least a significant amount of it) was written with the idea that Takeru and Hikari were going to be starring in the next series in mind.

This is especially pretty apparent when you get to the last episode, where Takeru and Hikari are conspicuously the ones to leave off on the most confident “we’ll meet again” notes, compared to the other six. Of course, they do it in their own respective ways (Takeru and Patamon resolve to make it happen, while Hikari cryptically acts like it’s already bound to happen, borderline prophetically), and maybe you could chalk it up to the fact that they’re the youngest and therefore most naive of this group...but, again, remember: 02′s first episode aired one week after this one, where we would immediately be treated to Takeru and Hikari following up on this. Given that, you can basically see this as a wink and a nod: “yeah, these two have a story that’s not over yet.”

And as much as I may sound like a heathen to the fanbase by claiming this, I would actually say that it’s the opposite of the above claim: Takeru and Hikari both have pretty unresolved arcs by the end of Adventure compared to the rest of the other kids, and in fact are fleshed out more in 02. It’s honestly kind of a stretch to say that they “already got development” in Adventure -- Takeru still has a ton of unresolved issues with his family and trauma and emotional behavior that aren’t properly addressed to nearly the same degree as how the older kids have their core issues brought to the forefront, while Hikari really was only around for less than half the series, and not only is her main problem of emotional suppression told purely from Taichi’s mouth and not her own, we also get no real follow-up on how she intends to work past that.

Those are some pretty huge things to leave unresolved at the end of a series that’s known for its focus on individual character development, and considering that the premise of 02 involving an older Takeru and Hikari was likely finalized around the middle of the last arc of Adventure, it’s easy to believe that they decided to deliberately hold off on resolving Takeru and Hikari’s issues in full so that their story could be told in the next series. And, indeed, while their characters being built on “being difficult to read” makes their development not quite as visible as some of the more eccentric personalities in the 02 cast, their respective Jogress partners (Iori and Miyako) more openly discuss and get to the bottom of their issues that had been lightly displayed or hinted in Adventure but never truly been addressed.

A lot of things that were not in Adventure

Adventure was admittedly kind of written as they went along (they didn’t even originally plan to have Hikari as the eighth child at first), so it’s hard to tell exactly what was planned and what was a later addition (and at what point things were added), but considering that the 02 epilogue was one of the first things planned in the entire series, as part of “a story of humanity’s evolution” and tying into a really long theory about partners doubling every year, it’s probably at least safe to say that a lot of the worldbuilding and lore was determined very early.

02 added a lot of lore dumps about Digital World mechanics and things related to the overall state of Chosen Children, which have been said by many to be retrofits to justify a buildup to the 02 epilogue, but, again -- the 02 epilogue was supposed to be for Adventure, so it’s very likely that these lore aspects were intended for Adventure as well! This is especially because it’s been outright confirmed that there were at least certain things originally intended for Adventure that ended up in 02, or at least were in 02 because they felt Adventure didn’t sufficiently cover it:

The kids’ home lives. As famous as the Tokyo arc of Adventure is, it only covered about a quarter of it -- the rest of it was the kids stranded in another world, separated from home! It’s specifically 02 that went into all of the things like school life, family life, daily life in Odaiba, and everything closer to the real world -- basically, everything related to family backgrounds that was very likely to have been in the planning documents for Adventure but never made it.

The (in)famous 02 episode 13 (or, at least, something like it) was intended for Adventure. As much as there’s common speculation that this episode was intended to be some giant subplot that got canned, from what we’ve heard from the staff, the truth actually seems to be a lot more mundane -- Adventure was a series very big on “oddities about the Digital World that have no real explanation” (see: phone booths), and when you reframe it in Adventure’s context, it’s likely that Dagomon and the Dark Ocean were intended to be yet another of those as part of its wider lore about the multiverse, to make you think “the heck was that?” but never get any real answer to. (And while it’s unclear whether the original theoretical Adventure version of this episode would have still involved Takeru and Hikari, if you want to put a tinfoil hat on and entertain that theory, it lends even further credence to the idea that their respective character arcs were deliberately held off for 02...)

Given that, and thinking about the 02 epilogue as the eventual goal for the series, you can also easily imagine a lot of 02-introduced things leading up to it as probably also having been baked into Adventure’s lore:

You know how 02 had a subplot about Chosen Children proliferating all over the world, as a lead-up to everyone in the world eventually having a partner? This was part of a “doubling every year” formula that’s been referred to a few times in background staff testimony. If you inspect this formula, this means that there were eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi and his friends, chosen between 1995 and 1999. Now, remember how Adventure episode 52 briefly touched on the bombshell of Chosen Children existing before Taichi and co., before never addressing it again? Considering all of the above facts, it’s very likely that’s intended to tie into that formula -- and, perhaps, had 02 had not existed to continue the subplot about “more Chosen Children”, Adventure would have taken more initiative about explaining the concept of Taichi and his friends not being the only humans with partners, and led it into their originally intended epilogue.

02 episode 33 involves Miyako visiting Kyoto and learning that there may be certain similarities between Digimon and Japanese youkai, to the point where they might be related somehow, despite predating digital technology. (The concept is revisited in Mimi’s track in Two-and-a-Half Year Break and the Adventure BD drama CD, both of them having been written after 02.) The thing is, the idea that Digimon and other similar entities actually existed prior to digital technology, and that said technology only allowed it to manifest physically in the real world, also is heavily tied to the original concept of Digimon partners being a manifestation of a part of the human’s soul, and therefore having a partner being a part of human evolution -- which is, again, heavily tied to the original intent behind the epilogue. So it’s very likely that this, at the very least, was one of the original lore points behind Adventure -- and if 02 had not existed, it’s possible that Adventure might have tried to cover it as part of a lead-up to that epilogue, rather than ultimately deferring it to 02.

This is, of course, speculation -- I’m not a member of staff, so I can’t speak for them -- but I do think it’s important to consider that while 02 was a tonally different series, it wasn’t just a sequel tacked on at the last minute, and rather just (mostly) the same staff learning three-quarters of the way through that they would have more time to continue this narrative, and reorganizing things to figure out what they wanted to do now and what they wanted to touch on if they had more time. Really, this whole narrative of “02 being a bunch of random additions they came up with and retrofit” seems to almost be the opposite of what actually happened -- while some of the ideas behind 02 were certainly created later, it’s less that Adventure was some ideal perfectly crafted story and 02 an addendum, and more that they had so many things they wanted to do in Adventure that couldn’t fit and used 02 to vent more of those out:

One of the concepts behind the prior series was for us to pack in as many interesting things that we’d seen, heard about, or read about as we could into it, so for 02, we thought, what else could we put in beyond even that?, and so we looked over what we needed to have, and put in all the things we could so that they wouldn’t be left out, and the story became a multi-layered one, overlapping and accelerating. It was to the point that, after we’d gone through 02‘s story, the scriptwriters told me that they’d worn everything they had out to the ground. In any case, we put everything we had into it back then.

Which means that understanding 02 is actually very retroactively important to understanding Adventure -- Adventure’s own writing was influenced by the knowledge that 02 would be part of its story, and 02 itself carries a lot of vital facts and story points from Adventure’s narrative that didn’t fit in the first 54 episodes, and, in real life, they were both written continuously as one story over the course of over two years. It’s also because of this that I seriously warn against seeing either series in a vacuum too much -- because both series are very deeply tied to each other, perhaps more so than a lot of people want to admit.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta

139 notes · View notes

themasterisathirsttrap · 3 years

Text

Putting Out Fire (With Gasoline) Ch. 2

Guess who’s still alive and just posted a new chapter of Putting Out Fire??

(Still sort of on hiatus, but now having some bursts of creativity, so sorry for the wait and enjoy!

Wow, this chapter took forever. I genuinely forgot how much plot setup happens in the first 10 minutes of 10x11. Very dialogue-heavy from the actual episode this time, but I promise for future chapters should have a better flow. Let me know what you think!

Chapter warnings: Nothing huge this time, aside from violence. But I will place warnings for future chapters))

@twistedgoddessoftimelords

@anteroom-of-death

@justaproudslytherpuff

@hallospaceboyy

@shawtyhadthemapplebottomjeans

As you stood huddled behind Missy, flanked on either side by Nardole and Bill, you felt far more apprehensive than you cared to admit.

Despite this, when you caught Bill’s uneasy look in your direction, you gave a small reassuring smile back at her. You moved closer and playfully nudged her with your elbow, causing her worried expression to soften into a small smile.

You could tell your friend was on edge and not keen on the idea of Missy taking the lead for the distress call mission the Doctor drafted up. You felt the thrum of nerves too, but you knew it was important to keep a calm face if there was any chance of showing the others what you had seen in the Time Lady.

It wasn’t even The Time Lady with whom you had something of a confusing relationship with that had you on edge. You had the feeling that she actually was wanting to take on the Doctor’s challenge to be him for a day, and do it well enough to rub it in his face.

Sure, you didn’t doubt she definitely would scare the lot of you just to make you squirm, but the root of your wariness was less the Time Lady and more knowing that you were jumping at the first distress signal the TARDIS picked up.

Despite knowing the Doctor for months now, you hadn’t quite gotten used to his cavalier approach to life-endangering situations. You had truly only been on a few adventures with him in the TARDIS. This partly had to do with the role you had accidentally adopted with Missy, and partly because you preferred your adventures with little bit more research and more calculated risks than jumping in and hoping for the best.

“Don’t you want to at least do a little digging before responding to the first distress call you find?” You had asked as the Doctor locked in coordinates to the distress signal. “Well, they’re in distress, there’s no time,” he responded brusquely, pulling down a lever beside you as you folded your arms. “You have a time machine. How do we not have time?” He huffed at you, turning his head to give a deadpan stare in response at the fault in his own logic, but you couldn’t help but shake your head and crack a smile as he waved his hand in dismissal.

“He thinks it’s more fun that way, ” Missy teased. To which the Doctor shot an annoyed look in her direction, but didn’t otherwise correct her.

“Figuring out what’s really going on is half the fun. If the Doctor wants to see how I do playing as him, we might as well go with full authenticity. Complete lack of foresight and all.” Missy offered with a sly grin and spun her umbrella with a flourish.

The Doctor had rolled his eyes at her before letting them rest back on you. “It’ll be fine. I promise,” he assured with a quick pat on your shoulder as he passed you.

Yet, now, standing in quiet anticipation as the TARDIS landed, you felt far less sure.

Maybe you were being ridiculous. The Doctor had done this god knows how many times, and it clearly had worked out for him.

But you’re not the Doctor.

You tried to shake yourself off that sudden, stark thought.

“Showtime, ladies,” Missy announced, breaking you away from your thoughts. She met your gaze for a long beat, a smirk playing on her lips as she adjusted her feathered hat to tilt further forward on her head, and tapped the floor with her umbrella for emphasis.

You almost wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. The moment passed as she turned away and swung the TARDIS door open. Upon her first step out its doors, she struck an exaggerated pose, her hand resting on her hip with confident ease.

“Hello. I'm Doctor Who,” Missy said, drawing out the name and pausing for dramatic effect. She stepped out of the TARDIS with a small hop. “And these are my plucky assistants, Thing One, The Tolerable One, and the Other One.” She continued, seemingly addressing no one in particular into an empty control room.

The three of you step out of the Tardis behind Missy. Even you stop yourself from rolling your eyes, but otherwise remained quiet as you reached up and adjusted your, clunky earpiece that fit pressed uncomfortably against your ear.

Nardole sighed behind you and stepped to the side, gesturing to your little group. “Bill. Nardole. Y/n.” Nardole said in a flat tone. “--We picked up your distress call,” she continued, ignoring the bald android and offering an exaggerated wink towards the security camera above as it mechanically adjusted and appeared to zoom in to examine you and your companions.

“—and here we are to help, like awesome heroes.” Missy added, clearly enjoying herself as she swung her umbrella around and gave an extra twirl across the room as she approached the center. She must have felt your eyes on her, as her head suddenly whipped back towards you with a smirk and sent another wink in your direction.

“Yeah, we're not, we're not assistants—“ Bill corrected flatly, annoyed and unamused, but knowing that her words would likely have little influence on the Time Lady.

“Okay, right, what, so what does he call you? Companions? Pets? Snacks?” Any retort you might have tried to muster immediately died in your throat as an alarm began to blare around you, the room’s lights flashing from blue an ominous red. “Oh, someone's watching.”

Evidently unphased by the new development, Missy began to sway back and forth to the tempo of the alarm, kicking her heels out with each step to the rhythm. “Well, that's quite a good beat, really, isn't it?” “—Yeah. Maybe we should be moving on?” Nardole piped in, his wary voice a stark contrast from Missy’s apparent nonchalance.

“Yeah, and he calls us friends,” Bill cut in defensively, visibly shifting from annoyed to mildly offended. “Ew, Doctor. But think of the age gap. “

You knew she said it to irritate the Doctor. But that didn’t stop the quiet huff of indignance from slipping past your lips. It stung a bit more than you cared to admit, your heart sinking slightly at the comment.

You folded your arms across your chest and subtly angled yourself away from her in hopes that she didn’t catch a glimpse of your disheartened expression.

Missy set her parasol down on a nearby chair and unpinned her hat. “Stop mucking about and concentrate.”

The Doctor spoke up again through the earpiece. “Nardole, do something non-irritating. “

“On it, sir!” “Time Lords are friends with each other, dear,” Missy continued, ignoring the Doctor and sounding almost bored as she looked at her reflection in a glass panel. She paused at the reflection and adjusted her hair and examined the state of her makeup, before blowing an exaggerated kiss into the air.

“Everything else is cradle-snatching.”

At that statement, you were truly bothered.

“Sounds a bit limiting,” you shot back, an edge subconsciously creeping into your voice. You still avoided looking in her direction and studied the surrounding control room panels and monitors with feigned interest.

“Glad to hear you think so highly of our company,” you added, furrowing your brow.. Maybe it was stupid to think she saw you as a friend.

You only had visited her nearly every day for the better part of a year. You didn’t realize that you hadn’t even made her species requirement for friendship.

While attempting to mask the layered emotions connected with that realization hitting you, you barely even registered Nardole and the Doctor’s voices as you attempted to keep your expression mostly blank.

Part of you knew that she was likely saying it just to get under Bill’s skin. Yet, you couldn’t help but note that she spoke the words with a little too much conviction to make you think it was entirely a lie.

“Oh, it's a big one. Ship reads as four hundred miles long.”

You tuned out mentally from the rapid back and forth over the earpiece and quietly moved to sit on the nearby chair, ignoring the weight of Missy’s gaze on you.

You didn’t bother looking up and reclined into the seat, propping your elbow up on the armrest and supporting your head on your hand. You dimly realized you might have resembled a bored child as you kept your blank expression, your gaze drifted across the room and looking everywhere but at the Time Lady.

“And a hundred miles wide,” Nardole added. “It's big, even for a colony ship,” the Doctor’s voice sounded through the earpiece

“Anything else?” Your attention shifted again as Missy looked upward, something suddenly catching her attention. You followed the direction of her gaze and your eyes widened.

“Oh, wow.” “It's heading towards a black hole. “ “No….” Missy’s voice suddenly sounded pensive, as she stared up at the black hole through through the circular glass window. Her attention broke away from the black hole and you cursed yourself quietly as you made the mistake of meeting her eyes.

Her words were directed at the Doctor, but her gaze lingered on you. She studied you for another long beat, something unidentifiable flashing in her eyes as her lips twitched downward into a frown.

Whatever silent moment you might have just had passed as the Doctor chimed back in through the earpiece.

“No, it isn't!” “It was,” Missy corrected, studying the ship’s navigational readings overhead. “--heading towards a black hole, until somebody noticed. Now they're trying to reverse away from it. Engines are on reverse thrust, see?” Her tone came off a little less biting than before. You found yourself nodding idly and gazing up at the ominous vortex swirling above you.

“Oh. Well, it's succeeding,” Nardole noted. “Yes...very, very slowly. “ Missy added, seeming to almost float towards where you sat with a casual, predatory grace.

“Explains the distress call, I guess.”

“So, a four-hundred mile ship, reversing away from the gravitational pull of a black hole. Are we having fun yet?” The Doctor asked.

Missy hummed in a pleased sound of agreement, and you nearly jumped at her voice being suddenly close to your ear, teasing in a light voice. “See? We’re having fun. You can stop pouting now, pet.”

You blinked in surprise, tilting your head back and opening your mouth to retort, but a sudden crackle drew your attention back to the wall in front of you. A large screen buzzed to life and the face of a man appeared on the monitor, his voice heavily distorted by static. “Hello? Who's there? Hello? Please report status. “ Missy had already darted half-way across the room towards the screen. You stood, your curiosity getting better of you.

“Oh, hello,” Missy chimed, “What have we got here?”

She studied the man on the screen, casually resting an elbow atop what you assumed to be a pilot chair.

“You're probably handsome, aren't you? Well, congratulations on your relative symmetry. “

You couldn’t help the scoffed laugh that emitted from you at the comment, earning a sidelong look from Bill.

“Who are you?” the man on the screen said, almost accusatory, scrunching his face in confusion.

“Well, I am that mysterious adventurer in all of time and space, known only as Doctor Who,” she said with one arm raised in a dramatic gesture and gusto that wouldn’t have surprised you if she had rehearsed.

You had moved beside her to get a better look at the screen and blinked in surprise as she suddenly wrapped an arm around you and gripped your shoulders with a squeeze. “And these are my disposables, Exposition, Sidekick, and Comic Relief. “ “We're not functions,” Nardole said with a grimace. “Darling, those were genders. “

“--Please, stay exactly where you are for your own safety,” the man on the screen continued, sounding unamused by Missy’s explanation.. “He likes me. So exciting,“ she looked to you with a conspiring look. “I'm coming through,” man on the screen said before the feed abruptly cut-out.

You looked towards Nardole and Bill in alarm, but Missy seemed not at all phased by the man’s brusque announcement. “Hurry, my stallion. And if I'm in the shower, just bring me some beans on toast. That's roughly human flirting, isn't it?” Missy offered you another wink, and you slowly shook your head in skepticism. Her hand briefly brushed across your shoulder as she stepped away. Bill’s face scrunched in confusion. “So, why do you keep calling yourself Doctor Who?” Missy tilted her head, hand resting at her hip as she narrowed her eyes at Bill’s question. “Because I'm pretending to be him. Because that's the whole point of this ridiculous exercise.” She spoke slowly, the scottish enunciations in her voice stronger with each word.

“It's not an exercise, it's a test.” The Doctor said, jumped back in, his voice distorted by a crunch heard on the other side of the line.

“Are you eating?”

Again, the amplified crinkle of plastic through the earpiece. “No. “ The Doctor countered unconvincingly like a child caught in a lie. “Yeah, well, don't test me eating crips!” Missy snapped in irritation at the notion.

You wandered over by Nardole to peer at the screen of the computer he was typing away at with a stern expression.

You couldn’t make sense of what any of it meant, all unintelligible numbers and alien code you didn’t understand, but it still felt more engaging than the listless banter that already was giving you a headache.

“—Yeah, but he's called the Doctor, so….” Bill continued, revisiting Missy’s prior statement. Missy didn’t miss a beat, “--He says, I'm the Doctor, and they say, Doctor who? See, I'm cutting to the chase, baby. I'm streamlining. I'm saving us actual minutes,” she added, leaning into each movement and snapping her fingers at each word for emphasis.

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Bill scoffed, turning away from her. “—Also it's his real name.” “It's what?” Bill said, abruptly spinning back to face the Time Lady. You actually did roll your eyes that time at Missy toying with Bill. Missy slid into the seat beside her, ignoring Bill’s question.

“Slow today, Missy,” the Doctor commented. “All those screens have been angled to a single viewpoint. But not originally, they've all been moved. “ “Which means? “ “Giant ship, single pilot, but not designed that way. Something's happened to the others.” “Yes. And now It's time for you to figure out what. “ With an electronic whirr, the group’s attention shifted to the CCTV cameras moving abruptly and settling onto them. “Uh oh...Someone else has noticed us.” Nardole’s voice remained low, but he rose to his feet in alarm, glancing around with caution.

“Look’s like Big Brother’s not happy…” you attempted in a weak joke, eyeing the camera warily.

“Sorry, what do you mean, it's his real name? Nobody knows the Doctor's real name. “I do, because I grew up with him, and his real name is Doctor Who.”

“-Bill, she's just trying to wind you up.”

“--Chose it himself, you know, trying to sound mysterious.”

“And then he dropped the Who when he realised it was a tiny bit on the nose.”

“--and Mistress isn’t?” you countered. Missy raised a brow, regarding you and your sudden cheekiness with mild amusement. “Well, yes it’s my name, but I go by Missy now so it’s not the same, is it? It’s called subtlety. ”

“Missy, we both know subtlety isn’t in your vocabulary. Now stop teasing them and focus.” “Is she serious, though, Doctor? Is your real name Doctor Who?” Bill pressed and you half-groaned, hoping they would just drop it and figure out exactly who or what was coming. As if on cue, you heard the soft ding of an elevator and looked up as a set of mechanical doors slid open at the far end of the room. You took a harsh intake of air as a bald man with blue skin emerged through the doors, decidedly not friendly, as he raised a gun and pointed it immediately in the direction of your group.

“Oh, you're blue! Nice. I should go back to blue. Ow!” Nardole began in a far-too cheery voice, causing you to jab your elbow harshly into his side to possibly improve your chances of not being shot.

“And armed…” you added under your breath, careful not to make any sudden movements as he visually swept the room and rounded the control panel. You now noticed his erratic, jerky movements as he circled back again, training the gun at each of you.

“Stay where you are!” he ordered. There was a desperate, wild look in his eyes.

You froze, eyeing the man cautiously before stealing a glance at Missy. She appeared calm, but her expression was decidedly stoic. “Stay calm. He's very frightened,” the Doctor warned, his voice mostly even, but betraying his alarm at the situation.

“Deary me, I thought you were handsome, and now you've gone all cross and you're pointing a gun at me,” Missy’s voice dropped from teasing to low and threatening.

“Is this the emotion you humans call spanking?”

If you weren’t fearing for your friends and your own safety, you might have blushed at the way Missy’s eyes lingered on you at the word ‘spanking’.

But the moment was unfortunately undercut by the unhinged alien man pointing a gun at you.

“Are there only four of you? Are any of you human?” the man raised his voice at the word, an an anger and fear in his voice that made your stomach churn.

You sucked in a sharp intake of air as he stepped forward, jamming his gun in front of Nardole’s face. Nardole immediately held his hands up and started shaking his head.

You cast a worried glance at Bill, who met your eyes with fear that you had no doubt was mirrored in your own.

Dragging your attention back to the man, you now noticed the sweat beading across the man’s brow and the slight tremor in the grip on his weapon. Behind his efforts to appear in control, you began to suspect that something happened here that had left him utterly shaken.

“What has happened to this ship and how long have you been here alone? You're looking very sickly,“ Missy pressed. “Two days,” he replied before turning towards Missy in an accusing tone. “Are you human?” “Oh, don't be a bitch.”

The man grimaced. “How did you get on board? Is that your capsule?” “Yep,” Missy replied without hesitation, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the blue box.

“No.” the Doctor countered.

The man shifted away and up to one of the display panels. You realize that he’s staring at the illuminated numbers above another set of metal doors.

“There, look!” the man pointed across the room, rushing towards a set of display panels.

You knew none of you were out of the woods yet, but you couldn’t help but release a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding at the new distance between you.

Now that he had taken his attention elsewhere, your eyes urgently surveyed the room. You needed to find something to distract him for at least long enough to knock his gun away to buy time. “Three lifts. They're coming,” the blue man spoke again, his voice laced with panic.

He appeared to be right. One hovered at level 0718, and the other two on 0930. “Who’s coming?” you ask. “Super-fast inertia lifts,” Missy noted, nodding towards the display. “Well, what's inside? What's coming up here?” “Things. I don't even know where they came from,” the man shook his head in dismay, fidgeting and becoming more visibly agitated as the numbers dropped with each second. “One of you must be human. They only come up if they detect human life signs.”

Floor 350

“What for?” Bill asked. “They take them away,” the man replied.

“Away to where…?” you pressed, eyeing the man with skepticism. “I'll be right with you.” The Doctor announced abruptly, doing little to ease the growing dread in your stomach.

“Which of you is human?” the man shouted again, causing you to jump at the sudden intensity of volume and emotion in his voice. Training his weapon on each of you with an edge of desperation in his movements. you didn’t dare make a sudden move.

The doors of the TARDIS abruptly swung open, the movement making the blue man pivot and retrain his weapon towards the new arrival. You watched as the Doctor emerged, his arms raised and movements slow, but his keen gaze acutely trained on the danger in front of him.

You froze at the unexpected voice that spoke up. “Me. Me, me. I'm human,” Bill began, and your eyes snapped towards her in alarm. Immediately she locked eyes with you for a brief moment with a loaded look, making the sounds of protest die in your throat and fade into a mortified silence.

“I'm the only one. Just, just me,” Bill continued, her voice firm and assertive despite the fear evident in her eyes.

You bite your tongue. It was all you could do to stop yourself from shouting at her to stop talking and let the Doctor convince the man his systems must have made a mistake. Even that wasn’t enough to stop yourself from the mounting desire to tackle the man while he was distracted. Just to do something to stop this stranger from pointing a gun at your friend.

The only thing that muted the impulse was a sudden sharp sensation at your wrist. A sensation like a vice grip of needle points pressed against the flesh of your forearm and you didn’t need to look back to realize just who was responsible.

Missy stood silently beside you, her movement obscured from the stranger’s view, and her grip stung as she dug her nails down with near bruising insistence. A silent warning to not do anything impulsive.

It was almost sweet, coming from her. But only when considering how little regard you knew she held for human life. You didn’t doubt your arm would be adored little half-moon bruises when she let go. Grimly, you realized you’d be satisfied with simply living long enough to even see them form, given your current predicament.

The Doctor froze at Bill’s proclamation, fear now morphing his shocked expression to one of horror. He nearly leapt forward in desperation, pleading with the blue man. “Please stop this. Stop right there, now.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but you're the reason that they're coming. “ The man raised his weapon again. “Put it down. Put that down now,” the Doctor repeated, his voice calm despite his fearful expression. The man shook his head, holding the gun steady with resolution. “They won't come if she's dead.”

Floor 45

“You don't need to do this,” the Doctor pleaded, slowly moving closer with his hands raised to show himself as unarmed. “I can get her off this ship. I can shield her life signs,” the Doctor continued his attempt at persuasion. “You know what, Doctor? I said this was a bad idea,” Bill said quietly, tearing her eyes from the man with the gun and addressing the Doctor directly.

Floor 26

“Please, listen to me. Look at me. Go on, look at me. That's good. That's very, very good. Now, do you see this mad woman sitting in this chair? Her name isn't Doctor Who. My name is Doctor Who.” “—It's not, is it?” Nardole muttered and you fought the urge to slap the friendly android in that particular moment.

The Doctor nearly stood within reaching distance of the man. You suddenly recognized something in this careful posturing that gave you a spark of hope for the situation.

The Doctor aimed to disarm him. Now, he just needed to buy a couple more seconds. Your eyes flicker back to the number display as the lift seemed to pause between floors 8 and 7.

Floor 7

“—I like it. You don't know it yet, but in a short time, you will trust me with your life. And when I save you and everyone on your ship, one day you will look back, and wonder who I was and why I did--”

Both you and Doctor knew he was rambling to buy time, but the sound of the lift’s ding at arrival caused the blue man to suddenly flinch.

You heard the gun discharge before registering what had happened, and your stomach dropped in horror.

“—Bill!”

“—You fucking bastard.”

#reader insert #missy x reader #missy dw #missy doctor who #missy #missy x reader fanfic #missy x reader x simm #gomez!master #simm!master #mostly exposition here but still #the master x reader #doctor who #doctor who fanfic #master x reader #Putting out fire #fanfiction

66 notes · View notes

loubabykitten · 5 years

Text

BEST FICS OF 2018

first of all… happy new year guys!!!

as promised, here are the best fics i read in 2018 (some of them were published before but i discovered them in 2018), there're not in order:

Chasing empty spaces (79k, chaptered) - 1930s au

by @domestic-harry

The year is 1934 and Harry Styles was to inherent the largest tobacco firm in the south. His parents have picked out the “perfect” girl for him to marry and he has the privilege of receiving the highest education possible. The problem was, Harry hadn’t realized he didn’t actually want any part of that future until he met a mechanic named, Louis Tomlinson.

Don't want shelter (76k, chaptered) - teacher!louis, businessman!harry

by @fullonlarrie

Louis and Harry have known each other all their lives. Friends as children, they danced around each other as teenagers, and have spent the last twenty-five years either screaming at each other or not speaking at all. Except for that one time ten years ago…

When Hurricane Nicole threatens the coast, they end up stuck together in their families' old vacation home that they begrudgingly co-own.

During the storm, and in the months after, they’re both forced to reevaluate their history and what they mean to each other.

Save myself (219k, chaptered) - rich!louis, student!harry

by @make-thisfeellikehome

Louis Tomlinson is a train wreck. That is a way of putting it lightly. His whole world is a vast blur of darkness and bad decisions and it doesn't matter how many times he decides he's done, he always falls back in, because darkness is tricky like that for him. Louis wants for nothing—has everything he could ever ask for really, but it's all nothing. Maybe he needs to be rescued—maybe he can't be rescued. No one knows.

Or the one where Louis is a spoiled rich kid who is ignored by his entire family, who's friends only use him as a means for drugs and no one believes he's worth any more than just that. Harry Styles is a first year university student who's just moved to Doncaster for their theatre program who just happens to get the short straw when he's partnered with Louis for Bio Lab. What could go wrong?

Lightning strikes twice (104k, chaptered) - groupie!louis, famous!harry

by @catfishau

Louis slipped his hand onto Harry’s thigh, snaking his fingers up and inwards. “I’m a big fan. You’re so talented, and I have to admit that I actually fancy you a bit.”

“Yeah?” Harry reached up to push Louis’ fringe out of his eyes. “Well, you know, I like to try and be accommodating to my fans.”

“You’re quite well known for that,” Louis whispered as he turned his head some more, their mouths an inch apart. “So I hear.”

---

Rock star Harry Styles was nineteen when he met Louis, a groupie with a huge heart that Harry couldn’t quite shake from his mind. Fate granted him a second chance at the age of sixty, his washed up and lonely existence being transformed by a widower with a bookshop.

Tell me how to feel about you (38k, chaptered) - college/university au

by @imlouisaf

Louis thought it would feel different once he got to LA. He knew it was best for him; a fresh start as far away as he could get. But when the plane touched down and he stepped out into the hot air around LAX, Louis felt exactly the same.

There's still a hole in his chest where his heart used to be; ripped away even after trying for so many years to keep it from happening. He knows it's not all his fault, not by a mile, but it doesn't stop him from blaming himself for it all going wrong.

If he'd just stayed strong, if he'd said no when he said yes, maybe everything would be different.

Or, Harry has been trying to convince Louis to date him for years, but Louis has always been wary of Harry’s fairly obvious commitment issues. Louis eventually gives him a chance, opening his heart up to the one thing he fears.

Have faith in me (183k, chaptered) - rich!harry, assistant!louis

As the son of Anne Styles, millionaire owner of one of the world's most luxurious fashion labels, Harry has spent his last seventeen years living in carefree extravagance. And now he's grown tired of it, along with the pressure from his mum to follow in her footsteps and the constant care given to him by her past assistants.

When his mum's newest assistant, Louis, moves into the guesthouse, Harry determines to be treated differently. To be treated like an adult. Except Louis is not at all what Harry was expecting...

This is a story about growing up, growing in love and having the faith to make it last.

Shake me down (208k chaptered) - college/university au, insecure!harry, protective!louis

by @agreatperhaps12

Harry's new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

Red hands (132k, chaptered)

by @harrytum

“I’ve never told anyone,” Harry murmurs, voice so soft no one else would be able to hear, if it wasn’t just the two of them.

“But you’ve told someone,” Louis says firmly. “And that’s not gonna fucking happen around here. You don’t speak a word of it, or someone’s going to kill you, and we can’t let that happen.”

a dystopian au in which harry, an ex-soldier who’s escaped from his government run camp, accidentally stumbles across the biggest rebel movement in the country, and louis, one of the rebellion’s mysterious leaders who appears to hate him, seems to simultaneously have an obsession with keeping him alive. or: harry is wanted for treason, niall hasn’t changed in four years, liam is always smiling, and louis is angry. like, really angry.

There are no atheists in foxholes (64k, one shot)

by @suspendrs

“Do you think we’ll ever see it again?” Harry asks after a minute. “London?”

Louis blinks, looking down. They very well could spend the rest of their lives on this island, and they’re both very aware of that. Everyone probably already thinks they’re dead, anyway. Their flats are going to be sold, and their families are going to have funerals, and life is going to go on without them. Even if they do get rescued, it’s already been days. The news of the shipwreck has definitely reached London by now. They don’t know if there’s been any effort to look for survivors, but they also don’t know how far away from the wreck they are, or how far people are going to go to look for them, or if anyone even knows that this island is here and, like, it’s very possible that they’ve already looked and stopped looking for survivors, and no one knows they’re out here-

“I don’t know,” Louis says, before he can start spiraling. “I hope so, but I don’t know.”

Or, the sea takes everything from Louis, but it gives him back more than he ever could’ve asked for.

Dance to the distortion (96k, chaptered)

by @domestic-harry

Louis accidentally breaks Harry's camera lens and in order to get it fixed, they decide to participate in a romantic couples study. The only issue is that they are not actually couple. Well that and the fact they cannot stand each other.

Lonely king (40k, chaptered) - broken!louis, indie!harry

When Louis' parents pass away in a car accident, he inherits a cottage in the woods of Scotland. He ends up spending the summer there; unraveling secrets, mending bonds and creating memories with his best friends.

For as long as i can remember (it's been december) (128k, chaptered) - lawyer!louis, chef!harry

After recovering from a severe accident that causes Harry to lose his memory of three years, he moves to London to start his life over as a star chef. Little does he know that when he falls in love with Louis at first sight, it’s not the first time they meet.

Featuring an unintentional game of hot and cold, Harry chasing memories that won’t come back, Louis burying himself in work to try and forget what he can’t forget, Liam being torn between two of his best friends, Zayn as a moral compass and Niall saving the day with good music and brutal honesty.

The road less travelled by (98k, chaptered) - Lumberjack!louis, high school principal!harry

by @freetheankles

Louis was a lumberjack happy to be living his life alone in what could qualify as Middle Of Nowhere, Canada.

Every morning, he went out into the woods, cut his logs, then came home at dusk to a scalding hot shower and a good book by the fireplace. Rinse and Repeat. He had a good life, quiet and peaceful; simple. Not a secluded one as Niall annoyingly claimed.

Louis certainly didn't need some chatty trespasser dropping into his life, his forest, his home. Invading his space, his circle of friends, touching his stuff, asking questions about his husband. His late husband.

A trespasser who wasn’t supposed to crawl under his skin, occupy his thoughts, and steal his heart from where Louis had locked it safely away, only to put it right back on Louis’ sleeve — where it once laid.

No, Louis definitely didn’t need Harry.

Saving symphony hall (124k, chaptered) - symphony hall au, omega!louis, alpha!harry

by @helloamhere

“I think I have an idea,” Louis said. Slowly, and reluctantly, but with a growing sense of the inevitable. “God damnit, I think I have a really good idea.”

“Oh christ, that's the problem-solving face,” Babs said. “Last time we saw that face, he sold a company.”

“Wait, what?” Zayn asked.

“Right place, right time,” Louis said. “Also, fuck my life,”

“What?” Zayn repeated. Niall patted his hand.

“I usually just roll with whatever Louis is about to do,” he said. “It’s better for us all.”

“That’s the attitude,” said Louis, “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Tonight, I need to do some research. Zayn, give me your number. I’m gonna save our symphony.”

Shelter as we go (75k, one shot)

by @fondleeds

Louis looks at him like his words might break him, glass about to splinter, one wrong footfall away from shattering into a million tiny pieces.

“Hey,” Harry breathes, and he knows, meeting Louis’ eyes, that his words could break him easy as anything. He almost wants Louis to bring his boot down.

AU. Nova Scotia, 1968.

Walk that mile (149k, chaptered) - road trip au

Harry stares at him, the line of his jaw standing out scarily. “I wanted to get the most out of this trip so I planned it carefully.” His voice is low and steady and somehow that’s worse than when he was yelling. “So far, you’ve put your sticky fingers on everything I’ve tried to do.”

“Sticky fingers?” Louis repeats, offended. “Are you saying it’s my fault you got stung by a bee? Had you been alone you would have gotten halfway to the Dotty Diner and ran the car off the road because of an allergic reaction, so don’t go blaming me.”

“Polk-A-Dot Drive In,” Harry spits before getting out of the car. He slams the door shut with a deafening reverb and Louis rolls his eyes. - A Route 66 AU where falling in love was never part of the plan.

MY TOP 5:

5. I believe him when he tells of loving me (28k, chaptered)

louis doesn't remember harry. harry takes him home.

4. Wild love (130k, chaptered)

by @daisyharry

“Good,” Julia says, clearly pleased to have them both uncomfortable and unable to look at each other. “Now, I only have one more question before you can go. What are you planning to do when this experiment ruins your friendship?”

“We said we’d stay friends no matter what,” Harry says smoothly, his chin lifting in defense.

“That was our one thing going into it,” Louis agrees. “Stay friends no matter what.”

Julia raises a perfectly manicured brow, “That’s all fine and good. But I hope you realize your emotions aren’t going to realize this is an experiment in the end. If one of you falls for the other and finds out those feelings are not reciprocated, you’re not going to be able to laugh it off as a social experiment. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this, I’m just hoping you’ve considered all of the possible outcomes.”

- AU: Two best friends try to date each other for forty days. It's supposed to be fun until emotions make it complicated.

3. In sickness and in health (83k, chaptered) - american!harry, british!louis

by @rainbowsandlovehl

“Just make sure that you head down to the immigration office as soon as you can, alright?” James reminded them, making them look towards the man and nod in unison. “Remember Louis, you have only two weeks. So make it legal quickly so you don’t get deported.” “I’ll be sure to remind my assistant to schedule our appointment,” Louis joked and laughed.

A loosely based The Proposal Au where Louis is to be deported in two weeks. Since he doesn't want to lose his job, he asks his assistant, Harry to marry him for a green card. If it makes them realise they're in love, oh well. There's also the fact that no one doubts their credibility.

2. Hush (41k, one shot) - high school au, quarterback!louis, feminine!harry

by @wankerville

“I don't like you like that, Harry.”

“See,” Harry starts, Louis can hear the smile in his voice, “that's where I think you're lying.”

or an au where small towns suck, louis is losing it, and harry’s just too perfect.

1. Light my morning sky (54k, one shot) - college/university au

The relatively cliché College AU in which Louis happens to be proficient in Philosophy, Ethics and keeping his distance, while Harry is in need of a tutor to salvage his grade, and never passes up on a challenge; Zayn and Liam like to gaze wantonly across at each other whilst pretending to read Austen; and Niall is the precarious bond that holds them all together.

(Expect some sappy self-indulgent scenes consisting of bed-sharing, 4 am almost-love declarations, drunk texting, and far too much time spent at the student bar for it to be an accurate depiction of uni life.)

#larry #larry stylinson #larry fic #fic rec #best fics #best fics of 2018 #best fics of the year #it's a long one #sorry #larry au #larry smut #larry fluff #larry angst #louis tomlinson fanfiction #harry styles fanfiction #enjoy

3K notes · View notes

theramseyloft · 5 years

Note

Hi! I'm looking into pigeons as a pet, and I'm interested in training them and actually playing with them. I have parrots (conures and budgies mostly) What would you recommend? And what are the biggest differences between parrots and pigeons? I know pigeons can't climb and that they need grit. Can they still eat fruit and veggies?

Parrots are incredibly physically dangerous for pigeons.

Like: Do not under any circumstance allow them to be in the same room dangerous.

Parrots can break the bones of a pigeon by accident, and the dust pigeons produce gum up the lungs of parrots.

If the parrots are human social, then getting a new smart bird that can’t be housed near your resident smart birds and needs some amount of your time every day to itself will feel, to your parrots, like you are suddenly ignoring them for no reason, and it will spark some behavioral problems that will scare the pigeon.

So I do not recommend any one with any species of psitticine add any species of columbid to their house hold, unless the columbids are going in a loft outside.

Buut, that arrangement means that they can’t be household companions, by definition.

For people trying to choose between Pigeon or some psitticine species, Or for some one who is used to caring for psitticines considering whether or not they want to try something different with out sacrificing the intelligence and bonding potential:

Pigeons and parrots are so drastically physiologically and socially different from each other that there is absolutely no cross over what so ever.

They can’t use the same type of enclosure, they can’t eat the same diet, their social structures are completely different, even their intelligence is completely different, despite both being literally on level ground with a 5 year old human child.

Parrot cages are designed around displaying a bird that stands upright and can climb.

Pigeons forage on the ground and need WAY more floor space than height.

Pigeons can’t climb, fly straight up, or even comfortably stand on a round perch. They take off at a 45 degree angle and have to spiral to get up high in a tight space.

They cannot tolerate all the toys parrots need, not only because they physically cannot manipulate them and are instinctively startled by bright oranges, reds, and yellows, but because pigeons need as clear and uncluttered a flight space as possible.

So a pigeon in a parrot cage physically cannot get off the floor, no matter how much height you give them, and is both physically trapped and severely psychologically distressed by what parrots consider vital enrichment.

If they must be caged singly, a dog crate with flat perches is ideal for a pigeon, provided that the bird is allowed frequent flight time.

Parrots need a huge variety of fruits, nuts, nectar, greens, and veggies.

Pigeons are strict seed eaters. They literally are not physically capable of digesting ANYthing else. They get 0 benefit from greens, fruit, vegitable flesh, leaves, stems, or tubers, and will starve on a full stomache if you give those to them.

Gonna repeat myself here because veterinarians that care for birds either learn based on parrots and finches or on chickens (Depending on whether they took the exotics or livestock rout). Their advice to vary the base diet of a pigeon away from seeds is given in error based off of two COMPLETELY different physiologies and WILL make recovery impossible for a malnourished bird and malnourish a healthy bird because Pigeons literally lack the physiological equipment to process anything other than embryonic plant tissue.

Pigeons cannot detect sweetness, so they literally do not even get the yummy treat benefit of fruit.

Please, DO NOT even “treat” pigeons with non-seed items.

Parrots are mechanical problem solvers and sound mimics, much like many of the corvids.

Pigeons are not physically capable of much in the way of mechanical manipulation, so they physically cannot manupulate the toys designed for parrots.

Their foraging is exclusively strolling along the ground and picking up fallen seed.

Parrot flocks are pretty much just a huge crowd of birds all commuting in the same direction. Individuals do what ever they are going to do independent of the flock as a whole.

Pigeon flocks are uniquely cooperative, tight knit family units that vote on the fly on everything they do. They are social learning pattern mappers, actively, directly instructed by their fathers once they wean on both foraging and fitting into the social dynamic of their flock.

Parrot enrichment is thus mostly mechanical and designed for individuals. Puzzles to manipulate, brightly colored fruit like things to find that are hard and pleasant to stim on by biting.

Pigeon enrichment can be forage based, nest building based, or social based, with social interaction being the most vital of the three.

Pure foraging with no social interaction involves a box filled with sand, straw, or both with some favorite seeds like safflower or parakeet seed scattered in there for them to find.

Nesting enrichment is just straw, or Q-tips with the tips cut off and a place for the bird to put them.

Unlike parrots, Pigeons can recognize themselves in mirrors and their play with their reflection is more of a human like fascination with their own appearance than yelling at or trying to court what they mistake for another bird.

Pigeons are pattern mappers that learn socially both through observation and direct instruction.

And their pattern mapping is not exclusively visual.

They pick up on auditory patterns, patterns of behavior and the cross over between the two just as easily as they pick up on visual patterns of geographical lay out.

When I describe humans as learning exactly like a human child, I mean that very literally.

Pigeons are capable of high level cognition. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2009/…/090212141143.htm

To the extent that they understand the concepts of space and time! https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2017/…/171204144805.htm

They are self-aware enough to distinguish themselves from other pigeons, able to recognize themselves in photos, video, and mirrors AND differentiate between the three. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2008/…/080613145535.htm

Their brains are wired SHOCKINGLY similarly to ours: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2013/…/130717095336.htm

They categorize things and learn the equivalent of words the same way human toddlers do!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2014/…/140402095107.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2015/…/150204184447.htm

They can even learn to read written language well enough to differentiate between a real word and an acronym with the same number of letters.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas…/2016/…/160919111535.htm

They are pattern mapping social learners. Exactly like we are!

They can literally learn to understand both spoken AND written human language, and literally all it takes is talking to a pigeon as if it is a nonverbal human toddler who does not know that word yet to be able to teach them to understand object words, action words, emotion words, names, and locations.

Pigeons are pets you can literally communicate to in your native language.

The last two years of my research combining what was learned in the links listed above has proven that pigeons can not only demonstrably learn to understand spoken language, but are smart and socially conscious enough to learn to comprehend the concept of consent and to give or deny it to a basic degree of genuinely informed.

The last difference between Parrots and Pigeons is that Pigeons are fully, genuinely Domsticated, where as Parrots are only Tamed.

There is a HUGE difference between Tame and Domesticated.

A “Tamed” animal is an individual acclimated to human contact.

There is no physiological difference between a captive bred parrot and a wild caught one.

Because the larger Psitticine species can live into their 60s or 80s and take so long to reach sexual maturity, the slow passing of their generations and the relatively brief time they have been bred for the pet market means that we literally have not had the time to make any really big strides towards genuinely domesticating them.

The smaller species like Tiels and Budgies and parrotlets have made more progress in that direction because of their shorter life spans, faster maturations, and smaller, more manageable size, but they are still nowhere NEAR truly domesticated, like chickens, Pigeons, and ducks are.

“Domesticated” specifies a living thing bred specifically to be adapted to human care.

There are, by definition, drastic physiological differences between a domesticated animal and its wild ancestor: to the extent that most domestic animals are considered to have become a separate species from their wild ancestor.

For example, no matter how many different breeds of dog you start with or how many generations you allow them to breed, no dog mated to any other dog will ever throw a Wolf puppy.

The process of domestication works through the directed loss of traits.

Neotenous features develop through breeding for the animal to keep the fearless curiosity of a baby: To fail to develop the caution a wild animal would need to avoid predation or conflict. Because the human care taker will be protecting them from those, removing the need for the animal to develop them and making it easier to form a trusting bond with the human care taker.

Confinement tolerance develops through lack of available space. Most individual humans simply do not have enough territory to match the natural range of most animals we have domesticated. Those that survived the stress of confinement to reproduce in that drastically smaller territory lose the stamina they need to make the long journeys their wild ancestors needed to keep fed.

Change in the size of territory changes the fuel requirements of the animal being domesticated. And humans have a limited variety of food available compared to what the animal’s native environment provides. Between those two things, a domesticated animal’s digestive system changes slightly with each generation until it adapts to get its altered fuel needs met out of the available variety of food.

The completely domesticated animal is fearlessly trusting of humans, no longer balloons into obesity in drastically confined space compared to what the wild ancestor would maintain, and does not suffer the malnutrition their wild ancestors would on their modified diet.

Some species are more easily domesticated than others.

Stress, confinement, temperature, humidity, and dietary changes too drastically different from those natural to an animal will kill the captive population before they have a chance to breed.

Dogs were a very natural fit with early humans. We were both nomadic pack hunters with high stamina over long distances.

When we settled into stationary settlements and started growing food, it was mostly grain, which is the natural diet of chickens, pigeons, and rodents.

Rodents and birds attracted cats, and making cats welcome preserved our food stores.

Chickens keep pretty small territories, relative to other bird species, they are non-migratory opportunistic breeders, and they nest on the ground near the food source that they naturally share with us. Their naturally smaller territories meant they were not likely to wander very far from safe nesting grounds, and they bred as long as food was available. So all we had to do to domesticate them was keep food constantly available make them well protected nesting places so that they would breed more rapidly and a smaller plot of land could support a larger flock.

Pigeons ancestors, the rock dove, primarily eat grain, live in extended family groups that forage cooperatively as far outside their territory as necessary to keep fed, and return reliably to a specific family nesting site: Exactly like humans, once we started living in stationary settlements.

Once Humans settled into stationary dwellings, Rock Doves fit as comfortably with us as dogs, and their short maturation period and high reproductive pace made them EASY to adapt that very little bit more they needed to be a more perfect fit.

We have been domesticating pigeons, a species whose needs already fit comfortably with our own, since humans stopped being nomadic and started our first settlements.

We have had a long, LONG time to work with pigeons.

WAY longer than we have had with parrots;

Started on what amounts to domestication Easy Mode.

Of the two, the pigeons are absurdly easier to care for, bond with, and train than Parrots.

85 notes · View notes

vfdbaudelairefile13 · 4 years

Text

Chapter Thirty-One:

The One With the Cryptic Couplet

“Follow me,” Hector directed the children as he walked over to his barn. After unlocking eight different types of locks, he glanced around, making sure one last time that the only people around were himself, Violet, and Klaus. He smiled at the two siblings as he lifted a piece of the board up and used his retinal scan. The scanner beeped, flashing from red to green, allowing Hector to open the barn.

Violet and Klaus looked around the small barn with eyes full of wonder, especially Violet. They saw what was shaped to resemble a pirate ship but instead of looking exactly like a pirate ship, it was made of several baskets with green hot air balloons, most of which were only half-inflated. Violet gazed around the barn pulling out her ribbon as she walked.

“What do you think?” Hector asked. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“What is it?” Klaus asked in amazement as he and Violet continued to stare at the invention.

“It’s our ticket out of this town,”

“But what is it?” he asked in the same tone.

Hector walked closer to his invention, eventually climbing on board. “It’s a self-sustaining hot air mobile home,”

“A...self-sustaining hot air mobile home,” Violet repeated looking at it in awe.

“A self-sustaining hot air mobile home,” Klaus repeated. “Like a hot air balloon?”

“It’s the same idea, only each basket is its own room. It’s like an entire flying house. Or it will be, once I run more tests on the engine.”

Violet’s smile was hurting her cheeks. She gazed all around the invention. She looked at Hector. “Did you invent it yourself?”

He nodded. “You see, Rule number 67 states no citizen is allowed to use or build mechanical devices,” he explained as Violet’s face drained of happiness.

“Wait, what?” Violet asked. “Does that mean I can’t build or use any mechanical devices? Am I considered a citizen of VFD now that the town is my guardian?”

Hector shared a small frown with Violet. “Unfortunately, yes you are. You have to follow rule #67 along with all the other rules,”

“But Violet is an inventor!” Klaus argued. “She’s a mechanical genius!”

Violet smiled. “I mean...I wouldn’t say genius...my father would...but I’m too modest for that,”

Klaus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, modest,”

Violet playfully punched his arm. “Shut up, bro,”

Hector sighed. “Well you see, the Council of Elders instructed me to destroy our inventing materials, but I brought them here. I’ve been working on this device ever since. If Violet doesn’t mind maybe she can help me out with it?”

Violet glanced around the small barn. “I’ve always wanted to have an inventing studio,” she pulled her hair tighter into her ribbon. “What have you invented so far, Hector?”

“Oh, just a few little things,” Hector replied. “But the self-sustaining hot air mobile is my enormous project. As Klaus said, it’s sort of like a hot air balloon,” he explained as he walked across his invention. “My invention is nothing more than a hot air balloon, except it’s much larger. Instead of one large basket, I have thirteen baskets, all tied together below several hot air balloons. Each basket serves as a different room. It’s completely self-sustaining...once you get up in it, you never have to go back down. In fact, if I ever get my new engine to work properly, it will be impossible to get back down. The engine should last for more than one hundred years, and there’s a huge basket that I’m willing with food, beverages, clothing, and books.” He sighed. “Once it’s complete, I��ll be able to fly away from VFD and the Council of Elders and everything that makes me skittish, and live forever in the air.”

“It sounds like a marvelous invention,” Violet replied. “But I must ask, how in the world have you been able to get the engine to be self-sustaining too?”

“That’s giving me something of a problem,” Hector admitted, “But maybe if you two took a look at it, we could fix the engine together.”

Klaus shuddered at the thought of inventing or even crafting anything ever again, after what happened the last time he tried that. He chuckled nervously. “I’m sure Violet could be of help,” Klaus explained. “I am not much of an inventor. I’m more interested in reading and research. Does VFD have a good library.”

Hector frowned and sighed. Walking to a specific basket in his invention. “Unfortunately, no. Rule 108 states that the VFD library and its citizens cannot own any books that break any of the other rules. If someone in a book uses a mechanical device, for instance, that book is not allowed.”

Klaus’ face fell instantly. He couldn’t imagine any book passing this town’s strict criteria. “But...there are so many rules. What kind of books could possibly be allowed?”

“Not very many, sadly,” Hector replied gesturing for Klaus to walk to him. “And nearly all of them are dull. There’s one called The Littlest Elf that’s probably the most boring book ever written. It’s about this irritating little man who has all sorts of tedious adventures. And then, of course, there’s the book of VFD rules.”

“That’s too bad,” Klaus said glumly. “I was hoping that I could do a little research into VFD, the secret, that is, not the village, in my spare time.”

Hector smiled at Klaus. “Well, if you noticed I have loaded the baskets with all the necessities,” he said pointing at the large basket in front of him. Klaus glanced at what the basket contained. His face lighting up slightly.

“Is this a library?” he asked.

Hector nodded. “You see, the books that didn’t fit the strict criteria were given to me to burn. But I hid them so I have something to read,”

Klaus’ eyes glazed over in happiness as he touched one of the books on the top. “Wow, I’ve seen public libraries, private libraries, school libraries, legal libraries, reptile libraries, and grammatical libraries, but never a secret library. This is exciting.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “You’re such a nerd,” she joked.

Klaus rolled his eyes. “I am not,”

“Yes, you are,”

Hector sighed. “It might be exciting, but it also makes me very skittish. The Council of Elders gets very, very angry when people break the rules. I hate to think what they’d do to me if they found out I was secretly using mechanical devices and reading secret books.”

Violet and Klaus looked at one another. “Don’t worry, Hector, your secret is safe with us,” Violet said as Klaus nodded.

“You mentioned you have a sister?” Hector said after a while. “We can’t forget about her. What does she like to do best?”

“She bites,” Klaus answers. “And she’s getting into cooking,”

Hector smiled. “Well, sadly for her, but Rule #4,561 clearly states that citizens are not allowed to use their mouths for recreation. If the Council of Elders knew that she liked to bite things for her own enjoyment, I can’t imagine what they’d do. But I’m sure I can find some things she can bite, but she’ll have to do it in secret.” He smiled kindly at the two siblings. “As for the cooking part, I’ve packed plenty of food. Most of them are crunchy foods, too. So maybe she’ll like that.”

“Thank you,” Klaus replied. Hector ushered for the two children to follow him out of the barn. He led the two siblings around another corner and the children got their first glimpse of where they would be living. The street that they had walked on simply ended at the turn of the corner, leading them to a place as wide and as flat as the countryside. With three shapes standing out on the flat ground. The first was the barn they had just exited. The second was the large, sturdy-looking house, with a pointed roof and a front porch big enough to contain a picnic table and four wooden chairs. But it was the third shape that had the two siblings staring in awe.

The third shape was the Nevermore Tree, but to simply say it was a tree would be like saying the Pacific Ocean was a body of water or that Count Olaf was a grumpy person or that the love story of Beatrice Baudelaire and Lemony Snicket was just a little bit sad. Nevermore Tree was gargantuan. Its trunk was so wide that the two siblings could have stood behind it, along with an elephant, three horses, and an opera singer, and not have been seen from the other side. It’s branches spread out in every direction, like a fan that was taller than the house and wider than the barn, and the tree was made to look taller and wider by what was sitting in it. Every VFD crow was roosting in its branches, adding a thick layer of muttering black shapes to the immense silhouette of the tree. Because the crows had gotten to Hector’s house as the crow flies, instead of walking, the birds had arrived long before Violet and Klaus, and the air was filled with quiet rustling sounds of the birds settling in for the evening. A few birds had already fallen asleep, and the children could hear a few crow snores as they approached their new home’s front door.

“It’s marvelous,” Violet muttered.

“It’s superlative,” Klaus agreed.

They stayed staring at the tree as Hector walked passed them to open the front door.

“You’re very brave to defy the Council of Elders,” Violet commented.

“Only behind closed doors, of course,” Hector explained. “When I’m in front of them, all I do is faint, which is why I have to leave this place. It’s too scary. Plus the fainting is hard on my lower back.” He glanced at the two children. “Maybe you could come with me…” he offered. “It’s big enough for us three...or even six. Think about it...no more rules, no more VFD. We could live up in the air forever.”

“Forever?” Violet asked frowning.

“Don’t you wanna escape your long, sad story?” Hector asked.

Klaus and Violet snuck a quick glance at each other. They both wanted that more than anything else in the world.

“Maybe...when we get our baby sister and friends out of danger,” Violet explained finally.

“And when Olaf is behind bars,” Klaus added.

“Who knows when that’ll be,” Violet explained sadly.

“Well, for tonight, I hope you two can ignore the noises the crows make. I know it might sound strange at first but you’ll get used to it before long. I always leave the windows open when I go to bed. The sounds of crows reminds me of the ocean and I find it very peaceful to listen to them as I drift off to sleep. Speaking of bed, I’m sure you must be very tired. I’ve prepared two rooms for you upstairs, but if you don’t like them you can choose other ones. There’s plenty of room in the house. There’s even room for your sister and the Quagmires to live here when we find them. It sounds like the five of you would be happy living together, even if you had to do the chores of an entire town.”

“That sounds delightful,” Violet said smiling at Hector. It made both siblings happy just to think of Sunny and their two triplet friends being safe and sound, instead of being in Olaf’s vicious clutches.

“Duncan’s a journalist, so maybe he could start a newspaper then VFD wouldn’t have to read all of the bullshit mistakes made by The Daily Punctilio, ” Klaus said smiling.

“Isadora is a poet,” Violet added. “She could write a whole book of poetry for the library...as long as her poems don’t break any of the rules.”

Hector started to open the door to his house, but then paused and gave the children a strange look. “A poet?” he repeated. “What kind of poetry does she write?”

“Couplets,” Violet answered smiling.

Hector gave Violet an even stranger look. He put down the children’s suitcases and reached into his pocket. “Couplets, you say?”

“Yes,” Klaus replied suspiciously. “She likes to write rhyming poems that are two lines long.”

Hector gave the youngsters a look that was one of the strangest that they had ever seen and he took his hand out of his pocket to show them a scrap of paper rolled into a tiny scroll. “Like this?” he asked and unrolled the paper. The orphans had to squint to read it in the dying light of the sunset, and when they read it once, they had to read it again, to make sure that the light wasn’t playing tricks on them and that they had read what was really there on the scrap of paper. Violet grabbed the paper from Hector’s fingers hurriedly. She looked to Klaus, who looked back at her. Both children felt as though their entire world had shattered. Violet glanced down at the shaky but familiar handwriting.

For our inheritance we are held in here,

Only you can end our fear.

__________________________________________________________________

Olaf sat in fetal position within the dirty, desolate cell of the Village of Fowl Devotees’ uptown jail. “ Trapped!” He cried. “ Caught like a trap in a rat! I can’t sleep....these dark, dank walls are closing in! I call to you, spirits of the jail cell, save me! Save me! How long has it been? The days turn to months!”

Jacques leaned up against the bars of the cell, arms crossed across his chest. He rolled his eyes. “It’s been eight minutes,” he countered. “You’re such a drama queen.”

Olaf glared at him. “Fuck off, Snicket,”

“Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you,” Olaf replied rolling his eyes. “You Snickets always make it too bitter.”

“It’s like Lemony always said, ‘tea should be as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a double-edged sword,” Jacques replied smiling.

“Don’t care,” Olaf said dismissively. He looked around. “I thought this stupid jail had a deluxe cell.”

“This is the deluxe cell,” Jacques explained, eyes pointedly staring at the noose the casually hung from the ceiling.

Olaf glared at the noose. “That’s bad news,” he muttered.

“Want some more bad news?” Jacques asked. “You’ll crack eventually.”

“For being offered tea? You’ve tried that on me for years. It hardly ever worked,”

“You’re going to tell us where the Quagmires and Sunny Baudelaire are. We expect the chief of police to be back any minute,”

Olaf did his best to hide his wicked smile from his enemy. “Do you now?” he asked sarcastically.

“I do now,” Jacques replied not noticing how Olaf’s demeanor slightly changed. “He or she will put you in the hands of the authorities and you’ll spend a long time in a cell of this quality or perhaps worse,”

Olaf chuckled at that. “Good luck,”

“And do you want to know why?”

Olaf sighed, rolling his eyes. “Is this where you give the big speech about morality and bla bla bla. More bullshit that VFD fed to you?”

“It’s because we represent the true human tradition,” Jacques began.

“That is a yes,” Olaf replied not even paying attention to the man.

“The best chance of extinguishing chaos and cruelty. We may be defeated, at least for a time. But we will never disappear. Not so long as there are noble, well-read people to take up the cause.”

Olaf frowned. His glare towards Jacques softened as he stared silently at his old friend. “ You still believe that? “ the man asked in an incredulous tone.

“Yes, I do.”

“ Why?!” Olaf asked.

Jacques ignored the man’s question. He glared at Olaf. “Now, where are the children?”

Olaf opened his mouth, Jacques foolishly believed the man was going to answer his question. Instead, Olaf began to scat. Jacques growled and walked away after flipping Olaf off.

He reached the office that Olivia was sitting in, preparing tea for the two of them.

“Did he talk?” she asked.

“Mostly about himself,” Jacques replied. “Which I am not surprised,”

“He won’t tell us where the kids are?” Olivia asked saddened. Jacques shook his head, frowning. “I want to find them,” Olivia hissed.

“I do, too. We know they’re nearby and alive. Olaf needs them for their inheritance. Once we hand him to the chief of police, we’ll search the town.”

“They must be scared,” Olivia explained. “Klaus Baudelaire and Violet, too.”

He sighed at Olivia’s words. He knew his associate made a valid point but he didn’t know how else to respond. “We all learn bravery the hard way, Olivia. I was scared when I joined the VFD. I was told memorizing a certain poem might help. When my siblings and I reached the VFD headquarters, we learned how to hit an olive with a bow and arrow. WE learned how to dance the waltz and the watusi, and how to determine if poison had been introduced into a cheese fondue without tasting it. But we were there voluntarily.” Jacques explained. “We are volunteers,”

Olaf, who could still hear the two volunteers, scoffed. “You’re an idiot if you still believe that Snicket. Where was VFD when Lemony went on the run? Where was VFD when he was dying? Where is VFD now, that his daughter and these other brats are in grave danger.?’ he asked.

“We’re right here,”

“Ready to indict them,” Olaf replied. “You’re no better than me. These kids don’t need your fucking cult. They need love and safety and whatever else helps orphans grow into adults. But they aren’t going to get that from either side of the schism, are they?”

“VFD isn’t a cult,” Jacques argued with Olaf.

“Believe what you want,” Olaf argued. “It’s your funeral,”

Jacques growled. “It’s not my funeral. Didn’t you ever hear the quote, ‘before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves?’”

Olaf shuddered. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. “Two graves is the exact reason I’m embarking on a journey of revenge in the first place. Don’t you remember, Snicket?”

Jacques rolled his eyes. “...these kids didn’t do shit to you,”

Olaf smirked. He didn’t care if Jacques and Olivia could only hear him. He knew that Jacques could hear the smirk that was plastered on his face. “Didn’t you ever hear the quote about how children will pay for the sins of their parents?”

“Oh fuck off. Stop trying to justify your behavior,”

“I’m not trying to justify my behavior,” Olaf argued. “I’m allowing you in on my thought process. Maybe if you understood me, you can imagine the despicable things I plan to do to all five of these brats..., especially Violet. “

Jacques stood up and was nearly about to rush towards Olaf but Olivia grabbed him holding him back. “He’s only trying to push your buttons,” Olivia tried to explain.

“It’s a good thing Violet looks like Beatrice…” Olaf commented knowing his words were getting under Jacques’ skin. “If she looked like Lemony...she wouldn’t be as pretty.”

“You sick fuck,” Jacques hissed.

“Well...maybe if she looked like Kit, ” Olaf noted. He winced at his mere mentioning of the woman who broke his heart.

“ That’s it you sick fuck!” Jacques yelled running towards Olaf’s cell. He reached in trying to grab the vile man. “ Do not compare my fourteen-year-old niece to my sister that you had an intimate relationship with!”

“ Had...have,” Olaf muttered. “Tomato, tomahtoe,”

“What did you say?” Jacques asked confused.

“Nothing, nothing,” Olaf said smirking. “How does it feel to never have the chance to meet your niece?”

“I’m going to meet her,”

Olaf smirked. “You can’t meet her if you’re dead.”

“Do you think you scare me?” Jacques asked. “You’re the one behind bars, not me.”

“For now,”

Olivia sighed walking over to Jacques. “Ignore him,” she said pulling Jacques away from Olaf’s cell as the villain continued to blab about whatever he thought would get a reaction from Jacques. “You said there was a poem that you recited...that helped you. What was the poem? The one you memorized on your way to VFD headquarters?” she asked as she pushed Jacques back into the small office where she had made tea.

Jacques sighed. “When you drive away in secret, you’ll be a volunteer. So don’t scream when we take you, the world is quiet here.” he recited, closing his eyes. For some reason, reciting this now just felt wrong.

“Poetry?” He asked. “You’ll stop at nothing to make me tell you where the brats are hidden.” He smiled a wicked smile when he realized where that stanza came from. “Oh, that’s rich. Can I be around when you teach your niece that one.”

“Fuck off,” Jacques called out annoyed.

“Maybe we can change the words so it’s about her instead of who it’s actually about,”

“Ignore him,” Olivia repeated.

Both volunteers could hear a strange sound coming from near where Olaf’s cell was. Jacques got up, ready to investigate. Olivia grabbed his arm. “I’ll go check on him. He could be making unnecessary noise to get your attention,”

Jacques nodded as Olivia walked away. He waited for a few moments.

“Who are you?” He could hear Olivia asked.

“The new chief of police,” the woman answered in her disguised voice. She had her visor down over her eyes, so all Olivia could see was she was a very nice-looking blonde woman who wore blood-red lipstick. But there was something about that voice that seemed familiar to Jacques, he couldn’t put his finger on it though.

“Ah, good,” Olivia said as she showed the VFD chief of police to Olaf’s cell. She turned away from the woman to lead the woman to the occupied jail cell. “We’re so glad you’re here. This man…” she began before she felt something sharp and pointy poking at her back. She froze in place. Unsure of what to do. She slowly turned around to watch the woman push up her visor, unmasking the hidden half of her face. Olivia glanced nervously at the woman’s cold, cruel eyes.

“Is my boyfriend,” Esme Squalor finished for Olivia, poking her back again with the harpoon gun that Olaf had gifted her. Olivia gulped and screamed a bit, unsure of whether or not Esme was going to pull the trigger and end her where she stood. Esme grabbed the woman’s arm, pinning it behind her back, keeping the harpoon gun pointed at her. She pushed Olivia towards where Jacques was sipping and enjoying his tea.

When Esme and Olivia reached the doorway, Jacques’ eyes went wide.

“Why hello Snicket,” Esme hissed. “Fancy seeing you here,”

“Esme,” Jacques said standing up. “Unhand her now! ”

Esme smirked towards Jacques, keeping the harpoon gun in its place. “Come with me or the unstylish woman gets it,” she ordered.

Jacques wanted so much to rush towards Esme and kick her ass. But he took one glance towards the terrified Olivia and decided against it. “Unhand her. You want me,”

Esme grabbed onto Olivia’s hair tightly as she pointed the harpoon gun at Jacques. “Let’s go,” Esme demanded gesturing for Jacques to walk in front of her. Jacques followed her orders. Still worried more so about Olivia then himself. Esme gestured for Jacques to walk over to Olaf’s cell. “Well, let him out,” she demanded.

Jacques took the key out of his pocket. He sighed angrily. “I fucking hate you both,” he muttered as he unlocked Olaf’s cell. Olaf walked out of the cell, a smirk plastered on his face. He took the key from Jacques’ hands before punching Jacques in the face. With the impact of the punch keeping Jacques distracted. Olaf kicked the man into the cell and slammed the door shut, using the key he had taken and locked it shut. Jacques rushed to the front of the cell, reaching out in hopes of grabbing Olaf or Esme.

“You won’t get away with this!” he yelled.

Olaf laughed as Esme walked Olivia over to a different cell and pushed her in, causing her to fall on her ass. Esme slammed and locked the door.

Olaf looked to Esme. “Took you long enough,”

“Hey, you’d still be jail if it weren’t for me,”

Olaf rolled his eyes but stared at Jacques, who glared at him from behind bars. “What I’ve always wanted to see a Snicket behind bars…” his eyes lit up with an idea. His Grinch-like smile slowly crawling on his face. “A Snicket behind bars…” he repeated again.

“What?” Esme asked confused.

“I think Jacques here has helped me figure out how to get his niece in my clutches,” Olaf explained. “A Snicket behind bars…”

“I don’t follow,” Esme admitted.

Olaf smirked. “Oh, you’ll see,” he said. Jacques merely glared at him.

“Whatever your planning...it won’t work!”

“Well, we won’t know until we try,” Olaf argued. “I can see the headlines now…”

“What headlines?” Jacques asked worriedly.

“What are you planning, you fuck?” Olivia asked worriedly.

“Count Olaf...arrested,” Olaf stated staring strangely at Jacques. “No...that’s not good enough. How about… Count Olaf has been murdered. Yes...that one has great potential.”

“You’re getting murdered? Good. Finally. By who?” Jacques asked.

Olaf smirked at his old friend. “Oh, I’m not the one that’s going to be murdered. You are.”

Jacques’ face fell as Olaf revealed the main part of his plan. “You won’t get away with this,”

“And to answer your question...of who murdered me...well isn’t it obvious?” Olaf asked. Esme smiled as she finally caught on to this part of Olaf’s overcomplicated plan. “Violet Snicket and Klaus Baudelaire, of course. Who else would want me dead?”

“Everyone,” Jacques replied bitterly. But no one heard his reply over the maniacal laughter of Esme Squalor and Count Olaf.

“It’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!” Esme cheered.

“It certainly is… soon little Violet Snicket will see herself where her father should have ended up...behind bars,” Olaf said as he continued to laugh.

The laughter that filled the uptown jail made Jacques and Olivia feel sick with anxiety. Both adults feared for not only the lives of the five children they were trying to save...but they also feared for their own lives.

8 notes · View notes

ruthandliamgoplaces · 5 years

Text

Cycling the Canal Du Midi

Writing this blog entry from our tent fortress in Toulouse! We have been resting at a campsite and sheltering from the rain; living in a tiny flat in Hull has prepared us well for managing in this confined space. We finished the Canal du Midi cycle route from Sete to Toulouse, the first leg of our travel by bike adventure… this blog entry will try to relay some of our experiences, so many come to mind that it will fail to do the excitement and intensity any justice! We were also joined by my amazing Dad for the first three days of cycling, and Liam and I did the last two on our own.

We chose the route of the Canal du Midi as it made logistical sense having attended a festival near to Sete, the route being flat for ease, and with good train links so my Dad could join us for a section. Wanting it to work out, I did kind of ignore a lot of the warnings online that the route was very badly maintained and difficult/impossible to ride in places. My usual experience dictates that when people whine about routes being hard, it is never as bad as they make out. I did some more research, and there was even a Cicerone Official guidebook. How bad could it be? We decided to give it a go.

Well, I was wrong. The people online were completely correct with their assessment- the track was very difficult to ride for the most part! Liam and I set off on our fully loaded touring bikes with road tyres, and were greeted with easy to medium rated mountain bike routes, including slithers of single track with dicy drop offs into a canal, tree routes, gravel, sand, subsidence where parts of the canal were missing, huge grasses providing resistance to the panniers, no paving on most of the track causing rattles and jerks. Having no suspension and little control over our tanks of bikes, this made things, well, very challenging! My Dad had his mountain bike with proper tyres and suspension and less load, so he fared a little better!

Our bikes, arms, legs and tempers were put through their paces as we experienced a good beating and rattling as we made our way on the route. Liam’s front rack and mud guard broke, his bike stand broke, everything got shaken loose, all the nuts and bolts needed tightening.

All that being said, we had an absolutely fantastic time! We found great humour when faced with these adversities. We saw the positives of the experiences as we were able to really test our bikes and my amazing mechanic Dad helped us fix the issues. We will be facing unpaved roads and tracks in many countries we intend to visit… so it provided a great opportunity to see what would happen!

The route itself, was really beautiful and I would highly recommended it for bikepacking on a mountain bike. We travelled through beautiful rural French villages and towns along the waterways, spotting heron and water birds, cycled along the meditterean sea and had a swim, bought local cheese, cherries and strawberries, had coffees in lovely local cafes, explored French towns, saw lots of fascinating locks and shared greetings with holidaymakers on canal boats. The sun mostly shone down, and was glorious. The grasses were long, the smells of spring and summer floating in the air, and the enormous plane trees planted along the banks were glorious and provided some shade.

We worked really well as a team, and had some amazing wild camp spots. The best one, my Dad found, was underneath an aqueduct which supported the Canal! So, not only did we ride along the canal but we slept under it. We found it after the only evening it rained, we were cold and wet, and in need of shelter. The universe provided! In the morning we had a much needed wash by swimming in the river with the fish. Then shared our breakfast with the ants whilst drying out in the sun.

Another fun bivvy was after Liam and I’s first solo day… we had put in some hard miles and could not find anywhere to bed down. We cycled and cycled until we had nothing left in our legs, and the light faded, so we were forced to just put up camp on the side of the track in full view of anyone passing. However, we counted on no one passing that far our in the rural area whilst it was dark! We eventually managed to get to sleep about 11pm after Liam cooked up a feast! Then, about 1am, I was startled awake by 4 bright lights in my face. A group of four night cyclists whizzed by at high speed, and shouted Bonne Nuit!

We had a lovely time in Carcassonne exploring the medieval city, where a nice French cycle tourer helped my Dad fix Liam’s bike. My dad didn’t ask for help, but Bernard was extremely excited by the technical challenge and jumped up when he saw my Dad working on the bike. I was very amused watching them work together with limited shared language - but they functioned in harmony. Bernard offered us some comments on our gear, not all good! Ha ha!

Finally we arrived in Toulouse after a day of cycling on amazing paved track. It was hot, and it took us a while to find the campsite. We learned we do not like cycling in cities even when they have amazing cycle paths. We have enjoyed the city, its beautiful rivers and architecture. However, we also enjoyed the comforts it offers… namely Starbucks…. Where we passed an afternoon charging our electronics and learning how to use the Garmin, which will help us navigate.

Liam and I are sometimes a bit haphazard, and owned this amazing piece of kit with no idea how to use it or even what it does. We were absolutely amazed by it, and now have downloaded our onward routes for the next few weeks. Fingers crossed it makes navigation a bit easier. Stay tuned for updates.

Toulouse also provided us with an opportunity to catch up with some of Liam’s friends he made whilst couchsurfing in 2016. We went out expecting to be home (tent) by 11pm and away cycling by 7am. How foolish of us. So here we are, nursing hangovers safely back in the tent at 10pm the next day. We’ve spent the day resting and sheltering from the rain because it has not stopped raining really for two days. Unexpected in the South of France!! So, it kind of worked out. We also learnt some more lessons about not riding bikes whilst drunk, not navigating whilst drunk, and not planning epic cycles the day after going out for a beer!

We are making slow progress as we try and get fitter on the bikes and adjust to sleeping wild, cooking every meal outdoors, and living cheap. I have to say, we are in our element. I love sleeping outside, being on the move, shopping for cheap food, having so few possessions and living simply. All you worry about each day is where to sleep, what to eat, and where to go. Every day is full of new experiences and rich with learning, struggle, joy and suffering in equal measure. A coffee in Starbucks or a warm shower is like the ultimate luxury! You appreciate everything that you have. Emotions are felt with intensity. I love this life!

So… tomorrow we move on. We are aiming to cycle to Switzerland via Foix, Perpignan, Montpelier and Eurovelo route 17 in the next three weeks. It is about 1000km and lots of ascent! So, we will have to see how that goes. Honestly, we have no idea how we will fare. Our bikes are very very heavy and we have a lot of muscle to build! Whilst googling stupid things like can you cycle 1000km in 3 weeks, all I found were posts on forums of people asking if they could do it in 2 days. So… we will give it a punt. To be continued.

Just wanted to give a massive shoutout to my amazing Dad, who we miss as our third musketeer! Despite being more than both our ages combined he was faster than us, had more energy, more skills and more positivity! He really is an inspiring individual! Thanks so much for coming and all of the laughs we shared. Thanks for fixing our bikes, buying us cherries and coffees, keeping us motivated and cheerful. Thanks for doing the washing up and letting us rest after we were too exhausted to move and you were full of beans 😂

2 notes · View notes

foreverevanescent · 5 years

Text

Play Hard in the Chalk

“Ugh…we’re so bored!” Kim and Madison whined in unison, hanging upside down from their chairs. Sunny looked back at the two girls from his blackboard, and rolled his eyes.

“How can you guys be bored? We just fought against a giant sea monster and defeated it with the power of music and friendship!” Sunny countered, with his arms as crossed as the look on his face.

“We did that already,” Madison countered.

“Three times in this month alone,” Kim added, lightly kicking her feet. Sunny let out a loud sigh, and went back to the board.

“Anyway…the reason many instruments are made of brass is…” Sunny continued before the bell rang, signaling the end of class. “Alright everyone, don’t forget to practice the new song for tomorrow,” Sunny said before he started packing up. Madison and Kim were still moaning and mumbling as everyone else was leaving the classroom.

“It’s time for recess, Kim,” Madison said in a bored tone.

“I know. Let’s get to the playground,” Kim responded with an equally flat tone. As they were leaving the classroom, Kim noticed a faint glowing coming from Sunny’s desk. Kim grabbed Madison by the arm, and saw that the glow was coming from the top drawer of Sunny’s desk. When Kim opened the drawer, she got a huge smile on her face.

“Madison, we just found Sunny’s magic chalk, do you know what this means?” Kim asked, leaving Madison to squint, thinking of an answer to Madison’s question.

“Uhhhh….no,” Madison admitted, looking to the ground slightly embarrassed. Kim grabbed a couple of pieces of magic chalk, and an eraser that came with it.

“It means that we have something to do with our recess,” Kim smiled, once again pulling Madison outside to the playground. At the playground, Madison and Kim were looking around the playground, looking for something to do. “Alright Madison, what do you think we should do with this chalk?”

“Bring it back to Sunny so we don’t get in trouble?” Madison said, with a sweet face. Kim rolled her eyes, and playfully smacked Madison on the top of her head.

“No, we need to do something big, something exciting, something…world changing!” Kim yelled, before being interrupted by Preston, along with his giant bodyguard standing behind him.

“Hey you little freshman, you’re ruining the peacefulness of this playground. So I’m going to ask you to shut the hell up,” Preston said, right into Kim’s face, who responded with a stuck out tongue.

“Yeah, because a playground full of kids with a lot of energy is so peaceful, right you ball sack chinned loser?” Kim countered, turning his back to Preston before looking down at the eraser in her hand while Madison was trying to look away from the fight and think of a way to peacefully end it.

“Who do you think you’re talking to you little freshman!? I’m one of the finest students in this school, I head the directing club in the movie/film department of our school, and…” Preston ranted before Kim rubbed the eraser over his mouth, causing it to disappear.

“Oh shut up,” Kim smirked, twirling the eraser around on her finger. In Kim’s victorious happiness, she didn’t realize that Preston had fallen down on the floor, and started choking.

“Kim! I think he stopped breathing!” Madison shrieked, noticing that Preston’s face was becoming blue.

“I got it, hold on,” Kim said calmly, jabbing the chalk a few times on the area of Preston’s face where his mouth would be, creating holes in his mouth much like a box with a frog on it. After a few seconds, Preston started breathing again.

“See? He’s fine, now let’s go and have some fun with this stuff!” Kim exclaimed, leading Madison by the arm away from Preston, and to the other side of the playground. “Now what do you want to with the chalk?”

“Is returning it to Sunny before we get in trouble still an option?” Madison asked.

“No it is not,” Kim responded before she snapped her fingers, and started drawing. After a few minutes of drawing, she had made a giant slide that went all over the playground, even surrounding the school. “Now THIS is awesome!” Kim exclaimed, before drawing a ladder, allowing the both of them to get to the top of the slide.

“WAIT!” Madison yelled, blocking Kim from going down the slide.

“Madison, for the last time, we’re not returning the chalk to Sunny until…” Kim started before she saw a seemingly endless stream of water landing on the slide, turning it into a water slide. “Alright, that is awesome Madison!”

“I thought since we’re going down this slide, might as well make it even more fun!” Madison exclaimed, before going down the slide, with Kim following her shortly after. The two travel through the playground at incredible speeds, noticing the other kids’ shocked and surprised expressions.

“Hey Madison, let’s make this more fun!” Kim said, quickly drawing a hoverboard, and leaving the water slide. “You wanna race?” Kim asked, with a smirk on her face. Madison answered by drawing a pair of wings on her back, and flew away from the slide. The two of them spent a couple of minutes racing in the sky and laughing before Kim stopped dead in her tracks.

“…Madison?”

“Yes Kim?”

“Aren’t you scared of heights?”

“…AAAAAAHHHH!” Madison responded, before sweating profusely and praying that she made it down without accident. Fortunately for her, she was able to make it to the ground safely and erased her wings. Kim came down soon after, and hung her arm around the back of Madison’s neck.

“So what do you want to do now?” Kim asked. Madison, recovering from her sudden bout of fear, smiled at her.

“How about we do something with those battle robots we saw on TV a couple of days ago?” Madison suggested.

“Oh yeah! That would be awesome!” Kim said before she started drawing a robot. Madison joined her, and with ten minutes to spare before recess was over, they both had giant robots. Madison’s had a box shaped body, with arm that looked like pliers, and one giant eye at the center of its cube shaped head. Kim’s robot had a more ovular body with a circular head, complete with two eyes, an antenna, and metallic hands.

The two robots went after each other with punches to the face and head. Kim’s robot tackled Madison’s robot down to the ground, and started stabbing the robot’s shoulders with its claws. Madison’s robot, however, countered with laser eyes, sending Kim’s robot back a couple of paces, allowing Madison’s robot to kick it in the face.

“YAY! I’M WINNING!” Madison screamed over the constant beeping and moving mechanics of the robot. Kim rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at Madison playfully.

“Oh just wait until my robot destroys yours!” Kim countered, pointing to her robot punching Madison’s in the face. Then, both robots got up and activated their laser eyes. Both were hit by the lasers, and exploded into pieces, spreading all over not only the school, but outside to the parking lot as well. Both girls looked at each other, and the giant mess around them, and laughed.

“Man Kim, you were right this was so much fun!” Madison cheered, hugging Kim and pulling her close. Kim laughed, before lightly pushing Madison off of her.

“I know right? We need to do stuff like this more often!” Kim agreed, giving Madison a hi-five. Just then, the both of them felt a hand on their shoulders. They looked up, and were shocked and scared to find the irritated face of their teacher Sunny Bridges.

“Care to explain?” Sunny asked, staring at the two friends, who were looking at each other and stammering.

“Uh…I…well you see, what happened was…,” Kim started before Madison’s eyes started to tear up.

“IT WAS ALL KIM’S IDEA!” Madison screeched, with tears in her eyes that were rolling on her cheeks. Kim put Madison in a headlock, while Sunny was shaking his head.

“You little snitch!” Kim half yelled, ignoring Madison’s tears spilling onto her hand. Sunny separated the two before looking down at them with a glare.

“Now don’t try and place the blame on one of you. You both used my chalk, and you both caused damage to the school. And do you know what you need to do now?”

“Leave it to the janitors?” Kim asked hopefully, causing Sunny to roll his eyes.

“No, you and Madison are going to clean the entire school after school today,” Sunny clarified, leaving Madison and Kim shocked.

“WHAT!? Do you see all the mess!?” Kim countered, emphatically waving her arms in the air and pointing to all the messes around the school.

“Well that’ll teach you to disobey instructions from your teacher. I’ll see the both of you after school. Now hurry up, class is going to start in a few minutes,” Sunny answered, walking back into the school, leaving Kim and Madison to look at each other and sigh.

“Well, at least we had fun,” Madison said, with a small smile on her face, trying to make Kim and herself feel better. Kim looked at Madison, and offered her own small smile.

“Yeah, but imagine having to explain this to your dad or my parents,” Kim said, chuckling a little bit, soon being accompanied by Madison’s light laughter. “We might as well go inside now, we don’t want to add a tardy on top of destruction of property,” Kim said, before she and Madison headed to class, with only a slight regret over what had happened the past ten to fifteen minutes.

“Hey Kim, do you have the feeling that we forgot something?” Madison asked when they were in front of their classroom. Kim closed her eyes for a few seconds before shrugging her shoulders.

“Eh…if it was important, we wouldn’t have forgotten about it,” Kim responded. Madison nodded before the two of them headed to class, not noticing Preston walking around the school, still without a mouth. Sunny saw Preston when he walked past his classroom, sighed, and walked after him.

#madison #kim #sunny #sunny bridges #class of 3000 #cartoonnetwork #cartoon #fanfiction #chalk #play #hard #playground #recess #bored #fun #comedy #humor #friendship #adventure #robots #battle #flying

2 notes · View notes

ganymedesclock · 6 years

Text

I think one of my biggest issues with a certain amount of fanon around Lotor is that even if you count Lotor as an antagonist- which you can make a good argument for- he’s clearly measured with a different standard than other antagonists.

For example people really like to use the term “murderer” when they’re trying to shut down any insinuation that Lotor could be a good person. In my experience this often involves ascribing kills to Lotor that he didn’t actually do or that are very shaky.

For example? Zethrid’s comment that they tried to send ships into the rift, and the vessels exploded, which was “fun for me, not fun for your pilots.” I’ve seen this interpreted as “Lotor sent people into the rift to their deaths.”

We have to consider with very rare exceptions, the smaller fighter ships that both the empire and Lotor uses? Are piloted by robots. And what we see of Lotor’s subordinates in s4e3 shows us mostly drones- maybe a handful of actual flesh-and-blood galra. And it’s fair to assume it’s not those galra who are being sent out in fighter ships by Lotor- otherwise in s3e2 the paladins committed a massacre and they are our Y7 show heroes so that’s not a thing.

And even if I was a fan of your conclusion, you have to recognize that “these ships that we have a single line of reference to definitely contained real people when it’s very likely in this setting they didn’t, and Lotor definitely sent a large number of those people to their death when he’s not known to attempt the same thing futilely over and over and he doesn’t appear to have that many followers to sacrifice.”

You could make a much better argument for the two fleets that Acxa called in at the end of s3e3 to cover Lotor’s escape, which we know were manned by living people, but even then, given Voltron was the killing weapon, I’d hesitate to make that your triumphant stand of “this proves that Acxa’s a rotten person and by connection, Lotor”.

Yes, Lotor has killed. Raht, Narti, and Zarkon. (it’s also possible that he killed his first opponent in the gladiatorial ring in s3e1) All three individuals, to his understanding, posed an immediate threat to his own life.

The most ambiguous and nasty case in this one is definitely Narti- there are other ways Lotor could have handled that situation. Narti was not a willing spy- Haggar set her up and Lotor cut her down. S5e6 analyzes this thinking, however, and frames it as:

Lotor tends to self-sabotage...

...Via his incredible difficulty trusting others and tendency to assume that anything opposing him at the moment must hate him and want him to die...

...Which is almost definitely rooted in the trauma he disclosed to Allura that would mean he doesn’t have healthy emotional connections to draw from the idea that people don’t all inevitably hate him.

As an audience, a certain amount of us do have a reflex of “C’mon dude, Narti is your friend. She wouldn’t do that to you. Can’t you see that she needs help, not your sword in her chest?” because we’re detached, we have more information than he does, and we have an emotional investment in seeing Narti get that help.

And the white lion is used narratively to show us that it’s not an isolated incident and it had nothing to do with Narti personally- it’s Lotor’s problem. When the point of the lion trial is you have to realize the attacking beast won’t hurt you and isn’t your enemy, Lotor literally can’t win because everything he has ever known has taught him that he doesn’t have friends. At best, he has people who he’s useful to, and as soon as he’s not useful, they will turn on him.

And I feel like this is about the point people’s eyes glaze over because “come on Clockie I don’t care about Lotor’s sad backstory I care about the fact that he killed someone” but my point is these things are relevant.

Because otherwise it sure looks weird and inconsistent how after Narti and Zarkon both, Lotor goes really quiet, nearly unresponsive, and in the case of Narti, spends a long time genuinely not planning for his future at all that we can tell.

For me, the entirety of s4e5 and s4e6 is a huge red flag that Lotor didn’t want to do that. He did it, yes, because see the three points that are clarified for us in s5e6- but there’s a lot of difference between Lotor killing Narti and the way that Zarkon has Prorok disposed of in s2e1.

Lotor versus Narti, the team is in danger, he has seconds to make up his mind because if he’s wrong they’ll never shake their pursuers and any safe haven they seek out is going to be compromised, they’re on a ship under attack and everybody is panicking.

Zarkon versus Prorok, nothing is going on, it’s an ordinary Tuesday at the office, there is no pressure besides the vague, if he doesn’t catch a spy it might happen again, and there’s also no misunderstanding- Prorok immediately and clearly protests, and by the time Haggar’s carrying out his execution in s2e3, they know that Prorok isn’t even the guilty party. And Haggar makes it clear she just really doesn’t care.

And I mean there’s also the fact that we can list three people that Lotor killed (or had killed, in Raht’s case, the torn edge on his severed prosthetic suggest to me that Zethrid was at least involved) by name.

It’s flat-out disingenuous to insist Lotor’s three-man kill count is directly comparable to, oh, say, the two different inhabited planets Zarkon has been attributed with razing and conducting genocide on the inhabitants of (Altea in s1e1, the unnamed colony in s5e6) and his policies of torture, imprisonment in awful conditions, extended slavery, and carelessly disposing of his subordinates for, again, crimes they didn’t commit, would tell us that there are a huge number of other deaths on Zarkon’s head.

When, surprise surprise, all of those systems are things that Lotor would either have no need of the way he operates, or is shown to actively dislike. Taking new planets? He’d rather talk to them and even if he’s taking what he wants at swordpoint, he genuinely didn’t want to hurt the Puigians any more than bare minimum necessary and his soldiers went in under orders to kill no one. They didn’t even cause any property damage.

The system imperialism which relies on the galra owning everybody else? Lotor wants to dismantle it by giving power back to the occupied people (s3e1 and s3e2).

(I have. seen too many people call Lotor an unapologetic imperialist when the one time he confesses he was interested in keeping a colony, he was put in charge of it by Zarkon and did everything he could to familiarize himself with the local culture and create good diplomatic rapport and not hurt their planet for his own exploitation.

And Zarkon said “no” and burnt it down and didn’t put Lotor in power again, in which case it doesn’t matter how sincere Lotor is, the reason why Lotor hasn’t made progress dismantling the empire in the last ten thousand years was because Zarkon was using his much greater influence and power to make sure Lotor had nothing to show for his work)

Even the racism at the heart of the empire’s destructive policies, a point is made time and time again that Lotor very strongly lives and perceives himself as a mixed-race galra first. Most of his public appearances to the empire’s elite (s3e1 and s5e4) come with people hurling slurs, racist rhetoric, and death threats at him.

Even Lotor’s interest in the rift has a very different context than Zarkon and Honerva’s fascination with it if you consider the latter were experimenting with it in the heart of a populated planet that withered and died because of their work, they not only left it wide open but worked to make it bigger, and ignored the dangerous creatures living in there as well as the averse effect that it was having on, again, the heartland of the galra empire.

Lotor’s interest in the rift is as a way to decisively break the imperial system once and for all by basically flooding the market with so much quintessence nobody will ever need to forcibly take it from other planets and Zarkon’s system will be financially worthless. Which might sound callous unless you consider Lotor is going to need a callous argument since you can’t take someone like Throk and sit them down through the annotated power point of “Today, I will explain to you why you should care if other people are suffering.”

And the first thing Lotor does with the rift is basically put such a dense mechanical lock on it that he can’t actually figure out how to get in there himself. He’s building countermeasures for things that he quite possibly doesn’t even know about (the rift creature) with this.

But not only does Zarkon have a massive kill count, if you look at Zarkon killing Alfor, Trigel, Gyrgan and Blaytz, and compare that to Lotor killing Narti...

Lotor struck Narti down quickly under duress, and when it became clear the other generals were also betraying him, Lotor specifically chose not to kill them as well even though that left him in a very bad place tactically- it ended up meaning that now Haggar has one of the two Sincline ships, the one that had tested and proven itself as able to hold off Voltron in single combat, and the generals know about the rift gate, and they’re all devastatingly powerful fighters.

Sure, Acxa and Ezor might have been able to fight him off, but Lotor could have at least shot Zethrid off the hull of the first Sincline ship and they wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop him. But Lotor even basically tells them to take care of themselves before he leaves and has shown no interest hunting them down afterwards.

Because “hunting them down” is exactly what Zarkon did to his old team. Even when the only threat Alfor posed to him was that if he insisted on continuing to selfishly chase the rift that he didn’t need (Honerva was alive again, so even his initial reason wasn’t there)- and Zarkon’s basic first act of reanimation was to declare war on Altea.

Which is contrasted by this shot, which would sure seem to suggest that the reason why his people were still alive and there to hear him was because Altea took them in as refugees after the destruction of Daibazaal.

Zarkon planned, carefully, and made up his mind and went and hunted down all four paladins and killed them. If there’s barely a handful of living Alteans left after the destruction of its home planet, even though they were advanced spacefaring people, it’d suggest that Zarkon deliberately hunted down the survivors, and both his attitudes towards Allura in s1e1 and the way he talks about being able to wipe Lotor out in s5e2 would sure line up with that.

So like... can we not suggest that the three people Lotor killed when two of the three of them he’s shown to be unhappy about are somehow analogous to Zarkon’s multiple counts of systematic genocide?

Even if you think Lotor’s an antagonist, he’s not as bad as Zarkon and he’s definitely not worse than Zarkon. And when most of our main antagonists in the setting are much closer to Zarkon’s level (Haggar’s also a planet-killer via the Komar and her plan at Naxzela would have wiped out a large number of inhabited planets, Sendak makes a comment about invading Earth specifically because of the paladins’ resistance against him) Lotor stands out as a guy who’s moral enough that the paladins, including Shiro- a man of very potent personal morals- find him palatable company.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Lotor #Zarkon #readmore

383 notes · View notes

werezmastarbucks · 6 years

Text

Flame for one [finale]

Word count: 3095

Warnings: DEATH, frustration, language. I’m serious, this one will disappoint you

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part Nine Part 10 Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Steve and Bucky were lost. Several next weeks, you learned that the rest of your team were captivated and sent to the prison, then, that Tony received the message from Steve; he didn’t wish to have anything to do with it at first, but then gave up. For some reason, it hit you bitterly to discover that Steve broke in the prison and liberated Clint, Wanda, Scott Lang and Sam, and you were still in New York, you wouldn’t call it ‘stuck’, but, anyways, with Stark. You said to yourself that Tony needed you, and indeed, he spent all his time with you now, if only he wasn’t training Rhodey to walk again with his new prosthetic legs he’d created. The invention was rather impressive since it gave Jim an opportunity to walk on his own legs, with the help of the machinery. It was better than no walking at all, and you knew that nobody else apart from Tony could make that happen. He also worked on something else, but kept it behind closed doors, and no one dared to ask.

You gathered, T’Challa kept his word and took Steve and Bucky away. They must have assumed you were dead. Tony said, they were looking for your corpse with vehicles, for three days. Steve didn’t have time for that. T’Challa was a man of his word, obviously, and also very shrewd. You recalled him pushing your buttons wisely. Promising you that Barnes would be safe. And how you just switched off at that. Wise. Cunning Panther King.

You didn’t know where they were. Probably, somewhere in Africa. If you wanted to hide, there was no place like two places: Eastern Europe, which was Bucky’s choice, and Africa, a continent where nothing could be found unless you knew where to look.

Tony mentioned tearing off Bucky’s metal arm, and you tried to imagine him now, one-handed, beaten, and certain that you died. You felt the urge to reach Steve somehow, to let them know that you were alive and well, that you weren’t that easy to defeat, and Tony suggested using the one-time cellphone which Steve sent to him for the use, but you were hesitating whether it was the reason enough. It was the last tail you had that led you to them, and in case of something serious, you wouldn’t be able to contact them. You kept T’Challa’s presence in lab to yourself when Tony wondered where they might be. The intelligence could take its time searching for the criminals.

As to you, you were in New York, stayed with Tony, and did practically nothing. Stark had boasted a lot before, about being able to deal with everything, and this time, just like all times before, he kept his promise. All you faced now, after being retreated from below the lab, was an interrogation with Everett Ross, the short man with fancy hair and angry eyes, who was far too happy about catching Zemo to go harsh on you. It seemed that your reputation of an unstable antihero, who was kept among the Avengers for the sake of peace, because you wouldn’t tolerate being imprisoned, and the Avengers wouldn’t tolerate you being killed, worked for you now. You had to just accept it and retrieve back to your suite, after making a deal with Ross. He said, you give away all the information on where Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes might be, and we forget everything you’ve done two weeks ago. You said, ok, deal, chap, those two fucks got the best of me anyway. So, what do you know, Y/N? Lol, you said, I ain’t know a thing since I missed all the fun because I was buried under the ruins of the lab. That was about it.

Now you just had to give it all a good thought and decide for yourself what to do next. Fortunately, your both legs were broken, so you had some time of peace. You were soon tired of thinking, of measuring your decisions, of choosing and feeling the sorrow. God knows you were so tired. You recalled a day in a hospital of Washington, that day when you’ve last seen the Soldier before now. You recalled how you felt that day. The future was unknown like a dark room. Still, you felt rather excited about everybody being alive; you weren’t too exhausted from that unhealthy nervousness you experienced while near Bucky. You didn’t know shit. You were just happy that Steve was next to you, snoring loudly through his broken nose, and slowly getting well. Now, Steve was somewhere so far away, beyond the brink of the horizon, thinking that you were dead, and you felt guilty again. You couldn’t bear it anymore.

You came back downstairs, into the training room where Tony was sweating with puffing and swearing Iron Warrior. You collapsed on the sofa (because with these plaster prosthesis, you couldn’t do it any other way) and watched them from the distance. Look what it lead to, you said to yourself. Look at that. Divided. Paralyzed. With pain, or grief, or guilt. Lost god knows where. Forced to hide. You were just lucky that Stark found you and took you back to New York. Wanda, Clint, Scott and Sam were still wanted men. Tony obviously wasn’t dying to go search for them and save them. He was deeply hurt, by everybody’s actions, and he wouldn’t let you get inside it and touch his heart. Not anymore. You nearly growled at the thought of it. Tony was so hurt, and you couldn’t do anything about it. You just had to watch as he kneeled before Rhodey and lifted him, over and over again, while James was adjusting to his new legs.

You were crying a lot these days, something which you haven’t done in months. A change was coming.

That day you slept for too long. When you finally left your suite and showed at the kitchen, the plates were already gone, and Tony was the sole figure, sitting at the tall table and studying some book with a tasteless colorful cover. A forgotten cup of coffee was standing next to him. For the completeness of the image, he lacked small reading glasses. He looked exactly like a father, waiting for his disobedient daughter to show up, so that he could lecture her on the topic of an appropriate behavior in presence of fine young men.

“Finally. I thought you decided to stay in bed forever”, he greeted you. Walking without plasters again was great. You decided you’d go for a long walk today, stretch them, and make them strong again.

You yawned and, sensing a strange impulse, approached him and put your arms around his shoulders. You could feel him tense, and he lifted his face to you, to check if you were alright.

“Morning”, you proclaimed, tapping him on the shoulder and heading towards the fridge to find yourself something to eat. Opening it, you stood for a second, just admiring the sight of it. You forgot again that you weren’t at home, in your flat where no food ever could be found.

“Good news for you”, he put the book out, and you saw that it was “The Statistics and Proclamations on the Neurological Mechanics” by Roger Stiffles. You frowned at it, asking Tony what the hell was that with your eyes. He ignored it, discovering his coffee, and tasted it with a tip of his tongue as if it were a poison.

“What news?”

“Your free pardon is in the papers and on the web since last night. Wherever they are, if Rogers watches the news, they know that you’re alive”.

“Oh”, you turned back to the fridge and picked the bowl covered with the plate to peer into it.

“I said, good news”.

“Yes, that’s good. Doesn’t change anything, though, but it’s a bit better than nothing, eh”.

“You’re not the one supposed to be down, Y/N. Rejoice. Your friends are freed from the prison, you are alive, and you stay with me. And I am very funny”.

You glanced at Tony again. You couldn’t express all the helplessness and the guilt that was steaming inside your stomach, polluting your lungs; there was no reason why Tony should listen to all of it.

“And your favourite man got off cheep”, he added, balancing cup in his palm and walking to the sink to get rid of the cold coffee.

“My favorite man, wow, that’s strong. Especially after I’ve told you about him”.

“You thought about Barnes, didn’t you?” he smirked, “I meant Rogers”.

You closed the fridge, burning under his piercing glance. You bowed your head and put the bowl with the pasta on the table. Thought about pasta. Put it away.

“You seem to miss punches today, mad witch”, he grinned, greeting the glass kettle with the poke on the button.

“I’m tired”.

“You go back to sleep”.

“Don’t be so ruthless, Tony”.

“No, I don’t mean to be mean”, Stark appeared before you and pressed his palms on the back of his chair. You looked in his shiny eyes and melted a bit.

“You don’t assume you’re the one to blame for all that’s happened, do you? You’ve experienced huge stress, so it’s no surprise that you feel tired all the time. You’re on the brink of a breakdown”.

“Why don’t you act like that then”, you asked grimly.

“Because I have things to do and business to sort out, and crap to deal with”.

“And I am just a problematic kid who has a pass for everything and can hang around the tower and do nothing all day long because of stress? You just need another Wanda here.”

“You’re not a kid. You’re older than me”.

“Oh, good, I was afraid that everybody had forgotten it”.

“Well”, Tony shifted his eyebrows, “maybe we just want you to be that way. Psychology,” he shrugged his shoulders and departed at the cupboard, “you convince her she’s twenty, and it’s easier to control her”.

“Did you read it in this hilarious book?” you poked the said book with your finger.

“No. It’s about mechanics”.

“What are you doing in the kitchen at all?” you requested, “you never hang out in kitchen. And this mechanics lame shit. What is it?”

“My friend wrote it”.

“Which friend?”

“The one you don’t know apparently. He asked me to give an opinion”.

“I have an opinion already”.

“And I urge you not to share it with the world. Coffee?”

“Yeah”.

You spent some time in silence, while Tony Stark was busy with the delight of a mortal way of brewing coffee, and you ate your English-like big breakfast of sandwiches, chicken nuggets and jam. When the coffee was ready, Vision seemed to appear right through the floor, and that’s what he’s probably done.

“Good morning, Y/N. Are you making coffee?” he wondered politely.

Tony growled softly, taking another cup from the cupboard.

“Don’t bother, Mr. Stark, I’ll do it myself”, the android offered.

“Nah, he’s the mommy today”, you shook your head, “it’s a pleasure to watch him do something I understand”.

They both scoffed. Vision joined you at the table. You felt numb, while remembering that you were angry with him just a couple of days ago, but couldn’t remember why.

“I think I have to do something about it”, you finally announced.

“About what?” Vision said.

“I can’t just stay here and spend days waiting painfully for something to happen. Nobody’s gonna come now. I will try to find Natasha. It’s been nearly… six months. Wow”.

“What are you going to do once you find her?” Tony asked, smiling skeptically.

“If you find her”, Vision agreed.

“Find out if she’s alright”.

“I really doubt that Miss Romanoff needs anybody’s concern”.

You slapped your palm on the table, and Tony jumped comically, looked at you and widened his eyes.

“I doubt I can stay sitting on my ass with this need to do something about this situation”.

“I don’t see how impatience is going to help”.

“You don’t see many things, Vision. You don’t see too much”.

You stood and started fidgeting, followed by confused look of the android.

“I’m sorry, Y/N”.

“Do you even know what you’re apologizing for, Vision”, you shrugged, “how do you feel about Wanda being captivated?”

“But I hear that Captain Rogers has liberated her”.

“But you’d rather she stayed there, because breaking out is against the law”.

Tony sighed.

“Go easy in him. He’s a kid”.

“He’s not a kid, Tony. He’s smarter than all of us”.

“He’s emotionally infantile. You’re asking him to feel guilty for things that he doesn’t even realize are on him”.

“And this is why you’re not blaming him for shooting Rhodey. But you do blame Bucky for being the Winter Soldier”.

He gave you a look of a well-preserved anger. You rubbed your forehead. Vision was watching you two, shifting his curious dark purple eyes from one to another.

“The distress leads an individual towards engaging in fiasco-entailing judgments”.

Tony couldn’t speak, so he just pointed at Vision, agreeing with him.

“Something you don’t know shit about”, you hissed through your teeth, looking at the android.

“Maybe it’s better this way than to be distressed all the time and end up in a mess”, Tony noticed.

“Are you saying I am a mess?”

“All I’m trying to say”, he replied in a surprisingly calm voice, “is that it’s too late to blame somebody. I made my mistakes. Don’t create yours. Don’t start it now. I told you, you’re about to break down. It’s too late, Y/N”.

He proceeded to the table and sat on his chair, picking up his book. You were sick of their all-forgiving natures. Vision looked at you with soft condescension, nodding in encouragement. You closed your eyes.

“I’ll go get some air”.

“Do your dishes first”.

“Your dishes can wait”.

And you left the kitchen, leaving them: Tony, at the table, ridiculous book in his hands, left palm wrapped around the cup of a freshly-brewed coffee. His eyes, focused, but not concentrated. Pain washing off the color from his face. Shoulders, low. But so close to you. Not hostile, not for a minute.

And Vision, casting his intelligent round cat eyes at you, with sincere concern and polite wonder.

August was wearing out, and the faint smell of fall was floating in the air like one false note in a melody. The dying summer was always tragic, but only for those whose lives sucked, of course. Fall was the best for those who were fairly okay, like that young lady passing by, talking on the phone with her boyfriend, and having all her life ahead. For a forty-seven year old firestarter, with thirty seven second chances behind, it only meant cold. And you could warm anybody on the Earth, give them gentle flame kiss to keep them fine through future rainy November, but you couldn’t warm yourself. You could patch and soothe anybody with their wounds, with the power of your fire, but you couldn’t patch yourself, because fire doesn’t ignite fire. You could love all of them, the whole world, and, maybe it meant nothing, because, torn in millions of pieces by this flaming adoration towards your heroes, you felt nothing.

You took down the street, without looking around and trying to breathe as slowly as you could. Cold is cold, but the sent of fall is great. It’s sweet like rotting leaves. And rotting leaves are awesome. They’re not some hideous human flesh. Your feet were moving reluctantly, slowly, bones still felt weak, but you knew it was just the sensation. You had your bones broken many times before. Broken bones are stronger.

You kept walking and walking, and tried not to think about anything. Still, you had to make a plan how to find Nat. This woman wouldn’t let anybody find herself if she wouldn’t feel like it. So, you had to give her a signal somehow. You had no idea what was she doing right now, but you were absolutely sure that she’d feel her duty to find Steve’s team wherever they are, and help them out.

You heard something above the music in your earphones, and raised your head. On the side of the road, in about four or five big steps from you, stood a man with dark brown hair and big and sad eyes whoch were ugly now, narrowed with screaming. His lips were moving, but you couldn’t hear what he was yelling. You reached and took out one earphone just to hear the end of

“…a fucking free pardon! To the firestarter who burnt down my mother’s house!” He had strong southern accent.

Before he even finished, he took out the gun, so fast, you couldn’t even react. You put out your hands out of instinct, but you got stuck at his words about his mother, and the heatwave didn’t come. Your feet were slow, sleepy, knees, like they were made of jelly. He shot several times, bam, bam, bam, and you saw it as if from aside. Then, piercing pain. Agaaaain.

Oh no, you thought, it was all happening too fast. Before you could take another breath, you were falling, floating down the pure pale white sky of dying August. The pain didn’t matter. You realized you’d die when the black dots came jumping between your eyelids, and you felt your limbs swelling, as if you fingers were falling off one after another. The shouting around you. The endless shouting, and screams, and human noise, would it ever stop, you wondered. But there seemed to come a gentle silence from the wholes inside the black dots. The pale sky was pierced through like somebody shot it million times. You let your thoughts run free as you watched the white mist leaving your lips. That was it. You were dying. But you’d died so many times before, and not so long ago last time, you didn’t feel thrilled, or scared. You were just slightly annoyed, and very, very guilty for the untrue information that probably reached Steve Rogers, wherever he was. Thanks Lord he had Bucky now. He had Bucky now. Bucky. Oh shit, Bucky. Buck-

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to people who read the work, commented on it, reblogged it and discussed it, or even viewed it silently. Thank you to all who’s been with me on this rather long journey, and didn’t snap at me when I left tumblr for several months, breaking the posting spree. Thank you for participation and reading, and I hope you’ve had a good time, because I sure did. Thank you specifically @lokispunisher , for editing it, and being a good friend! And thank you @rhaeneris for your attention, care and your inspiring anticipation! I love you guys.

I feel that this one has ended strangely, but I have my reasons for it. Please let me know if I should do a spin off to clarify or complete things.

taglist: @moistpotatobear

@heytherepartner

@sebbytrash

@thewinterher0

@lbouvet

@areuforreal

@allofthesearetakendafuq

@thesalsafic

@rhaeneris

@capandbuck

#avengers imagine #tony stark #bucky barnes x reader #civil war imagine #winter soldier x reader #vision #captain america

33 notes · View notes

italicwatches · 6 years

Text

Animal Sentai Zyuohger - Episode 29

It, has been a long day. Not a bad day, necessarily, but a long one. So let’s get this going. It’s Animal Sentai Zyuohger, episode 29! Here we GO!

-PREVIOUSLY ON Animal Sentai Zyuohger, we got Captain Marvelous and everything was better. Also I guess some stuff happened with the actual cast of this show.

-PRESENTLY ON Animal Sentai Zyuohger, Eagle and GokaiRed are in a ferocious dogfight that returns to the ground…While The World catches up to the rest of the crew to find them fighting a bunch of crazy looking Sentai members! And also, that he has nobody to fight…He falls into despair.

-But then, there is another man of silver and gold. …No purple, though. GokaiSilver has appeared!

-Meanwhile, GokaIRed has Eagle on the backstep…And right when Eagle manages to flip it around, Gokai Change! GOOOORANGER! With his whip of the first ranger against the Eagle Riser, it becomes a vicious lashing duel…Until Eagle manages to cut that whip apart, and come at GokaiRed with sheer speed and ferocity, barely managing to rip him out of his armor while holding his own…

-But Marvelous, when Eagle hesitates, puts three rounds from his space-flintlock right into the idiot’s chest, enough to make his armor fail.

-Back at the big fight, The World knows how this works, and is ready to fight GokaiSilver…But Silver isn’t here for a big fight, he’s here to really all you stupid idiots. They don’t need to have a big fight! …Marvelous said to keep these guys busy, though. Marvelous says lots of shit! Listen do you all even realize they’re in a crossover episode?!

-Marvelous has his gun to Yamato’s head. Too slow, too gentle…But Yamato sees the injury on Marvelous’s hand…

-Opening!

-Episode 29! The Champion of Champions

-So with everything able to calm down at last, the space pirates end up getting brought to the cabin, and our heroes get to learn the legend of the Super Sentai. There have been 39 teams, up to this point, making you all the 40th…Also Leo sees two cute girls and is immediately ready to flirt, until Sela hauls him back.

-All of that leads to the question of Marvelous, and why he’s seeking the Grand Champion Symbol. And speaking of Marvelous, back with him, Yamato’s bandaging up his wounds, and apologizing that it got so rough, that he had to go all out. …You were holding back, kid? Well of course he was. He saw Marvelous make a point of getting Bunglay and his summon’s attention instead of just slipping off…You had a reason for it. And there aren’t a lot of dishonest reasons to make that kind of show.

-You fight with honor, Marvelous. You’re willing for things to be harder, so long as they’re done right. Yamato can see an honest core to you. And so, he asks, honestly and earnestly, to return this relic of the zyuman people.

-Marvelous promptly pulls his gun, instead.

-While back at the cabin, the core four explain how that Symbol powers the Link Cube. Their only way home. It’s not just a weapon, or a tool, or a historical relic…It’s their only hope of getting to see their families again.

-And for these four pirates, who lost family to a great battle…They can understand and respect that…

-As Yamato calls Marvelous’s bluff, ice cold. You don’t have the eyes of a killer, captain. …And you’ve got stones bigger than your brain, kid. But then, what Red hasn’t, over these forty years?

-Aaand that’s when Bunglay finds the pair. Instincts Awakened! Gokai Change! The fight is on…

-While the others get vibes! Bungay’s got to be on the move…And neither crew i going to let him just have their leaders!

-While Bunglay manages to rip some memories out of GokaiRed’s skull…And though Eagle hauls him off, he’s on the ragged edge, running half empty…

-When Bunglay calls up a bunch of GokaiRed’s best foes! …Shit, those are some rough foes…They’re up against the edge of the cliff, with few options and fewer ideas…As the gun barrage begins!

-They’re sent to the dirt below, their armors failing…It’s a damn good thing the teams find them at that point, or they could’ve died.

-And while they have time…Marvelous presents the Zyuohgers with a simple dilemma. Bunglay’s after this Symbol of yours, and the Whale connected to it. He and his crew take it back into space, and Bunglay follows. You still want this thing, even knowing it brings that much danger?

-…Of course. By their honor and their pride, they’re going to set this right. Bungled needs to be stopped, not lured away like a dog after a bone.

-…Then good luck with it, kids. Have fun. He shoves the Symbol right into Yamato’s hands, and the thing activates, unfolding from a projector into a cannon…And that’s about when Bunglay and his pack of summons find them. Well then, one quick round along with the new kids…All together?

-They stand, twelve strong! Gokai Change! Instincts Awakened! GOOOKAIGER! And Yamato Instincts Awakened with the Grand Symbol, bringing upon the power of the WHALE! It showers upon him, forging a new helm and longboat….!

-Gokai Red! Gokai Blue. Gokai Yellow! Gokai Green! Gokai Pink. Goooookai SILVER! Pirate Sentai, GOKAIGER! Champion of the surging waves, ZYUOH SHARK! Champion of the savannah, ZYUOH LION! Champion of the forest, ZYUOH ELEPHANT! Champion of the snowy drifts, ZYUOH TIGER! Champion of the world, ZYUOH THE WORLD! Champion of champions…ZYUOH WHALE! Animal Sentai, ZYUOHGER!

-This planet, is under the Super Sentai’s protection! And all twelve of them charge forth full of fury and grand heroism, weapons at the ready, as they face a ferocious mix of historical villainy! Foes of all different eras that Captain Marvelous and his crew helped face down…But they stand united, bringing a ZYUOH SLASH down on one, and (All) Beast Unleashing on another to chew him to nothing!

-While Gokai Pink and Green polish up their weapons a little before being forced to get in, and stand with their crew!

-Gokai Change! ALL RED! FLASHGUN! BOUKENGER! CARRANGER! MAGIRUANGER! SHINKENGER! Gokai Change! ALL RED! SUN VULCAN! GOSSIPER! GINGAMAN! GEKIRANGER! ZYURANGER! FINAL WAVE! The strengths of ten years of history unite, taking down two more…!

-While GokaiRed and Whale face down Bunglay himself, and the few tricks he still has up his sleeve! But as fierce as these foes are, they’re not able to stop Whale’s sheer speed and power, or the Megaman-ass cannon strapped to his arm…!

-Which, when he gives it a charge, pulls so much more than he thought possible…Excess energy showers off the barrel, as he lines up a single shot…ZYUOH FINAL! One rip of the trigger, and it’s enough to send him nearly flat on his ass, as the beam arcs into the sky…. skirting around the moon’s gravitational field…And coming down onto them in a single mighty explosion! God. Damn. Even GokaiRed is boggled, and a little scared of that thing…

-And Eagle promptly puts it away, letting that new armor fall…While Bunglay, who survived the mess, calls up one last big monster to give himself an escape plan!

-Pulling in a movie villain…One who nearly handed the Gokaigers their ass!

-Well then, only one option. Animal Kingdom Combination! WILD TOUSAI KING! …Why are the Gokaigers here?! So how’s this one work, you spin the boxes right? Please, just, let the Zyuohgers do their job! You have to spin with PURPOSE!

-Yeah well there’s somewhere to shove keys in this thing, right? Because they’ve got a plan. DENJIMAN! Draw upon the strength of history…With the Electron Full Moon SLASH!

-And LINEMAN! Super Big Burst! The finishing blows, one after another, start to put this huge monster on the ground…

-But bring it all into one. Four decades of heroism. All to the center…! ZYUOH FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY! Two thousand battles worth of power come together, cutting the beast apart! It is done.

-And when all is said and done, the Gokaigers have to take their exit…They’ve got another haul to seek, another battle to fight. They’re pirates, after all. Ignore their grand heroism. Anchors UP! Thus are these six off, Gai joining them properly on the battle this time…And nobody entirely realizing they left their robot bird behind.

-When Mario gets back into the cabin and why is there a robot in his house? A TALKING ROBOT PARROT?! Tell him your secrets, mechanical marvel!

-Credits!

HELL YEAH

#where I watch #recap #tokusatsu #super sentai #animal sentai zyuohger

3 notes · View notes

adriennescomingbacktolife · 4 years

Text

(IX)

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier.” Adrienne Levi leveled her gaze at Matt Knox, sitting up in his hospital bed. He slurped at a Jello cup, dislodging the gelatin and swallowing it whole. Crossing her arms over her chest, she let him finish. “Wasn’t sure what to say.” Knox rolled his tongue and the cherry gelatin prize down his gullet. He eyed Adrienne evenly, a smirk cracking his features before speaking in a dazed, sleepy tone. “Hello is a good start, I think.” At least he was still charming in his way, she thought. “Hi.” Adrienne did her best to hold back the waterworks. But that was before she watched the dumb match where these two nearly murdered each other, especially with what happened afterward. “Do you believe me now about him?” She asked with a mix of concern and slight irritation. Knox closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose. He took a moment before responding. “Would you be mad if I said I almost had him?” He said with a wry chuckle, “I always believed what you said, Ade. But you know me well enough now to know that giant, angry mental patients aren’t something I’ll shy away from fighting.” For the briefest moment, his gaze goes somewhere far off. To Zane’s wild eyes at the end of the match. To that horrid smell on his breath. The howls. “But yes, I believe you.” “...I talked to him last month, Matt. Like away from all of this.” Adrienne hadn’t told anyone about that strange conversation. Sometimes she wondered if it even happened. “He’s not okay. He seems sick. Like physically ill.” Matt’s face fell into a frown. His voice came flat, and not just because of the painkillers. “Physically, mentally,” he shook his head, “If Zane is that messed up, maybe he should be institutionalized. Someone like him, if there are that many underlying issues...hell, fuck underlying, just spend thirty seconds with him.” He wove a hand through the air, before chopping it as he made his point. “Zane King is going to kill someone. Maybe it’s not entirely his fault, but the longer people dance around and pretend it’s a non-issue? The bigger a risk, it becomes not just to the victim, but to Zane himself.” He paused, breathing in, before letting out a long exhale. “I have no love or understanding for Zane King. But, I have miles of it for mental illnesses. Hell, sometimes I see and talk to--” He stopped himself. “I’m just saying. He needs help, even if the help is being put out of commission.” Adrienne had a feeling that Zane welcomed threats like that every day. Pulling a seat closer, she sat next to Matt’s bed. “Maybe.” She said uncertainly. Her mind wandered to how this encounter only seemed to serve as a catalyst. Everyone seemed on edge, whether it was about this match with King or the other fires spreading as of late. Matt eyed her quietly, before reaching out a pale hand, knuckles swollen and bruised and grasping one of hers. “We never get any kind of breaks lately, huh, kid?” He asked in the kindest tone he could muster. “Between Silvio’s past coming to reap whatever was sewn, Mitch riding a bike between here and Detroit on no sleep, The Rat, Sebastian, and his fucking mouth.” He said, shaking his head. “At least it isn’t boring.” Adrienne’s hand relaxed in his. “No, it isn’t.” Knox squeezes her hand, before releasing it and settling into the bed. He looks around the room before setting upon the stuffed blackbird at his bedside. He reaches over and plucks it, showing it off to Ade. “Had someone drop this off while I was doped out of it last night. I think it was your new tag team partner.” Matt said with a cheese-eating grin, “You know, the one you replaced me with.” Adrienne feigned shock, “I didn’t make that decision.” Eyeing the bird, she smiled. “Besides, I think our mutual friend is trying every way possible to cause conflict. Especially after Stan was fired for cause. I guess carrying a list of my supposed daily routine is frowned upon.” “Fuck that guy.” Knox laughed, pausing to wince and favor his midsection. “And fuck Axton Gunn too. And well, almost everyone else if I’m honest.” A soft chuckle escaped as he eyed the drip. “Man, this stuff numbs everything but the tongue.” He sighed slowly, feeling and enjoying the warmth. “Yknow, Adrienne,” he has leaned back into his pillows a bit more, eyes lulling halfway, “you three. You, Mitch, Silvio. It’s like someone broke my reflection up into three pieces. Mitch, I remember bein’ that angry and protective because it was yesterday.” Another self-aware chuckle. “Silvio, well, he reminds me of all the ghosts.” And without a beat, he pointed a finger at Adrienne, “And you, It’s like an out of body experience, when I laid eyes on you. All the doubt and self doubt to boot, but then all the god damn grit to overcome.” A brief pause. Adrienne continued to let him roll. She was enjoying the company of a good friend. “Like my theme, you see.” After letting her soak in his pun, he continued, “You are currently enjoying … what, a five-win streak? You know that puts you only behind Silvio and Cortes, right? The tag champion, and future tag champion.” The cocktail seeping into his veins was clearly getting the better of him, but he adjusted and spoke clearly, “You’re better than good Ade. You’re great. Might be the best.” Adrienne responded with a polite smile. She let the Axton stuff slide. Too much to consider to get an argument about a celebrity and now a co-worker. One that she happened to think the best of. One she was struggling mightily with. Matt was someone special. Past that gruff exterior and tenacity to curse like a sailor, she saw a man finally reconciling with a past worth forgetting. It seemed to be a commonality. “I appreciate that, Matt. I’ve still got a long way before I could talk about myself like that. I’m not sure I ever could.” She didn’t intend to self-depreciate. Was a nasty habit. “But I do understand where you’re coming from. I’ll make an effort to think better of myself. I promise.” “You better, or I’ll take that Baltimore title from you. If you win it.” He snorted then, “Christ, I’m not watching that match. My best friend and my dragon...friend.” Matt furrowed his brow and shrugged before concluding, “You two are gonna tear the house down.” Adrienne acknowledged the compliment with a nod. However, his hesitation quirked her interest. She thought of something sarcastic to say. Maybe joke a little. But this was important, she could tell. Adrienne squeezed his hand and spoke low, “I’m happy for you, Matt. I really am.” “Yeah? Well, I mean, I don’t know what it is. Don’t wanna label anything or...” he trailed off. She nodded along, understanding that he would always be guarded considering the public spectacle his life has been made. “Guess it’s just nice, having a match to watch where I don’t hate someone. Not that I’m gonna watch.” Matt squeezed her hand back then, his voice lower now too, “You helped open me up to this sort of rot though, you know that, right? You dug me the rest of the way out of that hole Bert wouldn’t let me die in.” Listening intently, Adrienne felt the weight of his words. She never thought she had much of an impact on anyone. She tried her best, certainly but to hear something like this took her aback. “Learned that it was easier to put all that aggression into helping someone instead of hating everyone.” He snorted. “Christ. You’d think this was my death bed, and I was having ‘The Surge’ the way I’m goin’ on.” “The Rat has that effect.” She said with a knowing smile, followed by an immediate shame for letting that slip. Knox went to make a quip about bad breath when suddenly a knock on the door cut through the room. Standing at a proud five foot, seven in the doorway was a young, blonde, distressed looking woman of maybe eighteen. She wore an Imperial Youth Wrestling shirt and blue jeans. Matthew’s features went still a moment before a smile broke them up. “Hey, Hope,” he said with as much doped up cheer he could muster. Adrienne waved at Matt’s daughter that she had heard all about. But now wasn’t the time to chat. It was clear that Hope was being respectful, but that this was visit had a reason that didn’t involve her. “Matt, I’m going to leave you two be.” Standing up, Adrienne went to the doorway. “And after today, I could use a drink.” “I’ll be honest. I’m pretty shaken up about this one.” One of the newest contenders to the Baltimore City Championship, Adrienne Levi, was sitting at a corner table at the Angels Rock Bar. Located right in her new home city, she felt it would be an appropriate setting to talk about well, rock stars. It’d be a lie if she planned this. Adrienne just happened to be out mailing a letter when she saw a flyer for a free concert. Also, it was ladies’ night. Her little digital camera was placed on the table, framing the shot tight and level. Despite her surroundings’ dim lighting, it was clear she had on a black t-shirt on displaying Axton Gunn’s charming visage. Her elbows were on the table, hands steepled. Her eyes shimmered as she mulled over and contemplated her choice of words. “This is like my third take,” she admitted with her usual meek tone. “But I wanted to make sure to get this right. In less than a month, I have a great opportunity to represent this city. But that can’t be my focus.” Adrienne pivoted the camera slowly towards the stage. Stagehands were setting up for a concert. “Let’s set the stage.” When the shot reverted, her grin was apparent. “Get it, cuz like they’re setting … the … stage?” After the proverbial crickets sounding off in her mind, Adrienne continued, “Maybe I’ll just edit that part out.” In between her words, the ambiance of the bar took over. Clinking glasses, random conversations, and of course, the mechanical bull she made a concerted effort to ignore when first walking in. “One more stop before that huge century mark. Same partner. I know that I can trust her. I know that the fierce attitude that The Dragon Lady possesses will maybe lend a different perspective to this upcoming encounter. And they may be the very reason that she walks out champion instead of me. These aren’t things I can fret about right now. Our opposition seems to be of the same wavelength. I could understand why Sebastian Hawke would look up to someone like Axton Gunn. It would only be natural that these two eventually worked together. However, judging by all of our reactions, I doubt none of us expected this.” She gestured with her hands, following by a slightly exaggerated shrug. “But here we are,” she said with a smile, “Sebastian, I’m sorry I couldn’t find a shirt with you two on it. Maybe you’ll rectify that later for me. This isn’t just about your partner. I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about you. I wish I had half the courage that you did. The ink wasn’t dry on your contract before you accepted the challenge of someone who personifies this company’s mission statement. That is ultraviolence. You stood toe to toe with Mitch Heart and earned a lot of people’s respect that evening.” Mitch Heart had intended to teach Sebastian a lesson in humility through brute force. And while Hawke succumbed to The Broken, it only seemed to harden his heart. It made Adrienne wonder if that approach has been common to someone like this young man. “May we talk about what else happened? I think its rather important. To be dismissed, to be infantilized, to be marginalized - it hurts. I wanted to thank you for your advice the other day. I know that you meant well. Maybe those sorts of ideals worked for you in the past even. But that isn’t who I am. Here’s what bothered me just a little, Sebastian. I think you were just angry, and that’s okay. But you tried to hold me accountable for the actions of my friends. Maybe Matt Knox can be a little caustic. And Silvio and Kohaku are quick to speak their minds. And well, you met Mitch personally. I get it. I may have held Steve Matthews’ feet to the fire for his half-hearted denouncement of Alex Winter, and so maybe you think I’m a hypocrite.” Pausing, she took a sip of the ice water the server brought her earlier. The cubes were already melting, and she could maybe go for something harder. But Adrienne had promised herself not to drink on camera anymore as it set a poor example. “It’s a little different than a friend coming to my defense when you chose to be abrasive, don’t you think? However, I admonished my friend because I don’t think you had done anything particularly wrong. You were just asking questions, right? Or is that you’re confused that I could associate from people so different than me? It just requires a little empathy, Sebastian. Either way, everything washed out in the end. For you, this is an opportunity to hit the reset button on your debut. Maybe muddy the waters of the Baltimore City Championship scene by getting a definitive victory over the current contenders. However, if you wanted to, you could ask your partner about his motives sometime.” Adrienne slid her business phone into view. Having previously set this up, a brief audio snippet played for all to hear. ”...so glad to see you made so many new friends without me, Silvio. Can’t wait to introduce myself to ‘em… one by one.” That was Axton Gunn just mere moments after he drove Silvio Leon’s skull into the mat. Notably, after a feigned motion to reconcile. Adrienne’s expression was mired with conflict. Hesitation marked her words. “Axton, I know you may hear this a lot. But I’m your number one fan. Your music has always been a beacon of light in the darker periods of my life. That’s a little dramatic, huh? Your take-no-prisoners attitude is something I wish I could emulate every day. You just say what you want, consequences be--” Adrienne cut herself off. “You know what I mean. Axton, simply put, you’re one of the coolest people ever. And as evidenced by your debut against Kohaku, you bring all of those intangible rockstar qualities to the ring as well. Not only that, but you’ve also given so much back. You use your influence to help those who are less fortunate. And if you would forgive me for this little weakness, Axton, you’re striking to look at. Your eyes are mesmerizing. Your smile makes me melt.” She said with a reverence like the many times she had rehearsed in the mirror if she ever had the chance to meet him. Well, before this. “You are just perfect.” The clip played again - a startling interruption to her star worship. “But, you’re not.” Adrienne’s words hung in the air. She did her best to revert to a neutral tone. Maybe even stoic if her soft eyes didn’t always happen to betray those attempts. “You said as much. That makes me foolish to place you so high. It was wrong of me almost to deify you. I deprived you of your right just to be human. I would hope that you would extend that same courtesy towards my imperfect friends.” Habitually, she wiped away at her eyes. “I’d like to reintroduce myself. I’m Adrienne, and in just over a week, we’ll be opponents. Nobody will remember my name like yours, but in that ring, we are equals. I don’t want to brag, but I’ve worked hard, and I’ve done well for myself. I appreciate the kind words you’ve shared about me. I really wanted to say something prior, but well, you’re a star, and I’m just me. I’m okay with that. For the first time in a long while, I think maybe I like the person I see in the mirror. One of the reasons I’ve been able to do that is because I’ve promised to be honest. I can’t break that promise for you, Axton, I’m sorry.” Leaning forward, Adrienne stared intently into the camera. She spoke in a calm voice as if she was truly speaking to an audience of one. “Your first appearance in Carnage Wrestling wasn’t as Axton Gunn, the award-winning rockstar. It was as someone who had traveled across to the country to confront someone that had hurt you. Let’s take that at face value. You’ve always been truthful in your art. So I believe you. You laid everything on the table, and I think you and Silvio have a lot to talk about.” She said this with utmost sincerity. Adrienne’s gaze to Axton faltered as she continued, “And then I saw Axton Gunn as I’ve never seen him before. Not that I know you or anything. I’m just basing this on what you’ve allowed me to see. You struck Silvio.” Her fingers tapped on the table lightly as she looked away for the brief moment, all of this accompanied by a small sniffle. “You know, in this industry, a lot of issues get resolved through violence. There’s a distinct difference in what you chose to do and what happens within the confines of a match. Sometimes it even seems a little preformative. Silvio hurt you. So you decided to hurt him. This sort of thing happens every show. Could even get desensitized to it.” Whether she meant to or not, Adrienne’s hand went to the side of her face. “I always blamed myself when this sort of thing happened. There was something that I did to deserve a lesson. I needed to understand the hurt that I caused. Sometimes I’d get confused, and I wouldn’t learn fast enough. But, suffering creates clarity.” Her demeanor softened once she affixed her gaze towards the lenses of the camera. “I don’t think that is you at all, Axton. I can’t speak to whether that was premeditated or not. You’re one of the smartest people around, so when you speak, maybe I misunderstood what you meant.” For a third time, the statement from Axton played. “You met Kohaku last show. He may have pinned you in that ring, but you planted that seed. You sowed that doubt on the type of person Silvio is. You admitted what you did wasn’t enough. Silvio hadn’t learned his lesson. As you watch this, Axton, ask yourself a small question. You ever wonder how Kohaku feels about all of this?” Adrienne couldn’t confess to know about the inner workings of Starfox. However, their affections had been public, so no wonder Axton found out how he did. “None of this. None of this would be my business, except you made it my business. I’m next, Axton. I’m your number one fan, and I love everything you do. I expect you to be on your best behavior. I expect you to be the Axton Gunn that I’ve maybe had dreams about. But Axton, I can’t play the part you want me to. I can’t feed into this campaign you have against Silvio Leon. You will need to handle these things in private, and you need to be held accountable for how you chose to react to Silvio’s decision to leave you. All of this can be done without any more lessons.” Sitting up straight, Adrienne’s voice climbed to one of determined resolve. “Axton, I hope you understand how difficult this was. When that bell rings, you face a team that has been battle-tested under precarious circumstances, with the mutual understanding that eventually, we’d have to compete with one another for just one prize. The Dragon Lady will speak for herself some other time, but I can say in the brief time that I’ve known her, she’s the bravest woman I know. And well, when you lock up with me, Axton, I won’t be your number one fan. I will be the woman who stood up to the rampant misogyny that still permeates this industry. I helped quell back those who would corrupt the innocence of this world.” Adrienne’s eyes sparked if that were even possible, and she spoke with the fervor of someone who truly believed what she was saying. “In the face of low expectations, I’ve climbed through the wreckage of one of the most devastating nights of my career, and I’ve thrived. One day, I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I’m going to be remembered, too. I hope that I haven’t made Sebastian or you angry with me, Axton. I just wanted to let you know where I stand. I’m going to fight you, removed from whatever your plans are, and if I have the opportunity to beat you?” Letting that question linger, she answered it herself. “I won’t hesitate.” Reaching forward, Adrienne went to turn the camera off. Inadvertently, her elbow knocked the plastic tumbler over and spilled water all over the table and her shirt and lap. “Darn it, not aga-” The feed cut. Adrienne let the bubble mailer slip from her hand into the open hatch of the USPS mailbox. Addressed to one Sylvia Gould.

0 notes

cyberkevvideo · 4 years

Text

Throne of Night Theory Builds Part 28: Denizens of the Sub

Best laid plans and all that. Here we are again, and it’s because of new information that I found. This means that my original plan to release the Book 6 additional encounters will have to wait for a bit longer. Although, that said, this could be part of Book 6. I honestly couldn’t say.

Never would have guessed, but today is going to be another rare treat of THREE builds at once. I haven’t done that yet. This will definitely be the biggest one to date. Before it was person and bodyguards, or person and animal companion. Now, it’s basically all of the above. What a treat.

No new art with this one, just information that I discovered while looking for new art. I’m still hopeful that I’ll find more. No luck though, and that’s okay.

As always, for space reasons, I’ll be cropping the encounter build.

All images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus

I do not have a Patreon or a Kickstarter, but I do have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who are looking to support me monetarily. There is no pressure or obligation to do so.

Finally, before I get to it, I hope everyone’s staying safe right now.

EDIT: The stats and build looks prettier now.

Last week, for fun, I did a speculation build for what I would do if I’d been given the submarine map and told to go nuts with it, with no prior knowledge given. I’m not always great on it, but I have taken maps of locations before and just filled it in. It’s something you kind of learned to do when it was your turn to do your own version of the Temple of Elemental Evil dungeon and fill in all of the empty locations. Regardless, I took the concept of Lovecraftian creatures had to exist here to be a proper gateway to alleviate any whiplash when Book 6 introduced pretty much the rest of the “rogue’s gallery”, so to speak.

At the time, I just did my own thing. And I did put in there that it was quite possible that I was barking up the wrong tree. It’s why I didn’t do full and complete builds. Well, now it’s time for the real deal. While I don’t know about what else is in there, I do know now, that these stat blocks I’m releasing today (they’re still my theory build, so don’t take it as gospel, but the monsters are definitely there), as well as the brain collector I did stats for previously.

Let’s get to it. Note that I’m still unsure as to the when that these encounters occur, but it would either be near the end of Book 5, or within the first few pages of Book 6. It’s becoming more obvious that this sub is what the PCs use to infiltrate the submerged aboleth city. Either way, I made sure the CR for them were enough to be challenging, but not impossible for the likely party level. My assumption is level 17-18, and neither will be an Easy encounter.

Both set of builds will have creatures that have the Technologist feat. Considering how advanced this submarine is, and how alien everyone is supposed to be, it’d made sense that something from the Technology Guide would be present. If you want to go even further with the future tech, give the thanadeamons and neolithid key cards, and put lock coders at each of the doors. Maybe even a few cameras at various places so that the neolithid can keep an eye on them. Possibly swap out the bracers of armor on the neolithid for a forcefield.

First off, the guards of the capture sub. Regarding tactics, while I gave them a magic item to ignore difficult terrain, it should be noted that they have constant air walk. This means that, given the ceiling and width of the of the hallway, they can stand above one another, or just stand above the water without it interfering with their movement. This is especially frightening because it means they’ll always have a +1 circumstance bonus to attacks for being above their opponents. Definitely something to remember and exploit whenever possible.

THANADAEMON GUARD (CR 16; 76,800 XP) Fighter advanced thanadaemon rogue (scavenger) 2 NE Medium outsider (daemon, evil, extraplanar) Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., true seeing; Perception +29 DEFENSE AC 36, touch 15, flat-footed 32 (+6 armor, +1 deflection, +3 Dex, +1 dodge, +15 natural) hp 237 (19 HD; 17d10+2d8+135) Fort +14, Ref +20, Will +19 Defensive Abilities evasion; DR 10/good; Immune acid, death effects, disease, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 27 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft. Melee +2 trident +33/+28/+23/+18 (1d8+18/19–20 plus energy drain) or 2 claws +26 (1d4+8 plus energy drain) Special Attacks draining weapon, energy drain (1 level, DC 24), fear gaze, sneak attack +1d6, soul crush, weapon training (spears +4) Spell-Like Abilities (CL 17th; concentration +23) Constant—air walk, true seeing At will—greater teleport (self plus skiff and passengers only), plane shift (self plus skiff and passengers only, Astral, Ethereal, and evil-aligned planes only) 3/day—animate dead, desecrate, enervation 1/day—summon (level 4, 1d4 hydrodaemons 80% or 1 thanadaemon 35%) TACTICS Before Combat The thanadaemon guard attempts to summon hydrodaemons to help weaken opponents before getting involved. During Combat The thanadaemon guard uses its air walk to its advantage whenever possible, granting it a +1 circumstance bonus to attack for attacking an opponent from above. Morale A thanadaemon doesn’t fear dying while it’s on the Material Plane, and fights to the death. STATISTICS Str 27, Dex 16, Con 25, Int 16, Wis 21, Cha 22 Base Atk +18; CMB +26; CMD 41 Feats Alertness, Blind-Fight, Dodge, Improved Critical (trident)B, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Lunge, Mobility, Power Attack, Step UpB, Stunning AssaultB, Swap Places, TechnologistB, Vital StrikeB, Weapon Focus (trident)B Skills Acrobatics +23, Bluff +24, Diplomacy +24, Intimidate +24, Linguistics +7, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +18, Knowledge (local) +11, Knowledge (planes) +22, Knowledge (religion) +21, Perception +29, Sense Motive +27, Stealth +15, Survival +12, Swim +16, Use Magic Device +20 Languages Aboleth, Abyssal, Aklo, Aquatic, Draconic, Infernal, Terran, Undercommon; telepathy 100 ft. SQ armor training 4, rogue talent (guileful polyglot), technic training +1 Gear masterwork breastplate, +2 trident, belt of tumbling, cloak of resistance +2, feather step slippers, vambraces of defense SPECIAL ABILITIES Draining Weapon (Su) A thanadaemon’s energy drain attack functions through any melee weapon it wields. Fear Gaze (Su) Cower in fear for 1d6 rounds, 30 feet, Will DC 24 negates. This is a mind-affecting fear effect. The save DC is Charisma-based. Soul Crush (Su) A thanadaemon can crush a soul gem (see cacodaemon) as a standard action to gain fast healing 15 for 15 rounds. This action condemns the crushed soul to Abaddon—resurrecting this victim requires a DC 30 caster level check. Technic Training (Ex) A scavenger adds 1/2 their rogue level to Perception skill checks to locate mechanical or high-tech traps and to Disable Device skill checks against these traps (minimum +1). They cannot use Disable Device to disarm magical traps. This ability replaces trapfinding.

----------------------------- Next up is the neothelid in the sub control room. Not exactly sure where this creature is on the map, other than “top floor”.

For this one, it made sense that an alien life form would be curious about mortals from the Material Plane, and might continually run experiments to learn more about them, see what made them tick, and how easily they could break physically, emotionally, or mentally. All in the name of science. The neothelid has no emotional investment in this sort of thing, after all.

As such, being so fascinated, I went with a design that had the creature build a representation of what it thought life was, based on previous encounters with drow prisoners, with a homonculus of its own design. Through various trials and experiments, the doll would either be placed in a cell right before new prisoners were brought in, acting as one who had been there for an unknown length of time, or the doll was put in afterwards as the new prisoner. The neothelid then sits back and watch events unfold through the eyes of its creation, taking notes of what did and didn’t work, and what discoveries were made.

The homonculus looks very similar to a drow, with a few features that might make it seem similar to someone from Taaryssia. It even possesses a name similar to that of a drow’s. It’s programmed to help its master’s with various experiements, whatever that might entail. It is a competent spy that’s designed to ally with new comers, gain their trust, aid them however they need, and gather intelligence for its master. Because it is an emotionless construct, anyone trying to make a Sense Motive check to discovery falsehoods take a –8 penalty. The homonculus doesn’t take a penalty as its master helps guides the conversation, making it less likely that suspicion be raised.

Because of the number of previous drow having been captured before, the homonculus has a decent amount of knowledge regarding Taaryssia. Enough that no one should suspect or believe the homonculus drow to not be a citizen.

COMMANDER QHAGENTHOSSUN (CR 20; 307,200 XP) Unique young advanced neothelid alchemist (promethean alchemist) 12 CE Huge aberration Init +6; Senses blindsight 100 ft., trace teleport 60 ft.; Perception +37 DEFENSE AC 37, touch 10, flat-footed 35 (+2 armor, +2 Dex, +25 natural, –2 size) hp 358 (33 HD; 21d8+12d8+210) Fort +23, Ref +17, Will +21 Defensive Abilities preserved organs (50%); DR 10/cold iron; Immune cold, nonlethal damage, paralysis, poison, sleep; SR 31 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft. (good) Melee 4 tongues +32 (2d6+10/19–20 plus grab) or tentacle +32 (1d8+10 plus grab) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Special Attacks breath weapon (50-ft. cone, 14d10 acid, Reflex DC 28 half, once every 1d4 rounds), mind thrust, psychic crush, swallow whole (1d6+10 plus 1d6 acid, AC 22, hp 35) Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th, concentration +29) Constant—fly At will—detect thoughts (W-DC 21), charm monster (W-DC 23), clairvoyance/clairaudience, suggestion (W-DC 22), telekinesis (W-DC 24), teleport, poison (F-DC 23) 3/day—quickened suggestion (W-DC 22) Alchemist Extracts Prepared (CL 12th) 4th—arcane eye, bottled ooze (gray ooze), death ward, echolocation, fire shield, spell immunity 3rd—cure serious wounds, communal resist energy, displacement, haste, thorn body, tongues 2nd—aid, bear’s endurance, blistering invective (R-DC 20), cure moderate wounds, false life, invisibility, see invisibility, 1st—adhesive spittle (R-DC 19), anticipate peril, body capacitance, cure light wounds, expeditious retreat, heightened awareness, shield TACTICS Before Combat If Quilzaer, is present, the neothelid casts communal resist energy to protect them from its acid breath weapon. STATISTICS Str 30, Dex 14, Con 22, Int 26, Wis 16, Cha 28 Base Atk +24; CMB +38 (+42 grapple); CMD 50 (can’t be tripped) Feats Ability Focus (breath weapon), Cleave, Craft ConstructB, Endurance, Extra Discovery, Diehard, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (tongue), Improved Initiative, Improved Overrun, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Persuasive, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (suggestion), Technologist Skills Acrobatics +26, Appraise +22, Bluff +25, Climb +33, Craft (alchemy) +21, Diplomacy +31, Disable Device +16, Fly +20, Heal +22, Intimidate +34, Knowledge (arcana) +32, Knowledge (engineering, planes) +42, Knowledge (nature) +27, Perception +37, Spellcraft +31, Stealth +10, Survival +16, Swim +18, Use Magic Device +27 Languages Aboleth, Abyssal, Aklo, Infernal, Terran, Undercommon; telepathy 100 ft. SQ alchemy (alchemy crafting +12, identify potions), discoveries (bottled ooze, lingering spirit, mummification, preserve organs [2], spontaneous healing [30 hp/day], tentacle), homunculus companion, poison use, swift alchemy, swift poisoning Gear bands of armor +2 (count as a bracers of armor), belt of physical might +2 (Str, Dex), hand of the mage (drow hand), headband of mental prowess +4 (Knowledge [engineering, planes]) (Int, Cha), ioun stone (clear spindle, incandescent blue sphere), formulae book (contains all prepared extracts plus 1st—comprehend languages, identify; 2nd—blur, cat’s grace; 3rd—nondetection; 4th—cure critical wounds, freedom of movement), spell component pouch SPECIAL ABILITIES Mind Thrust (Su) As a standard action up to three times a day, a neothelid can deliver a massive blast of mental energy at any one target within 60 feet, inflicting 15d10 points of damage. A successful DC 29 Will save negates the effect. This effect can only harm creatures with Intelligence scores. This is a mind-affecting effect. The save DC is Charisma-based. Psychic Crush (Su) As a standard action up to three times a day, a neothelid can attempt to crush the mind of a single creature within 60 feet. The target must make a DC 29 Will save or collapse, becoming unconscious and dying at –1 hit points. If the target succeeds on the save, it takes 6d6 points of damage and is sickened for 1 round. This is a mind-affecting effect. The save DC is Charisma-based. Trace Teleport (Ex) A neothelid telepathically and reflexively learns the mental coordinates of the destination, of all creatures that teleport within 60 feet of it, gaining an awareness of the location equivalent to “seen casually.” This knowledge fades and is lost after 1 minute. This power does not grant any environmental information about the conditions of the destination.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUILZAER, THE SECRET DOLL (CR —; — XP) Homunculus “drow” 9 N Medium construct Init +4; Senses darkvision, low-light vision; Perception +10 DEFENSE AC 16, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+4 Dex, +2 natural armor) hp 78 (9d10+29) Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +4 Defensive Abilities evasion; SR 23 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft., fly 40 ft. (average) Melee bite +14 (1d6+4 plus poison), 2 claws +13 (1d6+4) Special Attacks poison STATISTICS Str 18, Dex 18, Con —, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8 BAB +9; CMB +13; CMD 27 Feats Alertness, Blind-Fight, Skill Focus (Bluff), Toughness, Weapon Focus (bite) Skills Acrobatics +10, Bluff +14, Perception +10, Sense Motive +9, Use Magic Device +3 Languages Aboleth, Abyssal, Aklo, Infernal, Terran, Undercommon SQ sympathetic alchemy, telepathic link, weapon and armor proficiency SPECIAL ABILITIES Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fortitude DC 16; frequency 1/minute for 60 minutes; effect sleep for 1 minute; cure 1 save. The DC is Constitution-based and includes a +2 racial bonus. Sympathetic Alchemy (Su) The bond between a promethean alchemist and his homunculus is so close that the alchemist’s extracts function for the homunculus as if it were the alchemist, allowing the homunculus companion to benefit from extracts without the alchemist needing the infusion discovery. The homunculus is treated as a humanoid or a construct-whichever is more beneficial-for the purposes of what extracts can affect it. Additionally, the homunculus can prepare its master’s extracts from his formula book for him each day, as long as it’s within the range of its telepathic link. Telepathic Link (Su) A homunculus can’t initially speak, but shares a telepathic link with its creator. It knows what its master knows and can convey to him everything it sees and hears, out to a range of 1,500 feet. Weapon and Armor Proficiency (Ex) A homunculus is proficient with simple weapons, but not armor or shields.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I won’t put a “done” stamp on things, but that should be the last of the theory builds, with regards to encounters. If not, then I’ll continue these as they’re needed.

Now we should be good to continue with the “additional encounters” for Book 6, like I did for Books 3-5.

0 notes