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#the fucking song I used for the title of the epilogue in whatever
tartarusknight · 8 months
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What you need to know :)
Hello darling readers <3 I'm TartarusKnight or Knight of Tartarus! (they switch depending on availably honestly)
I'm here to chat, read, and write. That being said~~~~ come and message me anytime <3 questions, requests, and kind words make my day
This is an overview of my work just in case anyone is bored and wants something to read <3 (My Stranger Things work, honestly. I've also got some Marvel, Criminal Minds, and Teen Wolf but ST is my hyper fixation now soooo)
We're Not Perfect
This is a 4 part series in which Steve and Eddie knew each other before Steve ever got with Nancy Wheeler and before he learned about the Upside Down. It's heavily inspired by music <3 (Total Words 300,395) With Playlists because I can't stop <3 This story is my baby
Part 1 - It's the Start of Our Journey?
Pre-season 1 Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson are paired together in class and they learn they work well together. (Words 22,869)
Part 2 - I just want to go home
Set during Seasons 1-3, changing canon but the overarching story doesn't change too much. (Words 85,678)
Part 3 - say you'll live for me
Set in season 4, diverting from canon almost completely but with all the same characters. (Words 63,885)
Part 4 - I'll follow the beat of your heart
And the end. The final battle with Vecna and the epilogue aka season 5 <3 (Words 127,963)
Fool
Based on the song Fool by Djo.
Steve and Nancy get annoyed at Robin and Eddie for ignoring them when they're with their band. They decide to prove that they know music better than either Eddie or Robin thought. (Words 1,488)
I know you've been hurtin'
Based on the song Better Days by Dermot Kennedy and fanart by @babysitterpng
Steve has a plan. It involves a skirt, confidence, Nancy Wheeler's ability to do make-up, the party's anxiety, his parents, and Jason Carver's temper.
And well, Steve's pretty sure he has it in the bag. He might not be smart but he knows people and there's no way he's read any of them wrong. But maybe he'll learn more about himself as the plan unfolds (Words 7,205)
This dream isn't feeling sweet, we're reeling through the midnight streets
7 things that changed about Steve and Robin after Starcourt and 1 time they explained why. (Words 11,837)
I'm just gonna swim until you love me
Five times Steve had to prove he was worth love and One time someone just loved him without needing him to. (Words 8,612)
But when I touch her I feel like I'm cheating on you
Eddie is getting overwhelmed by the party just barging into his life without any warning after Spring Break. So, he makes a plan with an old friend of his. It works... in a way. (Words 1,932)
you're losing your memory now
Robin Buckley wasn't prepared for Steve to crash, but he had been pushing his limits for too long. He had a plan, but he never thought to tell her. He didn't want to worry her. Too bad she'll always worry about him... Especially when he collapses at work. (Words 17,784)
But Now We're Stressed Out
Eddie Munson knew he wasn't the smartest person. He never planned on college but he never planned for the Party either.
Title based on Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out (Words 2,021)
I don't know what you're hunting. It's not me, it's something else
Steve looks over her face, “I'm not having any of you at my place. Did you see the map, no way?” He states and it's one part of his reasoning but not the main reason. “Then come stay with one of us,” Robin says and it feels more like a plead than anything.
He shakes his head and she looks angry now. “Stop whatever the fuck this is! We care about you! Let us in! We're safer in groups.” The words don't hurt as much as he thinks they should. “Not that much safer.” He spits back out and she blinks. “Max is as good as dead. Eddie is dead. And guess what! We were in groups!” The shouting makes his throat burn but he can't calm down.
A Halloween Special!!! Happy Horror season <3 (Words 22,620)
WIP - The Fallen King and the King of the Freak
Steve has to deal with the fallout of Season 2.
New nightmares, losing Nancy, kids who he's willing to die for, and Billy's new hatred towards him. He went from the top to the bottom in the school and he doesn't know how bad it is until Eddie Munson is the one that steps in to help him. And maybe he wants the help and maybe even some friends. (Words 150k and climbing <3)
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asinglemindcreates · 17 days
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So we've all heard the news regarding RT shutting down.
I was somewhat gutted the night I heard the news; since then, more news has made the situation sound less dire. Namely, the core people working on RWBY still believe they'll be able to release the BTS and extra content we were promised a month or two ago (the extended V9 epilogue, etc). And there have been groups who have expressed interest in the IP (https://twitter.com/DillonGoo/status/...) with further speculation that Crunchy Roll or another group that has hosted RWBY might buy it.
(I only worry that the IP will be hoarded and not actually used, but I digress.)
Back-up/WIP channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MindsSketchbook
(tl:dr for below: RT might be done but I'm not)
My emotions have mostly settled, but to elaborate (ie, cross-post some edited tweets from the night I got the news):
I. Okay RT had a pretty horrendous history with how it treated its staff so I can't mourn them, but RWBY, a show that makes up the bulk of my creative editing work, was also under their care-
-and-
-V9 was one of the best volumes IMO. RWBY is the closest thing I have as a comfort show. I always come back to editing it...and I won't stop for a long time. I like editing it more than anything else. I've sunk thousands of hours of my life into making my little fucking mv edits with it.
Except these fucking edits are such an important creative outlet for me. Which sounds stupid. Most people just want to see a song paired with scenes they like. You search up AMVs by these song title + media. Which is reasonable! But a lot of my edits are more than that to me...all my most popular beloved stuff has a story or at least a strong thematic through-line. I miss when I felt confident enough to title it vaguely based on whatever emotional thesis I had.
I've tried working with other things. It's never bad but it's also never the same. I have ideas for other media but most will never see the light of day because RWBY almost always takes priority in mind. My heart. When I look at my body of work I always feel like I'm not done. I have more to say and show, and having developed my interpretation of RWBY over the years, I have so much in the show I want to revisit in AMV form.
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hmslusitania · 2 years
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it’s because if they get within touching distance unsupervised they will snap together like magnets
and that would be disruptive to their ability to function anymore
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tuesday again 2/1/22
it sure did snew and friz ! also ANOTHER recipe! what the fuck is this series becoming!
listening the wolfenstein sountracks are shockingly good? these are games i am never going to play bc i do not love shooters, but they’ve been getting me through an incredibly miserable work week. this one is probably part of a cutscene or heavily scripted sequence somewhere bc it is essentially two different pieces lightly spliced together. this starts HITTING at about three minutes. also ohohohoho we love a punny title
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firing off a double-song week VERY early in the year bc i am more and more charmed each time i listen to it. chaise longue by wet leg, indie rock by way of sung-spoken verses, killer bridge. i think this song is going to be fucking everywhere this summer and honestly good for them it’s very fun
Is your muffin buttered? Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?
...
Is your mother worried? Would you like us to assign someone to worry your mother?
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reading The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin
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while i was reading this i thought “huh! it’s funky that there are way more revisionist western movies than novels,” but this NYT interview with Lin namedrops a bunch so i guess that’s what i’ll be reading for a while. anyway, let’s just yoink the little brown & co description bc it’s serviceable
Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoon’s henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.
love the premise! a take on a western i haven’t seen before! i guess it is technically “own voices” but not in the queer/disability way i usually see it deployed? it is very mccarthy at points.
i have a lot of things that bug me about the structure and execution. it has a lot of debut novel wonky execution problems. the way the author writes women leaves a lot to be desired. a lot of desert/sea/the earth remembers philosophical monologues that don’t really go anywhere or serve the narrative in really any way whatsoever but do serve to heighten the dreamlike quality of the thing. it’s not fractured, it’s definitely one whole narrative, but boundaries between sections are blurry if that makes sense?
rot13 spoilers, more about cycles: gur jubyr shpxva guvat nobhg plpyrf bs frn/qrfreg naq gur ynaq erzrzorevat znxrf zr jbaqre vs yva jnagrq gb qenj n zber qverpg cnenyyry orgjrra gung naq gur plpyrf bs ivbyrapr zvat gfh vf erperngvat sbe uvf bja fba? v jbhyq nyfb unir rkcrpgrq n terngre rzcunfvf ba "jryy guvf vf gur ynaq naq ubj vg vf naq guvf vf uhzna angher naq ubj lbh ner, pna'g ernyyl punatr gung" RKPRCG zvat gfh qbrf fubj n ybg bs xvaqarff gb frireny crbcyr ur srryf obhaq gb ol pvephzfgnapr be angvbanyvgl, rira vs ur vf rkgerzryl hc uvf bja nff zbfg bs gur gvzr. guvf cbffvoyr plpyvpny cnenyyry vf abg zragvbarq va nal erivrj v pbhyq svaq fb znlor v zlfrys nz hc zl bja nff n yvggyr 
it’s somewhere between magical realism and weird west. like magic is absolutely real and we see a bunch of it, but because our main character isn’t particularly interested in it we don’t get much explanation? i feel like if you introduce magic into a story your readers are going to be interested, bc this is the thing that sets your book apart from other westerns? but it’s inconsistently applied and inconsistently seen in a way that isn’t in a fractured dreamlike everyone-operating-on-home-country rules as ive seen before, it’s just inconsistent in a sometimes frustrating manner. the ending hit really hard and was then undone by the epilogue. so it goes. i am interested in whatever he writes next
watching i really hate how letterboxd has gotten me watching more movies, bc it’s much easier to scroll through posters and pick a Vibe than it is to go down the horrible little google keep note with all the movies and shows i want to watch. anyway this is how i pitched my favorite movie i watched last week to a beloved discord
in the event we feel like having another movie night may i submit Return of Sabata (1971, dir. Parolini) for consideration? i feel like we (tumblr users) overuse the words "insane" and "unhinged" but this movie starts with lee van cleef in the circus and just gets wilder from there? he is here with SO many gadgets and tricks to cause problems on purpose. there's a bit where he gets everyone in a room and explains the murder mystery this movie is BANANAS im genuinely obsessed with it  
this one has a fucking banger of a opening scene- it’s very tense! it’s very dark! there are Gadgets! it truly does only get wilder from there!! lvc looks like he is having fun the entire time but also very obviously does not do any of his own stunts. perfect film.
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this is already a frightfully long post and im positive i’m going to continue to be insane about this movie BUT!!! also some of the best non-morricone music i’ve heard in a western!
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playing dicking around with phone games mostly, forgot i loved those little logic puzzle chart things and also forgot the fucking dire state of ads in free mobile games. one every two minutes. i timed it.
making QUICHE, mostly bc we all got groceries last week pre-blizzard, forgot we all already had eggs, and we had a bit of an Egg Situation in the fridge.
used this crust recipe (but with butter that was literally straight out of the freezer bc i had the advantage of my housemate’s gigantic fancy food processor) it was VERY good bc it’s like half butter but i deffo should have blindbaked it beforehand, the layer of cheese on the bottom of the quiche made it a touch soggy
used this broccoli quiche recipe sort of kind of not really, bc this was more of a “cleaning out the fridge” quiche than things i bought on purpose? should have cooked more of the water out of the broccoli and a very sad handful of wilted basil but hey! it was delicious! my housemates really liked it! it was basically all we ate for a day and a half! we also used up a ton of the smoked salmon we also needed to use up!
FUCK i miss a good everything bagel with like half an inch of cream cheese, plus capers and a quarter inch of lox. the only good use case for capers
anyway here’s the big momma quiche bc i only have one normal sized pie pan (yes it did cook all the way through), i said the phrase “she got that deep dish chicago pussy” and my housemates threatened to vote me out of the house (which isn’t how it fucking works, you fools, i am the primary lease holder) but they were right and correct to reply with that
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littlefreya · 3 years
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The Way To Hell - Final Chapter
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Summary: Post Mi6, Alternate Canon. August escapes Hunt with his face intact and is currently the most dangerous man on earth. Unwilling to back down from his murderous agenda, he plots to continue where he stopped while a trained assassin is sent to bring him down. 
Pairing: August Walker x OFC (Ingvild) 🖤
Word count: 5k (including epilogue) 
Warnings: 18+, smut, boomer Walker, some fluff, sexual intercourse, cock-warming, mentions of torture, implied insanity, slight mentions of gore, violence, murder, mass-shooting and death. Please proceed with caution  
A/N: The ending is here and I hope I did it justice, I hope I did right by you. I will reblog my kudos, but first I must thank @agniavateira for being my beta and a source of inspiration and @raspberrydreamclouds for the cover art. 
*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it, ideas or parts it and claiming it as your own*
Now allow me to die out of stress and anxiety.
Title: See You in Hell
Down by the valley, there is a serenity that exists only in fairy tales. Damp grass caresses her naked back, the pointy little tips ticking the base of her spine, leaving a fresh trail of dew. Pure mountain mist breathes life through blue hills caked with ice; white fog vales over the forest’s lush greenery and looms above the lake’s water like a lost-love phantom.
Lying with her eyes shut, she listens to the harmony of life surrounding her: the little fish bouncing in the river, the butterflies procreating mid-air and the hummingbird chirping with bliss. Yet the most beautiful sound is the low, melodic baritone humming and reverberating against her inner thighs. 
”Angel, With those angel eyes Come and take this earth boy Up to paradise.”
”Boomer Walker…” she teases, “Is that a song from your time?” 
Ascending a trail of kisses up her pelvis, he scoffs and shakes his head. “I’m starting to suspect that you have a kink for older men,” he answers with a throaty growl, shifting his weight further over her abdomen. The soft fur of his torso grazes between her thighs, and she sighs with pleasure. 
”Do you want daddy to fuck you?” 
”That’s gross!” she curls her nose and tries to hit his head playfully, but August snaps at her wrists with perfect instinct, pinning her hands against the wet meadow. His tongue flicks over the slant of her neck while he aligns his cock at the little piece of heaven between her legs.
Sensual yet rough, his massive girth splits her walls while his lips shower her with honeyed kisses. Ingvild throws her head back, lacing her fingers with his and coils herself beneath his large body. 
“August...” she pants, feeling the air gradually diminishing from her lungs with every thrust, “I think I’m dying...”
Never halting or slowing his rhythm, August lowers his head to peer into her eyes. Fingers drenched with blood snap at her jaw.
“Stay with me, Ingvild.” He demands, letting out a husky groan, though his voice is but an echo.
A grey, thick mist wafts around the darkening forest, covering her with a bone-chilling breeze; his calling carries on the distance.  
“Stay, princess...”
“Don’t leave...”
“Stay. We’ve only just begun.”
Ice bites its sharp fangs into the little creases between her cracked bones as another bucket filled with frosty water showers her trembling body. The stabbing pain lasts for a lingering moment, reminding her that she’s still very much alive.
It must be the 10th bucket, or maybe 12th? She lost count at some point. Day and night melt into one another in this place, and the hours don’t make much sense.
Muffled complaints vibrate in her ears. Vaguely her sight picks on two silhouettes arguing when the world abruptly flashes white, and her jaw soaks a terrible blow. Fully crashing onto the hard marble, she tries to recover, but a sudden kick rips through her abdomen.
“Your methods are too slow, Issac!” A grey-haired agent chides, standing over the girl with his foot still drawn, “Walker could be setting his bomb somewhere across the globe any minute now, and you’re taking your sweet time with her as if she’s an art project.”
The scrawny torturer frowns and turns his back at him. Walking toward the metal desk, he browses through different equipment. “My methods always work, the pretty little girl was taught to endure pain,” he grunts in exasperation and gestures at the bloodstained bandage around her hand, “she did this to herself.”
Sighing with a mixture of frustration and disgust, the CIA agent takes another swing at Ingvild’s torso, the pointy edge of his shoe colliding with the scar at her gut.
Bloodshot eyes rise with wrath, violent tides of aftershock course at her viscera. She peers at the men through the haze of pain when a third figure appears in the room, standing calmly whilst Issac and the agent argue among them. 
Tall, broad, and charismatic, the handsome man strides toward her. His tailored steel-coloured suit envelops his statuesque body as if he is made of iron.  
“You’re taking it so well, princess,” he praises in his deep, melodic baritone while crouching down to take a closer look. Ingvild lifts her head, slowly breaking into a weak grin. Onyx orbs replace the storm-touched eyes, but that chiselled face still belongs to her beautiful monster.
“Did you tell them anything about where I am headed?” he asks and gives her a pout, reaching his index finger and thumb to squeeze her bruised cheek affectionately. 
Swallowing the aching dryness in her throat, she manages to shake her head meekly. “No… I said nothing,” her voice cracking as she whispers. Her chapped lips stretch into a pale, awkward grin. 
Tiny lines form at the corner of his void-like eyes as he smiles back, radiating with dangerous delight.
“That’s my good girl.”
The grey-haired agent throws a glance over his shoulder, scrutinising Ingvild while he stands next to Issac, who is twirling a scalpel back and forth between his boney fingers.
“Who is she talking to?”
“Not very sane this one,” Issac explains as he examines the silver blade against the light, “multiple mental disorders, dissociative personality, psychotic.”
Pushing the agent aside with his free hand, Issac steps forward. He leers at Ingvild, who stares at nothing for a long second before averting her eyes back at them. 
“We just need to dig a little deeper and the little bird will sing,” he exclaims and moves closer before dropping to his knees. One of his icy hands lands on her shoulder, forcing her flat on her back. Shuddering at his frozen touch, she closes her eyes; in the bleak nothingness, she recalls the night in the lake where August let her die.
“Pretty little Ingvild, have you heard of vivisection?” Her torturer asks as he lines his twig-like finger over the spine of the scalpel. Sensing his digits sneaking beneath the hem of her shirt, she shoots her eyes open yet remains still and intrepid. 
The tiny black marbles beneath Issac’s brows glint with twisted joy, appeased at the sight of the scar as he exposes her torso. Ingvild expects the pain of the blade when something tepid and unpleasantly wet slithers across her gut like a little pink slug. 
“Umm… Issac…?” The agent interrupts, furrowing his brow with confusion and disgust as he stares at his colleague licking the girl’s torso.
“What?!” Issac snaps at him, his eyes narrowing with spite, “you wanted me to go harder on her!”
“Yes, but…”
“But shut up and let me do my job!” He yells and returns his glare to Ingvild who blinks at the ceiling silently. Disrupted by his touch, she bites her tongue, fighting to hold back the acrid substance that threatens to emerge from her gut.
“You fight very hard to protect a man who doesn’t give a fuck about you, little bird,” his snake-like voice hisses as he leans down to half-whisper in her ear, “just tell me where he is and I won’t cut you open.”
Ingvild sucks the air in through gritted teeth and turns her head to look away from the obnoxious little man. She seeks for her beautiful monster, finding him leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. August’s empty glance wears a calm grin.
“He is in this room,” Ingvild jests faintly, her sardonic laughter stretching thin, her chest heaving, exhausting whatever strength is left in her muscles. August’s smirk widens with hers, large dimples are slicing into his cheeks.
Ticking his tongue, Issac allows the sharp edge of the scalpel cut a skin-deep line into her flesh. Ingvild stares at him stoically, not moving a muscle as shy drops of blood begin trickling down her navel. 
“Are you sure about your response?” he asks, ghosting the scalpel over her abdomen while crooking an eyebrow.
Ingvild bites her lip, pretending to think about her answer for a few seconds. Lifting her head up, she inches her lips toward Issac’s ear. The scrawny man listens intently. 
“August Walker is the devil, and the devil is everywhere.”
A peal of sinister chuckles spills from her lips as she throws her head back onto the ground, staring at Issac’s disapproving glare. 
But her laughter soon dies. 
Taut pressure pierces into her flesh, the blade penetrating deep, cutting through tissue and muscle as if it was soft cheese. Ingvild clenches her jaw, her mind flooded by charring white light that dismantles every thought while the blade continues to swerve.
For a brief moment, she finds herself in Bergen, hands covered with thick blood, holding the gushing wound in her stomach with shock. August stands above her, toying with his favourite knife and staring at the red taint. 
“Time to fall, angel.” 
Scattered musings run behind her eyes: Liam, the nuns at the orphanage, August, and even Erica. She’s reminded of every hit she was forced to take, every country she visited, all blending into a bizarre parade of death. 
“C’mon girl, just tell us where he is!” She hears the other man shout as he steps closer with an urgent expression. “Just give us something, a country, a region, anything to make this stop, you can still do the right thing.” 
The heavy stench of iron fills her nose; the warm, thick liquid trickles down her bare skin, spilling in a cross on the map of her torso. The pain now is undeniable, making her lips heavier as she makes an attempt to answer.
“I don’t…. know… any August.”
The CIA agent scoffs violently and balls his fists. “Deeper!” He orders Issac, who like a composer, trails the blade further through her gut, cutting into sinew and brittle tendons. Ingvild trembles, feeling her body grow weaker. 
In her mind, she can hear caged screams.
“You will die for a man who doesn’t even care if you bleed!” The agent rasps, spit coming out of his mouth as he rages above her.
‘Stop!’
“He won’t even remember you once you die!”
‘Resist, don’t show pain. You’ve been through this before, you already died.’ 
“No one will.”
Swallowing every ounce of pain, she fights to remember her training, her past. Her mind scrambles for Fjellstrekninger forest, for the green pines and their stringy needles, for the scent of beech and the damp ground. She tries to imagine the silver-blue mountains of Bergen, that last time she hiked there before going to meet Liam at the gas station. 
How strange that at the very same day she encountered the most wanted man on earth, not knowing she was destined to be his. 
But none of these images appear before her.
‘You can’t escape this.’
Her screams shudder through the entire floor. 
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“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” 
August flicks his tongue over his bottom lip, glowering at the driver who gawks at him with disbelief and shakes his head. Pushing the phone against his chin, he stares forward at the rainy road, reciting in his mind the words of the MI6 and CIA apostles.
‘Erica captured a woman in her late 20s, having her tortured for information for a couple of days now. Can’t promise you she’s alive. No one goes in there.’
“I wasn’t asking,” August answers, throwing him an icy glare, “we’re taking the chopper to the Mi6 fortress in London. I don’t need to tell you what happens if you question my decisions.” 
The driver tenses his fingers around the steering wheel and shakes his head once again. He means to say something, but the scowl on August’s face shuts him up right away.
“Who is she? What is she to you?”
August huffs and lowers his gaze, eyes dropping to the plutonium case and then forward through the windshield, watching the heavy rain clouds that stretch before the sky. As he blinks his eyes shut, his mind plays a vision of an inferno; cracked ground and scorched skies. He sits on a throne made of bones and drinks wine from a chalice made of human skull. 
His angel sits on his knee, naked and pure, her iridescent wings tucked against her back. She stares at him with a smile full of admiration, her fingers brushing over his moustache. 
‘Your angel of destruction.’
“She’s just an asset.”
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‘Hell lives inside you August, it always has. Rotting you from the inside as it begs to be let out. And you will unleash it, won’t you? Your suffering must be shared.’
Vast shadows gather outside the double-pane windows of the main hall. The thick storm clouds paint the sky pitch black, swallowing the stars alive one by one. Light wanes just in time for the harbinger of chaos to march into the well-secured lobby of the sizable Mi6 fortress.
If fairytales were to be true, the devil would arrive riding a monstrous mare with hooves made of flames. But if anything, he is but a man in a tailored suit and a long trench-coat. The leather soles of his midnight-black shoes squeak as he marches on, leaving a trail of mud on the cream-coloured marble.
“Evening sir,” the security guard greets and gestures August to pass through the large weapon detector with nothing but a quick exchange of knowing looks. 
The corners of August’s lips curl into a small smile beneath his moustache while he scrutinises the surroundings. Gold and pearly pillars spread across the vast hall, a false facade hiding a decaying world and the self-indulgent ghosts that harbour it. So lost in their own little lie, it takes them more than a few minutes to notice the hellhound who stepped into their haven.
It begins as a small rumble, like a seismic wave. The first tremor vibrates through the ground and the walls follow with a convulsing shudder. Gasps, chatter, and widened eyes stab at him with shock, yet they all seem to suffer from the same affliction. 
Standing paralysed, they ogle at the most wanted man on earth as he combs his fingers through his hair and walks toward the elevators located at the end of a narrow, red corridor. Unapologetically confident and ever so relaxed and condescending, he ignores them. 
A true king among peasants.  
“Is that?...”
“What the fuck?!”
“How the fuck did he pass security???”
His confidence is nothing but theatrics, as his blue eyes carry toward the large elevators with a glossy sparkle breaking on his corneas. He tries so hard to envision her beautiful face yet all he sees is a pile of dry bones.
“Stop! Hands in the fucking air, Walker!”
‘Ah, took them long enough.’
Standing between the carpeted walls of the narrow corridor, only mere inches from the silver doors, August slowly spreads his long fingers and lifts his hands in the air. His keen ear catches at least three firearms as the guards cock their guns at his direction, panting with fright. 
“Turn around so we can see you, piece of shit!!!” A presumingly young hero barks behind him. 
“Someone call Director Sloane down here right now, she’s not going to believe it!!!”
The soft rumbling in the lobby grows into impending thunder. A flash of pale purple lightning floods the lit vicinity for a split second, echoing the small grin that spreads across August’s beaming face.  
“Oh, I don’t think so, son,” he speaks serenely, almost like a tender fatherly coo. Not bothering to turn, he tilts his head up and inhales sharply.
“Go.”
Sharp gasps of shock and terror reverberate between the walls of the fortress as sudden darkness veils the main hall. The smell of their fear is almost as delightful as the strong smoky scent of gunpowder. Like shooting stars, the rapid gunfire pierces through the night. Cries, incoherent screams, and panicked gasps make for a beautiful concert, so much that he wishes he could stay, but he has a girl to rescue.  
‘If she’s still alive…’
Swallowing the bitter bile, he enters an elevator and presses the button for the basement level. He watches the flickering beams of light as his men continue to execute the remaining agents before the doors shut in. 
Drawing out his handgun and relieving the safety, he leans against the shuddering metal and stares at the neon red number while reminiscing on the day he met a pretty girl with an unpleasant smile.
“Too bad, I would have loved to see you again.”
“Well then, if our destinies were meant to be entwined, you will.”
The basement level seems completely abandoned and eerily silent. No wails nor cries carry on the chilly air. 
His Ingvild is forbearing, she would never show her suffering. Would she? 
Inching toward the interrogation cell, his hand runs across the naked concrete walls, sensing the coarse texture against the pads of his fingers. Opaline droplets of sweat bead his forehead and his lungs sink with the effort.
Muffled voices perk his ears the closer he gets: two men, no woman. No sounds of violence, no signs of her in there whatsoever. 
‘Angel, are you being brave for me?’
Arriving at the door, he takes a deep breath and gingerly pushes the handle. The pungent scent of salt and iron pervades his nostrils as he steps a foot into the shower of blinding white light. The brightness hurts and for a moment it feels as everything before him fades. 
Until his sight sharpens and he notices the two shadowy figures standing with their backs facing him. They look like vultures preying upon a corpse.
Her corpse.
‘No! Change this! Make this right!’
Wings of cherry-dark blood spread from her snow-pale body. Motionless, his girl lies with her top huddled around her chest to expose her bleeding gut. 
‘You are too late…’
Pure, undistilled rage burns within August’s throat, so ferocious it stings in his eyes, making his entire body tremble. He lifts his hand and fires the gun hastily, shooting both men in the back of their heads before they even get the chance to turn and look at the man who executed them. 
“Ingvild!” August pants, rushing and falling to his knees before her. 
“Angel?” He presses one hand to her gut, trying to pressure her gushing wounds while his fingers etch around her nape to pull her closer to his face. Blood, still sticky and warm, tarnishes his clean outfit while he cradles her in his arms.
“Please don’t do this to me…” He whispers, shifting his hand to caress her bruised face, recalling the last time she was dead in his arms. 
The world kept spinning on its axis when she died back at the lake. So why does it feel like right now it stopped in its place?
Pressing her to his chest, August shuts his eyes and shudders with fury. All emotions come to life, and every one of them hurt.
“You are not here…” 
A deep quivering sigh of relief soars from his throat, mouth cracking into a smile at the sounds of her hoarse whisper and delicate moans. Blinking faintly, Ingvild half-opens her eyes and stares at him through heavy lids. 
“I am here,” he whispers, brushing away the sticky strands of hair from her face and squeezes her cheek beneath his thumb, “I came to take you, we have to go.”
Shifting his arms, he tries to lift her up, but his petite woman is suddenly made of the heaviest rocks; her stiff muscles protest in his grip, making it impossible for him to manoeuvre her out of fear she will bleed to death. 
“We were both at the garden,” she mumbles drowsily, licking her bloodied teeth before breaking into a maddened smile that quickly dies as she depletes her remaining strength. “I’m tired, I want to stay here and dream.” 
“Ingvild, we don’t have time for this,” August warns with concern, noticing how her eyes roll back and her lashes flutter shut, “there’s a helicopter waiting for us on the roof. You have to get up, you have to survive this, you have to come with me! Please!”
Fat, oily tears roll down her temples, mingling with the blood and tangy sweat on her face. Opening her eyes again, she peers at her beautiful monster, recognising the familiar ocean and its eternal unrest. 
Did he come here for her, or is it just a dream?
“Why?” 
‘Tell her.’
Brow lifting and face softening, his hands clutch her tightly. He rocks her from side to side, holding her protectively. Ingvild senses the wrath that pours from his heart, the thundering beat throwing its fists against his ribcage as their bodies collide.
“You know why,” August suggests huskily, nearly begging, bargaining not to admit, not to say the words he was always so afraid of. But naively, her gaze pleas in return, the child-like innocence piercing a hole through his chest. 
“Tell me,” she begs him.
‘She needs you to say it.’
“Because I need you.”
The words nearly crack on his tongue, his throat suddenly so dry it sears. He glances down at the fallen angel, sensing the most excruciating thirst, where the only way to stop it is by stealing several deep kisses from her lips. 
“I need you by my side,” he murmurs above her lips between desperate, helpless kisses, hoping to breathe life into his weakened valkyrie, “stay with me, angel.”  
An awkward stretch tugs at her cheeks, hurting as if someone slices them with a blade from side to side. For the first time in her life, true laughter crisps her face, followed by crystal-like tears that run down her sullen eyes.
“I love you, August.” 
Every nerve in his body tingles with tendrils of light, reaching out deep within his gut and spreading throughout his tendons. For a moment, he feels divine, sanctified by the words of his angel, his woman, his by free will. 
Offering her a brief smile, he captured her lips for one last stolen kiss. His thick moustache scratches at her tender flesh while a little hum plays on his tongue. 
She tastes like blood and honey - the tarty flavour of victory.
“We have to go now, princess, I have to finish this.” 
Gingerly rising to his feet, he hooks a hand below her knees and places the other against her bruised spine. Bloody footprints trail behind him as he carries her outside the white room, trying to make for their freedom.
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Locked down in her office, Director Erica Sloane inhales and exhales by practice, brushing a hand through her sweat-slick hair while trying to call every backup unit. Bullets still rip through the air in every story; the sirens howl while red lights flicker from outside. She puts her hands around her ears, trying to shut the noises out, uncertain if the screams she is hearing are her people still being slaughtered, or her mind playing tricks.
Walker is many things: an idealist, a manipulative snake, a monster. But this is a side of him she never anticipated. There is no need to question his motives this time. She is smart enough to figure it out. 
To risk so much, a man must feel deeply for a woman.
Her anxiety spikes as guilt seeps in when her phone suddenly rings.
“Director Sloane,” she pants against the receiver. Somehow, as she hears the deep, measured breath, she knows.
‘Walker.’
“Hello, Erica, did you miss me?”
Erica clenches her jaw and stares spitefully into nothing, “Hardly.”
She hears him scoff from the other line, her mind piecing together that horrible, pretentious grin of his. The bile climbs up her throat just from the vision. 
“We don’t have much time, but I just wanted to thank you.” August pauses, sighing with the bliss of a madman at her ear, “You see, if not for Lacey, if not for you kicking me to the curb the way you did - I would have never become what I was meant to be. And you sent me an angel to light my way…”
“You’ve manipulated her.”
“No, you did,” August interrupts calmly, “I set her free. I will set them all free and unite them.”
The anger simmers in her gut to the point of nausea. She holds her breath, counts to ten and tries to gather her thoughts. ‘August wants a bargain,’ she thinks, but for a reason, it feels like he already won.
“Can you come and look out of the window for me, please?” He asks politely. 
Turning her head at the window, she narrows her eyes and bites her plump lips with hesitation.
“If I had a sniper on you, you’d be dead 5 minutes ago,” he assures her. 
She gets up from her office chair slowly, her fingers reaching to uncover the blinds. The storm weakened, yet heavy clouds still loom from above like a noxious mist. She seeks for August on the horizon, listening carefully to the sounds on the line. She realises they are coming from above. Her sharp eyes detect the helicopter: far, yet close enough to see his shit-eating grin and that hand that waves at her. 
He has the girl with him. Who knew a monster could care.
“You know, you are the only woman in the CIA I haven’t fucked.” He provokes and then hangs up suddenly.
Erica watches as the helicopter takes off, her eyes widening with fear as the notion of her own demise resonates like a stinging slap.
The blast takes her along with the entire building within a split second.
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Standing on the cliff by the edge of the valley, August stares down at the tranquil scar that swerves amidst lush, fertile mountains. The crystalline Indus river lies before his eyes, its sweet water so clear that the sky mirrors upon the brim.   
It’s not every day when a simple man becomes a god. 
The melancholic beauty of nature makes his fingers tighten around the detonator, thumb ghosting over the button as he allows himself a couple of last seconds to inhale the air of the old world. 
Oh, how many will die for this god to receive his halo.
‘I wish you were here, my Ingvild…’ August muses with anguish, feeling an awkward jab at the spot where his heart should have been.  
A sudden rumbling noise of a helicopter makes his gut weave. 
‘That better not be Ethan fucking Hunt! I should have thrown him off the cliff in Norway!’ 
Alarmed yet stoic as ever, he draws his gun, aiming it at the aircraft inching its way to land on the other side of the flat terrain. The last thing he needs right now is someone meddling with his affairs, but it quickly becomes clear to him that if someone wanted a monster like him dead, they would have sniped him from the air before he could even see them coming. 
‘Did you forget the woman is nothing but a valkyrie?’
“What are you doing here?” He calls out at Ingvild and frowns at the pilot, abruptly struck with anger. “I specifically asked to make sure she stays rested!”
The pilot shrugs while Ingvild makes her way toward August with mild effort. Dark circles rest beneath her eyes, yet she is still so very beautiful to him, especially when she frowns. 
“She was very persuasive and horrendously stubborn,” the pilot retorts. 
“Yeah, tell me about it,” August mutters to himself and watches the little battered woman making every attempt to remain stoic as she steps closer. A shadow of a malicious grin creeps on her frosty eyes. 
Once upon a time, she promised him she will always find him. She has no intention of breaking that promise.
“Did you think I’ll let you do this without me, August Walker?” She sulks at him as she finally moves to stand in front of him. Every nerve in her body is inflamed with pain, yet the thought of not being here at the birth of the new world brings greater agony than imagined. 
Something she compares to missing out on the birth of a child.
“We are in this together now, this is our cause, our better world. You don’t get to leave me behind.”
Her hand reaches for his wrist, thumb pressing to feel his quickening pulse. Wonder paints his eyes and his lips gape softly. He promised himself Lacey will never cross his thoughts again; yet he can’t help but think about that night in his study and the pain of betrayal.  
‘How is she even real?’   
Gently peeling her fingers off his wrist, he looks at the detonator. He then takes her hand in his, placing the device in her slender grasp. 
“Forgive me, my darling. You’re right,” he apologises and turns her over to view the horizon. A shiver surges through her as she senses the weight in her palm when August moves to stand behind her, resting his chin on the top of her head.
“We do this together.”
Pesky little honeysuckles flutter within her chest as his arms wrap around her carefully. One of his hands holds hers, raising it up slightly to position the device in front of her chest.
“Do it angel, set them free.”
Taking a deep breath, Ingvild slides her fingertip over the red button. Scattered images of her life briefly flash through her mind, ending with the single moment where their gazes first met that day in Bergen.
Bright heavenly light cleanses the sky and loud thunder rips through the earth. Standing on the trembling ground, August and Ingvild stare into the distance while slowly turning to face each other. They hold their hands together, both gaping with awe as rich golden hues pour into the sky. 
Enamoured, and lost within one another’s beauty, they share a long, lingering kiss. 
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Epilogue. 
Sharp and heavy, the blade split the wood in half as if it was made out of soft butter. Resting the blunt side of the leaden axe over his shoulder, he pauses and observes the pile of firewood on the ground. His lips move in silence as he counts before crouching down to pick up another log and place it on the stump. 
Strong shades of pink and orange spread between the clouds, kissed by the drowsy sun as it makes its way to slumber beneath the earth. It’s been 8 months since the coming of their new world. Even though there is still work to be done, August decided a hideout was necessary to let her mend her wings. 
“Loki!” 
Ingvild rushes into the green field with a wide, toothy smile. Feral rivers of chestnut-brown reach the small of her back, floating behind her as she runs around giggling.
‘That smile, like honey. So pure, so real.’
Playful barks answer her call, and a German Shepherd puppy appears from across the green hill, jumping over one of the logs ecstatically and wags its tail.
“Careful or I’ll cook him for dinner,” August mutters and points the axe at Loki’s direction. The pup tilts its head at him and barks with playful rage, growling and baring its needle-like teeth.
Ingvild pauses and gives August an icy stare before grabbing the large puppy and holding him to her chest, “You’re a shitty liar August Walker, you love him. Always sneaking him bacon when you think I'm not looking and snuggling him in your sleep.”
August shrugs, brushing away her comment before sticking the axe into the tree stump. “Get inside, time for dinner.” A small grin stretches on his lips as he sees her walking away, kissing the puppy on his wet little nose. 
The scent of cedarwood burning at the mantle and brewed coffee welcomes her home as she enters the cabin, immediately filling her chest with mellowness. She allows Loki down on the ground before walking into their cosy bedroom where she removes her trousers and remains in an oversized sweater and black thigh-high stockings that August gifted her after they left Kashmir. 
When she returns to the living room, August is sitting at the study with his laptop open. A small wrinkle lines his forehead while he runs two fingers over his moustache. A map and coordinates are visible on the screen, along with a messaging platform which she only assumes is a conversation with one of the apostles. 
Loki lies guarding at his feet.
“Come here, princess,” August calls, reaching out his arm toward her. “I have something to show you.”
Sneaking toward him like a large feline, Ingvild takes his hand and lets him guide her to his lap. Her legs fall to each side of his thighs, and August rests his chin at the small crook of her neck where it always belonged.
“What are you looking for?” She asks, casually pulling the sleeve over her wrist to scratch at a peeling hammer tattoo gracing her skin.
“Don’t touch it, let it heal.” August answers and takes her hand in his, entwining their fingers together tightly. An illustration of an angel wing decorates the same spot on his arm. As she glances at the way the black ink is embedded into his flesh, she can’t help but smile and ever so slightly grind herself on the semi-rigid bulge beneath her ass.
August growls against her neck, grazing his stubbles over her supple skin before reaching a hand to unzip his tracking trousers and pull out his swelling manhood. After a soft scuffle of her panties, he lifts her hips and slides himself fully within her wet, angelic cove. 
“August…” She sighs, fluttering her eyes shut for a split second, embracing both pain and pleasure. When August fills her, she is ethereal, as if a piece that was missing all her life has finally made it back home.
“You always look so beautiful with me inside you,” he murmurs against her neck, planting bristly kisses down her jawline before returning his glare forward. Ingvild only moves slightly above him, swaying slow and smooth on his thick, throbbing girth and squeezing him tight between her walls to relish in their bond.  
“I have a present for you.” He opens a tab on his browser while his fingers toy with her clit with surprising tenderness.
“What is it?” She moans as he presses down on her sensitive pearl.
“I found Liam,” he explains, a twinge of pride and a spit of revenge hanging on his baritone. He growls slightly as her cunt clenches around him by his words. “He’s hiding out in Sao Paulo. I plan to bring you his head.”
Sucking on her bottom lip, she grinds a little harder, feeling August deep in her gut. The temptation to ride him hard and rough is too great, but this sweet slow torture always brings her to a higher ground of ecstasy when they finally fuck. 
“Can it wait, my beautiful monster?” She asks sweetly, reaching her talons to clutch his thigh as he pushes further in and bottoms out inside her with a grunt. “I’d like to stay here for a while and be your angel for a little bit longer.”
August lifts his cerulean gaze back to Ingvild, the clear sky in his deep irises slightly darken as he observes the serene look on her face. His hand rises to cup her chin and turn her head to the side to meet his possessive lips. He cages her mouth with his, devouring her with the lust of a hungry man.
“You will always be mine and mine alone Ingvild,” he promises as he ends the kiss with a nibble on her chin. Ingvild licks his saliva off her mouth and stares back at him with the oxymoronic union of innocence and sinister urge before she leans back and continues to look at his plans.
‘Who is she to you?’
‘She is my queen, and I am the king of hell.’
_______________________________
Additional Notes: Song lyrics by Elvis Presely - Angel. Additional Inspiration by Nine Inchs Nails - We’re in this together. 
Disclaimer: I own no rights to Mission Impossible’s franchise or August Walker.
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kazukorre · 3 years
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⌗ LIVING DEAD GIRL ‹ ISSEI MATSUKAWA
pairing: m. issei + gn! reader (yes, the title is a misnomer,, it's a song title!)
genre: angst?
warnings: reader is dead but no injuries specified, cursing, angel's shitty writing (let me know if i should tag w/ anything else!!)
word count: 2.1k (wasn't expecting that lol)
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In high school, Issei Matsukawa did not see himself becoming a coroner. In truth, the thought the profession was weird, “why would anyone wanna spend their day cutting open dead people?” he would ask, viewing death as a matter to be avoided. This changed following the murder of a close friend, the boy quickly becoming fascinated with death and the mystery of what happens after someone closes their eyes for good. And if he could do anything to make the transition easier for someone, he would. 
So here he found himself, spending his days cutting open dead people. He found it to be, well, less depressing than he thought it would be. It could be partially due to the fact that most people he did autopsies on died of natural causes or sustained very few injuries. That was until you came into his lab, no different than others he’d seen before, lying unmoving on a metal stretcher and covered by a white sheet. 
Issei began his process as he always did, opening a new report on his laptop then removing the thin fabric that covered you. “Holy shit.” His comment was quiet, almost a whisper as he assessed your body, more gruesome than he had seen before. “What happened to you?” Issei asked no one in particular, something he did often, though this time he received an answer; “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” The man spun so quickly he thought he would snap his neck. Behind him, you stood, looking as you did on the lab table but reanimated and missing your injuries. Issei froze, unsure of what was happening and he watched as you stepped forward to view your own body. “Wow, I look really bad. At least you haven’t cut me open yet, I dunno if I’d be able to handle the sight of my own insides.” Issei stared in disbelief, eyes darting from the dead body on the table to the seemingly alive one standing next to it. “But you’re- how are you- what the fuck?” His voice shook with fear and confusion. “Relax.” You hoisted yourself atop one of the file cabinets before continuing. “You act like you’ve never seen a ghost before.” Your voice carried almost a mocking lilt as if to criticize the man in front of you. “I haven’t!” Issei’s voice raised an octave or two, his comment ending in what almost sounded like a squeak. “Oh, my bad. You can keep working, don’t let me hold you up.” You turned to face the opposite direction on the file cabinet, not wanting to see him perform your autopsy. “I don’t think I can do that while you’re um- here.” He swallowed thickly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. You sighed and turned back around. 
“Fine. Then I need to talk to you. Well, actually, I have a favor to ask of you.” A curse of disbelief escaped under his breath before he responded. “Okay. But I have to ask you something first.” You nodded and he continued. “What is this? Why are you- how are you here?” You puffed your cheeks and blew the air out. “I have no family, and I didn’t have any ID on me, so the police don’t know who I am. So, you get to help me solve my murder. Congrats?” There was a pregnant pause before Issei spoke. “I still don’t get it.” “It’s called the coroner’s curse, don’t ask about the name, I didn’t come up with it. Basically, If someone is murdered but the case likely won’t get solved, like mine, then the coroner has to help them. That’s you.” Issei stared at you quizically. “So, I have to solve your murder? But how? I don’t know you.”
You slipped down from the file cabinet and made your way over to the half-empty report open on Issei’s computer. “You don’t have to have known the victim in order to help them. It’s just how the curse goes. But if it’s of any importance, you did know me. Kind of.” You began to fill in empty spaces of information like your name, age, and address. “No, I didn’t.” “That’s why I said kind of. The bar you go to all the time, I worked there. Used to see you come in all the time, I understand now why you do, this job must be depressing. Anyway,” you turned to the man behind you, “I’ll let you finish what you have to do. Meet me at the bar tomorrow night, 9:00, okay?” Issei hesitated before agreeing, feeling foolish and slightly off his rocker for agreeing to help some rando solve their murder, but nonetheless, he nodded. Offering him a smile, you left the lab, just as any living person would do. 
Issei stood in the alley behind the local bar he frequented, looking around for any sign of you. “Boo.” The man jumped, his reaction mirroring the one he had when he first met you. “You can’t do that to me!” You simply laughed at how skittish he was and he sent you a death glare as you tried to catch your breath. “Okay, let’s keep the talking to a minimum. Remember, no one else can see me. Let’s go, follow me.” You began walking to the other end of the alley, Issei following close behind. “This is where I was killed by the way, if you were curious.” You pointed to a spot next to one of the dumpsters. When he looked, Issei saw dark stains decorating the brick wall and the metal of the dumpster. “Pretty cool, huh?” He grimaced, “Not really, no.” 
Soon, the two of you arrived at your apartment, or technically, what used to be your apartment. Before Issei could ask how you were supposed to get in without keys, the door opened from the inside, revealing you in the doorway. “How did you-?” “I’m a ghost, duh. Catch up.”
You motioned him inside and led him to your bedroom. You handed him a photo of a man then turned to rustle through your desk drawers. “What do I do with this?” “That’s the guy you have to go after. He’s the one who did it.” Dropping his hand to his side, Issei looked to you again as you handed him something else, this time it was a stack of what looked like pages from a diary. “These are his journal entries. I found them one night when I stayed over at his house. I took them just in case I ever- well in case this happened. It’s basically a written confession. I have other stuff too, but these pages should be enough. He was dumb enough to sign them, so his name’s there.”
As you turned again to grab more pieces of potential evidence, Issei began to zone out. He wished that he could have done the same for his friend years back before he became a coroner. He was unaware of how much their death had affected him and how little he had processed it. “Hey, what’s your deal?” Issei blinked a few times before speaking. “Uh, nothing, I just- nothing.” He cleared his throat and looked down. “You were crying. Sure you’re okay?” He nodded. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you this, since you’re dead and all, but. My friend, they- they were murdered, too. The police didn’t do anything about it, said it was probably just gang violence and they’d probably never find the person who did it so…” His voice trailed off and the end of his sentence, eyes burning with tears. “So I guess, by helping you, I’m helping them, too. It sounds stupid but-” “It’s not stupid, it’s sweet. I’m sorry about your friend, though, I’m sure they were great.” Issei nodded and cleared his throat again. “I’m just glad I get to help you.”
“Right. So, what you’ll do is put all of this in an envelope, bring it to the precinct and tell them you have information that could help with my case number, and give them the envelope. Oh! Here’s a photo of me, for identification. And tell them you wanna remain anonymous, you look different from him anyway, so they shouldn’t suspect you.” You handed Issei a large orange envelope and the photo of you. He stuffed the papers and photos into it before sealing it. “Do you need me to walk you home or do you think you can find your way?” “I think I’ve got it from here. But, what about you? What happens to you now?” You chuckled sadly before answering with what you thought was an obvious answer. “Well, I finish dying. Go into the light or whatever. Your job is done, you have what you need to solve this for me, so I’m done here.” Issei swallowed thickly. “So, that’s it. I won’t see you again?” You smirked at him playfully, “What, you got a crush on me or something?” He flushed at your accusation before stammering out an answer “N-no! This just seems anti-climactic, I guess.” “Anti-climactic? You helped a dead person solve their own murder, how is that anti-climactic?” Issei laughed at how seemingly offended you were by his comment. “I guess you’re right. I should go, I’ll let you uh, finish dying, then.” 
The two of you made your way out of your bedroom and back to the front door. “Thanks for helping me, Issei. I appreciate it. You helped me get my name back.” Your tone was sing-songy as you said your last sentence. “No problem, it’s not like I had much choice anyway.” You gasped dramatically, causing the two of you to share genuine laughs. “But seriously, you’re welcome. I’m glad I could help you.” You nodded and ushered him out of the door, offering him a wave and watching him walk down the hall of your apartment floor and into the stairwell. 
Issei shivered as he stepped into the air-conditioned precinct, sealed envelope in hand. He approached the woman at the front desk, clearing his throat to grab her attention. “How may I help you?” Issei placed the envelope on the desk and slid it gently toward her. “Uh, I have some info in here that could help with a recent murder. Case uh, case number 3386?” The woman nodded, taking the envelope and setting it next to her. “May I ask your name?” Issei rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “Could I remain anonymous?” The receptionist hummed in agreement and thanked him for his help. He nodded and stuffed his hands in his jacket pocket, walking out of the precinct. 
[# an epilogue, of sorts]
A month had passed since your murder. Issei kept the photo you had given him instead of turning it in to the authorities. He felt some strange connection to you. Despite only knowing you for two days, he couldn’t get over the fact that you saw him nearly every night. How much of his life did you see? He kept it in a frame on his nightstand right next to a photo of his friend, and soon it became a habit of his to say goodnight to you both. Issei hadn’t noticed how lonely he truly was. Of course, he was still in touch with a few friends from high school. But since his friend’s passing the topic of conversation always seemed to shift to them and it soon became too much for Issei to handle. Being a coroner was oddly peaceful to him, but being surrounded by death all day was melancholic still. It wasn’t until he ‘met’ you that he realized how much he missed being around other people. He existed in a world of isolation and loss, so much so that though you were dead, your soul brought light to his life.
Issei saw to it that you had a proper burial, using his connection with the local funeral home to give you the sendoff he felt you deserved. He would visit your grave often, though sometimes he felt strange about it, visiting the resting site of someone he barely knew, but he always knew there was a reason behind it. Something that kept bringing him back to that cemetery, something that told him there was something in there for him. He was glad he did, though, because being in that cemetery during a rainstorm led him to his future significant other, the person he needed to end the dull and lonesome cycle of his life. He prospered in the end, eventually marrying them and beginning a life of his own. You watched from above all the while, cheering on your unlikely friend from the afterlife.
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hmm... i dont know if i like this,, but its been years since ive written anything so im probably very rusty (=_=)
tags r such a pain ew
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devourer--of--books · 3 years
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Some time ago (and by “some time” I mean a long ass time, oops) Kate (@pumpkinpaperweight) posted an analysis of gold rush by Taylor Swift tracing parallels to Agatha, which this post is clearly inspired by. 
(Go check that one out after you finish reading this post, it’s really good.)
Ever since, I’ve had an entire tagatha x taylor playlist/unfinished post that I don’t think will ever see the light because I’m too lazy to actually finish it. But now I have some spare time and I noticed that,,,, invisible string wasn’t on it.
And that's cause, well, despite the obvious gold fingerglow motif which is very tagatha … you already read the title of the post. It’s more like my own version of of what I would have had happen post-otk (will my epilogue version ever see the light, I wonder) than anything else, but this is my account, in which I am correct all the time and accept no criticism so,,,,
Green was the color of the grass where I used to read at Centennial Park
I used to think I would meet somebody there
Basically, these first two lines are about how Sophie’s egocentrism isolated her and kept her from making genuine connections with people from very early on, until she becomes friends with Agatha and even after that.
Okay, so have you guys ever seen those tiktoks that are like ‘13-year-old me, in black jeans and sneakers, at the beach, reading a book mYstERioUsLy so that when Harry Styles showed up he’d know I’m dIfFeRenT'?
This is the energy I get here. 
Like, Sophie in the start of book one doing all those ‘good deeds’ so set herself apart in the eyes of the school master hoping that he’d bring her to the school where she would meet *drumroll* The One. 
Most of us have, at some point (I hope, otherwise it was just me and that would be so embarassing), tried and failed to channel that main-character-energy to manifest ourselves into a story much more interesting than whatever is going on in your life at the moment. I feel like at the very core, that’s sort of what Sophie was trying to do? It’s a very juvenile feeling and shows just how little Sophie knew about love overall. Love as it is in fairytale books, as opposed to as it actually is.
She thought herself as above everyone else and thought she was entitled to true, unconditional love, which ended up holding her back and isolating her from everyone in the town, save for Agatha, give or take. 
This mindset is what really keeps her from seeing Tedros (and Agatha, and everyone else) as people, rather than characters in her story, and actually connecting with them on a non-superficial level. 
Teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yogurt shop
You used to work at to make a little money
I don’t think this part needs much explaining? 
On surface level, Nicola canonically started working at her father’s pub at a very young age to help with family expenses.
If you think about it a little more and contrast it with the previous line, though, it highlights the differences between Sophie and Nicola:
Nic works to help her family, learning responsibility and duty, while Sophie barely ever did anything for her father, both out of vanity (and a superiority complex) and out of spite (which is honestly undeserved all the way up to book 3, when Stefan let Callis die and fucking tried to blame Agatha for returning without Sophie and then guilt-tripped her into going to save her, after which he was dead to me lol). Sophie grew with a princess-like mindset, despite being just slightly better off than Nic, given all the villagers save from Callis and Agatha (due to them being outcasts) seem to have a similar income (with the exception of the beggar which I don’t understand and am probably overthinking about, but honestly, it’s a impossible to leave town and people die on the mill all the time, there's no college or whatever, did none of these assholes offer the beggar a job- I’m getting carried away), while Nicola has to shoulder most of the responsibilities due to her dad being sick.
Also, given the *misogyny* I’d be surprised if Nic didn’t have to do all the housework, as the only girl in her house.  
I doubt that the uniform of the pub was teal and given the book timeline she wouldn’t have been 16 in any instances in which Sophie and her met in Gavaldon, but I digress.
Time
Curious time
Gave me no compasses
Gave me no signs
Were there clues I didn't see?
Also kinda self-explanatory in a way?
On one interpretation, it takes Sophie an awful long time to mature and grow into an okay person. She lashed out after Tedros’ rejection because her desire was, when you get down to it, to be loved, even though she didn't understand what love was or how to go about it. She was already loved both by Agatha and by her father but she couldn't see it because the idea of love (romantic, loud, grand-gesture) was so embedded into her, but the clues to it were there all along.
On another, you could argue that Nicola also did not see this coming at all, specially if you consider canon!Nicola rather than fanon!Nicola (why would you, but okay, ignore my Hunter post, go on, stomp on my feelings). Nicola, whose purpose in TCY was to be the new hort-love-interest no one asked for, ending up with her *gag* love-rival? Unexpected, iconic, never done before (never actually done in canon), amazing, mind-blowin-
Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA
You ate at my favorite spot for dinner
Bad Blood was a smash hit on Taylor’s career, playing on the radio  non-stop during the 1989 era, arguably her peak in terms of mainstream pop and radio plays.
The Tale of Sophie and Agatha was the equivalent in this context, as it was all the rage in Gavaldon after book 3; Sophie’s persona as the Dean Of Evil is solidified and everyone in The Woods knows who she is and read her tale, including Nicola (who already knew who she was, but now had a another version of her to compare to the version she already knew, which hm, did not favour Sophie either way).
I think it’s kind of fascinating how parasocial relationships work in the context of SGE because like, the storian is there as an omniscient narrator, but it doesn’t write everything. Like, does it just expose what the people in the tale feel and think only if it suits the plot or do the tales look just like the SGE books, in some sort of fourth wall break or is it like an actual children’s fairytale, where you just get told actions and have to sort of assume motivations? How does that affect public opinion? I don’t think most people would be too keen on stanning Sophie after reading The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha (cause damn, Sophie does a lot of questionable shit there) but canonically, they do, despite her being the villain, which is something I have opinions on (do I ever not have opinions on things?).
Like, sure there would be Nevers stanning her, but honestly, if they read the tale, wouldn't they be more likely to stan Hester or even Agatha? Cause Sophie almost got both Evers and Nevers killed, doomed everyone in The Woods for a guy, and was overall a horrible person with no regard for actual Good or Evil as balanced things? Isn’t this why The Coven sided with Agatha, like, I don’t get it- Is it stanning out of fear? Cause that’s the only sort of explanation I have, specially for people in Gavaldon, but that’s something I’ll go deeper into in another time.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nic’s first class at SGE was about The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha, given she was originally placed in Evil, due to Dovey and Sophie’s bet, and Evil’s school curriculum was under Sophie’s control, so if you think those classes were anything other than the Sophie-Show, you are wrong.
Now, on to headcanon territory, wouldn’t it be poetic if during her first lunch Nic sat at that tree in the middle of the clearing where Agatha and Sophie used to sit? Not only for ship reasons, but the tree is right in the center, which could relate to how Nic was supposed to be half/half?
Bold was the waitress on our three-year trip getting lunch down by the Lakes
She said I looked like an American singer
It’s a real shame that I don’t remember most of TCY. (But is it really?)
This is kinda of my own personal interpretation of what the OTK epilogue should have been like (and so, it's kind of a spoiler for my ever unfinished rewrite sksnsksn).
Imagine if, instead of that horrid school wedding (kill me now, please), they actually held the respective funerals for all the people lost in the Camelot power-struggle (I’ll take a school funeral, but don’t come at me with school weddings or I’ll lose my shit).
Tedros and Agatha, poor traumatized children, are on their way back to Camelot to try and get stuff back under control and do royal things. Sophie is pretty much on her own, with the remaining faculty of the school, as well as the new kids (yeah, Hort’s staying dead, boo hoo, I’m not sorry sbfhbsdb). Nicola will be returning home to Gavaldon soon, since the school schedule is already messed up beyond repair and everyone is taking some time off anyway. She was only staying there until christmas originally, so might as well.
Public opinion on the main trio is kinda weird at the moment:
Tagatha suffered a coup, then a while laterTedros killed the brother of his usurper, whom had been more popular than him, and well, they do tell people that Japeth killed Rhian, but it’s not like they have receipts? Like, there’s no way to fact check that. They could very well have killed Rhian, we, as bystanders, wouldn’t know? You can bet rumors like these don’t just go away.
And Sophie?
Well, I think public opinion on Sophie was already fear-based rather than coming from a place of admiration for her acts. People aren’t sure of her alliances anymore, and don’t really know how to behave around her so they mainly avoid her. Now that Dovey and Hort are dead and everyone else is resuming their quests, she’ll be pretty much on her own to deal with the aftermatch, which is not only sad, but also probably not healthy. She considers staying with Agatha, but she doesn’t want to add more scandal to the Camelot situation.
So she decides to go back to Gavaldon. Not permanently tho. Just to visit her father and take some time off to decide who could balance her well enough to be appointed as Dean Of Good. 
She'd choose Agatha, but you know, Agatha is kinda busy. Plus, it'd be good to see her father. Watching most of your parental figures drop like flies really puts things into perspective and maybe (just maybe) there's still something to salvage there.
Not many people know she's at Gavaldon, and that's on purpose. For once, Sophie just wants to be left the fuck alone, so she just tries to lay low and not bring unnecessary attention to heself. It's so unlike her to do so that when she walks in to have lunch at Nicola's pub, no one but Nicola even recognizes her.
And if Nicola keeps her company and accompany her on walks, well, it’s no one’s business. Bonding time? Bonding time.
Time
Mystical time
Cutting me open, then healing me fine
Were there clues I didn't see?
You know what these kids need after this Camelot shitstorm? Therapy, that’s what.
There’s no therapy in The Woods, so friendship will simply have to do. Please sir, let these kids heal.
Nicola was dragged to SGE while her father was sick and knew no one there personally, then got dragged again, now into a power struggle where she almost died multiple times, dated a guy, broke up with a guy and I can’t even remember what else but that sounds like a stressful time considering how close together the events from TCY are compared to TSY. What does she want to do now? Will she become a knight? Will she remain in Gavaldon? Does she have to finish school? How have Hunter and her dad been? Whatever went down with her brothers? Why was she important in the first place? Lots to reflect and self-search.
And Sophie. Oh Sophie.
Sophie fell once again for a ‘get-love-’quick’ scheme, not once, but twice! That is not something easy to look in the face and forgive yourself for.
With Rhian, it backfired by hurting everyone she loved, and after the shit Rafal pulled on her, she should have known better. But can you blame her? It’s not like the Rafal thing left her unscratched: you try being in an abusive relationship with a predator, see if you don’t get some trauma. And instead of doing the hard thing and keeping up the work she had been doing on herself she threw her progress out the window the moment Rhian said what she wanted to hear!
After that went belly-up, she at least managed to help her friends, but then later that backfired and she got brain-washed (are we gonna talk about this? disturbing much?). Then, she got fragile enough for her to attempt to find purpose in her life within Hort’s feelings for her, even if she didn’t actually reciprocate those feelings, simply because she was sure of them and they were familiar.
And later, even Hort was taken away from her. 
(Probably for the best, given their attachment had been… precarious, to say the least.)
Therapy, I’m telling you.
A string that pulled me
Out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar
Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire
Chains around my demons
Wool to brave the seasons
One single thread of gold tied me to you
These two would be so good for one another.
I think that being alone when you’re going through something is literally the worst you can do, but when you have someone who just…. gets it, you know? They were there too. They understand. It forms a connection.
After OTK, both of them (Sophie mostly) have enough on their plates for them to go down a dark path to a horrible place. But they don’t. Cause they are here for each other and have their support system to help them.
Does that translate into late nights drinking together after the pub shuts down? Maybe.  Keeping tabs on each other to make sure they’re sleeping and eating right? Yes. Keeping secrets and confessions? You got it.
And then my friends, begins the pining.
Cause, you know, they’re just gals being pals, gals being gay- wait what.
Nicola probably comes to terms with it first, but thinks Sophie is not interested in her like that (she also suspects that Sophie only sees her as Agatha’s stand-in and will drop her eventually once Agatha is no longer in such high demand.) Sophie is, in classic Sophie-fashion, neck-deep in denial, she’s not a lesbian right? she’s boy crazy, she’s not a lesbian-
Except she never felt like this with any of those boys. The only comparison she has is what she feels for Agatha, this feeling of being heard and seen and understood, but-
But Sophie doesn’t want to kiss Agatha.
And in retrospect, she never wanted to kiss anyone like this either.  Tedros who, Rafal who, Rhian who, Hort who, these bitches could never.
Eventually they attend the official tagatha wedding, HELD AT THE CASTLE, as each other’s plus-ones, and well, maybe consider checking my eventual OTK-epilogue for more on this, once it eventually comes out.
Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart
Now I send their babies presents
Very self-explanatory, Tedros may be Sophie’s favorite ex, but he’s still an ex and they will be killing each other if left unchecked for two long unsupervised.
Nicphie as the tagatha baby godparents. Please, YES.
I’m not gonna go into detail because children make me uncomfortable,  I wish this was a joke, haha, but yes, Sophie and Nic pic the presents together and they attend the baby shower together. Are they dating, are they just married but don’t know it yet? I wonder. They're just together and no one really knows what's going on.
Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park
Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven
You know what’s funny? I didn’t tell you anything between the wedding and the baby shower. Remember how there was an opening for Dean of Good?
Yeah, too late to send in your resumes, position is already filled.
Sophie shows Nic the ropes of being Dean, or at least that’s how she’ll present it, but they’re still sort of figuring it out together. And that's okay.
They spend summers traveling around, christmas in Gavaldon, new years in Camelot and all is well. Their fingerglow colors now match. But it’s, unfortunately not gold.
Time
Wondrous time
Gave me the blues and then purple pink skies
And it's cool
Baby, with me
Yeah, it’s fucking purple.
I can’t remember if Nic has a canon fingerglow color, but I don’t really care much for canon, do I? I just really like the imagery of it, so it’s blue and pink mixed together. Because, you know I’m a symbolic bitch.
And isn't it just so pretty to think
All along there was some
Invisible string
Tying you to me?
Anyway, I am correct, this is the post.
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anthropwashere · 3 years
Text
Perpetual Motion Machine
Hey @o-i-have-too! I’m your (late) gifter for the @fmasecretsanta2020 event. You asked for Elric fun and I come bearing soul alchemy goofs. Real life got a bit weird and as such this isn’t the full fic I was hoping to write for you, but I think it’s a decent one-shot on it’s own. The premise is a bit of a CoS-pull but it’s not a crossover and you don’t need to have seen the movie. All you need to know is that Alphonse “let’s fuck around and find out” Elric is here to have a good epilogue and that is a threat. :)
Title comes from the Modest Mouse song of the same name. 
===
They're not back in Resembool two days before The Accident happens. That's not what they call it at the time, of course, but the exasperated capitalization creeps into their voices more and more after the fact and retroactively gives The Accident a kind of resigned importance. Frankly Alphonse only made a big deal out of it at the time because it had startled him, is all. After that, well, it was just interesting. Edward and Winry had no reason at all to run around like chickens with their heads cut off when it happened. It was fine. He was fine, and remains fine after the fact for that matter.
It really had been an accident, is the thing.
=
The Accident happens just after lunch. Granny goes to let Den out and enjoy a smoke on the porch and Edward and Winry go get ready to head into town, bickering cheerfully on their way out of the kitchen. Alphonse declines to go with them, already tired from a busy morning and not wanting to slow them down. He smiles into his teacup—coffee is still too shockingly bitter for all that he can't get enough of the smell of it—while listening to their voices fade down the hall. It's when he sets his cup down that he happens to catch sight of a pan on the wall with a crack in the handle.
Well, that's odd, isn't it? It must have happened recently and neither Winry nor Granny have gotten around to fixing it, or it's not a pan they're interested in keeping much longer. Curious despite his tiredness, Alphonse eases to his feet and crutch to get a better look. It does look pretty old, once he's face-to-face with it. It wouldn't be hard to fix though, and it'd go even faster with alchemy. He's only done a few transmutations since the Promised Day and they've all somehow been both harder and easier than he's used to them being, courtesy a combination of Scar's nationwide transmutation circle and the whole inhabiting a human body again thing. It's a bit awkward with the crutch, but the circle is so simple that it's practically a background thought as he claps his hands and touches them to the pan—
—and without warning there's a bizarre sort of lurch, and he's face-to-face with himself.
"Uh," he says from two disparate vantage points, and once more for good measure, "Uh."
He blinks with one pair of eyes. The other pair don't exist, technically, and don't have eyelids to blink with. It makes his vision jitter in a way he doesn't think should be described as awful, but it's certainly not pleasant. He closes the pair of eyes capable of doing so and watches himself close his eyes with the other. Then he watches his face twist; first with confusion, then dismay, then earnest alarm. "Oh," he says, and has a front row seat to the weird show of watching his own skinny face in motion, "Oh, no. No, absolutely n—fine. This is—fine. I'm fine. I can fix this. I—oh, hell—"
The oh, hell isn't directed at the situation he's found himself in, disorienting as it may be, but at the voices coming back toward the kitchen. Edward's going to take one look at him and know something's wrong, and Alphonse won't even be able to mock him for overreacting because no really, how did he bungle a simple transmutation this badly—
"We're headin' out," Edward shouts, and on reflex Alphonse looks at the doorway and gets to experience the uniquely indescribable misstep of looking left with one pair of eyes while the other pair remains stubbornly fixed in place. 
"Nngh."
Winry hears him, because of course that's his luck, and he sort of sees her poke her head into the kitchen. "Al? Y'okay?"
He really does try to brush it off, to get them out of the house so he can figure out whatever the fuck is happening on his own, but when he tries to wave them off the disconnect between simultaneously inhabiting a human body and not hits him like a blow to the head. He staggers hard. The next thing he's peripherally aware of is Winry and Edward helping him back to the dining table, alternating between babbling sweet nothings and panicked everythings in his ears, all while watching himself get strong-armed into a chair from across the room. They're both loudly asking him variations of what the fuck, so he swallows until he can trust his voice and tells them with as much urgency as he can muster, "Frying pan."
They boggle at him. "What?"
"I'm in the frying pan."
"What?"
He looks at the frying pan. The frying pan looks at him. It sucks. His body's eyes can't help but scrunch, which just makes Edward and Winry hover more worriedly over him. "I'm," he repeats with varying amounts of grimace until they shut up and listen, "I was trying to repair that frying pan with the broken handle, over there."
They both look, which means they both turn to look at him but—obviously—they don't realize that. "Okay?" Edward offers, wary.
"I told Granny to throw that old thing out," Winry mutters mostly to herself, which answers that question for all that it doesn't matter.
"It didn't work—" Yes it did, he can see from here that it did, "—I mean, it did, but it also—I somehow, accidentally, transmuted myself at the same time—"
Edward's "What?!" is closely followed by Winry's far more bemused, "How'd you accidentally manage that?"
Neither reaction is unexpected, but neither are they particularly helpful. What's more important is that it sounds like they don't believe him. He presses his lips together and thinks about saying something, and lo and behold it's the frying pan that says, "I'm still trying to figure that out."
Naturally, they both freak out. Alphonse resigns himself to sitting there while they all but run around in circles, but then Edward has to go and get grabby with the frying pan and at least some amount of Alphonse's soul along with it. He hastily drops his crutch to grab the table with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut as the kitchen goes cartwheeling. The bang and clatter of his crutch hitting the tile is unwanted confirmation that he really is hearing things from two perspectives as well. "Put that down," comes out more snarly than he means it to, but it gets the job done. Edward thumps the pan down like it's burned him, and Alphonse finds himself tripping between relief and dread that he can only feel the vibration through one half of himself.
Edward hovers, stressed to the point of literal hand wringing, while Winry gently rubs Alphonse's back. It's not really as comforting as he remembers it being, before. His skin still prickles too easily at unexpected stimulation. He shies away from her touch, pretends not to see her hurt expression, and forces words out past the lump in his throat. It grounds him a little, to focus on all the complicated bits of speaking with a human mouth. "I transmuted my soul—"
"What? How?" They demand in unison, which does nothing for the headache creeping behind his eyes. He glares at them despite it.
"I don't know, now do I? I wasn't trying to do that! But I'm attached to the frying pan, and I—don't," he breaks off to kind of snarl when Edward twitches like he's thinking about getting grabby again.
"But—" Winry falters, biting her lip. "How are you still talking with your body?"
"I'm still in here too." He forces his real eyes open, though the left one immediately shuts again despite his best efforts. Looking at himself looking up at the ceiling is disorienting as hell. He tries to focus solely on Edward's wide-eyed alarm; after a moment of wibbling, he manages to get both perspectives to line up. It's still horribly bizarre, but it's at least a little more tolerable. "I don't know how, but I'm in both right now."
"That shouldn't be possible," Edward protests. "Splitting your soul? The fuck were you even trying to do?"
"I told you! Fix the stupid pan, that's all!" 
The pan in question rattles on the table with no prompting on Alphonse's part. They all flinch back, swearing. Winry's hand settles on his shoulder, light but grounding all the same. "Can you—undo this?"
"H-hold on a second," Edward yelps. "Don't go off transmuting your soul all willy-nilly! Let's think about this for a second, huh? You must've done something else besides try and fix a fuckin' frying pan, so—"
"Please stop yelling," Alphonse complains, clapping his hands. Edward ignores his polite request in favor of more yelling, but thankfully most of it's drowned out by the transmutation. There's that lurch again, and then he's wholly back in his body like nothing had happened. Well, aside from Edward and Winry coming over all handsy in a way that's bruising and overwhelming and entirely unnecessary. "Oh my god, stop, I'm fine—"
"What's with all the shouting?" Granny calls from the front door. "Ed? Winry? Do us all a favor and save the fight for the walk into town, would you?"
"Al's not okay!" Edward hollers back, and Alphonse could just strangle him sometimes, he really could.
"I just said I'm fine, would you listen to me? And what would she do if I wasn't, huh? She can't exactly slap a plaster on my soul—" Which is the entirely wrong thing to say, of course, because Edward immediately falls over himself trying to—what, discern if Alphonse's soul needs stitches via aggressively close eye contact and a lot of shoulder patting? Alphonse flicks him in the nose to get some breathing space just as Granny appears in the kitchen doorway. "I'm fine," he assures her before the other two can get a word in. "Ignore literally anything they say, it was just a bit of accidental alchemy—"
"Accidental," Edward echoes with half-hysterical disgust. "How do you accidentally transmute—"
"By accident," Alphonse interrupts serenely, flicking him again.
Granny gives them all a look over her glasses, like she's strongly tempted to bust out the Stray Dog a few hours early if they're going to keep this level of buffoonery up. The look travels around the kitchen, clearly looking for anything amiss, and lands squarely on the frying pan laid incongruously on the dining table. "Hmm," she says, unimpressed. "Let me know if you're up for helping me with the inventory later, Al."
"Of course," he says, though she's already done the smart thing and left well enough alone. She's his favorite.
"Al—" Winry starts, but nope, he's done being coddled for the day.
"I'm fine," he stresses. "Really." And that's enough to get Winry to back off some but Edward's still gearing up to pitch a fit. He forces calm into his voice and asks, "Could you get my crutch, Brother?"
"What? Oh, sure, here. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Completely." And he's not even fibbing, because he really does feel fine. "It was an accident, and no harm came from it—"
"Soul transmutation isn't something alchemists typically do by accident, least of all you." His tone is scathing, but Alphonse knows him too well not to take that as anything other than high praise. Edward's coming over all thoughtful in the face now, gears grinding. On the one hand Alphonse is right there with him because seriously, what, but on the other hand they really do need to go into town if they want Winry to carry through on her threat of baking an apple pie so good they'll both finally have a good cry.
He stands up brusquely, tamping down the vague irritation over the fact that he can't shepherd Edward around through sheer size alone anymore. His heart rate and breathing are both fine, and the only suggestion he can physically sense that something unusual happened is an uneasy prickle in his throat. He vaguely remembers this feeling from before, associating it with the same shock one gets at missing a step on a flight of stairs or almost dropping something fragile but catching it in the nick of time. Startling, but ultimately harmless.
"Al," Edward persists.
Alphonse reaches past him to pick up the frying pan. It's as heavy as it looks, which is to say his reedy stick of an arm does not appreciate hefting it around, but it's only for as long as it takes to cross the kitchen and hang it back up where it belongs. Then he turns and smiles widely at them both, because sheer force of personality comes in more than one flavor. "Have fun in town! I think I'm gonna go get started on that list now."
Winry cuffs Edward when he opens his mouth again. "Stop mother henning him. He's fine."
Edward, the undisputed king of mother hens everywhere, is clearly unconvinced. He glowers over his shoulder at the frying pan like it spat on Mom's grave as Winry shoves him out of the kitchen. Honestly. It's only once they're finally out of the house that Alphonse allows himself a thoughtful hum. 
That was certainly... interesting.
=
There's a lot of spitballing about the accident—not yet definitive enough to warrant capitalization—over the next couple of days. Edward really can't get over how Alphonse managed soul transmutation without any enormous cost, and considering the only examples they know of are Philosopher's Stones, a couple of dead serial killers, and him, this is honestly a fair hangup to have. And Alphonse has the same hangup too, really! But his primary focus is less the fact that it happened consequence-free and more the fact that he split his soul consequence-free. 
"But are you sure that's what happened?" Edward asks for the umpteenth time.
Alphonse finds himself fighting the urge to smirk. "I can always transmute my soul again—"
"No! I mean, jeez, give the damn thing a rest, huh? You've done enough body hopping, don't you think?"
"A frying pan is hardly a body—"
"There's a joke here," Winry chimes in, "You know, about frying pans and fires?"
They both sneer at her for that one, but the intended effect doesn't really pay off since she goes all soppy about how Alphonse can make stupid faces at her again. 
=
Granny and Winry are doing their best to browbeat Edward under the knife again so they can do something about that ground beef masquerading as a functional right shoulder. Alphonse is helping apply the pressure at every opportunity as well; Edward can barely lift his arm over his head months after the fact and that's even after the surgery he got in Central. Edward, naturally, is under the impression that if he pretends hard enough he won't have to deal with it, and goes so far as to flee into town to "get a break from all this goddamn nagging."
"He can sleep in the yard for all I care," Winry grumbles, locking the front door and retreating to her workroom. Alphonse couldn't agree more. There's stubborn and then there's stupid.
Still, with Ed out of the house and Winry filling the house with the sound of shrieking metal, this would be as good a time as any to do some experimentation without anyone breathing down his neck. Well. Not without a spotter. He's curious, sure, but he's not an idiot. Look what messing around with souls cost them the first time around.
He hobbles back into the kitchen after Granny, who's in the middle of making a fresh pot of coffee. "Granny?"
"Mm?"
"I'd like your help with something if you don't mind."
"Of course. What is it?"
"Mm, something pretty stupid, more than likely."
That gets her to look at him, eyes twinkling over her glasses. "Oh, I get a warning this time, do I?"
He shrugs, smiling weakly. "I'd like to try to recreate the accident with the frying pan."
"The same 'accident' that's had your brother up in arms the last few days?" Her mouth thins when he nods, but she only tuts rather than says no outright. "You'll do it either way, naturally. Well, go on, then."
He waits until she's settled at the table with her coffee, then fetches the same pan and joins her. It's still a relief to sit for all that he's hardly been on his feet that much this morning; he takes a moment to relish the burn in his legs and back, rubbing his elbow where there's an indent from the crutch.
"Should we be doing this in the operating room instead?" Her tone is dry, but it's not really a joke.
"I'm not anticipating anything as extreme as that," he clarifies hastily, "especially not with how—easy, I suppose, this was the other day."
She hums and settles back in her chair, trusting his experience if not put entirely at ease. He eyes the pan. It's just a pan, no different than the rest hung up or stored in a cupboard. He still has no conscious knowledge, Gate-given or otherwise, as to how one would go about binding a soul to anything, yet he'd managed it entirely by accident.
Well. This experiment really is just to see if the results are reproducible. He thinks of that same repairing array and claps his hands. The moment he touches the handle there's that lurch again, and he has two pairs of eyes again, one still looking at the pan and the other looking at the ceiling, with Granny and himself barely in his peripheral vision. "Nngh."
"I assume that means it worked then?" Granny asks, wary.
"Mm-hm," he says, then frowns and thinks about saying, "Exactly the same as the first time," which comes out of the pan instead of him.
Granny twitches, half a curse slipping from her. She leans forward, peering at his face. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," he says, trying not to close his eyes. "It's only—disorienting, seeing from two perspectives at the same time."
"So you really are—attached, I suppose, to this?" She reaches for the pan, but hesitates.
"Partly, yes. I don't know if it's a fifty-fifty split, or if that's even something that can be readily quantified. It's okay, pick it up."
She does so, gingerly, and even still Alphonse has to close his real eyes against the jolt in perspective. "You can't feel that, can you?"
"No, no. It's like the armor; no physical sensations, just sight and hearing. Is there anything unusual-looking about the pan now?"
"Besides looking better than the day I bought it?" She inspects it carefully, and Alphonse does his best not to squint throughout the process. "Ah."
"Ah," he agrees, because dead center on the bottom of the pan is the same seal Edward drew to bind his soul to the armor. Or, nearly. "No circle," he murmurs. A transmutation array instead, and so inherently less stable. Without a circle to control the transmutation it likely won't last long.
He touches it out of curiosity, pulls away when he feels his vision—visions?—wobble. It’s easier to interrupt the flow of energy without a circle too. What would happen if the array was broken? Would the piece of him in the pan automatically rejoin the whole, or—something worse?
"Hm," he says, and claps his hands. Lurch, and he's all where he should be, blinking rapidly at the twist and diminishing of his sight.
"Al?" Granny asks, a note of warning in her voice.
"I'm fine, thank you. You can put it down now."
She does so, and takes a moment to drink her coffee before asking, "Well?"
"Well, I've verified that this is a reproducible event rather than a fluke. Fixing this pan wasn't the first time I've transmuted something since I got my body back—" He plucks at his shirt, which he'd altered to better fit his underweight frame, "—but it was the first time I've transmuted metal, which might be relevant?” 
They both hum, frowning at the pan a while.
"This is going to be a problem, isn't it," Granny says.
"I don't know if I'd go so far as to say ‘problem—’"
She quells him with a look, then keeps quelling him until he manages a satisfactory degree of shrinking and contrite, then sighs. "If you lose an arm playing around with this, don't come crying to me."
Which, fair.
=
This requires further experimentation—something Ed agrees with in theory but is hard pressed to just up and leave Alphonse to it. He gets the fuss—"Yes, Ed, I said fuss—" but he'd prefer to determine the parameters of what transmutations may or may not trigger an extra helping of accidental possession of inanimate objects in a controlled setting. What if it happened in a fight or something?
"Who the hell are you gonna be fighting in your shape?" Edward asks, poking him in the ribs.
Alphonse swats him. "You if you keep that up. And I didn't mean now, obviously, but we've kind of made it a habit to get in over our heads at this point, haven't we? It's sensible to stress test this now."
"I know that," Edward snaps in that particular tone he uses when he knows he's run out of logical points to argue but doesn't feel like he's had a proper chance to shout his problems away.
"Then it's decided," Alphonse says, not exactly pleased per se, but there's not much to do in Resembool beyond adhere to his strict PT regimen, reread books from the collection they've shipped out here over the years for safekeeping, and help out around the house. They stay busy, sure, but life in the countryside can hardly be called mentally stimulating.
They start with compiling and then running through an exhaustive list of materials that could potentially set off the secondary transmutation, figure out fairly quickly that it's pretty much only metals that manage it, and only those that have a decent amount of iron in their makeup. Considering they're freeloading in an automail clinic, determining that specification is a lot easier than it might have been elsewhere even with Winry grousing every time he clapped his hands around her stuff.
Point of interest: he transmutes his soul to a half-configured hand made of a near-identical alloy composition as his armor when Winry's not looking and experiences almost no lurch at all. So that’s something to keep in mind.
Narrowing down what triggers the partial soul transfer is also a helpful exercise in getting over the disorientation of two pairs of eyes and ears—technically only the perception of a second pair of each but that’s just nitpicking—not to mention testing whether or not there's a limit to how many times in one sitting he can flip flop out of himself before hitting any kind of limit. The answer to that last one is a few, and maybe one more beyond that before the headache/nausea gets to be too much, but those both diminish the more he gets a handle on the perspective thing. So a few becomes several becomes a lot becomes Edward grabbing him by the wrists, giving him a faceful of Crazy Eyes #9 ("I had little patience to start with and you are actively digging me an early grave right now,") and saying, "Let's take a break, huh?"
It's around this time that the shipment from Central they'd been expecting finally turns up. Inside it, of course, is his armor.
It’s strange, to see him again—and Alphonse can’t help but consider the armor as an individual rather than an object, after they’d spent so long as the same person. It’s more than a little surreal to see how badly wrecked he’d gotten on the Promised Day from the outside. Winry’s halfway outraged on his behalf, running careful fingers over his ragged pieces, cradling his head as if it’d hurt him if she accidentally dropped it. She and Edward have been that careful with him from the start—or very nearly; once they’d gotten over the shock of the armor’s size and severity, well, it was Alphonse inside it. Of course they treated him like glass.
Den runs off with the helmet while they’re all talking. Not his head, not anymore, though he doubts he’ll ever be comfortable referring to any part of the armor as simple parts. That’s alright. Den will bring the helmet back eventually or one of them will happen across it sooner or later. Alphonse’s real, human head is set squarely where it should be and can’t be knocked off quite so easily these days, and they’ve got all the rest of the armor right here to turn over to Winry.
He’d known from the moment Master Sergeant Fuery asked him what he wanted to do with the armor, when he’d still be attached to what had surely been a hundred beeping machines and three hundred tubes in Central Hospital. For all that Edward had laughed at his nervousness, Alphonse is relieved to find Winry is 100% on board with it. (“Of course I’m on board! That’s good quality steel for all that you went and destroyed it more times than I want to think about!”) There’s no way he would have been okay stashing him in some dusty corner while he goes on with his—their—life. Better to be repurposed. Better to be reforged. Better to be scattered into so many automail parts, helping people move forward after grueling loss and rehabilitation while he does the same. 
Which, well, is a nice sentiment in theory, but actually watching his former body get beaten and melted down is another thing entirely. It’s just too easy to imagine still being bound to him! Edward’s just as unsettled as he is and Winry won’t stop laughing at them. It’s gratifying, to find that for all they’ve been through some things haven’t changed.
Even so, he decides he won’t follow through on asking Winry if she’d mind letting him watch her put any of those new automail parts to use. 
=
It’s practically the next day that Edward finally agrees to let Winry and Granny at his shoulder, and since he’ll be out of commission for a while he heckles Alphonse into tabling any and all soul alchemy experiments until he’s up and about again.
Alphonse sighs and rolls his eyes and calls him several different synonyms for mother hen, but agrees in the end. He wishes them all good luck, curls up with a pile of books near the radio, which he turns up a hair past comfortably loud, and then the three of them all vanish down the hall to prep for a surgery Granny anticipates will take several hours.
Then he laughs.
He cannot believe Edward believed him so easily.
He stays put for an agonizing half hour—just in case—then eases down the hall with the pretense of a bathroom break on the tip of his tongue—just in case. It is nothing short of delightful to be able to tiptoe properly again, crutch and all. He hovers by the operating room door long enough to hear beeping machinery before quickly moving on; it might not be an outfitting and Edward will be out cold for the whole duration, but Alphonse doesn’t want to spare any more brain power imagining what’s going on in there than he absolutely has to. 
Edward’s leg is laid out on Winry’s worktable, waiting for her to tinker with it while Edward recuperates. Alphonse hums at the sight of it. If he were more in the habit of making faces he thinks he’d be making a pretty unhappy one right now. It still doesn’t sit right with him, to be whole and on the mend while Ed’s still missing most of an entire limb and hard at work adding more scar tissue to his already upsetting collection. It doesn’t sit right with him either, what it cost Edward to bring Alphonse home, but both of those are two enormous conversations that neither of them are real set on hashing out yet. They probably won’t be for a while, especially with the unexpected development of this soul alchemy business. 
Which! Look at him getting waylaid by anxiety and guilt again. He’s here to pilfer supplies for secret experiments, not stand here and woolgather. He grabs three smallish pieces of metal that don’t look relegated to any particular project, shoves them into his pockets, and tiptoe-crutches at top speed for the back door.
There’s a small stone bench in the herb garden, age-worn and wonderfully warmed by the late morning sunlight. He leans his crutch against it, fishing out the scrap metal as he sits. He closes his eyes, pleased that he can and pleased by the temporary peace. He can’t hear anything that might go on in the operating room out here. 
He takes a deep breath—reveling too, in the heady smell of growing things—and claps his hands. He weathers the lurch with hardly a wince and settles in for one experiment he’s not assaulted Edward’s fraying patience with yet: time.
He’d thought about grabbing Edward’s pocket watch—never thrown in Brigadier General Mustang’s face despite heated promises of a broken nose and gleeful paparazzi to memorialize the occasion—from his room, but he knows Edward’s never bothered keeping it wound. Anyway, too many long nights alone have given him an excellent sense of time and he’s not interested in tracking this down to the exact second, at least not for this first test.
“Mm, I should’ve grabbed a book,” he mutters to himself. Then, fighting a grin at his own silliness, replies to himself through the bit of metal in his hands, “Sounds like a good excuse to test distance while we’re at it.” 
Edward’s not liked the idea of this test either, too afraid Alphonse will fall and hurt himself even when he’s there to watch like a hawk. Well if he falls now the worst that could happen is a tumble down a couple stairs, and he's gotten enough of his coordination back that he would be surprised if he earned more than an easily hidden bruise.
He sets the bit of metal with a bit of soul in it on the bench, but an unshielded view of all that clean blue sky makes his real eyes water. He leans it against the bench leg instead, blinking through green grass. It’s not much of an improvement, not really, but it’s something.
"Well, here goes nothing," he says in tandem with himself, and grabs his crutch.
Distance Test #1 goes… fine. He doesn't fall trying to walk around, though it's a near thing beginning to end and he does totter like a drunk the whole way. He grabs a book at random and then has no way to grope around with his eyes mostly squeezed shut which slows him down even further. He does have a bad scare once he's back in the yard when his crutch bangs against Den's automail, so focused on getting back to the bench he didn't even see the dog trot up to him. Den figures out quickly that Alphonse would do better without him underfoot and backs off, tail wagging nervously until he finally eases back down to the bench.
He spends something like five minutes with his hands over his face, breathing deeply, watching Den shuffle anxious circles around the bench from ankle-height. All in all, no more than ten minutes into Time Test #1 and no sign of the array failing yet. He drops his hands and spends another five or so minutes petting Den and murmuring quietly to her. Dog fur is so much coarser than he remembered it to be, and leaves his hands tingling every time he pets her.
"Good girl," he tells her. She gives him a lolling doggy grin and collapses in the grass at his feet, obscuring the view from his soul bit completely. He finds he's not inclined to move her, so long as she doesn't roll up against the array and risk ruining the experiment.
Nothing else for it now but to sit here and wait; either for Winry to come find him or for the array to peter out. He takes up the book—a slim treatise on the applications of geothermal energy in Cretan alchemy—and does his level best to sink his teeth into it.
...As if a book he’s already read three times could be enough to distract him from worrying, honestly.
=
Winry finds him several hours later, having moved back inside before he could earn too bad a sunburn and already dreading Edward's drugged outrage when he sees it. He'd made the trek upstairs to Winry's room, knowing she'd know it was far enough away from the operating room not to hear anything and knowing too that she wouldn't mind the trespass.
"I thought I'd find you up here," she says, a little sympathetic but mostly exhausted. Den jumps up at once to circle around her, whining.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't hear you come up." He shuts the book, gone mostly skimmed with next to nothing absorbed, and tries to surreptitiously cover up his experiments with it. He underestimates the weight of the book, or the distance, or something; the scrape of steel against wood gives him away immediately. Winry comes over all suspicious, and there's never been any luck hiding secrets successfully from her, so he resigns himself to a good telling off and moves the book.
"Oh, Al," she sighs. 
Alphonse sinks into his collar guiltily. He hates when she uses that voice. She only does when he or Edward have properly disappointed her.
“Ed’s sleeping,” she says instead of tearing him a new one. She really must be tired. “Everything went fine. He’ll probably be out for a few more hours, so try and finish... whatever you’re doing before you go see him, okay?”
“Winry—”
She holds up her hand, not looking at him. “I need to take a shower.”
Well that’s a get the fuck out, please if he’s ever heard one. He nods meekly, leveraging himself to his feet and crutch before gathering up the book and scrap metal. He can’t help the grimace as he jostles his second and third pair of not-really-there eyes, and of course Winry sees it. Her mouth thins, but she doesn’t say anything until he’s at her bedroom door.
“It’s scary, y’know? We’re just… we’re worried. We don’t want you to get hurt.”
“...I know,” he replies. “It scares me too.” That isn’t the right word for how he feels about all of this, but that’d be getting into semantics. Winry’s never had their patience for splitting hairs and is dead on her feet besides. “But I want to understand it more. It happened purely by accident the first time. I don’t want something like that to catch me off guard.”
“Who are you so dead set on fighting that you’re planning for worst case scenarios like—like that already? You only just got your body back, Al!”
“Nobody! Nobody,” he repeats when she gives him a doubtful look. Jeez, it’s a lot scarier now that she’s taller than him. Hopefully that won’t last. “But—god, I don’t know. Ed and I—it seemed sometimes we could hardly go a week without running into purse thieves, never mind everything else that’s happened. I want to travel again, once I’m strong enough. There’s so much of Amestris I haven’t seen yet, and I want to study alkahestry in Xing one day too. I’m not naïve enough to think I’ll never have to protect myself, or somebody else, and I don’t want to be surprised by this.” He does a one-shoulder shrug to indicate the metal pressed between the book and his chest, wincing again when his vision jostles weirdly. 
Her mouth thins again, but instead of yelling she only nods tiredly. “No surprises. That includes for us too, okay? Don’t go skulking around just to avoid Ed’s yelling. You know he’ll only go off twice as loud when he does eventually find out.”
He huffs, feeling his cheeks tighten with a stifled grin for all that the conversation is so serious. He’ll never get over how good it feels to smile. “Right.”
Up go her eyebrows in an obvious, are you serious with this? expression. She flaps her hand at him impatiently. “Well? What have you been doing up here?”
“O-oh. Well, uh—” He tells her about the initial tests out in the garden, small increases in distance and how long it would take for the array to fail on its own. It took about 90 minutes the first time, when he’d only wandered once, and about ten minutes less than that when he went and read on the front porch. Then when he went inside he figured he’d see if he could do more than one soul bind at the same time (this makes Winry look like she wants to beat him upside the head then crawl into bed to leave Edward to deal with this crazy alchemy shit, but she just nods and gestures for him to keep going when he hesitates) so he did that in the living room, and those arrays failed within five minutes of each other after little more than an hour, so then he decided to put one soul bind down in the basement then come all the way up here to bind two more, and well. Here they are now.
“How long’s it been?” She asks, not looking at him again. He can’t figure out her expression but he’s mostly sure she’s not going to yell at him, if for no other reason than to avoid waking Edward up.
“Mm, half an hour or so?”
“And you don’t feel like puking after spreading yourself around so much?” 
“The one in the basement is facedown and so was one of these,” he says, shrug-gesturing again. “It helps. Honestly, Winry, I’d have canceled these two binds at the first sign of anything weird, but there’s been nothing. I mean, beyond being able to do this in the first place. I don’t feel sick, or strained, and nothing hurts. There hasn’t been anything like how it felt when my bind to the armor was failing either. I’m a little bit dizzy, but I’ve technically got four pairs of eyes right now. That’s just to be expected.”
She takes time for a slow inhale, sighing out more explosively as she scrubs her eyes. “Yeah. Okay, sure. Just—nix it on any more experiments until Ed’s out of bed, okay? And tell him what you’ve done once he’s not drugged to the gills.”
“I will, I promise.” He beams at her. It makes her go all happy-crinkly around the eyes when he does that, and this time’s no different.
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lifeinahole27 · 4 years
Text
CS ff: “Walking the Tightrope” (Epilogue) (au)
Summary: Killian’s daily routines are a matter of habit. When he wakes up late one morning, his routines all change for the better. Emma doesn’t care about routines, but she does care about Killian, no matter how reluctant she is to admit it to herself.
Rating: E (the content warnings matter this time!)
Content Warnings: There’s uhhh... poetry smut.
A Special Thank You: My continued gratitude to my lovely friends, @captainstudmuffin and @phiralovesloki. And a heap of love to @captainswanbigbang for putting this together and helping me accomplish this.
A/N: Holy crap! Here we are! It’s the end of the story!! Now, for those of you who read the original story, there’s not a whole lot that’s changed. I edited everything to fit the rest of the story and writing style, since the original version was a little rough, but other than little bits, it’s what you remember. If you didn’t read this, then welcome to the end! 
My eternal gratitude to those who helped me finish this, those who helped find my errors (my two lovely ladies are listed above), to those who read this! Who reblogged it! Who left comments and sweet tags and sent messages and made this all worth it. I constantly say that I cannot express how thankful I am and it’s true. With only words, I can only say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. <3<3
This epilogue is meant to tie bows around a couple major things and send these off the best way I know how. I still have a stack of headcanons and info that wouldn’t fit in here. I would love to share these things if anyone is curious. If you are, or have questions, or want to talk about specific parts, please send me messages. I would love to chat about this world that has lived in my brain and morphed over the last FIVE YEARS. 
(Poetry included is not mine: All rights reserved to Pablo Neruda "My love, understand me" and "Night on the Island" and to Leonard Cohen "The Mists of Pornography")
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 |
Find it on Ao3 & FFN!
-x-
Epilogue: The Art of Poetry
-x- April 
The day that Killian forgets the coffee mugs on his counter is the day he locks himself out of his apartment for the first time. He and Emma huddle on the front stoop together in the early morning chill waiting for his landlord to come unlock the door. He opens his jacket and pulls her closer, jumping when her cold nose touches his collarbone and she chuckles as she repeats the action until her nose is warm and he’s even warmer. They thank Marco profusely when he arrives with the spare set of keys.
They’re also both late for work that day.
The next day, when Emma comes back from getting coffee, there’s an envelope propped in front of her computer at work. When she opens it, a weight settles in the envelope and she pulls out the folded note. Killian’s neat handwriting stretches across the paper.
“My love,
understand me,
I love all of you,
from eyes to feet, to toenails,
inside
all the brightness, which you kept.
It is I, my love,
who knocks at your door.”
So next time I lock myself out, you can unlock it for me.
She peers into the envelope to see the key resting in the bottom and thinks he may be onto something with poetry if it always sounds like that.
Emma makes sure to beat Killian to the door when they walk back to his place after work so she can try out her new key, and she only smiles wider when the lock slides open. She makes a big show of swinging open the door, gesturing him inside with a sweep of her arm. 
When she gets home that night, Snow and David have once again broken into her loft, but she doesn’t much care for two reasons. Firstly, she knew they were going to do this after they texted her twenty minutes ago and asked whether or not she was spending the night at Killian’s. Secondly, it takes her five whole seconds to read the message on Snow’s shirt that proudly states that she’s “Pregnant AF” (the shirt’s words, not hers) and there’s a whole bunch of happy crying and flailing that follows. 
-x- Late August
Emma arrives home a little late one night to Killian already making dinner. The routines they do still live with all include household chores and the way they divvy them up, and she’s perfectly fine with the structure he’s brought to her previously chaotic lifestyle. He glances over his shoulder when she walks in and smiles.
“Get stuck late again?”
“Not quite,” she says as she comes to stand behind him. “That smells amazing, by the way.”
“It’ll be done in just a bit.”
“Want me to set the table?”
“I’d like to know why you’re avoiding a simple inquiry into why you were so late in such an obvious manner.”
Emma sighs heavily. “I kind of walked all the way back to the loft before I realized I didn’t live there anymore.”
“Kind of? I don’t think that’s something you can kind of do, love,” he says, still managing to stir whatever it is he’s making even when she goes to swat his arm. 
“Okay, so I did. You said it yourself, though. Old habits, right?” She hops up on the counter to watch him cook. 
“Indeed, love. So, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How do you feel our adventures have measured up to the expectations?”
“Well, you didn’t turn into a frog.”
“Aye, I’m sure there’s still time for that. We’re only in the middle of this tale. We’ll just have to see where the pages take us from here.”
“You are such a fucking romance novelist,” she says, laughing brightly when Killian removes his sauce from the stove and turns it off before he moves in to attack. And even though she’s squirming to get away from his nimble fingers as they target her ticklish spots, she sends up a quick thank you to Killian’s faulty alarm clock and his old habit of routines. 
-x- September
“You could just leave those until later,” Killian says, coming up behind Emma as she washes their dishes from dinner. He has his hand and hook on her hips and his lips on her hair, his voice full of implication. 
He’s learned not to try to talk her out of cleaning up, and instead he just enjoys distracting her in the best ways possible. 
She’s wearing a skirt - something she only does when she’s out of leggings - and the soft gray jersey fabric clings to her hips before flaring and draping down. It hides much of her legs, but her backside looks fantastic in it. On top, she has a light yellow shirt that’s tickling at his memories, the lines of a poem he once memorized during his university years making their way back to mind. 
Steady movements continue as she washes and rinses each dish, stacking them in the drying rack before starting to scrub out the sink. He’s struggling to remember the lines, yellow sweater, and with a smirk he glides his hand down to palm the back of her thigh.
“These are anything but boyish haunches,” he says out loud. Emma gasps as the shift from peaceful innocence to dirty.
“What?”
He hums, nosing some of her hair aside so he can find her neck with his lips. “From a poem. Your shirt brought it back to me. ‘The Mists of Pornography’ was the title,” he responds, moving his hand to the front of her thigh and sliding it up to rest on a spot right below her hipbones.
“Why am I not surprised that you know something with ‘pornography’ in the title?”
“Ah, but Swan, it’s about much more than that. Close your eyes. Listen,” he says, and uses his hook to brush the hair off her neck and lean closer to her ear. He sways just a little bit closer as he starts to speak. 
When you rose out of the mist / of pornography - He runs a single finger along her spine until it rests between her shoulders - with your talk of marriage / and orgies / I was a mere boy / of fifty-seven / trying to make a fast buck / in the slow lane / It was ten years too late / but I finally got / the most beautiful girl / on the religious left / to go with her lips / to the sunless place - and here he makes sure to push his hips against her to emphasize as she snorts. He continues reciting, crowding her against the counter, making sure the edge is pressing right where he wants it to.
This was my life / in Los Angeles / when you slowly / removed your yellow sweater - As he speaks, he slowly draws her shirt over her head and she lifts her arms - and I slobbered over / your boyish haunches - He runs his hand over the path that started this all and pushes the skirt off her hips to rub over the back of a now-bare thigh - and I tried to be / a husband / to your dark and motherly / intentions.
I thank you / for the ponderous songs / I brought to completion / instead of fucking you / more often - He punctuates by rolling his hips against her and she gasps as she clutches the sink for stability, and he keeps going.
Your panic cannot hurry me here / and my panic and falling / shoulders / our shameless lives / are the grains / scattered for an offering / before the staggering heights / of our love - His hand glides over her stomach and up to cup a breast through her bra. He’s sure she can feel where his cock is pressing against her ass, hard and wanting. Her hips are pinned against the sink and with each line, he thrusts against her, slowly lighting the fuse of what promises to be a spectacular orgasm if he doesn’t stop.
And the other side of your anxiety / is a hammock of sweat / and moaning - It’s getting harder to pay attention to the poem, especially when he pulls down the straps and cups of her bra, palm meeting her already hardened nipples as he alternates between them. Her body shudders with pleasure and he struggles to continue - and time comes down / like the smallest pet of God / to lick our fingers - he licks her shoulder instead - as we sleep / in the tangle / of straps and bracelets. 
With a great deal of effort, he keeps going, trying to make the lines appear in his head so he can read them off with ease and still give her the attention she deserves - and Oh the sweetness of first nights / and twenty-third nights / and nights / after death and bitterness - She reaches one arm back to wrap around his neck and firmly grasps his hair - and the impeccable order / of the objects on the table - He’s rocking her into the counter at just the right speed and he can tell how close she is with each new word - the weightless irrelevance / of all our old intentions / as we undo / as we undo / every difference.
With the last word of the poem out of his mouth, she tugs hard at his hair and she climaxes, coming undone and leaning back against his chest and tries to catch her breath. 
“Oh god, Killian,” she moans. He’s still rocking them against the counter as she rides out her orgasm. “By far, this is the most interesting way you’ve ever made me orgasm.
“Have I made you a fan of poetry yet, Swan?” He moves his hand back down to her hips, his fingers sliding just under the waist of her panties. She feels loose and light as she turns in his arms and pulls him against her.
“A couple more poems like that and I can definitely be convinced,” she says. “But for now I think I’m more interested in spending time with this one. What was that about lips and sunless places?”
His mind reels because she drops to her knees between him and the cabinets. He grips the counter for stability when she drags her teeth over the zipper of his slacks.
“Think you can recite another one?” She unfastens his trousers, sliding the material down and taking his boxer briefs with it. She wraps one hand around the base of his cock, lightly gripping his hip with the other.
“Hmm?” He’s concentrating really hard on not rocking his hips forward into her skilled hands, incredibly aware of the counter just behind her head. The absolute last thing he wants to do is accidentally give his girlfriend a concussion.
“Another poem, Killian. You have another one up in that head of yours?” She leans in and licks the tip of his erection, grinning up at him.
His mind scrambles for any other poems he memorized.
“You’re making it incredibly difficult to concentrate, love, but I did always love a challenge” he admits, another moan pulling from him as she wraps her lips around the head and sucks lightly. She pulls back again and looks up at him, her smile shining in her eyes.
“You once promised to read me dirty poetry. You’ve given me one. Surely you have another up there,” she says before leaning forward to kiss a spot below his hip bone. 
“There once was a man from Nantucket,” he starts, but she cuts him off with her laughter.
“No, no. Make it a good one.”
The poem that finally makes its way to his mind is not dirty, but he knows she’ll appreciate it. He clears his throat, closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on the words in his head instead of the love at his feet.
All night I have slept with you / next to the sea, on the island. He begins, and she runs her hands along his thighs. Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep, / between fire and water. She grips his cock again and begins stroking it gently, placing kisses along his hip again as he continues.
Perhaps very late / our dreams joined / at the top or at the bottom, / up above like—
“Fuck, Emma,” he moans, her mouth going from the innocence of kisses to wrapping her lips around him once more and swirling her tongue around the tip.
“Keep going,” she pants out when she breaks away, dipping her head right back in when he starts reciting once more.
Perhaps your dream / drifted from mine / and through the dark sea / was seeking me / as before, / when you did not yet exist, / when without sighting you / I sailed by your side, / and your eyes sought / what now—/ bread, wine, love, and anger—/ I heap upon you / because you are the cup / that was waiting for the gifts of my life.
The hand that isn’t gripping the base of his cock trails up his thigh once more, pausing on his hip for a moment before brushing under the shirt that he’s still wearing and she runs her nails down his chest.
I have slept with you / all night long while / the dark earth spins / with the living and the dead, / and on waking suddenly / in the midst of the shadow / my arm encircled your waist. / Neither night nor sleep / could separate us.
She begins bobbing her head while her hand strokes the rest of his length, and it’s a struggle to remember the last stanza for a moment. He drops his head, opens his eyes again to watch her move and it’s too much. His movements against her during the first poem had already aroused him, and her attentions on him now are pushing him closer to the edge.
Emma moans around his length and his knuckles go white where he’s still gripping the counter. He can feel his release coming and she feels it too, speeds up and doesn’t prolong the torture. When it hits him, he has to brace his feet a little more so he doesn’t collapse. He’s breathing hard when she gracefully stands back up into the cage of his arms. She’s grinning, the cat that got the cream, as she winds her arms around his neck.
“Is that the end?” she asks, fingers threading through his hair. He shakes his head and swallows, wraps his arms around her and pulls her close.
I have slept with you / and on waking, your mouth, / come from your dream, / gave me the taste of earth, / of sea water, of seaweed, / of the depths of your life, / and I received your kiss / moistened by dawn / as if it came to me / from the sea that surrounds us.
He kisses her after saying the last verse, tasting his release still lingering on her tongue, and she hums into the kiss.
“Not bad,” she says when she breaks the kiss. “You may have just swayed my opinion. I’m now pro-poetry.” She’s smiling when she meets his eyes, and he chuckles. He places one more kiss on her forehead before bending to hastily pull his underwear back up, stepping out of his discarded trousers and leaving them on the floor.
“I’ll try a lofty and pretentious one next time,” he promises, remembering their previous discussions about poetry now that she’s brought them up.
“Only if you’re fucking me into the mattress when you do it,” she says off-handedly. He huffs out a laugh and rests his forehead against hers.
“You’ll be the death of me, love.” He hugs her tight to him as he says it and he can feel the laugh vibrate through her.
“But you love me anyways,” she responds, dancing her fingers across his shoulders.
“Aye, until the end of time.” He kisses her again, and she whispers her love for him across his lips.
And when they wind up in bed a short time later, he recites whatever he can think of—limericks, haiku, even a poem by Shel Silverstein—as he fulfills her request. 
When the Save-the-Dates go out a few months later, there is, indeed, an asterisk at the bottom that says “David was right.”
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Writer asks: 6, 10, 18, 20 ❤❤❤
Thank you, sweet muffin, for all these awesome questions!!! <3 <3 <3
6. What character do you have the most fun writing?
You know what? With IYS, it’s basically ALL OF THEM! It’s ridiculous. They’re all so soft and fluffy and loving, it’s just very very nice!
10. How would you describe your writing process?
Um ... okay, so stories either begin with words or with scenes/ideas and that pretty much sets the tone for them.
IYS is very much a “recording” story where I basically just see all these scenes in my head and hear the conversations and write that down (and afterwards try to cut down on the inflation of smiles and grins and nods). Those stories are often hard to start because it’s that initial resistance of trying to funnel everything happening more or less at once in my brain into linear words.
Then there are stories that start with words and are much more tied to the words. Those are usually the angstier ones as opposed to the fluffier “recording” stories and a lot more focused on introspection and descriptions.
The first sort are hard to start but easier to continue, while the others are easy to start but very hard to keep up.
Both, however, generally get several passes. I'm a layer writer, just putting down the bones and everything I have in the first draft and then adding descriptions, beats, dialogue, whatever. The “wordy” stories get more of that treatment but I always do several read-throughs of everything. I may even do an actual reading of the chapter out loud, to see how it flows, and I just generally edit a lot. I actually love editing and polishing a story till it shines (I do not love editing when it’s plot related and I suddenly realise my whole timeline is fucked up; very much not talking about that sort of editing!!)
18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.
I already talked extensively in the notes to IYS how that initial idea of the first Willex kiss was undermined by Willie and Alex themselves. Other than that ... hm ...there’s a whole abandoned sidequel to a Metal Gear Solid AU story of mine; there’s a few things I ultimately forgot to put into another Metal Gear Solid story of mine but other than that, not really alternate versions as such?
20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)
Uuugh ... okay, this question is kinda awesome and kinda daunting because ...I don’t know?
I love it when my stories turn out to have a structure or symmetry that maybe wasn’t even intentional?
Silent Souls [Fantastic Beasts] has those two mirror chapters from different POV and then the combining epilogue.
Battlefield [MGS] ended up having an unintended structure of two descriptive chapters, followed by two epistolary chapters, and then another descriptive and another letter chapter, doing a sort of zooming in timewise, first dealing with longer time spans and then zeroing in on just a moment, and I thought that was rather cool :D
Breathe [MGS] is about the struggle of keeping to breathe (drowning, panic attack, hypothermia) and is divided into subsections alternately titled IN and OUT, with two of those from one character’s POV and then one from the other’s, then repeat, in a sort of spiral movement. And I’m super proud of and happy with how that turned out because I think it just ties the whole story together even more neatly.
I’m also super happy with the chapter titles in The Last Standing and how they’re all variations on song or band titles in the show
Uhm ... I think that’s enough rambling for now? XD
Meta Asks for Writers
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littleeyesofpallas · 3 years
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I don’t usually dwell on American cape comic shenanigans too much, because it’s a fast and loose kind of writing that doesn’t really play well with being scrutinized or really thought about at all, at least any longer than it takes to get through a page, but man... this whole Tynion IV Batman thing is still rubbing me the wrong way...  and what bugs me is how it’s definitely not all “bad,” and in fact a lot of the build up is great, but then the resolutions (or lack there of) are massive let downs, but then also he keeps skirting by with these loose ends that feel like they weren’t forgotten but that they might get picked up later.  It would almost suggest he has a real big picture planned as a through line across multiple stories...
So, when Tynion took over with issue 86 and Their Dark Designs, he actually provided a great premise: In the aftermath of City of Bane and Alfred Pennyworth’s death, Bruce muses over his apparent old habit of sketching himself little snapshots of an idealized Gotham he holds in his head.  We have a clear establishment of the theme of Design, and also the idea that Bruce has an end game in mind.  He’s not just reacting to crime as it happens, he has a long term plan.  This is a genuinely good angle to have for a Batman story.
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To build on this, we learn that Lucius is working on some new tech for Bruce and he specifically marvels at how far Bruce’s war on crime has escalated.  The bat-gear hasn’t just been getting more sophisticated over the years, its development is beginning to outpace its practical applications.
Additionally, we get a weird kind of distraction of a B-plot with various master assassins convening in Gotham under a singular organized job, but among them the spotlight falls on Deathstroke.  Does Tynion talk about Deathstroke being one of the classic anti-batmen?  Does he talk about Deathstroke’s healing factor?  No.  He talks about Deathstroke’s augmented brain processing faster than Bruce can keep up with (a trait most authors tend to overlook with Slade); this means his only means of competing with Slade is to have a plan that puts him down before his super fast brain can think of a way out, because implicitly he will out think Batman given time, and if they’re both whittled down to adapting to one another in the moment, Slade wins.
Again, our theme is Master plans/Designs/end games.
Enter the heretofore unmentioned legendary, nigh mythical, Gotham villain named The Designer has reemerged after an indistinct time missing from the criminal underworld.  His claim to fame is planning 20 steps ahead, outpacing his adversary’s planning to snub any and all resistance utterly and completely.  
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He’s brought up because he once mentored Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and Joker in their early days(and in their 90s era outfits as a clever reference) and apparently the master plans he devised with each of them that were never enacted have been queued up by “someone.”  Designer is back, but he’s supposed to be dead; In a painfully uninteresting, cliche “twist” Joker was too KuHrAaZzY to handle and Designer turned on him rather than finish his tutelage, and in the ensuing firefight the 4 Gotham rogues killed the legendary Designer.
So, there are a lot of fun questions this raises, like who the apparent new Designer is, what his plan is, and what he wants...
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Bruce has another run in with Slade and launches into an awkward, kinda whiny rant where he tells Slade that if only super villains hadn’t wasted so much of his time escalating the arms race of powers and gadgets and gimmicks, that he could have fixed Gotham years ago.  So, here we are again, this idea of plans, of reactionary escalation, and of the absolute need for a master plan that snubs the opposition before they can react and learn.  Batman beats Slade, of course, which just goes to show what we’re always meant to assume from Batman anyway, that he already had Slade beat from the get go.  He had a plan; Batman always has a plan.
So this is super cool!  It took us kind of a plodding 6 out of 9 issues of this story to get here, but this is a good place!  We know Batman has a master plan for Gotham, we know from what we’ve heard about plans/Designs as a theme that means he’s already got all his villains accounted for, and that he’s just going through the motions: turning the wheels to make the machine work.  It’s only a matter of time, now.
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I’ll be honest, my thought at first when I was reading these?  I thought The Designer was Batman, or some part of Batman’s plan.  That he’d resurrected this mythical villain as part of his own master plan, to perhaps trick all his biggest adversaries to go all in on a singular massive criminal enterprise that Bruce had already designed from the get go to fail, and to take them all down with it once and for all.  It fit the profiles, and it felt like the natural direction this all was headed...
But then it was just The Joker.  Designer really was dead, Joker brought him back, stole his master plan and pulled it off himself.  He stole Batman’s money and gadgets, and took over Gotham (again).  That’s it.  It was a 9 issue/4 month long fucking prologue to Joker War.  And more importantly... NONE of these themes paid off, even a little...  And to be fair, if these had turned into something to be addressed and resolved in Joker War, I might have been okay with it...  But they weren’t...
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Also there’s a (would be)great little moment towards the end here where we learn that The Designer’s original nemesis, a master detective whom he crushed and humiliated, once taught Bruce “how to lose.”  And this went nowhere.  But it could have been super interesting, because what exactly does that even mean?  Does it mean learning to accept loss and move on?  Does it mean letting the opponent’s plan succeed because if they put everything into the one plan, then it means they never actually had a follow through, so now the board is wiped clean and everyone’s back to square 1?  What exactly was the point of bringing back the Designer’s legacy if we just learned that the real Designer wasn’t even the master mind of this whole story?
So then we meander into Joker War, curiosity still piqued, but expectations drastically lowered...
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Joker has all Batman’s gadgets: that’s actually kind of cool.  I like the idea of Joker having infinite resources and Batman being the one working underground.  It’s kind of been done before in pieces, but never quite as explicit as this.  It’s not genius, but its a solid premise.  Joker goes on a meta-rant about people watching “the classics” over and over, and audiences being content to see the same old story, provided it’s done right.  (A bold called shot, Tynion.)  
And we glimpse the mysterious future Batsuit that apparently Bruce doesn’t remember designing.  It’s kind of a throwback to the gray and blue look of the silver age Batman, when comics were a little more cheery and goofy and child friendly.  It’s a nice commentary on the idea that Bruce wants to make Gotham into a better place, not where he doesn’t need to be Batman, but where he can be a less grim Batman.  It speaks to Bruce’s character, his vision for Gotham, and Tynion’s nostalgia that is now being strongly established as a driving force of these stories...
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Joker’s plan involves paying Gothamites, in the middle of this citywide takeover by clown gangs, to attend screenings of Zorro, at which point he’ll kill them walking out of the theaters.  Batman shows up at one theater, fights some Joker zombie things, get gassed, gets rescued by Harley and given an antidote that induces a hallucination chat with Alfred.
Laughably, in this talk Bruce admits “I failed...” when talking about letting Alfred die and letting Joker take over the city but then hallucination Alfred talks Bruce OUT of it.  So whatever it was Bruce learned about losing from the old detective, this apparently wasn’t it; this was the wrong kind of losing.
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Joker mentions part of his plan was to make a new generation of heroes and villains with the massive shared trauma of the theater killings.  We’d been seeing bits of Clown Killer, but that’s it.  He actually seems pretty cool, but he wasn’t really doing much more than cameo in this.  No new villains* actually, not until the epilogue gives us the anti-hero GhostMaker.
*correction: there are a few retroactively established villains who are new to publication, but no new villains born out of the actual Joker War scenario.
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The whole Batfam shows up to wrestle clowns.  For some reason Tynion or DC editorial in general went to GREAT lengths to contrive Dick being back in the old Nightwing outfit, Tim being Robin again, Cass and Steph being Batgirls, Babs being Oracle, and Damian having renounced the Robin title for this...  They don’t do jack shit; They wrestle clown goons in the background.
Yet, again one of Joker’s stupid genius plans ends with a fist fight between a highly trained martial artist and a guy in a purple suit and we’re expected to be excited about this.  Harley shows up to trick Bruce into leaving Joker to die, but of course he survives anyway...
So there are a few themes here that got heinously underutilized...  Joker’s super into this self-aware thing about this being just another Batman-v-Joker affair, and about recreating Batman’s origin, and we see this play out on the other side with the weird walk back on the Batfam’s costumes.  But we know Joker will lose, so ostensibly the bottom line here should be that, no, actually... doing the same old thing isn’t enough, and people aren’t as predictable as Joker thinks.
But if we’re acknowledging this idea that Batman-v-Joker is a thing that happens in cycles and it’s always kind of the same thing, and people are sick of it, then you know what one undeniable fact of continuity flies in the face of that?  That no matter how many times we reboot the universe and repeat this whole song and dance, Batman keeps accumulating more sidekicks.  I’d have loved if this whole thing had just climaxed with Joker “winning” in his over elaborate 1v1 grudge match only to have half a dozen extra bats bust in and kick his ass.
But more over, Batman NEVER had any sort of plan in this...  The whole lead up in Their Dark Designs, which took LONGER to set up Joker War than Joker War actually lasted, was about Bruce having this Design for Gotham...  And Joker War goes out of its way to remind us of this lingering concept, and doesn’t actually do anything with it, but tries to still dangle it over us, like... “oh no, we didn’t forget it, it’s just for later!”  And like, I’m still kind of on board for it, but less and less so the more this shit drags out without any satisfying benchmarks along the way.  And it’s just super frustrating to want to give Tynion credit for the genuinely good set up he seems to have here... Except is it still a “good setup” of it ends up not actually setting anything up?  or if what it sets up turns out to be disappointing and bad??
It’s just really bizarre to me that I honestly kind of desperately want to like Tynion’s Batman (Clearly I’m having a fucking field day digging my teeth into it) but in spite of the good that’s there, and the clear forethought that appears to have gone into it, he keeps tripping himself up somehow.
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teruthecreator · 5 years
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if you're comfortable, could you say what specifically you hated about the finale? i never got into amnesty but i liked balance so i would like to know how disappointed i should be ://
okay i’m gonna explain this in-detail exactly Once bc i’m trying rlly hard to just forget about the whole epilogue and keep it moving like that shit never happened, so for anyone else who is asking me why i don’t like the finale (and im not saying you’re wrong for asking, anon, it just seems that when you vocally do not like a thing there are hundreds of people who come out of the woodworks to ask you why and i think thats kinda Huh, Weird of everyone but like whatever) i’m gonna lay it all out here on the table and you can take this as you will. 
i’m not gonna be getting into fistfights with people abt this so if you disagree please don’t try and banter with me. i am running on
also, CRITICISM OF ART DOES NOT MEAN CRITICISM OF THE ARTIST. I AM NOT CRITICIZING THE MCELROYS AS HUMAN BEINGS, BUT RATHER THEIR ARTISTIC DECISIONS IN TAZ: AMNESTY. MORE PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A SEPARATION BETWEEN ART AND ARTIST, AND ONCE YOU (AS AN ARTIST) POST A PIECE, IT BECOMES SUBJECT TO CRITICISM. I AM NOT BRINGING GRIFFIN, JUSTIN, TRAVIS, OR CLINT’S CHARACTERS INTO QUESTION; I AM SIMPLY GIVING A CRITICISM ON THE SHOW THEY’VE CREATED AS A WORK OF ART. 
oh, this goes without saying, but i will anyway: SPOILERS FOR AMNESTY (IN GENERAL, BUT ALSO FOR EPISODE 36) 
i’m gonna start off by saying, i don’t think the whole episode was a total disaster. there are two things mainly that have ruined the whole experience for me, but for the most part i thought the like first 2 hours of this episode were a lot of fun! the fight scene was a little bogged down in the rolls imo, but it didn’t deter me too much from the overarching boss battle. the intro was a sick concept, i enjoyed the callback bits spliced in w newly scripted bits from mentioned past encounters, that was all well and good. i loved beacon in the episode, and god do i wish he stayed for the whole thing. 
my problem mainly sits with the epilogue, which is why i think the whole episode turns sour in my mind. because the epilogue is supposed to be what satiates your desire to know more, right? not to reference balance too much (bc these are two completely different stories w different premises, and for people to so readily compare them is kinda wack. that being said, they are two stories made by the same people that use an epilogue to wrap up the loose ends, so im gonna make this one comparison), but the epilogue told us, the listener, all the things we wanted to know about after the day of story of song. we got to know what they did, a little bit of their interpersonal relationships, and we even got a big group scene with the killarey wedding! 
this epilogue, though, feels like it left so much still on the table. one of those things i will swing back to later because it is the largest part of my argument, but after all of this time we still don’t know why everyone at the lodge got exiled! no one talks about it! we don’t know how dani ended up there, or jake, or barclay, or moira, or anyone! they don’t reference the banishments at all, which i think is a huge shortcoming figuring that is the core premise as to why these characters exist in our pc’s world in the first place. 
i also feel like the concept of the worlds being divided for a long time is kind of a dumb way to go about framing what they do After The Fact. like, they could have had those scenes happen without the looming concept of them being divided, especially when their big reunion scene is like 2 minutes long and basically does nothing. what would have been a cooler premise is if billy connected the worlds, and the worlds worked together in rebuilding themselves. we still could’ve had the same bits happen (for the most part), but i just think that whole separation bit kinda alienated the pc’s (especially thacker). 
but everything up to aubrey’s epilogue bit is fine. i have some problems, but it’s fine. where i started to completely abandon the work itself though is duck’s bit, and i’m gonna get into it by saying this: I know Justin Mcelroy is not legally required to make all of his characters gay, but this whole scene was just a big reminder to me that this show is done by 4 straight white men
and yeah, my big problem with this scene is the fact that justin had to make Duck/Minerva a thing. because it adds nothing to the story while also being a very skeevy concept in-general, and it reduces minerva’s character down to the Hero’s Girlfriend trope and it’s so comphet and she doesn’t deserve it. 
my first grievance with this: It adds nothing to the story. 
had justin not even mentioned the relationship part of their interaction before the scene actually took place, this scene would be like every other scene involving duck and minerva prior to this. duck says honey once, and even that could’ve been played off as duck just being affectionate to his friends (which is a thing, i call several of my friends “my love” irl and it isn’t a big deal). minerva doesn’t even use pet names, she calls duck by his full name, which is exactly how she addressed him in every other scene! duck’s speech is a genuine heart-puller, but it was completely soured by the fact that justin had to premise this entire scene by saying duck and minerva are a thing. 
my second grievance: it’s a skeevy-as-all-hell concept. 
this whole premise is nasty seven ways from sunday, and it is my biggest problem with duck’s bit as a whole. for starters, and i think more people need to mention this, minerva meets duck on the night of his 18th birthday. which means duck has literally just stopped being legally considered a minor before minerva appears before him. and honestly, i would still consider duck a minor in this case because he has literally just turned 18!!! his brain has not developed past one of a 17-year-old on the exact date of his birthday, and i argue it will not until he is at least in his twenties. keep in mind, your brain does not stop developing until you are about 25. so while in the legal sense, duck is an adult, in both the mental and emotional sense at that exact moment, duck is still a minor. AND he’s still in high school, as referenced in his response to her call to duty: “i got class tomorrow”. and minerva is old enough to have become the minister of defense for her homeworld, go through an entire war, and have several other chosen ones (including leo tarkesian, who is at least 20 years older than duck) before meeting duck. so that makes her much, much older than duck when she meets him. and i don’t care if they had barely any interaction after that first moment (though they did, as justin legit talks about when he introduces minerva as a concept to the show), that still establishes their initial interaction at a massive age difference. which, regardless of anything, makes their eventual relationship so genuinely messed up. 
sure, you can argue that when you get older age doesn’t make that much of a difference, and i would agree. my mother is 53 and her husband is 63, that’s ten years. but my mother and step mother did not meet at 8 and 18, they met at 50 and 60. the initial interaction makes all the difference between “older people meeting and having a relationship” and “a very messed up situation”. 
also, in this same argument, taking the mentor-student relationship and turning it into a romantic relationship IS SO MESSED UP!!!! GENUINELY AND HONESTLY MESSED UP!!! i feel like i don’t need to explain this because there have been so many examples already as to why this is a relationship you Should Not turn romantic, but i will anyway because it frustrates me so much that justin completely glosses over this!!! the power dynamic of a mentor-student relationship, in whatever way it is portrayed, displays a power balance that is heavily leaning to one side. there is not an equal distribution of power amongst the two because one person is teaching the other. the one person is weak to the others wills and whims because of lack of experience. think of your high school teacher or college professor; if you started a relationship with them, people would raise so many questions because you are not at equals to the teacher/professor. even if they treat you different, and even if they no longer teach you, it all has to do with the initial interaction. and minerva was still duck’s mentor up until either episode 34 or 35, when she handed off the title of Herald of the Astral Mind to duck. that means for nearly all of their interactions, there was a mentor-student dynamic. to have that turn into a romantic relationship is so sketchy and weird and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 
my third grievance: it reduces minerva’s character down to a girlfriend trope, and it’s comphet as hell 
my friend tin (@taako–waititi) phrased this so well in the big group chat im in w her, so imma just quote her on this and then go into the comphet stuff: 
“i was dming max about it and they also mentioned, quote, ‘her story was never about romance. it reduced her down to ‘competent woman becomes endgame girlfriend’ trope’ and they are so right it makes me fucking pissed. regardless of any ‘mutual respect’ and ‘emotional intimacy’ kind of thing going on that some people are arguing for, it’s something that didn’t need to happen because minerva’s character becomes that. my thing is mutual respect and emotional intimacy between two people can. exist. without it being. romantic. like. friendship is. also valid. i personally don’t think that mutual respect and emotional intimacy are two buttons that you press to make the machine churn out a romance” 
not only does it reduce minerva’s character to tropes, but it also is extremely comphet for a woman who is so heavily wlw-coded or lesbian-coded and it just angers me. you could argue that she could be bi, but if we look at canon for just its face-value, the only romantic interaction she ever has is with a man, which basically makes her straight. this isn’t like aubrey’s situation, where travis clearly states she is a bi woman who is just in a relationship with another woman in amnesty. griffin doesn’t state anything about minerva’s sexuality and then she’s paired off with a man right at the end. and you could argue that she isn’t wlw or lesbian-coded, but i am not the only one who is wlw and thinks this, so i feel like i have more of a ground to stand on in this opinion. and this just feels so, like, textbook compulsory heteronormativity it made me feel physically sick when i heard this bit in the podcast. 
so that’s my first big issue with the finale, fully explained. my second issue with the epilogue is that ned’s death continues to be disappointing and his character arc is never completed, which just tanks the whole show for me. 
i’ve talked about this several times since ep 28 about how ned’s death was stupid and did nothing for his character arc, but i’m gonna reiterate my main points for the people who find this post without knowing my whole blog:
1. ned’s main interpersonal conflicts are just brought to the surface and never fully delved into before his sudden death. ned doesn’t ever get to explain his history with boyd and why he had to steal shade tree to mama or barclay or really anyone besides vaguely to aubrey. 
2. every character is just immediately expected to feel sad about ned’s death, despite the tension that still remains right up until the very end. aubrey shouldn’t have even known that the shapeshifter framed ned because that’s all explained once she goes to sylvain, but i think travis just assumed she did because he heard the interaction between ned, mama, and barclay. so she should’ve had Way more conflicting feelings about the whole thing, but ned’s death is just angst-bait so that doesn’t happen.
3. ned’s death doesn’t make roll sense because clint rolled a mixed success and mixed successes, by definition, are supposed to be less severe moves than a failed roll (which gives the gm the ability to make a hard move). there isn’t really anything harder to do to a character than kill them, but even if you wanted to argue that if clint failed the roll the hard move would’ve been ned failing and letting dani get shot, it still doesn’t change the fact that clint rolled a mixed success when slamming into the pizza hut sign at full velocity and came out of that alive (severely injured, naturally, but still alive). 
so, yeah, there’s that. and then theres the fact that griffin doesn’t ever give us any other scenes involving ned directly. ned only becomes a reference from 28 on, which is so disappointing given ned’s importance to the other two pcs. and i understand that the mcelroys have a lot of trauma related to death, but griffin shouldn’t have killed ned off then if he did not want to talk about death in graphic detail. we all have trauma. we all want to avoid topics. but to kill ned off and then never talk about his death in great relation to the others is a genuine disservice to ned’s character. 
the day episode 28 aired was the same day i buried my grandmother. i would have loved if death wasn’t brought up, but i don’t control the podcast. the mcelroys do; they had the ability to avoid this topic in a more servicing way to the characters and they didn’t. that isn’t to say they are bad people for not doing it, but it makes the finale even more disappointing because it means we never get the full rounding out of ned’s character arc. he becomes this like brief reference that is, once again, angst-bait or emotional fuel and i feel like he didn’t deserve that. he deserved a genuine reference, a genuine moment. even a dream sequence i would have appreciated!!! 
griffin had sylvain directly point at ned in aubrey’s flashback in ep 35, and then did nothing about what that could have implicated in the finale. it sours the entire episode in a major way and disappointed me immensely. there should have been more done with that topic and there wasn’t and i will never forget how deeply it hurt me and turned me away from canon as a whole. not to be ned kin on main, but ned was the backbone of this show and the exact moment he left was the exact moment the whole thing went downhill. it turned less into a story about growth and adversary and amnesty and more into a waiting game for when this very loose end was going to get wrapped up. 
i wanted to enjoy this episode. i tried so hard, y’all. but just the thought of ned loomed over me the entire time and i was waiting for a more proper completion to his arc, and it never happened. and coupled with that very bad and skeevy duck/minerva bit i was just so frustrated and hurt last night. 
so, yeah, that’s my whole spiel. you are free to disagree with me, but keep that opinion to yourself because i’m not getting into it with anyone. i will just block you; it’s better for us both, anyway. 
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wandering-bitch · 3 years
Text
Notes for I Have Always Loved The Door (pt 1)
I Have Always Loved The Door is the Wen Qing/Mianmian fic that all the wlw wanted but canon could not in any way make happen 
This is part one of three, i’m sorry, but it is a 30k fic and i’ve never written anything this long. it’s like. six months of my life. annotations are gonna be longer, too.
What is this fic About? Uh. Lots. Mostly your relationship with your past and your future. making choices about what you carry with you into your life.
title is from Charly Bliss’ “Percolator” but like. the rest of the fic is in no way related to the song. Just the lyrics “I have always loved the door/but I will always love you more/I love metaphors” fit well for the wen qing mood
it is a fucking CRIME that wen qing died, and while i’m happy that luo qingyang got a happy ending with a soft man who just wants to make her happy, i think she deserves more. so i gave her a fancy job
i struggled with the outline for this so much until i realized that mianmian’s canon arc is partially about saying goodbye to your home/family because you no longer fit there + it’s not a great place anymore. and that’s so close 2 wen qing’s
so that drove a great part of the plot, and helped shape the youya/tuzai bit
ch 1
the first chapter is so funny and then nothing ever approaches it, i’m so sorry i got ur hopes up with the shennans TTnTT
i hate most of my writing after it’s up but i still like this chapter. wen qing being a doctor, nmj knowing his place, mianmian cursing loudly
“If you’ve been knuckles-deep in me, you can consider yourself a friend” i spend a lot of time in this fic trying to kill wen qing with Lesbianism, but honestly that’s just to make up for mianmian killing herself with lesbianism.
this was b4 i decided to care how i ended chapters haha
ch 2
i’m proud honestly of this fic alternating perspective, bc it forced me to learn to write more distinct voices. 
“are you eating enough red meat?” “in the unclean realm?” 
if i had 2 be in a Great Sect i would 100% want to be in the big sexy sword jock sect but unfortunately i’m a vegetarian
please think of me, an average-sized gay, with noodle arms, pushing away all the giant cooks and self-appointed nie aunties, who are trying to shove meat into my mouth
like you know how cats avoid the bath??? and their people are like “jesus fuck how is this 10 lb animal defeating me, i’m huge and strong and also have thumbs”??? that, except it’s an average sized sword gay fighting ten RIPPED aunties holding out beef
i do love the mianqing dynamic i created here and i’m not sure i kept it up but WHATEVER this is about annotations not about editing
mianmian: god FUCK the jin clan, the jin clan sux. wen qing: hmmmmmmmmmm
i think mianmian’s three older sisters might show up in a future work in the series
yeah, i fell in love with this au, there will be at least one epilogue.
ch 3
oh ho ho!!! it’s the beginning of Sword Content!!!
i watched so many videos of dao work vs jian work and then i ignored all of it!!!
by that i mean “there were only like two decent-quality videos on dao work that i found on youtube and i couldn’t study them hard enough to get what i wanted”
someone trying to correct your practice with boring, irrelevant suggestions??? it’s extremely likely, it’s happened to me multiple times, i straight up stopped practicing outside bc of it
please, men, i’m begging you. if you see me doing martial arts, rather than correcting me, ask “oh cool, what are you doing? ah, i do [this art]” and like. talk with me like i’m a human
not to be A Bitch but there is a 70% chance that i’ve actually studied more marital arts than you, on account of most ppl abandoning within a few years, and me practicing aikido for more than a fucking decade
god swinging a weapon full-speed at someone and stopping inches from their head??? a Fun Time
mianmian’s doing it as a big dick energy move
but in my school we just trusted each other to not fuck up.
im too gay to want any “”””homophobia””” or “””discovering you’re gay”””” or “””coming out”””” plots, i just wanna fast forward to the “”””i wanna kiss a girl””” bit
OH MAN i forgot wwx’s voice in wen qing’s head. 
“even after his death the yiling patriarch managed to annoy her” i love wen qing
ch 4
IT’S THE MEMORIAL DINNER CHAPTER
memorial dinners are an important part of my household’s mourning process sorry
“she waved her hand to indicate the entirety of his use of demonic cultivation, fall from grace, and mass murder” mood wen qing. fucking mood.
oh my god im rereading this and seeing where i misspelled shit ugh. sorry lwj
so sometimes i’m vague about food and that’s because the only food i can think of when i’m writing is pork. i just. can’t remember what other foods u can eat. pork and also buns (but meat buns) soup? never heard of her. chicken? what is that??? piles of vegetables??? no one eats that obviously
please remember that im vegetarian and not only do i not eat pork, what i do eat is piles of vegetables
ah yes!!! time for mianmian to say prisons are for burning!!!!
our girls are both radical leftists sorry not sorry
acab, reproductive rights, prisons are for burning, capitalism is an inherently exploitative system, unionize your workplace
“tip your servers well” -- wen qing
wwx, shouting from beyond the grave: GET SOME, GIRLS!!!
wwx’s ghost: do y’all need anything? snacks? water? a condom? ah, love you kids, you keep me young
oh i forgot “for my local radical,” i should make sure to keep using ‘my radical’ as a cute endearment for the wives
ch 5
awwwww yeahhhhhhh trauma dreamsssss
writing jin guangyao is so fun!! and stressful!!!
fun because he never says anything straight, only through six layers of plausible deniability, and that’s just a fun exercise
fun also because i Love a Bitch. 
stressful because he never says anything straight, only through six layers of plausible deniability. 
the bit where he threatens to expose wen qing and mentions specifically that nmj does not like being lied to??? took me several times to perfect and im still not happy!!! 
but i’m deeply proud of him sending the flame hairpiece, that’s some a+ innocent-looking menace right there, that’s the only thing on this planet i believe in anymore
i loved making up sect politics that weren’t specifically “let’s put up watchtowers” because i don’t think that happened while jgs was still alive
uh @ self why did i capitalize da-ge that’s so uncomfortable.
oh my god i just realized that jin guangyao has to watch his ex boyfriend/nie mingjue treat mianmian the way he used to be treated oh fuck
sorry i was not at all writing 3zun cinderella when i wrote this so i wasn’t in the habit of thinking about jgy being in pain and now???
get fukt jin guangyao
he 100% cries to lxc about this later
what’s that??? you say i keep writing overthinkers who are anxious and terrified of everything??? huh i’m not sure i agree and if even if you were right i’m not sure it means anything
“grumpy frog” mianmian mvp
god the flame hairpiece is one of like two whole good endings i did for this fic haha
next time: ch 6-10!!
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dream-girls-evil · 4 years
Note
Oh boy someone finally took pity and is gonna let me talk about The Lovers XD
This project got...SO much bigger than intended. It started as a funny crack idea I sent to another CAOS blog about Lilith freaking out about Adam and asking Zelda to be her fake girlfriend. And then I actually started thinking about it, and it has now turned into a four-part series. And it’s going to be angsty. Crack and angst, that’s my brand.
The titles for the series, The Lovers, is a reference to the tarot card. It represents a choice to be made in one’s romantic life, one that often has serious consequences and might be irreversible. It’s going to come into play on both a literal and metaphorical level. We never saw Zelda’s third card in the Tarot episode, and with what I’m setting up, The Lovers will be fitting. But it’s also just a theme of this series--Zelda and Lilith both wanting to choose each other and not always being able to, and the consequences there are for their choices.
The titles for each part of the story, after several re-labelings, come from the song Deep End by Birdy. They are 1) Can we just pretend? 2) I wish they’d told me, 3) How do we mend? and 4) If you mean everything. The titles as well as the general vibe of the song itself should give you a really good idea of the tone and content of this fic. There’s a lot of longing and love but also regret. I actually first heard this song on a Zelith video (here), and while my story is very different than the one the video portrays, it’s themes and hopeful ending are really what inspired me to use the lyrics. I also love this song because it’s not strictly and obviously about romantic love, and neither is this fic. It’s going to be a very slow burn to their eventual relationship, because it’s really important to me that they truly bond as friends and get to know each other as people first. Right now, they each need a friend and confidante much more than a romance, and part of what I think gives them so much potential as a couple is how similar and well-suited to each other they are on those basic levels first and foremost.
Everything else below the cut!
Can we just pretend?
Oh, so much to say about this fic. I love fake dating fics, it’s just a hilarious trope with so much potential for awkward and absurd situations. Plus, I know there are several in this fandom, but they’re all AUs, and I think one of the fun parts of setting one in the CAOS universe is that Lilith and Zelda are trying to fool each other just as much as everyone else. Their motives are really layered and at odds, which is great to watch since they are both so good at acting and manipulating, so in the course of trying to play each other they find that they’ve kind of met their match and enjoy the challenge. 
For Zelda, on the surface (and what she tells Lilith), her central motivation for everything is still trying to gain power within the church, and with Blackwood still being her best route to do that, she wants to use this fake relationship to make him jealous. Really, it’s just adding another layer to the pressure she puts on him to make their relationship legitimate. But also, she has reason to want to keep him away for the moment: Leticia. Then, finally, of course, she just wants to stay close to Lilith because she’s suspicious and hopes that if they spend time together, she’ll be able to monitor and limit Lilith’s interactions with Sabrina, plus improve her chances of catching the woman in a lie. 
This part of the series takes place starting with the events of A Midwinter’s Tale and ending a little after The Epiphany, and you’re all in for a wild ride. There’s lots of shenanigans, but also a lot of softness and angst--and that’s where the layered meaning of the title comes in. It is obviously humorous because this is the question Lilith asks Zelda in the beginning--”please pretend to be my girlfriend and help me out”--but as things go on and the two of them start to actually bond, it takes on another context. A fake relationship needs a fake break up, and they both know that once that happens, things are really going to change. Zelda will pursue Blackwood, and Lilith will continue doing whatever the Dark Lord asks her to do with Sabrina. There’s not really going to be room in their lives for this real friendship that’s formed, but they want to pretend they’ll make it work. Whoops, started with crack then gut-punched you with feelings. 
Anyway, there will be bed sharing, Hilda completely misinterpreting things, a whole side plot with Vinegar Tom, awkward dinner dates, temperamental telekinesis, and hide and seek in the mortuary! Yaaay!
I wish they’d told me
So, this part is sad? Sorry. After their fake break up, they are both moving in different directions and really trying to pretend they don’t miss each other as much as they do. And while they are trying to hang on to their friendship, they choose their own plans over each other a lot. This also takes place over the remaining episodes from part 2, so there’s a lot of heavy content in general, and honestly, not much is going to change just because Zelda and Lilith are on better terms.
The thing with this section is that there will be a lot of added context to certain scenes. Blackwood’s passion play will be a direct dig at Lilith, and knowing Zelda was involved with it will make it hurt all the more. Lucifer giving Blackwood His blessing to marry Zelda will be to minimize her influence on Lilith as much as Sabrina. Lilith’s tricks with the tarot cards and her glamour of Edward will be to try and help Zelda as much as for her own ends. 
The only really big thing that changes is that without Adam and his offer of taking Lilith to Tibet, the awful dinner scene will be replaced with Lucifer taunting Lilith about what Zelda is going through, since it lines up with the honeymoon. But don’t expect Lilith to save her, unfortunately, because she’s terrified of what Lucifer would do to both of them if he found out she interfered. Plus, she is conscious that it would bring up a lot of questions if she did, like how she knew Zelda was in trouble, and she’s afraid of that, too. Which brings us to the end of part 2 where, obviously, everyone finds out who Lilith really is, and it’s much worse because they all genuinely care about her and trusted her.
On the bright side though, we will see Lilith’s relationship with Sabrina, and the Fright Club and Spellman family by extension, improve, and how that affects them both. It’s going to get very awkward for her at times listening to Sabrina and Hilda treat her like Zelda’s ex and lament their break up, but they’ll also show her a lot more care and consideration and go to her for help more, which is a very odd experience for Lilith.
How do we mend?
Part 3! Kudos to everyone who’s actually read this far, because I know it’s literally a fucking essay. Anyway, as should be obvious from the title, this largely deals with Zelda and Lilith trying to figure out their feelings for each other in the aftermath of Lucifer’s imprisonment. On the one hand, Lilith’s betrayal is a lot more personal for Zelda. On the other hand, because she knows Lilith a lot better, she realizes a lot more of the truth about Lilith’s relationship to Lucifer and exactly what she went through. So Zelda is dealing with a lot of guilt and confusion about what was real and what could have been done differently and how she actually feels about Lilith after it all. So, again, we have a lot of added context to some of her actions, like deciding to have the coven pray to Lilith.
Meanwhile, Lilith is just lonely. She’s got her crown, but she’s also lost the first people who ever really respected and cared for her, even if they didn’t really know her. She wants to talk to Zelda and explain but doesn’t feel it’s her place. Bring on the yearning. Eventually they will be brought back together though, and that’s the start of this series really diverging from canon, because Lilith’s relationships to everybody is going to change how they handle a lot of events. Plus, I just really want to do a better job with Mary’s plotline and the pagans’ portrayal than canon.
They’ve got a lot to work through and work out, and will finally have to really confront and examine their feelings for each other, especially with some of the very emotional things they go through. They’re very protective of each other, and I love it. Another interesting thing will be when Marie comes on the scene and shows interest in Zelda. I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to play that dynamic yet, but I do know that it’s not going to be one of jealousy or competition. I’m not into that. They’re all mature adults perfectly capable of respecting each other’s boundaries and choices.
If you mean everything
Finally! Part 4 is the least planned out, since it’s so far in the future and so reliant on how the pacing of part 3 works out, which I don’t know yet, and also whatever I take from part 4 of the show, which I don’t know yet. But I do really want the main focus to be on Lilith and Zelda working through their respective traumas in the context of their relationship. They’ve both been through a lot, and they need to learn how to talk about it with each other. And I think that they’ll still be having some trouble coming to terms with the intensity of their feelings, because love isn’t something that’s been abundant in either of their lives really, and it has a way of changing your priorities even if you didn’t plan on it. I do think this part will probably end up being shorter and more like an epilogue. I’m definitely not going with the pregnancy storyline, so Lucifer/Blackwood will probably end up captured at the end of part 3 unless I can think of another way to have them escape or separate them.
WOW this was literally so much, let me know if you made it through! XD
I hope it was somewhat interesting. I didn’t even try not to give any spoilers because I’m me and overshare. But I hope it got everyone excited for this story and inspired to keep bugging me about writing it, because I need it.
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artificialqueens · 5 years
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Free Falling, Chapter 11: Deeper Love (branjie) - writworm42
A/N: Last chapter, Brooke and the others get ready for the fundraiser and smack Gary tf down. This chapter: the fundraiser is finally here!
Title from THAT song from THAT lipsync. Sue me. Thank you holtzmanns for being the best beta and all-around pal a binch could have <3
Also, next chapter will be a smutty epilogue!
The first thing Vanessa noticed when she walked into the venue space on the day of the fundraiser is that the stations had been changed.
“Concessions? Nina, what do you mean, concessions, I was supposed to be on lost child duty.” Vanessa frowned when she looked up at the list and map that Nina had drawn for the day and put up towards the front of the hall they’ve rented out.
But Nina just shrugged. “The volunteers can handle it.” As she said it, Vanessa took a second look at the list, and the sudden switch made perfect sense.
“We already together, Nina, you ain’t need to put me with Brooke for everything.” Vanessa rolled her eyes, but Nina was already walking away towards the next concern, a shit-eating grin on her face.
God, Vanessa loved that sneaky bitch.
She looked up where the concession was set up on the map and headed over. Vanessa was pleased to find that it was towards the middle and side of the room, supplying a fantastic view of the goings-on around the venue. The fundraiser wasn’t opening for another hour, but the room was buzzing with people, volunteers, staff members and the youth advisory council members already setting up equipment, walking through their duties for the day, and completing any other of the millions of small tasks that popped up as opening time ticked closer and closer. The room was bursting with colour, streamers and balloons lighting up every wall and corner until all Vanessa could see was rainbows, bright blues and purples and yellows that eagerly welcomed guests inside. There was a giant stage towards the back of the room set up with raffle prizes and a microphone, and the floor was crawling with game tables and booths, each decorated with big, bright signs clearly indicating what they were offering. More active games like life-sized tic-tac-toe and adaptive bocce took up the centre of the room, and Vanessa was all too excited at the thought of kids gathering there to play and move around.
The most beautiful sight, though, was Brooke in a Charles-Visage Hospital t-shirt scooping popcorn seeds into their rented kettle, a giant popcorn-shaped hat on her head.
“Laugh it up all you want,” Brooke narrowed her eyes as Vanessa practically screamed with laughter, drawing the attention of pretty much everyone in the hall. “Wait until see the hat they’ve left for you.”
In retrospect, having to wear a giant wiener on her head was definitely, objectively worse.
The minutes kept ticking by closer and closer to opening as everyone scrambled to finish their set-ups, fussing over little details and cursing themselves for forgetting big but integral tasks. For the most part, Vanessa managed to tune out the noise, clinging to the rhythm of concession prep to keep herself calm. Brooke, for her part, was cheerful and enthusiastic, chattering about how she used to work at Kernels and how they never used to get to wear gloves when they were working, how her manicure had been saved—Vanessa listened to it all gladly, grateful for the distraction in the form of the woman next to her.
Only Brooke wasn’t trying to be distracting, not really—this was just Brooke when she was happy, and somehow, seeing her girlfriend get so excited only made Vanessa that much more calm, that much more happy herself.
All too soon, the rush died down, and there was silence in the hall, everyone holding their breath as they counted down the two minutes remaining until opening.
“This is amazing, Ness.” Brooke grabbed Vanessa’s hand and squeezed gently. “You’ve done a great job.”
It was only then that Vanessa noticed that she had been shaking.
“I just… I really want this to work, you know?” Vanessa sighed, chewing her lip. Brooke nodded.
“I just don’t think I could handle it if we did all this and still went under. I mean, all these families an’ kids… they got hope, Brooke. We gave it to ‘em. An’ I don’t want that all crushed thanks to a dumb idea you humoured for me.”
“It’s not a dumb idea, and I didn’t humour you–I think it’ll save us.” Brooke’s voice was adamant and matter-of-fact, her eyes serious, but the conviction did nothing to reassure Vanessa, not really.
It didn’t matter if Brooke had faith in her; when it came down to it, whether or not this was enough was still out of their control. And if it wasn’t, what would happen? The unit would get major cuts, if not dissolve completely, and sure, she’d probably land on her feet, but what was the point? There was no laughter in the adult units. No water-toys or impromptu in-session tricycle parades when your clients were thirty and stressed and just looking to get home, not to have the joy of home brought to them and make the best out of a less-than-ideal situation. Even outpatient didn’t have the same vibe; in outpatient, the kids didn’t all know each other and band together, and neither did the staff - you knew who you worked with, and everyone else was peripheral. And if she didn’t get kept by the hospital, what was Vanessa supposed to do then? Move to another hospital, another district, another city? Spend the rest of her career in the community? She cringed just thinking about driving from house, navigating client caps and never seeing another adult unless it was a client or the parent of one.
And what would happen to her and Brooke? Brooke would blame herself, for sure. Say that she underestimated some costs, overestimated returns, whatever kind of business mumbo-jumbo could come to her mind. Heck, knowing Brooke, she’d go as far as to blame the way she scooped out popcorn or some shit, anything she could to explain why they failed, anything she could to take the burden of falling short off the team. And then she’d be gone, whether or not the unit stayed open, because that’s what Brooke did. Blamed herself, told herself she was a burden, and then ran.
Vanessa couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t let that happen. This had to work. It had to.
“Hey,” Brooke broke Vanessa’s daze, cupping her cheek with a soft, gentle hand. “Hey. It’s okay, Ness. It’s okay. We’re gonna do great today. I believe in you. And…” She bit her lip, shifting on her feet. Somewhere in the room, Silky called out a one-minute warning. Brooke wrapped Vanessa into a hug.
“I love you.”
Thirty seconds.
Vanessa couldn’t think any more.
“OPENING TIME!”
Before she could say anything else, the doors open, and a flood of people rushed through.
“Can I have everyone’s attention? CAN I HAVE EVERYONE’S ATTENTION PLEASE?” Nina shouted into the mic, raising her voice above the roar of the crowd. The fundraiser was drawing close but the energy of the attendees had barely diminished, kids and adults alike still coming through the doors to ask for whatever last-minute, $15-at-the-door tickets they had left. The concession stand had long been stripped empty, everyone who could eat rushing by to trade loonies for every type of snack they had on offer, and so Brooke and Vanessa had shed their hats and begun to run around to help out at the other booths. Still, they were only just getting to the main event, the grand finale everyone was waiting for.
“Thank you so much for coming out today, everyone.” Nina was practically beaming as the noise died down, all eyes on her. “I just wanted to say that I am truly touched by how many of you came to support the kids at Charles-Visage, and how much all of your generosity and enthusiasm has helped. Thanks to your tickets, raffle ticket, and donation-box offerings, we have raised a whopping $10,000. And that’s before we add everything up from concession!” Nina smiled and waved over at Brooke and Vanessa, who had rushed quickly back to their booth solely for this announcement and their moment of cameo-glory in it.
“I also want to say that we have amassed over one hundred new monthly donors, which is fantastic!” Nina continued, her cheeks going pink with excitement as she did. “And also, I want to thank the members of the media who came out today, getting our message of fun, inclusion, and hope out to folks everywhere! So everyone at home, be sure to check out the hospital’s website and click that donate button!”
It was just then that Vanessa noticed a host of newspeople in the back, journalists with paper pads and cameras around their neck and broadcasters holding mics out to hear all of Nina’s announcement.
Jesus Christ–the PR would be fucking fantastic , and Vanessa hadn’t even known that people would be interested in hearing about them. And she certainly hadn’t called the news outlets.
Brooke grinned at Vanessa, and her surprise turned into outright affection, lunging forward for a hug to thank her girlfriend for the amazing surprise.
“Thanks to everyone’s contributions,” Nina kept going, her voice now shaking with glee, “We not only have raised enough to help out kids with disabilities all over the area make strides towards achieving all their potential, we have also raised enough to welcome even more kids into the Charles-Visage community. That’s right, everyone–thanks to your generosity, our unit will be able to expand!”
The cheers were absolutely deafening, and Vanessa felt like she was absolutely floating on air.
She had done it. They had done it.
They’d won.
Vanessa still wasn’t really sure what happened next. Nina went on to announce the raffle winners, but Vanessa could barely hear her, could barely register anything at all. Everything was joy, excitement, pride, and Brooke. Brooke, extending a hug towards Vanessa and pulling her in for a long, giddy kiss. Brooke, whispering another I’m proud of you as they pulled apart. Brooke, chewing her lip as she bit back what Vanessa could guess was another I love you, something she was afraid that Vanessa didn’t want to hear a second time.
So Vanessa said it first, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I love you too, baby. And I can’t thank you enough.”
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bladekindeyewear · 5 years
Text
Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 7 - Meat Page 26
==>
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Back on to Jade swimming into the singularity or something.  (And trying to stop thinking that maybe Candy ends with a giant polyamorous relationship and/or orgy, because I don’t imagine Rose would have acted so tamely if that’s what she saw.)
Yes, Time is the complement of Space, that was already confirmed in comic if it wasn’t super incredibly obvious all along anyway.
Gah, I’m getting stomach cramps again.
Yeah, too much Space makes Time invisible and vice versa? Or...
Maybe Dave broke her heart a little, and he keeps doing it too, no matter how many different timelines they try out.
D:
God damnit these CRAMPS.  Reading further.
Like a garden, where Jade used to spend so much of her time with her hands in the earth and her head in the clouds, dreaming about flowers that bloomed in six colors and grew when she played them a song. Was that real? It’s hard to tell. But it made her happy, didn’t it?
FUCK are you going to start making me doubt the reality of the liFe we saw her living early in-comic?????  Cut it out, it’s unsettling!
Alright, alt!Callie is taking the reins from Dirk on this narrative he so smugly thought he could completely consume.  That’s good/bad.
slutty adult Jade
FUCKING YIKES!! FUCK YOU DIRK!
FUCK I DIDN’T NEED HER DEATH DESCRIBED IN SUCH DETAIL EITHER.  Also alt!Callie’s really embodying Death here.
==>
Pff.  Calliope’s writing the story now, in a sense, like she always kind of wanted.
Also pff, this version of her doesn’t know how to describe human stuff colorfully.  :)
An adversarial dichotomy between your opposing goals, huh?  This might end up as a “none of us can really write the ending” ending that DOES leave it up in the air for everyone else to decide instead.
Fuck, now you’re having THIS Jade suffer by proxy by experiencing the other Jade’s memories.  This metatextual ascension’s happening to everyone isn’t it.
Yeah, she’s done it before and stuff--
when jade turns to look at roxy, her eyes are completely black.
FUCK.
my presence shall mitigate, if not altogether subdue, the corrosive effect on reality and the will of its occupants by those who would manipulate the way events are telegraphed for their own megalomaniacal objectives.
Well, fuck.  Jade’s been temporarily hijacked for the rest of the story AGAIN, like back in Condesce days, this time as a plot device to keep Dirk from overreaching with his god powers and stepping over everyone’s wills like an Ultimate Riddle style villain.  Dirk, I mean.  Being the villain.  And alt!Callie just doing what she has to to put this back on track.  Man I HATE it when Jade’s will doesn’t get to be on full display.  Her will is awesome.  (Also, alt!Callie just tacitly confirmed that the will of reality’s occupants matters, if that wasn’t obvious already, so ha.)
despite his pretensions to a greater design, the prince of heart cannot be allowed to continue to exert unchecked control over the authoritative recitation of events on this side of my horizon. it cannot be overstated the extent to which he represents a threat to the continued existence of both this world and corporeal life itself.
Yeah, it was indeed looking that way earlier.
Ooh, alt!Callie is really spot-on with her pronoun use.
Alright, Dirk’s voice is shrinking away, and my stomach still feels half-clenched.
Wow, alt!Callie’s really mad at what Dirk’s been doing with this epilogue.
==>
“EPILOGUE FIVE”?????
Did I miss the titles for one, three, and four??? Yeah there were probably there and I just missed them or something.
Pfffff, John looks/smells like shit.  :D
...too fresh??
Fuck you John for thinking Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn’t a masterpiece.  :P
terezi tips her head to one side, with what john personally regards as a cute expression, one he believes is unique to her. whether he’s correct or not, it’s his belief that there is no one else who emotes in this manner. it’s both quizzical and mocking, two descriptors that he considers to be an apt summation of her personality as well.
Niiiiice.  Nice linguistic description of her “>:?” expression.
have no desire to interject thoughts into others’ minds, or to sway intent. nor do i see value in masking the reality of the emotions that i transcribe. this is how he feels. his mind, however, has made a habit of being less clear about his thoughts than i am willing to be.
Oh thank fucking god, I don’t have to question everyone’s thoughts anymore.  Until Dirk comes back or something, I dunno.
Oh my fucking god, alt!Callie, you total voyeuristic nerd.
he fears he is in danger of seeming like the type of creepy human male who is likely to collect large pillows bearing the illustrated images of japanese earth females. to me, this idea means nothing. but it is causing him to sweat.
This is one very relatable snippet of text.
Feed Terezi Feed Terezi Feed Terezi
WHY is the gold tooth poisonous???????  ...Wait, Caliborn affixed it to his mouth intentionally.  He had every right and motive to make it poisonous for no good reason.  Ugh.
Beep beep, let’s find Vriska.
==>
WHAT
WHAT JANE
WHAT THE FLYING FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING
JESUS
Using Trickster Mode as a drug to further one’s political performance.  That’s fucking horrifying.  No wonder it was on the triggers list.
additionally, it prevents one from dwelling on any given personal problems, or the greater implications of any political statements one might make.
Pff, mhmm.
Problematic, huh?  Jane seems like the slightly-old-fashioned sort of person who thinks it’s getting kind of ridiculously silly how much people are caring about stuff being “problematic”.  And yet that stuff DOES matter, and ignoring it DOES hurt people, and she not only isn’t seeing that but is drugging herself to see it LESS with that goddamned lollipop.  Holy shit.
she turns around promptly, her body jolted by the surprise of her sudden reversal. she bends over, cradles the lollipop reverentially, and situates it carefully in a place signifying respect: atop the mantle, after clearing space for it by shoving several brittle, worthless objects to the floor.
PFFF.  Okay, so alt!Callie ISN’T above altering characters slightly from their narrative course when it comes to one of the few things she deems important.  Heh.
Having “his control of a shared vehicle fully suppressed”, huh?  Does alt!Callie only mean the narrative, or maybe Rose too with whatever weird bullshit he did to her?
Uh, “while the seer both diminishes and ascends”???  D:
--Oh, oh shit.  He was planning to NARRATIVE CONTROL Jake into going along with things.  D: D:
Yeah, Jake would want to bang all the aliens, really.
Sendificator rifle, or something like that.  Got it.
==>
How fucking long is this epilogue, anyway?????  I mean, the length is appropriate from an objective point of view, I’m just frustrated because I’m going to have to spend every waking hour liveblog-reading it until I’ve reached the end or I’m likely to fucking explode, and I didn’t want this to be my entire day/weekend/existence again AAGH HOMESTUCK YOU BLACK HOLE
anyway yaay karkat in a suit.
Alluding to assassination attempts?  What, is that red rifle going to try and fulfill that old “through the silver screen and straight into my heart” unused foreshadowing-herring from act six, or five, or whenever it was? Five, I believe.
Pff, super pacs, yeah.  Dave’s nearly as political as me now or something.  Except he actually acts on it here instead of just sitting around talking about it and thinking he’s right all the time, like me.
Wait, JANE ACTUALLY WENT THROUGH with smearing Jake??!???  Holy shit she’s lost touch.
KARKAT: SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF IS ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS SUBJECT MATTER FOR PRODUCING CAMPAIGN ADS! KARKAT: NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, OR WHAT POINTS YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE! DAVE: yeah its awesome
Pfffff.
...yeah, Jake isn’t thinking of ANYTHING except Dirk right now, really.
Oh huh, Dirk HAS been as controlling of Jake as he used to be, now that alt!Callie’s pointing it out.  Just with an even more insidious mechanism.
Oh cool, Karkat’s version of the policy pitch!  :D :D :D  Can’t wait can’t wait reading
(dont lie karkat you totally know shes hot)
Pff, stop making it seem obvious that Dirk wanted to assassinate Jake for political purposes.  Heck, even if that WAS his plan it’d just be a temporary death that he’d resurrect from and then they’d try to turn it into... what, some media spin on how Karkat might have been responsible? Or a troll?? That latter part would make things MUCH more xenophobic.  I’m starting to get seriously into the politics of this.
==>
Pff, now ‘rezi’s eating tobacco.
...okay, is Terezi REALLY going to go for a real conversation with just an honest ask for one?  I don’t think so--
--aaand there she goes laughing, as expected.  At least at first.
Yep, Terezi’s wearing the shoes.  Nice date gift.
--And yep, Terezi remembers all that.  She managed to do the nigh-metatextual mind merge with her other selves WITHOUT even needing God-Tier.
Yeah, Vriska always seemed fit to abandon the kismesis you deserved when it suited her, ‘rezi.  :(
JOHN: even worse, i might have tried to fix things MYSELF! TEREZI: OH D34R GOD JOHN: yeah!!!
Yeah I cackled out loud at that.
TEREZI: 34RTH C 1S P3RF3CT 1SNT 1T? TEREZI: BUT NOT FOR YOU TEREZI: YOU DONT *F33L* 1T
john swallows a thick breath. he reminds himself that he never wanted perfection, never asked for it. and yet he feels guilty every day for failing to enjoy it as much as he believes he was supposed to.
Holy shit.  John’s survivor’s guilt from all the doomed timelines he witnessed and escaped is keeping him from feeling their victory has been real, and making his “squandering” of it gut his self-esteem too.  God damnit.
Roxy and John wouldn’t have worked out????? Hey Terezi, quit it! >:[  That’s not fair, just very plausibly and authoritatively dismissing a ship we’d hoped for offscreen like--  Oh, shit, she’s alluding to something that happened in the Candy side I haven’t read isn’t she.  She would DEFINITELY have an idea of what happened on the other side of that Choice Split with her hero role.  Fuck what am I in for
....pfff, that Callie vs Dirk bit.  It’s like revenge against Doc Scratch, which it kind of IS, really.
I didn’t expect this much time to be spent dwelling on really intimate John/Terezi scenes.  It’s really refreshing!  Making this kind of meaningful no matter whether it’s black or inexplicably red they end up with or whatever, and equally meaningful if they don’t end up in any sort of relationship at all, really.
even without the aid of a juju, he is fortunate enough to be blessed with the only true form of divinity. to be released from the prison of nonsensical inhibitions which so often psychologically hobble the more primitive forms of life.
Alt!Callie, are you causing this?  I thought you wanted to be impartial.
Okay, THAT finally brought things suitably closer to the black side of romance like I would have expected.
==>
their finger hovers over dirks number for a moment, but... no. that would not be a good idea. they don’t know why they suddenly think it’s a bad idea. it just is.
Okay, THAT shred of influence is fair.  You DID say you were going to countermand his influence, so yeah.
Good excuse to get narration of her thoughts, if flimsy.  :)
Lord save me from this fake woke nightmare.
Pfffff.  Fuck you, Dirk.  ;)
ROXY: guess ill just open the damn curtains and let some light in here
FUCK you’re going to kill JADE aren’t you???? You’re giving Jade a TEMPORARY DEATH just to deny alt!Callie’s proxy?!?? That’s fucking insidious!  Fuck you, Dirk!!! That one wasn’t a loveable joke this time, that was an ACTUAL fuck you.  This epilogue is really good at making him out to be the villain now that his powers have expanded to the narrative.
Reading reading reading...
...Huh.  Is Roxy talking about coming out as non-binary and getting advice on it?  Hm!
Alright, and she’s defs a little gay for Callie from what she’s saying if it wasn’t clear before.  If “gay” even has any relevance when you’re talking about a pair of non-binary... yeah whatever.  :)
Alright, time to hear Dave talk about it all some more I guess.
--Yep, he’s only mostly gay.  Called it.  There’s a whole spectrum.
...and yeah, I mean... why NOT let it go beyond quadrants with Karkat and never slap an official label on it?  You’re just two people who love each other and want to spend time together in any capacity, be it positive or negative.  It doesn’t have to result in anything formal unless you want it to, much less boning down or something.  Dirk, stop getting creepy with how hard you’re shipping them, that’s the fanbase’s job.
Jade and Roxy are visible from this location, right?  Wasn’t it mentioned that they live in a tower in Carapaceville or whatever?  Has Dirk successfully conned alt!Callie into having her vessel shot through?  Probably.
the ongoing corruption of his cerebrally impaired daughter.
Eewwwwweweewww
Anyway yeah here comes the plot twist or whatever...
Yeah, Callie gets it wrong, and--
......ah, a tranq?  That makes more sense and is more than slightly less evil, if still ultimately evil given his eventual presumed goals or whatever.
DIRK: Like the bitch she is.
FUCK YOU
Oh, Jade’s going to be asleep for the rest of the story?  AGAIN?!????  FUCK YOU SO MUCH, DIRK.
Jesus christ.  How long is this epilogue anyway.
Taken your leave?  From this planet???  What the fuck, are you--
Oh.  Oh shit.
When Dirk ascended into absorbing the memories of all his various split selves, did he get a heaping helping of DOC SCRATCH in there too???  Was Doc Scratch’s ambition actually for POST-victory ascension in this very manner? FUCK.  Either way, him sharing some of those memories puts a pretty unique spin on his descent into goddamn evil, here.
Reading on... oh shit, did Callie write the candy half??
==>
Huh, postcoital; we actually went there.  Cool.
Ah, she gives up on Vriska?  Better find Vriska really fast, then.
Oh, you’re really going? Or, trying, anyway.
==>
Really committed to this whole ascending to literal godhood schtick, aren’t you, Dirk?
(Hm.  Makes me almost think that this situation with Rose is going to end up with someone splitting her essence entirely in two to save her; her raw Seer-ness getting forced into a convenient vessel (cueball, wonk wonk) and herself returning to consciousness a slight bit more mortal than she was before, ie not going completely insane.  Hmm.)
Oh, “Vast Fuck” sorta-maybe-confirmed..??
Stop tacitly insulting Jake as you puppet him, Dirk.  He’s a dumbass but not THAT much of a dumbass.
beta-bitch
FUCK YOU, DIRK.
She loves you, Jake, more than anything, and you toyed with her heart. 
Fuuuuuuck you.
could subsume your entire personality
Shit, he IS trying to pretty much consume them all.  Swallow their individuality and take total control of all their actions.  All Prince of Heart on the whole world.  Dirk you need to fucking DIE.
And to love Dirk is to obey him.
There isn’t a Fuck You large or loud enough to what I feel about the mental violation Dirk is inflicting on Jake right now, and everyone else around him, and I sincerely and selfishly hope this epilogue is almost over because I don’t want too many pages to stand between this one and seeing Dirk fucking PAY.
Jake opens his big, dumb mouth to make the only important contribution to the plot he ever has or ever will make in his whole sad, pointless joke of a life.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU
Let’s hope that in your hubris your looking away managed to let him say something different or some such.
==>
You try to remember if you’ve ever been revived by Jane before. You honestly can’t recall. So much shit has happened. Maybe?
Yeah, I don’t recall either really.
The poison needling through you is antithetical to narrative relevance. You’re not dying, John. You’re being erased. Cherubs don’t fuck around. We’ve both been learning that the hard way.
Okay, fuck?  How the hell?  Is this just because Dirk says it is, or???
I guess it’s tragic, though maybe not in the conventional sense. My view is, the real tragedy with you, John, is that you never mattered all that much.
Yeah, Dirk’s first fucking rant when he took over the narrative officially was about John being a you-insert nobody average guy, and the DISDAIN he shows to everything about who John is is pretty goddamn insulting.  He has NO concept of how John managed to bring everyone together or... UGH!
even though you knew both then and now that it was the only choice you possibly could have made.
Dammit, so it probably WASN’T a full timeline-bisecting Mind split.  Just a side branch that wasn’t as likely, because just like with his Denizen, John’s will was tilted toward this part of the choice.  D:
I see how some of this seems to be going, or at least think I do... Dirk thinks that John needs to die heroically “for the good of the story”, and something’s potentially going to come in and say “no”?  That the whole reason they WON was to essentially be free of that cruel logic once and for all, and that Dirk is gonna get one hell of a smackdown for trying futilely to enforce it in their new post-victory domain??
She listens to him bleed while she smells him die.
--That, and fulfilling bits of foreshadowing for shits and giggles.  >:(
Huh, “friable”, didn’t even know that was a word.  Just looked it up; you learn something new every day.
Okay what is Dirk planning with the fucking body.
==>
Jane swept the election, of course. I told you I was going to win. After Jake’s incoherent and scandalous heel-turn at Karkat’s ill-fated rally, no amount of esoteric, three-dimensional jpeg artefacts could have salvaged the Vantas campaign. 
Ah, but is that what REALLY happened, or what you’re saying happened, about to be overwritten?
Mainly that their BFF Jade has been in a coma for an entire month. They’ve been in and out of the hospital handling her affairs. Her next of kin is listed as John Egbert, and no one’s seen him in ages. It’s like he just disappeared suddenly. Like some great hand came out of the sky and crossed his name off the big list of guys we ever need to give a shit about anymore.
F U C K  Y O U
Roxy, after all, and since her big heart-to-heart about the personal politics of queer onion metaphors, and ten stages of galaxy-braining through the many vicissitudes of the phrase “no homo,” Roxy has decided to really step up her gender experimentation. I guess at this point she’s gone beyond Stage Ten. Which I imagine is somewhat like reaching Super Saiyan 2 of gender, and then going even further beyond.
Holy crap, she’s going full Dave Lalonde.  That’s pretty sweet.
...Isn’t Terezi like obviously covered in blood and stuff?
ROXY: they stay home all day with the blinds drawn paintin some weird ass shit on the walls
Oh my fucking GOD real!Callie please save the plot.  Nuke this self-indulgent Dirkshit.
ROXY: like lotsa nasty purple blood and um ROXY: nudity???? TEREZI: >:? ROXY: yeah yikes ROXY: but MOST of it is cute stuff like... various combos of all of us being happy and gettin married and shit ROXY: anyway thats kept callie kinda busy
...This is an allusion to the Candy side I haven’t read, isn’t it?  Maybe THAT’s part of what she supplants this bullshit with.  Or since it mentions “various combinations”, she’s restoring the possibility to everything that the ending was supposed to have?
This is potentially a real fucking indictment of the idea of a narrative-driven ending when what actually mattered was the characters’ escape from said narrative.  :)
ROXY: its like theyre traumatized ROXY: and they think ill drag whatever possessed jade back into our home with me
Okay fuck maybe Callie ISN’T helping.  Maybe she’s just so worried about the alternate history she could have lead that she’s retreating into every Candy-like fanfic she can think of.  :(
What’s with the phone buzz?  The intervention we’ve been hoping for, since Dirk’s making her ignore it?
Oh cool, figures Terezi’s been hearing the narrative all along and just politely not acknowledging the fact that she hears it!  Maybe SHE’LL help unfuck this mess.  (And according to her, Roxy’s gone full “him” too!)
Fuck fuck fuck Terezi don’t listen to him go against his bullshit instead
Where, canon? Is that where you’re planning to escape back to or some such, with yourself as the author? Is that orange Andrew actually you or some BS?
Dammit.
==>
FUCK, “new body”????
The new body I’ve made for her won’t have much use for her usual ensembles. That’s all I was saying.
FUCK FUCK FUCK it IS the cueball isn’t it.  Holy shit.  That’s even worse than a robot.  FZUCZK
Okay calm down.  The Rose part of Rose can be cut away and rescued from this fate somehow, if she isn’t just whole-hog rescued entirely which would also be good.  FUCK DIRK
...look purple? What?
DIRK: What’s happening here is the best thing for everybody.
Yeah, go fuck yourself.  This shit had better be undone soon.
To finally face the truth. If Rose has been spending more time with me than you, if she’s realizing she resonates more with me due to our natural similarities and finds my presence more rewarding than yours, then what does that say about YOU, Kanaya?
PFFFF. YOU’RE GONNA BREAK UP THE PAIRING JUST SO YOU CAN STEAL HER?  HAHAHAHAHAHA NO.
Okay, after THAT page’s last bit of horrid manipulation, this can’t end in any way that doesn’t involve ages of existential and literal torment for Dirk, forever.
==>
Epilogue Seven, huh.  One last thing he wants to take care of before getting out of dodge, huh.  I see Karkat and Dave’s text colors on screen.  Is he going to try to force them to finally bone down or confess?  This would be the perfect place for his plan to get fucking stopped.
Homestuck, stop making my fucking stomach clench so hard.
That’s a hell of a disaster Dirk thought up for these guys on that stage.
Part of this whole shitshow might be to tell us that this ending, this “fanfic” of dubious authenticity of an epilogue that Dirk is giving us is how DIRK believes it would end best for everyone involved, but not how everyone else would, ignoring their wills... while also discarding the idea of the epilogue that any individual reader of Homestuck would want in favor of the possibilities he meant to leave open with the ending.
Alright, here comes Dirk NOT forcing them to bone down but rather trying to persuade-brainwash them into a relationship talk.
DAVE: so what youre saying is you believe in me who believes in you
Dave. Please.
Hey, the Gurren Lagaan reference went WAY too long unsaid.  Even if Andrew literally didn’t know a thing about said anime when he made the character designs.
I look Dave right in his mind’s eye and tell him to cut it the fuck out. He wants it, you want it, so just go for it, my man. It’s now or never.
DAVE: oh DAVE: same
I feel every brain cell in my immortal body begin to perish in real time.
BAAHAHAHAAHHhahahha FUCK YOU Dirk.
I mean, I want Dave and Karkat together as much as the next guy but FUUUUUUUCK YOU DIRK!!! I want everything you ever wanted to go wrong and shit on you.  Their equivocating soft-nearly-mance is strong enough to go even against you, who thinks yourself the narrative fucking Sun.
Oh this is fantastic
I’ve literally been decapitated and that was less unbearable than this.
YES KEEP FALLING APART
You see that twinkle? That’s devotion, you unbelievably dense neutron star of a dumbshit.
Nice callback to... what was it, Dave’s first rant at Tavros to troll him back or whatever?
radially effervescing kaleidoscope of more hot boy peckers than you could ever imagine.
Yep, DEFINITELY a callback to that. I’ll never forget the sick flow of that metaphor.
DAVE: i just keep having thoughts i know id never think
SAVE US DAVE
Dammit, near miss.
The privilege of a Strider Eye Moment is about the most earth-shattering experience a young man will ever have in his life. 
Pfff
DAVE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD AND JUST LET ME DO THIS MYSELF!!!
yaaaaaayyy
I mean we didn’t save the whole story yet but at least Dirk got fucked over and we still get Davekat intimacy.
That’s pretty classy actually, not getting into detail and just sounding blown the fuck away by it even though he’s Dirk.  That’s pretty good.
==>
Something about the height of Rose, roughly Rose-shaped, and wrapped in a cloth. I know she’s gonna love it the first time she sees it.
Oh so it IS a robot body.  Well, fuck you a little less than it potentially being the magic cueball, but STILL fuck you.
I may have already mentioned, but I’m a bit too deft at this for my own good. Doing the thing where I tug at the part of someone’s latent thought process that already knows they adore me. That if someone would just pull the stops from their sense of inhibition, they’d realize they would do anything for me.
It’s called killing their soul with your role abilities you ASSHOLE
I hope this crush you filled him with bites you in the fucking ass now that he’s here.
DIRK: I won’t be coming back, Jake.
Oh, so you’re just going to drop the truth on him like that? Let’s see how that works out for you, asshole.
DIRK: Jane needs you now more than ever.
Oh fuck you.  This is “best for everyone”, huh?????
DIRK: You’ll just be, you know. DIRK: Her candy boy? JAKE: CANDY BOY??? DIRK: Yeah. Being on call. DIRK: Serving a multimillion-year term of giving her the right kind of “presidential action” she needs to keep going. To keep her morale up and such. DIRK: To provide her with many heirs. DIRK: Doesn’t that sound cool? JAKE: HEIRS??
Um.  What the fuck?  Is this even Dirk anymore?  It’s not Condesce intervention, I’m not going to try and suspect that just from the callback or anythiiiii-----
Fuck, we DID just get an alive Meenah dropped into a universe somewhere.
Maybe this IS Condesce intervention. Just a different Condesce.  o_O
Two ticks longer than he ever deserved.
Gah???
DIRK: But I’ll never let you break my heart again.
So this was all just revenge for dumping him??????????????
==>
Guh, back to Kanaya-- wait, why does Dirk want Terezi around, anyway?
Jade wakes up and then-- Okay. Okay my eyes flitted down to the green halfway down the page and I saw this phrase before I actually got to it.
JADE: DIRK STRIDER HAS TO BE STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!
Thank FUCK.
Anyway reading the in-between...
The scope of her awareness, she now understands, is truly staggering. Memories are suddenly accessible that are almost impossible to believe. Some of them are unspeakably marvelous to her. Others, deeply disturbing.
FUCKING COOL she got Ultimate-Selved!  Now she knows too much about what’s going on to stop her!  Get fucked, Dirk!!!!
No, more than just disturbing. She lingers in the dark recesses of her consciousness. There were things she saw, things she was told... Her mouth twists into a silent snarl. She’s been angry plenty of times before. But never so angry that she stopped being cute. She’s not cute this time.
YEAAAAAHHH JADE GET ANGRY
This had better not be Dirk intentionally riling her up since he still has control of the narrative though.
Next post.
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