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babiestmunson · 2 years

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Born to be my baby

Inspired in Bon Jovi’s song Born to be my baby

If we stand side by side (all night) There's a chance we'll get by (and it's alright) And I'll know that you'll be live In my heart till the day that I die

'Cause you were born to be my baby And baby, I was made to be your man

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem Henderson! Reader

Summary: Eddie drops the L word to you with a grand gesture and you think nothing can go wrong anymore, before everything goes to hell.

Warning: Coursing but this is pure fluff my friends. Also english is not my first language so sorry for any mistake

A/N: Let me know what you think, like and reblog are always appreciate. And if you like to request something would make me very happy. Anyways, just a little something I did while we wait for Joseph with Jimmy Fallon.

A little background story between Eddie and reader: The colors suit him

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“What are the plans for tonight doll?" Eddie's voice is calm and focused as he's walking behind you holding a ridiculous amount of tapes that need to be organized. Robin and Steve hate with a capital H to organize the tapes and you don't really mind; as long as your boss doesn't interfere, you take care of it while your friends help you with the other stuff you need to do. Since apparently your boyfriend can't be separated from you, he often would appear at your job with silly excuses as of why he was stopping by:

"You have my cassette"

"Wanted to check the new movies"

"Can you help me finish my homework?"

The last one wasn’t silly, he was trying really hard to pass all his classes and graduate, so he would go asking for help or simply sit on the floor with his notes studying and such. You were so proud of him; he began to think about your future together and was sure ‘86 was his year.

"I was thinking that maybe you could stop by for a late late lunch and then we got back together to school"

“Are you going to the game Eddie?”

“Very funny love. Hellfire is starting later today”

“If you already have a plan, why did you ask?”

You smile fondly at each other, Eddie was a dedicated boyfriend, not only he filled you with love but support. It was no secret that you were saving as much as you could to go to college and sometimes it felt impossible. Your mom was a great help since she let you keep all of your salary for your savings, still wasn’t enough, the amount of money you needed was a goal that now you were sure couldn’t reach.

With Eddie’s support you no longer felt like that way. He’d support you no matter what, you appreciate it a lot when on long days we’d wait for you in his trailer or your house to take care of you. He was the definition of doe eyes and you truly believe that he holds the entire galaxy in them, they were very expressive as if telling you what he wanted, you just have to learn how to read them.

Eddie stayed with you for about ten more minutes before he had to go to join Hellfire. He told you about how Chrissy asked him to sell her something stronger than his usuals and how she was acting weird, even made a play by play of him trying to comfort her, he tried to be subtle but ridiculously failed because of his dramatic personality. He offered her to go to his trailer after the game to sell her something else, maybe she could think about it and change her mind. That’s your big scary satanist cult leader Hawkins.

You knew Chrissy from a distance and thought of her as a sweet kind girl, couldn’t agree more when Eddie told you that her dating Jason was horrendous, she deserved so much better. For a moment you felt a pinch of jealousy, it was no secret to you that Eddie used to have a crush on her, like every other boy in Hawkins, you weren’t scared of having those kind of awkward conversations with him, both of you have decided that it was for the best to be completely open; “It’s what's best for our relationship princess, I don’t want us to sabotage this”.

At first his idea sounded like a huge mistake, you didn’t know if you would be able to be that open, but turns out he was right, you could talk to each other about anything and everything. One day you were laying in his van and started talking about your days in high school, he messed around saying that you never noticed him but that was a lie, you always thought he was pretty handsome and funny, but that was it. Back then you had a huge crush on Billy, Max’s stepbrother, but after a series of events you finally noticed that he was an asshole, as the redhead had been telling you. Your confession didn’t surprise Eddie, from the moment Billy stepped onto the school grounds he took all the girls’ attention, even competing with Steve Harrington. And when he told you about how in middle school he started to have a crush on Chrissy after the talent show, you mock him a lot, it was cute. That was your dynamic and it made the relationship more beautiful. You had fights here and there but because of your way of communication with each other it was easier to resolve the problems.

Back to the present, after a long shift you finally arrive at Eddie’s trailer and knock on the door; he ran quickly to open but instead of letting you enter he walked out. You laugh asking what he was doing, he just let out a big smile and gave you a tight hug and a kiss on your forehead, freshly bath he smelled like his lavender shampoo and mint gum.

“Eddie, really what is happening?”

“You have to promise that what you’re about to see and hear won’t change us”

“Why? You have some other girl in there? Maybe another boy?”

He laughed and intertwined his fingers with yours, guiding you to the door of the trailer, you were about to open when he let go of your hand and stood behind putting his hands on your eyes. You started to feel excited and nervous, every time he touched you a rush of emotions ran through your body, and this was no exception, plus he was planning something. One of the things you love about Eddie was his playful personality, taking things seriously wasn’t difficult as he knew how to deal with it but he much rather take life the easy way. He especially had a gift to make you laugh while giving you a pep talk.

“Ok, ready princess 1…2…3” he took his hands from your eyes and stood in front of you, holding a red tulip. You couldn't speak, hell you were barely even breathing. In the middle of the living room was a pizza and a bottle of wine on a tv tray, the curtains were closed so the room could be enlightened with some candles and of course there were flowers. Some red roses were carefully dispersed all over the place and rose petals garnishing the tv tray. You knew your children and recognized their pillows and blankets on the floor to make everything look cozier. Max, Lucas, Mike and of course your brother Dustin had been helping Eddie with the preparations, they had a bet going as to why the metalhead was doing it. He didn’t know that.

“Eddie…” you had tears burning your eyes and the moment you spoke they would fall all over your face. You manage to say his name but a knot on your throat stops you from saying anything else.

“M’lady, allow me to offer you this humble flower as proof of my devotion for you. I know it’s beneath you. If i could I’d travel the world to collect and give you every tulip in this miserable world” he handed you the tulip and you took it carrying it to your chest. “But being Dungeon Master does not pay a lot”

You laugh, finally letting all the tears roll down. With the urge of a thousand dragons, you closed the space between and hugged him. You hug him like never before allowing you to smell his scent and feel his body, with no hesitation he cupped your face and kissed you not letting you cut the closeness. Eddie loved the taste of your lips, he sometimes wondered if it was your strawberry chapstick or just your natural sweet taste, it was majestic how soft you felt and how he couldn’t get enough. The kiss got intense with your tongue making its way into his mouth, you just grabbed him because you couldn't get any closer to him. Your heartbeats merging, he tasted like sunshine on a warm summer day as well as a cold fall breeze. He didn’t want to but made himself stop, every time you kissed his mind floated away making it hard for him to think, mainly the reason why he stopped the kiss, he had something important to say.

“It’s true, I wanted to fill the room with tulips, but those shits are expensive” You told him your favorite flowers were tulips because they had a delicate elegance no other flower had, and because for its simple shape, the first flowers you learn how to draw. This was back when you first started to speak. And he remembered it. “That’s why I bought one red tulip and red roses. They kinda match”

“It’s ok Eds, this is perfect” Eddie leads you to your pillow and sits in front of you.

“Remember when I said that I was all in? When we had our first date I mean” you just nodded and took his hand softly drawing circles in his skin in an attempt to calm him down as he looked nervous. “Well, I want you to know that at this moment I’m more sure than ever that I’m all in. When I asked you to be my girlfriend, I couldn’t make it special because I was so broke. I had to make out with you so you wouldn’t notice it had been a lame moment” you laugh at the memory; it had been intimate and wouldn’t change any detail about it.

“Anyways, you are amazing Y/N Henderson. Every quality you have fights in my head to see which one I love the most about you and I enjoy being with you way too much. I keep thinking about what we’d do when we’re together and the thought of losing you because you realize I’m just a screwed up terrifies me… but I know that we’re a great team together, you make me want to be a better person and do something for myself so I can be on your level. I know that we can take whatever the future throws at us if we're together because… because I love you Y/N”

You paralyze at hearing the words you only thought you’d hear in your dreams. He can only watch you, hoping you feel the same or at least can bear the fact that he loves you and won’t change your relationship. Suddenly he notices the small smile on your lips grow onto a bigger one. In a quick bustle you sit on his lap and give him small kisses across his face with your arms around his neck hugging him close.

“I love you too Eddie, so so much. I can’t imagine my life without you” his eyes lit up and he started competing with you with small kisses, he’s faster than you and giggled every time he gave you a quick kiss on the lips. It’s also very amusing to him how slow your reflexes are. “But don’t you ever say that my boyfriend is a screwed up again or I’ll beat your ass, people would be lucky to have him in their lives”.

After staring at each other for what it felt like years, the two of you proceed to eat and talk. The room was quickly filled with laughs and hopeful words; after confessing their love you started to talk about your future together. Once Eddie graduates, you’d move out to a big city and both get a job. It didn’t have to be someplace fancy, you couldn’t afford it anyway, but big enough for the kids and Robin and Steve to come. Meanwhile you’d still save for college or maybe even start in a community college that had an art program while Eddie would pursue his dream of making it in the music industry.

It will be a bumpy road for sure, right you were nothing but kids hitching down the road of life although if you stay side by side there is a big chance you’ll get by. Being religious was never a scene of yours; you’d seen the evil that could exist, but also the good and all your experiences made you believe that life had a plan for you and Eddie. Only God would know the reasons…

“What would happen if you don’t make it?” you were currently sitting between his legs with your back on his chest and turned around to see him. His eyes were staring at the ceiling, immersed in his thoughts. His look made you realized he was talking to himself, the future was scary if you’d fucked up it would only be your responsibility only. This was your life you were talking about.

“Well, I’ve always thought that the future is not necessarily a one-way road you know? Like, I want to major in art history and work for a museum, but there are other options” you turn your body to be face to face with your legs around his waist. “I could work in a gallery, or a magazine or teach; I just hope one day I’ll be able to open a small coffee shop where I can help aspiring artists sell their paintings and sculptures and books. So yeah, I believe you can make it however you want because you don’t know what the future holds. As long as you keep your passion for music, you’ll make it Eddie”.

“Before you, I’d only see the clouds, but you’d teach me to see the sun also. I really love you Y/N, please stay with me forever” he grabbed your hand and put it in his chest after giving it a small kiss. “Because princess, I’m sure you were born to be my baby and I was made to be your man”

After hours a couple of hours of being together in the trailer you head on your way to school, you had promised Lucas to see him at the game because maybe he’d play, at school you would see the game behind Robin who was in the band while Eddie will be with Dustin and the rest of hellfire playing D&D. You planned everything, after finishing his campaign and the game your boyfriend would go to his trailer to meet Chrissy, in the meantime you’ll head to your house to get clothes and see him later.

You couldn’t stop feeling butterflies in your stomach and your smile never looked more sincere, Eddie had just told you that he loves you with a grand gesture. You were ready for whatever life had prepared for you, you had a lovely family, great friends and a boyfriend that had proven to love you enormously. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

#eddie x reader #eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fic #eddie fanfic #joseph quinn #eddie imagine #eddie munson imagine #eddie fluff #eddie munson fluff #joseph quinn fanfiction #joseph quinn fic #joseph quinn x reader #stranger things fanfiction

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silvercrane14 · 2 years

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Sometimes I think about how I would explain my fixations to my parents and. I think they’d have a field day with Ryuseitai

#crane screams #ryuseitai #enstars #ensemble stars #“ok ok so. they’re an idol group. but they dress and act like power rangers. and the leader has a hero complex and he’s the red one and-#he’s in gay love with the blue one and the blue one likes floating in pools and fountains and like. he just does that he never goes-#to school and anyways he used to be the leader of a cult- we’ll get back to that #anyways next up are the children they adopted because they’re third years and the unit kinda went downhill bc ppl were lazy it’s a thing-#anyways next is green he just doesn’t want to be there and he’s so beloved actually none of the kids want to be there but they grow and -#learn and become family anyways #black is part of the karate club and wants to become the manliest man ever to live and so he’s super fired up all the time but also he’s -#babey #anyways the last one is Shinobu he’s yellow he’s part of the ninja association but he’s still in training and also the only member of the-#association anyways any questions?#I should send this to my friend who knows nothing about enstars

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grayintogreen · 3 years

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How do you think Lucien's upbringing was for him to give that evil monologue? I'm specially curious about the "Someone needed to be the parent. When children have been acting out, well, making a mess of their potential, for this long even, a responsible caretaker must show discipline, enact punishment, and take the reins with force". Do you think Lucien was a gifted child who grew up to be the average adult or something like that?

This is actually funny, because Lucien gives that huge ass speech after he EXPLICITLY TOLD THE M9 HE DIDN'T HAVE FAMILY, so like LUCIEN. YOU FUCKING ORPHAN. WHAT DO YOU KNOW.

But I'm going to tell you!

Here's the thing- Lucien gives off two very strong vibes to me, and these two things make up the entire crux of his personality as I, personally see it.

1. Massively self-sufficient.

2. Gifted child who was never challenged properly.

Lucien very much gives off the Dad Friend Vibe of the Tombtakers in like the worst possible way. Like not the NICE Dad Friend. The Dad Friend who has a belt and will use it on you. You know... The, uh... Cult Leader Vibe. What is a cult leader but the worst kind of dad friend. Yikes. Anyway.

So I think most of his speech about caretakers are specific to how HE has viewed wrangling the Tombtakers for however many years he's been doing it, because as someone who has been massively self-sufficient he has had to be his own parent and thus feels he is qualified to be the parent to others, even if he's being a parent to other children. I don't think that came from a place of experience, because I feel like if an adult beat that into him, he would have marginally different issues. Like that whole spiel doesn't sound like it comes from a place of emotional pain, so much as it's just him listing facts about what he thinks parents are supposed to do. It's a very by the book, intellectual response, like someone who has taught himself how to behave like that because It Is Logical And Right. Like in comparison, Lucien, in that same speech, reacts deeply emotionally to one single thing- the way he says "and they chose ME to be their herald" is one of the single most choked up line deliveries he ever gives. THAT is where his emotional pain comes from. He didn't feel special and the Somnovem made him feel special, but WE WILL GET TO THAT. Stick a pin in that.

Honestly, it sounds like Lucien seems to consider ANYONE who isn't him a child, despite the fact that he is CANONLY IN HIS MID-TWENTIES. He talks down to literally every single person he meets. He acts like he walks into rooms, looks at everyone assembled, and immediately is like "wow which of you fucks are wasting your potential in here, have you tried not doing that." I think some of this is just that he has gone so far beyond "enlightenment" that everyone is Lesser than he is, but I also firmly believe he was just Like That. If he sees people who are useful to him, then of course his "parental" nature (re: his manipulative streak) is going to want to try and nurture that potential. I don't even think he actively considers it being manipulative. He thinks he's doing people a favor.

The way he talks about the Somnovem to Cree about how he wanted to save them as they saved him ultimately boils down to this: he believed the Somnovem couldn't function without his intervention and he was the only person who had the skill and imagination to direct them the way they needed to go. And I think he's thought that about A LOT of people over the years. It's not malicious to him. It's not cruel- even if what he does to get obedience probably is. It's for their own good. Again- yikes. He's a fucked up person, y'all.

Now the gifted kid thing gets into some "oh god are you projecting on this villain chris" shit, because I am a former, massively understimulated gifted kid who burned out in high school because I was bored too often and spent more time daydreaming than I did paying attention.

Guess what Lucien's calling card is? Oh right. He's a dreamer.

That's Lucien. Lucien is a gifted kid who had NOWHERE to put his gifts. He's gifted in a town where half the population can't even read, so of course he developed a massive complex about being the smartest in the room, the only TRUE adult, even when he was, yanno a KID.

See when I was in elementary school, I was just soooo smart. I was reading HIGH SCHOOL level books for FUN and ooooooh so cool. Yeah, I'm not even bragging about it. Every gifted kid I have ever met has this same story, and I can be flippant about it because I know where it goes. You get into high school and your brain hits a goddamn brick wall and you get anxiety because you're not the most special anymore. Oh look! There's that pin I put there. I told you we'd circle back to that.

For Lucien, high school was probably the Orders. The Orders are an INTELLIGENCE-BASED organization, meaning for the first time in his life, Lucien isn't the smartest person in the room, because everyone is smart, so he no longer has that advantage he once had and he's no longer special. That is DEVASTATING to deal with, and because Lucien already had a massive superiority complex, instead of burning out and getting passing grades and ultimately resigning himself to a mediocre life of Blood Huntering, he went "no it is the ORDERS who are wrong" and fucked off with his posse.

Which meant that the FIRST THING that made him feel special and validated his existence, he went whole ham on, and then the minute it wasn't what he thought it was, he switched gears and decided "no, I AM special. You just need a little but of parental guidance, and we'll do this properly."

tl;dr: Lucien is 100% what you get when a gifted kid goes absolutely balls to the wall insane. As a former gifted kid, can confirm that I might have sold my soul to a bunch of eldritch sugar daddies if they validated me enough too. I won't lie.

#critical role #lucien the nonagon #lucien #the tombtakers #my asks

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five-rivers · 3 years

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Snow and Song Chapter 5

About five seconds after Danny registered the huge crowd of people gathered in the park (and why were they there? Had there been some kind of event he forgot about?), it began to snow. Danny looked around himself in alarm. He was often insensitive to temperature changes (and a few other things, according to his sister), but it wasn’t nearly cold enough snow. It was September.

He looked up. There weren’t even any clouds.

A snowflake, perfect and crystalline, stuck to his eyelash.

Alright. When something weird and unnatural started to happen in Amity Park, usually there was a ghost involved. All Danny had to do was find the ghost causing it to… snow…

Oh. Right. He was a ghost that could make snow.

He was an idiot. He hadn’t even noticed his core activating. His cheeks flushed with cold. This was so embarrassing.

Wincing, he looked back down at the crowd. Only about a tenth of the people had phones in their hands, winking camera lenses pointed up at him, but that was more than enough. He felt entirely too visible.

… Which he could fix because he was a ghost, darn it, something that he kept forgetting about tonight. Berating himself, he adjusted his visibility down to zero and flew away.

Almost at once, all the birds took off, the sound of wings obscuring whatever the humans down below were saying.

Danny didn’t stop until he got home, trailing snow all the while. He was not looking forward to tomorrow, but for tonight, maybe, he could forget what had happened.

He went human, phased off his clothes, laid down on his bed, closed his eyes, and started to-

“Maddie!” shouted Jack. “The ghost-kid is on TV again! He’s in the park!”

“Oh, good! Go start up the GAV! This time, we’ll catch him! I’ll be with you in a minute!”

Danny let out the breath he had been holding since his dad startled him from his doze in a long sigh. He resigned himself to being woken up at least once more that night.

The first rays of sunlight filtering through Danny’s window brought with them something that would have chilled Danny to the core if his core weren’t naturally frosty.

Music.

He peeled his eyes open slowly, grudgingly, because it was still September, and sunrise was still quite a bit before the time he had to get up in the morning. Hoping he was hallucinating, he trudged over to the window and pulled back the curtains.

Ah, yes. He hadn’t quite expected to find a bunch of cultists standing outside his house with a boombox, playing back a rather scratchy version of Tale as Old as Time, but, somehow, he was unsurprised to do so. What exactly were they attempting to accomplish here?

One of the younger (about six years old) cultists waved up at him. Resigned, Danny waved back, then let the curtain fall back down.

He rubbed his eyes. Normal teenagers didn’t have to deal with cults that worshiped them as a god. Even that dude from Nazareth was a full adult before he got hit with the heavy stuff.

(Yeah, because it wasn’t at all a sign of megalomania, mental instability, or good old-fashioned insanity to compare himself to that guy.)

(He didn’t want a cult, darn it.)

What did they want, anyway?

He got dressed and started downstairs. To his horror (but again, not surprise) he heard more music emanating from the kitchen.

“What are you guys doing?” Danny asked.

“Oh, morning, Danno!” boomed Jack.

“Shh, shh,” said Maddie. “We need to go over that last part again. There are pancakes on the stove, sweetie.”

“Oh,” said Danny. “Thanks. But, really, what are you doing?”

“Analyzing the sound patterns of Phantom’s voice!” said Jack. “We missed it before, but he must have a low-level mind control power! Just like that Rockstar ghost!”

“Sneaky post-human ectoplasm glob,” muttered Maddie. “That’s how he’s got so many people on his side. He’s brainwashing them. But don’t worry, sweetie. As soon as we figure out how he’s doing it, we’ll be working on a cure!”

“Well,” said Danny, trying not to sound bitter. They had made him pancakes. “That’s news to me.”

Danny stepped out of the house and sighed in the general direction of the cult.

As always, acknowledging them in any way shape or form proved to be a mistake. They rushed at him.

“Daniel Fenton,” intoned today’s leader, a man wearing robes colored in an approximation of Phantom’s suit. His beard was… interesting.

“What?” asked Danny. If only there was a way to skip through awkward conversations like this, like there was in video games. But, no, life was like one, huge, un-skippable cutscene. Tragic.

“Last night, our Lord Phantom gave us a message. A message, and a divine task.”

Danny was pretty sure he’d remember that. “What task?” he asked, resigned.

“To spread his word through song! And you, his prophet, his chosen, his blessed consort, shall reveal his intent upon the stage of the Casper High School Musical!”

“I’m begging you, call it anything but that.”

“We will do anything to make the Casper High School Musical go well! We are at your command!”

“Please stop picketing my house and harassing me on the way to school.”

“We have fine members of our choir here to audition for you! Please take word of their worthiness to our Lord Phantom.”

Several of the cultists began to sing.

“Danny!” called Jazz from the driveway. “Stop feeding the cultists, or we’re going to be late for school!”

“So,” said Sam. “The Ghost Watch feed blew up last night.”

“I know,” said Danny. “I feel so stupid.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” said Tucker. “But we really do have to put some time aside to test whether or not you really do have a pied piper ability.”

“I made it snow while I was singing,” said Danny.

“Ah. We’ll have to look into that, too,” said Tucker, making a note on his PDA. “Who wants to bet that the ‘Phan Club’ will try to incorporate last nights performance into the play somehow?”

“That’s not funny,” said Danny, closing his locker. “Guys, what if I accidently mind control the audience? Or start a snowstorm inside? The cultists are already on top of this. They were outside my house this morning.”

“Again?” said Sam, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, again.”

“What did they want?”

“They seem to think that there’s going to be some kind of revelation in the play,” said Danny. He caught the look in Sam’s eye. “Sam. No.”

“Sam, yes.”

“Cults are not a toy,” cautioned Danny.

“Not the way you’re using them, they aren’t.”

“Seriously, Sam. No matter how much you want to change the world, do not use a cult to do it. It never goes well.”

“Christianity started off as a cult.”

“And would you say that went well? I’m asking you this as a Christian.”

“Are you a Christian?” asked Tucker. “I’ve never seen you in a church. Can you go in a church? Have we tested that?”

“I—What? I’m not a demon, Tucker. I went to church, uh… Last Easter. I can totally go in a church.”

“You had to think of that for an awfully long time.”

“What about a synagogue?” asked Sam. “Or a mosque?”

“I don’t know. But you’d think that if I could go into a church, that’d mean I could go into the other ones.”

“But what if you couldn’t?” asked Sam. “Would that mean that religion is more right than the others?”

“Or more wrong,” said Tucker, “since Danny is a good guy.”

“I—” started Danny.

“PHANTOM!” screamed Wes from down the hall, interrupting whatever revelation Danny could potentially have had.

“Oh, great,” said Danny. “I’m not Phantom, Weston!”

“Kids,” said Miss Lyn, poking her head into the hallway. “Please don’t shout in the halls. Class is about to start.”

“I have proof, this time!” crowed Wes. “I have video.”

“Oh, no,” said Danny, with perfectly flat affect. “Are you here to harass me with yet another badly photoshopped, grainy, vertically filmed, twenty-second clip of me ‘transforming’ into Phantom like some kind of anime heroine?”

Wes reared back, face coloring and nostrils flaring.

Danny would feel worse about what he had said, if half the videos in Wes’s last ‘Fenton is Phantom’ presentation hadn’t been exactly that. Tucker had made several of them and stealthily dropped them in various chat rooms for Wes to find, as something halfway between a joke and an exercise in misdirection.

As soon as Wes had included one of those in his presentation, it was doomed to be a laughingstock. Again, Danny almost felt bad.

“No!” said Wes. He puffed his chest out. “From Ghost Watch!”

“Uh huh.”

“I kind of feel like we’d be hearing about it from more than just you,” said Sam.

“Yeah,” agreed Tucker. “If the news decided Danny was Phantom’s dead twin or whatever, you’d think some of his groupies would be swarming.” He pointed at a pair of Phan Club members who were having a sedate conversation near the water fountain. “Where are the groupies, Wes?”

“Did you not learn your lesson from the beauty pageant?” asked Sam. “Or Egypt?”

“I don’t know, didn’t you learn yours from Desiree?”

“Who’s learning what from Desiree? Because you should ask her for a better naming sense. I mean, you just copied. Lame.”

“You’re talking to me about copying? You vegans are the copiers! Vegetable burgers, tofurkey, where does it end?”

“With the abolition of the cruelty of MEAT!”

At this point, most people would have started edging away from Sam and Tucker’s patented and infamous meat vs. veggies argument. However, Wes had long since proven himself to be of sterner stuff, and Danny wanted to hear what he was on about.

“Guys,” he said, “guys, it’s not working. He’s still here.”

Sam and Tucker turned back towards Wes. “Bummer,” said Sam.

“Yeah, Wes, why do you have to be such a bummer?” asked Tucker.

“Let him speak,” said Danny, magnanimously, twirling his hand.

Wes glowered. “Well, now I don’t want to,” he said, mulishly.

“Come on, Wes, what’s the video, don’t leave us in suspense!”

Wes attempted to glower harder but failed. Grudgingly, he held up his phone, which did, indeed, play a video from Ghost Watch. Danny watched himself singing for several long seconds before returning his gaze to Wes.

“I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove.”

“The song, you idiot! It’s from Beauty and the Beast! And I know the drama club gave you that music.”

“A movie that thousands of thousands of people have watched and know the music for?”

“That doesn’t matter! You’re the only one who has any reason to sing it.”

“You mean, other than everyone else in the drama club?” asked Sam, bored.

“Or anyone who likes Disney?” said Tucker.

Wes opened his mouth to make some kind of riposte.

The warning bell rang.

He closed his mouth. “I’m watching you, Fenton!”

“You and everyone else,” muttered Danny as Wes retreated down the hallway, pointing at him.

Why was everyone around him so ridiculous?

“We’re doing Snow White, not Beauty and the Beast!” howled Razor, baring his teeth at the hapless Phan Club member that had suggested adding ‘Tale as Old as Time’ to the song list.

“If you guys had taken that bet, I’d have so much money right now,” said Tucker.

“Students, please,” said Mr. Lancer. “We can’t have any actual copyrighted music in our play. Not without paying for it. And I’m not negotiating with Disney.” He looked into the distance. “Not again. Never again.”

Danny did not want to know the story behind that, but nevertheless, he had to ask… “Are you okay, Mr. Lancer?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Lancer. “Thank you for asking. In any case, my lovely drama students! Today, we are going to do our first round of auditions!”

“But, sir, we haven’t finished the script, yet!” protested Mikey.

“Right you are!” said Mr. Lancer. “But I have found that things go more smoothly when we have people already in the main roles. There’s less… outright sabotage and script jockeying.”

“What does that even mean?” whispered Samhain (aka Kevin) loudly.

“People trying to change the script to fit a certain person so that person gets the role,” said Paulina. “Or exclude a certain person. Which I would never do, Mr. Lancer.”

The covetous glare shot in Danny’s direction indicated that Paulina’s words might have been less than truthful.

Mr. Lancer chuckled. “I didn’t think you would, Miss Sanchez!” He began writing on his whiteboard. “Now, we already have our Prince Snow White, our Princess Charming, and our Evil Queen.” He nodded at Paulina as he wrote the roles on the board. “Now, we need our seven dwarves—”

“Ghosts!”

“Excuse me, yes, ghosts. Thank you, Mr. Baxter. Our Huntsman—”

“Or woman!”

“Yes, thank you, Miss Thunder,” said Mr. Lancer. “Huntsman, or Huntswoman. And… Let’s see… Snow White’s parents, for the prologue, Princess Charming’s retinue, and… I think that’s it. Alright, let’s start with the ghosts.”

“Shouldn’t they have names?” asked Mia.

“Well, sure,” said Mr. Lancer. “But we can’t use the Disney names. You’ll have to come up with your own.”

“Phantom!” screamed Paulina.

“Here we go,” said Danny, burying his head in his hands.

“You want to bet that we’re going to wind up with your whole rogue’s gallery?” asked Tucker.

“If you need money, Tucker,” said Sam, “you just have to ask. Rates on my loans are very reasonable.”

“Isn’t usury against your religion?” asked Tucker.

“Nope,” said Sam. “Not at all.”

“I am incredibly against this development,” said Danny. “The cults are going to have a field day.”

“Ember! Ember! Ember!” Chanted the punk goth crowd, which had split off from the larger goth subgroup.

“I am somehow even more against this development,” muttered Danny. “Mr. Lancer! I don’t think it’s a good idea to include a ghost who gets power from people saying her name!”

“Shut up, Fentonnage, what do you know about ghosts?”

“My parents study them. I know a lot. More than I ever even—”

Danny narrowly dodged the workbook Dash flung at him.

“Mr. Baxter!” scolded Mr. Lancer.

Sadly, when everything shook out, Danny did not get his way. One of the seven ghosts was named Ember and was going to be played by Star. Because why not?

“At least the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady aren’t on the list,” said Sam.

“But ‘Hamlet, father of Hamlet,’ is,” said Danny. “Why does that bother me more than Ember?”

“Because you hate Shakespeare?”

“No, I don’t,” protested Danny. “Shakespeare is a perfectly nice person. I just don’t like how his writing is taught in schools.”

“You’re going to break Mr. Lancer’s heart saying stuff like that,” said Tucker.

“He wrote love poems to boys. Why do they skim over that?”

“Excellent point, Mr. Fenton!” exclaimed Mr. Lancer, who had somehow materialized behind them. “Shakespeare was definitely bisexual. I wi—” The teacher stopped. “Nope, can’t use that word. It would be nice if the state let me teach it like that. Along with the crossdressing. School board won’t let me.” He shook his head. “Dale Baxter. Someday, someday he’ll lose an election. Eventually.” He took a deep breath. “Next time we meet, we’ll be doing auditions, okay? I want you all to think about what parts you would like! And, Miss Gray, I’d like to have a word with you about your role in our production, alright?”

#Danny Phantom #snow and song #fic #my fic #phanfic

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reds-burrow · 3 years

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Sorting The Mandalorian

This is an attempt to sort the main characters of The Mandalorian according to the Sorting Hat Chats system. For anyone unfamiliar with the system, I suggest reading about it in this lovely summary by @wisteria-lodge.

Din Djarin (The Mandalorian/Mando): Badger/Lion

Incredibly loyal to the community that saved him as a child, he's driven by his sense of duty, yet he can't bear to walk away from people in need, even those who can't pay him. And if you mention the reputation of the Mandalorians, he immediately folds. Can't bring shame to the community after all! Not the best business model for a bounty hunter, but as a Badger primary, he couldn't live with himself otherwise. He also shows signs of dehumanizing droids for most of season one, not using pronouns for them, doubting their skills, refusing to trust them on sight. Given his first community was attacked by droids, it's not surprising. But once IG-11 proves himself to Din, Din not only stops dehumanizing droids but has difficulty not humanizing IG-11. The droid has to remind Din, twice, that he is not a living thing before Din will allow him to save Din's life or later sacrifice himself.

What happened in season two then? Did Din develop a Snake primary model for Grogu, overriding his Badger primary? While I think that's a valid reading of the story so far, I personally read season two as the story of a Badger changing their community. Having an External primary means that a Badgers can have very different value systems and rules they follow depending on who they consider their community to be. The Children of the Watch grew up in a cult-like community ("This is the Way."). When Din finally meets other Mandalorians who don't adhere to the strict code he's been taught, he begins to understand he can still be a Mandalorian without keeping his helmet on every standard minute of the day. Season three is set up to confront this more directly, forcing Din to decide what type of Mandalorian he wants to be.

As for his secondary, he's a Lion. Despite always covering his face, there is no question of who Din is. He's forthright, outright asking his bounty if they want to be brought in warm or cold. If we're to believe Xi'an, Din did more obvious charging when he was younger. Now, while he's still reactionary, even grabbing thermal detonators and literally charging into blaster-fire, he does so with a tired sigh.

Greef Karga: Snake/Badger

Greef Karga is only out for himself in the first season. A clear Snake primary, he initially tries to capture Din and Grogu because they're ruining his business. However, after Grogu saves him, Greef takes Grogu and Din into his circle, betraying his deal with the Imps to save them in turn.

As for his secondary, he operates as an agent of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, not by going out into the field, but by being the connection between hunters and clients, a Badger secondary way of doing things. Din essentially broke down everything Greef's secondary had built when he broke the code, including the trusted reputation of the guild. No wonder Greef was determined to have them captured or killed. Then, when the Imperial Remnants leave Nevarro, we get to see what a natural leader Greef is as he helps transform his town into a respectable one by investing in fundamental services like a school, a true Inspirational Badger.

Kuiil: Badger/Badger

Kuiil has had his life defined by hard work. A slave for the Empire, he earned his freedom with his Badger secondary, and while many characters would develop a Badger model to survive in such conditions, Kuiil's Badger appears to be his innate secondary. His chosen profession once he is free is labor-intensive moisture farming.

As for his primary, he's a peace-seeking Badger, always helping, and negotiating, trying to find a fair compromise for all, even if the other party is a bunch of thieving Jawas. He also revived IG-11 and taught the droid to be as respectful to all creatures as he is.

Cara Dune: Lion/Lion

Cara Dune is proud to have been a rebel for the Alliance, but she's left adrift after the fall of the Empire. With no cause to fight for, her Lion primary refuses to settle for a role as a peacekeeper, leading her to become a mercenary. A Lion without a cause tends to look like a Snake primary, and that's the state we find Cara in, initially only making moves to keep herself safe and paid. Later, when she finally agrees to become a marshal for the New Republic, she has a new purpose but is perfectly willing to break the Republic's rules to follow what she feels is right, from helping Din and Grogu to letting Mayfeld go.

Her Lion secondary shows in her fighting style. She used to be dropped over enemy lines to wreak as much havoc as possible and watching her aggressive style it's clear why. She's quick on her feet, improvising in that direct manner Lions like to do as seen in the battle against the AT-ST when their initial plan hits a snag.

IG-11: Bird/Lion

His Bird primary first displays as a strict adherence to rules ("Manufacturers Protocol dictates I cannot be captured. I must self-destruct."). The first time we see him, he walks straight into the middle of a bunch of mercenaries and spouts out the Bondsman Guild Protocol as if once they understand the rules, they'll fall in line. This also is a great example of his Lion secondary. As Taika Waititi described him, "[IG-11] is very innocent and direct and doesn't know about sarcasm and doesn't know how to lie. It's like a child with a gun." Later, Kuiil effectively imparts his Badger primary system to IG-11 when he saves and reprograms the droid. To paraphrase Kuiil, droids are a reflection of those who programmed them which has amusing implications for Ani and Threepio. It's a bizarre example of a Bird learning a new system, but that is still what it is at its essence. IG-11 is still all about fulfilling his protocols and base function; his base function simply changed from "kill or capture" to "nurse and protect."

Moff Gideon: Badger/Bird

A mastermind strategist, the first time we see him his Bird secondary is obvious. He uses his knowledge to intimidate, revealing his enemies names and pasts that they hadn't even shared amongst themselves. As Gideon says, "A friendly piece of advice: assume that I know everything."

As for his primary, he is an Authoritarian Badger, loyal to the order the Empire brought to the galaxy and likely to blast anything he sees in the way of it. To paraphrase Giancarlo Esposito, Gideon firmly believes himself to be a warden for the galaxy whose duty is to oversee people and prevent them from overrunning each other. He genuinely believes he is protecting people from themselves by pushing his strong sense of order onto them.

Grogu (The Child/The Bounty/Baby Yoda): ...um.

How young is too young to sort a character? It's unclear how much he understands about morals. With what little information we do have, he looks like a young Snake primary, only thinking about his stomach, his own survival, or protecting Din. But then, you think a young Snake would have more reluctant about the end of season two. I suppose we'll have to wait and see if his attachment to Din affects his training. Anyway, he's either too young to be capable of much foresight, or he's an Improvisational secondary, testing his limits as toddlers are wont to do. He's such a little gremlin, stealing snacks, sneaking eggs. I'm tempted to call him a Double Snake just for that!

#happy father's day #character sorting #sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #ngl it's weird to call him Din and not Mando

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hljournal · 4 years

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Today’s author is suspendrs / @suspendrs ! Don’t forget to give the fics kudos and leave a comment!

to the cloud and the cold (2k)

Or, Louis is a Summer Fairy, Harry is an Autumn Fairy, and the autumn equinox is the best day of the year.

fearless (97k)

“You’re my best friend, Louis,” Harry says, barely above a whisper. Even if he was yelling, Louis wouldn’t be able to believe his ears. “And I know it’s been a while, but you’re still the person I consider my best friend,” Harry says.

Louis blinks, and then blinks again. “I honestly cannot say the same, Harry,” he says.

Or, Harry left home without a word after high school, and a lot can change in ten years.

just a little dance (1k)

“Keep your head up, love,” he says, pulling away and grabbing Harry’s hands. “Dance with me.”

“I don’t want to dance,” Harry pouts, but he lets Louis pull him into the center of the dark kitchen, anyway.

“Just a little dance,” Louis says, tugging Harry’s hands until he’s flush against his front.

Or, a tiny drabble based on the cutest lyric from perfect now

ferricadooza! (65k)

Harry can’t even fathom the idea of surrendering; he’d fight ‘til he died, if he had to, anything to keep from surrendering.

Or, the year is 1963, homosexuality is illegal in the UK, Louis owns a gay bar, and Harry’s an underground boxing champion with an unfortunate enemy.

at last, at last (41k)

“Come with us,” Tommo says, stopping at the other end of the gymnasium, near the doors. “Don’t let them make you suffer any longer. Come with us, and be human.”

Before Harry has even finished thinking it through, he’s on his feet, gaining the attention of every single person in the gymnasium. What has he got to lose, anyway?

Or, Harry is born into a cult in a post-apocalyptic world, and Louis is the leader of the rebel group tasked with the mission of shutting them down. Together, they make a rather effective team.

the act of making noise (32k)

“Oh,” Harry frowns, waving him off. “No, I could never. I respect myself too much to sing for a living.”

It feels like a slap across the face, but Louis does his best not to stiffen, blinking once and then frowning. “What?”

“Those people are always so miserable, you know?” Harry says, hopping down off his stool and straightening his sweater. “There’s so much pressure on them, and they have to work so hard to keep up appearances, I can’t even imagine how difficult that is. I can’t even stand to listen to pop music today, let alone watch TV or read the magazines. It makes me so sad, thinking that those people, you know, the ones who actually went into it with heart, they only ever just wanted to make music and instead they got turned into things on leashes being paraded around to make money for other people,” he says. “Anyway, you can have the stool.”

Or, Louis's famous, Harry has no idea who he is, and they get snowed in together at a ski lodge in Vermont.

walls (20k)

The thing about having been on the move so much for the past five years is that now, once they’re finally able to sit down and rest for a bit, they don’t really know what to do with themselves. Louis loved the pace of the band, for all he and the others complained about it; he isn’t very fond of sitting still, and he absolutely loathes boredom, and there was very little space in their lives for either of those things while they were so busy putting out an album every year and touring more often than not. Being in the same room as Harry while neither of them are under the pressure of keeping up appearances feels like being in a room with a total stranger, and the amount of trouble they’re having trying to get to know each other again is really rather alarming.

Or, a love one whole decade in the making, inspired by Louis's debut album.

fine line (22k)

There’s still a lot of things they don’t talk about, a lot of things they don’t bring home with them at the end of the day, and a lot of things that don’t even need to be said. The world is the world and it sucks sometimes, but it’s far away when Harry’s at home and Louis’s here with him and none of it needs to matter when it could just as easily be ignored. Harry tries to open up sometimes, tries to bring Louis into his world, but Louis’s got a world of his own to tend to, and it feels like more often than not they are on two separate planets and the universe just keeps expanding.

Or, a love three more years in the making, inspired by Harry’s sophomore album.

out for a duck (2k)

“Well, once I got control of Clifford, I took him right back to the house and changed my clothes and gave him one hell of a dressing down, let me tell you,” he scoffs. “And then I felt so bad I went back out to see if the duck had gone back to her eggs, and that Clifford hadn’t damaged them or hurt the duck at all. She wasn’t there when I got back, and I sat there for hours waiting for her, but she never showed her face! She just up and abandoned her babies, just left them there cold and alone, all because a dog barked at her,” he sighs, shaking his head.

“Still not sure why the eggs are now in my kitchen,” Louis frowns.

“I couldn’t just leave them there!” Harry says. “It was my fault they were abandoned! Well, Clifford’s fault, but whatever. I couldn’t live with myself if I just left them there to die. So I came back to the house and got a bowl and some gloves and scooped them up so I could bring them home and keep them warm until they hatch.”

Or, Harry accidentally adopts two duck eggs.

what’s inside your imagination (is as real as anything else) (3k)

“Hey!” Niall shouts suddenly, scaring Harry nearly out of his hat. “We like your costume!”

The ghost turns to glance at Niall, producing a hand from under the sheet and giving him a thumbs up. Harry can’t help but laugh a little more, the casual gesture adding to the entire vibe of the sunglasses-wearing ghost.

The ghost looks at them for a moment longer before turning and disappearing into the crowd again, and Harry sighs. “I love Halloween,” he says thoughtfully.

Or, Harry's a witch who likes to pretend he's a human pretending he's a witch, and Louis's the human in a not-so-clever costume that keeps catching his eye.

satellite (100k)

“It’s been three years since I’ve had a proper hot meal,” Louis says finally. “I have no idea where my family is, or if any of them are even still alive. The only reason I’ve been able to keep myself alive for as long as I have is because I keep to myself, stay guarded, stay hidden. It’s the only way I know how to live,” he says.

Harry wants to cry, but he tries to put on a brave face when Louis finally meets his eyes. “You’re safe here. You don’t have to be so guarded around me,” Harry says quietly, earnestly.

“That’s very sweet of you,” Louis says, putting his fork down. “But yes I do. Especially around you.”

Or, Harry finds out that someone's been living in his house without him knowing, but instead of kicking him out, he falls in love with him.

sugar in a plum (4k)

“I’m your dad,” Harry says softly, extending his hand to Plum for her to have a sniff. Plum considers for a moment, looks up at Louis, and then bites Harry’s finger.

“Ow!” Harry shrieks, pulling his hand away quickly. He’s not bleeding, but Plum’s teeth are incredibly sharp, he feels like he’s been stabbed with ten tiny needles. “Jesus, Lou, I thought we were getting a cat, not a demon.”

Or, Harry's new kitten is out to ruin his life.

there are no atheists in foxholes (64k)

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

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

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

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

it ain’t right, but isn’t it amazing (7k)

It’s all Niall’s fault, as most things are. Niall’s the one that made the bloody Tinder account in the first place, and the one that added every decent looking photo of Louis he could find on his phone, and the one that swiped right on the first fifteen guys that popped up. Yeah, Louis might have done the rest of the work that landed him here, in the men’s toilets of a Japanese restaurant in west London with vomit dripping down his chin and down the very, very attractive chest of the very, very attractive man in front of him, but Niall started it.

Or, Harry takes Louis for sushi on the first date. It doesn't go well.

keep this love in a photograph (48k)

“I could never forget a damn thing about you, Harry Styles, not even if I wanted to,” Louis says. His hair falls into his face when he glances over at Harry, the moonlight reflecting off of it and making it glow golden, like maybe Louis himself is the sun.

Harry thinks of how dark and cold his life got once Louis went away, how Harry got a taste of the sweetest sunshine imaginable and then was plunged into the longest winter of his life. He feels like he’s been buried under mounds of snow for months, years, and he’s finally made it to spring, finally getting another taste of how wonderful life can be.

Or, it’s 1919, and Harry’s been falling in love with his best friend for his entire life.

thrills don’t come for free (4k)

The night before comes back to him slowly, puking in the toilet at the club and then falling asleep in his car in the parking lot. He closes his eyes again for a moment until he realizes that the car is on and moving, and someone is driving it that isn’t him.

He picks his head up and peers between the seats, catching sight of a perfect stranger sitting behind the wheel, singing quietly and driving Louis’s car.

Or, Louis has a bit too much to drink and falls asleep in the backseat of Harry's car.

not even the gods above (25k)

The thing is, though, this isn’t good enough for Harry. Sure, he has the rest of his life to be a notable king, but he wants to be notable now. He wants to bring the two kingdoms together and he wants to do it early on, wants to be the one to facilitate the merge until it seems like the two kingdoms were one all along. He doesn’t want to wait, but everyone he’s turned to thinks waiting is the right choice, so he supposes he has to trust them.

That is, of course, until a declaration of war from the Kingdom of Tomlinson shows up at his palace.

somewhere far away from here (12k)

“Harry,” Louis says, squeezing his arm. “Do you know her?”

“My sister,” Harry mutters, eyes glued to the screen.

“What’s she saying?” Louis asks, voice quiet. “What does she want?”

“Me,” Harry murmurs, hardly a breath. “She knows I’m here.”

Or, Harry's sister comes to Earth to bring him home, but Harry's got a few things keeping him here.

i’ll take your pain (2k)

It’s kind of romantic when Harry thinks about it, feeling all the pain of the person he’s supposed to love for the rest of his life. Sure, it’s rather inconvenient when he’s in class and his soulmate gets kicked in the balls, or when he’s sleeping and his soulmate knocks his head or his knee off something. It’d be nice if the function helped them to find each other, but Harry supposes he can live with knowing that they’re destined to run into each other someday.

Or, soulmates have the ability to feel each other's pain, and Harry finds his after getting his arse waxed. (Or, the soulmate au crack fic I can't believe I actually wrote.)

the pink album (31k)

They don’t really discuss how hard it is to be in this situation, or to be doing the things they have to do to continue being together. It’s just something they don’t talk about, and that’s alright. Or maybe it isn’t, but they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

Or, a love seven years in the making, inspired by Harry's debut album.

i’ll make this feel like home (41k)

It’s nerdy, much nerdier than anything Harry would have engaged in back home. Perrie and Ed are singing some song from West Side Story and Stan is just giggling along, and it’s almost weird how weird Harry doesn’t find it. Liam and Niall would be running as fast as they could from this interaction, but somehow, Harry finds himself giggling along as well.

Maybe it’s because no one in this group seems like they should belong in this group, but Harry feels like he fits right in. He feels more himself than he has in weeks when Louis plops down beside him for a couple moments and throws out another title to add to their movie marathon. Even though he can’t contribute to the conversation about musicals and he has no idea whether The King and I or Oklahoma is more important, he never feels like an outsider.

Or, Harry is new to Plymouth and has had a rough start, but Louis won't rest until he makes it start to feel like home.

dirty laudry looks good on you (19k)

“So um, Niall mentioned you haven’t lived here long. What brings you to London?”

“What is this, an interview?” Louis smirks, stealing Harry’s drink and taking a sip. “Wanted a change of scenery. Dunno.”

Harry hums and takes his drink back, narrowing his eyes playfully at Louis as he takes a long sip. “Can I buy you a drink, or would you rather keep sharing mine?”

“You most certainly can buy me a drink,” Louis grins, grabbing the bottle back out of Harry’s hand, “but I’m still going to be stealing yours.”

Or, Harry is jaded and sad and resigned to be forever alone, until Niall sets him up with a friend of his whose broken pieces may just fit pretty well with Harry's.

we’ve got to get away from here (23k)

“It is my understanding that you are the most comprehensive member of this agency in the field of extraterrestrial life, is that right?” the agent asks. He’s trying to sound calm, but Louis can tell he’s shaken as well.

“Um, I guess so,” Louis says, glancing over at the man in the blanket again.

Suddenly, Louis’s blood runs cold. There’s something off about the man, something in his gaze, something Louis can’t put his finger on. It’s terribly unsettling, but excitement bubbles in his gut.

Or, Louis is an FBI agent who likes to think himself a paranormal expert, and Harry is the alien that somehow ended up in his office.

in midnights, in cups of coffee (15k)

“Sorry about the sugar,” Louis says, backing toward his own flat. “Bundle up before you go out.”

Harry smiles so sweetly then that Louis can’t imagine he’ll even need the sugar, if the muffins aren’t sweet enough just because they were made by him. “Thanks,” he says, eyes lingering a little longer on Louis before he lets himself back into Gemma’s apartment, and then Louis is just standing in the hallway by himself.

Or, Louis is overworked and cold, Harry is stressed out, and they might be in love.

come away with me (80k)

Or, Louis has to pick up the pieces of his and his daughter's life after his wife dies, and Harry is a beautiful stranger that just wants to help.

in the night (19k)

Or, the self-indulgent reversed pov and slight continuation of come away with me.

my song has not been sung (2k)

Or, Harry is watching a protest from the sidelines until a boy with a rainbow flag and a pretty smile drags him right into the middle of it.

i’ll be home for christmas (12k)

Or, Louis and Harry can’t decide where to go on Christmas.

autumn leaves (27k)

Or, Harry is an American soldier in France during World War II, and Louis is a French waiter that doesn't mean to fall in love with him.

we’ve got unfinished business (7k)

Or, there’s a ghost in Harry and Louis’s apartment that seemingly just wants them to date.

falling in love with you again (4k)

Or, three times in which Louis fell in love with Harry all over again.

heading for a small disaster (20k)

Or, Harry drives an Uber and Louis’s life is falling apart.

don’t stop to worry (4k)

It was just supposed to be a trim today, to skim off the dead ends of his hair. He had no idea it’d end the way it did.

Or, Harry cuts his hair. It's kind of a big deal.

diamonds, they fade (1k)

The cold does nothing tonight but remind Louis of the boy he left inside, the boy that’s curled up under the blankets by himself right now, the boy that’s probably going to come looking for him soon when he wakes up and Louis isn’t there.

Or, Louis has insomnia.

maps can be poems when you’re on your own (19k)

Or, Harry falls in love with the guy his best friend is fooling around with.

we could be enough (4k)

Or, Harry runs an anonymous crush confession column in the school newspaper and Louis has quite the crush to write in about.

no place to call home (22k)

Or, Louis isn't Peter Pan and Harry isn't Wendy and Neverland is nothing like Harry thought it would be, but it's perfect anyway.

show a little mercy (3k)

Louis hates him so, so much. But then again, he’s never loved someone quite so fiercely.

Or, Louis and Harry try to break up. (Or, a drabble based on Love You Goodbye)

kiss me on the mouth and set me free (17k)

Or, Louis is a gamer and Harry is a beauty guru, and VidCon is a good place to fall in love.

sing me like a choir (17k)

Or, Harry is nervous to do actual makeup on his channel, until his boyfriend Louis helps him out.

please don’t bite (21k)

Or, Harry releases his own line of beauty products, and Louis feels abandoned when Harry’s newfound fame gets the best of him.

underneath the christmas tree (17k)

Louis sends Harry on a scavenger hunt on Christmas Eve.

to be loved and to be in love (50k)

Harry and Louis' first year as a couple, as captured by snippets of home movies.

hope your heart is strong enough (4k)

Prompt: Set in the US, Harry spends Thanksgiving with Louis' family, or vice versa. Chaos ensues.

to watch you fall (16k)

Or, Harry is lonely and Louis is engaged to be married.

give me your hand and i’ll hold it (18k)

Prompt: Harry (9) moves in next to Louis (11). They have little roofs under their bedroom windows and like to sit there and talk. Seven years later, Louis has to leave for college.

you make me strong (14k)

Louis comes home from war with a few more problems than he left with, but Harry can't find it in himself to let him go.

#faaw #fics

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yesthefandomfreakblr · 3 years

Text

G U Y S ~m~ f e e l i n g s

big long post WOOOOOOOOOOOO

so uhh i did a lot of daydreaming today during school as one does when they don't care and are running on -12 hours of sleep and one cup of chocolate milk in lucky charms. I did a lot of thining about this whole 'Ripred pretends to be a service animal AU I came up with andddd ngl i'm liking this a lot.

- Cormaci and Ripred are dedicated pen-pals via Gregor and Ripred confides that he's always wanted to see the museums in New York. they talk about how fun it would be and Cormaci rather enjoys hearing from the snarky, witty, and kind of sweet stranger.

-One day gregor hands him Cormaci's note and Ripred sends gregor with his reply after their echolocation lesson. "Dearly detestable, (a customary greeting for the two) I have a large service animal vest and shades if you want to use them. meet me at midnight and we'll make a plan. XOXO- Cormaci"

-Ripred is over the frikken moon you have no idea. they make a plan, he tries on the vest, they meet in the morning to go to the museum.... And Ripred can't. It's just too bright and too loud and too many people so close to him. everyone stares and many try to pet him. Ripred knows he can't attack people or talk, so he just pulls Cormaci back to central park and has a full blown panic attack five blocks before they make it. they make it to an alleyway and he just shakes and gasps for air. sensory overlaods, especially when you've never had one, are no frikken joke.

-He just sulks back in the quiet, normal smelling, tourist free underland that doesn't burn his eyes. a few days go by and Cormaci proposes a picnic in central park. way less crowded, and with his vest people are warned not to pet him anyway. Ripred gives it another go.

-it doesn't suck. it actually goes very very well. he has the time of his life seeing the ducks and the horse carriages and sunbathing. they do this three times a week and gradually he goes to stores with her and they run small errands. after about two months She can take him anywhere and he won't get overwhelmed. of course, Cormaci hardly takes him into places or restaurants because he's not a real service animal. while waiting to cross the street, Gregor warns him to watch his tail. "what you think I'm just gonna fling it out and hit someone??" he flings his tail out for emphasis and hits someone. -rager speed activate- he catches them and apologises profusely. the 5 foot 2 ich overlander cracks up and compliments him on his reflexes. She hangs out with them the rest of the day and pays for their ice cream. He actually gets her number and they part ways. I mean she's weirdly chill but some people are. at least she didn't sue or panic.

-he uses the library computers to watch training videos and look up the criteria for service animals. He, Cormaci, And gregor's family all help expose him to all of the scenarios and help get him ready. He spends a lot of time with Lizzie. with her smelling salts, puzzles, and emergency phone in his pockets, Lizzie goes places with just him. they go to the museums and nerd out together.

They meet with the registration managers, and after the worst day of Ripred's life, (vet checks and behavioral/training testing. letting people grab, pinch, pull, poke, and prod him places he'd rather them not.) He get's officially registered as Lizzie's service animal.

-Ripred is ecstatic to roam the overland as he pleases and be able to help Lizzie. but he soon realizes she's not the only one who needs his help. Ripred builds a trustworthy council for the gnawers with two head leaders to rule in his stead. and helps Luxa build a better council so that she can visit a few days a week. this takes like a month.

Gregor's dad needs to go back to work, but is still very weak. Ripred, the two days a week he lectures, goes with him and carries his papers, medicine, and anything else on his vest and lets Mr. Campbelle lean on him during lectures. it's very interesting to him and excruciating not to chime in. So during breaks they geek out on theories about anything. Ripred helps him overcome his PTSD from his time in the rat lands. Texting his new distant friend Ripred finds out that Ally, the girl he one-hit K.O'd, has horses and actually does equine therapy. she helps Gregor's family for free. Ripred gets kicked by a horse.

Gregor needs help catching up with school, so he does that when they get home. and after the war of time, Gregor just needs him a lot. Ripred spends two or three nights a week with the boy, and they go on a lot of walks. They either walk for hours in silence or Gregor just breaks and gushes like a waterfall. He doesn't want to trouble anyone with everything on his mind but Ripred is safe. he understands. Gregor talks to him and Ripred listens. occasionally offering bits of valuable advice.

three days a week he goes to school with Lizzie, and finds that her teacher is very good at chess. they get along just fine and he talks to her and even helps with her lesson plans, given this is her first year. at first she tries to call Lizzie's emergency contact. but it's him. He lounges around and is the gordon Ramsey of education. He coaches Lizzie through panic attacks and she is never once bullied when he's around. she learns things from him and makes a couple more friends on the chess team. He'll sweep the floor with any one of them. He mostly reads during class but occasionally, during tests, (when Lizzie is most comfortable,) he'll react to the high stress of another student and put his head in their lap. (test anxiety is something else) and because they're elementary school kids, they make a cult for the rat. they call him Mr. Rat and leave offerings like shiny trinkets or snacks. he privately tutors the class for an hour after school because of this (they can leave if they want but he's smart and funny) and they all learn morse code/ ace their tests. going with Lizzie to P.E is his favorite. everyone else hates it. they fear him. He's no longer allowed to play dodgeball.

Grace is home but can barely walk. on good days her lungs will suddenly give out and it's extremely dangerous. with no one else able to run errands, and desperate to get out of the apartment, she begrudgingly and sorrowfully asks for his assistance. she wishes she could cut ties with the underland for good, but her family desperately needs him. the 'service animal' thing was just so he could go to the museum, but now he's a part of their lives. She leans on him in the grocery store and he sniffs out the best products as well as pushes the cart. if she goes down he has her inhaler and knows what to do. and aside from that, he makes great company. he's funny and smart. and she can tell him things she can't tell her family. about her chronic anxiety, her nightmares, her depression, her constant fear for her children and fear they don't love her anymore for trying to protect them and fear she didn't do enough and fear it will all happen again but this time someone won't come back... He understands what it's like to lose everyone. He understands not telling people things. He lets her talk. and only offers what she needs.

He still hangs out with Cormaci and they go on little trips together, but He's very busy taking care of his family. He never anticipated it to go this far or be this much work, sleeping in the underland once or twice a week, eating most meals there. But Ripred had decided to help Lizzie, a little girl that was very much like his own deceased pup. and in that, got closer and closer to Gregor, who was like a son to him long before he knew of Cormaci. In caring for and, in a way, adopting these pups, he'd adopted their parents and become a cornerstone in their daily life.

about Ripred and Ally, yeah they still hang out as often as possible she lives a couple hours out in florida but stays at her friends a couple days a week in NYC. it's kind of strange to him, but he finds it helpful that she would do anything for him. he can call her anytime for anything and she'll drive out or stay up late and talk, or uber eats him a snack. he ends up telling her absolutely everything. she's a good listener. her horse hates him. she gives Gregor free riding lessons and makes the BEST ribs.she's cool about the underland thing and just lets him talk. which he's not used to. within a few months, she knows more about him than Lizzie or Luxa. she sees him ugly and sees him nice and doesn't hate him for either. yeah she has a big crazy personality but if he accepts her, she'll return the favor tenfold. it takes a while but he gets used to having someone love him like a dog. she's kind of a dog. She knows what he's done, good and bad. and she's cool with it. but if he ever ever lies to her. she will never trust him again. he knows she's not lying.

Ripred supervises Gregor and Luxa's first date getting pizza and starbucks and going to a movie. He nips at someone's ankles for attempting to interfere.

Lizzie's panic attacks become more rare. to the point she doesn't need Ripred at school. Gregor's father no longer needs to lean on him, and can carry his own things. Grace returns to work and only needs her inhaler maybe once a week. Gregor is healing to the point he doesn't sneak out of his room and curl up with Ripred at night.

But none of them, not even Grace, want hm to leave. He experiences all of the Holidays with them during their first year together and he loves them all. food. Luxa joins to along with Cormaci of course. on Halloween he and Lizzie go as little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. gregor and luxa dress as bats. Gregor all black and Luxa a stunning gold. Ripred fights airport security. he tells his overlander friend, Ally, all about it. she thinks he's a bad-A.

As he is needed less and less Ripred goes back to the underland and helps Keep the peace. he was doing ok sending messages from the overland, but his presence is certainly needed more than twice a week. especially Luxa. she needs time alone to speak with a father figure, especially with Vikus's health fading. He helps relieve the pressure and helps her relax. She becomes like a daughter to him, Aurora as well. RIpred comes at a moments notice if any human male shows interest in his baby girl. He even brings Ally down and she honestly would kill to ride a bat. she gets to ride a bat. with everyone constantly dumping their problems on him and them having so many, Ally becomes vital to his mental health. to just have someone to relax with, to talk to to get Denny's at 2:00 AM with.

the years are long and full of hardships, love, and light. Gregor's family becomes more financially sound, they can comfortably afford to feed Ripred now, and go on annual trips. Luxa and Howard go to Hawaii. Vikus passes away two years after the COC, and Gregor's grandmother shortly after. Gregor's family decides to stay in new york. Ripred, Luxa, and Howard go to Virginia for a month with gregor's family in the summer and have the time of their lives. He brings Ally everywhere he can she makes him food, they joke together, sometimes stay at each others places, have a pick up lines war, and she's actually a valuable ally in meetings for writing things down and even contributing. they know everything about eachother. He often thinks to himself that she's every bit as sassy and kind as his mate, and if she were a gnawer, he wouldn't hesitate. but she's human.

and after four more years, at the age of nineteen, Gregor and Luxa are married. though they are no longer bonds, (the council decided you can only have one bond as not to split loyalties) Ripred walks Luxa down the aisle and takes his place beside gregor. where Ares would have stood. Gregor's mother is proud to call Luxa her daughter. Ally brings Luxa a pet cat, as is viking tradition for newlyweds to have one in their home. Ally's weird. but they like her.

Gregor's family half lives down there now and the gnawers and human tensions are almost nonexistent after so many years.

Ripred is godfather to all eight of Gregor and Luxa's children. and though he's starting to ache in the leg he broke in COC, his age starting to climb, it's not too much for him to play with his godpups or wrestle with Gregor. he'd be like mid 50's as human. (another reason he could never be with Ally, She's 25.) He attends Lizzie's wedding in the underland to hazard when she turns twenty. after all that time, he's nearly thirty, and plays a little less rough. he has another decade or two in him and is happy to live it. life has been hell to him... but now he's found heaven. he keeps his tears to himself watching his massive family, not of blood, but of choice, grow in a place that is not torn by war. a place where the walls are made of stone and a place where the sun shines. He doesn't mind people touching or hugging him anymore and you see his real smile a lot more often. but he's still too mean to die. snarky and sassy as ever. but a lot happier. in a bittersweet kind of way. he will never forget his wife or his pups, but he knows she'd be happy for him. and it doesn't hurt to think of them.

He may have been the registered service animal, but they were all helping him right back.

#the underland chronicles #ripred #gregor the overlander #ripred the rat #ripred the gnawer #ares the flier

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)

Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!

For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip.

Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background.

So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order

PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN: Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe.

Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:

While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally.

So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut. Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day.

The Man From Room X:

We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains. Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula.

We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”. His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal.

Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with.

As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne.

He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job.

But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult.

We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it.

Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off: The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well.

The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago.

So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?

I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me.

So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast.

Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off.

Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....

Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun.

Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him. Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself.

It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share.

That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run.

The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people.

We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet.

But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped. Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn.

And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time.

This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course.

Danger Rooms:

We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student.

This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.

But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles.

Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great

Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits.

Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually.

In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...

Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process.

That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did.

Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....

This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them.

Germ Free Generation Issue 1:

So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me.

So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me

Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work.

So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity.

This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation.

So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up.

And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome.

Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her.

Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one.

Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs.

A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit.

Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.

So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise. We then get this.

So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason.

So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching.

A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear.

Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line.

We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept.

The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further.

Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species.

Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart.

Germ Free Generation Part 2:

Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon.

So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel.

They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it.

Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect.

Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it.

However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”

Germ Free Generation Part 3:

So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it.

We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha.

Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits.

Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror

The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power.

Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him.

Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge.

So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:

Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation: This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo

Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks.

Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow.

If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow

#new x-men #grant morrison #cassandra nova #shen xorn #beast #hank mccoy #jean grey #cyclops #scott summers #wolverine #logan howlett #angel salvadore #beak #barnell bohsk #the stepford cuckoos #the u-men #john sublime #marthan johanson #ethan van sciver

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snowe-zolynn-rogers · 3 years

Text

The BNHA Group Chat Fic Nobody Asked For

Pairings: Todoroki Touya (Dabi)/Mr Compress (Sako Atsuhiro), Shimura Tenko (Shigaraki Tomura)/Chisaki Kai (Overhaul)/Kurono Hari (Chrono), Yamada Hizashi (Present Mic)/Aizawa Shouta (Eraserhead)/Shirakumo Oboro (Loud Cloud), Fukukado Emi (Ms. Joke)/Kayama Nemuri (Midnight), Bakugo Katsuki/Kaminari Denki/Kirishima Eijiro, Iida Tenya/Monoma Neito/ Aoyama Yuuga

Word Count: 2,065 Words

Summary: Tetsutetsu's girl squad has a meeting, Halloween outfits, Sako and Touya are cute, and Kaminari comes out.

Warnings: Teen/Underage Pregnancy Mention, Period/Menstruation Mention, Food Mention, Blood Mention, Cursing, Death Mention, Half Blind Character, Deaf Characters, Mostly Mute Character (due to a different medical issue), Selectively Mute Character, let me know if I should add anything else.

Usernames: We Are Number One™ Aizawa: Dadzawa, Aoyama: immafiringmahlaser, Ashido: princessbubblegumknockoff, Asui: Galvan, Iida: Emergency Exit, Uraraka: 9.8, Ojiro: tailfloof, Kaminari: Pichu, Kirishima: baby shark, Koda: youredoingamazingsweetie, Sato: GuyFieriIsGod, Shoji: Cthulhu, Jirou: Jack Skellington, Sero: Spider-Man, Tokoyami: EdgarAllanCrows, Todoroki: WHERE?, Hagakure: cena, Bakugo: WHAT?, Midoriya: SmolMight, Mineta: Mineta, Shinsou: exhausted, Yaoyorozu: TheGreatCreator, Kurono: stopwatch, Chisaki: donthugmeimscared, Yukimura: choticgaydisaster, Bubaigawara: shadowclonejutsu, Shimura: idontfeelsogood, Awase: illrememberyouallintherapy, Kaibara: IDOWHATIWANT, Kamakiri: scyther, Kuroiro: itsmeyaboy, Kendo: Akimichi, Kodai: deadinside, Komori: shroomgurl, Shiozaki: wElCoMeToBiBlEsTuDiEs, Shishida: furry, Shoda: cryptid, Tsunotori: mylittlepony, Tsubaraba: airbender, Tetsutetsu: Iron Man, Tokage: t-rex costume, Fukidashi: glorifiedtextbubble, Honenuki: Eren Jaeger/spookyscaryskeletons, Bondo: Slimer, Monoma: HopeSummers, Yanagi: iLiEdImDyInGiNsIdE, Rin: snek, Toga: mystique, Sako: lostmymarbles, Hikiishi: queenofmagnetism, Iguchi: eye gucci, Shinokanri: stardust

Usernames: Emos Anonymous Kaminari: blackcloakedbrides, Shoji: fryingpan, Jirou: greentwentyfourhours, Tokoyami: myscientificinfatuation, Todoroki: twentyoneplotpoints, Bakugo: immobileinwhite, Midoriya: falldownboy, Shinsou: stabtheveil, Kurono: inhalecarolina, Chisaki: plummetingininverse, Yukimura: anxietyintheclub, Shimura: nappingwithsirens, Kuroiro: thousandfootcane, Kodai: marianaspit, Monoma: entiretimelow, Yanagi: recentyearsday, Sako: halfminutetomars, Aizawa: hollywoodlivingdead, Shouji: fryingpan, Kurono: inhalecarolina, Aoyama: phantomtown, Honenuki: visualizedragon, Sako: halfminutetomars, Awase: distressparade, Shinokanri: simplestrategy

Usernames: UA Teachers Are Tired™ Eraserhead/Aizawa: grumpy scarf cat, Present Mic/Yamada: screeching cockatiel, Midnight/Nemuri: chaotic goth gay Ingenium/Iida: gotta go fast, AllMight/Toshinori: actual sunshine, Vlad King/Kan: bloody hell, Power Loader/Majima: speechtotext, Ectoplasm: needalegup?, Snipe: kazoo cowboy, Cementoss: concrete block, Blackmist/Kurogiri: goth portals

Oh? Tea-Chapter 5

7:32 AM

We Are Number One™

WHERE?: [pic of Kumo, Ahma, and Sora playing tag with Kaede and Michi]

WHERE?: {pic of Hoshi, Tsuki, and Taiyo drawing with Asahi and Emica]

WHERE?: They're adorable today.

SmolMight: precious.

EdgarAllanCrows: I stan ten (10) good daughters of darkness.

SmolMight: Tokoyami and Dark Shadow helping with the girls is the cutest thing to see. I have been blessed upon witnessing this.

EdgarAllanCrows: They have claimed me as their weird bird uncle. I accept this. I shall cherish and spoil them.

chaoticgaydisaster: Thank god we have you to help, Tokoyami. I can't fucking move.

Emergency Exit: Why can you not move? Are you injured, Touya? Should someone help you to Recovery Girl?

chaoticgaydisaster: no, I'm just having my period and day two hurts more than day one.

lostmymarbles: I'll get your hot water bottle and ice cream.

Dadzawa: I got you excused from your hero training class today. Shoto, do you need to be excused today as well?

WHERE?: As much as I hate the assumption that me and my brother have the same cycle, we do and yes I do need today off hero training class.

mylittlepony: Why do they get off? Aren't periods normal?

SmolMight: they both have issues with their menstrual cycles where Shoto's is very heavy and Touya's is very painful.

mylittlepony: Oh, I get it, please excuse my ignorance of the situation.

chaoticgaydisaster: it's fine, Pony.

WHERE?: it's okay, you didn't know.

Iron Man: Do you two need anything?

HopeSummers: Tetsu, no, you can't abduct them into your little group.

WHERE?: I'm scared to ask, but what group?

Akimichi: Tetsutetsu is the leader of the UA Girls Protection Squad. He helps us all with our monthlies and just generally protects us from the grape gremlin in your class.

WHERE?: I agree to be abducted into this cult you have, Tetsutetsu.

chaoticgaydisaster: same here. let me join your cult.

Iron Man: These are now my children.

glorifiedtextbubble: great, he has more children

t-rex costume: meeting happens in one of you two's rooms tonight.

deadinside: We'll come at the meeting bearing food, tea, heat pads, and movies of you two's choice.

chaoticgaydisaster: I like disney movies.

WHERE?: pixar

SmolMight: oh god, this again.

SmolMight: just bring dreamworks movies. they can't fight over which is better then.

Iron Man: Thanks Midoriya.

SmolMight: you're very welcome. I just don't want to hear them have another pixar versus disney fight tonight.

Dadzawa: alright kids, time for class soon, make sure you're all ready except Yukimura and Todoroki.

4:07 PM

We Are Number One™

Iron Man: We come bearing zaru soba, oyakodon, curry bread, takoyaki, tonjiru, ice cream, and chamomile tea!

chaoticgaydisaster: so much food, jeez.

mystique: Tetsu insisted we make sure you two eat enough since you have bad periods and you might get anemic.

Iron Man: Plus, we also made sure they're all soft enough for you, Touya.

chaoticgaydisaster: hold on, gonna cry right quick.

WHERE?: don't cry too hard, it'll hurt.

chaoticgaydisaster: I know.

Iron Man: omw with the curry bread, tea, and cuddles! Girls, you better catch up, I'm running my way over to them.

chaoticgaydisaster: Thank you, Tetsu.

Iron Man: It's with my greatest honor.

6:24 PM

We Are Number One™

9.8: so what's everyone going as for Halloween?

cena: I'm going as the old school version of Mystique.

Spider-Man: only because I had to convince her to wear clothing and not do the movie version.

cena: you're no fun, Hanta! It's not like they'd see me!

tailfloof: anyway, moving on from the couple in aisle five, I'm going as Winter Soldier.

baby shark: me, Denki, and Katsuki are going as Mitsuki, Boruto, and Sarada

princessbubblegumknockoff: I'd kill to see Bakugo in a Sarada costume but we all know that's gonna be Kaminari.

princessbubblegumknockoff: also I'm goin as Eridan with Hatsume as Feferi.

TheGreatCreator: Me and Jirou are going as Sally from Nightmare before Christmas and Emily from the Corpse Bride. She insisted on scary and I cannot say no.

EdgarAllanCrows: This year, I'm going as a ghost bride. Last year I was a vampire, and the year before I was a witch. But this year, I am a ghost bride.

EdgarAllanCrows: And I have convinced my boyfriends to kind of match with me.

Cthulhu: What he means to say is he's going as a ghost bride, I'm going as a zombie, Koda will be a groom, and Sato is planning to be a skeleton.

Pichu: heh, four stages of life.

EdgarAllanCrows: He gets it. Our plan is working.

Galvan: I'm going as Harley and Ivy.

Emergency Exit: I'm going as the MCU Quicksilver.

immafirinmahlaser: I'm going to be the wonderful Viktor Nikivorov this year.

Dadzawa: I have been roped into group costumes this year

exhausted: what are they, dad, we're all so curious to know, I'm sure.

Dadzawa: you're going with us, don't act surprised.

Dadzawa: Mic and Midnight dragged me and Tensei into dressing up as the main cast of Heathers with Shinsou as a next generation Heather.

cena: which heather are you playing, Mr. Aizawa?

Dadzawa: Chandler with Mic as Macnamara, Midnight as Duke, and Tensei as Veronica.

cena: interesting. and Shinsou?

exhausted: well, ya see, I didn't want to go as JD so Mic came up with my character so it isn't the best character. I'm going as Heather Bay.

cena: and she is?

Dadzawa: Basically Chandler's kid that she gave up. Mic isn't very creative but we stan him anyway.

princessbubblegumknockoff: I think it's cute! you're still going as parent and child!

chaoticgaydisaster: me and Sho decided to go as Freed and Rufus from Fairy Tail.

Jack Skellington: so kinda twins but not really. crafty boys.

shadowclonejutsu: the rest of us ex-league are going as pokemon and Touya was supposed to be vulpix, but he wanted to be almost matchy with Shoto

chaoticgaydisaster: I know, I was supposed to wear a vulpix costume to match my husband being eevee but this is also my first halloween with my brother in well...forever.

princessbubblegumknockoff: Wait, so is this you two's first halloween?

WHERE?: yes. together at least. i've had one with my daughters and touya has had one with the League but we never had one together.

princessbubblegumknockoff: can I join the Fuck Endeavor squad @SmolMight?

SmolMight: I'm just the spokesperson of the Fuck Endeavor Squad. Touya and Shoto are the presidents. But yes, you can join.

princessbubblegumknockoff: good. yeet his stupid ass at the sun.

WHERE?: amen.

chaoticgaydisaster: preach girl.

8:34 PM

We Are Number One™

Pichu: babe, I need cuddles.

WHAT?: I'm on my way

Pichu: god, I love my husband

lostmymarbles: what a mood

chaoticgaydisaster: Atsu! don't make me blush! I have a reputation!

lostmymarbles: My husband is the best. God, I love him. He's amazing.

chaoticgaydisaster: Atsu, you're destroying my reputation!

lostmymarbles: sometimes I still hear him screeching when he blushes.

chaoticgaydisaster: I'm bout to be screeching at you, I'm blushing dammit

WHERE?: [pic of Touya blushing]

WHERE?: he's a tomato now.

chaoticgaydisaster: betrayed by my own brother. Monoma, may I join you on the roof?

HopeSummers: Sure, I guess but I don't want you to die so I'd have to shield you from the ground.

chaoticgaydisaster: worth it

lostmymarbles: babe no!

chaoticgaydisaster: Okay, I guess I won't.

HopeSummers: wow, that was easy.

chaoticgaydisaster: I am a simple man. my husband tells me not to jump off a building and I won't do it.

10:38 PM

We Are Number One™

Dadzawa: the name change paperwork is now done. now it's just the hearing and official birth certificate change.

Emergency Exit: That's great, Mr. Aizawa!

Dadzawa: we're having korokkes to celebrate. me and a few select Chosen Ones™ shall go get ingredients.

chaoticgaydisaster: sweet potato and chicken.

WHERE?: pumpkin and tuna

HopeSummers: Wow, you two have weird cravings.

idontfeelsogood: you should've seen Touya's cravings when he was pregnant.

shadowclonejutsu: It was even weirder combinations.

eye gucci: there was that instance with the pears and mushrooms

WHERE?: mine were bad too. but you can probably already tell that.

Dadzawa: anyway, anyone else want anything different than sweet potato and chicken or pumpkin and tuna

TheGreatCreator: shrimp please and pork for Jirou

shadowclonejutsu: I want shrimp too

SmolMight: I just like cheese in mine, Tokoyami says he likes salmon, Sako says he likes egg.

baby shark: Baku likes ham and cheese, Kami likes mushrooms, and I like shrimp too.

cena: Me and ojiro both like eggplant and Tsu and Mina both like peppers, onions, and cheese

idontfeelsogood: count me in for pepper, onions, and cheese

donthugmeimscared: me too

stopwatch: same here

GuyFieriIsGod: ya know what? I want octopus in mine.

Cthulhu: I second the octopus.

9.8: I like tomato and cheese.

immafirinmahlaser: moi likes ham and cheese as well, reminds me of home.

Spider-Man: spinach and tofu.

GuyFieriIsGod: Koda says kimchi and cheese for him.

Emergency Exit: ...kimchi and cheese as well

princessbubblegumknockoff: oh my god, Iida likes weird food combos too!? revolutionary.

SmolMight: we stan one (1) good fast boy

Dadzawa: and my son likes kimchi and cheese in his too. Ashido, Hagakure, and Yaoyorozu, you three are Chosen™.

Dadzawa: choose who you may to go with you.

cena: I'm bringing Tsu and Ochako.

princessbubblegumknockoff: I'm dragging Mei with me.

TheGreatCreator: I'll bring Jirou

cena: girls only outing with Mr. Aizawa!

Pichu: does that mean I go too?

GuyFieriIsGod: Kami, you're a girl?

Pichu: I'm kinda working on that.

baby shark: you sure you wanna tell everyone?

Pichu: yeah, it's not like they won't find out.

Pichu: I'm in the process of transitioning mtf. I'm just trying to get up enough money to get bottom surgery. then it's just my HRT.

WHERE?: is there a way I can convince you to let me pay for it?

Pichu: I...wait, did you just offer to pay for my bottom surgery?

WHERE?: yes.

Pichu: Todoroki, I can't accept that! I have to earn this myself.

WHERE?: okay

Dadzawa: anyway, girls, come on. (yes, you too Kaminari)

Spider-Man: Hey, Kami, is there a name you've picked out yet?

Pichu: yeah, I was thinking Akari or Uzume. I'm leaning more toward Uzume.

princessbubblegumknockoff: I love our good pichu girl Uzume Kaminari.

Dadzawa: I'll begin the paperwork for getting you switched to the girls dorms if you'd like after we eat.

Pichu: Thank you, Mr. Aizawa!

Dadzawa: I have a clinging pokemon daughter and I couldn't be happier.

princessbubblegumknockoff: [pic of Kaminari hugging Aizawa tightly in the van]

Izukrew

11:04 PM

We Are Number One™

WHERE?: I have an idea for Kaminari.

SmolMight: I'm all ears.

WHERE?: before that happens.

WHERE? has added WHAT? to Izukrew

WHERE?: where does Kaminari work, Bakugo?

WHAT?: Heiwa to Chowa in Kamino. Evening shift from 5 to 10 every day. I have a feeling I know what you and your brother are planning, Fireball.

WHAT?: And I greatly approve of what you're planning. Uzume is a stubborn woman, she won't accept help if she's put her mind to doing it herself. She's only got the last 300 dollars from the cost of the surgery to cover.

WHERE?: Good, thank you. I shall plan accordingly. Touya starts the same shift tomorrow so I have an excuse to be there if questioned.

WHAT?: I'm leaving now. I'll be there to watch at her shift start tomorrow. You better be nice to her.

WHERE?: I may be gay but I know how to treat women, I drink my respecting women juice every morning.

WHAT?: Good, drink your respecting women juice or else I'll explode your face.

WHAT?: With that lovely sentiment.

WHAT? has left Izukrew

9.8: I feel like I just watched a back-alley deal and I love it.

SmolMight: You get used to it. That's just how Kacchan and Shocchan interact with each other now that they're friends.

9.8: Kamino made you two scary close.

WHERE?: we're also pretty close with Shinsou and Bakugo had a real bonding moment with Touya.

WHERE?: you bond pretty well with a person when you're trapped together and happen to have your periods at the same time while kidnapped.

9.8: you got me there.

Emergency Exit: Todoroki, are you going to take money out of your father's card to pay for Kaminari's surgery?

WHERE?: you're getting it Iida. you are correct, that's exactly what I'm doing.

Emergency Exit: Then I shall go with you to make sure you don't do anything stupid.

Taglist: @logan-sanders-enthusiast @luckyicekitsune @whippedbel @lgbtforeverything @pinecone-chomper @mikmacmoo @wasinotwantedatthisexactsecond @purplespiderstormcloud @stankyratman @king-of-the-oranges @headcannons-and-random-things @fear-ze-queer @turtleluv799 @ymmm-someone

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #mha #snoweywrites #the bnha group chat fic nobody asked for #league of misfit heroes au #tw pregnancy mention #tw period mention #tw menstruation mention #tw food mention #tw blood mention #tw cursing #tw death mention

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haec-est-fides · 3 years

Text

Filodox’s Trials of Apollo Reactions [Part I]

Welcome to part one of a reflective journey through Trials of Apollo ft. my original ebook annotations! I’ll be your host, 2020!filodox.

For this first episode, we’ll be going back to May 2016, the beginning of it all: The Hidden Oracle.

Annotations for this round are brought to you by 2016!filodox.

Is there anything we should know before we begin, 2016!me?

2016!filodox: I swore on the Styx never to read another Riordan book after he killed Octavian. And yet here we are.

... Alright then! Let’s get started.

But first, a more detailed overview on how this series will work: I will excerpt bits and pieces of the books based on what I highlighted / annotated on my first read. Beneath each quote, I will share what I wrote in the annotation. Below that, I will (occasionally) laugh at my past self, clarify the note, or say how my view has changed.

I encourage questions, comments, and concerns (of which there may be many), so go ahead and use that replies feature if you feel so inclined! However, these are just my opinions and (occasionally) emotional reactions, so no hate pls. <3 (Or, if you do send hate, pls make it funny.)

Now, diving right in with Riordan’s dedication!

To The Muse Calliope. This is long overdue. Please don’t hurt me.

2016!filodox: Hurt him. He didn’t even name the chapters.

As you can see, I had yet to experience Lester’s haiku and was already mad based on the table of contents alone. I went into this series very salty...

I inflicted a plague on the Greeks who besieged Troy.

2016!filodox: At least he did something right. Once.

I was just,,,extremely ready to die on Octavian’s hill. (Though I was a huge Troy / Aeneas stan before all this, just to be clear.)

Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?

2016!filodox: I actually find this particular god crashing into a dumpster quite amusing.

I also blamed Apollo for what happened to Octavian. I think that had a lot to do with how Apollo acted on Delos in Heroes of Olympus, basically disowning Octavian and whining about how some “creature” scammed him? That was bullshit. Apollo needed to own the fact that he blessed Octavian, but he just abandoned him and denied all the blame. TL;DR I had a grudge, okay?

My mind stewed in confusion, but one memory floated to the surface -- the voice of my father, Zeus: YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.

2016!filodox: Wait, is this bc everyone blames Octavian and therefore Apollo? Bc lol but also no?

*cough* Octavian did nothing wrong 2k16 *cough*

Zeus will reconsider, I told myself. He’s just trying to scare me. Any moment, he will yank me back to Olympus and let me off with a warning.

“Yes...” My voice sounded hollow and desperate. “Yes, that’s it.”

2016!filodox: Apollo is a self centered frat boy, I forgot...but it is slightly...endearing? *narrows eyes*

Ah, how close I was to stanning Lester in the first chapter, when he was at his most “goddy”. You know, I actually made a rule for myself when I started reading Trials of Apollo that I would not under any circumstances stan Apollo. That was a naive goal, because it was never really a danger.

Regardless, Zeus had held me responsible for Octavian’s delusions of grandeur. Zeus seemed to consider egotism a trait the boy had inherited from me. Which is ridiculous. I am much too self-aware to be egotistical.

2016!filodox: I am going to Murder him.

*chef kiss* the hypocrisy ! the lack of self-awareness !

“I just...I assumed -- I hoped this would be taken care of by now.”

“You mean by demigods,” Percy said, “going on a big quest to reclaim the Oracle of Delphi?”

2016!filodox: That sounds like a decent quest, or you know, QUESTING FOR THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS

I’ve always said I can see the future but an inch to the left. Also, I don’t like Ella.

It warmed my heart that my children had the right priorities: their skills, their images, their views on YouTube. Say what you will about gods being absentee parents; our children inherit many of our finest personality traits.

2016!filodox: AND HE’S MAD ABOUT OCTAVIAN?!

I mean ?

Apollo, when Austin and Kayla show ambition: THEY GOT THAT FROM ME <3

Apollo, when Octavian (or Nero, or Caligula) shows ambition: srry i don’t know him ??

He had a weak jawline, an overlarge nose, and a beard that wrapped around his double chin like a helmet strap. His hair was curly and dark like mine, except not as fashionably tousled or luxuriant. His lips curled as if he smelled something unpleasant. Perhaps it was the burning seats of the bus.

2016!filodox: Nero ???

Not quite sure how to feel looking back at this moment. Call out post @ myself for instantly recognizing Nero, when afaik this scene was before we had any hints that Roman emperors were even a plot point? But here’s the thing: I don’t remember why I could recognize him so easily. I don’t remember where 2016!me obtained this ancient Rome knowledge. A mystery.

On another note entirely, did Nero really like,,,astral project into Apollo’s fever dream to address him directly? Because Rhea does. And sometimes Python does. But Nero? Can he do that?

The man laughed as flames licked at his purple sleeves. “You’re not sorry yet, but you will be. Find me the gates. Lead me to the Oracle. I’ll enjoy burning it down!”

2016!filodox: I too enjoy burning things down. # Nero confirmed

My only comment here is “oh you sweet summer child,,,”

Oh. Perhaps some of you are wondering how I felt seeing [Will] with a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend.

2016!filodox: No, actually. I wasn’t wondering. I was plotting how to kill you, them, and quite a few other people. Do you think I could trade you for Octavian?

Oh man, back at it again with the salt. XD

I could only remember my conversations with Octavian, the way he’d turned my head with his flattery and promises. That stupid boy...it was his fault I was here.

A voice whispered in the back of my mind. This time I thought it might be my conscience: Who was the stupid boy? It wasn’t Octavian.

2016!filodox: I can’t really...explain my emotions upon reading this. I’m still not quite okay, but this...it’s bittersweet in a way. I don’t know if this is a poor attempt at a proper closure, the author’s way of beating a dead horse, or just a way to make Apollo seem pitiable. Whatever it is... Octavian was important enough to remain in Apollo’s mortal memory. He somehow made promises to a god and had Apollo wrapped around his finger. And despite being so much like Apollo, the god blames him. Like everyone blames him. But Apollo also realizes, accepts on an infinitesimal scale, that “it wasn’t Octavian”. He wasn’t perfect, but neither is Apollo. Apollo is (at least) subconsciously admitting his own guilt in the whole affair.

...yeah. I will note that this bit isn’t meant to develop Octavian, but rather uses Octavian as a prop to support Apollo’s development? Which is why it still stings. Like thanks, I guess.

“Your judgement in the past has been...questionable. I wonder if you have chosen the right tools for this job. Have you learned from your past mistakes?”

2016!filodox: Nero has made plenty of mistakes to learn from

Love how I just assumed it was Nero back in chapter 10 and went with it, zero hesitation. Also love how I heard Python say Nero has made mistakes and went “oh absolutely”. In fact, here’s something funny in retrospect that will become more and more apparent: I did not like Nero in 2016. Or, at least, I thought I didn’t. There’s something really odd going on here that baffles me, looking back...

“A triumvirate is a ruling council of three,” I said. “At least, that’s what it meant in ancient Rome.”

“Which is interesting,” Rachel said, “because of this next shot.” She tapped her screen. The new photo zoomed in on the building’s penthouse terrace, where three shadowy figures stood talking together....

2016!filodox: Is it bad that I’m smirking? Because it’s getting interesting ~ *clear malicious intent*

Wow, edgy. Triumvirates are just a neat, Roman thing and I stanned.

“The last triumvirate I dealt with included Lepidus, Marc Antony, and my son, the original Octavian. A triumvirate is a very Roman concept...like patriotism, skullduggery, and assassination.”

2016!filodox: THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL EVERYONE. MODERN OCTAVIAN IS A VERY GOOD ANCIENT ROMAN. POLITICS, ESPECIALLY SHADY AF POLITICS AND POWERPLAYS, ARE QUINTESSENTIALLY ROMAN. Also, I’d like to note that it’s confirmed, in this universe’s canon, that Augustus was a son of Apollo.

Ohhhh, wait. I think I’d watched the HBO series Rome by 2016, which would at least partially explain my ancient Rome knowledge. (Amazing tv show btw!)

“He heard them talking in Latin.”

“Latin? Were they campers?”

Pete spread his hands. “I--I don’t think so. Paulie described them like they were adults. He said one of them was the leader. The other two addressed him as imperator.”

2016!filodox: !!!! (obligatory 💕)

I was such a simp for Latin in high school. And the Roman Empire. Still am, but hey.

“The Beast is planning some kind of attack on your camp. I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to be big.”

2016!filodox: Runs in the family I guess

The Octavian / Triumvirate parallels are everywhere... 👀

“The emperors made themselves gods. They had their own temples and altars. They encouraged the people to worship them.”

2016!filodox: # deify me

*smacking my past self with a stick* You stop that! Edgy child!

Anyway, a much better point here is like,,,the Imperial cult was huge in the ancient Roman world. Looking at Apollo’s explanation here, why did only the “worst” three emperors get to be immortal? Did famously “good” emperors like Augustus and Marcus Aurelius have the option of becoming minor gods, but they chose Elysium or something? Are there slightly less infamous emperors just hanging around anywhere as minor gods? A lot of Roman emperors live on in human memory is all I’m saying.

“Wait!” Will said as I reached the door. “Who is the Beast? Which emperor are we dealing with?”

“The worst of my descendants.” My fingers dug into the doorframe. “The Christians called him the Beast because he burned them alive. Our enemy is Emperor Nero.”

2016!filodox: I honestly can’t believe it took this long to reveal this? Was anyone surprised?

Nero’s reveal is rather late in the book compared to Commodus, Caligula, and even Tarquin iirc? But it makes sense, being the first book of the series. Also love how 16-year-old me was like “this reveal is silly because everyone, like me, recognizes Nero on sight” and didn’t question that assumption at all.

“Germani.” Instinctively, I moved in front of Meg. The elite imperial bodyguards had been cold-blooded death reapers in ancient Rome. I doubted they’d gotten any sweeter over the centuries.

2016!filodox: BITCH. See? This is why I love Rome. They knew what they were doing.

Ngl, as someone of Germanic heritage, I felt really represented by the Germani, which is hilarious on so many levels.

He tried to compensate for his ugliness with an expensive Italian suit of purple wool, his gray shirt open to display gold chains. His shoes were hand-tooled leather, not the sort of thing to wear while stomping around in an ant pile. Then again, Nero had always had expensive, impractical tastes.

2016!filodox: I don’t exactly like Nero, and actually think he was quite the shitty emperor, but I guess I mildly respect and “like” him on principle (in this book at least).

OH YOU SWEET SUMMER CHILD. I was so convinced that I didn’t actually like Nero, despite all of the lowkey evidence to the contrary? Who hurt you, past me? (Lmao, it was Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio.) My working theory is that I was too much of an Emperor Augustus stan at the time to admit liking Nero. It’s hysterical. Look at me equivocating like a champ.

I’d been so proud of my son, the original Octavian, later Caesar Augustus. After his death, his descendants became increasingly arrogant and unstable (which I blamed on their mortal DNA; they certainly didn’t get those qualities from me).

2016!filodox: I’m glad Apollo and I can agree on something. Augustus was amazing and those who came after him...significantly less so.

See! The propaganda really got to me, what can I say?

Nero clasped his hands as if in prayer. “Oh, my. It seems we’ve had a slight miscommunication. You see, Apollo, Meg brought you here, just as I asked her to. Well done, my sweet.”

2016!filodox: This was obvious but I still find it...gods, the only word I can think of is “delicious”

. . .

“The Beast killed my father. This is Nero. He’s -- he’s my stepfather.”

I could not fully grasp this before Nero spread his arms.

“That’s right, my darling,” he said. “And you’ve done a wonderful job. Come to Papa.”

2016!filodox: Okay, but we should have known this since it became apparent her weapons were Roman. Also, oof. Also also, WHY did Riordan feel the need to add that last line? Why?

ASDFGHJKL: I CAN’T

“After the fire, we’ll rebuild,” he said. “It will be glorious!”

2016!filodox: The amount of times I have used this very logic is worrying.

For (some) context, Firelord Ozai is my favorite character from AtLA. <3

The scene might have been funny except that the Germani were now back on their feet, five demigods and a geyser spirit were still tied to highly flammable posts, and Nero still had a box of matches.

2016!filodox: Oh, I find this plenty amusing!

The emperor stared at his empty hand. “Meg...?” His voice was as cold as an icicle.

2016!filodox: The various ways his tone / voice have been described throughout this conversation are just 💕

*looks at camera like I’m on The Office*

Seriously, though. Nero’s voice is like the central descriptive element of his character because he’s so manipulative. It’s really cool and a great use of detail.

[Meg] turned to Nero. “You told me never to lower myself to my enemies’ level.”

“No, indeed.” Nero’s tone had frayed like a weathered rope. “We are better. We are stronger. We will build a glorious new world. But these nonsense-spewing trees stand in our way, Meg. Like any invasive weeds, they must be burned. And the only way to do that is with a true conflagration -- flames stoked by blood.”

2016!filodox: Real 👏🏻 Gods 👏🏻 Require 👏🏻 Blood👏🏻

I was way too enthusiastic about this whole situation, wasn’t I?

Nero grinned. “Good-bye, Apollo. Only eleven more Olympians to go.”

2016!filodox: Wait, shit, WHAT

Having read Tower of Nero, this probably had something to do with Python interfering with the Fates, huh? But does that mean it’s more Python’s plan or Nero’s? If this was Nero’s plan (with his 12 kids literally replacing the Olympians) that’s,,,really fucking bold.

Then I heard the screaming from Camp Half-Blood.

2016!filodox: Music to my ears ~

I’m presenting every edgy detail of my annotations so I have a proper case file when I inevitably have to face the question “On a scale of one to ten, how relatable is Emperor Nero and why should you have realized it’s a ten sooner?”

In a flash of silver light, the camp’s magical barriers collapsed. The Colossus lurched forward and brought his foot down on the dining pavilion, smashing it to rubble like so many children’s blocks.

2016!filodox: Payback! Dear gods, I can’t stop smiling! I’m just like “YES!” I know this will all probably get fixed or whatever but I’M HAVING A MOMENT.

I’ve learned to appreciate the small wins. <3

Percy grabbed one of the crown’s sunray spikes. He sliced it off at the base, then jabbed it into the Colossus’ forehead.

2016!filodox: As much as Nero is FAR from my favorite, I really don’t like defacing ancient (or replicas of ancient) statues and art...

This is where I just start laughing at myself tbh. I was so insistent on not liking Nero. Like, I sound like I’m in denial. Peak equivocation. What happened to that heart emoji a few chapters back? Why did I suddenly make it about *checks notes* ancient art? Updated translation: nooo don’t ruin the Colossus Neronis it’s so sexy aha

Just as the [arrow] reached its apex and was about to fall back to earth, a gust of wind caught it...perhaps Zephyros looking kindly on my pitiful attempt. The arrow sailed into the Colossus’ ear canal and rattled in his head with a clink, clink, clink like a pachinko machine.

2016!filodox: HOW MANY EX MACHINAS IS THIS ?! The dryads, the arrow, Percy, the enchantment, and THIS ?

One of my criticisms of Trials of Apollo in general is just that the stakes are so much higher and Riordan usually solves that problem by having his heroes win on long odds. The chances of them succeeding at like,,,anything they attempt are astronomical, but of course they manage. It’s not surprising but it does get a little tiring.

“Yo, Nico,” Leo called, “please tell me that’s it for the physical abuse.”

“For now.” Nico smiled. “We’re still trying to get in touch with the West Coast. You’ll have a few dozen people out there who will definitely want to hit you.”

2016!filodox: Oh I’d love to hit him. With the flaming, Imperial gold payload of an onager. Preferably WITHOUT the Pontifex Maximus attached to it -- unless of course you mean the false pontifex, Jason Grace.

Leo was the salt in the wound for this one, ngl. He rekindled my undying ire over Octavian’s death. As I said at the beginning of this, I was extremely ready to die on Octavian’s hill after Heroes of Olympus. That sentiment sticks around for a while...

And we can call that a wrap!

Though it may seem like it, my annotations are not, in fact, a compilation of Nero’s greatest hits. There are a lot of scenes of his that I love (naturally) but I didn’t have anything to say about them when I first read the series. Maybe I’ll share those another time.

In any case, I hope you got something out of this ridiculously long post! Until next time! <3

#trials of apollo #toa #filodox!#I don't know what any of you were expecting but this is what I've got #no these are not all of my annotations #I tried to pick the best ones #oh also #I'm sorry to everyone with hard copies of the books #since I have ebooks it's no problem to search for quotes and page numbers are imaginary #if you want me to put chapters with the quotes I can

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aloeveraspeaks · 4 years

Text

Something Sweet (Part 1)

A/N: This is a short I’ve been working on and it’s longer than I intended but it’s basically what happened in FPA cooking club before it was set on fire on the first day.

Nanda walked into the cooking club room to see if anyone was in there, “Hi?” she asked hesitantly. Receiving no response Nanda decides to sit down in a nearby chair and draw. A few minutes later Coraline waltzes into the room with an apron and a cat paw oven mitt in hand. She notices Nanda and decides to introduce herself.

“Hello, I’m Coraline! What’s your name?” She chirps.

Tika notices Coraline wander in, she’s curious as to what she’s doing so she follows her into the room.

Adrien checks their watch as they sprint down the hallway. They’re late for their club, so they round the corner and jump into the room. Out of breath they burst out, “Sorry for being late! I hope we can still get stated on baking.”

Akaiif wanders into the room seeming to be looking for something. “Hm? Hello?” They take a step in.

“I really should think about getting here earlier.” Adrien sighs. He heads to the back of the room pocketing a note from Aloe with some vegetables from gardening club. He chuckles at whatever the note said as he begins to put everything away. Then he turns to greet the others.

“Do you need something?” Coraline asks Akaiif with a friendly smile.

“I was just looking around the school, it’s been a while since I’ve been here.” They look around once more. “Are you part of the cooking club?”

Coraline nods, “Yup! Not freshly new, I’ve been in this club since last year.”

“Ohhh, I think I saw you last year… anyways, I’m Akaiif.” They move in more to sit down at a table.

Adrien goes up to address the two, “Are you joining the club today Akaiif?”

“Oh no I actually used to come here to talk to the teach since he got handy tips on cooking. I’m already a part of a different club though.”

“Oh that’s alright! You can still join us for today if you’d like.” Adrian smiles kindly, “we’re not doing much today, just baking cookies, but it should still be fun!”

“How delightful!” Akaiif responds, “I wouldn’t mind helping, but I don’t think I’ll be eating cookies anytime soon.” They point to their mouth, it seems to be covered in duct tape.

Nanda finally notices the others, she must’ve gotten absorbed into her sketching. “Oh hi guys. I’m Ananda but you can call me Nanda. Nice to meet you!”

At this point Aloe walks into the room to see if anyone got the vegetables, “Hello!” She greets noticing everyone in the club. She glances to Adrian.

Akaiif waves to Nanda and Aloe, “Hello.”

Afrien loked a bit confused, but he didn’t want to ask about the duct tape so he turns his attention to Aloe, “Ah Aloe, Hello there!”

“What’re you guys making?” Aloe asks.

“Cookies!” Adrian respinds gleefully practically bouncing wih excitement, “what are you doing here roomie? Plan to join us too?”

Akaiff got up and put on an Apron. Aloe joined them, “Sure why not.” She responded. “I was actually just coming to see if you got the ingredients.”

“You two have the right idea! Everyone put on your aprons, while I search for the recipe I found.” Adrien pulls a stack of paper from his bag and ruffles through them.

“Mind if I join?” Tika asks, “I’ve been wandering in and out for an hour, not gonna lie.”

Adrian nods, “Anyone is allowed to join, cooking is more fun as a group!” He hands out the recipe for raspberry thumb print cookies then puts on an apron.

“I can help bake! Thanks!” Tika says.

“I believe Mr.Hour puts the flour here.” Akaiif opens a cabinet and grabs some flour.

“I actually might need some help.” Tika laughs nervously.

“That’s alright, you don’t need to know how to cook, any of us can help.”

“Thank you! You’re so Sweet.” Tika replies.

“I think Mr. Hour keeps the jam in the fridge let me get it.” Aloe says rushing to the fridge to pull out the ingredient.

“Oooh I’ve never had these.” Nanda says having finished reading the recipe. She put on an apron.

“I try.” Adrian replies to Tika, as he sets his recipe on the table and grabs the sugar. “The cookies are really good, trust me.”

“All cookies are good don’t worry.”

“Thumbprint cookies can be amazing as long as you bake them right, I once had a batch with too much salt and it was gross.” Aloe chimes in.

“Aloe is right.” Adrian agrees.

Akaiif looks into the counters grabbing a bowl, rolling pin, and cookie cutters. “alright I got these things.”

“Um anything easy I can help make? I’m good with knives and Sh*t.”

“Good job, I fon;t know if we’ll need the rolling pin or cookie cutters but I hink it might be interesting to try making the cookies in special shapes!” Adrian smiled, “The fun of cooking is trying things out.”

Akaiif turns to Tika and sarcastically says, “Depends, can you cut out a cookie by using a knife?”

“Yea probably.”

“How about we do star shapes for some.” Aloe suggests as Adrian skillfully mixes the ingredients together.”

“Oooh! I can cut the school logo on others!” Tika adds.

“Star shapes seem pretty cute.” Akaiif nods and says as Adrian speaks.

“Star shapes sound cute I like that.”

Aloe chuckles at how in unison they were.

“Yeah, Ooh wait do you guys like my nails? I got them done in the bathroom on the third floor.” She sticks out her hand.

“The school logo would be a great idea!” Akaiif says helping to mix.

“Well, make sure none of the nail polish gets in the cookies!” Adrian warned half serious half joking.

“Don’t worry, not gonna be a problem.”

“We should do each of the house logos too!” Aloe suggests again.

“Yeah, I got ideas in mind let me just pull the logos up on my phone.” Tika replies.

“That’s nice.” Akaiif said as they looked over the recipe.

“Let me turn on the over.” Aloe says as they turn it to the temperature directed. She smiles satisfied with it as Akaiif pours the dough onto the counter. Adrian rolls it out then Tika gets ready to cut it.

Tika cuts the dough into shapes with a thing knife, “Is this good?”

“Yeah! Great, thanks!”

“Hello…! Can I join? Library was boring because no one wants to join in.” Alyssya peeks through the door shyly. She has to know what the equipment the group has so she can use it at about three am in the morning secretly

“I think the logo cookies would also be nice to thank our teachers for all their hard work!” Adrian said, “We should also make bells, to thank Mr. Hour for letting us destroy his kitchen every afternoon.” He laughed nervously.

“Pretty good.” Akaiif compliments leaning over Tika’s shoulder.

“No problem! Yeah that’s a great idea! We can drop off a batch at the office, and hey there. Of course you can join!”

“Yup, anyone is allowed to join us.” Adrian chimes in.

Tika finishes cutting up a batch, and goes over to the pantry. “Does anyone mind if I make some tea to go with the cookies?”

“Thanks!” Alyssya replies, “I kinda have to make a custom breakfast for my dorm mates.”

“Oh cool. What kind?” Tika asks, making the tea despite not receiving a response.

“That’s nice.” Akaiff adds.

“How nice of you! Your roommates must be lucky to have you.”

Akaiff starts cutting some dough to make some cookies too. Tika twirls a knife in her hand while waiting for the kettle to sound, “So how many batches are we making?”

“I’ll have to do that for you and Ella sometime Adrian.” Aloe Jokes fondly nudging him in the shoulder.

“Lucky, I’d say no? I love mothering a lot of people so…” Alyssya puts her bag down obviously filled with math text books.

Adrian chuckled at Aloe, “You better.” He then turns to Tika, “we don’t have to make too many batches. We can’t overbake again or else Mr. Hour will have my head.” He says dramatically.

“I mean… The more the merrier?” Tika suggests.

“We can pass out the extras to the students!” Aloe chimes in.

“Yeah… true.” Adrian says thoughtfully. “I’m sure people would love our baking.”

“I can give some to student council.”

Akaiif starts putting the cookies into rows on a baking pan. “Has anyone finished any cookies? I’m ready to put some in the oven.”

“Go ahead and put the cookies you’ve finished in the oven, we’ll catch up to you!” Adrian says.

“Alright.” Akaiif replies putting them in then setting a timer. They’re about to close the over when Aloe speaks up.

“Wait!” She shouts, “Let me put mine in too!” She quickly runs over with the cookies on a pan and shoves them in closing the oven.

“I’m mostly Chaotic at day! After all, I am the Dermit cult leader with… uh… hahaha…” Alyssya seems nervous like she’s not supposed to say a word, “Anyways what can I help y’all with.”

“Alright two batches in the oven.”

“I’m usually very chaotic, but like… student council and sh*t. Also baking is so domestic you legit can not be chaotic with this.” Tika replies.

“Oh trust me, you can.” Aloe laughs.

“I guess since we’re handing some out to the students you can start your own batch of cookies if you’d like!” Adrian replies, smiling and holding out a recipe.

“Well fair.” Tika replies, “but I’m too tired to set anything on fire right now and I’ve already stabbed a lot of dough.”

“Relatable.” Akaiif looks at the timer, “5 more minutes.”

“Alright, I think I will make brownies! …Which is totally different from cookies but whatever! Everyone loves brownies!” Alyssya took her oversized jacket off and tied it around her waist. She rolls up her sleeves and begins measuring out the ingredients she will need.

“So what do we do while we wait, guys?” Aloe asks.

“Sure, brownies sound good too, but don’t make too much of a mess!”

“Hmmm…. I don’t know.” Akaiif sat down thinking.

“20 questions?” Aloe suggests.

“Sounds fun!” Adrian agrees

“I’m up for anything.” Alyssya says sifting flour.

“Okay then I’ll start.” Aloe says pausing for a second, “Would you rather be a pig or a cow?”

#FPA #Fanplan #fanplan academy #fanplan academy (tumblr ver.)#fanplan academy discord

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pretty-well-funded · 5 years

Note

For the prompt thing if this is alright: Dub con with innocent and naive Peter where Tony tricks him into having sex with him all the time because Peter doesn’t know any better then Peter only finds out what they’re really doing when he has sex ed or something at school but then he still returns to Tony because he’s grown to like doing it Tony would just be surprised because Peter would start telling him things like wanting to get filled up so much that he has babies

this went in a slightly different direction than you might have intended, because I have a really hard time imagining Peter being so naive post-puberty (being both gen Z and a super smart kid). and then I didn’t have the patience to build up all of the brainwashing, so I took a third-party shortcut. Hopefully it still has the spirit of what you wanted though, lol

Tony isn’t the foster dad type.

Ok, well, massive understatement, and widely accepted knowledge considering the reception the press release had gotten, but. Peter’s different. And the circumstances are unique ones.

Iron Man wasn’t in the cult-busting business, but when you land in upstate New York to destroy an arms-smuggling operation and discover roughly 100 brainwashed civilians... Well. You can’t call yourself a superhero and leave them there. Not the way they’d been living.

That wouldn’t have resulted in Tony as a legal guardian, not by itself. But there was something about a small, brown-eyed boy with deft hands and a quick mind, forced to use those assets to invent next-gen weaponry...

It struck a little too close to home.

Peter is special. He’s a sweet kid, so eager for approval and praise, with a brilliant untrained mind. The things he’s invented without a day of formal education...well, even Tony’s impressed. But Peter’s also a little sheltered, a little warped by his special upbringing, and even if he’d had family fit to be guardians, Tony’s not sure that would have been safe.

What Peter knows, what Peter can do...it’s too dangerous to just let him go. He’s barely fifteen and already on SHIELD’s threat list. Either Tony took Peter or SHIELD would, and Tony doesn’t trust SHIELD as far as he can throw them, even now that they’re more like a bush baby than an 800-pound gorilla.

So. Tony has a foster kid.

They’ve settled into somewhat of a routine. Tony’s days are no longer his own, because Peter’s pretty clingy. And as JARVIS constantly reminds him, children need structure, especially after their whole world implodes in a crash of red and gold metal.

He can still get work done, thank God, since Peter loves the lab. But they’re on a pretty strict meal plan to help Peter gain weight, and there’s tutoring to be done (thank you, JARVIS), and Tony is supposed to be modeling this whole “balanced life” thing, so the days of 20 hours straight inventing have gone the way of Tony’s sex life.

Their “free time” should probably consist of more than whatever movie is next on Peter’s pop culture education, but it’s not like Tony has a lot of kid-friendly activities in his repertoire, and Peter’s not so good at being in public yet, anyway.

They’ve got a rhythm, now, and Tony’s almost adjusted to all Peter’s odd quirks. He thinks they’ve hit all the biggest landmines: the weird diet issues, the endless parade of outrageous beliefs, the guilt over not being allowed to complete his mission....the snuggling.

Tony’s still a little embarrassed about the snuggling. At least he convinced Peter to save it for movie time, on the couch, and not to crawl into the master bed anymore, but still, it’s...awkward. The way Peter crawls into his lap like he’s five and not almost grown, clings to Tony like a baby monkey and fidgets in ways that are decidedly...

Well. Tony really needs to get laid, because his body misinterprets where all that lap-squirming is headed.

Still, it’s...innocent. And Peter needs it, touch-starved and lonely now that Tony’s the only one he has. Tony even thinks it’s kind of cool, when he has some distance from it. He’s not sure he was EVER allowed to be affectionate with Howard. For a weapons-hoarding doomsday cult, they didn’t seem to have the kind of toxic masculinity you’d expect.

Tony’s gotten used to the cuddling, and he really thinks they’ve hit all the biggest landmines, until the evening Peter grabs his hand and presses it against his very hard cock.

Tony tries to breathe, somewhat outside his body as his hand is casually used to stimulate a teenager’s cock without his permission. Peter’s eyes are on the movie (which is decidedly not playing a sex scene), but his hips are rocking up into the touch and his ass (which is not a lush, tasty handful, Tony hasn’t noticed) rubs coincidentally against Tony’s not-at-all interested dick.

Peter’s chewing on his bottom lip, eyes half-lidded, color high on his cheeks, and his breath has started to go ragged. It’s not until he starts to grunt a little that Tony suddenly snaps partway out of it.

It’s a struggle to keep his voice calm, because he knows - he just knows - this is one of those things Pete doesn’t realize is wrong. “Pete...what are we doing right now, kid?”

Big brown eyes turn away from The Empire Strikes Back and toward Tony. Then he answers, “Making it go away,” in a matter-of-fact way that says this answer is obvious and just a thing that one naturally does.

Tony’s not sure what his face does in response, but Peter’s no dummy. His entire body goes still (thank God), and he studies Tony’s face with a puzzled little frown.

Then the frown slowly drops into a devastated look. “I’m doing something wrong?”

Tony swallows hard at the sight of those eyes gone glassy with tears. It’s always painful to pull this rug out from under Peter a little bit at a time. “It’s...well, it’s. Not wrong, it’s normal to... Jesus, kid, I need to know what you think we’re doing, here.”

Peter’s hand releases Tony’s, but before Tony can sigh in relief, the kid is halfway off his lap, on the verge of fleeing in shame. Tony pulls him back down, shushing, well aware of what his next few days look like if he lets Peter go.

“Hey, you’re ok. It’s okay, we’ll deal with whatever it is, I just need more information. Help me run a diagnostic here, would you?”

“I thought it was normal.”

Peter’s used to knowing, understanding, and every time they have to rewrite the rules of the world as he knows them, it’s... Hard. And he beats himself up. “I know, Pete. It’s gonna be okay. Just tell me what you know. We’ll figure it out just like we always do.”

“It’s just... Someone’s always helped it go away.” Peter’s red-faced and avoiding Tony’s gaze now. Tony’s not even sure he understands it’s about sex - that’s an area where Peter is painfully naive. He’s probably just this mortified over realizing he’s somehow wrong.

“Helped what go away?” Tony asks, deliberately putting aside ‘someone always helped,’ because you can’t blow up cult leaders twice.

“The...swelling,” Peter mutters, like he’s lacking vocabulary for this thing someone ‘always helps with.’

“Your erection,” Tony tries to clarify, and Peter shrugs like he always does when Tony’s words are different than the ones that he knows. “Did they tell you what causes an erection, Pete?”

Peter finally looks up and makes eye contact, looking even more confused at the question. “It just...happens, right? Like a sneeze. I mean, it only started the last few years, but...” Peter’s eyes are keen on Tony’s face. “Why, what is it?”

“It’s...” Jesus, Tony is tired. The thought of trying to answer that question without sending Peter spiraling makes Tony want to lie down for a year. And, well, at fifteen, erections DO just happen. “You’re right, it’s a normal bodily function, it’s just one we take care of by ourselves, usually.”

“By myself?” Peter looks somewhat crestfallen, and Tony’s afraid he can see where this is going, but he has to try.

“Yeah, it’s private, like being naked is a private.” Because that’s one they’ve conquered already, thank Christ. “Why don’t you duck into the bathroom and help it go away by yourself.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”

“It’s okay, Peter. I’m not angry.”

The kid gets off his lap and slinks off to the bathroom and Tony lets his head fall back with a sigh. Jesus fucking Christ.

Twenty minutes later, Pete’s not back, and Tony just keeps telling himself ‘one more minute, one more minute before I check.’ When he can’t avoid it anymore, he pads quietly to the guest bathroom’s door and listens for a second, heart sinking when he hears Peter quietly crying.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. He was afraid of this.

Tony takes a deep breath and knocks. “Bud? Everything okay?”

There’s a frantic shuffle for five seconds, then the door opens, revealing Peter’s splotchy face. “No. I can’t...I’m not...I can just let it go away by itself. It will, eventually.”

Tony’s eyes fall to the tent pole in Peter’s pants and winces. “Is that what you’ve been doing since you got here? Letting it go away by itself?”

Peter shrugs, which is a yes.

“I’m guessing it’s pretty painful right now, though, yeah?”

Tony watches Peter clamp down on fresh tears. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Tony sighs, and puts an arm around Pete’s shoulders. “Let’s go sit down and I’ll help.”

It takes some coaxing for Peter to relax in his lap, this time, and it’s a weird, fucked up funhouse mirror of responsible behavior to be soothing a teenage boy to just relax so Tony can rub him off.

“That’s it,” Tony murmurs when Peter starts to thrust against his hand. “That’s a good boy, just let me help.”

“I’m sorry,” Pete says miserably. Tony presses a kiss to his forehead.

“Don’t be sorry, nothing’s your fault. You’re a very good boy, and you’re doing the best that you can.” Peter’s chest gives a hitch, and of course, Tony thinks. Of course he has a fucking praise kink. “You make me so happy, Peter. I couldn’t ask for a sweeter, more brilliant boy in my life. You deserve to feel good, so just relax and let me help. I’m happy to help. There you go, you’re almost done, and you’re so very pretty like this - “

Peter’s fingers have been twisting in Tony’s shirt, kneading like a kitten as he pants, then suddenly they clench as he presses up against Tony’s hand and shudders hard. His jeans are too thick for Tony to even feel warmth, but the way the kid collapses in a euphoric puddle says all that he needs to know.

Tony reaches up and combs Peter’s hair back from his face, smiling when Peter nuzzles into his hand.

“Pete, why haven’t you asked me to ‘help’ before?”

Peter’s eyes blink sleepily open. “Well, I didn’t know you very well. You can’t just ask anyone, right?”

“Right,” Tony says, feeling dazed. “That makes sense.”

Well, it doesn’t. Not when the kid doesn’t know that it’s sex. Except it does; if he thinks it’s like a sneeze...you don’t ask strangers to help blow your nose. So, there’s that.

Jesus.

Pete’s rapidly falling asleep in Tony’s arms, so he doesn’t have time to figure out how to break the news that this is not a sneeze. Peter’s way too big to pick up when he’s dead weight, and hell to wake up once he’s passed out.

“Time for bed, kiddo. Go brush your teeth.”

There’s an adorable grumpy grumble, then the kid’s hauling himself off of Tony’s lap, and disappearing down the hall without so much as a thank you. Which is good, because Tony shouldn’t be thanked for what he did. Christ.

It’s okay. It was just once, and it’s not like the first time Tony’s done weird things for Peter. He’s not a creep, he doesn’t plan to do it again. Tomorrow, he’ll sit Peter down, and... Look, it won’t be a pleasant adjustment, but eventually Peter will have to learn to take care of himself.

Just like Tony. A cold shower ought to do the trick.

#my shit #Anonymous

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weapon13whitefang · 5 years

Note

Challenge Ask: One of the theories out there is that Beth is part of the Whisperers. If so, what do you think Beth would have to do to get Daryl to join aswell? #BringBackBeth2019

I’m gonna start off by saying that, with one hundred percent belief on my end, Beth would not try to get Daryl to join the Whisperers unless she had absolutely no idea who he or Carol or Michonne – the only people she’d recognize at this point since Maggie and Rick are MIA – were at all.

The Whisperers in the comic would only kill people that wouldn’t conform to their belief. They shun civilization and humanity and view humans as animals. Basically, the apocalypse was a reset for them to “go back to their roots”, so to speak. Which is funny because on the show, that’s what The Wolves believed. Hell, a Wolf basically says that to Morgan and Gabriel before Carol kills him:

“We’re freeing you. You’re trapped. You need to know, people don’t belong here anymore.”

Which is why a lot of people who’ve read the comics probably thought The Wolves were going to be The Whisperers. They’re very similar after all… But it turns out it was more like a hint / foreshadowing of the Whisperers. At least in terms of dealing with people with views that are “way out there”.

Think about it this way. So far, besides Terminus and The Wolves, the other groups that TF has faced had very understandable reasons behind their actions that one could associate with human survival and mentality. The Governor was a bit mad but his choices stemmed from basic human emotions that were twisted. He lost his family and therefore it twisted him up and he wanted a cure to get his daughter back and he wanted control to run things as he saw they should be. His actions were disgusting and horrible, but he was still marginally human. A monster in his actions. But a human.

Dawn and Grady were an example of The Stanford Prison Experiment. The psychological perceived image of power and control over one’s prisoners. Dawn believed she had control and therefore she underestimated people and what they can and will do for power or to survive. If you’ve never read about the experiment or seen the tapes, fair warning that they’re hard to stomach but also really fascinating. But I can say that some of what we saw at Grady is very similar to the experiment. Especially when you focus on how each person fell into their roll and how quickly things fell apart since the experiment only lasted six days but many people left mid experiment…

Anyway, Grady still had the psychological connection to human actions. What we saw with Dawn and the other officers and the prisoners/Beth was examples of human actions when given no boundaries within boundaries. Meaning the actions of the officers were still “controlled” in the hospital because too much push could have consequences to them even if Dawn was slack on punishment for the sake of a power balance, she still had the illusion of control over things and psychologically that put people in place. Even the ones plotting against her. She was still being a cop just with very twisted views and survival choices… It’s kind of like when you deal with a teacher that thinks they can do whatever they want because they have ten year but, in the end, they still have to keep to certain school rules or risk a full-on student attack. Least in high school anyway.

Then there’s The Saviors. Negan was using charisma and intimation to rally people the way he wanted them. He was basically being an Adolf (I’m not gonna put the N with the Z word in here incase it gets flagged or something since Tumblr is on some cray with their tagging or mention issue) and he used charisma and the illusion of power to make things his way. We get a hint from Gordon (the Savior who tried to get away that Dwight killed) that things before Negan were different. That when Negan came in, everyone and everything changed:

“Thug swoops in with a baseball bat and smiles and we’re so scared we gave up everything – but there’s only one of him and all of us so why are we living like this?”

If you think about it, Negan’s reign was a very basic example of Adolf’s reign over Germany. Adolf came in, worked himself up to power in politics with cunningness, violence, and his overall charm. People liked him (crazy enough) and he was excellent at speaking and surrounded himself with people like himself that weren’t afraid of violence to fulfill their political gain… Who does that sound like? Negan. And Negan used a lot of psychological torture on people (example of letting Dwight fuck with Daryl by taking away his clothes, keeping him awake with cheery music, and feeding him dog food), something Adolf himself had done with his camps… Basically the Saviors could be an example of Germany and their fall to Adolf’s political party… And this is even more true when you think of how Germany had a hard time adapting after Adolf’s fall (I know there’s more history to it than that but I’m not going into politics and history here, just pointing out similarities).

So now look at the Terminus crew and The Wolves. Out of the two, Terminus is more human than the Wolves were. They were once a peaceful group who put up signs to bring people together to survive and have a future… But the wrong kind of people got in and stayed and used the Terminus crew and raped and just enslaved them. This broke Gareth and his brother Alex and their mother Mary. He started seeing his deeds – eating people and hurting them – as things he had to do. Not things he wanted to do. Things he had to do to survive. They needed to eat. Food was scarce, so they took a page from the Walkers. People became the food. You’re either the butcher or the cattle mentality taken to a whole new level… Those that didn’t fall in line – those that questioned the choice to eat others – became the cattle.

Really, Gareth even says it to Bob after Bob wakes up (I cut down some of the speech because it’s not really needed):

“I want to explain myself a little. You see, we didn’t want to hurt you… before. We didn’t want to pull you away from your group or scare you. These aren’t things we want to do. They’re things we gotta do. You and your people took away our home. That’s fair play. Now we’re out here like everybody else trying to survive. And in order to do that, we have to hunt. Didn’t start that way, eating people. It evolved into that. We evolved. We had to. And now we’ve devolved, into hunters… I just hope you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal…. A man’s gotta eat….”

It’s human to evolve… But it’s also an animal thing. Humans and Animals have evolved over the years to adapt to the changing environment and changing world. Gareth had a point when he said they had to evolve… But he was right in that when they evolved, they devolved as well. They went back to cave men. Because in TWD world you can’t be like you were. Like Beth said, you gotta put the past behind you or it kills you. The Terminus people became the Walkers… Humans as Walkers. So, they were the first simple example of The Whisperers in that they turned their back on civilized norm. They ate other humans to live. They weren’t too different from the walkers… Just maintained their human mind of being able to have cognitive thoughts. In the end, that got them killed cause they tried to eat the wrong people.

Then there’s The Wolves. Primitive and cult like, The Wolves used the walkers just like Terminus adapted with the walkers. Now we didn’t see a wolf eat a person (least I don’t recall seeing them try to eat a person) but they did use the walkers and took to overthrowing and raiding other survivor groups to survive. They were scavengers (taking the arc of The Scavengers in the comic, who are the ones who actually attack ASZ after Rick kills Pete). They were like wolves. They scavenged their food, mark their territory, and would grow in numbers with gathering more people to follow their way or gather more walkers to use as a trap, marking them with their W’s as well. Marking them like a farmer marks their cattle. A butcher marking their kills… Which is what a pack of wolves does. They mark their territory and take from it as they see fit.

So again, it’s easy to see why they were viewed as being The Whisperers. But I believe – like a lot of people – that they were just a “beta” version of the Whisperers for the group to face. The Wolves devolved from civilization to taking on animal qualities of a cult-pack mindset and were using the walkers to gain an upper hand against other “packs”, AKA the people they attacked. The Whisperers devolved to become those that use the walkers but walk among them… The Wolves and the Terminus crew were a buildup to the Whisperers – a buildup to Beta and Alpha. Alpha is basically like Gareth and Beta is like Owen, the former leader of the Wolves.

So, what about Beth in terms of my entire rambling? Well as I said, I do not believe that unless Beth didn’t know who Daryl was, she wouldn’t try to lure him to the Whisperers. That role seems to be going to Lydia – the girl we see telling Daryl in the trailer that “you don’t belong with these people” or so it’s being made out as… We’ll see.

Now I started writing this out before the mid-season premiere so I’ve gone and changed some thoughts, but most of the following stuff is still what I think. I think Lydia is going to try and persuade Henry and Daryl. More so I see Henry, as it seems they’re trying to play Carl’s role with Lydia on Henry, though I don’t see it going over like it did in the comics (We saw an image of Lydia violently lashing out in the future episode previews so I’m still with the belief that she can’t be trusted for now./// May change.)

Anyway, with Lydia persuading Henry, his easily impressionable and good hearted nature is gonna have him go after Lydia (SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON YOU’VE BEEN WARNED there’s going to be an exchange for Luke and Alden from Alpha to get her daughter back). Daryl is going to have to get into the Whisperers group because I’m sure others are gonna be captured (this part I do not know but I do know Daryl is supposed to put on a Walker suit and mask). That’s how he ends up fighting Beta like we see in the preview (which, ooc for this post I’m so fucking excited for just FYI ‘cause I love love love Ryan Hurst and I’m so happy to see SOA peeps on TWD… Can we get others? Please?! Lol) and that’s going to probably get Daryl captured by the Whisperers as well.

Now here is my speculation… I have a few ideas about – if she is with the Whispers – that can maybe be possible. One, I am wondering if Beth is going to be shown coming across the spiked Walker heads. Why do I think that? This:

This is Andrea after she finds the spiked heads of her friends with Michonne, Rick, Dante, Carl, and Lydia. Michonne in the comic was in a sort of relationship with Ezekiel (who is one of the heads that the group finds) and she breaks down, unable to put down Ezekiel’s reanimated head. Andrea takes a knife from Michonne and does it for her. Now… Look at how Andrea looks. She’s wearing a poncho, a hat similar to what Gabriel has been wearing (I believe it’s called a Gaucho hat or more commonly just called a Mexican cowboy hat), jeans, her hair pulled back, and the scar on her face.

The poncho automatically makes me think of Daryl. Daryl’s poncho was left back at the prison when it fell along with Merle’s bike. So unless Beth ended up back at the fallen walker over-run prison (which, hey, if she was still in Georgia when she woke up, wouldn’t be that far off though I highly doubt it) then her picking up a poncho not only would be a reference to something Daryl did but it would also connect to Maggie as Daryl let Maggie wear the poncho in S3. The hat would be a nod to Rick, as the Gaucho “Mexican Cowboy Hat” would associate to the cowboy hat that Rick wears and honestly with Beth’s jeans, would look dope as hell… Just saying. She’d look like a female Clint Eastwood, which is why Norman wanted the poncho – Clint Eastwood look.

This image of Andrea is one of the many that really paints that Beth and Comic!Andrea looked very similar. There are tons of images in the comic of Andrea that make Beth look like her twin. Especially with the new cut across her cheek she had received in Grady.

With this image in mind and being at this part in the comic on the show, I can’t help but just gravitate to it and think of Beth in general… Which is mostly just fan reaching with no solid evidence, but that’s one way I can see Beth having a connection to the Whisperers’ coming across their “handy work”.

Number two, if Beth survived the gunshot, her memory could be all kinds of fucked up. She might not have a single clue as to who Daryl or Carol or Michonne are. She might not recall that she has a sister or who Rick was or even know who Judith was/is. I always keep in mind that we were told the reunion could be bittersweet for Beth and the others… Bittersweet could mean that she doesn’t remember anyone OR that she’s partially blind and can’t recognize people OR that she doesn’t remember anyone and is a completely different person than she was… That would be the only way I’d be able to see Beth within the Whisperers world. The Beth we know wouldn’t stand for what they do. Would she maybe stick around to survive them if they captured her? Absolutely. But the moment she could, Beth would escape… Unless she didn’t know who she was at all anymore. As in who she is and who she was are not part of her and make her completely different. What’s more bittersweet than finding something you lost but it’s not the way you remember it? Ever find an old book or an old photo or something you lost, only to see it’s missing pages or is cracked in places or just not completely like you left it… That could be Beth. That gunshot has to have some kind of leftover affect on the girl… Trauma to the head isn’t gonna leave you in one single piece. Not from what I’ve studied and heard…

So of course the third thing is that she’s pretending and with the Whisperers as a means to survive because they said join us or we kill you / fuck you up. So she joins them… But if Beth saw Daryl or Michonne and her memory was still around, then she’d do her damn best to get to him and Michonne to get back to her family like she’s been trying to do FOR EIGHT YEARS. This is why I have a hard time with this whole “Boots is Beth” thing, by the way. I can see the appeal of it. And there are some strange things around it… But if Beth had any clue of where Rick or Maggie or Michonne or Daryl were, she’d have gone to them asap. Granted, she could’ve gotten held up / something bad happened to her on the way between the junkyard and Alexander. But even still, eight years is a long time to get held back…

Overall, eight years is a long ass time between Grady and now. Oh sure, it had been two years or so since they’d seen Morales and suddenly he shows up and his loose end was closed… But at least Morales wasn’t some weird ass fucking Dutch angle bullshit. He left for a new location with his family, he never made it, and he found the Saviors. That’s the basic of it… But it’s a story and it folds up nice enough to make sense… Beth’s story is an eight year fucking gap in the TWD world. For us it’s been just over five years of nothing… Would now be the best time to drop her in? Well it wouldn’t hurt the ratings right now that’s for bloody sure. I mean – I know everyone is pointing it out but why don’t I as well – the ratings for Season 1 were just slightly lower than they are now… Slightly. Not too far. But close… Season 4 and Season 5 were the best and highest in ratings out of all nine… They need to step some shit up. Not by taking away and adding in a bunch of who the fuck people… But by doing something no average viewer is going to expect. I took film classes. I studied this shit. They need to do something or the show can end up on the chopping block and goodbye big screen and FEAR and all the other ideas that were supposed to be played out.

Now… Back in 2015 – give or take – I did have a thought. This will be my final thoughts on Beth and the Whisperers, I cannot believe I’ve written something this long good god I am sorry for the long read…. But anyway, back in about 2015 or so, I wrote a post called “Liz Makes A Contribution to TD” (click to read if you want) . In that post I talked about the season five cast photos that were out at the time.

If you don’t recall which one those were, here’s a link from Skybound of them . So these photos come out and – like Skybound pointed out – there was no Tyreese or Beth or Carl. Which had people speaking up on Tumblr and I saw a few people on Twitter also comment to Skybound about how bizarre it was that we didn’t have these three… Well then we got a picture of Beth and Tyreese.

Of course Tyreese’s photo looked like everyone elses. Like they were all inside a barn (which they would end up in later… But not Tyreese) and Beth’s… Well, if you looked at everyone elseS THEN LOOKED AT Beth’s… Hers was completely different.

If you look at Beth compared to the others, hers just… Sticks out. Everyone else is inside something. There’s light coming through cracks and hitting everyone… But not Beth. She’s being completely covered in light. As in it’s shining down on her while it’s peaking at everyone else.

Now of course, if you read my post, you know that when we got Season 6 Promo pics, a lot of people flipped out and were pointing out how Beth’s picture looked like she was on the other side of the wall that Rick is leaning against and listening to the Walker on the other side.

Take a look

Even someone like me - on team fence - could still look at these images and go “Hey, Wait a minute…” and gasp at the realization that it literally looks like Beth is just on the other side of the wall Rick is against

Immediately I was thinking of Beth’s lines that she screamed at in Daryl to make a point to his drunk, angry ass. The same damn lines that many of us today have still been quoting and that many people have been pealing back layer by layer and feeling like this is important and it’s trying to tell us something.

“I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl. I’m not Michonne, I’m not Carol, I’m not Maggie. I’ve survived and you don’t get it ‘cause I’m not like you or them. But I made it and you don’t get to treat me like crap just because you’re afraid!”

How many times has TD gone over and over this line? How many times have you all found yourself just repeating that line and thinking “why did they have her say that if they just were gonna kill her” when we were told Scott had this whole damn thing planned out… Why give her that line to spit out? Or the line she says to Daryl as they’re sitting and talking on the porch?

“I’ll be gone someday.”

“Stop.”

“I will. You’re gonna be the last man standing. You are… You’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon.”

Of course I highlighted the important elements... I have thought really had about this line many a times and I know you all have as well… So when I thought of those lines and thought of those promo photos and what they were saying to me, I went into “Holy Shit I Get It” mode.

Beth IS A dead girl… She’s among the dead…

At the time I didn’t understand what I was getting at. I just knew Beth would return with the Walkers. I felt that deep in my gut when I looked at the images. And even now, looking back at them, my body is like “dude, wake up and look dammit!” and I’m looking… But until now, I think I get what I didn’t realize back then.

The Walkers Beth will be with… Are the Whisperers.

A living girl among the dead… Who does that? The Whisperers do that. Alpha and the Whisper do just that. They LIVE among the DEAD. The WALK among the DEAD. They ARE the WALKING DEAD. They are what Rick said that Team Family was and what Daryl said they are not.

But what exactly does that mean… Is Beth a Whisperer… Or will she come from the Whisperers.

Let me explain… You asked if I believed Beth would try to convince Daryl to Join the Whisperers… If Beth is among the Whisperers AS a Whisperer, no I do not believe she will try to bring Daryl over… But rather try to get from the Dead to Daryl and Carol (who will be the only damn people left she will know with Michonne leaving) and reveal herself among the dead…. Or this whole Whisperers arc will lead to something that will clue Beth on where to find everyone… As in the Living Dead – the Whisperers – will be with the walkers that lead Beth to Hilltop or Alexandria or the Kingdom… Something done among the dead will lead the living back.

Make sense? God I hope so.

Those images are the only reason I could see Beth have anything to connect herself to the Whisperers… She’s among the dead. I do believe that… But how she’ll be with the living again is the mystery…

I’m so sorry this took so long and is so long oh my gawd lol!

Also imma tag @twdmusicboxmystery and @bethgreenewarriorprincess and @bethgreeneishopeunseen and @wdway cause they’re more TD than me and know more shit lol

#the walking dead #beth greene #team delusional #team acceptance #team whatever #team i dont care im having fun #ask #theories #bringbethback2019

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zombizombi · 5 years

Text

hummingbird heartbeat - pt43

Senior year put a lot on Bitty’s plate. Being out as a team captain was important to him -- being a good captain was important, but how did a person do that, exactly? What made a good captain? What had he appreciated about captains he’d had?

He needed to figure that out. He had a chance to inspire others by being out as an NCAA captain, and after this summer with Kent, he was facing a lot more pressure than before. Whether Bitty liked it or not, his performance as captain would reflect on LGBT people in general, not to mention his coaches, his parents, his boyfriends.

His boyfriends, plural.

That wasn’t even common knowledge, and Bitty was pretty sure Kent would rather die than have anyone know anything more about their personal life. Kent definitely couldn’t handle being publicly polyamorous, and honestly? Bitty didn’t think he could, either. His stomach hurt just thinking about it. He hadn’t really even told anyone he was also seeing Jack -- Lardo had sort of implied she knew, via text, but they’d never talked about it.

Balancing Kent and Jack was still… kind of hard, especially since Kent was physically so much further away than Jack. It was easy to make time for him because Bitty was used to that, he just -- worried, maybe, that talking on the phone and Skype wouldn’t be good enough. And Kent had Jeff so close, which wasn’t different, exactly, but it seemed more important than it had before. Like it might make Kent miss Bitty less.

Kent did not seem to think so. “How’s my captain?” he asked.

Bitty laughed. “I’m not your captain,” he said, phone to his ear as he walked to Faber.

“Yes you are,” said Kent. He paused. “Babe. What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“Eric,” said Kent. “You just told me you’re not my captain.”

Sometimes it could be really annoying, the way Kent always seemed to know something was wrong. Sweet. But annoying. “It’s just that I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Bitty said, quickly. “And it’s -- I don’t know.”

“Join the club,” Kent said. He paused. “But, Eric -- you’ve already, like, been a leader to some of these guys. I mean, all of last year you talked about Dex and Nursey and the new guys, and I think it was kind of obvious that they looked up to you? At least a little?”

Bitty blinked. Was it? “I guess,” he said. “I hadn’t really thought about that.” He pulled the door open.

“You got this,” said Kent. “You’re gonna be great.”

Maybe he was right.

That night, he RSVP’d yes to a meet and greet, hoping for the best. To his knowledge, Ransom, Holster, and Jack never attended any of the varsity captains’ meetups, but -- well, Bitty wasn’t Ransom, Holster, or Jack. Maybe talking to some other people in the same position would help? It couldn’t hurt to try, anyway.

At Annie’s, he peered around a bookshelf, staring at a group of students for just a moment. Ducking back behind it, he squared his shoulders. “Listen here,” he muttered to himself, “if talkin’ to other captains is what you need to do, then by golly that’s what ya need to --”

A voice interrupted his self pep talk. “Eric?”

He jumped a little. Oh, Lord, there were three of them.

“You’re Eric, right?” a girl asked.

Right, questions needed answers. “Oh! Hi!” he said. “That’s me! Eric Bittle.”

A short, dark-haired girl waved one hand. “I’m Shruti, I captain rugby.”

“And I’m Sharon -- I captain Ultimate,” said the other. “And this is Edgar -- he’s the volleyball captain.”

“We’re so glad you decided to come to the meet n’ greet!” said Edgar, leading them away from the bookcase and toward a group of people.

“Wow,” said Bitty, “everyone’s here. I guess -- I guess I’ve been missing out!”

“We know the men’s hockey team can be insular,” said Shruti.

“Cult-like,” Sharon cut in.

“Confusing and threatening to outsiders,” Edgar muttered.

“So it’s cool that you could make it,” Shruti finished.

Bitty sat in a chair, giving Shruti a nervous smile for a moment. It didn’t take long for them to break into conversation, and once they got going, it was… surprisingly easy. Chill, even.

“Yeah, dude!” said Shruti. “You had a like, a crazy summer? You don’t have to talk about it, but --”

“No, no, no!” Bitty said. He hadn’t wanted to mention the Cup and Kent and everything first, but everyone had to know, and -- Lord, crazy summer was such an understatement. Being the boyfriend of the first openly gay player in the NHL was… a lot. “It’s so weird, bringing it up -- I didn’t want to --”

“I mean, I guess I’ll just say it,” Shruti said. “A lot of the varsity captains are also in Samwell’s LGBT athletes?”

They were? That probably shouldn’t have surprised Bitty so much, but --

Shruti shrugged. “Not like I had the summer you had, so no assumptions... but like, I hope you’re not... overwhelmed.”

Well. “It’s pretty overwhelming,” Bitty admitted. He laughed a little, rubbed at the back of his neck. Overwhelming? Second understatement.

“Yeah… me and Edgar were talking about the write-up in the Samwell Daily,” said Sharon. “Man.”

Bitty winced. That write-up was really something.

“Oh my god, 100% written by a straight student,” said Edgar.

“Just, like, the captains are here for you and stuff, dude,” said Shruti, giving Bitty a warm smile.

“That’s so nice of y’all,” said Bitty.

“Even Chad L. from Lacrosse.” Shruti gestured to a guy in a white backwards cap standing behind them, talking to someone else. At the sound of his name, Chad L. looked up.

“Five on the beef,” he said, giving Bitty a thumbs up. “Brush the fuckin’ narp goss and nip ched all season, bro. Ripped.”

Oh, Lord. What did that even mean? It was a form of bro dialect that Bitty wasn’t entirely prepared for. “Oh! Um, thank you,” said Bitty, trying -- and failing -- not to think of all the times he’d heard Shitty say “fuck the LAX bros”.

“You guys should all come over for a kegster!” Bitty said. “I promise the Haus isn’t that haunted.”

“Oh my gosh, yes!” said Shruti. After a moment, she frowned. “Um, wait, did that loud guy with the giant chiclet teeth graduate yet?”

Chiclet teeth? Bitty laughed. “Holster?” he asked. “Yeah. He graduated.” The obvious relief on only made him laugh harder.

“Okay. Question. How did the fire over the summer start?”

“Well, that’s --” Bitty started to explain, but someone else cut in.

“Can someone please explain the hockey bro - lax bro rivalry I can’t tell most of y’all apart --”

Bitty laughed. It really felt like home. He was glad he’d come. True, he still had… hockey traditions to keep up with, of course, but having other team captains to talk to made him feel a little better about things.

Classes starting did not, to Bitty’s delight, bother him that much. He was done with French, thank the Lord, and since he’d actually enjoyed his classes with Professor Atley, she was serving as his thesis advisor. Not that he knew what he was going to be writing his thesis about, of course. He could… figure that out at a later date. There were plenty of way, way more important things to deal with -- like initiation.

Bitty wanted something good. Something fresh, even. The classics were classic for a reason, sure, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make it his own. Chatting with Ford as they cleaned dishes one evening, Bitty mentioned the hockey team’s tradition. “You know, before the season starts and everything,” he said. “Just a little welcome to SMH.”

“So, hazing?” asked Ford.

“I mean, not like, hazing,” Bitty said, scrubbing the pan he’d baked the pound cake in. “Goodness. Nothing awful. We certainly won’t have any boys dyin’ on our watch or anything like that!”

“So like, a little Haze by Hazewest, then,” said Ford, drying some plates with a dish towel. “Creative, fun, but not as crazy as Hazing Man.”

Bitty laughed. “Yes,” he said, “exactly. Exactly!” He picked up a towel, running it over his pan. “We’ll just put our own little twist on it.” He paused. “Haze by Hazewest is perfect.”

Ford grinned.

That night, Bitty called Kent at their regular time, surprised to see him pick up the Skype call at his kitchen table. “Hi, honey,” he said.

“Hey, you.” Kent glanced back down at the table.

“You still working on school stuff?” Bitty asked.

“Yeah, but it’s -- it’s fine,” said Kent, waving a hand. His classes had started earlier than Samwell’s, and he was already taking something called multivariate calculus that Bitty had absolutely zero interest in understanding beyond the bright smiles Kent gave him when he figured something out. “How’re you?” Kent asked.

“Oh, you know,” Bitty said, “just gettin’ stuff together. Went through my equipment this morning. Isn’t it amazing how gross stuff gets when it sits for even a little while?”

“Truly,” said Kent. “Like mouth guards.”

Gross. “It reminded me that I meant to ask you the other day,” Bitty said. “Are you gonna wear your cage again this season?” The thought of dealing with another concussion was a little horrifying, if he were honest, and he hadn’t forgotten the last time. Seeing Kent in a cage alleviated a little of that worry, and he’d realized he didn’t know if Kent planned to keep wearing it or not.

Kent let out a deep, irritated sigh, glancing up from his paper. “Yes,” he said, and Bitty could tell by the eye roll that he was only wearing the cage because Jeff was making him. And maybe because he feared Bitty’s wrath, like, a little. Kent’s anxiety over displeasing Bitty had mellowed somewhat with time. “I am.”

“Sweetie,” said Bitty, frowning, “do you need to take a break from the math for a second? Or should we hang up and try this again? Because you’re making your ‘lost in shootout’ face.”

“Sorry, I’m almost done, I swear,” said Kent, rubbing his face with both hands. “Can we talk about something less irritating?” He paused. “What’d you decide about initiation?”

They’d been talking about it the past few days. As he’d said before, Bitty didn’t want to just repeat previous years’ events, he wanted something new. Or, at the very least, old enough that it could be new again. “I was thinking blankets,” Bitty said. “You know, make them carry them around everywhere. Embarrassing but not, like. Bad.”

“Seems harmless enough,” said Kent, still looking at his homework.

“Obviously fines,” Bitty continued. “There’s always fines. And, you know, every year they always do the initiation in underwear, but it’s just so cold in Faber, so I was thinking I’d let them have a sweater --”

“I thought that the whole point was like, being uncomfortable or something,” Kent murmured.

“Well, but I don’t want them getting frostbitten, honey,” Bitty said. “And I have to feed them, obviously. I mean, not everything will be comfortable, I’ll give them some challenges --”

“You should make them figure skate or something,” said Kent, head bent as he scribbled something on his paper. “There.” He slammed his textbook closed. “Done.” Looking up at the camera properly, he grinned.

“You’re a genius,” Bitty said.

Kent shook his head, running fingers through his blond hair. “No, this took me like, hours,” he said, “it’s totally not --”

“I meant the figure skating, baby, not the math,” said Bitty, interrupting him.

“Hey!” Kent yelped. “That math was hard!”

“Yes, you have a very sexy brain,” Bitty said, waving a hand. “But oh my god, figure skating. It’s perfect. We can find little outfits, and I’ll pick a song -- I guess we can just try to get Ford on the ice, I don’t think she can actually skate --”

“Obviously there should be glitter,” Kent added. “And Britney.”

“So much glitter,” said Bitty. “Just. So, so much glitter, babe.”

Kent laughed so hard his face turned red. The next video he posted on YouTube was a cover of Britney Spears’ Gimme More, clearly recorded after he’d hung up with Bitty, warm golden lights on in a dark living room. He still wasn’t showing his face in his covers, even though they both knew it was only a matter of time before the entire internet knew about Kent’s channel. It was honestly a shock that he hadn’t deleted it, because Bitty’s channel sort of led to it, and --

And he needed to stop worrying about it.

Planning initiation now that he had a list of ideas took up the rest of Bitty’s spare time. He had ingredients to buy, a skate routine to plan, music to pick… plus blankets, leotards, and glitter. Bitty recruited the frogs, sending Chowder for the blankets and Nursey for groceries.

It was possible that the hockey team was taking up energy he ought to be using on school, but… it was infinitely more interesting, and Bitty had always been great at putting schoolwork off. The first week wasn’t that intense, anyway. At least, he hoped it wasn’t, because he wasn’t really paying attention.

Fitting a visit to Jack in to his already busy schedule took a little work, but Bitty managed it. Due to his late arrival, they made a quick dinner, nothing fancy -- though Bitty insisted on getting a pie in the oven while Jack cleaned up.

Washing dishes, Jack glanced over at him.

“Yes, honey?” said Bitty, looking up from the lattice of his pie.

“You didn’t bring schoolwork,” Jack said, “did you?”

Oh boy. “Now you listen here,” said Bitty, pointing with a bit of pastry, “I’m already gettin’ enough of this from Kent, I don’t need --”

“It’s your thesis year,” Jack said.

“I know,” Bitty said. “It’ll be fine! I’ve got a long time to -- school just started, you know.” He pressed the pie crust with a bit more force than strictly necessary.

“Kent’s classes started already?” Jack asked, after a moment.

“Yeah, early,” said Bitty. He opened the oven to slide the pie in. “He’s ridiculous. Can you imagine learning calculus for fun?”

“Not really,” Jack said, and Bitty laughed.

“C’mon, handsome, let’s watch a movie.”

Jack let Bitty lead him into the living room, settling on the sofa while Bitty flicked through the streaming menu to find something to watch. “When do you see him again?” Jack asked.

“Hmm?” Bitty paused his scrolling and turned to look at Jack. “Kent, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Jack.

“I’m not sure,” Bitty admitted. “I mean, I’m gonna call him later. But I don’t think I’ll get a chance to see him until they come to Boston.” Maybe New York, but they had multiple schedules to line up. Bitty’s hockey schedule and Kent’s hockey schedule and school and -- Bitty took a breath. “Not like I can drive down to see him,” he added. “Not like you. Why?”

“I was just wondering,” said Jack. He slid an arm around Bitty’s shoulders, pulled him close.

“I’ll see him some time,” Bitty said. “Maybe, um. Maybe you can see him, too?”

“Maybe,” Jack said. He took the remote from Bitty, scrolled through some things on his own. “I think I’d like that.” He chose The Devil Wears Prada, pushing play before Bitty could question him.

They didn’t actually end up watching much of it, anyway.

After cleaning up and brushing his teeth, Bitty ducked into the guest bedroom. He settled onto the bed and set his computer down, chewing his lower lip for a moment before opening Skype. A quick glance at the clock told him he had about two minutes. Bitty pressed his hands to his face, sighing softly.

It was harder than he’d thought, going from seeing someone every day to not being able to see them for months. Being with Kent all summer was maybe the happiest Bitty had ever been. It was like a little window into his future, he’d hoped, waking up with Kent every single day. He’d missed Jack, but -- it was different, still, because he was used to missing Jack over the summer, just talking to him on the phone or whatever.

Kent was in his living room when he answered the call, both cats lounging nearby. There was no sign of Kevin, though. Was Jeff not there? “Hey, you,” Kent said, smiling. His guitar sat next to him.

“Hi, baby,” said Bitty. “How was your day?” He paused. “Were you recording?”

“Yeah.” Letting out a heavy sigh, Kent shook his head. “Conditioning,” he said. “Yours?”

“School,” said Bitty.

“We both suffer so much,” Kent said. They chatted about workouts and school assignments and how all the boys were doing, with occasional breaks as Kent tried desperately to keep Purrs from shredding his favorite blanket.

He was mildly successful.

“You look tired,” said Kent, after a while. “You want me to read to you a little and call it quits?”

“Tell me about Jeff instead,” said Bitty, leaning back into the pillows. He yawned. Kent hadn’t said a single thing about Jeff in days, which was… kind of out of character, really, considering how Jeff was always around.

“What about him?” Kent asked.

“You know,” Bitty said. “What’s the deal? I mean. Just tell me some stuff. We’ll call it your reading for tonight.”

“You know him,” said Kent.

“Not really,” Bitty said. “Beyond Stampede and like, his mom being nice. Humor me, honey.”

Kent let out a soft laugh. “Uh -- okay. Let’s see. Um, Jeff went to Boston University.”

“Don’t tell me stuff I can look up on Wikipedia,” Bitty said.

“Okay, um. I met him the first day I was in Vegas,” Kent said, then. “At the airport. He thought I was gonna be a total asshole.”

Did he? Bitty laughed. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Kent, “because nineteen year old boys aren’t famous for being like, sensitive or well-mannered?”

“I forget Jeff is older than you,” Bitty said.

“Yeah, by four years.” Kent paused. “Anyway, uh. He was nice to me, though, I think because Christopher told him to be --”

“Jeff is kind of a nice guy in general,” said Bitty. “Right?”

“Uh, kind of?” said Kent. He laughed. “He can be a huge dick, you have no idea.”

Actually, Bitty did have an idea. Jeff had warmed to him, but he hadn’t exactly been friendly at first. And Bitty hadn’t forgotten the way Jeff talked to him in his apartment a while back, when he made him stand out in the hallway and almost didn’t even let him inside. Plus, he got his fair share of penalty minutes with that temper on the ice. “I believe that,” he said.

“Yeah.” Kent picked at one of his cuticles, stayed quiet for a few minutes.

Bitty frowned. “Is everything okay?” he asked. Kent’s answering nod wasn’t reassuring. Had he said something and Jeff rejected him? Surely not. There was no way he’d do that.

Would he?

The truth was that Bitty didn’t really know Jeff that well. They’d had exactly zero intimate conversations, no true bonding moments. From what he could tell, they didn’t share any interests besides hockey and Kent. Even during the time they’d spent together in Calgary, Jeff seemed to kind of… hold back from Bitty, just a little, and he was intimidating enough that Bitty had never pushed his luck. Southern charm and pie did not work on Jeffrey Troy, that much was clear.

“Everything is fine,” said Kent.

“Did you, um.” Bitty maybe shouldn’t ask about what Kent talked about in therapy, but -- “Did you talk to Brian about Jeff?” he asked. Kent didn’t really talk to very many people, he’d realized. Not the way Bitty did.

Kent’s eyes flicked up from his hands for a moment. “Yes,” he said, after a long stretch of silence.

He clearly did not want to talk about it. “Okay,” Bitty said. “I’m -- nevermind, sweetie.” He cleared his throat. “Um, Jack was asking when I’d see you again,” he said.

Kent blinked. “Uh -- whenever we have a roadie out there,” he said. “Or bye week. Whichever comes first.”

“D’you think that maybe, um.” Bitty twisted his covers in his fingers a little. “Maybe we could all have lunch or something? Like, you and me and Jeff and Jack.”

Kent laughed a little. “What, you wanna be a witness to a murder?”

“Excuse me?”

“Jeff and Jack,” Kent said. “In the same room. For, like, an extended period of time.”

“Yes,” said Bitty.

“It’s madness,” Kent said. He grinned. “But yeah, I’ll totally arrange it.”

Sliding into bed beside Jack once he’d bid Kent good night, Bitty wiggled until he could rest his head on Jack’s chest.

“Hey,” Jack murmured. “Good call?”

“Yeah,” said Bitty. He closed his eyes.

The following Thursday, armed with some impressive shades and flanked by upperclassmen, Bitty set his plans in motion.

“Listen up, eggs,” he said, facing the freshman. “I explain the Samwell rookie blanket once.” He hefted them in his hands. “Let this blankets serve as reminders, you’ll carry them with you every day until initiation.” He paused. “Hops.” He tossed a blue blanket at one of the freshmen.

“Uh,” said Hops, catching it, “but, what if I have class tomorrow?”

“Bully,” Bitty said, tossing the duck print blanket.

“Hey, cool. Ducks,” Bully said.

“And Louis.” Bitty tossed the last blanket.

“This doesn’t seem that bad,” Louis said.

“And to better ensure camaraderie on and off the ice,” Bitty continued, “fines incurred by one frog will be incurred by all frogs.” He lowered his shades. “Because you’re a team. Get it?”

“Yes sir!”

Oh, it was perfect. Bitty beamed. “Wonderful!” He clapped his hands together. “Then you’re at the disposal of your upperclassmen this weekend. You can turn in your blankets Monday night at --” he glanced at Ford. “Haze by Hazewest!”

She grinned.

The boys racked up fines all over the place -- some for being overheard gossiping about Bitty and Kent, some for horrible playlists, and some for, like, harshing Nursey’s vibe, or something? They incurred reasonable fines, too, of course. Getting on the ice before an upperclassman, finishing Ollie and Wicks’ pre-game cereal, breaking multiple sticks in one game…

Bitty was sure they were more than pleased when Monday night started out with his homemade scones and pizza. They got all settled in, tucked into their little sweaters, guards down, and --

And the fun began.

Making them all work on a figure skating routine was even more fun in practice than Bitty had imagined. He even managed to get Ford on the ice, because -- well, no freshman was safe. And watching her try to skate? Hilarious.

Bitty put so much into initiation and then their hockey games that he honestly forgot to talk to Kent about Jeff again. They were getting busy in Vegas, anyway, with camp coming up. Jack had his own things going as well, including Tater being back in town and informing all of Twitter about their workout progress, including Instagram-worthy thirst traps. Bitty did his best to keep up with schoolwork, but he still ended up getting to bed pretty late sometimes, unable to keep up with Jack or Kent’s strict bedtimes.

It felt like he’d only just fallen asleep when shrill noise interrupted what could’ve been a very nice dream. Bitty rubbed his eyes and picked up his phone before leaning over to turn the lamp on. It was a Skype call. Pushing the button to accept, Bitty pushed himself upright just a little further. “Mmm?”

Kent stared at the screen, worrying his lip between his teeth. The pale light of his computer reflected off his glasses. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late,” he said. “I just needed to talk to you.”

Oh. That didn’t sound great. “Hi, honey,” Bitty said, propping himself up on one elbow.

“Hey,” Kent said. He swallowed. “Jeff, um. Jeff --”

Had it finally happened, then? Bitty’s stomach tightened a little. “Did you talk to him?” Lord, what if he’d been wrong?

“You were right,” Kent said. “About everything.”

Thank god. A warm smile spread over Bitty’s face. “Oh, baby. That’s great,” he said. To clarify, did that mean -- “You tell him you love him?”

“I --” Kent paused. “Yeah. Well, he said it first. I mean, I was gonna say it first, I just. It’s not cheating, right?”

Bitty rubbed his face with one hand. “No,” he said, “not unless what I’m doing with Jack is cheating.”

“No,” Kent said. “We talked about it, it’s fi--”

“It’s the same as that,” said Bitty, cutting him off. “For me. You and Jeff, I mean. It’s the same as me and Jack for you, except -- I mean, I wouldn’t kick Jeff out of bed, y’know? Everything’s fine.”

“Eric,” Kent hissed.

“What? Jeff Troy’s hotness is, like, an acknowledged fact. You know there’s a whole Twitter account dedicated to the length of his hair,” Bitty pointed out.

It took a second, but Kent laughed. “God,” he said, pressing his hands to his face. “I love you. I freaked out, didn’t I?”

“Little bit,” Bitty admitted, because it was like, three in the morning and he was still half asleep. He paused. “Did you make out with him?”

“Oh my God, Eric,” said Kent, his face reddening. That was a yes, right?

“Hot. How was he?” Bitty asked, grinning. “Can I watch next time?”

“Oh my God, Eric,” Kent said, again, and he pressed a hand to his face. “Stop. Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I don’t -- Jesus, fuck. It was just kissing.”

It was like a romantic comedy. “You precious thing,” Bitty said. He yawned. “He’s good, right?”

“This is gross,” said Kent. “Go back to sleep.”

“So he’s good,” Bitty said. Confirmed. He’d have to ask Kent about it again later. “I bet he’s into --”

“I’m hanging up,” said Kent.

( HH is on AO3 if you need to start from the beginning! )

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agentdammers · 6 years

Text

Grand Torchwood Rewatch 1x12 & 13

IF YOU FALL I WILL CATCH U I’LL BE WAITING........ T I M E A F T E R T I M E

One season down...... It’s a Finale Double Whammy, just as it aired back in 2007! Crumbs of Jack Lore drop into our laps, some absolute plot bullshit takes place, an old man is there!!! fuck it let’s get this over with

content warn: pisstaking, fun having, oh! plot bullshit!, i absolutely lose my fucking mind, Owen Harper!!! I Won’t Hesitate Bitch

1x12 “captain jack harkness”

- a thought before we dive in, but man owen gets A LOT of story stuff over the course of the 2 seasons he’s in right??? like more story stuff than ianto and tosh combined. interesting

- AH FUCK!!! A VOTE SAXON POSTER. REMEMBER WHEN?

- so..... here’s a thing. “Ohhh people have heard music from a derelict building! better send torchwood in!” how... does that come about? Could it be squatters or something??? fuck it, let’s send in a Secret Government Agency! they’ll sort it out. i mean we don’t know what they do exactly but i imagine at least one of them is a ghostbuster or something lmao, whatever

- OH NO THIS CREEPY OLD BITCH!!! i forgot how scary he looked!! god, this dude must be a million, or a vampire, or likely both

- tosh’s eyes get SO BIG WHEN THAT GUY ASKS HER TO DANCE I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!! she’s the best one!!!!!!

- wish i could wipe this episode entirely from my memory because that fucking reveal when the Real jack harkness introduces himself? F U C K

- speaking of tosh, finding it extremely unconvincing that she, a tech nerd, would go out with a laptop with an almost completely flat battery... like, c’mon. she would be prepared

- Gwen cooper, a fully adult woman: haha me and my friends;;;; came here 4 a dare;;; cos its spooky lol....

- the camera on this show has me fucking SCREEEAMING “He wears a cravat.” THERE’S A DRAMATIC SLOW MOTION ZOOM IN ON THIS GUYS FUCKING CRAVAT AND THEN ON IANTO’S FACE LOOKING AT IT AND ITS ALL IN FUCKING EARNEST LET ME DIE!!!!!!!!!

- the dance they’re at is called “KISS THE BOYS GOODBYE DANCE”, which is what my finishing move would be called if i was a character in a fighting game

- ianto and owen slapfighting over their shit girlfriend experiences fucking owns genuinely lmao

- tosh pops the top off a tin and then cuts her hand open on the obviously blunt fucking lid?????? jesus christ

- “I’m tired of living in awe of the rift!!!” .....................first i’ve heard of it. I love that owen is talking as though the rift has been a major fucking factor throughout the entire series up until this point, rather than a thing that’s just been vaguely fucking referenced as the reason why a bunch of weird shit just seems to happen in cardiff. no, im not standing for this. You can’t pull out the rift at the eleventh hour and then talk about it as though it’s a Hugely Important plot device when the biggest role it’s had over the stretch of the entire 11 Whole Ass episodes prefacing this was to allow the plane to come through in “out of time”. y’all have barely mentioned the rift this entire time and now you want to act like its the hellmouth??? eat my ass!!!!!!

- and continuing on that note: apparently they’ve had a machine that can manipulate the rift in the hub......... the entire goddamn time. but no one thought to MENTION it i guess!!!!!!!! pfft, why would THAT be important??? right???? right?????

this plot bullshit almost makes me feel bad for how harsh i was about “cyberwoman” but, i will admit.... despite this Absolute Fucking Nonsense, i do find the jack and tosh storyline in this episode really fun and interesting. its just unfortunate that all the stuff arrrrround that is some kind of fic scrawled in the back of a kid’s math book.

- also the size of owen’s fucking NADS in this episode!!!!!!!! “Don’t compare yourself to me.” SAYS MAN CRYING OVER THE GIRL HE KNEW FOR ONE (1!) (SINGULAR) WEEK!!!! as opposed to ianto’s longterm girlfriend being turned into a monster and eventually murdered by his own team!!!! Like, i understand that’s owen’s problem actually goes beyond that, and its not so much about diane herself but about the fact that he let himself feel close to someone again after his fiancee died but for us, The Audience, watching this as it airs... we haven’t unlocked owen’s tragic backstory yet. and without knowing all that it just makes owen look really bad and like a huge fucking tool lmfao.

- NEVERMIND THE END IS GAY AND SAD AND Y’KNOW!!!!!! i am a man of simple pleasures, at heart, and so... i’ll let it slide. jack meeting his namesake knowing that he’s going to die and them having a moment is more of the kind of emotional content we would get in episodes of doctor who, and its Just Right

- in honesty, theres a bunch of stuff about this ep that i DO like. that tosh gets a prominant role for a change, while gwen gets to do fuck all. the whole Real Jack story. owen gets shot and pops a tit out at the end. its just unfortunate thats its all wrapped up in this rift thing thats been wheeled out last minute for a Big Season Finale with no real foreshadowing or build up to it at all lmao. but, moving on...............................................................................................

1x13 “end of days”

- RHYS BUNS DETECTED, A SOUND WAY TO KICK OFF ANY EPISODE

- lovely reading voice ianto’s got..... i also like owen acting up to make sure we know that they remember him being shot in the shoulder last episode lol.

- “owen, if you open the rift you’ll break it” (owen opens the rift anyway) “owen, you opening the rift broke it” (owen GASPS IN DISMAY, ME??? REALLY?) yes bitch open your ears

- “So are we going to sit around crying into our lattes or are we gonna do something about it?” OWEN..... IS THIS. SUPPOSED TO SOUND BADASS I.... GENUINELY CANT TELL? IT SOUNDS BAD, OWEN

- jack was so likeable last ep now he’s a DICK. gwen calls him out on how he talked to owen and he’s really fucking catty at HER for no reason at all????

- i haaaaaaaaate this scene in the hospital where a Mystery Illness has all the fucking symptoms of the bubonic plague but apparently every doctor in the entire hospital never did high school level history and are all incapable of recognising it. if fucking *i* know what symptoms of the bubonic plague are im sure they didn’t need Absolute Brain Genius Owen Harper who is seemingly the only person with any sense in cardiff to come in and diagnose it. i also hate how owen just like casually mentions to the doctor yep, this is caused by people falling through time dude yknow!!! like they do!! expect more of this to keep happening probably idk!!

- “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU OPENED THE RIFT WITH THIS MACHINE WE HAVE THAT’S FOR UHHHHHHHH UHHHHHHH OPENING THE RIFT *big fuck off galaxy brain*” thats basically this episode.

- i love that owen has followed jack all this time but NOW in a crisis is the time to actually lose it and start questioning his authority bc they dont Actually know who jack is like???? you’ve been fine not knowing this entire time before??? thats not to say that jack isn’t an entire dumbass himself. he expects them all to follow him blindly and its so creepy. he’s like a cult leader, and as they all have Torchwood Stockholm Syndrome that ive mentioned in previous episode run downs they’ve all just gone along with it.

- owen having a little cry on the way out is such a Good scene bc he puts on such a brave and defiant front tho 💕💖💘💕

- i dont know why the really quick flashback to diane flying off in the plane made me lose my fucking mind, its just like “LMAO IN CASE U FORGOT: SHE WAS THE PLANE LADY. I KNOW SHE WAS ONLY IN FOR LIKE TWO MINUTES, BUT DONT WORRY ABOUT IT.”

- gwen for fucks sake!!!!!!!! not again!!!!! after all the cryptic shit and lies she’s told rhys up until this point, she now knocks him out and locks him in a cell and STILL offers no explanation. this poor fucking dude!!!!!!!!! and it’s about to get even worse for him...

- the way gwen screams “RHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUURRRRRSSSSS”

- YES EVERYONE REBEL AGAINST JACK!!!!!!! FUCK THIS DUDE!!!! you’re doing what a creepy old dude who is Absolutely Definitely evil wants, but still

- why does gwen start doing shit on the computer when toshiko, the computer expert, is standing right there, like.............

- JACK TRYING TO SMACKTALK TO ENTIRE GANG LIKE HIS OWN CLOSET ISN’T CHOCKFUL OF FUCKING SKELETONS

- i forget, does anyone know jack’s immortal apart from gwen? or was it just the shock of owen actually Shooting Their Boss? the only onscreen death i can recall of his after suzie shot him was in “cyberwoman”

- god, minutes ago they were all like FUCK JACK!!!! JACK DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SAVE US AFTER ALL!!! and now theyre all crawling back asking jack to save them all from cgi pig Ganon and its just..... a lot to happen, over the space of about half an hour.

- the ending is so anticlimatic and also why does sucking all the Yummy Life Energy out of jack make abaddon die?????????? Though in its defence... after like 3 bowls of cereal, i too am like OUCH OOF MY BONES

- aaaaaaaaaand rhys is back! will he get treated any better from here on out? i dont remember!!! guess we’ll see.

- bit much of gwen who’s actually known jack the shortest time of them all to be like NO, let ME be with him uwuwuwuuw

- ahhh!!! ianto smelling jack’s coat ;_;

- aaaand jack’s back too. AND HE GETS TO HOLD A CRYING OWEN? FOR ME? oh you shouldn’t have! this Almost makes up for all that rift plot bullshit (almost. i still know what u did.)

- ANDDDDD OH SHIT. FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE GOOD ENDING. HERE COMES THE TARDIS. FUCKING YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...............................and there it goes. one season down. sorry this one was so long!!! i love and appreciate anyone to takes the time to read these posts. thank u!!!!

#grand torchwood rewatch 2018 #LONG POST #i got mad abt plot shit A Lot during this finale

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