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inventors-fair · 3 years

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Brushwagg Commentary part 2

Okay I’ve calmed down now

There were a lot of themes this week. I noticed a lot of deathtouch, which is understandable considering the flavor of the brushwagg. One thing y’all gotta watch out for is repeatable deathtouch tokens. It makes limited games absolutely grueling when any attacker on the ground can be kileed by paying a couple mana or tapping a creature. And these would show up in limited, because boy you guys really like making uncommons! I know one of the winners was going to be a lower rarity card, but I think only about 6 or 8 people even bothered making rares. What’s up with that? Lastly, all of your guys’s homemade art was glorious. I was not expecting any new art, and while I don’t usually let it impact my judging (since this is about card design, and I don’t want to give artists an advantage), I was delighted at every piece.

@aethernalstars - Nyxthorn Brushwagg

Is that a pun? Because most enchantment creatures are called something like “nyxborn” which rhymes with “nyxthorn?” Because if so, shame on you. Anyway, a bestow brushwagg! I really like the idea of this, because putting the icnonic brushwagg coat on another creature just seems fun and cool. On his own, this guy makes your guys a little harder to kill in combat but also makes them worse at killing. The “may” here is really nice, though. Reminds me of Gustcloak Soldier in a way, which means that the bestow cost is right on the money. The fact that you can put this on a big guy to keep everyone safe is nice, and the idea that if you put it on just the right creature you can survive the fight AND kill the guy will feel great when it happens. I do worry that the effect is too niche and weak to see much play outside of Doran style decks (in which case dear lord), and I also don’t know how I feel about the bestow not granting +1/+1 like every other bestow creature. Regardless, the card seems fine, just a little hard to play, but great for those who want it.

@demimonde-semigoddess - Porringer Brushwagg

A porringer is a small dish used for soups, stews, and other dishes. Anyway, here’s a brushwagg. So first off, a 2/3 with persist for that mana cost is good! It’s the right cost I feel. The bad news: that ability is way off color. Only blue and red really do that, and with this being a hybrid card, both mono black and mono green need to be able to do it, but neither really do outside of the 5 color “-ling” cycle. It also seems a little bit pricey considering it already comes with a downside, but maybe that’s fine. I do like the idea of the card, it’s just a bit too hard of a color bend for me. Oh, and the art and flavor of this card are really good, I like how it tells a story.

NOTE: After writing this I found out porringer is a place in Lorwyn. That seems fair, then. Good name.

@deafeningsandwichpeach - Unstable Brushwagg

Second card with this name, but a completely different take. For one, our only artifact entry! So it’s a one mana 0/3 that acts as a one-time mini-boros reckoner, but only to creatures or planeswalkers. But it also has to survive the hit. Seems kind of narrow? Your opponent would have to attack into it, or knowingly block it just t let their stuff die anyway. But as soon as they get 3/X creatures all that’s out the window unless you hold up 3 mana each turn, which is not as easy as it sounds. I think if you reverse the phrasing on the first ability, something like “you may have it deal damage... if you do, sacrifice it,” you can get it to send the damage back even if it died from it. I think I’m making this guy sound worse than he is. Colorless pumping isn’t the worst, and an 0/3 for 1 with text will often see play for any number of random reasons. I think this card is perfectly fine, but nothing spectacular. It does feel adequately brushwaggy, even without some of the standard brushwagg stuff, just because of it’s self-pumping and vengefulness.

@deg99 - Apex Brushwagg

Our only silver-border brushwagg, surprisingly. Thoughhonestly? It could stand to be a little more silvery. That activated ability was a prime spot to put something silly for X. But hey, the last ability is definitely silver-border, and feels very on theme for such a prickly guy. The two keyword abilities are a scary mix, making sure that if this thing dies, it’ll die in combat, and when it does, it’ll take something down with it. Still, it’s weak enough that it can get hit by pyroclasms and the like if you tap out, so it’s not game-breaking. All in all this guy is fine, he’s just got a little too much pulling him in different directions to really work for me. Though the fact that you found brushwagg fanart is impressive all on its own.

@gollumni - Brushwagg Elder

Not with that creature type he’s not! I jest. This guy is pretty neat! The idea of an “activated ability matters” theme is neat in concept, and the fact that a lot of activated abilities require mana or to sacrifice something means the ability wouldn’t be so easy to trigger as you might think. I could even see this thing seeing play in older formats where no-mana abilities are easier to come by, like an arbor elf tap. On the other hand, in standard right now most creatures are played for ETBs, aman abilities, or just their bodies, so finding easily repeatable activated abilities is tough enough to not make this 1 mana 5/5 too easy. I still might either drop the P/T by 1 each or raise the cmc by 1, but I might be pvercompensating because this guy is hard to judge. Still, I really like this card and this concept, either as a draft archetype or possibly an overarching tribal theme.

@kytheon4-4 - Tumblewagg

Well, they are just tumbleweed monsters I suppose. So I’ve kind of got a big issue with this guy. Green does get indestructible and supertrample, and red gets “attacks each turn if able” and firebreathing, but together they make this card a color pie break. The only difference between supertrample and unblockable is that the blocking creature can still kill the attacking creature. But that’s not the case here. An opponent blocking here accomplishes nothing unless they have wither or something. So this just becomes an attacker that can’t be blocked and can pump for extra damage. That’s not particularly red green, and it’s not going to be fun to play against, and probably not great to play with, either. Not a fan.

@misterstingyjack - Flatlands Brushwagg

Wow does this guy have a lot going on. He’s got an ability counter, a dinosaur ability word, a flavor text referencing something that I can’t suite recall if its canon or not, and it’s a brushwagg! So a 3/2 with defender is pretty rough. Green is getting 3/2′s for two with upside nowadays, but the fact that this is common makes it a little more reasonable. The enrage ability is very weird here. 2 toughness means he has to somehow be dealt exactly 1 damage, and I doubt any opponent is going to attack with a one 1/x into it. So this guy needs a little help, either a ping from something or a defensive pump spell. And then you get a 4/3! That’s pretty good! I like it. I do worry about the wording on the enrage ability. It is phrased so that it gets the +1/+1 counter even if it has already lost it’s defender counter, but some new players might not realize that. At common, you better makes rue there’s nothing to trick new players. In general, I think this card is pretty good, but it’s just a little clunky here and there.

@naban-dean-of-irritation - Progenitor Brushwagg

I was expecting “protection from everything” with a name like that, but this is fine. It costs one more mana than the almighty ‘wagg and loses trample, but in return it pops open like a spider mama from that vine. Seems a little strong at uncommon, as any sort of pump, aura, or god forbid anthem makes this guy pretty ludicrous. We’ve seen sprouting thrinax do something similar but at a locked number in 3 colors, but myriad construct and thopter foundry have been artifacts at rare with the ability. So I think the power is not quite right. But the ability itself seems fine. I could see it being a pain to fight against, since you don’t really want to attack into it, but you don’t really want to kill it, and if you do then you have to deal with its babies, but I don’t think it’s a bad enough situation to make the card bad. I’d just say it needs some limiters, perhaps a more expensive activation cost, or a once per turn limitation.

@scavenger98 - Possessed Brushwagg

I want to slap the roof of this guy and say he can fit so many tokens in him, but then I’d hurt my hand. So this guy is sort of afterlife 2, but also kind of just unblockable. Blocking this guy is just so much work and can go so poorly. Blocking with more than two creatures also seems unlikely, so I think it’s be safe to just say 2 instead of X for this card. It also seems really strong: it’s an evasive attacker with a big body and leaves behind flyers when it dies. That’s kind of comparable to the mythic Seraph of the scales. However, this still dies to removal much easier and doesn’t do anything in that case, but I could say that about any creature. I guess this is fine as a 3 color uncommon in most sets, but I think the power level of it is a little screwey, and the design itself is a little unnecessarily extravagant.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path - Tasty Brushwagg

I’m glad someone finally managed to do it. I like how this card tells a little story. I like how there’s an ability that wants you to let it die and an ability that stops it from doing it to create some tension. I don’t like the unlimited (as in not once a turn) pumping in green. Almighty Brushwagg had it, but that was a bit of a stretch already, and this guy can do it for way cheaper. It’s stepping into shade territory. I also think the power level on this common is a little high. A bear with one amazing upside and one pretty good one probably deserves to be at least an uncommon. So yeah, a little bit of power concern at common, and a bit of color pie bending.

#brushwagg #commentary #mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair

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gothfoxx · 4 years

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An idea for mama midnight and dadzawa with hagakure has been in my head for a while. I feel like is gets overlooked that she passed the entrance exam without an offensive quirk. Maybe some of the students in other courses would be jealous that she got in, and start telling her that she's weak and cant be a hero, because her quirk is just invisibility and they say that she 'hides' from real problems. could you do a one shot where this happens and mama midnight finds out and brings in dadzawa?

The group of 1-D students had been hounding Hagakure around campus all day, she had just been trying to get some to the teachers’ office to get some clarification on some assignments when they started this whole cat and mouse deal. “What’s up invisibitch, did your class lose you again?” “How come you have a loser quirk and got in but we have great quirks and didn’t, that’s not fair!” “Stop ignoring us, you can’t hide from your problems with your lame ass quirk.” “I bet you took credit for other people’s work!” “Your so uncreative that you don’t even have a costume!” She wasn’t sure why they felt the need to say these things to her, she wasn’t like Bakugou with an arrogant attitude and she didn’t have Midoriya’s tendency to fall into trouble. She figured she must be the first 1-A student they stumbled upon.

She had tried to lose them by taking odd turns and doubling back but before she could get to the office they would find her again and she’s have to run. If she could just get to the door it would be okay, if she was a little bit faster...This time when she doubled back one of the guys had been waiting and caught her by the arm, “what’s your problem? You too good to talk to us general Ed kids?” His friends caught up. “Let’s she of her bruises show up!” “Eww what if her blood is invisible too, so scary!” “I bet if we cut her hair it will become visible!” They theorized and agged each other on.

They were so swept up with their cruel plans that they failed to notice the creeping footsteps that were coming down the hall they were in. Just as the foot person got close enough that the teens wouldn’t be able to scatter or run away the steps became loud stabbing clicks onto the tiles. “Not that PDA is a bad thing but I doubt any of this is consensual.” Remarked a very pissed looking Midnight, when one of the 1-D students did try to run Eraserhead was waiting with a withering glare. “Harassment is frowned upon at U.A. and threats are taken very seriously. Each one of you are going to be speaking with Principal Nezu to discuss discipline.” Eraserhead barked as he motioned the students to start walking. Midnight gently held Hagakure when the girl had started to follow. “Not you sweetly, you’re going to stay with me until they’re dealt with.” The 18+ heroine calmly stated as she turned the invisible girl in the way of the teacher’s lounge.

Midoriya had told them what the small lounges had looked like, couches with a table in the middle and a small area for snacks and drinks to one side. It felt a bit like a hotel room with the colors though, the fake plants added to that sense. Midnight gestured to the couches and waits for Hagakure to sit before going to make tea. “I hope you like green tea, it’s all that’s in this room.” She says as she returns with two cups of steaming tea. “That’s fine thank you.” The girls says as she takes the offered cup. They sip their drinks for a minute before Hagakure asks, “How did you know I was in trouble?”

Midnight hums into her cup and sets it down. “I know what it’s like being in the hero course with a non combative quirk and as a woman. You learn to notice how people hold themselves when they intend on harm.” The answer is full of bitterness and hurt, words made dark by the history behind them. “When those kids ran past me they had that look in their eyes that screamed danger. And then I heard Eraser say he’d seen you on the cameras being tailed...he’s your home room teacher and should probably been the one to bring you here to decompress.” She says sadly, “but you and the other girls in the hero course are like my cubs. And everyone knows you don’t threaten a lioness’ cubs.” Her voice becomes darker at the end like rain clouds suddenly becoming a hurricane. It should be scary but knowing that that was for her sake, that Midnight was looking out for her and the other? That was a great feeling, maybe she could finally convince Momo to request a costume redesign if the creation girl knew a teacher would side with her.

“Thank you Ms Midnight, I’m so glad to have you as a teacher and as a lioness” the girl cheerfully acknowledged. “Any time sweetie but I also want you to know. All those things that they said? That was all bull, you belong in 1-A just like all your classmates! I saw the way you hacked the robots during the exam, that takes skill and prying the plating took a lot of upper body strength. You are an amazing hero in the making, don’t let a bunch of envious jerks make you think otherwise.” Midnight’s speech made Hagakure tear up a bit, of course she knew she belonged here but it was nice to hear it from someone she admired. “Oooh I need to hug you! You’re a great mama lion Ms Midnight!” The girl cheered and practically leapt over the low table to hug her teacher.

The door opened a moment later and Eraserhead walked in. “They’ve all been given house arrest and we’ll be expelled if they put even one toe out of line.” Is how he greeted them. “Oh foowy, I thought you would have thrown them out by now. Preferably with a signature tossing of one out the door.” Midnight playfully booed. Eraser came over to hit near where the two were still hugging. “Nezu said it was a bad idea because of the danger that could put the kids in if a villain wanted info on security.” The scruffy man informed them as he leaned his head back over the back of the couch. “So why where you out of the dorms anyway? Isn’t today a game day or movie something?” He asks nonchalantly. “Oh I had a question about some homework and needed to talk to Snipe. It seems pretty silly now, I could have asked Midoriya or Yaoyorozu to clarify what was expected.” She sighed as she thought about the wasted afternoon of being haggled. Both teachers hummed in thought about that, “Snipe isn’t here right now so it would be best to ask someone in your class.” Eraser reasoned. “I’ll walk her there, I want to see my girls!” Midnight volunteered. “Nemuri no, their my kids! Get your own!” He tried to argue but the duo had already made their escape, giggling at his accidental admission.

#dadzawa #mamamidnight #mha hagakure #bnha hagakure #bullying #mha #bnha #foxx writes

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snazzamazing · 5 years

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Stupid random theories, headcanons, and unpopular opinions of mine

Btw, these are all long so sit tight

My mangle theory :

I cant be the only one here who thinks that mangle was taken apart by little kids. It wouldn't make sense that little toddlers would be strong enough to pull apart a metal robot. That's because the kids didnt break her, william did. Mangle seems like he was an inspiration from funtime foxy because sister location happened before AND a lot of times, "toy foxy" is often referred to "funtime foxy". Due to this inspiration, mangle had the ability to record voices and things just like funtime foxy. Why am I pointing this out? Well, why would mangle randomly have static noises and a broken radio sound? It's her recorder, it's broken. He recorded many things and then recorded something that someone didnt want anyone to find out about. That someone would be William afton. William is always suspicious and doing evil things.Let's say that, oh idk, maybe William murdered someone, some person called the cops on him, (which explains the police messages n stuff in the radio) William killed that person and his the evidence of the murders. At least that's what he thought. Mangle was somehow recording the whole thing. William had no other choice but to take her apart and destroy him. But then William thought that it would to suspicious to have mangle be randomly broken the next day and so he fixed mangle up in way where it looks like shes fixed, but one tug hes broken and the kids are there to blame for. All of this might be a stretch I know, but apparently in one of the fnaf 2 minigames where theres a mangle Sprite, in the files or sources codes or WHATEVER IDK, there's a hidden message that says "he was here" or something like that. THAT CAN SUPPORT THIS THEORY errr headcanons? Idk I should go sleep lol

Micheal headcanon:

I always wanted to believe that Micheal was the older brother/Bully and that the bite victim was a different character. Why? Because I want more..character for Micheal. He went to sister location because he wants his torn apart family to be back together. He went to save Elizabeth and he never forgave himself for being the one to 'kill' his brother and all that failed. I wanted Michaels story to be exciting and emotional because of his past and the whole family thing

I also always liked to think that Micheal started working out to gain some strength before becoming a technician because he knows that the robots are strong and dangerous. That way things can be more action packed with Michael punching through pipes and walls, and holding back animatronics trying to grab him, and just...cool stuff

Fnaf headcanons:

Freddy has a nice deep voice and that's his real voice. When it comes to preforming during the day, he talks in his "family friendly" voice which is all goofy and fun (kinda like Patrick star's voice) The animatronics are a lot different on stage. It's as if they play as characters and they change their voices sometimes (like Freddy). Chica acts like this ditzy cute country gal, Bonnie is a laid back chill bon, foxy is just more ...pirate, and Freddy is a fun loving silly lead singer

Nightmarriones pupils change shape to Express his emotions. (Sad=tear drop pupils, sick=swirly pupils, angry=skull or fire pupils)

Lefty has his own voice instead of a whispery girly voice because he is his own character. He may look like the rockstars but he was made differently. The rockstars were built by some factory or company and they have advanced technology which gives em the ability to have emotions, personalities and to do tricks. Meanwhile lefty was built by henry in a shed or something. Henry only focused on programming him to find charlie and he had to make lefty look like the rockstars to blend in and not be suspicious. Other than that, lefty was a total rush job. Henry only wanted Charlie therefore, Henry didn't care to give lefty a personality, emotions, an EYE, or stablness.

In the afton family, the mother is sweet, kind, caring, and over protective while william is outgoing, silly, and isnt afraid to do anything (before he went insane). Usually kids have similar personalities to their parents soooo I like to think that Micheal is more like his mom but looks like his dad and that Elizabeth looks like her mom but acts like her dad. Why? Because I always saw Michael as a hero, he cares for others and he wants to save his family. He is sweet and protective like his mom. Elizabeth is rebellious and sassy. In the sister location mini cutscene with William and Elizabeth, she disobeys william to see baby and that's a rebellious move. Elizabeth likes adventure and crazy things so she wont follow the rules any time soon.

Funtime chica does all the rockstar's make up. When months pass by, the rockstar's paint would peel or chip and so ft. Chica would repaint their lipsticks, eye shadows, cheeks, etc. And they look fresh and new afterwards

Even though puppet and Goldie (and all the other animatronics) have been through so much shiz, they still try to keep their cool and enjoy life

In the rockstar crew r. Bonnie is the creepiest. Yeah, he seems chill and is self centered, he is the only rockstar who is most likely to murder someone if he's told to do so (this isn't counting ucn where they all kill). All on Bonnie's songs are so creepy and he sings about killing you in unique ways. Stuff like making slivers (or slippers) out of you, flaying your flesh, smashing your face into concrete, ending your life, and stabbing your heart with his guitar. He's definitely into gory stuff

Springtrap has two different personalities. Most of the time he's himself, spring bonnie. A kind fun loving bun who completely changed his personality after becoming springtrap. He is know constantly scared, upset, and afraid of Williams next move. He hates being an evil monster but it's not something he can control due to William still having control over him. When the slringbonnie side of springtrap gets mad or upset that's when hes weak and William takes control and becomes the evil side of springtrap. Springtrap is very aggressive and very strong. Slringbonnie tries to fight back Williams spirit, but as time went on and when the kids got sent free, spring bonnie got lonely and gave up which let William take full control over him. Sprjngbonnie is gone, its William now (which explains scraptrap)

Idk if this is a theory or headcanon but fnaf 1 bonnie is blue. Yes, he is known to be purple and everyone says and draws him purple but he's blue. Maybe it's the certain blue color he is but due to lightning it makes him look very purple. When he's in more darker areas, bonnie is very blue but when he's in the light areas, hes purple. Let's not forget how every single version on bonnie is blue (except for extras like spring springbon and bonnet etc.) Exept for fnaf 1 bonnie. That doesn't make sense if one of the originals would be purple but all the other versions are blue. One more thing, in the silver eyes, they mention that bonnie has blue fur ;) this was a dumb rant sorry

Shadow bon is evil and can shape shift cause hes a goopy shadow boy and shadow fred is his lil assistant

After fazbears fright burned down, William got to take control over springbonnie(trap) and roamed the streets at night. He roamed dark allies and probably killed whoever slighted him. It was a long walk but he was just trying to get to his destination, fred bears diner. Because of the fires, the springtrap suit was more ruined and unsturdy and so it was time for a change. Somehow William got out of the suit but he's weak without one so he picked an old spring bonnie suit, scraptrap. (According to the fnaf minigames there are multiple spring bonnie suits so that why spring trap looks different)

I got more headcanons but this post is already to long :p

My Unpopular opinions:

Am I the only one here who's not way into the whole Michael AI theory?? Like it kinda makes sense but at the same time, making a whole new robot son with advanced technology IN THE 80s does not give the fnaf-y feel?? Ya know what I mean? Like it doesn't fit the theme? Also the ai thing is in the books and the books are a different universe from the games sooo idk why matpat still connected them?? Hsjsbsjsjsn fnaf is just waaaaay to confusing. Also please dont get mad at me for this opinion cause matpats ai thing is just a theory, its not canon

Foxy isnt super great. Dont get me wrong, I love foxy and he's an amazing character but I don't get why he got so much attention and hype

Bonnet and lolbit should just be canon already. They're not canon characters but they're included in sooo many things in fnaf so might as well make em canon

Funko needs to make a fnaf 2 figure set where you collect t.chica,t.bonnie,t.freddy, puppet, one of the withereds or shadows and you collect them all to make a mangled mangle figure. I would DIE for a fully formed noodle fox figure, how cool would that be?

Scraptrap design is perfect. I know that we all make peanut and Jimmy neutron jokes but honestly I love his sharp teach, creepy eyes, AMazInG voice, and his stabby arm. Sometimes in some angles, he can look heck a creepy

SCRAP BABY LEGITIMATELY FREAKS ME OUT SHES SCARY

butter sock

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sister location #sister location #fnaf ucn #fnaf theories #fnaf headcanon #im sooooo tired #all of these are dumb but i just wanted to get em off my chest #not art #yay

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alittledizzy · 6 years

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Title: tomorrow brings new things Rating: PG Word Count: 961 words Summary: It's October 19 and Phil doesn't know what he's doing. Notes: Written for @butifyoujudgeafish, for my thirty minute fics for charity fundraiser to benefit PhandomGives.

[read on AO3]

Phil's been in this situation before.

He's been stood shoulder to shoulder with a boy he likes, a boy whose face he knows from the internet, whose laugh makes his skin tingle with promise when he hears it over a phone line from hours away.

But there's always been something else; some element to temper it, some sense that what he feels might be real but it might not be. It might be something that flourishes online but withers face to face, and he's grown to hate that feeling so much that he could hardly sleep the night before for dreading it.

It's the same feeling that's led him to almost cancel Dan's visit no less than three times - the knowledge that opportunity and risk go hand in hand and they've already passed a point of something more than friends - to the extent that if they met and felt no chemistry it would likely smother the friendship underneath it.

But there's none of that here, and that's what makes this situation different. He feels like he’s in freefall waiting for a snap of reality that hasn’t come yet. He’s beginning to think that it might not come at all.

That's what makes Dan different.

Phil's never felt this exhilarated by another person.

He has to keep looking over to make sure that Dan is real.

Of course Dan's real, though; he's real enough to have laughed at Phil when Phil spilled part of his coffee on the sofa and real enough to have helped him try and mop it up even while still laughing.

Dan is flesh and blood, slightly too loud and slightly too eager to seem confident and slightly too bold (in just the right way) with how he keeps staring at Phil's mouth and all of that feels... very, very real.

"We're going up there?" Dan says. His eyes are wide and he side steps around to get a better view of the massive, looming wheel.

"If you want," Phil says.

"Do you?" Dan reflects the question back on him.

Phil shrugs. "If you do."

There's a moment of stalemate and Dan rolls his eyes. "Well, then I guess we are."

They stand too close in the lift up to the skybar, even though there's no one else with them.

"You'll like it," Phil says. He's rambling. Babbling, even. He can't think straight right now, there are jumping beans in his head and his heart and his stomach. "It's a beautiful view."

"First the wheel, now this place..." Dan looks around. Even the lift is a bit fancy. Phil didn't plan this, he didn't plan for this to be a date, but the urge to show Dan nice things and impress him overrides. "You like pretty stuff, don't you?"

The words bubble up inside of Phil even as he knows how completely ridiculous it is. He ducks his head and bites down on the tip of his tongue before he says, "Guess so. I like you, after all."

"Fuck off." Dan punches him in the arm but he also grins ear to ear so Phil doesn't think it's all that bad.

"What are you thinking about?" Phil asks.

Dan jumps slightly, then looks sheepishly down.

They've almost finished their drinks. They'll go back home soon; back to Phil's big empty house. It's scary and exciting and Phil's not sure which of those feelings is winning.

It's just a friend he's having around, he tells himself. It's just a boy he met on the internet. Just a boy he gets on well with. Just - just a person that Phil looks at and feels more intensely for, more hopeful about, than maybe any other person he's met in his life.

He's very bad at talking himself down in moments like this.

Dan half-shrugs. "It's dumb."

“No it’s not,” Phil says. He doesn’t know what Dan was thinking - that’s why he asked, after all - but he is absolutely sure that it’s not dumb. He thinks every thought Dan has is fascinating, even while recognizing the silly kind of giddiness that leads him to believe so.

"This is just." Dan pauses, then finishes his drink in one smooth swallow before he looks at Phil. "This is just a really nice night. Things have been so weird and confusing and shit lately in my life, I forgot what having a good time felt like.'

Phil has the wild thought that he wants to give Dan every nice night that he can. The thought is much too much, much too soon.

"Ask me what I'm thinking about," Phil says.

"What are you thinking about?" Dan looks at him curiously.

Phil copies Dan, finishing his drink before he speaks. Maybe this bravery comes from the bottom of his glass, but if so he'll ride it out. "I want you to kiss me again."

Dan sucks in a breath. "Maybe it's your turn to kiss me."

"Okay," Phil says, and then he doesn't do anything, because they're sat in a swank bar surrounded by people. What he does do is reach across the table and take Dan's hand. "Let’s go back to mine, then."

“Oh my god,” Dan says under his breath. “Well, that’s a line.”

Phil’s face goes red. “Shut up. It is not.”

“It totally is,” Dan says. He pauses then adds, “But it worked.”

“Oh.” Phils face is definitely still red. His cheeks are hot. But now maybe for another reason, because he’s about to actually take Dan back to his house, where they’re going to stay, and they’re going to be alone-

And he has no idea what it means. He doesn’t know what’ll happen but the weird trapped-bird fluttering in his heart tells him that it’s going to mean something big.

#phan #phanfic #thirty minute fics for charity

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rocketonthemoon · 6 years

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Fic: Mission Not So Impossible

Once upon a time @sailorvenuss asked me if I would ever write a kid fic again. Practically a year later I finally have something to show for it. Hope you like it Liz!

It was an elaborate plan. She mouthed the word to herself. E-lab-or-ate. She liked how big the word was. Impressive for a seven year old. Well, Michiru probably knew it. But Michiru knew lots of big words and wouldn’t she be impressed that Haruka learned one without her? Haruka added it to the plan.

The elaborate plan.

The line moved forward a step. Haruka’s fingers ran over the paper bills in her pocket again. She hoped she had enough left. The soup had been more than she expected - asking for it hot was a special but important order. The plan wouldn’t be complete without it. Well, it could be but then it wouldn’t be as perfect. Elaborate, she corrected herself. Hot soup was the key.

Well, hot soup and the flowers. Lots of flowers. As many flowers that would fit on her bicycle. She didn’t know exactly how many that was but she guessed it was a lot. Especially if she threaded some through the wheels. It would look weird but it’d be worth it. Only she might not have enough money. Maybe she’d only fill her backpack. It wouldn’t be nearly as many but she did have a big backpack…

“Next!” The man behind the counter called.

Only one way to find out.

Haruka tried not to be bothered too much that only her head cleared the counter. The man on the other side wasn’t much taller. That helped. A little. Sorta. At least one day she’d grow. Hopefully. Like really tall. Tall enough to reach things off the top shelf of libraries without a ladder. Tall enough to climb trees without jumping. Or maybe even tall enough to reach the pedals of her uncle’s car!

She took a deep breath in through her nose. She could do this. Her hand reached for her pocket and she tried not to spend too much time fishing for all the coins hidden at the bottom. “How much roses can I get for this much?”

That didn’t sound quite right… How many? How much? It was still a little hard when she got nervous. Not that she was nervous. But the old man blinked slowly and did nothing for a long minute but looked at her over his glasses. Like a really long minute. Long enough that she wanted to squirm. Her heel definitely started bouncing and her fingers tapped against air. A withered old finger slowly pushed apart the pile of money in front of him. Coin by coin. Bill by bill. Until every single one was spread across the counter between them. Haruka swallowed the impatient whine that almost escaped. She could do this. She could be strong. And she was! She only shrank back a little when the old man’s eyes lasered at her over his glasses again. That was a win!

“Roses,” he said after eons of staring.

Haruka nodded quickly. Maybe too much. Her neck hurt a bit now. The old man reached down - Inch. By. Inch - under the counter. Her breath caught and she struggled to keep still, so still, under his watch. His arm moved. Haruka resisted, barely, the urge to leap forward and snag the single rose he now held out for her. Instead, she took it as slow, so slow, as she dared. Right into the backpack. Right on top of the soup. And not a single prick of a thorn.

Phase two: complete.

“Next!”

Haruka jumped out of line, bowing hurriedly as she went. Wait, was she supposed to do that? Her uncle always said be polite to older people but… too much? The lady behind her met her wide-eyed stare with a smile and just like that Haruka was dismissed. No questions, no complaints. The old man behind the counter moved on to trap his next victim in his slow world of terror. And Haruka was out the door.

Speed caught back up with her with every step. Walking, then running, then flying along on her bicycle. Wind in her hair, the steady ticking of the pedals under her feet, she swore she was soaring. There weren’t any roses in her spokes but that was probably ok. She was going too fast for them to stay put. She was speed, she was the wind, and she had a mission. No mission was complete without a bad guy to defeat. Now she was on her way to see the princess.

Way better than any video game.

Down this street, over that bridge, past those couple weird pinecone statues and she was practically there. The houses got bigger, the cars nicer, and twice Haruka was tempted to slow down and look, just look, just for a second, at the sports motorbikes parked in a driveway or two. But this plan - this mission - couldn’t wait. She’d already wasted too much time at the store.

Another block and she was there. The big house on the left with blooming lilies. Her uncle once said that rich people liked to use flowers to show off. She wasn’t really sure what that meant - they were just flowers - but they sure did look nice. Maybe she should pick Michiru one?

She gave a completely casual, but super quick, look around. Safe. Maybe Michiru wouldn’t care, Haruka thought while stuffing her new prize in her backpack. It was her driveway after all. But two flowers were better than one. And her uncle always said it was the thought that counted anyways.

Her bike stashed and the fence now completely cleared, Haruka made her way across the yard. The grounds, she corrected herself. Rich people had grounds not yards. It really just felt like a big yard, though. A really big yard. With way more plants and trees than she’d ever seen outside of a park. Did Michiru live in a park? She’d have to ask.

If she ever found the right room.

Haruka stared up at the back of Michiru’s house. She scowled, drumming her fingers on her leg. There were a lot of windows. Too many to count. Not that she couldn’t count that high. She could! It would just take time. Like…. A whole thirty minutes. Way too long. But only three of them had balconies and Haruka was willing to bet Michiru’s room was one of those. All princesses had a balcony right?

Right. Totally. Of course.

Out of the three, only one looked like a bedroom. Or at least a kid’s bedroom. The two farther down had like. Flowers in them. Pots with flowers that she could see. Or some kinda furniture in front of them like the kind she always saw in museums. Maybe they were guest rooms or a hallway or something. They didn’t matter. The one closest to her looked like a win.

She’d just have to try. And hope really hard it was the right room. She wasn’t exactly sure Michiru had guard dogs like in the one American movie she watched cause her uncle said she could stay up really late with him and he was watching something with someone being chased across a big yard by a bunch of scary dogs... but Haruka really didn’t wanna find out. One deep breath or five and a quick look around later she picked up a rock and lobbed it right at the window.

Clack. She fought the urge to duck and hide. Not like there was anywhere to hide in this big open yard. Maybe that tree closer to the house… She held her breath, ready to run for it. Nothing happened. Haruka picked up another rock. Maybe Michiru just didn’t hear? This one hit much harder, much louder, and Haruka nearly jumped at the sound. This time?

Still nothing, though.

She frowned. Maybe this was the wrong window. But all princesses had a balcony. Every video game said so. One more try. This time for sure.

For a moment, she was terrified she’d thrown too hard. The crack sounded way too much like when she broke the taillight on her aunt’s car. It wasn’t Haruka’s fault the car was parked too close to where she’d been practicing her swing… but she’d still been grounded for a month. Nothing shattered this time. At least she didn’t think so. She didn’t really care though. A face came to the window. Haruka beamed and waved as Michiru disappeared for a moment only to come back with blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The window - door actually - swung open and seconds later Michiru was looking down at her.

Just like a real princess would.

“Haruka!” Michiru’s voice sounded rough, though she smiled wide. Haruka could barely see her over the rail of the balcony. It didn’t really matter. “What… why are you here?”

Haruka turned around to better show off her backpack. “Teacher said you were sick and you never get sick! So I thought I’d bring you stuff to feel better!”

From way up high, Michiru blinked. She always did that when Haruka was being silly. But, Haruka knew, she also smiled. And Michiru’s smiles were worth being silly. Especially when it made her laugh. But instead, Michiru coughed. Haruka quickly remembered her mission - her elaborate mission - and how little time she had to complete it.

“Hold on a minute,” she called. Motioning for Michiru to back up, Haruka tossed her backpack as high as she could. Which was very high for her age, she was told. It landed carefully on the edge of the balcony. And three minutes later, her hair full of leaves and only a few scratches to show for it, so was Haruka.

“Haruka you didn’t -”

“I brought you soup!” Words tumbled out faster than she could think. She was too excited. Her hands tugged at the zipper of her bag. “Uncle always says you should have soup when you’re sick and I didn’t know what kinda soup you liked so I just picked one and then I…”

Haruka’s voice caught in her throat as her hand hit something wet. Wet? She looked in the backpack. Somehow, despite checking it ten times at the store, her thermos had come loose. Soup puddled at the bottom, soaking her homework and books. And even worse. Michiru’s flowers were ruined.

“Oh.”

A hand reached in for the flower. Haruka tried pulling away, but before she knew it, Michiru was holding the rose. Petals were missing. The stem was all bent and broken from being in her bag. And it smelled like soup.

Haruka wilted, her nose tingling. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t, she told herself firmly. But her mission had failed. The soup was gone. The lily she picked was crushed under a book and the rose barely looked like a rose anymore. Even Haruka was a mess. And to make it worse, there was no way Teacher would take her homework.

Everything was ruined.

“You got this for me?”

Somehow, Michiru didn’t sound upset. Haruka pawed at her eyes and looked up. Michiru still held on to the gross, soupy rose. And was looking at Haruka. Her face was a little red, and her eyes were a little shiny looking, and even though that was probably from her cold it still made Haruka feel a little better. Not a lot. Just a little.

“I had a plan,” she mumbled, wrinkling her nose down at her bag. “Kinda elaborate.”

Her eyes bounced back up at Michiru’s giggle. “That’s a good word,” Michiru said. “Did you learn it from Teacher?”

Haruka shook her head, grinning slightly. “No, I read it in a book. And then I looked it up!” She puffed her chest a little bit. And Michiru laughed again. And again and again as Haruka told her everything she had missed at school. Especially the best bits like lunch and recess. And when she was done Michiru even helped her make a new sheet of homework. In between snack and giggle breaks of course.

So maybe, Haruka thought as she pedaled back home after it was way too late, maybe if she could make Michiru laugh… maybe she hadn’t ruined it so bad.

Mission accomplished.

#Haruka Tenoh #Michiru Kaioh #Haruka x Michiru #Rocket writes a thing #finally after ages of effort #and hey the end isn't even that bad now that I fixed it #just needed some sleep #LIZ I HOPE YOU LIKE IT #getting character kid voices is always kinda hard but I tried!!!!!#I promise I did!!!!#BSSM #fanfiction

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sending-the-message · 6 years

Text

Tobias by Ilunibi

The one drawback of Dead Coyote keeping himself clean-ish was that his social circle collapsed in on itself like a dying star. The regulars I’d grown up with were pretty sour that Dead Coyote kicked them to the curb after his first relapse, when he realized that their mere presence made him regress back to his old, self-destructive self. People who’d demonized him when he was a known dealer were incapable of wrapping their minds around the fact that he could turn over a new leaf, and very few were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s not even to start in on the folks who wanted him to “go back to Mexico” when they realized that he was approved for disability because of all the emotional backlash of overcoming his addiction, accusing him of stealing their hard-earned money when he “probably doesn’t have a green card.”

He chose to find humor in it, or tried. Still, you could tell that he was jonesing for something a bit more substantial than a hit of heroin, and it got worse when I went to college.

His girlfriend was dead. His princess was an hour away. His family wasn’t really on speaking terms with him. The most companionship he usually had, surprisingly enough, was my mother, who’d stop by from time to time just to make sure that he was eating. After all, he was the surrogate father to a daughter she hadn’t got a chance to raise. Even if she still had nagging thoughts in the back of her mind that he was a dirty junkie with impure thoughts about her little girl, nine years of committed babysitting had secretly won her over.

Me? I worried. Even at the age of eighteen, and even having seen Dead Coyote in less-than-flattering situations, I still had this very childish, idealized view of him in my head. He wasn’t perfect, but I always thought of him as strong and unshakable and unbreakable. He’d overcome demons and hexes and curses and heroin, and did things no sane man would do without batting an eye, succeeding more often than not.

But that’s not really Dead Coyote. Dead Coyote is a perpetually exhausted, well-meaning man who made bad choices when he was my age because he lost all hope that he could do better. Dead Coyote has impulse control problems and anger issues and spends a lot of his time depressed and worried. He’s a human being who puffs himself up because he’s never been given the option of being weak, but he’s actually scared of a lot of things he stands up against. And he is hurt that he was essentially abandoned by everyone he ever knew, right down to Cheryl overdosing in her apartment.

My sixth sense tingled every time I talked to him on the phone. He began to sound more hopeless and listless, and I was terrified that he’d either wind up back with a needle in his arm or I would one day get a call from mom that they found him with a bullet in his head. Life without DC in it just seemed impossible and hollow, and I spent a lot of time crying over the thought.

Fortunately, it seemed the stars aligned just right enough for a single, solitary person to show up in his life. Or rather, reappear. He called me, confused, the weekend before finals week and told me that he’d heard from an old friend he hadn’t spoken to in years.

“Tobias,” he muttered, flabbergasted. “Of all the fuckin’ people, princess, it was Tobias.”

Now, Tobias was Dead Coyote’s best friend before he moved away from home. I’d heard a lot about him but never met the man because, well, Maryland was a pretty good distance away and I was under the impression that he was about as broke as either of us. Travel wasn’t really an option. But I did know that he taught him a lot about magic, he was the person responsible for the nickname “Dead Coyote,” and that he was eerily good at predicting things. Apparently, their old crew gave him the alias “Seer” because of it, and some people outright stopped talking to him because of how accurate he wound up being, accusing him of being the harbinger of everything he foresaw.

Not that he was psychic, no. When I suggested that on the ride home from campus for a summer of black magic and beer, Dead Coyote just laughed at me and shook his head. Psychics, he said, aren’t real, but spirits are. Tobias was just very, very good at reading omens and signs and was dedicated enough that he built up quite the rapport with a particular demon by the name of Vine.

Vine is, essentially, an oracle who takes the form of a circus lion. You think I’m joking, but what else do you think of when you imagine a big cat on horseback? Silly as that may sound, he supposedly knows all things past, present, and future, and doubles as a one-spirit demolition crew when riled. Allegedly. I can’t think of a time I’ve ever heard of a building toppling and immediately wanted to pin it on an archaic demon, but the capability is recorded in the old grimoires and just the thought of somebody being good enough at what they do to build up a working relationship with that was both terrifying and impressive.

The first few weeks of summer break, I was treated to quite a few stories of the good old days, Dead Coyote making it perfectly obvious that hearing from somebody who wasn’t me or my mother had made his goddamn life. The part of me that would have been jealous had pretty much died, because more than anything I was just happy to hear him happy. His one complaint was that he wished they could actually meet up. Phone calls are nice, but they’re nothing compared to sharing shitty beer in person and loudly complaining about said shitty beer.

“Maybe we could visit,” I suggested. He liked the idea and we tried to figure out the logistics of it in a drunken, emotional haze that eventually turned into an in-depth discussion about Beast Wars. Still, the seeds had been planted and we almost had a pretty good rough draft in place for our first ever unorthodox family vacation.

But, we never got to act on it.

A few days after our discussion, I woke up to the sound of somebody knocking, loudly, on the door. It was the kind of knock that instantly makes your heart leap into your throat: heavy, hard, and relentless. Not knuckle knocking, but side of the fist, open-this-goddamn-door-right-fucking-now knocking. It startled me so much that I took a spill off of the couch and waited in the floor, hopeful that I’d hear Dead Coyote shuffling around upstairs. That was obviously expecting too much. The man could sleep through the apocalypse.

My first thought was that it was somebody from the housing authority. They had a tendency to be assholes and I was bad at keeping track of the pest control regimen or the quarterly inspections. Maybe it was a very aggressive postman with yet another official letter from yet another person to whom Dead Coyote owed money. I crept toward the door, peeked out the peephole, and didn’t even have a chance to say anything before a voice boomed back at me.

“Where’s Angelo?”

I blinked. Nobody called Dead Coyote by his real name, not even the people at the complex’s offices. I actually forgot he had a real name.

I stood in silence on the other side of the door, holding my breath and trying to make sense of what was going on. I couldn’t even see anyone on the other side of the door. The opposite end of the peephole was covered, like whoever was on the other side had leaned in close trying to see their way in.

“Know you’re there. Know you’re not Angelo. Where is he?”

As deep and terrifying as the voice was, it wasn’t angry. I decided to take that as a good sign. Realizing that Dead Coyote wasn’t waking up and that I was now an adult who had to handle scary adult things myself, even if it was potentially a home invasion, I made the not-so-wise decision to open the door a crack. I only undid three of the locks, though, leaving the chain in place.

Hair a mess, glasses crooked, and still in my pajamas, I glanced through the gap between the door and the jamb and stared wide-eyed at the man on the other side. He had dreadlocks for days, half-tied back and half tied down with a bandana. He looked like a cross between a fortune teller and Medusa.

“You’re Seymour?”

I stared at him blankly and tried to close the door. He stopped it with his foot. I suddenly had a lot of regrets.

“Tobias. Where’s Angelo?”

And so, I met Tobias.

Tobias was strange. He was the human equivalent of a Clydesdale horse with dark skin, bright blue eyes, and a withering expression that just seemed to be his default. I also couldn’t peg what he was supposed to be for the life of me, beyond human. You could look at Dead Coyote and tell he was Hispanic, or look at me and tell I was Celtic as fuck, but Tobias just was.

Uncomfortable as it was, we sat and made small talk as we waited for Dead Coyote to drag himself up from his hangover and ooze down the stairs. He was polite enough, if a bit blunt and quiet, though it seemed less out of a sense of awkwardness than the fact he had too much on his mind. Halfway through our on-and-off conversation, he reached into his pocket and fished out a deck of playing cards, shuffling them and cutting them as though it was a nervous tic. His eyes never left the floor.

By the time Dead Coyote finally decided to join us, Tobias had cleared off the coffee table and laid out a chaotic spread of cards that began as a game of solitaire and turned into something like a tarot spread. The only thing that interrupted him was seeing his old friend, the two exploding into a series of excited yelps and overly manly hugs. According to Dead Coyote, Tobias hadn’t changed a bit. According to Tobias, though, Dead Coyote looked like he’d been crushed in a dumpster sometime between the ages of nineteen and thirty.

“How did you find me?” Dead Coyote finally asked as they cracked open a couple of morning brews and I sat awkwardly on the sideline. Tobias shrugged.

“Not a lot of people with the last name ‘Sepulveda.’”

“And why come all this way, man?”

Tobias gestured at his cards. I had no idea what the hell any of it meant, but Dead Coyote looked at the weird arrangement like an art connoisseur sizing up a painting. With each card he glanced over, the more concerned his expression became. Before I could ask what was going on, Tobias began to speak. It was as though he knew what I was going to ask.

He said he’d come because his readings and rituals were beginning to become more and more focused on Dead Coyote, seemingly out of nowhere. When he slammed into an actual coyote with his car and killed it--an apparent rarity in his parts--he took it as a sign from Vine and tracked down his old friend through a mixture of good old fashioned asking around and even more old fashioned divination. A few calls didn’t ease his worries, so he’d chucked a fair chunk of change for a one-way Greyhound ticket and had come to figure out what in the hell was going on.

“Knew you were bad when you left, but you didn’t set off the alarms. Now you do. Worried me.”

Despite the somber tone, I honestly didn’t have a damn clue what was going on. The only thing I knew was that almost every card in Tobias’ reading for Dead Coyote was a spade. When Tobias finally left, albeit reluctantly, he gave us a single warning to watch ourselves. Something was very, very wrong. His gaze lingered on me a bit longer than I would have liked and I shrank away as he disappeared out the door.

“I don’t get it,” I said, once the apartment was quiet and we had settled on the couch. Dead Coyote inhaled deeply and immediately fished for his cigarettes.

“He does cartomancy, princess. If it were anyone else, I’d think it was bullshit, but it’s Seer, so… you know.”

Cartomancy, he said, was like tarot but using a deck of regular old playing cards. It’s more direct and less interpretive, and the cards all had set meanings that made them more believable and less sketchy than the vague readings tarot spat out. Typically, Dead Coyote laughs at anyone who takes that sort of thing seriously, but Tobias had used cards for as long as he’d known him to tease out concrete answers from the powers that be. It was one of the many ways he interpreted signs and omens, because it was honest, quick, and handy. There was no specific store to buy them in or any hocus-pocus “relationship” you had to have with the deck. If you needed them, you just picked some up from the dollar store and got to work.

And spades? They’re bad. Very bad. I hadn’t gathered heads or tails of the reading Tobias had laid out on the table while Dead Coyote was asleep, but it predicted everything from debilitating depression to disruption in the apartment to death. I didn’t have a goddamn clue how one person could get all of that out of a game of solitaire, but Dead Coyote was shaken to the core of his being. It bothered me to see that sort of uncharacteristic weakness, to see him reacting with anything other than anger or apathy. The only thing that seemed to bring him back down to earth was reminding him that Tobias wouldn’t have come and told him if he didn’t think something could be done.

Honestly, I needed to hear it, too. Seeing him freaked out did nothing to help me calm down, and the fear was so overwhelming that my brain could only process it as anger. That night, I laid on the couch and stared at the ceiling and wondered aloud to myself just what in the fuck was going on and who the fuck Tobias thought he was. The prediction of “death” loomed over me like a storm cloud and I tried to think of all the ways something could happen to Dead Coyote and what I could do to stop it, if anything. It became a borderline obsession, this nagging fear, a paranoia more powerful than when I just wondered if his loneliness would drive him to self destruction.

The next few days were a blur; I couldn’t bring myself to pay attention to anything, especially when Tobias would stop by to do his wellness checks. He was a distraction, an unlikeable distraction whose “man of few words” act was beginning to grate on my last nerve. Even though Dead Coyote would light up and temporarily forget what fate had willed for him whenever he stopped by, I couldn’t find it in my heart to like the guy. When I looked at him, all I could think about was where the hell he’d been when Dead Coyote needed him most, why it took so long for him to realize his friend was in trouble, and whether or not they could even still be considered friends after not seeing each other for years and years.

I could stomach it for about a week. It was a week of watching Tobias pull spades repeatedly, knit his brows together, and pull them again. It was a week of watching him do nothing to try to figure out where it was coming from. Seven entire days of looking up from whatever I was doing to see him glaring at me like somehow this was all my fault. All I could think of was how desperate I was to prove Tobias wrong and how offended I was that--if he was correct--he was doing nothing but the same thing over and over, like an idiot, to try to “fix” things.

I had had enough.

Dead Coyote had gone to bed, drunk. I tried, but I couldn’t. Yet again, I lay on the couch and conversed with the ceiling until I felt this urge throughout my entire body to get up, a horrible and uncomfortable twinge in my legs and arms that compelled me to move. I stood, I paced, but I was still so fucking restless. And angry. And fed-up.

And scared.

Being a dumb eighteen-year-old is both magical and puzzling, because to this day I have no idea why the hell I decided to go steal Dead Coyote’s phone out of his room. He was snoring on his mattress, shirtless and tangled into a drunken mess of limbs, and for all intents and purposes he was dead to the world. I snatched it off the charger, snuck back down to the kitchen, and sat at the table in the corner staring at his contact list debating whether or not I should call his little friend. You know, just give him a little ring and demand he tell me what needed to be done to reverse fate and who in the screaming hell he thought he was bringing that kind of negativity into our apartment.

I wanted to tell him fortune telling was bullshit and that I didn’t believe he was as powerful as Dead Coyote had told me. I wanted to face down that giant of a man and threaten to kick his ass up one side and back down the other. I pressed the button, let it ring twice, then disconnected with a furious growl. Phone calls and voicemails didn’t seem like they would send a powerful enough message. I needed to tell him to fuck off in person.

I knew where he was, too. He was at an Econolodge just a few blocks away on the edge of the complex, holed up with a dirt-cheap weekly rate that I hoped he wouldn’t have to use for another week. It was dark and it was in a bad neighborhood, but I’d lived in that neighborhood my entire life and I’d wandered around at later hours. Granted, I usually wasn’t by myself, but I was a dumb college kid with renewed belief that I was invulnerable, just like when I was a kid. Old enough to have the confidence, young enough to be stupid.

I quickly threw on a bra and jeans, slipped on my shoes, and slipped outside.

For as much as I talk about growing up in the projects, I don’t think I’ve ever given you a good idea of what it looks like. During the day, it’s almost nice aside from the bars on the windows and the grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, the only real eyesore being the fact that people clutter up the stoops to their apartment with more bikes and junkyard trash than any one family would have a use for. At night, though, it’s like a scene from some kind of movie: dark with flickering street lights, and dogs barking on chains attached to the window bars, kicked out of the house now that the housing authority office was closed and their owners didn’t have to hide their undocumented pets. It’s unnerving with somebody, let alone by yourself, and had I not been propelled by a combination of sheer idiocy, desperation, and anger, common sense might have kicked in and told me to go back home.

But, it didn’t. I soldiered on, hands rammed in my pockets and glasses sliding down my nose, hair a mess and mouth held in such a powerful scowl that my entire face hurt. Hell, it hurt behind my eyes and the entire back of my head felt like it was being crushed. I’d never had a rage migraine before, and I hope I never have one again.

I could see the lights of the Econolodge sign when things took a sharp turn south.

You see, it had been years since Joseph Shepherd, the charming man who tried to molest me as a kid, had graced the neighborhood with his presence. Being a dick who chases his girlfriend with battery acid is overlookable, I suppose, but touching a little girl is not. Mean as he was, the neighbors just couldn’t tolerate him popping his face up in their territory any longer, and after his release he was treated to a few choice ass-kickings. Dumb as he was and as vicious as he played at, after a couple of years it finally sank in that it was only a matter of time before something more than his tires got slashed and he skipped town.

His place had been taken, oddly enough, by a kid I grew up with.

Adam Emmert was almost my friend once, though that “almost” should be bolded and underlined for effect. I was a lonely child and he had seemed lonely, too, though I was too young to realize that he wasn’t a young, neglected kid like I had been. No, there was something deeply wrong with Adam in much the same way there had been something wrong with Joseph. Trade in throwing grade schoolers in front of a bus with threatening kids with broken glass and poisoning the neighborhood dogs for fun, and it seemed as though our lovely complex actually upgraded in terms of their local villain. And he only got worse as he got older, when he realized how much he hated anyone who wasn’t white.

I knew to avoid him, everyone did. I was not, however, expecting him to be sitting outside on the sidewalk with a crew of fellow miscreants at two in the goddamn morning. To be honest, I didn’t even really register who it was at first, stomping by with my eyes focused on the no-tell motel where Tobias was hiding, waving their cigarette smoke out of my face as I passed. No, it didn’t even occur to me who the ringleader of the group was until I heard his voice, unusually loud and echoing in the abandoned streets.

“It’s Seymour!”

It was almost a singsong. I stopped, turned, and short circuited. He stood up from the curb, grinning with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, looking at me from underneath the brim of his trucker cap. He was the epitome of white trash, and had a dangerous gleam in his eye.

“Who?” a dazed girl asked.

“That fuckin’ wetback’s whore.”

I didn’t answer because I suddenly lost the ability to do so. All I could think of was, in the previous week, I had developed quite the knack for being an idiot. I should have never been out alone at night.

“She fucks that greasy fuck? Jesus.”

I realized I had forgotten my phone and Dead Coyote’s phone in the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah. But why are you out now, Seymour? Side job? Meetin’ up with a John, eh? Guess crazy money doesn’t keep your little fuckbuddy on his feet very well, huh?”

What was in his waistband? What did he reach for? It was shining. Was it a knife? I thought of Joseph’s friend, the alley, the threat of being stabbed. I always thought a knife would be worse than a gun, but I was having second thoughts realizing that what he was holding was most definitely not a cheap folding knife.

“Maybe she needs a real man,” one of his toadies offered.

My brain was white noise, television static.

“She’ll have to pay first. What do you say, Seymour? Wanna walk crooked for the next few days?”

Amid their laughter, I found enough clarity to run, dead in the opposite direction of my apartment. I bolted for the Econolodge, faster than I think I have ever run in my life. A gunshot cracked through the night and I swore I could feel something whizz past me as I stumbled over my feet and landed on my palms. The asphalt scraped away the skin but I ignored it and sprinted, bleeding and crying, all the way to the lobby office of that shitheap motel.

Blood and dirt smeared the glass as I forced the door closed and twisted the lock. I’d lost my glasses somewhere between point A and point B, so finding my way to the desk was an adventure in and of itself. The attendant was nowhere to be seen (not that I could see), so I slammed on the bell until he came ambling out like a tired old dog, his voice shaking when I finally coaxed him to speak. That is, if you can call screaming hysterically that somebody was trying to shoot me “coaxing.”

“Tobias!” I yelped. “I need to speak to Tobias!”

“What’s the last name, ma’am?”

I could tell from his tone he really wanted to help me, but there were rules. So many damn rules. I didn’t have a surname or a room number, and my demands were so quick-fire and desperate that calling the cops seems to have been the last thing on his mind. I was my own worst enemy, a distraction from real help, scaring a poor middle-aged hotel clerk so badly that he seemed to believe that finding my “friend” was the only way to solve the problem.

He was about to offer to call him, refusing to give me the room number, when I heard a tapping on the glass. Somebody tried the locked door. I couldn’t see worth a damn to figure out who it was and every part of me was convinced it was Adam. Even when the clerk let out a sigh of relief, every nerve in my body buzzed with adrenaline.

“Oh, thank god.”

It was Tobias. With my glasses, no less. Apparently, I had lost them just out on the sidewalk.

Even if I had come with the intent of laying into him with all the fury of a particularly whiny hurricane, in that one moment, I could have kissed him. That all went away when, after he handed me my glasses, he didn’t even bother to ask what happened or if I needed help. He looked at my bloody hands, reached into the pocket of his jeans, and pulled out that same goddamn deck of cards he’d been carrying the whole time he’d been visiting. Instead of a spread, he drew just one and stared at it, intently and with mounting worry. I stole a peek and saw the ace of spades staring back at me.

He didn’t say a word, not to me, not to the desk attendant. He just hurriedly crammed his cards back into his pocket, turned tail, and ran back in the direction of Dead Coyote’s home.

I followed, like the idiot I had proven to be. Panic was the primary motivator, Dead Coyote’s voice ringing in my head. He’d said that spades were bad, very bad, and if the whole suite was awful wouldn’t the ace card be worst of all? I thought of Adam and his cronies, and it sank in that after I hit the Econolodge they never showed up at the lobby. I had spent a good five to ten minutes shrieking like a banshee about how somebody was trying to kill me. They had more than enough time to catch up.

So where did they go?

Even though I am built for strength, not speed, I did a pretty decent job of keeping up with Tobias for a while. I noticed that Adam wasn’t where he had been and my mind came to a screeching halt when I realized that that wasn’t exactly a good thing. Had I locked the door to the apartment when I left?

I hadn’t. For the love of fuck, I hadn’t.

Despite being a straight shot from the Econolodge to Dead Coyote’s apartment, I couldn’t really see far enough ahead to see if my fears were founded. My vision was blurred, people’s stoops were stacked high with bullshit, and there were more than enough overflowing garbage cans dotting the sidewalk. Eventually, I even lost Tobias in the maze of trash, panting and lagging behind like an old race horse. Even fear couldn’t keep me going forever, I guess.

I only stopped running, though, when I heard a gunshot. Then a scream. It was too high-pitched to be Tobias or Dead Coyote, though, and I thanked my lucky stars for that. Still, when home was finally in sight I didn’t expect to see a gigantic mass of dreadlocks and hate sitting on top of the neighborhood psychopath beneath the bottom step of our stoop. Nor did I expect to see Adam’s less-than-loyal cronies scatter past me like roaches.

Yet, there he was: Tobias, in all his glory, pinning Adam down to the sidewalk with his sheer weight. Adam squalled and lights began to turn on one by one, heads poking out of windows, people stepping out onto the street. I walked up behind Tobias, wheezing and gasping, waiting for him to make some kind of idle threat to Adam, but he just sat there in almost infuriating silence, eyes boring holes into Adam’s skull.

Then I heard Dead Coyote. I glanced up to see his head dangling out of the window, his hair a mess and his eyes squinting against the street lamps. Right as one of the neighbors demanded to know what was going on, Tobias calmly looked up at his good friend and huffed in exasperation.

“Call the police. Asshole was trying to break in.”

Calling the police made Tobias a sort of pariah, just as it had done to Dead Coyote briefly all those years ago. Not that he cared. It was the only way to make sure the threat was gone for a good, long while and he had a sneaking suspicion that they may have been what he was seeing in the cards and omens and dreams. And it was something that I had inadvertently triggered, he warned me, by leaving Dead Coyote alone and alerting the neighborhood ne’er-do-well to the fact.

He told me I was really dumb. Dead Coyote glared at him, but honestly? I agreed.

“Dunno what they’d steal,” Dead Coyote groaned, hiding from the living room lights as Tobias sauntered in, sat down on my couch, and began to lay out his cards. “Not like I got shit.”

“Car. Television. Five dollars in your wallet,” Tobias answered, making a gun with his fingers and pointing it at Dead Coyote. “Also, you’re brown with an accent. Enough for him, I think.”

I watched, transfixed as he spread the cards in the same chaotic pattern as before. I was still shaken, I was nauseous, and a part of me still wanted to kick Tobias in the throat, but as I saw the cards being drawn, my emotions began to settle.

Not a spade in sight. One red card after another, which he kindly explained out loud when he noticed me gawking, palms still bleeding and tears in my eyes. Success and unexpected good fortune and health and support from friends and family. All of it was really wishy-washy, but it brought a smile to my face.

“King of Clubs and Queen of Diamonds. Huh.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, Dead Coyote yawning on the floor as Tobias quickly shuffled his cards back together.

“Mm. Nothing bad. Not just Angelo’s reading, I guess.”

I won’t lie and say Tobias and I got along immediately. I also won’t lie and say that his residency didn’t end up being pretty permanent. However, in that one night, I realized why it was that Dead Coyote respected him so much, and I fell asleep wondering just how good of a connection one had to have with a demon to get that skilled at what they do. Tobias is kind of a jerk, but he’s also fairly amazing.

Even if, in the deepest parts of my heart, I still think cartomancy is full of shit.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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coloursflyaway · 7 years

Text

Delete Me, Repeat Me, Let’s Try This Again

Pairing: Dirk Gently/ Todd Brotzman

Rating: T

Words: 6.129

Dirk is in love with Todd, that much is clear. The question is what Todd intends to do with that information.

„You know, Todd“, Dirk starts, tilts his head in a way that makes him seem smaller, younger than he is. “I quite adore you.” He says it like he is talking about the weather, stating a fact, and maybe Todd should be used to the feeling of having the breath knocked out of his very lungs by now, but he isn’t. Because Dirk’s expression hasn’t changed a bit, he’s still looking at Todd like he’s a mystery he hasn’t quite figured out, a constant source of amazement, excitement and a hint of frustration. Because Dirk doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, but right in those blue eyes of his, unguarded and unashamed. It’s a bit too much for Todd to take sometimes.

His cheeks aren’t burning, but definitely feeling warmer than they ought to; it might be embarrassment, might be something else colouring them. Dirk has to notice, but doesn’t say a thing, only keeps a half-forgotten smile on his lips, that Todd knows will follow him into his dreams. He doesn’t say anything about the seconds that pass without an answer either. “Thanks”, Todd replies eventually, just because he has to say something, and tries his best to ignore the look Farah gives him. “That’s – thanks.”

It’s the worst possible reaction Todd could give, and yet Dirk’s half-smile blooms into a full one, all of the universe’s suns shining out of his eyes, gives a little nod and turns away. Like he never expected for Todd to say the words back, just wanted him to know, and like it’s more than enough for Dirk to have his… affection known, like reciprocation is not only unthinkable, but also not important. Either might be true, and either might be the reason why Todd’s heart suddenly feels a bit like it’s breaking.

The thing is that, if Todd is honest with himself, something he has little to no experience with and is only just figuring out how to do, he knows he could say the words back easily. He isn’t quite sure what it is he feels for Dirk, some bizarre mixture of affection, exasperation and deeply felt gratitude, laced with looks he shoots in the other man’s direction when Dirk isn’t looking and the way the world feels a little bit brighter when Dirk is around. All in all, Todd thinks, adore doesn’t seem so wrong a word to describe what he feels when he looks at the other, though maybe not the completely right one either. And yet, when they part ways in front of the Ridgely, he only offers a simple goodnight and an awkward pat on Dirk’s shoulder and leaves.

He doesn’t understand it, not quite, and yet is both relieved and regretful when he shuts the door to his apartment behind himself. He’s not Dirk, he doesn’t get hunches, doesn’t know how the universe works, but he’s old enough to know when he has missed a chance.

The next day starts before Todd is properly awake, with knocking on the door and a too-bright smile smiled into his direction, a paper cup with coffee shoved into his face while Dirk walks into his flat like he owns it, plops down on the sofa. In his hand, there’s a clear plastic cup with some bright green concoction inside, more whipped cream than Todd has ever seen on a single drink on top of it. “- as I was saying”, Dirk starts, although he hasn’t been saying anything, as far as Todd is aware. “I think we really should check out a forest today. Not a special one, mind you, just the general thing. The general concept of forests, if you will. I don’t know about you, but I woke up with a particularly good feeling about forests today.”

Dirk looks at him like he expects an answer, so Todd takes a big gulp of his coffee, only to realise it’s still far too hot. “… good morning, Dirk”, he tries when his brain refuses to come up with anything even close to an acceptable reply. It seems to be a good enough substitute. “Good morning to you too, Todd”, Dirk chirps back, shifts so he can look at him properly. “It’s very nice of you to join me in this conversation. Far more satisfying to have someone talk back to you instead of just staring at you.” “….yes.” It’s still too early, or maybe just not late enough for Todd’s brain; he takes another sip of his coffee, only to realise that it tastes different than he thought it would, still bitter, but with a lingering sweetness hidden just underneath.

“Is there… is there vanilla syrup in this?”, he asks, probably sounding as confused and dumb as he feels. “Well, duh”, Dirk answers, looking at Todd with something akin to fond exasperation directed at a particularly silly-acting pet. “That’s how you prefer it, don’t you? Black coffee – which is disgusting, by the way – with one pump of vanilla syrup. Not two, just one. Why would I get you anything else?” “Because you shouldn’t even know how I drink my coffee.” “Todd, honestly, now you are being perfectly absurd. Of course I know how you drink your coffee! We’ve had coffee together before after all.”

He’s right, even if it takes Todd a couple of moments to remember just when such a thing could have happened. His brain finally finds the appropriate memory from two or three months ago when Amanda had dragged them all to a Starbucks, because she had apparently infected the Rowdy 3 with her love for extremely overpriced and too-sugary coffee-esque drinks.

“And you remembered that?”, he asks, still stupefied, because he most likely couldn’t name a single ingredient making up the drink in Dirk’s hand. “Of course! I’m a detective, it’s my job to know things. Well, sometimes, at least.” His expression changes, becomes softer somehow, a gentle sunrise in rose gold and pink instead of the beaming midday sun usually shining out of his smiles. “And I pay attention when it comes to you.” Again, Dirk says it like it’s the most mundane, obvious of things, as interesting as news about the stock exchange he read in the papers this morning, and Todd realises that while his brain might still be half asleep, his heart isn’t; it picks up its pace, pumps more blood to his cheeks than is strictly needed. “…thanks, Dirk”, he replies, and it’s the worst of answers once more, only that Dirk doesn’t seem to notice. He looks just as happy, as content as before, turns back with a little hum and takes a sip from his drink. “Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about, Todd. Forests. How do you feel about them this fine morning?”

They end up in a forest, of course, and Todd cannot even find it in him to be surprised anymore. It’s nice here too, the ground covered in moss and fallen leaves, the tall trees somehow closing them off from the rest of the world, so it’s just the three of them, Dirk, Farah and him. “Are we actually looking for anything, Dirk?”, Farah asks; she’s still the one who has the most problems with actually believing in Dirk’s methods. “Of course!”, the other exclaims with the enthusiasm Todd has come to expect from him. “We are always looking for something, Farah!” She seems about to ask what exactly it is they are searching, but then thinks better of it; a wise choice in Todd’s opinion. “When you have found it, just yell really loud, will you?”, Dirk asks, then turns around before they can answer, almost skipping away in what seems like a random direction. Knowing Dirk, it most likely isn’t.

It leaves him and Farah on their own, Farah, who looks a little bit lost and finally takes off her jacket to spread it on the ground, sitting down. “He’s… he’s something, isn’t he?”, she asks after a second, looking up at Todd, a rather unusual feeling. “Absolutely”, he replies and falls down onto the ground next to her with less than a third of her elegance. “Not quite sure what he is, but he’s definitely that and probably not bad at it.” “Probably not.” There are a few moments of surprisingly comfortable silence, then Farah turns so she can properly face him, dark eyes obviously searching for something they do not find in his face.

“You know that he’s head over heels for you, don’t you?”, she asks, and oh, she finds it now, Todd can see it in her changing expression before he had processed what she has said. “Yes”, he finally answers, far more quickly than he expected to, because it’s a scary thing somehow, hearing what he has known to be true for quite some time now spoken aloud. “He’s not very subtle. As in, I don’t think he ever intended to hide… it.” “Well, what are you going to do about it?” “…nothing?” It’s quite not the right answer, that much is clear the second Farah raises a perfect eyebrow, looks at him with pursed lips. “Nothing?”, she repeats, and Todd feels himself wither under her gaze, although he hasn’t done anything wrong, as far as he’s aware. “Yes?”

Farah is looking at him like he has grown a second head in the few seconds that have passed since they started having this conversation, and although Todd would very much like her to stop, he doesn’t quite know how to make her. “Let me get this straight”, Farah starts, her eyes still searching for clues in Todd’s expression. “Dirk Gently, your best friend, is wildly in love with you and your reaction to that is nothing. Nothing.” Todd is the first to admit that, at least if put like this, it sounds slightly ridiculous, but it’s the only plan he’s got, so he nods mutely. For a moment, he almost expects Farah to slap him, but then the woman just groans, looks away from him at last. “Of course it is”, she mutters, but more than to herself than him while she pushes herself up easily. “Why did I even expect anything else? Nothing. Obviously. What else?”

She leaves without looking back.

They end up finding something, or rather, Todd stumbles over a stone and falls face-first onto it. It’s a small chest filled with all kinds of different coins, some rusty, some possibly made from gold; none of it is surprising, not the way he found it and definitely not that Dirk immediately declares that they have to find the owner of what he calls a treasure. Not the way Dirk beams at him, like Todd hasn’t just accidentally discovered a new case, but turned the world upside down, made it spin faster just to please him. Not even the pleasant warmth spreading from Todd’s stomach through his limbs, right to the very tips of his fingers, manifesting itself on his face as a smile. And not the looks Farah keeps giving him, like she knows he is making a horrible mistake.

“-and then Todd found the treasure. All on his own too! He’s a great assistant, really, you should be very proud of your brother, Amanda”, Dirk tells Todd’s sister, using twice as many gestures as a tale like this would need. They’re back in Todd’s flat, two days later, mercifully without the presence of the Rowdy 3 this time. Not that the four of them are far away; if Todd sits up a little straighter, he can see their van parked out on the street, and even without trying to listen, he can hear the distinct sound of the terrible, absolutely horrible music he has come to expect from them. “It really wasn’t that big a deal, Dirk”, Todd butts in, because it wasn’t. “I fell on it.” Amanda snorts, not even trying to hide her amusement, while Dirk almost looks a little bit offended on Todd’s behalf. “Well, you fell on it very skilfully, if you ask me”, Dirk replies with a voice that leaves no room for arguments. “You really need to stop selling yourself short, Todd, it’s very unbecoming.”

“Okay”, Todd can’t help but smile, even as he holds up his hands in surrender. “I’ll try.” “I don’t want you to try, I want you to do it!”, Dirk exclaims, most likely trying to sound annoyed, but failing spectacularly. “Alright, alright, calm down, I promise”, Todd interrupts him before he can say anything more, reaching over to grab his bottle of beer. The words seem to placate Dirk, a smile stealing onto his lips again. Something Todd is sure won’t ever fail to amaze him is how easily, how completely his friend’s emotions can change within a few seconds, how they seem to overtake him and leave him raw and something like vulnerable. He’s not sure if he envies Dirk or if it worries him. “See, this is why we are such great friends”, Dirk comments, pats Todd on the shoulder and leaves a warm spot when he pulls his hand away again, a grin on his face. “When one of us has a good idea, the other one doesn’t mind going along with it.” “You mean, when you have an idea, you won’t stop pestering me until I agree”, Todd corrects him, raises an eyebrow. “Well, wasn’t that what I said?”, Dirk replies, and Todd knows him well enough by now to know that this time, the innocence in his big, blue eyes is nothing but pretence, playfulness shining through. Todd snorts, takes a gulp from his beer and Dirk drops the act with a blink and a coy look, a smile appearing on his face, making him look radiant. Todd smiles back.

They’re in the kitchen, Todd fixing some sandwiches, while Dirk is busy telling Farah everything about a case he once solved in Scotland, Nepal and Switzerland at once, and Amanda picks at the label of her beer bottle as she leans against the wall, looking pensive. It’s a look Todd is not used to on her face anymore, and he’s about to ask what’s on her mind, when she finally looks up at him. “I didn’t realise you two were so close”, she says and Todd promptly cuts into his finger instead of the pickle. It hurts, but not enough to really get his attention right now. “What.” “You and Dirk. I knew you were friends, but not like this. I guess I just didn’t think you’d let anyone in so quickly. But he makes it easy, doesn’t he?” Amanda smiles a little bit, picks at the label again and lets the bits and pieces of paper tumble to the ground. “Especially for you.”

The vinegar stings on the cut, but Todd still hardly notices as he turns around to look at his sister, expecting her to be teasing. But she’s not, the smile on her lips a sweet one, her eyes soft; Todd isn’t sure if she is thinking about Dirk and him, but somehow doesn’t think so. After all, it’s not just him who found new friends. The flat out refusal dies right there on the tip of Todd’s tongue, because he knows Amanda would be able to see through him anyway. “He does”, Todd answers instead, and Amanda nods, like he asked a question. “And we’re close somehow. I don’t – I’m not quite sure to be honest.”

Amanda opens her mouth and Todd never has hunches like Dirk has, no premonitions, and yet knows what she is about to say; he doesn’t want to hear it. “And I know”, he says, before she can. “That he is – that Dirk has – “ “- that he is in love with you, you mean”, Amanda finishes the sentence for him and ruins Todd’s plan with nine simple words. They come like a series of blows, leave him breathless and yet he nods. “Yes.” “I was pretty sure you did”, she comments with another nod, finally stops fiddling with her bottle. “He is rather obvious, really. Mooning over you like you’ve hung the stars, which, no offence, you really haven’t.” “I know.”

He doesn’t mean to sound as unhappy about it as he does, and yet cannot quite do anything against it; it just happens. “And you… don’t reciprocate his feelings”, Amanda say slowly, like she can’t quite comprehend what she is hearing. “Is that what you are trying to tell me?” “Yes. No. I don’t know.” And he really doesn’t, not really, and looking at Amanda now, he has to admit another thing: Even if he did, Todd wouldn’t know what to do. Because his sister might have found someone, four someones, who make her happy, but it’s Amanda and Amanda has everything to give, and there are a million reasons to give Amanda everything. Todd is just starting to figure out how much of himself he can stand, and even if he can see that Dirk is in love with him, he doesn’t know what he has done to deserve this kind of devotion, apart from not always being a complete asshole.

“Then you should really figure it out, bro”, Amanda tells him and drags Todd away from more thoughts about his various flaws and mistakes. “Because honestly, I am pretty sure that Dirk’s gonna wait forever for you to decide too, because that’s just who he is, but it would be a fucking shitty thing to do. And you don’t need more of those on your list.”

Todd finishes the sandwiches and they return to the living room, Dirk looking up briefly to smile at the pair, a cheerful curl of lips, at least until he sees paper towel wrapped around the cut on Todd’s pointer finger. It’s a makeshift thing, makes everything look far more serious than it is, but Amanda insisted on it when the cut wouldn’t stop bleeding. Seeing Dirk’s expression, though, Todd wishes he had refused anyway. “Did you hurt yourself?”, Dirk asks, getting up immediately, although Todd is sure the other hasn’t yet reached the end of the tale he was telling Farah. He looks worried, unduly so, and Todd just shakes his head. “It’s nothing, the knife just slipped.” “Let me see.”

There is something strange about seeing Dirk so serious all of a sudden and all because of a definitely not fatal cut, so strange in fact, that Todd doesn’t put up a fight at all, just hands Amanda the sandwiches and holds out his hand. Dirk’s fingers are gentle when they remove the bandage, flitting across Todd’s palm a few times by accident and making the skin tingle. “Oh well, you’re right”, Dirk finally comments when he can see the cut, still dabs at the dried blood coating it with a clean end of the paper towel. “Let me just…” He reaches into his jacket, and manages to actually surprise Todd by pulling out a band-aid in a distinctly familiar colour.

“Pink?”, Todd asks, both amused and absurdly touched. “Really?” When Dirk meets his eyes, he looks sheepish, a subtle blush staining his cheeks. “I guess you could say I got quite, uh, attached to band-aids of this colour”, the other replies, seems to search for permission in Todd’s face. He gives it with a smile, and Dirk relaxes, visibly so; when he wraps the band-aid around the cut, his fingers tremble ever so slightly.

Farah and Amanda eventually leave, his sister joining her bunch of dangerous looking energy-vampires in their van, Farah getting into the new car she bought from Lydia Spring’s money; Dirk stays, because he passed out on Todd’s sofa. It must have been sometime between Todd’s second and third beer, Dirk just slowly getting more and more quiet, until he stopped saying anything at all, something so unusual that it had alerted all three of them. But he’d only been sound asleep, nothing else, somehow looking even younger, even more innocent than when awake. A little less like chaos poured into human form as well.

The two women had simultaneously decided that it was time to go home, leaving Todd alone with an auburn-haired holistic detective curled up on his sofa, practically cuddling with one of the cushions. He could have woken Dirk up, of course, could have told him to go home, but as much of an asshole Todd can be, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. And it’s not as if he minded Dirk staying after all.

The question of what he feels for the other man flits across his mind as Todd drapes a blanket over his friend’s sleeping form, but he’s tired and too tipsy to follow that train of thought, maybe too scared as well. So he doesn’t, just dims the lights, but doesn’t quite turn them off so the change won’t risk Dirk up, kicks off his jeans before hopping onto his bed. If he gives Dirk a last glance before closing his eyes, no one has to know.

There is a loud bang echoing through the flat, and Todd is wide awake, jolting up and already prepared to see the Rowdy 3 and his sister wreaking havoc on his apartment once more. The only thing his tired eyes find though, is an utterly confused Dirk Gently looking up at him with wide eyes. “Todd?”, the other asks, and Todd nods, because he is, in fact, present. “What are you doing here? Or rather, I think, what am I doing here?” “You fell asleep last night. On the sofa”, Todd explains, his voice rough with sleep. He rubs a hand across his face, knowing that it’s too late now; he’s awake and Dirk is in the same room as him, so more sleep is definitely not an option. “I didn’t want to wake you.” “So… I slept here?”, Dirk asks, as if couldn’t quite believe it, and Todd nods, decides that, if he won’t get more sleep, there is no reason to stay in bed any longer either.

He throws back the blanket, gets up and stretches; when he looks back at Dirk, there is the faintest hint of pink on his cheeks, and the other won’t quite meet his eye. Suddenly, Todd is very aware of the fact that he is only wearing a shirt and boxer shorts. “Do you – like, want breakfast?”, he asks because it’s the first thing he can think of, and Dirk nods. “That would be lovely, yes, thank you, Todd”, he answers, too many words for such a simple question. The pink still hasn’t left his cheeks.

They end up side by side, Dirk cooking some absolutely edible eggs while Todd makes coffee. The tension from before melts away easily, is replaced by the occasional chatter and smile and fleeting, warm touch. The closest word Todd can find for it is domestic, and surprisingly enough, that doesn’t scare him.

It becomes… not a regular thing, because that would suggest some kind of pattern behind it, but it becomes a thing that happens. Sometimes, usually after cases, Dirk falls asleep on his sofa, and Todd wakes up to his friend making breakfast, to the door being shut as quietly as possible and yet not quietly enough and Dirk standing there, looking sheepish, with a cup of coffee for Todd in one and a brightly coloured shake in his other hand, to the shower running and a soft, pleasant, familiar voice singing tunes he has never heard before. And it’s nice, there is no other word for it, it’s nice to spend time with Dirk, even if Todd still occasionally wants to strangle him, it’s nice to wake up to coffee and sometimes also singing, it’s nice to know that there is someone apart from his family out there who enjoys his company.

Dirk seems to enjoy it too, Todd can tell because while he doesn’t stay over a lot, it happens too often to be accidental; when Todd wakes up the next morning, the other somehow seems more cheerful than usual, although he wonders how that much is possible from time to time. But in those mornings, a supernova is born behind Dirk’s eyes, shining out of every look and smile and making his skin feel twice as warm when Todd accidentally touches him. It’s love, and if Todd had somehow managed to miss it, he’d see it now, because it’s painted across Dirk’s face, no, his entire body in big bold strokes, colouring every of his movements. And maybe it’s more than that, maybe it’s hope slowly mixing into it, and Todd couldn’t blame him if it was.

But there’s that question he still hasn’t answered, the one about his own feelings concerning Dirk, and the one that gets more pressing with every sunny smile Dirk throws at him, every time he wakes up and knows the that the other is around because the world seems just that little bit brighter. Amanda keeps throwing him more and more meaningful glances when she sees the two of them together, Farah has taken to passive-aggressive sighing and even the Rowdy 3 seem to have noticed, judging by the increasing wreckage around the Ridgely and the trampled roses Todd occasionally finds stuffed under his doormat. None of it is helping, exactly, but all makes one thing clearer and clearer: He can’t run forever.

It takes half a bottle of whiskey and one and a half hours and Todd is calling Amanda’s number. It rings, the sound shrill in a way he is not used to, rings and rings, and just when Todd is already certain that he’ll end up in his sister’s voice mail, Amanda picks up. He should say hello, explain the situation, but he’s been thinking for too long and is more than afraid that the courage to ask her this simple question will leave him if he doesn’t ask it and asks it now, so instead, he blurts it out the second the ringing stops.

“Amanda, what if I don’t love him back?”, he asks, words slurred just slightly, and he could kiss his sister when her answer isn’t her asking what the fuck he is talking about. “Then you don’t love him back”, she says instead, yawns. “I mean, it would suck for Dirk, obviously, but shit happens and it’s not like you’ve got any control over it. If you don’t love him, you don’t love him, and he’ll get over it.” “But it would ruin everything”, Todd answers, absolutely aware that he is sounding as pathetic as he feels. “Even if I don’t love him, I like him. You know?” “Yeah. Well. Tell him you want to stay friends, then. I’d suggest you do that anyway, to be honest, because I don’t think he’d recover if you didn’t want to be his friend anymore, and I don’t think you’d recover from what Farah, the Rowdy 3 and I would do to you if that happened.”

It’s a threat, it definitely is, but a completely justified one. Todd doesn’t think he’d recover from whatever he’d do to himself, if he ever did anything like that. “Of course I want to stay friends with him”, he tells Amanda, although his voice doesn’t sound quite as firm and steady as he’d like it to. “He’s my best friend.” “Well, good then”, Amanda says, like she is about to hang up on him, and Todd cannot let that happen, not yet. “But I don’t want to break his heart!”, he says quickly, holds the phone tighter. “He – he doesn’t deserve that.” “Then don’t.” “But what if I don’t love him back? I’d have to. I can’t continue to – you know, to – but I don’t know if I could do it. Tell him.”

There are a few seconds of silence and then Amanda sighs softly. “You mean you can’t continue to lead him on?”, she asks, but she has lost the slightly aggressive tone, sounds almost gentle instead. Todd nods, before remembering that she cannot see him. “Yes.” Another sigh, but one that doesn’t sound annoyed, instead almost fond. “Todd, you’re my brother and I love you”, she starts, “But sometimes you can be such an idiot. How about you stop thinking about what could happen if you don’t love him back and consider what could happen if you do?”

What could happen if Todd loves Dirk back: a confession and a kiss, maybe more than one. Long talks about how to make this work in the future, snuggling under the covers, holding hands above them, more kisses and anything but boring, boring sex. Waking up next to Dirk instead of just in the same room as him, maybe not just from time to time, but permanently. Every day. Coming home to find someone waiting for him or coming home with someone who won’t have to leave again. Fighting, but making up again, arguing about who forgot to buy new milk and who killed their potted plants, cleaning the kitchen together and messing it up again. Kissing Dirk while he tastes of chocolate cake and pasta sauce and before they both got up and brushed their teeth. Finding out how the other looks like when he’s sick, when he’s angry, when he woke up from a nightmare, but also how he looks when he comes, when he laughs so hard there are tears streaming down his face, when he wakes up and feels safe. Allowing someone else to see him as he is, no excuses, no pretence, no lies, and to see someone else the same way, to find out if their flaws and imperfections fit together, complement another or drive them apart. Loving someone. Finally, maybe, happiness.

What could happen if Todd loves Dirk back: a confession and a kiss, maybe more than one. Long talks about how to make this work in the future, snuggling under the covers, holding hands above them, more kisses and anything but boring, boring sex. Waking up next to Dirk until he doesn’t want to anymore, or until Dirk doesn’t want to. Coming home to find that it’s not the place it should be anymore, because the person waiting for him is not the one he wants to come home to. Fighting and fighting and trying to make up again, but not succeeding because a hint of resentment lingers, always, and neither of them can shake it. Kissing Dirk and thinking of someone else, or something else, or Dirk doing so. Finding out how the other looks like when he is screaming or crying or breaking down, how he looks when he is begging or refusing or leaving. Allowing someone to see him as he is, no excuses, no pretence, no lies, and to see someone else the same way, to find out that their flaws and imperfections don’t fit together, don’t complement each other but them drive apart. Loving someone and feeling that change. In the end, ruining everything.

His heart shouldn’t be able to beat at this frequency; Todd thinks as he knocks on Dirk’s door. No heart should be able to do that, it cannot be healthy, at least not considering how light-headed Todd feels, how close to passing out. He’s had pararibulitis attacks less painful. Maybe, he thinks, Dirk isn’t home, and the thought is more of a relief than it has any right to be, because he is doing this out of his own volition, no one forced him to. And yet it is, and yet his heart plummets while still beating out a tango on its way from Todd’s chest to his feet when Dirk opens the door, hair still dishevelled, but face lighting up when he sees him. And really, Todd thinks now, when his impossible heart picks up its pace even further, he could have known the answer to his question for months now. He isn’t quite sure if he wishes he had.

“Todd, how lovely to see you”, Dirk greets and smiles at him, and would undoubtedly say more, if he could. There was a whole speech planned, mainly about how much he is and was and will be an idiot, but that he has come to the conclusion that he has been just as head over heels for Dirk as Dirk is for him for months now, and that, if Dirk wanted to as well, he would very much like to see where this could lead. As long as they could somehow make a promise that they’d stay friends if it didn’t work out. The speech would have been beautiful, passionate and, dare he say it, romantic, but stays an eventuality only, because Dirk smiles, and every word Todd has come up with vanishes, until there is nothing left anymore but the absolute certainty that the choice he made was the right one. That he wants this, and wants this bumbling idiot, this mess of a man, this ridiculously-dressed ray of sunshine in every way the universe will allow it.

And because his brain is empty save for that, save for wanting, his body takes over, brings him closer within half a second, reaches out to put both hands on Dirk’s cheeks and pull him down enough so Todd can bring their lips together. It’s not a perfect kiss, far from it, because Dirk is frozen and Todd is shocked by his own actions, but Dirk’s lips are soft and warm against his and not everything is meant to be perfect right from the start, somethings are just meant to be.

They break apart, or rather, Todd lets go of Dirk, who stays in position for another few moments before standing up straight, eyes even wider than usual, his cheeks a bright pink. His hand comes up to touch his own lips and Todd is breathing so rapidly he feels like he’s about to start hyperventilating if Dirk doesn’t say something soon.

“That-“, Dirk finally breathes out, the word uttered so softly it hardly makes it past the fingertips still pressed to the other’s lips. “What was that?” “A kiss”, Todd answers, although it’s stupid, because of course Dirk knows that much. But it’s the best he can do, especially with the rising desperation clawing at his throat. “Obviously”, Dirk replies, but without the usual bite to his tone; if Todd didn’t know better, he’d say that Dirk was as breathless as him. “But… but why?” It might be cruel and cruel might be exactly what Todd is trying not to be, but a chuckle escapes his lips; at least he wasn’t the only person left oblivious when it comes to his feelings. “Because it might have taken months and my sister and far too much alcohol for me to see it, but it appears that I am – that I have – oh fuck it, that I am absolutely gone for you. And I think you might be just as gone for me.”

Dirk is gaping at him, his blush having intensified to a burning, almost unhealthy looking red, the colour seeping down his neck, and for a wild, ridiculous, hopeful second, Todd thinks he might be able to find out just how far it goes soon. Because Dirk swallows hard, blinks twice as if making sure he's not dreaming and takes a cautious, tiny step forwards. “You are?”, he asks, and it’s his voice which makes it real, because Dirk sounds raw and vulnerable and awed and hopeful; Todd recognises the feelings, because he’s got their twins constricting his throat, clenching around his heart. “Yeah”, he answers softly, truthfully, dares to make a small step as well.

“That’s… that’s good to hear”, Dirk mutters into the space between them, like he is contemplating how it got there, then reaches out, hand hovering for a few moments before it settles on Todd’s chest, right over his treacherous, loving heart. When Dirk looks up again, he’s still blushing, but there is a hint of that smile Todd kissed off his mouth before curling his lips again, playful now, a little shy. “Because you’re right. I am. Gone for you, that is.” There is nothing, not even a breath Todd lets out for several, long moments, then he dares to reach up once more, watching Dirk’s eyes and his heart through them as he strokes a fingers along the line of the other’s jaw before he cups his cheek. It’s just a hint of a contact and yet Todd’s skin tingles in that so familiar way, and yet Dirk’s eyes flutter closed and are darker when he opens them again, an invitation.

This time, when they kiss, it’s still not perfect, but so close to it that Todd isn’t sure he’d notice the difference.

#dirk gently's holistic detective agency #dirk gently #dghda #brotzly #todd brotzman #two fics over 6k words in three days what is happening

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Dark Crystal Age of Resistance ep 9 liveblog

“The Crystal Calls”

Could you construct a crystal call, like a duck lure? Is it something that the Skeksis know in the cockles of their heart or do they just recognize the tone? Could you create a Skeksis lure? I need to know, for science reasons.

Just a stream of thoughts.

Ok so the episode starts off on a good note. Deet is alive. Somehow she and Rian escaped the doom caves. She’s surrounded by family. Clearly everything is going to be good forever.

Rian carried her to safety. It had to happen off-screen because it’d probably look silly in puppets.

Maudra “Fine she says. Fine perhaps she is. But also………………….. Changed.”

And then she starts smashing her walking stick. It was the Dual Glaive all along.

I guess the plot device was the friends we made all along.

“Be careful with this. Its older than I am. And twice as sharp! Hee hee hee” I like you, Maudra.

Dual Glaive looks pretty alright.

Uh oh, Brea gonna get drained. She’s an important character. Surely some contrivance will save her?

Gourmet: “What if the Hunter dies?”

Ornamentalist, who has been apparently been waiting for this forever: “Then I shall accept the somber task of honoring SkekMal’s treasures with a proper display!”

Gourmet: “Ugh, those trophies?”

Ornamentalist: “Anything can be made beautiful!”

Oh, they’re going to call the rest of the Skeksis to the castle! SkekSa and SkekNa I think are new to me and they’re useful in a fight. That’s two whole new pieces of information!

-google- Ohhhh SkekSa is the pirate Skeksis!

And I completely forgot SkekNa is the Slave-master. Although I imagine he has a different role at this point when the slavery was kinda buried under a couple layers of feudalism or whatever.

Huh. Hadn’t even noticed him missing.

SkekUng is the future Garthim-Master. Wonder what he’s called now.

And what of SkekLi? No, seriousli, what of SkekLi?

-google- The Skeksis Satirist? Why isn’t he here already??

Probably got kicked out for making fun of the others too much, huh?

I bet. Because Chamberlain points out that more Skeksis about means more squabbling.

And then the Skeksis immediately turn on him saying that SkekMal’s injuries are his fault. Because Nobody Likes SkekSil.

But, I guess, at least he’s not that fuckin Satirist.

Nice of the Emperor to wait for this conversation to be over before getting to the draining which let Aughra show up.

Also, hi Aughra!

Just kind of strolling in like you own the place, which isn’t technically far off.

The Skeksis tells the sewed-mouth Gruenak to seize her but she has a good retort for that.

“Touch me and Thra will swallow you where you stand” -bap-

Very good.

Aughra says she’s here to pay her respects. Like its a eulogy roast.

“SkekMal was always the most beautiful of you shriveled lot.”

You make the audience feel better about the impending death by making them angry at you. Makes a lot of sense.

She also makes them mad by saying the Hunter is going to die. Unless she helps.

“Gelfling essence cannot restore the Hunter. What you need is essence of Thra itself? And who is Thra, HM?”

Aughra is offering her essence to free the Gelfling locked in the castle.

The Skeksis are like ‘uh can’t we just strap you down and take it?’

Aughra is like ‘nuh uh I have to give it willingly, the crystal won’t take it from me’

And she’s rubbing existentialism in their faces. Everything from Thra returns to Thra when it dies but the Skeksis are not of Thra. What happens to them? The Skeksis tried to find out but couldn’t. Its the same thing that the Chamberlain had a rant about to Rian. The Skeksis are terrified of death because they don’t know what will happen to them. They’ll happily live a vampiric hollow shambling existence just to cling to life.

Vaguely reminded of the Ssi’Ruuk from Star Wars Legends who were also reptile-y and also stole life force and also were afraid of what would happen if they died away from home and uh…. ….. Did Star Wars ripoff the Skeksis and make them dinosaurs? With spaceships?

Huuuuuuuuh.

Slightly less blatant than when Warcraft ripped them off.

Aughra: “Maybe nothing is all that waits for you.”

So she’s emotionally blackmailing them. Sentence one of their own to oblivion or free the Gelflings and let the Hunter drink Aughra.

She also gives them like five seconds to consider it and then is like “WELP I TRIED” and goes to walk off to make them make a decision.

So the Emperor agrees. He tries to get in her face and intimidating about it but I mean, she won this confrontation.

Brea: “Mother Aughra, please don’t do this! We’re not worth it!”

Aughra: “Of course you are”

Aww.

Annnnd the Emperor tells the General to make sure that he gets the Gelflings dead before they can leave. Because: spite.

Its the purest motivator.

OH NOW THE SPIDERS RELEASE THE GELFLING

I wonder if thats how events stacked up or what.

Aughra: ‘hey brea you have more plot to do get lost’

Oh and no thats not how events stacked up. The truce Rian and Deet made with the Ascendency happened before Tavra!Spider strapped her sisters down. But she had to make it believable because sudden spider revolution wouldn’t help.

So now Tavra is a willing? host of the spider and they’re working together.

“HERE COMES THE GENERAL” Thats not even the right movie you’re quoting!

The General tells the other Skeksis what has happened in the chamber of life and then tells the Collector that they have a job to do.

SkekLach: “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?”

Hah, mood.

But the General says it’ll be fun.

SkekLach: “Oh, I doubt that =( ” hah

Chamberlain hearing whats going on: -chamberlain noise-

Oh, Tavra is stuck with spider because they’ve been merged so long that they can’t disentangle their minds. But she’s pretty chill about it. “We want the same things. JUSTICE.”

I’m here for Spider-Tavra.

And then the General and Collector show up surrounding the escaping Gelflings.

Collector, waving around a knife: “You were right, this will be fun!”

Less mood.

Brea complains that Aughra made a deal and General does the Vader “I have altered the deal” but Spider-Tavra blocks him and tells him a thing or two about altering deals.

Like how the arathim’s deal with the Skeksis was for the Caves of Grot and dangit the Skeksis forgot to mention that it was simply infested with the Darkening.

Spider-Tavra: “A poison fly… IS NO GIFT AT ALL!”

And then she stabs him.

Peter Parker would not approve. But I do.

Collector: “The Gelfling must pay!”

Spider-Tavra: “ARATHIM ARISE!”

Arathim Spitter: ‘hiiiiii’ -does a dilophosaurus-

Collector: “AHHHHHH ITS IN MY EYES”

This has been a bad ambush for the Skeksis. They should really invest in some sort of mindless troops that they can have wade into danger for them. Something scary and nigh unstoppable. Like a fleacrab that makes terrifying noises.

Spider-Tavra stays behind while the other Gelflings flee and Brea and Seladon decide not to leave her behind because Sister Solidarity, Finally!

The General is shocked to find that getting stabbed makes you bleed. Guess he was a backline kind of general.

And when Spider-Tavra shows up to finish the job, the General begs for his life.

Spider-Tavra: “We have waited long enough. This is for the Arathim… FOR THE ALL-MAUDRA!”

CHAMBERLAIN WITH THE SAVE! “Leave friend….. Alone!”

General: ‘ugh this fucking guy’

In fairness, he’s expecting Chamberlain saved him just to finish him off himself.

Chamberlain: “Skeksis squabble but are not enemy. Gelfling are enemies.”

And look he saved General some essence to heal him. The last of the remaining essence! How kind of SkekSil!

Oh and its the real stuff! I was expecting it to be the sugar water again. General’s wound actually glows and heals up.

General: “I have misjudged you, Chamberlain!”

Chamberlain: “Hmmmm am used to it”

Wow I was really expecting him to betray the General and was just giving him a hope spot before he did it.

But he hurries him off on some plan that the General will supposedly like. Luckily in time that Brea and Seladon can arrive and whisk off Spider-Tavra.

Meanwhile at the circle of the suns, the Heretic and the Wanderer are watching the Archer slowly die and philosophizing.

Wanderer: “Both halves. Are not long for Thra.”

Heretic, in his inside voice: “I wonder… in the next place… will we be joined once again?”

Wanderer: “Or rent further……………………. Asunder.”

And back to the castle where the Scientist is strapping Aughra into the draining machine.

You know, there was a bit of the movie novelization relevant to this. Where the Scientist mused about how much essence he could get from her. Or at least her eye since the rest of her was sulking in a cage without much energy and her eye kept glaring at him.

Aughra: “Are you proud? To build a machine that will be the death of Aughra?”

Scientist: “Not as proud as Mother Aughra throwing her life away in a desperate bid for redemption”

Wow Scientist, finally someone you can try to dunk on.

Aughra tries to pull the ‘we were friends once’ card and the Scientist may have gone for it if the Emperor was not hovering right over his shoulder.

Scientist: “Another world. Another time.”

Alas.

Emperor: “Now we shall see how powerful Aughra truly is!”

Aughra: “Oo! Well, spinning chairs now? Isn’t this fancy?”

Pffft.

I wonder if the Scientist refined the designs over the years or whether he stopped bothering when they ran out of Gelflings. The chairs in the movie aren’t nearly so fancy and are without additional things like things that jam into your skull.

Annnnd Aughra is generating no essence.

Scientist: “I am stupefied, Emperor. She withers away but does not drain.”

Emperor: “Cheat! I gave you your Gelflings, now where is my essence?”

Aughra: “You... are doomed. You and all of your kind. Parasites. Thieves. In the end… you are nothing… but… dust.”

Emperor: “I… will… never… be… dust!”

And then he kicks the Crystal up to eleven because surely he knows how to operate- oh its working.

Essence is coming out of her and going into SkekMal. And he’s responding. I guess the Emperor does know how to operate stuff.

Annnnnnd Aughra exploded. This is really going to fuck up the movie events.

I thought she was safe!

And the Hunter is spasming and screaming so Scientist shuts the machine down.

Annnnnnd the Hunter is dead. Welp.

The Emperor is taking it well. (That’s a lie. He’s having a panic attack. And smashing stuff.)

I guess kicking the machine up to eleven was a mistake. Or maybe trusting Aughra was a mistake? Mistakes were made. But the Emperor didn’t negotiate in good faith anyway.

OH HI KYLAN! I missed you my dude.

He was off trying to rally the Spritons but they told him to fuck off. Maudra Mira is a big Skeksis fan.

For shame. People named Mira should be cool.

Seladon, maybe finally getting it: “Maudra Fara, the gelfling have always been strongest when they’ve stood together. Not apart.”

Maudra Argot: “I know you must take the Dual Glaive, but it made a fine cane! Oh, I’ll miss that cane”

OH SHIT RIGHT the dual glaive is still going on. I keep forgetting that’s a plot point whenever they stop focusing on it. Maybe because it came out of nowhere in the last third of the show and feels like an afterthought.

Even finding it, as hilarious as I found that, was kind of like ‘oh the plot device? Yup it was here all along, you only had to ask.’

Oh right, Dual Glaive. Two parts. They have to find the other half. Maudra Argot left it in Stone-in-the-Wood during the Arathim War.

The battle was lost until a soldier named Ordon took up the Dual Gl- WAIT THAT’S RIAN’S DAD

Its a little late to try to build up the Dual Glaive AND Rian’s dad! Especially as some legendary hero who had a legendary magical sword! And who split it in two so that it would have to be reassembled to use again!

Why did he do that??

Maudra Argot dreamfasts with Rian to show him his dad’s retroactive cool backstory.

And then, since they need to get to Stone-in-the-Wood fast, she trills to call a landstrider.

I approve, verily. I love these funky guys.

Deet: “You can call them?”

Maudra Argot: “I still remember a trick or two from my trine overground.”

And then Rian helps Deet onto the Landstrider. And it lingers on that moment. I reeeeally feel as if something is building between them.

Oh, hey, Stone-in-the-Wood is where the Brea/Tavra/Seladon plot is. The plots are joining back up!

Seladon: “It should have been me! … Aughra told me I was making a terrible mistake but I wouldn’t listen. This is my terrible price to pay, not hers. I’m so sorry for everything.”

Oh so she did finally get it. That’s good.

Spider-Tavra: “I wish you could see each other as I do…. You’re so… beautiful” -dies-

She was too beautiful for this Thra.

Tavra-Spider: ‘welp time to mosey’ -mosies-

Good plot paralleling. Brea and Seladon dealing with their sister’s death and having the rite to return her to Thra at the same time that the Emperor is dealing with the death of the Hunter.

Ritual-Master: “But there is no rite, no ceremony. No Skeksis has died in a thousand trine. Not since… the beginning.”

And then the General comes in and reports that the Arathim have double-crossed the double-crossing Skeksis and sided with the Gelfling.

Collector: “Its a good thing I was there!” -accomplished zero things-

Emperor: “MORE GRAVE NEWS?”

General: “Not all is lost! The Chamberlain has a plan”

Emperor: “I thought you had enough of the Chamberlain’s plans”

General: ‘but he my bff now’

And then the Chamberlain comes in dragging something. And mister i think declaring open war was a mistake Chamberlain now decides that total war wipe out the gelfling no peace while they live is the best option. Oh how the turns have tabled.

He also blames the Gelfling for being too entitled.

Chamberlain: “Loyalty cannot be bought. Has to be built.” So he proposes that they make unstoppable loyal soldiers. Instead of relying on people with wants and needs.

The Scientist thinks he can probably do it but can’t build something out of nothing. So Chamberlain slides in the giant dead arathim he’s been dragging in, just to be extra. “Here is your something.”

So the Garthim (or GIANT ARATHIM) are Frankenstein spiders. Yes. The Scientist is going to weld a couple spider corpses together to make a fleacrabthing.

Not sure how I feel about it being Chamberlain’s plan.

Chamberlain planned it, General endorsed it, Scientist actually did it, and SkekUng ends up in charge of it?

Of course, I was always unclear how someone uhhhh more brute than brain like Ung was supposed to have been responsible for them to begin with.

I guess Chamberlain is a good idea person and just says things around people who can actually accomplish his pie in the sky. Provided the other Skeksis are listening and not making blah blah blah motions everytime he talks.

Thra is lucky that half of the time, the other Skeksis tune out SkekSil.

And by coming up with a good idea that someone else will accomplish, Chamberlain has earned his place back at the court.

And now? The body?

Emperor: “The Hunter will not be buried. Or burned like some common carcass. The Hunter will be clad in our finest armor and placed in our throne room so that SkekMal might rule by our side… FOREVER!!!”

God. That’s morbid. The other Skeksis seem to be into it. But I’m glad that Skeksis start crumbling when they die later on because that would have gotten macabre fast. A court of the dead.

All your dead friends hanging around and staring.

Does this mean Scientist has to learn taxidermy now in addition to frankensteining? Doesn’t he have enough to do? Is there any other Skeksis who actually-

Oh. They’re getting together as a group to prep the corpse.

That’s. Something.

Just slapping makeup on Hunter’s dead face.

Ornamentalist: “Life is my paint! Death is my canvas!”

Okay, yes, I should have figured that Ornamentalist would be all over this.

So. They prop up the Hunter. And he looks lifelike. In that he’s a puppet and I don’t think I could tell the difference between him living and dead?

And the Skeksis seem thrilled at having a corpse hanging up forever if it means they don’t have to think about death. And to be honest, they never really talked to the Hunter anyway.

Their relationship is essentially unchanged.

Back to Deet and Rian.

Wow, its funny that the Gelfling like to ride on landstriders. They’re so tall and the Gelflings are so short. Its like using a giraffe as a standard mount.

Oh and geez, I forgot that Rian didn’t know what happened to Stone-in-the-Wood. He doesn’t dwell on it long but I can tell on his puppet emotions how shook he is.

I also forgot about the Crucible! That thing full of swords. Yes, that would be a good place to hide a sword.

BUT HOW WILL HE KNOW WHICH ONE IS THE ½ Dual Glaive?? Maybe he should play flutes at it.

Rian: “Once a battle is done, the warriors of Stone-in-the-Wood place their weapons in the forge in the hope that we’ll never need them again.”

I find that a good philosophy for the Warrior Gelfling Tribe to have.

Geez, that’s just so much sword. And its on fire.

Although Rian can see the other half of the Dual Glaive just peeking in. And he can open it up and reach inside with no problem. That was easy! But we’re on episode 9 so it can’t be too complicated.

The halves glaive sing to each other and Rian and Deet join them together and SUDDENLY ALL FIRE EVERYWHERE TURNS BLUE AND NON BURNY

I know because a Gelfling sticks her hand in the fire and wonderously states “it doesn’t burn!”

You dingus!

Wow this sword really is magic. Its making a lot of sky light pillars, like this is a marvel movie.

The Scroll-Keeper: ‘fffffffffffffffffffffffffffff’ “They’re uniting against us!”

The Crystal apparently has something to add in so it chimes and all the Skeksis run off to the Crystal CHAMBERRRR

HEY the dead Hunter corpse just twitched. Maybe the Skeksis are just really bad at checking life signs…

So apparently the blue fire is fire skype.

JUST LIKE IN THE BENEATH THE DARK CRYSTAL

I guess not only Firelings can do fire skype.

Apparently the Dual Glaive lets the wielder talk to every Skeksis all at once. Good way to finally get around to uniting the clans against the Skeksis.

Whoops, the Crystal is picking up the signal.

I get why that would happen. Especially if the Dual Glaive was meant to unite Thra.

Rian: ‘hey the skeksis suck lets do a revolution’

Collector: ‘OH NO HE HAS THE DUAL GLAIVE A THING I’VE DEFINITELY KNOWN ABOUT ALL ALONG!’

So the Crystal picking up the message is kind of bad. Because Rian just told the Gelflings where to meet up for the rebellion.

The Emperor can apparently hijack the fire skype? The security on this blue fire is bad. What is it, Fire Zoom?

Emperor: “Silence! Your pathetic rebellion can only end in ruin!”

Rian: “Then why do you tremble?”

Emperor: “Disrespectful peon! Your lives are but a speck waiting to be swept away! Be assured any Gelfling that stands with you in battle will join you in the grave.”

Rian: “Bring your weapons. Bring your Skeksis. And meet your destiny!”

And apparently stabbing the Crucible with the Dual Glaive is how you turn off the chat.

The Other Skeksis: ‘ugh that fuckin Heretic giving away legendary weapons’

Emperor: “COWARDS! Let the chattel have their toy! Let them think they stand a chance against us! But hear me, Lords of the Crystal, Regents of Thra, all-powerful Skeksis. At dawn, we descend on their pitiful village. We will crush their nascent rebellion before it takes root, grind these defiant Gelfings to dust. Destroy the Dual Glaive and feast upon their essence!”

Pretty good motivational speech, the Emperor. I can see why you’re the Emperor, the Emperor.

I’m sure the Scientist will be fine having to do a rush order on a bunch of frankenstein spiders, a process he’s never done before and still has to figure out. I’m sure they’ll be ready by tomorrow.

Aw Deet and Rian having another moment.

Deet: “Do you think all Gelfling heard you?”

Rian: “Yes. But will they come?”

-Deet puts her hand on Rian’s-

Aww.

Hope this ends better than the transition between Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker.

#dark crystal #dark crystal age of resistance #episode 9 #liveblog #things getting wild at the eleventh hour

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