#I know a link-less timeline isn’t like… the MOST ideal

[shepscapades]

would you ever consider making a dbhc timeline with links to each comic/work attached to the moments? it would be a lot of work so totally understandable if not, but as i go through the timeline you posted i've been wanting to find and reread the comics associated with many the events

Ouuhh, yeah, I briefly considered it, but it would make the timeline post really long and complicated I think (bc the timelines are hand drawn so I’d have to like… put all of the links under a read more, which would be a lot of back and forth anyway b/w scrolling up to the timeline and scrolling down to find the corresponding link), so I decided against it. The best thing to do is just pull up Character Post Lists in a separate tab, since everything is already chronologically organized there (plus, there’s still important enough in-between stuff on the character post lists that aren’t on the timeline—I don’t want to give the impression that anything is “unimportant” just because it isn’t on the timeline).

More than anything else, I just wanted the timeline to be like, an additional tool/visual to clarify and give y’all a better idea of the vague order of events, not a definitive source for everything (hence my noting that not everything is on the time). I know you end up with a bunch of tabs open, which is less than ideal :( but I really don’t want to de-incentivize the character post lists bc those are what take the most time to put together and update. Hopefully all of that makes enough sense!

[polarisblitzwing]

WELCOME TO THE FRI3NDSFOR3VER AU

Ford's World - Dimension Fri3nds46/’

◇ Alternative Earth Variant ◇

● Humans have wings and feathered tails

● Alternative Pines family decisions timeline

◇ Stanford Pines ◇

● Ford is a minor god of dreams and a self-proclaimed god of anomalies

● 30 years old here (Young Immortal)

● Met Bill when he was 5 due to him attempting an interdimensional dreamwalk link, with Bill trying the same thing by chance, something that wouldn't work at their age without each other

◇ Gods Among Them ◇

● Most gods were mortals whose power was drawn to them like a magnet due to their personality in some way

● Fairly secretive and prefer to hide their works

● Rely on their believers to notice their efforts, resulting in an increase in power

● Can reveal themselves to the public, but building up power from faith alone is more sustainable for less powerful gods

● Stop aging between 25 and 100 (depending on what age someone wants to live forever)

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

Bill's World - For3verEuclydia

◇ Alternative Euclydia Variant ◇

● 360 years is the average lifespan of a Euclydian in this au

● No massacre

◇ Bill Cipher ◇

● Bill is a minor god of dreams and a self-proclaimed god of weirdness

● 30 years old here (Young Immortal)

● Met Ford and Stan when he was 5

◇ Gods Among Them ◇

● Only gods have wings and tails as a power symbol

● Their wings and tails are invisible to anyone that doesn't believe in them specifically

● “Omnipotent” Euclydian gods only know everything about their own world. Bill's knowledge of the third dimension is seen as false teachings to even them.

◇ Bill’s Family ◇

● Scalene is a goddess of Truth and Euclid is a god of Reality

● No one believes Bill is a god except his parents, as godhood is a power grant at birth to someone who the power is drawn to here. It can skip generations.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

NOW, ON TO THE ACTUAL DIALOGUE FOR THIS DRAWING! FANFIC TIME ~

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

Bill: So here's my problem - I need to show them the stars. It gets real flat to hear “you're delusional, Bill” and “stop talking about a third dimension!” ��Shh, you're gonna get arrested!” “It's not real!” Over and over again. It's time to change up the law and their perspectives.

Ford: Hmm.. that'll be quite the endeavor. You might need more power for that.

Bill: Ohh-ho-oh, definitely. Some of my ideas get real difficult along the way. The kind of stuff only a god with twice my power could pull off. 

[ Pulls up a holographic board with his first idea. ] 

Bill: If I could turn their eyes towards the stars and give them the same vision as I do, that'd be ideal. 

[ Ford manifests a danger sign over Bill's board; a buzzer sounds in warning. ]

Ford: Doing that to the entirety of Euclydia could potentially be devastating. Even if you get that newfound power, without centuries of diligent practice, you could end up permanently mutilating thousands of people in the process. Too risky. 

Bill: Uuugh… even if the people I wanted to show the most were immortal too, I don't think I could put up with more of their talk for that long. It has to be this century.

Ford: I get where you're coming from. I’ll do my best to make sure it happens when we figure out a plan that won’t have too many risks involved.

Bill: I could probably have the world dream of stars if you help, but that isn’t real enough to me. It drives me crazy that I can’t see you in real life. 

Ford: We’ll meet one day, I promise it. 

Bill: I sure hope so, Sixer. 

[ Pulls up two more holographic charts. ] 

Now.. back to my list of extremely great ideas.. what if I put really tiny stars in the world and contained the heat? Or flipped the world on the y-axis just to prove a third dimension exists first?

[ Ford manifests two more warnings in succession. ]

Ford: Could easily start a fire if anything went wrong, and for all we know, flipping the world vertically could cause everything to fall bottom to top infinitely until it’s fixed. Also runs the risk of killing a lot of Euclydians. Not to mention there could be other forces in your space that could affect the world.

Bill: Yeesh. Alright then, you got any ideas?

Ford: Actually, come to think of it.. 

[ Ford summons a hologram with a vision of his own forming. ]

Maybe instead of dreams, we tried something just a step up from multi-dimensional dream-walking, something like astral projection. We bring them out of their bodies, but tethered to their world, into space. Without the limitations of their physical forms, their eyes should be able to see more than what they could before.

Bill: SIXER, YOU'RE A GENIUS!!!

Ford: Hah, well, I try.  

Bill: NOW THAT'S SOMETHING I COULD ACTUALLY PULL OFF RISK FREE! It might take splitting up the days people get to see it, but, they’ll finally see.

Ford: Well, hold on, splitting up the days could be risky for the groups who see versus who don’t on the first day, so, here's what I'll do. I'll give you my powers for as long as you need them for this. I would like to help personally, but I’d need to physically be there. This will be my contribution to your paradigm shift for Euclydia.

Bill: ..you really trust me that much? 

Ford: (smiles and nods) Of course. You're my best friend, my muse, the sun in my galaxy, Bill. I want you to be happy.

[ Ford offers his hand and godly powers out to his partner. ]

Bill: (chuckles, smiling) You’re the best, Fordsy.

[ They shake on it. ]

[mizkit]

new blog post: critical for author websites - summary!

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/critical-for-author-websites-summary/

critical for author websites - summary!

So I got about forty responses from my question a few weeks ago about what was critical to have on an author website, and the overwhelming response was that these, in more or less this order, are what readers are looking for:

What’s New

What’s Next

ALL THE BOOKS

Reading Order, particularly if that’s different from the publication order

CURRENT! INFORMATION!

Okay, so this was pretty interesting! I’m gonna go into some of these more, and then touch on some of the less-widely-asked-for-but-still-requested features!

WHAT’S NEW – well, this is pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it? Readers want this front and centre.

WHAT’S NEXT – the most interesting thing about this to me was people asking for as much lead time as possible on this. It’s probable that people who are coming to your author website are the most likely to preorder things, so if something’s available for them to preorder, they want to do that NOW!

ALL THE BOOKS – also pretty self-explanatory, but subclasses of this include:

Books listed by series

Notification of whether a series is complete! I wouldn’t have thought of this, probably because I know, but this makes sense. Readers want to know whether there are more stories coming or whether a series has wrapped up, or perhaps ended prematurely.

Maybe short blurbs for each title, to remind readers where they are in a series

READING ORDER – Listed by series is clearly great, but a lot of readers would like actual reading order, particularly if the author’s recommended reading order isn’t the same as the publication order.

This includes short stories/bonus material/etc at the correct chronological points, and if series intertwine, a notification of when and where this happens along with a recommended reading order (ie, the author recommends you start with Series X, read up to Book 5, read Series Y up through book 7 where they cross over, and then continue with whichever series you want to, or whatever).

CURRENT INFORMATION – this is really critical. A lot of respondees said it was incredibly frustrating to go to an author’s website to discover the last time it was updated was 4 books ago, which, of course, yeah. I also get really frustrated when I go to an author’s site and find out it’s not current. :)

Beyond those things, other things that readers said would be nice to see were:

Social media links – including newsletters and patreons! – one reader specifically said, “If there’s ways to get bonus content, tell me about it. So I’d add a link to your Patreon with a copy/paste of the lowest tier description that includes bonus/early content access. Then tell me what I get by signing up for your newsletter. You’ve posted a pitch elsewhere, copy/paste it to the sign up page here.”

Other bonus material – maps, short stories; for writers who do sprawling things across a lot of books and a long timeline, maybe a timeline (which dovetails with ‘reading order’), ‘drabbles’

Blog posts, but really only if they’re current

Author appearances, ideally with as much lead time as possible

There was also clearly a strong preference for authors having websites that were updated regularly so people could just go there to find out what they were missing. Readers (correctly, IMHO) felt that a regularly-updated website is much, much more reliable than anything Goodreads, Amazon, Wiki, whatever, might provide in terms of this kind of information, and by all appearances everybody responding really appreciated author websites.

Another writer did suggest that the “what’s new” especially should be an invitation/link/insisting on JOINING OUR NEWSLETTERS (that’s a subtle link to mine!), which is a very, very good idea, because our newsletters are the one way we have to absolutely for sure at least GET information to you (whether you read it or not, that’s between you and your gods, and let’s be real, between me and mine for the newsletters I’m signed up for), but also, look, the truth is, I personally am in fact more likely to go to a writer’s website than sign up for their newsletter, so I’m going to look for a happy medium on that one somehow, because I don’t want to punish readers who aren’t on my newsletter. So I’ll think on that one.

Anyway, overall, this was REALLY HELPFUL and interesting, and I really appreciate everybody who took the time to respond!

[creativeashproductions]

We Wouldn’t Be Us // Charlie Gillespie

IN WHICH: We get a look into the timeline of the reader and Charlie’s relationship from the first date that wasn’t so perfect to the news they get. The relationship has its ups and downs like all relationships do but this one brings the birth of a song. They know in their relationship that anything less just wouldn’t be them

Warnings: Swearing, an argument, allusion to sex (NO SMUT), pure fluff

Words: 3.1k

A/N: I suppose this is an entry for @cherrymaybank​’s Valentine’s Day Fic Challenge. 

Based on the song We Wouldn’t Be Us by Alexandra Kay

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX/ASK PLEASE!

Masterlist

Every dress didn’t seem to fit properly no matter what mirror with different light in your apartment you tried. The spare bathroom’s bulb was dying, so that made the colour appear off, and the best mirror was dirty, which would dampen the romantic goal. Nothing made you feel that oomph that you desired for this date. 

You could wear the standby little black dress of which you had two options, the clubbing one or the work appropriate one. It didn’t seem right to choose a standard black and no colour for this insanely sweet guy that had this insane energy. With that thought in mind, you dug deeper in your closet for that special dress that you’d never found someone worthy of it. It was your best dress and your most expensive with the tags still on. You would have gone for the maroon dress but it was Valentine’s Day and that seemed like over kill.

Somehow it still fit perfectly despite the length of time from purchase, it was a vibrant green satin with lace matching the colour. The dress's satin ended just below the knee with the matching lace falling an additional six inches past. The A-line skirt was loose flowing contrasting to the form-fitting material across your bust and midsection. 

One of your favourite parts of the dress was the off-shoulder bateau neckline that gave a tasteful sneak of your cleavage. The bottom of the thick straps came to make a perfectly straight horizontal line. Across your waist was a one-inch wide satin ribbon attached to the dress that formed a perfect bow that tied the outfit together, no pun intended.

“Whoa.” You breathed stepping in front of the floor-length mirror kept in the spare bedroom, it had once been your roommates’ room before she moved.

You had to admit the dress was magical with it, bringing out all your curves and went with your skin tone. It was a pure shock to see how you managed to make the dress come to life with just a makeup look that was easy to do. All you did next was your favourite beige heels that went with everything. You had just slid on the left heel when the buzzer sounded and slid the right on as you hit the button unlocking the apartment building door.

“This is going to be perfect.” You breathed leaning into the mirror beside the front door. You inspected your lipstick as a knock sounded on the dark brown wood of your door. 

“You look gorgeous.” Your date breathed, widening those colour changing irises as he took in your outfit, “You take my breath away. Happy Valentine’s Day”

Your cheeks flushed, “Thank you, Charlie.”

He stepped into the apartment as you quickly went to the kitchen to grab your coat and purse with your essentials. He had gently retrieved the coat from your arms to help you into the cold jacket. 

“I know traditionally I would have brought you flowers, but I also know you love books.” Charlie breathed grasping the items in his hands, “So I got these flowers.”

His warm hands held three books. The top one was The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley with a cover that had the background blurry with only the back of a girl in clarity. The girl’s pink dress matching the flower in the upper corner of the book. The next cover proudly displayed The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley with red flowers growing down on a stone building. The third one was a light pink book with an anatomically correct heart with flowers growing out of the arteries, veins and valves; a collection of poetry I Saw You As a Flower by Ellen Everett. Lastly, you held Rupi Kaur’s second collection of poetry The Sun and her Flowers that had come out a couple years ago.

“Charlie, this is so thoughtful. You even has a rose one!” You breathlessly spoke gently touching the covers, “Thank you so much for these.”

“I thought we could read them together?” Charlie was bashful as he quietly asked with flushed cheeks. He didn’t know why he felt like this was his very first date all over again.

“I’d love that.” You softly told the Canadian with the manners a mother would be jealous to have in her home. Charlie’s fingers linked with yours as he tugged you out of the apartment into the hallway.

Your hands swung during the short walk from the apartment building to his bright orange Subaru across the street. The sound of the light wind rustling the trees lining the sidewalk mixed with the humming from Charlie was a perfect film score. He was the ideal gentleman even before he asked you out.

You couldn’t wait to tell your close loved ones about Charlie. You could really see this going somewhere. The relationship that is, as you were now on the side of a road with the Subaru’s hazard lights flashing.

“I forgot to fill the tank.” Charlie moaned, pressing his forehead against the steering wheel. His eyes clenched just as tight as his fists.

The Canadian was so embarrassed to have had what he thought was the best date of his life. He’d played music from the playlist he had patiently curated specifically for this date, and he held your hand to the restaurant. He’d already made plans for another date when his car’s warning beeped.

In Charlie’s haste, he’d forgotten to fuel up his car, so here he was with the prettiest person he’d ever seen in his passenger seat. His confidence in a second date had greatly diminished.

“Char, you said Owen was on his way. There isn’t anyone else I’d prefer to be stranded with. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I wanted this date to go perfect. This is my first Valentine’s Day with someone.” Charlie admitted turning his head to stare into warm pools of your e/y colours. His eyes scanned the soft smile that appeared on your face as his confession, “I had this whole thing planned out, and now you definitely won’t want a second-”

“I’m gonna kiss you. If you don’t want that, let me know.” You murmured before pulling him in for what would be the best kiss of your life thus far.

Sure his car broke down, but you kissed him anyway. He tasted of the complimentary chocolate dessert from dinner.

A Year Later

A young, admittedly broke couple sat on the cold floor of the unpacked kitchen eating SpaghettiOs. You had only just moved into the studio apartment with Charlie that had drained most of your savings. Had it not been in a decently safe area in the city and a close commute you would have said no.

But it was the perfect starting place for you two as you both were unfamiliar with living with an SO. It sucked on each of your ends to not have a better situation, Charlie wanted nothing more than to spoil you on the first day living together. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible but sitting on the floor with a cheap candle was imperfectly perfect.

“I’m sorry we’re eating out of cans.” Charlie whispered pointedly, keeping his eyes on the spoon, stirring the red sauce with the beige circles.

“Char this is perfect. As long as it’s you and I then anything is perfect. Besides we didn’t label the boxes, I have no idea which box has our kitchenware.” You admitted glancing at the boxes boarding the edge of the room. 

You ate out of cans for at least a week before you had unpacked the kitchen and had the means to buy actual groceries. Living together thus far had been going super smooth until wasn’t.

It was a bad day on both your parts, your entire work was deleted after a computer glitch. Charlie had auditioned for a role he had been really really wanting since he heard about it. Your father came down with the flu axing the plans to meet for dinner; it would have been the first time in six months you saw him in person.

The apartment's atmosphere had been rising and very volatile by mid-afternoon when Charlie blatantly forgot a deal. If he was going to play music, it had to be in the study so you could focus on your work. 

Today he’d decided to be in close vicinity to have a virtual jam session with both Owen and Jeremy. He’d chosen the room you were in solely because it had the best wifi reception which you needed as well.

“Charlie, please can you go to the study? I’m trying to finish this!” You cried out as he struck a chord on the electric. His eyebrows came other in the glare he sent you, “I lost all my work last night.”

“The guys and I are working on songs-”

“-Charlie, this is due tonight. I can’t concentrate with-”

“It’s not my fault you have a shitty attention span!” Charlie angrily snapped contradicting the gentle touch on his guitar. He placed it back on the stand to not accidentally damage it, “The wifi is best in this room.”

“I’m very much aware of that Charlie. Out of the two of us, I use it the most. Can you please either move to the study or at least wait an hour so I can finish?” You pleaded with the Canadian actor ignoring the two guys on the computer silently waiting for the fight to be over.

“Why can't you mov-”

“Fine. I will.” You fully stared down your boyfriend for a full five seconds before you harshly closed the top of your computer. It took seconds to gather your work stuff into the leather satchel you stored the computer in, “You didn’t even mute the call.”

Charlie watched as you swiftly pulled on your jacket, “Babe-”

The sound of the door slamming shut cut his sentence before he even had a chance to speak his thoughts. The apartment was eerily silent compared to the sounds of music that always played through the Bluetooth speaker.

The inspiration to play evaporated with the aftermath of a stupid argument permeated the apartment typically filled with love. All three actors quietly said their goodbyes before they ended the video call.

You spent an hour uncomfortably sitting in a cafe finishing up what you’d needed to finish with the argument replaying. Your finger barely hit the button to send the email before you had already stepped outside the business. You spent the walk struggling to draft a text to your boyfriend. 

It didn’t matter because when you walked into the apartment, you heard the soft song you’d both deemed yours. It was cheesy, but that was part of Charlie’s charm. Speaking of your boyfriend, he was sat on the floor of your kitchen with matching mugs of brownies.

“I’m sorry. I was insensitive.” Charlie started as soon as your jacket was draped over one of the kitchen chairs. His usually wide smile was as bashful as the one he’d worn on the night of your first date.

“No I’m sorry, Charlie. I could have easily put on my headphones or moved to the bedroom for a bit. The fight was stupid, and I love you so much that sometimes I think I take you for granted. I mean, look at you! You made the brownie cups-”

“Even sitting on the cold floor like when we moved in.” Charlie cheekily inserted, reaching over to hold your hands in his, “I like our tradition. I definitely like how we upgraded from SpaghettiOs to brownies.”

“Me too.” You breathed leaning over to press a lingering kiss on his lips. His hands delving into your hair to keep you close.

The butterflies stormed your stomach as the heat slowly inflated from your toes until it reached your flushing cheeks. Raw emotion pouring into the passionate kiss that only closed down as you broke for air. But you also went back in as that warmth slowly built in your tummies. Charlie’s eyes marginally opened to ensure he wasn’t imagining the Angel he got to kiss.

Finally, with heavy breathing, you pulled apart, but only a fleeting moment froze the time in the apartment. For, as soon as Charlie caught your dilated pupils, his one hand cupped the back of your hand, fingers tangled in your h/c tresses. 

Soon enough, you were making up on the kitchen floor with each article of clothing tossed in the vicinity. A shirt landed on the kitchen sink spout. The brownie mugs forgotten as you gave into the passion with your boyfriend. Your lovemaking had you missing supper.

Charlie’s solution was a trip to the local authentic English pub founded by a nice guy from London. You never failed to stop him for a dance in the empty street as his smooth voice gave music for smooth motions. Dancing was a common thing from pulling off the road in Dieppe to dance. You drank and danced at the pub until Jack cut you off at 2am as his pub rules had.

You and Charlie just laughed in a love bubble as the real-world worries faded because you always came together in the rough times.

Months later you returned to Dieppe with Charlie to spend the holidays with them. The entire family together creating such a welcoming atmosphere.

“I’m gonna grab a glass of water.” You informed the group of gals ad non-binary pals who had gathered in Meghan’s bedroom. The group had decided to sleep over Meg’s childhood room with face masks, nail polish and lovely wine.

Meg and Jeannette both nodded to acknowledge your announcement before they returned to their respective conversations. You took a moment to take in the great group of Gillespie and Co you had the honour to be part of. The thirst was only temporarily forgotten in the happy bubble you found yourself in.

You practically skipped to the kitchen, barely noticing the two people in the living room, but their words stopped you in your tracks. Your boyfriend, Charlie Gillespie, stood close to his older brothers Ryan, Patrick and Michael.

“I’m gonna ask her to marry-” Charlie caught himself from finishing the sentence when he saw you standing pale-faced at the opening into the living room.

His entire body was encapsulated by the lights casting in the living room from the Christmas tree. The tree couldn’t hold a candle to the ring of your dreams that promptly had you bursting into tears.

“I RUINED THE SURPRISE!” You sobbed dropping your face into your cold hands, avoiding the gaze of the Gillespie brothers. Had you not been hiding in your hands you would have known the older three had vacated the room.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Charlie cooed with the ring safely put away in the box he had shoved back in his pocket, “You didn’t ruin the surprise. I shouldn’t have been telling my brothers in the middle of the living room.”

Charlie’s warm hands slowly pulled your hands from your soft post-mask skin with such a pretty healthy glow. He could see the remnants of the mask on the edge of your scalp, but it didn’t take away from your beauty.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered, staring up at him from underneath your eyelashes. The soft hazel eyes not upset in the least, things often didn’t go the way you wanted to together.

Take the first date from over two years ago where you and Charlie had waited for Owen to meet you with a jug of gas. You’d shared childhood stories and future dreams. Or the time you hadn’t marked the boxes creating an entire week of eating out of cans and cartons.

Ruining the proposal was almost expected at this rate.

“I knew from the moment I saw you in that emerald dress I knew that you were the One for me. I’ve adored each moment I’ve gotten with you from the spontaneous dances on the side of the road. To bursting into song in the middle of the street.” Charlie shakily started with sweating bands but an open heart, “When your best friend told me the emerald dress was the special one, it melted my heart.”

“Charlie.”

“Other than my belief that this relationship will last, I was only ever sure of one thing in my life. I was sure I would be an actor, but now I’m more sure that my favourite role will be supporting you, loving you and evolving with you as your husband.” Charlie sniffled, taking one hand from yours to wipe the tears flooding his cheeks, “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” You breathed lunging on your tiptoes to kiss him with as much passion as you could. Your hands caressed the skin of his cheeks; his long tresses tickling your wrists.

“God I love you.” Charlie gushed with a gentle shake of his head. His hazel pinned to your e/c eyes as if you were the most precious gem in the world.

A voice cut the bubble enveloping you, “Well are you gonna put the ring on her finger or what?”

Charlie’s head moved to meet the teary eyes of his mother surrounded by his siblings as they bounced on their feet. You laughed as your now fiance clumsily rushed to slide the absolutely gorgeous ring on your finger. 

“Welcome to the family officially.” Jeannette cheered along with the celebratory whistles and yells as the crowd of the family grew more and more. Soon enough, the entire room was overflowing with people congratulating your new engagement.

Months later, you stood in front of that same group holding the hands of your handsome fiance. Both dressed to the nines in front of the officiant.

“I wasn’t looking for a fairytale, because they all end the same. The princess has a conflict that she revolves with the help of the prince. They get married and live happily ever after. I adore how we’re writing our own story that fits our relationship. Charlie Gillespie, I wouldn’t change a thing about our lives. I wouldn’t have it any other way even with the fighting and slamming doors, but we always end up on our kitchen floor making up with two brownies in mugs.” Your vows brought tears among the onlookers along with the Canadian barely keeping it together.

The vows would later be eloquently transformed into lyrics from you with the accompanying melody provided by Charlie. On Valentine’s Day, you played the song on the kitchen floor with a plate of brownies. Three brownies waiting to be devoured.

“Three for each of us.” You wept as you watched as Charlie melted into a puddle of joyful tears. He took no time in placing his hand over your flat stomach.

Yeah, you wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially when Valentine’s Day become more to the Gillespie family; a new little love taking up the day.

(Reader’s Dress In Beginning)

Tag List (PLEASE SEND AN INBOX TO BE ADDED! I CANNOT GUARANTEE YOU WILL BE ON THE LIST VIA POST COMMENTS!)

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[ribbononline]

When the joke AU gets out of hand and now its like, a whole thing

SO uhm here is the post about the fake marriage on Pasio au! Where the whole fake marriage thing ended up becoming more of a B plot more then anything, oops. The premise kind of got lost on me as I went along.

First things first, here’s the information I gathered from the Hoenn timeline in Pokemas itself so yall know what im working with (and as a side note, if you have no idea about the basic story of Pokemon Masters, the rest of this entire post might be a little confusing);

-Brendan is Normans son, and May the daughter of professor Birch. Brendan has at least defeated Normans gym, and neither of them have met Aqua or Magma, nor Archie or Maxie.

-Magma and Aqua don’t seem to be publicly known as bad in any way.

-The meteor with Zinnia has already happened, and someone else took that destiny from her. (I’ll be honest- I never end up really explaining this here. I had no idea how to even begin making sense of this considering this is post game stuff and Brendan never even seems to have made it to the Elite Four as far as we know)

And with that ! Here’s the actual story I managed to make out of that.

-The backstories for Archie and Maxie are the same as they’d normally be. Things only get different once the ORAS plots would normally start.

Magma and Aqua both don’t commit crimes (such as orb or submarine stealing) with their uniforms on and under their team names. As such, they’re still seen as regular, legit environment organisations trying to better the region.

May and Brendan never get involved with them either. Between no meddling kids and their crimes not being tied back to them, things end up going pretty fast on their end.

-Their crimes aren’t connected nor is anyone looking into them as something bigger- right up until the orbs get stolen. Those are considered important enough artifacts to raise some attention, and so, Steven and Wallace brought on the case to investigate as the Hoenn champions.

-It’s a lot easier said then done, and while they start to suspect Aqua and Magma have something to do with it, they have no concrete proof. Still, they do their best to figure out if it’s them and what their intentions with it would be.

-Regrettably for them they are too slow. Maxie and Archie both make it to the sea cavern , and both raise their respective legendaries. Kyogre is there, Groudon is there, as a result even Rayquaza shows up. There’s a lot going on— and then, within a couple of minutes, there isn’t. All legendaries vanish into thin air, so fast that the population of Hoenn never even realised what was happening out on sea. Except for some unfortunate swimmers who never end up being believed.

Maxie and Archie feel devestated, and the Hoenn League who did notice what happened is very alarmed. Keeping the incident quiet as to not incite a panic, Steven and Wallace are pushed onto this case instead now- to locate the missing legendaries, and ensure they won’t cause any harm- and maybe figure out what caused them to awaken in the first place.

Wallace and Steven immediately link that to the orbs, and as such, Aqua and Magma. Still, they have no actual proof- no one outside their teams saw Archie or Maxie doing anything.

-The reason behind the sudden disappearances turns out to be Hoopa! Who brought all of them to Pasio. The legendaries immediately went from fighting mode into very confused mode. They don’t know where they are or what happened. Groudon ends up hiding in the volcano on the island, while Kyogre keeps to the bottom of the water surrounding the island. -Rayquaza however doesn’t hide itself- and instead, floats around on a mountain top on the island. Rumors start floating around about it, and before long Zinnia shows up and becomes a sync pair with it.

-Steven and Wallace hear Rayquaza is over in Pasio, and figure the other two might be as well- so they go over to investigate. They also talk some with Zinnia about Rayquaza, but since it appears to be fine and calm and Zinnia is not planning on giving it up, she ends up keeping it and they leave her be to search for Groudon and Kyogre instead.

-Magma and Aqua also catch wind of Rayquaza being over there, and even hear about some sightings of what appear to be Kyogre and Groudon around the island. Now the plan is to get over there and get them…. but the problem is that Steven and Wallace are both there, and they’re well aware those two suspect them- and that suddenly showing up for no reason would probably only worsen those suspicions. While the both of them have complete faith in their power as a team, they’d rather not pick a fight with two champions if they can avoid it- especially when they’re on an island full of other champions and elite four members who would probably back them up if asked.

-Going with their entire team would definitely be too suspicious. That’s out. Going with their admins might still be risky- Plus, they can’t exactly leave their teams unattended back in Hoenn. So, Maxie and Archie end up figuring that the best course of action would be for them to go alone, at least for the time being. Scout out if they can locate the legendaries and a way to get to them- and then call backup if needed.

…But if they both go alone at the same time and end up fighting each other while they’re there… it wouldn’t help their case.

-And so, after some thinking things over, Maxie ends up deciding it’d be best if they went together under a temporary truce. So off to Aqua to talk it over with Archie he goes! There, they come up with their plan; faking a marriage, and going to Pasio under the excuse of being on honeymoon. Steven and Wallace wouldn’t be expecting it, so maybe it’d throw them off track! And for the rest of the trainers on Pasio- well, who isn’t happy for a couple living their best life? With a little luck it’d immediately make people trust them a bit more.

-So to Pasio they go! Maxie takes Camerupt as his sync partner, Archie partners with his Sharpedo. They rent a little vacation home- for obvious reasons, they’ll have to live together for a while, but with a little luck they can just avoid each other most of the time. Besides, at least the ad specified there being two beds.

-They misread the ad. There’s one single two person bed. Archie is promptly demoted to sleeping on the couch.

In general, while they do well enough at faking being very affectionate and loving in front of people, the moment they’re back in their house it’s a lot of fighting.

-Steven and Wallace are not stupid, and are immediately wary when Maxie and Archie suddenly show up no matter how well they’re putting on an act. Still, there’s not a lot they can do except keep an eye on them and ensure they stay away from the areas Kyogre and Groudon are spotted.

-The rest of the island however thinks they’re nice! Look at the cute couple having fun. Good for them.

-Overall, while things are going decently okay for Archie and Maxie, Steven and Wallace constantly blocking off areas where they could gather intel and trailing their every move is really hindering their ability to be able to do much of anything. And so the four of them enter an awkward stand still, where neither can really get the other off the island.

-For a while, Maxie and Archie just try to put on the act as best as they can, to hopefully get Steven and Wallace to lower their guard. They go on ‚dates‘ together, hang out with the other people around the island, attend events together, etc. Steven and Wallace still don’t trust them for shit however, and end up pushing May and Brendan towards them in the hopes that they might be able to spot something off.

-Brendan and May have no idea what anyone is trying to do here, and actually really like Archie and Maxie. They help show them all there is on Pasio and introduce them to new people time and time again.

-Eventually, Maxie and Archie realise that this is going to take a lot longer then they were hoping for- between Steven and Wallace not budging, and the trainers on Pasio constantly keeping them busy- they’re going to need an excuse to keep staying here. And they don’t actually need to wait long! -While being a lot less aggressive and in people’s face about it, Archie still talks about the environmental impact the island has on the ocean around it a good bit to some of the other trainers there- he is leader of an environmental group focused on the sea back at home, after all! People actually start agreeing with him, to a point it even reaches Lear. Conceding something should be done, Sawyer starts working on putting a team together that would help undo the damage they’ve caused by making the oceans around the island more habitable for the Pokemon that were made homeless because of them. Archie is one of the first people to get asked to join the team- and having a job there makes a great excuse to stay a while longer. Besides, it’s still working towards his goal to some extent, so he’s down! -A bit after that Maxie ends up joining the team that made the island and is currently in charge of keeping it thriving. Same for him- the job still aligns with his ideals, so he doesn’t mind doing it.

-This was also the time Archie started having serious back pain from sleeping on the couch each night, so he took the bed as well. Maxie threatened to kick him out, Archie wished him luck with that and… well, they both just keep to their side of the bed now.

-Back at home, Magma and Aqua are being good legit environmental groups working within the law. It’s been gaining them a great reputation, and being fully legitimate and not having to fear getting charged for crimes is also very nice for the teens working as grunts there.

-And so back in Pasio, Maxie and Archie forcefully have to take a step back from their plans… to live relatively normal lives instead. Surprise surprise, it’s not actually that bad! They enjoy their jobs, they actually start making some friends, half the kids on the island seem to have adopted them as cool new uncles… and they even start fighting less in private! They can actually get along sometimes.

Eventually the realisation hits that they’re living out the lives they wanted- before they ever joined Rocket and everything went so terribly wrong. Except their marriage being ‚fake‘, this was more or less the future they envisioned… and it’s very weird to think about.

-For Maxie, he does get sad reminiscing, and reminisce he does- but as long as Archie keeps going , he’d never give up his plans. While originally raising Groudon was truly out of his ideals, over time (and when their original breakup happened) it became less about that- and more about ‚winning‘ - winning out over Archie, and proving to both himself and the other he’d been right all along. Even when the evidence started pointing towards that not being the case and Tabitha only agreeing this was a bad idea, he was so caught up in not being able to lose now he never backed down- and just reassured himself the science had to be wrong.

As long as Archie is going, so is he.

-Archie however…. Archie’s plans of flooding the world to reset it- undo the damage humanity caused by ending it entirely- were born out of feeling like there truly was no other option, truly was no other good left. Being focused on that goal every day, it wasn’t hard to stay in that mindset. But now, having to forcibly take a step back- suddenly getting to live a normal life again, with a way to help that doesn’t require death and a support system outside of Aqua… Suddenly the hope returns that maybe there is more out there- maybe there is another way to go about this.

And so, after a lot of thinking, and a lot of doubting every answer he came up with- finally he rang up Shelly and Matt to talk things over, and talk about leaving Kyogre be. Shelly was thrilled- at the end she didn’t trust his plans with Kyogre anymore anways and seeing Archie finally with agree with her on that was a big relief to her. Matt didn’t entirely understand, but Archie seemed happier with this idea, and Shelly definitely seemed happier with this idea- so he certainly didn’t mind.

Afterwards, Shelly ends up privately talking to Archie some more, where he confided a lot in her about stuff he never told her before. It was a lot to take in, and she definitely wasn’t happy about his plans having always been to more or less commit genocide on humanity without ever having told them- but at the end of the day, he’s still her friend, no damage has actually been done, and he’s finally talking to her about it so they can work it out. As such, with some help from her, Archie ends up going to therapy on the regular to help keep him in a better headset.

-After all of this, Archie pulls Maxie aside to let him know he’s giving up on Kyogre, and Maxie… just doesn’t know how to feel about it at all- doesn’t even know if he can trust him. He certainly wasn’t expecting this either way. For a while, Archie just goes about his day on Pasio, while Maxie went very very quiet, just watching him from a distance.

They both spend so much time on this- suddenly given up was something he never thought would be an option, and it’s a lot to process. Besides, Archie could be lying. ….But truthfully, he’s known the other way too long to believe that. Archie is serious about this, and it’s not particularly hard to tell.

So, after a lot of hemming and hawing, he too finally rings up Courtney and Tabitha and calls of their mission with Groudon.

Magma and Aqua are both just legit regular environmental organisations now.

-Now with that decision made, they end up talking a lot over between each other themselves. About their past, about their teams, and about what they want to do now. This is where they finally decide to actually give their relationship another chance as well. Not necessarily as a romantic relationship- thought not strictly as just friends either. They decide to just take it slow, see what they’re comfortable with, and see where it takes them from there.

(A lot of trainers in Pasio actually worry this is when they got into a fight- since they stop acting overly affectionate to put on an act, and instead get to have awkward conversations trying to rekindle their relationship. Everyone is so worried about what happened. Sorry guys, they’ll be okay)

-Though they fully intent on going back to Hoenn and their teams, they’re not in a hurry to leave and stick out their job contract which only were for about half a year total anyways. During this, even Steven and Wallace start noticing a change in them and finally lower their guard a bit. They never do end up attempting to get to the legendaries- they’re just enjoying their time here now.

-When they do finally get back to Hoenn, they merge the teams and help the land and the sea together now. Archie also ends up convincing Maxie to join him for therapy sometimes- even without them almost ending the world, they do still both have their things to work trough.

-Groudon and Kyogre just vibe on Pasio now. They let kids battle them for fun sometimes. They’re doing alright.

-Brendan and May end up visiting Archie and Maxie a lot! That’s their cool gay uncles now.

-Somewhere along the way, as time passes, they actually end up legitimising the marriage documents they faked at the very start. And they still return to Pasio from time to time to meet up with the friends they made there. :]

Apologies if any of this was messy or unclear! it was a lot to try and condense down into a single post and I did my best, but ykno. if there did appear to be smth missing feel free to shoot me a message or an ask orz also this is my second time writing this post- first time i made the stupid mistake of typing it up in browser. And after over an hour of typing this all up…. tumblr refreshed for no reason, and deleted all of it. so writing this all a second time has been even harder then the first. ;; it hurt so bad.

Also, I do have a lot of thoughts n ideas abt the actual relationships they end up having w other characters on the island, but I’m saving that for another post! With the premise of Pasio there’s just so much potential to stuff all these diff characters from diff games into a place togehter and i want to make the most of that- so its prolly gonna b another long post lmao. i wont make this one even longer then it already is, so diff post it is

just know that they did in fact once see Giovanni on the island, and they almost ended up throwing hands.

(bonus; the link to the page where I keep all my oras HC posts and comics sorted)

[curioussubjects]

come be a season 12 truther with me; or what if dean and cas got together offscreen

Originally, I wrote this post to celebrate “Galaxy Brain” airing as Berens & Glynn gave us “The Future.” It’s been a while since that episode aired, and some things have changed about this meta. As such, there are multiple versions of this post floating around, so make sure to go back to the source for the most up to date version.  For all intents and purposes, this post functions as a meta manifesto not unlike shipping manifestos from days of LJ past. In keeping with that tradition, this post is a close reading of Dabb Era Destiel in which I argue that by using narrative gaps, queer coding, and romance tropes, Dean and Cas are shown to be in an established relationship. Although beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth pointing out that keeping Destiel mostly off screen was a way for the creatives to bypass network censorship while still remaining true to the characters.

This post is divided into three sections. Section I focuses on giving an overview of why earlier seasons of Supernatural aren’t as compelling as season 12 as a turning point for Dean and Cas’s relationship. That said, special consideration is given to 09.06 “Heaven Can’t Wait” as a potential rest stop in our journey due to it’s significantly placed narrative gap as well as themes in the episode. However, this post isn’t going to examine season 9 trutherism in depth, though it does coexist with and allow for it. Section II analyses season 12 and proposes a timeline and justification for the shifting Destiel dynamic. Finally, Section III will offer an analysis of how Dean and Cas’s relationship has changed dramatically from previous seasons in a way that is most like the shift from a “will they or won’t they” pairing to an established one. 

Before I move to Section I, I’d like to note something this post takes for granted: Dean and Cas are the main romantic subplot of Supernatural, and, in fact, their relationship is elevated to main plot for both characters in season 15. This post won’t argue about the canonicity of Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other, therefore, and so won’t spend time looking at many Destiel defining moments. I’d also like to make clear that this post also takes for granted that Destiel is being intentionally developed by the writers starting with Carver’s Era, and more so in Dabb’s. 

I. Why Seasons 4 through 11 May Not be It

The tl;dr. here is that while there are many moments throughout these seasons that Dean and Cas could potentially get together, none of those moments are ideal for a bunch of reasons that can be summed up as really bad timing. I also think the narrative is actively pushing them towards a moment that works. We get plenty of stepping stones, especially once we hit seasons 8 through 11 (and 11 most of all).

Seasons 4 & 5:

I know there’s been a lot of get together fics over the years set in this time period, but I just don’t see it. Do I see them being intrigued and drawn to each other? Yes. Do I think either Cas or Dean would act on it? Nope. I’m not arguing anything re: Dean’s feelings, but with everything going at the time I find it hard to believe he’d pursue anything with his angel friend. Most importantly here, though, is that during this time Cas was still very alien and other. There was too much angel in him, and while he obviously came to care about Dean (and Sam) very much, I just can’t see him navigating the realm of human relationships. That said, seeing human!Cas in “The End” is the first we see of potential developments for how Cas could behave without his angelness interfering. Being human changes Cas a lot, beyond even his experience existing among humans, though that of course matters too. This development will be important later /wink.

Seasons 6 & 7:

Before anything else let me just recognize that if we could see some sexual tension in seasons 4 & 5, these two seasons come with our first taste of romantic tension. The pining! Also note the difference between season 4 Cas and season 6 Cas in terms of behaviour. He is much less the angel we saw in that barn in “Lazarus Rising.” In season 6, we have a Cas making misguided decisions guided entirely by his emotions – namely, not wanting to involve Dean with the war in heaven – which is peak human, honestly. Put a pin on how sad Dean is in both seasons with Cas’s absence. Finally, put a pin on this being our first moment of Cas doing things on his own to spare Dean and it not ending well (soulless!Sam, Cas “dying” after Leviathan) because this is *the* hurdle in their relationship (along with Dean’s lashing out and self-worth issues). With all this said, the marked distance between Dean and Cas in these seasons negates the possibility of them entering into any kind of relationship. Much like seasons 4 and 5, there’s too much going on.

Season 8:

Ah, yes, the summer of purgatory. If you thought we had pining before…! I think we’re all very clear on season 8 being a turning point for the show, not only because new showrunner, but we also get the bunker. TFW now has an HQ, which pretty soon becomes home. Yes, Baby will always be home, but the bunker becomes the *unmovable* safe haven that Baby couldn’t be. The bunker is a place to coalesce, and for all the amazing things Baby is, she is not that. The acquisition of the bunker marks a shift in the psychology of the show: with the stable home space we can start to imagine domesticity, a place to come home to, the stuff of ordinary living. Most of all, the bunker is emblematic of security, of safety –keep this in mind, as we go forward.

This season also continues to see Cas go down the path of independently solving his problems instead of asking for help from Sam and Dean (his family in a way heaven never was) – note that the better together issue is at play in different ways with Sam and Dean also, but I digress. I also want to point out disastrous instance #2 of Cas’s insistence on figuring it out on his own: he loses his grace, and the angels fall. As for Dean, season 8’s focus for him has much to do with Sam, and them coming face to face with their issues with codependency, which hit catastrophic levels with the gates of hell and Gadreel plots.

So despite all the deliciously angsty get together purgatory fics and spec, there’s too much distance between Dean and Cas on Cas’s part due to his guilt over betraying the Winchesters in s6 plus slaughtering angels plus unleashing Leviathan. We do see Dean being more emotionally open with Cas and continue to voicing his wish that Cas would just stay with him and Sam, and let them help. It’s clear as day how much Dean cares. The timing is still bad, though.

Before moving on to next season, let’s take a moment to appreciate that this is the season Dean admits being kinda done with one night stands because “always with the adios.” Remember the bunker as a sign of stability? Yeah. I wouldn’t say Dean is craving a relationship, exactly, but I think we can see that he does want something more (ahem also I’m nodding to Cas refusing to stay put just cause).

Seasons 9 & 10:

The most important thing to happen between this two seasons is Cas’s stint as a human for an extended period of time. There’s been plenty of spec and meta written over the years about the effects of being human on Cas’s grace (a proto-soul now maybe?). What we can say for sure, regardless, is that Cas is much more humanized once he becomes an angel again. The understanding he gets from being human doesn’t go away once he regains his angel powers. You’ll notice that while we still see some of season 4’s characterization, Cas is not the same as he was – he is alien to angels now and is more intelligible to humans. Additionally, in an interesting reversal from previous seasons, we now get to see the depth of Cas’s feelings for Dean (thanks, Metatron) as well as seeing him be more open emotionally, while Dean does most of the pushing away (first because of Gadreel, then because of the Mark of Cain). In short, the timing is still bad as Dean and Cas are largely kept apart both physically and emotionally.

9.06 Heaven Can’t Wait

This episode is my white whale, friends. While I’ve come to fully subscribe to the idea that something did happen between Dean and Cas during the fanfic gap, I don’t actually think it’s feasible that it marked the start of a relationship -- be it sexual or romantic. My reasoning here is quite simple: the timing is bad. Were it not for external events (Cas regaining his Grace and Dean taking on the MoC), the course would have likely differed. Furthermore, Dean’s guilt over making Cas leave the bunker as well as Cas’s own hurt and self-loathing pose a significant and as yet insurmountable obstacle, which is easily seen with how Dean and Cas’s character trajectories go separate ways.

YMMV on what exactly happened between them in that Motel, but something definitely did. Perhaps one day I’ll have a proper s9 trutherism post to link to here for more details (likely won’t be written by me, though). 

10.16 Paint It Black

From the point Dean gets the MoC until the end of season 10, anything between him and Cas is quite impossible due to distancing, to say the least. Again, yes, the fic is really good, but alas. One of the reasons I’m bringing up this episode in particular is because of the confession scene. One, it’s a rare bit of explicit emotional honesty from Dean, and two, it tells me that while he and Cas may be well aware of the Thing™ between them, it’s still uncharted waters. It’s scary, and murky, and they’re unsure how to navigated it or if they should even try. Makes sense, too, there’s been A LOT going on since s6. Anyway, he’s the full confession:

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it. […]  Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time. […]  Yeah, I’m just starting to think that… maybe there’s more to it all than I thought.

Can I just say, first, that this confession keeps me up at night because we never actually see anything done with it explicitly? I mean, obviously, I think we do in fact see the effects of this confession in the show, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this behemoth, but still, like. Damn. Ok, so, remember when I brought up that thing in season 7 about Dean being kinda done with hook-ups? Here’s where that led us. We’re seeing a Dean here who wants more than what he has convinced himself he gets to have. He wants more than dying bloody. And when he talks about wanting to experience people and feelings differently, well, that says a lot not just on the queer coding front or the romantic front. I mean, jfc, Dean is accepting the idea that he can have more in life than just hunt until he drops, and he’s specifically talking about experiences at the interpersonal level.

Do you ever see a character having an epiphany and find yourself wanting to cry because this is it right here. Dean is just blatantly admitting he wants more and maybe he can make himself be open to that (!!!), which all culminates in season 11, so…

Season 11:

The pining is still here, but it’s worse now since it’s the whole plot? It’s been *checks calendar* 5 years of this. How are any of us still kicking I don’t know. Your slow burns could never. Cool worth noting points: Cas says yes to Lucifer (bad decision #2.5, lots of mitigating effects_I don’t actually hold it against him that much but Dean is another story & not entirely rational at this point); for the first time since the early days, Dean and Cas are on equal grounds: they’ve both fucked up a lot and have hurt each other. The issues this season are outside their dynamic. Amara and Lucifer here serve as externalizing forces for Dean and Cas’s problems: Cas checks out with Lucifer because he thinks it’s the only way he can help, Dean is caught up in the turmoil of Amara, the emblem of absence and avoidance of struggle. We do get something like an affirmation from the two of them to each other via Dean calling Cas his brother (and I want y’all to consider the historical queering of that statement, and Cas’s “I could go with you.” It feels like we’re headed to them being on the same page. By the end of the season, though, it feels like we’re getting a clean slate: Mary is back, nobody died, no end-of-the-world in sight, no interpersonal crisis. We’re also getting a new showrunner, so. No wonder. We’re gearing up for something, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What this season does that is super important is that it sets up the stage for the possibility of an actual relationship between Dean and Cas, something that has, up until this point, been pretty much impossible.

11.04 Baby

Y’all know what I’m about to quote here, right? That conversation between Dean and Sam about having something with someone who understands the life. Here we still have Dean reverting to the idea that it’s impossible, which is a direct contrast to the openness in 10.16. It’s understandable, though, considering there’s been little reason to think anything like that would be possible (see all the mess and poor timing from seasons past). The quote in question, though, marks a continuing development regarding the issues Dean is struggling with this season:

DEAN: Piper? That’s awesome. Heather. One-night wonders, man. Shoot, we’re lucky we still get that at all. SAM: Really? You don’t … Ever want something more? DEAN: I’m sorry, have you met us? We’re batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But … Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

We wouldn’t be talking about this stuff all these years after Sam and Dean had a serious relationship if it wasn’t important, right? Also who else do we meet this season? That’s right! Eileen! And doesn’t that hit different with season 15 hindsight? And who does Dean have that understands the life? Whose stories have been intricately connected to his? Right now, this is all conjecture. A pipe dream Sam is revisiting, and Dean is skeptical about. Except, well. Look at what we get in “Into the Mystic” and “The Chitters.”

11.11 Into The Mystic

I’m bringing up this episode as a cross reference to “Paint It Black” as well as to complement the talk from “Baby,” and to show, again, that, for all the closeness between Dean and Cas, there’s still a marked distance they haven’t yet bridged. There’s still truths they haven’t told each other. Thanks Mildred for the delicious exposition:

Darlin’…If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on the road, it’s when somebody’s pining for somebody else. […] Oh, don’t try and hide it now. Follow your heart. Remember?

11.19 The Chitters

And here we see some validation to Sam’s imagining of a possible future with someone else. We actually see hunters who not only are married, but they both make it out alive. Jesse and Cesar get their happy ending. They make the dream come true. And the reality of it important not just for Dean to see, but Sam too.

Dean: [with realization] Oh, so … [points back and forth to Jesse and Cesar] Cesar: Yeah. Dean: Okay, that’s… Cesar puts his beer bottle on the table and looks at Dean, while Jesse is being silent. Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter? Cesar: Smelly, dirty. [turns to Jesse] Twice the worrying about getting ganked.

I’d like to point out, too, that the fear of getting ganked is thematic when it comes to the tension between Dean and Cas. More on this when we hit s13.

Alright, now, having said that, let’s take a look at season 12. Bear in mind, this is the official start of Dabb’s era, even if he kinda began taking over in season 11, and the change in vibes is obvious. In fact, 12 jumped out at me as a turning point, in hindsight, after getting smacked by the domesticity of seasons 13 and 14.

II. Why Season 12

[Out of date section. Update coming soon when spoons. After significant debate, I’ve altered the definitive start of Dean and Cas’s friend-with-benefits-with-mutual-pining relationship to between 12.02 and 12.03. I briefly explained why here, and yes it’s a shitpost--still true tho.]

Finally, the promise land, y’all. Getting right to it: what s11 was for Dean in terms of setting up the relationship stage, s12 was for Cas. In its initial beats, any way. That is, until the Kelly debacle, this was the longest Cas has been around the bunker and with the exception of seasons 13 and 14, it’s one of the first times we get to see how Cas might actually fit into the bunker-as-home. Things seem remarkably chill. Of course, we’ll notice that there’s still a lot of baggage hanging around because despite Dean and Cas being in a more stable place, they haven’t actually dealt with their interpersonal problems. I didn’t single out directly this episode, but do keep in mind Cas’s declaration in 12.09 First Blood as far as how much the Winchesters matter to Cas & how we also see Dean and Cas be particularly singled out with them seating together in the backseat of the Impala. What we also see this season is Cas trying to prove he is worthy of this family, his family. He’s not fighting for heaven or to right some grievous wrong (a la s8). No, this season he’s fighting to spare the Winchester, to bring them a win. To bring Dean a win. The major disconnect is that Dean (and Sam & Mary) already sees Cas that way, he doesn’t think Cas has anything to prove. And just maybe, Cas starts believing that too – or, at least, believing it enough.

12.10 Lily Sunders Has Some Regrets

This episode, oh my god, the goodness. In the wake of 12.09 we have Dean and Cas in a tiff because Cas mistake #3 (killing Billie and “cosmic consequences”), this is a pattern. Twice the worry of getting ganked, etc etc. But where this episode really shines is through the contrast between Ishim’s obsession with Lily and Cas & Dean’s mutual affection for each other. Ishim sees no difference here and, to him, Cas’s feelings for Dean are a human weakness. Returning to my point about human!Cas, this episode underscores that Cas’s increasing humanity is what puts him in the place where he can want what Dean wants instead of either being too alien to get it (see s4 & 5) or unable to experience it properly (Ishim).

12.12 Stuck in the Middle (With You)

Cas’s trajectory culminates here with the whole I love you (@ Dean), I love all of you (@ Winchesters). Let’s note too that Cas is dying here, in a way that is much more human than going up in light. This declaration of different types of love is entirely human. It’s also a definitive step wrt to Cas and Dean’s relationship because of what happens in 12.19. This. is. it. Oh, and, of course, let’s not forget to point to Dean’s face when Cas says that “I love you,” and how terrified he is that Cas is dying. Might make one rethink some things, hm?

12.19 The Future

This episode is simply hella suspicious, and all the kudos to Berens and Glynn for writing it. It’ll haunt me forever. Consider watching it again and just questioning everything. So. Weird things:

1. Dean’s reaction to Cas no getting in touch as opposed to Sam’s. Dean is pissed, which is Dean-speak for worried out of his mind. Sam is very worried, too, and puzzled, but he’s mostly expressing his relief that Cas is back. But Cas has gone awol before, but this time Dean is much more worked up about it; Sam takes note of this, too. Now, let’s imagine that maybe the events of 12.12 led to something happening between Dean and Cas. Then Cas decided to leave to find a lead on Kelly, but eventually Cas decides to work with Heaven and goes radio silent. For days. Having taken a chance, and something having happened between them, how would Dean react to Cas just going poof and not contacting him – despite Dean having called Cas multiple times.

2. Cas knows about the Colt. Ok, nothing off there. But when he goes to Dean’s room to talk, right after Dean leaves we see Cas looking around briefly. Like he know Dean would keep it in there. Maybe Cas had looked other places already. Who knows. What we do know is that eventually he does find the Colt not only in Dean’s room, but under Dean’s pillow. Sam didn’t even know the Colt wasn’t in the safe. So how did Cas know?

3.“He came into my room and he played me.” So, this quote right there, makes it seem like some seduction for personal gain, right? But can you see Cas actually doing that if they hadn’t gone there previously? For Dean not to suspect anything and go with it? There’s plenty of plausible deniability here, but the gaps in time in the narrative make me question what is there in those spaces. The scene where Cas tried to give Dean the mixtape back doesn’t read like “playing,” so it’s about a different interaction. Hm. Hmmm.

4. Dean and Cas’s brief conversation in Dean’s room is clearly Dean just wanting Cas to stay, so they can work (and be) together – because they’re better that way. Which, yeah, truth, but also ow.

5.And most importantly: When did Dean give Cas that mixtape??? How did that happen?

Sequence of events: Cas tells Dean he loves him – Dean is clearly shook by it – Dean gives Cas a mixtape (romantic gesture, often a declaration of feelings; in true Dean speak too lolsobs) – Cas goes awol - Dean acts like he got ghosted by his new bf -?????- Cas somehow knows the Colt is under Dean’s pillow – "He went into my room and he played me."

What am I supposed to do with that, hm? Like. Y’all realize they probably had some emotionally constipated getting together moment, right? Something that Dean clearly initially thought meant things were gonna change, now. Something that Cas couldn’t allow to happen until he could give Dean a win. Y’all are seeing this, yeah? I’m not saying they slept together and were full of feelings, except that’s kind of what I’m saying. But YMMV, there are other possibilities beyond sex. The full of feelings isn’t up for debate, though, even if the whole thing is informed by ridiculous amounts of miscommunication.

III. Seasons 13 through 15 As Established Relationship

Regardless of what happened in season 12, exactly, I can’t shake the feeling that something did happen, and something did change. My reasoning here is actually really simple: in comparison to previous seasons, Dean and Cas’s dynamic shifts significantly come season 13. I know some folks have been disappointed with some of season 13 and then season 14 for having dialed back on the destiel side of things. And, hey, maybe there’s truth to that in terms of backstage stuff, but I also want to point out that...well, the dialing back isn’t quite dialing back is it? Let’s look at 13 a little more closely:

Season 13:

So I said the deancas dynamic changed, right? I also think that change caught us unaware because the pivotal turning point that would cue us in never happened on screen as well as being subsumed by Cas’s death and Jack’s birth. But if I ask you about deancas in season 13 what would come to mind? Grief arc? Brokebacknatural? How domestic Dean and Cas are? There’s just something easy about their relationship after Cas returns from the Empty. The tension we’d grown so familiar with over the years is gone. Actually, it feels like we skipped the getting together bit of their relationship and went straight to established relationship and parenting. Some of the most peak married deancas moments we see circulating? Season 13, (and 12.10). It’s a lot, and it’s different, and it’s amazing.

13.01-13.05

Dean’s grief mini-arc. He was acting like a widower. Here’s me vaguely gesturing towards the mapping of Jonh, Mary, Dean, and Sam onto Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack. And the reunion? I can’t help but be giddy at the song choice: “it’s never too late to start all over again.” To. Start. All. Over. Again. I’m just saying.

13.06 Tombstone & 13.16 Scoobynatural

I’m not going at length about these episodes, I just want to point out that they reveal that Dean and Cas have a whole thing going on off screen: they watch movies together, Cas knows about Dean being an angry sleeper, Cas seems to have been aware of the Dean-cave before Sam was. It’s little things like this that are examples of the narrative gaps surrounding Dean and Cas that have cropped up over the years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder what else could be hiding there. And when did the movie nights alluded in “Tombstone” happen? Maybe in season 12 when Cas in hanging around the bunker? The same period when Dean and Cas seem to be coalescing into something safer and more stable? Something that we never see come to a head because plot happens and Cas dies? Something that is immediately taken back up once Cas is alive again?

Season 14:

Overall, this season is more of what we got during 13, but it had two high notes I wanted to single out before ending this already too long post.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Look me in the eye and tell me Dean and Cas talking in the kitchen about Jack doesn’t read like husbands talking about their child. Look me in the eye and tell me Cas just texting Dean to gossip about Sam isn’t couple-y as hell.

14.18-14.20

Ah, yes, the divorce arc. Awful. Terrible. The culmination of Dean’s problem in all this: he lashes out, he pushes Cas away, his anger is alienating. Cue all of us suffering. But while Dean is clearly in the wrong in how the deals with his feelings, let’s not pretend some of his anger doesn’t come from a long established, and unaddressed, rift between him and Cas, which had its last traumatic turn when Cas died in s12. Dean isn’t being rational here: he saw Cas doing something on his own, and he saw that his mother is dead. What else could happen? Why won’t Cas just trust they can work as a team? What if Cas died again? And why should Cas put up with Dean’s behavior without knowing the cause? How can any relationship work this way? But notice how caught in the middle Sam was during all this. Notice how Jack is running off and acting out. The whole family is falling apart. Divorce arc, indeed.

Season 15:

But what about what we’re building up in 15? That seems like it could be a getting together plot, too, right? Well, yeah. It could very well be. But I’d argue the tension we’re seeing isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they because they already have. We’re are watching a getting back together plot! The tension is, instead, will-they-or -won’t-they use their words to talk about the baggage that has kept them from truly being confident about their relationship. That’s the crucial step in their togetherness that they’re still missing, which is also the bedrock of the divorce arc that spanned twelve fucking episodes -- y’all, that’s half a season.

And technically? We’re not even done with yet because Cas never let Dean finish his prayer/confession in purgatory. What’s more, Cas hasn’t grappled with his role in the breakdown of their relationship, either: that he keeps going off on his own and getting hurt (and getting other people hurt), and Dean has to deal with the fallout. The deep emotional understanding, the truly being on the same page is what we’re on the edge of our seats for. We’re waiting to see what else Dean had to say, and what will happen when Cas’s deal with the Empty comes to light.

Finally, could we still have this plot without Dean and Cas having gotten together off screen? Sure, but I think the stakes are higher if they already did have something between them. If they actually have an established romantic relationship going on. Something real and tangible and as of yet much too fragile.

"...you asked what about all this is real. We are."

[bogkeep]

theo’s tarot collection

hi hello i suffer from a terrible ailment called I Keep Acquiring New Tarot Decks Even Though I Am A Tarot Newbie.... so i figured i could do a little writeup about my decks if anyone is interested in that :’) basically i started doing tarot in 2019 because i couldn’t get a hold of a therapist (i was put on a year long waitlist WAHOO) so i basically. self-medicated with tarot readings hahaha. i had a friend who gave me a lot of really good advice and had done some readings for me before who felt immensely comforting. the way i read them is like... it allows you to confront your situation and your emotions through a new angle, but you gotta be brave enough to do it - or ask someone to do it for you. it can be a really intense but also cathartic experience. it’s not for everyone! but i like it. i still consider myself a novice and still learning so i am not in ANY way trying to paint myself as a Knowledgabl Tarot Witch - in a perfect timeline that’s who i wish i was, but i’m ultimately just some guy with a solid appreciation for art and personal growth.

ANYWAY... onto my DECKS (the tumblr post will probably squish the quality outta my photos so i’m gonna link the URLs for Full View)

Children of Litha by Alexandria Huntington

i consider this my main and first deck (i am NOT counting the official homestuck deck i bought as a teen just because i wanted to look at the art. no offense to the homestuck deck i’m just not gonna use fandom decks)! i picked it out but my Tarot Friend gifted it to me... i think it’s a very good starter deck for me personally, and it’s the deck i’ve bonded with and used the most. i even put a fancy sticker on the box as part of the bonding process. i always feel so bad for all of my other decks because i haven’t been able to dedicate as much time for them as i have this one... so it’s definitely the deck i go to for the most accurate readings for myself. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: the art in this is so beautiful and elegant. the symbolism more or less draws on the classic smith-waite deck, but redrawn for its theme. i like that it has a very consistent imagery! out of the major arcana, the fool is the only fully human character - every other character is part animal in some way or other. then the suit of swords depicts birds, winged insects and the air element, coins depict ungulates and equines and earth, wands has felines and canines and fiery imagery, and cups has fish and creatures of and in the sea. the court cards have humans. the suit symbols are always depicted consistently, as white silhouettes. there are also two extra cards: the all and the void. Pamphlet: the reason i think this was a good starter deck is because both because the art feels very intuitive about what it depicts (to me, at least), the descriptions in the pamphlet describe what is happening and why the artist chose this motif for this card. it has honestly helped me remember the meanings a lot, because i’ll be reading the other decks and be like “oh that’s the octopus card i know what the octopus card is about”. there are also little poems next to the main descriptions that work as a pretty solid tl;dr for the core meanings. i also like that the court cards are referred to in the sense of like... a knight is “a young person with masculine energy” rather than “a young man”. it feels more fluid and vibe-y about gender than traditional decks ya feel. on a range from Abstract to Directness this one feels like it sits pretty comfortable in the middle, maybe leaning on Abstractness. it has always given me gentle instructions and advice.

Cardfeel: the cards are very smooth and nice with gold edges. the cards are not NOT solid, but i wish they had been a little thicker because i’m always afraid i’m going to accidentally damage them - but that’s probably a feeling i have about most of my possessions tbh!! i think they’re a good size, too, at least for my small hands. they’re more on the long/slender side so they are good for me to shuffle. i also like the box, it’s a hard flip box with a magnet. i think u can’t go wrong with that. this is the deck i’ve travelled with the most (did u know hotel beds are the best tarot reading spaces. for some reason they just Work). The Spacious Tarot by Annie Ruygt and Carrie Mallon

this is one i really like a lot and want to use more! i absolutely adore the concept of it, but it’s a little harder for me to read than the Litha one. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: this one is like!!! it’s about the open space and the quietness. the vibes are IMMACULATE. the cards aren’t filled to the brim with happenstance and symbolism, but they each feel like a little refuge. very meditative. i also like that the court cards are not gendered at all - there is no page, knight, queen and king, but rather child, explorer, guardian and elder. i am really into that, especially as steps of mastery of their suit. i do think that this deck is probably easier to read if you’re more experienced with tarot meanings and symbolisms, because the illustrations aren’t necessarily that intuitive. Pamphlet: i haven’t read through this one very much, but i think it’s more on the abstract side of the Abstract to Direct scale. it might just feel like that because it describes what the card symbolizes without drawing much on what the card depicts - it is generally a pretty abstract and meditative deck. i like it for what it is! but it’s harder for me to read than my main Litha deck. Cardfeel: there’s something about the cardfeel i wish was different. they’re perfectly ok cards, they’re smooth and not too thin, but i still wish they had had more heft or something. while the cards fit very well into my hands i think maybe they could’ve been Larger to emphasize their motifs of openness and space. or texture. or gilded edges. i really don’t know what i want. the box however is very good and easy to open and use!! never underestimate a good box.

Tarot of the Divine by Yoshi Toshitani

this is a deck i Had To Get because i knew the artist was working on it and i was always Planning To... it is not a deck i use very often but i absolutey adore it. you can also get it with an accompanying fairytale book, i thought i had ordered that but i was Wronge. Vibes and Thematic Coherency: it depicts motifs and characters from stories, myths, and fairytales from a vast variety of cultures. it’s AMAZING. the art is so clean and crisp and i was VERY EXCITED to find a card drawing on a sami story (page of coins)! i don’t have a lot to say except that yoshi yoshitani has done some incredible work on this. Pamphlet: while i do not have the Fairytale Book edition, the pamphlet is really super nice because it shows pictures of the cards, lists what story it depicts and where the story is from, gives a short description for how this scene or character embodies the card. it then lists some of the Card Characteristics beneath. very simple but very nice. i really like pamphlets that explain Why the artist picked the motifs they did - for me personally it really helps me connect to the deck and their symbols. it’s probably more on the Direct side of the scale thanks to this. Cardfeel: these are textured!! they feel like the playing card deck my grandmother has, which feels apt to me. textures make the cards feel solid to me. they’re also a very nice size to hold. the edges are not guilded, but with the white frames it looks good and nice. the box is nice but also Large, possibly to fit with the book? might not be ideal for travel, but there’s nothing stopping you from getting a different box or pouch.

The Star Spinner Tarot by Trung Le Nguyen

my most recent deck... i KNEW about the artist and the deck from before, but wasn’t PLANNING to get it, but then i saw it in the comic book store and i wasn’t able to pass it by. no regrets, it’s a wonderful deck. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: absolutely lovely art and style. it’s another deck drawing on fairytale themed motifs. i’m loving the use of colors and circles. it also has four different cards for the Lovers so you can choose which one(s) speak to you the most, something i think is just wonderful. i think the only thing i found a little... odd? was that the suit of Wands looks kinda same-y, which isn’t a bad thing, but it was the only suit that looked that way to me. they’re still very very nice. ALSO THE BACK OF THE CARDS ARE SHINY. I JUST THINK THAT’S VERY LOVELY. as a Physical Product these are chef’s kiss. Pamphlet: on the Abstract to Directness scale, these are VERY DIRECT. the pamphlet doesn’t say a lot about why the cards depict what they do, but go straight into card meaning, and in a very unambiguous way. i think it can both work very well, leaving you little room to avoid your feelings, but it also has a higher margin to miss completely. for being such a cutesy deck full of fairies the pamphlet is definitely giving you a smack at the side of your head. i haven’t used this deck a lot yet due to its newness, but i definitely want to try it out more to see what it does to me.

Cardfeel: out of all of my decks i think this has the best cardfeel... the cards feel really solid, and have a very good size that feel just right for them. like i sort of fell in love with the deck when i actually started shuffling it and browsing the cards. buying cards - especially on the internet - can be a gamble because you Can’t Know The Cardfeel. with decks like the Spacious Tarot i got a little dissappointed, but this one was a very pleasant surprise. also the box is very good and look like a work of art. The Fyodor Pavlov Tarot

honestly one of my new favourite decks that i ABSOLUTELY am going to use more and become more familiar with. also a deck that i knew the artist was working on, and supported the kickstarter the moment it was announced. my deck also came with two Magician cards and i don’t know why. extra wizard for me??? Vibes and Thematic Coherence: the look and feel of this deck is Immaculate. it looks very classical and traditional (and absolutely gorgeous), it is grounded in the classical smith-waite imagery but Expands Upon It, draws on the diversity of human culture and experiences... also loving the energy of “THIS CARD IS TRANS NOW AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT” many cards have (most famously the Lovers, but i don’t want to post pics of any of the cards depicting nudity or risqué themes on tumblr). i absolutely adore the knight of coins card (THE HORSE IS HIS FRIEND AND SERVICE ANIMAL!!). it’s just Really Very Good. also the backside has pretty Shiny stars and i like it. Pamphlet: i really like this one. it is a deeply personal pamphlet, where fyodor pavlov directly discusses his relationship to the cards and why he chose the motifs he did. it feels really grounded in the world we live in, and also such a vulnerable thing to share with us all. it’s on the Direct side of the scale without necessarily telling you “the card is definitely this one thing”. my only wish is that it was easier to navigate at a glance. Cardfeel: THEY ARE TEXTURED!!! these cards are definitely long and slender and benefit someone with larger hands than mine, but i still like them a lot. i do wish they had been a smidge heavier just so i wouldn’t worry so much about damaging them... but i don’t want to be ungrateful. the deck and the box are wonderfully crafted. The Botanica Tarot by Kevin Jay Stanton

oh boy did i support the kickstarter for this one... i had actually bought the major arcana when it was the only version available, and then the artist decided to make a full deck. it’s an absolute work of art. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: oh boy oh boy does it serve vibes and thematic coherence. it’s Plants all the way down, OBVIOUSLY, but also like... every card in the minor arcana depicts their suit in its own way. like the range of coins/currency from various times and cultures?? AMAZING. looking at the art of this deck is a DELIGHT. every card manages to be beautiful and interesting despite there not being a single living creature depicted on any of them. i WILL say they, same as the spacious tarot, are not the most intuitive to read if you’re not super familiar with either the Plants or the meanings of the cards. Pamphlet: you can fit so much plant knowledge in this one. i got a version of the deck with a beautiful little book, but there’s also a small pamphlet that follows the deck itself (which i admittedly have not looked too closely at yet). there’s descriptions for why this specific plant has been chosen for each card, and then some Card Meaning Keywords. so definitely on the Abstract side of my imaginary tarot pamphlet scale, because you mostly have plant symbolism to go on. i haven’t done a lot of readings with this deck, i’ll be honest - but it’s a beautiful treasure that i adore. Cardfeel: they’re Smoothe and Guilded edges. they can feel a little wide for my hands, but not so much that i cannot shuffle. i think maybe a smidge of texture wouldve been good with this deck since it would fit the look of the painted art. i also did get like... a big kickstarter reward version of this deck. it came in a tin box with extra treasures and a cloth and pins... the actual card box itself is beautiful to look at, but i have to say that the one i got is VERY HARD TO OPEN. i might transfer the cards into a pouch if i want to be reading them more often. IKEA deck

yes this is a meme deck and i don’t really use it but I WANTED TO SHARE... i think the major arcana is very cool and funny, but i was dissappointed to find that the suit cards are just “ikea part but Multiple Times”. it also does not come with a pamphlet. also yes yes it’s funny that the names of the cards are spelled in a “silly ikea word language” BUT IKEA NAMES ARE JUST SWEDISH....... IT’S NOT A SECRET LANGUAGE IT’S JUST SWEDISH............ it’s a funny deck to have and it doesn’t take up much space so eh! shrugs!!! The Lubanko Tarot by Emily Lubanko

another kickstarter deck... it’s gorgeous but there is a chance i might gift it to someone else. not because i regret getting it or don’t like it, but because i already have so many decks that speak to me, while this one gives me vibes of serving someone else better. does that make any sense? i admittedly haven’t looked at the pamplet so much so i think i’m going to skip that description for this one. Vibes and Thematic Coherency: the MOVEMENT and the COLORS... it’s Capturing Feelings in a really good way. i mean. i got it for the vibes and it’s serving vibes. Cardfeel: Smoothe Cards. shiny silver edges, like a slippery fish in a rapid river. it feels good and right for this deck. also good box. i know most of these decks have Good Box, it’s just the botanica one that let me down by being difficult. The Oriens Tarot by AmbiSun

i don’t have this deck anymore, i gifted it to my boyfriend... i found these pics on my twitter. it’s one of the first decks i supported on kickstarter and it’s VERY pretty, and it has HOLOGRAPHIC RAINBOW EDGES HOT DAMN. it’s another one of those instances where i Yearned for it and then found that it didn’t fit me as well as i had hoped. tarot is just one of those things where you have to find what Works for you. at this time the children of litha was working so well for me and i really liked the depiction of animals in it, i wasn’t able to connect to another animal deck in the same way... and it was before my tarot collection snowballed into what i have now. C’EST LA VIE ... i don’t have a smith-waite deck. i’m a fake tarot fan. i am however familiarizing myself by following Jessica Dore on twitter and subscribing to her monthly newsletters. i really love how she talks about these cards and how she interprets them.

[thessaliah]

Reading this lostbelt, from Pepe's viewpoint and issues, and how he described the Crypters. It makes me uncomfortable that FGO is trying to validate privilege and trying to cast the victims of the privileged ones (PHH) as "bad" because they tell them to go fuck themselves and flipped the roles. Or are "good" because accept being destroyed (fucking erased) to validate the "better" (privileged) history. It felt like that from the beginning but Pepe's thoughts nailed this sickening feeling.

I was going to do my character meme answers, but so much THIS. I don't think Nasu thought over this pretty well (or he doesn't care because status quo-sticker), or he took so long his work isn't going to age well in the current context people are more aware than ever about this "competition" between humanity which is absolutely abhorrent and unjust. Even when presenting a side as "hopeless" for their growth, that sounds like you're making excuses to trample it for your benefit, like a typical privileged person would ignore those who rot on the sidewalk.

This is the funny thing. The entire situation as you point is like some of those pariahs said no more and decided to take over with the corpses of their oppressors. Panhistory to validate themselves created the Prunning Phenomena and can't take heat from the consequences of their very system generated? The rich side of this is that all those billions who disappeared actually to validate their existence in the first place set this system that originally walked on the corpses of many untold erased timelines. Because resources were limited (sounds familiar?) only a scant number of timelines could be kept. And this very cruel system was wished unconsciously by humanity itself. Nasu even compared what Humanity is doing to itself to what Goetia did in his booklet of Lostroom as if to frame what is the cause. Crypters, Lostbelts, the "God"? Thematically, they are victims and pariahs who got left behind. They aren't the "aggressors" that shot first. There’s a reason why the theme is revenge and payback of those who were down and stood again. Nasu’s not talking about Panhistory or Novum Chaldea.

Of course, is perfectly good and dandy to have Novum Chaldea look for the survival of them and their Panhistory, but it's not sitting well with me to take them as heroes at all, unlike Part 1. In part 1, the enemy had a problem with suffering, but the suffering caused by death and terminus, which was more a natural consequence of being human that could be delayed but is something nobody denies exists and must be accepted. It was a palatable approach of a Solomon who experienced a mortal life and the system Solomon left behind which took an exclusive "god" viewpoint unable to sympathize until he tasted mortality.

Part 2 meanwhile the core of the problem is that injustice and gap between loser and winners, and it seems to push for us to accept it can't be helped, humans are like this when is a dangerous complacent "Let the better ones eat you, pariah" sour aftertaste. It's also very dangerous because while there's no "pruning phenomena" in real life, there is across history the whole silencing the loser and oppressed by the winners, trying to wipe them out for their own glory and benefit. There's no point to wish fight fact or reform. Novum Chaldea being a passive tool to defend the way Panhistory has conducted itself with rare exceptional "no this waifu/this loli/cute animal" moments don't cut it for me to see them as good. It makes me feel dirty. They never made an effort to do anything but react too unless a said article to protect is at stake. It's increasingly hard to associate or sympathize with them over someone like Kirschtaria Wodime, whatever you think of his plan, he is the only one who made an effort to try to change the odds while embracing hope humanity inherent goodness will carry them out for a better future, better order, better results. While Chaldea's weak arguments against him could be summed up in Holmes' cynical view of how humanity won't change and will always be like that and suffer (which is again a reminder of "don't try to do anything, go with the flow" to suppress revolution and reformers). The arguments were so feeble that the one that stopped him isn't Chaldea, but Beryl's betrayal.

I understand fully the extraordinary context and circumstances of what happened, and what was lost, but those people who disappeared, they also wove a system that did the same to others. It's just an unfortunate plot to me. Nobody denies Kirschtaria was willing to accept the loss of Panhistory (even though if he could, he would have saved those people too) out his inability to save them with his limits, but N. Chaldea is perfectly willing to accept the loss of other lives too (although they also feel bad), are they less worthy? And while Kirschtaria’s passively accepted the loss of Panhistory (because none of the Crypters directly had to do with its blanching), Chaldea is actively now doing the Pruning System work in pulling the plug on others. Not just the Lostbelts but to restore Panhistory is accepting the way it works and how many it destroys. Instead of taking a bet to try something new, in the long run, maybe create something better. Both sides demand terrible sacrifices, but only one is coming with a solution to try and fix what is broken. The other side is just putting a band-aid and pretend is fine.  I don't know if Nasu is going to end it in a satisfying way. Because he's not one to overhaul this system and he maintained since FSN: "the seat of happiness are limited" as if was a natural and desirable message.  

On the other hand, he did say that Kirschtaria's ideals are the most perfect even among "all legends of TM" and that his goal was objectively beneficial for humanity. Even one of the game options lets Guda comment that his idea is desirable, but... (doesn't want to forsake Panhistory... although Panhistory ironically has no problem to destroy and wreck other timelines to keep their flawed Consensus -> what isn't discussed, huh).

I think Nasu wanted to make this about survival instead of good vs evil, which was fine up until Kirschtaria came up with an idea of revision/reform the Human Order instead of proposing something based on survival of a lifestyle because he wanted to minimise the suffering. Which Chaldea poorly answered. At heart, by trying to smooth over humanity’s need to compete with each other by closing the gaps of how they started (and even them), wouldn’t that also affect the Pruning system which is based on this fierce competition of what is the best/ideal timeline consensus? Yes, of course, because that system reflects the present humanity mindset of competition to “survive” and divide themselves in winners and losers. In the long run, IMO, that would have been modified too. Kirschtaria doesn’t directly reference to it, but vaguely alludes to an answer humanity failed to reach which is linked to a lot of what’s happening too, including the “God.” Because Chaldea only had arguments for survival (to the point this is acknowledged by Kirschtaria’s description of what is defeat/victory for Chaldea and for Kirschtaria. To Chaldea, Kirschtaria says that their victory is survival, and to be defeated is to die; while Wodime’s defeat is that the Beast manifested and he couldn’t finish his plan). And business continues, as usual, I guess. It leaves a bitter taste when your supposed POV has no agency or drive to make any difference. It is frustrating! 

I know I was harsh with this, and I also appreciate how Guda and Mash still try to help the people who they see in danger in front of them, but is frustrating because at the same time they are doing things to make themselves feel better knowing they are here to wipe them out. Like, you know, giving a starving orphan a candy to make then happy and go behind their back and pull out the resources of the orphanage they’re in to let them starve to use that money to buy yourself food, something like that. Even if you know they really need that money to not starve themselves for the possibility they can rebuild different orphanages, would you still consider characters who do that the same heroes as part 1? Hard to say, right? 

“Far side is darker than Near side”, yes, but I think Nasu went a little too far. Because even if HF was dark, for example, I completely empathised with the difficult choices, while it’s harder now.

[inkweaver22-blr]

Welp. Here's the first chapter of that Tang fic I was talking about. Hopefully the characters aren't too out of character for this first chapter. They will be for sure in the future though. No content warnings yet but if that changes I'll make sure to add them. There's going to be lots of pairings in this one but I don't really know any of the ship names so if people want to call them out as they appear I'll add them to the tags.

AO3 Link

Chapter Two

Scattered Cicadas - Chapter One: The Cycle

Tang seems to be stuck in a strange cycle. Might as well make the most of it.

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

Tang was certain by now that whatever was happening wasn’t a time loop. The starting points of each new cycle were too inconsistent, as were their endings. After nearly three dozen of these strange restarts and only a third of them beginning on the day MK received the Monkey King’s staff, the scholar was fairly confident in his conclusion.

“Alright, let’s see what this timeline has in store for us,” the man said as he stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror next to his dresser. He had started this little exercise around the seventeenth reset or so after noticing something else that only added more evidence against his original time loop theory.

“My name is Tang. I work at the public library.” So far nothing out of the ordinary. “I share an apartment with my good friend Pigsy.” Ah, the first and most common change he had noticed throughout this strange experience. And it was a change. He was fairly certain he had his own place originally. “While I am not in a romantic relationship with Pigsy, I harbor a small crush on him.”

Tang continued listing things about his current life as they came to him. He had discovered the various discrepancies compared to his original time fairly early on. So far the differences had been relatively minor. Demon Bull King being freed in the Winter instead of Spring. Mei’s family being descended from a blue dragon instead of green. Sandy’s ship being filled with therapy ferrets instead of cats.

The scholar was at first thrown by the changes, and had gone through some rather embarrassing freakouts the first few times. Luckily he discovered early on that while he never personally experienced the events of these worlds or timelines, if he focused enough, the memories of them would appear. Thus his new little routine he did at the beginning of a new cycle. He found looking at himself in the mirror seemed to speed up the recollection.

“It has been roughly two weeks since Demon Bull King has been freed and MK received the Monkey King’s glaive, thus becoming his successor.” Now that was interesting. This was the first time the Monkey King’s signature weapon was different.

It was all these changes to the world and the new memories that matched them that had squashed the initial time loop theory. In all his reading of both fiction and historical events, Tang had never heard of time travel that worked this way. His second theory, that he was somehow trapped in the Calabash by Jin and Yin, was also quickly discarded. He had the displeasure of experiencing its effects first hand several cycles back and it certainly did not implant new memories into his head.

Tang finished up the recap of his new memories and paused. Nope, nothing else it seemed. With a shrug he finished preparing for work. Hopefully it would be a slow day so he could get a bit more research done into what might be happening. Perhaps this was a celestial punishment as opposed to a demonic curse? He hoped that wasn’t the case but he wouldn’t be a scholar if he dismissed any avenue of investigation just because he disliked it.

Locking the apartment behind him, Tang made his way to the nearest bus stop with a spring in his step. While the situation was certainly less than ideal, the thought of some thorough research was always something he looked forward to.

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

Tang slowly stirred the noodles in his bowl, his brow furrowed in distraction. One of his favorite reference books for ancient mystical history at the library had been changed. Well, to be more accurate, it was different in this timeline. The author was the same, but the contents were certainly not.

Why had it not ever occurred to the librarian that if the current history around him could change, that ancient history could as well? If that was the case, then how could he trust whatever lead he might find to be actually helpful to his situation? What if the knowledge he needed didn’t exist in the timeline he was currently in? What if it only existed in his original timeline?

With a despondent sigh, Tang continued to swirl around his untouched noodles, his negative thoughts seeming to spiral in the same circular loop.

“Oi! Earth to Tang!”

Tang jumped, almost spilling his bowl as he jerked at Pigsy’s shout. He looked up to see the pig demon across the counter with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

“If you’re going to be a freeloader you might as well appreciate the food I worked hard on,” the chef scolded without any real heat in his tone. “Something eating you?”

“Uh, y-yes I suppose you could say that,” Tang stammered. Pigsy raised an eyebrow and Tang flushed. The lack of confidence he normally projected had certainly been noticed by Pigsy.

“Well spit it out then. Don’t have all night.” Despite the gruffness of his words, Tang could pick out the small bits of concern in the chef’s tone.

“Well, I seem to have hit a stumbling block in one of my research projects,” Tang explained as he pushed his glasses back up and began to relax. While Pigsy always acted angry at Tang for the mooching of noodles, the pig demon, across every timeline so far, never forced the scholar to pay and was always a great listener. “I’ve come across some evidence that many of the historical texts I’m looking into might be presented differently to the events that actually transpired.”

“Isn’t that how most of history is like though?” Pigsy leaned against the counter, his scowl replaced with a puzzled frown. “Didn’t you say something last month about how history books were mostly the writers' biases or something?”

Tang blinked at that. He did somewhat recall the conversation as he focused on it, but hadn’t thought Pigsy had been paying enough attention to his rant at the time.

“Yes I suppose that is true,” the scholar conceded.

“What do you normally do when you come across these changes?”

“I keep looking for a more accurate version of the text or form an educated guess based on all the evidence I gather.”

“Then what’s the problem? If you already know how to solve the issue then there’s no reason dwelling on it. Just keep going until it's fixed,” Pigsy said bluntly.

Tang just stared at the chef for a moment. Was it really just that simple? A smile slowly spread across his face as he realized that, yes, yes it could be. Even if the knowledge in this timeline was different, that didn’t make it useless. Knowledge was power, and who knew what tiny pieces he could find to fit together into a workable solution. Leave it to Pigsy’s pragmatic outlook to cut straight to the problem and efficiently solve it.

“Thanks Pigsy,” Tang said, smiling sincerely.

“Yeah, no problem.” Pigsy waved his hand in dismissal and, was that a blush Tang saw? “Now eat your noodles before they get cold.” The pig demon quickly moved off to help a new customer that had walked in, leaving Tang to his bowl.

As he ate the delicious noodles, Tang watched Pigsy as he worked.

He had always admired his friend, even in his original timeline. What he was unsure of were the romantic feelings he had for the pig. Outside of sharing an apartment together, the relationship status between the pair was the second most common change he experienced. The first time he had woken up in the same bed as Pigsy had resulted in one of his earliest embarrassing freak outs that had resulted in a few hurt feelings for a while.

While Tang could see how these feelings could have blossomed, he couldn’t quite remember if he had felt this way in his original time. He had simply gone with the flow the many times they were romantically involved and if he was honest, they had been some of the most pleasant moments he could remember since this whole timeline jumping mess had started.

He studied the chef as he gracefully moved about his kitchen, chopping vegetables and rolling dough. The pig demon had a gruff exterior, but obviously cared about those around him a lot. He was steady and sensible, always scolding someone for doing something stupid but always there with straightforward advice if asked. He made sure that no one would ever be hungry while he was around and woe be it unto any customer who insulted his family within his earshot.

Pigsy, as if sensing the eyes on him, looked up and met Tang’s gaze. He gave the scholar a brief smile before returning to the broth he had been stirring.

As a warmth filled his chest that didn't have to do with the noodles, Tang made a decision that he was sure Pigsy would have approved of. It didn’t really matter what their relationship was. Platonic or romantic, Tang loved Pigsy for being Pigsy and always would. If these alternate worlds seemed set on making them more than friends, well then who was he to complain.

Drinking the remaining broth in his bowl, Tang grinned as he decided to act on Pigsy’s advice. This version of him had a crush on the chef and he already knew the solution for fixing that.

“Hey Pigsy! You free for a date this Friday?”

His grin grew wider as Pigsy dropped his ladle into the pot of broth and whirled around and began stammering. Behind him, the scholar heard Mei crow in victory and began demanding that MK ‘pay up’.

These strange jumps in time were certainly a less than ideal situation, but Tang decided to not worry too much about them. He knew it was only a matter of time until a solution presented itself. While he waited for that to happen, who would blame him for trying to enjoy himself in the meantime?

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

First chapter done wooo! Now the following chapters won't be in a strict chronological order as Tang jumps around, but some events do come before others. As for what's going on... You'll just have to wait and see~ See you in chapter two!

[onecanonlife]

careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 5,482

Chapter Warnings: swearing, blood, referenced (temporary) character death

Chapter Summary: In which Wilbur overhears a conversation that is not quite meant for him, and then they all set out to pick up Technoblade. It’s not the worst road trip in the world, but it’s not exactly the best, either.

(masterlist w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Thirteen: wipe the dirt off of your hands (i)

They settle on two hours as a timeline. Two hours before they leave: he, Phil, Tommy, and Tubbo, the four of them off to the tundra. He’s left the rest of them to decide whether they want to stay in the castle or be among those braving the rest of the server in order to warn the others, to bring anyone who wants to come back with them to their base of operations. Safe and sound, or as much as anyone can be, now.

Two hours. It feels like too long. Dream could be doing anything with that time. The Egg could be doing anything with that time. He feels restless, irritated at the wait, even though he knows it makes sense, knows that pushing everyone too hard too soon will do more harm than good, that two hours, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t very long.

(but isn’t it, though? two hours can change the tide of a battle, can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death, a surrender and a victory)

He finds himself pacing the hallways of the castle.

It’s in greater disrepair than he expected. Almost every room he walks into is coated in dust. No one has stayed here in—months, probably. No one other than Eret, perhaps, and he said he’d been away. It puts him in a strange mood; he remembers this place when it was new, when it was lived in, spilling over with light and movement, and he hated it then, of course, hated what it stood for, what it represented, but it made others happy. Niki, for one; she always liked Eret, despite his efforts to persuade her otherwise. Fundy,

(and the memory is fuzzy, indistinct, because Ghostbur did not want to remember this, did not want to confront his own inadequacy, but Fundy stands in front of him with papers clutched in his hand and he’s saying something about adoption and all that he feels is crushing abandonment, crushing guilt, and it is wiped away in the blue only a moment later but for that moment, he is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he has failed his son, failed him badly enough that he would run to the arms of a traitor, and the word adoption drips like sodden soil, drips like words that die useless on his tongue)

because he always liked Eret too, even though he was there that day, even though he lost a life to his machinations, his betrayal, even though he should have known better. He’s pretty sure he remembers HBomb staying here as well, though he never knew the man well enough to pay attention. But now there is no one, and the castle is empty, and every step he takes feels haunted by ghosts of people that still live.

The castle is a relic. Perhaps he is one, too. A relic of an older time. This server has moved on, has changed so much, and he plays at being the general again, puts on the general’s mask as it is needed, but he doesn’t know if that’s right, if it makes any difference at all, if the general can find his footing in an altered world. How useful is a general that doesn’t know the lay of the land?

(how useful is a general who has not won the war within himself?)

(the part of you that could lead broke a long time ago and you know it and it was not the ravine that did it you were broken before then broken under the weight of a position you did not know how to handle and your shining city stood for freedom stood for those you wanted to protect but it became harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning and you crumpled crumpled like wet paper like the documents that signed your emancipation and meant nothing at all in the end because the ideals fell apart long before you set the final nail in the coffin you built for yourself)

Two hours. Less than that, by now, surely. If Phil were to see him, he’d tell him to rest. Perhaps that’s part of why he’s doing this. Wandering alone. Because if Phil were to see him, he’d tell him to rest,

(hypocrite that he is, because Wilbur knows that Phil is not resting, knows that he’s situated himself at the castle’s highest turret, eyes cast to the distance, shoulders tense and posture still, waiting, a live wire)

but he cannot, cannot dispel the energy that buzzes through him, even though his mind is fogged with exhaustion. He cannot rest, and not least because he doesn’t know what kind of dreams would greet him, what would rise out of the darkness now that he knows precisely what lurks within it.

So he walks. Walks, and walks, and tries not to count the minutes as they pass, walks several laps through the castle’s corridors before the sound of voices breaks him out of his fugue.

“—talking about?” someone says, and it’s Tommy. He slows to a stop outside of a closed door, identical to all the rest but for the fact that there is someone inside.

“I mean it,” comes the reply. Tubbo. His voice is muffled by the barrier between them, but Wilbur can understand him perfectly. And for a moment, he considers moving onward. Whatever they’re discussing, they don’t need him listening in on it.

Instead, he inches closer, and leans against the wall just outside the door. The stone is hard against his back, unforgiving, cold.

“I can do the most good here,” Tubbo continues. “You all don’t need me to come with you to get Technoblade. That’s—Tommy, this is serious, you know?”

“I fucking know,” Tommy snaps. “I don’t see why that means you’ve got to stay behind.”

“Because I can actually help here,” Tubbo replies, his voice rising slightly. “Tommy—listen, Tommy, I know about these kinds of things. Not enough, but some, and I can help. I can try to keep it out. I can put enchantments all over the place and stuff like that, try to make sure it can’t get to us. Try and make it a safe place. That’s something we need right now.” He pauses. “Take Ranboo with you instead, yeah? He lives up there, he’s close with Techno, he should go.”

“I don’t want to leave you here,” Tommy says.

Wilbur closes his eyes. There is more emotion in his voice than this situation alone would warrant, he thinks. More history. More history that he, perhaps, is not privy to. That he hasn’t asked about, that he didn’t want to ask about, because he didn’t want to prod at wounds that have not yet closed. He regrets it, now. Perhaps then he would have context for the crack in Tommy’s voice.

“I know,” Tubbo says, his voice soft. “But you’ve got to. We’ve got to do what we’ve go to do now, big man. You and Wil go get Techno and look at Phil’s books. I’ll be here when you get back.”

He expects strong words from Tommy at that. But instead there is silence. Wilbur strains to hear, leans in closer, but there is nothing.

“This isn’t like then,” Tubbo says after a moment. “We’re both safe. Wilbur won’t let anything happen to you. And nobody here’s gonna let anything happen to me. I’ve got Eret, and Sapnap, and Puffy.”

“Oh, well, if Eret’s here,” Tommy mutters, and Wilbur jerks. Tommy’s voice is choked, wet, and for a second, his instinct is to open the door, to step inside and offer what comfort he can, but his feet feel glued to the floor.

(this is not for you not for you to heal these hurts when the root of the hurt is of you this is them their moment and you are on the outside looking in a trespasser and if you move anywhere it must be to go)

“I thought you forgave Eret,” Tubbo says.

“I do,” Tommy replies. “This is—this isn’t about that, and you know it, I just—”

“I know,” Tubbo says, “I do, I know.”

There is silence after that. A rustle of clothing. And then a few muffled noises. Wilbur knows all too well what it sounds like, someone crying into someone else, allowing themself a moment of grief, of terror, of unbridled emotion. He should leave. Leave them to it. Leave them to this. It’s the least he can do; this is his fault, his fault that they’re involved in this, his fault that they’ve been dragged into conflict once again, his fault that anything terrible happened to them at all. His fault they’re not all still at home, on a server far away, in the house that he and Tommy grew up in and that Tubbo may as well have.

(you took them with you and made soldiers out of them, soldiers out of children. you took them with you and set the weight of the world on their shoulders, and the way their eyes dimmed is because of you. the burn scars on Tubbo’s face, the tremble in Tommy’s fingers that he tries fruitlessly to hide, this is all because of you. you took children and gave them grownups’ clothes and grownups’ weapons and guided their hands to pierce the heart, guided their hands with your own and claimed the blood for yours though it did not change the way their hands were painted, and then you abandoned them, abandoned them to yourself and then, at the last, fully, abandoned them in every way possible, abandoned them to the wolves and the ruins and you should have known better, should have known that even if the land was not important to you it was important to these children, these children you sent to hell with songs on their lips)

(but then, there is this also: they would not have had it any other way. they looked at you with stars in their eyes, and perhaps they were blinded by the fire of you, but they loved you. they loved you then, and they love you still. and they will follow you yet despite it all despite what you have done they will follow you and their eyes are open to what you are and they still follow and it must be for love little though you deserve it it must be for love because love is not about deserving)

He breathes. Puts his back to the wall, and then slides down. Sits. Listens to Tommy cry. Presses his eyes shut, and then presses the palms of his hands to his eyes until spots of color flicker on the back of his eyelids.

He stays there for a long time before lurching to his feet once again.

----------

“I didn’t miss this,” Tommy mutters, rubbing his arms, glaring balefully at Phil as if he controls the weather.

Phil offers a short laugh. Out of all of them, he’s the only one really dressed for the climate; Eret offered them all heavier coats before they left, but there’s heavier coats and then there’s coats meant for a blizzard, and these are not the latter.

“We’ve got some better stuff once we get to the house,” Phil says. “I’ll make us some hot drinks, too.”

“I don’t want your stupid tea,” Tommy says, but he seems mollified.

“I’ll take some tea,” Ranboo says immediately afterward, and Wilbur is having to slowly revise his opinion of this kid. Anxious as all hell, sure. A bit of a pushover, definitely. But he’s got a streak of hardness in him, though he tends to back down upon being challenged. Like right now: Tommy directs his glare toward him, and he apologizes immediately. But he’s a bit of an enigma, this Ranboo. Hidden depths. And Ghostbur liked him, which doesn’t always count for anything, but in this case, he thinks it might.

“Everyone who wants some tea can have some tea,” Phil says, another laugh in his voice. He looks a bit better than he did earlier, though his smile seems strained, his movements rushed, obviously anticipating their arrival at their destination. His wings are hidden again, disguised underneath a thick cloak, and Wilbur hates it all the more, if that’s possible, now that he understands exactly why. He remembers Phil telling him, once, that he disliked keeping his wings under his clothes, that it was uncomfortable, itchy, cramped. And now Phil does it as if it is second nature.

“I wouldn’t mind some tea,” he says softly, and glances away when Phil looks at him.

“Of course, Wil,” Phil says, matching his tone, and then they pass out from under the trees, and Technoblade’s quaint little cottage comes into view.

The windows are dark. No smoke rises from the chimney. It’s a far cry from the last time he saw it, when it seemed to him a bastion against the pervasive chill outside, warm and welcoming, no matter his trepidation about who waited within.

“Well, that’s ominous,” Tommy says, and Wilbur winces.

“Maybe he’s sleeping?” Ranboo tries. “I’ve never lost a life here, but, um, y’know, I used to live on Hypixel. Did some of the arena stuff, respawned a few times. It always made me tired.”

“That’s probably it,” Phil agrees, but his eyes are pinched, and Wilbur can tell that he’s worried. It is an easy thing to read, Phil’s worry. Easy to read, for how common it is. He strains to remember whether this stress he carries with him was nearly as prevalent when they were kids, and he comes up empty.

“Well, let’s go wake him up, then,” Tommy declares, and strides forward with determination, still talking. “I fucking hate this place, it’s such a stupid little house—” Ranboo follows after him, but Wilbur grabs Phil by the arm, delaying him for a second even as he tracks the kids’ progress ahead of them, like they’ll fall into some misfortune if he looks away for a moment.

“You’re worried,” he says.

“Respawn can be tough,” Phil says. “I need to lay eyes on him for myself.”

He knows, of course, what Phil is talking about. He remembers the sensation all too well. Remembers the pain

(in his throat as Punz slashed it, his lifeblood spilling out on his hands as he clutched the wound, his voice silenced, silenced as he tried to breathe but choked on thick copper and it took him a full minute to bleed out on the floor, every second edged with desperate, consuming fear)

(in his back as Punz’s shot sailed true, hit his heart, his vision darkening around the edges as terror flooded him, terror not just for him but for Tommy, for Tommy, his little brother who he never intended to bring down with him)

of dying, and then the void, but not the true void, not the void he remembers all too well,

(not the void that cradled him even as it ate away at all he was)

but a transition, a place both within life and out of it, and a howling second-minute-hour in which he could feel nothing at all. And then, slamming back into consciousness, every nerve burning with the phantom agony of disembodiment, of every cell destroyed and then forced back together, made anew,

(but there was no time to rest no time to work through it because they needed to go needed to run)

gasping back to the living world shaking and barely cognizant.

Respawn can be tough. Is tough. He knows that Techno has experienced it before, if rarely, but that was on different worlds, worlds that do not limit a person’s lives. He has not lost one here. Has not lost one that counted so dearly.

But there is nothing to do now but walk forward.

The house is cold, the fire unlit. Tommy has sobered, and his arms are crossed, almost hugging himself. Ranboo shifts uneasily, gaze flickering around the ground floor, the unlit furnaces, the chests stacked against each other, the windows slanting thin light into the room. Wilbur catches Phil’s eye, and Phil sighs.

“Up here,” he says, and starts up the ladder. He waits a beat before following, something in him oddly reluctant.

He didn’t venture up here, when he visited—how long ago? Not more than two weeks.

(two weeks breathing, two weeks living, and it feels like so, so much longer)

He’s not sure what he was expecting from Techno’s room, but it was probably something like this: chests shoved against the wall, a bell out on display, an emerald block for good measure, bookshelves in every available space. It is very Techno, sparse and yet not, filled with only the things he cares deeply about, cramped but lived-in. But the bed is empty, and it takes a moment for Wilbur to spot where Techno is. When he does, his heart leaps into his throat.

Techno is sitting against the wall, and on first glance, he looks fine. But only on a first glance, because a second tells Wilbur that his breathing is labored, his eyes screwed tightly shut, sweat beading his forehead. His fists are clenched, and fine tremors run through his body, a constant shuddering that must be exhausting.

There is a new scar on his neck. Thick and white.

Ranboo makes a sound, a startled warble. Tommy inhales sharply, and is silent.

Wilbur feels frozen where he stands.

Respawn can be tough. But somehow, this feels like something else.

(his brother is supposed to be invincible unstoppable impervious to pain he is not supposed to be hurt he is not supposed to be hurt and he doesn’t know what to do for something of this magnitude because he knows how to help when the voices get to loud when his voices drown out everything else and give him migraines but this is not that this is deeper than that worse than that)

Phil steps forward, robes swishing as he kneels by Techno’s side. His hands hover, but he does not touch. Wilbur wants to join him, wants to help, but he still can’t make himself move. He’s not sure why this sight has frozen him so; perhaps it’s because he wasn’t prepared for it, even with all his knowledge of the possibilities, even being well aware that no one comes out of losing a life unscathed, ready to jump back into battle, not even Technoblade.

Perhaps there really isn’t anything that can prepare him to see his brother in pain. Even now.

(and the general is useless here, because this is family)

“Hey,” Phil says quietly. “Techno? You awake?”

To his surprise, Techno stirs. Shifts just a bit in place, wincing, and then his eyes crack open. They are dazed, glazed over, the usually piercing red dull and clouded and—

Gold. There is gold in his eyes, too, flickering, flashing, and every time Wilbur catches a glimpse of it, Techno jerks, a convulsion just barely distinguishable from the rest of his shaking. It is a shimmering gold, the same color as the burst of light that hailed his resurrection, that hailed his renewal, that hailed Technoblade never dies, the burst of energy that vibrated in his bones and sent heat skidding across his skin. The light of the totem is in Techno’s eyes, somehow, and it—

It is hurting him.

“Shit,” Phil mutters. “I was worried about this. Techno, can you hear me?”

Techno swallows, his throat bobbing, and Wilbur’s eyes are drawn

(Dream’s axe in his throat and the blood spurts hot and red and he only has a moment to stare at the gaping wound before the sentence comes down and his brother is)

to the scar again. Almost imperceptibly, Techno nods.

“Okay,” Phil says, and his hands finally land, one on Techno’s shoulder and one on his hand, and Techno immediately grasps his fingers in a death grip. Phil winces, but makes no protest. “Okay, you’re gonna be okay, Techno. Not much to do but wait it out, but I can get you some pots that should help. Would that be okay?”

Technoblade huffs, and then nods. Again, just slightly. His eyes flicker around the room, half-lidded, and Wilbur’s not even sure that he’s aware they’re all there, except then, his gaze lands on Tommy and stays there. Tommy flinches, face paling, and he edges back toward the ladder, hands clenching and unclenching, like he thinks that Techno is going to leap up and attack him, somehow, in this state.

(but that’s not it at all—this is the attack, seeing him in this way, seeing him weakened, seeing the result of the action he took, because Wilbur knows himself and he knows Tommy, and he knows that for all his efforts, Tommy takes after him in some ways. Tommy internalizes a lot. internalizes blame, takes responsibility for things outside of his control, things with vast, terrible consequences, even as he avoids responsibility for minor faults, things that no one takes much issue with in the first place. he’s strange like that, Tommy, but he knows all too well that Tommy watched Technoblade die in front of him, for him, and decided immediately that it was his fault. he would have done the same thing. has been doing the same thing)

(Dream’s voice, smooth and confident and hated: how many people are gonna have to sacrifice themselves for you before you learn?)

(the answer: at least one more, always one more, but somebody needs to get it through Tommy’s skull that he is worth it, worth a sacrifice, worth everything that people are willing to give him and more. someone needs to tell him, because he doesn’t think he knows)

Technoblade grunts something, short and clipped, and it takes him a second to realize he’s speaking in Piglin. Not for the first time, he regrets his barely rudimentary knowledge of the language. But Phil understands, and something that is just slightly too pained to be a real smile passes across his face. He answers in kind, and Technoblade relaxes marginally. He sighs, eyes falling shut, and he tips forward a bit, resting his head against Phil’s chest. Phil begins carding a hand through his hair, the motion seemingly automatic.

“Any of you have a weakness pot on you?” Phil asks, switching to the common tongue. “Healing and regen will do more harm than good for him right now. Best thing for him to do is sleep through it.”

He certainly doesn’t. Tommy shakes his head mutely. But Ranboo raises a tentative hand.

“I don’t have any on me, but I might have one at my house?” he offers. “I can go see.”

Phil nods. “Thank you, Ranboo,” he says, and Ranboo nods back, climbing down the ladder, casting once last glance at Techno before he goes. The front door opens and shuts a moment later, and the four of them are alone.

“What’s wrong with him, then?” Tommy asks, after a pregnant silence. “I mean. Respawn fucking sucks. But why is he like this?”

He’s trying too hard not to sound concerned. No one in this room is going to fall for it, except maybe Techno, who seems too out of it to be listening at all, really. But Phil doesn’t call him on it, just grimaces.

“I’ve seen it a few times before,” he says lowly. “Various wars I’ve been in. People could use a totem and then die again in their next breath, if they were unlucky. Respawning from that is always difficult, because the magic from the totem doesn’t have time to work its way out of your system, and it’s not the kind of thing that a respawn wipes away. It’s the opposite, actually. So he’s still got that shit raging through him, except now there’s nothing for it to do, so it’s stuck there until it dissipates. And it’s not—it’s not pleasant, from what I’ve seen. That shit’s potent. Not good to have it in you for too long.”

“And there’s nothing we can do about it?” he checks.

“Short of killing him again? No,” Phil says. “Even that might not work. It’s been a few hours, so he should be coming out of the worst of it pretty soon. But until then, he just needs to rest.”

“C’n hear you,” Techno mumbles suddenly. He shifts so that his face is half-visible, and Wilbur’s not sure he remembers the last time he saw his brother look so vulnerable.

(on a stage in front of a crowd, perhaps, perhaps, peer pressure that he knew Techno would be unable to withstand, an impossible situation laid out before him, to blow his cover or not, to blow his cover and ensure the death of he and Tubbo alike, perhaps, perhaps, and which is better, to pull the trigger and save yourself or refuse and damn you both? but Techno made his choice, and he can only imagine what his face was doing, because a mask covered his expression that day, as it did so many of those days, a barrier between him and his brother. a barrier between the man he became, dark and shadowed and laying out plot threads like he thought himself one of the Fates, a man with the power to chose his own archetype, a barrier between that man and the man he strung along in his wake, cold, impersonal, intimidating, distant, and nothing like what he should have been. what they should have been, together)

It is hard to imagine that this man prides himself on being undefeated. Hard to imagine that only hours ago

(and it feels like days, like weeks, like a month)

this man was gleefully engaging Dream in combat, was winning before Dream decided to play dirty, before he dragged Tommy into it, before he took advantage of what he must have known Technoblade would do if Tommy was threatened, if his final life hung in the balance. Because for all his feelings of betrayal, for all his insistence that he’s done, finished with them, finished with trying, finished with involving himself in their troubles when he gets nothing in return, for all of that—

For all of that, Technoblade still cares for them. He knows that. And Technoblade is loyal to those he loves. Despite it all.

(and it is a bitter pill to swallow, after everything, but if Techno did not want to stand by their sides, he would not have come, whether Phil asked it of him or not. but he did. he did, and this is the price, the consequence)

“Yeah? Then can you hear me calling you a bitch?” Tommy says, and absolutely none of his usual bravado makes it into his voice.

Techno huffs, and if he’s going to say anything, it gets interrupted by the door down below opening and closing again, and then the ladder creaking as Ranboo climbs up.

“Weakness potion,” he says, holding it out, and Phil accepts it, handling it where Techno can see it.

“Taking this ought to help, Tech,” he murmurs. “I know it’s not your first choice, but there’s no point in you being awake while your body sorts this shit out.”

Techno flicks his fingers, a gesture that might loosely be interpreted as meaning go ahead, and then he sags, as if even doing that much has taken up all the energy he has left. But Phil takes it as an affirmative, and he guides the flask up to Techno’s lips, and Wilbur looks away as he prods Techno into swallowing its contents. It feels strangely intimate, uncomfortable, like he’s intruding on something private. Which should be a ridiculous thought; this is his father and his brother, and perhaps he’s never seen Techno hurt as bad as this, but he’s seen him hurt, and Phil has taken care of all of them like this at one point or another.

(but you see this and you cannot help but project and perhaps the intimacy discomfits you because it is not for you because you cannot help but imagine it for yourself and come to the conclusion that you do not deserve it would not deserve it if your positions were reversed)

(or perhaps you see this, and you see yourself standing there, doing nothing, not even speaking a word, and you just feel useless)

“He’s out,” Phil says, only a beat later. “He should be better by tomorrow, maybe even tonight if we’re lucky. These things just need to run their course.” He smooths a bit of hair back from Techno’s face, which is more peaceful now, slack in sleep, only a vague tightness to hint at disquiet.

“Um, well that’s good,” Ranboo says. “What do we do until then?”

“What we came here to do,” Phil says, and gets to his feet, lifting Technoblade in his arms in the same motion. It looks a bit awkward; Techno has more than a foot on Phil, but Phil carries him to his bed with apparent ease. “We came here for information, so that’s what we’ll try to find.” He pauses, frowning. “I don’t like leaving him alone in this state, but he should be alright, and we’ll be—”

“I’ll stay with him,” Tommy says.

Wilbur blinks. Tommy scowls. He looks a bit surprised, almost, like he didn’t expect the words to come out of his mouth. But when faced with the attention of the entire room, he doubles down on it.

“Look, someone should make sure he doesn’t keel over again in his sleep, right?” he says. “Not that I care, but it’d be—it’d be downright inconvenient, now, wouldn’t it? So someone oughta stay, and if we’re gonna be looking at, at books and shit, well, that’s not really my thing. Could be, if I wanted to! But y’know, it’s boring, and I have better things to do quite often. Like, like women and shit. So, maybe if you want to be doing research, I’m not—ugh, maybe I’m not the best man to help with that. So I can stay here with him.”

Phil cocks his head, apparently bemused. “I suppose?” he says. “But, Tommy, are you sure—”

“Oh Prime, yes,” Tommy says, and flaps a hand at all of them. “I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t sure, would I? So go and, go and look through all your stupid old man books, and I’ll stay here. Look, he’s even got a seat for me already.” He stalks across the room and throws himself down on the emerald block, pulling his legs up to sit criss-cross. “It’s like it was made for me. An e-mer-ald throne. Go on. Shoo. Fuck right off.”

His cheeks are a bit flushed. Embarrassment, no doubt, at being caught caring about Technoblade, because that’s what this is, deep down. But he’s fidgeting, too, like he’s nervous, though nervous about what, Wilbur isn’t sure. Nervous about being alone in a room with Techno? Maybe, except Techno is out like a light. Nervous about the rest of them confronting him on it? Also maybe, and Phil looks confused enough to push him on it, so Wilbur decides to step in.

“Good of you to volunteer, Tommy,” he says. “Come get us if he starts making odd sounds or something, I suppose.”

Tommy pulls a face. “Odd sounds,” he repeats dubiously. “That right there, I don’t appreciate the way you said that.”

“Ookay,” Phil says. “Right, then. Come get us if you need us, Tommy. Wil, Ranboo, I’ll show you where we’re going.”

Wilbur follows Phil back down the ladder. But not before looking at the scene one last time. Techno in bed, dead to the world. Tommy perched on an emerald block, staring at their brother with intensity, something dark and inscrutable flashing in his eyes. Wilbur wonders at the wisdom of leaving Tommy alone here. There is bad blood between them. Bad blood, despite what Techno just did. And it hurts a bit, having to consider things like this, having to consider the likelihood of his brothers trying to murder each other if they’re left alone together,

(and it is partially his fault, he knows, one more thing to add to the list, the pit looming large in his memories)

but there’s nothing for it now. If he brings his concerns up, Tommy will just buckle down further, his pride rearing up. So Wilbur follows Phil and Ranboo down the ladder, and tries to think positively.

It’s difficult. He’s out of practice at it.

“Alright,” Phil says, and once again, Wilbur is struck by how old he looks, how worn down. “Suppose I’ll show you two the stronghold, then.”

A beat passes.

“The what—”

[s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r]

The people have spoken! I’m going to show you how I do my

ADJUSTMENT LAYERS

Curves are awesome but we’re not using them today

I’m obsessed with Vibrance layers right now and I figured out that using them in a specific way actually brings up darkness in super dark things like Mr. Robot!

You may already know you can have multiple sharpening layers but maybe you didn’t know that you can alter their opacity?

Color balance isn’t always ideal but it’s great when the footage is already well-lit (like with the footage we’re starting with)

The best thing this method does is that it will make the light and colors in your gifs POP.

Full disclosure: this is best viewed on a desktop—it almost made my phone’s Tumblr app crash. Lots of media under the cut!

Disclaimer: I use this method of making gifs and you will need a passing understanding of Photoshop and adjustment layers, which I did attempt to describe how to use. Not going to describe it here, but click the link above or DM me with questions.

Here’s what it looks like already resized from 1080p video down to Tumblr width of 540px. A bit dim, no clarity.

An image like this deserves to pop! So! We’re going to make heavy use of Vibrance adjustment layers. 

Basically:

1. Create a new Vibrance layer and bump the “vibrance” slider all the way up. Then change the blend mode to Color Dodge. Chances are good 100% Fill is way, way too much—but take it all the way down to 0% and then bring the slider up until the highlights begin to jump out. 28% worked here.

2. Make a Copy of that Vibrance layer! (Drag the layer down to the little + in a box button at the bottom right of the layers.) Then change the Blend Mode to Screen and move the fill percentage around until you’re happy (40% in this case). 

This is my new TRICK and it does amazing things to brighten up dark footage. It’s great because it is less likely to create mottled color noise.

3. Make a Copy of THAT Vibrance layer and keep the blending mode on Screen! I did this by accident once and realized it does such a nice job of building on the subtle brightening the previous layer did. In this particular gif, I took the fill percentage way down to 8% and the change is almost negligible so I’m not including a screenshot.

4. MAKE YET ANOTHER COPY of the Vibrance layer! But instead of going brighter, we’re now going to bring back the blacks. Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Then bring the Fill way down and slide it back up until you’re happy that the darkest tones in your image look substantial. In this case, it was 10%. With the Color Burn Vibrance layer, a little bit goes a long, long way.

5. Finally, create a new Color Balance adjustment layer and fiddle as needed. In this case, I kept the adjustments from a previous section of the video that was very red—so I worked to dial back those reds by incorporating more cyans/blues without letting it go too green. 

I only adjusted the Shadows and Midtones here, not the Highlights (because that’s where his skin tone, in this lighting, needs to remain the most natural—remember to respect and work WITH people’s skin tones, never work to “correct” them!).

The difference is subtle and I’m not sure it makes it better but it certainly makes the colors more... separate.

That’s it for adjustment layers! Here’s what it looks like as you turn on each layer. I’ll show you my sharpening method after this!

Sharpening

So I’m using three sharpening layers (technically not layers, but smart filters) these days. It can take longer for the computer to render it, but I’m loving the results.

As long as whatever is in the timeline is currently a Smart Image, then you can turn them on and off and change their opacity and this is a powerful way to make sure things are both smooth and not over-sharpened!

Here are the specs for each of the sharpening layers in the order that I usually turn them on:

Sharpen.

Smart sharpen. [Amount: 500px, Radius: 0.3, Reduce Noise: 20%, Remove: Gaussian Blur]

Smart sharpen. [Amount: 10, Radius: 10.0, Reduce Noise: 4%, Remove: Gaussian Blur]

But here’s the deal: those will over-sharpen and no matter how you move the sliders, you’ll find there’s nothing you can do. SO! You just tone down the overall effect by clicking on the icon to the right of the sharpening layer:

And then you can change the blending mode and opacity of each sharpening layer. I keep all of the Blending Modes on Normal, then change the opacity:

Sharpen. [Opacity: 64%]

Smart Sharpen. [Opacity: 100%]

Smart Sharpen. [Opacity: 100%]

It’s possible you’ll move these opacity sliders all over to make this look good! Always depends on how much of the image your subject is taking up and how good the quality of the original footage is.

And then of course, here’s the final product!

And...

If you want an example of what this Vibrance layer method can do for dark Mr. Robot footage, check this out:

Hope that gets the gears turning for y’all. I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys do, and if you have any cool adjustment layer ideas that come about as a result of these, please share! I love seeing new, experimental ideas!

cc: @ilygwilym​ and @xmxisxforxmaybe​ who said they’d be interested in this 😀

[creepy-crowleys]

🍁 + how did Crowley become involved with the Buzzing and what, exactly, is the nature of their relationship? What powers does she wield?

They came to her rather than the other way around.

The Buzzing are, more or less, responsible for the observation and maintenance of the world on the behalf of their 'queen' and Creator deity: currently Gaia, but seemingly others before her and, ideally, more after. Part of their duties involve enacting emergency protocols when the world seems to be progressing to an ending - several of their number disperse to locate and bond with human hosts, modifying them physically and metaphysically to be able to stave off the end and imparting some of their collective knowledge along the way. Crowley was inducted into this role without any prior knowledge, as were many of the others chosen as Agents.

She (and I) currently suspect that the chosen hosts are intended to serve as a new generation of angels under Gaia's successor going into and after the inevitable end of this world. The Buzzing (and the game) have not outright confirmed this to be the case, but some of what they have said is concerning.

Crowley's not thrilled about the possibility.

The Buzzing generally act as a built-in support system. They generate the lion's share of the magic Crowley has at her disposal, are responsible for her regenerative abilities and functional immorality, and pass along the various information they have access to - the lore pages I have collected here, for example, and a partial awareness of the game's HUD. They also excel at languages and pattern recognition, though forcing understanding can become damaging to the host.

Hosts are also awarded with a proficiency with the raw magic that makes up the world that can outpace even supernatural creatures and rarely occurs in humans at all, while also receiving an inoculation against the antithesis of this magic and the entities that produce it.

Additionally they are granted passage to and through Agartha and Yggdrasil, where the Buzzing seem to nest, to conceivably anywhere or when on Earth. They can allow entry to others as they like, but Agents are guaranteed access through their link.

Once bonded, the attached bee seems to be almost impossible to remove. Attempts at surgically locating or removing it, even to the point of organ harvesting, have all failed - it no longer physically exists. There is a canon instance of someone managing to kill their own bonded bee, but it involved a decades long process to figure out and perform, and was still less effective than desired. (Also it hasn’t happened yet in Crowley’s timeline. Maybe next year.)

Crowley doesn’t know how much influence the Buzzing have over her mind and body, and it terrifies her not knowing how much of herself is real and how much she stands to lose as her condition progresses. Free will is defined as a human trait - if she isn’t human anymore, then what...?

All that to say she does get along with the Buzzing for the most part. She gets frustrated and snippy with them from time to time - little rebellions in the face of something vast and ancient - but she doesn’t altogether mind their company, and the work they’re doing together is still important.

Crowley’s all-around stronger, faster, and sturdier than the average human, and her magic is potent and flexible enough to feasibly adapt to any school, style, or focus - allowing that a focus here applies equally to guns, baseball bats, boxing gloves and little figurines cobbled together out of junk - with Crowley favoring earth magic, pistols, and maces/hammers personally. The main drawbacks for her are that she excels at heavy, damaging magic, and her healing abilities are lousy in comparison. She understands the theory behind healing magic and knows how, it just refuses to click with how her magic wants to work. Healing-wise she amounts to a first-aid kit. She tries.

[embarrassingresultofmyfreetime]

2020 Masterlist

Here’s a list of all the fics I’ve posted this year! (Listed by category, then chronologically:)

Link to my ao3 where you can read all of these: embarrassingresultofmyfreetime

~

Currents wips:

And They Were Quarantine Mates

An old disease has resurfaced on Earth- one which most humans recover from but is permanently lethal to Time Lords.

Because of this, the Doctor stays on Earth to make sure her humans make it through okay.

And because of the Doctor, the Master- against his better judgement- also chooses to stay.

Reluctant to leave the safety of the Doctor's Tardis, the Doctor and the Master find plenty of ways to pass the time but it can be difficult to enjoy each other's company with so many things left unsaid.

Good thing they have plenty of time in isolation to work it out.

Word Count: Currently 88,172

-

Spyfall: Battle For Humanity

This is a little number I like to call: Roleswap AU with Dhawan!Doctor and Whittaker!Master

It's sort of a rewrite of Spyfall p2 but it's better.

Word Count: Currently 5,688 (will be about 12k when finished)

~~~

-

Main fics (completed):

Please Tell Me Why Do We Worry

Summary: After learning about the final loss of Gallifrey, the Doctor takes some time to grieve and finds herself with surprisingly mixed feelings about the whole ordeal.

To her surprise, a knock at her Tardis door soon reveals the Master not only alive, but in uncontrollable mental agony as he reveals that the Doctor's suffering has been amplifying his own emotions via their telepathic bond.

Note: (After so many kind and positive comments on this fic, I finally gained the confidence to start posting more! A huge thank you to so many people it means so, so much to me!)

Word Count: 5,068

-

Second Chances

When Graham finds a teleportation cube offering an all-expenses-paid vacation, he, Ryan, and Yaz take up the offer and give the seemingly-distant Doctor some time to herself.

After the events of Skyfall 1&2, the trust between the trio and a certain timelord is shaken. However, when their vacation quickly becomes a nightmare, it's up to the Doctor to bring about peace on an upsettingly familiar planet.

Note: (A rewrite/fix it of S11 episode Orphan 55)

Word Count: 7,130

-

All’s Fair In Love And War

Having escaped alive and alone, the Master dwells on his failure and uncertainty at what to do next.

Purely by accident, he runs into a version of the Doctor he's never met before and she gives him a much needed perspective on their relationship.

Word Count: 4,653

-

Truth and Reconciliation

“I... I destroyed a lot of things, but not this... trove of secrets. This is what started it all.”

Missing Scene where the Master goes to Gallifrey and discovers the truth of the timeless child for the first time + alternate ending to The Timeless Children episode

Word Count: 7,563

-

The Doctor Finally Gets Some Rest

(Ch2 update Missy pov)

The Doctor promised to guard Missy for 1000 years, but Missy doesn't mind returning the favor.

Word Count: 5,671

-

I Wouldn’t Wish It On My Best Enemy

"Just deserts appeared to finally be served for the Doctor. All her running had come to an end, all the lives she's taken or caused had finally been assigned a numerical value, and all the morals she had once believed in seemed to crumble to dust right before her eyes.

A life sentence.

She had JUST BEEN TOLD she would never die, and the first thing the universe does is give her a life sentence.

What kind of cruel joke is that?"

Basically: The Doctor reflects on herself while in prison, the Master rescues the Doctor and actually helps her, and idk read the tags

Word Count: 4,629

-

Brand New Reality

In an alternate timeline: The Master is killed in the Time War but the Doctor finds a way to salvage his oldest friend's mind by binding it to his Tardis and building him an android vessel as a way to interact with the physical world.

The Doctor also manages to save the Time Lords from their war- but he is still a renegade in their eyes. As punishment, the High Council uses the Doctor- and by extension the Master- as their personal diplomats/field agents.

The Master isn't too happy about being trapped on the Doctor's Tardis, the Doctor is fed up with being the equivalent of a dog on a leash to the Time Lords, so in a moment of anger and also pure luck- they break out from their world and end up on a parallel one with a very different version of their universe and very different versions of themselves.

(Shalka!Universe Doctor and Master meet their modern counterparts- the Thirteenth Doctor and Dhawan!Master)

Word Count: 10,148

-

The Imposter(s) Among Us

The Doctor has been searching the universe for the Master, but it's only when she takes a break to help a damaged space vessel that she runs directly into him!

The Doctor has a hundred and one things to ask him, but there's no time for any of that now. The ship is barely functional and if the mysterious murderer doesn't get to the Doctor first, then the trigger-happy crewmates might throw her out the airlock before the killer gets a chance.

Word Count: 12,655

-

My Dear, Doctor…

The Doctor investigates an anomaly to find that her previous self has stood up their oldest friend for the umpteenth time.

Confused as to why the Doctor can't recall ever receiving Missy's invitation in the first place, the Doctor goes searching for answers and ends up finding far more letters than just one…

Word Count: 6,657

~~~

-

Series:

And They Were Happy Au Parts 1-4:

Part 1: Dinner and a Show

All his lives, the Master had always believed that he and the Doctor could hold on for about the same amount of time. He always imagined that when they reached their last lives, they would both give all this up and spend their retirement years bickering and raising bees or whatever. The Master didn't particularly like bees, but he had always imagined that the Doctor did and as long as they were together, that was enough to satisfy him.

What he had discovered in the Matrix had proved his ideal endgame impossible.

The revelation that the Doctor was The Timeless Child meant that the Doctor would always live on. They would always evolve and survive no matter what happened. The Doctor would always race to people in need; and now, they would never have any reason to stop.

(AU where the reason the Master wanted the Doctor to kill them both in The Timeless Child is bc he's on his last life)

Word Count: 5,120

-

Part 2: Dinner and a Show One-Offs

"The Doctor did her best to space out her visits with O. For every couple adventures she had with her 'fam', she would stop by his home once or so. Sometimes she let months slip by, because she knew that the longer she waited, the less of O's limited time she used up.

She felt guilty to calculate it, but if O was already in his mid-thirties and he lived a full human life...

Suffice it to say, she wanted it to last for as long as possible. She had never had a situation as stable nor as safe as she now had with O. After everything they had both been through to get to this point, she refused to jeopardize a single moment.

For all the pain the Master had caused her, O was well worth the wait."

(By popular demand, a continuation of 'Dinner and a Show')

Word Count: 10,926

-

Part 3: Unjustifiable

O- having no recollection of his actions as 'The Master'- returns to being Earth's Horizon Watcher.

O is proud of his work and he cherishes the Doctor's frequent visits, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that she's been keeping more secrets about his past than he had theorized.

To make matters worse, the arrival of an advanced species of aliens on his doorstep brings with it a whole new plethora of problems. Something terrifying resurfaces when O hears they're searching for a Tardis and things go terribly wrong.

Word Count: 23,870

-

Part 4: Found Family

The Master finally gets around to seeing the universe in a more peaceful way and runs into a young woman looking for her father.

Word Count: 3,663 (Will possibly be updated at a later date, but complete for now)

~~~

-

Oneshots Inspired by others (specific inspiration in the beginning notes of each):

All Alone In The Dark

While heading back to Earth, the Doctor hears someone calling for her help.

She tracks it back to the Master- injured yet alive- and finds him trapped in his own head, reliving his last confrontation with The Time Lord Council before the destruction of Gallifrey.

Word Count: 1,926

-

You Again

The 10th Doctor and Missy each escape their last canon appearances believing that the other is dead for good.

So imagine their surprise when they run into each other at a party in the 1920's.

Word Count: 6,943

-

Sick Day

The Master has everything set up for his latest evil scheme but when he tracks down the Doctor, he realizes his best enemy is in no condition to fight. So the Master does what any good nemesis does and takes care of him.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Word Count: 2,807

-

Prompt: "Right now, I don't know if I want to kiss you or shove you off a bridge!" "Can I pick?"

The Master’s Tardis had traced the call seven minutes in advance to this exact time and location. He pushed open his Tardis door to find himself in front of some no name bar with graffiti scrawled on the side, situated in front of an empty ravine. He was on Earth, and there was probably a similarly ramshackled city around him, but he didn’t so much as spare it a glance.

The Master’s steps were determined, his jaw clenched, and his hands shaking despite his signature device in hand.

He had been on the other side of the universe, licking his wounds like any old villain would when disappointed by their latest nemesis showdown. It all made his blood boil to have caved so soon. To come back and HELP the Doctor.

The Doctor still had O’s number and her call was scheduled to be made in exactly seven minutes. A hysterical, agonizing call that begged the Master to intervene. He wasn’t sure what was worse, hearing the Doctor in so much despair, or the disappointment that hearing her in such agony somehow didn’t lessen his own.

Word Count: 2,410

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The Beginning and The End

Prompt: First Doctor, Dhawan!Master, Gallifrey, and the dialogue: "I know my words mean close to nothing for you. But I do, in fact, love you very much."

Basically Theta (Academy Era Doctor) accidentally runs into the Master on a burning Gallifrey

Word Count: 4,499

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Kisses Like That

The Doctor's never understood why humans enjoy kissing so much- but a certain, somewhat familiar woman piques his interest.

(Missy goes back in time to give 10 a lil kiss)

Word Count: 1,885

Spyvember 2020

Collection of short fics I did inspired by Spyvember prompts (from Tumblr)

Word Count: 15,506 (6 separate chapters)

~~~

Thank you to everyone who has inspired me, commented on my work, read any of my writing, and overall has just supported me in any way this year!! Thank you for keeping me motivated and helping me improve as a writer!

My best wishes to you in the new year! <3

[freevoidman]

Okay I’m reading through Porg’s update so some of y’all can save your braincells and here are some great highlights (under a readmore bc i couldn’t help but tear into a few things she suggested):

Flat out ignoring that Vergil had changed by the end of the game as a result of V and Urizen’s separate experiences.

In trying to make V and Urizen their own character, she throws out the idea of Vergil being manipulated by the Qliphoth/Urizen (??? somehow??? even though the tree is implied to be non-sentient i believe???), with V being a Devil hunter looking through the remains of Mallet Island (which was completely blown up, turned to rubble, and then swallowed by the sea, so... that can’t happen), finding the cane which makes him youthful and not sick but... having the cane makes it so he can only kill demons through the cane??? for some reason??? And he needs the Qliphoth fruit to heal himself and free him from the curse???

How did she make V’s backstory even more confusing and complicated how the fuck did she do that

Almost immediately after bringing up the cane, she instead changes it to be one of the rings he’s wearing because she wants her “precious V” to use weapons other than the cane, which makes all the prior paragraphs about the cane’s curse and only using it pointless. She’s the one writing this fic, why can’t she edit her own work so it’s more cohesive?

Despite saying that V should be a Devil Hunter, she doesn’t explain why someone who is supposed to be killing demons would form a pact with at least three to fight demons. Her rewrite dismisses Visions of V, and she even states later that the manga is a waste of time as it won’t ever be translated into English (which 1) is not a limiting factor to reading it as many people have translated it already and 2) doesn’t dismiss it’s value at building up V’s character, who she supposedly likes the best).

Also, for someone who complains about DMC5 being a rehash of DMC3, she’s sure doing her best to change it to a rehash of DMC1 (Vergil being controlled by an outside force, bringing back Mallet Island, bringing back Mundus [the cane is supposed to be tied to Mundus]).

V apparently can’t be human because she wants to give him a devil trigger, despite having 3 familiars and his own strength. Okay I guess?

Also it’s really fucking sick how she describes V changing, because it’s apparently V fusing with Nightmare? Devil May Cry has never been one for body horror but she straight up says she was inspired by “The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), Bloodborne, and Resident Evil 7″ for the transformation imagery and I wanted to nope the fuck out of there real quick.

Her segments of actual fiction writing and dialogue are really bad it’s almost like a parody Youtube skit.

She switches between prose and script writing randomly, it’s really odd. She does it primarily with Dante i’ve noticed? Here’s an example I wrote of what she does:

“Hey, don’t stress out about it will you?” Says John following a few steps behind VINCENT: Don’t get your panties in a twist

And that just happens... randomly? Like, there’s no indication why she’s doing that it just happens.

She straight up writes notes in her fic about the controls for character actions in-game what the hell--

She also shamelessly puts in a link to artwork that clearly isn’t her’s (and I highly doubt she got permission to post about) to try and show what V’s Devil Trigger would look like. I couldn’t find it because I don’t know how pixiv works, but that’s just a shitty move, especially with how she treats artists on tumblr when they draw art of Vergil.

EDIT: Porg has now straight up copy-pasted the art into her fic without the artist’s permission which is, we all know, fucking theft. While it is good artistry, is just a weird mashup of Vergil’s and Dante’s. It’s not all that unique and I don’t understand why she had to reference a bunch of body horror shit when all the Devil Triggers in game are essentially just a large flash of light and a seamless transition between forms??? It’s good art, I’m not trying to bash the artist, but... Porg, you could’ve been a little more original here rather than just ripping off another artist’s designs...

Everyone in her fic acts super casually to seeing Vergil alive in the Qliphoth and it’s like... honey, no.

Vergil acts WILDLY out of character holy fuck. Like, I know I should have expected that but this is NOT how Vergil would act in the slightest. She’s pretty much writing an OC.

Building off of this: EVERYONE acts OOC and... it’s not exactly cringey, but it is perfect proof that Porg doesn’t know what she’s doing and hasn’t properly analyzed the characters.

Dante acts weirdly... detached? There’s no sign of him acting like his normal goofball-y self, and he’s much more serious than normal. He actually acts more like cannon Vergil than himself, actually. (He also knows CPR apparently? Which... is a skill he would really never bother learning, so...)

Nero doesn’t act nearly as emotional, and acts calmly for some reason. You can’t feel any of his emotions behind his dialogue, only through the adverbs added to the tags)

V is too informative. He knows way too much about random shit that... no one should rightfully know. I’ll mention it more later, but... V doesn’t act like himself and I don’t really know how to explain it.

Vergil is essentially her OC. Seriously--he’s not as brooding or snarky, he’s far too open and apologetic, there’s practically no sense of rivalry between him and Dante. Weirdly, he acts more like canon V than fic!V does, despite the fact that Porg wants to establish V and Vergil and separate characters. His actions also make no sense when put alongside his canon personality. We aren’t reading anything about Vergil, we’re reading about Porg’s weirdly idealized version of him.

I’m going to make a break in the post here because I feel like this is the part that needs the most attention:

Porg goes OUT OF HER WAY to dedicate a GIANT portion of this chapter to her own OC: Nero’s mom. There are several long paragraphs of establishing the relationship between her OC and Vergil, talking about leaving Fortuna, how they were ‘happy’ and then saying that after a hurricane (inspired by hurricane hugo, you’ll see later) she got separated from Vergil, never reconnected with him, GAVE BIRTH, died from a demon attack with Nero staying near her corpse, and then Nero was found by humans and taken off the mainland to be taken to an orphanage on Fortuna. She wanted a massive amount of time to be taken out of the fun parts of playing Devil May Cry to establish a relationship that would never come back and essentially turn into a 15 minute soap opera inserted into a game about having fun killing demons.

Alright back to the noted highlights.

Porg confirms in her fic that the universe of Devil May Cry happens in the US, and that Fortuna is an island along the southeast coast and I want to fucking rip my eyeballs out at this point.

The ONLY REASON why she is doing this is because she lives in Florida. I know she does, and she just wants to imply that this is all happening near her home turf. How anyone who lives in Florida thinks an island like Fortuna can exist is beyond me though, because playing through 4, most of the buildings are inspired by Italian designs, and no one in the states would build an entire island with italian designs. I’ve been to Florida multiple times--there’s no buildings there even REMOTELY designed to match Fortuna.

EDIT: I have been informed that Porg actually lives in Pennsylvania, not Florida, which makes both more and less sense. Why Florida? Why not a hidden island up on the east coast? Why does this have to be taking place in the states at all Porg???

Yeah, let’s take Nero off the MAINLAND OF FLORIDA after a DEVASTATING HURRICANE and send him to an orphanage on an ISLAND which would’ve been hit the hardest by ANY hurricane. TOTAL SENSE. 

She tries to make her own timeline for the series using actual real world dates and events and it’s terrible (she references Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and confidently states that 3 took place in 1990, despite all evidence for the actual dates of events being fan theory established through circumstantial evidence).

There’s so much horror movie inspiration here--not cheap horror, but really twisted shit that... doesn’t fit with Devil May Cry’s tone at all? In the slightest? She references Jacob’s Ladder, plus all the other body horror media I wrote above.

Straight up just tears Vergil’s arm off which sure, I guess we gotta make THAT a parallel between Nero and Vergil. They can have a father son moment over being physically maimed.

In the scene immediately before this, Urizen picks up Vergil by the head and roots around Vergil’s memories (somehow???) to show him all the ‘bad moments’ in his life to traumatize him. She describes it as the audience getting flashes of him falling to hell, charging Mundus, being Nelo Angelo, etc. 

This causes Vergil to cry and beg for Urizen to stop. Then Urizen rips off his arm. So. Yeah. Another point for the OOC!Vergil/OC-taking-Vergil’s-place board.

Also this point ALONE made me realize that Porg does not know how much time, effort, and money needs to be put into making assets. Like, the entire fic she was stressing that everything be done in 5′s HD Graphics--including the ruins of Mallet Island, so I have to assume she’d want these little snippets in HD too, which would be a massive money hole creating these assets for one scene that lasts maybe ten seconds total.

I know I stated it in one of my earlier posts, but most of what she’s writing would fit better with a sequel for the reboot series, not DMC5. It would make her OOC writing of Vergil make sense, all the horror movie inspiration and body horror shit would fit better there, especially all the crappy dialogue too.

She somehow made Griffon even MORE annoying than in cannon.

BTW if I had to listen to poetry while fighting the final boss of a video game, I’d sooner turn my PS4 off. Not that poetry isn’t cool and all, but it cheapens the final fight and distracts you. It wouldn’t work.

EDIT: I realized this point made no sense without context, sorry. Porg made the Book of Urizen (the poetry book by William Blake referenced multiple times by V) either weirdly prophetic or made it out like Blake had inner knowledge of demon powers or... something along those lines, and V magically has the knowledge that reciting poetry from the book about Urizen will... harm him? Weaken him? Open a gate to hell (she mentions a portal appearing near him)? It’s very unclear, but she essentially rewrites Urizen as the final boss, and makes it three stages (V [Griffon recites some verses, which is what the first point was about], Vergil and Dante [this is where Vergil gets his arm ripped off btw], and then Nero) with all three of them reading poetry from the book to deal the “final blow” to Urizen. I’d much rather have Vergil be the final boss than have to go through a three-stage boss fight while every character I play as recites poetry to kill the boss.

She mentions Dante using Sin DT against Urizen but I’m pretty sure with her fuckery of the game’s events Dante can’t GET Sin DT? Because there’s no fight between Nero and Urizen where he’d intervene?

COMPLETELY IGNORES VERGIL’S DEVELOPMENT OF WANTING TO TRAVEL WITH HIS BROTHER THROUGH HELL TO ELIMINATE THE QLIPHOTH FUCK OFF.

Also she changed the lore of the Qliphoth so that it sprouts semi-naturally around every 500 or so years? So... shouldn’t leaving the Qliphoth roots be fine now? Since it’s natural?

Nico acts like growing back arms is totally normal

Wrote an INCREDIBLY shoe-horned in moment in the van with Dante filling Trish and Lady in about finding Vergil and everything that happened where, once again, Trish and Lady act almost completely nonplussed that Vergil is alive after 20+ years in hell, with about 9 of those ten years being trapped under Mundus’ control and corrupted by the Demon King

Seriously why is no one surprised in this fic that Vergil survived? Dante has a brief moment before finding him, but everyone finds out and accepts it like flipping a switch (once again--ESPECIALLY DANTE, which is NOT how the grieving process works)

Porg states that the ending is trash because the twins are fighting in hell, but completely ignores that most of Dante and Vergil’s lives have been built on conflict and they like fighting demons, especially Dante. Both of them were happy and doing what they love.

She also completely ignores through this entire thing that Dante was really fucking depressed in the novels leading up to 5 but hey I don’t even know if she can read.

I can vaguely agree that Trish and Lady were sidelined and they should’ve had a bigger role. However, I can’t fault the directors for not doing this, because they were already developing three playable characters with their own unique fighting styles. She writes all this shit about the story, writes notes about controls and mission layouts, but forgets that it takes a lot more than pressing a single button to code a game.

She just doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Seriously, none of these things are cohesive or edited properly, and despite her saying she wanted better for Vergil, or Nero, or Dante, or V, she writes all of them incredibly out of character and doing illogical actions. I just... I don’t get it.

The best part is--I can’t even tell her about these things, or give constructive criticism. She moderates the comments on her fic and isn’t afraid to delete anything she doesn’t agree with or can’t make a ‘passionate rant’ about.

[cadenreigns]

The MHC and Me

or, Why I don’t completely blame Hekapoo and her dumb brothers for the corner they’ve been written into.

I originally had hoped we’d get some more clarification on the Globgor/Eclipsa crystallization/Meteora swap before I made this since I think confirmation on a few things there would help my case, but since one of my favorite characters has been moved into the “evil camp” I’m putting this together since my theory supports why they might have gone down their current path even if I don’t think it was necessary to the overall story. I’m pulling this together from what’s been seen in the show and portrayed in the books “Star and Marco’s Guide to Mastering Every Dimension” and “The Magic Book of Spells.” If someone with a writing credit has said something that disputes/confirms any part of this theory I’d love a link to it. Voice actor comments don’t count because things they’ve said have been disproved later in the show (Marco’s time in Hekapoo’s dimension fading from his memory like a dream being the biggest one I know off hand).

Before directly addressing the MHC I want to address the timeline that led to Meteora being swapped out and her parents being put in crystal because I’ll be referencing it later. Based on what characters have stated within the show and in the magic book of spells I believe the most likely series of events is as such:

· Eclipsa runs away with Globgor

· Meteora is born

· Eclipsa and Meteora are captured somehow, most likely at Shastacan’s order

· Shastacan gives Meteora to Saint Olga and orders a Pie Folk girl used to replace her as the new princess, seemingly without anyone on Mewni outside himself and the MHC knowing.

· Globgor eats Shastacan

· Globgor and Eclipsa are crystallized

The big take away from this is that while the MHC are the ones who did the dirty work, they did so under the orders of Shastacan (as proven in the episode Butterfly Trap when the Box accepted the story as the truth). “But Caden,” I hear you wonder, “why would the MHC take orders against their queen when the Butterfly Kingdom is a matriarchal society?” Good question. Keep it in mind as I’ll be coming back to it later.

Now onto the Magic High Commission Family. Starting with the father of the group, we have Glossaryck. Always explaining things in a roundabout way, Gloss states in the book of magic spells that he’s always existed but wasn’t truly born until after the first mewni queen found the wand. Thanks to the episode Meteora’s Lesson we know that he actually created those conditions when he gave “Moe” the rattle-wand and made the first queen, thus while not a lie it shows he’s not above excluding certain details when it suits him. Exactly what suits him is questionable at best though. While initially portrayed as being tied to the book it was shown when Ludo had it that he wasn’t always around and he’s stated in the book of magic spells that he can “go anywhere” and in Meteora’s Lesson he states that he can travel in time on his own well. Perhaps everything he’s done since the first Mewmans emerged from the magic goo has been some long con to teach Meteora or Star some lesson, but keeping in mind he always seems to at least have an idea of what and how things are going to go down here are some things he’s done as part of his “service” to the crown:

· Laid the groundwork for the Mewman-Monster conflict during Meteora’s Lesson by telling part of Mewndipence Day story to the brain-addled settlers

· Reignited the Septarian resistance that had been dying out (Comet’s chapter) by having Meteora prove Toffee right about mewman magic being dangerous. This lead to the death of Comet and the eventual release of Eclipsa

· And created what I claimed was the topic of this post, his children, the Magic High Commission.

In his own words, Glossaryck “created the beings of the magic High Commission to provide Mewmans a means of understanding and interacting with magic” (Guide to Mastering Every Dimension) and so they could “manage the contact points between the queen and the Realm of Magic.” So essentially, they were created to teach and serve mewmans who “hate change” (Estrella’s chapter). Or in other words, they were created to maintain the status quo. And what would the status quo have been by then? Basically bad monsters living in the forest of certain death, good mewmans living in the kingdom.

It’s only when this balance is threatened that the MHC acts out. During Solaria’s time they called for war when the monsters were attacking, but then suggested a ceasefire as soon as the monsters started to retreat. This is repeated by Festivia’s reign when the Solarian soldiers had the monsters on the run and the MHC suggested peace and in Moon the Undaunted because they didn’t think they could win against the septarians. So, keeping this in mind for what happened to the Eclipsa family, the MHC followed Shastacan’s orders because Eclipsa remaining with the monsters or a half monster ruling the kingdome would have upset the balance they were made for.

“But Caden,” you chime in again, “isn’t enforcing a status quo still kind of villain-like?” And in general it is a trope that’s usually intended for keeping some group or another down, but remember that the MHC weren’t born and raised into this roll, they were created for it. As magically-crafted beings they’ve had this ideal hard-coded into them. It’s like being angry at a toaster for heating food instead of freezing it. Because, as much as I hate to admit it about Hekapoo (and her dumb brothers I guess), that’s essentially what they are, pre-programmed machines. They have free will, but it’s in service to what they were made for and what they believe is right. Obviously seeds of doubt have been planted here and there, mostly in Hekapoo (phrasing?), but like is usually the case with these things in fiction it’ll probably take some big speech or action from a main character to finally cement those changes into place (one would hope).

“But Caden,” you interrupt yet again, “doesn’t that still kind of make them villains, even if they think what they’re doing is right?” It certainly doesn’t make them right just because they think what they’re doing is right, but you have to consider who made them that way. Glossaryck created them with a purpose in mind, and while he’s shown contempt for the way they go about that purpose (mostly the bureaucracy of it), to my knowledge he’s never actually stated that anything they’ve done was wrong. So do I think the MHC should be straight up forgiven for what they’ve done? No. But I definitely don’t think they shoulder all the blame for their actions. And really it won’t surprise me if everything they’ve done and that’s happened because of the events Glossaryck set in motion are all part of some plan of his. Perhaps not an evil plan (though one of the things on his to do list was own a dimension and being the mastermind of a world’s political strife would be a kind of ownership), but a plan of his making none the less.

…

Also it was a dumb corner to write them into and H-Poo better get her redemption.

 TL;dr – The MHC are doing what they were literally made to do and you should be more mad at Glossaryck for making them that way and creating the situation that calls for them to act that way. Also, Shastacan was a douche and the who actually ordered the baby swap.

[gellavonhamster]

a simple life

gen || Bertrand Baudelaire/Beatrice Baudelaire/Lemony Snicket || skips from pre-canon to canon timeline

ao3 link || originally posted in Russian

Oh, if we led a simple life, For each my love I’d bear a child – For every man I cherished, Of each and every kind. – Veronica Dolina, Когда б мы жили без затей (Oh, If We Led a Simple Life)

“We need three children,” Beatrice announces suddenly. Lemony jerks up his head – the book he’s reading is not a most interesting one, but the volunteer who borrowed it from the library before him left a message in it by underlining certain sentences, and in his attempts to decipher it he’s managed to forget he’s not alone in the room. Beatrice keeps sewing just as if nothing had happened, and it seems like she isn’t expecting him to answer at all, but she would have hardly said it out loud if she had forgotten there was someone else in the room, like he did. So Lemony figures out he ought to answer; it’s only that he’s completely at a loss for words.  

“I am sure you’ll be able to crawl in there yourself,” he finally says. Beatrice puts away her handiwork – a new jacket she’s sewing an extra stash pocket onto – and gives him a puzzled look.

“Crawl where? What do you even mean?”

“Into the gallery. I take it you’re talking about the Friday mission. I mean, Jacques has already made sure that the vent shaft is wide enough for an adult to get into – not an adult of my size, but yours easily. So there’s no need to involve any children. By the way, why must there be exactly three of them?”

Beatrice rolls her eyes, having finally figured out what he is talking about.

“I marvel at your logic, Mr. Snicket,” she says quizzically, but it’s a good-natured kind of quizzing. A strand of hair has got out of her hairdo and Lemony wants to tuck it behind her ear, but in order to do that he’d have to get off the couch and go to the other end of the room. So that is how old age creeps up on you, he thinks absent-mindedly – here he is, unable to make himself cross the room for the woman he loves, and he isn’t even twenty-five yet. “No, I’m not talking about the Friday mission. What I mean is that you! And me! And Bertrand! We need to have three children. That’s all I wanted to say.”  

“All right,” Lemony agrees. It’s a dangerous topic for conversation, one related to plans for the future, and for the people of their lifestyle it is rather pointless, if not dangerous, to make such plans. But Beatrice has always spat upon danger – at least when her own life was concerned, not the lives of others. “Now?”    

Beatrice laughs.

“No, not now, of course,” she says. Her look of slight perplexity tells Lemony she hasn’t really given much thought to when exactly that should happen. “Someday. When the circumstances will be right.”

(And when they would have been right? Especially for the three of them, as she used to dream back then? That remained one of the million questions he never found to be right or wrong because he never got the chance to pose these questions to her. Just like “Why didn’t you tell me everything at once?” Or “Did you really think I shall love you less once I learn what the two of you have done, as if I’ve never done any terrible things myself and thought there was no other way?” Or “Why did you read Anna Karenina to your son, and why did you teach your daughter to use makeup to draw scars on her face? So that one day they would walk the same path as we once did, or so that they would know it well enough to avoid it?” What was she thinking, his Beatrice, selfless and whimsical and reckless and ingenious, when she was putting her hand on her growing belly, lulling her children to sleep, remodelling her pregnancy dresses or donating them to charity shops, braiding Violet’s hair, packing lunches for school, going to the bank to speak with that insufferable bore Poe, hiding safety matches from her children – not because there were any particular memories related to fire, any very specific notoriety, but just because playing with matches is a dangerous thing to do? There were some things he knew for sure – such as that all her neighbours used to like her, that she was considered a good mother, that she always remained the loveliest woman in the world – but not the answers to all these questions.    

And did she realize she turned out to be almost right? She and Bertrand had three children, and the boy looked so, so much like her. Of course, when he first saw the middle Baudelaire child in the photo, the first thing that caught his eye was glasses: Bertrand, for as long as he could remember him, always wore glasses as well; his glasses even were in the similar style. But the thick, dark, a little bit curly hair was hers, and so were the brown eyes, and so was the shape of the boy’s face. Did she ever remember that far-off jesting conversation while combing Klaus’s hair or fixing his tie, when she would cast a quick glance to the mirror and notice, without a doubt, how much her son looked like her? Or had that carefree day disappeared from her memory, forever gone where all those memories that bring nothing but dull pain should better go?    

He hadn’t forgotten. Ever)

“In some ten minutes it will be ready,” Bertrand tells them as he enters the room. He wipes his hands on his apron and shifts his gaze from Beatrice to Lemony, curious. “What were you talking about?”

“Beatrice thinks we need three children,” Lemony says.

“Why three?”

“See,” Beatrice points at Bertrand theatrically, “he understood at once what I meant!”

“I have no idea what you meant, but I hope it’s the same thing as what I mean,” Bertrand sits down on a chair covered in a jumble of clothes – his own shirt, Beatrice’s cape, and Lemony’s jacket, or maybe Bertrand’s jacket, for Lemony wore it yesterday and noticed that it is tight in the shoulders. It’s easier for Bertrand and Beatrice to steal his clothes than for him to steal theirs; if they leave that jacket hanging on the chair, sooner or later Beatrice will take it too. “So why exactly three?”

“Why, so one would look like you, one like me, and one like Lemony.”

“And what shall we do if any of them take after none of us?” Lemony cannot resist asking. “Suppose one of them looks like…” the words “his grandparents” freeze on his tongue. At times he isn’t sure if he actually remembers his parents, or it is just his writer’s imagination painting their images based on what Jacques and Kit have told him. The moments he isn’t sure about that scare him: what shall be called into doubt next? The memories of their farm, of the games he used to play with his siblings before they were taken away, of the first books he had read and the first melodies he had learned? Beatrice hasn’t seen her parents for twenty years. Bertrand has never seen his.    

“Give them up for adoption, naturally,” Bertrand says with a serious look, but in his eyes and in the corners of his mouth a smile is already emerging – the very smile Lemony loves so much.

(Oh no, he never forgot. How could he forget when each photo he carefully put into a folder, or pinned to the wall amid newspaper clippings and document copies, brought back the memories of that conversation? Three children – just as they discussed back then. And if Klaus Baudelaire looked just like his mother, then Sunny Baudelaire was a spitting image of her father. An uninitiated person could assume that it is too early to judge which parent the child looks like if the child in question has just recently started walking, but he just knew – even though Bertrand clearly was much older when they first met than his younger daughter was in all these photographs. Yet whether it was because Sunny Baudelaire was an unusual child in many respects, or because some features stay the same no matter the age (he refused to consider his own sentimentality as the possible reason), the facts stayed the same: the daughter looked remarkably like her father. The same smile – its shape has already been formed and promised to reach the ultimate likeness when the baby’s other teeth come through. And the bright blue eyes, and the fair hair – which must have been as soft as the one he used to run his fingers through many years ago.

Her father’s looks, and the name of the woman who… well, she did not bring both of them up, of course, that could hardly be counted as upbringing. For that matter, he wouldn’t have named the child after her, but that had not been up to him to decide: he had no chance whatsoever to participate in making that decision. Strange as it may be, he saw her in his dreams once or twice, eyeing him even more reproachfully that she always used to. Eyeing him the way that made him want to scream: yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say, it is I who should rather be dead, it was him who should have stayed alive, do you really believe I think otherwise? But it was no use screaming because it wouldn’t make him feel better, and that woman was long gone anyway. Even she was gone too.        

And Sunny Baudelaire learned to cook early; just in case there was any need for another evidence of how much she resembled her father)  

“Oh, screw you,” Beatrice waves him off. “I’m describing an ideal situation, get it? An i-de-al one!”

“I guess three children would be ideal indeed for our, hmm, situation,” Lemony observes. He thinks all this talk amusing, despite the topic lying close to dangerous grounds. It is an incredible stroke of serendipity to find a book that makes one feel as if it was written just for them, or a song that sounds as if it was their soul transformed into music, or even a dish one would like to keep ordering in each and every restaurant, knowing one shall never get enough of it. Yet the greatest luck possible is finding people that one can talk about anything with, spend as much time with as one can, and feel surely willing to spend one’s whole life like that, with them. Certainly there is a more appropriate word to describe this than ‘serendipity’ or ‘luck’, but for volunteers that is a dangerous ground too,  and Lemony never says it out loud, keeps it in his mind like a dragon guarding a treasure, hoping that Beatrice and Bertrand do not need any words to understand how he feels.      

“I hope you’re not suggesting there would be one child per each of us to raise,” Beatrice says. “Or we’re splitting the breastfeeding duties too.”

“I guess Snicket means that in case of divorce each of us could take one of the kids,” Bertrand suggests merrily.

Lemony salutes him. “Exactly. The question is how we’re going to split them up, should the need arise.”

“Ask each of them who they would like to stay with?”

“Out of question. Too progressive. It is the notions like thith,” Beatrice starts to lisp on purpose and both of them laugh as they understand at once which one of the older volunteers she’s mocking, “that are poisoning our society! No,” she continues in her normal voice, “I suggest we draw lots. Write their names on the slips of paper, put them in a hat, well, you know the drill.”  

“And then you’ll be the one complaining when you don’t get the kid you like the most,” Bertrand winds her up. Beatrice takes a spool out of her sewing basket and hurls it at him.

“How dare you imply,” she says, her voice dramatically offended, “that I won’t love all our children.”

Bertrand, who has managed to catch the spool before it hit his forehead, smiles.

“Relax,” he says, placating. “I’m just messing with you. I do not doubt that you will. And I will love them all, too.”

“And so will Lemony,” Beatrice says. She sits back in her chair and looks at Lemony with a smile, and suddenly he realizes that despite all the jokes and hyperboles, this conversation is very serious and important.

“And so will I,” he says quietly. “With all my heart.”

(And then there were lies, libel, a hasty escape, accusations, letters, telegrams, a faked death, and then another one and another one and loneliness and stalking and the inability to simply call and say he missed them – and then death again. Not his anymore, but this time it was real. And there were manuscripts in thick envelopes and hiding places and safes, and there was the Editor’s tired voice on the phone, thirteen books and the smell of fresh printing ink, but there was no Beatrice and no Virgil – only memories. Like this one: just another ordinary evening, just another light-hearted conversation. Yes, absolutely light-hearted. What they were joking about back then could never come true, and if some parts of it did, then never completely. But there was something about the face of Violet Baudelaire that distinguished her both from her father and from her mother – never mind that she could be mistaken for Beatrice from afar, as confirmed by many guests who attended that horrible cancelled wedding; never mind that she used to tie her hair up with a ribbon just like Bertrand once used to.  

Violet Baudelaire was fifteen years old. Fifteen years ago a lot of things used to be different.

He was afraid to study her face too closely)