#The bats are trying so hard to figure out where Dani has been all this time but she refuses to give straight answers

[magicpiano]

Bruce Wayne had a child that was somehow kidnapped right out of the hospital just hours after being born. He of them ever stopped looking despite how cold the trail had grown.

Years later there is some rouge attack and a civilian child was injured and taken to the hospital. Bruce does a DNA test on the blood found at the scene and concludes that the child is actually his long lost kid.

Dani was planning to sneak out of the hospital the moment the doctors stopped looking at her. Then Bruce Wayne of all people comes in and claims that she is his long lost child. She knows that this is very impossible because she is a clone, but Bruce won't listen to her and she really doesn't want to explain the clone thing to a "normal" stranger.

This does brings up a lot of questions about how Danny ended up living with the Fentons though.

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Im assuming the three are the trio? Valerie gets added last minute, and dani (from the waynes perspective) appeared out of nowhere and girlbossed anyone who questioned it. If jazz is going to gotham u, she also temporarily moves into the manor while the team is in gotham. Im just imagining the fentons/team phantom behaving like invasive species. Bruce invited a few of them, so the rest aren't far behind. They're a package deal.

I like good fenton parents, so they and some of danny's friendlier rogues are holding down the fort while team phantom is away.

Danny instantly clocks bruce and damian as the foreign visiters and immediately investigates. His experience with fruitloop billionaires has him going down to find the batcave. He hasnt been in the manor longer than five minutes and has already figured out everyones identities.

He doesnt keep secrets from his team either. Qualms about outing another hero? No. His team works together as a single unit. Communication was a hard won lesson as they fought for their (after)lives. (Literally the only time they keep secrets is if sharing intel threatens the stability of the timeline, which requires proof in the form of a clockwork sticky note demanding them to not tell.) If his team is staying in batmans home, they have a right to know.

Listen, if batman and robin witnessed them facing The Horrors(tm) like an everyday chore, then team phantom deserves to be a well-oiled butt-kicking machine.

I'd imagine bruce's motives for arranging a student exchange program and inviting the trio to stay with him was to analyze them more closely, possibly train up some of their weak points, and flesh out more thorough contigencies. But i think it'd be really funny if he just *continues* to be one step behind them the whole way.

He orchestrates a scenario where he "discovers" one of them has powers to get an opening to talk about it?

Bruce: so you have powers?

Danny: wasnt exactly hiding it.

Bruce: i dont know how things are where youre from (absolute lie), but here in gotham, flaunting powers is dangerous. It could make you a target.

Danny: more dangerous than inviting a team of unknown meta-adjacents to live in your home right on top of your secret lair slash vigilante hq?

Bruce offers to train them?

Danny and jazz: our mom's a ninth degree black belt and both of our parents are inventors and expert weapons handlers. We learned martial arts, modern weapons handling and how to pilot over fifty different types of vehicles just from them.

Valerie: i joined the team already as a ninth degree black belt.

Danny and ellie: we have multiple mentors in the realms that have helped us master each of our powers, and trained us in fighting handicapped with restricted powersets and limited or no access to powers.

Tucker: i hacked into the batcomputer in less than five minutes without even using any technopathy.

Sam: AND we've all trained under Lady Pandora with dozens of different types of traditional and historical weapons. I'm pretty sure that makes us all honorary amazons.

Bruce wants to see how well they work as a team and partnered up with various bats to gauge their skill sets?

Ellie with damian: Ellie is better at disarming damian than any of the bats. How so? She goads him into attacking, deliberately lets him successfully land a hit, and absorbs the weapon into her body. Bruce tried to prevent it, but damian eventually snapped and full body tackled her, not holding back. Somehow, neither got worse than bruises and ellie declared damian her new best friend. Damian has changed loyalties.

Tucker, Tim, and Barbara: tim and barbie started out trying to guage tucker's level of ability. They started a hackathon that lasted a whole weekend, nobody slept, and nearly every socialite in gotham connected to the court of owls was arrested for some exposed crime or another.

Jazz: everyone she gets paired with ends up bawling their eyes out, beelining straight to bruce to give him a hug and insist that he needs to spend some one-on-one with her as well. Jason straight up proposed to Jazz and declared that he'll change his name to Fenton. Somehow, he now has ghost powers. Both insist that they had absolutely nothing to do with the joker's severed remains washing up in gotham harbor two weeks later, which might actually be true as all of jazz's free time is currently being spent adopting talons.

Danny, Cass, and Stephanie: Bruce is very certain that he'll be cleaning glitter out of the cave until the end of time.

Valerie and duke: they seem perfectly behaved, but bruce just knows their hiding something. He knows it deep in his bones. (Plot twist: valerie killed the joker.)

Sam and dick: dick introduced sam to harley and ivy. Sam has disowned her parents and declared ivy to be her adopted mom. Nobody else in team phantom is surprised by this turn of events and have advised bruce to 'just let her get the pent up aggression out of her system. She's earned it."

Bruce sitting at the batcomputer staring at the empty file called "team phantom contingencies" with soul crushing despair?

Danny: here's my contingency file. All plans are categorized by how physically painful they would be, how temporary or permanent the measures would last, and what kind of long term consequences each would have.

DP x DC Prompt: The Watchlist

Batman has a watchlist. A list that contains every individual who could become a rouge and a contingency plan for if they did.  

And while they, his children, often make fun of his paranoia and him for having it, they totally understand why he did. They lived in Gotham, for Christ's sake. Where everyone’s just a pin drop away from being the city’s next big villain, forcing the bats to scratch their heads while playing cat and mouse with a sicko for a good few weeks. And while they won’t admit it, the list has helped them a few times. 

But that won’t stop them from making fun of any of the list’s new developments. Because you see, there was a new list. And it wasn’t just a watchlist. No, no, no. It was The Watchlist.

It was a new development after he and Robin went on an out-of-state mission to investigate some town in bum fuck nowhere Illinois. And it was under some pretty tight security as well, so they were expecting something good, like mad scientists or evil mayors. Not profiles of the kids who lived in the town. And while there were a few metas and vigilantes that made the list interesting, by the end of it all they just seemed to be teenagers. 

Until they saw Damian. They hadn’t seen him since he came back from the mission with B. He looked tired. Like ‘Tim hasn’t slept in a week and is surviving on just coffee beans’ tired.

“Ah, I see you all have found it. Good. A few of them will be arriving next week as they’re a part of Gotham Academy’s student exchange program. At least three of them will be staying in the manor with us. Father will need you all to be on standby and to be ready for any possible scenario. Please, for the love of all that is good, do not encourage them in any way, shape, or form. And please do not dismiss them either. The outcome of doing that will be much worse. Is there more that I should add? Yes. Will I? No, because you won’t understand. Not until you've seen what I have.” 

The demon child sighed, then looked them dead in the eyes. “Godspeed to us all.” Then walked away.

Okay, they were scared now.

[justalittletomato]

Little Danica getting (sneaking) onto missions with the Ghost Crew, she’s ever so excited! All decked out in her armor and lacing her boot up to follow behind Ezra.

“Alright so today you are going to a meet a pirate”

That was a mistake as Danica began on a rampage of questions. Not the sea faring type? Oh it can’t be sea faring! Oh is he a smuggler? Oh what heists have been pulled? Does that mean we get to be pirates today? Did you know…

“Bridger, you have a nerve bringing a clone of that red blade Jedi, he cost me men and credits”

It was not hard to forget the crimson Zabrak from nearly 2 decades ago.

“Danica is harmless, unless you give her a blaster! “

Hondo Onaka inspected the small child. Same horns, similar red coloring and marks, however the little one was dressed in beskar.

“Did he raid a Mandalorian compound to get you that? If so where?”

Ezra and Danica laughed, “ You’d die trying.”

——

“I have considered it and agree the addition of the girl will be helpful. You are much too big now to sneak into vents and places, that and her Jedi abilities…”

“Oh that.” Ezra started.

Danica’s smile faded.

“Yes exceptional no doubt, I still remember the terror the men felt when those brothers attacked. Surely the little one has such might.”

Danica shook her head, “ I can’t use the force,”

The pirate didn’t seem to hear, “ Can she talk to creatures like you?”

“Well…like Danica said.” Ezra rubbed the back of neck worried over how Danica curled into herself

“Oh or do you wield a double bladed saber? Like father like daughter!”

“I can’t do what he can. I can’t!”

A bit of silence.

—-

“Ah well that’s disappointing.” Hondo sighs.

Ezra is about to retort back when Danica jumps out of her chair and runs off.

“Seriously HONDO?!” The young Jedi takes after her.

—

The ah well.

The Oh

A pitiful smile in her direction.

Oh little Danica, not able to use the force.

Why did everyone have to mention it after?

“You we’re too good to be a pirate then, have to keep to being the best Dathomando I guess,” Ezra found her sniffling by the mouth of the base.

“I can’t do that either…”

“No way, your brother and sister always rave about how Danica Oppress is the best Dathomando.”

“I’m sorry I can’t use the force.”

“Hey now no apologies for that, using the force isn’t needed. You can do so much Dani.”

“Everyone expects it…” she mumbled.

“Well everyone expects me to be a fine example of a Jedi to be but that ain’t happening.” He joked gently, “ So we are on the same ship, but you are the real clever one.”

“What good is being clever?”

“Hey now I gotta use the force to figure things out and you know it off the bat, no force needed.” He ruffles her curls. “Now let’s go tell your family so they can also remind Hondo not to be a big silly, minus your dad he might kill him.”

“Buir is going to pulverize him.”

“Yeah but not kill him.”

@gran-maul-seizure @patchiefrog

[hellsbellschime]

Could you make a meta about jonerys storyline in s7?

LOL okay so fun story! I thought this would be a fun idea for a video and figured I’d do a scene by scene analysis except by the time I was done with 7x03 I already had FIFTEEN MINUTES of material, so I stopped there. It was interesting so I might dive more into it at another point, but I do feel like at the very least the subtext and narrative material from 7x03 is the most rich anyway.

Most fans of Game of Thrones were looking forward to the shows main leads, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, meeting each other for years. But unfortunately once "ice and fire" finally came face to face, their chemistry and relationship was tragically lacking. However, given that the show was trying to sell an epic love story between them in half a dozen episodes, what was it about Jon and Dany that went so wrong? And in retrospect, did it even go wrong at all? One of the most interesting bricks in the foundation of Jon and Daenerys's relationship actually gets set in stone before Jon and Dany even meet, and it's set in stone by Tyrion. There is an significant miscommunication caused by him in the second episode of the season, because Daenerys commands him to invite Jon to Dragonstone specifically to bend the knee, but the message he actually sends to Jon doesn't include that vital tidbit. But the question is, why is that?

It's possible to chalk it up to just an error in writing or editing, however it's something that would have to be overlooked by everyone, and given the way the season progresses it seems unlikely that that's the case. It could have easily been edited out of the episode itself, so the fact that it wasn't means that it had to have been left in for a reason. And the fact that this miscommunication is never clarified or brought up by Tyrion afterwards seemingly indicates that it's an intentional moment too. But what matters more about this intentional confusion is not the confusion itself, but what it's supposed to tell the audience. 

This disconnect between perspectives and understanding between Jon and Dany seems to repeat itself from the literal moment that they're introduced to each other as well. Obviously Missandei listing off all of Dany's many titles while Jon Snow is introduced with such little fanfare is a moment that plays very well comedically, but despite the fact that up until this point Jon and Dany have been portrayed as two of the most heroic characters in the series, the audience is immediately meant to see them as total opposites of each other. Obviously the disparity between them will become clearer later, but given the way they've both been presented as individuals thus far, it's quite odd that the literal second they meet they're portrayed in direct contrast to one another.

Jon and Daenerys's interactions are really weird right off the bat. Not only is Jon completely thrown for a loop when he arrives on Dragonstone and is immediately commanded to bend the knee and taken prisoner, but Daenerys is her worst, least appealing self as soon as she meets him. It's not entirely out of her wheel house to play hardball with another person in power that she's just met, but from what Tyrion has said about Jon she has no reason to negotiate so aggressively with him, and yet she does anyway. 

What really sticks out in this initial conversation more than anything though, is that immediately after Daenerys meets Jon, she does quite a few things that are going to be incredibly unappealing to Jon as a character. Firstly, she disregards Robb's quest for independence, something he literally died in service of, in order to defer to the supposed last King in the North, Torrhen Stark. That might make sense from Dany's perspective given that she has very little love lost for Viserys, but to Jon, overlooking his deceased brother who was legitimately chosen to be King in the North is not something that is going to win any points with him. 

Then Dany points out that Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity in exchange for his life and the life of the Northmen. Now, given what Dany has done up until this point, no one would have expected her to kill all of the Northmen if Jon hadn't bent the knee, but Jon doesn't have the benefit of narrative omniscience, so this statement after his frosty welcome to Dragonstone seems like a pretty clear threat that if Jon doesn't submit to her, he and the Northmen will die. 

She also makes it clear that she sees Torrhen's vow (if a vow can even be considered legitimate when it's given under threat of death) as still valid despite the fact that this is centuries old history that she nor Jon had any choice in. When he refuses, she levies the accusation that he is somehow breaking faith with House Targaryen, despite the fact that according to feudal law, the Mad King very clearly broke faith with House Stark by nearly executing all of the men in the family. 

This is the first moment where Jon actually pushes back against Dany's claims and points out that it was clearly House Targaryen that broke faith, and Daenerys admits some guilt on her father's behalf but asks that he forgive this crime and not judge a daughter by the sins of her father. That would be a halfway decent concession for her to make, were it not for the fact that it's buffered by two implications that Jon is responsible for an oath that his ancestor swore as well as responsible for the fact that his father was best friends with someone who attempted to kill her. 

Her next attempt at winning Jon's allegiance is even stranger. She claims that House Targaryen and House Stark were allies for centuries, when the obvious reality is that they were unwillingly subjugated by House Targaryen and the Iron Throne for the entire time. She also calls them centuries of peace and prosperity, which they very clearly and objectively were not. Westeros has never been particularly peaceful, but it's also never been as chaotic as it was during the reign of the Targaryens. She also somewhat hilariously presents him with the offer of Warden of the North, as if that were a prize to be won for him and not an obvious downgrade in terms of his status among his people and in Westeros in general. 

Jon refuses in a pretty fair retort, explaining that he isn't beholden to his ancestors vows and Daenerys isn't guilty of her father's crimes. It's interesting though, because Daenerys is frustrated by this. It's somewhat understandable that she'd be frustrated by the fact that Jon isn't bending the knee, but it's also intersting that she is frustrated by something that is an objectively fair propisition that puts both she and Jon on equal footing with one another. Throughout their conversation it's been clear that she does not see things that way, she expects Jon to bend the knee because someone who isn't him made a vow, but she doesn't expect to be held guilty for her father's crimes because it wasn't her doing. 

When Jon says that he needs Dany's help and she needs his, her response here is very telling as well. Clearly she's flexing because she wants to be perceived as intimidating by everyone she meets, but what's curious is that she automatically disbelieves that she could need Jon's help when he hasn't even explained what she needs his help for. It's extremely telling because she is already in a mental position where she believes that nothing and no one could possibly pose any kind of threat to her. 

Jon's engagement with the conversation takes an interesting turn here, because even after everything that has been said and done so far, he tells Daenerys that she is at least better than Cersei because she hasn't attacked King's Landing yet. While that is technically true and feels slightly more on par with the heroic Dany that everyone has seen so far, what the audience does already know is that she hasn't just decided not to attack King's Landing, she's been convinced not to attack King's Landing. Thus far, this is the only positive thing that Jon has said about her, and the viewers already know that it's false. 

Jon, ever the wordsmith, tries to immediately apprise Daenerys of the gravity of the situation in the worst way possible by likening the game of thrones to children playing a game screaming that the rules aren't fair. But again, it's interesting that, even though Tyrion corrects her afterwards, Daenerys is offended that Jon is calling HER a child. And it seems that honestly, Dany has no interest in what Jon is saying to her so long as it's not about her and her right to rule Westeros. 

What's also really bizarre here about Daenerys and Tyrion's behavior is that when he starts explaining what's going on with the army of the dead, they are both apathetic and disbelieving, despite the fact that Melisandre told them to summon Jon Snow because something big was coming and Jon knew more about it than almost anyone. It's possible that they were suspicious that it was some kind of trap or ruse, but it's strange that they both act so clueless and uncaring when they've both already been told that Jon was going to show up and tell them some wild shit. 

The dialog exchange gets really bizarre at this point, because instead of actually responding to anything that Jon said, Dany goes off on a tangent that essentially sums up to the idea that she believes in nothing but herself and it's her destiny to rule Westeros. It seems so off topic that it's hard to even understand what the writers were trying to convey here, but the only thing that I can possibly comprehend is that they're essentially trying to make it clear that after everything Jon has said and done, Daenerys is still thinking of nothing more than her destined birthright. 

And once again, we're all meant to see a contrast here because Davos intercedes and counters with the idea that if it's Dany's destiny to be queen, then all of Jon's accomplishments were his destiny too. This is interesting for two reasons though. The first is obvious, that Jon isn't the type to talk himself up or behave in a remotely entitled way, and that he doesn't command respect but earns it.

However, this points out something else interesting that is easy to overlook throughout this exchange. Daenerys is extremely forthcoming about herself, her accomplishments, and what she believes is her right, but Jon hasn't offered up any information about himself willingly. It's an understandable strategic tactic, there is no reason to offer up information to a potential enemy, but the fact is that this conversation clearly has confirmed in his mind that Daenerys is still a very possible enemy. 

And unfortunately for both of them, as Jon and Dany's first ever conversation concludes, Daenerys actually confirms that Jon is her enemy, claims that he is in open rebellion against her, and takes him prisoner while refusing to admit that she's actually taking him prisoner. 

Jon's conversation with Tyrion later is even more interesting. Because Jon directly calls out the fact that he's a prisoner, and Tyrion tries to claim the exact same thing that Dany did, that he's not a prisoner based on the incredibly frail technicality that Dany did not directly tell him that he was a prisoner. But even more importantly, this is an obvious instance where Tyrion could have told Jon that his message to him was intentionally misleading and Daenerys's aggression towards him may have been partially his fault, but he doesn't, nor does he explain this at any point later. 

Another interesting element to their conversation is that Tyrion tells Jon that he actually does believe him about the army of the dead. It's interesting because, if that were the case, why did he so clearly tag-team Jon in his first meeting with Daenerys? Perhaps it took him a moment of thought to actually understand what Jon was saying and come around to believing him, but it's interesting that the writers had a character who was familiar with Daenerys and Jon who could easily have mediated between them and didn't have him mediate. 

Tyrion also makes mention of the fact that children are not their fathers, luckily for all of us. While this is just a one off line and potentially means nothing, it's also a potentially very telling one because, honestly, Jon and Tyrion are very much like their fathers. Jon has idolized Ned for his entire life and desperately wants to be his father, and despite all of his attempts to distance himself from Tywin, Tyrion is clearly the Lannister child who is the most similar to his own father. So the subtext there about none of them being their fathers when even at this point two out of three of them are incredibly similar to their fathers specifically, seems like it could be very obvious foreshadowing.

But probably the most intriguing and noticeably strange aspect of Jon's conversation with Tyrion is that Tyrion explains to him that asking for Daenerys's help against an enemy she doesn't even believe is real is not a reasonable thing to ask. However, literally everything that Tyrion and Daenerys have asked of Jon so far has been wildly unreasonable to ask. Daenerys has asked a complete stranger to bend the knee to someone he's never met or even seen before, and she has essentially taken him hostage when he refused instead of just trying to convince him to do so. Jon even offers her an incredibly easy way in, he asks for her help, and if she provides it it's obvious that he and the rest of the Northmen would be much more open to the idea of her as their queen, but rather than even hearing Jon out she takes a seemingly desperate person as her prisoner with the clear intent of holding him there until he bends the knee. 

When Tyrion convinces Daenerys to give Jon the dragonglass he requires, Daenerys makes her first attempt to actually relate to Jon on a personal level. It's once again interesting that Daenerys brings up the loss of her two brothers and relates it to Jon's loss of his brothers, because Jon offers literally nothing in return. 

But what seems to be more relevant is Dany's position that everyone enjoys what they're good at and Jon saying that he doesn't. Once again, because the audience has the luxury of seeing Jon's entire journey thus far, it's easy to see why he feels this way. However, this seems to be another opportunity to point out the way in which Jon and Dany contrast each other, not to point out the ways in which they're similar to one another. 

It's interesting that Melisandre claims that she has brought ice and fire together at the beginning of the episode. Aside from being a nice nod to the original text, it also positions Jon and Daenerys as opposing forces instead of united ones. And these constant contrasts that are being brought up from the instant that they meet seem extremely relevant to their relationship to one another, but the fact that Dany enjoys what she's good at while Jon doesn't seems to be the most vital bit of information that the show conveys about Jon and Dany right off the bat. Because there really are so many parallels between what they're good at. Much of Jon and Dany's journeys thus far have been about fighting from the bottom to get to the top, winning people over, and trying to kill their enemies before their enemies can kill them. However, many of the things that Jon seems to dislike about leadership the most seem to be things that Daenerys actually does genuinely enjoy. 

It's safe to say that their very first meeting wasn't all that many fans were hoping for, however it seems like in the brutally short timeline of the final two seasons of Game of Thrones, the writers felt that the most important thing to establish between Jon and Daenerys right off the bat was not some sort of chemistry or romantic interest, but was the idea that these two people are diametrically opposed to one another in every way that matters. Despite the fact that their character arcs have had so many parallels thus far, the first episode where Jon and Daenerys actually meet seems to be designed to establish that everything about their personalities, dispositions, and overall ideals are on opposite ends of the spectrum, which was truly just the first gigantic step in establishing a romantic relationship that seems muddled, disjointed, and generally hard to follow and comprehend.

[jynxes]

Leather n’ Red - Reggie Peters

Summary: Much like the deceased boys of Sunset Curve, Duchess died right before the gig that could’ve been her band’s big break. Thing is, she left the dark room a little earlier than they did, made a couple friends and learned a few tricks. What will happen when she and the boys can be seen when singing with Julie, the only alive person that can see them all? 

Paring: Reggie Peters x Duchess Himura (OC)

Word count: 2.3k

A/N: This is my first JATP fic so I’m sorry if some parts seem ooc. Also this book can be found on Wattpad if you prefer to read it there.

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Prologue // The Ballerina Necklace

June 25, 2005, The Orpheum

"Come on! One, two, three!" Marisa yells, hitting her drumsticks together before we begin the soundcheck.

Danielle begins strumming her guitar and we start singing.

"Can't count the years on one hand that we've been together I need the other one to hold you Make you feel, make you feel better It's not a walk in the park to love each other But when our fingers interlock, can't deny, can't deny, you're the worth it

Some things just, some things just make sense And one of those is you and I Some things just, some things just make sense And even after all this time

I'm into you Baby not a day goes by that I'm not into you

I should be over all the butterflies but I'm into you, I'm into you And even baby our worst nights I'm into you, I'm into you Let 'em wonder how we got this far, 'Cause I don't really need to wonder at all Yeah after all this time I'm still into you I'm still into you I'm still into you."

We finish and Danielle runs over to my mic, "We're Moonrise Edge!"

"Tell your friends!" I chime in with a smile and pick up my keytar from the song before Still Into You. We're all smiling and can't wait for tonight, tonight we're the opening act in the Orpheum, I KNOW, how amazing is that?!

"We KILLED that sound check! It was amazing!" Marisa says after giving me a quick kiss.

"Yeah, too bad it was only a soundcheck. Tonight is gonna be amazing though, it's gonna be PACKED with people and we're definitely gonna get signed by a label if we perform like that," Dani brags.

"For sure! Then we're gonna sell a bunch of albums and get a tour!" I begin adding onto the fantasy we're gonna live after we perform tonight.

"Wow, you guys were great," a voice says, and we turn, who is it but rock god TREVOR WILSON.

While I'm too busy freaking out internally Marisa is completely calm, "Thanks dude, we can't wait to open for you tonight."

"It is gonna be awesome," Dani grins.

"Oh! We didn't introduce ourselves, I'm Marisa, this is Danielle, or Dani," she says pointing to the dark-skinned girl, "And finally this is Duchess or Doll," the Hispanic girl points to me.

"Well I think you're definitely gonna go far," Trevor compliments, "What got you guys into music?"

"Thanks," I finally find my voice, "We were always kinda into music but then we heard of this old band that was kinda big like, I don't know, ten years ago? It was called Sunset Curve, some of them died from like food poisoning or something. Anyway, we heard their demo and loved it so much that we wanted to become a band."

"Yeah, that's why we chose the name 'Moonrise Edge' because of 'Sunset Curve' it was supposed to be a bit like a joke but then we started getting gig so it kinda stuck," Marisa adds on.

"Oh, okay, well I gotta go do my soundcheck," Trevor says hurriedly, seeming to get really nervous.

"Okay, see you later," Dani yells after him.

"That was weird," Marisa says.

"Yeah, it was. I wonder what it was all about," I say before putting my hand in the pocket of my leather jacket, feeling around.

"He's famous, famous people are always weird and doing weird stuff," Dani rationalizes, when I feel nothing in my pockets, I begin patting down my red flannel skirt.

"Whatever, let's just get back to our dressing room," Marisa suggests, then she turns to me, "What is with you? What are you looking for?"

"I can't find my necklace," I say, fumbling in my bag, "Where is it?"

"Why do you even need your necklace?" Dani says, "I know it's your lucky charm, but we just played that soundcheck and crushed it, meaning you don't need it to play well."

"I know, I know, it's just that I've had the necklace for each of our gigs and we always crushed it. Soundchecks don't matter, the gigs do, so it's the same with the necklace," I explain, I've had the necklace with me for each milestone of the band. When we heard Sunset Curve's demo, when we formed Moonrise Edge, when we got our first gig and finally when we were asked to play the Orpheum.

"Look, it might be in the dressing room, let's check, yeah?" Marisa says helpfully.

"Okay, yeah, let's check," I say, and we enter the dressing room. We search and we search, and we search, and the necklace is nowhere to be found.

"Wait, I think I remember where it is!" Dani yells suddenly.

"Where? Where?" I ask worriedly.

"Do you remember when we were at Mari's and we were getting changed?"

"Yeah," I say, "Get to the point!"

"It fell off in Mari's room. I told you when we were leaving, and I thought you got it because you were the last to leave. You mustn't have heard me," Dani sighs.

"Oh damn!" I facepalm, "What time is it?"

"Right now it is 6:17pm," Marisa looks at the clock.

"Okay, it's a ten-minute drive each way, just drive to mine and you'll be back with plenty of time to perform," Marisa says calmly, trying to soothe my nerves.

"Okay, okay, I'll go get it, Dani do you mind if I take your car?" I ask, while grabbing my bag.

"Sure, think fast," she says, throwing me her keys.

I catch them and begin running out the door, "I'll be right back!"

"See you, I love you, Doll," Marisa shouts.

"I love you too Mari!"

I get into Dani's car and turn the key, I reverse out of the parking spot and get out onto the road. I take the right turn and stop at the red light. I go ahead when the light turns green but suddenly, I'm going sideways, I feel a pain in my side then all I can see is black.

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July 15, 2020

I've been in this dark room for like forty-five minutes now. It's pretty boring. Basically what happened was that when I began driving again after the light turned green some asshole decided not to stop for HIS red light and he hit into me. The car turned sideways and smashed into a building, I was dead before the car stopped moving. Then I floated out of the car, I knew I was dead, and I was transported to this weird dark room. And here I am.

I start to hear music, then I realize it's Still Into You from the Moonrise Edge demo, then the music is distorted, and the ground of the dark room seems to dissolve.

I scream a little as I fall on my back. I then stand up and look around, I'm in someone's room. Then I hear the voice of a little boy.

"Who are you?" I turn around and see a Latino boy about ten or eleven with his jaw dropped.

"I- uh, I'm Duchess, who are you?" I stutter out.

"I'm Carlos, what are you doing in my room?"

"I actually have no idea," I tell him, "Last thing I remember is dying and then being in this dark room with nothing in it."

"You're dead?!" he exclaims.

"Yeah, wait, you're not? Where even am I?" I'm getting really confused now.

"You're in my room," he repeats from before, "In Los Feliz. How did you die?"

"I- Los Feliz? Wait, that where Mari lives," I realize, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

"Who's Mari?" Carlos asks.

"Mari's my girlfriend, the drummer in my band," I overexplain to him for some reason.

"You're in a band? Cool! What's it called?"

"Moonrise Edge, we were supposed to play the Orpheum last night," I say, running my hand through my dark hair, "Wait, I wonder what they did, since I died and everything. Do you know what they did?"

"No, but I can look it up if you want," he says.

"Sure," I say.

"I'll be right back," he says before leaving the room. I walk around the room, looking at a baseball bat in the corner and a jersey lying on the bed with the number 7 on it.

Then Carlos comes rushing back into the room with some kind of device in his hand, "Okay, I've got my iPad, now what was the band called again?"

"Uh, Moonrise Edge," I say, suspicious of this 'iPad' device.

"Wow, you were in a band, and you did die, but not last night," he says, after typing on the device.

"What do you mean not last night?" I say, super confused at this point.

"You died in 2005, right?"

"Yes..."

"Well it's not 2005 anymore," he says carefully.

"What do you mean it's not 2005 anymore? I was only in that dark room for like forty-five minutes!"

"It's now 2020, you died fifteen years ago," he explains.

"WHAT!? IT'S BEEN FIFTEEN YEARS! I SPENT FIFTEEN YEARS IN SOLITUDE!?" I exclaim.

"Okay, uh, calm down, it's okay. It's okay, look, you're not alone anymore, you've got me. I'll help you with anything you need," Carlos tries to comfort me.

"But-but it wasn't that long, how has it been fifteen years?" I question.

"That, I don't know. All I know is that I'm here to keep you company, if you want. I can help you find out what happened to your bandmates, you parents or whatever and I'll get you up to speed on what you missed."

"You'd do that for me? Why?"

"Because, ghosts are pretty cool," he says simply.

"Okay aha, can we start with what happened to my bandmates?" I ask him.

"Yeah sure," he sits on his bed and ushers me to sit next to him.

"This," he points to the device in his hand, "is an iPad, it's like a computer but it's just the screen and it has a touchscreen, you use it like this," he explains, swiping his finger along the surface.

He then explains to me how to search things on it and looks up what happened to Dani and Marisa. Apparently, they went on and played the Orpheum gig without me, which I'm not mad about I mean they worked as hard as I did to get there, they deserved to play the gig. After playing they split up the band after that, believed to have done it out of respect for me, and became solo acts. Mari got signed to a label and was asked to join a band named 4 Orchids they've done a few tours and now she's living somewhere in New York. Dani went on to become a solo act and was also signed onto a label, she's done tours and collaborations and now she's living in San Francisco.

Carlos told me that if I wanted to stay in the garage behind his house. He told me that it was his mom's studio but ever since she sadly passed away last year no one's went into it. I thanked him and told him I was gonna stick around.

Then I decided to go and explore the streets of Los Angeles, see how things have changed since I died. I got to meet some cool celebrities that are dead, but I didn't make any friends today. I got to see Marilyn Monroe, gotta say, she's as hot in person as she was on film.

Before I go back to Carlos's house, I go to the house that Mari used to live in, which turns out to be next door to Carlos's. She doesn't live there anymore, but her parents do.

I walk in the hall and see the photos of Mari growing up, a couple pictures of her now and a picture of Mari, Dani and I before our first gig when we were 15. Then when I go into the living room where I see Mari's parents, Lydia and Victor, are watching something on TV. I see more picture of Mari with her parents, some with Mari and me, one of our unofficial pictures from prom, some with Mari and Dani and some with Mari and her cousins.

I go up the stairs and see Mari's bed is more or less the same as it was when I was still alive. When I go to her desk, I see my necklace lying there with a sticky note, 'Doll's necklace' is what's written. I lift my necklace and inspect the charm, the ballerina dangling from the chain. I take it and clasp it around my neck before leaving to go to Carlos's garage.

I explore Carlos's mom's studio and it's kinda cool. Up in the loft there are drums and a couple guitars, and also a bag of clothes, I don't know who owns the clothes so I'm not gonna take them. I check out the couch and it seems pretty comfortable, I lay down on it and try to go to sleep. After a few hours I realize that I don't actually need sleep, but it's an easy way to pass time.

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[tatticstudio55]

ARYA STARK: OF WHALES, SHELLS AND DRAGONS

In a previous post (“The scrub”), I briefly mentioned that Arya’s story arc in ACOK (and ASOS, to some extent) had some Noah’s arch elements to it. I won’t dig too far into it since others discussed this before. However, I’d like to expand on another biblical myth perhaps found in Arya’s storyline – this time in Braavos (then I’ll get to the dragon stuff).

Arya’s POV in AFFC opens with her aboard the Titan’s Daughter, as they approach the Isles of Braavos and must pass beneath the giant statue of the Titan of Braavos:

"The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls," Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan's stories were only stories.

(…)

"I hope your Titan isn't hungry," Arya told him.

"Hungry?" Denyo said, confused.

"It takes no matter." Even if the Titan did eat juicy pink girl flesh, Arya would not fear him. She was a scrawny thing, no proper meal for a giant, and almost eleven, practically a woman grown

(…)

Wind and wave had the Titan's Daughter hard in hand now, driving her swiftly toward the channel. Her double bank of oars stroked smoothly, lashing the sea to white foam as the Titan's shadow fell upon them. For a moment it seemed as though they must surely smash up against the stones beneath his legs. Huddled by Denyo at the prow, Arya could taste salt where the spray had touched her face. She had to look straight up to see the Titan's head. "The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls," she heard Old Nan say again, but she was not a little girl, and she would not be frightened of a stupid statue. - Arya, AFFC

Arya keeps remembering Old Nan’s tale about the Titan’s eating “habits”, and even after they’ve sailed behind it, the danger of being “devoured” still linger:

"The Arsenal of Braavos," Denyo named it, as proud as if he'd built it. "They can build a war galley there in a day." Arya could see dozens of galleys tied up at quays and perched on launching slips. The painted prows of others poked from innumerable wooden sheds along the stony shores, like hounds in a kennel, lean and mean and hungry, waiting for a hunter's horn to call them forth.

(…)

The mouths of lesser canals opened to either side, and others still smaller off of those. - Arya, AFFC

That’s because Arya really is being (symbolically) swallowed by something here. The parallels with “Jonah and the whale” become a bit more apparent with these:

The galleys passed to either side of them, so close that she could hear the muffled sound of drums from within their purple hulls, bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom, like the beat of living hearts.

(Where we get the impression that Arya’s inside some giant living creature)

&

A harbor was visible off to her right, a tangle of piers and quays crowded with big-bellied whales whalers out of Ibben - Arya, AFFC

It’s interesting, because Arya’s POV chapters in ACOK open with her wishing that King’s Landing would flood. During her travels in the Riverlands with Gendry, Lommy and Hot Pie, the rain pours nonstop, effectively causing a flood. In AFFC, she finds herself in the flooded city of Braavos –

Another harbor, more distant, was off to her left, beyond a sinking point of land where the tops of half-drowned buildings thrust themselves above the water. Arya had never seen so many big buildings all together in one place. King's Landing had the Red Keep and the Great Sept of Baelor and the Dragonpit - Arya, AFFC

– only this time, her life jacket isn’t a boat (Noah’s arch), it’s a whale’s belly.

The thing with being inside a “whale’s belly” is, it allows Arya to go unseen. The myth itself is generally considered a metaphor of rebirth (which I’ll get to in a moment), but the whale’s belly also provides safety and secrecy while traveling. When Cat of the canals start selling oysters, clams and cockles, she can go anywhere she wants:

"Oysters, clams, and cockles" were Cat's magic words, and like all good magic words they could take her almost anywhere. She had boarded ships from Lys and Oldtown and the Port of Ibben and sold her oysters right on deck. (…) One time, when Brea took to her bed with her moon blood, Cat had pushed her barrow to the Purple Harbor to sell crabs and prawns to oarsmen off the Sealord's pleasure barge, covered stem to stern with laughing faces. Other days she followed the sweetwater river to the Moon Pool. (…) But she always returned to the Ragman's Harbor. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

We see here that the “whale’s belly” can take other forms; i.e., a bivalve’s shell (hiding in a belly vs hiding in a shell). Indeed, there’s some textual clues here and there linking Cat to what’s inside said shell(s):

Farther down the docks she came on Tagganaro sitting with his back against a piling, next to Casso, King of Seals. He bought some mussels from her, and Casso barked and let her shake his flipper. "You come work with me, Cat," urged Tagganaro as he was sucking mussels from their shells. He had been looking for a new partner ever since the Drunken Daughter put her knife through Little Narbo's hand. "I give you more than Brusco, and you would not smell like fish."

(…)

"Which one was this, now? The Queen o' Cockles, was it?"

"The Black Pearl," she told them. Merry claimed the Black Pearl was the most famous courtesan of all. "She's descended from the dragons, that one," the woman had told Cat. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

In the first citation, we have Tagganaro trying to “slurp” Cat from her shell, same as he’s doing with his mussels, and in the second, the “Queen o’Cokles” (a courtesan, but it could also be applied to Cat, oddly, especially since moments before Cat was asked by another sailor how much she wanted for the “cockle between her legs”), named after what’s found inside cockles (pearls). The “Black Pearl”, actually, symbolizes Arya Cat very well here, because that’s essentially what she is (a black pearl hidden inside a shell/a princess hidden inside a whale’s belly).

Which brings me to my third tinfoil word cake: any other “black pearl” inside its shell in asoiaf? How about Drogon’s egg?

She chewed on her lip, hoping. If I had wings I could fly back to Winterfell and see for myself. And if it was true, I’d just fly away, fly up past the moon and the shining stars, and see all the things in Old Nan’s stories, dragons and sea monsters and the Titan of Braavos, and maybe I wouldn’t ever fly back unless I wanted to. – Arya, ACOK

I’ve mentioned before that the story of Jonas and the whale was generally accepted as a metaphor for rebirth. In “The scrub”, I talked about the parallels between the hatching of Dany’s dragons, Dany’s metaphorical rebirth, and Arya’s rebirth beneath the burning shed. I think Arya is a dragon-like figure: she’s dangerous, deadly and magical. And she hasn’t hatched yet.

Let’s admit right off the bat that there’s something witchy about Arya, even if we disregard the whole faceless man thing: in AGOT, she has this thing with a black cat. In Harrenhal, ACOK, she practices sword fighting with a broomstick. Eats worm. Think of herself as the “ghost of Harrenhal”. Mingles with brews and potions (starting with the conspicuous “weasel soup” in Harrenhal, then at the House of Black and White with the waif). Does most of her “mischiefs” at night. In ADWD, the waif gives her a face with a wart that sprouts black hairs.

And shaves her head, too, like a certain someone named “Egg”.

Then there’s some interesting references to dragons (or water dragons, as Arya is more a creature of water than fire):

Slender boats slid in and out among them, wrought in the shapes of water serpents with painted heads and upraised tails. Those were not rowed but poled, she saw, by men who stood at their sterns in cloaks of grey and brown and deep moss green. – Arya, ACOK

The men wear cloaks of “grey”, “brown and deep moss green” – Arya’s colors. Grey is a color of house Stark. Arya thinks of herself as an “oak tree” in ASOS after being garbed in brown socking and a green dress (and seems to associate with trees in general). Back in the Riverlands, she tries to find her way North by the “way” the moss grows on trees. Several times.

 The mists gave way before them, ragged grey curtains parted by their prow. The Titan's Daughter cleaved through the grey-green waters on billowing purple wings.

(…)

Two galleys had come out to meet them. They seemed to skim upon the water like dragonflies, their pale oars flashing. - Arya, AFFC

Arya’s “Needle”: in ACOK, Rhaegal’s teeth are compared to needles:

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. – Daenerys, ACOK

But as we said, that part of Arya remains dormant for now. In AGOT, we get Doreah’s story about the origins of dragons: the moon was an egg, it came too close to the sun, cracked open, and dragons poured from it. Fast forward to Arya’s POV chapters in AFFC, where the moon is omnipresent:

That is the Temple of the Moonsingers."

It was one of those that Arya had spied from the lagoon, a mighty mass of snow-white marble topped by a huge silvered dome whose milk glass windows showed all the phases of the moon. A pair of marble maidens flanked its gates, tall as the Sealords, supporting a crescent-shaped lintel. - Arya, AFFC

(…)

"All men must serve." And so she did, three days of every thirty. When the moon was black she was no one, a servant of the Many-Faced God in a robe of black and white. She walked beside the kindly man through the fragrant darkness, carrying her iron lantern. She washed the dead, went through their clothes, and counted out their coins. Some days she still helped Umma cook, chopping big white mushrooms and boning fish. But only when the moon was black.

(…)

One time, when Brea took to her bed with her moon blood, Cat had pushed her barrow to the Purple Harbor to sell crabs and prawns to oarsmen off the Sealord's pleasure barge, covered stem to stern with laughing faces. Other days she followed the sweetwater river to the Moon Pool. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

And speaking of menstrual blood, it’s brought up again later in Cat’s chapter:

The other whores said that the Sailor's Wife visited the Isle of the Gods on the days when her flower was in bloom, and knew all the gods who lived there, even the ones that Braavos had forgotten. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

The moon is obviously linked with feminity and fertility here: as the kindly man tells Arya when she first sets foot in the House of Black and White, “Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of His servants have been women. Women bring life into the world. We bring the gift of death.” (Arya, AFFC) Hence, Arya only returns there when the moon is black (when her feminity “disappears”). Cat’s life at the canals revolves around the moon’s cycle: Brea’s moon blood brings Cat at Purple Harbor and to the Moon Pool. The black moon brings her to the House of Black and White. Notice that Cat doesn’t sell clams and oysters and cockles in Purple Harbor. She sells the bigger, fancier fish, the kind that doesn’t hide inside shells. Each time the moon “bleeds”, Cat gets a bit closer to hatching. Then, around the end of the chapter, we get this:

The swollen red sun hung in the sky behind the row of masts when Cat took her leave of the Happy Port, with a plump purse of coins and a barrow empty but for salt and seaweed. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

Maybe it’s just me overthinking it, but “swollen red sun” reminds me awfully of a pregnant woman’s belly, one that’s nearly full to burst, like the “plump purse of coins” Cat carries. We also had an “injured” (swollen/bruised), blood red sun in AGOT, the night Daenerys miscarried Rhaego:

Outside, the sun was low on the horizon, the sky a bruised red. – Daenerys, AGOT

And this would’ve been the moment where Daenerys and Arya slipped. Daenerys’s mistake was believing that she was sacrificing a horse in exchange for her husband’s life. Arya’s mistake was killing Dareon:

"Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night's Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots."

"Good boots are hard to find."

"Just so." She tried to keep her face still.

"Who could have done this thing, I wonder?"

"Arya of House Stark." She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

Daenerys and Arya are both given a bitter, milky beverage to drink:

She tasted sour milk, and something else, something thick and bitter. – Daenerys, AGOT

On her way across the city Arya had wondered what the kindly man would say when she told him about Dareon. Maybe he would be angry with her, or maybe he would be pleased that she had given the singer the gift of the Many-Faced God. She had played this talk out in her head half a hundred times, like a mummer in a show. But she had never thought warm milk.

When the milk came, Arya drank it down. It smelled a little burnt and had a bitter aftertaste. – Cat of the canals, AFFC

Basically, this is Arya’s first “failed” hatching. Milk is a liquid strongly linked to motherhood. Here, the milk is spoiled, which may or may not indicate a failed attempt at giving birth.

Overall, where Daenerys is a mother figure, Arya is the child, the dragon hatchling looking for her mother:

It was the other dream she hated, the one where she had two feet instead of four. In that one she was always looking for her mother, stumbling through a wasted land of mud and blood and fire. It was always raining in that dream, and she could hear her mother screaming, but a monster with a dog's head would not let her go save her. – Arya, AFFC

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Dany and Drogon are separated from each other around roughly the same time where Arya dreams of her mother at the Red Wedding. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Arya’s looking for her mother in a “wasted land of mud and blood and fire”, whereas Drogon was born in blood, fire, and right by the Red Waste. This is all very intriguing. But anyway, I’ll conclude for now with a quote from our favorite witches and wizards’ story:

"Never tickle a sleeping dragon"

[survivormanhattanbeach]

Episode 1: “...too early to be shady?”-Ryan

There....are so many men and I'm overwhelmed. Also Keaton shading me during his intro is a whole ass mood 

I’m so excited to be playing with majority of this cast... too early to be shady? 

Oooooooofffff what the hell did I just get myself into. Julian’s here. He always finds some fucking way i swear to god... and then there’s Keaton who i pissed off in a prior BB game... which literally ended like 3 days ago for me.... and then i ahve Andreas form Kuang Si and Billy from IdlM.... what the fuck is wrong with my life right now I mean...... i’ll figure this out, let me stop having a heart attack right now

I am SO OVERWHELMED right now! All these messages from people that I think hate me, this is going to be fun! As of right now I'm most nervous about Sarah because I LOVE talking to her, she's so easy to talk to but we always do each other wrong and have never made it far together in anything SO yeah. I'm really hoping that I get on a tribe where I connect with a majority and/or two of them don't like each other so I'm not the first to go! I guess it's time to now... go and be social haha! 

When did talking to people become so hard??? Idk if it's because I've been away kind of for awhile and not talking to people but I feel like I'm the most boring person in the world AHHH. Hopefully things get better soon. I'm about to ignore that annoying red number two by the skype icon and play the game for a bit to maybe give me something to talk about with these people!! 

http://atleastyoumadejury.tumblr.com/post/182902334923 That’s me in this challenge. 

First night = first opinions! Let's go. -called isaac immediately to form a bond with him. He seems super stoked to have me in the season and we agreed to form a f2 deal. Honestly he is funny, adorable and iconic so I am not mad if I go to f2 with him. I will be loyal to him as long as I know he is loyal to me -mark is very social and I know he uses this to his advantage. Every cute thing he is saying, he is definitely saying to the other players -I can easily bond with basically everyone on this season so I feel like this is going somewhere. I can tell ppl are liking me so honestly I am fucking excited to play --went on a one world call with ryan, tom, madison, dani, isaac and myself and they are cool af. I know ryan and tom used to work together from the beginning of mykonos so I am kinda scared they are a definite power duo. Tom has already proven to be a good player in terms of strength and I can tell hes strategic. I REALLY REALLY WANT TO BE HIS #1 SO I WILL WORK ON IT. fuck I need to get on his good side to get far. i can tell. I just dont want him to screw me over - Junior is playing and I guess he is the shadiest person in the game? SO I will be on the lookout for that. -Ruthie needs to leave. -Keaton hates madison so I can use that to my advantage somehow ? well see. -I am going to continue to talk and be social but honestly I dont want to give away too much. Im back after a year so I hope I can go far this time. Fingers crossed

I’ve smelled some fake shit before, but nothing quite as fake as Ryan trying to squash the beef with me. I’m flutter my lashes and play stupid for a while, but in all honesty, I want him gone as early as possible. I don’t trust him, at all. Also, Dan is sneaky as fuck. So I don’t trust him either. Plus I’ve hosted him and I know he’s only in it for himself. He’s vote himself out if it meant he’d win the game. But then there’s Mark, who has played with and been burned by both Ryan and Dan. Between the three of them I’m just not feeling him. I don’t want to be his demise, but I wouldn’t be sad to use him to kill the other two then dump him before he gets farther than me. Kill three birds with Mark’s stone. As for y’all hosts, thanks for dumping me with Madison, Joey and Keaton. Who will keep me around just as a number. They think I’m stupid and I have no idea what I’m doing. Same goes with Brandon. Like I love “OH MY GOD HEWWO”ing my friends. Another main, another season where I’ll just do whatever I can to make it far. Here’s to a good season. 

VL Confessional: This is my greatest chance to FINALLY make an impact on Tumblr Survivor. The minute I was casted, my ranking average went up. What I want to do this season is to take advantage of the time that I have. I want to do well, I want to finally prove how good I CAN be. This is my opportunity to bond with a ton of other players, and I’m READY FOR IT. My mood rn: https://youtu.be/roJ5NSfmxvs

I feel like this game is lowkey a test of Madison and I’s relationship...

VL CONFESSIONAL I’m sitting here on my couch watching the TV They’re picking all the numbers of my favorite lottery I am so excited when fortune calls I’ve never been so happy with someone picking my balls.

Oh god, I shouldn't write any of those weird and unsettling oneliners that I have in mind right now, so.... Hello! Just hello! I'm back for another Tumblr Survivor fun time and I have no idea what to expect from myself for this season. Will I have motivation? HELL YEAH! Will I have the time to back it up? NOPE!!! So... let's start with a little cast assessment, shall we? I already know that I am lucky to have LUCY around, because I know her from another community. That being said, she is a great player, so if she is active this time around, she'll definitely make it further than last time... So far though, it doesn't look like that... :sadface: I am also THRILLED to see RUTHIE playing. I love her, and we only got to play once (in a BB game that ended after 2 weeks) and I happy to see her and I really hope we can work together this season!!! I have mixed feelings about MARK and BRANDAN rn, because I've played in TS with them previously. I pissed off Brandan a lot in Kuang Si when I told him that I wanted him out. I hope he's gotten over that, but I feel like he's not the type of person to forget. But I think he'll be willing to give playing with me another try, but he'll keep me on a short leash. Mark, I voted off in Flops, and then I flipped him to vote for me in the worst FTC of TS history. But the guy is strongheaded and idk how well I can work with that. I've had great conversations with TOM and KEVIN and I feel like they're people I can talk to a lot more, and maybe build a relationship with. I had some decent chats with SARAH, DANIELLE, ISAAC and MADISON. I can't place them yet, but I think I can get along with them. I got off the wrong foot with ISAIAH and RYAN a little, but they seem fun and I can see myself working with them in the future. Or maybe I am just imagining things here? Who knows.... KEATON, JOEY and BILLY, I tried talking to, but I am really not sure yet if we're on the same wavelength. But they seem active enough and open, and it's not even been a day yet. ;) JUNIOR, DAN, JAKE and JULIAN, I haven't spoken with at all so far. rip? --- Let me tell you that I really like it being 4 Tribes of 5 to start the season off (at least that's what it looks like). I don't care too much about being a top-placing player here. I don't think I'd be immediately at the bottom right off the bat, so I don't need that unneccessary potential challenge threat target right away. I think I've spoken to enough people and got a little bit of that Andreas personality across, so I at least have a foot in peoples doors, you know? Let's see how things shake up! I am confident for starters, but that's the point of it, isn't it?

I’ve only talked game with a few people which kinda scares me. I also think a lot of this cast has previous relationships and I only know like 2 people. I love Isaac, Jake, Ryan, and Mark. I need to start socializing more.

hellurrrrr we're back and better than ever! first tumblr org since like... July so I'm feeling pretty rusty. Thankfully I have a couple familiar faces in this cast so I'm not too nervous. I was pretty excited to see Dani cast... we literally went to middle school together LOL. I want to keep that a secret, but Joey already knows because Dani has her location set to my city UGH. So now I gotta hope that Joey doesn't blow that cover. I know Kevin from Zwooper but idk how loyal he actually will be to me. I know Dan, Ruthie, Isaac and Madison from previous games but I don't think we worked well together in them so whoops. RYAN is here which I'm excited for. I want to work with him, he seems sweet. I also know Sarah because she made Eddie cry so I already love ha. But Eddie told me she's crazy in games so maybe I should tread carefull with her for now. I think everyone else is a fresh face to me? So this should be interesting. Half of them haven't even added me yet though so they need to step their pussies up. I'm here to win since that's the only placement I could get that will beat my last placement LOL. But I'm not trying to let an ORG make me go cray cray like Crossroads did... but it probably will <3

Ok, so. This whole picking tribes thing, has just got to go. I have multiple people telling me they are putting me first and although I love being first for once, this might not be the best thing for my game. If a random person I haven’t played with picks me, that looks shady. If one of my MANY previous allies picks me, that looks shady. Oh and there’s that thing where Billy and I squashed beef, and hopefully that can stay because I don’t need a giant target on my back for billy being my only enemy in all of the games I’ve ever played. If this tribe swap is 4 tribes of 5 then I need to make sure my people pick wisely and make sure that they have the 3 they need to keep a majority. The only issue with that, is I’m essentially in the middle of 5 groups: Mykonos, Bermuda, Unova (Pacific Island), Guyana, and then anyone I haven’t played. Take the union of those sets and you have the entire cast Manhattan Beach (yes I did just use math language, no I am not ashamed).

Imma make Jake think im his bitch. “Oh Jake, ill vote out my best friend, and someone who I respect as a host to boost your ego!”

Alright, Day 1 is nearing its end and I've made some progress I feel? So to get right to it: I've spoken a bunch with Danielle and Kevin and they've spoken a lot with each other too, so we're trying to get together on a tribe of 3. The plan right now is to hopefully get one of us in the top 4 (me), I pick Kevin, Kevin picks Danielle, and we've got an easy majority if it's tribes of 5. Now, we don't know if we actually split up in 4 of 5, or 2 of 10, or 4 of 5 but we have Tribal Councils with 2 tribes together. It's impossible to call right now. As a small addition to my first confessional, some final cast assessments: JUNIOR: A very friendly guy. I feel like he's genuine, but he's definitely VERY friendly, and I am not used to that level of friendliness in TS. But I think we good rn DAN: We spoke about Germany and that's about it. We have a little basis. JAKE: We spoke a little about politics, so at least we spoke and have a basis. Not much more than that. JULIAN: Dude... you seem so nice, but you are giving off no confidence in yourself. I don't have much more to say than that right now. I fear that he'll be used as a number by someone rn --- I got some good chats with KEATON and ISAAC going. And that's about it! I hope that I get put on a tribe with KEVIN, DANI, LUCY, RUTHIE, TOM, KEATON... and maybe SARAH. Just bring on the tribes, so I can finally start playing this game. One World is too big for me.

I'm pretty confident with my score for this challenge, I think it's enough to at least show my future tribe that I can do my part in the challenges, and hopefully I get somewhat of a say in who will be on my tribe. For my social game, I'm definitely planning to use me being the first boot on Guyana to my advantage. I've heard from Andreas and checked a bit as well that there's some fierce competition in this cast, and I think I can slide by for quite a while as long as I make some good connections. I know Dani, Andreas and Ryan from outside of this season, and those will be some people I could rely on from the beginning (not sure about Ryan though for that one since we don't know each other that well). Also I don't know what it is about Ruthie, but she seems so sweet and I'd love to get to work with her further down the line.

I love my tribe so much! It is PERFECT! Literally they are all people that I've talked to since the game started and I don't have any issues with any of them. I'm really glad especially that Andreas is on my team and I think that all in all we will have a strong tribe going forward! I don't want to get too cocky but I do feel confident in my position on this tribe! Nowwww if only we can win and stay away from tribal council! 

Honestly, what is wrong with me? Another main season and it's One World? Negative. This is how I will die. I would rather eat glass than have to fucking message 25 people I don't care about. On another note, I love my tribe high key. Aesthetically, we're a really great looking tribe. We could all be models tbh. We all get along really well so if we go to tribal, I'll probably just tell everyone to vote me out, for my mental health and theirs hahahaha save them the trouble. Nah, jk I'll fight, but I don't want to think about like voting any of them out? I def feel closest to Mark, but I really enjoy Dani and Ryan's banter. Junior is so cute too ugh haha. I'm just happy I'm not with the other ugly asses on other tribes

ugh i hate doing these things but im gonna try and be better if i flop this season im deleting skype tbh. This cast is going to give me a solid chance to go deep i feel like. Ryan Billy Dan all want to be my F2, madison is close with me, dani and sarah have both expressed interest in going deep together tribes were picked and holy frick is this tribe incredible. Ryan and Dan and Dani all were in my top 5 of who i wanted to be in a tribe with and junior is actually dope as fuck. i just hope we dont lose and have to vote someone out. especially the first round bc junior is safe so id have to decide between dan dani and ryan and id probably self vote if that was the case

So now I’m like 200% not even gonna try to work with Mark or Dan or Ryan. They’re all on the same tribe. Which means they’re gonna make a final three and that’s something I don’t want to be anywhere near. That’s a dumpster fire that I do not want to be a part of. What sucks even more is, Mark told me I was number one of his list. But Dan was picked by him before I was. So clearly he lied to me. But to add insult to injury, I was picked last for a tribe. So I was literally no one’s number 1. So that sucks, a lot. I guess that’s a fun way to start the season. “Way to go! No one likes you enough to be your #1!” Always a bridesmaid, never the bride. It just makes me have the “anyone but me” mindset even more than I already have. 

Hello new tribe. I am content with the outcome. On one hand, it sucks that I ended in 5th or 6th place, but on the other hand, the draft was rather revealing. I planned to pick KEVIN while he picks DANI, but Dani is soo fucking popular, that she was the absolute first pick - and then she picked Ryan over both Kevin and I. That definitely alerts me, but oh well, I don't blame her or anyone, she's lovely. I am happy that I wasn't the last pick of my tribe, because that would have sucked a lot. Instead, I get to be around BRANDAN, who I actually want to work together with for the time being. RUTHIE picked me, which I am really grateful for, but there is no guaranteed to know how far up I actually was on her list, but at least 6 others were behind me. Now I picked LUCY. Which is a good thing. She rocks at challenges. But she's definitely on the bottom of the totem pole here. I would prefer to vote out JULIAN first if we ever go to TC as this tribe, but for that, Ruthie needs to like Lucy more than the guy who picked her... Either way, let's win challenges somehow and not worry about that. The people I care for should be okay..? Dani will be safe. JUNIOR will be safe by default. Orange tribe will be fun to watch, because I care about everyone but BILLY on there (sorry honey). I am actually scared for my #1 Kevin rn, because JOEY and MADISON are together, which is scary, and neither of them picked him... So he could go first :( Either way, I need to stay on Brandans good side and I need to build up a strong bond with Ruthie, so I can keep Lucy around...

VL CONFESSIONAL HOLY MOTHER OF GOD NVGHHYGCSZAAAWSDDXF I’M SAFEEEEEEEEEE. I’m honestly so happy about it. I gave it my all and I’m honestly shook. And then I realized Madison and I are on the same tribe... Welcome to the plotline of the season.

I have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair

VL CONFESSIONAL So yeah for this challenge Pussydestroyer69@yahoo.com is taken. Fun.

I'm not really sure how I stand with my tribe. Currently my main connection is Andreas, but I know I can't just rely on him. He was picked before I was and he could easily just let me go if I'm in the way of him getting to the first tribe swap. We seem to be doing well in the challenge, and I hope we do win. I personally at least kind of feel like the outsider, and I don't know the connections the others have with one another, so hopefully this gives me time to build a connection with them before we go to tribal.

alright so first off, fuck y’all for giving us this challenge. you’re gonna make me sit here all day reblogging a post because i’m competitive, but we’re probably going to lose because my tribe sucks. like i was the only one doing it for 2 hours. kill me. let’s talk about my tribe real quick. i think kevin is genuinely with me with is good. but when i got put on this tribe, dan messaged me saying that joey, madison, and isaiah are a friend group. i knew that joey and madison were “dating”, but the isaiah thing worries me because if it’s true, then um they have the majority. i’m trying to stay close with joey too since we played zwooper together before. i just really need to bank that him and Kevin would stick with me over the others if we go to tribal. um but i wish i was on a tribe with my same city sister, dani, or with Ryan. let me just say something about Ryan... yo why he gotta do me like this? when i saw ryan in this cast i thought omg that’s the cute ryan but he probably won’t pay me much attention... flash forward to last night when we ditched the main call to call one on one and basically called all night. ummm, are we about to have a survivor showmance? probably not, boys like to ghost me all the time so i don’t expect much but that boy is about to have me WHIPPED i just know it. anyways let’s hope i don’t lose the first challenge because i literally ALWAYS go to tribal first in orgs 

YAY! My tribe pulled out a win. I wish we would have gotten an idol clue but a win is a win and I will take it!! In all honesty it seems like Brandan, Andreas and I did all the work, but maybe Julian and Lucy did things too and just weren't... vocal about it. Lucy has talked to me one on one a bit but I don't know if she knows what she's doing haha. As for Julian, I really like him but he's been SO quiet, not talking in the tribe chat and not being very talkative via PM so we'll see. Right now I feel the closest with Brandan and Andreas and I hope that the three of us can maybe form some kind of alliance. I really hope that Kevin and Jake will be safe! I like Madison and Isasiah (I spent five minutes trying to remember how to spell that name and I still can't get it GRR) but I haven't talked to them as much as the others. I guess we'll see what happens haha! 

so julian can talk in the one world but not our tribe chat... interesting... although i can't talk. i BARELY ever talk in the one world aSLFJLSF

Well we came in first for the first challenge! I tried sooooo hard and I have never reblogged so much in my entire life. The tribe that came in last has two of my allies on it and I’m pretty sure they are in the minority. Madison, joey, and isiah have an alliance apparently. But Jake did tell me that Joey came to him and wanted to get Isaiah out. I really hope he isn’t fucking with him because I need Jake and Kevin to stay in the game!! So far I really love my tribe. I wouldn’t even know who to get rid of if it came down to it. I think Dans the least person I’ve talked to on my tribe. I should probably keep talking to people who aren’t on my tribe aside from jake/Kevin/Tom/Sarah. And I should probably start talking strategy but I like where I am so far social wise. 

My tribe is so fucking united it’s scary. We all just gel really well and literally called for an obscene amount of time this weekend. I really love Dani, we haven’t connected too much in pms yet, but she gives off such good vibes. I feel like she’s definitely a social threat, but maybe by aligning with her she can bring up my social game a little. I desperately need to talk to more than just my tribe mates, but honestly the only other person who attempts to talk to me is Tom, and he’s just kind of forward and weird. Like he asked to share idol clues and I was like....okay sis out of the blue. Idk just seems kinda shady. Pennekamp, or as I like to call them Pasta tribe, losing is honestly my kink. I really hope that someone from the friend group goes home, but honestly it might be Jake or Kevin going. Madison and Joey are for sure an alliance bc of hos22, and then I know Isaiah is friends with Madison bc she was talking about him on call one day in another game, so. Let’s hope one of them flips and one of those 3 gets the damn boot. 

Being on the Robinson Riptides tribe is lit af. Why? Mark and I are on the same tribe, so I have my number one, and then Dani picked me and I know she is a close ally as well. Plus now that we won the first challenge, Junior does not have immunity in the next round and in the event we go to tribal next round, he would be my first target on our tribe. I like Dan, but def not someone I want to take deep in the game, seems like a large threat. Who knows, could easily use him for a number. Also, I love Tom. I am so happy he is back with me in this game after playing in Mykonos. I don't think people understand how close we are, and I want to down play that as much as possible. He is my secret go to persona and I'm going to keep that hush hush for now. We are trying to get our sides to merge into an alliance while the one world business is still going on. Goal: Tom gets Sarah to want to make a chat with either myself, Dani, or Mark. And if this happens, then we have five people with great connections outside but also people I would want to work with for this portion of the game. Also, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THIS IDOL CLUE BEING USELESS AF? CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN? LIKE ACTUALLY EXPLAIN? HOW IS THIS CLUE SUPPOSE TO HELP ME? CUZ IT DOES NOT!

Yay, Immunity. The Pacific Panthers are so boring as a tribe. The chat is dead. Is it because of timezones? Is it because of age diversity? This tribe has it all! Lucy is still new to TS, Ruthie is busy most of the time when I'm around. Brandan and I don't mean too well rn.... And Julian? He is wearing Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility! Either way, I hope Kevin survives F20 TC, as he is a valuable pawn and friend to me already. I'd expect Isaiah to go here, even if Madison might be the smartest move, but it's too early for big moves I feel. See ya next round!

Okay this game is NOT back to basics Johnny, it's back to hell. Schoolyard pick tribes, messy players, ONE WORLD, it's just an absolute cluster truck. I'm doing well for myself though. Getting 4th gave me the opportunity to set myself up well with Sarah and getting lucky with Billy should make me safe on this small tribe for awhile. How I'm not happy to see Madison here though. I'm afraid there's going to be a gun pointed at me by her the entire time, so I'm thinking I'll be forced to go after her before anyone else when given the opportunity. I just have to keep conversation high, keep game level talk at a medium, and eventually get taken out by an idol/twist

https://youtu.be/wpsiisk5lQQ

So big surprise, I'm going to tribal first. Joey is getting on my nerves idk why he even signs up for these games if he's always working but anyways. He's safe so I have to play the role of the devoted housewife to save face. As of now the vote is on Isaiah which sucks because he is definitely an ally for me, but at the end of the day our tribe and the game in general needs strength and commitment. Ugh why must my tribe be so iconic. 

OK SOOOOOOO Basically my paranoid ass has convinced myself I’m going home already, but let me walk you through why SO Isaiah is just super inactive, not to the point where he is NEVER here but just considerably less when comparing him to myself or others and so me jake Madison and joey all talked among ourselves and in various 1 on 1 and came to the conclusion we are voting him out, ALLEGEDLY! but ever since this tribe started the rumor of Madison Joey and Isaiah being friends has been brought up SO many times so that is just engrained in my head, now I’m probably over thinking this part but it makes sense to me, if Isaiah purposefully was being less responsive to provoke the instinct in me and Jake to vote him out, perhaps he has an idol or perhaps he is just fine being the decoy vote among the three and it helps that friend group manage the votes if they know who/how we are voting and it makes me and jake feel “safe” which could lead to the not playing of an idol SHOULD either of us have one and get suspicious. THEN after we have this “set” plan I guess Isaiah told Madison that he was voting for Jake, and Madison told him to continue the lie of being open and honest to the 2 of us so we don’t suspect anything, now if he WERE voting Jake and Jake had an idol I think he’d be impulsive and paranoid (like me) enough to play it and THEN those 3 would in all actuality be voting me, leaving me defenseless and alone, flushing Jakes non-existent idol (it exists theoretically though) and then I go home first boot 3-2. So yeah I don’t feel good but I’ll never feel good I also just scarfed down from chick fil a and now I have to poop. Anyways I will be casting my vote was Isaiah later tonight because that is the only move I can make and pray that my show watching, self loathing attitude has made such a positive impact on Madison and Joey that they want to keep me around ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

apparently isaiah wants to vote me out after being inactive for 2 days... bitch suck my taint. everyone else says they're voting isaiah so umm fingers crossed?? a bitch is nervous af regardless bc i will cry if i flop and get 20th

[thelawyerthatwaspromised]

Why Does Jonsa Make Complete Political Sense?

Trying to make sense of the puzzle and how it could inform the endgame.

This is a long one.

*Spoiler* I think it is a Jon Snow / Sansa Stark marriage. Even if you don’t agree that the story has foreshadowed this or that the scenes between Jon and Sansa were written with a romantic subtext...it will be the only logical political solution for the story.

First, a quick refresher on the changes Westeros has already undergone.

Season 1 / Episode 1

Season 3 / Episode 9&10 (post-Red Wedding)

Season 6 / Episode 9&10 (post BoTB and Jon Snow named KiTN)

Season 7 / Episode 1 (colored by alliances. Light blue for the North, Red for the Lannisters, Gray for the Targaryens)

Season 7 / Episode 7

Season 7 / Episode 7 ASSUMING JON’S ALLEGIANCE IS TRULY WITH DANY

So right off the bat, we can make a few observations: 

1.) Daenerys and Tyrion horribly mismanaged their territorial and military advantage. Dany had a much stronger army. She had the allegiance of the breadbasket of Westeros, and she had an ally in Dorne that should have been completely geographically protected and resources that so far have been untouched by the other wars of Westeros. It’s hard for me to even count “capturing” Casterly Rock as it was a trap sprung by Jaime and the Unsullied were forced to abandon it anyway after the Greyjoy fleet hemmed them there.

2.) How does Daenerys not immediately secure the Stormlands to link the Reach and Dorne? It’s essentially leaderless and sandwiched between her two initial vassals. 

3.) How does Daenerys fail to try to ally with the Vale? What a no-brainer of an ally. The reality is that the Vale very likely would have said no, as the Vale is similar to the North as they will never trust a Targaryen, but how was the Vale not even a part of her strategy?

4.) What in the heck is Daenerys worried about Cersie “re-taking” again? She holds no territorial advantage. Highgarden’s resources went over the Lannisters. Dorne is leaderless, like the Stormlands, and cannot contribute to her cause (it’s also unclear whether they would even want to after how badly bungled that alliance worked out for Dorne). The Riverlands are still occupied by the Lannisters, another extremely useful ally tossed to the wayside.

5.) Is this because the show doesn’t care about these other territories? Maybe, but the show has made a point of showing these other places already and explaining their strategic importance. I see it more as a failure by Daenerys to care about anything other than capturing the Iron Throne, and a failure by Tyrion to think about anything else other than removing Cersei from power.

6.) Even if they had captured the Iron Throne in season 7, there is absolutely no chance of a united Westeros because of how they played the game. Dorne is leaderless, killed almost immediately after allying with the new Queen. The Stormlands remain leaderless. The Riverlands are held by the Lannisters and weren’t relieved by the Targaryen forces - why exactly would they be loyal to her? The North is only allied with Daenerys to fight the Night King. The same with the Vale. There’s no interest in the politics of the South. The main point is that at this current moment, Daenerys has absolutely no political influence beyond Jon Snow allying with her to fight the Night King. She only has a strong army. She doesn’t have the loyalty of the people of Westeros.

7.) Dany’s only real political support is from Jon. She is entirely dependent on the North and the Vale for her political power now. That also means she is entirely dependent on Sansa Stark...both before RLJ is revealed but most definitely after RLJ is revealed.

This is where it gets really tricky for Daenerys. She had a great opportunity to win some influence with the other houses of Westeros to back her claim as the Queen.

R+L=J becoming known will prevent that from ever happening.

Could she ever be looked to politically after season 7? She aided no allies. She hasn’t gained any territorial advantage. Cersei Lannister, the most hated person in Westeros by the time she was crowned, has gained more allies since Daenerys landed.

Now the idea of her legitimacy, which was the biggest talking point that she and Tyrion had in her “campaign” is gone. Not only that, but the only person to swear allegiance to her that still has any political power actually supersedes her for the throne.

That covers the territorial game. What about the prominent characters? Who actually holds political influence now?

The Lannister allies

Cersei LannisterThe MountainQyburnEuron Greyjoy Golden Company / Iron Bank

The Northern/Targaryen Alliance

Jon Snow

Daenerys Targaryen

Sansa Stark

Arya Stark

Bran Stark

The Brotherhood (Hound, Beric, etc.)

Gendry

Tormund

Brienne

Tyrion

Jaime

Edmure Tully

Yohn Royce / Robin Arryn

Theon Greyjoy / Yara Greyjoy

Davos 

Varys

The Unsullied

Missandei

Melissandre / Kinvara / the Red Priestesses

So pretty much anyone can see from a CHARACTER perspective that this is not a storytelling fight that Cersei is likely to win. Easy win from a storytelling perspective on who will triumph.

We have the Night King coming and a completely overmatched adversary that only has allies that we don’t emotionally care about or haven’t even been introduced yet. So you’re telling me those are the big finale conflicts? An enemy in the Night King who has no narrative nuance and a few humans that no one cares about?

So I looked at where another conflict could develop. We have the two characters that are widely viewed as the two “heroes” of the story: Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen.

I looked at the Northern/Targaryen Alliance and this pops out: 

There aren’t any characters with political power that are loyal to Daenerys other than Jon Snow right now.

Sansa - loyal to Jon Tormund - loyal to Jon Jaime - loyalties changing. Tried to kill Daenerys. Much more like to fight for Sansa/Jon Edmure Tully - loyal to the Starks, most likely his sister’s daughter Sansa Yohn Royce - wanted to name Sansa Queen in the North. Loyal to Sansa. Theon - asked Jon about saving Yara. Didn’t consult Daenerys. Special bond with Sansa. Loyal to Jon and Sansa. Tyrion, Varys, the Unsullied, Missandei, and the Red Priestesses have no political power.

Why would it matter anyway? Jon and Daenerys will just unite them and it’ll all work out!

R+L=J explodes all of Daenerys’ relevant Westerosi support and shifts the game dramatically to Sansa.

“Oh c’mon, that’s just shipping goggles talking.”

Reasons why thinking this is based on shipping shows your inherent inability to understand narratives and story themes:

The North does not want a Southern ruler

Jon’s claim as KiTN is based on being the son of Ned Stark

The North especially does not trust Targaryens

The is a story of the political fracture of the North and South amidst an existential threat

This is not a story of how the best killers become the best rulers

Jon Snow’s hold on the North will be tenuous after RLJ is revealed

Sansa Stark becomes the most powerful political Northerner due to RLJ and the only way this doesn’t happen is if Bran decides to becomes a political figure

Daenerys’ political stature with every potential Westerosi subject goes down dramatically

THE GAME HAS SHIFTED COMPLETELY

Let’s refer back to the season 7 / episode 7 political map:

The shaded blue area loyal to Jon becomes ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON SANSA STARK to remain loyal to Jon.

If Cersei Lannister falls...it gets even uglier for Daenerys.

It’s entirely plausible that:

Riverlands return to the Tully’s - loyal to Sansa, possibly Jon, not Daenerys

The Reach goes to Samwell - (assuming he is done with the Night’s Watch) he would be the rightful heir. Loyal to Jon. Father and brother burned to death by Daenerys.

Stormlands - could go to Gendry. It’s at least plausible. It wouldn’t make sense for any other character to serve in that role in the present time anyway. Loyal to Jon, pre-existing relationship with Arya, son of Robert Baratheon. No loyalty to Daenerys.

Iron Islands - returned to either Theon or Yara. “You’re a Greyjoy, and you’re a Stark.” Loyal to the Starks. Maayyyyybe lingering loyalty to Daenerys...but why would they?

Westerlands - good chance only one of Tyrion or Jaime survive. If it’s Jaime, loyal to anyone but Daenerys. Most likely loyal to Sansa through Brienne and Cat. If Tyrion, maybe he remains loyal to Daenerys - even though there were layers and layers of seeds of doubt shown between Daenerys and Tyrion...but this remains her best shot for support long-term.

These are all plausible because, as yet, the show has presented no other realistic options for rulers of these different regions and it’s unlikely that the show will strip them all of political power in the “breaking the wheel” sense.

Where is Daenerys’ claim as Queen? Where is her support? She’s not the heir and she doesn’t command the loyalties of these different houses.

Let’s look at another version of the map...this time assuming Cersei falls, the houses that control those regions, and their primary loyalties.

Jon as the Targ sigil, Sansa as the Stark sigil (I know it’s the white wolf version, shut up), and Dany as....herself.

The North - the Starks

The Iron Islands - Jon or Sansa, highly unlikely Dany

Riverlands - Sansa

Vale - Sansa

The Reach - Jon

Stormlands - Jon

Dorne - unknown. Generously saying maybe Dany.

Westerlands - unknown. Generously saying maybe Dany but only if both Tyrion survives and her relationship with Tyrion survives.

So a union which two characters would automatically make the most political sense?

Assuming a combined Targ/Stark sigil...here’s how the map looks.

Before, the Reach and Stormlands would be most likely for Jon --  the Riverlands and Vale would be most likely for Sansa, the Iron Islands would be potentially for both while Dorne and the Westerlands would be unclear.

Now, you have the North, the Iron Islands, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Crownlands, the Reach, the Stormlands solidly united with the Westerlands and Dorne still to be determined.

So, if you still think this is based strictly on shipping goggles, this is a definitive theory that logically reconnects Westeros and repairs the fractured relationship of the North and the South. If you are unable to see why this makes sense and how it could happen, it’s more of an indication that you are not willing to look at the political groundwork the series has put forward so far. 

This is logical, this is plausible. This is NOT irrational shipping. This is why Jonsa makes complete sense.

[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

A Night to Remember, Part 2: The Mysterious Stranger

Summary: It’s the spookiest time of the year, and your boyfriend, Steve Rogers, has decided to surprise you. A trip to the costume store takes an unexpected turn. Pairing: Hunter!Bucky x Reader, Vampire!Steve x Reader Warnings: Language (as always), mentions of gore/blood, kidnapping Word Count: ~1,401 A/N: I couldn’t sleep; past mistakes coming back to haunt me and all that (must be the spooky season, eh?), so here’s chapter 2.

Masterlist // Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Finally, after years of following dead ends and tenuous-at-best leads, he’d tracked Steve down.

He waited until the two of you’d gotten into your car and driven a little bit farther down the street before he turned his car on and started following you. He’d gotten this far, and he didn’t plan on losing Steve again.

You grabbed the couple of costumes you’d found interesting (and, also, not completely slutty) and juggled them carefully as you made your way to the makeshift changing rooms in the back of the costume store.

“Got enough there?” Steve asked playfully, head popping out from another aisle.

“Not sure yet, might need to try a few more after this,” you said seriously, nearly losing the pair of people-sized bat wings from your teetering pile.

“Alright, I’ll be out here perfecting my look,” he said is an over-the-top mysterious voice, hiding behind a cheesy and cheaply made black cloak.

You laughed at his antics, shaking your head as you entered the dimly lit changing room, and closed the curtain behind you. You threw your hoard onto the rickety chair and surveyed it critically, trying to figure out where to begin. Maybe the slutty bat, just to get it over with? You reached for the costume’s package, smirking at the mental image you had of Steve seeing you in the costume-

A hard reached out from behind the curtains, covering your mouth completely. You tried to scream, but the sound didn’t make it past the person’s fingertips. The other arm wrapped itself around your chest and arms, pulling you firmly and securely to his chest, effectively immobilizing your upper half.

He yanked you backwards, out of the changing room, into the stock area. To your dismay, none of the employees seemed to be in the back at the moment. You tried kicking and elbowing your assailant, praying against all hope that someone would hear you. That maybe, just maybe, Steve would hear you and come to your rescue.

“Stop struggling. I don’t want to hurt you,” came a raspy voice in your ear. You wanted to cry. You were dead. Dead or mangled or raped, for sure. You fought back harder, needing to get away, even just long enough to scream for help.

You craned your neck, trying to get a glimpse of the person attacking you. You saw a few wisps of chocolate colored hair and realized the arm around your torso was prosthetic. You were in the middle of processing this information, struggling as hard as ever, when your assailant seemed to realized you weren’t about to go quietly.

For a split second, you felt a sharp, jarring pain in your temple. Then, the world went black.

You awoke to the sound of leaky pipes. You blinked slowly, the throbbing pain in your head making the small movement more difficult than it ever should have been.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to have to do that, but you were putting up a hell of a struggle.”

Your head whipped up, eyes open wide, and you immediately regretted the action. Your vision swam and you fought the urge to vomit everywhere. “Get away from me!” you hissed, voice hoarse from disuse. How long had you been unconscious? Why couldn’t you move?

Zip ties cut into your wrists and ankles and thick cords of rope were looped around your chest, restricting your breathing slightly. You glared up at your captor, and, were you in any other situation, you would have gawked open-mouthed at the specimen in front of you.

Stormy blue eyes stared at you with... concern? You pushed the thought away. If a twisted fuck like him was looking at you with anything close to concern, you were worried. His dark chocolate-colored hair framed his face and he hadn’t shaved in a few days, leaving a stubbly beard to coat his striking jawline.

You flinched as he held an ice pack up and moved to place it on the side of your head. You jerked and turned your head away, moving as far away from his touch as possible.

He sighed and dropped his hand, placing the ice pack down on the table next to him. You took a moment to survey the area around you.

You were in what appeared to be an old condemned house; some furniture- including the chairs you and he were sitting on- still remained, but in most places the paint and wallpaper was peeling off the walls- in some places, there were even holes which let in the cold autumn breeze. Floorboards were caved in here and there, and the only light was coming from a couple of candles and a camping lantern sitting on top of a much-abused old dining table.

“I know you have no reason to believe me, but I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, trying to make himself look as unimposing as possible. He failed in that regard, seeing as he appeared to be a giant mass of muscle.

“You punched me in the temple, sicko,” you said, glaring at him.

He looked apologetic; penitent, even. “I know. I’m sorry. I had to. It was the only way to get him here,” he said, blue eyes showing no sign of deceit.

“’Him’?” you asked, scowl deepening.

“Steve,” he said simply, as though it was obvious.

This fucker. He wasn’t just after you, he was after your Stevie, too. He was using you as bait.

“You leave him the hell out of this, you fucking bastard. He’s a good man-”

“He’s a monster,” the man said, cutting across your words. There was something in his tone that made you pause.

No. Not your Stevie. He was a kind, gentle man who brought you flowers and cuddled with you while watching your favorite movies until you both fell asleep.

“You’re sick in the head,” you hissed. “Help! I’m being held in here by a wack job! Please! He’s going to kill me!” You screamed, hoping someone, anyone, would hear you.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said, rolling his eyes at you. “And Steve really is a monster. Look,” he said, grabbing an manila folder of pictures and papers from the table. He opened it and tossed it at your feet and you nearly lost your lunch.

There were pictures of someone who looked like Steve, but the person was much smaller and skinnier than the Steve you knew. What scared you the most, though, were the numerous pictures of people.

Dead people, with their throats ripped out.

“What the fuck is this?” you breathed, looking up at the man, who was studying your reaction closely.

“This is what he looked like before he was turned. It’s also his handiwork,” he said, grimacing at the pictures of the mutilated corpses.

“I bet it’s yours, you bastard,” you said, spitting in his direction.

He sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair. He crossed his arms and looked you up and down. “Man, he really did a number on you...”

“The hell do you mean?” you asked. This man talked in riddles. You should be screaming, but your voice was already close to giving out-

“He’s a vampire. He’s compelled you to be loyal to him,” he said matter-of-factly, as though he hadn’t just spouted complete insanity at you.

“... You need some help, dude. Which I’d be happy to help you get if you just let me go,” you said, false smile brightening your face. And maybe also a swift kick in the nuts and a face full of pepper spray.

He groaned, running a hand over his face. “Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I get that. But I need you to understand, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not insane. And, God willing, we’ll both make it out of here alive in one piece tonight and there’ll be one less monster out there preying on the innocent,” he said earnestly, and, for a second, you almost believed him. “My name is James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky, and I’m a hunter of supernatural creatures,” he said, deadpan.

You were about to start screaming again, but both your and Bucky’s attention was caught by your phone ringing on the table suddenly. You both looked at it, neither one moving immediately.

Even from a few feet away, you could see the caller ID.

Steve.

Next Chapter

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Marvel Taglist: @feelmyroarrrr @in-winchester-we-trust @breezy1415 @thewonderfulworldofafangirl @starkspangledbarnes @aligatorinavest @acacheofstrange @stilliwait @drakkatz @weenie-butt @badassbaker @4theluvofall @dani-si @lostinspace33 @aberrant-annie @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @sebstanchrisevanchickforever19 @fatalcrossbow @with-a-hint-of-pesto-aiolii @palaiasaurus64 @titty-teetee @verdonafrost

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The Monster Series Taglist: @ipaintmelodies @d4rzill4 @axlesi @captainalinjastars @camambrosia @jasura @daybreakseventeen @fandoms-who @avocado-stocking​

[thelegendofclarke]

Just venting I need to get this out:I firmly believe that there are Key 6, not 5, players in ASOIAF. And Sansa is one of them. GRRM has himself named Sansa as one of his key protagonists (there were 6 in total inc Sansa) and also that Sansa,Arya and Bran's journeys were paramount for him. I know this subject has been done to death &I'm really sorry for imposing on you but yeah to me,based on all this,Sansa is one of the Key 6. (you dont have to post it. Just venting. Thanks for reading)

Hi! Sorry to bother you again. I’m the Key 6 players anon. You don’t have to post my initial ask. I know the whole thing has been done to death. I was just venting and getting it out of my system. I hope I didn;t offend. Thanks for understanding.

Hi Anonny!

Oh gosh please DON’T apologize, you didn’t offend me at all in the slightest! I am just slow af and take forever to answer things and am generally The Worst… But my Ask is always open for venting! Especially venting about people who don’t ~recognize, respect, and appreciate~ the Noble and Poetic Land Mermaid that is Sansa Stark.

Yeah, the Key Players debate does continue to be a kind of ~weird bone of contention~ in the fandom for some reason. I think (and like to hope) that a lot of the time when people talk about or make fanart for the Five Key Players, that they aren’t excluding Sansa or leaving her out maliciously. I think they might just be going off of, or wanting to acknowledge, the five main characters GRRM listed in his original outline for the series in 1993.

But you’re right, I have definitely seen people who insist that Sansa is not a main character or key player in the story, which simply isn’t true. GRRM even identified her as a main character himself in 2016:

I’d thought the whole story could be told in three books, and that it would take me three years to write them, a year per book. That picture was taken just a few weeks after I blew my first (bot not my last, oh no) deadline on the series. Ah, how innocent I was… little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest. (x)

And even if GRRM’s word alone weren’t enough, Sansa’s character is vastly different from how she was originally planned. In the original outline GRRM basically had the Arya character involved in plot lines that now belong to Arya, Sansa, and Meera Reed (homegirl would have been BUSY AF); and the original Sansa character was basically who we would now identify as Margaery Tyrell if you are looking for a comparison. The original Sansa character ended up marrying Joffrey and bearing him a son and then choosing him over her family and ultimately paying the price. It was always ~super obvious~ to me that GRRM figured out that it just wasn’t going to be logistically possible to have the Arya character do everything she needed to do. I mean she was basically going to have to be in a minimum of two places at once: fleeing North beyond the wall with Bran AND in KL/WF getting entangled in a love triangle with Jon and Tyrion. So he ended up splitting and then modifying Arya’s storylines for the characters we now know as Arya, Sansa, and Meera.

The Sansy Pants as we now know (and love) her does start out a lot like the original Sansa, with dreams of marrying the prince and having his babies ect. She also does play a big part in what some people see as the betrayal and downfall of her family. But unlike the Sansa in the original outline, our Sansa learns. Her observations and inner dialogue become more and more keen and shrewd and move further and further away from the romantic fantasies and naivety that characterized her original POV. The romantic and fanciful AGoT!Sansa does make appearances throughout the series as Sansa wistfully, and sometimes resentfully, recalls the girl she used to be. But AGoT!Sansa’s memory is consistently suppressed and rejected in favor of a sharper, smarter, more cunning, and more guarded perspective (She hasn’t left her romanticism behind completely though as we know, just like she hasn’t forgotten her true identity. She is still Sansa Stark; “Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell”). 

If anything, this proves to me she’s going to be a Key Player and central to the story’s endgame. Like her siblings Sansa has lived through extreme atrocities and incredible adversity and come out the other side stronger and smarter, but still kind an noble. And like Bran has been honing his supernatural abilities and Arya has been honing her physical abilities, Sansa has been honing her own intellectual abilities. Her growing political savvy and transition from Pawn to Player is incredibly similar to Bran’s growing confidence in his magical abilities. Just like Bran is gradually becoming one of the central characters for the magical endgame of the series, Sansa is transitioning into her role as a key player in the pragmatic and political endgame of the series.

And going along with that, I think another reason people have a hard time believing that Sansa is going to be a Key Player is because she isn’t magical. All the other five Key Players (Bran, Arya, Jon, Dany, and Tyrion) have some sort of magical ability that’s central to their arc. Whether it’s dragon riding or blood magic or warging or being brought back from the dead, they all have some sort of magical skill and/or experience. There is, of course, the fact that Sansa could have been a warg or a skin changer, but her ability to do so essentially died with Lady. But honestly I think that’s kind of beside the point…

In the end I don’t think it matters that Sansa doesn’t have any significant magical abilities, because I don’t think GRRM is trying to write a story solely about magic where the magical storylines and characters are the only important ones. I think he is more writing a story that is set in a world where magic exists. ASoIaF isn’t divided into magical storylines vs. political storylines, the two co-exist and are of equal importance. Whether you want to view ASoIaF as a political world where there’s magic or a magical world where there’s politics, it still stands to reason that the lives of the characters are going to be affected by both. Just like the magically inclined Dany is driven by royal aspirations and entangled in political endeavors, the politically savvy Sansa does interact with and has been affected by magic. 

Both these things occur simply based on the fact that both exist and are pervasive over arching themes in the universe GRRM has created. Even though Sansa doesn’t have any obvious magical skills like Arya and Jon, she has interacted with magic and it has been a prevalent theme in her arc. Here are just a few examples:

The name Sansa actually means “invocation and charm” in Sanskrit. And while yes, this could just be a play on words with Sansa’s power to charm others, it gets brought up again in he advices Petyr gives her to seduce Harry the Heir: “Charm him. Entrance him. Bewitch him.” Seduction is described here like a spell. 

The Ghost of High Heart Prophecy- “I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief. I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” The bolded part is pretty clearly speaking of Sansa at Joffrey’s wedding. The purple serpents in her hair with blood dripping from their veins is referring to the silver hair net with purple amethysts given to Sansa by the Tyrells which they used to smuggle poison into the wedding feast. The “serpents in her hair” also really strongly parallels the myth of Medusa, who could turn men to stone with just one look.   

The smallfolk also talk about Sansa and the Purple Wedding in terms of magic and legend when telling the story to Arya and The Hound: “The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window.” (Arya XII, ASoS) Not only do they say Sansa preforms a spell, but also that she skin-changes into a bat-wolf, all references to the dark arts. 

The remaining direwolves often think of think of “the sister they had lost”, which is obviously Lady. And it’s significant that because Sansa lost Lady, her brothers can’t track her the way they do their other siblings. This indicates that there is in fact a magical bond/connection between each Stark and their wolf allowing them to connect with and track each other as a pack, and that with Lady’s death Sansa’s magical connection was severed. 

GRRM has also explicitly stated that all the Stark children have warging abilities: “[On whether the trait of being a warg ran in the Stark family] I don’t know if I want to get into genetics - this is fantasy, not scifi… I don’t think this is necessarily a ‘Stark’ ability, though all the children have it to one extent or another. They also realize it to one extent or another.’

Her presence in Bran’s dream in AGoT (Bran III) where she is surrounded by shadows, each representing characters she has and possibly will interact with (The Hound, Jaime Lannister, and possibly Robert Strong)- “One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.”

Maggy’s Prophecy- Sansa is also potentially the “younger and more beautiful” queen in Maggy the Frog’s prophecy about Cersei. And while she might not ~actually~ end up being the younger and more beautiful queen, Cersei believes she could. This is significant because it shapes Sansa and Cersei relationship and fuels Cersei’s hatred of Sansa from the first time they meet. It’s the same reason Cersei hates Margaery, they are a threat not only to “all she holds dear” but also to her power. 

SO tl;dr Sansa Stark is ~important af~ and DEFINITELY a Key Player in ASoIaF. I know you already knew this haha, but just take comfort in the fact that there is a gd mountain of evidence against anyone who claims differently. So they can just sit there in their Wrongness and be Wrong :)

[sl-walker]

Wanta try something in my sandbox? Dani or Croft and Ahsoka? Draq’

When they found her, she was laying unconscious, her two-toned hair soaking up the rainwater beating down against her red skin; laying two meters away was a blaster, and in her hand was a knife, but there was no blood, no open wounds.

Rayva was a new CorSec cop; like most new cops, she had a serious crush on Inspector Dani Faygan which went well beyond the fact that the Zeltron could heat up a room without so much as batting an eyelash.  There was something about the woman, with her quickfire intelligence and her genuine kindness that seemed to have half or more of the people who met her falling in love with her within a day, and those who failed to fall on day one usually started to by day two.

Finding her laying so still on the ground was a particularly awful jolt.

“We need a medic and transport at 81st and 12th, the side alley,” Rayva said into her comm, trying to keep her voice from quivering as she knelt in the puddles of water to check for a pulse, not even feeling the rain soaking into her BDUs.

If Dani felt it, she never stirred.

Draq’ was wearing a path into his carpet, a glass of whiskey untouched on a side table.  At any other time, he probably would have called that a crime, but tonight, he had poured it and then promptly forgot it, only to go to pour himself a second and realize he’d already poured a first, only to forget that it was still there as his pacing resumed.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been in situations like this before, but rarely had he felt so deeply helpless to change it.  Or, at least, avenge it.

“I’ve had every doctor I could get my hands on check her over, and nothing,” he had said, a handful of hours ago. “No poisons.  No wounds.  Nothing physically wrong with her, except bumps and bruises from these damned seizures, and no one can figure out what’s causing them.”

Bail Organa had been on one of his too-rare visits to Alderaan when Draq’ had called; everyone within their patchwork quilt of a group was invested in Dani, not only for her position in said quilt, but for who she was. “And you think that it might help for someone – or someones – with certain skills to come and investigate?”

“I think that every option needs to be looked at.”  Draq’ paused yet again, staring at the blue holo form of his friend and co-conspirator. “Have you got a handle on anyone like that?”

Bail nodded. “I might have.”

Draq’ had already tried to get ahold of his nephew, but Bryne had been on an assignment that had him radio silent.  That left the only other certainty he had, in terms of the ability to possibly see things that went beyond the physical, which meant hoping that she was actually on speaking terms with her employer and available.

At word that she was, even coded, Draq’ felt the tension fade just a fraction in his shoulders. “Make it quick, Viceroy,” he said, but his rumble wasn’t a command so much as a plea.

“You know it.  I’ll send word once I have confirmation.”

That was good, that helped, but Draq’ still ended up pacing even after word came back that Bail’s Fulcrum was on the way.

Dani’s hurt.  We need you.

It was a simple message, but it had sent Ahsoka’s heart barreling for her boots.

The tendency of their little, slowly growing rebellion to get into tangled, complicated shit probably should have made a record book somewhere, if not for the fact that it had to be conducted in secret for obvious reasons.  Ahsoka didn’t have much concept of a future where the Empire had fallen, despite that being exactly what she was putting life, limb, blood and hope on the line for, but she still fought anyway.

She wanted to be able to imagine a return to a republic, a less corrupted version of the democracy she had mostly grown up in; wanted to be able to envision some future where she could freely travel to any world without worry about a lightsaber on her belt or covering her face.  But no matter how hard she tried to envision such a world, it vanished out of her mind; melted away into plans for their next move.

Whatever galaxy it was she was trying to help happen, though, needed people like Dani.

Ahsoka had been tracking down a little gremlin of a man with loose connections to both organized crime and supposedly with the Imps; he was low priority, someone who might squeal with the right pressure in one of a few different jails she could drop him in, but she was the one in the sector and the one available to find him, so she had gone.

She also dropped his trail like a hot rock when that message came and one she had verified its origins and identifiers.

There was an almost inconvenience to loving people.  To sharing their lives, even if only in flashes and moments too fleeting; to being invested in their joys and sorrows.  For a long time, she had done her best to hold them all at bay; caring, yes, compassion, yes.  But letting herself love them as fully as they deserved to be had been a risk she couldn’t afford.  Her whole world had crumbled around her; the Order she grew up in, the brothers she grew connections with on the battlefield.  She had survived all of that, somehow, but becoming a part of something new, opening herself up to feeling with acute intensity the loss–

They say that the heart is the only organ that can break and still work, she thought ruefully, as she slipped into the tiny, private hangar where her ship had been docked, checking in with Arseven before rushing through pre-flight.  I wonder how many times it can take being broken before it stops.

Morbid thoughts.  Dani was hurt, not dead.  Part of losing and losing and losing meant flinching internally before the final blow even fell.

No.  Not this one, and not today, she decided, and turned her nose into the black skies.

There wasn’t much to do in hyperspace.

Ahsoka meditated.

With her eyes closed and the familiar comfort of her cockpit surrounding her, she sunk herself into the Force and let herself drift into the currents of energy that bound all life together.  She remembered how good Master Obi-Wan had been at this; he could seemingly sense Jedi half a galaxy away, if he went deep enough and managed to stay there long enough.  Ahsoka’s abilities weren’t quite the same, but she still sought out the dancing green and purple, knowing that there was a chance he wouldn’t be there; that they were too far apart to see one another, even in a galaxy so diminished of their kind of Force sensitive.

Meditation proved to be harder than she wanted, though; her thoughts kept intruding, quiet but persistent.  The braided lives they all lived.  Her hunt-brother, and his connection with Dani.  Her own, still new one.  The friends who were all bound together, in different and complicated weavings.

She was about to give up entirely when she felt him across the distance, just a ping, and something in her heart warmed, settled.

She shifted from attempting meditation to dozing instead, a smile on the corners of her mouth.

Draq’ looked, in a word, terrible.

Ahsoka had been shown in by a CorSec officer, a young woman with heartache in her eyes and when she told Ahsoka she had been the one to find Dani, Ahsoka had reached out and caught her shaking hands for a squeeze before letting her lead the way to where Draq’ was waiting.

He was dressed right, presented right, but there was something devastating in his eyes, and when he wrapped his arms around Ahsoka, she could feel the faint tremble through his frame.  She doubted he had slept in quite awhile; something about him felt both on-edge and weary at once.

When he let her go and stepped back, his gaze slid away; that, too, was worrying.

“Come on,” he said, resting his hand on the back of her shoulder, guiding her as he filled her in. “The doctors have run so many tests that I’m surprised she still has blood left in her.  Scans, labs, the works.  We’ve scoured every damned database in existence in case it’s some obscure poison, but nothing’s come back.”

Ahsoka nodded, listening intently to both his words and the tone of his voice; the frustration and the fear and the disgust.  Her own senses were picking up something that was making her uneasy, but it wasn’t coming off of Draq’.  It felt a little like the raw prickle of thistles against her skin and she was already starting to realize that it was–

Dani.

One moment, Ahsoka was stepping into the infirmary.  The next, she was all but pinned to the wall by the pain; twisted into the Zeltron’s Force signature, her presence as a living thing, were hot currents of suffering and desperation and fear.  Somewhere in Ahsoka’s mind, she noted that Dani wasn’t projecting it, that her empathic resonance wasn’t the cause, but then she had to catch herself on Draq’s shoulder for a moment before reeling back out of the room and to the nearest ‘fresher so she wouldn’t end up puking on the floor.

tbc…???