#also the zombie army is LAME

[pineyw00dsshesquatch]

I watched this before the first one too! It was a BIG DEAL that they kissed!!!!

[guardian-of-da-gay]

Read on Ao3

For Whumptober 2024 Prompt(s) 4: Hypnosis, Hallucinations, "You're still alive in my head"

tw for mind control, hurt no comfort

When Sonic heard that G.U.N. needed help facing a ‘necromancer’ with a ‘zombie horde’ at his beck and call, his first reaction was: ‘Are these contagious zombies?’  Upon finding out they weren’t, his second reaction was ‘That sounds awesome!’.  Like yeah, fighting zombies, like fighting robots, wasn’t what he wanted to be doing.  But as long as he had to fight some bad guys, might as well have them be guilt-free, disposable baddies so you can feel even more awesome when you kick their butts.  But also… fighting a zombie horde just sounded cool!

Or at least that’s what Sonic thought when he ditched the evacuation effort with Knuckles.  Then he actually saw them.

He’d expected the dirty fur and patches of bone shining under shriveled skin.  Wasn’t too surprised to see their eye sockets glowing a sickly green.  He wasn’t expecting their threadbare clothes to be colored leather.  Their stringy hair to be frayed dreads.  The masks carved like owl skulls that had haunted his dreams since he was a kid.

Sonic bolted.

He was miles away before he was able to process:

Those had been echidna corpses.

Knuckles wasn’t with him.

Sonic had left him behind.

Maybe if he hadn’t, things would have been different.  Maybe Knuckles wouldn’t have joined forces with the necromancer.  Sorry, maybe ‘Enerjak’ wouldn’t have joined forces with the necromancer, since that was the lame new name he was trying to make happen.

He’d thought he’d known Knuckles.  Thought the ‘sacred vow’ Knuckles made to protect their planet was something he took seriously.  Thought their new tribe meant more to him.  But maybe it was less that his new tribe didn’t mean much to Knuckles, maybe his old tribe just meant more, even if there was just one freaky psychopath left.

Sonic had never laid eyes on the necromancer himself, but he had it on good authority (G.U.N.’s) that he was an echidna.  An albino one.  Apparently he’d chosen to embrace the ‘evil albino’ stereotype and raise an army of dead echidna.  And somehow Knuckles was not only cool with this, but seemed to be having the time of his life destroying everything in his path with his little corpse soldiers in tow.

All the Wachowskis (plus Wade) seemed to have a theory for why Knuckles would reappear as the hordes’ flagship warrior.  Some were more charitable than others, varying from ‘he’s been tricked’ to mind control/hypnotism/possession to ‘he doesn’t want to be on the side of the guys blasting his people’s bodies with bazookas’ to ‘the echidnas have always done dubious things so why shouldn’t Knuckles too?’.  That last one was Tails’ theory.  Some days, after a really hard fight, Sonic found himself agreeing.

They never say it out loud, but Sonic was sure they’d all considered the fact that the necromancer controlled dead people.  Knuckles’ pupils glowed the same green as the other echidna’s empty eye sockets.  And none of them had gotten close enough to get his pulse.  But that option was unthinkable.  Plus Knuckles didn’t act the same as the zombies.

While the blank-faced corpses destroyed all in their path, Knuckles seemed to… enjoy himself.  The zombies never spoke, but Knuckles did.  He’d laugh or yell or bark orders to the horde like he was really their leader.  Sonic had never been able to get Knuckles to talk to him though… At least, not until today.

“Feels like we’re getting into a bit of a routine now, huh Knux?”  Sonic dodged a flying fist.  “You and the freak legion go after people.  I try and stop you.  G.U.N. blows up a bunch of stuff to stop you.  We all go home tired.”  He tucked and rolled around to Knuckles’ blindspot and immediately ducked the wild swing that followed.  “Maybe we could spice things up a bit?  I propose a dance battle.”

Knuckles threw another punch.

Sonic dodged, keeping light on his feet.  He zipped around the next few swings, trying to keep up a steady stream of banter.  He was the fastest thing alive, but the goal today was to go slow.  G.U.N. was evacuating another neighboring town before the legion could reach it.  He had to keep Knuckles busy so the town was empty when Knuckles finally flattened it.

Because the crappy thing about a zombie horde was that no matter what you did to destroy them, they picked themselves up again.  And Sonic had kinda, sorta, never beat Knuckles in a fight.  They were playing defense right now.

And to make things even crappier: Knuckles fought differently now.  He hit harder.  Which Sonic didn’t think was possible.  Where before Knuckles put some control and thought into how much force was behind his punches, now it was like he threw everything he had into each one.  Sonic couldn’t afford to be hit even once now, because Knuckles was hitting to break rocks and Sonic was a lot squishier than that.

Knuckles was also a lot faster.  Not faster than Sonic, of course, but faster than before.  Apparently if he kicked off the ground harder, his strength would carry him faster and further.  The downside?  He trashed the ground every time.  Sonic knew he only had a limited window before the terrain would get hard to manage for both of them.  Then Knuckles would try and push the battle further away, closer to his target.  Sonic had to avoid that.  So even though he didn’t really want to talk to Knuckles, he said anything he could think of to try and distract him.

“You know, it’s funny how it’s always you and never that other guy,” Sonic said.  “The creepy white echidna?  Whatsisname.  Where’s he at?  Why’s he always sending you out like his personal servant boy?”

“I am no servant!”

Sonic was so surprised to hear him talk, he nearly lost his footing.  Knuckles’ next swing almost connected.  The wind was strong enough to throw Sonic off balance and he had to use his speed just to keep his feet.  “Could have fooled me!”  He stalled.  “Isn’t this just what Robotnik did?  Have you fight his battles so he could sneak around being evil?”

“Finitevus is not evil!”

Sonic dodged the next swing but landed on unstable ground.  He had to put on a burst of speed to get away before it could collapse.  “I beg to differ,” he said once he had solid footing.  “Look what he’s done to your people!”

Knuckles blasted forward, throwing up a huge cloud of earth and dust behind him.  He shot ahead of Sonic, feet digging trenches into the dirt to stop himself.  “He brought my people back!”

Cue the zombie horde.  A group of them dropped from the trees, surrounding them.

Sonic’s first instinct was still to bolt when he saw those masks.  He was getting better at making it a productive flight instinct though!  Case in point: when a group of them dropped from the trees to surround him, he immediately went fast enough that time seemed to slow.  He ran over the nearest one, breaking through their line and into the surrounding forest.

Time caught up with him when he’d put enough distance between them that he didn’t feel like he was going to have a heart attack.  His earpiece crackled and he heard Tails’ voice:

“Sonic, we finished evacuating the town.  G.U.N is just clearing out now.  Can you hold him a few more minutes?”

Sonic pressed one finger to the earpiece.  “Got it,” he said.  More echidnas appeared out of the woods.  The legion was getting closer.  Soon there’d be way more than Sonic could handle.  “Tell Commander Walters to hurry up!”

“Do you need me to come back you up?”

“I’m fine–”

Knuckles tackled him to the ground.  Crap, crap, crap!  Sonic got to see that sneer he’d grown to despise up close.  “Who is a the servant here?”  He asked, raising his fist.

“We have more of a collaborative relationship.”  Sonic tried to squirm away, but Knuckles caught him by the ankle and pulled him back.  Sonic kicked him rapidfire and Knuckles was forced to back off or take it all on the face.  Sonic rolled onto his feet and put some space between them.

“G.U.N. and I just mutually agree that making the world safe is the best thing for everybody,” he tried to keep his tone nonchalant so Knuckles might not notice the slight breathlessness.

“Not everybody,” Knuckles snarled.  “Finitevus will make the world safe for us!”

Sonic snorted and looked around, trying to mask his unease as more of the undead soldiers appeared.  “Safe for who?  You’re the only one still here!”

Knuckles swung forward.  “Are you blind?  They’re right here!”

Sonic tucked into a ball and zipped away.  He unrolled in front of a walking corpse.  “Are you blind?”  The zombie swung a broken spear shaft and Sonic dodged.  “They’re dead!”

Knuckles blasted toward him, his power bursting off him in a violent, red wave.  “NO, THEY’RE NOT!”

The wave forced Sonic off his feet.  He tucked up again and unrolled several yards away.  Knuckles’ blast had even sent his army flying.

Knuckles tugged his fist free from the earth and lurched to his feet.  “Finitevus returned them to me so we could fight together!”

Sonic stared at him.  “Are… are you actually crazy?”

“I’m not crazy!”  Knuckles said, looking utterly deranged.  He ran at Sonic, but Sonic wasn’t really in a fighting headspace at the moment.

What the hell was going on?  Knuckles didn’t think these guys were dead?  “Okay then, I guess I’m just confused.”  Sonic dodged Knuckles’ first swing and darted behind a guy who was literally just a skeleton in armor.  “This guy?  Definitely dead.  There’s no coming back from ‘no skin or organs’.”

Skeleton Guy turned to attack.  Sonic knocked his head off, lip curled in disgust.  The rest of Skeleton Guy flailed, searching around for its head.

“I’ve had enough of your lies!”  Knuckles bowed over the skeleton to charge Sonic.

Sonic dodged Knuckles even as he watched the skeleton feel around for his skull.  “... Do they talk to you?”

“Talk!”  Knuckles yelled back.

Then he slowed to a stop.  The vicious expression Sonic had come to know and hate suddenly faltered.

“Talk?”  He said it like he didn’t understand the word.  He looked around at the legion, first one way, then the other.  For the first time since this all started, he seemed unsure.

The quills stood up on the back of Sonic’s neck.  What was happening?

“They can’t talk…” Knuckles breathed faster.   “They… they were hurt so badly.”  The glow in his pupils sputtered and he swayed slightly.

Sonic’s heart began to race.  Suddenly Wade’s mind control/hypnotism/possession theory didn’t feel so farfetch'd.  But if that was the case, how did he pull Knuckles out of it?  Talking about his people being dead seemed to have been some kind of trigger.  Which sucked, but Sonic was grasping at straws, so he went for it:  

“They died, Knuckles,” he said, watching Knuckles closely to gauge his reaction.  Knuckles waivered, looking around at the hoard like he was looking at them for the first time.  The glow in his eyes was sputtering like a candle in the wind.  “They can’t talk,” Sonic continued, “because they’re not really here.  He didn’t bring them back, he’s just using their bodies.”

“No!  Father–” Knuckles looked around, and there was a frantic edge to it now.  “Where…?  He’s not here–who are–I don’t–”  He took a step back.  “I don’t recognize any of you!”

Sonic stared.  This was like seeing the confused Mr. Krabs meme in real life.  It was actually horrifying!  He’d been saying Knuckles was being crazy since he came back all sadistic and psychotic but this was… this was like for real psychosis.  Knuckles was genuinely shocked to see the people with him weren’t his family.  They weren’t even alive.

“Knuckles?”  He asked, holding his hands out flat.  “Knux?”

“Father hasn’t spoken to me,” he said.  “Why wouldn’t he…?”  Knuckles scrunched his eyes closed and pressed a hand to his head.  His teeth clenched, pained.

If an undead horde could hold its breath, that’s what the echidna corpses around them were doing.  Sonic certainly was.  He dared to take a step forward, then another.  He hadn’t been within arms reach of Knuckles and felt safe for months.  He still didn’t feel safe now, but at least now he knew his brother was still in there.

“Knux…”  He reached out and oh-so-gently touched Knuckles’ shoulder. 

“No!”  Knuckles jerked back, staggering.  “You’re lying!  You’re trying to trick me again!”  He clapped a hand to his head again.  He cringed from something Sonic could not see.  Blinking rapidly, he struggled to focus on Sonic in front of him.

Tails’ voice crackled into Sonic’s ear.  Everyone was clear, he could retreat now.  Sonic stayed put.

“I’m not trying to trick you,” he said.  “It’s that Finitevus guy who’s trying to trick you.”

“No,” Knuckles closed his eyes and jerked his head so hard his dreads swung.  The hand at his head balled into a fist.  He hit himself and Sonic had to suppress the urge to rush forward and stop him.

“I can trust Finitevus!”  Knuckles yelled.  “I can trust my people,” he said quietly.

Knuckles straightened, fists falling to his sides as he squared his stance.  He opened his eyes.  “I can trust myself…”

Sonic watched in horror as Knuckles’ pupils filled with green.

“I can trust my own eyes!”

[h50europe]

Why use a plot device as a springboard for a fanon ship? There's no point. Over the years, they have had many chances to hook them up. Why would Bi Buck need a plot device to come out? Wouldn't he have sensed that Eddie has deeper feelings for him? That they are more than "just friends" as they live out of each other's pockets. He's the legal guardian of Eddie's son in case something happens to him. Why not confess their love for each other in the wake of such tragic events—when you're on the brink of losing each other? Wouldn't it be the most romantic thing? The ultimate thing to do? But no, the showrunner has decided to use a plot device. Eh, how lame. Even after so many years, why take a detour and not go for the "real thing." That's not a slow burn; that's more of a dumpster fire. How many detours will it take to get the fanon ship out of the harbor finally?

None.

Because Bi Buck was always meant to be Buck's arc and not the mass awakening of 9-1-1. Which sounds like a Zombie movie, by the way. If Eddie would be gay (even closeted), wouldn't Tommy have sensed it? After all, he spent much more time with Eddie than with Buck. And still, Tommy read Buck like an open book. But his gaydar didn't ping the slightest when he was with Eddie? That's ridiculous, especially since Tommy was closeted himself for years.

Eddie's arc is different. It's the arc of someone who needs closure. Eddie is living with a ghost. This behavior is bleeding into the dates he has had ever since and his relationship with Christopher so much that it destroyed it. Christopher is no longer a little boy. He's a teenager with a lot of baggage for such a young age. He's lost his mother twice—first when she left and then after she returned and died. Now, he witnesses his dad falling apart right in front of him. The final straw was the doppelganger incident. So, asking his grandparents to take him to Texas was not because Christopher didn't love his dad. He might not even like it there. The reason he did this was self-preservation. He didn't want to witness his dad withering away until he was gone, like his mother. A teenager's mind works differently, and in his case, even more so, as he has special needs. Now, Eddie has to cope with his loss in more than one way. So, he turns to the next best thing he knows, his job, and he functions there. He's on autopilot, being a good soldier, following orders. Anything is better than sitting at home alone.

Eddie is fighting on so many fronts right now that his sexuality is not on his bingo card, let alone hooking up with his bisexual friend. First of all, he needs to find out what keeps him in this constant state of grief. Playing husband and dead wife with the doppelganger didn't do the trick. Then he needs to find a way to convince Christopher that he can rely on his dad. That he is going nowhere.

So, by shaving his mustache, he removes his mask, which has hidden his feelings and true self since Christopher left. The plot with the priest made me think about soup kitchens and working with veterans. Maybe Eddie finds his way by attending veteran meetings or helping in a soup kitchen. It's a different approach to therapy.

While we are at it, in one of his cameos, Lou mentioned he might have known Evan in the past—someone who meant a lot to him, maybe someone he met during his time in the army. We know that Tim is open to ideas. What if this is one of those hurdles? What if this comes up (as Buck finds a photograph that has Evan and me written on the back), and Buck asks, "Do you think of him when you call me Evan?" Tommy could repeatedly assure him this is not the case, but it still raises doubts in Buck.

Buck could also have doubts about his first time with a man. That's when Josh comes into play. We know that Buck is a stickler for details and likes to learn about things in advance. Having sex with a man is something Buck has no experience with. It could be one of those hilarious talks that we had in the past.

Of course, these are speculations, and if you have come that far, thanks for taking the time to read.

[miraclesnail]

title still pending, wip, chapter 3

chapter 1 2 next chapter

When you think of Travis Stoll, what comes to mind? Powerful? Intelligent? A protagonist? More like weak, a bit on the air-headed side, and a minor character at best. So why is he being chased by a crazy man with a foot long butcher knife?

When Travis was nine, Castor and Pollux snuck them a DVD from the outside world. It was a movie called Resident Evil. And like the mean, pseudo-big-brothers they are, Castor said, “It’s a funny movie.” 

“It’s a safe movie,” Pollux followed. 

It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t safe.

Instead it gave Travis a healthy dose of zombie phobia. 

It lasted up until he was 17, around the time when Nico decided to stay full time as a yearrounder. The kid used his zombie army for everything. Building his cabin, getting him snacks, attending counselor meetings. They’re actually pretty docile and interesting once Travis got over the fear of them turning into raving, brain-chomping zombies.

Well, whatever Nico did for his zombie-phobia is all undone. Right now. Right at this moment. 

The thing inching towards him on its stomach groans like the hungry brain-eating zombie it is, muffled due to its face planted solidly into the broken tile floor. 

Travis tries not to whimper (he does though) as he scoots back on his butt from the thing. He wants to run. He wants to rollerblade away. He wants to be anywhere but here. But all of that requires access to his hands which he unfortunately does not have access to right now.

He pulls lightly on the handcuffs binding his wrists together. They graft uncomfortably on his skin and he stops. The thing groans as the metal links on the handcuffs jingle and seem to shuffle even faster towards him. It’s head is rising (oh god, oh please no.) enough for Travis to see eyeless sockets, broken jaw swarming with maggots, blue skin tinge with mold and fungi, and — 

Okay, he has enough. 

“Hey, uh, Michael?” he calls out hesitantly.

His once dead but now alive and well, and also the reason for him being tied up, friend does not respond. So Travis tries again, this time louder. “Hey, Michael.”

Nothing. 

Dude, what has he done to piss off Michael? They were on great terms before Michael had died! 

…

Michael died. Michael is dead. So this person in front of him couldn’t be Michael. Because Michael is dead. Michael died. 

Who is he then? A lookalike? A twin brother? A clone?

You know what? This is an issue Travis will leave for another time. A more pressing matter is rearing its ugly head with each passing second. That thing is a foot away from him now. 

“Michael,” Travis tries again only to be ignored again. And fine with him. He knows exactly what will make Michael talk. “Mike. Mikey. Mic. Saint Michael. Mikey-angelo. Miiiiichaeeeeeel. Miiiichaeeeellllllllll.”

And as expected, Michael snaps, “What?” His brown eyes alight with such familiar anger that Travis can’t help but stare. The intensity, the way Michael scrunches his face, the absolutely familiar face of irritation is all very Michael-like. Though, it was never him at the end of Michael’s temper. It had always been Clarisse.

“Can you do something about the… uh… you know.” Michael still glares at him and okay, Michael is really gonna make him say it. Travis finishes the sentence lamely, “The zombie. Can you get rid of the zombie?”

He waits for the ridicule, the jiving, the “oh gods, you’re such an idiot. Zombies aren’t real.” but instead all he gets is an arrow piercing the thing’s head in a millisecond.

Travis jumps, tied hands clenching his chest at the speed of the arrow. He smiles gratefully and relaxes his shoulder. “Thanks. I really—”

“Shut up.”

And Travis snaps his jaws shut and endure the uncomfortable silence they delve into. He twiddles his thumbs. He taps his feet. He thinks about how Michael is now alive. The doors of death are open again? Michael decides to make a break for the real world? Michael decides to take revenge for his untimely death caused by Luke by messing with him? 

But none of that explains why everything is so… bleak and apocalyptic. New York is destroyed. **(add more later)** Most of the buildings are gone and the remaining ones are compromised. The tiles and walls have green junk growing out of them. These things, zombies, did not exist before. 

This… all of this… it has to be an elaborate prank by Connor, right? A prank that Connor somehow manages to convince Nico and Hazel to join in on? Yeah… yeah. That makes sense. Nico and Hazel made the zombies. Annabeth designed this fake, apocalyptic New York. Percy and Jason can be the one causing the storm outside. This has to be it. There’s no other explanation. **Now to figure out what Travis did to deserve all this… 

Only one way to get answers. 

“So Michael—” he begins.

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

That went nowhere. 

Micheal crosses his arms, not moving from where he’s leaning on the crumbling wall. He’s frowning, staring intently at him. Like he’s waiting for him to do something. Like he’s waiting for him to make a run for it. But the crossbow resting snugly against Michael’s leg with all its beautiful, entirely real arrows assures Travis will do nothing. 

Except maybe scratch the itch at the back of his head.

The second his hands move up, Michael has the crossbow up and aims at his face.

Okay, no scratching the itch. Maybe he could just use his shoulder or the wall behind him. 

He lowers his hand and chuckles nervously, “Okay, sorry, sorry.” 

Michael didn’t lower the crossbow though.

Michael didn’t smile and say, ‘just kidding.’

Michael didn’t pull his mask off to reveal he’s actually Connor. 

Instead all Michael does is rest his finger on the trigger.

Oh gods. He’s really going to die here.

“Aren’t you going to make a run for it?” Michael says.

“Run?” he chuckles, “How am I going to run with you pointing a crossbow on my face?!”

Michael frowns. “You’re going to hurt Beckendorf’s feelings if you don’t try. He’s certain he created restraints even you can’t break out of.” **

Beckendorf. Another dead friend being spoken about like he’s alive. Yeah, why not. He’ll play along with whatever game this is. “Well, I’m sorry but I can’t break out of these.” And to prove it, he tugs on the cuffs and makes the link jingles. 

Michael scowls, the crossbow lowering just a tad. “You’re not even trying, asshole.”

The word comes automatically without him thinking. Connor likes to curse. Cecil sometimes too. Julia and Alice do it often as well. When he’s in a cabin full of little kids as young as 7, parents do not appreciate their kid coming back from the special summer camp knowing all the bad words a kid shouldn’t know. And since he’s the oldest, the blame falls on him. He, of course, makes Chiron take the heat of their parent’s complains but it still leaves a bad taste on his tongue. 

“Don’t curse,” he says on instinct.

Michael stiffens. He grips his crossbow tighter. 

“Travis,” Michael says slowly. At least he got his name right. “Why are you… acting … this way?”

“What way? I’ve always been this way.”

Michael exhales and steps closer. He kneels so they’re eye level and with a very careful eye, studies his face with excruciating focus. It’s very uncomfortable and Travis deals with uncomfortable situations the only way he knows how. 

With his trademark smirk, he shouts, “Boo!”

Expectedly, Michael jumps back and Travis makes himself laugh. Unexpectedly, Michael is back by his side, this time with fear in his eyes. With a very gentle hand, Michael touches his shoulder. Travis isn’t weirded out by touching. But it always came from Connor or his younger siblings. And Michael, before he died, was never a touchy-feely kind of person. 

Maybe he should jumpscare him again. 

With a careful voice, Michael says, “Travis, what are you wearing?”

He looks down and sees nothing out of the ordinary. “What do you mean?’

“Where did you get the shirt?” Michael’s voice is strained.

“My … shirt? From the camp store?”

Michael breathes harder. “Why are you wearing it?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to wear? Newsflash, Michael but this orange shirt is all camp has,” Travis jokes, hoping Michael will laugh but all Michael is doing is breathing harder and harder. 

“Travis, please, tell me you’re pulling my leg right now,” Michael pleads with tears in his eyes.

Travis blinks in alarm. Michael is on the verge of crying. Michael has tears in his eyes. Michael is pleading with him. This isn’t a joke, is it?

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers truthfully, wincing at Michael’s face falling further, “I have no idea what’s going on actually. I, uh, thought you were Connor in a mask, but now I’m not so sure anymore.” 

Michael chokes and a violent shudder runs through his body. Callous hands grip his shoulder and shake him harshly. “Are you on drugs right now? Is that why you’re acting so strange? God fucking damn it, Travis! What the fuck!” Michael yells. 

“I— uh— um—” 

 Oh gods, what is he supposed to say?

Michael pulls him up by the front of his shirt. Travis stumbles unevenly on his feet. Even that seems to panic Michael more because he starts patting him down again, skipping over his secret stash. 

He squirms against the proding, whining, “Why are you doing this again? I told you I have nothing hidden.”

“You have nothing on you. No weapons. No equipment. No nothing. Fuck. Travis, are you fucking crazy?!” 

“Am I supposed to have something on me?”

This time Michael didn’t even answer his question, instead pulling an eyelid back. Travis flinches from the sudden proximity and tries to pull away but Michael wasn’t having any of it. 

“Did you take something? What was it?”

“Other than tylenol for my headache this morning, nothing,” Travis says. 

Michael scowls, “Bullshit. You’re acting weird. You’re acting like you did back then. You’re tan for whatever reason and… and…” Michael grabs his wrist and turns them over till the palms face up. He’s deathly silent. “Your scars are gone.”

His eyes trail back up. “All your scars are gone.”

“Yeah…well,” Travis pulls his arms out of Michael’s hands and shuffles back. “Mike, you’re really freaking me out right now.”

“Travis… you’re really Travis, right?” Michael whispers, not following after him. 

“The one and only,” he says, eyes looking away as he shuffles back some more, unsure of what to say next. There’s something in the shadows. There’s something moving in the shadows. There’s someone in the shadows. But it’s not shuffling like a zombie would so it’s probably not a — 

A gust of wind lifts them both up from the ground. Terror grips his heart and Michael yelps in alarm. Just a few meters behind them is a drop from an unimaginable height. They’re going to die. But rather than push out, the wind lifts them further and further up to where their back touches the ceiling. 

It feels like one of those gravity roller coasters in the fair. A force is pushing him onto the surface and it’s impossibly difficult to lift a hand against the gravity. Except there’s no rollercoaster causing this. And this experience is nowhere near as fun as the one in the fair. 

Michael struggles valiantly, twisting and turning and screaming to be put down. His crossbow lies below them. 

The person in the shadow moves closer, stumbling in an uneven gait, shambling like they’re drunk.

Crap, was it actually a zombie?!

But, wait, no. The zombie is laughing, manic and high, and zombies can’t laugh. 

“Caught two! I caught two!”

And zombies can’t talk. 

“I’m going to be fed for decades!”

But zombies eat flesh and oh god it is a zombie. 

The pressure intensifies and he can’t move. He can’t breathe. He’s being crushed. He’s being suffocated. 

The zombie moves from the shadows and into the dim light. And maybe Travis is dreaming, maybe he’s hallucinating, maybe he just ate something bad and is going through a full blown bacteria-induced hallucination, but the zombie that stumbles into view shares a face very, very similar to that of Lou Ellen, counselor of Hecate cabin.

Lou Ellen laughs freely, head thrown back and arm clutching her stomach. She steps closer and he notices something was wrong with her left leg. It shouldn’t be caved in the calf area. It shouldn’t be curved inwards at all. He shouldn’t be able to see the red sinews of the muscles and the telltale white of the bone. 

“Oh. It’s you. Hey, there,” Lou Ellen says and she steps closer until he can see her face, beyond happy, beyond crazed.*** 

She gives a wide, blood stained smile. 

“Nice to see you again.”  

He wakes up with the burning, excruciating pain in his neck. But it lasted only for two seconds before it all went away and he could breathe again, could think again. 

He always wakes silently. Sometimes zombies would claw their way to his living quarters and being absolutely still and listening first has saved him from bites many times. 

Clarisse’s voice is what he hears first. Maybe he’s been captured but he’s still alive for some reason. He wouldn’t think they would capture him and not sacrifice him right away unless they struck a new deal with the gods. 

“We should crack open his mind. Take a good look at what’s inside.”

“No, we can’t. That’s invading his privacy.”

Clarisse is arguing with someone. The other voice is unfamiliar. 

“He’s an enemy. We can’t treat a threat like he’s our friend.”

“But that’s Travis! We can’t—”

“Travis decapitated Mr. D, eviscerated Chiron, and tore my knee a new one. He’s fucking dangerous, Holly. Laurel, you shut the fuck up too.”

Oh. It’s Holly and Laurel. … What are they doing with Clarisse?

He keeps still, keeps his breathing even, and surveys his situation. He’s resting on a cushioned surface on his back. His wrists are bound with metal. One on each wrist and they extend outwards. Not linked together. He senses, more than feel, that it’s just a simple master lock with a standard key. The basics of basics. He can undo this in a millisecond. 

He listens closely, taking in the creaking of wood and the scuffing of shoes. There’s a person right next to him. Maybe 15 or 20 total in the room. If it had just been Michael and Clarisse, he could escape just fine. But they somehow got new people. Where did they get new people? They’re not exactly in supply.  

“You guys, maybe we should wake Travis up and have a talk with him.” Another voice he doesn’t recognize. 

“And have him go crazy trying to kill Percy again? Dude, no. That’s not a good idea. Six people couldn’t restrain him.” [That voice is Leo’s.]

“But we’re not getting any answers with him asleep. Besides he’s tied up and there’s 20 of us. I can charmspeak if we really need to,” the person beside him says. [Piper.]

“Alright, Clovis, wake him up. Everybody else be on guard,” a girl commands and involuntarily his hands curl into the sheets. Annabeth said that. No doubt. That’s Annabeth’s voice. Clear. Precise. Said a name. This isn’t reality then. Gods-induced illusion? Or did he finally die and this is his eternal hell?

“He’s already awake.”

Chairs scoot on wood and he can hear the boards creaking. Metal clinks around the room. Are they drawing their weapon? Why?

[I decapitated the God and gutted the centaur.] Oh. 

“Drop the act, Travis,” Annabeth demands. 

He opens his eyes and winces at the sunlight. It’s so bright. And quiet. It’s so quiet. The absence of rain after months and years of constant downpour… it’s jarring. It feels unnatural. Someone coughs and slowly, unhurriedly, inch by inch, he turns his head to the side to quickly glance at the people on the other side of the room. All of them standing and all of them either gripping the hilt of their weapon or hiding behind another person. 

[They’re scared. I didn’t mean to… I wouldn’t have… if I known they were going to freak out like this… maybe I should have blown the immortals up instead.] I think that’ll still be an issue. 

He recognizes a couple. Clarisse. Will. Katie. Conn— he tears his eyes to the next person. He doesn’t recognize her. Nor the next demigod and the next and the next until his eyes land on Perseus. By instinct, his hands reach for the weapons on his belt, but they lay several feet away on a table. Two demigods are sorting through his weapons. 

He calms the murderous, bloodthirsty need in him and looks to the next person, to Annabeth. He stares at her. At her golden locks. At the ponytail. At the familiar sternness of her face, the familiar sharp gaze. It’s her. It’s really her. 

A chair creaks nearby and he glances upwards. It was Piper sitting beside him. She stiffens when they make eye contact but she remains seated. 

“Hey,” she says curtly. 

“Hey,” he mutters awkwardly. 

You’re right. Piper has a really nice voice. [I know, right?]

He turns his head back to the ceiling and closes his eyes. There’s around 20 demigods in this room. More than half he does not recognize. And the half he does recognize, he can’t overpower by himself. Not an illusion then. Not hell then. He digs his nails into his thigh and considers the pain. This is reality. 

[I think we can still make a break for it]

A chair screeches against the hardwood and he winces at the grating noise. It’s too loud. His neck itches. And he goes to scratch it. The handcuffs only allow him a couple inches off the convertible sofa. But even that is too much to give. They should have secured it all the way down. They even gave him a pillow for his head. Stupid idiots. 

“Travis,” Annabeth says, “If you cooperate with us, everything will go smoothly and nobody will be hurt. So I’m going to need you to answer a few questions.” 

Something groans beside him and he snaps his eyes to it and oh. It’s just a branch against the window. 

“Why did you attack Percy?” Annabeth continues, undeterred.

He can see the tips of the pine trees and the very clear, very blue skies, not a single cloud in sight. 

“Travis, answer me.”

A bird flies freely, soaring without a care in the empty sky.

“Travis.”

There’s a gentle breeze outside, not a howling hurricane. 

“Travis? Are you listening?”

The sun is shining. There are birds flying. The leaves are green. Annabeth is alive. Connor is alive. Leo and Piper are alive too. Everything is alive and brimming.

Why? 

The boy he thought was Connor, the one he chased through the entire building from one end to the other, the one who confidently said his name, must actually be Travis. Did the clover allow him to time travel? To a past where nothing has gone wrong yet? No, that can’t be. The other Travis must have been the same age as him. [Piper and Leo were never at your camp at any point.]

“Percy, bring it over.” 

Then what is this? 

“Why do you have this?”

He peeks an eye open, glances at what Annabeth holds in her hands. It’s just a phone. Why is she so confused by it?

“Neat thing you have here.” Annabeth flips the phone in a hand, flipping it back and forth in faux-nonchalant observation. “It doesn’t emit our signals. You can’t attract monsters with this.”

He frowns. The way she’s talking… like she had never seen … when she had advocated for its creation for so long… *****

Annabeth hums curiously. She taps the screen once to activate it. “Who is ‘**Melon Lord?’ Weird name. They've been messaging you non-stop.”

Shit. 

It takes all he has to roll his head to the side. Annabeth holds the phone screen out for him to read, but still far enough he can’t reach it. He winces at the barrage of texts he sees.

“Yo yo yo! It’s your savior here with another daily update! I’m alive as you can see. How are you doing this fine hour? Still kicking, I hope? The others are making quite a commotion. I think they’re saying they caught you? You in trouble? Need help?”

“Yooo Travis? You're dead or what?”

“Travis?”

“Dude, I know you’re reading this.”

“Hey, you okay?”

“Travis?”

“Okay, it isn’t funny anymore. Text me back now.” 

Annabeth takes the phone back and scrolls through the limited notifications with a scowl. “Who is this person? They’re really concerned.”

Commotion? Shit. That’s right. Michael. Michael is the reason why he’s here. After he’s pushed in, what happened? Did … did Michael catch his other self? Is Michael taking him back to their base right now?!

Shit. Fuck. 

[No, wait, calm down. Let’s think this through.]

Easier said than done when his heart is beating faster by minute with fear. 

“Travis?” Annabeth’s voice is stern but there’s a crease in her eyebrows, eyes tinged with worry. 

“I…” But his voice is raspy and he gulps, wetting his mouth before trying again. “Give me back my phone. I need to call someone.”

“Call who?” She asks, face blank. “Who are you going to call?”

“S-” but he stops. 

His knowledge of the world and theirs is conflicting. 

But this isn’t an illusion. Isn’t a dream. Isn’t time travel. 

Annabeth sighs. “You know, Travis, for as long as we know each other, you never seem like the type of person to be a double agent.”

A different world then. [A parallel universe, an alternate universe] 

“We all trusted you back then when Luke left and Chiron always sent you and Connor out on a lot of quests.” 

A world where Camp Half Blood is still standing. ***

“You guys always succeeded.”

A world where everyone is alive. 

She flips the phone to its back cover and taps the insignia, a simple gold scythe, on the bottom corner.

“Hey, tell me, Travis.” Annabeth stands above, leering down over him with her piercing gray eyes. 

A world where everything is okay. 

“Was it because you were pulling the strings behind our backs?”

A world where he made the right choice and didn’t join Kronos’s cause. 

[thegardengrows-infrozenrain]

clone tord is SUCH a lame fucking headcanon for the end

like why can't he just be randomly evil for an episode. why does he need to secretly be an escaped clone the whole time or whatever.

matt lead a fucking army of zombies in one episode only for it to pretty much be never brought up again with no further consequences on the show and y'all aren't like "uhm well obviously zombeh matt was acthually a clone the entire time, because [blah blah blah shit that really doesn't hold weight]"

like what if the end was just a silly whacky two-part event where tord came back and went evil and the next day everything was back to normal from the perspective of the guys.

if matt (and tord!) can come back from being zombies (and in matt's case also a vampire) why can't tord afterwards be normal and unharmed, jon lives, their house doesn't blow up, etc

has modern children's media given y'all that "dEePeR lOrE!!!!1!!" brainrot and you just HAVE to go searching deeper in some weirdo british webtoon about four men experiencing whacky misadventures in a whacky world

a world so whacky you could even call it their own, particularly due to one character

you could call it Edd's World

also for all the complaining people do about legacy being out of character and trying to "fix" the characters, you guys also make them extremely OOC just in a different, edgier direction lmao

[pettyprocrastination]

okay but people who have some sort of rare genetic mutation during the apocalypse (im thinking zombie but hey it could be anything) where they become immune to being infected with the virus/bite/sickness WHATEVER but like...halfway through. Like they get infected and begin the signs of changing but then their body fights it and neutralizes it and now they're immune. But they're also left with half of the process so they're partially fucked up looking with half scarred bodies, teeth grown sharp and jagged and sometimes so big they protrude from their mouth, red eyes and a clawed hands. but it also comes as a built in camouflage. They can walk through hordes of infected and not get attacked because they're seen as one of them via scent or some shit. So these half immune people are like. a HEAVILY desire source for getting supplies/travelling through heavy infected areas despite people full on hating them and wanting to kill them out of paranoia and lack of trust. 

Probably called something like ‘half-bloods’ or some shit. Most of them would probably tend to stick together for safety but also there’s a sense of arrogance. The infected can’t hurt them, so what the fuck is a lame little human gonna do to them? and they KNOW these fuckers need their help too so they offer prices for their services. 

Others tend to stay alone out of fear of their body and what others will do to them. probably wearing masks as well to keep it hidden from others when they do supply/smuggle runs. 

There’s probably some religious fanatics who see half-blood as the supreme race/the next evolution in humanity/a sign from god or some shit. A entire cult dedicated to the half-bloods, probably run by a half-infected priest who then has his followers willingly infect themselves to join “God’s army” and only a few of them survive because of it. 

Anyways, this is my way of saying “mmm sharp teef” in a apocalypse setting with some plot so i seem normal to you guys. 

[bigprettygothgf]

final tally of shit i watched this october not counting short films and the handful of movies unrelated to horror i watched during the day because thats cheating. also if this seems random as hell at times its because it is i dont plan this shit thats lame. i also watch bad movies i know will suck on purpose. anyway

the thing (2011)

the thing (1982)

silent hill (2006)

silent hill: revelation (2012)

prometheus (2012)

the mummy (1932)

children of the night (1991)

arachnophobia (1990)

motel hell (1980)

white zombie (1932)

frankenstein (1931)

the bride of frankenstein (1935)

dracula (1931) (US)

son of frankenstein (1939)

the wolf man (1941)

plan 9 from outer space (1957)

the ghost of frankenstein (1942)

frankenstein meets the wolf man (1943)

xtro (1982)

the monster squad (1987)

house of frankenstein (1944)

near dark (1987)

house of dracula (1945)

abbott and costello meet frankenstein (1948)

creepshow (1982)

V/H/S/94 (2021)

psycho goreman (2020)

black sabbath (1963)

the evil dead (1981)

creature from the black lagoon (1954)

evil dead II (1987)

army of darkness (1992)

the devil bat (1940)

house on haunted hill (1959)

manos: the hands of fate (1966)

halloween (1978)

the texas chain saw massacre (1974)

tbh november is just october part 2 so i will continue watching almost exclusively horror for another month as usual

[shieldrevive]

@magikldreams gets a plotted starter ( ft. nat )

felt like a given, but steve missed the way it used to be. the world was so much more simple when it was just man against man, so to speak. he'd grown to understand mankind. growing up the way he did taught him many things and most of those things taught him to be a fighter. protect those who couldn't protect themselves. that made the army a natural choice once his body was bigger and stronger.

but no amount of anger and no amount of training could prepare him for the undead. they overran them like a tsunami, no matter what he did and no matter what the rest of his unit tried to fend off what they later discovered to be an actual zombie apocalypse. bucky found a mild amount of humor in that considering how deeply invested into sci-fi his best friend had always been. now, it was the same lame joke steve held on to because it was the only thing to keep his hope alive. bucky was out there somewhere. they'd been in the army together and gone through the same exact training. if he was still alive, then so was barnes.

hell, barnes would outlive him simply because steve had the tendency for the dramatic.

" i scored a sketchbook, " the blonde held up to nat when they finally met back up. his smile said it all. the moleskin was still wrapped in plastic and everything. sure, there were lines on the page but beggars could not be choosers at this point. " there's also a decent amount of water jugs in there. looks like it hasn't been picked clean yet. " his feels his heart take a sledgehammer to the center of his chest. " find anything? "

[kkeidawrites]

Castlevania spoilers!!!! If you don’t want to know how the show ends in season 4 please refrain from reading the rest of this post because I’m not holding back! Also I’m writing this as I watched so, this is my raw review!

Okay, so first off I want to say personally, I loved how season 4 brought heat to the finale of the show. Although I’m sad as hell that this is the last season for a great show.

Episode 1: Murder Wakes It Up- I thought that it was cool to see Trevor and Sypha fighting again after what happened in S3, obviously they are tired from the long four week journey of fighting night creatures, skeleton zombies, vampires from different countries, etc. but clearly the end game is that humans and vampires alike are working together to bring back Dracula. Like seriously, y’all might not know this but I hate, HATE when children become involved in stupid shit like human sacrifices like I can’t. Not the children. Please, not the babies. Sypha complaining she’s becoming like Trevor, and she’s so cute when she curses lol. Then when they arrive in Targoviste we have some new faces as potential enemies. I thought they were lame honestly lol I couldn’t take Barney-Larney whatever his dumbass was; he was mad annoying.

Then they shift over to Alucard…I have never seen a more broken beautiful drunk man in all my life. Like I had S3 flashbacks. He’s asked for help from a messenger who ended up dying on the way to the castle but his horse made sure he continued the journey and Alucard received the message for help in Danesti. Alucard fights with the horse, I thought that was funny. He was thoughtful enough to bury the rider, that was very sweet of him.

Also, shirtless Alucard will be engraved in my mind for life. Whew, chile that’s one fine man. He’s beginning to talk like Belmont and I can’t help how hilarious that is.

Episode 2: Having the World: Quite honestly this episode to me was meh. Hector talking with Lenore about how he needs this and that to create his hammer to continue forgemastering then Lenore talks with Carmilla and the white haired bat talks about how she is going to rule the world and what not, clearly losing her sanity.

Then it shifts over to Trevor and Sypha and they are fighting in a barn and new character Zamfir. Her character for me was also meh, but it’s nice to see more PoC in the show.

Episode 3: Walk Away: I liked this episode a lot. Issac altogether was nice enough to sit down and talk with a night creature and tell him/them that they were free of their original program, which was: eating humans, causing destruction, used as tools to forge masters. But man when he received that berry from Issac he realized that there is still some kind of humanity in them.

Issac is contacted by Varney to bring back Dracula but, Issac wants no business with that; he doing his own thing and seeing him being sassy again is so refreshing.

Morana and Striga scenes!!! I loved them, and then there was Striga’s day armor, man listen…I have never felt more closer to watching Berserk again than in that moment. They are hesitant to return back to Styria when Carmilla calls them, and it puts them in a bind to return home to continue through with Carmilla’s plans.

Sypha being annoyed by Zamfir was me the entire time. How you gone run a kingdom again with out a kingdom. Like girl, help the people instead of the royals, my god.

Episode 4: You Must Sacrifice: A cute little Trevor and Sypha scene. They decide to investigate Targoviste more before helping Zamfir. The scene shifts and Alucard is riding towards Danesti, donning a shield and a longer cape. Monsters are attacking the walls of the village, villagers are on the other side waiting to defend themselves. Some Castlevania popular screenshots appear here.

Then we meet Greta…Miss thang…that’s one beautiful woman okay. And she’s the chief of the village, cares for her people? Y’all I present. Her. And the fact that she is sassy too? I rock with her heavy as hell.

Saint Germain meets Alucard and I have a weird vibe coming from him. We see Saint Germain’s backstory or what little it will show us; he had a whole girlfriend, she a baddie too. Apparently she was like him? And she was the silhouette we saw in S3. Cool scene, inside the Infinite Corridor and I liked the library scene a lot too. Now he’s on a rampage trying to find access to the Infinite Corridor again to find his girl and he also wants to bring back Dracula? The fuck?

Refugees arrive at Danesti, and Saint Germain is acting very strange indeed. Like he’s desperate to go to the castle to help with the village “defenses”. Alucard agrees I guess? And he says another Belmont comment which I was happy to see again in the season.

Episode 5: Back in the World: Alucard leads Greta, Saint Germain and the villagers to his castle but, encounter a couple of night creatures on the way. Greta does Saint Germain y’all and I’m with her 100%. Alucard’s powers have definitely improved from last season. It was kind of interesting how Alucard willing told Greta what happened with him and you know who, kind of early in my opinion. Greta is bisexual?!!!! I love her 1000% now! I sense some chemistry between Greta and Alucard. I like that a lot.

Lenore really like annoys my soul, I do not like this mini bitch. I didn’t really care what Lenore and Hector talked about🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️sue me. Bruh Greta, beating that monster’s ass with just a hammer and a sword?! And Alucard impressed by it?! I’m here for it!! Some cute moments between Alucard and Greta got me gushing over here😝😝. Poor puppy😢😢. Alucard decides to “grow up” which I think is a nice step forward. Saint Germain is really making me mad.

They arrive at the castle and here goes Saint Germain acting like a fan boy, I mean who wouldn’t but you know…Greta killed me when she said the castle was ugly as hell lol. Another little cutesy scene between Alucard and Greta. Like I really like their chemistry y’all I’m sorry.

Trevor and Sypha demand that Zamfir take responsibility to help the people and I forgot what it was called but, before that they are attacked and Zamfir has something placed on her neck by a night creature.

Then Issac, he’s ready to fuck some shit up. And I’m here for it. Get em, bitch!

Episode 6: You Don’t Deserve My Blood: Carmilla’s castle is attacked by Issac’s night creatures. Lenore old punk ass running away does not surprise me in the slightest. Hector betrays Lenore and locks her in a cage. Hector has contact with Saint Germain like what? I don’t understand but, Issac comes in and it looks like Hector has given up, wanting to die honestly. Issac decides against killing him and Hector asks for his knife. This boy cuts his ring finger that the Lenore placed the ring, in front of her. That scene was meh, I thought he would get pissed at her for what she’s done to him in S3 but, I guess not.

Issac literally stole this episode, from his fight with the vampires and night creatures to Carmilla that shit was -chef’s kiss- magnifico! I loved the animation the fight scenes, yooo I was hyped the whole episode.

Morana and Striga make their decision to go their own way, living their own lives in the west so, bittersweet ending with them, I wanted to actually Striga fight the main trio but, whatever I guess.

Hector still has plans to bring back Dracula and asks Issac if he’s doing the same. Issac has other plans obviously, and tells Hector that they need to find their path in their lives. I feel Hector never knew where he was supposed to be placed in the world but Issacs words are very inspiring in my opinion. May have woke Hector’s dumbass up a bit.

Episode 7: The Great Work: Varney and the other guy, I really forgot his name found out about the catacombs and head there. Trevor and Sypha demand Zamfir take them underground, which to me I think it’s nothing there but her shit. Sypha gets mad at Zamfir and I’m with her, how you part of the royal guard when the people above need your help girl my god.

The cutest scene ever in this episode, was when the kids from Danesti wanting to play with Alucard and this boy jumps off the highest part of the castle just to show off. There should be more scenes of soft Alucard with children. Saint Germain is placing these weird stones it looks like in the castle walls. What is going on with him?

More Alucard and Greta moments please and thank you. The artwork in the castle is fucking phenomenal work. Saint Germain just gave the location to a vampire it looks like, from episode 4 maybe? He looks familiar.

There is a freaking army coming to the castle…lord Jesus. Like can they catch a break please? The kids just got settled.

Trevor and Sypha go to the catacombs and it’s just as bad as the people above grounds. New weapon acquired for Trevor, pretty dope. The king and Queen are dead and Zamfir is officially insane. She really thinks that the king and Queen will come back alive and protect their people like she’s done them. Sypha tries to talk to her, that puts her in a weird daze, Trevor is just being Trevor. Varney and his lackey, come to the catacombs looking to kill I really do not know that man’s name y’all so I apologize for not giving a damn about him lol.

The castle is about to be under siege, I’m not ready. Having a whole heart attack over here from nerves.

Episode 8: Death Magic: Varney and his partner attack the people in the catacombs, Varney is looking for a giant mirror? Why I don’t know. Poor Trevor and Sypha they are soooo tired, I feel so bad for them. Zamfir is actually not bad of a fighter, I like that. Sypha still the goat, no cap.

The castle is under attack, it’s actually nice to see how diverse the vampires are in this show, you can tell what countries their from and I think that’s dope as hell. And then every time a human dies their souls are transferred to Saint Germaine? So is this another S3 human sacrifice crap again? Omg…I’m so sick of that. Saint Germain uses the key he received from the woman in the Infinite Corridor and it creates the symbol of the corridor’s portal.

Here goes Alucard being a badass again, I never tire of him being one. Greta holding it down too is really cool, I don’t care what nobody say, she is that bitch. Her and that hammer, a force to be reckoned with.

Everyone is overwhelmed and have no choice but to evacuate to the castle, right before those doors closed Alucard nods to her to leave him out to fight and she looks at him like boy bye. Get yo ass in this castle. Greta pulling Alucard in just shows they are compatible for one another. Even the playful banter between them is cute.

The discovery of the stones in the walls leads Greta and Alucard to his childhood bedroom and they find Saint Germain where he reveals he’s opening the Infinite Corridor to bring back Dracula by using death magic. Petty Saint Germain, I do not like him bro.

They have to deal with him later though to fight off the night creatures that got into the castle. Greta still holding it down.

Trevor and the vampire guy is still fighting but, Trevor being so tired he’s slowing a bit, and honestly I don’t know how he’s still able to function at this point. Sypha shows off her powers like a G that she is and Zamfir is doing some great damage with the knives she’s got and that’s crazy how little knives can do to the body.

Did Sypha always have lightning powers? I don’t remember. If it’s new I love it! Trevor’s almost killed but a woman and child save him in time but, unfortunately Zamfir is stabbed in the stomach when the vampire moves to kill them both. I’m going to be honest I didn’t really care for Zamfir’s character she was just…there lol.

Then that scene with Sypha basically incinerating the rest of the monsters is fire!!! No pun intended lol. Varney finds the mirror and steps through it where Saint Germain is. Trevor and Sypha goes through the mirror as well but in a different location in the castle.

Episode 9: The Endings: This whole episode was literally the best of the best in any other seasons. The fight scenes, the banter, the main three…oh my God I loved it all. Noooooo, the dolls!!!!!! You bastards!!!! Trevor and Sypha’s entrance was perfect. Muah! Perfecto! The rock monsters really confused me on how they were killed but you know what who cares?

Alucard has wings?!!!!! What?!!!!!!!!! The general of the caravan have brought in the man woman thingy to Saint Germain. Death has appeared. His character design is dope af. Noooo not mom and dad!!! Nooo! Poor Alucard had to witness his parents literally in pain and of course Trevor ends it again, somehow Saint Germain redeemed himself almost?

The four vampires fighting the main trio had me running for my money. I liked the whole scene it was nice to see at least one or two vampires almost have the upper hand on the main trio.

That general vampire? His fight was wild, throwing his arm as it was about to explode and use it against Trevor was genius. And main trio…they don’t need to have a plan to fight they just work so well together that it works out in end.

Trevor vs. Death. Also was that the first time Trevor told Sypha he loved her? I can’t remember. Anyway, back to the final battle. The quality of the fight, the sheer power between both characters, and then he goes and sacrificed himself like Trevor are you deadass? You deadass died? Unacceptable. And then episode just ends.

Episode 10: It’s Been a Strange Ride: Lenore died so lame, and she was drunk as well when she died. I really won’t be missing her because she was just a character I very much disliked. Hector is finally free, little dumbass.

I wanna see what Issac is up to and Morana and Striga seems appropriate. But oh well, I hope they are happy wherever they are.

Tombstone for Trevor, it’s not real. He ain’t dead, I don’t believe that. Omg, Greta and Alucard are together?!!! Whoooooo!!! And the village kids are calling him father? Yasssssssssssss!!!!! I’m here for it. Alucard saying he’s not used to people is 100% me in public I don’t like being around a lot of people and it doesn’t help I have anxiety either. Sypha being pregnant was a given she looked a little thicker in the hips from episode one. She can’t leave…we need her. Really Castlevania creators? Y’all gone play with all our hearts? Thinking Trevor was dead and he gone pop up on a horse?

And look at this⤵️⤵️

He’s smiling, happy, soft, has a boo thang I’m….😭😭😭I’m so happy.

Y’all….all in all this was a great ending to the show…a great ending…

Oh wait…wait…wait wait wait, mom and dad are alive?!!! But how? You know what I don’t care their going to travel to England and their heart shaped embrace is everything. Oh no I’m crying again….

[mindmeltonabun-blog]

Tale of The Nine Tailed: Analysis and Theories

First and foremost, I would like to give my sincerest praise to the cast and crew of Tale of The Nine Tailed ! It is simply a wonderful and very thought provoking show! I strongly recommend it to everyone! 

Now, I’m going to forewarn you all that this post will be very LONG, but hey you might learn a thing or two and be able to draw your own theories and/or conclusions after reading this post! I had previously posted some of these connections/theories on my Twitter, but I figure hey why not post them on Tumblr too !

What Is An Imugi/Imoogi? What Is It’s Goal?

In Korean folklore, Imoogis are lesser dragons that look like big snakes or kind of like a basilisk from Harry Potter.

One of an Imugi/Imoogi’s main goal is obtain a “Yeouiju” or a celestial orb which allows it to become full fledged celestial dragons which can rule the skies. In the context of TOTNT, there is such a type of “Yeouiju” in the form of Lee Yeon’s fox bead. Therefore, I believe that the ultimate goal of the Imugi/Imoogi is get Lee Yeon’s fox bead.

Side note, I kind of think that the Imoogi not only wants to rule the skies, but the ground too. I wouldn't be surprised if he sought to do so by raising an army of zombies (maybe thats who Lee Yeon was seen fighting in the intro credits) ! 

Why be content with just ruling the skies when you can rule the entire world? Additionally, he could have further ambitions to not only rule the world, but to also rule all realms like the heavens and the Underworld. 

The Imoogi is very strategic into getting what he wants. By strategic I mean that he likes to use people as leverage or use their own weaknesses against them.

Therefore, I believe what happened originally during Ah Eum’s time is that the Imoogi had possessed her body in order to get Lee Yoon to hand over his fox bead. The Imoogi knew how much Lee Yoon had loved Ah Eum and would be willing to do anything for her. 

However like Voldemort, the Imoogi did not anticipate the power of love and sacrifice. Ah Eum had temporarily gained control of her body long enough to do either two things: ask Lee Yeon to kill her or run into Lee Yeon’s sword thereby killing herself. In either cases, she fulfilled her promise to Lee Yoon which was that she would always protect him.

Now jumping back to the present time, we know that original target of the Imoogi’s plan was Ji Ah. Why? Because his lame self wanted to do what he did in the past and use her again to get Lee Yeon to hand over the fox bead. However, this time around, Ji Ah had Lee Yeon’s fox bead inside of her which offered protection from full possession by the Imoogi. So then the Imoogi’s minion (tv station president) took the next best thing which was Ji Ah’s parents to be used as leverage at a later time so that Ji Ah would hand over the fox bead. 

However, things have now changed because Ji A gave away the fox bead to the fortune teller to save Lee Yeon. Now I have mixed feelings about this situation. On one side, I find it romantic that she’s willing to give up anything to save Lee Yeon. On the other side of it, I’m like girl why are you so stupid?! Lee Yeon literally gave up his mountain title in order to give Ah Eum/Ji Ah that fox bead.  It’s almost like Lee Yeon’s actions were met in vain. Plus, when Ji Ah said she doesn’t believe in destiny or that sort of stuff, it also got me riled up because it was a contradiction to the whole premise of her character in the first place. From the get go, the writer wrote that Ji Ah believes in the supernatural and mystical. So then why wouldn't she believe in fate and destiny?

Anyways back to more analysis. Without the protective effects of the fox bead, Ji Ah can once again be possessed by the Imoogi. 

What the fox bead had done for Ji Ah was that it protected Ji Ah from the effects of the Imoogi piece aka horcrux that was inside of her. The notion that the bead had offered protective effects can be seen when Lee Yeon first gave it to her where a protective shield was erected and this was again seen in ep4 when Ji Ah cried. Also, it was confirmed when Sato said how Lee Yeon’s fox bead was meant to protect all beings, but instead Lee Yeon chose to use it to protect only one person.

The Fortune Teller’s Message

Something of particular interest is what the fortune teller told Ji Ah about the bead. He told her that even without the fox bead or moon, her life is still “blessed”. I think what the fortune teller meant by this is that even without the protective effects of the bead, her life is still “blessed” because she will always have Lee Yeon by her side to protect her. 

What I think will happen next is that Lee Yeon will go back to the fortune teller to try and get his bead back. Meaning Ji Ah will probably confess to Lee Yeon later on just what exactly she gave up in order to get him back. And again the fortune teller will ask for something precious to Lee Yeon. There are a few things that are precious to Lee Yeon such as Ji Ah, Lee Rang, and Lee Yeon’s immortality. Now we know that Lee Yeon would never give up Ji Ah, so then this would bring about other two things into play: Lee Rang and Lee Yeon’s immortality. I think its more of a poetic justice if Lee Yeon trades Lee Rang in. However, I could also see Lee Yeon trading in his immortality since his dream has always been to become human. Who knows though! 

Only One Will Live: Imoogi Vs Ji Ah and Lee Yeon vs Ji Ah

In Harry Potter, there was a prophecy that “for neither can live, while the other survives”. This same message is conveyed when it comes to the Imoogi & Ji Ah and Lee Yeon & Ji Ah. 

We saw what had happened the first go around when the Imoogi had possessed Ah Eum. In the end, Ah Eum chose to sacrificed herself so that both the Imoogi and the piece of him inside of her would die. Thereby, she prevented the Imoogi from using her to get Lee Yeon’s fox bead. Now presently, the same situation is basically happening again. However, if Harry Potter managed to kill the piece of Voldemort in him and still survive then Ji Ah can essentially do the same. So, how you might ask? I think the solution greatly lies in getting the fox bead back in her. If Ji Ah can temporarily die in order to get rid of the Imoogi piece inside of her, then she can be revived by the protective qualities of the fox bead. 

Even if Ji Ah survives against the Imoogi, it might be at the cost of losing Lee Yeon. The fortune teller even told our couple this, “If you two keep hanging out, one of you will die”. This same message is again heard in ep 7 preview when Taluipa’s husband tells Lee Yeon, “You or the girl. One must die in the end.” So can there be a situation where the Imoogi is dead and both Ji Ah and Lee Yeon are alive? Yes and it comes in the form of the Lee Rang factor.

The Lee Rang Factor 

We all know that our little puppy, Lee Rang, may put up the facade that he hates his brother, but in reality, Lee Rang loves his brother a lot.

There was a clue dropped in ep.4 that hints in the end Lee Rang will be the one that saves both Lee Yeon and Ji Ah.

The hint was in Taluipa’s hand, the movie “A Better Tomorrow”. Briefly, the movie is about two brothers, Ho and Kit, who love each other a lot. However over the years, they began to develop great animosity and resentment towards each other mainly due to their differences in beliefs and professions. Ho was a criminal while Kit was an upstanding police officer. Eventually, Ho does see the error of his ways and seeks to atone for them. In the end, the two brother reconcile and Ho decides to  join his brother Kit on a path of righteousness. Similar to Ho, I think Lee Rang will do the same. Lee Rang will atone for his mistakes and thus sacrifice himself to save Lee Yeon and Ji Ah. 

What is Ji Ah?

Seems like everyone these days has been wondering what exactly Ji Ah is. Most people seem to think that she is part Imoogi. However, there has been a bunch of clues in the episodes that answers this question.

I believe Ah Eum/Ji Ah is Princess Bari, the first shaman goddess from Korean mythology.

Princess Bari was nicknamed the “Abandoned Princess” because she was the last and 7th daughter of a King who had no sons. Due to her gender, she did not receive any attention from her parents and was thus abandoned.

Eventually, her parents’ lives became endangered and in order to save them she had to travel to the Underworld to get the elixir of life. Such a tedious journey showed her deep commitment to the virtue of “filial piety” or one’s love and respect for one’s parents. She became a role model for many women during this time because she was willing to sacrifice herself for the very parents who had abandoned her. 

As a reward for her strong adherence to filial piety, the Gods made her the first shaman goddess who’s job was to help and guide spirits. 

[edgy-ella]

Fixing the Justice fight

Stardust Crusaders is probably my favorite JoJo part, but even to me it’s clear that Araki was still figuring out how to write Stand battles and didn’t exactly think things through when coming up with ideas. This sort of thing certainly does get better with time, but a lot of earlier arcs in Stardust Crusaders suffer from this a lot. I think that this problem is really at its worst with the fight with Enya/Justice.

There are two reasons why the Justice arc bugs me as much as it does. Firstly, something that I think a lot of JoJo fans seem to undersell or completely forget about is that Enya is indeed a major villain in the greater context of the series. She’s the person who taught Dio about Stands and the person organizing Dio’s minions not only against the Crusaders, but around the entire world. Even going outside of the scope of Stardust Crusaders alone, if Enya hadn’t bought the arrowheads from a young Diavolo back in the early 80s, nothing in JoJo as we know it would have been the same (after Battle Tendency) because her doing so directly affected all 4 main villains from parts 3-6, which then lead to (Stone Ocean ending spoilers) the universe being reset, thus giving us the new universe that parts 7 and 8 reside in. All of that can be directly attributed to Enya. So with that in mind, the fact that her fight against the Joestars ended in such an asspull kinda sucks (but we’ll get to that later).

The second reason that the Justice arc bugs me is because Araki did such a good job with the setup of the whole thing and made it genuinely spooky, only to then completely drop the ball when writing the way Justice is defeated. So my issues with the arc aren’t so much as “the whole thing is kinda lame” like with Wheel of Fortune or “the fight itself was well done but the aftermath was tonally out of place” like with Judgement, these issues are specific and directly affect the fight itself. So let’s talk about it.

As I said earlier, the setup for this fight is genuinely great. The idea of making a literal ghost town is fun, creepy, and fits with the theme of the early tarot card stand users being based on classic horror movies. It brings up the question as to why the Crusaders would ever consider staying at Enya’s bed and breakfast, but what’s more important is that the story isn’t trying to trick us, the reader into thinking that everything is normal. We know that Enya’s a stand user, we know that the town’s general eerieness is probably her doing, we just don’t know how because she hasn’t revealed what her stand does yet. So when Hol Horse shows up and Enya shows us exactly how her stand works, seemingly killing our favorite Shitlord Cowboy™ in the process, the stakes are made clear. If the Crusaders want any hope of being able to defeat her, they can’t get a single scratch or else it’s game over. Which is sort of hard to avoid when Enya has, y’know, an entire army of zombies. All of this is made all the more intense by Polnareff unintentionally pissing her off by rubbing it in her face that he killed her son. So when she finally snaps after it’s revealed that Hol Horse is still alive, you’re already on the edge of your seat. Not only is Justice a ridiculously overpowered Stand, Enya is pissed and wants vengeance (unlike, say, Hol Horse, who also had an overpowered Stand but didn’t have a ton of personal stakes in the matter and lacked the initiative to take out the Crusaders himself). And when she manages to get Polnareff under her control (getting his tongue no less, meaning he can’t call for help even if there was anyone who was close enough to hear him), it all only gets even more tense. Just how the hell are they going to defeat her?

All that stuff is done just about as well as it could be done, but unfortunately this is where things start to fall apart.

Of all characters, Jotaro is the one to go down to investigate Polnareff’s disappearance. This makes sense, Jotaro has been shown multiple times throughout the arc to be suspicious of Enya and if anyone were to defeat a major villain like her, it ought to be our main protagonist. But putting Jotaro in that position doesn’t really make much sense when looking at their Stand abilities. Enya even points this out herself; “Can you punch the fog with your fist? Or cut the fog with a sword, or shoot it with a gun?! I don't think so!” Star Platinum is OP, but it really doesn’t have anything in its arsenal to take down Justice. The obvious work around is to not go after Justice but rather Enya herself a la Yellow Temperance, but no matter how evil Enya is or how big of an impact she had on the series, watching a feeble old person get the ever loving shit beat out of them is bound to make at least some of the audience uncomfortable. Not that I doubt that Jotaro wouldn’t care, but I digress.

So after all that buildup, after that tension, after Jotaro himself getting stabbed in the leg, how is Justice defeated? Star Platinum decides he’s Kirby and just straight up inhales and eats Justice. This ability is never brought up before or after this moment. It’s the asspull to end all asspulls.

The term asspull gets thrown around a lot when talking about anime, especially JoJo. I actually think that most moments that the fandom regards as “asspulls” in JoJo are done fairly well. Let’s look at two other huge asspulls from Stardust Crusaders (both coincidentally involving Jotaro) and compare them to the Justice fight.

Star Platinum vs. Dark Blue Moon: Star Finger at first seems like just as much of an asspull as Star Platinum’s apparent super breath, with both being out of nowhere solutions to seemingly impossible to defeat Stands, but the big difference is that Star Finger is used after the fight with Dark Blue Moon. Sure, it’s only used once afterwards (twice in the anime, which I really did appreciate) and in the fight directly afterwards, but even that makes all the difference. Also, Star Platinum being able to extend parts of its body by focusing all of its energy in a singular point makes much more sense than Star Vacuum Cleaner.

Star Platinum vs. The World: Yup, you saw this coming as soon as I mentioned asspulls. Congratulations, pat yourself on the back. Jotaro/Star Platinum being able to enter Dio/The World’s stopped time is considered to be one of the biggest asspulls in the entire series, if not all of shonen manga. But it doesn’t bother me for a couple of reasons. First of all, the entire fight is built around the fact that Jotaro is able to move within Dio’s stopped time. It would have played out much differently and been much shorter if that weren’t the case. It’s also thematically significant. Dio invaded Jonathan’s world and stole his body, and now Jotaro has invaded Dio’s world by stealing his ability. It’s cosmic irony, something that JoJo has done in spades since day one. And contrary to popular belief, there is some foreshadowing to Jotaro being able to stop time if you squint (particularly in the fight against Daniel J. D’arby). None of this can be said about Star Platinum sluuuuuuuuurping up Justice.

That’s not to say that these are the only asspulls in the series and/or any other asspulls are completely exempt from critique, these are just some examples.

So, with all of that said and done, how would I have had the Crusaders defeat Justice?

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that everything before Star Platinum deciding he’s really thirsty goes the same as it always does. So we leave off on Jotaro getting stabbed in the knee and falling under Justice’s control.

In order to properly assess Justice, we need to know what exactly makes it so strong and then see if there are any weaknesses or flaws that the Crusaders could exploit.

Justice is as terrifying as it is not because of its ability to control people after they only get a scratch, but because of the army of zombies that Enya uses it to summon. Without the zombies, all the Crusaders would really need to do would be to run the hell away from her. There’s no harm it can do so long as they don’t get hurt, so as long as they keep their distance, they’re safe. Even if Enya is apparently able to fence with Silver Chariot with a pair of scissors and is able to chase down Polnareff on his way to the bathroom (wow that sounds cursed out of context), at the end of the day she is an old lady going up against a group of buff bara men. They’d all be able to effectively utilize the Joestar Secret Technique if it weren’t for the fact that they also had a bunch of zombies to deal with. Compounded with the fact that it’s game over for them if they even get so much as a single scratch, and Justice functions more like a Colony Stand like Bad Company or Harvest. The difference is that her army is comprised of fully sized humans rather than smaller units, and when factoring in that you lose if you get so much of a single scratch, a lot stronger too.

So in order to defeat Enya, we need to get rid of those zombies from a distance first.

Actually, of all of the Crusaders, Avdol would probably be the one best suited to fighting Enya. Magician’s Red gives him the range advantage, his flames would completely disintegrate the zombies, and he could even cauterize the wounds sustained by the other Crusaders, which would presumably free them from Justice’s control. That second point is by far the most important as that’s probably the best way to get rid of the zombies, and certainly the best way that any of the Crusaders could get rid of them. They could even add in some bullshit about how the smoke generated from the flames could interfere with Justice’s fog, thus making it easier to defeat in some way (like it becomes more solid or makes it harder to control the corpses/injured Crusaders/Entire Equine).

But unfortunately, Avdol’s dead. At least that’s what Polnareff (and the audience) thinks at this point. Jotaro could even point this out to him mid fight, which would only further increase Polnareff’s guilt about the whole thing, thus making the Judgement arc hit just a little bit harder. The fact that Hol Horse is also there as this is all going down would not help matters.

It’s worth pointing out that the Stardust Crusaders OVA actually does bring Avdol back during the Justice fight. However, this ultimately doesn’t amount to anything because Avdol’s presence doesn’t really change the way the fight plays out and Star Platinum still uses its sucky suck to defeat Justice. The most Avdol does is light a cigarette for Jotaro.

With Avdol presumed dead, Jotaro and Polnareff under Justice’s control, and Iggy still vibing in New York, that leaves us with Kakyoin and Joseph to defeat Enya. Hermit Purple could theoretically hold off a few zombies for a while, but that’s about it. They also technically aren’t undead so Hamon likely wouldn’t be effective on them either (though if it was, I wouldn’t be complaining). So Kakyoin’s up to bat.

At first, this should seem like a no-brainer. Just use Emerald Splash! It seems ideal; a way to attack a large group of enemies while keeping out of harm’s way. That’s usually the case, and after all, no one can just deflect the Emerald Splash. However, since these zombies don’t feel any pain, taking some gems to the face probably wouldn’t do much. If anything, it would fill them with even more holes, which would only make them easier for Enya to control. So now what?

It’s possible that Kakyoin would use Hierophant Green’s ability to possess people against Enya and try to possess her in order for her to call off Justice, but it doesn’t seem likely. Not only is it implied that Kakyoin really doesn’t like doing it, but it also seems like it takes a lot of time to set up, time that he doesn’t necessarily have while also avoiding a horde of zombies. So that’s out of the question, too.

The best way for Kakyoin to defeat Justice wouldn’t be to attack, but to defend. Hierophant Green can unravel itself into a bunch of tentacles, right? So therefore the best way of dealing with the zombies would be to lure them all into a enclosed area (let’s say the bathroom that Polnareff is stuck in, but really anywhere in the hotel would work) and then create a barrier using Hierophant Green’s tentacles, completely blocking out any attacks from the zombies. Remember, any damage inflicted onto Hierophant Green’s appendages does not transfer over to Kakyoin when they’re unraveled like that (or else Kakyoin would’ve lost his arms/legs when Dio...well, y’know, cherry donut), so that’s the best way they could deal with the zombie problem. But it’s not like they could just stay like that forever, so the next thing to focus on is getting rid of Justice. Here’s where we take the obvious approach and attack Enya directly.

Kakyoin and Joseph are the two smartest people in the group, and Joseph in particular is a master of manipulating people and pissing them off. Enya has just lost her son and is out for blood. Between the both of them, they’d probably be able to figure out a way to trick Enya into pursuing them (which is ironically exactly what J. Geil tried to do against Polnareff), trapping her in their saferoom with them. With no zombies left to help her and her only weapon being a pair of scissors, she’s left defenseless against a pair of Stand users who outrange her. Be it from Hermit Purple or more of Hierophant Green’s tentacles, she’s getting strangled and suffocated until she passes out. The zombies revert to inanimate corpses, everyone else is freed from Justice’s control, the Crusaders bring Enya along with them in hopes of trying to wring more information out of her, Steely Dan kills her, and everything continues as normal.

Sure, the outcome of the fight is ultimately the same as it always was, but that sounds a lot more interesting and exciting than Star Platinum giving that good succ, doesn’t it?

Once again, I don’t mean to say this to shit on Stardust Crusaders or JoJo as a whole, but just because you like something doesn’t automatically make it devoid of any criticism. What we got out of the Justice arc was disappointing, especially considering the affect that Enya had on the series, and this is just one way that I thought of to improve it.

[incoherentbabblings]

Take Back the Cake, Burn the Shoes, and Boil the Rice (4/11)

Within two months there have been two murders of Gotham newlyweds moments after the ceremony. The only connecting factor was both brides wore the same designer’s work. Needing to establish who exactly is behind the crimes, Bruce enlists Tim and Stephanie to have the biggest wedding Gotham high society has seen in decades, putting a target on their heads not just for the killer, but Gotham society too. It goes about as well as you’d expect. Ao3 Link Here!

Tim had no idea there was such a market for wedding planners. He imagined most people planned it themselves. Stephanie had made the very valid point that neither of them had time. Apparently, because she maybe still hated herself a little, she chose possibly the most ridiculous looking woman who came at an equally ridiculous price tag.

“Why’d you choose her?” Tim asked, as the two paced back and forth in one of the drawing rooms of Wayne Manor.

Stephanie was picking a hanging nail. “She had stupid glasses.” She muttered. “Her website screamed ostentatious. That’s what we want right?”

“Well yeah but –”

Alfred opened the door for Mrs van Dijk, and Tim couldn’t help but mutter a curse at the sight of her. Stephanie caught Alfred’s face as he shut the door, to which she noted he seemed quite relieved to be rid of the woman.

Bottle eyed didn’t do it justice. Her glasses seemed an inch thick, and they took up half her face. Humongous brown pupils peered through at Tim as Stephanie very quickly made her way over to him, holding onto his shirt and showing off the ring. Mrs van Dijk’s clothes were seemingly made from rags, and various bits draped across the floor. Her nose was tiny, upturned and pointy. Her teeth were too big for her mouth. She grinned maniacally at the sight of the young couple. She herself somehow looked sixty and thirty at the same time.

Stephanie had picked a winner surely.

“Oh, how happy I am to meet you! I thought for sure I was being pranked when you rang me!” She looked and wandered around the room, utterly fascinated. “And at Wayne Manor no less. I am the luckiest person in the world… Do you mind if I just put my bags here?” The four assorted totes and satchels and rucksacks seemed a bit excessive to Tim, but he nodded, not quite sure what to say. She slapped them down with a delighted squeal.

Nails on a chalkboard. Tim smiled, baring his teeth as they clenched together uncomfortably. Stephanie stepped in, being on the ball for once.

“Thank you for agreeing to help us! And on such short notice too.”

“It’s going to be a rush to get everything done in time.” Tim confirmed.

They all sat down, but then Mrs van Dijk decided she was too far away and stood up. She settled in between Tim and Stephanie, both of whom flinched at having a stranger be so close. They flinched again when she took a hand each and tugged them onto her lap, a little pile of happy hands. Happy sweaty hands. Tim shivered up his spine, and Stephanie’s left leg spasmed at the uncomfortableness of it all.

“I have had a think the past two days.” Van Dijk said earnestly. “You said, Stephanie, you wanted the grandest wedding Wayne money could provide.”

“Yup.”

“I am going to work a little unconventionally. A little traditionally. But you two are the most important clients of my career. I will give you the world.”

“…Thanks.” Tim responded lamely.

“In my thoughts, I see the Cathedral.”

Neither Tim nor Steph were religious.

“I see gold and white.”

Neither were colours they wore nor sought out.

“Carnations for flowers.”

Carnations were for funerals. Tim and Stephanie knew this very well.

“I see the reception here, in the gardens.”

The weather was never good enough to guarantee any event outside.

“And your gown…”

There, Stephanie could not cave in. “I want Rebecca Andrews.”

“Oop! Pardon?” By now word had spread that she was a cursed designer.

“I have my heart set on her you see… Ever since I was younger.”

“…But I… I brought books!” She threw their hands off her lap, Tim rubbing his freed palm against his trousers as the woman fumbled through the tote, tugging out three lever arch files.

“Oh wow… you really prepped for this.”

“I told you! I will give you the world.” And then she sat down, tossing one folder to Tim, and one to Stephanie. Slapping her own open, Mrs van Rijk flipped through pages until she found examples to show Stephanie.

“See? Oh, Mr Wayne wouldn’t you die to see her in this?”

Tim struggled not to swear. “Oh boy.” He said instead.

That seemed too many ruffles for one human body.

Stephanie blinked, and agreed. “No no. I’m sorry, but this is the one area I must put my foot down.”

“…Even though…”

Stephanie smiled reassuringly, and confirmed, “Even though.”

Mrs van Rijk stared at the huge taffeta construction and sighed sadly. “One day I will get a bride in one of these… Nevermind. I will arrange an appointment with Ms Andrews. Funny lady that one.” As she put the folders back, Tim shot Stephanie a look which amounted to kettle meet pot.

Otherwise, they went with whatever this lady suggested. The only thing both Tim and Steph genuinely liked the idea of was a lemon cake rather than a fruit cake. They told themselves that because it maybe wasn’t even going to reach the altar, what they wanted didn’t really matter. Details were details. What mattered was ensuring they were a target.

Stephanie proceeded to go on a coffee date with Cassandra, who gave the evils in her characteristic manner to anyone creeping to close, and a trip to the arcade with Damian, who grumbled and pretended to shoot a photographer with one of the guns for a zombie shooting game, until Stephanie called him over with the food she had bought him. Tim uploaded an old photograph of them when they were fifteen to his social media pages. Bruce mysteriously went to visit Crystal’s hospital when she was on shift, ensuring that she was seen chatting the Mr Wayne. The picture that went in the news was not the most flattering of Mrs Brown – her expression was nothing short of mystified and in awe that Gotham’s favourite child was talking to her – but it served the same goal as the other outings.

The family was doing everything they could to prove that Stephanie was not just someone out of the blue who had stepped into the role of fiancée for Tim. She was a Gotham girl through and through, her mother worked an admirable job, she was known by the family and spent time with them independent of Tim…Older photos began to be circulated. Old school photos when they both attended Gotham Heights were circulated, as was the fact that she was a student in her final year of Gotham College who volunteered at the clinic on Park Row, just around the corner from Tim’s social housing redevelopment project.

Don’t think of this girl as an upstart, they were practically begging, she’d been a part of Tim and Cassandra and Damian and Bruce’s lives long before anyone cared. Tim, who actually braved reading comments and replies, noted that, for the most part…well they weren’t flat out insulting her. Or him.

For the most part.

That counted for a lot.

Though some of them…

Thankfully Bruce and Dick over many years had cultivated a stock image of a slightly batshit (hah) bonkers family that only seemed to grow with the years in equally odd members. Off kilter, sure, but overall a good family. Thank goodness for Gotham stereotypes.

Next step in becoming a target – an engagement photo shoot.

Tim was not even aware these were a thing, but found himself standing in a full suit a mere three days later. Images to be posted amongst societies circles and to be sent with rsvp invitations. This had been it’s own conflict. None of their superhero friends has been invited, but indeed to everyone, this was for real. Tim had ignored the Titans for days at this point, unable to explain what was going on. There was no pithy explanation.

He had been given a black tux, a dark red suit, a navy shirt and chinos, and a pot of hair gel to style himself. Stephanie, meanwhile, was upstairs, with a veritable army of beauticians, hairdressers and too many dresses to count.

It was raining, because of course it was. But the photography studio had insisted on going forward in the manor gardens.

“We can make it look real Austen and shit.”

Tim really didn’t understand the man’s reference. Said man was holding a camera with a very large lens that Tim suspected wasn’t necessary for this kind of shoot. He had sunglasses on, despite the weather, so Tim knew he was very cool. The four assistants who had been with Stephanie trotted down the stairs, moving quickly to set up lighting. All four looked a little dissapointed, but whatever reason Tim didn't understand.

"Okay?" He asked.

One got in Tim’s face and began fixing his hair. He instinctively flinched away from a stranger in his personal space, but quickly smiled apologetically and allowed her to resume. His gut churned from enduring the uncomfortable closeness.

"It's fine. We just... she's been hurt quite bad hasn't she?"

Tim flinched completely away. It seemed the look in his eyes was enough to make the lady look to the floor, and find something else to work on. Tim's protectiveness was flaring, and he knew it was making others uncomfortable. But he also doubted it was as uncomfortable as Stephanie was having strangers examine her body like that.

“Am I okay to come down now?” Stephanie’s voice drifted in from the top of the staircase, providing a welcome distraction.

The man (Tim couldn’t for the life of him remember the name) immediately became effusive.

“Of course, princess! Let’s see you. You’re in the red dress, right?”

“…Yeah.”

She poked her head around the corner and stared at Tim. She sighed sharply at how handsome he looked. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “Can I hold onto you walking down? It’s a lot of skirt…”

Tim didn’t care that she was blatantly lying. He hopped up to the top step, holding out his hand for her to take. When she did take, still half hidden behind the wall, Tim felt her trembling. He looked at her inquisitively.

“My scars…” Was all she could say. She was bent over, blonde hair curled to look like Sleeping Beauty’s. The assistants who had done her hair had made the decision to have it all down in order to hide her upper back, shoulders, collar and arms. She was wearing flowers in her hair, and her makeup made her look otherworldly. Tim realised it was all to draw attention upwards, away from her torso.

Tim squeezed her fingers. Stephanie as a rule did not show skin... not since Black Mask.

“You wore that purple dress, remember? The one I got you? That showed more skin.” He tried to remind her, so she could logic her way up to being confident in the beautiful dresses.

She only shook her head, and he could see her eyes growing frenetic with an increasing panic.

“No-one was paying attention, not like this. People are going to see me.”

He stepped closer, creating a bubble around them that made Steph’s breathing quieten, and her back straightened. Saying she was beautiful wasn’t going to work. Some of her scars, little that he had seen, were not beautiful. He wouldn’t lie to himself and say they were. Stephanie was beautiful; the injuries, the torn skin, the white shiny scars, the mangled puckered wounds… there was no beauty in the experiences that created them. No amount of sweet talking would convince her nor the world of it. But that didn’t mean she was lesser for it. Not even close. He stared straight into her eyes, praying he looked reassuring.

“It’s okay.”

She nodded, and gently, encouragingly, he tugged her forward into the viewpoint of the photography team. It was a strapless crimson gown, with a sweetheart neckline and a large wide skirt that made her waist tiny. The photographer hissed. She looked lovely, but some scars shined in the artificial light. It was going to make tidying up the images awkward.

“Oh.” He stated. Stephanie immediately hid behind Tim, feeling humiliated. “Do we want to hide these in post? Or are we drawing...”

Tim glared in an intensely threatening manner, and the man coughed, correcting himself.

“Doesn’t matter. You both look like royalty. Every time I do one of these shoots… but this must be one of the best.”

His team twittered like little birds in agreement. Stephanie struggled not to roll her eyes at the weak save.

Shots were taken of them walking down the stairs, though Stephanie did manage to trip of the final step, crumpling in a heap on the floor. The man had ensured she was okay, then demanded she remain there. Tim was forced to sit behind her, two or three steps up.

“Fix her hair and dress.” The man commanded. Immediately her position was altered, and her hair was pulled to cover certain patches of skin. Her breathing wobbled.

She wasn’t good enough.

A little off put by having so many people fuss over her, Stephanie reached upwards. Tim gave her his hand, and then quickly, unthinkingly, pressed a kiss to the back of her head. He watched as goosebumps trailed up her back, and he cursed himself a little for even attempting to comfort her.

“Oh!” Shouted the man. “Hold that. Her ring looks good.”

There were four outfits and locations in total – the strapless red gown for Tim’s black tux in the main staircase being the first. For the Thomas Wayne’s library Stephanie perched herself on a leather loveseat armrest, sitting awkwardly and slightly off to the side in her insecurity. Tim had his bowtie removed and three buttons undone, to which he promptly redid one. Stephanie was changed into an off the shoulder green dress with sleeves that split open to expose her arms and hit the floor. The gown had such a deep neckline that Tim’s eyes were drawn to a white scar that went up her sternum. She caught him looking and hissed like an angry cat, unsure if he was staring at her chest or the wound. The golden gown, the one that looked like rays of sun, for the shots in the conservatory was beautiful, but again, Tim could see she was growing increasingly uncomfortable with both the attention and exposure. Repeatedly for couple shots she would start to migrate behind Tim, half hidden away until called out and forced forward. Tim found he couldn’t say anything in front of the photography crew to comfort her. He kept some part of himself connected to her, hoping the touch would ground her. Obviously this was not an option for the solo shots.

She seemed much happier with the final dress. A shorter purple dress with feathers all along the hem. It had a high neck and long sleeves. Tim couldn’t help it, he laughed as she brushed through the bird feathers. She shivered in her bare legs though and begged to put on a pair of tights. The man narrowed his eyes, or at least Tim thought he did behind those glasses, but agreed.

“Some posed shots.” He said, staring down into his viewfinder. “Then go frolic outside.”

“Frolic?” Stephanie raised on eyebrow, and Tim mirrored it.

“Outside?”

Tim took off his blazer as he and Stephanie questioned the photographer in between snaps being taken. Steph grabbed a hold of Tim’s shoulder to balance as she zipped up a boot. The rain was coming down as hard as ever.

“Yes. We need some natural shots.”

His assistant opened the double window doors, cold air blasting its way in. Rainwater dripped inside, and Tim shuddered at the fit Alfred would have. The water crept dangerously close to one of the rugs, and even Stephanie made a panicked oomph noise, and she rushed out front into the pouring rain, hoping that the quicker this round was done the sooner these people would pack up and leave and she could return to flat shoes. Her heels were starting to ache to the point of distraction.

Tim rushed out after her, resisting the urge to yell at the frigid water which immediately soaked him to the bone. Stephanie looked back at him, her dress clinging in all the right ways, hair a sodden blanket. She was laughing from the shock of how cold it was.

“I can’t believe you agreed to this?” He yelled over the sound of the rain hitting the paving stones. Stephanie just laughed and held out her arms for him to step into. Her makeup was starting to run, but rather than making her look like a drowned rat, she looked lively and bright. Her face flushed red from the cold, and Tim willingly went straight into her hold.

She brushed his wet hair out of his eyes, grinning at the face she saw underneath. Still so pale, with such dark bruises under his eyes. Still not sleeping well. But he was happy, at least for the moment. She didn’t want her moodiness ruin that for him.

Stephanie couldn’t get that moment of the kiss to her hair out of her mind, nor could Tim stop thinking about the declaration of love and kiss on the lips she had given him last week. They were stumbling in the dark, seeking physical comfort in each other, and both knew how dangerous it was. Simultaneously, and without mentioning it to the other, they resolved to corner the other. Soon.

Until then, when the photographer called for them to kiss, it was Stephanie who cradled Tim’s face and pulled him close. It was the kind of kiss that they made when they were adolescents: enthusiastic, clumsy, but infatuated. Stephanie tried to convince herself that it was just another kiss for the job, like the ones one their dates and engagement dinners, but as always the sharp stab of enjoyment that came with Tim’s smiling kisses made her shiver and doubt. She squished his cheeks and laughed when they broke apart, and when she tried to leave Tim’s hold and playfully pulled her back around her waist, tossing out further into the rain so he could run inside before her.

She collapsed in, ankles a little wobbly, grimacing at the water they had allowed into the room. Tim shut the windows and huffed.

“Perfect.”

Remembering they had been watched, the redness in Stephanie’s skin vanished, and she resumed staring at her feet, shuffling backwards behind Tim.

Hair dripping wet, and conscious that the pair might catch a cold, Tim tried to be genial when he asked if they were done. The man bared his teeth and he flipped through the images. He didn’t look totally satisfied.

“I don’t know… Can we go for some more artsy stuff? You guys got a ballroom, right? You two are such a good pair…I just want some more to play around with.”

Stephanie stumbled in her shoes, growing more tired by the moment. Tim began to shiver. One of the assistants not so subtly nudged the man, letting him now his time was up.

Bruce in one his blessed moments of good timing, had at some point begun watching through the open door to the drawing room, seemed to realise that Tim and Steph had also had enough.

“Thank you, Mr Hare, but I’m going to have to ask you to wrap up. Let my kids dry up.”

Being referred to one of Bruce’s own made Stephanie stare in open shock, whilst Tim looked gratefully at him, giving a small smile.

“Oh.” Said Mr Hare – Tim tried to not feel guilty at not knowing his name for the entire shoot – and finally he took the hint. “No worries. This was a good session! Listen, I’ll send them when their done to van Rijk. She’s a beast, will probably want them tomorrow if I know her.”

Bruce smiled politely and indicated for Alfred to begin showing them out.

Tim’s shivering had grown worse, and Stephanie noticing this, rushed to one of the sofas which had a cream throw resting over the back to cradle Tim within.

“Rub your chest if it’s gets unbearable.” She uttered, “That’s where all the important bits are.”

Tim smiled, teeth chattering. “Minus a spleen.”

“Huh?” She looked at him, confused.

“I… Oh. I never told you?”

She tilted her head, gears turning ever so slowly in her head. “That you don’t have a spleen? Tim! You’ll get sicker easier and worse!”

She managed to kick off her shoes and moved in closer, tugging the throw around them both. With the assistants out of the room, Tim grew somewhat warmer knowing she was being genuinely caring in this moment.

“How long ago?” She asked, shifting so she could keep them both somewhat warm.

“Um…” Tim looked at Bruce helping Alfred escort the team of the estate. “When I first went looking for him. Got stabbed.”

Her breath warmed his neck, and her fingers drifted down to where his scar was. She cooed when he twitched as if her touch hurt him, but to Tim it felt like a bolt of electricity had passed straight down his spine. He told himself it was because of the static from the rain and humidity.

Bruce watched the group begin to pack up, both ensuring they had left with all their equipment but also listening to their conversation, trying to not to smile.

“I think…” He interrupted, and the pair jolted at the reminder that someone else was in sight of them. “You both should shower up. Then a quick word with you both.”

Stephanie was the first to break away.

“Can I use Cass’ room?”

“We have a spare room if you want it. We have loads of spare rooms.” Tim hinted.

Steph didn’t take the hint. “Cass’ is fine.”

Bruce, however, did hear the hint, and in a rare moment of paternal ingenuity, decided to throw a little bomb into the mix.

“When is Stephanie moving into your apartment, Tim?”

Stephanie, who had no idea such an idea was on offer, gulped. Tim, also appeared a little thrown.

“I… I…”

“I’ve never even been to your apartment.”

“Well, there’s your chance.” Bruce said. “Now hurry up, before Alfred sees the state of the floors.”

Bruce’s edict was law, and reluctantly Crystal agreed for Stephanie to move out.

When it came to moving in with Tim, Stephanie was surprised how easy it was. She really didn’t own that much stuff to begin with, and Tim had a lot of spare space.

Tim’s apartment, based in Park Row no less, was large, and took up two floors. He seemed awful proud of it. Steph didn’t miss the piano sat in the corner but chose not to comment.

“One of your projects?”

Tim huffed, thinking she was diminishing his efforts with Park Row. He was lifting her suitcases up the stairs. “Well, the redevelopment is as good as I make it… And I live here… so you know, I stand by it being good.”

“Hmm.” She set one of four boxes on the couch. Hard and square, it didn’t lend itself to resting and relaxing. Tim had probably chosen it for the aesthetics more than anything, and was likely cursing himself that he had offered to sleep on it whilst Stephanie took his own bed. Glaring at the obnoxious chandelier which hung down from the open space of the ceiling of the first floor down to just above their heads on the first, she hummed to herself.

“These aren’t…I…”

Tim waited patiently at the top of the steps for her to finish.

“How did you make sure you haven't just gentrified the area?”

Tim put down her suitcases, practically skipping down the steps to get to her level, a little put off with her question. “You worried I kicked poor people out of Crime Alley?”

Stephanie blushed, and defended herself. “Not intentionally.”

“No. Not intentionally. Not unintentionally either.” He scoffed, but before he could turn way, Stephanie halted him.

“How then?”

Tim couldn’t hear the sincerity in her tone, instead he heard patronising accusations. His temper flared unexpectedly. She still could rile him up like no other. “You care?”

As could he to her, apparently. Her blush turned to a flush of red anger, and her defensiveness became aggressive.

“What kind of question is that? Do I care about your job? The unprivileged? Gotham in general?” She waved her hands. “Nevermind. Not if you’re gonna take everything like an attack.”

With a whirl that smacked Tim in the face with her long ponytail, he flinched back and watched her drag another box in. It was too heavy for one person, and she was going to hurt her back in her stubbornness.

“Steph, let me help.”

“I’m fine.”

“Steph –”

“You don’t always need to be so –”

“You know you can accept help from –”

The pair trailed off, both bent awkwardly over a box, glaring at each other. Stephanie was the first to break, groaning in a tantrum and stomping up the steps. She looked down over the railing to Tim looking up at her.

“You honestly don’t have a spare room?”

“No. The other room is an office and a bathroom. It’s just for a few more weeks… I made space in my closet for you.”

“Thanks. Real generous there, Timbo.”

Her sarcasm was biting, and Tim felt the childish urge to stick his tongue out at her. She vanished from sight though, rolling her clothes through to his bedroom. Kicking the box at his feet, his eyes widened in shock at how heavy was, and he stumbled away.

“What she got in here… boulders?”

Dragging it into the hallway, Tim popped outside to see Crystal driving away, the two remaining boxes left at the foot of the steps to the door. They were lighter than the box of bricks, and once they were inside Tim shut the front door. Stephanie was still upstairs, so was likely unpacking her clothes.

Opening the heavy box in some grim determination to be vindicated in its contents, he was instead met with a box filled with stuffed soft toys.

She still held onto them? At the top of was a somewhat familiar teddy bear. She had held onto it and smacked him with it playfully on occasion. When he had visited her to tell her he was having to leave Gotham… when she was pregnant, when she didn’t know his name or anything about his parents or who was behind that mask… all she had known was this boy had – for some unknown reason – chosen to stay with her, to spend time with her. She had taken a lot of convincing over two years it was because Tim genuinely loved her, and it wasn’t out of some Bat driven duty to be kind to those weaker than you. By the time she believed it herself, she had seen Tim kissing someone (someone who she now knew he didn’t want to be kissed by) and everything had gone down the crapper. Seeing that stuffed bear affected him more than he expected.

Resting under it was the duck he had won her the other week. Its silly face peering out from under the other toys made him laugh despite his tense mood.

He picked up both toys and walked up the stairs. In his room, Steph was piling her shoes into a corner of the closet. Tim set the duck down on a table that rested at the foot of his bed.

“You kept this?” Tim asked, waving the teddy.

Stephanie gasped, clumsily pulling herself off the floor, and reached out to take it. Tim snatched it back.

“Give it.” She cried.

“Did you seriously bring everything? I could have helped you pack. Even the toys.”

She seemed increasingly upset, when Tim was only trying to tease. “I’m serious Tim, give it.”

He didn’t give way, so in her frustration, she shoved him. Hard. No damage was done, but the look of horror on her face at becoming physical like that with him made Tim’s stomach drop more than anything.

Her face turned white and she begged, “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Tim really didn’t know what to do with her constant mood swings, so awkwardly returned her bear to her. She nearly ripped it out of his hands and cradled it reverently.

“It’s fine. I shouldn’t have made fun of you. I just thought it was sweet, that you held onto this stuff.”

In her hands, Stephanie looked down at the bear. When she spoke, it was near a whisper.

“My dad bought it for me.”

“He did?”

“Mmm. When he was… when he was trying to be better.” Her look grew angry then. “I don’t know why I keep it.”

Without thinking, she plopped on her bed, staring at nothing. Tim realised he needed to intervene, and quick. He sat next to her and took one of her hands in both of his.

“We need to talk, I think.”

Dropping the bear, her other hand joined the three. Tim tried not to shiver at the warmth. “Me too.”

“Let’s get the rest of your stuff in, yeah? Is it all for upstairs?”

“I have some photo albums. And a couple of things for the kitchen. Figured you didn’t cook much.”

“Not really.”

She pulled their pile of hands into her lap, her look growing softer by the moment.

“Then I’ll cook tonight? First meal in a new place. Be a good wifey and all that.”

Tim tried not to imagine Stephanie with rollers in her hair, red lips and a frilly apron holding an apple pie. He failed. “Can’t comment on the contents of my fridge.”

“That’s okay.” She stood up, wandering down to the yellow duck. She pinched its orange beak. “Tim?”

“Mm?”

“I am genuinely interested in your work. I’m not being accusatory about that.”

“Thank you, Steph.”

She smiled, but it was sad.

With one box filled with stuffed toys, it truly didn’t take long for Tim to help her move the rest of her stuff into his room. Photos proceeded to take up free surface space, and Tim’s bathroom quickly became filled with so many items for the bath that his mind drifted to the idea of Stephanie. In his tub. In his apartment. He burned red for the rest of the afternoon, his brain not allowing him to let go of her soaking in bubbles.

There was one that smelled like cola candy that he liked, but it was at that point he decided he was being creepy, and wandered back downstairs, to find his fiancée’s head rammed in the fridge.

“Alright there?”

“Garlic…red onion… half a pepper…” Her muffled voice was amused. “Butter… cheese… milk.” She shut the door, hands full of everything except the milk. “Pretty standard student fridge contents huh?”

“I’m not a student.”

“Nah, but you have twenty-year-old brain anyway. We’re all messes.” She looked at the ingredients in her arms. “I can do something with this. You good a stirring?”

“I have movement in my wrists.”

She smiled. “Then grab me a knife, cutting board, pot and frying pan?” When he did, she jerked her head over to the sink. “Fill the pot three quarters up and throw a chunk of salt in. When it boils – two mugs of pasta and stir.”

It was a simple quick dish, but she gave Tim enough instructions to make him feel like he somewhat contributed to the food that she made. Sitting with her at the counter, watching her pile cheese higher and higher into her bowl, made him feel content in a manner he didn’t feel often in his home.

When they were finished, Tim stared into his empty bowl gathering the courage to say,

“We should talk.”

Stephanie beat him to it. Tim picked up the dishes, hand shaking a little.

“I’ll wash up.”

She reached out, fingers wrapping around his wrist gently. If he wanted, he could pull away without being violent, but he held still. Steph looked at him, trying to make him understand.

“It can wait a little bit.”

She was right, but Tim couldn’t shake his nerves. He set the bowls down, then sat back on the stool.

Stephanie’s hand shifted, and then suddenly they were interlocking fingers.

“Tim…” She began, and she was unable to look at him as much as he for her. “How much of this is real for you?”

Tim had told Dick he had wanted her to start the conversation, for her to lead the way, but now when it was happening, Tim moved from nervous to frightened.

“What do you mean?”

The look Steph gave Tim from the corner of her eye was indescribable, but the closest Tim got to giving it a name was pity.

“Do you want to be with me?”

“Do you?”

Deflecting like a wimp. Avoiding conflict. Tim tried to convince himself it was because Stephanie had to be the one to tell him. The moment she was decisive, so would he.

Instead she sighed like she didn’t know what to say. They were still holding hands. Tim began to breathe shallowly.

“Please, Steph. It’s fine if you don’t.”

There was his admission. She knew, she’d always known. But somehow, she had found the talent of laying her cards close to her chest, and he hated it.

“It’s not that.”

Not a denial. Not really an admission either.

“What is it?”

“It’s everyone else. Like, I’ve been getting all these messages all the time from people I haven’t spoken to in ages but then Kara keeps messaging me asking what’s going on. Why I didn’t tell her? Why are her and Conner not invited? But I can’t… I can’t lie to our loved ones about you.”

“Because you…don’t love me. And you don’t want to lie to the people we love that you do.”

He felt hollowed out. He felt like he was hurting her. But she had agreed to this. She didn’t have to. He had given her a way out. So what? She was being a martyr?

“No…No Tim.”

And suddenly Tim could breathe again.

“But don’t you get it? Even if I wanted… we are lying to everyone. How can anything good come from a lie? Especially for us. Where has us lying with each other ever done us any good?”

Oh. She thought they were repeating old bad patterns.                                

“I’m not lying to you.” He said, trying to reassure her. Not once since this whole thing had begun.

“And that’s all that matters?”

“It should. We’re the ones in this…relationship…so that’s all that counts.”

She sighed patiently, like she was explaining something to a child. “Tim, we don’t live in a bubble.”

Tim ignored it, and shamelessly began to beg. His patience had run out. It felt like he was pulling wisdom teeth, that’s how closed off she was being.

“Stephanie. Steph, please. You can’t say it’s a lie when I’ve done nothing but be honest with you. You have to tell me the truth.”

“About what?”

“You said you loved me at dinner.”

“I did.”

“Do you?”

“Of course, I do.”

Tim did not feel any lighter with the admission, nor did Steph look happy to say it.

“When this is over, do you want to be with me? For real? Like I do for you?”

Finally, finally, they looked each other in the eye.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was wet, quiet, and strained, like she was on the urge of crying. She didn’t even sound sure of her uncertainty. Maybe Tim was completely delusional, but he sensed that for all her talks of wanting the truth, she didn’t know what to do with it when it was staring her right in the face.

She was still frightened, and Tim knew it was from every piece of negative and positive attention being flung there way. Like Tim, Stephanie just wanted to be left alone. Unlike Tim, she couldn’t cope with the attention. And he didn’t know how to help her.

She then got up from the table, picking up their bowls to do the washing up. She had gotten what she wanted from the conversation. Tim was being earnest, like he always was. Tim still loved her, like he always had. Tim wanted a real relationship with her, like he had always wanted.

And she had only given him mixed signals in return. Self-loathing bubbled in her gut, which only served to fuel her seemingly growing self-esteem issues. Her anger spiked.

And she’d tried so hard to get over her adolescent insecurities too…

Patrol was waiting, after which Stephanie would spend the night with Cass at the manor, and Tim would return to his apartment, staring at the empty space in his large bed.

Neither slept that night.

[lemonsandstrawberries]

One Night a Year

fandom: Stony (Steve x Tony), MCU, after Endgame but a happy ending, mentioned Winterfalcon (Bucky x Sam) and Scarletvision (Wanda x Vision)

summary: Halloween parties in the Avengers headquarters are always a big hit, but this time neither Tony or Steve attend. At least not in a traditional way.

length: 1 242 words

a/n: Happy Halloween! hope you all will have fun and stay safe! this fic is just Halloween fun and fluff, but it won’t make a lot of sense if you didn’t see Avengers Endgame (of course you can still read it, but you will be missing the fun part ;D). hope you like it!

—————

One Night a Year

"That shouldn't be allowed."

Natasha didn't answer. She just leisurely swirled a candy eyeball in her red-colored, fizzy drink. A lovely Halloween refreshment.

"It is just such an easy way out!"

Maybe a tiny smile showed on the agent's face before she masked it with taking a sip of the beverage. Sweet and tart like a raspberry. Could use a nice, alcoholic kick, but it would do for now. The night was still young and the party was just starting, just like Clint was starting his whining fest.

The annual Halloween party at the Avengers headquarters was always a big hit, mostly thanks to Tony, who definitely didn't spare money for Halloween decorations and catering. Lifesize skeletons sitting or standing casually in every corner, cackling witches, fake spiderwebs, colorful lights and food that looked absolutely disgusting and horrid but in reality, was tasty and fresh and made from the best ingredients. The open bar was a great option too, brimming with colorful drinks and swathed with the subtle mist coming from the blocks of dry ice submerged in black cauldrons. Spooky, eerie and mesmerizing. It was a picture-perfect Halloween party and it just seemed to get better and better each year, Tony somehow always managing to outshine the previous party. That was a gift.

Watching everybody in costumes was the best part. One could think that after the whole superhero thing, walking in costumes during their free time would be a hassle, but the truth was, that in those moments they all felt the most human. Having certain skills and abilities didn't isolate them from the rest of the world and it was a good feeling to be a part of something almost everyone on the planet enjoyed and partook in.

One of the cutest costumes definitely belonged to Wanda, which consisted of frills, a long red cape, and a red dress and a picnic basket, her own take on the Little Red Riding Hood's costume. Vision matched his girlfriend, in a plaid shirt, and a werewolf like appearance, that kept changing all the time for more and more realistic after talks with his teammates about how a proper werewolf should look. Someone wise once said that there were as many opinions as there are people and Vision kept adding to his werewolf look, becoming more ad more frightening, while Wanda remained a sweet balance to him. They were not the only couple wearing matching costumes and Bucky and Sam also came in pair, but no one knew why they chose salt and pepper shakers costumes, probably there was no big reason behind it, just pure desire to have fun. Or forgetfulness and it might have been one of the last costumes available in the shops.

The costume Clint had the most problems with, was Steve's. Each year, Tony showed in a stunning, detailed costume and Steve, like Tony's, at first boyfriend, then husband, had also the best stuff. They usually didn't match, but their costumes were always nice to look at.

This year seemed that Steve didn't have a costume at all.

"Cheater!" Clint called after Steve, when the soldier was squeezing past him and Natasha, seemingly in a hurry.

"Excuse me?" Steve stopped, looking at Clint, who this year decided to get a very nice and stylish vampire costume, ruffle on the front of the shirt and cape on his back included, while usually he just collected some lost clothes and tried to make the best out of it, often dressing us one of his teammates. That joke never got old, but this year Clint decided that he needed a slight change.

"You are not even wearing any costume, Steve!" Clint complained, eyeing up and down the green army fatigues and a military cap Steve had decided to wear. If the Captain of Avenger's team decided to use minimum effort for this year's costume and go as a soldier, the least he could do was tore the material here and there and splash it with fake blood, creating a zombie-soldier look. That would be cooler than the boring, too normal version Clint was looking at in an offended way, while Natasha, quite happy with her devil inspired costume, and, she wouldn't admit to it, loving the black hairband with attached plush red horns.

Steve smiled good naturally and straighten himself, standing in a typical military pose, feet slightly apart and arms crossed behind his back.

"You must be mistaking me for someone else, civilian, I am Captain Roger Stevens," Steve said, sounding almost as if reading from a script, keeping a straight face, even if his eyes sparkled with humor. "I am looking for Doctor Howard Potts, have you seen him?"

"Who the hell is-"

"Captain."

"Doctor Potts," Steve brightened, turning in the direction of the voice. He reached his hand and pulled the just arrived person closer to himself.

If Clint thought that Steve's costume was a lazy idea, Tony's costume was the epitome of laziness. Just a regular dark blue suit, one of many Tony had in his wardrobe, nothing special or Halloween about it. Only the dark blue tie speckled with colorful circles was eye-catching, but again, not reflecting the spooky holiday.

"Fancy seeing you here, Captain Stevens," Tony said, smiling tiredly, his hair a bit messy and showing that he was clearly in a hurry to make it earlier to his own Halloween party instead of his usual fashionably late.

"The pleasure is mine, Doctor."

"What's going on?" Clint asked, voice colored with some nervous laughter. He looked from Steve to Tony, while the couple already seemed to be lost in their own world, holding hands and foreheads pressed together. "Tony?" Clint asked, hoping to get a more precise answer from the genius.

Tony blinked and moved slightly away from Steve, just to get enough of space to look at Clint. "I am not Tony. I am Doctor Potts. Howard Potts. You see," Tony said quickly, cutting off Clint who had just opened his mouth to say something, and locked his eyes with Natasha's instead, "I and Captain Stevens worked together at Camp Leigh back in the 70s. It wasn't an easy time for people like us, and this is the only night a year when we can come back and finally be together. Right, my love?" Tony put his hand on Steve's cheek, and Steve turned his head slightly to the side, kissing Tony's palm tenderly. After that, he took a step back, clacking his heels together and slowly bowed.

"Doctor Potts, may I have the pleasure of dancing with you?" Steve said, reaching his hand for Tony's.

"I thought you will never ask, Captain Stevens," Tony replied charmingly, taking the offered hand and both men moved to the dance area, Steve taking the lead.

"Wow," Clint grinned mischievously, his fake fangs sparkling in his mouth as he observed the couple, the fake love story fresh in his mind, "that's… so lame."

"Nah," Natasha scrunched her nose, also looking how Steve and Tony held each other, slowly swaying in a dance resembling foxtrot, completely ignoring the cheerful and loud notes of The Monster Mash the rest of the team and guests were dancing to. Maybe it was a tad sappy, but also incredibly sweet. "That's just them," she concluded, fishing out the candy eyeball and crunching it between her teeth.

After all, it was just Steve and Tony, being in love during every possible occasion.

[trying-write-fanfics]

OverhaulXreader part 23

Time went on. Gramps got a granddaughter. He stayed away though due to the strained relationship. He still had Kai. Y/n would come over here and there, and even cooked for gramps sometimes.

The add-on bakery was stressful to say the least. Y/n was working double time for the restaurant and starting the bakery. Menu, ingredients, advertising, permits, inspections, and management were all struggling. Those were the problems Y/n was trying to control. Then there was villain activity which was also stressing her out. They were just people using their quirks and destroying buildings and stealing. Organized crime was a lot less annoying, they didn’t involve civilians like Y/n. Sometimes she had to take a different route home or wait for subways to get repaired. Witness reports also took up her time.

Though her least favorite was the hostage situation. Mainly because all she wanted to do was cash a check out to have a fun weekend with friends on a holiday. Some villain who has never robbed a back shot the ceiling and told everyone to get down.

“I need a hostage-you” the villain pointed at her.

He grabbed her by the wrist and held the gun to her throat. She had mixed feelings, one being scared, the other being done with life. There was no easy day and she was a little done with life.

“C'mon this way.” The man said.

How did these situations happen? Sometimes she wishes she was a zombie detective or at least had a cool quirk to defend herself. Her mind was nowhere near where her actual body was.

“Maybe after this you and I could go on a date, I got money.” The man said.

“Yeah, we’re gonna tell our grandkids that grandpa went to jail for shooting grandma at the bank?” She sassily said.

“You didn’t have to be such a-“

A police officer took them out like an American football player. Her shoulder popped when the three hit the floor.

Luckily Y/n was going to a hot spring resort with some girl friends. They were from the choir group, but the ones they were around her age. She however bought her own separate room. They gossiped, laughed, and truly relaxed in the communal spring. It was all nice and she felt the stress melting away. In a robe she went to her hotel bed and just laid on it. She let her legs hang off the side. The phone rang and it was her non labeled love.

“Saw you were on the news.” Kai said on the other side without a hello.

“I can’t even cash a check without someone rubbing their damn quirks or guns in my face.” She groaned .

“Come over tonight. I got you a bottle of wine.”

“Sorry handsome, I’m at a resort this weekend.”

“You’re what?”

“Girls from my choir group thought it would be fun to sit in a hot spring together.”

“Did you get naked with those old ladies?”

“No younger girls joined my group awhile back.”

“You know you’re sitting in your own filth in those baths.”

“Good thing I couldn’t come over this weekend.” She told him.

“You could shower in my shower.” He offered.

“Is that your attempt at foreplay?”

“I can try can’t I?”

“I do miss you.” She told him, making sure the air was clear.

“What day are you coming back?”

“Why, you miss me?”

“I haven’t seen you since your period incident.” He told her.

“Work has been hard. Sometimes I wish I was just a housewife without any kids. Like maybe I have hobbies like I garden and I smile and wave at people and it’s enough contribution to society.” She rambled.

“You know-“

“I don’t mean it Kai. I’d be so bored. I’d have to have like a small army of kids to be the same amount of work as this bakery.”

“So when can I see you again?”

“I’ll let you know after the trip. I've been working overtime last month.” She whined.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Are you fine with the whole hostage situation that happened?”

It was weird hearing Kai being emotionally worried.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. Sweet dreams.”

“Sweet dreams angel.”

Y/n had a nice time and the weekend ended. Some of her choir friends joined her to clean the new

Bakery. They bought the building, and now they had to clean it.

“So, you seeing anyone Y/n? My brother was kinda interested at the last concert.”

“Uh-yeah I am.”

“Ooh a boyfriend?”

“No...he’s uh.”

“So you’re not seeing anyone or you’re talking about….” her friend trailed off.

“Is he a lame ass no labels type of guy? Y/n you’re so hard working you deserve someone who wants to give it their all!” Her other friend said.

“It’s not like that, we just haven’t talked about that.” She tried to explain.

“Wait are you like that? I never took you for someone so casual, Y/n.”

“It’s not like that.”

The subject died down, but Y/n couldn’t stop thinking about what her and Kai were. He called her his angel, but never his girlfriend. After the hard work, the girls started drinking, and not thinking, Y/n took the subway to the main compound. She was looking for Kai. She knocked the door over a million times and Pops answered.

“Y/n, what are you doing here, it’s the middle of the night?”

“Oh my god, I’m looking for Kai and looking back at it I should have just texted or called or, something instead of showing up, but I really wanna talk to him, is he here? I saw a dead rat on the subway.” She drunkly rambled.

“Kai should be home soon, why not wait with me.”

“Okay.” She started crying because that’s just how drunk she was.

The two sat at couches as they tried to play shogi. Instead Pops let her pretend to know what she was doing as she talked.

“I just don’t know Pops, what are Kai and I? He’s so cute and he’s so nice to me, but he doesn’t even want me talking to his crew. God every time I talk about him I make him sound like a hip hop rapper.” She sobbed.

“Well when he gets here you can ask him, but I promise you, Kai likes you very much.” Pops promised.

“Yeah? When he gets old is he gonna own a koi pond and just feed the fish all day?” Y/n asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“I’m in a choir group to make friends and there’s a bunch of old ladies, maybe you might want to meet them if you’re not seeing anyone. I know you lost your wife to cancer.” She was still sobbing but Pops wasn’t judging. “And I told them that if they don’t find anyone at the retirement home I’ll take them clubbing and I’m not ready for clubbing with anyone.”

“Kai won’t make you go clubbing.”

“He’s such a prince, you raised him right.”

The front door unlocked and the awkward situation for Pops to be over. It was not the man of the hour, but instead Chrono.

“Oh my god, it’s you, the guy who bought a gun from my mom.” She was still sobbing.

“You don’t remember my name?” Chrono asked.

“No, I’m drunk and conflicted about so many things.”

“Chrono why not keep Y/n company, I’m old and tired”.

“Goodnight pops.” Y/n said like a person.

“This situation keeps happening. You drunk, me sober.”

“Oh my god, where is Kai?”

“He is taking care of some final things, I thought I would leave some paper work here.”

“Does he talk about me?”

“No because he told us not to talk about you, remember that?”

“I don’t even remember your name, and want me to remember things. Does he even like me?”

“Yes. That is an easy one.”

“You think he thinks I’m cute.”

“I would bet money on that.”

“I saw a dead rat on the subway and I thought that was an omen for my death and Kai showing up to my funeral saying he’s my friend and my mom is gonna be like damn wish he would have said more because she knows on the down low him and I are you know…”

“Wait you think Kai is gonna speak at your funeral.”

“He’s gotta be a leader. He’d be like Y/n was sufficient at cooking and she made people smile, her only downfall was having periods.”

“I’m sure he knows that periods are inevitable.”

“You were friends with him after I left, you there when school gave him the puberty talk? We’re they honest?” Y/n asked.

“Let’s call him to make sure he knows the truth about periods.”

“No, I’m too drunk to make phone calls.”

“But not too drunk to go to someone’s house?”

“I just feel like if I explained my system, you wouldn’t understand.”

“I would travel with you.”

“Girls trip!” She sang. “But on the real real, I don’t know if you could handle my thunder I love hotel rooms and pools.”

“Is that a-“

“Oh my god, that wasn’t sexual.”

Kai came through the door, he was stressed that the meeting took longer than intended and he didn’t understand why they had as many questions as they did, unless they were undercover cops. He found Y/n and Chrono sitting in the front room. She looked a little disheveled.

[asherlockstudy]

Well, the Valonqar prophecy was fulfilled though

Poor me trying to explain all the fuckery that was Jaime’s scenes

Hear me out. But before you do, disclaimer! everything I will say here is 99% the result of shitty writing that incidentally can be read as something “more”. Believe me, I have no faith in the next episode. In fact, I am kind of...jolly because the treatment of most characters was so bad I ended up finding it entertaining. However, there are some things regarding Jaime’s scenes that I couldn’t avoid considering so I’m going to write them down even if it’s for nothing. Which it almost certainly is. 

Sooooo...the worst case scenario was the real one as it usually happens in this shitty world. Jaime Lannister bids his farewell to his character arc of 7,5 seasons and rides back to King’s Landing to die with Cersei. 

There are some curious nuances to that general assumption here, one of them being that the way Jaime essentially breaks up with Brienne in the previous episode was so ambiguous that half the viewers, even some who didn’t care for the relationship of these two, were convinced Jaime was planning to kill Cersei and didn’t want Brienne to follow.Then again, this ambiguity might have been intentional by our brilliant writers - who will Jaime choose in the end?

So let’s talk about the last encounter of the Lannister brothers. Let me tell you, A LOT of weird things happen in that scene. 

First: According to the Unsullied, Daenerys was not the one who commanded them to guard Jaime. Someone else that we never got to know gave the order and Tyrion makes the mistake to not ask their identity. When Tyrion asks “was it the Queen”, the soldier laconically answers “No” and I wonder if there’s some certain weight hiding in that withdrawn piece of information. The Unsullied could have simply said “Greyworm’s orders” or something like that. Hmmm. Then again, it could be that D&D felt they were giving Tyrion a clever line about outranking there (lol). Or, if we are very, very, very hopeful, someone that outranks Tyrion in ways we don’t yet know wanted Jaime guarded out of Tyrion’s reach. And that someone wasn’t Daenerys. 

Second: Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by now but in the very first seconds we have another proof that Jaime is stupid™. He just decided to walk around or through Dany’s camp flashing the gold hand left and right. When Tyrion asks him why on earth he didn’t hide it, Jaime, also somewhat laconically, says it was because he was stupid. In the last season, we saw that Jaime had the common sense to hide his hand before heading for the North. So, is Jaime’s low IQ dropped even more here, reaching abysmal depths, or did he think he shouldn’t have anything to fear if he walked through Dany and Jon’s lines as Jaime Lannister? 

Third: Well, watch the scene. Jaime is actually not only fed up with the whole chaos but he’s also reluctant to help Cersei, at least in the way Tyrion instructs him to. Look at their dialogue: 

Tyrion: You’re going to her. To die with her.

Jaime: You’ve underestimated her before.  (Soooo he was going there to live with her? In the middle of that utter destruction? It seems Jaime believed Sansa’s words about Cersei’s victory more than Tyrion’s. Jaime deflects Tyrion’s observation here.)

Tyrion: She’s going to die. Unless you can convince her to change her course of action. 

 Jaime: Difficult to do from here. (Excuse)

Tyrion shows the key to his chains.

Jaime: Ooooh, when have I ever been able to convince Cersei of anything? (Is it me or is he actually fighting it?!)

Tyrion: Try. If not for yourself, if not for her, then for everyone of the million people in that city, innocent or otherwise. (Tyrion knows all the things that motivated Jaime once.)

Jaime: To be honest, I never really cared much for them. Innocent or otherwise. (There, fellows, you heard it. Jaime Lannister just said he doesn’t care for the innocents. Whom he decided to protect from a mad king 20 years ago and from 100000 zombies a few days ago. I promised to fight for the living, he said. With. one. hand. Either D&D are fucking delusional or Jaime is really fighting against his brother’s proposition to help their sister. To the point of “fuck everything”.) 

Tyrion (a little taken aback): You do care for an innocent. I know you do. So does Cersei. She has a reason now. 

Jaime (after a little consideration): The child is the reason she’ll never give an inch. All the worst things she’s ever done, she’s done for her children...... It’s not impossible that she’ll win. (LOL “fuck everything including my kids... shit I overdid it here...let’s go back to the first argument because I have nothing else to say”)

Tyrion: She won’t. 

Jaime: Her enemies’ forces have been depleted as she said they would be. Two of the three dragons are dead. She’s evened the odds - 

Tyrion: The city will fall tomorrow - 

Jaime: ...she has the Lannister army, she has the gold- (”pls let me recite all the reasons why I should not help her”)

Tyrion: I defended the city the last time it was attacked, I know it better than anyone, it will fall tomorrow!

Jaime: Then I suppose I’ll die tomorrow, if not before! (”CAN YOU JUST LET ME DIE HERE IN PEACE?”) 

Tyrion: Why?! (”WTF ‘S WRONG WITH YOU?”) Escape. The two of you together. Remember where we met, where they keep the dragon skulls beneath the Red Keep (let’s not start with the dragons out of stone again), take her down there, keep following the stairway down down as far as they’ll go, you’ll come out onto a beach at the foot of the Keep but a dinghy will be waiting for you. Sail out of the bay, if the winds are kind, you’ll make it to Pentos. Start a new life. 

Jaime (weakly but sarcastically): Sail right past the Iron Fleet and into a new life...sounds a lot less likely than Cersei winning this - (Hey, you got to give it to this man, he’s still trying)

Tyrion: There won’t be an Iron Fleet for much longer! Do it! If you don’t, you’ll never see Cersei again!

Tyrion: Swear to me!

Jaime: YOU HAVE MY WORD!!!!

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Jaime just needs to give his word to someone. 

I won’t try to sugarcoat it and claim Jaime gave zero shit for Cersei but I think the reason he eventually complied was because he saw how much Tyrion wanted it. He decided to do it for Tyrion, first and foremost. Jaime only starts considering Tyrion’s proposal when his brother suggests that if he takes his pregnant sister far away from the capital, he might have a chance at a new life with a child and a hopefully mellower Cersei. Still, he tries to refuse but then it’s honestly Tyrion who forces him to care again for Cersei and also technically demands him to remember his duty as a Knight. In a way, Tyrion creates a dreamy image of Jaime making a healthy family with a sane Cersei and Jaime uneagerly succumbs to it. Again, in a way, Tyrion takes the role of the small devil in Jaime’s mind, even though he has good intentions for his sibling. 

I have many questions here. I don’t understand why Jaime decided to return (or, rather, teleport) there. He didn’t seem to have a plan or to be seriously determined to get back to Cersei. I wonder if what some fans said is true - Jaime returned because he felt he deserved to die as much as the rest of the Lannisters, without intending to help them. Why is Jaime so reluctant to follow Tyrion’s helpful plan and save Cersei and their child, if this was supposedly the reason he left Brienne? So many things don’t add up here. We have many scenes lately where Jaime looks like he has an inner fight that none of us or the other characters can truly decipher.  However, it might be something we’ve seen before - Jaime gives up easily. The moment he was captured, he thought everything was pointless and embraced the possibility of death. Like when his hand was cut and was starving himself, willing to die until Brienne talked him out of it. The other possibility is that he didn’t trust Tyrion and thought he was probably testing his allegiances but first, if he said Cersei was going to win, Dany would be mad anyway and second, Jaime is too naive to consider that his brother might set a trap for him, which is right actually. Tyrion wouldn’t do this to Jaime. The last possibility is that Jaime had a bad premonition for this and he didn’t want to do it. Whatever the reason was, Jaime originally felt he shouldn’t do it but was essentially forced to do it out of honour, duty, love for his brother and a teensy glimpse of planted hope that he and Cersei might actually have had a chance to leave the past behind. 

But I do think he’s conflicted. 

That’s the last we see of Jaime before he truly descends into his character assassination. To me, this shot shows that he is really conflicted. He doesn’t want to do what Tyrion asked him to do. But he is going to do it all the same. I don’t know why he is so negative towards it? Is it him having different plans? Different beliefs on what his and Cersei’s fate should be? Or is it instict? Instict isn’t a satisfactory answer either because he was already prepared to die and I’m quite confident that deep inside Jaime knew Tyrion was right about Cersei losing that war and dying. 

The stupidity starts when Jaime meets Euron. Euron’s like hey let’s fight for no reason and Jaime’s like got a job to do but then Euron tells him come on kill another king or if I kill you, I’ll give your head to Cersei and you can kiss her one last time so that’s the last straw for Jaime and he engages in a one handed fight he should have lost. I think this simply is terrible ridiculous writing. The screenwriters felt they were massacring Jaime’s character which is why they had Tyrion exclaim how important Jaime was for him (I can accept that) and have him take out a bad guy before he goes for the lame suicide. Of course the last one was simply a piece of crap and felt forced and unnecessary. Cripple Jaime takes a sword in the kidneys like twice, then kills Euron and then probably ascends a staircase of like 1000 steps to reach the Red Keep and then also descends them and dies from rocks instead. LMAO at that. Was it the power of love? Was the Gold Lion that Jaime always was? Was it the shittiest writing in history of a TV show? Well. I find suspicious that Euron keeps repeating Jaime managed to kill a second king though. Here’s a guess - Jaime is supposed to take another king or queen down in the books but the screenwriters had to adjust the writing for the surprise!!!! So we got that caricature of Euron, self- proclaimed a king, to die by Jaime. They could use a little kid instead with a label reading KING on his forehead. Another weird thing: “I killed Jaime Lannister!”. I wonder if this has any meaning at all because eventually Jaime commits suicide with a rock and THAT’S what happened. A sword in the kidneys? Twice? Such superficial scratches don’t get to the mighty Jaime Lannister. And I wish this was the only fuckery in this scene:

Jaime does not have Window’s Wail. He carries a plain sword. 

Definitely not this one. The plot thickens, wouldn’t you agree? I don’t know how much I can hypothesize here but if this is Jaime Jaime (honestly, I start doubting it for real) then JAIME DID NOT TAKE HIS TWIN SWORD HE HAD WITH BRIENNE IN HIS MISSION TO SAVE CERSEI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something is seriously weird here. We have a pointless scene between Jaime and Euron. In this pointless scene Jaime doesn’t use his own sword (which is also connected to Brienne) and Euron says “I am the man who killed Jaime Lannister” and yet Jaime is capable of walking thousands of steps up and down and then he dies because of a completely different cause. How long would he stay alive if he didn’t die from the Red Keep’s collapse? Why was this scene needed? Is it just THAT bad writing and the need to atone for what is about to follow? Did D&D feel he needed to atone for what he was about to do?

Here’s an unpopular opinion. I don’t think Jaime needs to atone for anything. Do I like the choice he made in the end? No. Do I like the way he chose to die in the end? No. However, bear with me, D&D and Nik are right when they say that ending felt real to the character, even if he didn’t deserve it. We all expected Jaime to kill Cersei for all the abuse she did to him and all the evil she was responsible for but this ending had me thinking; since when does Jaime kill people out of spite or to take revenge or to punish? Has Jaime ever shown signs of violent fury, even if it’s justified? If I remember correctly, Jaime explicitly said he wasn’t interested in taking revenge from Locke for maiming him, although even Brienne thought this would be an understandable desire. Jaime kept protecting the people, innocent or otherwise, even though they ‘ve been loathing him for decades for saving them from the Mad King. Most of the crimes he has committed were for love (healthy or not) or protectivity or by mistake. I don’t want to include the murder of his cousin here because THIS was the most out of character thing Jaime has done and I’m willing to bet D&D wanted to make his redemption arc that started shortly after more SurPriSiNg.

So it doesn’t weird me out that as he was dying he couldn’t hold anything against his toxic sister anymore. Neither does it annoy me that Cersei was terrified and most of her arrogance had left her at that Day of Reckoning. Why did this make people so mad? It’s delusional to think that Cersei was the Big Villain. She never had anything on Joffrey or Ramsey or (book) Euron or Aerys or his nice daughter. She was a horrible woman who deserved to die, that’s for sure, but this doesn’t mean she wouldn’t want a close person back to her as they were about to die or that she wouldn’t realise before the end that some things should have mattered to her more than power. 

When Jaime meets her again, there’s no fight left inside him. He’s the old Jaime again, the one who loves her unconditionally, unlike the one we saw with Tyrion. I wonder if this has an emotional or a symbolic meaning or perhaps I am thinking too deep into this. It could be explained emotionally because Jaime knows they are both going to die and it’s pointless to oppose to her at this point. She dies, the child dies, he dies. What would be the point of choking her to death when they can die as lovers or as siblings (awkward) embracing each other. Fans forget that they had found themselves in a position where previous fights and hate did not matter anymore since they would definitely die anyway. It’s a parallel with the fight between the Hound and the Mountain who pointlessly decided to kill each other although they would 99% die anyway. The Hound and Jaime follow parallel paths in this case - they could have never returned. They could have left hate and desire for vengence or the toxic love behind and they would have lived. They both get punished for being unable to leave the past behind even in an hour like that - Hound is punished by having the death he dreaded and Jaime is punished by having all his prospects buried along with himself and the love he supposedly couldn’t shake off. There is a huge difference though - the Hound is consistent throughout his whole life about wanting revenge from his brother whereas Jaime falters and fumbles, tries to resist and it is ultimately Tyrion who convinces him to return back to Cersei irreversibly. Jaime holds Cersei tenderly, delays and then leads her beneath the Red Keep. 

Why was Arya there? What was the point of having her reach King’s Landing and enter the Red Keep only to live and survive? Maybe the point was that Cersei, who always desired to survive, if not for herself then for the elephant baby she was apparently gestating for like 2 years, might have had a chance to escape. Sure, she ‘s portrayed to be lost and helpless and as the Red Keep collapses around her, she has lost her quick thinking unlike Arya. However, there was still a chance like there was a chance for the Hound and the Mountain if they hadn’t chosen to kill each other instead. There was a small possibility for Cersei to survive. Tyrion and Jaime took that chance from her. Tyrion had the idea and Jaime executed it. Both her little brothers sealed her death. 

The prophecy was fulfilled and I am sure it was going to follow a similar path in the books. GRRM has said that prophecies are not to be trusted but I think it’s obvious he wouldn’t spend so much time in them if none of it was going to be proven right. The thing is, the prophecies will come true in ways we don’t expect. We were searching for the valonqar but there were two people in Cersei’s life who could fit that role and both had a part in the fulfillment of the prophecy, a part that felt very real for each character. Tyrion, as the clever -er Lannister, is the “mastermind” behind the plan. He tries to compensate for his stupidity upon realising that he tried to fight the evil in King’s Landing by bringing an even bigger one. Filled with guilt, he tries to atone by helping the family he had turned against, even if the family was problematic. He sends Jaime to her rescue, thinking that he helps his loving brother and his innocent child and that he asks forgiveness from his sister for destroying the entire city because of their personal vendetta. (Because whatever was wrong between the two siblings, it should not fall on the people’s heads.) On the other hand, Jaime “the soldier” is the executioner who second-guesses what he’s about to do but he does it as a Knight, out of duty for his family. He outdoes himself in order to find her and lead her to the dungeons of the Red Keep, where there’s no way out.

And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.

That happened. Cersei is desperate, truly drowned in her tears, begging Jaime to save her, supposedly for the child. Jaime looks around a bit and easily embraces their fate. He holds her there in place while she cries she wants the child to live. Jaime wraps his fingers around her neck tenderly and essentially bares her from that last reason for her to survive and tells her that nothing matters but them (who supposedly have no reason or worth to stay alive but should leave this world together instead). This is confusing -  does Jaime truly throws everything else that meant something to him in the dumpster or does he want to make Cersei’s death as sweet as possible? Trying to convince her that she shouldn’t worry about all the reasons why she should live but instead think that she dies like they always said they would - with him, together. I know many people didn’t like how good Cersei’s death was but it wasn’t a good death in my opinion - better than fire but still scary and tragic as hell. Cersei keeps lamenting “Not like this, not like this, not like this” which means she hated the way she was about to die. True enough, she dies from the castle that was the symbol of the power she yearned for so much, while a young and beautiful queen takes everything she loved from her: her crown, the child, herself and, well, her brother who she did not love healthily or selflessly but, still, loved more than anyone else besides her children, I guess. Furthermore, Cersei always wanted to die on her own terms, an opportunity that was also taken from her. She’s pregnant, so she doesn’t want to die by drinking poison and leaving this world with her pride intact. Furthermore, she is not the one who handles the situation. She becomes the follower for once in her life, trusting in Jaime who would always protect her, only to be led by him to her certain and unavoidable death. Jaime himself is the one who demands of her to accept the truth and face death. 

Of couse he dies too. I guess. This ending leaves me baffled in the sense that the Lannister brothers’ fate is now too interwined. Cersei’s death reminds me of Tywin’s - Tyrion kills Tywin because Jaime allowed it to happen in a way and now Jaime kills Cersei because Tyrion convinced him to lead her down there. At this point, both the brothers have fulfilled all the criteria for the prophecies of Azor Ahai and the Valonqar, but the one is dead and the other doesn’t strike me as a fighter sent from a god. Of course, like people and leaks say 1385 times per day, the prophecies don’t matter much, especially in the show but I just...can’t unsee it. The Valonqar was definitely fulfilled. I suspect the Three Headed Dragon one rings true too in some ways, regarding Dany, Jon and the dragons. And if somehow Jaime survives this collapse, or doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, he could be resurrected by the Lord of Light like Jon was after around 30 swords in his guts, then he won’t just survive just to be a humble worn dude living peacefully (with Brienne). If Jaime survives, that makes him Azor Ahai or makes him the King of Westeros or both. So either we’ll get nothing or everything. 

Long story short, while Jaime’s storyline has unbelievably many loose threads and I don’t hate it. I’ve decided I won’t hate him even if that was the last we saw of him. Jaime didn’t reunite with Cersei as a lover either, they reunited as twin siblings. This is my very subjective perception of it but I like to think that the baby doesn’t matter to Jaime anymore because that nature of his relationship with Cersei doesn’t matter to him anymore. But she’s still family and he still had dedicated 40 years of his life to her. He was never very clever and he has always been self-destructive and, worse, he always needed someone to urge him towards a certain direction. I want to emphasize this, which is also why I always expected certain big things from Jaime; although Jaime has a good understanding of the world and what’s right, he rarely, if ever, takes the initiative to do something on his own. He’s usually pushed by others, Cersei, Brienne, Tyrion towards a direction. This is why I always thought Jaime was guided by his destiny like there’s an invisible hand pushing him without him realising it. I’ve noticed a pretty consistent pattern about Jaime - he does not respond in critical questions that start with “Why”. 

Jaime eventually tells Catelyn he pushed Bran out of the window. She asks him why and he never responds. However, he later tells her he sleeps with Cersei so this wasn’t the reason he didn’t respond. 

Brienne asks him why he saved her from Bolton’s men. He never responds. You could argue that he starts developing feelings and can’t process them yet but this actually was the equivalent of his book “I dreamt of you” explanation after the Bear Pit. So, it was like destiny was showing him the way without him realising it. 

As we saw, Tyrion asks Jaime why he finds so many excuses against following his plan to save Cersei and himself. Jaime never responds. It’s as if this goes against his destiny and he tries to avoid it but then destiny meets him anyway beneath the Red Keep. Jaime embraces his and Cersei’s death far too easily.

And since I spoke of “unbelievably many loose threads” let me make a summary of Jaime in the 8th season for the end. 

Bran sees Jaime is heading for Winterfell and waits for him throughout the cold winter night. He doesn’t seem to have a precise picture of when exactly Jaime will arrive and he prefers to stay out there than be the one to tell the truth to Jon about his heritage. In short, Bran waits for Jaime and has an assistant to do what very soon will unleash hell in the entirety of Westeros. Jaime is vindicated in his trial or, at least, tolerated. Bran watches the trial intently and then he also watches intently Jaime looking at Brienne. Jaime apologizes to Bran which Bran almost dismisses as something he did to protect his family. Jaime however says he’s not that man anymore. He asks Bran why he didn’t blame him in the trial and Bran insinuates Jaime will prove very helpful soon (supposedly in the Long Night). Jaime asks what will happen afterwards and Bran looks (for like the first time ever) intrigued and entertained at Jaime’s certainity that he will survive. Jaime spends the rest of the days fanboying over Brienne, expressing his gratitude, knighting her and asking to fight under her command. In the battle of Winterfell, both care to save each other more than to save themselves. Sam has an inexplicable moment of pause during the battle, where he sees through the fire Jaime fighting like crazy with something that looks suspiciously like a functioning right hand. Jaime and Brienne survive the battle and Tyrion coarsely helps Jaime find the moment to get closer with her. After an awkward as hell conversation on heat, fire and wood and things growing on them, they sleep together. Meanwhile, Tyrion and Davos wonder what’s become of the Lord of Light. Jaime is later seen having an inner fight. Jaime then asks from Sansa to not take part in the war (!!!) because he prefers to stay in the ugly North with Brienne. As he’s drinking with Tyrion, Bronn somehow barges in demanding a negotiation to not kill them. As Tyrion is the cleverer and most manipulative of the two, Bronn makes clear that Jaime is the best candidate for his next murder. He agrees to let them live if Daenerys wins. Bronn then literally vanishes. Soon after, Jaime is seen roaming around a little aimlessly and Brienne and Sansa inform him Cersei is winning. The same night, after he sleeps with Brienne one last time, we see Jaime stare into the fire and eventually making the decision to leave. When Brienne wakes up, he tells her he shouldn’t be there when everyone else fights. Brienne is the one who jumps immediately to the conclusion that he’ll die trying to save Cersei. Then Jaime strokes her hand and proceeds to recite all the bad things he has done for Cersei (one being a downright lie) and leaves her heartbroken by saying he’s a hateful man. Then we see Jaime suddenly a prisoner of Daenerys. It seems Jaime was walking freely through her camp without doing much to hide his identity. He’s captured and guarded according to the commands of someone we don’t know. Jaime finds numerous excuses to avoid what Tyrion asks him to do and seems to believe Cersei is going to win instead of Daenerys. Tyrion has trouble finding arguments to persuade him and Jaime says some things that don’t make sense based on his character. Tyrion begs him to swear he will do it and Jaime finally complies. They say goodbye. Jaime’s left alone in a way that shows he still doesn’t want to do it. Next thing we see Jaime’s dumbass methods to be allowed in the Red Keep, which of course all fail. He then tries to go through the beach where Euron meets him and forces him into a fight. Jaime does not carry Window’s Wail. He kills Euron and is mortally wounded, leaving Euron happy that he killed Jaime Lannister. Despite that, Jaime ‘kinda’ forgets he’s mortally wounded and walks up and down who knows how many hundreds of steps. He finds Cersei and he’s suddenly full of love and affection all over again. He leads her down to the dragon skulls where there’s no exit anymore. He tells her nothing else ever mattered but them and holds her in place as the Red Keep collapses on their heads. The end.

Make of this what you will. Is it a mix of beautiful and terrible writing? Is it only terrible writing? Is there something we’re missing? Is there going to be a fantastic plot twist that will blow our minds? What would make sense to you at this point, after everything that happens to him in S8?

[mst3kproject]

Dawn of the Mummy

Like Horrors of Spider Island, this is a movie predicated on putting a bunch of attractive women in a dangerous situation so that we can watch them run around and scream, and like Devil Fish, they’re all Italian but we’re not supposed to notice.  The director, Frank Agrama, is best known for the Robotech movies, and most of the actors were never in anything else (one of them did play a victim in Bloodsucking Freaks), so it can fairly be said to star nobody and feature nothing.  Boy, it sucks.

Long ago, the evil Pharaoh Sefreman rode around Egypt being an utter bastard because he was a god incarnate and he could do that. He wanted to continue doing it after his death, too, so a priestess puts a curse on his tomb – if his treasure is ever stolen, Sefreman and his armies will rise and kill!

Thousands of years later, a bunch of robbers blast the tomb open despite the dire warnings of the wicked queen from Snow White.  It’s not them who end up angering the mummy, however, it’s a bunch of models and their photographer, who decide that an undiscovered tomb is the perfect place to hold an impromptu photoshoot.  After way too much pointless dithering, Sefreman makes with the rising and killing, culminating in a full-on zombie feeding frenzy.

The leader of the three robbers is a guy named Rick.  It’s been a while since we had a Rick.  The actor playing him, Barry Sattles, overacts so hard in every scene that you’ll be looking for tooth marks in the rocks.  The guy who dubbed his voice is even worse.

And that’s just one tasty morsel of the delicious cheese platter that is this movie.  The ancient Egyptians dress in taffeta and gold lame.  The dubbing is atrocious.  Sefreman’s ‘treasure’ is a bunch of cheap souvenirs with a layer of gold spray paint.  People running through wide open desert can’t seem to keep ahead of slowly shuffling zombies. The music is intrusive and both it and the accents are obnoxious stereotypes – the end credits in particular are set to a cartoonified ‘Egyptiany’ piece that reminds me of the theme from Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  If I had to pick a stinger I don’t think I could do it.  I mean, there’s the wicked queen popping into shot screaming, there’s the guy getting attacked by a rat, there’s the lady wandering through the tomb wailing about how lost she is, there’s Rick screaming Sefreman’s name over and over… it’s hilarious.

There’s not much of a plot through the middle part of the film – just Sefreman and his minions wandering around eating people and horses.  Occasionally there are hints of story, like one of the models falling in love with Rick (why!?) or the photographer’s desire to be famous, but these never really amount to anything.  The climax is a total free-for-all, as zombies invade the streets of the town and crash Omar the Hookah Guy’s wedding! This is plenty amusing, but would be more so if we had a better idea what the hell was going on.

Sefreman is finally defeated by two of the models and a couple of guys from the town, who lure him into a shed full of dynamite and blow him up.  This actually isn’t a bad ending.  I’m pleased that they didn’t decide to try to turn Rick into the hero, and that the women didn’t need personality transplants in order to save the day.  After the shack blows, they squeal and jump up and down and hug each other – which is exactly what we would expect from the characters we’ve been following this entire movie.  Omar’s wedding is a fun choice of climax, since we get to see some Egyptian culture, and there’s even a sort of subplot in which it’s rather heavily implied that he’s got to marry this girl in a hurry because she’s already pregnant.

I do have many questions about the old woman I’ve been referring to as the wicked queen.  How does she know where Sefreman’s tomb is when supposedly everybody who did know was killed?  She’s played by the same actress as the high priestess who sealed him up – is she supposed to be a descendant?  Maybe even the same person, immortal for some reason?  Why does Sefreman kill her when she immediately swears her devotion to him? Why does she talk about Sefreman ‘reclaiming his kingdom’ when that was never mentioned in the curse?  All the curse was supposed to do was keep his treasure safe.  The best I can say about her is that she’s slightly more explicable and relevant than the pet shop hobo from Hellraiser… but that’s a low bar.

So what is this movie about, besides the obvious ‘mummy killing women’ level?  I don’t think it’s really meant to be about anything.  Dawn of the Mummy is just a monster movie, but it carries with it a certain amount of baggage from its genre. Mummy movies in general are about the West’s unease with archaeology.

Archaeologists dig up all kinds of things, of course, but tombs are a major subset, because the dead bodies of our ancestors are a wealth of information about how they lived.  Modern science can tell where people grew up, what their diet was like, what diseases they suffered from, the colour of their hair and eyes, and all kinds of other things… but there’s still the fact that you have to dig up somebody’s dead body to get there.  Some people are okay with the idea that their mortal remains might be a subject of study in centuries to come.  Other people are not.

The Egyptians would almost certainly have been horrified by what has become of their dead.  Mummies were meant to remain in their tombs for all eternity so that the souls of the departed would have a home, with their grave goods to take care of them.  A mummy in a museum, separated from its context, means a soul that is alone and penniless in a foreign place.  If they could have put curses and booby-traps in their tombs to prevent this, they would have.  What does that mean for archaeologists?  Do we have the right to disrespect these people’s wishes, just because they’ve been dead for a really long time?

Archaeologists will frequently lament the fact that their profession is also basically destructive – once you’ve dug something up and taken it apart, it will never be pristine again.  Modern archaeology takes great care to preserve as much as possible so that people in the future, who will presumably have better techniques, can still learn something, too.  Dawn of the Mummy sort of deals with this, as we see two groups of people who have no interest in preserving what they’ve found. Rick and his friends blow holes in it looking for a treasure chamber, and the models are in their own way nearly as destructive.

Dawn of the Mummy devotes significant attention to the fact that light is damaging to artefacts.  Mummies on display in museums are always under dim light, because bright light will degrade the wrappings and tissues that have spent millennia in darkness. But the first thing the photographers do is set up a bunch of bright lights, and we see shots of icky blue fluid bubbling out of the mummy’s wrappings where this hits it.  I wondered if this is supposed to be what activates the curse – since the title is Dawn of the Mummy, maybe the magic mistakes it for sunlight falling on him?  If so, the writing should have taken care of that I wouldn’t have to sit and figure it out.

The models also touch everything they come across, leaning on walls and statues covered with thousand-year-old paint, getting makeup all over everything and probably sweat, too, as they constantly complain about how hot it is in there. The movie never entertains the possibility of actual archaeologists finding Sefreman’s tomb, but any who did would find it hopelessly compromised.

Mummy movies are also about imperialism, which is inextricably tied to archaeology.  Modern Egyptology in particular began when Napoleon’s troops raided the country for stuff they thought was pretty, and as I discussed in my review of The Pumaman, a lot of this is still kicking around in museums, private collections, and garage sales, with no provenance or context.  Archaeology derives from treasure-hunting, embodied in Rick – he’s not here for knowledge, he’s here for wealth.  The models are not really any different.  They want images of this exotic place that will please their audience, without much caring about the context behind them.

The mummy, with his magical powers and undead army, is a punishment for this greed, and represents the west’s constant fear that conquered peoples will fight back.  You see this in those facebook graphs talking about how white people will become a minority in America unless we make abortion illegal.  Why should that be a problem?  Because we’re afraid we will be treated as we have treated others. Sefreman’s magic is completely unknown to the Americans and they have no defense against it.

Of course, none of this is actually relevant in Dawn of the Mummy.  These themes are inherent in the premise, but they’re not part of the story this particular movie is telling.  The result, with its Styrofoam tomb art and ostentatious overacting, is great to make fun of but impossible to take seriously – perfect material for some do-it yourself MST3K.