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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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The lack of action from our "heroes" is eerily similar to a Nostalgia Critic sketch I saw when I still watched his show. The idea was that to parallel what was reviewed in the episode, Fantastic Four, where the heroes barely did anything for most of it, Doug and his friends got superpowers and only choose to sit on the couch and watch Netflix while the world is under attack. The only difference is that was meant to lampoon the movie, and wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

Massive replay incoming! I haven’t seen the Fantastic Four, but I do still have a lot of thoughts on this choice and how badly it came across...

Though we can absolutely debate the merits/detriments of having 3/4ths of your title characters keeping to the sidelines while the Big Bad is here, I 100% believe that this could have been improved immensely if RWBY a) were more consistently written and b) allowed its characters to tackle conflicts central to what’s currently going on, not conflicts made up just for the sake of having a conflict (Yang randomly fights with Ruby, Ren has criticisms and then never brings them up again, etc.)

So what do I mean by this. I mean that the fandom isn’t necessarily wrong to argue things like, “RWB needs to be there to help Nora and Penny” or “They need time to regain their aura.” The problem is that the show never established these needs as necessary. The viewers have simply assumed those needs are there and judge the group’s actions accordingly. But for those of us asking questions like, “But how does Ruby standing by the window benefit Nora?” or “How long does it really take them to regain their strength?” we’re never given answers and thus are left with the belief that these needs do not exist and the group’s choices are not justified. It becomes, as you say, akin to a parody.

So how do we fix this? By having the show acknowledge those questions and provide believable answers. A few minor tweaks might include:

Having someone ask how long they’re just going to sit there. Let another character argue that they need to rest up before they do anything else. They can’t help others if they’re collapsing themselves. Then, keep these limitations consistent across the volume. In the last episode, Ren was suddenly using his semblance again, despite his aura breaking with very little time having passed between the two moments. So if he only needs a tiny chunk of time in horrific conditions to recover, why does team RWB supposedly need the whole day and night in complete safety, with heat, food, etc.? If “We have to recover” is meant to be a justification, show us elsewhere what lacking that results in: Ren, Jaune, and Oscar do not get their aura/energy back, they’re making mistakes, at the end of their rope, and generally not functioning because look, their conditions are so much worse. This is why a mansion break is necessary.

Have the group actively be trying to solve their problems. We didn’t start with “Someone needs to watch over Nora” we started with “Nora is incredibly injured and needs help”... but no one ever tried to get her help. Have them cycle through and reject some possibilities. Then have Weiss think of calling Klein and approach Whitley to see if he knows how to contact him. There, your protagonists are active and Weiss is helping to repair this relationship. As it stands, the group appears content to continue sitting around while Nora suffers, despite knowing she needs medical attention. We know, emotionally, they’re not actually content, but that’s what the actions imply. Where’s the scene where Ruby frantically asks May if the Happy Huntresses have any doctors and is it possible to bring one here? Where’s Blake hesitantly asking if it’s worth going back to Ironwood to get her help? The fandom assumes that sitting in the mansion = devotion to helping Nora, but we don’t actually see them trying to help Nora. Not in any meaningful way beyond putting cold towels on her head. What are they willing to risk and sacrifice for their teammate? Because sitting drinking tea while they hope things will magically fix themselves doesn’t convey much. We’re not talking here about how much the fandom assumes the group will do for Nora, we’re talking about what their actual actions read like.

Establish then why it takes three powerful fighters to watch over one unconscious woman already being cared for in a comparatively safe environment. The fandom acts as if Nora is a target when she’s not. No one is explicitly after her. If anything, given the initial assumption that the Hound was after Ruby as a SEW, she puts Nora in more danger by hanging around. Have the group debate the merits of being here to defend her if, by chance, something happens vs. putting their skills to use during a battle where very few huntsmen remain.

This debate should include the fact that half their team is missing. Not gone, missing. Last RWB saw they were going down to Mantle to help with general needs and low-level grimm activity. Now they’ve been MIA for hours. Blake, as the assumed love interest, and Ruby, as the sister, should be particularly desperate to find out what’s happened to Yang. If the group has to stay in the mansion for plot reasons, have Weiss talk them out of running into Mantle without a plan. What if what happened to the others happens to you too? The point is, May shouldn’t be the one concerned about the rest of the team and May shouldn’t be the one out looking for information.

Let the group actually decide something for once. Show us that they were going to help Mantle or Atlas and then, oh no, Penny interrupted those plans. As it is though, that scene frames it like Ruby will happily continue hanging out in the mansion until something else — something more dangerous than May’s demand to choose — forces her to take action. Indeed, that’s precisely what happened with the Hound.

Have Weiss or Blake begin to question why Ruby isn’t doing anything. Weiss has a whole conversation with May about how she wants to protect her home now. Blake is all about faunus rights and protection, with a whole faunus population freezing to death down below. Have one of them threaten to walk out, or actually do it with a, “You don’t need me to watch Nora sleep. I’m going to go do what I can.” These characters are supposed to be people with differing motivations and goals, yet whenever that should matter they’re suddenly happy to follow Ruby, even if by all logic there should be disagreement.

Have Nora wake up and tell them to do something other than waiting by her bedside. Let her be the one to get them back on their feet, showing them that she’s fine — she will be fine — and imploring them to help even though she can’t right now.

Explain to the audience what the group plans to do with all these civilians once they’re in the ships. Are they coming to the mansion? Try to fly them out of the kingdom? This is the one thing they’ve done since Amity and we’re given no indication what the actual plan is, let alone any debate about its merits.

Have Ruby be the one to see Penny in her controlled state, not Whitley, and give us some insight into what that means for her. I’ve likewise seen a lot about how Ruby doesn’t just need to look after a sick Penny, she needs to be there to protect Penny and others from her... but does Ruby even know what’s going on? Penny clash-lands without an explanation, she’s busy with the Hound, Whitley and Willow see her heading to the vault, the Hound knocks Penny out, Ruby is distracted by reunions and Ironwood’s threat. The imagined scene where Ruby learns what’s happening to her friend and weighs the dangers of leaving a controlled Penny alone in the mansion are just that: imagined.

That’s really just a small sampling of options here. As said, there are plenty of ways to tweak this plot to make the heroes seem far less passive than they come across here. The fandom often claims that those who criticize this plot-line don’t understand “show don’t tell.” Meaning, RWBY supposedly showed us something rather than telling us in a hand-holding way and we just didn’t understand it. It becomes more of an insult than an argument, the claim that RWBY wrote something nuanced, it’s not their fault you couldn’t grasp it. But it’s not that we missed the answers here, they simply don’t exist, and the fandom has made up their own answers instead, mapping it onto the canon and assuming that’s what RT intended all along. One individual’s ability to come up with a answer does not mean the story actually gave one, it just means we’re all writing RWBY fanfic in our heads while we watch the show.

And this is by no means an isolated incident. It happens every episode. Our latest bout of headcanons has come about due to the questions, “Why does kinetic energy only hurt grimm?” and “If it only hurts grimm, why was Hazel supposedly destroyed?” Each viewer is providing a different answer — “Kinetic energy is different in this world,” “It has to do with the amount of dust in Hazel’s body,” “The blast went in one direction, towards Hazel, and decimated everything in its path, but the aftershocks only hurt grimm” — all of these complicated, unsubstantiated, and ultimately noncanonical explanations... rather than just saying, “Yeah, it doesn’t make sense based on what the show has told us.” The mansion issue is just a particularly egregious example because we recognize that there’s a major problem with taking your main characters out of the action like that. Yet rather than acknowledging the problems with the writing, many fans are determined to fill in those answers themselves until it makes sense. And it does make sense! So many of these explanations would work, but right now they do not exist within RWBY. If we’re supposed to have an answer like, “The group knows they need to go help, but they’re just too traumatized and exhausted to do it. They know it’s wrong, but they can’t move” then tell us that. Show us that. Make it clear for the audience what the takeaway is. Because when you leave it entirely up to viewer interpret, you might indeed get a lot of “They’re just traumatized and need a break” explanations... but you’ll also get a lot of, “Wow, they’re a really cowardly and callous group, huh?” explanations too. One half of the fandom shouldn’t be mad at the other half for interpreting a completely subjective plot-line differently from them, everyone should be mad that our writers didn’t bother to include the canonical explanations from the get-go.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #Anonymous

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years ago

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Eating Everything.”

I am working my way through the list of suggestions that you guys left me, so this is the first installment from a Anon ask. I don’t know if this is what you wanted to read or where expecting to read, but this is what I came up with.

Intergalactic Journal of Biology and Medicine

Humans have one of the most resilient digestive tracts in the known universe. As an Omnivorous predatory species, humans are capable of digesting muscle , fat, carbohydrates (simple and complex), proteins and fibers taking many nutrients and extreme energy from them. Their use of carbs gives us an explanation as to why humans are so powerful because they require a lot of energy to use their bodies. Additionally, the stomach acid of a human is capable of digesting, non-food items though no nutrients can be pulled from it.

Generally speaking, the rule is that if you can eat it, a human can eat it, though, whether it is to their taste or not is questionable.

Furthermore, the human body reactivly ejects toxic substances once detected, so within reason, humans are capable of trying many foods without the negative consequences many of us would associate with sticking foreign substances in our mouth.

There GA intergalactic summit was held, on what was Earth time, November 5th, 4022. All members of the GA council were expected to attend, or at least a representative for every species in the known universe. At this time that would include the Rundi, Gibb, Tesraki, Bran, Vrul, Drev, etc. but worst of all, the humans.

The Rundi steward, a class of government official who was specifically tasked with dealing with the drudgery of bureaucracy, was not pleased in the slightest. It was primarily his job to put everything together, and depending on how well he did, it could either make or break him in social hierarchy of his species. The Rundi were a primarily governmental planet, everything they did was based upon a structure of hierarchy and rule. Government was the greatest form of service, and Anarchy wasn’t even an afterthought in philosophical debate. The rundi were not capable of anarchy.

It was a planet of politicians in some form or another, every interaction had political underleanings, and their speech was always heavily guarded. For this reason, the Rundi had been the first in suggesting an intergalactic system of government. The terasaki had agreed only upon realizing they would be tasked with overseeing economics, but had benefited from the Rundi system of government seeing as they tended a bit towards social anarchy, a thought that the Rundi had seen as horribly barbaric, especially since their system was based primarily on the equal distribution of goods to support government structure.

The Vrul had only agreed to join based on their own personal interest in survival. Generally they wanted nothing to do with intergalactic politics and would have been happy to maintain their own peaceful homeworld, but the introduction of other species into the galaxy had offered a great threat to them, and they had decided, out of necessity, to join the GA as being friends with the other species was in their own self interest. In turn that had meant sending their very, very skilled workers to help the rest of the galaxy, and that included their scientists and their doctors, and their mechanics.

And then of course there was the issue of the Drev and the humans, both scarily similar in social hierarchy and temperament. The Drev were warlike and honor bound, but once choosing a leader, they had been surprisingly willing to join in as long as they were given the opportunity to participate in any and all armed conflict that happened to take place across the galaxy.

The humans….. The humans were another story. There was no one characteristic that helped to identify their motivations. The humans themselves were well versed in war, politics, economics, and science, but they did everything to the extreme. Where the Drev practiced war for honor,when humans waged war, they did it to kill, while the Rundi maintained government and played games within their own circles, the humans played against each other often mixing war and government into one. Their economic practices varied widely, but their current system played for keeps and focused on the greatest accumulation of wealth possible far beyond what the Tesraki did. Then when it came to science, they never considered WHETHER they should do something, but only if they COULD do something.

And now here the steward was forced into the position of setting up this summit for all the different types of species. The catering alone had been a complete nightmare, and he had been forced to ship different sorts of food for thousands of miles in order to feed everyone in the proper manner. There were some species he did not have to worry about, like the Vrul, who were more plant based and so did not eat, but there were others, and that included the rundi and the Tesraki, who had every strict diet consisting of only very specific foods to eat. He found that he could tack the Drev onto some other species, seeing as their bodies were capable of metabolizing almost any plant as long as it retained a similar structure to human plants and fruit.

However, the humans themselves were the hardest part, because the range of food was so wide, he could hardly determine what was going to work and what was going to be a massive disaster. He honestly didn’t know, different sources said different things, and he couldn't bare to think about putting MEAT on the table…. That was just against his constitutions.

In fact, he was scrambling right up until the council had convened for the evening, and the mass tide of bodies came pouring into the room filling the vaulted ceiling with rockus chatter in dozens of different languages.

He could hear the humans coming a mile off.

The humans and the Rundi had a similar register when it came to hearing, and humans were known to be able to mimic Rundi vocalizations to some degree simply because they generally tended to communicate in deep grunts, hums and guttural vocalizations. The humans, wlel their language was just as varied as their culture clicking, hissing, snapping, humming and grunting filling the air with discordant and somehow, rhythmic quality..

Their presence turned heads.

They walked with the Drev delegation, which was no surprise to anyone. The humans had been unable to send their usual representative due to a social disagreement between earth and its neighboring sister, Mars. So who had they gone and sent….

Them….

The rundi Steward knew all about them….. Crewmembers of the UNSC Harbinger, the widest ranging vessel in the entire galaxy, and home to a crew that was indisputably certifiable. They were the most reckless, most dangerous, and most terrifying amalgamation of creatures in the galaxy somehow including one Drev, and a rather out of place Vrul whose behavior suggested he had caught whatever brain malady had overcome the humans, and was just as insane as they were.

He cringed horrifically at the sight of them.. Humans were a destructive force, and were known to cause chaos and mayhem wherever they went, even at the best of times, so this was bound to get interesting.

The delegates were seated, and the Steward welcomed them with gracious words of introduction he had spent months preparing. It was a very political thing for him to do, and included subtle compliments to all delegations involved, laid down some ground rules but made sure not to undermine the authority of the people he was speaking too..

However, to the humans, the attempt was obviously heavy handed brown nosing, though none of the other delegations seemed to notice.

He invited them in for refreshments and encouraged discussion between the parties.

Of course, the humans weren’t exactly ones to pass up the idea of food and were some of the first to the table examining the contents with great interest even the food that was not theirs. They seemed very amused watching the other delegations pick up their specific food and then move away to sit.

“What is this.” one of the humans commented holding up a rather stringy green tube that wriggled and squirmed in his hand, “Are these worms?”

One of the Tesraki looked over, “No, it’s a Cavestalk, a kind of plant. Probably not to your taste, they are known to be poisonous to other species. In other words, not human food.”

The human raised an eyebrow, “Buddy, humans are the sharks….. Or wait…. Maybe that's the goats of the universe, we can eat anything within reason, and even a couple of things outside of reason if given enough time.”

The Tesraki made a sort of shrug and wave with its large ears and then walked away. The steward watched the humans with a worried expression. It wouldn’t due to allow the humans to make themselves sick on his watch, but it seemed as if that idea was only becoming more and more likely as the humans poked and prodded at the leftovers of other species hardly bothering with the food that had been laid out for them…. Mostly strange fibrous plant materials.

And that is when it came, “I dare you to eat it.”

The two humans locked eyes, one still holding the wriggling Cavestalk, “What.”

“I said, I dare you to eat it.” The human stuck out his chin at the other human in a primitive position of posturing, “How much do I get if I do.”

There was a moment of thought before, “Twenty credits. I’ll give you twenty credits to eat it.”

“What happens if it poisons me?”

There was a hand wave, “We have a doctor on board, he can just pump your stomach…. Chicken.”

A moment of silence passed between them, and the Rundi steward began moving towards them to stop something horrible he felt was about to happen. He wasn’t fast enough, and before he knew it, the human had thrown back his head and dropped the wriggly green thing into his mouth swallowing it whole like an alligator or a snake.

People around looked on in somewhat fascinated disgust as the predator’s throat bobbed and he smacked his lips making a face, “Eh, I can still feel it moving…. Eh.” He paused, “Though, taste wise it isn’t so bad kind of like a wiggly asparagus.” After a moment his eyes narrowed, and he smacked his lips again, “Spicy asparagus, uh, that’s really really weird.”

He reached the table just as the Vrul came running up shoulders squared in a very un-vrul way, “HE LITERALLY JUST SAID IT WAS POISONOUS TO OTHER SPECIES, AND NOW YOU’RE EATING IT! AND YOU OVER THERE.” A human looked up at him from where it had been prodding the Drev coiltree berries, “GET THOSE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!”

They had attracted the attention of some of the closer tables now who were looking on in entertained confusion and worry.

A human waved a hand, “It’s alright Doc, we have you don’t we”

“I AM NOT THE MAGIC CURE FOR NEUROTOXIN.”

Another shrug, “Well it’s a good thing that I’ll throw up before anything really bad happens.”

The rundi steward tried to intervene as the humans began prodding through the other food, “Drev can eat human fruit, so I bet these things are like fruit.” one of them pointed out popping the berries into his mouth and chewing with a contemplative look on his face, “Not bad.”

“Please, please, if you would remain within your own food groups.” The Rundi begged. HE was now realizing he should have written up some legal documents to avoid litigation if the humans were to be damaged on their property, but now was too late.

A human waved him off, “Don’t worry, everyone else is done eating, besides.” He Pointed towards the human food, “That's literally a pile of lettuce, I am a man, not a horse.”

“Horses don’t eat lettuce, also that’s not lettuce,it’s spinach.” Another human piped up prodding at a strange squishy red ball sloshing with a strange pink nectar, “This looks like candy.”

“Please don’t put that in your mouth.”

The humans swarmed away from the two dissenting voices. One of them picked up the strange pink orb and licked it. It’s eyes lit up and it bit into the piece wiping pink juice from it’s face as it did, “Ok, this, this is good 10/10 would try again.” And that only caused all the other humans to move over to try one.

“I SAID GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” The vrul demanded.

The Rundi steward looked on in horror and worry. Vrul didn’t behave that way, everything here was just wrong.

A Drev joined the party just then pointing to the pink orb, “I love those, but you should definitely try these too.”

“No, no they should not.”

He was ignored, and the humans scooted over to look. It was a strange spiral plant in a light yellow color that made a distinctive crunching sound as the humans bit down. They shrugged, “Sort of just like space celery if you ask me.”

Did these creatures have no sense of self preservation!

A group had gathered around the table strangely amused at the humans, who just ate…. Everything.

The Rundi steward almost keeled over watching his future go down the drain as other species began offering humans food. Whatever it was, they seemed unable to resist putting it in their mouths. A human made a face spitting something back out into his hand, “Ax bleh, tastes like Satan’s feet.” “Quick question. When was the last time you licked Satan’s feet.” “The last time I was at your mom’s house.”

The humans made strange noises at each other as the Rundi stepped in and began grabbing things from the humans only to find the Vrul to be doing the same, “Stop it! Stop it all of you!.”

The human’s paused, as did the other delegates in surprise.

“STOP PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR MOUTH THAT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE.” The intervening silence was broken as one of the humans loudly crunched on one of the pink orbs. Everyone turned to look at her and she just glanced around the group.

“What?” She wondered past a mouth full of food.

A human waved a hand at him, “Keep your shorts on, we promise you won't get in trouble if one of us dies.”

The Rundi stared on incredulous.

They were going to kill themselves, they were really going to kill themselves.

Maybe it was best if he resigned before being fired, at least he would be able to keep his dignity

#humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are spaceoddities #humans are weird #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

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vonbaghager · 4 years ago

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just throwing my ideas onto my blog so they’re not buzzing around in my head anymore. DBD fan-killers: The Barber, the Abomination and the Ignited.

EDIT: And a new one, the Faceless.

The Barber, spawned entirely from a single mental image in which I imagined a killer that uses a straight razor as a weapon, cleaning it off by grinding it against a sharpening strop tied to the other arm.

Short lore blurb: Was an Old Time-y Barber, the ones that did both haircuts and surgeries. His own failing health had him search for occult methods to keep himself alive, using drawn blood as sacrifice. Eventually dove deep enough into occult lore to find out about the Entity, and became enamored with both the idea of eternal life in its realm, and with the creature itself. Strove to catch its attention by using the surgical prowess he’d learned to craft “masterpieces of agony” on unwitting victims, hoping that their pain and terror would draw the creature to him. Eventually, he received an anonymous gift: An immaculately-crafted straight razor that grew sharper as it cut flesh and bone until the victims didn’t even realize they had been cut until a single solid blow or attempt at exertion blew open all of their wounds at once.

Eventually fucked up and caught the attention of an Angry Mob, but by then had earned his place in the Entity’s Realm and fled into a foggy night, never to be seen again.

Base stats: 115% movespeed. 32 meter terror radius. Medium height (Freddy height).

Active Power: Masterpiece of Agony. Base cooldown: 5 seconds. Enter a special animation with a 1.5 second charge time, during which the Barber cannot make a normal attack but gains speed, up to 130% for up to 5 seconds. Lunging out of this state causes the Barber to madly swipe the razor out, striking every Survivor in the path of the lunge, afflicting them with a special status effect: Agonized. The Barber is greatly slowed for 1 second after the ability ends, whether he lunges or not.

An Agonized survivor’s bloodstains and grunts of pain are magnified until the status effect ends. If an Agonized survivor performs any strenuous action, such as fast-vaulting, dropping a pallet, or missing a check when repairing a generator, the Agonized state ends and the Survivor becomes injured while screaming in pain, potentially alerting the Barber. Being struck by Masterpiece of Agony while already Agonized harms the survivor as if they were attacked, meaning performing a strenuous action will drop them to dying. Agonized can be cured in the same manner as Deep Wounds.

Passive power: Sadist. The Barber’s movement speed and lunge distance is increased for every Survivor currently Agonized, hooked, or dead.

Unique Perks:

A Shrine to my Love: Your adoration for the Entity brings you comfort when you are closest to it. The cooldown of your missed attacks is reduced by [25/30/40]% while within 13 meters of the Basement. The wiggling of a survivor in your grasp has a [moderately/greatly/tremendously] reduced effect on your movement while you are within 13 meters of the Basement.

Serrated Hooks: You’ve made creative additions to the Basement, increasing the hold it has over its victims. A survivor on a Basement hook has their chance of escaping it on their own reduced [greatly/tremendously/completely], and is painfully aware of this fact*. A survivor pulled off a Basement hook is affected by both Hemorrhage and Broken for [16/20/24] seconds.

*the survivor receives a notification about the Serrated Hooks upon being speared on one, which lingers until they’re freed. Survivors rescuing their fellows from the Basement are also alerted to the Serrated Hooks.

Grasp of the Shrike: Yes, they will do. They will do nicely. The diamond atop the ring, as it were. You and the Entity become Obsessed with one survivor, clinging to them tightly and never letting go. The Obsession takes [0.5/0.8/1.0] extra seconds to unhook. Whenever the Obsession dies, another random survivor becomes the new Obsession after 13 seconds.

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The Abomination, based on the video game archetype of “really fat guy with a grappling hook” that’s really just Blizzard but leaks into other games now and then.

Once a gluttonous ruler in the past, he wished for his feast to never end, sparing no expense to have food brought to him from all over the world even as his subjects starved in the streets. When death came for him, he fought with every fiber of his being to remain in the world of the living, tearing his soul free from death’s grasp and forcing it back into his bloated body. He continued to live, but did not belong, beginning to rot and decay even as he brought in the greatest doctors and surgeons to restore him, using the very people he neglected as replacement parts for his increasingly aberrant body.

Never one to waste food, the remains of those slain to restore him were added to his menu, and soon he discovered a love of the taste for the humanity he became further and further divorced from. Ironically, he became a much better ruler the more monstrous he became, if only because the healthy and fat citizens made for better parts and better plates, but eventually it was found out just where the criminals of this prosperous land were disappearing to, and the hideous ruler was threatened with a second death.

Knowing death would not let him escape a second time, he fled from his prosperous land, but soon encountered a problem: he had not stopped rotting, and without a supply of fresh parts, he would succumb sooner or later. He spent his every last coin and gemstone seeking a cure for this condition, slaughtering those he met upon the lonely roads as he fought to remain whole, and eventually he found a solution. He would never again taste the succulence of the world he was leaving behind, but the new world held a banquet for him that would never grow dull. He wished for a feast that would never end, and the Entity granted it.

Base stats: 110% movement. 44 meter terror radius. Large size (Plague height)

Active Power: Glutton’s Grasp. Base cooldown: 8 seconds. The Abomination is slowed as it lets down a lengthy meat hook and begins loudly twirling it around. Any survivor that comes too close to the Abomination in this stance interrupts it but is damaged by the hook as if attacked. Attacking while in this stance flings the hook up to 10 meters outwards, which is blocked by terrain. If a survivor is struck by the hook, they scream and are pulled 5 meters towards the Abomination and become slowed for 2 seconds. If the survivor is pulled directly adjacent to the Abomination, its middle splits open to unveil the Great Maw, which bites into the survivor, damaging them and causing them to become Mangled for 1 minute.

The hook can also interact with certain props. Striking a partially repaired generator stuns the Abomination for 0.75 seconds as a current runs through it but damages the generator as though it had kicked the gen, causing it to regress. Striking a dropped palette stuns the Abomination for 2 seconds as it pulls the wood into the Great Maw, chewing it to pieces.

Once per trial: The Abomination can stand over a survivor who has been hooked at least twice and use the Great Maw to swallow them whole, sacrificing them instantly and becoming hasted for 2 minutes.

Passive: Corpulent Corpse. The Abomination is considerably wider than other killers, making it difficult to sneak or dash past it if it’s in a narrow enough area.

Unique Perks:

Varied Diet. Even the most luxurious banquet can grow boring without variety. Each time you strike a survivor with your basic attack, gain a token, to a maximum of 4/6/8 tokens. Each token grants you 1/2/3% increased movement speed and vaulting speed. Striking the same survivor twice in a row causes you to lose 2 tokens.

Hex: Abattoir. This Hex turns the lockers within the trial into deathtraps for your victims. An injured survivor hiding in a locker bleeds profusely, creating a noticeable pool of blood. If a survivor lingers in a locker for 20/15/10 seconds, they become injured, or are pushed into the dying state if already injured.

Starved Rush. The scent of their flesh, the smell of their blood, it calls to you, driving you into a frenzy the longer you go without it. You enter Bloodlust [slightly/moderately/considerably] faster and do not immediately lose it if you break a pallet.

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The Ignited. Had the mental image of someone undergoing an Oni-style rage transformation, except they burst into flames.

There’s not much of a story for this one tbh. Probably someone who was burned at the stake and called down horrific vengeance for their unawful destruction, becoming what they were accused of (a vampire, a witch, a werewolf, etc). The alternate tale that I like more is that they were just a pyromaniac that finally decided to burn down their own house with them inside so they could feel what their victims felt.

Base stats: 105% movement. 16 meter terror radius. Medium size (Blight height)

Active Power, Kindling form: Choking Smog. Base cooldown: 20 seconds. Unleash a cloud of black smoke the Ignited can perfectly see through, but which is completely opaque for survivors. The smoke spreads outwards to cover a 11 meter radius, choking survivors inside of it, causing them to loudly cough. Survivors in the smog are Exhausted and slowed. The cloud lingers for 6 seconds.

Passive power (Cinder Form): Building Inferno. The Ignited is unaffected by the trial’s fog. The Ignited can interact with piles of tormented kindling that spawn throughout the trial, gathering energy from each of them. The Ignited can also gather energy by damaging generators and survivors, and hooking survivors. At maximum charge, the Ignited can activate the secondary power to explode into their Wildfire Form. All the survivors receive a notification when the Ignited enters Wildfire Form as it shrieks in agony and rage.

The Ignited in Wildfire Form has a terror radius that covers the entire map, moves at 130% speed, and becomes taller than the Plague. A pillar of fire and smoke travels up from its body to signify its position at all times. Wildfire Form lasts for 1 minute, after which it drops back to Cinder Form.

Active Power (Wildfire Form): Pyroclasm. The Ignited charges up briefly and then blasts an incredibly wide cone in front of it (roughly equal to its FOV but only 6 meters in length). Survivors in the area are damaged, generators in the area begin regressing, and dropped pallets in the area begin burning and will be fully destroyed after 5 seconds unless a survivor slides across them. Survivors injured--but not downed--by Pyroclasm gain a unique status effect: On Fire! Survivors who are On Fire glow softly with flame and their auras are revealed to the Ignited, shouting and screaming as long as they remain On Fire. On Fire lasts for 1 minute, until the survivor is put into the dying state, until they vault a pallet or window, or until they stop moving and spend 3 seconds patting themselves down.

Unique Perks:

Smokesight: The fog thickens in your presence, though it’s no impediment to you. The trial fog is [slightly/moderately/considerably] thicker, though you see through it as if it were two stages lighter.

Hex: Fear of Failure: To build a tower so tall just to see it fall before you, it is a feeling that can invoke despair in any, and one this Hex enhances to self-destructive levels. If you kick a generator that has been repaired above [75%/50%/25%] progress while your totem still stands, the last survivor(s) to work on that generator shriek in frustration and are highlighted for 3 seconds if they are within [24/32/40] meters.

Hex: Trap in the Blaze: Lock them inside. Seal the windows, bar the door. Let them burn. Let them burn. Let them burn. When the exit gates are powered, this Hex flares to life if there is a dull totem for it to inhabit. The switch to the gates is partially infested by the Entity, slowing all attempts to touch it. Interacting with the switch takes an extra [3/4/5] seconds. Abandoning the exit switch causes it to slowly regress.

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

The Faceless. what if there was a stealth killer even more humanoid than the pig?

Not sure of a backstory here. Either a member of an ancient species trying to avoid total extinction, or an envious human who altered their own bodies with strange chemicals, vile magic, and horrible operations until they could look like anyone they wanted.

Base stats: 110% movement. 32 meter terror radius. Large size (Demogorgon height in true form).

Active power: Assume Guise. The Faceless loudly and grotesquely reshapes its body into the shape of a random survivor in the trial, letting all survivors within the terror radius hear the cracking and squishing just before the terror radius abruptly vanishes. The noises are noticeable enough to be heard a short distance outside the terror radius, akin to the Wraith or the Spirit vanishing. Any survivor within a 15 meter radius is briefly highlighted by Killer Instinct after the transformation is complete. While disguised, the Faceless has no terror radius and is treated by the game as though it were a survivor. If its aura becomes revealed by any perk or item, it appears as though it were a survivor, even if the perk or item reveals the killer’s aura only.

While it can crouch and sprint as a normal survivor, the Faceless cannot interact with props like a survivor can, with the exception of vaulting pallets or windows. It cannot open chests, repair generators, or sabotage hooks. When it assumes a survivor’s shape, it cannot copy any items they hold, nor can it pick one up or use them. If the survivor its copying is injured, it is not. Its voice as a survivor is ever-so-slightly distorted.

Assuming its true form is a horrid affair, stunning the killer for 2 seconds as it bursts from its former body. After transforming back, the Faceless is hasted for 4 seconds and Assume Guise is placed on a 10 second cooldown.

Active power (disguised form): Backstab. If the Faceless performs the healing action on a survivor using the secondary power button, it acts as though it’s healing them for 5 seconds, after which it suddenly strikes, afflicting the target with Deep Wounds and Hindered and beginning its transformation back.

Unique Perks

Hex: False Friendship. This Hex confounds and distorts your aura, leading your prey to blunder into your grasp. While the totem stands, any time your aura would be revealed, it appears as though it’s a survivor aura, and the survivor(s) reading your aura are highlighted by Killer Instinct for [8/12/16] seconds if they’re within 40 meters of you.

Subtle Sabotage: Your machinations are much more insidious than that of your brutish kin. After kicking a generator, the generator becomes Sabotaged for [60/80/120] seconds, regressing continuously even as it’s being worked on, effectively halving the speed it’s repaired at. A sabotaged generator loses this status if it fully regresses, or if the survivors working on it succeed [2/3/4] Great skill checks on it without abandoning it. Sabotaged gens are highlighted to the survivors, and survivors working on a sabotaged gen are aware of how much longer the status will last and how many skill checks are required to undo it.

Calming Emanations: Let them have their hope, if only so it’s more spectacular when it shatters. Each uninjured survivor reduces your terror radius by [18/20/22]%.

#dead by daylight #DBD #these aren't balanced but i had fun

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falloutdovah · 5 years ago

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ABOUT THE CHARACTER

Tagged by @falloutglow \o/

Your muse’s name: Catrene Luvere / Cat / “Rene”

One picture / faceclaim of your muse:

Two headcanons you have for your muse?

1. Cat’s luck is other-worldy. No one knows why, and if she DOES then she’s certainly not offering any explanations. It doesn’t matter where she is or what’s going on. She’s never been seriously injured, situations always fall into her favor, or she always escapes in the most ridiculous ways possible. It’s heart attack inducing for any potential allies who happen to be around.

2. She is not the ‘Sole Survivor’ in the way you’d think. But...more on that later...

Three things your character likes doing in their free time:

1. Getting into mischief and adventures of course! Cat gets antsy and has the desire to constantly be moving, and doing things. Now what those things are is up for debate, but most of it involves running haphazardly into highly dangerous situations just for the thrill of it. Or because someone needs help. Whichever comes first.

2. Cat loves hanging around pre-war ghouls, mainly for that reason. Because they’re pre-war. They have stories and such that no one else has, provided they even remember what life was like before the bombs fell, and history is something she really enjoys, but doesn’t talk about openly.

3. Playing cards and magic tricks are a favorite past time that she just can’t seem to pick up no matter how hard she tries. But that’s only because her father* would show her all sorts of neat little tricks all the time when she was growing up.

*in the barest sense of the word

Seven people your muse loves/likes:

1. The sleaze that is Lowrey, her biological father (so it is believed.) Despite having numerous children, Cat was the only one that had bothered to seek him out. Once she’d done so, she refused to leave and ended up joining the mafia Lowrey was already a part of. The two built something of a relationship after that. They’re somewhat close, but not in a conventional way.

2. Fortunato DeFleur, Lowrey’s and later Cat’s boss. The mafia lord who provides them food and shelter, and anything else they could want. The three of them are like a dysfunctional family unit, but a family unit all the same. While Fortunato rarely ever addresses Cat directly, by name or otherwise, he relies on her and Lowrey for protection. Or did, anyway.

3. “Captain.” A mysterious and mute pre-war ghoul sporting a gas mask and sea-captain-ish attire. How Cat ran into the fellow, no one’s quite sure. While they’ve rarely held any sort of conversation, mainly because one of them cannot, Cat’s able to find humor in the little captain’s existence. Because he is shorter than she is. That and she can’t resist a good mystery. The guy tends to show up and then disappear as quick as he had arrived, without rhyme or reason. If anything, she thinks of it like a game that’s been going on for years.

4. Liam McPhearson, the living pre-war relic who was freed from a busted cryo-pod from Vault 111. Cat loves pestering him about how Boston used to be, and about his general engineering knowledge, considering Liam was one of the many engineers of Vault-tec who helped actually DESIGN the vaults. Liam in turn, doesn’t care for how in-your-face Cat can be, but he’s highly aware of how her...existence is, and only manages to tolerate her because of that (fear). To Cat, he’s a treasure trove of information. That and he reacts very strongly to things in general, which makes for good fun.

5. Nick Valentine, one of the few people who’s actually bothered to entertain her antics. Out of sheer and enormous amounts of concern. Cat had come to him during her first trip to Boston, asking for help with finding the ever-mysterious ‘”Captain”. While they managed to encounter said ghoul several times, they never did truly catch him. During that time Valentine couldn’t help but feel responsible for the youngster, trying to keep her from getting herself horrifically maimed or killed while providing a voice of reason. If anyone’s been more of a semi-proper father figure to her, it’d be the old synth.

6. Cat met the mayor of Goodneighbor, Hancock, shortly after meeting Nick Valentine. The two hit it off immediately and developed an almost sibling-like relationship, with Hancock taking on more of a ‘older brother’ type role. He is far more willing to entertain her ideas than the detective is, and even came along with them in their whirlwind adventure to find the “Captain”. It put the two at odds for a while, but, in the end, they always managed to work something out, in order to keep Cat from getting into TOO much trouble.

7. A loner ghoul who owns a wagon and a radiated donkey, Silas has been a frequent traveling companion for Cat back and forth across states, if only because it’s much better to ride in a wagon than to walk all the way from the west to the east coast and vice versa. In exchange for passage, during those times she’ll often work as protection for the wagon of sorts, but of course, she’ll pester him for stories too the entire journey. To which, Silas at that point has nothing better to do but to give in (not that he’s happy about it. But it gets maddening riding in silence after the fortieth hour.)

A phobia your muse has:

Cat has a major case of claustrophobia. One would think her small size would be beneficial in helping her cram into small spaces for her own safety, and under normal circumstances, it would. But she can’t stand doing that, and would much rather deal with whatever’s coming than hide from it. If only because the act of hiding can literally be terrifying in and of itself.

Tagging: I don’t know! Everyone! Show me your OCs!!!

#catrene luvere #phew this one took a while #Bios Memes and Asks

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bondsmagii · 5 years ago

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(over the last month or so, I’ve been working on a small project for Halloween. I’ve long since been fascinated by the paranormal experiences that occur in childhood – it seems everyone has at least one incident that occurred when they were younger that they can’t explain now. I have many, of course, but I started thinking about the children I grew up with. what were my childhood friends experiencing at the same age as I was, when we were in class together; hung around together? I managed to get in touch with several old friends I had from the ages of 8-11, and asked them to share that one incident they couldn’t explain. I have recreated the stories here, with my own narrative supported by excerpts from their letters – and it’s a pretty impressive bunch of stories.)

JAMES

James wrote to me with a story regarding one of those childhood memories that are horrific even at the best of times: middle school dances. Where we grew up, children were in middle school from the ages of 8 to 11, so as you can imagine, dances were closely monitored and not exactly places where much could happen – at least, if you didn’t go looking for trouble like James and his friend Mitchell were known to do.

The dance was held in the hall, which doubled as the gym and cafeteria. There were three ways in and out: the short staircase and doorway from the main entrance, the door in the hallway near the girls’ changing rooms, and the doors that led directly outside to a deck and part of the playing fields. All of these doors were closely monitored by teachers, and the rest of the school was barred off with one exception.: the classroom opposite the hall door had been set up with drinks and snacks, and because such things weren’t allowed in the main hall (nobody wanted sticky drinks near a bunch of hyperactive children damn near moshing to 90s hits) the classroom’s doors leading to a central courtyard were opened, and kids were allowed out there only for the time it took to eat or drink whatever they had. Teachers were stationed outside to ensure that everybody went back inside as soon as possible, even though the courtyard was enclosed on all sides by the school; perhaps it was for that reason that James and Mitchell took offence to what they deemed a petty rule, but he doesn’t remember for sure.

All I really remember is that Mitch and I decided to try and get out of the courtyard, so we snuck off through the plants and went to the hallway on the other side, trying to find an open door. It was like, November or something, and about 7pm, so it was totally dark, and once we were on the other side of the courtyard there was no way the teachers would be able to see us. We figured that would be the end of the laugh, but then Mitch tried a door and it was open. We’d managed to make it into the closed off part of the school, and it was pitch black and totally awesome.

From what James recalls, this would have been 2000, almost 2001. Sensor lights were not really a thing, and aside from normal key locks on the classroom doors, there were no interior doors locked or requiring cards to be scanned or anything futuristic like that. James and Mitch, having bypassed the teachers’ guard, had free run of the other three hallways that made up the square-shaped school; so long as they didn’t get spotted by the teachers in the courtyard, they would be fine. All the hallways had windows looking out onto it, but everything was dark, so the two of them were able to wander freely, if slowly – it really was dark, and most definitely unnerving.

I think one of those specifically creepy places is a school at night. I think it’s probably got the same feel to it as abandoned buildings – perhaps I don’t have to explain it to you, what with you being into urbex, but there’s just something about a building that should be busy being so deserted… it’s so fucking eerie. Here were these corridors that Mitch and I had walked down a thousand times, but now they were silent, and dark, and the glass on the classroom doors was reflecting our movements, and nothing looked how it should. The trays and shelves of projects and assignments took on monstrous new shapes, and when we stepped through into the library/computer lab it was like this great vault of darkness opened up; I know I was kind of unnerved at that point, and so was Mitch, but neither of us wanted to admit it.

This area of the school was the only place where the courtyard could not be seen; its only windows opened out onto the dark playing fields. James and Mitch were in total blackness and silence now, and as they debated what to do next, Mitch pointed out something odd over by the playing fields. James says:

The playing fields, as you remember, were huge. They were pretty dark that night, and at first I couldn’t see what Mitch was talking about. I thought he was fucking with me, because he was on about seeing a man standing on the playing field. I looked for a while but couldn’t see, and I was about to call him out on it when I saw the guy. In the same moment, Mitch grabbed my arm, like “do you see him?”

Mitch had been insisting that the man had been coming closer, and now James could see him, he wondered if Mitch might be telling the truth. The figure was still too far away to be able to make out features, but it was definitely a person, dressed entirely in dark clothing. As James watched, the figure seemed to get closer again, though for some strange reason they couldn’t make out his legs. He was far enough away that they should have been able to see them before the window cut him off, but they figured the angle was strange, and tried instead to work out just who he might be.

It seemed there was a pattern. The figure would move slightly closer to the darkened building, as though checking to see if he had been observed, and then edge closer again. James and Mitch, confident that they couldn’t be seen in the darkness of the library, stood very still and watched.

“Do you think we should tell somebody?” Mitch eventually asked.

“We’ll get into trouble,” James pointed out. “We’re not supposed to be here, remember?”

“I guess. Yeah, he can’t get in anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t people cut through there sometimes?” James asked. “From the houses and stuff?”

“Yeah, but they don’t creep around two steps at a time,” Mitch said, and laughed. “Weirdo. Should we go back, or try and make it all the way around?”

They decided to try and make it all the way around, leaving what they called the weird stalker to do whatever it was that he was doing. As mentioned, the main school was made up of four straight halls with classrooms and various alcoves coming off them; if they kept walking, they would end up at the main entrance, and would hopefully be able to sneak back in through the other door and back into the hall. They got close enough that they could hear the lyrics of the music over the pounding bass, and then a door in the final hallway – the staff corridor – opened and light spilled out, freezing them in their tracks. They watched as several teachers came out of the staff room, laughing, and paused to chat in the hallway.

“This way,” James whispered, and they turned back up towards the library, hoping to double back the way they came.

“Wonder if we’ll see the weird stalker again,” Mitch grinned, as they vanished back into the dark.

“Probably be standing there blowing raspberries against the window,” James joked, and like all jokes told when it would be unwise to laugh, the two of them found the idea ridiculously hilarious. They were still laughing when they reached the library, seeing no sign of him and expressing their disappointment that he wasn’t.

Then they came around one of the shelves and saw one of the windows in full, and there he was. They still couldn’t make out features – James describes him as following:

From a distance it had looked like he was so formless because he was bundled up in winter clothes, but when he was this close we realised there was still no real shape to him. He looked like a person, but more like the outline of a person; there were no lines or shadows to denote clothing or facial features. It was just a solid mass of black, pressed right up against the window, and then he took another step forward and just… stepped into the room.

James and Mitch ran, of course. They headed for the doors leading to the first hall – the one with the unlocked door leading back to the courtyard – and before they ran through, James took one look back.

It was only a quick glance, but I’m pretty certain of what I saw. The figure was standing, silhouetted, against the windows, still a solid mass with no real features. It was definitely inside, because I could see the shoes or feet or whatever now, against the carpet (the carpet was a light blue, so it was very clear). Just before I turned away again – probably the same moment – I saw the figure kind of just collapse, or disintegrate… one moment he was there, looking solid, and the next he had slid to the ground in a sudden formless rush, and was gone.

They made it back to the courtyard and avoided getting caught. They only dared to mention it to their friends (myself included) in the safety of a bright, busy school day the following week; despite our investigating, none of us could find anything to explain it – no potential tricks of the light, no weird abnormalities on the walls or carpet, no reflections, no creepy backstories about the school or the area. Despite sneaking out during several more dances, nothing like it occurred again.

The school was closed in 2015, and has remained abandoned ever since.

#creeptastic #creepypasta #halloween posts #paranormal #unexplained #childhood experiences project #my creepypasta

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jeserai · 5 years ago

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devotion

Catra hesitates, then comes closer again to press their foreheads together again. For a moment, Adora lets herself be selfish, breathes in Catra’s warmth and closeness, lets herself feel weak.

Sometimes, Catra and Adora like to sneak out to where the big kids are. It’s passed curfew for everyone, but the big kids don’t care: they gather in a big, loose circle to tell scary stories. Most of them are about princesses, and some are about Lord Hordak and Shadow Weaver, fewer still are about Beast Island. Catra’s favorites all involve princesses (her eyes shine bright when one of the big kids tells about a group of undead princesses on the attack, about how he defeated them, but not without getting a chunk taken out of him), and Adora...doesn’t have any favorites.

She doesn’t like scary things, doesn’t like that when she sees Shadow Weaver now, she thinks back to the story of how what’s hidden under her mask had been caused by a princess. She doesn’t like hearing strange noises at night and wondering if a horrific beast is coming to get her. She doesn’t like that Catra likes the scary stories so much, because that means that she has to hear them too.

Catra likes to take the scariest stories back to their team—they all crowd around two bunks after curfew and listen to Catra retell them, and somehow, in the dark with only the rumblings of machines for background noise, the stories sound even scarier. It’s funny sometimes: Kyle always jumps at the smallest noise, which makes Lonnie shove him, and even though she claims she’s not scared, Catra always tenses and leans into Adora like it’s instinct, like she knows that together, they’ll be fine. But it’s mostly scary, and Adora hates the scary stories most when she’s curled up small and still in bed, trying to lie absolutely still and silent, because if she does, the scary monsters and princesses won’t hear her. Maybe they’ll eat Kyle, and she and Catra can run away while the monsters are distracted.

In the distance comes a loud clank followed by a thud, and Adora curls herself even smaller. Maybe if she takes up less space, they won’t see her, and—

“Hey, Adora?”

Adora nearly jumps a foot in the air, fear coursing through her veins even though it’s just Catra. “Yeah?” she whispers back. She blindly sticks out a hand and Catra easily catches it, squeezing her hand tight to ground the both of them.

“Can I—can I come down there?”

“Sure,” Adora reluctantly lets go of Catra’s hand and scoots over, making room for her just as she vaults over and into the newly created spot. She lands a little on Adora’s hand, immediately whispering an apology when it makes Adora make a little noise of pain. In retaliation, Adora nudges her, giggling a little when Catra flops down as if shoved hard. Adora lays down next to her, scooting over until they’re pressed together and wrapped snug under her blanket.

“Why’d you come down? Were you scared?” Adora whispers once they’re settled. Catra makes an offended noise and pushes her.

“No way. I’m not scared of anything , dummy. I could tell you were scared, so I came down to make sure you didn’t cry or something.”

Another clanking noise, louder and closer this time, and if Adora wasn’t so scared, she’d laugh at the way Catra’s hair stands up on end. “Thought you weren’t scared,” she says between giggles.

“I’m not! ” Catra insists. “I was just trying to protect you, dumbass! Next time I’ll let it get you—” as she speaks, someone (Lonnie, probably) shushes them, and Catra grumbles under her breath before laying back down again.

“Next time, I hope it gets her, ” she mumbles, and even though it’s mean, Adora laughs, clapping both hands over her mouth as Lonnie shushes them again.

“You tired?” she whispers when she makes herself comfortable again, searching for Catra’s hand and squeezing when she finds it. Despite the lingering fear, she isn’t really scared anymore, not like before; she’s sure it’s because Catra is here now, warm and safe.

Catra nods—or shakes her head, it’s too dark to tell—and then whispers, “No, but you can sleep if you want. I’ll protect you while you sleep.”

Adora pouts, eyelids suddenly heavy. She wants to say that she can stay up, that she’s not tired, but she knows that Catra will know she’s lying. So she sits up and feels around in the dark for Catra’s cheeks, presses their foreheads together so that Catra knows she’s promising. “Fine, but wake me up when you’re tired, and I’ll protect you too, okay?”

“Okay, Adora, promise I will.”

It doesn’t surprise anyone—not even their instructor—that Catra ends up skipping training. Again.

She’d been curled up in bed when Adora woke up, but by the time she came back from her morning jog, Catra had been gone, the foot of the bed cold. Unusual, but Adora didn’t think anything of it until she gets to training, and Catra isn’t there. She’s a bit worried, but she boxes the feeling away when the simulation starts, resigned to agonize over Catra’s whereabouts after training.

The team does better than usual (Adora is sure to work extra hard to cover for Catra’s absence) and when they are finally dismissed, Adora runs back to the dorm, hoping and half expecting to find Catra lying stretched out in bed, or facing the door with a shit-eating grin and a taunting remark on her lips. But all she finds is an empty room and a still cold bed. No one in their team has seen her all day, and there’s no way she’s going to ask Shadow Weaver, so Adora sighs and spins on her heel, determined to find her friend before dinner.

The Fright Zone isn’t that big of a place, but there are plenty of places small enough for Catra to hide in: vents and empty closets, forgotten hallways and ladders that for some reason, lead to tiny platforms and nothing else. When they’re playing, Catra doesn’t go anywhere that Adora can’t, even if she always rolls her eyes and sighs because those places are always the most fun. But she still reaches for Adora’s hand to hold so that they can find some other place to play in.

But now, she’s alone, and Adora just knows that Catra won’t make it easy to find her. So she skips passed all of the usual places that they play in, heading straight for where she knows Catra is. Whenever Catra’s really upset, she likes to go someplace high, leaving even Adora behind as she somehow leaps and climbs higher and higher—

Adora’s lips automatically pull down into a pout as she reaches the ladder. She’s an okay climber, but she always feels like she’s awful at it whenever she watches Catra. Because Catra doesn’t even look like she’s climbing, she looks like she’s flying. That’s what Adora focuses on as she climbs: Catra, and how free she looks when she’s climbing, and the joy on her lips and in her eyes because this, this is one thing that no one else has, that no one can take away from her. She focuses on how proud Catra always looks whenever Adora clumsily follows her, on the way they sit close together at the top, how they talk about ruling the world someday. She focuses on the quiet rumbling purrs she earns by playing with the soft fur of Catra’s tail, and the way they lean into each other even though it’s not cold, even though Catra hates touching. She focuses on Catra, and that keeps her going, rung after rung after rung.

And when she finally reaches Catra, she’s not huffing and puffing the way she used to, but she’s still tired, collapsing by her friend’s side and grunting out a greeting as she stares up at the sky.

“Wow, Adora. Look at that, you climbed on your own.”

“Wow, Catra. Look at that, you skipped training.” Adora retorts immediately. The words are harsh but there’s a grin tugging at the corners of her lips, and Catra scowls before letting herself fall on top of her, pushing out all the air from her lungs in one easy movement.

“Yeah, well. It’s not like anyone missed me,” she mutters.

I missed you, Adora wants to say, but instead, she reaches out and runs her fingers through Catra’s hair. And then, as Catra relaxes into her, something in Adora’s heart stutters, and without her brain’s permission, her mouth says, “ I missed you.”

“Oh,” Catra sounds genuinely surprised, “well. That doesn’t count, and besides, you just saw me this morning, dumbass.”

“I know, I just—forget it.”

Being best friends for so long means that they know each other, and more than just the easy stuff. Adora knows when to back away and when to prod, Catra knows when Adora is trying her best not to cry when they’re supposed to be asleep and when she’s about to explode in a fit of emotion. They know how to read each other’s bodies, even the most subtle tells, and somewhere along the line, they’ve even learned how to have full conversations with just their eyes.

So Adora knows that despite what she says, Catra is going to prod—and she does. She sits up, twisting around to stare Adora down, and before she can even think about escaping, Catra throws one of her legs over Adora’s, sitting on top of her to keep her in place. “Tell me,” she demands, and Adora frowns.

“I really don’t know, I just...missed you. I like training with you—I like winning with you. It’s always best like that.”

Something in Catra’s face softens, and she gives Adora the smile that is reserved for her (soft, gentle, sweet) before she shakes her head and says, as if the very idea pains her, “I guess I’ll stop skipping then…”

“Why do you? Skip, I mean.”

At that, Catra sighs and lays down, rolling over so she’s curled up against Adora’s side, her head pillowed by Adora’s now outstretched arm and her tail wrapped around Adora’s waist. “I don’t know. It’s always the same thing every day, and I...”

“You?”

Catra heaves a sigh, and Adora obediently goes quiet. She suddenly gets the urge to roll over, to watch her friend even though all she’s doing is looking at the sky. If Catra catches her staring, she’ll never hear the end of it, but somehow, Adora doesn’t really mind. So she takes a breath, and looks over at Catra—only to find her looking back.

There’s an unusually soft grin on her lips, though Catra quickly wipes it away once she sees Adora looking; she elbows Adora in the side but doesn’t pull away as she asks, “What are you looking at?”

“A dumbass,” is Adora’s immediate response, and Catra squeaks in indignation, elbowing Adora again, harder this time. “What are you looking at?”

Catra falls quiet and still, and Adora can tell by the tapping of her nails that she’s trying to decide what to say. “My best friend,” is what she settles on, and for the second time that day, Adora loses all the air in her lungs.

“You dork, ” she tries to say, but it comes out quiet, soft enough that one of Catra’s ears twitches forward to hear.

“Yeah, well.” Catra shrugs, and Adora giggles because she’s definitely flustered, and poorly trying to hide it. She presses her face into the curve of Catra’s neck, breathing her in and trying to move as close as possible. Another reason Catra likes it so much up here is that no one ever comes up here, so it’s almost like their private place, so be weak and shed tears or to touch. Adora loves the way Catra touches her, gentle and hesitant, loves that up here, in secret, Catra’s calloused hands are whisper-soft as they glide over her shoulders and down her arm to grasp at her own hands. She loves that even though she knows how rough and sharp and clawing her hands can be, that when it’s just them, Catra touches her like she’s the best thing in the world.

She hopes that Catra feels the same way.

“Hey, Adora?” Catra’s voice comes out slow and uncertain, like she’s testing out the words as she speaks them. When Adora peeks up at her, she finds her friend still looking up at the sky, brushes away a single tear that threatens to glide down her cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think—do you think we’ll ever get out of here? See the world, do whatever we want?”

“Sure,” Adora frowns, sitting up and taking Catra with her. “Doesn’t matter if we’re cadets, Force Captains, or if we run away—we’ll see the rest of the world outside the Fright Zone. We’re gonna be together, and that’s all that matters, right?”

Catra takes in a deep, shuddering breath before nodding. Another tear slips down her cheek and Adora watches it fall, frowns at the way Catra glares up at the sky—she’s trying to keep from crying, but Adora knows her well enough to know that that’ll just make it worse. So she lays down, stretching out her arm again as she looks back to the sky. “You can cry if you want, no one else is here.”

After a moment, Catra lays back down as well, curling fully into Adora so she can press her silent tears into her shirt.

(They end up missing dinner, “But that’s okay, because we’re together,” Catra reminds Adora as they get ready to go back to their room, “and nothing really bad can happen if we’re together.”

Adora nods in agreement and presses her forehead to Catra’s. “Promise we’ll always stay together?”

“Promise.”)

Adora falls to her knees, She-Ra slipping away from her as she shakes on her hands and knees. Her sword is barely even a foot away from her, but she can’t even reach out for it without her vision blurring and spinning. All the while, the war rages on around her, and a selfish part of her wants to give into her body’s screaming urge to collapse and let the darkness of unconsciousness take her. The princesses are relying on her, she knows, she can’t let them down. Because if she—the strongest, the leader, She-Ra— falls, the Rebellion will fall, and the Horde will win, and Etheria will be destroyed, and it will be all her fault, because she wasn’t strong enough—

“ Hey , Adora!”

Adora’s heart thuds hard at the familiar voice, and she whips around, heart in her throat as her gaze meets Catra’s for the first time in months. She barely has the strength to stand, let alone speak, but she’s sure Catra doesn’t quite care by the broad grin on her lips and the lashing of her tail. Before she can muster the strength to reach for her sword, Catra calls out, “ Wow , looks like even the mighty She-Ra needs help.”

Somehow, between heaving breaths, Adora manages to laugh, ignoring the blood dripping down her cheek and the throbbing pain racing up and down her left arm as she stares Catra down. She’s flanked by people that have the same ears and tail as her; if they weren’t in the middle of a war, Adora would tease Catra about it (“god, now there are more of you”), and as if reading her mind, Catra scowls down at her.

“Princess C’yra!” one of the people behind Catra calls out, and Adora’s mind goes blank, because Catra, a princess? Catra must see the look on her face, because she laughs, pretty and light and joyful despite the battle raging on around them.

“Come on, Adora, keep up,” she drawls, coming closer all the while, “and because I can practically hear you trying to piece everything together: yes, I’m a stupid princess, no, I’m not joining your stupid rebellion, but yes—I’m on your side.”

As Catra reaches her, she holds out a hand, one that Adora takes without even thinking, and once Catra helps pull her up, Adora leans fully into her, pressing her forehead to Catra’s as she shakes with fatigue and gratitude and fear. “Catra, I—”

“Go help with defense,” Catra interrupts her, stern but quiet, “everyone knows that you’re the heaviest hitter, but that doesn’t mean you need to be fighting all by yourself. My warriors will take care of the front lines, you…” Catra pulls away from the embrace, ears flat on her head and lips pulled down as she studies Adora, taking in all of her wounds. After a moment, she pushes away completely. “Go help your princess friends, they need you.”

But what about you, Adora wants to say, you’re my friend too, I don’t want to see you get hurt, I don’t want you to be hurt because of me, I can take it, I’m stronger, this is my destiny— “Technically, you’re my princess friend too,” she starts to say, breathing out a laugh—and wincing as it sets off a searing pain in her ribs—at the look Catra gives her , unimpressed and almost scathing.

“Don’t make me change my mind, Adora. I’ve got better things to do than rescue you, princess.”

And, no. That’s not entirely true. “You’ve got my back.”

That earns her a wry grin and a roll of Catra’s eyes—but she nods too. “And you’ve got mine. Now let me do what I came here to do, princess.”

“And after? What will you do then?”

Catra hesitates, then comes closer again to press their foreheads together again. For a moment, Adora lets herself be selfish, breathes in Catra’s warmth and closeness, lets herself feel weak. “I go back to Half Moon. My people need me, I need…” Catra takes a breath and lets it out, prolonging their embrace for another selfish moment. “I’ll come back.” There’s an unspoken to you in her promise, and Adora latches onto it before reluctantly stepping back.

“I’ll wait for you.” And before the tears that are beginning to well up can begin to fall, Adora reaches down for her sword and turns away, her battlecry on her lips.

(Catra and her people are long gone by the time Adora has finished helping get the injured to the infirmary, but for once, Catra’s disappearance has left her feeling hopeful. She’s coming back, and this time, this time, they’ll be together again.)

It’s later than late when Adora gets back to her room after another long day, and she’s so tired that she sinks into bed without even taking her jacket and shoes off. She’s asleep almost immediately, and when she wakes, it’s still dark, but there is something warm and soft and achingly familiar pressed against her back. Adora rolls over, reaching out hesitantly and tracing the shape of Catra’s face as her heart races in her chest. Eight months, and Adora’s still this far gone for Catra.

“Catra?”

One blue eye opens, then the other gold. Catra yawns and her tail winds around Adora’s waist, an unspoken demand for her to move closer. “Hey, Adora.”

It feels surreal to be sitting next to Catra like this; the expression on her face is cold, but there is a new confidence that is nothing short of regal in her posture and in the way she speaks that leaves Adora breathless and in awe. But somehow, it's still the same Catra: the tip of her tail lashes against Adora's thigh under the table every so often, betraying her annoyance at having to sit quiet and still for so long, and Adora catches it and rubs the silky fur between her fingers, both to calm Catra and to distract herself, just like when they were kids. Adora half expects Catra to glare, or hiss, or snatch her tail away, but all she does is glance sidelong at Adora, lips pulled into a soft, amused grin.

Across from Adora, Glimmer clears her throat, and Adora startles, tearing her gaze away from Catra so it looks like she's at least trying to pay attention. Catra, on the other hand—"What now , Sparkles?"

Even after so many years, Catra's teasing jabs still makes Glimmer throw up her hands and say, "It's Glimmer! Queen Glimmer!"

Before Catra can retort—because Adora just knows she's going to—Adora stands to divert everyone's attention to her. "Y'know—I think that's enough for now! Why don't we take a break to eat and come back later! I'm sure all of us are very hungry, " she says, eyeing Bow until he gasps and stands too.

"You're so right! Let's get some lunch and meet back in an hour, everyone?"

Glimmer stands too, grumbling something under her breath that Adora can't hear (but by the way Catra's ear twitches and the smug grin flirting with her lips, she has, and it probably isn’t anything kind) and after she exits with Bow at her side, the rest of the princesses follow her lead, talking amongst themselves. Catra waits for everyone else to leave the room before she stands, her tail finally uncurling from around Adora's hand as she does so.

"You coming?" she asks, and Adora stands as if compelled, following Catra out and into the hall. There are so many things that she wants to say, but all she can think about is that Catra is by her side again, and that even with the cape, the armored boots, and the cool regality, it’s still the same Catra. It’s still her Catra.

“You’re staring at me,” Catra says without looking at her, and the way she says it is both a question and a demand. “Why?”

“I was just thinking...you look so different, but it’s still the same you. The you that I’ve always known.”

Catra’s ears draw back in embarrassment, and to hide it, she scoffs. “Yeah, well. Finding out you’re the famous lost Magicat princess and subsequently taking over the Horde does a lot to a girl.”

“You mean like finding a magic sword that says you’re a reincarnation of a mythical goddess, and that you’re from a different planet? Gee, wonder how that feels.”

Another scoff, but this time it’s accompanied by a laugh, soft and genuine. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

Relief unclenches the worried knot in Adora’s stomach; this is the most they’ve spoken, the most familiar they’ve been in a long time. They’re on the same side of things now, of course, but Catra has been swamped with so much recently: keeping the New Horde in order and turning it from a vicious military regime to an army that fights for Bright Moon and its allies, learning about the past that was stolen from her and her new duties as a princess, and proving herself over and over as an ally of Bright Moon, the leader of the New Horde, and the ruler of the Magicats. It’s a lot, and they don’t quite have the luxury of free time or true peace yet, so stolen words, quick touches and lingering glances have been the most they’ve shared.

Until now.

“You know,” Adora whispers, cheeks burning, “I really missed you.”

“Yeah, well. I guess I missed you too.” Catra leads them outside, blinking into the bright sun as Adora stands by her side. They don’t hold hands, but the tip of Catra’s tail finds itself wrapped around Adora’s wrist again as they walk through the palace grounds, walking side by side until they reach the edge of the woods.

Catra doesn’t even have to say it; she glances at Adora, wicked playfulness in her eyes, and Adora laughs. “We’re skipping the rest of the meeting, aren’t we?”

“Well, would you rather stay in that stuffy room for hours listening to them talk for ages about nothing? ” Gone is every bit of poise befitting a princess and leader: this is the Catra that Adora knows, petulant and mischievous, cheeky and impulsive. She doesn’t even wait for an answer, that’s how well she knows Adora; she forces Adora to meet her gaze with both hands on Adora’s shoulders. With the boots, she’s got an extra few inches on Adora, which, Adora realizes belatedly, was probably on purpose.

“You have got to learn how to be selfish, Adora. Seriously.” And though the words toe the line between teasing and scathing, Catra is serious when she looks Adora in the eye. “I get that you’re She-Ra, but the world hasn’t needed She-Ra in so long now.”

“I know that, it’s just...I have to be strong, and—”

“And at this rate,” Catra interrupts, “you’re going to run yourself into the ground trying to please everyone. I know you, Adora. You always want to play the hero, and that’s fine, but you get to be selfish too.”

Adora bites her lip and looks away, and Catra sighs and lets go of her. “Forget it, let’s go.”

“I’ll try—” Adora blurts out, “I just...might need some help.”

Something in Catra’s gaze softens, and she nods, reaching out to twine her fingers with Adora, claws retracted, vulnerable. All of her walls are down like this: alone together, just the two of them, in the private safety of the Whispering Woods. And after everything, that’s…

Adora’s heart thuds in her chest, and she squeezes Catra’s hand tight. (Catra squeezes back.)

After so many years of being together and then apart and somehow joined together again, there is no need to fill the silence with words; the quiet is easy and familiar, just like the warmth of their joined hands and the brush of their shoulders as they walk. Neither of them have a destination in mind, and honestly, skipping the meeting aside, Adora likes this.

“You know, I really like this. There’s no pressure, no pretenses, just... us. ”

Catra breathes out a quiet laugh, but she nods in quiet agreement, stopping abruptly and facing Adora. She doesn’t say anything: she just stares at Adora like she’s seeing her for the first time, like she’s committing Adora’s face to memory, and one hand comes up to brush over the faded scars on her cheek, a silent apology, one of many. “Hey, Adora?” she murmurs, so quiet that Adora almost thinks it wasn’t meant to be heard.

“Yeah?”

Catra purses her lips, eyeing Adora again. She reaches up to wrap her arms around Adora’s shoulders and steps in close close close, then presses their foreheads together. When she pulls back, she says again, “Hey, Adora?”

And Adora knows what’s coming, knows that this moment has been building and building for years, knows that she is just as scared as Catra looks, and—“Yeah?”

Catra rolls her eyes, takes a breath, and kisses her.

When Adora wakes up, she immediately realizes that two things are wrong: the sun is high in the sky, and Catra is gone. The Horde hasn’t done many things right, but the one thing that Adora misses is the strict, unwavering schedule; she’s used to waking up early, and even now, after years of defecting, her body still tends to wake her up far too early. Most times, it’s Catra that keeps her in bed; she prefers her mornings to be spent lazing about in their bed—which has, over time, suspiciously migrated to a spot under the huge window, so that the sunlight streams in and warms them until noon.

Today though, what wakes Adora isn’t her own internal clock, or Catra’s purring and absent kneading, but a dream, distorted memories of Catra slipping from her grasp over and over again. It’s almost worse than one of Light Hope’s simulations, because she knows it’s both real and not. And now, Catra is gone, and some stupid, panicked part of her mind wonders if Catra has decided to leave her again, maybe for good.

Her side of the bed is cold, and when Adora goes out in the halls, every guard that she passes says that they haven’t seen her. And actually, that makes sense, because if she were Catra, and she were trying to leave for whatever reason, she wouldn’t leave through the door. Adora forces the panic away and returns back to their room, looking out the window and squinting into the late morning light. It’s still not an easy climb for her after all this time, but for Catra, it’d been laughably easy from the beginning. The question then, is where would she go—and as Adora’s gaze passes over the Whispering Woods, she knows that’s where Catra is. What better place to hide than a forest that is constantly shifting?

After grabbing her shoes, jacket and the knife from under her pillow, Adora climbs out the window, carefully climbing down the wall with the rope Bow left ages ago. Once on the ground, it’s an easy hike to the woods. She realizes, belatedly, that she’s not like Catra, that she doesn’t have a sensitive nose to track scents, that she can’t climb and leap through the trees; she has no way of finding Catra, and aside from that, if the woods don’t want her to find Catra, then she won’t, simple as that.

Thankfully, the trees block out most of the hot summer sun: Adora wanders through the woods for what feels like hours, looking out for any sign of brown or blue and gold. Catra likes to be high up, likes to balance on branches that look like they’ll snap in a heartbeat, so Adora keeps her gaze up, hoping to catch sight of her, or to hear a drawled greeting or a fond jab. But there’s nothing to be seen except for the trees and the sky, and finally—a tiny figure sitting hunched over a boulder. Catra is sitting so still that Adora almost passes her by; she’s not facing Adora, and she gives no indication that she’s heard her approach but for the languid wave of her tail back and forth. “Catra?”

One of Catra’s ears flicks in response but she doesn’t answer, and she still doesn’t move when Adora approaches, so Adora sits down next to her, close enough to touch if she leaned over just a little bit. She doesn’t, and neither does Catra.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Just thinking,” Catra sighs. She glances over, quickly looks away. “How’d you find me?”

That’s easy, at least. “I know you, Catra. I figured you’d come out here since you weren’t in our room.”

“I meant how’d you find me? It’s not exactly a walk in the park here, princess.”

“Oh. I just...walked? I knew I’d find you eventually, even if it took a while.” Adora nudges Catra, grinning. “What, did you doubt me? I’d always find you, dummy.”

Catra scoffs, but she scoots over so that they touch firmly from shoulder to thigh. “You’re stupid,” she mumbles, and Adora shrugs.

“Maybe, but I did mean it. I’ll always find you, no matter how long it takes.” That earns her is a quiet rumble of a purr, and Adora can’t help smiling at the familiar sound. Catra soon falls quiet though, and Adora follows her lead, leaning her head against Catra’s shoulder—it isn’t much, but any bit closer she can get, she’ll take. Adora doesn’t know how long they stay sitting together, but eventually, Catra shrugs her shoulder to get Adora’s attention.

“Hey, Adora?”

“Yeah?” Adora sits up fully, stomach turning over as Catra shifts to face her fully. She looks unusually serious, and for a moment, Adora is sure that she’s going to say something horrible, something awful, that she’s leaving or that she’s sick of being together—

“Do you...like this? Us, like this?”

And, oh. “Sure I do. What’s not to like?”

Catra’s ears flatten as she narrows her eyes, after a moment, she rolls her eyes and reaches out to jab a finger at Adora’s forehead. “Somehow, I always forget how stupid you can be. I mean, do you like us? Sparkles and Bow are attached at the hip and they don’t even do some of the things that we do. They don’t share a bed, they don’t—” Catra’s cheeks go pink as she looks away, “anyway, they’re that close, and they don’t do half of the stuff that we do.”

“Well, yeah, they’re just friends.”

“ Yes, ” Catra says it very slowly and very patiently, like she’s explaining something to a child, “that’s why I’m asking—do you like what we do?”

“...Yes?”

“Oh my god, Adora! Are you kidding around or are you really that dumb?”

Adora crosses her arms and tries her best to glare at Catra, fails. “Just spit it out!”

Instead of doing so, Catra scowls before leaning in to kiss Adora, clumsy and soft and gentle. “Do you get it now? ” she asks petulantly when she pulls back. One of Adora’s hands comes up to touch her lip, the other reaches out to breach the gap between them and tug Catra closer.

“I get it,” she responds, and loses herself in the press of Catra’s pleased grin against hers.

In Adora’s life, very few things have remained constant. Training, bruises, cuts and tasteless ration bars fill her childhood; the smooth grip of her sword, those five words a battlecry, a call to greatness her teenage years, and now—peace. Peace is something that Adora is still trying to get used to. Most days are fine, but other days the guilt and paranoia consume her, and so she falls back on what she knows. Training with a sword that she has not used in battle for years, calling out the words that she has not needed in so long, running through drills over and over and over.

For as long as Adora can remember, the only thing that she has carried with her all her life is Catra. She remembers running through the Fright Zone together, and sneaking out together, and sharing everything— their bed, secrets, food. The fury in Catra’s eyes, the sting of her claws, the longing for what they used to share.

The endless apologies for everything, the nights spent together silently crying, holding hands under the table at breakfast, reminiscing. (Not sparring, never again. The first time they’d tried, Catra had frozen up, and tears sprang to Adora’s eyes almost immediately, her mind and body unconsciously remembering . Without even having to discuss it, they decided that they would never spar again.)

They’re nowhere near perfect, Adora knows, but this, what they have now, is so much more than good enough. Which is why—

“And what are you thinking about so hard?”

Adora jumps at Catra’s voice next to her ear, her cheeks flushing as Catra laughs. “God, Adora, shouldn’t you be used to this by now?”

“Shut up, ” Adora groans, “I was thinking. Anyway, what are you doing back so early? I thought you would be gone for at least a week.”

“Aww, Adora ,” Catra coos, “did you actually miss me?”

“No! Absolutely not, I—pfft. Who’d miss you?”

“You would. And did.” Catra sounds extremely smug, and Adora huffs even as her heart stutters. Even after two years, the simplest things still make her realize and re-realize just why Catra holds her heart. Her laugh, the wicked look in her eye when she wants something, the way her tail reaches out to brush against Adora’s wrist or thigh after they argue. All the subtle ways she shows that she cares, their playful banter, how warm and safe and familiar her body is when they settle down to sleep.

“Fine, maybe I did miss you, just a little.” And before Catra can tease her for that, Adora reaches around and tugs Catra down with her, easily holding her by the waist. “Did you want to rest or…?”

“ God, no. Let’s get out of here.”

And for what is probably the millionth time, Adora realizes that she really is in love with Catra. “Hey,” she says, tightening her hold before Catra can slip away. When Catra stills, Adora cups her cheek with a hand and then leans up just enough to press her lips to her cheek in a soft, chaste kiss. As usual, Catra flushes, her ears tilted slightly forward as she leans into Adora’s touch. They’re still learning how to do the whole gentle affection thing, still learning how to be vulnerable and soft with each other, but Adora thinks they’re finally starting to get the hang of it.

For a long few minutes, they stay like that; Catra curled up in Adora’s lap on the edge of her bed, and it’s nice like this—Adora’s hand keeping Catra in place, Catra’s tail wrapped around Adora’s wrist, just breathing each other in—and when Catra finally pulls away, even the way she rolls her eyes does nothing to mask the tenderness written all over her face.

“Where did you want to go?”

Adora shrugs, letting her hand fall back to Catra’s waist. “I don’t know, I just know how you get, especially after diplomatic missions. And there’s supposed to be a feast tonight to celebrate... something. I figured you’d want to have dinner on the roof.”

“Why, Adora , you want to have dinner alone together?” Adora watches the cheshire grin slowly bloom on Catra’s lips; she sounds unbelievably smug as she says, “That almost sounds like a date. ”

Months and years ago, Adora would have gone pink, would have fumbled for a response, but now she just leans even closer into Catra’s personal space and says, not trying to hide her smugness, “Maybe it is.”

And like she predicted, it’s Catra that gets flustered, her ears perking up and flicking back in surprise. “Touché. I take it you got the food already?”

“You know me best. You go on up, I’ll meet you in a minute.” And if Catra is suspicious, she doesn’t show it aside from the way she squints. But then she rolls her eyes and slips from Adora’s lap, turning back when she reaches the window to give Adora a look that says hurry up.

And then she’s gone.

Adora waits for a few moments to be safe, then rushes over to the bottom dresser and pulls out the ornate box Glimmer had gotten her years ago, and—the ring. It’s still safe inside, and Adora breathes a sigh of relief before slipping it into her pocket and following Catra out the window.

For once, Catra doesn’t tease her about her being slow; she’s looking out at all of Bright Moon, quiet and still. Her ears twitch when she sees Adora, but other than that, she makes no movement, and Adora watches her before sitting next to her and looking out too. Now that the sun is beginning to set, people have started to flock towards the castle for the feast; Adora twists around to look at their own dinner. She’d gone to the kitchens earlier and with Glimmer’s help, brought up a bit of everything that’d been there.

“Do you remember,” Catra starts then, slow and quiet, “years ago, when I said what we’d do after you became Force Captain? I said we’d see the world, and conquer it. And…” she waves a hand out at everything spread before them. The people celebrating, free of the Horde, the warm glow of the sun, the peace. “This is better.”

And Adora had planned to wait, until they finished dinner, until the fireworks started, until everything was perfect, but—”Hey, Catra?”

When Catra looks over, Adora fishes the ring from her pocket. “I was going to wait, but—”

“ Seriously, Adora?”

Adora looks up, startled, and she can’t help the startled huff of laughter that tears from her throat, because Catra is holding a ring too. “You copied me.”

“ Excuse me? I was planning this for months. You just upstaged me—”

“Fine, you can do it how you wanted to. After you let me finish.”

Catra purses her lips in a failed attempt to hide her smile; she reaches out for the ring and puts it on her finger before Adora can even speak. “I like it.” And the tiny bit of worry in Adora’s stomach unclenches; she and Catra both like simple things, and while the ring isn’t gaudy by far, it’s definitely not something Catra would’ve chosen on her own.

“It’s a garnet,” Adora says, “it’s my birthstone—I asked Spinnerella and she said I should do something personal, so...I guess I just wanted you to always carry a little piece of me.”

“Just so you know, I did plan my proposal before you. You know that, right? You copied me. ”

“What, did you do the same thing as me?” Adora holds out her hand and lets Catra slide the ring on her finger. Catra huffs as she does so, but she nods.

“Yeah, you did the same thing as me. I just...when we were kids, we promised to look out for each other, and I want that forever. With you.”

“Forever is pretty long, you know. You promise you’ll stay that long?”

“I promise.”

(And if they both end up crying together after that, their foreheads pressed together in a silent promise, well, no one needs to know.)

#she ra #shera #catradora #my writing #this was supposed to be a five times fic but like it sounds weird to be like #five times catra said hey adora n one time..one time what?? one time adora said hey catra?? idk man #so it is about the forehead touch...it is about the silent promise...they are together n that is what matters

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edenofmonsters · 6 years ago

Text

nyctophobia | one.

nyc·to·pho·bi·a | [nik-toh-foh-bee-uh]

definition:

extreme or irrational fear of the night or of darkness.

subject:

wraith | gasouel

notes:

originally documented january 22nd, 2018

6,550 words | 01 part | s. f. w.

a seemingly harmless blackout proves to be an experience you have never considered existing beyond horror films. a monster lurks within the darkness, and it ensues a morbid game of tormenting you while vulnerable.

*✧🌙✧*

Nichole has taken the liberty of your phone pass-code to snap an atrocious selfie and appoint it as her own contact portrait. Truth be told, you don’t have the heart nor incentive to change it. It had taken time to ignore the scrutiny thrown your way, many times which consisted of ducking out of vicinity and of the like. At least her ringtone compensates for the source of embarrassment and entertainment. The wistful chorus of Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind” echoes through the wood of your nightstand, a patterned vibration joining the melody. It’s tempting to ignore her call, especially since it’s already 11 p.m. on the night before a breakfast date with Mom.

Before deciding to answer her, you rid your mouthful of minty froth and smear on an even coat of face clay, allowing the chorus to play twice more, both times you sing along to. Either someone is dying on her end or she’s drunk, neither reason serving as good intention to call you. Once finished, you amble into your room and flounce on your bed with all the flourish of a tired individual.

“Babe, the bridal shower is next week, and I still haven’t got a dress!” she says the instant the call connects.

The volume of her voice makes you grimace, her dilemma even more so. Familiar with her procrastination tendencies, you aren’t as surprised as the next person would be. In no way does it lessen the degree of the problem, sadly. You determine how you’ll fare in the morning if the call hypothetically escalates past an hour.

Picking dirt from your nails, you ask, “Please tell me you have potential selections?”

The white, digital numbers of your alarm clock continue ticking closer to midnight as she sends you pictures of dresses she modeled in earlier that afternoon and lists off the pros and cons she’s found with each. You would make this task easier on the both of you with physical moral support, and by that you mean you would have forced her to buy one before the trip, but Nichole is out of state for her sister’s special event, and you happened to deplete your slot of vacation days for the year. After some back and forth bickering, you finally convince Nichole to narrow it down to a few dresses. With a vow to get back to you when she decides on the winning dress, the two of you exchange an “I love you” and “goodnight”.

Sliding out of bed, you make way to the bathroom and rinse off the crusted paste of your now creased face mask with lukewarm water. Once cleansed, you clear excess droplets from your eyes with a single wipe and freeze when pitch blackness greets you. Your heart thrashes for a second. After experimental flicks of the light switch, it's obvious the power is out. This aspect isn’t entirely surprising; it’s been raining all day, the menacing storm threatening to down the roof with the harsh pelting. You’ll just have to make do without charging your phone tonight or an alarm.

Blinded helpless, you use your outstretched hands to inch through the dark, hoping to not stub your toe on anything. By a miracle, you find your way to your door, fingers touching the worn wood.

Did I…close the door? You pause, filing through recent memories. I know I left it open. Not willing to ponder the oddness of it all right now, you settle for blaming the blackout for disorienting you.

That night, you have a peculiar dream about a spectral figure hovering at a fair distance. You may be standing in the abyss of your thoughts, but you feel oppressed just by looking at the figure. It looks to be a lean, masculine silhouette draped in a hooded robe that sways to a nonexistent breeze and falls in misty tendrils. You dare a look inside the hood to see a clean slate face void of details. Chills prickle through your nerves. He doesn’t have any distinctive features, but you feel eyes gouging you, and it leaves you rigid in trepidation. You wake up to your table lamp casting a disc on your ceiling.

Breakfast with Mom is pleasant, Nichole falls in love with the perfect dress, your phone can charge throughout the night, and there’s no dream of the apparition.

Tuesday evening, your lights flicker dead while you’re cooking dinner. It lasts but a few seconds, and in those handful of seconds you swear the air ices over, but it’s gone just as quick as the waning of the electricity. By Friday, you begin to contemplate calling maintenance to inspect for any issues with your apartment. You bring it up with the other tenants and are alarmed when they report no trouble with their power. When you do decide to call maintenance, they report nothing out of the ordinary. The electrician reassures you he will return if you begin experiencing actual problems. You can see he doesn’t appreciate his time being wasted, but he’s polite enough to not say what’s on his mind. His visit leaves you bitter for more than one reason.

You find yourself washing off face clay over your sink for another night. When your eyes open, the light is on; however—you glance into the mirror, see that black character from your dream and vault yourself to the side in a panic. You tumble from your haste, clashing down to the glossed tiles with your heart pounding in your ears. Of course, no one’s there. People imagine ‘things’ from the edge of their eyes all the time from paranoia, but this disturbs you on spiking levels. It shouldn’t unnerve you this much, you tell yourself, and yet you race into the safety of your bedroom and slam the door shut. The image is burned into your eyelids, whether they’re closed or not.

A week passes, each night projecting that damned phantom who does nothing but watch at you. Last night was different, though. You dream, and he isn’t there. He hasn’t proven to be a threat in past dreams, but you can’t brush off the layering fear after the mirror episode. Every which way you look, movements slowed to that of limbs swinging under the density of water. A certain trace of desperation urges you to locate the shadow cutout. You aren’t sure how the notion birthed, the idea that you’ve become the sheep in a hunt, but it’s there.

Here.

You pivot around just as the blackness lunges at you, and you jolt awake screaming. Shaken by the nightmare, you remain fastened to your bed until well into the noon.

It storms again, this time more rageful than the last. You tense, holding your phone in a cartilage-white grip when an especially powerful thunder splits the silent sky far too close. The apartment tremors, your glassware tinkling to the movement. A week has slipped by since that horrendous nightmare. Thankfully, you haven’t been plagued by anymore aside that one. To distract yourself from the storm, you peruse the channels for anything eye-catching. Unsurprisingly, the TV cuts off and dark swallows you whole.

A brief note of panic assaults your chest, a cowardly reaction you will away with a struggle. You can’t help falling victim to fear, no matter how severe you berate yourself for being ridiculous. What is a little darkness going to do to you?

Steeling your nerves, you snatch up your phone, turn the flashlight on, and go hunt down for a candle you remember seeing in one of the kitchen drawers. You locate it with quick success, gathering the untouched stick into one hand. You could have sworn there was a lighter in there somewhere, too. It’s apparent you can’t search for said item with both your hands occupied. You set the candle on the kitchen counter and rummage through the drawer a second time. Just as your fingers wrap around the lighter, the waxen rod rolls right off and onto the floor with a startling clatter.

You determine you can be as young as five or as old as fifty, and you’ll still be uncomfortable with the dark. Long ago, you established there was nothing to fear but the invented creatures you yourself conjured, but you also learned how dangerous imagination could be. It’s what led you to cower under the false safety of your blanket as a child and to avoid the ominous alleys tainted by horrific stories as an adult. At this moment, however, you have every right to be afraid. The past days have pushed you further toward the edge, and you’re waiting when you might fall into the chasm of whatever it is that has been haunting you.

It takes a moment to ease your throbbing heart. As you crouch to retrieve the dropped candle, you detect the weight of another presence in the room with you. There’s a subtle shift in the air that seems to be making room for the second being. You notice the beam of artificial light quivering and realize it’s because you’re shaking. You want to cast the light around the kitchen to see if you can catch a glimpse of anything at all, but you’re stricken frozen by fear. The moment passes, and you scoff for believing you’re in any possible danger. Just as a safety measure, you pan the kitchen with your meager light source. Of course, there’s nothing to jump out at you.

You gather your senses, the materials and make leave for your room. Once alight by the candle, you settle into bed and dive into the fictional world of a novel in your hands. You aren’t aware of how much time has passed, fully immersed with the story playing out in your mind, but a faint sound harshly extracts you from the book. You’re overcome with stillness, ears honing onto the distinctive thud.

These walls are known for giving tenants the privacy they need; thus, you shouldn't be able to hear your neighbors unless they directly pound on the separating plaster. The neighbors on the left are currently out of town for the week and the neighbor on the right has a night shift, so he shouldn’t be home at this time.

Fear and curiosity can go hand in hand; however, the two are warring for the chance to influence your choices of either exploring or hiding. You don't understand how the silence has suddenly become eerie, but it's enough confirmation to allow fear to win. You discard exploring and eagerly hole into the haven of your bed. The candle won't last the night, maybe until you fall asleep if you aren't overwhelmed by apprehension. Remaining in bed seems the less evil of the two choices, but you’re rolling around in the festering thoughts of the worst-case scenario. You should have grabbed a knife when you had the chance.

Oh, come on. What's to be afraid of? Ghosts? You laugh, a forced laugh at that. A minute goes by. Fine. I'll just look around to prove there's nothing that can hurt me. Resolve cemented, you peel away from your blanket and grab the lit candle for your journey, notably ignoring your jittering nerves that make you tremble.

As soon as you peek into the short hallway, whispers of cool air wash over you, setting off a shudder or two. The flame restricts your view to a mere foot radius, giving you the impression of being stuck in a claustrophobic sphere. You leave your door cracked and take a confident step forth. Immediately, that same chill swipes at your spine. You can’t decide if it’s terror painting the horrific thought of a lone finger tracing up your back or not. Regardless, you jump so hard you’re surprised your bones aren’t broken at the joints.

What the fuck was that? you think, flattening to a wall as if it might decrease your vulnerability by a smidgen. Stupid Victor and his stupid horror movie nights. Yet as you throw the blame on your friend, you know better: you just need something tangible to fault, something you know that can be a rational factor to your delusions. But your instincts won't allow you to deny that you aren’t living a fantasy moment, you’re not suffering the side effects of a jump-scare film.

The dark is crawling all over you, seeping into your skin, and dragging you deeper into a thick pool of dread. The steady heat fails as a source of comfort; rather, it seems to be laughing at you. Just then, the mini fire sputters, dancing a chaotic pattern, like someone has walked by.

There’s something inside with you.

Ice skims along your cheek and the candle tumbles from your hands. The dark devours you up, leaving you cold and on the brink of going mad with fear. Quickly, you fall to your knees to search for the candle. You know you aren’t alone but can’t pinpoint how or why, you only know. The figure from your dream comes to mind, and a broken whimper escapes your lips. And then the hairs of your arm stand. You used to think of it as ants navigating underneath your clothes, but it isn’t ants this time, it's a hand running along your limb.

Right here.

You bolt. The slam of your door is so loud, you expect the entire complex to shake. You clamber for your blanket, hurry to light the candle, and wedge yourself into a corner. There you remain, eyes refusing to close. Seconds, minutes, hours, and the thud resounds again. It begins distance, stops at your door, and disappears altogether. The longer you sit there, the more the fear augments to a staggering degree, yet nothing has plowed through the door and attacked you. You refuse to break free from your stiff position, though, staying perched where you are.

You don’t know when you fall back asleep or how you gave in to the need, but the moment of peace is broken by a third pound. The most recharge you gained was by hovering just beneath the first layer of unconsciousness. Instantly, you notice that the candle has gone out. Reaching for your phone, you turn the flashlight on again. Initially, the first thing you notice is the low battery percentage, and then the time (1 a.m.), but once you look to your nightstand, you almost drop your phone.

The candlestick is burned only half way through. It's impossible for it to drown and extinguish in its own pool of wax, because it's a lone stick supported by a holder. Your windows aren’t opened to invite a draft, and you know your sleeping habits as well as Mom does, so you had no play in blowing the flame out. Someone did, something thing.

You hear a soft touch, pulling your attention back to the door. You imagine a palm pressing into the wood. Not a second later, the handle twists ever so slowly. For some inexplicable reason, you can't move, helplessly watching as the handle turns all the way to unlatch. Any moment now, you wait for the door to slam open. It doesn’t. It remains twisted. And then, as if the hand holding it in its place has let go, it abruptly turns back without warning. You fling to the wall you’re already embedded to. As afraid as you are, frustration sidles up to your mind, and possible anger.

“What do you want?” you ask, voice tight.

The handle turns slow, the door opens, and it closes the door just as softly. A cry croaks from your throat from witnessing an invisible force committing the action. Gentle steps travel across the floorboards to you. The bed sinks, and you cry harder.

“What do you want?!”

That same figure from your dreams manifests right before your eyes, ripping a gasp from you.

“You.”

Cold, hands latch onto your ankles to yank you forward and you shriek—

“Babe!” Nichole is shaking you awake, her face creased in concern.

You’re gulping for air, desperately clawing at your bedding. After you calm down some, you grab onto Nichole to reassure yourself she’s real. You think about those hands on your ankles. They felt just as real as the woman before you. A single sob falls from your mouth, leading to uncontrollable weeping, prompting your friend to support you to her chest. She holds you without a word.

You tell her you’ve been having nightmares but don’t specify them, afraid Nichole will suffer the same fate if she knows. You treat it as a curse. It takes some effort on your side to convince your friend you’ll be fine. She leaves, albeit reluctantly, only because you’ve promised to call her if anything happens. You almost kick her out, so she won’t be late for work. She only came by to retrieve her charger she left when she spent time with you yesterday.

You can’t decide if you’re glad or not that she doesn’t live with you. The two of you roomed together after graduating college, but as soon as Nichole nabbed a boyfriend, you wanted out. You wouldn’t mind sharing a living space with them if it came down to it; Victor was good and played the older brother you never had. You just don’t want to invade their relationship. Nichole took it hard. According to her, you came first before Victor, but you know how much she loves him.

Your random thoughts skid to a halt when you return to your bedroom and zero your attention onto the candle still on your nightstand. Burned only halfway through. In a bout of boiling rage and terror, you swipe it away. It hits the wall and cracks in two. Nothing makes sense. Are you going insane? Are you being haunted? You’ve never had any reason to believe in the supernatural in the past, but that idea is becoming more likely. This is out of your league. Tears shed again. For a moment, you think a salted globule has been wiped away by a finger.

That evening, you force yourself into a tub of scalding, sudsy water, attempting anything to ease your mind, because you still believe it’s all part of your imagination. You shut away the world, focusing on the rhythmic strokes of the bath loofah dragging along your limbs. Some time during the process, ghostly hands join in. You stop, and it stops.

It’s fake, it’s just fake, you chant, scrubbing harder until your skin becomes red.

When you dream this night, the apparition is there. This time, he disappears. Alarmed, you seek for him, afraid he might harm you. Just as sudden, he reemerges behind you. You buck, but he holds you steady.

“Please, don’t hurt me!” you cry.

“Hurt you?” he whispers, a wispy sort of sound with an echoing quality. He constricts his embrace harder, eliciting a grunt. “You’ve already done that to yourself,” he continues, attesting the statement by soothing touches down your scrubbed raw arms.

If you weren’t so afraid, you might have thought he was genuinely worried for you. The sweet wickedness in his words is nothing short of mockery.

“No, I have far more different intents for you.”

One moment, you’re in his arms, another moment, you’re being thrown to the floor. You can’t feel pain, just the pressure. Regardless, you become dazed by the impact. The figure looms over you with an unseen smile. You don’t have the chance to scramble away, losing that opportunity by hesitating. He pounces on you, and you fight.

“Shh, I won’t hurt you.” He testifies by caressing you with the touch of a lover.

You wake up in a sweat, gasping, and unable to forget the gentleness of his gestures.

The dreams persist, becoming more and more vivid until you can no longer tell reality and dream apart. Not before long, they intensify to actual phantom touches out of dreamland but strictly after the sky is dark (he never makes an appearance until then). The second time he touches you while you’re awake and aware of your surroundings, you’re doing laundry. His hands cup your waist, pressing his fingers just so you can see invisible prints of his touch crinkling your shirt. He leaves, but not before kissing your shoulder.

You call an exorcist; he fails to find the smallest traces of any paranormal activities, although he blesses you with a prayer before taking leave. The words spill in one ear and out the other. The second exorcist concludes with the same results as the first.

“Don’t make me leave,” he whispers after you bid the exorcist goodbye.

You whirl on him, and any nasty words you want to spit dissolves at discovering his invading proximity. Your breath hits against his flat face, echoing the warmth back to you.

“Oh, don’t be afraid. Haven’t we met before, once upon a dream?”

You grow stiff hearing the quote from Sleeping Beauty you watched yesterday. “Why are you doing this to me?” you ask in a brittle voice, brimming with mental exhaustion and anguish, because you’ve given up.

He falters from the question, sensing the loss of fight within you. “I’m alone, so alone. I have nothing and no one,” he drifts around you in a melancholic circle, like a drapery shifting in murky waters, “I don’t remember who I am, but I know I’ve done evil, which makes me what I am. I suppose not all of it has withered away. I won’t deny that I find it thrilling to torment you. Your fear is exhilarating and so delicious.”

You can’t see the twisted smile he grants you, but you feel it there, and it makes you weep.

“However,” he swoops down to gather you into his phantom arms, somehow carrying you into the air, the shadow cloak wrapping around and pulling you further into the being, “your tears also make me sad,” he says, streaking the wetness away with his own cheek. “Why is that? Why does your pain please me and hurt me all at once? Tell me.”

You struggle uselessly in his strangely comforting arms. “I don’t know,” you say, feet kicking above the floor. “Please, put me down.” You strain your face away when he tries to wipe your tears again.

His chest heaves, as if he’s huffed with resignation. “Fine.”

In a whirlwind of blurred colors, the phantom whisks the both of you to the living room in a mere blink. It takes you a second to regain your bearings, a spell of dizziness disarming you. You come eye-to-eye with the hooded face and come to realize you’re on your feet but still trapped in his arms. You try wrestling free from his impossible grip.

“Don’t push me away. You’ve been enjoying your dreams so far, and this isn’t any different,” he says against your temple. You will never understand how he can speak without a mouth.

Shame burns your face. “You’ve been forcing them on me! I can’t help what my body reacts to. If you hit me, I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt,” you grit out, wincing from the tightness of his constricting embrace.

“I know, I know it all. Stop closing yourself from me—”

Both of you freeze at the startling sound of the front door opening. You’re about to scream for Nichole, but the apparition vanishes into nothing. Said friend stumbles through the front door and pauses.

“Are you okay?” she asks, walking to you.

“Yeah, just, I thought I saw a mouse,” you lie.

Her face scrunches up. “You better call for extermination just in case. Anyway, I know I should have sent you a text beforehand, but wanna grab a drink?”

You agree. On your way out the door, his hand briefly clutches for yours, tracing a sardonic plea into your knuckles.

Don’t leave.

You rip your hand loose, shut the door, and walk away. You crash over at Nichole and Victor’s and remember what it means to laugh and have fun. You spend the following day with them and return home much later that night, although reluctantly. Your heart stops when you notice the door is ajar.

He wouldn’t be able to escape, would he? Regardless, you ease your way into your apartment. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, except some things have been moved. You tiptoe to your bedroom and flick the light on. You gasp when the phantom comes into view right in the middle of your room. He turns around from his rummaging through your draws, and he’s not the ghost. The stranger is dressed in black, hauling a backpack, and wielding a knife that glints at your eye.

You jolt to action when he growls and sprints for you. He’s quick, snatching at your hair and jerking you around to a stop. A shrill cry burns your throat, forcing the man to flinch.

“Shut up—”

His poised knife never makes it into your flesh; no, instead, a ghostly hand spears through the man’s chest. There is no blood, for there isn’t a wound in sight, but his life is gone regardless. You watch the hand wrench away from the body, ripping away a black mass with identical qualities as the phantom with it. That’s when you glance toward your unlikely savior who has been taunting you. You are wrong to believe he was terrifying before: he is the epitome of hatred and fury. He’s blacker than black, heaving like a beast, and, to your shock, there are red eyes as the only visible feature within the swirling darkness of the hood. The slits heighten the staggering aura wafting from him, and you curl within yourself.

“Begone.” The single word is pure venom.

He squeezes the blackness in his hand until it falls apart in smoky ribbons, hits the floor and dissipates to nothing. You watch in horror as the body materializes away in the same manner, leaving the clothes and items behind as the only evidence of the man ever existing. The dark figure suddenly roars his anger out, a simultaneous ear-splitting slice and rumbling bellow that sparks your electricity dead, leaving you in the dark, which is beginning to become a familiar setting.

You wait, anxious and wondering if he will finally kill you. You’re wild when his arms vine around you, cradling you into his ghostly form and lifting you from the floor. He’s now frighteningly serene, acting like he wasn’t furious just seconds ago. In the dimness, the phantom is more solid than ever before, neither constricting his arms nor releasing you. He hums a tuneless lullaby, shushing into your ear until you still.

“Hush now, you’re safe.”

The adrenaline leaks away, replaced with tears, in which your savior kisses away. You can’t decide what kind of relief it is that you cry from—is it relief that he’s saved you, relief that you’re alive, relief that he isn’t as evil as you assumed? Whatever reason it may be, this moment of cathartic release lightens your heart.

The clothes and knife are gone the following morning, and your belongings are stored to their rightful places. You aren’t as averse to the ghostly touches as your previously were, although it took you time to welcome them. He gives you peace throughout the day and even during your dreams. Sometimes he embraces you as you go about your nightly chores, adhering your body like your own cloak.

One night he brazenly slips into bed with you, intimately pressing against your back. You fidget in his hold. You’ve built a strange trust with this supernatural being and you don’t want to go back to cowering from it.

“Stop,” you whisper, pulling at his hands that have found way around you and are tracing circles into your arms.

“Why?” You have no answer, so he resumes his loving strokes. “Haven’t I been patient enough? Kind enough?”

“Why are you even doing this, why me?” That makes him pause.

“Even I surprise myself. My kind are as old as the earth, meant to exist as creatures of evil. Yet the longer I persisted my game with you, the faster my resolve crumbled away. Do you have any sense as to how wrathful I was seeing that foul human attempt to hurt you? I thought to let him be, let him destroy himself from his own deeds, and then you waltzed in.” He turns you to face him. “I suddenly couldn’t bear to see you turn into a lost spirit. Perhaps I was jealous, perhaps I wanted to turn you myself, but then I can never feel your warmth again.”

You recoil, thinking yourself an idiot for believing he might harbor the tiniest sliver of good in him. He keeps you still when you begin to escape, planting his forehead to yours, his hood tickling your hairline.

“I tired of haunting and torturing the evil humans, so I thought to play with someone whose soul wasn’t as black. I settled for you by chance. Before I could stop myself, a drop of your goodness tainted me, leaving me impure. I am no longer wholly evil. Now I understand why my kind despised and cowered from the light, not only because it could destroy us to nothing, but because it would save us, and we evil wraiths are not meant to be anything but. What have you done to me?”

You can say nothing, only breathe and stare into red eyes. They make rare appearances, but when they do, you can’t help but imagine them as garnets. You can only think of one question.

“What’s your name?”

He doesn’t speak for a moment, whether from hesitation or contemplation. “Gasouel, call me Gasouel.”

*✧🌙✧*

“Have you always liked your apartment this cold?” Nichole asks, shivering as she does so.

You hardly notice the temperature now. You only shrug in response, cleverly placing a drink in front of your friend to distract her.

“Any colder and you might turn this place into a freezer,” Victor laughs good-naturedly, while patting your shoulder and giving you a playful shake.

You open your mouth to quip a remark but freeze when Gasouel appears behind Victor and phases through the unsuspecting man. A violent shudder rakes through his body.

“Fuck, that was a bad one,” he mumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets before making his way to cuddle next to his girlfriend currently swathed in one of your spare blankets.

You toss a glare to the wraith who is quite unapologetic.

Later that night when the clock hits midnight, you lecture the idle wraith.

“I told you to leave them alone,” you hiss.

He grabs your face and rubs his forehead on yours. “I would never hurt them; I know how much you care for them.”

It’s a bit odd to see him jealous. You suppose it will just be another facet to accommodate to, along with his affectionate inclinations. A couple months have passed by since the day he saved you. You still have trouble overcoming the disappearance of the burglar. While you never even touched the man, you know you’ve played an indirect part in his death. After all, Gasouel had killed him for your sake. If not for you, he’d still be alive. Although, recently, you find it hard to pity the man. In fact, while your ghostly companion did destroy his soul, it saved him from suffering the fate of becoming a wraith and saved the world from the existence of another dark creature.

That aside, you’re convinced Gasouel will leave one of these days, either from boredom or in fear of losing his entire purpose as a being of evil. If he stays long enough, you wonder what will happen to him when you’re gone.

“What are you thinking?” His question brings you back to the present.

“It’s…nothing,” you say, extracting yourself from him.

Displeased, he flies to stop you from walking away. “You can tell me,” and he pairs this with a kiss to the corner of your mouth.

You still shy away from any affections, not having such devout attention since your last relationship, which was well over two years ago. Gasouel knows this, too, spurring his efforts.

“Come now, don’t be shy,” he whispers, hugging you close.

You relent. “Will you ever leave me?” Immediately, you regret your choice of words—you sound desperate for him to stay.

“Do you want me to?” he asks, more amused than troubled.

“I don’t know—”

He chuckles. “That’s enough for reconsideration.”

And you blush. If you want him to leave, you wouldn’t be unsure. Even the smallest amount of hesitation is proof that you do want him to stay, regardless how insignificant that wish is now.

“I was afraid of you for a long time, and then you saved me. You’ve proved to be good, even if that only pertains to me. I won’t lie, I’ve come to enjoy you being with me, whatever this is. But how long are you going to stay? I know for a fact you wouldn’t want to stay forever.”

“And if I want to stay forever?”

You laugh a humorless huff. “I won’t live that long.”

“You think I would be sad if I stayed and watched you grow until your death?”

“I—I’m not implying that—”

“You are,” but you can hear the smile in his words, an impish one at that.

Growing frustrated, you cut to the point, not wanting to suffer a bout of taunting from him. “What I mean to say is, you’re wasting your time with me. There’s no point in staying with someone who will just ruin what you’re supposed to be.”

“You want me to continue my villainous deeds?”

“Damn it, Gasouel, no! I just…I don’t really know what I’m trying to say anymore.” You turn to leave but are swept into his arms before even taking a step.

“I have wasted centuries wandering and tormenting. I would stay with you whether it meant the end of my existence or not; I would rather stay and lose you than not having stayed at all. Don’t you have any hope that I have a chance of dying with you?”

You laugh. “Who would have known you could be such a romantic?”

“Is it so bad?”

“No.”

“Is it so bad that I stay, regardless what may happen?”

He makes you look into his eyes. It never occurs to you that he may be tired, and he’s only just realized because of you. “No,” you say.

“Then I’ll stay right where I am.”

*✧🌙✧*

When Nichole asks if you’ll ever date again, you merely shrug, glancing at Gasouel who lazily circles you as you slice some vegetables. You’ve grown used to his invasion. Victor makes some teasing remark you can’t even remember because you must hold onto the wraith’s cloak to prevent him from maiming the poor man’s soul. Gasouel still hasn’t warmed up to Victor.

You don’t think dating will prove to be wise, not with your embarrassing attraction for your ghostly companion that grows by the day and not with Gasouel’s possessive streak charging out when a man sends any form of flirtation your way (yes, you discover he can roam outside your apartment during the nights). You think it’s impossible to pursue a relationship with him, so you might have to convince him to back down when you go soul searching. He doesn’t ever give you the chance to consider another human partner, he doesn’t even give you a chance to approach him about the subject for that matter.

You don’t recall how it happens, but one moment you’re debating taking on a coffee date with one of the new tenants a few doors down (he’s rather cute) and the next, as soon as you step inside your apartment, you’re being cornered.

“Have you become my tormentor now?” Gasouel hisses, hovering close in all his furious glory of red eyes and billowing cloak, yet he doesn’t touch you.

You shrink away, not from fear but from the intensity of his emotions. “W-what?”

“You think I haven’t noticed, did you? You couldn’t be more obvious with your blatant staring and the longing on your pretty face. I suppose I am at fault for depriving you any human partners, but why settle for that when you have me?”

Your face burns. He’s known all along.

Despite the mischievous tone, you can tell he’s been playing the patient predator. For how long, you don’t know. Before you can get a word in, he yanks you into his arms. You watch with fascination as he molds himself a mouth. He doesn’t waste time to finally, finally kiss you. It’s everything fervent and heartfelt, and it leaves you unable to stand. Gasouel’s touch isn’t anything new, but unlike before, they can’t even compare to the strength and desperation of his hands now. That night, you release yourself from any inhibitions and give in to him.

Come morning, he’s still there. One taste and he can’t seem to have enough. At one point, the reality and insanity of it all makes you laugh while he makes you see stars. He doesn’t find it as funny as you do, all too consumed with absorbing your warmth and listening to your blood pound underneath his ears. When you realize you love him, it’s the exact moment when he stops for a second to look far into your eyes. He must realize it, too, because his intent slows to a tender passion. He moves with deliberation, wanting to memorize this moment and every part of it. The two of you are closer than ever, not an inch of space existing between your bodies as he lays atop you. Of all the nights you have spent with him, this particular night brings you to overjoyed tears.

Nichole notices a difference about you. You smile because he kisses your cheek, unseen by the woman. Mom initially worries about your lack of boyfriend, translating to the lack of a husband, but if you’re content then she is (although, she would really want to see some grandchildren running around and to spoil rotten). When Nichole marries Victor, not once are you envious. You catch the bouquet and laugh. Gasouel makes love to you the same night, absently tracing your ring finger in the afterglow. The passionate nights eventually stop, but you hardly mind. Being with him is more than enough. He still holds you every night while you sleep, even as you lay in the crisp whiteness of a hospital bed at the age of eighty. He tells you he loves you while the sun is high. His existence doesn’t even waver in the light. You return the words and close your eyes just for a moment. A warm hand touches your cheek, and when you open your eyes, you see a man.

“I always knew you were handsome,” you say.

He laughs, and his smile is exactly as you imagined.

*✧🌙✧*

fin.

*✧🌙✧*

thoughts:

i came up with the brilliant idea to format my posts as if i were writing a field guide to mythical creatures i encounter! that aside, the last half of this piece is fairly censored, thus some ideas have been changed accordingly. i hope you all enjoyed it nonetheless.

resources:

monster masterlist by thespelia

encyclopedia of monsters by thespelia

#terato #exophilia #monsters #monster love #monster romance #monster boyfriend #horror #romance #fear to love #wraith #oc: gasouel #writing

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braincoins · 6 years ago

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yslanam replied to your post: I still wanna RP in the Demon Knight-verse

On the one hand, this sounds pretty involved and I don’t want to miss out on VLotD. On the other hand, this sounds awesome and I have no idea what the Crypt thing is, but I would totally read this fic!

[rubs hands together] Okay so...

“Tales from the Crypt” was originally a horror comic anthology series published by EC comics. It was one of three that they put out (the others being “The Vault of Horror” and “The Haunt of Fear”), and... well, let me stay on track, because I can and will babble about TftC, EC, and William M. Gaines for a while if I’m allowed to.

In 1989, HBO started a “Tales From the Crypt” TV show. The Cryptkeeper (a puppet, voice by John Kassir who also did the voice of Meeko the Raccoon in Pocahontas - let that sink in) would book-end each story - almost all from one of the three EC horror comics - with bad puns and horrifically screeching laughter.

I freaking love this show. (Well, the last season sucked, but what’re you gonna do?) Anyway, they made a movie. Technically more than one but we don’t talk about those. Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight.

Is it good? Eh, probably not by most people’s standards. It’s schlocky, it’s gory and gross, it has unnecessary sex and a killer soundtrack (pun entirely intended). But it’s basically a feature-length version of a TftC episode, except with waaaaaaaaay better worldbuilding and also Billy Zane romping around chewing scenery. I adore Demon Knight and I especially love its world (well, really, universe) building.

As explained by the main character:

Brayker: You wanna know what’s going on? Shall I tell you? In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth... Irene: You’re talking Genesis. THAT beginning? Brayker: And the Earth was a formless void and Darkness covered the face of the deep. But the Darkness wasn’t empty. It was full of creatures... full of demons. And they had seven Keys formed into a circle that focused the power of the cosmos into their hands. Until God stepped forth and said, “Let there be light.” And there was Light. He scattered the demons, and He scattered the Keys, all across the universe. Now we fast forward about two or three million millennia. Now the demons are back. They got six of the Keys. And one day, they find the seventh Key here on Earth.

To save it, God filled it with the blood of... a carpenter, who was being crucified by the Romans, and gave it to a thief named Sirach. Jeryline: The blood ins-inside... is that...? Brayker: Some of it, yeah. It gets used, y’see. Sirach had to refill it. Bad neck wound. Talon caught the artery here [tracing it on his own throat]. Most of what’s in here now belonged to a soldier named Dickerson, gave it to me in France, August 23, 1917. Funny how you remember the big dates, isn’t it? Bob: Jeeze. That, uh... would make you... Uncle Willy: What happens when you run out of blood? Brayker: They bring back the Darkness. Uncle Willy: Just like that?! Brayker: Just like that. So. Now you know. [looking around at all of them] You feel better?

The Demon Knights are all thieves. Each one is marked with seven stars, burned into their palms from the Key itself, and when they are branded, they see - and feel - the past lives of all the Knights who came before them. Because, you see, you can’t become a Demon Knight until the previous one dies. The last thing a Knight does is to pass on the Key and the duty to protect it from the demons, and then they die.

They can be killed, but they are otherwise essentially immortal right up to that moment (as shown by Brayker, who was a soldier in WWI and is still alive, definitely not looking his age). The circumstances under which a Demon Knight can pass on the Key and their duty are very specific, and they’ll know their time has come when the stars on their palm - which are normally grouped together - form into a circle. They’ll wind up under siege some place with seven people... and one of those will be the new chosen one, the new Knight.

Basically, for what should have been schlocky, gory fun, this movie had this incredibly kickass setup and it makes me twitch to do SOMETHING with it. Make a new Knight, still reeling from what they’ve lived through to get here on top of the solemn duty that is now theirs. I hadn’t thought of combining it with something else until Voltron entered the picture.

We really haven’t seen the Galra destroy a planet utterly since Altea (unless you count that planet that’s sucked dry by the komar). So my brain was like, “Altea had one of the Keys and Zarkon made a deal with the demons to destroy Altea if he procured the Key for them...”

If I let myself, I could almost certainly do a lot with this setup - that what many people on Earth think of as God the Father is what the Alteans thought of as the Goddess of the Universe; that Voltron was made, in part, to protect the Keys but that, having been sealed away for 10,000 years, it has been unable to do so; that now the mission is not only to free planets from Galra rule but to wrest the Keys back from the demons and to protect Earth not ONLY as the home of the Paladins but as the home of the last Key - but, as you said, V:LotD really needs to be my priority.

#yslanam #socks babbles

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presencetimeslegend232225n7 · 2 years ago

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This cuteness of girl defined possesses unity that puts retro in my persona so deep in ways so GOD strong:Why? I will finally open the vault!! There was a time I had 2 older daughters that put insult to injury when they informed me about posting her pics on Facebook per my personal story in messenger style were embarrassing to them and select other..I said you are embarrassed or envious in my choices that BEAUTY is the eyes that maintains GOD'S green earth.. including yourselves..hardassed females that during a horrific turn of events all hell,not mine literally created a potential book or a movie idea..my own 2..first marriage..8 grands..list worlds.. lost of a Father who unconditionally loved them..praying each day..now beauty is reversed against their better judgement..this female if legal age.. Australian symbol so mildly sweet known as the "Original Hippie"..I have been a follower of her's for 3 yrs..hell,I attempted the inevitable to relocate without looking back pursuing a spot on her team..I tried a concept that could not rule out possibilities..I'm sure as time will tell my openness in my own wide view.."up in it"..💜🌠☮️♀️♂️♀️💞✝️

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mdwatchestv · 7 years ago

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Westworld 2x04- Death: What Is It Even?

Hiiiii sorry this is so late, I have been clobbered at work to the point where I considered skipping this week all together. But NO I rose early, looked at all the Royal Wedding fashion, and am now sitting down to bring you full Westworld coverage. “Why exert such an effort?” you may justifiably ponder to yourself. Well, because Westworld actually turned out a pretty succinct, thematically coherent episode of television last week. I have had many conversations about whether or not Westworld is actually a “good” show. Sure, it’s entertaining to watch the result of millions of dollars plastered on screen, every frame looks incredible, and it boasts blockbuster level production value and some of the best working actors. And maybe that’s enough to qualify as “good”, because do we not keep coming back week after week? Are we not entertained? However I have always felt that Westworld could, and probably should, be more than the sum of its expensive parts. Emotional connectivity to characters is low, and while complicated themes are introduced, we barely scratch their surface. What is Westworld really about? Often it seems to merely be about trying to trick the audience with buzz-worthy tricks and twists, about who can deliver the most enigmatic monologue, or put together the flashiest scene of Old West violence. I bring all this up because this episode felt more in tune with what I always wanted this show to be: a solid sci-fi story that had more to offer than just expensive window-dressing. This episode had a strong thematic through-line, and told a compelling vignette story that would have been worthy of its own Black Mirror episode. Instead of a series of seemingly unrelated events for us to try and make sense of, this episode had a natural inter-connectivity that will make it much easier to write about. So thanks for that at least!

We begin with seeing Peter Mullan (what a great episode for him, I bet this is how they pitched him the role) in a futuristic studio space, where he goes about his. Eventually visited by Jimmi Simpson, and they have an affable conversation. It’s unclear at first if Mullan is a prisoner, a patient, or something else entirely, however we soon find out that Peter Mullan is not Peter Mullan at all. Now we understand that Jimmi Simpson’s grand plan, and perhaps Delos’ endgame, is to create a way to let human beings live forever - as hosts. Mullan’s failing health was foreshadowed in previous episodes, and it’s revealed his contingency plan was to abandon his dying body for a new and improved host life. As Jimmi and Mullan converse, everything seems fine, until Mullan begins ‘glitching’ out. The hybrid human/host mind failing to adapt to reality, and turning in on itself.

At the end of the conversation, we see Jimmi exit the room, which is really a glass observation tank in the middle of a lab, and order a redo of the experiment. This is an experiment that has been run many times before, with many different Mullan hosts, but always ending in failure. Apparently a redo involves burning everything down, including host Peter Mullan AND HIS PET FISH! I just don’t understand why the fish had to be burned to death every time. It seems needlessly cruel. Anyway we return to this scene, this conversation between Mullan and his son-in-law again, and again through the episode. As time passes, Jimmi delivers bleaker and bleaker reports from the outside world. First that Mullan’s wife had died, and then later his children as well (RIP Ben Barnes). Although the technology to keep Mullan’s consciousness in tact continues to develop, his connections to the outside world, to his “real” life, continue to fall away.

In the final series of scenes, Mullan is visited by the Man in Black, the man Jimmi Simpson has eventually become. The Man in Black has become introspective about Mullan’s quest for immortality. It seems to him to now to be pointless, why go on living just to live? Mullan’s family is gone, his company forever out his control, what is left for him in the waking world? The Man in Black also tells Mullan that people prefer the memory of the man, to the man himself, and maybe it’s better that way. The Man in Black has lost faith that this project, the melding of humans with hosts, is a good idea. That perhaps human life is better left finite, living forever only brings pain and loss, which the Man in Black knows personally from his wife’s suicide. The Man in Black abandons the host Mullan to his cell, and instead of terminating the project he simply leaves the Mullan host to its own devices. Allowing it to occupy a purgatory space between man and machine.

The Man in Black’s storyline in the present day complements his past interactions with Mullan in an interesting way. The Man in Black and Clifton Collins, Jr find themselves in CC Jr’s character’s hometown, where his storyline is complete with a wife and young child. However the homecoming is cut short when MiB and CCJ are ambushed by Jonathan Tucker and his surviving Confederados. Tucker’s crew is after the guns and nitro hidden in the town, which MiB mercilessly gives up in exchange for showing Tucker’s men the way to the mythical ‘Glory’. Thankfully Tucker gets to grandstand a little bit in these scenes, but still feel like this whole enterprise was a waste of Jonathan Tucker. Interestingly CCJ mentions MiB’s deceased daughter to him, a conversation the two of them had had in a storyline that should have been wiped from CCJ’s memory. Curious.

MiB is at first apathetic to Tucker’s torture and killing of the town’s residents. He has seen worse things happen to the denizens of Westworld, and these are just hosts after all. However as Tucker goes after CCJ, having his own wife bring him a shot of nitro, MiB has a change of heart, seemingly related to a flashback about his own life. MiB slaughters Tucker and his men, and saves CCJ’s life, at great personal risk to himself. This is a surprising about face from MiB, who ever since his youthful experience with Dolores, has regarded the hosts as little more than objects. Could he be feeling affection for his companion, or for the host population at large? Perhaps feeling regrets about a past life he failed to save. MiB’s relationship with CCJ has been one of the most consistent of his life, journeying miles and undertaking countless adventures with his host sidekick. After saving the day, MiB is confronted by CCJ’s daughter who speaks to him with Ford’s words. She tells him that one good deed doesn’t erase his past, to which MiB retorts “who said anything about a good deed?” His wry rejoinder suggests he only saved the town because he believed it’s what Ford would have wanted him to do as part of the game. However I am not so sure this is the truth. The little girl replies that he shouldn’t look toward the future, suggesting the key to this game lies somewhere in MiB’s past. There could be a number of answers to that riddle including Dolores, and a family he all but abandoned in the real world. Although what stock Ford has in that remains to be seen.

Elsewhere in the park, we follow up with Katja Herbers who has been taken prisoner by the Ghost Nation tribe. One of her fellow prisoners is Luke Hemsworth, answering the question of what happened to him when he was ambushed by the same warriors at the end of season one. Katja is surprisingly resourceful, she speaks the language of the Ghost Nation, and she tells Luke she has no desire to leave the park. They are brought before the Ghost Nation leader, Zahn McClarnon who we previously saw wining and dining Ben Barnes in flashback. Zahn whispers to Luke that “You live only as long as the last person who remembers you,” before he and his fellows mysteriously disappear. This behavior, coupled with the fact the tribe was killing captured hosts while sparing guests, suggests that something is definitely up with this faction. Zahn’s words though also tie into the larger themes of the episode. What is true immortality? Is it the imitation of life, or what we pass down to those after us. How will MiB be remembered? How does he want to be remembered? What is he passing down? The answer to at least some of that shortly.

Finally in the episode’s last major storyline Bernard is dragged by Clementine to the outside of a cave. Within the cave he finds Shannon Woodward, who he didn’t kill at the end of last season but rather imprisoned, as well as the entrance to a mysterious lab. I was at first happy to have Shannon Woodward back, but she soon began acting like the worst video game sidekick in the world. “What is that? What’s wrong with you? Where does that go? What’s happening?” Shannon, you KNOW what’s wrong with him! Jeez o pete. Anyway the lab is a place that Bernard seems to remember, and within it they find another scene of slaughter and bloodshed - both of scary blank hosts and human engineers alike.

Eventually the two of them uncover the purpose of the lab, which is, you guessed it, to fuse humans and hosts and is consequently the home of host Peter Mullan. Mullan is now a horrific figure, vaulting between personalities as well as the terms of his own reality. After a tense fight, Shannon and Bernard decide to put him out his misery, terminating the project once and for all in a fiery burst which makes the dying Mullan appear to be the devil in Hell itself. And was he in Hell? Tormented in a state of consciousness that wasn’t quite life? Is there something worse than being dead? Was he even alive to begin with?

During this sequence Bernard has flashbacks to his previous experiences in the lab. We also come to learn that Bernard is seeing memories out of order. Even the discovery of the lab with Shannon is a memory he is having from a future, present date, meaning everything we are seeing has already happened in the Westworld timeline. More importantly he remembers coming to the lab to create a red ball that holds the human “code” to create another host/human hybrid (ala the doomed Peter Mullan). After taking the red ball he then orders the blank hosts to kill the human engineers, before topping themselves, putting an end to the lab’s operations. Presumably he was acting under Ford’s orders, which raises a very important question - WHO is the human/host the red ball was made to create? Who would Ford (if it is Ford) choose to bring back? I have thoughts.

In the episode’s final scene we see MiB’s party meet up with Katja Herbers who turns out to be...HIS DAUGHTER. Like her father, she too is well-versed in the parks, and approaches them with his same domineering attitude. However she is also currently my best candidate for the secret human/host, here is why. During MiB’s crisis of conscious that ends in his coming to CCJ’s rescue, we see flashbacks to a scene of suicide. We know that MiB’s wife (Peter Mullan’s daughter) killed herself, but were always told that she overdosed (with contention over whether or not it was accidental). However the flashbacks we saw were of blood in an overflowing bathtub, suggesting a much more violent death. Now it’s possible that his wife’s suicide was much different than reported, but I think this is not the death of his wife, but rather that of his daughter. If Ford is pulling the strings of this game, and it was he that ordered Bernard to create the human/host, it would make sense to bring back the daughter MiB failed as part of looking to the past. But again, what’s it to Ford to get such extravagant vengeance on MiB?

All these storylines wove together to ask and play with the same thematic questions, what is death? What is a life worth living? And finally the question asked by the title of the episode “The Riddle of the Sphinx”: what is man? Westworld this week was coherent, engaging, and thoughtful. And it still got to have all the expensive violence it so dearly loves. Even though Jonathan Tucker didn’t stick around long, at least he got to explode. And that’s the kind of shit actors love.

Lastly I would like to point out the dialogue exchange of “I’m not in California anymore am I?” “No, you’re not.” Just another little exchange referencing the general location of the park, which I still believe will be a major reveal of the season! This is the hill I am ready to die on.

Peter Mullan forever,

Martha

#westworld #martha writes #westworld theories #westworld recap #tv review #tv recap #westworld spoilers #westworld gifs #tv gifs #peter mullan #man in black #jimmi simpson

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 5 Review: Die Trying

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This Star Trek: Discovery review contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Episode 5

Since the Discovery first landed in the 32nd century, the ship and its crew has been searching for the missing Federation. This makes sense. Starfleet is a hierarchal structure, and its ships are part of a larger organization with a larger purpose. Without a Federation or Starfleet to report to, Discovery has been in survival mode (relatable). It’s painful for them to think about the past, which represents an immeasurable loss. Instead, Discovery has put all of its faith in this new future: in the belief that, once they find the Federation, everything will make sense again.

Like so much in this excellent Season 3, the Discovery’s hope is rewarded, but not without its nuances and complications. They find the Federation and it’s frankly in better shape than I expected, but it’s still not the organization they left behind. It’s much smaller—both in terms of number of ships and number of member planets. The Federation is in survival mode too, and arguably more exhausted than the crew of the Discovery—after all, they have been in survival mode for much longer, since the mysterious Burn more than a century ago. This isn’t a Federation of five-year missions of exploration; this is a Federation just trying to solve the latest crisis.

Much of the dramatic tension of the episode comes in the question of whether Discovery still fits inside of the Federation. Saru and Michael’s initial conversations with Admiral Vance are not as warm and welcoming as the Discovery might have hoped for, but it’s easy to understand given what we know of the state of this corner of the universe why the Federation is so damn cautious. It might have been tempting to make the Federation evil or compromised or an absolute mess here, but I’m glad Discovery didn’t go in that direction. This 32nd-century, post-Burn Federation isn’t bad; they’re just tired and forced to be smart about their resources. And, ultimately, yes, the Discovery believes they can find a place here, that they can be of use.

At first, Vance plans to separate the crew of the Discovery, which is a horrific idea from the viewpoint of the Discovery and us viewers. As Michael points out, it’s not simply that the ship and its various crew members will not be as effective apart, it’s that members of the crew might never recover from that separation. They have already lost everything they have ever known. To tear away the little piece of home they have left would damage everyone’s already fragile mental states even further. This wouldn’t be good for the Discovery crew and, frankly, it wouldn’t be good for the Federation. “Die Trying” is about the crew of Discovery working to prove to Admiral Vance that they are a much better asset together than apart not by pulling a Kirk and stealing the ship to make a point (as Burnham basically suggests), but by playing by Saru’s rules for now and going through the proper channels… because, you know, the proper channels still exist and, in a quasi-lawless future, that’s not nothing.

This test takes the form of a last-ditch effort to cure a group of alien refugees suffering from prion disease. Their only hope of survival lies in a Federation seed vault ship located too far away for any ship without a spore drive to make it there and back in time. Listen, it’s a MacGuffin crisis with a MacGuffin mission, but it does give our gang a chance to show the Federation what they’re made of—and a chance for us to get to know Commander Nhan a little bit better, before she leaves the ship for the foreseeable future.

While “Die Trying” cleverly uses the mission as an excuse to explore Nhan’s Barzan culture, there really isn’t enough time to do the narrative ambition justice. In the story of a Barzan father desperate to save his already-deceased family, kept in stasis on the seed fault ship, we learn that Barzans have a different cultural understanding of death than we do. While this is a thematically rich idea to explore, the episode never really explains what that means, instead leaning into a story about Nhan’s own regrets about having left her homeworld behind. While that’s also an interesting angle to explore, there are several moments during which it seems like “Die Trying” is trying to place the various Barzan characters’ decisions in the context of their culture, but never actually figures out how.

Then again, this episode was already clocking in at the 55-minute mark, much longer than your average length of network TV and the longest episode of the season so far. In just this episode, we get the Discovery’s arrival at the Federation’s new headquarters, a debrief sequence, the Discovery’s quest to a Federation seed vault ship, the solving of the seed vault’s familial mystery, a mini-character study of Nhan, and a compromise within the Federation hierarchy. It’s a lot, and the episode can’t quite pull it all together thematically, making for this strong season’s sloppiest episode so far. That being said, “Die Trying” gets its most important job done: transitioning Season 3 from a story about a lone Starfleet ship in a future without the Federation to a story about the Discovery starting the long process of building a new home within the Federation.

Because “Die Trying” makes clear that’s what the crew has really been looking for: a home. That is what Starfleet has been for all of them in the past: a place of belonging and purpose where nobody gets left behind. This isn’t the Federation they left behind almost a millennia ago and it’s going to take some time and some work before those feelings of belonging sink into their bones. For now, they’re going to have to settle for a sense of purpose and have it be enough. In Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, finding the Federation doesn’t solve everything, but it’s a start and, in a world and pop culture that skews so damn dark right now, I’ll gladly and unexpectedly take that hopeful beginning.

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Additional thoughts.

I’m sad to leave behind the story of the Discovery as a lone stranger in a strange land, though I recognize that we already had so much of that explored in Voyager. Also, this season has been so good so far that I am willing to see where this new phase of Season 3 brings us. I just… am a sucker for motley crew on a loner ship stories, you know?

In what was the most intriguing and also subtle subplots of the episode, Emperor Georgiou has a conversation with a bespectacled man (played by David Cronenberg) who gives her a history lesson on the Terran empire. Is this setting up the Michelle Yeoh’s spinoff? Is this a clue about The Burn? What did David Cronenberg do to or tell Georgiou that had her so shaken when Michael meets her in the hallway? And how is Michelle Yeoh/Georgiou so cool?

Season 3 is moving at a steady clip. In previous seasons of this show, Discovery would have been distracted by about 12 other storylines by now, not making it to the Federation hideout until the end of the season. Not Season 3, though! Season 3 is keeping its eye on the prize, steadily committing to even its minor subplots in a way this show rarely did before. If the show drops a narrative hint that Detmer has some kind of PTSD from the jump through the wormhole, then god dammit, she’s going to have some form of PTSD. If Detmer and Stamets get in a fight in one episode, Stamets is still going to be a bit sore about it in the next. This episode even manages to remember that Michael has a mom in this time and she might have some questions for the Federation about her whereabouts. This is good serialized storytelling, and it reinforces the world and these characters in a way that Discovery, with all of its behind-the-scenes issues in the first two seasons, has never quite managed before.

Admiral Vance is played by Oded Fehr, who was Ardeth Bay in The Mummy. You’re welcome.

We get several references to the Emerald Chain, which is not a club drug. Presumably, this isn’t the last we’ve heard of this crime syndicate.

Commander Nhan, stop trying to make Airiam happen. I get it, though. This was one of your character’s few, big moments prior to this episode.

“Then I was murdered…” I love an interrogation montage scene played for laughs. See also: The Expanse and Firefly.

Hugh having to coach someone in this episode to tell someone else that they have to let go of their dead family is kind of ironic given his backstory.

Lieutenant Willa is a security officer and seems to be into the Discovery’s vibe. Could she replace Nhan? And will we see Nhan again? I hope so.

Saru’s even-keeled and patient leadership continues to be an asset in this new and strange time, and complements Michael’s brash creativity nicely. As long as they continue to communicate,

We didn’t get much Adira in this episode. I still have so many questions about Gray.

Although the Federation has shrunk, both the Barzans and the Kelpians are now members. That’s nice.

The post Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 5 Review: Die Trying appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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raywritesthings · 7 years ago

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If I have to read one more ‘the Doctor abused Missy’ post with my own eyes I think I will flip. Rant below the cut.

No. Okay? No. You can wish he did some things differently, or that events hadn’t gone a certain way, or you can sympathize with Missy and think she deserved better, but abuse? Good God, what show and what relationship have you been watching?

Missy was sentenced to die, presumably by someone with the authority to do that since it was being handled by a planet that specializes in execution. We can infer, then, both from that and the Master’s past (like being executed before) that she did something suitably horrific to end up in that situation. She was sentenced to die. And I’m not a fan of capital punishment, but the fact is that the Doctor already went above and beyond the call by saving her life. He did not have to do that. He could have pulled the lever and left that place and the universe would have kept spinning on. But because he does consider Missy his friend, and he does care about her, he saves her instead.

But he can’t just let her skip off wherever after that. Remember the whole ‘did something terrible enough to get sentenced to death’ thing? Yeah, him leaving Missy to her own devices would have started that whole game all over again. So instead of the Vault becoming her tomb, it is her prison. And she absolutely deserved to be there.

But man, what a prison it is! A huge bed, chairs and reading material, takeout meals brought to her and visitation from the only person she considers a friend, a grand freaking piano. She is not wanting for creature comforts. You want to see a real prison cell, look at River in Stormcage. The Doctor is basically holding Missy under house arrest in comparison.

If he wanted to abuse her, all he would have had to do is withhold his company. Send Nardole down with the meals instead, never stop by even the outside of the Vault to talk to her. But he doesn’t. He sits down there speaking to her, he brings her food and tells her stories (and ones he knows she’ll enjoy), listens to her play the piano, and even just sits and reads in there with her. It’s probably the most attention the Master has gotten from the Doctor since they and the Third Doctor were both stuck on Earth in the 70s. The only time she is left without him is the six months he’s held by the Monks, which couldn’t really be helped. I have issues with that episode and its pacing for other reasons, but the fact is the first place he goes after they get back? Missy. Yes, for help and advice, but considering Bill says he essentially knew what Missy was going to say anyway he could have easily skipped it.

And yeah, he wants her to become a good person. He wants her to learn from her mistakes for once. Because otherwise, what would be the point? If they wait it out for a thousand years and she’s exactly the same as day one, then she just gets to roam free and start killing people again? If the Master were that set in their ways, the idea that the Doctor could have ever been friends with them is kind of sad. They grew apart over time and as their ideologies become more defined, the Doctor didn’t wake up one day and go “I say, old chap, you’ve positively evil! I must end our friendship at once.” No one’s born evil or made evil via badly devised retcons like drumbeats.

And speaking of, let’s talk about why the Doctor can sometimes be a bit standoffish towards Missy, why he doesn’t try to just ‘talk it out’ with her or whatever (even though he clearly does, you can see it in the scene where she confesses to remembering the names of the people she’s killed and he stops everything he’s doing to listen and ajsdfhsjkfsfh why can’t people just watch the show) – because he’s tried that. And how’d it go? Him and his friends tortured for an entire year. Even in her current incarnation, Missy has done things that would justify the Doctor’s sometimes cold or hesitant demeanor towards her, namely killing or attempting to kill anyone else he shows an ounce of affection towards.

Let’s not forget, he’s also likely struggling to determine whether Missy is actually genuine in her reform. Hell, we as the audience weren’t even sure till the last episode, and in-episode Missy makes reference to the idea that it could all just be some sort of plan – that that’s something the Master would absolutely do. And has done, hello “The Sea Devils”! What possible reason could he have to trust her?

And then she shows up to rescue him and Bill from Mars. And trust her, he begins to do. He lets her out of the Vault unbeknownst to even Nardole who’s supposed to be like his minder or whatever. Sure, just on the TARDIS but that’s a hell of a show of trust considering all the shit the Master’s tried to do to his TARDIS before. He’s clearly showing a willingness to trust her, a willingness to try to move their friendship forward in a positive direction.

How is it ‘abusive’ that when Missy steps forward in “The Eaters of Light”, he takes a step back? How? Wanting personal space is abusive now, tumblr? Seriously? The Twelfth Doctor is one of the least physically affectionate incarnations of the character; he does not like to be unexpectedly grabbed or touched, which Missy has previously done and which made him very uncomfortable. But when he sees how it affects her, he immediately tries to compensate by reaching for her hands. He did not have to do that, he could have walked away instead of staying to reassure her. He is honest about his feelings and about the state of their relationship, and then he leaves.

And then, lo and behold, the very next episode, he is letting her not just out of the Vault but out of the TARDIS as a final test to see if she isn’t just playing him. It is very clear that the implications are if all had gone well in “World Enough and Time”, Missy would have been permanently released from her imprisonment over 900 years early. He’s trusting her enough to put her down in a real situation with real people and real lives in the balance, including his friends.

You can say that was a mistake (I agree for obvious reasons), but how was that ‘abusive’ towards Missy? He wants to make sure she’s not going to go on a goddamn killing spree the minute he lets her out, that is the bare minimum he owes to the rest of the universe because if she had done that it would only be because he saved her life in the first place.

And then she seemingly betrays him with her past incarnation. Of course he’s going to be pissed off at her. What the hell would it have said about his friendship with Bill if he had instantly forgiven Missy? And yet despite all that, he still attempts to make one final appeal. He asks her to stand with him, still wants to be friends and work together. But she turns him down—for her own reasons, I know—and he doesn’t even try to stop her walking away. He lets her leave of her own volition.

So please, tell me where in all of that the Doctor was abusive towards Missy. The Doctor and the Master’s relationship is complicated and fucked up, okay, it always has been. But wow, some of you all will slap the word ‘abuse’ on anything when your fave doesn’t get their way.

#the doctor #twelfth doctor #missy #the master #gomez!master #doctor who #emerson rants #pls pay pay no attention to me #i just needed to scream into the void a little

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becketted · 7 years ago

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My Top 10 (+1) Favorite Underrated Daisy Moments

#birthdayfordaisy2 Day 1 - canon:

Agents of SHIELD is Daisy Johnson’s origin story, and as such is full of big, iconic moments of Daisy being a flawless hero, from headbutting Nazis to shooting herself to avoid harm to the team. But there are also a million little, lowkey moments that show Daisy’s compassion, intelligence, empathy, vulnerability and morals just as well. Here’s some of my favorites:

1. “Spacetime” is such an ode to the flawlessness of Daisy Johnson, with so many amazing big moments that it’s easy to miss the smaller ones. I love this one because it’s so Daisy, it speak volumes about her stunning empathy and her instinct to put others before her. Here Daisy knows that if she touches Charles she will receive a horrific, painful vision of someone dying, and that she will not be able to stop it from becoming true. It had happened to her before and it’s horrifying. But she can’t help but reach out and touch Charles, to comfort him in his dying moments and try to reassure him that she will keep her promise of protecting his daughter. That’s who Daisy is, she just can’t help it.

2. I had fallen hard for Daisy in the pilot already, but the second episode of the show confirmed she was indeed a very special and unusual character. But in an episode where she spectaculary saves the rest of cast’s asses by coming up with the idea of blowing up a hole in the plane it’s easy to miss the most quiet moments where she just... talks about politics. In fact her anti-colonial stance siding with the Peruvian opposition and her obvious distaste of SHIELD’s support of the oppressive regime. Thrown in a group of people who either were used to following orders or didn’t question them at all or were a secret Nazi, Daisy’s definied political inclinations and maturity are refreshing. And shocking for a mainstream superhero show!

3. Once I got attacked by someone in fandom for pointing out Daisy’s capacity to follow Fitz’s reasoning in this scene, the person accusing me of “exaggerating” Daisy’s intelligence. Whatever: Daisy is smarter than your faves. This moment was so exciting, you can see in Daisy’s face early on that she gets what Fitz is explaining about the portal way before anyone else does, and that it’s going to be up to her to open it, despite the fact that the frequency hurts her (Chloe acts this so well - like everything else - her worry about what the portal might do to her drowned out by her brave willingness to help). The travelling shot towards her is epic, but I love what comes before, one of the many times Daisy proves lowkey that despite having dropped out of high school and not having academic training (something other characters have thrown in her face to dismiss her) she is often the quickest brain in the room.

4. All the Daisy-Jiaying scenes are amazing but this one might be my favorite. Daisy standing up to her mother (whom she has spent her whole life searching) because she believes it’s irresponsible to kick Cal out of Afterlife and it might endanger humans. Daisy stating she’s still a SHIELD agent and that humans are her responsibility as much as Inhumans. She states it so nonchalant but it’s so dreamy, her integrity, her worry for people she will never meet, her compassion for Cal’s situation. And she takes it upon herself to be the one who explains the decision to him, even if she doesn’t agree with it, because that’s the only chance at keeping him calm and people safe. UGH DAISY.

5. I love how in retrospect you can see what triggered Daisy’s decision of pushing Coulson through the door of the prison cafeteria and breaking the lock so that he and May would be protected from the fight with the Watchdogs. The bad guys are only after SHIELD because they side with the Inhumans, and Daisy is not going to let others pay for what she believes it’s her fight. Of course SHIELD are just doing the right thing protecting Inhumans but this is Daisy’s overwhelming sense of responsibility - such as heroes tend to have. She’s still injured and knows the odds are against her but she can’t put the others at risk if she can help it.

6. This is a rare moment for Daisy. Not that she chooses to agree to Ward’s twisted demands so that he would give SHIELD information that could save lives (that was predictable), or that she is afraid to come face to face with the Hydra agent who betrayed her, emotionally abused her and in their last interaction threatened to rape her. What’s rare is that Daisy openly says she’s afraid in front of someone. She doesn’t even make much of a joke, as would be her MO. She just admits how terrified she is of Ward being able to get to her somehow to Koenig, perhaps seeking the reassurance Koenig gives her. Daisy tends to hide her fear and discomfort. It says a lot of her past experiences that she considers her distress either an annoyance to other or a burden. It was good of the show to give her this little moment when she can let go a bit, right before going down to the vault where she couldn’t show her enemy how afraid she was of her. Probably accidental but I also find it meaningful that she does it precisely in front of someone who had lost a brother at the hands of that very same enemy, an event Daisy later qualifies as feeling responsible for.

7. Daisy didn’t believe at first that SHIELD could attack Afterlife (even though SHIELD agents had hunted her and shot at her just a few days earlier) but the moment she sees an innocent Inhuman gunned down and shot at (with real bullets!) by a SHIELD agent she doesn’t think twice to side with the people she believes most vulnerable in this situation and fight the organization she’s a part of, the organization that has come to mean “home” to her; she doesn’t even hesitate to go against her SO and friend. Then of course when she finds out the Inhumans were being victimized not by SHIELD but by her own mother Daisy doesn’t think twice to go against Jiaying, she stands up against her and to protect both humans and Inhumans. But that first instinct to side with Afterlife after witnessing violence against Inhumans by SHIELD -which this shitty fandom qualified as “betrayal” lmao nope- I will always love that moment, because it shows that for Daisy doing what she believes is right is more important than any concept of loyalty, and that’s such a great, unusual characteristic for a protagonist to have.

8. A quiet moment, but an example of quintessential hero tropes in Daisy’s journey. Having been shot and almost dying for taking on Quinn on her own Daisy now starts her recovery with renewed determination to become stronger, protect herself and others - the scene is also full of her empathy towards Mike Peterson, and her frustration at having been too weak to help him (while absolving him of responsibility because she knows he must be under some form of control). Also it’s pretty awesome how in this scene Ward is trying to pull some macho “I must be the one to protect you!” bullshit and Daisy is having NONE of that crap and insists on improving her training.

9. One of the most moving and heartbreaking moments in Daisy’s journey (and she has so much heartbreak to deal with!). The first words she says after being freed from Hive - the monster who forced her to become the thing Daisy fears the most: someone who uses her powers to hurt people- are a declaration that she is Daisy Johnson, that she is a SHIELD agent and that she’s coming “home”, the Playground. Home is such a loaded term for Daisy, such a fragile thing and this moment is so raw with the emotion of Daisy, who has just seen a person she cares for sacrifice his life so she can escape Hive, desperate to come back where she feels she belongs. And when she arrives Coulson confirms that yes, she is still an agent, that this is still where she belongs, and HER FACE when she hears those words she said repeated at her is so touching, Chloe’s acting is so good and painful here.

10. This was literally one of the coolest thing on tv ever - which of course got a bit forgotten with what came after, and Daisy’s brave ordeal facing Ward in the next episode. What Daisy did here, putting back Ward’s clever system of knowing if someone had been to the storage room, where he had hidden Koenig’s murdered body, was unbelievably badass: in a few minutes -while Ward washed blood off his hands- Daisy had to process the idea that her SO and friend, the guy who had just kissed her, was in truth a Hydra spy, who had killed Eric Koenig and possibly Victoria Hand (if not May, who Daisy was surprised to learn had left and she probably thought Ward had taken her out as well), and who might kill her if he suspected Daisy knew his true self. She had to keep completely silent upon finding a dead body, fight her way through a panic attack upon finding Ward’s betrayal, swallow her hurt and fear, find a way to warn the rest of the team of Ward’s intentions in case she didn’t make it AND replace the coin at the top of the door in the storage room. She did all this and still managed to put on a perfect poker face and convince Ward that she didn’t suspect anything and that she was stil interested in him. Biggest hero ever.

11. All awkward, not knowing how to react, when finally shown public appreciation after saving the city. Daisy Johnson is not only the bravest, smartest, kindest character, she’s also THE CUTEST. The end.

#birthdayfordaisy2 #aos meta #daisy johnson #agents of shield #quake #daisy is the only marvel superhero

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