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legendsofmyriad · 2 years ago

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Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 11: Unsettled Dreams

Chapter 10 | Chapter 12

Arc One Masterlist

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“Before all of this, a forest lay to the north, and a river which followed the mountains to the east,” Bartholomew explained, gesturing beyond the window and out to the sprawling roil of ash. “I built my lab here to be close to everything. Town roads, mountain paths, harbours. To the west there are more islands.”

“And what about them?” Lilith asked. “Are they also experiencing storms?”

“I’m not sure,” the professor replied. “I cannot find signals for their gateways, and with The Core sleeping, there is no way of telling.”

Violet eyes flickered over the desolate wasteland outside. Lilith couldn’t say she’d ever experienced anything like this, but Bartholomew’s descriptions invoked a land of serenity, balance, and wonder, and she understood why he wanted it back. “Funny how quickly all of this slipped into myth,” she mused. “When my guardian told me of the nine worlds, and gateways to other realms, I took them as stories. But they’re real, aren’t they?”

“All stories have at least a little truth in them. Some more than others.”

Lilith drifted closer to the window. Through the hazy veil of ash she glimpsed the curve of a giant rib cage, jagged remnants of war reaching for the misty sky. In the back of her mind, her own world’s recent history resurfaced, and she fought against the waves of disquiet. “Has the planet fallen into a sleep before or become unreachable?”

“Not exactly,” Bartholomew said, leaning his hip on the glass and folding his arms. “The Core, like most sentient beings, needs times of dormancy. When that happens, it is more comparable to a brief nap rather than a deep slumber, and I can always communicate if needed.”

“You’ve never been totally cut off?”

With a mournful shake of his head, the professor peered at the scuffs on his once spotless shoes.

“In theory, what do we do if we can’t wake it up?” Lilith asked.

“I… I do not know,” Bartholomew sighed. “Myriad would be without its protector.”

“How?”

“The Core acts as a central system, scanning the entirety of Myriad. Everything is monitored from here, from localised unrest to warning networks. When the gateways shut down, all became confined to each individual world, but now… you may have institutes of Delorem eyeing the capabilities of Solgarde and they can travel there within seconds. Just as an example, of course.”

“So we’re talking inter-world conflicts that have the potential to escalate quickly?”

Bartholomew hummed. “It is not the technology in here that allows me to watch over Myriad; it is The Core. They work in tandem, you see, I designed it that way. In the past, when issues arose, I blocked access to the gateways, but if we cannot monitor the nine worlds effectively, we may be too late to respond to any problems.”

“In that case,” Lilith said, “we had better wake this planet up while everyone is still trying to figure out what’s going on.”

As she drew her shoulders back and lifted her chin, Bartholomew regarded the soldier within her, disciplined and capable. Mighty beyond her years. And yet a tinge of mercy lingered in her eyes, hidden in the depths of her resolve. Taking a moment to stand in her presence, he realised why he had been warned not to cross the Sunbreak guards on Solgarde.

A noise of enthusiasm from the stairs diverted their attention from the window. Altair all but bounded down the winding steps from the upper levels and wrung his hands.

“Professor Spark, your laboratory is magnificent,” he gushed. “I fear I could spend a lifetime in here and still not be able to study everything. Tell me, is that crown on the second balcony truly made of pure starlight?”

“It is,” Bartholomew said. “I helped the merfolk of Aetherdril some… oh, must be eight hundred years ago now, and they practically shoved it on me as a recompense for my troubles. ”

“I look forward to hearing all about your adventures. And your discoveries.”

“Once The Core is awake, I will be more than happy to oblige. While Commander Cleaver and I are gone, you can peruse the library if you wish. My collection contains some books I think you may find enlightening.”

“Some,” Lilith laughed. “I guarantee he’ll sink into every page in this room. The only thing hindering him is time.”

Altair shot her a raised eyebrow. His heart filled with warmth at the responding grin. It had been so long since he’d seen her smile like that, since she’d had a reason to smile, and he wanted to cherish the moment a little longer.

“Perhaps you could accompany me to assess the situation outside, Professor Spark,” Lilith said. “I’m sure Altair would appreciate some quiet to explore the lab on his own.”

At her request, Bartholomew walked her to the door. She cast a fleeting glance at the exuberant man she’d known for over a decade, the man who’d fostered her talents and spurred her ambitions, and hoped he’d found his new calling. The stars above knew they both needed it.

* * *

In a measured breath, Lilith closed her eyes and let her power flow into the planet. Trailing her fingertips across the rough and grainy ground, a prickle of unease began to creep up her skin. She altered her direction and slowed her efforts, hushing the restless world with soothing waves of magic.

From the covered veranda, Bartholomew leaned against the remaining railing and watched the mage at work. Her aura surged, swelling and radiating out into the storm. Soft violet streams embraced her and poured underground. Inside, lightning forked in a blood-red hue, the Eventide and Imperial energy twirling in tandem and amplifying the effects of the other. He’d never encountered a magical synergy like it. Three hundred years ago, he’d have insisted it was impossible for one person to control the strength of two Solgardian crystals. And yet, Lilith Cleaver had managed to prove his theory wrong in a way so remarkable that he had to shake himself from his reverie and remind himself to breathe.

“I can pick up The Core sleeping,” she said, blinking a few times to adjust to the hazy light. “But the further I try to go, the more difficult it is to detect anything.”

“Here.” Bartholomew knelt down next to her and pressed his palm to the ground close to hers, tendrils of his own silver magic suffusing through his fingers. “If I enhance what you’re detecting, it might make it clearer.”

Minutes passed in concentrated silence. Ash whirled in clumsy spirals and bumped into their auras. The wails and howls of wind gradually died down until all that was left was the laboured breathing of the world.

Professor Spark adhered to Lilith’s path and allowed her to guide him, lending her the extra power she needed to access the multiple layers of The Core’s psyche. “I would not attempt to get through that way,” he advised, as they hit a blockade. “Try the other route. That’s it.”

“What was that?” she asked, brows pinched. “It wasn’t coming from The Core. Is there something else there?”

“I am not sure,” he replied. “Carry on and see what else you can find.”

At the end of their trail, they reached a clump of inky clouds, pulsating and writhing like the heartbeats of a wild beast. Every instinct screamed at Lilith to retract her magic and never attempt such an undertaking again, but the professor held with her, bolstering their efforts. “It’s like a nightmare,” she said. “Is that even possible? Does The Core dream?”

Bartholomew hummed and nibbled at the inside of his cheek. A nightmare was an apt way to describe what he detected within his beloved world, yet a dread prodded at him that silently spoke of something deeper. Something darker than any nightmare could ever be.

“There is a link between the storm and the troubled dreams,” he said, reaching a little further to correlate his theory with the findings. “I have a feeling the situation up here is creating the nightmares.”

“I’m getting that too.” Gently, so as not to disturb the slumbering world further, Lilith withdrew and rose to her feet. “I couldn’t pick up exactly what the nightmares were. Did you?”

“No,” Bartholomew replied, pushing himself up and wiping the lost grains of ash from his trousers.

“Is that something we should worry about?”

“Not that I can tell. Whatever The Core is seeing, I do not believe it pertinent to our current predicament.”

“At least that’s a positive,” Lilith sighed, shimmying the wrist straps on her fingerless gloves to take them off. Barbs of red and faded lilac blotches stuck to the skin between her fingers. Angling away from the professor, she shook them loose. “Sorry. Old mage habit. So many students end up in the medical bay with bruises all over their hands because they don’t check for residual energy after practice.”

When she slipped off her vambraces and pushed up her sleeve, Bartholomew spotted a littering of faint streaks. The smudges of ghostly white almost blended in with her natural complexion, but the pale pink hue on the borders made them more distinct. She itched them with a grumble and caught him looking. He quickly diverted his gaze, squinting out at the storm.

“I don’t mind,” she assured him. “I’m luckier than some.”

“It is easy to forget that centuries of history have passed me by while I was asleep,” Bartholomew admitted. “Outside, so much has shifted, and yet in my head it still feels like everything is the same as before. But wars have been fought and won. Rulers have risen and fallen, and civilisations have changed.”

“If we can settle this storm, The Core may wake up,” Lilith said, “and then, you’ll be able to watch a new era thrive. I know I’d rather see peace than more conflict.”

“Then we have our mission,” Bartholomew declared, adjusting his glasses. “Are you with me, Commander Cleaver?”

A smile tugged at Lilith’s lips, and she accepted the outstretched hand. “You’re offering me an adventure. How could I refuse?”

* * *

“How did it go?” Altair asked from his seat by the holographic map of Myriad. “Any good news?”

“The storm is keeping The Core asleep,” Bartholomew said. “If we can settle that, then with some luck, it will wake.”

“Only problem is we’re not sure how to get rid of the storm,” Lilith added, dropping into a wheeled chair and slipping her vambraces back into place. “There must be a book or something in here with an answer.”

Ruminating on the thought, Bartholomew surveyed the lab, looking upon the numerous bookcases that filled the first and second balconies. Although he owned many volumes on strange weather phenomena, he couldn’t recall any containing information on storms like this. To get the answers he needed, he had to look further than his personal collection. “I doubt my books will provide a solution, but there is one place that might just have something.”

Long, purposeful strides carried him to the monitors, and he keyed in a series of co-ordinates, mumbling to himself as he scrutinised the data. “The Core’s moon holds the largest library in all of Myriad. If the information we seek is going to be anywhere, we will find it there. Ah… it appears we may have a problem. The library gateways didn’t trigger when you activated the others, but fixing it should not be too difficult.”

Bartholomew crouched down by the hexagonal podium and unlocked the panel underneath. He inspected the inner workings and unhooked some tools from his belt, motioning for Lilith to move closer. “Those wires at the side,” he said, pointing to a clump of cables with his screwdriver. “Can you push them back for me and hold them?”

She cautiously inserted her hand into the opening and shifted the wiring aside, making sure her digits weren’t in the way as he began his task. “I always thought the gateways were powered by pure magic. Seems weird to see the inside.”

“Shall I explain how the mechanism works?” Bartholomew offered, the tip of his tongue sticking out in concentration.

At the eager nod, and Professor Bevan’s curious gaze lifting from behind a heavy tome, he tapped on the first connector box. “This here is the coupler motor, which connects to the navigation system. From there, it feeds into the Eventide crystal, and signals the output. That contacts the desired gateway and prepares for transportation. The issue here is with that communication. To link up to an inactive gateway, we must boost the signal. Small gateways like this seldom possess the capacity on their own.”

He swapped out the slender cables and proceeded with his explanations, providing them with a comprehensive summary of the whole system and the fundamentals of temporal travel. “Naturally, there is more than just that,” he said, shutting the hatch and viewing the readings, “but that is the basis.”

“Do you have any books in here on the gateways?” Altair questioned.

“Dozens. They should be on the second balcony bookshelves, right at the far end. Although you are free to peruse my personal research while Lilith and I are away. You’ll find some files in the middle drawer of my desk.”

Altair’s face shone with delight and his eyes gleamed. “That is extremely kind of you. Thank you.”

“Hate to interrupt this heart-warming moment,” Lilith said, “but if you two are finished patting each other on the back, we’ve got a job to do.”

“Of course,” Altair replied, surrendering with a chortle. “You’ll soon discover, Professor Spark, that Lilith is no stranger to adventure. Once she has it in her grasp, it is quite difficult to persuade her away from it.”

Lilith’s eyebrow arched, and he strolled back to the winding staircases, his excitement to explore the pages and records of times long forgotten lingering in his faint smile.

Bartholomew took his place at the console by the gateway and input the code to the library. Lines juddered and what should have been a steady flow fluctuated.

The mage observed him wordlessly. His brow furrowed, and a disgruntled noise rumbled in his throat. “Another problem?”

“No, nothing that will hinder us,” he said. “Once the situation has been rectified with The Core and the storms, I will teach you how to operate the gateways properly. As a catalyst, that knowledge is your birthright.”

“A catalyst?”

“One who holds the power to control the gateways. How do you think you opened them in the first place? It is in your blood.”

Mumbling instructions to himself, he tried another method, and the frequency settled into a low hum. He let out a short ‘ah’ in triumph and spun to the waiting woman. “Come on, commander. No time to waste. We have a planet to wake.”

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If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider reblogging. Reblogging helps to get work out there and seen.

#legendsofmyriad #legends of myriad #story series #fantasy #fantasy writing #fantasy story #creative writing #writblr #writing #original writing #original fic

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ordinaryxtreme · 2 years ago

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Blue Lock Thoughts(tm) Post

So I read Blue Lock up to the U-20 match and let me just say that having a lot of thoughts about it is an understatement. These are not Smart(tm) thoughts at all, just me screaming into the void. I'll mostly be talking abt third selection up to U-20 match so spoilers for up to ch 148!!

Chigiri and Kunigami

MY SHIP... The third selection truly made them so Spicy. They could've been the dynamic duo that perseveres together all the way through the selection, but they got separated and Kunigami didn't even make it PAST the third selection, at least, not in the normal way. I was upset at the reveal (I was very embarrassingly yelling to my friend in voice chat while reading) because I missed their banter. But now that I think about it, we now have the knight/hero rising up from the ashes to meet his princess again and I'm now so glad this was the outcome. As my friend so eloquently put it, it's super cool that Blue Lock isn't afraid to separate their duos. Which brings me to the next duo...

2. Reo and Nagi

Reo's separation from Nagi is honestly the best thing to happen to both of their characters. Reo didn't really interest me as a character until Nagi left him and he was all gunning for revenge. I thought they were going for some sort of villain arc with him, but what they did was SO much better. Yes, Reo was understandably bitter for some time, but he changed stances and saw it from a different point of view really quickly. We literally watched him go through the 5 stages of grief.

And then come back stronger after his acceptance. Even finding a crazy ability to call his own.

And he OWNS it too. That moment when Shidou made fun of him for being a copy-cat, he DOUBLED DOWN ON IT and taunted him for not even being able to beat a copy-cat. Now that's the ultimate power move.

My favorite favorite FAVORITE thing is... he is still a duo with Nagi. They still sync perfectly well. They still know each other the best. Reo turned his spite on its head and came back to Nagi at full force.

What can I say except NAGIREO REAL!!!!! OK next point.

3. Bachira & Isagi

Honestly, I kinda didn't expect Bachira and Isagi to develop almost like a parallel to Nagi and Reo. I love how Bachira is portrayed. He obviously has some mental disorder (I'm guessing ASD or adjacent) and the way it's portrayed as a monster which Bachira eventually hones into his own... At first he just wanted friends, he wanted people who play just like him, to accept him as he is and that was what Isagi was to him. But in the end having others accepting him wasn't enough. He had to accept HIMSELF, his monster. And because of that he came in SEVENTH after the third selection!!!

Honestly, it was one of the most satisfying character development moments.

And again, after that, his and Isagi's duo play just comes out stronger.

Just Dynamic Duo Things.

3. Barou and Rin

I put these two together because they feel like the ultimate sports trope subversion. It's almost BLASPHEMOUS how they essentially become the egotistical "villains" of the field.

I love Barou as a character too, he is SO GAP MOE. Who would've thought that he was a malewife that was obsessed with keeping things neat? I want to destroy his ass. Ahem.

Anyway, Rin. He literally went fucking BONKERS at the idea that he has a team behind him. HE WANTS IT ALL TO HIMSELF.

THIS SHIT WOULD LITERALLY NEVER FLY IN A NORMAL SPORTS STORY. Which brings me to my favorite thing about Blue Lock

4. It is simultaneously a love letter AND a blasphemy to the sports genre.

I had a Kuroko no Basket phase years ago and I KNOW a KnB inspired story when I see one. Of course there's references and concepts that Blue Lock obviously borrowed from KnB. I could easily list all of them like the concept of "Flow" that is totally not KnB's "zone", the copy guy, the "emperor style", Aryuu Juubei who is totally not a homage to Murasakibara... References and concepts are easy to insert into any story. The important part is the Utter Unhingedness. They took KnB's barely believable superpowers and high school drama and all these high stakes that are totally just made up in the characters heads... and turned it up to 11.

KnB was a level of "skirting the boundary of what's humanly possible" that is still acceptable. Yeah, people thought it was insane and were laughing about it, but it didn't really have "haters". It's still just regular sports. But Blue Lock said fuck that, they're going to be straight up CONTROVERSIAL. There's no point if it doesn't have passionate haters. This isn't sports as you know it. And I respect that so much honestly. (If you've been on anitwt recently, you'll know that fans of conventional sports stories DESPISE Blue Lock).

I think with the sports genre becoming this Big Thing(tm) and the market somewhat becoming saturated over the years, this kind of blasphemy is exactly what the genre needs right now.

Speaking of blasphemy...

5. Itoshi Sae vs. Itoshi Rin

I love the whole angel vs demon thing going on with them. I love Sae's beautiful perfection and Rin's feral animal-like approach

(short digression, as a STEM major nerd I fucking LOVE the numbers in the visualization of Sae's abilities. I'm betting that it's the golden ratio because you won't get a number more perfect anywhere else!!)

I love their entire silent sequence against each other. No dialogue, no SFX. They were silently communicating with their bodies and with their eyes the way only brothers could. In a way, this is brotherly bonding :D

I love that Rin, and the Blue Lock team, is painted as the "villains" of the sports scene. And they won against U-20, the "heroes". They changed sports forever.

6. The unseriousness of it all (my lovehate letter to Isagi Yoichi)

In the end this is a manga about SOCCER. The characters take it WAY too seriously because they're dumbasses who literally only have soccer in their brains. It's honestly hilarious at times. But damn, if I'm not invested in this unreal, unserious, BFFR shit!!! Every time Isagi realizes something that is common sense (like when he "discovered" that luck also plays a part in games) I die a little bit inside.

BOY YOU ARE STUPID AND DRAMATIC AND GAY AND I LOVE YOU. Blue Lock would not be the same if Isagi wasn't the protagonist. If you think about it, every insane visualization of everyone's abilities is how ISAGI sees their abilities. This shit we are seeing, all the puzzle pieces, the fire, the thunder... is all in Isagi's head. And once he gets out of the game, he's literally just an awkward high school boy.

I guess he can be cute sometimes.

8. (For now) I don't think Blue Lock will end the way Ego says it will. (A love letter to Ego)

Muneyuki Kaneshiro you did it again. If you haven't read his other work, Kamisama no Iutoori and Kamisama no Iutoori ni, please do so. Having read those, I'm half-convinced that he'll pull an Akashi on us and give Isagi a canon love interest by the end AHAHA.

Digression aside, Ego said that by the end, there will be 1 striker to stand above all 299 "corpses" as he so elegantly put it. But I honestly don't think that'd happen. I have no basis for this other than the fact that it would just feel WRONG to end it like that. They wanted the sport to evolve by "creating soccer from zero", playing different positions with the ego of a striker. Honestly, I wouldn't see the point in all that when there's only 1 striker to survive in the end, you feel me?

Ego may have only said that to rile the boys up. He's playing the role of the ultimate "villain" for the boys to conquer. Now that's a very questionable approach to coaching but it sure fucking works!!! I really really love it.

And he KNOWS his methods are questionable at best, enough to get him banned from the world of soccer forever. He didn't care about himself if it meant these boys will evolve and play the ultimate soccer.

He really knows how to cultivate the perfect little "villains". Sure, it involved literally isolating them from the outside world in what is the equivalent of Soccer Jail, but you gotta do what you gotta do! :D

Honestly my wishful thinking is they end up with 11 top Blue Lock players (maybe a few more for the bench) and they get to compete internationally or something. Go beyond the scope and scale of regular sports manga... But I guess I'll just have to see what happens next!

OK. Alright. I think I'm done now. If you read this all, thank you for coming to my TED Talk!!!!

#blue lock #long post #bllk #i hate you isagi (affectionate)

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bijoharvelle · 4 years ago

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The party starts winding down around ten. The guests who came from not-so-far have left, lingering longer for just one more hug, one more goodbye. Jack convinced all of “Dean’s kids” (as Krissy had declared all of them with a wide arc of her arm and a smile) to spend the night so they’ve commandeered the Dean Cave. Much to Dean’s dismay, they managed to sync someone’s phone to the television in there and are laughing in bursts and fits at something called Tiktok.

The rest of the stragglers are sprawled easily in the main room. Sam and Cas shoved a bunch of the more comfortable chairs into the area so everyone has a seat. Jody, Ellen, and Bobby are all talking low and laughing in a way that can only spell trouble. Charlie and Mary are debating the pros and cons of the Blood Hunter class in Dungeons and Dragons, while Bess and Eileen interject with arguments for Cleric and Druid respectively. Nearby, Sam somehow wrangled Garth into flipping through some book that he discovered (Dean heard the word “lore” and ran). And in a far corner, Benny and Jo are leaning into each other in such a way that makes Dean avert his eyes (aside from the inherent panic of exes meeting up, he does think they could be good for each other in a weird way).

And at the helm of it all, in the doorway of the hall from the kitchen is Dean. He’s been standing here for the past fifteen minutes, maybe, after slipping out for another beer. When he came back, he was struck at the sight before him. All these people, together, alive. He loves them all, each of them, so much. And they all love him. They all came here, tonight, for him, to celebrate his life.

If you had asked him at just about any time in his life, Dean would have said that the only time a gathering like this would have been possible would have been right after his body was ash on a pyre. He was always sure celebrations of his life would be funereal.

He’s forty-two years old and at each birthday he got before this, he was certain he wouldn’t make it to the next one. Bloody, or broken, or with a gun in his hand. That was his ending, he thought.

There’s the smooth, solid warmth of someone behind him. Dean’s eyes close and the smile on his face widens as he prays, instinctively, Cas. He rocks back on his heels a little, lets some of his weight settle against the angel. “Took you long enough,” he says on a sigh.

Cas maneuvers himself so he’s pressed into Dean’s side, one arm around his waist. “It was hard to leave them,” Cas says, like he’s surprised by it. Maybe half an hour ago, he offered to put the twins down for Bess and Garth. “They fell asleep quite easily, but I found it...hard to walk away.” There’s an awe in his voice that makes Dean’s heart skip a little.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “Babies are nice.”

They’re quite for a minute, both of them looking out at the room.

Turning his head, Cas presses a kiss into the hinge of Dean’s jaw, and then another right at the crest of his cheek. “Happy birthday, Dean,” he says with his mouth still close so that the words rush along his skin, warm and safe.

“Thanks, sunshine.” Dean twists so he can get his arm over Cas’s shoulder, bring them both in closer to each other. “Best one yet.”

credit to @sunforgrace because i finally had inspiration to write a thing for Dean after reading their post (linked in the ficlet).

#chayya writes #destiel #deancas #destiel ficlet #deancas ficlet #happy birthday dean #dean's birthday #my stuff #my fanfic

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yamujiburo · 4 years ago

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Jessie and Cassidy reconciliation fanfic thing

I was going through my notes app just now to just clear out some junk and I found something I'd written like a year ago and totally forgot about hahhaha. I don't usually do fanfics but I guess I was in a writing mood that night. I can't remember why I stopped. I either got stuck, didn't know how I wanted it to end or was just having a hard time figuring out like,,,, the arcs and what I wanted the main focus of the story to be. Anyhow, here it is if you wanna read the set up I made for it haha

Jessie, James and Meowth have once again failed to complete a mission and Matori is TIRED of it. She brings it up go Giovanni who tells her not to worry about them. Matori can’t figure out why Giovanni puts up with them and starts digging on possible reasons why Giovanni would keep them around. She decides to go to HR to find answers. There, she meets Wendy.

“Ah– Matori!”

“Pull up records for Jessie, James and–“, Matori notices that Wendy already has Jessie’s files pulled up and gives her a strange look.

“I see you’re already doing your research on Miss Jessie…”

“N-no! Well, yes. It’s just that Jessie has continuously failed almost all missions she’s been assigned! Not to mention she’s singlehandedly almost made the organization go broke. Well, not really but she still owes a lot of money!”

“And the other two?”

“Huh? Oh yeah them, too I guess.”

“I just don’t understand what Giovanni could possible see in them. They’re not good for Team Rocket.”

“Tell me about it, I’ve been trying to get the boss to fire them for years. But he’s got a real soft spot for them apparently. Tch, to think they were the top of their class once.”

“Hmph, I find that hard to believe.”

“I can’t speak for James and Meowth, but Jessie really was a promising recruit. So much so that when she threatened to quit, she somehow manipulated every exec into fulfilling her demands.”

“Threatened to quit?” The gears in Matori’s head began to turn. Sure Giovanni wouldn’t fire the trio, but if they were to quit, there would be nothing he could do.

“Yeah, she had a falling out with her first partner. And instead of being PROFESSIONAL she wined until she got a new one. Then she proceeded to go through like 10 more partners until James came along. If you’ve ever talked to her I’m sure you can tell she’s not the easiest person to work with.”

“Hm. Perhaps it’s time to switch up some teams.”

“C-can you do that? Is that allowed?”

“I could pull some strings.”

“Isn’t that sabotage?” Wendy asks. Matori shoots her a look.

“Call it what you want, but it’s my job to make sure this organization is successful as possible. Getting rid of some problem lackeys will only benefit Team Rocket. If Giovanni won’t do anything about them, then I will.”

“Matori. You are my hero”

“Are there any potential candidates we could temporarily team them up with? Or members they’ve been known to… not get along with?”

A big, Gengar-like smile creeps on Wendy’s face. “I know just the agents.”

_____________________________________________________________

Early in the morning in Jessie and James’ base, they get a call from Matori. Jessie is already annoyed, knowing who’s calling, but she wakes up her team members just in case it was Giovanni.

“A little early don’t you think, Matori?” Matori composes herself and ignores Jessie’s jab.

“Giovanni hasn’t arrived yet, but I have very important news.” Jessie, James and Meowth’s interests are piqued. “Your success rates have been… less than exemplary. But, you have previously shown you are exceptional agents.”

Jessie is taken aback by the, sort of, compliment from Matori. “So what’s the issue?”

“We have reason to believe that, while neither of you are individually the reason for your constant failures, you are incompatible as a team and you are going to be reassigned to different partners, effective immediately.”

James and Meowth look at each other shocked, and the thoughts going through their head were interrupted by their soon to be, not-leader. “WHAT?! You can’t split us up! We–“

“I apologize for the inconvenience. But this is for the benefit of Team Rocket. I do not have time to argue this. It has already been decided and your new partners have been decided. James, you are to return to headquarters where you will meet your new partner and Jessie, you will remain where you are and your new partner will arrive tomorrow.”

“What about, Me-owth?”

Matori pauses. She hadn’t thought about the cat. “You can decide who you wish to go with. Thank you for your time. Best of luck with your new arrangements.”

Matori hangs up. Jessie, James and Meowth stand staring at the screen, solemn. What doe they do now? Years of working together over, just like that.

“UGH THAT LITTLE FOUR EYED BOWL CUT HAIRED FREAK! I’m gonna do something about this! They can’t do this to us!” James gently puts his had on Jessie’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing we can do,”

James packs up, Meowth has decided to go with James. They say their goodbyes. James and Meowth grab the rest of their things and leave. Jessie is left alone with her thoughts.

_____________________________________________________________

Back at headquarters, we see James and Meowth being led by Matori to her office where she says his new partner is waiting. She talks about how this member is in a very similar situation. They walk in and see short, green hair. “BUTCH???”

“Oh no not you guys!”

“If you’re my new partner, that must mean…”

“Oh no,” they all say in unison.

_____________________________________________________________

Jessie still lying in the same place on her bed. Why was she feeling this way? She’d been through so many parters before. Sure she’d been with James and Meowth longer, but she wasn’t one to get attached. Well, not anymore. In the middle of her thought, she hears the elevator to the base coming down. She gets up and makes herself as presentable as possible (over shirt is off, makeup kinda smeared, boots off). Before she can get her shit together, a pair of white boots click, clack in. Jessie looks up, and the flash of orange, blonde seared her eyes.

“CASSIDY?!”

“JESSIE?!”

“No, no, no there has to be some sort of mistake. I can’t be teamed up with you! I hate you!”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“I can’t believe I going to have to work with your ugly ass every day.”

“You’re one to talk. Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Jessie turned to the standup mirror leaning against the wall. She was definitely not looking her best.

“You caught me at a bad time!”

“You sure? I recall you always looking this ratty. I guess it has been a while since I’ve seen you, thank goodness," Cassidy said smugly. Jessie was already pissed off.

“We’re calling Matori RIGHT NOW to fix this.”

“Gee, while you’re looking like that?”

“I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT.” Jessie picked up the communicator, which brandished a large R on the wall. Matori picked up.

“Good afternoon Jessie, are you aware that you’re not in uniform?”

“Cut the crap you clod! You set me up with Cassidy on purpose!”

“Ah I see you’ve met your new partner! Hello, Cassidy.”

“Matori,” Cassidy said with a small bow. Of course Cassidy was trying to stay composed. Just another way to try one-up Jessie.

“We can NOT work together. I demand you put me back on my old team!”

“While I’m not one to disagree with higher ups, Miss Matori, I unfortunately have to side with Jessie on this one. You might not be aware but Jessie and I were partners once in our training days. We simply are not compatible,” Cassidy explained as politely as possible.

“Was there a reason for this, incompatibility? I was looking through your records and it appeared that you two were quite the team back in the day. I had assumed that the executives just wanted two top agents to be on other teams with some less skilled trainees.” Both Cassidy and Jessie blushed.

It was true that Jessie and Cassidy were at the top of their class for quite some time. But the reasons for them being split up were quite… personal.

“Listen, we just can’t work together. Try getting that through that helmet head of yours.”

_____________________________________________________________

~aaaaand this is where i got to~

Anyone wanna finish this for me? /j

I can't remember where I wanted this to go. I think I was gonna have Jessie and Cassidy try to suck it up and work together so they don't lose their jobs. They fight Ash and Goh, trying to get Pikachu as usual and quickly fail because of their bickering. They eventually have a heart to heart, wondering where they went wrong back when they were a team. They say a lot of things that they'd failed to communicate in the past and reconcile.

THEN this is where I kinda got stuck on what I wanted the focus/them to me. There was a version in my head where after they reconcile they like,,, make out and start falling in love again (for those new here, I firmly believe Jessie and Cassidy are bitter exes and had a falling out during their training days). After this their chemistry and communication improve immensely resulting in them succeeding to catch Pikachu. Matori comes to retrieve it but Ash and Goh get it back while it's in Matori's hands (making it her failure). And then I wasn't sure how to end this version. Maybe things going back to normal after Giovanni finds out that Jessie and Cassidy are dating and deems it unprofessional. Jessie, James and Meowth are reunited and Cassidy and Butch are as well. Happy ending were things are as they were but now Cassidy and Jessie are on good terms and still together maybe???

The oooother version was centering the story more around Jessie and her inability to keep her partners/not appreciating them. If I went with this I think I'd start off the story differently with her being a dick to James and Meowth (which she is a lot of the time but this time she crosses a line). After the team switch she finds that she really had been taking her teammates for granted. I think Cassidy and Jessie still have that heart to heart but then it's more about how Jessie hurt Cassidy and Jessie kinda realizes that she's still making the same errors currently. They reconcile buuut the both of them still want their old partners back so they hatch a plan to successfully steal Pikachu but ensure that Ash gets it back when it's in Matori's hands. They request that they be paired up with their old teammates and in exchange, wouldn't tell Giovanni that Matori messed up. Everything goes back to normal the end.

I had too many jumbled ideas and because I don't have the attention span to write for more than a couple hours I just dropped this LOL. Just thought I'd share in case anyone found this remotely interesting or entertaining hehe

#long post #yamushipping

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skytroops · 2 years ago

Photo

his two favourite boys.

This was drawn as fast as I could without making it a typical sketch because I wanted to get it done before the Ash vs Leon finale while making it look "finished". The outfits are probably in-correct but I didn't want to waste time thinking about that *shrug* Despite me dumping almost the entirety of JN's plot in Greyscale, Ash still does eventually take part in the World Coronation Series and goes up against Leon in the finals. Have a copy/paste about how that happens;

After the events of the Darkest Day, neither Ash or Leon were in any shape to have their championship match (and Leon had stepped up to take Rose's place after the chairman left a massive power vacuum post-arrest) so they both put their battle on an indefinite hold. Meanwhile Ash has a long break from battling/traveling to recover from his injuries, gets engaged and married, and makes a home in Alola with his new husband. Not long after settling in, he gets an invitation to take part in the newly formed World Coronation Series, which was founded by Leon. Leon has invited him into the Masters 8 (as he has already proved himself strong enough to be among his fellow champions), but Ash feels that he has fallen out of practice and decides to go through the ranks like everyone else. However he does promise that he'll be the winner once he and Leon finally meet again. He, predictably, doesn’t have much difficulty getting through the ranks (with a few fumbles, of course) and gets into the Masters 8. He probably goes through the same opponents as show canon, but does eventually end up in the finals against Leon. The scene I drew is meant to be the day before the finals, with Skye giving Ash and Pikachu the gayest pep talk imaginable. He is very proud and very in love. And on a personal note, I have been wanting to draw something like this since the Masters 8 arc started months back but never bothered. But then, a few days ago, the fandom found titles for upcoming episodes for December and the second title freaked me the fuck out (alongside almost ever Ash fan) because it gives the vibe that Ash. . .may retire. So that kicked my ass into overdrive to draw something before the finale aired because AAAAAAAA THIS MIGHT BE ASH'S LAST BATTLE EVER PANICPANICPANCHHF

#sparky's art #the ghey ass boyfriends;#the dream continues;#ASH AND PIKACHU KICK LEON AND CHARIZARD (AND CINDERACE)'S FUCKING ASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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bakugohoex · 4 years ago

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Iida,Kirashima and Bakugo with a s/o who is competing in that Pageant UA in the School Festival Arc?

“if you win, i’ll take you out tonight”

pairing: eijiro kirishima x female readers, katsuki bakugo x female reader

cw: language, sexual implications, fluff

word count: 2700+

a/n: umm hi, i hit 500 hundred followers earlier today and it just means so much to me thank you for the support also i don’t write for iida sorry

summary: in which you’re performing at the ua pageant and get a surprised visit from one of the boys with a proposal in mind

↞ back to my hero academia masterlist

eijiro kirishima

The black encased your figure perfectly, it was tight in all the right places and you looked perfect. Well that’s what Kirishima thought walking into where you and Mina were. Mina seemed to be holding a silver leotard with a skirt it didn’t look at good as the black did. The thigh high boots clinged to your thighs, he was drooling at the sight of the skin squishing at the top of them. Having been told by Midoriya who had brought Eri along to see the contestants, he had been in shock and instantly told the boy who had asked what had me the green haired boy redden.

“Hey Kiri, what’s up?” Hearing his nick name was heaven to his now red ears.

You gestured for him to move to the side, seeing a man come in with the rest of your costume. Mina in an instant told him where to put the stuff as you went closer to the red-haired boy. “You okay?”

You were worried at his unusual quietness, “I…I didn’t know you were doing the pageant.”

“Yeah, I kind of got dragged into doing it, Mina wanted me to.” You smile, you hadn’t realised how in his eyeshot’s were your boobs, but you didn’t care, you were just friends after all.

Even though on the walk towards him you might have pulled the top part to reveal more just for the boy. “Oh that’s cool, I’ll definitely vote for you.”

“I’m expecting you too.” You smile, your lips were a shade lighter then your original lip colour and your eyes had little star gems underneath. It was perfect, you were perfect.

“I was ugh, thinking that…” He paused thinking of the rehearsed words him and Sero had been practicing a mere hour ago when he had found out about you doing this, “if you win, I’ll take you out tonight.”

“Like a date?” You questioned.

He became even more beat red, matching his hair colour, you smiled at the boy waiting for an answer. He scratched the back of his head, “yes like a date.”

“I better win then.” You laughed before hearing Mina shout your name, “I’ll see you later.”

You leant to kiss his cheek before walking back to Mina who had gotten the end piece of your leotard. Kirishima touched his cheek a smile on his face as he left you, Mina had wrapped the dress around you leaving the from part uncovered. You looked amazing and Mina was happier that she had pulled this off than your actual looks.

“Okay, I think they’re going to call your name soon, I’ll be at the front row.” You nod watching her leave before pacing back and forth.

You had never done something like this and even with being as confident as you were, you were scared. But the sight of Kirishima and his blushing self had sent you into overdrive, the boy had asked you out and now you had to win. You heard your name and started walking to where the stage was, being a third year you had seen this many times with the class from Nejire winning in your first year and another person the next. Now it was your turn to win and you were up against some girls who were a lot prettier than you were. Whose quirks were amazing compared to yours.

“Now onto the stage we have class 3a Y/n Y/l/n.” You heard your name but were unable to move, you hesitantly wobbled onto the stage, the lights flashing. You were anxious but it soon dimmed at the sight of Kirishima, his wide shark teeth grin melted your heart. In an instance you gained the confidence, his thumbs up making you warm up inside.

Your quirk activated and, in an instant, you were up in the air controlling electricity through your fingertips. The way your hair filled up with the yellow sparks, you and Denki having a similar quirk, but you didn’t have an over exertion limit and yours was more lightening from the sky then anything else. You pranced about with it, making symbols and making everybody enchanted by your movement. It was a sight for sore eyes, the lightening clinging to the skirt that Mina had put on you before becoming ash in front of their eyes. They watched you emerge from it with the leotard that was now a bright red before landing right in front of Kirishima.

A grin on his face at the beauty he had just seen, you let the lightening strike behind you before taking a bow. Hearing cheers at the performance it was unexpected, it wasn’t amazing, and you thought it too similar to the previous third years, but Mina had said you’d put your own twist on it. Which you did in some ways, your hair moved back down to your body onto the red as you smiled at everybody. Kirishima gave a bright grin and you knew it’d take a while before the results came in.

“Y/n, that was fucking amazing.” She squealed jumping into your lap, you hugged her as she stayed sitting before seeing Kirishima and the rest of your class come in.

“You were brilliant, we had no idea you were doing the pageant.” Ururaka squeals hugging both you and Mina who wrapped an arm around your shoulder.

Kirishima smiled at you softly you hoped he wouldn’t back down on the agreement because you had only got the nerve to do it due to seeing him. “We’ll let you get changed.” Momo spoke picking Mina off of you and dragging her out.

You nodded and they all left again, Kirishima having been ushered along as well. You signed taking the stars off your face and wiping the makeup, you put on the UA uniform, your face finally breathing in natural air. You walked out, fearful of the result and really wanting to know if you were spending your night alone or not.

Hearing the announcement occur, you saw your friends in the crowd all cheering for you, you stood alongside the other girls. Waiting to hear the results, the wait seemed long and strenuous but at the sound of your name. Your eyes widened as banners popped out and a crown and sachet were put on your head.

Kirishima clapped grinning at how happy you were, what he didn’t realise was how you were joyous due to the proposition and not the winning. Walking towards the boy after being dismissed, you gave a soft smile the crown placed perfectly on your head.

“Congratulations Y/n.”

“Thank you, Kiri.” It was silent as you waited for him to talk, you played with the sachet, feeling accomplished at the win.

He finally looked up at you nervously, “about what I said earlier, if you…you don’t want to go out with me then…then that’s f…fine.”

You gave a nervous laugh which he took as mocking him, he was ready to walk away, “of course we’re going out tonight, I’ll be ready by 6.”

You went to kiss his cheek again, a feeling he had missed, the close contact being unbearable before you leant in to kiss him. His soft lips on your own, hands on your waist whilst yours were in the red locks. It was a pretty sight, and the class were more shocked at this then you doing the pageant. With mouths open and confusion riddled throughout them.

katsuki bakugo

The muffles from inside the room that was supposed to have the pageant contestants sounded eerily like you and Mina. Bakugo had been walking past trying to find where Kirishima had gone with his phone. But instead had heard you and Mina in the room, barging through with a knock, you both screamed before realising who it was.

“Knock next time,” Mina muttered to the boy helping you put the sparkles in your hair.

He glared at her before looking at you, “What you doing?” He asked uninterested but really wanting to know.

You turned to face him, the silver sequined dress making his ears prick red. He watched you stand up smirking, it was almost too seductive at how you walked up to him, Mina annoyed you had left. But you didn’t care, the dress was too short, and you knew his eyesight were on your exposed chest.

He turned to not meet your boobs; he could imagine his hand cupping them but quickly dismissed it. “I’m doing the pageant.” You hadn’t meant to stroll up to him, but your shoes were on the other side, and as you passed him, his head quipped back to watch you bend to pick the shoes.

Your ass on full view, his jaw clenching at how easily you could so something like that in front of him. Had it been anybody else and he wasn’t here would you have done the same to them. You stood back up sauntering past and sitting back on the seat for Mina to continue to put the glitter on your face

“Why would you do a shitty thing like that?” Bakugo asked coming closer to the two of you.

Mina was the one to answer this time, putting the silver eyeliner across your eyes, “it looked fun and i wanted Y/n to do it.”

You nodded re-opening your eyes to see yourself in the mirror, “I’m going to grab the tiara.”

Mina left leaving silence between you and the angry boy, “you could’ve just done a private show instead, you don’t need to look like that in front of people.”

“I can do what I want.” You stood back up to meet his gaze, this time he stared directly at you.

“I’m just saying, people will see stuff that’s supposed to be m…” He stopped in his tracks, you raising an eyebrow. Before bringing your finger to graze across his arm it was exposed and his skin was on show, you could almost feel the goosebumps.

Smirking at the boy, he knew exactly what you were doing, and he wasn’t going to fall for it. In the three years you had both spent in UA, the small touches here and there from the two of you had been noticed by the class. Here in private, he thought of a way to get you out but also prove you don’t need validation by voters instead. An ultimatum of some sorts.

“I could finish the sentence if you want.” Even with the shoes you were still shorter then the boy, his hand reached for your face, the rough texture gazing up and down your cheek.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” his fingers moved to circle your lips, his thumb moving from corner to corner. You nodded waiting to hear the deal, “if you win, I’ll take you out tonight.”

“So now you want me to do it?” It was a joke but even the strong willed Bakugo was fearful of your response, maybe you would reject him and never talk to him again.

“I’m just saying instead of doing it to gain praise, do it to win a date with me.” The word date stumbled from his mouth without him realising. A grin plastering on your face to draw attention away from your wide eyes and blush that speckled across your nose and cheeks. He let go of your mouth and face in an instant, mostly to hide how his palms had gotten sweaty.

He put his hands in his pockets waiting to hear an answer himself now but not daring to meet your eyes, “okay, but I get a kiss as well.” You had sweetened the deal and this time Bakugo was the one to go wide eyed.

He regained some composure, looking at you with a smirk, “deal.”

Before you could say anymore, Mina arrived back with the silver tiara and Bakugo left without a goodbye, Mina complained about Bakugo and other people, you agreeing waiting for her to put the final touches to you.

You looked beautiful, the reflection staring back at you bringing Mina’s eyes to warm at how gorgeous you actually looked. “I’ll be in the front row.” She waved walking out the door, your looked at yourself and realised that you needed to win.

If this was your only goal in life, then so be it. You needed the date, needed the kiss that you had longed for, for years and most of all you needed Bakugo’s praise. Nobody else’s, just his.

You stepped out the room, walking to where the stage was. You were confident in the performance, having practiced it with Mina for weeks now, but you were still scared. Nervous even, hearing your name, you smiled walking onto the stage.

Seeing the faces and lights pouring onto the stage, you took a sharp breath before activating your quirk, moving the lights with your fingers. You made them come closer and closer to you before you pushed against the air to fly with the lights, the way you made the fairy lights from surrounding stalls erupt next to you had enchanted the audience. But most specifically the scowl that had been on Bakugo’s face seconds prior had turned into a look of love and lust.

Watching you move with the lights that you made change colour, the ribbons that swirled around you. It was definitely a show, the dress stayed clinging to you, nobody being able to see your underwear. Which both you and Mina were glad about, but whilst they watched the speculations occurring beside you. Bakugo only had eyes for you, his gaze skimming up and down your body, ever curve that attached the dress, the tiara that stayed on top of your head. He wanted you to be his princess, he wanted to call you mine in a matter of minutes.

The performance ended with you out of breath and making sure you moved everything back where it was supposed to go. You bowed before taking your leave backstage, knowing the results wouldn’t be coming out for a while.

Mina was the first one through the doors eloping you into a hug, you felt suffocating but let her keep at it before Bakugo pried her off you. “Leave the damn woman alone, alien.”

You rolled your eyes at the nickname, turning to the other girls who all hugged you as well, “sorry guy’s I’d catch up with you about this, but the results are getting announced soon and I need to get changed.”

They all nod leaving, Bakugo watched you turn away, undoing the earrings and wiping the makeup, he dawdled for a bit before leaving. He didn’t know what to say to you but all he wanted was for you to win and get the kiss he had desired for three years.

You quickly got changed, wearing the UA uniform and chucking the plastic tiara that Mina had bought onto the desk. Hearing the announcement, you were a lot more nervous after thinking about the situation. Could you still go on the date even if you lost? You didn’t know and whilst waiting in line with the rest of the girls, still scared. You saw the blond smirk at you and knew that even if your lost you’d still gain a reward from him.

The sound of your name made your eyes widen and even Bakugo’s smirk turned into a genuine smile at how you had won. The crown was placed on your head and Bakugo swooned, this man became red and had to not look at how perfect you looked in it. Streamers flowing down past you, it was a sight and he saw so much beauty in that moment.

Once you were dismissed, you were the one smirking as you strolled to the boy, “I won.”

“I saw.” He spoke nonchalantly not meeting your gaze.

“6pm then.” He nodded his fear and insecurity being established.

You saw him not meet your eyes and felt something in your stomach. You leant up to kiss his cheek thinking he was scared to kiss you, “you don’t have to kiss me.

You were about to walk away but he grabbed your arm bringing you onto his chest and his lips catching your own. His hands moving to cup your cheeks, your own moving to his spiky blond locks. The kiss was deep and having heard you say those words had made him regain his confidence to do what he liked with you. He let go off you a classic smirk painted across his face and a dazed you in his arms.

You were both staring at each other, he kissed your temple, “you’re mine.” It was a murmur, but it made your insides warm.

“I’m yours.”

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

if you guys want to be a part of a tag list, just reply to any post and i’ll add you xx

@samusimp @alainarose13 @crispychannie @underratedmage @jennammaee @cathy8taffy @sugacious @moonlightaangel @kat-sukis-hoe @effmigentlywithachainsaw @swankiifiied @maat-the-prescriptive @missmultifangirl @tvwhoresblog @kuroos-world @chrrylevi @ukaisgratefulwhore @answer-the-sirens

#eijiro kirishima #eijiro kirishima x reader #katsuki bakugo #katsuki bakugo x reader #my hero academia x reader #my hero academia #my hero headcanons #my hero academia eijiro kirishima #my hero academia katsuki #boku no hero academia #katsuki bakugo fluff #eijiro kirishima fluff #kirisihima x reader #bakugo x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #eijiro kirishima headcanons #katsuki bakugo headcanons

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amandaklwrites · 4 years ago

Text

Top Ten Favorite Book Series

And here’s another Top Ten in my series! This one is about book series that I have read in the past, or have been reading over time. Of course, these can change over time, but I know all of these will be very important to me. So, here they are, in no particular order!

1. Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas

I loved this series since I first discovered them. I know not a lot of people like them, or at least aspects of them, and I do understand some problems with them. But I had found the first two books when I had moved in with my boyfriend at the time, and I fell absolutely in love with them. The last book came out when during my last year in college and I didn’t complete any homework for like a week. I love these books because of the important themes she had written, and there were a few scenes that made me cry, especially in the last book. I loved the friendships and complicated characters she created.

2. Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Again, I found this series around the time I had discovered Throne of Glass. But they were all out already, and I actually met Leigh at a book event for the last book. I loved this series more so for the darkness of its tone, and the Darkling is my favorite fictional villain, hands down. But I remember being so amazed while reading this trilogy because I had discovered I could write dark, dark stuff if I wanted, and it fed that part of me.

3. Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray

I read this trilogy in high school, and I remember loving it so much. So I recently did a reread and I loved it just as much. I liked the tone, the characters, the settings and the magic. It has always been that stuck out to me, and I’m so glad I had found it when I did.

4. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

This series had changed my life, honest to god. Surprising to most, I hadn’t been a big reader growing up. I read some stuff (most Narnia, Spiderwick, Alice in Wonderland, etc), and I could never find the kinds of books I had always wanted to read. I was a sophomore in high school when I was looking through my local small bookstore, and I saw the cover of a young man in Victorian attire (my favorite time period forever!), and I remember reading the back and I was instantly intrigued. And I fell in love with it. Not only did it spark my reading as a teenager, helping me find the genres and stories I liked, but it had been with me through important times. When I had been through an awful depression that led to an attempted suicide my junior year, I was reading this series. I remember reading the second book that year in my yearbook class, and I read through class, which annoyed one of my guy friends that I sat with. When I finished the last book in the hidden classroom behind a class I was a tutor for, I cried. I sobbed as I read the epilogue, and I remember just staring at the wall for the rest of that time. This series broke and remade me, and I think it has huge influence on me personally.

5. Sands of Arawiya duology by Hafsah Faizal

I just read this series a couple of months ago, and my god, did I love it. I loved the world, the characters, the deep, meaningful friendships. This one surprised me in so many ways, and I didn’t want to stop reading it. I loved it so, so much and it’s important to my heart.

6. Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard

I see mix reviews on this series, especially the later books. But I personally loved them. I loved the adventure and magic system and my god did I love the twists. Maven Calore is probably one of the most interesting characters I have ever read. I loved how complicated and destructive it was, and the war tactics and plots were great.

7. An Ember in the Ashes series by Sabaa Tahir

My god, Sabaa knows how to make really, really complicated situations for characters. Talk about torturing your own characters. And I think that was what I learned from these books, as a writer myself. She made strong, powerful characters and threw them through hell, to see where they came out. But I loved the way they wrapped up, the arcs of the characters, the beauty of their closeness. It’s just a beautiful series.

8. Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas

This is just a fun series. It combines some of my favorite things—women detectives, Victorian England, mysteries, and Sherlock Holmes. But I love that Sherlock Holmes is actually a woman. They’re great books that put twists on the original books and I adore so much about them.

9. Stalking Jack the Ripper series by Kerri Maniscalco

What a great series! I loved these more with each book. I love Audrey Rose and Thomas Cresswell, as lovers and as partners, so much. But they are both intriguing in their own ways. And I adored how Kerri used different historical/pop culture aspects in her books—Jack the Ripper, Dracula, Houdini, and the Devil in the White City. They are great mysteries with loveable characters and I love it so much.

10. Well Met series by Jen DeLuca

Now, I love this series for just dumb (but personal) reasons. First of all, I haven’t found many romance books that I like. I find most of them too silly and cheesy. But I didn’t have that case with these. I found them hilarious and fun and heartwarming. But second of all, they’re set a Renaissance Faire! We have a Renaissance Faire that comes every year about thirty-forty minutes away from where I live, and I have been going every year (you know, except for last year and probably this year) for thirteen or fourteen years. It’s important to me, and it marks time for me. So, that’s why I love these.

Runner Up: Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters

This is a wonderful series. It spoke to my love of mysteries, but also Egyptology (I almost went to school for archaeology/Egyptology!). I love that Elizabeth Peters was an archaeologist, that gives a real-life feel to these as well. Plus, like you know me, Victorian period! I think Amelia Peabody is one of the greatest female leads, and I think the romance/love between her and Emerson. It totally reminds me of Evie and Rick in The Mummy, so if you love those movies, check out these books. I haven’t finished the series yet, but I think I’ve gotten halfway through, and I love them so much.

I love all these books, way too much probably. They all have a special place in my heart and yeah... I love them. I’ve said that so much haven’t I?

#top ten favorite book series #throne of glass series #the Grishaverse #Gemma Doyle Trilogy #the infernal devices #sands of arawiya #red queen #an ember in the ashes #LADY SHERLOCK #stalking jack the ripper #well met series #amelia peabody #i love too many books

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winryofresembool · 4 years ago

Text

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 32

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation (again) and a bit elsewhere too

A/N: We're (finally) getting closer to the end of the 'Waystation arc'. I don't think I have that much to say about this chapter, but I'd like to dedicate it to Cecid as a late birthday present, because she has really kicked my butt to continue this story!

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!! It's super important (<- Lizzie Bennet Diaries reference)

(Ps. Fellow Europeans, vote for Finland in ESC!!!)

Words: 2950

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

The silence that fell into the room after Leo stormed out got more and more overwhelming until finally, Calypso couldn’t take it anymore. She could feel the two women and their daughter stare at her, but they were too astounded to say anything.

“I… I don’t understand what I did wrong,” Calypso mumbled eventually. “They were just matches. I didn’t mean that he should use them immediately; it was just my way of trying to tell him that I believe he can get over his fear one day.”

The women exchanged dark looks.

“Georgie, could you play with Festus outside for a moment? He looked like he needed to burn some energy,” Emmie suggested, wanting to get the girl out of the hearing distance.

“Ugh, fine,” Georgie pouted because she would have preferred admiring her gifts, but left anyway.

Once she was gone, Jo sighed. “About what just happened… you did nothing wrong, Calypso. It’s just…” She stopped to contemplate her next words. “Christmas is always a hard time for Leo. He tries his best to participate and make his jokes and all that, but his eyes betray him. He’s just… not there.”

“I want to understand…” Calypso stepped closer to Leo’s mothers. “Did something happen to him on some Christmas?”

“Yes, you could say that,” Emmie replied sadly. “Leo’s mother died on Christmas day several years ago.”

Calypso’s eyes widened as she understood what Emmie was trying to say.

“Oh gods… And she died in a fire, right? He did mention it once… No wonder he didn’t want to touch the matches, especially today.”

“Yes,” Emmie confirmed. “She did die in a fire. But there’s more to it. Leo probably wouldn’t want me to tell you this but in this situation it might be better that you know: he blames himself for the fire.”

“I probably shouldn’t ask, but… why?” Calypso asked, feeling more sickened every moment as she pictured a young boy mourning his mother and his home. “What happened?”

“We have only gotten some bits and pieces from here and there, but it seems the fire most likely started from some papers he had left near a fireplace. Accidentally, of course, but he doesn’t see it that way,” Jo sniffed. Suddenly Calypso realized that Leo’s pain must have hurt his family more than he probably even realized. They really cared about him a lot… She couldn’t help but feel just a tiny bit jealous because at least Leo had people supporting him. But she quickly pushed that unnecessary thought aside.

“That’s awful… I guess he’s afraid that he might accidentally make something like that happen again and that’s why he doesn’t want fire near him.” Calypso knew the fear of hurting someone she cared about and the guilt all too well. She would never forget the flashing lights and the loud crash that followed. Her nightmares made sure of that.

“Yes, it’s likely he feels that way. Since he moved here, he’s been seeing a therapist every once in a while but it’s clear he’s still a work in progress. He doesn’t talk about his mother a lot to us either. Just when we ask something general, and even then the answers are usually quite short.”

Bitterly, Calypso thought that was how she acted when someone brought up her family.

“I realize now that the matches were a big mistake,” she finally said. “I wish there was something I could do… I hate just watching helplessly when someone I… um...” She stopped mid sentence when she realized what she was about to reveal too much.

“Just be there for him,” Emmie suggested, luckily ignoring Calypso’s stuttering. “Despite everything, I think he’s still shown good progress the past few months. Sometimes time and patience and care can do amazing things.”

“Yeah. I think you are right there.” Calypso agreed. She herself had asked her friends, including Leo, to be patient with her as well. It was only fair she’d do the same with him.

“And Calypso?” Emmie eyed her worriedly. “Remember to take care of yourself as well.”

Calypso didn’t understand how the woman had seen through her that well. There was no way she could know what was going on in her mind because she hadn’t told even Leo everything. And Emmie and she had only known each other for a couple of days so far.

“I… sure. I will try my best!” she promised, instead of questioning Emmie’s comment.

“Good. I can’t say I know you all that well yet but know that people who are important to Leo are important to us.”

For a moment Calypso imagined what it would be like to have a mother like that. For some reason the thought made her emotional. “Thank you. You are so kind.”

“No, just doing what’s necessary. Now, I suggest you go and get dressed for the day and do what else you need to do; we might need some help with lunch soon. Besides, Georgie might need some supervision because she gets hyper when she eats too much chocolate. Funny how she and Leo are not biologically related but they still have a lot in common,” Emmie ended with a slightly amused remark.

Calypso did notice that she didn’t say anything about trying to find Leo, but she understood. He probably wanted to be on his own for a moment, and she’d respect that. Hopefully she’d get to talk to him eventually, but until then it was better to try to do something helpful rather than spend the whole day worrying. But even while she was doing her morning chores, she could still see Leo’s angry eyes when he saw her gift in her mind.

…

Leo didn’t know where he should go so he just followed his instinct. He didn’t want to hide inside; the pictures from his nightmare were still too fresh in his mind and he needed to be somewhere where he could breathe fresh air. As he was crossing the yard, Festus tried to follow him, and he wagged his tail cheerfully to make his favorite human happier, but this one time Leo didn’t want his company. He apologized to the dog and told him that he’d take him for a walk after getting his thoughts cleared.

He kept walking until finally, he reached a certain park where he and Jason used to jog often. Seeing a log bench on the side, he decided to sit down for a moment. Someone had made a campfire nearby earlier and Leo glared at the remaining ashes like they were the reason for all his troubles. He could feel the panic rise up his throat as he was reminded of the fire again, but he challenged himself to stay there for at least a moment. Finally, he sighed.

He knew he had totally overreacted to Calypso’s gift. Surely she had meant good but she didn’t know why fire and Christmas were not a good combination when it came to Leo. If he had just ignored the matches, nothing would have happened. Now he’d have to explain to her why he had freaked out like that and that wouldn’t be easy.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring into nothing when he suddenly felt a knock on his shoulder. Having not heard anyone arrive, he startled at the touch, but quickly recovered when he recognized the newcomer.

“Pipes! What brings you here?” he exclaimed, briefly noticing that her brown hair was now shorter than it had used to be and somehow her whole demeanor seemed a bit different. He attempted to put on a smile for her but he knew he was probably failing.

“Funny, I was gonna ask you the same question,” Piper noted, sitting down next to Leo. “I thought you would be at Waystation with your family. It’s Christmas day, after all.”

“Oh, yeah, I was there.” Piper raised her eyebrow so he quickly added: “You know me; this holiday and I don’t exactly walk hand in hand so I needed to get out for a moment.” Leo hoped that would be a sufficient explanation. She did know what had happened to his mother, even if not to the full extent.

“But Calypso was there with you. I thought that would cheer you up,” Piper pointed out.

“Funny you should say that,” Leo chuckled, although there was nothing amusing about the situation. “If you wanna know the truth, I’m kind of trying to escape from her right now.”

“You’re trying to escape…” Piper repeated with confusion. “Why? What happened? I thought things were going fine between you two. Especially after what happened after the party…”

“Not everything is how it looks to outsiders, Pipes,” Leo stopped her. “Things haven’t been amazing lately. I mean, in many ways. Yeah, I like her and somehow she also likes me, apparently. Yeah, I know, pretty unbelievable.”

Piper gave him her best ‘wow, you’re really breaking the news there, Leo’ look. He didn’t get disheartened, though, instead continuing: “But we have, um, decided that we shouldn’t get together for various reasons so we’ve been trying to find some kind of a golden mean where we can still continue being friends but it hasn’t been working out that well. One sec we are at each other's' throats for whatever stupid reason, and the next we’re acting all flirty and ignoring the rules we set. I was hoping that this Waystation visit would give us a chance to get to know each other better in an environment where we have others around us… And I think it was actually working for a while. I feel more comfortable there, and I think she was feeling more comfortable too… But today I went and messed things up again.”

“What did you do?” Piper sighed disapprovingly.

“I may or may not have gotten mad about her Christmas present,” Leo confessed finally, cringing because he realized how bad it sounded.

“Oh, Leo…” Piper shook her head. “Why would you get mad about something like that? You’re not usually someone who’d get mad that easily.”

“Yeah… I know I’m not, but… I had a pretty rough day to begin with. Not that that’s anything new to me, but…”

“But what?” Piper inquired.

“I saw a nightmare about my mom’s death right before I woke up. I was still kinda on the edge when we were opening the presents so when I saw the matches…”

“She gave you matches?” Piper tilted her head slightly as she was trying to figure out what Leo was saying.

“Yeah,” Leo shrugged. “To be clear, though, they were only a part of the present. She had made me a real nice tool belt, probably way better than any of those that they sell in some stores. The matches were in one of the pockets. And now I can see you’re gonna say: ‘well, maybe she just wanted you to try to get over your fear’, and maybe you’re right, but the timing…”

“You have not told her about the anniversary,” Piper concluded. “I’m sure you have figured out by now that you can’t blame her for something she didn’t know about. That’s not fair.”

“I know that!” Leo exclaimed. “I’m not really blaming her; I just overreacted! But how will I explain that to her? ‘Sorry I yelled at you; I just happened to burn my entire house 11 years ago today so I’m not exactly fond of fire right now?’”

“You know what I’m thinking?” Piper interrupted Leo’s unhealthy thought process. He didn’t answer. “I think you two have some serious communication issues. I know that Calypso isn’t good at opening about her past, and she has also admitted to me she has a tendency to push people back if she’s afraid they’re getting too close to her. But guess what, Leo? You’re the same. I’ve noticed that even though you’re kind of loud sometimes and you like to tell bad jokes…”

“Hey!” Leo protested.

“Shh, let me finish. My point is, you don’t often tell us what you’re really thinking. When you’re having one of your rougher periods, you withdraw into your workshop for days. All I’m trying to say here is that please talk to us. Specifically, talk to her. When she notices that you trust her enough to talk about something that personal, she might open up to you more as well. If she really likes you, she’ll understand.”

“Beauty Queen, I hate it when you see through me that well,” Leo muttered. “I dunno. I guess I’ll have to talk to her when I go back. If my moms don’t murder me first.”

“Nah. They wouldn’t. I mean, you may not get any presents next Christmas but that’s a small price to pay when you stormed out like that,” Piper teased him.

“You sure know how to make a man regret his bad deeds.” Leo rolled his eyes. “Anyway, we’ve established why I’m here right now but what about you? Shouldn’t you be with Jason or something?” Suddenly Piper didn’t seem as determined to scold Leo anymore.

“I… Jason and I are having a break.”

“A break? As in…?” Leo asked with confusion.

“As in a break,” Piper repeated more firmly. “What part of it you don’t understand? He and I are seeing if we are happier apart.”

Leo spent a moment taking the information in. “But I don’t get it. You guys have always been the most stable couple I’ve known. Why this kind of a decision all of a sudden?” He couldn’t say that he was entirely surprised by this piece of news after his talk with Jason before Christmas, but it still felt different to hear it from Piper. More final.

“I don’t think it’s all of a sudden. It’s been coming for a while now,” Piper confessed.

“Really? And you’re telling me only now?” Leo raised his eyebrow.

“It was something I needed to figure out on my own. Now, please don’t think I’ve just been playing with him, or something. I do love Jason. He’s my best friend. But… I’m starting to feel we’ve progressed too fast. That there’s a whole world out there for me to see that I missed because I was so busy getting together with Jason. I want to get to know who I am and where I really belong.”

“But… you have a house and everything together…” Leo said, suddenly feeling like a child whose parents were telling him they were breaking up, forgetting his own problems for a moment. “How are you gonna deal with that?”

“The plan is for now that we both keep living in our house until we make our final decision. I don’t want to go back to my dad and Jason would want to live with his dad even less. Of course it’s possible that we decide to continue our relationship, but if not, then we’re going to sell the house. But we are not rushing that. For now, we’re just trying to be friends, and not… exclusive.”

Leo was slightly relieved to hear that at least his best friends were still on speaking terms.

“Alright… if that’s what both of you want, then I’ll support it,” he said. “It’d suck to lose touch with either of you because of this.”

“Don’t worry,” Piper reassured him. “You won’t.” She ruffled his hair a little as if he was her little brother. “Everyone needs a Super-sized McShizzle in their lives, don’t they? It’d be pretty empty otherwise.”

Leo gave her a lopsided smile. “Glad you admitted that.”

“Anyway, enough about my boring relationship issues!” Piper decided to change the topic. “So, you told me Cal got you a tool belt and matches, but what did you give to her? It’s important, Leo.”

“You really think I’m gonna reveal it to you, Beauty Queen? I’m smarter than that,” Leo pointed out.

“I know what you did at our uni’s freshman party and I’m not afraid to tell it to Cal if I need to.” Piper winked at him in response.

Leo rolled his eyes. “Pshhh, that was freshman year. That excuses everything.”

“Alright, don’t tell me then.” Piper turned to leave.

“If you really must know,” Leo said before Piper got too far, “it was a jewelry box. With a bracelet in it. But it was not new so it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Piper asked with amusement. “You know things get serious when you give a girl a piece of jewelry.”

“Wait, what? For real?” Leo was shocked for a moment until he noticed Piper had a hard time not bursting into laughter. She was just messing with him. “OK, remind me to never tell you anything serious ever again.”

“You know you can’t resist my charm,” Piper chuckled. “Once you have forgotten what you just said, please tell me what really has happened at Waystation recently.”

Leo couldn’t help but shake his head at Piper’s enthusiasm but eventually started to tell her the whole story. He noticed that it helped him to forget about the negative thoughts for a moment so he didn’t really mind even though Piper had a tendency to be a bit pushy when it came to his feelings towards Calypso. And he assumed that Piper welcomed the distraction happily as well, because she must have felt conflicted about the whole Jason situation. When did things get so complicated, he wondered briefly before chuckling at his thoughts ironically. His life had never been simple. But even so, he would keep fighting. Because that’s what his mom would want, and that's what his family and friends would want.

#caleo #leo valdez #calypso #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #trials of apollo #my fics #caleo uni au

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suca-loca · 4 years ago

Text

it’s been a long year since we last spoke (how’s your halo?)

Read on Ao3

Words: 11.5k

Tags: Hurt No comfort, Angst, No Happy Ending, No beta we die like Wilbur

Warnings: Body horror, Blood, Death, Suicidal Implications/Thoughts, Mentions Of Torture, Beating/Fighting

Author's Note: I tentatively present you all this fic as my ticket to board the Dream SMP Fandom. I took some creative liberties with this, such as hints of Niki and Wilbur being childhood friends, as well as Niki living near Techno's cabin, and making Niki respawning to restock her hunger bar during her spiraling/villain arc one of her canon deaths. Also, despite Niki wearing a new skin she has stated that her character still wears Wilbur's coat. Just adding that in here so people don't comment that I got her outfit wrong during a certain scene. And finally, even though I feel this is obvious, this is about the characters and not the streamers themselves. With that out of the way, enjoy the fic!

Summary:

"Time down here is like stars, Niki. We're dead, dead for thousands of years, but to them," he points up, "we still shine. It'll take light years for them to realize they are staring at just a memory."

She tries to take a step back, but she's rooted where she stands. "Wilbur," she weeps. "How long have you been down here?"

He laughs.

(There was a time it made Niki's heart stop. It still does, but for different reasons now)

"Eleven years."

Niki covers her mouth to stifle a broken cry.

or; Niki tries, unwillingly may she add, the whole being dead thing. Oh, and Wilbur is there to "help"

The worst part about it is that Niki's whole life doesn't flash before her eyes. It doesn't happen in slow motion and neither is there some comforting, bright light for her to walk towards. It's simply this: one second she's at Church Prime and the next she's falling into pitch blackness.

Then again, she should have known better than to expect any of that dumb cliche stuff 'cause it's not like she died or anything. Not really. Her communicator may say she did, but she knows the truth. She was teleported.

So why does this feel like dying?

foolish girl breaking at the seams from using the same stitching of a burning flag to put yourself back together again. you think the afterlife cares how you arrive? the entry fee is the same for all

She comes in screaming and doesn't stop even when that's all she is anymore. Her body is unrecognizable to her, turned inside out, muscles stretching and bending and snapping in an attempt to mimic the shape she once was.

(She wishes her muscles luck in regressing back into a memory because oh primes, oh dear primes did she try, try again to be the girl wore a white and blue uniform with pride, but that girl only exists now in dreams and sometimes nightmares)

But they can't, for her organs and bones and flesh do not know what it means to not be confined (but they should know, they really should, because she still finds it hard to breath in small spaces ever since Schlatt caged her between iron bars and dirt and Sapnap left her in a hole in the ground over a fish) and so they shake. Convulsing and spasming until she is just sound, just an echo of shrieks that are happening in the past or the present or the future depending on how fast it travels down this tight, narrowed cave she lands in.

Wait, lands in?

She finds herself laying flat on the ground. She blinks. Then does it again for good measure to make sure she's not imaging having eyelids.

She touches her face. Feels the crook of her nose, the curve of her chin, and her soft round ears.

It's all skin. No muscle, no tissue, just her.

Still her.

(For now)

Her body is back. Not whole though - never whole - for she will always be a walking empty space within a solid object, but for now, her body is right. Her body is here. She closes her eyes in relief.

Someone is staring down at her when she opens them again.

"Hello Niki," Wilbur says. "It's been a while."

(It's Doomsday. His name shows up on your communicator and so you become a lit match. The fire eats you away just like the bark of a tree, like the walls of a bakery, two things you once loved most, and you're watching them both burn with his coat over your shoulders, which doesn't help you ignore who you must look like, who you're acting like, whose footsteps you're following in; and doesn't it hurt to know that what's before you isn't just a friend but a reflection?)

She's already scrambling back before she's even fully sat up.

She doesn't get very far, not with the way her wrists twist and bend before finally buckling under the pressure, and she can't find the strength to stand up and run. So all that's left to do is hyperventilate at the way his eyes land on her face, roaming, analyzing, absorbing, trying to read her like a book, unaware she's ripped out the pages long ago. At the way his shadow covers her and maybe once it felt like a blanket, but that time has passed, now all it is is heavy, suffocating, pinning her down. At the way he wears his Pogtopia outfit, pressed and cleaned when the last she saw of it it was covered in ash and black feathers and red, so much red.

But it never comes. In fact, her lungs don't move at all. Almost as if she doesn't need to breathe. As if she hasn't been breathing since she's been down here.

Is that why it was so easy to keep screaming?

"You're not here," she whispers. "Not really."

Wilbur tilts his head to the left.

(Does it in a way a predator would while observing its prey from afar, waiting for the right moment to strike)

"Oh? Where am I then, Niki?"

"My head," Niki responds, practically blurting it out. "Yeah - yeah, that's right. This is just my head playing tricks on me again. A horrible horrible trick, but that's all it is. I - I know it."

Wilbur hums. He sits down as if this will take a while. As if she won't blink and he'll be gone. "Well, that's a damn shame. I was hoping it'd be a beach. Mexican Dream has been talking a lot about La Jolla lately. Sounds like a nice place."

He smiles, suddenly.

(No, not smiles, more like baring his teeth. His very normal teeth that give off the impression that they should be very sharp and very large and very deep in her throat right now)

"Let's hope I don't blow it up."

(Niki is shouting for Wilbur over the chaos when her communicator pings in her pocket. It gets hard to breathe as she reads what it says, and it isn't because every inhale of smoke and pulverized concrete from the tumbling buildings poison her lungs. There's a ringing in her ears, and it isn't because of the TNT that just detonated in front of her. She feels broken, and it isn't because the force of the explosion knocks her back and she skitters across the field, hitting rocks and choking on dirt until she stops on her stomach, limbs bent at weird angles. Her communicator lands right beside her, the screen shattered and static flashing, but she can still catch glimpses of what is on the screen, as clear as day, like a taunt: WilburSoot was slain by Ph1lza)

Niki scrambles to her feet, presses herself as much as she can against the walls, and maybe, just maybe, she'll glitch and go through it and suffocate in a block.

She immediately throws herself away from it when she realizes what she just thought.

Wilbur stands with her. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he says. "I thought it would lighten up the mood. So, how are you?"

"How am I?" Niki echoes. "I'm imagining my dead best friend even though I thought I was getting better and I could have sworn I was, I was I swear I was, and this place, this place, I don't know where this is but it, it just feels - I don't even know why - so familiar and so - "

She pauses.

She looks around.

She was so busy panicking from Wilbur's presence that she never took in her surroundings. She stares at the smooth stone walls, the occasional hanging vines, the little aquarium in the corner right next to the entrance, and, finally, the stand. The stand with two signs on the front that read -

No. It can't be. It just can't.

She won't believe it until she's seen the whole thing.

She walks further in, each step hesitant.

And she notices the way everything around her seems so devoid of life. Almost colorless. Close to numb. She thinks it's her body shutting down, the stress finally getting to her, but no. This is worse. Something's going on. She doesn't know what it is exactly, but she knows it isn't her that's wrong here.

(This time)

Wilbur follows closely behind and, as if to prove her point, his footsteps sound muffled, distant, apart from him, like in the way you hear something underwater.

Maybe she is underwater because everything is getting blurry and her face feels wet.

(Or maybe the better comparison is like hearing something behind glass. She's been tapping against the window of a caravan for months as men in suits discuss a country she bled for just as much as them, if not more, without her. The tapping turns to banging, but it is not the glass that shatters. Not the glass that breaks)

She stills as she catches sight of the small wheat farm in the back room, dried and frail and unkempt.

(Like a flower shop)

It really is her bakery.

"No," she mumbles. Then, more stern, as if it'll blow this place away, as Wilbur should have done the first time. "No no no no this can't… this can't be true. I, I shouldn't be here I - it doesn't make any sense, how how how - "

She whirls on Wilbur, the tears coming in waves now. "What are you doing to me?"

(It's his fault she's back here. It has to be, he's the reason you wanted to burn the memories why this is all gone why this should be gone why isn't this gone gone gone gone)

foolish girl who has become like the nation she despises, you are a crater, there is a hole inside of you where a soul once was and it was caused by your own hands because the only destruction you're good at is your own. you couldn't even kill a child with a nuke, so what makes you think you can end a small room on the side of some hill?

"What do you see?" Wilbur says, and the voice in her head disappears. She can't remember what it said. She shakes her head as if the words will fall out her ears.

Suddenly she can't remember why she's shaking her head.

Her next words come out frail.

"My… my bakery. But how? This shouldn't be possible I, I destroyed it - I - "

"Limbo is different for everybody," Wilbur interjects. "For me, it's a train station."

"Limbo? What are you talking about? What is going on? I was nowhere near L'manburg I was - " Niki's mind blanks.

(Smooth quartz all around her and she feels safe there, that she remembers because there is no killing here, the one place bloodshed does not haunt her, and then crushing disappointment that turns into actual crushing as her body gets shredded, mangled, undone like a ribbon except it does not look pretty)

Wilbur gives her a slicing smile. It cuts her down. "This is the afterlife, Niki."

She blinks. She tries to take a step back, but she's rooted to the spot. "What?"

"The afterlife," he continues, eyes sparkling. "Hell. The void. Eternal darkness. Whatever you wanna call it. I call it home."

"Home?" She repeats, shakily.

foolish girl with no place, no one to call home because she's an expert at finding comfort in things that don't stay, of course he sees this place as home. Although if he really wanted to surround himself in emptiness so bad then he just needed to wait a few months for you to become just that

"I'm not dead," she mutters. She attempts to laugh, because if she laughs then this will sound like a joke. Wilbur would joke about such a thing. After all, he poked fun at exploding L'manburg just a while ago. So of course this is a joke. It has to be. It is, and she will not allow her breakdown to be the punchline.

At Wilbur's unflinching smile she says it again, with more conviction. "I'm not!"

"How else do you think you're talking to me? How your bakery is still in one piece? Sorry to be your grim reaper Niki, but you're dead. And now you're here, in the afterlife, with me!" He leans in close, close enough that she should feel his breath on her.

There is nothing. He is nothing.

(And maybe, so is she)

"Isn't that great? We're together again! You and me, just like the old days. And look," His eyes glance at what she wears. It's the coat. Specifically, Wilbur's coat, wrapped around her shoulders.

"We're even matching," he coos.

She thinks she might scream.

She throws herself away from him, almost throws the coat too, but into the furnace next to her.

('I gotta burn the memories I need to destroy it I need to destroy it I need to destroy it,' she once screamed to no one but herself. History repeats itself)

How she ever found comfort in this ratty, old coat she'll never know. And she'll never care to find out. Not when Wilbur is acting like this, like before, like a loose city wire, all dangerous and unpredictable, each word an electric spark, and Niki is trying not to get stung. She remembers how that story ended.

But her's will not end. Not yet.

"I can't be dead," she argues. "I don't remember that I would remember something like that so I - I can't be dead, and I have two lives left so, no, no I can't be I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive and I'm in bed I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive and you're not real, just a nightmare. I'm alive I'm alive I'm - "

"It's really me, Niki," Wilbur says, and the fire from the furnace roars in response as if his words fan the flames. It's the first time something in this wicked place has felt alive. "In the flesh. Or, rather, a close imitation of it. I think my corpse must have liquified by now, swelling up for months before bursting open, leaving nothing but a skeleton behind. What about you? What did you leave for them to find?"

She covers her ears. "Stop! Stop it stop it stop it!"

"Remember it. Remember your last moments."

"Wilbur, please - "

"Feel your wrist," he says. No, orders. And she does. Because she, at her core, is still his soldier.

(She says that she is loyal to him and he responds by saying he wants her to be loyal to L'manburg. She remembers being confused, for she saw them both as the same. Wilbur is L'manburg and L'manburg is Wilbur, one cannot coexist without the other. A few months later, amongst the wreckage of her nation and a father's anguished screams, she'll realize too little too late how true her statement holds)

She doesn't find her heartbeat.

For a second she thinks she made a mistake. That she has her fingers in the wrong place, but no. A soldier knows where to look for life so that they may snuff it out. She can't be making a mistake.

Still, she presses her fingers down, harder this time, nails first, that blood draws, and sobs as she's still met with nothing.

She has no heartbeat.

She is dead.

She chokes. She clutches her chest, not because it hurts to know what she lacks in her chest, but because she remembers. Remembers it so intently, remembers it happening in the snap of a finger, literally, from a smiling God (and maybe it is quite a fitting end, for she goes out the same way she lived, giving second chances to men who don't deserve it) and how the world tilted as the ground slipped away.

But what's worse is the realization that comes after.

"I didn't leave anyone anything to find," she says.

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"I didn't leave anyone anything to find because I didn't die," she says again, but weaker. More horrified. "I was teleported. I was on the holy lands when - "

"Teleported?' Wilbur interrupts. His features, just a second ago, eccentric and mad, turn curious. "Wait wait wait, hold on a second, are you telling me you were sent to Hell, Hell, on the fucking Holy Lands? "

Niki weakly nods.

It goes silent.

Suddenly, a snort. A snort that does not sound like it once did, back before the war for independence, before the election, before banishment, before it all, when all there was was a caravan and the worst of their worries was getting Sapnap a vegan hotdog. It's meaner, more shrill, and laced with a madness that seems to roll off his tongue so easily nowadays.

If she weren't watching how hard Wilbur's shoulders shake she'd have never guessed such a sound would come from him.

But there's something else about this snort that chills her to the core. Although she never could have imagined it coming from Wilbur doesn't mean she hasn't heard this kind of laugh before.

It's almost breathless, almost like something left on a stove, steaming, almost like the sound of -

(Dream and Wilbur worked together, both wanted L'manburg gone, both almost killed a kid, both cut off attachments, both lost trust in others, all things Niki has done too, and if Niki is like Wilbur and Wilbur is like Dream then that means - )

(No. Please, no)

"That is -," Wilbur wheezes, wiping away a tear. "That is horribly ironic."

"DreamXD!" She shouts, head tilted up. "Take me back! Take me back right now!"

Wilbur shakes his head. "Oh, no need to try that. I've been there. The whole shouting for help thing? Yeah, will do you no good. No one can hear you down here."

"DreamXD! I'm here!"

"Scream all you want, prime knows you don't need to breathe down here so nothing's stopping you from doing it for forever, but when your screams are all you hear for eternity… well, it'll drive any person mad."

"DreamXD," she shrieks. And her lungs don't shake, don't even give a small quiver, she knows it. Nothing in her does, for the gears don't need to be turning to keep this machine of a body that's been on autopilot since an explosion knocked her off her feet alive anymore. "Please!"

"You stop talking after a few years of just endless screaming for your voice becomes a reminder of your entrapment. But then the silence itself, after a few years, is unbearable. Yet you don't dare speak or make any noise, so it's just madness of a new kind."

She pushes her way past him and makes her way to the exit of her bakery. "I - I liked the magic trick, DreamXD! I really did! You - you can teleport me back now!"

"Too scared to make a noise, but too scared to keep quiet. So you stand still. Your body deteriorates, muscles numb from lack of use, and all you do is use your nails to scratch marks onto the walls to mark how many years have passed since… since absolutely nothing."

She stills. She slowly turns around.

(L'manburg is surrounded by a wall. A wall so mighty and tall she never thought she'd see the day it'd be torn down, much less by its own inhabitants. But this wall right here, the one between her and this old friend, this is a wall that will never meet the same end as its predecessor)

"Wilbur," she whispers. "What do you mean by years?"

Silence.

Wilbur has a far-away look in his eye.

(That look was born in a dirt hole on the side of a small hill and Niki doesn't learn that lesson for she builds her bakery in a similar place. Two places, so small, so cramped, started with hope, have become their worst downfalls, their unfinished symphonies. She parallels him in all the wrong ways)

She tries to take a step back, but she's rooted where she stands. "Wilbur," she weeps. "How long have you been down here?"

He laughs.

(There was a time it made Niki's heart stop. It still does, but for different reasons now)

"Eleven years."

Niki covers her mouth to stifle a broken cry. She was paralyzed before but now, with fear pumping through her veins, she runs. Fear is a more dependent motivator than strength or bravery could ever be, for fear, unlike any other heroic emotion, can't be beaten out of you. Can't be threatened out of you by a friend on your birthday as you try to stop him from pressing a button. Fear only grows, like a weed, you can try to get rid of it all you want, but it multiplies the more you struggle.

She finally gets to the exit, nearly throwing herself at it, only to find a stone wall staring back at her. It's been cemented shut.

She's trapped.

(She is in a cage, a zoo animal for Manburg citizens to point and laugh at. It is cramped, it is humiliating, and it is her home, her everything in wake of becoming nothing to people she once considered friends, Schlatt tells her. Until Quackity frees her. But there is no one to free her now. Except herself)

She pulls up her sleeves and begins mining with her bare hands.

She's been torn apart before, but at least it was quick. This, the way her flesh slowly peels off at each scratch is its own kind of torture. Not because it's painful, but the torture in knowing what you're willing to do to yourself just to see the sky again.

She keeps going.

(She does not throw up at the sight of chunks of flesh dangling where nail once was because she is a soldier and she has seen worse. Seen a child trapped in a box screaming for help and she's unfortunate enough to have a seat in the splash zone. Helped patch up Ponk's wound where his arm should be, afraid she might lose him to blood loss because whoever chopped his arm off didn't cut across the joint to avoid the bone and therefore had to hack again and again and again to get through the bone. Sewed Fundy's head back together from when Schlatt beat him over the scalp with a beer bottle before dying in the caravan; it took a couple of hours to finish because his fur made it hard to spot the bits of glass sticking out his skin. This is not the first or last time she will wash blood off her clothes, she just has to hope it will continue to be someone else's and not her own)

Wilbur comes up beside her. He doesn't even try to stop her, much less flinch at all the red on the wall. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Tommy did."

She snaps her head to him, her clawing ceasing. "Tommy was here?"

He nods. "Arrived a few years ago. I have to admit, when a space opened up here I thought it would be him again, not you. Not that I'm complaining. Don't get me wrong he's a good kid but, well, you know how Tommy gets."

(Everyone you've ever hated, everyone you've ever sworn to end; Schlatt, Tommy, and although you do not hate Wilbur or Jack you're relationship with them is complicated because they remind you of when you spiraled, you lot are all connected now, bound together from sharing the similar experience of death. She can never separate herself from them. Will be rever grouped in with the people she can't stand most)

"How long was Tommy here for?" She asks softly.

Wilbur clicks his tongue. "Two months I think."

She closes her eyes.

(She wanted to look deep into the crater Tubbo's nuke made and confuse Tommy's charcoal, burnt body for obsidian. She wanted to catch Tommy's choked last breaths in a bottle and get drunk on it every night. She wanted to leave spruce wood on his grave as a sort of flag marking her latest conquest. She wanted to stop thinking that if Wilbur was wrong for believing in Tommy then that means he might have been wrong for believing in her)

She doesn't want Tommy dead anymore and although they're still not friends even she wouldn't wish this on him.

"Two months," she says, and it sinks in.

Is that how long she'll have to wait until someone comes looking for her?

That is if someone even cares to look.

(Puffy doesn't respond to any of her messages after their first date. She turns Jack away when he tries to pull her back into the obsession of caving Tommy's head in. Everyone grieving L'manburg remembers her setting L'mantree aflame. Anyone in the Eggpire is too far gone to even care about themselves. She doesn't have a Tubbo. Isn't anyone's disk. She's just Niki, forgotten, ignored Niki, the first ghost of the server before Ghostbur. Why spare a glance at someone transparent? Someone, not all there?)

No one will come for her.

Wilbur cracks his fingers, and Niki winces, for her bones are still on flesh display and slowly repairing. "Well, now that we've played twenty questions let's move on to a new game. You up for some solitaire?"

She rises to her feet and numbly nods. She might as well have something to do to, to try and prevent the inevitable insanity with a card game.

Might as well accept her fate.

Wilbur reaches into his pocket and pulls out the cards. He sits down on the ground. "Sorry," he says. "I'd offer we play on a table but there are no tables in a train station and I doubt your bakery has one either." He hands her half of the deck. "Help me set it up."

But Niki doesn't take them, for she's focused on the word table because -

(There's a table, a weird table, made up of this block she's never seen before. It's sponge-like, with a hole on top decorated by a blueish-green frame, and she's about to ask where they found it when Phil suddenly apologizes for exploding her bakery. At her shocked expression, he explains he'd like to air out all possible tensions before starting their first-ever official Syndicate meeting so that no past grievances keep them from working as an effective team. Techno merely snorts, saying it's not their fault her bakery was on government land, and Phil responds by shooting him a glare fit for his title as Angel of Death. She'd have laughed, she'd have cried because such a look was once how Phil got Wil to eat his vegetables if it weren't for the fact she tells them they have nothing to apologize for. Tells them she left the oven on the day before the attack and by next sunrise, it was already burnt to the ground. Ranboo doesn't blink once from where he sits across from her as she talks. She sees in his eyes that day, how her laughs and her wails blend in with the chaos around her, as if it belongs there, as if she is one with it. And maybe she is, for the fire that consumes her bakery grows and grows and grows but Niki just gets smaller and smaller and smaller as if she has to sacrifice bits of herself to keep the fire going. Perhaps she is, for every monster requires an offering, and her bakery is that. A representative of the old her burning alive to make room for the new, merciless, unhinged her. Good. She looks down at the flint and steel in her hand and in the reflection of the metal she sees a boy with mismatched eyes standing behind her, staring. And then he takes out his book and writes. It feels like Ranboo has placed a noose around her neck. The memory fades and she holds her breath. She waits for him to say something, to call out her lie. This time, Ranboo undoes the knot. He looks away)

Because she needs to tell Ranboo she appreciated his silence that day. Needs to joke about how all this snow reminds her of an ice cream shop and watch Ranboo nervously laugh as she lightheartedly punches him on the shoulder.

Because she needs to know how that story Phil was telling her about his adventures with Techno on another server, something about an Antarctic Empire, ends. Needs to feed the crows with him to make sure he doesn't stare at their wings for too long.

Because she needs to braid Techno's hair one last time while they talk about how pink is clearly the superior hair color. Needs to thank Techno for giving her these becauses, for they wouldn't exist in the first place had he not offered her a place in the Syndicate.

Ironically enough, she always knew she'd die before she could give back all that she owed them. But only because what she owed them was too long a list, too difficult to be expressed in any way that captured what they deserved.

(Somewhere, in a snow biome, there is a family. They're different from each other, too different at times, and yet Ranboo and Techno could wear each other crowns, each fitting perfectly on their heads and no one would know of the switch, except for Phil of course. Right now they're probably looking at their comms around the dinner table, confused by the last message. 'Nihachu fell from a high place.' They aren't worried. Not yet. But in a couple of days, months for her, they'll start to pace. Phil will stand at the edge of the roof, ready to step off, only to remember he doesn't have wings, can't look for her high up in the sky like he used to when she was a kid. Ranboo will force himself through experiments, lose sleep, break himself in, trying to learn how to teleport so as to cover ground faster in the search, to do more than just let his powers go to waste when they could be what brings her home. Techno will grab her rainbow sweater and put it to Steve's snout, but the trail will go cold every time until eventually all of Niki's clothes don't smell like her anymore. They'll do this every day. Nothing will change but their hope, dwindling away each day. So will they just stare at that last message, her unintentional goodbye, looking for some sort of explanation? For some secret message? Some coordinates until they go mad? They won't think she's dead until they've found a body. Won't stop looking, won't leave a corner of the server untouched. Won't stop till they have something to bury)

She can't do that to them.

She slaps the cards out of Wilbur's hands.

"No," she growls, trying to sound tough and less like a kid throwing a tantrum. Perhaps slapping the cards away was not the best start. "I am not going to waste my time playing Solitaire when I could be spending it finding a way back home. And I will if it's the last thing I do."

Wilbur frowns. Niki has the inkling suspicion it has more to do with the cards being all scattered about than from her declaration. "There is no 'last thing I do anymore.' You dying was the last thing you'll ever do. All you have now is this. This is your forever. Our forever."

She turns away from him, just for a second. Away from the sight of his furrowed brows and the crinkles in the space between them where her index finger would go to poke as she teased him. Away from the scrunch of his nose she would joke made him and Techno finally look like twins. Because despite everything, despite all the months that have settled into their bones since the last they saw each other and the wars they've fought on land and in their minds, it's still Wilbur's face. But only in the physical sense. After that, he stops being her Wilbur.

This would be so much easier if his face had physically morphed into a stranger, to prove to her how much he's changed, what he's become over the months, is not all in her head.

Somehow, she finds a way to start.

"You know, not too long ago I'd have stayed with you here. I wouldn't have even put up a fight. I'd have just laid down, closed my eyes, and let the vines on these walls grow over my body until I was just moss. I was… I was so tired, Wilbur. A part of me always will be. I understood. I finally got why you acted the way you did. There was a time I was on half a heart and instead of eating I would - "

Her body begins to shake so hard she almost expects to look down and she cracks in the ground from an incoming earthquake. The only cracks see she's are her own.

She can't say it. Not like that. Not yet.

" - I would respawn to restock the hunger bar," Niki chokes out instead.

(She respawns with dried blood on the back of her head and bones still rattling from the fall. Along her jutting spine, in an almost perfectly straight line that could be confused for an unkempt path lost to weeds and drought, are bruises. She doesn't feel them. All she feels is the urge to do it again)

She blinks and her hand is in her hair, looking for the bump. She pulls her hand away as if it's a hot furnace. "But I can't stay. Things have changed. I've changed. This is not the first time something dark has tried to consume me, but I can't let it win this time. I can't let this place turn me numb and unhinged, or worse, content. Not when I have people to go home to. Not when - "

She looks down at her hand, the one that traced her scalp, and sees it has clenched into a fist.

(At the count of three, Niki throws rock. She groans as she notices all the other hands make paper. Ranboo and Techno exhale as if the losing sentence wasn't shoveling the front lawn, but death. Or worse, going shopping with Phil for a refrigerator to put in the Syndicate meeting room. Ranboo lost that one. Niki points at Techno's hooves and says it's cheating since they can't ever tell which shape he chooses. She demands a rematch with the same tone one uses to declare war. A few minutes later, they're shouting, going over the rules of rock, paper, scissors, and they only stop when Phil comes home and pulls out the dad voice. They begrudgingly agree to do a rematch another time, once they've cooled down. That was yesterday)

She holds her fist close to her heart. The hand was never her rock, it was always three men in a snowy cabin, handing her a mug of hot cocoa. "Not when I have a lawn to shovel."

Silence.

Then, Wilbur sighs. "You know," he says. He places his arms behind him and leans back to get a better look at her. Somehow, even on the ground, he looks to hold all the power. "Years ago your determination would have been a sight for sore eyes, but here's a reality check. I've been here for almost a dozen years. Eleven years of letting the passing train rip right through me in the hopes it would send me to another layer of hell or maybe propel, heck, even drag my body to the next station. But every time I'd wake up back in the train station as if nothing had happened. Like my body breaking under the wheels was nothing."

He is an avalanche, growing and picking up speed with each word, and Niki realizes, too little too late, she's about to be buried alive. She tries to step back, but Wilbur is up quick and approaching. "There is no escape. The limbo is our stage and we have our lines, our cues, but we do not have a curtain call. We just keep going and going, an endless loop. You can't not play your part. It won't let you."

"I have to at least try," she says.

"Why? What's the point? They'll never know you tried."

Her fear turns to disgust. "Is that why you think I'll try? For the sole reason that one day they'll know what I've done for them? That's far from the truth."

(People built statues of Tommy, for all he's done, for all the influence he had on this server. Niki knows they will not give her the same treatment. But that's fine, more than fine. All she needs is a grave in the snow, beside a little cabin)

She didn't want to look at Wilbur's face before, but now, glaring at him straight on, all she sees staring back is Phil.

The day they found out Wilbur didn't inherit Phil's immortality was the day Phil looked like he should, centuries-old instead of thirty-three, the age when angels stop physically aging. Niki will never forget how deep the lines on Phil's face ran. They might as well have been cracks. And maybe it was, for Phil was breaking as he held his dying son - not dying now, but for an immortal, every second a mortal breathes is just inevitable death - in his arms.

But what still haunts Niki the most after all these years are his eyes. They carried the weight of the world in them. She could feel it, even now, pressing down on her shoulders. All the wars, the fall of cities, the birth of them, children with big smiles and even bigger graves.

Niki was not a soldier yet. She was just a nine-year-old girl who wanted to sleep over at her best friend's house.

She threw up in their sink and they mistook it as her reaction to the news. She didn't correct them.

The only reason she slept easy that night was from the knowledge she would never see those eyes on Wilbur's face. And yet, lo and behold, here it is, like a punch to the gut.

Except now, Niki has had time to numb herself to it. It's hard to get surprised by such a dead look when it's on the face of your roommate.

(Phil's screech - no, not a screech, a caw, high pitched and grief-stricken - is like an alarm clock. Except, instead of Niki waking up to the rising sun outside her window, it's to moonlight and blinking stars. This is the fifth time this month she's met Ranboo and Techno outside Phil's cabin, armed to the teeth, ready for war. The door creaks open, loudly, but they don't wince, for they know it won't wake him. Nothing really does when he's in this state, except for one thing. Techno holds him down and it's weird, will always be weird, to see Techno use such force, such retaliation, on Phil of all people, and then Phil nearly throws Techno through the wall with just a brush of his fingers, and she remembers it's necessary. This isn't Phil they're dealing with, it's the Angel of Death. It takes a while until Techno can get all of the Angel's limbs down, but even then they know it won't last long, and that's when Niki throws a slowness potion on him. Ranboo, meanwhile, turns around all the photos of Wilbur in the room, a safe distance away. They told him it's best he handles that since he's built like a stick, putting him anywhere near a powerful avian would be an accident waiting to happen. It definitely has nothing to do with them freezing up whenever they see Wilbur's smiling face, all happy, and so very alive. Phil's movements turn sluggish as the potion kicks in and Niki holds his face, murmurs soft words, and Techno gives his own weird, but comforting, comments. Something about how Phil can't afford to lose sleeping beauty to these night terrors, what with his old age. Niki snorts. Phil's eyes open immediately. Phil sucks in a sharp breath, like he's forgotten how to breathe, his fist clenching and unclenching. The eyes are back. Based on Techno's face Niki knows then she's not the only person that has seen them. They look at each other, nod, and hold him as he cries. They don't need to ask. There's only one person that could cause such a look. They force Ranboo, who is awkwardly standing to the side, to join. Eventually, they break apart, and Techno coughs. He says he hates them for making this all emotional and bans such an awkward event from ever happening again. And yet, when Phil keeps waking up with eyes too dark around the corners, Techno is there. And so is she and Ranboo)

She will not be the reason Phil's eyes age another year.

"It's about Phil, Techno, and Ranboo deserving someone who will never stop trying to find their way back to them," she says, with conviction. "I'm sorry you're too twisted to see not all actions stem from reward or acknowledgment."

She expects a laugh, a glimpse at his forked tongue spewing words so sweet she could use them as sugar in her desserts, only to take a bite and realize it was salt all along. But what she gets is silence. The type of silence before a storm.

"Phil?" Wilbur whispers.

Niki closes her eyes.

She should have never said their names.

She also should have never opened her eyes again, because Wilbur is looking more like Phil each second. Not because of the eyes. No, worse. Because she sees a boy, a boy with his arms spread open wide and flapping about in an attempt at mimicking his father's wings, and they're both running around in circles in the backyard as he tells her how she'll never have to walk anywhere ever again. He'll carry her when she's tired, when she's not tired, whenever she wants wherever she wants. They stop running around in circles flapping their arms when too much time has passed and his wings still haven't grown in, but the acceptance that it never would did.

She blinks and the memory is gone. Slipping through her fingers like sand.

"How is he?" Wilbur says. His voice wavers a bit. He hides it quickly with a cough, but Niki catches it. Niki thought she always would.

(But then a button was pressed and she realized just how untrue that was)

Niki hesitates. She thinks about the night terrors again. She almost mentions them but falters as she remembers Ranboo telling her how it was Phil who gave him a place to stay after L'manburg was blown up for the last time. How as Technoblade hibernates there's a blanket over his shoulders that wasn't there before and a stick missing from the fireplace. How he always places Niki's plate of breakfast down before the others, as if he knows of her first canon death.

He is a kind man, but that is not why he does these things.

"He misses being a father," she settles on.

Wilbur's shoulders slump. Somewhere, in a different life, Niki's hand is there, squeezing comfortingly. "Is he… is he mad at me?"

"No." She answers quickly. "He's just tired, Wilbur. We all are."

Wilbur laughs. It sounds defeated. Mournful. "Understatement of the fucking year."

He slumps against the wall and Niki is sure it's the only thing keeping Wilbur on his feet. His head hits the smooth stone when he suddenly throws his head back and laughs. Niki doesn't know if she winces from the loud crack the impact makes or from the shrill, unhinged laugh.

"I told him to kill me," Wilbur chuckles. His eyes are blinking rapidly. "I told him to fucking kill me."

(The diamond sword has collected dust. Sometimes, everyone jokes, Phil looks like he has to. Playful teasing about how he's a walking antique that should be displayed in a museum. Phil always laughs them off. But it's moments when he stands too still, alone in his thoughts for too long, that Niki wants to put him behind glass with signs that say 'do not touch,' because all it takes is one gust of wind for an artifact to shatter. But that is no way to live and Phil is not so easily breakable. Worn down a bit, rusted from the loss throughout the eons, yes - who hasn't on this forsaken server? - but not breakable)

Niki thinks she might throw up. "I know."

Wilbur looks at her. His eyes are red, but there are no tears. "You said you understood me. You get why I had to ask him to do it."

"Wilbur - "

" - And so you also understand why you have to stay here."

"What?"

"We've changed Niki," Wilbur starts. "For the worse. Don't you feel it? How that server has destroyed every cell in our body? A slow painful death eating us from the inside out until we've just withered away into someone new, someone unrecognizable?"

(Niki feels she's in a never-ending house of mirrors. Constantly encircled by reflections that are her and not her staring back, each representing different points in her life. Some are unrecognizable, stretched, or squished beyond identification, like a fuzzy memory of a girl carrying a backpack, skipping down a path she was told by a best friend would lead to a nation with yellow and black walls. Some are too terrifying, demonizing her features, giving her slits for eyes and claws for nails holding flint and steel over TNT. All of them she wants to smash)

Wilbur either ignores the horrified expression on her face or doesn't see it. "We killed our old selves as a sacrifice, an offering, to the monster we saw lurking in the edges of our mind. And once you let the monster in there's no going back. All we know from then on is to destroy, to rip apart all we once held dear with no remorse until there's just ash and dust. We thrive, no, revel in it."

(Nemesis, she names herself. Goddess of divine retribution and revenge. Maybe that's who Niki sacrifices herself to. Why she felt such an attachment to the name. A remorseless Goddess said to have led Narcissus to a pool, knowing full well he'd be too captivated to leave his reflection for food or warmth. He died there. It's no coincidence a few weeks before she lived the story herself, leading Tommy to his death in the form of a hot blast of air at the speed of light and seeing it as justice)

"I'm not having this conversation with you," she says, voice shaking. She whirls around, nearly tripping over her feet, fully willing to ignore him as she looks for an exit.

But his next words make her go still.

"Phil didn't know what I'd become. That's why he had to be the one to do it."

She winces. "Don't."

"He didn't even pull out the sword, his arms were too busy holding me, holding me, as if the shape of me still fit against his chest even though I felt so hollow, so much thinner - "

"Wilbur - "

" - he stroked my hair too. Even though it was dirty and unkempt and a mess like everything else about me and I'm pretty sure his fingers got stuck a few times he just wouldn't stop untangling each knot with such care and precision that I remembered my last thought being - "

"Wilbur - "

" - could he have brushed away all the knots and twists in my soul like this? Cleaned me up on the inside like he's doing on the outside? I thought I went crying, Niki. Maybe I did. I'll never know because all I felt was his tears ricocheting on my face - "

"Stop - "

" - he tries to wipe them off. He's cursing at himself, apologizing profusely through hiccuping sobs and, and I don't understand why he's so sorry when it feels like, like when he'd lick his fingers and scrub the grimes of our faces after we played outside too long. Do you remember that Niki - "

"I don't wanna - "

" - because I do. We'd screech so loud, saying it was disgusting and unsanitary as we slapped his hand away and ran, but he'd always catch us a second later because of his wings. I don't wanna run away this time. I'm relishing it, craving every stroke because I'm starting to go cold - "

"Please - "

" - and I wish you weren't teleported here. I wish you had died instead - "

"Wil - "

" - so you would know, so we could relate to what it feels like for the limbo to claim you. To mark you. It's like, it's like being mutilated over and over again. A mallet to your bones, a hole in your brain, everything from your skin to your tendons unraveling before you - "

"Wil listen - "

" - spilling out and about like confetti, and you, you are confetti! You're shredded pieces, everywhere and nowhere all at once, and just as the mangling begins it stops, replaced by the limbo trying to put you, no, force you back together again. It's the same sensation, but in reverse, almost a loop, a tunnel with no light at the end, and all you can do is scream - "

"WILBUR SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME!"

Something shatters

Wilbur falls silent.

Niki looks down. There is a puddle, slowly growing at her feet. She looks to her left. Her hand has punched through the aquarium. Blood trickles down her hand, some get over the glass. She doesn't pull her hand away.

"You never listen," she mumbles, but it seems so loud to her ears. "No one does. No one wants to. I talk and I talk and I talk and yet no response. Not even from the wind. I am a voice box stuck on rewind, repeating myself as life moves on without me."

Niki can hear her voice ring down the bakery, bouncing around with nowhere to settle. Until it does, in Niki's chest, rattling, crackling like a fuse has been lit, and perhaps it has, for her anger feels sizzling. "You used to always say how words were powerful. How they could stop wars, how they could build nations." She lets out a laugh. It burns her throat. "But what would I know?! You and everyone else never gave me a chance to use my voice! Always talking over me whatever chance you could. Even before Pogtopia you walked all over me! Even when I was screaming at top of my lungs you'd - "

She gasps. The glass presses deeper into her skin as her hand trembles. She does not feel it. "Oh primes, oh primes Wil, didn't you hear my screams? I came here screaming, Wil. I, I do know what it feels like for the void to take you. I still feel it, even now, why, why do I still feel it - "

Wilbur staggers to his feet, so quick he promptly falls. He catches himself halfway on Niki's wrist.

His hand scratches on the glass. He doesn't even flinch. Their blood mixes.

(They are one)

He doesn't even grip too tight, and yet it hurts. Stings. "You do understand," he grins. Wide, too wide for his face, that she almost expects his nose and eyes to sink into his skin to make more room. "You do, you do oh thank primes. I'm not alone in this. I've been alone for so long but now, now you're here and you understand! Oh, Niki, I'm so happy you're here."

"You're… happy, I'm here?" She mutters. "You're happy I'm dead?"

He nods frantically. "It's more than that Niki," he says. "DreamXD, whoever that man is, he's my hero for sending you here."

(Parallels between Wilbur and Dream and her and now Wilbur and Dream and DreamXD no no no she can't be them she can't she can't she won't she won't - )

"You don't mean it," she cries. "You don't mean that Wil. Say you don't mean it."

The grin, somehow, becomes wider. She realizes then his eyes don't have to disappear. They're already gone. Replaced by a black hole, too dark in the corners and its gravitational pull making it hard to look away even though she knows staring at it too long will get her sucked into an endless void.

He leans in close like he's sharing a secret. "I only wish he had sent you here sooner."

(Wilbur's life, Niki is realizing, is like a house of mirrors too. Except Wilbur has smashed every mirror. No, actually, not true. Niki sees, if she squints, that Wilbur has abandoned the sledgehammer and is observing a still intact mirror. He didn't keep the mirror depicting a little boy sitting on the steps of a home, their home, trying to play a song and failing because the guitar is too big for his body, but he refuses to buy a smaller one because "this is my Dad's guitar Niki! So, therefore, it's by default the best guitar in the world". Or the one of a father panting heavily on a couch, cursing his human legs while Niki is doubled over laughing because there is a baby fox is running on all fours around the house at 45 miles per hour who doesn't want to be put to bed. Nor the one of a leader, handing out purpose and meaning in the form of a blue and white uniform with a soft smile. No, it's the one of a man who's just pressed a button. Who long before L'manburg's destruction, always felt like he was breathing in smoke, but now kept warm by the ash and dust of his nation flying up to the red sky, it feels - for the first time in a long time - easier to breathe. Niki can't believe he didn't destroy it. He's… preserving it. Why is he preserving this version of himself of all things?)

foolish girl with dreams for a better nation, better server, better future, too much better somethings, you've ruined reality for no one but yourself. think for once about what is and not what was or could have been. he is different. changed for the worse. he's preserving it because he doesn't care about you. can't you see how happy he is over your death? how there's light in his eyes for the first time over yours being snuffed out? how he shows no sympathy in your entrapment here, forever away from Techno, Phil, and Ranboo because it benefits him. so give in and fight fight fight fight

She sees red.

Her fist collides with Wilbur's nose.

She doesn't even wait to hear the crack before she's already reeling back her arm for the next hit.

This time she aims for the jaw. She feels something split. It could be Wilbur's lip or bone. Maybe her mind. She doesn't know and she doesn't care.

What she does know is how familiar this is, having something break under her knuckles. It's easy, familiar even, throwing punch after punch, like some sort of autopilot response. Perhaps it is, for every punch is instinctive, out of body almost. No longer is there a before in the blows, only an after.

Except, that's not true. Not entirely. Because Niki is realizing why there is no before. Because before each blow there is always a struggle from your opponent. Flailing limbs trying to make contact with something, choked wheezes, an attempt to curl into a ball, and, sometimes, begging.

Wilbur does none of that. He's silent the whole time.

It's almost like he takes it willingly.

clever girl with hands too bruised, too scarred, too violent to ever be held so gently. a finger trained to pull the trigger is not meant to bear a promise ring. who's fault do you think that is? you've held back for so long, don't stop now. so give in and get revenge revenge revenge revenge

A swing at his eye. A swift kick to the ribs. A fistful of his hair so tight she could yank his scalp off if she twisted her wrist just so.

It's all a flurry of movements really, too fast for even her own eyes to catch. Half of the time she's lost on where the hits land, totally dependent on wherever the blood leaks the most and the bruises that weren't there a second ago to tell her. Eventually, the damage starts to blur, too much of his face has swelled up to spot any new marks and too many limbs bend at weird angles to differentiate what is and isn't broken, so she stops trying to guess.

Which is why she doesn't know which strike finally gets Wilbur to fall, all she knows is that he does. He doesn't even sway. One second he's on his feet and the next he's on his back.

It's kinda pathetic really, that this was her general.

For a second he's still, too still, and then he spits out a tooth. He licks his gums with a grimace, looking for the gap before finally speaking.

"I see Technoblade's been training you. Do you feel better now?"

clever girl who's seen her fair share of men with livewire tongues, spitting rogue sparks at your skin in the form of harsh words to quiet you down. do not be silenced once more. you let him speak before and it cost you a nation. this time silence him, and I will secure you a limbo without him. so give in and maim maim maim maim

She screams. She thinks she does. It's hard to tell over the deep reverberated banging of Wilbur's head against the stone floor.

The first slam simply causes blood to trickle down his forehead.

The second one caves in the front of his scalp.

The third one he's unrecognizable.

The fourth one there's nothing left to bash.

She keeps going anyway.

"Shut up," she pants between each crack and occasional splat. "Shut up shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP."

Wilbur tries to say something. All that comes out is a gurgle, wet and sharp and loud. So very loud. And it keeps going, stringing along and along and along longer than the large chunks of skin and brain on the pavement. It shouldn't be possible, his mouth, along with everything else, is practically gone. Nothing but a small pit inside a bigger pit.

Yet it continues, getting increasingly louder in pitch.

And then she gets it.

He's scared.

clever girl of never-ending war zones, jumping from one horror to the next. this is the last one. and I know that's been said before but you can trust me. just end it and you can finally rest. wouldn't that be nice? so give in and kill kill kill kill kill

She smiles. It hurts her face.

She picks his head up from the ground one last time. She's humming, like a lullaby. Maybe it is. She's putting the baby to sleep. She knows he can't die again, but wherever he goes after this, if the limbo keeps its promise, it can't be pretty.

"I said," she laughs. "Shut up."

She brings his head down.

She blinks.

Her empty hand meets black stone slabs.

"Niki?"

She looks up and immediately regrets it. Everything is too bright, scorching, a burning gaze on every inch of her skin, but what really hurts are her eyes. She thinks they're sizzling, like actually sizzling, because her sclera feels as if it's bubbling and her iris is definitely melting into her brain and there are so many spots dancing behind her eyelids.

And then the voice, soft and familiar, speak's again.

"Do you have your stuff?"

It takes a while, and a lot of blinking, but her eyes eventually readjust.

She gasps.

The first thing she processes isn't that George and DreamXD stand just a few feet away or that it was George speaking. No, it was how absurdly colorful, everything was.

Here there was life. Life. It was like she poked her head through a kaleidoscope, what with how the specks of a rainbow illuminated itself in the clear blue water of the fountain and the sight of shimmering white quartz glistening under the sunbeams that poured through the purple-tinted windows. No longer was everything dulled around the corners and drained at the center like anything in her dreadful, cramped space of a bakery she shared with -

Oh primes.

Her bakery.

This isn't her bakery. This is Church Prime.

"She's back," DreamXD exclaims. He turns to George, bouncing on his heels excitedly as if expecting some sort of reward, but George pays him no mind/ He's too busy looking at Niki, or, more so, through her.

"What happened?" He asks.

She opens her mouth, then slams it shut.

She's alive. Dear primes, she's alive and she's back and she should be happy, cheering, jumping up and down to feel the livelihood ache in her bones but…

She looks back down at the floor. The floor should be covered in blood. Wilbur's blood, and his bits of flesh and tissue and muscle and -

Oh primes. What has she done?

Or better yet, what didn't she do?

"George," she whimpers. "I don't know what's going on. I, I don't know what's going on here."

She hopes it was her imagination. It had to have been. Otherwise, she hosted Wilbur's head up by the splits of his hair, pushed down as hard as she could and -

She wouldn't. She couldn't, not anymore at least. She left that side of herself in a gate full of slaughtered chickens as Jack demanded they try and kill Tommy again. That side of her is as dead as those chickens.

Right?

She prays so, for this is a church after all, and that means prayers have to be answered here. They have to come true. They have to.

There's a smile in DreamXD's voice when he speaks again as if he knows how much this torments her. "I sent her to hell and then I brought her back."

No.

She sobs. She looks down at her hands. Their bear and yet they feel so heavy. As if the ghost of Wilbur's blood and gore is still there, a new thick-coated layer of skin.

She tortured him. Broke him brick by brick again and again and again even as he tried to beg. Her best friend, her general, her family, begging at her feet, and she kept going, would have kept going too, with an ear-splitting grin, like it was some sort of game.

And it had felt so good to finally get a checkmate.

Wilbur is not a demon. He's just seen too much in too little time. Too much pressure on too little shoulders. Too tired to be all there. It's not an excuse for all the pain he's caused, far from it, but it shows his actions didn't come from a place of malice, but rather a cry for help. Niki knows this, she gets it, and she'll say it time and time again. But all she could think about at that moment, before the final strike, was how happy Wilbur was about her death. He deserved a piece of her mind, but not like that. Never like that.

What is wrong with her?

No, no it wasn't her. It was that place, that voice. It was a parasite, burrowing deep within her brain and planting itself in the center, telling her what to do and what to say. Telling her to slaughter left and right. It was so loud, rattling around in her head and echoing like war drums. She couldn't just ignore it, it was too much. So, no, she is free of guilt, free of responsibility, hands all clean.

But she knows that at the end of the day the host still needs to be somewhat conscious for the parasite to thrive.

Oh primes. Is this what Techno deals with every day?

Then, she jumps to her feet.

Techno, Phil, and Ranboo.

It's coming back now, that memory of fury in her eyes, that fire in her voice as she told Wil she had people to go back to. How she was willing to claw her fingers down to bone to make an exit. But that voice, that stupid stupid voice, it told her she could rest, could get revenge, and against her better judgment she listened. It caught her at a moment of weakness, Wilbur's words of memory lane, of Phil, of everything that came before and after his death, she was at a low point. And like a moth to a flame, she was there one moment and gone the next. Back to the old her.

She thought she had left that version of herself behind when she joined the Syndicate. She was so sure she was getting better with Techno, Phil, and Ranboo around.

But all it took was one voice to ruin all her progress.

Her chest constricts and her head feels heavy.

She needs to find them. She needs to tell them what she saw. She needs to tell Phil. She needs… she needs…

She just needs them.

"What did you see?" George says, snapping her out of her thoughts.

This time, her mouth has no problem moving. "George," she starts, voice trembling. "I have seen things. I... I... I have seen things. I don't know what's going on here but I don't know if I should - "

Niki gulps. It's getting so hard to breathe. She should feel thankful that she can breathe in the first place, but every inhale stings as her lungs try to remember to do a motion so foreign to her.

How long has she been down there?

She doesn't want to know.

She just wants to go home.

She walks away, backward, from the two, eyes fixated tightly on them and barely blinking. She remembers the last time she let her guard down around DreamXD. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry George. Good luck with him but I - "

She doesn't finish, because she's already out the door. She wants to run, but she's so sure her lungs would explode at the first push forward of her heel. So she walks.

And walks.

The world walks with her, with each rotation. As if they’re friends taking a stroll. As if it hadn’t cracked open and swallowed her whole, chewed up everything good in her and spat her out when she turned bitter. Returned her back to a world that didn’t change one bit while she was gone, despite her herself changing so much.

It’s like what happened to her didn’t happen at all.

And then she realizes a horrible thing.

Everyone on this server is going to see today as a normal day.

Is it bad that a part of Niki wishes something like the Green Festival could happen right now, so that they could all feel the monstrosity of today?

She stands still. Stationary, like this Earth wants her to be. She thinks she could do it, stay like this forever. She feels numb enough.

Somewhere above, a crow caws.

She burst into tears.

#dream smp #fanfic #fic #niki nihachu #wilbur soot #technoblade #philza #ranboo #the syndicate #the syndicate are found family because I said so #dsmp #niki #niki fic #niki nihachu fanfic #niki fanfic #dream smp fanfiction #dream smp fanfic #dsmp fanfic

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pekorosu · 5 years ago

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just a lil “if ash lived” headcanon that i need to unload somewhere bc i've been holding it in for a long time

- set within the manga ‘verse

- takes place when ash and eiji are in their early 30s... so around the mid 1990s?

- i don’t get the weird animanga trope where older = longer hair, so they’re gonna look the same... maybe with slightly shorter hair bc they get regular haircuts now

- (note: i've always interpreted long-haired eiji as symbolic of the fact that he couldn't move on from ash’s death)

- ash and eiji will continue living in the states, idk if still in NYC or somewhere else. they’ll move around a lot though.

- ash will mostly remain underground as he had to fake his death after lao’s stab, but he does it in a "hiding in plain sight" kind of way. only a handful of people know he’s still alive.

- ash spends most of his time on the computer, mostly coding, hacking, being a nerd, among other fun stuff.

- he also takes on “jobs” anonymously, and occasionally from max (who’s still into investigative journalism) when he needs info that can only be obtained through Dubious Means.

- i also like to think that ash's a bit of a hacker robin hood lol. but he isn’t doing it purely out of the goodness of his heart, as part of it is a subconscious need to atone for his “sins” and cleanse the gnawing and persistent feeling of shame that gets amplified when he’s around eiji.

- also whatever he’s up to these days would ofc still be Highly Dangerous and Illegal, but it keeps him busy and would sate the part of him that’s still hungry for adrenaline without him having to engage in stuff like active bloodshed or substance abuse. basically that’s how i imagine he’d try to cope with life the only way he knows.

- eiji continues to do photography and other part time gigs bc he does not like the idea of mooching off ash forever, and he slowly makes a name for himself.

- ash and eiji live together but they are NOT together in a romantic sense... not yet >:)

- therefore eiji will probably date other people in the meantime, which gets a little troublesome bc it's not like he can bring them home to where his secret Very Important Friend is secretly hiding.

- ash will maybe have one-night stands every now and then. or not. idk. this isn’t a very important detail.

- anyway there will be lots of clueless but mutual pining :)

- ash especially, is of the opinion that they should start living separately bc someone will eventually track him down, maybe someone who has a past or present grudge on him. combined with his current activities, it’s only a matter of time before eiji would unwittingly get dragged into his problems again.

- eiji is v adamantly against that plan bc he's sorta developed a debilitating sense of paranoia that ash might just get killed somewhere while he’s not looking. not that ash isn’t paranoid either, but his insecurities often tip the scale over to “eiji is safer away from me” than “with me”.

- basically they’re doing their whole “stay. no, leave. no, stay” dance all over again, but like, dragged out over MANY YEARS.

- you thought eiji’s letter would’ve cleared up any crossed wires?

- HELL NO

- like yea, there was probably a beautiful honeymoon period of about a year or two after they reunited, before their respective trauma and issues started creeping in and fucking things up again.

- esp on ash’s end, i think he’d engage in a lot of self-sabotage. and eiji is only human, he has his own limits and baggage too.

- there will be a government conspiracy plotline but on a smaller scale compared to canon that i am unfortunately not knowledgeable enough to worldbuild on, but it will probably have something to do with cybercrime/cyberterrorism/stuff like that bc it needs to tie in with ash's hacking shenanigans.

- i've heard that sing ends up becoming some sorta political big shot in yasha? idk, i haven't read it myself, but since china’s rising status was mentioned in GoL i imagine the plot should relate to that somehow.

- therefore sing would also get to be in this story!

- i guess this means yut-lung would come into the picture at some point as well, and it would be a good opportunity for a redemption arc but i haven’t given it much of a thought bc i’m indifferent to his character orz SORRY.

- look i can’t do plot, but i am basically envisioning a political thriller with a side of slow burn romance (wait, you mean like a rehash of canon?)

- i’m thinking max is the one who kicks off the story by bringing something fishy to ash, and they just end up uncovering more and more and MORE stuff as they keep going.

- so for like 80% of the story, ash and eiji will be separated bc ash will be busy spying or infiltrating something... and being at the center of Plot Things, while max and eiji will be more on the outside dealing with the journalist side of things. i’m fond of max-ash interactions but i’m also REALLY CURIOUS about max-eiji’s dynamic :D

- meanwhile sing will be like, half in and half out i imagine. he's versatile like that lol

- ...i did NOT mean that in a dirty way

- anyway, this will provide ash and eiji ample space to work out their issues separately, as i think living in close quarters for so many years has actually been aggravating them. ofc those issues don’t get 100% resolved by the end, but some time apart from each other to cool off and spend with other people should provide a bit of perspective.

- i want ash to make some NEW FRIENDS (!!!) that are on the same wavelength as him bc there’s only so much that he can tell eiji and i’m sure he gets rather lonely, so there will be OCs that he will meet in the middle of Plot Things.

- ash will get trapped at some point. preferably with sing so they can have a much needed heart-to-heart talk. they’ll have a lot to hash out, ranging from the events in BF, shorter’s and lao’s death, all the way to ash’s love life.

- btw i like the idea of eiji and sing being close drinking buddies who confide in one another but ash is kinda, justalittle, not very happy about that LOL

- i mean, it's not like eiji can confide in ash when ash is the topic at hand, ya get me? as for sing, he’s similar to ash in the sense that they live dangerous lives, so i imagine he just finds it nice to be able to hang out with someone mundane like eiji every now and then.

- not to say that ash and sing aren’t talking to each other at all, but i think they’d have a bit of a rift between them. sing probably does feel some resentment, both at ash for killing lao AND at himself bc he knows deep down that given a choice, he would’ve saved ash over his own brother. ash can sense that tortured vibe, so eiji’s like their middle man. AND THAT’S WHY THEY NEED A HEART-TO-HEART TALK

- (SIDE NOTE: i want akira to have a role in this too. i actually have a separate headcanon that happens prior to this story... kinda like an alternate GoL?

akira goes to the states to visit eiji, but ash is also there, yeah? akira and ash start out sorta prickly with each other bc ash is all weird and standoffish and always cooped up in his room. she probably mistook him as a jobless model mooching off eiji at first since 1) eiji and ibe have never spoken about him back in japan (cuz he’s supposed to be dead), 2) why would eiji be living with some random hot guy? unless they met during one of his photography gigs? right???

and then she ends up witnessing them in the middle of a tiff, which makes her not like ash even more bc HOW DARE HE YELL AT POOR OKUMURA-SAN??? UNGRATEFUL JERK!!!

but over the course of her visit, she snoops around learns a bit about their history and gathers hints as to why their r’ship is kinda strained. also ash and akira somehow end up bonding (reluctantly) over their emotional insecurities and part on a friendly rivalry to win over eiji’s affections (which eiji is completely oblivious to. also akira may have been 100% serious but ash was just jokingly playing along with her (OR WAS HE???)). anyway long story short, ash teaches akira some cool tech/IT stuff along the way so that leads to her gaining an interest in the field.

she won’t be able to do much in this story, but a minor role would be cool :)

^ a lighthearted gyoza-making scene amid all the angst)

- (SIDE NOTE #2: i ALSO want cain to feature in this, but bc canon provided very little bg info on him it’s hard for me to figure out where he’d fit. but i suppose that’s precisely why it would be great to include him, since i can just make up my own backstory! lol. for now, i think he should be connected to one of the new OCs to make him more central to the plot. or heck, he can be involved himself! ...yeah, i’m just salty about how cain was treated more like a convenient plot device compared to the other major side characters. we barely know anything about him even though he was one of ash’s most trusted allies. #caindeservedbetter2k20)

- anyway, back to the main story. ash (and his new "friends") barely escape where they’re held hostage. ash would be rusty with combat now as he’s spent the past few years doing only stealth work and being rather sedentary.

- so there’ll be lotsa old man!ash jokes like them poking fun at him whenever he complains about his back hehe

- when they finally emerge outside they find themselves in the middle of nowhere! they then hijack a passing pickup truck and do a roadtrip back to civilisation. ROAD TRIP FTW

- at this point, quite some time has already passed and ash even has a fuzzy beard and mane and all. he’s standing at the back of the truck with a small smile on his face and the wind blowing in his hair, thinking GONNA GO BACK AND SEE EIJI, MISS HIM LOADS, HELL YEA

- (bonus: this song and this scene is the catalyst for this entire headcanon btw)

(drew this about a year ago. i was trying to imitate the manga’s art style... and the ash i had in my mind was a little different. i’m too lazy to redraw, but he’s fuzzier now okay! MORE FUZZ! like an actual freakin LION!)

- meanwhile, eiji and max will get into some deep shit around this point?

- eiji in the pic above was me imagining that the Bad Guys had tossed some damning evidence (eg. severed body part?) on the ground like “ash’s dead/ash’s in a lot of danger now so hand over all the info u have”

- and eiji and max are like. SHOOKETH

- this would be the 3rd time ash has “died” after all, and as they say... 3rd time's the charm...

- eiji almost gives in, but then max spits in their face like fuck no and then... yeah. they get beat up and taken away or something lol

- EDIT: hmm... what if the Bad Guy is someone IN the government, and he uses his power to get eiji and max arrested for aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive (ash). and then ash has to rescue them... JAILBREAK STYLE

- also it might be cool to introduce ash's mom somewhere in this story... maybe SHE'S the villain! mwahaha *drama intensifies*

- anyways they will get saved by ash and gang bc that’s just the way things go, BUT! only on the condition they already made it out at least 80% of the way bc GODDAMN IT👏LET👏EIJI👏BE👏BADASS👏FOR👏ONCE👏

- (that is, after he overcomes the initial shock of ash possibly being dead again... again...... again............)

- there will ofc be moments of “oh my god, you’re okay” "i thought i lost you...!"

- something like this, because one can never have enough cheesy reunion scenes

- this will eventually lead to REVELATIONS (of the romantic kind, yes)

- buuuut they will never say "i love you" directly to each other bc ash is too emotionally constipated and eiji is too japanese. it's okay, they will communicate it through heated stares 👀

- i would love for there to be a scene where they have to be separated again for Plot Reasons and ash sorta hesitantly goes all "...will you wait for me?" as a direct parallel to canon!eiji's "i'll be waiting" and it’s like,

- FINALLY!

- FINALLY!!!!!!!!!! ash has finally allowed himself to ask for this, to let himself want it!

- and eiji would be like OF COURSE I WILL YOU BIG DUMMY, ALWAYS AND FOREVER

- but i think it'd be hilarious if eiji pops up while ash's in the middle of the final showdown and ash's like WTF I TOLD YOU TO WAIT FOR ME and eiji's like I WAS WORRIED OKAY YOU WERE TAKING SO LONG

- idk how this is supposed to end...

- oh wait! since the plot is government-related, maybe Someone will be able to pull strings to wipe out ash’s criminal record (past and present) and give him a brand new 100% legal identity, as thanks for his efforts? or maybe ash (or sing) just does it himself somewhere along the way LOL. anyway, he’ll be able to start over with a fresh clean slate and finally work on recovery FOR REAL NOW. yes this is a happy ending AND it didn’t require him to go to japan /flips off canon

- ...i realise it’s never going to be that simple but W H A T E V E R

- (also they probably will visit japan in the future with that shiny new passport... gotta meet the in-laws and all y’know)

- who do i gotta pay to write this cheesy self-indulgent fic for me

#since tumblr is for talking to myself that is exactly what im gonna do now #a very long self-indulgent post //#banana fish

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frosteee · 5 years ago

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Undertaker & Ciel’s Relationship (so far)

I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, and other people in the fandom have talked about it also (way before me, so I’m tagging on lol) that UT doesn’t see the Phantomhive twins as individuals, but simply members of the Phantomhive family.

That got me thinking about how UT has treated O!Ciel so far, leaving R!Ciel to the side for now.

Talking with @frederickabberline got me to realise that, aside from maybe one or two exceptions, UT refers to everybody by some title or other, usually their job (e.g.: ‘Mr Butler’ for Sebastian, ‘Earl’ for O!Ciel). And when he does refer to someone by name, which is exclusively or pretty much exclusively the Phantomhives, he always attaches that last name.

For example, most recently, when addressing Frances, even though she married out of the Phantomhive family and became a Midford, UT still addresses her as ‘Lady Frances Phantomhive‘. It’s as if the man is incapable, or unwilling, to personally recognise anyone who is not a Phantomhive.

In our discussion, frederickabberline mentioned that this detachment could be a deliberate/subconscious act for UT to protect himself from further heartache. His glee at other’s expense, leading to very, very problematic comments, could also be an extension of this. Still not excusable, but it’s an explanation.

So, how has this mindset affected his relationship with O!Ciel so far?

The Phantomhives are interchangeable to him (AKA The Amorphous Blob of Phantomhives)

On the surface this can be seen as a good thing. After all, to favour one twin over the other for x reason, as Lizzie acknowledges to herself, is inherently selfish and unfair to the other person, no matter how much of an honest or natural feeling it is.

UT does not have such a preference. When he meets O!Ciel in the Chapter 131 flashback, he calls him ‘Little Phantomhive’ and cannot tell whether he is the younger or elder brother, before stating that he doesn’t care which, not because he likes them equally but because they are Phantomhives.

As far as he is concerned, the twins are mere parts in the amorphous, ever-growing Phantomhive blob. They have no identity outside of being Phantomhives, the same as Frances. He had no special bond with either twin because the only connection between them and himself that mattered was their family name.

If UT was interested in getting to know either twin as a person, like the opportunity he had in the Ch.131 flashback, he would have attempted to seriously differentiate the two.

While he does ask which twin O!Ciel is, he does it as a rhetorical question, a joke, and then immediately follows it by dismissing the question altogether as he has already decided it doesn’t matter.

More unsettlingly, it appears UT is so disinterested in the development (physical and otherwise) of the individual Phantomhives, that to his eyes they are unchanging. Though UT does remark on O!Ciel’s small stature a few times, this is spoken like/treated as a joke more than an observation from interest.

[There are very rare exceptions to this, but I’ll get into those later.]

This is shown when he responds to Frances commenting on his lack of visible aging by stating that she still looks as if she was ‘born yesterday’.

Even Vincent, whose death UT has lamented the most openly, even shedding tears, is not exempt from this treatment at all. He is no less ‘a Phantomhive anyway’ than his children/relatives, I realised (thanks to frederickabberline again!).

Yes, UT regrets his death, but whenever he has brought it up it is always in the context that he can no longer revive him because his bones were burned to ash. (x and x). He never says anything like ‘He was a dear friend, how could I have failed him’, ‘He was a good man, why was he given such a death?’, ‘We had such good times together,’ - something to indicate an attachment to Vincent as a person.

And then, immediately following his lament, UT once more depersonalises Vincent, just like he did the twins, by stating that at least “the ‘Earl of Phantomhive’ is still with us”. It always comes back to that, as if it’s the only thing keeping him from wallowing in grief for those individuals.

As long as one Phantomhive is alive, he can deal with/suppress/channel his grief of personal losses into a goal which will keep him from losing more, and dwelling on what he has already lost.

Even when he comments on how much he dislikes the Phantomhive Watchdog work, while he mentions O!Ciel he talks about the ‘karma’ or ‘fate’ than hangs over every Phantomhive, the things every Phantomhive Watchdog deals with.

As we hear later, he is resentful of the path the Phantomhives walk, their inability to rid themselves of it (by listening to him/heeding his warnings), and the Watchdog life in general, so he doesn’t care about the effects on Ciel, but the effects the ‘chain of fate’ has on the Phantomhive family and their legacy.

This more recently extends to his statement of ‘I didn’t want to lose anymore Phantomhives’, which is as blatant an explanation as you like. It confirms where his mind has focused all this time.

UT regularly teases/dismisses Ciel regarding the trauma of his past.

@frederickabberline kindly shared with me the moment where UT describes the ‘proper’ method of killing that Jack the Ripper probably used, to O!Ciel, using O!Ciel as a prop - even though he had a human dummy to use for this purpose.

He may as well have whispered “I know what you did three years ago!”. He’s even gesturing to the boy’s abdomen/stomach area with his ring hand! With his phrasing, and the Japanese text confirms that he literally refers to “steal[ing] the precious thing”, he echoes R!Ciel’s ‘Who stole the candy from my tummy?’ message.

Oh yeah, and he does this while knowingly allowing O!Ciel to sit on the coffin with his dead/bizarre doll twin inside!

Thankfully, O!Ciel doesn’t catch on, but Jesus Christ, UT!

If UT truly cared about O!Ciel’s emotional well-being, just cared about him as an individual, why would he reference one of the most painful moments of O!Ciel’s life in such a sneaky, tactless manner, even if he knew he could get away with it here?

He does it again in Ch. 24, where UT doesn’t even hide what he’s talking about under the context of a different subject, like he did in his first appearance. Here, after remarking that dead children are commonplace in the underworld, he directly tells O!Ciel “The Earl knows that very well, doesn’t he?”.

JESUS CHRIST, UT!

He doesn’t consider O!Ciel’s feelings at all. He cares about his own amusement at O!Ciel’s expense, which extends to basically anyone else. But O!Ciel is a Phantomhive, part of the family UT is so concerned with/attached to he is literally trying to overturn the law of death for them to continue living.

But as I outlined earlier, UT does not care about any of the Phantomhives, at least the ones currently living and the previous Earl beyond the fact that they are Phantomhives.

Therefore, he does not consider O!Ciel’s trauma, or care to know about it. He didn’t care to know how he was different from his twin, they were all the same to him, so why would he care now?

Even if we consider that this black/gallows humour is UT’s personal way of coping, anyone with an ounce of tact would still not do this in front of others who they know such humour will hurt. Maybe UT has too many screws loose to care, or he is so detached he simply does not have room for it in his head.

UT does advise O!Ciel to take care of his soul, as he only has one - which considering his history with R!Ciel (who is still chilling in the zero gravity float spa coffin in the room somewhere), makes sense. But he’s still speaking to O!Ciel as a Phantomhive.

While UT is very well aware of O!Ciel’s contract to Seb the demon, and aware of the danger O!Ciel has placed his soul in, he later contextualises this as the result of O!Ciel holding the same ‘great power’ as his ancestors, which leads to them forgetting the importance of their lives/their souls.

So again, it’s about the Phantomhives as a whole, and how O!Ciel is repeating the same mistakes as his ancestors. He isn’t concerned with O!Ciel’s feelings here, even though he is clearly re-living that traumatic event front the past.

The final, and most damning, is UT’s attitude towards O!Ciel when the existence of R!Ciel is revealed. He reacts to O!Ciel’s obvious disgust, grief and terror with a shrug and exasperated “What? How can you not like this? Does it really matter if he’s alive or dead?”

UT is so detached from O!Ciel as a person, and detached/disinterested in general from human feelings beyond his own - consciously or otherwise - that he cannot fathom how the twin of the zombie twin he brought back might have an issue with what UT did.

UT is projecting, I think, his own feelings/expectations onto O!Ciel in this scene. Easy to do, because he had detached himself from the boy personally. If UT were in O!Ciel’s shoes, he would be delighted, because at this point that it does not matter to UT in what form such and such returns, human or bizarre doll, just so long as they do, and that it will be as if they never died.

And this comes before the revelation that R!Ciel’s dead body was ‘watching’ him the whole time!

Again, it’s unclear whether UT is simply bonkers and doesn’t care anymore or if he’s genuinely unable to focus on anything other than his end goal to acknowledge how messed up it is and how it’s hurting O!Ciel.

Exceptions to the rule

So far, I can point to two incidents that deviate from the usual detached manner in which UT deals/relates to O!Ciel.

The first comes in the Campania arc when UT entrusts his treasured funeral lockets to O!Ciel. Ch.64.

The look UT gives O!Ciel is important, and it is the first of two key moments which could lead to their relationship changing perhaps for the better. He looks surprised, shocked, and the light/roundness/look in Ciel’s eyes give him a more innocent, childish look.

The close up between them indicate that they are really looking at one another. Or, if this is purely UT’s POV, he is really looking at O!Ciel.

I couldn’t swear to it, but this could indicate that finally, UT is seeing O!Ciel as a little boy, not merely an extension to the Phantomhive legacy, and that this reassures him enough to entrust his most treasured possessions - the last remaining pieces of the people he cherished - to O!Ciel.

This, and his expression as he tells O!Ciel that the item is his treasure, is the first time UT shares anything personal with O!Ciel, and they share a connection for a moment, after so many years - many more for UT - of being detached/distant from one another.

The second time comes exactly twenty chapters later (may not be relevant, but I just noticed that) in the Weston Arc, where UT remarks how O!Ciel is different from his ancestors for saving Harcourt in from the rampaging bizarre dolls instead of just himself, as his predecessors would have done.

This is the first time UT acknowledges something about O!Ciel’s personality that makes him himself, and not merely an extension of the Phantomhive family or another Phantomhive making the same old mistakes on the same old path. UT seems pleased to see this.

Of course, these incidents happen before the whole ‘Hihi, your dead brother’s corpse was by your side this whole time, Earl!/’Your dead brother is a zombie, why aren’t you happy?’ event, in which he describes the twins as ‘mirrors of each other’, which harkens back to his inability/disinterest to tell the twins apart and all the issues that come with it.

UT himself

It’s difficult to say at this point whether UT is aware that how he is acting/what he is doing is wrong. If he knows that how he is treating/has treated O!Ciel is not the way the child of the family he cares for so much should be treated, and whether he justifies this in his own head (’ends justify the means’ type thing) or whether he is too insane to care anymore.

He does not deny to Othello that he has a few screws loose, so there’s that at least as far as self-awareness goes. He has likely been severely traumatised by the losses he suffered in the past, and whatever else we can theorise about his reaper past, and has done all he can to prevent more - event to the point of alienating and depersonalising the members of the same family he once deeply loved.

Whatever the case, I think enough groundwork has been laid for there to be a conflict later down the road on this point, focusing squarely on how he has viewed the Phantomhive family members for some time, the twins included.

Conclusion

While he has remained largely detached from O!Ciel and only interacted insofar as it suits his goals and his obsession, there have been moments where UT and O!Ciel have shared a personal connection where UT was forced to see O!Ciel as an individual. An individual deserving of more attention and care - PROPER attention and care - than UT has been willing to give in a long time because he has been so focused on his own goals and his own wishes for the Phantomhives.

He may for the first time actually start to consider what is truly best for the twins, instead of simply what he wants.

How he responds to this conflict within him between a newfound personal care for O!Ciel and the goal he has been working so ruthlessly towards for years is definitely interesting to think about.

It could completely throw off-balance how he has thought/operated for so long, and bring back painful memories and force him to confront ugly things about himself that he has either been too blind/mad or single-minded to acknowledge.

He might question a lot of things he’s done, his current plan even, and maybe consider working with O!Ciel and allies rather than separately from them, as he has always done. He might realise that his detachment, disinterest, and depersonalisation are flaws rather than self-protection, that do more harm than good, and realise he needs to change.

Funny, when he goes on so much about how little the Phantomhives change and how it always comes back to bite them - UT is guilty of the same, in his own way!

Anyway, I’m sure his and O!Ciel’s dynamic and relationship will change, possibly quite dramatically, soon!

What do you guys think?

#undertaker black butler #undertaker kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji spoilers #kuroshitsuji #black butler #black butler spoilers #ciel phantomhive #Ciel Phantomhive Black Butler #Ciel Phantomhive Kuroshitsuji #theory #discussion #meta

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postwick-palace · 5 years ago

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What could Hop’s arc in the Pokémon anime look like?

This is a question that I’ve been mulling over in the past couple of months, as I love the Journeys anime so far and I love Hop as a character and I’d love for his character to be given justice in the anime. The anime’s been pretty hit or miss as far as adapting game rivals goes, and the fact that Ash isn’t actually journeying through Galar makes it more difficult to establish Hop as a rival to Ash. But I still think it can be done, and with the Darkest Day arc kicking off in a few days, I think now’s a perfect time to share my thoughts on what a Hop arc done right might look like!

So, I basically plotted out a full seven-episode arc for Hop that would theoretically take place over the course of a season or so. Given how little time Journeys is spending even on its longer arcs, it’s highly unlikely that they’d actually give him this long of an arc, but hey. I’m proposing my ideal Hop arc, not necessarily the most plausible Hop arc.

The focus of my proposed arc is his struggle with being “strong” that he goes through during the middle-third of the game, after losing to Bede. Hop will be another competitor in the World Coronation Series, but when Ash meets him, he’s in the middle of a slump. Ash eventually helps him get out of this slump, and then Hop gets the opportunity to rematch Bede - the challenger who started him on the slump - and prove to Bede that he’s become stronger. Because Hop feels like he’s weak when he first meets Ash and Goh, he initially hides the fact that he’s Leon’s little brother from them. But eventually, they learn about their relationship and even get to spend time with Hop and Leon together, showing a little bit of a different side to both Trainers.

The basic purpose of each episode is as follows:

Episode 1 - Introduction: Introduces Hop; on the surface he's just another friendly WCS competitor but there are some hints that there's something deeper going on with him, like the fact that he gets really pissed off when Team Rocket calls him weak.

Episode 2 - Context: It's revealed that he's on a losing streak and he's trying to catch stronger Pokémon to break it, but he's not very close with any of his Pokémon because he doesn't think that's necessary to get stronger.

Episode 3 - Breaking Point: Hop’s lost so much that he's fallen back down to Normal Rank, and he's pretty bummed about it. Spending time with Ash & Goh helps him realize that having a strong bond with your Pokémon is important to getting stronger and he decides to add some of his older Pokémon back to his team.

Episode 4 - Lesson Learned: Continuation of the previous episode; Hop battles Ash with a team of Pokémon that he has a strong bond with and he wins. It's also strongly hinted at that he's Leon's little brother.

Episode 5 - Bede: Bede's introduced as the challenger who started Hop on his losing streak, and Ash learns that Hop is Leon's little brother.

Episode 6 - Hop vs Bede: Continuation of the previous episode; Hop rematches Bede and is able to defeat him this time, demonstrating how he's grown. Also, Goh finally learns that Hop is Leon’s little brother.

Episode 7 - Leon’s Day Off: Hop & Leon spend time together in an informal setting and Ash & Goh get to learn more about their personal life, as well as just seeing how different Leon is when he's not showing off to the public.

And because I got really into it, I wrote up essentially full synopses for each episode, going into detail about how those points I outlined up above would be demonstrated. Since this post is already pretty long as it is, the episode synopses are under the cut!

Note: Because I wrote most of this over a month ago, before we even had any clue what the Eternatus plot would look like in the anime, this proposal deliberately avoids any mention of Chairman Rose, Eternatus, the Darkest Day, or the legendary wolves. It also assumes that Ash’s Riolu and Goh’s Raboot have not evolved by the time the arc begins, but they will have evolved later on.

Episode 1: Introduction

The episode begins with Ash and Goh arriving in Turffield. They’ve heard about the hidden treasure of Turffield and that some new clues to its location have recently been discovered, so they’re gonna go on a treasure hunt to try to find it. They talk to a local who gives them the clues they need to get started, and they set out to get hunting.

Just then, Ash gets an alert on his Rotom Phone that someone’s challenging him to a World Coronation Series match. He accepts and looks around to see who the challenger is, and he discovers it’s an energetic kid with purple hair and yellow-gold eyes who introduces himself as Hop from Postwick. Ash introduces himself, and a WCS battle begins.

The match is Ash’s Riolu versus Hop’s Cramorant. At some point during the battle, there’s a gag where Cramorant uses Surf and it floods the whole area, and then Goh realizes that Ash’s Pikachu is missing – only to discover that it got gulped up by Cramorant. Ash and Goh ask Cramorant to spit Pikachu out, but Hop commands Cramorant to attack instead. Unfortunately for Hop, Cramorant has difficulty maneuvering with a Pikachu in its mouth, so none of the attacks it uses while holding Pikachu hit their target. He wonders if maybe he should just have Cramorant spit out Pikachu, but before he can make a decision Ash finally just has Riolu use Vacuum Wave on Cramorant. This causes it to spit out Pikachu right into Riolu, which deals damage and paralyzes it. Hop is relieved because that was what he was hoping for all along.

However, ever the flexible thinker, Ash is able to turn the battle around and claim victory. His rank rises while Hop’s rank falls, revealing that Hop is actually higher ranked than Ash. Hop thanks Ash for the battle – it taught him that relying on Cramorant’s Gulp Missile ability was clearly a bad strategy. He then says that Cramorant is a bust, but when Ash asks him what he means by that Hop doesn’t elaborate.

Rather, he asks Goh if Goh is a World Coronation Series competitor too. Goh introduces himself and says he isn’t, and Ash explains that they’re here looking for the treasure of Turffield. Hop gets excited because he’s looking for the treasure of Turffield, too. He challenges Ash and Goh to a competition to see who can find the treasure first.

The treasure hunt is a little more elaborate than it is in the games, with a series of clues that each tell the location of the next one. The last clue points them to the middle of a field which happens to be occupied by Wooloo. Ash reaches it first, but he can’t get the Wooloo to move. Goh joins him next and tries using the Pokédex to figure out how to move them, but it doesn’t help either.

Finally Hop reaches them, and he’s disappointed that he fell behind but perks up when he realizes that they’re stuck because of the Wooloo. He claims to know everything there is to know about Wooloo and spouts off some Wooloo facts. According to Hop, Wooloo are useless in battle, but their wool makes really strong fabric. If you want to get them to trust you, you have to scratch them right behind the ears. They’re very stubborn and aren’t prone to moving, especially in large groups, but they can be startled by loud noises. Once they start rolling, that’s your chance to herd them in the direction you want.

Ash says that he tried startling them with a loud noise already, but after they rolled away they rolled back before he could reach the spot where the treasure was buried. Hop says you need to herd them away from it and says he’ll show them how it’s done. He sends out a Raboot, much to Goh’s surprise, and Raboot runs quietly to the other side of the flock. Hop yells to startle the Wooloo and Raboot fires an Ember up into the air, drawing the Wooloo’s attention so they all move away from Hop and towards Raboot. Then Raboot runs back to Hop’s side, blocking off the Wooloo from moving back to their old spot. Hop thanks the Wooloo for their cooperation and pets one of the Wooloo on the head, getting a wistful look in his eye.

Suddenly, a net flies out and grabs Raboot and all the Wooloo. Hop is bewildered, Ash and Goh rush to his side, and Team Rocket reveal themselves and do the motto. They grab Pikachu as well for good measure and attempt to make their escape. Hop sends out a Toxel and a Silicobra, but neither of them really know ranged attacks so they can’t do much. Team Rocket laugh at their ineffectiveness and say something along the lines of him being a “weak little twerp” which makes Hop really angry, but no matter how many attacks his Pokémon use they can’t reach Team Rocket.

Goh, who still has all his Pokémon, sends out his own Raboot. Hop’s surprised that Goh also has a Raboot, and Goh’s Raboot uses Ember to break the net that Team Rocket is using to hold the Pokémon. Hop’s Raboot rescues Ash’s Pikachu, and Pikachu and the two Raboot send Team Rocket blasting off. Hop’s and Goh’s Raboot do something cute like fistbump or something to show that they’re buddies now.

Finally, they’re able to dig up the hidden treasure; it might be an Expert Belt like in the games or it could be something more useful. Hop expects Ash to take it since he was the first one to reach the Wooloo, but Ash says Hop should have it since they couldn’t have moved the Wooloo without him. Hop tries to downplay his contribution but Goh agrees with Ash, so Hop gets to take the treasure. He thanks Ash and Goh for their help rescuing Raboot and the Wooloo, and the episode ends with Hop saying goodbye to them and heading off on his own way.

Episode 2: Context

The episode begins with Goh deciding that he wants to catch more Pokémon from other regions. Ash makes some suggestions, but Goh just can’t pick a single region to go to. Professor Cerise suggests that they go to the Wild Area in Galar since it’s full of Pokémon from every region. Goh thinks that’s a great idea, and Ash is eager to join him because that means they might be able to find more wild Dynamax Pokémon. So, they set off for the Galar region once more.

They arrive at a different part of the Wild Area than the one they explored last time so they can hopefully find different Pokémon. Goh finds some Pokémon he hasn’t caught before and catches it. Ash looks around for a pillar of red light indicating the appearance of a Dynamax Pokémon, and he spots one that doesn’t look too far away. They head off to investigate it.

They’re able to see from a long way off that it’s a Dynamax Snorlax, and maybe one of them comments that it looks different from the one they encountered on their first visit. As they get closer they hear the sounds of Pokémon attacks and realize that someone is battling the Snorlax. Eventually, they’re close enough to realize that that someone is Hop. He’s battling Snorlax with Raboot, Boltund, Trevenant, and Heatmor all at the same time, and as they watch, Hop manages to weaken Snorlax enough to try to catch it. He takes out a Poke Ball and uses his Dynamax Band to supersize it before throwing it at Snorlax. It shakes three times before returning to normal size for the click.

As Hop jogs over to pick up his new catch, Ash and Goh call his name and congratulate him. Hop greets them, and Ash says he didn’t know that you could catch Dynamax Pokémon. Hop says that you can as long as you have a Dynamax Band, and wild Dynamax Pokémon are a little stronger than other Pokémon, so he’s been looking around the Wild Area for strong Dynamax Pokémon to add to his team. Goh says that they’re here to catch Pokémon too, so maybe they could catch Pokémon together. Hop points out that they can’t both catch a single Pokémon, but he thinks it’ll be fun to compete to see who can catch the Pokémon first.

A brief little montage follows in which Hop and Goh compete to catch a few Pokémon, each of them catching a couple. Eventually, Hop spots a Dreepy and is really eager to try to catch it. It runs away almost immediately, and Hop has some difficulty chasing after it, but eventually he’s able to catch up to the Dreepy and catch it. By that point, they’re all pretty tired from chasing after Dreepy, and Ash being Ash is absolutely starving. So, Hop suggests they set up camp and offers to treat them to proper Galarian curry.

They all send out their full teams and share the curry Pokémon Camp style. Ash is eager to see Hop’s Cramorant again, but to his surprise Hop doesn’t have it with him. Hop says that he sent it home to Postwick – he keeps all the Pokémon he catches that are no good in battle there. Goh observes that Hop’s Pokémon are all keeping to themselves and don’t seem very close to him, and Hop explains that they’re all recent catches so he hasn’t spent much time with them. Ash says that camping out with them like this will be a great way to bond with them, but Hop says that there’s not much point in bonding with his Pokémon if he can’t come up with good strategies to use with them. He needs to get stronger and becoming friends with his Pokémon isn’t necessary to do that. Hop then changes the subject before Ash or Goh can argue with him.

Naturally, the World Coronation Series eventually comes up in conversation. Ash shows off his ranking and asks Hop what his is. Hop doesn’t want to look at his rank though, and when pressed he explains that he was almost to Hyper Rank when he lost to another challenger and has been on a losing streak ever since. Ash encourages him not to give up and to keep training to become stronger, and Hop agrees, declaring that he’s going to become the next World Monarch.

Hop’s new Dreepy floats up to him, and Hop pets it and says Dreepy’s an integral part of his plan to get to World Monarch status. Goh is surprised because it’s such a timid-looking Pokémon, and Hop claims that it may be weak now but its final evolution, Dragapult, is one of the strongest Dragon-type Pokémon. He adds that the World Monarch himself has a Dragapult on his team that he only uses against his toughest opponents, so that’s why wanted to catch a Dreepy for himself.

However, because they can’t have nice things, Team Rocket shows up to steal all their Pokémon – a task made much easier by the fact that they’re all just sitting out in the open for them to steal. They nab all the Pokémon except Hop’s brand-new Snorlax because it’s too heavy to be sucked up by Team Rocket’s machine. Hop and Snorlax destroy Team Rocket’s machine and free all the Pokémon; Team Rocket summons the vending machine to get some Pokémon to battle with. Snorlax is able to defeat both Pokémon singlehandedly, much to Hop’s delight. He declares that Snorlax is also going to be an integral part of his championship team.

With everything packed up and put away, Hop and Ash and Goh prepare to once again go their separate ways. Hop says that with the new team members he’s acquired today, he feels like he’s finally gonna be able to break his losing streak and start climbing back up the ranks, and he promises to have a rematch with Ash the next time they meet. Ash wishes him luck, and Hop runs off.

Back at Cerise Park, Goh sets out food for his Pokémon and observes how all the new Pokémon he caught today are fitting in well. He thinks about how distant Hop’s Pokémon seemed by comparison and Hop’s words about it not being necessary to bond with his Pokémon. Ash walks up and asks Goh what he’s thinking about, and Goh says that Hop is a really strange Trainer. Ash cheerfully replies that they’re all a little strange, and Hop clearly loves Pokémon, so he doesn’t see anything wrong about him. The episode ends with Goh thinking that if Hop really loves Pokémon, he sure has a strange way of showing it.

Episode 3: Breaking Point

The episode opens with Hop walking alone through Circhester, shuffling his feet and staring at his WCS ranking on his phone – he’s back down to Normal Rank. He switches to another window on his phone that starts playing an interview with Leon. In the interview, Leon talks about his dream for the Trainers of Galar to become stronger. When the interviewer asks him about the World Coronation Series, Leon namedrops Ash as a competitor who he’s got his eye on. Hop shoves his phone back into his pocket and walks away dejectedly.

Meanwhile, Ash and Goh are visiting Circhester today because they’re investigating a wild Snom outbreak around there. They’ve barely just arrived when Ash is jumped by a bunch of WCS competitors who saw Leon’s interview and want to battle Ash because the Champion singled him out. At first, Ash is eager to fight, but he gets a bit overwhelmed by the number of people who want to battle him.

Suddenly, Hop appears and in a pretty authoritative voice tells everybody to leave Ash alone because they’re being rude and Ash isn’t here to battle. They disperse, and Ash and Goh thank Hop for the assist – they’re not used to dealing with big groups of people like that. Ash wonders why they got mobbed in the first place, and Hop’s surprised that they haven’t seen the interview yet. He describes it as an interview where “Mr. World Monarch himself said that you’re a promising Trainer that he’s got high hopes for in the World Coronation Series, Ash,” but his annoyance goes unnoticed by Ash and Goh. Hop recommends that they stay out of the city for a while until people calm down, and that works for Ash and Goh because the wild Snom they’re looking for don’t live in the city, anyways. Hop asks to go with them because Snom are really cute and who wouldn’t want to go see Snom, y’know?

While they’re looking for the Snom, however, Hop is notably more subdued than usual. When Ash asks him how the WCS is going for him, Hop avoids the question. They start to get really cold, so Hop sends out his Raboot and Goh his Cinderace to keep themselves warm. Raboot and Cinderace are buds as usual, and Hop says – kinda bitterly – that he thinks Raboot likes Cinderace more than him. Goh says that his Cinderace was the same way when it was a Raboot and that Raboot just shows how it cares in a different way.

A little later, they finally find the Snom and play around with them for a bit with their Pokémon, but the playing gets a little too rough and they accidentally cause an avalanche. Hop ends up trapped inside a cave with Raboot while Ash and Goh and their Pokémon are still outside. Hop calls out to Ash and Goh, but they can’t hear him. Next, he sends out all the rest of his Pokémon: Snorlax, Pincurchin, Drakloak, and Xatu. He tries to get them to destroy the rocks and ice from the inside, but they can’t. With the cave seemingly coming to a dead end a short way in and no way out, Hop decides that his only option is to return everyone except Raboot, for warmth, and hunker down to await rescue.

Meanwhile, Ash and Goh are trying to get to Hop from the outside. They’ve already realized that he can’t hear them, and Goh finally determines that they can’t move or destroy the avalanche without making things worse. They decide to go back to the city to get professional help – one of those Macro Cosmos subsidiaries probably specializes in stuff like this.

Back in the cave, Hop’s starting to shiver from the cold even with Raboot there; Raboot is visibly distressed despite Hop reassuring him that he’s fine. Raboot starts looking for another way out of the cave and eventually finds one by melting some ice. Hop and Raboot explore this other path, but it just leads to another exit blocked by the avalanche. Raboot doesn’t give up though and tries to destroy the ice and snow from the inside again. Through the power of determination and friendship, Raboot evolves into Cinderace and is able to melt everything with Pyro Ball.

Hop is amazed and overjoyed that Cinderace evolved, but he doesn’t understand why until Cinderace gives him a big hug to warm him up. He realizes that, like Goh said, it cares about him a lot and this is how it’s showing that. Flashing back to a battle of Ash’s and a battle of Leon’s, Hop realizes that the thing he was missing – the reason why all his strategies and picking the right Pokémon never worked – is that having a close bond with your Pokémon does help make them stronger, and maybe that’s even more important than using the “strongest” Pokémon.

Hop finds Ash and Goh to show them that he’s okay and make sure all the Snom are okay, but he doesn’t stick around for long – he sprints back to Circhester and calls home. His mom starts to ask him if he’s seen Leon’s interview, but Hop interrupts her to ask her to send over a couple of his Pokémon. After she’s sent them over, she says they missed him and Hop says, a little tearfully, that he missed them too.

Ash and Goh are back in Circhester near the Hero’s Bath, talking about their encounter with the Snom. Hop runs up to them with Cinderace, Corvisquire, and Wooloo all out of their Poké Balls and running alongside him. He introduces Ash and Goh to Wooloo, the first Pokémon he ever owned, and Corvisquire, the first Pokémon he ever caught. The episode ends with Hop challenging Ash to an official World Coronation Series match.

Episode 4: Lesson Learned

Hop and Ash battle, with Hop using Wooloo, Corvisquire, and Cinderace. Hop is noticeably more confident in making decisions and issuing commands to his Pokémon than he was in his first battle with Ash. It’s a close match, but Hop wins because he’s in sync with his Pokémon and believes in himself. [Wooloo or Corvisquire could evolve during the battle, but Cinderace just evolved last episode and I don’t want to overdo it on the evolutions.]

When Hop’s rankings update, the announcer states that the victory brings him back up to Super Rank. Ash and Goh are surprised because they didn’t even know that Hop had fallen down back to Normal Rank. Hop explains that he was feeling so bummed last episode because of that, and he was actually looking for Ash because he hoped spending time with Ash would help him figure out what he needed to do to get out of his slump – “you were endorsed by the World Monarch, after all”.

Hop is filled with new determination to become the next World Monarch and Ash is pumped to have a renewed rivalry with Hop. He promises to defeat Hop the next time they battle, but Hop says Ash won’t stand a chance because Hop’s about to start a new winning streak and reach Hyper Rank in no time. Hop says goodbye and races off to go challenge another WCS competitor.

Goh, meanwhile, is curious about the interview and calls Ash over so they can watch it together on Goh’s Rotom Phone. They watch the part that Hop saw, where Leon talks about Ash, but they don’t stop watching immediately like Hop did. And as it turns out, the next thing the interviewer asks is which Trainer from Galar Leon thinks has the most potential in the World Coronation Series. Leon’s answer is his little brother: “My little bro may only be Normal Rank now, but I’m certain that he’ll soon become a force to be reckoned with!”

Ash and Goh are surprised to learn that Leon has a little brother, and Ash wonders who the little brother is. Goh says that if he’s anything like his brother, then Ash will definitely meet Leon’s little brother in battle someday. The episode ends with them returning to Kanto to tell Professor Cerise about everything that happened in their visit to Galar.

Episode 5: Bede

Ash and Goh are in Galar again. This time, Ash is there for a battle competition in Hammerlocke, while Goh plans to explore the nearby Wild Area to catch more Pokémon. The Hammerlocke battle competition, which is simply named the Hammerlocke Challenger’s Cup, isn’t affiliated with the World Coronation Series, but Ash thinks it’ll be good practice for the competition. Plus, it’ll be a lot of fun because it’s held in Hammerlocke Stadium so the competitors can use Dynamax in the matches.

After Ash has signed up for the competition he runs into Hop, who’s chipper and enthusiastic as usual. Hop also signs up for the competition and asks where Goh is; Ash explains that he’s out catching Pokémon, but he’ll be back to watch the battles.

Just then, someone offscreen is like, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Champion’s pathetic little brother.” Cut to Bede, who’s looking smug and arrogant as always. Hop tells him to shut up and Bede asks Hop if he really can’t handle hearing the truth. Hop says that Bede’s too full of himself to notice the truth and Bede retorts that he’s perfectly capable of telling a strong Trainer from a weak one and Hop definitely falls in the latter category.

Ash finally interrupts to ask if Bede meant Champion as in Leon, and Bede condescendingly asks what other Champion he would be referring to. Hop points out that every region has a Champion, but there’s only one World Monarch – and that’s his big bro. Ash is shocked to learn that Hop is Leon’s little brother, but Hop’s surprised that Ash didn’t know or figure that out already. Bede takes the opportunity to get in another jab at Hop, saying that Ash didn’t realize he was the Champion’s brother because he’s so weak. Hop snaps at Bede that he’s been training and gotten stronger since last time, and he’ll prove it by beating Bede in the Challenger’s Cup. Bede says that he doesn’t stand a chance, and Ash gets fired up and says that he’s gonna win the whole thing.

Bede finally asks who Ash is and he introduces himself; Bede recognizes the name and tells him that he’s not a hotshot just because the Champion has an eye on him. Hop mutters “World Monarch” under his breath as Bede strolls away to go register for the tournament, leaving Ash to wonder what the heck Bede’s problem is.

Ash then asks Hop how he knows Bede and why he never told them that he’s Leon’s little brother. Hop explains that Bede’s the WCS competitor who he lost to that set him on his losing streak, and Bede totally flattened him in their battle. After Hop lost, Bede started saying stuff like what they just heard, about Hop being weak and dragging Leon’s good name through the mud and such. Hop didn’t want to tell people that he’s Leon’s little brother because he was afraid they’d see how weak he was and think worse of Leon for it.

Ash assures him that none of that’s true and Hop says he’s figured that out, so now he just has to prove it to Bede. Ash agrees, but also says that he’s not gonna go easy on Hop or Bede if he battles against them in the cup.

A montage of scenes follows: Goh catches some Pokémon; Ash, Hop, and Bede battle in the tournament. They all dominate in their matches and make it to the semifinals. Hop beats his rando opponent and makes it to the finals, while Ash and Bede battle each other in the semifinal round. Goh comes back in time to watch their battle; he and Hop spectate together, so Hop is able to fill Goh in on who Bede is.

To their dismay, Ash loses to Bede – probably because he was using a Pokémon he had only caught recently or one with a type disadvantage or something. Bede gloats, Hop gets even more determined to defeat him, and the episode ends with Hop preparing to battle Bede.

Episode 6: Hop vs Bede

It’s time for the final match of the Hammerlocke Challenger’s Cup. Bede starts with an all-out offensive strategy using Reuniclus but Hop’s Snorlax is able to take hits really well, so Hop seems to have the advantage at first. Then Reuniclus confuses Snorlax and it starts hurting itself, allowing Bede to defeat it.

Hop sends out Dubwool next and Reuniclus confuses Dubwool as well, but Dubwool is able to break through the confusion thanks to his bond with Hop. Together they’re able to defeat Reuniclus, and then Bede sends out his Hatterene. He Gigantamaxes Hatterene right away, forcing Hop to Dynamax Dubwool as well. Dubwool is then able to defeat Hatterene and win the tournament for Hop.

The prize for winning the Challenger’s Cup is a candy basket filled with Exp. Candies and Dynamax Candies, leading to a gag where Ash tries to eat one of the candies before Hop tells him that they’re meant for Pokémon. The prize also comes with a special bonus – the Leon ball used in Pokémon Camp. Hop finds this absolutely hilarious and decides to call his brother to show it to him.

He makes the call with Ash and Goh, but Goh doesn’t know who Hop’s brother is yet, so he’s shocked when Leon answers. Leon is surprised that Ash and Goh have met Hop – he hadn’t seen Ash participating in the tournament because he’d been too busy to watch it – but he’s proud to hear that his little brother won and laughs at the merch prize. He makes a joke about autographing the ball for Hop, but then he has to go take care of some Champion thing – he promises to call Hop again soon before hanging up.

Bede makes some snide comment behind them about the Champion not making time for his little brother, and Hop gets mad at Bede for eavesdropping. Bede says he shouldn’t make phone calls in a public place if he doesn’t want people to overhear. Hop tries to get Bede to admit that he’s not weak, but Bede only acknowledges that he’s less weak than before and asserts that he’s still a better Trainer than Hop – Hop’s victory was just a fluke. He adds that since he was able to beat Ash, the Champion’s eye will be on him now. Then he strides away with smug confidence. Hop tells Ash not to listen to anything Bede says, and the episode ends with Ash declaring that he’ll beat Bede next time.

Episode 7: Leon’s Day Off

The episode opens with Leon doing boring Champion stuff: meetings, interviews, paperwork, and the like. He makes a comment to Oleana about this being his least favorite part of the job, but she’s not terribly sympathetic and tells him to get to his next meeting. When he gets lost on the way to the meeting, he declares that he needs a break from all this. Then he asks a nearby office worker if they can escort him to the meeting room he’s supposed to be in.

Later, Ash, Goh, and Hop are doing some research task in the Wild Area; Ash and Goh were asked to do it by Professor Cerise and they happened to run into Hop, who volunteered to join them. They’re just finishing up with it when Hop gets a phone call from his mum, who says she misses him and wants him to come home for dinner. Hop awkwardly tells her that he’s with friends right now, and she invites them to come for dinner, too – she’s barbecuing and there will be plenty of food for everyone. Goh says that he wouldn’t mind seeing Hop’s hometown, while Ash was hooked the moment she brought up food. So, the three of them finish what they were doing and head to Postwick together.

Hop points out some landmarks along the way like the Wooloo fields and the Slumbering Weald. They meet Hop’s mum out front of their house and she makes some remark along the lines of being happy for Ash and Goh being friends with Hop because Hop was never as good at making friends as his brother, and Hop gets all embarrassed about it. When Mum finds out that Ash and Goh have traveled here all the way from Kanto, she insists that they spend the night and tells them to go inside and pick out places to sleep.

They head into the living room and Hop invites them to look around, make themselves at home. Ash and Goh take him up on the offer and start looking around at everything. Hop says that if they don’t want to sleep on the floor, then someone will have to sleep on the couch and the other can get the guest room. Then he remembers that someone could use Leon’s room, so he says that they won’t need the couch after all.

However, someone else says that room’s already claimed. They whirl around to see Leon and Charizard standing in the entrance to the living room. He’s wearing totally casual clothes – no cap, no cape, no uniform. Hop greets him with an enthusiastic hug, and Leon says it’s good to see him again. He notes that he wasn’t expecting to see Ash and Goh here, but it’s good to see them again, too.

Ash explains that Mum invited them, and Hop says that they weren’t expecting to see Leon – “Why didn’t Mum say anything?” Leon explains that he took the day off today and decided to come home, and he asked Mum to invite Hop here so that he could surprise his little bro. Hop says that he was definitely surprised. Then he jokes that he’s more surprised that Leon made it home by himself without getting lost, and Leon ruffles his hair and says that Charizard guided him.

Goh’s attention has returned to all the trophies on the wall, and he asks whose they are. Hop sheepishly replies that they’re all Leon’s – he hasn’t won any trophies. Leon asks him what happened to the trophy Hop won at the Hammerlocke Challenger’s Cup and Hop says it’s up in his bedroom; Leon comments that all the trophies he puts up in his bedroom mysteriously migrate to the living room by the time he next comes home. It’s starting to feel a little cramped in the living room, so they all agree to head out to the backyard.

In the backyard, there’s a battlefield and beyond that a pasture where all the Pokémon Hop and Leon have caught are roaming. When Ash sees the battlefield, he gets excited and tells Leon he wants to battle again; Leon’s seriously considering it, but then Mum interrupts to chide him for thinking about battling when he’s supposed to be on vacation. Leon protests that battling is fun, but Mum is insistent that there will be no battling while Leon’s here. She sets the “no-battles” rule for the other boys as well, so Leon won’t get tempted. Ash makes a comment that it feels like something his own mom would do.

They go out to the pasture to play with the Pokémon while Mum cooks. Ash and Goh get to meet Leon’s other Pokémon; Ash and Leon bond over the fact that they both have a Charizard. All of the Pokémon that Hop uses in his in-game battle teams are here, as well as Drakloak, Xatu, and any other miscellaneous Pokémon he might have caught in earlier episodes. Ash is particularly excited to see Cramorant again after not getting to see it back in Episode 2. It’s revealed that Hop’s Cinderace and Dynamax Band were both gifts from Leon, as well as the fact that Leon had told Hop long before he met Ash about the kid from Pallet Town with a Gigantamax Pikachu. Leon and Hop mess with each other a couple of times, and Leon generally demonstrates that he has about as much maturity as the younger three. Overall, everyone’s just having a good time.

When Mum’s finished barbecuing, everyone returns to the backyard for dinner; after dinner, they all start getting ready for bed. Ash opts to sleep on the floor of the guest room while Goh takes the guest bed. As they go to bed, Goh asks Ash if he noticed that the Champion acts differently when he’s at home, but Ash has no idea what he’s talking about. Goh’s not really sure how to put it into words – the best he can describe it is that Leon seems friendlier, but Ash doesn’t get it because Leon’s always friendly. Goh sighs and tells him to forget about it.

Over in Hop’s room, Hop and Dubwool are facing the dilemma that Dubwool is too big to fit in its bed now that it’s evolved. Leon shows up in the doorway and says that Dubwool should just sleep with Hop – half the time when it was a Wooloo, it ended up in Hop’s bed by morning anyways. Hop sticks his tongue out at Leon and pulls out an extra blanket and pillow for Dubwool to sleep on. He arranges it to be comfortable for Dubwool and gets back up, only to realize that Leon is still standing in his room.

Hop asks Lee what’s up and Leon explains that he has to leave early tomorrow morning to make it back to Wyndon in time, meaning he’ll be gone before Hop wakes up. So, he thought he would say goodbye to Hop before they go to bed so he actually gets the chance to do that. Hop is disappointed that Leon has to leave again so soon and he complains about Leon being so busy, but Leon says that that’s just a consequence of being Champion and World Monarch. Hop says that he’ll just have to become the new World Monarch to take some of that burden off Leon’s shoulders, and while he says it in a lighthearted way, Leon responds very seriously that he doesn’t want Hop to be burdening himself with anything and certainly not to try to make things easier on Leon. He’s an adult, he can handle it; Hop should enjoy being a kid while he still can.

Realizing that he just killed the mood, Leon teasingly asks Hop if he’d like Leon to tuck him in and read him a bedtime story. Hop hits Leon with a pillow in response. Leon grabs the pillow from Hop and hits him back, knocking him onto his bed. The two of them share a laugh. Leon says goodbye and goodnight to Hop and gives him a hug before he leaves the room, turning off the lights as he goes.

The episode ends with a shot of the trophy collection in the living room in the morning, to which Hop’s Hammerlocke Challenger’s Cup trophy has been added.

#pokemon #pokeani #anipoke #rival hop #trainer hop #hop pokemon #champion leon #postwick bros #listen if they can't do the full-fledged arc then at the very least i'm begging them to give us something like episode 7 #the one thing that hop brings to the table that no other rival can is humanizing leon - bringing out the soft/domestic side of him #for as much as journeys focuses on leon as the ''big celebrity that everyone looks up to''#it hasn't given us much of the ''big brother to everyone in galar''#and both aspects of leon's character are important and deserve to be given weight #not that i WANT hop to be reduced to a prop for leon's character development #but honestly? i'd rather see him be a prop for leon's character development than not appear at all

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Legend of the Three Cablleros: Nazca Racing and Mexico A-Go-Go

Saludos Amgios and welcome back to The Ride of the Three Caballeros! And we’re almost at the finish line! After this reviews only 4 episodes, 2 reviews and a top 12 list/celebration of this long and fun as hell journey, this one for free to thank kev for paying for all these reviews and because without him this probably woudlnt’ of happened for some time and I thank him for that. Point is we’re so close I can taste it to being finished here so with nothing else to cover, after the cut we’re diving right into adventure.. literally.

Nazca Racing:

So we open at the outside of Sheldgoose Manor as while we’re not at the scene of the action YET, the show has kept it’s tendency to have intresting intros as it goes on. Point is Xandra is incredulous about the guys claims of a magic barrier.. for some reason. Seriously Sheldrake is a powerful sorecerer, has a lair, even if they don’t know about that part, why WOULDN’T his place be shielded from you guys? Still she has to test it punchiing it , arrowing it and throwing a rock at it.. and the rock does take out a window prove it even if i’ts vandalism but that wasn’t a crime thousands of years ago and no one saw them so we good.

Our heroes brainstorm back at the Cabana what to do, ignoring the girls suggestion that since the cabs can’t get through the barrier they can but are ignored because ... I dunno. I seriously dont’ know, they haven’t treated the kids like this before or since. Also if you were wondering why not humphrey, spark of life. Too risky. But this discourse is interupted as there’s a signal in peru. The trap has been sprung and the girls warn it might be since they KNOW the cabs will show up where they are and have time to plan but are brushed off. We also get the start of a thread with Jose as he gives all his money to some kittens who are actually con artists. Turns out that’s WHY he’s poor: he gets money easily but donates it all to bogus charities. You know like Louie’s kids or PETA. It’s a nice character trait, showing despite being a lady’s man and having a bit of an ego.. he’s still a very good guy if very, VERY gullible. Hopefully it comes up againa s this smacks of a flaw brought up and solved in one episode, and while ti’s adressed her it really dosen’t get resolved, but with 5 episodes left after this I HIGHLY doubt it.

So our heroes are off to the Nasca lines of having gotten there with the help of a shady pilot... instead of you know.. porting there.. but given the Nazca Lines are best seen from air according to wikipedia and best shown off that way, as well as the fact it’s revealed you can enter the realm the creatures represented in the lines inhabit via plunging into it, it does make sense. She could’ve TOLD them all this before going but this is one of her off days. The Nazca Lines are a real life set of geoglypys that look really damn cool, and show up in all sorts of works, the two off the top of my head are Mega Man Starforce 2 where their used as the basis for the villians, and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5ds, where there used for the basis for the earthbound immortals.. also villians, a series of powerful and evil gods, and naturally represented by cards, that bring people back from the dead to serve as their avatars, known as the dark signers.

As you can see they also look really fucking awesome. Sadly I have not had a deck with them as I haven’t really thought about it and you need a field spell to keep them alive, but still good stuff. Really need to watch that arc in full some day.

Point is the plane starts to fall apart because the pilot swindled them, or rather Jose, and they have to jump without a parachute as there’s only one. Xandra of course leaps first forgetting her friends don’t have god strength or durability and will just go squish if her logic doesn’t pan out. Panchito naturally leaps without thinking and Jose decides why not and sky captain and the crappy plane he bought for 5 bucks decides to snatch the parachute so Donald’s forced to leap. It does work though and we do get one of the best parts of the series thus far: our heroes are drawn in chalk which is beautiuflly animated and a really creative idea. Granted the magic chalk thing dosen’t make a LOT of sense given the lines are carved in.. but at the same time we’re talking about three talking birds and a goddess chasing after an overweight one percenter, his talking staff and said talking staff’s son/lover/donkeybatmonkeyrat. Exact accuracy to real life can be waved just a smidge. Point is they find Mono, a monkey and one of the guardians of the lines, who Feldrake apparently trapped, though Xandra is suspcious. NOW, after their already in the trap basically.

But yeah Mono tells them Feldrake is going after the Nazca Gyroscope, a device at the center of the earth that keeps the earth orbiting the sun.

Point is our heroes have to stop him though Xandra is again suspcious as Feldrake wants to conquer the world not destroy it.... forgetting the whole lava lizard scheme... just.. seriously what was his plan there. rule over a pile of ashes.. actually given Feldrake’s competence and intellegence so far. that’s probably exactly it. Why is Sheldgoose the one getting called fool a lot again?

So we get another really stellar Musical Number, draw the line as our heroes progress through the Nazca world. Also I forgot to mention but earlier, in a nice bit of setup, we set up both that jose is a talented artist, which comes in handy here, while donald struggles and doubts himself. Can.. .can relate. Say that a lot but REALLY can relate. They end this wonderful song easing on down the road while our villians watcht hem.. instead of you know going ahead up and erasing them as is their plan.

Meanwhile, the trips sneak into Sheldgooses mansion trying to find some sort of evil scheme or lair or some clue they can use. But instead june, looking for some secret in the money vault, instead is caught by security so a chase insues and our heroines spend the episode barely outrunning the security dogs.. who SHeldgoose apparently raised.

Don’t.. DON’T want to think about THAT any longer than I have to. Point is they find Feldrake’s hidden lair we saw in the second episode where Sheldgoose found the staff. Not bad stuff, just really not something I need to spend an hour recapping.

So our heroes continue along encountering Hanzy, another guardian with giant hands who they free from a finger trap.. and her reasoning is both adorable and chucklesome, as Sheldgoose, having a piece of the chalk, drew a finger trap and never having had one in her size she just had to try it. So the party gains another member as they tread carefully past the spider, the final guardian and one who will eat them without a second thought. With that they reach the gyroscope.. and Mono turns on the cabs revealing Sheldgoose tricked him into thinking they were the bad guys and this is naturally a trap. And that is part of the episodes problem: the tension from “well their walking straight into a trap” is kinda.. nonexistant. OUr heroes ran in blind, and even when suspicious in the liens being on their guard amounts to nothing and we know from last episode this is a trap. It’s one thing to have a plan turn out to be a trap for the heroes or for the villians, as we’ll see later this week, that’s fine.. but either the audience isn't aware or there’s general tension from our heroes not knowing. Here there’s none of that.

So our heroes are trapped in a cage while Sheldgoose and Feldrake head up top to erase them, as if their drawings on hte line, the way they came in are erased so are they. It’s a good plan.. and the tension is dissipated again as hanzy just casually tosses the cage off, mono apologizes and our heroes use the chalk to draw themselves flying machines, with Donald only having a balloon and a basket. Comedic gold. Despite once again any dramatic tension this episode evaporating like ..t ears in the rain? I dunno I don’t have a metaphor that works here. Despite this the race is genuinely thrilling with sheldgoose busting out a shark rocket launcher since neither Feldrake nor Xandra’s magic work in the lines. Nice touch by the way. But he runs out of chalk (”You should’ve learned how to conserve space!”) though our villians reach the exit first by unleashing the spider, who Jose tries to smooth talk into not eating them.. and Donald, like me afriad of spiders, iconically shouting “KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!”

The heels erase Hansy, which is genuinely sad. Our heroes do escape in time though before he can get them and while Feldrake makes a speech in an awesome moment, Xandra just.. ignores it and fills him full of arrows.. well the g rated equilvent about that, I don’t think any of us want to see Wayne Knight bleed buckets. I”m still not over that scene from Jurassic Park where we saw nothing but I imagined it all right.. I.. imagined it *shudders*

So i’m scared for life but our heroes are free and revive hanzy with the chalk and we get a really sweet payoff to Donald’s trouble drawing as his new finger for her is a bit crooked but she loves it. It shows even if your art isn’t as good as other people’s it’s still worth something. A nice message. Feldrake once again berates Sheldgoose who points out the cabs can escape death again and again... giving Feldrake the idea to go talk to death personally. And yeah these teases... while I get this series was made for streaming.. they keep hurting the story slightly like they did here. Though I will give them credit this one.. ends up ratcheting up the tension next time so props.

Final thoughts on Nazca Racing: This one was decent. The animation was gorgeous and always the jokes were top notch, and the subplot was a nice opportunity for the triplets to take the stage and have an adventure.. but the plot banks a lot on our heroes walking into a very obvious trap and that just sours things for me. Still it’s not a bad episode like “World Tree Caballeros” or “No Man is an Easter Island” for the reasons stated above. And there was no daisy for an episode so while I badly wanted to find out how she’d react to the events last episode, we also got a break from her being bitchzilla, queen of monsters for an episode.. for an episode. “Sigh”

Mexico-A-Go-Go:

Okay back on form. Our heroes return home to find.. a conspiracy board all around the house.

Sadly it’s not that but it turns out the girls haven’t slept since the mansion and while Donald objects to their breaking and entering, they soon reveal what htey found: The Sheldgooses have all been linked to eveyr major disaster over the centuries... ever since Feldrake, who we see as a mortal for the first time, holding his OWN book as a counterpart to the heroes. They also uncovered a connection to Clinton coot and the sheldgooses but don’t have time to elaborate before Donald waves them off to check his messages. Unsurprisingly it’s Daisy who says “In light of recent events” i.e. you know seeing Donald’s friend save her life, dapper abandon her and seeing donald fight an evil sorcerer and wrangle a bear, to give him one more second chance.

Yeah i’ve spent a good chunk of this series complaining about Daisy.. and given she appears in the final two episodes i’m probably not finished. But this is just.. wow. So now she KNOWS, if not all the details that Donald and his friends are entangled in something big and scary, that involves a lives bear and actual fucking magic, so that his ducking out on her last time was NOT him being irresponsible or going to hang with his pals or something stupid, but probably something pretty important, she’s not fully aware of everything but she’s aware ENOUGH to know Donald really is making something of himself or at least is trying and really didn’t mean to mistreat her.. and she STILL is giving him fucking ultimatums!

I just.. i’m so done with this whole fucking subplot. All of it. Not just Daisy, Donald constnatly having a moan about loosing her and whining about going on missions to save the world instead of keeping this ungrateful, bossy, self esteem shattering, shrill, selfish, gold digging, impossibly high stand’s keeping big gulp full of bitch.

Donald.. buddy YOU CAN DO BETTER. Xandra’s right there and even if she’s not interested there’s a WHOLE TOWN of rich, eligible ladies. Go woo one of them! it’s hard getting out there, believe me I know, it’s VERY hard and i’ll probably die alone.. but your a good man, you have good friends. Friends who’ve screwed up yes but good friends to wingman and wingwoman for you. Just... leave Daisy behind. It’s not good for your mental health to keep bending over backwards for someone who wants you to be something you’ll NEVER be. Who wants someone sophisticated and with a steady job.. and the latter part’s never going to happen now your a Caballero, and given that’s more important.. good! If she can’t see what you do or won’t take the time to fucking listen... MOVE. ON. I know moving on’s hard but you have to. For your own health. Staying stuck in place over a person just hurts you and them.

And as for Daisy.. this is easily the worst version of the character. And I went into this FULLY KNOWING this version was bad, FULLY KNOWING she was going to be grating and some of the things she’d pull like Dapper thanks to spoilers. It’s why I held off watching this for so long.. and turns out while it was worth it, the series is quite good, my fears were JUSTIFIED and no amount of reading it could prepare me for how terribly written and horribly damaging this all is. And I do mean damaging: Kids pick things up from media. And while I should’ve caught on sooner, can’t fully blame a cartoon, I did as a kid and teen get my idea of romance from cartoons and tv and thus got the idea that pining after someone in secret was okay and they’ll come around eventually and starring at them and what not is entirely fine and not creepy. Of course it isn’t, of coure you have to say something, and of course you have to let it go if there with someone else. I know that NOW, and there have been much better geek gets the girl plots. .but it still seriously fucked with my autistic brain’s view on friendships with women, something I still struggle with at times. And that’s why I take this shit seriously: Because while thankfully I never bought into THAT , shit where “it’s okay if it’s a WOMAN, abusing a MAN”. Men can be abused to. It’s why we had SO SO MANY unfunny stalker characters in the 2000′s, and so many plots like this where the guy is wrong.. because h’es male and his partner being domineering and expecting him to change everything without doing anything for them or treating them as an equal.. is just not okay. And it speaks to a bigger problem.. out of touch writers who assume because THEIR wives are only with them out of obligation that’s how ALL relatoinships work, when no it’s not get a divorced please god. The Duckverse REALLY doesn’t need this According to Jim, My Wife and Kids, George Lopez, Home Improvement, Cleveland Show, King of Queens, Dinosaurs, Rick and Morty, Glen Martin DDS, etc all bullshit. People break up and Donald deserves better. And I genuinely blame both EP Matt Daner and Tony Anselmo for this. And I have a LOT of respect for both guys, i’ve made that very clear.. but Matt as EP and thus the one in charge fo the overall storyline is clearly the one who thought of this and Tony, who helped write for Donald this series, didn’t either get Tress, whose been doing daisy for two decades and is as knolwedgle for her as he is for donald the same courtsey or chime in given he should know daisy better. Both of these men should know better. Danner wrote for Xiaolin Showdown, that had great female characters for the most part and Tony is a grown ass man whose worked with women and is married as far as I know. Figure it out. This Daisy thing has EASILY been the worst part of this retrospective as a whole, the worst part of this series and probably the worst thing i’ve seen in a duck property.. and again I saw daisy ACTUALLY HIT DONALD.

And this is worse. Because instead of one moment of terrible writing and misplaced slapstick that comes off as abuse, it’s just a constnat barage of emotoinal abuse treated as if i’ts DONALD’S fault. Donald did nothing wrong to her and his only crime is obessing of this hellspawned hardian. Fuck this entire plot with a garden rake lined with acid.

Also just a quick note before we speed through Daisy’s screentime to get to the good part of the episode, there’s, at least no yet NO proper reaction to Donald’s new life and it bothers me it bothers me a lot. She learns he has this whole secret life and has no fucking questions just more of the same old bullshit. “SIGH”

So yeah this b-plot: Donald wants to stay for Daisy

And the others drag him along though this time.. Donald comes off as the asshole because he KNOWS they need him, knows he’s useful and knows this is more important but drags his feet anyway for someone who again, has done NOTHING good for him. And even with the girls saying the’ll help and telling him to keep the mirror handy, he still keeps complaning up until the plans reveaeld.

The plan, which.. May I think, the orange one. I know June is purple, but while May isn’t on board for this, the plan is to have April and June do the totoem pole trench and have donald be the face. So the entire plan is basically this

They have an actually nice date till the ruse is revealed, and while he says “I can explain” which he can.. she PUNCHES the mirrror saying explain this.

So our heroes need to go to Mexico, Panchito’s homeland and somehow, in a series based on and starring primarily south american characters... one of the two times we visit the region and the only time we visit one of the cabs two home countries. Now the latter part i’m fair on since they were likely saving Brazil for the season 2 that never happened and didn’t want to blow their load just yet. The other part.. not so much. I’m not saying set the entire series there, there’s a lot of world, but most of the locations aside from the world tree are pretty common for globetrotting adventure: Easter Island, Stonehenge, Mt. Rushmore, The Pyramids, the Moon, and coming up Camelot and Shangri La. These aren’t BAD settings mind and are used creatively and probably will be in the two I haven’t seen, and the setups involving king arthur and a yeti spa do sound like they wont’ dispoint, but you had a real opportunity to teach kids, and my grown man self, about South America and ya blew it.

But we’re in Mexico where after meeting a spooky cloaked guy who says they might not leave alive

So our heroes enter the temple and the other side and find a bunch of chickens who see Panchito, who insisted on the trip due to his luchadores code of always helping the incident, as a god and their chosen champion for the goddess of light as the preistess explains. So we get a montage of Panchito getting pampred while the other cabs get pushed around, ending at a restraunt. Xandra is naturally suspcious as the locals are being AWFUL vauge about what’s going on here, and this is getting pretty midsomar. Donald is distracted by daisy and Jose is distracted by a beautiful senorita, leaving Xandra to TRY and get panchito to think.. before being distracted herself by a mysterious handsome latino gentleman in black. Though during the dance with thier respective partners, Xandra and Jose both remark that it’s weird.. but are distracted by the sexy long enough for it to be revealed what Panchito’s duty is: as the champion of life.. he has to fight the champion of death. No Prize for guessing who. Though unlike with “Nazca Racing” where the teaser removed all tension since we knew it was a trap, here the teaser last episode helps, as we don’t see Team Feldrake till this moment, and we know something involving death itself.. and finding out panchtio’s representing life just ratchets up tension: we know the bad guys are involved.. but we don’t know how or what they’ll do.

And the how is simple: A one on one wrasslin match!

Or lucha match since we Panchito’s a luchador and we’re in mexico. He’s wearing his usual outfit while Sheldgoose is wearing standard wrestling tights.. so a superstar babyface versus a heel comentator... but actually entertaining this time. As you can tell I love wrestling. While i’m more of a casual fan, I watch OSW and some other wrestling youtubes and don’t really watch the product at the moment, I do love and respect the sport and love a good wrestling episode or series of television as a result, so this hits the spot.

So the match goes on and Panchito has the clear lead as Sheldgoose is playing by college wrestling rules and Panchito is playing by pro wrestling rules. And while you can use standard holds well you gotta mix the two together kurt angle style. Eventually Xandra decides to confront the sexy bird and sexy boy, and finds out, in a twist I didn’t see coming they ARE the god of life and god of death, respectively. While I knew this was a fight to the death, as death explains, a symbolic battle between the two with real stakes to keep ballance, I thought these two were just illusions brought up to keep Xandra and Jose from leaving or digging deeper. Instead they were just doing it on their own and as the god of death shows, they were genuinely intrested. I mean... why not get some while preparing to have your champions do battle. God for you death god, multitasking like that. Same for you goddess of life. Get it girl, you get after it. Jose is a fine man. I’d tap that if I could. Get after it. So Xandra warns Panchito who finds taking life against his code and Jose again shows his awesomeness by pointing out the obvious: the match is timed, so if they run out the clock it’s a draw. Might lead to something but it’s better than nothing. So Panchito TRIES this, but Sheldgoose has leopold “Throw mommy to daddy” (One of my faviorite gags of the episode), and wacks him with feldrake before the whole thing becomes a brawl. And the god of Death does not take DQ’s or outside intefernce well and instead kills them all for breaking the rules.

Not kidding. The main cast is DEAD minus Xandra, as Death still wanted to bone her, but she refuses. So now Xandra is left while al lher friends are dead while the god and goddess head off in his caddy to go knock over mailboxes I guess.

Final Thoughts on Mexico-A-Go-Go: Outside of .. certain parties, this was a REALLY fun one, with a great wrestling theme, a great mystery and the awesomeness that was the god of death, who was smooth, cool and thoroughly interesting and I wish there was a second season and his and xandra’s dynamic was really interesting. One of the series best, helped by the fact the Daisy bit while thoroughly irritating, was religated to a pretty funny subplot, with May being understandably skeptical of the plan, it somehow working and the sheer redicuonsess. It dosen’t make daisy tolerable, but it makes the episode better.

#the legend of the three caballeros #donald duck #jose caricoca #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #panchito pistoles #xandra goddess of adventure #april duck #may duck #june duck #humphrey the bear #the arcuan bird #ari #baron von sheldgoose #lord sheldrake #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros #ducktales #donsy

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