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marinetteplztakeabreak · 4 years ago

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ML Lies Episode Predictions:

There’s Two?? (don’t trust my math) more days before lies completely destroys me, so I’m going to make some predictions, and by predictions I mean wishlist. My walls are already up, so if none of these happen I won’t be disappointed, but also a girl can dream: (this is somehow 1700 entire words long because I have a lot of feelings, so it’s under a cut, you’re welcome)

—Adrien and Kagami’s are secretly dating: please I want it so bad, I’ve talked about this so much and emotionally I need it!! At the very least I want them to sneak out together so so bad I’d cry. But also, if they’re hiding it from their other friends for whatever reason, thats SUCH good angst potential.

—If we get to see some kinda montage of them sneaking out??? Id ride that high for months. Even just one actual example of them working together to sneak out would obliterate me. Like, how it shows Kagami sneaking out to go to the game in Ikari Gozen?? I’d cry

—The breakup happens as a direct result of it being a secret relationship: this would be SUCH a good parallel to lukanette. Lukanette broke up because Luka wanted Marinette to be more open with him and he hated being in the dark, so just, the parallels if Adrien wants to be more open about adrimi and Kagami is like “you dont understand, if your dad finds out about us he will end this immediately” but Adrien wants to believe that its going to be okay and no one will react badly? I’m probably explaining this badly and I’ll try to explain it better later I just,,, want parallels and opposites and truth v lies and hhhhh

—Fencing??? Friendly/ affectionate competition??? Them being idiot jocks in love??? Please??? I want to see them compete!!

—I’d love to see Kagami character growth + Adrimi relationship development!!! I want her to love herself more and be more comfortable around him!!!

—Specifically, if there was a parallel to Riposte,, and Adrien beat Kagami in a fencing match and Kagami was like “Oh nice!! :D good game!” I’d be so happy I’d cry!! And it’s kinda implied by Chat Blanc that they’re already there in there relationship?? But not confirmed?? So if I saw it or saw confirmation of it I’d cry!!

—in one of the released photos it looked like they were holding hands??? And at this point my expectations are so low I don’t even trust it yet but blease,,, let them hold hands,, i’d cry of joy

—If Adrien is also constantly leaving and disappearing due to akuma responsibilities, I want it to read SUPER differently from the Lukanette because I love parallels/foils!! Marinette disappears on her dates with Luka and its just “oh marinette is really distracted and busy and frazzled” but I dont think Adrimi but be loke that at all!!! Because as far as Kagami knows, she has the same backstory/current story as Adrien. She’s risking a lot by sneaking out to go on dates with him?? So Adrien seeing an akuma and being like “oh sorry father is calling” isnt even suspicious or anything??? Its 100% believable!!! If her mother called she’d immediately be like “oh fricking heck i Need To Leave this instant immediately.” So its less “Adrien doesnt care about her” and more of just twisting the knife and reminding her that life doesnt want them to be together and Adrien is never going to be free!!! Big ouch to her heart!!!

—also I want!!!! Them!!! To talk about their feelings!!! Because parallels to truth!!! Adrien is like “sorry I have to go” and Kagami is like “oh I hate that so much” and Adrien is like “big same.” (Also idk how realistic this is but I’d love it if ‘Kagami talking about her feelings’ wasn’t the cause of strife in their relationship!! Like, she talks about how she feels and when she’s upset and Adrien is like “yeah me too” and they’re just,, good bros)

—I need them to stay friends after the breakup, i need it i need it i need it!!! And the whole issue is!! I feel like the main reason they’d date is to try and hang out more?!?? So if the breakup was actually them talking to each other and being like “hey so this isnt working with sneaking out, we’re going to need to go back to the way it was before,” rather than them saying they were bad for each other???? Hoo boy i’d lose my mind

—Also!!! My favorite prediction, I’d die of joy if this happened (and also of angst). I want there to be so much drama with “secret relatinship” stuff that they try to fix it by going public with their relationship!! Very low chance of this actually happening but its okay if it doesnt, thats what the fanfiction I’m inevitably going to write immediately after watching the episode is for!!! But anyway,, multiple ways this could happen.

Maybe they’ve been secretly dating since Miracle Queen and they decide to go public at the beginning of this episode and that’s the primary source of plot/conflcit!!! I’d be thrilled!!!

BUT!!! if the episode ends with then Not Breaking Up, but instead deciding to go from dating secretly to dating publicly???? Holy Freaking Heck,,, I’d go feral with emotion!!!! I also need to expand on this so much more but basic rundown of how I imagine it could happen (again: Is it likely?? Probably not! but this is my last chance to dream):

Kagami is like “listen we have the same backstory and I KNOW in my soul that this relationship wouldn’t work if it was public”

Adrien is like “okay yeah I feel you, thats fair”

Kagami goes on dates with Adrien and its fun and nice and lovely and the honeymoon phase is so good and exciting

Adrien starts disappearing a lot, partly because of akuma attacks, but partly because of nathalie and gabe calling him constantly

Adrien starts to be like “well actually i think that my dad does care about me probably? And if he knew why I wanted to go he’d let me! Or at least Nathalie would because clearly she cares about me!”

Kagami is like “hhhnngg have you met them?? You think they’d want you to be happy and free??” Except she can’t just SAY that because if she did then she’d be crushing Adrien’s entire heart and possibly also making him get really defensive and he has to come to the conclusion that his parents are good on his own

Kagami also starts to get frustrated with how much more often Adrien has to leave than she does?? And its because of akuma attacks but she doesnt know that and he cant tell her

Adrien starts to get frustrated because he can take the “having to leave for akuma attacks” part but when he finally finishes an akuma battle and Natalie immediately calls him it is just aaaaaAAAAAAAA and he just wants to believe so badly that he could at least take control of that part??? He could at least get Nathalie to help him out??? Probably maybe right???

Because we all know he HATES having to keep secrets from Ladybug, but he’ll do it for her, and he’ll keep his life as Chat a secret, but Kagami??? He should at least be able to talk about that, right?? He’s not doing anything bad/dangerous/etc

Also there could very well be some angst with Adrien being so so worried about Nathalie because she’s bedridden and his dad is being sketchy and he’s SEEN this before and he doesn’t want to be avoiding Natalie or lying to her because what if he loses her too??? He’d feel so guilty! And he needs the support of a parent figure so much,,, so he HAS to tell her the truth

But he respects Kagami’s wishes and he’s not going to betray her trust

But unlike Lukanette, they DO talk about their feelings and they disagree and stuff, and even if he’s trying not to be confrontational, Kagami is like “i can tell youre uncomfortable about something, please just tell me what it is” so he tells her that he disagrees

Kagami gets akumatized?? idk if it’s even been confirmed that she’s the akuma “Lies” but I’d assume she is because parallels to Lukanette

Maybe it happens as a direct result of some moment where Kagami and Adrien are arguing and in the heat of the moment he says something hurtful??

Maybe they’re arguing and then Adrien has to leave before it can resolve and Kagami is mad about it even though shes trying not to be and she gets akumatized???

Maybe she does say something like “bc your dad sucks and nathalie sucks!” and he yells or something (i want to see Adrien yell and be flawed let me live, and this is one of the most likely scenerios for it to happen bc it would HURT for him)

Maybe Kagami shoots back with anger, maybe Adrien’s been calm but Kagami gets mean for a moment, but regardless, Kagami says something about her true feelings of anger at nathalie/gabe/ etc and before Adrien can respond he’s like “oh shoot sorry I need to get home NOW”

Then for one brief second Kagami’s TERRIFIED that he’s going to tell nathalie about this in his anger and then nathalie’s going to be like “oh kagami is clearly bad for you because she made u this upset” and Adrien will LISTEN because hes stupid and he still listens to his horrible adult figures and Kagami is so mad about the entire situation so then in her moment of weakness she gets akumatized

Look at that its a direct opposite of Lukanette because Luka was afraid of Marinette keeping secrets about why she’s always vanishing because he doesnt know and Kagami is afraid of Adrien telling secrets about why HEs always vanishing bc she thinks she does know,,

But anyway, after she gets de-akumatized, she’s so ashamed of it and she can see how far she took it and how many people it hurt,, and Adrien is really sad and apologetic and trying to support her,, and she’s like “no clearly I was actually wrong, keeping this a secret is hurting you and its hurting me and now its hurting random civilians”

So she tells Adrien that they should tell people about it and stop dating in secret

And then multiple possible ending:

Does he say “actually no, youre right, they wouldnt let this happen, so if we cant date in public and dating in secret is hurting us then we shouldnt date at all” and thats how the breakup goes??? That would literally obliterate me

Does the episode end on a false positive where Adrien hasnt told them yet and he is like “yeah this is gonna be great” and there isnt an actual breakup yet?? Because that would also kill me (even though i doubt theyre going to let adrimi take up that much time in the show but, let me dream)

Also if Adrien is like “we shouldnt tell my parents but we should tell someone” and then they tell Marinette and now shes got ANOTHER secret to keep and aaaaaaaAAAAA?? Id die on the spot

I’m still holding out hope that the episode will give me enough crumbs to at least be able to write this better, but regardless of what happens in the episode,,, the chances of me eventually writing fanfiction exploring this are SO HIGH, I’ve been thinking about this for ages

In conclusion:

—no matter what happens in lies, its going to destroy me

—please let them be in a secret relationship it makes so much sense for their characters and for the drama and aaaaAAAAA

—also please give me the parallels to lukanette where their issues are exactly the opposite and it still falls apart

Thank you for your time, I’ll be excitedly vibrating at the speed of sound for the next two days until we get answers!! Depending on how the episode goes, I’ll either be writing so much adrimi fluff to recover,, so much adrimi angst to vent,, or I’ll be staring at the ceiling screaming for a few days as I post nothing but keysmashes and try to sort through my emotions :)

#lies #ml lies #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #kagami tsurugi #ml spoilers #ml leaks #those are both super minor but i just want yo guve fair warning #ml theories #adrimi #adrigami #predictions #ml #long post #angst

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onecanonlife · 4 years ago

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careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

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

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

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

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

Chapter Word Count: 7,295

Chapter Warnings: swearing, injury, blood, aftermath of (temporary) character death, mild disassociation, slight s.uicidal ideation, references to past abuse

Chapter Summary: The emotional fallout is intense, but they don’t have time to stop and deal with it. Wilbur doesn’t particularly like where they decide to hole up, but beggars can’t be choosers.

(masterlist w/ ao3 links)

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

Chapter Twelve: nowhere to run

The sun is too bright in his eyes. Too bright, and wrong, somehow, that it should be shining like this. Should still be shining, after the loss they’ve just suffered, after watching his brother crumple to dust in front of him. But the sun hardly cares for things like that, so they all stumble out of the hole in the ground that serves as the entrance to the spider spawner and beyond, and the daylight surrounds them, unforgiving.

“Where do we go, what do we do,” Tubbo is chanting, and Ranboo is muttering under his breath, a continuous litany of, “I can’t believe he’s gone, I can’t believe that happened—” His own lips feel glued shut, his throat devoid of sound. His skin buzzes.

(the two images interpose: Techno hanging from the vine, head at an unnatural angle, Techno wavering on his feet, blood pouring from his throat, and there is a flash of light and there is ash all at once, as if the first caused the second, as if instead of healing him, shoving his soul back into a body clinging to life, the totem burned him up from the inside out, and unlike the phoenix there was no rebirth)

“We can’t stay here,” Puffy says. Her eyes are wide, and her hands are shaking, but her voice has the same determined cant to it as it always does. “We need somewhere to hole up.”

“And where is that supposed to be?” Sapnap demands. His breathing is unsteady. “Where the fuck are we supposed to go after that? Where isn’t the thing gonna be able to reach? With, with Dream being, being, what even was that? Why was he—how was he—?” He breaks off, sparks crackling at his fingertips, and his face is a mask of distress, of questions

(was he always like that and did I not see or did something happen to him did something make him like that is that my friend or is there something inside of him something behind his eyes that is not him at all and if that is the case how did I not notice how did I not notice how did I not save him)

that Wilbur feels he recognizes. Or would, if he let himself. If he let himself care.

His eyes drift over to Phil. Phil, who stands silently, blood dripping from his wings, a thousand old injuries reopened by thrashing thorns. Who stands with Tommy in his arms, Tommy, who is curled up as tightly as he can reasonably manage, his face tucked into Phil’s shirt. Trembling. Quiet.

(he will die and I will kill him, the Egg says, and I have already begun, and you cannot protect him, you do not have the strength, except by what I can grant you)

“Church Prime,” Puffy says. “It’s the only place that might be safe.”

“Who’s to say it would be?” Sapnap snaps. “You saw it in there! The vines have never moved like that before, and Prime knows what else it can do now. And maybe the Egg wouldn’t be able to get in, but who’s to say that would stop—” He cuts off again, face contorting.

His leg is beginning to hurt, now. All of him is, actually, now that his adrenaline is wearing thin, now that the horror is sinking in, but it’s concentrated in his leg in particular, and he looks down to see that his left pant leg is all but shredded, blood dripping down in steady streams and splattering on the grass by his feet. The vines got him worse than he thought, then, and he bites his lip against the sting.

He’s had worse, though. He’s had so much worse. This is practically nothing, and Puffy and Sapnap are still arguing, and Tubbo and Ranboo are huddled together, eyeing the vines around them with deep suspicion, unmoving as they are just yet, and Phil is silent, and he’s going to stay silent, because Wilbur recognizes all too well the strain in his eyes, the way he’s holding onto Tommy with a death grip.

(he’s watched two of his sons die, now, and Techno will be back, will still have two lives left, but that does not heal the hurt, does not assuage the pain of seeing your brother, your son, your family die in front of your eyes before you can lift a finger to stop it, and Phil’s eyes shine with a grief almost beyond what Wilbur can understand. except he understands all too well, in the end)

He’s had worse, and someone needs to step up.

(the old mantle settles across his shoulders, and if he closes his eyes it’s like nothing’s changed at all, and the sun sets on the city he is determined to give everything for, still standing, walls still strong)

“Boxed in like a fish,” he croaks, and Puffy and Sapnap turn to him as one. “That’s what we’ll be, if we go to Church Prime. Whether it protects us in the moment of not won’t matter once we run out of supplies. We need somewhere better situated. Somewhere we can defend, that might withstand a siege, if it comes to it.”

Puffy makes a frustrated gesture. “I’m open to suggestions,” she says. “The prison, maybe, if we have to? We could probably keep people out as easily as—ah, shit, Sam.” She pulls her communicator out and taps out a quick message, and then frowns. “It’s telling me it can’t go through. Why isn’t it going through? Sam had all three lives, he should be—”

“Admins can read private messages,” Phil murmurs. “Wouldn’t surprise me if Dream could fuck with the whole system, whatever the fuck he is.”

Wilbur reads between the lines. Techno, for the moment, is unreachable. He processes the information and moves on, refusing to let it get to him, refusing to let himself be overpowered by

(Techno’s unreachable Techno’s unreachable Techno’s respawned and he’s on his own and they can’t talk to him can’t get to him quickly and what if something went wrong what if something happened)

emotions.

“Sam will make his way to us,” he says. “I’m vetoing the prison. Like hell are we staying in there. Other thoughts?”

“What gives you vetoing power?” Sapnap asks.

“Somebody needs to make a decision,” he says, and it is with strength he doesn’t feel, confidence he is only pretending at, a force of command that comes from some unknown place, since he feels as though he is miles away from himself, “and I don’t see you coming up with anything. Either help or stop complaining.”

Sapnap’s face reddens, and he opens his mouth, to argue, no doubt, but then Ranboo breaks in with, “Foolish, maybe?” and hunches his shoulders when attention turns to him. “Sorry, it’s just, I’m pretty sure Foolish isn’t, um, a big fan of the Egg or anything, so maybe he could help?”

Wilbur has no idea who the fuck Foolish is.

“Nah, he’s too far out,” Tubbo says. “It’ll take ages to get to his place. And we need somewhere close, but not too close, so we still have a good place to fight back from, right, Wilbur? If we leave now, the Egg’ll just take over the whole SMP with nothing to stop it.”

“My thoughts exactly, Tubbo,” he says, and again, it is just like the old days, and they are standing atop the L’Manberg walls, and Tubbo has just said something particularly clever, and warmth and pride curl in him before he remembers where they are, what they’re doing. They need to decide, and soon. They’re just hanging around near the entrance, and sooner or later, someone’s going to come after them, whether they let them go at first or not. “Is there anyone else who has a good position, location-wise and resource-wise?”

“Wait,” Puffy says. “Eret’s castle.”

“Eret’s castle doesn’t have doors,” Sapnap says.

“No, but I stopped by earlier to see if they wanted to join us,” Puffy says. “They weren’t there, but the grounds were completely free of vines. And sure, there aren’t any doors, but between all of us, I’m sure we could make some. Eret’s got plenty of supplies, last I checked.”

Eret. The name evokes a wealth of associations, most of them unpleasant. His first instinct is to reject this idea like the last, to avoid placing their lives in the hands of one who has already betrayed him, who led them all into a death trap, who almost ended their revolution in one fell swoop. But Puffy has a point. Eret’s castle ticks all the right boxes: it’s defendable, well-supplied, and if there are no vines to clear, all the better. They’ll have to build doors, but between the lot of them, that’s easily manageable.

(a wealth of associations and many unpleasant but there is Eret offering them supplies offering their fragile rebellion help and they tried so dearly to redeem themself and he could not have seen that then wrapped in his own shadows as he was but perhaps he can see it now perhaps he can better appreciate it, give a little more benefit of the doubt, and if he is given a second chance after everything after committing the worst crime of all then who is he to deny them absolution?)

(another memory, more blurry: he is scared but stalwart as they go through the motions, and he does not want to die, is terrified of that endless void, but he knows that the server needs a leader and his living self must be that leader, and Eret is here, and Eret agrees, and Eret acts out their part, and Eret is trying so hard, and he cannot see their eyes behind their glasses but he imagines that if he could, he would see a fool’s hope in them)

“Eret, then,” he says. “We go to Eret.”

And no one disagrees. It’s strange. They have no reason to listen to him, really. They have far more reasons not to listen to him, more reasons to think that following his lead will end in disaster than otherwise. But Puffy nods, and Sapnap backs down, and Tubbo and Ranboo both look to him for direction like it’s the war and he’s in charge of child soldiers once again. Phil looks to him, too, but his expression is inscrutable, and only a slight tightness around his eyes shows that he’s in any pain at all.

So they go to Eret. Staggering through the grass, tripping over vines that still don’t move, thank Prime, and then along the Prime Path, and his leg hurts worse with every step, pain jolting up into his hip, it seems, and it’s not long before he’s walking with a limp. But they’re all hurt in some way, so he hides it as best he can. He can deal with it when they’re safely behind stone walls.

And then, Tommy says, “Put me down, I can walk.”

Wilbur glances over. Tommy’s face is still buried in Phil’s shirt.

“You sure, mate?” Phil asks softly.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” Tommy snaps, louder now, turning his face outward, pushing against Phil’s chest. His cheeks are flushed, his breaths coming short and fast, and he’s trying to pass it off as anger, and maybe part of it is. But Wilbur knows him better than to think that that’s all. Knows him better than to think that he would have let Phil carry him in the first place if he was alright.

“Okay, then,” Phil says, and swings Tommy down. Tommy wavers for a step, but slaps away Phil’s hand when he extends it, muttering a sharp, “Fuck off.”

And then they keep going. Tommy doesn’t say anything else. Wilbur keeps glancing at him, but he’s refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, even Tubbo’s. And—that’s another thing that’s going to have to wait. He wants nothing more than to stop now and make sure that Tommy’s going to be okay, but they don’t have time, and the general in him will not call for a halt until the retreat is over, until he is sure the enemy is not biting at their heels.

(retreating from Dream once again, and it is familiar and not, the same and not, and history runs in a circle, echoes and rhymes)

Eret’s courtyard is indeed free of vines, just as Puffy promised. Wilbur half-expects them to be nowhere in sight, based on what Puffy said, but they are standing right there, next to a skeletal horse they’re frantically saddling, and they’re checking their communicator every now and again, with the jerky motions of someone who doesn’t particularly want to but can’t make themself stop.

Then, suddenly, they look up at the sky. Wilbur follows their gaze to the flock of crows wheeling overhead, a dark mass of beating wings, each bird barely distinguishable from the others. All of them completely, eerily silent.

Eret stands there a moment. Just staring. Wilbur can’t tell what the look on their face is, but their shoulders are tense. And then, they look back down, and realize that the lot of them are there, stumbling in under the gate, and they visibly startle.

“Hey, Eret,” Puffy says, before they can get a word in. “Can we crash? And build some gates?”

“What,” Eret says. “What is—Puffy, what is going on? How did Dream manage to kill Sam and Technoblade? Is he—” They run a hand through their hair, and then start striding forward, their cape flaring out behind them. They haven’t said anything about him yet, haven’t reacted to his presence. “He’s out, isn’t he? I was going to come and see, but he’s out?”

“He’s out,” Puffy agrees. “We were kind of hoping you’d help us out on this one.”

“Of course,” they say quickly. “Of course, anything you—anything you need.” They’re rattled, clearly, more than Wilbur has ever seen them, perhaps. “I just—how did this happen? I thought the prison was secure, I thought—are you all okay?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Puffy says. “Yeah, we’re great. You haven’t been around much lately, I don’t know how much you know about the Egg and all of that, but that’s an issue too, along with Dream. And some other stuff that I’ve got no idea about, that we really just kind of need to all sit down and talk about.”

“The Egg? I’ve—I’ve heard of it, I think. I’ve been elsewhere for a while.” Their lips twist into a smile that isn’t quite a smile. “Doing a bit of soul-searching, you might say. Found more questions than answers, unfortunately. Alright. I can get you all whatever you need, you can absolutely stay here if that’s what you’d like, but what was that about gates?”

Right. This is taking too long.

Wilbur still feels a bit outside of his body as he steps forward, but that’s alright. He’s limping, but the pain is distant, and he can let his brain work on autopilot, let his mouth move on its own without regarding the consequences, without thinking too much about

(this is Eret and you know them and they betrayed you and you hurt them and now you’re back and here is a test here is a true test it shouldn’t matter how they react to you you shouldn’t care for their opinion but you do you know you do though you pretend you don’t pretend they’re nothing but a traitor to you but you are a traitor to yourself and you know that between the two of you you are the worse and here you both are and you only need one more and everyone will be back together again like the old days like the old days those good old days)

what happens next.

“Right, then,” he says, straightening his spine and stepping up to be visible just behind Puffy, to the side and a few feet back. Eret’s head whips toward him. “To summarize: the Egg is bad, Dream is also bad, they’re now working together, also with Bad, Techno is gone, we’re all in rough shape, a mind-controlling potentially demonic entity is likely to try to take over the server, and also, I’m here, despite my best efforts. Does that paint enough of a picture for you, or should I elaborate further?”

Eret stares at him. He stares back, doesn’t let himself fidget. He’s putting the general on display, and it has never felt more like a disguise, like yet another mask,

(and didn’t he tell Tommy he wasn’t going to do this anymore?)

but a familiar one, one that’s almost comfortable. He can force himself into the general’s shoes and worry about tactics and battles and numbers and strategy, and tuck the rest of himself away for when there’s time for it. Can think of this as just another alliance to be made, a debriefing to be held rather than

(Eret traitor friend ally enemy the place in your heart is curdled and sour and you do not know if you are capable of starting anew)

and his losses are statistics and cold facts rather than

(Techno’s eyes golden and glittering and then they go dim and pale red pale and staring the light in your brother’s eyes gone out and it is not the first time you have watched a brother die in front of you but Technoblade never dies is never supposed to die never to go to dust never and you cannot make sense of it cannot make sense of the world turned on its head)

“Wilbur?” Eret asks, after a very long moment, and he doesn’t understand why their voice breaks in the way that it does. “You’re—it’s you? Not Ghostbur?”

He spreads his arms, lifting an eyebrow.

“Do I look like Ghostbur to you?” he asks.

“No,” Eret answers right away. “No, that you do not. Um, has this been a thing, or…?” They trail off, and Wilbur can’t figure out exactly what their feelings are, but it’s too late to back down, even if he wanted to.

“For a bit,” he says. “Not for too long. Can we move on? We’ve got bigger issues to deal with at the moment.”

He means multiple things, with that. He means, there’s bigger things to worry about than why I’m here. He means, there’s bigger things to worry about than our history, and as so long as we’re on the same side for the moment, it can’t matter right now. He doesn’t know if Eret catches all of that, but whether they do or not, they nod, seeming to steady themself.

“Of course,” they say. “I—for the record, it is good to see you, Wilbur.” There is genuine relief in their voice, a tone that says they’re actually glad he’s here, more than glad, even, and he really doesn’t have time to unpack that at the moment. They need a plan, and fast, and they need some goddamn gates. And medical attention, probably. The cut on Puffy’s head looks nasty, and Phil’s wings are still dripping blood, and it’s difficult for Wilbur to look at them for too long,

(grief rises up guilt rises up crushing choking your father is grounded and it is your fault)

but it concerns him, how little Phil appears to care for their current state. So there’s that to handle, and it’s almost too much, almost. Almost too much for someone who has spent the majority of the time since he’s been brought back to life cringing away from meeting people, all the confidence he once displayed gone, shrinking, left in the void or in Pogtopia or on the podium from which he announced his own defeat, perhaps. But even still, he remembers how to be the general. He can hide in the general, present the general on the outside, be useful even while he thinks he might be on the verge of collapse, internally. He has been a general, and so he shall be again.

What comes first, then?

He pulls out his comm, scrolling through the messages. There are quite a few in the general chat from just after Sam’s death message, people from all over the server demanding to know what’s going on. His eyes drift over Techno’s, then, and he winces, but keeps reading. There are even more messages after that, capitalization usage increasing dramatically, and his eyes trace over familiar names, a pang in his heart. Niki. Fundy. Quackity. Several from Eret as well. Some from names he doesn’t recognize, like this Foolish person, and someone named Hannah.

But then, they all cut off. There have been none in the past half hour. Since they escaped from the Egg.

Out of curiosity, he taps out a few words: dream and egg have teamed, regrouping at eret’s. Upon hitting send, the screen goes fuzzy, giving him an error message he’s never seen before. So comms truly are down, then, and it’s probably just as well; Dream likely knows where they are, but if he doesn’t, there’s no reason to give him the information.

(and do these old allies old friends deserve to learn of your return from cold words on a screen do you not have the courage to face them yourself face your son your son you have not seen your son)

(the last time he spoke to Fundy, he disowned him. he doesn’t know if he still has a son)

(if he does not, he has no one to blame for himself, and perhaps that is why he is too cowardly to check)

“Right, then,” he says, looking back up. “Gates are the first priority. They might not do much against whatever the fuck that thing is, but it’s better than nothing. Eret, I assume you’d know the best way to go about it?”

Eret’s lips quirk into a slight smile, one that is, perhaps, slightly sardonic.

“It is my castle,” they agree. “The more hands I have, the quicker it will go, but I can get it done.”

“Anyone who’s not bleeding profusely, help them with that, then,” he says. “Anyone who is bleeding profusely—I assume you’ve got pots somewhere, Eret?” Eret nods, gesturing toward the inside. “Anyone who is bleeding profusely gets a pot. Once we’ve got that all covered, we’ll reconvene, come up with a plan for where to go from here. Everyone got that?”

He gets a few nods, and no one dissents, so he’ll take that as a yes. His gaze travels to the kids then, standing clumped together, and Tommy’s eyes are still shadowed, and Tubbo is shifting his weight between his feet, and Ranboo looks lost, awkward, and he wishes he didn’t have to ask anything more of them. But that’s not how wars work, and this has certainly turned into a war.

(child soldiers once again, and how history echoes)

“Tubbo, Ranboo, I want you on the gates as well,” he says, and tries to soften his tone at least a little bit, even if that’s all he can do. “And then afterward—Tubbo, I need you to go through with all of us exactly what you know about—what did you call them? Dreamons?”

Tubbo looks slightly miserable, but he nods. “Right,” he says. “I can try to ward the gates if you want. With, um, anti-demon stuff. I don’t know if it’ll work. I guess last time we didn’t manage to do much of anything at all.”

“Anti-what,” Eret says, but Wilbur shakes his head.

“We don’t have time for that. Tubbo will explain later. We—”

“The fuck am I supposed to do, then?” Tommy breaks in, crossing his arms. “You haven’t given me a job.” He glares, but it is so very obvious that it’s all a front, all a show, and Tommy’s expression dares him to challenge him, but Wilbur thinks that if he does, he just might break something in him. Tommy has always been so much more fragile than he presents himself as, so much more fragile than he likes to believe he is.

(despite it all, despite it all, he is only sixteen, only a child, a child grown old before his time but a child nonetheless, and now a child who watched his brother die for him, an estranged brother perhaps but still a brother, and Tommy has always cared so much and so deeply, no matter how much he pretends otherwise)

He hasn’t given Tommy a job, and he doesn’t really intend to, because Tommy, of all people, needs to sit the fuck down and rest for a moment. They all deserve a break, but in this moment, Tommy is the one who needs it most, and also the one least likely to accept as much.

If the general gives the order, Tommy will follow it, he knows that much,

(because he made his brother into a soldier he made his brother into a soldier and soldiers follow orders)

even if he’ll be angry at him for it, but Tommy angry with him is a sacrifice he’s willing to make. And perhaps directing his anger at him will help. Perhaps it would be better for Tommy to be angry with someone within reach rather than someone out of it.

(because Tommy is hurting, and the cause of that hurt is not here, and so perhaps if Wilbur offers himself he’ll feel better, will feel more in control, because Tommy needs control, because his abuser is out, is wandering free, and his abuser has killed their brother and told him that it is his fault)

But then, Phil breaks his silence.

“I’d like him to stick with me,” he says, with a smile that is obviously strained. “I’m not going to be able to reach everything myself.” He makes a vague gesture toward his wings, still dripping blood, and there is so much of it already drying on his feathers, sticky, tacky, almost blending in with the darkness of the feathers

(but stark against the grey-white of exposed bone)

“Why the actual shit—” Tommy starts.

“Good idea, Phil,” he cuts him off. “Tommy, help him with the wings, would you?”

“Why do I have to—”

“You too, Wil,” Phil says, and his mood sours immediately. “You think I don’t see that leg? C’mon, Eret, show us to the pots.”

When faced with that, he has no choice but to agree, really.

(he wouldn’t have ignored it. he wouldn’t have. He knows better than to leave a wound untreated in wartime. Even if something whispers at him that he deserves the pain, even if the bite of it brings him closer to reality. But his better sense knows: pain is not the penance that is asked of him, not a recompense that will do anyone any good)

**********

They meet again half an hour later in Eret’s throne room. Half an hour later, and his leg is bandaged and tender and no longer an open wound, and Tommy is frowning and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, and the state of Phil’s wings is still bothersome, because he didn’t let either of them touch them beyond what was necessary,

(and he recollects countless nights spent running his fingers through soft, silken feathers as his father told him how to preen them, told him that it was a sign of trust, an activity that only family, only flock is allowed, and now Phil will no longer let them near him, will no longer even take care of them himself and it makes him sick to his stomach to think of what has been lost)

but they are no longer bleeding, and that has to be what matters.

The throne room is not the best location for this, he thinks. It feels awkward. But it’s a room big enough to fit everyone, which is the point, big enough to fit Puffy, presence looming and forehead now bandaged, to fit Sapnap, fidgety as he is, like a caged, snarling animal, all restless energy. Big enough for Tubbo, for Tommy, for Ranboo, for Phil, for Eret and for himself, and big enough that there is an obvious gap at Phil’s right side where someone else should be standing.

Eret eyes her throne, glances at everyone else in the room, and then seats herself at its base. It’s a pithy gesture, meaningless, but Wilbur has more important things to do than to call her out on it, even though the existence of the throne itself grates against him.

“Let’s call this meeting to order, then,” he says, and Eret frowns. Perhaps she doesn’t like that he’s calling the shots in her own

(ill-gotten, dearly kept)

castle, but tough. He’s brought out the general for all of their sakes, so the general is what they’re all going to get.

(it’s a mask again and masks crack but he can keep it up for long enough he can he can they need a leader so he will lead he will lead them)

(you were so good at compartmentalizing, once, go good at shoving it all away in boxes in dark shadowy corners never to be opened to gather dust and cobwebs and faded recollections but the boxes cracked and the demon’s escaped and Pandora was too weak to stop them and it all ended in a bang and he cannot tell if hope remains but that isn’t the point because the box is opened and once opened it is not so easily closed and you are putting on a show a lie and lies come back around again they always do and you should know better than to pretend at strength you do not have you will lead them to ruin again ruin and gunpowder smoke and what gives you the right)

“Yeah, alright,” Puffy says. “Can we start by talking about—whatever that was? What were you talking about, dreamons? What’s a dreamon?”

“That sounds like a made up word,” Tommy mutters.

“I wish it were made up,” Tubbo says, and he winces when all eyes turn to him. But a moment later, he straightens, setting his shoulders squarely, holding his head up high. “I’ll tell you all what I know. Even if that turns out to be not as much as I thought.” He pauses, clearly struggling for words.

“Start from the beginning,” he suggests, and Tubbo nods at him gratefully.

“Okay, right, the beginning,” he says. “In the very beginning, me and Fundy were messing around, and we found some old books. We went through them for a laugh, and we learned about these things called dreamons.”

“Wait, that’s what they’re actually called?” Tommy interjects. “Like, properly?”

Tubbo shrugs. “It’s what the books said,” he says. “We weren’t about to argue over names. Even if it did seem like a weird coincidence. But yeah, that’s what they’re called.” His voice falls into an odd cadence here, recitative, like he’s telling a story, and Wilbur crosses his arms, gripping at his elbows. “They come from the darkness of the void, lurking around the edges of a server’s code. Once they get in, their only goal is to cause chaos and destruction. They corrupt everything they touch, and they can possess people and turn them into their puppets. They have unknowable powers, because they’re a sickness, a rot, like an infection in the code of the server itself. It’s really, really difficult to get rid of them, but it can be done if you have the right tools. Or—” He blinks, stuttering a bit, his voice landing more naturally. “We thought so, anyway.”

“What does this have to do with Dream?” Sapnap asks, stopping his pacing, looking to Tubbo with an expression in his eyes that hurts to look at, a bit, wobbly and desperate and pinched, like he already knows the answer but hopes that he’s wrong, hopes as much as he is able, even though he knows it will be fruitless.

Wilbur has put the pieces together. As best he can, anyway. And Sapnap’s not a stupid man. He can see where this is leading.

“Dream got possessed.” Tubbo sighs, gaze drifting toward the floor. “It was a whole thing. Honestly, we were surprised nobody else noticed. But we—we performed an exorcism. And it was really scary, to be honest. But it worked. We could see it leave, all oozy and black and gross, and Dream was better afterward! He was! So we thought we got it out.”

“But it tricked you?” he asks.

“I don’t understand how it could have,” Tubbo replies. “It’s not—it’s not like the kind of possession that you see in a TV show, where the demon can pretend to be the person or something like that. It’s obvious. It’s too—it’s too wrong to blend in, if that makes sense. It made his voice go all funny and deep, and the way it moved—” He shudders, and then continues, miserably, “The way it moved, there’s no way you could mistake something like that for a human. That’s why we were so sure it worked. Because afterward, he seemed back to normal.”

Something about this doesn’t make sense.

“Tubbo,” he says, wheels spinning in his mind, “when was this?”

Tubbo blinks. “Manberg days,” he says. “Um, that’s why we never told you about it, I suppose.”

He barely bats an eye at the reference. It doesn’t make sense. Because he has sensed that wrongness, as Tubbo puts it, has been sensing it from the moment he set foot in that prison cell for the first time. On some level, he knew that something was deeply wrong, even if a demonic presence was the last thing he would have guessed. But if the whole thing happened during—during that time, and the signs of possession were as obvious as Tubbo says, he would have noticed, wouldn’t he? He had plenty of interactions with Dream during that time.

(unless his own shadows stretched long, stretched far enough to cover Dream’s, to cover the thing piloting him)

But no—his shadows were of his own making, not supernatural. If anything, his mindset should have made him more receptive to suspicious wrongness, not less. So what—

(Dream smiles, and you know what it’s like, to have something whispering in your head, he says, once you let something in, there’s no going back)

“Maybe the first bit was a fakeout,” Phil suggests, arms folded, head tilted. He’s perplexed, which is worrying; it’s rare to come across a being that Phil knows nothing about. “It made itself obvious to lure you in so it could slip under the radar. Faked leaving to put your guard down, maybe.”

It’s plausible. But somehow

(and Dream stands atop the Egg and he says, he says, I tried to fight at first, but it turns out it was right all along, and he says it he says it like it’s separate from him like there is not something else something other speaking from his mouth after all and he tried to fight it he tried to fight it and what does that mean)

“They’re the same,” he breathes, and doesn’t know what he means, not quite yet, “they’re the same, and the Egg controls people, and he was talking about fighting something, about giving in—”

He runs a hand through his hair. Shakes his head.

“Wil?” Phil asks.

“Oi, Wilbur,” Tommy says, almost at the same time. But he needs to—he needs to focus as the pieces click into place, faster than he can process, and he has a conclusion but not the words yet—

He holds up a hand.

“Tubbo,” he says, “you said it can corrupt things. What did you mean by that?”

“I dunno, really,” he says. “It talked about it in the books some, but it was all weird metaphorical language. Couldn’t really makes sense of it. We were more focused on the bits that told us how to get rid of them.”

(he says, you know what the void is like, and Tubbo says that they come from the void, and)

That’s alright. He’s not sure he needs a hard answer to that, because he thinks that if one were to describe the feeling of the corruption, it would be

(it is dark and it is peaceful and there is static at the edges eating away at what makes him himself eating at his soul at his sense of self and it is what he wants, to be nothing, and he does not imagine what it would feel like if it were not what he desired, if he tried to resist it, resist the void all-consuming, all-devouring, resist the void that takes all things into itself and is never satiated)

something familiar.

“Alright,” he says, and steeples his fingers together. “Let me paint a picture for you. Someone gets possessed. You exorcise the thing. But these things can corrupt, you say. So maybe you get rid of the thing itself. Maybe Dream’s pretty much back to normal. But maybe it leaves little bits of itself behind. Maybe he’s not possessed, but maybe that doesn’t matter so much anymore. Maybe it changed him regardless. Maybe it’s still changing him, even though it’s no longer there. Maybe a corruption took root, and there wasn’t any going back from it.” He tilts his head, closes his eyes. “Suppose that the Egg is the same type of thing. Something that forced its way through the cracks of the server, something that’s been smart about it, biding its time. The things that Dream was saying reminded me a lot of what the Egg was doing, you know? Manipulating people, making them into things they aren’t, or into their worst selves.”

He strings the words together as he goes. He’s not sure he’s getting his point across. He used to be so much better at this.

“Wait, so you’re saying you think he isn’t possessed?” Sapnap asks.

“I’m saying we don’t really know,” he answers. “Not unless we get it from him. But Tubbo’s the expert here, and if he says Dream’s not acting like he’s possessed, I believe him. But even if he’s not possessed outright, that doesn’t mean there’s no—influence, perhaps.” He keeps his eyes shut; the darkness on the back of his eyelids is a natural one, but he can almost pretend that it isn’t. That it is darker, deeper.

(void)

“He was right that I know what it’s like,” he says. “I’ve felt the Egg in my head. And I was in the void for—a long time. It felt like forever. I know what it feels like, and there’s some of it in him, I think. Him and the Egg both. They’re the same kind of wrong, the same kind of unbelonging. I’ve never been possessed by a demon before, but if it’s made up of void stuff, that’s the sort of thing that stays with you. Whispering.”

He opens his eyes. Everyone is staring at him, varying expressions of horror on their faces.

He goes back over his words. In retrospect, he can see how they probably came off sounding.

“Wil,” Phil says softly.

“I’m fine,” he says, not at all convincingly, he’s sure.

(once he starts thinking of the void of the peace and of the rest it’s hard to stop even though his desires are now tinged with red and he knows better than to listen but he cannot help himself)

“This is all speculation, anyway,” he continues. “Might not matter at all, in the end, what the particulars are. We just need a way to stop them. Can dreamons be killed, Tubbo?”

Tubbo takes a moment before replying. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Fundy might remember better. But I think the only thing in what we read was the exorcism.”

“Which doesn’t help us much if Dream’s not actually possessed,” Puffy says. “Unless it might work on the Egg? If the Egg’s a—a dreamon too?”

“Worth a shot if we can get to it again,” he says, “but I don’t like risking so much on a maybe.”

“The less we mess with forces beyond our understanding, the better,” Eret says suddenly. She frowns, pushing her sunglasses further up her face. “As I said earlier, I’ve been away a good bit recently, so I haven’t been tracking the Egg’s progress as much as perhaps I should have. But I did notice an increase in activity—well. It was shortly after we tried to resurrect you, Wilbur.” She inclines her head toward him. “I fear that in our efforts, we might have interfered with something we shouldn’t have interfered with. Weakened a barrier of some kind, between our existence and—something else.”

She speaks with a strange kind of gravity. But her words make an unfortunate kind of sense.

He doesn’t look at Phil.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tommy states. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

“I’m with Tommy on this one. What are you talking about?” Sapnap adds.

“We’re getting off track,” he says, snapping his fingers. “We’re going about this wrong. We don’t have enough information, and we don’t have enough power. Those are our problems. How do we solve them?”

“The obvious would be to get the word out,” Puffy says. “Comms are down, but we can go by word of mouth if we have to. Kinda risky, with the amount of vines on this server, but the nether portal’s right across the way. No vines in the nether, I think.”

“I have lots of old books myself,” Phil chimes in, eyes skyward. “Might be something in there to help that I’ve read and forgotten about. And I’ve got another source of info I’ve barely begun to go through. Old shit I found. It might be worth a shot.” He looks back down. “We need to go get Techno anyway.” He says the last in a tone that brooks no argument, and Wilbur doesn’t try, even if it’s perhaps not the most tactically sound option.

(he wants Techno back too, wants to lay eyes on him, hold his wrist in his hand and count his heartbeats, each one a reassurance, because he knows what it is for a brother to die and come back but that has never made it easier)

“It’s better than nothing,” he says. “Alright, I’ve got a plan, then. Some of us go to the tundra, get Technoblade, and go through whatever books Phil has. Some stay here and fortify the defenses as best we can using what Tubbo can remember that he thinks might work, and a couple of us go around through the nether and tell as many people as possible what’s going on. Gather allies, resources anything else we might need.”

It’s not much of a plan. But based on just how outclassed they are, just how little they know, just how much exhaustion shows in their faces, it might be the best plan they’re going to get for now. To throw themselves back into a battle so soon would be folly.

It never sits well with him to bank so much on a hope, though, a mere possibility that things will go their way.

(but certainties were ripped out from under him the moment Dream killed the unkillable, the moment he saw his brother crumple to ash before his eyes)

“Great,” Puffy says, grimacing. “What could possibly go wrong with that?”

The silence that greets that statement serves perfectly well as a response.

He closes his eyes again. The darkness is no comfort.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #philza #tubbo #eret #ranboo #captain puffy #sapnap #alivebur #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #c!wilbur angst tag

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midyxthcrisis · 4 years ago

Text

let them go - part four | j.t.

warnings: language, violence, verbal fighting, angst

FINALLY AFTER MUCH WAIT IT IS HERE!! i hit major writer’s block for it, but i found some inspo for it while procrastinating doing an english project

part one | part two | part three

Knowing that Jason was being held and probably tortured by Dr. Light hurt you physically.

The longer it had been since Gar had last seen him, the more your nerves increased. You could barely touch a glass of water without it freezing in your hands, your nerves were that high. While you had gotten a better sense of control over your powers since your time at the asylum there still were moments when your emotions would get the better of you and lead to you not being in good control of your abilities.

You, unlike Dick, weren’t mad at either of the boys. You were frustrated that they had been stupid enough to go without telling anyone of course, but you weren’t mad. If anything you were mad at Dick for making Jason feel like he needed to prove himself to him in such a dramatic way. Granted, that was the way of Robin. They all had to be dramatic in some form.

You had forced Dick you let you stay in the room with him while he explained the situations to the rest of the former Titans. You had heard the stories of Deathstroke and Dr. Light from Dick. A pit had settled in the pit of your stomach the longer it took for the computer to locate Jason’s tracker. Then a glowing red dot appeared on the screen to signal you of where the boy was being kept.

“Where are you going?” Dick asked as you followed the group out of the computer room.

“I’m going with you.” You said that as if it was an obvious fact. To you it was. You were the closest to Jason out of all the people in the tower, and it was clear how much of an attachment the two of you had to each other.

“No you’re not. It’s too risky, you’re not prepare-”

“You really want to try and stop me right now, Dick? I’ve been training my ass off for two months and you forget that you’re the one who trained me. I can take care of myself. I’m not a child.”

An icy chill had settled over the room as you spoke. Whether it was from your anger or just because you had stood up to Dick for the first time in your life. Everyone else in the room stared at the two of you, you hadn’t noticed that your eyes were glowing the familiar white that indicated when you were loosing control of your powers.

“You stay behind us and say nothing.” It was clear Dick wasn’t the happiest about letting you go with him, but once he saw the grin that spread across your face he couldn’t stay mad. You gave him a quick hug before rushing off to change into something besides your lounge clothes. If worst came to worst, you didn’t want to be fighting Dr. Light in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

- - -

Unfortunately you didn’t have to encounter Dr. Light.

By the time your little group had reached the place where Jason’s tracker said he would be, you found nothing more than the dead body of the doctor and Jason’s tracker at his feet. The sight of the tracker only put a greater pit in your stomach. It was taking all of your willpower to not freeze the corpse of the man who had lured Jason into the trap in the first place.

Before you had the chance to the ringing of a cellphone cut through the painful silence.

“I see you found my gift,” a hollow voice came out of the phone. You could sense the energy of the people surrounding you shift drastically.

It sent chills down your spine.

“Where’s Jason?” Dick had asked, but you tuned him out. The only thing you could hear was the sound of your heartbeat thudding loudly in your ears-

“Who the fuck you calling sidekick, asshole?”

Jason’s voice was enough for you to be pulled back into reality. Without thinking, you had stepped closer to Dick in order to hear it clearer. As if hearing Jason’s cries of pain somehow made it more real that he was alive. Though the sounds of flesh against brittle flesh made nothing but red hot rage shoot throughout you.

“I swear to fucking god I will kill you!” You yelled out with a voice raspy from anger. The only thing that made you realize a glow surrounded you was the feeling of Dawn’s hand resting on your shoulder to calm you down.

Three in the morning.

Three in the morning and you would have Jason back.

- - -

“It’s bad. I cant tell, I don’t think we could handle hearing the truth.”

Those were the first words Rachel said once everyone had returned. The first thing you did when you stepped into the tower was head to the fridge. You needed a drink, desperately.

“I know a way we can find out.”

“No,” you turned to the green haired boy who spoke, beer in hand, “trust me you do not want to know the truth.” The frost that so often covered your skin had begun to spread to the bottle you held in your hands at the thought of Rose finding out what Dick had agreed to do.

But not all secrets can stay hidden for long.

How you wished to kill Bruce Wayne when you saw the cameras Gar had pulled up. There they all were, discussing whether or not to give up Rose to Slade. To you it was an obvious choice. Jason was a friend. Family. Rose was nothing more than one of Dick’s charity cases.

“They’re hiding something, and I wanna know what it is. Don’t you?”

It was obvious what Rose was doing. To you, at least. You squared your jaw and took another long drink of your second beer of the night before speaking.

“Slade wants you in return for Jason. To me it’s a no brainer, but Dick has a thing for orphans apparently.” You gestured to Gar and Rachel, who had just began to protest before you hit the button that turned the audio from the room on.

“Bottom line is, he’s one of us, she’s not.” You let out a bitter laugh. Funny, for once you actually agreed with something Hank had said.

The group continued to argue about the girl. Gar and Rachel continued to try and convince Rose that she wouldn’t be given up. But when she slipped out of the room right in front of you, you didn’t have the energy to alert the two others to her absence. Not until they noticed for themselves.

The next few minutes were a blur. Everybody running to find Rose, you finding Rachel over Rose’s body. Rose coming back to life.

- - -

The next thing you knew you had found yourself hidden in the shadows of where Deathstroke was holding Jason. Dick had told you to stay in the plaza with the rest of them, but you couldn’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling that had settled in your stomach. If you had learned anything from your mother it was that you needed to trust your instincts.

And god were you glad you did.

The sound of Dick’s voice, which had once brought you so much comfort, rang out through the room. Then the sound of velcro being undone. Then the sound of machines whirring to life. You dared to poke your head out from behind a crate, and what you saw made your blood run even colder than it already was.

Jason.

Jason was attached to a scaffolding, and you could see the bomb on the side.

One slip of Deathstroke’s finger and Jason Todd would be dead.

But before you had time to think the familiar sight of Kory blasting Slade appeared before you. You could feel a smile tug at your lips as you walked into sight.

“You seriously listening to this bullshit?” You called out, stepping to walk next to Kory.

She looked to you with the smile that made warmth spread through your chest for the first time in your life. She jerked a head towards the window and winked.

“Go, we got this.”

With that you used the cover of gunshots and starbolts to make your way to the window, a shaky smile on your lips when Jason saw you.

“Hey, bird boy. Funny seeing you here.” You teased. You raised a hand to the glass and allowed yourself to freeze it until it broke beneath your touch. As you were beginning to step out onto the platform a blast sent you flying into him.

With a groan you pushed yourself off of the boy. “Now’s not really the best time for that, babe.” He teased back. With a nervous laugh you began to fumble with the ropes that bound him to the bars.

The next seconds went by in slow motion.

You heard the beeping from the detonator increase. The bomb went off just as you had attempted to pull Jason into the room with you, causing you to loose your grip on him.

You could feel Kory wrapping an arm around you in order to prevent you from throwing yourself after him. As you peered over the edge of the building you saw Jason holding onto Dick’s hand.

“Don’t let go.” You heard Dick’s voice through the ringing in your ears.

Jason’s hand slipping more. Dick reaching out for him.

Jason falling.

Your voice screaming his name.

#jason todd x reader #robin x reader #jason todd #dc titans #teen titans #red hood #red hood x reader #robin #batman

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freezeriafan · 3 years ago

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Honestly i wish i knew whats going on with emery too. I feel like shes simply just a nasty person with no personal baggage. People like that exist - amii

PEOPLE LIKE THAT EXIST .... and i love that abt her i never want that to change .... But despite that I Just Keep Thinking abt what kind of person a sour nature like that would create...

UGH it's not your fault that i wrote paragraphs musing abt ur oc Emery . I just have a lot of thoughts . I'm like ... a fan. These are my fandom thoughts . IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT .. if u read it tho tell me ur thoughts bc you know emery more than i do obviously . IDK WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT but i say it anyway. Welcome to the shitshow

A lot of the time ppl perform behaviors bc of a root emotional cause but maybe it's reversed w Emery. She's already naturally a c*nt, she's stubborn, she's conceited, she's belligerent, she's inconsolable, she's egotistical; she always thinks she's right and always thinks that everyone is wrong; she refuses to change and learn and grow, and she refuses to believe that other people may be right sometimes and that they have their own valid feelings.

And's that's so funny she's so full of hubris im not advocating that that ever changes ever....I'm not even gonna say how there probably are a lot of things in her upbringing that shaped her nastiness .... bc i dont really care at all of that for her idk...she's not real.... But I do keep thinking abt what a nature like that would do to a person .

She has no close friends bc she drives them off and bc she needs to be better than everyone. She probably just believes that that's how life works; I don't know if she knows what real comradery feels like, what playful fraternizing is.

By nature she never admits fault and always pushes the blame onto someone else; this means that she never has to reconcile with shame or guilt or embarrassment. This creates a person who CAN'T reconcile with those things, she never built a tolerance, no idea how to even begin handling that. If she's always right why would she feel shame? And in the instance that she does something regrettable - If she's always right then why would she do something that causes shame? That's just not in line with her self image at all. Was is someone else's fault, or is she a powerful individual with deliberate volition? If she's always right, how does she address real internal confliction? If she rationalizes it all away at the first hint of self-doubt, then how long can she actually tolerate a healthy amount of shame when it arises?

I think it was brought up before but maybe not that while she's stubborn, she Will change her opinion if it keeps her in the right. So like if she does something unwonted or that would put her in the losing end of the argument, she will change her tune in order to preserve herself. That fluidity is more sustainable and realistic then being one way and always one way, but that two-facedness WILL drive everyone away and will weaken the stability of the hill she's trying to die on.

BUT EVEN WITH THAT FLUIDITY OF VALUES, If she's hellbent on being right all of the time and asserting herself first, then there's never room for honest listening and mindful growth. So she's essentially been climbing through the multitudes of life as one shape. Awful. She must feel like a lobster stuck in its own shell but she wouldn't know enough to know it. She never introspects enough to realize when she changes her opinions and when she doesn't, much less notice when the person she is now just isnt working. Doesn't she get bored of that? Does she ever want something different?

If she did begin to tire of herself, how would she rationalize that? What would it look like?

If she did want something different, would she get it, and then change her tune to match? Where are her limits? Is she just a shifting morph of desires? I mean that's a valid philosophy abt humans, that everything abt us is just the result of desires. But Emery definitely acts like she's solid and that she knows best and that she's reliable, unlike some other snakes in her life, an that incongruity is noticeable.

Even if she's full of self-serving fire by nature, I keep thinking about how she's a mean angry person STILL ... at her age... like she never mellowed out... never stopped putting her fire out there....like it never really got out there. Was never really heard? Never really got to burn? Does she crave vindication? Is there an ounce of something sympathetic in her character? What sort of reverence and attention does she need that she hasn't already bullied her way into getting?

I know she's incredibly self-serving, but has she ever shown herself sensitivity? I don't think she knows what tough love is when it comes to herself. It seems she gives herself everything she wants, all the rights to argue and to stand her ground, but never the softhearted consideration of how she's a multifaceted individual, and never the forgiveness after a healthy amount of self-doubt.

IDK. But I do keep thinking about the idea that the human brain can only put off something for so long. For example people can repress things for a long time or overwork themselves for a long time but there will be a point where their subconscious snaps and demands to be heard . That's when ppl have breakdowns, and they can be out of commission for years; it's an incredibly tough state to be in.

and idk I Keep Thinking abt how Emery cannot be so stubborn and insensitive forever something has GOT to happen at some point. She wouldn't listen to external forces, something inside has got to shift .. she's got to start reconciling with SOMETHING .. she's a grown ass adult she cant play the fool and play the victim forever .. she cant pretend she doesnt know the push and pull of life.... nobody is really THAT dense are they ?

IDK !!! I think I'm just approaching this at the completely wrong angle. She probably gives a little and then just reclimbs the podium to where it had shifted to; she has a superiority complex that really isn't that complex; she doesn't like to share her victories like how Quinn doesn't like to share her prey; she's of a generation; she's not interested in learning new things or changing her ways; she's a c*nt and that's FINE. Ughhhhhhh . She's on her way out anyway . Thanks for the homophobic papa louie oc . Gives me smth to rant abt . THANKS. Bye

#emery

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yellowbluemoonshine · 5 years ago

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BNHA's War Arc; Some Details & Parallels

I wanna talk about the things i noticed in recent chapters. 1st one is about how peroid of story keeps changing. 2nd one is about the details of Shigaraki vs Endeavour. 3rd one is about parallels between some characters.

1) Periods of the Story;

a) Beatifull Lie;

Start of the manga, everything seemed more black and white. Allmight, The Symbole of Peace was out there. Story mostly focused on hero kids‘s training like how it supposed to be, they need to go to school. Villains look like a monster, inhuman evil. We got small hints of the broken society but just hints. Flaws were always there, everywhere but story didnt focus on that. Everything seemed more brignht, like nothing really wrong with the society they living.

- Kids were going to school, having trainings (like soldiers)

- Deku and Bakugou’s relationship was pretty abusive. Deku was scared of him, Bakugou wasnt taking seriously of him.

- Mostly heroes got character developments, we meet with the hero sides.

Everything changed after Allmight vs AFO. We are definitely supposed to root for Allmight here. AFO being manipulative and trying to control the fight. Meanwhile, Allmight is trying to protect people.

Even there is a chapter named “ending o the beginning, beginning of the end” means things are changing.

b) Ugly Truth;

ith the end of the Allmight, story gets darker. Villains became more sempathic, more human, we meet with them. And heard the story from them, different perspective. First time, someone who is not Deku told the story us. We got villains backstories. This time, we got arc that we are supposed to root for League. They didnt fight against heroes. We saw the flaws of society that already there.

- Government preapered the children for war and they gave their training early than it supposed to be, despite some teacher’s worrying about them.

- Deku and Bakugou’s relationship became better, compared to before.

- Mostly villains got characters developments

c) Wake up;

And we enter a new arc, this time, everything changed again.

- Government sent sudents to the war and at the first time

- Proheroes are acting like villains / they dont acting like heroes at all. Miruko killed noumus, victims of mad scicences with enjoy. Mic and Aizawa came here for revenge

- League is the victims (and heroes) of this arc.

And wonder how it will contunie.

2) Parallels between scenes;

In stories when two scenes or characters drawn similarly, we are meant to compare them. Both similarities and differences together. With those fights, story change to next period with Allmight’s ending and with war arc.

I will get a little deeper now, under the cut.

a) Allmight vs AFO & Shigaraki vs Endeavour;

In this both scene, there is no 1 hero vs no 1 villain fight. Allmight’s priority was protecting people, he literally go there to save Bakugou. And to save him, he had to fight AFO. Endeavour’s priority was to end Shigaraki.

Problem here is Shigaraki is someone like Deku, Eri, victim. Shigaraki is similar to Allmight even his childhood friends think like that when he was young. Shigaraki is so kind just like Allmight that he would take outcasts and giving them a place. Shigaraki is someone who saves people who wont saved by society, its his origin. This is opposite of AFO cause AFO is someone who takes advantage of people’s pain.

And Endeavour is a hero who beats villains, unlike Allmight who saves people. Also Endeavour is a child abuser just like AFO. They both used children for their selfish desires, power.

So Shigaraki is someone who is more like Allmight meanwhile Endeavour is someone who is more like AFO. Allmight vs Afo fight was pretty black and white. But this fight is more like a fight between a child who was abused his all life vs the man who abused his kids his all life. In Allmight vs AFO, Afo was the one who controlled the fight, he played with Allmight’s emotions. In this fight, Endeavour is the one who tries to control Shigaraki.

b) Some details about this fight;

Of course, Shigaraki is someone who needs to be stopped, they just cant let him kill people after all.

But the theme of Shigaraki’s story is that he needs to be saved.

The theme of Endeavour’s story is he needs to atone what he did in the past. But the way he treats to Shigaraki is still horrible.

1- Endeavour saw what Ujiko did to these people, they are both parallels, they both experiment of people for their selfish desires. But Endeavour, someone who was supposed to feel guilty for what he did to his family has no empathy for Ujiko’s victims.

2- Not just that Endeavour didnt even know that Shigaraki could fet heal after being burnt but he didnt even care that. He almost killed him. I read an analysis that hero license is basically a licensce that give you a permission to kill which seems true.

3- The way Endeavour put his hand on Shigaraki’s face is literally symbolism of child abuse, the violence used by adults towards to children.

4- Shigaraki’s burnt face is just like exactly Dabi, Endeavour’s son. Endeavour’s son “died”, exactly like this but Endeavour has no hesitate to burn another child who is exact same age as his children and who was abused just like his children.

This is exactly the reason that Endeavour looks like horrible villain while Shigaraki looks like hero.

It’s not just about Shigaraki, its about Endeavour. This is not the actions of the man who truly face what he did. The way Endeavour (and proheroes) treats towards Shigaraki is horrible.

Yeah, Shigaraki is someone who needs to be stopped, he is dangerous but heroes have every proof the confirm his victimhood but they completely ignore it and treats him as monster.

I understand that they lost friends and they need to be carefull but Aizawa...the teachers of ue students, the caretaker of Eri, the friend of Shirakumo...how can you blame Shigaraki for everything? For the sake of taking him down? Really? Shigaraki is no different from Eri and Shirakumo but he is the one who is blamed for everything. Even AFO or Ujiko werent treated like that.

People like AFO, Ujiko, hero comission, they kidnaps people, manipulate them, use them, turning them to a weapons for their own goals and they watch the show from far away. Their victims are the ones who are getting hurted and they get away it cause they are hiding behind of the stage. And proheroes only look at the stage, surface of the mountain.

The point here is i think we are not supposed to root for Endeavour or proheroes anymore, especially at this point cause everything changed and mixed.

3) Parallels between Characters;

a) Shigaraki and Eri;

Shigaraki and Eri have a lot of parallels but i am gonna talk a few parallels between them happenned in recent chapters.

They both chose to go to hell that created by their abusers cause they literally al they know, they are used to being hurt.

Heroes came for them. But to save Eri, destroy Shigaraki. Reason is Overhaul made weapons from Eri’s body but AFO turned Shigaraki to completely a weapon

They both needed to wrapped them. Mirio came and wrapp Eri up cause she was hurted, she needed to feel warm.

Meanwhile, heroes are not going to do this for Shigaraki so he does it by himself. The reason he stole hero cape is literally because he needed. He was cold and he needed to wrapped up.

b) Shigaraki and Pop;

This one is parallel between bnha and vigilantes.

They were both kidnapped. Tenko when he was young, Pop was kidnapped in a near time.

They are both brainwashed and victims of mad sciences.

They are both hurts people and harm things right now, there is something wrong with their head. Queen bee controls Pop’s head meanwhile Shigaraki’s abuser AFO (the man who is famious with how much he is good at manipulating people, the man who rebuild Shigaraki’s mindset since he was kid) literally controls him from inside.

We saw both Tenko and Pop’s real dream and memories with their family/ mother. They both still the same child in deep, despite what happenning to them or what they are doing rignt now. Despite everything, in deep they are still the same children who needs to be saved.

And Endeavour and proheroes fighting against them, instead of saving them. Not just fighting, they literally try to kill them.

I think in the end, Pop will be saved cause there are people wno knows her personally and wants to save her. But none of the hero side know Shigaraki personally, forget attempting to save him, they dont even see him as victim.

Just interesting details. I wrote it very randomly, there might be things i forgot to mention. For now, thats it.

#bnha analysis #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #allmight #afo #endeavour #pop #bnha vigilantes #bnha parallels #eri #mha meta #bnha meta #bnha 275 #war arc #vigilantes 79

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yeaahishowedupatyourparty · 4 years ago

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Red & the meaning of it’s songs for Lottie. I just feel like doing this is going to help me build her narrative more, there might be some open spots in here but I doubt it. Also, as I said in the chat, it just helps everyone differentiate her from Holly because they both use Taylor’s albums for their character development! Hope that makes sense :)

1. State Of Grace - Moving to New York and a dedication to all of the friend’s she’s made there. It’s the first time she’s been settled properly in one place and I think it’s about the intense excitement and love she feels for her academy already. She’s met Yasmine, Salem, and so many others and it’s track number 1, because she sees it as the opening to a really exciting new chapter. 2. Red - Elijah! This was her first boyfriend and they drifted as they grew up and moved on to different things. She has no ideas he’s into guys and that doesn’t really matter, anyway. She’s accepted that they’re over but the relationship is always romanticised in her head and moving on fully will probably never be an option. 3. Treacherous - Her first crush at Liberty was Avery and it hit hard. She was intensely pissed off when she didn’t get the reciprocation she wanted but after ‘Better than Revenge’ on Speak Now, she knows better than to put people on blast TOO hard. So, she went down the lovesick route and created this beautiful song. She knows that nothing’s going to come of it, but she can’t fully leave him alone. It’s a little less intense now that all of the academies are together though, because she doesn’t see him as much. 4. I Knew You Were Trouble - This plot is still work in progress, but it’ll be dedicated to Ethan. The two of them have got closer through attending Liberty and he’s attracted to her on a physical level; but nothing more. He’s mainly hooking up with her to prove a point to Addy and it’s working. They’re never official but even still, when she realises/the truth comes out, I think she’ll put her “Stop putting people on blast” attitude out of the window and release this because she won’t be happy. 5. All Too Well - I think All Too Well is really easy to interpret as heartbreak, but Lottie’s meant to be more calculated than that. So, even though it’s very much a heartfelt song and really emotional...she’s crafted it to be that way. It’ll be about Ethan and the purpose of it will be to get the general public and fans on side. She knows it tugs at heart-strings and while I Knew You Were Trouble is a bop, All Too Well is designed to give her the vulnerability that everybody loves to see. In reality, she’s not as hurt about it as she’s pretending. 6. 22 - Every single album has a song about or inspired by Annabel because she’s hands down the most important person in Lottie’s world. I feel Lottie would have grown up hearing Annabel’s stories about St Judes, her adventures and the friends she made. Lottie wrote this song when she got accepted into Liberty, knowing that she’d be having the same thing, and in a weird way feels more connected to her Mum than ever. The line “Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you” kind of points to how much she still relies on Annabel and knows her Mum will guide her through anything that gets hard in the next few years. She basically feels as if she’s her Mum when she was 22. 7. I Almost Do - Elijah. This would be an older song and I think it’d be written when she first started feeling the distance between them. This is probably the least complicated meaning on the album, oop. 8. We Are Never Getting Back Together - NOBODY LOL She just knew it’d get people talking and was catchy and it’ll be one she always acts as if it’s a huge secret who it’s about. 9. Stay Stay Stay - Again, it needs a little bit more development but Flynn is the second guy she’s had a major crush on. He’s really good to her and they have a lovely friendship, but she’s also keeping him at arms length because she knows her career plan is going to end up screwing over a lot of people and their reputations and she doesn’t want him to be one of them. It’s also about how he seems to genuinely like her and not care as much about how successful she is/what she can or cant offer him. 10. The Last Time - All Too Well, part 2. Just to REALLY drive home the fact that Ethan’s hurt her feelings, it’s all his fault and people should feel bad for her. Forget the fact she also knew he was one of the star basketball players and dating him would help boost the attention for ‘Red.’ That’s irrelevant...Obviously. 11. Holy Ground - She wrote this during her visit to St Judes and again, with her parents in mind. For them, Violet Springs is where it all started and I think she would’ve done something really sentimental like visited Annabel’s old dorm room or asked her Mum to take her to the place where they first met. This one tells their story more than any of theirs. 12. Sad Beautiful Tragic - Another one about Elijah. I feel like this is probably the shadiest song she’s written about him and here’s why...’Sad beautiful tragic love affair’ almost implies that something happened or somebody was wrong - and, of course, Lottie’s RARELY going to put herself in the shoes of the villain in any of her stories, so it very subtly nudges people to feel like Elijah did something. He didn’t, though, but one of Lottie’s weaknesses is making things up in her head until she believes them to be fact. There was definitely a stage where she thought he’d found somebody else, so this was the result. 13. The Lucky One - For Violet! Lottie’s been in the music industry for a little longer than most, just because Drew and Annabel let her be home-schooled for a few years while she worked on her debut. I think she sees a lot of herself in Violet and it’s somebody she genuinely cares about. It’s written almost like a fable about fame and trying to warn her that she needs to keep her feet on the ground or she’ll get hurt. 14. Everything Has Changed - I REALLY DON’T LIKE THIS SONG, I FIND IT HARD TO CARE ABOUT. She does have a vague connection with Fae’s new character, Jace, though, so I’ll fill this in when we’ve got a better idea of what it’s all about. 15. Starlight - Her second song about being in New York and starting life at Liberty. Lottie’s version of ‘Red’ is about living life at maximum intensity, which is what she feels like at the moment. She feels like this is the most alive and new she’ll ever be and her passion for everything is burning, so Starlight is another song that expresses that. 16. Begin Again - Flynn and Elijah, ahh. Again, she deep down knows Flynn’s a good guy and the real deal; the only other person she’s had that intuition about is Elijah. She’s kind of comparing them in the sense that they’ve given her that hopeful, heads-in-the-clouds feeling...unlike Ethan who is the other side of the album. I think it’s from the perspective of Lottie looking at Flynn and seeing a lot of Elijah - hence something quite nice is beginning...again.

17. The Moment I Knew - This will again be for Jace. The vague idea of their connection is that they dated after she dated Elijah, while she was home schooling. She fell hard and looked to him for support and was convinced he’d be the same as Elijah was to her but he is and has always been more focused on his career. So, when she decided to go back to VS, he stayed out in LA trying to make his dreams come true. They tried long distance but he never called as much as she did and it felt very one way. He never did anything explicitly wrong...unless you hear Lottie’s slightly overdramatic version of the story via this song. (For people struggling to keep up, it goes: Elijah, Jace, Liberty, Crush on Avery, vague fling with Ethan, Longterm crush on Flynn LOL) 18. Come Back, Be Here - Leaving LA (when she was being home schooled/working on her debut) and Jace, too. This was the beginning of their short lived long distance relationship when she thought they genuinely had a chance. I feel like she’s embarrassed to admit she fell for him now but she did lmao. 19. Girl At Home - If you didn’t get the clue in her post, Peter C LOL. It’s plotted that when they got to NYC, he flirted with her a few times even though Lottie knew he was with Bianca. Hence why she wrote this song. She could’ve just told him to fuck off and left it be, but why do that when you could have it on an album and cause rumours to spread like wildfire?

#lotties project: red #ITS NOT OUT YET #BUT THESE WILL BE THE MEANINGS #i also love how sneakily shady she is with these songs and the meanings :')

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in-a-constant-daydream6 · 5 years ago

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Completely & Utterly

Bucky x reader

Word count: 2,052

A/N: this is my first attempt at writing so it’s probably awful lol :) feedback is very much appreciated and welcomed! hope you enjoy! (hopefully its not too bad) :)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Hey, you okay kid?” Tony asks his voice laced with concern. Returning back to reality your tear filled eyes find Tony’s. You quickly whisper a “yes” which is followed by a poor attempt at a smile. You hadn’t intended for it to come out as a whisper but the softness of Tony’s voice combined with your emotional state creates a lump in your throat.

The bar holds the usual chatter and warmth. It is classy yet cosy, and the monotonous downpour of rain only elevates the warmth and brightness of its interior. However, today Starks bar (called ‘The Iron Man’) didn’t bring the same joy it once did. In an attempt to hold your tears back, you take a sip of your lemonade.

Your hands pick at the corner of the beer mat whilst Tony places his hand on your shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Well, if you need anything you know where to find me.” You nod and Tony makes his way back to the bar giving handshakes and quirky comments to those who come here regularly.

It had been a year since your best friend Bucky had left for New York. One whole year. God, You shouldn’t be this heartbroken still. But you were because he wasn’t just your best friend, he was the person who made you laugh until your stomach ached with pain, he was the person you would have midnight phone calls with…he was the person who you shared your childhood with. You don’t know the exact moment you realised you loved him more than a friend, but maybe there wasn’t a moment. Maybe you had always loved him completely and utterly.

————————————————————————-

1 year ago (the day before Bucky left for New York)

Huddled in a corner of the room, you and Nat speak in hushed tones. “Y/N you need to tell him before he leaves tomorrow.”

“I can’t” you stammer “this is a huge opportunity for him, I can’t just go up to him and say ‘hey Bucky I just wanted to say that I’m in love with you and I think I have been for like forever. Have a nice life in New York though,” exhaling a stressed sigh you massage your temple. Why couldn’t I have just plucked up the courage and told him years ago?!

“Y/N look at me. You are one of my closest friends - I consider you a sister, which is why I think you should tell him. I know the timing isn’t ideal.”

“Ideal?” You interrupt “Its awful. It would be selfish of me to tell him now.”

“No it wouldn’t” Nat’s soft tone is comforting “you will be selfish if you don’t tell him. He should leave knowing your true feelings. Perhaps he feels the same way about you and he’s leaving because he thinks you don’t feel the same way.”

“And if he does feel the same way, which I highly doubt he does…what if he then decides to stay. I would feel terrible…I would feel like I was preventing him from reaching his absolute potential and like I was holding him back from chasing his dreams. You know how excited he is Nat.” You say with a dejected tone.

There’s a silent pause. Nat looks at you with a mixture of concern and sadness in her eyes. “Well whatever you decide just know that I’m here for you - no matter what.” She reaches for your hand and gives you a smile which evokes a warmth within you. What would you do without Nat? …What will you do without Bucky?

You return her smile, although it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Thank you Nat, really, it means a lot. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Your life would be hell without me” and she’s back to her usual playful self in which you are truly grateful for.

“Im not interrupting anything, am I?” Bucky asks. You look over your shoulder when Nat says “Of course not, I’m just heading to ladies so if you’ll excuse me,” which is followed by a reassuring wink.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you much this evening. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah” you weakly muster whilst trying to give a convincing smile.

“It’s just…you’ve been kinda distant lately and that isn’t like you at all. We always tell each other everything, and I know I’m going to New York but it’s only one year, and you can come and visit, and we’ll FaceTime and call all the time.” He places his hand on your arm and gives you his signature smile, which never fails to send your heart flying.

“Im fine, really….work has just been…stressful lately, thats all.” His glassy blue eyes search yours and you immediately know that he’s not buying it.

“How long have we known each other Y/N? I know when your lying,” he runs his fingers through his hair and lets out a sigh, “I thought you’d be happy for me - I’d be happy for you. You know I thought I’d be able to spend my last day with my best friend, I thought we’d have a great day celebrating with all of our friends which would allow me to feel content before heading onto the plane…but I guess not.” he expresses, hurt entwined with every word.

Thoughts are racing through your head, you thought you’d be able to carry on pretending for just one more day (obviously not). Your pause and absence of words cause Bucky to walk away. You promptly follow him to an empty room, you can still hear Steve and Sam’s laughter which seems to then blend into music and chatter.

“Wait…Bucky” you plead, grabbing his arm. His muscles tense, making you realise how physically strong he has become - unlike his gawky teenage years.

He stops and looks at you with hurt reflecting in his eyes, “What Y/N?”

You don’t know whether a surge of courage or stupidity takes over you but you manage to muster the three words you have always wanted to tell him, “I-I…love you.”

“What-what did you say?” his voice is subdued. You know he heard you but confusion forces him to ask anyway.

“I love you Bucky, completely and utterly.” Your voice breaks and you can feel your eyes begin to fill with tears.

“Why…why haven’t you told me…before?,” he shakes his head in confusion and rubs his face, “why are you telling me a day before I leave for New York?”

“I promise you, I didn’t plan to tell you today”

He cuts in “So when were you going to tell me?! I can’t-I cant do this…not now.”

Your heart breaks “okay,” your voice is almost a whisper, “I’m really sorry Buck, I really didn’t mean to do this right now but…” your voice trails away as you don’t know what else there is to say.

He nods whilst biting his lip, “I know…you- um, don’t need to worry about coming to the airport with me tomorrow… it’s really early so…I’ll give you a ring when I get there.” He walks away before you can say anything, and you let the tears run down you cheeks.

You don’t know how long you are standing there before Nat embraces you, cooing gently “it’s okay.”

———————————————————————

Back to present day

“You know if you smile that much you might pull a muscle.” Looking up you see one of your closest friends, Natasha. The redhead walks over to sit by you with a grin on her face and the usual mischievous glint in her eyes. You couldn’t help but reciprocate the grin.

“And why, might I add, are you drinking lemonade when we are supposed to be celebrating your new job?” She raises her eyebrows at you but then her demeanour changes. She places her hand on top of yours and you look up. “You heard about Bucky?”

You nod, scared that if you try to talk you’ll start crying.

You did speak to Bucky several times after that night but it was awkward, neither one of you knowing what to say, eventually the calls stopped. It hurt, and not just because he didn’t love you back but because you felt like you had lost your best friend.

You tried your best to move on and you think Sam, Steve, Clint and Wanda believed it. However, Tony didn’t - but he didn’t pry and you appreciated that, he did however check to make sure that you were okay. Of course, Natasha knew that you were hurting and you were able to express your true emotions in front of her.

You don’t know how many movies you watched together or how many times she held you while you broke down, but you did manage to move on with your life and things were…good. You and Nat still shared an apartment which was great, and every Saturday the others would come over for drinks and/or a movie (usually ending in fits of laughter). It was actually during the last Saturday get together, that you had overheard Steve and Sam talk about Bucky. And that’s when you heard he was going to propose to his girlfriend. It caught you by surprise, you knew he had been dating her for a while but you weren’t quite expecting a proposal. You had also heard Steve voice his concerns about Bucky and how he didn’t sound like his usual self, but Sam shrugged it off and said he was probably nervous about proposing.

................................................................................

“I’m happy for him - really.” You gave your best attempt at a smile. Nat didn’t buy it but she didn’t say anything further as the others had arrived and were heading towards your table. Sam was first to wrap his arms around you, “Congratulations! Wow, a journalist! Well, if you need any interesting stories-”

“She wont go to you,” Nat interjects, a grin plastered on her face.

Everyone laughs and Steve slaps slam on the back, “you were asking for that.” They all give you a hug and express how proud they are of you and your new job.

Before sitting down Sam asks Tony for drinks. “You do know that I own this place. I don’t work as a waiter. And anyway, I’m off duty now. I’ve spent all day having meetings and talking about possible events, so this is my time to relax and enjoy myself.”

“Don’t worry I’ll get them” Clint states rolling his eyes.

You actually managed to put Bucky aside from your thoughts, and were enjoying your evening. You looked at the faces sitting around the table, laughing and joking, and you couldn’t help but smile. You were so thankful to have them in your life.

“Another round?” You ask which gets a chorus of enthusiastic yeahs, making you giggle.

You head over to the bar and relay the list of drinks to the bartender. Waiting for your drinks you tap your fingers on the counter and glance around the bar. That is until your eye catches a familiar face entering the bar. Your heart drops.

“Bucky?” You muster.

“Hey,” his eyes drop to the ground and he gives a shy smile, “its been a while.”

A mixture of shock and confusion leaves you speechless, “what-what are you…doing here? I thought you were in New York?”

You search his eyes before properly taking a look at him. You then notice he’s cut his hair short, its not long like it once was. You realise you’re staring, so you avert your gaze.

There’s a long pause, and you both just stand there awkwardly.

You go to say something when he says, “I’ve missed you…and yes I am supposed to be in New York. As much as I love New York, its not home-”

“I thought you were getting engaged-“

This time Bucky is the one to interrupt, “No, well, Sharon kept saying how she wanted to get married and everyone just assumed that I would propose. She’s great but the truth is I didn’t love her, I was able to fool myself for a while but…she just wasn’t you.”

He shrugs and gives you a sad smile, “I love you Y/N… completely and utterly….”

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes imagine #james buchanan barnes #the winter soldier #the winter soldier x reader #marvel #sebastian stan #oneshot #bucky barnes one shot

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kendrixtermina · 5 years ago

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The Team Dynamics of the Three Houses

Essay time! =D

Part One: Team Makeup and Thematic Framework Blue Lions

Overarching Theme: Classic basic fantasy archetypes but with a dark twist (We have Prince Charming/ Guilt-ridden softboy standard-issue JRPG protagonist, Handsome Lech/Idiot Friend, Standoffish Rival, Gentleman Thief, Lady Knight, Sweet nice healer, Adorable spellcaster Girl, the Gentle Giant etc. )

Composition: Has the most people with crests, and the one guy with a naturally occurring major crest. Foreshadows how the crest obsession is particularly bad here, due to Faerghus’ harsh environment and a society that’s both religious and has a serious element of hero worship

History: Notably the most tight-knit group. Everyone knows each other already. It’s basically Dimitri, Dimitri’s longtime best friends, the daughter of Dimitri’s former instructor who heard lots of stories about him and her super nice BFF who gets along with everyone... and Ashe, who didn’t know the others until the academy, but since he is a honest sweety who loves cooking and knight stories, he hits it off with the others right away.

Atmosphere: Everyone has kind of the same hobbies (cooking, handicrafts, weapons collecting, knight stuff) and a lot of history, some posters have remarked on missing the “family ambiente” in the other routes but since the bonds are stronger they’re also more charged, it’s also been said that it’s the group with the most inter-team drama, especially when you feature in their relatives - You have Dimitri’s whole character arc, all the family drama between the Fraldariuses and the Dominics, Ingrid’s hangups regarding poor Dedue etc.

As expected if you recruit any of them they’ll kinda have a hard time going after their old home, even the tsundere ones.

The Leader’s position: For all that Dimitri’s friends refuse to drop his honorifics they really are his friends. They’re just all kinda polite with the obvious exception of Felix, and he’s largely tsundere. Despite the afore mentioned drama we see plenty of Dimitri just hanging out with his friends and even coming to them for help, he’s really just one of the bunch .

Since Faerghus is in chaos everyone’s pinning a lot of hopes on Dimitri and it’s not like he’s completely unaware of that or doesn’t have the corresponding sense of duty, he’s always torn between that and his revenge plan which eventually just takes over. He pursues this entirely on his own, too, with not even Dedue knowing what he’s sneaking around the library for.

How this “flavors” part one: Gives it a very “personal” touch. Faerghus, it’s culture, recent past and current state of chaos are fleshed out a lot (we learn plenty about the Alliance and the Empire but Claude and Edelgard have greater scope plans) and since a lot of the part I missions concern the instabilities in the kingdom they affect the characters directly. Basically since they’re more “regular” fantasy protagonists we gotta hit em all with the Drama hammer to keep things fresh. And that’s how it continues - They follow Dimitri because of personal loyalty (both toward him specifically, and because it’s in their culture), and Dimitri just wants to protect (or avenge) the people he cares about.

How this Ties into The Themes: The Kingdom route eventually becomes very much a Power of Friendship story where they all stick it out with Dimitri in his time of need because he’s their friend and they want to be there for him and that makes a lot more sense if there was a big emphasis on friendship/ found family before that, and of course their friendship is what eventually helps him turn his life around.

How does Byleth fit into this: Dimitri, like Hubert and Leonie, can be filed into the box of those who aren’t immediately awed by their heroic charisma. He doesn’t really get people who aren’t as outwardly expressive as him (eg. Edelgard) But unlike, say, Leonie, Dimitri has no settings between crushkilldestroy and stilted politeness and seldom expresses or responds to overt hostility most of the time. On the one hand there’s a side to him that’s a bit judgemental and vindictive, but that extends to himself too so he’s very ashamed of his flaws and is afraid that he won’t be accepted, so he projects outward that same acceptance that he likes to receive.

So the end result is that he goes out of his way to befriend Byleth, he encourages everyone to speak with them in a familiar manner, insists that they join the victory celebrations etc. Then of course he gets to see that they’re actually quite supportive and so in time they become, as Dimitri puts it “the heart of the group”.

By the time they find out that Dimitri ever disliked them, that’s long past. He’s a very high-empathy, emotional person so once he likes you he really likes you and will regard your troubles like his own. Some ppl might say that maybe the bond feels more special since it took longer to “earn”. He’s practically ready to swear a blood oath with them once Jeralt dies. There’s an unappreciated Symmetry here like he goes through the trouble to ‘defrost’ them, and then they return the favor by supporting him through his difficult times when they perhaps get to see the ugliest side of him.

Further Dynamic Notes:

So you have a dynamic of working past/ understanding and accepting each other despite one’s flaws and differences. (whereas Claude and Edelgard are interested in Byleth right away, because they’re unusual, but in slightly different ways - Claude can kinda relate to the experience of sticking out itself but is still stumped by being unable to read them, whereas Edelgard sticks out in the same way so you’re actually on the same wavelenght to begin with)

“opposites attract” specifically in the way that they balance each other out. A cool steadfast leader type certainly has a grounding effect on Dimitri as a very reactive person, but he also pulls them into the ‘normal’ world a bit after they spend all this time just wandering the world like all places are the same to them. They basically put the magic destiny on the backburner to help him out. They still become archbishop and all to fit the standard fantasy look of it all but not like full messiah like on the church route

Even after the timeskip Byleth kinda plays the mentor role or at least that of the dominant person/ big spoon in the relationship (though Dimitri ends up waaay taler than them especially fem Byleth), “Excuse me this is my emotional support mercenary”

If you go the platonic route you very much stay at „mentor“, Byleth is basically the brains of the operation post timeskip ‘cause the old Mitya can‘t come to the phone right now and Gilbert and Rodrigue would follow him off a cliff

Plot wise, their contribution is to stop the revenge trip when it gets to be a too obvious kamikaze stunt, which they, as a relative outsider to Faerghus and experienced, pragmatic fighter, would do when someone like Gilbert would not

Character journey wise, they refuse to give up on Dimitri and still see the good in him so that he eventually comes to a point where he could envision his own redemption/ come to accept/forgive himself and learn that its okay to move on and live his own life

Byleth can be said to somewhat even out the flaws in everyone‘s leadership styles (while the house leaders help Byleth find their own direction – i didnt come up with this alone there was a brilliant post a while ago that i cant find rn) – In Dimitri‘s case, he has authority/credibility/integrity („Pathos“), being the rightful king with many loyal followers, and emotional/ personal leadership as an emphatetic person who inspired respect for his character („Ethos“) but is lacking in plans („Logos“)

Golden Deer

Overarching Theme: Ragtag Bunch of misfits /Unlikely Heroes (let’s see, we have trickster turned lying politician, upper-class twit turned opportunistic conservative, lazy rich girl, shy glasses boy and his best friend dumb muscle, cursed werewolf girl, stuckup teen genius and the mean money obsessed one )

Composition: Has the most honest-to-goodness commoners - and they largely got in on their own merits, too, while almost all the others had connections. You have a few peeps from the Alliance’s prominent merchant class and one completely ordinary village person whose father was a simple hunter.

History: Bar the two merchant kids none of them know each other and even they’ve been a little estranged since the demise of Rafael’s parents. There are a few backstory connections (Such as Lorenz’ dad basically having murdered everybody’s dead relatives, or Leonie’s village being in his territory) but they’re largely indirect. They come from a range of different backgrounds and life experiences. Even Claude just showed up the year before and doesn’t know anybody. Of course this is all so you can watch them grow into a team on-screen all leading up to Claude’s epic speech about how they got along despite being from different backgrounds (or be surprised if they show up as one post-timeskip)

Unlike Dedue or Hubert, Hilda can still be napped early on because she doesn’t really become Claude’s right-hand person until halfway through part oneIf you recruit any of the deer they’ll say that they didn’t have that much ties to their homeland anyways.

Atmosphere: These are definitely Garreg Magh’s party animals. Or like a bunch of theatre kids. They’re tremendous fun. “Less complicated” as Claude puts it though some have missed the intensity/drama of the other bunches. The Alliance itself might be full of political intrigues but this younger generation is fairly chill with the important exceptions that are Leonie and Lysithea but Leonie’s lack of chill is largely Byleth-specific, she’s plenty chill in her other supports, and though Lysithea probably donated all the extra chill for the other deer and hence doesn’t have any left, the others love her anyways wether she wants to or not because try as she might she can’t really get an argument out of them.

This certainly jives well with Claude’s “friendly surface level extrovert” gimmick they all get along on a surface level and you’ll be hard-pressed to find an ounce of social skills in the Black Eagle house, and the Lions have the Drama Moments, but some have also perceived the deer as not quite as open.

At the same time they’re not superficial. We have a large abundance of Artsy Ones, we have Ignatz, Claude and Lorenz both write poetry, Leonie isn’t good at it but she does draw etc There’s enough insightful ones for depht and insight to be a significant undercurrent in the group dynamics. They all have different sortts of insight - Hilda can read people well, Ignatz has this sort of intuuitive thoughtful understanding, Lysithea is observant and logically astute, Leonie has street smarts etc.

The Leader’s position: Precarious. No one knows him, no one trusts him. He just showed up one day, very suspicious timing, not long after his uncle dropped dead (that was Lorenz’ dad but it’s not like anyone knows) and then he’s a shifty weirdo who cannot help being slightly unnerving despite his friendly extroverted demeanor.

Still he’s a big believer in teamwork, appreciates the value in everyone’s perspective and he can do the friendly extroverted charm well enough to eventually win over most people based on that, though its not until waay after the timeskip that he even considers letting anyone past the soft outer layer. (In Recruited, Raphael remembers him mainly a lover of feats and merriment)

The longer the story goes on the more the Deer transition to being “Claude’s jolly detective bureau” in which he pulls on all their individual insight for maximum info collection.

How this “flavors” part one: It’s taken up largely by Claude’s search for information with the various events being seen in that light.

Claude’s first reaction is often to ask questions and be curious with the emotional response hitting him somewhat later, though it’s definitely also that he keeps up a cheerful face for the team.

Ironically he’s the only one who came to Garreg Magh for it’s intended purpose: To get a ruler’s education and do networking. Dimitri and Edelgard were already onto Thales courtesy of his having killed their families, him searching on his own, her making preparations for her takeover, and Claude doesn’t know - it’s probably a game balance thing because Claude is the smartest person in the game and if he started out with all the info there would be no plot.

How this Ties into The Themes: It all builds towards Claude’s big speech about people from different backgrounds coming together. It’s like a microcosm for what he wants to do with the world, to bring people from different places and backgrounds together and have them understand each other.

Lorenz takes until halfway through part II to come around, but come around he does. (markedly, this happens only on Claude’s route, otherwise he sticks with the empire out of self-preservation and opportunism, though he gladly jumps ship to join the kingdom. )

How does Byleth fit into this: Now I‘ve seen some people saying that Claude initially didn‘t like Byleth or just wanted to use them, but I don‘t think that‘s true. I do think he actually liked them, found them interesting and wanted to befriend them. But Claude, on principle, doesn‘t trust easily, and will in any interaction look at how he can use it.

It‘s a habit born out of both natural curiosity and intelligence (What the 12type eneagramm calls a „Mercury“ Personality type) and the need to survive in a hostile environment where people tried to kill him as a child, and as such it‘s automatic second nature. He has a strong overruling self-preservation instinct. Claude is suspicious and will interogate people completely independent of how much he likes them. No amount of like makes him trust implicitly.

He doesn‘t have a bad impression like Dimitri, but he doesn‘t immediately click like Edelgard and the curve is pretty nonlinear: With Dimitri we have a clear progression from dislike to like and then the reversal where Dimitri had defrosted Byleth and now Byleth must defrost Dimitri. With Edelgard she likes them immediately out of similarity (like Felix likes Byleth, or like Edelgard likes Lysithea and Petra), and the difficulty/drama only comes later when Byleth‘s connection to the church and Edelgard‘s plots become apparent, but mostly she‘s sad that she‘s „destined“ to be enemies with this person she likes, her level of like never goes down. Claude meanwhile – you might compare him with Dorothea. He‘s used to being able to charm people as well as read them, and Byleth is not only a brick wall, but remains one upon closer examination. They really don‘t know about their past – but Claude takes that as evasions and becomes more and more suspicious.

A big turning point here is the Jeralt situation, where Byleth finally opens up and tells him everything, and Claude realizes they‘re not hiding. And that‘s something I really love about their dynamic – Byleth tells him all and Claude is so interested in them and looks out for them.

Though you could assign each of the three a „turning point“ after which they open up - The diary for Claude (which shows him that Byleth really isn‘t hiding anything) Flayn‘s dissapearance for Dimitri (which convinces him that Byleth cares) and the holy tomb scene for Edelgard (which shows her that Byleth won‘t betray her)

Further Dynamic Notes:

Claude and Byleth relate because they both stick out, but it‘s notably about the experience of sticking out in and of itself, whereas in Edelgard‘s case they stick out in the same way. They’re also alike in that they only found out some secrets about themselves when they were already young adults, Byleth’s magical destiny, and Claude finding out he was related to the ruling house. From how he mentions “not being raised in the lap of luxury” and how his royal connections in Almyra are also “distant”, he might in fact have been raised in a normal village and not known he was the king’s bastard son for some time, though once the secret was out he definitely got some princely instruction like training with Nader.

The dynamic both interpersonally and as an action duo is very much a complementary one. Dimitri is very different and has that sorta morality chain dynamic going on. And though they each have their specialties that the other is lowkey jelly of Edelgard and Byleth actually fill a fairly similar niche as the charismatic superhumanly powerful field commander. Meanwhile with Claude there’s a division of labor: Claude’s the planner and Byleth’s the enforcer. He repeatedly observes that his plans would be way less effective without someone of Byleth’s caliber to carry them out.

Out of the three lords Claude is the only one where you get the sense that Byleth works for Claude post-timeskip or that Byleth becomes his subordinate. Dimitri’s lost without them, and while Edelgard offers them a formal position as royal advisor after the mock battle and gets this line about how they can’t yell orders at her in public now that she’s the emperor, but it’s phrased in such a way to suggest that she just wants them to yell orders at her discreetly. They certainly balance out Claude’s presentability/trustworthyness problem the way that Hubert quickly puts them in charge of morale to patch Edelgard’s PR shortcomings, but Hubert pretty much says this to Byleth’s face whereas Claude is the only one who knows where the ship is going for the majority of verdant wind. And in the end he’s like “Babysit fodlan for me while I finish world peace” He’s also the dominant one on an interpersonal level, he gives Byleth this speech about how they should use their position more confidently and promise to detective out their mysterious past for them. He also tries dropping hints that maybe Rhea’s not to be trusted though Byleth’s dialogue options are written to suggest that they bought her maternal act and want her back – some ppl said but this way really expositions that „well meaning deception“ aspect of Claude‘s character. He frequently steers ppl toward something they don‘t want but with the hope that they‘ll want it eventually. Perhaps he could be said to have a very fluid/dynamic view of things and people; The other two lords view them more as fixed, hence „I respectfully disagree… lets settle this by stabbing each other“

The platonic end result is your basic Epic Friendship, tell each other everything, very supportive, look out for each other, take down a zombie warrior together in an epic team attack, what more could you want I think I‘ve made a whole post about what a good friendo Claude is, initial ulterior motives nonwithstanding… He certainly had strategic advantages in the back of his mind but I don‘t think he ever faked liking Byleth

Plot wise, having The Messiah on his team gives Claude a bargaining chip to seize control of the church with its greater influence. On the other routes, he wisely refuses to touch that particular hot potato with a ten foot pole.

Character wise Byleth‘s influence largely serves to mitigate his jaded cynism. He starts to actually believe his far-flung dreams might happen, so he plays far less defensively than on the other routes.

Claude is smart and charismatic („Logos“ and „Ethos“), his main problem is that nobody trusts him. This is a bit more dimensional than just a flaw though, because he hides his real goals (though they are not truly sinister) both to avoid fights with people who would oppose these goals (contrast Edelgard who declares her intentions openly and deals with the fallout, so she has to fight the knights whereas claude manipulates them) and get the chance to gradually convince them and reveal the truth once ppl agree, also he‘s more a tactician than a strategist and often changes his plans in accordance with what he thinks is doable under the circumstances, and not telling what his plans are gives him the freedom to do that – either way, a downside of that is that no one trusts him. He lacks credibility and, having shown up out of nowhere, has less loyalty and support. Byleth, as a chrch-sanctioned charismatic figurehead, naturally mitigates that.

Black Eagles

Overarching Theme: Subverted Villain tropes. We have Emperor Evulz / mad science supersoldier, Black Mage classic, Seditious Chancellor Junior, Sexy Mage, Eccentric Scholar, Pretty Barbarian, Fighting Obsessed Blood Knight and Antisocial Sniper

Composition: It‘s nobles all the way down, even the one commoner used to be famous and is from the capital where all the wealthy ppl live (as opposed to the decentralied alliance and the very spartan kingdom nobles) – The capital‘s a heaven for culture and sophistication but you also see the evident elitism/corruption/inequality problem going on. In keeping with Adrestia being more secular, Ferdinand‘s the only one who‘s explicitly stated to be a believer (in the Marianne support) and he‘s not even super devout

One should also appreciate the irony that the side with the ‚saintly‘ crests is now against the church whereas Faerghus, ruled by the descendants of Nemesis‘ former allies and where he used to have his stronghold are now fighting for the church. But should you go with the church route it also makes a kind of sense as they‘d be goig back to the empire‘s distant origins in a sense.

History: They all vaguely know/ have heard of each other due to their parents being co-workers or living in the same town, many have at least met each other but at the same time they‘re not BFF like the Lions and many take a bit to warm up to each other.

Another thing of note is that while many of the Lions‘ families were also friends and have been associates since the days of Nemesis, many of the backstory connections for the adrestian studenrs would seem to predispose them to being foes rather than friends, half their dads‘ essentially dethroned Edelgard‘s and are various degrees of complicit in what happened to her siblings, Petra was basically taken hostage by the previous administration, Dorothea has good reason to have beef with the local rich people etc

Atmosphere: I‘ve seen some ppl who played the other routes first say things like how they were struck by how individualistic they are and how there‘s far less team cohesion, or how they „all seem to hate each other“ - I don‘t think that‘s correct assesment but they definitely are quirky, independent-minded or both. They scamper off in all directions when introduced and definitely don‘t bother with formal politeness or friendly facades, if they‘re annoyed with you most of them will probably say so. Even Bernie gives Ferdinand a lecture once XD They‘re basically goth. Though I do think it‘s sorely underappreciated that there definitely IS friendship and admiration between them esp. later in the story, admiration & appreciation being key factors especially since they‘re none too easily impressed.

Of course being independent minded makes it likely that they wouldn‘t blindly follow a leader who‘s up to no good, but it would make them just as suitable to participate in a rebellion

Another thing of note is that while the Kingdom nobles all learned to hold sharp objects in the nusery and many of the deer have street smarts or survival experience having had to live through tough circumstances most of the Eagles are complete greenhorns when you first deploy them – sure many have seen their share of effed up stuff but not in a warlike setting. And you have many of the sensitive/reluctant ones like Bernie, Linny and Dorothea. This of course could either make you think twice about the church sending them on missions or predispose you toward Flayns brand of pacifism.

Of course this just leads to Hubert and Edelgard (and to a lesser extent Petra) to clearly stand out as the experienced ones. El-chan and Hubie dear have most definitely killed a man before. The rest of them will definitely have to measure up to pick up the slack after the two of them leave.

The trajectory certainly goes differently, in CF they all return notably more confident after the timeskip (most notably with Bernie) perhaps in keeping with how Edelgard believes in & promotes self-reliance whereas in Silver Snow they never quite stop being like „AAAAA“ though I suppose the point is that they get their act together and do the deed regardless.

The Leader’s position: Absolute both in terms of power (sorry Ferdie) and dynamics. Definite ‚student council president‘ vibe, she largely interacts with them as a taskmaster/ to make them do their homework. She markedly doesn‘t like this and would like to be one of the bunch but genuinely finds it hard to step out of boss mode.

She does try her best to cultivate an equal atmosphere and for what it‘s worth most do drop the honorifics and tell her when they disagree.

How this “flavors” part one: The emphasis is certainly on expositioning how much everything in the setting sucks especially on the church‘s horribleness, I mean in the end if she‘s essentially like „We‘ve all seen it this past year“ but of course there‘s also definite foreshadowing that sHE is up to something, there‘s certainly peeps who picked her ‚cause she‘s pretty and she looked more put-together/less obviously dodgy than the others but then didn‘t personal taste wise jive with her character. The whole scene after Jeralt‘s death is definitely a point where you either decide you hate her or love her forever; You get both „WTF“ and „I get it“ type of dialogue options.

How this Ties into The Themes:

No matter what route yo pick you essentially get a story about going your own way and putting right what the previous generations done fucked up – wether they do this by leading Adrestia back to its holy origins, or by backing Edelgard‘s revolution.

On a political level they either go against their homeland or the previous administration, and personally they‘re all sorta expected to take over their parents‘s job and follow these expectations of proper nobility that they have no interest in and many of them renounce their titles or cut ties with their folks. Only Ferdinand particularly wants his fathers job and even them he means to do it very differently. The happy ending, for most of the eagles, is getting to choose their own paths

How does Byleth fit into this:

Mostly, they shift the team dynamics from Edelgard as the absolute leader in a lofty, distanced position to her coming closer to being „one of the group“ working under Byleth.

There‘s a reason she later names her elite troop the „Black Eagle Strike force“ in honor of their time at the academy. This is almost the bigger difference, because Byleth isn‘t there for the timeskip. The big change is caused by creating this situation where all the black eagles leave with Edelgard, so she knows she can trust them and having real allies needs the slithers less.

It‘s very hard for her to step out of boss mode for reasons ranging from her personality, backstory, monarch obligations and fear of vulnerability, but having Byleth be the boss for once helps. Some of her most formative experiences were a) Her family betrayed by almost all its allies including her own uncle b) being helplessly dragged around as a hostage. She wants to avoid being helpless ever again at all costs and thus grew to be a very proactive decisive adult which is mostly a good thing but can cause her tome come off blunt and unyielding at times. I mean when she‘s worried that Hubert, her best friend, is hiding some worrysome secret from her she‘s like „Tell me that‘s an order!“ and when he expertly sidesteps that (since he knows her well and understands that she wouldn‘t actually force it out of him) she‘s stumped and doesn‘t know how to tell him that she‘s worried about him – and this is a guy she knows since forever. With the other eagles she really looks out for them but can only really show it through her „leader“ persona, she has this one trick, and when it doesn‘t work (like with Caspar or Linhardt who don‘t really want anyone to boss them around or talk politics) she‘s stumped.

This is hugely mitigated when another person of her caliber shows up with whom she can share the responsibility or even leave it to them so she learns to allow herself to be soft and do stuff like admit her doubts, this starts with Byleth but also radiates into the other relationships. See Caspar and Linhard revising their bad first impressions of her later in the support chains

Further dynamics notes:

A recurring theme is being misunderstood (outright stated in the introduction and that one quote by ladislava – and also in the church route dialogues where Seteth says that „the people will never understand her ideals“ ) and finding someone who understands, which is different from Claude and Dimitri who ultimately want the world at large to understand and accept them. Edelgard has given up on that long ago - her version of the „pep talk“ scene implies she thinks its impossible to truly understand anothers sorrow – I like to think that after her siblings died she found great comfort in Hubert being „not much for condolences“ and talking plans rather than sympathies while everyone else was showing pity for something they couldnt understand. Dimitri is basically traumatized (he relates to Dedue about losing everything and thats why they‘re so tight knit), Claude is basically an outcast and relates to all that dont quite fit in, but Edelgard… yes her family‘s dead much like Dimitri‘s, but in addition to that, she has been through an indescribable science fiction fantasy thing that no one has any context for. She views herself as so altered that she considers herself a whole different person and her past self basically dead. Hence someone like Byleth or Lysithea who could relate to all that is very, very tempting to her – we‘re not told if that‘s the truth or just her perception though, Hubert doesn‘t note her being extremly different, and later on she kinda admids that she herself distanced herself from other people.

Likewise the ship dynamic is ‚birds of a feather‘. Edelgard tells you right away: She feels that she and Byleth are similar and is drawn to them because of that. It‘s not just the mad science background, both are stoic natural leaders with a bit of a dorky side. This goes both ways – While others are often mildly stumped by Byleth, she can read them pretty well and gets a lot of dialoue like „wow you‘re telling the truth“ or „I can tell you‘re lying“ - that happens so often that it‘s even used to hint that she‘s the flame emperor.

If you had to name a dominant person it would probably be Byleth but overall this combination is disntinguished by being relatively equal and balanced. She likes having Byleth‘s support but repeatedly mentions wanting to support Byleth as well - As she says after the big mock battle, „sometimes its better to have someone to rely on to support each other through the darkness“. Team dynamics wise they feel a similar niche – the abnormally powerful, stoic charismatic leader who inspires many followers and is a gifted field commander. When they‘re not allies they are foils after all. But as pointed out in their A support despite their similarities each of them have their own particular strenghts that the other envies – Byleth is a better tactician and ultimately better at moral support (though their time powers help). On the flipside, Edelgard is more proactive whereas Byleth struggles with that, and at least her 22 year old self probably has more raw strenght (judging by her stats total and how they‘re evenly matched in the church route reunion cinematic though she isn‘t using her preferred weapon)

If you don‘t marry her then the note the A support ends on would suggest that Byleth sorta gets adopted as a honorary big sister/brother with how El asks them to use her childhood nickname and just lampshading the sense of kinship between them – the platonic outcome is a family bond, which buils as much on similarity and alikeness as their romantic outcome

Plot wise, Byleth‘s presence gives Edelgard something that she wouldn‘t otherwise have: Reliable allies. This means not just Byleth themselves, but the other Black Eagles whom she feels are more firmly on her side as they never defended Garreg Mach from her assault. As she puts it when she tries to recruit you as the „Flame Emperor“, the slighterers will go around causinga strocities but with the sword of the creator on her side she could courttail that better and generally has less need to coorperate even for purely pragmatic reasons so she is free to weaken them ahead of time, kills Cornelia right away rather than work with her etc. Interestingly this is why the front lines are actually further back when Byleth returns than they are in the other routes, but then the war ends the quickest.

Character journey wise, Edelgard goes from being convinced that she has to give up everything to be a tough leader to allowing herself to just be a person, cummulating in the ending where she pulls a washington/cincinatus, abdicates and gets a normal life.

In terms of leadership style, Edelgard has „Logos“ and „Pathos“ to spare, she‘s described as a remarkable leader who inspires remarkable devotion and has a cause/ rationale – but she‘s got her weakness with inspiring loyalty on an interpersonal level. The followers are loyal to the cause – Edelgard herself is perceived as unapproachable and shady/unsavory, see Dimitri‘s rant about how she‘s „strong“, or statements by herself and Ladislava that people tend to misunderstand her. As a superhuman science experiment she is by definition not a „relatable“ leader. So once Byleth proves trustworthy Hubert immediately puts them in charge of morale and of support/pep talking the reluctant recruits.

(In part II we‘ll get into decision making processes but I think here we have to separate by route rather than house since it’s most evident post-timeskip and dependent on plot events.)

Team Dynamics and Decisionmaking

Empire Route

Here, there is a very clear distinction between inner circle and outer circle. Edelgard and Hubert have their own thing going on and once you prove loyal, you’re in, and you get to see a whole different side to both of them, Edelgard lets down her guard, Hubert acts polite and sympathetic where he was previously suspicious and mocking, and they basically tell Byleth everything, including the unsavory pursuits that they keep secret from everyone else – but overall the secrecy, maintained for realpolitik reasons, never truly stops. Basically those three make all the decisions.

Notable is that if you’ve recruited Lysithea she hovers on the threshold between inner and outer circle. She was fed the cover story of the nuke being a church weapon (though she did’t buy it) but WAS told about the secret assault on Arianrhod. This is prolly cause Edelgard likes her, she can become her main advisor in their paired ending.

Kingdom Route

Dimitri describes himself as as someone who thinks change should come from the people and that the leadership should serve them, for all that he prefers to uphold the basic order of society, and this is reflected in his leadership style – though this also reflects that he is a ‚people person‘ rather than a planner, so the plans are left to his advisors like Byleth, Gilbert and Rodrigue. He is more the emotional/ spiritual lynchpin than the mind or will of the group.

In Azure Moon, especially later on, the decisions are really made by the entire group and you see them considering their next step together. Dimitri spills the backstory as soon as it comes up, telling everyone about his relationship with Edelgard for example.

In early part 2 this is at an extreme in that Byleth, Rodrigue and Gilbert are de facto making the decisions and Dimitri is at best a grumpy figurehead that they‘re putting up because they need him as a symbol, but at the same time he doesn‘t really compromise on his revenge obsession and is just dragging the whole team along/ not really reacting to how they are making him the lynchpin for their hopes. (though it is important to note that he didn‘t ask him too either – they decide to follow him out of friendship or loyalty to his house) yet inwardly Dimitri too is blindly following what he believes are his obligations.

A huge turning point is when he returns after the whole rain conversation and Byleth gets to ask him some variety of „What do you want to do“ in which Dimitri makes a step toward both inner and outer self-directedness, but precisely because of that becomes are more complete/better consensus leader.

I also want to stress that Claude and Edelgard LOVE togetherness and cooperation and equality as concepts every bit as much as Dimitri does they want to be one of the team but they find it difficult. And of course Dimitri’s style has its own flaws too

Alliance Route

While the Blue Lions decide everything together and either variation of the Black Eagles setup has an „inner circle“ that makes the decisions, in the Golden Dear that inner circle is basically just Claude.

Even Byleth doesn‘t find out his plans until part two, and it‘s later still till he comes clear with the team (and still doesn‘t reveal all but points to Cyril as a stand-in) Hilda and Lysithea are discernable as preferred right hand people, and Byleth and Marianne as special confidants, but in the end Claude rarely shows his real self and only he knows the plan. If Hilda and Lysithea pick up alot about him and his true self it‘s because of how observant THEY are and how much Hilda is basically a lot like him.

Claude does all the thinking and motivates followers (from Lorenz to the random merchans who support him) by promising them things they want – because even if he can‘t trust peopöle, he can trust their self-interest.

Church Route

Since you are with the church that is ideally a sort of benevolent parental authority under the supposition that people need guidance and that‘s a good thing it is perhaps fitting that though Byleth winds up the nominal leader, this is actually the route where they are more of a follower. They do watch Seteth says, who is doing what he believes is his duty and mission, and we have Flayn as an innocent, pacifistic voice.

They lost their dad, and the Nabateans are a sort of surrogate family. (wether its one that youre born into or marry into, the wiord „family“ is stressed) – they are the „inner circle“ making the decision and the empire kids, ragtag misfits estranged from their homes, follow. On the one hand they‘re going against their home country on the other they have the saint‘s blood and Adrestia USED to be church aligned so it also makes a kind of sense.

Among the Adrestian kids themselves, Ferdinand and Petra get a chance to shine as the ostensible leaders. They are stalward, competent leader-like people in CF too , but there they are more overshadowed by the much more experienced Hubert and Edelgard. - Though when you think about it they are like „pure hero“ versions of them who were never forced to become as cold and pragmatic. Ferdinand, like Hubert, is a nobleman from a storied family who is proud of it but wants to fix its tarnished reputation from his corrupt father. Petra, like Edelgard, is a former political hostage who experienced hardship at a young age and worked her way up all on her own, being very serious and competent despite her young age. I prefer the version where they stay buds rly.

It‘s worth noting that Seteth, ‚Heir of Purpose‘, sees it as their families duty to protect Fodlan and is the only one really doing that – his brothers noped out, and Rhea, uneknowst to him, twisted „protect“ into „rule/subjugate“. One might question who gives him the right to decide things because his mom is magic but on the other hand he really is 100% benevolent and I see no sign that he has any greedy intentions especially in in Silver Snow, all the countries collapse and someone needs to keep order, he doesn‘t understand what the empire‘s doing and why just sees their agression and really is rising to the challenge of upholding peace because something needs to do something about the violence. He had withdrawn to protect his daughter but then in the end he‘s the last one who is really doing what Sothis would have wanted. He looks most like her too having the slightly darker, ‚spikier‘ hair.

Further Thoughts

I’m curious to see how Yuri, the Ashen Wolves, and Cindered Shadows compare/contrast to this and i theyll manage to make the dynamics sufficiently different so that its neither a carbon copy or a blabk mary sue ish superlative.

I mean the other routes are so interesting to dissect because its a tradeof and all have their own flavor so really CS would do better to try to be “different” or, better yet, “complementary” than “better” or “cooler”

#three houses #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #black eagles #blue lions #golden deer #three houses meta

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mmmmalo · 5 years ago

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This is a (meandering, non-exhaustive) overview of Homestuck’s use of

by which I do not mean examples of psychological realism in a character’s words and deeds, but rather the various means by which characters’ psyches are expressed outside of themselves. I wish to elaborate on how thoughts, feelings, and desires may find expression in the environment, in the medium of the story itself, and in the form of other characters.

That’s perhaps a little vague, so here’s a ready example of what I mean: brainghost!Dirk. He talks with Jake, but since he is a construct of Jake’s mind, Jake is essentially talking to himself. Brainghost!Dirk is an alienated medium for voicing Jake’s own thoughts, irretrievably distorted through its intermingling with what Jake thinks/wishes Dirk would say (not unlike a puppet). I am claiming that this mode of characterization is not a unique to Jake; the blurring of inner and outer voices is omnipresent throughout the story.

Or, rephrased: what I hope to show is that a great deal of Homestuck is haunted with brain-ghosts, of one kind or other.

An early example of this kind of storytelling in science fiction would be the film Forbidden Planet (1956). The film contains a pair of conflicts which eventually reveal themselves to be one: the scientist Morbius wants some space explorers to get off his planet, and an immense monster (pictured above) appears during the night to attack the explorers. Morbius, it turns out, has been experimenting with a machine capable of turning thought into reality. So when Morbius sleeps, his dream of driving off the trespassers materializes in the form of beast that forcefully enacts the wish.

The beast is declared a “monster from the id”, the “id” being a concept borrowed from Freudian psychology, indicating the part of the mind responsible for the unfiltered generation of impulses, of urges. In the film, this passing mention of psychoanalysis precedes the revelation of Morbius’s link to the beast.

Homestuck hints towards its own mixing of thought and reality with a device similar to Morbius’s dream machine: Sburb.

A snapshot of Dave’s Sburb client (1519) shows that the final subprograms launched during the games installation make reference to terminology associated with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. The terms suggest that Sburb interacts with the ideas in the kids’ subconscious minds (archetypes) and brings symbolic representations of these ideas into conscious reality (manifests the ideas). The game alters the means by which reality is constructed. As with Forbidden Planet, a major result of this is id monsters.

When John slips on a staircase, he flips out (left, 560). And when he nearly launches himself into the abyss with the Pogo Hammer, he has to take a nap before he has calmed down enough to continue (center, 637). Immediately following both moments of vertigo, massive ogres appear. The eventual fight with the ogres begins after John looks over the edge of the platform above his house, into the abyss (right, 662).

All of this suggests that Sburb is reacting to John’s emotional state (fear) to produce in-game content. The game functions as a waking dream.

It should also be noted that Sburb provokes the reactions it elicits. Karkat once mentioned a nagging feeling that the game was mocking him by giving him a planet covered in the candy red blood he had spent a lifetime attempting to hide (2301). Karkat’s paranoia seems to be correct here, and moreover applicable to the cast in general -- John’s house was likely placed atop an immense spire /in order to/ bring John’s dread of falling into sharp relief. The suspicion can be substantiated with a few related motifs.

The story provides two likely origins for John’s fear of heights: his own fall from the slime pogo as a child (2626) and the death of Nanna, which John believed resulted from her falling from a ladder and being crushed by a book (52). What’s more, Sburb’s invocation of the Fall of Man (Adam and Eve being cast from the Garden of Eden) via biting into an apple hints that there is an allegorical significance to John’s more literal fear of heights.

We can apply these patterns to other characters in an attempt to learn more about them. LOLAR being covered in ocean suggests that Rose is afraid of water, with the likely cause of Rose finding Jaspers dead and washed up on a riverbank (presumed drowned). Dave speaks openly about how his sword fights with Bro left him anxious of metal sounds (7749), meaning the grinding gears of LOHAC were a personalized hell for Dave. Jade’s first imp manifests in response to the sight of a yellow aurora (2998), inviting the reader to investigate why that image invokes a fear response.

But we won’t get to into all of that, not for now at least. Let’s take a step back.

For my reading of the imps as manifestations I’ve been leaning heavily on a piece of film theory devoted to the effects of sequential images. The sequence above constitutes two observations. One, that by this arrangement the viewer will infer the old man sees and reacts to the middle figure. Two, that the viewer’s impression of the old man will change based on the content of the central image, even if his expression is the same. Is he smiling at Nepeta or warm embrace Marvus’s armpit? The answer may influence your interpretation of the little smile.

The neat thing about montage is that the interrupting frame need not bear any obvious relation to what precedes or follows in order to be subject to a causal reading. Moments that occur sequentially can be read as triggering one another, even if what follows any particular moment appears to be a break rather than a continuation.

Example: There’s a moment where Aranea walks into Jake’s dream, and brainghost!Dirk immediately starts razzing Jake about his attraction to the alien girl and threatening to give him a boner. The scene is interrupted by Jack committing a series of gratuitous murders. We then cut back to Jake, and bg!Dirk is now teasing him about his dirty thoughts.

DIRK: You have got to be kidding. Did you seriously just think something THAT dirty? DIRK: You must be doing this on purpose to spite me now. I mean, just wow dude. That was x-rated as fuck.

JAKE: (No no stop. See youre talking about it and now i cant help it!) JAKE: (You are psyching me into having dirty thoughts get fucking lost you interloping brain douche!!!)

DIRK: Don't worry, I'm gone. It's like a goddamn peep show in here and I feel like a sleazy piece of shit watching this from a dark corner of your mind. DIRK: You have a graphic imagination, English. I'm kind of impressed.

JAKE: (Shut up theyre just thoughts its not even like im trying to have them THEY DONT MEAN ANYTHING!)

The ostensible joke is that bg!Dirk is exaggerating or outright fabricating his account of Jake’s thoughts in order to hassle him. But by way of montage, one can infer that we /have/ seen Jake’s dirty thoughts, in the form of Jack’s display of overwhelming bloodlust. Violence is superimposed over the sexually explicit.

Whether the scene literally takes place in Jake’s mind is secondary (though such a reading would explain why Jake’s brain ghost is even aware of Jack) -- the use of montage allows Jack’s actions to function as a /metaphor/ for Jake’s thought.

Another example of Jack functioning as a murderous/libidinous avatar would be the death of Mom and Dad. At their little tea party, Dad spills some wine on Mom’s clothes and declares that she must disrobe immediately (so that Dad might launder the garment). Mom calls the aromas wafting from his pipe sensuous. The two clasp hands and declare that all they need is eachother. Then they die! The joke is that while Bec Noir is ostensibly an interruption to date night, he also functions as its culmination, with murder acting as substitute for the sex act.

The link between violence and sexuality is perhaps a hard sell, but I hope to convince you that the reading holds merit. Let me emphasize that the very act of Mom and Dad holding hands was itself sexually loaded.

I owe to HS liveblogger elfstuck the insight that John’s linear 3 card sylladex is a reflection of his short attention span. Consider how John’s role as a game character means he is thrown all around his room, back and forth, as the player figures out what to make of the situation. If you ignore the fourth wall, you’re left with an extremely distracted person, who attention flows easily from one object to another. Accepting the object-in, object-out nature of John’s sylladex and the resulting shenanigans as a metaphor for this, it would follow that the sylladex in general can offer an abstract representation of thought.

In passing, I can mention how the enormity of Jake’s sylladex (it cannot even fit on the page, and contains an object that exceed most players’ size limits) would imply that despite evidence to the contrary, the boy likely has a big brain (and perhaps its being offscreen suggests Jakes own unawareness of much of his own thought). Dirk’s comment about avoiding items that are difficult to shoehorn into his mnemonic schema (4535) could be read as a difficulty maintaining information that doesn’t fit into his personal mental models. The sylladex becomes a metaphor for the mind that requires interpretation.

Under this mode of thought, the moments when Jade’s pictionary modus fails to correctly interpret her drawing become akin to a mental slip-of-the-tongue. For the Tanglebuddies to be misread as enmeshed hands implies an association, in Jade’s mind, of horny Squiddles and clasped hands. John affirms the association much later by miming Tanglebuddies as he attempts to grapple with the question of whether Jade and Davesprite are sexually compatible (5294):

JOHN: how do things even work if you marry a sprite?

JADE: what do you mean

JOHN: i mean... JOHN: ok, he has a ghost butt, for one thing.

JADE: uh JADE: so

JOHN: a GHOST BUTT, jade!

JADE: SO WHAT IF HE HAS A GHOST BUTT!!!!!

JOHN: i'm just saying...

JADE: WHATEVER YOURE JUST SAYING, JUST STOP SAYING IT! JADE: and whatever youre trying to gesture with your hands there, stop doing that too!

It should also be noted that before launching into her “daring dream”, waxing poetic on the miraculous union of the human and the animal with her hands clasped in wonder, Jade successfully captchalogued the Tanglebuddies (796). And more to the point, Jade’s pose in reproduced during discussions of cherub (5961) and leprechaun (6007) reproduction. Hand-holding becomes representative of an (oft-sexualized) union, underlining the euphemistic nature of Mom and Dad’s post-contact demise.

The next example of using montage to communicate thought requires a little more buildup.

There’s a gag in Rose’s introduction where the reader tells Rose to play with her writing journals, and scoots the journals under the bed and retorts that she would only do that if no one were watching (220). At first glance, the moment scans as a minor meta joke in a story filled with meta jokes -- but the trick is that Rose does not /know/ herself to be a video game character, her every movement controlled and observed. Rather, she /believes/ this to be true -- the joke about being watched establishes that Rose is paranoid, as will become apparent in the hostility she assigns to Mom’s every action.

The command prompt and narration are themselves brain ghosts of a sort: the voice deployed in them is always linked to the present point-of-view character. The insults that precede character introductions ( “Zoosmell Pooplord”, etc) become marks of anxiety, an intrusive proclamation of what the kids at times think of themselves (and/or what they think others think of them). “Nice time management skills, sweetheart!” becomes a bit of self-deprecation Rose as she procrastinates, which Rose experiences as having been voiced by some objective observer who judges her deficiencies.

A blurred line divides characters from the voice at the back of their head, belonging to the (presumed) omniscient, omnipotent author-god. This is why avatar!Hussie is dressed as Calliope when he is killed by Lord English. Both Calliope and Hussie are a voice in Caliborn’s head, and thus both present apparent obstacles to an unmediated self.

The left panel (3219) foreshadows the right (3358). Gamzee is not being declared the objectively most important character in Homestuck. Rather, Gamzee is declaring himself /to have been declared/ the most important character in the story. The line establishes that Gamzee believes himself to be in a story (with an author!) and that this author has declared him paramount. Furthermore, “fondly regarding creation” is an modus operandi of Problem Sleuth’s Godhead Pickle Inspector. Applying that turn of phrase to Gamzee’s actions further establishes that Gamzee believes himself to /be/ the god-author declaring his own importance. So it should come as no surprise that 137 pages later, Gamzee outright proclaims himself to be the god(s) he worships.

Going back to montage, it becomes interesting that this snapshot of Gamzee’s megalomania is inter-cut with the creation of Jadesprite -- the moment that dead!dream!Jade merges with Bec, forming a unity with a deity not unlike the unity Gamzee claims with his mirthful messiahs. The interweaving would suggest that Jade and/or Jadesprite experienced analogous thoughts of megalomania upon the moment of ascension.

This would be a good point to mention that not only imps and ogres, but trolls also function as manifestations for the people they impose upon. Karkat is not only an interruption here, but also a continuation. He points out that Jade’s self-loathing, that she cannot safely distance herself from the qualities of Jadesprite she finds distasteful. This is precisely why Karkat ends the conversation by telling Jade to turn off the fourth wall (which divides the self!), as well as the reason he imagines Jade making out with herself: Karkat is on every front presenting the prospect of union with oneself.

The notion of trolls as manifestations first emerges clearly when Rose and Dave receive their packages from John. As they finish reading John’s letter, each is suddenly contacted by a troll and greeted with the command “Answer.” Critically, by word alone it is ambiguous as to whether the command refers to answering the troll or the letter. And as it turns out, these answer occur simultaneously: Rose and Dave’s responses to the letters are embedded in the subsequent conversations.

Rose receives a letter poking fun at her pretensions, claiming that her attempts to hide her affections for people are futile. In response we get Kanaya, who imperiously proclaims her disdain for Rose, only to suddenly change tact and explicitly seek Rose’s friendship, an entreaty which the oft paranoid Rose accepts. Dave receives a letter imploring him to let go of his insecurities and express himself. In response we get Tavros, the very picture of insecurity, who is fixated on the idea of making Dave shit himself (as part of an ‘emotional constipation’ motif that follows Dave). And Dave complies, in a sense, by way of the quasi-ironic gay treatise that compels Tavros to block him. Each conversation addresses the issues laid out in John’s letter.

Examples can be found throughout the comic. Equius remarking that he talks to Gamzee every day (2220) establishes that Gamzee is regularly haunted by the thoughts of domination that Equius voices -- both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Erisolsprite referring to Dirk as a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 and then calling himself 2ociiopathiic for even thinking something so callous (5516) expresses a conflict already present in Jake’s own mind, echoing the frustration with his own dirty thoughts expressed by the argument with brainghost!Dirk. Feferi’s pronounced enthusiasm for the imminent apocalypse should cause you to question Kanaya’s seemingly neutral resignation towards the end of the world, since Feferi manifests for Kanaya (2328). And so on.

The person being trolled is always being confronted with thoughts or feelings or memories already present within themself. Alien contact always doubles as a brain ghost haunting.

Another example, with some buildup: Karkat invokes the phrase “PERFORATE MY BONE BULGE WITH A CULLING FORK” to express his contempt for Vriska, and on subsequent pages we see Feferi pointing her culling fork at a cuttlefish (2181), as if to suggest that the creature symbolizes the bone bulge. Fast forward to Kanaya, who has just gotten through a conversation with Vriska and finds herself haunted by Eridan, who keeps going on about his romantic desperations and insisting (correctly) that Kanaya’s crush on Vriska is itself romantic. That his notification erupts from an image of cuttlefish held at Kanaya’s waist adds to the air of yearning, as though her own bulge is rumbling. The scene is capped off with a double entendre: “its hard and nobody understands” is playfully poignant jab at an inability to understand one’s own desires (among other things).

And Homestuck devotes a lot of attention to desire.

It’s long been acknowledged by the fandom at large that Kanaya’s attraction to Light players functions as a joke on the proverbial moth-to-the-flame. As reconciliation with the fire destroys the moth, there’s a morbid tinge to the attraction, as though it doubles as a death wish. And the wish is granted -- when Kanaya dies in Homestuck, she dies to light, either from Eridan’s wand or the laser blasts unleashed by HIC. Even the death of Kanaya’s lusus pertains to light -- the matriorb ripped from her innards is shaped like a miniature sun, as if to establish some loose link between the notion of motherhood and the incandescence Kanaya eventually achieves.

This can be generalized into a principle wherein lusii (and the circumstances of their deaths!) can functions as analogies for the desire of the wards.

Vriska, for example, desires execution. When offering Terezi a flimsy apology for crippling Tavros and proxy-murdering Aradia, Vriska offers to slam her head against her desk in penitence. This moment should be read against Vriska’s addiction to breaking 8 balls, and leaving the broken shards lying around as though she’s inviting the “bad luck” of stepping on them. It /is/ an invitation. Vriska seeks love via violent retribution against herself. This is why in the right panel, Vriska’s blood-spattered head is juxtaposed with a broken 8 ball: the blood came from Spidermom’s execution (which characterizes Vriska’s desire), and motif of 8R8K H34DS connects the moment to Vriska’s idea of apology.

Like Kanaya, Vriska (to a degree) seems to structure her love life along these lines. In the words of @azdoine:

like ppl are actually out here writing Vriska as the top as if her entire Act 5 character arc isn’t about bratting out until Terezi has no choice but to punish her

“oh noo, I, the thief of light, stole all of your luck, and made the coin land on the scratched side! now you have to kill me! but I’m probably going to get away with everything, because you don’t have the guts to stab me with that sword of yours!!!!!!!! if only there was somebody, like you, who could prove me wrong!”

EXTREMELY SUBTLE THERE, VRISKA

Vriska’s approach to wooing Tavros also revolves around baiting execution:

The scene: Tavros leads a horde of imps and ogres into a mystery cave, the top of which is adorned with kissing lizards and an alchemical symbol. Tavros is putting a puzzle of a frog together, but Vriska has already pieced together the puzzle: making a frog universe is, in part, a cipher for personal reproduction. The Ultimate Alchemy is making a baby! And as Vriska says, “real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold.” So she brings Tavros to LOMAT and makes the moves on him.

Tavros is equated to a treasure chest by the repeated use of framing and Vriska is GOING FOR THE GOLD, like a WINNER. Tavros later reaches into the same chest for his lance before heading off to attempt to kill Vriska -- affirming that the treasure Vriska seeks here is Tavros’s “lance”.

This setup was suggested by the conversation accompanying the kissing salamanders: Vriska gives Tavros a map with a big red X, saying he should take his legion of imps through the gate and go defeat his denizen. The gate actually leads to Vriska, but she isn’t lying. She is positioning herself to be Tavros’s final boss. The imps are manifestations of Tavros’s pent up rage (much of which was generated by Vriska’s harassment), and Vriska wants Tavros to take that anger out on her. Hence the later panel which uses Vriska’s boots to place a big red X directly over her groin, making explicit the implicit goal of Tavros’s trip to the windmill X-gate.

This pursuit of love through violent comeuppance may have something to do with Vriska’s bitter disappointment that ghost!Aradia did not seem to hate her.

An intermission/introduction of sorts, as we bridge from one discussion of desire to another: did you know that Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) structures itself in part around Freud’s Oedipus complex? I say this in total sincerity.

The plot: a meteor the size of Texas bears down upon the Earth, threatening armageddon. Luckily, a crew of rough-and-tumble oil drillers are ready to fly into space and split that mother in two. Oh HELL yeah.

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about family drama: Bruce Willis finds Ben Affleck sleeping with his daughter Liv Tyler; Willis proceeds to chase Affleck around the oil rig with a shotgun, bang bang bang. Not Allowed. The Protective-Father-Hates-Your-Boyfriend dynamic is presented as an Oedipal triad of sorts: although Tyler is not literally Affleck’s mother, she performs the mom-function of “forbidden object of desire” -- and Willis opening fire is equivalent to the castration said to await trespassers onto maternal soil.

The above reading is buttressed by jokes: Armageddon appears to function within an implicit dream machine, such that the characters’ thoughts and fears can become manifest in their environment. So when it comes to pass that whenever Affleck climbs into a hole (heehee), a pipe breaks (hoohoo), and suddenly everything goes boom, I read that as Affleck reliving the consequences of boning Tyler, packaged in such a way that the Freudian fear of castration is more explicit. (The relevance of Oedipus to the proceedings adds some humor to Steve Buscemi declaring the entire disastrous situation a “Greek tragedy”)

At any rate, after some shenanigans, Willis comes to accept Affleck’s claim to his daughter and confers the deed, as it were. Willis gives the young couple his blessing and they get married. Hooray!

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about the perpetuation of the oil industry: the dream machine was declared at the beginning of the movie when a petty street-side argument triggered the first barrage of meteors. The meteor the size of Texas (aka Dotty) is triggered by conflicts that haunt the central cast -- namely Willis, who enters the film hitting golf balls at a Green Peace boat. On a metaphorical level, Dotty is a golf ball the size of Texas, striking directly at the Earth instead its self-declared representatives. There’s a certain irony here: the film lampshades that the men who are destroying the world have been tasked with saving it.

The family drama folds into the environmentalist angle: Liv Tyler is a symbol of the earth (which gets drilled). This is the joke when Affleck is bouncing animal crackers around on her belly like she’s host to the Savannah: she kind of is! It’s no coincidence that Willis confers ownership of the oil rig at the same moment that he offers his daughter’s hand in marriage: the motifs are being discussed simultaneously.

But enough of all of that: back to Homestuck.

Armageddon’s simultaneous casting of Liv Tyler into the roles of earth and mother offers a glimpse at the interpretive possibilities made available by Hussie’s statement that Homestuck is in a way a synonym for Earthbound (an RPG in which “homesickness” is a status ailment which can be cured by calling your mom). Stuckness or boundness can be deployed to communicate a sense of longing for “home”.

A good chunk of Homestuck is built upon feelings of nostalgia, taken to mean a sort of intense separation anxiety with the past. John speaks about this when he watches Con Air with Jade – John wants the movie to feel like it did when he watched it with his Dad long ago, but the feeling from when he was a kid is gone. This upsets him. Moreover, John’s freakout starts at the moment Cyrus puts a gun to the bunny’s head (5286): Con Air itself is partly about Nic Cage trying to return to the life he lost when he went to jail, and ‘putting the bunny back in the box’ is a metaphor for the attempt. Cyrus, in threatening the bunny, is highlighting his role as a force preventing things from going back to how they were. Thus, if we are to believe that John is responding to the movie thematically, Cyrus confronts John with his own inability to go back to a happier past – his inability to go home -- and this recognition is met with anger.

In making the leap to the psychoanalytic motifs, it helps to recall the part where baby!Dirk responds to being born by cracking open his ectotube and crawling back inside. Dirk, who aspires towards his “ultimate self”, illustrates here that he envisions his ascension as a return to the ‘essence’ of Dirk from which he (and all other iterations of himself) arose, as represented by the ectoslime. Baby!Dirk gestures at unity with his ectoslime/essence by crawling back into the place from which he was born, which I’m basically claiming is a “return to the womb” on a symbolic level, or at least that this is a useful parallel to draw. (A related motif to think about: Dirk decapitates himself by sticking his head inside a box, which as per Con Air symbolizes the place you wish to return to)

[Hella Jeff sez: “i took (my pants) off because i was banging your mom for a minute there..... AND NOW YOU ARE BANGING HER”]

Castration becomes unavoidable as you try to relate all of this to Dave, whose occasional references to banging hot moms are part of an ongoing reference to the Oedipus Complex. Critically, the complex is not /just/ about wanting to bone your mom, but also fear that your dad will chop your junk off if you do. The breaking of Dave’s sword on the rooftop is a realization of this fear (yes, we’re doing the “swords are phallic” thing). But Dave has no mom that he knows of, so what gives?

The answer is in the way Bro inexplicably breaks the record emblem on Dave’s t-shirt, as though he has introduced a fissure into Dave’s very identity. Life with Bro has made it very difficult for Dave to be honest with himself, which is to say, Dave pictures Bro’s abuse as having divided him from an ideal “true self”, which can feel emotions without all the anxious ironic detachment. I mentioned before that seeking unity with that from which you came is a “return to the womb”. This is the sense in which the Oedipal mom attraction becomes relevant: the return to the past is sexualized. The ‘home’ Dave wishes to return to is /himself/, and in this sense Dave is his own hot mom (which is related to how often Dave compliments his own looks, as well as the above gif suggesting Dave’s boner – he is literally/metaphorically “attracted” to himself).

(Incidentally: this model of desire, in which a broken subject attempt to become whole again by seeking out its lost half, is basically the concept of the soulmate, as laid out by Plato. Cherub reproduction turns the metaphysical pursuit of one’s lost half into a plot-level objective)

John’s entry item (apple) was linked to fear embodied in a childhood trauma (the Fall), and the same can be said of Dave. Hatching from the shell that contained your primordial goop (Dirk) is analogous to being violently separated from yourself (Dave), which is why Dave’s entry item (an egg) hatching coincided with Bro slicing the meteor in half: the abuse that divided Dave from himself, his “castration” by Bro, is simultaneously the “birth” that separated Dave from his “mother” (which is also Dave).

The general idea is that birth = self-alienation = castration, insofar as all are depicted as modes of being separated from oneself.

The broad motif of ‘being separated from oneself’ can be very useful for identifying brain ghosts in unexpected places. Take for example, Roxy’s fenestrated planes: when they are introduced the narrative is quick to tell us that if someone were caught half in/out of one of the windows when the power cuts out, they would be sliced in half. By the rule of Chekhov’s gun, this introduction should mean we should eventually see someone get gorily bisected by the window, but alas we never do.

Instead, when Gcat warped the panel away, trapping Roxy between the windows, we were shown the image of a bisected horse puppet in Dirk’s apartment, This signals that Chekhov’s gun has indeed gone off. But rather than splitting a body, it split a soul: Meenah’s introduction follows the sequence because Roxy has generated a shadow of herself, a doppelganger. This is not without precedent: an earlier portion of this post was devoted to exploring the fourth wall as a mode of self-alienation. Roxy’s panel mishap can be considered part of that pattern.

If Meenah functions as an extension of Roxy, all of her actions can be read as bearing some relations to Roxy’s own latent thoughts and desires. Prior to the epilogues, for example, Meenah imploring John not to give her the ring seemed to be yet another Fuck You to the late Chekov: the issue never comes up again. But a psychic link between Meenah and Roxy would suggest that John broke his promise to Meenah by giving the ring to Roxy, and that whatever motivations compelled Meenah to make her request in the first place would also apply to Roxy.

Decapitation is yet another mode of self-alienation, and thus can be construed as a mode of birth. Hence the image of Lil Sebastian hatching from his shell of taxidermied man meat. That’s a motif unto itself, but what I wish to call attention to is the match-cut from John’s broke body to Jake’s broken tower. The juxtaposition collapses the images into metaphor, such that Jake’s loose dome in the woods becomes a decapitated head -- an appropriate addition to the pumpkin patch it rests in, given all the Headless Horseman jokes. We can look to Dirk for for another example of a headless horse-man of the house echoing the head: for a guy who idealizes decapitation to such a degree, it is striking that Sburb aims to provoke him by reattaching his beheaded apartment to its underlying units.

Houses act as metaphors for heads, then “Homestuck” could also interpreted as “head trapped” -- like the title emphasizes confinement within one’s own mind. Such a reading offers up Failure to Launch and Arrested Development (posters on John and Jane’s walls) as alternate synonyms for Homestuck, as each satirizes (or outright mocks) potential failure states in the process of inter-personal and mental development (ie “growing up”). Like Earthbound, both lean on a sense of homesickness in characterizing despondency, as though characters are haunted by the needs that defined their childhood -- or else find themselves needing that childhood itself.

But collapsing nostalgia into infantile regression is far from the only way to approach the house/heads equation. One might read the transformation and growth of houses with Sburb as metaphors for expanding the mind. One might infer that the choreography of events within houses can map out thoughts like dancing bees. One might take the metaphor as a foothold for interpreting the significance of the Sburb logo being at once a house and a window. \I have my own thoughts about Homestuck’s brain-ghost haunted house-minds, but for now, I only hope that this document has raised some interesting questions -- and ideally, that the interpretive approaches I’ve described might be useful in seeking answers.

#homestuck #homestuck meta #this is basically the contents of the stream #movies #john #rose #dave #jade #jake #dirk #roxy #gamzee #vriska #4th wall #psychoanalysis #house as head #plato

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caught-in-the-den · 5 years ago

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me overthinking certain falsettos songs

this had better come to a stop

okay this is my favorite song from falsettos, so i have a lot of thoughts about it. first off, imma talk about the actual scene in the revival. in the beginning when whizzer’s watch goes off, the lighting on only on whizzer, and doesnt shine on anyone even when they join him saying “late for dinner”, which sort of shows off how whizzer is the outsider during the first act, due to being distant with everyone, including marvin. its the first song we sort of see trina and whizzer agree and not avoid each other because they both understand how much of a dick marvin is. and the part where trina pushes marvin back and then throws him to whizzer is one of the best parts because its sort of like how instantly once trina wasnt with marvin, whizzer was having to deal with him and all of that. also when marvin ask whizzer “isnt this wonderful” it always makes me so sad because of how whizzer tries to answer that is it wonderful to him, but marvin doesnt let him talk. that shows that whizzer is actually somewhat happy with marvin, which makes the ending of the chess game a lot more sad. whizzer seems to really want to love marvin and for marvin to love him (as seen in making a home with his “could he love me”), though this seems to be the song where he realizes how toxic marvin actually is, and how toxic the relationship is, which is why i think he seems confused in the middle of the song because he truly wants a good relationship with marvin and doesnt know whether he can get that, or hes wondering how he actually feels about marvin and whether or not he’s worth putting up with.

tight knit family (reprise)

first off, this is so under appreciated. but okay the actual scene is amazing. its where marvin starts to learn that he’s not completely in charge of everything, and how he cant keep depending on his ex to give him love. at the beginning of the musical, marvin didnt seem to fully hate mendel, maybe disliked him a bit, but overall seemed okay with mendel. we see their relationship somewhat change in please come to our house/jason’s therapy, where he wonders why mendel is always there, though overall doesnt seem to hate mendel. but tight knit family reprise is where marvin truly seems to hate mendel because he feels like mendel is taking away marvin’s family, despite trina being happier with mendel already and mendel being a better father figure to jason. marvin expects everything to stay the same and for everyone to stay with him, and is angry when his ex goes on with her life and doesnt keep moping around. he sees trina getting with mendel is her way of tearing up the family, which is exactly what he did, and not at all what trina is doing. mendel is aware of how marvin feels and how marvin thinks due to being his therapist for years, so he knows marvin hates him, though contines to side with trina, which trina needs because shes somehow who needs validation and support, and mendel doesnt want to desert her, and he knows marvins side is probably the worst side to be on. he wanted to be there for jason and trina, and give them love, unlike how marvin did.

marvin slaps trina

okay this one may not be as long as the rest of the paragraphs but this is one of my favorite songs, it kinda ties with this had better come to a stop for being my favorite song. but okay good for trina for actually inviting her ex to her wedding despite all of the stuff he did to her. it shows that trina cant help but still care about marvin (which we see more of in act two), and doesnt want to completely desert him, which jason may have a big part of that. she doesnt want to break up the family any more for jason’s sake since he is like ten. this is also the song where marvin truly sees that nothing will stay the same and that people will move on. he immediately regrets slapping trina and starts apologizing heavily which shows that marvin still cares for trin despite his actions, and it shows how he doesnt quite seem to be in control of his emotions or his actions. it also makes me believe that marvin has hit trina before due to when he started apologizing, he says “you know that i didnt-” before being cut off and start to huddle by himself while putting his hands together and then putting his hands out in almost surrender, and how quick trina was to recover and face marvin again.

canceling the bar mitzvah

okay another under appreciated one. but jason wants whizzer to be at the bar mitzvah, and either is unaware of whizzer dying, or in denial. mendel and trina seem to be in denial, whether for jason’s sake or their own, or both possibly. its the first time in the musical that jason feels like hes in control of something. he has watched his family fall apart for the past two or three years, and since hes just a kid, hes just been on the sideline and having to watch it without being able to do anything. he finally gets a say in something, though is conflicted and not used to being in control so wonders why trina and mendel arent making his decision for him as well, and almost seems scared of the decisions because he doesnt want to make anyone unhappy or make the wrong decision. after he storms off, trina and mendel are worried of how to tell jason, both wanting to protect jason from the world, but also aware that jason is going to figure out whizzer is going to die and will a rude awakening to the actual world. jason has been through a lot already, but they knew whizzer’s death would probably be the breaking point for jason. they want to shield jason from all of that, though know they wont be able to, which causes them to try and lie to themselves to make it more believable for them.

you gotta die sometime

whizzer makes me so sad in this song because it starts as almost a plea for help but then goes into acceptance before really scared. in the beginning, whizzer’s saying that hes a man in his prime, and how he doesnt know why this got to him instead of someone else. he thinks of himself as an overall healthy man, so he believed that this couldnt happen to him. sort of in the middle of the song, he realizes that no matter what, he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do, and he starts to accept it, and saying how it was going to happen anyway. he starts saying stuff to make himself believe that its he’s choice to die, by saying stuff like “i quit” and how he had it coming to him because of karma. possible karma from him breaking up a family. he wants to cry, and beg but he knows that wont help, and it would be better overall for everyone if he accepted it now. while he’s repeating “sometime” at the end, he starts to separate the word into “some time”, which is him still being scared of death, and wanting some more time left to live, though he doesnt get due to dying two songs later.

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cheswirls · 5 years ago

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it’s your extension (let me extend) 1/6

[ small preface: this is one giant 30k oneshot. its meant to be read as a oneshot, especially with the formatting. ive divided it up for sa week bc i think it fits all the themes collectively, but on day 7, ill post it all together as a oneshot. probably definitely on another platform, ill link it here, though. each piece is around 5k words, and i cant promise each one will fit the day’s themes exactly. collectively, all the themes are in here somewhere. it’s not gonna align perfectly.

with that all out of the way, i hope you enjoy! ive been working on this for a little over a month, now. if you recognize the au it is, you won’t notice many changes, but i like how it came out anyway. if you don’t recognize it, get ready for a ride.

also thanks to @saboace-week for hosting ! ]

he reminds ace of his mother.

light, blond hair hanging just past his nape; piercing eyes that hold an array of emotions, none of them harsh; fair, fair skin, and if he squints he can envision a smattering of freckles dusted onto his cheeks, not unlike his own. he cards a hand through the hair; his eyes narrow.

he can see her.

the scar catches him off-guard. it’s not noticeable until he parts the hair a little, but then there it is, stark as day, red ragged lines breaking up the pale skin. it’s not until he takes off the old sweatshirt functioning as a pajama top that he realizes the extent of the damage.

the red ran all down his left side. cutting into his shoulder, up his neck; circling around his ribs, and he turns to see it nearly to his spine on his back; down to his thighs, to his knees, just barely on the border of red on his calves; his arm is littered with white scars and red burn marks, and he finds himself growing curious. whatever it was from, it was Big.

it was intentional.

ace blinks and the movement echoes in the mirror, blue eyes gazing back at him. and he blanches, finally waking, finally realizing no, this was not normal, this was actually happening he brings both pale hands up to his face, tries to hide his eyes. his breath stutters.

a shrill alarm sounds and he jumps, spinning around to find a discarded phone on the bed going off. he moves over to it and it reads koala on the id and he panics and taps ‘ignore’ and lets his heart calm down.

the alarm goes off again and he jumps again and picks up the phone, almost ready to turn it off, when he finds its an actual alarm going off. ‘you’re late at this point’, it reads. ‘good luck’, it reads.

ace turns it off and takes a seat on the bed, head falling into his hands. stringy blond locks fall around him.

what the fuck. this isn’t what he wished for. he wanted-

and he sits up, sudden, limbs jerking in protest. he climbs the rest of the way onto the bed, towards the small window in the corner, and pulls a blind open, peering out.

a view of goa greets him. traffic, towers, teems of people absolutely everywhere.

ace slowly closes the blind, turns around, and sinks back onto the bed. he takes a deep breath, in and out.

“THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!” he shouts from the top of his lungs. when he said he wanted to live in the city, to be in the city-

when he wished he were reincarnated as-

“am i dead?” he breathes. only the quiet answers him back.

sabo rolls over in his sleep, prying his eyes open. he breathes out in a huff, squinting as he realizes he can see through the slats of the door. what, did he fall asleep at his desk again? and then fall out of the chair? that seemed a bit impossible, so then why . .

he tips his head, and his cheek brushes fabric, and he hums, realizing there was something under him under the floor.

before he can process that, the door slams open. sabo’s eyes widen as he’s met with little feet, and then he looks up, meeting the gaze of a scrawny kid.

“ace, get up already!” the kid snaps. “we already ate all of the food! if you’re not ready in ten minutes, i’m leaving you.”

he slams the door back into place, and sabo lies there, eyes blown and mind wide awake.

he’s so taken in by the kid’s words that for a second he finds himself scrambling up, counting down the seconds, remembering the time limit.

then he turns around and realizes he was asleep on a futon and he was in a wooden room and he trips on his way to look out the window before grasping the sill, raising his head above it, and his jaw drops as he’s met with a sprawling lake view, and of a whole community painted into the sides of a mountain. no, not a mountain, his mind helpfully supplies. the sides of a crater.

he blinks and his gaze zooms until he’s gazing at his own reflection, except it’s not him in the window. it’s a boy with tanned skin and long, black hair that fell just to his shoulders. they were broad, and he frowns, looking down as he runs a hand down the washboard chest, bare. damn. his eyes catch on a red band looped around his wrist, tied in a sloppy knot. he tugs and it comes loose, unraveling easily, and he hums as he spies a few other colors near the end.

“ace! let’s go!” a voice calls from somewhere deeper in the house, and sabo scrambles to his feet again, dropping the band on the ground. he swivels his head until he spots a uniform hanging from a closet door. it’s nondescript, so he hopes there’s only one school in this small town, else he go to the wrong one.

. . on second thought, with the kid leading him, maybe not.

he patters over to it, pausing once he grabs the hangers to look at his reflection in an actual mirror. oh. okay. so this was actually happening. he was in the body of someone named-

he stops. blinks. no. this had to be a dream, right?

he throws the white shirt over his head, tugging the collar down, and hums to himself in affirment as he works on the pants. right. this was a dream. had to be.

he’s slipping on the jacket when the kid barges in again, comes over, grabs him by the back of the jacket, and begins to shove him out of the room. “now! come on! we gotta go!”

“o-okay,” he voices, marveling at the change in pitch to what he was used to. deeper, slightly. he spies the red band again and lunges for it, tumbling out of the kid’s hold for a moment. “wait,” he breathes, grasping it, and then the kid’s on him again, pushing him towards the door.

“ace!” he whines. “come on!”

“luffy!” a voice calls from somewhere below. they exit the room and sabo spies a figure near the bottom of a staircase. “you’re going to be late!”

“coming!” luffy yells, still pushing him as sabo struggles to get his bearings, still grasping at the change in scenery. he clutches the red band tightly.

ace stumbles from the room, marveling at the change in height. the guy had a few on him, that was for sure. he moves down the hall, passing the simple furnishings until he’s in the frame of the kitchen entry, nose twitching at the smell of stale food.

a woman looks up from her phone at the small table for two, eyeing him for a moment before humming and looking back down. after another moment, she removes herself from the chair, shuffling around some dishes. “what was that shouting about earlier?” she asks, gesturing for ace to take her seat. he does, sliding down and picking up the extra pair of chopsticks.

“uh, nothin’,” ace mutters, mouth already full of leftover food.

“right.” the woman rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling a moment later. “well, i’m out. there should be another train leaving in half an hour. you have until then to get ready.”

“‘kay,” ace mumbles, nodding as she waves and exits the room. a moment later, a door shuts from the end of the hall. ace finishes the food soon after and sighs, setting the chopsticks down.

school, then.

he wanders back into the bedroom and approaches the uniform hanging from the back of a chair. the first issue was getting there, which . .

he glances at the phone. koala would know, right?

but, as soon as he thinks it, he lets the thought go.

he opts to take a picture of the crest stitched to the blazer instead, doing a reverse image search to determine which goa school it belonged to. a result pops up pretty handily, and he hums, putting it into a map. oh. so, it was pretty far. he glances to the window again.

after a moment, he searches the map for the nearest train station. not close either.

. . . his gaze moves back to the window.

ace sighs, slumping where he stood. there was no way he was catching that next train. he’d be lucky if he made it there by noon.

why was city life so hard?

after he’s gotten dressed and grabbed a bag, he stuffs whatever he can think of down into it. phone charger. notebook. wallet. pencil. sketchbook? he blinks, eyeing it for a moment, then shoves it in as well. no harm, right?

he moves back across the apartment and pauses at the mouth of the kitchen, gaze fixed on the small dishes still set out on the table. sighing, he slides the backpack off his shoulder and steps forward. right. there was no gramps to clean them up, so he’d have to do it himself then.

he pauses again after locking the front door, keys halfway shoved into his pocket. he didn’t even know this guy’s name. well, it probably wouldn’t be long until he did, but hopefully it wouldn’t cause any problems.

catching the train is a rush. ace sits in a seat very close to the door, sighing as everything begins to move. while he waits, he takes out the phone again and looks through it, trying to find anything to help him out. he ends up tapping on a social media app, and when the screen loads, hums.

“sabo, huh?” he mutters under his breath. okay. he could work with that.

sabo doesn’t have to worry about luffy guiding him, because they run into some people he apparently should know.

“ace!”

the word is a single, concise syllable, spoken loud and with momentum, and, more importantly, from right behind him. sabo jumps, just about crawls out of his skin, and spins around to see a girl just about his height looking at him funny, lips pursed, and a hand poised to chop his head. he steps back more, glancing over at luffy, who huffs out a sigh.

“i’ll meet you at home,” he says, motioning to a fork in the path ahead. one slopes down, curving a little around the cliffside, and the other continues upward, towards the crest. “whatever’s going on, i hope you’re over it by then.” with another odd glance, luffy tightens his hold on his backpack straps and takes off down the path. sabo is left alone, and turns to watch as a boy approaches the girl, and therefore him, as well, pushing a bike at his side.

“nothing’s going on?” he mutters, even though that’s an obvious lie. whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it wrong.

“are you sure?” the girl says, crossing her arms. “because it looks like you couldn’t even be bothered to brush your hair this morning.”

sabo blinks, reaching up to tug on one of the black strands. he thought it’d been naturally unruly. guess not.

“whatever. let’s go already.” she turns and nods to the other boy, then grabs sabo by the arm and pulls him into a walk alongside them. her eyes turn down and she makes a little noise in the back of her throat. “you brought your ribbon and you’re not even using it?”

sabo glances down as well, spying his impulse grab hanging from his hand. he lifts it. “ribbon?” it didn’t look like it.

the girl shrugs, waving a hand. “might as well be. look, if you didn’t have time to do your hair, you can just say so. but we’re not even there yet. i have a mirror if you need it.”

she fumbles for her bag, searching through it, and then frowns. “nevermind. hey, kidd, you got one?”

“always,” he boasts, passing over a small pocket mirror with ease. sabo takes it, frowning. he looks down and attempts to pat the hair down, and then glances again to the band in his other hand. so, if it functioned like a ribbon . .

well. that made sense.

he hands the mirror back and holds the band in his teeth, using his hands to situate the long black hair. then he grabs the red with one hand and strings it around, until it held the hair in a loose knot. he glances over at the other two after finishing, waiting for approval. the girl shrugs after a moment.

“good enough, i guess.”

sabo sighs out in relief, and then they’re in front of the school and kidd’s parking his bike and something chimes in the far distance. they grab for each of his arms and pull him through the front doors, moving quickly to a classroom. it’s not until they’re inside that he realizes another dilemma. people were still moving in, and there were open seats.

he reaches back to grab the girl’s arm, a small look of panic fixed on his face despite his best efforts. “where do i sit . . ?”

her eyes widen, and she stares at him. and stares. stares.

then, very calmly, she blinks and points to a desk near a window, almost in the corner of the room. sabo just nods, head down, and moves toward it.

ace moves down the hall slowly, still paging through a twitter feed on the phone. there were background shots of a classroom, and it had a high window, which meant the second floor. if only there was a glimpse of a number, then he’d really be set-

“sabo!” a shout echoes down the hall, making ace throw his head up. a redhead marches toward him, looking pissed, and he blanches, turning the phone off and trying to straighten out.

“uh, whatever i did, i can explain,” he says, because ace has always been about resolving conflict. then he mentally slaps himself, because that was the worst possible thing he could’ve said. he didn’t know the first thing about sabo, much less what he did to piss off the girl so much.

“you better!” she huffs, stabbing a finger into his chest. ace takes it with a wince. “ignoring my call like that! how dare you.”

so it was his fault, then. “i thought it was my alarm,” he says quickly. “it went off right after your call. sorry.” okay, so maybe not exactly true, but it would work. he eyes the girl in a new light. so this was koala.

she crosses her arms over her chest. “which one? had to be the ‘you’re late anyway, so hurry up’ one, right? how can you be here at noon?” she sighs. “it’s lunch, for god’s sake!”

“sorry,” ace says again.

her lips purse. “fine. i won’t press. c’mon, it’s stuffy in here, let’s eat outside.”

eat. his expression changes as he realizes. koala glances at him and rolls her eyes.

“you forgot lunch, didn’t you?”

he did, and he’s kinda hungry. he claps his hands together. “please share?”

“you’re lucky i like you,” koala mutters, jerking a door open.

koala insists he come to a cafe with her after school, and ace’s mouth waters at the thought. the closest they had out in fuusha was an old vending machine on top of the crest. inside, it’s crowded with people, but koala squeezes them into a two-seater and props up a menu, then begins rambling about the day. ace tunes her out, eyes widening as he glances at all the pictures. he wanted to try them all.

“that’s a lot of money,” koala comments, and he realizes he’d spoken aloud. ace looks up, then digs in his bag, looking into his wallet. he lets out a sigh.

“yeah, guess you’re right.” he hums, flipping the page and spotting a piece of cheesecake dripping with strawberry sauce. his mouth waters again. “then, i’ll just take this one.”

halfway through their meal, ace’s phone pings. he picks it up carelessly, smiling, too busy enjoying his cake. the text makes him reconsider.

koala pauses in her movements upon noticing his expression. “what’s wrong?”

“i’m late for work,” ace tells her. apparently.

“oh, you had a shift?” she waves him off. “go, then. i don’t mind.”

“yea, thanks.” he stands, pocketing his phone, and stuffs the last of the cake into his mouth in a big bite. koala doesn’t comment.

he walks off a few paces, spins around on his heel, and comes back to tap koala on the shoulder. “uh, where do i work again?”

her brows raise to her hairline.

sabo wakes slowly.

he’s balanced on the edge of the bed, curled up like he doesn’t know there’s supposed to be a drop. it’s jarring, and as soon as his phone begins to vibrate, his body jerks and he’s on the floor, crashed in a heap with the comforter curled around his legs.

with a moderate groan, he reaches up and silences his phone.

the door opens a moment later, as he’s rubbing his head. red hair is his only giveaway before shanks is fully in the room, peering down at him. “whoa there, kid. took a tumble, huh?”

“i’m good,” sabo mumbles, sitting up. he blinks, screwing his eyes to cast the sleep away. “had the strangest dream.”

“let’s talk about it over breakfast, kay?” he jerks a thumb over his head. “makino has it ready.”

makino is already gone, too, apparently, because it’s just him and shanks at the table. it only sits two anyway, so it’s not often all three of them eat together. still.

sabo squints, picking up his chopsticks and trying to recall. “i was some kid living out in a mountain village for a day. had an annoying little brother and everything.”

shanks hums, swallowing his bite of food. “sounds boring.”

sabo snorts. “great, thanks for your input.” he pauses again. “it just . . felt so real.”

later, sabo will go back to his room and pick apart his backpack, confusion on his face for every random item he pulls out. he pauses at one point, hand wrapped loosely around the spine of his sketchbook. definitely didn’t remember taking that out of his room. what did he even draw, he thinks, flipping through to the last filled page-

he stops. his hand trembles. the forgotten page flips over, and the front half of the book hangs limp in the air. he stares at the page.

‘who are you?’ is written there, in big, blocky letters, scratched over and over by a worn pen.

“are you gonna play with your hair again?” luffy asks, entirely unimpressed, as he pulls open the door to ace’s room, looking to his elder brother warily. ace blinks the remaining sleep from his eyes, sits up fully.

“what?”

luffy huffs. “nevermind.” he begins to slide the door shut. “at least you’re up today.”

ace frowns at the comment, then immediately turns to look out the window. the sun was barely peeking out over the edge of the crest, as usual when he woke. he sighs and stumbles to his feet, electing to ignore luffy’s comment.

breakfast with garp is a quiet affair. he eyes ace warily, but doesn’t say anything out of the ordinary, more of the usual. ace has to pull luffy away from the table, again, per usual. he sighs as he closes the front door, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck. luffy grumbles at his side, wiping rice from the corner of his mouth.

he takes luffy halfway to school, then watches as he runs down the path with zoro and nami, sprinting in a race to see who can reach the grounds first. ace continues up the slope by himself, and doesn’t stop until he’s sliding his classroom door open, tugging his scarf a little looser in the heated environment.

he’s sitting his bag down on his desk when the door slams open, and he turns calmly while a few others jump, entirely expecting this kind of entrance. lami pinpoints him immediately and stalks up to him, kidd not far behind. ace stands at attention, turning to face her-

and makes a noise of protest as she grabs his cheeks, pulling his face closer to hers for easier inspection.

it’s a few tense moments of silence before he frowns, features distorted. “can i help you?” he says, words muffled by the pull of his lips. lami’s frown mirrors his own, and she releases him.

“are you back to normal?” she says, hands on her hips. ace only turns to look at kidd behind her, silently asking for help. the edhead steps up with a muffled snort.

“you were . . weird, yesterday,” he admits. “your hair was a mess, you were all spaced out, you couldn’t remember where you sat-”

“you got all of crocus’ questions right!” lami snaps. “his insanely hard, out-of-thin-air pop questions! you got them all right. answered like it wasn’t even a challenge. like you knew the ins and outs of the material already.” she crosses her arms. “you better not upstage us all again today.”

ace blanches. “what? you’re lying. that’s impossible.” and his hair . . ? he reaches up, fingering the braided cord that held the black locks in a high ponytail.

lami shakes her head. “no, i’m serious. you were weird yesterday.” she echoes kidd’s words and the redhead nods, confirming.

“well, whatever,” he grumbles, turning away, a bit put-out. “i’m fine now. okay? let’s just forget about it.”

the door opens, and in ambles crocus, old hips still in desperate need of replacement. he takes a stand behind the podium and pauses as he finds ace. “hm. portgas.”

ace lifts his chin, eyes narrowing. after a few tense moments, their teacher turns away, looking back down to his papers. everyone finds their seats after that.

‘who are you?’ echoes over and over in sabo’s mind, as much as he can allow it. school is vicious today, the teachers going hard and not leaving anyone a moment’s rest. it’s not until everything is done for the day that sabo can break away, and that’s when koala approaches him, a wary look marring her gaze.

“what’s up with being late yesterday?” her eyes narrow as she comes to a full stop right in front of him. “y’know, if you were gonna show up halfway through the day, why’d you even come at all?”

“late?” sabo blinks. as he could recall, he was here a half hour early, like today, like always.

“yeah.” she huffs. “you were late to work, too. listen, are you feeling better, at least?”

sabo’s hairs begin to stand. “yesterday,” he says, very slowly, “i didn’t have a shift.”

“what?” koala’s eyes begin to ignite. “then you just ditched me? what the hell, sabo!”

“what are you on?” sabo snaps back, trying to make sense of it all. “we were together all afternoon. we split crepes! remember?”

koala’s mouth opens, but she remains silent. her brows scrunch, and the fire dies out. “that was monday,” she recalls.

sabo shrugs, still off-put. “yeah?”

“sabo, it’s wednesday.”

he blinks. blinks again. “no-” he begins, but before he can finish, koala’s whipped her phone out and is showing him the date.

he stands very still. a shiver runs through his body.

“why . . can’t i remember?”

lami and kidd wrangle him away for the afternoon, walking while the bite of the cold wasn’t too bad. unluckily for him, the path they take leads into a head-on collision with one of dragons’ rallies. ace can hear his speech before he sees the crowd, and then he’s hissing to himself in panic, ducking down behind kidd’s lanky form. the redhead scoffs, but doesn’t move.

“i guess it is election time,” lami notes, gaze wandering over.

“wonder why he bothers,” kidd says. “he’s bound to get reelected anyway.”

ace frowns, eyes still facing the ground. he doesn’t want to hear dragon, or see him, but most importantly, he doesn’t want dragon to see him.

a pause in the speech reaches his ears. lami moves closer to the pair. “hey, heads up-” she begins to mutter.

“ace!” dragon calls, and he closes his eyes, jerking to a stop. slowly, his eyes move until he meets his father’s over the heads of the crowd. he doesn’t look very pleased. “straighten out already!” he calls.

ace forces out an exhale and moves out from behind kidd, standing taller. he turns his gaze back to the road and starts moving, quicker this time. he feels dragon’s eyes on him all the while, but what’s more, the eyes of the crowd as they turn to face him, as they turn to witness the town mayor mocking his eldest yet again-

“don’t let him bother you,” lami says, once they’re out of earshot. she turns to kidd, giving him a pointed look. “hey, let’s go to your mom’s shop?”

“diner,” kidd corrects. he frowns, knowing more than anything that it wasn’t a question. but, well, it was still too early for dad to be home. “sure,’ he sighs, giving in. immediately, ace perks up at the prospect of food.

“sacha!” lami calls, just as they burst through the doors. an older woman comes out from the back room, wiping her hands with a towel. her gaze brightens as it lands on the three.

“oh! come in, come in.” she puts her hands on her hips as they all pile into a table. “so, how was school?”

“horrible!” ace groans. “crocus kept asking me all these questions i couldn’t answer. and only me!”

from beside him, kidd snickers. lami pokes ace with her elbow. “it’s because you were a smartass yesterday.”

ace huffs, slumping to the tabletop. “sacha, they’re being mean to me!” he whines. “please, the only thing that can help is food! please feed me!”

sacha rolls her eyes at the act. “sure. whatever you say.” she winks to the other two, already turning towards the back. “i’ll bring some stuff right out.”

“thanks, mom!” kidd calls. lami echoes his words, and then they’re both turning to ace, who’s still slumped against the table.

“hey,” lami says suddenly. “fuck dragon. don’t think about it.”

ace hums, head still buried in his arms.

if only.

sabo has the dream again.

he sets upright, and everything is at a lower angle, and pieces of stiff, black hair fall in front of his eyes. he hums, thinks nothing of it. okay. so it was a do-over dream. maybe he could do better this time.

luffy opens his door with a short bang some time later, and pauses for a moment to eye him with trepidation. sabo cocks his head to face him, but otherwise continues bouncing his newly-acquired black locks. he couldn’t help it -he’d never had hair this long.

“breakfast!” luffy snaps. he closes the door with the same amount of force he’d opened it with, and it hits the frame harshly. sabo’s hand drops from his hair, finally.

breakfast is, unfortunately, not a quiet affair. sabo has to fight over rice, fish, soup -everything, really- until it’s all properly dished out. a little radio in the corner of the room blares out about town hall news, and sabo cocks his head to it as he nibbles on some meat, swiping his chopsticks out to keep Luffy from his rice.

“also, in regards to the upcoming mayoral election-”

garp has already stood up by this point, and pulls the plug on the old machine before the announcer could continue. he comes back to the table in the newly quiet atmosphere, and luffy sets down elbows up on the glass top, sighing.

“you really should make up with him already,” he grumbles. “both of you,” he adds, turning that glare to sabo. sabo only blinks, not knowing the context of the words, and chooses to resume eating in quiet rather than respond.

“it’s an adult problem, kid,” garp grunts, setting down his empty bowl. “go on, now. get ready for school.”

luffy lets out a long-lastings sigh as he throws himself to his feet. “right,” he says, letting the word drag out, and drags himself from the room. sabo sets down his rice bowl after his last bite, nodding to garp.

“thanks for the food,” he mumbles, standing as well. garp grunts, but grabs for sabo before he can pass by completely. sabo pauses, looking over his shoulder.

“don’t forget, the ceremony is in a few days.”

that’s all he says, then he releases sabo. he doesn’t know the context, again, so he just nods and hurries up the stairs back to ace’s room.

the red band isn’t around his wrist this time, and it takes a bit of digging around, but he does find it in a spare drawer. he takes a brush through the thick locks, then binds it into a low ponytail at the base of his neck. if a knot wasn’t right last time, maybe this was. he uses the band in place of an elastic, pulling it tight, and nods once he’s satisfied.

luffy is waiting for him downstairs. he bounces on his feet, using both hands and a loud voice to say bye to their grandpa. sabo just nods, and garp nods back, letting them go.

lami and kidd run into him before the pathway splits, and luffy looks on in indifference until lami has him on her shoulders, and then he’s squealing with delight or annoyance -sabo can’t tell. it only takes a moment for her to set him on the handlebars of kidd’s bike, and the redhead breaks out into a jog, balancing luffy, who does enjoy this one -evident by him throwing his arms over his head and shouting in joy. lami loops sabo’s arm through her own and they follow at their own pace. when the pathway splits, they help luffy down and he waves them off, continuing towards his own school.

sabo finds his seat by the window, but once class starts, he can’t focus. it’s all stuff he’s learned already, so he spends time instead jotting stuff down in a blank page of the notebook. ace’s family was two people. his brother, luffy, and his grandfather. there’s a third person him and ace share in conflict with. he has two close friends, lami and kidd. kidd is the son of a electrical contractor -the guy who controlled all power out here in the town. which, technically speaking, seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. the high school sat over the ridge, and it was all sabo could see for miles around -that was, nothing but rolling hills.

“portgas,” a voice says gruffly, enough to grate sabo’s ears, and he looks up to find the entire class staring at him. his brows furrow, until he meet the teacher’s gaze, locked on him. sabo swallows, setting down his pen.

“yes?”

crocus lets out an overdue sigh. “nice of you to finally respond. define ‘twilight’ for me.”

sabo blinks, then stands in one clean motion, nodding. “it’s . . a time between night and day,” he finally settles on, unsure of what the man was looking for. he’d gotten all the questions right last time, but they only served to annoy him. and also bring on more questions. sabo wasn’t exactly sure how to respond here to get it right this time.

crocus grins, and sabo feels a little nervousness run about. “not quite what i was looking for.” he gestures with his hand, and sabo sits down, confusion growing.

“‘twilight’ is neither day nor night. it’s a time when the two become blurred. where all the funny stuff happens. afterlight, in other words. right before dusk.”

“what about half-light?” kidd pipes up, hand slightly raised. crocus allows the outburst, humming.

“that’s more local dialect, but, yes.”

sabo lets down his guard again, and goes back to doodling, scribbling notes in the columns.

he finds the diary after school.

it’s a small pocketbook, easily overlooked. call sabo curious, though, for upturning the room. ace is organized, and his small script is neat. reading through the entries doesn’t help, though. sabo sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. guess he had to do this on his own. well, for a do-over dream, he thinks he did rather well. if it happened again, maybe he’d get to finish learning what he only discovered this time around.

he’s settling down on the futon when a stray thought comes to mind. the words ‘who are you?’ scribbled in his sketchbook hit him out of nowhere, and sabo stands on the thin matress, gaze falling to the desk in the corner.

after a moment, he walks over, feet carrying him and hand reaching out for a small marker. he hesitates for a moment, then presses the ink to his skin, writing his name carefully.

sabo jerks awake, head fuzzy. shanks opens his door at the same time, and the blond has a conniption, about doing a front-somersault off the mattress. he lands on the ground in a heap, groaning.

“relax, kid,” shanks says. “it’s just me.”

sabo’s leg twitches. he lies there for a moment, only vaguely thinking about going back to sleep.

“ . . you okay?”

his phone starts ringing and sabo forces himself up to silence it. “fine,” he mutters, waving shanks off. with a shrug, the redhead leaves, closing the door behind him.

sabo’s gaze is fixed to his arm, now that he’s stopped waving it. his brow furrows, and he grasps his right with his left hand, bringing it closer. he squints.

there’s writing scribbled onto the skin. ‘sabo?’ it reads. ‘who are you? what are you?’

it was a dream.

right?

makino frowns at him as he enters the kitchen. “don’t cause trouble today,” she says quietly. sabo blinks, eyes widening and heart racing.

“what? what did i do?” he stammers. she only looks at him again, sighs quietly, and exits the room. down the hall, the front door closes.

“what did i do?” sabo asks koala, who frowns upon spotting him in the hall before class was due to start.

“you got home too late, is my guess,” she muses. “makino called me, y’know. wondering where you were.”

sabo blanches. “did i have a shift?”

“ i think so?” she squints. “you headed off in a hurry. saw something, i guess. are you okay?”

he waves her off. “fine, fine.”

she looks at him for another moment before shoving the door open. “right.”

sabo goes straight home before his shift at the restaurant. on impulse, he flips to the back spread of his sketchbook, where the last note was. his eyes widen.

“i can’t believe i got to stop a real-life goa robbery attempt last night,” he reads. “sorry, i may have gotten scuffed up?” sabo takes a step back, and the sketchbook falls from his hands. it’s loud when it hits the floor. “what the fuck?” he breathes.

he pads over to the mirror, but there’s no marks on his face. without any airs, he strips of his shirt, twisting this way and that. ah. there, on his left side, was a small patch of bruising. luckily for him, it was on his burns, where all the skin was nerve-dead. he couldn’t feel a thing.

suddenly feeling lightheaded, sabo falls to his knees. his right hand comes up to trace the bruising.

“oh, sabo!”

he turns on his heel, empty plates balanced in outstretched hands. robin walks over the last few steps. “yes?”

“thanks for the other night.” she nods. “and for making sure i got home safe. that was really nice of you.”

the pieces connect, rapid-fire, and he works hard to only nod back. “no problem,” he murmurs, then ducks quickly through the door to the back. so, robin was the one almost mugged. she must live pretty far, for him to take her and be back late enough to cause makino to worry. . . . that would also explain the weird looks he received from his other co-workers when he arrived.

sabo sighs, taking a moment to pull his arms on top of his head, open his airway. then he’s poked in the back with a ladle, and his eyes open back up. moment over. he turns to see thatch eyeing him, a lazy grin on his face.

“what’s got you worked up?” he asks. before sabo can even think about not replying to his cheshire grin, zeff is yelling for him from across the kitchen. he moves quickly, picking up dessert trays and swinging out of the room once more.

he gets a text from shanks that has him calling as soon as he’s clocked out, pressing his phone between his shoulder and chin. it takes one ring for the redhead to pick up. “yes?”

“sabo! come straight home today, okay?”

“yeah, got it.” he sighs. “sorry . . about yesterday.”

“nah, don’t worry about it.” shanks pauses, and sabo can picture him physically waving the words off. “i know you didn’t mean harm. still, makino’s a little worried, so do her this favor.”

“got it. see you soon.”

sabo pockets his phone and pulls out his metro card in place of it, stepping fully into the train station. his head is spinning.

it was a dream, right?

ace finds the diary, and it makes him sad before it gives him answers.

so i don’t forget again.

he’s found three, similar, pressed into the back of a crammed bookshelf. all of them have the same title. he finds his fingertips pressing into the burn scar around his eye. was it to do with this? was it all part of the same thing?

the last entries of the diary confirm his worries. sabo wasn’t aware of what was going on. he was slowly realizing it, but slowly was bad for ace, who knew from the first event what was happening.

i’m not dead. we’re switching bodies.

he was switching bodies with sabo triste, a boy his age living out in goa with his two guardians, makino and shanks. ace goes to sleep, and wakes up as sabo; he’d spent more time as the blond this week than he had himself.

‘stop writing in my sketchbook!!!’ is written right under his script on the same page, and ace traces the words carefully. he takes a pen and writes, right underneath, ‘surely one page is okay.’

he hesitates, then he writes, out to the side - ‘it’s not a dream.’

it can’t be a dream anymore.

#saboace #SaboAceWeek2019P2 #acesabo #one piece #writing #iye/lme #i had this out but it didnt show up in the tags and im not copying all my tags so #theyre gone #not that they were impt but theyre gone now

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gigis-ff-blog · 5 years ago

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last time here we go

so you all probably expected this by now. but I’m not uploading this fic series anymore. I just cant find the motivation and with the amount I was planning to write its just became intimidating. I’m also going into my junior year(11th year) of high school, and that’s already stressful. and I’m really disappointed in myself that I never finished even the first book. but if you guys wouldn’t mind I would love to share my ideas and concepts that were supposed to be present. I might work on them in the future though.

CHARACTER DIFFERENCES

so unlike the anime, Dedede and Escargoon were supposed to act as good guys. Dedede was supposed to turn evil after being manipulated by Nightmare, who was so afraid by Kirby that he absorbed to much power than he could handle, became corrupted, and corrupted a king just to get rid of them. NME was supposed to be like a friendly group and were just supposed to be people that others could hire and pay for goods and services. Adaline would have been the salesman’s adopted daughter also.

Characters like Marx, Dark Matter Swordsman, Dark Meta knight, and other villains would have had redeeming arcs as subplots. Susie was also supposed to have a more compassionate personality, albeit still snarky and all about herself. Necrodeus and Nebula were also supposed to be the co rulers of the underworld at a certain point. Axe knight was supposed to be related to them.

The Galaxia would have also had a spirit form, kind of like FI from Zelda, but more tired and motherly. This would have been the same for the mirror Galaxia as well. Sirica and Joe would have appeared as siblings under Meta’s care. Meta would have also had very cheap disguises (like an old fisherman’s disguise.)

Void would have also been reborn as a baby orb.

PLOT DIFFERENCES

The plot of Meta Knight Returns would have taken place just before that of Amazing Mirror. Where Meta knight would have left for the amazing mirror in hopes of regaining his lost family.However he would have been foiled by Dark Meta Knight and would have been trapped in the mirror world. Dark would have stolen the Galaxia and went to the Halberd to try and take over dreamland. The Galaxia would have been stored in a secret place in the Halberd as Dark wouldn’t be able to wield it. Eventually, the crew and Kirby would find this out and collaborate in taking him and the ship down.

Canvas curse and Rainbow curse would have had Adaline and Bandanna team up with Kirby. the stories would also lead in to Adaline’s past and character development.

A subplot between Morpho Knight and Meta knight would happen within the events of Mass attack. This would lead to character reveals like Aqua Knight being revealed. The Galaxia wielders would have had a big role in this story and it would have been the first time Galacta was seen.

The backstory of Sectonia and Dark Meta would have been explained. Dark would have taught Sectonia how to wield a sword and would have befriended her. Sectonia would have accidentally found a corrupt power within the Mirror that would have changed her to the evil queen bee she was.

Susie, Kirby, and Galacta knight were supposed to be part of a subplot in the Planet Robobot story, which would set up her and Kirby’s backstory which would take place in another dimension. In this, Kirby was supposed to be made of the same matter Void was made of, Except Susie would care for Kirby and tell them stories about her Dad and how she was always told that she was amazing. A cataclysm that would lead to a big crack in Galacta’s seal would have caused them to try and escape as Susie knew about how dangerous Galacta was. They would have eventually escaped on a ship Susie made, eccept she would have been hit off of the ship and found by The Haltman Company.

Another subplot I Robobot would be how the halberd crew and the clones were both trying to work together and free Meta and take back the Halberd from Haltman. Eventually, Susie would join in becoming disgusted by how corrupt her father and the company were becoming.

Team Kirby clash deluxe would have been in a parallel dream universe visited by Susie

Kirby Star allies would have had each group of Dream friends given their own story in the narrative, eventually leading to a big climactic meetup at the end. Flamberge would have teamed up with Morpho and a fight would break out with the three sisters after Fransisca was hurt about “Why are we even in this cult? For Him. He took our hearts and hurt Fran. He’s not the same.”

The ancients, the GSA, the four heroes, Void and Galacta knight, and Morpho knight would have all had a big story of their own describing a war against Matter, and a gigantic calamity. There would have also been mentions of a war with Floralia and the Underworld. Meta would have been a child and one of the four heroes in the war against matter and an adult during the calamity.The calamity is what would have actually been the death of Garlude and Joes father. The war against matter would have involved the GSA and Nightmare on the same side. Morpho knight would have been related to Meta in some way before their demise. Galacta was also going to become corrupt with to much matter, causing a calamity that would combine all forces against one big death orb. Galacta, Kirby, and Void would have all shared the same person. This section of the story would reveal this. A prophecy involving Kirby’s adventures would have also been mentioned.

An ending was supposed to be written involving Galacta knight and the crumbling of the universe. This would be when they had broken free and started wreaking havoc. This would have painted an apocalyptic dreamland. Galacta would have killed off characters one by one GOT(I don’t watch or like this show) style with epic fights. They would have also consumed Kirby and Voids matters, including their souls. Galacta would have ripped holes in time and space and ruined everything till there was nothing left. Void and Kirby would have fused inside Galacta’s conscience and fought them there, Galacta’s soul would have been fought with Kirby and Voids combined soul. Eventually, all of them would become one and reverse time using the time ability and restore things to the second before the apocalypse started. From then everyone would live normal lives. Susie would also create a machine that would have brought back morpho knight from the dead to they could live a new and better life.

Kirby café. It would have been a thing.

SAILOR DEE

Sailor dee was supposed to act as a main supporting character and secret Meta Knights spy, who would end up helping Kirby, despite being afraid of them in the beginning due to the GSA records Meta knight gave them. Sailor’s backstory was supposed to reveal that they left their home and sailed away because they felt as if they were not wanted and forgettable once Bandanna started becoming closer to the kings court after his megaton punch world record break. this would lead to Sailor finding the Meta Knights. Sailor was supposed to get a more major character arc, becoming a more strong and confident person. Eventually Sailor would become the force that leads the Meta Knights when Meta is MIA. Sailor would have also been a Galaxia wielder.

A feud during Amazing mirror would have led Sailor to go off and try to save the world themself, without Galaxia and the knights, who Sailor feels abandoned them. Sailor would get into a fight with Dark Meta, a fight where Silver Galaxia would create a blast that tried to save Sailor, but knocked them into another dimension with Marx, Dark Matter Swordsman, Nightmare, and Morpho. Together they would all work to make it out. They would all master different abilities. this plot would lead to the Morpho knight subplot in the Mass Attack story. Sailor would become Aqua Knight in the end.

ADALINE

Adaline’s backstory would begin as a lone magical waddle dee artist would travel to Shiver Star to test his artistic ability and reanimate the lost and forgotten life forms using soul matter paint. Adaline would be the waddle dee’s child and would grow up to watch her father figure create new sisters and even planets(patchland) out of magic. Eventually. The painter would become corrupt, and attempt to create a painting army to take over the galaxy. Vividria enlisted the help of NME to stop the galactic takeover before it started by separating paintings and sealing the painter inside the magic brush. The dude would have time to think in there. Adaline would then be taken in the Nightmare family’s care. They would also create a brother to her, Paint Roller. Vividria guards the artists moon.

MORPHO

morpho would have been Meta’s younger sibling. Both would try to escape the All Matter Castle after being hurt by Void after Void-a baby God ho had no idea what it was doing-was manipulated to hurt them. Meta made it out. Morpho didn’t. Morpho was killed and taken to the underworld. there they met Necrodeus, who gave them the role as a grim reaper. Necrodeus always felt sorry for Morpho.

Morpho was trapped before they were killed. as Meta escaped he promised he would go back. However, Morpho was told in their final moments that Meta left them to save himself. This would spark their revenge.

After Morpho’s revenge failed, they would have had an emotional talk where they would basically hug and cry and clear things up before the light took morpho back. In the series end, they would be reborn with new memories in a new life around people that would love them.

HYNESS

Hyness would have started out as a normal part time cleric / part time nanny. He knew all of the sisters as he was their nanny. when families abandoned in blizzards, infernos took lives, and when all seamed gone. Hyness took them under their wing. But like literally anyone else at this point he became crazy with power. His dark powers left him after KSA and he felt guilty to the point of tears after he realized what he had done. He did everything he could to make it up to them.

VOID

Void would have been a baby God found by the ancients. Their power would be manipulated by other people until they were convinced that what they were doing was ok. The four heroes tried to reason with Void but to no avail.Once Void was sealed their manipulators were ended. Sir Arthur became the new leader and the era of control was over. Galacta Knight absorbed their power however and started the calamity…

GALACTA

Galacta was Kirby from a future time and history that had a cataclysmic event involving the fusion of Void and Kirby. Everything in the dimension was wiped out in this event. This dimension became “another dimension.” Galacta knight absorbed Void’s sealed matter and became overwhelmed with power. Galacta would be sealed tearfully by Meta as they both knew each other because they were both family to one another. Galacta would reawaken themself, and cause havoc throughout time and space. Galacta, Kirby, and Void would all fuse, fixing everything and ending off the series on the same hill Kirby crashed on.

THATS IT I HOPED YOU ENJOYED PLEASE COMENT AND REBLOG I SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON THIS I LOVE YOU ALL AND WHO KNOWS I MIGHT WORK ON THESE AS SIMGULAR STORIES LATER. THIS IS MY FF BLOG NOW. THANK YOU LOVE YOU ALL IM SORRY THANK YOU!!!!!!!!111111!!!!

#kirby #kirby star allies #hoshi no kaabii #kirby right back at ya #kirby 64 #waddle dee #meta knight #king dedede #morpho knight #galacta knight #whew #that was a lot #i might make art on this #but i need to do stuff first #thank you all so much for being patient #im sorry #thank you

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awesomeq1225 · 5 years ago

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6/24/19

Narrative Draft

The Daughter of Eden

“It’s alive, it’s alive” the performer exclaimed as he pulled the lever to activate the monster. Monster starts thumping around and breaking all the equipment with its large filthy hands. All the actors run away and the simulation ends when a burst of distant laughter grows near. “Heh lowlives, you think that is life? Or fantasy? Oh, how I wish I could see their faces when they see this.” a woman in half button up lab coat and remarks as she turns to look at a covered up preservation tank. She flicks her half lite e-cigarette and signs as she shuts off her study. As she drifts off a cool calm gust blows through an open window, which causes the drape to flutter. It reveals the rim of an empty tank with a titanium plaque: “Aptrova “Eve” Curie N0.XXX-07”.

“Lachia? Lachia?” A Portal calls from the far side of the room.

“Ughh what? What is so urgent that I miss sleep and at 3:00 am no less” The woman says as she drags herself out of her stasis vat.

“Eve she… she's missing” her assistant calls out worryingly.

“What? No, you’ve got… “ She remarks as she pulls the drape.

“Oh no, just when I thought this version was full proof” She collapses and screams in pain with one hand slipping from the tank. All of her memories flood in as she starts to destroy her work leading up to this point. Her assistant tries to cheer her up by showing her all the accomplishments of her work but nothing would suffice.

First holo video: September 23, 2023; Yorkshire Café___ A news Anchor with images of a potato with the headline “The new face of God” was broadcasted iridescently over the cityscape. While the people collectively roll their eyes and scoff, a much younger Lachia admires it in glee. Next to her is Claudia who almost spits out her tea with googly eyes. “What are you? Afraid? this is my calling! Its what leads to man's accomplishments to galactic recognition.”

“But, BUT Lacy you know their right and what this leads to?...”

“Sure, sure autonomy but we are their creator we.. you know what you're too cynical”

“Cynical? Cynical‽ have you not heard of AI, terminator, ex machina, Her?”

“Oh those, those are just fiction like they ever..” A robot rolls over to pick up their trays.

“Thank you,” Lachia says with a nervous laugh; Claudia sighs and pets her head as she hums “Caged bird”.

Meanwhile back at the lab, “ Cathy oh Cathy come back, I feel like a kid again; you were right all along.” Lachia mutters as she watches the memories go into the trash. She stops for a moment “Maybe I should just give up, or at least take a ‘holiday’” she sighs and drags herself outside and towards her old county. “Huh?“ she exclaims sometime later in front of the café “It’s still here? ‘No matter how far away from home is always near’” A tear drift down as she swipes to next video in her holotablet.

November 2nd, 2023 Charleston, NY-

Frantic typing could be heard from a dimly lit room on the far east side of the tristate area. “ Whatcha doing?” Claudia asked as she lends over Lachia’s shoulder.

“Oh, just signing up for labs. What about this one?” Lachia points to a webpage with a forest background ‘Eden: a new beginning”’

“Lacy, aren't you forgetting something?” '

'What?” “Nevermind, you know it requires you to have experience right?”

“ What? Is assisting not enough... You don't think i can do it do you?

“ No, I'm just being realistic” Claudia flicks to her own choice

“ Synthetica: a critical take on playing God” Lachia scoffs

“What's that another psych lab?”

“So what if it is at least I can foreseeably achieve my future…” “OUT OUT.”

“fine.” Claudia leaves and Lachia breaks her necklace in anger.

Lachia holds out the broken necklace as she goes to the center of the city. She passes by digital posters of Apotrova each more disfigured than the next.

“ No this doesn’t add up she couldn’t have been gone for this long” Suddenly, her necklace beings to ring

“ wait April? April? Aptrova?” Lachia calls out as the signal leads her to the tallest building in the city.

“ isn't this Central park tower? If so it's all barren. Of all places, why would she be her?” Lachia mutters as she moves on to the next video.

August 2025

A virtual letter lands on the balcony of the house one summer evening. Lachia picks it up and gasps “no way, I proved her wrong ?! sure it took two years but I knew I could count on it.” In the honor of her getting to the facility her family went to Central park tower. Lachia stood there in awe and wished that one day she could be working in that building. As they rode in the glass elevator she marveled more and more in how small the city looked under her. Meanwhile unbenounced to Lachia, Claudia was standing at the door of the elevator in fear not only to heights but also of how some it made her feel. At the 39th floor, Lachia went to the gift shop and got a snow globe to encapsle how much power she felt.

“ Dr? Dr?” the assistant calls out while looking over at the snow globe.

“She's been gone all morning and i'm worried that her work has gotten to her. I better call Claudia.”

The assistant calls Claudia by patching it through the snowglobe. The snowglobe works like a satellite and can work as a hub contact center. As Claudia’s phone rings, Lachia keeping climbing up the tower leading to the top floor. Claudia answers the phone and runs toward the rim of the town with her necklace tracker. “Only two more videos to go but cant i delete them”.

A tank can be seen on the far edge of Lachia’s lab with the label of EVE. “hmm i should be close to at least make a child but” Inside the tankis blob that barely has any resemble of any animal never to mention a human.

“How? We've mapped the genome of the human and all i did was done a bit of my hair for stem cells.” “What i am I missing?” she exclaims while going through tons of books and sites. Her assistant dust and clean the area in order to make sure there are no particles that has interfered with the experiment. “Think of what makes animals different from bacteria other than their complection.”suggests her assistant.

“Wait I've been focusing too much on the small building blocks not what they create together”

“yeah like tissues, system organs wait a heart”

“what do you mean?” “ in addition to structures they also make it possible to have feelings”

“That's it I’ve relayed too much biology that I haven’t realised what makes us unique. But Claudia is the only one I know who studies this stuff” she sighs as she glances at the tank.

“Oh how stupid I was back then to think that biology was a stand alone and most powerful of the sciences” Lachia shakes her head as she looks down form the top of the building mulling over her choices. She signs as she looks at the last memory and tries to delete it, but then she sees something at the corner of her eye, a light purple and black bow. She takes the bow as she moves to the last video.

2040

“One last touch” Lachia puts the bow on the latest verizon of EVE -XXXX07 and opens the clapsue. “Success” Eve starts to walk around the lab as Lachia and her assistants creates tests to make sure that she's fool proof.

“Movement check, organs check, simple problem solving check,emotions check, language” the assistants muttered as she performs each task with flying colors year after year. “Speak eve” commands Lachia.

*muffed robotic noises* “h___i” “hmm that's strange I made sure that none of the parts are robotic especially the vocal cords” She says as she tries to find out what's wrong. Eves vocal cords can be seen under an advanced x-ray machine and along with the other components of speech. The team zooms in to see blobs around those areas but aren’t sure why the voice is robotic.

The last year : “ahh” Eve swallows a microsurgeon pill and as it works the assistants double check. After a few minutes the pustules decrease and they prepare to test speech again. “Say your name”

“ev_Apotrova”

“ wait what? You named your self?” Apotrova nods.

“Let her play outside i'm going to think over some things” As Aptrova goes outside Lachia puts on Leaving while she silently cries.

Lachia looks over the city as she feels for the tracker in the ribbon. “Where ever she is hopefully she doesn't go over the gate or I could be in for some real trouble.” Meanwhile Claudia peeks through the gate and hears a distant screams. She rushes inside the gate calls out Aptrova as Lachia is on the absolute edge of the skyscraper.

Lost in waste lands Aptrova is horrified at what she sees: tons of decaying tanks stacked haphazardly in cold barren ground. This ground goes as far down as the eye can see without a sign of civilization. Aprtova shivers as she thinks back to all the warnings Lachia gave her about this place. How it is constantly dry but right at the back of the lab with a rundown and uneven fence surrounding the perimeter. Although there is no civilization there are ruined houses littered throughout the area. And sploses of slime and gunge can be seen everywhere. However Aptrova couldn't help herself from wondering if these stories were true, so at the dead of night of her eighth birthday she fled. Unbenounced to everyone, the fence at that sector which was usually highly secured was broken. Which made her journey seen easier than she ever thought. However as she traveled deeper and deeper the cloud fade away to reveal on the stars of the night. At the deepest point stood a house unlike any other, it was complete and full of life. Aptrova was relieved to see this, she went in unexpectedly of what's to come. As she went to prepare to stay for the night a distant squelch could be heard from the corner of the room.

When she opened the fridge all she could see was slime with a putrid smell that almost made her gag. As she closes the fridge she started to realize that she wasn’t alone as slime kept popping up wherever she searched. She knew that she wasn’t the first to escape and just as she thought of this a distant voice can be heard.

“Help squelch help squelch ” Aptrova starts to run but she goes near to the voice and sees a slime made up of many faces and bodies. It is sloshing around and it seemed to be building something. She looked up and there was a leak in the house

“oh my who would do such a thing?, sure it's not the most applying or most intelligent but its still alive.” she thought.Then it came to her, all the memories of abuse by the city folk whenever Lachia brought her there. They would laugh throw food and tease her but Lachia would always take the blows. Horrified she runs straight for the closest exit from the house which is just outside of Synthetica. As she leaves a teared up sign hanging in the wind read “Home of Eve” which matched the empty tanks left in the dump.

Aptrova arrives at the end of the path in a hot sweat and healthy breathing while looking back every few seconds. She tries to find a place to hide and soon realizes how viverant her surroundings. Lush forest and gleaming lakes and abundant with wildlife with some rusted manmade objects.

“Oh my where am I this is so beautiful, I could just live here” she thought as she went towards the lake humming Sandbox.

Some time after, a high pitched scream can be heard from the forest as Claudia enter the forest. As she ran closer and closer to the river it picks up and there were alligators biting at Aptrova. “Give me your hand” she called out as she drags Aptrova out of the water and towards the gate. Aptrova shuts down and doses off as they arrive at the door of Synthetica. Claudia lays April down when the sirens went off as news flashes of a woman scaling the tallest building in the city.

“Oh my word LACY?! What have I done?” Claudia rushes on to her hover bike and speeds off the tower.

Meanwhile her assistants try their best to fix Aptrova as silently as they can. Most of her skin is gnawed away to reveal a carbon fiber skeleton and some body parts but most of her organs and appendages seem intact. The pleasant humming of the tools fade as Claudia draw near.

At the center of the city, Lachia stood at the spock of the skyscraper looking down at the last to memories of her holotablet. “Hope im not..” Claudia thought worryingly as she looks up while the crowd collectively call for help. Lachia dives headfirst down the building straight on to the mattress between a sea of people with motor bikes with uniforms. As she lands Claudia rides up and tries to calm her down signing Caged bird. As the crowd starts to disparce,

“ Claudia? Oh how I’ve missed you” Lachia embraces her hard as they both teared up at the foot of the mattress.

A few weeks later, Lachia and Claudia meet up in Yorkshire cafe and Claudia has a surprise for her. “How about now?” April whispered.

“Yes come in we have a little something for you too.”Claudia whispers look over at her at the corner of her eye. As April walks in Lachia lights up and all of her assistants go fanfare.

“We are reopening the Cafe and I want you to live as a normal girl and not an experiment.” The scientists say with glee and the three of them go on a tour of it. Pointing out all the items that Lachia kept to make it encapsulate there legacy.

“Thank you thank you… but I have two questions: How does Claudia know me and may I leave?”. As Aprotrova blurt out those words Lachia slienty nods and stands up to go behind the counter. She pulls out a secret stash of letters which were all sent to Claudia. As Aptrova leaves the woman open up shop and customers flocking in while they smile in pure bliss.

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