#devastating violence anyway just by how he carries himself & how he acts & talks & looks at people!!!!! its violent & visceral & its all in

[incohorace]

gahhhhh ikm thinking about . marcel ,,,,,

[pomegranates-and-blood]

In another life

My Masterlist

Pairing: Ivar/Reader, Ivar/Awful Life Choices

Summary: Ragnarök has come for all of them, the Seer’s words to Ivar prove right, and he wonders on what the world ending truly means when he has already lost it all.

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: Mentions of death, descriptions of violence and death, major character death, angst (or my best attempt at it anyways, but this ain’t a happy story), and my terrible writing.

A/N: So, the world ending, right? Charming thing to write about. I just really like the idea of reincarnation and yeah, here goes. The quote is by cynthiago, you can find it here.

In this universe, the Heathen Army conquered Northumbria and Mercia and it kept raiding for longer than in the show. In this universe, no Freydis. Björn was made King of Kattegat by undirectly, as a result of helping Lagertha defeating Ivar, who took to the Silk Roads with the Reader chracter , and found the Rus and thus, shitshow.

Not long ago he was just like this, sitting before his chariot, covered in blood, and facing an army that hesitated at the sight of him.

But this time, this time is different.

There’s no Viking army to support him, there’s no Ubbe or Hvitserk to fight beside him, there’s no…there’s no victory.

There’s no chariot at his back, only splintered wood.

He remembers the Wise One’s words, so many years ago when he told Ivar of his Fate: your chariot lies as broken as your legs, a snake has settled in your skull, your eyes betray you.

He hears laughter, or at least it sounds like it in his head. The cackles that left his lips as Christians died before him, the mocking giggle of that Rus as he forced his hand, the warm laugh you breathed by his ear as you promised to marry him.

A cruel twist of Fate, or maybe just his arrogance playing against him, but he realizes now none of it happened in the order the Seer spoke it.

“There has to be more to it than…this, don’t you think?” You ask, eyes on the horizon before you. Ivar moves closer, pressing a kiss on your bare shoulder and silently demanding your attention returns to him.

It doesn’t, and it irks him more than he should let it by now.

But, he gathers, a part of him will always want you, want your attention, your touch, your eyes meeting his. He can’t imagine a day he won’t want to have you in his arms, just like he refuses to imagine the day he can’t.

You agreed to marry him once a deal with Alfred is struck and the war can pause, he reminds himself of that with a familiar warmth spreading through his chest. You’ll be his wife, only his.

The memory of your warm laugh as you embraced him and whispered your promises to be bound to him before the Gods and your families -or what was left of them- makes him want to have you all to himself, to feel nothing but you for hours on end.

But, because you asked a question, and because even the slightest of rejections, even one born out of genuine curiosity for an answer, Ivar knows will make him lash out; he replies,

“All that’s left that isn’t ours is Wessex, love.”

You shake your head, “I mean…more than these years we have here. More than this life.”

“Valhalla?”

“Maybe,” You muse, and your eyes return to the horizon. “Maybe there’s more to life than this. Maybe…maybe we get to live again.”

“Like those Eastern men say? We…return?” Ivar questions, the beginning of a mocking smile teasing at his lips before he bites it back, aware of the seriousness in your expression.

You were always one to question everything and nothing. Why an axe curves that way, why Freyja favors cats, why Vikings must be bound to these lands.

Why the world is so big and life so short.

You and Björn have that in common, he guesses. Though you don’t have the thirst for discovery his brother does, instead you just look for…transcendence.

“Maybe we’ll meet in another life.” You seal your promise, your hope, with a kiss against his lips, and smile.

His eyes stay trained on your inviting lips even as he argues, “But you know where we go when we die.”

“Valhalla, Ragnarök, it all may mean something else,” You whisper back, “Things are not as literal as you think they are, Ivar.”

“What does Ragnarök mean to you then?”

“The end of the world,” You reply without hesitation, a slight waver in your voice, “But the world ends every day for someone different.”

It is only then he realizes your eyes are not on the horizon, but on the trails of smoke left by the burning pyres of those lost in the fight.

Ivar can still remember your warmth. You were so…alive, so warm and free and so alike fire.

He spent most of his younger years breathing life to that fire, making you clench your hands into fists and get that adorable little frown with well-placed taunts and jabs.

Gods, you even felt like fire under his fingertips when he touched you, he can still remember how your touch scalded and soothed away years of pain and anger and loss. You kissed him and it felt like the cold that made the bones in his legs ache never existed, you touched him and it felt as if he’d never again know what it was like to be alone.

You’d promise love against his skin in fervent kisses that left their mark even after so many years, and for every time he’d tell you how being loved by you felt like the best kind of wildfire, you’d tell him being loved by him felt like the soothing embrace of ice over a burn, like a relief after a lifetime with bare feet on burning coal.

And he wishes he had believed you.

For so long he thought his eyes to deceive him when it came to you, when it came to the proof of your love and your loyalty. For so long, he wasted so much time fearing you’d leave him, betray him.

Now you haunt him.

Your eyes are big and filled with tears as you look at him, but he refuses to give away his own weakness, instead gritting his teeth and looking at you with nothing but fury and poison.

“If I don’t kill you, you’ll…”

“I’ll kill you, and I’ll make it painful.” Ivar promises, voice hoarse not because you threaten his life with your sword - the sword he gifted you, back in a time when you were cruel enough to pretend to love him- at his throat, but because he knows only one of you will leave this room alive.

You shake your head, and your head drops, your back curves with a sob that still tugs at a pathetic and stupid part of his heart.

“You’ll kill us all,” You whisper, and though your voice trembles, the grip on the sword grows tighter, more certain, “You’ll be the end of our world, if I don’t stop you.”

“Then stop me.” He dares, and Gods, he wants your eyes back on his. It is the end, and he realizes what you meant when you said the world ends many times for many people.

“Don’t make me do this.” You beg, but he doesn’t think you’re talking to him. Maybe Fate, maybe the Gods, he doesn’t know.

“You’re not strong enough to kill me.” Ivar offers, more softly than he should. But it is true, and you both know it. And when your gaze -finally- returns to his, he sees it written in the tears that stream down your cheeks, in the helpless and furious shine of your eyes.

“But I am strong enough to defend my people.” You state, resolute, and though you lower your sword with a shaky breath, Ivar still feels the threat of sharp steel at his throat, but for completely different reasons.

Cold grips at his heart, fear and dread.

“You will not leave me.” He states, voice as certain as it has ever been, and yet it still tastes of desperation, still feels like the lie a madman tells himself.

“I know your ways of war, my love. If anyone, I am the only weapon our people have in fighting against you and these Rus.”

“I will not let you betray me!” He yells, but you don’t react, you only step closer.

The sword makes a clanking noise as you drop it that rattles inside his head.

Your eyes fill with tears, or maybe his do, he doesn’t know anymore.

Your smile is sad, but it still speaks of days spent with you safe in his arms, of nights when your voice by his ear was the one thing that kept him from breaking, of a life that he thought you’d be able to have.

His eyes flutter shut when your hand lifts to his face, dainty and delicate fingers tracing the newest of scars. He curses his weakness, and he forces his eyes to open and meet yours, if only because it may be the last time he can.

Your lips breathe a kiss over his.

“Only death would stop me.”

And with five words and one movement of his hand, his world ends.

Ivar watches as the warriors make way for one of their own. A leader, maybe.

He extends his arms at his sides, even if his ribs keep him from breathing, even if his arms shake, even if he doesn’t see on one eye from the blood that pours from the deep cut on his head. He taunts him, dares him to attack like he did so long ago in a city they have long since lost.

The warrior swirls a sword in his hand, and drops the shield he was holding, eyes set on Ivar. Ivar knows he won’t win.

You did always say he realized his mistakes too late.

You were the only one he ever admitted to any regret, so when the devastating realization of what the war he had brought to his homeland meant for his people and the Gods themselves dawned on him, he had no one to talk to but the wind.

It has been like that for a long time. He doesn’t remember any more how long it has been since…since.

Maybe it is better this way, that no one is there to know how many regrets he carries with him to wherever the Gods will take him. Maybe it is better they think of Sigurd’s death as the cold act of a man that can love nothing, and not the rash action that cost him something he didn’t know he held dear. Maybe it is better they think the war he brought with the Rus at his back is the ruthless planning of a man that would burn it all for a throne, and not the stupid mistake of a king with no kingdom and too much arrogance to see when he was walking into a trap.

Maybe it is better they think your death was the certain and inevitable action of a monster that can’t love anything more than his own ambitions, and not the act of desperation and fear that cost him everything.

The man in front of him steps closer, without fear, without hesitation.

He lost someone. Ivar knows that glint in his eyes. The man wants revenge.

He wouldn’t be the only one. For all the Rus and their games took from him, for all the Saxons and their God have cost him, why should he have allowed any of them to have anything to call their own? No, they deserved to suffer, to feel what it is like to have the world end with a whimper, to know what happens to those who take what is his.

He doesn’t feel any shame -even though he knows you would, you would blink big and sad eyes his way and whisper about mercy and softness and goodness, as if any of those saved you-, and he didn’t feel any then, when he ordered his men to kill the children, to take the wives and hang them for them all to see along the edges of the battlefield; when he led raids and had them burn the villages to ash; when he laughed and laughed until all that was left was raw throat and hoarse sobs as they lost it all, just like he did.

He manages to hook the curved edge of the axe behind the man’s knee, and brings him down to his level, moving quickly and attempting to ignore the pain of broken legs, of cut and bruised body, as he settles over him, letting the axe find a home in the man’s eye.

A scream, pained and guttural, and the man strikes back, trying to move him back but unable to do so.

Ivar feels the piercing and sudden sting of the blade that goes through him, like his did so long ago, to too many people that were undeserving of that fate. But it is with a smile he greets his Fate, his death.

He kills that man, and drops beside him as if their Gods, their wars, stopped mattering, and made them equal. There are no kings, no commanders, no Vikings and no Christians. Only two dead men in a rundown city, and an army that watches in silence.

With gasping and broken breaths, he looks with blind eyes up at the sky, and he knows he will die today.

Your chariot lies as broken as your legs, a snake has settled in your skull, your eyes betray you.

The Seer was right, he always was. Ragnarök came for them all, their world as they know it will end. And the end isn’t far, both for the golden age of the Vikings and for Ivar.

His eyes always betrayed him; he has learned that. Seeing shadows and betrayals where there was none, seeing tricks and lies where there was only truth. For a long time holding on to the certainty that it hadn’t been his fault, he believed it meant seeing love and loyalty in your eyes when you were only playing with him. He knows now, has known for a while, it meant seeing in the smile you pressed against his lips the life he wanted you both to build, and not the strain of a woman pulled between her love for him and her love for her people.

Ivar believed for so long the snake that settled in his skull was you, with your soft touches and your warmth and your love; he was blinded with his own hate and fury, so certain in this self-fulfilling prophecy of his that you could never love him, that it was all a trick. Gods, you were right beside him telling him not to trust Oleg, not to turn his back on his -your- people, and he didn’t listen. The snake that settled in his skull cost him all he had left, the one he had loved above anyone else. He made sure to make him suffer before he died, he would fight this endless and already-lost war for a thousand years for a chance to make Oleg pay for it again.

But, at the end, it wasn’t Oleg’s knife piercing your heart, was it?

His body shakes, and he cannot stop it, he cannot control his breathing and Gods, he is dying.

He looks up at the sky, the sky that remained the same when you died in his arms with love on your lips and regret in your eyes, the sky that remains the same now as the last of the battles for life as they know it is lost.

And Ivar thinks -hopes, he hopes like he hasn’t hoped for anything in such a long time- that maybe you were right after all. Ragnarök isn’t darkness and chaos for them all, for the world ends each day a different way for everyone. The Gods know his world ended on a cold night years ago, and has ended again every day since.

Maybe Valhalla is nothing but another chance to live again.

He murmurs your name with a ragged breath that leaves his lungs at last, and pleads that if the Gods hear him, they will let him see you again. In another life.

____

So, I hope you liked it! I would really love to hear your thoughts on this, it has been boinking around in my head for a while, the idea of reincarnation and of the Seer’s prophecy about Ivar.

Anyhow, this is thought out to be the first part of a two (or more, but still short) series, where I dip my toe on the modern/soulmate!au. It can, of course, end here, because I tried writing it to be a standalone if moderns are not your thing.

If you guys are interested, I can write the next part(s), tho it could take a lil while cause I have a lot of stuff to do writing-wise, atm.

Thank you so much, I love you all! <3

[yandearest]

May The Odds Be Ever in Your Favor (Hoseok x Reader Hunger Games AU) Chapter 2: Training Day

Summary - Living in District 4 you never thought you would have to worry about being selected for the Hunger Games. With a training centre right near the dock of the houseboat you lived and fished from, your district was known for volunteers who trained their whole lives for a shot at glory and riches. But at age 18, your name is called and no girls volunteer to take your place. Your devastation is answered when Kim Namjoon volunteers for the males shortly after. Tall, muscular, highly intelligent and charming, the years of diligent preparation have bestowed Namjoon with the expectation of being the next District 4 champion after Finnick Odair last won 3 years ago.

Fishing for a living has granted you skills with a knife but, as your mentor Finnick is quick to describe, your beautiful face may well be your best asset.

Upon arrival in the Capitol you are quickly faced with the reality that Namjoon may not even be the biggest danger inside the Arena. Especially when you capture the obsessive attention of District 2′s own volunteer, and killing machine, Jung Hoseok. Hope soon fades from ‘survival’ to ‘the mercy of a painless death’ but Hoseok certainly has other plans.

Pairing - Hoseok x (fem)Reader

Genre - thriller, angst, yandere

Word Count 7.2K

Warnings - [in later chapters] major character death, graphic depictions of violence, swearing, obsession, dubcon-smut (smut will be marked so reading is optional), gore, unrealistically beautiful oc because I’m a sucker for that shitty trope and want to live vicariously through my writing (sue me)

The following is a dark fic featuring a yandere character, violence, obsession, and coercion. By no means does writing about this in a fictional setting condone any of those behaviours, much like Stephen King writing horror doesn’t mean he approves of psychotic killers in reality. Please avoid reading if any of these warnings makes you uncomfortable.

Previous Chapter: 1

Cross posted on A03 so people can subscribe for updates/notifications

Training began the following morning at 10am, although when you woke for breakfast at 8 Namjoon was nowhere to be found in your living quarters. Finnick informed you that Namjoon had left to begin early as you elected for a bowl of cereal instead of the array of foods presented on the dining table. To anyone else the spread of pancakes, syrup, pastries, bagels, bacon, eggs, sausages and other delicacies you weren’t even familiar with would have appeared mouth watering. But in your state it all just looked like cardboard. You didn’t trust yourself to be able to keep anything down but knew you had to at least eat something so you wouldn’t pass out later.

You tried to make the most of the one on one time with Finnick, listening as he talked about the range of stations that would be inside the gym. For the most part he seemed to suggest being a shadow to the rest of the careers, “play along and act dumb so they think you trust them and are too stupid to make plans for yourself”. Your best bet of survival relied entirely on them underestimating you and you being able to correctly time when to stab them in the back (literally) before they disposed of you.

Once you finished barely eating, you dressed in the capitol provided athletic wear; a fitted black T shirt with decorative panels of silver and gold along the sides and the number 4 emblazoned on your sleeves, along with a pair of just-below-knee-length black leggings that also featured the same silver and gold design as a strip on the sides. After tightly lacing up your sneakers, and tying your hair into a high ponytail, you took the elevator from the floor of your living quarter down to the basement where the gym was located.

You had no idea what you were expecting, perhaps something similar to the warehouse gym back in 4, but the spacious room that you arrived in was definitely not it. To start with, despite being under ground beneath an apartment complex, it looked like it could easily fit at least five warehouses inside the space. There were so many stations set up you wondered how it would be humanly possible to even attempt all of them within your three-day time limit. There were more weapons here than you had ever seen in your entire life combined; what appeared to be a parkour racing course, a rope climb, fire making equipment, a knotting station, something that looked like a paint set up, a tablet with symbols (what use that was supposed to bring you had no idea) and many other things you weren’t sure of. A large digital clock was mounted in the middle of the wall at the back, near a rock climbing wall, displaying the time as 9:45AM. You tried to swallow down your nerves as you scanned across the room looking for Namjoon. You found him easily at the weight section, bench pressing a large barbell you didn’t care enough to read the weight on. It seemed like a pretty basic scare tactic of trying to intimidate the other districts with his strength, but it didn’t have any impact on you because you were already aware.

“What’s muscles over there trying to prove?” a sudden voice at your side caused you to start, whipping your head to see Krystal next to you. She didn’t quite smile but there was an amused look to her eyes and a little quirk to the corner of her mouth.

“Holy shit please don’t sneak up on me like that in the arena, I will literally die of a heart attack” you exhaled with an awkward laugh at the end.

“Wouldn’t be the most painful way to die in there,” Krystal retorted with a shrug. She looked different compared to last night, but you supposed you could say the same for everyone if you compared them in an elaborate costumer to their gym wear. Her sleek black hair had been braided into two French plaits down the back of her head and secured into twin buns on the bottom.

“Touché,” you agreed but quickly moved to shift the topic away from you dying. “To answer your question Namjoon’s probably trying to intimidate some kids into thinking he’s going to bench press them to death.”

Krystal gave an amused hum before gesturing towards her fellow district mate Yoongi who was lazily sitting against the wall nearby. Training hadn’t even started yet and he looked like he’d much rather be asleep. It was hard to think of him as the confidently spoken cape wearing tribute from yesterday when he was now slumped against a wall. If anything he looked quite adorable.

“We just got here, have you seen 2?”

“No, I just got here myself, Namjoon came early to get extra training in”

You looked around the warehouse again trying to spot a familiar head of copper hair or Athena’s cropped blonde pixie cut but couldn’t see either of them for now.

“If he wants to wear himself out before we even get into the arena that’s his business, but if he pulls a muscle or drops a barbell on his head, I’m not carrying him,” Krystal muttered as Namjoon grunted lifting his weights up a final time before slamming them back on the rack.

“Agreed.” You murmured whilst Namjoon finally spotted you were here and nodded towards you and District 1 in recognition, before walking over. Krystal and yourself both gave half hearted waves in reply, Yoongi looked like he had actually fallen asleep and didn’t do anything.

“Hey,” Namjoon greeted wiping his forehead on his shirt sleeve and taking a drink from his water bottle. As much as you had made light of his workout before the fact he was barely out of breath after lifting more than twice your body weight was pretty intimidating. “Have you seen 2 yet?” You were about to tell him what you had just told Krystal when a raspy voice spoke from behind you

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear.”

Turning around you saw Hoseok and Athena walking out from where the elevators were nearby. Athena looked almost unrecognizable in comparison to her warrior outfit and smoky make up from the night before. Her short hair was pushed back with a headband and her face much rounder. She was definitely shorter without her heeled shoes and her body type much curvier than what her costume showed. Whilst Athena, Yoongi and Krystal all looked softer without their costumes and make up Hoseok somehow still managed to radiate the same aura from the tribute parade. His form fitting T-shirt and pants (in the same design as everyone else’s) accentuate his lithe build. The tights he wore showcase the definition of his calves and thighs, along with how long his legs were. The definition of his abs could be seen through the black shirt and his biceps were on display. It appeared he didn’t need any bronzing powder or contouring make-up to sharpen his facial features; his high nose and cheekbones were still just as prominent and his jawline just as sharp. He ran a hand through his hair, which was disheveled from not being styled, but somehow still managed to look good anyway.

When you make the mistake of looking into his eyes you can see that there was definitely no make up involved in the intensity of his stare from yesterday, it’s still just as unnerving this morning. The corner of his lip pulls up into a smirk as he sees you assessing his appearance and he has no shame running his eyes over your body.

“Nice of you to show up,” Namjoon grunted, clearly not impressed with the way Hoseok was staring at you again.

“Relax we’ve still got five minutes until we’re officially mean to start” Athena said as she stops beside Namjoon. She strikes up a conversation to try and distract him like Hoseok had told her to do. Why exactly she was following his instructions she didn’t really know, but she didn’t particularly care to upset him at this point so she simply played along. Namjoon was easy enough to engage, all she did was ask him what he had been doing to work up a sweat and he immediately leapt into a description of the circuit he had been training.

Hoseok moved to take the spot between Athena and yourself.

“Morning love,” he whispered under his breath, touching your elbow gently and leaning down slightly in a way that’s only intended for you to hear. You shudder at the feeling of his warm breath ghosting against the shell of your ear and curse your body for it’s unconscious reaction.

He pulls his hand away just as quickly, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention, but wishes he could maintain some form of physical contact. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that in the arena,’ Hoseok assures himself watching as your cheeks flush that same rose color they did last night. He can’t explain why, but something so simple as your blush makes him feel ecstatic. Oh the things he would do to you to see what else makes you flush that pretty color for him again.

“Hey,” you reply, trying not to break the eye contact out of fear it could be taken as a sign of weakness. He’s tall so you need to look up, but you’re not that short either so it’s not a high angle. You’d estimate the top of your head reaching around his nose if you had to guess.

“I’ve been dying to ask this since seeing you yesterday, but what is an angel like you doing at these games?” his voice is still low, but not as quiet as before, as Namjoon continues to elaborate on his morning work out whilst Athena pretends to care.

“Uh same reason nearly everyone else here is, my name got pulled out the bowl,” you tried to casually respond with a shrug but knew the devastation would have been showing in your eyes. There were some things you just weren’t capable of hiding, and your fear at your situation and imminent death was one of those things. “And you?”

Hoseok frowns and you wonder if you somehow said something wrong but then he softly shakes his head.

“Volunteer,” he states and you swallow with a nod, unconsciously shifting backwards a little. His very appearance is lethal so it really shouldn’t be a surprise at all that he’s signed himself up to slaughter people like you, just the same way Namjoon had.

“Right, I mean you’re a career,” you shrug again looking across at Krystal, Athena, and Yoongi, wondering if they were volunteers too.

“Hey,” his hand was back on your elbow again, he didn’t give a shit if the others saw him. The feelings he was already experiencing towards you had just been intensified immeasurably by the fact you were innocent in these games. He didn’t know how to possibly describe it; all he knew was that from all the words that existed, in all of the languages in the history of mankind, there would never be a way to explain it.

He saw the tremble in your body whenever he looked at you, the shudder earlier when his breath met your ear, surely you had to feel something towards him too. There was no possible way that these emotions he was experiencing could be contained in just one body, you had to be sharing this experience. Was this a ‘soulmate’ that he had only read of before in passing regarding outdated literature? He had never been the kind to believe in fate before, as far as he had trained his whole life to believe, his only destiny was to win the games and bring honor to his family. But as you stood before him, for only the second time in his life, he just knew that you had been preordained for him.

At his age of eighteen he had experienced love in some capacity before, his parents, his sister, a few close friends and a couple of girlfriends here and there but none of those emotional connections compared to you. Surely you would feel the same way about him too, but of course as the poor reaped tribute that you were, you were too afraid to be able to focus on him right now. He was furious you were even here, how dare none of the other female trainees from 4 volunteer to save your precious existence. How cruel the forces of the universe were, for gifting him with an angel only for her to be so close yet still so out of reach. These intense emotions were far too much for one person to ever experience alone, so somehow he must be possessing part of your emotions for him, because you weren’t capable of focusing on anything more than survival right now. His poor defenseless angel, how much you needed him right now.

That must be it. A trial from beyond these games where he would have to earn not just this victory but a way to make you experience your love. There had to be a reason why you were here, it’s because it was for him to prove himself worthy of you. Oh how he wishes you could have met outside, after his victory tour when he went to 4 and he could just pick you from the crowd and make you his. But that would’ve been too simple. Yes, a love like this only came once in a lifetime, he was certain, and he would need to move heaven and earth to somehow save himself and you. But there had to be a reason that the universe had put you together right at this very moment. There had to be a way for him to save you both, and he knew he would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way.

“I promised you last night, I won’t hurt you, and I meant it,” he said, squeezing your elbow – not tight enough to hurt – as if trying to implore you to believe him. His hand felt warm and his hold was firm, shooting a tingling sensation down your spine. You tried to suppress the physical affect his touch was having on you, knowing nothing good could possibly come out of any attraction. You hated just how strongly your body was reacting to him, wondering why the hell he was trying to flirt before he would inevitably try to kill you, and why your body was liking it. But even though you were a tribute, ultimately you were still only human.

“Hoseok, you literally volunteered to kill me, it’s fine,” you began as a small voice internally added ‘well it’s not fine really but that’s besides the point’. A look you couldn’t read flashed in Hoseok’s eyes and he opened his mouth to say something, but you continued on before he could speak.

“I’ve seen enough of these games to know how the career pack works. I’ll help you guys and when it comes down to the end I’ll just try as hard as I can. There’s only one winner and look at you,” your eyes were on his torso because you couldn’t bring yourself to maintain the eye contact as you spoke. The outline of his pectorals and abs that were visible through the fabric of his shirt, compared to your barely toned figure in comparison, did all the speaking in that regard anyway. Looking down at his grip on your elbow, you could see how the fingers on his large hand nearly wrapped all the way around your arm. His own biceps would easily be twice the size of yours.

“Look at Namjoon,” you subtly gestured to your much larger district-mate, “and then look at me.” You weren’t exactly unfit, all the years of physical labor from working on your family’s boat had helped give you some muscle definition, but it was nothing compared to a trained killer.

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I’m not lyi-”

Hoseok’s objection was cut off by an announcement coming from the other side of the room. It was now 10 am and everyone had to attend a briefing in regards to how training worked. Hoseok scowled at the interruption before quickly dropping your arm to avoid suspicion from the others.

“This isn’t over,” he whispered, as you followed with the others to where a dark skinned woman stood in the center of the room. She introduced herself as Atala and ran through the basics of how the next three days would work. Her commentary about dehydration and infection being as much of a danger in the arena as the weapons was particularly interesting to, you wondered if Namjoon had spent as much time on his survival skills as he did on his fighting in the old warehouse back at 4. You doubted it. You also noticed a window on the wall that your back had been facing when you entered the room, where a room of mostly men in suits with eccentric beards and wild colored hair styles were sitting on lounges. Atala introduced them as the game makers who were here to observe, sending a shiver of disgust throughout your body.

Before being allowed to focus on the stations of your choice there was a tribute wide assessment on four of the obstacles: Monkey bars, a fire making station, a memory game (which explained what that strange tablet thing was) and a one on one physical combat match with a Capital trainer. The monkey bars were first and tributes were to perform in the order of their district numbers. You were mildly surprised by how Yoongi went from appearing lethargic to swinging across the bars with ease, but as a career it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Krystal and Athena both had no trouble and Hoseok flew across the rungs twice as fast as the others. You swallowed a nervous lump in your throat when your turn came, feeling the pressure of being in a career district and having all eyes focused on you. Upper body strength had never been your strong point, and you knew the furthest you would probably be able to get was around the half way mark. The girl from 3 had struggled and fallen off nearly immediately but you still didn’t want to fail, especially not with Namjoon breathing down your neck behind you. Back at home you had needed to climb around the boat before in order to make repairs, which suddenly gave you an idea.

Jumping up to reach the bar, you used the momentum to swing your legs through and up onto the next bar in front. Hooking your ankles under you pulled your legs through the gap until you were hanging by your knees. With your weight now more evenly distributed you were able to pull yourself up and awkwardly climb over so you were then on top of the bars. From there you tried not to look down at the long fall onto the thin mat below and crawled your way to the other end before lowering yourself back down when you reached the other side.

“Unconventional, but effective” the person who was responsible for measuring the times and taking notes muttered as they scribbled down something on their clipboard.

“Not bad, spaghetti arms” Athena nodded her approval, her own arm muscles were probably close to the same size as Yoongi’s.

“Gotta know your own strengths and weaknesses,” you smiled back with a shrug. Your time was much slower than the others – Namjoon racing across the other side in a speed to rival Hoseok, right after you were done – but it was still better than not even being able to complete the course at all.

The other assessments were pretty much non eventful with predictable results. You performed decently in comparison to other reaped tributes but were definitely lacking compared to the rest of the careers. You could also detect a bit of rivalry beginning to brew between Namjoon and Hoseok as they tried to one up the other. Hoseok was the faster of the two to light a fire but Namjoon was quicker in being able to solve the memory puzzle. Both of them landed ‘lethal blow’ scores against the capital trainer in their sparring match (you had managed to land a simulated hit of the heel of your hand to the capital trainer’s nose which had counted as an ‘incapacitated blow’ – not a bad score).

With the mandatory grading over you were then given individual feedback along with suggestions on recommended training stations before breaking for lunch. After all the exercise you couldn’t help but feel much hungrier than you had before during breakfast, and helped yourself to a sandwich, along with an apple and a bottle of water from the provided catering. The feedback had been handed out on a card, in order of the district number, before you were dismissed for lunch, and you didn’t pay attention to where 1 and 2 had walked off to. Wanting to be alone anyway you walked around a corridor into an empty hallway and took a seat on the floor against the wall. Leaning back, you raised your knees and rested your elbows on your legs as you scanned across your feedback card. You noted there weren’t any grades or scores, but merely recordings of the time it took for you to complete the activity and a short written assessment next to each. At the bottom were the suggestions for which areas to focus on over the remaining days.

Your evaluation had described you as ‘a dark horse’. The Capital had picked up on the career’s alliance and noted that you were the physically weakest of the six members, however they gave you commendation for unconventional problem solving during the monkey bars. The primary suggestion was focusing on weapons based training in order to stand a chance of survival when the time came for the careers to turn against one another. There was also a suggestion to train more on agility based exercises that played to your existing skills, rather that bothering with weights or physical strength stations that would be impossible to build in such a short time.

“How did you go?”

The sudden voice and presence at your side, whilst you were intently focused on reading your card, caused you to jump and nearly swallow your last mouthful of sandwich down the wrong way. You managed to just catch it with an awkward choke, reaching for your bottle of water to swallow it down properly. To your absolute humiliation, you looked up to see Hoseok standing above you with an amused look on his face.

“Uh, fine I guess,” you muttered, fiddling with the card in your hand as he sat down beside you. “You?”

“As expected,” was all he replied with. You nodded awkwardly. You had seen him perform before you in all of the tasks and sail through each of them with ease. ‘As expected,’ meant nothing less than perfection for him. You couldn’t help but wonder if your death was going to be by his hand, and if that would just be ‘as expected’ for him as well.

“Let me see your card.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but the words were caught in your throat (much like your previous mouthful of sandwich) as Hoseok easily pinched your card out from your fingertips and passed you his along the carpet in return. Frowning, you picked his up, to at least pretend it was a mutual exchange.

“Did you swap cards with the others?” you asked, wondering why he was interested in your report. You skim read across his, finding commentary about Hoseok’s speed, skill and lethality, along with a note stating him as a lead contender, nothing that you weren’t already aware of.

“Nope,” Hoseok dismissed, lips pursed as he read your card much slower.

You frowned at this, passing his card across the floor and reaching over to try and grab yours back, only for Hoseok to lazily lean to the side away from you, with a hint of an amused smile. You let an annoyed huff of air out.

“So why are you reading mine then?”

At this Hoseok paused to raise an eyebrow and make eye contact with you over the top of your card in his hands.

“Because I don’t care about the others.”

He found the stunned look of confusion on your face to be absolutely adorable.

“But…” you paused, not even knowing what to say. Shouldn’t he at least care for his own district mate? Granted you didn’t care much for Namjoon but you were at least somewhat going along with him for the sake of presenting a cohesive alliance. And if he didn’t care about the alliance then what was he doing here with you? The implication of his statement was quite clear that he somehow cared about you, so what had you possibly done to warrant his apparent attention.

“Why?” was all you could eventually ask.

He lowered your card to the floor and slid it back towards you, leaning across with it. You predictably reached to pick your card back up and he instantly took the opportunity to put his hand over yours. You flinched and attempted to pull back, but his grip only tightened, forcing your hand to remain below his much larger one.

Your pulse began to rapidly accelerate. You knew he couldn’t harm you, not until you were in the arena. But to be alone and so easily caught and toyed with, by someone much more powerful than you, was frightening. You looked up from his hand to his handsome face, trying not to tremble as Hoseok stared back with a lazy smirk in place. The thumb on his hand over yours was softly stroking the skin around your wrist and you could swear your heart was pounding so fast he had to be able to feel your erratic pulse.

“Because I need you to be with me at the end.” His husky voice was a low murmur, as he leaned in closer again. Your hand remained clasped tightly below his 

“So you can have an easy kill, because I’m weaker than the others?” you frown, knowing your assessment would have told him as much. But Hoseok was quick with a denial.

“No.”

“Then why?” You pushed, growing frustrated with his indirect answers and your hand still trapped in his. Hoseok only tilted his head to the side and released a sigh, looking highly amused.

“Don’t you trust me? You know I’ve promised not to hurt you darling,” his low voice grew quieter still, barely above a whisper, causing you to lean in so you could hear him better.

“Darling?” You balked at the endearment. Whatever answer you could possibly imagine coming out of Hoseok, it definitely wasn’t that. “Hoseok I don’t know what kind of game your playi-”

“You’re not a game to me.” He cut you off before you could even finish your sentence. Undeterred you rushed to speak again.

“But we’re literally in The Hunger Games and one of us is going to have to kill the other. And you and I both know how much easier it would be for you to kill me, than the other way around.”

“Oh so you find the thought of killing me unbearable?”

He quirked his eyebrow with a smirk and again you tried to yank your hand back in annoyance, but he only moved his grip further up to clasp tightly around your wrist. His long fingers easily wrapped all the way around, as he then pulled your arm back towards him, causing your upper body to lean further forward. Unconsciously you let out a breathless whimper in shock, your faces now so close you could feel his breath fanning across the side of your cheek.

“I… I don’t even know how I can kill anybody. You’re the volunteer here and clearly the better fighter between us so you would easily kill me in a final two,” you whispered, trying to turn your head away from his, only for the side of your face to press against the wall.

“Oh but darling you’re wrong, to kill you would be to kill myself.”

The hand that wasn’t pinning your wrist to the ground moved to cradle the side of your face, his fingers threading into your hair and thumb running along the top of your cheekbone.

“Hoseok, stop.” You raised your free hand to push against his chest, but he was solid as a rock and didn’t even budge. Instead he only curled his torso in towards you, pinning you in place against his body and the wall. You whimpered in fear, eyes scanning the hallway trying to find a way out, only for Hoseok to press his nose against your temple and lips to the shell of your ear.

“You may not even know it yourself but I can feel it in your pulse how your heart calls for me. Every beat I feel beneath my fingertip sings to my own, that already belongs to you. If you were to die, my heart would have no need to beat without the one it beats for.”

His deep voice was a seductive purr as his breath against your ear sent a shiver throughout your entire body. His hold on your face forced you to look back into his eyes once more, which held the same intense passion you had seen in them last night.

“How c-can you even say something like that, it hasn’t even been a day s-since we met?” you choked as you felt tears beginning to sting in your eyes.

“Because I felt it the second I laid my eyes on you, and seeing you again this morning only made me feel a hundred times stronger.

“Please stop, I’m going to be dead in a week so can you please just not turn my life into some sick joke,” it was all you could do to beg as the first tear spilled from the corner of your eye, his thumb below easily wiping it away.

“I’m. Not. Joking,” he hissed, each word punctuated by his fingers burying into your hair and clenching tightly at the roots, causing you to gasp as more tears spilled out.

“You’re hurting me,” you whimpered, the hand on his chest reaching up to try and pull at his hand that was holding onto a fist full of your hair. His grip instantly released, his hand moving to grab onto yours and thread his fingers in between your own, before squeezing tightly.

“Not as much as you hurt me whenever you try to deny me,” he retorted, pulling your hand to his lips to place a kiss upon the back.

“What do I possibly gain from a game perspective to choose you as my final partner? You said it yourself that you’re the weakest so that means I’ll need to protect you from the other four when the alliance turns. And believe me princess, I will. I’ll slaughter every one of them in cold blood. I’ll snap the neck of anyone who so much as harms a single hair upon your head. I’m going to kill them all for you baby, and I’ll make you watch so you can see just far how far I’ll go for you.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” you whispered brokenly, tears spilling freely from your eyes now.

“Because,” Hoseok dropped your hand to grab ahold of your chin as his lips moved in closer. When he spoke you could feel them brushing against yours “you’re mine.”

But before Hoseok could firmly press his lips to yours in the kiss he longed for, a sudden shout broke the atmosphere he had worked so hard to build.

“YN!”

You never thought you’d be relieved to hear the sound of Namjoon’s angry voice barking in your direction, but his appearance around the corner and into the hallway caused you to exhale a long breath you didn’t even know you were holding.

“What are you both doing here?” Namjoon growled, angrily striding towards you as Yoongi, Krystal, and Athena followed behind him.

Hoseok, who had his back turned to their direction, scowled in anger at the disruption, before quickly masking his face to a neutral expression. The sudden change in demeanour causing you to flinch.

“I found this one here having a bit of a breakdown over her report card,” Hoseok said, lazily getting to his feet and shooting you a wink as your jaw dropped in shock at his smooth and blatant lie.

“No! I- I…” You immediately went to protest only for the words to be caught in your throat. It would just be Hoseok’s word against your own. And who would believe you? His words were so insane you could barely even believe what he had just been saying.

“It’s ok YN,” he purred, as the others walked over towards you. You angrily got to your feet wiping your eyes, not wanting to be a crying mess on the floor in front of the whole group. “I was just telling her there’s no need to worry. First day freak outs can happen to the best of us.”

“I’m fine,” you scowled, crossing your arms and glaring at the floor and seeing the damned report card laying on the carpet.

“I just wanted some time to myself and if anything having someone around only made it worse” you bit back.

“Very well then,” Hoseok smirked raising his arms in a mock surrender gesture and waving his hands theatrically. “Excuse me for trying to be a good teammate.”

“I didn-” before you could rip into him, you were interrupted by another.

“Can you all give me one minute to talk to my district partner,” Namjoon grunted at the others. He didn’t bother waiting for an answer, grabbing a hold of the top of your arm and dragging you further back up the hallway. You didn’t know what was worse between him bossing you around since the train ride or Hoseok’s crazy confession, but what you did know was that if anyone else tried to manhandle you again you were going to take your chances on your own in the arena. It had only been one day and you were rapidly growing sick of this alliance. You’d rather die with dignity on your own than be dragged around like a dog’s chew toy.

“Let me go,” you hissed, when you were far away enough not to be overheard, grabbing his hand and ripping it off your arm. Namjoon just rolled his eyes before staring down at you from his tall height.

“What the fuck was that about?” he asked.

For a moment you breathed a sigh of relief. Trying to convince Athena or District 1 about Hoseok losing his mind would be one thing, but Namjoon was your own team mate. You vaguely knew each other from growing up in the same town. Maybe he might actually believe you. Glancing back to the others you saw them chatting amongst themselves, Krystal was now holding your report card and Yoongi gave a dismissive shrug to something Athena had just said. As if sensing your gaze, Hoseok glanced across to make eye contact. The corner of his lip curled up and he cocked his eyebrow smugly as if to say ‘go on and tell him, see if he believes you’. You scowled at him before turning back to Namjoon and grabbing a hold of his arm (missing the way Hoseok’s nose twitched in annoyance at you initiating the physical contact with another man).

“Namjoon, please, you have to believe me,” you began, instantly lowering your voice as you squeezed his bicep imploringly – your hand didn’t even wrap halfway around the much stronger boy’s arm.

“What happened?” he asked bluntly, eyebrows narrowing into a frown.

So you told him. Speaking as quietly as possible and trying to rush through the details as fast as you could, you hurriedly told him about how Hoseok had found you alone and stolen your card, before pinning you against the wall, claiming you were his, and threatening to kill all the others. You finished by telling him how it was only through the rest of the group showing up when they did, that had stopped Hoseok from kissing you.

“It was humiliating,” you hissed out, trying to choke down the lump in your throat that had built up as you were recalling what happened.

“I don’t want to be in the career pack anymore, I can’t do it, not with him.”

You looked up at Namjoon, begging him with your eyes to believe what you had just said.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

You dropped his arm and visibly recoiled as if his words had physically hit you. As far as you were concerned he may as well have.

“Some pretty boy spouts some Romeo and Juliet bullshit so you want to leave the best chance either of us have for surviving this thing? How can you actually be that stupid?!”

You were fuming. How dare he just dismiss what had happened to you like that. You had taken a leap of faith, hoping that as your own team mate he would believe you, and instead he had virtually spat in your face as a response.

“I’m not stupid Namjoon!” You sneered. “The one year my name gets called out is the one year no girls volunteer because they knew that you were going to. If the girls who have spent their whole lives training know they can’t beat you, how the fuck do you think I feel right now? Maybe it’s easier for you because you’ve actually got a chance in these games, but I’m going to die. And none of this is my choice, you actually chose to be here! You were the one who said on the train that you wanted us to join the career pack, so I did! And now I’m the one being harassed, not you! Stop treating me like a child because I’m not just a pawn you can tell what to do until you decide to kill me.”

“If you don’t want to be treated like a child then stop acting like a pathetic fool over the first boy to give you some attention. Do you think your pretty little face is somehow special enough for Hoseok to actually fall in love with at first sight?”

“Of course not!”

“You should be thanking me for pulling your head back in from whatever deluded little fantasy he’s trying to spin. Are you that stupid you can’t tell he’s just trying to divide us so you want to work with him instead of me by the time we get to the end game? At the very least you and I know each other and I guarantee you, in that arena it’s better the devil you know”

You wanted to point out how you were the one to tell him about Hoseok, and clearly were trying to work with Namjoon instead, only for him to berate you, but logic was out the window by this stage.

“Is it? Cause it sounds to me like you’re just keeping me around until you decide to break my neck when it’s convenient for you,” you snapped instead.

“That’s how alliances work sweetheart. You watch my back in the pack to make sure 1 or 2 don’t just slit my throat in my sleep. I drag your ungrateful ass around and make sure you aren’t taken out by some amateur who wouldn’t know the difference between a liver and an intestine. Is that how you want to die? Bleeding out for hours after being stabbed by an untrained idiot and spending your final moments in agony? Would you rather die by someone beating your head in with a rock because that’s the only weapon they know how to use? Let’s see how beautiful you are with your skull smashed in huh. Or do you want to go from starvation or hypothermia because you’re lost and all alone?”

You were absolutely stunned. He was expecting you to just follow him around the arena like a little puppy, where the only incentive for doing so would be his definition of a merciful death? Before you could tell him where he could shove his alliance, your argument was cut off by the approaching voice of Athena.

“I don’t know what kind of little lover’s quarrel you two have got going on here” you could swear you heard a warning growl from Hoseok “but get your shit together. We can’t have infighting in the alliance, especially before we even get into the arena. You,” a point at Namjoon, “stop treating her like shit. And you,” a point at you, “Stop looking like you’re about to cry. You’re a career for fuck sake, a cold blooded killer. Even though you’re obviously not, you at least need to look like one to scare off the other tributes otherwise you’re going to be the lowest hanging fruit they try and pick off first.”

You stared blankly back as Athena kept talking. The other tributes. You had been so preoccupied thinking about Hoseok and Namjoon’s cruelty, you hadn’t even considered your position without them. By now you were established as a career in the eyes of 18 other tributes, regardless of if you wanted to be one or not. From the past years of the games you knew that the other districts would take any opportunity they could to eliminate a career that somehow wound up on their own.

You were completely and utterly ruined no matter what direction you chose to go.

“Hoseok, Namjoon, you two are coming with me to the obstacle course run for a few hours. We need to do some teamwork after you two had your little dick measuring contest before in the graded courses. You two need to do something to make it look like you’re unified because right now because that’s something other tributes can exploit. Krystal, YN, and Yoongi will go to the rope tying station so YN can help us with knots and show off that she’s actually needed in our alliance to the others”

Namjoon nodded curtly whilst Hoseok clearly looked more annoyed at the idea of being split from you and having to work with the Namjoon. However, he quickly covered his expression and nodded as well. Athena gave each of them a shove on the shoulder to get them moving and they walked off out the hallway and back into the training compound.

You took a deep breath, grateful to have a break from either of their presence before looking between Yoongi and Krystal. They didn’t seem particularly interested in you, their sharp eyes and beautiful features were relaxed into a neutral expression that only suggested boredom. That was perfectly fine with you. As a fisherman’s daughter you were indeed well versed in knots and grateful for the reprise which would allow you to spend some time on something you were actually confident with.

“Alright, show me where the knotting station is”

Note: This story was originally a one shot in my mind and has now reached a planned 6 chapters. Aha. I suck.

Ideally I wanted the 'before the games' section to just be one chapter, but found it was starting to get too long after this reached over 7000 words and I still have the other training days, final assessment/grade out of 12 and the interviews with Caesar to cover (those will be in the next chapter, with the games starting in the update after)

The concept of the assessment came from the 1st movie where Atala (the woman who does that ‘in 2 weeks most of you will be dead’ speech in the training centre) mentions a mandatory assessment, so I just worked with an idea from that.

This chapter hopefully showcases more of Hoseok's Yandere nature along with establishing just how much or a horrible character Namjoon is (I swear I'll do a better fic of Namjoon as the lead soon).

[doorsclosingslowly]

Hell is just a beat away (5/9)

Despite early promise, young Maul has turned out to be a disappointment, willfully delaying his training with secret attempts to make himself friends from scrap metal. He must be properly motivated, and so Darth Sidious sends him to a slave market on an impossible mission. It backfires. Star Wars: Darth Maul (2017) comic AU | 8k | warning for limb loss, discussion of sexual assault of a teenager, body horror (implanted bombs)

If the kids are united

Ta-tap tap tap, tap ta-tap tap. He takes small steps by necessity—the buyer holds his hand and creates a pace he must match—small steps, but many of them, and quick ones, taking him ever further away from the palace of Xev Xrexus. It is little cause for happiness. He has been on this path before, twice, though not back then in the company of a twi’lek child, so young that if she was a boy even the Sisters would have left her to grow for a few more years. There is no point in looking at her, in growing attached—but her presence nevertheless settles his determination, step after step after step.

A street is crossed, and there is a bright sudden pain down there and—he does not yearn for his home. There is no point. But he knows he had thick calluses then, would walk through nettles and thorny underbrush barefoot as he is now and then he would stomp for the joy of it, and laugh. There is no point in missing that boy who lived then, unsoftened by captivity and so naïve that the worst he could imagine was the siring of his child.

That boy was filed down to nothing along with his calluses and his nails and his horns. That boy died.

Soon, so will he.

It is useless to mourn. Nothing is real in the world anymore, nothing but violation, and violence.

The new Master is short, and that will make it easier. They gave their name, he dimly remembers, but he can’t recall it and it will not matter soon. Even here there are maggots, and maggots don’t care for names. The slaver’s arm is bent upwards to keep hold of one of Savage’s fingers, and the twi’lek’s chain is tied to what looks like a necktie misused as a belt. She’s walking so close behind that she bumps into the slaver with every other step, which should further diminish their range of motion, and most crucially—the slaver stowed the bombs’ remote control device inside their satchel. They will not reach it in time.

Tap ta-tap ta-tap. Now all that is missing is a spot that is dark and unobserved. Something ebbs and bobs deep inside him, but it’s futile now to wonder whether it’s regret or relief or just more fear. If he does not act soon, he’ll arrive at a ship or a palace, and his one chance will be spent.

There. Alleyway. A few more steps, and—

I’m sorry, he thinks, I know I promised to try to come home and then he shakes his thumb loose of the Master’s hand and grabs their arm tight and he pulls them up and—

He slams them against the wall.

Again.

Again.

The necktie belt’s come loose, he notices in his peripheral awareness, and the twi’lek’s picking it up and backing away. The Master in his hand squirms. Shudders. Whimpers, in a voice that sounds higher than what Savage thought he heard in the palace but Savage wasn’t all there back then, not truly, hasn’t for a very long time been as present as he is now. The false roles and expectations have dropped away from him like dried mud. (He was bred to be a warrior, not a plaything. When his Mate looked at him She should have judged his lethality and not his body, his symmetry, his submission; She should have chosen a brutal fighter to fuck and carry the line of the night. He wouldn’t have liked it, either, but at least—he would have understood. This new Master looked and saw a broken toy and so they thought nothing of stowing away the remote that gives them power. They’re holding Savage by the hand, when he is an abducted son of Wrath.)

He roars in wild triumph and swings the Master over his head, one circle, another, for more devastating impact and on the second turn something dark swirls out against the wall, something that must have covered the face, because he gets a glimpse of—

He sees—

He—

He catches them in his other arm and—

He looks but his eyes don’t want to see. He blinks and blinks, but the face doesn’t change. It still looks the dreams he tried to forbid himself. It looks like his…

It’s the face of a brother.

Not a Master. This is a nightbrother, eyes shuttered and a face as red and powerful as Savage’s ever seen. A face as small as—no, he used to raise babies, it’s not that small, but the nightbrother is a young boy and so Savage cradles him in his arms, whispering, “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.”

He wants to know his face, his horn pattern, wants to know whose brother this is, who sent him to Savage’s rescue, who sent a childto the hell of Nar Shaddaa—he desperately wants to see, but he almost killed this boy, almost killed this young nightbrother when he’s been so alone and bereft of purpose for years and now he almost killed—he wants to look, but his arms cradle the child and his mouth keeps repeating, “I didn’t want to hurt you, I’m sorry,” and whatever he may want to do his hands cannot let go. Savage’s body has acted against his wishes every day of every week of every month of the past few years, but this is the first time it feels sweet. He won’t let go. He is curious and shameful and shaking from adrenaline-drop, but his arms want to hold this child forever.

They are still on Nar Shaddaa, still in the slavers’ den, and any passing stranger could—but Savage waited until a dark alley to attack, and there’s no-one walking by. No threat, for a moment.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he mumbles, and his fingers slink over the back of the boy’s head—bruised, but no broken bone—and feel the breath that comes from his mouth and then he holds on tight, tight, but not so tight it’ll trigger any wound that Savage—oh Mother—that Savage just gave this miraculous small nightbrother child.

⁂

The shift was rapid, dizzying, but even in this Master has taught Maul well: the quick turn to violence and its even quicker end would certainly have terrified Maul if it was not exactly like the base pattern of his training. As it is, and with the living force bathing him in the zabrak’s intentions be they grim determination or, for minutes now, a soft and anguished terror soaked through with a strange emotion he cannot parse, but it eddies and bobs with the hand cradling Maul’s head and it doesn’t feel lethal, not even hostile…

He would have been scared, disoriented, he decides, if he was not Sith—but he is and so the sudden attack just made the world make sense.

Sense. His head aches and so does his arm but the world makes sense again, it makes sense, like it didn’t when he was leaving the palace holding onto a slave he didn’t know how to talk to, a zabrak slave that Maul desperately wants to like him—and the zabrak’s doomed, doomed, or Maul is, once they get to Master, but still he can’t help wanting to be liked—it was strange, and he didn’t know what to do except walk and get to the ship and then they would—and then they will get to Master and someone will die. That was all he understood. He didn’t want to think about it, but when he tried to focus on something else, focus on his desperate dream, he still had no idea how he could make the liking happen. Any of the small in-between interactions that people apparently have. None of the hololessons covered this scenario, and Maul didn’t have time to dream and re-dream about it until it felt perfect… He knew he’d dipped his toe in a world that didn’t make sense, and there was no guide as to what to do, before the violence.

And now he understands again. The world is back on its rails.

The darkside zabrak tested him.

There needs to be a hierarchy, obviously, and before it wasn’t clear where the zabrak stood compared to Maul, so they couldn’t really interact. That was the problem with Maul’s ideas of how to make them friends. They didn’t have roles without the hierarchy. And without the roles, nothing makes sense. Nobody knows what to do.

Except the clever yellow zabrak. He knew that the only thing they could do was find the hierarchy, and Maul’s grateful for his quick thinking, so grateful that he almost isn’t angry that he lost (even though he is Darth Maul! He was supposed to beat everybody!) and anyway, the zabrak, Savage, he decided that Maul should survive even though he’s weaker, he obviously has a purpose for Maul, and even if the purpose conflicts with Master’s and Maul will have to turn against him very soon—it feels nice, good, that Savage let Maul live. That he has a purpose for Maul. It’s so close—no, Maul decides, it’s exactly what he wanted. What else is liking but seeing someone’s purpose, anyway? (The zabrak is a darksider. He’s strong. He likes what matters. Only Maul likes things that are useless, like mangy old brachno-jags and droids made from trash, and soon he will learn to become better. Master will teach him. He’s been trying, has been punishing Maul for these useless likes, for so long now. One day it’ll stick.)

The zabrak beat Maul, and he let him live. He’s running his fingers—his bare warm-skin fingers—over the back of Maul’s head with more care than Maul would need soldering a tiny circuit, and when Maul turns his head slightly he can rest his cheek against a naked shoulder. It’s—it’s more contact with another living being than he can ever remember having. The few animals that found their way into the Mustafar complex would always scramble away from him, unless they were brought by Master and they hurt and he had to kill them. A warm pulsing neck under his fingers, hot blood—it felt nothing like this. This is gentle, luxurious, softer by a thousandfold than any robe Maul has ever touched. He almost can’t feel the leftover throbbing in his skull over the revelation that is touching, skin-to-skin, another being. A darkside zabrak, just like him.

“Sorry,” the zabrak keeps muttering. “Sorry, brother,” and Maul doesn’t know what he’s sorry for. Letting him live? It would have been honorable to die in battle, but selfishly, Maul is glad he didn’t die before he found out what resting his head against someone’s shoulder feels like. Sorry for holding Maul? He should have been. As a Sith Lord, Maul is above these animal comforts. But also—Savage would stop petting him, if he was sorry for that, and Maul is shamefully grateful that this guess, too, is wrong. It will have to end, and soon, and forever—when they get to Master either the zabrak will die or Maul—but he will carry this moment in his hearts as long as he lives.

Master will take the padawan and he will kill either Savage or Maul—wait—The padawan! Maul pushes his way out of Savage’s arms and cranes his neck. The padawan is gone. She’s—

“Brother, what is—do you sense danger?” Savage asks, but Maul has no time to think about him now.

The padawan’s gone.

Master will kill him.

Master was going to kill Maul anyway, when he found out that Maul disobeyed and used the force and brought back another zabrak, dark and much stronger than Maul, but now that Maul completely messed up the mission, Master’s going to extra kill him. Going off-script and buying the zabrak was bad enough. Maul can’t lose the padawan, the whole reason for his presence on Nar Shaddaa. He can’t botch the mission. Master is going to kill him, and he’s going to let Maul live by a thread and throw him in bacta just to kill him again. And again. And again.

And still, it’ll be better than what he deserves, because Maul just failed the ancient plans of the Sith.

He failed Master Sidious and he failed Darth Bane and he failed every single other Sith in the long lineage that led to Maul, stupid Maul who let the Jedi escape just because he thought the mission was going well and he was lonely. He failed—

But the Jedi can’t have gone far! Maybe he can salvage this!

“Brother, wait! Don’t leave—” Savage shouts when Maul starts running down the alleyway in the direction away from the slaver palace, but whatever problem he has, if he can’t stop Maul he will have to live with it. This padawan is important for the grand plans of the Sith. Maul will find her, come what may. He will not fail Lord Sidious again.

⁂

Eldra’s almost finished wedging herself into an alcove hidden three meters above the ground in the cul-de-sac of massive windowless skyscrapers—hiding’s the only thing left, there’s no way out—and that’s when the pain comes.

It’s a piercing, shrieking sort of pain; the kind of pain she last felt when her Master sagged atop her, riddled with holes and gurgling her last unkept promises through bloodied lips. It’s mixed with dread, with the certainty of failing the one you wanted to protect. It makes her sob and tremble. It wants to drown her, at once the maelstrom and the tendrils of the beast old beyond time that hides inside. It’s dark. It’s heady power. It’s madness. It’s the pain of an unshielding force user.

It’s the zabrak.

Shit. The zabrak. He provided the distraction that let Eldra get away. He gave his life for hers. Eldra could have lived with that, with knowing he died so she could run. She thought she could, anyway. A good Jedi would have. He was just a slave, a force-sensitive found too late for anyone’s good, a desperately angry and scared young man. Perched on the very edge of the dark side, at best. Fallen, maybe. Too late. She is a Jedi, and she knows that sometimes, a life must be given for the greater good. If someone had to die, maybe it was for the best that it was his life: he’s just a darksider. She has been raised to give her own life, and the zabrak’s a civilian—a slave, a slave just like she is now—but this is the way the world works.

Eldra had to survive, because she must tell the council of the return of the Sith. That’s what matters. A single life is nothing to that, even if the zabrak’s death is agony. The good of the many comes first.

There is no death, there is the force, Eldra mumbles. There is no death. I accepted that he would die, when I ran away instead of helping him take down the Sith. I accepted his death. I must stay calm.

But this isn’t death. This is torture.

What the fuck is the Sith doing to him?

Maybe it will be over soon.

Maybe. Please. Don’t let him suffer too long. Eldra stays sardined in her hideaway, concentrating on not whimpering too loudly and on releasing the secondhand pain into the force, because what else is there to do? She can’t escape. She can’t save him. No-one can. It’s a decade too late for that.

There’s no way out of this dead end, no decent footholds for climbing and even if she managed—there’s no way she won’t get tired, half-way up these hundreds-of-meters tall buildings. Thousands of meters. She can’t guess well right now. She doesn’t remember the last time she ate, though the slavers must have given something to her, and her arms still ache from a day of immobility. Spiritually, she’s weak, too, and even reaching into the force to unlock the damn manacles had almost destroyed her. Had almost made her Fall.

Eldra is terrified. She can’t pretend not to be, can’t meditate it away. She’s scared. She’s angry, at Woobudg and at her Master and at the Jedi and more than anything, at herself. She’s an escaped slave, perched on the brink of the eternal dark—she is no better than the zabrak, and it freezes her heart—and her Master is dead. She can’t use the force. She can’t be a Jedi. There’s no way in fucking hell she can be calm enough for that.

There’s no way out.

The only way is back.

The only way is… how long until the Sith walks into the mouth of her cul-de-sac? How long until he’s finished torturing the zabrak? How long until he comes looking for her?

‘cause that’s the only thing that’ll happen. He’ll get bored eventually, and then he will find Eldra. There’s no way out for her. She’s dead.

She could… okay, she could count on staying hidden, and probably starve to death in her alcove, or be found anyway. There’s no way out of this cul-de-sac, and if he’s watched her run into it, it’s game over. The way her luck’s gone, for the past days, Eldra should definitely be expecting that he saw her. Which… if she goes back out, she might run into his open arms. Or he might be gone, after all.

Or she could help the zabrak. He’s still alive: she can feel his pain.

She shouldn’t, though. The Sith have returned. That’s what matters. Eldra must stay alive and return and bear witness.

⁂

Master will kill me. Master will kill me. There’s no space for anything but this truth, as Maul runs through mazes of skyscrapers in search for the padawan he almost successfully brought back to enact the nebulous ancient plans of the Sith, head pounding and the stuffed satchel bouncing against his back. No space for anything, not even the firestorm of pain that suddenly filled every square meter of asphalt. No time to think about what it means. Whose it is. Master will kill me. I lost her.

(I lost her just because I didn’t want to be alone.)

Master will kill me.

⁂

The zabrak’s only a few meters off the mouth of Eldra’s dead end. Maybe that’s why the echoes of his agony are so strong. The alternative, a juggernaut strength in the force she’s never before seen, only makes his fate more tragic. More wasteful. He could have been found as a baby. He could have become a Jedi. And now he’s lying there, and he is alone, in the very eye of his pain storm.

Alone in a puddle of blood.

Is he dead?

No, he can’t be, Eldra can still feel how much he’s suffering, but he’s—she staggers towards him and stumbles, tumbles down and catches herself with weak and shuddering arms. He’s—she looks and what she fell over was a foot, a sentient being’s actual severed limb, with charred raggedy bone and meat where a shin should be but the rest is intact, as intact as an amputated foot can ever appear, and the yellow and black skin is stark against the grimy floor. It’s the zabrak slave’s foot. She stumbled over his actual real torn-off foot, a few meters from where he’s lying, and she’s covered now in dry and tacky and congealing blood. It’s all over her once-cream padawan robes, and the zabrak’s missing a foot.

An entire foot, just gone. The zabrak’s curled up in agony and his hands are clutching the stump of his left shin.

He looks up, though, when Eldra climbs to her feet. Not unconscious, then, though that would be kinder, and Eldra must find a way to contact the Council about the re-emergence of the Sith, she must remember the bigger picture, but surely, surely, if it’s her duty to warn the galaxy then it’s also her duty to ease the pain of this one person who helped her, as much as she can. She was reprimanded for ignoring the unifying force so often in her education, but surely it would be just as wrong to walk on by. Not even Master Fyaar would have told her to walk on by. She could have, but she’s dead now,Eldra remembers grimly, she died, and I can’t just let her be my conscience anymore.

“Help me,” the zabrak begs.

It’s enough to chase off her absent teachers. Who could leave him to this desperation? Who could ignore this all-consuming tornado of pain?

“I’m not a healer,” Eldra warns, kneeling down next to him. “They steered me away from that, but I can do enough to stop the bleeding, I think.”

The zabrak coughs. No, he laughs, that was meant to be contemptuous painful laughter, and he says, “Not that. I won’t bleed out.”

“There’s an artery in your leg—"

“It was just the first warning. There’s coagulant released after it explodes. I have seen it before. This bomb is not supposed to kill.”

“Bomb?!” But she heard that inside that loathsome palace, she remembers, though she was too terrified to pay close attention—Master Fyaar would have been disappointed again—but the zabrak’s slaver said something about bombs, and a remote, and oh kriff is that what happened?! A slave control bomb blew off his foot? Oh force, they discussed planting bombs inside me, too, Eldra remembers. Default procedure, they said. But they thought it was too expensive for a standard blue twi’lek, and she’d been angry back then but—oh force, oh mercy, she’s so glad she’s not worth much.

“He ran away so quickly I lost him, and then the radius—” he swallows. “It does not matter. I need to find my brother, and I can’t walk. He’s just a child. Please. I need your help.”

A child. A child in danger, and this poor man in pain, in so much pain the very air aches and shivers, and yet—Eldra is a Jedi, and her duty is to the whole galaxy. She must warn the Jedi Council. She doesn’t have time for this. She mumbles, “I’m sorry, but I have to—”

Quick as a viper, the zabrak pushes her down and crawls on top of her. He drives his forearm into her neck and pushes her head down, not with so much force it hurts but a definite threat, a definite herald of… of something, with his muscular naked body pressing against her clothes. Something. Something bad. She doesn’t want to lure it in even by thinking the word now but it’s been the danger all along—and then he growls, “You’re going to help me, understood?”

“I’ll fucking bite off your dick,” Eldra hisses. “Try it. I’ve still got my teeth.”

“You…” The zabrak eases off a little, lifting his whole torso off her with trembling arms though not far away enough that Eldra can get the leverage to fight her way free, and he frowns. Confusion, or thought, but not—not lust. The force swirls less blindingly bright, for a second. He doesn’t look as scary anymore, even though he just easily overpowered Eldra. He also looks really young, when she peers up at him from this close, like he’s maybe one or two years older than her, and his shuddering grows more and more worrisome. “I need to find my brother. Please. He’s just a child.” And then, he shutters his eyes and swallows. His face does a strange thing that looks almost… sultry? Though not appealing at all, not with the sweat and the wide eyes of pain and the fact he’s an actual mutilated terrified Fallen teenage slave. “I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll do anything. Anything. I’m—good. But he’s just a kid.”

Anything, with a cadence like… And he’s basically naked, because someone wanted him that way, and Eldra saw perverts feeling him up back at the market. He’ll do anything. He’s trying to look appealing. Oh force. Oh fuck. “I am a Jedi. A guardian of peace and justice in the galaxy. I’m not a rapist. And you’re not, either—”

He nods, baffled.

“Glad we got that straight. The thing is—I have a very important task to do. The fate of the galaxy might hinge on me talking to the Temple as soon as possible.”

“He’s a just child. A tiny nightbrother child, on Nar Shaddaa.” His grey eyes are feral and pleading. He plainly doesn’t care about duty, or the galaxy, when the price is a child, and it’s growing harder and harder for Eldra not to agree. Master Fyaar, give me strength. Harden me, Master. Let me bear this dreadful hope I can’t fulfill. I mustn’t, I won’t, and yet he keeps arguing, “You’re a twi’lek. You know what that means.”

“I don’t…”

“A zabrak. He’s a zabrak,” and that doesn’t explain anything more to Eldra, but the man—the boy—above her will not leave her be, even when she shakes her head wildly, beseeching, “There’s no such thing as a free zabrak on Nar Shaddaa. As soon as they see him. Please. He’s just a child. He’s just my little baby brother.”

“But I—”

“No such thing as a free tailhead either. You won’t reach the Temple. They’ll just take you back to the slave market.”

“I’m a Jedi. I’ll manage.”

But his tearful eyes turn shrewd. “I have been here for years now,” he whispers. “You’re new. You’ll never find your way around without me,” and fair enough, these streets truly are a maze. “I’m not leaving a nightbrother on Nar Shaddaa. I am not leaving a child here. I am not leaving my brother. But I’ll help you after we find him. It’s your only chance. You can cooperate, or I can abandon you here to get caught again. Your choice.” He tightens his hold on Eldra’s neck.

It’s a hollow threat, and they both know it. The zabrak can’t leave her. He can’t walk, the best he could do is crawl away slowly until someone puts him out of his misery, or, more likely, picks him up and sells him again, as he just predicted for her.

The worst he could do is kill her, and since that wasn’t the threat…

She must warn the Jedi. She must warn the Jedi as quickly as possible, but. A child. He’s begging for the life of a child. And Eldra… No matter how many lectures she got, she never managed to get the unifying force. The big picture. It’s so remote, and it just makes sense, that the certain immediacy of present pain always overshadows the possibilities of the future. In the future, there are the Sith, grim and ancient and the foresworn enemies of the Jedi; but the Sith haven’t yet hurt her. Even the Sith she met hasn’t. He was the least horrible of all of them.

In the present, there are slavers. A whole planet of them. In the even more present, there is the offer of a temporary alliance, made by the one person she’s met in the last few days who doesn’t see her as meat.

She is so tired of being on her own.

“I’m Eldra,” she says. “Let me up, or I won’t be able to carry you.”

Stormy grey eyes turn bright and then they crumple up in pain again when he must’ve accidentally bumped his stump somewhere while he rolls off her. He’s seriously, seriously hurt. Well, of course, Eldra, he just had his foot blown off, she mocks herself. Obviously, she mocks her mocking self back. But we both need to move, so I probably need to carry him, so knowing how much pain he’s in, what movement he has left… that’s useful. And if I could lessen that pain…

Eldra can’t reach for the force while she’s afraid or angry, or she will Fall. But she’s not as scared now. She just wants to help him. That’s not evil, right? How can compassion for a slave be evil? Master never expressly said it was, so surely it can’t be that bad?

“Wait. Let me touch it,” and the zabrak presents his burnt stump without question. “I’m not a good healer. But I think I can… shut up the nerves?”

What the zabrak mumbles in response sounds suspiciously close to Witch, but after the first flinch, he allows her to touch him again, resolutely refusing to shudder though he definitely looks like he wants to, and refusing to tell her what he meant, too. He does look slightly less agonized after she feels her way into his synapses and cells and tells them to heal, heal, and that their warnings are great but no longer needed.

Now she just needs to heave him upright and hold him, somehow, while she walks, so he can hop along.

“How did this leg-be-gone thing happen, anyway?” she asks right before she pulls, because a distraction might make this easier on him.

“He—” The zabrak’s breathing heavily, but not accidentally fighting her or crying or anything else she feared. He’s doing much better than she would in his position, that’s for certain. “My brother. When he ran off, he still had the remote. The bombs trigger when it’s away over a certain distance…”

The remote? The one that the slaver gave the Sith? How— “How did your brother get that remote?!”

“He put it in his satchel. Must have forgotten about it. It’s not his fault.”

Wait.

Satchel.

He put the remote in the satchel.

Is his brother the…

“The Sith?!”

The word means nothing to the zabrak, she can tell. If he recognized it, he would have shuddered in fear and the force around him would turn frigid, because the Sith are the very worst threat in the galaxy, but instead he looks gently confused again and says, “No, he’s a nightbrother. A zabrak. Like me.”

That’s not a hindrance, as far as Eldra knows. There is a Sith species, but towards their fall—and now in their resurrection, presumably—Sith could be of any sentient species in the galaxy. “I meant… Is your brother that tiny person with a mountain of black clothes who bought both of us?”

“Isn’t he clever?” There is nothing on the zabrak’s face but deep adoration. For a second, even his pain seems forgotten. Even the smog clouds seem to have lifted, for a second, but no—that warm breeze. The sudden pure air. That’s the force. The force, lit up by love for this brother, and yet, he’s talking about a Sith. The embodiment of evil. The ancient enemies of the Jedi. It doesn’t make sense. “If they’d seen his species, he would have been captured immediately, but he made the perfect disguise and he fooled all of them!”

The love doesn’t make sense. But even worse… “You are talking about the weirdo in three dress shirts and that handmade leather balaclava and winter sports sunglasses combo?! The tiny ragged black ball?! That’s a perfect disguise?!”

“It worked,” the zabrak replies, as if that’s all the proof he needs. “My brother’s a genius.”

It’s impossible to love a Sith. They don’t feel affection. They can’t; all they process is dark possessive urges and hatred and so on. Maybe Eldra was wrong about the buyer’s aura, though. She’s never met a Sith before, after all, so how should she know what they feel like in the force, and she’s only met a few corrupted force sensitives before too and most of them in the presence of Master Fyaar, who may well have dampened their impression on Eldra… Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there is no Sith here. After all, she can feel the zabrak is dark and Fallen, too, but he’s not a bad person. His life just sucked. Wait. ‘The zabrak’…

Eldra prods his navel with a finger. She’s holding him up by now, his chest half-propped up on her shoulder and head, and it’s as high as she can reach with only minimal danger of dropping him. “You never said your name.”

“Savage,” he says, and hops to catch up to her one step.

“A pleasure to meet you, Sir. I’d bow if I could, but you know…” Eldra grins, and he does too, and it’s… nice? Despite the general horror of, well, everything, this is nicer than anything else that’s happened on the mission so far.

She puts her foot forward again and waits for him to catch up. And again. This will take forever. But the alternatives are all worse. Hopefully the little brother knows how to stay hidden until they manage to steer their three-legged train wreck to… “How are we going to find him? He could be anywhere. You can’t walk, and I can barely keep you upright—”

“He’s close,” Savage says.

“How do you—”

“I wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t.”

Of course. Eldra feels stupid. How could she have forgotten… “The bombs.”

“Yes. Stop for a…” Eldra braces herself, and he leans against her head, cold and trembling finely. He’s heavy, even though she’s never been the weakest in her age-group by far, both as a twi’lek—not the frailest of species anyway—and because she always feels better when she’s moving. She adjusts her grip on his waist so he doesn’t slip. His hearts beat loudly against her lekku. “Second one’s at two hundred. In the stomach. Takes a while to bleed out, and even if I don’t the sepsis… The last Master took real pleasure in explaining it. Not gone off yet. He can’t be more than two hundred meters away.”

Eldra won’t ask where the fourth bomb is. She won’t. “But in which direction?”

“Not in that dead end.”

“Worked that one out myself,” Eldra snaps.

“So… sorry.” Heavy breathing. “I…”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t—a Jedi would not take their fear out on you,” Eldra whispers. “Okay. Good. Two-hundred meters, that’s manageable. We can do that. We’ll find him.”

A few more steps. Then: “The stomach,” Savage whispers. “It’s—you should probably get your head away. It’s a strong one, I think. You might get hurt when it goes off.”

Great. Her head is right next to a bomb. Got it.

“You’re heavy, Mister. Can’t carry you otherwise.”

“You might be quicker if—if you promise you’ll look for…”

He’s proposing she leave him behind.

“Maybe I’ll lose an eye,” she suggests bravely. “Some massive scarring would be nice. I’ll look so fucking ugly that every fucker who’d fuck me throws the fuck up instead.”

Savage grins, weakly but genuine, as if it’s obvious she’s never been much of an out-loud swearer before. As if he’s gently mocking her. It’s nice, though. It’s nice.

Hop. Walk. Hop.

Savage’s gone quiet, and Eldra pauses and pokes his abs again. “If you pass out, Mister, we’re both screwed. Motherkriffing fucked and utterly pfassking scraggled, even. Cruddlingly fucking boondoggled,” because it made him laugh the last time.

“I am used to pain.”

Eldra doesn’t want to know more. She really doesn’t. If the whirlwind in the force is anything like he’s feeling right now, there’s no way she could’ve been as calm as he seems. Whatever it took for him to learn that separation, that control… “Fine. As long as you’re sure… and it’s not macho posturing that I wouldn’t believe anyway… Hey, do you want a distraction?” It’s always helped her at least, having something small to fiddle with her fingers or turn over in her brain. “You know how I helped your wound with the force just now? You can do that too. You have the—I don’t know how to explain it for beginners, you have those midichlorians in your cells that interact with the force that flows between every living thing,” she prattles on, needing to gasp for breath less and less as the force grows less immediate, “and it’s basically interoception with another sense, healing yourself. You might even—maybe you can feel where the bombs are!”

“I saw them go in. Won’t bleed out for a while anyway, not even when the stomach bomb goes off.”

“No. We are absolutely not doing that, asshole,” Eldra hisses, because she doesn’t like that ‘when’. Why is she even bothering to lug around his heavy body when he acts like it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll die. He’s with a Jedi now. If that means anything at all, it means Eldra’s not going to let some slavers turn him into flesh goo from kilometers away. “There’s a warning before it goes off, right? We’ll walk in the other direction then, get back into the distance you’re allowed to be. You’re not dying on my watch. Just try the healing, okay?”

“I’m a male,” Savage whispers. “I have no magicks.”

“You definitely have midichlorians. I can feel them, you know—I could feel your bomb go off because you’re broadcasting your emotions. You’re doing it now. You’re definitely a force-sensitive.”

“But it’s forbidden!”

“Uh, yeah, probably.” This is something Eldra should have considered. Master Fyaar would have told her right away. Savage’s too old, way too old for Jedi training. He’s Fallen. She can’t just teach him how to access the force. That’s probably as bad as helping a Sith, right? But now she’s unwisely mentioned it, he seems to like the idea.

“Will it help me protect my brother?”

“It will.”

And that’s it. He won’t let her drop the topic, and Eldra can’t really hold out, not when he starts talking again about what could happen to a baby zabrak. Not when she already compromised this far. He’s already Fallen anyway, so what is the harm in teaching him something? It doesn’t matter if he’s able to be careful or not. He won’t Fall. He’s already Fallen.

“The Jedi way won’t work for you because, well—it’s complicated. But there’s something my teacher says, that fear leads to anger, and anger to hate, and hate to suffering, and that’s the path to the dark side. It always sounds really easy to slip down that path, so you’ll probably be able to do it. And get that power. Just promise me you won’t become evil, right? Just a little bit of power, to close your wounds.”

Savage shudders against her lekku. A face swirls before her eyes for a fraction of a second, a memory he probably didn’t mean to spew all over her. “I am afraid. I’ve always been afraid, and angry, and… But I don’t have power.”

“You do. I don’t know how you do it, exactly, for the dark side… They only said not to do it, they never said what not to do. Or how to avoid it, in detail. But it’s about using the force when you’re already feeling awful emotions, and reinforcing them through the force. I think, if I was Falling… I’d feel everything bad, really hard. I’d feel the things that have hurt me and the futures I dread. And then I’d feel the force in everything around me—or inside my body for healing—and I’d just—concentrate.”

“I’ll try.” Savage takes a few more shaking breaths. “Maybe once you put me down? I’m—I’m less afraid, now you’re here. We might have to…”

There’s a gable in the road. Two paths to follow, and if they take the wrong one, the bomb goes off.

“What do we do now?”

“My brother’s still less than two-hundred meters away,” Savage says.

“Should we… shout?” Even as she asks the question, Eldra wants to punch herself. Not so much because it’s a stupid idea—they do need to find the brother quickly and not go down the wrong path, for fear of accidentally triggering the distance-bomb—but because of how quickly she’s fallen into the habit of asking Savage what they should do.

It should be the other way around. She is a Jedi—was, anyway—and Savage’s a slave. Freed, maybe. Probably. Definitely, because he’s been rescued by his brother—by the Sith he’s insisting isn’t one. Eldra has to believe that this probably-not-a-Sith freed him. The fact remains, Savage was just a slave. That’s not a slight to his ability. It’s not a judgment of his worth, or not anymore. It’s just that she was trained for these situations, and Savage… he’s not even that much older than her. Four years, at the total absolute most. He’s barely an adult. She hopes he’s an adult. These slavers surely wouldn’t have paraded him around like that if he… Oh, who is she kidding. They totally would. Might even prefer it, the fucking pigs.

There is no emotion.

Eldra tries to calm herself. It was nigh-on impossible when she was alone, and with Master Fyaar’s guidance she still slipped so often, but now… it’s easier, now she has Savage to carry around. She can focus on the beat of his hearts against her squished bruising lekku, da-dam-da-dam. Da-dam-da-dam. He’s here, in the mouth of a badly lit empty street on Nar Shaddaa. He’s real. So is she.

“—Eldra.” A finger knocking against her head, gently. “Eldra. Listen. Can you fight?”

“Better than you, anyway.” It’s a good idea, though, to be ready. Eldra drags both of them towards one of the buildings and lets Savage slide to the ground where he won’t get in the way. No cover, but this’ll have to do. “Stay here. I’ll shout and if anyone—”

Savage shakes his head. “He’s my brother. He’ll listen to me. And if someone else comes, you can surprise them.”

“You want to sit out here, immobile, and shout for whoever hears it to come to you.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I don’t.” Eldra takes a deep breath and tries for a last moment of levity. “If the wrong people come, at least your resale value is lower now. You wiped several thousand credits off of Nar Shaddaa’s gross domestic product.”

“I got them where it hurts.”

“Yeah. Last chance to back out,” Eldra says. “Sure? Your funeral.” And it may well be: Savage’s clever enough to know that she probably won’t fight, when a slaver comes. That’s just being realistic. They’ve spent too much time on Nar Shaddaa to still cling to comforting illusions, and a shocked and starving thirteen-year-old has little change against a group of armed slavers, Jedi or not. Instead, this way, there’s a chance any attackers will only notice him, and she’ll be able to flee. It’s broadly the right tactical decision. Savage alone and one-legged could never make it, while Eldra’s at least got the ghost of a chance. She pats his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Could you—”

“I won’t let you die,” Eldra says. “You like my jokes. You’re practically an endangered species.”

Savage laughs softly, and then winces. He’s hit his stump again.

“Sorry. But. I’ll find your brother for you, if you don’t make it. Promise.”

“Thank you.” Savage doesn’t shout just yet, and somehow, Eldra is inordinately grateful for the reprieve. Soon enough, she might have to run. She might lose her only ally. Or she’ll have to fight, and she has no weapon but the force. She’ll Fall. But if she must… If she doesn’t, Savage will die, and she’ll be alone again. If she runs, she’ll die to. She’ll die, because there is no way off this planet for her alone and if she’s found she’ll be enslaved again and she’d rather die. Soon. Any second. Falling or death. Falling or…

“Eldra.” Savage indicates a shadowy corner. “There. Don’t be afraid.”

“I don’t want to die.” It just bursts out, even though she’s meant to be the Jedi, the serene agent of the force. She trained so often and for so long, and yet, she’s terrified of death. There is no death, there is the force, and Master Fyaar would make her meditate on this for hours but she just can’t stop, can’t calm down. She wishes she was still carrying him on her back. That she still felt the solid drum of his hearts.

The response is quiet and deeply gentle. “That’s good. They haven’t taken everything from you yet.”

It’s so much kinder, more understanding, than anything Eldra’s ever thought or heard in her life about her random outbursts. So soft it raises her hackles. “Thanks for the condescension. That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to die. More than anything, I realized. I’ll fight. I’ll use the force if I must.”

It’s almost as if Savage anticipated her anger. He grins. “Don’t be afraid, Eldra.”

“Very funny, asshole. I’m ready now. I’ll go hide, and you shout.”

When she walks away, she hears a mumbled promise, too quiet for most humanoids but still clear for the auditory senses of a twi’lek. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. You told me that trick. I’ll fight anyone who wants to hurt you.”

He can barely hold himself upright. Still, she has no doubt he means it. Asshole.

⁂

Master is going to kill Maul. He’s not found the Jedi, and he should probably have kept running down the street except he wasn’t sure whether it’s the one the Jedi took in the first place, and down in the distance, he could see people, a lot of people, and many houses lit up bright, and the echoes of pain have grown fainter but they’re still there, and he doesn’t know how to interact with these people because he had no time to prepare and what if they’re oily too and Master’s going to kill Maul but the Jedi probably didn’t take this road and so he turns around and runs back.

The pain in the force grows stronger, and soon enough, so does a voice. “Brother, brother!” it shouts.

Maul has half a mind to turn around again because it’s the zabrak probably, the zabrak that Maul wanted to be his friend and that he ruined the whole mission for, and he doesn’t have time to stop, but Savage’s stronger than Maul so he might make Maul stop anyway—but he already turned back once and he can’t go back. (He can’t turn around without admitting it’s only because he’s scared.)

“Brother, brother,” and it is Savage sitting down on the ground, and Maul cranes his neck for a good path to slip by him and there’s the Jedi, the yellow zabrak brought him the Jedi, Savage saved him from Master’s wrath, he fulfilled the sacred mission, but as quickly as the old mantra drains from his mind a new one takes its place.

The zabrak’s left leg just stops slightly below the knee. No, it doesn’t, there’s an edge of charred bone peeking out and Maul knows what happened, suddenly, he remembers the slaver—"four explosive charges within your zabrak, set to go off at staggered distances. The first one will slow him down if he runs.”—he remembers the zabrak’s alarm when Maul ran away—“Wait for me, brother! The bomb will explode!”—he remembers the pain, the endless pain exploding in the force

And he remembers the hand carefully stroking his head.

Seeing the first person in the world who is like him.

He staggers and—

“Don’t be afraid, brother.”

He gets within striking range and—

(this is a trap this is a trap)

“Come here, it’s okay.”

He kneels down next to Savage, eyes screwed shut, and he waits for the punishment to come. He waits.

“It’s okay, little brother.”

It isn’t, though. The leg is gone. The leg is gone because of Maul. It’s gone because Maul forgot about the remote and because he almost lost the padawan and because Maul was stupid enough to buy the zabrak in the first place. Maul maimed the one single person in the galaxy who ever might have liked him.

[sylvain-writes]

Guarded Hearts and Safe Houses (Leonardo x Reader) Chapter 3/9

Rated: T Gender Neutral Reader, canon typical violence/injury, light angst, strangers to lovers, supportive family for @melodiousmelodrama

You wake just as the sun comes up and in truth you’ve barely gotten any sleep at all. In the living room, Donnie, Mikey, and Raph snore soundly. Your father putters around the kitchen, making coffee and whipping up eggs for quiche.

“I imagine they’ll be hungry. It’s got protein and I’m sure reptiles eat eggs. They are reptiles, aren’t they?” Your father rambles when he’s nervous. Of course, a house full of strangers - mutant strangers - would have him on edge. “Gram will be up in an hour or so to watch the news and take her meds. Do you think… Well, no they’re too big to hide, aren’t they?”

“Dad…” you smile sweetly at his concerns, “it’s going to be OK.” Bitterly, you remember Leo’s reluctance to accept your family’s help. How he acted like it was an inconvenience to him. You remember the eager way he pulled his hand away from yours. “Have you seen Leo? I can ask him when they plan to ship out.” You doubt he’d want to ‘accept charity’ or ‘overstay his welcome’ or ‘drum up more debt,’ or whatever Leo is calling it this morning.

Your Dad points with the egg soaked whisk, indicating the rooftop as he catches drips with his bowl. “I checked on him. He’s a troubled young man.”

You roll your eyes and start a kettle of tea for yourself. But when you open the cabinet for a mug, you take down a pair of travel mugs without much of a thought. 

Looking down at the mugs, you sigh knowing you’ll bring tea for Leo in spite of the pinched feeling in your chest. Once both mugs are prepared and sealed, you take your jacket off the hook and head for the window.

"The stairwell works, you know," Father says as you reach for the window latch.

You give you father a shrug and accept the cups of tea he passes through the window to you on the fire escape. "Thanks."

"Don't be too hard on him," your father says, somehow reading your thoughts. "I think he's punishing himself up there, blaming himself for what happened to his brothers."

"Did Mikey wake up yet?" you ask with concern.

You're relieved by your father's nod. "Mom checked him out before he fell asleep again. They're all going to be fine. Could use some more rest though."

Father closes the window behind you and you make the climb up the metal stairs to the roof.

You find Leo slowly carrying out a series of movements. You assume it's a form of Tai Chi or Yoga. Careful not to disturb him, you take a seat by the ladder and allow yourself to be lured by the strength of his forms.

Leo turns, pulling his fists to his hips as he takes a wide stance. Facing you, he comes to a stop, expels a measured breath, and meets your gaze. "I know why you're here.”

"You do?"

Another slow breath. "I mapped a route,” he says, his tone devoid of emotion. “If we leave before the top of the hour, we'll have enough cover to make it to the sewers."

"I'm not here to kick you out. I brought tea.” You gesture to the mugs sitting beside you and cross your arms over your chest. “And Father's making breakfast. You'd be rude to leave now."

Leo seems invulnerable to your attempts at humor. "We can't impose ourselves on you any longer."

How can he think your family is trying to push them out, when all they’ve done is ask them to stay, to recover. "You're not an imposition. Don't you get that? Your brothers are hurt, Leo. You're hurt."

Leo walks over, and reluctantly takes the mug when it’s offered. "We heal quickly," he assures you, blowing carefully over the tea before taking a sip. His stubbornness, however, doesn’t blind you to his lingering injuries.

"You were dropping your arm while you did your karate thing. The left side was always a bit slower than your right. Tell me that was deliberate."

Leo rolls his shoulder. Though he manages to suppress a wince, his eyes go tight at the corners. "It's nothing."

"It'll matter in a fight."

"I'll be back to rights by nightfall. Krang won't attack during the light of day. Not yet, at least."

"So that settles it.” You smile. You’ve won. “Wait til nightfall."

Inside, everyone was seated around the table for breakfast. Everyone.

You pulled up short, seeing Gram's chair at the head of the table. "Gram, you're… in the kitchen..."

Grandmother purses her lips. "I got hungry dear and I could smell your father overcooking the quiche again."

You scan the room, wondering what her reaction had been to the mutants. "So you came out to help and..."

"And found there was no need.” She gave a light chuckle. “Donatello had it under control. Finally got the oven calibrated. And that Raphael,” she pet his arm and he seemed to melt under her attention, “such wonderful knife skills."

"What about Mikey?"

"Oh,” she says, smiling affectionately, “he's eaten half the donuts in the box."

Mikey scowls, powdered sugar dusting his lips and fingertips. "Hey, lay off. It's all part of the healing process. OK?” He stuffs another donut hole into his mouth, muffling his voice. “I was gravely injured, dudes. I need proper sustenance to repair the damage."

Raph snorts as crumbs fall into Mikey’s lap. "Yeah, too bad them donuts ain't cure brain damage."

"Uh huh," Donatello smirks at both of his younger brothers and Raph kicks him under the table.

“You’re one t’ talk, brainiac .” It’s a curious exchange. Raphael both poking fun of and defending Mikey nearly in the same breath.

Leo sighs at your side before addressing his brothers. "Get your strength up, guys. Help out where you can.” To your grandmother and father, Leo gives a small bow. “We thank you for your hospitality. You've been gracious hosts and your medical assistance has been invaluable. I'm sorry to impose ourselves upon your family for any longer than truly necessary, but-"

"But nothin," Raph says, swallowing hard to clear a mouthful of pancakes. You see Gram sneaking more turkey bacon onto the big guy's plate. "They said we could stay. Donnie called Splinter. It's all good, bro. Sit. Eat. Chill."

Mindful of his injuries, but going along with his brother’s playful spirit, you nudge Leo with an elbow. "Yeah, bro. Chill.” You know Splinter’s approval goes a long way, but you think seeing his brothers well and comfortable around your family has allowed Leo to breathe easier. He doesn’t resist when you push him toward an empty chair.

The rest of the day goes by better than you could have imagined. Who knew they guys were as obsessed with retro gaming as your cousins?

Mikey isn't feeling well enough to pick up a controller, but he's quick to offer insights and cheat codes for the game.

Leo spends most of the time fussing over his younger brothers. He makes sure there are snacks and water, breaks from screen time, and injury checks. It seems like Mikey passing up his turns in video games is really out of character for the guy. Leo watches him closer than the rest.

The concern Leo shows for his brothers niggles at your heart. It pushes aside the parts of him that annoy you to make room for growing respect. Affection for the man sneaks up on you, warming your chest before you realize it’s there.

Leo stands beside the TV, waving a tea towel in front of his brother’s faces, announcing it's time for dinner. You almost want to laugh at the scene. His brothers sprawled over the living room fighting over controllers and bags of pretzels, while he clucks at them like a mother hen.

But then something about it kind of clicks. You get it. You understand why he's stern and focused. He's taken it upon himself to be the responsible one. And his brothers are able to goof off, able to have these hours of fun, because of that.

"We're heading out after we eat,” Leo says as Donnie turns off the TV. Leo skips over you as he takes turns looking all of his brothers in the eye. "Get this place cleaned up."

Dinner is full of laughing and teasing, carried over from the evening’s gaming. You think you even spot a smile on Leo's face once or twice.

You pass him the basket of bread and catch his eye. You're grateful for the moment he spends looking at you, still smiling at his brothers’ warm-heartedly debate with Gran on whether or not milk belongs in tea.

It’s sad to see them go, but you don’t expect the guys to return so soon.

Donatello is the one at the window, not four hours later.

Just when you were getting water, about to turn in for bed, you hear a knock on the window. You jump at the sound. The glass in your hand slips into the sink.

Donnie keeps to the shadows on the fire escape. The news he brings is devastating. His eyes don’t meet yours when he speaks and his tone of voice sounds discordantly flat compared to the news he brings, but you know he’s telling the truth. There’s no way anyone would lie about this.

“The Lair, our home, has been destroyed.”

With an arm outstretched toward the kitchen chairs, you invite him to sit, but he remains crouched outside the window in the dark.

“We have to find somewhere to lie low. Leo will say it’s selfish to ask… that we can’t ask for more from your family… but it’s the only way I see it, that we can be safe and keep your family safe as well.”

Your blood runs cold. “My family? You think we’re at risk.”

“I honestly don’t know. But it stands to reason that anywhere we’ve been is at risk. We can defend your home, your family, if we are here. Or nearby. Perhaps there’s someplace-”

“No. Stay. Gran knows you guys now. I can spend the night in her room. You can spread out between mine and the living room. It’s not ideal, but it could work. Right?”

Donnie's eyes close as he considers what he's lost. “It’s more than we have. It’s more than-”

“It’s yours. I’ll talk to my parents. You know they’ll say yes." Shelter isn't the only help your family can provide. "My father will help anyway he can to find out who did this. And my mother, well, you know she’s fascinated by you guys.”

“Yeah.” There's a small shift in Donatello's stance that makes you retrace your words searching for the source of his discomfort.

“You don't like her poking around, do you?”

“We don’t want to be an experiment. A freakshow.”

“I don't think she sees.you like that, Donatello. But I’ll tell her to back off with the questions about your biology, if that helps.”

Donatello nods, but then shrugs. “I’ll tell her what I can. She's a doctor. If she's really going to help, she'll need to know.”

“Only what you’re comfortable sharing." You know Donatello has taken on the bulk of

medical care for his siblings. He's the expert. If he's acknowledging a need for your mother's help, there must be something about these new enemies, a new danger, he fears.

Concern fills the pit in your stomach. "Where are your brothers?”

Donatello's gaze slides to his right. “Mikey’s here.”

You peer out to see the youngest turtle perched upon the fire escape stairs, camouflaged by shadow. “Why don’t you guys come in?”

“...Cause,” Mikey says rubbing his hands together before giving you a stiff, lop-sided grin, “we’re takin’ you out.”

Your gaze passes between them and Donatello raises a hand to help you through the window. “Out?”

There's a graveness to Donatello's voice that makes Mikey's cheerfulness seem even more forced. “You asked where my brothers are. Well, Mikey’s here, yeah. But Raph and Leo…”

“They’re totally buggin, man.” Mikey's smile is still in place, but you see him swallow hard. You see the twitch at the corner of his eye as he struggles to keep his mood light.

Donatello nods solemnly. “You got through to Leo before. He doesn’t want to ask your family for more. But if you come-”

“I’ll come," you agree quickly. "Of course, I’ll come. Just… let me change clothes?”

Your search for a jacket takes longer than ever. Your mind races and your body quivers with excitement. It was one thing to invite them into your home after watching them fight, after seeing them injured.  It’s another thing to be invited into their home. No, what did Donatello call it?  Their Lair.  

You’re about to step into their world. A world of mutants and monsters. And you’re far less frightened than you think you should be.

[cheriesjubiles]

please don’t look under the read more i’m just testing

Can you imagine a world where we're all represented by a font? Huh, I wonder which one I would be? sees Arial Too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. sees Badaboom Too.. uh... Deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now THAT'S the one! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. If your personality were represented by a font, what font would you be? Take a moment and put your font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I'm getting bored with ol' Calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you all have wanted Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. True loyal theorists will know that Earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played Undertale I'm sure that was a really weird opening. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause the video and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in underworld seems to be correct. The evidence seems to point the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.”

This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they clearly-- uuuGGHH take two CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would? We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "i know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, i gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? The Franklin badge. Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Franklin badge is a pivotal item from the Mother series. You know, the one with Earthbound. Or, maybe you don't know that one either. Uh, you know, the one with Ness from Super Smash Bros? Yeah well, Ness is from Earthbound, and Earthbound is the second part in this larger Mother trilogy. Alright? Good. Anyway, the Franklin badge is a really important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life multiple times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the Smash Brothers series. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was THAT EXACT badge?

Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite game, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of Earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the best, most satisfying endings in gaming to look back on your journey in picture form. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Mother series. But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Earthbound, Ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien Giygas. To do that, Dr. Andonuts (remember him, by the way, he's going to be important later) with the help of the science geniuses Apple Kid and Mr. Saturn, create what's known as the Phase Distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes with a cost. It can't transport organic material. As a result, the young heroes must put their souls into robotic bodies to use the machine, and thus, save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor Andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love and care about are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful RPG. So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that Mr. Saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken Phase Distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot. If Sans wound up in Undertale via Phase Distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the Phase Distorter is a time machine. By being in underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. But the crossovers between Earthbound and Undertale continue. When you speak to Apple Kid at the end of Earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of Ness overcoming Giygas, saying that he's going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to harness its power. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments. But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. During one of the endings of Undertale, we see Undyne and Alphys hanging out on the beach on the surface world. A beach that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical resort location named Summers that you play through in Earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of Mother. When Undertale's crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset falling across the landscape of a tall mountain, a large city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection to indicate water, and a lack of trees in this middle section here, hence the sand.

Well, in Earthbound you have the big city of Fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a desert that just so happens to be adjacent to some water, and to the east, the mountain in Onett where a meteorite lands on Earth. I always called it Aw-nett. But if that's not clear enough for you, Mother 1, Earthbound Zero, Earthbound Beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of Eagleland (Eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) between the world of Eagleland and the surface world of Undertale. But the strongest physical connection, one that definitely unites these two franchises, comes from none other than Papyrus himself. He wears a custom-made costume known as his “battle body”. But if you look really closely at the design on the armor, you'll notice some markings on the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of Starmen, the most iconic enemy of Earthbound. And look at the way he stands! I always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arms of the Starmen in the Mother series! In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Earthbound universe is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Ness from Earthbound? Sent through the Phase Distorter during a test of courage, carrying the Franklin badge and his photo album and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior. Remember, Sans can seemingly teleport. And Ness just happens to have the PSI ability to teleport. Now look the way Sans always stands, hands in his pockets, directly facing the camera. It's a very similar stance to how Ness is depicted standing in most marketing for the game. It even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, Sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of Ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale, had previously worked on a Halloween hack for Earthbound. But this just wasn't a simple reskin. The Halloween hack tells the tale of Dr. Andonuts after the events of Earthbound. Remember, I pointed him out? He's the one who made the Phase Distorter. In Toby Fox’s version of the story, we see that after Giygas' defeat, the souls of the kids never return home. Instead, by going to the past to defeat Giygas, they create a new timeline that they're stuck in. As a result, Jeff never reunites with his father Dr. Andonuts. And Dr. Andonuts goes crazy with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, and extracting the souls of his son and his son's friends to send them back to what he assumes was their death. In his mind, he's killed 4 kids. And in Toby Fox's game, he's lost his mind trying to deal with that guilt. I'm telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of Undertale in this game. The appearance of Amalgamates, the first use of the awesome song Megalovania, the prototypes for Flowey? And the theme of having the choice to be nonviolent in an RPG, SPARING your enemies. But then why's all this matter to the theory? Well, remember, in Toby Fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home. Just like Sans. And, in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. Presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his 3 friends.

In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Earthbound, with Ness never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans, and accompanied by Papyrus, a former Starman, an alien force able to speak English and still equipped with his armor, and signature posture, but without any knowledge of earthly things... like the Sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

[eternityunicorn]

Elijah’s Eternity: Part Twenty Nine - the Last Part!

Author: eternityunicorn 

Genre: Romance/Fantasy/AU

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Warnings: Violence, Language, Smut (*Smut chapters marked +18)

Summary: Elijah Mikaelson didn’t know what to expect when he encountered the strange archer in the night, but he certainly didn’t think his whole world would be turned upside down by it. Yet, he quickly learns that she is more than what she seems, having come looking for an Original after a large spike in supernatural being populations started cropping up on Earth a thousand years ago. Now, he must help her decide if the supernatural community should stay on their home planet or leave it for good? A task that is made more complicated along the way, as his life is changed forever.

NOTE: OC and original elements are from my up and coming novel series!

———————————————————————————————————

The morning came all too quickly. The early light of dawn shone through the wall of windows that crossed Elijah’s face, stirring him from his much needed rest. He had fallen asleep with Eternity resting upon his chest, curled tightly into his side. They had made love like desperate lovers for hours and true to his promise, he hadn’t stopped loving his lady’s body until she was hoarse from screaming in pleasure - and then carried on till she begged him to stop. 

Though exhausted afterwards, they hadn’t fallen asleep immediately. Instead, Elijah talked about the plan to deal with other the Coexisters. He spoke of how they could go about dealing with the faction families before they could retaliate. She had told him about her teleportation powers and said that she could get them to each location instantaneously, but the way she spoke was as lethargic as she had been before he had seduced her into his embrace. It was disturbing, but Elijah tried to ignore it, knowing she had been through a lot earlier in the day with Loki.  Regardless, they had agreed to use her powers to dismantle the Coexisters once and for all, and soon after they had fallen asleep cuddled together.

Elijah should have seen her lethargy as a warning. He should have known that something terrible was going to happen, when he awoke the next day. What a damned fool he was!

Stretching in the morning light, he sleepily opened his eyes with a contented smile. That is until he realized that he was alone in bed. Immediately, he sat up and felt the place where Eternity had been sleeping. It was cold. She had been out of bed for hours, but for how long precisely, he couldn’t say.

His blood ran cold, his heart dropped into his stomach, and a sense of dread took hold of him. He was out of bed a moment after realizing his lady wasn’t there with him. He searched the room, searched for any sign that she was still in the room, knowing deep down that he wouldn’t find her. 

Yet, his desperation spurred him to check anyway. 

Then when Elijah finally came to terms that she had gone. He felt his legs give out and he backed up to catch himself on the bed. Though Eternity had disappeared on him before, back at the Mitchells’ bed and breakfast, and he could rationalize her disappearance with her stepping out without telling him again, telling himself that she’d be back. Yet, in his gut he knew that this time she wasn’t coming back this time. 

Eternity had left him!

Crippling pain and burning anger coursed through his veins and he proceeded to tear apart the room on in his fury. He threw furniture around, smashed glasses against the walls, and then fell to the floor as tears began to fall from his eyes.

It may have seemed dramatic, especially considering he hadn’t known Eternity long, but to him, their relationship felt like it had been a life time instead of only a month or so. It was true that loving someone like her left such a profound and immediate attachment that it was impossible to forget or move on from her love. He already knew he’d never be able to love another fully again. 

Elijah didn’t understand it. Why had she gone? To where? Why would she sleep with him, make plans with him, and then disappear in the middle of the night? They had places to go, battles to win, enemies to defeat, and a promise to keep to return to the Mitchells. Why would she be so cruel?

He hung his head as he sat there on the floor, unable to do anything but weep. 

Just as he was about out of tears to cry, Elijah felt a tiny hands comb through his hair tenderly. A glimmer of hope sparked within him. His head shot up to find Eternity kneeling there before him, a sad smile upon her lips as she gazed brokenheartedly at him. 

“E-Eternity?”

“Do not look so hopeful, my love, for it shall devastate me further,” she said gently, her own voice shaky with emotions. “I am not really here. This is what you might call a hologram of myself. I am but a ghost with a final goodbye for you.”

Elijah reached for her, not wanted to hear her goodbyes. He only wanted to beg her to stay. Yet, when he made the attempt to touch her, his hands went right through her, as if she were really a ghost. 

“What have you done? Damn you! What have you done,” he exclaimed at her, unable to hold back his anger, his pain.

“I cannot stay with you, Elijah,” replied Eternity calmly, seemingly unperturbed by the abuse slung at her. “I should have never dragged you into my life. I should have never involved you. Though I never expected to fall in love. So long as Loki is out there, you will always be in danger. There will always be a bounty upon your head. It’s not fair to you to live like that. You deserve better.”

Elijah stood fluidly, despite the weakness he still felt from the blow she had dealt him by leaving.   She followed his movements, rising gracefully to her own feet in mirror to him.

It was then that he noticed that she was dressed as the Universal Queen again. Her white gown glowed as ethereally as the rest of her. The crown on her head and the diamond chains around her upper arms sparkled. Even the white starburst mark on her forehead seemed to shimmer in the light. She was truly a goddess.

“You think that leaving me is fair, is better?” Elijah growled, not as fazed by her godlike appearance this time, as his anger was too great. 

“I suppose it is not fair either,” she admitted, “but it will save your life, and that my love, does make it better than the alternative. I will protect you at all costs, even if that means I have to sacrifice our love to do it.”

“And what of your mission to determine if the supernatural community should remain on Earth? Or our plans to eradicate the Coexisters?” 

“I have already decided on the fate of the supernatural community. They will remain here on Earth.”

Elijah’s brows furrowed, “When did you decide this?”

“Yesterday, after dealing with Loki,” shrugged Eternity. “I thought hard about it and I concluded that while I’ve only seen a very small percentage of the supernatural community, that they were safer here on Earth than in the Immortal Universe. All but the vampires are still mortal, human. It would be wrong of me to send them away from their home world, where they would face nothing but persecution at the hands of those immortals that would find them inferior. So, you and yours are free to continue to live here.”

“And our plans?”

“I will deal with the Coexisters on my own, before I leave this world to return to my duties abroad.”

Elijah found himself collapsing into a seated position on the edge of the bed again. He didn’t look at her. Instead he gazed outside at the bright morning that was filled with much beauty that he couldn’t see. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He didn’t want to. Yet, as was the case with a dissolution of a relationship, even a short one, he hadn’t any power to stop it from happening. 

“I am sorry, Elijah,” Eternity spoke barely above a whisper. “I love you so much. Perhaps one day, we will find our ways back to each other.”

“You lied to my face,” he muttered bitterly.

There wasn’t any response.

That prompted him to look and he found Eternity was gone...again. This left Elijah feeling hollow. It was difficult to breathe. She had left him to the devastation of a broken heart, the very thing that Niklaus had warned him about, just yesterday. 

Niklaus had been right all along. 

He hated it when his brother was right, especially in the current situation. He had wanted to prove his little brother wrong, had wanted Eternity to remain with him forever. Yet, it seemed he wasn’t going to get what he wanted after all. How typical.

After some time, Elijah found the will to move. He dressed for the day in the same suit he had worn the day before since he hadn’t brought a change of clothes with him to California. Not something he normally did, but at that moment he couldn’t bring himself to care. Though he didn’t wear his tie, deciding to leave it behind since it held such happy memories of intimacy with his lady. No, with Eternity. She was no longer his.

From there, he left the hotel behind as well and his Bentley too. Too many memories lay with the vehicle. He couldn’t bear to drive it, knowing he would only see Eternity’s smiling face in the empty passenger seat. 

Finding a man with a nice mustang in the parking garage, Elijah compelled the man to relinquish his car to him, giving the human his keys to the Bentley as an exchange. 

Just as he was about to get in the car, he saw Veren standing there by the back of it with a mournful look upon her face. Eternity must have told her cousin about her leaving him already, he concluded. While he wasn’t in the mood for pity or apology or excuses, he couldn’t very well turn Veren away. 

“What do you want,” he said curtly. 

“Her Majesty told me she has left you,” Veren replied. “I cannot believe it. This has happened so fast, especially after only just introducing you to me. She seemed so happy, unlike anything I’ve seen before. I don’t know what possesses my cousin to act so impulsively like this. I am so sorry, Elijah.” She sighed frustratedly, running her figures through her hair. 

Elijah whirled on her, speaking with calm anger, “I do not want your apologies nor your pity.”

“No, I suppose not,” she responded with a curious tilt of her head. “Though you should know that you are not the only one who has been loved and abruptly left by my cousin.”

“I don’t give a damn,” he growled.

“She’s been this way ever since she separated from Loki,” Veren carried on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Fearful of him and always on the run from him. Yet, she’s a hopeless romantic, always giving her heart freely to new loves. She’s always hopeful that this time she can have love and companionship with another, but Loki will never let her go. She needs to kill him, but cannot bring herself to, for reasons too complicated to understand. I do what I can to help her, but this is her fight. So, instead of a happily ever after, there is only the devastation of heartbreak and in some cases the death of the new lover. Such a shame.”

“What is your point, my lady?” He didn’t have patience for her ramblings.

Veren sighed, “Don’t judge her too harshly, Mr. Mikaelson. She never means to fall in love nor dies she mean to leave so abruptly. She did what she has done to protect you from Loki. So long as she leaves her lovers, they will remain alive. She loved you enough to let you go for your own sake. How selfless is that?”

Elijah slammed his fist against the hood of the car next to the mustang. “I would rather die at Loki’s hands than to live my life without her,” he ground out. “I am dying anyway. Do you understand? I can feel it all around me, the decay of my very soul rotting inside me. So, with all due respect, you can take your explanations and defenses of your cousin and go to the deepest, darkest part of I don’t give a damn. Good day, my lady.”

Veren looked sadder than ever, but respected his wishes to be left alone. She vanished before his very eyes without a trace.

Elijah immediately climbed into his new car, and without hesitation or a set destination, sped away. He didn’t even see the shimmering white figure standing above the parking garage, watching him go, nor the darker figure that stood beside the white one. He simply refused to look back.

The End

Author’s Note: So this is where I am ending the first ‘part’ of the Elijah’s Eternity saga. Up next is the sequel or continuation entitled: Elijah’s Eternity: New Orleans. Should be up soon. 

Thank you again to all the readers, present and future, of this story. Please leave comments! I appreciate them a lot! They definitely keep me going. Thanks again! Much love!

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

One (7.69% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twelve.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Excellent! Full of as much heart as action, the film takes on the complicated task of delivering a Captain America for the modern world, avoiding jingoism while also acknowledging the origins which brought the comic-book hero into being. Against the odds (and my personal expectations), it is a sound success, and I consider it easily the best of the Marvel franchise’s early films.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Female characters:

Peggy Carter.

Male characters:

Johann Schmidt.

Steve Rogers.

James ‘Bucky’ Barnes.

Howard Stark.

Abraham Erskine.

Arnim Zola.

Gilmore Hodge.

Chester Phillips.

Brandt.

Fred Clemson.

Timothy Dugan.

Nick Fury.

OTHER NOTES:

I’m mad about the Hydra symbol being the coolest insignia in this franchise. I would wear the heck outta some Hydra merchandise, if it weren’t for the, y’know, evil Nazi fascism stuff. 

I love little Steve. They pulled that off so well.

I don’t love that Peggy’s introduction revolves around her being disrespected by a guy and then knocking him on his ass. It feels far too prescribed, too Strong Woman Cliche, so expected as to be rendered essentially meaningless. It implies that these are the most important things about the character - she’s a woman and she’s tough - and it panders to the sexist perspective by requiring Peggy to ‘prove herself’ upon arrival in a traditionally-masculinised way. They could have handled this introduction much better.

Man. This movie has such a good cast. The goodness of this cast has no chill.

“So many people forget that the first country that the Nazis invaded was their own.” This the good shit.

“Go get him! I can swim.” Snort.

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, ‘Star Spangled Man’ plays over and over again in my head. That’s probably why I can’t sleep.

“Do you...fondue?”

The thing where someone gets hit and they fly off-screen in an exaggerated fashion is never not funny to me.

Characters surviving explosions without a scratch, however, is never not rubbish to me. 

A super-soldier is never late, Peggy Carter, nor is he early; he arrives precisely when he means to.

Steve really isn’t very precious about choosing his team: they’re all just Bucky’s friends. He basically just went “ok, show of hands, who loves Bucky Barnes? Good, you guys are with me”. I mean, it’s solid reasoning - he trusts Bucky, and these guys have Bucky’s endorsement, and that’s good enough for Steve. I note that only one of the other guys on the team besides Steve and Bucky is a white American - the other guys are a black American and an Asian-American (and I see you there, recognition of racism against Japanese-Americans which led to their incarceration during the war, etc.), and then there’s a French dude and a Brit. That’s Captain America’s elite team: not all-American, and racially inclusive. I DIG that subtext.

*hisses* why is this whole Natalie-Dormer-mackin’-on-Steve thing even here? It’s a useless contrivance, plus I am extremely displeased at having Peggy being so petty in her jealousy that she actually fires a loaded gun straight at Steve. I sure hope she heard Howard’s explanation about the properties of the vibranium shield, or that she already knew them, because otherwise this is completely outrageous, but even then: what if the shield hadn’t performed as advertised? What if a bullet ricocheted and hit someone else? This is such a dangerous thing to do, and did I mention it is in service of a useless contrivance anyway? Peggy deserves better writing.

Lemme tell ya straight up: I thought I was gonna hate this movie. I mean...it’s Captain America. I expected cloying patriotism, a blandly self-righteous hero, probably some good ol’ war glorification as well. What we got instead was a film that barely even mentioned the good ol’ USA outside of the (explicitly recognised as) propaganda rigmarole that Captain America slogs through - a tool used to excellent effect to acknowledge the character’s history (the comic was created as propaganda during WWII in real life) while also carrying through the idea that what Captain America stands for is something far grander than nationalist fervour - and Steve himself is imbued with unassuming charm, fueled by the strength of his personal convictions but never forcing those convictions upon others in a show of moral grand-standing: an essential facet of the character is that he’ll pursue what he believes to be right regardless of whether anyone else follows him, and he accepts that there are consequences to his actions; he never props himself up with holier-than-thou declarations, he never shames anyone for disagreeing with him, and he never claims any kind of superiority over others (an important distinction when you’re juxtaposed with a Nazi Ubermensch villain). Other characters are inspired by Steve, but the film wisely never positions them as if they were weak or wavering without the symbol of Captain America to unite them: the war is a grindhouse, and they know the only way out is through. No one is fighting because they perceive battle as a great and noble cause, nor because they are righteously empowered; they fight because their enemy is too terrible to let pass, and there is no room for glory in that.

I can (and will) still quibble about the representation of war in the film: while the fact that it is sparingly shown does help to avoid the glorification of violence and death in battle, it also undersells the horror of war, which runs the risk of looping back around to glorification by making it all into fun skirmishes with faceless goons and glow-weapons. Additionally, Captain America clashes exclusively with Hydra and its operatives; while Red Skull severs his ties with Hitler early on through the welcome disintegration of a few Nazi representatives, the film cannot entirely distance itself from Hitler’s legacy (which Red Skull actively takes on for himself), and I take long-standing issue with anything which uses Nazis as an evil catch-all but fails to acknowledge and respect the victims of their reign. After Steve’s heroic nose-dive in the Valkyrie ends Hydra’s campaign, the film cuts to celebrations of the end of the war; they don’t actually state that it was Captain America who just defeated the Nazis by taking down Red Skull (despite the fact that Hydra’s soldiers with their fancy tech and also, um, actual-Hitler and his armies, are all still out there), but the implication is there, and it feels a mite bit insensitive, to say the least. I do think it is better that Steve has his own corner of the war to fight, rather than taking on the whole thing and battling actual-Hitler in the end (now THAT would be insensitive), but I do wish that the destruction and evil of the war at large were the backdrop of the film, rather than the comparatively sanitised Hydra operation that we see.

In this context, the weight of the war and the toll that it takes on the psyche of those suffering through it is carried almost exclusively by Bucky Barnes, who emerges from the unseen tortures of a Hydra work camp changed, his buoyant enthusiasm from the beginning of the film subdued, locked up behind the shattered look in his eyes and the fragile way he carries himself, determined to see this thing through to the end so that he can fall apart later, if he makes it that far (he doesn’t). Fandom has made much of Sebastian Stan’s understated performance, and with good reason: despite a minimal number of scenes there is a richness of detail in Bucky’s character, and as the emotional sinking ground for tragedy - both as the personification of the war’s devastation, and as a personal loss for Steve Rogers - Bucky’s narrative importance belies the amount of time dedicated to him in-text. Fandom has also made a strong point - with which I agree entirely and for which I will not pretend to take unique credit for noticing - that despite expectation, Bucky’s archetypal function in the film is not as the Hero’s Sidekick; he is, in actuality, fulfilling the cliche of the Love Interest, not in competition with Peggy Carter but instead of; Peggy, likewise, is not an archetypal Love Interest at all, because she’s the Hero’s Sidekick.

I am entirely of the opinion that this is an essential part of what makes Peggy - the sole named female character in town - work out so well, against the odds. As Steve’s sidekick, Peggy’s primary functions are to support him and give him advice; the sidekick is traditionally a rational role, someone who keeps the hero grounded and helps them to make the right choices, especially when they are emotionally conflicted. The Love Interest compels the hero’s emotions, sometimes (often) framed as driving them to acts of recklessness, to joyous heights, and depressive lows. Bucky is Steve’s damsel in distress; Steve is compelled to act when he learns that Bucky has been captured by the enemy, action which is tempered and assisted by Peggy’s influence and which ultimately brings Captain America out of propaganda mode to practice what he has preached, and be the soldier Steve always hoped to be. When Bucky falls, Peggy is there to talk to Steve, as a friend, and help him stop wallowing and concentrate his grief into the resolve which carries him through the climactic confrontations of the film’s final act. I’m not going to argue that Steve wanted to join the army just to be with Bucky (presumably that was a factor to some extent, but to call it the primary motivator would be to ignore the value set which made Steve into Captain America in the first place), nor that he was willing to sacrifice himself in the end because Bucky was gone (Steve’s mourning for Bucky certainly played a role in his mental state at the time, but ultimately, bringing down the Valkyrie was a practical choice, not an emotional one), but undeniably, Bucky was either integrally or tangentially attached to all of Steve’s major decisions across the film, as is common for a Love Interest, whereas Peggy consistently filled a support-and-guidance role, as any good sidekick should.

This is not to imply, by any measure, that Peggy can’t or shouldn’t be seen as a viable (lower case) love interest (or that Bucky’s time as a hero’s sidekick somehow doesn’t count as what it is); actually, I think that both character’s relationships with Steve benefit from being framed in this switched fashion. Bucky’s lifelong friendship with Steve comes across stronger and more meaningful due to the emotional pitch, allowing it to resonate as something deeply significant to Steve despite the limited exposure we have to it in action - extra important considering that Bucky is also fulfilling that sacrificial-character role. For Peggy, the fact that she is presented as a love interest but coded as a Hero’s Sidekick is even more important in its effect: since she is the only woman around, we have been taught by approximately All Media Ever to perceive her as the Love Interest from the second she steps on screen, and with that perception we are also encouraged to devalue her character as essentially existing for no other purpose than to be an attractive female prize for the Manly Male Hero to win by story’s end. By reinforcing Peggy as a friend to Steve, we subvert the expectation that she has no real function and/or that her personality is irrelevant, because narrative coding has taught us that sidekicks (almost exclusively male) matter, they have things to say and their influence on the hero is meaningful. Whether they are stalwart sidekicks, or bumbling fools, comedic, or secretly-insidious, a sidekick should be noted, because they’re a lot more likely to have something plot-relevant going on than a boring old Love Interest. Being presented as a helpful, sympathetic presence in Steve’s life who also Has Her Own Shit Going On allows Peggy to meet Steve on more even ground, and her interactions with him are not built around being romantically or sexually available: by having a working relationship built on a foundation of understanding friendship rather than attractive chemistry, the development of feelings between the characters comes across more as extraneous and organic, rather than a prescribed cliche. It still is a prescribed cliche, but it’s not one that compels Steve to do dumb stuff or that undermines Peggy’s relevance as a person in her own right, and that makes it a much more palatable romance than what we usually get.

This is also why that idiotic ~jealousy~ contrivance I flagged earlier is so out of place - I mean, it’s out of place because it’s idiotic, it has no impact on the story in any way and its an insult to the characters and I don’t know why it exists or why they kept it in the final cut of the film because it’s asinine rubbish, but it’s also out of place because it approaches Peggy as a Love Interest, scorned and emotionally lashing out, an attempt to generate Love Interest drama where it has no place in the movie, for the characters as the people that they are, with the established dynamic that they have, or in the context of their situation. Throwing a misunderstanding and some hurt feelings on top of a relationship which has worked refreshingly well thus far because of the honest and open conversations the characters have shared is utterly tone-deaf, and it’s one black mark on what is otherwise a shockingly strong and tonally-consistent film. She may be all alone in the movie, but I will happily argue that Peggy is the best, most-rounded female character in the MCU at this early stage, and she’s playing across from an eminently worthy leading man in Chris Evans’ charmingly-sincere Steve Rogers. The supporting cast is there - Seb Stan, of course, but also Stanley Tucci! Tommy Lee Jones! HUGO WEAVING! - being wonderful and engaging across the board, and there are no weak links (except Natalie Dormer, but that’s not her fault, and at least the misstep is brief and POINTLESS so that it doesn’t taint the rest of the film). Captain America: The First Avenger may not be absolutely perfect - nothing is - but it is a great ride, sometimes surprisingly nuanced, sometimes intriguingly subversive even while it plays straight with the expectations of its genre. I went into my first viewing of the film just hoping it wouldn’t make me mad, and I gotta tell ya: I ain’t mad at all. As far as I’m concerned, this is the platonic ideal of superhero films.

[doodlefox-beta]

ｂｕｎｇｕｓ

can you imagine a world where were all represented by a font? What font would I be? Hmmm, no, not Arial, that's too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. Too uh, deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now that's the ONE!!! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a personal question. If you're personality were represented by a font, which font would you be? Take a moment and put you font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I get bored with old calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many request to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you've all been wanting Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. Truly loyal theorists will know that earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, comic sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played undertale I'm sure that was a really wierd opening. ANYWAYS, sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE Is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given by a shopkeeper in Snowden, who claims that sans and papyrus just, and I quote, "showed up one day and asserted themselves." Wierd, right? What's more is that papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. SANS is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly deadly and much more serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts through the world on ridiculous routes. He even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, that he doesn't belong in the underground seems to be correct. The evidence shows he used to be a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, papyrus asks sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, we call that the sun. This is important because A, the use of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun, shows that sans has a kinship or knowledge of other humans, and B, that despite he and papyrus both being skeletons, and BROTHER, and apparently both appearing in the underworld at the same time, the clearly have two very different histories. Why would papyrus not know the name of the sun but sans would? We get further clues to sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say that means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is " and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on the dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, and as though the surface he's from is from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface but from a different time period, who seemingly had the power to teleport. That a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After visiting the workshop you find some items that leave a lot more questions. A photo album featuring sans and a bunch of people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean. Well a lot of undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named w d gaster. A ghostly figure who never truly appears in the game, honestly covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably best saved for another day. All of the gaster theories i've seen haven't been able to explain all the details. A photo album, and the badge, and that's what kept nagging me as i researched undertale. A badge? That one in particular stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of the room. Something that supposedly reveals the truth about sans. Badges just aren't important in undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was infact the most important badge in the history badge in the history of gaming? This franklin badge. And for those of you who are wondering what i'm talking about, the franklin badge is a pivotal item from the mother series. You know, the one with earthbound, or, maybe you don't know that one either. You know, the one with ness from super smash bros? Yeah well, ness is from earthbound, and earthbound is the second part of this larger mother series. Good? Yeah, well anyways, the franklin badge is an important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life many times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the smash brothers series. So i asked myself; what if the badge in sans drawer was THAT badge? Well first off, it would make undertale connected to earthbound, thereby making it even COOLER? But that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as i started looking more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the most satisfying endings to a journey. And what does sans have in his other drawer? A photo album of people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not character present in undertale. And note  the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the mother series linked to the mother series. But how do the broken machine and blueprints fit in? Well, in the final stretch of earthbound, ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien giygas. In order to do that, with the help of dr. andonuts (remember that, he's going to be important later) along with science geniuses apple kid and mr. saturn, create a machine known as the phase distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes at a cost. It can transport organic material, as a result the young heroes must put their souls in robot bodies in order to save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and i'm not ashamed to admit that when i first saw this scene i cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's all a very dark departure in what was otherwise a fun, colorful, and quirky RPG. so what does all of this have to do with undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that mr. saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken phase distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like  a stretch but it actually explains a lot. Sans wound up in undertale via phase distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences, not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the phase distorter is a time machine. Based on the way he talks, he's not only from a different space but from a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time  he came from. But the crossovers between earthbound and undertale continue. When you speak to apple kid at the end of earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of ness defeating giygas. Hes going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to obtain its power. That seems awfully familiar to the experiments happening in undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that sans was a key player in those experiments. But i'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, i have plenty. During one of the endings of undertale, we see undyne and alpyhs hanging out on the beach of the surface world. A beach  that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical location summers that you play in earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of mother. When undertales crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset with a tall mountain, a big city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection, hence the water, and a lack of trees in this middle section, hence the sand. Well, in earthbound you have the big city of fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a dessert that just so happens to be adjacent to water, and to the east, a mountain on onett where a meteor hits earth. I always called it onett. But if that's not clear enough for you, mother 1, earthbound zero, earthbound beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of eagleland (eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) and the surface world of undertale. But the strongest physical connection, the one that definitely connects these two franchises,  comes from none other than papyrus himself. He wears a custom made costume known as his “battle body” but if you look really closely at the designing on the armor, you'll notice a few marks on  the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of starmen, the most iconic enemy of earthbound. And look at the way he stands, i always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arm and hand of the starmen. In short, we have some strong proof that the earthbound universe is somehow connected to the undertale  world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if  we took in one final step and said that sans happened to be ness from earthbound. He hopped through the phase distorted as a test of courage, carrying his franklin badge, a photobook, and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does sans’ behavior. Remember, sans can seemingly teleport. And ness just happens to have the ability PSI teleport. Now look at how sans stands, hands in his pockets, legs out, it looks very similar to how ness is shown on most of the marketing for the game. It even explains why sans bleeds when you hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creators previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind undertale, had previously worked on a halloween hack for earthbound. But this isn't just a simple reskin. The halloween hack tells the tale of dr. andonuts after the events of earthbound. Remember i pointed him out, he's the one who made the phase distorter. In toby fox’s version of the story, we see that the souls of the kids never returned home instead, by going to the past to defeat giygas, there stuck in a new timeline. As a result, jeff never reunites with his father andonuts. And dr. andonuts goes crazy  with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, taking the souls of his sons and his sons friend to what he assumes aws their death. He's killed 4 kids, and in toby fox's game, he's gone crazy with guilt, trying to deal with that. Im telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of undertale in this game. The appearance of amalgamates, the use of the awesome song megalovania, the prototypes for flowery? And the theme of being nonviolent in an rpg, SPARING your enemies. So why is this important to the story? Well, remember, in toby fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home, just like sans. and , in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his friends. Which brings us back to undertale. 3 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? Its ness, trying to remember his 3 friends. In short, undertale is a continuation of toby’s version of earthbound, with ness never being able to get home, adopting the name sans, and being accompanied by papyrus, a starman, with knowledge of english, his armor, and his signature posture, but without any of his memory of human things, like the sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’d have a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

[hymn2000]

Freeze - MCU AU Fanfic - C9

(Title subject to change)

Previous chapter(s): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Story synopsis:- When a burst gas main destroys everything and leaves Peter with nothing, the Stark’s take him in. Thrown together by necessity, they then need to try to keep it together and build a new life. Devastated by loss, Peter doesn’t make things easy for them, and Loki and Tony struggle with their own grief and the responsibility of having someone completely dependant on them.

Chapter description:- Tony is still struggling, unbearably so, and Peter doesn’t make it easy for him. Ryan pushes Peter to breaking point

Chapter warnings/themes: character death, hurt/comfort, trauma, grief, depression/mental health issues, bullying, corporal punishment, violence, descriptions of injury

Relationships: Frostiron (Loki x Tony) (romantic), Tony and Peter (platonic), Loki and Peter (platonic)

From the same AU as Called To Be A Rock

Chapter 9 - Throw It All Away

-

Tony made Peter sit up.

“This is what’s going to happen” he said. “You are going to go to school. You are going to do your work, take down your homework, and you are going to come home. And after that, you will sit with me and do your homework. And then, we will do extra lessons for two hours. And then you will go to bed. That’s it. And things will continue like this until your grades are up, and a little longer besides. No objections. This starts on Monday. Now, have you got any questions?”

“...Do you think May would be ashamed of me?”

“She’s be ashamed of your grades” Tony said carefully. “Anything else?”

Peter shook his head.

“Right” he wasn’t sure what else to say to him. “Go to sleep”

“But I haven’t had tea yet”

“And you won’t have any” Tony said firmly. “Now lay down and go to sleep. That’s not a suggestion, Peter”

Peter didn’t move. Tony sighed heavily, taking hold of his shoulders and forcing him onto his back. Peter grabbed his shirt. Tony sighed.

“What are you doing, Peter?”

“I need a hug”

Tony looked into his tearful eyes and sighed. He pulled him close. He was warm - hot - and shaking. Despite his anger, Tony felt sorry for him. 

“We can’t carry on like this, Peter” 

“It’s so hard...”

“I know”

“It hasn’t even been two months yet”

Tony closed his eyes for a moment. “I know” 

He let go of him and stood up. “Go to sleep”

He left the room before Peter could do anything to make him stay. 

-

The mood had dropped drastically by morning. Peter was furious with himself and with the world. He was sick of being stuck here all the time. 

"You said you'd take me out today" Peter said, finding Tony in the living room. 

"I said maybe, if you were good" Tony said. "But you haven't been good, have you?" 

"So? I'm sick of this house. I'm going out" 

Tony stood up and grabbed him. "No, you're not. You're grounded" 

"What?! Why?!"  

"Because you're a bad kid and you're still in trouble. You stay here" 

Peter pushed his hand away. "It's not fair!" 

"It's not raining either" 

Peter lost it. "I HATE IT HERE! I hate it! I don't want to stay here anymore!" 

"Oh Peter, for gods sake, don't start" 

"Well why not?! You never listen to me anyway! I wish I didn't have to live with you! I wish it was just me and Loki. We'd be better off without you!" 

Tony was done being patient. "Well that's just tough! What, you think you and Loki are gonna go off and play happy families? Get real, Peter. What makes you think he'd choose you over me?" 

"Shut up! I want nothing to do with you! You don't care about me anyway!" 

"Oh really, is that so? I don't care? Why did I take you in then, hey? Just for something to do? Don't be an idiot. I took you in because I love you, even though you're driving me totally insane" 

"If you really cared you'd never have sent me to that stupid school!" 

"Oh for the love of all that is good in this world! How many times do I have to say it? Your old school is too far away from here. You have to go to the one closest to us. Is that why you've been so stupid at school? Because you're bitter about leaving your old one?" 

"No!" Peter said indignantly. "It's a rubbish school and I hate it! I've said it thousands of times!" 

"Yes, but you've never given us a reason, valid or otherwise" 

"Why do I need a reason?! I hate it and that's all you need to know! I don't wanna go there any more!" 

"Well that's just tough! You will continue to go to that school, you will do your work and you will behave yourself, do you understand me?" 

"Of course I understand you! I'm not thick. But I don't agree with you so I'm not gonna do it" 

"You will do as you're bloody well told, young man! If it means that I have to drag you there every day, then so be it. I'm not going to let you throw your life away"

Peter growled. "I don't have to listen to you! You're not my dad!" 

"I'm your legal guardian and you will either do as you're told, or suffer the consequences of disobeying me. Your choice" 

"It's not fair! I'm going to Mr Loki" 

"Go then. He'll tell you exactly the same as me" 

"He won't! He's just as much my guardian as you are. More, in fact" 

Tony crossed his arms over his chest. "Is that so? And how did you come to that conclusion?" 

"Because I actually want him, and I don't want you!" 

"That doesn't make him more of a guardian. You think ‘want’ has anything to do with this? Do you think every kid out there wants their parents? Because they don't. I never wanted my father, but I was stuck with him anyway. And you might not want me, but you've got me, and I'm all you have got now" 

"Well I hate you! You're a rubbish guardian and I wish I'd been taken into foster care instead of being dragged home with you!" 

Tony knew deep down that he was just saying it because he was angry, but it still hurt. 

"Fine, you want to go into foster care? I'll call Ms Allen then, shall I? She's an efficient woman. No doubt she'll be able to find you a foster placement today and have you out of here by tonight. Better start packing your bags" 

Peter stared at him for a moment, hot tears dripping down his cheeks. "Ring her then! See if I care! I'll be glad to be shot of this place! I never want to see you again!" 

"Fine, I'll call her now then. You hate it here so much? Well let's send you away, see how happy it makes you" 

"I don't have to listen to this! I'm sick of the sight of you! I hate you!" 

"Well go to your room then, you ungrateful little brat!" Tony shouted. "I've got a phone call to make" 

"FINE" Peter yelled, and he stormed out of the room. 

- 

Peter burst into Loki's room. Loki looked up from his book. 

"Peter? Hey, what's wrong?" 

Peter collapsed onto Loki's chest and cried his eyes out. 

"Oh sweetheart" Loki set his book around and pulled a blanket round him. He held him tight and rubbed his back firmly. "It's alright, darling, I've got you" 

- 

Tony dialled Li Allen's number, his heart thumping. He tried hard to breathe evenly. As usual, the phone was answered promptly.  

"Good morning, Mr Stark" 

"Morning Ms Allen..." 

"How can I help you?" 

Tony took a deep breath. "You know, last time we talked... You said there was someone I could call? If I was struggling?" 

"Yes, there is a helpline I can put you in touch with. Is everything alright? How's Peter?" 

"Miserable and difficult" Tony answered. "He's just... I don't know. I don't really understand him right now. He was always such a good kid" 

"And now?" Li persisted. 

"He just keeps acting out. He's been in trouble at school for hurting some kid. He played truant for a full week while I was away, and he was really deceptive and sneaky about it. I mean, he even printed off worksheets so he could pretend he was doing homework! He ran away from home the other day too. We found him at the airport. He's rude and disruptive and he's still not eating properly. And we got his school report yesterday and it was atrocious. Turns out he hasn't been doing any work at school whatsoever. I don't know what to do with him. I just keep getting cross" 

Li listened patiently. "I know it's tough. People really change after they go through something traumatic. Is he still refusing to see a councillor?" 

"Yeah. He won't talk to me properly either. He's still a human fountain, crying constantly. He's so argumentative sometimes too..." 

"Have you just had an argument?" she asked. She'd noticed the slight tremble in his voice, not to mention the stress. 

"Yes, we have" he admitted. 

"How did it end?" 

Tony shifted. "With me threatening to send him into foster care and him saying he hates me" 

"Mr Stark, you know what I told you right at the start? It's ok to admit if you aren't coping. You and your husband are allowed a break. If you're really struggling, I can organise something for Peter. Short term foster placements are easy enough to come by-" 

"No" Tony said quickly. "No, I couldn't. I couldn't do that to him. Even though he said he hates it here, even though he said he wished he'd been taken into care, I know he was just speaking out of anger. He'd never forgive me if I sent him away, even just for a week. He’d feel so betrayed" 

"Ok. Well in that case, I think we need to offer some more support to you. I'll email you the contact details for that helpline. I'm afraid they just changed phone number and I don't know it off by heart yet" 

"Thank you. I'm sorry, but this is just getting really hard" 

"I know" she said sympathetically. "How's Loki doing? Can’t you talk to him about it?" 

"Loki's great. He's always been brilliant to vent to, but he's struggling as well, and I just - well, it'd be good to talk to someone impartial, y'know?" 

"I understand, Mr Stark, I do" Li said. "Now, I apologise for changing the subject, but I am glad you called" 

"Oh?" 

"Yes. I was meaning to call to schedule another visit. I've not had a chance to talk to Peter since we met at the hospital. I understand he was otherwise engaged during my other visits" 

"Oh. Right. Yes. Uhh. When were you thinking?" 

"Ideally as soon as possible. I do like to keep up to date. I understand you're a busy man, Mr Stark. Are you free Monday evening, by any chance?"

"Um" Tony thought for a minute. "Yeah, I'm free" 

"How does that suit you? What time does Peter finish school?" 

"He usually gets back around quarter to four" 

"How does five o' clock suit you?" 

Tony nodded slightly. "Five is fine. I-I'll see you Monday" 

"Thank you. I'll see you then. I'll put a reminder in the email for you. Is there anything else you would like to discuss?" 

"No, I think I'm ok. Thank you. For listening to me" 

"Of course. It's my job"  

"Yes... But thank you anyway. See you later, Ms Allen" 

"Good day, Mr Stark. Goodbye now" 

- 

Tony was slightly annoyed to find Peter in Loki's room. 

"Loki, can I have a word?"

Loki looked down at the boy sprawled across his chest. "I'm a little preoccupied just now" 

Peter whined, covering his ears with his hands. Loki cuddled him close. Tony sighed. 

"Ms Allen is coming round on Monday night"

Loki nodded. "Right" 

Tony looked at him. "What's up? Have I done something wrong?" 

"I'm just worried about the kid" Loki said. "He's acting funny" 

"Isn't he always? He's just attention seeking" 

"He is here, you know" Loki frowned. 

"I'm going out" Tony suddenly decided. "Do you need anything from the shops?"

"Painkillers" 

"Right. See you later then" 

- 

Ryan sat tracing circles on the mouse-pad of his laptop. He was thinking. He’d threatened to expose Peter, and since he’d done it publicly, it meant he had an expectation from his friends to do exactly that. He had to find something on the new kid, anything. The thing was, he knew very little about him. He was clever, his aunt had died, and he cried a lot. Those were the only facts Ryan knew for certain. He’d never caught the name of the man who had turned up the day Peter had pulled his chair out from under him. All he knew about him, was that he was a strict-looking businessman. Without a name, he couldn’t find out anything about him. He wasn’t sure there’d be anything bad to say about him even if he did.

Ryan sighed, looking round the grubby room and tapping his foot on the threadbare carpet. 

“What should we do, Tilly?” he asked the white cat who was curled up beside him. 

The cat blinked slowly at him. Ryan looked back at his laptop. He sat up properly, opening Google, and typed ‘Peter Parker’ into the search bar. He expected to be met with social media accounts, but the real results were much more interesting. The top result was a picture thumbnail, linking to a news article. Ryan clicked on it, and the web page opened, throwing the headline; ‘Ward of The Stark’s’ across the screen.

‘Not the catchiest headline’ Ryan thought.

He scrolled, and peered at the picture. His eyes narrowed in confusion as he looked at it. It was definitely the right Peter Parker, but more shocking than that, was who was in the picture with him. He recognised the businessman from the head teachers office - and he recognised Tony Stark. The Tony Stark. A distinctive character, but not someone Ryan knew an awful lot about. Usually, tabloids and celebrity gossip went unnoticed by him. He kept looking at the photo. It was a generic low-grade paparazzi shot, dated the previous year. They’d been caught unaware, and the Starks looked less than pleased. They had their arms round Peter, attempting to shield him from the cameras. It looked like it had just been taken in the streets. Nowhere special, by any account.

Well, it was who Ryan was searching for, so he continued on to the article, and his eyes soon widened in disbelief, and glimmered with excitement. He’d found exactly what he was after: something to expose. He knew why the silent crybaby had appeared now. The article told him everything he needed to know: that the explosion in Queen’s not quite two months prior had made Peter homeless and killed his aunt, and that Tony Stark and his husband (famous only for his spouse and brother) had taken him in. The article was mostly impartial, but it detailed other theories and thoughts. No one in the press quite knew where Peter had originally come from. Many considered he was an apprentice at Stark Industries, others thought Tony had been involved with the aunt and he knew the kid that way - and some even speculated that he was an illegitimate son. 

Ryan laughed triumphantly. This was just too good.

“We’ve done it, Tilly! There’d better be ink in the printer” he grinned, touching her fur gently.

The cat jumped down from the sofa, padding over to the kitchen. Ryan watched her go, and stood up. He had things to do. 

-

Tony didn't know what Peter had told Loki - if anything - but the two were definitely now in cahoots. Peter spent the rest of the weekend clinging to Loki, and Tony ended up getting left on the sidelines, feeling very neglected and upset. He could deal with Peter being distant, but having Loki near enough ignoring him too was painful. He was used to being able to cuddle up to Loki whenever he liked, and now that he couldn't, he felt incredibly cut off. 

- 

Monday morning came as a relief. Loki got Peter ready for school, but he didn’t fancy going out in the cold, so Tony had to walk Peter to school again. 

"Stop sulking" Tony said. 

"I'm not sulking" Peter said, sulkily. 

"You are. Look, I know I got cross with you, but it was justified. I need you to be good now. If not for me, then for yourself. School isn't so bad" 

"What would you know?" Peter snapped. 

Tony sighed. "Don't speak to me like that, Peter"

Peter huffed and shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“Look, kid-”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Peter interrupted. “You can go now”

He picked up the pace, and Tony sighed, leaning against a nearby wall. As always, he waited until Peter had gone through the school gates before heading for home.

-

Peter trudged up the stairs to his form room. Like it always did, his stomach started squeezing as he got closer. It was only a matter of seconds before he’d see Ryan, and get jostled by the group who always insisted on hanging about directly outside the door. 

There they were again, laughing. One of them spotted him.

“Hey Peter, hey, we’re friends, right?”

Peter looked at the girl, confused. Firstly, because friendship was the last thing anyone in this school wanted from him, and secondly, because she called him by his name, and no one ever did that. 

“Lend us some money, won’t you?” Another girl said. “We know you can spare it”

Peter decided they were just being stupid, and tried to ignore them. 

“Heyyyy, Parker!” Ryan’s familiar voice broke through the air, and he appeared in the hall, followed by his loyal giggling rabble members. “You never told us you were a billionaire! We’ll be your friends”

Peter looked at him, the confusion evident on his face. 

“Ooh, it hasn’t seen it yet!”

It was then that Peter noticed that everyone seemed to be clutching a sheet of paper. Ryan himself held a stack. He smiled, holding one out to him.

“Here”

Peter took the paper reluctantly, and Ryan wandered off a little way down the corridor to meet up with a friend who had just arrived and share the news with him. Peter looked down at the paper he’d been handed. ‘Ward of The Stark’s’ it read, and there was a picture. Peter recognised this picture. He remembered the paparazzi jumping out of the bushes, begging Tony to tell them about his kid. Tony and Loki had tried to shield Peter from them, and moved valiantly on. Loki had managed to invalidate most of their photos with elaborate and inappropriate hand gestures, but a few had turned up in a tabloid article. Tony had told Peter to ignore it, and he had. He’d been caught in the press a few times over the last few years. It never bothered him.

Peter swallowed hard and moved on to the article.

‘Billionaire’s Tony and Loki Stark have taken the next step in their relationship by having a child - but not in the conventional sense. An explosion caused by a gas main in Queens last week-’

Peter could feel himself shaking. He could hear people laughing at him, but he couldn’t stop reading. It told them everything: the death of his aunt, the people who had taken him in, the fate of the block of flats, the speculation of who he really was - it was all there, and Peter had never seen any of it before. Who had written this? Who had published it? How had Ryan found it?

Peter dropped the paper like it was red hot. He could feel his breathing getting faster. His pulse was beating uncomfortable hard in his throat.

“Shame about your aunt” Ryan’s voice called from a few metres away. “Or maybe not. After all, if she hadn’t kicked the bucket, she’d still have to put up with y-”

“YOU’VE GOT NO RIGHT TO TALK ABOUT HER!”

Before he knew what he was doing, he’d sprung forward, lashed out, and Ryan had hit the floor. Peter paused, breathing heavily, a dull pain throbbing in his still-clenched fist - and he realised what he’d done. The corridor was sickeningly quiet, everyone shocked to silence by hearing Peter’s voice and witnessing his retaliation. Ryan groaned, sprawled out in a mess of papers, blood dripping down both sides of his face.

“Uh-oh”

Peter made a run for it, and smacked straight into someone’s outstretched arm. He looked up at the teacher who had caught him, and he knew he’d seen everything. He glanced over his shoulder at Ryan, still on the floor, and back at the teacher, and finally, at the floor. He didn’t try to run again. There was no getting out of this one.

-

Peter felt like he was boiling over. He couldn’t stop shaking. He gripped the edges of the chair he was on and stared at the floor. He only lasted for so long before he became too agitated to stay still, and stood up, pacing in circles and ignoring everyone. 

New footsteps sounded - familiar ones - and Peter looked up. For a moment he couldn’t help feeling happy to see them, but the look on both their faces was enough to shock him back to reality. Loki shook his head at him.

“Oh Peter” Tony said sadly. “What have you done?”

-

Ryan’s dad had been called too, and turned up in much the same garb as before - but his easy-going composure was nowhere to be seen. He recognised Loki immediately, and grabbed his hand.

“If I had known, I’d’ve put a stop to it, I swear”

-

The five of them were ushered into the headteacher’s office - Tony, Loki, and Ryan’s dad standing, and Ryan and Peter on chairs in front of their respective guardians. 

“I’m sorry we had to call you down here” the headteacher said grimly. “But with a matter so serious as this, we needed to address it promptly”

The adults had been given a version of events, both slightly different, but the motive of Peter’s attack remained unclear, and Tony voiced this.

“I believe” the head said, holding a sheet of paper out to him. “That this may have sparked it off”

Tony looked at him, and took the paper. Loki moved closer to see. Tony felt queasy all of a sudden. He recognised this article. It was from a small local news company. He’d thought tooth and nail to keep it from getting into the national news, and even threatened to sue the paper if they printed it, just in case Peter ever saw it. It was obvious now, that publishing online had been their loophole. 

“Can I-?” 

Tony let Ryan’s dad take the article and read it over. He handed it to the head, turned, and slapped Ryan round the back of the head.

“What the hell is wrong with you!? Why would you go spreading someone’s personal business around like that?!”

“Why am I the one getting into trouble here?” Ryan demanded. “Look at what he did to me!”

Ryan glared at Peter. Peter glared back. Ryan had a cut and the starts of bruising on one side of his face, and a cut on the other side where he’d hit the floor. 

“Can we conduct this meeting in a civil manner, Ryan?” the head said. “From what I understand, you’ve done far more damage”

Peter went back to staring at the floor and gripping his chair. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Everything felt uncomfortably close and hot. It had all happened so fast. Peter had been ushered downstairs and told they’d be calling home, and he’d been left in a room on his own while Ryan was being seen to in the medical room. Peter had lost it a bit, shouting and swearing and crying. Once he’d calmed down a bit, he’d been moved to the corridor, a mere fifteen minutes before Tony and Loki had arrived. They’d all been shown into the headteacher’s office about ten minutes after that. Peter was too swamped in fear and emotion to think straight. He was trying hard to hold his tongue.

“-Bullying? Where would you get an idea like that?”

Peter looked up. Ryan sat so confidently, so defiant of the accusation. His father had been told over the phone, and wasn’t happy to see his son denying it. Loki and Tony were exchanging looks.

“There’s no use denying it, Ryan” the head said patiently. 

Ryan scoffed, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at Peter again. “I haven’t done anything to that kid”

“Say that again!” Peter shouted. “Say it again and see what happens!”

“Peter! That’s enough” Tony put a hand on his shoulder, and turned back to the head. “Are you sure about this?”

“Quite certain, Mr Stark. And as I informed your husband last time he was here, we won’t tolerate bullying in this school. However” he looked at Peter, who was seething with rage, tears dripping down his face, his body shaking. “I want to know exactly what’s been going on”

“I can answer that” Ryan said easily. “He started here about a month ago. He’s never spoken a word until today. He hasn’t got any friends. That’s it”

“Is it now?” The head said. “Because, Ryan Jefferson, that’s not what I’ve been told”

“Well, it’s the truth”

“No it fucking isn’t!” Peter exploded, jumping to his feet and glaring at Loki so fiercely that he drew back from his attempt to grab him. “You’ve done nothing but torment me since the moment I arrived! Why lie about it?! You obviously like the attention, so why not brag about it, you silly cu-”

Tony clamped his hand down over Peter’s mouth before he could finish his sentence. Peter pushed his hand away. Suddenly he wasn’t quite so scared of Ryan. Ryan himself was a little on edge now that Peter was speaking and showing some fight. He wasn’t used to his victims suddenly turning. 

“What exactly is it I’ve supposedly done to you?” he said, not quite holding eye contact.

“Don’t act as if you don’t know! You’ve been having the time of your life”

“But we don’t know” Tony said. “Peter, if this kid has been bullying you... He hasn’t, has he? I mean, surely you would’ve told us?”

“And let you worry even more? And risk it getting worse?” he was crying properly now, choking his words through his sobs. “I’m not like this just because of May, you know”

“Darling” Loki tried to hug the boy, only to be pushed away. 

“Peter, we’re worried about you anyway! Why did you ever think hiding it would be the better option?” Tony pulled him close, and Peter just about allowed it. 

“What exactly have you done to this kid, Ryan?” his dad demanded. 

Loki looked over at him. Now he knew what he’d meant when he said he’d have put a stop it it if he’d have known. He must have been told over the phone that his son was a bully. Ryan shrugged, but he was starting to look very nervous. His dad was very red in the face. He looked over at the Starks, at Peter.

“You have to tell us what he’s done to you”

“I haven’t done anything!” Ryan insisted. “It’s nothing!”

“Nothing! You think this is nothing?” Peter shouted, pulling away from Tony. “I don’t need to tell them what you’ve done”

“Why? Because I haven’t done anything? You’re pathetic!”

“No, because I can show them” Peter said, and he grabbed the bottom of his jumper and pulled it off over his head.

He stood there, unable to see through his tears, barely able to breathe his chest was so tight. For a while there was a horrible silence as Ryan saw for the first time exactly how much of an impact his games had had, Ryan’s dad and the head saw exactly how grievous the situation was, and Tony and Loki realised why the boy had flinched so much when they’d hugged him recently.

Peter’s torso was a mess of grazes and cuts and bruises at various stages of healing. His stomach was 90% bruise, an ugly mix of black and green and purple, with the cuts of fingernails unmistakable on one side.

Loki was the first to crack. This surprised everyone, and horrified Peter, who started crying again as a result.

“H-h-hey, Mr Loki, don’t cry! I didn’t want to make you cry!” Peter gabbled, and started sobbing.

“How could you not tell us about this?! How could you just let him hurt you?” 

He pulled Peter close, holding his jumper round him to cover at least some of him, and rocked him while they both cried. 

Tony slowly turned to look at Ryan’s dad, who looked every bit as horrified as he felt. He looked over at the head, who had gone very white in the last few minutes. 

“When the teachers told me you’d been bullying him, I never imagined anything like thi-”

“Hold on, you knew about this?!” Tony said. 

“On the contrary” the head held a hand up defensively. “I only found out today. But some of the teachers have been aware of the situation for some times now, and they’ve told me as much”

“What, and they just stood by and let it happen? They just let this little thug do as he pleased? I don’t believe this!” 

He looked at Loki, who had composed himself a little, but was still very much occupied with holding Peter protectively. Tony moved closer to Ryan and looked down at him. Ryan shifted uncomfortably.

“I don’t know what possessed you to do what you’ve done, but what you did goes far beyond playground bullying, which is bad enough in itself. This is violence. Why would you do it?”

Ryan shrugged. “Bit of fun”

“Oh, is that what you call it?” Tony said, his voice dangerously calm. “Well let me tell you something: a ‘bit of fun’ doesn’t constitute ABH. You think this is ok, that you can keep doing this kind of thing your whole life? You can, and will, end up in prison. Heck, you could go to prison now. Do you want to go to juvie? Because that’s where you’re heading”

He stepped back, if only for his own sake. He noticed Mr Jefferson staring at him. He looked at him, and for a split second, imagined what he must be feeling. Tony had been upset and angry when they’d thought Peter was a bully, even though now it had been proved to be a falsehood. But Ryan was very much a bully, and there was no denying that. He couldn’t quite comprehend how horrible that must feel. 

“Are you going to press charges?” he asked, his face grey.

Tony looked at Peter, clinging helplessly to Loki, many of his bruises still visible despite the jumper being held round him.

“No” Tony said, and he turned back to Mr Jefferson. “I’m not dragging my kid through courts and police interviews and statements. He’s suffered enough. And you shouldn’t have to go through all the same just because of what your son did”

“We need to decide where we go from here” The headteacher said. 

Ryan stared at the floor. Being the centre of attention wasn’t so good now. Truth be told, he felt sick. He’d never been called out on his behaviour before, especially not like this. What was going to happen now?

Peter pulled away from Loki, put his jumper back on, and sank back into the chair, looking at nothing in particular and trying to decipher his feelings. 

“I can’t believe your teachers knew what was happening and didn’t do anything about it” 

“It will be investigated” the head looked at Mr Jefferson. “Would you and Ryan give us a few minutes?”

“Yeah..” Mr Jefferson hauled Ryan up from his chair and pushed him towards the door. He went over and took Loki’s hand. “I am so sorry”

Loki shook his hand encouragingly. “It’s not your fault. You weren’t the one who hurt him”

Mr Jefferson found himself in front of Peter. He looked terribly small. 

“If I had known sooner, I would have put a stop to it. I swear” he said. “He should never have been allowed to get away with it... Take care, kid”

-

Peter pressed his hands down hard over his ears until the sound of the blood rushing in his head was louder than the grown-ups arguing. Tony and Loki were annoyed at themselves for being so oblivious to what was going on, and angry that the school knew and did nothing about it. They didn’t know what to do next, and could only argue the options. 

Eventually, a brief silence was broken by Tony.

“This isn’t working” he said, looking at the headteacher properly. “I really do appreciate what you’ve done, understanding Peter’s situation and taking him on such short notice, and keeping us from being common knowledge. But this just isn’t working. He’s miserable, and with good reason. That kid had done horrible things to him. I don’t blame you - but I blame your teachers for knowing and doing nothing about it”

“I can’t apologise enough” the head said. “They should know better. I will investigate it. It’s not good enough. I’m so sorry that Peter came to such harm here”

“I appreciate it” Tony said. He looked at Peter, and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. I’d like to withdraw Peter from the school, effectively immediately”

The head nodded slowly. “I imagined you would. I have no objections. He’ll never feel safe here after what happened”

He stood up and came round from behind his desk. He stood before Peter. Peter slowly opened his eyes and looked up, taking his hands away from his ears.

“We saw your grades. Your old school sent them to us. You’re clever. You’ll go far, given the right environment. I really do wish you all the best for the future” he held a hand out to him, which Peter took shakily. “Goodbye, Peter”

-

Peter was exhausted by the time they got back to the house. They’d left the school at 11.30am, and Tony had taken him straight to the doctors to be checked over for any serious damage (thankfully none was found) before finally returning home.

They all three sat on the futon in the back room. For a while there was numb silence, but then Tony collapsed. He held Peter close, and Loki held the both of them, and together they all cried and silently cursed the Earth for being so cruel. 

*

[dragonasheswrites-blog]

The Heaven We Didn’t Choose, Chapter 18: In Which Sans Has a Heart

...But only a figurative one.  And he's still an asshole.

First: Chapter 1: In Which a Child Makes a Friend

Previous: Chapter 17: In Which Alphys is Terrible

Next: Chapter 19: In Which Piracy is Encouraged

Click here for the story overview.

“Sans!  Get her!” a voice crackled in Elemental.

Sans was already hot on Pele’s heels.  Literally.  Even if he didn’t have a trail of light and warmth to follow in the dark alleyway, she was disoriented and confused in a strange new place.  He couldn’t let her disappear into the night with no way to find shelter, regardless of what was going on with Grillby.

It was easy enough to catch the sleeve of her sweater in his phalanges just as she reached the main street.  She stiffened, just like she had when he’d held her hand to teleport, but didn’t lash out.  A glance over his shoulder showed that Grillby was still a safe distance away, hands raised and flames carefully controlled.

“Hey, kid.  Why don’t ya tell me what’s eatin’ you, huh?”

The fire girl just shuddered and curled in on herself while trying to put as much distance between herself and her captured arm as possible.

“Ooookay, wanna tell me why Grillbz knew your name, and why you don’t want anything to do with him?  ‘Cause I thought I was real clever, y’know, findin’ you a place to stay, but we can try someone else if you’d rather.”

“...Who…?”

That was a good question, actually.  “I...uh...I know the Captain of the Royal Guard.  She’s pretty, uh, intense, but she could probably find you a warm bed.  I’m gonna hafta tell her about you anyways, so she can get started on your papers and whatnot.  Or the queen-”

“...That’s...alright…”

“I understand Elemental if it’s easier for you to speak.”

She started struggling.  That didn’t seem to be the right thing to say at all.

Movement in the corner of Sans’s eye socket made him turn to see Grillby slowly walking up, carefully avoiding piles of snow that had blown in.  A few intermittent snowflakes evaporated in the agitated flames of his exposed head, almost painfully bright against the night sky.

“Pele,” the bartender said in flickering Elemental, both hands raised.  “Why are you here?”

She remained silent, but stopped trying to escape.  Her flames gave resigned little flickers.

“I, uh, brought her here,” Sans said when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to respond.  “She said she didn’t have anywhere else to go.  Found her in Alphys’s lab.”

“What?”

“Yeah.  Uh.  Alphys said she was an orphan.”

Grillby stopped, his flames still wavering.  He looked...devastated.  Sans had never seen the grouchy bartender look anything but angry or frustrated.  Not even when he left his old joint in the Underground, the one he’d built up for decades.

After a moment, the older elemental collected himself and gave a little sigh-like noise.  He smoothed out a little, more like a candle flame than a wind-whipped bonfire.  “Why don’t we go inside and talk.  I need to tend to the bar and I am sure it would be more comfortable for both of you.”

The obvious joke was on the tip of Sans’s proverbial tongue, but he didn’t want to set Grillbz off.  The guy’s temper was on a hair trigger at the best of times, after all.  Instead, he carefully released Pele and followed her inside, ready to catch her if she decided to bolt again.

She didn’t.  She did maintain a careful distance from both adults, but she stepped through the doorway without too much fuss.

Her flames flickered in obvious surprise when she got a good look at the interior of the bar.  What could be seen from the back hallway - the doorways to the kitchen and one of the private rooms, and the stairs to the upper level - wasn’t fancy, but it was a definite step up from the old Grillby’s in Snowdin.  Had she expected some seedy dive?

Grillby led them to the private room and left, citing bartending duties, but he looked a little shaky.

Pele still wasn’t talking.

And Sans really didn’t know what to do.  He texted Lesser Dog to ask him to keep an extra eye out and got an enthusiastic response, but that didn’t answer any of the real questions of the evening.  Sans had saved the kid on a whim, really.  If she’d been older, if he hadn’t found that little striped sweater in the lab hallway, he probably would have ducked his head and continued on his way.  That’s what was expected of monsters.  But…

“...Sorry…”  Pele was curling in on herself, her flames flickering lowly like the dying embers of a campfire.

“‘Ts fine, kid.  Were you, uh, down in the lab long?”

“...I...don’t know…?”

He hummed.  She couldn't have been down there more than a few days, not with the way Alphys was acting.  Still...an awkward silence fell.  What was there to say to a kid he’d pulled, pretty much at random, out of a situation where she’d been guaranteed a long and painful death at the hands of a mad scientist?

“So.  You.  Uh, you know Grillby?”

“...No…”

That didn’t sound like a lie, but it didn’t sound like the whole truth either.  He wanted to scream.  Trying to get answers out of elementals was, in his experience, an exercise in futility.  Getting answers out of an elemental who wouldn’t speak was on a whole ‘nother level.

It was a surprise, then, when she continued in broken Elemental.

“Grill-by was...father’s brother.  What call?”

“Uncle is the word we use, kid.  Can’t pronounce Elemental properly with this jaw,” he tapped the aforementioned body part, “so I’m not sure how you’d say it, but...yeah.  Grillby’s your uncle, huh.”

“...Uncle…” Pele crackled in English before switching back.  “There was...big fight.  No talking for much time.  Mother and father not want to go...up?  Go out?  Too much ties.  Connection?  But...hmm.  Thought Grill-by...would be angry.”

“So Grillbz and your parents fought, and you lost contact.  Then your parents didn’t want to go to the surface?”

The girl nodded.

“You said they had ties - some kind of connection - to the Underground.  Were they part of a gang?”

“Sparks,” the girl said, holding her left wrist loosely in her right hand and looking away.

That made sense.  The Sparks were a gang of mostly fire-type monsters based in Hotland; grabbing the left wrist (or comparable appendage) was one way they identified themselves to fellow gang members.  Sans had heard rumors of some fire and rock elementals among them but he hadn’t exactly kept up with the latest news over the past few years.  Still, it made sense that a group like that would choose to stay in their claimed territory instead of braving the rain and snow of the Surface.

“Pele, were your parents dusted?”

She tucked into herself further, which was confirmation enough in itself.  Sans sighed.  It was an old, familiar story: a kid orphaned by gang violence or infighting, then raised by remaining gang members.  Her parents had probably died years back, if her choppy Elemental was anything to go by; it was a difficult language for most monsters to pronounce.  Maybe she’d even been punished for speaking it, judging by her reactions.

The fact that she’d wound up in Alphys’s lab meant that the girl had either run away from the gang and into one of Alphys’s traps, or - and the thought was horrifying, even to a hardened guy like Sans - been traded off during one of her searches for test subjects.  Neither said particularly good things about the state of the Underground.  He knew things were getting worse since the Royal Guard was focused on the surface, but still.

Her reaction to Grillby explained why she hadn't gone looking for him, either.  She'd said she thought he would be angry with her.  She probably had her reasons, but...Grillbz was actually not bad, when nothing had set him off.  Many of the kids from Snowdin had earned a spare meal or two washing dishes in the bar, which worked out well for both parties.  It was why Sans hadn't thought much of bringing him a strange kid; that, and Pele looked like she could use a good meal or two.

Grillbz himself opened the door to the private room and entered carrying two trays.  The one he slid to Sans held a burger, fries, and unopened bottles of ketchup and mustard; the other held a stone bowl filled with what looked like glowing coals.

“Eat,” the elemental crackled to them both in his native tongue.  “I have an employee coming in about half an hour, if the lazy ass shows up.  We can talk then.”  He walked back out, not once glancing towards the girl.

Pele looked over at Sans, confusion radiating off her.  “...What…?”

He repeated what Grillby had said, paraphrasing a little.  “So, you really don’t know much Elemental, huh.”

“It has been...long time since speak.  Not...allowed?  Care-takers...did not understand.  Wanted...English.  But...hard to speak…hmm.”

“Gotcha.  Well, I understand it, and most of the folks ‘round here do.  Hell, even most of the humans who are regulars at the bar have picked up the basics.  At the very least they understand when Grillbz wants his money or is clearing out the bar.”  He grabbed a fry, dunked it in a puddle of mustard, then gestured at her bowl.

She giggled and slowly - very slowly, as if she suspected a trap - brought one of the coals to her mouth.  She didn’t make any kind of a chewing motion, but the glow of her flames brightened considerably over the next few seconds before dying back down.

The rest of the coals disappeared quickly after that.

Sans, on the other hand, savored his burg.  It had been months since he’d had the spare time and cash to have more than a quick beer at the bar to eavesdrop for information.  In fact - he checked his inventory - he probably had just enough left over from bus fare to pay for his meal.  It was annoying that most of his earnings went to Boss or apartment bills; maybe he could spend some extra time at the hotdog stand to compensate?

He had just finished licking the extra ketchup off his fingers (not willing to let anything go to waste) when Grillby walked back in.  The bartender was looking a lot more composed than he had earlier, his flames smooth and calm.  Sans was probably one of the few who could sense the lingering agitation in the other monster, and that was after long years of association and tenuous alliance.

Grillbz settled himself into the third chair at their table.  “So.  Pele, you are...a long way from home.”

The girl nodded after a moment.  The way she flinched whenever Elemental was spoken was hard to miss.

“Do you not speak?”

The way her flames curled screamed embarrassment.  “...Hard…”

“I see.  Well, let’s see how quickly you pick it back up, then.  How did you get into the Royal Scientist’s lab of all places?”

The ensuing conversation was painful to listen to - a combination of hesitant English and broken Elemental - but by the end of it Pele was picking up more and more of what Grillby was saying.  As it turned out, Sans was correct: the girl had been ‘traded��� to Alphys about a week prior for a favor.  What favor the Sparks wanted from (or owed to) Alphys was anyone’s guess; Pele hadn’t exactly been invited to those conversations.  She had tried to run away when she found out but had only succeeded in injuring herself.  The gang had been very unhappy about having to heal her before handing her over to the Royal Scientist, and she was still low on magic.  She’d been locked away in one of the cages in the back of the Lab ever since.

Throughout this explanation, Grillby grew more and more tense.  The flames that normally flickered up above his head to simulate some kind of crazy hairdo were so shallow that he looked practically bald.

Sans elected not to point this out; he didn't want to invoke the old elemental's fiery temper, after all.

After a moment’s consideration, the bartender stood and beckoned to the girl.  “...Come.”

“...Where…?”

“...Upstairs.”  Grillby’s English was always a little slow, but he was clearly trying to make it easier for Pele to understand.  “I...have rooms.  You will...be staying...with me.”

“...Really…?”

Instead of responding, he gestured the girl out the door a little more forcefully than such generosity required.  She complied without questioning further, Sans tagging along behind out of curiosity and a lingering sense of responsibility.

The second level of Grillby’s bar held rooms that he rented out to drunk idiots, less-than-legal deal brokers, and the odd human who wanted to engage in...personal activities while intoxicated.  Grillbz also had an apartment at the far end of the hall, but Sans had never been inside.

The group stopped at a door near Grillby’s private rooms, which he opened with a key strung on a loop of chain.  He handed the key over to Pele.  “Don’t...lose this.  Get some sleep.  You...start work...in the morning.”

The girl nodded, still looking a little lost.  She stared at Sans for a moment before closing the door wordlessly.

“Welp,” Sans said, stretching a little, “It’s been great.  I’ll be off-”

“Wait.”  The switch into smooth Elemental was a relief to both of them.

“Ooooh yeah!  Your money.  Well.  Here…”

“No.  Not that.  Come.”

Sans was stunned.  Had...had Grillby, once the most notorious miser in Snowdin, actually turned down money?  Or...did he want something more for dropping a kid on him without warning?  The skeleton fought down his trepidation and followed Grillbz down the stairs and back into the private room.

“What do you want?”

Sans started at the unexpected question.  “Uh…?”

“You want something.  That is the only reason you could have brought Pele to me.  How did you know we were family?”

Memories of a young human woman sitting at his dining room table flashed behind his eye sockets.   How ‘bout that deja vu.  “I didn’t.  Stars, man, I was just hoping you had a spare room or somethin’ that could get ‘er magic levels back up.  I didn’t know what Alph was doin’ to that kid but ‘er magic was pretty low.  I’m hardly an expert in elementals; most of the ones I knew back Underground either hate my guts or are part of the gang that sold her off.”

“How did you find her?”

It was a fair question; the Lab was hardly open to the public.  Or rather, it was, but getting back out wasn't guaranteed.  “Alph had something I needed, and I had a permit from the King to go and get it.  She must’ve forgotten I was in there.  I was on my way out, found a striped shirt in the hallway and went to investigate.  The rest...well.”

“Is the Royal Scientist going to come after her?”

“Uh, don’t think so?  She’s more likely to come after me, really.  I was plannin’ to get Undyne involved tomorrow morning; if nothing else, that’ll sidetrack Alph long enough to grab the kid and hide ‘er somewhere.”

For a monster whose concept of ‘eyes’ was a little vague, Grillby was a master at making someone squirm with a glare.  Sans managed to keep from fidgeting only because of his long exposure to Boss’s intimidation tactics.  “You really don’t want anything.  You had a plan.  What were you going to do after reporting her to Undyne?  Have her arrested for gang affiliation?”

“No?  I mean, has Undyne ever arrested a kid in stripes?  Nah, I was gonna ask around, see if she really was an orphan.  Thought she could get into a school or find some work or somethin’ to pay her way.  Something better than whatever goes on Underground these days.  Kid needs a family that’ll teach her surface manners and some way to earn money that won’t bring gangs - the Underground kind or Undyne’s happy little group - after her.”

There was another pause, then Grillby gave a strange, crackling laugh.  “You really have...changed.  I heard you were going soft, but this is the first I’ve seen of it.”

“Uh, r-really?  I mean, haha, you don’t actually think-”

“The child changed you.  Not Pele,” he said, amusement curling the ragged opening on his face that passed for a mouth, “The other one.  The ambassador’s child.”

“You...you know about Attie?”

“There are no secrets in a bar.  I am well-paid for my...discretion.  But you?  You aren’t the type to value money so highly, nor does your brother have nearly as good a hold on you as he thinks; his willingness to pay me for information about you says as much.  You must be doing this for...personal reasons.  Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t, but Sans didn’t really want to say so.

“It was certainly an unexpected development.  You were one of the monsters I least expected to have a soft spot for children.  Then again, you never did dust children, did you?”

“No.  But that doesn’t mean nothin’.”

“I know several annoying teenagers who would disagree.”

“Hmph.”

Grillby did his funny laugh again.  “Don’t worry; I haven’t distributed that information, and after what you’ve done for my family...I don’t intend to.  It isn’t even worth much at the moment.  It is strange, though, isn’t it?  Not too long ago, this would have been an incredible weakness for you.  And yet…”

“...Here, it isn’t.  Heck, most humans would see it as a good thing, bein’ too nice to kids.”

“Indeed.”

The warmth Sans felt wasn’t just because he was standing next to a man made of fire.  There was a strange camaraderie, an understanding of shared hardships and shared joys, that passed between the two in that moment.  For once, it wasn’t awkward to meet Grillby’s eyes, or whatever passed for them.

“I was emancipated by my brother shortly after Pele was born,” the elemental said, breaking the silence.  “I haven’t heard from him, his wife, or his children in years.  I thought they were all dead.  I thought I didn’t care if they were.”

That he’d thought incorrectly went unsaid.

A crash and the sound of tinkling glass broke the moment, and both looked away.  “Well,” Sans said, “I’d, uh, better get to my station.  LD can’t cover for me forever.  Uh.  How much do I owe you for…?”

“Nothing; it’s on the house.  Consider it thanks.  And do let me know if you find anything more about the situation.”

“Sure will.”

Grillby left the room first, headed towards the bar.  Sans went the other way, out the back door and into the alleyway.  He paused before teleporting back up the mountain.

It felt good, having an ally.  He seemed to be picking them up at a rapid rate lately: Attie, Frisk, Undyne, and now Grillby and Pele.  He practically had friends.  It was weird to think about, after living most of his life being the town asshole.

Speaking of which, he clearly wasn’t the only one who’d changed.  Who would’ve thought that Grillby cared about family?  Especially after he’d been emancipated?  This was the guy who was more than willing to roast some bones if, say, a skeleton eating at his bar came up a few gold short in change.  Not that Sans had ever been in that position, of course.  His hands curled reflexively; dish duty at a bar was one of the worst jobs ever, in his opinion.

With a sigh, he teleported up towards his station.

It felt like only minutes later that he was walking back down the mountain, leaving a twitchy Doggo in his place.  He’d been too preoccupied with going over his notes and wondering about Pele and Grillby, and time seemed to have jumped.  It began snowing in earnest halfway home; the comfort of his apartment was welcoming to his cold bones.  Boss was gone - as was the Takersfaire booth - so Sans had no interference getting to his room.  He immediately flopped over on his mattress.

As he passed out, he realized that he’d really only gotten three hours of sleep the night before.  Undyne was going to yell at him again if he stretched himself…

“SANS!  WAKE UP!”

Sans rolled out of the way on instinct as a bone attack struck the pillow where his head had been moments before.  “B-Boss?  Wha…?”

“I’VE BEEN TRYING TO WAKE YOU UP FOR TEN MINUTES!  GET OUT OF BED NOW, YOU LAZY SACK OF SHIT!”

He managed to climb to his feet despite the exhaustion dragging at his bones.  He glanced at the clock.  It was just past 7 in the morning, which was...not as early as it felt.  He must’ve used more magic than he thought, to still be so tired after what was - for him - an early night.

Oh, shit.  He’d forgotten to call Undyne, hadn’t he.

“GET TO YOUR HOT DOG STAND IMMEDIATELY!”  Boss growled.  “I WILL NOT STAND FOR ANY MORE LAZINESS IN THIS HOUSE!”

“It’s not a house, Boss, it’s-”

Thud.

The impact of bone on bone took away all the bonus HP Sans had gotten from sleep, and a few extra points besides.

“IMMEDIATELY, SANS!”

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’...”

He practically ran to his hot dog stand, not willing to give Boss any more reasons to punish him.  Once there, he pulled his phone out.

Undyne picked up on the first ring.  “WHAT??” she screeched.

“Wow.  What a nice way to greet a pal.”

“Oh.  Sans.  What the hell.  Is up with you.  You were.   So late.  Last night.”

“Uh…”

“Don’t.  You dare.  Pun at me.  I am not.  In the mood.”

“No coffee yet?”

The growl was confirmation enough.

“Riiight.  Uh, I’ll make this quick.  Soooo...stopped by the lab yesterday to look at...stuff.  Got what I needed, but picked up a...straggler along the way.”

“I swear to the stars, Sans, if you are calling me because you got involved in another shady gang deal trying to get drugs for a prank, I will rip off your skull and shove it straight up your-”

“I didn’t!  I didn’t!  Also: rude!”

“Don’t you talk to me about rude you little...no, y’know what?  No.  It’s too early for this crap.”

“Wait!”  He could feel her trying to hang up on him.  “I...it’s important.  I swear.”

“You have five seconds of my time, asshole.”

“It was a kid.  Alph had a kid down in her lab.”

There was a pause.  For a moment, Sans thought she really had hung up.  Then-

“WHAT???”

“Holy shit, that’s really not necessary!”

“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THE ROYAL SCIENTIST IS EXPERIMENTING ON CHILDREN?  AGAIN??  WHERE?  WHO?  HOW MANY??”

“I-”

“TELL ME RIGHT NOW YOU ASSHOLE!!!  NGYAAAAAAAAAH!”

There was a loud crash in the background.  It turned out to be the first of several.

Sans waited for the noise to die down a little.  “Uh...you done?”

The only response was heavy breathing.

“Ooooookay.  So.  I only found the one kid.  Fire elemental girl, claims she’s an orphan.  The Sparks sold ‘er off a few days ago, we think.”

“We?”  Undyne growled.

“Uh...I took her to Grillby’s.”

“You took a child.  To a seedy bar.”

“Nnnnoooo?  I took a fire elemental child to the only other fire elemental I know who isn’t involved in some hella crazy shit.”

“That’s...debatable.”

“Alright, what fire elemental do you know who would’ve been a better option?  Yeah, thought not.  And as it turns out, they’re family.”

“What the hell?  Grillby has kids?”

“Nope.  Niece, apparently.”

“You showed up with his niece, and he didn’t immediately toss you out on your face?”

“Nope.  Weird, right?”

“You do know he was emancipated years ago, right?  It was a huge fight, apparently.  They still tell legends about it in the Guard.”

“He...may have mentioned something about that?”

“...It’s too early in the morning for this crap.”

“Whelp.  I’ll, uh, leave you to it.  Just wanted to give ya a heads-up so you’d know that there’s a new kid in town who’s gonna need paperwork.”

There was another muffled crunch in the background.  “Sans.  I hate you.”

“Uh…”

“Not only do you call me at SEVEN THIRTY IN THE MORNING, ON MY DAY OFF, but you DUMP A CRAPTON OF PAPERWORK ON MY ASS???”

“Well-”

“DON’T ANSWER THAT!!!”

“Y’okay.”

“AND DON’T YOU DARE BE LATE TO YOUR SHIFT THIS AFTERNOON!!”

There was a low scream as the call was terminated.  Forcefully.

Well.  That went better than he expected.  And better yet, it was out of his sweaty little hands.  It was a good day.

Or...so he thought.

Sans shuffled home later that night a tired, worn skeleton trying not to jostle a bad arm.  Work at the hot dog stand had been uneventful, but his double sentry shift had been absolutely hellish.  A group of teenagers, drunk or high out of their dead little minds, had decided to storm the mountain.  Literally ‘storm;’ it had been alternating between snow and rain for most of the afternoon and into the evening before settling into a cold drizzle.  Fortunately, their path had taken them within roughly two feet of one of the sentry posts so they didn’t just disappear onto the mountain.

Un fortunately, that post was the one Sans was stationed at.

The fight had been difficult.  His blue magic only affected one human at a time, and the kids had been too impaired to really care about what was happening to one of their own.  They also had a hard time registering pain; the weak bones he threw at them took tiny slivers out of their HP, but didn’t do much to slow them down.  He was authorized to use magic - Mount Ebott was monster territory - but he didn’t want to risk killing them and starting a real incident.

At least they recognized him as a threat.  The focus of the group went from getting up the mountain to beating up the monster who was single-handedly kicking their asses.  Luckily for him, whatever they’d pumped into their systems made them both reckless and bad at aiming.

Even a complete idiot gets lucky sometimes, though.

It had taken twenty minutes for the other sentries to start trickling in, and by then the damage had mostly been done.  Most of the kids, exhausted and finally feeling their injuries, had collapsed in various undignified piles across the clearing by Sans’s post.  A few got away but...eh, that wasn’t his problem.

One of the dogs had called Undyne, who had called the police (after chewing out all the sentries collectively and individually for waking her up, again, on her day off).  Sans had, naturally, been left to deal with the ensuing chaos of mediating between an angry, sleep-deprived Undyne and the extremely wary human police.

No one else had been hurt - thank the stars for small miracles - but it was still a literal and figurative mess.  Mud was one thing, but trespassing onto monster property was a pretty big deal for humans, especially since monsters on their mountain had the legal right to defend themselves in whatever way they saw fit once provoked.  He didn’t envy the cops or the kids; neither would have a good night’s sleep for at least a week once Tori got ahold of them.

Regardless, all of that led to Sans wandering home in the freezing rain at an unholy hour of the morning, stiff and sore and trying not to jostle an arm that wasn’t quite broken.  He really, really just wished that he could just take a shortcut home, but he couldn’t summon the energy.  He needed to start working out again...it had fallen by the wayside over the past week or two.

He paused.  That sounded like...a cry?  He hesitated, remembering what happened the last time he’d responded to a crying child, but hearing it a second time broke his resolve.  He’d just rescued a kid; couldn’t a guy get a break??

Responsibility really was going to be the death of him.

The sound was coming from a nearby alleyway, which wasn’t ominous at all.  He summoned a bone, keeping his wits about him, and angled himself so his bad arm was protected by a wall.  His magic gathered instinctively, ready to protect him despite how drained he’d been by the earlier fight.

The pavement of the alley was slick from the recent freezing rain and there were deep puddles where it had sunken.  Sans avoided those.  The noise seemed to be coming from a pile of garbage stacked around a dumpster further back, but he could see no movement.

He stalked closer.  It sounded like the noise was getting quieter; he couldn’t tell if the kid was weakening or moving farther away.  He paused and strained to listen over the patter of rain on pavement and trash.  Weakening, definitely, but it was sounding less like a child.  There were no words, for one, and no matter how close he got he couldn’t sense a human soul or any type of magic.

Movement from one of the boxes made him tense, bone at the ready.  He felt silly; it was a small creature, not nearly big enough to be a threat…

...but it was the source of the noise, he realized as he watched it squirm.  He dismissed the bone.  He’d wasted enough time and energy chasing after...actually, what was that thing?

Curiosity got the better of him and he stepped closer.  The box was soaked through and half-submerged in a puddle that was half frozen over.  There was something hand-written on the box, but it was smeared by rain and he couldn’t make it out in the dark of the alley.  The crying thing - whatever it was - clung to one side, trying to keep from sliding into the water.

It wasn’t until he stood right next to the box and looked in that he saw the other dark shapes in the water, sunken and unmoving.  He thought of the Dogi’s litter of pups and shuddered.

Trying not to overthink what he was doing, he grabbed the little critter by the scruff of its neck.  “Please don’t be a rat,” he muttered to it.  He had too many awful memories of the little scavengers from his childhood on the streets of the Underground.  “I will literally throw you right back in there with your friends if you’re a rat.”

He picked his way back out of the alley, gritting his teeth against the cries.  Once back in relative light and safety, he held it up.

It wasn’t a rat.

He examined the thing carefully.  It was furry, he could tell, even though the rain had matted its fur down to almost nothing.  The fur was too dark to pick out colors, but it seemed to be covered in stripes of brown or grey.  From what he could see it had big pointy ears, a wimpy little furry tail that was curled up between its legs, and a huge green eye with a little slit.

Cat.

Well then.  He’d always wanted a pet.  But seriously, what was it with him and picking up strays lately??

Sans carefully brought his bad hand up under the cat’s butt, then released his hold on the scruff of its neck.  Even the slight weight caused his arm to ache, but he held it steady.  The cat shivered; humans and other creatures with fleshy bits shivered when cold, he remembered.  (He deliberately did not think about Frisk shivering under her comforter, hours from death when her daughter dragged his sorry ass in to help.)

It seemed to be calming down, though.  He knew from conversations with Att...with humans that they perceived the magic radiating off his bones as warmth.  He was soaked through, but held the little thing close to his chest anyways.  It wasn’t like a little extra water was going to hurt it at that point.

He walked home quickly, no longer caring about his injuries.

When he arrived at the apartment complex he carefully pressed his bad arm against his side.  The little cat fit perfectly inside his jacket in the pouch formed by the crook of his elbow.  It didn’t seem to like him zipping the jacket up, but Sans knew that Boss finding it would be a death sentence: for it, definitely, and possibly for Sans as well with how cranky Boss had been.

He slipped the door open quietly, listening for anyone else in the apartment.  The only sound was the rain beating against the kitchen window.  He started for the hallway-

“THERE YOU ARE!”

“Shit, Boss!”  He shifted his arm, silently begging the cat to stay quiet.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN HOME AN HOUR AGO!”

“I-I got a little banged up in a fight.  I, uh, take it you heard from Undyne what happened?”

“CAPTAIN UNDYNE APPRISED ME OF THE SITUATION, YES.”

There was a shuffle somewhere over Boss’s head as the residents of the apartment above theirs came to terms with loud noises at unfortunate hours of the morning.

“Then, uh, I’ll just…”

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”

Sans paused.

“Remove your clothing.  I must examine you for injuries.”

“Wha... hell no, Boss!  What even??”

“YOUR GRAMMAR GETS WORSE EVERY DAY!”

“Why do you need to ‘examine’ me?”

Boss sighed, rubbing one knuckle along the smooth stretch of bone between his eye sockets.  “Because you were so careless as to worry the ambassador a few months ago, she is now under the impression that you are suffering from…‘abuse.’”  He said the word like it meant a tendency towards screaming esoteric love poetry in public.  “Absurd, I know.  However, Undyne still demanded that I ensure you remain in good health to appease her highness.  I MUST, THEREFORE, ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE SUFFERED NO LASTING DAMAGE AFTER THIS SCUFFLE OF YOURS!”

Sans shoved the flare of anger to the side, where he could deal with it later.  “I’m pretty sure that was just when I was babysitting.  I’m not babysitting anymore.”

“ENOUGH, SANS!”

Boss shot an arm out and made a grab for Sans, snarling when his prey dodged backwards into the hallway and made a desperate break for his room.  Boss wouldn’t knock down the door and risk the wrath of the landlord, and thus, the queen.

...Probably.

He locked the door mere moments before Boss slammed into it fists-first.  “SANS!  OPEN THE DOOR!”

Sans tucked himself into the corner behind the door hinge.  Boss was bad at picking locks, but even worse at noticing fine detail when he was all worked up.  It was that or the closet, and he’d started checking the closet.

Thankfully, he seemed content with just yelling and banging on the door.  He settled down pretty well after about half an hour and stalked back off towards his own room, muttering threats the entire way.  Sans made a mental note to stay away from his brother for the next few days to avoid punishments.

No need to get the big guy into hot water with Undyne if she’d started poking her nose in their business again.  It wasn’t a big deal; he could handle it, and there was no need to get Frisk involved.

He chuckled in relief, feeling his jacket.  It was still soaked through pretty badly.  The cat, however, had curled up between his arm and ribcage and was making a noise like a small motor.

That must be the ‘purring’ thing he’d heard about.  It was incredibly soothing, actually.

Gently, he set the cat on his mattress and changed into dry clothes.  After a long moment of consideration, the threw his jacket over the back of his desk chair to dry out.  The rest of his clothes were kicked into the heap of laundry in the corner, but he wanted to wear his jacket sometime soon.

He flopped over on the bed to examine the creature he’d brought home.  It was looking better, actually.  It had pushed itself up onto four tiny paws and was wobbling around the bed; whether the wobble was due to weakness, injury, or the softness of his mattress he couldn’t tell.  The long cuddle under his jacket had done it some good, at least.  It was looking puffy and mostly dry across its back and the shivering had stopped.

Upon further inspection, it only seemed to have one functioning eye.  Both its eyes were open, but one of them was milky and pale in a way that reminded him of Undyne and the other monsters he knew whose eyes had been damaged.  For all that, it seemed to be getting around okay.

“Yer not sleepin’ with me,” he said as it crashed nose-first into his leg and flopped over.  Little black paw pads waved wildly in the air.  “I know your type.  You make all kinds of wet, goopy messes that I hafta clean up, and I’m not in the mood tonight.”

It started purring again, curled into a tight ball against his leg.

“Fine.  Lemme see…”  He scooped the thing up and looked around.  A space heater he’d been meaning to fix up was still in the closet, buried under spare mechanical parts.  It rattled when he turned it up, but that wasn’t the end of the world.  He didn’t notice too much of a difference in temperature, but he wasn’t especially sensitive to temperature differences to begin with.  Hopefully it helped.

He found a large cardboard box from...well, he didn’t really remember and it wasn’t marked, so it could’ve been from anything, really.  Into the box went a pile of dirty shirts; if they were already dirty, the gooey mess the cat was going to make wouldn’t do much damage.

The cat protested Sans’s attempts to put it down, curling itself around his phalanges and struggling to find something to grip with its claws, but he was able to wrangle it into the box.  For the amount of struggle it put up, it didn’t seem too upset once he got it settled; it curled right back up and started purring again.

He ran his phalanges over the cat’s head and ears, concentrating on the texture of the fur.  It was a strange feeling.  It was soft, but not like cloth; almost feather-like, really.  It didn’t feel much like dog fur, though he hadn’t had many opportunities to study that in detail.  Dog fur was...he didn’t know how to describe it.  Thicker?  He had given scratches to Greater Dog during his last shift at the hot dog stand (that guy was a real softy at heart, a secret Sans would take to his grave) and he’d been able to feel the individual strands of fur.  The cat’s fur was so fine that it seemed almost like one solid thing until his phalanges passed through it.

The purring stopped abruptly and Sans paused, worried he’d upset the cat somehow.  It didn’t react at all.  Its eyes were closed and its head had drooped down to rest on the sleeve of one of his sweatshirts.

Asleep, then.  He grinned.

Might as well join it.

[brajeshupadhyay]

The nexus between coronavirus and protests: ?The virus was the kindling. Police brutality lit the fire.?

At 2:15 a.m., Walt went downtown to see, to make a statement. The Smiths had talked and talked about the virus; they knew joining the protests against police brutality meant a higher risk of being infected. They took the risk to give their 10-year-old son a chance at a future in which he is not “walking around with the spirit of fear,” Shae said. They took the risk because after dealing with the pandemic “we still have to do whatever it takes.”

The protests mean exposure to the virus and potentially accelerating its spread. The virus has killed more than 109,000 Americans, including a disproportionate number of blacks. Yet the Smiths and tens of thousands of others have chosen to take the risk.

Far from being separate crises, the deadly epidemic of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and the sudden explosion of street protests against police violence are intimately connected, according to protesters and public and mental health professionals.

“People are so pent-up with frustration from being inside for so long,” said Patricia Newton, chief executive and medical director of the Black Psychiatrists of America, which has about 2,000 members. “That was the kindling, and the police brutality lit the fire. People tell me, ‘I need to get out of the house,’ and ‘I’m having cabin fever.’ When people feel hopeless, they feel they have nothing to lose and caution goes to the wind.”

For Shae and Walt Smith, the decision to leave home and walk among strangers for the first time in months was calculated, the result of a thorough discussion about what lay ahead for their two young sons as black men in America.

In Columbia, Md., Jada Smith made the pivot more impulsively. On the day a Minneapolis police officer drove his knee into George Floyd’s neck until he died, Smith had barely left her house in three months.

Smith, 23, broke her self-isolation, joining teeming, screaming, shoulder-to-shoulder protesters who packed streets north of the White House.

“F— coronavirus. Who cares about coronavirus?” she said. “You can’t even walk out the door without being afraid for your skin color. This is more serious than what the coronavirus was. This is our lives out here. This is our children’s lives.”

For medical professionals, the nightly images of huge crowds walking city streets, shouting and chanting, sometimes wearing masks but with hardly any possibility of social distancing, is frightening, even if it’s also understandable.

Newton and others who have counseled protesters describe the connection between the two crises as complex — very different for different people. Some protesters consciously weigh the risks of catching the virus against a moral calling to voice their anger about racial bias. Others simply follow their passion to meet the moment on the nation’s streets. What both groups have in common is a web of emotions stemming from the pandemic: anger, isolation, loneliness, frustration, powerlessness, hopelessness.

“There are a lot of factors weighing on people,” said Reed V. Tuckson, chairman of the Black Coalition Against Covid-19 and a former D.C. health commissioner. “It would be the height of hypocrisy for people protesting on behalf of those who cannot breathe to then bring home a virus that will prevent the people you live with from breathing. At the same time, a major appeal of protests like these is that they are exciting, engaging and morally compelling, and even more appealing when people have been quarantined for so long.”

Newton has counseled protesters to consider the health impact of large gatherings. “I keep telling people, ‘You can’t protest if you’re dead and you can’t protest if you’re on a ventilator,’ ” she said. “If the people in your home and your community get the virus because of your unwillingness to take precautions, who are you helping? But when people get angry, they stop thinking.”

The clash between the need to take precautions against the virus and the desire to take part in the protests came home to Kitaw Demassie when his 13-year-old daughter asked if they could join a demonstration.

Demassie, a physician who is dean of the School of Public Health at the State University of New York Downstate, said his daughter understood the risk of infection, “but the anger and the isolation from the stay-at-home order combined to make her and other young people feel the need to go out. The isolation of the past three months increases anxiety, depression and also symptoms of indignation. Demonstrating peacefully helps people do something with their anger.”

Father and daughter decided to join a group of physicians protesting in their white coats in Manhattan — “using protection and social distancing,” Demassie was quick to add.

For many years, protests against racial bias have erupted anew after each incident of police brutality that gains national attention. But this time, Demassie said, the explosion of outrage is louder in part because “the interaction with the virus shutdown is fueling these protests.”

Demassie understands why people feel compelled to protest — after all, he’s joining a crowd himself — but he remains “very sure that this will have a big impact on the number of virus cases. There really is no social distancing in these demonstrations.”

It’s a tricky moment, he said: “We have two epidemics — racial disparities in health care, as we see in the death rate from covid-19, and racial injustice as exemplified in the death of George Floyd. In both cases, we need to flatten the curve.”

It’s not that protesters don’t know that gathering in large crowds is likely to further spread the virus. Rather, they often view that reality through a blend of fatalism and idealism.

Shae Smith, a 34-year-old manager at a Gap store, sometimes sounds fatalistic. The virus, police brutality and the way she and other black Americans lived before this year’s events all added up to a deadened life, she said: “We’re already in survival mode. The unemployment that people are facing. . . . How much more can we take? We’re already at our wit’s end. It’s like, we’re walking around, in a sense, feeling defeated.”

Yet she also sounds idealistic. The protests are a chance “to see to it that people are going to be held accountable,” she said. “We got our mask on, and I made a sign and we went out.”

The fatalism is sometimes literal.

Kelly Rudin, of Bethesda, Md., had lived in terror of the virus. Kelly, 63, would send her 62-year-old husband Tom out to do the grocery shopping. But the couple, longtime activists who protested President Trump’s inauguration and the police choking death of Eric Garner in New York, knew immediately what they would do after Floyd’s death.

“This,” Kelly said, “is worth dying for.”

“If white people don’t come out, our society — ” she hesitated, then finished: “Our society is basically done anyway.”

Until recently, the Rudins had taken all precautions they could. Now, they donned cloth masks and promised each other they would stay six feet from everyone else.

But marching amid the crowds, Kelly didn’t feel worried anymore. Watching a group try to breach a police barricade on Pennsylvania Avenue, Tom lamented that because of the virus, they could not go closer.

“Ordinarily,” Kelly said, “I’d be in the middle of that.”

They leaned against a fire hydrant for a few minutes. The shouting rose. People ran back and forth. Tom and Kelly looked at each other. In tandem, they waded into the crowd.

Such stories are both inspiring and worrisome, Newton said.

“I never thought I’d see Americans so fatalistic and idealistic at the same time,” she said. “The fatalism is very scary. I’ve heard repeatedly people saying to me, ‘If I’m going to get killed, I want it to be for a reason.’ At the same time, there’s this idealism — they feel it’s their civic duty to go out on the streets.”

Chante Burg, who recently left her job as a special-education teacher in Louisville to become a disabilities consultant, had plenty of cause to fear the virus. Recently recovered from Lyme disease, she takes 26 pills a day to boost her immune system. She had spent the past two months at home with her boyfriend, a former teacher.

But then, after Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black emergency medical technician, was shot and killed by Louisville police in her own home, Burg heard a call to action through her network of teachers.

“I was livid,” she said. “Just livid. I was furious, I was devastated. I felt like, this is the end. This is the end. It can’t go on.”

Burg, 34, felt compelled to act. “The virus didn’t concern me at all,” she said. “My immune system, I’ve built it up, and I have faith, I have faith in God, I have faith in my immune system.”

She did worry that some people carrying the virus might be among the protesters, that some people may have gotten cabin fever and were “using these protests to get out of the house,” she said. “But I don’t dwell on that.”

She feels in the dark about the virus. She mistrusts the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, basically all of the often-conflicting guidance she hears on the news.

“We don’t know what to believe or who to trust, so we need to take care of ourselves,” Burg said.

In contrast, she’s confident that protesting is the right choice: “It’s important to me to be able to speak out and not live in fear, and it’s important for me to exercise my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I’m not doing that when I’m sitting at home. Today, I feel empowered, I feel strong. I feel that we’re making progress, and we are going to win.”

In the sea of young faces massed in front of the White House during the past week, Louis and Merianne de Merode stood out. He is 71 and she is 64. The Georgetown couple both have compromised immune systems from battles with cancer; they had strictly quarantined themselves, living on delivered groceries, venturing out only for bike rides on lonely stretches of the C & O Canal.

Fearful of joining the protests because of the risk of infection, they changed their minds when they read their neighbors’ comments on a listserv where affluent Georgetowners complained about the looting visited upon local shops without discussing the rioters’ motivations.

The de Merodes put on cloth masks and headed downtown.

“This is 1,000 times more people than we’ve been around,” Merianne said. “We’re walking with people who don’t all wear masks. So we’re scared.”

But just as they felt morally obliged to protest, they also felt compelled to put themselves in a 14-day quarantine after the demonstration.

Tuckson, the former D.C. health commissioner, said the same moral responsibility that brings protesters onto the streets should lead them to quarantine themselves afterward. “If you’re going to follow your idealism,” he said, “you’re going to have to also protect the people you live with.”

Some health advocates feel a tension between advising protesters to take precautions against the coronavirus, which has produced disproportionately high death rates among blacks, and endorsing action against another epidemic — racial disparities in everything from housing quality to police brutality.

But Newton said the two epidemics are more closely connected than many protesters realize.

“The virus exposed the underbelly of the problems we’ve had in health care for decades — a disparity in care that reveals some of the same bias we see in police brutality,” she said.

For more than two months this spring, Denelle Acosta locked herself indoors, leaving her San Antonio home only to buy groceries or ride her bike. As a cancer survivor who is also diabetic, Acosta said she had to remain hypervigilant as the coronavirus swept across Texas.

But when she watched the video of the last nine minutes of Floyd’s life, “I just started sobbing,” said Acosta, 36, who works as a sommelier and bartender at an upscale restaurant. “I have all these health issues, but I don’t care. I don’t want a virus to take me, but if I’m going to be fighting for what’s right, I’ll go out like that.”

Acosta saw the officer crushing Floyd as a metaphor for how the system weighs on vulnerable people. She decided to protest in San Antonio, then drove an hour north to Austin to join another crowd.

In front of Austin police headquarters, Acosta, who wore a black mask, pointed to a camp of tents and couches where homeless people find shelter beneath a busy highway and began listing reasons she believes “the system is broken. So many people have no health care, our education system is a joke, we’re not taking care of our veterans or the elderly.”

Police brutality is front of mind, but she thought also about Trump’s aggressive tweets, the plight of vulnerable communities and the pandemic, which she said has exposed inequity in American society.

“Laying my life on this line for this movement is more important to me than dying because of a virus,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Fisher and Jamison reported from Washington. Wallace reported from Louisville. Holly Bailey in Minneapolis, Peter Holley in Austin and Hannah Natanson in Washington contributed to this report.

The post The nexus between coronavirus and protests: ?The virus was the kindling. Police brutality lit the fire.? appeared first on Sansaar Times.

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[brood-mother]

hey, i'm super into your 'the sun sets on us' blurb/board on pinterest. can you say more about the story? it looks super interesting

of course, yeah! it’s still in its infancy so i don’t even have definite names for the main characters yet (umm let’s call the them middle sis jara, little bro elan, and big bro amal for purpose of this i guess?). i’ll put it behind a read more because i am going to go IN on this bc i don’t get to talk about it often and i am excited abt it. edit: i definitely got carried away but it felt good to air it out, thank you.

anyway, the basic premise is that in this universe, magic is an inherently destructive force. it is capable of doing fantastic, unbelievable things, but it requires a lot of energy, and typically consumes that energy in the form of life-force. magic users, if they regularly use magic, have a dramatically reduced life-span (even magic users who totally abstain from using magic can expect to live to 60 at the absolute most, a good 20 or so years less than a normal person). magic use blackens and scorches the flesh. magic users are constantly hungry, and run at unnaturally high temperatures because of the perpetual unnatural energy generation in their bodies. however, it is possible to draw that life-force from other people and even the environment around you, and as such in most places seek to eradicate magic with extreme prejudice.

the siblings live in one such country with their father; their mother, a magic user like jara, has already passed away naturally. they live in almost total isolation to protect jara from persecution (although relatives of magic users are also treated abysmally whether they show talents or not), but when war breaks out in the land, conscription is enforced, and every family must provide at least one able bodied adult to join the army. the father immediately volunteers, so as to stop anyone from sniffing around, but shortly thereafter the siblings are forced to flee their home without him or be swallowed up in the violence. 

at first they are comfortably anonymous in a tide of refugees, but eventually it becomes hard to hide. other magic users flushed out by the war are caught, persecuted. people are scared, angry; scapegoatism is rife, and an actual witch-hunt begins. with nowhere to hide and so little experience of the ‘real’ world, the siblings are forced to flee. they run aimlessly for a while until they realise the only place they could ever be safe is a secluded, insular, frozen land far to the north. most southerners only know of it through fearful hearsay and myths, but it is rumoured magic is seen as a boon, and magic users are like gods among mortal men. 

the journey there is treacherous; they must first make it to the northern coast of their own country, cross the sea, and then trek across a great barren wasteland to reach it. on the way, they encounter many obstacles, not least of all a dragon (dragons, while exceedingly rare and quite dangerous, are not devastating beasts in this world; they’re sort of on the same level as a polar bear, maybe, if polar bears could breath fire). while it should be easy enough for them to defeat with jara’s magic - she is naturally inclined to a particularly destructive type of magic known as entropy, which causes poison, decay, unconsciousness, etc -  if they work together, amal panics and freezes, allowing elan to be mauled badly enough that he nearly dies, and has to have his arm amputated, which widens the schism in their already strained relationship.

eventually they reach their destination. they spend several weeks on the outskirts, among common folk with no magic. the land is barren and inhospitable, and the eke a modest existence as farmers, labourers, hunters, etc. while not technically oppressed, non-magic users are almost seen as second-class citizens; they’re used for their superior physical strength and health/longevity and rarely raise above that station, and are often excluded from ‘magic-only’ spaces and the upper echelons of society. magic is essentially a ticket to the aristocracy, regardless of birth. jara uses this to her advantage, and tries to find a space for herself with elan and amal posing as her servants so that they are permitted where other non-magic users aren’t.

it doesn’t work, at least not initially. while she is a magic user, she is still a foreigner in a very deliberately insular country. she is generally looked down upon, mistrusted and scoffed at for being untrained and reluctant to use her magic. she eventually garners enough ire to be challenged but another young woman; they skirmish, and jara manages to defeat her, but only just. this catches the attention of a particularly wealthy and powerful man, for whom the other woman was an apprentice (rather than standard blood inheritance laws, magic-users have apprentices who compete for the right to inherit their wealth, rank, legacy, etc, and apprentices in return contractually bind themselves to their master’s service). he releases her, and instead offers his apprenticeship to jara.

jara accepts immediately. while it is obvious that the competition between apprentices is ruthless, even a failed apprentice is held in good esteem and can live comfortable lives. she sees it as an opportunity to secure a better life for her and her brothers. all is well at first: she finds the magic-users strange and intimidating, with their gold-dipped hands to hide their burnt flesh, elaborate head-dresses meant to represent their magical aura, and clothes of sheer wispy material to prove that they don’t feel the cold, but she enjoys learning and shows great natural talent. she is even surprised to find she actually gets along with her master’s other apprentice, yulia, and they become close friends very quickly.

for a while, things go very well for jara. her talents grow tenfold. she experiences a wealth of new things she’s never tried before. for the first time in her life, she is able to be unapologetically herself. for the first time in her life she is not made to feel like a burden, a liability, or a mistake. for the first time in her life, she is not hungry. she even sees many older magic-users, those living well beyond the expected age in her home country, which gives her hope and confidence.

meanwhile, without jara’s knowledge, things develop differently for the brothers. jara’s master takes a particular interest in amal. he considers amal to be a ‘perfect psychical specimen’, and appears to think very highly of him - for a non-magic user. he wants to train him to be his personal guard and assistant. amal is easily flattered, and eagerly agrees, and is naively unconcerned by the apparent need for secrecy. 

as both a non-magic user, and physically ‘deformed’, elan is largely neglected by everyone - including his own siblings, who are suddenly busy with their own training. he becomes (more) moody and withdrawn, his resentment of amal grown to toxic levels, and only finds solace in the unexpected companion ship of the master’s current bodyguard, tymo, a strange and quiet man with a creeping terminal illness. as they become closer and tentatively explore their feelings for each other, he confides in elan about his master’s horrid mistreatment of him, and the reason his morbid interest in amal: he is obsessed with the idea of “blessing” non-magic users with the gift of magic, but it can only work on those with magic already in their blood - like amal, and like tymo. he’s tried the experiment on dozens of ‘guards’ but their bodies cannot handle the strain, and the few that survive sicken and die as tymo is.

things take a turn for the worse for jara. her studies begin to tread in areas of magic that she doesn’t care to learn, namely how to siphon the life-force of things to lessen the tax of magic-use. at first it is only plants, fruits, even the earth itself. her natural inclination towards entropy means she is exceptionally proficient at it. then they move on to livestock, and finally, her master presents her with a human - a magicless member of the household staff. at first she refuses and the master tries to sooth and flatter her, insisting that even sweet yulia had completed the lesson, and yulia wasn’t nearly as accomplished as she was. jara still refused, and the master becomes enraged at that point - he needs her magic to conduct his experiments, and as his apprentice she all but belongs to him. he threatens to use elan and amal in the next lessons if she fails to comply and, terrified, she does.

she watches the damaged flesh on her hands smooth and heal. she feels stronger than she has in months, the weariness of her magic use washing away, and she realises this is what allows the mages to live as they do. their magnificent buildings, the forever-blooming gardens, even the ability to grow food in such an unforgiving landscape - it’s all beyond the reach of natural magic. they use the non-magic citizens like batteries.

jara realises in that exact moment that both she and her brothers are in grave danger, and the only way she can ensure their safety is to play along. she acts as though she finally realises the true extent and appeal of her power, and that she understands what her master desires of her. as soon as she is away from him, she begins to plan her escape. she turns to yulia, her closest and indeed only friend, for help. she knows the master has forced her to do such horrible things too, and jara wants her to escape with them. she also tells her brothers.

at first amal refuses to believe it until tymo himself explains what his fate was to be. they agree a time and a place to meet so that they might all flee together. however, when the night comes, yulia and tymo are waiting for the siblings but something is off: once they are within sight tymo cries out that it’s an ambush, and that yulia had betrayed them to gain favour with the master. the trio manage to escape, but only just, and tymo is left behind.

they make it to a safe place, but elan cannot forgive himself for leaving tymo behind. he goes back in the hopes that he can free him somehow, and is caught. however, rather than being killed or tortured for the whereabouts of jara and amal, the master offers him a deal. he will give him tymo. he will give him an amazing functional prosthetic arm. he will even use magic to extend tymo’s pitifully short life, like he had his own. 

elan accepts. he provides a location, and his granted his boon, and while the master and yulia go to collect his siblings he is told to wait in the castle with tymo. he doesn’t wait: the information he gave the master was false, and he manages to escape the guards and flee with tymo back to their true hiding place.

the master anticipated this. he put a tracking spell on tymo, and is lead right to their position. in the cold and freezing forest, they fight. it nearly kills her, sapping her strength until her entire body is tortured and scorched from the exertion, but in the end, jara comes through victorious by draining the very life from her master until he crumbles to dust, betraying herself and her morals, but saving her family. 

she then has to make one final agonising choice: does she stay and inherit her master’s vast estate where they can live in comfort in a rotten land, or go back on the run where they can never rest but will always be free? either way, she knows she must fight to protect every single day of her life.

[demonicnoobie]

can you imagine a world where were all represented by a font? What font would I be? Hmmm, no, not Arial, that's too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. Too uh, deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now that's the ONE!!! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a personal question. If you're personality were represented by a font, which font would you be? Take a moment and put you font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I get bored with old calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many request to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you've all been wanting Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. Truly loyal theorists will know that earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, comic sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played undertale I'm sure that was a really wierd opening. ANYWAYS, sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE Is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given by a shopkeeper in Snowden, who claims that sans and papyrus just, and I quote, "showed up one day and asserted themselves." Wierd, right? What's more is that papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. SANS is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly deadly and much more serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts through the world on ridiculous routes. He even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, that he doesn't belong in the underground seems to be correct. The evidence shows he used to be a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, papyrus asks sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, we call that the sun. This is important because A, the use of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun, shows that sans has a kinship or knowledge of other humans, and B, that despite he and papyrus both being skeletons, and BROTHER, and apparently both appearing in the underworld at the same time, the clearly have two very different histories. Why would papyrus not know the name of the sun but sans would? We get further clues to sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say that means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is " and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on the dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, and as though the surface he's from is from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface but from a different time period, who seemingly had the power to teleport. That a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After visiting the workshop you find some items that leave a lot more questions. A photo album featuring sans and a bunch of people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean. Well a lot of undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named w d gaster. A ghostly figure who never truly appears in the game, honestly covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably best saved for another day. All of the gaster theories i've seen haven't been able to explain all the details. A photo album, and the badge, and that's what kept nagging me as i researched undertale. A badge? That one in particular stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of the room. Something that supposedly reveals the truth about sans. Badges just aren't important in undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was infact the most important badge in the history badge in the history of gaming? This franklin badge. And for those of you who are wondering what i'm talking about, the franklin badge is a pivotal item from the mother series. You know, the one with earthbound, or, maybe you don't know that one either. You know, the one with ness from super smash bros? Yeah well, ness is from earthbound, and earthbound is the second part of this larger mother series. Good? Yeah, well anyways, the franklin badge is an important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life many times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the smash brothers series. So i asked myself; what if the badge in sans drawer was THAT badge? Well first off, it would make undertale connected to earthbound, thereby making it even COOLER? But that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as i started looking more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the most satisfying endings to a journey. And what does sans have in his other drawer? A photo album of people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not character present in undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the mother series linked to the mother series. But how do the broken machine and blueprints fit in? Well, in the final stretch of earthbound, ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien giygas. In order to do that, with the help of dr. andonuts (remember that, he's going to be important later) along with science geniuses apple kid and mr. saturn, create a machine known as the phase distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes at a cost. It can transport organic material, as a result the young heroes must put their souls in robot bodies in order to save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and i'm not ashamed to admit that when i first saw this scene i cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's all a very dark departure in what was otherwise a fun, colorful, and quirky RPG. so what does all of this have to do with undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that mr. saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken phase distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch but it actually explains a lot. Sans wound up in undertale via phase distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences, not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the phase distorter is a time machine. Based on the way he talks, he's not only from a different space but from a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. But the crossovers between earthbound and undertale continue. When you speak to apple kid at the end of earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of ness defeating giygas. Hes going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to obtain its power. That seems awfully familiar to the experiments happening in undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that sans was a key player in those experiments. But i'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, i have plenty. During one of the endings of undertale, we see undyne and alpyhs hanging out on the beach of the surface world. A beach that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical location summers that you play in earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of mother. When undertales crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset with a tall mountain, a big city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection, hence the water, and a lack of trees in this middle section, hence the sand. Well, in earthbound you have the big city of fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a dessert that just so happens to be adjacent to water, and to the east, a mountain on onett where a meteor hits earth. I always called it onett. But if that's not clear enough for you, mother 1, earthbound zero, earthbound beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of eagleland (eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) and the surface world of undertale. But the strongest physical connection, the one that definitely connects these two franchises, comes from none other than papyrus himself. He wears a custom made costume known as his “battle body” but if you look really closely at the designing on the armor, you'll notice a few marks on the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of starmen, the most iconic enemy of earthbound. And look at the way he stands, i always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arm and hand of the starmen. In short, we have some strong proof that the earthbound universe is somehow connected to the undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if we took in one final step and said that sans happened to be ness from earthbound. He hopped through the phase distorted as a test of courage, carrying his franklin badge, a photobook, and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does sans’ behavior. Remember, sans can seemingly teleport. And ness just happens to have the ability PSI teleport. Now look at how sans stands, hands in his pockets, legs out, it looks very similar to how ness is shown on most of the marketing for the game. It even explains why sans bleeds when you hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creators previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind undertale, had previously worked on a halloween hack for earthbound. But this isn't just a simple reskin. The halloween hack tells the tale of dr. andonuts after the events of earthbound. Remember i pointed him out, he's the one who made the phase distorter. In toby fox’s version of the story, we see that the souls of the kids never returned home instead, by going to the past to defeat giygas, there stuck in a new timeline. As a result, jeff never reunites with his father andonuts. And dr. andonuts goes crazy with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, taking the souls of his sons and his sons friend to what he assumes aws their death. He's killed 4 kids, and in toby fox's game, he's gone crazy with guilt, trying to deal with that. Im telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of undertale in this game. The appearance of amalgamates, the use of the awesome song megalovania, the prototypes for flowery? And the theme of being nonviolent in an rpg, SPARING your enemies. So why is this important to the story? Well, remember, in toby fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home, just like sans. and , in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his friends. Which brings us back to undertale. 3 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? Its ness, trying to remember his 3 friends. In short, undertale is a continuation of toby’s version of earthbound, with ness never being able to get home, adopting the name sans, and being accompanied by papyrus, a starman, with knowledge of english, his armor, and his signature posture, but without any of his memory of human things, like the sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’d have a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING

[soapvorer]

can you imagine a world where were all represented by a font? What font would I be? Hmmm, no, not Arial, that's too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. Too uh, deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now that's the ONE!!! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a personal question. If you're personality were represented by a font, which font would you be? Take a moment and put you font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I get bored with old calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many request to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you've all been wanting Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. Truly loyal theorists will know that earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, comic sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played undertale I'm sure that was a really wierd opening. ANYWAYS, sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE Is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given by a shopkeeper in Snowden, who claims that sans and papyrus just, and I quote, "showed up one day and asserted themselves." Wierd, right? What's more is that papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. SANS is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly deadly and much more serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts through the world on ridiculous routes. He even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, that he doesn't belong in the underground seems to be correct. The evidence shows he used to be a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, papyrus asks sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, we call that the sun. This is important because A, the use of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun, shows that sans has a kinship or knowledge of other humans, and B, that despite he and papyrus both being skeletons, and BROTHER, and apparently both appearing in the underworld at the same time, the clearly have two very different histories. Why would papyrus not know the name of the sun but sans would? We get further clues to sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say that means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is " and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on the dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, and as though the surface he's from is from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface but from a different time period, who seemingly had the power to teleport. That a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After visiting the workshop you find some items that leave a lot more questions. A photo album featuring sans and a bunch of people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean. Well a lot of undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named w d gaster. A ghostly figure who never truly appears in the game, honestly covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably best saved for another day. All of the gaster theories i've seen haven't been able to explain all the details. A photo album, and the badge, and that's what kept nagging me as i researched undertale. A badge? That one in particular stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of the room. Something that supposedly reveals the truth about sans. Badges just aren't important in undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was infact the most important badge in the history badge in the history of gaming? This franklin badge. And for those of you who are wondering what i'm talking about, the franklin badge is a pivotal item from the mother series. You know, the one with earthbound, or, maybe you don't know that one either. You know, the one with ness from super smash bros? Yeah well, ness is from earthbound, and earthbound is the second part of this larger mother series. Good? Yeah, well anyways, the franklin badge is an important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life many times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the smash brothers series. So i asked myself; what if the badge in sans drawer was THAT badge? Well first off, it would make undertale connected to earthbound, thereby making it even COOLER? But that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as i started looking more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the most satisfying endings to a journey. And what does sans have in his other drawer? A photo album of people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not character present in undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the mother series linked to the mother series. But how do the broken machine and blueprints fit in? Well, in the final stretch of earthbound, ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien giygas. In order to do that, with the help of dr. andonuts (remember that, he's going to be important later) along with science geniuses apple kid and mr. saturn, create a machine known as the phase distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes at a cost. It can transport organic material, as a result the young heroes must put their souls in robot bodies in order to save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and i'm not ashamed to admit that when i first saw this scene i cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's all a very dark departure in what was otherwise a fun, colorful, and quirky RPG. so what does all of this have to do with undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that mr. saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken phase distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch but it actually explains a lot. Sans wound up in undertale via phase distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences, not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the phase distorter is a time machine. Based on the way he talks, he's not only from a different space but from a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. But the crossovers between earthbound and undertale continue. When you speak to apple kid at the end of earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of ness defeating giygas. Hes going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to obtain its power. That seems awfully familiar to the experiments happening in undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that sans was a key player in those experiments. But i'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, i have plenty. During one of the endings of undertale, we see undyne and alpyhs hanging out on the beach of the surface world. A beach that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical location summers that you play in earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of mother. When undertales crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset with a tall mountain, a big city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection, hence the water, and a lack of trees in this middle section, hence the sand. Well, in earthbound you have the big city of fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a dessert that just so happens to be adjacent to water, and to the east, a mountain on onett where a meteor hits earth. I always called it onett. But if that's not clear enough for you, mother 1, earthbound zero, earthbound beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of eagleland (eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) and the surface world of undertale. But the strongest physical connection, the one that definitely connects these two franchises, comes from none other than papyrus himself. He wears a custom made costume known as his “battle body” but if you look really closely at the designing on the armor, you'll notice a few marks on the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of starmen, the most iconic enemy of earthbound. And look at the way he stands, i always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arm and hand of the starmen. In short, we have some strong proof that the earthbound universe is somehow connected to the undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if we took in one final step and said that sans happened to be ness from earthbound. He hopped through the phase distorted as a test of courage, carrying his franklin badge, a photobook, and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does sans’ behavior. Remember, sans can seemingly teleport. And ness just happens to have the ability PSI teleport. Now look at how sans stands, hands in his pockets, legs out, it looks very similar to how ness is shown on most of the marketing for the game. It even explains why sans bleeds when you hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creators previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind undertale, had previously worked on a halloween hack for earthbound. But this isn't just a simple reskin. The halloween hack tells the tale of dr. andonuts after the events of earthbound. Remember i pointed him out, he's the one who made the phase distorter. In toby fox’s version of the story, we see that the souls of the kids never returned home instead, by going to the past to defeat giygas, there stuck in a new timeline. As a result, jeff never reunites with his father andonuts. And dr. andonuts goes crazy with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, taking the souls of his sons and his sons friend to what he assumes aws their death. He's killed 4 kids, and in toby fox's game, he's gone crazy with guilt, trying to deal with that. Im telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of undertale in this game. The appearance of amalgamates, the use of the awesome song megalovania, the prototypes for flowery? And the theme of being nonviolent in an rpg, SPARING your enemies. So why is this important to the story? Well, remember, in toby fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home, just like sans. and , in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his friends. Which brings us back to undertale. 3 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? Its ness, trying to remember his 3 friends. In short, undertale is a continuation of toby’s version of earthbound, with ness never being able to get home, adopting the name sans, and being accompanied by papyrus, a starman, with knowledge of english, his armor, and his signature posture, but without any of his memory of human things, like the sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’d have a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

[theturnips]

Letters Between Two Women, One in the USA, One in Switzerland, Following the US Presidential Election of the Man Who Grabs Pussy & Lost the Popular Vote

By Beth Couture & Renée E. D’Aoust

From: "Renee E. D'Aoust" To: "Beth Couture" Subject: Letter from Renee Date: Saturday, November 12, 2016 12:14 PM Lugano, Switzerland  

Dear Beth:

And so the US Electoral College elects the sexual assaulter in chief—Trump. I’m gutted. Devastated.

How are you feeling, my beloved friend? I think of you on the front lines, serving people, finishing your MSW. How can I support you better?

How does it feel in America?

This morning, Tube of Fur woke at five a.m., as she does, and she grunted. Last night, we walked our chestnut trail; it’s called Sentiero Eden. Waddle up, waddle down. It is small comfort to me that Tootsie does not know how screwed we are. She has stayed close by me all week, as I get out of bed, to teach, to write, to go to physical therapy. Wednesday after the results were clear, my physical therapist (she’s Dutch) said: “this affects everyone!”

This is global climate change. This is the normalization of racism, hate, sexism, climate change denial, the denial of responsibility we have to our brown & black & every color & LGBTQ sisters and brothers, the sham that I'm supposed to get along, the idea that I'm supposed to normalize the sexual assaulter in chief, the idea that I'm supposed to support a system of white supremacy in the country whose passport I carry. This is the normalization of excuses that favor of fascism.

I say, white people, this is on you. Squarely. I'm a white woman. This is on me.

Our black and brown and LGBTQ brothers & sisters have been terrified to live in America. We have killed our First Peoples through genocide and called it assimilation. No more. I'm now terrified, too. I never wanted to leave America to live in Switzerland. Now, I do not want to come back. Why? I don't feel safe. Know: I've been raped, sexually abused, harassed, stalked. A friend told me last summer that I did not understand domestic violence. And I wondered, "Have I done such a great job of normalizing my self? The violence in my past?" You see, 25 years ago when I spoke up, my extended family stopped talking to me. My mother’s two sisters shunned my mother. My aunt told me I was "precocious" and "guilty of everything [HE] would do from now on, to any other girl" if I didn’t report. Another abuser stalked me online for years. Another woman told me “I wanted it.” Have I spoken of how my body is a locus of assault? Have I written about it? In obscure terms. I will now speak up. I am terrified of global climate change. Global climate change affects my body and the earth. But brown and black and LGBTQ bodies have been terrorized for years. So my fear is privileged; I am a white body. I am terrified that the sexual assaulter in chief has normalized ignorance, normalized grabbing pussies, normalized grabbing my pussy.

I have been practicing a potpourri of radical self-care that includes drinking too much coffee, eating too many Italian cookies, breaking up with Facebook so I can freak out on Twitter, and grabbing Tube of Fur to cuddle.

Kindness is my religion, being a doormat is not. My belief in kindness has meant I keep my mouth shut. As a white woman, it has been my privilege to keep my mouth shut. But when my brother killed himself, I swore I would not abide bullshit. I have not kept my pledge. IN IAN'S NAME: I WILL SPEAK UP.

Beth, please be my witness. I am terrified.

I’m so grateful for the readings you sent last time. Please continue to help me see my own blindness, to break down my privilege, to serve.

Give my love to Esteban, too. I send you love during a time of war.

Renée P.S. I'm attaching my new motto.

 From: "Beth Couture" Date: Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 9:19 PM Subject: Letter to Renee To: "Renee E. D'Aoust"

Philadelphia, PA, USA

 Dear Renée,

The other night I dreamt about dying. In the dream, I was somehow certain that I was going to die, and I was so scared and so angry and sad. I kept saying I wasn't ready, I had so much left to do, I couldn't die. Not yet. It reminded me of when Ed and I talked about death, about the afterlife, and it hit me in such a powerful way that maybe there wasn't anything after this life. Maybe we really do just die and rot, and that's it. I have never been able to accept that idea. I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I've always believed that we don't just stop, that there must be something after this and we will be aware of it. I don't know if I believe this because I actually believe it, or if I'm just too scared to think about the alternative. In that conversation with Ed, and in the dream, I faced it. I allowed myself to think that maybe that's all there is--death and no longer being. And I sobbed like I have never sobbed. I couldn't stop. It felt like someone was tearing out my insides. That's what it feels like now, almost all the time. Like I am looking into the face of something too horrible to comprehend and I can't stop sobbing. Like I am seeing the possibility of death for the first time. And I'm not ready to. I'm not ready to look, but I have no choice. I'm not ready to face the possibility that this is all there is.

Esteban and I decided a few months ago that we wanted to have a baby. This was such a big decision for us. I don't think it was something I had ever allowed myself to imagine, because I am terrified of being a mother, of fucking the kid up, of raising a kid in such a scary world. Getting pregnant always felt like such a selfish thing. There are so many kids in the world who need parents, so few resources to go around, so little certainty that the world would be okay for the kid. But we decided that to have a kid, to make one ourselves, would be an act of hope.

The day after the election, I realized that I could not bring a child into Trump's America, that I no longer believed enough in the good in the world to get pregnant. I think about having a baby now, and it feels so cruel, so absolutely harmful, and I can't do it. I think Esteban could still do it even though he understands my feelings, but I can't. I don't have that much hope. And it breaks my fucking heart every time I think about it. It feels like death, and the grief is so big, so powerful that I don't know what to do with it at all. We are looking into adoption now, and that may be the most ethical decision anyway. Certainly we can love the child the same. But it hurts so much to think that we don't, can't have the same hope we used to, the hope we worked so hard to have.

I guess that's what I'm feeling most of all--hopeless. For the first time. I've always been, in spite of my depression and anger and fear, in spite of the reality I see as a social worker, an optimist. I have always believed that no matter how bad things are, they can and likely will get better. Not without a fight, of course, not without a hell of a lot of work, but they will get better. Things will be okay. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I know the US is a country built on slavery, on genocide, on greed. It's a country that claims values it so often acts in direct opposition of. Trump really is no surprise. But the loudness of his bigotry, his fear mongering, his stupidity, still surprises me.

My sister got married a little over a year ago and is now afraid that her marriage will be nullified, that the woman she loves will no longer be seen by those in power as her family. My three black nephews now have even more to be afraid of when they walk down the streets, because of the violence Trump endorses and encourages in his supporters. I work with students who are afraid for their lives, the lives of their families, their futures. This isn't how it should be. And I'll fight for how it should be, for how it will one day be. Because there's no other choice. Right now I'm grieving, and I feel there's no other choice but that either. I'm so grateful you're with me in the fighting, in the grieving.

So much love to you, and please give my love to Daniele, to your sweet dad, to the Tube of Fur (who always gives me hope).

Beth

Beth Couture is the author of Women Born with Fur (Jaded Ibis Press). She received her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. She currently lives in Philadelphia and is completing a Master’s degree in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College.

Renée E. D’Aoust’s first book Body of a Dancer (Etruscan Press) was a ForeWord Reviews 'Book of the Year' finalist. D'Aoust teaches online at North Idaho College and is the Managing Editor of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. She lives in Switzerland. www.reneedaoust.com