#doomed friendship pose I fear

[kxkomo]

Same

Saw this thought of them

I miss Pandora hearts

[laezelismisunderstood]

To start, I will provide a link to a youtube creator who perfectly explains why Lae’zel behaves in the way she does when she first meets Tav and the rest of the party members.

This was a comment left under one of the videos by the youtuber who made the video. It shows how people lack the understanding to grasp how fearful Lae’zel is and yes, it’s a video game, but if you’re going to define a character by her worst moments, try to understand why she feels that way.

I personally didn’t romance Lae’zel in my first and only full play through of BG3, however she became very close to my character and she devoted her loyalty to the friendship between my character and her. She would speak to my character in a respectful way and really seemed to show a big difference in her anger and fear from the beginning of the game.

Lae’zel is estimated to be around 22 years old, young in most regards of age in the realm of dnd. Out of all the companions/party members she is the youngest and potentially the most naive. As you go along in the journey to find a cure for the parasite you learn more about her upbringing, her people, her culture.

With the illithid parasite that has made its way into your party members brains she feels doomed. The one fate that her people fear the most and work towards destroying in their fight against the mindflayers is what she is now afflicted with. Instead of the certainty of her demise from the usual ceremorphosis that occurs when being infected she now just lives in fear it could be way worse for her since it’s a “special parasite” that infects her. She has been abducted, crash landed in a land she does not know, with people she has been trained to kill (infected with illithid parasites), but for some reason has to go against everything she’s learned so far in her short life because the parasite is unique and poses a different bigger threat.

Under any normal circumstances as humans say, dropped off in the middle of a foreign country you would be frightened. If you didn’t understand anyone and only were trained to fight and kill you would also be cruel and ruthless like Lae’zel in order to protect yourself and survive.

Thankfully I have seen many people who have been able to look past her initial harshness and see how she can develop into a loyal and even caring party member.

[romanianwilkinson]

MONSTER CAMP QUOTES STARTERS

A collection of sentence starters from the game Monster Camp. Feel free to change words and pronouns as desired. CONTENT WARNING(S) FOR: Monster Prom/Monster Camp spoilers, suggestive, cursing, crude content

“ I just have it here because [NAME] insisted that I offer it, as a marketing stunt. ”

“ And lastly, super-horny-type players no longer get a charm buff against tsundere types! ”

“ War machines don’t turn me on or anything! ”

“ I don’t wanna be weird, but do you mind if I climb inside of you and play around with your main turret? ”

“ A wine to DIE for, you say? Well, darling, don’t threaten me with a good time! ”

“ This one just says ‘ hmu with that reaper dick, daddy ’. ”

“ You on your phone, as always! Probably making blogposts on your Tik Tok page. ”

“ Yeah, you really don’t want to witness a repeat of the last time [NAME]’s diehard fans went without a selfie for fifteen minutes. My tailbone still hasn’t completely healed. ”

“ Now hold still, this will only hurt for a moment --- ”

“ Yay! You found a shenanigan! ”

“ My poems all have two or three emotions in them, AT LEAST. ”

“ CRYING IS OBVIOUSLY A COMPETITION TO SEE WHO CAN SQUEEZE THE MOST WATER OUT OF THEIR EYES! ”

“ No way, really? The way to WIN at poetry is by LOSING at life? ”

“ I dunno, maybe fall in love with someone who’s married and develop an opioid addiction? ”

“ HELL YEAH, SPEEDRUN! ”

“ It’s morbid, but... kind of romantic? ”

“ GASP! Google+? Are you kidding me? The psychopaths behind that global tragedy are here?! ”

“ Prison has changed me, [NAME]. Would you like to trade me some cigarettes in exchange for my fundamental dignity? ”

“ Undermining the laws of reality, subverting life and death, that’s the kind of stuff my followers expect. But CHEATING? No way. ”

“ Though we are imprisoned in chalk jail, we are free in our hearts. But our hearts are also imprisoned in chalk jail. ”

“ Um, no, I am NOT groveling. I am posing a dignified query to [NAME] that just so happens to be performed on my hands and knees. ”

“ I didn’t know you condoned playing the friend card to get free labor, [NAME]. ”

“ Ah, but saving the world doesn’t put avocado toast on the table. We indie seancers and necromancers need to pay our rent too, you know. ”

“ And as you know, I am illustriously Internet-famous, so if you could shower me with adoration and give me the pizza that would be fabulous. ”

“ Do you wanna fuck the pizza or not? ”

“ Are you ready to go swimming? I must admit, darling, I’ve always wondered what you would look like while... wet.”

“ Did you turn this date into an orgy without consulting me? ”

“ Gosh, I love it when you insult me! Please do it more! ”

“ Now who wants to make a baby? ”

“ What if she puts a curse on me that makes me magically forget the location of the clitoris?! ”

“ Hey, don’t knock wacky decisions that endanger us all! That’s how I always manage to stay a step ahead of my nemeses! ”

“ Oh gods, I’ve killed so many monsters, just for being monsters. This is making me question my entire moral foundation. I NEED MORE THERAPY. ”

“ I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: fish give better pedicures than people! ”

“ You’re not tricking me into parenting a stupid egg. I’ve never fucked even ONE chicken! The egg is not my son! ”

“ You came to visit me at camp, Daddy! ”

“ Don’t be ridiculous, I know your brand of horny, [NAME], and this ain’t it. ”

“ I thought we both agreed to be nothing but vague and haughtily aloof about our past dalliances. ”

“ Point EAST, compass! EAAAAAAAAST! You dumb fuckboot!!!! POINT! EAST! ”

“ One time I was told a soul’s worst fear was bugs and I inadvertantly sent The Beatles. It happens to the best of us... And the worst of us. ”

“ SOMEDAY I SHALL DEFEAT YOUR FIVE STRANGE FEET! ”

“ Why do you keep suppressing your monster half? Embrace your true nature! ”

“ Wow. I didn't think this was possible, but I guess I was... wrong? About social media? Oh dear God, is this how grandparents feel?!?! Am I a GRANDPARENT?! ”

“ I don’t know! I was relying on my friends to cover up my bold and idiotic statement! ”

“ ... I ate the oars. ”

“ PSYCHE. The ocean can eat my ass. ”

“ So pucker up, [NAME]! I'm about to declare mouth war on your FACE! ”

“ YOU FOOLISHLY FOOLISH FOOL! You're showing our inexperience! YOUR HONOR, THE ENTIRE LEGAL TEAM PLEADS THE FIFTH! ”

“ That's right. I'm talking about a classic Transylvania Hot Tub, a Seth Brundle, and a REVERSE Reverse Romanian Wilkinson. ”

“ Sorry, I was in your ribcage seeing if I could use it to cut strips of crepe paper into confetti and then I got lost in your kidneys. ”

“ There's nothing sexier than a doomed romance between a dating sim player and a hot fictional character. ”

“ That's right! I secretly replaced one of you with a bear while no one was looking, to teach you a valuable lesson about the art of disguise! ”

“ Enchant my armor. I’m going into the lake. ”

“ For VIOLENCE REASONS! ” 

“ This stupid lake monster called me short the other day, but I was too low level to crush him like he deserved. ”

“ That dumb wet dinkhole won't know what hit him! But it will be me! I will hit him! ”

“ No, YOU'RE a fuckshark! Also, what does that even mean?! ”

“ You seriously didn't notice the enormous needles those interns jabbed into your veins as soon as [NAME] got here? “

“ It all makes sense! The Camp Dome is just an elaborate ploy to distract us from the giant mouth that eats campers! “

“ This is the BEST show I've ever seen in my life, which is now at an end! “

“ Am I high, or did he just tell us EXACTLY how to foil his evil scheme? “

“ What, like a few severed heads and visions of my grandpa screaming in horrendous pain are gonna freak me out? Where I'm from, you can buy that stuff at IKEA. “

“ ERROR: Due to the sixth mass extinction, the slaying of leprechauns is inadvisable. “

“ Then why do I have half-finished scarves, decoupage, pot-holders, friendship bracelets, and a taxidermied rabbit in my skeleton? “

“ The wang elemental. ”

“ I also have an uncle who works at Nintendo as a copy machine! “

“ What flavor of ice cream AM I?! Now I gotta know. HA! You know what I should be? 'Pistachio.' Because my outside is HARD, but I'm full of NUT. “

“ I mean, life is a bit like... this sandwich! No, stay with me, I'm going somewhere good with this. “

“ A survival situation without any sexy fun time isn't worth surviving in the first place. “

“ Rut the RUCK?! ”

“ The ' ambulance of the heart ' is just a regular ambulance! Ambulances treat all organs! ”

“ Yeah, that's why I made sure that my so-called ' emotional armor ' was also ' actual armor '. “

“ And being yourself is the key to living your dreams, which is the key to self actualization, which is the key to being really good at sex! “

“ So hot I'd buy that even without free shipping. 10/10, call me some time. “

“ Hi, quick question: does it count as kidnapping if I'm abducting you so you can help me do a thing you already agreed to help with? “

“ I could be wrong, but are you just upset because you DON'T have a skeleton that's inside your body? “

“ I'm gonna get SO FUCKING RELAXED MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE! “

“ Whoah, whoa, hold up. You're fucking my grandma? “

“ No, [NAME], that is a popcorn bag full of more dynamite. Put it down. “

“ I hear that at least 70% of people on Patreon aren't murderers! “

“ If you want cash, just rob banks like the rest of us! “

“ Did it work? Do you feel any less horny? ”

“ FUCK YEAH, LET'S PUNCH THAT MOUTH IN ITS MOUTH! “

“ Yes... incidentally, we are no longer allowed to enter Italy. “

“ Is anyone else turned on right now? ”

“ Yes! Yes! I know what you're feeling! I suddenly see how marrying a corpse isn't okay! “

“ JUST LET ME IMPROVE YOUR SELF ESTEEM, MORTAL! “

“ Look, choose whatever you want, but I'm not responsible for whatever you put in your mouth. ”

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE03, Ep1

I’m here! The final season continues from where se02 oddly left, right in the middle of a conversation! XD.

-Tohru’s crushed heart (scarf): Excellent symbolism!

Tohru, burdened with trying to lift the curse of teen & adult sohmas, is now also troubled by trying to help Arisa’s romantic life is sad for akito! Too much for compassionate selfless tohru. Unable to help, protect & erase the pain, tohru crumbles. Freezes. Her white scarf (heart) flies away, gets crushed by cars & becomes dirty. But here comes a boy ( who thinks himself a monster) picks it up, cleans & returns it back. He thinks nothing of his deed. nothing heroic abt saving a scarf, really. But do we need to be heroes to save others? kyo saves tohru by being kyo. Not the zodiac cat & not the menacing monster. Her heart is saved by him, shown much care & returned back. Mind you, the heart (scarf) is not brand new after the delima. It’s not very clean after being crushed, some marks remain, but these are marks of growth!!! you walk away after hardships carrying minor scars of victory. This scene solidify kyo’s role in tohru’s life as an equal companion. Not a heroic prince charming. It is the little things he does that shows who he is. kyo isn’t abt big soft words, he doesn't say the best things. he is a man of action. His care, love & compassion comes so very easily & naturally to him thro actions. This is what yuki meant by saying he’s jealous of kyo. Yuki over thinks his steps & doubt everything before he acts. Kyo acts spontaneously then doubts himself later. He saves the scarf (heart) then tells her directly to buy another one if she feels it’s not clean. He failed to see how this trivial action meant the world to tohru. Tohru smiles lively cuz her heart is back to her.

Why is the scarf scene so important? (aka furuba’s best usage of symbolism yet!)

It symbolizes tohru’s toxic flaw that she must overcome! It represents tohru’s tormented heart over other ppl’s pain with severe neglect to her own problems & issues. Arisa’s love life shouldn’t be tohru’s delima, nor Akito’s complex or Kureno’s or the damned curse. Tohru toxically chooses to bear other burdens’ until they crush her.

Hana can’t come to save tohru from pain each time tohru indulges in it. Tohru must realize her own flaw & grow up beyond this toxic type of kindness. Feel & help others, but don’t use them to escape your pain & don’t indulge in their own struggles & neglect yourself. There is a reason hana’s knowing of tohru’s pain is thro “magical” waves, to symbolize that this can’t become a norm, not real. You can’t depend on magic to grow. I love that!

The white scarf bearing smudges of the tires even after kyo washed it shows that kyo’s love & care can’t magically heal all tohru’s pain. It parallels kyo’s words from se01, ep,24 when he said tohru didn’t heal all his pain, but he feels better simply cuz she stayed by his side. Tohru now is feeling better cuz kyo chose was there for her. Love doesn’t magically heal you, kids! But it sure puts you on the path! Also, this once again adds more depth to the (tohru/kyo) equal give & take dynamics.

This scene deconstruct the image of Tohru represented as an angelic mother throughout 2 seasons. Instead, It paints her as a real flawed girl with much need for growth. Exactly, like how we have learned by now that kyo isn’t a horrible monster nor a prince charming saving the day, but a flawed boy with much need for growth. However, these two push each other forward in a subtle way through daily situations! Excellent writing!!

-Kureno. (aka. who tohru should never become):

The harmful kindness: Kureno is someone who hurts himself & hurt many others (akito, arisa, shigure, & consequently the rest of the zodiacs) by giving the harmful types of kindness to akito, by completely erasing his own needs, desires & living for the sake of someone who would be far better without him. Kureno is who tohru might have become if she selflessly continues fighting solely for the sohma’s sake & trying to break the curse while ignoring her own life. She’ll become as miserable as kureno & the zodiacs will become dependable on her.

The destructive pity: Kureno pities this tormented child (akito) & chooses to stay with her until her tears dry. This pity is destructive cuz it is done while he wishes to be miles away with Arisa & it encourages akito to stay as she is. Look, a child whose mom hates her deserves pity. But an adult woman needs to learn to build relationships based on mutual affection & respect. This talk of pity reminds me of kyo & kagura. Kagura pitied the cat zodiac. The relationship was doomed cuz kyo refuses pity. It doesn’t matter if her pity turned into love later. Kyo doesn’t want that from her or anyone. There is NO equality there. We know tohru came to love kyo for all the times he was there for her & all the times he pushed her to improve, to complain, to want things! she said so in se01, ep, 24. But we also know that young baby tohru pitied the cat when her mom told her the zodiacs story. what if kyo thinks tohru’s affection is pity???? that’s a big NO for him & for every person. I really want tohru to be as far from any kurno’s traits as possible!!!

-Akito, the pitiful woman:

Akito was born a girl, forced to be raised as a boy by her mother’s demands? where is the father?? she was hated by her mother. why? she also hates her mom. (hate your child & they’ll hated you). So, akito is doomed by her mom. Akito tries to prove that she’s loved by the zodiac “she specified the male zodiacs” interesting! we saw how she hates both Isuzu & kisa & doesn’t give a damn abt kagura. This woman, forced to pose as a man, actually desires to be treated as a woman. As for the other zodiacs:

No worries abt hatori leaving cuz he’s 24/7 attending to her health.

Ayame makes tea exclusively for her & hatori.

she thinks Ritsu is too timid to attempt leaving.

Hiro’s a baby, momiji is hated cuz she can’t break him.

Kyo is destined to be locked. but Why she cares abt the cat anyway?? She publicly hates him & feels disgusted by him.

She used to control yuki but can’t anymore.

she uses intimacy to bound those who “can” leave her the most: kurno! & shigure? she sleeps next to shigure in the valentine ep. hatori remarked: don’t let akito catch cold. We saw the sexually charged rage in se02, ep10. So, she isn’t faithful to kureno. They don’t have a relationship. She doesn’t even have a relationship with shigure, either. to her, sex is a tool to tie them both to her?

It is ironic that the person who said she despises woman & accuses Isuzu of seducing hatori is herself seducing others. Except, tragically, kureno isn’t with her for herself, but cuz he pities her. We saw her slapping & embracing him. Next scene; her bare shoulders & his unbuttoned shirt clearly implies they got intimate which is what akito does to feel secure in kureno not leaving her. Kureno is not even interested in her despite submitting to her advances, needs & orders. He does it out of pity. Truly the most tragic form of physical affection: sex for pity. wow... how tragically pitiful is the abusive ruler of the zodiacs who looms over them & demands respect & eternal bonds. How can she find someone who’ll love her for herself, if she doesn’t learn to show good sides of her? Yuki wasn’t loved for who he is in school, but for being the “prince”, he showed his real character & got himself true friends & soon a lover!!!  Kyo, was feared & pitied for turning into a “monster”, but once he showed his kind & harmless self, he got himself true friends & a girl who loves him for his actual personality! Who will love akito for who she is if she only shows a spoiled child, horrible family head or a pitiful woman? What does shigure love in her? he doesn’t seem to pity her nor pamper her much, does he?  perhaps we’ll know more abt the real akito later.

Side notes:

Akito’s mom reminded me of kyo’s dad. Abused children, who are hated by their parents, don’t let go of the hurt easily. they’ll always try to either get their approval, show them they were worthy of their love, or they’re NOTHING like their parents think they are. eg: Kyo’s biological father’s hate has destroyed kyo. Kyo have kazuma & tohru & he still wonder why they love him. It took kyo 17 years to actually promise to call kazuma "dad” one day in se01 finale. You need time to heal the wounds inflected by the ones who should love you the most. Being loved by others doesn’t magically heal you! You need to take few steps forward.

Isuzu is Ren’s clone! finally understanding why the severe hate from akito towards Isuzu. I’ll wait for more Ren/Akito content before analyzing their relationship.

Ren is so sexy. ngl, the scene of the zodiacs touching her belly after she just *conceived* akito is so creepy~ ew! 

Hana picked up tohru first before kyo, cuz this show isn’t exclusive for romantic love as much as it isn’t exclusive for friendship. There is balance. 

Tohru needs her own future, so does Arisa & hana! Learn to accept the limit of what you can do as a friend, tohru.. forever loving furuba for steering away from “friends stay together forever~yay” anime trope! Furuba is abt independent & individual adult life! building your own future! Epic writing!

Forever fascinated by how much the little small ordinary daily life things has really built kyo-tohru love! It feels so real & very uniquely built! Excellent writing!

Arisa is stuck with an adult man trapping himself in the most unnecessary love triangle. Kureno’s cage is self made, no curse. A very sheltered boy/man not living in the real world. Only two options for kureno if he continues this path: he’ll hurt akito, or akito will hurt him. We know the answer from the trailer, don’t we?

Arisa letting go of kuron is growth! Let go & live, girl!

There is a subtle theme of learning to let go in furuba~

Yuki is the biggest kyoru shipper!

Tohru intentionally hitting kyo with scarf’s pon-pon is my fave side of her! intentional flirting shows change from her little girl’s good girl attitude to her own type of a feisty woman! after all, she’s nearly 18!

The way the camera moved when kyo spotted the scarf was so good!

The director is obsessed with flying!! did he work on attack on titans? cuz the Ren-akito flying fight reminded me of Titan Eren strangling Titan Annie in AOT se01 finale! but chibi version! XD. I’m sorry for akito’s pain, but I was distracted by laughing! XD

look, if you plan to dramatize a situation, know your budget & your skills. Obviously, the director knew the scene is badly done, hence, the wide far away, dim lit shot to hide as much as it can. Couldn’t he do without it? let akito strangle her to the ground without flying!

oh well~these over-the-top shots are now a furuba trade mark~ just praying they stick with one weird shot per season.

[pla-teau]

LOKI EPISODE FOUR : THE NEXUS EVENT

GIF CREDIT TO: @luke-skywalker SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

SYLVIE | there's a lot to process in the short time we get of young sylvie. it didn't seem like she was doing anything that caused a nexus event. when we see her, she's simply playing with her toys on asgard. sylvie asks about what her crime was later on with renslayer but it's never clear cut as to what she did. the only thing we know is that she escaped from renslayer which is why she's so hell bent on capturing and pruning sylvie. i have a certain thought on this later.

WE SURVIVE | the words loki tells sylvie just when she’s given up and accepted that she’ll die on lamentis. that’s what makes loki a loki - yes, he fails over and over again but each and every time we’ve witnessed his ‘death’ he comes back or when things seem to possibly end for his story, loki still manages to survive.

LAMENTIS | based on the namesake of the episode, this is the nexus event that caused them to be found but what was it? personally, from watching the episode and keeping in mind that this is 2012!loki, i think that the nexus event was hope and acceptance between them. i think there’s genuine hope despite being stuck on a doomed planet about to become smaller flying rocks in space. in every apocalypse so far, we’ve seen that basically anticipating and accepting the end of the world doesn’t cause a breach in the timeline because what is there to hope for? it’s all going to be destroyed anyway no matter the little fake hope you have inside yourself telling you that everything is going to be alright. loki and sylvie up to this point haven’t had that kind of hope before ever in their lives. with the acceptance part, i think it's self-acceptance and acceptance of their roles in the universe. roll with me here, loki throughout the mcu has never accepted his fate or what's supposed to happen; he's always fighting it and trying to come out on top as a ruler of people whether it's earth, asgard and sakaar. he doesn't accept to not be a ruler or on the losing side of a battle against earth's mightiest heroes and at odds with the other marvel characters. he doesn't fully accept himself either because he didn't know he was adopted until at least one thousand years later and he couldn't accept that he wasn't destined for something other than a shadow or simply his title as the god of mischief. it made a lot more sense in my head tbh. a lot of people freaking out about this moment being loki falling in love with sylvie/himself but i don't think that's it. loki for once genuinely cares about someone else and i think it's platonic cause while i have little faith in the mouse house giving us more than confirmation that loki is bisexual, i don't think they'd make loki fall in love with himself.

LOKI'S TIME CELL | a nostalgic reveal we get is sif in this looped time cell plucked from loki's memory. apparently, he cut off a chunk of her hair because he thought it would be funny. in typical sif fashion, she proceeds to beat him up in retaliation as well of sharing some biting words. it's interesting how after a few loops and knees to the nuts, loki apologizes to sif about the prank and admits that he's afraid of being alone and acts narcissistic and like a pompous asshole if you will because of this fear. i think this is a bigger break through of his character than the one we saw in the first episode because he's admitting it to someone from his life that he highly respected but acted like a child to her to get her attention even if it was negative. i wish for more vulnerable loki moments because it continues to prove that loki isn't just the god of mischief, he can be more (as thor said in ragnarok).

MOBIUS VS LOKI | honestly, this whole interrogation scene screamed mobius being jealous of loki making pals with sylvie and i loved it. what i like is that mobius does air the sentiment that we all have in our heads after realizing that loki and sylvie did somehow click to create the nexus event. it's narcissism to the max. again, i think loki truly cares for sylvie in a platonic or even a familial sense since they both don't make connections too often with others (romantic or platonic).

HUNTER B-15 | i was wondering what happened with her after her run in with sylvie at the roxxcart supermarket. clearly, sylvie unlocked a memory within her subconscious as well and is starting to doubt herself. we don't see what memory of hers it was but it's enough to make her break protocol and go against the TVA later on in the episode. in conclusion, we have no choice but to stan this queen. also seems like she wasn't reset in that final battle so we'll hopefully see her in the next episode.

RAVONNA & MOBIUS | their friendship is put to the test in this episode. while being of a higher position than mobius, ravonna does seem to care deeply for mobius. she said so herself, she wants to protect mobius...but from the truth instead of the false danger about sylvie that she's filling his head with. ravonna clearly knows a lot more than she's letting on and that the TVA is an elaborate lie. i think she wants to protect mobius from the truth because she doesn't seem to have other close friendships like the one with him. it's also clear she cares for him when he's pruned (supposedly!) by another hunter. also, there's this other analyst/field agent mobius always brings up when we see them in her office so i wonder if it's someone who also knows about the grand lie the TVA is or is even some alternate variant of kang the conqueror who we know is supposed to be introduced in the third ant-man movie. it'd be interesting to see if kang is teased one way or another in the final two episodes.

DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU DESERVE TO BE ALONE? | the question mobius poses to loki when he starts to believe that they may be telling the truth. it's an interesting question to pose because we've been hearing it and have seen it throughout the mcu with loki. the time loop loki's stuck in, sif tells him that he'll always be alone. throughout the mcu, loki has been alone in his plans and mischief despite being surrounded by his family, his future enemies, and his people. loki has known nothing but being on his own, being his own island of chaos. as sylvie put it earlier, they're a product of the universe trying to break free, chaos. mobius knows that this nexus event has something to do with the two of them, for once, accepting that they're not alone or that they're not just a cosmic mistake, there's hope for them to be whatever they want and not just confined to their mischievous roles.

RAVONNA & SYLVIE | in the elevator, sylvie confronts ravonna about her crime as a child. it's something everyone wants to know, what does a young loki have to do to be charged and reset by the TVA? ravonna seems to know that this something she can leverage and torture sylvie with so she claims to not remember. sylvie says that it must've been important and severe enough to mess up the sacred timeline. maybe she wasn't supposed to know that she was adopted until later in her life like our loki. she's supposed to be causing trouble and be this terrible villain but what if with sylvie knowing her true parentage at such an early age, she learned to accept herself/identity and made peace with it. that's another thing that could've caused the nexus event between the two, they had found self-acceptance even at just the brink of death. maybe they're supposed to do so but later in their lives in their own timelines so that's why it's enough to destroy the TVA as mobius hinted at earlier. happy that sylvie decided to keep ravonna for information so i expect the next episode to have them in ravonna's office or still in the timekeeper chambers as ravonna tells us what is going on.

THE TIMEKEEPERS | when sylvie beheads the central timekeeper, we learn that they're mindless androids. it never ends, there's no throne to sit upon after killing them so it seems. it was all just a giant hoax but this further feeds into my personal theory that kang, one way or another, is behind all of this. what i find really interesting is how the other two timekeepers laugh when sylvie beheads one. whoever is behind controlling the fake androids, they have a way to see what is happening and communicate in real time with the TVA agents and variants. hopefully in the final two episodes we see what the hell is going on and how the TVA came to be and why.

LOKI POST CREDIT SCENE | so apparently, loki isn't reset or something of the sorts. he's actually sent to another world. i believe this is an alternate new york where we'll see president loki as you can see the remains of the old avengers tower. this makes me think about mobius' fate to be similar to loki's; possibly sent to either the same place or a similar world. we see three human new lokis here. from the credits, we have classic loki (richard e. grant), kid loki (jack veal), and boastful loki (deobia oparei). apparently there's also a crocodile!loki and i'm here for it. can't wait to see how our favorite variant gets out of it next week!

oh god, this was so rusty and unorganized but hope if whoever reads this can somewhat understand the points i'm trying to get across.

[masterhandss]

Hamefura Idol AU!

No one on tumblr really knows it but... I love idols, like idol animes and games are my childhood and has eaten away at my very soul. I like drawing and imagining idol aus for pretty much any show I get into, and sadly hamefura isn’t gonna be an exception to that :P

(i’ve yet to draw for my dumb au so have a placeholder image from an upcoming anthology by @/relaxmakoto)

Instead of being isekai-ed to a bootleg PS4 otome game, our monkey girl gets reincarnated into “Fortune Lover: Cinderella Idol!”, an idol-production rhythm game (help me i’m bad a choosing names).

(Long post, I’m basically gonna retell the entire game in an idol setting lol. I only wanted to draw for this au, but thinking about plot and gameplay was too fun so I wanted to share it)

The Game

The original game’s story follows Maria Campbell, the main character of the game who applied for a job in Sorcier Productions after seeing a wanted ad online. By some luck, she gets hired as a temp-producer for the famous male idol group “Fortuna”. After a few hours of gameplay involving producing the male idols (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol) through the game’s tutorial (introducing various aspects of the gameplay like “Choosing your Idol”, “Getting Relationship Points”, “Rhythm Game Concert Mode”, “Idol Produce Mode”, “TV Drama Mode” etc), the game reveals the plot twist of the game: Not just the male idols, but you get to also idol-produce yourself!

By the outcome of various events, Maria ends up performing in the stead of another idol during a mini concert that she escorts the boys with, and immediately stole the hearts of the audience by her beauty and hidden talents! M.C. is actually the first idol in the “Self-Produced Idol” project, one that aims to determine and bring out the full talents of an idol by exposing them to all the in outs of the idol world. Maria ends up becoming quite known very quickly, being rumored as a “Cinderella” of the idol world (In sports, the term Cinderella is used to refer to situations in which competitors achieve far greater success than would reasonably have been expected, rather than the typical meaning of Cinderella which means “damsel”). This rumor leads her to the anti-hero rivals for Maria (who ends up joining you in the game as idols you can produce), the perfect idol Mary Hunt and the “rarely appears publicly despite her talents” Sophia Ascart.

They start out as rivals for the game but ends up becoming friends with you and becoming produce-able idols like the 4 boys. You can even form a trio unit with the girls if you have enough relationship points (when your trio unit “Amour” is unlocked, you get more events, songs and outfits for you and the two girls!). But the true antagonist of the game is Katarina Claes, a boastful and prideful newbie idol who joined a few months before Maria, who earned a fan base thanks to her confidence and mature style. She doesn’t have the best voiced or is very skilled at dancing, but her confidence and ideals draws people to love her for her unique character. Katarina lacks self-awareness though, and thinks that she is the jack of all trades when it comes to being an idol, thus leading her to have an unbelievable amount of self confidence when it comes to her popularity and skills. She despises Maria Campbell because of how much the articles praise her for her charm and adorable singing, as she thinks that Maria is nothing more than a wannabe that doesn’t know the harsh reality of the idol world (the irony of that is an important aspect of the game’s story, since Katarina is overly reliant on her producer Anne, and Maria is the one who works both as an idol and as a producer).

Maria doesn’t really play much into the “self-insert” protagonist, more like an involved protagonist like Izumi from A3 that plays an important role into the story. The player does get to choose Maria’s (and everyone else’s) songs, schedules, outfits etc. by the guise that you are Maria, working as both an idol and as a producer.

The game does have a “relationship points” system, which means you can actually date one of the boys form Fortuna (secretly). Even if you don’t intentionally date anyone, the game already does play the “you, the main character, are so important and they wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t here” agenda that most games have, so the game already makes all the love interests seem interested with you regardless of whether you actively target Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol.

Katarina’s Bad End

(Rather than the life threatening doom flags of FL) In the game, Katarina Claes constantly sabotages Maria’s events and performances, creating the conflict in the “story mode” and the “events” of the game. Near the end of the game, the character who has the highest relationship points with Maria will reveal Katarina’s awful treatment of Maria in public, ruining Katarina’s reputation and causing her to lose public opinion and fans

Sabotaging fellow idols is actually quite common in idol stories, but the extent that Katarina goes for her bullying is terrible, which shocks the public because that side of the idol world had never been put into the forefront before. While Katarina does have an arrogant and prideful personality, learning that she, who didn’t have the cleanest reputation in the first place, has been harassing the darling of the idol world, meant that shows, programs, radios and events didn’t hire or invite Katarina anymore in fear of loss in sales or public outrage, leading to her eventual downfall.

The final event of the game, the Idol Queen Tournament, Katarina performs despite her ruined reputation, and was met with almost no response from the audience. Realizing that her life as an entertainer is ruined, she quits and vanishes from the public eye.

It is said in the epilogue that she moved into the country side, by a small farming field, shunned by her parents and the public for her embarrassing behavior, in order to repent and look back on her actions, much to her anger and disapproval.

The degree of Katarina appearances and story events differ depending on which male idol love interest Maria has the highest points in. Katarina is most active if you are closer to Gerald, as she is madly inlove with him and only became an idol to be by his side (as Gerald won as the “Idol King” of that year, and Katarina aimed to be his “queen”). Katarina is also frequently present in Keith’s events and interactions, as she makes fun of the both of you for being a disgrace as idols. She also appears on Alan and Nicole, but not as much.

“Fortuna” and “Amour”

Fortuna, the most popular male idol group during that time, and Amour the all-new girls idol unit, are the “produced” characters of the game

(i’m bad at thinking at idol group names so those are placeholders lol)

Gerald Stuart is a child actor known for being a perfectionist. Even as a child, he had a good face, pose, fashion sense, perfect memory, amazing acting talent and charisma to carry himself infront of a crowd. He became an idol in hopes of escaping the endless sea of acting offers he gets, and to just starve off a bit of his boredom and free time. He ends up becoming interest in their new producer Maria, due to her unique circumstance and how hard working and earnest she is. Idols are known for being prohibited from dating, but in the Gerald Ending Epilogue, he proudly announces Maria as the woman of his affections and deeply apologizes to all his rabid fans and supporters, and hopes to gain their support for his feelings for her. The two are crowned the “Prince and Princess” of the idol world for that decade.

Keith Claes is an adopted son of the Claes Household. He was bullied by his sister and mother, making him feel alone and isolated as a child. In his teens, he became a handsome playboy that easily caught the hearts of a female crowd, leading him to be scouted by someone in Sorcier Productions. He accepted, wanting to use the love of a huge fanbase to drown himself with praise and adoration and to fill the hole in his heart from years of trauma and loneliness.

Keith attempted to flirt with his new young producer, but gets constantly rejected due to the idea that idols can’t date (and bc Maria is just so busy), making him crave Maria’s attention even more. He ends up respecting her diligence, intelligence, beauty and honesty, making him slowly fall inlove with her. In the Keith Ending Epilogue, Keith confesses to Maria and wants to date her, but knows that he can’t just let go of the fans that he gained from his playboy persona, so instead he gives her a promise ring, telling Maria that when their whole “idol” thing is over with and pass them, he hopes to be able to date her (and even marry her) for real one day without a fanbase that might attempt to seperate them.

Alan Stuart is the twin brother of Gerald, who is often compared to his twin brother due to his lack of acting and entertainment skills. Alan does however, have a deep love for music. He might not be as good with instruments as his brother, but unlike Gerald, he truly loves composing and performing music and finds solace in the melodies that he can convey. Alan ends up becoming an idol due to his love for music, with the desire to one day use the connections he can make as an idol to become a full-time composer and song writer (as well as to generally learn how to sing bc he secretly likes that too). Alan also wanted to be an idol as a way to compete with his brother in an area that he is more knowledgeable on.

Throughout Alan’s encounters with Maria, he ends up rejecting Maria’s friendship and praises due to his inferiority with his brother. Through time, Maria’s constant praises of Alan’s music and singing ends up resonating with him, leading up to her telling him that he shouldn’t compare himself to his twin brother and there are only things that he is good at, like his music. Maybe a line like “Not even Gerald can recreate the melodies that you write and compose, Alan! These scores are very Alan-like, and there’s nothing I’d rather listen to; nothing that warms my heart more. This is something only you can do, as Alan and no one else” does him in.

In the Alan Ending Epilogue, he admits that his heart isn’t ready for a relationship yet, but declares that he wants to be with Maria forever and that from the moment Maria started to make an impact in his life, she had become the “Aria” of his music, and that he wants her to know that he will always write his music with his love for her in mind. He wants to be able to convey his love for her through song one day, and he hopes that she will continue to love him until he finds the right words to sing.

Mary Hunt is the daughter to a famous businessman and politician, who has connections to the Stuart Family. She met Alan by accident, during the dinner party in her house for his father’s birthday. Mary was hiding in her beloved garden, and had encountered Alan who had done the same, before she could retreat to her safe haven. She was in awe as she watched Alan play and sing a song in his small guitar, almost thinking that the song was for her. They ended up singing in a duet, with Alan complimenting her voice, saying that she should develop it. Mary instantly fell inlove with Alan, and had trained herself in the same musical arts that Alan loved, especially the voiced that he had complimented, in order to one day become worthy of performing by his side. She had originally assumed that Alan wanted to perform for an opera or musical, but when she found out that Alan wanted to become an idol, she auditioned to Sorcier Pro. as fast as she could.

In Alan’s ending, Mary was very heartbroken to know that she could not be the one to stay by her beloved Alan’s side, but silently thanked Maria for breaking Alan free from the inner turmoils that Mary knew was an impossible job for her. Despite her feelings, she still wanted to sing by Maria’s side and congratulates the two with all of her heart.

Nicol Ascart is the son to the esteemed Ascart Family, owner of the Ascart Inc., one of the major sponsors for Sorcier Productions. Nicol has been a child model and was popular since childhood because of his beautiful face. He doesn’t talk much, so when someone has filmed him singing to himself in the hallways in highschool, it immediately went viral, causing various scouts to offer him a role as an idol. Nicol had only accepted his request due to the circumstances of his little sister, Sophia.

Sophia Ascart is born with unique features, leading to her being bullied and made fun of in public due to her stage appearance. Sophia has always loved idols, being envious of their ability to enchant a crowd and sing songs about their feelings out loud. She had a sweet voice and an adorable face, but her hair and eyes caused people to think of her as a freak. She wanted to become one, but knew it would impossible for her. Nicol decided to use his popularity to jump-start Sophia’s possible idol career, by trying to brainwash/persuade his fans to also love Sophia (when she first joined and started as an idol). It didn’t work on everyone, but he was determined to help his sister.

When Maria befriends and even starts a unit with Sophia, Nicol eventually fell for the woman who made both his and Sophia’s wish come true. There’s also the fact that as their producer, Maria became a true friend of Nicol’s, one that didn’t look at him with obsessive desire and only wanted nothing more than to be a friend and an ally.

In the Nicol Ending Epilogue, he quits being an idol due to his desire to eventually join his father in the family business, much to the disappointment of his fans, but promises to always watch Maria from the side lines. He would always send bouquets almost everyday, with small cards giving the declarations of love that he normally wouldn’t be able to vocalize. He thanks her for supporting both him and his little sister, and promises to jump to her side once she is done being an idol.

Bakarina

As usual, Katarina ends up remembering her future as an 8 year old kid, and plans to prepare for her future “banishment” and humiliation. She learns to farm in order to provide for herself once she gets shunned and retreats to the countryside, and (unknowingly) meets all the characters in the game and gains their good favor before the events of the game begins

I’ll write the rest of the plot involving reincarnated!Katarina next time lol :P

This au is obviously heavily influenced by a lot of the Idolmaster console and mobile games, Ensemble Stars, A3, Vocaloid Project Diva games, Aikatsu etc lol. Thanks to anyone who gets to read till the end. Feedback (and name suggestions) are very appreciated! Hamefura is still a small fandom so idk if i’d write for this au, but it’s a good enough excuse to draw the girls in cute idol clothes so i’ll take it XD)

[songfell-ut]

I give up, here’s Chapter 17

I should’ve posted this a week ago, but I’ve been like “nuuu it’s cool no one minds a 25,000-word chapter” and yeah here’s only 15k that I finally split off into its own thing. Chapter is here, hi @lostmypotatoes

The Grand Hall lived up to its name: Frisk had never been to the nicer parts of the humans’ castle, but there was no way it could be more amazing than this place, which had a ceiling hundreds of feet tall blanketed with tiny lights, speckled marble columns that reached nearly all the way up, and beautiful murals on the walls showing forests, rivers, even the ocean! Monsters stood in long lines along a central aisle of sparkling white sand, so new that it had obviously been made for the humans’ visit, stretching up a gentle slope to the foot of the grand staircase leading into the Underground.

Queen Toriel had taken Frisk from the house in the Ruins through a snowy town – how did it snow inside the mountain? – and on her first-ever boat ride, which ended all too soon in a place called “Waterfall”; from there, they hurried down to the Grand Hall just in time for the Royal Guard to announce the human delegation. Luckily, instead of having to walk through all those monsters, they used a partly-hidden network of hallways to emerge right at the head of the staircase. Toriel gave the child one more pat, telling her to be good and stay where she was, before the Queen walked out to take her place beside Asgore, nodding to the guards.

Frisk was glad she didn’t have to talk to the King yet; he looked like a bigger, hairier, scarier version of his wife or son, scowling and fidgeting around until Toriel cleared her throat. They stood just in front of Prince Asriel, who noticed the child and gave her a friendly nod before he turned to face the aisle. Frisk crept out far enough to look around the rest of the cavern, wondering why humans talked about the Underground as if it was some kind of filthy mudhole. It was such a beautiful place, with boat rides and snow and twinkling lights…

Something like trumpets sounded, and the Grand Hall’s enormous bronze gates swung open. The monsters all put on their politest expressions as the delegation came through the entrance and headed up the aisle, with the frontmost humans stopping at the bottom of the staircase. “Greetings,” boomed King Asgore, extending his arms and flaring his purple cape out like great wings. “Welcome to the Underground, one and all!”

On cue, the monsters broke into cheers and applause. As the echoes faded, a fussy-looking human stepped forward to give a long speech about greetings and honor and honorable blah blah blah; it was starting to get boring when he was cut short by a cry of “Mama!” and someone rushing past him.

“Chara!” Forgetting her dignity, the Queen of monsters hitched up her robe to run to her estranged daughter. They nearly crashed into each other halfway down the stairs, Toriel’s crown falling askew as the human leapt into her embrace. There was a lot of murmuring and more genuine applause, which swelled into a full ovation as Toriel sank to her knees, holding on as though her child was drowning and her arms were a life preserver.

Asriel had also hurried down to meet his sister, and Asgore was starting toward them when it happened: Chara looked up for the briefest second, and when she saw Frisk near the head of the stairs, the woman’s eyes flashed sheer hatred, as though she wanted her dead on the spot.

Frisk jerked back so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell. When she caught her balance, she found herself looking down at Asgore; he was staring at Chara, and followed the woman’s gaze back up to Frisk. For a long second, the King regarded the human child with a question in his eyes, as though he wanted to say something, but knew better; then Chara was all teary smiles again, hugging Asriel and extending an arm to “Papa!”

The applause grew even louder as Asgore joined them, parents and siblings joyously reunited, and Frisk could have cried with rage. Why did Chara have to hate her for being there when she was lucky enough to have her own perfect family? Couldn’t Frisk have had more than a couple of minutes with those wonderful monsters before Chara stole them back?

It was too much. The child sniffled, and turned to trudge back down the hallway, trying not to think of what her mother was going to say when she found out where Frisk had been.

But as she approached the branching path that led to the Grand Hall floor, she came to a sudden halt: someone further down the hall was shouting, “I’M TELLING YOU, IT IS DEFINITELY THIS WAY!”

“sure, bro,” another person mumbled, his deeper voice echoing up the passage.

“SANS, PLEASE! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE CORRECT DIRECTION THIS TIME! THERE IS NO NEED TO LOOK AT ME IN THAT TONE OF VOICE!”

“relax, pap. i’m just impressed you know all these different ways to go.”

The voices weren’t moving—she was trapped up here. Frisk held her breath as the louder person demanded, “REALLY? THEN WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME THAT SMIRK?”

“…uh, bro? this is how I always—”

“DON’T LIE TO ME, BROTHER! THE GREAT PAPYRUS KNOWS WHAT A SMIRK LOOKS LIKE! IT’S A REGULAR SMILE, BUT IN THAT TONE OF VOICE!!”

“you got me. it means ‘pap is the coolest and knows all the directions.’ you like it?”

“…I SEE! NYEH-HEH. YES, I DO LIKE IT! FROM NOW ON, YOU MAY SMIRK ALL YOU WANT!”

“aww, thanks, bro. you’re the best…and that’s the tooth.”

The joke was so dumb that Frisk had to laugh. Whoever it was, they sounded friendly enough, not to mention silly. Were they humans she hadn’t talked to on the way here? Or—

“DID YOU HEAR THAT, BROTHER?” She jumped as the voice came closer. “IS SOMEONE THERE? SOMEONE WITH EXTREMELY BAD TASTE?”

“hey! i think they’ve got great taste. i mean, they obviously speak our tongue.”

Frisk laughed again, and was only a little afraid when the strange pair came into view. They were skeletons—not just thin people, but actual, literal bones that walked and talked. One was very tall, dressed in showy red boots and some kind of fake armor, while the other was much shorter, in clothes far too casual for an event like this. Why was he wearing pink slippers?

Both of them were also looking her over. With the tiny little lights in his sockets trained on Frisk, the taller one bent down to whisper to his brother. “OH MY GOD, SANS!” he yelled. “IS THAT A HUMAN?”

The short one stared at her for a moment, then nodded, and somehow closed one socket in a wink. “i dunno, pap. he doesn’t look that monstrous to me. who’re you, kid?”

“My name is F—Kris,” she said, giving them a bow, “and you’re right. I’m a human.”

“OF COURSE I AM RIGHT, HUMAN, FOR I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS! HOW PLEASANT FOR YOU TO MEET ME!” The tall skeleton struck a heroic pose. “HAVE NO FEAR! WE MONSTERS HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE AND THEN BECOME FRIENDS! THEREFORE, YOU MAY SIMPLY REFER TO ME AS ‘PAPYRUS,’ EVEN IF IT IS ONLY HALFWAY CORRECT.” He indicated the other skeleton. “THIS IS MY OLDER BROTHER, SANS. DO NOT BE DISTRAUGHT THAT HE IS NOT AS GREAT AS I AM, AND TRY TO BEAR WITH HIS TERRIBLE JOKES, NYEHH.” Nudge. “SANS! SAY SOMETHING THAT IS NOT TERRIBLE!”

Sans was watching her carefully; he looked like he was smiling, but Frisk had the feeling it was just how his face was made. He wasn’t happy to see her at all. “sure,” he said coolly. “the name’s sans. sans the skeleton.” Papyrus nudged him again, and Sans sighed, as if resigning himself to his fate. “yeah, i know what his majesty said.” He put on a wider grin. “welp, nice to meet you, kris.”

Fakeness or not, the monsters she’d met so far were still much better than any humans she knew. So Frisk smiled shyly at him, and whispered, “It’s nice to meet you, too, Sans.”

His smile dropped a little. They regarded each other for a few seconds; to her delight, his mouth rose again in genuine approval. “heh. you seem like a nice kid.” Shrug. “pap’s right. we’re all gonna be pals, so…”

Papyrus looked pleased as Sans took his hand from his jacket pocket. But as Frisk reached out to shake it, Pap’s smile suddenly vanished. “WAAAIT A MOMENT,” the taller brother said suspiciously. “SANS, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT—”

Too late. The moment Frisk grasped the skeleton’s hand, something erupted in a palm-tickling explosion of Pfffffftttttppppppfffffffff…ffffffppp…pppf…pp……p.

Silence.

“OH. MY. GOD,” Papyrus said in the voice of doom, and rounded on his brother. “SANS, YOU IMBECILE! YOU HAVE BROKEN THE HUMAN! LOOK, IT ISN’T MOVING! IT—”

Frisk couldn’t hold it in: she howled with laughter, and only got louder as Sans pulled his hand back to reveal the rubbery, air-filled contraption that had made the rude noise. “what can i say? it’s always funny,” he said proudly. “quite a gas.”

“HOW COULD YOU, BROTHER?! THIS IS A CLEAR VIOLATION OF ACQUAINTANCE ETIQUETTE!” raged Papyrus. “HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO ASCEND THE HEIGHTS OF TRUE FRIENDSHIP NOW THAT YOUR IDIOTIC PRANK HAS DAMAGED THE SMALL HUMAN?!” Papyrus stabbed a gloved finger at Frisk, who was now doubled over. “IF THIS IS HOW YOU ARE GOING TO BEHAVE, YOU MIGHT AS WELL GO HOME NOW! YES, HOME! YOU CAN PICK UP YOUR ROOM IN CASE WE HAVE HUMAN GUESTS!”

“i dunno, bro,” said Sans, winking at Frisk again. “it’s probably too heavy for me. you should get it instead.”

“NYEHHH! I MOST CERTAINLY WILL NOT GET IT!”

“aw, pap, don’t be so hard on yourself. i’m sure if you just try harder—”

“LEAVE!! NOW!!!”

Funny as the brothers were, that seemed harsh to Frisk—the nearest houses had to be pretty far away from the Grand Hall, and making Sans walk all the way back because of a few jokes was a little much. She eyed Papyrus doubtfully, wondering if he was like humans after all.

“it’s fine, kiddo,” Sans told her, as if reading her thoughts. He winked one more time. “don’t worry, i know a shortcut. so, eye will see ya later.”

Before Frisk could react, Sans was…gone. Baffled, she looked around, then up at Papyrus. “HM? OH, YES. SANS HAS DEVELOPED HIS MAGIC EXACTLY ENOUGH TO BE AS LAZY AS POSSIBLE,” the tall skeleton said distastefully. “I CAN ONLY HOPE HE IS ACTUALLY CLEANING HIS ROOM NOW. MORE LIKELY, HE IS—”

There was a sound of clapping and cheering from the Grand Hall. “THAT’S RIGHT!” Papyrus threw his red scarf over his collarbone. “COME ALONG, HUMAN! I SHALL INTRODUCE YOU TO THE OTHER MONSTERS! YOU WILL BE DELIGHTED TO MEET THEM, ESPECIALLY THE ROYAL GUARD, AND THE FEELING WILL BE MUTUAL! NYEH-HEH! FOLLOW ME, NEW ACQUAINTANCE!”

“Um…” Frisk bit her lip. Papyrus was a lot to take in, especially without warning, but he didn’t seem to be faking his enthusiasm, or his kindness. Frisk looked at him, made up her mind, and smiled again. “Can we be friends now?” she asked, holding up her hand.

The skeleton’s cheekbones turned bright pink, somehow, eye sockets going wide and glittery. “REALLY?!? WOWIE! I CAN’T BELIEVE I—” He made a noise like a cough. “I MEAN…O-OF COURSE YOU WANT TO BE MY FRIEND, KRIS! I AM EXTREMELY GREAT.” Papyrus leaned down a little to take her hand. “COME ALONG! AS A FRIEND OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS, YOU SHALL BE KNOWN AND LOVED BY ALL! NYEH-HEH-HEH!”

Frisk sure hoped so, especially if the other monsters were as nice as he was. Even if they weren’t, she’d already made new friends, exactly like she was supposed to. Mama couldn’t be mad at her for that, and Chara couldn’t take them away from her!

 ~

 The dream with Asriel was a fitting end to a frustrating night. Sans had picked the biggest inn he could find and asked for a room with the biggest bed they had, only to find that it still wasn’t big enough for him. He didn’t want to try sleeping in his disguise, which meant another night stretched out on the floor, longing for the massive bed in the High Priestess’ quarters. He never would have thought he’d want to go back to the humans’ castle—that damn bed had spoiled him for life! Not to mention that when he was sleeping in it, he had Frisk all to himself…

He had just started dozing off when the door to the next room opened and closed, a couple of human voices whispering back and forth. Sans made the mistake of concluding that that was it, and was completely unprepared for the sounds that exploded through the wall a minute later.

Sans was not an expert on human…anything, but he knew was he was hearing, and that he was hearing it very very loudly. At that point, he had several options; after mulling exactly one of them over, he sat up and ran a thread of magic through the lamp fixture over the bed, worming it through the conduits in the wall and into the next room. From there, he could feel the vibrations of the bed moving – ugh – and spread his magic in a thin layer under one side of the mattress; then he twitched his hand, and grinned at the shrieks and thuds of the couple being dumped onto the floor.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t need to do anything else. The humans got dressed in a hurry, grabbed their things, and left, and did not come back. Sans let his magic dissipate and settled down, feeling a little smug, but mostly annoyed that the sounds were still stuck in his head.

The giant skeleton tossed and turned, dreamed, and got up in the morning a lot later than he intended; he was so unrested, and so disturbed at having seen Asriel – had it been real? Why and how would the Prince visit him of all people? Why now? – that he barely remembered to put his chain back on before he left the room. He forgot to ask directions when he checked out and had to grump his way around town at random, looking for the stables the warehouse lady had mentioned. He had to get the carts and horses, then go to all the stupid places and get the stupid things…

Well, this wasn’t the right way: he was on a street lined with cute little cafes and humans sitting around in fancy metal chairs. He stopped to get his bearings, and nearly swore as his stomach growled. At least there were food stands everywhere…but what the hell was a “crepe”?

A minute later, he found a place to sit down and gnaw on a couple of folded-over, chocolatey things, which were actually pretty good. There wasn’t much to do as he ate but people-watch, which would have been kind of neat if the people in question weren’t humans. They followed the overall pattern he’d observed at the castle, where the men were loud and stupid-looking, while the women were also loud and ranged from scrawny to actually-lumpy to extremely lumpy. Even the ones with nice faces were still too…human, without any soothing voices, or graceful movements, or sweet expressions…

It made him wonder yet again if Frisk’s SOUL was the real reason he’d been so drawn to her; the first time he’d seen it, he was scared shitless, and then he wanted to rip it out for strictly non-romantic purposes. Was it because she’d reminded him so much of Kris? Or would he have just eventually fallen in love with any human who was powerful enough for him, even if she was a gross person on the outside or inside?

…Nope. It was because she was Frisk. Satisfied with that line of introspection, Sans finished the second crepe and tossed the wrappers in a trash can, forgetting that she wasn’t there to yell at him for littering. Time to ask someone for directions to a more useful part of town.

The first person he talked to just shrugged, and the next pointed him the wrong way entirely, but an irate half-hour later, Sans was back on the right track. This street seemed much dingier, with fewer people around; it smelled weird, too, like horse pee and desperation.

Maybe that was why someone had started following him. Sans smiled to himself, wiggling his fingers inside his coat pockets. Should he get further into the back alleyways before he confronted the guy, or—

“Heya.”

Sans glanced to his right. A man in his early twenties was standing by a side street, nodding at him. “C’mon this way,” he said. “Got somethin’ to show you.”

           “I don’t think so, pal,” said the disguised boss monster. “Whatever ya want, you’re wastin’ yer time. Don’t have any cash on me.” Without waiting for an answer, he speed-walked further ahead, grinning as he heard a soft whistle behind him.

           Sure enough, someone was waiting right around the next corner, an older man in nice clothes. “Excuse me, sir,” he said loudly, “but do you have the time?”

           Sans thought of the old woman again and snorted. “Nope,” he replied, and tried to walk around him.

           The man quick-stepped back into Sans’ way. “My. Her Eminence doesn’t pay you enough to buy a watch?” he asked innocently.

           What the hell? He wasn’t wearing the armband. “Who said anythin’ about—”

The distraction almost worked: the guy made a sudden feint toward him, and if Sans had been any less alert, he’d have backed right into the human sneaking up to grab his neck with a wire loop. Instead, Sans pivoted and slammed an elbow into his would-be assailant so hard that he felt the guy’s ribs crack. The man who’d stopped him cursed under his breath, turning to run.

Almost absent-mindedly, Sans waved a finger in the fleeing human’s direction. There was a shnk of bone erupting from the pavement, and a muffled scream as the man’s ankle was impaled mid-flight. The rest of his body yanked to a stop and hit the ground in a twisted heap.

Footsteps pounded toward them, and Sans turned to face the first guy who’d talked to him, then one other human. They sized up the situation and moved to either side of him, one armed with some kind of club and the other sporting a huge knife.

Sans gave a low laugh as bloodlust started bubbling to the surface. Finally! This was what he’d been waiting for! No more playing cute and harmless! No more letting people do whatever the hell they wanted with him! No witnesses!

Really, the only problem was that it was too easy. Sans let the one with the knife get in close, then grabbed his arm and broke it at the elbow, spinning the would-be assassin around and shoving him into the guy with the club. Both humans hit the ground, but the knife guy was up in a moment, scrabbling for his weapon with his good hand. Sans kicked the knife away, pinned both of his palms to the ground with a couple more bones, and lifted the remaining human by the neck with his magic.

Was that it? He glanced around at the one with the wire loop – on the ground, struggling to breathe – then the guy with the impaled ankle, who seemed to have passed out. The third was staring at his hands and making weird noises – not very knife of him, ha ha – and the last one dangled a few inches off the ground, clawing at the red mist around his throat.

Sans hummed under his breath, surveying the four men with an artistic eye. Well! Where to begin? Might as well start with the one he was holding up. The human windpipe was so fragile that one good crunch would do it…but no one said it’d have to be a quick crunch. Sans began to apply pressure, slow and hard, and grinned as the man’s eyes bulged in terror—

           Out of nowhere, he froze mid-squeeze as a strange emotion hit him. It was…nostalgia, and then—guilt? That was it; the longer Sans stared at the captive human, the less he enjoyed the guy’s fear and despair. He knew exactly what it felt like to be trapped by someone stronger, didn’t he? Back in his jail cell, cowering behind a human witch’s barrier, knowing she could do any damn thing she pleased to him—had he looked like this to her?

           Sans shook his head in irritation. What was he thinking? That was different! He wasn’t Frisk, and these guys had tried to kill him!

           …just like he’d tried to kill her before and after she stopped him from hurting anyone. What had she done to retaliate? Kept him safe, given him her own stupidly oversized bed, let him sleep for over a day, and fed him more in one sitting than he’d eaten in goddamn weeks.

Sans tried again to shake it off, to rationalize that no one in their right mind would hold a psycho like him to Frisk’s standards, but when he looked again at the human in his grasp…

No, dammit! These assholes had attacked him out of nowhere, and he’d defended himself! Surely she wouldn’t expect him to just stand there and get murdered?

…But none of these guys could move under their own power anymore, much less hurt him. Now Sans could see Frisk snarling up at him in all her tiny, furious glory: “If you kill anyone and you cannot look me in the eye to tell me why it was necessary, I don't want you to come back at all!”

           Argh! It wasn’t fair! She wasn’t here to stop him—she would never even know! Why should he quit right when it was finally getting good? Couldn’t he at least nick ‘em a few more times, enough to make them sorry? They might be pretty sorry already, but… “But,” Sans mumbled out loud, scowling.

Now he was thinking of Dr. Serif. The boss monster could practically hear his cool, smug voice: “But what, Sans?”

           Tch. If he had to be hearing things, he’d much rather it be Frisk. He knew he should’ve taken a shortcut back to the Underground last night. Then he could’ve seen her and…done…something? Maybe he wouldn’t be so damn frustrated now, his mind jumping all over the place…

           “Sans.”

Oh, shit. What about the fortune-teller? “Don’t kill anyone.” That guy had been right about stuff so far; would something happen to Frisk if Sans ignored his stupid, cheap advice? For all he knew, it could—

           “SANS.”

           “What?” he snapped. “Whaddya want, Doc…tor?” He gaped at Dr. Serif, who was standing only a few yards away, arms folded. “The fuck are you doin’ here?” demanded Sans, releasing the human from mid-air and ignoring his wheezing.

Dr. Serif came closer and made two gestures. A skeletal hand popped up and seized the fallen human by the throat, glowing green before vanishing. “He should live,” the royal sorcerer said crisply. He glanced at the man whose hands were affixed to the pavement, and the one up ahead. “In the meantime, do you plan to leave these gentlemen like that?”

           Sans was still mad that he couldn’t leave them dead, but… He made a disgusted noise, and the bones all vanished. “Ya gonna tell me why you’re here, or what?”

           “What.” Dr. Serif walked past Sans and snapped his fingers. Two pairs of disembodied hands sprang out of thin air, and one latched onto each human’s head; to Sans’ immense discomfort, the hands glowed blue, and each man obediently got up with sluggish, jerky motions – even the one with the shattered ankle –  to come sit in a row, legs crossed like schoolchildren. “Why did you attack this man?” Dr. Serif inquired. “Only speak if you have useful information.”

The human with the broken ribs mumbled, “He’s the High Priestess’ agent,” in a voice that made Sans feel even weirder. There was good old-fashioned violence, and there was this. “Gonna hold him for ransom and lure in the skeleton.”

“Do not lie to me.” The humans jerked, eyes going glassy as the blue intensified. “This is not an instrument of live capture,” said the royal sorcerer, retrieving the wire loop with yet another hand. “Why do you, or your employers, want him dead?”

There was a round of silence. Evidently, no one knew, or probably cared. They’d had their orders, and that was that.

Sans stepped closer. “Were you the ones going after Frisk a few weeks ago—the High Priestess? Are you gonna try it again?”

“Wasn’t us,” said one.

“No one’s supposed to kill her anymore,” said another, and his associates nodded slowly.

Dr. Serif blinked a few times. “According to who, and since when?”

“Last week. Someone paid the Assassin’s Guild to blacklist her. She’s untouchable—anyone who goes after her gets a bounty put on his head.”

Sans had never seen the royal sorcerer so taken aback. “I didn’t know that was even possible. It would cost several hundred thou—no, a million dinar to make it worth their while,” he muttered. “Do you have any idea who did it?”

More silence. Meanwhile, Sans was not that surprised to find out there was a formal guild for murderers. Humans were such fucking scumbags.

“Are you affiliated with poachers, then?” was Dr. Serif’s next question.

“Yeah,” they all said at once.

The doctor’s foot tapped a few times. “Does your attack on the priestess’ agent have to do with the timing of his delivery to the Underground? Fewer monsters will be venturing outside if food is being brought directly to them—I assume you wanted to prevent this?”

Sans watched the men’s faces stay blank. That was probably too many words for them. “What’re you gonna do if ya can’t catch any monsters?” he asked instead.

The blue light intensified again, and someone finally mumbled, “Ransom. The High Priestess will pay to get her agent back. She won’t know he’s dead yet.”

Dr. Serif frowned. “And you’re hoping she’ll send the boss monster to rescue him?”

Nods. “It’s worth a hell of a lot of money.”

There was an odd pause. “For his magic?” the doctor asked.

“And ransom. She’s screwin’ it,” one man said tonelessly.

Dr. Serif grabbed Sans’ shoulder to restrain him. “Surely you’re not taking that rumor seriously,” he said. “It can’t be worth the danger of trying to capture such a powerful monster—he was relatively weak when he was first caught, and two men still died of their injuries.”

“Lady payin’ us says it’s true. She doesn’t want Her Eminence arrested for mis…missen—”

“Miscegenation?” growled Sans.

“Yeah. That. She wants us to catch it, but not kill it. We’ll keep it and get a shitload of magic, then sell it back later. Win-win.”

“Hm. So, your employer is a woman who wants to help the High Priestess? What is her name?”

No one answered. The blue light flickered, and one man finally said, ��Dunno. We just got a few letters, and payment up front. Pretty sure it’s a rich lady ‘cause of the handwriting and the way the paper smelled, but we don’t know for sure.”

The doctor stared the man down, still holding Sans’ shoulder. “And she has hired you to hold the skeleton prisoner…for how long, exactly? And through what means?”

The human shrugged. “She said she’d tell us more once we killed this guy.”

Dr. Serif thought about it for a moment, then snapped his fingers again. The skeletal hands tightened, and Sans watched the men writhe in tandem and fall sideways like puppets with cut strings. “Well, that was more interesting than expected,” said the royal sorcerer. His hand tightened on Sans’ shoulder. “Come along.”

Sans shut his eyes as magic surged around them. It didn’t have the rushing-through-space feel of his shortcuts; this was more as if the ground had jumped out from beneath their feet and just as quickly hopped back into place. He opened his eyes and started. “Where—”

They were standing outside a large, well-kept stable. The doctor released him, saying, “I must commend you for not killing any of those men. We’ve acquired valuable information, and once they wake up, word will get around that the High Priestess’ agent is not to be trifled with.” He smiled, ever so slightly. “They will not recall I was even there.”

Sans gestured impatiently. “What the fuck was that about? Someone wants human-me dead, but they just wanna borrow real me to keep Frisk outta jail? An’ someone else’s paid out the ass to keep her alive? What’s—”

“It could well be the same person.” The royal sorcerer brushed some dust off his robe. “What is miscegenation?” he asked curtly.

Sans’ toes curled. “Boning a monster. It’s a literal crime. I heard somebody talking about it last night.”

“Interesting,” the doctor said slowly. “No one spreading that rumor in the city seems to know about it yet.” Sigh. “If you overheard it here, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows.”

Sans didn’t want to talk about that right now, or ever. “How long were you following me?” he asked instead.

Pause. “Long enough.”

The boss monster didn’t like that, either. “Whatever,” Sans mumbled. “But thanks fer gettin’ all that stuff out of ‘em. You’re pretty freaky, but I guess ya come in handy.”

He heard the familiar sound of someone ignoring a pun, and then “You’re welcome.” Dr. Serif crossed his arms. “I was sent here to intercept you and the High Priestess. Given that I have not seen Her Eminence with you, may I assume you were foolish enough to come alone?”

           “Uh…”

           “As you were also foolish enough to leave the castle when and how you both did, I am not surprised.”

           Sans snorted. “Ya think that was my idea?”

           “No, but this almost certainly was.” The royal sorcerer gestured to the smushed roll of papers in Sans’ front pocket. “Come along. There should be three carts on reserve in Frisk’s name here, for when you were supposed to have picked them up on your way to the Underground.”

           Sans followed him into the stable. “What, ya didn’t like us bailin’ on you?” he asked, taking childish pleasure in the older skeleton’s annoyance.

           The doctor reached back without looking and took the papers from Sans’ pocket. “Hello,” Dr. Serif said cordially to the human behind the counter, who stepped right up to assist them.

           This turned out to be prophetic: the doctor not only accompanied him everywhere for the rest of the morning and afternoon, he took complete charge. He made things so much smoother that Sans couldn’t even be mad about it; people listened to him, and he could fully answer their questions while Sans inspected the cargo and supervised the loading. The doctor also signed the bills of lading, reminding Sans after the first visit that as a perfectly normal human and not a monster in disguise, he was not “Sans” and needed to pick a pseudonym already.

           They had almost no time to eat lunch or dinner, electing to grab a couple of sandwiches as the drivers brought the carts to the second-to-last warehouse. “So, was it your idea to swoop in on us like this?” Sans asked. “I know it was annoying to wake up and have us gone, but—”

           “His Majesty is extremely unamused by his daughter’s behavior,” said the royal sorcerer, in a tone that wiped the smirk off Sans’ face. “To be very honest, I am glad I will not be there when Her Eminence receives this.” He extracted a long, expensive-looking envelope from his robe. “His Majesty assembled the paperwork yesterday for—”

           “The adoption thing?” Sans interrupted. “Is it true?”

           Dr. Serif made a face. “No matter where I go, the speed of gossip remains constant.” Another sigh. “Whatever you’ve heard is likely true. Should Frisk’s mission prove successful, His Majesty is prepared not only to pardon her theft, but place her directly in the line of succession.”

           Sans took a long sip of water, trying and failing to figure that one out. “I thought ya said he was pissed off at her. Why…?”

           “Tell me, Sans. Knowing Frisk, do you think she would appreciate being pressured into accepting such a heavy responsibility, especially in anticipation of her little brother’s death? His Majesty knows exactly how she will feel about it.” Dr. Serif paused for a huge bite of his sandwich. “Also, he may personally be unhappy with her actions, but he knows better than anyone that if she can outmaneuver him, then she is worthy of the throne.”

           Fuck. “Yeah, when ya put it like that—”

           The royal sorcerer glanced at him. “Out of curiosity, when did you learn that the King was her father?”

           “Not till we were almost t’the Underground. I kinda found out by accident.”

           Dr. Serif half-smiled. “It’s been common knowledge ever since she was brought to St. Brigid’s. And…by any chance, did she ever tell you anything about her mother?”

           Sans had to whack himself in the chest as the last wad of his sandwich threatened to get stuck in his windpipe. Why did human bodies use the same damn tube for breathing and eating? “Only that she’s dead,” he rasped. “Why?”

           “Wipe your hands, please, and put this somewhere safe until you can give it to her.” Dr. Serif held out the gilt envelope. “It contains copies of all the relevant documents, including an investiture of nobility—she would technically become a duchess first, then Crown Princess upon the death of the King or the Prince.”

Sans scrubbed his hands on his shirt and took the envelope. He was thinking so hard that he almost didn’t notice Frisk’s full name in fancy cursive across the front; then he looked again, and stared at it for a minute, and finally said, “Huh.”

           “You don’t seem entirely surprised,” the doctor observed, sounding almost disappointed. “Have you already heard something to that effect?”

           “Yeah. I had a long talk with Grillby the other day, and…I wasn’t gonna ask Frisk, but I was kinda wondering, and then she said…” Had the King done the calligraphy himself? “I never did hear her last name. I figured the High Priestess just doesn’t need one.”

           “It was not hers to use for most of her life, and I would be very surprised if she chose to do so now, or ever. According to what I have gleaned from Rosa, the name does not have pleasant associations for Frisk—another fact of which the King is very aware.”

           “Holy shit.” Sans looked at the envelope again. “He’s callin’ her that ta piss her off?”

           “It is technically her legal name and belongs on a document of this importance. So, yes.”

           “Shit.” Sans scratched the back of his head, thinking even harder. “So whoever filled out the paperwork for him knows her name, too? Which means everyone is gonna know about it by the time we get back?”

           The doctor raised an eyebrow. “You’re coming back with her, then?” He let the question hang in the air, and Sans ignored it till Dr. Serif continued, “You are correct. I am genuinely sorry to leave this with you, but you will have to give her the news before you return, or else she will be completely blindsided. Please don’t do that to her.”

           Sans wasn’t going to admit that the thought had already crossed his mind: throw the envelope away, let her enjoy the rest of her time in the Underground, and feign astonishment when they got back – hopefully triumphant – and found out she’d someday have the power to do literally anything she pleased, such as freeing monsters with a single decree.

           Except…she was already helping monsters, and had already spent three lonely, stressful years as High Priestess. How much worse would her life be if she became the actual Queen? Would it technically fit that second fortune? Fear stabbed him so hard that he could barely breathe—what if she got surrounded by advisers and hangers-on determined to harass him away from her? There was no telling how long her father and half-brother would be around, and they probably wouldn’t let her keep a pet skeleton around, not to mention a suspiciously bony kid…

           Sans couldn’t help it. Dr. Serif eyed him warily as the boss monster snickered again: a fucking crime. It was too perfect.

           The carts were ready now. The boss monster tucked the fancy envelope into an inner pocket and resolved to quit thinking about it for now. Frisk could handle this; she’d know what to do. If she didn’t, they’d figure it out together.

 ~

             Thankfully, the rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. By the time they were ready to head back to the Underground, the sun was just touching the horizon.

           Everything had fit into three large-ish carts, which Frisk had accurately predicted would be a better idea than two really huge ones. The drivers were nervous about starting so late in the day, but Dr. Serif had implied that they were just headed to the city, the road to which was well-lit and patrolled by watchmen. Sans got a huge kick out of seeing the humans’ faces when the procession reached the outskirts of the village, went about a hundred yards, and came to a sudden halt. “You may remove the horses now,” said the doctor. “Please return to the village. Here is a small gratuity for your trouble.”

           If the humans had questions, they were effectively answered by the five-hundred-dinar pieces Dr. Serif placed in each of their hands. They unhitched the horses and jogged them back in the fast-fading light without a backward glance, leaving the loaded carts sitting in the road.

           From there, the disguised monsters waited until no one was in sight – not difficult, given the hour and the cold – and then enacted the plan they’d agreed upon earlier: Sans encased the lightest cart in a film of red magic, thought carefully about the place by the river where Undyne had attacked him, and teleported the whole thing there. No more than ten seconds later, a large patch of blackness crept over the pale bedrock; Gaster rose from it head-first, followed by the carts, and everything settled into place as the ground shimmered back into ordinary rock-ness.

           “What the crap?” Sans pulled his chain off. “How do you even have that much magic?”

           Gaster brushed himself off again with two extra hands, keeping his own tucked beneath his flowing black coat. He glided in a circle around the carts, checking that they had made the journey safely, and nodded. “Surely you’re not worn out from one spell?”

           “No, but I’m a damn boss monster!”

           The older skeleton smiled. A hand appeared in front of Sans, holding a gray orb slightly bigger than the hole in its palm. “Humans use these to store magic. Keep at least one on your person at all times and let it absorb your ambient power. Put it away when full, then repeat the process. Do so regularly, and you will soon have a supply built up for contingencies exactly like this.” The hand vanished. “Has Her Eminence used the teleportation spell I gave her yet?”

           Sans remembered the brooch she’d gotten on All Souls Day, and shook his head. “I don’t think so, but she wears it a lot.”

           “Good.” Gaster looked at the nearly-night sky. “Lead the way.”

           The boss monster wondered exactly how many more of those stones Gaster had squirreled away in whatever fold of subspace he was using, and contented himself with the fact that the creepy bastard still seemed to be on their side—Sans hadn’t forgotten the fortune about bewaring him, but right now, he didn’t have much choice. Even the lightest of the carts was much heavier than the wagons full of monsters had been, and as tired as he was, he doubted he could’ve pulled or teleported them all on his own.

Gaster’s extra hands were pulling and pushing two of the carts with apparent ease as they followed the river. Sans tried to think of something that would pass the time without leading to invasive questions, and finally thought to ask, “The solar panel demonstration went okay?”

           “Oh, yes.” Gaster’s voice was neutral, and it was impossible to read his expression in profile. “Someone attempted to sabotage it by cutting several of the wires on the main panel, so I used my own magic as a substitute. It was most impressive, if I say so myself.”

           That sounded like one problem too many. They had enough crap to deal with in the Underground without worrying about sabotage or the King being passive-aggressive or some random lady who wanted to keep him away from Frisk! Get in line, he thought bitterly.

           “How is Her Eminence’s mission going?” asked Gaster, as if reading his mind.

           “Pretty good, I think. Asgore hasn’t met with her yet, but he’s letting her do whatever.” Sans felt the corners of his mouth lift. “She’s spent a couple nights with Undyne and Alphys at Toriel’s house, havin’ some girl time. They went shopping yesterday, ‘n pro’ly today.”

           Gaster nodded. “I don’t know how you intended to do this alone,” he said, glancing at the carts, “but given your accelerated timeline, I suppose it was the best way to let her enjoy herself for a day or two. It will also help her cause if the monsters see a great deal of her firsthand.”

           Sans knew what he meant—all Frisk had to do to win them over was be herself. He didn’t notice that he was smiling until he felt Gaster’s stare; the other skeleton was suddenly in front of him, drifting backwards as Sans walked. “Don’t mind me,” murmured the royal sorcerer, examining the boss monster’s sternum.

           “What’s my LV?” Sans asked bluntly.

           Gaster reappeared beside the cart. “You are at LV 16.”

           Sans was…almost surprised. Gaster gave him a hard look. “The first time I checked, you were—”

           A sound off to their left made both skeletons stop to listen. It was faint, but unmistakable. “Keep going,” Gaster said, and they picked up the pace, both assuming their disguises.

           There was no question of outrunning the humans, so they let the sound of hoofbeats gradually overtake them. “Well, well,” said the first rider, pulling up in front of the carts and forcing them to stop. Two more poachers rode up alongside, and three more brought up the rear. Each man had a coil of chain slung over his shoulder, and their leader carried a heavy crossbow. “What are you doing out here so late?” he demanded. “Where you headed with all that?”

           “The Underground,” Dr. Serif said calmly. “We have no monsters or valuables with us, so if you would kindl—”

           “Bullshit.” The leader nodded to the other men. “Search ‘em. There’s gotta be—”

           Sans didn’t even see what happened next: an unseen force yanked each man out of the saddle to hit the bedrock, filling the air with thumps, whinnying, and curses. “This is your last warning,” said Dr. Serif, still sounding very reasonable. “Leave us, or you will suffer.”

           When the men didn’t answer – except for more profanity – the doctor made a gesture. This time, Sans glimpsed the skeletal hands smacking the horses on the rump, one after another; the animals screamed in panic, nearly trampling their riders as they bolted in different directions.

The poachers gaped at each other, then at the human-shaped skeletons. “What the fuck are you?” demanded the leader. With no warning, he whipped up his crossbow to fire at—

           —Gaster, whose body had vanished, leaving nothing but an eerie smile and empty sockets. “Well, then,” he murmured, his eyes lighting blue and yellow. He glanced at Sans. “Please go on without me. I will see you back at the castle in…” He paused, counting on a set of hands. “…nine days.” The fingers snapped once, twice, thrice. “My regards to Her Eminence.”

           Sans opened his mouth to object, and the ground dropped out from beneath him.

 ~

             Silence descended in his wake, leaving the poachers in abject terror. Without the carts’ lanterns, it was impossible to see anything but the light in Gaster’s sockets. “Well,” the monster said. He looked at the men with mild curiosity, like a child with a jar full of insects. The leader jerked as a hand suddenly latched onto his face. “Can I trust you to keep this little encounter a secret?” asked Gaster.

The man nodded frantically, clawing at the hand as blood began welling under its phalanges. The others nodded, too, babbling reassurance.

“Good,” the skeleton said pleasantly. The humans had exactly enough time to start hoping before his eye-lights dilated, illuminating the hideous, masklike face. “What a pity that I do not believe you.”

There was a gruesome sound, and another, and another, and another. Silence; a tide of magic rose and swept over the bedrock, leaving nothing behind but a few splashes of blood.

Gaster nodded in satisfaction and turned to rinse his hands in the river, humming Sans’ favorite song. He paused long enough to chuckle to himself, then brushed his coat off once more, extracted a fresh stone from his coat, and vanished.

 ~

             The sentries outside the Grand Hall’s gates rolled their eyes as another knock came from within. “Any sign of him?” someone asked through the crack.

           “No,” the rabbit monster snapped. “For the last time, you don’t need to keep asking every ten minutes! We’ll tell you when he—”

           A long, low sound from the opposite direction cut him short. “Sans?” called the guard.

           “The one an’ only,” a gruff voice answered over the rise. In the still, cold air, they could now hear the sound of wheels on sandy rock, and the labored breathing of a boss monster managing three heavily laden carts by himself. “Can I get some damn help here?”

           Twenty minutes later, Sans had recovered enough to get up from the cavern floor and hobble through the swarm of hungry monsters by the gates, some of whom had been waiting all day for their share of the food. “You guys don’t need to inspect it,” the colossal skeleton informed the guards, who were busy walking around the carts and poking them at random. “Me an’…someone I trust watched ‘em load it up.”

           The rabbit guard looked at his partner, then at Sans. “This came from humans, right? It’s probably gotta be—”

           “It’s gotta get out to people now,” Sans growled. He pointed at someone randomly. “Go get more help, whoever’s awake. I’m gonna go find Her Majesty.”

           “No need,” said a clear voice. The monsters all bowed out of the way as Toriel stepped off the patchy gray sand of the central aisle. “I am glad to see you back safely, Sans. Thank you so much for your efforts,” said the former Queen. “Please, get some sleep. I will handle the rest.”

           Sans was so tired that he could barely stay upright, but he shook his head. “I’m gonna check in with Asgore first.” Toriel’s face darkened, and he sighed. “C’mon, To—Your Majesty, ya know he’ll freak out if he finds out this came in without ‘im knowing.”

           The other boss monster sighed, closing her eyes. “True. And if you go now, you may run into the Captain and Dr. Alphys. They will also want to know you’ve arrived safely. But after that, I want you go straight home! Do you hear me?”

           He did, but sleep could wait: if those two were at Asgore’s house, then Frisk might be, too. His magic flared up, and without another thought, the skeleton took himself straight there.

           Remembering how easily the women had detected him before, Sans aimed for the end of the house near the master bedroom, and caught himself with only a slight stagger into the wall. Voices were coming from the living room; the boss monster waited for his vision to clear, then pushed himself upright and crept down the hall to listen.

           “It is lovely,” Asgore was murmuring. There was a musical clinking of fine metal and china—the King must be looking at the tea service Frisk had picked out for him.

           “Yeah, she was pretty proud of it. Everything she’s brought has been awesome,” agreed Undyne.

Sans scowled. Frisk wasn’t here after all. Well, he didn’t have enough magic to zero in on wherever she was, and Undyne was still talking, so he might as well eavesdrop. “She got me some targets, and comi—uh, battle strategies, and stuff for my scales. It was really thoughtful,” said the Royal Guard Captain.

           “And I can finally finish Adventure Lady!” Alphys exclaimed. “C-can you believe it?!”

           To Sans’ surprise, Asgore chuckled. He didn’t think the King knew how to do that anymore. “I’m glad to hear it, Doctor. I know how much that was bothering you.” Clink. “What about the agricultural implements Sans mentioned?”

“Yes, Y-Your Majesty. We spent a few hours today looking them over—she knows how to treat plants so that they can go days without being watered! We t-talked about different chemicals that can improve the quality of our soil, specific nutrients for whichever crops we decide to plant first, and all the seeds she brought. The next step is to decide which fields to convert to pasture if we want to raise c-cattle or sheep.”

“Hmm. Yes, that would be wonderful.” Sans heard tea being poured and china clinking again. “What else has she been up to?” asked the King.

“We went shopping for clothes yesterday,” the Captain said, “and Mettaton is teaching her how to dance. It was pretty fun—did you hear he wants to have a big party before she leaves?”

“Yes, I have. Some festivities could be good for our people, but…we’ll see.”

“Right.” She cleared her throat. “And just so you know, Majesty, we’ve spent the past couple nights at the Ruins.”

A long pause. “I…see. Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah,” Undyne said quietly. “Everyone did.”

“That…” Asgore heaved a great sigh. “That’s good to hear. What about today?”

Undyne’s chair creaked. “Today was a little more complicated. She checked on some of the people she brought back—not that she busted in on anyone,” the fish monster added hastily. “She only got started ‘cause Vulkin asked her to come visit.”

Asgore made a startled noise. “Vulkin wanted to see her? Why?”

Sans wanted to run in and shake the King like the idiot he was, but he edged back and tried to think nicer thoughts as Undyne answered, “She said Frisk was the only human who ever gave a crap about them, basically, and her family wanted to meet her. We ended up staying for over an hour.” Another pause. “Also, Majesty…Frisk’s got this thing she does where she can hum something at you, and it’s…really nice. Not hypnosis or anything sneaky, it just…” Sans could almost hear Undyne shrug. “Right before we left, Vulkin started getting worked up, and Frisk calmed her down just like that.”

“She’s done it for us, too, right before bedtime,” said Alphys. “I haven’t s-slept so well in forever.”

“Hm. She has other abilities, then, besides creating barriers?” He poured more tea. “Have you investigated her capabilities in that respect?”

“N-No, Your Majesty. She wanted to have your permission before she made any, even j-just to study them in the lab.”

Sans got the feeling that Asgore was a little put out by Frisk conducting herself so well. “If you believe she is trustworthy,” said the King, “then by all means, study her barriers as fully as you can. The knowledge may prove…useful.” More clinking. “Thank you for your time, both of you. Get some rest. And…” His voice softened. “Please thank her for the gift.”

The giant skeleton smiled a little. Before they could get up and notice him lurking in the hall, Sans used the tiniest wisp of magic – all that he had left – to whisk himself outside to the courtyard. He waited by the tree, foot raised as if in mid-step; when the door opened, Asgore saw him and started. “Sans! You’re back!”

“Hey, Majesty.” Sans raised a genuinely weary hand. “Yeah, I just got in with all the stuff. Everything’s fine. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you very much,” the King said heartily, another trace of his old self showing. “I’ll be down right away.”

“Uh.” The bigger boss monster fake-coughed. “Please don’t, Yer Majesty. Someone’s already got it under control.”

Blink. “Some…oh.”

“Hey, you,” Undyne said, moving around Asgore and hopping down the stairs in one easy bound. “How’d it go? Are you okay?”

“It’s fine, ‘m just worn out.” Sans let out a full-force yawn. “I’ll walk back with you guys,” he said as Alphys came down the steps.

“All right, then,” Asgore murmured. “Thank you again, Sans.” The skeleton nodded, and they politely waited for the door to close before turning to leave.

“Don’t even think about it” was the first thing out of Undyne’s mouth. “She’s asleep already.”

Sans was too tired not to ask, “Where? Tori’s again?”

“I’m not telling you!” snapped the fish-woman. “We had a lot of fun yesterday, but today was pretty rough on her.” She eyed him as they stepped into the elevator and waited for the grating to close. “You don’t look so hot, either.”

“I will be in a minute.” Sans swayed on his feet as the elevator descended. “After all, we’re goin’ to Hotland.”

Undyne twitched. “Nope. We’re not doing those.”

“Aww, c’mon, fish-face.” Yawn. “I’m just gettin’ warmed up.”

Twitch. “I’m serious, boss. Drop it.”

“Drop it like…it’s hot?”

“I SAID—”

The elevator ground to a halt, and he felt Alphys tug on his coat. “L-let’s go to my lab, Sans. You can take a nap and get some magic back befo—not yet!”

Sans had the impression of falling and something grabbing him, but he didn’t pay much attention till Undyne heaved him onto the lab’s concrete floor. “Ow,” he tried to say, but it was too much effort; he decided to pass out instead.

 ~

             They weren’t heading to the family’s main house; for some reason, Asriel had insisted she come with him to the one in the Ruins, where he and his mother had been living before the delegation arrived. He’d told her that he had a surprise for her, but he was so anxious that she didn’t think it was going to be a good one.

           Good or not, she had to admit that when Asriel opened the bedroom door and motioned her inside, she was very surprised: she backpedaled so hard that she crashed into his legs.

           “It’s all right,” said Chara, very quietly, from her seat on the bed. “I wouldn’t be glad to see me, either.”

           “Chara,” Asriel protested.

           “It’s true.” The woman watched Frisk lean into Asriel, clutching his robe with one small hand. “Isn’t it, Frisk?” she added.

           The child inhaled sharply, looking up at the Prince in alarm. “It’s all right,” he told her, smiling with such affection that she had to smile back. “I know all about you, Frisk. You’re ten years old, and you’re a girl, and you belong here. In fact, you could say you’ve come home.” He looked at Chara, beaming. “Right, sis?”

 ~

             Sans must have teleported from the lab at some point – maybe in his sleep – because when he properly awoke, he was in his own room. The boss monster sat up and turned the light on with a speck of magic. A glance at the clock made him do a double take: how was it almost ten o’clock?! Sans sprang to his feet and zipped down to the living room.

           No one was there, but he heard children running around outside, with the occasional shriek of happiness, or anger, or possibly disembowelment—he never could tell with kids. There was Papyrus’ voice, and Undyne’s; then he heard Frisk, and without thinking, he took another shortcut out beside the house.

           Before San could get his bearings, a handful of snow hit him upside the head. “Morning, boss!” shouted Undyne. “About time!”

           “GOOD MORNING, BROTHER!” Papyrus raised his head from beneath a pile of children. “WE ARE AT WAR! WOULD YOU CARE TO JOIN US?”

           Sans blinked. “War?”

           “Yes, indeed,” Frisk said gravely, and he looked up to see her standing on the balcony, not far above his eye level. Magic rippled through him in gentle waves as she smiled. “Is everyone ready?” she asked the monsters.

           The giant skeleton came forward for a better view as the children sprang to their feet, or paws, or seahorse tail. Frisk dipped something into a narrow bottle, raised it to her mouth, and leaned over the railing to blow a stream of huge, wobbly, fast-floating bubbles.

           In an instant, the kids were charging after them, leaping and clawing and even biting them joyfully out of the air. Frisk dipped the stick again and angled herself toward Papyrus to blow another round of bubbles; instead of popping them, the younger skeleton surrounded each one in blue and sent them flying in all directions, which was Undyne’s cue to materialize a short spear and leap after them, yelling, “Come back here, you cowards!”

           When the last bubble had been vanquished, Frisk made even more of them, almost obscuring the pack of children; this time, Papyrus used his magic to grab all the bubbles, and instead of chasing after them, the kids tackled him again. Undyne coordinated the assault, directing her troops to surround the enemy and attack as a unit, ignoring Papyrus’ protests of being muuuurdered and that she could not have his pirate-ship bed once he was dust, because for the hundredth time even if she did have an eyepatch that did not mean she deserved to be a pirate more than him. Then everyone scattered again for Frisk to send another batch the kids’ way, and two more groups for Papyrus to keep away from Undyne.

It was hard to say who was enjoying themselves the most. Sans hadn’t seen his brother playing like this in…how long? Even some of the adult monsters were coming over to watch, standing around and chatting with each other, or asking Frisk how she’d made the bubbles and happily accepting the extra bottles she tossed down for them. It was like she’d never left…

A thought struck him, and he backed further away from the house to crane his neck all the way upward. There it was, the thin brown haze of negative energy that’d been accumulating since he absorbed the last round of it. …But—

Sans had avoided looking too directly at Frisk, and tried to take another quick peek now, only for his eyes to lock onto her. She’d taken off her cloak, revealing one of probably many new outfits: a dark-green velvet dress that accented the curves of her bust and hips, silver earrings that shimmered as she bent down to refill the bottle, and gray boots that reminded him of the fact that she had feet.

And when he finally managed to look back up toward her face, he was ambushed by the sight of a black choker. The damn thing looked like a collar, but it wasn’t even trying to be practical; it was just a little bit of lace hugging her neck, and a flagrant reminder that most things wearing collars had nothing else on. He’d contemplated keeping her as a pet, once upon a time, before he even—

           Suddenly, Undyne vaulted onto his shoulder, crashing his nasal ridge into the bottom edge of the balcony. The Royal Guard Captain rapped him on the skull with the butt of her spear, dispelling the last of his lust-induced stupor. “Quit staring, moron,” she hissed, and gestured to Frisk. “C’mon, lady, we need more bad guys to kill,” the fish monster said in a normal tone, raising her voice to finish, “unless Papyrus is too weak to keep going!”

           “I AM NOT!” The skeleton stomped his foot in feeble rage, trying to catch his breath as Undyne leapt down. “BUT PERHAPS…PERHAPS WE COULD TAKE A BREAK, FOR THE CHILDREN?” Two small monsters ran circles around him as he desperately added, “THEY SEEM VERY TIRED, NYEH-HEH!”

           Frisk bit her lip, and Sans wanted more than ever to scoop her up for a giant hug—not only was it always hot when she did that, it meant she wanted to help Pap without hurting his feelings. Luckily for everyone, his mouth-related thoughts suddenly turned in a more wholesome direction. “Hey,” Sans murmured, catching her attention. “Ya know what you oughta do?”

           The others stopped as Frisk leaned down to hear him whisper. “That’s a wonderful idea,” the priestess said warmly, and Sans felt his skull turn red. “Here, Undyne, I want the children to help me try something,” Frisk told her, dipping the wand again. “You two can supervise.”

           Papyrus was happy to accept his new role, and Sans also paid close attention to Frisk’s lips as she blew a long, low stream of smaller bubbles. The kids grabbed at them and squealed as a sound followed each pop—to their delight, every bubble now contained a tiny burst of music.

           Undyne reached out to poke one. “What, did you whistle into ‘em?” She jumped at the sudden sound, then laughed, popping another one. “That’s so damn cool!”

           “Sans thought of it,” Frisk said. She was grinning from ear to ear, almost prancing in place. “Here!” This time, instead of a single pitch, she whistled a scale of several notes, sliding up and back down; when the children popped them, it produced a whole tangle of sounds. The adult monsters drew closer as more bubbles drifted and burst, scattering bits of music through the chilly air.

“Yo!” cried Monster Kid, bounding nearly straight up for emphasis. “Guys! Let’s try to make ‘em into a song again!”

The adults chuckled and shook their heads, but the children loved the idea. And as it turned out, they were right: the sheer futility of trying to break the bubbles in the right order was so much fun that, before they knew it, nearly every monster in the field was chasing after them. No one could hear much of anything over all the shouting and laughter, but that was okay. Everything was okay.

“Sans?”

Still smiling, the giant skeleton turned to face Toriel, noting that she was coming from the ferry and not the Ruins. “What’s all this?” she asked.

“We’re slaughtering our foes in glorious battle,” a cute little bunny said in passing. “It sounds pretty!”

“LIKE THIS, YOUR MAJESTY!” Papyrus demonstrated with a couple of quick jabs.

Toriel’s eyes widened as the sounds made a faint chord. “How wonderful!” She looked in amazement at the crowd of happy, energetic monsters. “You haven’t even received your rations yet—is this an early celebration?”

“Nah, it’s just fun,” Undyne said cheerfully. “People were fighting over who was gonna get what, and the kids were upset, so Frisk showed ‘em how she could make this stuff. Next thing you know—” Quick as scaled lightning, the Captain flicked an energy-toothpick at a bubble overhead, grinning at the resultant chime. “F sharp! Nice.” With a salute to Toriel, Undyne was off again, lifting a couple of random children onto her shoulders.

“How wonderful,” Toriel said again. She sighed, looking fondly up at the balcony. Frisk was starting to puff a bit, but clearly determined to keep going. “What a fine young woman she’s become! It’s almost like having Chara back with us.”

Sans shuffled his slippered feet. He knew it was the highest compliment Toriel could give, but the comparison really rubbed him the wrong way. Not only had he heard a lot of things recently, he couldn’t shake the dream he’d just had—the Prince so eager to have Frisk and Chara back together, and the child trying to be good, but unable to hide her fear and uncertainty…

And speaking of Asriel: “Tell her I’m sorry.” What was that about? Who was—

Suddenly, the dreams clicked together in his mind like puzzle pieces. Asriel had tricked Frisk into meeting with Chara, knowing perfectly well that the poor kid didn’t want to. Was he only sorry for that, or had something else happened afterward, awful enough to make Asriel want to apologize from beyond the friggin’ grave?

Toriel was saying something, and the skeleton shook his head. “Sorry, Tori. What was that?”

She cleared her throat. “I was asking if you’ve met the boy who’s courting her. Frisk said he’s very kind, and wealthy, but…she didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic.”

           Sans almost laughed out loud. So much crap was going on that he’d actually forgotten about that guy! “Had some girl talk, huh?” he asked carelessly, shoving his emotions way, way back down and hoping his eyes weren’t glowing.

           The goat monster chuckled, still watching the field. “We stayed up the other night to discuss where to distribute all the food you were bringing. Afterward, yes, we did talk about her love life.”

           He made an indifferent noise. He was fine. He could do this. “I met the guy once,” he said. “Kinda boring, but I guess he could be worse.”

           Toriel nodded. Her ear twitched as a longer, sweeter trill came from above—Frisk was pulling out all the stops, Sans thought proudly. “Were you there when she spoke to the fortune-teller?” she asked.

The skeleton made himself shrug, as if he wasn’t screaming internally. Stupid girl talk! How much had Frisk told her?

Well, the fact that Toriel hadn’t murdered the shit out of him meant she probably didn’t know everything yet. How she was failing to connect the dots between Frisk and Sans’ human love interest was beyond him, but he’d keep playing along for now. “Yeah, I went with her to that festival,” he said. “Pretty weird stuff. Apparently, she’s on track to have a kid soon.”

           Toriel grimaced. “I certainly hope not. Frisk is much too young for that kind of responsibility.”

           Sans snorted, and Toriel turned to glare at him. “Sorry, but ya haven’t seen her in action,” he said. “The first time I met her, she kept me from killin’ a whole bunch of people, all by herself, an’ she wouldn’t let ‘em kill me back. She got all bloody fixin’ up some kid who came to ‘er for help at two in the morning, she’s payin’ everything for three or four different orphanages that I know of, she keeps tabs on anyone in the whole damn kingdom who might need help, and she’s workin’ on freein’ us, too.” He shook his head. “She’s not a little kid anymore, Tori. She’s got so much crap ta deal with, and she’s been takin’ care of it all on her own. As long as she finds the right guy, it’s…”

           He had to stop before he got any more worked up. Luckily, Toriel was too deep in thought to notice. “That does sound impressive, but you’re right. Her happiness depends on whether she can find a good husband, one she can trust to stand by her and care about her children—”

           Now they were both grim and silent. “Just a few more,” the human called from above them.

She sounded so breathless that Sans shook his head, reaching up to tap on the railing. “Hey, Frisk? Quit it before ya pass out.”

           Toriel listened for a moment, then nodded. Sans watched her stride out to the middle of the field and clap her hands. “Everyone,” she said, “I am glad you’ve enjoyed yourselves, but please return to your homes now. The Royal Guard will be here shortly to deliver your share of the supplies that Frisk arranged for us and Sans brought in last night.” The former Queen nodded benignly in their direction. “Thank you, both of you.”

The giant skeleton was rather embarrassed by the round of applause that followed, though Frisk seemed to take it in stride. Then again, it could be the fact that she was barely conscious. “Time to come in, Pap,” Sans said, jerking his head as the monsters bid each other cheerful farewells and went their separate ways. The children still seemed more excited about the bubbles than the prospect of food—were the poor little bastards just used to being hungry by now?

           There was no need to ask Undyne to take care of Frisk: she had already jumped straight onto the balcony and was assisting the human inside. Sans teleported into the living room, where he immediately got in the way of the Captain half-carrying her down to the couch. “’m fine,” Frisk muttered.

Sans leaned over her, scowling. “Ya need your breath, kid. Don’t use it all up next time.” Now that he was closer, he could also see dark circles under her eyes. “How much sleep didja get last night?” he demanded, and looked at Undyne. “Were you guys at Tori’s house?”

“No,” the goat monster said, shutting the door behind her and coming to sit beside Frisk. “Mettaton kept her up so late that she spent the night at the resort.” Toriel’s hand came up, glowing green, and brushed Frisk’s cheek. “If you had stayed with me, child, I’d have made sure you rested properly.”

The priestess rubbed some feeling back into her lips. “I beg to differ,” she said a moment later. “Remember how afraid I was to fall asleep that second night? Undyne was already mad because I caught her cheating at cards—”

The Captain swelled like a pufferfish. “For the last time, I didn’t frickin’ cheat! My 6 got stuck behind my queen, and I didn’t know it was there when you asked for it!”

“Mmmm-hm.” Frisk let her head fall against Toriel’s shoulder as the goat monster stroked her hair. Sans had to look away, more irritated than ever—how stupid was it to be jealous of someone mothering her? Especially considering what she’d had for an actual mom…

“Anyway,” said Undyne. She glanced at Sans, saw his expression, and whacked him again to get his attention. “You know what your damn human did to me?” Frisk smirked as Undyne pantomimed writing huge letters across her own face. “GO FISH. Is that the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard, or what?”

Sans snickered. “What? She was probably just being supportive. You know, ‘go—”

Frisk and Toriel dissolved into laughter as the Captain smacked her forehead with one webbed hand. “Argh! That’s the same dumb thing she said!”

“It’s all right,” the human said, in what Sans gleefully recognized as her pre-pun voice. “I guess our humor is just that sofishticated.”

“NOOOOO,” moaned Papyrus, who had just come inside. “NOT YOU, TOO, NYEHH!”

“What’s wrong?” asked Sans, winking at Toriel as she covered her face with one hand. “Are you mad enough to krill someone?”

“SO HELP ME, YOU TWO, I WILL LEAVE THIS HOUSE AND NEVER—”

“But it’s so nice to sea you,” Frisk said, and Sans snorted so hard that he had to sit down before he fell over. Toriel was giggling uncontrollably, clutching her sides; Undyne just shook her head and retreated into the storage room behind the kitchen cabinet.

Papyrus looked mollified. “YES, I KNOW. BUT I—” He stopped, and they nearly died as they watched it hit him. “GRAAAAH! IF HER MAJESTY WAS NOT HERE, I’D—”

“It’s all right, Papyrus,” Toriel said behind her hand. “I know I can trust you to control your temper.” Papyrus nodded, and the goat monster added, “You’ve always been a pacifisht!”

Undyne poked her head into the kitchen, raising her voice over the din: “Pap! Get away from those nerds and come help me! We need to make room for your stuff when it gets here.”

The younger skeleton sighed dramatically, even for him. “NYEH-HEH! I SUPPOSE I MAY AS WELL. AT LEAST SOMEONE AROUND HERE WILL BE DOING SOMETHING USEFUL!”

“Thank you. You’re the least shellfish person we know,” squeaked Frisk, at which Papyrus made an incoherent sound and stormed off into the kitchen.

Sans was pounding the floor, the women nearly sobbing. “Children—children, please,” Toriel said weakly, wiping her eyes. “Really, it’s time to calm down now.” A long pause… “We can’t keep kraken up like this!”

“Oh my God, they’re gonna kill themselves,” Undyne grumbled from the storage room. They had closed the cabinet door, but it wasn’t soundproof enough. “Let’s move some of this stuff to the shed, and…hey, what’s this?” She picked up a heavy package lying in the back corner. “Huh. Looks like one of Frisk’s. Pap, go ask—”

“SANS! POSSIBLY FRISK!” Papyrus charged into the living room, hoisting the box over his head and nearly tripping over his brother. “IS THIS A FORGOTTEN PUZZLE?! MAY I OPEN IT TO KEEP IT COMPANY?”

“Oh!” Frisk gave a last snrk and accepted a clean handkerchief from Toriel to wipe her face. “Actually, Papyrus, that one is for Sans.”

“Wha?” The giant skeleton sat up and quirked a brow at her. “What’re you talkin’ about? I was with ya when we bought all this crap, and I don’t remember you gettin’ me anything.”

“That’s because you weren’t paying attention,” the priestess retorted.

…She had a point. There had been quite a few times when they were in a shop and he was so bored that she could’ve been plotting the death of all monsterkind without him noticing.

“SURPRISE PUZZLES ARE THE BEST KIND! OPEN IT ALREADY!” urged Papyrus, shoving the gift at his brother’s face.

“Yeah, boss,” Undyne said from the kitchen. “Don’t be so damn shy.”

“I’m not bein’ shy! I just…I wasn’t expectin’ it.” Scowling, Sans grabbed the package and dug his phalanges into the lid. One good rip would get this over w—

“Sans!” Frisk’s voice made him hunch his shoulders like a guilty kid. “If you tear it open like that and break something, I will end you! Do you understand?”

The others watched the colossal skeleton set the package down gently, unwrapping the paper and moving it aside as though it was made of glass. Toriel and Undyne exchanged disbelieving glances as Sans located the box’s tucked-in corners, eased them loose, and picked at the ribbons tying it shut.

But a moment later, as he removed the last layers of tissue paper, their amusement faded into gasps and murmurs. Inside the box lay a chessboard gleaming in white marble and flawless onyx, each of the pieces individually wrapped and set in neat rows.

Undyne chose one at random and peeled the paper away to reveal a knight astride a black pegasus, wings spread and hooves ready to strike. “Whoa!” She picked another, this one a rook carved in the shape of a ruined tower, complete with crumbling bricks and a few tiny bird’s nests in the windows. “Where’d you find this?! Are you gonna teach him how to play?”

“We did most nights back at the castle.” Frisk shrugged. “He beat me every time.”

“Incredible,” murmured Toriel. She took the knight and held it up to examine the sculpting of its plumelike tail. “Humans have such an amazing capacity for beauty. I never could understand…” The goat monster sighed, handing the piece back. “What do you think, Sans?”

Sans couldn’t answer. He’d calmed down a lot after all the fish puns, and he would have been fine just hanging out with everyone until the Royal Guard came by. He hadn’t known Frisk was going to give him anything, much less something beautiful and thoughtful and completely perfect—like her, dammit. How was he supposed to stop feeling all these feelings when she kept doing things?

The pause became more and more uncomfortable as he glowered at the chessboard, heat building around his SOUL until he wanted more than ever to just rip his clothes off right there. “PSST! BROTHER!” Papyrus nudged him. “YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SAY, ‘THANK YOU FOR THE MAGNIFICENT PUZZLE, NYEH-HEH! I SHOULD ASK THE GREAT PAPYRUS TO PLAY IT WITH ME, AND WEEP GENTLY WHEN I LOSE!’”

Sans fidgeted, and Frisk looked expectant. “This’s…ya know, ya didn’t hafta waste a bunch more money on somethin’ we—” His head snapped up, startling everyone. “Hey, there’s the Royal Guard! They probably need help, right? Let’s go help!”

“SANS,” Papyrus began, and huffed as his brother disappeared. “THAT’S NOT WHAT I TOLD HIM TO SAY AT ALL! HOW DID HE GET IT SO VERY WRONG?”

 ~

             Sans was not surprised by the others’ reactions when they joined him a few minutes later at the cart by the town Christmas tree. He could only imagine what they’d been saying, though the glare Undyne was giving him made her opinion pretty clear.

           “Good day,” Toriel said to the cat monster holding the supply list, ignoring Sans entirely. The cart had just come through Waterfall, the sacks and crates patterned with condensation that was already freezing into ice crystals. “I have a very selfish request,” the former Queen continued. “As you know, I was awake for the entire night, and I am extremely weary. I would like to bring my share home with me now, unless of course you need me to—”

           “You were up the whole night, Lady Toriel?” Frisk repeated, one hand on the side of the cart. She frowned, then rounded on Sans so fast that he flinched. “You want to be helpful, don’t you? Then you can take her and her things back to the Ruins!” An imperious gesture at the three guards. “The list, please,” she ordered in her High Priestess voice.

The cat-lady handed it over, bemused. The tiny human ran her finger down the page, nodded, and turned to the cart. “It should all in that crate, there, and that stack of—look where I’m pointing! Yes, that one, and those over there. No, don’t put it—”

           Sans obeyed her as fast as he could, setting the boxes neatly beside Toriel. Frisk checked them over again, then handed the list back to the feline guard. “That should be correct, but if you find any discrepancies, let me know. Has everything gone according to plan so far? No thefts or serious disputes?”

           “No, milady,” the guard replied. “We should be finished by this evening at the latest.”

Frisk smiled. “Excellent work. Please keep it up.”

The Royal Guard all saluted. Toriel’s eyebrows were raised, and Sans wished she’d look at him so he could mouth Told you so. “Good job, guys,” said Undyne, not bothering to hide her grin. “It looks like you’ve got this under control, so Frisk and I are gonna go see Alphys now. You coming, Pap?”

           “HMM.” He glanced from her to his brother and crossed his arms, clearly torn. “SHOULDN’T I STAY AND HELP PUT OUR FOOD AWAY?”

           “Oh, but Sans wants to help so much, we shouldn’t take that from him.” Undyne looked daggers – spears? – at the giant skeleton. “He can come right back here and do it after he drops off Her Majesty. Right?”

           Dammit. “Right,” grunted Sans.

           Frisk was already starting to turn away. He cast around for an excuse to talk to her again, and said, “Hey.” She glanced at him as he rummaged in his inner pockets. “Ya want those invoices back?”

           The priestess frowned at him. He hated it when she did that, especially when he deserved it. “I suppose it could be useful when I talk to His Majesty.” She started to extend a hand, and her eyes widened. “That’s right,” she said to the guards. “Did you give him my note?”

           “Yes.” The dragon guard cleared his throat. “He said no.”

           “What R02 meant to say,” the cat monster, “is that King Asgore regrets he will not be available to speak with anyone today.”

           “But he does want to talk to Sans,” the rabbit said helpfully, “and Dr. Alphys.”

           “I see,” Frisk murmured. “Thank you.” As Undyne glared at R01, the human stepped back, pulling her cloak around her. “You’d better keep them to show His Majesty, then.”

           Sans shrugged, rolled the papers back up, and opened his coat wider to find exactly where they’d been. All he could think about was reaching over to tug down her choker where it was riding too high on her throat; he forgot what else was in his pockets till he noticed her staring at something inside his coat. His SOUL tingled in alarm: the King’s golden envelope was sticking up partway, with the letters FRISK D showing. “Sans? What is that?”

           “…Uh.” Fuck. It was too late to disappear again. He glanced around at everyone listening, and at Frisk, who was already unhappy because of him. Was this really the time to tell her what her father was planning, and that the humans all knew her name now? “It’s…I-I’ll show ya later, I promise. There’s a bunch of stuff we’ve gotta talk about.”

Her frown deepened. “Agreed.” Just like that, Frisk turned to smile at Papyrus. “Shall we?”

“CERTAINLY!” He gallantly held his arm out to her, neither of them noticing how Sans’ socket twitched.

Before the bigger skeleton could say something stupid, a touch on his radius made him spin around. “If you could take me home now, I would greatly appreciate it,” Toriel said quietly.

“Sure.” He gave Frisk one last glance. “Have fun, guys.”

Undyne made another face at him, and Papyrus waved. “GOODBYE, SANS! HAVE FUN! PLEASE BE USEFUL TO HER MAJESTY AND NOT RUN OFF AGAIN BECAUSE YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY INCOMPETENT!”

Sans twitched again, and Frisk smirked. “Have a good rest, Lady Toriel,” she said over her shoulder.

“Enjoy yourselves,” Toriel replied cheerfully. But the moment the trio was out of sight, the goat monster’s smile vanished. “Back to the Ruins, please,” she said coolly.

Sans had a headache already. “Yes’m,” he mumbled. At least all this inner turmoil meant he was generating plenty of magic: she laid a hand on his arm, he made a swiping gesture at the crates, and they were all standing in the entryway of Toriel’s house, easy as butterscotch-cinnamon pie.

“I wish I could do that,” the goat monster commented, not for the first time. “Can you bring those to the kitchen for me?” She strode ahead, briskly opening cabinets and moving things aside to make room. “Also, please tell me what the matter is.”

Sans grunted, twitching a finger to waft the crates over. “Do me a favor, Tori, and gimme a check. You can probably see it for yerself.”

Toriel obligingly turned and squinted at his SOUL. “Good heavens,” she said after a moment, and looked up at him. “Sans, what in the world…?”

           If it looked half as turbulent as it felt, then it was probably pretty scary. “I wasn’t kiddin’ the other night,” he muttered.

“I…didn’t think you were. Still…” She rubbed her eyes, swaying a little with sheer tiredness. “I did want to ask you something. I heard you telling the guards last night that you inspected the carts alongside someone you trusted. By any chance, was that…?”

Well, there was a convenient misunderstanding if he’d ever heard one. “Was that what? Someone I’m totally nuts about an’ hafta stay away from because she’s a human, and just friggin’ deal with it?” He rapped on his chest. “Does it look like I’m dealin’ with it?”

           “No, you are not.” Toriel crossed her arms at the waist. “Sans. I know this must be difficult for you, but—”

“Let’s play pretend for a minute,” he said conversationally. “Imagine I came up to you sometime real soon with a human an’ said, ‘Here ya go, meet the wife.’” Just saying the word made his SOUL ache further. “What would you do?”

           Her eyes narrowed to golden slits. “It would depend,” Toriel said with deceptive calmness, “whether you would prefer I be kind, or truthful. Do you want my blessing to try and find happiness for a few short years, and to be even more alone in the world once she d—”

           That did it. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tori! Ya think I don’t know how screwed I am?” Sans snarled, and her mouth fell open. “I didn’t tell you about this so you could give me a kick in the goddamn teeth! I told ya ‘cause I wanted to talk with somebody who might have some idea what I’m goin’ through! If that’s too much to ask, just fuckin’ forget about it!”

           “I am sorry, Sans! I truly am!” There was a puff of smoke as Toriel threw her hands up. “If you could marry a human, I would be the first to congratulate you! But as things are…” Her face contorted. “What does my opinion even matter? You know that I have no power here, no matter how many people keep calling me ‘Majesty’! I can do nothing to help you!”

           “You could still be my goddamn friend! That’s all I wanted!” He kicked at nothing. “But no, yer so worried about botherin’ little ol’ Gorey that—”

           Whump.

           Sans stared at the scorch mark at his feet, a smoking, blackened ring on the tiles. Then he looked at Toriel, whose hand was still aimed at the floor, her chest heaving as though she’d run the entire length of the Underground. “Do not. Talk to me. About. Asgore,” she said through gritted fangs. “That wretched man has already cost me my entire family! Do you think I enjoy catering to his paranoia and living in fear that someone else I care for will be banished, or die? What do you think he would do if you were to wed a human? What would happen to you, and to her? If Asgore decided you were truly a threat—”

He could feel his eyes burning, and didn’t trust himself to say anything. Toriel gulped. “It is not safe for you to marry a human, Sans. It is not safe for any human down here! You’ve seen it for yourself! Frisk is the only one he will even tolerate, and he could still…” Another shake of her head, ears flapping against her cheeks. “You know Asgore. All he has to do is ignore her until she leaves. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?” The goat-woman buried her face in her hands. “Those damned men would just shrug and say that she failed in her mission, and I would never see her again! I can’t lose anyone else, Sans! I can’t—”

           The skeleton’s anger subsided as he watched the former Queen’s shoulders rise and fall. He took a couple of steps toward her, sliding his hands into his pockets. “What happened with Chara?” he asked quietly. “Why wouldn’t he let her come back?”

           Toriel’s fingers curled, claws digging into her muzzle. “It wasn’t her fault,” she muttered, eyes hard and dry. “He said he didn’t blame her, but he still agreed to send her away. And when that bastard human would not marry her as he promised, Chara needed us—she needed her family! But Asgore said she was lying, and he sent her away again! I didn’t see my little girl for ten years, Sans! And then—”

           Sans stayed silent. Toriel let her arms fall, and slid down against the cabinet until she was slumped on the kitchen floor. “I got her back, and it was too late. She hated us both,” she said dully. “She died hating me, Sans. And she was right. I couldn’t protect her from Asgore, and when the accident happened, I could not protect her or Asriel. I was right there, and I could do nothing! All I did was send the humans away, and he even begrudged me that!” The goat monster gripped her robe, nearly puncturing the fabric. “Now my only friend comes to me for a sympathetic ear, and what do I do? I sneer at him for confiding in me and complain about my troubles!” She scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m completely useless, as always.”

           “Don’t say that, Tori! Remember that one little thing where ya kept the humans from declarin’ war on us an’ sealing the whole damn Underground? Besides…” Sans shuddered as something else came to him. “For all we know, he woulda had Kris killed, too.” He crouched to her eye level. “You saved Frisk’s life, Tori. Are you sayin’ that wasn’t worth somethin’?”

She swallowed again. “I…I don’t—”

“An’ she grew up to be High Priestess, and she saved my life when I got caught. If it wasn’t for you, she’d be dead, and I’d be dead or worse.” He shook his head. “If she was dead, we wouldn’t be gettin’ any food deliveries, or monsters comin’ home, or random bubble parties—” Despite himself, he chuckled. “Or fish puns—”

           Toriel managed a smile. “That was fun, wasn’t it? Poor Papyrus.” She gave a long, deep sigh. “I may have saved her life, but as far as I am concerned, you are the reason she has come back to us. Thank you, Sans.” The goat monster got to her feet and wiped her eyes again on her sleeve. “I…I still don’t know what to tell you about your human. I haven’t even asked you her name, what she is like, how far your relationship has progressed—may I assume you intend to keep courting her?”

           “Uh…” Sans ducked his head, scuffing his slipper over the burned floor tiles. “Tell you the truth, she’s kinda the one courtin’ me.”

           “Sans!” the goat monster scolded him. “You’ve found a woman with enough magic, strength of mind, and good taste to fall in love with you, and you’re letting her do all the work?”

           The skeleton scratched his neck vertebrae. “…Yeah?”

           Toriel gave him one of her squinty, pursed-mouth glares, and he held up his hands. “I know, I know! It’s just…there’s all this stuff, but it’s her, an’ I never met a her before, an’ I—”

“All right, all right.” Toriel sighed again. “I still wish you would change your mind, but I understand that it’s not so simple.” She couldn’t conceal a yawn. “We can talk more when I’ve had some rest. I promise.” To his surprise, she took his hand and gave it a good squeeze. “In the meantime, go and help the Royal Guards, and then apologize to Frisk. That was the most lovely gift imaginable, and you behaved as though she’d handed you a steaming pile of—”

           “Yeah, yeah.” Sans lifted one shoulder. “Okay, Ma, I promise I’ll be good. Go get some sleep.”

           “Yes, dear. And, Sans—” She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “I hate to be intrusive, but…if everyone is gathered again this evening, could I please join you? If it’s all right with the others?”

           Sans made a rude noise. “Of course I’ll come ‘n get you. We’re almost halfway through her offishal visit.”

           Toriel laughed. “Well, water you still doing here? Go on!”

He chucked, raising a hand. “‘Kay. See ya, Toriel.”

           “Thank you, Sans.” She swatted at him playfully, letting him dodge out of the way. “Now, shoo!”

[itsclydebitches]

Oscar Pine: Treatment and Characterization in Volume Six

It’s Friday! Which means I get to spend my time writing meta if I so choose. Today’s topic is Oscar. Specifically the question posed by @dreanner95 on another post of mine: “How have the characters in the show treated Oscar badly?” (Full asks are at the end of the meta.) I’ve covered this topic at length in my episode recaps, but I want to pull everything together into one post, both for easy, future access---here’s the answer to this question!---as well as to put the whole of it into perspective. Because as we’ll see in a moment, Oscar’s treatment is something slow and perpetual. You’ve got to take it all into account to understand just how badly things are going for him.

To start, though this meta is focused on the material of Volume Six, it’s worth pointing out something from Volume Five. Namely that Oscar isn’t an integrated part of the team yet. Volume Five is easy-going material compared to Volume Six. A whole lot of hanging out around the house as opposed to stressful, traumatic encounters with baddies. Meaning, that was the perfect time to start incorporating Oscar into the main group, but that didn’t happen very much. Not to the extent we need it to. Because Oscar isn’t just Oscar anymore, he’s Oscar housing Ozpin, and it’s Ozpin who bears the focus of everyone’s attention (a problem that becomes exacerbated in Volume Six). The vast majority of Oscar’s scenes feature Ozpin speaking, or are about Oscar’s new relationship with Ozpin, or are more generally about the war and how to prepare for it---see the training scene where Oscar is struggling to learn the basics of combat. For the most part Oscar is not at the center of anyone’s attention, Ozpin is, with the exception being Ruby’s talk with him downstairs. There Ozpin keeps quiet to let the two work out their grief and fears, making it one of the most powerful moments of the volume. But it’s not nearly enough. I’ve spoken before about how we don’t know much of anything about Oscar. Unlike the other characters who all embody details that help us to see them as well-rounded individuals---Yang loves making jokes and her bike, Blake is a bibliophile and invested in faunus rights, Jaune still wears a Pumpkin Pete sweatshirt and trains at night with Pyrrha’s video, etc.---three volumes in and Oscar is still defined almost exclusively by that moment when Ozpin slammed into his head and everything that has happened since then. No hobbies, no dreams, no talk of his family... we’re given only one, narrow lens to view him through. Which doesn’t just make it more difficult for the audience to become invested in him, but difficult for the other characters as well. Oscar doesn’t join the group during their bonding dinner. With the exception of Ruby, he doesn’t get to form strong ties with them. He’s the outsider here, the one person who doesn’t have a year of Beacon friendship and life or death missions to draw on, and it shows. Because though the cast clearly loves him (more on that later) his outsider status remains, making it really easy for the others to dismiss him, hurt him, or shrug him off when things start getting tough. Because he’s not really one of them. This isn’t Jaune with Ozpin stuck in his head. Or Ruby. Or Yang. It’s just Oscar, the random kid who appeared on our doorstep one day, joined our group when we never asked, and who we still know next to nothing about even after three volumes of material. The characters just don’t care about him as much as they do the core group, even though at this point they should, setting up a situation wherein he becomes expendable. Especially when everyone is focused on getting back at Ozpin. They’re willing to hurt Oscar to get at Ozpin in a way I don’t think they’d be comfortable with if it was anyone else. If Nora had Ozpin stuck in her head? No one would be assaulting her or saying she’s doomed to just be his meatsuit her whole life. They’d defend and support her in ways no one is willing to do for the literal child of the group. Because no one has been given the chance to get to know the kid and come to truly care for him. 

So let’s rehash what the group actually does to Oscar over the course of Volume Six.

To start, there is that ongoing sense that he has no place in this group. Oscar exists only as a vessel for Ozpin. When everyone is waiting for the train the focus in clearly on team dynamics. “I know you’re worried, Weiss, but trust us. Team RWBY won’t leave your side for a second!” Yang and Ruby are interacting as sisters. Nora and Ren are interacting as a couple. There’s a clear division between RWBY and JNR visually, with the former on the right side of the screen and the latter on the left. 

Oscar sits sort of between both, not speaking, not being spoken to until Ozpin makes a joke about the train goons hopefully not being from Beacon. Then Oscar expands on the humor and gets a round of appreciative nods. That’s it though. On the train Team RWBY and their Uncle Qrow all make plans to play video games. We know Team JNR was hanging out because they all arrive together when trouble starts. Meanwhile, we find Oscar in a cabin full of random people. He’s not spending time with or being invited to either group here. He’s just got Ozpin. Ozpin who is the focus of everyone’s attention. When the others arrive Jaune immediately asks, “What’s going on?” and it’s pretty clear the question is directed at Ozpin, not Oscar. Because Oscar just insisted that he wanted to keep control, but now he’s fumbling. He doesn’t know what’s going on and now here Jaune is (unintentionally) reminding him of that. He’s a farm boy, not a huntsmen. Certainly not the huntsmen either. Everyone wants Ozpin around to fix things and if there’s nothing to fix? You don’t need to stay.

It’s a dynamic that’s going to repeat throughout the volume, starting at the farm house. Ruby will go off with Weiss, Blake will go off with Yang... and everyone is going to leave Oscar to stay behind with Maria, doing nothing and being babied. 

Team RWBY will go retrieve the relic. Oscar can once again stay behind and figure out how to fix their transportation. Because Qrow will be busy drinking. 

And then again in “Dead End,” which I’ll get to below.

After the train we have the punch scene and I’m not sure how else to explain to people how not okay this is. I don’t care how high emotions were. Oscar is bearing the brunt of Ozpin’s (perceived) sins in a truly horrendous manner. He’s intimidated, screamed at, chucked into a tree. Keep in mind this is the body that only started figuring out aura a few weeks ago and we’re shown straight out that Qrow’s punch, a punch from an incredibly powerful huntsmen, hurt like hell. The second Ozpin leaves Oscar is wincing and touching his cheek.

What stands out to me is not that the cast is human and makes mistakes and loses their temper---because obviously all those things are valid---but rather that we see throughout the course of Volume Six that no one is willing to acknowledge, let alone act on, the fact that Oscar is a victim of circumstance. No one calls Qrow out on hitting the innocent kid along with the guy he’s mad at. No one tries to calm things down so that Oscar isn’t shouldering their tempers when he’s done nothing wrong. Everyone is happy to vent their anger and fears on him because he’s convenient. Case in point, even with Ozpin gone Yang is still screaming in his face. She doesn’t care if that’s Ozpin or Oscar. Same body, no difference.

No one cares enough about Oscar as an individual to question how their actions might hurt him along with Ozpin. They don’t care enough about him as an individual, period. With the knowledge that Ozpin is truly gone for the moment, the group segues into ignoring him. Oscar is in the process of breaking down right in front of them---grabbing his hair, yelling about how he needs it all to stop---but the group talks over him, jumping straight to panic about what they’ll do now that Ozpin has left. Oscar is no longer functioning as their go-between. He’s useless, he looks like a man they hate, and he doesn’t have that emotional connection to the group. So why do they care that he’s having a breakdown? They don’t. Imagine if this was literally anyone else in the cast. The group would be all comfort and sympathy. Instead, we’re given a shot that could easily be from Oscar’s perspective. His entire identity is falling apart and all he’s given in response to that is Weiss looming over him, still talking about Ozpin, still only worrying about how this all effects them. A ‘them’ Oscar isn’t fully a part of. 

It’s a problem that Ruby tries to address by giving him back his cane, but Qrow undermines that like whoa.

I shouldn’t have to establish how utterly horrible this is. The adult telling the child, ‘No. You’re not your own person. Get over it. I’m a good guy for telling you the hard truth.’ It’s made even worse by Ruby’s silence. She doesn’t challenge Qrow’s words. Her sad expression conveys that she agrees with him---her earlier words were indeed “lies”---and Oscar is left to walk away, once again without any support. What little he was offered was wrenched away from him by an authority figure. Throughout "The Coming Storm” we see just how isolated he is. He walks at the very back of the group, away from everyone else. He looks terrified entering the house, re-emphasizing that he’s not a trained huntsmen like the rest of the group and was never given a choice about adopting this life. When he helps Blake and Weiss move the dresser in front of the door, they hold a short conversation over his head. As Ruby approaches the pictures on the wall, we hear Oscar theorizing about how this room is a study or a library, but no one answers him. Then, as said, they all split and leave Oscar behind, despite the fact that he’s the first to back Ruby’s plan to look for supplies. On their own none of these details necessarily mean anything, but put together they paint a bleak picture---and one that I am personally familiar with. I’ve been in groups where I’m clearly the outsider and this is precisely how I’m inclined to act: try to be helpful even when it goes ignored, try to start conversations even when no one answers. You just keep trying because what else can you do? You feel horribly awkward, but it’s better than accepting that no one wants to interact with you. 

Note that all of this is a direct parallel to what we get in “Dead End.” Both moments begin with Oscar trying to help the group, first by giving them a means of accessing the secrets they so desperately want---“Say her name to summon her”---here by starting a pep-talk when Ruby is unable to. “Look, none of this is great, we know,” Oscar says. “But we’re not the bad guys here.” To which Jaune responds with, “Are we sure about that?” Now, suddenly, Oscar isn’t just the bystander who happens to be hurt along the way. He is the immediate victim here. All the dialogue is directed to and about Oscar, blaming him and putting the responsibility on his shoulders: “He’s in your head isn’t he?” “Did you already know about this?” “How much longer can we even trust him?” “How do we even know it’s really him?”

We have another physical assault, this time with Jaune slamming Oscar against the wall and shaking him. 

Weiss, Yang, and Ruby yell out, but none of them make a move to stop him. Everyone just stands there, allowing Jaune to do as he pleases. In the past year people have been very uncomfortable with me referring to the group as kids or children, insisting that real life markers of adulthood (hitting 18) trumps their lack of experience and emotional instability. These are adults, Clyde. Okay then. Let’s work with that. This is an adult attacking a child. For the second time in as many days. We have now twice seen an adult use a 14yo as an emotional and literal punching bag, doing whatever they please to the real life equivalent of a middle schooler.

And once again, no one cares. Oscar was just attacked again, he flinches when Jaune walks past, and the first words out of anyone’s mouth are worry for Jaune. Not the kid who just dealt with a much bigger, much stronger, much older man taking his anger out on him. Not the kid who is standing right there and listening to where everyone’s loyalties lie. Oscar learns fully in this moment that when push comes to shove, he’s never going to be anyone’s priority.

We see the split in teams again. “I think it would be best if we had some time to ourselves,” Ren says, clearly talking about Team JNR since they’re all going upstairs together. Team RWBY is left in the living room... with Oscar outside of that.

So he leaves.

Which is when the writing shows us its priorities too. Oscar is housing the most important character in this entire war and, like it or not, he’s supposed to be a part of the team now. If there was ever a time to provide him with space to grow and to give the audience insight into who he is outside of Ozpin’s influence, this was it. Ozpin is conveniently quiet. The group has driven him away. We have a two week hiatus implying a major episode when we come back. Anything could happen, from Oscar getting kidnapped and coming into some power, to him working through his issues and deciding why the hell he should stay with a group that doesn’t need him and clearly doesn’t want him. Instead, we get another episode about Jaune and EVERY bit of potential character development for Oscar happens off screen. All we learn is that Oscar went shopping. Oh, and cooked them dinner.

Notice that Oscar is desperate to prove himself useful; to do things in the hope that it will earn him some form of praise and acceptance. Jaune yells about how I’m a liar and not to be trusted? I get thrown around and no one cares enough to check up on me? That’s fine. I’m gonna give them space, not kick up a fuss, make a nice meal for everyone to come home to... Oscar can’t stick up for himself because if doing nice things---helping you get Ozpin’s secrets, trying to cheer everyone up, etc.---results in violence, what the hell would they do if he actually got mad at them? No, no, no, I’ll just keep being calm, perfect Oscar.

Yes, Jaune apologies for his behavior, but notably Oscar interrupts him and tries to justify it. I’m worried about the same things too, so it’s totally okay that you expressed those fears the way you did. I’m the expendable one. 

It gets even worse when Oscar starts speaking as if he has a terminal illness. Once again he’s buying into the idea that he’s no one now, existing only to ferry Ozpin’s soul, and like out in the snow this idea isn’t challenged by anyone. This exchange boils down to, ‘I’m convinced I’m going to cease to exist so I’ll just keep helping you all as much as possible until I’m gone.’ Oscar is making the claim that helping them---being the good outsider who makes them meals and promises not to worry them again, despite the fact that they’re the ones who drove him off in the first place---is all he's good for now. 

And what’s the group’s response to this? 

Along with a whole bunch of smiles. 

Combined with their overall treatment, this reads as horrendously alarming. Why worry too much about how you’re treating Oscar when Oscar is destined to die, merge, whatever? He’s literally theorizing about a scenario where one day the group won’t have to deal with him anymore, but until then he’ll be as helpful as he can. It’s an easy out for them. Yay! We won’t lose the Ozpin vessel who we technically still need, but now he says we don’t have to worry about his trauma anymore. Those pesky things like terror over his identity are being buried and the problem is that no one is inclined to challenge that. A few days after Qrow claims he’s not his own person, Oscar announces, ‘You know what? He’s right. I’m not. So I’ll just be useful until I disappear.’ And everyone is happy with that new plan. No one cares enough about Oscar to push back against this passiveness, to worry about his mental health, even just to express grief that they may one day lose him. There’s so much concern and care shown among the group, from the big (everyone supporting Yang through her PTSD) to the small (Blake finding an extra blanket for Weiss). But twice now we’ve seen Oscar breaking in front of an audience and no one bats an eye. Twice we’ve seen him harmed and no one cares. The rest of the time he’s barely acknowledged at all. Not unless he’s making himself known and that, as we’ve seen, is dangerous.  

I mentioned way at the start that the concept of the group loving Oscar would come back into play. In short, I think you can love someone---or convince yourself you love someone---and still treat them like shit. The group might be “worried sick” when something major happens to Oscar like a disappearance, but on a day-to-day basis they treat him pretty horribly. They care about his physical safety, but not his emotional or mental well being. He’s not truly a part of their teams, he’s constantly conflated with Ozpin, his fears about losing his identity are reinforced multiple times, and there’s now a pattern of the group using him as an emotional and physical outlet when it proves convenient for them. Could they treat him worse than this? Yeah, of course, but they could treat him a whole lot better too. For me, Nora giving a big “OSCAR!” hug or Blake exchanging pleasantries on the farmhouse steps doesn’t mean a thing when, during more significant moments, they don’t stick up for him. Not when he’s being physically assaulted, not when others are emotionally harming him, not when Oscar himself basically announces that he’s accepted a death sentence. The group loves Oscar... but it’s highly conditional. If they love someone else more (like Jaune) or hate someone else enough (like Ozpin) then he’s going to suffer for it. Oscar is not enough of a member of the group for them to ever prioritize and sadly it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.

***

[rebeltheanomaly]

Lucian’s Bio

Name: Lucian Baalzephon Daemonos Zaeldarachai Nicknames: Lord of suffering, Sadist king, Crimson Harbinger, Malice, The Horsemen's Amalgamation, The Chimera of Hatred Gender: Male Age: ??? Species: Demon Lord Soul: Crimson (Pure Evil) Sexuality: Asexual Atk/Def: ??? Exp: 0 Lv:0 Friends: None, he doesn't believe in friendship Enemies: Everyone Family: The Archlords of hell, whom he is currently betraying Crush: No one, he doesn't believe in love Personality towards others: He usually goes 4 ways towards people, The Manipulator, The Tormentor, The Tyrant, and The Killer, and none are friendly Strengths: Gains more power the more he's damaged, which has turned him into a Psychotic Sadomasochist. Weaknesses: Platinum, Hope, Affection, His Suppressed 5th Side. Flaws: Good god, where do i begin? Likes: Suffering, Hopelessness, Misery, and Chaos Dislikes: Affection, Joy, Hope, Love, Positivity, Anyone who isn't himself, Anything bright and happy Fears: Losing everything he's worked so hard to achieve, Platinum (Highly suppressed until he's exposed to the Platinum soul when he attempts to invade Natt's dream) Eye color: Red Clothes: Pressed skin, flesh, and bone. Hair: Long and white, like Sephiroth's Other: Albino skin, Talons, 10 wings, a fanged grin near constantly, Venomous Long Clawlike Nails, a scorpion-esque tail, and an odd Glass Orb attached to a necklace, Ironically resembling Prayer beads. Alignment: Pure Chaotic Evil Goals: To turn the world into a plain of endless suffering and madness. Job: Demon lord, Archon of Zaeldarach Items: None Previous Misdeeds: Getting the monsters sealed underground while posing as their advisor, Driving Chara to a suicide attempt, Getting both Chara and Asriel killed, Driving a human into the highest form of absolute despair, offing nearly everything on the planet in said human's body, imprisoning and tormenting 7 souls about to enter the next plane, attempting to  bring forth the "Day of the damned". Battle theme: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8HQcB… The laughter in the track could easily be his Battle theme (Abysmal Form): www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-rp4… "Lucian has truly grown into the eldritch abomination he wishes he were. If you fail, you, me, and everyone else is doomed to suffer eternally. No pressure."

[whenimgoodandready]

“If you love someone, set them free” and if they love someone else, (record scratch) continue to love them despite all that cuz you need to win them over while they’re still single! You think it sounds bad!? Well, tell that to Cat Noir! Cuz he’s not getting the message straight! He’s loving in vain! It’s not just him though, look who else is following that example:

*The Puppeteer 2-Madame Tussauds wax museum comes to Paris, France as it features celebrities we’ve seen in the show! All the way from Jagged Stone to Adrien himself! Cool! It’s the perfect place for a date! Alya and Nino are there and so are Adrien and Marinette! And Manon? Wait, what? Why’s she there? OOOOOOOOH! Marinette was babysitting again and dragged her along cuz it’s like any babysitter in a cliche sitcom sceanario to have your charge tag along with you to somewhere you’d rather be! 😅. That never ends well.

Alya planned this so that this can be the day where Marinette Dupain-Cheng finally confesses her feelings for Adrien Agreste. It’s been 2 (and a half) seasons already and girl needs to get this off her chest! Yes, we know she’s still unable to talk to Adrien romantically, but she’s come this far already with being friends with him and also playing video games with him (“Gamer”), going to a concert (“Pixelator”), the movies (“Gorizilla”), dancing with him (“Despair Bear”), getting a birthday gift from him (“Befana”), dancing in a music video with him (“Frightningale”), kissing him! (“Heroes Day”), so now that day to tell him her hearts content is today! Get it girl!

Unfortunately, since it was supposed to be kept secret from Adrien, Alya’s plan gets screwed up cuz her boyfriend misinterprets her words and Marinette is more awkward than ever giving Adrien the impression that Marinette hates him (Nino was too clear on the “deny everything” answer and Marinette failed at phrasing the word “like”😒). Adrien tries to “win back Marinettes friendship” thinking he made a mistake and while that’s happening, Alya and Nino check out the wax figures of themselves and be all lovey-dovey with each other. It may all look cute, but as a little meerkat once sang, 🎶And with all this romantic atmosphere, disasters in the air🎶. Yup, let’s not forget there’s still a child present, Manon is left alone and ignored cuz she’s just a kid who hasn’t grasped the concept of love yet, so she feels miserable with no one to play with. This is what causes her to be akumatized. Again!

Her powers stronger in this case cuz she’s in a building full of wax statues, and in the Heroes Room, of ALL THE SUPERVILLAINS THAT SHE CAN BRING TO LIFE! Don! Don! Don! There’s Lady Wifi, The Bubbler, Evillustrator, Reflekta, Gamer, Antibug, Mime, Timetagger, Pixelator, etc, with everyone there, it’s Heroes Day 2.0 up in here! And if they’re all using their powers at once with the heroes, they’re doomed! Oh no! Wait! The supervillains are made of wax! They’ll fall apart. Literally! Lol! Okay, no need to worry much, relax folks.

The big scene in this episode was the infamous Statue Scene! Yup, it’s right up there with the Umbrella Scene (“Stoneheart - Origins, Part 2”) and The Balcony Scene (“Glaciator”). I’m guessing we have a big signature scene for each season here. Adriens idea of “winning back Marinettes friendship” was to cheer her up by posing as his own wax figure for a joke. Marinette buys into it (love makes you stupid) and starts making a fool of herself around it while Adrien watches awkwardly trying to stay still (oh the cringe😬). Adrien witnessed every creepy thing Marinette does to him with the whole sniffing, lock of hair plucking keepsake and the (almost) kiss! That’s when he finally breaks character. Well, Mr.Agreste, no thanks to your little stunt there, poor Marinette is completely humiliated! Not cool kid, not cool! Well, his intentions were good. He cares an awful lot about Marinette and wants to win everyone’s favor so he won’t be so lonely all the time. Sadly, because he’s been sheltered his whole life, he’s blind to social norms and this backfired on him cuz his (unknown) love interest is a nervous wreck. Marinette, despite coming a long way to be close to Adrien, wants something more than just friendship and she fails to confess her feelings cuz she fears rejection like most people. She should listen to what Cat Noir said about confidence. “If it’s something important from the heart, let it out”. In the end, Marinette and Adrien promise not to prank each other anymore (she said she “knew” about his prank) and that she does like him (platonically). She then hears about “the girl he loves”, (her alter ego), and is heartbroken. Poor baby. This almost ended Adrienette, but Tikki saved it by giving Marinette hope (she knows the truth that’s why). Well, it’s “Glaciator” all over again! Ladybug had told Cat Noir she likes “another guy”, yet he still flirts with her and now Adrien tells Marinette about “the girl he loves” and she too continues to win him over. Is this the kind of message we want to send to kids? “If the one you love loves someone else, you should never give up on them even though they don’t feel the same about you!?”. I mean, I know it’s still themselves they’re in love with, but let’s pretend for a moment they’re not. That would mean its teaching kids not to take no for an answer! That’s not right! You’re giving these kids false hope! I know Adrienette is endgame, but think about the consequences of these actions people! I’m all for the ship, but how much longer do we need to be frustrated!?😡. (recomposes themselves) Okay, I get it, I get it. They’re teenagers, so of course, teenagers can be stupid and screw up on romance, so I’ll let it slide. I’m still hoping that Adrienette will be canon by the end of Season 3 like it was rumored. Cuz if not, I’m gonna be really pissed off! :P.

[wzly]

So, Rock Isn’t Dead After All: Sam Fender’s Hypersonic Missiles

By Isabel Pless 

Whether planned or just by dumb luck (perhaps a mixture of both), Sam Fender’s Hypersonic Missiles hit the music industry with perfect timing, and with great gusto. Amid political turmoil in the UK, an impeachment process in the US tinged with collusion and international interference, as well as general societal discord just about everywhere, a multitude of topics have fallen into the spotlight, simply awaiting discussion. Fender saw his opportunity for commentary, took it, and hit the ground running. Fender is a true newcomer, only 25 years old and from North Shields, England, he writes and sings only as an observer speaking to other observers, yet his remarks feel overwhelmingly astute for a bystander. The album-- Fender wrote all 13 tracks solo-- not only comments on highly contentious political and social issues permeating the world today, but also includes odes to the everyday young person, and does all of this with heavy electric guitar, booming drums, and rough, soaring vocals. The album is reminiscent of past rock albums; Fender clearly draws much inspiration from Bruce Springsteen-- ah, how they both love a good saxophone solo. Still, Hypersonic Missiles maintains its individuality with its undeniable relevance and keeps its integrity by breaking rank with classic rock by experimenting with more current sounds and techniques.

The title track, “Hypersonic Missiles”, fittingly references the deadly weapons that can travel at speeds of at least 1,150 MPH and which are nearly impossible to shoot down with modern defense systems. The perspective of the song presents itself as simultaneously pessimistically aware, and yet also hopeful. The first verse addresses complacency with the possibility of war (“I am so blissfully unaware of everything, kids in Gaza are bombed, and I’m just out of it, the tensions of the world are rising higher, we’re probably due another war with all this ire”) and yet the second verse and chorus move into a more hopeful place, professing love in a time of crisis (“But I believe in what I’m feeling, and I’m falling for you, this world is going to end, but until then, I’ll give you everything I have” and “when the bombs drop darling can you say that you’ve lived your life? Oh, this is a high time for hypersonic missiles”). With the relatively simple verses-- Fender’s consistent strumming on his electric guitar and the thudding drums in the background-- the high energy choruses, and the explosive instrumental after the second verse, the song builds up to introducing some political and social themes which Hypersonic Missiles explores in more depth with other tracks.

As the name would suggest, “White Privilege” takes some punches at the current social state of affairs. The lyrics move from one topic to the next with lightning speed, and Fender puts a strong emphasis on his words (a personal favorite of mine from this track: “Everybody’s offended, the joke that just keeps on giving, I’m not entirely sure the nitpicking can count as progression, I’m chewing popcorn, sitting in the back row, watching while the whole damn thing implodes”), as the track only uses electric guitar to back up the heavily layered vocals and Fender uses a tight rhyme scheme for the first half of the song. Admittedly, the song title sounds cliche and obtrusive, almost too on the nose to be accurate, yet the surprisingly fast pace at which the lyrics flow allows Fender to cover so much ground that by the time the song ends, the track feels rounded and whole. Interestingly, while Fender takes a clear stance, aggressively condemning the subject matter-- the lyrics have a sarcastic tinge to them-- there is no call to action; Fender crafts his point of view and presents it as his observation and interpretation of the truth.

While “White Privilege” tackles social issues, “Play God” speaks to the paranoia and fear surrounding people in positions of power, specifically those in a government office. The track is delivered in a minor key and along with the muted and distinctive electric guitar strumming pattern backing Fender’s vocals, the song carries a tense sense of suspicion and neuroticism throughout its entirety. The lyrics are intense and direct, highlighting scenarios and conspiracies with careful repetition--especially with the litany of the hook (“he will play God”). The verses address current events as well as the overwhelming and shared feeling of accumulating dread, building up to the bridge which explodes in the fearful realization (“Am I mistaken? Or are we breaking under weight from the long time that he played God”). The repetition and minor key mimic the underlying fear and tension, all while using careful analogies to address the question: how much is too much power?

As Fender moves away from impending doom and power struggles, he turns inward, describing a childhood friendship gone awry in “The Borders”. The sound doesn’t match the words-- the bright guitar, the fast tempo, the crash of the drums layered underneath a story of diverging paths-- but the juxtaposition evokes a sense of melancholy, personifying the overwhelming nostalgia of an old and familiar relationship which ultimately fell to pieces. Similar to “Hypersonic Missiles”, “The Borders” seems to emulate Springsteen with its rock characteristics, yet there’s a modern quality to the song that separates it from classic 80s rock. The bright filter over the guitar and the enormous, almost white-noise-like, sound amalgamation at the end of the track diversify the song from its rock counterparts, as the ending seems to take over the song and bring it to a crashing halt.

“Dead Boys”, perhaps the deepest song on the album lyrically, attempts to describe the utter whirlpool of confusion and grief surrounding suicide. Fender wrote the song after losing one of his good friends to suicide, and the track certainly plays like an ode to lives lost, but also feels like a manifesto. “Dead Boys” calls attention to the astounding number of male suicides that seem to permeate every community and addresses the expectation that men shouldn’t talk about their mental health. With the repetition of the song’s chorus and the constant quick strumming of the guitar-- almost like a fast heartbeat-- Fender makes his message astoundingly clear and pushes for much-needed change even without a set solution in sight.

In its totality, Hypersonic Missiles feels complete. Not every song appears as a stand out, and yet as a whole, the tracks sonically and lyrically fit together like a puzzle. Fender presents his take on several political and societal issues through his music, and his voice comes through loud and clear. He simply offers a narration and lends his voice to younger generations who are observing the world carefully, and then calculating a response. In recent years, the industry hasn’t seen much rock, and there’s been chatter that perhaps the genre is dying out; however, as a newcomer, Sam Fender poses a revival to rock, and to the music industry in general: he’s a force to be reckoned with.

[cchellacat]

Game of Thrones Finale

Here be spoilers for the last season of GoT.  Turn back now or forever hold you peace.  Trust me, I am not holding my peace, I feel like going to war and breaking a bloody wheel over the back of D&D’s heads.

I knew going in, this wasn’t the ending I had been hoping for, or even expecting for nine years.  After the penultimate episode the writing was clearly on the wall, so I watched this final chapter, ready for crushing disappointment and grief. D&D did not let me down. 

They completed their character assassination of Daenerys with all the clumsy, lazy, pretension and dreadfully written dialogue as one might have come to expect, if they had been paying attention since the start of the season. 

When left to flounder in the seas of uncertainty without the masterfully crafted scaffolding of GRRM’s books to hold them afloat, the writers sunk the whole thing gleefully. I’m absolutely certain they took great pleasure in destroying every logical expectation.

This constant need to justify their own twisted ending and eradicate certain characters development and arcs, left me feeling bewildered and horrified.  The beautiful woven foreshadowing that had been building since season one seemed to be cast aside at the last and replaced with some Frankenstein monster, cobbled together from a need to be “different”  to “surprise”, to be “edgy”  and “subversive”.  

This isn’t how good writing is done.  You don’t change the track of a story just because it’s deemed predictable or because fans guessed the ending. 

The onus then, is on the writer, to follow through and complete the story while still making it enjoyable and intriguing.  It isn’t to upturn the apple-cart and refill with limes.  It’s to take the damn apples and make pie.  Make it interesting, draw the audience in, there is nothing wrong with giving the audience what they want. There is nothing wrong with delivering a satisfying and sensible conclusion.  There is nothing wrong with giving the main character/s a happy ending.

Their fear of cliche, lead them straight into trope hell.  The “face heel turn” of Daenerys from Liberator and Mother to Tyrant and Murderer was sloppy, poorly written and did not have a justifiable history to back it up. 

Do not even get me started on how they killed her.  JFC.  Could they have been anymore obvious about how that was gong to go down?  Talk about cliche. 

Murdered by the man she loves, who loves her and who is also her only family.  We’ll talk later about what they did to poor Jon.  Just for reminders sake though, here she is, held in the arms of the man she loves as he promises her she will always be his queen, kisses her and stabs her right in the heart.  **blood boiling**

Turing Sansa into Littlefinger 2.0 made my inner rage monster scream.  Her transformation from  the “The High Queen”  to “The Chess-master” makes me think the North isn’t in any better hands than it would have been with Littlefinger in charge.  How convenient that none of her siblings will be nearby to notice.  Bran in the south, Jon in the True North and for some inexplicable reason, the girl who spent eight season finding her way home, decides to go gallivanting off into the west on some LotR, knock off elf quest. 

Arya’s end is as unsatisfying as every other one.   She spent years growing stronger, learning to kill, striving to be No-one.  Her whole character arc was about her coming to terms with her loss and recognising that no matter how far she ran, she would always be Arya Stark. 

Then is was her journey home, learning that she could go back, that even changed by war and blood, family meant everything.  Her clarion call, that the “lone wolf dies but the pack survives” has been with her every step.  It’s the message her father taught her, one she held too.  Why on earth would she leave her pack behind? 

What even was the point of having her and Gendry meet again and come together if she was just going to walk away?  I’m not saying a character has to be defined by a romantic relationship, but why bother giving the fans a few crumbs just to spit on it an episode later?  This is clearly baiting of the worst kind.  I’d rather they met as friends and parted as friends than the shit show of having Gendry propose, only for her turn him down.  I mean, she could have learned another lesson with the Hound, that defining your life by revenge and forgetting to live only ends in death.  Her returning to Gendry after that would have made sense.  It would have made sense for her to go build a pack of her own.  But no, that would be too easy.  What shall we do with Arya?  Lets put her on a bus!

He did love her.  Jon was crazy about Dany.  She was crazy about him.  This is the man who puts family first, who lives by his honour.  He is his Uncle Ned come again.  Ned, who lived and died by his oaths.  The only time he broke them was to protect his sisters son, to protect Jon, his family. 

This is why they had to destroy Daenery’s character so completely.  They had to make her the worst villain imaginable to make it look even remotely plausible that Jon would;

1. Break his oath of fealty

2. Murder his own blood.

3. Betray the love of his life.

They had to preserve Jon’s good name, oh yes, because Jon wouldn’t kill her for power or because she lost her temper and disagreed with him.  No.  They destroyed both Jon and Dany with this plot. 

Jon is now Queen Slayer and Kin Slayer and he has broken his word, his oaths of loyalty, his unspoken oaths of love and protection, which she rightly expected from him as her blood and her lover and has been reduced to a shadow of the man he was meant to be, the king he could have been. 

He is cursed by the gods in the eyes of most Westerosi, or he would be if they knew the truth.  After all, look at how the nobility treated Jaimie after he killed the Mad King.  It didn’t matter to them that the King was evil, no, what mattered was that he broke his oath.

Oath breakers are anathema in Westeros. 

So much for a Targaryen Restoration.  Goodbye Iron Throne.  The whole point of Jon’s character was just erased.  Did he defeat some great evil?  No.  Did he overcome war and death and end triumphant on the throne as the last dragon?  No.  There was no point in bringing him back after his death in season six.  Anyone could have went to bargain with Dany and the outcome would have been the same.  Ugh!

Jaime and Brienne.  The love story/redemption arc I was so invested in.  One hand gives and the other takes away.  In the end it seems that Jaime learned nothing, according to the writers that is.  I call bullshit.  Jaime had redeemed himself.  If he had to die, it should have bee while killing Cersei.  The foreshadowing of him being Cersei’s death has been around for years. Cersi didn’t love Jaime, she loved controlling him.  Cersei loved no one but herself.  That was the lesson Jaime was meant to learn.  Thanks so much for taking away eight season of character development and self realisation.

Tyrion got shafted too.  His speech near the end, it was a load of cow dung.  In the end they left Tyrion to be Westeros’ own comic relief.  The Small Council was a bloody farce.  All that scene did was reinforce my belief that nothing in Westeros has really changed.  It doesn’t matter what title you give someone, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Give it ten years and Bron will be the power in Westeros in all but name. 

Now who have I forgotten?  Ah yes.  My Special Mention.

Sandor went out the way he meant to, bringing an end to his brother.  But not before the writers gave him a brief moment with Sansa.  There you go Sansan fans, he called her little bird!  Now shut up and let us kill him in a fiery fall of doom. 

Death by fire, the worst death they could give this man.  He wasn’t a good man, it’s arguable that none of the characters were good people.  However, Sandor Clegane suffered more than most.  He spent his life, angry and bitter, seeking revenge for himself and his sister and father.  I think, if they had to kill him, they could have given the man a better exit than him tossing both himself and his brother into the flames.  It was cruel to make that the only way out, the only triumph he could claim.  I think Sandor should have lived.  He deserved to find a life of peace after all the fighting he did.   It is not poetic or clever to kill a character off with the object of their own fear.  It’s not clever when they do it to a villain, it’s doubly unfair to do it to a hero.  He was a hero by the end.  Sandor deserved better.

Now look, I‘m not saying that in a show like this, that everybody should live or necessarily get the end they deserve, but, they went too far in the name of shock value, leaving no one happy, well, virtually no one. I guess the rabid Sansa fans who loathed Dany are feeling pretty good about now. 

(Yes, okay that was mean, but I got sick of seeing it in my timeline and unfollowed a few people.) 

I was always very much of the belief that Sansa and Dany had more in common than would drive them apart.  I didn’t expect an easy friendship or alliance, but I did expect them to find common ground and be able to build a relationship over time.  Strong women supporting each other is what we need more of on TV.  Not this misogynistic desire to see two strong women fight over a man, which is essentially what they reduced Sansa and Dany too with poor Jon caught in the middle.  

In conclusion...

I feel as though the writers went into season eight with a clear idea of where they had been building and then someone get a bee in their bonnet and posed the question, “Who is the least likely to end up ruling Westeros?”

The answer of course is Bran.  Bran the Broken, how fucking ignorant is that?  How about Bran the Burdened or Bran the Broker or Bran the Benevolent, if you’ve really got such a hard on for alliteration?

So now Bran, who is so disconnected from feeling that he can’t love anyone, sits the Iron Throne and is somehow meant to be a good ruler. 

All that’s needed to achieve this happy ending for the writers?

Goodbye Character development and epic love stories, hello smear campaign, death, destruction and the end of one of my favourite canon ships to ever sail.

Rest in Peace Jonarys.  I believed in you. 

[twitchesandstitches]

Okiko the Fairy Pred

Basic Concept: A tiny insect alien fairy girl with the ability to gulp down anything she can kiss; the ultimate tiny pred girl!

Species: Unnamed insect-like fairy species from an isolated world that has been retroactively called Igbolan; these apex predators are survivors of an ancient cataclysm that reduced their civilization to pre-Stone Age status, but they have rebuilt over the ages and had achieved a technology state on par with the Industrial age, with basic electronics, prior to her leaving the planet.

Height: Approximately six inches tall.

Appearance: Imagine a fairy, the classic image. A tiny humanoid, likely super cute, with a pretty little dress and glittery wings. Now, imagine that… and forget pretty much all of it except the most basic image because she is actually an insect-like being with no apparent connection to the Fae.

She fits the look, admittedly. Her thick and super short stacked body is covered in black chitin that glistens in various colors against the light, with bipedal legs able to support her body and resemble the legs of a grasshopper, but adjusted for biped stance. She is extremely thick, several times wider than she is tall, almost a foot and a half across with sheer curve volume, with massive breasts massing nearly as much as her entire body (and producing a sweet sugary substance), and a equally massive butt. She has a belly big and plump enough that it stretches past her chitin, a lighter color than the rest of her.

Her face is cute, with multiple eyes, and extremely large, luscious lips that dominate her face and make up the bulk of her sensory organs. Do not let her kiss you. It’s a bad idea. While she has no hair, a cluster of antenna around a primary pair gives something like hair.

She has not just one pair of wings, but dozens, perhaps over a hundred or something in between there; they grow in many rows from the back of her head all the way down to her chins, each set larger than her and beating furiously with a helicopter effect. These wings are beautiful and glittering, shining gorgeously, and resemble stained glass. They also give her an impressive turn of speed.

She’s become something of a fashionista and likes to wear random objects as clothing; scraps of flat as a sash, bottle caps for boob covers, or ‘clothing’ herself in stolen jewelry. Her chitin is no less decorated, painted in vibrant and beautiful patterns that might make a biologist reminded of venomous animals that have bright colors to warn predators of the danger.

Backstory: Originally from a very obscure world forgotten by surrounding systems, her people lived in peace and tranquility as they recovered, tending to their jungle and delicately maintaining it, harvesting it and feasting upon every single thing that lived in it the instant they felt even slightly peckish. These fairies possess the unusual power of swallowing whole anything they can press their mouths to, instantly gulping it down into their infinitely expanding bellies. A natural glutton, Ikiko was content with this to the day she saw the sky come down.

A ship crashed, carrying a traveler from across the stars who rampaged through the jungle in a hissy fit, only stopped with Ikiko swallowed her whole in self defense. This invader, Yatruiga, was brought back to her village and in her recovery over the years, told the people there about how things had changed in the multiverse over the ages. Ikiko was entranced, eager to see the galaxy, and incidentally wanted to sample all the delicious two-leggers walking about up there!

Since then she’s become Yatruiga’s best friend and rival, acting as something of a calming influence on the cantankerous warmonger.

Personality: Take a magpie, make it sapient, and set it loose on a multiverse where everything is VERY INTERESTING and new; you have the basis of Ikiko! She’s a deeply inquisitive, massively curious and impulsive gal, with all the self control of a crow that’s been tossed into a shiny thing factory.

She’s even prone to stealing random things, on the basis of ‘i want it, therefore it is mine’, and places where she goes tends to have random things vanish, and show up again on her person or in her various hidey holes.

She’s not a bad person, nor is she cruel. Her recklessness means that she really doesn’t think things through, which is ironic considering that she is the calming voice of moderation between her and Yatruiga. The distinction between them is that Ikiko rushes into things after she takes time to consider them, and while she is bad at consequences, she simply doesn’t have a ‘stop now maybe’ button.

One of her faults is that she’s still hazy on the distinction between ‘animal’ and ‘being’. She will happily gobble up humans, orcs and anything else in a single swallow as she would a rampaging monster or livestock, without any second thoughts or hesitation. Her people were the only sapients on her homeworld, and their outlook on the world has lead her to view other beings as ‘animals that can talk’; people, yes, but not fundamentally different. She eats animals, so why not the ones who talk?

A glutton and gourmand, she regards her travels across the multiverse as an excuse to snack on everything, and she intends to sample at least one of every being in the cosmos, and this suggests a more hedonistic aspect of her personality in general. She wants to enjoy life, and doesn’t care much about success or personal ambition. She even has rather cynical outlooks on ambition as a concept, deeming it a zero sum game that’s just wasting time when you could be having fun.

She is also very practical and pragmatic, with no real room for sentimentality. When she sees a jungle burning down, she thinks of the ecological devastation and problems this will pose for the inhabitants, but she won’t cry for the despoling of nature, because she wouldn’t understand or care about what that even means. This somewhat grim outlook explains a lot of how she thinks.

However you may not realize this at first glance. She is very bubbly, excitable and friendly, with a somewhat airheaded way of talking (“OH MAH GOSH YOU GUYS! CHECK THIS THING I FOUND OUT! ISN’T THIS SHINY JUST THE SPARKLIEST!?”) all full of exclaimations, run-on sentences and overflowing excitement at everything, forever. Her default mood is just immense pep!

Fandom: Original character! Her influence maps to general notions of fairies as ‘not nice, but not malicious’ archetypes, and she is heavily inspired by the original incarnation of Tinkerbell from the first Peter Pan novel.

Abilities: As a fairy, she can fly extremely fast and far, so much that she moves around like a rocket, and is ludicrously hard to pin down. She is also much stronger than her size indicates; she is weaker than a human or even a goblin would be, but she can pick up and carry large objects without much problem, and her strength increases for a short time whenever she eats, getting stronger the more she has eaten.

She’s very durable as well, about equivalent to her strength. You couldn’t stomp her, but you might be able to crush her, but that’s still a very bad idea.

For all fairies like her have the ability to swallow whole anything their lips touch, instantly sucking down the entire prey. Size doesn't matter; she has eaten things as big as humans, cars, small buildings, elephants, kaiju, giant robots and even bigger, without any problem. Her stomach will expand to fit anything she swallows. In theory she could gobble up a city, if only she thought to try it, and anything in her stomach will be digested, with the exception of tough metals and minerals. Gems would be in no fear of her, for example, and Transformers would probably find this a mild inconvenience, but to organics, it is certain doom. Digestion will happen almost instantly, and she experiences digestion as another part of the tasting process.

She will devour anyone, anything, any time, and with the emotional awareness of a flytrap grabbing its latest victim. At this point it's an automatic reflex.

While she has yet to acquire a multiverse standard education, she is learning fast, and may even be gaining the knowledge of those she consumes, or at least believes she is. In any case she has amassed a respectable amount of technical knowledge and is doing her best to learn more. However she thinks she is a lot more skilled or knowledgeable than she actually is.

Relationships: She has a wide variety of friendships and makes friends easily. She might tend to instantly gobble them up the instant she decides they look tasty, or to examine them more intimately, but she genuinely likes people… and not just in the ‘you’re delicious’ sense. Accordingly, she will quickly befriend people with ease.

She gets along well with the MILF Fleet, finding kindred spirits with them. She really doesn’t get their concerns with morality, and can find them self-righteous to her pragmatic views. Still, they’re nice ladies… but she’s worried about eating them. They seem like they might bite back.

She would probably join the Cobalts if she wasn’t already tied up with Yatruiga, relishing their carefree attitudes towards life and indifference to collateral damage. As it is, she has accepted a freelancer status with them, doing small missions on their behalf in exchange for some loot and prestige in their ranks.

Yatruiga is her closest friend and rival, the two of them constantly competing to outdo one another and denying that they really like one another. Yet at the end of the day, Ikiko knows that she is Yatruiga’s only real friend, and sticks to her in order to take care of the big goohead. Additionally, Yatruiga is very powerful and can protect Ikiko, so there is an element of self-defense involved. The two of them are growing inseparable, even just in a ‘those two people in the background making funny comments’ way.

Pred Level: Extremely high. She will eat anyone and anything, and she will eat them at any time without a second thought or awareness of timing. She’s not a random eater, and regards it as fine dining; she likes exotic, interesting meals, not random fare she could anywhere! She loves fighting monsters for this reason, since they are all unique and totally interesting wonders. Horrible murderous brutes and abominations, but tasty ones. Note that her rating is partly due for how easy it is for her to eat someone; all she has to do is lock her lips around them, suck, and they area inside her stomach and already digesting. Due to her extreme speed, agility and small size, this makes her terrifyingly effective at devouring, though once she eats enough, she is effectively immobilized and can no longer consume unless they are foolish enough to touch her lips.

Prey Level: Fairly low. Her sheer voracity and the ease she can consume others makes actually consuming her extremely hard and pointless. To be in a position where you can swallow her, you have to be close enough for her to swallow you, and she’ll have an easier time of it. She can be eaten and has no special options, but it is very hard to see how it could happen.

Relevant Kink Material: Extreme size difference (she’s the tiny), shortstack, hyper proportions, vore (soft vore, predator), xeno monster girls.

[astrodances]

This is That AU + bonus Resistance Cell AU (Danny Phantom)

(This turned out way longer than I intended, but god it’s a fun idea. If anyone creates anything out of this, please send it my way! And if you have any ideas to add, feel free!)

Danny Phantom “The Ultimate Enemy” AU where the future is the Ghost Zone and the Ghost Zone is the future (aka they’re switched, and the future is thought of as a location in time).

Skulktech’s medallion falls off? The gang’s sent 10 years forward in Amity Park, and Danny’s introduced to the mayhem he causes firsthand. Perhaps Clockwork has headquarters set up there now bc Dan drove him (and all the other ghosts) out of the Ghost Zone.

The Ghost Zone itself, much like the human realm, is also destroyed, but even more so. When Dan was done with Earth he invaded the GZ and didn’t look back. He declared himself the Ghost King, and when he learns the Ghostly Wail, he uses it to wreak even more havoc and scare off any lasting threats to his reign.

The ghosts that dare to stay in the GZ are either:

trying to appease Dan by doing his bidding so they’ll be spared (not that it helps much)

actually want to side and fight for him (like the Fright Knight)

got stuck in the aftermath of the invasion and are basically prisoners

or are part of the small resistance cell that tries to take Dan down (like Valerie in TUE)

So Danny and co. end up running from Clockwork into the GZ (which is also 10 years in the future) and Danny meets Dan and all that. Things go pretty much like the episode, except everything’s adapted to the switched environments:

The trio doesn’t need the medallions to stay in/leave the GZ, but perhaps they’re still wearing them from their fight with Clockwork anyway. Perhaps they work the same way for Sam and Tucker, but when they take them off before being crushed, they end up back with Clockwork in the future and not back in present-day Amity Park.

Since Dan knows keeping Danny’s medallion tethered to him would be pointless, he just takes it and uses it to go back to present-day Amity to ensure his future.

Dan throws a tied-up Danny through his self-created portal back to Earth. Whether Danny ends up back where he started with Clockwork or somewhere else entirely is up to you, but oooh, consider the ramifications of both:

He goes back to Clockwork:

he’s with Sam and Tucker again. He can explain everything he learned to them and they can come up with a plan, perhaps form a team with Clockwork and others.

BUT as a result, he doesn’t learn the Ghostly Wail (at the very least, not here, and possibly not at all bc up to this point, he probably hasn’t seen the Wail in action: he didn’t see Dan through one of Clockwork’s screens, and Dan didn’t use it on him during their first encounter. So it’s likely that the first he’ll see of it is when Dan uses it during their fight at the present-day Nasty Burger).

He ends up somewhere else entirely:

he could end up alone somewhere random, and possibly the only thing that saves him is the Boooo-merang that’s floated through time and the GZ (bc Jazz probably doesn’t know which realm he’s in in the future?) and found a natural portal to Earth?

Or maybe he ends up exactly where he needs to be, in Vlad’s lair, and although he doesn’t need the medallion removed, Vlad can at least free him from being tied up and can explain things, maybe help him get back to Clockwork.

Or maybe he ends up alone but then finds/is found by some ghosts (much like in canon). Maybe they still act like his enemies and he gets aggravated enough to learn the Ghostly Wail (à la canon). Maybe he doesn’t and they destroy him and (unknowingly) their chance to have things be different. Or maybe he can convince them that he’s not the same guy as Dan (yet), and they work together to organize an attack against Dan, maybe even with some humans (since this is Earth, and Dan destroyed both their homes, I’m thinking at least some groups of ghosts and humans would sympathize with each other and learn to live together). They also find Clockwork, Sam, and Tucker, since they need Clockwork to go back in time. (And maybe even future!Valerie, if she’s around?)

Or maybe Danny just ends up alone and stuck somewhere, and just...dies completely, leaving everyone and everything doomed.

However he gets back (if he does) and whoever with, the present-day story has a few key notes:

Unless Clockwork decided to send Sam and Tucker back, Jazz’s role is pretty much the same, only she might be a bit more worried about not being able to find Danny or his friends anywhere to confront him about cheating. When she sees Dan (posed as Danny) for the first time, she might be a relieved at first, maybe even hugs him, before going into the cheating thing. She’ll also try to send the Boooo-merang, but again, the odds for it finding Danny in the future are very slim since he’s in the human realm.

Also regarding Sam and Tucker: if they return, they end up tied to the sauce at the Nasty Burger like in canon. But if they’re still with Clockwork when Danny finds him?? Hoo boy, just you wait.

The final battle with Dan is the big present-day difference:

Danny likely doesn’t have the Ghostly Wail, so unless he learns it like right after Dan uses it against him, Dan will probably win and ensure his future (particularly if Danny fights him alone).

But if Danny has allies (regardless of how he got them/who they are)? You better believe the odds go up in his favor. That’s a whole lot of organized firepower, and it leaves Dan with only 2 truly useful powers: the Ghostly Wail and duplication. But Team Danny did a lot of training. Heck, the ghosts probably told Danny about the Ghostly Wail, so even if he doesn’t learn it/hasn’t actually seen it yet, they can all be prepared to take cover or whatever when Dan uses it.

What’s more, while most of the team is fighting Dan, a small group (either humans with ecto-weapons or w/ghosts’ help) can free Jack, Maddie, Jazz, and Lancer (and Sam and Tucker if they’re tied up, too; otherwise they’re probably leading this whole group). Now they got all the Fentons fighting Dan (and a much more motivated Danny).

Basically, Team Phantom wins and then some.

But consider this: in any of the scenarios where Sam and Tucker are fighting Dan alongside Danny from the get-go, something glitches in the plan and while they’re able to defeat Dan, they’re not able to save Danny’s family + Lancer. And for whatever reason (either Dan defeated him or he just decides to let this one play out or whatever), Clockwork doesn’t reset the timeline.

What does that leave Danny with? Two best friends (and possibly some allies, maybe even future!Valerie (which is a whole ‘nother rabbit hole to dive into)) that support him through the grief and loss. Perhaps they make him feel less alone, and he grows stronger bc of this and learns some lesson about the value of friendship or “some such nonsense.” 😉

But maybe Danny doesn’t see that lesson. Maybe Sam and Tucker are there to see him struggle with this new reality. Time after time he tells them that he’s afraid of turning into that monster, and no matter what they do, they watch as their best friend slowly evolves not into a Dan created through a fusion of two ghost halves, but a (still half-ghost?) Dan bred out of fear, anger, and self-hatred. Not the same Dan as the original; perhaps something much, much worse, and much more personal (YOU try shooting your evil best friend when you know there’s still good in him, you hope).

And yet another alternate ending to all this (bc apparently I can’t be stopped): perhaps Dan does survive the Nasty Burger fight and sees his goal through of stalling Danny just long enough to see the Nasty Burger explode and ensure his future (or so he thinks). He just isn’t able to defeat all of Danny’s allies. Heck, maybe they’re even able to free the Fentons + Lancer in time. All that’s for certain is that when the Nasty Burger explodes, Dan vanishes, leaving Team Phantom with their Ultimate Enemy™️ at large (and likely still with a time medallion).

Enter the Resistance Cell AU (and the opportunity for me to work in DS9 references): all the survivors of the Battle at the Nasty Burger band up behind Danny, and while everything’s fine in the world at first, they immediately start hunting down Dan to try to stop him before he can screw things up again.

This, of course, is way harder than it sounds (and depending on Clockwork’s status/willingness to help, could be even doubly so).

Depending on the original battle’s outcome, Danny might be motivated in part by a desire to avenge his family (which could lead to some conflict within the group). In any case, he’s definitely motivated to not turn into Dan, though sometimes he needs reassurance from Tucker and Sam late at night.

The way I picture it, Dan slowly sends the world into chaos yet again, with Team Phantom usually one step behind him. (Though maybe, they’re able to at least form some relief teams to help victims after they hear about an attack and try to gather clues to hunt him down? And maybe these victims join the team and help the fight, and maybe Dan doesn’t end up as powerful this time.)

But to go the angsty route, Dan basically gets a second chance to take over the world and GZ, and ten years later, the only thing stopping him from achieving complete domination is an undercover resistance group led by a young man who’s kept his vow to never become like him.

The only thing is, Dan has an ally of his own this time around (one more powerful than the Fright Knight): Vlad Plasmius.

[adversaryproject-blog]

Flightless Birds - Chapter One

Summary: There was a man in the Trench today. His presence has stirred up confusion in the whole camp, including inside Clancy and his partner, Porter. Will they be able to discover the true nature behind the purpose of Dema and the Trench? Do they want to? East is up.

Warnings: This story will contain content of a serious nature. Including the following: deep personal fears, torture, and heavy emotions.

Want More? Try here: @yviegordon @marieporter @lillylincoln

Author’s Note: I had begun conceptualizing and writing this story before the most recent Clancy letter surfaced on dmaorg.info on 7/18, so please bear that in mind when reading this. I’m neck deep into this story and don’t have the emotional energy needed to alter it.

Word Count: 2,807

Enjoy!

Chapter One - I Am Cold

He stood on the edge of the cliff looking down at the body lying in the river. The rocky ledge hung out over the deep rift cut into the land like a long healed battle wound. The rich green of the forest stood in stark contrast to the crimson-robed bishop who turned his head and attention towards him. Even with his face covered, he felt a fathomless fear grip him tight. The same fear he had felt when he first arrived in the Trench and he would look to Dema in the distance. He knew the bishop couldn’t see his face and wouldn’t know who he was, but that deeply ingrained fear never really leaves.

He knew the man wouldn’t make it. As soon as the bishop was within sight and the man didn’t move, he was doomed. It takes drive to get away from Dema. You have to want to leave with every last bit of who you are. Even as they threw the petals over the side of the Trench offing a distraction as a last resort to save the man from the bishop’s grasp he had hesitated. It wasn’t until the end that the man had really fought, but it was too late.

So why? Why couldn’t he look away from him? What was it about him?

“Clancy,” her voice was barely above a whisper, “Clancy, we need to go.”

What was it about the man in the Trench that had called to Clancy? Everyone else had left. Why couldn’t he?

“Clancy, please.” She was being a good partner. She wouldn’t leave him behind and head to safety without him. But the waver in her voice gave away her fear.

“Sorry,” he muttered turning away from the ravine, “you’re right, we need to go.”

Her face was obscured by her hood, but the bright yellow tape on her shoulders and down her arms marked her identity for him. He followed her back into the tree line, out of sight of the edge of the Trench and away from the threat the lone bishop posed.

“I don’t understand,” she slowed her pace so he could catch up, “why didn’t he run? It seems like so many of them get caught because they don’t run.”

“I think,” he sighed and pulled his mask down around his neck. “Sometimes they don’t want to enough. Some people the bishops have such a hold on that they stop running. It’s all in their heads and they can’t escape their own minds, but sometimes to stay alive you’ve gotta kill your mind.”

“Makes sense,” she nodded. “I suppose we got lucky coming from Keons’ district.”

“It definitely made it easier,” he offered a small smile. “That and the fact that we left as a group.”

They continued onward, the trees grow denser as they traveled deeper into the forest. The only sound was their footfalls and the dead foliage crunching beneath their feet. The trees were so compact here that any light that managed to filtered down through the leaves became a soft green. He loved the green. It was everything Dema wasn’t. Alive, full of energy and movement. The only splattering of color in the tomb-like city was the crimson of the bishops and the punishments they served to deserving citizens.

His mind wandered back to the heavy cloaked bishop and the man he was standing over. Like many of the people from the Nico district, the man had failed to escape. Clancy had been out for almost a year and he had only met one person who had made it out of Nico’s control, Gordon. Something, besides the huge gash on her head, had been different about her escape, but she refused to talk about it. Her silence on her flight from her district wasn’t abnormal, many of their new group refused to talk about life before making it out, opting instead for codenames and a fresh start at being alive. Even his partner, Porter, had been reluctant to share her past with him despite their growing friendship. He found himself doing the same with those around him. It was an unspoken idea.

The less you know, the less you can give away if you are caught.

It seemed as though even out here, the Bishops held sway over their lives.

It wasn’t long before the smell of the fire burning in the center of their camp filled their senses. The burning metal frame from some unknown thing had become the focal point around which their tents had been built. It provided warmth during the cold evenings, a place to cook their food, and a beacon to those who got lost in the forest. There had been talk of leaving it as it could potentially call unwanted attention to the area, but ultimately they settled on staying as long as they could.

Porter’s pace slowed as she came to the edge of camp. She pulled her hood back, letting her shoulder-length auburn hair see the sunlight. Clancy adored her hair and often found himself staring at it when she wasn’t looking. It reflected the warmth of the forest around them and caused the feelings of home he had developed to flare in his chest. He loved it best at sunset.

“Based on everyone’s glum looks that whoever was in the Trench was smeared,” Sheridan’s voice jerked Clancy away from staring at his partner’s back.

“Yeah, uh,” he closed his eyes and shook his head, “Nico got him.”

“Ah,” Sheridan nodded in realization.

Sheridan, along with his partner Birch, had been liberated from Dema the longest out of their group. For three years the two of them lived in the forest near the Trench before anyone else joined them. After the group gained a few more members they moved away from the edge of the Trench, towards the ever burning metal frame. The pair was from the Lisden district, the district of mask-wearing - of hiding one’s true self, so it was only natural that they set the precedent for hiding your past once you left Dema. They had proven themselves capable leaders and did their best to care for newcomers. However, they seemed complacent in their place in the forest, uninterested in progression. This bothered Clancy.

Sheridan broke away from the pair, no doubt seeking out Birch to share the news.

Clancy turned back to where Porter had been to see her standing further away with two other women, Lincoln and Gordon. The partnered girls had been assigned to the tent next to Clancy and Porter, leading to a strong connection between the four.

“Clancy,” Porter’s brown eyes turned to meet his, “we’re all off duty tomorrow and Gordon suggested that we should go swimming.”

“Yeah,” his spirits lifted. It would be good to have a day to relax. “That sounds good.”

“I’m going to go help with cleaning dishes before the evening meal,” Porter smiled, “let me know if you decide to leave camp.” She made a fist and pressed it into his shoulder. “Stay alive.”

He nodded before she turned and walked away.

“What does she think you are going to do?” Gordon chuckled lightly, her hazel eyes flashing with the same amusement as her smile. “She’s always telling you that.”

“Oh,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “it’s from when we first got here.”

“Now you have to tell us,” Lincoln smiled and threw her hands up.

Clancy sighed. “About a week after we arrived I went for a walk outside of camp on my own,” he pointed just beyond their tent, “everything was just so overwhelming and I wanted to clear my thoughts.”

“Yeah?” Gordon laughed, “don’t tell me… you’re the reason we can’t leave camp alone.”

“No, no,” he shook his head, “that was a rule already, but I ignored it and headed into the forest on my own.”

“Something must have happened,” Lincoln put her hands on her hips, “there’s no way she would say something like that to you if nothing happened.”

“I twisted my ankle,” he laughed, “it took her almost two hours to find me.”

“Clancy!” Gordon’s mouth hung open, “a twisted ankle out in the forest alone is all it would take, man!”

“I know, I know,” he held his hands up, “she reminds me all the time not to leave alone.”

“Remind me how long you two have been partners,” Lincoln rubbed her nose, “I forget.”

“A year,” he shoved his hands into his pockets, “we were assigned to each other when we arrived.”

“I was in their tent with them until you got here and we were given our own,” Gordon smiled. “It was nice, but it was crowded with three people.”

“I imagine so,” Lincoln’s eyes were wide, “and you’ve been out… seven months total, right?”

“Yup, so I’ve been with you almost as long as I was with them,” she hugged her partner.

“And you’ve managed to keep your sanity somehow,” Lincoln laughed.

Clancy smiled. They were different from anyone he had ever met. He was surprised by how heavily a given district could impact a person’s personality. Like Porter, he had come from the Keon district and as such, they were both somewhat reserved and religious when it came to their duties and commitments. Lincoln had come from the Andre district and was quick to withdraw like the others from there. Gordon was the outlier. As the only person in the group from the Nico district, there were no others to compare her personality to. She was happy and bubbly most of the time, but quick to turn, it didn’t take much for her to shut down and push people away. But still, he enjoyed them. They were becoming part of his family, and he wouldn’t have them any other way.

“I’m going to go try to rest for a bit,” he motioned towards their tent, “if Porter asks, that’s where I’ll be.”

“Yeah man, rest up,” Lincoln waved as he walked away.

Clancy pushed back the canvas panel that acted as the door to their tented living space. There were two small bunks, one pushed to the left and one to the right, the gap between them no more than three feet wide. They were each provided with a crude shelving unit that sat against the foot of their respective bunks and they shared the trunk that rested between the heads.

Porter’s shelves were filled with odds and ends. Things she had collected from the Trench and the surrounding forest over the year they had been here. A rock shaped like a bird, a leaf that had stayed a beautiful burgundy color, and the dried remains of a flower he had given her to commemorate the year they had been free from Dema. The bottom shelf held her spare boots and jacket.

His shelves sat mostly bare save his extra jacket and a drawing Porter had done of him while sitting near the center fire. They were indicative of his time here. Porter tried to connect with people, to create a home for them while he had spent his time writing in his journal and trying to ignore the nagging feeling that something was missing.

His bunk creaked as he sat down on the side, the wooden frame giving slightly under his weight. He reached under the thin mattress and pulled out his beat-up journal and pencil. He turned to a blank page and began to writhe.

Today there was a man in the Trench…

He had tried to sleep. He really had, but thoughts of the man’s body lying in the stream at the bottom of the Trench wouldn’t let him. So he stared at the canvas roof and kept asking himself the same question, ‘who was the man in the Trench?’

The sudden opening of the tent’s flap startled him from his thoughts.

“It’s time for the evening gathering,” Porter pulled on the toe of his boot. “I’ll hold a spot for ya.”

The sun had finished dipping below the horizon, leaving the forest wrapped in a blanket of darkness. But still, the center fire burned. Its flames stretched high into the sky throwing sparks towards the stars.

“Today many of you witnessed the smearing of a fellow Bandito,” Sheridan’s voice was raised so all those sitting around the fire could hear him. “While we did not know him, or his name, we mourn his penance and the loss at his return to Dema.”

Clancy found his seat next to Porter who handed him a plate with the dinner he had missed.

“We offer up a moment of exaltation for him and his failed escape,” Sheridan pressed his lips together and began to hum softly. The single, extended note was joined by the hums of everyone else around the fire. Clancy joined. He reveled in the feeling of the vibrations that seemed to fill his being. Whenever the group offered a moment of exaltation for a lost member it seemed to fill the circle they sat in with the same life that the forest hummed with. It was an offering of life in the honor of one who had lost theirs.

The hum ended and after a short pause, Sheridan began again.

“We would like to take this moment to remind you all to stay with your partners when leaving the camp,” he was walking around the fire, trying to make eye contact with everyone he could. “With the runners getting further into the Trench, the Bishops are coming out further and further from Dema, and we don’t want anything to happen to any of you. Stay safe, stay alive.”

“Stay safe,” the group echoed the mantra, “stay alive.”

“Sleep well everyone,” Sheridan returned to sitting next to Birch.

Clancy finished his dinner and returned the plate to the mess area. Porter was already laying in her bunk when he got back to their tent. Her pants were folded neatly on top of her shelves and her boots tucked under her bed.

“You’ve been awfully quiet today,” he sat on the edge of his bunk and pulled off his shoes, “everything okay?”

“I can still hear him calling to us,” she mumbled, “he used words that only members of our group should know.”

Jumpsuit! Jumpsuit! Cover me!

The memory of the words sent a shiver down Clancy’s spine. There had been something deeply unnerving about the events in the Trench.

“He called to us and all we did was stand there and watch,” she rolled onto her side so she was facing his bunk. “Now he’s back in the Nico district, alone.”

Clancy dropped his pants unceremoniously on the floor by his boots. “I didn’t realize today bothered you so much.”

“It’s not that today bothered me,” her voice hitched in her throat.

“Then what is it?” he laid down under his covers, facing her. He could barely make out her features in the dark, the space between them beginning to feel like a cavern. “You can tell me anything, Porter. You know that.”

“I hate the idea of being alone,” she finally breathed, “when we lived in Keons I had a roommate. When I left Dema, I did so in the group. Since we have been assigned as partners…”

“We’ve never really been apart,” he realized. Aside from the one time he had ventured into the forest alone, she had always been around. Only in camp did she allow herself to stray from his side, and even then she was always with someone else.

“I fear isolation,” he could hear her struggling to hide her anxiety, “what if that had been you in the Trench?” Her voice was beginning to rise in pitch as she struggled to fight back the emotions that had been building all day. “What if you were gone and I was alone?”

“Hey, hey,” he stretched out an arm from under his covers, “take my hand.”

She sniffed and slowly began to reach towards him. As soon as her fingertips brushed his he grabbed her hand, holding in firmly wrapped in his.

“You’re not alone,” he gave her hand a squeeze, “you will never be alone. I am right here, and I will always be right here.”

“But-” she began.

He squeezed her hand again, “no buts, I will always be here. Okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded from under the pulled up covers.

“Now go to sleep,” she tried to withdraw her hand from his but he wouldn’t let her. “I’m keeping this for awhile, so you know I’m serious.”

She gave his hand a squeeze in return. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, it’s what I’m here for,” he ran his thumb over the back of her hand.

“Good night, Clancy,” she smiled softly.

“Night, Porter,” he returned her smile.

More to come! Stay street, stay alive!

[tenaciousarcadeexpert]

My Ideal MCU Fantastic Four Fancast

After finding out that Disney and Fox reached a deal in which the rights of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are reverted back to Marvel(Thank god), I figured that I might as well make a fancast for the Fantastic Four. These are personally my choices so please don’t judge me. 

The Heroes

Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic: Daniel Henney

  The smartest man on Earth who has the ability to stretch, twist and re-shape his body to inhuman proportions, Reed is the leader of the Fantastic Four, developing a ship that could travel deep within time and space, allowing him and the team to travel through different planets, time periods and universes. Ever since the accident that gave him and his team powers, Reed has often been filled with guilt, blaming himself for the accident and Ben’s condition. Still, with the love and support from his family and friends, Reed would learn to overcome his problems, allowing him to become a capable leader and accomplished superhero. I chose Daniel for a couple of reasons(And yes cause he’s handsome.) I know the the MCU is seriously lacking in Asian characters, particularly males, so I figured why not racebend. Before anyone says anything, I just want to say that yeah, I cast an Asian actor to play the smart one out of team but there’s a lot more to Reed than his intelligence and it’s his strong, unconditional love for his teammates. After seeing him in movies like Shanghai Calling and voicing Tadashi from Big Hero 6, I could totally see him play the brilliant scientist.   

Susan Storm/Invisible Woman: Natalie Dormer

Wife of Reed, a biochemist and CEO of the Future Foundation, Sue has the ability to bend and manipulate light to render herself and others invisible as well as generating near-indestructible invisible force fields around herself or other targets, making her the most powerful member on the team. Natalie Dormer was an interesting pick, though I envisioned Susan as someone who is not only a caring, loving wife and sister but also someone who does not tolerate any bullshit and is not afraid to get a little tough on others if it’s necessary. Natalie has quite the look and I could imagine her trying to make sure that Reed keeps his feet on the ground. Plus, she and Daniel would make a nice couple with good chemistry(Hopefully).

Johnny Storm/The Human Torch: Hunter Parrish

Johnny has the ability to control fire, allowing him to project fire from his body, as well as the power to fly. Due to being the youngest member of the team, Johnny is the most adventurous, always eager to explore new worlds and creating trouble on the way. I think Hunter would be the perfect choice to play the more brash Johnny after seeing him in 17 Again. 

Ben Grimm/The Thing: Robert Kazinsky

A life-long friend of Reed since college and has been transformed into a monstrous, orange, rock-like humanoid possessing high levels of superhuman strength and durability. Ever since the accident, Ben has often been filled with anger, self-loathing and self-pity over his new appearance. Unlike the others, he is unable to revert back to a normal appearance. This has brought a strain to his and Reed’s friendship and was desperate in wanting to be normal again. He even relied on the help of Victor Von Doom, Reed’s archnemesis in curing him. Eventually, with a change of heart, Ben would soon reconcile with Reed and the rest of the team as well as gaining some more confidence in his appearance, with the help from his soon-to-be girlfriend, Alicia. With Robert, I think that as long as he can pull off an American accent, he would do great as Ben, bringing him a sense of dry-humor as well as butting heads with Johnny.

The Villains

Harvey Elder/The Mole Man: Josh Gad

A scientist that aspires to become the next Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym and even Reed Richards but was shunned not only for his ugliness but also his belief of a “Hollow” Earth. He would soon discover  Subterranea, an underground realm and would rule over the moloids and conquer Ancient monsters. He then seeks revenge on the surface world. I know Josh Gad was a odd choice but when it comes to casting, the MCU has a thing for casting actors you’d least expect to appear in a movie, like Sylvester Stallone in GOTG Vol 2 and Cate Blanchett in Thor Ragnarok, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Josh somehow finds his way into the MCU. I also feel that it might be refreshing to see him in a different light as a villain as opposed to playing the comic relief. 

Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Doctor Doom, also known as Victor Von Doom is the monarch and dictator of Latveria. Highly intelligent, he is an equal to Reed, which angers him. He also use to attend the same college as Reed and Ben till an accident occurs, leaving him with a scar on his face and causing him to be expelled. He would then travel to Kamar-Taj, where he gained some knowledge of sorcery and magic. With that, he would soon use it as an advantage of invading his home country, Latveria and would rule over Latveria in a dictatorship. He would swore revenged on the one person that was responsible for most of his problems: Reed Richards. Doom does not admire the idea of him and Reed being equals and claims to be far more superior and better than him. In all honesty, it would been better if I cast a Eastern-European actor to play Doom, but there was something about Nikolaj that made me choose him. I could see him and Daniel play rivals. Doom is a villain that I consider to be tragic, similar to Loki and Magneto and could imagine appearing in multiple movies, becoming a more interesting and menacing villain along the way.

Note: I am aware of Victor being of Romani descent in the comics and I apologize for whitewashing. I do love Nikolaj, but I do also hope for an actor of Romani decent play Doom.

Kang the Conqueror:Arnold Vosloo

A time traveling conqueror with vast powers and technological supremacy from the 31st Century, he travels back to Egypt c. 2950 B.C. and became known as the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. If you seen The Mummy, you’ll know why I chose him. Kang the Conqueror is quite an interesting villain in which I could imagine like Doom, is also a villain that could crossover in other films with other superheroes like the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Impossible Man: Lin Manuel Miranda

A prankster and hedonist, the Impossible Man claimed to belong to the alien race of Poppupians from planet Poppup in the "Tenth Galaxy", who all share a collective consciousness and the ability to shapeshift, as their planet is so dangerous they have the ability to evolve very quickly.  I could imagine Lin portray this charcter with a sense of quirkiness and mischief to him.

Annihilus: Jason Flemymg

Annihilus, a native of the planet Arthos, is the ruler of the Negative Zone and a  nihilist who is obsessed with constantly finding different ways to extend his lifespan and destroying all that which he sees as a threat to his existence. He’s the owner of something known as the “cosmic control rod”. After watching him in X-Men: First Class and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, with a little help from prosthetics, CGI and even motion capture, Jason can somehow pull off playing the alien ruler of the Negative Zone.

Blastaar: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

A member of an alien race known as the Baluurians, of the planet Baluur in the Negative Zone . He ruled the Baluurians as their monarch ruthlessly until his subjects rebelled and rose against him. Blastaar was deposed as monarch, and became a Negative Zone outlaw. Blastaar was locked up in a special containment suit and set adrift in outer space in the Negative Zone. He would soon encounter the Fantastic Four during their travels in the Negative Zone. Having the right built and body, Hafþór would fit perfectly for this role.

Lucia Von Bardas: Hiba Abouk

She is the servant and advisor of Doctor Doom who poses as a diplomat at the Latverian Embassy in the U.S. who is also secretly a cyborg created by Doom. I can imagine her play the villainess and going up against the Invisible Woman.

Esteban Corazón de Ablo/Diablo: Pedro Pascal

A 9th Century alchemist known as Esteban Corazón de Ablo, Diablo is someone who desires of world dominance. He is also able to produce any number of amazing potions that defy scientific analysis. Based on his portrayal as Oberyn Martell, I think Pedro can pull off as a evil alchemist. I originally thought of Javier Bardem but felt that Pedro has a better resemblance to Diablo.

Bentley Wittman/The Wizard: Jemaine Clement

Was one a child-prodigy and chess-champion, The Wizard is a well known innovator and inventor who decides to pursue a life of villany and target some of the best well-known superheroes, particularly the Human Torch. I think Jemaine can pull of the cunning and mischief inventor. I personally see him as a minor villain, similar to Crossbones.

Owen Reece/Molecule Man: Matt Smith

Owen Reece was a weak, shy man by nature. He was a momma's boy, both fearful and resentful of the world. Then, one day, he was transformed into the Molecule Man by a lab accident. While working at an atomic power plant Owen mistakenly activated an experiment device that opened a portal to another dimension. This portal caused him to be exposed to a powerful explosion of a strange energy. The explosion horribly disfigured his face with scars in the shape of lightning bolts, but it also granted him immense power, which he used to take out his pent-up frustrations on the world. I’d loved Matt as the Eleventh doctor in Doctor Who and seeing him in a different light in the mcu would be really interesting.

Kl'rt/Super-Skrull: Joe Taslim

A warrior that was given the combined powers of the fantastic four, Kl’rt became known as the Super Skrull who was used as a special weapon and sent to Earth to pave way for the Skrull-Empire Invasion. Joe was an odd pick cause I could’ve pick someone with a little more muscle like Manu Bennet and Vinnie Jones(Which were some of my alternates.) but I figured that with his martial-arts background, Joe would fit perfectly for the warrior. (If anything goes wrong, he could always play Namor, lol) 

Lyja: Sofia Boutella

A Skrull who was sent to Earth to infiltrate and destroy the Fantastic Four, by seducing the youngest member of the team, Johnny a.k.a The Human Torch. Seeing Sofia in movies like Kingsman and Star Trek Beyond, she could easily play the skillfully badass Skrull warrior. 

The Beyonder: Oded Fehr

The Beyonder is an immensely powerful extradimensional entity of disputed origin. Virtually omnipotent in his realm, the Beyonder has striven on occasion to be mankind's both greatest savior and enemy in his quests to understand human nature. I picked Oded based on the Beyonder’s appearance in the 1994 Spiderman cartoon but either way, I could see him give a melodramatic performance as the Beyonder. 

Galactus: Either Peter Cullen or James Earl Jones

  Also known as the “Destroyer of Worlds”, Galactus is a sentient being that is beyond good and evil as he merely feeds on the energy of planets to survive. I was torn between choosing the man who voiced Optimus Prime and Darth Vader, though either way, both actors have a voice that could give the character a menacing feel to him.

Secondary Characters

Alicia Masters: Genesis Rodriguez

The love-interest of Ben and friend and neighbor of the Fantastic Four. A blind sculptor, she is what gives Ben the confidence in his appearance. Alicia has a big heart, who always tries to find the goodness in anyone, which is what she did in trying to convince the Silver Surfer to disobey Galactus. Even when blind, it does not stop her in trying to help others, especially the Fantastic Four. I think Genesis has that sweet smile and voice that matches the caring Alicia and that she and Robert would make a nice couple.

HERBIE: Voiced by either Alan Tudyk or Matthew Gray Gubler

A small, robotic assistant designed by Reed Richards, think of his role similar to J.A.R.V.I.S and F.R.I.D.A.Y. I was stuck between Alan and Matthew and I figured that either actor would be perfect for the role as they both have done some voice-work in several films before. 

Wyatt Wingfoot: Martin Sensmeier

A close friend of Johnny whom despite not having any powers has saved the team on several occasions and shared many adventures with them. I can imagine Martin being friends with Hunter’s Johnny.

Alyssa Moy: Yaya DaCosta

Alyssa is a close friend and ex-lover of Reed who is also equally smart as him. Even as the two are no longer together, they still remain on good terms, even helping out the Fantastic Four.  About the race change, I feel like the MCU is still lacking in women of color and especially those that are brilliantly smart and into the science field(Like Jane Foster and Helen Cho), so I figured why not and Yaya is a great actress that could seemingly play the equally smart ex of Reed.  

Thundra: Ronda Rousey

  From an alternate reality, Thundra is the mightiest warrior from the United Sisterhood Republic, a country populated and ruled by the Femizons, a matriarchal society of Amazon-like women warriors. Thundra's reality is the alternate reality of the 23rd century Earth-715 in which, she is the strongest person of her world. I can see the Fantastic Four encounter her while traveling through time and though she comes off as antagonistic at first, becomes a good ally to the team. I think Rousey is able to portray this fierce and bold warrior.

Norrin Radd/Silver Surfer: Jacob Anderson

Norrin Radd of Zenn-La is the mighty herald of Galactus, the devourer of worlds. Gifted with the Power Cosmic and a trusty board which he can summon and return to him faster than light speed. He would be known as the Silver Surfer. To be honest, finding an actor to play the Silver Surfer was quite difficult, though I figured Jacob could play him. After watching a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones, I could imagine him give the character some emotional depth.

Frankie Raye/Nova: Riley Keough

Frankie Raye worked for the United Nations as an interpreter. She met Johnny Storm. and became his girlfriend, despite her fear of fire. She would soon develop powers after an accident cause by her step-father, which causes her to become Nova. Technically I thought of having her as Nova instead of Richard Rider because why not, and thought that Riley could pull off playing a badass superheroine, not to mention that she would be perfect for my Human Torch pick.

Uatu the Watcher:  Irrfan Khan

Uatu the Watcher is an incredibly powerful being that has sworn never to interfere with the happenings of the Universe, only to watch, yet he has broken this oath several times. Yes, I know about the whole “What if Stan Lee is the Watcher” though I still figured that someone should still play him. I figured that the character would be motion-captured like Galactus. I chose Irrfan since I figured his voice would suit the character perfectly.

 So that’s about it, I’m sorry if the list is too long as well as the descriptions, but I figured that I might as well share what my interpretation of the MCU’s Fantastic Four would be like. These are personally my picks for the characters and it’s okay if you don’t agree with some of them, just please don’t send in any hate or what not. Hopefully you guys enjoy.