#everyone leaves their grubby fingerprints on the story

[misscammiedawn]

See that's the thing I love about this book. The above post is so firm and passionate about wanting to peel through the layers to get to The House and views all the abstraction as obstacles to that goal. I think that's a valid way to read the book.

It's not even remotely what I care about, though.

Don't get me wrong. Haunted House! An ordeal of Greek Myth proportions that pits man against man and serves to weigh the soul of Will Navidson and repair his fractured marriage? Sure. I love it. Cool.

What I love is that this book understands something that I hold true as a firm belief in my soul. Good art is both a means of sharing emotion and a mirror that we can see ourselves in. A good piece of art should be able to allow me to view perspectives unavailable to me in my life and bridge gaps in human understanding. A good piece of art that acts as a mirror should allow me to question my emotional reactions, to feel unalone in a world where I lack the language to communicate with others.

The ability to contain emotion within brush strokes and the printed word and audio vibrations and concepts is a gift.

I'm not the first person to take the view that House of Leaves is just a book. That's the solution. Nothing that happens within its pages is real. It's fiction. There is no solution. There's no purpose. It cannot be solved. Because it's fiction. It's an insanity simulator. Every layer of the narrative is impacting the next, infecting it with an obsession. Will's obsession with the inside of his house captivates the documentarian, the documentary captivates Zampano, Zampano's notes captivate Truant and though the editors don't insert themselves as the others do there is a lot of citation to go through.

Which leaves the reader. I have seen a large number of people just skip and focus only on the Navidson Record. I have seen people go over it multiple times to check citations and unpeel the narrative from multiple angles. You can check to see which citations are real or just treat them as a pretty set dressing and if you go the route of citations then you're down the rabbit hole because only a portion of them even lead anywhere.

Then you can chose whether or not you read Pelafina's letters at face value or if you decode them and read the layer beneath the layer and that will cause you to ask how much of Truant's story is true and how much is made up. If Pelafina's letters mention his Europe poems (written after she died) and Zampano (who she didn't meet?) you may start asking other questions.

You may listen to the album. You may ask why characters in the book are able to read the book that you are reading which is published and thus the words being written have been read by people written in the book and...

It's an insanity and obsession simulator, it's a mirror and it's just a book. You are literally the only person who has read the version of House of Leaves that exists in your head. Your experience cannot be shared. It's also a labyrinth with unlimited numbers of directions to read it. Start-to-Finish is not really an option. I doubt there's a human alive who has read every word from the start of the page to the end of the page from cover to cover. The book cannot be read that way.

For me, I read The Whalestoe Letters when the narrators offered me an opportunity to check the Appendixes. That means my view of Johnny (and his confession at the end) was painted by knowing about Pelafina. Many people would not have read those letters until afterwards. Many may never have read them at all. Even if they did, did they decode the hidden messages?

Plus, you bring your own baggage with you. I'm a traumatized kid raised by a single father who spent a lot of time in-patient at mental care facilities. Ignoring the direction one reads the book, the baggage you take in with you shapes your experience. I would never expect any reader to feel more connected to Johnny than the rest of the story. I know most people hate and skip his segments.

But hey, I saw ugly parts of me in that little twerp and I don't shy away when confronted by nasty reflections.

The beauty of House of Leaves in my eyes isn't trying to see The Navidson Record and put together the interesting story that is hidden behind layers of abstraction, it's a mind worm, a labyrinth that pulls you in again and again and leaves you alone in your own thoughts. Even in the book they claim that the House may be God trying to weigh a soul and put it on a trial that will allow the truest version of self to exit from the maze.

I like to think the book itself wants to do the same. But then again. The version of the book that exists in my head is unique. It's mine. After all. The labyrinth grows and expands as you explore it. Why would yours look like mine.

I just hope people are better on the other side of reading it and don't get lost in the endless traps and pitfalls and citations and insanity.

ok. Narrative obfuscation in House Of Leaves. It’s a relatively simple story about a man who moves into a house with his wife and kids, and the house is haunted. That’s it. The core themes are very transparent.

Except, that story is documented by a famous war documentarian, then published as a series of rare tapes, which are discoursed by film buffs, then interpreted from viewings and reading film critique by a blind old man, then his thoughts are transcribed into a manuscript by a series of young women, which is then compiled from scattered notes by the most mysoginistic, damaged, toxic pothead drop-out who won’t stop talking about his life, which is THEN edited and published by some vaguely nefarious agency who soberly refuse to provide any clarification or context.

It’s not simple, but there are so many different hands on the wheel with wildly differing opinions that you can’t discern the truth.

Johnny Truant is such a miserable hopeless fuck up. He has no sense of academic rigor or archival professionalism. Any interference he provides only muddies the waters and taints what would otherwise be a gripping piece of metaphysical film criticism. His neurotic rambling and personal anecdotes cloud an otherwise reasonable story.

If he wasn’t in it, if we could read Zampano’s manuscript directly, WE would be able to understand the truth. We would get it completely, and we wouldn’t have to encounter so much violence, so much miserable graphic detail. It would be a better story.

And fuck it, if we didn’t have to read all of Zampano’s tangents and analyses and interpretations, if we could just find a copy of the famous “five-and-a-half minute hallway” vhs, if we could SEE it, we’d understand. We wouldn’t need endless pontification of what Navidson and Karen’s marriage might entail, or recitations of what a director once said in a Rolling Stones article. We’d see the hallway itself, stretching out into what should be the backyard, and we’d get it. Hell, Zampano is blind in his old age. He can’t even watch the damn movie! But we could. We’d know instantly, the second we saw it. The impossibility of it, the gravity of it, the weight of that dark abyss.

And well, the VHS recording is a little dark, and the quality is poor, and maybe the white balance isn’t so perfect. And actually, VHs tapes could be manipulated. We can’t be sure that Navidson isn’t just using clever videography tricks to invent a hallway. If we were there, if we found the house (it’s in virginia, isn’t it? we even have the address). If we GO there, we could look down that hallway. And it’s dark, so if we just brought a flashlight, maybe took a few steps inside-

[vidavalor]

I've had to disconnect from my dash because of all the negativity; I honestly do not get why people are acting like a semblance of justice+a movie is the worst thing in the world?

I'm mourning for the full six-episode season we lost because ng couldn't pass the utmost basic sub-zero bar for not acting like scum and of course I wish amazon had kicked him out and then sprung for it anyway (and honestly, as long as you're blaming the right person, I think it's fine to feel upset? We deserved better, the cast and crew deserved, Terry deserved better, and this one guy ruins it for everyone because the bar was buried six feet deep beneath the ground and he still managed to go lower, and that does suck, and it is miserable and unfair, so take a moment if you need it 🤷‍♀️) but let's face it, we got off lucky. Arguably, considering this was a standalone novel from the nineties, that then got made, in one of the best book adaptations I've ever seen, into a limited standalone tv miniseries (and, again, emphasising the standalone here, so even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, we'll still always have S1 and the book; people have been ignoring the Jurassic Park sequels for nearly three decades), and then got a surprise sequel, we were pretty lucky the whole way through.

And regarding the whole what if it's bad thing, I was always going to be worried: I was anxious long before this shit went down, and I was anxious before S2 and even S1, as well. It's not like we ever had any guarantee it was going to be good beforehand either, and at this point, knowing what we do now, I'm not at all sure I'd have trusted ng to write this anyways. So while, yeah sure, I'm maybe a little more anxious now, I trust Michael and David with these characters and I trust Rob and Rhianna with Terry's legacy and story and that they wouldn't have fought so hard for this ending unless they planned to keep fighting and thought they could pull it off. Isn't the problem with this kind of thing normally that what happnes is the creator who cares deeply about the work gets pulled in favour of someone out-of-touch who cares not a jot about the story and needs to leave their own grubby fingerprints all over it? More the other way around here, no?

Anyway, what I also wanted to say was that I really appreciated your 'think of it as the final two episodes of season two' (and all your takes on this situation so far, very level-headed and optimistic, thank you). I mean, you're right, and it's hardly wildly out-there for a series to finish on a feature-length special, and although the filler material in S2 and the compression of S3 maybe means it doesn't exactly resemble what the second book would have been, it was only ever meant to be two books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed S2 and was very glad to get it, even though I am a book/S1 fan and also had the most fun in that time fandom pre/post/around the time of the S1 release, but why does it exist? Ego? You can't tell me you couldn't have fit the important parts of S2 into one season with the S3 plotline.)

Basically, I'm grieving the could-have-beens (imagine if he'd been exposed way earlier and the TP estate had had control of this whole production from the very start!) and I'm a little worried that that hurt'll stick around no matter how good S3 is - which I need to fix, because that's more power over my favourite show and what it means to me that I want to give anyone, let alone someone like that - but at the end of day, I do think it definitely can be done with what we have, and I'm choosing to be hopeful it'll be done well, because, well, why wouldn't I?

(I will say this hasn't been great for my faith in humanity, because I really want to believe not all men are shit and some of them are making it very difficult right now, but that's an entirely different problem and so far believing most people are mostly good has always prevailed in the end so. y'know. we'll get there. might reread discworld, that's always good for that.)

Sorry for venting all this at you! I just kinda felt the need to write it all down once to get it off my chest... have a snack on me? I'm partial to cherry tomatoes, green melon and mandarines at the moment (I stop eating salads in winter, which means I default to eating even more fruit) but I can also offer homemade baked goodies fresh from this morning? 🥧

Hi there. 💕 You are welcome to vent away & thank you for the delicious-sounding snacks and kind words. I'm glad my posts on the movie boosted your spirits about it. I agree with and can relate to almost everything that you said here so assume that anything that I don't address just has a 'yes, absolutely' nod happening. 🙂‍↕️

The one thing I want to touch on here is S2 and this idea of it being "filler" that you mentioned that I think might not be quite accurate. I think you (and anyone else who reads this) might feel more enthused about the idea of a good ending in 90 minutes after reading this so hopefully this'll be another way that I can help?

On why S2 is really the whole story and actually had a lot more going on in every way than S1...

Ok, I'm going to explain something that drives writers like myself bonkers 😂 and that is how some readers or viewers of fictional stories mix up plot and story.

Nothing grinds our gears than reading things like "filler" and "unnecessary subplots" because, while everyone is within their rights to have an opinion on written works, 95% of the time, the person who says phrases like this isn't talking about the quality of the work but of its very existence. They're saying "why did we have to read/watch this? it didn't connect to anything" and that's where they are very, very, very... argh, just tell them, Crowley...

...thank you, dear. Right, so, why is it wrong?

Because what many people who don't write don't understand about subplots and more character-driven story arcs is that the writers sat down and decided to do that stuff for very, very specific story reasons. Readers and viewers mistake plot for story. Plot only exists in service of story and, so, all plots exist for a purpose in the story. They're all relevant. In fact, the stuff people usually label as "filler" in a story is really exactly where they should be looking to figure out what the story is saying. If you're big mad about all this time you spent with Maggie and Nina in S2, I'd say you might not still understand what S2 was about because you won't understand Aziraphale's story without understanding both Maggie and Nina's struggles in S2, for example.

A story is the whole, overall thing. It's the meanings, themes, and messages in the work. It's what's being said. It's the ideas being put forth by the piece. It's what it's about. It's different from plot, which is just the stuff the writers are making the characters do or not do in order to tell the story that they are looking to tell. Story is the art; plot is a tool used to make that art. Fiction writers can come at their story from almost anywhere to convey what it is that they are trying to say so there is meaning in the fact that they are choosing to tell their stories the way that they are telling them. They came up with these ideas for reasons.

When you dismiss stuff as filler, you're saying that it's lesser than more in-your-face and bigger plots (when, often, it's very much not), and you're telling a writer how they should have written their own story-- most of the time, without even fully seeing the ending of that story or giving any consideration to why it is that the writer wanted you to read or watch the stuff you're saying wasn't necessary. I'm not arguing that every story is perfect but you aren't getting anywhere near close to being able to evaluate a story if you're not willing to dive into what you were given and consider why it was that you were given those things and what they might mean.

Until the main question that you're asking about every single aspect of a story is "what is this saying?", you're not really fully engaging with a work. You won't get there by dismissing what the artists are telling you is important.

The secret sauce to interpreting fiction are subplots, actually. They exist to help highlight the themes of the main story, often in a slightly more direct way. If you want to understand Good Omens, starting with Ineffable Bureaucracy is actually one of the best ways to get at the core of the themes of the story. It's far from wasted time in the story.

There's actually a funny nod to the importance of subplots in 1941 when Aziraphale references Sophocles, the playwright who basically created the concept of the supporting character whose story mirrors and parallels the main character(s). The mention of Sophocles shows up in S2, the season that brings Gabriel more fully into his purpose as exactly that.

The reason why S2's plot is centered around the honestly pretty easily solvable mystery as to what's happened to Gabriel is because Gabriel, from the get-go, has been the entire story distilled down.

If you follow nothing but Ineffable Bureaucracy in Good Omens, you're going to be closer to getting what it's about and where it's going and what its end game is than you are if you are dismissing it as wasted time when we only have few episodes left. If you haven't yet seen the secret wisdom in Jim-- not to mention understand that Jim and Gabriel are the same person-- then you're probably wigging out more about the movie.

You likely think that S2 was wasted on stuff like Gabriel, or Maggie and Nina's romance, when they should have been getting to Armageddon and The Second Coming already!

You haven't yet noticed that Armageddon has more than one meaning in the series.

It's not always the literal destruction of Earth but also a person's own life crisis. We are all worlds of our own and those worlds can be put at risk if we don't let others in and take care of ourselves and those around us.

When you realize this, you can start to see that S1 goes hard with a freight train of plot all over the place that is related to Armageddon in a more Biblical, apocalyptic sense while it establishes its universe for us but that, once we know how it all works, we can get something like S2... a time where we can step back and start using Armageddon in the more figurative way that the story is also presenting it.

We need to because the story isn't about Heaven or Hell-- it's about being a person. S2 is emphasizing the deeper aspects of the themes and rolling that out at a pace more in line with a person having a few days of inner crisis. When you see that Aziraphale's crisis is the point then you can see how S1 can be about The Four Horsepeople riding to the end of the world and S2 can show War (inner conflict), Pollution (mental health issues), and Famine (symptoms of the other two; lack of food and pleasure and connection; self-starvation and self-denial) as a mental health crisis.

The point is that if you're thinking these characters need to come together to overthrow Heaven and Hell and get to the South Downs Cottage and there's no time slajdflkfwjlkejlje!?!?, then you aren't realizing that not every revolution involves guns and bombs.

People all over the world can start a love train that's far more effective. You might think a subplot about The Hellhound and The Ginger Cat learning to play nice and that they have a fuckton in common and should maybe bury the hatchet and just become eternal bffs already is filler but Crowley and Gabriel aligning is set up for the end game. It's strength in numbers and finding peace and family. They can't overthrow Heaven/Hell without help and Gabriel is the Supreme Archangel. They literally will never have a South Downs Cottage ending without a plot that helped Crowley and Aziraphale see that Gabriel and Beez are on their side.

This is the revolution in Good Omens:

It will take all the characters coming together to overthrow Heaven/Hell and set up something new for us to get a happy ending and we absolutely will. S2 is Gabriel-centric because Gabriel is the key to all of the characters getting a peaceful ending and because he's a split-directly-down-the-middle mirror of both Crowley and Aziraphale. In a season that is more about Aziraphale's inner Armageddon than about an external threat, Gabriel is vital to telling that story. The plot of S2 is every bit as important to the story as S1. I'd argue that it's even more important because takes the time to go at the themes in a slower, deeper way. It needs to because it's a story of a fall that sets up for a story in S3 of a recovery from one.

Good Omens is the absolute perfect combination of a show that is both very, very detail-oriented and full of depth while also being, secretly, an incredibly simple story. I do not mean simple in a negative way but in a chef's kiss sort of way. Simple in a tight and elegant sort of way. This is something that I think some people might not see when they're theorizing but it's something to keep in mind ahead of the movie. Not just because the movie is shorter-- this would have been relevant if we were having a longer S3, too.

Good Omens has a very engaged fan base that looks for the details, yes. *raises hand* I'm one of them lol. And there will be plenty to pour over in the movie, but... the big thing to keep in mind is that your theory needs to be something that is simple, that can be explained in under a handful of scenes, tops, and that is focused on where Aziraphale's story arc is going above anything and everything else.

If you're beginning with time loops and the birth of a new antichrist baby, I'm telling you from ages of experience reading and writing stories, you're going to be way off. If you are over here composing theories of the story that you are arguing are correct and this theory involves, idk... *makes something up* Crowley is really Elvis and Elvis is really The Bentley and when a rainbow hits Whickber Street at exactly 4 minutes into the new season, Satan will be revealed to really be Jesus, I think maybe you might be missing the point of the details that the show has given already. Like the plot, these details exist to reinforce the themes of the story. Story beats everything else-- it's what this is all about.

And what Good Omens is about? Is best summed up by Michael Sheen, in this single sentence that I really, really agree with and have paraphrased more than once in posts:

Good Omens is about the business of living. It's about the human experience, which is the experience of being a person. Everything related to Heaven and Hell and good and evil and Armageddon and supernatural things is plot that only exists to highlight a story about the complexities of being a person.

The supernatural is human and the human is supernatural.

That is what Good Omens is about.

While Crowley and Aziraphale are built as two halves of a whole and are both main characters, Aziraphale is the main character from a technical, story perspective, because he is the character whose story arc is driving both the plot and story forward. He's heading for a happy ending with Crowley in the South Downs by the end of the film. If you're making theories, start with what kind of plot would truly get him there and still fit with all of the themes of the story.

This 'it's about being a person' business is why if you look at S2 as filler and not as a season that is exploring the continuing themes on a deeper level, you're still worried about things like there being no time in a movie to show the story of a new antichrist kid being born or how they're going to fit the whole Second Coming into the movie. You don't yet see that Aziraphale parallels Adam and that being an antichrist is basically just being a person and that Aziraphale is presently the antichrist in the story. There is no antichrist child yet to be born. They won't be cutting it because it's not the story.

Armageddon since S2 has been Aziraphale's own personal one and the story from the end of S2 on is now how, if all the other characters can't come together to help him, it could also trigger Armageddon of the S1, Earth-destroying kind. It's tying a more literal Armageddon into a more figurative one. Because this story is about being a person so Armageddon is just metaphorical for going through a mental health crisis and shutting people out.

This story's themes include that every person matters and we all have to let others in and look out for one another. That there's strength in numbers. That found family and adopted family is as much family as biological family-- often, even more so. That labelling and categorizing people is bullshit and you should always open the cover and read the first sentences of people and help people whose stories begin with the same letters find one another. That it might be surprising who has things in common. It's about all of Heaven and Hell versus all of humanity, in the sense that ideas of being a perfect angel or being seen as an evil demon are concepts felt by human beings that get in the way of peace and healthy, happy living, but that fighting them is a common, human struggle, regardless of from where you come.

If you are too focused on the religious plot being the center of the film, you haven't yet seen the meaning of why the end of S1 was an eleven year old kid saving the world by telling off the bio-dad that was never there for him. You might be one of the people who thought this a silly, anti-climatic ending to that story, and don't yet realize that this is the entire story in a nutshell.

Adam can only reject Satan and keep the darkness at bay because he is surrounded-- here, literally-- by a family that supports him. He has good people for parents and was lucky enough to grow up with resources that all kids in this world should have. He has an absolutely terrific group of friends. He has this witch lady and her boyfriend and these two gay uncles that just showed up out of nowhere 😂 and his human incarnate self has what it needs to make it through this crisis, in this moment, even if he'll probably have others throughout his life, just like all of us. He's not evil incarnate and he doesn't have to be perfect-- he's just a person.

Aziraphale tells Adam this but struggles to see himself in the same way. That's what S2 is about.

S2 is about that other kid who, like Adam, breaks the season down into a single line of dialogue, David Tennant's apparent favorite from the season:

Jemimah knows who she is and she is happy to claim ownership over her art and contributions to the world. She's living her life with excitement and enthusiasm in a way that gets more complicated as we become traumatized adults. Crowley and Aziraphale struggle with this. They have been making a life together on Earth for thousands of years and each struggle, in their own ways, to truly accept that they are people who are allowed to have a life because they struggle to accept that they are people, just like everyone else.

Their story is about getting to a better place with that. That's really all Good Omens fundamentally is. That's why their ending is going to be to go live in a little cottage together that isn't a business that covers up an angelic embassy that covers up a secret love den. It's just their house-- theirs together for the life they're going to live openly together.

If you want some peace with the film, I'd advise throwing over your theories about The Second Coming and Armageddon needing to happen and antichrist kids and how Jesus fits into everything. Jesus in Good Omens is Crowley romancing Aziraphale at the crucifixion and Aziraphale using what Jesus said to Crowley to reject temptation as invitation to fuck him. I thought Jesus in a single scene or less was the most likely thing for S3 and the same holds for the movie. It's not the story. The only time The Second Coming is mentioned in S2 is by the villain and, to get there, Earth would have to first be destroyed. It won't be.

If the story is about being a messy human walking the Earth and we're in the end game now, then the story is about Aziraphale and only Aziraphale. Everything-- everything-- will be in service of Aziraphale's story arc. We already had just a few episodes with S3 and we now have even less time but the way this is going is still the same. The story is Aziraphale's fall and the other characters coming together to challenge Heaven to keep Aziraphale from eternity in Hell. That's how Armageddon is stopped this time around-- overthrowing Heaven with Aziraphale's fate as the motivation to take on The Metatron. It's nothing to do with Jesus. It's everything to do with Aziraphale.

When you see that, you can see how feasible that is in 90 minutes, with plenty of time for things like 1941, Part 3 and other flashbacks.

I think, when all is said and done, you might wind up appreciating S2 more after the film but you can get there already if you start looking at it less as meaningless fluff and start asking why it is that we were shown this story, in this way, and what that can tell us about the story we're watching.

[kiki-shortsnout]

21. Listening to someone's heartbeat? From the intimacy prompts, With Loki/Tony, please? 💜

I could've written a whole story with this prompt! As it is I struggled to keep this near 2,000 words! Thank you for the prompt!

~~~~

Where is this place? What is this place? Loki asked himself for about the millionth time, glancing around the room and trying not to fidget on the hard-backed chair he was sat on. He stretched his neck from side to side, trying to relieve the irritating itch he felt from the collar chafing his neck.

He’d suffered through worse. He could endure this.

‘If looks could kill,’ Mobius mocked.

‘What do you want from me?’

‘Well, let’s start with a little cooperation.’

This man knew nothing about him, and Loki had already formulated a plan about how he was going to escape from here, possibly killing him in the process. However, that plan began to unravel the more they spoke, this TVA agent able to strip back every façade, every mask that Loki had constructed around himself.

Only one other person had been able to do that, strip Loki bare and see his vulnerable, true self beneath.

And that man was currently shining on the wall that was playing the movie of Loki’s life.

Loki didn’t react at seeing Anthony again, didn’t give away what they were to each other, feeling himself seethe as an image of them kissing after a battle was revealed.

His greatest secret.

‘A secret Avenger lover! How did you guys manage to hide that? I don’t know which is worse, a hero falling in love with the bad guy who murdered his people…’

Loki clenched his teeth, refusing to speak. It was no one’s business about how he and Anthony had gotten together, what drew them together in the first place. He knew what Mobius was trying to do, but it wasn’t going to work. He was going to escape, find the Tesseract, and convince Anthony for once and for all that they needed to leave their worlds behind.

‘Or the man who fell in love with the enemy, giving up his mission for glorious purpose because of a pair of pretty doe eyes.’

Pushing himself up and away from his chair, Loki paced the room, mind trying to think of a way out of this, to protect Anthony, find a way back to him while eliminating whatever threat this was to them both. If the TVA knew about the relationship, something Anthony had taken great pains to hide, then Loki needed to eliminate this threat.

‘What exactly is it that you want?’

‘I want you to be honest about why you do what you do,’ Mobius answered, still calm despite Loki’s growing agitation.

‘Liar!’ Loki called him out.

Even as Mobius gave a passionate speech back, something about wanting to understand him, Loki paid him no attention, gazing at the hideous orange panels on the wall, feeling the squeeze of the collar on his neck.

‘What makes Loki tick?’

The man reached out and tapped the orange ball on his desk, revealing more moments of Loki’s life, the invasion of New York, his shame, his weakness that he’d nearly harmed the one he…cared about in some misguided quest for glory, his true intentions warped by the Scepter.

He needed to get back to Anthony, to explain it hadn’t been him, that he had been beholden to some trick.

That he wasn’t the monster Anthony had needed to stop, led away by Thor in chains and a muzzle until an opportunity presented itself. Loki was forced to witness his shame again from an outsider’s perspective, the haze of blue in his eyes as he’d forced the Midgardians to bow before him.

Had Anthony known that wasn’t him, that he had been controlled? Why hadn’t Thor seen it?

‘I was... I am on the verge of acquiring everything I am owed, and when I do, it'll be because I did it. Not because it was supposed to happen, or because you or the Time Variance Authority, or whatever it is you call yourselves, allowed me to.’

That wasn’t quite the truth, what Loki truly wanted mingling with the aftereffects of the Mind Stone’s influence, his impatience to get back to Anthony and set things right overriding his rational mind.

Please don’t allow this to change your feelings for me. Please, beloved, please realize it was not me who acted.

‘Honestly, you're pathetic.’ Who was Loki speaking to, the TVA agent before him, or himself?

‘You're an irrelevance. A detour. A footnote to my ascent."

‘If you hadn't picked up the Tesseract, you would've been taken to a cell on Asgard.’

What sorcery is this?

‘What is this? This is nonsense, more tricks. This never even happened.’

‘Not to you, not yet. Look, the TVA doesn't just know your whole past, we know your whole life, how it's all meant to be. Think of it as comforting.’

All his thoughts, his arrogance, his plotting fled as he watched his mother die. For the first time in his life, he was speechless, his desperation making him babble.

‘Where is she?’

‘You lead them right to her,’ the man said, a hint of sympathy in his voice.

‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying. It’s not true.’

He couldn’t be responsible. This was a trick, it had to be a trick.

‘It is true. That's the proper flow of time and it happens again and again and again because it's supposed to, because it has to. The TVA makes sure of it.’

‘Where is she?’ Loki demanded.

What if they have Anthony locked up in his place too? What tricks are they playing on him?

‘Now why don't you tell me, do you enjoy hurting people?’ The man asked again, his voice increasing in volume, making Loki feel as though his chest was being squeezed with overwhelming pressure.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Loki paced in agitation.

‘Do you enjoy killing?’

‘I'll kill you,’ the words were hollow, and they both knew it.

‘Like you did your mother? Like how you attempted to kill Thanos and left your lover alone to sacrifice himself?’

His rage that had been steadily building the whole conversation suddenly dissipated, leaving him lightheaded at the swing between the two emotions, a cold fear now scrabbling up his throat, chasing away the burn of his anger.

‘What happened to Anthony?’

‘Who?’

‘Anthony! Tony Stark! What happens to him?’

‘Does it matter? I mean I know he was your secret lover, but he was an Avenger, an obstacle in your-’

‘Tell me!’ Loki screamed, feeling the furious tears burning his eyes, the onslaught of his emotions frightening him.

He’d shown his hand, exposed his feelings for the two he cherished. Loki had known this would happen, that emotions would make him fragile, defenseless. Now he had no way of saving either and had given the TVA what they needed to blackmail him.

‘You care for him that much?’ All the bluster and posturing from Mobius was gone, a genuine curiosity in his face as he watched Loki.

‘I love him,’ Loki admitted, words he’d never uttered to anyone, not even Anthony. ‘Please, I know you have no reason to trust me, that I’m everything you say I am, but please, let me see what happens to him.’

Sighing, Mobius reached into his pocket and pulled out a separate tape, revealing he held it all along. ‘Here…he was a great man, your Tony Stark. I’ve watched how you interact with everyone around you, your enemies, and the ones you pretended not to care for… it was hard not to be moved by Tony Stark.’

Loki wasn’t listening, trying to fumble with the machine, almost snapping his teeth at Mobius when he reached over to take the recording from him and set it up in the machine. He watched the film, waiting for the moment where Anthony’s life had twinned with his own, when Thor had first been banished and Loki had faced the man of iron for the first time.

Their secret meetings Loki initiated because he’d been intrigued by this morally gray Midgardian, their first kiss, their first tumble into bed. Loki treasured those moments, and now they felt tainted with Mobius’s scrutiny, his gaze leaving grubby fingerprints over their memories.

There were other moments, a future Loki still had to discover. The moment Loki finally confessed his feelings, the heartbreak of betrayal Anthony felt from Captain America (Loki threw the chair across the room at that). He watched as the Hulk creature passed on news of Loki’s death, the way Anthony’s sorrow hardened and was reborn as fury, the catalyst for why he launched himself into space after Thanos’s minions.

And then the end, the blaze of glory, standing alone and proud against the Titan, his beautiful mind destroyed under the effects of the Infinity Stones. Loki couldn’t breathe, his chest trying to move in short sharp pants, his teeth gritted against the pain.

No. Not like this.

He couldn’t see past the agony, couldn’t keep his heart beating with the vile poison of the truth. He could feel a hand on his back, a voice trying to call to him.

‘Please, let me go to him,’

‘Loki, I can’t-’

‘Please. You’ve brought me here for a reason. Whatever it is you want from me, I’ll do it without question. I won’t escape. I won’t betray you, whatever it is you want, but please…’ Loki trailed off, unable to speak past the emotions webbing in his throat.

‘In all my studies of you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you beg, not sincerely anyway.’

‘You know my…my love for him to be true, that I would not jest about this. Please, Mobius, you have my word, my vow, just please… let me see him.’

‘Ten minutes, that’s all you get. No messing around with the timeline, no giving cryptic warnings. You do anything to divert the timeline Stark is in and I’ll send in a team to prune him and the branch you’ve created, understand?’

Loki didn’t know what pruning meant, but he made an educated guess it had to do with those glow sticks the TVA agents wore and the way they disintegrated the people they stabbed them with.

Nodding, he offered up his hands in a silent plea, sniffing back the tears. Mobius reached out to clasp his hands for a moment, before pointing towards a glowing doorway in the room.

‘Ten minutes and then I’m pulling you out.’

Anthony was asleep in his bed when Loki stepped through, and he rushed over to his bedside, crashing down to his knees as a wounded sound spilt from his lips.

‘You foolish, idiotic mortal, what were you thinking!’ he hissed, the words barely forming sound, not wanting to wake Anthony up or inadvertently cause his destruction. ‘I knew your self-righteousness would be the end of you, that you’d sacrifice yourself in some heroic deed.’ Loki brushed Anthony’s bangs back, leaning forward to press their foreheads together, trying to keep his tears at bay.

He glanced around the room, recognizing it as Anthony’s house in Malibu, no sight of the Avenger Tower. This had to be before New York, before his carnage of Anthony’s homeworld.

‘Lo?’ Anthony suddenly whispered, voice thick with sleep, hands sliding from the bed covers to reach for him. ‘You said…busy…’ he yawned, not entirely awake.

‘I know, dear one, but I made time.’ Loki slid into the bed beside him, taking care to rearrange himself so he could curl around Anthony, protecting him while trying to keep him asleep. He rested his ear directly over the arc reactor, his hand on Anthony’s chest. He could hear the thrum of energy beneath his ear, felt reassured by its continuous sound, knowing it was keeping his mortal alive.

He could feel Anthony’s heartbeat under his palm, never as strong as he liked it, but reassuring enough that Tony was here and alive.

‘I’m sorry. By the Norns, Anthony I am sorry.’

Anthony shifted in his sleep, hugging Loki close and kissing the top of his head.

‘Bad dream, honey?’ he whispered, still sleepy, but trying to comfort him.

‘Something like that. Go back to sleep, darling,’ Loki soothed, hiding the pain in his voice.

He knew what he’d promised Mobius, and his promise to help him stood, but Loki knew he’d twist the intentions of his help to suit his own purposes. He’d find a way to meet these Time-Keepers and bend them to his will. He wasn’t going to lose Anthony to Thanos, would save him from his fate and be together like they deserved.

For now, Loki focused on the sound of his heartbeat, the reassurance he was alive, committing the sound to memory for the next eight minutes.

[ainews]

Uncle Grubby is a dirty old man who never seems to take a bath. He's always scratching himself and leaving his dirty fingerprints all over everything. Even his favorite niece can't stand to be around him for more than a few minutes.

It's not just that Uncle Grubby is a little bit unkempt - he's downright filthy. His clothes are always stained and his hair is greasy. He never washes his hands after going to the bathroom, so it's no wonder that he always has a cold.

Despite his gross habits, Uncle Grubby is actually a really nice guy. He's always telling stories and making everyone laugh. But his nieces and nephews can't help but cringe when they see him.

If you have an Uncle Grubby in your family, you might want to keep your distance. But if you can stomach his grossness, he's actually a lot of fun to be around.

[batsy-batsy-batsy-blog1]

Gotham’s Most Wanted [The Joker x Harley] Part 1

Day 1 of JokerxHarley Week: Pride

(This fic is going to be a series, one chapter for each day of the week, but some chapters may have more to do with the theme of the day than others) Check out @jokerxharleyweek for other submissions

Summary: Harleen Quinzel finds someone she never expected in a world she’s convinced is out to get her. (Highschool AU)

AO3.com

“You’re proud of yourself! Aren’t you girl? Smug, is that it?” Max Quinzel held his daughter down on her bed by her neck, his spit flying into her face as he yelled.

“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Harleen gasped, pulled at the clutch on her neck. Of course, that was a lie, she knew exactly why she was in this position, but he didn’t need to know that.

“I got a call from some snivelling snob of a parent today.” He spat, releasing her throat, but his tone accusatory. “She seemed to think you stole something from her ratty kid. I told her she was insane because my daughter is no filthy crook. My daughter appreciates what I’ve given her!” His tone returned to a yell with the last sentence.

“I swear it! I didn’t take nothing from no one! I’m telling ya, honest!” She pleaded with him, she could already feel fingerprint bruises forming on her neck.

“You know Harleen, I almost believe ya, but this is in case you’re lying to me. You don’t lie to me girl, as far as you’re concerned, I’m your god.” With a vicious grin he snagged her by one of her pigtails

Harleen stumbled after him, desperate to keep her footing and he yanked her across the shabby apartment. An especially hard tug on her hair had her on her knees, and he dragged her the rest of the way, her body flipped and twisted as she tried to regain her footing, but she just ended up creating more pain for herself. They ended up in the bathroom.

“This’ll teach ya,” He growled, slamming the toilet seat up, strands of her hair hanging from his fingernails.

“Wha-What are ya doing?” Harleen asked, still rubbing her head from where she had been dragged.

Her father didn’t answer, just grabbed her by the back of the neck, and plunged her head into the toilet water. She struggled against him, he only let her up for air for a few seconds at a time. Over and over and over.

Harleen sat on the grimy bathroom floor, leaned against the tub, face and hair sopping wet. Her father had left probably 15 minutes ago. He had tossed her aside when he was done with her like some useless piece of trash. He wiped his hands off on his jeans like it was nothing and growled something about the bar, he wouldn’t be back for hours.

Hands shook as she curled her white fingers on the counter top, pulling herself to her feet. She stared at herself, eyes hard, in cracked grubby mirror. Her black eye from a week ago could now pass for and intense eye bag, but now her forehead was home to a small cut along her hairline, where her head had connected with the toilet bowl. Her neck was sprinkled with five circular bruises.

Her bottom lip refused to stop quivering, and tears pricked at her eyes, threatening to make even mascara tracks down her face.

“Stop it.” She whispered to herself harshly, taking a face cloth from the sink, rubbing away at the black smeared across her face. She continued to run the cool water over her face, and breath the air she really needed to learn to appreciate. Next she turned on the tap, and flipping her blond hair underneath the water massaging the rest of the toilet water out of her locks

“You’re fine, everything is fine. You are okay.” She repeated it like a mantra, over and over again, until she believed it.

Everything was fine, the night’s punishment was over. Her father would come home and pass out on the couch, or maybe he wouldn’t come home at all; a girl can dream.

Looking at herself in the mirror again, she did believe she was okay, at least in her head. Outside her hands still shook uncontrollably. She was okay on the inside though, because she deserved what she got. Her father had been right, she did steal, and she was proud of herself.

It was just so simple, the laptop was sitting right there, alone, on a library table. She needed a laptop, and there one was, a free one at that. All she had to do was slide it into her beaten up messenger bag, and it was her’s.

Breathing slightly easier, she crept across the apartment with trembling knees, back to her room. As she sat on her bed, she heard the unsettling BANG BANG BANG, she flinched with each one. Her father banged everywhere he went, every move was a bang. How could be back so soon? Had he come for more? Was he not done with her? BANG BANG! Followed by muffled yelling. Harleen felt as if she could cry with relief, it was coming from the apartment across the hall.

She needed to  get out of this damn building, she felt as if she was going crazy, her father’s footsteps around every corner. Harleen grabbed her thin winter coat that was probably three years old at this point, and began to tiptoe toward her front door.

Fact: the sound of a creaking door when you’re trying to be quiet is equivalent to the sound of a gunshot.

“Please, please, please,” She prayed silently, hoping no one would walk around that corner and see her halfway out of the apartment. Halfway. She was almost out, a few hours of freedom.

Finally, about 7 years later, the door was safely closed behind her, and she was standing in the dimly lit hallway of the apartment building. At least 70% of the lights that were supposed to light this hallway had burnt out long ago, but maintenance was more of myth than an actual service offered in this building.

She started to head for the staircase, when and especially loud BANG sent her to her knees, cowering against the wall. But again, it wasn’t her father, it was that apartment across the hall, the apartment she was currently sitting outside of. Just like the last set of BANGs this one was followed up yelling, getting increasingly louder, until wooden door flew open, crashing against the wall next to her head.

“I’ve had it! You won’t step foot under my roof again until you learn some fucking respect you ungrateful, childish boy!” A women appeared in the doorway, dragging a boy, whom Harleen assumed was her son, by the collar of his shirt, and threw him to the floor of the the hallway. “You’ll sleep out there tonight, sweet dreams fucker.” And with that the woman slammed the door.

Harleen sat in shock, from almost being crushed by the door, and by what she had just witnessed. The boy sat with his back to her slumped against the wall across from her, she didn’t even think he knew she was there. His body shook slightly, was he crying?

“H-hey? Are you okay?” She stood shakily, and crossed the hallway to put her hand on his shoulder. He turned to face her, more like whipped around, and there were tears streaming down his cheeks, but his lips bore a huge smile. He was laughing.

“Fan-fucking-tastic, sweetheart!” He laughed. Harleen almost jumped backward from the smell emanating from his mouth; he reeked of alcohol.

“That sounded like sarcasm,” she pressed him.

“Oh you must be a cop with a brain like that, smart as a whip, aren’t ya doll?” He was laughing so hard, his sentence was broken up between gasps for air.

Harleen really didn’t feel like being made fun of, especially by someone has drunk as he was. She began to shrink away from him.

“I don’t like the cops...” she muttered as she retreated.

“Not the biggest fan of them myself, they keep arresting me, and sending me back to my straight-up satanic mother.” The boy rolled over off the wall so he was lying flat on his back in the middle of the floor. Harleen hugged her knees against the wall.

“She seems like a lovely woman.” Harleen cracked a half smile, this sent the boy back into a fit of laughter, confusing her. It was no where near that funny.

“Oh she’s a saint!” He laughed. “Constant yelling, never-ending, 24/7 yelling. It never stops, never. I’m a failure, a disappointment, nothing I do will ever be good enough for her. Who is she to judge anyway, a fucking 50-year-old whore, who’s slept with everyone and their brother in Gotham. She doesn’t have a fucking clue who my father is.” He was still laughing, despite his story getting sadder and sadder. “I’m a fatherless, 18-year-old guy! I have mummy issues, and daddy issues, that on top of all the other shit fucking up my brain! I’m stuck Harleen, this is gonna be my life, I’m gonna be my mother, raising kids I hate, or another penniless crack addict, fathering children left and right, and leaving them every time.”

“Oh...” Harleen whispered as the boy pulled himself up against the wall to sit facing her. Those piercing blue eyes reflected exactly what she was in her own when she looked in the mirror. Exhaustion, both so damn tired.

He had said her name, he knew her, and now that she was looking at him, how did she not recognize him sooner? Jack something or other. Everyone knew just Jack, the school’s most infamous bad boy. You couldn’t even call him a bad boy, what he was went past that. He was suspended more then he was actually in school, no one really knew why he wasn’t expelled already, but rumour had it the principal was afraid to do it, afraid of him, afraid to put him on the streets. He spent evenings in jail, but they couldn’t hold him based on mental illness. Some say he was faking it all, but you couldn’t have eyes like her and his and be faking it. You couldn’t come from homes like theirs and be faking it. In fact, she would be more inclined to believe she was faking it, if he wasn’t screwed up.

Jack was still laughing, he hadn’t stopped the whole time, but that smile on his face wasn’t happy. The laugh was more of a Look-How-Fucked-Up-My-Life-Is kind of smile.

Harleen crossed the hall to him, sliding down the wall to sit next to him, and tilted his head to rest on her shoulder.

“I’m a world class head case.” he whispered.

“Me too.” She replied.