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katsrnerstories · 4 years ago

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BillDip SlowBurn FanFic Chap. 1

Bill had destroyed Dipper's mind.

It has been a few years since weirdmageddon. Since Dipper and Mabel defeated demons from hellish planes of existence and saved the world and their friends from soul and mind crushing madness.

Dippers a freshman in college now. It was a moment that he had wished for for years. Highschool had been…

Well it wasn't the worst it could have been. Dipper hit a major glow up around the beginning of junior year (with Mabel's help of course) and life was a little easier. He was asked out on dates, went to a few parties here and there that people dragged him to, had some typical highschool fun in the city...

Until around that same time he started getting replies from colleges his senior year, he started to see Bill again. Every once in a while his mind would wander back to that summer, but it was always the good things or nightmares of the horrors they saw.

It started with just a little glimpse here and there. An eye in the back corner of his periphery, some yellow glimpse in a dark room.

A ghostly hand on his shoulder.

But these things were nothing to the first time Dipper realized something was wrong.

Dipper saw Bill in his dreams. And those dreams were beyond nightmares.

He had had nightmares before. Nightmares of weirdmageddon were common for both dipper and Mabel. But these… these were real; as much as a dream could be.

Because of Gravity Falls, Dipper really wasn't afraid of a lot of things that would have scared him. The unknown was comforting to him. Maybe because it wasn't too unknown to him and Mabel.

But bill. During those nightmares, brought everything he feared to the frontlines.

It had been a while since Mabel and him shared a room, so Mabel really didn't know about the fear Dipper experienced those nights.

She was more focused on getting to LA.

She wants to be a criminal psychoanalyst. To look at the minds of people and figure how they tick. Criminals especially.

Dipper could swear that Bill had done something to her to make her go down such a dark career path, but he couldn't say anything; he neither had a psychology degree nor was untouched by Bill himself.

Who really knows, it could have been anything else that happened to her in those hellish four years of highschool.

She had moved away quickly after highschool ended to learn in LA. Of course they facetime and text all the time, but the separation was still felt by both of them.

Everyone missed her presence. Her positivity, her unique personality.

That had transformed into something much darker come junior and senior year. She found out after a few failed boyfriends that she was not only Asexual, but that guys and even girls, can’t seem to give that part of a relationship up. Some even found it offensive that she felt that way.

Dipper went back to oregon. Of course he was in the city, but on weekends he would visit the Mystery Shack and Gravity Falls.

Soos was happy to give him one of the rooms in the basement. Sometimes even Grunkle Stan or Grunkle Ford would visit.

They decided shortly after Dipper and Mabel left that they would travel. Of course Ford's labs still sit under the mystery shack, but when Mabel and Dipper visited Soos the summer of their junior year Ford gave them full control of the labs (as long as Dipper kept everyone safe. Which he did too much annoyance of Mabel)

Soos and his wife at that time had just had a little baby boy, and now have a comfortable four kids, two boys and two girls (three of them were triplets) and run the shack not to much better than Stan did, with the same soul in the campy attractions and overpriced merchandise.

Wendy is in her senior year at a community college in Oregon city, right around the same place Dipper decided to go to school. They hang out pretty regularly, just around weekly.

Robby left gravity falls as soon as he got his GED. Went for New York, looking for a punk career. He sends Wendy emails every once in a while about his music and where he's at.

Shockingly, Pacifica stayed in Oregon, going to the same college Dipper goes to. They see each other, and after leaving her family, she found a lot out about herself and became a much better person.

She found she loved a good smoke and art. Apparently, something she hid from the world was that she loved art. She was probably one of the best artists Dipper had seen. After she left the hell hole of her family, she became really chill. Calm. even nice.

Her and Dipper have coffee pretty much every day. She was one of the only people who also knew what he had gone through.

And she was the only person who noticed as Dipper got worse and worse for wear.

Bill had been particularly evil the past few weeks, taking much more joy in Dippers struggle. Long ago Dipper had just sort of given up on screaming for Bill to stop. But he always refused to make a deal with him to stop the fear. Not again.

“Another nightmare again?” Pacifica asks, as Dipper requests 5 shots of caffeine in his already bitter caffeinated black coffee.

“Yeah. it's getting harder and harder to say no every night. And honestly the empty dorm isn't helping.”

“Why don't you just move in with me? I've got an extra room that's got your name written on the door if you want it.”

Dipper almost accepted, but decided against it. It was kind of weird, no matter how good of friends they were, to live with the ex that made you realized you were gay.

It wasn't her fault, it was just…

He liked a different kind of ass, as Mabel had said when he came out.

No, the daily overpriced coffee meetup was enough.

“Have you talked about it to Ford? Hes got to know something about it if he went through the same thing?”

“I don't want to bother them with it. They thought they got rid of Bill that summer, we all did. Bills my problem now.”

Pacifica gives him a knowing look. She knew that he was breaking, but couldn't figure out how to help him.

“Hows journalism?” Pacifica takes her coffee as she changes the subject.

“As boring as it ever is. Graphic design?”

“As confusing as ever.” Dipper takes a big sip from his steaming coffee. It's a briskly cold morning, enough he brought out his knit set Mabel had made for him on their 18th birthday. He had no shame in wearing it, and it in fact felt comforting today, to know that she was still with him in heart at least.

She never grew out of her sweater thing. She still makes sweaters, using it to get her to the next rent payment sometimes. Everyone can count on a big box with sweaters from her every Christmas here in Oregon.

With their coffees in hand, Dipper and Mabel head off to campus. And once they made it there they said their goodbyes with a hug and went their separate ways to start the day.

Dipper wanders into the lecture hall for his advanced maths class. People filter in as he types away on his computer.

The students around him wanted to be scientists, economists, etc. everyone found it weird that a creative writing major was not only taking advanced maths, this early in the morning, but was killing it. His grades spoke for themselves.

The class starts and Dipper still types away on his computer. He had been bored the night before as he was staving off sleeping and had read a chapter ahead in their textbook. He taught himself the three hour lesson that day in an hour.

It was no doubt that Dipper took after his great uncle Stanford. Grunkle Ford told him at one point that Dipper reminded him of a young Dr. Fiddleford. Dipper didn't really like being compared to the scientist that started a whole cult under Gravity Falls before going batshit crazy himself for a very long time.

He only hoped that he wouldn't end up like him. He didn't want to be some crazy man who roams the town.

Dipper had a story that he needed to finish for his next class. He had started to wear away the stories of Gravity Falls with his creative writing classes that he now had to actually think about what story to write. Mabel helped him out with the premise of the story last night. So he spent that class writing a simple flash fiction of one roaming the backrooms. (an urban legend Mabel had read about in an article somewhere.)

He found comfort in knowing that one thing did not exist to him. That one thing did not sit in the pits of Gravity Falls waiting for Dipper or one of them to unearth it.

The story reminded Dipper of falling through the endless pit just outside the Mystery Shack. A hole where they reminisced on days of the summer as they spent the day, or who knows how long, falling. they were all lucky that it was not, truly, endless.

And quickly the story was finished and the class closed early.

Dipper went for an early lunch. He scrolls through his phone, seeing Mabels three new instagram posts and all the other people she introduced him to.

After Mabel found out Dipper was gay, she went on a mission to hook him up with some LA guy. Oregons not terrible with their acceptance, but it's not something to be very open about. Plus Dipper wasn't the kind to walk pride without someone like Mabel hyping the both of them up. Because god knows that she needs just as much hyping up with who she is as Dipper.

When he walks into his empty apartment, anxiety wells up in Dippers chest. Quickly he turns on the TV, letting it run as white noise as he makes his lunch. The apartment had been empty since his recent relationship ended. Dipper is glad it ended, as the abuse just got too much; yet it was bad for Dipper to be left alone with his thoughts. Especially in an apartment that seemed to hold so much sadness and bad memories.

Mabel, after helping Dippers style, had made him a whole cookbook for him. It had all different kinds of foods, but the main dishes all were healthy. She had gone on a fitness rampage her sophomore year and had never truly grown out of it. It was from a bad place, but she turned it to a positive. As she always does.

She had told him that it was the first thing other than sleep to keep alive longer. She had made him promise that he would try to stay alive.

At this point it was the only thing keeping Dipper alive.

Bill had taxed his mind so much it was rare to find him not paranoid. Bill made Dippers anxiety beyond chronic, and the lack of sleep did not help his depression.

That had developed after Pacifica. It wasn't because of the break up, more at the fact that she had helped him so much.

She had accepted him being gay. She had helped him gain friends during their relationship, and she even helped him when money wasn't the best.

All this caused his anxiety to get to his head.

What if they think I’m evil for breaking it off with her? What if she'll never want to see me again? What if, what if, what if…

His depression had just gotten worse after the breakup and dealing with being alone again. It was the reason Dipper stayed with someone like that for so long.

All of the depression and anxiety ended up crashing down at the same time Bill Cypher ended up crashing into the picture.

At that point Bill only came to terrorise Dipper a few nights a month. It was easier to deal with. Now it's every night.

Dipper finishes making his food, sitting down in front of the TV to watch a show on Netflix.

He had been getting through the true crime shows. He swore that eventually he'd eventually either run a show like it with Mabel or be one of the cold cases lost to the world.

Yet within only a few minutes Dipper not only found himself asleep, but stuck in the mindscape.

“Been trying to avoid me, Pine Tree?”

Dipper no longer was shocked by Bill's voice. In fact the more and more he heard his voice, the more and more it began to sound almost human.

#billdip #gravity falls #whump writing #slow burn #fanfiction #writers #fandom #fanfic #bill x dipper #dipper pines #bill cipher #mabel pines #gravity falls pacifica #adult dipper pines #powerless bill cipher

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vislorrturlough · 4 years ago

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Scaramouche!

"Of course, this assumption of responsibility does not mean that we are not conditioned genetically, culturally, and socially. It means that we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined. It means recognizing that History is time filled with possibility and not inexorably determined-that the future is problematic and not already decided, fatalistically."

- Paulo Friere

For as long as Loki can remember, tapestries have lined the walls of Asgard's palace.

When Loki was a child, the Allmother sat by his bed one night and explained the significance of the tapestries that lined the walls of their home.

“The Norns weave the tapestry that assigns our roles,” she told him. “So that we may fulfill our fate and serve Midgard as we are meant to.”

The tapestries stretched across all the walls of the palace, covering vast miles of golden wall with breathtaking imagery depicting life and death and love and hate and everything in between. They pictured Loki too, who moved from boy to tragedy to a vicious and cruel man.

“So I have a role too? And Thor?” he asked. She smiled at him with fondness. The Thor on the tapestries seemed brave and strong - Loki could never imagine his brother, still a boy himself, to become that hulk of a man someday.

“Of course, Loki,” she said. “We all have roles. I am a mother, and a magician. Thor will be a great hero. Your father, a beloved and wise king. This is what is sewn into our destiny, to be enacted until Ragnarok and again after that. In a cycle, unending and unwavering.”

He yawned, obscuring the nervousness bubbling in his chest and curling the silken covers around his shoulders. He knew what the tapestries said Loki would do. He had hoped that maybe - “What’s my fate, mother?” he asked quietly.

Her smile, previously relaxed, became firm and serious. His heart was racing, thinking of that man, and of the awful cruelty that was depicted to come at his hands. “We all have a part to play, my dear. And every story has a villain for a reason.”

Despite common misconception, Loki Laufeyson never lived in the moment. In fact, Loki found the moment particularly difficult to pin down. Once you begin to think “Hey, I think this is the moment!” it wasn’t the moment anymore, and Loki already had four tabs open on his phone about the relativity of time and he didn’t need anymore.

Loki lived in the future, which was why he was that very moment getting his fair share of serotonin from the Schrödinger’s Night Out with Sigurd and Lorelei he was planning.

“Sigurd definitely won’t come out if Lorelei isn’t,” he explained to Verity as he paced hurriedly around their absurdly fancy flat, which he paid for entirely and in return, Verity didn’t ask where he got all the money. “Which means I need Lorelei to agree first. One problem with that!”

“Lorelei hates you?” Verity asked, as she planted an orange tree in Stardew Valley.

“Lorelei hates me!” Loki agreed. “Which means I need to sweeten the pot.”

Verity glanced up at him suspiciously. “How are you going to do that?”

He grinned, and picked up a pen so he could start dramatically gesticulating. “Bisexual women! They’re always fascinated with me. And by the end of the evening, I’ll have established a system where I transport their attention from me to Lorelei and get her many dates. Like a Ford factory.”

She glared, turned back to her game. “You’re a walking hate crime.”

“Was that a lie, Verity?” he teased, collapsing on the couch and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She tried just barely to shrug him off. “Was it a lie when I said bi women are fascinated with me? Was it?”

Verity narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t say anything, and in response he burst into cackles of laughter.

—

Lorelei claimed to be very insulted that Loki thought bisexual women liked him more than her, but he knew well that she knew well that she looked like the straightest girl alive and really, that was her own fault. Once Lorelei was a confirmed booking, Sigurd swiftly followed, because he’s nothing if not a simp, and thus Loki had now established the perfect evening. A pricey club, two people who could barely stand him, and himself.

Although he never really enjoyed it. He’d never planned to.

Anticipation was a drug, really. And as previously established, the moment was very boring indeed. And this moment, Loki found himself crammed against Sigurd, who while very attractive and an owner of some very firm abs, was covered in sweat, and only slept with Loki when he was desperate anyway. Loki squinted up at him, and tried to figure out if he was desperate tonight.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Sigurd shouted over the music.

Loki smiled at him genially, and proceeded to turn quickly around and elbow his way to the smoking area.

The initial smack of fresh onto his face was divine. He closed his eyes and smiled in satisfaction, continuing to move forward. The music was more muted out here, and the sound of voices and laughter blurred into itself until nothing was anything anymore. Peace! The lights were all different shades of pink and green, and they cast an ethereal glow over the throngs of young people with cigarettes in their hands, all here, all living now.

Loki bumped into someone.

“Shit!” he yelped, watching in horror as her cocktail spilt down her crop top. “I’m so sorry! Oh my God!”

She’d flinched a bit during the incident itself, but the alcohol had seemingly tempered any stronger reaction than that. Lightly brushing at her (now soaked) top, she only laughed lightly and smiled at him. “No worries, dude!”

He pulled out his best prince charming grin (practiced in the mirror and finely tuned). “Please, let me at least buy you another drink.”

“I’m not going to say no to a drink!” she laughed shyly, and they traipsed inside to the bar. Sigurd seemed to have vanished, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Lorelei getting very close to the DJ, so maybe if Loki had any luck he was crying in the gents or something. Usual affair, really.

He bought them both mojitos, and they fought their way back through the crowd to return to the smoking area. “I like your necklace,” he said, because his mother had always said women liked having their jewelry complimented. Sif had later said that they didn’t, but Sif was as much a woman as Loki was a man, so her opinion didn’t count.

The girl giggled. “Thanks, it’s a crucifix.”

“Oh sorry!” Loki said. “I’m not from around here. That’s the catholic thing right?”

“Do you guys not have catholicism in Britain?”

Ugh, mentioning Asgard would dance a bit too close to the possibility of ‘Oh man, anyone ever told you you look like Thor’s evil brother?’. Loki chuckled instead and rolled his eyes. “I was pretty sheltered. It was like, a weird cult?”

“Oh wow! That’s so interesting.” She had a sympathetic sort of look on her face, and Loki quickly buried the irritation that bubbled up in his chest. The sympathy wasn’t for Loki anyway, just some fake man who grew up in a cult. Did he think Asgard was a cult? God, he was glad he didn’t have a therapist

“Yeah, I don’t really believe in it now, you know?” he lied easily, smiling at her. “It’s hard to have faith when it’s like, you never see any proof.”

She nodded understandingly. “Yeah, lots of people say that nowadays, what with superheroes and Asgard and all. I don’t know, I kind of think the fact I don’t have proof makes it more important.”

“Oh yes?” Loki asked. “What do you mean by that?”

She looked up at the lights, placed her free hand on the crook of the elbow of the hand holding her drink. For a second, Loki saw ancient and revered philosophers! He decided that they’d had it all wrong. Screw the forums, they should’ve done all their philosophising in smoking areas.

“It means something, you know?” she explained slowly. “Like, of course we believe in the ground and the sky and all. Those are right in front of us, we can’t deny that. Same with science, or aliens, or Asgardians. But believing in God requires a certain kind of faith. I’m going beyond seeing and believing. I’m just believing. God has a plan for me, and I believe in that.”

Loki nodded slowly. A fate? One set, but controlled by a benevolent creature and entirely unknown? It wasn’t true or real of course, but there was a beauty to it, that Loki, who’s path was clear and determined, appreciated. The alcohol (he and Lorelei made a habit of spiking drinks they bought on earth with Asgardian liqueur, so they’d, you know, work) was beginning to blur his awareness anyway. “That’s beautiful,” he said kindly.

She giggled, quickly touching her necklace and looking at the ground. “Haha, sorry! I study theology, it’s kind of a thing.”

“No, no!” Loki laughed, giving her a wide grin. “It was very interesting! Where do you study?”

They got into a long conversation about Sarah’s (her name, Loki found out eventually) degree, NYU dorms and a guy she hated in her seminars, before he noticed Lorelei making a beeline towards him, her hand around Sigurd’s wrist.

“Hey,” she said, before frowning at him and glancing at Sarah. “I’m going home with a girl named Angelica. She’s goth and plays bass. So you need to take Sig home.”

“I’m literally an ancient hero. Of legend,” Sigurd interjected.

Lorelei turned and glared at him instead. “Well, you need to take Loki home.”

“Oh well, come on then Sig!” Loki said loudly, ignoring his scowl. “Thank you for such a lovely conversation, Sarah darling. Have a nice night!”

“Thanks Luke!” she laughed, not being not obvious about checking Sigurd out. Oh God, she probably thought he was dating Loki. Yuck, how mortifying. “See you around!”

“Go get a taxi,” Lorelei told him, before wandering off to a girl with a septum piercing and docs, which Loki considered quite basic, especially for Lorelei.

They didn’t get a taxi. They walked five minutes until Loki ducked around a corner, ignored Sigurd saying “Aren’t we getting a taxi?” and grabbed his arm before dragging him through the spaces in between the universe and dropping him on the bean bag in his living room. A solitary pringles can rolled quietly and hit Loki’s foot.

“Ugh, you’re disgusting,” Loki muttered, kicking it away.

“I hate you,” Sigurd growled, pinching his nose and clearly trying not to throw up. Loki didn’t know why, it wouldn’t be any major downgrade from how the room was currently. “And I hate that. You’re such a fucking prick Loki.”

Time to make his exit before Sigurd regained enough strength to cause him bodily harm. “Bye honey!” he trilled, and Sigurd’s growl was cut off as he made his way to his own apartment. He didn’t wake up Verity, she had work tomorrow, so he just kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed, surrendering to unconsciousness.

Verity and Loki had moved in together for two reasons.

1) Loki spent most of his time at Verity’s. He had a separate shelf in her fridge for his energy drinks and his salsa, and a special place at the bottom of her spice cupboard for his snacks. He told Verity she had full ownership over all the snacks and could have them when he’d left, but she never did. Instead she got the little clip things she used and pinched the bags closed carefully, putting them to the side for the next time he came over. It was thoughtful, and Loki didn’t know what to do with it, so he never mentioned it. He got bored quite easily anyway, and most of his ‘friends’ had a very limited tolerance of him, so most days he found himself on Verity’s couch, playing Uno and eating Oreos.

2) Verity’s flat was bad and small and Loki’s was perfect and expensive, and if he spent all his time with Verity, they may as well hang out in his sketchily acquired penthouse. Plus, paying her rent made him feel useful. It was like a payment for all the little clips on his packets of Doritos.

He didn’t regret it. Except he thought that perhaps he might be as close as he could get to regretting it as he lay in bed listening to her pounding viciously at his door.

“Are you alive?” she yelled through the mahogany. He groaned just loudly enough to be heard, and she banged one more time for good measure before her footsteps quickly petered off towards the kitchen.

He sighed in frustration, rolling off his bed with just enough basic athletic ability to land on his feet. His vision blacked out for just a second, and his head very much rejected the idea of being on his feet. Had he shifted through space while drunk? That was so dangerous. He should have gotten like, a driving ticket. A magic driving ticket.

He stumbled into the kitchen and stared blearily at Verity. “What are you cooking?” he mumbled.

“Eggs,” she replied without turning. “Want some?”

“Hmm.” He stares at the clock. One in the afternoon? That wasn’t too bad. Verity must have just gotten in from work though, which made him feel bad. Oh, how he missed the days when he had no shame and also no friends. “No thanks, I don’t want to throw up.”

“I thought alcohol didn’t affect you?”

“Human alcohol doesn’t.” He sat down on one of the tall swivel chairs at their counter and spun around. Ow, oh fuck, that wasn’t a good idea. He grimaced and placed his pounding head in his hands. “Lorelei and I spiked our drinks with something we got from Asgard.”

“Huh.” Verity sat opposite him, eggs piled onto the plate she set down in front of her. She’d cooked the yokes, the heathen. “Did you have a good time?”

Loki stared at her. “I feel like I’m being interrogated by my mother.”

“Oh honey,” she teased, grinning through a mouthful of eggs. “Oh sweetie. Wear protection!”

Loki dramatically re-enacted retching, and she choked on her eggs. A just punishment for her crimes, he thought.

“Ew,” he moaned. “I had to see Sigurd’s flat last night. It was disgusting.”

“I wasn’t being serious?” she stared at him. “I didn’t know you actually slept with-”

“Ew, ew, no,” he interrupted. “I was just detailing how he’s far too disgusting to ever consider as a sexual object. I would probably sleep with Lorelei though.”

“As if she’d sleep with you.”

“I’m forever alone!” he cried “Like the meme!”

“If you think referencing memes from 2008 is going to help you get laid-” she got up, pulled the dishwasher open and put her plate in without washing it off. Awful dishwasher etiquette, and Loki was from a place where they washed dishes with magic, so she had no excuse. “-then I think you might be beyond help.”

“I’m waiting for the right person,” he mumbled, squinting in the light streaming in from their egregiously large windows. “Like America. I ship America and myself.”

“America’s a lesbian,” Verity said.

“I’m a woman sometimes!” He got up and opened the fridge. “It’d be perfectly possible if she could tolerate me.”

“Which she can’t.”

“Yeah,” Loki said in faux-disappointment. “Ergo, forever alone, I’m mister lonely, involuntarily celibate, and sent to the friendzone.”

He shut the fridge, no bacon in sight, and stared at the front of it trying to consider his next move. He could head down to the store, but also he couldn’t, because he couldn’t imagine bringing himself to put on something other than the shorts he was currently in that said ‘BAD WITCH’ in bright green, metallic lettering on the back (a gift from Kate) and also he was pretty certain a drink had been poured on him the night before, judging by the smell of lager and the way his fringe had congealed into a hard point overnight. He wasn’t in any fit state to walk down the street. He had standards to maintain.

Yes, he was an illusionist, but he was a hungover illusionist with a headache, thus he opened up DoorDash and ordered McDonald’s.

“Vee?” he called down the hall. “Do you want anything from McDonald’s?”

“Ew,” she called back. “No.”

He placed his order and looked back up at the fridge. They had a shared calendar printed out on that kind of slippy photo paper so they could use whiteboard markers on it and make sure to not double book having people over. Last time it had happened, Verity’s cousin had to top-and-tail with Thor on the couch, which was a weird experience for everyone, but mostly for Daniel. Currently, the calendar was pretty sparse, since it was early April, but Verity had written something in for Sunday. ‘Easter - Mom’s House’.

He stared at it, confused. He didn’t turn when he heard Verity’s feet pattering back into the kitchen. “Hey, I didn’t know you were religious.”

“Huh?” Verity had flopped onto the couch and was fiddling with the remote control, probably trying to turn on Dr Phil. “Not really, what do you mean?”

“You’re going to your Mum’s for Easter?”

“Oh I guess.” The Judge Judy theme song streamed from the TV. Loki stood corrected. “I don’t believe in it or anything. It’s just tradition.”

“Huh.” He glanced out onto the street. It was lively. They were in pretty central Manhattan, and usually when you looked onto the road it was hard to see a part of the path that wasn’t covered in black throngs of city goers. He sometimes wondered where they were going, had they plans, or were they just wandering, aimless and free? Loki had always thought it would be night to wander off and see where his feet would take him if he didn’t walk with direction or intention. “Had an interesting conversation last night.”

“Yeah?” Verity responded mindlessly, staring at the TV.

“About religion. With a girl in the smoking area.”

“Dude.” Verity leaned over, effortlessly butch. “Conversations about religion in a smoking area? I’m putting my foot down. Either you download Grindr or find a therapist.”

“Both of those options are severely limited by the fact that I am a divine being and a world renowned criminal,” he replied. “Do you think guys on Grindr are into my evil vibes, actually?”

“Guys on Grindr are definitely into your evil vibes.”

“Thanks Verity,” he said, turning and heading towards the door. “You always have my back. Maybe I’ll find a bae after all.”

He grinned at her sounds of indignation and headed to his room to sleep his headache away.

Loki had always been rather a superior child. He had no need for childish matters of ‘bravery’ and ‘heroics’, instead favouring his intellect and insight. His mother said he was a bright young man, thank you. So he cared little about Thor informing him he was too small and weak to spar with him and his friends. However, he had in return let Thor know that he would be instead spending some time with his very close friends, who Thor did not have an acquaintance with and who thought Loki was very cool and interesting indeed. Thus, appearances had to be upheld.

He peered around the corner of the great, awning entrance to the Bifröst control room. Lord Heimdall had his back turned, but Loki was not a fool. A child, but not a fool.

“Your Highness,” the Watcher called out, turning to face him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He inched forward, the tips of his fingers trailing the chilly gold-plated walls of the gate. “I was bored,” he lied.

“Very well.” Heimdall set down the Key and sat heavily down onto its platform. “Would you be able to keep me company during my break?”

Loki lifted his chin, glanced around himself and headed to sit beside him. “I suppose I can grace you with my presence, for some time at least.”

“Have you a full schedule, your Highness?”

Anger and indignation built in his chest. Loki whipped around and scowled at him. “I’m very busy.”

Heimdall’s playful expression sunk with practiced ease into something serious. “My apologies. Of course you are, my prince.”

Loki crossed his arms. He knew that Lord Heimdall knew all his business, all of everyone’s business, but it struck him like a spear to his chest to have been mocked over his… lack of desirability. How dare he? Loki may be a boy, but he was his prince. It was not Heimdall’s place to mock him.

He struggled to think of something dignified to reply, and the pressure of the silence between them built into a garotte that tightened around his neck. He daren’t look at Heimdall, imagining a mocking grin staring down at him. It was unlikely, and would be utterly out of place on the man’s face, but Loki would rather avoid the possibility altogether.

“How is your brother, your Highness?” Heimdall said to break the silence.

In a fit of rage, Loki slammed his palm against the platform. His eyes watered with the pain of it. “Why does everyone only care about what Thor is doing? How Thor is? I am not a vessel through which people may be updated about my brother’s status!”

In his anger he’d turned to glare at Heimdall, and was horrified to find the man’s face transformed by pity. Loki scowled in disgust, and stared at the wall in the opposite direction.

“I did not mean to imply anything as such, your Highness,” Heimdall explained carefully. “I merely asked out of having nothing else very interesting to say. Perhaps I should have asked how you are?”

Loki hesitated, glanced back up. “I’m well,” he mumbled shortly.

“That’s good to hear,” Heimdall replied, staring ahead, out the gates and down the Bifröst. Loki wondered if he saw that which lay in front of him with more clarity, or if what his tangible eyes caught was nothing different to everything else he saw. “Is there anything in particular you would like to speak about?”

Loki was silent for a moment. A topic had been weighing on his mind, one he hesitated to bring to his mother. A heavy topic indeed. “Heimdall?” he asked. “Why am I destined to be a monster?”

It had been a burden to bear, acknowledging what was written upon the tapestries spun deep in Nornheim. When mother had first told him of his destiny years ago, it had seemed like a childhood game, but everyday the gravity of his situation held him just a little firmer to the ground. All has its place, his mother had told him, and your place is important. It is against you that others will shine.

It coloured everything he did, and how others treated him. Thor still loved him as a brother, but everyday his pride in his own journey grew and Loki could only stand and watch as he looked on his brother with a little more suspicion, held him at a slightly further distance. Loki’s cruelty had been encouraged, not in a direct way, but in the ways in which his parents and carers were cruel towards him. Like a knife being sharpened.

Heimdall did not move. “Everything has its duty. Our world is not much but an elaborate play, and we act according to our roles so that the other realms may live in our image.”

“But why me?” Loki pressed. “Why can’t I be the hero?”

Neither mentioned what lay between them. A man and a child and a destiny for two corpses, having slain one another, to lie in the middle of their world as it burned.

“I’m sorry, my prince,” Heimdall said quietly. “Perhaps take some relief in the fact that you needn’t worry over who you will be. The Midgardians in particular struggle with virtue.”

“Really?” Loki muttered, head in his hands. “Isn’t it very freeing for them?”

“Not as such,” he replied. “In return for their agency, they are burdened with the duty to be ever kind and charitable to one another, or be damned for their failure to do so. It's simpler for us. Our fate is predetermined, and while you may be the villain, you are doing your duty as such and can rest easy knowing that it is a moral and just thing for you to be.”

Loki was silent for a second, staring morosely ahead. “But I don’t want to be the villain.”

“I’m sorry, Prince Loki,” Heimdall replied, resting a hand on his shoulder. “But the tapestries have already been spun.”

The Allmothers, in their omnipowetful ability to be incredibly annoying, always called him when he was in the middle of doing things. In this case, a lovely girl named Amelia who had told him he looked like Timotheé Chalamet.

She screamed, causing Loki to whip around with a curse only to find Gaia staring at him through his mirror, disgust on her face and her right eye covered by Loki’s Blondie postcard that Verity had bought him from some emo shop.

Gritting his teeth, he looked down at Amelia, who seemed to be sinking into some form of shock. “Oh man,” he said. “I’m so fucking sorry. Uh, I kind of have to take this. Another time maybe?”

She looked up at him in speechless horror before turning quickly and climbing out from under him. Before he could even look up at her he heard the slam of the door. He glanced up. Huh, at least she’d taken her shirt with her. Loki was a feminist after all.

With a sigh, he turned to face Gaia. “My Lady!” He greeted with gritted teeth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She held his gaze for a few awkward seconds.

“Okay,” he said. “I would say, if anything it’s your fault that you decided to just turn up in my mirror without any prior warning. Really? You can’t expect me to be celibate. I’m Loki.”

She graced him with a performatively regal sigh and a significantly less regal eye roll. “The Allmothers have a task for you to complete, Loki.”

“Don’t you always?” He grumbled, pulling a hoodie on to cover up some of his nudity. Amelia may have only lost a shirt, but Loki was already down to his boxers. He was a feminist, after all.

“There is a great treasure in the belonging of one of our own, one who dwells in the realm of Midgard.”

“In English?”

The Allmother paused. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Your first language is the tongue of Jötunheim.”

“It’s just a-, it’s just a phrase, okay? Anyway, can you get to the crux of it? I was busy.”

“You aren’t busy anymore.”

He threw his arms out dramatically, making sure his irritation was painted clear on his face. “Thanks for that, by the way!”

“We would like-,” she continued, gathering her composure. “-for you to retrieve the ancient sword, Gram. It’s power is too great for us to allow it to remain out of our grasp. We have waited too long already, and time is of the essence.”

“Gram?” Loki asked. “You mean Sigurd’s sword?”

“The legendary sword Gram does indeed lie in the hands of the hero Sigurd-”

“But Sig loves his sword,” he interrupted. “He’s going to hate me if I take it for you. That’s narc behaviour.”

“This is your duty, Prince Loki, to your people,” Gaia said sternly. “You are, and have always been, a narc.”

“Hey, fuck you-”

She was gone in the next second, and Loki was left staring at his face in the mirror, and the way the skin underneath his eyes was grey and sunken, which made his eyes pop in a sort of consumption-chic. He looked a bit like Maleficent, he thought in an attempt to distract himself from the dread of the task that now lay before him and the inevitable broken friendship (he didn’t have many to break left).

But without all the milf energy. Loki didn’t have any milf energy, which was probably the source of most of his problems

Often, Loki found the easiest way to avoid all of his issues was to pretend he was a funny, quirky little guy living a funny, quirky little life. Oh Loki, he’s the token evil teammate, the funny comic relief in stories about other people, relegated to side character (but hot enough that all the fan art and fic was going to centre him). This allowed him to get away with his faults, which were many and numerous, by playing them off as the work of that darned scamp, Loki. This situation however, was one that worried Loki, as Sigurd was nothing if he wasn’t two things; 1) absolutely unenamoured by Loki and everything Loki had going for himself, and 2) in love with that fucking sword.

Loki sat down cross-legged on his bed and contemplated the choices he could make here. He could take the sword, and try to manipulate the situation to make Sigurd look like he was overreacting. Take the sword to the flat and mess around while he showed it to Verity. But, he knew, Verity wouldn’t play along, because her moral compass was ever on the straight and narrow and anyway, she’d know he was lying.

Lorelei would side with Sigurd over him, because she didn’t trust the Asgardian establishment and they all knew that the tentative little bit of control that let them languish in something resembling a real life on Midgard rested on Sigurd having enough power that Asgardia would rather leave him alone than bother. Losing Gram would put that in jeopardy, and Lorelei wouldn’t trade a shoelace for Loki, nevermind her happy ending. He knew well enough that this theft would be unjust, would put all of the power into the hands of the already powerful. He knew this, and he knew that Sig and Lorelei? Wouldn’t hurt a fly, really. For all the three of them pretended to hate each other, Loki knew they were good people, and they just wanted to live their lives in peace.

He could simply refuse. Not take the sword, let the Allmothers deal with it some other way. He could say it was above his pay grade, which it was.

Except, he couldn’t. Not really. He had duties that Sigurd and Lorelei couldn’t possibly understand. That idea couldn’t push its way forward from the back of his mind, as if constrained by something, writhing back and forth to break free. Or was it? Or was that an excuse, a claim to someone that he was trying, still, to do the right thing, and that it wasn’t his fault when he failed to.

He sighed, and stood up. His wardrobe was a mess, but it was an organised mess, and anyway it was a bright, sunny day outside and he could find his dragon scale armour easily from the way it glinted in the light at the back of his slogan t-shirts.

Sig had moved all the dirty washing from his desk chair. Loki didn’t have high hopes that it was for any reason other than playing PC games though. Sig was really into, like, Call of Duty and Halo. Were they PC? Loki didn’t know. He preferred superior gaming experiences, like Professor Layton.

Lo and behold, Loki found the mysteriously disappeared dirty clothing on Sig’s couch. For a guy whose feats and adventures were written down in legend, he really had some drab taste in furnishings.

Loki moved silently through the flat, letting just a little bit of his seidr seep into his steps to cushion the noise. He didn’t turn on any lights, instead relying on a little bit of patience to let his eyes adjust to the dark. His Jotunn heritage, dare he say it, came in handy at times like this due to the Jotnär having pretty decent night vision. This was in order to do crimes and eat children, his nursemaid had informed him when he was small. Well, Loki was doing crimes, but the jury was out on the eating children bit.

Loki was an expert catburglar, tales of his stealthiness were scribbled on the walls of ancient Midgardian caves, the remnants of long extinct societies, all of which he had outlived. Thus, he cleverly noticed the Guitar Hero™ plastic guitar and stepped over it.

Loki knew one thing about Sigurd. He was paranoid. Thus, Loki had a suspicion about where he would put Gram, and if he was correct he knew this job wouldn’t be easy.

He eased open the bedroom door, and watched as the hero of the stories he had been told as a babe snored while laying on his front. Huh, great ass.

Loki mentally smacked himself. Bad!

His attention was then quickly snatched by the gleaming sword that lay against the left bedpost. Ding ding, we have a winner! Sigurd both expected his sword to be stolen and expected to have to fight off home invaders, and so he kept his greatest asset (other than his ass) right next to him in his most vulnerable times. Loki was his worst nightmare, well usually, but even more so at this moment.

He crept forward, stepping carefully over strewn clothes. Wait, was that Lorelei’s blouse? Ugh, he didn’t want to think about that. He’d much rather they remain entirely celibate in his mind.

Loki crept closer, and reached out to grasp the hilt of the sword silently.

“...What the fuck? Loki?”

He should have run, probably. Teleported, gone invisible, maybe should have even jumped through the window. That might have thrown Sigurd off the scent right? Prince Loki, God of Trickery and Harbinger of Ragnarök wouldn’t have just leapt through a window. Well, the window was seventeen floors up actually, so maybe a regular burglar wouldn’t have either.

Anyway, what happened was he stood stock still, unable to move a muscle or turn to face Sigurd, as if he were labouring under the delusion that Sigurd was a creature that tracked prey by movement. He looked like something out of Looney Tunes, which wasn’t fantastic for his dignity.

“Loki,” Sigurd snapped again.

He turned, and winced at the look of outrage on his friend’s face. Sigurd was sat up on his elbow, his other arm on his comforter. He looked like he was ready to attack someone. Loki was pretty sure he hadn’t expected it to be - well, Loki.

“What the fuck were you doing?” he said. “Were you stealing Gram? Why? For who?”

Ouch, that hurt. He may have been stealing it for someone else, but it was a bit upsetting that Sigurd had immediately disregarded the idea he was working in his own interest.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. “The Allmothers send their regards,” he finally admitted drily.

If anything, Sigurd’s outrage grew. “How- How could you?”

A bit dramatic, Loki thought. Sigurd leapt out of his bed, and Loki didn’t have the chance to step back before his shoulders were in Sigurd’s bruising grip and his back pushed hard against the wall. “You know what this means,” Sigurd said, his disgust evident. “You aren’t stupid, Loki. You know what you’re doing.”

Oh, that was it, wasn’t it? Loki wasn’t evil because he did evil things. He was evil because he knew they were wrong before he did them, and he did them anyway.

“I have to,” he mumbled weakly. Was that a lie? Verity would know. “I have no choice.”

“Yes you do,” Sigurd said, releasing his grip and stepping back, “Yes you do, you’re just too much of a coward to admit it. You’re so desperate to play happy families. I can see it in you, and so can Lorelei. All you want is to be useful to people, even if it’s for the Allmothers, who treat you like shit. You do their fucking dirty work and they kick you around and you love it, because you get to be part of their rotten little story.”

Loki stared at him, suddenly feeling utterly, entirely tired beyond belief. Sigurd could not tell him anything that he did not tell himself.

“You’re a coward. You’re a fucking coward who does everything the Allmothers ask of you. One moment you sneer at them up there, in Asgard, and pretend that you and me and Lorelei are all in the same boat, but the next moment you bare your neck to them. One day they’re going to ask you to hurt someone you really care about, and you know what? You’ll do it. They’ll ask you to hurt Thor, or Verity, and you’ll do it without a second thought because you’re a coward, Loki, and you always will be.”

His breath caught in his throat. “I wouldn’t hurt Verity.”

“Yes, you would. If someone put it on a tapestry you’d do it in a fucking heartbeat.”

“I see, well,” he paused, looked to his right to avoid Sigurd’s gaze. “I’ll let you get back to sleep I suppose.”

Sigurd reached out to grab him, but he was gone before he had a chance.

—

Received FRI 2:08

Verity: hey u coming back tonight or what

Verity: im assuming ur working

Verity: if u are there’s leftover pasta bake in the fridge. Ik you hate leftovers but its on offer. Im off to bed, night!

Received FRI 11:02

Verity: hey called lorelei to check in on you and she says you and sig aren’t talking. She didnt seem thrilled w you either. U ok?

Verity: call me if you get the chance ok

Received MON 15:47

Verity: yh ok this is cringe but please call. Im worried

Verity: you usually lmk when youre gone this long and sig was being suspicious

Verity: i asked him if hed seen you and he like laughed

Verity: idk maybe hed be more concerned if something had happened but u guys dont exactly have a normal expectation for health and safety in the workplace

Received WED 23:21

Verity: please call i’m worried

Verity: please

Received THU 18:54

Verity: you’re a fucking idiot

Verity: I hate you

Received THU 19:02

Verity: i didn’t mean that

Verity: sorry.

Verity: please do call. please

Verity wasn’t the only one texting him, which would have done wonders for his ego if it had been anywhere near still intact, but she was the only one who’s texts he kept re reading, scanning them obsessively and trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing.

The thing that nagged him though, was how would he know what the right thing was?

All his life, the right thing was whatever was in stride with where he was determined to end up. The path had been laid out for him - all he had to do was walk it. But, though the Norns had written out his beginning, his end, his great misdeeds and stories, they hadn’t written about things like whether he should get KFC or not, whether he’d be good at Mario Party or what dog breed was his favourite (alsatian). They had never had the name Verity Lewis brush their lips.

Because this world was untethered. It simply wasn’t important enough for the Norns to have seen. Did that mean that they were free, here? Was that bad or good? To Loki, who despite everything had spent an eternity comfortable in the knowledge that he knew what would happen, and that the future was clear to him as long as he could stand in the halls he’d grown up in and stare at the tapestries on the walls, the idea of absolute undetermined fate was deeply terrifying. It caught in his throat, wrapped around his heart, squeezed the warmth out of his chest.

But Sigurd was right, and so he had a decision to make.

There were people walking around under him, where he sat perched on the roof of a Soviet era apartment building in Brno. They didn’t know what would happen to them, how many kids they’d have, whether they’d marry or how they’d die. They didn’t know any of that, and that meant they could decide.

Huh.

He stumbled when he flashed in, and his hand reached out steady himself against the wall. The lights were off, but after a couple of seconds he heard a slight clutter from Verity’s room. Taking a deep breath he made his way to the kitchen and sat down at the bar. He didn’t bother to switch the light on, instead just collapsed into the chair and placed his head in his hands.

The lights switched on. “Loki?”

He peeked at her from between his fingers. Verity stared at him as if she couldn’t quite decide whether to be angry or happy. She was squinting (she wasn’t wearing glasses - she must have been asleep). He must have looked suitably miserable because instead of launching into a tirade she narrowed her eyes and slowly moved to sit opposite him, as if trying to tame some vicious creature. Apt, perhaps.

Their silence hung very heavily. “I’m sorry,” Loki eventually said, mortified to hear a crack in his voice from disuse.

She watched him carefully. “I forgive you,” she replied. Not ‘it’s okay’, because Verity found lying, even unconsciously, very difficult. “Can you tell me what’s up?”

By ‘can’, Loki knew that Verity was asking as if this was something related to his work for the Allmothers, but he found that even though this wasn’t any secret mission detail he was forbidden from sharing, he still found it hard to describe.

“I mean,” he muttered, breaking away from her stare. “Where would you like me to start?”

“Wherever you want to?”

He swallowed. “I had to steal something from Sigurd. Gram-” She opened her mouth and he jerked his shoulders defensively. “Please let me just explain. The Allmothers asked me too. I knew that if I did it it would put Sig and Lorelei’s relative safety at a significant risk. But,” he paused, bit his lip, horrified by the lump in his throat. “Even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and that all of you, all of my friends, would think less of me because of it, I had to do it. I had to do it because if I don’t do things that are wrong, that are bad, I am not filling the role that I am set out to fill, that I have always been set out to fill.

“There are tapestries, in Asgard,” he explained, a wobble entering his tone. “They’ve been there since before me, before my parents, before anyone. They were woven by the Norns, who see all of the past, the present and the future. They were woven so that we, who will be images of all the people of the Nine Realms and who will serve as a reflection of their large and varied communion, could know where we fit and what roles we are to play. And I’m a villain, Verity. I am the bad guy, because someone has got to be. There are people who actively choose to be bad and evil and selfish all over the shop, and someone has to represent them in the grand scheme of things. And, mainly, I have to keep everyone’s hands clean by making mine dirty.”

Her hands reached steadily out, grabbed one of his and held it between them. They were tears threatening to fall now, and they choked up his voice.

“So I do what the Allmothers ask me to, and I antagonise Thor, and I play my part as the bad guy of the story so that one day that story may be told to children as they are tucked into bed, so that they know that immorality causes you nothing but strife. I am supposed to have that strife, and through this my immorality is good and right, because I am an example.”

He paused. “Sigurd said I would hurt you, if they asked me to.”

“Would you?” she asked.

A second passed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d rather not risk it, but I thought you at least deserved an explanation for my sudden disappearance.”

She leaned back then, stared out their windows and onto the road beneath them, still busy despite the hour. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Dare I ask?” he chuckled wetly.

Her voice was firm. “I think that’s bullshit. I know you’re telling the truth, that you might hurt me if your Moms asked you. But I think you don’t know that that’s not true, which is why it’s registering as right to me.”

He squinted at her in confusion.

“You believe it,” she explained. “Which is why it’s registering as true to me. But that doesn’t mean you would, it just means you don’t think you’re a good person, and that’s not news.

“You see yourself as some kind of cut-out character with one trait, a yin to Thor’s yang or some shit, but you only think that’s all real because people have told you it is. Who’s to say those tapestries are anything? I think that you - all of you Asgardians - are terrified of being unmoored, so you make up shit like this so that you don’t have to grapple with morality.”

He tried to interrupt, but Verity continued. “You’re all terrified of life, so you pretend it’s one big play you’re putting on for our benefit, with roles and lines so that you needn’t make ‘em up. But you know what? Why don’t you just try? Try to improvise. Break away from it all. Maybe those tapestries do mean something, but maybe they just come true because you all keep doing what they say.

“You’re not the bad guy in a play, Loki,” she told him, her voice full of emotion and her hand rubbing his. It was just enough to keep him tethered to reality, he thought. “You’re my friend. You’re funny, and flippant. You don’t like to talk about your emotions. You don’t have great self-esteem and you kick ass at Jenga. You’re playing a part, but you know the thing about actors? They have lives when they get off the stage, and you could too.”

His boots echoed across the ground as he climbed the short hill to his destination. It was dust, not dirt, that he trod on, and the air was stale and cloyed in his lungs. It was the kind of air that felt like it didn’t blow, but just hung in the air for eternity, older than you by indescribable amounts.

No one went here. It was unplottable by some working laid down long before even the beginning of Asgardian history. It had taken Loki four days to crack, because 1) he’d spent all of his non-eating, non-sleeping time in the last couple of days focused on it, 2) he’d already made a groundwork as a teenager before his mother had told him off for meddling in things he shouldn’t have been and 3) he was pretty fucking good. Really, the only reason he hadn’t touched it before was because as he became a man, he grew to respect the Norns. Things had changed.

“Hello!” he called, not surprised to find the three women staring at him, likely well aware of his arrival for at least eternity, or something.

“Liesmith,” Lady Verdandi spoke in a low, powerful voice. “You have come to rattle the chains that you feel resting upon your shoulders.”

“Yep,” he responded, popping the ‘p’.

“These chains,” Skuld said in a tight voice. “Are imaginary.”

“No actually,” he said, beginning to pace around the room. “You see, I don’t really care if they’re ‘imaginary’ or whatever. I actually am just here to let you know that I’m just going to be kind of doing my own thing from now on.”

“Your ‘own thing’?” Urd sneered. “ You do not have your ‘own thing’. The fate we have laid out for you is everything you are.”

“Everything I am is just a mask. A mask that you put on me!”

“Oh? That implies something on which a mask can be put. Is there anything under your mask, Loki? Do you even know?”

“Well, I guess I’m going to find out,” he ground out. They were sat down, staring up at him, and he felt unnervingly like he was still a child who had been summoned to his father’s study to receive an admonishment for troublemaking.

“You will find out,” Verdandi explained calmly. “That you are mistaken, and that you will play your part in the fate that will become and will end and will begin again, whether you try to fight against it or not.”

“So that’s it then?” Loki said softly, although his voice still echoed across the ancient walls that enclosed him. “There’s no path to grace for me. I’m your villainous fool, cast in this grand play so that your heroes may show their virtue in my vanquishment. I’m good when I’m bad, and I’m bad when I’m good.”

He paused, and stared her down.

“Well, I’m afraid I’d rather be bad on my own terms, actually.”

Verdandi had opened her mouth to say something else, probably something even more patronising, but before she had the chance Loki had stepped between reality and left Nornheim and its frigid, stale air behind him.

“Saw you coming,” the Watcher said when Loki stepped out in front of him.

Loki smiled. “Naturally,”

Heimdall sat tiredly on the Bifröst’s lock. Loki noticed with a sort of jolt that Heimdall was getting old. Maybe they all were. “What is it you would like from me, my prince?”

“Oh nothing really,” he answered. “I just thought I should let someone know that I will be unable to complete the most recent mission that the Allmothers have given me. In fact, perhaps you could let them know that I’m putting in my two week’s notice, so to speak? Although I’m not really giving them any notice, let alone two weeks.”

“Oh? Might I ask what has brought this on, your highness?”

Loki crossed his arms. “I’m trying this new thing called ‘making your own destiny’. All the cool kids are doing it.”

Heimdall nodded. He wouldn’t have been able to have viewed Loki’s conversation with the Norns, but he would have seen what Verity had said. “I wish you luck, dear child,” he said softly.

Loki’s smile turned quiet and genuine for just a moment, before he turned away and took a few steps. Wait! He had something else to mention.

He looked back at Heimdall.

“By the way, maybe I am going to kill you someday,” he said. “”But I promise that I’m going to try my damndest not to.”

With that, he stepped back into New York, and headed towards Dominoes to pick up their pizza. They were doing movie night, he and Verity. They were going to watch Legally Blonde. Loki thought about - What was her name? Susie? Sarah? He thought maybe she was right, in the end. Maybe it was a gift to believe in what can’t be seen, and thus a gift to follow darkened paths. But the path that brought him home felt warm and reliable, just like it always did.

#this is nothing #really its just an attempt to see if i can write something 5k+#so its not good #but hey #loki #loki agent of asgard #agent of asgard #verity lewis #loki fic

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impalementation · 4 years ago

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Hey I wanted to get your opinion on something I've been thinking about for a little while: For me, I see Buffy's jump from the tower in "The Gift" as (partially) an act of suicide as a result of years of trauma but also IMO guilt that she "lives with every day"(courtesy of "Phases") from all of that trauma that she feels like she should've been able to control: Angel's loss of his soul, Jenny Calendar's death etc. but I wish we could've gotten to see more of how that guilt has affected her (1/2)

(2/2) And by that I mean if we had more references to Dr. Gregory and how she liked him or saw Buffy grappling with her complicated grief for Ford, or if season 3 showed her grief for Kendra and how that might've affected her relationship to Faith. All of that just to ask: do you think the show did a good job of portraying Buffy's guilt and trauma from the losses and tragedies she's faced?

i’ll be honest, i don’t actually subscribe to the read of buffy’s sacrifice in “the gift” as suicide. so that’s going to color how i reply. she is, obviously, killing herself. and i know that there’s the context of spike’s death wish speech and buffy saying “i don’t know how to live in the world if these are the choices.” but personally, i think that buffy’s sacrifice is clearly meant to be heroic. i talked in a recent post about how the white light signals that, as well as the fact that it’s contrasted with ben’s cowardly decision to choose himself over dawn when faced with buffy’s same choice. there’s also the fact that dawn is life, or buffy’s youth, or any number of positive things, and her request that dawn “be brave” and “live” is about wanting that life to go on. most importantly, the show as a whole is so hard-line anti-suicide, that it just doesn’t really make sense to me that this scene that is clearly meant to be a positive, heroic (even if tragic for the audience) moment for buffy would be intended to be read as an act of suicide. like i mention in that post i linked, we even have the contrasting example of buffy in “dead things” for what it looks like when buffy is trying to figuratively sacrifice herself out of guilt. and the show doesn’t frame her actions in that episode as positive at all. (sympathetic, absolutely. but not really the “right” thing to do either.)

keep in mind that when spike says that “sooner or later” buffy’s “going to want” death, he has been unreliably narrating all evening. when buffy jumps, i don’t see her as fulfilling spike’s prediction straight. i see her as fulfilling it ironically, like a prophecy that comes to pass in the letter but not the spirit. in that moment, buffy does technically want kill herself, but not to die, or for any of the reasons spike gave. she wants to do it because it means that her sister gets to live. and she has been terrified all season that this would not be possible. similarly, when buffy says “she doesn’t know how to live in this world” i don’t see it as much about buffy not wanting to live but about buffy not wanting to live in this world. as in, the problem is the world. but when she jumps from the tower, she’s figured out a choice that she is finally content with (“tell giles i’ve figured it out”). a choice that allows dawn, and all of her friends, to keep (a) living, and (b) in this world. in other words, it’s a moment decidedly in favor of life.

symbolically, there’s also the fact that buffy’s leap into the portal is (in my read) about her leaping into the portal of adulthood. and then season six about the rude awakening of realizing that adulthood isn’t just about a single easy leap. which means that her death isn’t really about literal death. it’s about leaving childhood behind. which is sad and painful in its way, but still ultimately something that the show thinks is good and important and even heroic to do.

however. that said. i do think the show addresses some of what you’re talking about. if you’re looking for a season that’s about buffy’s accumulated guilt over her inability to save people, i think the season you’re actually looking for is season seven. season seven puts buffy in a pressure cooker where over and over she’s confronted with the fact that she can’t save everyone. “lessons” has dead spirits come to life who taunt her for not saving them:

BUFFY: Dawn? I'm close by.

DEAD JANITOR: Too late. But then, you're always too late, aren't you? Sure as hell didn't save me.

“help” has buffy trying to save cassie, who dies no matter how much buffy tries to fight it. “selfless” revisits buffy’s history of having to kill angel, and any other friend who becomes evil. “conversations with dead people” forces buffy to kill a former classmate/temporary confidant (shades of having to kill ford in “lie to me”). “sleeper” puts buffy in the position of potentially having to kill spike too, and when he gets kidnapped she may or may not be able to save him. when the ubervamp shows up, buffy’s ability to protect the potentials gets thrown into question. and that uncertainly only becomes more intense as the season goes on. obviously, season seven doesn’t really address much in the way of specific past trauma or guilt for buffy. it doesn’t reference those people you reference. but it does absolutely address the way that being the slayer has put buffy in this awful position where people are always dying, and it feels like her fault—sometimes because she literally has to kill them. which the season does because it’s trying to show that the solitary slayer mantle is a messed up, unjust system. it’s messed up that buffy should have to shoulder this guilt, especially alone.

so i mean, on the whole, yeah. i think the show does gloss over a lot of specific traumas. but in other ways it really doesn’t. "when she was bad” and “anne” and early season three clearly address how the end of the previous season affected buffy. and i don’t think it can be understated how insane it is that the show had buffy be depressed for literally an entire season. and even before that, buffy’s grief over joyce informs the back half of season five. i think it’s also clearly established that buffy represses like crazy, so it’s actually quite in-character to me that most of the time she glosses over the things that are hard for her--except those times when it cracks open. could the show have shown more? yeah, probably. and probably some of what it decided to show was affected by biases about what the writers thought of as important, or them just not wanting to be doom and gloom all the time. but on the whole what the show did show mostly worked for me.

this is all me though, of course! if you feel differently, that’s completely understandable, and definitely don’t let me stop you.

#thank you for the message!#even though i disagreed somewhat it's 100% not a knock on you or the question #it's an interesting thing to think about

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fizzyxcustard · 4 years ago

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Fear and Loathing (5)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

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Fandom: seaQuest 2032

Summary: (Part 2 of The Right Thing - this will be a chaptered fic) Captain Hudson knows that you and Lucas are more than just friends, and after changing your shift rotations to make sure you’re not on duty together, you take things into your own hands and request a transfer from seaQuest. Before your transfer can be processed, officers and crew begin showing signs of extreme anxiety, anger and paranoia. Some are worse affected than others, you being one of them. Can you fight for not only your relationship with Lucas but your state of mind?

Pairings: Ensign Lucas Wolenczak x FemLieutenant!Reader, Commander Jonathan Ford x Lieutenant Lonnie Henderson (only slight)

Warnings: Language, violence, insecurity, angst, paranoia, anxiety, mental instability, very mild sexual references/smut mention, age difference/gap.

Comments: If you wish to be added to my seaQuest tag list, which will be separate from all my other tags, let me know, and I will only tag you in these if you specifically request to be tagged. This is practically a dead fandom now, but I would still like to share my writings with you. If you would like to ask any questions, then by all means just ask! People are probably wondering why I’m still continuing this fic when it gets so little feedback, but it’s purely because I enjoy writing it. It’d a pleasure to be reminiscing in old times.

You lay awake, crying. It was a week after your first panic attack. The doctor had been forced to begin turning crew away from the Med Bay to treat them in other areas of the boat, such as the mess hall and gymnasium. Because you were one of the first to show symptoms of this virus, the doctor made sure that you remained close by in the Med Bay so he could test you daily. You were the ‘ground zero’ case. Over the last week and you had seen panic attacks, seizures and complete mental breakdowns of crew. There had been fights, screaming and paranoia. It was clawing at you from the inside, the screams and bellows; even when things were silent, you could still hear it all ringing in your ears. Life in the military had been an enormous life change and exciting experience, but now there was a small part of you which was starting to regret enlisting. No bad experience in your life had come close to the last week.

Fredricks suddenly began to cry out in her sleep again, tossing and turning. Her blanket was flung onto the floor and the bed beneath her creaked. You knew you couldn’t stand this any longer. With tears still falling down your cheeks, you got up and ventured out into the emptiness of the corridor. It was always eerily quiet during the witching hours. With only a very bare minimum crew working, everyone else was either sedated or could control themselves enough to remain quiet. Your heartbeat quickened and you breathed deep. Whilst you held each breath in your lungs for a few seconds, you thought of Lucas. Your mind may have been working against you, turning your whole body into a ticking bomb, but you were adamant you would re-gain control of yourself again.

Once you had reached your quarters, you turned the large, round lock and stepped inside. To your surprise, you found Lucas curled up on your bed. His eyes snapped open and he jumped.

“I’m sorry,” you exclaimed, holding out your hand for emphasis. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Lucas whispered your name and bolted from the bed towards you, his hands immediately cupping your cheeks. He looked down at you with so much happiness and contentment in his eyes. “I love you,” he told you. “I just like being close to you at night.”

You both kissed for a few seconds and then sank in each other’s arms. Being in Lucas’ arms calmed you, and you sighed. His body was warm, comfortable, protective. “What are you doing up?” he asked, his voice muffled slightly as he kissed your neck, the two of you still locked in an embrace.

“I can’t stand being in there, Lucas. Freddie cries and screams every night. The two engineers opposite me were shouting at each other again this afternoon, and I just can’t take anymore of this. How are you feeling?”

Lucas smiled as he drew from the embrace and looked upon you. Even when you were struggling mentally, you still put him first. “Don’t worry about me. You need to go back to the Med Bay. The doctor can keep check on you in case you have a seizure or panic attack again.”

“I’m prodded with needles every morning. He’s constantly taking my blood pressure and…” you broke down and wept. “I want to go home, Lucas. I can’t stand being here anymore. I feel like I’m going to die and I’ll never see my family again before the end….”

“Shhh,” Lucas whispered, taking you into his arms again. He gently took you over to your bed and wrapped the quilt around you. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. Do you trust me?”

Through watery eyes, you looked up at your boyfriend. “You know I do.”

“Then trust me when I say that I’ll keep you safe. We’re all being taken to a hospital in twenty-four hours, and I’ll stay right beside you. I will never leave your side.”

You shook in Lucas’ arms.

He held you all night.

When you finally woke, you heard someone shouting, “She’s in here!” Commander Ford stormed into your quarters, terrifying you.

“What are you doing, Lieutenant? You were meant to remain in Med Bay,” Ford told you.

Lucas woke with a start and glared at Ford. “Give her a break, Commander,” he growled. “She can’t take it being cooped up in there.”

“No, Lucas. He’s right. I should have stayed in the Med Bay,” you said, getting to your feet to look at the Commander. “I just needed time away last night. It was getting unbearable being in there, and I wanted something more personal. I wanted to be back in my own bed.”

The doctor walked into your quarters, standing behind Commander Ford.

“Lucas, you should leave now,” Ford ordered. “You don’t want the Captain to know about this.”

“I was looking after her, Commander. She was terrified,” Lucas countered.

“Ensign, I understand that, but I’m ordering you to leave this room now. This isn’t up for debate.”

“Lucas, please. If Captain Hudson finds out…Thank you, Commander,” you said softly.

You sighed as you sat down on the empty bed in the Med Bay, where you had been housed the last week. The blanket was still tossed aside and a large dent in the pillow where your head had lain. Fredricks was still asleep in her bed next to yours, and for once she actually looked peaceful.

The doctor left the Med Bay about an hour later after completing his round of everyone there, and moved to the other make shift medical rooms. As he left, Dagwood walked in, mopping the floor.

“No point doing that. We’re all being moved out at 12:00 hours,” the engineer opposite you spat. He glared at Dagwood in sheer distain.

“What is your problem?” you hissed. “He’s only doing his job, more than can be said for you!”

Dagwood stopped mopping and looked between you and the engineer, his dark eyes bright with confusion and nervousness. “Dagwood is only doing what he normally does. Captain Hudson lets me clean.”

“And you keep on cleaning, Dagwood,” you reassured with a smile. “He can leave if he has a problem.”

“You fucking…” the engineer began, jumping from his bed.

In that moment, you felt your adrenaline rush through you, and you lunged out of bed, coming almost eye to eye with the engineer. “Go on, big man,” you growled. “Do it!” The engineer wasn’t a particularly large man, certainly not Dagwood’s size. He was taller than you by a few inches, but a little scrawny for working in the Navy and working with tools on a daily basis.

“Don’t fight,” Dagwood said in sadness. “Men don’t hit ladies.”

You scoffed. “I would loosely classify him as a man.”

Where had this sudden surge in anger come from?

The engineer attempted to grab you but was then tossed aside by Dagwood. His small frame was like a mere feather, light, to Dagwood. You glared at the man’s dark, evil stare as he was pinned to the wall by the Dagger.

The adrenaline was still surging, until suddenly you only saw darkness.

You opened your eyes and saw only bright lights. There was the chatter of distant voices on the air and the beeping of medical machines. Everything was pure white, sterile and reminded you of when your grandmother died. Disinfectant was thick on the air. All around you were curtains, which you pulled aside. Next to you was Jim Brody.

“Where are we?” you asked, battling your tired eyes against the blinding lights all around you.

“The main science and medical wing a few miles from the UEO headquarters,” Brody replied.

“Where’s Lucas?” you asked. “Are you okay?”

“Lucas is further down the room. But I think they’ve taken him for an MRI. We’re all going one by one. How are you feeling? You had another seizure,” Brody told you.

“Got a bit of a headache but I feel calm,” you replied.

“Good, you’re awake,” a voice came, muffled. You looked upon someone in a full body suit and protective face mask. You could only just see a pair of eyes staring out of the thick, plastic visor. “Your MRI results have come back normal as we took you straight in when you arrived. Your doctor tells us that you’re the first person to show symptoms.”

“Yes,” you replied simply. “Do you have any idea what’s caused all this?”

The man – well, as far as you could tell, it was a man – never answered your question and began typing on a handheld computer tablet.

“I take that as either a no, or you’re just not prepared to tell us,” you huffed sarcastically. “I think it’s the latter.”

Brody chuckled to himself from the next bed.

Suddenly you heard your name being called and you turned, tracing the direction of the call. Lucas came racing down the centre of the room towards you. “Thank God you’re awake,” he said, grabbing you in a tight embrace.

“Can you back off, please, Ensign?” the man in the suit asked, his voice sounding full of disgust.

“Whether you like it or not, he stays with me,” you demanded, and reluctantly let go of Lucas.

Lucas held your hand tight and remained by your bed side as the man in the suit took your blood pressure, temperature and another blood sample.

One by one, each person who had been aboard the seaQuest had blood samples taken, their blood pressure taken, MRI scans and had their files assessed. Even the crew who were seemingly immune were tested, their results showing as a baseline for everyone else’s. That afternoon, just before evening set in, and Captain Hudson, who had been being checked in his own private room, addressed the majority of his crew who were in the large open space which was filled with rows of beds.

��The seaQuest is currently being tested thoroughly for signs of what caused this virus to spread so rapidly. Before we’re able to set foot back on board, the boat will undergo decontamination procedures,” Hudson said. A large circle of people was standing around him, spaced out between their beds.

“What about Darwin?” Lucas asked.

“The dolphin is safe, Ensign. He’s been taken to a medical tank and is being tested the same as we all are. Secretary McGath advises me that scientists from all over the country are looking into this; doctors have been flown in and we hope to be back in the water within the next seven to ten days.”

“Do they have any idea at all, Captain?” Brody asked, his arms folded across his chest.

Hudson sighed. “It’s been proposed that what we’re experiencing is a hormonal reaction to some kind of natural toxin that has been brought aboard, which has probably mutated and become a virus. This could be why the dolphin hasn’t shown any signs of it, along with certain members of the crew, including Dagwood, who has a completely different genetic structure to us. Like with most viruses, some people are naturally immune and some people are affected worse than others. Our coordinates for the last month are being analysed to try and piece together where this toxin may have come from.”

Captain Hudson disappeared a short time later, having been called into a vid-link meeting with Secretary McGath and the head of the science division within the UEO.

Meals were given out: disgusting looking, sloppy food in metal trays. It reminded you of something the children in workhouse would eat in nineteenth century Victorian England. Brody had since swapped beds with Lucas and disappeared further up the room, allowing you time with your boyfriend.

“I can’t eat that,” you grimaced and dropped the tray down on your bedside table. “I’m starting to get suspicious that they’ve put something in it. You know what these testing facilities are like, especially when the doctors wear hazmat suits. It’s a wonder we don’t start turning into mutants or something.”

“Ain’t you a joy to be around,” Piccolo chuckled from two beds down to your left.

“Don’t tell me that you don’t get a weird vibe from all this though, Tony?” you asked, looking past the officer to your left in order to make eye contact with Piccolo.

“You heard what the Captain said. We should be out of here in ten days tops,” Lucas told you.

“I don’t quite believe that,” you muttered, drawing your knees up towards your chest. “Something doesn’t smell right to me about all this.”

***

seaQuest tag list: @shrimpsthings @lathalea

#seaquest #seaquest dsv #seaquest 2032 #fanfic #seaquest fanfic #Lucas wolenczak #Lucas wolenczak x fem!reader #captain Oliver hudson #commander Jonathan ford #lieutenant James brody #lieutenant lonnie henderson #lieutenant jj fredricks #lieutenant Tim o'neill #dagwood #Tony piccolo #Darwin the dolphin

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theloyaltyofthewolves · 5 years ago

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tag info!

hi lovelies! i’ve gotten quite a few questions abt my tagging system (for those of u who don’t pay attention to that sort of thing/only use mobile, this is my tags page) over the last few days + i thought i’d try to condense all of your questions into a single post to make it nice and convenient. pls feel free to reach out if i missed smth!

1. what are your tags from and what do they mean?

individual tags:

this is not your destruction bang chan

a tag for chan + the bravery + terror that must have accompanied his flight into stray kids. he has poured everything he has into them. they are his one shot, his only shot. his life, his blood, his greatest creation and sacrifice. this tag, which comes from nothing other than my brain, is a kind reminder to him that no matter how dark it gets, stray kids are an act of love and so will never be a mistake.

learn to dance; it is your birthright

a tag for minho. im a terrible person and can’t quite recall where or who i took it from, but i believe it was originally in french. minho came from nothing, built himself on nothing. the strength in his spine comes from suffering and endurance: living through all that life has thrown at you, getting up every single time it has knocked him down. and it has knocked him down over and over and over again. but each time, he gets back up. wipes the blood off his chin. dances. because he is owed this, this expression of love and life and control, one of the most fundamental parts of the human experience. minho dances because he is owed it, because he knows that it his right.

there is no sacrifice

my tag for changbin, from a longer piece by arianna reines. the original quote goes ‘there is no sacrifice. you have got to want to live. you have got to force yourself to want to.’ perhaps a little dark, but i believe it reflects the resolution with which changbin throws himself at life. there is no uncertainty in seo changbin. that’s why he’s stray kids’ anchor, their backbone. he’s uncompromising, devoted, resilient.

gutted and rising

for hyunjin, my very favorite embodiment of the fragility of being human. once again, his tag is from a much longer quote by katie ford: don’t say it’s the beautiful i praise. i praise the human, gutted and rising. quite honestly, it is one of my favorite lines of literature in the entire world for how vulnerable and honest it is in its devotion to the human spirit. and that’s of course what i love so much about hyunjin. he is beautiful yes, but he also breakable and delicate and sensitive and irrational and ridiculous and dramatic and sweet and so unbelievably human. such a gentle soul who has seen some of the very worst that humanity has to offer, who has been beaten down and forced to kneel. who has grown tall enough and strong enough to push himself up off the floor and keep going, scarred and gutted and soft and rising.

all you have is your fire

if uve spent a single second on this blog you will probably know that i have a serious love affair with what a walking contradiction han jisung is. he is so many impossibilities in so little physical form. fierce and shy and angry and brilliant and brave and scared and small and bright. han jisung is on fire all the time. it burns deep within him, burns him from the inside out. you can see it when he enters a room, walks on stage, opens his mouth. the core of him, all that he is, this burning burning burning energy, it flares around him, casts him in gold and red and orange. call it courage, call it fire, call it light, call it whatever you want. it is all that jisung has, just as it is all that small things have.

if there is a light im going to swallow it

this is for seungmin, and it comes from yet another one of my favorite pieces of literature. a poem called ‘blasphemies at the 5th street station’ by s. osborn and if there was ever a poem i would like you to read, it would be this one. seungmin’s particular tag comes from the final verse: ‘if there is a light, then i’m going to swallow it. if there is a god, then i’m going to eat him whole.’ appropriate for someone like seungmin who cannot be kept on his knees and who has always existed in a way that is uniquely his own. no authority, no god, no force of good or evil could bend seungmin to its will because he is simply not to be bound.

i have loved the stars too fondly

oh yongbokie. his tag fits him so well that it always makes me choke up just a little when i use it. it’s from a famous poem by sarah williams, most likely one that you have heard at least in passing. the poem details a message left by an astronomer on his deathbed to his pupil. “though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” which, to be honest, is so incredibly lee yongbok that i’m not sure i could clarify it any further.

as above so below

jeongin’s tag comes from an age-old saying, one of those idioms that is so ancient, its originator has been long-forgotten. it is often attributed to religious or spiritual meanings, but i like it just find secular. at its essence, the quip describes the integral connection between everything small and big. the earth and the sun, the moon and the tides, the leaf and the cell wall. the way in which things that happen happen to all, no matter how big or small or young or old. befitting of the maknae, i think. an old quote for an old soul trapped in a young kid’s body.

relationship tags:

and now the loyalty of the wolves

my very general ot8 tag, for moments when i see that little bit of more that filters through stray kids and their unrepentant love for one another. yet another reference to their growth: looking at where they are versus where they once were. stray dogs, nothing more than street hounds, scrappy and feral and dismissed. they did not belong, nor have they ever belonged. but they have grown. now, when they stand on stage, they fill it out. they draw attention and turn heads. they’re still outsiders, still outcasts, still unpolished and raw and untamed. but where once were mutts are now wolves. and now the wolves. and now the loyalty of the wolves.

i will carry you home in my teeth

i’ve mentioned this previously, but this is my tag specifically for chan and his boys. it comes from a mountain goats’ song. it embodies chan’s sacrifice and devotion to his kids, his family, his lifeblood. come hell or high water, chan’s going to get them to that finish line.

do i look moderate to you?

this tag is from moderation, a trully excellent song by florence and the machine. ‘want me to love you in moderation, do i look moderate to you?’ what better pairing to fit this lyric than hyunjin and jisung? their love was born in violence and it has always been too much. the two of them have always been too much. too much anger, too much blood, too many teeth. the imprints of their fingers are pressed into each other’s chests. they have ripped each other apart, sewn each other back together. do i look moderate to you? do i look like someone who could be with you and not make you feel everything all at once?

our fate cannot be taken from us

going back to the ancients, this is a quote from dante. ‘do not be afraid. our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.’ something about it has always screamed seungbin to me, something about the impossibility of their relationship. a friendship, a love, a brotherhood that should not exist and yet it does anyway, because they are too goddamn stubborn to let any force, supernatural or otherwise, make their choices for them.

2. where do ur tags come from?

the very short answer to this question is: everywhere! movies, lyrics, poetry, tumblr posts. i have a pretty long and pretty comprehensive list of tiny pieces of writing that have stayed with me over the years. i look to it often for hope or writing advice or tattoo ideas.

3. can we see it?

nope. a, it’s too long to conveniently post on tumblr. b, it’s organized categorically in a way that works for my brain, but is unlikely to work for others. c, a lot of it is personal and Not For All Eyes. however, if you do want quotes or inspiration, you are always welcome to ask. give me an idea of what you’re looking for, a mood or an experience, a moment or an emotion, and i’ll do my best. (i also have a secret writing inspiration blog that, were there to be enough interest, i may make publicly available)

4. okay then, can we have at least a few recommendations for songs or other works that have inspired you?

it depends on what you’re looking for. what kind of feelings do you want to amass listening or reading to something? the end of the world? the free-fall of first love? bitter heartbreak? the insignificance of human kind? tell me what you want + i will do my best to get back to you.

#i hope this answers your questions #love how much y'all r interested in this #i am obsessed with the novel tag + will use it unapologetically until i die #kisses from belle #anons #replies

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awhilesince · 4 years ago

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Thursday, 5 January 1832

8 25/’’

1 20/’’

Fahrenheit 65° at 8 ½ in my room and 35° at 9 in the balcony and frosty hazy morning – read a few pages volume I. Goldsmith’s England – down at 10 – breakfast and skimmed over the paper till 11 ½ – out at 11 ¾ – went to the bank and got £50 – then paid for the books I got yesterday (about £15 + the day before £10) looked at what was put out for sale today, and not intending to spend more (besides there was nothing to tempt me much) went to the foot of the East hill along the back of All Saints Street and walked slowly up and down there for an hour and then home at 1 35/‘‘–

50 minutes nap – then from 2 50/’’ to 4 40/’’ wrote 3 pages and ends and under the seal to M– (Mariana) longed to answer her letter yesterday but going to the book sale – mentioned having spent £25 and the principal works I bought – said we were more merry than Theoretically might seem likely – but complained that if laughing must make fat we should be unbecomingly so before April – ‘I I have not laughed so much since days of you, when life was young, and hopes were brighter’ – but said we had not been quite alone – Mrs Carlton had come down to Hastings for a week – besides I was rather more acclimaté and less bilious ‘which is certainly something in favour of animal cheerfulness’ – have had a week’s frost – talk of excursionizing next month as if sure of fine weather – not a flake of snow has fallen – ……

‘But I have not yet wished you a happy new year, nor thanked you, Mary, for all your wishes to myself – were I at your elbow, instead of writing to you, I could say much it would be difficult to throw on paper – I hope there is a chance of your not ‘Emigrating’ – now that you are really mistress, which gives another interest in what you do, and that you think you are better fitted for the life you lead than for any other, I should doubly grieve over C–’s (Charles’s) taking you away from L– (Lawton) He does indeed seem to have taken a new lease – [footnote] I have certainly nothing to set against Mr Ford’s opinion but a sort of presentiment; yet this strangely misleads me, if he is right – Is not William 14? Then there are 6 or 7 years to his being of age; and this seems a long time to me, tho‘ not so to you – you remind me of what I said on the road from Peterbro‘ – you disclaimed its truth then, and own it now – Mary! do I not sometimes know you better than you know yourself? the world is always severe upon what it does not deem reasonable; and my own conviction is, that you yourself would be even more severe than the world – the putting people as little in contact with your own famliy as you can, all experience must convince you, will be the wisest plan – you thought of me on Saturday, on the ending up of the year – So did I think of you – what another may bring, who can tell? I little imagined, on taking my aunt from Paris to Shibden, that I myself should find it impossible to spend even this winter there – I counted upon being nearer to you than I am, and on seeing much more of you before my return to the continent, than I can now hope to do – But mine has never been even the earthly hand that held the reins of my own destiny – All that I had hoped, and done, was changed – no power was left to me; and, from that hour, I have been whirled I know not how, nor understanding nor controlling whither – I cannot, dare not look into that book where all the past, and present, and to come, are noted down – Too deeply Thinking might destroy even comfort and tranquillity – Tis best to dwell on the belief, that, ‘for human weal, heaven husbands all events’ – But tell me always, as soon as you can, what you are likely to do, God bless you, Mary! when I have any settled or probable plans, you shall know them – Ever very entirely and especially yours AL– (Anne Lister)’

footnote: as far as present appearances go may live these twenty years as Mr Ford told him last night tho he does bother me sadly and often I cannot help hoping he may see William of age …… I often think of what you told me in the coach from Peterborough that I was so used to Mr Ls (Lawton’s) odd ways that I should probably feel his loss more than I suspected and really my Fred it would be so and since I find that no unreasonable conduct would justify my leaving him I think I have made up my mind to put him as little in contact with my own family as I can help and in very other way to make the best of it for of an end there seems no chance C (Charles) will never change –

‘Saturday 31st December this is the last day of another year, my dearest Fred, it has carried on its wings many events of which I little dreampt at its commencement, probably that which begins tomorrow may do the same – but sufficient for the day – I don’t think I shall even anticipate again either good or evil, but for the future be content with the things that are – For you Fred I will not ease to wish every earthly good, may the next year bring you comfort and happiness, it often seems to me if Charles had been different how comfortably our home might have been your home, but all things have turned out differently from what we expected, and so do most things in this life – Sunday 1st January 1832. many many happy returns of the day to you, my own dearest Fred, may every good attend you with health and comfort in all ways – I have not much time for more than these wishes ….. god bless you dearest and believe me always yours Entirely’

signed Mariana this letter strikes me as remarkable she has a presentiment of what may be with Miss H (Hobart) have I answered her as she expected or as would best please her? No she will be rather strengthened in her gloomy surmises and she has too much remorse –

Sent off my letter to ‘Mrs Lawton Lawton hall Lawton Cheshire’ at 5 1/4 – at 5 35/’’ dressed – reading Goldsmith’s England – dinner at 7 in 1/2 hour – did German with Miss H– Hobart instead of having music – Coffee at 8 1/2 – then Miss H– Hobart sang a little – from 10 1/2 to 11 40/’’ read aloud from p. 372 to 439 end of chapter 33, and of volume v. Gibbon – came upstairs at 11 50/’’ – till 12 50/’’ and before dinner and this morning read from page 25 to 112 volume 1. Goldsmith’s history of England – very good friends on saying I should be less naughty if I had her always she as if thoughtlessly replied you don't know you will not (meaning, have her always) and after scolding my oddity she owned she liked what was not commonplace of all this I seemed to take no notice –

hazy but fineish day – Fahrenheit 62° at 12 in my room with a very hot fire – forgot to take in my thermometer so know not what it stood at in the balcony – the Skelmersdales arrived yesterday – Lord S– (Skelmersdale) left his card for Miss H– (Hobart) and Miss Wilbraham wrote a long kind note – neither mamma nor she well enough to venture out –

reference number: SH:7/ML/E/15/0006, SH:7/ML/E/15/0007

#annelistercodebreaker #annelister #january1832 #mariana #misshobart

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vulpinmusings · 5 years ago

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Ski’tar and Friends part 20: Show Stoppers of Songbird

This week, Ski’tar, Vemir, and 6 attend the biggest concert event of the year.

Part one Previously Archive

Following our mission to Apostae, we took a couple of days to rest and restock. Vemir decided to get a prosthetic arm to replace the one he’d been missing since before we first met. As he was showing it off to us, we received a rare surprise: actual physical mail. There was an envelope of each of us, and inside were invitations to join Zigvigix in attending a Strawberry Machine-cake concert, one of the biggest entertainment events of the Pact-year. Since it would be a nice change of pace, and because Vemir is a massive closeted fan of the band (he was trying too hard not to look interested through the whole event), we decided to accept the offer.

Our hopes for a relaxing day of no trouble were dashed the morning of the concert, when Historia-7 commed us for a last-minute mission. By happenstance, Historia had tracked one of the mystery people hiding behind Arch-energy Consortium to a private villa attached to Songbird Station, the very venue where SMC was performing. Since Vemir, 6, and I were going to be in the area anyway, Hisroria wanted us to hunt down the man and grill him for everything he knows, and to do so without letting Ziggy know about it. It seems our Shirren friend’s depression over the Scored Stars incident has interacted poorly with some augments he has and put him at a high risk for a stroke if he were to get too stressed by, say, his favorite band’s concert being ruined by shenanigans.

I was very close to refusing to work on a “vacation,” but my friends just agreed to the task and I wasn’t about to leave them hanging.

Songbird Station is built out of an asteroid and probably had a past life as some sort of temple, given the slap-dash way the technology was set up behind the scenes. But I’m getting ahead of myself. As our shuttle was making its final approach, Ziggy showed us a hologram of the friends he’d lost at Scored Stars and revealed his desire to ask Strawberry Machine-cake to put on a public tribute of sorts for them after the show.

The lobby was packed with beings of all descriptions, creating a living sea of pink and red, loud music, and spontaneous dance parties. After making sure Ziggy was properly distracted by the fan activities, 6, Vemir, and I held a quick conference to decide how to go about locating our target, Lansio. I hacked a computer to see if he was on some sort of guest list, but came up empty, so we tried to find someone official-looking to ask. We chose a harried-looking security guard who was posted by the door to the maintenance and station power area, but as we tried to make our way over we got caught up in a dance mob. Well, 6 and I got caught in it. In the name of maintaining cover, we bowed to the mob’s pressure and danced for a bit. Well, 6 danced and won himself a t-shirt. I tripped over myself.

You’d think an Ysoki would be more naturally agile than an android…

There was another momentary detour as I bumped into a tele-view done with a misaligned balance gyro and felt compelled to fix it for the sake of the Ysoki using it to attend the concert remotely. He transferred me some credits for my trouble, so that was a nice bonus.

We reached the security guard as he was arguing with a couple of lashunta about needing to apply pacification mods to their weapons. When the lashunta left, Vemir went up and offered up his sniper rifle for pacification, and 6 and I followed suit with Sixer’s sword and my laspistol. Having thus charmed our way into the guard’s good graces, we asked him if he knew Lansio. He told us Lansio had a villa in the residential section, but didn’t know if he was home.

Right then, the power went out for a couple seconds. When asked, the guard told us that had been happening intermittently in the last few hours and no technicians had gone to check on it yet. Concerned about Ziggy’s health and remembering a similar problem from Elytrio, I convinced the guard to let us into the maintenance area to check the station’s power generator.

After heading through a hallway thick with wires that had been strung onto the walls and ceiling, we entered the reactor room to find three strange, pale figures that were glowing and seemed to have only a passing familiarity with the concept of materiality. For lack of a better identifier, I termed them “Gremlins” for their child-like but innately destructive nature. They were clustered around the reactor, chattering among themselves, until 6 got their attention. They spoke of the reactor as if it were an egg about to hatch, and then one of them came up and poked me. Its finger phased into my chest and I felt something in me change in a most unpleasant way.

I flipped out and shot the gremlin. While my laspistol had been pacified, it still somehow set the thing on fire. It laughed as if being tickled, and its two buddies started to advance on Sixer and Vemir, curious what would happen if they got touched.

We weren’t going to have any of that, of course, but defending ourselves proved difficult because the gremlins kept phasing through things and easily reforming from being sliced or shot through. Toosie managed to hold the first Gremlin’s attention away from me and whatever had changed in me decided to pop out and off me, but Vemir got mutated twice – first with some kind of external and very stinky gland and later with a second set of eyes – and Sixer’s hand was changed into a bio-mechanical claw. The scuffle only ended when one of the Gremlins got the idea of jumping into the reactor and 6 seized the controls to keep the power stable. That gremlin wound up evaporating, and the other two quickly surrendered when I told Toosie to try dragging one of them to the reactor.

The gremlins promised to stop playing around, but said the reactor had already been messed with by someone else and was building up to something. I took over the controls from 6 and took a look at the code. I found a foreign algorithm, but I couldn’t make much sense of it because it involved a lot of magic. What I did manage to decipher revealed a process to vent the atmosphere out of the villa owned by Lansio.

Vemir cut the stinky gland off of himself, but couldn’t do anything about his new eyes despite them being so light-sensitive that he was effectively blind. We guided him back out to the lobby and over to the gift-shop area to buy a bandanna to cover the eyes. We then forded the sea of fans to reach the entrance to the private villa section. Vemir had to shove off an over-enthusiastic collector of SMC merch and I was waylaid by another dance mob and, rather make a further fool of myself, I had Toosie bull through the crowd so I could continue walking. Somebody found that to be a crime worthy of throwing a full can of soda at my head, but I shrugged it off. Vemir then wound up playing taxi for three little snake-like girls for a bit and earned a crystal headdress for his trouble.

The door to the villa area was only blocked by a simple rope and nobody that we passed inside gave us more than a brief glance, so we had no trouble getting to Lansio’s address. Nobody answered my polite knock, but Vemir heard frantic movement inside, so we invited ourselves in.

Lansio was working hurriedly at a laptop, so 6 rushed up and threw him against the wall. I moved up in the android’s wake and checked the computer, quickly determining that it had been rigged to explode. As Toosie and Vemir came in and took up positions, an attack drone like the ones we’d fought and obtained from the bad weapons deal emerged from a hidden spot in the wall.

Lansio drew a cane-sword and tried to attack me, but I blocked the blow with my prosthetic arm and decided to take the laptop to a less busy part of the villa to disarm it. Toosie and 6 busied themselves trying to subdue Lansio and get the wrist-watch I would need to finish my work, while Vemir tore the attack drone apart with his retractable wrist-spike. In short order, Toosie got the watch for me, the drone was disabled, and 6 had thrown Lansio out the back door. I disarmed the laptop’s explosive countermeasures, but the data it held had already been wiped.

6 started to drag Lansio back inside for questioning, until I reminded him that the place might still lose atmosphere at any moment. Vemir handled most of the interrogation. Lansio didn’t know anything about the malicious code and the only name he had for his boss was “the Benefactor,” but it was at least something.

We debated a bit about what to do with Lansio, weighing the risks of leaving him to alert his compatriots to what had occurred against the difficulty of getting him back to the Society without tipping Ziggy off to our mission. Finally, we decided to kick the problem upstairs into Historia’s lap. After we filled her in, she said she had some strings she could pull to have station security handle Lansio for us. She also told us that the malcious magic-code had a degree of artificial intelligence and was trying to escape into the info-sphere. It was currently contained inside the holographic projectors being used for Strawberry Machine-cake’s show, and so long as it was there we would be able to “kill” it by destroying the hologram that it would inhabit.

We rushed back to the theater area and used out Starfinder credentials to get backstage in the hopes of being able to deal with the evil hologram before the show began. Unfortunately, according the band manager, there simply wasn’t time for that and the show simply could not be delayed. Our only option was to battle the hologram on-stage as a pre-show performance, with SMC providing a musical back-drop.

It was the coliseum of Brilliance Station all over again, but there was no other option, so I accepted the holo-costume projectors given to me and walked out with Vemir and 6 to hopefully not make a complete fool of myself.

The malicious code decided to take the form of a giant pink robot armed with a plasma sword and large rifle. When the music started up, the thing struck a pose before engaging us, which was a nice touch.

I opened with a couple of grenades that bounced off and exploded harmlessly, while 6 landed a good shot with his frostbite rifle and Vemir sniped it in the head. The hologram-bot reeled to the beat before momentarily shifting into a tank-like form and unleashing a shockwave of electricity that knocked Toosie over.

As my drone picked itself, up, Vemir and I moved to flank the bot while 6 hacked at it with his sword and got smacked by the large plasma sword in response. Toosie and 6 then hacked at the bot’s feet until it fell to its knees, and Vemir blasted it with his arc pistol, to great effect.

In a desperate position, the hologram raised its rifle and fired in an arc that hit everyone but me, and the Vemir took it out with another arc pistol shot to the head. The hologram exploded in a shower of sparks and a wave of electricity, and the lights went down as the music stopped.

After a moment to raise the audience’s tension, the lights came back up to reveal a large holographic image of Zigvigix’s lost friends, and Strawberry Machine-cake’s lead, Captain Carmine, came out to deliver a moving tribute to those Starfinders lost to Scored Stars. At this point, I figured that Historia had pulled a few more strings than she’d implied to us, for the sake of Ziggy.

Vemir, 6, and I were given an unprompted moment to say something, which we muddled through, and then we quickly got off the stage so the actual show could go on.

We made our way into the audience to join Zigvigix, gave him some vague explanations, and finally got to enjoy the show.

Afterward, the band gave us some of their merchandise along with some actually useful gifts. We had to fend off some reporters looking for details of what had happened before we could get onto out shuttle and return to Absalom Station.

I complained a lot throughout this adventure, but looking back on it now, it wasn’t really that much of a headache. At least, after putting aside the mutations caused by those gremlins.

#ski'tar #Starfinder #Vulpin plays

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bonesgadh · 5 years ago

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Okay so I just came home from watching TROS and I don’t know if it was because I went in there knowing what was going happen and therefore expected a complete tragedy, but the truth is I didn’t hate the movie as I thought I would (I actually enjoyed it pretty much???)

#these are my initial thoughts you guys #after I watch it again I will probably update this #the rise of skywalker #star wars #star wars spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #tros spoilers #another reason why it doesn’t make any sense she fucks off to Tatooine is because she has BB-8 with her #why the fuck does she need a droid for in Tatooine?#and the Falcon #she doesn’t really need the fastest ship in the galaxy if she stays in Tatooine

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metalgearkong · 5 years ago

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Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Review

12/20/19 ** Spoilers

Directed by JJ Abrams (Lucasfilm / Disney)

Among the current social media and the 24 hour advertisement cycle, if you wanted, its possible to piece together much of the plot of this movie, or any big blockbuster these days. Its for this reason I avoided every single piece of media about Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker before I saw it. Even when bombarded with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TV ads, and movie previews, I successfully dodged all snippets of the movie in order to be as surprised as possible once I sat down to see it. That night was tonight, and it’s felt like a long and arduous two years since The Last Jedi. Once again I have deeply mixed feelings about a new Star Wars movie, but I enjoyed myself more in The Rise of the Skywalker than I did in The Last Jedi, but not necessarily for shakesperian reasons.

The fans were worried about how The Rise of Skywalker would turn out, and as release day approached, reviews were already negative. I accidentally saw a Rottentomatoes critics score in the mid 20′s, and several videos were already uploaded to YouTube giving away that broad opinion of this film. This concerned me, as even critics liked The Last Jedi, which is one of my least favorite Star Wars movies. I let all of the negativity brush off me like a blaster bolt on Beskar armor. I went into The Rise of Skywalker rooting for it and looking to find every positive it could bring being the ninth main installment of the Star Wars saga. I was also ready for this trilogy to be over so everyone whining online could move on and obsess over something else. In an odd, semi-genuine, and semi-ironic way, I had tons of fun in The Rise of Skywalker, even acknowledging its horribly messy and rushed script.

Each of these Star Wars movies to me is like how a new chapter in the Bible would feel for a Christian, and the theater is my house of worship. The series’ trademark title blasted onto the screen among roaring trumpets, and I was ready. My auditorium applauded as the Star Wars logo shrunk to the background and the opening crawl appeared at the bottom of the screen. Seeing a new Star Wars movie in the theaters is always a holiday for me. Each film is a new addition to the lore of my favorite movie universe of all time, pulling from years as a kid before I can even remember the first time I saw it (thank you parents). This movie had me grinning from ear to ear, bringing out that inner child in me that Star Wars always used to do, something The Force Awakens partially did, and what The Last Jedi failed to do completely.

JJ Abrams continues his pension for fast paced scenes, but somehow still containing a ton of charm. We finally get to see Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), Chewie (Joonas Suotamo), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) all working together on the same mission. The characters have a ton of charisma between them, and it inspires me to think of the potential for them having been together more often in this trilogy. I enjoyed their quips and didn’t think it got out of control or relied too much on bathos. The first half of this movie moves like a racetrack, as our heroes move from one location to another pursued by the First Order enough to almost make me dizzy. This would turn out to be a running issue with the movie, and if JJ Abrams and the editor would have let each scene go a little slower and last a little longer, it would have been more appreciated.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is the Supreme Leader of the First Order, having murdered and usurped Snoke (Andy Serkis) in the last film, and is on a personal quest to track down what may be the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). The movie opens on this note, and having none of it spoiled ahead of time for me, found it to be intriguing and exciting. The Emperor is one of the best and most fleshed out characters in Star Wars, and I was curious to learn how he resurrected. Unfortunately the movie barely gives an explanation and we are simply left with the spectacle of what I call Necro Palpatine. However we do have it explained that Snoke was a mere puppet of Palpatine in some capacity, but we aren’t told to what extent, or any other kind of logical backstory. It both answers and raises more questions simultaneously, about both dark lords.

The Rise of Skywalker also goes out of its way in several places to help explain some of the more controversial elements of the prior film, and I appreciated it as a fan of the series who felt toyed with in The Last Jedi. It’s obviously a wink wink to the audience, but I’d much rather have it than not. Greatest of all was Luke (Mark Hamill) being redeemed, as he admitted he was not only wrong to go hide on the island, but toss his father’s lightsaber over his shoulder. The movie also tries to shoe-in more explanation of what Luke was doing after his Jedi Academy was destroyed, which included trying to find the Sith Wayfinder along with Lando Carissian (Billy Dee Williams). It’s not a great explanation of why Luke disappeared, and I wish this was clearly the plan from the beginning of the trilogy. The Wayfinder is basically a key to get to Exegol where Palpatine is hiding. It becomes Rey (Daisy Ridley) and her friend’s mission to find the Wayfinder, through various means and mcguffins.

John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra returns one final time scoring a Star Wars movie. I heard a dozen of his old tracks throughout the film and I had fun naming as many as I could. For how much I love his leitmotifs and listen to his music ad noaseam, whether its giving me an emotional rush during a run or driving on the highway, I couldn’t recall any new music heard in this film. The first thing I did when I got home from the movie was try to download the soundtrack from Spotify but it wasn’t available yet. I still give this movie a big thumbs up for its soundtrack because although it isn’t new, the way Williams’ music is used and where it’s placed gave me goosebumps every time. Hearing Rey’s theme in just the right moments made me happy, and identifying other leitmotifs and variations of them were great to hear.

The acting all around was excellent for a Star Wars movie. Daisy Ridley as Rey is as great as she’s ever been, and the same goes to Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. All the side characters and comic relief did a good job as well. The banter between Finn, Poe, and C-3PO was a treat as well. Tony Daniels continues to be one of my favorite actors in all of Star Wars for conveying as much personality as he does without facial expressions and very limited movement. McDiarmid as Necro Palpatine gets very little screen time, but he’s hamming it up as the evil Emperor he’s always been, and I loved every second of it. I also deeply appreciate that the movie seemed to rely on puppets again, and one of the stand out side characters was a tiny engineer named Babu Frik (Shirley Henderson) who should have had more time in the movie.

The only “yikes” moment I felt was any time we saw Leia. It’s such a tragedy that Carrie Fisher passed away so unexpectedly, and least of all not able to finish this Star Wars trilogy. I listened to her audiobook The Princess Diarist and she seemed so excited, yet nervous, to be yet again the role that made her famous, and to complete episodes 7, 8, and 9. Her face seems to be animated on a stand-in actress, and her only lines were from old footage that was never used in Episode VII or VIII. This means Leia has very little to say in this movie, and probably had a lot less to do in the plot than she deserved to. The CGI simply wasn’t convincing for me and is the only aspect of the movie that put a lump in my throat for all the wrong reasons. On the flip side, Han Solo’s cameo was a terrific scene that also had me teary-eyed. It was a great call back to The Force Awakens, and served a purpose for Kylo Ren’s character. Harrison Ford did a perfect job, and it was just the sort of scene I didn’t know I wanted.

While much The Rise of Skywalker feels hastily cobbled together, and relies on way too many conveniences for the plot to keep moving, I found it to be a very satisfying time. You know that feeling when you’re extremely tired and almost feel drunk, and everything seems hilarious and flippant? That’s how I felt during this entire thing. I could see ridiculous script elements that either contradict or ruin lore left and right, but I think something inside me was just so happy to finally get this trilogy over with. I let the fan service envelop me even if it didn’t make sense or feel justified. Yes Rey is still a Mary Sue, yes we still got an underwhelming lightsaber duel (that she wins), yes there are too many characters, yes the plot and details can be nonsensical, yes this movie needed way more time to bake in the oven. But unlike a Jedi’s weapon, this movie may not be elegant, but it is a cathartic and satisfying experience, which is all I every hoped it would be. Now can we all take a breath and move on?

6/10

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aviewfromthepanopticon · 5 years ago

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The Sleeping Blood

Big Finish’s summary: When the Doctor falls ill, Susan is forced to leave the safety of the TARDIS behind. Exploring a disused research centre in search of medical supplies, she becomes embroiled in the deadly plans of a terrorist holding an entire world to ransom – and the soldier sent to stop him. Written by: Martin Day Directed by: Lisa Bowerman Release Date: June 3rd, 2015 Series: The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume 1, Story 1 Cast: Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Darren Strange (Gomery/Kendrick)

I really enjoyed this story, and felt it was a wonderful tale about pretty early on in the Doctor and Susan’s travels, where the evolution of both the Doctor and Susan’s views on what it means to interact with other cultures is explored beautifully. I also adore that the end Susan decides that the rich keeping medical care for only rich people is an evil that is deserving of response.

There is also a lot of interesting commentary in this story about how technology Susan has mastered and thinks of as nothing more than a simple concept she was playing with as an infant, is in fact regarded as super extra advanced tech to the rest of the universe. In this case, the tech Susan dismisses as a baby toy are medical nanomachines.

I am generally interested in any story that grapples with what it means that Susan is a Gallifrayen. Plus Companion Chronicle style stories, which are told from a the first person perspective and only feature the narrator and one other speaking voice, are a great medium to tell stories that explore Susan’s experience as a young Gallifreyan who ran away from home before she became a Time Lord.

I also felt it was so very on brand that it wasn’t until one of them got sick that either Susan or the Doctor thought to check the TARDIS’ sick bay for medical supplies. When they did check, they found that the TARDIS they stole didn’t have anything in stock since it was, you know, going to be decommissioned.

Simply the plot of this story is that the Doctor got a nasty cut on a planet he and Susan were exploring together. About a week later they discover the wound had gotten infected and the TARDIS didn’t have any medical supplies in stock. Susan decides to search the next place the TARDIS lands for medical supplies, and then steal them. Complications arise, Susan witnesses a political conflict on the planet, and she comes away questioning if perhaps she and her grandfather should start getting involved with the affairs of the planets they are visiting.

This story very much gave me the sense that the TARDIS was already, at such an early stage, helpfully taking the Doctor where he needed to go. After all, their first landing place after Susan resolves to steal medical supplies is an abandoned medical research facility that was built by people advanced enough to use nanomachines for medical purposes (The TARDIS, with her still fully functioning Chameleon Circuit, disguised herself as a metal medical cabinet upon landing there)!

As for getting involved, well... Susan learns from the planet’s records that the bacteria has all evolved into super bacteria, and there are no longer any antibiotics that have even the slightest effect on any sort of bacterial infection on the planet. As she searches for supplies to help her grandfather, Susan discovers she is not alone. There is a unit of soldiers in the medical facility with her. The soldiers explain that a terrorist - the Butcher - is hiding in the research center. This terrorist is a hacker who has discovered a way to control the medical nanomachines, and he is threatening to turn them against the people who have had them injected.

Susan really wants to get back to her grandfather with the medical supplies she collected, but the soldiers will not let her leave, and they make her go with them - at gunpoint - as they hunt ever closer to the hacker. One of the soldiers dies as their group makes their way through the medical facility, murdered by the Butcher’s manipulation of the technology they depend on.

When they encounter the hacker, he shuts down all the electronics the soldiers have. As most of them are inside metal skeleton suits, they are unable to move.

The hacker starts trying to explain himself, and says he is about to broadcast a video to all the media networks and they should see it too. He also insists that Susan should call him by his name - Gomery - rather than call him the Butcher

Before he can transmit the video, one of the soldiers - Kendrick - gets free of his skeleton suit, and shoots Gomery in the head with an old fashioned gun.

Susan is really really really REALLY not ok with watching a man be shot like that in front of her, while he was talking to her at that, and even as the soldiers keep their promise and return her to the TARDIS, all she can think about is the trauma of watching Kendrick kill Gomery. In addition to the trauma of seeing someone die like that, Susan is worried she got too involved in an other planet’s affairs, and that thought terrifies her, because she knows getting involved in any way is very much against all of Gallifrey’s laws.

This story’s many strengths all are most evident in its end, the final few moments are truly exceptional Doctor Who writing, and paint an incredible portrait of the Doctor and Susan in their awkward in between stage, before Shoreditch, before Ian and Barbara, before that first trip to Skaro, before all of it.

I’ve transcribed it below, because I just really and deeply love the end of this story:

SUSAN: I began using the equipment and drugs I had taken from the research center to start Grandfather’s treatment. Over the course of just a few hours, I saw him begin to recover. He began to talk more coherently and his coughing eased. Color returned to his cheeks. Though he did little but sleep, waking occasionally to cast a proprietorial eye over the TARDIS controls and issue a few clipped instructions. Finally he allowed me to change the dressing on his hand, and I saw that the wound was much improved. As I pulled a blanket up under Grandfather’s chin, I felt something nudge against my foot. It was one of the security robots! Somehow it had followed me onto the ship! I reached down, tentatively, not sure if I should try to pick it up or if I should bat it away with my foot. “Now, you’re not going to hurt me again, are you?” Much to my surprise, it started to play a message! I wondered if this was some of what Gomery, the Butcher, had prepared for the people of Roah! I wondered if perhaps I was the only person ever to hear it. GOMERY: I am truly sorry for each and every death I have caused. It gives me little satisfaction, but I am sure each one was a necessary evil. Who am I to decide who lives and dies? The point is, I’m doing all this precisely because other people are playing god. The truth that has been hidden in plain sight is that our medical advances aren’t for everyone. Our research programs, the drugs we are developing that would have been unimaginable only a generation ago, these only exist to benefit the rich and influential. The top strata of society. Who’s at the top? You may ask. If you’re rich enough to hear my message, you’ve probably answered your own question. We tell ourselves the medicine benefits everyone. Assume every citizen has access to these treatments, but there are millions who cannot afford our nanomachinery. Millions who have never seen a doctor, not because they don’t need to, but because they can’t pay. They’re in our shantytowns and our slums, but they also serve us in our restaurants and maintain our vehicles. They may even be our neighbors. You see, medical nanomachinery is expensive. Governments and charities can barely afford to invest in it. The major backers are pharmaceutical companies, and they’re only interest is profit. But it is my firm belief, a belief I am prepared to die for or to kill for, that these advances should be for the good of all on Roah. Not the few who can afford it! Though my name is Gomery, you’ve heard me called “Butcher,” a silly nickname I’ve adopted to express my disgust at the way things are, now turned against me. But I didn’t always see the world this way. You won’t have been told, but for many years I worked as a government research scientist. I was in charge of a project that would have allowed the authorities to remotely control the world’s biological technology. Though intended for use only in emergencies, such as civil unrest. It should be obvious to all that this is just another means of control. And so I resigned, sabotaging my research so it would appear the scheme could never work. To my delight, the research center was closed. And then, over the next few years, I began to wonder if I could use my old research to make our world’s leaders listen! To force them to share the benefits of official medical technology rather than keep it for themselves. SUSAN: I found myself replaying the message, again and again. I couldn’t forget the look on the woman’s face, when Gomery had, what was the phrase he’d used? “Switched her off,” to make a point. A terrible end to a life. But neither could I forget Kendrick’s cold blooded execution. Which man most deserved to be called butcher? I wondered if there was a version of Ling embedded within the tiny polyhedral robot, and to my delight… LING: Hello, unknown user! I am Linguistic Interface II! You may call me Ling! How may I be of assistance today? SUSAN: While grandfather slept, I asked Ling about the man called “Gomery” and the planet Roah. I’m not sure why I did. Perhaps it stopped me thinking about grandfather’s illness and how close we’d come to disaster. Perhaps I just had too many questions in my head. And not nearly enough answers. I discovered an excerpt from an even longer recording! It was hard to tell if it had been kept by Gomery himself, or if it had been acquired by the internal security services. It was labeled as a conversation between Gomery and his grandmother, and looking at the chronology it seemed to be this encounter that had changed Gomery. That had forced him to reexamine his life and to start again. To begin on the path, if Kendrick was to be believed, that led inexorably to the killing of many innocent people. That led to an unremarkable man becoming the Butcher. GOMERY: I can steal some tech from work! I can find a way! GRANDMOTHER: And what if you’re found out? No. I won’t have that on my conscious. GOMERY: Then let me pay for treatment. GRANDMOTHER: I’m not like this because I’m poor! I’m like this because it’s time to go! GOMERY: But there must be something else we can try! GRANDMOTHER: All things that have a beginning have an end. That’s what my mother used to say. Perhaps one day, you’ll understand. SUSAN: Suddenly there was another voice in the TARDIS. “What’s the matter my child?” Grandfather, though still slightly feverish, was awake again and regarding me with some concern. I realized that I was crying, and turned my face away from him. I tried to hide the truth from him, but he could tell that something was troubling me. So I told him everything that had happened. And of course Grandfather, being Grandfather, didn’t quite see the problem. “As far as I can tell, you used your intelligence to find the drugs I needed. You have saved my life. What’s so wrong with that? Hmmmm? Hmm?” But I knew that I had intervened quite decisively in the affairs of others. Perhaps, if Gomery’s plan had succeeded, millions of people on the colony world of Roah would now have access to life saving medicines. Grandfather was keen to remind me that I had been forced to help Kendrick at gunpoint, and that Gomery was a terrorist. That the ends so rarely justify the means. But I was still troubled. “You have to make a stand! That’s what you always used to say at home! What’s changed?” Grandfather tried to explain that it was really very simple. What had changed was that we had started to see other worlds. Other cultures at first hand. And that he had come to understand that we must not interfere. That to interfere would make us little better than this terrorist trying to manipulate events with no real knowledge of how things might turn out. And then Grandfather sighed. “Of course, if we are forced to act...” his words trailed away. “There are never any black and white answers.” I pondered Grandfather’s words for a few moments. “But that doesn’t mean we stop asking the questions, surely!” But Grandfather then claimed he was tired, and that he didn’t really understand what I was driving at, and anyway, it was time he was back in charge of his ship. New worlds, new times, new adventures. All this awaited us. But, I couldn’t help but notice, Grandfather looking increasingly thoughtful as he watched the rise and fall of the rotar, as we continued our journey through space and time.

#Susan Foreman #First Doctor #The Sleeping Blood #Big Finish #Doctor Who #The Companion Chronicles #The Doctor

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j0x06ber · 6 years ago

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Stream of Consciousness #1

Thirteen years ago I was ten. At the time I was a seventy five pound, bright eyed little boy. I had big plans for my life. I was going to do well in school, go to college and begin a career writing fiction novels. I looked up to the likes of Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. Easily scared, I recall when I was six or seven, I slept in the spare room on the second story of my grandmothers house.

One night, my parents had left for the night and I was in bed. The darkness of the room was overwhelming. It felt as though tendrils were reaching up the bunk bed I slept in from all sides. Waiting for me to fall asleep. A delusion of my young mind to be sure, but it felt real at the time. I could almost see them, swaying back and fourth and snaking their way up the wall. What really scared me though was the fire alarm. It looked like like an evil red eye and it would blink as it watched me. As I stared at it and attempted to slow my breathing I could have sworn I saw teeth forming around the edges of the alarm, slowly creating a distorted and twisted grin around the eye and in a fit of fear, I ran out of the room.

Afraid I would get in trouble with the babysitter, I snuck down to the second landing that lead to the entry way, and curled up on the off-white carpet. I was just out of her sight, but close enough to the light and noise from the living room to bring me at least a bit of comfort. I watched the swinging chair my baby brother was in and listened to the soft clicking as it swayed back and fourth. Eventually I fell asleep and was found on the staircase. My family still has pictures of me huddled up the corner against the rafter and wall. Like a scared puppy.

This was a reoccurring theme throughout my life. I would regularly wake up and see stuff in the night. Even into my early teens, I would wake up and see the figure of a man standing outside of my room, or tapping at the window. I would hear disturbing whistling coming from the streets and manic howls. I was always scared.

This followed me throughout my life. The fear is no longer a result of the figments of my imagination, but rather something tangible. I no longer fear the figures in the night. They’ve long since stopped appearing to me. I fear my life direction at this point. I fear the people around me. I fear failure and the thought of having to live a whole life alone and in perpetual destitute.

When I was ten my brother was hit by a car. I was a bright student and had caught the attention of my teachers that year, and they had extended the offer to send me to The Tech Academy. My parents, ecstatic at the thought of their son attending what amounts to summer school at San Jose University didn’t so much as blink before signing me up, and that summer I began attending a course on robotics and hydroelectric power.

On the last day of summer, I returned home from San Jose to the flashing lights and sirens of an ambulance and police cars. On the grass in the front yard my youngest brothers bike was sat out, mangled. The bike was essentially bent in half; the tires and handlebars twisted. He had been riding his bike without a helmet, and in a dare with the neighbors kid, attempted to ride across a busy street that was at the end of our road. For context, we lived on the outskirts of town near a mushroom farm. Because there weren’t police actively patrolling this area and there was almost never traffic, people would drive down this road faster than they would the freeway. One such woman was doing eighty when my brother attempted to ride across the street. She slammed on the breaks, but it was too little too late, and hit him as he attempted to recross the road.

He would spend the next year in a coma at the hospital. The doctors repeatedly told us it was unlikely he would ever come out of it, and that even if he did, with the damage to his brain he would probably spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state. My parents decided to foot the bill though and hold out hope. In the end it paid off for them. He began to display movement in his fingers, and in the following months he was able to lift his head and move his arms.

He essentially had to start from scratch at 6 years old. He needed to relearn how to walk and talk. It would take years of physical therapy before he was, for the most part, functional again.

My parents weren’t around then. The issues I already had with depression and social anxiety would get worse during this period of time; as I stopped talking to people at school to avoid conversations related to my brothers accident and opted instead to spend most nights alone in my room, working on school projects or reading.

As time went on my feelings of detachment from the people and world around me would continue to worsen. It was no longer a case of just not wanting to talk. Instead it felt as though an impenetrable wall had been constructed between myself and everyone around me. I couldn’t relate to anyone, I didn’t know what to say in casual conversation, and the very act of speaking to others evoked a fight or flight response. If you are familiar with the borderlands series, my response to social interactions was similar, albeit less exaggerated, to that of Patricia Tannis. During this time I also regularly felt like I wasn’t in control of my body or actions. Everything I did felt like it was being done by an outside force, and I was just a spectator to it all. Despite all of this, there were people that refused to give up on me and they would go on to become close friends throughout high school and part of college.

Everything came to a head during my senior year. My friends were all distant and I felt it would be best if I transferred schools. I decided to take online courses to finish my final year. This was when I met Stephanie. She would be my anchor to reality, my best friend, and for a while, my girlfriend. Come graduation I experienced a psychotic break and began hearing/remembering conversations that never happened and people shouting my name. As my mental state deteriorated suicide stopped being a distant thought and became an appealing means of escaping. A permanent exit from what felt like some sort of an extended nightmare sequence straight of a David Lynch film.

June 8th I drove to an abandoned parking lot and parked under a tree illuminated orange by the streetlights just twenty feet away and grabbed out a benchmade knife I kept in the center console of my dingy orange ford. I started slashing everything I could My wrists, my arm, my shoulders, my chest, legs. Everything but my throat. I fully intended to kill myself that night. I sat there, globs of blood dripping off my arm onto cracked pavement and the side of the my seat.

I didn’t die that night. My typing this as proof. The bleeding stopped, at which point I was too light headed, weak, and scared to finish the job. Instead I fell asleep, woke up the next morning, put on my jacket, and drove home. Eventually my family found out what I had attempted to do. It was summer and I couldn’t wear my jacket all the time. Eventually they saw a couple, and demanded to see them all. Most of them weren’t too bad, but the ones on my wrist and chest were deep, with the cut on my sternum going all the way down to the bone. I carry hideous scars now as a reminder and have to be conscious of what I wear so as not to make the people around me uncomfortable. and I was hospitalized for the first time.

Stephanie was a sweetheart and everyday would drive three towns over where I was being kept to visit. Bringing healing stones, snacks, and much needed company. If you’re not familiar with wards, they are lonely and often times scary places. You have a routine of therapy, but outside that, there’s nothing to do but walk the halls, and when the clock hits 8, it’s lights out and you have to go to your shared room. I had been roomed with a violent schizophrenic that never acknowledged me when I tried to speak to him.

During my time there I was diagnosed with Bipolar and agraphobia. For the next three years I would be subjected to a number of heavy duty anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, and mood stabilizers. In tandem they dulled everything. I felt like a zombie. I no longer had emotional range and was tired all the time.

I started college a month after release. It was at this point I found out that the college funds my grandparents had been setting aside to put us through college had been used to pay my brothers hospital and therapy bills all those years ago. No one had told me this, and throughout school my parents discouraged me working, stating that my job was to focus on school and extra-curricular activities. I began working three jobs to pay for my courses, but after two years of this, my car broke down and I ended up shelling out five grand to repair the engine, only to have the transmission break soon after, leaving me no mode of transportation. Stephanie moved away to start her dream job as a forest ranger.

This was probably for the best. She was a sweet girl and I was bad news. I broke up with her shortly after getting the news that she was moving, and ended up reconnecting and getting into a relationship with Leilani. Leilani was also a very nice girl and supported me in more ways than she should have. We had similar issues, and she was able to understand what was going on with me better than most people, but our relationship was short lived. I isolate and cut off contact with everyone when I have a depressive episode. I was under the impression it would be better for everyone if I dissapeared when this happened. That I shouldn’t burden my friends with my own personal shit. It’s what I was taught growing up, to man up and deal with the problem. Don’t make it someone elses. During one of these episodes, she found someone else, and we fell out of contact. I remember the last thing she sent me was “Please don’t cut me out again”.

Shortly afterwards I was hospitalized once more. I had been out of college for a year and was working on paying for a new car and getting the debt I’d been accumulating through medicine costs and therapy when this happened. I was slapped with almost ten thousand dollars worth of debt, and that leads to today.

I will soon be twenty four. My friends and those that supported me for so long are gone. They have been for years. I’m living at my parents and am working a dead-end job as a QA engineer. I wont pretend like none of this is my fault. I’m self aware enough to know my own actions have lead me to this point. I should have dealt with my problems rather than trying to bury them. I should have accepted the help and support my friends had offered. I should have, in general, been a better person. I’m hoping that somehow, typing this all out, I can make peace with everything leading me to this point. If not that, to at least make sense of it.

#stream of conscience #writing

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pjdredful · 6 years ago

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The AV Club

Chapter 1

"You know Evie, you've been coming to me for three months now. In that three months you've only spoken once. Just once to ask for water." Tony leans back in his comfy chair and taps his notebook with the end of his pen. I shrug lightly at it and continue playing with the frayed patch at the knee of my jeans. He gives a soft sigh and nods mostly to himself, I think, rather than to me. "I know you resent these meetings but the fastest way to get them over with is to actually participate." I give him a blank look and roll my eyes. Tony is my therapist, or he would be if I actually spoke to him but I don't because I don't need a therapist. I'm not crazy. I let him sit in silence a little longer before I check my watch. We still have fifteen minutes but sometimes when I look bored he lets me go early. I think he's almost going to let me go when he switches it up on me. "Your mother said you're having nightmares again."

"Step-mother." His brow goes up slightly but he only nods in acknowledgement or acceptance or whatever.

"She says they're coming almost every night now. That must be frustrating for you." For a second I consider making a smart remark but my mother, my real one, always said if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Which is why I'm quiet about 85 percent of the time. It's not like anyone would believe anything I said anyway so I usually just skip over communicating entirely. "When I was about your age I had some pretty weird dreams too. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, confused, scared, and angry all rolled into one. The worst part was, I didn't think anyone would understand because I wasn't entirely sure I understood."

Ten minutes to go. I flick my eyes toward him and try to keep from looking as bored as I feel. So what if he had nightmares? I'm pretty sure they weren't scenes of the end of the world and everyone he ever loved dying in a violently bloody demon apocalypse. The truth is when I say it like that I can't really blame Jo-lynn for thinking I'm a whack job and forcing me to complete my legally mandated therapy sessions. You wake the house screaming about the end of the world enough times it's bound to make even the most rational of people look like a maniac. Tony gives it a beat and looks at the clock over my shoulder before giving a resigned nod. "Okay well its a few minutes early but I can see you're still not ready to talk." He closes his blank notebook and rests it on the edge of the coffee table very deliberately. He's not the first therapist I've been dragged to over the years, and even though I don't talk to him, he's actually kind of the best. The most patient for sure but even patient people have limits. He offers me a slightly tired smile and clasps his hands between his knees lightly. "I get that you don't want to talk to me because I'm the person your step-mom picked. I get that you think this is all a bullshit waste of time and I'm an idiot, and I might be. But I'm here if you do want to talk about what's on your mind."

A bullshit waste of time. I couldn't have said it better myself and I can't help but chuckle a little. He smiles back at me probably thinking we've made some progress here. Maybe we have. I've smiled even less than I've spoken. "You're not an idiot." He gives me a slight nod and I continue. "But this is totally a bullshit waste of time. I'd say sorry about it but you still get paid, talking or not, right?"

He leans back in his chair again and rests his chin on his fist. "Well we're talking now, so I guess I'm earning my pay."

Hm. He has a point. I roll my eyes at him but I'm not really bothered. "Time's up, Doc. Good talk though."

Tony stands and opens the door to the hallway out of his office. "You know I'm not a doctor right?"

I'm almost all the way through the door when I snort. "You know I'm not a psycho right?"

"Evie…." I wave it off because psycho is one of those no no words now. "Now wait." He puts a hand out, not really touching me but letting me know he wants me to listen. "No one thinks you're a psycho. No one thinks you're crazy or out of control or anything like that.” God. His face is so earnest.

I give him a look and wait a beat. “Well I dunno the judge at my hearing seemed to think I’m very out of control.” That was all just a misunderstanding. Honestly. I’m not on drugs! Okay. Well. At the very least I wasn’t on drugs when I got arrested.

Tony just grins at me and nods his head a little as if accepting that yes obviously someone thought I was nuts. His quiet chuckle fades and he shrugs a tweed covered shoulder. “Your mom just thinks you need someone to talk to about the things you feel."

He almost freaking had me. Almost. "Step-mom." It's too late to fix and he knows it so I wink and slip my earbuds in as I stroll down the hall out to the waiting room. Sandra the receptionist waves to me as I slide out the patient exit door and head for the bus stop. I skip through my mp3 player until I reach my favorite song by The Decemberists. Los Angeles I'm Yours plays just loudly enough to drown out the sounds of most traffic as I sit at the bus stop waiting for the number 18. I'm not thrilled about having to see Tony twice a week but the truth is today is the closest I've come to wanting to talk about it. The nightmares, the demons, the monsters, the devil, and my AP biology midterm. All of the horrible things that keep me up at night. I'm so deep in thought that for a second I don't realize that a shit brown 1988 Ford Taurus is idling roughly at the curb where the bus stops.

My bestfriend Nat pokes his head out of the passenger window and whistles to get my attention. "Yo…crazy face! Get in!" I shake my head with a laugh and run to the car, hurrying to beat the bus just pulling in with a nasty honk at Nat and his brother. I fling myself in to the back seat, squishing into a warm, soft body with a slight blush.

"Hey Lirae." She gives me a smirking smile because it's pretty much the only kind she knows how to give. I pull my seatbelt around and fumble for a second looking for the part to click into before I realize that Lirae is sitting on it. And still watching me with that serene calm that lets me know that she's purposely sitting on the seatbelt thing.

"Problem?" I fidget a little before letting go of the seatbelt altogether. Forget it. I'd rather be flung to my death through the windshield. I can feel my face burning as she chuckles and bumps my shoulder with hers. Lirae’s usually on but currently off again boy toy makes an annoyed tsking sound and a really nasty beer burp. She turns her head to give him a disgusted look. "Gross Orson. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"No. I kiss yours." She elbows him in the gut hard enough to make him choke out a breath before she reaches across my body to pull my seatbelt back over. I go still as a frightened mouse and try not to think about how close we all are in this tiny rusting deathtrap and how warm Lirae's hands are at my hip as she buckles me in.

"Can't have our girl getting hurt can we?" Uhhh. My brain has momentarily stopped functioning at the softly whispered comment. Orson is watching her very closely and I know that he's going to make my life miserable. He's the one friend of my super small circle that isn't really a friend. More like a tolerable associate. I wouldn't talk to him at all if it weren't for Lirae bringing him to the AV Club. Once he was in he kind of just took root. Like a really annoying weed.

"So what's the diagnosis? Is Evil Evie still cray cray?" There it is. I roll my eyes and don't even bother to hide the smile when Lirae elbows him again. "What? The kid is a train wreck, we all know that already."

Nat turns around in his seat as much as he can and nods at me. "Don't listen to dickwad there. He's just in a bad mood because Coach chewed him a new asshole at practice." I'm not that girl you know? The cheerleading, team sport loving, school spirit having All American Girl. That's just not me. For one thing I'm not even sure how football works. And for another I'd much rather date the prom queen than the prom king. Plus there's that whole thing where the weird paranormal shit that only happens in movies and TV seems to always happen to me. I don't mean to imply that I'm a cosmic joke and a walking magnet for the weird and terrifying. I mean to outright state fact. I am a living, breathing, magic and mayhem magnet. All that scary hoodoo crap you think can't be real? It is.

So no. I'm not the girl that hangs with the pep squad or the popular kids. Orson however, well. He's the top jock and he acts like it too. I smile at Nat and shrug. "Like water off a duck's back." Nat chucks me under the chin playfully and turns back in his seat as we cruise along toward the clubhouse. See? Tony shouldn't feel bad, I don't talk even to my friends. "What are you guys doing here anyway? I thought we were meeting at the clubhouse at seven." It's not quite six yet but any change of plan that keeps me off the public busses is okay by me.

Mo looks at me through the rearview mirror and shrugs. "We were at The Harbor." My brows come up a little at that. The Harbor isn't a place for boats and beaches in our town. The Harbor is a very seedy bar where you can acquire just about anything if you have the money and don't sweat the small details. Like, where said purchased thing came from, or even knowing the name of the person you bought it from. Needless to say The Harbor is the last place a bunch of teenagers should be. And yet…we know it well. At least I know it well. Well enough to get arrested for being underage in a bar I had no business being in. My punishment? Mandatory rehabilitative counseling. I wasn't there to drink but when I told the undercover officer that detained me that I was there to see a man about a stone he just assumed I actually said I was there to see a man about getting stoned. Like I said. Misunderstanding.

"Any news?" I try hard to keep the hopeful note out of my voice. Everyone in this car knows my deal. Average dorky high school student by day, metaphysical super magnet by night. Well. That part is really a 24 hour deal but since most of the paranormal crap is powered by moonlight I get a reprieve. Just in time for those oh so thrilling biology classes. This weird dark attraction has been my curse since my eleventh birthday and there hasn't been a damn thing I can do about it. In short I'm just like Mo and Nat, Orson and Lirae. Well. Possibly not exactly like Lirae. I'm not sure there's anyone quite like her. But what I mean is that I'm just as normal as the next geek. I can't see or hear anything different than any other human, all I can do is 'sense' the darkness. It's more of a gut instinct which is so much more difficult to explain to a rational human being. Hey a demon thing is in town. Oh how do I know? Because I can feel it. What does it look like? Well I'm not sure really since I only ever see things like that in my horrible puke inducing nightmares. Yeah. This is my life.

I watch Mo's lips curl in a slight smile even though he doesn't say anything. I'm hoping that means good news for me and bad news for my nightmares. He pulls off the main road taking a little used dirt switchback track. Orson, Lirae and I bounce around in the back like sacks of laundry, grabbing on to any surface that will keep us stationary as the car rolls over the rutted and uneven path. Mo banks a curve that throws Lirae's body in to mine hard enough to make my head smack the window. I'd grumble but I'm too terrified to move because I'm pretty sure there is a boob on my arm. Lirae rights herself by pushing off my knee with a grunt and I breathe. I can feel the heat of her hand still on my knee right through my jeans. Probably it’s the closest I’ll get to being groped by another human being again in my life. I make sure to avert my gaze toward the window to hide the creeping red flush up my face. Maybe if I don’t move, she won’t either. As the car skids to a stop in front of the dilapidated shack we call a clubhouse I curse my ineptitude in all things romantic.

"Hey Mo, grab the equipment while me and Orson get the cooler out of the trunk." I look up at Nat's tall, broad shouldered back as I extricate myself from the backseat of the car. He turns his curly blonde head to catch me giving him the curious side eye and smiles innocently. Well if I wasn't suspicious of him needing 'help' with the cooler before, that too casual innocent look certainly seals the deal now. I open my mouth to ask why he needs help but Nat cuts me off "Hey you and Lirae kick on the generator. I think there's still a full gas can in the shed." Okay he's being weird. I stand there a little confused when Lirae rests an elbow on my shoulder to watch the boys wrestle the extra-large camp cooler out of the trunk of the car.

"He's being weird, right?" My thoughts exactly. I glance at her with a grin and shake my head.

"When isn't he? C'mon it's getting dark already." I really don't like being outside of the clubhouse when it's dark out. Not because of monsters and ghosts but because there be wildlife in them there hills. What? Raccoons are terrifying! Lirae follows me but not before reaching out quick little hands to tickle my ribs.

"Watch out! The raccoons will get you." Asshole. I slap at her hands and squirm away with a little squeak of protest. I'm a little more glad for the dimness of dusk than I was a few minutes ago because at least it hides my blush as she laughs at my responses.

"Laugh all you want but probably you're the one they'll eat first when the Critterpocalypse comes." I pull out my phone to use as a flashlight when I duck under the low door frame of the shed. It used to be a child's playhouse sitting a few feet away from the main shack so it's a little cramped with the generator and two people. As usual if it could happen, it does, and always to me. I make a small disgusted sound and try to wipe the cobwebs from the side of my face. Fantastic. "Ugh. Gross. Here, hold this will ya?"

Lirae takes the phone from my hand and directs it at the generator for me. I take a tick to check the fuel gauge just to make sure before I yank the ripcord a few times to turn the motor on. It sputters to life with a roar and the sound of music floats back to us on the warm breeze. I can just see Lirae's full lipped mouth curve into a smile in the dim light from my phone. "You're a mess."

I stand still as she steps in closer to pick the thick gauzy web out of my hair. "Thanks." I clear my throat, suddenly a little unsure and super uncomfortable. Maybe it's the gas fumes. They're making me feel all fuzzy headed and belly floppy like I just got off a rollercoaster. Or maybe it's just being this close to Lirae, alone, in the dark. She pulls the last web away and we're just standing face to face. Her hazel eyes look black in the shadow and suddenly much closer than they were a second ago. So close I can see her heavy lashes fall closed as we lean in closer for a kiss. The second, the absolute second, I close my eyes finally deciding to do something, anything, Orson's voice breaks the silence and causes me to jerk back.

"Hey fucker, answer the phone. Hey fucker, answer the phone. Hey fucker, answer th…" I glare at my phone in indignation. That little shit changed my ringtone for his number! Lirae sighs and tips her head back with an unhappy laugh and answers it. I'm too embarrassed to realize at first that she hadn't moved an inch at the sound of his voice.

"What?" It's clipped and to my ears a little frustrated but that could be hopeful thinking on my part.

"Hurry your sweet ass up the beer is getting warm." The beer is in no way getting warm. It’s just that Orson is a dick.

Lirae ends the call and hands me back my phone with a slightly annoyed look. "Hm. Saved by the bell." I want to comment but I don't have anything really to say. Other than sorry. Which judging by the look on her face is not the appropriate response. When I can't come up with anything helpful she lets out another sigh and leaves me standing in the dark of the shed. All by my lonesome. Great.

By the time I make my way in to the clubhouse everyone is settled on the mismatched furniture we've managed to squirrel away here. I take a beer and my usual seat in the bright yellow bean bag chair that Orson's little brother meant to throw out. There's a rip in the seam at the back. Not enough to spew little balls of polystyrene filler but enough to make it sound rude every time I sit in it. Everyone snickers a little and I roll my eyes. "So. What happened at The Harbor?"

I glance at each of them but they all turn their attention to Mo. Despite being brothers Nat and Mo don't really look alike. Aside from the curly hair they're as different as two people could be. Mo is built more like a swimmer, sinewy and thin, his shoulders slump a little from years spent in front of a computer screen. Heavy lidded dark eyes spark with anticipation and I'm immediately caught in the expectancy of the moment. "I got a call from Manny while you were at your appointment. Warrow is back."

Warrow. Oh man I hate that smelly guy. He has a bad habit of trying to grab my ass every time I have to talk to him. "Where was he this time?"

Not that it matters much. Like I said. Don't sweat the details and everything is okie dokie. "Nepal. And he brought you this." Mo holds up a blackened stone with what looks like patches of rust colored mud caked to it. "He said and I quote 'To chase 'way night horrors so that me sweet lassie c'n dream of my…"

"Okay gross I don't even need to hear the rest." I reach out a hand and take the stone. It's warm in my hand and a little heavier than I thought it would be. It smells like dust and something earthier that I can't identify. Up close it looks like a turd but if it's a magic turd I guess that's okay.

"So what do you think? Is it the real deal?" It's hard to say so I shrug at Nat, still eying my magic turd rock.

"I dunno but we'll see what happens tonight." I tuck it away in my pocket before finally cracking open my beer to sip at it. I'm not a big drinker but I need something to do right now to keep my focus from drifting back to what almost happened in the shed. "How much did he ask for it? Was it a lot?"

Everyone goes quiet except Orson. He chuckles and stretches his muscular dark skinned arms over his head. "He didn't want money." I look at Nat and Mo who are suddenly and very determinedly looking everywhere but me. That only leaves one person who will tell me what's going on. I look at Lirae and even she looks a little uncomfortable as she plays with her own fingers. Why do I feel like I’m going to hate whatever is going to come out of her mouth?

"You owe him a future favor of his choosing." Yup. I hate it. Oh God. Knowing Warrow this future favor may involve nudity, lewd and illegal acts, drugs and or alcohol and dark magics. Not necessarily in that order or combination. My horrified expression makes Orson's chuckle turn in to a barely choked back guffaw. "Don't freak! We totally specified nothing sexual or illegal. Promise."

I must still look a little freaked out because she moves off the floral patterned loveseat she was sharing with Orson to sit on the floor next to my chair. Somehow this makes it all mostly better. "Well, I guess if this works it will be worth it. I don't know how much more Jo-lynn can stand." Lirae reaches up to tug one of my braided pigtails playfully and I guess that means she's done being irritated with me.

"So what's the plan Evil Evie? We looking for boogiemen tonight or what?" More like or what. While terrifying and more than a little gross and overly graphic, my nightmares haven't been anything really solid. Just images of what could happen. I haven't been getting the 'feeling' that something wicked has wandered in to our town. Or if it has it's doing an amazing job of hiding itself. I shrug a little and shake my head.

"I don't know. Aside from the dreams it's been pretty quiet. After the poltergeist last month it's like everything has just…gone away." Normal people would look upon this with relief and possibly hope for a better tomorrow. I look at the silence with dread bordering on hysterical anxiety. Evil for lack of a better term, doesn't die, doesn't get tired, and most certainly doesn't forget. The last six years have proved that time and time again to me. Everyone looks disappointed but no one seems to share my apprehension.

"More time to drink!" Orson high fives Nat as they simultaneously chug their beers. My night has definitely taken a down turn.

#my writing #the av club story dredful tales

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even-more-crescents-blog · 7 years ago

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Fight or Flight

fandom: Gravity Falls

word count: 2.317

characters: Dipper x2 (grownup AU versions), Evil!Stan (belongs to @ahkaraii), Bill

relationships: Dipper selfcest, Evil!Stan / Dipper, past Ford / Dipper

summary: While those around him would maybe prefer to have escaped their past by not being mentally present throughout it, this Dipper’s experiences of being nothing but an empty shell during the most traumatizing events of his life have left him desperately envious, wondering, struggling for agency, for personhood.

warning: internalized victim-blaming, past child abuse, blood, gore, assault, sexual assault

“What were you wearing”, Dipper repeats, his eyes fixed to the ceiling above them. An intoxicating rush of numbness overcomes him.

“When I accepted the apprenticeship?”, Tyrone asks, obviously trying to ignore where this is going.

No dice. “When he fucked you.”

If Dipper had a dollar for every Mason trying to escape their Ford throughout the multiverse and looking for his help in this endeavour, he’d have… about five dollar by now. Which isn’t much. But it’s something, he tells himself, breathing heavily, his head resting on the naked thigh of his newest acquaintance, Tyrone.

Tyrone is a pretty peculiar Dipper indeed. He likes neither of the two names Dippers usually go by. He also isn’t a mess like most other Dippers stranded between the dimensions, quite the opposite. Tyrone might very well be the most composed version of himself Dipper has ever seen. He’s well-groomed, his toned arms speak of weekly work-outs, and then there’s the polo and the penny loafers. Sometimes Dipper wonders whether this really is a version of himself at all.

Right now Tyrone is not wearing either though, or much else for that matter.

They’ve been doing this a lot lately, and Dipper is not entirely sure what Tyrone is getting out of it. Surely he could do better than a grubby alternate self. But Dipper sure as fuck isn’t complaining. Tyrone is good company, and as if being ridiculously handsome wasn’t already enough, he’s also witty and charming.

Dipper reaches over his head to touch the abs he still can’t believe any Mason throughout the galaxy has actually managed to obtain. There’s something filthy slithering through Dipper’s stomach. Just as filthy as himself.

“So”, Dipper says, and he knows he should stop talking the moment he opens his mouth. “You accepted his idiotic apprenticeship too?”

Tyrone doesn’t answer at first. It’s been barely a week ago that Dipper has blasted a hole through his Ford’s skull (and ignored his other request). Tyrone preferred not to see the body.

“I suppose”, he says eventually and shifts a bit. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.

Dipper couldn’t care less. It’s hard to imagine a thirteen years old Tyrone. Did he look exactly like every other Dipper? Like himself? Or did he already have a hint of the fine, grown up features that seem to be completely absent from Dipper’s own face?

“What do you think he wanted from you?”, Dipper asks before he can keep himself from it.

“Fuck if I know”, Tyrone spits out under his breath. “I don’t think it was about me. I think he just wanted anyone who would go along with whatever he said. And when I became too inconvenient for him… he left.”

There’s a short moment of silence. “What were you wearing”, Dipper murmurs, barely audible.

Tyrone stiffens underneath him. “What?”

There are strangely lucid impressions of Stanford and a different version of his thirteen years old self flashing before Dipper’s eyes, like right out of an ancient Greek tale - the boy’s face mature beyond his years, lips and legs parted invitingly, his moans soft, his deep breathing even as Ford grabs him and scratches and bites and tears bloody pieces out of him. No panic, only serene acceptance, and Ford wants him so much it makes Dipper’s insides churn.

“What were you wearing”, Dipper repeats, his eyes fixed to the ceiling above them. An intoxicating rush of numbness overcomes him.

“When I accepted the apprenticeship?”, Tyrone asks, obviously trying to ignore where this is going.

No dice. “When he fucked you.”

Dipper can feel every muscle in Tyrone’s body tensing up. “Excuse me?”

His chest hurts as he sits up and grabs Tyrone’s wrists, right as the other was about to try and move away. No work-out in the world holds up against a body infused with the powers of a demi-god, and so Tyrone struggles in vain against Dipper’s grip, still astonishingly calm, everything considered.

“What did it feel like”, Dipper breathes into Tyrone’s ear, and he needs to know so badly it almost strangles him.

That apparently does it for Tyrone. He manages to free one hand from Dipper’s vice grip and punches him in the ear, quick and hard.

A flash of pain and a sudden ringing noise make Dipper flinch back. He rips both his hands up to his ear with a yelp. That’s all the chance Tyrone needs. He shoves Dipper on his back, and now the tables have turned and Dipper is the one being held down.

“You tell me, what DID it feel like?”, Tyrone hisses between bared teeth, all the admirable poise drained from his face.

“I don’t know!”, Dipper whispers desperately. His entire body breaks into cold sweat. He could fight back, but he feels paralyzed. Insignificant.

“What were YOU wearing, huh?”, Tyrone barks.

“I don’t know!”, Dipper cries out, icy shivers running up and down his back. “I wasn’t there!”

For a moment, Tyrone’s grip loosens. His eyes are wide. Now he almost does look like a child. He doesn’t seem to understand, but he doesn’t need to. A cold snort escapes him. “Wish I hadn’t been there.”

The filthy, slithering thing in Dipper’s stomach is back, and it’s bubbling up searing hot. He’s on Tyrone before he knows it, hands tightly wrapped around Tyrone’s neck, wringing until even the chokes and gargled noises subside. “You… fucking... bastards!”, Dipper manages to get out between frantically drawn breaths while Tyrone claws at his hands. Their skin has gotten so hot it’s impossible to hold onto them, let alone tear them away. “None of you! None of you deserve it!”

His mind must’ve gone dark for a moment. Dipper doesn’t know when he’s let go of Tyrone, but the other is up and dressed now, burn marks all around his neck. How he even manages to stand up straight is a mystery to Dipper. Every mortal being should be half dead.

“You are the worst fucking Dipper”, Tyrone gasps, trying to adjust his collar around the fleshy, glistening burned skin covering his neck.

“Tyrone”, Dipper says halfheartedly, and Tyrone stops just before the door. He waits a moment. When nothing happens, he croaks: “Stop fucking with yourself”, and leaves.

Dipper laughs. At least he thinks that’s what he’s doing.

Stan halts so quickly, Dipper immediately knows he’s done something wrong. His sex-addled mind struggles to remember. The heavy scent of sweat and Stan’s body is strong in his nose, making it even harder to think. His head is spinning and every inch of his skin is tingling. He’s been hyperventilating again. He wraps his legs even harder around Stan’s back. He shifts and moans, and then it hits him.

“Ford”, is what he’s just said. It feels like Dipper’s stomach turns.

Slowly, he opens his eyes and looks up at Stan.

There’s something cold in Stan’s gaze, and also Dipper feels like throwing up. He doesn’t get the chance though, as he can practically see behind Stan’s forehead, and the thoughts that have just come to an abrupt halt there can’t be pretty.

Suddenly, he grabs Dipper by the hips and flings him onto his belly like a rag doll. The movement is enough to make Dipper hurl. He tries to prop himself up on his elbows, but Stan seizes him by the hair and pushes his face right into the vomit.

The cutting stench fills Dipper’s lungs and he needs to get away, needs to push himself upward, but his hands slip on the wet sheets and Stan is holding him down with an iron grip.

“That what you want”, Stan growls as he enters Dipper from behind. Stan fucks hard even when he isn’t livid, and right at this moment he is blind with rage. Dipper feels like his spine is going to crack every second now as he’s being held down with one big, coarse hand dug deep into his hair and the other pressing down between his shoulder blades, his ass bent upwards in what has got to be a perfect 90° angle, and Stan violently plowing into him with all the mercy and forgiveness of a steam hammer.

Dipper’s probably screaming, he doesn’t know, he can’t hear himself anymore, his vision goes white, but still he can hear Stan’s words.

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it. To be his little boy toy.”

Out of all the gifts that Bill has given him, Dipper appreciates none more than the side-effect of his pyrokinesis. He has no control over when it kicks in, it seems to be a decision solely reserved for his body and his body alone. In a matter of seconds, his skin is hot like a branding iron. Stan gives a furious grunt as he jerks away. Dipper throws one hand back, finding Stan’s arm and biting into it with one of the teeth rimmed mouths in his palm. This gives him enough room to turn around and punch Stan square in the jaw. A mistake, as it turns out, since Stan’s jaw is about as massive as a shark’s.

Stan rubs the bruise while his mouth slowly contorts into a grin. “Feisty. I like it.” He lunges forward and digs his sharp teeth into the soft part between Dipper’s shoulder and neck, drawing a scream from Dipper. In turn, Dipper buries his fanged palms into the back of Stan’s neck and upper arm.

They scratch and bite each other like animals, all teeth and claws and growls. While Stan may have the upper hand when it comes to physical strength, Dipper’s searing hot skin and complete lack of consideration for his own safety make him a force to be reckoned with. It takes until Stan finally gets an angle on him and rips open the skin over his chest with a greedy bite that he manages to overwhelm Dipper. He spits the torn out piece of flesh into Dipper’s face and shoves one hand between his legs, making Dipper try and squirm away.

“That’s what I thought”, Stan grunts as he finds Dipper hot and dripping wet. He holds Dipper down and rubs him painfully hard a couple of times, making Dipper mewl and bite back tears, pulls up his fingers again and smears them over Dipper’s mouth.

As if the dingy mattress itself has suddenly become scorching hot, Stan pushes himself off the dirty thing and gets up.

“Yeah, you better fuck off before I burn you to a crisp!”, Dipper snarls, but it’s an empty threat, his legs trembling and his battered and bruised body barely being able to move on its own volition.

Without a further word, Stan leaves Dipper behind, picking at the bite wounds Dipper’s various mouths have left all over his body.

“OH BOYS”, Bill says later while helping Dipper regenerate the skin over his rib cage. Bill is floating above Dipper, his numerous tiny black hands leaving impossibly light touches wherever they go. He ignores the dried trails of various bodily fluids on Dipper’s face, and Dipper is thankful for it.

Stan is still gone, who knows were.

“CAN’T LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR TWO MINUTES.”

“I’m not the worst fucking Dipper”, he murmurs defiantly and leans into Bill’s touch.

“NOOOO, NO NO NO NO. YOU’RE MY FAVORITE DIPPER!”

“Yeah, cuz I’m the only Dipper who puts up with you.”

“HERE I AM, HEALING YOUR WOUNDS, AND THIS IS THE THANKS I GET?” Bill lays one miniature finger over Dipper’s lips. “COME ON, GIVE YOURSELF SOME CREDIT. YOU’RE NOT JUST EXERTING PETTY REVENGE HERE OR SOMETHING BANAL LIKE THAT. KILLING ALL THESE FORDSIES, YOU’RE SAVING ALL THEIR LITTLE PINE TREES!”

Dipper stays quiet for a while. “That’s right. Even the Fords who haven’t come across their Dipper yet... they will never get to meet them.”

“AND HONESTLY NOW. PIRAÑA PANTS HAS GOT SOME NERVE JUDGING YOU. BOY TOY, HAHA! LOOK WHO’S TALKING.”

Dipper lifts his head reluctantly.

“BIG GUY’S GOT BIG ISSUES.” That seems to be all that Bill is willing to say about that. “THOUGH TO BE FAIR, YOU GAVE HIM THE PERMISSION TO DO WHATEVER HE WANTS WITH YOU.”

Dipper makes a noncommittal noise.

On a whim, Bill suddenly digs long black claws into the not entirely healed skin on Dipper’s shoulder, making him wince. “I GET IT”, he says and his eye curls into a smirk. “YOU’RE LIKE ME! YOU’D RATHER HAVE THE PAIN THAN ALL THAT OTHER BORING STUFF.”

Dipper bats his little hands away.

“KID, I DON’T CARE. YOU DO YOU. JUST BE CAREFUL YOU DON’T KICK THE BUCKET. AGAIN. I GOT OTHER THINGS TO DO THAN DEAL WITH ALL YOUR BOO-BOOS.”

Bill vanishes with a laugh and a comical plop.

A couple days later Bill gives them a target, leaving it for them to decide whether they want to go after it as a team. It’s the same evening that Stan pulls up in front of Dipper’s hideout, an abandoned intergalactic gas station.

“I was just gonna hit the bar”, Stan says without looking up, as Dipper steps outside and holds up a hand to keep the setting suns from blinding him.

Dipper leans against the eye strainingly multi-colored convertible truck, courtesy of their boss. “Look, I’m sorry”, he says. He doesn’t really know what he’s apologizing for, but he’d rather just forget about all of this.

“I don’t want your fucking sorry”, Stan says, still without looking at him, and takes a deep drag from his cigar.

Dipper huffs and leans into the car a bit further. “Alright then I’m not sorry. And also fuck you.”

Stan grins and finally peeks up at Dipper over the rim of his aviators. “That’s more like it.”

“Fuck you and your shitty attitude towards me. Always hated that about every incarnation of you I met.” Dipper sighs and reaches under his cap to scratch the back of his head as he notices that… is there something approving about the way Stan looks at him? The rage recedes as quickly as it boiled up. “Whatever. Let’s just get smashed.”

“Sounds like a plan”, Stan says and hands him the cigar.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #Dipper Pines #Evil!Stan #Tyrone Pines #Bill Cipher #1000 crescents AU #Dipper gets his ass kicked: the fanfic #Tyrone is a pretty interesting character with a bit of backstory that I didn't delve into here #but I got a couple of ideas for him that I hope I can work out a bit more #cw: incest #cw: abuse #cw: blood #aaah Evil!Stan's and crescents!Dipper's relationship is just such a treasure trove of issues #sorry for stealin Stan again karaii I hope I haven't completely butchered his character asdfg

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