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luzial · 1 month ago

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My Thoughts on Veilguard (Spoilers for all)

OK. Now that I've actually had a night to sleep on it, here's my more detailed thoughts on Veilguard beneath the cut. Spoilers for everything, of course. Also this is long as hell so have fun, I guess.

I am genuinely feeling so overwhelmed with emotion at getting what was honestly a happier ending for Solavellan than I thought was possible within the established canon. So let me just start off by acknowledging that the last 10 minutes of Veilguard left me feeling a lot more charitable about it than the previous 80 hours I played did. If you want a glowing review, this ain't it.

Gonna try to organize this into a few categories.

Character Customization

This is embarrassing but I actually rage quit the game after spending about an hour in character creation and finding I could not get a Rook that looked anything like I wanted her to look. The problem for me really was the 3 head types that morphed together - I found that to be too limiting to get something that looked like a real human face to me. Eventually I settled on something and, fortunately, got used to it quickly.

Being able to make a vallaslin-removed, 10-years-older version of my Inquisitor was an absolute dream. I had a lot of reference pictures of my DA:I Lavellan, so this was simpler for me than starting fresh with Rook.

Backgrounds

I played as a human Crow mage. The Crow background story was hilarious to me because you're kind of a fuck-up. Viago addresses you as "Idiot" in his opening letter to you at the start of the game. (Viago can call me an idiot any time, for the record.) I was impressed by how much reactivity there was dependent on my background, though I understand that some others (especially Grey Warden) have even more options because they're so closely tied to the parts of the lore this story primarily focuses on. I'm excited to try some others if I can muster up the energy to play this game a second time (more on that to come).

Combat

Drastically more fun than another other DA game. Your mileage may vary if you like the turn-based stuff from the earlier games, but I do not. I played as a Spellblade, got some perfect unique and legendary gear to work with that, and had a blast. Melee mage with electric powers is my absolute preferred thing to be. I felt entirely overpowered by about 35 points into the talents and ended up turning up the difficulty a little because I was killing things pretty easily. But then, because the spec didn't really change much after I hit that sweet spot, I turned the difficulty back down because I was pretty bored with just hitting the same combos and blocks over and over again. So, fun, but still got old after 80 hours of it.

Companions

BioWare companions have a tendency to hit very hard or miss completely for me with not a lot in between. Unfortunately, I found Veilguard to have more misses than hits.

Harding. While I know a lot of people really love Harding, she wasn't ever someone I paid a ton of attention to in Inquisition so I didn't have strong feelings about her return. I was glad that her personal quests gave us some more insight into the Titans and the Kal-Sharok dwarves, both of which are mysteries I was very invested in. (More on my thoughts about how those things played out in the Lore/Story section below.)

Neve. I absolutely loved the idea of Neve. I thought her design was beautiful and unique - loved, loved, loved her hats. I loved the idea of this lady Sherlock Holmes but I was disappointed that her story didn't really feel much like a detective mystery to me. Neve also really got the worst of it in my save - she had the injury at the start, I saved Treviso, and Elgar'nan kidnapped her at the end. So, needless to say, our friendship was a little strained (or as strained as friendships are allowed to be in Veilguard, which is not very). However, Neve getting to say "THIS IS MY CITY" as she uses the Blight against Elgar'nan? Fucking chef's kiss 10/10 loved that shit. Good for her.

Lucanis. As a huge fan of the Crow stories we got in Tevinter Nights, of course I was looking forward to Lucanis. I adored Spite - what a fun idea for a demon archetype to explore. I found the idea of the experimentation with forcing the creation of specific demons and getting them to possess non-mages pretty interesting. I was so enraged that the story wouldn't allow Rook or Lucanis to point out how obvious Illario's betrayal was - I mean, come the fuck on, Zara is literally calling Illario "amatus" as she dies. You're killing me, BioWare. I romanced Lucanis, so more on him as a character and the romance in the Romance section below.

Bellara. I was really uncertain about Bellara at first. It was clear she was going to be "a lot." But she actually really grew on me over the course of the game, and is probably the companion whose friendship I appreciated the most. I loved her banters with Lucanis about cooking and her discussions with Davrin about the implications of the Evanuris being total dickheads. She was one of the few characters in the game who I ever saw attempt to grapple with this (what should have been) ENORMOUS reveal that the Elvhen gods were real and very different than history remembered them (more on that to come, too). And I'd be lying if I said that her utter revulsion at the idea that Solas and Mythal could have been lovers (something I did NOT want) didn't earn her a shitload of loyalty points from me.

Davrin. Davrin felt the most like what I would expect a Dragon Age companion to feel like. He slotted perfectly into the lore but also advanced important parts of it. He was a fantastic example of a heroic Grey Warden but also had ties to his Dalish roots. He and Assan were adorable and I loved their journey together. I really felt like he had the best head on his shoulders of anybody in Rook's team, while also having a personal mission that very directly influenced and pushed forward the overarching narrative of the story. This is what a good companion looks like.

Taash. Boy, did I have a difficult time with Taash. Listen. As a cis lady (though admittedly a bisexual one who has many complicated thoughts about gender), I don't feel that it is especially my place to critique Taash's personal story. So I'll just say that I was frustrated by how often they felt like an absolute child to me - in a way that truly left me wondering why the hell Rook recruited an immature teenager for her team. I found Taash's relationship with their mother to be equal parts frustrating and touching, and I think that's fine and probably good. I wish Taash had given their mother a chance to tell us more about people in the Qun who are non-binary. I was excited to hear that lore and sad that Taash cut her off. I am always glad to see stories like Taash's in very popular media because I think stories instill empathy in us and empathy goes a long way toward acceptance. I do wish, however, that Taash's story was spoken about in a more "Dragon Age-y" tone, versus using the exact words and concepts that we do in the real world. It took me out of Thedas at times to hear how they framed their experience.

Emmrich. A little torn. My god, I loved Manfred. I loved Emmrich most of the time too. I thought his personal quest was fun, hilarious, and creepy. Someone had way too much fun with all those horror zoom-ins during the cinematics, and I am here for it. I loved what we learned of the Mourn Watch and Nevarra - both things I was really excited to see in a game. I think my reluctance to fully embrace Emmrich is simply that much of the information he provides is so similar to the sort of information Solas gave us in Inquisition. And so many players hated Solas for that, whereas I expect Emmrich will be much better liked overall because he delivers his advice a lot more politely than Solas managed to. So I guess I do like Emmrich, but my Solavellan heart is telling me that's a little disloyal.

Overall, my biggest complaint isn't even with the individual companions or their stories but with the absolutely awful pacing that dictates how those stories play out. If I don't play this game a second time, it's because of Act 2. All the running back and forth to have what I have been derisively referring to as "picnics" with your companions really soured me on them in ways that I don't think is very fair to the actual characters. I wish I didn't have to go the map and teleport to get 2-3 minutes of dialogue with someone. I wish I could talk to them more at the Lighthouse. I do miss the conversation wheels where I could just ask for more info. Combined with the fact that, at times, it felt like this was all I was doing for the entirety of Act 2, they had just worn out their welcome for me and i was desperate to advance the main plot.

I also just did not need 2 separate pep talks from Varric effectively saying "get your team's shit together and it'll be better for your bigger goals." I know, Varric. I am playing a BioWare game. You are explaining a BioWare game to me in a BioWare game. I don't need that. I'm here to fix my companions' shit. I signed up for that. Again, that dialogue just took me out of Thedas, and especially when he said it a second time.

Romance

Absolute, fucking nothing-burger with nothing-sauce and no cheese. And I know that this is not just about who I picked - I have looked at plenty of the other romances and talked to my friends who romanced other people. This game just doesn't have it. Spice level is like a dash of stale black pepper. A few cute party banters when you decide to pair up with somebody, but that was really about it. This is gonna be all about the fics for those of you who really wanted more from these characters.

I think you would get this scene regardless of whether you'd begun to flirt with him, but I did really like the first private scene you have with Lucanis where you walk around the Treviso markets and he picks out food items for everybody in the party. It was a lot kinder and more thoughtful than I expected from an assassin character, so I guess that's probably why I went with him. I didn't feel strongly about romancing any of the companions and I ended up going with Lucanis because I knew I was going to save Treviso since I was a Crow and I figured it'd be a lot simpler to romance him in this save versus a second where I save Minrathous. How romantic, right?

To the extent the devs said this was the "most romantic" Dragon Age game so far ... surely they were only talking about Solavellan, right? 😭

Lore/Story

Whew. Strap in. Cause I am conflicted and I'm ready to throw all my problems at the wall / people on Tumblr who haven't stopped reading yet.

Let me start by saying a few things about what I think makes a satisfying resolution to a story. I do not think it is at all a bad thing if your audience is able to guess - mostly or partially - the direction a story is taking. I actually think that can be a very strong compliment to your writing and to the intelligence of the breadcrumbs that you've left along the way. I read everything. I read every word of every codex. I read every novel. I read every comic even though I hate reading comics. I like being rewarded by seeing the knowledge I've gained from that work reflected back at me in the game. That is Good Shit.

I was thrilled to watch headcanon after headcanon (mine and others) confirmed as lore in this game. It was deeply satisfying to go back and look at notes I had made while writing Ruins in 2016 and 2020 about which Elvhen gods corresponded to which Tevinter Old Gods and find that I had all but 2 of them correct. (I swapped Elgar'nan and Falon'Din and I'm not even going to count that against myself because how the hell was I supposed to guess that the Evanuris associated with the SUN was aligned with the Tevinter god of NIGHT, fuck off lol). Good breadcrumbs are so deeply satisfying in a story like this and I cannot be thankful enough that we got all these little hints along the way that were waiting for us to discover them and fit the puzzle pieces together.

The thing of it is, that there are places where I think those breadcrumbs were followed to their least interesting possible conclusions. And that makes me a bit sad because I think it's pretty clear that this game is meant to neatly tie a bow on this geographical part of the Dragon Age world, and it's therefore pretty unlikely that we are going to get much more information to fill in the important gaps in knowledge we still have about the Blight and the Titans in particular.

The more I played this game, the more confused I became about the origins of the Blight, and that was especially frustrating for me because I honestly thought I had it very clear in my head after playing The Descent DLC. The Blight was like an infection or an immune response within the Titans' bodies to the invasion of the Evanuris. It was a consequence of their actions but not something created intentionally. To the extent I knew that Ghilan'nain was messing around with the Blight, I thought it was a fascination she developed with what seemed to be a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and not something she had intentionally, actively created herself. I came out of Veilguard being completely unclear with which of those two things is true and I do not think it is possible or interesting for both to be true. It is entirely possible I have missed something (somehow, in my very slow playthrough where I read every codex as soon as it become available to me), but my lingering suspicion is that the writers of this game never entirely made up their mind about the Blight's origins either. And that's a sad note to leave on, like I said, because I don't know that we'll see much of it again.

As for the Titans, I did enjoy seeing more of that story - and especially from THEIR perspective, not just Solas' memories - through Harding. Their anger was so just and important and I'm glad we saw some of that. However. A couple of big misses for me on the Titans. First, given how alien and huge and intimidating the "inside" of the Titan was in The Descent I just do not like the idea of them having these physical, humanoid-shaped bodies like the one we see in the mountains. I wanted something more abstract than that because I wanted them to be something mythical and fundamentally unknowable. Also, the absolute nonsense of introducing this idea that "angry" lyrium is red lyrium - but don't worry, it's not blighted! It's a totally different thing! That missed me so hard. What an unnecessary complication of straightforward lore. If you want the lyrium to look different to reflect the Titan's anger make it a different color, make it spark, do literally anything except use an existing mutation that already means one very specific thing to your audience.

So the Blight and the Titans were the two places where the lore fell down a bit for me. But I also was simultaneously excited to see Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain and also so underwhelmed by how mundane and "modern" (modern by Thedas standards) they seemed to me at times. I adored Ghilan'nain's model in particular. She was just as creepy, uncanny, body-horror as I have always wanted her to be. Both were fantastically acted. Absolutely no complaints there.

But in the same way that I wanted the Titans to feel suitably alien and distant from us, the players - the Warden, Hawke, the Inquisitor, Rook; people who did not live 10,000 years ago and cannot conceive of this world once being drastically different from how it now is - I wanted the Evanuris to feel SO far above us, so removed. They are not truly gods but they are so godlike in the scope of their power that I wanted them to look at modern Thedas almost like we were ants. The scope of their concerns should be so enormous that we are practically nothing to them. I found it wild when they called me Rook - that they cared enough to know my name? I didn't hate the idea of them grasping power wherever they could - with the Venatori, with the Antaam. But it just made them feel so much smaller than I had imagined. The fact that they called their dragons "archdemons" was a weird nitpicky sticking point for me. Surely they had their own word? Why would they stoop to adopting a word and a concept that never had a reason to exist in their culture?

Speaking of words, and names. I hated, hated everybody using Solas' real name. In my mind, the only people who should have gotten to do that were people who knew him as Solas in the Inquisition. That everyone else adopted it, versus calling him the Dread Wolf or Fen'Harel, whatever, really confused me. It felt so weirdly intimate to have people - even people who weren't party members, just fucking randos that are helping you - calling him Solas. I recognize that this probably a "me" problem and it would be more confusing for new players to have the same character referred to by different names. But still, the part of my Inquisitor who still lives in my heart wanted to just slap anybody out here going around using his name like it was theirs to use.

The exponential increase of the use of magic in the North of Thedas was both something I anticipated and also still way beyond anything I expected. We knew attitudes about magic were drastically different in the North. Dorian's character in Inquisition was a great way to prime us for that shift. Fundamentally, though, I believe Dragon Age as a series has always been concerned about the risks and the consequences of magic use. Those risks are not less in the North. It's simply that they find the risks more acceptable and have different customs and safeguards in place to facilitate the kind of magic use they want.

But I saw NO risks for magic use in Veilguard. No sense that the huge quantities of energy being pulled from a VERY TATTERED AND DELICATE VEIL were worrying to anyone. If magic has become easier to use because of the events of Inquisition and the Veil's weakened state, maybe I could believe that. But somebody in the game needed to say it out loud. Otherwise, I'm just looking at a world where magic is a net positive so how stupid and cruel do you have to be to prevent its use? It makes the already dubious morals of the Chantry and Templars entirely reprehensible in retrospect because apparently if you just let people do any magic they want at any time, everything's peachy!

It was difficult to anchor myself to any particular idea of whether this amount of magic use was normal for my Rook, because Rook - regardless of background - is from the North. They're not an outsider. Thus, I'm counting on someone who is an outsider - maybe Harding? - to comment on it, to contextualize it, to make it make sense to me from the perspective of the South, which has always been the player's perspective until this game. I never got that and I wish I had because it would have been so much more interesting and nuanced.

Similarly, it was so challenging to be thrust in media res into a Thedas where everyone (save one obstinate First Warden) was entirely willing to accept that the Elvhen gods were real and were the cause of all the bad shit happening in the world. Listen, I get it. 10 years is a lot of time. Maybe huge, fundamental paradigm shifts have happened in Thedas. Maybe people are willing to believe unbelievable things. But to see very, very little recognition of that from the characters we encounter was jarring. As I said above, I was glad that Bellara and Davrin were able to contextualize some of this in their conversations and I assume an elf Rook maybe has more to say on it as well, but it just wasn't enough for me. This was a place where I feel like we were asked to fill in too many gaps in time and in knowledge and I ended up with the sense that the writing just "had" to begin at this point because it had so much other ground to cover.

And that was the biggest problem for me - not exactly with lore but with pacing. Veilguard decided to wrap up so many of the fundamental mysteries we have been dealing with for 4 games. That is a huge order and it takes a lot of time. As I said, I took 80 hours to play this game. I think that is plenty of time to tell a story as complex as this one needed to be without me coming out of it feeling like I still have questions that should have been answered. Because the game "wastes" so much time, especially in Act 2, especially with some aspects of the companion stories, there just isn't enough room left to do what it needs to do with the main narrative. I also honestly think it could have been split across 2 games - not that any of us want to wait another decade to have these stories resolved, but maybe I would have if I'd known they would have been resolved a little more completely. And, again, I wouldn't be so sad about this if it didn't seem so obvious that we are done with Thedas after this.

Finally, I was so devastated by the lack of Thedas politics in this game. There were so many wonderful opportunities for factions and countries to be pissed at each other, to be working against each other for drastically different goals. I think of this as another core aspect of what Dragon Age games are about. Inquisition obviously was the most political of the games in that sense, because you really were a political leader more than you were a hero. But all 3 of the previous games were worried about this stuff - worried about who's in power, who is subjugated, how can the world be changed not only by people with magical ability but also by those who have deep beliefs about what Thedas should be. Magical power and political power are both very real and both crucial in the prior 3 games. In Veilguard, magic is power, simple as that.

I think this is linked, at least partially, to the decision not to include too many prior decisions and possible world states into Veilguard. And, hey, I do get that. As a player who started with Inquisition I found the Tapestry very intimidating. Three games' worth of choices is a lot to ask of even returning players, let alone new ones. I can't fault them too heavily for this because god knows how many more years in development it would've taken to make all that work. But that doesn't make me mourn the losses any less.

And now, really finally, here's a list of questions that I really don't need anybody to try to answer for me but which I cannot get out of my head and are kinda breaking the plot for me:

Hey so like, how was Solas (weakened state Solas at the end of Inquisition) capable of "murdering" Mythal? Like what power did he have that could have overcome hers? Even if he did have that power how COULD he kill her if he was still bound to her at that point? (I have always read that cutscene as Flemeth at least partially consenting to give Solas her power - not because I'm trying to give him a charitable read but because I honest to god don't understand how it's possible if she's unwilling.)

I think I'm even more confused about the orb/focus from Inquisition now. Obviously if he'd gotten it Solas wouldn't have had to take Mythal's power. But like, why did he have it in the first place? Was it something only he had? What was its original purpose? Cause the dagger seems to have taken its place in terms of importance/power level and containing the Titans.

How the fuck did Solas cleanse the red lyrium idol/dagger?

What happened to those Sentinel elves like Abelas? Where the fuck did they go? Whose side are they on?

What about the elves disappearing into the forest?

Still the stuff about the Blight.

I'm sure there's a lot more but I'll leave it at that because we've got to get to ...

Solavellan

Guys. I was so afraid of this game for so long. I'm not sure what I really expected or what had me so worried. I've always told my friends that the best ending I can imagine for Solavellan is the Inquisitor and Solas "dying on the same sword." What I meant by that was that I fully accepted their ending would be tragic (I truly saw no alternative) but I would be content if at least they died together - at least he didn't die alone.

What we got was honestly so much better than I wanted? LOL. Especially with Trick Weekes' recent clarifications. (Specifically, regarding where they are going: "She's speaking both romantically and literally. It won't be terrible if they're in there together." I AM DYING I AM LOSING MY MIND I'M SOBBING AND I'M SO HAPPY.)

I was screaming at my monitor - as I'm sure many of you were as well - "GO WITH HIM" when Solas finally gave in and bound himself to the Veil. I sobbed immediately, I woke up this morning and watched the cutscene again and sobbed again. I feel really grateful that this one ship in this one piece of media got such a tailored and thoughtful ending for it - especially knowing how many other choices from previous games had to be stripped away to make room for other things.

So, yeah. Given however many thousands of words I just put into this about all the shit I don't like? Still feeling pretty charitable right now because my girl Lavellan got the happy ending she so richly deserved.

(Side, and final, note: Jesus who made his wolf form look like that? Why would you do our boy so dirty?)

#dragon age #solas #solavellan #dragon age veilguard #dragon age veilguard spoilers

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emberdew · 2 months ago

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Be More Ghost Chapter 13: Halloween

Summary:

A Be More Chill AU where Danny gets a Super Quantum Intel Unit Processor (or Squip) to help him become cool and win over Valerie, but things don't really go as planned.

Masterpost | AO3 Link | Word Count: 1,643

‘Cause a Halloween party’s a rad excuse to put your body through mad abuse and I might pass out but it’s alright ‘cause I’m Halloween partying hard tonight!

Looking in the mirror, Danny grinned. His Halloween costume was perfect- a snow-white wig and a familiar black jumpsuit. He was Phantom. Okay, he was always Phantom. but tonight he was also pretending to be Phantom, which was going to be so much fun!

Behind him in the mirror, another not-quite-Phantom was giving his outfit a once-over.

“I can’t believe I got Dash to invite me to his big Halloween bash this year. No older sister’s help required this time.” Danny turned around and smiled at Squip-Phantom.

Now that you’ve upgraded, all the popular kids’ parties are within your reach.

Danny heard a ding and checked his phone on the bedside table. It was another message from Star.

“Should I ignore that one too?” Danny was starting to feel kind of bad about leaving her messages unread. But Squip-Phantom had insisted he shouldn’t reply.

Keep ignoring her messages. We’ll be seeing her soon at the party anyway.

Danny nodded and shoved his phone into a jumpsuit pocket.

“The party started an hour ago, should I fly over now?”

Yes, you’ve waited long enough.

In the mirror, Danny watched as the rings of light around his body transformed his costume into the real deal. His bright green eyes, ghostly glow, and slightly more masculine-looking facial features made a big difference, so he was pretty confident no one would figure out his secret identity despite the similarities.

Danny looked in the mirror for another moment, then took off through his bedroom wall toward Dash’s house.

___

Loud music, throngs of drunk teens, and of course red solo cups. Dash’s big Halloween party was shaping up to be just as awesome as Danny hoped.

Many of his classmates were also in Phantom costumes, but he saw a few others dressed as some of his more popular rogues- several Embers, a few Desirees, and someone even had an impressively well-made Skulker suit.

Actually- Danny jerked back to get another look at someone dressed as Ember who seemed a bit too realistic. As he took a step toward her, his ghost sense going off confirmed this was the real Ember McLain.

“What are you doing here?” Danny flashed his eyes green for a second as a warning.

“Chill out, babypop. I’m just here for the party!” Ember raised her red solo cup and gestured to the crowd. “With so many people here dressed like me, there’s lots of opportunities to hear them say my name.’

Danny glanced at the crowd again and spotted Ashley a few feet away in an Ember costume. She was chatting with some other girls from his class, completely oblivious to the real ghost that her costume was based on in the room.

“I love your Ember costume!” Hannah, who was in a generic witch costume, complimented Ashley.

Danny watched as the fire in the real Ember’s hair got a little bit bigger. He knew he should capture her in a thermos before she started any trouble, but he really didn’t feel like causing a scene at the party. It wasn’t like she was actively hurting anyone or hypnotizing people, so it’d probably be fine to leave her alone.

“Are you serious right now?”

Danny turned to see Wes Weston glaring down at him. He was wearing a Sherlock Holmes costume because of course he was.

“How can you be wearing that,” Wes flailed an arm at Danny’s Phantom costume, “and people still don’t realize that I’m right about Fenton being Phantom???”

Danny and Ember shared a knowing look.

“I don’t know what you mean, dipstick. Fenton here doesn’t look anything like Phantom,” Ember smiled as she patted the top of Danny’s wig.

“He’s literally in a Phantom costume!”

“I just don’t see it…”

As much as he enjoyed watching Ember harass Wes, Danny was getting hungry. He slipped away and neither of them seemed to notice as their loud argument continued.

Danny pushed through the crowd and ducked under black and orange streamers hanging from the ceiling on his way to the snack table. Before he could reach it though, a hand tapped his shoulder to grab his attention.

“Danny! Awesome Phantom costume!” Star beamed at him. “I was afraid you weren’t coming. Did you get my messages?”

Play it off, Squip-Phantom waved its hand in a dismissive gesture as it floated close to his side.

“Am I late? Didn’t even realize.” Danny shrugged. Star’s smile crumpled for a moment but she bounced back quickly.

“What do you think of my costume? I figured, you always see sexy cats, but no one ever goes as a sexy dog.” Star playfully tugged on the dog ears attached to the hood of her costume.

Danny looked her up and down. Sure enough, she was dressed as a “sexy dog” but she was also very green. She had on a spiked collar that reminded him exactly of- oh. She was Cujo.

“It’s...”

Vague compliment.

“...Original.” Danny felt bad as soon as he said it. Star’s smile dropped again and she looked crushed. He couldn’t do this to her even if the Squip told him to, it was just too mean. “I mean, it’s amazing! Seriously, I can’t believe I’m with a girl who looks like you.”

“Paulina said it was dumb.” Star sighed but perked up again. “You need a drink!”

Danny turned to face the Squip as Star walked to the punch bowl.

“Did you see the look on her face? She thought I stood her up!”

And she was so excited when she realized you hadn’t, Squip-Phantom pointed out. People want what they don't have.

Danny knew the Squip knew what it was doing, but Danny still felt bad for treating Star like that. He shook his head. He’d already decided to stop following his instincts, so he shouldn’t feel bad. He should just do what the Squip tells him.

Look who’s here.

Danny followed where Squip-Phantom pointed and saw Valerie walking up to Dash.

“Sorry I’m late,” Valerie said.

“I didn’t even realize.”

“Oh. Okay…” Valerie paused as she noticed Dash’s costume. Like Danny, Dash was dressed up as Phantom in a white wig and black jumpsuit. “Are you seriously dressed as Phantom?” She sounded disappointed.

“Right! Phantom’s the best! Who are you supposed to be?”

“The Red Huntress.” Valerie glared at Dash, who seemed confused. Danny thought it was funny that she was also dressed up as her alter-ego in a slightly more hand-crafted-looking version of her signature red ghost hunting suit.

“Who?” Dash stared at her costume with no hint of recognition.

“The ghost hunter?” Valerie waved her cardboard ghost gun around in exasperation. “You’ve seriously never heard of her?”

“Uh, nope.” Dash paused for an awkward moment. He winced when someone knocked over a vase nearby. “You want a drink?”

“Sure-”

“Cool, they’re over there!” Dash pointed to the snack table and walked away. After a moment Valerie just sighed and poured herself some punch.

Danny was about to walk over to her when a hand grabbed his wrist. He looked up to see Paulina in a “sexy Sayonara Pussycat” costume with a massive smile on her face.

“Danny! I’m supposed to get you. Star has a surprise,” Paulina started dragging Danny around a corner and up some stairs.

“What kind of surprise?”

“The kind where you don’t ask questions.” She winked.

Danny felt a bit unsure but decided to follow anyway.

___

Red solo cup in hand, Valerie wandered over to where Dash and several other jocks were having a dance-off. It seemed like Dash was winning, but only because his opponent was too drunk to stay upright, much less perform any kind of dance move.

She raised her mask to take a sip of the punch and immediately spit it out. Yeah, there was all kinds of alcohol in that. No thanks.

“Yeah, this punch is disgusting.”

Valerie turned to see someone dressed as Ember, the annoying singer ghost, right next to her. She hated that there were a billion people dressed as ghosts at this party. She’d never be able to tell if there were any real ones there, especially since her dad had forced her to keep all her real ghost hunting gear at home tonight.

“It is,” Valerie agreed, looking down at the awful liquid swirling around in her cup. Great, now she had to figure out a way to get rid of it.

“I’m just gonna dump this.” The girl in the Ember costume smiled as she turned her cup over and let the contents spill on the floor.

“You can’t just do that!” Valerie gripped the cup in her hand so hard it crunched. “Now someone could slip on it!”

“What are you gonna do about it, ghost hunter girl?” The ghostly girl mocked as she raised an eyebrow.

“I’m going to go get paper towels.”

As she stomped away, Valerie heard the other girl laughing at her but she didn’t look back. She checked the nearest bathroom but someone called out when she tried knocking so she went to the kitchen instead. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Kwan, dressed as the no-good biker ghost, frantically looking for something in the fridge.

“Everything okay, Kwan?” Valerie stepped closer and Kwan swung toward her.

“Have you seen any Mountain Dew Red?” Kwan asked in panicked desperation.

“No?” Despite having to drink sodas and energy drinks regularly to keep awake for her ghost hunting gig, Valerie had never heard of Mountain Dew Red.

Kwan turned back to the fridge and started muttering to himself. Valerie decided to ignore his weirdness and grabbed some paper towels. So far, this Halloween was not going the way she’d expected.

#danny phantom #be more ghost #danny phantom fanfiction #ember mclain #star danny phantom #my art #my fic

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anonymousewrites · 10 months ago

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A Study of the Heart and Brain (Book 3) Chapter Twelve

Father Figure! Sherlock Holmes x Teen! Reader

Chapter Twelve: Growing Family

Summary: John and Mary finally get to enjoy their wedding properly.

Sherlock and (Y/N) stood in the foyer of the reception hall while the celebration continued inside. They had handled the danger, and now John and Mary could properly have fun at their wedding. Sholto had gotten medical attention and then been sent to the hospital to get a proper checkup. All news was optimistic since Sholto hadn’t taken off his belt. Still, there was one more thing (Y/N) and Sherlock had to do (and Sherlock was avoiding having to dance with anyone or perform the song he’d prepared for the occasion).

“Sherlock, (Y/N), what are you doing back here?” said John, walking in.

“Just waiting,” said (Y/N).

“Wonderful, you two find a murderer running around my wedding and are entertained but are bored with the actual party,” said John, rolling his eyes.

“Sherlock?” Lestrade walked in from outside with the wedding photographer in hand. “Got him for you.”

John furrowed his brow in confusion, and (Y/N) shrugged. “We’re done waiting.”

“Ah, the photographer. Excellent,” said Sherlock. “Thank you. May I have a look at your camera?”

“What’s this about? I was halfway home,” huffed the photographer.

“You should have driven faster,” replied Sherlock coolly, turning on the camera and scrolling through the photos. (Y/N) stood at his side and nodded as they went. “There, you see?” said Sherlock.

“Yep,” said (Y/N).

“You two gonna tell us?” said Lestrade, crossing his arms. He was way too used to dealing with the pair.

“Try looking for yourself,” said Sherlock, holding out the camera.

“Um, look for what?” asked John. “Is the murderer in these photographs?”

“It’s not what’s in the photographs; it’s what’s not in them—any of them,” said Sherlock.

“That and what Bainbridge wrote in his email,” said (Y/N).

“Yes, that provided a useful similarity,” said Sherlock.

“Would one of you explain yourselves?” said Lestrade.

“There is always one man at a wedding who is not in any photographs but can go anywhere and even carry an equipment bag around him if he likes, and you never even see his face. You only ever see the camera,” said Sherlock, pulling out handcuffs (that he had stolen from Lestrade upon one occasion or another). He locked the photographer to a nearby luggage trolley.

“What are you doing? What is this?!” cried the photographer indignantly.

(Y/N) ignored him and held up their phone with a name and social media page showing from the glowing screen. “Jonathan Smalls, today’s wedding photographer—also known as the Mayfly Man. His brother was one of the recruits that was killed in the incursion while being led by Major Sholto. Smalls wanted revenge on Sholto, so he romanced his way through Sholto’s staff, found the opportunity he needed in a wedding invitation, and planned his murder. Bainbridge was the rehearsal, and Sholto was the real target.”

“Brilliant, ruthless, almost certainly a monomaniac—though, in fairness, his photographs are actually quite good,” said Sherlock.

“I’m texting you the other details and evidence,” said (Y/N) to Lestrade. “If you need more, we’ll send it.”

“You ought to arrest him or something,” said Sherlock. Lestrade nodded.

“John, what are you doing in here?” called Mary, walking in.

“Ah, sorry, we’re coming,” said John, smiling. He walked out with his wife, knowing Sherlock and (Y/N) had the situation handled.

“It’s not me he should be arresting, Mr. Holmes,” said Smalls, narrowing his eyes. “Sholto—he’s the killer, not me. I should have killed him quicker. I shouldn’t have tried to be clever.”

(Y/N) smirked sharply, and Smalls retracted into himself at the teenagers cutting glance. “The only thing you should have done was driven faster.” Their smirk widened. “And maybe not have tried to go up against Sherlock Holmes and (Y/N)—” they faltered as they remember what Sholto had called them. “(Y/N) Holmes.” Yes. That was right. They were Sherlock’s kid. The last time they had said it, Moriarty had hurt them. Now they could say if free and with pride.

Sherlock smiled. He didn’t care about how cutting or ruthless (Y/N) could be. They were smart, cunning, observant. But they were also kind and hard-working and trying to help people. They had Moriarty’s DNA, yes. But (Y/N) was his kid. They were (Y/N) Holmes.

The reception room’s tables were pushed to the side as the sun set. The floor was ready to be danced on. First, of course, was the bride and groom. John and Mary had eyes only for each other as they walked onto the dance floor. John took Mary’s hand and placed his hand on her waist while she put her hand on his shoulder. They were ready to dance as a married couple.

Sherlock stood on the band’s stage with his violin. He took a deep breath and drew his bow across the strings. A lovely, romantic waltz started up. Sherlock wasn’t much for emotions or sentimentality, but his care for John came through as he had composed beautiful music that brimmed with joy and care.

John and Mary waltzed to the beautiful music, smiling and chuckling in pleasant enjoyment at the moment. Then, when the music ended, they leaned in and kissed. The guests applauded and cheered in support of the couple.

Sherlock cleared his throat as the noise died down, and everyone turned to him. “Friends and family, just, ahem, one last thing before the evening begins properly. Apologies for earlier. A crisis arose and was dealt with as soon as (Y/N) brought attention to it.” (Y/N) waved slightly, shifting uncomfortably as all eyes turned onto them. “More importantly, however, today we saw two people make vows. I’ve never been one for vows, and I’ve made very few, but here in front of you all, I shall make one. Mary and John: whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on, and (Y/N) most likely agrees, (Y/N) and I will always be there, always, for all three of you.”

Slip of the tongue, thought (Y/N), knowing what he was referring to.

“I’m sorry, I mean two of you. All two of you,” corrected Sherlock. “Both of you, in fact. I’ve just miscounted.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, it’s time for dancing. Play the music again, will you?”

The music started, and more couples and friends moved onto the dance floor while Sherlock got down from the stage. (Y/N) walked over to him, and Mary and John headed over as well. Mary raised an eyebrow at him, and John looked at Sherlock in confusion. It was evident Sherlock’s slip of the tongue had not gone unnoticed.

“Sorry,” said Sherlock. “That was one more deduction than I was expecting to say out loud.”

“Deduction?” asked Mary.

“Increased appetite, change in taste perception,” said (Y/N), and when the Watsons looked at them in confusion, they shrugged. “You chose the wine months ago and now you don’t like it. That’s a very sudden change.”

“And you were sick this morning. You assumed it was just wedding nerves. You got angry with me when I mentioned it to you,” said Sherlock.

“All the signs are there,” said (Y/N).

“The signs?” questioned Mary.

“The sign of three,” said (Y/N) and Sherlock.

“What?!” exclaimed Mary, and John stared in shock.

“Mary, we think you should take a pregnancy test,” said Sherlock.

Mary’s surprise turned to an elated smile while John just stared.

“Of course, the statistics in the first trimester are—”

“Shut up. Just…shut up.” John had no anger. In fact, he seemed pleased, if still surprised. He was processing the information.

“Right,” said Sherlock.

John blinked and faced Mary. “How did they notice before me? I’m a bloody doctor.”

“It’s your day off,” said (Y/N).

“It’s you twos’ day off!” exclaimed John.

“Stop-Stop panicking,” said Sherlock.

“I’m not panicking,” said John, but he was as all the implications of having a baby set in.

“I’m pregnant,” said Mary. “I’m panicking.”

“How about no one panics?” said (Y/N).

“Right. Absolutely no reason to panic,” said Sherlock.

“Oh, and you would know, wouldn’t you?” said John.

“I have a kid,” said Sherlock.

“You got me when I wasn’t a baby,” said (Y/N).

“Yes, but John and Mary are fine. They’re already the best parents in the world because of all the practice they had,” said Sherlock.

“What practice?” asked John.

“Well, you’re hardly going to need me or (Y/N) around now that you’ve got a real baby on the way,” said Sherlock.

John stared for a moment. And then he burst out laughing. He hugged Sherlock and (Y/N) tightly, and they awkwardly patted him on the back.

“Dance, both of you,” said Sherlock. “Now, go, dance. We can’t just stand here. People will wonder what we’re talking about.”

“Right,” said John, clearing his throat but still beaming.

“What about you two?” asked Mary, smiling with tears of joy in her eyes.

“Well, we can’t all four dance. There are limits!” said John, more than happy to pull his wife away for another dance now that they knew they had a baby on the way.

“Come on, husband, let’s go,” laughed Mary.

“This isn’t a waltz, is it?” said John.

“Don’t worry, I’ve been tutoring him,” said Sherlock as Mary and John moved onto the dance floor.

Sherlock and (Y/N) watched the people dancing and laughing and smiling together. Most hadn’t even known about the true danger around them and just got to enjoy themselves at the wedding. (Y/N) felt a bit proud of themself for making sure their good time didn’t have to be interrupted. And now, of course, John and Mary could relax and celebrate their wedding (and coming baby).

“Do you want to dance?” said Sherlock, glancing at (Y/N). “Other kids are enjoying themselves.”

“I don’t really think I could get along with them,” said (Y/N). Plus, they weren’t sure how to approach people they didn’t know in a “friendly” (non-investigative) way.

“What if I went with you?” asked Sherlock.

“What, like a father-child dance?” said (Y/N).

“Why not?” said Sherlock. “We’re both Holmeses.”

“I, uh, called myself that because Sholto called me that,” said (Y/N). “Sorry. I know there’s nothing official.”

“All that governmental official stuff is stupid,” said Sherlock firmly. “I’m your dad. You’re my kid. You’re (Y/N) Holmes. Don’t forget that.” He wouldn’t let (Y/N) think less of themself just because there wasn’t a paper that said he was their dad. What counted was their connection.

“Thanks, Dad,” said (Y/N), smiling.

“Come on,” said Sherlock, taking his kid’s hands and pulling them out onto the dancefloor to have fun.

And so, as the music played, John and Mary enjoyed their marriage, and Sherlock and (Y/N) danced around, carefree for even just a little. They were all a family with ties that went beyond blood. They had what counted.

Taglist:

@stilesstilinskiforlife-blog

@im-making-an-effort

@ilse235

@schrodingers-intelligence

@awsedrftgyhujikol

@lxserthxngzzz

@forever1313

@mentallyunstablemanlover

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thefisherqueen · 4 months ago

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Sherlock Holmes' The Hound of the Baskervilles, chaper XIIII

One of Sherlock Holmes's defects—if, indeed, one may call it a defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and assistants. I had often suffered under it, but never more so than during that long drive in the darkness. Watson being refreshingly honest here. I can only imagine what Holmes' reaction on reading this was

“You're mighty close about this affair, Mr. Holmes. What's the game now?” “A waiting game.” Yes thanks you Holmes, that tells us exactly nothing

“Very serious, indeed—the one thing upon earth which could have disarranged my plans. He can't be very long, now. It is already ten o'clock. Our success and even his life may depend upon his coming out before the fog is over the path.” Then maybe you shouldn't have used him as live bait, Holmes. Also, how can an Englishman not have expected fog?

I was at Holmes's elbow, and I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and exultant, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. There he is, the Hound! Looking... on fire?? I'm suddenly more conviced by one man dying from sheer terror, and the other tumbling down a cliff trying to escape from it. How did Stapleton archieve that look? Or did he found a real hellhound upon that Grimpen mire of his after all? (still more believable than swamps that suck up and kill entire ponies)

“Phosphorus,” I said. “A cunning preparation of it,” said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal. “There is no smell which might have interfered with his power of scent. Chemical warfare then, used for murder. Impressive We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not for such a creature as this. And the fog gave us little time to receive him.”“You have saved my life.” “Having first endangered it. Holmes will gleefully expose people to the greatest danger... but at least he can apologise very pretty, so I guess it's fine? Sir Henry made a near escape of death two nights in a row, the second one very very near... the man must be a wreck

In the centre of this room there was an upright beam, which had been placed at some period as a support for the old worm-eaten baulk of timber which spanned the roof. To this post a figure was tied, so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to secure it that one could not for the moment tell whether it was that of a man or a woman. One towel passed round the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar. Another covered the lower part of the face, and over it two dark eyes—eyes full of grief and shame and a dreadful questioning—stared back at us. In a minute we had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us I was scared that Stapleton would have done something to his wife, when they couldn't see her. At least she's alive

“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered. “There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire. It was there that he kept his hound and there also he had made preparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where he would fly.” Yes, into the Grimpen mire they go! I'll try to not laugh at deadly sucking swamps too much

The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmes held the lamp towards it. “See,” said he. “No one could find his way into the Grimpen Mire to-night.” She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed with fierce merriment. “He may find his way in, but never out,” she cried. “How can he see the guiding wands to-night? I really love the fierce, spiteful women in this book So - no mire tonight? Might want to check up on Henry Baskerville, then, you lot. Leaving him alone out there in that state was a more than a little mean

The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he took the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman whom he had loved. But the shock of the night's adventures had shattered his nerves, and before morning he lay delirious in a high fever, under the care of Dr. Mortimer. The two of them were destined to travel together round the world before Sir Henry had become once more the hale, hearty man that he had been before he became master of that ill-omened estate. Another victim of the victorian brain fever, I see. Highly doubt travelling around the world is a sound cure for that, but oh well, victorians

Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us. Ok I laughed. This is just too funny not to. For reference, I'm only just a week back from an off-trail hiking trip in northern scandinavia, and with this novel in the back of my mind I deliberately tested out all kinds of swamps. The one that I sank deepest in looked something like this:

And it barely went above my ankles. It's not mud either you're walking on, it's moss, mainly spanghum moss I think, which can absorb 25x times its own weight in water. These mosses are not only essential for creating wildlife habitats and holding onto water, they also store vast amounts of CO2. They don't stink either - they only smell a bit peaty I guess, which is a bit like dirt with a hint of dampness and greenery and accidity. Really nothing bad

If the earth told a true story, then Stapleton never reached that island of refuge towards which he struggled through the fog upon that last night. Somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpen Mire, down in the foul slime of the huge morass which had sucked him in, this cold and cruel-hearted man is forever buried. Guess I should have anticipated this end to Stapleton. I confess I'm a bit dissapointed - I had rather hoped for a final confrontation, and killing the villain in this offhand way feels a little too convient. Also kind of offended for the sake of bogs, lol. Don't believe Grimpen mire propaganda! Bogs are important and diverse and beautiful and would never murder a naturalist :) They are just wet! as we all are sometimes

I did it! Three chapters in one day. Time for a quick dive into the tag and then I really need to sleep :)

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #the hound of the baskervilles #chapter 14

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oh-no-another-idea · 6 months ago

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Manuscript search tag!

This one is a terribly old one from the wonderful @chauceryfairytales --thank you!!! I've had a great day today, guys, super productive and fun, and this is no way at all because I went for a run this morning, no way at all. 🙄😤🥰😂

Have some of my royal taster wip, jokingly called Fish Blood and Bone:

Cloud:

“It’s been ten minutes,” [Anaar] informed her, back to his unerring cheer. “And I feel great. Go ahead.” “I’m not very hungry anymore,” Sal whispered to the soup. The boy frowned and reached across the table to pat her wrist. Up close, his eyes were a darker brown than she’d first thought, almost black in their intensity. “You’re going to be okay. You’ll get used to life at the palace. Everyone dresses too elegant, and some people keep their noses trained to the clouds, but the rest is alright. We get free time to swim in the sea.”

Wind: [this is a later excerpt from when they're grown]

“Stop that frowning,” Anaar coaxed, rolling over on to his back. Bits of grass stuck to his front—his usual bright red tunic was rumpled and dirty. “I can hear you doing it.” “No you can’t,” Sal joked, shaking her thoughts away and smiling at him. Around them, the wind whispered over the top of the hill and back down the other side.

Hair:

Jinhai bowed graciously and seemed not to know what to do with all the chatter surrounding him. A few steps away, the guard Wu was holding his face in a funny way to keep his grin from spilling out. Faced with no one to assist him and the very real threat of seven little girls all beating him up, the prince quickly cottoned on and scrambled to grab the tree’s lowest branches. “Did you think you could get the prince’s favor all for yourself?” Maia asked Sal, glowering from under her long bangs. There was a leaf in her hair.

Floor:

Anaar’s door looked just like everyone else’s door, and Sal hid behind it as she pushed her way in. The room beyond was small and dark with one rug on the floor like the light cast from the single window. In the faint glow from the moon, she could make out Anaar in his bed, mouth open and curls mussed on the pillow.

Gentle tags for @winterandwords @space-writes @penspiration-writing @author-a-holmes @saltysupercomputer and anyone else who'd like to search for the words brief, ball, bridge, and betray :)

#tag games #marinating wips #find the word tag

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milquetoast27 · 1 year ago

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Charles Augustus Milverton [LFW]

"And yet I can't get out of doing business with him - indeed, he is here at my invitation."

Another count of Holmes obsessively wanting to be face-to-face with his criminals. Honestly he would be a criminology major if it were an available subject to study. Such a true crimer for real /affectionate

Holmes remarks on this in ILLU!

"I love to come to close grips with my man. I like to meet him eye to eye and read for myself the stuff that he is made of."

SERIOUSLY ARE YOU OKAY 😭

Watson, mentally: Days since Holmes has put himself in active danger: 0 (disgruntled face palm)

Big thing to mention in the beginning of the story, there is a LOT of out-of-character Holmes. But certainly not in a bad way! In a "oh fuck this is serious" kind of way. It's genuinely unsettling and it's what makes Milverton such a scary antagonist. Here are some examples:

• Holmes's rant after Watson asks who Milverton is, STEAMS of his boiling hatred and how furious the man makes him. He calls him not only "the king of all the blackmailers" but also "the worst man in London". We do not often see Holmes this angry 😧

I'll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry.

What I find interesting about this passage, is that typically Holmes condemns Watson for the "poetry" in his descriptions in his stories. After all, a reasoner must see everything exactly how it is. But when Holmes's blood is boiling and he needs to illustrate exactly how he feels, sometimes only a snake metaphor will do! And after the rant?

I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.

basically Watson's saying "Oh shit".

Holmes sat motionless by the fire, his hands buried deep in his trouser pockets, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the glowing embers. For half an hour he was silent and still.

Holmes was grey with anger and mortification.

Holmes disregarded the outstretched hand and looked at him with a face of granite.

Holmes being cold and antisocial here is very out-of-character in the canon. "Face of granite" is particularly unsettling here, since he is usually stoic and collected. He always knows what to do, and when he's THIS apprehensive, that familiarity of security is gone! He's face to face with simply another person and he's tense! That's how you KNOW shit's gonna get scary. Doyle did everything right here, to make Milverton a terrifying antagonist. 😭

Next point:

"Dr. Watson is my friend and partner." "Very good, Mr. Holmes. It is only in your client's interests that I protested. The matter is so very delicate - " "Dr. Watson has already heard of it."

Both lines said by Holmes, I imagine that it was probably common ettiquette to use the formal name in front of guests/acquaintances, but the emphasis of using the name back to back like that has a more aggressive tone of, "It's Dr. Watson to you." and I just - 😭

Finally, just love this bit. The tension really picks up when the gun's pulled out and there's lots of shouting, and amidst it all -

I picked up a chair, but Holmes shook his head, and I laid it down again.

FOR THE RECORD, WATSON WAS PREPARED TO BEAT HIM UP WITH THE CHAIR. Good old Watson! If I may say so 🥰 seriously such an MVP.

That covers it for LFW CHAS part 1!

#sherlock holmes #acd holmes #letters from watson #charles augustus milverton

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iamsherlocked1479 · 2 years ago

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Chapter 14

A/N: Okay so I know I usually put these at the end but the song i've attached today kinda plays its own role in the story with it being what i wanted the song the reader plays. Music is very important to me and helps me write these stories so i would apreciate if you listened along too! But as always I can't force ypou too but for reference (i'll add it in bractes anyways) Sherlock starts playing at 2:34 and they play together at 2:49. But yeah happy readng and for refernce i only know the parts of the song thans to a tiktok account called joelsvnny so please check him out!

You entered the cafe to find Professor Hiddleston sitting at a table at the corner of the room, his hands clasped in front of him as his eyes bore into the computer screen in front of him. His blonde curls were starting to grow and the sun was in just the right angle to make it look like his hair was glowing, causing you to pause for a moment to stare at him. Since you had been in his class, you had not really paid attention to the professor but you quietly admitted to yourself he was moderately attractive. His ocean blue eyes looked up from the screen and met with yours, a smile playing on his lips almost immediately when he spotted you in the doorway to the cafe, watching him.

“Y/n, it's so nice to see you again.” He smiled shaking your hand “I was sorry to hear about what happened to you, kidnapping, not usually what happens my students.”

“Oh right, yeah I can understand the confusion that would come with that.” You laugh nervously “thank you anyway professor, for asking to meet with me.” You say as you sit down and tuck yourself in.

“Please, no need to be professional, this isn't university. Call me Tom.” He smiled warmly

“Right, so Tom.” You paused it felt a bit weird. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“You, if i’m correct, you write your own work outside of what I assigned to you? Sorry if this seems odd, your friend erm louise came and spoke to me, she uh can be quite convincing when she needs to be.” He laughed rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about her, honestly I didn't know she would do that.” You take a sip of your coffee which was brought to you a second ago.

“Yes, so I read a few of your pieces that she gave to me, again it was more of a forced thing and I thought they had some real potential. So I'm here to propose an offer.” He took a moment to glance at the window furrowing his brow. “I’m sorry but is that Sherlock Holmes?” You turned your head and cursed under your breath as you saw Sherlock peering in through the window gesturing you to come outside.

“I’m sorry, just ignore him, he's uh my roommate and well he’s a bit well, strange. And I would say overprotective after what happened.” You sigh and ignore the now frequent buzzing of your phone

“Right, well I have a few hours between classes every week and I was wondering if you would like to meet up occasionally and I would tutor you to help get your work done. I also have a contact in the publishing industry who could be of use if I could send him your details?” He asked

“Y-yes oh my god that would be amazing.” You jumped in your seat with excitement and at that very moment Sherlock burst through the door.

“Y/n Mrs hudson found some of your old things i thought I’d let you know.” He cleared his throat finally noticing you were with another human. “Oh, apologies uh, Sherlock Holmes.” He held out his hand

“Yes and i am-

“Professor Thomas Hiddleston, a teacher of English language who lives just outside london.” Sherlock smiled as he gripped you professors hand

“How did you do?”

“Oh well he is a detective.” You laugh trying to cover sherlocks creepy demeanor

“Of course.” Tom laughs nervously “well I suppose I should get going, i have a train to catch.” He got up and you copped shaking his hand “and y/n, if you get stuck im just a call away.” He smiled and put his arm on your shoulder. Sherlock noticed this and grabbed your arm with a scowl and pulled you from the cafe.

“I’m sorry, but what the hell?!” You pull your arm away from him.

“Oh come on, he was so trying to get in your bed.” Sherlock announced

“He was helping me out, he has a girlfriend for christ sake!” You huff pushing open the front door of baker street.

“That doesn’t mean anything, you’re you!” He gestured to you

“Wow the flattery is real sherlock.” You say sarcastically. You walk up the stairs and find a box of your old things had been placed on the coffee table in the living room.

“Mrs hudson was having a clear out and asked you to do the same, I’ve already looked through some interesting things.” He says tracing his fingers over the box.

“You really have no perspective on personal items do you, or privacy apparently.” You say searching through the box

“Yet you still slept with me.” He smirked. You bite the inside of your cheek while rolling your eyes. You look in the box and smile as you pull out your old violin. “Interesting, what's that?” He asks

“It's an output so I can attach it to amps and loop pedals?” You say back as if it wasn’t obvious

“Well then it's not a proper violin, mine doesn’t do that.” He says taking the instrument from you

“Well maybe yours isn’t a proper violin.” You joke back

“Anyways, why would one need a loop pedal for a violin?”

“To compose and play songs that weren't exactly made for violins.” You rummage through the box as he continues

“So you're telling me you played pop songs on a classical instrument.” He huffs “humans are strange.”

“You are human, you are human right?” You joke “oh shit look, my old loop pedal.” You pull out your old loop pedal and brush off the dust.

“Then enlighten me, play something.” He holds out your violin and you stand there just staring at him.

“Well, it might be out of tune, you know it's been a while.” You look at the floor, it's not like you didn’t want to play it. But it's him, for whatever reason he likes you, you didn’t want to lose that. He lifts the violin to his cheek and runs the bow along each string.

“Sounds good to me.” He hands the violin to you again and you take it gently and release a long sigh. “Use the loop pedal.” He adds with a smile, he liked it when you did as you were told.

“Okay then, i’ll do a song I learned a while ago, how about a song called another love. Are you familiar?”

“Vaguely but yet again I know everything” He replies watching as you plug in the loop pedal, he takes a seat in his chair and watches as you ensure everything works

“Okay, uh so first you have to do the staccato parts, this song has three, so how its done is you play the first one press this. And then you can add more and it will record them.”

“I'm familiar with the workings of loop recordings y/n.” He states as you play the staccato parts.

“Just, let me go through it okay, do you want to hear it or not?” You tut and stare at the way he smiled when he bugged you, you rolled your eyes and lifted the violin to your cheek again. “Then over the staccato I usually add the chords, again there's three in this.” You play the chords and begin to smile to yourself, you missed playing the violin, you missed the feeling of calm it brought.

“And I’m guessing now the bass?” He questions, leaning forward. Your brow raised at his interest, it was probably due to being stuck on a case but a small part of you believed otherwise. He was your boyfriend now right? You think so, what would this agreement include? It's not like you weren't up for friends with benefits but it's not what you wanted. But anyways back to recording, you recorded the base fairly easily only having to redo it once. You played it back smiling to yourself, it was sounding good so far, it's not finished but it was getting there. You stopped going through the steps with Sherlock, you knew he knew what everything was, for whatever reason he wanted to see you play, and if you could please him hopefully he’d please you. You record the pizzicato, flicking your fingers across the strings before being cocky and not even pausing to add the tremolo and adding it almost like instinct. You stopped the recording and created the loop, you turned to look behind you expecting your aunt to be stood recording like she used to, it was almost Christmas so she probably wanted a photo for a card to send to relatives you have no idea exist. But she wasn’t, it was just you and him. He was sat now practically at the edge of his seat eyes locked on the instrument. You exhaled bringing it to your chin and began to play.

He watched you play, he watched every single movement, his chest tightened at the way you smiled when you reached the chorus, the song was sad yet he could tell it brought you happy memories. He’d seen the photos of you and your mother, he could tell christmas wasn’t your favourite time of your after what happened. He must have zoned out because when he looked back your eyes were fixed on his. Your brow pinched together he could see you thought he wasn’t enjoying it, he acted quickly and grabbed his violin, he brought it to his cheek playing the tune he had quickly picked up. (2:34)

You paused watching him play, you gave him his moment, as he often stole the limelight, but you didn’t. He didn’t change the song or play it differently, he played it your way, following your lead. (2:49)You waited for the final chorus to repeat again and joined him and now here you were alone in baker street with him. Recently whenever you where alone with him it involved him pining you down and fucking senseless but now you where together, doing something you enjoyed not taking a moment to watch his muscles tighten around his shirt as he moved or waiting him for notice you. You just saw him, you figured it out, he wanted to see you happy, he wanted to see you or be it he wanted you to see you. The you which even you haven’t seen in a long time. And now the song was over, you stood in silence watching as he slowly put the violin down, you breathless, you don’t know why but you found yourself gasping for air. You just breathed watching as he slowly stepped closer to you.

Sherlock didn’t understand the force that was pulling him towards you; he could sense your vulnerability and wanted to calm it. He too felt defenceless, he wanted to feel you in his arms, he wanted to hold you and make sure you were safe, the woman never caused him to feel like this, you were not the woman, and she was not you. He had conducted this experiment out of his own curiosity, and now he wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

He took the instrument from your hand and cupped your chim. He brought your lips to yours and kissed you deeply, he didn’t rush to take off your clothes. He didn’t take them off at all, he just held you close to him, keeping your lips on yours until the moment was ruined by a vibration of his phone on the desk. He sighed and pulled away.

“I’m sorry I put you on the spot like that.” He looked down at his phone. “I’m sorry, I have to go.” He put on his coat and left. You watched him walk down the street, he tucked his collar upwards trying to keep the icy cold breeze off his neck, he still hadn’t got a replacement for the one that ended up being covered in blood.

“Hoo hoo, oh I see you found your violin dear.” Mrs hudson came in behind you with your laundry.

“I told you, you don’t need to do that.” You kiss her cheek as you take the folded clothes from her arms.

“I know but I was putting sherlocks in anyways” she smiled.

“Oh by the way, we need to take a photo this year’s Christmas card, i have simon coming later to take it if that's okay.” She began tidying the room

“Huh?” You say turning back to the window watching as Sherlock was now nowhere to be seen.

“Out again is he? Yes, business with Mrs Adler's phone again, I saw him take it out the other day. Dangerous business, promise you’ll stay away from all that.” She grabbed your arm making sure you heard her. But all you could focus on was the name, it was the woman. The only other woman you knew Sherlock would obsess over. But he wants you, right?

“I won’t, now I'm going to put this away.” You say taking the clothes. You sigh, kicking open your bedroom door. You instantly notice the package on your bed. It was neatly packaged with a big red bow tied in the middle. You undid it and opened the box revealing a new laptop, you opened the lid and a note fell from it.

“Sorry about breaking the last one, I had some business I had to attend to. See you soon Harley.”

JM X

Shit, no this wasn’t good, he was gone you thought he was gone. You looked around your room, it felt different, something was wrong. The air was fresher, not the usual scent of coffee and books.

“Has anyone been in the house today?” You shout down to your aunt

“No dear, only me, you and Sherlock.” She shouts back. He had been in your room, Jim Moriarty had been in your Fucking room.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: its me agan forgot say that I will be doing weekly uploads of this every Wednesday between 2-4pm Uk time <3

#spotify #bbc sherlock #sherlock x reader #benedict cumberbatch #sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock holmes #sherlockbbc #sherlock holmes x female!reader #violin #sherlock smut #sherlock x you #sherlock imagine #sherlock fandom

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byrdstrolls · 4 months ago

Text

Mysteries Are Like Onions Part Three

[Part One Here! Part Two Here!]

Back in his hometown in Umbra, the only library in town was sparsely staffed. It opened sporadically with no real rhyme or reason, and so Barely was always keenly aware how much he must make every second count. He would scour the shelves for books, picking up rare non-fiction and fantasy and memoirs from in between long rows of farmers almanacs and suspicious black magic tomes. There were two murder mysteries available there, that he read religiously, checking them out pretty much monthly, waiting a couple weeks to try and forget as much of them as he could before reading them all over again. They were And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, and Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of Baskerville by Arthur Conan Doyle. Barely knew them so well, if another troll happened to be reading them, he could peek over their shoulder and tell them precisely what would happen on the next page without looking. Which was an impressive feat of memorization, but something Barely’s brother found deeply annoying. Right now, those two books resided at the bottom of the child’s huge backpack, fees be damned.

“Come on Miss” Barely pleads. “We’ve got hours till the train comes. Let me just poke around” The detective says, lingering by the door of Creekturns Library.

The sign atop the small little building illustrated a trout with a pair of glasses reading a book. These kinds of fish themed nick-nacks seemed to be all over the town, in a manner some might find kitsch and tacky but both Barely and Miss Laryan found charming.

“Well” Miss Laryan sighs. “I suppose. I don’t know if you’ll find anything in here, darling.” She says, not wanting to get his hopes up, but willing to concede.

“There’s gotta be some way,” He says. “To narrow things down.”

“You might be more likely to find that in town, Barely” She says.

“I think we should steer clear of DunnerMart.” The child says, looking at the glow of the building's sign through the window.

“Yes, but they have this lovely little shop down the way” She sighs. “That makes the best damn fish sandwich this side of the river.”

“Well,” Barely pauses. “If you lend me your library card, you could go and grab one for both of us” He offers.

“Of course” She smiles, and then frowns. “...It was in my wallet” She recalls, unfortunately.

“It’s probably not hard to sign up, Miss” He corrects.

“Alright, Barely” She says. “If you say so. Stay safe, ya hear?” She says, patting his head fondly before she leaves. The young man straightens out his hair, before skipping up to the desk.

“Excuse me Mister” He says. “Could I sign up for a library card?”

“Absolutely” The man says, lowering the tome in his hands. Barely is caught off guard by his jarring northern accent. He was well accustomed to the quick, sharp syllables of the alternian north from the mouths of fleet officials and TV characters, but not so used to them falling so clunkenly from the mouth of a troll with a shade of rust no warmer than his own.

“Name?” The librarian asks.

“Barely” He replies. “Say, what’s your name, Mister, where ya from?”

He chuckles slightly. “I get that a lot.” He admits. “I’m Calcul, I flew all the way down here from Alphanette. Are you an um… resident of the tri-town-municipality?” He asks, looking through papers.

Barely frowns. “No…” He admits.

“You sure? Shercattle and Baskertop count too, Barely.” The librarian replies.

“No, Mister Calcul.” he sighs. “I’m from even south-er than that. Can I still check out books?”

“I’m afraid not,” The librarian says. “Fleet rules, library is for the townspeople. You can hang around and read for a bit, if you like, tho.”

Barely is about to argue, but then, realizes he couldn’t have checked out books anyways, if he was gonna get on that train by dayfall.

“Okay” he says. “Do you have anything on industrial cow farming? Illnesses, chemicals and processes used in dairy factories? Mister, do you have a newspaper archive? Does it go back half a sweep?”

“Well, kind of,” Calcul says, picking some books off the shelf. “Cow stuff’s over here- We have old newspapers but only on the microfilm machines. Heh, probably should have been updated a while ago.”

“Thank you, Mister Calcul,” Says Barely, grasping the tall stack of books he’s been handed, and, glancing at the apparent complexity of some of them, he adds, “could I also get a dictionary?” In case he needed to look up words.

“Of course” Says Calcul, putting one last book on his stack, and the young man trots over to a nearby table.

The teenager goes to open the first book, and then pauses.

“Have you lived here long, Mister?” He asks.

“Moved out with my kismesis a perigee ago” He shrugs. “So I don’t know if I could say that.”

The young man flips through his notepad. A few key questions could unravel everything. He just had to pick the right ones to ask. Barely inhales, deciding to pick at a thread long left hanging.

“Have you met the Mayor?” he asks.

“Oh, many times” Calcul shrugs. “Mr. Deceil seems very hands on, friendly. He’s always around. He told me I’m too polite.” He laughs. “Honestly, I don’t think he’s all too different from the royal’s I’ve met up north.” He describes.

“How so?” Barely asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“You might have noticed this yourself, little man.” He says, to the other rust. “But a lot of highbloods and fleetfolk seem so weirdly invested in pretending to be from humble beginnings? You hear it from the Mayor's mouth he’s a local, had some ranch property in Baskertop for thirty some sweeps. But-” Calcul pauses. “I don’t think he ever worked it. And you didn’t hear this from me-” He starts, the way many polite minded southern trolls qualify their gossiping- perhaps the city boy had learned something in his months here after all-

“But I saw him take a call from his boss once. All ducked away in an alleyway. And that sweet as honey southern accent dropped like a dime. He was all ‘you guys’ and ‘are not’. He can’t have been raised anywhere south of Tes Roven, I promise you.”

“I see,” Barely says, turning the necklace in his teeth. This information didn’t help him much except for giving him a general dislike of the Mayor he had never met. Which solidified his hunch he was involved somehow. There was something fishy about that ranch, he was sure of it. And, something he had noted on his pad all the way back in Baskertop, an elected official sure seemed like the kind of troll who’d have an extra key to a municipal office.

“Well, thank you kindly Mister Calcul” He replies with a nod, picking up his book and starting it.

There is a creak as Miss Laryan quietly enters the library door, walking over to sit next to him. She sees the child is already deep in thought, and elects not to address him, simply sitting down and setting a sandwich beside him. Independently, she begins to work on her crossword. It’s a long moment before Barely even seems to notice there is a sandwich next to him, with how absorbed he gets. Reading seems to take an amount of his attention you’d expect from a boy genius. Finally, nearly an hour later, as Barely jots down notes from the book on his pad, his stomach reminds him of its woes and he bites into the sandwich. It was beef and something, ever so slightly cold.

“Okay” says Miss Laryan. “I really don’t mean to bother you dear, but I’m stumped. Fifth letter e, second letter i, goliath ______, an arachnid the size of a dinner plate.”

“A goliath birdeater” Barely answers, a strange awareness dawning on his face, he looks straight forward, and then at his food.

“Weren’t you gonna get us fish sandwiches, Miss Laryan?” He says slowly.

“Yes- but, oh! Strangest thing. They were all out. Wasn’t even on the menu. Creekturn- outta fish! Will oinkbeasts fly next? There really is a curse about.”

“Haven’t eaten a lot of fish since I moved here” Calcul shrugs. “Bummed me out too. I was looking forward to it. I asked around, and every troll said-”

“Let me guess,” Barely says slowly. “The fish started disappearing. A half sweep ago.”

The librarian frowns, unsettled by the child completing his sentence for him.

“Yeah” He stumbles. “No one knows why. Ton of fisheries went out of business. A lot of people moving south to work at-”

Barely is staring intently at the tail map given to him by Miss Laryan two nights ago.

“The dairy factory” Barely interrupts, looking down at the rail map. Trailing his finger down the river. Too convenient, too convenient livestock illnesses by far. He glances at his notes, frantically looking through them for a moment, before losing steam and letting out a frustrated noise.

“Augh!” he exclaims. “I’m so close. I’m so close, Miss!” he insists.

“Barely” She says, quietly but sternly. “Don’t make a scene.”

“So close to what?” Calcul asks curiously.

“Solvin’ a case” Barely huffs, and then adds, sitting back down. “I’m a detective.”

“Here” Miss Laryan says, trying to distract the upset child. “Help me out, Barely” She says, pointing at her crossword. “Third letter n, fourth letter s- a legal term for a partnership in crime”

“I ain’t got time for a crossword! Miss Laryan” he huffs.

“Calm down, Barely” She pleads. “Think about it.”

He fumes silently for another moment, and then caves.

“‘Conspiracy’ Miss” He says quietly.

“What were you asking all those questions about the mayor for- were those also for the case? I was just gossiping, kid, I don’t know if I’d repeat any of that in a court of law” Calcul warns.

There's something staring him right in the face here. Right under his nose. He was slippin pieces from a jenga tower. He just had to set his hands on a load bearing brick and it would all come crumbling down. Think, Barely, Think.

“What’s Mayor Dunner got to do with all this?” Miss Laryan says confusedly, so casually, as if she didn’t even notice the bomb she’s placed on the floor.

“Excuse me” Barely squeak slowly. “Could you repeat that?”

“I just asked” She frowns. “What Mayor Dunner’s got to do with all of it, darlin, I know you aint fonda him since he called the sheriff on ya-”

“Dunner” The child says, skipping past the entire end of her sentence. “IS the MAYOR? He’s the mayor AND the CEO of DunnerMart?!!” He exclaims. And then points to Calcul. “You called him Deciel!”

“Trolls have two names, kid” Calcul shrugs. “That’s his last one.”

“You know how fleet folk always say” Laryan shrugs, still not seeming to understand the significance of this detail to Barely. “Businessman mayor’s are good for the economy an’ all”

“WHY” The rust says through gritted teeth. “Did no one tell me this!!”

“Well, we figured it obvious, Barely, everybody knows Dunner” Laryan defends.

“I don’t” Barely snaps, staring down at his notes, the town map, the industrial farming report, as pieces begin to snap together at an alarming rate. He pauses, and rushes over to the microfilm processor, flipping through the slides from a sweep ago.

Click, the machine sounds.

Local Landowner Shirli Goin On Big Holiday! Won’t Say Where She Got The Money, the headline reads.

Click, Barely flips the page again.

New Dairy Factory Finishes Construction!

Click

New Mayor Appointed- Baskertop Landowner!

Click

Fleetrail Takes Cattle Lands

Click

Where Have all the Fish Gone?

Suddenly, the child steps back from the old catalog machine as if it burned his hand.

“I have to tell someone” he squeaks, stumbling backwards out of the library, into the town square.

“Barely!” Miss Laryan calls, hurrying over. “Can you clue the rest of us in here?”

“It was DUNNER” The child snaps. “It was ALL Dunner!” He exclaims, the trolls going about their day in the square pausing at this sudden and loud exclamation.

“Dunner is fleet! Dunner BUILT the Fleetrail! Dunner bought the ranch!” Barely insists, lifting his papers. “So he could control the cowpokes- after he destroyed their lands- so he could make ‘em only sell to his DAIRY FACTORY” He accuses, running out of breath, not seeming to notice nor care about the small crowd pausing to listen.

“His factory on the river- that polluted the river!” He asserts. Holding up the rail map. “That killed the other cows, so every farmer in Shercattle had to work for him! His factory that polluted the river- That killed the fish” He snaps, and it is this accusation in particular that draws a sharp silence from the people of Creekturn.

“That had everyone in Creekturn” Barely growls. “Switching to Dunner Beef!” He claims, lifting up the wrapping paper label of his sandwich. The crowd is murmuring amongst themselves, their expressions turning.

“He broke the whole system” Barely says, not even seeming to notice how quiet the crowd has gotten, how wide eyed. “And he wants Baskertop- AND Shercattle- AND Creekturn- to PAY HIM to keep breakin’ it!” He finishes, but then the child freezes, some ancient instinct tracing the audience’s gaze to behind him, where Dunner has walked out of the sheriff's office, two gunslingers dragging a handcuffed Damial towards the county jail.

“Now, don’t get ahead of yourself, son,” Dunner says softly, smiling like a fox does to a rabbit. “Those are some wild accusations to be screaming in the square, Barely”

The young rust backs up towards the distrustful looking crowd.

“Prove him wrong, Mayor!” shouts a random fisherman, “I wanna hear what the lil’ fella has to say!” He accuses, distrustingly. Dunner sighs.

“Now, gentleman” He huffs. “This pupa’s too young to know about correlation and causation and all that- just because a great number of things happen at the same time don’t mean they’re all related”

He’s good with a crowd, Barely realizes, with a sinking pusher, noticing some trolls throwing doubtful glances at each other. He was a liar and cheat and a scoundrel but he talked confidently and calmly.

“I can assure you,” Dunner says. “There is no pollution from my factory- why, if there was, don’t you think trolls would be gettin’ sick? Don’t our water also come from the river?” He points out.

“The filtration standards” Barely counters, flipping through his papers furiously. “Are different for livestock then they are people- the plumping system processes the-”

“And even if there was,” Dunner interrupts him. “It was an honest to g-d accident I didn’t notice nor foresee- and can be quickly rectified”

‘Except it wasn’t!” Barely snaps. “I’ve been reading about industrial farming! There ain’t nothin’ comes out a dairy bottlin’ factory that should be toxic enough to kill off an entire cow and fish population! It HAD to be deliberate-”

“Miss Laryan” Dunner interrupts again. “Could you keep that young man under control- Ladies and Gentlemen. There ain’t nothin’ I’ve done in these towns that couldn’t be explained away by good natured naiv-ete and errors I could promptly fix! Who even is that boy, really? Some rusty from outta town- who's to know if he can be trusted. Me, I’ve never lied to y’all-”

“But you have” Barely hisses. A moment of pure clarity flashing through his mind like a bullet.

Dunner pauses. “I don’t know whatever you could be referrin’ too, son” He growls.

“Mister Dunner,” The rustblood says. “Could ya empty your pockets?”

The seadweller pauses.

“Whatever for?” He laughs.

“Bear with me,” The child says.

“I’ll do no such thing” Dunner hisses, turning back towards the sheriff’s office, but he is halted by a townsperson, who, seeming to have taken Barely’s side, frisks him, pulling the contents of the Mayor’s pockets into her hand.

“My friend Miss Laryan is a municipal clerk in Baskertop” Barely begins, trying to catch up the crowd. Two could play at this game of livening things up for an audience. “She had some important papers in her wallet two days ago,” He continues. “Ones that some troll with an official key tore apart a municipal office to find. An ol’ land sale receipt. This wallet was stolen from her, when she fainted at a train station. I saw you that very night, Mayor Dunner.” The child says, taking a step towards him. “When Miss Laryan had fainted a second time- and you said somethin’ funny' to me when you first saw us, Mayor Dunner. You said, ‘she havin’ one of those again’? Like somehow” He posits. “You knew about the first faintin’, which Miss Laryan hadn’t told nobody about-”

“She faints all the time!” Dunner snaps. “Nervous composure- I only meant she had a condition-”

“You also said” The detective insists. “‘She must be having a hell of a night- how is that not specific to the night it occurred-”

“Listen,” Dunner insists to the townspeople. “I don’t mean to brag, really, but you’re all well aware I got a little more money than most- what cause would a guy like me have to pick a midbloods pocket- it’s ludicrous-”

“I don’t know, Mister Mayor” Barely says, pushing aside Dunner’s phone and a pack of gum in the frisking troll's hand aside to pick out a teal leather wallet, and show it to the crowd. “How ‘bout we find out?”

“Now folks- what’s this gotta do with anything!” Dunner says, seeming to slip out of his accent in his anger, not helping his case. He makes a lunge for the kid and the wallet, but is held back.

Barely pulls out two folded up pieces of paper out of the wallet, pausing to unfold them and read their contents. The crowd waits on bated breath. They are exactly what Barely expected them to be. There is crashing from the Sheriffs office, as the handcuffed Damial seems to have taken this opportunity to fight the sheriff’s escorting him.

“A request to make public” The young rust reads, holding up the first paper. “The record of the ownership of Redgrass Ranch,”

“Filed by one Vekeso Endoze.” He finishes.

“...”

It’s nice, sometimes, to believe that people care about each other more than they let on. It’s even nicer to be proven right.

The child turns to the fushia. “I reckon” He says, “Vekeso was never fonda you, was he Mister Mayor?” Barely says, hearing the sounds of the fight escalating in the sheriff's office.

“I bet he didn’t like you tellin’ him he couldn’t sell to Mister Damial no more. An’ he started thinkin- just like I did- you know, for all Dunner’s hey sons and drawled rs and boots with the spurs- I don’t think I’ve actually SEEN Mayor Dunner ‘round Baskertop! Or Shercattle! Or Creekturn before- and if you don’t mind, I’d like to see his papers on supposedly ownin’ this ranch for thirty sweeps- and that made you nervous, didn’t it, Mister Mayor.” The child glares.

“Because you knew this paper said loud n clear-” Barely says, switching to the next paper. “Redgrass Ranch was only purchased by you a half sweep ago. You’re a stranger. You moved in the same time you built the Fleetrail, to force the cowpokes to rent that land. The same time you built the dairy factory, to funnel the cattle and poison the river. Because you couldn’t stand any of these trolls havin’ a livelihood that had nothin’ to do with you. And you thought they’d turn on you” He accuses. “If they ever had an inkling that you weren’t ona them”

Barely says, sealing the nails in the coffin. He didn’t have solid proof for a lotta things- but he had one bit of evidence, that this seadweller, at the very least, had egregiously lied to their faces, and had tried desperately to cover up his lie. All else will come crumbling down after. Once trust is gone. Funny thing is, a thing like this probably wouldn’t have undone Dunner just standing on his own. He maybe coulda talked his way out of it, he coulda pushed it off as a misrememberance or error, had Vekeso actually gotten the thing public. But like ouroboros swallowing his tail, it was Dunner and his own rampant paranoia that was his own undoing. His desperation to hide this weak bit of evidence against him proved his guilt more than the paper alone ever could.

Sometimes a troll will point a finger anywhere but inward at others, just because they know how much they have to hide. And they assume everyone else around this thinks this same, selfish way they do. These people’s worst fear is always that they'll start gettin treated the way they treat other people.

“Now, Folks” Dunner stumbles, lifting his hands in surrender as if some part of him knows all is lost. He says something else, but it’s drowned out as the crowd’s mutters are starting to turn to shouts and accusations and threats. The fushia takes a few steps back, only to run directly into a bloodstained Damial, having fought his way away from the two sheriffs and broken outta those cuffs with sheer force. Judging by his expression, the purple had heard enough of the conversation to understand. Miss Laryan pales in the commotion, rushing forward and making a running grab for Barely, picking him up and rushing him away just as weapons start to be drawn and the mob descends into chaos. She stashes the child away, ironically, inside DunnerMart.

“Barely you stay right here” She insists. “You stay right here and still and quiet and hide if anybody comes in, ya hear?” She says, frantically, handing him her phone. “Here- it’s got games on it. Don’t look outside Barely, it’ll do ya no good.” She says, and then rushes back out into the town square.

Gone through the proper channels of fleet law, a crime like Dunner’s would be hit with a fine at most, in a trial that takes months and gives him plenty of time to sort out his paperwork enough to get out nearly scot free. But he is not in proper court. The disenfranchised fishermen of Creekturn have taken justice in their own uniquely alternian way that seems to involve a lot of Dunner screaming and thuds of metal and stone and flesh.

Barely doesn’t hear a bit of it over the pleasant chimes of Miss Laryan’s computer phone as he plays tetris facing away from the window. Weeks later, investigations would roll through. New Sheriffs would fly in looking for someone to cull for all of it. Asking who killed Dunner and those two sheriffs. But in some stubborn prideful pact of the people of the municipality, no one would say a word to them. No one from Creekturn, or Shercattle, or Baskertop. ‘I don’t recall’ they’d say. ‘Dont remember seein anyone’. And the piles of leads would dry up so quickly the fleet wouldn’t even be able to point a finger.

Because not one of the trolls there would think for a moment of sellin out their neighbor- not for the man who literally poisoned their water supply. But sometimes, at Lars, on late nights when some of the people who had been in the crowd had too many- they’d come to a proud agreement amongst themselves that the killin’ blow had been Damial. Many who had seen him despairing in the streets for months were inclined to agree that he had more than earned that one. Whether this was legend, or fact, no one really knew. Attacking the Mayor had happened so fast. In reality, many of them were truly not sure what did the fushia in.

But isn’t it nice to believe in some justice in the world, even for a second?

Barely loses his game of tetris, pausing to reach over and steal another pack of gummy sharks from the DunnerMart rack, before starting a new game.

He didn’t end up taking the train that night, or the night after. He had hoped he could make a little money before hopping on the express train anyways, and the people of the municipality were nothing if not grateful and willing to indulge him after everything with Dunner. One of the better off fisherman in Creekturn offered the young man a ludicrous sum of money, which the six sweep old had humbly turned down, instead offering it to his friend Damial, to buy back his farm, to which the giant purpleblood had started to cry, and then loudly insisted his allergies were acting up and stormed out of the room.

But Barely had accepted measlier sums. Many of the trolls from these towns didn’t have much to give but so many seemed glad to be rid of Dunner that the small sums piled up, until he had acquired a pretty eighteen hundred caegars. Which the young man had joked would probably get him a hotel room in the big city for a single night, knowing rent up there, and the adults had laughed in the slightly surprised way adults do when charmed by a young person's unexpected worldliness.

He had been given physical gifts too. A man good with sewing had made Barely a smart red cap and jacket, insisting things really were that cold up north. He had been given pretty lacey new bow ribbons for his braids and tail, a full pair of gloves, a first aid kit, another brown jacket- which Vekeso came up from Baskertop to deliver, proudly telling him that it was Baskertop made leather, and would last him twenty sweeps longer than whatever plastic fabric they’re pedalling in the city stores.

At this point, the little celebrity had started to run out of room in his backpack, and had told his admirers that there was only one thing left he’d make room for, and that was books. Science, mystery novels if they had them. And so the town looked through old boxes for such things. One troll gifted him a box set of the complete works of agatha christie, which had made him beam so much in excitement Miss Laryan called him an angel, to which the little man huffed and declared his interest to be purely academic in retaliation. There were more mystery novels- popular ones- but also rarer ones, the kind of old out of print little pulp fictions that are harder to come by.

Eventually, Barely became so attached to the many books he finally conceded to bring another bag, a little roll along suitcase where he stored the novels. Miss Laryan had given him her little book of crossword puzzles, telling him that he was better than her at them anyways.

“Barely” She had said to him, from the end of the table at Damial’s sparse living room, when the novelty had truly started to fade, and she finally found time to ask a question she had been dreading.

“Do you have anybody waitin’ on you up north?” She asks.

He pauses, tucking a bookmark in his book and closing it.

“No” he admits.

“I was scared you’d say that” She sighs. “It really is dangerous up there, darling. They don’t have the kind of hospitality we do. I know you think you’re tough as nails, Barely, but I just…”

She sets down her mug.

“Do ya really have to go?” She says softly.

“I made it this far, Miss. I’m not runnin’ back to Umbra with my tail between my legs.”

“Not back to Umbra, Barely, here” she says. “You could stay here, with me and Vekeso, we’ve got a smart little school downtown.”

Barely pauses, his eyes softening so sweetly she’s sure he will answer yes, but when the detective opens his mouth, the words-

“Thank you Miss, really. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in my travels. But I can’t do that. I’m headin’ up north for a reason. It’s why I left home in the first place.”

-fall from it.

“And what reason is that?” She says, hurt and bitter and worried.

“What other reason could there be for a detective, Miss Laryan. I’m workin’ on a case. A very important one.”

“More important than what you did here? I don’t know what money they offered ya-” She starts.

“I’m doin’ it for free, Miss.” He replies. “Because it's the right thing to do.”

She doesn’t seem sure how to answer that.

“Not a murder, is it…?” She voices another fear, slowly.

Barely pauses, as if, inexplicably, this question requires careful thought. As if this case blurred the lines on what murder was and wasn’t, which was somehow more concerning than an all out yes.

“No, Miss Laryan” He decides. Choosing his words so slowly and carefully an apt listener might be able to determine he described something only technically true, that he was misconstruing to calm his friend.

“More of a regular old theft” He says, spitting his necklace into his hand, staring at it.

“You don’t sound awful sure,” She accuses.

“I swear,” he says. “That’s the truth, Miss. Somethin’ mighty important was stolen from somebody I care about more than any troll in the world.” He insists, and he seems so passionate that Laryan pauses.

“And who's that?” She asks.

“My twin,” The young man says.

“Your TWIN??” She guffaws. “There's another Barely out there?”

“Well, that's not his name” Barely grins, shyly and a little sorrowfully, before determinedly changing the subject.

“But anyways, Miss, I’m goin’ uptown, and all messiahs and terrors couldn’t stop me.”

She seems like she wants to argue more, but the teenager is so final in his tone, she caves.

“You’ll write once you get there?” She asks. “And call, just so everybody knows you’re fine?”

“Yes ma’am.” He answers, picking up his book again.

“How long’ve you been a detective? '' Vekeso had asked him, while leading him on a victorious horse lap around town a couple days prior.

Barely pauses, not wanting to have his prowess questioned. “A long time,” he insists.

“I said how long, Megapan, you got a number?” The cowboy scoffed with a grin.

The child looked to the side.

“A quarter sweep” He admits.

“A quarter sweep” Vekeso says, “is not a long time.”

“It is too!” Barely insists.

“You just think that” The man shrugs. “Cus you don’ have many sweeps to spare, Detective Barely.”

“I unraveled a town wide conspiracy” he defends. “Not bad for an amateur.”

Vekeso raises his hands in surrender, but doesn’t drop the lead he was guiding the horse Barely was on with.

“I’m not doubtin’ yer ability, kid” he assures. “Just- Messiahs in name” he swears. “Ya shoulda never had to do sucha thing. Pupa’s like you should be chasin’ voles down rivers without a care in their heads, Barely. Don’t forget that.”

“It’s not my fault a case needed solvin’” he retorts, for some reason his concern making him feel more small than Vekeso’s mockery ever could.

“I guess that’s true” The jadeblood sighs. “That just makes me sad. What kinda world are we makin’ for youngin’s, huh?” He huffs. “You got plenty of time to grow up, lil’ columbo. Spend some of it bein’ a regular ol’ kid.”

“I’ll try-” He starts.

“Promise, Barely” The cowboy answers, holding up a pinky to the young man, knowing a pinky promise passed for blood oath among most children.

The young rust is silent for a long moment, before reaching over and wrapping his pinky with the jade’s.

“I promise, Mister Vekeso” He says.

Eventually, despite Miss Laryan’s best efforts, a young man stands once again at a train station, being looked over by three adults.

“An’ you got that first aid kit I gave you?” Asks Damial, his hands on the kids shoulders. Barely nods.

“An’ the cellphone? An’ the pocketknife? An’ the pepper spray?” He asks, fussing.

Vekeso laughs at his friend.

“You sound like a jadeblood” He jokes, in that loving way Vekeso always teased people he liked.

“Who took a two nights train ride up justa say bye to the kid?” Damial bites back, reaching behind Vekeso and slapping upwards on his cowboy hat, causing it to fall comically forward over his eyes, before turning back to Barely.

“An’ don’t go talkin’ to no highbloods” He says.

“Mister Damial, you’re a highblood” Barely grins.

“Yeah but I’m not a jackass” Damial warns, to which MIss Laryan shushes him.

“Pupa words! Pupa words!” She insists, genuinely upset with him for cursing. It might just be because she’s worked herself into a tizzy, trying not to cry and or faint. Barely takes her hand.

“It’s okay Miss,” He says, pulling her into a hug. “I’ll be alright, I promise” And no sooner than his arms wrapped around her body true to her nature, Miss Laryans drops to the ground, fainted.

“It’s okay,” Damial says, scrambling to catch her. “Don’t miss yer train, kid, we got her.” He reassures. His hands are trembling ever so slightly. Miss Laryan had insisted on the man sobering up for a spell, which would probably do him good, but the withdrawals were still working their way through his body. Vekeso slips an arm under his elbow quietly and effortlessly, and in a simple and intimate gesture, takes the larger cowboys hand to steady it.

“Yeah Barely” Vek reassures. “We’ll be fine.”

Barely had not been there for Vekeso and Damial’s reuniting. He had imagined it hadn’t been quite as pretty as this picture of them now appeared to be, and he was right. There had been long winded monologues of anger and guilt and upset that were exchanged. Both trolls seemed to agree they had done each other wrong. But the truth is, Damial had forgiven Vekeso the moment Barely had read his name off that wallet paper, and Vekeso had forgiven Damial even sooner, the moment he had heard the purpleblood took on three cops to give that kid a moment to escape on the train. For an hour or two they cried, and yelled, but at the end of it, in the manner men sometimes have a way of doing after being especially vulnerable, they had dropped the topic like a stone and considered themselves best friends again. This simple and effective communicative solution to what had been a months long feud had caused Miss Laryan to tearfully exclaim

“You two are so STUPID” In a frustrated happiness and relief, and stormed out of the room.

Whatever had happened with the business of whatever feelings they may or may not have had for each other, well, the town gossiped and gossiped, but I don’t think it’s my place to say. Damial was frightfully shy for a man his size when sober, and Vekeso was just as private a person as he’d ever been. Every quad in the book was tossed at the wall but couldn’t be proven. Eventually, they decided to let the cowboys be, and decide in their own time. Everyone was long past the subject by the moment one of the farmhands told his friends a Lars, that late one night on the ranch once, he had seen Damial standing up near the wooden fence of the property line in the distance, and seen Vekeso step off the ground onto the fences first rung to lean up and plant a kiss on the man’s lips, as if it were the easiest most natural thing in the world.

Many of the townspeople found themselves strangely relaxed by this believable rumor, as if through all of Damial’s drunken lamenting and Vekeso’s sullen rides through the countryside at odd hours, a small part of them was truly glad it had worked out for the two men after all.

“One more thing Mister Vekeso” Say’s Barely, bringing the story crashing back down to the reality of them at the train station. The jadeblood looks up curiously.

“You too Mister Damial-” Barely adds. “A warning, to the people of Baskertop, and Shercattle, and Creekturn, all the way up from Umbra” He qualifies.

“You ever see a fancy dressed purple bandit come this way- hat and poncho lined up with golden runes, low bangs and four horns and a weird shadow” He lists, turning slightly towards the train. “Kill him” The child warns, “On sight.” He says, and then with that strange and ominous note, climbs aboard the train. Having lingered too long in his goodbyes, he has to rush a little to find an empty cabin. He sits down for what will surely be a long, long ride. Barely watches the edges of Creekturns landscape roll past. The sparse farmhives slowly give way to sprawling lit suburbs. His mind struggled to wrap itself around a melancholy of large concepts that had started to consume him in his friend’s absence. Thinking about change, and loss, and fear.

Wondering what people thought of him, meeting him with no knowledge another half even existed. Thinking about his brother. What he thought about his brother everywhere but didn’t say. What he saw of his brother in every troll he came across. He found his twin in Vekeso’s jives, in Damial’s resentment, in Dunner’s fear. In Miss Laryan’s quiet loving assistance with so many things she didn’t really know much about. A quarter sweep is a long time, and a short time, and both all at once. Yes, it was the amount of time he’d been a detective. But it was also the longest he and his sibling had ever been apart. Barely was the exact same, but had changed irrevocably. He was a buried nest of contradictions that lies in the tumbling deep little heart of any troll brave enough to ever be six sweeps old and afraid and alone. His worry about ever finding him giving way to a larger, stranger and scarier worry, that Barely would find him, but then come to realize slowly, that he no longer was the meek mannered young boy who had followed around his stronger sibling like a ghost.

About an hour into the ride, He tires of this meandering solique of thought, and instead shuffles through his bag, and pulls out Miss Laryan’s book of crossword puzzles. The first one is far too easy. Popularized by Joseph Cambell’s favorite novel, a circular plot structure consistent against cultures, it reads, five letters,

The _____ Journey

youtube

#barely writing #fantroll #fantroll rp #homestuck #homestuck oc #homestuck rp #my writing #SIGHS #I still like this one a lot #barely my beloved...#closes the little barely arc but it will be opened at some point #Youtube

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derekscorner · 9 months ago

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Fated Rantings: Airgetlám

It's been a while, no? Welcome to my 11th (or was it 12th?) march into the Fate series. Albeit it delayed by covid, I finally saw the second of the two Camelot movies.

I made a small post after watching the first movie but I didn't make my usual long post for it since it was one part of two and because I had little to say.

In fact, some of what I said in that post apply to both films. Such as how the pacing feels a bit rushed, some characters change quickly, and some events are moved around or removed.

However, I can't call these faults with the movies since they're adaptions of the FGO mobile game and do not let the "mobile game" moniker fool you, FGO has novel volumes of text.

Some of it's arcs are even written by the original novel writer Nasu. He may be even more involved than that but my development knowledge on FGO isn't as broad as other series.

All that you need to know is that there was no way to compress that full Singularity into a movie just as there's no way to compress FGO into a full anime.

The one FGO anime that does exist just covers one singularity in of itself. (Babylonia Front) That is how each entry is.

So while I won't fault the movies for such things I do still miss certain aspects the mobile text had. Such as the lengths to convince Ozymandias, the hilarious fact that Hassan had beheaded him before the story started, Sherlock Holmes making an appearance, etc.

Instead I'd rather focus on how the movies made story moments full highlights. Such as Arash's sacrifice, it was damn near beautiful. Then you have any scene with Da Vinci in them. There's a fun troll energy to everything she does and I liked seeing it animated.

The glow up of Nitocris also caught me off guard. Her sprite and art in FGO is "eh" but she's downright adorable in these movies...and more powerful than the game gave me an impression of.

I am also glad I got to see at least some of the uneasy tension between Lancelot and Mash. Mash, being possessed by Galahad, Lancelot's son, does not give him any slack. You only see bits of it in the movie but each scene reminded me of the sheer disapproval Galahad has for Lancelot in the game.

For as badass as Lancelot is in legend, for all his power as a spirit, he can't deal with his son and it's amazing.

I also haven't forgotten other characters such as the Hassan's, the mountain people or even our leads Mash and Fujimaru but I will admit I have little to say about them.

The mountain people are shown little for the novel to movie compression reasons I already covered and the Hassan of the Arm and Serenity are good characters but I do not know what add about them.

I do like their characters thanks to the mobile games context but what you see is also what you get. They are great assassin's and the movie gives them great moments.

It would've been hard for them to compete with the original "Old man of the Mountain" anyway. Hassan, the real one, is legitimately intimidating and I looked forward to every scene he was in.

The way he taunts Gawain with the truth just moments after rendering his powerful holy sword useless. The way he just appears or vanishes, Hassan truly is death personified and you see even more of that ambiance in the game. Even a primordial god (tiamat) comes to fear him.

In turn, Mashu and Fujimaru are more or less "just there". Mash gets more interaction than Fujimaru but she does not take spotlight. The most significant of her time is in relation to Sir Galahad who had possessed her when FGO started.

Even then Galahad does not physically appear. He'll talk through Mash toward Lancelot but most of the relation is the other Knights realizing (usually in shock) that he is there thanks to Mash's shield.

You wonder why since Galahad doesn't appear in many movies/shows based on Arthurian legend but the short of it is Galahad's talent.

The Fate Galahad reflects his IRL myth, he was the perfect knight. He was nearly uncontested in swordplay, loyalty, and overall skill. He was the only knight to successfully get the Holy Grail, the real one.

In other words, even if just in spirit, Galahad's presence is to be feared. Him opposing knights is also a clear reminder to them that they're in the wrong because they know Galahad's moral compass is flawless.

Fujimaru felt the most like he was "just there" to me but I expected it in some form since he's just one of the two gender options for the FGO protagonist. A person you're supposed to name and see the PoV of in the game.

I see lots complain about how perfect or "overly good" he can be animated and while I can understand someone finding that annoying I also do not know what they expected. Fujimaru is a stand-in, they took the safe route with him for these films.

Granted, I know some of those complaints are levied at the Babylonia anime which is a bit more fair since it was a full anime production. It's also hard to not feel the flatness of him when you see his opposite, the female option in FGO dubbed "Gudako", being downright chaotic and funny in several Fate productions.

Her appearance in Carnival Phantasm is comedy skit gold and whoever wears her mascot attire in Japan is known for being a chaotic lil shit. I kid you not, look up videos.

And yes, I know that "Fujimaru" refers to both as well as that the male version is often called "Gudao". My point is that our mobile game PoV insert isn't too fleshed out a character nor do they have odd quirks to identify with.

I think this is fine because the two Camelot films aren't about Mash or Fujimaru. No, the true star of these films is Bedivere.

Knights of the Lion, Knight of the Round

I don't even know what to say about this man to get myself started. He, like most of the round table, is a tragic soul. More so in the Singularity than he is in other versions of history.

The movie didn't mention it but the sole reason this singularity existed, the catalyst for history altering, was Bedivere. Lion King Arthur is a result of Bedivere's actions, not the Mage King or the grail.

This movie also reminds me of the thing that pulled me into Fate to begin with, it's odd but loyal use of Arthurian legend. You may see female Arthur and laugh but do understand that King Arthur and his knights are more faithfully portrayed in Fate than they are most modern western media.

Bedivere is no exception. Everything from his personality to his fake arm are a nod to it. I'm not sure how true it is in Fate's history but the earliest versions of our history portray Bedivere as missing a hand (or arm) and while handsome he was not among Athur's most well known or even skilled knights.

He, however, was the most loyal. Galahad excelled in all areas but most knights matched (if not surpassed him) in one and for Bedivere that was loyalty.

That loyalty is shown in every version of Arthur's myth with his death. Bedivere was the one at his side when he died and he was the one that thrice approached the lake to return Excalibur.

It is also here where this version of Bedivere failed, in the final moment he was not loyal.

He could not accept Arthur's death and did not return the sword as instructed. That single act altered history and doomed it because Arthur was not by her tree when Bedivere returned.

He knew that Excalibur made her ageless & immortal but he didn't know that her holy spear Rhongomyniad did the same thing. By denying her Arthur's destined death she also held onto the spear and became a wandering spirit.

You see, the thing about gods in Fate is that many were originally something else before human faith and worship elevated them into a god. What Bedivere had no way of knowing is that centuries of wandering with a holy spear would eventually turn Arthur into a god or "divine spirit".

And this is more tragic than you can fathom because gods in Fate do not comprehend humanity. They are affected by it but they do not think on the same level and what they deem rational a person will not.

The great sin Bedivere committed here was rob King Arthur of her human heart. Something that her subjects already doubted that she had.

A good deal of Bedivere's guilt is see in the two movies as he realizes what exactly he has done.

He already felt guilt before the movies started and he was already warned by Merlin that the end of his journey would be rough but he didn't realize the extent of those words.

He, now ageless due to Excalibur, spent 1500yrs looking for Arthur hoping to apologize. A truly grueling punishment within the Fate series because souls, like bodies, degrade.

Your "essence" will go back to "the root" when you die but a soul can degrade overtime if left clinging to the mortal plane. For many, this results in their mind breaking and going mad.

Even the gods only thrive as long as the civilization that believes in them does. Nothing is eternal and that is the lesson Bedivere had to learn in the movies.

That's why I say that he is the star of this story. Over two films he has to learn that everything ends and that endings have meaning. Something doesn't just vanish when it's over.

He could not accept that Camelot was over or that Arthur was meant to be over.

Idolism

For many reading this you probably ponder "why?" but the movie also answers there albeit it in spurts. The best window into his loyalty and guilt is seen in how he reacts to the other knights.

Many of them look down on Bedivere even if they also praise his loyalty to the king to the point that him standing against the Lion King shocks them.

Even then, they see Bedivere as beneath them. Mordred especially chides Bedivere harshly for weakness. But what's telling is his words and replies to them, especially Mordred.

Bedivere looks down upon himself. Even after 1500yrs he does not understand why Arthur made him a knight when he's essentially just a normal person.

He was not blessed by faeries, he did not have a holy sword or other magical weapons...in Fate. Irl he supposedly had a magic spear but Fate seems to have forgone that.

In Bedivere's mind he's outclassed by the Knights of the Round in every possible aspect. Even his loyalty, the thing that the other knights were say he's best known for, is lacking in his eyes.

That does not mean Bedivere is a depressed or self loathing individual either...well originally. He's very harsh on himself in the movies for what he's caused but there's no indication he was that way originally.

He was truly at a loss as to why Arthur made him a knight and fully believed himself inadequate for the role but worked his hardest anyway.

This eventually put him in the pitfall that nearly everyone fell into, they idolized Arthur. All of the knights in the movie have flaws in their logic due to their idolized views and it's reflected in their words and oath to the Lion King.

Mordred & Agravain are possibly the biggest victims of this mindset but they're a topic for another day. What is unique here is that Bedivere wanted to see Arthur's true smile or see her drop the ideal king act.

This was not for any grand or selfish reasons Bedivere just wished for his king to be happy in a sense. Ironically, he too only ever saw the perfect king and could not let them go.

Even at the end of the movie I wonder if he ever truly understood Arthur. Because when I saw the film, the flashbacks, I didn't just see the tragedy of Bedivere's quilt and choice but I saw what Arthur saw.

Personally, I think that Artoria valued the normalcy of Bedivere. He truly was not blessed by faeries, heaven, or by magical blades. He was a guy that tried his best and he saw things the way a normal person would.

I can't say to what extent of course but I do think she saw true value in what he saw as shortcomings with himself.

Either way, these movies are truly beautiful and what makes them so isn't just the animation or OST but the tragedy that is Bedivere.

Other Knights and Conclusions

As said earlier, Mordred is a topic for another day and I've already talked about Lancelot in my Fate Zero post. In fact, the Lancelot here seems either loyal in spite of what happened to Guinevere or because of it.

Had the other knights not referenced his betrayal I'd have assumed he was summoned lacking those memories.

And I haven't read the 'Garden of Avalon' novel to truly know about the whole round table. Let alone Tristan who is infamous for the line about “The king does not understand the hearts of men.” which is misinterpreted.

Not in the sense that it's mistranslated but in the sense that how people took his words both in-story and out were not his intented feelings.

And I know next to nothing about Gawain in Fate other than he, like many, was a child of Morgan. Much of the chaos in Camelot was either direct or indirect thanks to Morgan's relationship to her children.

Agravain is a fascinating case study due to his nature. He famously hates women despite his king being a woman and it's thanks to his relation to his mother Morgan.

A trait he shares with Mordred oddly enough. Both have a complex relationship to Arthur based solely on how their mother warped them.

You can also see Agravain's dynamic with Lancelot in the movies. There's a disdain there and Lancelot is quick to suspect him despite being a betrayer. This is presumably due to Agravain exposing Lancelot's affair in life.

It is also due to people misreading Agravain's intent. He often appeals to Arthur's kingly or inhuman side and many assumed he was trying to run a shadow kingdom but Agravain was just trying to help his ideal king the best way he knew how.

He, to the disbelief of many, is actually very loyal to the king and country. His actions and feelings are just complex due to his hatred of Morgan and women compounded with his ideal king being a woman herself.

One day if I manage to read the novel I may come back to give Agravain a proper post since he fascinates me.

For now though I think I'll stop and focus on the Mordred post while it's fresh in my mind.

I can't really think of anything else in-depth to add. These movies are amazing, especially if you view it as Bedivere's story more so than an adaption of Fujimaru's.

The animation is godly and the scene of Bedivere returning Arthur's sword and her heart/memories with it is beautiful. The music is beautiful.

The OST for that scene is 'walk by' btw. Go give it a listen, bye now~

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For my other experiences with Fate go here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/fated-rantings

#fated rantings #fate series #fate mordred #artoria pendragon #artoria lancer #mashu kyrielight #knights of the round table #old man of the mountain #fate hassan

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terramythos · 1 year ago

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Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett Reading Notes

Full Review Here!

-I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett outside Good Omens (ages ago)

-Discworld has always been on The List so I followed the general "just pick one" recommendation

-no chapters :0 here's hoping I organize these notes in a coherent way

-probably just rando page breaks tbh

-ok putting a characters drunk rambling in the narration is pretty good. Like drunkenness and blurring state of mind etc

-oh boy. Footnotes

-"all this was untrue" oh good. *proceeds to describe something more insane* oh GOOD.

-... oh no, it IS funny.

-God the back and forth of nonsense pass codes

-oh my god the punchline being not just that but they're at the WRONG secret society 😭

-and the switch to just ordinary pleasantries. With the dramatically grim tone otherwise. Help

- nooooo another person was at the wrong one. Boomerang-ass joke

-youve done it, you've broken down megalomaniacal villains to their bare essentials!

-ok it dawned on me their titles are their professions. Lmao. Brother Plasterer literally a Plasterer.

-thunder rolled... a six

-the sword being unique because it's not obnoxiously prophetic/magical

-"it's a terrible thing to be nearly sixteen and the wrong species" brother, ain't that the truth

-wait. This is the premise of Elf. Hello?

-damn, dwarves a bunch of nonbinary kings I guess

-I like that the word "king" is nonliteral, at least in the way we would think it, but by technicality fits the prophecy shit or w/e

-"You have to know all the laws to be a good officer" ooooog

-oops! You're a dragon now

-thieves threatening to strike lmao

-"do not let me detain you" brooo lmao

-thieves having state sponsored organized and licensed crime with annual quotas! So like. The actual cops, not The Watch

-ok I'm not the only one seeing the poop jokes right. "Back to front way of living." "Sergeant Colon." Vimes enters the story basically in the sewer.

-If The Fantasy Noir Aesthetic Was Not Obvious Enough Here Is A Magic Glowing Sign That Is Flickering Random Letters

-nicotine elephants graveyard? Where did he come up with this shit lmao

-there are a lot of boomerang jokes

-oh boy them giving Carrot a drink. Like hes not a biological dwarf but. Uhhh

-ok this has a lot of good bits. But one of my faves wasn't actually a joke. "There were some types of sobriety that you just couldn't budge." So true bestie

-is the Patrician also the Supreme Grand Master?

-ok probs not based on that line. And wouldn't make sense based on the SGM's motivation

-sybil ramkin token chick but also. GIRLBOSS

-i don't often say this but the sex jokes are really good lmao

-there are so many good lines that I have to hold myself back but. "A group of swamp dragons was a slump, or an embarrassment"

-"and then they realized." What a transitional statement

-"it dawned on him that he was very probably a flawed character" like hello?

-okay, I like the contrast between Vimes' alcoholism and the SGM saying "I can give it up any time I like" about summoning the dragon.

-though side detail, It's interesting we havent actually seen him control the dragon from his perspective

-a little funny that the currency is just dollars

-"the curious incident of the orangutan in the nighttime" we getting Sherlock Holmes references now

-the implication it isn't a "real dragon" but it's effect seems to be. Is the SGM transforming into one

-one thing I like but didn't necessarily expect is there's sobering seriousness throughout the story

-and sometimes the serious bits are told like a joke. You know?

-all the innuendo with vimes and ramkin is so fucking funny dude

-vimes sympathizing with the swamp dragons 🥺

-"in another few hours, the sun will rise"-ass line

-oh the use of typeface

-fucking MORPHIC RESONANCE, Terry?!

-oh good to know New Orleans and Rio are Discworld-canon.

-halfway point of the book and there's a bookend with a rainy night

-I like that vimes is way smarter than he or the narrative give him credit for cause he's also Just Some Guy

-oh i like that the summoning goes both ways. Uh oh!

-ok is this an extended balls joke or am I extremely immature

-my totally batshit theory: the watch guy who died (Gaskin) is the Supreme Grand Master

-im so ffxiv brain poisoned but "noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive." IF you know you know

-Lady Ramkin is so fucking cool she just grabbed the horses out of the mist and dragged them back what the fuck 😭

-you know shit about to get real when the Death typeface shows up

-t-time travel is it?

-the number of times this printing has typoed Vimes as "Vines"

-the story has made many comparisons about the dragon's behavior being "practically human", but when we got the dragon's perspective it was more that it had an intelligence that pre-dated anything anthropomorphic so I'm not sure what to think on that

-the giant fucking dragon hanging from the ceiling like a bat is pretty funny though

-Oh This Is An Allegory For Capitalism. I See.

-well this took a turn from light hearted fantasy-flavored ribbing to uh. Kinda horrific! I'm a little impressed tbh

-oh my god WONSE was the Supreme Grand Master. That just hit.

-ok well played, he was kind of a prick, and way over qualified for a SECRETARY position

-and he got that extra characterization for seemingly no reason

-... AND his flat denial about the dragon being back and his anger at Vimes for it. This makes a lot of sense.

-I guess you could make the argument "wolf in sheep's clothing" since his surname is literally Lupine

-The Poop Jokes Are Back, But No One Is Laughing Now

-okay the previous scene makes it seem like the dragon is coming up with this horrifying arrangement itself. And now we learn it's really Wonse trying to make it "better".

-but my honest and genuine surprise at the dragon REALIZING this, and its actual HORROR at how horrible people can be by nature. WOOF.

-so I guess that's the "almost human" connection cause. No it's not. That's just how people read and projected it.

-"we [dragons] never burned amd tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality" like hello??? This is so dark all of a sudden

-I guess the comedic tone elsewhere lets Terry sneak this shit in and make it stick especially hard.

-^ this is nothing but praise, to be clear. I've read a lot of "silly-humorous but with darker moments" work but this might be the best example I've read so far.

-did we need a canon explanation/justification of Vimes being an alcoholic?

-ALTHOUGH. isn't that like. Lack of natural alcohol an actual thing? Am I insane? I swear I've heard of that before.

-like I'm sure missing natural dopamine production which means I do need to take stimulants to function but I'm not sure if that's comparable

-not to over analyze this but that sort of implies drinking doesn't even make him drunk unless he has way too much which adds some interesting context to previous bits.

-in before it was literally just a joke

-If You Somehow Didn't Figure Out It Was Wonse We Are Spelling It Out Here

-oh shit he said the line

-I am just shocked that the one token female character is the designated sacrifice, lol. At least she's a GOOD character

-I will be a little annoyed if she's just a damsel in distress for vimes, considering she just charged six guards with a broadsword and only lost cause one of them tripped her

-ok the bit about the Patrician and the rat unlocked a forbidden memory of me reading like one chapter of a YA novel in the Discworld series when I was like. Ten

-i don't remember what it was called lmao

-one bit I liked in the arrest scene is it was very trope-referential, like literally naming what a hero is supposed to do in a scene like this. But unlike say 90% of adult animation, it actually like. Made a joke of it. "There IS no fireplace!"

-like the bar is low but YES! JUST BEING AWARE OF THE TROPE ISNT A JOKE! YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT! THANK YOU!

-"never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself" ok Patrician kind of based actually

-the sudden strange implication (?) that one can see a thousand miles away with how the Discworld is structured? It might have been metaphorical

-i love the whole bit about million-to-one odds always working (like the cliche), but then the rank rethinking the actual odds as way better, so now they have to do something to make their odds of success worse

-the fucking bit being they don't make the million to one shot at the dragon but DO make the million to one chance of surviving being hit by its flame. My god.

-oh my god errol is farting flame to fly??? Like a rocket? INSANE.

-ok is that one Tumblr comic about the wolf needing to get lucky only once literally from a line in this book. I guess there might be something they're both referencing that I just don't know

-oh my god the twist of the dragon being female. I guess I take the comment back about Lady Ramkin being the only one. Lmao.

-Shrek moment?

-i like that explaining Errol's weird behavior and how he like. Decides he has to. Court her? I guess? That's pretty funny.

-ok I basically chalked and dismissed The Patrician as just like, a Lawful Evill Ruler type but he has a fun amount of depth.

-ok I like the echo of "Guards! Guards!" as the title line summoning the protagonists this time

-ive resisted saying it but I have to now. Carrot autistic king

-Vimes telling the Patrician to shut up. Character growth

-"killed by a... metaphor" ... "looked like the ground to me" RAW ASS LINE

-ok this was earlier but I forgot to note it. I like that textually we know Vimes doesn't choose swords because he associates them with heroes. And when he decides to go to the palace for Wonse, he asks for Carrot's sword.

-"is that you, Brother Doorkeeper? METAPHORICALLY, it said." RAW ASS LINE!!!

-ok. The whole monologue about all of humanity being evil like. Man if that isn't how I feel, sometimes. It's a little cathartic to read. Evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no. Yeah...

-is this the first time we've heard Vimes' first name? Book almost over?

-CASABLANCA? Fucking Casablanca?

-well that was pretty good! I'll need to think and organize my thoughts

#taylor reads #reading notes

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battyhive · 2 years ago

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Curtain Call AU STORY

Chapter 1: Prologue

“Great show tonight, guys!” Poppy cheered to her actors and actresses as they prepared to go home for the night. They had just completed the final showing of MidSummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare on the stage and packed, yet another, full house. She was so proud of them all. She had trained each of them since they were children.

“Thanks, Poppy! We couldn’t have done it without Frank. The sets were beautiful! Not to mention the lighting highlighted all of our best features” Julie cheered. Frank was helping her get zipped up in her dress to go home in. He smiled when Julie acknowledged his hard work.

“Just doing my job.” Frank dismissed the praise with a light blush on his cheeks.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready for the next show already! Which one are we thinking of?” Wally asked, chipper and excited

“I haven’t even thought of that yet! You’ll be the first to know when I figure it out.” Poppy assured the smaller man with a chuckle.

“I better be!” Wally teased, with a small chuckle.

“Ready to head home? I can give you a ride.” Julie offered. Her and Wally were good friends since they started at this theater.

“I’m all good, Miss Julie! I don’t live that far away.” Wally brushed off, politely as he made his way out the door. He preferred to walk from place to place.

He went out the back door of the theater to avoid the crowds that gathered up front. He didn’t mind people for the most part but he got overwhelmed sometimes and need some space tonight.

As he turned the corner, he bumped into a tall man with auburn hair, lots of freckles and green eyes that glowed like a cat’s. Wally assumed this was a trick from the street lights.

“Sorry, sir! I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” Wally apologized for bumping into him. The man chuckled.

“Don’t worry about it. Say, you’re Wally Darling aren’t you?”

“The one and only!” Wally cheered, flattered and excited to be recognized.

“I thought so. I love the shows in this old theater and you just might be the best actor to grace the stage, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Oh! Well, my fellow actors and actresses are good too!” Wally says, feeling blush heat up his cheeks.

“Maybe so, but you have a real gift. This may seem sudden but I am developing a kids show and I need some actors. I would be honored if you would come to auditions at the end of this week. Here’s my card, you’ll find the address there. Auditions will be done at the older studio at 3:00PM sharp Friday.” The man informed, placing a card in Wally’s hands. It was yellow with red print that read, Danny Holmes, an address to the studio, and a phone number.

“Thank you sir!” Wally cheered

“Of course. Talent should be recognized. Feel free to invite some of your friends. The more the merrier.” Danny said, turning to leave and walk past Wally.

“Okay! Thanks again!” Wally called after him. When he turned, the man was already gone, possibly went down the alley.

Wally hummed. That was weird but he brushed it off as him being tired from the performance and how late it was.

He continued his walk back to his apartment. His head was swimming with ideas for his audition. He knew exactly which friends to ask. This was a dream come true! Something to get his name out there and he could share the opportunity with his friends!

#Welcome Home #welcome home au #curtain call au #welcome home wally #welcome home poppy #welcome home frank #welcome home julie #Danny Homes #Human Home #Curtain Call fanfic

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uozlulu · 2 years ago

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Thinking about the random guy my brain assigned me as a husband in my dreams. He’s been showing up every so often since I can remember. He’s always the same height, always glasses, always dark hair and brown eyes. Always kind, frequently driving me somewhere (although before I knew I couldn’t drive, sometimes I’d drive him places).

He showed up a few nights ago after a several year absence as my government assigned husband. Neither of us could speak each other’s language that great and we were just kind of making the whole situation work. It was very slice of life, very Google Translate audiovoice.

The weird thing is when my brain decides to assign me a random wife, she’s two different concepts. One is an alien who glows bright fushia and lime green (like Barney but not a dinosaur) and the other is a kind woman who is apparently the Watson to my Holmes but also the Holmes to my Watson. Yet, both of these dream characters are fairly new comparatively and show up a little less frequently.

But this guy, this nameless guy, has this vibe and this laugh and this soft voice, almost like I should know him, but I don’t know him or his name. He feels strangely real though like if I came across him IRL I’d know him based on vibe alone kind of feel. It’s also interesting that the dreams he appears in are so mundane. It’s just us living our lives. Like going to a wedding or he’s picking me up from a book event or just dancing.

It’s just one big I don’t know what to do with this information. Like I’m peeking into one of the many strings around us where we found each other or something.

#yammering #things i think about #dream talk #i just needed to empty my brain

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the-body-of-billie · 8 months ago

Text

[non-canonical Elmsbury Vampyre]

Chapter Four

“Archive Accessible to Authenticated Staff Only”

***

The three sat triangulated, leaning back against their beanbags- each one a fading primary colour standing out stark against the dulled, bottle-green carpet of Elmsbury-Gallows Library. The brown of their once-steaming coffee encased in the white styrofoam cups from the library coffee-maker like small, shiny buttons next to their knees, reflecting up lightly rippling rectangles from the fluorescent lights overhead. Surrounding them in their corner, were the walls of a labyrinth of polished, orange-toned wooden bookshelves, on top of which were plastic houseplants quietly gathering dust. The lights cast a greenish tint over the library, interrupted only by the harsh white glow from Amy, Kat, and Trent’s respective school laptops, all of which were nearing on a decade out of date.

The place was only a ground-floor high, with scattered chairs and coffee tables topped with flickering reading lights; these were too close to the ground to read on comfortably, therefore the library housed only a dozen or so other patrons. Alongside one of the four walls of this simple, quadrilateral space, was a row of about five Windows3.1 computers clasped inside their bulky, oblong, off-white shells, with clunky keyboards so loud when typed on that nobody ever bothered to look up anything on the system, or to use the disorientating, outdated CGI map of the town. There was a small station on a fold-out table against another one of the walls, home to a jittering coffee-maker and stacks of white, styrofoam cups, next to which were packets of sugar piled high in a small Tupperware box. The front desk sat neatly in the foyer, home to a very bored looking secretary- an elderly volunteer, presumably from the Methodist Church down in Elmsbury Common, wearing clothing so drab that his pair of bright yellow suede loafers seemed almost luminescent on his feet, in contrast. Just behind the desk was the door down into the archive, locked to the public.

“You guys want another coffee?” Kat stretched as they stood up, their bones popping in their lower back as they leaned down to pick up their friends’ cold drinks, “I’m off to grab one.”

“Oh, God, uh, not for me, thanks- I think I’ll turn into a coffee bean at this rate,” Amy looked up from her laptop, blinking hard as the white of the screen was now imprinted in a cyan square on her eyeballs, “I’ll take a tea though, if they’ve got any.”

“Mhm, one tea for Miss Cokes,” Kat mimed writing the order down on their hand, “Trent?”

“None for me,” he said flatly, not looking up, fingers furiously darting about the keyboard as he caught up on the last term’s unfinished work.

Kat raised their eyebrows, “Mmkay, so no coffee for Dr Reverend Lord Count King Trentworth the Ninth,” they met Trent’s eyes as he managed to drag himself away from the laptop screen, “esquire.”

“None for me, please.” He corrected himself. Kat smiled and skipped off towards the coffee station.

Trent tutted, “No good history books in here,” he picked up the one open by his feet to illustrate his point, “everything’s basically detailed better in the textbooks.”

“I swear we’re not meant to be using the textbooks as reference,” Amy pulled the screen of her laptop shut slightly to get the brightness out of her eyes, “only as a jumping-off point for, like, primary sources and stuff.”

Trent sighed, “yeah, well, it’s not like there’s anything of actual use in them anyway—” he was clearly frustrated with how his work was going, doing the thing he did where his brow pursed itself together in unison with his lips, “—not any real history.”

“What would be ‘real history’ then?”

He looked out of one of the high-up windows, eyes following the flight of a single crow against the white, seamless clouds, “I dunno, like a mystery or something.”

“Steady on Sherlock Holmes.”

“You know what I mean,” he smiled over to Kat carrying the two doomed-to-cool-to-room-temperature cups of tea and coffee respectively, cutting off that thought with their arrival. Trent changed the subject, “whose turn is it to go up and look for a source?”

“Uhh, I think it’s Amy’s,” Kat handed her the cup, “after you’ve finished your tea, of course.”

They had taken shifts to go up and look for sources- though admittedly as the afternoon had rolled around, they were running out of books in the more than limited History section of the collection. Most of the books in the library were self-published by local writers, who had paid to stock them on the shelves for undiscerning readers who mistakenly got the impression that that they knew what they were talking about; alongside this were a few children’s books, history books (mostly about World War One), and the colourful covers of 50p pulp horror comics stacked up and crumpled into a revolving display near the exit. Fiction was sparse, mostly paperbacks of well-known, thoroughly read classics, although there was a modest Stephen King section and a New Fiction shelf that, at one point, stocked up to ten whole volumes. The selection of history books on the 17th Century was even more scarce, however since they consisted of mostly locally-written works, it wasn’t too hard to find ones detailing strictly local history, which was what they needed for Professor Holly’s assignment.

Amy boredly traced her finger over the spines of the volumes, her free hand holding the copy of ‘North-West Leicestershire and the English Civil Wars’ that the group had collectively rejected. Most of the titles on the spines were of recent memory, having been flicked through and tossed aside up to three hours ago; Amy’s attention kept getting silently called over to other things in the library: a child babbling at it’s mother reading it a picture book, fingers in its mouth making wet noises that Amy would rather weren’t audible; long-dried chewing gum flattened into the carpet; the scorching vibrancy of the secretary’s yellow loafers; the warm, birch-toned wood of the door down into the archive and the shine on the laminated sign stuck to the front of it. She looked back to the shelf to see if her finger had guided itself to something of use. She swapped the books around, reading the cover of the new volume: ‘Elmsbury-Gallows: A Town of Tragedy, 1601-1701’. At least it was one they hadn’t read yet.

“This any good?” she tossed the book at Trent, though overestimated her range as it slid across the floor nearly knocking into his half-empty cup, risking spilling it onto their shared textbook. He picked the book up, absently examining the cover before flicking through to the index. None of them were sure as to what he was looking for. After a moment, his finger ceased its steady trail down the page, “Have we looked into Matilda Borthwick yet?”

“Uh, no- not in depth anyway,” Amy sat back down on her beanbag, “nothing really goes into detail about her- mostly just rehashing the info-plaques at the Crypt and, like, a timeline mentioning her as one of the women killed in the witch trials.”

Trent was furiously looking for the page, “yeah, well there’s a whole chapter in this about her apparently,” he stopped, and started to skim the pages as he spoke, “there was this big ass list under her name in the index.”

“Ooh, nice,” Kat leaned forward, “you think we’ll get better marks for more niche topics?”

“If we can find primary sources for them, then yeah,” Trent was still reading, his thumb tucked between his top teeth and bottom lip, “speaking of—” he turned the book around, his finger resting on the page, holding it open, “—look.”

***

Excerpt from a letter from Jack Newbridge, townsperson and local butcher, to Matthew Hopkins, witchfinder general, from October 1645; P.2, L.13:

“[…] it is of mine own firmest believe that the wych of the village is one Matilda Borthwicke. It is she who doest headed the daemonic covenne which hast terroris’d our people and taketh our childrenn. She reads from her bookes of dark magick and Satanic sciences and hast brought down upon us the Deere Mann, a daemon of the pitt, to snatche up our young to feed to its Master.”

This letter has been preserved in Elmsbury-Gallows Library Archive since its construction in1994.

***

“Spooky,” Kat had found a Freddo in the bottom of their bag and had started absently eating it, “never heard of her using ‘Satanic books’ before.”

“I guess the town was up in a huff about her being a woman who could do, like, basic addition,” Amy looked back at the page, “what’s a ‘Deer Man?’”

Trent shrugged, “I dunno, maybe like a local myth or something.”

“I think it’s a demon.” Kat’s eyes had that signature look in them, “it says right there- I dunno if it’s a synonym or whatever, but maybe he means, like, a goat’s head, not a deer,” their friends looked at them a little absently, “y’know… demons, goat heads; it makes sense.”

A moment. Kat interrupted the silence, “We’ve never done a demon hunt before.”

Another moment, this one a little thicker.

“It says they’ve got it in the archive.” Amy glanced at Trent; his eyes were glinting slightly: two small white rectangles in them from the windows up on the wall, “you reckon they’d let us look at it?”

He paused for a moment before speaking, “maybe, we’d have to ask one of the Archival Staff to let us down there- I dunno if they’ll take ‘we want this historical artefact for a half-term homework task’ as valid cause though.”

Kat shrugged, “worth a shot though, right?”

“I dunno,” Trent muttered, “this all feels like a little much for just an assignment.”

There was a long moment between them then; a mutual consideration of if all this trouble would be worth it for, what, five percent of their grade? But there was something else here. As much as they would reiterate it to each other and to themselves, this didn’t feel like it was for the actual assignment; it was more like they were becoming hobbyists.

“If you think it’s too much, we can just use the quote from the book and be done with it,” Kat offered, Amy wanted to butt in and tell them not to back down. Very lightly, almost imperceptibly, Trent shook his head and his two friends felt relief.

The three glanced behind them at the man with the yellow shoes tapping away at his computer behind the foyer desk. A small voice chirped up at the back of Amy’s head: finally, real history.

***

“I’m sorry you three, the Archive is off-limits to anybody who isn’t authorized staff,” he waved a hand in the direction of the sign on the door, sighing irritably, “as stated.”

“Not even if we go down with authorized supervision?” Trent still had the book clutched in his hand, finger marking the page they were on. The man with the yellow loafers sighed, “Uh, I can ask around if that helps?” he seemed a little perked up at the idea of a break from his monotonous typing, “you just wait here.” He moved himself out of his chair with a grunt and slipped quickly through the archive door. Before it swung shut, Amy saw the thin corridor leading over to the staffroom on one side of the hallway, and a locked door with a small plaque opposite it sitting closed. A beckoning seemed to thrum off it, as if it were coaxing her to open it. The main door clicked shut, the reappearance of the ‘no entry’ sign cutting off the sensation.

“I’ll wait here, you guys go look up the archival staff records on one of the computers.” Trent said in a half-whisper, a little firmer than he usually was.

“Why do we need to do that?”

He shrugged the change in character off, “I-I dunno, maybe we’ll find an ‘in’ just in case we’re not allowed down there- someone who would let us look regardless like, uhh…” he trailed off as he racked his brains, “… like someone who used to go to Elmsbury Secondary or something.”

There was that look again, that glint. Amy turned to Kat in silent conference. There was a small spark in their eyes too, and Amy was a little more than certain that if she passed a window and caught her reflection, she’d see it glowing in her as well. She had definitely started to feel it, “alright, we’ll have a look.”

The computer’s lively startup jingle cut through the murmur of the library, attracting a few glances as Kat fumbled for the volume button; Trent turned around and smirked at them from the foyer, peeking through a few shelves and mouthing what the fuck? before turning back to the desk and patiently waiting. Kat sat down in the chair in front of the screen and clicked on the folder labelled ‘Records for Public’. There were only two widgets in the folder: one for the library records and one for the archive; Kat was now following the trail. The widget opened into a grey column with two subfolders:

Archival Records

Archival Staff Records

Kat clicked on Archival Staff Records.

Archival Staff Records

Archival Staff Members 1994-2000

Archival Staff Members 2001-2007

Archival Staff Members 2008-2014

“Should we check all of them or just the most recent one?”

Kat turned around to answer Amy’s question, “best to go through all, I think,” they turned back to the screen, the glow illuminating their face in white, “just to be sure, but we’ll start with the most recent.”

Archival Staff Records

Archival Staff Members 1994-2000

Archival Staff Members 2001-2007

Archival Staff Members 2008-2014

Photos and Information

Kat opened the first folder. Another column opened and a long tower of small, pixelated photos stared back at the two from the screen, their names in bold underneath them, next to that was the date they had been hired as staff; in smaller font underneath that listed their qualifications, role, and email address. None of the faces were familiar to Kat or Amy, so they relented to look in the next folder down, grimacing a little as their chances of finding someone who they knew could help them seemingly diminished. The folder opened and Kat began to scroll. None of the most recent staff members were listed, a whole new selection of a dozen or so faces smiling back at them through the screen- their dress sense a little more vintage. Kat stopped. Nestled together at the bottom of the page were two icons: two names.

Rev. James Fairfax, hired 14/10/03.

Neil Holly, hired 20/10/03.

“Professor Holly worked here?”

“I mean, yeah clearly- it makes sense though doesn’t it?” Kat hadn’t looked away from the screen, “him being a history teacher and all.”

“Damn, how old would he have been in the early 2000s?”

“Man, I dunno, he looks like a teenager in this photo or maybe early twenties?” Kat still didn’t look away, “and there’s Jim the Vicar,” they laughed a little, “back when he had all his hair.”

“Dreadful trim.” Amy remarked.

“Probably why it started falling out- it was an affront to God.” Kat laughed, “so there’s two people we could ask.”

“One,” Amy corrected them, “we are not asking Jim the Vicar anything- I don’t like the way he looks at me.”

“Me neither, I was kinda hoping you’d say that,” Kat murmured. Something else caught their eye, “hey look there’s a Paint function! You reckon there’s like old drawings from the nineties in here?” they had already clicked on the widget, revealing an empty canvas.

“I think to see things people have already drawn you need to go into the folder for it.” Amy tried to sound like she knew more about computers than she actually did.

“Oh yeah- look, here!” Kat had started to scroll through a sea of ‘hi!’s; smiley faces; and many, many, crudely-drawn penises.

“Wait go back up a sec.”

Kat obliged, landing on a small folder from 9th January 2004. When it was clicked open, it revealed an 8-bit black Ouroboros circling around what looked like an eye.

“That’s either really cool or really creepy,” Kat tried to sound as upbeat as they had been a moment ago, “technology is ever-changing, but goth is forever.” Amy cringed slightly at their friend’s comment, lovingly though, but the feeling quickly subsided as she started to take in the illustration. It wasn’t badly-drawn, but the penmanship wasn’t perfect, a few pixels wobbled out of place and the medium was all too simplistic for it to be a very detailed design. It had a dizzying quality, however, as if staring into a rotating spiral. Amy at one point thought it might be an animation, but every time she glanced back at the image, the head of the snake was always where it had been when she first looked at it.

“Hey!” Trent’s voice prompted Kat to reflexively exit the folder and turn off the computer. Amy blinked at her reflection on the cooling screen.

“What’s up?”

“Bad news,” he sighed, “he says we’re not allowed in.” he looked between his two friends, “what about you guys? You find anything?”

Kat sat back in the chair, a smile forming on their face, “yup- Professor Holly used to work here.”

“Oh perfect.” Trent let out a short breath of relief, “we can just ask him to let us in then.”

“Will he even have a key anymore?”

Trent shrugged, “I dunno- worth a try though, right? And if nothing works then we can just…” he pushed the next words out, “…give up on it, I guess.”

Amy didn’t like the sound of that idea.

“Well, we can’t show up to his house,” Kat rubbed their chin a little, “and we can’t send him a message on school email because that’ll get tracked immediately.”

“His old email’s listed on the Archival Staff Record,” Amy offered, “we could try that instead.”

“Will it even still be active? It’s from, like, 2003.”

Amy looked between her two friends, “Like Trent said, worth a try, in’t it?”

***

>[email protected]

>To: [email protected]

>Subject: Archive Access

Hi sir, we need your help with something, sorry for not contacting you on school email but we don’t want to risk getting flagged (you’ll see why in a minute).

Whilst doing research at the library today we did some digging and found out a primary source we want to use as reference in the research task is stored in the library archive. We looked into the archival staff records and saw you were listed as a staff member starting in 2003, so wanted to ask if you could maybe lend us the key to get into the archive? It’s a lot to ask and it’s okay if it breaches a boundary but it would mean a lot if we could do some proper historian work on this homework task.

From:

Amy Cokes, Kat Burton, Trent Lewis-Scott

***

>[email protected]

>Replying to: [email protected]

>Subject: Archive Access

Hello Amy, Kat, and Trent

Thank you for asking first- I had forgotten this email address even existed!

I appreciate your dedication to the project, and would love to help out, however this may be a little far for a half-term homework task? I resigned my post at the Library in 2008, though I cannot remember if I still have the key into the Archive, let alone if I will still be granted access. I can try to ask, though don’t be disappointed if nothing comes up.

-Prof.Holly

***

>[email protected]

>Replying to: [email protected]

>Subject: Archive Access

Okay, we’d love you to look into it. We know it’s a little much for a half term research project but we are honestly kind of invested in the research and would love to try out some more practical forms of learning.

From:

Amy, Kat, and Trent

***

>[email protected]

>Replying to: [email protected]

>Subject: Archival Access

Hi all,

Have managed to convince Allan at the desk, he says I can grant access so long as he and I supervise, and only for fifteen minutes- I’m sure that’s plenty of time to simply photograph a source. I will be at the library tomorrow morning at 10:00am. Very happy that you are taking the course so seriously!

-Prof.Holly

***

The part about only being allowed fifteen minutes was a lie: in that it was Neil’s idea, not Allan at the desk’s. This thirst for knowledge was only slightly out-of-character for his three students, however that was certainly enough for him to become apprehensive over what it might mean. He had told himself again and again that he was paranoid and overreacting, that he should be far more pleased than he found himself to be that Amy, Kat, and Trent were so invested in their course. At least his supervision was compulsory. Neil felt himself relax a little at his control over this situation: at least now he could prevent their eyes from wandering towards anything they were better off not knowing; the project brief didn’t even cover the area of town history that would be of main concern, though even a mention of Matilda Bothwick could certainly be enough to trip oneself into the rabbit hole, in theory. If that were the case, they would already be too far gone.

He shook the thought off, trying hard to ignore the clinging feeling of familiarity which hung over the whole situation: like a wound reopening; this scab that had been so tempting to just peel off all these years was finally getting scratched again as blood oozed in spots around its edges. Grotesque, painful, but so impossible to look away from. So impossible to stop. Just like the old days.

***

Kat waved at Neil from the spot that they were stood with their friends outside the doors into the library. Amy and Trent had huddled next to them, keeping close, and the three smiled awkwardly at their teacher as he approached them from across the car park, wrapping his cardigan tightly over his chest to block out the biting October cold. He smiled timidly, waving a hand with a small brass key looped around his ring finger, presumably his old key into the Archive; upon seeing the white of the clouds reflecting in the rose-toned metal, Kat felt a leap of anticipation trying to escape their chest.

“So only fifteen minutes, alright?” Allan from the desk walked the four of them down the hallway towards a very ordinary-looking varnished wooden door on the right-hand side. The lights overhead were old filament lamps, fizzing softly like hives of sleeping bees, casting a honey-coloured glow in the reflection of the little plaque on the archive door, and down onto the features of Kat’s friends; determined and, when inspected even more closely, hungry. It was warmer in this hallway than in the library itself, the walls close and yellow, encroaching on both sides: a slowly closing jaw.

Kat flinched a little at the metallic rattle of the keys turning in the lock- it was a little strange that Professor Holly had brought his own set since it was Allan who was letting them in; they assumed the history teacher had brought them along to hand back in to the library after forgetting to all these years.

The door swung open, revealing worn wooden steps leading down towards a vanta-black rectangle at the bottom of them. Allan tugged the pull switch with a click that tumbled down towards the archive, and the lights downstairs flickered on.

#a short chapter this time before the absolute lore-heavy behemoths that will be chapters 5 and 6 #hope you enjoy #horror #horror writing #internet horror #short horror story #creepypasta #original horror story #original story #oc #original character #the elmsbury vampyre

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