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admutual · 5 years ago

Note

any hayley or steve childhood headcanons hell add stan if thats ok!!

oo !!

hayley ones:

hayley was always bringing weird animals inside and trying to convince stan and francine to let her keep them. multiple instances of her running inside, covered in dirt, and holding a garter snake begging ‘please please can we keep her??’ while steve screams in terror.

that hc i mentioned of francine always standing up for the other kids ,, hayley inherited that trait. my god she was The Most protective kid during her school years, she absolutely refused to let anyone get walked over when she knew they didn’t deserve it.

hayley was a wolf girl growing up,, change my mind. and black wolves were always her fave.

hayley definitely read animorphs growing up. those books shaped her and her fave character was cassie,,, also once she got more comfortable with living with roger she bullied him for not looking as cool as an andalite or a hork-bajir.

hayley went through an emo phase during her middle and high school years. she tried really hard to get an emo fringe, she was always blasting mcr and the used and three days grace, and her first job was at a hot topic.

hayley and stan were obviously tight-knit buds back in the day. like ,, she’d set up tea parties for them in the backyard, going out to movies was almost a weekly activity for the two of them, they were always planning picnics together,, they were really close. also every time they went to familyland together, hayley was always trying to drag him along with her to the more Extreme rides. francine kept telling her she’d go since she knew stan wasn’t the biggest fan of those rides like she was, but hayley kept insisting and it’d always end with stan near traumatized. big cia man goes on scary missions daily but he can’t handle a little roller coaster.

hayley’s hair was . pretty often a Mess when she was young. it was staticky, always sticking up at some angle, she often got too excited that she never took the time to comb out her hair in the mornings. plus it’s always been a habit of hers to play with her hair whenever she gets too excited or nervous, so even if she got it all straightened out it’d still turn into a mess by the end of the day.

hayley was always covered in scrapes and bruises. there was never a day where she didn’t have a bandaid somewhere.

she was a really tall kid during elementary school. she was almost always the tallest kid in her class. around high school everyone outgrew her though and now she’s . really short compared to most people her age, but yeah when she was little . Tall Girl (2019).

hayley skateboarded in middle school, and she was really damn good at it. she got in loads of trouble for skateboarding on school property and she thought she was the coolest kid for doing it.

stan and francine tried really hard not to curse around hayley when she was little (once steve came around they gave up trying), but occasionally something would slip out and hayley would always parrot it. stan looking at a bill and muttering ‘shit’ and then in the living room hearing what is obviously a toddler screaming ‘SHIT’

hayley, like steve, was always kinda lonely during her school years. steve eventually found friends in snot, barry, toshi, and roger too once he moved in, but hayley never really learned proper social skills as she was often pushed away for being the loud rowdy ‘annoying’ kid, and they always viewed her attempts to try to get close to others as too ‘desperate’. she has found friends in her adulthood, but yeah during her childhood she mostly just stuck around her family.

hayley was That Kid who would always use those fake clip-on earrings you’d get from claires, as well as cutting up the spiral from her notebook to use as a fake lip piercing, and she’d spend all day trying to convince her classmates ‘yeah no it’s real’

hayley liked stealing her dad’s camera and using it to film fake vlogs. they have multiple reels that go from cute family videos, to hayley making lps vids and fake cooking tutorials.

hayley drew a lot growing up and francine still has dozens of her drawings magneted to the fridge. hayley’s always cringing and asking her to take them down, but tbh francine’s never going to.

hayley’s always loved being outside at night. occasionally she’d sneak steve out with her to play in the backyard and it’d always lead to them in the treehouse, and stan catching them because they kept shining their flashlight against their bedroom window.

steve ones:

steve’s definitely adhd, autistic, and dyslexic. (the latter’s literally canon, and the two former ones are hcs that to me feel so obvious that i’m always a little hesitant calling it a hc). i really like imagining his parents being really patient with him in this area, even stan learned to be more composed and gentle with him when it came to this, and the two of them helping him find ways to cope. francine especially enjoyed nights helping him read.

steve’s interest in birds has been with him for pretty much his entire life, i like to imagine it’s always been his biggest special interest. also i’ve noticed there’s random scenes where stan’s displayed a bit of an interest or at least an appreciation of birds, so i kinda like to imagine stan used to take steve to the park for birdwatching trips when he was young before steve started going with roger. sometimes francine and hayley would tag along, but mostly it was just stan taking steve out and listening to him ramble about all the birds he’s spotting,, every time steve had a bad day stan’s immediate solution was to take him to the park.

when roger first moved in, he and steve were inseparable. steve was obsessed with learning everything about him and his species and his home planet, while roger saw steve as the one safe person to be around (francine, hayley, and klaus were still anxious towards him while stan was too strict and controlling for him). for a good few months until he started bonding with the rest of the fam roger would get really mopey whenever steve would go to school or leave to hang with his other friends, and the second steve walked through that door roger would excitedly hug him and try to lead him off to go do something together.

@a-d-lesbian got me into the hc that steve’s a theater kid and like ,, i’m always thinking about steve getting a tiny little background role in a 6th grade christmas show that they were required to do as a class, and he just loses his mind. he convinces stan and francine to let him invite the grandparents, he has francine film every scene he’s in where he just . Stands There. and then after the show when they get home he makes them all rewatch them all because he’s really damn proud of himself.

steve’s fave books growing up were always xenofiction. stuff like warrior cats and guardians of ga’hoole and redwall. he loved that shit. like i’m just imagining him trying to get his friends to larp warrior cats but none of them read it so they don’t know what he wants them to do, and he keeps assigning them warrior cat sonas and calling them by warrior cat names at school,, and he keeps calling god ‘starclan’ (which makes stan. Mad). am i projecting? that’s a secret, i’ll never tell.

steve was absolutely the Anime Kid in middle school. the amount of times he got yelled at for naruto running in the hallways was far too much. and his faves were fruits basket, nichijou, and k-on.

i’m so obviously projecting with my steve hcs here but i’m not gonna stop and i’m gonna say steve’s a trans guy. i know it makes no sense in canon, but canon’s dead it’s mine now. anyways he’s known since around the time he started middle school, and stan and francine love him and support him and i don’t have much else to say without getting Too Projecting, but yeah steve’s trans.

steve was pretty socially anxious growing up. he did get better as he grew older obv, but when he was little he was A Mess in school.

steve loved making flower crowns when he was little. he learned how to in his 2nd grade art class and just obsessed over it for a good few years and he was always making them for the fam. francine, stan, and hayley didn’t mind, they thought it was cute. i can see hayley learning to make them too and the two of them exchanging crowns,, and francine probably learned how to make some too during her college years and steve would always get really excited whenever she tried making some with him. poor roger though, once he moved in, steve took him as his new model and roger was forced to suffer through sitting in the hot sun while steve covered him in flowers.

steve never stopped singing. oh my god, stan loves him but he eventually reached a point where he started hiding their disney movies because steve would always loudly sing along and he just wanted some peace and quiet to work.

i like to imagine klaus has a sibling-esque relationship with pretty much the entire fam, but especially with steve. he was always pretty protective of him despite not really being able to do anything if he got hurt, and klaus was always there to talk to whenever steve needed it.

steve’s always liked to help francine bake. originally it was just so he could claim the mixer of batter before hayley could, but he quickly got really invested and he still loves helping out.

and in general for the both of them:

steve was the type of kid who bonked his head against the table a little and would spend the rest of the night crying while francine comforted him,, while hayley was the type of kid who could fly down the stairs and leave an actual dent in the wall and she’d still jump up assuring everyone ‘i’m okay!!’

hayley and steve used to play pokemon together growing up. hayley was more casually into it while steve was more obsessed (i like to imagine it was a special interest of his growing up). nowadays hayley doesn’t play it too often, but every now and then some big news will happen like new starters getting revealed, and steve will show her and hayley still can’t help but get at least a bit excited each time.

francine tried to do cute little family halloween costumes a few years. the idea of them doing an addams family group costume is precious.

francine always took them out for christmas photos every year. just dozens of photos of the four of them in the tackiest sweaters. they don’t do it as often anymore (or at least they don’t take as many photos outside of a few while they’re setting up the tree) but they still have framed photos of them that they set on the fireplace mantle every year.

listen …….. there were definitely multiple instances when they were really little of stan coming home from work ,, and steve and hayley excitedly tackling him,,,, and stan dramatically acting like he’s being attacked and losing ,,,

despite roger being a Dick, he was super protective of the two of them back in the day. either of them come home from school with a bruise, and roger’s already planning out an elaborate revenge scheme.

as for stan ,,

i’m adopting @stancine’s hc to say he was definitely a country boy. i kinda like to imagine his uncle on his mother’s side lived on a farm, and stan was really close to him growing up and it just sorta became monthly to take weekend trips to see him.

stan loved horses. he was definitely a Horse Kid, and his fave breeds are clydesdales and friesians.

sheep too!! one of his favorite yearly activities is during the springtime when his uncle helps him out with shearing the sheep.

also stan loved camping. he loved going out on walks through the woods and he especially loved fishing, but the second the sun went down he cowered in the back of the tent next to his mom because he was terrified of the noises coming from outside.

stan was a really quiet kid growing up. he sucked at properly standing up for himself, that’s kinda the reason he’s so harsh on steve for accepting mistreatment because he knows how hard it is and he doesn’t want his son to go through the same shit he did.

mother’s day was always one of his favorite holidays. he’d be obsessed with planning the whole day around trying to make it perfect for betty. making her breakfast in bed and saving up his allowance to buy her a gift, and he’d always make elaborate art projects for her every year.

stan . tried to learn how to ride a motorcycle in high school. it was this random obsession he got for no reason where he just really wanted one, but he always panicked whenever he got the chance to try one out. never even got his permit because he was so scared.

stan had a lot of pent-up anger as a kid that he never even recognized as anger until he got older. because of that he often broke his toys on accident because something wasn’t working correctly, and sometimes he’d snap at teachers on accident. obv he still had a problem with it but at least now he knows what’s going on and can at least try to work on dealing with it.

betty used to read to stan at night when he was really young. they didn’t have many books around so it was just stan listening to her read the same four dr. seuss books over and over. he didn’t mind though.

stan’s always loved writing and a good chunk of his free time was writing little short stories. he took a creative writing class in high school and he almost immediately became the teacher’s pet.

stan was a pretty lonely socially inept kid and i like to think growing up he tried getting a lot of his ‘advice’ on how to interact with others through television. one time he tried to get a girl’s attention by doing the ‘throwing pebbles at their window’ trope, but he fucked up and got too big a stone and threw it too hard, and just shattered this poor girl’s window. and stan spent the rest of the night crying in his room before caving and turning himself in.

i can see him being really into superheroes when he was younger. just him bounding around the house with a blanket for a cape, acting out random scenes he read out of the latest issue he bought.

stan was obv a dog kid. he’d often find himself going to the adoption shelter near his house just to see the dogs there whenever he was feeling down. and his fave breeds were golden retrievers, pit bulls, and shelties.

god i have tons more for all of them but i’m gonna stop because this is already long enough as it is.

#i’m so sorry i didn’t mean for it to get this long djbfdjdkdkd #i'm tired too so i'm pretty sure a lot of this is Worded Weird and Awkwardly and i won't find out until tomorrow #anon #asks #long #american dad

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ketchupsupreme · 5 years ago

Text

Conversations with Dead Planets

Cassie

My name is Cassie.

The last name doesn't matter. Hadn't mattered for nearly three years. For three years, my friends and I had fought a secret war against the Yeerks, a parasitic alien race that took control of your body by entering through your ear and wrapping itself around your brain. They could be in anyone: your parents, your mailman, your teacher anyone. We called them Controllers. The only way we had been able to fight them was through Andalite technology that gave us the ability to morph into any animal we touched. I had been a dolphin, a horse, a orca. It was amazing. The battles… not so much. My friends and later the younger brother of the Andalite who gave us the power became the Animorphs.

The technology that gave us this power had been lost until a kid named David found the blue box. We gave David the ability to morph and he was one of us until he betrayed us and we had to take care of him. The morphing power was our only advantage against the Yeerks. That and the fact that until very recently they didn't know who we were. They had thought we were rogue Andalite bandits. When they found out that we were human, we had to get our families out. We were successful...except for Jake our leader. We had been too late to get his family out and his brother Tom, who had been a Controller since the very beginning, infested his own parents. None of the Yeerks had the ability to morph except for one: Visser One, the only Yeerk who had ever taken an Andalite host and with it the power to morph. Until now. Because of me.

In our most recent battle, in an effort to stop Jake (my sorta boyfriend) from killing his brother Tom I had allowed Tom to get away with the blue box. I don't know why, I just knew that I couldn't let Jake kill his own brother. After all that we had been through, the countless battles, the countless deaths, this last one seemed to monstrous for even us. I couldn't let Jake do it. So in order to stop him I had bit him while I was in my wolf morph, resulting in Jake hitting me across the face… as a tiger. With tiger sized paws.

I knew why he had done it. Surprise. Anger. Now he could barely look at me. In his eyes I was a traitor. I wasn't so sure, but I knew that I didn't want to be around him or any of the other Animorphs. When we got back to the free Hork-Bajir valley, I split off from the group, avoiding my best friend Rachel’s eyes as I headed for the tree line.

“Cassie!” I heard her yell as I ran further into the forest. As I ran, a certain picture floated to the top of my mind. I could feel my nails start getting thicker and longer as fur sprouted all around my body. Ax, our only actual Andalite member and the younger brother of the Andalite who had given us the morphing power, had told us that I was what the Andalites called an estreen, someone who could control how they morphed. When my friends morphed, it was not a pretty sight. Legs exploded out of them, eyeballs formed, beaks appeared on human faces. As the wolf whose DNA was apart of me rose out of my human body, near the end of it, I looked almost like one of those old Hollywood werewolves until the morph finished and I became a complete wolf.

I ran, pushing my legs to the extreme as I ran away, jumping over fallen trees, making hairpin turns as I let the wolf take me over. I reached the top of a hill, coming to a dead stop as I let the moon wash over me, feeling the cool wind blow through my fur.

Why had I done it? Why had I given Tom the morphing cube? With it, our only advantage was gone. If this fight had happened a few weeks earlier, we would have lost the cube before we ever created the Auxiliary Animorphs.

The Auxiliary Animorphs. Another one of my ideas. When our backs had been up against the wall, when we needed more warriors, more Animorphs, we had the dilemma of not knowing who was or wasn't a Controller. We couldn't recruit our parents. They had to be kids. Kids thay the Yeerks would never touch. Kids that the Yeerks believed to be powerless. That's when I had the idea: we would recruit disabled kids.

What was wrong with me? The Cassie that had entered this war would have never done this. When my father found out about this plan, he looked at me like I was a stranger, someone he didn't even recognize. To be completely honest? I wasn't so sure I recognized myself. I had done so many things in this war, killed so many people, all in the name of defending my planet. No one forced me to. No one held a gun against my head and told me I had to be an Animorph. That had been my choice. I had quit once, when I wasn't sure if I had killed a Hork-Bajir before or after Jake signaled the retreat. I could have ended it then. Been a normal girl again.

But then came Karen and Aftran. Aftran had been a Yeerk in the head of a little girl named Karen. She had found out our secret, and began stalking me. After a few days in the woods together, in exchange for Karen’s freedom, I agreed to morph a caterpillar permanently so long as Aftran never took another host again. See that's the drawback about morphing. If you stayed in the morph for more than two hours, you were stuck permanently. A nothlit. It had happened to Tobias, one of the members of our group, and it had happened to me.

Why wasn't I still in the body of a caterpillar though? Well according to Ax, since the caterpillar naturally morphed into a butterfly, it reset the morphing clock, allowing me to escape the blind fate of the caterpillar. I eventually saved Aftran from the Yeerks themselves, giving her the power to morph as long as she chose one morph and stayed in it forever. She was still out there, swimming in the ocean as a humpback whale.

She had finished her fight. I was still in it. As the Drode had once called me, I was Cassie, the Killer with a Conscious. What would I give if this stupid war had never happened, if my biggest problem in the world was still feeding the ducks their pills or wondering if Jake liked me back? I would give anything.

“Anything, you say?” a voice behind me drawled.

I turned around quickly, losing balance as my now human legs tangled around each other. When had I morphed back to human?

“Who’s there?” I called into the forest, trying to peer into the darkness with my weak, human eyes.

“It is I Cassie. Do you not recognize me Cassie the hypocrite? Never a killer… except for when she is.”

Immediately goosebumps popped up all over my skin. Only one being had ever called me that.

“The Drode,” I said calmly, my terror hidden beneath my calm exterior.

“Yes, it is I,” it said, bowing before me with a flourish. “My master, the great and powerful Crayak heard your wishes and sent me down here to grant it. Unlike that meddling twit, the Elimist, the great and powerful Crayak can grant you what you most truly desire.”

He began circling me, whispering to me all of my most secret desires.

“No more lies Cassie.”

“No more death Cassie.”

“No more wondering whether what you just did was right and wrong.”

“No more wondering whether Rachel will die in a future battle.”

“No more of Jake feeling like you betrayed him.”

My breathing was coming out rapid and shallow. Yes I wanted all of this. How many times had I woken up, a cold sweat covering my skin from the nightmares. From seeing Rachel, fierce, loyal, brave Rachel, devoured by Taxxons, not even in her human form. How many times had I lied to my parents and they never questioned it because to them I’m their sweet innocent Cassie. Or rather, I had been. Until very recently, I had lied to them almost every day for the past three years.

My father thought I was a monster. I didn’t know if any of the other Animorphs had told him it was my idea to recruit James and the other disabled children. When we had left for that mission though, he had stared at me as if I was a stranger, no longer the sweet innocent Cassie. That Cassie had died the first time we went to the Yeerk pool. When I had taken my first life. I had been just thirteen.

What if the Drode could do as Crayak promised? Change everything so this war never happened? So that Jake, a man trapped in the body of a sixteen year old boy, could grow up without the weight of the world hanging around his neck. Rachel would never have to feel as if we were using her to clean up our messes. David would have never happened. Marco would have grown up with his mother. Ax would still have his brother. Tobias--

Tobias. If the Yeerks never came to Earth, that would mean that Elfangor, Ax’s older brother and the one who gave us our powers and told us about the Yeerks, would have never come to Earth and he would have never met Loren, Tobias’ mother. Tobias would have never been born. I opened my mouth to protest. The Drode cut me off before one word even passed my lips.

“Do not worry, Saint Cassie. Your feathered friend will still be born. The all powerful Crayak will see to it that the deceased prince becomes a nothlit. Tobias will have a loving father and mother and never want for anything. He will never know hardship, never be afraid, never wonder why his mother left him. He will be happy.”

I almost cried. When he had been human, Tobias was trapped in between two homes that had made it clear he would not be missed if he disappeared. As a matter of fact, when he had become a nothlit, Neither his aunt or uncle cared very much. I don’t think they even put in a missing persons report. Didn’t Tobias deserve this?

“Why did Crayak send you to me,” I asked, my voice thick with emotion. “Why didn’t he go to Jake? I know he hates Jake, but Jake should be making this decision. Not me.”

The Drode smiled, his odd bird shaped head almost trembling with glee.

“Therein lies the catch, Horsewoman of the Apocalypse,” the Drode said, turning Marco’s one-off name for me into something cruel. “In order for Crayak to do this, Jake the Yeerk Killer must be sacrificed.”

The blood drained from my face. Jake wouldn’t be there. He would be dead. No. I would never let that happen. Jake was my-- I mean Jake was the one thing that made sense in this world. I lo--.

“And you must be the one to kill him.”

I turned on the Drode, my fist hurtling towards his face. Except that there was no fist. It was a paw, half morphed and quickly completing the transformation into full wolf.

“Before you say no Cassie the Hypocrite, let me show you something.”

The sky above me bloomed into images. I saw myself, my thirteen year old self, laughing, clinging onto Rachel’s arm as she dragged me across the mall, her eyes searching for the words “sale.”. Marco, funny Marco, pointing at me as his mother dragged him into their car, the words “tree-hugger” forming as his mom slammed the car door.

“He’ll be by tomorrow Cassie,” Eva laughed, her eyes kind and empty of the harsh truths that the former Visser One had left her with. “Thank you again for tutoring him!”

Another image, this one of Tobias and I, bloomed. We were camping, his father telling my father and us about planets far away. Planets that held giant bladed gentle creatures who peeled and ate bark. Of carnivorous worms that ate everything in sight. Finally, with a gentleness in his eyes, he told us of four legged beings who had four eyes and a blade at the end of their tail. “Gentle creatures,” he seemed to say. “Kind of uppity, but in a lovable way.” I was the only one who noticed the tear slip out of his eye.

“All of this could be real Cassie,” the Drode whispered in my ear. “You know what you have to do.” He waved his hand towards a dark spot in the clearing.

Jake appeared. He seemed confused at first, scanning the area. Then he saw me. His eyes narrowed, his mouth twisting in an ugly snarl.

“Cassie.”

<Get out of here Jake,> I said, my thought-speak filled with worry.

“Don’t worry. I don’t want to be anywhere near you,” he said, his voice filled with derision.

<Jake. Please. Get out of here.> I could not stop the fear from entering my voice.

He must have heard it because instantly his eyes softened, the boy general forgetting his current anger. For right now, he was my Jake again.

“Cassie? What’s wrong?” he said, his voice filled with concern.

“Casssssiiieeee… all of that can be yours. Just tear his throat out out. Don’t let him morph.” The Drode’s voice tangled all around me.

“Cassie,” Jake said again, this time dropping to the ground to be eye level with me. I could see the black stripes rippling across his features, his face bulging and eye color changing as he began morphing into the tiger I had seen him become so many times.His hand dropped as it became a paw. I felt that paw striking me across the face. His anger.

“One life for everyone else. A free galaxy. No more slaves. No more Yeerks. Just kill Jake Berenson and all of this can be yours.”

Suddenly Jake was human again, frozen aside from his eyes, which looked around, the panic settling in his eyes.

“KILL. HIM.”

Never. No matter what had happened between me and Jake, I could never kill him. I loved him. Nothing in this world was worth Jake’s life. Even if what the Drode promised was true, it came at too horrible a price. The price would be Jake’s life… and my humanity.

In an instant I turned on the Drode, my jaws aching for his throat. He disappeared, his laughter filling my ears as Jake also disappeared.

“Oh Cassie, too good for even her planet. One day soon you will wish for the great Crayak to offer you this again. When a friend falls in battle… you will wish for him. And he shall not appear. He will let you enjoy the spoils of your kindness.”

With a final laugh, his presence vanished. I demorphed, the cool winds rustling the trees. Nothing had changed. But Jake was still alive. And soon, this war would be over one way or another. As I stared at the sky above me, a Bug fighter flew across the crescent moon.

#animorphs #cassie #jake berenson #drode #crayak #andalite #yeerks

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pjdredful · 6 years ago

Text

The AV Club

Chapter 3

I'm in a foggy haze and sounds that I vaguely recognize as worried hushed voices hum in the background. I don't stir or open my eyes hoping that I can just stay asleep a little while longer but the the hum starts to turn into a buzz I just can't ignore. I'm about to open my eyes when something said catches my attention out of the droning. "I don't KNOW what the hell happened. One second we were fine, sitting on the sofa checking the journal out. The next…"

"The next second you're sending up spotlight messages to aliens." That has to be Orson because he sounds irritated that I'm apparently causing a fuss.

"You guys didn't see it. By the time you got here it was over and she was out cold but her face…" Silence for a beat and I can tell they're all looking at me. Probably in fear. "It was everywhere. The light just came out of her, her eyes, skin, everywhere. And she wouldn't let go of the stupid fucking thing. I had to wrestle it out of her grip."

A calmer and softer voice that I recognize as Mo's murmurs a question I can't quite make out. There's a bit of silence before Nat's deep voice breaks the tableau. "No. That's not right. That book is Evie's, we shouldn't read it before she does. Still we should know what we're dealing with. Start with the necklace."

I groan and raise a hand to my forehead, still not opening my eyes. I'm afraid if I do I'll light up the clubhouse again. I can feel Nat's warm reassuring weight behind me as he helps me sit up. I open my eyes but probably I shouldn't have. The room spins and for a second I think I might hork. I swallow thickly a few times and clear my throat. "Evie? Are you okay?" Mo's worried tone makes me give him a wry smile and I shake my head. I’m so not anywhere near the level of okay.

"I'll be okay, just a little…why are you guys staring at me?" I hadn't noticed right away but now that my stomach isn't attempting a jailbreak from my body I realize that all four of them are staring at me with deep frowns. "What?" Nothing. Oh shit. I jump up from the couch, startling them all in to taking a step back. Now I'm really worried. The panic must show on my face because Lirae takes a step forward.

"Dude, your eyes." What about my eyes? "They're glowing." Glowing? Wait. My eyes…are glowing? What!? I need to see this. My bag. Where is my bag? Anxiety like I have never felt before hits me making my dully aching head throb harder as I start buzzing around the main room looking for my bag. I find it half shoved under the loveseat and paw around in it like a deranged squirrel. I stop when a small bright square of mirror is held in my line of sight and slump back in to the loveseat. I raise a shaking hand to take the mirror from Lirae and blink at myself. My eyes are usually a pale gray but they've never looked like this. Something flashes like blue lightening in their depths and I take a closer look, the mirror practically touching my nose.

"Holy crud buckets." There's a shifting of feet and an almost nervous twittering. I look up at everyone surprised to see smiles and faintly amused head shakes.

"That's our Evil Evie alright." I blink over at Orson with a questioning look and he shrugs. "If you were possessed you would have come up with better curse words." Oh. But the fact that he looks relieved makes me feel less annoyed that they actually thought I might be possessed. But to be fair I did apparently turn into the human spotlight. Hm. Maybe I shouldn't be so quick with the human part. As far as I know, glowing isn't a thing the normal average Joe can do. The silence deepens again and I feel like I should look at the mirror so that I don't have to deal with the awkward silence. "So tell me again why you guys were cuddling."

Why isn't there ever a hole in the ground to swallow you up when you need one? I blush but Lirae waves him off with an irritated gesture. "I said sitting, if there was cuddling it's none of your business." Wait. What's happening now? My head swivels a little too fast giving a wicked throb and I wince. Ow. "Can we all just get back to what the hell happened to Evie?"

"The Beacon was lit." My voice is a little shaky but Orson snorts at that but all eyes turn to me immediately.

"The bacon was lit? That sounds stupid." Nat smacks him in the chest with a heavy backhand and he rubs it with a wince. "What?"

"Not bacon, Beacon." Dummy. I sigh and shake my head. "I don't know what that means. Probably my mom wrote something about it, we didn't get a chance to read any of the journal before…." Before I turned in to a column of pure light. I give an involuntary groan and rub my temple. The headache is getting worse. "Anyone have an aspirin? Or sledgehammer to knock me out with?" It suddenly occurs to me why my head is hurting and I look at my friends with a sigh. My weird extra sense is in overdrive, feeling so many different things at once that I can't process much past the pounding in my ears. All I know for certain is that now they'll be coming for me. I don't know how I know it, I just do. "Whatever just happened to me turned my receiver up to eleven, there's stuff out there and it'll be looking for me."

Nat wraps his bear like arms around me letting me bury my face in his chest. There isn't anything romantic between us because what with the gay and all but Nat is the best hugger, ever. I feel safe here and comforted despite the fact that I'm going through some serious eye glowing changes right now. He murmurs softly against the top of my head, letting me just be. "How much time do we have?"

Honestly I'm not sure. Something's wrong with my tingly little senses. Or right with them. I can't tell just yet. "Not too close. It's like it's everywhere at once or too many at once for me to figure out." We don't really have the time for me to lose my shit so I take a deep breath and extricate myself from his embrace. I give Nat a grateful smile and look around for my mom's journal. It's laying on the floor next to the necklace. Very carefully avoiding the chain and pendant I pick up the journal and flip through the first few pages. "We need to know what the rune means, maybe there are some clues in there as to what's happening to me and how I can turn it off."

There's silence around me and I know no one wants to say it but we're all thinking it. If my mom knew a way to turn it off she probably wouldn't have gone crazy. A pale hand takes the chain from the floor and I only half watch is as I try to make out some of the small cramped script. My beloved daughter. I swallow seeing the first words on the first page. It feels like someone just kicked me in the gut. She wrote this for me, not herself. I touch the words tenderly, the sound of the now running generator and the click clack of computer keys fading around me.

My beloved daughter, first let me say this. I love you. I loved you from the moment I found out I was pregnant with you and I will love you long past the death of this mortal body. I only wish that I had more time to tell you all that you will need to know. For that, I am so very sorry. I shut the book, breathing hard, trying to not cry. The couch dips as someone's weight settles next to me and I'm surprised that it's Orson and not oh I don’t know. Anyone else. He's not looking at me which is fine because I don't much feel like being stared at right now.

"Whatever you find in there, I still got your back, Bacon. I just wanted you to know." I'm so surprised I don't even protest the new nickname. I guess it's better than Evil Evie. I don't know what to say that doesn't sound like the stupidest thing ever so I nudge him playfully with my elbow and smile a little less warily at him. Orson smirks at me and gazes at me from the corner of his eye. "So about that cuddling…"

"So not giving you fodder for your spank bank." He makes a mock irritated hum but for the first time since we've known each other, I actually feel like he might be a friend. Sort of?

"Please, like I need your tired old lesbian fantasy. Ladies love the ole Chocolate Thunder." And he's back to being Orson. I give him a look that clearly says I disbelieve anyone has EVER called him Chocolate Thunder but don't say it out loud. Boys are fragile things after all.

"Okay then, thanks for uh. All that." I clear my throat awkwardly because now that we don't have anything else to say to each other it's just weird. Mo's voice cuts through our moment and we look up at him both relieved and slightly disturbed by the burgeoning comradery between us. We’re usually spending far too much time pretending we’re not competing for Lirae’s attention.

"Found something." He spins in the chair, turning away from the bank of screens we've set up at the work station. It's an odd assortment of pilfered old monitors we've scrounged from our garages and various yard sales. It might not be the top of the line but our set up is pretty badass. "So this rune your mom had, it's called Kenaz. It literally means, beacon. All these sites basically say the same thing, it stands for vision, energy, and the harnessed power of light." Click. Another little piece of the puzzle falls in to place. I stroke the cover of the journal idly, my mind deep in thought. "You find anything in your journal?"

Yes, but nothing that I want to share with so many people around. "Kinda but it's hard to read. I think we should talk to someone who might have some ready answers." When no one says anything I figure I should point out the obvious reasons for talking to someone about mystical things. "I mean I can't very well go about life with glowing eyes and the occasional tendency to literally have light shine out of my ass."

It breaks whatever tension was still lingering between my friends. "Couldn't have said it better myself." I give Orson an amused look. "I must be rubbing off on you." He just might be. My smile fades a little as I look them all over and I feel the burning desire to do something I don't really want to do. I take a breath and open my mouth but before I manage to utter a sound Lirae cuts me off.

"Don't even think about it. We're here, we're a family, and maybe I never had a real one before you guys for comparison, but I'm sticking it out because I'm pretty sure that's what families do." There are nods all around so I nod too. "Besides, you guys keep me out of juvie."

It’s a relief because I didn’t want to do all this alone. Keeping Lirae out of cuffs is just a bonus I guess. I put the journal in my bag and sling it over my shoulder but Mo stands and takes it back out. I want to protest but I trust him so I stay quiet as he opens the book and places the chain carefully between the pages. None of us are commenting on the fact that I’m refusing to touch it. Mo replaces the book in my bag again and offers me an encouraging smile "So…where are we headed?" I glance at Nat as I stand, the pulsing pain in my head increasing for a second.

"The Harbor." Warrow isn't my favorite person in the world but he knows more about this world than anyone else we've encountered. He might be a slimy little weasel but…I kind of need him. Gross. I can only imagine how happy he's going to be about that. A warm hand on my elbow steadies me and I realize I had my eyes closed for a second. Hazel eyes fill my vision and I'm suddenly reminded of our near miss kiss in the shed. "Don't look. It's weird." I glance down and away because I don't want Lirae to see my eyes. I'm a freak now. I mean. I always knew I was a freak but now it's confirmed. She cups my face and gives me a warm look. Why are her hands always so warm?

"Still adorkable." Orson mimics her comment snidely but she ignores him to slip dark sunglasses on my face. "Can't have people staring at you." Oh. Good idea.

"Thanks." We break apart a little reluctantly and head for the car. The truth is now is a totally inappropriate time to have fluttery feelings in my belly. I don't even know what's going on with her and ole Chocolate Thunder here. Their breakups never last that long and I don't want to be in the middle of that mess. And somehow I'm stuck. Literally in the middle Lirae and Orson in the backseat of the car. Great. Just. Great.

Mo looks in the rearview mirror at me and offers me a sympathetic grin. "Everyone belted in?" I feel a hand under my rump and I squeak, startled at being groped. "Sorry, you're sitting on the seatbelt." Oddly, she doesn't look the least bit sorry at all.

#my writing #the av club story dredful tales

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generalthirstclub · 7 years ago

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I Don't Need Your Help (squip x reader; part 1 of ??)

yo yo yo hey so i finally gave into my desire to write a fic for the first time in fifteen million years and DAMN IT ALL TO HELL it’s about a FUCKING COMPUTER

kind of experimenting with 1st person a little?? idk if I feel like it’s a little choppy or something i might fix it later because im planning to have multiple parts to this so i have something to do while procrastinating on homework ew

also the reader’s gender isn’t mentioned in this part (i don’t think?? i kind of proofread this but it was at like 2 am so i don’t even trust myself) but im probably going to use female pronouns when I need to- i promise it’s not to offend anyone I just find it easier to write fics like this with a singular gender but i could try to change that if needed

last thing;; this fic kind of loosely follows the plot of BMC?? very very loosely,, like some dates might change or times or things, i don’t really know at this point but it might not even follow the story at all idk idk but still

here is an anon throwing their sin at the wall and hoping it sticks

have this you nasty computer fuckers

——————–

He had to be joking.

A pill? A pill that held a tiny computer- that attached itself to your brain for no other purpose than to ‘help you be cool’???. It sounded asinine. But maybe I could understand. Jeremy was desperate. I didn’t blame him. High school was a battlefield; intent on destroying all traces of individuality and creativity, burying unique personalities underneath avalanches of essays and book reports.

I voted against getting one, at first.

Jeremy had Michael, right? They’d known eachother for what seemed like ages, it didn’t make any sense for him to just- want something new. Michael and I both knew Christine was important to him, that he’d do anything to impress her or to get on her radar. We just…. didn’t expect something like this. Especially something as shady (and honestly terrifying) as a tiny computer that you literally swallowed and had it attach to your brain. It was ironic. Jeremy had told us he’d heard about it through Rich- the very bully that tormented him half the time.

Of course, I didn’t know Jeremy nearly as well as Michael did. I’d only met Jeremy freshman year- I’d known Michael since the beginning of middle school at least. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when I heard he’d went out and paid the ridiculous fee for one of the wintergreen tic tacs, but that didn’t make me any less worried.

I didn’t hear much of it the first few days. I didn’t have any classes with either of them, and the only times we’d see eachother were after school, and of course- Michael had work, and Jeremy had to get back home to finish homework most of the time. We didn’t see eachother too often, but we did have a commitment to meet up at the same coffee house every Monday morning.

I knew something was up when Michael and I were the only two who showed up the Monday morning after Jeremy had bought the stupid pill.

Something had happened. I didn’t know what- we texted him nonstop and didn’t get anything. Not even an acknowledgement for our efforts. Whether or not I believed in the 'SQUIP’ at that point was debatable. It would be quite the coincidence if Jeremy had missed the bus that morning or overslept.

Both of us got rather worried.

Michael and I made a habit after that Monday of staying behind after school, purposefully lingering by the bus stop to see if we could catch a glimpse of our now oddly-distant friend. He must’ve been getting rides from an outside source, though- he never showed.

It was almost like he’d dropped off the face of the planet, and honestly? If I hadn’t known any better myself, I would’ve thought he had. But I had friends in some of his classes, and they said he showed up, but…..

It was like he had abandoned us.

I’m sure it didn’t hurt me nearly as much as it did Michael. But it still stung- it was evident that after the second missed Monday Coffee Meeting that it was intentional. It hurt me more to see the heartbreak in Michael’s eyes when he realized it for himself, and if anything? It made me angry. Angry that Jeremy would do that to Michael. I didn’t care if he had a stupid computer in his head, telling him what to do- it’s not like it was controlling him or anything. Him being friends with us had nothing to do with his popularity, or how 'cool’ or how 'chill’ he was. It had to be a conscious decision.

And that infuriated me.

I wanted to find him. Talk to him. But I had no idea where to go- he’d abandoned all the places he used to hang out, like the food court at the mall or the field behind the school. It was ridiculous. Like he knew we were upset, like he knew what he was doing to us and didn’t care enough to even talk to us anymore.

We’d lost our friend Jeremy.

It was funny how my thought process worked after my mind began to comprehend the fact that Jeremy had made the conscious decision to opt out of our friendship- of his friendship with Michael of all people, even. I was a naturally irritated person by nature, which was my own fault, but it wouldn’t have had to go to extremes if Jeremy had just stayed with us.

I wanted to get the pill.

Not because I wanted to be 'pretty’ or 'popular’. No, I wanted to prove to Jeremy that that tiny computer in his head didn’t do a thing to separate him from us. He was lying to himself, using the excuse of the SQUIP to tell people that he was the 'new Jeremy’, that he was 'better’ and 'stronger’ now. And I intended to put him in his place.

Maybe if he came to his senses, he’d realize what he’d done to us. To Michael, at least.

Michael was against my plan from the beginning, which was predictable enough in itself. It took me weeks to get the image of Michael’s terrifed face out of my mind, and even now it still haunts me sometimes. He was scared he’d lose another dear friend. He was scared he’d be all alone in this school of savages. In this war against the very same people who he grew up with, who now made fun of him, spat on him for being different.

It took me a while, but I was able to convince him.

I had no plan of abandoning Michael. No, if anything, I wanted to be closer to him while I tried to pull Jeremy back from that dark abyss called 'popularity’. And hell, if the pill made me go insane just like Jeremy, I’d rip it out of my skull with my own two hands.

It was two weeks after Jeremy got his SQUIP that I got mine.

It was pretty painful to hork up all the cash, seeing as the weird drug-dealer-ish guy at the register didn’t accept debit for 'the pill’. About two months’ worth of earnings slapped itself down on the desk as I quietly requested the same crazy contraption that had torn one of my closest friends away from people that he had used to consider family. It would’ve been the understatement of the year to say I was scared- but at the same time confident. Maybe the pill would help me out or something in convincing Jeremy to hang out with us again. Then again, maybe the pill was a sadistic killing machine that wanted to take over the world.

Haha. Just kidding.

Still, I had no idea what I was getting into, and the moment the man led me into the back room I felt chillbumps rise on my arms. So I was actually doing this. It was ludicrous. Absolutely ridiculous- but I knew I couldn’t turn back. My six hundred dollars were in the man’s back pocket, and in seconds, a tiny gray pill in a small plastic bag was placed in my hand and I was hurriedly shooed out the door.

I moved to the food court as my stomach churned in nervousness and anticipation, the sharpie on the bag instructing to take the pill with Mountain Dew. At least it wasn’t a bad soda, I reassured myself weakly as I slowly stumbled over to the drink machine and shoved a dirty dollar bill in the slot, punching in the code for the cold drink.

I felt dizzy walking back to my seat. My senses were heightened- the cold of the can numbed my fingers, shoving its way into my thoughts as I sat down. I waited a moment or two. It could be life-changing, my next decision. I hadn’t heard of any way to get rid of the SQUIP; or at least Jeremy hadn’t mentioned anything. I did suppose I could ask Rich, but it wasn’t exactly my favorite choice…..

It all began to move in slow motion the moment I decided.

I was in a rather empty part of the food court, as not many liked to linger when all the restaurants closed down after eight. I supposed that was good for me, seeing as I didn’t want to possibly be seen as a crazy person if anyone I knew suddenly saw me talking to myself or screaming at nothing. It was for the best, I said to myself.

A part of me wondered if Jeremy had hesitated too. Did he just take it the second he got it? Was he scared? Was he worried? Upset, even? Or maybe he was happy. Excited. Because he’d finally be away from us, he’d finally have the chance to snag the 'perfect girl’. The chance to be cool. The chance to make his life perfect.

Unfortunately, we did not fit into his perfect lifestyle.

I popped open the tab on the soda and took a deep breath, shaky hands fumbling with the opening to the plastic bag. Why was I so nervous? I had something to prove. I chose this of my own volition. If anything else happened I was sure to have a panic attack- maybe it was better to do this at home…

Then again, I already was waist deep in the water. It was best to just jump in while I was at it.

Two trembling fingers placed the small pill on the back of my tongue, the strong peppermint taste making me recoil for a moment before I took a swig of the carbonated drink. I squeezed my eyes shut as the disgusting feeling of the oblong object sliding down my throat gave me chills, waiting for the sensation to end. Soon enough, the feeling faded-

And nothing changed. At all.

I blinked my eyes open. Okay. So……. wasn’t I supposed to start hearing things or something? I called out in my mind hesitantly, feeling like a fool. Nothing. Silence. I frowned deeply and stood. All that was left of the pill was a distorted minty aftertaste in my mouth and nothing more.

This had to be a joke.

Abandoning my soda on the table, I marched to the restrooms. Just to make sure- I wanted to know of every possible change, every possible thing that could’ve happened to me. But the nagging feeling in the back of my head grew…..

What if there was no such thing as the SQUIP?

What if Jeremy had forked over his cash and- instead of being disappointed at the lie- took the opportunity to just totally abandon us? Did he even believe the lie in the first place?

Had we done something wrong? Had we offended him? Hurt him in some way?

What could I do to fix this?

My worries rang clear in my ears as I stared at myself in the crusty bathroom mirror, hands gripping the sides of the dirty sink tightly as I tried to control my breathing. I looked awful. It wasn’t even because of the pill, I knew that- my stressing would make me look beyond my years once I graduated, I was sure.

But the thing that unsettled me the most?

The fear in my eyes.

And just like that, everything was spinning- I heard myself gasp as I collapsed to the ground. Pain shot up my spine. Someone screamed- or was that me? I couldn’t tell. I prayed the bathroom was empty.

'Target male inaccessible.’

My eyes widened. No. No. This couldn’t- it wasn’t real-

'Please excuse some mild discomfort.’

The voice rang out in my ears once more and I felt my body jolt as another wave of pain flooded my body, a weak cry the only noise escaping my lips. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t a real thing- the SQUIP didn’t exist- I had already determined-

'Calibration complete. Access procedure initiated.’

The world seemed to stop for a moment. Everything froze. The pain vanished abruptly, my thoughts froze, my heart stopped. I let out a shaky breath. My body trembled involuntarily.

'Discomfort level may increase.’

A shrill scream filled the air as blistering pain overtook my senses a second time, eyes squeezed shut as sobs wracked my body. Tears trickled down my cheeks freely. This was the worst thing I’d ever experienced. In that moment I wanted to end it all- I wanted everything to stop, the pain to stop, the problems to stop, the world to stop. I just needed to breathe. Just for a moment….

'Accessing neural memory. Accessing muscle memory. Access complete.’

A weak breath escaped my lips as my body went limp, all energy needed to sustain myself having evaporated. But I could still hear it. Could still hear him.

“___________________. Welcome to your Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor.”

I closed my eyes.

“Your SQUIP.”

The world fell silent as I went unconscious.

#squip x reader #submission

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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The Ray #2

For $1.75 a pop, I bought a lot of comic books I probably wouldn't have otherwise.

I'm sure at the time, I was appalled at having to pay $1.75 for a normal comic book. I'll always feel regular newsprint comic books are worth seventy-five cents at best. Anything over $1.25 meant they were printed on Baxter paper without advertisements! Up until they added advertisements. And returned to regular comic book paper because what the fuck is Baxter paper anyway? Also, I realize saying that the $1.75 price allowed me to buy more comics than I otherwise would have seems outrageous when I purchased every comic book in The New 52 for years and they ran three to four dollars a piece! What was I thinking?! Oh, I remember what I was thinking! I was thinking, "I remember loving comic books. But I don't remember why I stopped loving comic books! Maybe I'll read all of these new DC comic books where they're restarting their universe because I'm sure I'll love them like I did when I was younger!" And then I read them and found some that I did love! But I also found a bunch of them that were as near to experiencing somebody shit directly into your mouth as I can imagine (while also not having requested the shit in the mouth). When my blog began, the voice I used was full of excitement and childlike wonder! People were reading my blog and commenting, "I love this blog because it's so different from the usual edgy asshole critic on the Internet!" In a way, I wished that I could have kept that sense of wonder. But we've all read Robert Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," (or at least heard Ponyboy recite it in The Outsiders). It's nature's hardest hue to hold! Especially when you're trying to hold it and J.T. Krul keeps bumping into you and Ann Nocenti keeps flashing weird smiles at you and Scott Lobdell keeps trying to touch your dick and Howard Mackie keeps asking, "Can you put two periods at the end of a sentence?" and Rob Liefeld reminds everybody that his art isn't bad at all if you compare it to his writing. I was trying my hardest to love comic books again but the real world kept knocking at my door and screaming, "Are you home? Is anybody here? I want to fucking remind you of how terrible it is out here!" Fucking real world. It can go fuck itself! And I know that sounds like an awesome thing to do because I'm totally imagining myself fucking myself right now but I assure you I meant it in the worst possible way! I mean, not rape because nobody should tell somebody to go get raped. But can you be raped by yourself? I've had some weird wet dreams that I never consented to so maybe? So in memory of the me that had yet to be groped by Scott Lobdell or shit on by Ann Nocenti (dammit. I think I just developed a new fantasy), I'm going to lose the cynicism and become, once more, a lover of comics! One can do worse than be a lover of comics! Like maybe some old jerk who still thinks fondly on destroying birch trees by swinging on them. Asshole.

Juice. This issue is called "Juice."

I've never had an opinion on the word juice until just now. Who the fuck does it think it is?! Look at the way it's spelled. That's a fucked up word. And just listen to it as it leaves your lips: "JUICE." It's practically a racial slur! I fucking hate it. I hate it so much that if a genie were to give me three wishes, I would wish for a benign brain tumor placed on just the right spot of my brain that would make me forget the word while also not allowing me to hear or read it. Right now, some of you are screaming, "Just wish the word out of existence, you idiot!" But you don't know genies! They're tricky motherfuckers! If I asked one to remove "juice" from existence, I'd probably wind up being responsible for another fucking Holocaust! If I had an editor, they would probably tell me that I shouldn't keep both of the "juice" and "Jews" "jokes" in the previous paragraph. Maybe they'd even tell me to just forget it altogether while also maybe losing the digression into raping oneself. But that's why I don't have an editor because I'd just tell that editor to go fuck themselves and I'd be back to not having an editor! Juice. Ugh! I'm grossing myself out now! I can't stop saying it! You can't say it without sounding revolted! Like my taxi driver in Kyoto that time when I pointed out the window by the temple and was all, "Hey! Skateboarders!" and the taxi driver glanced back at me in the rear view mirror and said, full of disgust and vitriol, "Sukatobordo." Um, so The Ray has just run out of "juice" and it wasn't from fighting Brimstone. No, instead of battling the gigantic monster from Apokolips, the dumby decided to blast the guy helping fight the gigantic monster from Apokolips simply because he was a rude and arrogant teenage rival. Hmm, I get it. I'm 48 and I'm pretty sure I'd punch a teenager acting snarky before some guy murdering a baby within my reach. At the end of the last issue, the narrator said that Superboy wasn't really dead but that The Ray really was out of power.

Well, the narrator is unreliable so now I'm hoping that Superboy really is dead as well.

Priest relies on some internal monologue so the reader understands what The Ray is going through. The reader needs to be reminded that he's just a teenager with godly powers and no real sense of responsibility except the vague sense that he should have some kind of responsibility. Ray The Ray keeps reminding himself, "I'm a man now!" At this moment, after knocking Brimstone into the ocean with the last of his juice, he reminds himself he's a man now and can't resort to the typical retreat of childhood: vomiting. Yeah, that's right! I said vomiting! I mean, The Ray and Christopher Priest said vomiting! Apparently vomiting is a great way for kids to react to things, according to The Ray (and maybe Priest but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt by distancing the author's beliefs from what the character believes. Although my facial expression as I type this reads as "I just want to sound rational but I know fucking Priest thinks vomiting is some form of childhood escapism").

This isn't the kind of theory you just come up with to fill comic book script pages. This is the kind of seemingly profound observation the writer mentions to other people at cocktail parties thinking they'll nod and say, "Yeah! Yeah. That's right!" Instead, they nod and go back to their friends and say, "You'll never believe what that fucking whack-a-doodle writer said at the party last night!"

It feels like maybe Priest had loads of anxiety and a nervous disorder as a young kid which caused him to puke all the time and he learned that he could get out of difficult situations by spewing. It's as if he views the experience as voluntary! "Hmm, if I just manage to hork all over the floor, I can distract everybody from the dog I just set on fire!" And if the nervous vomiting wasn't something he learned to do on purpose, why would he think he could stop doing it just because he suddenly became a man?! "Oh no! Everything feels so overwhelming that I'm going to spew! But...but...I'm a man now! Have to hold it in!" Brimstone gets up out of the ocean but instead of killing The Ray, it wanders off to get a beer. I think it's acting weird because in order to bring it to life, the weird little goblin guy from the first episode had to throw a souvenir shop seller into the volcano. For some reason, the Apokolips tech-seeds weren't doing the trick so it needed bolstering with a live sacrifice. But I think the person sacrificed is taking over Brimstone's mind. Probably some glitch in the way the anti-life equation works. The Ray decides to bury Superboy (or hide his corpse, probably) while thinking about how sad he is for himself for having killed somebody and having disappointed God. He doesn't show any remorse for ending Superboy's existence. I don't know what God would think if It were real but It would probably be just as mad about The Ray not really giving a shit about the victim as It would be about The Ray murdering that victim. Maybe not. Maybe even if some humans can't understand it, an omnipotent God would probably understand that murder is worse than not showing remorse. Maybe. But in the end, it doesn't really matter because Superboy isn't actually dead so The Ray has no reason to feel remorseful.

A second chance and The Ray didn't even have to vomit!

Superboy says "zooted" and it reminds me that the slang in this comic book is fucked up. This has to be Earth-15. Superboy also uses more conventional 90s slang like "sweating me," "rolled up," and "Holmes." I don't understand a single word he's saying! But I think he's trying to tell The Ray that they probably shouldn't be fighting even if they don't like each other because that part of the comic book where the heroes engage in physical conflict is over. Now they need to work together to stop the actual bad guy!

Maybe I don't hate Superboy so much as I hate the 90s.

The Ray tells Superboy his origin story while they both sit under the stars charging their powers. The Ray's secret origin is that he's the son of The Ray from the Freedom Fighters. That's it! That's his story! He's just a lucky shit who inherited his wealth. Fucker. Superboy tells his origin story too but it's not recounted in this comic book. There's an editor's note telling the reader if they want to know it, they should buy the Superboy comic book. But I'm reading this 26 years later! I'm not tracking down Superboy's comic book to learn his origin! Luckily, 26 years later, there's the Internet! Also I don't really need the Internet. I know he's a clone based on Superman and Lex Luthor's DNA. It's a pretty boring origin. After comparing earrings, they head off to stop Brimstone.

My theory about the souvenir person must be wrong. Obviously Brimstone's brain has been infected by a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Brimstone eats The Ray after Superboy smashes an orange juice tanker over Brimstone's head. He doesn't chew The Ray which is always a mistake. You always chew the small, live creature you're ingesting if you don't want it to bust out of your midsection later! That doesn't happen this time. I mean, it sort of happens! But The Ray busting out of Brimstone isn't what stops him. Superboy douses him with a tanker of liquid nitrogen which turns him into a huge statue. Only then does The Ray come busting out with the Looney Tunes hacked techno-seed. The government takes the seed, The Ray tells Superboy he'll smell him later, and Superboy pouts off to who cares. Later we learn that The Ray isn't a comic book writer or a journalist. He's just writing a letter about his day to Dinah Lance. Hey! That's Black Canary! I just read some of her comics! The Ray #2 Rating: C. If this comic book is supposed to be about a teenager learning to be a responsible adult while also dealing with god-like powers, I don't get it. So far, he's just done the same thing any superhero would have done. Fought a beast from Apokolips. Teamed up with another hero (after battling each other first). Spoke weird fucking slang. Oh! I see! That's the part that makes him seem like a teenager! He says cool words like Boffo and Zork! The Ray also comes from a religious background so the story is saddled with all of those theological trappings. It would be less annoying if we didn't already live in a world where everybody sees God in everything even though the physical manifestation of this world holds no place in it for paranormal trappings. I don't mind God being in the DC Universe though because it makes sense. But I just got done watching The Outsider on HBO and I'm running low on my "just fucking ignore all the God talk" tank. It would be amusing if it wasn't so infuriating how people always harp on about atheists never shutting up about their atheism when it's actually the other way around. More atheists should be as vocal as religious people just to make things even. I mean fuck. We even have In God We Trust on our fucking money! But then why should I expect anything different from this comic book? It's written by a guy who legally changed his name to Priest!

#The Ray #DC Comics #DC #Christopher Priest #Howard Porter #Robert Jones

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 7 years ago

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I’m closing my ask box

Sorry to do this to you, all of my awesome creative inspiration-generating followers who still have questions, but I am going to close my ask box for the next 2 - 3 weeks to try and clear out the 40-odd waiting asks I still haven’t gotten around to, some of which are months old. This blog is also the thing I do for fun/relaxation/sanity during my rare and precious spare time, and thus I need to keep its demands to a minimum or it will lose its beautiful sanity-inducing properties for me.

If you have Animorphs questions, http://ladysugarquill.tumblr.com/, https://miraculoussparrow.tumblr.com/, https://wtfanimorphs.tumblr.com/, http://fyanimorphs.tumblr.com/, and https://andalite-angel.tumblr.com/ might be interested in answering them.

If you have Animorphs headcanons, https://animorphs-hcs.tumblr.com/ will accept them.

If you want Animorphs fic, http://justanotherghostwriter.tumblr.com/, http://veteranfangirl.tumblr.com/, and http://derinthemadscientist.tumblr.com/ have all been known to help.

If your life has no meaning, you want to become part of something bigger than yourself, you like hamburgers and beach volleyball, you want to give back to your community, or you think Lore David Altman has some good points: http://the-sharing.org/

Explanation as to why I don’t answer some questions below the cut.

Most of the Reasons I Choose Not to Answer Questions

Hopefully this is helpful to people who are wondering. I try to answer most questions most of the time, even if just briefly (although, let’s be real, when have I ever been brief?) but there are some that I end up deleting. Here’s why.

They’re anonymous questions best answered privately, not publicly. This is the #1 reason I delete asks unanswered.

If an anon asks a question that I’ve already answered elsewhere, I generally won’t bother making an entire post just to let them know.

If an anon sends a question with personal or private information, I always err on the side of not publishing it.

If the anon asks a question I genuinely don’t feel like answering (see my posts here), I don’t bother to explain why I’m not answering it.

If the anon ask contains offensive content, even content that almost certainly slipped in accidentally (yes all relationships involving involuntary controllers are sexual assault, no I’m not going to post anything that mentions those relationships), I delete it.

If an anon is unclear—because of typos, because of long-winded wording, because of two questions in one ask—I can’t ask for clarification.

They’re looking for beta readers, RP participants, forum moderators, or long-term correspondence. I am a grad student currently teaching a class on the social psychology of media effects, studying for my university’s Ph.D qualifying exam, analyzing data from six or seven different ongoing projects, pulling together background research for my dissertation, writing a textbook chapter on violence and attitude change, and attempting to get eight hours of sleep a night on top of all that. I spend maybe 15 minutes a day on tumblr, and about 10 of those minutes are usually spent posting the ask reply I wrote using the Google Drive app on my phone while taking the bus to school earlier that day. I am sorry, but I do not have time to commit to anything more in this fandom than what I already do.

I don’t feel qualified to answer them. Some people ask about the history of the publishing industry, debate the relative morality of actions taken in peace vs. war times, or request AUs in settings with which I have no experience whatsoever. I’m very sorry, but most of those just go unanswered because I don’t want to say the wrong thing.

They argue about why the yeerks should become human after the war. As I explain here, I don’t have any strong opinions about whether the yeerks SHOULD become human, I just don’t think it’s realistic to think the yeerks WOULD become human. The debate was moderately interesting to me the first 15-odd times someone has brought it up, but now I’m sick to death of the whole thing (especially the people who mistake my position as saying that the yeerks becoming cetaceans is right, when I’ve only ever said the yeerks becoming cetaceans is realistic) because THERE IS NO CANON EVIDENCE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER so there’s no point in doing anything but agreeing to disagree. https://featherquillpen.tumblr.com/ and https://yeerks.tumblr.com/ both prefer to imagine a softer world then I do, so feel free to talk to them about the issue if you disagree.

They have to do with justifying the yeerks’ decision to invade other species. K.A. Applegate does an awesome job of creating utterly terrifying villains for her series, primarily through showing that the yeerks’ atrocities against other species simply cannot be allowed to stand. The yeerk hosts are described as “slaves” in almost every single book; Marco says “they are the most total slaves in all of human history, because not even their minds are their own” (#20). Over 20 books later, Jake still battles hypervigilance, insomnia, nightmares, and other PTSD symptoms from briefly becoming a controller (#26). Eva’s described as suffering severe personality damage, whereas Chapman’s depicted as having lost most motor functions—both as a result of yeerk control (#45, #2). Aftran and Illim both consciously choose to reject the yeerks’ model of hosts-as-livestock after personally experiencing the minds of involuntary hosts, showing that alternatives are possible (#19, #29). Ax and Aldrea mention the yeerks literally annihilating six or seven species they don’t view as “useful” (#4, #8, HBC). All of that is canon. Other interpolations of canon—that the yeerks effectively destroyed millennia of hork-bajir culture which will never be recovered, that the “voluntary” hosts are mostly strong-armed into joining as we see in MM4, that the hosts’ experience is the equivalent of locked-in syndrome or assault, that Eva and other hosts like her suffered sexual assault as a result of being controllers—have always struck me as relatively close interpretations of canon. If anyone disagrees... Sorry, but I don’t give a damn. If you want to defend slave owners because they happen to be slave owners born blind, do it elsewhere.

#about the blogger #me #about this blog #meta-blogging #asks #answers #anons #animorphs #ask box #sorry I have to do this #thanks for understanding

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manascoundrel · 8 years ago

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Trophy- Chapter 12

by Yarking Fandom: Dragon Age (general) Summery: Two troubled children meet at the Minrathous Circle. One is a magister’s heir, groomed to be the blood mage general of Seheron, without fear or mercy. Hopefully, that will keep people from noticing how very much an elf he is. The other is last born, least loved and most of his emotions involve academics and cadavers. They love each other, even if they’re not terribly good at it. Warnings for this chapter: references to past trauma (non-graphic) Special thanks beta, Autumn <3 AO3: here

Tertius pointed as the approached the stables, pride bubbling over. "That's her! That's her right there, they turned her out for the day already, it looks like."

Stardust grazed placidly in the open fields, ignoring a bay horse that seemed intent on getting her attention. At Tertius' voice, she raised her delicate head and trotted, the picture of elegance, to where Tertius and Cato stood at the pasture's fencing. As Stardust approached, Cato took a step back, face froggish as Stardust lifted her head over the fence and politely requested Tertius' attention.

"That's a pony?" Cato asked, unsure.

"Well it's not a dragon."

"No, I mean," Cato began, edging closer as he watched Stardust's whiskers tickle over the palm of Tertius' hand. "She's big. She's a pony, so I just... expected her to be smaller. Like those little ponies that pull the half-carts."

"Oh, no, those are Anderfel Mountain Ponies. Yeah, those do stay that small. But I couldn't ride those! Stardust is a Tevene Riding Pony. My mom's family made the breed, special. Aren't they pretty?"

"She sure is a pony," Cato said, evasively. When Tertius turned and frowned at him, hurt, he was pressed to continue. "Horses and ponies and things like that are a little spooky, aren't they? Look at their faces. They're so long. Why are their faces so darn long?"

Tertius snorted at his friend's suspicion. "Stardust is really nice, you don't have to worry about her."

"But she's so big, too! Bigger than me by lots. Bigger than you. You're not worried she'll step on you or anything?"

"She already stepped on me," Tertius said, enjoying Cato's alarm.

"Didn't that hurt?" he asked. He edged away more, putting Tertius between him and the pony.

"Well, yeah. She's a pony so she is pretty heavy, but it was just an accident and I pushed her off right away. It didn't even break my foot or anything; it was just sore for a couple of hours." Tertius looked over his shoulder at where Cato was very nearly cowering. His fear was losing some of its humor, though, and Tertius began to wish they could just get on with each other. "If you're really that scared, you don't have to be here. I can just meet up with you at the library at sundown."

"B-but, you really like Stardust. This is special," Cato argued, inching forward to the pony's soft grey muzzle.

"Yeah, but you don't have to really like her too, you just got to not be mean to her or rude or think she's bad," Tertius assured him. Even as he said it, he felt distantly sad that his two best friends might not get along.

Cato, however, seemed to take this as he often did- as a challenge. He tugged on Tertius' riding shirt and asked, "D'you have any more sugar cubes?"

"No, but there are carrots in the barn if you want to try giving her a treat," Tertius said, lighting up at the prospect. Cato nodded and scampered off, returning after a short while with two carrots, one in each hand while Stardust's eyes shut in peaceful contentment at Tertius' scritching. When she saw the carrots, she lifted her head and took a few slow paces closer to Cato, and when she was not immediately rewarded she gave a small nicker.

"Don't be spoiled," Tertius chided her, petting down her neck as Cato broke the carrot in half.

"So how do I do this?"

"Lay your hand real flat and just put in on your palm and reach out. But you have to keep your fingers flat, or she might accidentally chomp on them trying to get the carrot."

Cato made a distressed noise high in his throat even as he placed the carrot as he was instructed. He reached forward, mumbling, "So, do I tell her to- Oh!"

Stardust gobbled up the carrot without ceremony and nuzzled her velvety muzzle against Cato's palm afterwards, as if thanking him for the gift. Or, more likely for how pampered she was, asking for more.

"Aw, she likes you!" Tertius said, delighted. He knew she would, but it was still nice to be right.

"Did you see that? She just munched it right up, right out of my hand!" Cato crowed, beaming over to Tertius. "I didn't think she'd hork it up like that in one big bite, ha!"

Tertius stomped. "Stardust is a lady pony. She didn't 'hork' anything up. Ponies are just a lot bigger than us, so that was a regular normal bite-size handful of carrot for her."

"Alright, alright. That's fair, I'm sorry."

"Better be," Tertius mumbled, still pouting and sore from the insult to Stardust's honor. To think of her as anything less than a majestic princess!

"Your mom did a really good job breeding her," Cato said, carefully stroking over the soft skin over Stardust's nose. He smiled sheepishly, as if he realized Tertius was not pleased. "She's not nearly as scary as she first looks. She's real sweet."

"My mom didn't breed her, her family did. That was awhile ago. There are lots of Tevene Riding Ponies now; but they're still really special and pretty and good. Everyone wants one just like her, but they can't have her because she's mine!" Tertius asserted, patting Stardust's side. "And we make a really good team! My riding teacher is going to let me jump pretty soon."

"That sounds scary. Is she fast? Do they jump high?"

"Yes and yeah! But I've been riding for a really long time, as long as I can remember, so I'm ready. And Stardust won't let me fall, will you, Dusty?"

Stardust remained silent, her eyes closed in placid relaxation at all the attention and treats. "Did your mom teach you how to ride?" Cato asked.

Tertius smile faltered, twisting slightly bitter. "She did, a little. Before she got sick."

"Aw, sorry 'bout your mom," Cato commiserated, shoulders dropping. "I hope she gets better."

"She died."

"Oh." For some time, the two of them were silent. Cato seemed to sense beyond the wisdom of his years that there was nothing to say to that, no way to make it better, reading the stiff way Tertius braced for empty platitudes or unwelcome sympathy. Wanting to hear none of it. Then, with a lopsided smile, he asked, "Do you want to show me how you ride Stardust? I could run alongside you and see how much faster she is, because I bet she's really fast."

Tertius, heart aching and eyes stinging, managed to smile. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."

It took some time for them to get Stardust out to the paddock. Cato was very curious, asking a constant stream of questions about the brush and blanket and saddle and bridle all throughout the process of getting Stardust ready to go out. Tertius was about half sure he was doing it to help keep his mind off his mother, but was grateful. Part of the reason he groomed her and put on her tack himself instead of just letting a slave do it was for the same reason, the other being that he liked spending the time with Stardust, and he liked answering Cato's questions. It made him feel good to be able to answer most of them and hear Cato's impressed hums.

Tertius mounted, checked his stirrups, and pressed his calves into Stardust's side gently. He loosened the reins, asking her forward into her sedated, elegant walk. Cato trailed alongside, giving Stardust a wide berth but loped along at a jog to keep up with her long legs.

"Wait until we get into the field to start running, okay?" Tertius asked. "I don't want you to scare her on accident running too close while we're still near the stables."

"Me? Scare her?" Cato wondered.

Stardust continued serenely, her pale eyelashes fluttering as she blinked. "Uh huh!" Tertius nodded. "Horses and ponies have a lot of animals that want to eat them in the wild, so they get scared really easily. I've heard of horses getting scared for lots of silly reasons, like seeing a leaf they didn't expect, or a bush rustling, or your hat falling off. Stardust is pretty calm most of the time, but I still don't want to make her upset, even if she is really brave."

Cato tilted his head, considering that. "What does a horse do if they're scared?"

"A lot of the time they can start running really, really fast. Faster than I'm allowed to go, and I'd probably fall off and get hurt. Stardust could get hurt too! It's really easy for them to hurt themselves when they go really fast because they're scared."

"So don't scare her on purpose as a joke, got it."

"Cato Fen'Rhea, if you even think about it, I'm gonna-!"

"I said I wouldn't! I don't want you or her to get hurt, that wouldn't be funny," Cato reassured, waving his hand in dismissal. "But if they really do scare that easy, you sure you're gonna be safe?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty good at riding. My teacher wouldn't let me start jumping if I wasn't, because that can be real dangerous too," Tertius explained.

Cato made a grumble of distress. "Okay. If you're sure. You gotta be careful though, because if something happened to my best friend I'd be really upset and angry. I would never, ever forgive Stardust, even if she is really nice and didn't mean to."

"I'll be okay," Tertius promised, privately bursting in joy that his best-best friend would be sad if something happened to him. Cato might be the only one who would.

Cato was, predictably, very impressed with Stardust's speed. Tertius only trotted when racing, not really supposed to go faster without someone there to chaperone, and the stablehands were keeping an eye out, but Tertius wasn't sure that counted, since they were just there to tell on him if he did go too fast or do something stupid.

They still had plenty of fun running over the grasses, Cato sprinting on foot and Stardust easily overtaking him until Cato was heaving for breath and ended up lying down, reminding Tertius constantly not to accidentally trample him while he stood with Stardust plenty of paces away.

After that, they ended up playing a game where Cato would sit and call directions, and Tertius would seamlessly follow them with Stardust, to Cato's simple delight.

"How are you doing that even? Is it magic?" he had asked, not being able to tell when Tertius pressed lightly on Stardust's side or noticing when he gently moved the reins. Cato's mystification equally delighted Tertius, amused by how his friend took his skill for wizardry.

Later, when Tertius had brought Stardust over to the pond to drink and take a break, Cato had uprooted one of the long, thin reeds near the pond's edge. He showed it to Tertius proudly.

"You wanna play cavalry?" he asked.

"I don't know how..." Tertius said, tilting his head at the reed. It ended in a little brown bulb- a cattail.

Cato puffed out his chest. "I just made it up! After Stardust is finished drinking, you get on her and try to hit me with the brown thing on this, like you're part of the cavalry and you're trying to stick me with your spear."

"Why do you always want to play games that hurt?" Tertius complained, but took the switch and inspected it further. When Cato made a noise of confusion, Tertius explained further. "When you wanted to play pretend, you wanted to pretend to eat me. You were gonna scare Stardust as a joke, and you want me to hit you with this now. You even joked about sending assassins when we were gonna play chess!"

"Hey, I was gonna send assassins for Sternhalma, not chess," Cato corrected him, but seeing Tertius' scrunched, displeased face, he dropped the teasing. "I... I dunno. I just think it's fun. I've always wrestled with Aun and pretended to spar with sticks and stuff. Tamas says it's good because it teaches me to not be afraid of fighting."

"Because Seheron?" Tertius asked.

"Because Seheron, yeah."

Tertius didn't understand. "You're not going to be able to go to Seheron for ages and ages though. That's years away! Why do you have to start fighting now?"

"Well," Cato mumbled, looking over to the surface of the pond. He folded his knees and sat, looking out as he picked the grass. Nearby, Stardust continued to graze. "Seheron is supposed to be really dangerous and scary. So I have to start now so I have the best shot of coming back, because I'm supposed to be a magister, too. And... it's not like Seheron's the only place I got to fight, anyway."

Tertius sat beside him, knees knocking as he pulled grass alongside him. "Where else do you got to fight?"

Cato looked at him, frowning. "If I was bigger and stronger, I could have maybe fought the apprentices who took me. Maybe I could have at least ran away, or said something back when they said things. Maybe if I was good enough they wouldn't have got me to begin with, maybe they'd be too scared."

"I don't know," Tertius said, skeptically, surprised and afraid now that Cato was talking about what happened. He didn't want to say the wrong thing. But he wasn't sure what the right thing to say would be, so he decided to just be honest. "There were a lot of them, and they were older, too. I don't think you could have scared them off or fought better. They've been at the Circle a long time, haven't they? They probably learned a lot of stuff from the enchanters that we haven't yet, stuff we can't know yet because we're just not as big."

"But I have to be able to do something!" Cato said in dismay. He picked up a rock and lobbed it into the water, watching it hit and sink with a 'plunk'. "There's got to be something I can do, so I can do it if they try to get me again. No one else will. I mean, you'll call for help, which is really nice, but I don't want you trying to fight them and getting hurt because of me."

"You have your knife," Tertius pointed out. He followed Cato's lead, picking out and throwing a rock. It landed short, plopping in the mud near the pond's edge.

"That's true, yeah."

They sat in the long grass for some time, Cato stretching out and soaking up the warm autumn sun and Tertius watching him bask and Stardust munch daintily on grass. After some time, Stardust wandered over to where they sat, her lips nibbling toothlessly at Tertius' ponytail. He scratched the spot on her forehead where her coat whorled, and the direction of the fur went in everywhere, and she gave a cute, blustery snort.

"Did you bring your knife out here?" Tertius asked, the thought just occurring to him.

"Nah," Cato said. He didn't open his eyes.

"Why not? You're not afraid?"

"Apprentices aren't allowed to use magic out here, like in the library. And yeah, they could just catch me and drag me someplace where they can," Cato said, before popping open one eye and giving a mischievous smile. "But first they'd have to catch me. I may not ride as well as you but I'd bet you'd let me ride away if I really needed to."

"I'm pretty sure Stardust could carry us both," Tertius agreed. She was very strong, after all. And, perhaps more to the point, they were very small. "We can try us both riding at the same time right now if you want. Just to practice your escape!"

"Uhh," Cato offered dimly, looking suddenly unsure. "That... er, uh. That's okay. I should really wear my boots when we do, unless it's a real emergency. Since that's how you use the dangly feet things, right?"

Tertius looked down at his friend, suspecting that his footwear wasn't really the issue. "The stirrups. And yeah, but we both can't use the stirrups at the same time anyway, so you can just hold on."

"Well... I mean, don't you think you should be the one who just holds on? You're a better rider than me, after all. That just seems to make sense," Cato reasoned, his voice pitched higher than normal.

"You can just say you're scared," Tertius teased.

"I'm not scared! I just don't want to get hurt, because I've only ever ridden those little cart ponies when I was smaller. And riding on Miss Stardust seems like it would take a... a very advanced rider, seeing how she's so fast, right?"

"You're scared."

"Am not!"

"You aren't even a little?" Tertius weedled. "Because I get scared sometimes when she goes faster than I expected, and I'm a really good rider, so it seems weird that you wouldn't be scared at all, not even a little."

"I'm... a little concerned," Cato said in compromise, eyes shut as he sat up with a dignified jut to his chin. "That there could be an accident. That's not the same as being scared. That's being smart."

"Well, we don't have to try it today. There's always next time." Tertius stood, brushing off the pulled up grass on his lap while Stardust huffed. He paused. "Well, if you want to come back."

"Yeah, this is nice! Even if I don't ride, we can always play games, like earlier. Or I can sit out here and read for the enchanters while you ride around; the willow looks like a really place to read or even just take a nap. I've got so much sleep I need to catch up on."

Tertius looked out past the still pond, trying to judge when the sky would start to go golden. That was when he really needed to bring Stardust in if he wanted to make it back before dark. It was getting late, but he didn't want to stop playing. It was so nice out here. He could hear Cato even better without the voices, and the details of his voice became apparent. Tertius liked it. He liked how it was a little scratchy, and he liked how his friend laughed.

"There's some daylight left. D'you want to try playing 'cavalry?'"

"Huh?" Cato asked, surprised and then delighted. "You want to try it? I didn't think you liked that stuff."

"I do! Just not all the time. Besides, it does kind of sound like it could be fun," Tertius said. It was a little bit of a fib- Tertius thought it still sounded needlessly mean when he could just as soon lean over and tag Cato- but he liked Cato, and he liked Stardust, and he especially liked being able to play with both of them together. Since he enjoyed it so much, he needed to do something to try and get Cato to come back again. Sure Cato said he liked it too, but just to be safe.

Cato leapt to his feet, pinwheeling his arms when the sudden jump made him almost lose his balance. He righted himself and beamed. "Alright! Mount up, commander!"

Tertius and Cato walked back to the Circle proper shoulder to shoulder, stopping only for Tertius to wave back at Stardust, who was rolling around in the pasture's dirt, seemingly pleased that her saddle was finally off. He turned back around, and checked Cato playfully.

Their attempts to pretend at being cavalry had failed pretty thoroughly. Whenever Stardust galloped (trotted) at full tilt towards the enemy (Cato, making grunting noises and pretending to have horns), she would always slow down, first to a walk, and then when she was close enough to nuzzle Cato, she stopped altogether, and no amount of kissy noises or flicking the reins would get her to budge forward and trample the nefarious Qunari threat (Cato's words).

That's not to say he didn't end up getting Cato. When he came up to Stardust's side to tell Tertius he didn't think this was going to work after all, Tertius had taken a risk and swatted Cato on his shoulder with the reed. Cato had gave a short, bitten-off scream and leapt back with such drama that Stardust took a few lazy steps away from him. Of course, Tertius panicked, worried that he'd gone too far and that this was it, this was the end. It was nice while it lasted.

Cato just inspected the welt, biting his lip, and after a long beat between the two of them, he gave a breathless laugh.

"Oh yeah, that was a nice one, you got me good!" he said cheerfully, inspecting the thin line of blood that began to bead up from where the long red stripe rose up highest. He poked at it gingerly, hissing and flinching when he pressed too hard.

Tertius hovered, hands pawed over his chest fretfully. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do it that hard, I didn't think it would-"

"No, no, you did good!" Cato had assured him, before they decided to turn Stardust in for the evening, since she obviously didn't much care for this game. "That just surprised me. My tamas gets me worse when I'm playing where I'm not supposed to."

He had licked his fingers and wiped away the blood, and that was that, motioning for an unsure Tertius to bring Stardust in. Tertius had gathered the reins and lead Stardust behind him, watching the blood bead up again sluggishly from the cut.

"I got assessed for my magic," Tertius confessed as they neared the gate to the Circle's grounds.

"I can cast enough that I get to be in the class with all the other casters next semester."

"Really? That's great! We'll have it together then!"

"You think?"

"There's not enough other apprentices our age to split us all up. Nobody else in my group can cast yet, and I don't think they'll put us in with older kids. I hope they don't, at least," Cato added as an afterthought, his voice lowering with his mood.

Tertius agreed, "Yeah, they probably wouldn't. I just want to do it now. The break takes too long. I don't even want to go home."

"You don't miss your brothers or papa?" Cato asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Tertius snorted. "My brothers are a lot older, so they're not usually around. Palermo is in the Navy, so he's never home. Hey, you know, you might like him since he's fighting the Qunari actually. Cyprian is working with someone from the circle a little north of Minrathous. I don't really understand what he does, but he only comes home to go with papa to the Magisterium. He was certified by the Circle before I was born, so he's not much fun, not like it sounds like... 'Aun' is. 'Aun', right? Is that his name?"

"His name's Aunny. Well, his name's really Aunnriel, but everyone but Tamas calls him Aunny, and I call him Aun," Cato explained.

"That sounds complicated."

"Your papa?"

"Huh? Oh... n-no, I don't really miss him. He's mostly busy anyway. Being a magister, right? I like reading and drawing and I can do that by myself."

"I guess."

"Honest? I'm glad he's not around a lot," Tertius confessed, throwing himself back to fight the fall winds that pinned the Circle's doors closed. "He's not fun, and he's honestly really scary. Maybe I should be like you and want him to be around more because he's scary, so I'll get better, but I don't think I'm brave like you."

"You think I'm brave?" Cato asked, looking at him with wonder.

"Well, yeah. You're going to go out and fight all the Qunari on Seheron. You said it was really dangerous and you could get hurt, but you're going to do it anyway."

"Yeah but that's ages from now, you said yourself!"

"And you wanted to play cavalry, which mean Stardust was supposed to come running at you-"

"But she didn't."

"But she was supposed to come running at you, and you were afraid of her already."

"Concerned," Cato corrected him, nose turned up. "I was concerned of her. Er, about her."

"Fine then," Tertius finally said, annoyed at Cato's constant rejection. "You're not brave. Happy?"

They reached the library just as Cato puffed his chest out in victory, and then deflated. "No?"

Tertius' laugh was cut off by a withering look from the librarian. He nodded his head in a bow, a silent apology, and ducked down his bookshelf aisle with Cato, waiting until they were certainly out of earshot before whispering again. "What about you?"

Cato shrugged. "I want to see Aun again, sure. I miss playing with him."

Tertius paused, worried that that was an indication that Cato wasn't happy just playing with him. He set the uneasy thought aside and asked, "Your tamas isn't around much either?"

"No, she is. And I do need to ask her about the knife. If she gave me the wrong one or it got enchanted wrong or something. But I'm afraid she's still mad at me for what happened."

"Wait, she's angry at you?"

"Yeah," Cato admitted, his voice cracking as his face crumpled. "I'm supposed to not, uh, not let that stuff happen. It makes my family look bad, and that can be really dangerous. Not just here but in the Senate too. If people think they can hurt me then they might threaten to do stuff to me to make Tamas vote their way or something. And just- it lets people know they can do that stuff, so they'll try it again."

"Oh," Tertius said, dimly. Tertius himself wasn't important enough in his family's hierarchy to worry about, he was pretty sure, but he wondered if this was something Cyprian had to worry about. Perhaps there were downsides to being the house heir. "Sorry. It's not like you wanted it to happen, though."

Cato just shrugged, looking a shade of miserable as they stopped in front of the bookshelf. "Doesn't matter. End's the same."

"I guess. Are you worried about them going after Aunny because of it?" Tertius asked offhand. He didn't notice Cato's reaction immediately as he focused on shifting his heavy bookbag to the ground.

When he didn't get a word either way from Cato, he looked up to check on him and realized his friend was not okay. His eyes were unblinking and looking at nothing, and his breathing was working up like how it had gone funny last time before he suddenly went to sleep.

"Cato?" Tertius asked nervously, not wanting his friend to sleep again. If he did, Tertius would have to pull him in their secret spot himself so he wasn't just lying in the middle of the library, since that sounded dangerous for an elf. That sounded like a lot of work, and they risked someone noticing and finding their spot. He poked his friend on the shoulder experimentally. "You should stop that, I think."

Cato started and looked at Tertius as if he just noticed him there. The little jump he gave in surprise made tears spill over onto his cheeks, and he hastily palmed them away. "Sorry. I was just thinking. I hadn't thought of that but now that you mention it, yeah. I have to figure out how to make sure he's going to be safe."

"Oh. Sorry," Tertius apologized, not wanting to make him worry.

"Naw, it's good that you reminded me. I can start figuring that stuff out now so by the time he's here it'll be okay," Cato assured him, looking the utmost serious and determined with his new plan. "And I think I know where I want to start."

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh. You go ahead. I have someone I gotta talk to, but I'll be back soon, promise."

Tertius squinted at him suspiciously, but nodded and watched as he sprung off like a halla. He hoped he came back soon.

Calpernius looked down at Cato with narrowed eyes. "I thought I told you not to-"

"No. I don't want to play this game. This isn't funny. I need to talk to you."

At that, Calpernius reared his head in surprise before cackling. The laugh cut off abruptly, his face falling into flat irritation. When he spoke, his words were sharp, his teeth bare. "I don't think you get it. I'm not joking. I don't give a fuck about you-"

"No," Cato snapped. He stepped forward and, despite only reaching just past Calpernius' waist, matched the boy's vicious face and then some. Cato pointed his finger at Calpernius, jabbing it into his chest with the kind of authority only learned from a lineage of ruling. "You don't get it. This isn't about me. My brother is gonna come to the Circle next year, and I heard that... that the thing that happened to me might happen to him, too."

"My sympathies," Calpernius sneered. His lip curled as he swatted away Cato's finger, but he did not push past Cato like he had feared.

"How do I make it not happen?" Cato demanded.

Calpernius laughed again, this time less false and more helpless. "You can't. What happened to you? Happens to every elf that comes to the Minrathous Circle. Has for years. Happened to me. Happened to every poor fucking rat I've seen here. It's going to happen to you again, until you wise up and transfer to someplace less prestigious, or apply for remote classes."

"We can't do that. We got to go here."

"Then I'm so sorry for your miserable future. Best wishes that you manage not to kill yourself like the last rat that came through here," Calpernius said sarcastically.

"They killed themselves?" Cato asked. Something in him stilled, and his voice trembled- this was new. He didn't... he wasn't prepared for that. "People do that? How many... do that?"

"I don't fucking know," Calpernius grumbled, throwing his hand up. When pressed by Cato's sharp frown, he hissed. "Six- no, seven since I've been here, at least. There's been at a few dozen that's transferred since then, though."

"Seven?"

"Yeah, and it's as likely as not that I'm talking to number eight, so if you'll fuck off-"

"I need to help Aun."

Calpernius groaned, visibly grinding his teeth now in frustration. "This is why butchers don't name their beef cattle."

"Huh?"

"I don't want to know your brother's name! I don't want to know your name, I don't want to be your friend, I don't want to be your little mentor or whatever fantasy is running through your stupid little head. I can't believe I'm even entertaining you right now. You want my advice? Leave the Circle. I don't know why you haven't done that already! There are correspondence classes. I know your mother is a magister, so you could transfer to any other major Circle in the entire Imperium. Fuck, you could probably afford to hire tutors that would give you a better education if you really wanted to."

"I can't leave," Cato insisted.

"Well, then you're an idiot."

"If I'm an idiot for staying and it's so easy to transfer or do any of that other stuff, then why do you stay here, huh?"

Cato hadn't expected the reaction he got. Calpernius' mouth shut instantly and his head reared as if someone had yanked back his reins. Sensing something there, something with give, Cato persisted, his words coming careful as he puzzled them out. "Why are you staying? You don't want to be here, it's not about Minrathous being the best. 'Titus' isn't a magisterial name, so it's not because important magisters always come from the Minrathous Circle. It's not because it's close to the Senate either, so it's not about distance..."

"Rot in the Void," Calpurnius swore, but Cato could tell he was hitting something.

"Is it? If you have to be here- if you have to be in Minrathous... it has to be for some reason."

"Fuck off, this is none of your business."

Cato's voice cracked as he spoke. "I can find out, you know. I can ask my tamas to look you up and-"

"Fine! Fine, whatever you want. Ask away. Whatever the fuck you want to know, and then you leave me alone, right?" Calpernius wagered. The urgency in his voice piqued Cato's interest.

"Well, now I'm kind of curious."

"Do you want my help or not?" Calpernius asked. "I like my privacy; you have your offer. Keep your nose out of other people's fucking business and I'll help."

"I want to know everything."

"Fine."

"All your tricks. You've been here for years and-"

"I said fine! Meet me back here tomorrow, same time. I'll have everything written out for you."

"How do I know you aren't going to send them for me?"

This time, Calpernius recoiled not in fury but... offense? It was a moment before he replied, as if he had to find his words again. "I wouldn't do that," Calpernius said, face set. "Would you?"

#dragon age #trophy #yarking writes #abuse tw

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 8 years ago

Text

Animorphs Wicked

@miraculoussparrow

Part 2 of my mad ramblings about Animorphs, Wicked, and Cassie/Rachel. (Part 1 here.)

March of the Witch Hunters All things considered, Cassie’s not that surprised to open her door one day eighteen months after the war ends to find Marco standing on her front doorstep. “You heard?” he asks hoarsely.

He’s drunk, Cassie registers with an unpleasant jolt. Or in shock. Or… something. He’s definitely swaying on his feet, a little cross-eyed. “It’s not your fault,” she says.

He wipes the back of one hand across his face in a harsh motion, even though there are no tears on his face. “You opening a conversation that way doesn’t exactly make a guy feel better, you know.”

The news—if it can even be called that—was all over the TV this morning. ANIMORPH LOVE TRIANGLE? the Daily News screamed, recycling other sources’ work as usual. Some enterprising young carrion-feeder at CNN was the one who pulled together over a dozen clips of Marco talking about Rachel, edited in such a way that they imply a very specific picture: one in which he’s in love with Rachel and ragingly jealous of Tobias. The implication that Rachel was sleeping with them both screams from between the lines of harsh black print.

When Cassie faces the press conference that afternoon, her hands are still shaking with anger but her chin is high and her voice is level. “How dare you?” she demands. “How dare you pick the one person who’s not still around to defend herself and decide that she’s your latest piece of scandal? Is that supposed to make you feel better about yourselves?” Rachel might not be around to defend herself, but Cassie will defend her far beyond death. She doesn’t care how long it takes, she will personally take every single reporter who repeated this news to court, and she will sue the pants off them all.

No Good Deed Cassie was sitting on one of the low ridges of the canyon wall above the hork-bajir valley, doing her utter best not to cry, when she saw Jake and Rachel approaching her at top speed. She took a breath to brace herself for whatever was coming. Ax had already called her a traitor to her face today. Marco had demanded to know what she was thinking, letting the yeerks take the morphing cube, and had responded to her answer with an ice-cold “That’s not good enough.” Jake wasn’t talking to her at all.

As Cassie scrambled to her feet, she registered that Rachel was dragging Jake by the arm. They both jerked to a stop a few feet away from Cassie, and Rachel released Jake to cross her arms over her chest. “To paraphrase the stupidest cousin I have in one of his rare moments of insight,” she said, “I don’t care what your problems are. We have zero time for your self-pity. So you two deal with this. Right now.”

Jake mumbled something, staring at the ground.

“That’s not necessary,” Cassie whispered. “What I did—”

“Is not the shittiest thing any of us has ever done, or even anywhere close to the shittiest,” Rachel said. “You made a bad call, yeah. We’re paying for it. But the thing to do now is to stop beating yourself up and start trying to fix it. Jake’s sorry he’s been a total jerk to you, by the way, and he’ll never do it again.”

Jake jerked his head up to stare at Rachel, mouth halfway open.

“Look,” Rachel said. “It sucks that we lost the morphing cube. It sucks that the yeerks know who we are now. It sucks that we lost your parents, that…” For the first time her voice wavered, just a little. “That my dad’s a controller by now too.” She jabbed Jake in the chest. “None of that is an excuse for pretending Cassie doesn’t exist. So I’m not asking you two to, I don’t know, get back together or anything. I’m asking you to suck it up and deal with what we’ve got in front of us like freaking adults. Okay?”

They looked at Rachel, and then, more slowly, at each other. At the same time, they nodded.

Popular Cassie grumbled pretty much the entire five hours that she and Rachel spent at the mall picking out dresses for Marco’s dad’s wedding, but to tell the truth it was more reflex than genuine annoyance by then. Once upon a time she’d have pulled her own hair out rather than willingly walk out of dressing room after dressing room to twirl around in silly skirts and sillier tops while Rachel eyed her critically, and yet…

And yet their friendship had grown to something deeper, more complicated, hard and battered as steel, over the course of the war. To the point where Rachel’s mere presence was a comfort to Cassie’s ever-racing mind, no matter what they happened to be doing at the time.

And yet Cassie knew why Rachel was spending so much time on this. It was the same reason Jake had actually taught himself how to tie a half-Windsor, the same reason Tobias had been drilling Ax in how to make small talk like a real boy all week long. They all desperately wanted to be the best versions of themselves for Marco, knowing the special hell the wedding day would be for him. This—weird accessories and all—was Rachel being kind and considerate for a friend.

And yet every time Rachel smiled as Cassie pushed through the curtains, or murmured “beautiful, beautiful” as she twirled in yet another ridiculous dress, Cassie felt her heartbeat speed up. Every time Rachel’s clever fingers adjusted a strap or reached up to tuck an ornament into Cassie’s hair, Cassie felt the tingle of pleasure over every inch of her skin.

Defying Gravity Cassie shuts her eyes and rubs at them, doing nothing to assuage their grittiness. The Capitol Building is crowded as always with aides and tourists, but even this flow of strangers is preferable company to the man whose meeting she just left. Cassie’s here to sign a deal with Beelzebub to keep them out of the hands of Satan, and she knows it. The American voting public wants the hork-bajir put on a spaceship and sent “back where they came from.” Her would-be sponsor, on the other hand, has money, and power, and he wants a halfway measure: the hork-bajir would live on reservations (internment camps, a small nasty part of Cassie suspects) but they would be allowed to stay on Earth and given as many trees as they could possibly farm. He might dress his proposals up in pretty language, but Cassie knows what he thinks: that the hork-bajir are animals, and animals should be seen and not heard.

If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. He’s used that phrase more than once, every time she objects to his business contracts, his under-the-table dealings, his blatant flaunting of American tax codes to make a profit for himself. How will she ever tell Toby? She’s not giving up, not really, but if they fight to stay free and lose… If they keep insisting on an ideal solution instead of a compromise… It could be so much worse. This man could protect them, assuming he keeps his word.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” says a slow Texas drawl.

Cassie opens her eyes. The man standing across from her is clearly a tourist, wearing a t-shirt with a familiar bald eagle across the chest, emblazoned with the words What Would Rachel Do? Cassie feels a chill go down her spine. She knows the answer to that question.

“Yes,” she says. “Where did you get your t-shirt?”

He looks confused, but starts describing a shop a few blocks down from the Mall. She’s desperately afraid, but she can feel herself smiling all the same—she’ll have to get one for herself. It’ll be a good totem to have in the fight ahead, because she’s about to tell the most important corporate developer in the country to shove his internment proposal where the sun doesn’t shine.

Dancing Through Life They were sitting around in her barn as they had thousands of times before, but this meeting was anything but typical. It was just her and Jake and Ax—the others were all out playing keep-away with David. Maybe losing. Maybe dying. After all, they’d nearly lost Jake and Tobias both last night.

Let my heart harden, Cassie thought. Let everything that is soft and delicate and easily damaged about me drain away, and let only anger and resolve replace it. Give me the strength to do to David that which must be done, because god help me HE HURT RACHEL. She wasn’t sure if she was praying, and if so to whom.

All she knew was the sudden longing in herself to be Marco: ruthless, careless, carefree, callous. To barrel her way through the coming days with an inappropriate joke on her lips and a world-loathing smile in her eyes. She didn’t have it in her, but this cold-burning rage (he wanted to own Rachel, that disgusting little toad, she would make him pay, she would make sure he never got to see another day) suggested that she might be able to learn.

“I know how to handle this,” she said at last. “All we’ll need is a Coke bottle and a couple blue Legos.”

As Long as You’re Mine “What are we doing?” Rachel demanded, burying both her hands in her hair like she was trying to yank it out by the roots. “Aliens landed in the middle of town last night, apparently more aliens are already here—Cassie, you just turned into a horse. A HORSE!”

“Yeah.” Cassie smiled, remembering what it had been like to sprint all-out across an infinite pasture, but then she sobered. Rachel was right. The andalite from last night had already died. More people would die too, if the yeerks had their way. This wasn’t a game, nowhere close.

“I just… I’m so angry at the yeerks.” Rachel balled up both her hands. “I want to kill them all for what they did. But at the same time… Cassie, are we nuts for even trying to fight back?”

“I think this is too big for us,” Cassie said slowly. “I think we’re just kids, and…” She took a deep breath. “Everything’s going to change now, isn’t it? Even if we choose not to act, we’re still making a choice. We can’t go back, no matter what we do, now that we know.”

“If I choose to fight, you’ll be there with me, right?” Rachel’s voice sounded uncertain for the first time.

“Whatever we decide, we do it together. If you’re out, I’m out. If you’re in... Then I guess I’m in.”

Rachel threw her arms around Cassie in a quick, impulsive hug. “If we’re in this together, nothing really bad can happen to us. You and me, girl. There’s no one I’d rather have by my side.”

Finale Ten years pass with a speed she could never have imagined. Ten years since they lost contact with the Rachel somewhere in Kelbrid space, and it felt like losing her all over again. Nine years since a well-meaning sculptor erected a statue of the five dead Animorphs in downtown L.A., including (Cassie couldn’t help but notice with morbid amusement) room on the plinth for a sixth figure. Eight years since, at age twenty-one, she became the youngest governor California had ever elected. Seven years since she married Ronnie; four since she divorced him. Thirteen years since she lost Rachel.

She’s leaning on one of the supports of the Golden Gate bridge, 700 feet in the air where only people who can turn into birds in their search for privacy can ever go, watching the fireworks over the harbor with bittersweet fondness. It’s a long way down to the harbor, and from this height hitting the water would be like hitting concrete. Good thing she’d have enough time to morph, if she felt like it. And then she looks over, and Rachel is standing there to her left like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Cassie doesn’t believe in miracles, of course she doesn’t. She’s halfway into a morph faster than thought—but Rachel is talking. Telling her about a thousand things (ragged rainbow bracelets, stolen homework and whispered promises, blood between their nails) only Rachel would know. Even as Cassie watches Rachel morphs and then demorphs, just to prove who she is.

“How?” Cassie says at last, once she’s finally sure. There are tears running down her cheeks. She doesn’t really care.

Rachel shrugs, hair rippling in the wind. “Toomin says I still have work to do. Trust me, I don’t totally get it either.”

“Who’s Toomin?” Cassie asks.

“Oh man.” Rachel laughs. “Do you have five hours?”

Cassie realizes that she’s holding Rachel’s hand in her own. That even though they’re standing too close to each other, so close that Rachel’s hair is blowing against her cheek, Rachel is leaning in even closer. “Yeah,” Cassie breathes. “I have all the time in the world.”

#animorphs #animorphs au #animorphs ficlet #wicked #cassie/rachel #mama nature #xena: warrior princess #rachel berenson #long post

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