#i already read through arc three and genuinely. i could barely tell you what happened

[pinata-candy]

Over summer I've been on and off re-reading the wings of fire books like I did over covid bc I really liked the first arc as a kid and I wanna do a rewrite- but I'm really supposed to believe that all the BeetleWings are just gone. Clearsight's genetics were just soooo powerful and awesome that they vanished. The population was that small? And I'm also supposed to believe that 2000 years was long enough to turn one species into two but no change was made to any of the other dragons- everybody else looks the same, nothing new happened? Especially to the NightWings who had to move territories? They didn't adapt to the new island at all, even when it wasn't a mess? And if the continents are the same size, why does Pyrria have 7 dragons species and Pantala has 3. Why does it feel like nobody lives on the bug continent it feels like we see none of it. I know it's popular to not really like the third arc and its plot (weed that makes you dragon racist is. It's stupid I'm sorry it's so stupid) but they really went go girl give us nothing

ALSO WHY DOES CLEARSIGHT DECIDE SHES GONNA HAVE SEVERAL HUSBANDS AND A FUCK TON OF KIDS AS AN ADULT? IS THIS HOW SHE COPES?? WHAT

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 313: Deku VS Lady Nagant

Previously on BnHA: Hawks’s super-hot badass murder senpai Lady Nagant showed up to fire a cupid’s arrow into my heart, and a bunch of literal bullets into my son. Deku was all “oh shit it’s Hawks’s super-hot badass murder senpai, what do I do, let me think back to Hawks’s advice for a sec.” Flashback!Hawks was all “anyway Deku so if my super-hot badass murder senpai ever shows up you’re basically screwed so you’d better abscond the fuck out of there.” Present!Deku was all “lol idek why I flashed back to that conversation since I’m just going to do the exact opposite of what Hawks said” and charged directly toward Nagant because WHY NOT. Overhaul was all “waah I need to get back to my boss who I put in a coma out of love” and Nagant was all “jesus christ why did I even bring you here” and had a flashback to AFO who was all “ILU NAGANT IMMA GIVE YOU AN EXTRA QUIRK SO PLEASE CAPTURE DEKU FOR ME PLEASE AND THANKS” and yeah. Shit is all over the place right now and I love it.

Today on BnHA: All Might gets attacked by a pair of discount assassins and is all “Call an ambulance! ...BUT NOT FOR ME” and it’s really badass but also I really wish he would stop tempting fate like this. Lady Nagant is all “[casually flies around town shooting shit]” and I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t read an entire chapter of just that. Deku is all, “[gets shot (≥_<)]” and releases a giant Smokescreen which prompts En to show up. En is all, “( •᷄⌓•᷅ ) (⌣̀ Δ⌣́) ( •̀_•́ )σ (¬､¬) (눈_눈)” which I consider to be a high point of both the chapter and of my life. The chapter ends with Deku using the Third’s quirk to launch a bunch of random objects at Nagant so that he can jump up and grab her arm all sneaky-like, and I’m sure this is going to prompt another week’s worth of discourse that I don’t care about at all, but fuck it, I’m having a good time.

OH WE’RE CUTTING BACK TO ALL MIGHT WELL THAT’S NICE I GUESS. CONGRATS ON NOT BEING DEAD

you named your car??

you named it Hercules??

I love you so much??

please marry me you giant fucking dork???

lmao speaking of huge fucking dorks

who the fuck are you clowns. la dee da we’re gonna murder All Might with our synchronized spear attack!! I mean... they’re clearly trying their best... maybe I should just be nice and politely hype them up like All Might is so clearly trying to do

like okay, but we all agree that this is actually the least intimidating attack any of us has ever seen, right?? these guys zipped up their hoodies all serious-like and are trying to attack All Might and Hercules with their Walmart tiki torches, but just, no?? right?? like the only way this could possibly be effective is if they were trying to kill All Might with secondhand embarrassment

“those are assassins” this is a VERY generous assessment, All Might

OH MY GOD THE TIKI TORCHES ACTUALLY KILLED THE FUCK OUT OF HERCULES

[slaps roof of car] this baby can fit so many weaponized festive backyard lighting solutions in it

and yet, even after watching this with my own two eyes, I still can’t take these dudes seriously. idek what it is. anyways r.i.p. Hercules, I loved you a lot but I guess you weren’t actually a very good armored car were you

omg they didn’t know it was All Might??

okay 1) for a moment there I was like “oh hey maybe they’re not so bad after all” but then a moment later it was like “ah nope, they are.” like, that was an interesting .06 second emotional journey there. anyways 2) All Might you have my permission to kick their asses for this disrespect, and 3) anyone else all of a sudden getting “wouldn’t this be an interesting time for Stain to suddenly show up” vibes?? no?? just me???

(ETA: hmm tbh I’ve still got those vibes and they haven’t gone away lol. Stain?? you out there buddy?? do you want to be cool for just once in your life. ball’s in your court pal.)

OH SNAP ALL MIGHT ARE YOU REALLY GONNA DO IT ARE YOU GONNA KICK THEIR ASSES

PROTECTIVE DAD MODE ACTIVATED?? BECAUSE YOU KNOW I’M HERE FOR THAT SHIT, SO YEAH, FEEL FREE

omg he’s shouting at them about how much Deku has suffered lmao and they’re just like falling over from being scolded

so they have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about though, right? “SIR THIS IS A WENDY’S” well whatever, you killed his pet car so he’s in a bad mood now

OH MY GOD

LIKE, JUST SO WE’RE ALL CLEAR, THESE FOUR PAGES SO FAR HAVE MADE ALMOST ZERO SENSE. LIKE MAYBE 2% SENSE TOPS. BUT ASK ME IF I CARE. GO AHEAD AND ASK. I SAID GO AHEAD, IT’S OKAY. ...NO I DON’T CARE AT ALL THANK YOU FOR ASKING

(ETA: also, the more I look at this panel, the more I’m just like, why the hell would you phrase it like that though, sob. way to doubly tempt fate?? are you trying to give Horikoshi a challenge??)

and now back to Deku who is randomly bouncing around the city and narrating it to himself just in case he was confused about why he was doing this

who are you talking to Deku. but thanks we appreciate it

man you gotta love that overconfidence. the smartest guy in the world warned you away from this lady, so SURE, LET’S RUN RIGHT UP TO HER. “I APPRECIATE YOUR INPUT, FLASHBACK!HAWKS, BUT I’LL TAKE IT FROM HERE” well okay then!!

I think it would be funny if RHA.com put little Buzzfeed-style polls in between the chapter pages so they could survey people at random intervals as they read their way through the chapter. like, you finish this page and then there’s a little poll there asking “do you think Deku’s plan of catching up to Lady Nagant and finding out where Shigaraki is will work?”, and you click “no” just like everyone else and then nod as the results show that 97% of your fellow readers also picked “no”, and you chuckle to yourself wondering how many of the 3% accidentally clicked on the wrong option by mistake, and then you keep on reading

ANYWAY, SO

HOW’S THAT PLAN WORKING OUT FOR YOU SO FAR DEKU. nice kick, though!!

omggggggg

ouch

update: Deku’s plan not really working out. sources tell me my boy has been fucking shot. this is an ongoing story and we will keep you posted with the latest developments as they come in

wait what

feel free to explain to the rest of us what all of this “UNLESS...” and “THAT POSSIBILITY...” shit means anytime, Deku

oh lol did he realize she could fly??

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE, CNN’s John King reports that Deku is still fucked. eyewitness reports now coming in that Nagant is doing no-look shots and basically not even giving a fuck. sources described her mannerisms and expression as “sexy, but in like an effortless sort of way.” we will continue to bring you the latest

so now there’s basically an entire page of Deku being all “ah fuck so she’s basically closing in and she could already hit me with impossible accuracy even from Far Away, so if that’s the case then her being Up Close is probably going to be even worse!” making good use of that Big Hero Brain there, Deku

so now what, you’re doing some kind of spiraling kick thing?? how is that going to help

oh lol he’s using Smokescreen to create some cover. aww, good for you Deku you named one of your Smokescreen attacks

OH NO LADY DON’T TELL ME AFO DIDN’T EVEN FILL YOU IN ON THE BASICS

seriously, AFO?? you basically told her what Deku’s exact strategy was going to be but then couldn’t be assed to drop that little, small, barely notable piece of knowledge that Deku is rocking multiple quirks?? is it supposed to be a secret or something?? you dropped the ball here man

damn this is getting intense now

(ETA: the way En is poking Deku’s head in that first panel is fucking sending me, I love this guy so much omg.)

well then what are you planning, Deku?? I’m actually really curious!! I am genuinely starting to be invested in this fight scene not only in the “wanting to see who wins and how that impacts the plot” sense, but also in the “wanting to see how it happens because the choreography and strategy is actually pretty cool” sense, which honestly hasn’t happened for quite a while now! this is fun

anyway so what’s up Deku, are you going to use another quirk?? I’ve been speculating that he hasn’t actually unlocked the last two yet (since Two and Three didn’t exactly seem convinced when we last saw them), but maybe I’m about to be proven wrong

(ETA: well he clearly has Three’s obviously, but Two’s is still MIA, and that’s the one I am of course the most curious about. that’s the one we’re all curious about, let’s be real.)

OH SNAP???

AHHHH I’M HYPED LOL. ANOTHER SHINY NEW QUIRK LOL SHOULD I PUT UP THE USUAL DISCOURSE DISCLAIMER

(ETA: so yeah, after thinking on it, I’m not gonna say “please no Deku discourse on my blog” this week, but I probably will ignore any discourse that does come my way though, just because I don’t have much interest in getting involved in what would probably be a pretty repetitive discussion. like, I can just sum up my opinions (which is what they are) here instead. in fact here they are lol:

1) I like the SIXQUIRKS and I like seeing Deku be a badass.

2) I also don’t think Deku is too OP. more like he’s exactly as OP as he needs to be at the moment, given that we’re approaching the end of the series. I expect the other kids will also be pretty damn OP when we see them fight again. we’re just at that point now where they’re all badasses (as well they should be; they’ve grown a lot and they deserve it). it’s just that Deku’s the one we’re getting to see right now.

3) of course I miss Kacchan and the others, but for me this vibes much closer to the MVA arc where even though I missed them, I was still having a blast (as opposed to the dark days of the Basement arc where I was pretty much losing it lol). like, even though Kacchan’s my favorite, I still love Deku a lot and this arc has been amazing for him getting to shine on his own (for like the first time, really).

4) y’all know I love the OFA plot and I’ve never been shy about that lol. I like all of the Vestiges a lot. Banjou and his over the top personality; En and his “guy you thought would be serious and :| all the time but is actually hyper-animated and ALL OVER THE PLACE” energy; Shiro who actually is a :| sort of guy lol; Three who I still expect will be fleshed out in a more detailed flashback at some point; and of course Two, who, well. you know what I think about him lol. Bakuverse is still on the table and I’m still hyped. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we still have yet to see Two actually talk to Deku (as opposed to talking to the other Vestiges while Deku is distracted). did he lend him his power yet?? or is he still holding out?? either way it’s definitely going to be a Big Thing when it finally happens and I can’t wait to see it.

5) Lady Nagant is Everything and just because Deku grabbed her arm doesn’t mean the fight is over yet lol. Overhaul hasn’t come into play yet either. not to mention that even if the fight is over, the “where do we go from here” part still has me excited either way. her connection to Hawks and the HPSC is very intriguing and we’ve barely touched on that as of yet; she definitely has more of a role to play in this.

6) last but not least, I feel like every week the discussion is all about how much focus Deku’s getting, and how OP he is or isn’t, and OFA this and OFA that, but meanwhile I’m actually so invested in the character development here though?? the way Deku has distanced himself from everyone (except for the Vestiges, because of course they’re already dead so it’s not like they can die again lol)?? the way he’s pushing himself far too hard and we can see the shadows in and under his eyes, and the fact that he never smiles, and even All Might has remarked on how he isn’t taking care of himself at all?? the fact that he’s so single-mindedly obsessed with focused on stopping AFO?? the fact that he’s still the same sweet old Deku despite everything and was so kind to that fox lady with the umbrella, but there was also something so sad about that scene because it felt like a reminder of the type of hero that he wants to be, but that he’s not allowed to be right now?? because the stakes are too high and the world is falling apart?? and he feels like he’s the only one who can do something about it?? and that he has to be?? and that he is putting so much pressure on himself right now, and it’s absolutely too much pressure for any one person to bear, and I feel like no one is fucking talking about this lol goddammit.

anyway so yeah. I have feels about this, and every week that slow-burn angst is getting more and more intense behind the scenes, and I feel like it’s all going to hit a breaking point eventually. sooner rather than later. it really feels like a mirror of Katsuki’s post-Kamino arc. where all that angst was just churning below the surface for like twenty chapters and then it finally was like “okay it’s time” and it all came bursting out and we got the best five chapters of the fucking series (in my admittedly biased estimation lol).

basically, I know that most of fandom is billing this as either the “villain hunt” arc or the “solo Deku SIXQUIRKS fighting arc” or whatever. but for me, it’s always been and still is the Deku Angst arc lol. the cool fights are a sexy bonus (the worldbuilding less so because even though it’s interesting to see society at such a low point, it’s also very depressing and gets old pretty fast), but for me the thing that’s really keeping me engaged chapter after chapter is seeing Deku like we’ve never seen him before. seeing him all quiet and withdrawn and brooding and focused on AFO, AFO, AFO, and seeing that “he just doesn’t take himself into account” mentality taken to extremes. I am invested in that. I’m soaking up that angst each and every week, and I’m invested in seeing what comes of it. it’s a big picture thing. week to week this arc might just seem like a bunch of villain fight scenes, sure. but Deku’s emotional journey is the thread that’s going to carry this arc through from beginning to end, and for that I’m willing to be patient.

anyway that turned into a BIG OL’ RANT there but yeah! so those are my thoughts on the disk horse as it currently stands. and like I said, I’m open to discussion, but tbh I will probably just wind up repeating these same talking points endlessly so just a fair warning lol.)

anyway so Three says Deku has yet to use his quirk at ALL but now he’s trying to combine it with another quirk?? damn. also please check out En’s face here you guys

En launching a sneak attack up my favorite character list by the sheer power of his expressions alone. he really knows how to make the most of his screentime

OH DAMN DEKU

at this point the 3% from that hypothetical poll earlier are starting to feel prettttty damn smug, I’ll bet. well shit

what in the fuck

?? so like releasing his chi or whatnot?? isn’t that basically just like base OFA all over again?? also Deku did you seriously just apologize to Gran’s cape

update: Nagant has turned her eyeball into a gun

hm. hmmmmmmm. ...okay yep, still somehow sexy

anyway so she’s just floating up there building suspense, as one does. lord I sure hope she has good reflexes because something tells me she’s going to need them

OH SNAP HE THREW GRAN’S CAPE AS A DECOY WHAAAAT OKAY THAT’S SOME SMART SHIT DEKU

LOL SHE’S MAD NOW

JESUS CHRIST SHE JUST NEVER TAKES A GODDAMN BREAK FROM BEING AWESOME HUH

DEKU ARE YOU JUST THROWING EVERY DAMN THING IN YOUR INVENTORY

but without the cape and the hood how will you continue to look like an enigmatic badass. you really can’t. which means we might finally be moving on from the wandering nomad part of this arc, stay tuned

LOL YOU MANIAC

I hope he went full Kacchan with the dialogue there. his face sure looks like it lol. popped out of a building all mad fdskljlkj omg

well this was fun, shit. I still have basically no idea what Three’s quirk does though lol. like, can he use it to charge up objects with kinetic energy or something?? but then what was all of that talk about combining it with one of the other quirks?? or was that just because he was using Smokescreen at the same time??

(ETA: having seen and read an additional half-dozen explanations of Three’s quirk, I can say with confidence that I still have basically no idea what it is or does.)

anyway so!! Deku is a badasssssss but something tells me not to count Nagant out just yet even so. also I really enjoy seeing Deku flip out on people like he doesn’t have a fucking hole in his torso because it reminds me of A CERTAIN SOMEONE and I always love to see him channeling that feral energy; I feel like it’s been a while

anyways good luck to you both!! I truly wish that both of you could win. but if not, then maybe you can at least become friends instead. you have so much in common, you both can fly and have multiple quirks and you’re both badasses, and plus it would just be really funny to see the look on Hawks’s face lmao

[boldlyvoid]

New Romantics | Part Four

18+

Summary: She needs help studying for her Case Exercises at the Academy, He needs a date for the annual Banquet... they just so happen to be neighbours who aren't afraid to lend a helping hand, or in this case, a helping kiss.

Categories: Fake dating, neighbours, strangers to lovers, mutual pining, Angst with a happy ending, Smut *as selected by my poll on what you wanted to read*

Warnings: Season 9 Spencer (no Maeve arc), Angst, kissing, drinking, police training mentions, case details, canon typical violence, self-doubt, autistic!spencer, age gaps (24/33), FWB relationships, anxiety attacks, crying, misunderstandings, oral sex (both), penetrative sex, Perv!Spencer low-key, public sex, quickies, multiple orgasms,

Word Count: 5k

a/n: what could possibly go wrong next?

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | epilogue

She’s been asleep barely 2 hours when he shakes her awake, “Hey, when did you need to get ready today?”

“Uh?” She sits up and rubs her eyes, “we don’t have to leave until 1 so, like 11?”

“It’s 8:30, did you want to stay and sleep more?”

She looks at him and sighs, “are we okay?”

He nods, “can we just call it even?”

“Sure,” she agrees without knowing what she did wrong. It was more than just snapping on Tuesday, which is what she was still hurt over. “But I’m going to go, I need to change and stuff.”

“Yeah,” he nods but his smile is sad and she knows she’s fucking it up more.

She gets out of his bed, once it was the warmest bed she’s ever known. Any bed she shared with him was, but now it felt cold and uninviting and there was an unspoken knowingness that they were both genuinely upset.

“I’m still your fake girlfriend for the next 24 hours… can we make them count?” She asks, avoiding eye contact so he can't see her cry if he says no.

“Come here?”

She gets back into the bed and she cuddles into his chest. He holds her for a moment, “you’ve been the best girlfriend in the whole world. Do you really still want to be friends after this? Have I fucked up that bad?”

“Oh honey,” she places a hand on his cheek and looks at him softly, “I will be your neighbour, your best friend, your co-worker, carpool buddy, coffee friend, girlfriend, whatever you need as long as you’d like to have me around.”

He remembers the first time she said that and she knows because his smile is the same. “I love you.”

It hurts, “I love you, too.”

She kisses him quickly, attempting to pull back when his fingers grip her hair and his tongue is on her lips and she’s following his lead again.

“No,” she whispers, “I can’t.”

“Oh,” he stops and his hands drop to his sides so she can get back up.

“I’m going to go get ready, but I’ll come back when I’m done?”

“Yeah,” he nods again.

It breaks her heart to get up and go, she grabs her shoes and she sneaks out of his room, finding her keys in her pocket, she opens her own door and cries the second the door closes.

She cries in the shower, she cries while fixes her hair, she cries while she has lunch. Every song reminds her of the situation, every section of her apartment reminds her of him, the stupid door where they first kissed is closed and she wishes he was stable enough to bang on it and demand an answer.

Whatever was going on between them was reaching a bubbling over point, she can only store so much emotion before she explodes on him.

As soon as she is in her dress, makeup on and ready to go, she walks into his apartment to find him struggling with his bowtie, it makes her smile for the first time since she left his room this morning, “need help?”

“Yes, please.”

She walks over to him and repeats the same movements he attempted, making the bow look pretty before smoothing her hands over his dress shirt and looking up at him. “Handsome as ever.”

“You’re always beautiful,” he compliments her right back but his voice is still as sad as the night before.

“Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on in there?” She pries, tapping his temple with her index finger, “you’re my best friend and I don’t like seeing you sad.”

“I heard what you said yesterday,” he whispers, “about how if you were just using someone you would have picked Derek.”

“And?” She doesn’t get why it’s a big deal because it makes perfect sense to her in her mind.

“And it hurt me,” he snaps, “quite a lot!?”

And the dam breaks.

“Because I proved to them that I’m not using you? Spencer do you know what I meant by that?” She snaps right back.

“What else could it mean?! Clearly I’m not hot enough for you to just fuck and toss aside—”

“I meant that I love you and that’s why I’m with you! If I was just using someone for a job then I’d fuck Derek cause he’s a one and done, toss them to the side and never see them again, kind of guy!”

“And?” He repeats her word choice in a snippy tone that makes her furious but she knows he’s just trying his best to understand her.

She sighs loudly and obnoxiously, “and you’re a take him to meet your mom, marry and have his babies, love him for the rest of your life and one day scatter his ashes, kind of lover.” Crying by the end, she wipes her tears and tries to stay somewhat presentable-looking.

He’s silent, eyes wide as he takes in all her words, “I have always loved you,” she adds, “and no matter how fucking angry I am or how stressed or upset, I am never going to stop loving you, Spencer.”

“Me either,” his tone is still just as upset, “and that's the part that sucks.”

“What do you mean?” She just poured her heart out to him and he still doesn’t get it.

“I LOVE YOU!” He screams it at her with his hands thrown in the air, “I love you more than I’ve loved anyone in my entire fucking life and it’s driving me crazy!”

“It’s driving you crazy?” She can’t help but laugh like she’s losing her mind, “I have been doing everything in my power to make you understand that I love you and you keep thinking I just want to be friends!”

“Because you said you loved me like a friend the first time?!”

“No, I fucking didn’t!” She is so frustrated she’s turning the same colour as her dress, steaming from her ears like a cartoon character.

“I asked if best friends can be in love because I wanted to see if you would say you loved me more than that, and then you fucking said “yeah cause that’s how I love you” which means you love me as a friend?!”

“Because I thought that’s what you wanted?!”

She can’t rub her eyes cause she’ll ruin her makeup but she is so mad she just wants to scream. Pressing her fingers to her own temples, she turns away from him and sighs, she loves him so much and yet this is the most frustrating thing that’s ever happened.

“You are so lucky,” she just laughs, shaking her head back and forth as she turns back to him, “you are so fuckin’ lucky.”

“Why?”

She wraps her arms around his middle and looks up into his eyes with one last sigh, “we have to go or we’ll be late, so I can’t explain all of my feelings right now, so let’s bench this conversation and I can show you just how much I love you when we get back?”

“Okay,” he nods. He rests his hands on her arms and he looks down with the softest glance, he’s still trying so hard to not cry. “I’m really sorry.”

“So am I, I should have listened to you better and explained myself more,” she whispers, “do you believe me now?”

He nods, “I told you, it’s hard for me.”

“I tried my best to be subtle so I didn’t scare you off, but I guess you really don’t do subtle?” She can’t help but laugh, “but I really do love you.”

His hands are on her cheeks, pulling her into a kiss, she melts against him. He breathes her in, it’s the longest and deepest kiss she’s ever had and she honestly feels like he’s taking her soul and making her his. She belongs to him and she knows it, now he does too.

“I love you, too.”

—

All eyes are on her and it makes him smile, she’s the only one in a red dress in a room full of black and white, she stands out like a sore thumb. She looks the most beautiful, she stands beside Spencer with her arm wrapped around his and a huge smile on her face, it makes him even happier to see her smile again.

The hardest part of fighting with her was knowing she was upset and that he was only making it worse. Seeing her smile return is everything to him, he loves her more than words can express and she loves him right back, he can tell by the way she smiles at him; because it’s exactly the same way he’s smiling at her.

“I see that you’ve made up,” Derek interrupts their current dance to say hello.

The BAU team was always so busy on nights like this, they had all the best stories and everyone wanted to hear them, which meant they typically didn’t see each other a lot for the whole night.

“We did,” Spencer smiles. “Thank’s Derek.”

She looks up at them both, confused, “how many of them know?”

“Huh?” He plays dumb but she can see right through him.

“Do they all know I’m not really your girlfriend or is it just Aaron, Derek and whoever else you told?”

“Elle,” he says her name. “I told the first girl I slept with that I was falling in love with you because I needed advice from someone who has already been with me and knows how I get.”

“Sick, cool, love that for you,” she smiles and walks away.

He grabs her and she stops, “I told you how much it hurt that I had no one to talk to and you told all of them? And you couldn’t even tell me you really loved me this whole time? I thought we were best friends Spencer?” She shakes her head, disappointed more than anything, swatting his hand off her as he reaches to stop her.

“Let her go, she’s right to be a little mad,” Derek holds him back. “let her be mad.”

“Why?” Spencer is so new to relationships he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“She wants to be your girlfriend for real, let her calm down and then go apologize and ask her,” Derek's smile is sweet as he pulls Spencer into a hug.

It slowly becomes a dance, everyone is used to Derek being touchy with his friends, he has danced with everyone so far tonight so it’s only fair Spencer has a turn. Spencer holds him tight, eyes closed so he doesn’t have to think about all the attention he’s been getting since they arrived.

“Thank you for always being here for me,” he whispers, “but I have to go see her.”

“Fights like this just make your relationship stronger, it teaches you how she wants you to communicate, she just wants you to be honest with her, always,” he whispers with his cheek pressed to Spencer's, “and angry make-up sex is really fun.”

It makes him laugh, “thanks, but she won’t be sleeping with me for a few days, if my memory is correct then she’s mad for more than one reason.”

“Ah,” Derek gets it, “good luck my friend. Good luck.”

When Spencer pulls away, he heads in the direction Y/N left and follows the hallway as far as it goes. She’s sitting on a bench by a window, staring off at the night sky as she takes some deep breaths. She looks a little more peaceful, she’s had a really rough few weeks and he’s not making it any easier on her.

“I know two things for sure,” he speaks softly but she still jumps a little as she turns to him.

“What would they be?”

“That you’re the love of my life,” he’s confident as he sits on the bench beside her and takes her hand in his. “And I’m an idiot when it comes to love.”

“That is quite the dilemma,” she smirks, her eyes gleam as she looks at him and he knows she was trying not to cry by how glossy they are, but it makes her more beautiful, somehow.

“I’m really sorry.”

“All you have to do is tell me the truth, Spencer,” she places her hand on his leg and leans in with a whisper, “it’s really simple.”

“Truth is,” he whispers right back, lips close enough to kiss, “I’m never going to stop loving you, which means more stupid moments are in my future. Just so you know.”

She giggles and kisses him quickly, “I don’t mind being the smart one in the relationship, but you still have to ask.”

“Will you be my girlfriend and let me love you for the rest of my life, no matter how much I fuck up and drive you crazy?” He teases her, knowing she’ll say yes regardless.

“On one condition,” she can’t hide the smirk on her face and he’s nervous at what she’s thinking.

“Anything?”

“You let me love you for just as long? If not longer.”

He nods, “forever?”

She nods back before kissing him just as deeply as they did that morning, her hands in his hair as she presses his face into her’s with force. She holds him there and breathes him in, pulling back with a classic smooch sound, she smiles again, “you’re my boyfriend now.”

He nods with a small smile, “what should we do first as boyfriend and girlfriend?”

She bites her lip and pretends to think about it for a moment, “fuck in the linen closet down the hall?”

“I don’t have any condoms on me?” Is his only worry, not getting caught, not that all their bosses and superiors were there, just that he didn’t have a condom.

She pulls one out of her bra with a smile, “Savannah gave this to me about 3 minutes before you came over here.”

“How much make-up sex do they have?” He asks as he takes her hand and leads her down the hallway.

She’s giddy and smiling, her heels click on the floor as they rush to the other end of the hall and open the little door. There are shelves with towels and rolls upon rolls of silverware in cloth napkins. A vacuum in the corner, some brooms and just enough room for them.

She pulls him in closer and shuts the door, reconnecting their lips as she pushes him up against it. Hands reaching for his belt she kisses down his neck and he’s like putty in her hands as soon as she strokes him, he moans by accident and she covers his mouth with her free hand.

“Do you have any idea how turned on you make me? I have wanted to fuck you since I first saw you, 6 years ago…”

“Really?” His muffled voice behind her hand makes her laugh. She removes her hand and instead runs her fingers through his hair while taking a moment to look at him and really take it all in.

“Yeah,” she nods, “which is why I asked to sleep with you on the way home from the bar, I didn’t know if I could handle it either it, but I’ve always wanted Doctor Reid from the BAU to rail me. I just didn’t think we’d end up falling in love?”

“No one has ever admitted to having a crush on me and meant it,” he whispers.

“I’m glad I get to be one of your firsts,” she smiles again before he pulls her into another kiss.

She kisses the side of his mouth and then his jaw, down his neck and then she’s dropping to her knees in front of him. He’s hard in her hands but he twitches as he sees her like this, looking up at him with lust-blown eyes as she strokes him, she flattens her tongue and taps the tip of his cock to it.

He has to cover his own mouth or else he’s going to get them caught, he moans at the feeling, closing his eyes and that's when she takes him in her mouth. His free hand is in her hair, careful not to mess it up but enough grip to steady himself.

He tilts his head back against the door with a knock and a sign, “fuck,” he can’t help but talk into his hand which only makes it sound louder in the tight space.

She feels so good every single time and yet this one feels different, he looks down at her and she pulls off, “what’s wrong?”

“I love you,” he shrugs.

He helps her back up to her feet and she backs up against the shelves, “come here?”

He helps her hike her dress up, holding all the material up as he slips her underwear off and takes that condom back out of her bra with a single kiss to her chest. He rolls it over himself and lines up with her, her arms wrap around his shoulders as she looks at him, “show me how much you love me?”

He slides in and they don’t break eye contact as she takes him, her mouth opens in a silent gasp at the feeling, her hands grip his shoulders tighter as she steadies her ass on a shelf and wraps her legs around him while he bottoms out.

With a hand on her cheek and one on her lower back, he pulls out and thrusts back in with a smile as she bites back a moan, she pulls his face in close to hers to kiss him while he fucks her. The hand on his cheek slides down her neck, applying a small amount of pressure that makes her breathing hitch. She swallows sharply before his hand starts to trail over her breasts and then between them.

With a thumb on her clit, he fucks her a little harder while rubbing his thumb in a circle. She’s breathing heavily into his mouth, placing sloppy kisses against each other as they enjoyed each other.

She’s so close and he knows it, and then there is a knock on the door.

“Spence, we have a case when you’re done?” He hears Derek's voice behind the door and he can’t believe it.

“Okay!” He calls back without stopping, instead, he fucks into her a little faster.

“Oh!” She moans by accident before covering her mouth with a slap and wide eyes, moaning behind her hand as she bounces on his cock.

He kisses her hand, making her move it so he can press his lips back to hers and absorb all the noises she was going to make, her hands both reach for his back, gripping his suit jacket so tight he’s afraid she might rip it.

She cums with a shocked gasp, it’s as quiet as possible but it still echos around them as he gets closer and closer. He buries his face in her neck and accidentally moans as well as he cums, stilling his hips as he holds her there, sputtering his hips against hers as they catch their breath.

“I love you,” he manages to say between breaths, “that much.”

“You need to go,” she smiles.

He kisses her one last time before he pulls out, he loves the way she gasps every time he does so. She smiles after, their teeth clashing as they laugh, “I’m going to get in so much trouble.”

“I’m never going to get a job,” she shakes her head as she gets off the shelf and fixes her dress.

He takes off the condom and wraps it in some paper towel on the shelf, he’ll get rid of it later. She picks up her underwear, he thinks she puts them back on, but she really slides them into his pocket for him to find in the middle of the case when he reaches for something important...

—

She rides back to headquarters with Penelope and JJ, both of them want to ask and she knows it. Mainly because she looks like she’s had sex, and also because she asks to stop at the academy so she can get another pair of underwear from her locker.

It’s not until they’re in Penelope’s office that they ask, “what’s it like?”

“What’s what like?” She plays dumb.

“Dating Spencer?” Penelope says, “more specifically, having sex with him?” She mumbles and it makes Y/N laugh.

“In total, we’ve been having sex for 3 weeks now and I’ve had 21 orgasms, and we only really fuck on the weekends cause that’s when we’re not busy…” she grinds her teeth slightly with a raised brow, taking a deep breath, “yeah. It’s really great.”

“Holy shit?” They both look more shocked than she’s ever seen them. “How many has he had?” Penelope asks with a quiet voice, pretending she didn’t.

She laughs slightly, “like maybe 14? He’s really generous.”

“What the fuck?” JJ turns to Penelope and shakes her head and there’s something more there that Y/N can sense.

“Who’s Elle?” She asks and they both turn to her with the biggest eyes.

“How do you know about Elle?”

“She’s the first person he slept with?”

“When?” They both shout.

“So he wasn’t kidding. You guys really thought he was a virgin this whole time?” She looks at them like they’re crazy. “How?”

They both just shake their heads and sigh, stuttering and looking for words they don’t have. “We just never thought he could?”

“Snooze ya loose, I guess?” She shrugs, “so what is the case and how can I help?”

“Right! We have a case,” Penelope snaps back into it, “but seriously Elle? Are you sure you have your names right?”

“Penelope,” she looks at her seriously.

“Right, they’re headed to Roanoke.”

There was a child abduction of a 6-year-old girl, CARD and the BAU were both called out and that meant everyone was mingling on the two floors and they would use as much help as possible.

It also turns out that Anderson’s surrogate went into labour a little earlier than anyone expected; so he and his husband have left for paternity leave early. Leaving JJ without an assistant and she really needs help in the office for this one.

She catches on rather quickly, knowing the protocols from her training and she’s not afraid to ask questions. She’s still in her dress, her heels click on the tiles as she rushes around with files, making phone calls and running from the briefing room to Penelope’s office.

When they finally crack the case and apprehend the suspect, she sits down finally. It’s been 11 hours since the banquet, and she was exhausted beyond belief. She never slept the night before, Spencer was uncomfortable and she was in her jeans and when she did fall asleep, he was waking her up moments later to get ready.

It's Sunday morning at 9 am when Spencer finally returns back at headquarters. She’s sitting at his desk when he comes up and wraps his arms around her, “we’re going home, come on.”

“Don’t you have to debrief?”

“Did that on the way back,” he turns her around in the role chair and tilts her head up to look at him, she’s so tired and he can tell. “You have a big day tomorrow.”

“Ugh,” she stands up with his help, “I did enough profiling today and now I have a whole week to get through.”

“Just to come back and work here,” he smiles, “if you still want to?”

She wraps him up in a real hug and nods against him, “it’s so fun, even with all the murder.”

“Coming home to this is really nice,” he whispers before kissing her cheek quickly, “I’m glad you like it here.”

“Well, well, well,” Derek's voice is behind them. They pull away to see him smiling, arms wide as he saunters over, “if it isn’t the new romantics.”

“Did you have any suspicions?” Y/N asks, he was a profiler after all.

“I knew something was up,” he’s honest. “I knew you guys were actually doing stuff together, I just didn’t think there was so much angst behind closed doors?”

“You have no idea,” Y/N laughs, holding Spencer closer, “it took too long.”

“I thought you were fighting about the job, cause he wasn’t really upset until you were in Penelope’s office, and I heard the rumours even before he heard what you said,” Derek smiles again, “but I also knew you loved him and he loves you.”

“Correct,” she can’t help but smile. “But we really should head home.”

“Home we go,” Spencer agrees.

—

She asks him to unzip her dress the second they’re back in her apartment. She drops the dress to the floor and heads to the bathroom and he’s left alone in her room. It feels different now. He remembers kissing her in the living room for the first time like it was yesterday, he remembers the first time they had sex, the first time he said I love you, and now he’s here and she’s his girlfriend and he’s going to get to make more memories with her.

He’s so embarrassed by how much he’s been crying lately, something about being in his mid-30s was making him feel like he was about to go through menopause— he has never been very openly emotional, but it’s about time he lets himself feel. He wipes the tears and turns to face the wall while he takes his suit off.

He’s been through too much, a lot of which she doesn’t know of. She has promised him forever, whether she means it or not, and he’s worried he’s going to fuck it up before he gets there.

When she comes back, she lays a towel down on her side of the bed and gets in, “guess who got her period on her first day of work?”

“No?” He gasps, playing along with her playful mood. “At least you’re not pregnant.”

“Thank god,” she sighs, “please for the love of God, don’t get me pregnant for at least 5 years? I want a decent career first so that I don't miss much on maternity leave. I really don't want to be benched for having kids.”

He cries again and she looks so concerned as she gets out of bed and wraps her arms around him, “what did I say wrong, Spencer?”

Still facing the wall, he just lets it all out, “I’m sorry.”

“For what, sweetheart?” She attempts to soothe him by running her hands down his arms, “for crying or something else?”

“Crying,” he whispers and she turns him around then.

“Hey,” she looks up at him with the softest expression he’s ever seen, “you are allowed to have emotions, you are allowed to show them and ask for help and tell me when you need something. I’m not going to think you’re too much, or I can’t handle you or think of you as a burden. I know that’s how you feel because it’s how I fell, and we don’t need to go through that together.”

“I love you,” it’s the only thing that feels right to say.

“I love you,” she repeats it, “what made you cry?”

“Can we get in bed first?”

“Yeah, finish getting ready and then come tell me,” she whispers before reaching up and pressing a kiss to his lips.

He slips away to go to the bathroom, brushing his teeth and washing his face. He’s exhausted but he doesn’t want to miss any time with her. He hurries back to her side, getting into bed in his underwear and making sure both his phones are on the night table, charged and ready if they need him.

But until then, he belonged to her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep?” It’s the first thing he asks because he knows she has a big day tomorrow. “It can wait.”

“What’s that thing you say about intermittent sleep is actually better?”

“Don’t use my words against me, I do that so people don’t stop me from doing what I think I deserve,” he’s truthful. “I’m not going to ever lie or fib to you again. I hate myself, and if I don’t feel like I’ve done enough I won't sleep or eat sometimes.”

“I do that too,” she’s not proud, “are you trying to tell me you cried cause you’re hungry or tired?”

“No,” he smiles, “but thank you for asking for clarification, I like this new system.”

“Me too.”

“I cried because I really love you and I’m realizing this is all real and I’m going to get to make good memories with you, and when you said kids, even in a hypothetical sense, it made it feel real for me,” he whispers the words before pressing his lips together awkwardly.

She glows in the lap light like she did that first night, “it’s a weird concept, isn’t it? The future. At some point I’m going to have known you longer than anyone, one day we’ll have lived with each other longer than we’ve lived apart. We might be grandparents together one day? It’s all weird to think about.”

“Do you seriously want all that with me?” He’s asking because he has another question to ask right after.

“Yes, Spencer,” she laughs. “I really do.”

“Would you like to Marry me?”

“Seriously?” Her eyes widen and her jaw drops and he’s never seen her look this stunned before.

He nods, “my mom isn’t going to able to appreciate my wedding the longer I wait, and if you really mean it; I’d like to have a wedding with my mom there while she remembers me.”

“I know her birthday is coming up, but can we bring her here instead?”

“Why?”

“My parents decided to drive from Salam to here for my graduation and use the flight money on a nice Airbnb for the week. We should do it while they’re all here because I don’t know when they’d be able to come back,” she has had the same worries about her parents missing her life.

“I’ll ask my mom,” he smiles. “So we’re getting married?”

“in like a week,” she laughs, “oh fuck, how are we going to do that in a week?”

He rolls over and grabs his personal phone, he dials a number and she looks even more confused now.

“Hey Penelope, how fast can you plan a wedding?”

~

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New Romantics:

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[when-a-humble-bard]

what my heart just yearns to say

Word Count: 5575

summary: Jaskier’s a romantic at heart. So you would think he falls in love at first sight. But... when he falls in love with Geralt, he falls very, very slowly. Or, ten moments where Jaskier falls a little bit more in love with the Witcher, until he's really not sure when it started in the first place.

Warnings: hurt/comfort, fluff, injuries, vomiting, mentions of death, nonconsenual almost-groping by a patron, shipping lens on a canon scene, near-drowning, cursing (of course), first kisses, feelings confessions, Jaskier yearns so much oof

A/N: In which I continue to be amazed by the other creators in this fandom, inspired by them, and also wanted to further explore these two. I hope you enjoy it! A companion piece is in the planning stages already... Heh. Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine.

Read on AO3

...

I.

“They said it’s a water nymph?” Jaskier asks the Witcher one evening.

A fire crackles in front of them, sparks shooting up into the night sky. Stars peek between the breaks in the forest canopy above them. Geralt glances at the bard, then sighs and turns his attention back to the fire.

“That’s what they said.”

“But you don’t buy it,” Jaskier says. It’s not really a question. He can tell from Geralt’s tone.

Geralt’s lips press into a thin line. “Rusalki and some bruxae share a number of similarities in terms of appearance. The rusalki they described has pale skin and dark hair.”

Jaskier’s fingers twitch with the sudden desire to grab his notebook. “And… rusalki don’t look like that?”

“They can,” Geralt replies, glancing at him, “but so can bruxae. They also have similar tastes in prey.”

Jaskier purses his lips as he remembers what the townspeople had told them. “Men.”

Geralt nods. “Which is why you’re going to stay here with Roach tomorrow.”

Jaskier glances over towards the horse grazing a few yards away, then looks back at the Witcher. “So what’s the difference?”

He doesn’t know if the question tumbles past his lips because he’s genuinely curious about the answer or because he just really likes hearing Geralt talk. The Witcher’s subdued cadence was stubbornly persistent. Often when Jaskier made a concerted effort to engage Geralt in conversation, his responses were brief, clipped, and straightforward. A staccato drum against Jaskier’s lilting melody.

But apparently, Geralt was a fountain of willing knowledge when it came to monsters. And Jaskier could listen to him for hours.

Geralt’s brow quirks in surprise at the question. “To start with, bruxae are of the vampire family. They lure men to their death so that they may feed on their blood. Rusalki are, usually, much more amenable. They lure men to them for procreation, and rarely intend death.”

Jaskier’s brow furrows. “Which is why you think it’s not rusalki. You think it’s a bruxa.”

“Hm.”

Jaskier feels something twinge in his chest. “How do you kill a bruxa?” He tears his gaze towards the fire as he feels Geralt glance at him.

“They’re susceptible to silver, like most monsters. Igni is also useful. Bruxa tend to hunt in packs, so its unusual that the villagers here have only seen one.”

“Have you fought them before?”

“Yes.”

“Are you nervous? About tomorrow?”

A pause. “No.”

Jaskier huffs and offers a faint, uncertain smile. “That makes one of us.”

“I told you you’re not coming with me.”

“Yes, but that’s quite beside the point, isn’t it?” Because Jaskier isn’t nervous about himself.

Geralt’s head snaps over to the bard in surprise. “Jaskier—”

Jaskier waves him off. “So tell me, dear Witcher,” he says, because he just wants to hear Geralt talk as much as he can tonight. “Why does silver work so well on monsters?”

 II.

Jaskier watches him. The early spring air tugs gently at the loose strands of his white hair. Birds twitter happily in the canopy above them. The stream nearby is still. Mid-morning sunlight filters through the leaves and branches, leaving a mosaic of light around them.

Geralt breathes.

Kneeling in a patch of grass with his hands resting on his thighs, the Witcher has his eyes closed and just… breathes. Jaskier watches the steady rise and fall of his chest. The way it expands with each inhale, the way the ever-present tension in Geralt’s shoulders eases just the slightest bit with each exhale.

Jaskier knows he’s not asleep. Sleeping and meditating are different things. But he thinks that Geralt actually looks more peaceful like this. Jaskier had spent many nights in the bedroll near the Witcher and knew all too well that when Geralt slept, it was usually fitfully. But when he meditates like this…

Geralt is still.

Jaskier can’t help but feel like he’s getting a rare glimpse at who Geralt was—is—beneath the layers and layers of training and mutations. He knew Geralt didn’t regret what he went through to become a Witcher. At least… not exactly. Can you regret something that wasn’t your choice to begin with? Had been his rhetorical response when Jaskier had been brave enough to ask him one evening. But the bard knew that no amount of trials and training could erase the parts of Geralt that was still—sometimes painfully—human. Geralt held within himself a carefully balanced dichotomy that seemed, at least to Jaskier, to be a storm built on regret and guilt and (in his darker moments) self-loathing.

But watching Geralt meditate—the steady breath, the perfect stillness—makes the bard wonder if the storm metaphor isn’t quite accurate. Because really, when Jaskier thinks about it, Geralt’s humanity is perhaps more like the coastal waves. Relentlessly returning to the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

Jaskier watches Geralt meditate and feels something tighten in his chest. He’d follow that tide to the end of the earth, he realizes. He’d call the waves back to shore for as long as Geralt would let him.

Geralt’s eyes blink open and Jaskier unapologetically meets his gaze.

He arcs his eyebrow. “Composing, Bard?”

Jaskier offers a small, sincere smile. “Something like that.”

 III.

“I’d rethink that move.”

If he’s being honest, Jaskier is almost as surprised as the patron when Geralt seems to materialize out of the crowd and grab the man’s wrist in a vice-like grip. The man’s other hand is still fisted possessively in the waistband of Jaskier’s trousers, uncomfortably close to his crotch.

“What,” the patron spits with a sneer full of rotting teeth, “unwilling to share your whore, Butcher?”

Jaskier grimaces. Butcher made his skin crawl, and he knows that Geralt didn’t take kindly to that term either. The bard had learned that very early, and very quickly.

Geralt growls low in his throat, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Call him that again and I’ll slit your throat.”

The threat makes Jaskier freeze instinctively. Call him that again… Him.

As in Jaskier.

The patron roughly lets go of the bard, who stumbles a step from the suddenness of the motion but still hasn’t taken his eyes off Geralt. In truth, Jaskier really hadn’t been particularly bothered by the term itself. He’d been called it before, and been called much worse than that several hundred times over. But Geralt took issue with it, evidently.

Geralt was defending him. He’d never had someone who’d done that before. Not even his own family.

“Not worth it,” the patron says gruffly. Geralt releases him with a shove to send him stumbling away from Jaskier. He staggers a few steps, muttering something under his breath. Jaskier doesn’t hear it clearly—something about his voice and screaming as pretty as he sings—but Geralt evidently does hear it, quite clearly. Something bright and furious ignites in his gold eyes.

“Geralt,” he says quickly but quietly. “Let it go. It’s fine.”

For a moment, the Witcher looks torn. Jaskier places a hand on his forearm, and Geralt levels a withering gaze on the other man. He rushes through the crowd and out the tavern. It’s not until the door closes behind him that Geralt turns his attention back to the bard. The hot anger in his eyes evaporates slowly into something that Jaskier almost wants to call… soft. His gaze flickers—quick and calculating—over Jaskier’s form. Looking for signs of injury.

Geralt’s gaze meets his again in a silent question. Jaskier offers a reassuring smile and slight nod in answer. I’m okay.

Geralt shakes his head, but Jaskier doesn’t think he’s imagining the tinge of relief under the veil of exasperation. “You really ought to learn some self-defense, Jaskier.”

Jaskier offers an affronted scoff. “I can defend myself perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“Hmm.”

“I can! I’ll have you know, he is hardly the first over-enthusiastic fan I’ve dealt with.” Jaskier tries not to wince at the way Geralt’s expression darkens, and rushes of add, “And I’ve fended off unwanted advances just fine. He just happened to be particularly, ah, insistent.”

“Hm. And what happens when you can no longer talk your way out of such situations?”

Jaskier’s flippant smile wavers, then stays in place. “Are you offering to teach me, Geralt?” He’s mostly joking.

“Yes.” Geralt’s answer is immediate and unflinching. Jaskier tries not to think too long about why that sends a flutter through his stomach.

 IV.

The kitchen of the small house on the outskirts of the town has barely enough room for the three of them. Geralt, beside him, reeks of death and decay and monster guts. In front of them, the young boy—who couldn’t be older than 16 by Jaskier’s best guess—hoists his baby sister up further onto his hip.

“Truly, Witch—ah, Geralt?” At Geralt’s slight nod, the teen smiles. “Truly, Geralt. Thank you. I, um…” he trails off, turning to rifle through a drawer behind him. The middle sibling, a young boy of about six, runs around the corner and nearly barrels straights into the two of them in the entryway.

“Oi!” the teen snaps. “Slow down, will ya?”

“Sorry,” the younger boy mumbles, and then is off like a flash the moment Geralt takes a step to the left to let him through.

His brother watches him with a certain fond exasperation, even as embarrassment colors his cheeks. “Too much energy for his own good,” he says. Jaskier realizes then that he has a small pouch in the hand that isn’t supporting his baby sister’s weight. He extends it out to the Witcher. “It’s not much. Certainly not nearly enough for disposing of the monster that took our parents, but...”

Geralt shakes his head, making no move to take it. “No payment necessary.”

Jaskier glances at him and feels something unexpectedly soft warming in his chest.

“Please,” the teen says. “I insist.”

“Keep it.”

“My father taught me to never accept charity.”

Jaskier thinks of the empty cupboards around them in the kitchen and feels a small tug in his gut. He remembers all too well singing for literal scraps. Barely surviving. He knew desperate times. And he also knew that some people still ranked their pride higher. The bard figures he can’t really fault him for it, and besides, the poor kid had just lost the very father he’d spoken of. Grief did funny things to people.

Geralt stares at the boy for a long moment. Jaskier sees the tension work in his jaw before he holds a hand out and lets him deposit the coins into the outstretched palm. Twenty ducats fall from the piece of cloth.

“It’s all I have—” he begins apologetically.

“It’s plenty,” Geralt interrupts, folding his fingers over the paltry sum. It does not escape Jaskier’s attention that he doesn’t slip the coins into his own pouch.

The infant in the teen’s arms shifts and makes a distressed noise. “I… I should put her down for a nap, I think.”

Jaskier can hear the uncertainty in the boy’s voice and offers an encouraging smile. “We’ll see ourselves out. I’m sure a bit of rest is exactly what she needs. As a matter of fact, I could use a nap myself.”

Geralt rolls his eyes, but Jaskier sees the relieved smile pull at the boy’s mouth. “Right. Well… Thank you. Again. I… thank you.”

He disappears up the rickety wood stairs. On their way out, Jaskier sees Geralt discretely drop the ducats into a partially-opened drawer by the entrance to the kitchen.

That soft, warm feeling in Jaskier gives an aching, happy tug.

 V.

Jaskier watches, fascinated, as Geralt’s eye twitches. The music that fills the tavern is not coming from Jaskier, and while the other bard is clearly less experienced, Jaskier seems less bothered by the amateur display than the Witcher. Which is odd—really odd—to Jaskier. Because he had been certain that Geralt really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about music.

Jaskier looks at the Witcher over the top of his wine glass as he takes another sip. “What’s troubling you, Geralt?”

Geralt settles an irritated golden gaze onto Jaskier as the bard (the other one) starts another song. It takes only a few seconds for Jaskier to realize it’s the same simple, mundane chord progression and structure as the last song played. Jaskier doesn’t miss the way Geralt’s gaze flickers lightning quick to the lute beside him.

Jaskier stifles a grin. “Don’t tell me you’re already missing my serenades.”

Geralt isn’t looking back at him, instead watching the other bard parade around the room with a look that is very nearly a glare. “At least your songs have some… complexity.”

That sends a very unexpected surge of warmth through Jaskier’s chest. He sits up a bit more, leaning forward. “Musically or lyrically?”

“Music,” Geralt replies, almost absently. “The… chords?” The Witcher’s gaze flickers uncertainly to Jaskier, who can’t help but feel like he’s clinging to every word. He gives Geralt a slight, encouraging nod. Geralt shifts. “They’re better than this shit.”

Jaskier stares at him. Sure, the Witcher didn’t have the same musically-inclined vocabulary, but even that couldn’t hide the fact that Geralt listens to his music. Really listens.

Geralt tears his gaze away from Jaskier’s after a moment, taking a long pull of ale from the tankard in front of him. “Your lyrics,” he continues, “are little more than inaccurate stories.”

“Ah, my dear Witcher, ordinarily I would balk at such a baseless accusation—”

“It’s not baseless.”

“—but you cannot hide the fact any longer.” Jaskier cannot contain the grin that pulls at his lips any more than he can contain the surge of a warm, fluttery feeling in his chest. He points a finger at Geralt. “You listen to me.”

Geralt looks back at him and—though he knows Geralt would deny it—Jaskier swears he sees a twitch to the corner of his mouth. “Impossible not to,” Geralt replies dryly, “what with you filling every damn second with song.” He takes another swallow.

The thinly veiled deflection does nothing to diminish Jaskier’s smile. “And you like it.”

This time, Geralt can’t quite contain the tilt to the corner of his mouth. “Hmm.”

Jaskier knows it’s a hum of agreement.

 VI.

Jaskier’s heart still hasn’t stopped pounding, even though they’d finished the treacherous part of the shortcut around an hour ago. The image of Borch, Téa, and Véa plummeting—their bodies disappearing into the mountain mist below—still leaves Jaskier with a slight roll to his stomach and an ache in his bones that had nothing to do with the long day of foot travel.

It’s close to dusk. The chill of evening mountain air begins to stiffen the bard’s fingers as he sets his lute down beside his bedroll. The dwarves busy themselves with setting up camp and starting to prepare a meal, but Jaskier can’t help the way he keeps watching Geralt.

Geralt, who hadn’t said a thing since Borch let go of the chain.

Jaskier kneels by his bedroll and pretends to adjust it, but he watches the Witcher sitting on a boulder a few yards away. He gazes out over the jagged terrain off the cliffside. He is still. But Jaskier feels his chest knot with concern.

Geralt was perhaps the single most selfless person that Jaskier had met in his 40 years of living. But that came with its pitfalls too—especially as it related to how Geralt tended to view himself. There had always been splintered shards in Geralt’s soul that Jaskier didn’t know how to begin to dig out. But he can still picture the way Geralt had stayed kneeling for a moment on those wooden planks, his head bowed like the weight of the world had—for just a moment—dropped on top of him.

Jaskier fears he knows that body language, and the weighted silence that had followed that moment. He fears that his 22 years of traveling with the Witcher means that he really does know Geralt. And that Geralt feels that he has let them down somehow, despite all he did to try to save them. Even at great risk to himself, Jaskier remembers with a bit of a wince, hearing the creak of those boards under Geralt’s feet.

The Witcher could never catch a break, it seemed.

With a sigh, Jaskier stands and crosses to him. Geralt makes no move to acknowledge his presence, not really, but his stillness is a sign of recognition in and of itself. The bard sets himself carefully, gingerly, on the boulder beside him.

“You did your best,” Jaskier tells him softly, the words managing to push through his slightly tight throat. “There’s nothing else you could have done.”

Jaskier looks at Geralt as he says it. The Witcher had spent more years constructing a mask of passivity and stoicism than Jaskier had been alive, but the bard knows him. And when he sees Geralt’s gaze drop by a few degrees, he knows he’d been right about where Geralt’s thoughts had been.

Something in Jaskier’s chest pulses with an ache that he cannot name. Geralt has carried too much for too long and Jaskier desires fervently to ease that burden. To find a way to let Geralt breathe and be and exist without quite so much heaviness.

“Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow?” he offers, his fingers fidgeting in his lap against the sudden desire to take Geralt’s hand. “That is, if you’ll give me another chance to prove myself a… worthy travel companion.”

It’s a weak, flimsy attempt for a smile. Geralt doesn’t, but there’s just the slightest tug at the corner of his mouth when he hums in response. Geralt glances at him briefly, and though Jaskier doesn’t meet his gaze, that aching in his chest gives a sharp lurch with hope.

“We could head to the coast. Get away for a while,” he adds softly. He’d never said the words aloud before, but they resonate with a certain familiarity. “Sounds like something Borch would say, doesn’t it? ‘Life’s too short. Do what pleases you… while you can.’”

Jaskier swallows, setting his hands on his thighs because they are only getting more fidgety with each pulse of that sharp warmth in his chest—more insistent now. Harder to ignore.

“Composing your next song?” Geralt rumbles quietly.

Jaskier looks down at his hands. “No, I’m just, ah—” I love you, he thinks without daring to look at him. “Just trying to work out what pleases me.”

 VII.

They’re half a mile out of town when it starts to rain. The starting sprinkle lasts just long enough for Jaskier to think he’s glad he invested in a case for the lute before the sky opens up and it starts to pour. Then he’s also glad he bought some decent boots at the last town they were in.

“Fuck.” Jaskier knows that tone. Geralt is annoyed. The bard glances at the Witcher beside him, a faintly amused smile pulling at his lips and a teasing quip on his tongue, but… it dies on his tongue .

Because Geralt meets his gaze, and for a moment, Jaskier forgets how to breathe.

He doesn’t know why, really. The rain soaks Geralt’s white hair, causing some of it to fall into the man’s face in damp, loose strings. His dark shirt is quickly becoming plastered to his broad shoulders from the downpour, having left his armor to be cleaned during their quick trip to the woods to collect some medicinal herbs. Jaskier thinks it’s something about the Witcher’s eyes. Maybe it’s something to do with the way water droplets cling to his lashes. Or the way his golden eyes seem so much brighter in the downpour. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Jaskier is a man of many words and many metaphors. But he finds words failing him entirely now, and he can’t explain why. Except that he’s left with the sudden, clear sense that looking at Geralt feels a lot like being called home.

Geralt tilts his head slightly, the way he usually did when he was about to ask a question, but Jaskier blinks and jumps in before he can.

“And you thought the lute case was a poor investment. Well, how do you feel now, Geralt? We still have half a mile to go before shelter, and such time for a lute to spend in rain like this…” Jaskier shakes his head. “It would be nothing short of an absolute, irrevocable tragedy.”

“Hmm.” Geralt looks away from Jaskier then, squinting briefly up at the sky. Not squinting, Jaskier realizes after a beat. Glaring.

“Not a fan of the rain?” he asks, mostly rhetorical. Geralt rarely vocally complained—usually Jaskier did it enough for the both of them—but the slight crease between his brows is a familiar look of displeasure. Jaskier pulls the lute case off his shoulders and shrugs out of his doublet.

“It will make it harder to track—what are you doing?”

Jaskier rolls his eyes as he slings the lute case back around his shoulder. “You left your cloak back at the inn, and I know, though you will adamantly deny it, that the real reason you hate the rain is because it gets into your eyes and makes it harder for your sensitive, Witchery eyes to see. So, here.” He hands the purple doublet out to him, looking very pointedly down the road where they can just barely make out the silhouette of the edge of the town.

“Jaskier…” A hesitation. A surprisingly heavy one.

“Honestly, Geralt, you’ll be doing me a favor. Wet doublets are dreadfully heavy, and as I am already saddled with carrying the weight of this lute and your reputation…” Jaskier looks back at the Witcher then to flash him a smile.

Geralt stares at him for a long moment, then takes the garment. As he does so, Jaskier swears he sees a twitch to the corner of Geralt’s mouth.

The bard quickly spins around and rushes a few steps in front of him, arms outstretched to welcome the rainfall, feeling a little breathless again.

 VIII.

Jaskier jolts to awareness with a desperate, strangled gasp. Bile surges up his throat and he barely has the wherewithal to roll away from the person beside him—whose presence is more sensed than seen. Jaskier groans and shuts his eyes against the rolling nausea and the oddly briny taste it leaves in his mouth.

“Fuck,” he mutters, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. He feels a hand rest between his shoulder-blades, so gently it almost seems hesitant.

When Jaskier takes a breath, it trembles. More bile—salty and acrid—rushes up his throat. When the second round of nausea abates and the coughing that wracks his lungs eases, Jaskier feels something cool and smooth pushed against his lips. He instinctively jerks away.

“Damn it, Jaskier,” snaps a rumbling voice. It’s weirdly familiar, even if the strain in it sounds foreign to the bard’s ears. “There’s not—”

Whatever the voice was saying is drowned out by a beautiful, echoing melody. It whispers promises of safety and warmth and love, and something in Jaskier’s chest gives a near painful lurch towards the sound. It’s also not until then that Jaskier gets a sense of his surroundings: the lake in front of him, the grainy sand sticking to his sopping wet clothes, the slate gray overcast sky above him. There are ripples in the lake and that song is calling to him from the water.

Overcome, Jaskier scrambles towards it.

“Fuck—”

Something thick and heavy grabs around Jaskier’s torso and pulls him back. The bard’s back hits something solid and firm but Jaskier’s chest is still pulling, pulling, pulling towards the water, towards the song.

The cool, smooth thing is pressed to his lips again. Jaskier wrenches his head away. But then he can hear something, barely, rumbling like distant thunder beneath the lilting song.

“Drink it, Jaskier. Please.”

The “please” sounds… odd to him. Strained and choked.

Jaskier lets his lips part in response, and a cool liquid floods into his mouth. It tastes of honey and cotton, washing away the briny taste that had been lingering in his mouth. He swallows it down.

A second later, the song fades away. So does the sound of the lake and the dusk breeze brushing past his ears. Just… silence. Jaskier feels the pulling in his chest release and the bard nearly goes boneless from the sudden relief.

He blinks a few times as clarity starts to trickle back into his thoughts. He’d been… traveling. Tracking a siren, or a mutation of one anyway. Yes, that was right. But he’d been with someone. Specifically…

“Geralt?” he asks, his own voice sounding odd in his head with the rest of the world muted. He realizes as soon as the name leaves his lips that Geralt is the thing that’s holding him in place. Jaskier cranes his neck to look at the Witcher, who still hasn’t relaxed his grip. Bright gold eyes meet his blue ones, then flickers over his form with panicked speed.

The stoic, collected look the Witcher usually wore has splintered, just a bit, and Jaskier thinks he can see a glimpse through the cracks that Geralt is frantically trying to piece back together.

He’s… afraid, Jaskier thinks. Or he had been, a moment ago.

“I’m okay,” Jaskier tells him, if only because he has the feeling that maybe Geralt needs to hear it.

The Witcher doesn’t reply, instead swallowing thickly and sinking his head to where Jaskier’s neck meets his shoulder. And if Jaskier traces Geralt’s arm around him to find his hand and lace their fingers together, well. Geralt doesn’t seem to protest.

 IX.

Jaskier is about halfway through the song about the vampiress when the door to the tavern ricochets open with a loud crack. Geralt staggers a step into the room—and it’s the fact that he staggers that makes Jaskier stop mid-song. The Witcher’s entrance is less than graceful, but Jaskier watches closely as Geralt grits his teeth, straighten his spine, and step fully through the threshold. Geralt’s eyes flicker over the room like he’s looking for something, or someone—perhaps the woman who had hired him—when they settle on Jaskier.

Oh.

The bard gracefully, if quickly, jumps to his feet and slings the lute in his hands around his back. Geralt is hiding it now behind sharp eyes and a rigid posture, but something is wrong. Jaskier can tell.

“I hate to cut a performance short,” he says to the crowd as he maneuvers through them towards the Witcher, mostly in an effort to break the sudden silence in the room, “but alas, I must bid you all adieu for the evening. Geralt, shall we?”

Geralt doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even hum. But he follows Jaskier as the bard carves a path through the crowd towards the stairs. Jaskier flashes patrons reassuring smiles despite the way his own throat is tightening with concern.

They make it to the room—barely—before Geralt’s steps falter again. Jaskier steadies him by grabbing his arm and bracing a hand against Geralt’s chest.

“Easy,” he says softly.

“Fuck.”

“Here. Let’s get you sitting before you end up face-first on the floor, because if that happens then we’re both out of luck because—Melitele’s tits—” Jaskier yelps  when he staggers for a second under Geralt’s sudden weight. “Okay. I’ve got you. Here we go.”

Jaskier is rambling as they cross the small room to the bed. He helps Geralt sit, kneeling in front of him as the Witcher sinks to the edge of the mattress. Geralt grimaces tightly and pitches forward into the bard, his head landing on Jaskier’s shoulder. His weight sinks a bit more, as if too weary to pull away. This close, Jaskier can feel the echoes of faint tremors wracking through his body.

Jaskier swallows the rising panic down. “Potions?” he asks in as level of a voice as he can manage.

“Out,” Geralt answers. “The venom isn’t lethal just—” Another shudder and a tight grunt. “—hurts like a fucking bitch.”

Jaskier releases a faint breath. He supposes he should feel relieved that it’s not lethal, but he can’t help that the tightness in his throat doesn’t quite ease. “What can I do?” he asks, because of all the things Geralt could have done and all the places he could have gone, he chose to find Jaskier when in immense pain. He wants to live up to that display of open trust.

He feels Geralt fist a hand in his shirt. “Just… stay.”

“My dear Witcher,” Jaskier says thickly, and if his voice breaks just a little, at least Geralt doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 X.

Jaskier doesn’t think about it. He sees the mage thrust a hand out in Geralt’s direction when the Witcher’s back is turned and Jaskier lunges on nothing but instinct and the acrid taste of fear on his tongue.

A bolt of sharp green slams into his chest. Something cracks when Jaskier hits the forest floor, something that the bard doesn’t think is magic. His head snaps against the ground, his vision swimming. Heat and sharpness tears through his chest.

Someone screams. Maybe it’s Jaskier. He thinks he hears his name shouted, but it sounds far away.

He is drowning. Can you drown without water?

The bard gasps, desperately, searching for air that he can’t seem to drag into his burning, burning, burning lungs.

His eyes sting. He doesn’t know how much time passes.

There’s a hand on his shoulder—and Jaskier tries very hard to let that tug him from his haze of thoughts. When the hand pulls at him, rolling him onto his back, Jaskier can’t quite contain the choked whimper that releases in the back of his throat. He grimaces, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Jaskier.”

He definitely knows that voice. Jaskier blinks his eyes open, setting squarely on Geralt above him. It occurs to him that he’s never seen Geralt’s eyes quite so wide.

“Fuck,” Jaskier wheezes. He grimaces again. Is he dying? He doesn’t know.

“What the fuck were you thinking, you goddamn idiot?”

“My dear Witcher,” Jaskier replies, pretending he doesn’t notice the way Geralt’s voice very nearly breaks. Jaskier voice is tight with pain—his lungs are throbbing—but soft. Unapologetic. “You’re quite lucky I love you, or else I might be insulted.”

He’d never said those words aloud before—I love you—but he means them. He thinks perhaps he’s meant them for quite a long time. Long before even the thought had occurred to him on that mountain all those years ago.

And he thinks Geralt knows this, from the way his eyes widen, and then his whole expression crumples.

“Jask,” he says, a hand cupping the bard’s jaw, his thumb skimming Jaskier’s cheekbone. “You can’t—you… fuck.”

Jaskier takes a breath to reply but cuts off with a wince at the sharp jolt it sends spiking up through his ribs. But he realizes then that the burning in his lungs is easing—gradually, but quickly—and the bard’s next exhale trembles with relief, even as his vision blurs with tears. Whatever spell the mage had sent at Geralt, it seems like one meant to briefly incapacitate and not kill outright. With a quiet grunt of effort, Jaskier presses a hand against the wet leaves beneath him and pushes to sit up.

Geralt looks startled, but he helps nonetheless. The hand on Jaskier’s jaw slips back to cup the back of his neck and the other grabs his free hand to ease him up. The bard sees Geralt’s gaze flicker over his form.

Jaskier tosses him a shaky, wan smile. “Not a lethal spell, it would seem.”

“You didn’t know that,” Geralt snaps, like that should have made a difference in Jaskier’s decision to jump in front of it.

“A moot point, really, Geralt.”

Something bright and pained flickers through Geralt’s gaze. He takes a breath as if to reply, then stops. A crease appears between his brows a second later. “You’re still hurt.”

“Some broken ribs,” Jaskier replies dismissively. The fact that Geralt is still gripping him like he’s afraid Jaskier might just dissolve into smoke in front of him doesn’t escape the bard’s attention.

“Hmm.” He sees Geralt swallow. Watches the way his pupils flicker over the bard’s chest and refuses to meet his eyes.

“Geralt.” The gaze snaps to his own, wide and splintering. Jaskier takes a shallow breath, his gaze as steady as the words that leave his lips. “I meant it, you know. I do. Love you, I mean.”

Though Jaskier can’t be sure—his ears are still ringing a bit—he thinks he hears Geralt’s breath catch.

“Jaskier,” he says, and the bard doesn’t know why his name sounds choked in Geralt’s throat. The Witcher leans forward until his forehead rests against Jaskier’s, and he’s clutching the bard’s hand to his chest like it’s a lifeline. “I… fuck. Fuck.”

And then Jaskier feels Geralt’s lips brush against his own—soft and careful, warm and asking. And Jaskier kisses him back with answers and promises on the edge of his lips.

It feels like coming home.

[foursideharmony]

The Cat, the Prince, and the Doorway to Imagination (Chapter 7)

Summary: The final confrontation with the wicked White Warlock!

Pairings: Platonic/familial LAMP/CALM, Platonic/familial DLAMPR

Content Warnings: More Remus being Remus. Violence and threats of violence. Someone slowly being covered in ice.

Word Count: 3,675

Read on AO3: here

“Huh,” Remus said, apparently lost for words (which was unusual in itself). “So now what?”

Janus blinked. “I'm not sure.”

“Which means you are sure, right?” Remus said with a great big wink.

Before Janus could explain for the umpteenth time that it wasn't that simple (and never had been), there came a loud growling sound from nearby, and something huge and brown came crashing out of the brush and charged them. Janus barely managed to dive out of the way of what he quickly realized was an entire bear. Remus, always a big believer in the principle that the best defense is a good offense, dodged it by leaping straight up, and used the momentum of his downward arc to add force to a massive swing of his morningstar. The blow knocked the beast off its feet, and it threw great arcs of snow into the air as it skidded to a stop.

“That was fun!” Remus declared, resting the weapon on his shoulder. “Hey, want me to skin it for you? A nice bearskin rug will keep you warm so you don't have to crawl under a rotting log to hibernate!”

Janus had no time to muse upon how accurately he had predicted Remus's behavior, because a motion at the corner of his eye told him that the bear was not totally out of play yet. It was made of far sterner stuff than the dwarf had been and had only been stunned by the blow, and was now shaking itself awake. But rather than lunging at them again, or even fleeing back into the trees, it hoisted itself into a sitting position, clutched at its head with its paws, and began to whimper.

“Oh, stop it!” Remus said petulantly. “You attacked us, remember? Roman calls me violent, but I would just like to point out that so far, 100% of the creatures from this winter wonderland of his have tried to kill us!”

Much to Janus's surprise (though perhaps it shouldn't have been), the bear pivoted on its rump and said: “I was only protecting Mr. Logan!”

Janus smiled...now this was a situation he could deal with. He stepped forward, made Remus silence himself just to be on the safe side, and said, “Why, we would never harm Logan! We're some of his closest friends, after all!”

Still rubbing its—his—head with one paw, the bear rolled around until it was standing on the other three. “Then sirs, you must be the help he sent for!”

“We are! We got his message! But alas, it seems we were too late to prevent this.” Janus gestured at the crystallized Logan.

“It's not your fault, sir,” said the bear. “I was supposed to protect him from the White Warlock. And now I've got to go back and tell the others what happened.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea. But first, why don't you tell...” Janus trailed off, realizing the Remus—still silenced—was jumping up and down behind him and frantically waving his free hand. He released him. “Yes, what is it?”

“I know what this is!” Remus said gleefully. “Roman's gone and recreated the first Narnia book!”

“I never realized you were...into that sort of thing.”

“Are you kidding? With all the descriptions of war and violence and disturbing religious subtext? Not to mention a happy ending where everyone dies! What's not to love?”

“Even after all these years, you still retain the capacity to surprise me, Remus. However, I doubt the same aspects are what holds appeal for your brother, so try not to get too excited.” Janus turned back to the bear. “As I was saying, I think it might be a good idea for you to tell us what happened here. Who did this to Logan?”

“The White Warlock, of course, sir!”

“A warlock instead of a witch?” said Remus. “That's a new one...Roman usually loves fighting witches. He has this one recurring antagonist, the Dra—”

“Yes, Remus, we are all aware of the Dragon Witch.”

“Begging your pardon, sirs, but I think this Roman of yours is the White Warlock. That's the name the others called him back at the Stone Table.”

Remus did a spit-take. He hadn't been drinking anything, of course, but it was hardly beyond his capabilities (or his inclination) to generate something within his mouth entirely for the purpose of spitting it out. It looked like used motor oil. “Roman made himself the bad guy? That's definitely a new one!” He was grinning, but it was a rather fixed grin, and his eyes darted around under a furrowed brow.

“You said you were going back to the others,” Janus said to the bear. “Take us with you.”

Virgil, for once, felt genuinely useful: He had volunteered for the first watch of the night. Hushwing the Owl had shown him a tree he could climb from which he could scan the entire western and southern approach to the hill. It was a clear night and the moon was pretty close to full, and its light turned the snow into a stark bluish canvas against which any sort of moving shadow was plainly visible. Thus, as the ten o'clock hour approached and a large shuffling shape emerged from the trees to the west, Virgil looked not directly at it but at the silhouette it cast on the ground. It was definitely a bear and definitely had riders, one of whom was wearing a bowler hat. Good enough, even with the odd distortion of light and shade that seemed to sit between the forms of the two humans. He made the hooting call Hushwing had taught him which meant “Friendly approaching” and clambered down from his perch in order to go glower at Janus.

The climb took longer than he would have liked in the dark, and by the time he got back to the crown of the hill, the party had already arrived and was being greeted and offered blankets and a bit of warmed-over stew. Stoutpaws had apparently collapsed and fallen asleep right there on the hilltop...as Virgil supposed he would, after an entire day of running. Janus (ugh) was being helped over to the rebuilt campfire. And Logan...

Someone lunged at Virgil. Flight won, as it usually did, and he skittered backward several steps, only to realize that it was Patton he was flinching away from, and Patton was crying. “Shit...sorry...startled...” he mumbled, opening his arms and letting the Moral Side fling himself into them. He was shaking with sobs. “Patton...what happened?”

“R-R-Roman d-did something awful t-to Logan!”

The cluster of Narnians seeing to the arriving group parted. At first, Virgil couldn't tell what he was looking it—the object was translucent and oddly shaped, and moonlight and torchlight played over its surface and through its interior in ways that prevented him from focusing on its edges...until a chance flicker brought the details into clarity.

His head swimming, his thoughts useless, Virgil slipped from Patton's arms and dropped to his knees. He couldn't stop staring at it.

At Logan, frozen in crystal.

A murder . He was looking at a murder.

“Hell of a thing, isn't it?” said a screeching voice behind him. It was the sort of thing that ordinarily would provoke an instant reaction in Virgil (and that voice in particular would give a huge boost to Fight), but he was just too stunned. “As soon as Janus warms up enough that he's not going to drop off into a snake-coma, we'll all sit down and work out what to do about it. I can't wait to tell all of you my idea!”

Something in Virgil's brain finally lurched into motion, but all he could manage was a half-hearted glare back over his shoulder and a mumbled “What are you doing here?”

“Well, la-dee-dah, Panic-Depressive, I didn't know Thomas's Creativity needed permission to visit the Imagination.”

Virgil decided—to the extent that he was capable of deciding anything in the moment—that he could only cope with one atrocity at a time. He brushed Remus off and turned back to Patton. “Are you okay?” Patton shook his head emphatically. “Yeah, okay, dumb question.” In a way, Virgil was grateful for Remus's presence, since severe annoyance was usually a pretty strong barrier between himself and panic. “Let's...just...gather around the fire, so we can get our discussion going the instant De—Janus is up to it.”

They did. Janus sat on a boulder less than a yard from the fire, gazing rather glassily at it. The Narnians had given him a dark woolen cloak, and he had been engaged in an unsettlingly animalistic ritual: alternately spreading the cloth wide like wings, catching heat from the flames, and then wrapping it around himself to absorb the warmth. He glanced up, more or less, as the others approached. “So I assume you've all been made aware of the depths of depravity to which our dear Roman has sunk in his quest for...whatever it is he's questing for these days.”

“Roman's not depraved!” Patton said in a tone that suggested he had expected the accusation. He took his own seat across from Janus. “He's just...I don't know what exactly is going on with him right now, but he's not depraved!”

“Patton...” Virgil said, choosing to remain standing for the time being, “...he turned Logan into stone. There's no way to sugar-coat that.”

“It could have been an accident!”

“Patton...”

“It could have! He made a point of sparing Muricata's tree! I can't square that with the idea of him doing that to one of us on purpose!”

“Pat, listen. This?” Virgil mimicked the Logan-statue's outflung arm. “Is a defensive posture.” He started pacing. “Which means he saw it coming. Which means Roman telegraphed that he was going to do it, which means it was on purpose.”

Patton's eyes started to well up again. “I just wish I knew why,” he said.

“We'll be sure to ask him when he comes here to kill the rest of us in the morning,” Virgil said, rolling his eyes. “Who knows? He might even answer. The more important question is what to do about it. Can we change Logan back?”

“Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! I have an idea!” said Remus, who had been watching the argument between Patton and Virgil with the glee of an obsessive tennis fan. “When he shows up tomorrow to kill us all, I sneak up behind him and clonk him on the head! Once he's knocked out, primary control of the Imagination will automatically pass to me! Then I can make this story go my way, and I guess you can hash out your issues with Roman afterward or whatever.”

There was dead silence for a moment. Then Janus shifted in his cloak. “Let's make that Plan...” He started counting silently on his fingers, and manifested a few more hands to get to the number he wanted. “X. Plan X.”

“Can we make it Plan Triple-X?” Remus said, waggling his eyebrows.

“If we reach that level of desperation, I'm sure we'll be happy to let you do just whatever you want,” said the Dishonest Side. “In the meantime...something less drastic first, perhaps?”

“Logan's original plan,” Virgil said cautiously, “was to let Roman catch sight of you, hoping that it would shock him out of this downward villainy spiral he's stuck in.”

Janus looked taken aback for a split second, almost like a micro-flinch. “Well...” he said after a beat, “...far be it from me to question the soundness of one of Logan's ideas...” He let the end of the sentence hang in the air like an icicle.

Remus lost interest in the conversation and began searching the area for things to put in the fire.

“If it makes you feel any better, Scales, I was against the whole thing,” said Virgil. “But you're here now, and it's not like we have any other ideas.”

“Well, as long as I have your vote of confidence I know we'll do just swimmingly.”

Remus dropped a pine cone on the fire and giggled as it ignited with a series of explosive pops.

“H-hey, guys,” Patton said with a slight quaver. “Stop sniping at each other. This isn't about you two. It's about...well, all of us, really.” He swallowed, and when he continued his voice was stronger, more authoritative. “It's about Roman, and because it's about him it's about our whole family. We have to cooperate. Now then, Janus, if you're skeptical of Logan's plan, why don't you tell us why so we can figure out something else?”

Janus did his very best impression of a deer in headlights for a moment. Then he recovered his composure, cleared his throat, and said “I may have been exaggerating. Am I correct in thinking that the idea is to show Roman his idea of a villain so he presumably stops trying to be one?”

“Something like that,” Virgil mumbled.

Emboldened, Remus stuck a twiggy branch in the fire until it lit up and waved it in the air like a pennant.

“That's hardly a kind view of me,” Janus continued, “but I've heard of worse stratagems. Might I suggest a few...refinements?”

“Guess we can't stop you.”

“Virgil, be nice! We'd love to get your input, Janus.”

“Thank you, Patton. Remus! Pay attention; this concerns you as well.”

Remus, who had been on the point of touching the burning branch to his own hair, tossed it aside and plunked down onto a log, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands cupping his face. “Fire away, Jay-jay!”

Janus took a medium-long look at the ensorceled Logan, and began.

Dawn came all too early and with it, the bellow of a war horn. Startled awake, the Sides lurched to pull on clothes and scrambled out of the hillside shelter to see what they were up against.

At their previous meeting, Roman had been accompanied by an entourage. This time...he had brought an army. Perhaps five thousand strong, they massed around the foot of the hill, blocking off any retreat except by air...and the presence of Dwarven archers among the ranks ensured that any creature attempting to escape via flight would fail as well. The good Narnians, outnumbered nearly two hundred to one, clustered at the crown of the hill, facing grimly outward and wondering when the charge would come. The Sides stayed near the middle of the group at first, protected and almost entirely screened from view.

Roman, almost too brilliant to look at in his snow-white suit and icy jewels, detached himself from his throng and marched up toward them. “Showtime,” Janus muttered.

“Yesterday,” the self-styled King of Narnia proclaimed, “we issued an ultimatum to this company here assembled. Now we return to hear your decision and respond to it. Do you or do you not swear fealty to the Crown of Narnia?”

The Narnians, per the plan, stood firm and did not speak.

“We asked for your reply!” Roman snarled. “Where are my fellows? Have they abandoned you?”

“No, we haven't!” Patton said. The Narnians stood aside to let him through, followed by Virgil...and Logan. “And we're not surrendering either! You've taken things way too far, Roman, and it is not okay!”

Roman said nothing, staring dumbfounded at Logan. “You seem surprised to see me in my current condition,” said the Logical Side. “Your enchantment wore off after what I have calculated to be two hours, forty-seven minutes, and eleven point three four seconds.”

“That's impossible!” Roman shouted. “The transformation is permanent until counteracted!”

“Perhaps your control over the Imagination is not as absolute as you have heretofore assumed. Patton believes...actually, I will allow him to explain. Patton?”

“It's because you're abandoning your calling, Roman! Thomas doesn't want a wicked Creativity! Hurting your own creations for the sake of a story is one thing, but hurting us? You're turning into something that Thomas would never allow to be in charge of his Imagination!”

“Yeah, and it's really throwing a wrench into my plans!” said Remus, suddenly springing out of the crowd to Roman's shock. “What are you doing , bro? You can't be the evil twin! Because then I have to be the good twin, and I can't go shaving my mustache now! I just got it the way I want it! I don't even know how to be good!”

“You—! What are you all playing at?” Roman said, backing away slightly. He leveled a scandalized finger at Remus. “Working with him ...this is exactly why...but never mind. You will surrender to me—all of you!—or none of these foolish creatures you have befriended will survive the day!”

“I know you don't mean that,” Patton said softly “You didn't even really kill the Dryad's tree yesterday. You want to be the hero, Roman. So be the hero . Take off that crown, put down the wand, and let's talk.”

Roman's face became pensive. He was considering...no, he was listening for something, and then he stepped forward again. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?” he said. The wand swished through the air. The other Sides shouted in alarm, but no one turned to stone. Patton, however, wobbled, his feet literally frozen to the ground in a thick coating of ice.

The ice began to creep up his legs.

“Surrender,” Roman hissed. “Swear fealty to your King. Or watch him freeze.”

“Guys...” Virgil said.

Someone began to clap slowly, but the claps were muffled as if by gloves. Which was exactly the case. “Oh, bra-vo, Roman,” said Janus, dropping the Logan illusion. “You're finally doing for yourself. Using your power to take what you want. I couldn't be prouder.”

“You!” Roman gawked, even more appalled than he had been at Remus's presence. Then his face split in a grin of triumph. “Ha! I knew my enchantment hadn't worn off! Now will you yield to me, or stand by while Patton suffers a similar fate?”

“Yes!” Janus said with the merest hint of a hiss. “That's just the way! Show them all what you are capable of when slighted!”

“Shut up!” Roman said, and for the first time, his rapidly twitching expressions lighted on uncertainty . “Your input is not welcome here!”

“Clearly not; why I daresay you've supplanted me and Remus both with your villainy.”

“I said shut up!”

“Roman...” said Patton as the ice slithered up toward his hips, “...why are you doing this?”

“BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS TO!” Roman wailed. “Because you and Thomas lost all perspective...you invited him to the table...and all I wanted was a simple adventure where I knew who the bad guy was...and then it turned out to be me ! Even the Imagination started pushing me out of the hero role!”

“Pushing you!” Patton repeated. “So you don't want this!”

“And now you're even working with Remus! You'd rather have him on your side than...than...”

Remus made a loud scoffing noise. “Dream on, bro! For your information, I invited myself! They wouldn't have let me stick around if you weren't acting worse than me! Think about that , why don't you!”

“Roman, darling,” said Janus, approaching slowly with his hands up in a gesture of appeasement, “what makes you think anyone has to be the villain?”

“Every story needs a bad guy,” Roman insisted, backing away.

“That's not true,” said Patton, a mite breathlessly as the ice began to squeeze his chest. “What about all those stories where the conflict comes from misunderstanding? I think that's what's happening here. You're not understanding us or we're not understanding you or both.”

“Look, man, I get it,” Virgil offered, though his calm tone was belied by the constant reverberation of the Tempest Tongue. “I know what it feels like to think you have to be the bad guy. This is me, right? But we got over that, and we can get through this too. Take the enchantments off Patton and Logan and let's all figure it out together. You said yourself stories in the Imagination can take on a life of their own. That doesn't mean they're always telling the truth.”

“But, you know,” said Janus, examining his fingertips. “Your choice, Your Majesty.”

Roman looked from Virgil, to Patton (iced up to his neck) to Remus and Janus, to the whole of Narnia around them. His face twisted up into a terrifying snarl and he stalked forward once again. He raised his wand. Virgil put himself between Roman and Patton (not that there was much more that could be done to the Moral Side), but when he was only feet away from them, Roman suddenly flung his crown to the ground with a shrieking sob and brought the wand down on it. And in an instant, the wand was his sword (and always had been, they realized) and the blade struck the large diamond, shattering it into a thousand shards of ice.

Golden mist rose out of the splintered gem, coiling and flowing, and washed over Roman from his feet up. As it went, it dragged a second mist, bluish-silver, out of him as if plucking hairs by the roots. Roman cried out in pain as the power of the White Witch was scrubbed out of him by the power of Aslan. Both mists spun around each other until they reached a height of several yards, at which point there was a soft explosion and they rocketed away from each other. The Witch's power soared off in a northerly direction, while the Lion's made an arc and landed in the woods nearby.

The ice covering Patton fractured away, and he sagged in relief. “Roman...?” he said.

The Prince turned a plaintive look on him before collapsing to the snow.

[secret-engima]

Today in “SE works through the Chuunin Exam Arc and gets increasingly incredulous over how a show so beloved can have so many GAPING PLOT HOLES and also wow you can actually tell when the animators were getting paid to be enthusiastic or not can’t you”:

1. Sarutobi why did it take you so long to realize that the stadium and village were under attack.

2. Sarutobi why did you let Orochimoron take you hostage for even a hot second KAWARIMI IS A LITERAL ACADEMY BASIC TECHNIQUE JUST SWAP OUT WITH A NEARBY TILE YOU IDIOT I’VE SEEN IT DONE BEFORE FROM THAT CLOSE RANGE. KAKASHI DID IT. SO CAN YOU.

3. Sarutobi I don’t want to say you DESERVE to be trapped in a giant purple death box with your failed student and two dead guys trying to kill you but honestly you deserve to be trapped in a giant purple death box with your failed student and two dead guys trying to kill you.

4. Anbu. My guys. My dudes. I KNOW that the barrier is deadly and made of horrible purple fire and you can’t jump in but like- the barrier holders are right there. Wasting chakra to make an extra barrier around themselves. The barrier protecting them can’t be that thick. You have these lovely things call FLAME RESISTANT STEEL SWORDS you could be using to try to crack open the barrier. Or if you were REALLY smart you could, I don’t know, TUNNEL UP THROUGH THE CEILING??? The barrier is just a box that’s been turned upside down, there is no sign of a barrier floor underneath the tiles and even if there is you guys could have checked. You don’t need to just- sit there. Watching an old man, two dead guys, and a snake wearing makeup beat each other up.

5. Who let Kakashi make the plan. Why did Kakashi decide that it would be better to send the civilian girl he hasn’t bothered to train, the loud blond who he also hasn’t bothered to train, and the boy who tried to fake sleep to get out of helping go alone with just a tiny pug as escort. There were other genin RIGHT THERE who could both help AND be conveniently out of the line of fire in Kakashi’s fight. He was sending them after Sasuke, who was chasing three genin we’ve already seen wipe the FLOOR with the average genin. Having more numbers would be HIGHLY ADVANTAGEOUS.

6. And don’t tell me “he did it because Stealth” he sent the girl with bubblegum hair and the boy in neon orange out there, stealth is a non-factor and also it’s AN INVASION, nobody is going to care about a bunch of wacky kids running by they’re too busy trying not to die to the blur of green spandex that is Gai.

7. Where is Lee in all this anyway he just kinda vanished from the screen. Or was he passed out on the floor and I just missed him. I know he can’t fight, I just wanna know if he’s okay.

8. Was it bad that I didn’t know Asuma could actually fight? I knew he was one of the Guardian Twelve or whatever but mostly fans only talk about him getting owned by Itachi or murdered by Hidan so I guess I just assumed he was ... kinda a sucky fighter. I have been proven wrong. Nice job saving your deer boy, Asuma, I’m impressed.

9. There’s an actual budget for the Hokage fight? Nice. Also who gave Sarutobi the right to actually be cool NOW when he’s been acting senile for the past 10+ episodes excuse you.

10. EXCUSE YOU SARUTOBI YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE EPIC FEELS-INDUCING SPEECHES ABOUT THE WILL OF FIRE AND THE VILLAGE AS YOUR FAMILY, NOT WHEN YOU HAVE FAILED ON BOTH THOSE ASPECTS SO HARD.

11. How dare you make me regret your impending death even a little bit Sarutobi. How dare.

12. There’s a monkey king? That’s an actual THING? I mean I knew there was a monkey king but I didn’t expect him to be so amazing. Now if he would just stop waiting for Sarutobi to grow a spine (because we all know he won’t) and actually kick Orochimaru while the snake was distracted taunting his old sensei maybe we’d actually get somewhere with this show.

13. Seriously Monkey King you turn into a adamantine pole or whatever that can change shape and size, just play dead on the ground for a minute then expand and extend to the size and length of a tree. You don’t even have to do any damage yourself you just have to shove him/wack him into his own barrier and let him go up in flames. It probably won’t kill him, since Plot and also Orochimoron, but hey at least it will do damage and distract him for a few seconds.

14. Turning to Naruto real quick because clearly Sarutobi’s Senile Damsel Syndrome is contagious- Naruto. You are an Uzumaki. You have so much chakra you can barely do chakra control exercises. I know you’re tired from the Neji fight, but I ALSO know via fandom that you’re going to summon a freaking Boss Summon in a few episodes. When Shikamaru says “someone needs to stay behind and be a diversion” why didn’t you, I don’t know, SPAM A FEW SHADOW CLONES? You didn’t even have to use only shadow clones for the diversion, you could have just dropped off a few to help out Shika in his rare moment of self-sacrifice. Half a dozen screaming orange genin would go such a long way in providing a distraction so Shika could make a plan (may I suggest, catch the sound ninja in shadow possession and then have the Naruto’s slit their throats before their ninth member has a chance to catch up?). But no. We can’t possibly spam clones the one time a comrade could find them terribly useful, let’s go back to running through the trees worrying about the boy who knows an A-Rank assassination jutsu and would be totally fine surviving on his own for another several episodes of dialogue and reaction shots ten minutes.

15. Where the ACTUAL freak is Jiraiya. He came to Konoha specifically because he heard Orochimaru was planning something. There is an INVASION HAPPENING. GIANT SNAKES. BUSTING DOWN THE WALL. ENEMY NINJA EVERYWHERE. YOUR SENSEI IS TRAPPED IN A BARRIER JUTSU WITH THE GUY YOU SPECIFICALLY CAME HERE TO LOOK FOR. You don’t suppose you could leave your drinks and women and pity party long enough to- I don’t know- HELP? I mean I know it would be hard for someone who has such niche skills like SUMMONING GIANT TOADS and USING FUUNJUTSU THAT COULD PROBABLY BREAK THE BARRIER YOUR SENSEI IS TRAPPED IN but come on man, put forth a little effort.

Maybe you show up in a later episode miraculously doing something important to help stop the invasion, who knows.

Pros of this arc tho:

1. When they decide to actually use their animation budget THEY REALLY GO FOR IT. The fights that have a budget are epic.

2. Sakura got to be useful! For 20 seconds! She fended off a genjutsu and woke up Naruto and told him what was going on! That counts as useful! *devolves into sobbing because why are the girl characters not allowed to be both good guys AND competent onscreen*

3. I genuinely cheered when Asuma swooped in to save Shika. That was cool.

4. Some of the exam fight bits were cool. Naruto vs Neji dragged on a bit but the ending tactic was as rewarding as I’d hoped it would be from reading about it in the fandom. Also I really enjoyed the Shikamaru vs Temari fight. A-tier victory from the resident Deer Boi.

5. Sasuke using Chidori first time on screen was cool, and even though I’d read about it ahead of time, Gaara wigging out over seeing his own blood genuinely startled me.

6. I was glad to see that Sasuke still remembers how to use other jutsu than Chidori. When Temari started fighting him I was afraid the show writers would forget he HAD any jutsu other than Chidori tbh. Like Naruto and his many versions of the same jutsu (see: all the clone spam variations, all the harem jutsu variations, and all the many MANY different rasengan variations).

[infinites-chaser]

under a golden sun | mlqc | gavin/mc | 2nd person POV | bittersweet fluff

spoilers for gavin’s campus date and his unreleased basketball date 

You and Gavin spend the summer together alongside Minor and his new obsession with basketball.

(Somehow, the summer breeze feels cooler when Gavin's nearby.)

The sun is low and golden by the time you and Gavin leave Loveland High. He’s about to make his way to the parking lot when you put a hand on his arm.

“Wait,” you say. “There’s one more place I want to visit before we go.”

There’s a basketball court a little behind the school, across the campus from the track. Beside it, always shielding half from the sun, stands an old ginkgo tree.

The you from seven years ago, and Minor, and later, Gavin, pass it every afternoon on the walk home after school. Every afternoon, Minor lingers outside it until the ginkgo tree’s shadow covers nearly three-quarters of the court, gripping the chain-link fence and swearing he’ll join the NBA one day, if only for Steph Curry.

You, already used to this routine, patiently remind him of the homework you two should be starting on soon.

But then Gavin starts walking back with you, and your easy-going two becomes an awkward three. When Minor stops to stare at the court, Gavin asks you why. It’s probably one of the first times he’s ever addressed you directly, and you stiffen, just a little, under his hard amber gaze.

“He wants to join the NBA?” Your nervousness turns the answer into a question.

“I see.”

Gavin scoffs a little, and the conversation’s over.

You pout when his eyes leave yours-- you don’t want to make trouble, he’s well, famous, for a reason or maybe two (his fists) and you’d rather not be on the opposite end of those anytime soon, no matter how much Minor clearly idolizes him.

(Thinking back to when you first met him, you really had no idea he’d have such an impact on your life.)

The first time Minor invites you out to play basketball with him, when you get to the court behind Loveland High, you nearly turn and run. Gavin’s with him. Of course. You really should’ve guessed, seeing how close the two were at the end of the school year. It doesn’t really make you want to run away any less.

Before your fight-or-flight instinct’s flight kicks in, though, a gentle breeze sends ginkgo leaves floating past you, and you remember more than the rumors, you remember a rainy afternoon without an umbrella, a wet kitten, and a boy’s jacket flung over your head-- by the time you went to move it, all you could see of him was that his ears were a bright red. You remember Minor falling into his seat next to you during lunch, a bruise on his cheek though his eyes were bright, his hushed whisper of “Gavin saved me,” and the boy himself pulling up a chair at your table with an awkward cough. You remember how he’d started walking with you and Minor, and no one had bothered either of you on the way to and from the school for the rest of the school year.

You’re still a little apprehensive, but maybe he’s not so bad, after all, you tell yourself. Maybe. But at the end of the day, you don’t really know him, not even from the walks back home after school, for better or for worse.

“Gavin’s here to play, too!” Minor calls to you with a wide grin as he runs over, oblivious to your conflicted thoughts. “He’s really good!”

Then, over his shoulder: “Aren’t you, bro?”

Gavin shrugs from where he’s leaning against the fence, just on the edge of the shade, the picture of boredom. He’s decked out in a dark hoodie and jeans you don't quite understand how he can wear under the summer sun. And, not that you’re in any place to judge what people wear to play basketball, but--

“I’m not playing.”

He closes his eyes as Minor starts to complain, and for all intents and purposes, seems to go to sleep right there on the spot. In lieu of getting Gavin to play with him, Minor tries to teach you to shoot, and you indulge him, and try not to wince too hard every time he tosses the ball in your direction.

The thing is, you’re actually a little afraid of basketball. You’re sure it’s just slipped Minor’s mind-- it had been a big deal at the beginning of the year that you’d desperately tried to get everyone to forget throughout the course of PE, but a boy had hit you with a basketball ‘by mistake,’ and you’d heard him laughing about it with his friends at lunch that very same day.

Sure, that doesn't stop one of your classmates from dragging you out to one of the school's basketball games, and maybe you'd thought the last dunk by that one player had looked downright dreamy, but neither Minor or Gavin need to know that. And since Gavin doesn't give any indication he'll be playing, let alone moving for the rest of the afternoon, you don't really mind playing with Minor, even if every shot you attempt misses.

Minor's far from what you'd call a good teacher, but his enthusiasm and genuine love for basketball is infectious. You take it all in good stride, laughing when the ball arcs at least two feet below the hoop, cheering when Minor makes a three-pointer, then chasing after the rebound when his next shot bounces off the backboard. You're exhausted by the time the summer sun's directly overhead, and you're about to call out to Minor that you're going to take a break when it happens.

Maybe it's the glare, or the way your vision's gone a little fuzzy from the exertion, your reaction speed slowed by a few precious milliseconds, but--

A basketball barrels towards you, and you freeze, can't even think to put your hands in front of your face or even move, all you can do is flinch back, screwing your eyes shut, prepared for the coming painful impact. It never comes.

You open your eyes to Gavin's scowl, his angry gaze directed over your head at a fervently apologizing Minor. The basketball bounces across the court in the opposite direction, then clatters to a stop against the fence under the ginkgo tree's spreading branches.

It takes your brain a long second to catch up.

Gavin protected you?

The thought's absurd, even to your heat-addled brain. And yet--

He looks down at you, his amber gaze softening a little, and the sight warms your cheeks. And maybe your heart flutters, just a little.

"You all right?"

"I- I'm okay."

You manage a shaky smile up at Gavin, and he stiffens a little, then steps away from you quickly, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. He clears his throat.

"Watch out, yeah?"

You swallow and nod, missing the reddened tips of his ears, the way his gaze tracks to yours, then darts away.

After that afternoon, Minor doesn't ask you to play with him. He gives you no less than five separate apologies, offers to pay for dinner that day, and ice cream, too, but you laugh it off, and try not to think about how close Gavin had been when he'd blocked the basketball, how his soft amber gaze had made your heart pound just a little faster.

To occupy your time, you wheedle a DSLR out of your father, and take to carrying it around, thick strap around your neck, the camera itself cradled protectively to your chest save for the moments you work up the courage to lift the viewfinder to your eye and snap a photo. At first, you think they'll just tease you, and Minor does, and you blush and screw the lens cap back on, the camera sitting in the crook of your arms, unused, as you watch him play.

It gets easier, over the course of the summer, after you sit through many an afternoon in the hazy heat where it's clear Minor now only cares about perfecting his layup and trying reverses, and Gavin, well, doesn't care. He leans against the fence instead of playing and tries to get Minor to miss -- you laugh at some of his funnier jibes and maybe his eyes linger a little longer on your grin, on your smile when Minor's complaining and chasing a rebound, but, well, that's his secret to keep.

You try to capture Minor's hoops. The photos start out frustratingly blurry, and you try to remember what your father taught you about all of the buttons, the aperture, the shutter speed, the ISO. You fiddle. The camera clicks. Gavin takes to peering over your shoulder while Minor tries shots, and you try shooting him. He never says much, just expresses a casual interest, gives you the occasional encouragement, and normally, you would feel pressured, but your shots improve along with Minor's.

(And somehow, the summer breeze feels cooler when Gavin's nearby.)

"Look," Gavin says, once, from behind you, and your fingers stutter on the camera shutter. The picture comes out blurry.

"Gavin!"

You turn to him with a scowl, ready to scold him for ruining your shot, but. Words fail you. He's close. Closer than you'd thought.

Vaguely, your brain registers a single fact: his face is a few bare inches from yours. Also: his surprisingly shy smile. The soft, startled look in his eyes.

An orange butterfly floats up in the space between him and you, its wings beating in time with your accelerating heart.

Both of your faces redden moments later, and you pull back, nearly tripping over your own feet as you come out of your crouch.

"I, uh, wanted to show you," Gavin says belatedly, eyes fixed on the ground, cheeks still dark, a little gruff. "It landed on me."

He clears his throat and makes to stand up. His eyes dart back to you, and he says, softer, while they linger:

"Thought it was pretty."

Another day, Gavin brings a book and settles down next to your usual seat under the shade of the ginkgo tree.

"What're you reading?"

You peer over his shoulder, or at least, you try your best to, catching a glimpse of constellations traced out across the night sky.

"Nothing," he mutters, shoving the book behind him before you can read any more, his ears faintly red.

"You like astronomy?"

"I said it was nothing," he repeats, but his ears burn a little redder. You smile.

"What's your favorite constellation? Mine's actually not a constellation, but I really like the Milky Way. Because of Double Seventh. And Zhinu and Niulang, it's probably really typical of me to say so, but I think their story's really romantic. Even if it's really sad, too."

You pause. Gavin's silent. Heat rises to your cheeks-- you realize you've been rambling.

"Sorry!" You blurt. "I got carried away--"

"I like Jupiter," he says before you can continue, finally meeting your eyes, gaze warm and steady. "Jupiter and how it always protects the moon."

One afternoon hotter than all the days before, you arrive at the court to the sound of raised voices. Minor's there, his fists raised, glaring hard at three sneering boys. At the sight of their faces, your blood runs cold. They go to Loveland High school too. In fact, if you remember properly, Minor had told you one time that the tallest one used to bully him in middle school.

By the looks of it, they'd seen Minor playing alone and had thought to make fun of him-- and the leader had paid in kind, there's the beginnings of what looks like a bruise forming around his left eye.

"Minor!" You call, before the rising tension can get any worse. You know it's a mistake the minute their gazes turn to you. The tall bully's sneer widens, and the way his eyes rove you makes you want to turn and run away. You'd taken to wearing short skirts and tank tops, not to be cute for anyone in particular, though it had been gratifying to think that someone might've seen and admired you, but this just makes you feel gross in a way you can't quite explain.

"So you're tight with Loveland High's Princess," the bully says, and the feeling you have worsens, a pit in your stomach that won't stop growing.

"Little lady, why don't you hang out with some real men for a change, how 'bout it?"

He addresses you with a smirk.

"Leave Minor alone!"

"Yeah?" He reaches for your arm, and you yank it away, heart racing-- even though Minor looks ready and willing to fight, and maybe he could win, but there's three of them, and you don't want Minor to get hurt--

"Let's go on a date, alright? Just the one, and I'll leave Minor-boy alone."

He reaches for your arm again, and you pull out of his reach, cheeks burning with anger.

"Stop it!" You cry, and Minor's moved to your side, eyes flashing, giving you the courage to glare a little harder.

"You can't just throw your weight around and expect people to go along with it!"

The bully shrinks back. His two followers look ready to run. You blink, then try to glare even harder. They all whiten.

Then, from behind you, low and angry:

"Scram." Gavin.

Relief floods through you, and you exhale a breath you hadn’t known you’d been holding as the bullies run, and you turn to Gavin with a smile.

“Gavin, you saved us!”

His hard amber gaze softens under yours, and he gives you the smallest of smiles back before his eyes move to Minor.

“Hey, are you okay?”

The other boy nods wordlessly. Gavin claps him on the back.

“You got a good punch in. Don’t worry about them. If they ever come back, we can rough them up again.”

“Yeah. It’s nothing, though. Don’t worry about it.”

Minor sounds surprisingly dispassionate, and you blink up at him, but he turns away before you can properly read his expression, crossing the court to get his basketball.

He spends the rest of the afternoon practicing cheerfully without a shred of anger. You try to cheer him on normally from the shade of a nearby ginkgo tree and Gavin does the same, alternating between feigning boredom, poking fun or offering unhelpful advice.

"Minor," he says seriously, as the other boy attempts a lay-up for the fifth time. "I could just beat them up for you."

Minor scowls. The ball misses, and you spring up to chase after it as it bounces to the other side of the court, though you still hear his response.

"You don't need to do that, bro, I already told you, it's seriously no big deal!"

It's too-loud, too-perky.

Gavin doesn't speak again that afternoon, but his strong gaze never quite leaves Minor's panting form, except to throw you a glance every so often, when you laugh, huff, or frown. When the sun’s about to sink below the tops of the trees, he bids you a quick goodbye, casting a last look at Minor, who continues to dribble in the fading light.

It’s only when Gavin’s gone that Minor sinks to his knees, letting the ball roll free. He sighs heavily and takes the water bottle you offer him.

"I hate him," Minor says suddenly with a viciousness that startles you, a steady quiet burning anger at the bully that keeps your gaze to the ground-- you know, if you look up, you'll see the tears in his eyes.

"So what if I take care of how I look-- he's probably never looked in a mirror in his life.”

Then, quieter still: "So what if I think Fan Bing Bing is cute and Steph Curry, too? Fuck him."

"Minor--" you start, voice trembling, and reach to pat him on the shoulder. You don't know what to say, don't know what you could say. You'd heard rumors before, awful, vicious things people'd said behind his back that surely he'd heard and kept smiling still, but this feels different, to hear it from him, to see him lose control like this.

He shrugs out of your weak grasp and leaves before you can say a word.

The next day, you get to the court earlier than usual. To your surprise, someone’s already there, practicing their free throws. You sigh. You suppose it makes sense that Minor’s been practicing on his own-- you’re sure he’s still upset, and well, he has every right to be, you just wish he’d talk to you instead of practicing until his arms are sure to fall off--!

You’re about to call out to him and say as much to him out loud, but the player whirls, you catch a glimpse of his face in profile and you realize, you’re not watching Minor play, you’re watching Gavin.

There's a passion in his eyes you've never seen before, some softly burning fire, and when his shots go in, you think you see him grin. He looks somehow relaxed, in a way he never seems when Minor’s practicing, and you think it suits him, he looks more natural, more settled when he's in motion. Even if it's just him shooting baskets and catching the rebounds, he makes it look effortless.

As you watch him shoot, mesmerized, you suddenly remember another time-- an evening during the school year, when you’d been tasked with cleaning the gym up once basketball practice was over.

Even though you'd never liked basketball, somehow you’d always ended up with cleaning duty the days basketball practice was in session.

You’d peeked through the gymnasium’s doors, thinking it would be empty and quiet, but barely visible from where you stood just outside the doorway had been Gavin, playing alone, several basketballs rolling around the otherwise deserted gym floor.  You hadn’t known what to do-- whether to call out to him, to ask him to put away the balls when he was finished, or even to leave. You’d stood there for an absurdly long time, unable to decide, watching him dribble, feint around imaginary opponents, then shoot. Each time, the ball had arced perfectly through the hoop, and you’d resisted the impulse to cheer.

You’d still been scared of him. Back then, you’d only ever known of him from the rumors always buzzing around the school-- that he’d fought thirty gangsters, that he’d almost ended up in jail, that one wrong move around him, and you’d end up in the hospital like the old principal had.

But watching him play that evening, you’d thought he didn’t look very scary at all, only maybe a little lonely. In the end, you’d left him to play, hiding in the back of the bleachers to work on the math problems due the next day, hoping he wouldn’t notice you were there, hoping he wouldn’t mind. The echo of the ball’s dribbling and the squeak of his shoes on the floor had been soothing, somehow.

By the time you’d finished your homework, though, the gym had fallen silent, and when you’d looked up Gavin had vanished, and all the basketballs on the floor you’d thought you would have had to clean up were neatly returned to their basket.

The rattling of the basket rim brings you back to the present just in time for you to see Gavin dunk. He wheels around with a whoop, the excited grin on his face boyish. It's contagious-- you can't help but smile, too-- but then he catches sight of you and he stiffens, grin fading.

“You,” he starts, abrupt in the sudden silence. You’re not sure exactly what you would’ve said if you’d been thinking straight, but what ends up coming out of your mouth is:

“Gavin! Your dunk was really cool!”

“Yeah?”

He looks away, bouncing the ball idly a few times.

“You don’t like basketball that much, though?”

“It’s not that-- it’s more like I’m scared of it.”

“Why?”

He’s looking at you again, expression open, curious. You realize belatedly that this is maybe the most relaxed you’ve ever been around him, the thought bringing a touch of pink to your cheeks.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal, just someone in PE hit me with a ball one time. So now, I find it a little scary.”

“Watching you and Minor play, though,” you continue, “and seeing how much you two enjoy it makes it a little less frightening.”

You smile at him again, and he’s silent for a long moment. You panic a little internally-- have you said too much? But then he responds, almost too low for you to hear.

“I could teach you to play. If you wanted.”

You nod.

“I’d like that,” you say, and it comes out quieter, a little hopeful, your cheeks still tinged with a blush. It feels like a moment, or the edge of a moment, a hair’s-breadth away from something, though you wouldn’t be able to name it even if someone were to ask.

Even when Minor finally shows up, you fancy you can still feel it stretching between you and Gavin, that thread of something, something more.

Days pass in that fashion, Minor practicing with a vengeance, without a word to you and Gavin as the two of you orbit each other, almost. There’s a day when Gavin brings his book again, and settles down beside you, only to fall asleep in the middle of reading it, his head dropping dangerously close to your shoulder.

Minor grins at the sight when he stops for a drink of water.

“I was able to concentrate today-- I was wondering why, but it’s because my number one fan’s asleep!”

An awkward moment passes as you both stare in silence at Gavin’s sleeping form. You like to think that he looks softer like this, all his hard stares and glares and furrowed brows smoothed out.

“I’m sorry about getting mad that time,” Minor says without looking at you. “None of what they said was your fault, Sis. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

"It's fine. You had every right to be upset. Just next time-- I want to be a friend who can listen and help, alright? If you'll let me."

Before you can say another word, Minor pulls you into a hug.

"Of course I will, Sis!"

Just like that, any remaining awkwardness between you dissolves, and you joke and talk like normal.

“Minor, the other day I saw Gavin playing, and I was just wondering…”

You trail off, hoping he’ll finish the thought before you have to say it aloud. Minor tips his head.

“Why isn’t he teaching me?”

You nod, looking away. He laughs, but it sounds a little sad.

“You know, Gavin, he taught me how to fight. I kept following him after he saved me that one time, and saw how he saved other people too with those fists, so I asked him to teach me. And he did.”

“But this, you know, I just feel like it’s something I have to do on my own, somehow. I asked him not to teach me, told him he didn’t have to come. ”

He smiles to himself.

“He came, anyway.”

Then, with a mischievous gleam in his eyes,

“I wonder if it was for me, though.”

You blush and don't reply.

When Gavin finally wakes up, Minor drops a bombshell. He's challenged the bullies to a basketball match. A basketball match that's starting in less than an hour.

“Two-versus-three? You’re on.”

Gavin’s voice is carefully bored, but when you look over at him, there’s a gleam of excitement in his eyes. For the first time since the start of the summer, he shrugs off his hoodie, tossing it aside as he moves to the middle of the court to join Minor.

“Good luck!” You call to them.

Minor flashes you a thumbs up and a grin. Gavin throws you a single nod over his shoulder. Then, the bullies arrive and the game begins.

You can't help the way your eyes follow the motion of Gavin's toned arms, the flex of his well-muscled shoulders-- for all you'd heard stories about him getting into fights, it had never occurred to you what exactly that meant in terms of, well, his physical fitness. Specifically, how built he is under the hoodie he always wears. If you were more shameless, you're sure you'd take the opportunity to raise your camera and capture a physique you can only describe as art. You consider yourself lucky that they're both so caught up in the game that they don't notice your pronounced blush and can't hear your extensive internal commentary.

You can't really say you're being biased-- you're sure anyone with eyes can see that he's made to be an athlete (there's a fluidity to his movements that you're sure even poets would be at a loss for words at). And, for all he teased Minor for the other boy's NBA obsession, even your unpracticed eye can tell: Gavin's good at basketball. There's something about the way he passes the ball to Minor, the way none of the other team's throws make it past him: it speaks of an ease that's only possible through months, years even, of experience.

It's no wonder Gavin and Minor win, easily. You think that Minor probably would've won, even without Gavin's help.

Nevertheless, the moment the game’s over, Minor runs over to crush you in a warm, sweaty hug. After a moment, he pulls back, grinning.

“I won!”

Gavin clears his throat. Minor’s grin widens and he turns to Gavin, beckoning him to join. After a moment, Gavin lets himself be pulled into the embrace.

“We won.”

(You notice in hindsight that Minor's the one who landed all of their team's shots.

Even more in hindsight, you remember the wind being particularly strong that day-- none of the shots of the bully's team had ever gotten close to the basket.

"Gavin, that day, the wind--" you start, as you gaze at the empty court, the two of you surely thinking of that same summer.

"He would've won either way," Gavin responds before you can finish. "But I wanted to make a point."

His eyes flash for a moment when they settle on yours, sharp and angry, and you remember the way the bully had taunted you, too. You swallow, and give Gavin a small smile, and maybe he sees a bit of his anger reflected in your gaze, because he reaches out and takes your hand without a word, holds it tight.)

After the game, the rest of the summer passes in a blur. Minor still practices his shots in the court just outside of Sunshine Alley, but Gavin stops teasing him about joining the NBA. One afternoon when you get there, camera in hand, Gavin has a split lip and bruised knuckles, Minor a black eye, and neither responds when you ask what happened and why.

You never see the bully or his friends again, but Minor'll swear up and down he and Gavin had nothing to do with it.

Some days, Minor doesn't bring his basketball, and you trail behind him as he makes the long walk to the track behind the school, Gavin, silent, at your side. The first time, you realize you've worn the wrong shoes when the backs of your sandals begin to dig red marks into your heels, and you have to take a moment to sit and pull them off, rubbing your feet. Gavin lingers beside you, and you try to shoo him after Minor's retreating back, but he waits until you're ready to walk again, and keeps pace with your pained steps. The next time Minor wants to run, Gavin's brought his motorcycle, and though you also wear more sensible shoes, you don't turn down the ride he offers.

"We'll meet you there," Gavin tosses over his shoulder as Minor salutes. You let your hands rest as lightly as possible on his back, and when he doesn't turn to look back at you the whole ride, you and your burning red cheeks are glad.

When you get to the empty lot by the track, your blush seems unwarranted-- Gavin offers Minor a spin around the lot, and a ride back, which the other boy eagerly accepts. While they ride, you crouch and capture pictures of the flowers blooming through cracks in the concrete, the blur of the motorcycle in the distance. After, they run, and you chase after them with a laugh to capture that too, their backs illuminated by the fading summer light.

Gavin lets you sit behind him on his bike again one late summer evening after Minor's gone home and you blush when he pulls your arms a little more firmly around his waist and tells you, with a grin, to not let go this time.

You protest. It had only been once that you'd almost fallen off and that was because there had been three of you, you and him and Minor behind, and really, Minor had pulled you off-- but your indignant words are lost as he guns the engine, his chest shaking with laughter.

The wind steals the sound of his chuckles as the motorcycle leaps forward, tugs the tie from your messy braid and spins your hair into a fan, opened in the bike's wake. Gavin accelerates and you shoot across the lot, chasing the fading rays of sun, to the end of the horizon and looping around to the start. He looks back just once, amber eyes shining with more than just the sunset gold, and you're sure the grin on your face is just as wide as his.

You drive in circles until you're both dizzy and you press your cheek to his warm back, both of you shaking with breathless laughter, and you think recklessly, you don't want this to ever end, even though you both know that the coming school year is Gavin's last, one more summer and then he'll be gone, because this is a moment almost profound, golden like the setting sun, and moments like these, like the already darkening sky, are never meant to last.

(It doesn't.)

That year, you see Gavin confront another boy in an alley. Cash passes in the space between them, from the boy's shaking hand to Gavin's open palm. You think you make a sound, maybe a quiet gasp, but Gavin's head turns, your eyes meet-- it's the same amber gaze as always, but you've never seen him so cold and angry-- and you bolt.

He never explains it to you. He never gets a chance to explain it to you. Time crawls by, and you see him less and less-- though you're never quite sure who's avoiding who-- until it's just Minor and you, and then just you and Minor's shaky smile, Minor pressing a bloody letter in your hand.

You don't need his "it's from Gavin." You don't open it, not the whole year.

By the time you finally decide to leave it at the bottom of your nightstand's drawers, the ginkgo buds are starting to bloom, and Gavin's graduated, somehow, gone.

You still pass by the basketball court every day on the way home. You still eat late night dinners with Minor in Lynn’s Kitchen when your father says he’ll be home late.

You leave a post-it note on the wall one time, when you go to eat alone.

I hate it when people leave without saying goodbye.

Minor leaves when you two go to different colleges. Your other high school friends scatter, too, petals caught in the wind, whether they go to Loveland University with you or not, you drift apart.

Two years into college, you get the phone call from the hospital. It’s your father , the nurse on the line says, and you don’t want to hear the rest.

When you’re old enough to inherit your father’s production company, you fight for it-- every new episode of Miracle Finder is yours, forged from tears and sleepless nights, team meetings with Willow and Kiki and ever-faithful Anna, gritted teeth and forced smiles as you strain and strain and strain, as you bow your head to the show’s patrons and bite back anger at their condescension, at their false condolences and greedy eyes.

Then the last episode of Miracle Finder airs, and it has better reviews than its predecessors have had in a while, thanks to Professor Lucien and his easy charm. You congratulate your crew, and make sure to thank them all profusely by treating them to a company dinner.

But when you watch the aired episode in the dark and quiet of your own apartment, and the credits roll with their nostalgic music, one last time, it feels a little like losing your father all over again. He’s gone again, without a goodbye.

You vent at Victor. He accepts your proposal, but gives you an absurd deadline to meet, and you’re floundering all over again. The company, yours to preserve, one last fading memory of your father’s legacy, put on the line. Again.

You strain. This is one thing, you vow to yourself, you’ll never let leave without a proper goodbye.

But Gavin comes back-- and it feels like a vicious cycle in your life’s been broken. You hold onto the company. And, finally, you remember what it feels like to not only survive, holding on by the barest inch, but to flourish. You come back together, in fits and starts. He saves you, in more ways than one.

"What are you thinking about?" Gavin asks you now as you stare at the empty basketball court of a summer long since gone. You're sure if you look close enough, there'll be flowers growing through the cracks now there in the concrete just like the ones you'd photographed once upon a time. And maybe you’ll never get that summer back, but Gavin came back, and he's here with you now, to see the gingko leaves fall and bloom again, to see this sunset, and this time, it doesn't feel like a moment. It feels like it could last forever.

You tip your head up to grin at him.

"Will you let me ride with you on Sparky home?"

He smiles back, soft and sweet and just for you, and you know, he remembers too.

"Don't let go this time," he says, and when he puts his spare helmet over your head, his hands linger, his eyes on yours. I remember everything, he seems to say.

Your heart skips more than a few beats, but you don't look away, and the wind picks up, too, sending gingko leaves swirling through the air around you both. As you look up at him, you fancy the glow of his eyes outshines the setting sun.

"I won't," you reply at last, and what you mean but don't say is I remember it all, too.

You rub your fingers over the bracelet around your wrist, and when he starts the motorcycle, and the two of you speed away in the fading gold light, you press your nose into his warm shoulder, listen to the sound of his steady heartbeats, and hold on tight.

[scoobydoominuscoobydoo]

Alright, I guess we should talk about Scoob!

So Scoob! was digitally release nearly a month ago and Mod Silas and I finally got around to watching it. 

For anyone who liked it and don’t wanna read me heavily criticize it then I’ll just spoil you right now:

I did not like Scoob! at all.

And it was really disappointing because this is the first wide release film Scooby has gotten in 16 years. That’s a long time to think of bringing Scooby to the general public who don’t go out of their way to watch every single direct-to-video movie. The announcement of a new feature length film was two or three years ago and I was really excited to hear it because I was expecting some high-quality content.

My opinion of it quickly dropped a lot when it was revealed that the original voice cast wouldn’t be in it. That’s fine all on it’s own but they did it without even letting the original cast know they wouldn’t be a part of this (Besides Frank but he wasn’t even cast as who he originally played). Seeing both Matthew and Grey’s responses to this made me sad and I was significantly less excited for this movie. 

Suddenly the concept of this movie not being that good became very real to me. How much passion can you have for Scooby-Doo when you ignore the original cast and hire people who have never done anything for the franchise before that.

Despite all of that, I was giving Scoob! the benefit of the doubt because I really wanted this movie to be good. I wanted this movie to open up the potential for more major Scooby projects. And while this movie did well financially I find myself so disappointed that after 16 years this is what we got.

Since I hated almost everything about this movie I’m gonna break it up into a numbered list (otherwise I’ll be ranting endlessly).

#1: This movie fails at telling a story.

When the trailer was dropped I remember being like, “Great. Lets recycle the whole Scoob and Shag friendship as a central narrative. Not like they’ve done that a million times before.” And then next thing you know, they’re on the Falcon Fury and I was so not excited. That was two plot-lines they’ve played with before and I can’t remember the last time anyone cared about the Blue Falcon. It’s one of the weaker movies and nobody talks about that one episode of MI that he’s in.

But again, I was going to let it slide because it’s still possible to create a good story out of something recycled.

The movie opens up with them when they were kids and I was already bummed because this movie is taking place in present times and not the 70′s or the 80′s. They allude to the fact that Shaggy enjoys stuff from that time period (while he’s scrolling through a smartphone) but that’s not the same. This concept bugged me for the rest of the movie because the majority of scenes where the gang is solving something they just Google it and the the scene is over. As opposed to it taking place before the internet and writers would have to get creative. And while I love the gang as kids because when it’s done in the show they have so much charm and life the beginning scenes are kinda pointless and don’t establish anything major. I think they were trying to show that the gang have been really close since they were little but it doesn’t come off that way. Not to mention the whole scene with the gang together feels really stiff and I was salty that Shaggy wasn’t wearing a Commander Cool costume instead of his Blue Falcon outfit.

At this point I was waiting for the character conflict to be introduced because that’s a key convention in every Scooby movie. There’s always a man in a mask to chase but that’s not where the story comes together. The story comes from some sort internal conflict within the characters.

The phantom dinosaurs in Legend of the Phantosaur are awesome but that’s not what the movie is about. It’s about Shaggy overcoming his own internal hurdles.

That’s been a consistent pattern in the best of the Scooby films (even all four of the live action ones do this) and I was waiting for it to be identified. And then next thing I know we’re twenty minutes into the movie and I’m not sure what it’s even about. The scene where the gang talk about wanting to become a legitimate business happens so fast and it took me like five minutes to be like, “Wait is this our conflict?” A fight between the gang about Shaggy and Scooby’s usefulness to the cause? (Which is also a recycled plot but whatever.) Their fight happens so fast and isn’t taken all that seriously so Shag and Scoob’s anger seems more played for a laugh than anything else.

But then they cut to the bowling alley and the two of them seem genuinely upset. And I can’t help but think if you had let the earlier scene escalate into an actual argument that I would have bought the hurt feelings. But then none of it matters because Shag and Scoob are immediately attacked and rescued by the Blue Falcon and someone’s OC. And when the rest of the gang find out they instantly feel bad and so I guess the tension between the gang wasn’t supposed to be the central conflict.

Now it’s back to being about Shaggy and Scooby and their millionth time being the chosen one.

Shaggy becomes pretty upset because Scooby is getting into the whole superhero thing and isn’t giving Shag a second thought. But the thing is, none of this was built up. The villain and Simon Cowell tell Shag he isn’t special and both of those times aren’t even remotely emotional. They briefly mention that Shag has some self confidence issues and that turns into him getting mad at Scooby for taking off his collar and playing hero. Ignoring the fact that this is not in character at all it’s clear that the story is now forcing conflict because we’re 45 minutes into the movie and all we’ve done is slapstick.

Shaggy and Scooby’s falling out is ridiculous because they’ve only been mad at each other for like ten minutes of the whole movie so there aren’t any stakes at all. You know they’re gonna make up because this fight came out of nowhere and wasn’t built up at all. Shag and the gang reuniting isn’t emotional at all and Shaggy breaking up the fight could have been so much better if it was just done better.

And that’s how this whole movie is, this plot had the potential to be great scenes could have gotten something from me but nothing is built up and it can’t stay consistent.

By the final battle of the film we’ve only had two things resembling character arcs in Shag and the Blue Falcon and neither of them have any weight. The movie tells us what we already know, that Shaggy is indeed useful to the gang and I just want this movie to be over.

And I guess because they wanna tug on your heartstrings the writers threw in a little self-sacrifice. And I’m not against that at all I think that’s a good resolution to the arc they were trying to give Shaggy but the thing is there’s no stakes or tension in the scene. It just happens and we’re meant to be sad about it but I can’t because nobody else in the scene seems to think it’s all that depressing besides Scooby. And like two minutes later the conflict is resolved and we get our obligatory dance party at the end. 

That whole thing is not a story, nothing is really accomplished by the end and nobody has really gone anywhere. 

There was no Point A which takes us to Point B which brings us to Point C. This was an insane labyrinth of lines running through as many points as they could and then calling it a day. There was no natural progression and none of the conflicts presented even mattered because they were immediately resolved anyway. That makes sense for a TV show but this is a feature length film. I honestly could not believe they were going to release that in theaters because there is no way it’s worth the money. 

It was so devoid of the Scooby-Doo charm and this movie felt more lifeless than anything I’ve watched in a long time.

#2: The movie does a bad job of portraying the gang’s friendship.

One of the fandom’s favorite parts of the Scooby-Doo franchise is the friendship between the gang and the way their characters interact.

But in this movie they behave more like coworkers than anything else. They try to play up the gang feeling guilty and missing the guys but it’s really not convincing. And it’s clear that the fight was more or less to contribute to Velma, Daphne and Fred’s story rather than the whole gang. They spend most of their scenes talking about the mystery or what Shaggy and Scooby would be doing if they were there. The one time in the movie where I can buy them being best friends is when we watch that accidentally took a video instead of a selfie. I thought that was really cute and showed the gang’s dynamic effectively.

The end of the movie where Shaggy is supposedly sealed in the Underworld forever is so underwhelming because Scooby is the only one reacting. Like that’s supposed to be their best friend of ten years who they don’t think they’ll ever see again and they barely bat an eyelash until they go to comfort Scooby.

My first thought was, “There is no way the gang would just let Shaggy sacrifice himself.” And I kept wondering why no one else was trying to stop him or hold him back. 

It’s annoying because I like when the whole gang’s relationship a key part of the plot rather than just Shaggy and Scooby + the other three who are also here.

#3: The villain and the Blue Falcon are pointless.

You could have taken Brian and Dick Dastardly out of the movie and replaced them with anyone and the movie would not have changed at all.

The Blue Falcon squad add nothing to the story and are mainly just there for ......nostalgia I guess??? But nobody even remembers the Blue Falcon??? 

The scenes with Dastardly are easily the worst parts because he’s just a copy-paste villain who sometimes says semi relatable things and it’s meant to be hilarious. His whole plan to open the Underworld just to get his dog back could have been interesting but obviously it wasn’t because nothing is properly built up in this movie.

Their first mistake was immediately revealing who their villain was right off the bat. I won’t be salty that they used actual supernatural forces because Scooby has done that plenty of times. I am salty that they just up and tell you who the puppetmaster is without any goal at anonymity which just goes against everything Scooby is about.

And they’ve done this multiple times. Whenever real supernatural forces are brought into the mix that does change anything because the forces are almost always being controlled by a man in a mask. This sticks to the Scooby belief that the real evil in our world comes from man and not fictional monsters.

#4: This movie’s presentation is not good.

I will quickly say that I actually liked Shaggy’s design in the movie even though Mod Silas already drew Shag with a long sleeve under his shirt and I think that’s a lot better looking. Whatever, I thought he was cute.

I was talking about how stiff the opening scenes felt, well the whole movie looks pretty stiff as well. 

The character designs are distracting (every girl in this movie with their hair down looks like they’re just wearing a wig it looks so bad I don’t understand hair hasn’t looked back in animation for like a decade) and the animation is pretty sloppy. The directing and camera movements also don’t make any half the time and only make everything more jarring. I have nothing against CG animation but I feel like this movie was trying to be 2D in a 3D space and and was just not working out.

Also the voice acting in the movie is really not good. Like idk how this movie managed to get a bad performance out of these pretty renowned actors but none of them sound like they wanna be there or even really care. Which is funny because if they had kept the original cast you know they would have given it 110% since they actually have passion playing these roles. If the performances were actually good I feel like I would have enjoyed the movie a little more.

They also play some standard pop songs and that confused me because they literally played the original theme song at the beginning. Like you guys have the What’s New theme which everyone loves, a plethora of other theme songs, and two Hex Girls songs you could have played. 

When the dance party at the end happens Mod Silas pointed out that it was a wasted opportunity because instead of having the Blue Falcon be a DJ they could have just brought in the Hex Girls or Simple Plan.

But they didn’t do that and I honestly wonder if the people who made this movie care about Scooby-Doo at all.

#5: The things that I actually liked.

Again, I liked that scene where they do that cute selfie thing, I thought was adorable and accurately showed their dynamic.

I also liked that Daphne was the one to point out what Shag and Scoob contribute to the team because I’m biased.

When they address that Shag and Scoob are they ones that make sure the gang is eating I like that, I thought it was very in character and made a lot of sense.

I like when Captain Caveman showed up for literally no reason and was voiced by Tracy Morgan. Simply because it was so dumb I had to laugh.

I like the gang’s group hugs because those always showcase how tall Shag is compared to everyone and they all deserve a hug.

Any of the lines Fred said because they were the majority of the actually funny jokes in the movie.

The scene where Shag, Scoob and Daph are split off and she keeps getting her spare Scooby Snacks stolen by Scooby. I just love that trio for obvious reasons and it was the only part of the movie where I felt happy.

At the end when Shaggy yells at the gang and tells them what to do because I just always like it when he does that, it always throws the rest of the gang off and it’s funny.

The scene where they unmask Dastardly and it’s Simon Cowell and then they unmask Cowell and it’s Dastardly again. Like the smartest joke the movie had.

The Hex Girls poster at the carnival because it tricked me into thinking we’d see them at some point.

I liked DynoMutt, I though his design was cool and he got the other half of the actually funny jokes.

When Blue Falcon does that phone gag and is all like, “Adventure is calling!!” And the scene is supposed to be exciting but then Shag immediately is like, “No thanks.” I thought that was in character and pretty funny before being taken back because conflicts are resolved instantly in this movie.

Conclusion:

When you’re passionate with something as underground as Scooby-Doo you find yourself getting very protective of the legacy it leaves behind.

Granted this franchise has always had some black marks on it’s record but that’s to be expected since it’s a 50 year-old series.

Scoob was going to bring Scooby-Doo back into the limelight after such a long time remaining on CN or Boomerang respectively. And was just so devoid of the passion that even MI had, it felt like more of a cash grab than anything else. And it bums me out because there are so many good things that we could have gotten from an animated theatrical release.

But instead we got an hour and forty-five minutes of nothing and that isn’t what Scooby deserves at all. I can only hope that someone will want to try again and this time, they’ll actually care.

(Feel free to share your own thoughts on the movie and maybe discuss point I made that you agree/disagree with.)

[adrunkgiraffe]

I have been through this journey before, so I get to be actually frustrated about it.

IUnder a read more because im not subjecting y’all to this. Also: I should caveat I haven’t watched the episode cause I’m waiting till its on Netflix but I have watched way too many other episodes of Supernatural so I have a right to say these things. 

TL;DR: I mean you all knew Cas’ confession was fucking bullshit and that SPN is...hm. But I’d like to actually express my genuine frustration, for a moment? I’m going to say things you already know, but I have too much knowledge of this show and too much stupid meta in my brain about a series I haven’t genuinely enjoyed for at least 5 years which makes this not just blandly bad but disgustingly insulting to me not even as a gay just as like. A writer?

Or, even shorter: Cas’ confession is just a Charlie Bradbury Speedrun 

So. As some of you may know if, for some reason, you followed me back in 2013 (and till...okay fine 2015), I used to be, uh. Really into SPN. Really, I was into Destiel. Like, as in, I slogged through seasons 1-3 to get to Cas and am also really vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and projecting onto characters. (I was in 8th grade in 2013, okay? Get off my back)

Also, because I monopolised use of the TV, I kind of...also got my parents into it? In a “this is silly but fun” kind of way.

Over time, critiques of the show from viewers, learning what queerbaiting is at all, fatigue with how long it was going, and also fatigue from how characters I enjoyed, like Rufus, or Crowley, or Ellen, or Jo, or Kevin, or Charlie, or Cas a few times, kept getting killed off. As time went on, it didn’t escape my notice that, aside from Cas, all of these characters fit one or more of the following criteria:

They were a woman

They were a person of color

Were Queer or Queer-coded in some way (listen Crowley was bad rep but at least Mark Sheppard actually kissed a man on screen)

I also just...generally got tired of the way the show treats women and sidelines people of color. 

The final straw really came with Charlie’s death. It got us all excited, because she hadn’t been back in a bit! And it was interesting to see how reuniting with her dark side from Oz had changed her! (yeah remember the fucking Wizard of Oz storyline? The writers sure don’t!) And maybe she’d get developed! Because at this point, Charlie and the fairly good writing of her character was a major upside for the series! Charlie was cool, fun, gay, and morally complex in a way...none of the female characters had been before her, in large part because by definition, her relationship with the boys would always be platonic.

And then. Offscreen. She is violently murdered. For no damn good reason. Like, literally, her being brought back in this episode after fucking off to europe after having returned from fucking off to Oz seems to have filled two purposes in total. 

The codex is solved (but Sam doesn’t know till next episode)

Charlie is dead, which means Dean can be angry, specifically at Sam, and kill more people because he’s the big bad this season. 

That’s it. Two things. Twooooo whole reasons to do this episode. Whoopee. 

But you didn’t come here for this, you came here for me to rip this reveal to shreds. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I want in your minds is that Supernatural already had a really good anddynamic queer character. And then they killed her off to make Dean angry. No, it doesn’t matter that they brought her back in season 13 or whatever. They made that decision. 

After the rage this incited, I started realizing general flaws in the writing (I had probably already noticed them but now I was angry enough to complain.) Every conflict is born of Sam and Dean not communicating/taking on burdens and Dean being angry at Cas for reasons that ranged from good to ridiculous, but in a way that always went way too fucking long, (which...yes, does make the “you do it for love” gifs fucking hilarious). It didn’t help that seasons 11 and 12 were next, which meant Demon Dean and GOD’S FUCKING SISTER, plus the decision to resurrect Mary, which, while I do like her later scenes, as a season 12 finale it...well I’ll be honest it kinda sucked. It undercut the majority of the Winchester’s’ arcs and their slow and painful journey out of their father’s toxic vengeance quest and knowing Mary as a person when it’s too late to know her was one of the last semi-compelling grounders of the narrative. 

By this point it was a hate-watch for my parents and I.

So then, I’m at college, and I’m not watching anymore cause I don’t have the motivation or access to Hulu to continue, and SPN is bad. I watch the Scooby Doo crossover when it comes out and my friend and I make fun of it, and we also continue making jokes about Dean and Cas and queerbaiting because we’re queer, but I don’t keep up. My Dad does though, so when I return, I watch some with the fam and lads. It’s even more tiring without context. 

So flash forward to Quarantine, my sister, the only one with taste, has left, and we have run out of netflix to watch. So we return to the well, and seasons 13-14 are. I’m gonna say it. Bad. Really fucking bad. The cycle of bad communication continues, season 14 has like seven antagonists and the way it’s structured makes it so I literally cannot remember the timeline of a season I watched 3 months ago. Oh also, they have a queer coded cannibal snake monster for...well I guess Jack’s snake bud was cool but like. Huh wow it’s almost like these writers don’t handle queers well. 

Our one saving grace is Cas, but he’s barely in any episodes, though I did note that his deal with the empty, being happy completely for one moment killing him, that struck me as “this has potential and I know they’re gonna half-ass it somehow.” Also Jack and Mary, but then oh...plot….The most compelling it gets is literally the finale.

But then, 3 days later, the first half of season 15 comes out on Netflix and it’s...actually kind of acceptable. The new character they give Jack’s actor is fun to watch him play until they make him evil. Exploring just how toxic Chuck can be gave the series direction again. The alternate future was genuinely scarring, and Eileen’s return was genuinely moving. Most of all, though, Cas got the opportunity to tell Dean no, that Dean was being unfair to him, had always been unfair to him, and he was sick of it. I had no illusions, I knew Destiel was never gonna happen, and Cas was gonna die, but giving him that bit of agency, letting Cas grow and be self-sufficient, and be angry with Dean not for existential reasons but interpersonal ones, was such a good sign for me, and Dean grew too! Dean fucking apologized for being horrible and Jensen Ackles had a...yknow what, ill give it to him, he had a good acting moment. 

But the thing. About. The “I love you.” 

Let’s take it in parts.

What was good: I’m gonna admit it, lads, “Wanting what I can’t have” - AS A LINE - is good, and, structurally, there is something to the Empty Deal that could have been an interesting aspect of Cas’ arc when it comes to self actualization and being on even footing with Dean. The problem is, this is Supernatural, and that arc only comes up when I bring it up because character study, even in bad media, is fun for me. 

What was bad:

I mean. Like. All of it? All of it. 

Okay. Fine. I’ll be specific. 

Cas dies immediately when - possibly because- he is revealed as having feelings for Dean. They kill him as they queer him, that’s a Bury Your Gays Speedrun right there.

Like the least they could have done is have him mention it to someone in another scene or something to establish some romantic feelings on the part of canon a full episode beforehand. That would have been the literal bare minimum. 

When Cas starts praising Dean, for some reason both the writing and Misha’s acting take a bit of a downswing (from...where it already was). Cas, whose most powerful moment this season was acknowledging that Dean’s anger at him is cruel and unfair, flatly praises him for doing everything out of love and it reads with a misunderstanding of both Dean as a character and Cas’ understanding of Dean. Dean is angry! VERY ANGRY! And it’s a problem he needs to work on and rarely does. 

Talking out of my ass, a better speech would have been about how Dean is angry because of his love for Sam, family, and the people around him, how, for better or for worse, he can’t help but be angry on behalf of others, and that his journey of moving that tendency towards the better is what made Cas care so much. Guys this alteration to the metaphor took 2 minutes to write tops I am an Art History student and these are TV WRITERS WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CAN YOU TELL THEYRE NOT TRYING YET? 

A better speech would, of course, have come out of a better series. My point: this part was half-assed. Poorly written. Wow it’s almost like the series is also poorly written. 

 Also, Misha is the better actor of the three(***OF THE THREE), but his choices in that scene are jarringly out of character which. Makes the bad writing worse. It doesn’t help that they cut to the same fucking shot of Dean 3 times. The chemistry in that scene makes it feel so fucking hackneyed. Because it is. 

This combines lead me to the point: (wait there was a point to this?)

As someone who does not have the luxury of watching this capsized ship fall into boiling seas from a distance, it is less insulting to me that they did this so last minute and then sent Cas to the Void than it is how they did it. They had ingredients for something that could have been compelling enough to me as a former fan of the show to think that they had put effort into it, that they had decided months, perhaps even years ago to do this, and had crafted a storyline around it. That this was an intentional decision they cared about. It wasn’t. It was barely even pandering, because it’s almost insultingly blatant. 

SPN kinda proved to me that it didn’t care about queers when Charlie was killed off. It proved it to me again when Cas, not only died in confessing his love for Dean but did it in the weakest result of what could have been a surprisingly strong story.

[iron--spider]

not at all funny (whumptober - asphyxiation)

“Peter,” Tony says, watching as Friday tracks the kid’s trajectory, following his arc as he flips through the air. “Peter Parker.”

 “Uh oh, full name time, what’d I do?”

 Tony watches him do another outrageous flip, spinning at least three times in the air. The web he lets go of soars like a party streamer. He shoots another one, swings from it, and quickly shoots one more, launching himself high.

 “What the hell is with all the acrobatics?” Tony asks, flying up higher. Peter shoots more webs, completely unnecessarily, and they firework all around them. “I know you’re a part of the circus, but you’re at your day job right now, bud—”

 “Part of the circus?” Peter laughs. “I’m just happy, okay, aren’t you happy?”

Tony snorts, watching as Friday lays out their path back to the compound. He’d considered bringing a jet, but he knows Peter likes the long swing and fly back. 

 “Of course I’m happy,” Tony says, as Peter does another couple flips, more webs flying all over the place. “Always a good feeling to save a bunch of kids.”

 “They were so excited to see us!” Peter exclaims. He spins sideways in some kind of double helix, rolling out into another long swing. “And that puppy? I mean—the situation could have been real bad, but it was real good! Because we were there! And now everybody’s safe!”

 Tony shakes his head—Peter has no business being this endearing. They’re flying through town now, a little low for Tony’s tastes, but the buildings aren’t as high over here and Peter’s gotta have something to latch onto. He’s certainly giving people a good show, and everyone on the ground that Tony can see has their phones out to film his antics. “Listen, I get the spider celebration, but don’t your webs take a lot to make? Don’t you slave over that shit? Let’s settle down, Crockett, or you’re not gonna make it home.”

 “Ugh, fine, always spoiling my fun,” Peter says. “Lemme just—”

 He lets out what could only be called an explosion of webs then—some of the web bombs, the super bursts, the works for big battles, and Tony rolls his eyes at the wastefulness, but he can’t help but smile. 

 It feels like something inside of him knew what was coming next, and he watches as the kid flips and spins and drops directly into the powerlines, landing stagnant amongst his mass of webs. Tony’s heart sinks a little—Peter’s limbs are all tangled, his arm sticking out up by his head, and Tony’s just about to break into full blown panic when he hears Peter laugh in his ear. 

 “Wow, wow, okay,” Peter says. “That was—that was unexpected.”

 Tony hovers there, glancing down to see everybody watching. “Uh, really? Really really? Because even if I didn’t see it coming, I saw it coming. Because you attract these things, buddy boy, with all your crazy flipping and excess webs.”

 “I’m a little stuck, just a little stuck.”

 “Uh, you think?”

 Peter laughs again, too delighted for someone in his situation. “Well, aren’t you gonna help me?” he asks, twisting around a little bit, slipping his left arm out of the hole it’s trapped in and through another part of the webs. 

 It reminds Tony of jumbled up string or headphone wires, and it drives him a little insane looking at it. “Nah, I’m gonna see how you handle this one for a few minutes here,” Tony says. He clears his throat, going off com so Peter can’t hear him. “Uh, Fri, give me a good way out of those webs for Pete, please.”

 “Right away, Boss.”

 “And, uh, he’s not gonna electrocute himself, right? We built in shit to keep that from happening, right?”

 “We did. And he should be safe, unless the line gets severed.”

 Tony nods to himself. Peter’s almost like one of those damn pigeons. Tony moves to hover a little closer, and he can’t help but laugh as Peter methodically moves in and out of the webs like a goddamn spider, ducking and tugging his legs in and out. Tony wonders if he could just break it all if he pulled and pushed hard enough, but clearly, that’s not an attempt he’s gonna make.

 Tony goes back on coms. “Good lord, kid,” he says, laughing harder. “What a mess. You’re ridiculous.”

 “Yeah, well, I—”

 Peter moves the wrong way and falls. But he doesn’t drop all the way to the ground, and when Tony looks closer, to his horror—the kid is hanging by his fucking neck. He’s kicking and struggling and grasping at the offending web, and there’s a gasp from the crowd below.

 Tony swoops over, his heart in his throat. He grabs Peter around the waist with one arm, holding him up so the web around his neck isn’t strangling him. But it’s tight as hell when Tony grabs at it with his free hand—Peter’s webs are some of the strongest material Tony’s ever come in contact with, and he can’t just snap it off, despite the fact that he’s wearing the suit.

 “Kid, can you breathe?” Tony asks, right up close to him now, and he flips up the faceplate so Peter can see him, even though he’s still wearing his own mask. “Tell me.”

 “Oh—like, barely,” Peter gasps, voice ragged. 

 “Okay, okay,” Tony says, holding onto him tight and hoisting him up a little higher. “Okay, uh—” He’s stuck between cutting it off and burning it off, knowing both aren’t the best case scenario and both will absolutely hurt Peter. But it’s less likely that he can actually cut through the webbing with anything he’s got right now—damn Peter for being so damn smart and so dumb at the same time. Create an incredibly strong material. Strangle yourself with it.

 “I have to burn through it bud,” Tony says. “Gimme a sec. Just one sec.” He aims his pointer finger at the webbing around the kid’s neck, listening to him wheeze, and Friday quickly selects the right tool and power level. Tony starts before he gets any sort of permission because Peter is still actively being strangled, and Tony feels him jolt a little bit when the laser hits his suit.

 “Tony—” Peter gasps, clearly in pain, voice already breaking.

 “I’m sorry, kid, I’m sorry,” Tony says, wincing himself, barely able to look at the brightness of the laser. He should put his faceplate back down, but he wants to offer Peter some kind of familiar comfort. He hopes he doesn’t look too horrified. He can’t control his face. “I’m sorry, I’m gonna fix it, I’m gonna fix it, just a second—”

 The first layer of webbing snaps, and Tony can see Peter’s suit going black. 

 “Just a little bit more—” Tony says, and Peter tries to take a big breath, the web still cutting off his air supply. Then the second layer snaps, just as the laser comes in contact with Peter’s skin. Peter gasps, and Tony bats the webbing off of him. He puts his faceplate back down, and then he takes off without another word, still holding Peter.

 “Oh my God,” Peter rasps, coughing, as Friday boosts thrusters by fifty percent. “Oh my God.”

 “Yeah, oh my God,” Tony says, as his own heart rate flashes on the screen. “You’re such a moron sometimes, Pete. It’s too much for my damn—you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

 Peter sticks to him, holding on tight. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

 Tony sighs, instantly feeling bad for the moron comment. “Don’t be,” he says. “Shit, just—you need—you’ve gotta—”

 “I know,” Peter says, and he reaches up with one hand, patting the burn on his neck. “I know, I know, ugh, I know.”

 ~

 “The video went viral,” Happy says, standing behind the two of them as Tony deals with the burn on Peter’s neck. There are horrible red rings around his throat, which Tony hopes heal up real quick, because they make him feel dizzy and sick. Happy keeps talking. “It’s already got 6.7 million views on Twitter, uh, user shootingwebs says WHOA SPIDER-MAN BE CAREFUL DON’T HANG YOURSELF WE NEED YOU—”

 “Very nice dramatic reading,” Tony deadpans. “You should be on the stage.”

 “I’m just telling you the news,” Happy says, with a sigh. 

 “No one genuinely thinks I did that on purpose,” Peter says. His voice sounds like he screamed til he lost it, and Tony wishes he just wouldn’t talk until he doesn’t sound like that anymore. “Right? I mean—”

 “No,” Tony says, opening up the bandage and pressing it carefully over the new wound. Thankfully, it’s small, and it’ll be gone soon. “No one genuinely thinks you did it on purpose. Everybody saw you flipping around like a flying Bruce Lee with your stupid web streamers.”

 Peter snorts, and reminds Tony of his own laughter before the kid made the whole thing Not At All Funny. 

 “Uh, a mom of one of the kids from that weird collapsing building thing you were at—right before this,” Happy says, glancing back and forth between the both of them. “She, uh, tweeted out her thoughts, hoping...Spider-Man is okay.”

 Tony rolls his eyes, heaving a sigh.

 “That’s nice,” Peter says, squeaky voice still intact. “That’s really nice of her.”

 “We’re gonna have to make a legitimate statement,” Tony says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll have to think up the right thing to say…” Even though the whole thing was literally like a Three Stooges skit, Tony feels shaken down to his core. Watching Peter nearly hang himself, having to hurt him to fucking help him—he wasn’t exaggerating, about the heart attack. Peter is gonna give him a heart attack.

 He slaps his hands down on his knees, and looks at Peter hard. “Your webs are too strong. Never thought I’d be saying that. I could barely burn through that shit without literally cutting through you.”

 “Good!” Peter says, brows furrowed. “Listen, this isn’t—an everyday situation—”

 “Uh huh, uh huh,” Tony says, nodding drastically. “Never again. No more web streamer celebrations. No matter what we did previously. I love when you’re happy, I always want you to be happy, but clearly, too much happiness means you’re gonna get tangled up in your own webbing and the power lines and almost goddamn hang yourself.”

 Peter pouts, looking away, and Tony sighs again.

 “Don’t worry,” Happy says, looking at the kid. “Before the whole Iron Man gig, Tony once fell off the side of a building while he was at a rooftop party and firefighters had to come and get him.”

 Tony rolls his eyes. 

 “He wasn’t even drunk,” Happy says, grinning.

 A wide smile splits across Peter’s face, and okay, fine, that’s worth Happy sharing that incredibly embarrassing story. 

 “This’ll blow over,” Happy says. “We just gotta get Clint out there and make him do something stupid and we’ll be golden.”

 “You work on that,” Tony says, pointing back at him. Then he points at Peter. “You—promise I never have to see you with a noose around your neck again, whether it’s made of your own webbing or not.”

 Peter presents his hand, and sticks his pinky out towards Tony. “Pinky swear,” he rasps. “The most powerful kind of promise.”

 Tony scoffs, overwhelmed, for a second, with fondness. Then he locks their pinkys together, and they both squeeze. “Good,” he says, when they let go. He hops down off the counter. “Now I’m gonna go call May and explain Spider-Man’s latest viral incident.”

 “Have fun!” Peter says, voice breaking.

 “Uh huh,” Tony says, walking away from him, trying to suppress his smile.

 Jesus, this kid.

[mando-chicken]

War Dogs | Clones and Their Cats

“Hardcase has come up with a flawless plan to get their brother a gift. Kix isn’t so certain that it’ll be a good idea. Jesse just wants to see what sort of chaos he can encourage Hardcase to create.”

A fic focusing on our boys in the 501st in the ‘Clones and Their Cats’ universe. The basis is literally just what it says on the tin - some of the clones have cats (and some other pets too) - all these fics will largely focus on the clones and their animal companions. Not all chapters/works are in chronological order, this one is set just after the Citadel.

Other works in the series:

Cat Sitter

Tiny Spots

Read on AO3

Tag List:

@cxptain-rex​ @spaghetti-666​

“I still think this is a terrible idea.” Kix was doing his best to soothe the headache that was already threatening to rear its ugly head by massaging his temples, but the very thought of what Hardcase was suggesting was utter madness and would undoubtedly end in nothing but more stress for the already overtired medic. The fact that Jesse was actually agreeing with Hardcase’s mad scheme certainly wasn’t helping either.  

 Hardcase simply chuckled at his brother’s plight, grinning from ear to ear like his plan couldn’t possibly backfire and get all three of them into some serious trouble. “Ah c’mon Kix, you said it yourself, the poor guy is barely eating, won’t speak to anyone, and only sleeps when he drops from exhaustion,” the heavy gunner reminded him, his smile faltering slightly for the briefest of moments, “if he won’t let any of us in to help then maybe this little fella can help where we can’t.”  

 “Y’know, ‘Case does have a point. It’d take his mind off what happened for a little while at the very least, and you were the one to bring up the topic.” Jesse simply placed a hand on Kix’s shoulder, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile, before leaning back into the waiting room chair.  

 Kix merely subjected his brother to a harsh stare, crossing his arms with a huff, “all I said was that animals were good for lowering stress, I never said that we should up and get one on a whim.” He was glad that the vet clinic was otherwise unoccupied – they'd thankfully chosen a quiet day when there were neither clients nor vode coming and going – he only pitied the receptionist who had been subjected to almost an hour of their back and forth arguments. Before he could continue to counter his brothers’ madness, the door to the adoption section of the clinic slid open, one of the resident veterinarians stepping through accompanied by a medium sized crate.  

 Hardcase leapt to his feet, energy radiating off him as he beamed up at the vet, “Is it all done? Is he ours?” 

 Dalthic simply laughed good-naturedly at his enthusiasm, holding out the crate for him, “He’s officially been registered to you,” she confirmed as the clone gingerly took the crate from her arms, “I know you said he was a gift for one of your brothers, and he doesn’t have a name yet, so feel free to drop in again soon and I’ll update his details for you.” 

 Hardcase seemed just about ready to run for the door and sprint back to the barracks, but Kix managed to keep a hold of him long enough for Jesse to confirm a few last questions. “You did it discreetly, yeah?” he asked, unable to stop his brow from crinkling slightly.  

 The doctor nodded, her expression becoming serious, “Of course, I’m well aware of the potential risks you’ll face if the GAR find out that he belongs to you, I’ve taken care of the details so that nothing can reveal that he is registered to clones, it just shows up like any other patient file.” She waited until they all breathed a collective sigh of relief before continuing, “however, we’ve only been able to adopt out Tookas to you boys since they can easily be hidden; this guy will not be quite so easy to hide, so if you do have any dramas feel free to bring him back and I’ll see if we can arrange something else.” 

 Kix knew that Dalthic was a friend to clones, he’d heard plenty of stories of her helping brothers adopt pets under the table, and she’d even helped Denal to adopt Torrent, the sweet kitten in the barracks next door to theirs, but it was reassuring to have her confirm it in person. “That’s great to hear, we’ll make sure he’s taken care of, ma’am.” 

 Apparently, that was as much talk as Hardcase could stomach, eager to get back with the newest member of their squad as he already began walking towards the door, “thanks again, Doc!” he shouted back, his signature grin firmly back in its rightful place.  She offered him a brief wave and then he was gone, already out into the bustling streets of Coruscant. Jesse tried to offer an apologetic smile on behalf of their rather excited brother, but the vet simply waved him off with a genuine smile of her own. “I’ll see you boys later,” she hummed, offering Kix and Jesse a nod in farewell.  

 The two brothers were quick to go after Hardcase, managing to weave their way through the lunchtime crowds with little difficulty. They caught up with him soon enough, and from there it was only a short walk back to base. With it being noon, most of their brothers were already in the mess, so there wasn’t anyone to stop them or to question the strange crate one of them was carrying through the barracks and soon enough they reached their destination.  

 It had been almost two weeks since the Citadel and Fives was not doing well. He had survived and managed to escape, yet it felt as though his very heart and soul had been abandoned on the platform alongside his missing batcher.  

 He hadn’t cried. There’d been no time for him to actually let down his guard enough to process what had happened until they had been safely whisked from the planet’s surface, and then he’d been swarmed by brothers trying to offer their support. They wanted to do right by him, to keep him surrounded by caring people at all times, yet he’d never found himself feeling lonelier. In truth he wasn’t sure he even wanted to stop feeling lonely. 

 The numbness was better than the agony that twisted through his chest every time he so much as glanced at Echo’s empty bunk. It was better than having his emotions raw and spilling over the threshold where the Captain and the rest of his vode could see it. It was better than accepting that his brother was no longer by his side where he’d promised to always be.  

 He was tempted to ignore the knocking someone was doing on the outside of the barracks. All of the other brothers were either training or in the mess hall, so whoever was knocking was obviously looking for him. Knowing that they’d likely just try and track him down later, Fives shouted for whoever was seeking access to enter, not bothering to glance up from the datapad he was looking over – and by looking over he meant staring mindlessly at the display while he allowed his thoughts to run rampant – he was, however, snapped from his trance when he heard something heavy being placed on the floor.  

 Rolling over onto his side, Fives regarded the three brothers who’d entered the barracks, taking note of their rather sheepish expressions. Hardcase was clearly anxious or excited about something, Jesse kept glancing between the aforementioned brother and Fives, and Kix looked as though he was half a second away from snapping at the other two troopers, or perhaps slapping them both upside the head.  

 “Well, are you going to tell him or not?” Kix crossed his arms over his chest, assuming his ‘irritated medic’ stance, which was usually enough to send most men running for the hills, “you geniuses came up with it, I’m not going to be dragged into it with you.”  

 Fives simply rose a questioning eyebrow while Jesse spluttered out an indignant sound, “Excuse me? This was Hardcase’s idea, I just encouraged him.”  

 Kix looked just about ready to argue the statement, but Fives was able to stop him from going any further by raising a hand. He’d already pulled himself up into a sitting position, allowing his legs to dangle freely from the edge of his bed as he frowned up at the three brothers gathered before him, “what do you guys need to tell me?” Hardcase was grinning and Fives was briefly worried by what sort of mania his brother had in store.  

 “Well, I saw something the other day and we-” Kix shot Hardcase a foul look, “I, thought you’d like to have it.” he finished, fingers itching to get on with it. When Fives didn’t say anything further, he continued, “but you need to, uh, close your eyes.” 

 Fives’ frown only deepened, he really wasn’t in the mood for any surprises – he was tired and just wanted to be left to himself – but he knew better than to try and argue with a brother as stubborn as Hardcase once he’d set his mind on something, and closed his eyes, albeit with a slightly defeated sigh. He heard the sound of the crate being opened, followed by something scrabbling against the smooth floor for purchase.  

 “Okay, okay, hold out your hands,” he could hear the energy in the other clone’s voice, followed slightly by a poorly concealed chuckle, probably from Jesse.  

 He held out his hands as instructed, suddenly wishing he’d been wearing his gloves, just in case. But to his surprise, what his hands met was warm and soft, and Fives suddenly jerked, eyes snapping open when he felt the thing move. “What the kriff–” looking up at him, whole body squirming with uncontained energy and excitement, was a small Ring Dog, and not just any dog, but a puppy. It was wriggling about, its rear end swaying from side to side from where Fives held it, dangling in mid-air as its tail wagged at about a mile a minute.  

 “Hardcase, where the hell did you find a puppy?” the ARC trooper near enough choked out, still reeling at the thought that his brothers had somehow not only managed to find a dog, but somehow also sneak it into the barracks. At his words the puppy made a soft bark, only growing more excited when Fives looked away from the other trooper and back at it again.  

 Hardcase himself looked to be absolutely beaming yet again, pleased that Fives had asked, “well, you see, I was out with Jesse and Kix the other day at Seventy Nine’s and we overheard one of the Guards talking about his pet Tooka, and that reminded me of Denal and how he has Torrent, and how happy she makes him, and then Kix mentioned something about pets helping to lower blood pressure, and then—”  

 “We adopted him from the vet clinic a little ways down from the Guard base.” Jesse suddenly said, cutting off whatever lengthy rambling Hardcase was about to spiral into, much to the aforementioned clone’s disappointment if his expression was any indicator. Fortunately, Jesse didn’t seem to be too worried by the glare being pointedly levelled at him.  

 “Yeah!” Hardcase quickly continued, “we thought that maybe ya could do with some company.” The longer Fives actually stared at Hardcase, the more he could see that, while excited, the trooper was rather nervous, his fingers twitching restlessly at his sides. Clearly, he was worried about what Fives would think of their ‘gift’, but before he could speak up Jesse once again chimed in.  

 “But hey, we’ve already disturbed you enough, we’ll just leave you to it.” Neither Kix nor Hardcase were able to argue, for Jesse grabbed both of their arms and began hastily dragging them out of the room.  

 Fives blanched for a moment, looking between his retreating brothers and the puppy still swaying in his hold, “wait, ‘Case, Jesse, what am I supposed to do with this thi—” he was cut off by the door to his quarters being abruptly closed as the other three clones made their escape. Still slightly stunned, it took him a moment to finally come back to his senses, gently placing the puppy down on the floor. Immediately it began to sniff at his feet and legs, occasionally making a pleased huffing noise, before looking back up at the ARC trooper with its big brown eyes.  

 The puppy just about reached Fives’ knees when stood, covered in a thin, oak-coloured fur, with several rings of chocolate brown wrapping around its legs and tail. A small blue collar hung around its neck, and Fives was quick to reach out and inspect it, turning it around in his hands to try and find if it had a name on its tag.  

 Finding no tag he was forced to assume that the dog had yet to be given a name. He recalled that Jesse and Hardcase had called it a ‘he’, and with a quick glance underneath the happy pup, he could confirm that it was indeed a male. He still had no idea if he’d be keeping the animal – clones weren’t exactly the sort of people who could keep pets – but he couldn’t just leave the poor thing nameless, regardless of whether he would be keeping it or not. He would have to speak to Echo, he had always been better at picking names than— 

 His face fell as a quiet voice inside reminded him that no, he wouldn’t be receiving any help from Echo. Not now, and not ever again.  

 With a sigh Fives dropped back onto his bunk, staring up at the bunk above as his thoughts quickly began to sink their talons into his mind, dragging him down into the deep abyss. He had no one to help him, Echo wasn’t there to grab his hand and pull him from drowning in the pitch-black waters of his inner thoughts. But someone else was.  

 Fives was jerked from his trance-like state by a cold nose nudging at his hand, followed briefly by several slobbery licks to his fingers when he still didn’t respond. He looked down to the puppy, meeting its eyes and watching as its expression exploded into joy the moment he did so, tail already back to wagging at its ridiculous speed.  

 “What can I do for you, dog?” he asked quietly, moving to run his fingers over the puppy’s head. The dog simply offered him a bark, attempting to lick his hand the moment he stopped his petting motions. “Why don’t you come up here?” Fives asked, patting at the top of the mattress to try and encourage it to join him. The moment he stopped the Ring Dog did just as he was asked, springing from the floor and landing on the bunk beside the clone, already shoving his head under Fives’ arms and trying to reach the ARC’s face to give him a good licking.  

 Fives wasn’t able to stop the laugh that suddenly escaped him, trying in vain to try and swat away the determined pup and save his face from slobber. A single lick to his chin was the closest the dog got, but he seemed to be satisfied with his efforts, plopping down on Fives’ chest and huffing in his face. “Stars, your breath stinks, dog,” he groaned, scrunching up his nose and trying to turn away. The dog merely wagged his tail again.  

 “You think that’s funny?” The dog simply wagged his tail faster. He had only a moment to brace himself before the puppy launched at him again, this time trying to lick at Fives’ ears. And for a long, blissful moment, the mourning ARC trooper is rendered a laughing, happy child.  

 The next morning, Rex is more than relieved to see Fives wandering around the base. He’s still not interacting with his brothers as much as usual, still a little withdrawn from his surrounds, but he’s not completely closed himself off, and for that, the Captain is willing to overlook the small puppy following around at Fives’ heels. If continuing to pretend he is completely oblivious to the animals ‘stealthily’ being acquired by members of the 501st means that his men have the chance to actually heal and have some sort of joy in their depressing lives, then it’s something he would happily do a thousand times over.  

[the-desolated-quill]

She Was Killed By Space Junk - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

The first episode was a shaky, but intriguing start. The second episode was both incredibly provocative and intelligently written. What about the third episode? Um... I’m honestly not too sure what to make of it, if I’m honest. I watched it twice like I do with everything I review and I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. I couldn’t even tell you if I liked it or not. I think I liked it.... but I couldn’t tell you why.

Okay. Sorry. Hi guys. Let me explain what happened. I wrote that first paragraph and then I got writer’s block, so I decided to step away from it. I had a nap, played a video game and then decided to watch the episode again for a third time with fresh eyes. Now my thoughts are a little more concrete. So. She Was Killed By Space Junk. Having watched this episode three times now, I’ve decided that I don’t like this episode very much at all, and that’s less to do with what’s in the episode and more to do with what isn’t. 

Let me explain.

Reviewing episodes like this one can often be very frustrating because it’s hard to tell what is a genuine flaw and what is merely setup for what’s to come. I have a number of problems with this episode, but for all I know, what I’m about to talk about might not actually be problems at all and will all be explained in a future episode. Or they are genuine problems and I’m inadvertently giving the writers way too much credit. I don’t know. That’s why it’s so frustrating.

My main point of contention is with the character of Laurie. First of all, let me just say that Jean Smart doesn’t put a foot wrong. She gives a great performance and is a good choice to play an older Laurie. The problem I have is with her characterisation. Or, at the very least, bits of her characterisation. I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Laurie’s inclusion in the TV series was something I was actually most looking forward to because I felt her character was kind of shortchanged in the graphic novel. Initially starting out as an effective and scathing critique of how women are often presented in comics, over the course of Watchmen’s story her role was reduced until she ended up becoming little more than a prop for the male characters’ stories. It was disappointing and it’s led to me arguing multiple times that Silk Spectre is one of the most underrated and wasted elements of Watchmen. The HBO series felt like a perfect opportunity to right some wrongs and give Laurie the attention she deserves. She Was Killed By Space Junk certainly gave her the focus and attention she didn’t receive in the graphic novel, but I’m very much struggling to ascertain what the show was trying to achieve here.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves where the graphic novel left us with her character. She had recently discovered that the Comedian, the man who tried to rape her mother, was her biological father, she was in a relationship with Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl, and they were both on the run from the law, hellbent on continuing their lives as vigilantes. Okay. How does the HBO series continue this? Well it turns out she and Dan are no longer together. I know some fans really don’t like this, but I personally don’t have a problem with it. In fact I’m perfectly happy with it. In my review of A Stronger, Loving World, I explained how I didn’t believe their relationship could possibly last long term because it was clear that they were together not because they were in love, but rather because they were indulging in each other’s fantasies, and the fact that Dan’s seeming fascination with the Silk Spectre porn comic supported this. Showrunner Damon Lindelof clearly agrees, so cool. It’s always nice to be proven right.

Anyway, at some point between the graphic novel and the HBO series, the fantasy was shattered and the pair split up. I’m assuming what shattered the fantasy was them getting caught by the FBI. It’s unclear what’s happened to Dan at this time. Judging by the fact that the police in Oklahoma are using Owlships and goggles, I’m assuming that Dan was arrested and his equipment was appropriated by law enforcement. Laurie meanwhile has struck some kind of deal and now she’s working with the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce and enforcing the Keene Act, which is an interesting parallel with how her father, the Comedian, served the American government during the Vietnam War. But you see this is where I start to get a bit confused.

The episode opens with Laurie setting a trap for a vigilante known as Mister Shadow (basically Fake Batman) and shooting him, either not knowing or not caring whether or not Mister Shadow’s body armour would save him. She’s also taken on the Comedian’s last name Blake and displays a very similar nihilistic attitude, making dark jokes and exhibiting uncaring, unsympathetic behaviour. Now I don’t necessarily have a problem with Laurie becoming more nihilistic, given what she’s been through. Having witnessed Ozymandias and his squid of doom, it’s bound to affect her worldview. However, her turning into a female Comedian doesn’t really marry up with her character at all. And yes, I know at the end of the graphic novel she talked about getting a gun and body armour, like the Comedian, but it didn’t work there either. It felt too drastic a character shift and was painfully on the nose. I didn’t like it there and I don’t like it here either. I just don’t buy that she would want to emulate the man who tried to rape her mother. 

I especially don’t like her violent, uncaring attitude toward Mister Shadow. Why does she have such a disdain for vigilantes? Is it because of what happened with Dan, and she’s projecting that onto everyone else? Has she become so nihilistic that she just doesn’t give a shit anymore? There’s a moment later in the episode where she asks someone if their civil rights are being violated only to then turn around and say she was being sarcastic. That really didn’t sit right with me. It just doesn’t feel like something Laurie would say.

And then there’s the whole thing with Doctor Manhattan. Throughout the episode we see her in a phone booth trying to tell a joke to Manhattan (quite what the purpose of these phone booths are, I don’t know. Considering that people in the world of Watchmen believe that Manhattan was giving people cancer, why would anyone want to call him?). She clearly misses him to the point where she has a large blue dildo hidden a briefcase that’s clearly a direct reference to Pulp Fiction. I REALLY don’t like this. At all. The reason Laurie left Manhattan in the first place was because he couldn’t emotionally satisfy her, being an omnipresent demigod and all. So why would she be pining after him? The blue dildo joke in particular just felt kind of degrading. Just... why?

Weirder still is the joke she spends the whole episode trying to tell him. It’s clearly an indirect reference to the Pagliacci joke from the graphic novel, except the Pagliacci joke had a specific purpose in the graphic novel and its meaning was clear. Rorschach was remarking on how America was relying on the Comedian to save them from violence and corruption, which was futile considering what a violent and corrupt person the Comedian was. Here, however, I have no idea what Laurie is trying to say with the brick joke at all. I’m assuming the bricklayer is her father and she’s following in his footsteps. Okay, I kind of get that (except not really for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but whatever). But then we come to the whole bit with God at the pearly gates sending Nite Owl, Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan to Hell, only to then get killed by the brick from the previous joke. Now... what the fuck is that all about? I’ve been racking my brains, checking what other people said, and I can’t find any satisfying answers. It just feels like pretentious, unnecessary fanwank. The best I can come up with is that Laurie is expressing how she’s not letting men dictate her life anymore. But... she’s spent the whole episode pining after Doctor Manhattan, she’s modelled herself after her rapist father, and at the end of the episode, she sleeps with her assistant Petey, an agent who claims to not to be a fan of superheroes, but is totes a fan of superheroes. So... is that the joke? She wants to escape from the shadow of the men in her life, but can’t? Or she intends to overcome the patriarchy that has kept her down, but she still ends up choosing to indulge in the power fantasy of Petey? Or does it refer to something else she’s planning to do later? It’s all so frustratingly vague.

As I was watching this episode, I honestly lost track of the number of times I thought to myself ‘I don’t know where Lindelof is going with this.’ Sometimes this approach works, keeping the audience in the dark in order to build intrigue and suspense, but for Watchmen, a story that’s famous for its dense material and subject matter, it’s just plain annoying. In fact this whole episode feels really off to me. Instead of focusing on character narratives and thematic storytelling, She Was Killed By Space Junk relies more on a plot heavy story that moves the pieces of the larger arc forward and keeping certain specific details vague in an attempt to keep people watching. Except that’s not really what Watchmen is about and it results in leaving the more integral aspects of the story in the dust. Angela barely gets a look in here, and considering a significant portion of the episode focuses on Judd Crawford’s funeral, it feels like a massive, missed opportunity. How does it feel discovering that the man you liked and respected wasn’t the man you thought he was? Does that change your feelings toward him? Does it invalidate the good times you had with him? And with Laurie there, the show could have compared and contrasted the two. How these two women move forward knowing these uncomfortable truths about the men in the lives? But the show never really capitalises on this.

And the annoying thing is, for all I know, all the things I’m talking about could actually be addressed in a future episode, thus rendering what I’m saying moot. I don’t know. I can’t tell if this is all just really bad setup for an eventual satisfying payoff or if it’s just plain bad.

That being said, while I do ultimately dislike this episode, there are a few things I like. For instance, I do like what we learn about the larger world of Watchmen. We learn that Oklahoma is the only state that’s allowing the police to mask up and that this law was passed by Joe Keene Jr., whose father was responsible for the Keene Act that was passed outlawing vigilantes. Joe Keene Jr. was briefly introduced in the previous episode and it looks like he’s going to be playing a larger role from here on out. Let’s wait and see where that goes. 

We also learn that Looking Glass knows Laurie and has prior history with her. He even confirms Sister Night’s secret identity to her, albeit reluctantly. So is he a plant? Maybe sent by the FBI to try and sabotage Keene Jr? Hmmm, what’s going on here then?

And then there’s Ozymandias.

While I dislike how Laurie is being handled so far, I love, love, LOVE what they’re doing with Adrian Veidt. After the events of the graphic novel, it seems he’s gone into self imposed exile. Whether this is as a punishment or as a way to make sure he doesn’t inadvertently blab about his involvement with the squid is unknown. Anyway, he’s been here for three years now, judging by the candles on the cake, and he seems to be going a little bit stir crazy. He’s sacrificing his clones in order to try and find a means of escape and now he has to contend with a bloodthirsty game warden (another clone). The idea of Ozymandias being hoist by his own petard and being oppressed by the very tools and instruments of his own vanity is absolutely tantalising, and I love what Jeremy Irons is doing with the part and the way he’s depicting the character’s slow descent into lunacy.

Also a special shoutout has to go to the costume department for the Ozymandias costume we see Adrian finally don. It’s gloriously, breathtakingly terrible. Truly one of the worst superhero costumes ever seen on screen... which is exactly what it should be! 

One of the things I intensely disliked about the 2009 movie was Zack Snyder’s attempts to make the characters look cool and stylish when in reality these characters are supposed to be the complete opposite of that. Rorschach looks like a hobo, puts on a gruff voice and wears lifts on his heels in a pathetic attempt to look more imposing. Nite Owl wears a ridiculously tight fitting costume that shows off his belly bulge. Silk Spectre’s outfit looks more like something a stripper would wear and is not even remotely practical. They look stupid to us, the outsiders, but to the characters, it makes them feel powerful. That’s the whole point, and the HBO series captures that perfectly. Adrian is going to war with the game warden and wants to feel powerful, so he puts on his objectively silly purple and gold shawl in an effort to reclaim the power he once had. It’s laugh out hilarious, made all the more funnier by the fact that he’s clearly far too old to be playing dress up. It’s moments like this that demonstrate that Lindelof clearly does understand the source material, which is what makes the way Laurie is treated all the more baffling.

She Was Killed By Space Junk isn’t a bad episode. There’s stuff to like, but it doesn’t have any of the intelligent thematic storytelling or characterisation the previous two episodes had. Coupled with the apparent mishandling of Laurie’s character and the deliberate vagueness of some of its plotting leads to it being an episode that’s ultimately more frustrating than enjoyable to watch.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 174: Fancy Rich People Tea

Previously on BnHA: Mirio and Deku took Eri on a whirlwind weekend tour of U.A. We learned that class B is putting on a play for the festival which sounds amazing and also appears to be infringing on no fewer than three copyrights. We ran into Hadou and Amajiki who were doing some preparations for Hadou’s Miss Con campaign. We learned that the support department has a tech exhibition at the festival each year which is a big deal for them. We also learned that Shinsou is Still At It. Not sure what it is. But he’s still here guys! Finally we ran into Midnight and the Rat Principal at the cafeteria and learned that Rat Principal had to pull lots of strings and jump through a bunch of hoops in order to run the event this year. Basically security is going to be crazy, and if someone so much as sneezes something that sounds like ‘villain attack’ they will immediately call the whole thing off and evacuate. Sounds fair. All in all, Eri had a good time and is looking forward to the actual event! Also Deku got fired from the dance squad. That’s rough, buddy.

Today on BnHA: Mina explains that they need Deku to help the staging team turn Aoyama into a human disco ball. Deku agrees so long as he still gets to dance a little bit. The next morning Deku and All Might run into Mei while training in the woods. We learn that she’s working on a new support item for Deku which will be ready soon. That evening Momo makes some fancy tea for everyone while Deku fucks around on Youtube and accidentally stumbles across one of Gentle’s videos. We then cut to Gentle and La Brava, and Gent breaks down the details of his plan. They’ll take a sneaky route to approach U.A. on the day of the festival, using back streets and side roads. Then they’ll stop and drink tea (the same fancy brand that Momo uses) for an hour and a half. Then they’ll approach U.A. from the woods, and La Brava will breach U.A.’s security barrier with her mad hacking skills. We learn that she used those same skills to track down Gentle after she first saw his videos, and afterwards she devoted herself to his cause. Gentle says he is putting his heart and soul into this new plan for her sake and for the sake of his own dreams.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 199 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.) 

look at this sweet girl trying to soften the blow

yeah because Aoyama totally ditched them. sorry Deku, they need a new disco ball

...or maybe not!

sorry Deku we need a new dispersal method for our disco ball

so wait. they’re really going through with this, huh. this wild stream-of-consciousness rambling from Mina really became the centerpiece for the entire dance floor

and Aoyama is FULLY ON BOARD now

so now this job is perfect for you huh. well you sure are a good sport

so they want Deku to break off from the main group at the same time as Aoyama and help him out

so once he has been “dispersed” you can probably still go have your dance with Eri, Deku! you can do that thing where she stands on top of your feet and you waltz around. it’s going to be so cute omg. make sure your mom videotapes it

speaking of are the parents going to get to come to this thing too? or will it really only be the kids. let their moms and dads come see all of their hard work!

(ETA: I was hoping we would see some of the parents but if they were there we missed it. booooo)

now Kiri is doing that hands-clapped-together pleading thing and apologizing to Deku, but he says they really need his help

lol so they’ve realized that they can’t put all their eggs into the “Aoyama as disco ball” basket

this is an honest-to-god serious conversation these kids are happening. with note-taking and everything. Todoroki fucking Shouto is in on this. “how long can we hold people’s attention by transforming Aoyama into a disco ball.” science

okay but. you guys... are planning other stuff too. right. ...???

(ETA: they sure are. that ice stuff that Mina also suggested. I’m telling you guys, she’s the undisputed MVP of this whole arc, and without her their festival program would have been shit)

lol well okay then. this is going to be so interesting

anyway so Deku’s all “I guess it’s okay then as long as I have a turn dancing,” and he’s agreeing to it

now we’re cutting to 6:30 a.m. on some random unknown day and Deku is training for his new move under All Might’s supervision

All Might is chock full of sage mentor wisdom

“always remember: bleeding internally is bad.” good stuff. write that down, Deku

he’s asking All Might if he has any tricks for maintaining control of the attack, since this is the first move he’s learned that he can’t just use freely

sage mentor wisdom

so apparently All Might was some sort of OFA prodigy and was able to control 100% OFA almost instantly. so he really genuinely has no idea how to teach it, because to him it just came naturally

was he just that buff when he got the quirk?? how old was he when he got it? did he actually attend U.A. as a quirkless kid? because middle school Toshinori sure as hell wasn’t ripped just yet, I can definitely tell you that much

I’m very, very, very curious about this, ngl. because I feel like the series has yet to clarify whether you need to be built like a Marvel Chris in order for your body to have the stamina to withstand OFA, or if that actually doesn’t have that much to do with it and the control needed to master it is actually more mental/spiritual than physical

like obviously physicality has a lot to do with it, though. but All Might could still use 100% for a long time even in his withered and weakened body. and Shimura, the only other OFA user we’ve seen at this juncture, was obviously super cool and tough, but it wasn’t like she was a female body builder or anything

and then of course there’s the question of exactly how much stronger Deku’s version of OFA is, though. how much of a difference is there because All Might’s strength was added to the mix? that obviously makes a big difference as well

basically I still have a lot of questions! maybe I should get back to this training scene and see if it answers any of them!

so he’s telling Deku to visualize the image of OFA -- the egg in microwave image again, I guess? -- and remember that sensation in his body. basically he’s trying to coach him on bringing it out intuitively

and Deku’s thinking to himself that even though they were both born quirkless, there’s a big difference between them still

so this does make it sound like a lot of it is mental

honestly that’s exciting and very important to me because it means that if Deku ever has a breakthrough, he could potentially make a huge leap forward in progress very suddenly

(ETA: LOOOOOOL good god I’ll say.

also! now that I know more about future developments with OFA, I’ve been thinking that I wasn’t giving Deku enough credit here. he is, in fact, just as much of a prodigy as All Might, I think. the difference is that All Might was able to master the physical aspects of OFA, whereas Deku seems to be more in touch with the spiritual side that All Might (supposedly) never really awakened. or to put it in Avatar: The Last Airbender terms, All Might was more of a Korra and Deku is more of an Aang. fortunately for Deku, it seems that being in tune with the spiritual part of OFA gives you access to some really neat stuff, holy shit.)

HOLY SHIT

THIS DUDE’S STILL GOT IT

holy shit that came out of nowhere at top speed and he caught it without looking like a total badass. WHO EVEN NEEDS ONE FOR ALL. OR ORGANS

so now Mei’s traipsing out of the woods and asking if anyone got hurt. nope, but you almost killed my husband and my son so try to be more careful next time

Deku’s belatedly realizing that this looks kind of weird, him being out in the middle of the woods having SECRET TRAINING with All Might at the crack of dawn

so All Might, master of improvisation that he is, is switching to Kansai dialect for some reason. to try and disguise himself. because of course that’ll work

thankfully, out of everyone they could have stumbled across in the woods, Hatsume Mei is the most singularly one-track-minded person they could have possibly met, and she’s barely even batting an eye

hmm?

new item, eh?

and he’s surprised and says he thought it wouldn’t be ready until after the cultural festival

but she already had the materials, so she says it’ll take no time at all

so he’s thanking her and now she’s walking off again

and by the way, this thing that All Might caught literally is a golden snitch, though

All Might > Harry Potter confirmed

(ETA: and by the way, this makes two HP references two chapters in a row, given the title of 1-B’s play. Horikoshi must have recently marathoned the films or something)

now he’s asking Deku about the new item

Deku says there was something he wanted to try out with his new technique

All Might is mentioning that he also tried using support items at one point back in the day, but apparently they only ended up getting in his way and tended to break whenever he went over 20-30%

oh hey

haven’t seen this in a while. here I thought his suit was way too fitted to accommodate this sort of thing anymore. he’s probably ruined it now

(ETA: you can actually see that the top button is about to pop off lol)

anyway, he’s telling Deku that using support items is great, just so long as he doesn’t end up relying on them too much

he says he’s seen a lot of instances where heroes that relied too much on their items had a bad time when those items were lost

this kinda seems to go against what Aoyama was saying a few chapters earlier. he’s an example of someone who does rely on a support item, and he seems to do all right. but I get what All Might is trying to tell him though

so Deku is all “got it!” and clenching his fist determinedly

aww

it is, though. I was just thinking that. I adore these All Might/Deku training scenes and it’s been great to have a return to this

so now we’re cutting back to Heights Alliance, and I’m assuming it’s the evening because the moon is up

Bakugou is squabbling with Kaminari and telling him he he plays too fast. Kaminari says Bakugou is the one screwing them up because he keeps improvising

obligatory posting of this panel of MomoJirou being lesbians

I live for the little things, I really do

omg

okay, (1) this is the cutest thing that’s ever happened ever in history, and (2) I just remembered that that was the chapter title. “imperial golden tips.” so it appears the chapter is named after Momo’s fancy tea that her mom sent her

everyone’s all excited to try it because it’s fancy rich people tea

lmao. Ochako’s asking if Deku’s going to have any, and

“am I... a bad nerd??” Deku berates himself while lying awake in bed that night sobbing uncontrollably

so I think that while Deku and Ochako are being clumsy dorks here they’re going to accidentally click on one of Gentle’s videos perhaps?

yep

in a way it’s kind of charming to know that Youtube’s suggested videos algorithm is still complete shit even in the BnHA universe 200 years from now. Deku was looking for All Might support items. Youtube: [brings up villain tea videos]

so Ochako has no idea who he is, but Deku’s actually heard of him although he says he’s not too familiar. but he knows he’s an infamous Youtube Villain

:) the answer may surprise you!

though it shouldn’t, actually. you guys should just go ahead and assume you’re the targets of every upcoming villain plot from here on out. that’s the way the dice seem to be falling nowadays

now we’re cutting to Gentle and La Brava

Gentle is writing something out with a feather quill like some sort of Harry Potter character. I couldn’t come up with a more creative simile because my mind’s still in that mode thanks to the golden snitch earlier

this man just sits around in full costume writing letters with a quill even as a laptop sits inches away. he’s just that committed to his gig. he lives this life 24/7 huh

he says that the public is growing more and more dissatisfied with heroes nowadays, and it’s because they’re “feeble-minded”

I’d actually argue that at this point, them being attacked is the predictable thing

now La Brava is asking if he’s going to involve the kids that will become future heroes. YEAH, GENTLE

I’D ARGUE THAT THEY’VE HAD ENOUGH WAKE UP CALLS BY THIS POINT

like. can they live. can they just have this one little thing though, god

oh my god

thanks La Brava. this is why he keeps you around

so now they’re going over the route!

so they’re going to approach at 5 a.m. that morning, taking a route that passes by the fewest hero offices

then they’re going to turn onto a side road, go through a residential area, and then they’ll end up at a park

blah blah so about an hour will elapse during this time and they’ll end up at a rundown house that’s actually a cafe

and he says they’re going to stop there to get some tea

apparently they serve the same tea that that Momo was coincidentally serving to everyone earlier. the imperial golden tips stuff

so... they’re going to wait until the shop opens, and then take a 90-minute tea break

let me tell you, it sure is riveting going through every detailed step of this elaborate criminal operation

then they go back outside and pass through a construction site and then climb a hill

ah, finally!

yeah probably at like 5pm at this rate. the festival will have already ended and you shrug and turn around and head back home

he says that since Hounddog will probably be guarding the area, they’ll rub themselves with dirt and leaves to mask their scent

then they’re gonna hit the famed U.A. barrier, which is impossible to get through without a permit

but apparently La Brava is A HACKING PRO, so she’s gonna hack U.A.’s network and shut down their sensors

is it really that easy? shit. doesn’t U.A. have any IT heroes? little did we know this whole time the password to their network was 1234

lmao we’re flashing back to when they first met

“corrupt businessman scolded” sounds like the kind of shit that should have gone viral tbh

then one day La Brava tracked him down and said she was a huge fan and she offered to help him

she apparently hacked his address. since the police haven’t found them yet, I’m assuming they’ve since moved, or taken down that initial video, or both lol

so now he’s proclaiming that this time around he’ll proudly put his life on the line

aww

yeah so that’s basically it. and now time is progressing to the night before the cultural festival OH GOODNESS

BONUS:

so as promised, we’re gonna do two pages today since I flaked out yesterday!

page one - class B painting the prop dragon

nothing much to say about this one except that obviously they’re going to keep painting it until they’re fucking done painting it, Colander Man

page two - Kenrazaki Bibimi’s profile. I couldn’t find a scanlation for this, so my Google Translate-assisted version is below lol

likes: glittering people, glittering things

the beauty gal

“too beautiful. it’s fun to draw her eyelashes.” lol

is it weird that now that the shock of said lashes has died down some, I actually do think she is really pretty? lol what is this manga doing to me

[wecouldstillbegreat]

just watched this week’s veep and I am just so so bummed at how bad it is compared to the potential it had. Like Selina and Jonah being terrible was funny in earlier seasons because it was still clever and offset by great dynamics but now it’s just mean?? also they ruined amy and dan and I am v upset why would they bother showing him with Selina?? 😭

Because Mandel. 

This post sums it up perfectly. He will go for shock value at the expense of:

Good characterization that had been built up over the last 4 seasons

Treatment of female characters

Staying true to the original tone and Armando’s vision

His need for shock value was why I hated the pregnancy reveal. Because even though there was hope that they would finally go somewhere with the Dan x Amy relationship, there was no development leading up to it at all and it was exactly what he wanted because any development might have taken away from the ~surprise. Plus, he had no intention of ever developing them romantically. It came as a shock to Anna as well, since they revealed it to the cast at the table read.

I also hate how he reinterpreted small moments from the earlier seasons (it just hit me what Reid meant about taking things from the earlier seasons) like the conversation between Dan and Selina in 3x05, Fishing. When asked where the attraction came from, Mandel said, “If you look at the seven-year run of the show, that’s always something that’s been there, just in terms of how attractive both of them are.” The whole reason the scene in 3x05 works is because they came close but didn’t actually follow through. He also took that one look that Amy gave Dan in the bar in 4x04, Tehran, and turned it into years of Amy pining, when it had been Dan who had been the one to show that he cared by being nice to her multiple times throughout the series.

He completely crashed and burned a relationship that had been written before the series even began and had been building up for the last 8 years in 3 episodes. Same goes for the relationship between Selina and Amy that he completely destroyed. What happened to Selina crying and collapsing in Amy’s arms during election night, or Selina pulling her into the helicopter with her?

That scene felt like such a slap in the face. It was really visceral because Dan wasn’t wearing a shirt and usually when there’s a scene like that, they’re fully clothed. Maybe if they were, it wouldn’t have been as bad, even though it still would have been bad. We’ve gotten Dan with everyone except Amy. And they gave us that terrible scene between her and Buddy. I’ve said it before, but I’m kind of glad we didn’t get an actual nightcap between them because they probably would have written it as Dan being bored and underwhelmed and Amy not being good at sex. At least we haven’t seen any kisses or anything ~graphic like what we saw with Tom and Selina between Dan and anyone else. I think that would have made it so much worse than it already is.

The only thing that is comforting is that we got to see Dan finally be really sweet to her again in 7x03. I hate the circumstances surrounding that scene and episode, but I’m glad that there’s still that really tender moment between them. It’s one of the sweetest moments in the entire season so far. Everything else is just so vitriolic and mean, like you said. And I just hate the fact that we could have gotten that dynamic for the past three seasons instead of what they gave us.

I also hate his treatment of Amy and agree about the wasted potential for this episode. I feel bad for Anna because she was the first one cast in the show. Armando literally wrote the role for her, her character was originally called Anna. But then she was completely pushed to the sidelines when Mandel took over. I mentioned it before, but I think it’s very telling that Anna had to email him and the writers about her arc for this season. She said they were all on the same page, but somehow I’m not so sure. But even with her collaboration, I was not expecting her arc to take this turn at all.

I really wish that Dan and Amy would have a conversation about his firing because I’m sure Amy’s reaction would be similar to the one in 5x03, The Eagle, where she would just tell him how much of an idiot he is. And it would actually give them a chance to talk, and we would see their dynamic again. There’s a really good Dan x Amy fic I read that takes place right after Dan gets fired in 7x04 that covers this:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18572953

Dan and Amy were barely even in the episode. I genuinely feel like when they’re separated or when they don’t have as much screen time, like in 5x04, Mother it feels like something is missing. From season 1-4, they were in every single episode together and if they weren’t, they were interacting on some level like in 3x04, Clovis when they talked to each other on the phone. And then in season 6 we got nothing, except for a few scenes. And now that they’ve torpedoed their relationship, we might not get anything else other than 7x06 and 7x07.

I really hope that the scene in 7x06 is a good one. Every bts pic or still we’ve seen of Dan x Amy so far has turned out to be the opposite of what I imagined  in context. The rehearsal pic makes it look like there’s potential, but I don’t want to get my hopes up again.

And I see the direction that they’re going in, with the show slowly collapsing into nihilism. I just hate that that’s happening and the fact that he had to distort the essence of the show and all the characters to get there.

And if Amy is going to lose her conscience and Dan is going to lose the 5% that needs to be loved, then why can’t they just be power-hungry partners for life and leave it at that? Now they have to deal with her pregnancy and his young wife.

[yasuda-yoshiya]

Hey there. Sorry to bother you. I read your write up on The House in Fata Morgana and I really love how you go into such detail on the second half, especially with The Maid. I agree with her being wasted potential, especially when Michel’s love is enough to erase centuries of psychological and emotional trauma and amnesia in the span of one minute. My question is, how would you handle the Maid’s arc while keeping the setup the same? This got long, sorry. But I have a lot of thoughts about her.

Aaahhh, it’s absolutely no bother at all; thank you for getting in touch! It’s great to hear from you, and I’m very grateful for the kind words about my incoherent babbling. Giselle/the Maid is honestly one of my absolute favourite fictional characters and it’s really hard to find any real discussion or meta around her within Fata’s tiny English-speaking fandom, so I’m always super excited to hear from other people who feel the same way about her!

Okay, this got really long so I’ll stick it under a cut:

I have actually put a lot of thought into how the Maid’s story could have been handled and resolved better (and even drafted elaborate AU fanfic about it, for that matter), so I’ll try and put some of that into words here. Prior to door 8, I honestly feel like the broad structure of the Maid’s arc as it exists ingame does actually hit most of the major emotional notes that it needs to; it just rushes through each of them so fast and gives them so little narrative weight that they’re not really able to have the impact that they should, especially when door 8 then goes on to completely ignore the whole thing. So for the most part, I’d lean more towards heavily fleshing out the existing content rather than making any real changes to the structure of the plot overall. Door 8 is the point where I feel that her writing completely falls apart and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

As for how exactly I’d want to flesh things out, the main thing I’d want to do is to heavily extend door 6 - both the backstory itself and the conflict between Michel and Giselle in the aftermath. As I think I said in that big old write-up, to me the whole door felt more like a quick checklist of events more than a real fleshed out narrative.The way I see it, Giselle’s character arc is fundamentally about her relentlessly trying to hold on to her optimism and the core of her “self” in the face of traumatic experiences - to not let her suffering take away her smile, her energy and positivity and upbeat personality, the things she saw as defining who she was before all of this happened to her. This is portrayed very well throughout door 5, where we see Giselle very consciously deciding multiple times to try and put her suffering behind her and start over from a clean slate with positive expectations - first when she’s sent to the mansion with Michel, then at the village with Amedee, and then again when she reunites with Michel - and it’s also very effectively conveyed that the effort of constantly keeping up that positive attitude and trying to block out the scars of her trauma puts a significant strain on her (one that Michel tries to ease by explicitly accepting her scars as a part of her and telling her that she doesn’t need to hide them from him).

What ends up breaking Giselle and forcing her to detach from herself entirely and become the Maid, then, is the feeling that she’s finally collapsed under that strain and “lost herself” to the point of being unrecognisable as Giselle, of having lost everything she used to define herself by. The fact that even “Michel” doesn’t recognise her any more, the fact that she herself is barely able to keep a hold on her memories of the past and who she used to be, her body becoming cold and lifeless and losing its old warmth and energy, and the weight of the years slowly wearing down her ability to stay positive and keep believing in a happy ending - all of those pressures end up breaking her self-confidence down to the point that she can’t manage to see herself as “Giselle” any more, and the burden of even trying to keep being “Giselle” becomes too much.

In that state of mind, it’s no surprise that the alternate story that Morgana tells her - that the Maid was always just a lonely witch haunting the mansion, an impostor who became fascinated by the real Giselle and Michel, and deluded herself into believing that their story was hers - becomes so much easier to believe in. Of course she’s failing so hard at being “Giselle”, because she never was Giselle to begin with. Accepting this narrative allows her to detach herself from the weight of having to try to be Giselle, and to project those feelings and ideals from a distance on to the White-Haired Girl instead, who is everything the Maid thinks “Giselle” should be. Note the Maid’s fixation throughout the stories on the WHG’s “purity” and her unchanging nature that stays constant across all times - the qualities that she feels she herself has lost. Of course, Giselle is also very much still subconsciously projecting her own lingering feelings for Michel on to the WHG as well, as she assigns WHG the role of her “master” and “the person she waits for” - but in a context that allows her to safely detach herself as a guide, watching over the real Giselle and feeling pity for her suffering. It puts her in a position where she can be the one to reassure someone else that it’s okay for them to give up, to forget about waiting for Michel and find whatever happiness they can for themselves - without having to shoulder the shame of making that decision herself. The things she can’t accept about herself as “Giselle” become acceptable if she takes the outside role of a witch. As Fata repeatedly puts forth, tragedy becomes a lot more bearable if you think of it as “someone else’s”.

Okay, I basically just wrote three paragraphs of meta here and I’m still not much closer to actually answering your question, so it’s about time I looped back to the point. Everything I’ve outlined above is the basic outline of what I feel is intended to come across through the Maid’s arc. Now let’s talk about where I feel that door 6 fails at actually making that arc really hit home as strongly as it could have. I think the essence of the problem, at least to me, is that door 6 does a perfectly good job of laying out a very believable sequence of events that lead Giselle to become the Maid, but it doesn’t really do such a great job at portraying Giselle’s reactions in any real depth. The narration doesn’t really bring to life the feeling of someone fiercely struggling with themselves to stay positive in the same way that door 5 does, and the process of Giselle’s desperate attempts to keep hold of herself being slowly being worn down over the years gets skipped through so quickly that it’s hard to really feel the weight of it from her perspective. Just going more into depth with Giselle’s internal thought processes here, showing more of her individual reactions to the events of the first three doors and things like her frantic attempts to rationalise it as maybe being okay that the WHG doesn’t recognise her, showing the strain it puts on her to have to keep trying to find ways to frame her story in a more hopeful and positive way until she finally just can’t do it any more, would really help make the door feel like more of a complete experience.

Again, though, as I said in my old write-up, I do think a lot of what is there in door 6 is really strong and effective - a lot of the individual scenes do genuinely feel really powerful in their own right - but there’s just not quite enough there to make the whole thing really hold together as a fully realised narrative. (To put it another way, when you have even a weird side character like Yukimasa getting such a slow, thorough and nuanced exploration of his gradual descent into madness, but your main heroine’s central identity conflict and breakdown of her sense of self is rushed through in about half an hour, something has gone terribly wrong.)

The other problem that I have with door 6 - and this might be more of a personal thing - is the point it chooses to end at. The pivotal moment where Giselle actually finally chooses to disown her old identity and accept Morgana’s story as the truth goes by so quickly that you could almost miss it, and then after that the door is pretty much over, short timeskip to the end of Jacopo’s era aside. Considering how much emphasis the earlygame puts on the Maid’s preoccupation with stories, and how important the story of door 4 is to her in particular, I always felt more than a little disappointed by how little time is given to Giselle’s internal reaction to Morgana’s story when she hears it, or to how she processes it and sorts out her feelings about it afterwards; how she uses it as a way to reframe her own story in a way that’s more manageable to her, and how it hurts to let go of it. Even the most basic point of the Maid passing her old identity on to the WHG isn’t actually touched on by the text of door 6 at all. It just really feels like a lot of wasted potential, since the Maid’s relationship with the narrative of door 4 is probably the single most interesting part of the character to me, and I think it could easily have been elaborated on a lot more here in a way that would make the arc as a whole much stronger. (Although now that I think about it, I think I might have pretty much made a lot these points already in my old write-up, so I might just be repeating myself now? Whoops? It’s been a while, sorry!)

So that pretty much covers my feelings on what I would have liked to see from the Maid’s backstory. Now I can move on to talk about how I’d want to handle the resolution, which was probably the main point of your question to begin with! I think the biggest problem with the Maid’s turnaround as it stands is that it feels so easy, with very little real struggle or conflict - as you said, it really does feel like all of Giselle’s issues as the Maid are just flat-out “erased” in a matter of minutes, and she just reverts back to her old self entirely. And that feels incredibly wrong to me, because it seems to basically uncritically validate Giselle’s ideal of herself as someone who can hold on to her cheerful attitude and just block out her suffering entirely as if it never happened - which feels totally at odds with the the rest of her narrative up to that point stressing how much of a burden she placed on herself with that unrealistic expectation and how trying to live up to that impossible ideal ended up tearing her apart completely.

I think it would have worked a lot better to instead put the focus on Giselle’s resolution on challenging that ideal for herself, and letting her realise that she doesn’t have to be that ideal unchanging person she wants “Giselle” to be - that even if she has changed, she’s still Giselle, and still the same person Michel loved (Requiem’s epilogue briefly touches on this idea too). To accept the Maid as something that came from her, that’s a part of her, and that she doesn’t have to be ashamed of or make into an entirely different person to accept. The Maid believed that she’d lost her humanity entirely and become unrecognisable as herself, but when it came down to it, Michel did still recognise her, and still sees the person he loved in her. And some part of Giselle evidently still recognised and reached out to Michel as the person she had really been waiting for, too, even after she’d supposedly rewritten her story entirely to put the WHG in that role. The way her suffering ended up shaping her into someone like the Maid doesn’t make her inhuman; the ways she’s reacted to her suffering by trying to change into someone else are themselves human and relatable, they’re understandable and okay reactions for Giselle to have had in her situation, and the Maid is still someone Michel is perfectly capable of deeply empathising with and feeling love for.

Because in the end, the heart of Michel’s love for Giselle wasn’t ever really dependent on her always staying a bright and cheerful person who never stops smiling and always stays positive and never gives into despair; it was a relationship between two deeply wounded people who connected with each other through their shared experience of suffering. In blocking out and trying to forget the painful aspects of her past, in replacing them with a gently beautiful fairytale of a tragic love between two totally pure and selfless people, Giselle ended up losing what was really important about their relationship - that neither of them had ever been perfect, that they’d both been irreparably hurt by their trauma, but they still loved and understood and accepted each other, scars and all. Her remembering Michel as such a perfectly pure and flawless person is very sweet in its way, but it actually ended up turning her memory of him into someone so perfect that she couldn’t possibly live up to him or keep believing that he’d love someone like her - as is a running theme in Fata, blocking out the pain of their past ended up also blocking out the real significance of the connection they’d managed to make with each other through that pain.

So, approaching the end of door 6 and the Maid’s final resolution through that lens, I think I would put a lot more emphasis on Michel getting through to Giselle by his understanding and acceptance of what she’s been through and how it’s changed her, and by his own simple empathy with her and love for her as a fellow flawed and scarred human being. I think I’d also want to make that process of him getting through to her and coming to understand her a lot more difficult and painful than it came across in canon - I think a lot of things about the Maid’s attitude should have been difficult for him to understand and come to terms with for a while, especially when it comes to her wanting to cling on to her own story and push a false identity on to him instead of confronting the truth, which would hit a particularly bad spot for Michel at first. For example, with those small breakpoint scenes midway through door 5 where Michel and the Maid are reacting to the retelling of their memories, I’d want to have the Maid be a lot more fierce and persistent at first about denying that these really are her true memories, and denying the idea that the Giselle she sees in door 5 could ever possibly have been her - I’d want to see her trying a bit harder to defend the protective narrative she’s built up for herself in the face of Michel’s brutal attacks on it, and Michel maybe initially lashing out in frustration at that, until he slowly comes to recognise the basic emotions behind her actions as essentially sympathetic and familiar from his own experience of severe isolation, recalling how it had made him want to shut his heart off in much the same way.

Michel having to accept his own responsibility in leaving Giselle alone to deal with all this in the first place - for underestimating just how much she needed him - is also something that’s going to be difficult for both of them to deal with, but it’s something that I think they needed to more explicitly acknowledge and work through with each other because it’s important in the sense of Giselle being able to remember that Michel is a flawed and imperfect person too. (The Michel in door 4 explicitly did make the choice to die together with Giselle instead of leaving her alone, again reinforcing Giselle’s inaccurate memory of him as someone pure and perfect.) The Maid’s issues with her repressed resentment for Michel and with her own self-image are obviously very deep-seated to an extent that actually fully “resolving” them in just one conversation with Michel isn’t at all realistic, but I do feel that the process of actually having to talk things through with the real Michel would start to remind her of what their connection actually felt like after all those years of turning it into an abstract archetypal love story, and of how Michel was always someone she loved for being an approachably flawed and awkward person rather than any kind of perfect ideal - and to start to believe that maybe it’s okay for her to be flawed too, that her flaws could still be a part of her humanity and part of “Giselle” rather than something that makes her inhuman. As has always been the case with these two, humanising each other helps them to humanise themselves. Dealing with everything that’s happened is inevitably still going to be a difficult process for both of them, but I think Fata could have believably gotten them to a point where they’re at least starting down the right path without just lazily erasing Giselle’s issues and brushing the whole thing off. It’s a difficult balance to strike, but I do feel that Fata manages that delicate balance in other places and could have done so here, if a bit more care had been put into the writing.

From there, I’d keep the flow of the story as it stands - Michel and Giselle try to leave the mansion, Morgana stops them, and Salvage and Door 7 proceed as before. So the next thing to talk about here is Door 8. As it stands, the portrayal of Michel and Giselle’s relationship in door 8 is basically all about Michel gradually breaking out of his shell with Giselle’s support; as I think I said in that old write-up, I think it would have been much more effective if the focus was instead on the two of them supporting each other to start to break out of their respective periods of isolation and reclaim themselves as human beings who are still capable of living in the world and connecting with other people. Rather than Michel and Giselle’s dynamic just reverting to how it was in door 5, I would have liked door 8 to have them starting to develop a new dynamic to reflect how Giselle has changed, and to present her having to learn how to act like a “real person” again as more of a difficult and gradual process. Giselle really has irreversibly changed in many ways, but she’s also far from actually being unrecognisable, and I think the basic idea of her starting to naturally take on some of her old mannerisms again as she talks to Michel could have been genuinely sweet and touching if it felt a bit morenuanced and earned in its execution - starting to reclaim her identity as a human rather than a witch, as someone who’s still capable of feeling human emotions and having human connections, in the same way that Michel is gradually brought out of his shell by the events of door 8 and starts to be able to believe in himself once again as a person who’s capable of living in the world without being rejected or treated as an outcast. I think my ideal version of door 8 would focus a lot more on Michel and Giselle helping each other through that process.

Well, if I permit myself to indulge in full-on wish fulfillment here, my real ideal scenario would honestly be for Giselle to actually be physically there in door 8 and have her and Michel working together to save Morgana, with both of them getting to interact with the other characters and play an equal part as co-protagonists in the truest sense - but honestly, even without radically revising the structure and just keeping Giselle as a voice in Michel’s head, I think she could still have easily been given much more of her own personal arc within door 8 rather than just serving as an extension of Michel’s. One thing that’s really potentially interesting to me about door 8 is Giselle having to come face-to-face once again with the people from doors 1-3 who she had so strongly detached herself from and treated as supporting characters in the WHG’s story, to be picked apart from a distance as tragically flawed protagonists. I feel like the Maid was pretty clearly projecting a lot of her own feelings on to these people’s stories, using them to explore her own issues in a way that felt safer by framing them as “someone else’s problem” - so how does she feel seeing these people again, now that she’s self-aware enough to realise what she was doing? I think there’s a lot of interesting material to explore there.

With Yukimasa’s story, for example - before, as the Maid, she wouldn’t have been capable of articulating that her complex feelings about Yukimasa’s narrative and her wish for him to find happiness as Bestia were projections of the way she felt about herself and the way she also tried to find comfort in her own dehumanisation through a false narrative, because owning those feelings for herself would have meant acknowledging the fragility of her own coping mechanisms. But now that she’s started to come to terms with who she really is, I could see her having a lot of difficult and insecure reactions to seeing Yukimasa again, and having his story bring back Giselle’s own deep-seated fears that she’s fundamentally “not human” and deluding herself about her humanity in the same way that Bestia was. Of course, Michel would be there to help her talk through those feelings and remind her why that isn’t true - even as the Maid, she was still very recognisably human at heart - but I think that Giselle actually getting to talk those things out with Michel would go a long way toward giving proper narrative weight to her struggles and making it clear that the deep fears and insecurities she felt as the Maid aren’t just going to magically go away, the way they pretty much seemed to in canon. In the same vein, there’s plenty to explore with things like the Maid’s fixation on the theme of childhood innocence being inevitably lost with Mell and Nellie’s story, and her identification with Jacopo as someone who also tried to kill off his old self completely.

I think it would have helped tie the game together a lot better to have Giselle’s own resolution running parallel with that of the three men in this way, that seeing them being able to reach a more positive conclusion would help her to feel a bit less hopeless about her own story as well - as well as to start to see herself as her own person again, whose story doesn’t have to mirror theirs in the first place. In my ideal version of door 8, I kind of see working through their resolutions as a process of letting Giselle free herself from defining herself by these stories and from the story of the mansion’s curse as a whole, to be able to start to see herself and those around her as real people with real agency rather than as actors in a doomed, unavoidable tragedy.

But I also feel like this scenario has all kinds of potential in terms of allowing Giselle to maybe be able to reframe some aspects of “how she’s changed” in a more positive way, and to see some of the Maid’s characteristics as genuine strengths that she can draw on as well - the ability to emotionally detach from a situation and critically evaluate people and their relationships from afar can be legitimately useful in some situations too, you know? So I’d really like to have seen the Maid’s worldweary cynicism and piercing insight into people’s flaws get to be played as a strength at times, as an important complement to Michel’s lack of experience and knowledge about the world and people, rather than just a shameful phase that she has to move on from. (I think I’d definitely have liked that dynamic a lot more than the “Aww, Mell is like our best friend! We can definitelytrust him!” nonsense that canon pulled, which was just ridiculous. The Maid was absolutely brutal about Mell! Who is this person?!)

One part I really liked from the actual door 8 (and wished had been given more weight and expanded on a lot more) was Giselle saying after Mell and Nellie’s resolution that she felt bad for how she’d treated them as the Maid, sneering condescendingly at their flaws - but Michel responds that her story cutting right to the heart of their problems in that way actually helped him to fully understand them as people and how to help them, and that he couldn’t have done it without her. Making that into more of a fleshed-out arc about helping Giselle to reclaim some of the Maid’s attributes as something positive, not something she has to run away from, would have been a really satisfying resolution to me - there are absolutely real problems with dehumanising people and arranging people’s lives into a neat narrative, but there are also times that being able to detach and get that kind of overarching perspective can actually really help, if it’s done in a more balanced and self-aware way. I think going deeper into exploring this would have really done a lot to integrate Giselle and the Maid, and to tie together Fata’s whole themes as a story about people’s relationships with narrative in general.

Also, I would have really liked to see Giselle involved with the WHG’s resolution too! She spent 400 years obsessing over the WHG and defining herself in terms of the WHG’s story, after all, so I think it only seems fair to give her some closure on that and to let her play her own part in putting her to rest. Michel, Giselle and Morgana’s narratives are all connected together by each of their relationships with the WHG and their respective struggles with the pressure of the ideals she represents, so I think it would bring the whole game together nicely for the three of them to get to let go of her together.

So, I think that’s pretty much the outline of what I would have liked to see from Giselle’s arc in Fata! I hope this all made sense since I am kind of half braindead at the moment, ahaha. I would really love to hear your own thoughts about her too, though, so please don’t hesitate to share them if you can! I’d be super interested to hear your take on the character!

[natsubeatsrock]

My Ten Favorite Chapters of Fairy Tail

I've been going back through the old chapters recently and remembering how much fun I've had reading Fairy Tail. It's easy to forget that there have been chapters that I genuinely enjoyed throughout the series. You’d think, for a guy planning to remake the series in his own image, I wouldn’t like many chapters of Fairy Tail. However, this list has been something I’ve wanted to do for years.

So, to celebrate almost 5 years of blogging and 10,000 posts here, here's my list of favorite chapters throughout the series. Emphasis on my list. A few of my rankings have changed over the years and I acknowledge that a few times in this post.

Number 10: Chapter 417 - Lone Journey II

The month before I started posting on this blog, I did the Fairy Tail 30 Day Challenge. Thinking back, there are plenty of things different from me then and me now. For example, I actually liked Gruvia back then. Of the many things that have changed, it's funny to think that this was, at one point and time my favorite chapter. For a long time, I've considered it to be the best chapter in the series.

What I love about it is that it's a chapter where Mashima shuts his characters up and literally lets their actions speak for themselves. This isn't a particularly unique thing to happen. Obha and Obata did the same thing for most of a chapter of Death Note. However, I love the content of the chapter. I love the connection between Natsu and Gildarts. I love how it calls back to their fight during the Grand Magic Games. I love how we see that Gildarts does care for Cana. 

The reason I've grown to love it a bit less is the difference between my first reading it as I was getting into the series and me reading it in the context of the complete series. I can't ignore how annoying it is that this is the only chapter that exists in between the second time skip. And speech bubbles would have been appreciated during the waterfall scene. Still, it's one of my favorite chapters.

Number 9: Chapter 430 - Operation Purify

Closer to the end of the series, there was a panel of all the dragon slayers that was hailed as one of the best pages in the series. Ehh? It's not bad, but calling it the best in the series is a stretch. I already have my pick for best page locked in.

If I'm perfectly honest, I would have put chapters 430-435 if not for any reason but the sheer hype going through them the first time through. However, aside from only honoring single chapters, this was the only chapter with no flaw big enough for me not to like it, looking back. I mean, Erza single-handedly mowing down forces is bad, but this was after the Kyouka fight.

However, the moment of note is at about the middle of the chapter. Because after a year of separation, going their separate ways, Team Natsu is finally back in action. And they all share the same cry on a single page: “We're all fired up! I'm not even looking at the page and I'm getting chills thinking about it as I write down my thoughts on this chapter.

Number 8: Chapter 418 - Challenger

Natsubeatsrock is a hilariously ambiguous name to have. Since I've started this blog, I've realized just how loaded my URL actually is. It's been assumed to have ties to my series Opinions I'll Probably get Stoned For, either because of the title or because what I'm saying is blasphemy. Funny thing, it could also have been tied to the fact that Natsu is my favorite character and my middle name means stone. Not sure beats would have been the right word to have in the middle, though.

However, my name comes from one of my favorite chapters. After the time skip, we're briefly introduced to Lucy's work during as a journalist. If I were a bigger fan of Lucy, this would be a great chapter for me to have gushed over her growth as a wizard. I especially like that she was keeping track of the members of the guild.

However, if you can't tell, the most important thing in this chapter is Natsu’s return. Unlike a lot of people, I'm impartial to his post-time skip looks. But the idea that Natsu has flames strong enough to destroy the arena and melt clothes is simultaneously hilariously nonsensical, disgustingly overpowered and one of the coolest things that Natsu has done in the series. Period.

Number 7: Natsu and Asuka

Guys. I said that this was my favorite special chapter in the series. Did you really think I wouldn't have it here? I know that I made a chapter review for this a few years back, but I don't mind talking about it again. While I don’t think that this is my favorite omake anymore, it’s still a very solid chapter. 

I still believe it's a great display of how resourceful Natsu can be. I love the extra insight we get into Alzack and Bisca’s relationship. It's the best chapter in the FT Matsuri. And this chapter may have convinced me that Asuka deserves nothing but love and protection. I'm scared about what a potential time skip involving the hypothetical NYCC children would do to her. 

Maybe the worst thing about it is that it only ever gets mentioned because Natsu and Lucy didn't kiss like Asuka wanted them to. However, that's obviously not about the chapter itself and, as I demonstrated when I talked about it, you don't need to mention it to talk about the chapter and the good things about it.

Number 6: Chapter 205 - To Continue Down This Path

Even though I did make fun of my old choices during my go-through of the FT Challenge, there are some choices I'm glad I made even now. Up to this chapter, we don't have a good idea of how strong Gildarts is. Especially if you watched the anime where he has only introduced the arc prior. We know S Class mages are powerful, but Erza seems to think Natsu could beat her and we saw Laxus get defeated, albeit only barely by getting double-teamed. So we’re aware that even S-Class isn't akin to invincibility.

In addition to that, Natsu has been known to edge out victories that make no sense for him to have. Natsu’s next win after this battle holds that to be true. So, even against incredibly high odds, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Natsu would find a way to win.

Which is what makes Gildarts unleashing his power all the more insane. Natsu, a character who has, up to that point, always strived to beat whatever opponent he's faced, realizes that he can't just power through. This chapter forces Natsu to realize how weak he is and is a challenge for him to get stronger in his weakness. Does the series do anything with this? Not nearly as much as it should have. But this is still one of the favorite moments for Natsu.

Number 5: Chapter 507 - Voice

The fact that this is one of my favorite chapters shouldn't come as that much of a shock to people that have followed me for long enough. What might be shocking is that it's one of my top ten favorite chapters, even in my top 5. The fact that Natsu and Gray were fighting for about three chapters before this was stupid to a lot of people who were paying attention. There was no need for them not to be in their right minds and little need for them to take out their frustration on each other. 

One of the big fears I had over this fight was that it would end because their supposed love interests whom they thought were dead would stop them. It would have been hilariously cliche for them to come and immediately stop them from fighting. While I can understand wanting a ship to happen, this isn’t the way I’d want to see my ship happen. I’m even annoyed that their arrival is what gets attention from fans when this is brought up.

Thankfully, Mashima decided to pick Ezra for this role. Feelings over ships aside, Ezra was the person best qualified to stop Natsu and Gray fighting over nonsense, considering that's something she was doing from even before the events of the series started. That Natsu and Gray (and the audience by extension) are reminded of their own reasons for not wanting Erza to cry when they see her tearfully breaking their fight up was an amazing twist on what I expected. To be blunt, Juvia and Lucy could have not shown up and this would be just as impactful, if not more.

This chapter would be much higher up on my favorites if it zeroed in on this aspect. However, the rest of the chapter isn't very important or impressive. It sets up the fight against August by showing the members of Crime Sorciere failing to beat him. It’s not particularly bad, but it’s not better than what was before it.

Number 4: Chapter 415 - That Is The Power of Life

One of the weird trends that all of my favorite anime shares is that they make other people cry for one reason or another. I find that to be a weird trend for me specifically. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that there are people who enjoy crying. However, I'm not a huge crying person. I can count the anime that have actually caused me to get close to crying on my hands and only one of them actually is one of my favorites. However, I can think of three Fairy Tail chapters that definitely pushed me to tears and two are on my list.

The Igneel and Natsu storyline was, like so many things, handled badly. I think that it could and should have been a more relevant subplot/character aspect throughout the series. At the very least, the fact that Natsu seems to have stopped actively looking for Igneel since chapter 1 should have been more directly addressed. That being said, the impact of Natsu seeing Igneel dying is not lost on me. Igneel would have had to go anyway. We learned this chapter that the dragons only had a limited amount of time outside the dragon slayers. So seeing Igneel disappear would have been sad for Natsu anyways.

But having to watch Igneel lose half of his body and get blasted by Acnologia makes the situation feel even worse. It's like someone shooting the family pet after breaking its neck. There was no need for that to happen. Watching as Happy watches Natsu watches Igneel die is sad enough on its own for me. Watching your fave cry over losing his dad after looking for him for so long. 

This chapter marks an important shift in Natsu’s motivation. Whereas before the goal to defeat Acnologia was somewhat unnecessary and unconnected to the main cast, now Acnologia has a target painted on his back. Would the takedown be handled well? Depends on who you ask. This chapter is on this list and that one isn’t.

Number 3: Chapter 9 - Dear Kaby

I'm supposing that the vast majority of people reading that care about me are Fairy Tail fans. At one point or another, we fell in love with this series. There was a specific moment that we decided that this series was worth reading and/or watching days worth of material that varies in quality as the series goes on. This definitely happens for every series, to some extent, but it feels more significant for long-running series. 

This chapter was that moment for me. At the time I first saw the episode this chapter was based on, I knew a fair amount of anime. I had grown up with DBZ, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, and Naruto, among other anime that I don't remember much of. I wasn't aware of what I was getting myself into when I decided to watch this series my younger cousins and siblings were so interested in. However, I figured that, even as I enjoyed the beginning of the series, there was no real reason to think this would be different.

But when I got to this episode, I realized this series was special. This was something I was in for the long haul. Even reading this as a chapter, I still think of how different the end of this arc is, even to other arcs in the series. On the one hand, it deals with the issue of Kaby and his father in an amazingly emotional way. On the other hand, it gets undercut by Natsu’s unwillingness to take the reward for a job they didn’t actually do. Mashima made both work in one chapter and that is amazing.

Of course, there’s a little more at play in this chapter. Natsu gets mad at Kaby’s disdain for his dad’s work, which works amazingly well with his character and search for Igneel. Lucy is revealed to be a writer in her own right. There’s something special about a series called Fairy Tail being told mostly through the lens of an aspiring writer. It's stuff like this that makes this chapter a delight to come back to very early on in revisiting the series.

Number 2: Special Mission: Beware of the Guys Who Show a Keen Interest!

One of the weird trends that occurs in fandoms is shipping the main characters together, regardless of any chemistry they may have with others. However, if writers plan not to put characters that the fandom would otherwise assume will end up together, there are many different ways to handle the way that will play out. In a lot of television I've seen, the two will actually get together, they’ll date for a little and break up for one reason or another. I’m not really a big fan of that.

Things have happened differently in the manga I’ve read with this. In Bleach, the question of liking Ichigo was brought up to Rukia very early on and never addressed. I liked that way, even though plenty of fans were shocked to find out the implications of that statement. But Mashima couldn’t possibly do a better job. Right? Wrong!

I think that tackling the issue of whether or not Lucy likes Natsu in an omake was an interesting decision. It doesn't take away from the main story but it's out there for fans to experience if they really want to. The main takeaway of this chapter was that the idea of Lucy and Natsu getting together is awkward for Lucy and nowhere on Natsu’s radar. Of course, they could those feelings, but not overnight.

Too bad so many people thought this was a sign Mashima would develop a romantic relationship between them. I'm not sure if I could have blamed that one on him. Though, considering his Twitter art antics, he’s not doing much to help keep that break mentality up within fans. Then again, I’m not sure there’s anything Mashima can do on that front.

Number 1: Chapter 100 - To Tomorrow!

If you can't tell a big reason why certain chapters are in my favorites, it's because of how they represent in what the series could have been. I do believe that Hiro Mashima is capable of great writing, even and especially within Fairy Tail. It's just that he does something to mess up what good there is. But that doesn't mean that I can't like something I know is badly written. 

Erza not dying, at least to me, represents a sign that characters important to the narrative were in no real danger of dying. Looking back, it's hard for me not to think about how the explanation for Erza and Jellal surviving is stupid. And Natsu very likely should have lost his fight to Jellal. I could easily see someone saying these are issues with this chapter.

However, for me, this chapter stands out as the single best chapter of the Tower of Heaven arc, arguably the best arc in the entire series. I love how this chapter signifies a shift in Erza’s thinking about her friends. I love how the beginning and end of this chapter deal with Erza’s ability to cry, which was already mentioned in this arc at least twice.

I love how this chapter all but confirms Natsu’s terrible ways of handling death. This matters especially in light of the other people he has lost in his life. Think about how Erza has been portrayed up to this point in the series and you’d find her death to be unbelievable. This was the moment that brought me the closest to crying upon my first reading of the series. I’m proud to call this my favorite chapter in the series.

That’s my list! See you!