#i think they made her a bit too overpowered which obviously affected how and where they could use her character

[transingthoseformers]

TFP Arachnid was interesting, but I think they just didn't know what to do with her. Well besides her getting a slow death on a dead moon.

You're right, that's why I think she was wasted potential in the show

[purpleoffbeat]

narratively speaking, that is a fine interpretation. very poetic, and it makes sense assuming that karmic destiny is a force of the metanarrative. however i personally think that madomagi is a show that prides itself (or at least it used to) in its logical construction of its own plot devices in-universe. (the easiest example i can think of to explain what i mean, is viewing magical powers in the series as "sufficiently advanced technology" aka technology that is so ahead of our current available tech that it is basically indistinguishable from magic. "it looks like magic, but its actually highly-adcanced nanomachines" for example.)

as a deconstruction, madomagi is very clear in its intentions to break apart the illusion that "teenage girls get to fight monsters in secret" is somehow a dream come true. its painful and lonely, as mami demonstrates. its a secret, which is why madoka never tells her mom about magical girls. and to top it off, the incubators specifically designed the system so that every magical girl eventually dies or witches out. in the latter case the planned method of instilling despair is always to make her hate the wish she herself gave up her humanhood for. in other words, they try to make each magical girl's life an ironic hell through her own wish.

remember when kyouko asked madoka to help her "bring sayaka back"? shes someone with experience as a magical girl, she already lost all her family, and she wanted time and time again to make sayaka accept her selfishness (note: selfishness isnt always bad, im not insulting sayaka)... and yet it was kyouko who told madoka "in the animes and fairytales they always bring back the person from their darkest time, which means we can surely make sayaka human again!"

this obviously didnt work. because madomagi isnt about following the established tropes.

with that in mind, its incredibly unfitting that madomagi would hold up the idea of predetermined destiny as a legit force. even though the system is rigged, you could still theoretically see a girl make a contract and do great things as just her human self both. i think the idea that becoming a magical girl means giving up whatever effect you would cause on the world like you said, stands at odds with the rest of the story and how it logically follows. its not about being poetic, its more about being brutal (and thats what the incubators are).

so yeah, i think the "karmic destiny" thing doesnt make any sense, but it still made its way onto the final product. its one of the things i like the least abt the og show despite loving it. i mean, if all that karmic destiny attached to madoka is so enormous, then surely homura also has a huge amount of karmic destiny (even if not as much)? it doesnt nake any sense that her meddling with the timelines only affects madoka.

note that theres a scene at a park near the beginning of the show where mami misunderstands homuras intentions and says smth akin to "so youve noticed her immense potential too, huh?" implying magical girls can sense magical potential. how mami can do this but homura cant despite gaining experience throughout the timeloops is beyond me, its a detail thats never explored. its honestly kinda stupid, just because she has amazing potential doesnt mean that she eventually makes a huge wish (which she did end up doing, but its the possibility of it that counts). a girl with enough knowledge of the magical girl system and some time to think could wish for an overpowered skill (for example, luck manipulation) despite having tiny potential. how can the writers excuse a girl with a crumb of potential gaming the system??

they cant. i love madoka magica, but this detail is too stupid. what were they thinking, "if madoka made a contract her soul gem would be huge"?!?!? literally everyone else has the same size of soul gem, what the hell. love the show to bits but magical potential is such a bullshit addition to the lore that cinemasins for better or worse would have a field day with it.

Is it established at all that the concept of karmic destiny from madoka magica is basically just a trade off for your life? I'm rewatching it & like potenial as a magical girl is determined by ur influence and connections right. So since u effectively forfeit your life when u become a magical girl, the world also loses what impact you would've had if you had lived as a person. So is that lost potential what translates into magical prowess? The people whose loss would be a bigger detriment to the world burn brighter when they sacrifice themselves?

[reinerispretty]

rotations. (zuko x f!reader) ch. 11

hello hello hello!! thank you all so much for reading my fic, it really means the world to me! i never thought i’d see this many people enjoy something i wrote, so i want you guys to know that i appreciate each and every one of you and i see every single one of your comments and they make me smile so big!!! i hope you’re all having a great day :)

pt 1

pt 10

pt 12

The door to her cell opened and she had to squint against the bright light of civilization. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the change before she recognized the shadowy figures that stood in front of her. “Mom?” She asked. “Dad?” 

The cement walls of the cells were covered in years of dirt and dust. The little light that filtered through the window at the very top of the wall illuminated the room just enough so that one could see their hand in front of their face. The floor of her cell was dirt, which she supposed was a benefit, as she didn’t have a bed. 

(Y/N) spent most of her days in solitude. Occasionally, a guard would come in and toss her meals on the floor. They had no problem being unkind to her. They reminded her that she was a traitor to her people, a worthless and groveling little girl that used others for her own advantages. They called her names, threw food at her, and reminded her that she would be spending the rest of her life in this wretched place. 

After Katara fled with Aang, she and Iroh had been captured in Ba Sing Se. Their hands and feet were placed in shackles to prevent them from bending. Azula herself had thrown her into her cell on the ship that they would use to travel back to the Fire Nation. The girl spit at her from outside the cell bars before shutting the door behind her. That was the last time (Y/N) had seen anyone she recognized.

She wasn’t sure how many days she had been in prison. They all melted together when she tried to think about it. The only thing she knew was that the guards woke her up when it was time to wake up. 

It was a long time before she received her first visitors. She was sat at the back of the cell against the wall, replaying all the good times that she had had with her friends in her mind. Pushing Aang into the river on accident, teaching Toph how to do a cartwheel, and hunting and making dinner with Sokka and Katara were just a few of the things that popped into her mind. 

The door to her cell opened and she had to squint against the bright light of civilization. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the change before she recognized the shadowy figures that stood in front of her. “Mom?” She asked. “Dad?” 

Her parents looked down at her. She scrambled to her feet to come closer to the bars. She reached her hands out to touch them, but neither of them reached out to her. Her father’s face was one of anger and disgust. Her mother, surprisingly, just looked sad. 

“When I found out that you had betrayed us--betrayed your nation, I was in disbelief. You had always been such an obedient young girl. And then I find out that my daughter had released prisoners and run away with the Avatar.” Her father turned his nose up at her. “You deserve every single thing that has come to you. You’re lucky Fire Lord Ozai hasn’t imprisoned us all for your treachery.” 

(Y/N)’s fingers curled around the bars of her cell. “You’re in far too deep to ever understand,” she said. 

“What I understand is that my own daughter is a traitor and that I have no choice but to disown her from our family.” 

She stared at him in disbelief. “You would put the Fire Nation before me?” 

“I will always put the Fire Nation before you.” For the first time since she arrived at the prison, (Y/N) felt an emotion besides sadness overcome her: anger. 

“That is what’s wrong with you! Throughout my entire life, you’ve chosen everything but your wife and daughter. You think it’s for the good of the Fire Nation, but it’s not! The Fire Nation isn’t good. What they’re doing isn’t good! I’ve seen the destruction we’ve caused with my own two hands. I’ve watched it happen. You’re just a puppet who blindly follows the orders of a tyrannical monster. So fine, disown me! I haven’t wanted to be part of this family since Zuko’s Agni Kai.” 

Her father chuckled. “I had a feeling that’s where you had gone wrong. Your affection for the boy made you weak. You didn’t understand that that’s what needed to be done.”

“And my father needed to make me watch it, right? My father needed to hold my head to make sure that I didn’t turn away while I watched my closest friend--a child--be scarred by his father?” She shook her head. “You’re just as sick as the rest of them.” 

She moved away from the bars and sat down with her back against the wall. “You know, Dad, I actually feel sorry for you. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so poisoned on the inside.” 

Her father had had enough. He was a man who hated pity and she knew this. Her words had dug deep. He turned and stormed out of the room. Her mother remained. 

“Are you going to disown me too?” She asked. 

Her mother stared at her for a long time. (Y/N) was surprised to see that as she moved closer, her mother was crying. She couldn’t remember her mother expressing any sort of emotion before. 

“My sweet girl,” her mother said, grabbing her hand through the cell bars. “I love you. I wish there was something I could do, but-” 

“It’s okay,” (Y/N) said softly. “I can keep myself safe. You do the same, okay?” Her mother nodded and kissed her hand before leaving the room. 

The encounter with her parents, although horrible, gave her hope. She would make it out of this prison if it was the last thing she did. And if Aang hadn’t survived, she would get rid of Ozai herself. 

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

(Y/N) had been sleeping when she heard something fall to the floor. 

She sat up immediately, looking in every direction to see the source of the noise. The moon was high, but provided very little light into the cell. After feeling around for a few minutes, her hands finally scraped against a brick. She walked over to where it had fallen from and peered inside. 

“Can you hear me?” The voice almost made her scream in surprise. She covered her mouth before leaning close to the hole. She could see another cell on the other side, but she couldn’t see the person. 

“Who’s there?” She whispered back. 

“It’s me,” said the voice, a bit louder this time. She instantly recognized it. 

“Iroh!” She sighed happily. “You can’t understand how happy I am to hear you. How’d you know I was over here?” 

“There’s a nice guard lady who told me about you when I asked. She said you were doing well.” 

“As well as I can be, given...y’know.” Iroh hummed. 

“Listen. I have a plan.” (Y/N) felt her heart begin to race. “The Day of the Black Sun is in two days time. It only last for eight minutes, but we are going to break out.” 

“How are we going to do that?” 

“Follow my lead. And trust me.” 

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

The evening before the Day of the Black Sun, (Y/N) received another visitor. The door shut just as quickly as it opened, so she wasn’t even sure if there was anyone inside with her. Normally the guards left the door open if there were visitors. 

“Hello?” She called out. 

“(Y/N),” Zuko said. 

“Get out.” She didn’t hesitate to say it. “Get out right now or I’ll blast you to pieces.” 

“I know your bending doesn’t work in here.” 

“Fine. Then I’ll tear you to pieces. Leave. Now. I don’t want to talk to you.” 

“Would you just listen to me for a second?” 

“No! You don’t deserve my time. I thought you had changed.” 

“I have changed--” 

“Obviously not, Zuko, because one of us is in this cell and one of us isn’t.” She sat up the actually face him. He sat in front of the cell bars. He was wearing an imperial cloak. “I see you’ve been living fancy in the royal palace.” 

“If you would just shut your mouth for two seconds--” 

“Why? So you can tell me how awful I am? How horrendous it was of me to betray Azula to protect my friends? You want to tell me how good it is now that your Father doesn’t absolutely despise you anymore?”

“I didn’t come here to say any of that.” 

“Then why did you come here?” 

“I...Remember when you came to the tea shop in Ba Sing Se? And we talked and you told me all of those things about how despite everything I’d done, you still missed me?” 

“I take it all back,” she said decidedly. “That was back when I thought you were different. But you’re the same boy who’s let me down time and time again.” She turned away from him. “I trusted you, Zuko. I let myself believe you could really be different. And you know how I hate being wrong.” 

Zuko stood and walked out of her cell, slamming the door shut behind him. (Y/N) held in her tears. She would not let herself cry over Zuko anymore. 

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

(Y/N) tried her hardest to wait during the Day of the Black Sun, but she was too excited. She tried her hardest to see out the window of her cell so that she could tell where the sun was, but it was impossible. Instead, she just paced along the dirt floor. 

She wondered where her friends were, at this very moment. How would she get back to them? She hoped they weren’t far. 

Suddenly, her cell went dark. She heard a commotion happening to her left and then the door to her cell was kicked in. A very buff-looking Iroh entered and bent her cell bars apart just enough so that she could slip through. “I see you haven’t been wasting your time here,” she commented, before the two of them darted down the halls of the prison. They encountered a few Fire Nation soldiers, but without their bending, they were absolutely useless against hand-to-hand combat. (Y/N) and Iroh quickly overpowered them and made their way outside. 

“Don’t look up!” Iroh shouted at her. He grabbed her hand and they ran as far away from the prison as they could. (Y/N) looked around and saw that the royal city had been completely emptied, no doubt to the bunker that extended underneath it. 

She and Iroh climbed over a hill and finally stopped to catch their breath. The clanging of swords against armor caught her attention and (Y/N) looked down to see Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe warriors fighting below them. She figured out instantly that this was the invasion and that meant that her friends must not be far away. 

“Come with me!” (Y/N) called to Iroh as she made her way down the slope. She turned to find him still standing at the top of the hill. 

“I must go another way. I will be alright. Go, reunite with your friends.” He gave her a big smile before disappearing on the other side of the hill. She didn’t hesitate. She ran down the hill, nearly breaking her ankles multiple times in the process, and ran up to the crowd surrounding the big hunk of armor that was undoubtedly Appa. 

“Hey!” She called out, waving her arms wildly. “Guys, it’s me!” 

Aang was the first one to notice her. He squinted his eyes to see who was running towards them. Once he realized, his face broke out into a big smile. “It’s (Y/N)!” He shouted. 

“(Y/N)?” Sokka exclaimed. He ran toward her and their bodies collided into a tight embrace. 

“You almost knocked me over,” (Y/N) laughed. Sokka pulled away and kissed her quickly. 

“I’m never, ever letting go again.” (Y/N) felt her face get hot but she had no time to hide it as she started getting bombarded by her friends. 

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Katara sobbed into (Y/N). She held her friend tight, her own eyes pooling with tears. 

“Katara, it’s okay. I don’t blame you one bit. I’m the one who told you to go.” She turned to Aang and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have this guy around!” 

“You’re all squishing me!” Toph exclaimed. Somehow, the small girl had gotten herself in the middle of the group hug. (Y/N) grinned, pulling Toph close. 

“Toph! I thought I’d never be able to smell your stinky feet again!” Toph smiled and wrapped her arms around her midsection. 

“Don’t go getting imprisoned ever again,” Toph said. “You hear me?” 

(Y/N)’s cheeks hurt from how big she was smiling. “Alright Toph, but only since you asked.” 

---

I KNOW WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. JUST KEEP TRUSTING ME.

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[cathrrrine]

RUN | Pietro x Reader

Originally from my Wattpad

CHAPTER 11 - FAST

tw // violence, swearing

----

I have never, ever told anyone my secrets. I've barely even told them my real name. But everything Fury had said felt like a stab to the chest. I didn't like the fact that he had that power over me. To hear someone say the things I've only thought about in the dark out loud was making me feel exposed. I wanted that to end, and quick.

He was right. That was what angered me the most. Every syllable, every word he had uttered was dangerously close to the truth. No one knew I had nightmares. And no one knew I lived most of my life in the darkness of the Red Room. These were things that I kept to myself. But somehow, Nick Fury got his dirty hands on my secrets, and I wanted the one who put their nose in my business to pay.

"What makes you think someone told me these things?" He inquired. I wasn't interested in his game anymore. I just wanted him to get straight to the point.

"The fact that you question the possibility is a sign." I dug my fingers into my own skin, fighting the anger away. I couldn't let it get out of my control, not now. No matter how much I wanted to strangle him to death, I couldn't risk getting killed. At least not until I find out who spilled my secrets. "Answer me, Fury. How did you get the information?"

He took a deep breath, pausing before he said, "Through a reliable source."

"A source that happened to know everything about me? You're a horrible liar." I scowled. "I made sure those sources were dead. Hell, anyone who knows even my favourite colour is six feet under." Or you know, burnt to ashes. A very creative way of disposing and cremating, I'd say.

"I beg to differ."

"Oh? So, I wasn't the one who killed them? I wasn't the one who murdered them with my own two hands? Who watched them take their very last breath with my own two eyes?" I watched him squirm in his seat, it was subtle but I caught it. "I guess they burned their own bodies."

He laughed, raising his eyebrows in mock humour. "That's cute."

"Adorable, I know." I grinned, but I knew the usual playful sass it carried was lacking. I was dripping venom. "Someone new told you these things. And if you want my full loyalty..." I turned my head to the mirror, which was obviously built for people to look in. If I guessed right, a group of Avengers were standing right behind it.

"Then you'll let me slit their throat."

The man let out a loud laugh, baring his teeth as he did so. "We have files of you, too, you know. Don't need to get so dramatic, L/N. You're not as secretive as you think."

"God. You can stop trying to lie now, Nicholas. There is no file. Even if there was, it would be useless. I wiped all my records clean and I made sure of that." I leaned forward. "Now, tell me the name."

On the other side of the mirror, a certain Avenger was trying her hardest not to run away.

"She's going to kill me." Wanda let out a sharp breath, her heart racing fast. She didn't think herself as someone who scared easily, but the look in Y/N's eyes shook her to her core. "She's already overpowered me once. I'm too weak against her. My powers-"

"-are strong enough to defend yourself against L/N. You have nothing to worry about, Wanda." Pietro cut in, trying to comfort his sister. He kneeled in front of her as she sat, looking into her eyes.

"I meddled in her mind. I invaded her privacy." She stood up from her seat, her chair screeching against the floor as she pushed it forcefully. She was trying her hardest to not explode into a flurry of emotions. God, if stress was visible in colours, she'd look like a damn festival.

"We needed you to." This time it was Steve who spoke up. "What you did was necessary, and if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have even gotten close to her accepting the offer."

"Besides, she's just playing mind games." Natasha chipped in. "She's trying to get Fury to break."

"Well, it might not look like it's working on him but I'm definitely affected." The young woman's eyes glowed red once more, the familiar scarlet waves swimming through and around her fingers. She tried to focus on the warmth, trying to find comfort in the familiar surge of her powers.

"Calm down." Pietro put his hands on her shoulders, urging her to stay seated. "She can't do anything to you. We won't let her." And he swore on that.

"Don't worry about it, kid. I'm sure Fury's got it all under control." Tony moved from the mirror to join his friends in comforting the young witch. "Plus, Pietro's right. We won't let her mess with you."

Wanda chuckled, amused at her family's antics of trying to cool her down."Are you just trying to calm me down so I don't accidentally blow this building up, or do you guys actually care about me?"

"A little bit of both." Tony shrugged. A small laugh escaped her.

"Guys." Natasha's voice brought them back to the problem at hand. Everyone moved to the mirror.

"You can shove that up your motherfucking ass, L/N."

The conversation had gotten heated. The room went still as everyone anticipated Y/N's next words. But then they couldn't hear her anymore.

"He muted us." Tony huffed.

Nick had disabled the speakers, and all they could see was him screaming at her, pointing in the direction of the two-way mirror.

Nobody moved.

Y/N was laughing, her body shaking as she cackled. They could see her mouthing a few more words before Nick slammed his palms onto the table and walked out, leaving her with a smug smile on her face.

Everyone's blood went cold.

"Wanda." The door suddenly opened, revealing a stone-faced Nick Fury. "I'm afraid it's gotten out of my control."

———

After approximately two hours, two men dressed in the familiar S.H.I.E.L.D attire came into the room I was in, and then led me outside to a well-lit hallway. The walls were stark-white, strips of light lining up at the sides of the ceiling.

"Where are you taking me?" I turned to the taller one of them two, trying to get him to look me in the eyes. But he kept his head straight, dragging me along as he walked.

"The Director ordered us to take you to him." He didn't react. He was like a robot...not even an ounce of emotion behind his eyes. I bet he'd be very good at playing poker. Maybe I should ask.

"Can't he just get me himself?" I whined like an ass, wanting to get at least some reaction out of him. But he stayed silent, barely affected. I huffed, turning to the other one instead. He was bald and he looked very angry.

"Is he always like this?" I pretended to laugh. Bald Man gave me nothing but a fierce sideways glance. This was boring. They were boring me. "Fine. Don't talk. Can't believe S.H.I.E.L.D hires people with dry humour."

"Hey...out of curiosity, do you play poker by any chance?" I genuinely wanted to know. Tall Man threw me a dirty look before turning his head away again. Still no damn reply, though.

"Jeez. It's just a question." I stopped talking immediately. I wasn't going to waste my breath on these two assholes.

Just as I was about to bask in the silence, a loud crash echoed through the hallway, the sound of gunfire and shouts bouncing off the white walls.

"GET DOWN!"

I heard the familiar whizz of a bullet coming towards us, and immediately dived to the floor, stomach flat on the ground. It hurt like a bitch, but I'd take a couple of bruises over a bullet any day.

The two men beside me immediately reached for their handguns, aiming it at whoever shot at us. I couldn't see, too busy trying to dodge bullets to focus on the attacker. It was a cursed situation. I was in handcuffs, and I had no weapon whatsoever.

Yet here I was, getting shot at in the hallway of S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters. What have I gotten myself into?

"Search for her!" I heard a male voice shouting in the middle of all the commotion. Could it be? This wasn't just anyone. The minute I heard his voice, my blood went cold and I froze in my tracks.

He was here. And he was coming to get me.

"We have to get her out of here!" Tall Man yelled to his friend.

I heard the familiar crackle of a radio from where Bald Man was, "Code Red! Code Red! We've got a breach in the security system-"

A gunshot cut him off.

"Damn it–Tall Guy! I think this is the part where you take my handcuffs off!" I prayed he would comply. Please just get me out of here, please.

He didn't respond, so I rolled over to my back and heaved myself up, hands still bound. I couldn't be here. He was here. How did they find out where I was?

It took me years to get off their radar. I was invisible for so long, it seemed like I was so close to being forgotten. But they never forget.

Hydra never forgets.

I ran blindly through the hallway. Somewhere in the commotion, they threw smoke-bombs at us. Even if I wanted to run, I'd risk running into them.

Thousands of possibilities swam through my mind. Was this really the end for me? For my freedom?

My panic levels surged as I felt a pair of hands grab my shoulders. I yelled, but I ducked out of their weak grip quickly, landing on the ground with a hard thud as my imbalance overpowered me. It was an unfamiliar face wearing an all-too-familiar emblem on her chest.

"You." She grinned.

"Yeah, no shit, it's me." I tried to scurry away from her, dragging my body pathetically on the ground as she creeped closer to me. The minite she was close enough, I swung my right foot across her feet. She fell on her ass immediately.

Old-school trick. Hydra's hiring idiots, now?

I scoffed before moving into action, swiping her gun away from her holster and shooting at her stomach. She clutched her wound, howling in pain as blood flowed out. I couldn't afford to think twice about it.

I ran again, this time in the opposite direction of where she had come from. Then I bumped into a brick-hard chest.

Panicked, I aimed my gun at the intruder. Only to find a silver-haired man at the end of the barrel of my gun. He held his arms up. "Don't shoot."

"I could pull the trigger right now." I was breathless–not only from fatigue, but from anxiety. "I would, you know."

He didn't say anything, but he did move. It was a hell of a blur, and just as I blinked, he held my gun in his hand while I stood empty-handed.

"Now you can't." He raised an eyebrow.

"Find her! Now!" It was his voice again.

Pietro's eyes flicked from my face to the area behind me. I turned away from him again, scanning the place for an escape. There was none.

My hands were cuffed. I had no weapon. I had no advantage. I was at a dead end.

There was only one way out of this. Unless I was willing to walk head-first into hell again. And God knew I would take this road just to avoid the other consequence.

"Alright. I give up."

"What?"

"I pledge my fucking loyalty to you. Or whatever it is that you want. I swear." I looked into his eyes, desperate for him to oblige, to listen. "Now get me out of here. Fast."

[giantroboticplatypusbutt218]

I finished watching Loonatics Unleashed and I have Some Thoughts. I guess this is like a part 2 to the other post I made about the show so yeah.

I swear I don’t intend for everything I write to be an essay but whatever. It’s all under the cut. No massive story spoilers, but I will talk about episodes and will warn accordingly. (But who actually cares about being spoiled on the plot of Loonatics Unleashed?)

Alright so I finally figured out why Ace has laser vision. ...It’s kinda dumb but it’s because rabbits eat carrots(in cartoons). It’s... a reason at least. Still kinda sucks that it’s his only power when everyone else got 2 and some change. Kickass swords don’t count, even if they are magic. Seriously; Transformation. Duplication. Imitation. Tons of other “ation”s. They could’ve leaned into his trickster side but no. He eats carrots... so he got laser vision. Also he only ate carrots like three times in the show so wtf...

Okay so the pacing... improved somewhat in season 2. Don’t get me wrong there were still problems in some episodes but at least they learned how to build the stakes until the climax. They still sometimes went from zero to eighty after the opening credits, but at least it wasn’t zero to a hundred. Much less whiplash was had is what I’m saying. 

I don’t think I really mentioned the villains before but they’re uh... generally not very good. They’ve got cool gimmicks but most of the time they’re just two stereotypes and a cliche in a trench coat. Season 2 brought back classic anthro characters to be villains a few times, and while they still weren’t well written and just referenced old bits half the time... at least they weren’t dehumanized humans. 

I also don’t think I mentioned the animation so... it’s fine. It’s got cut corners but all cartoons do. Sometimes fight scenes look cool, sometimes they’re stiff. Sometimes the slapstick is well timed, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the facial expressions match the voice acting, sometimes they don’t. Speaking of voice acting, it’s good. There’s not really anything stand out to perform in the first place but everyone does a good job with what they have. 

Okay random note before getting deeper into things... the intro themes were... not good. I swear the first song ended on a note that it wasn’t supposed to. The second song fixed that but added people announcing the characters which... is just worse to me. Not much else to say because I skipped them after the first few times. 

(Very mild spoilers for the general plots of episodes past this point.)

Ace and Lexi improved a little in the second season, but I still find them kinda bland. Ace still just feels like zero calorie Bugs Bunny. His wit is confined to being the leader, snarky comebacks, and some decent sleuthing skills... and that’s really it. He doesn’t really play around with the villains the way Bugs would. Ace was also supposed to have an arc learning to use his magic sword which... didn’t really happen. Lexi’s defining trait outside of her powers is still that she’s “the girl” which... sucks... Uh... she upgraded to Gamer Girl in the second season which while neat, amounted to nothing outside that one episode. At the very least she was never kidnapped for more than 5 seconds?(That “honor” goes to Zadavia) They also never really brought up their backstories in a meaningful way again, which sucks. 

I still like the rest of the team. Slam got an episode about wrestling that built on his backstory and was fun to watch. Duck discovered that his egg powers work differently in water which was neat and matched him being a waterfowl.(Lexi’s powers work differently in water too but it’s never brought up again). Rev is still Rev and I still love him. He got an episode about his family and struggle to impress them(specifically his parents) despite his career choice which was also neat, but I will be coming back to this episode later. Tech is also still Tech and I also still love him. But uh, every character and also me wanted to see him get out of the lab more, and then he got like a nibble of an episode to get out of the lab, and then the show was over. Oof.

Speaking of Tech, it might be for the best he hardly ever left the lab because his powers are... possibly way too effective against all the robots and machines the team fights. Now, him being “overpowered” could’ve been used as a fun writing challenge. Robot goons aren’t a good option for villains anymore. Fighting against him in a city filled with metal is harder. Villains can’t rely on simply killing him thanks to his regeneration. Fight scenes including Tech would have to be handled in a fun and interesting way. But... no. In a team with two tech guys, the one with super speed and flight comes with while the one who can control metal and literally can’t die stays behind. Oh well. Doubt they could’ve added him into more fights without accidentally dumbing him down anyway. 

Oh crap I forgot to talk about Zadavia! Uh... she exists. She’s the team’s boss who sends them out on missions. Uh... I can’t talk too much about her without spoiling what little overarching plot this show has, but just know that she’s neat, but affected by the usual sexism going on in the show’s writing.

(Character and episode spoilers past this point.)

You know, for being The Loonatics the main cast wasn’t very loony. You know who were though? Basically all the villains. Yeah I don’t wanna go there but oops here I go anyway. It’s pretty messed up that all the main characters’ zany traits were dialed down, while the defining feature of practically every villain (besides their stereotypes)is that they’re insane. I mean, if you’re looking for good mental illness rep in The Looney Tunes you’re gonna be disappointed, but at least in the shorts almost every character was a little unhinged and a bit of an asshole, making none of them stand out for those traits specifically. 

Also messed up is that a lot of the villains are disfigured and made fun of for it by the main cast. Hot take of the century, but I think making fun of people for having a big head or only one eye is... bad. Oh and if they’re a woman then they’re also judged on how hot they are. Actually all women in the show are subjected to sexist writing. I remember like one episode where women were treated with a sliver of respect for a split second and that was in the obligatory “the cast comes across an island of amazon women” episode. However since most of the time was spent painting them as villains until the “actually sexism is bad” ending, there was hardly a moment of reprieve from the bullshit if a woman was on screen. 

I’m not the best person to speak on this but uh... it’s fucked up that since literally every notable human is a villain, all the people of color are bad guys, right? Like, obviously it’s not as bad as some of the shit the old shorts pulled, but that’s like saying getting punched is not as bad as getting stabbed. It’s true... but I’m sure most people would prefer neither. 

And here’s where I bring up that Rev episode I mentioned earlier. Rev’s parents are racist against coyotes (cartoons sure love to make carnivores allegories for black people don’t they?) and obviously with Tech E. Coyote being his close friend, that causes trouble. ...Right? Uh, no. They say some racist crap to Tech, and that’s it. There is not even an attempt to correct their behavior from anyone. It’s just treated as some unfortunate quirk. In fact the episode’s conflict actually revolves around Rev’s brother, Rip. Honestly, I doubt that they could’ve handled a decent “racism is bad” episode anyway. But they could’ve also... just not brought up racism if they couldn’t handle it? I’m sure having no racism topic at all would be better than having Tech just take the parents’ racist bull crap lying down and then help Rev impress them with an invention he doesn’t get credit for. Also at one point Rev says if Tech wasn’t a coyote and a guy he’d kiss him, which has two uncomfortable implications, but this section is already too long. 

(Spoilers end here.)

Overall... yeah the show’s not very good. Of course it wasn’t. It was always going to be a little garbage. And no not because of the darker style or strange setting or any of that superficial crap. Team dynamic shows are popular and with Teen Titans doing so well WB probably thought they might as well shove out a 2 season Looney Tunes version to grab a little more cash, probably minimizing the budget to squeeze out as much profit as possible. If anyone working on the show was passionate about it, I doubt they had the budget or time to act on most their ideas. 

Still, there were things to like. There are some funny jokes throughout the show, a few of which even managed to come out of Ace’s mouth. Danger Duck was literally just Daffy and he’s always great. Ironically, Rev and Tech were the most fun to listen to, and also to watch interacting in general. Slam didn’t do much but was a sweetheart who deserves success. There managed to be some decently twisty twist villains, if only because Disney ruined my brain with their ceaseless and lazy attempts at them, and I wasn’t looking out for them in this show. And, while almost nothing was properly developed, at least the concepts and characters are fun to think about?

I can’t say I’d recommend this show to everybody, but uh... if you’re a Furry with low standards and too much free time like me, maybe you’ll like it? Just go in with low expectations so when nice things happen you’re decently surprised. 

[ask-iamnotanalicorn]

Previous: The Tirek Timeline

The Discorded Timeline

The new Element bearers had not appeared. With nothing to fall back on, Celestia went to face the return of her sister armed only with her determination and desperation. With the knowledge that anything other than subduing her sister would result in Luna’s death or her ponies’ enslavement, Celestia fought with all her heart. 

A thousand years hadn’t tempered Nightmare Moon’s madness, but it had grown Celestia’s magical skill. The clash of the last remaining alicorns filled the sky with light and darkness that could be seen across the entire country... including from the gardens of the castle in Canterlot, where a long-dormant statue waited.

If Celestia had known the danger... if she had known that the Tree of Harmony had grown weaker over a thousand years... if she had known that the Element magic used to imprison Discord was weakened with it, and he only needed one significant bit of discord to break the last lock on his prison... she might have preferred allowing Nightmare Moon to take the throne. 

Because two alicorn sisters displaying their ground-shattering discord across the skies was more than enough. 

Discord caught them mid-battle...and was honestly kinda irritated to find them more focused on fighting each other than challenging him. He couldn’t even set up a good game for them to lose at before he took over! He’d just have to fix that with a bit of chaos magic. A quick boop to the heads, and... well, things didn’t turn out quite like he expected. Celestia became haughty, snide, and violent, but Luna changed out of her (decidedly tacky, but what could you expect from pony fashion) goth look and turned all nice and weirdly remorseful. Luna tried to appeal to her sister, Celestia (who now had an interesting tinge of fire in her mane) unleashed some demeaning verbal attacks, and pretty soon it looked like they were gearing up for another fight, and...

Well, this was stupid. They were so focused on each other, they weren’t even paying attention to him! He’d fix that with another boop on Celestia’s noggin - really annoying, having to un-chaos someone, but at least it put the two ponies on the same side so they could get their priorities straight and focus on...

Ah, yes, there it was! Just what he’d waited for these past thousand years: two alicorn sisters, both staring at him with horror and worry and that oh-so-precious pony determination. Too bad they had already worn themselves out with their fight over who-knew-what. They were almost pathetically easy to overpower, especially with not an Element in sight.

The princesses were his playthings. Equestria would be shifted and reformed under his chaotic whim. And none stood able to challenge him.

The Reign of Discord had begun.

----

Meanwhile, Salespitch was visiting Canterlot at just the wrong time, and... 

Well, what do you think happens when a lord of chaos notices a pony standing in the middle of the road, trying its hardest to not show how petrified it is, and it has a horn and wings but clearly no alicorn magic? And then said lord of chaos investigates said pony out of curiosity, mocks him about playing princess, and is amazed when said pony actually gets annoyed enough to scold Discord that no, he is NOT an alicorn, he’s never WANTED to be an alicorn, and he would really prefer it if people didn’t mistake him for royalty when he’s just a stallion with a genetic mutation trying to live a normal life!!!

Discord thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. 

Long story short, instead of Discording Sales’ personality, Discord just... made his biggest annoyance a reality. Obviously he didn’t give Sales FULL alicorn powers, and what powers he did give him are pretty wonky - the ability to turn random objects into suitcases, and fly upside down, and speak in a dramatic Royal Canterlot Voice at random and totally inconvenient times, etc. The royal regalia was a stroke of genius inspired by one of this new era’s “cartoon characters,” a perky little alicorn called Prince Smiley. (The fact that Sales had once dressed as said character for Nightmare Night was sheer coincidence, although Discord would have found that even more perfect.) 

Obviously Sales was horrified, which is really the wrong reaction, because it just made the whole thing funnier to Discord and thus made the draconequus that much less likely to forget about Sales and go pester other ponies. Anonymity is your friend in Discord’s kingdom.

Now, Discord being Discord, he gets bored of things easily - including mocking and tormenting the powerless alicorn princesses. There’s a whole nation to twist and remodel into a true chaotic kingdom! Plenty of other ponies to give him some variety. Turning them to stone would be so gauche and ruin his single moral high ground over the ponies, so when Discord tires of his princess fun, he turns the alicorn sisters into fillies and leaves them with his newly-appointed Prince of Babysitting. After all, shouldn’t an "alicorn” be in charge of baby alicorns? Discord even made him a lovely glass castle with stone windows - more of a cage, really, since Sales can’t leave it, but he has a throne and everything! Discord doesn’t even have to worry about manipulating somecreatures into worshipping the new “prince”; Sales has already got his own cult that fawns over him outside the see-through castle like a fanclub, to Sales’ eternal embarrassment. Yes, this is clearly the best setup Discord could have come up with all around, takes-hand-off-and-pats-self-on-the-back.

Time passes with no end in sight for the madness that has turned Equestria into a kaleidoscope’d chaos playground. Sales kind of falls into a perpetually annoyed resignation. He tries to be grateful - at least he still possesses full control of his mind, unlike so many ponies outside his weird castle. He has the honor of safeguarding the princesses - although he feels guilty that he can’t actually protect them from Discord’s whims. But he can keep them happy, and the few times he gets to talk with them before or after they’ve been in their baby states, Celestia manages to give him a word of encouragement or gratitude. (Plus, well, they ARE pretty adorable as fillies... even if he is NOT the world’s best babysitter and has to figure things out on the fly. He really wishes his mom were here.)

There is one actual advantage to all this. Ironically, Sales has a closer connection with Discord than most; since Discord made Sales the caretaker of the princesses, he actually talks to Sales sometimes. Granted, he mostly treats Sales as a captive audience to whine at when Discord starts getting bored of whatever recent chaotic plan he’s enacted. After all, when EVERYTHING is chaos... well, chaos almost becomes normal, so Discord keeps having to up himself. Sales actually manages to have conversations with him sometimes, and he’s gotten a glimpse of the truth even Discord can’t or won’t recognize: that he’s lonely, dissatisfied, and lacks a real sense of purpose or fulfillment.

Sales has to treat carefully, since annoying or upsetting Discord too much results in chaotic ‘punishments’ that are usually more disorienting and frustrating than actually harmful. But Sales has started picking his ear a little bit with hints that maybe Discord is bored because most creatures subject to his chaos don’t enjoy it like he does? Maybe sharing fun WITH people is better than just having fun for yourself at others’ expense? I mean, look at you, Discord, the only pony you really talk to is a nobody you made into an alicorn just to embarrass him.  That’s a pretty lonely way to live, isn’t it?

Sometimes Discord listens while making snarky comments. Other times Discord gets irritated and turns Sales into a tiny alicorn who has to ride around on baby Celestia’s back and try not to get stepped on (or something of that nature). But Sales keeps trying and hoping and praying he’ll get through, because if they ever hope to stop Discord’s reign of chaos... well, it might just take teaching the Lord of Chaos what friendship is.

Even if the only pony currently able to make the effort finds him super annoying.

-----

Fun Facts About The Discorded Timeline:

- Yes, Luna’s popsicle is her cutie mark. I suppose once she digests it it will reappear back on her flank. XD

- Cadence hasn’t become an alicorn yet in this timeline. The chaos events do lead to her meeting Shining Armor, though, because TRUE LOVE and such :D

- Sales’ cult ABSOLUTELY LOVES THIS SITUATION. I mean, a lot of them hope/expect that Sales will eventually break free and defeat Discord now that he is showing his true alicorn might. Sales yells at them through the walls sometimes, but they have a hard time hearing him, so naturally they make up all sorts of “godly” nonsense he’s supposedly sharing.

- Discord did in fact accidentally cure Luna of the bad magic that was fueling and feeding off her old rage and paranoia. She and Celestia have pretty well made up through these weird events. And as Discord grows bored of their initial humiliation, his torments get less frightening and more, well, just weird, so life is KINDA bearable. Plus they really like Sales now (they don’t remember their adult selves while they are babies, but Discord makes sure they can remember every embarrassing toddler thing they did when they get aged back to normal.)

- Sales doesn’t know what’s going on with his family, they were back home when this happened. He’s hopeful they didn’t get affected too badly. In fact, Featherhorn (his hometown) got turned into a cardboard village and a few ponies had their heads swapped around, but Discord hasn’t made any connection between them and Sales, so he doesn’t think anything special of the place. Mostly just chocolate rain, flying rhinobunnies, and corncob trees. Everypony agrees it could be worse (but not out loud, that’s just ASKING for trouble!) Also Per talks backwards now, but everyone can still understand her (somehow) so it evens out.

- Black DOES run into Discord at one point while trying to sneak into Sales’s castle. Discord thinks he’s just another of Sales’ fanclub, so he turned him blue and forgot about him. Black finds this super annoying, especially when he can’t change his color no matter what magical disguise he makes.

- Don’t even worry about Sombra, he’s not touching a Discorded Equestria with a ten foot pole. Honestly Discord probably went after him as soon as he showed up, adding the Crystal Empire to his chaos kingdom. 

- The Changelings are staying the HECK away in their nice little magic-negating castle, the only safe haven from Discord. Pony refugees actually try and go there, although it is tricky to get around the thick forest of living candy Discord erected all the way around their territory. Those who do get in exchange servitude and donations of love for safety. It keeps the changelings fed and the ponies feel safer working for bug-ponies in a place of order than out in the madness of Discord’s land.

- So as you might imagine, Sales can’t break through the glass of his glass castle. If he were to try and smash through the stone windows, though... let’s just say he feels really smart AND really dumb while making his escape attempt. It doesn’t go over well with Discord, especially when he manages to successfully pawn the baby princesses off to some of his cult members (one of whom is Black, don’t worry), who hide them away. This leads to a rather heated conversation when Discord catches up with him... and perhaps a moment of truth where Discord might realize he actually does maybe kinda sorta consider this silly brown pony a friend who he possibly doesn’t want to severely punish as a warning to other ponies who might defy him. Maybe.

- Art note: I didn’t draw a background for this one initially, and then I got around to coloring them and knew it needed SOMETHING. Came up with the glass castle with stone windows because that seems Discord-like. Also baby bottle trees. The idea for breaking the stone windows was literally last minute as I wrote this, so bonus!

Next Week: Industrial Devolution (Flim Flim Universe)

[razorblade180-heated]

Hunger

[Lewd]

Jaune:*Opens door* I’m hom-

Weiss:*hugging him* Never take a three month long mission ever again!

Jaune:You miss me?

Weiss:Very much. A week in and I realized just how rough this was going to be.

Jaune:We face time almost everyday.

Weiss:*red* You can’t hold me through a scroll.

He smiled at her words and wrapped his arms around her nice and snug. She wasn’t the only one who missed this. It was always nice being with Weiss; especially after a mission. She smelled nice, or maybe he just needed a shower from the trip. Finally they let go of each other and Weiss gave him a chaste kiss he wished that was a bit longer.

Weiss:I made dinner already if you’re hungry.

Jaune:*look at the kitchen*

The stove stop had saw a pot of pasta and a salad bowl nicely prepared. Jaune’s eyes widened in shock and turned back to see Weis with a smug look followed by placing her hands on her hips.

Jaune:Are you telling me all I had to do was leave for awhile and you would’ve learned to cook?

Weiss:Takeout gets expensive. I had plenty of time to learn a couple of meals. They aren’t as good as yours obviously but I think I did pretty well. *smiles* I’ll make you some.

Jaune:(She’s lively today. Did she miss me that much?)

Jaune watched his girlfriend happily hum as she made him a bowl. Her hips swaying back in forth while she danced in place. Jaune’s heart couldn’t help but flutter watching her be so happy. However, he wasn’t even that hungry. For food that is.

“I’m glad you weren’t here for the first attempts weeks ago.” Weiss said a bit embarrassed. “Ruby got a bit mad when I-” her words were cut off by the sudden feeling of Jaune’s arms around her waist which caused her to jump a little and put down the bowl. Weiss looked up at him and was taken into a deep kiss before she could say anything. Jaune slid the bowl out of the way then continued to deepen the embrace.

Weiss’s face grew red as she surrendered to the feeling of Jaune’s tongue quickly overpowering her own before separating their lips moments later. Not without a little resistance from Weiss however, who began standing on her toes the moment he started pulling away. A desperate attempt to make the kiss last a few seconds longer on her part. “That’s a fine way of telling me you missed me.” Her face still flushed from the embrace.

“Of course I missed you. Your smile, your hugs, your kisses...” his hands went down to Weiss’s long, pale legs before slowly dragging his fingers up them and pass the skirt line towards her sensitive thighs. Weiss shuddered as he didn’t stop and pressed his fingers right against her now aching mound. “Your body...” Jaune said, whispering into his snow angel’s ear before kissing it. Oh how she missed this touch.

Weiss wanted to protest about him resting or needing to bathe but instead found her hands gripping the stove top and moaning lightly as Jaune kept rubbing his fingers against her panties. Weiss arched her back instinctively and felt his hard on press through his jeans and up against her butt. Jaune’s left hand rose to pull down Weiss’s dress until her chest was exposed to the warm kitchen air and he grabbed a hold of her supple left tit.

“We....ah...we have a bedroom Jaune.” Weiss’s legs trembled a bit and she held her head down while allowing Jaune to continue his advances. This felt fantastic. Weiss was hoping for a bit of fun but wasn’t expecting it moments after Jaune walked through the door. She couldn’t stop her hips from gliding along his fingers in an attempt to speed things along.

“Couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve thought about you nonstop for months.” His voice got a rasp and ruggedness in it that gave Weiss a chill. There was no use trying to tease him or drag out the tension longer than needed. She had made it pretty obvious that she had no objections to what was happening. “Fine by me.” Weiss moaned out loud.

Weiss put her forearms on the stovetop and bent over lower. Not seeing Jaune’s movements made this far more exciting than it it probably should’ve been. Weiss couldn’t help but think of what her blonde teammate would think of this. ‘Yang would never let me live this down.’ Her attention was brought back to Jaune has she felt him finally release her boob and chose to undo her ponytail; her hair falling down her back. He then turned her head towards him and leaned in for another kiss that was as passionate as the first.

Jaune finally slid her panties to the side and slid a finger into her soaked entrance. A long moan came from Weiss and into his mouth. The pleasure was briefly lived however because Jaune almost immediately removed the now slick digit. Weiss was about to whine in disapproval but heard the sound of the man’s zipper coming undo. The feeling of him pressing the head of his length right against her was indescribable. Jaune had to break the kiss for much needed air and used the time to place his right hand on Weiss’s hip and the other raising her skirt up to get a perfect view of Weiss’s heart shaped ass.

She could feel Jaune’s gaze on her which only made her more anxious and redder. Weiss slowly pushed herself backwards prompting Jaune to thrust forward and feel surrounded by drenched, hot flesh that clung to his length; urging him to go deeper until all of him rested inside her. He then slowly pulled out to the tip before thrusting back in with more speed and for rhythmically. His hips colliding with Weiss’s ass, creating an intoxicating sound Jaune would never get tired of.

“Ahhh! Fuck, right there Jaune! Just like that!” Weiss moaned and shivered at the pleasure of being filled by her boyfriend for so long. They were in sync; pressing against each other at just the right time to get as deep as possible inside the petite huntress. Weiss couldn’t find the strength to raise her head any longer despite wanting another kiss. The sensations given with each thrust left her no choice but to rest her head in her arms and simply let herself succumb to bliss. Letting out yelps and gasps of air as Jaune kept thrusting. Now placing both hands on her exposed waist with his thumbs pressing into the dimples on her lower back he loved so much.

“Gods you’re so wet, so tight!” Jaune groaned heavily as his pleasure built up. The auditable sound of their intimacy growing louder and more like the sound of shoes in the rain. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too...! I-ahhh! Ah, I..close! Don’t stop!” Weiss couldn’t stop moaning or trembling. She was glad foreplay was short or else she might’ve came from the start. It was embarrassing to think about but it was clear her body missed him just as much as her heart did. Jaune was the same. His grunts became more strained the more he continued to spread her constricting walls. He was near his limit. But he didn’t want to disappoint Weiss.

The young man pulled out briefly and stood Weiss straight up immediately while turning her around. The young woman had no time to question or react before Jaune pulled her into another kiss. Weiss’s right arm proper her body up against the stove once more as her body began to lean back; accepting the lustful kiss. A second later Jaune hooked his hand around the back of her knee and lifted her leg up. Weiss understood his intention and helped raise it while he plunged all the way back inside her; striking deeper than before.

Weiss’s head was spinning and her body felt like a bomb about to explode. She put her left arm around Jaune’s neck and gave way to the pleasure. She was thankful Jaune used his free hand to replace hers on the stove; using it to grab ahold of his hip and rock her body to meet his thrust until she finally couldn’t take it anymore. She broke the kiss and gather what air she could.

“I’m...I’M...!!!!” That was she could put before what felt like a surge of lightning ripped through her body and made her shake. Jaune felt her clamp down around him like a vice and it sent him over the edge. “Weiss!” He gasped before cumming hard inside of her. She continued to cling to her boyfriend as her felt every spurt of his essence fill her up. The warmth and pleasure of it all helped ride out her own orgasm as she still slowly rocked back and forth against him before finally stopping.

Both could feel the rise and fall of each other’s chest as well as the pounding of their hearts. They’d worked up a little sweat but neither cared in the slightest. Especially Jaune who placed his head in the crook of Weiss’s neck; peppering it with kisses that made her giggle happily. Affection before, during, and after sex. Truly he knew how to make every second with him magical.

Weiss:Wow, you weren’t kidding when you meant that you missed me.

Jaune:Says the girl who bent over without me saying anything. Where nights as lonely for you as they were for me?

Weiss:*blushing* Perhaps. Next time let’s both go on a mission together okay.

Jaune:Fine by me. I love you my snow angel.

Weiss:And I love you my knight.

This time Jaune gave her a regular kiss filled with love and admiration. He really was a lucky guy. The two finally separated completely and fixed themselves up; well, as much as they could. Red faces and a bit of sweat would probably need a shower. Something Weiss would like if it wasn’t for the deep growl that came from both of their stomachs that made them both laugh. Jaune gave his bowl to her and made another one for himself.

Weiss:It’s a good thing I cooked before hand. *takes a bite*

Jaune:Yep! *takes a bite*

......

Weiss:Wanna order takeout?

Jaune:Yes please.

[cynthiyaayaana]

Bullets and Pollen.

Hey!! This is a story I had written long before but never had the courage to post until now. I came across this very interesting writing prompt on tumblr and just had to write something on it. Any kind of appreciation or constructive criticism is welcome. Enjoy!! 

Ayanna found herself in a flower shop that was very conveniently located a few blocks away from the cemetery. It was more like a meadow enclosed in the tall glass windows that displayed a vibgyor of flowers. The odor of flowers was like a thick perfumed layer that engulfed everything in the shop. It was uncomfortably congested. She wondered how the fragile flowers were able to bear its immensity which was almost overpowering her.

The sunlight bounced off each petal reflecting its colors like a prism capturing light and releasing a rainbow. She was tempted to catch it but obviously they were intangible. She therefore reconciled with touching the soft velvety petals of the orchids that stood arrogantly in the confines of their plastic buckets. There long stalk upholding the delicate white blooms like the slender neck of a swan supporting a snappy mouth.

The clear ringing of the bells alerted the intrusion of another customer. She turned around to see the culprit who had disrupted the quaint solitude of the ambience. Her complaint disappeared as soon as she thought it. The man standing in front her stood out in his black attire like death in the Garden of Eden. Before she had time to register his appearance accurately he strode towards her with quick but calculated steps. She realized the answer to her question was hazel but now they appeared murky green because of the sun rays they took hostage.

 In one swift movement he took out his bulky wallet and slapped a few crumpled bills on the counter. She flinched as his hands dropped on the teak table’s sleek surface with a loud thud. He gritted his teeth and flexed his jaws agitatedly, emitting a sickening sound of bones cracking. Although his attempt to control his temper was admirable, she was afraid that he would pop a vein any minute now.

 “Excuse me…” She was rudely interrupted as he jeered at her for some unknown reason. She had to confess as terrifying and alarmingly red the visage of this stranger was, she was thoroughly entertained by his attempt to restrain his fury. She only hoped she didn’t offend him any further by losing her self-control. Unfortunately, she slipped when she heard the next sentence that he spoke.

“How do I passive aggressively say ‘fuck you’ in flowers?”

 Ayanna coughed to suppress her laughter. This was by far the most noteworthy conversation starter she had ever heard. Although she should have rectified his misunderstanding, she stood rooted in her spot, looking at this inhumanly tall and infuriated man who wanted flowers to translate an extremely hackneyed and handy insult like ‘fuck you’.

 Flowers!

She should have been cowering at the mere size of this man and also the way he had “bloody murder” written all over his rugged face. It didn’t require a keen observer to see how positively threatening he was in the way he carried himself. He radiated danger and not in the ‘what-you-read –in-a-dark-romance kind of way’. It was more like a ‘cross-me-and-I-will-not-hesitate-to-cut-you’ vibe he gave off. If they had been out in the streets or in some dingy warehouse, in this small proximity, she would definitely be fearful for her dear life.

 However, the fact that he had just entered a flower shop and asked for flowers to express his aversion for someone or something made it hard for her to feel intimidated by him. This was an interesting and obscure way of looking at flora. Like a blunt expression of disdain. It did trigger her imagination and help her writers block that had led her here in the first place.

Weren’t flowers and tacky bouquets used by unfaithful husbands to give their naïve wives to convince them of their deceitful affections? Isn’t it supposed to disguise the smell of musk cologne and infidelity?  And eventually end up in the trash the following week when the flowers were dead and smelt like decay?

 A bad habit instantaneously made her concoct how she could include this plot and this sample of character into the bulk of paper and fiction she was working on. It would make great material for a romance but that’s too predictable. Maybe a crime fiction. Where the antagonist leaves behind clues of his felony in a cryptic language of flowers. Perhaps something more brooding and introspective. The possibilities were endless. She must have zoned out because the facial expressions of her envisioned muse was getting more agitated and distorted with each passing second.

 “Nevermi…”

 Before he could wave his hand in dismissal, she stood to her full diminutive height, solemnly perched her black rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose and bustled around the shop collecting stalks of flowers and commenting in a very proper voice like she would if she actually was a florist.

 “What you need is a bouquet with geraniums signifying idiocy, foxgloves for dishonesty, meadowsweet for incompetence, yellow carnations meaning disappointment and finally orange lilies for unadulterated hatred. It would be quiet remarkable. And full of repugnance.”

 She bundled them together between her nimble thumb and forefingers, looked at the oppressively colorful bunch and brought it to him for scrutiny. He cocked his dark eyebrow and looked down at her scrawny stature and then at the chaotic assortment of flowers.  He had to admit it looked quiet hideous with its harsh dyes and mismatched contours. And totally unsuitable for the girl’s dainty hands.

Weren’t florist supposed to have arduous hands? Their nails short and their nailbeds caked with brown dirt and green stuff? These manicured hands looked like they couldn’t bear the weight of a coffee cup. They could barely keep the bouquet from falling apart. They were so small and fragile and looked so soft. He could hardly believe she did anything at all with those hands let alone cut and tame stems with rebellious thorns. The fact that she was dressed in a casual white shirt and black ripped jeans with a worn-out leather bag dangling from her frail shoulders and not a soiled apron confirmed his suspicion.

 “Here is your ‘bundle of loathing’.”  She handed it to him with extra caution. Obviously she wasn’t a professional florist. No professional florist talks like that.

 He looked at her and then at the unassembled flowers as confusion took over his dark features. Not because he had finally realized that he had made a mistake. No that bit was as clear as day to him.

 He was perplexed as to why she had helped him when she didn’t need to? Moreover, how did she know exactly what he wanted? Was she spying on him? Was she she sent for him?

 “You didn’t give me a chance to explain myself” She said in her soft voice as if she sensed his unspoken question.

 His unfaltering stare never left her. She squirmed self-consciously under his gaze and lowered her eyes to stare at her sensible flats. The change in her demeanor eased him a little. He wasn’t looking forward to conducting an interrogation in the middle of a god- forsaken flower-shop. He also didn’t want to go around terrorizing unassuming civilians, especially the pretty ones. Besides she had piqued his curiosity when she went about the shop cataloging flowers for his “bundle of loathing”.

 “You seem to know a lot about flowers.” His voice was in sharp contrast to the dreadful glare he was directing at her moments ago.

She looked at him with smile bordering between relief and wariness. Before he could here an answer they were interrupted by an aged voice of a woman. A tuff of grey hair emerged from the interiors of the shop.

 “Here is your bouquet, child.” The elderly owner finally came out with her flowers and Ayanna was grateful for the interruption. She nodded slightly at her, relieved for the intrusion.

 He vaguely entertained the idea of going after her as she scurried out of the modest store with hasty steps but decided against it. He was a busy man.  He had more important matters to take care of before thinking about enchanting some stranger who had impressed him with her off-handed knowledge in horticulture. The most urgent undertaking right now was to deliver the bouquet to the person who deserved it. Then, as per protocol, he had to notify them, with utmost patience, what they had done to deserve it. And consequently, give them a forewarning and a suitable penalty for their offensive conduct.

 “How can I help you, Sir?”. The elderly lady asked the man who was holding the green stalks of flowers in his hands tenderly. One would have never guessed these were lethal.

 “Please wrap these flowers for me” He politely asked the elderly shopkeeper. He didn’t mind her ignorance.

“Is it for someone special?” The lady smiled warmly like clueless old ladies often do.

 He could feel his lips forming a sick conniving smirk.

 “Very special.”

[heloisedaphnebrightmore]

Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe & Prince Caspian [My opinion on the Characters - Ranting time]

“Reading is my therapy” masterlist

So @mytreec​ , @leahstypewriter​ and I have been discussing Narnia recently so I thought I would give it a watch again after all those years. Oh my, did I have a rollercoaster ride in that 4+ hours. 

I would like to also state that I do not remember what was in the book, it’s been over 15 years since I last read it and whilst I loved the movies, I did not get caught up in the book much.

First I will start with all the negative personality traits I have experienced within the characters before I’ll go for the positive attributes. 

Also I would like to say that it’s not an official review from me or anything, I simply needed to rant. My language is very poor and mostly pissed off throughout the rant xD

Peter!

So from the very beginning I was very sceptical. I remembered that I did not like Peter much back in the day and once again, my feelings haven’t changed much. The way Peter talks to Edmund, trying to overpower him, always scolding him, sometimes even in an aggressive manner, such as when Lucy showed them the wardrobe or when they arrived to Narnia, just made me want to slap the boy to shake some sense into him. 

Of course, it is visible that he loves his brother, they are laughing together right at the beginning of the movie, but the amount of hurt he has caused him already with his attitude has already pushed him away. No surprise that the boy feels attacked even when Peter just wants the best for him. 

I loved how Peter handled Lucy, always caring for her, always being there for her. And whilst he didn’t believe Lucy when she found Narnia and indeed he was a bit of an arse, I do believe I resonated with him, because the older you get, the less you believe. Obviously Lucy as the young one would have a wider, more vivid imagination. 

As they arrived to Narnia, I started to like him more and more. The way he struggled against all the odds and finally collected himself enough to show a more logical thinking, instead of just being plain bossy definitely showed a growth in personality for me. 

If we just look at how he welcomed his brother back. They didn’t jump into each others neck, they still had their walls up, but that little joke about trying to not wander off was perfectly enough for them to understand each other. I think that was a point where Peter started to understand Edmund a little more.

Also the courage he showed as he led the army in to battle was a positivity for me. Instead of just talking down on people and telling them off, he finally learned to rely on others, that he is not alone. The little nod he and Edmund exchanged for the battle to start, I like to think that wasn’t just a signal, it was also a symbol of trust. But then I could be reading too much into it. 

In Prince Caspian, once again he started off by annoying me. From the very first moment he and Caspian met, it was like a dog fight. Who the alfa is. I just can’t understand how this man has always someone to disagree with. (Referring back to the fight in Strand underground station and his issues with Edmund)

It seems to me that Peter, just like Caspian has some underlying inferiority issues, because that two does nothing, but bickering. 

However when Caspian almost brought back the Witch and Peter fell into the same trans, oh it showed how freaking similar they are. 

The development between the two, the discussions, the agreements and lack of arguments showed that both finally accepted that they needed to work together, which was important in their development.

However once again Peter had an issue with someone, just like before with Edmund. It really makes me question what he is thinking and feeling, because this is not about being argumentative, this is straight up being bossy. 

Lucy!

Oh dear Lucy, my sweet little bean. Back in the day when I last watched the movie, I thought she was cute and innocent. Oh god, was I wrong?! 

Is it just me that is concerned about Lucy arriving to Narnia and agreeing to go and have a cup of tea with Tumnus the faun? Is it just me that watched the screen with a gobsmacked expression when she said she thought he was a friend after he has confessed planning to kidnap her?! - Haven’t their parents told them not to talk to strangers? Haven’t their parents told them not to go anywhere with strangers? For God’s sake, what on earth have their parents taught them?!

Back when I watched the movie I didn’t find it creepy, but now it raises some concerns that a little girl would just get up and have a cup of tea with a faun in a world she doesn’t even know. o.O - Excuse my ranting over here :)

Anyway, Lucy is a bundle of joy, innocent and sweet, believing everything, which I rather call naive, but let’s ignore that for now. She is this cute little girl and that’s how she was stuck in my head, but after rewatching the movie, that little girl had some serious things to say and some seriously sarcastic comments to add. To quote her “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s just your imagination.” :D

I was shocked at how adult-like she could be, even more so than her siblings and it was certainly refreshing to see. Whilst she kept her innocence, she showed a brave and grown up attitude.

Lucy for me was put at the backseat in prince Caspian, but I lover her just as much as in the first movie, but she didn’t play a big role in my eyes. 

Edmund!

Edmund was one of those characters that I liked and disliked at the same time back in the day. Peter’s constant nagging had affects on his attitude let’s start with that, but the boy really needed some spanking to get him back on the right path, because he was even more annoying than back when I last watched the movies and don’t even try to defend him for his hardships being caused by Peter. 

And let’s be honest, the boy lies better than anyone I know. Straight up lying to Peter and Susan when Lucy is trying to prove to them that Narnia indeed exists was a mean move, my boy. 

Of course our ball of aggression is arriving to Narnia and guess what, dumb as Lucy, he eats and drinks whatever the Queen gives him and not even like taking it out of a bag or a compartment on her sleigh, no, the woman makes these things with a drop of liquid and our main character doesn’t even question it. I would like to refer to my previous renting - What on earth have their parents taught them?! Edmund is not even that young anymore, the lack of suspicion from him was disappointing. 

And what bothered me even more, the boy now feels a rush of honesty and spills all the secrets. Up until now he was lying, now he has this honesty burst and lets it all out. From one end on the spectrum to the other. Oh boy, he got on my nerves. 

Now obviously we could see that the boy had some issues from the beginning and he wasn’t the nicest of characters from lying to spilling too much. However, I have to give him, that it was visible that he was conflicted with what to say, what to do, what was right and what was wrong and if I want to be honest, we can all relate to that. Nothing is black and white, we make decisions that we feel are right, but others might choose differently. 

I have to say that in the battle when he ran to protect Peter, I like to think that he didn’t just do it because they are brothers, but for two reason; one being the fact that he had his personal issues with the Queen and he grew enough to stand up to her and secondly because while we saw him as a little coward, he developed the bravery he needed to stand up against someone who he perhaps knew that he didn’t have much chance against. 

His belief in his brother, Peter that he could lead them, him accepting that his brother is indeed a good leader also shows that he finally left his sulking behind and he can see a side to him that he deliberately tried to ignore.

The boy who has finally grew. He has a very good development in my eyes. And not jus the fact that he has been smart and witty, but the way he always seem to get Peter out of trouble, the way he had the strength to stand up to the Witch again. That boy grew hell of a lot. 

In Caspian, he kind of took the backseat for me, just like Lucy.

Susan!

Back when I watched the movie, she annoyed me to no end. Her smart comments, “realistic” way of thinking as she said and logical thoughts made me roll my eyes. However now that I have grown up, I can see where she was coming from. They happened to arrive to a place that they don’t even know, their brother gets captured out of nowhere, they meet talking animals and they are being told that they are part of a prophecy. If I want to be completely honest, my girl was right, I would have said let’s get out of here too. 

But then her logic was also something that pulled her back. Peter was ready to save their brother and go on a search, and this little teenage girl keeps on going on about leaving. It was very hard not swear at my screen. 

She is actually the character who didn’t show me much development, but she was also the kind of character that I didn’t feel like she got enough time on the screen. I personally think she had way more layers than what we have worked with and it would have been better if we started to see into her character a little more. 

Now we have got to see more of the girl in Caspian, but is it just me or she still didn’t have much contribution physically or personality wise to the story? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I just can’t remember much of her doing anything other than exchanging looks with Caspian, leaving with the horse and being saved by Caspian and well, being “logical”. 

Prince Caspian!

Okay let me start off with the amount of love I have fo Ben Barnes. Obviously this has clouded my judgment before. When I say before, I mean I thought for years that Prince Caspian is a flawless piece of man. Oh God, was I wrong?!!! Very!

The man is a ticking time-bomb of idiocy. It’s not enough that he decided to confront his uncle in the middle of a secret attack, he dares to blame Peter for what he has done. It was all his fault for losing so many of their army to begin with. If he kept to the plan, they wouldn’t have been exposed. 

If it’s not enough, the man has an inferiority complex. I mean the way he tries to overpower Peter (let’s not talk about the way he responds, I already did above) is ridiculous. He is a young prince who knows nothing but the stories he has heard. Peter at least has been through a war before. 

And let me mention when he almost brought the White Witch back, I thought it can’t get any worse. I understand the disappointment he had, the feeling of being useless, but you can’t just bring people back, you dumb little boy. 

Honestly as much as I liked him before, he was so much of a disappointment now, but it’s because I was so enchanted with Ben Barnes in my younger years, that I forgot to actually read him. 

However, I really liked the humanity he showed when he didn’t kill the Telmarine King. That showed real development compared to how he attacked him in the castle. 

What I considered a huge change also is the way he behaved with Peter later on. He didn’t try to overpower him anymore and so Peter as well accepted his opinion and ideas easier. That was definitely a change that I enjoyed watching. 

The White Witch!

I was actually disappointed in the witch in a way. I mean from the very first moment, the way he talked to Edmund was way too aggressive. I personally think that a normal kid would have picked up on how insane she was. I think she would have been a better character if she acted nicely, having some psychopathic tendencies instead of coming off as the villain from the first moment. 

[mirazilla]

So a complete chat blanc theory~~

Damn, I’m pretty sure chat actually did murder everyone. —or maybe he froze them or smth?? cuz he and the whole destroyed Paris has a very blue hue— Since this is a kids show I doubt anyone will die, but maaaaybe he did kill them all with cataclysm, cuz we’ve seen volpinas illusion do just that before in catalyst.

Ok, just from the trailer, he looks like a rogue Akuma, the most dangerous kind. How did this happen? Now let me explain...

Let’s start from the beginning, after sadly returning to his room from winning what seems a tournament of sorts ( he has a medal) which probably his father missed, he sees ladybug leave a love letter from marinette on his bed (pray god he connects the dots and finds out ladybugs identity).

So he calls her to invite her to his house, —marinette has an umbrella maybe it’s the same one he gave her on origins?—then tells her about his discovery and his acceptance of her love. Marinette is obviously distressed, she wanted Adrien to love marinette not ladybug!!

So after running from the situation hawkmoth tries to akumatize her. Smth that i thought was weird is adrien transforming into chat for everyone to see. Like, I know marinette is his friend and all, but to risk it all for a regular person to not be akumatized?? He must know she’s ladybug, because if ladybug gets akumatized, it’s game over. (well now that I think of it, if either of them get akumatized is game over,heh)

After saving marinette from a possible akumatization he’s outed as chat noir. Gorilla is in the background so he obvs takes chat into the house and tells Gabriel. Gabriel then takes chat where he keeps Emile, transforms into hawkmoth and then tells him how to get his mom back with the help of the cat and bug miraculous. (They probably kick marinette out of the house and close the doors on her nose, so she can’t intervene)

Hawkmoth offers to akumatize him to give him strength to take down ladybug, but after his doing this, chat will most likely go insane and on a killing spree, cuz akumatization enhances negative emotions and he has plenty of that.

Now there’s two ways this can go

He kills hawkmoth OR he takes hawkmoths miraculous instead cuz he doesn’t want to be controlled by anyone, least of all people his father, the very man who controls every single aspect of his life but seems to be ever absent from it and thus this is where the medal from earlier comes to play, he still feels salty about his father not giving a shit about him winning his tournament/ not being there, so boom extra motivation.

Now either way, he goes outside and finds marinette. Tells her he beated hawkmoth (maybe showing her his miraculous) and asks for her miraculous to bring his mom back, she freaks out and transforms. They battle for a while, destroying all of paris in the way, but he ends up overpowering her so she detransforms into marinette and after not giving up her miraculous he kills her with his cataclysm snapping fingers shooting gun thingy. Destroying her miraculous while doing so and accidentally ruining his plan on getting his mom back.

So after destroying everything, he just waits,,, for someone to reach out to him?? Plagg?? His father? Anyone? He just seems so dang lonely.

So now with the solution:

Bunnix goes back in time to get past ladybug to help—I’m pretty sure that this is like a tradition for all the bunnixes in time, like the bunnix before the actual one did it, the one before her did it, and so on on so forth—. ( to clarify which past ladybug, probably the one before she leaves that dang note on adriens bed, maybe she’s writing it or smth)

Note how she has ladybugs head on a pot to cover her eyes. Maybe time traveling can be mind blowing for anyone other than the rabbit miraculous holder or Bunnix didn’t want her to see the level of destruction chat blanc has made and to make her become overwhelmed by it.

Also she’s gone in the little fight chat and ladybug have so she doesn’t want to/can’t interfere more than she already has or maybe the bunnix from the future told her it must be this way or smth?? Time travel is confusing... ( or chat killed her too, who knows)

Anyway, Chat blanc looks very excited and happy to see her, almost as if it’s been a long time since he last saw her — we don’t know how long this kitty has been waiting all alone in this apocalyptic world— and this clearly is the first time this ladybug sees him.

He reaches out to her and tries to make her cooperate into giving him her miraculous the pacifist way, ( look how surprised she is when he grabs her ears, he’s also super close to her, so they where talking, maybe she was trying to talk some sense to him or smth) but after her refusal he just tries to snatch them from her. This time he will be more careful and will try not to kill her, so we can get a “nerfed” chat blanc instead of the killing mode one.

Either ladybug wins this time ( there’s a theory on how that goes out at the end of this one✨✨) OR, she looses again and has to retreat.

Now for the spicy bit of my theory I’m basing this whole thing in this old spoiler pic of ladybug in Gabriel’s secret basement. (I know all of paris is flooded but this seems like a bunker of sorts?? Idk)

In their fight, chat blanc spilled the beans and said smth about gabriel, his father, being hawkmoth. So after this big ass reveal, she’s overpowered by him. Barely manages to escape and without anyone to go to, she decides to go to the agreste manor. (The lucky charm she summons during the fight can be a butterfly) talks to the now detransformed hawkmoth and they team up to defeat chat blanc. This can go three ways

1. Gabriel uses the peacock miraculous and creates a sentimonster out of his or ladybugs grief to beat chat blanc. (this one is unlikely, cuz we haven’t seen any designs of peacock Gabriel before, while we’ve seen designs for everyone else, mister bug, lady noir, turtle master fu, etc.)

2. he gives her advice on how to get better at fighting or use her miraculous better, idk.

3. And the evil one: Ladybug takes Emilie and Gabriel ( he helps her to come up with this idea) and lures chat out. She gives him an ultimatum, destroy your Akuma ( most probably it’s in the ring which already makes it difficult for ladybug to win without his cooperation) or she drops his family ( maybe she has them hanging from her yo-yo or smth, god damn this got dark). Chat cooperates and destroys his ring —I don’t think taking out his ring will affect his transformation— she casts the miraculous ladybug, bunnix returns from the dead and takes her back to her time. ( lets hope that this miraculous ladybug erases everyone memories or maybe one of bunnixes powers does. I mean, she has the power to time travel, she must have some cool memory erasing thingy from when she fucks up or smth idk. She erases ladybugs memories, tells her to not write that dang love letter and disappears)

✨✨NOW for the option where ladybug defeats chat on that buildings roof top.

Ladybug manages to snatch chats ring from him, but this doesn’t have any effect on him whatsoever and she can’t transform herself into lady noir to destroy it cuz it’s basically impossible and besides the ring is the home of an Akuma so it will behave as a regular ring so no plagg either.

We have another two way situation:

1. she tricks chat blanc into destroying it somehow, fixes everything with the miraculous ladybug, bunnix takes her back before she can see anything else, the end. (most likely outcome tbh, cuz in this version she never figures his identity but she’s left with the knowledge of the dangers of having chat akumatized, which is neat)

2. she flees to the agreste manor and Gabriel helps her purify the ring without breaking it (the dude knows his stuff about the miraculous so it’s possible)

Either way, since bunnix and time travel is also involved, no one will remember shit from this.... like, marinette is with her hair down in this episode and in loveeater (the season finale) adrien emphasizes how he’s never seen her like that sooo, this episode won’t even happen, it will have have absolute zero consequences in the plot and will most likely go insane because of it, so we are in for a ride.

YES YOU HAVE BUT YOU DONT REMEMBER/ IT NEVER HAPPENED.

Damn that was a long rant... it has many holes but hey, I had fun.

[haberdashing]

i want you to straighten out my tomorrow (2/?)

The last thing Jon remembers is working into the night in the Archives in early 2016. Now he’s in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Scotland, with Martin Blackwood as his only companion. Obviously Jon’s missed something along the way here…

Inspired by beloved of jon, though it can be read separately.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2

on AO3

Jon woke up slowly, his mind still filled with all the details of the dream--the nightmare--he’d just had. One supernatural horror unfolded after another, and all Jon could do was stand there and watch, unable to intervene as victim after victim went through the most traumatic moment of their lives...

It would have been easy to write off as just an odd nightmare and nothing more, except that one of the horrors he’d witnessed had been the events outlined in Naomi Herne’s statement. He hadn’t even remembered that clearly what she looked like, not consciously, but it was definitely her there, definitely her stuck in that calm, lonely graveyard that she had described so vividly to him before.

Another question to add to his long list of them, perhaps.

Part of Jon expected to wake up somewhere more familiar, in the Archives or in his own bed, to find out that what he’d gone through with Martin in the middle of the night had itself just been a strange dream, but no, he was still in that unfamiliar bed with its scratchy blanket on top of him.

The bed seemed awfully big now that he took it in properly, without Martin taking up space on it. Too big for one person, it seemed. Or too big for him, at least, small and skinny as he was--and a quick glance at his arms suggested that if anything, he’d only grown skinnier in the time that had passed without him knowing it.

It wasn’t as dark in the room now as it had been, as light was seeping in from a nearby window, and Jon, having determined that he’d gotten as much rest as he was likely to get any time soon, stood up and approached the window with a few shaky steps.

Before he opened the blinds, Jon half-expected the view beyond to be the skyscrapers and asphalt of London, but instead there was a wide open field of grass reaching out to the horizon, with little to break it up in the space between. A few trees, a handful of paths (roads, if one were feeling generous, but they weren’t nearly as neatly established as most roads Jon had encountered before) crisscrossing the area. Two cows in the distance, or what Jon assumed were cows at least, though they were little more than indistinct blobs from this far away.

Daisy’s safehouse, apparently, was in the middle of bloody nowhere.

Which made sense, really, for a safehouse, Jon supposed. His mental picture of the situation just hadn’t shifted enough for him to expect it, to expect that he really had gone from London to God-knows-where seemingly overnight. But as Jon looked out at that field, the reality of the situation sank in a bit more.

Whatever the truth of all this was, it wasn’t something he could get through with just a good night’s sleep.

Jon stared out the window for a long minute before shaking his head and stumbling into the bathroom. His desire to cleanse himself however possible had faded away by now, but still, he knew neglecting basic hygiene would only lead to further problems.

Which was all well and good until he reached the sink and saw that there were two toothbrushes there, one purple and one green, and he had no idea which was his.

Presumably Jon could call out to Martin--he hadn’t seen him since waking up for a second time, but he was likely still in the safehouse, perhaps still sleeping on the couch that Jon had yet to encounter--and ask for clarification, but... well, of all the questions Jon wanted to ask Martin that morning, “which toothbrush is the one I’ve been using lately” was pretty far down on the list and seemed more likely to kill further conversation than to encourage it.

So that would have to wait.

A quick use of the toilet, a thorough washing of his hands with hand soap that apparently contained the scent of “acorn spice,” and Jon found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection within it.

His hair was significantly longer than he remembered, which hadn’t entirely escaped his notice up until that point, as a few strands had fallen into his field of vision periodically--running one hand through it, it seemed like there were a handful of patches that were slightly shorter than the rest, but even those weren’t as short as he’d been keeping his hair cut recently from what he remembered. Much of his hair was covered in gray streaks, too, which wasn’t entirely new, but his premature graying had clearly only gotten worse as the years went by. (Also, his hair didn’t feel especially greasy or oily, which was probably a good sign, certainly better than the alternative.)

What had escaped Jon’s notice up until that point were all the scars he’d managed to accumulate that weren’t on his hands.

The small scars he’d noticed the night before were apparently not just on his hands and arms, but dotted his entire body. His throat had a raised pink line on it that looked disturbingly like someone had tried to slit it and nearly succeeded. The shirt he was wearing, which was over-sized and plaid, didn’t quite cover another scar on his shoulder, another line that was more jagged than the one on his throat.

Good lord, what had the last two and a half years of his life been like?

Well. Only one way to find out, Jon supposed, and that wasn’t by standing there and wondering about it. Though he did spare a moment to study each scar carefully, his mind filling with half-baked speculations about what might have caused each one, before walking away, leaving the bathroom and the bedroom both behind.

Martin was not, in fact, still sleeping on the couch, as Jon quickly discovered upon entering the next room, a kitchen and dining room combination in which Martin was busy cooking away. The smells of a few different foods hit him at once, far overpowering the faint scent of acorn spice soap lingering on Jon’s hands and melding together into something that just smelled like... breakfast. A real, proper breakfast, specifically, the likes of which Jon hadn’t had in years, not a cereal bar or an over-sized cup of tea that he grabbed on his way to work.

Jon took a few steps further into the room, and Martin looked up at Jon, and Jon looked back at Martin, and... God, Martin’s face just lit up when he saw Jon, in a way that made him wonder what he possibly could have done to deserve such clear affection. Surely the way he’d treated Martin before couldn’t have endeared him to Martin much...

“Have you figured out how you’re going to start explaining all this yet?”

Jon tried to keep his tone light, despite everything, but Martin’s face still fell at the sound of his words. The care in his expression wasn’t gone, exactly, but it was mixed with something else now--concern, guilt, anxiety, sorrow? Jon had never been the best at reading faces, and now he felt that skill lacking more than ever.

“Not exactly, but I’ve at least figured out a bunch of reasons behind it being so hard to do in the first place.” Martin’s tone sounded fairly light as well, but Jon suspected any levity to be found there was as forced as it had been in his own voice.

“Please do elaborate.”

“I mean, the main one’s that you won’t believe any of it.” Martin paused his speech momentarily to flip something over with a spatula, and as he continued his gaze remained focused on what he was preparing rather than turning back towards Jon. “It was hard enough to believe when it all happened, really, and that was it coming in bits and pieces, not just explaining years of weirdness in one fell swoop. Plus you always were such a skeptic...”

“About that. If you’re saying all this relates back to the supernatural...”

“Yes?” Martin glanced back at Jon for a moment before turning back to his food preparation.

Jon stumbled over to the table, which was already set for two with still-steaming mugs of tea, and took a seat in the nearest chair. (Was he imagining that pain in his leg, or was there another scar there, just waiting to be found?)

“I’m willing to hear you out. I, I do believe in the supernatural, actually. Much as I try to pretend otherwise.”

“Ah, alright, good.” Martin paused for a brief moment. “That makes sense, actually, you did tell me something like that before.”

Jon’s pulse quickened as half-repressed memories of supernatural childhood trauma came flooding back. He didn’t remember telling anyone about that particular story. Had Martin somehow ended up becoming the exception to that rule, or was he alluding to something less specific?

“What exactly did I tell you before?”

“Just, uh, that you feel like you’re being watched when you read the statements, and somehow it felt safer to deny them all. Though it wasn’t safer, in the end, it really wasn’t...” Martin let out a strangely somber laugh and a shake of the head before adding, “The being watched bit makes more sense now too, come to think of it.”

Sounded like whatever he’d confessed when he couldn’t remember it wasn’t that one particular story, so Jon turned his mind elsewhere. It was true, he did feel watched in the Archives, especially when reading statements, but he didn’t have a clue why that might be... but it sounded like Martin did.

“How so?”

“Well that, uh, gets into some of the big picture stuff, which, I’d been hoping we could talk face to face for that bit, but these pancakes just will not cooperate-” Martin flipped something again, presumably one of the erstwhile pancakes in question, putting more force into the motion than it truly required and making a little grunt of annoyance as he did so. It was weirdly... cute, though Jon hadn’t thought to apply that particular word to Martin before. “Basically the supernatural’s divided into different fear entity... things... and the Institute’s connected to one that involves being watched, or, or just feeling like you’re being watched. So, there’s that.”

There was a lot to process there, and Jon was still silently processing it all, trying to make sure he grasped all the unspoken implications, trying to decide what part of it he wanted clarification on first, when Martin spoke up again.

“Alright, that should do it. Breakfast is ready.”

Jon stood up, noting as he did that yes that definitely was some pain in his leg that hadn’t been there before, but before he could get much farther, Martin brought two plates filled with food to the table and set them down before taking a seat himself.

Pancakes, eggs, bacon... definitely a quality breakfast there, and it all looked well-prepared to boot, except-

“I don’t actually eat-”

“Pork, I know. It’s the veggie stuff. Your favorite brand of the ones they’ve got at the local market, too.”

Jon let out a soft sigh at Martin’s words, which were borne out by a closer inspection of the bacon in question. He took a tentative bite--it was good, and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was there--before speaking up again.

“So you’re saying the Institute itself is supernatural?”

“Cutting right to the chase, huh?” Martin laughed a little, though Jon didn’t see what was so funny about it. “As I understand it, it got founded because Jonah Magnus himself--which, er, remind me to come back to him--wanted to gather knowledge for the fear he’s connected to, the Eye. So the Institute’s not just studying the supernatural, it is supernatural. And, er, so are you, now.”

Jon thought he understood that last sentence. Jon didn’t like what he thought he understood there. (The phrase Mister Spider wants more ran through his mind unbidden.) Jon frantically hoped that he had somehow misunderstood.

“I’m supernatural.”

“Yeah.” Martin laughed again. Jon still didn’t see the humor in it. “But you still have to eat normal people food, so I’d advise doing so before the food goes cold rather than after.”

Jon looked down at his plate, which was still entirely full save for that one small bite of vegetarian bacon. Much as he hated to admit it, Martin had a point about that one.

“Fine, but you’d better keep explaining things while I’m eating.”

“I’ll take that deal.”

Jon nodded and started cutting up his pancakes as Martin began to talk.

“You’re, uh, so, since you’re the Archivist- the, the head Archivist of the Institute, you’re tied to that same fear thing I mentioned before, the Eye. And because of that you’ve got... powers?”

Jon’s mouth was full of pancake now, but he did his best to show his incredulity regardless, through expression rather than words.

Evidently the attempt worked, because Martin held his hands up like he’d been caught in a lie. “Not- not superpowers! Well, kind of superpowers, but not really the same... er... You can, can make people answer your questions, tell you the truth. Even when you don’t mean to sometimes, I think? And make people give statements, sometimes, though that’s, that’s not really a good thing, especially with the whole nightmares thing that one woman mentioned...”

Nightmares. Like the one he’d had that night, with Naomi Herne?

Jon’s mouth was still full of pancake, so he couldn’t actually ask that question, but he tilted his head to one side and did his best to look confused to get his point across.

(Had Martin intended him to have his mouth full at every moment, prevent him from asking questions as they came to mind? Maybe, maybe not. If so, if he was telling the truth about this whole “powers” thing, Jon couldn’t entirely blame him--can’t force someone to answer a question that’s never outright stated, after all. Still, it was certainly inconvenient.)

“The nightmares thing? Oh, this, this one woman came in and said you’d made her tell you her story--like, not even in the Institute, she was just in a cafe somewhere and you came by and made her give a statement whether she wanted to or not. And then after that she kept having dreams about the thing she’d given the statement on, and you were in them, watching her. Hardly think that’s a coincidence there.”

Oh. That was... that made a disturbing amount of sense, actually. He was in their nightmares, they were in his.

Jon swallowed his food and spoke up. “I’m not the only Institute employee here. What about you? Do you have any ‘powers’?”

Jon hadn’t expected the question to be a big deal, really; it was a simple yes or no question, and given how Martin had mentioned that it was specifically the head archivist position that connected Jon to the supernatural, he figured it was probably a no, but better to clarify than assume incorrectly.

Instead of a quick yes or no answer, however, Martin’s only reply was averting his gaze and turning distressingly pale.

Jon pointed his fork in Martin’s general direction as he said, “Going out on a limb here and taking it that’s a yes, then.”

“You’re... you’re not wrong.” Martin’s laugh was almost as much a sigh this time. “But it’s not because of the Institute, not, not directly. It’s not even the same fear thing connected, it’s another one, called the Lonely. I’d... rather not get into the details just yet, if you don’t mind, but you asked about my hair before?” Martin ran one hand along the white streak in his hair. “That’s what did that.”

Jon did mind a bit, not having all the information, not knowing what kind of powers the one other person he’d seen since all this started had at his disposal, not knowing what he’d gone through to get them or why he was so hesitant to explain them. (A small voice in the back of his head said that maybe that curiosity there wasn’t all natural, maybe that burning desire to know every last thing about his current situation was as much “the Eye” as it was just him.) But Jon supposed that Martin deserved some modicum of privacy, at least.

And Martin did say “just yet,” which implied that the story would come out, just not right this minute. It didn’t make Jon any less impatient or curious, but it was good to know it was coming just the same.

“How many of these fear things are there?” And, because Jon couldn’t help himself, “And does one of them have to do with spiders?”

“Fourteen or fifteen, depends who’s counting, and yeah, that’d be the Web, they’ve got spiders and spiderwebs, and also controlling people, manipulation, stuff like that. Haven’t had a ton of statements from them, but there were... enough.”

And then Jon saw in Martin’s eyes a look that was likely similar to that in Jon’s own, wide-eyed and curious and trying to decide exactly what to ask and how. Jon’s suspicion that he hadn’t, in fact, told Martin the Mister Spider story seemed confirmed now, because if he was reading that expression right, Martin didn’t know why Jon would ask about spiders specifically.

If the situation were flipped, if it were Martin alluding to something out there like that without elaborating, Jon would have asked about it in a heartbeat. Jon would have wanted to know, had already shown that by all the questions he’d asked thus far that morning.

But Martin wasn’t Jon, and Martin just shook his head and said, “Suppose that means I’ll keep dealing with any spider that dares show its face in here, then?”

When Martin laughed this time, Jon was a little tempted to join in. (He didn’t, but he considered it, at least. That had to be something.)

“Please.”

“Got it. Not a problem; I always liked spiders anyhow, I can handle them just fine.”

Jon wrinkled his nose a bit at that, remembering how Martin had always tried to stop Jon from squishing any spiders that ended up in the Archives. Jon had assumed it was just because Martin had a big enough heart that he’d do the same for any living thing, be it spiders or mosquitoes or worms, but to hear that Martin actually liked spiders specifically... well. Hopefully it wouldn’t come up again, and they could just quietly agree to disagree on the subject.

“Oh, come off it, they’re not that bad.”

Jon took a deep breath to argue, then decided against it. “Well. Interesting as all this is. None of this explains why we’re here. Where even is here, anyway?”

“Scotland!”

Jon pressed one hand to his temple. He had figured they weren’t terribly close to London, but that was still... a bit further than he’d anticipated.

“The Highlands, specifically. There’s a little village in walking distance but I’ve got a mental block about its name, usually you’re the one who reminds me about that. I just know it sounds quaint, almost like something out of a storybook?”

“...so how, exactly, did we end up in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands, then?”

“That... well, there’s a lot of parts to that, dunno how good all my explaining will be...”

“Please don’t tell me how difficult it is for you to explain everything I’ve forgotten and think that that gets you out of actually explaining it all.” Jon snapped at Martin before he’d even thought the words through, and it came out rough and harsh and he could see surprise and hurt in Martin’s face, but Jon didn’t regret it, not exactly. If Martin thought he was having a hard time of it right about now... well, he certainly wasn’t the only one, at the very least.

“Right, of course, you’re right, s-sorry, just...” Martin took a deep breath, paused, then pointed his fork at Jon. “I’ll talk. You eat.”

Jon considered this for a moment before nodding and taking an overly-large bite of pancake to show his approval.

Martin nodded back, a hint of a smile appearing on his face before he began to speak.

[bitchfitch]

fluffy tpth spoilers/pseudo fanfic below the cut

Some days at the Burrow were constant high octane adrenaline or endless vibrant hedonism, others left Hound floating on a vague sort of grief, and others yet were calm and quiet; to a point they verged on feeling normal. Like there wasn't still a slight disconnect from life within the Burrow's walls and life outside it.

Today was thankfully one of those peaceful days.

Hound was sat in his chair with his feet kicked up on the coffee table beside his mug and the days newspaper in his hands. He could hear Roger tearing something up in his pen in the other room, and the sounds of traffic would sometimes cut through the thin walls, his paper would rustle as the oscillating fan turned his way or when he flipped the page, even the fan's own quiet whirring contributing to this orchestra of comfortable mundanity.

Occasionally, one of the chairs in the kitchen would creek as Prints shifted in his seat, slowly doing something or another with his and Lop's jackets. The quiet sounds of him toiling away being the only remimder that Hound was not alone in this little piece of normality.

Hound knew better than to ask what he was up to. Prints would tell him in his own time. So for now his job was to just provide quiet companionship. He thought that of all his duties, of all the duties he has ever had, either willfully, or forced, or grown, this was the one he could carry on with endlessly.

Lop had gone to visit her family and Hare and Coney had gone out for the weekend to some convention or another, leaving just Hound and Prints home alone.

Maybe Hound should invite Prints to dinner? Prints usually only accepted outright shows of affection from Hound after the others had had their turn, something all of them had often gotten after Prints about. None of them had a finite amount of love to dole out, so Prints didn't need to always let the others go first. Maybe, while the others were gone, Prints would let Hound dote on him in the gentle, subtle way Prints liked but would rarely accept?

Hound turned to find the advertisement page, just to see if there was anywhere especially promising. Yes, just using his phone to look this up would yield more complete results, but there would always be something to finding the right place written out in black on sharp smelling off white pages. No where new jumped out at him, but there was a coupon for that thai place Prints had a love-hate relationship with. Yeah, that would do just fine.

Prints broke the quiet before Hound could.

"We need to get married," Prints said without looking up from the jacket he was working on,

For a moment Hounds brain struggles to catch up as the words strike into place. Had Prints really said That? "Sorry, Did you just propose to me?" Hound put his paper down on his lap as he turns his full attention to Prints. Of all the ways he expected their theoretical engagement to happen-

"No, I stated a fact. We need to get married," Prints said it like he was reporting on whether beige or taupe was a better color, like it was boring, and nothing of note. Not like he just sent Hounds heart pounding faster than that time he got shot,

"I'm sorry Rabbit, but I need you to walk me through this one," Hound rubbed under his eyes as he tried to play catch up,

"The others have already promised that if anything were to go wrong and one of them was caught, they would throw me under the bus. Say I coerced them into doing everything they did and that they feared me and had no other choice," Prints put down his needle and picked up his scissors to clip a thread, his voice still bored as he explained his reasoning,"That won't work if you get caught. You had the resources to take us down without injury to yourself, and with the promise of being seen as a hero, and still chose not to do it. You are an absolute mountain of a man who could have easily overpowered me if it came down to fists, you have no personal connections for me to have threatened," Prints made sure to turn a vaguely annoyed glare Hounds way before continuing, "And I know you wouldn't be smart about it even if you could. Which is why we need to get married. I can't trust you to take care of yourself, so I have to make sure you don't have to,"

"Sorry, for loving you to much to villainize you?" Hound scoffed in disbelief, "But, Prints, do you only want to get married so that I can't be made to testify against you?" Hound tried to hide the hurt that came from rejection. Was this really rejection? It sure felt like it, or at least it felt like finding out that one of the four people he would die for didn't want to marry him nearly as much as he wanted them to marry,

"It's just a fact," Prints huffed. He turned his attention back to the coat in his hands, quietly pouting at it with a tight jaw and his shoulders slumping forward, "Never mind, I shouldn't have brought it up," He was practically growing thorns as he turned in on himself, almost visibly putting up a wall between himself and Hound,

"Then why did you?" Hound asked, he could see Prints was hurting, and knowing Prints, there was the very real possibility that he wanted more than he was letting on,

"Lop's Sister is getting married. She texted me about it this morning and it's just been on my mind," He didn't look at hound as he spoke, but he wasn't really back to focusing on the jacket either,

Hound sighed as he stood from his chair, he knew why Prints always refused to ask for anything for himself, but it still hurt to see him tearing himself up over something like this. Hound sat in the seat beside him, and took one of his hands in his own. He brushed his thumbs over Prints' knuckles as they both sat in silence, Prints kept his eyes down as he waited, "Prints, yes or no on this one, would it make you happy if we got married?" Lowell kept his tone as neutral as he could even as his heart thundered away behind his ribs,

"Yeah," Prints said, his voice low and quiet as he cracked a little at the tenderness,

"Would it make you happy if I proposed? Or would you prefer to propose to me?"

"You don't have to-"

"I don't have to do anything," Hound interrupted "I'm asking because I would like to marry you, but I'm an old man who wants to be a little traditional about this. So I'd like there to be a proposal, and a proper wedding, or as proper as we can manage given," Hound gestured vaguley with his free hand, "Everything. So, Prints, Do you want to propose or can I?"

"What about the others, they would be-" He started trying to drag up reasons to deny himself this,

"We will talk about this with them when they get home. But, that's beside the point," Hound, squeezed his hand gently, just enough to reasure, "This is about us, If we want to get married we can,"

"No it's not. They- I know they would want you to propose to them too. Or Coney and Lop would, Hare would want to be the one to propose, And obviously they might want to marry eachother too, but we're still working on the polyamory laws, and all five of us-"

"Prints," Hound laughed under his breath, "You, Lop, and Coney are all legally dead. And my name showing up on a marriage license would definitely catch too much attention to be safe. The lot of us would have to figure it out more in terms of how the honeymoons will work than how we do this legally," he squeezed Prints' hand, "I love you, and I love them, and as far as I'm concerned, there's no reason I can't be a husband to all of you,"

"You'd want the honeymoons to be separate?"

"I want a week with each of you, just to relish you each and prove exactly how good of a husband I can be. We'd rent a condo out in one of the smaller towns and play normal for a while we did it, and then at the end of it I'd want all four of you. For us to just have a week where I know for certain all of my rabbits are safe and happy and where we can forget about our work and just be people for a little bit," he smiles at Prints, "We can make this work, you just have to let it,"

"How long have you been thinking about this?" Prints asks quietly, "I… I'm having trouble with this,"

"This is something good, and good things aren't common in our lives," Hound says, "You, out of all of us, have had so few good things stay good, that it doesn't surprise me at all that this is hard to swallow," he shrugs, "And I've been thinking about it since that night on the roof top. Id been here Burrow for only a few days and after actually getting to meet you all and get to know you. I realized that I loved all of you and didn't know if I could ever choose, and I felt like the most selfish ass in existence for wanting you all,

"You came up and we sat together, and I will never forget how handsome you looked there, and how badly I needed you in my life and in my arms." He could still feel the pangs in his chest that had come with that revelation, "And that hurt so bad because I thought that if I had you, I couldn't have any of the others." Hound smiled softly "You were the one to call me a "big fucking idiot" for thinking that. I've wanted to marry all of you since then," he confessed,

"I want you to do it," Prints says after a brief moment as he finally turns to look at Hound, his big round eyes, puppy dog brown, unguarded and vulnerable. Asking for something like this was hard, and Hound couldn't be more proud of him for doing it,

"Give me a a few days to get everything ready. We're taking this next tuesday off so I can make an event out of this for you," He can't stop the stupid grin that crosses his face as he presses a kiss to Prints' temple before standing to start figuring this out, "I love you so much, Bunny"

"Love you too, Dog Breath," Prints laughed as he turned back to his work, still smiling as he started stiching again.

[phantomphangphucker]

Ectober Day 5: Radiation - Septicemia

Ectoplasm isn’t exactly known for being safe to handle. But Danny handles that problem like he does everything else, with a dose of humour and ignoring it.

"Goddammit”, Danny looks down at his vertically sliced open arm, bone slightly visible. Speaking thick with annoyance, "why, out of all ghosts, did it have to be the Box Ghost to give me my first serious injury?". Coming to float just slightly above the ground in an alleyway, pinching closed the wound, as Sam and Tucker come running towards him. Tucker sidestepping and gagging at the little splashes and one large puddle of Danny's ectoplasm. While Sam just steps over it, not really giving a shit.

Danny looks up at the two as they plop down on the ground next to him, giving the two of them a loose smile, "took long enough huh?". While both of them frown at him, clearly unimpressed.

Sam digs in her backpack, pulling out the mini-medi kit they had all decided all three of them should carry around. Handing Tucker a cloth and little water bottle to clean off the wound while she sets up a needle with ectoline.  

Danny gives his arm to Tucker while Tucker responds, “would have preferred it never happening, dude”, smirking slightly as he wipes off the wound, “but with your terrible dodging of course it did”.

Danny flips him off with his other hand, “hey fuck you Tuck. It was going to happen eventually because I am constantly getting into fights. It would be weird if I constantly came out of getting thrown around, sliced, bitten and whatnot, with nothing more than bruising, small cuts and scrapes”.

Tucker rolls his eyes as he goes to ball up the cloth only to yelp and drop it. Green steam coming off his hand slightly, making everyone look at him worriedly.

Danny squints at him, “what’d you get on you? Obviously ghostly, but don’t think we’ve seen that before”.

Sam just grabs Tucker’s hand, grumbling all the while, “gimme that”, before inspecting his hand. Nodding mostly to herself, “it’s an ecto-burn”.

Danny looks around for a source, “but from what?”.

Tucker just frowns and looks back to the cloth and scrunches it up in the same hand, only to drop it; having been burned by the contact again.

All three mutter, “weird”.

Danny clears his throat, hoping his guess is right, “well it is one of my parents specially made cloths, so maybe it has some weird reaction with ectoplasm”.

Sam snorts, “well here’s what we get for thinking your parents crap would be better to use than regular shit”. While both Danny and Tucker laugh, before Tucker goes about treating his ecto-burns.

Sam motions for Danny’s arm, and grabs his wrist. Resting her forearm on his elbow to begin. Only to jerk away from him after getting some of his ectoplasm on her forearm, the ecto-burn visible. All three stare at it, before Tucker mutters, “dude, it’s you. it’s your ectoplasm”.

Danny clears his throat, pushing down the mild horror and grasping for another reason, “well, I mean, it could be from wiping my arm with the cloth?”. Sam grabs his other hand and pricks his finger crudely enough to get him to bleed. Touching the bubbling droplet only to hiss and cringe. Wiping her finger off on the ground and inspecting the ecto-burn. Looking at Danny and shaking her head.

Danny groans, ruffles his hair with the same hand, “great, that’s just great. So my folks are right on ectoplasm not being safe to have skin contact with. Wonderful. I’m fucking corrosive or some shit”. Meanwhile, Danny is really really damn glad that he’s not hurt by his own ectoplasm.

Sam digs in her bag, looking for gloves, but frowns. Looking back up to Danny, “no gloves. No way I can fix you up then”. All three groan and Danny motions for her to give him the needle with a sigh, which she does.

Danny grunts, “has to be done though”, as he clenches his teeth and gets to work. Sam and Tucker patting his shoulders in comfort and support. Though Tucker occasionally cringes and can’t watch. Tucker talks while looking at a wall, “guess spandex gloves are something we need to carry from here on out”, poking Danny, “too bad we can’t just borrow yours. Being attached to your suit and all”.

Sam rolls her eyes, “pretty sure ghost clothing is made of ectoplasm, Danny’s suit included”. All three pauses and Danny looks from his arm to where his friends are touching his suit. They exchange confused glances before collectively shrugging.

Danny grumbles as he gets back to work, “the stuff inside me must be more concentrated”.

Danny hands back the needle after wiping it off on his leg and Sam wraps his arm, maintaining a safe distance to avoid getting any ectoplasm on her. Tucker gets up and starts mopping up the spilled ectoplasm on the ground with his foot, none of them wanting anyone to get burnt by it or for his parents to find and collect it. Frequently having to change what part of the cloth he’s touching with his shoe, as it steams from the ectoplasm contact. But after a while he starts feeling rather nauseous, the acidic lemon-lime scent starting to feel overpowering. Coughing and gagging before having to walk to the other side of the alleyway. Putting his hands on the wall and dry heaving. Pointing towards Sam and Danny, who are staring at him with concern from their spot on the ground, “dude, ugh, I think it might be more than-”, heaving again, “-just unsafe to touch”.

Sam pauses in her wrapping and leans over Danny’s arm to sniff at it. Getting hit by a wave of nausea after a bit. Sitting back and giving Danny an apologetic frown. Clearing her throat and shoving down the desire to gag, “he’s right. It’s probably because ghost ectoplasm sheds off free-floating ectoplasm”.

Danny nods with a frown, it made sense, “so inhaling that is bad”, speaking with sarcasm, “gReAt. I JuSt LoVe ThIs. PeRfEcT”. Both of them send him sympathetic smiles while Sam goes back to wrapping and Tucker continues cleaning up, just with his arm sleeve over his mouth and nose. Which just serves to make Danny feel guilty. His ectoplasm was basically toxic and corrosive for everyone in town. There was no way he wasn’t going to wind up getting his ectoplasm spilled on things, or get hurt badly again. He was actually going to have to make sure to clean his bed sheets more often now. He knew for a fact there was ectoplasm smeared on them.

Sam clips the end of the bandaging before the two get up, bags repacked, and Danny wraps his arms around his friends. Looking at Tucker, who has Danny’s injured arm around him, “you good? Not burning you?”.

Tucker smirks, “you’re good dude”. Making Danny smile as he floats up and takes the three invisibly to his house.

Flopping down on his bed after transforming back. Tucker lays across his legs and pokes him, “bleed again”.

“Um, what?”.

Tucker snorts, “dude, don’t you always have a little ectoplasm running through your veins? That shit’s in your blood too”.

Danny blinks into a blanket, “oh fuck”, before sticking his hand out towards where he can smell Sam, sitting in his desk chair. Who pokes him with a pin he had lying on his desk, smearing his blood on her wrist. Nothing happens for a bit but then she cringes and wipes it off with a Kleenex. Glance at Tucker while Danny grunts, “you’re being awfully quiet”.

Sam glances down at the mild ecto-burn, it took longer and was much more minor but it was an ecto-burn all the same, “sorry Danny”.

Danny can tell by her tone that she’s not apologising but instead feeling slightly bad for him. Which obviously means she was ecto-burned. Lovely. Danny groans into the blanket, before turning his head to actually look at her, “goddammit. So my blood’s an issue too”, Danny snorts, “Ancients fuck, it’s like everyone’s allergic to me”.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance, Tucker poking him again, “you probably should pass it off as that actually. If anyone notices that Danny Fenton’s blood burns people”.

Danny squints at Tucker, give him his best ‘are you fucking shitting me?’ look, “and how would that even make sense Tuck? No one's allergic to just one cat or just one bee...or just one human. That’s not logical”.

Sam sighs as she sits down next to him, “blame ecto-contamination, it’s covered all the other general ghostliness. Wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say it poisoned your blood”.

Tuck smirks and gives him a pat, “or made it a poison”, shrugging, “just make a habit of not bleeding”.

Both Sam and Danny stare at him incredulously before all three start laughing. Because as if that would ever happen!

Tucker pats Danny again, “but for real, just don’t bleed on people. It’s not like people make a habit of touching other people's blood, in-fact people emphatically avoid doing that. And it’s only the ghosts who are actively out for Fenton’s blood”.

Danny pushes himself up slightly, going a bit wide-eyed, “guys, Dash”.

“Oh shit”.

Tucker shrugs awkwardly after a while, “well, at least he doesn’t make folks bleed. When he does it’s usually on locks and shit, not on himself”.

Danny sits up fully and slices his wrist, smearing the blood on the wooden side table. Sam grunting, “that’s one way to do gothic home decorating”.

Danny points at her, “also would have scared the crap out of anyone if they had happened to walk in”, pausing and turning his head back to the table as it starts faintly smoking. Danny groans and tilts his head back, “goddamnit”.

Tucker pats his shoulder, “well, that’s a check on you having to clean up any bloody messes with the level of haste that’ll make you seem like you’re some kind of clean freak”.

All three look around Danny’s horribly messy room and start laughing. Danny parting Tucker as they laugh, letting the guy know Danny’s thankful for the little cheer up.

Sam hops over to the bed, “though really, it’s more like you’re radioactive than just corrosive or toxic. Cause you seem to affect everything, with or without direct contact”.

Danny hits her with a pillow while Tucker doddles a little radioactive symbol on Danny’s neck, earning him a hit from the pillow as well. Even if it’s more humoured than genuinely bothered.

——Cut to tomorrow at Casperhigh——

Danny closes his locker with a slight smile before turning to his friends, “guess what son of a corpse actually got to sleep the night away?”. Both of them give him high fives with Tucker near shouting, “fuck yeah dude!”.

“What the Hell do the losers three have to be happy about?!?”. All three groan at the sound of Dash’s voice. As they turn to look at him slowly.

“What do you want Dash?”.

Dash shrugs before smirking, “my brother’s visiting the school today, gotta impress”, digging in his pocket, “and since you’re so cheery”, Dash menacingly flicks out a switchblade knife, “you get to be my target”.

Danny just looks at Tucker, highly unamused, “I hate you, I really really hate you”, before booking it. Sam and Tucker quickly following after him. Tucker grumbling, “I fucking jinxed it”.

However, in a rare show of intellect, Dash had planned for the fleeing and really was going to target Danny anyway. But it wasn’t any fun if he just jumped, didn’t instigate the chase. Scaring the crap out of people was half the fun, which is why Danny pisses him off. Dash damn well knew what fake fear looked like, and faked fear was the only kind he ever got from Danny. The ghosts didn’t even seem to scare the loser, and they absolutely did scare Dash. And that was an insult that Fentailbone wasn’t getting away with. Dash smirks devilishly as Kwan, Dale and Todd corner the three pathetic losers.

Danny makes a point of covering his friends with his arm and body, as the three jocks smirk and stare down at them. Danny turns his head slightly behind him, seeing Dash walking up slowly with a smirk and flipping around the blade. Danny grumbles, “asshole”, before trio back up against the lockers, Danny in front.

And really, that just annoys Dash more. The weak loser acting all protective, like he’s really capable of anything. HA. It doesn’t take much for Kwan and Dale to get the goth and geek pulled away, while Todd basically holds Danny against the lockers. Dash doesn’t even have to look around to know James is watching in one of the small doorways, smoking out of sight from any teachers.

Danny glares at Dash, not even bothering to pay attention to the knife. It was a small thing and Danny had accidentally stabbed himself with larger things. Hell, the thanksgiving turkey attacked him with bigger knives. Plus, stab wounds weren’t all that bad so long as the blade wasn’t jagged. It was Dash who was the actual threat, obviously looking to do some real damage for a change. Instead of just generalised aggression and trying to humiliate.

Dash waves the knife in Danny’s face, “now to skin the rabbit”.

Danny snorts and rolls his eyes, “wow, you actually made a somewhat intelligent joke for once”. Todd squeezes Danny’s shoulder, hard, for that. But again, Danny’s gotten worse from his own house. So he ignores it entirely.

Dash meanwhile frowns, this is exactly what he’s talking about. The clear ‘go ahead and hit me, I don’t give a damn’ attitude, even if the little loser covered it up with fake fear half the time. “If you want to play it so tough then maybe I need to give you a mark to show who you and this school belong to”.

Danny snorts, “kinky”. Which Dash instantly punches him in the gut for, before slice his cheek and stabbing him in the shoulder. Grabbing that shoulder and squeezing the wound, as he slams Danny back upright and into the lockers.

Danny coughs, completely ignoring the injuries but forcing them not to heal, “wow fuck, you actually did it huh? Good for you Dash”, smirking up at Dash, “you proved you’re old enough to play with knives”. Dash punches the lockers next to Danny’s head while Danny forcibly rolls the injured shoulder, “missed the bone, try harder next time”.

Tucker grumbling, “I actually forgot how much more witty he is when he’s not sleep-deprived”.

Dash side-eyes the geek, “you think he’s witty huh?”, looking back at Danny, “well maybe he should cut that out”.

“Wow, two jokes, you’re on a ro-”, Dash shoves the knife into Danny’s mouth and makes a point to cut up his tongue before pulling it out. Making Danny cough again, he was going to spit at the ground but blinks, remembering last night's bullshit.

As if on cue, Dash jerks his hand off Danny’s shoulder, steaming green and with a forming ecto-burn. Danny, spotting the green steam on the knife, uses the jocks shock to snatch the knife and book it. Though unable to resist a joke as he does so, “yoink!”.

Sam, being more of a planner and ballsy enough to do said plans, maneuvers around Kwan, whose startled enough by everything to have pretty well lost his grip, and punches Dash in the face. The guy might be a bully but he’s one of those fuckers who ‘won’t hit a girl’, but also doesn’t expect a girl to be doing the hitting. Taking Dash’s furthered shock to wipe off his hands with her jacket, “the only person you can impress by trying to beat up Danny, is Danny”, before elbow him in the back of the head and running off. Catching Danny running backwards and waving the, cleaned off, knife at the jocks, “thanks for the knife! Pleasure doing business with ya!”.

Which only pulls Dash out of his shock, “FENTON!!!”, and gets him chasing after them.

Now what Dash didn’t know was that Danny liked the chase and hunt just as much as Dash did. Expect Danny got far more fun out of the ‘getting away’ part. Danny chuckles from their hiding spot inside the stairs, “getting out from under the wolves teeth and taking a tooth as a trophy prize”.

Sam uses a medical cloth from her bag to wipe off her jacket before it gets burnt, while Tucker elbows Danny, “maybe you should sleep less”.

“Fuck you Tuck”.

“Dude, you were treating him kind of like a ghost”.

Danny rolls his eyes and huffs, “well excuse me. Normally ghosts stab me, not humans”, shrugging, “besides, wit’s kind of my knee jerk reaction”.

Sam sighs as she starts wiping off Danny’s t-shirt, which is noticeably smoking and has a patch of the shoulder slowly burning away, “you can’t be fighting back against Dash, Danny. It’s too risky. Mocking him is practically the same thing”.

Danny waves her off as he takes the cloth and wipes off his cheek. Choosing to just swallow whatever’s in his mouth and letting those wounds heal up. Course he can’t do that with the cheek or shoulder. Y’know, in case Dash checks. Plus other people saw the cheek shit.

Tucker holds up a bandaging kit, “what ones you want? Space for your face?”.

Danny snorts but shakes his head, “it’s not deep and I’ve already cut off the bleeding. Having a bandaid on my face would just make Dash happy”.

Sam grabs one of the large square ones, “well regardless, your shoulder’s getting this”, before motioning for Danny to take off his shirt; which he does.

Sam seals the bandage around to stab wound, which normally would have been healed up in half an hour or so, while Tucker sticks a bandaid on Danny’s face; reading ‘Thy wit’s as thick as Tewksbury mustard’.

Danny glares at him and pulls out his phone to see what one Tucker put on while Tucker speaks, “we can see muscle in the wound dude, it should logically be bleeding”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “well I can’t let it, now can I”, point at the bandaid, “and really? That one?”.

Tucker smirks, “you deserved it”.

Danny snorts as he pulls back on his t-shirt, glaring at the obvious burn hole, before digging in his bag and pulling out a patterned dress shirt and throwing it on; leaving it unbuttoned though.

The three get up and Danny makes them intangible and invisible, before flying them out and into an empty hallway.

Dash, meanwhile, gave up on chasing the weird loser. Instead going to the bathroom with a huff and staring down at his burnt? hand. Seriously wondering how and when that happened. There’s no way the little loser had done that, was there? Hugging and glaring at the mirror, “maybe Fenton’s more of a freak than a loser. A freak loser, even worse than the rest of those pathetic weaklings”. Before leaving the bathroom.

Danny can’t help but give Dash a shit-eating grin as the trio spot him while leaving the school. Pausing all three’s walking and tossing up the knife a few times. Grinning even more shit-eatingly when Dash clearly notices the knife.

At first Dash smirks at seeing the noticeable bandaid, talk about embarrassing, until -due to wanting his damn knife back- he gets close enough to read it; which Fenton obviously wanted. “Why you little freak!”, chasing after the three as they all run off. Only to lose them near instantly. It was really starting to piss him off how good the little freak loser was getting at escaping him.

Danny laughs in the alleyway, patting Tucker’s shoulder, “Tuck, you do realise I was insulting his ‘wit’ earlier and you put on a bandage that insults a persons wit!”.

Tucker smirks, knowing full well he’s about to be an asshole, “well you know what I realised? You could kill or destroy everything just by bleeding everywhere”.

Danny smacks him over the head as he stops laughing, “fuck you, you’re right and that’s horrifying, but fuck you”.

Sam smirks, “maybe you should get dePhantomed again so I can add a radioactive symbol to your back as a warning”.

Danny blinks and tilts his head at her, “you know...that would actually look kind of cool”.

“...I was joking”.

Danny just gives a shit-eating grin.

“Danny no”.

Danny gives the most shit-eating smug smile he can possibly manage. Effectively making it clear he won’t actually do something like that while also being a Jack ass.

Over the next few days, Danny wore an assortment of different insulting bandages and wound up getting a mild amount of respect for getting cut and stabbed but seemingly shrugging it off. While Danny just made a point to clean up after himself more and his two friends always had industrial-strength gloves on hand.

End.

[stolethekey]

we could be a beautiful miracle, unbelievable

for @johnny-and-dora; sorry your assigned gifter couldn’t write you a fic! hopefully this is some consolation. i was dying at the idea of a soulmate au but the turnaround time was so short i couldn’t really gather inspiration for it, so here’s some peraltiago fluff + pre-relationship pining!! happy summer hope you enjoy

and shoutout to the crew at @b99fandomevents for putting so much work into this event!! thanks for giving me the opportunity to write an extra fic ;)

read on ao3

If Amy Santiago has a fatal flaw, it is not hubris.

It may seem like she is overly proud, at times—she can be prone to excessive humble-bragging, and Gina is the first to point out that she slips mentions of her achievements into daily, mundane conversations—but underneath the veneer of confidence lies a crippling self-doubt that refuses to let go of her thoughts. It’s the same anxiety that keeps her up at night, wondering whether she truly earned her promotion to detective and whether she should actually still be a beat cop. It’s the one that whispers remember when Jake beat you in arrests? at random times throughout the day, even though that bet ended almost an entire year ago and Jake’s fake date wasn’t nearly as terrible as she thought it was going to be.

Apparently, it’s called “imposter syndrome,” and she has it bad.

But Amy is nothing if not practical, and she’s mostly learned to manage it. She flaunts her achievements publicly so that the doubt stays buried in her mind, and her colleagues are none the wiser. In a way, she thinks, the uncertainty is helpful—it means she’s constantly pushing herself, constantly trying to be better, and that’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing, which is why she doesn’t question her decision to throw a New Year’s Eve party for the Nine-Nine.

Last year’s Thanksgiving fiasco is still fresh in her mind, and even though she knows that it is objectively questionable to be so hung up about a party that she tried to throw a full year ago, she can’t help feeling like she needs to make up for it, like she needs to prove she can organize a fun event for her co-workers that doesn’t end in eating takeout at the precinct.

Plus, everyone at the Nine-Nine is closer now, which is evidenced by the fact that Jake barely bats an eye when she asks him to dress up.

“Why, got a hot new boyfriend you need me to make jealous?”

She winces slightly, but the regret that appears immediately in his eyes is enough to make her force a smirk. “Yeah, it’s that flasher I arrested last week.”

“Ew—”

“What can I say? He really made an impression.”

Jake laughs, and she determinedly ignores the way her stomach jolts at the way the corners of his eyes crinkle.  

“So, six-thirty then? You can bring Sophia.”

His amusement fades into a soft smile that definitely does not make Amy feel warm and jittery inside. “I’ll be there. Sophia’s out of town, though—she’s spending the holidays with her parents.”

“Oh,” Amy says, trying not to sound too cheerful. “That’s too bad, seeing as I was planning on making my famous roast turkey to impress her.”

Jake snorts, but before he can say anything, Charles has somehow appeared at the edge of their desks, his face full of panic. “Amy, I love you, but please let me cook that turkey, please—”

“I was kidding,” she protests, trying to shove him away. “I’ve admitted defeat in the culinary world, okay? I’m gonna go get pasta beforehand.”

“Yeah, Charles, relax,” Jake says, grinning widely. “But you should still bring those octopus balls. Santiago loves those.”

Amy throws her stapler at him.

 ---

“Is this New Year’s-y enough?” Amy asks Kylie in the dressing room of the mall Express.

Kylie sighs. “Yes. It’s beautiful and you look beautiful wearing it, just as you have in the last ten dresses you’ve tried on. It’s just a house party for you and your coworkers, whom you see literally every day. There is no need to be this anxious.”

“I’m not anxious, I just want to make a good impression. If I’m asking everyone else to dress up, I have to look the part myself.”

“Mmmhmm,” Kylie hums, reaching over to unzip the back of Amy’s dress. “Well, whatever you’re not anxious about is going to lose his mind when he sees you in this. Seriously.”

“He has a girlfriend,” Amy snaps, shimmying out of the dress and snatching her leggings off the wall. “And this isn’t for him.”

It’s not, really, but as she walks out of the store with a shopping bag in hand, she wonders if it maybe is, just a little bit.

Her excitement is completely gone the morning of, as she wakes up with what feels like a throat full of sawdust and a sledgehammer pounding away at her head. She groans as she forces herself out of bed and into the shower, where she stays until the water runs cold and her shivering has gotten undeniably out of control.  

She steps out of the tub, wincing as the cold air hits her skin, and dries herself off as quickly as possible. The kitchen seems indomitably far away but she somehow manages to make it, pulling her sweatpants up as she walks down the hallway. It takes her what feels like an hour to make some tea and force some oatmeal down, and by the time she swallows her cold medicine her body feels like it has already run a marathon.

Ordinarily, her frustration at the situation would be more than overwhelming, but her head is throbbing, and as she types out a long, apologetic text message the only thing she can muster is a faint sense of defeat. Her eyes are already closing as she presses send, and she crawls back into bed with no more than a twinge of regret.

When she wakes up again, two things register in her mind: it’s dark outside, and her doorbell is ringing off the hook.

She gives a slight whimper of frustration as she slides out of bed, grabbing her sweatshirt and her phone on the way into the hallway.

“Unless I ordered some extra-strength Tylenol in my sleep,” she grumbles, yanking the door open, “I don’t want—oh.”

Jake’s eyes widen as they travel up and down her body, taking in her old T-shirt and disheveled hair.

“Sorry I’m late, I got stuck on the phone with my mom—um, did you prank me? Was this a pajama party?”

“No, I—I texted,” she manages to croak out, wincing at the sting in her throat. “Look—” She unlocks her phone and thrusts it halfheartedly at him.

“Oh,” Jake says, glancing at her open messages tab. “Um—you only sent it to Boyle.”

“What? Fuck—”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly, handing her phone back. “You’re sick, you were obviously just sleeping, I’m sorry—”

“No, it’s my fault,” Amy mutters. She wonders dimly how everyone but Jake somehow knew not to come, but the pounding in her head overpowers her brief curiosity. “Sorry, you could’ve made other plans—”

“Nah, I would’ve just been watching Die Hard.”

“Okay,” Amy says numbly. She tries to say something else, but neither her mouth nor her brain seems to be working properly. “I’m cold.”

Jake laughs softly, then steps inside, setting his eight-dollar bottle of wine on the floor. “Come on,” he says, turning her gently by her shoulders. “I’ll guide you back to bed.”

He watches her shuffle across her bedroom floor, drink a glass of water, and crawl back underneath the covers before backing out of the room. The gentle smile on his face as he closes the door is the last thing she sees before she drifts off again.

--

She wakes to the smell of chicken soup.

It’s wafting through her bedroom door, so she gets up and opens it, noting with some relief that the pain in her throat has lessened somewhat. Taylor Swift’s New Year’s Day plays softly as she walks down the hallway, and as she emerges into her kitchen, she sees Jake bent over the sink, his jacket lying on her couch.

“Hi,” she says softly, ignoring the way her heart skips at the sight of him washing dishes in her kitchen.

“Hi,” he smiles, pausing the music and turning to look at her. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” she says honestly, noting that a mini pharmacy now sits next to a glass of water on her kitchen counter. “You—um, you’re still here?”

“Oh—uh, yeah, I hope that’s okay—I was going to leave, but you seemed really sick, and I just—”

“No, I’m glad,” she mumbles, and he grins. Her stomach flips a little, and she clears her throat. “Is that soup I smell?”

“Oh, yeah.” He gestures at the pot on the stove. “It’s an old family recipe—my mom used to make it for me whenever I got sick, so I figured—”

Her eyes land on a bag on the counter and she freezes, her hand in the utensil drawer. “And those potato pancakes?”

“Um, I bought them,” he says, and he’s definitely blushing. “Just in case you didn’t like the soup.”

She can hear Kylie laughing at her as she makes her way over to the stove, trying to hide her smile. “I can like two things.”

He laughs, then grins at the noise she makes as the soup hits her taste buds. “Good?”

“This is incredible,” she says, pouring herself a hefty serving. “I can’t believe you can cook.”

“Well, I can’t, really. But I made my mom teach me that recipe after I moved out. Just feels like home, you know?”

She smiles as she brings the bowl to her lips. “Yeah.”

Jake puts the plate he was washing in her dish rack, and as he wipes his hands on her dish towel she feels a sudden surge of completely unwelcome affection. “So,” he says, wiggling his eyebrow at her, “feeling up to a game of Go Fish?”

She rolls her eyes as she brushes past him, grabbing the glass of water as she goes. “I’m sick, not an eight-year-old child.”

He snorts, but produces a deck of cards anyway, and as they settle onto Amy’s living room rug she tries her best not to get comfortable.

It doesn’t work, even as he has a girlfriend he has a girlfriend he has a girlfriend keeps parading through her thoughts, and she completely loses track of time as they laugh their way through every card game in the books and multiple rematches.

She has just triumphantly laid her final cards down in their game of Speed when something explodes outside, sending Jake shooting to his feet.

“Fireworks!”

She takes his offered hand and stands up. “It’s already midnight?”

“Guess so.” Jake pulls the curtains back as a shower of green bursts spectacularly through the sky. “Sorry you did all that work for a party that didn’t happen.”

“It’s not a big deal,” she says, and she finds that she means it. “There’ll always be more chances. There are plenty of holidays for me to torture people.”

He chuckles. “Still—it sucks that you got sick today, of all days. It’s kind of a shitty way to start the year.”

She gazes through her window, her eye catching his reflection in the glass. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says softly. “It’s not so bad.”

Amy can feel his eyes on her, and for some reason she turns to meet his gaze. She thinks there are flecks of gold in the brown of his eyes, and as the fireworks continue to explode the gold morphs into blues, then greens, then reds and yellows. She feels no desire to tear herself away from the kaleidoscope of color in front of her, and she swallows as a massive cheer arises from the ground beneath her window.

Jake clears his throat and looks away, his fingers playing at the hem of his shirt. She follows his lead, turning to watch the crowd beneath her building dance drunkenly down the street. A slight disappointment works its way into her gut, but there is a sliver of hope along with it—misplaced optimism, maybe, but a brief glimpse of something that could be.

And despite all the planning, all the agonizing and dress-buying for a party that imploded so suddenly, Amy feels mostly at peace. Her therapist would be proud, she thinks. She wonders how much of it is thanks to the presence of the man standing next to her, gazing at the explosions of color outside with an almost childlike wonder in his eyes.

There are times she thinks she missed her chance, but today is the first day of a new year. And what are new years for if they’re not for second chances, anyway?

Her voice is soft when she speaks. “Happy New Year, Jake.”

It takes only a moment before he answers, a slightly wistful smile on his face. “Happy New Year, Ames.”

[the-gay-in-the-way]

Hello Again

I’m back once more to drop off some random AU ideas and maybe even a fic chapter or two.

Maybe.

Don’t get too hopeful tho cus I can’t be trusted and I also have a lot on my plate now so I’m not always gonna have enough headspace to spare for fanfic.

Anyways.

I’ve recently binged the entirety of Steven Universe, movie and current Future episodes included, and I’ve got some ideas now.

And if I don’t write those ideas down and share them then I may very well explode.

So, we begin with this new AU I came up with.

It’s very similar to the original SU base plot: same world, same pink diamond/rose story, same diamonds on homeworld.

But we input the sides where some of the originals once were.

And we have them take the base gem roles as well.

Thomas is Steven.

Patton is Pearl.

Roman(Ruby) and Logan(Sapphire) are Garnet.

Virgil is Amethyst.

The exceptions to the original structure are these lads tho.

Remus is an Emerald who originally tries to get rid of the gems on orders from Yellow Diamond, but he switches over to their side because he comes to love Thomas and just how crazy his planet can be.

Deceit is a corrupted Pyrite/Fool’s Gold whom Thomas befriends, much like the situation with Steven and Centipeetle.

So that’s the baseline character stuff that you really need to know.

But there’s some specific stuff that I’ve thought about which I include after the cut because it does spoil a very large chunk of the special later on story stuff that would be in the fic if I ever write it.

It might not get a fic so I recommend reading this, but it’s up to you.

Right, so, I have included a fifth Diamond.

Also, White Diamond was shattered long before the entire situation with Earth ever happened.

Surprised?

Yeah, weird thing to change but it’s important to the new plot.

Speaking of that new plot.

With White Diamond out of the picture, things get a bit weird when it comes to the main storyline.

Thomas ends up just straight up meeting Blue Diamond while she’s visiting Earth.

Virgil, being the protective boi that he is, will immediately come to his rescue before Blue can do much more than just threaten Thomas and make him cry.

Virgil, like Lapis, has been thru so much shiz over his lifetime that he doesn’t really get effected by Blue’s powers as much and is able to fend her off and send her away.

It messes him up a bit tho.

He doesn’t understand why but he felt some very sudden feelings when he faced Blue Diamond.

Grief, Anger, Jealousy, and Affection.

It was very confusing.

But then Remus appears, sent by Yellow Diamond, and things get very busy so he’s not able to think about it much.

It’s a few random incidents that lead to Virgil realizing some things and suddenly regaining a bunch of lost memories.

He then attempts to run away from the Gems.

They catch him, of course.

And he tells them he can’t be one of them because of what he actually is.

He’s the very thing they’ve been fighting against.

He’s a Diamond.

After dropping this huge reveal, he manages to escape again.

Thomas manages to find him.

He asks Virgil to explain everything to him.

That he can’t help or understand if he doesn’t know what’s going on.

And he wants to help and understand him because they’re family and he loves him, regardless of what he is or who he was.

So Virgil leads him to a secret warp pad that he remembers without being able to recall how he knew of it in the first place.

They use it and end up in a garden in space, one that’s pretty similar to the one Spinel gets left on in the movie.

And Virgil’s story isn’t much different.

He tells Thomas about being created by White Diamond.

A brand new Diamond, meant to accompany the rest and assist in expanding the empire with them.

But he wasn’t perfect.

He was off-color.

A Purple Diamond with an imperfect cut.

A natural chip where there was meant to be a pointed edge.

He was flawed and imperfect.

And that made him unfit to be a Diamond.

But he’d been expensive to create.

And White felt slightly conflicted about destroying one of her own kind, even if they were flawed.

So she kept him hidden.

Created an entirely isolated garden for him to live in.

And visited him frequently to see how he was doing.

At first, at least.

Over time, the visits were less about making sure he was still there and more about wanting to spend time with the little Diamond.

(Side note: Virgil is big for a Quartz, like Jasper is, but since that’s the same size of his natural form he’s also quite small for a Diamond. Even smaller than Pink.)

White starts to think that she was, maybe, wrong about her feelings toward perfection.

Because Purple Diamond is still quite capable as a Diamond.

Even if he’s a bit small and chipped.

And she decides to bring him back home and introduce him to the others.

To see how they feel about him.

And to, maybe, just have him be a bit closer to her on a more regular basis.

But she needs to prepare some things first.

So she tells him to stay in the garden.

That they were going to play a game.

He had to stay exactly where he was and wait for her to come back.

When she returned, she’d give him a special prize for succeeding.

And, trusting her completely, he agreed to the game.

And stood there as he watched her drift away.

After that, he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until he received the message.

White Diamond had been shattered.

And in her place was a brand new Pink one.

A smaller Diamond, like him.

Taking a place among the Diamonds, whom he’d only ever heard about from White.

Like she belonged there.

Even while he hadn’t.

The betrayal felt immense, and almost overpowered the grief he felt about White being shattered.

It left his form cracked and altered.

And, when Pink Diamond suddenly arrived, he’d been a step away from using the warp himself for the very first time in his life.

But she stopped him and met him with a smile.

She told him that she’d found out about him from some of the files White had saved in her personal systems.

That she’d wanted to help him return home, since White had refused to let him in before.

And, wanting so desperately to believe her kind words, he’d followed her.

And she brought him to Earth.

The planet White had intended to give her once she was ready to start colonizing.

Pink brought Purple to this planet she was just starting to work on, and Rejuvenated him.

She took away his memories and forcefully altered his programming.

Then she left him in a hole she made within one of the kindergartens.

By the time he awakened, a slow process after having been altered so heavily, Pink had become Rose.

And Rose had come to realize a few things about herself.

Because Virgil didn’t know what exactly had led to him being left behind.

He only knew that White had eventually been shattered during those hundreds of years he’d been left alone.

But Rose had known the truth.

Because she’d been the cause of it.

After White left Purple, she’d gone about preparing things for his eventual arrival.

The others had noticed and had been excited about meeting a new Diamond that White was obviously creating.

She didn’t correct them, figuring that she could leave them to their excitement for the time being.

But, right when she was about to go and retrieve Purple, Pink was born.

And that suddenly took up a lot of her time.

A few hundred years passed with White doing her best to prioritize Pink’s growth.

She didn’t visit Purple again because she wanted to keep her promise of giving him a good prize for waiting for her.

So she needed to get everything prepared for him first.

By the time she completed that and was once again ready to retrieve Purple, Pink realized the truth.

There was another Diamond.

A small one like her.

One that White obviously adored.

One who’d been the only reason her own rooms had even been created.

A newer Diamond.

Who would be adored by the others.

Just as she was.

But then, where would she be?

Abandoned by those she cared about.

All because of this other Diamond who wasn’t even as perfect as she was.

Pink couldn’t stand it.

In a fearful and jealous rage, she attacked White.

And White, for the first time in a very long time, poofed.

She lost her form and her gem fell to the ground at Pink’s feet.

And Pink, upon realizing what she’d done, decided that it would be better if White never came back.

So she bubbled her and hid the bubble in a part of Homeworld she knew nobody would find.

And used some of the materials that had been used to create herself and Purple in the Diamond Kindergarten to create fake shards of Diamond.

And then, she showed the others.

She told them that another Diamond had been born.

A defective Purple one who immediately lashed out at White and shattered her.

Pink had managed to come in and shatter the Purple one right after, she was even able to show them those shards too.

And they believed her.

But they wouldn’t if Purple came back.

So she went and got rid of him.

Going so far as to rejuvenate and alter him so that he would never be able to even come close to the other Diamonds.

And then, she’d spent her time on Earth.

And she’d learned a lot.

And realized how horrible she’d been to someone who should’ve been a sibling to her.

It made it worse when he suddenly appeared out of the hole she put him in, confused and hollow and thinking he was just another quartz soldier.

So she took him in.

Accepted him into what was left of the Crystal Gems, hoping that this would at least partially make up for what she’d done to him.

And then things had followed their course and now Purple Diamond was Amethyst and Amethyst was Virgil.

And Virgil, after thousands of years, was finally remembering what he had been.

But now how he’d ended up elsewhere.

He couldn’t remember anything past receiving the message of White’s shattering.

Only what had happened before.

And that’s all I’m gonna give you guys, for now.

It really got into my head, this entire AU idea.

I seriously was gonna just exhaust myself with thinking about it if I didn’t write some of it out.

So I feel better now.

Hope ya’ll enjoyed this little AU idea ramble.

Might do something with it, might not.

But it was fun to think about.

[alexandrasavior]

Alexandra Savior is here to pierce us all by way of melancholy as The Archer aims right for the heart

Tinged with Arctic Monkeys’ flair in spades, Alexandra Savior’s sophomore follow up to 2017’s Belladonna of Sadness, co-written with Alex Turner, is an homage to the heartbroken everywhere. And while one would think that Turner’s sound would be all over her debut, in retrospect, Belladonna of Sadness lacks his distinctive mark. Instead, it seems to appear more prominently on the new record, The Archer (a title Taylor Swift does not have the monopoly on). And just as Belladonna of Sadness was written two years before it finally came out, so, too, has The Archer long been in the works, with Savior commencing the title track in 2016.

Commenting on the notion that, during that period, in something of a Lana Del Rey parallel, she had reconciled with surrendering to the idea that she wouldn’t make music anymore, at least not at the “fame level” (just as Del Rey had bowed to while writing “Video Games”), Savior stated, “I was living with my mum and going to community college and thought that I was never going to make another record again. I was dropped [by the label] about a year after the first [album] came out. I wrote the song ‘The Archer’ on Christmas 2016.” So it was that the crux of the record was born. One that starts with the fittingly surreal and melancholic “Soft Currents.” The simple lyrics lament, “Seven years, I’ve had seven years of bad luck/And I’m just fine/Happiness I find happiness in the wrong places/Every time.” Even if that’s the case, in either her professional or personal life (more especially intertwined when one is a musician), she has ostensibly learned with time that, “My fate is at the hands of my mistakes/And that’s alright.” The ambient gloom of this acceptance segues effortlessly into “Saving Grace.”

Psychedelic to its core and filled with sweeping, overpowering guitar riffs, “Saving Grace” takes a page from 2013’s AM, on which Arctic Monkeys reached the zenith of their guitar usage, perhaps inevitably leading to the subsequent piano-favoring Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. With lyrics that serve as a means to paint so-called Saving Grace as some sort of cruel drag queen dangling the potential for salvation before ripping it away, Savior sings, “Saving grace/Come here to petrify me/She’s not an angel, my dear/She is a beast.” In other words, do not trust her, she is a fugly slut.

And don’t trust the security of relationships for that matter, either, Savior soon apprehended after being dropped by her first label, Columbia Records. Of the “breakup,” Savior remarked, “…so a lot of the songs that I was writing before I got dropped, I was intentionally trying to impress this label that I wasn’t really suited for. When I had that freedom, it felt like I’d write the songs and they would just go into the abyss because there was nobody for me to send them to and and nobody was listening at all. But then I think that’s probably what made them a lot more personal than my last record.” So it was that she had a sort of Lady Gaga in “Marry the Night” experience, which occurred right around the same time as a romantic breakup that led to the creation of “Crying All the Time” on New Year’s Day, 2018. The moody, Sam Cohen-produced backbeat paired with the lament, “My death, it taunts me like a ship/Without a sail I know I’ll be gone soon/But just for him, I will prevail,” smacks, indeed, of a Del Rey/Turner lovechild, further compounded by the irony, “He doesn’t like it when I cry/And now he’s gone, so I’m crying all the time.”

The sultry overtone of the appropriately mating call-esque “Howl” solidifies the jilted lover theme of the record, as well as Savior’s adeptness at making spartan lyrics feel varied, with the only non-repeated verse of the song being, “Handsome dictator of my crimes/I can’t tell if they’re yours, I can’t tell if they’re mine/Sweet revelation bitter wine/I’m dreaming, but mostly I’m feeling behind.” With the fine line blurred between whether or not she’s responsible for her actions or the toxic love manipulating them is irrelevant after a certain point, and Savior must admit, “It’s a little dangerous when you come treading by me.” And yet how could we, as her listeners, not with a record like this”

The midpoint of The Archer, “Send Her Back,” persists with the laconic lyrics, the chorus, “Why don’t you send her back where she came from?” being easily applicable to both a mother after birthing her child or a boyfriend after rejecting his girlfriend of so many years. Whatever your particular interpretation as a result of your own personal situation, “Send Her Back” certainly inflicts some deep-seated feels. Of the kind that her unwitting mentor, Alex Turner, also knows too well about–not to mention how to evoke within his own listeners. As for the comparisons to their styles, let’s just say, “Can’t Help Myself,” which happens to be the sixth track on the album, opening with the sound of ambient waves washing ashore (likely a common sound when one is from the same Pacific Northwest milieu as Savior). More tinged with sardonic 60s girl group flair than some of the others, the song bears an additional tonal resemblance to the 60s stylings of Del Rey on “Radio” (as when she sings, “Now my life is sweet like cinnamon…/My body’s sweet like sugar venom, oh yeah”) and Arctic Monkeys on “Black Treacle.” Savior, in fatalistic turn, expresses, “Light dims as he walks my way/I’ve been running for a reason I could never retain/Sweet lips like pink lemonade/When he’s feeling generous he’s gonna give me a taste/’Cause nothing else can satisfy me/Oh, oh, I can’t help myself/Something comes over me, baby/Whenever you are around.” 

Such a sentiment transitions seamlessly into a song title like “The Phantom,” all rife with the connotations of being haunted by the object of one’s affection. Discussing the common phenomenon in unrequited love that essentially finds one person being more of an erotomaniac than the other (e.g. “I fell in love alone”), Savior reconciles the cult-like tendencies of the one she truly believed could love her as much in return, describing with the poetic turn of phrase we’ve come to expect by now, “Fell in love as a lone disciple/His altar at the root of my fate/Fell in love on a lonely night/Could predict every word he’d never convey.”

More languorous in rhythm than the others, “Bad Disease” is peak “creepin’ on you” vibes mixed with Arctic Monkeys’ verbiage. Again imbuing her lover with cult leader status, Savior offers up the sort of images one would expect from a The Shangri-Las, The Marvelettes or The Ronettes song (and then, of course, there are shades of Del Rey’s “Shades of Cool”), boasting, “Pandemonium quivers at his touch/My preacher, my undefined creature/Consumes me.” But who cares so long as that “bad disease” she’s referring to only involves a metaphorical burning in one’s loins?

The uber groovy “But You” is Savior at her most evocative in terms of making the listener fathom her extreme loneliness in the absence of the one she loves (or loved). The best way to conjure this picture is, naturally, with a mattress. More to the point, “the wilted edge of a lonesome mattress” where once her boyfriend used to lay. No more, alas. And the one person who can heal the pain of this wound is the one person who isn’t around to do so. Oh how cruel irony can be in matters of love and all the agony it wreaks (also causing one’s own body to reek from the depression side effect of not washing on the reg).

The denouement that is “The Archer” is as meandering and dreamy as the video itself, featuring Savior roaming aimlessly along the coastline (of Port Townsend, Washington) near a lighthouse that seems useless to her. Not just because it’s the daytime, but because, from a navigational standpoint, there is nowhere she needs to be anymore now that she’s lost the port in the storm that she thought was her true love, the one who “bit [her] head right off with [his] tiny little mouth,” prompting her to “lick the blood from [his] lips.” Indeed, Savior admitted that after some reflection, “At the time, my perception was that I was writing a song about how it feels to love someone, but now when I listen back to ‘The Archer,’ I realize that I was writing an observation of a psychologically unhealthy relationship, from the perspective of someone who is unconsciously aware that she is being emotionally mistreated.” Maybe, in the end, however, if The Archer is any indication, music is both emblematic of the lighthouse and her home. Regardless of living in any (last) shadow (puppet) of certain parties that have worked with her before. Savior is very much her own musician, even if also an amalgam of so many kinds of infinite sadness as previously conveyed by some of her more obviously influencing forebears.