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hello-there-cyarika · 2 years ago

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More Hive Troopers <3

More bee troopers! ... Boopers.... BEE-PERS (all of my file names that feature these boys so far have referred the them as "the beepers" lol)

Anyhow, I figured I'd add some more information on how the hive troopers operate below, so keep on reading!

At the start of the war, the venators were outfitted with barracks for the troopers that were fully furnished with bunks and such things

The troopers.... didn't really like the bunks... like at all

The would take the bunks and push them all over to one side, and use the rest of the room as a building space for a huge wall of honeycomb!

Eventually the Jedi caught on, and helped the troopers remove all of the unused bunks

The troopers build huge, ceiling to floor, winding walls of honeycomb to act as the hive's living quarters

The honeycomb compartments come in a variety of sizes!

The biggest compartments are longer than a trooper is tall, and about 2x a trooper's width (wings and secondary abdomen included) in diameter, so these compartments are the ones for sleeping in!

Some are even wider, for those who like to share :)!

The sleeping compartments are filled with comfy pillows and blankets left from the bunks

Various smaller compartments are perfectly sized for storing extra pillows and blankets, datapads, personal items, and all sorts of things!

The gear lockers, which came with the original furnishing of the room, are built into the thicker walls of the honeycomb

The troopers will only very begrudgingly admit that the gear lockers are more suited for storing their kit than the honeycomb (they're very salty that the locker is not an optimal shape to fit in with the rest of the honeycomb)

Gear lockers are not honeycomb optimized

Anyway

Troopers are capable of creating beeswax just like any bee, albeit for much longer during their much longer lifespan, and in much larger quantities

Hence why in the doodle above, Wooley, who is off duty and helping to build up the honeycomb, is not wearing upper armor.

Bees produce wax from the underside of their abdomen, and trying to reach around to collect that while in full upper armor is... less than comfortable lol

Speaking of anatomy, despite being clones, all troopers' wings are entirely unique!

Well, almost entirely- twins have identical wings!

(this may or may not be a Secret of the Wings reference that movie is so good)

Clone trooper twins are grown in the same tube, and have a special connection

Twins are also SUPER rare

The iconic @cacodaemonia invented this concept for me, and as far as I'm concerned their OC Kom'mrk is 10000% canon and has matching wings to Boil!

(please for fucks sake yall go read Open Skies I stg my life has not been the same since)

Cadets have very weak wings when they're first decanted

It takes until they're about 3.5-4 standard for their wings to fully develop and strengthen enough for them to fly

Until then, they practice by buzzing a whole lot to strengthen the muscles in their torso

On another anatomical topic, the way that troopers communicate in the "hive mind" is via pheromones!

Just like bees, they have extremely sophisticated and complex pheromone signals that can only be detected by other troopers via their antennae

During the night cycle/sleep hours, troopers will try and keep quiet and communicate primarily via pheromones

If you're not a trooper (or a Jedi lol), the only way you'd be able to figure out their silent communication is with super complex and specialized equipment

On the other hand, troopers have to watch out for weapons from the Separatists that involve pheromone-mimicking gases

The gases could cause them to lose their sense of direction, get cut off from the rest of the hive, or other disorienting things

Speaking of directions!

(fuck i have so many ideas to get out lol)

While the idea of the troopers doing a proper bee waggle dance is absolutely hilarious and so cute to me, I think that in reality it'd be a bit more calm

Instead of lots of crazy shaking back and forth, it's more of a purposeful sway!

This.... does make dancing at 79's significantly more confusing when they first start learning to dance for fun

Echo: "are you telling me that there's something I need to go find 400 klicks away at 32 degrees??"

Fives: "what no I'm just having fun"

Unlike bees, who only use the sun, troopers can also use the moon to calculate their maps!

On planets with multiple moons and/or suns, the commander will choose one sun/moon to be used as the reference for all maps

When on a moon for a campaign, the moon's planet can also be used

In rare and difficult situations, troopers can also use particularly bright stars! Usually only the ARFs are skilled enough for that, though

I think for my next doodle I'll either do wolffe, fox, thorn, tup, and dogma OR the bad batch + omega... haven't decided yet! let me know if you have a preference lol

anyway thank you all for giving so many lovely comments on my previous post about these boys! i love yall so much <33333

<3 I do not give my consent or my permission for my art to be re-posted or reuploaded on this or any other website <3

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literary-illuminati · 2 years ago

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Book Review 45 – The Gods Are Bastards Volume One by D. D. Webb

This was the first web fiction I’ve properly archive binged in a long while. I’d quite forgotten the experience of having however many hundred thousand words just waiting to consume your every waking hour for a weekend and change. So thanks to tumblr peer pressure for getting me to finally give this a try, I suppose.

So, this is a web serial set in a world that very much feels like a D&D setting a couple generations after it broke out of medieval stasis – there’s dragons and demigods and thousand year old retired elven adventurers who are all laws unto themselves, and then there’s also a continent spanning hegemonic empire that’s invented magical railways and telegraphs and industrial revolutions. The story specifically follows the freshman class of the Unseen University, a remote institution run by one of the two or three most powerful (former) adventurers alive, educating and connecting the future global elite. The freshman class – including a demigod, the only two paladins in the world, an amnesiac archdemon, and a pirate crown princess – are the protagonists for the better part of the story, bonding and going to classes and sent on absurd field expeditions and generally becoming an incredibly high-powered adventuring party. Each book also has one or two subplots following characters only very tenuously connected to them out in the wider world, more often than not centred around wither Bishop Darling of the Universal Church (former high priest of the god of thieves) or Principia Locke, conwoman and second most annoying elf alive. I will put my cards on the table now and say these plots are what makes the thing worth reading.

The students are – okay, they start off just, bad, but they do improve over the course of the first few books in terms of how grating they are to read (Book 1 is very heavy on the college soap opera). But they do all have the fundamental issue that, where the other plots largely feel like people embedded in a world with agenda to pursue and complex circumstances to navigate, they all feel like high fantasy superheroes being led along a breadcrumb trail in a world devoid of real threats or meaningful ties outside the university and the occasional specific patron. Or put another way, it is not at all subtle that they are the Protagonists or Reality, which instantly makes me dislike them and want them to fail. But going by what makes popular web fiction I’m fairly sure that instinct is mostly just a me thing.

Special shoutout to Tris, the crusading paladin of the group. As of book one she’s a repressed sheltered army brat who has a whole list of species and religions she thinks should be killed on sight and several historical genocides she wholeheartedly endorses. She has a real arc over the volume, but a big part of it is less challenging the fundamental logic of that than just slowly removing lines from her kill on sight list (but nowhere near all of them). I am not entirely sure how self-aware the book is about this.

The remainder of the book, and by far the better part, is mostly dedicated to sideplots centring Bishop Darling’s byzantine intrigues within the universal church, the politics of the empire’s capital city, and his high forays into high risk tutoring and foster-parenting, and Principia Locke, thieves guild resident underachiever, town ne’erdowell and second most obnoxious elf alive. These two characters are objectively the best, and also they’re allowed to be at genuine risk and thrown into tasks where fucking up is a real possibility and the ultimate resolution is very unclear. The best plot of the entire volume is easily Darling and 3 other bishops being deputized as a black ops force by the (arch)pope and sent to illegally poke around a small town, and they’re all the most insufferable people you’ve ever met stuck sharing an airbnb.

The story plays a lot with western tropes and aesthetics transposed onto he magitech high fantasy setting – the ‘Golden Sea’ is an infinite, impossible to navigate expanse in the centre of the continent, home to nomadic plains elf bands and centaur herds, and the imperial frontier has now pushed right up to its edge, full of things like saloons and sheriffs and marshals and magical trains and gun wand-fights and ten gallon hates. This is very fun, but the moving of the reference period from vaguely medieval Europe to the late 19th century USA makes things certain subtext that’s already unfortunate in standard fantasy downright painful – centaurs, clearly and obviously playing the role the savage indian raiders in some mid-century western, are portrayed as a universally evil culture whose main salient trait is that they will literally rape any prisoners to death, and are stated to have been righteous and heroically ethnically cleansed everywhere but this barbaric frontier. It’s, uh, not great.

Now, I came to this serial as someone who has wasted untold days and hours becoming immersed in D&D, like, Lore, which meant that I was incredibly well prepared because there are so many D&D easter eggs in this I think it might technically be a fanwork like Order of the Stick or something. There’s a Drizzt joke that made me audible groan, and more broadly the entire setting is just very incredibly clearly “D&D 3.5 campaign setting plus 50 years and an industrial revolution’. “Adventurers” were a coherent social class, ‘dungeons’ are a thing, there are profoundly uncomfortable attitudes towards ‘monstrous’ races that live in them, the whole shebang. I mostly found this charming, but it’s a thin line, and I can very easily imagine it being utterly insufferable.

Anyway, this is theoretically a complete volume, but it’s also books one-four of, like, seventeen. In the grand tradition of web serials everywhere, it’s three times longer than it really needs to be, and absolutely littered with plot seeds and foreshadowing which might either pay off in five hundred thousand words or never be mentioned again. I’m honestly not particularly sure how well the volume holds up as a coherent work, separate from everything that comes after – Principia got a complete and well done character arc, but that’s about the only part of it I’d say really works here.

As the first fifth or so of a longer work it did get me to keep going onto book five with barely a breath in between though, so on balance I’d say it works.

#book review #web serial #sff #the gods are bastards #d. d. webb

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yousta · 1 year ago

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(Sigh) I know I don't normally make posts that express my raw thoughts but I'd really like to start talking more personal. So this is my first attempt.

I'd like to say hello to members of the obsessive love, IRL yandere/lovesick community. I'm like hyper-fixated on you guys as I feel like I can empathize with so many, which was a unique experience for me.

If you've posted in the last couple months chances are I've probably went through your account. That's how I met my girlfriend, I know you're reading, Hiii honey bunny I love you so much.

Sure I have my own defined idea of the concept and what I like about it like everyone else does I'm sure. I'm sometimes selective with what I'll interact with. Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about today. What I personally see, the good the bad the ugly, just the whole thing.

I'll start with the potential...

In my life, I isolated myself for many years because I couldn't find anyone who wanted to pay attention to me long enough to understand me, let alone care enough to actually love me. Which I more or less assumed was a trend of people identifying as lovesick, no one will know what you need better than yourself after all.

Obsessive love is making a point of love being a major focus in your life. Which is great you would think, until the rest of the world sees you as just another fish in the sea. They wouldn't recognize you for it as anything real, because not many people value upfront love. Everyone excepts liars and cheaters because that's all people seem to do without intention.

The act of being needy isn't attractive, it's why not everyone's giving money to a homeless person you have no connection to. Well I wanted to take a moment and say this is not that for me.

I read you guys everyday, I'm convinced a lot of you are seemingly inherently obsessive about a lot of the things you do, because given the platform you communicate yourself so coherently, so open and in touch with what you know you need. To the point when I first started reading people here. I was confused, feeling like I knew them even though it was parasocial.

Well that's because I relate to your struggle better than my own irl friends in those ways. I just wanted to say you're my favorite fish. I know I could never give you that love you desire as I'm taken, but I really want to extend the offer of friendship to each and every one of you, because I want to create a place for you to be recognized for all the love you've given. It may be platonic but I love you as the light of this world.

Of course nothing is all sunshine and rainbows.

There's people who'd intentionally ignore the warning signs or have such low self awareness, they won't or can't see what they're representing certainly has the potential to be or become toxic. Whether if it's for yourself or others.

Possessing but recognizing violent thoughts as intrusive is one thing, but identifying yourself by having those thoughts. I can't help but to acknowledge how you're building yourself up, creating momentum in a direction I don't think you or anyone truly wants. My question to you is why?

Hopefully you're just being very far removed from your words and the reality of you're saying, hopefully you're too deep into some strange character or persona you've invented and can separate yourself from it. Yet it seems to me that this is not always the case... Some members of the community are really struggling.

I mean I understand, people I knew growing up didn't have any real defined idea about love or stepped with any firm intention. So I understand why something like you see in these yan tropes could be appealing.

I grew up in a city where everyone is really cold to one another. Honestly I've lived here all my life and never felt like I truly know or trust anyone. Which when I was younger lead to a lot of moments I lacked insight I needed, to get my desired out come. I don't think you're barking up the wrong tree entirely however.

Which is why with this post and in future ones. I really want to help you guys with some general advice to set your intention, get your perspective and mindset right for loving in this style. I think I'd be a good person to ask, as I'm currently very sucuessful and happy in my current relationship. If any of you ever need to talk more personally though, my DMs are open for anyone who needs to vent.

#lovesick #actually obsessive #obslove #obsessive love #yandere #irl yandere #i love you #yandere community #yousta thoughts

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fipindustries · 5 years ago

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the dream of xanadu

so i was doing some thinking over some old texts that i read from borges, specifically this one: the dream of coleridge.

you should definetly go read it but if you dont have the time here is a quick summary of what it is about.

it talks about colerdige’s famous poem, “Kubla Khan”, which is basically a description of this fantastic palace built by the king Kubla Khan in xanadu, and how this poem came to coleridge in a dream but the writer was never able to complete it.

then borges goes on to reference some old text, the General History of the World by Rashid al-Din where the author describes that the idea for a palace also came to Kubla khan in his dreams.

so that is a pretty neat coincidence, first the idea to build the greatest palace in the world in Xanadu came to Kubla Khan in a dream and then one of the most beautiful poems in history about the palace in Xanadu came to coleridge, also in a dream. Borges draws a very interesting connection between both of these.

The first dream added a palace to reality; the second, which occurred five centuries later, a poem (or the beginning of a poem) suggested by the palace. The similarity of the dreams reveals a plan; the enormous length of time involved reveals a superhuman performer. To inquire the purpose of that immemorial or long-lived being would perhaps be as foolhardy as futile, but it seems likely that he has not yet achieved it. In 1691 Father Gerbillon of the Society of Jesus confirmed that ruins were all that was left of the palace of Kubla Khan; we know that scarcely fifty lines of the poem were salvaged. Those facts give rise to the conjecture that the series of dreams and labors has not yet ended. The first dreamer was given the vision of the palace and he built it; the second, who did not know of the other’s dream, was given the poem about the palace. If the plan does not fail, some reader of “Kubla Khan” will dream, on s night centuries removed from us, of marble or of music. This man will not know that two others also dreamed. Perhaps the series of dreams has no end, or perhaps the last one who dreams will have the key.

now this is where you put on your tin foil hats my friends.

borges was right.

Barely fifteen years after borges published this essay in his book “other inquisitions” a young, lets say, computer scientist called Ted Nelson (who suffered from ADHD and so was quick to forget what he was doing with the minimal distraction (!)) was starting to kick around the idea of a revolutionary new software that was supposed to be thre greatest invention of mankind, meant to change the face of the world, to usher in a new age of information sharing, a giant global hyperlinked database with all the information in the world. The hypertext system known as Xanadu.

i really cant do justice to the whole torturous story behind this project, just please go and read the link, suffice to say it was either the mad dream of some prophetic visionary or the biggest con by the most shameless of crooks. The greatest piece of vaporwave never developed, 30 years in the making, thousands of dollars, man hours and different sets of teams working on it, and it will never be completed.

i hereby propose that the Xanadu software was the third instance of this phenomena Borges descrives thusly:

Perhaps an archetype not yet revealed to men, an eternal object (to use Whitehead’s term), is gradually entering the world; its first manifestation was the palace; its second was the poem. Whoever compared them would have seen that they were essentially the same.

did you catch the subtle horror in that last paragraph? Whatever archetype this Xanadu entity is, trying to enter into our world through our dreams, all i can say is that a part of me is relieved that so far it has been foiled thus far, yet i worry for how long will providence manage to keep Xanadu away from manifesting into our reality.

#horror #fiction #borges #xanadu #colerdige

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boxofbadaddiction · 5 years ago

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Careless

Fred Weasley x Reader

This story is inspired from a request of my F.R.I.E.N.D.S Themed Prompt List.

Prompts: 13, 19 & 23

"I'm so happy and not at all jealous."/"We had a deep and meaningful relationship/What was their last name?"/"I thought it mattered what I said or when I said it. Then I realised, all that matters is that you make me happier than I ever thought I could be."

Warnings: Swearing. War Scene - blood & injury. Angsty.

Y/n was trouble with a capital T. She was daring, confident, snarky and a massive Quidditch fan. In other words; she were Fred Weasleys perfect woman.

But it's not what you think, they were just friends. Chaotic, hell raising, perfect-for-each-other friends.

With the Twins and y/n around Hogwarts it were remarkable the Castle were still standing. But not for their lack of trying. After an especially careless prank, which left the Gryffindor Common Room with a new window, it's safe to say the threesome were there for one another through thick and thin.

Pranks however, weren't the only area in which Y/n, and Fred for that matter, were careless.

Both had the tendency to be rather frivolous in romantic relationships. It seemed like every other week the pair had a new partner on their arm. George liked to joke that, of all the people left in their age group, the only people they hadn't 'had a round' with were each other. The rumours, jokes or insults to character never bothered them though. They were young and weren't looking for anything serious - so what's the harm in having a little fun? That was y/ns reasoning anyway. It had been Freds as well...in the beginning. Until he were struck with a rather bracing realisation.

The reason why he rushed so fast into new relationships without a care wasn't so much 'for the fun of it' or genuine interest in the other, but denial. He were running and burying his head in the sand, or rather the bedsheets - as it were, to distract himself from the very chilling reality that he was desperately, hopelessly and unequivocally in love with his best friend. With y/n.

So after that particularly bitter pill to swallow, Fred's relations became a means to an end. A means of getting over her. Of finding someone to replace her.

It never worked, of course, because no other girl was her. No one made him laugh or smile like her. Nor did anyone get his heart racing like she did.

He did everything he could to bury his feelings; under piles of work, copious amounts of alcohol and an abundance of meaningless sex, and it genuinely seemed to be working...until the War came.

That walk into the Great Hall after the initial Battle is one Fred would never forget.

The smell; of death and destruction. The way his body ached and longed to rest.

Slowly limping through the destroyed arched doorway, accompanied by Percy - who's shoulders he'd drapped an arm across seeking support. They were talking with one another, throwing around light-hearted brotherly insults here and there, which helped keep Freds mind off the immense pain surging through his leg at the time, small smiles adorning their faces.

That's when they heard it.

A blood curdling scream. One of pure agony.

Their eyes shot directly to the source, on the far side of the room - where all the Weasleys were gathered around a body. A girls.

Arthur was holding tight onto Molly as she sobbed uncontrollably. Ron stood on the outskirts pale and afraid, while Bill and Charlie had a hold of Ginny in attempt to shield her. Fred's gaze flickered to where he saw George had knelt beside the body.

He was gripping one of her hands as his other tried desperately to keep her still on the floor while she writhed and cried out in pain.

She were covered in blood as Madam Pomfrey worked frantically to mend the severe wounds in her abdomen, where shards of debris protruded from her flesh.

The cry had been caused from the extraction of a particularly large shard, of what Fred didn't know.

George was running a tender hand over y/ns head, gently stroking her hair and the sides of her face as he whispered soothing sounds and comforting words in her ear.

Fred didn't know how long he'd stood there, staring in shock, he'd felt petrified - numb to everything but the fear coursing through his veins. Till suddenly his feet were moving.

A first painful step, which nearly crippled him, was followed by an equally sore but determined second. Then a third, and before he knew it he was running. Sprinting as fast as he could regardless of the pain it inflicted, nothing could stop him from reaching her side.

Barging past friends and family members he collapsed on Georges otherside. Eyes raking the ever paling and blood covered woman laid before him. George was shaking as he looked to his brother with tear-filled eyes but Freds stare was unwavering.

Somehow mustering the strength he spoke the only words playing through his mind, "What can I do?" His eyes never left y/ns wound, above which Pomfreys hands hovered as she worked.

"Fred?" Y/n cried through deep breaths, her head turning to the side in an attempt to see him. "I'm here, Sweetheart." He placed a hand to her knee. Her eyes were screwed tight shut as she threw her head back against the hard, cold floor. Tears parted tracks through the thick dust and muck plastered to her cheeks as she clenched her jaw inhaling sharply as the next piece of debris was removed - a relatively small piece in comparison to the earlier one. George continued to soothe his friend as Pomfrey instructed Fred on what to do.

They wished everything had gotten better from there. That after they successfully removed all the debris and stopped the blood from further pouring from her body that she'd been able to recover simply. But news only seemed to get worse once they reached St Mungo's.

She'd fallen into a coma. Y/n had suffered severe internal injuries and the Healers never held out much hope that she'd survive.

Y/n always was full of surprises.

She'd come out of her coma and began showing signs she could yet make a recovery. No one could have possibly anticipated the day healers would begin talk of rehab. They considered it a miracle she were even breathing.

Naturally the Twins were there every step of the way. Especially Fred. There were whole nights, even before she'd regained consciousness, where he'd spend every minute by her bedside. Nights he'd spend working tirelessly in the shops office to perfect ideas they'd concocted to help ease and enhance y/ns physical therapy. Inventions that worked so well Healers from all over were lining up to get their hands on, after seeing how successful y/ns recovery were as a direct result of their products. Hell, most days you couldn't even tell she'd been through a war - her scars the only physical reminder, to the untrained eye.

There were no doubt left in Freds body after that. He loved her with every part of his soul and that was never going to change, and so his involvement in the dating scene became virtually non-existent.

Y/ns on the other hand...well some things don’t change.

She was given a second chance and wasn't about to waste it worrying about what 'could' have happened. Life were too short for that. She did, however, start keeping an eye out for 'Mr/Mrs Right' during her rendezvous'.

Fred tried his hardest to be supportive. Opting rather to love her from the sidelines than risk hurting their relationship by getting his hands dirty and playing the game. After Y/ns most recent conquest however his happy facade may officially be waning.

It was just past sunset in Diagon Alley and so Weasleys Wizard Wheezes, much like all the other stores, were going through their nightly closing routine.

Fred was working through the registers whilst, much to his dismay, George were left to the Twins least favourite chore - cleaning and restocking the store.

That's when the front door burst open.

"Evening, Boys!" Y/n announced happily as she strode into the store. "Fred! I told you to lock the door, lest the riff-raff barge in!" George called jokingly over the railing of the second floor. Fred couldn't help but smile, not looking up from the task at hand "My mistake!". Y/n scowled up at George as she hopped onto the front desk, "Like that could keep me out." Leaning over the counter top she placed a kiss to Freds cheek, "Heya Freddie". He looked to her, instantly finding himself on cloud nine, and leant casually onto the counter to speak with her. "Hey, Lovely. How was your day?" "Oh, I am so glad you asked!" Y/n said beaming as she clapped her palms against her knees, kicking one leg atop the other. "It was fantastic!" "Do tell." George spoke, decending the stair case, "What's 'fantastic's name?" He goaded.

Y/n glared at him playfully, "Think you have me all worked out do you?" "You know we do." Fred interjects. "Can read you like a book, Darling. You've got not secrets from us"

"Especially after our little incident during rehab, when I had to help you in the shower." George added with a teasing brow, this causing y/n to scrunch her nose. "Okay, George, that's talking about it when we agreed never to talk about it!" The Twins laughed at her embarrassed expression. "Anyway, 'fantastic's name is Mason."

Fred swallowed thickly at the news of, yet another, romantic partner but still he suppressed his distaste as he normally would.

The next 30 minutes or so were spent listening to y/ns retelling of how she met, Mason. About how great they made her feel. Fred couldn't help but envy the way the mere thought of them had y/n biting her lip in attempt to suppress a giddy smile. He'd give anything for her to look that way while thinking about him.

Fred had been quiet through most of the conversation, untrusting of his own voice not to give away his utter disdain at the news. Still he smiled when he should and convincingly feigned interested as she spoke. It wasn't until she began talking about her date, tonight, with them that he finally spared himself the heartache and stopped listening.

Later that evening, Fred was trying hard to keep himself occupied with thoughts on anything but the date the love of his life currently found herself on. As George and he just finished their own meal he'd taken to determinately cleaning the dishes piled within their sink - whilst George dried, a small habit the two fell into thanks to years of Molly putting the pair on dish duty after meals.

Unknowingly to Fred, he'd been uncharacteristically quiet for the whole evening. Something his brother had not failed to notice. "So..." he began breaking the long running silence of the night, "y/n seems pretty bent on this new bloke doesn't she?" "Mmm" "Never know this one may even last" George let out a breathy laugh as he prodded Fred's shoulder with his elbow, watching carefully for his reaction.

George wasn't stupid. He knew exactly how Fred felt, well before the night of the battle.

Fred's eyebrows quirked, lips parting as he clicked his jaw, visibly unsettled by his Twins topic of discussion.

"You okay, Freddie?" "Yeah. No, they sound great. Absolutely perfect. He's bloody 'Mr Fantastic'" His voice was laced with attitude and sarcasm as he spoke.

Finishing washing the final glass Fred throws the dish sponge against the back wall of the sink harder than intended in his frustration. "Easy there mate, get you're not happy but don't take your jealousy out on the poor bloody sponge" George picks it up from where it'd landed, mockingly shielding it from his brother with an overly concerned expression. "What are you on about?" Fred sneered defensively, "I'm so happy and not at all jealous."

"Sure you are" George replied with a look which read 'really?' "Yeah no, I get it. I'd be fine too if the girl I fancied was out on a date with some other bloke." He shrugged nonchalantly as he walked back to the living room, lounging comfortably across their sofa.

Fred looked to his brother as if he'd grown another head. "Don't give me that look. We both know I know." George rolled his eyes. "Well then tell me, oh wise and all-knowing Brother" Fred bowed mockingly, "what would you do in my situation?" He walked over with an expectant brow, perching himself of the sofas opposite arm rest.

"Oh, I dunno...maybe confess to the poor girl." "You say that like it's the simplest thing in the world." "It is, Freddie." "No. No it's not, whatever this is it's not simple." "It won't get any easier if you don't try. Here look I'll help you" George sat up eagerly, leaning against the back of the couch. "You be you, I'll be- don't give me that look. I'll be y/n. Tell me what you'd say to her." "This is stupid" Fred rolled his eyes. "Don't be a prat, just...go. I won't judge." "Right, cause that sounds like you." "Fred-" George warned. "Fiiiine!" He groaned which only caused his brother to smile cockily, satisfied he finally got what he wants.

Fred looked at his brother who flicked his hair and batted his eyelashes dramatically. There's no way he can do this looking at him. Rolling his eyes again he looked away with a scoff, contemplating all the things he'd say to y/n if he had the courage to.

"Well?..." "I don't know. I don't know what'd I'd say to her or where to start, I've never thought about it." "Maybe it's time you start thinking about it Freddie." George clapped him on the leg as he stood from his place on the couch.

He were half way to his bedroom before stopping, having just faintly heard the words whispered after him...

"I love her, Georgie." George smiles sadly to himself, only just turning his head he murmurs a reply. "Tell her that."

---

The store was closed for the day and Fred had choose to have a rather uneventful night in, and so he sat on the end of the sofa reading the paper hoping for product inspiration to strike. George on the other hand were getting ready to go out for the night when came a rhythmic knock on the flat door. No need to ask who it were as they let themselves in, per usual.

"Hello, Boys" y/n bounded into the apartment, flopping casually onto their couch with her head in Freds lap.

He lifted the paper into one hand to better see her smiling face looking cheekily back up at him. His own fond and loving smile shown back. "Hey, Freddie" "Hey, Gorgeous." "HELLO, GEORGE?" She shouted listening intently for his response, "YEAH YEAH, Hello freeloader!" He yells back causing her smile to grow.

"You seem awfully happy, have a good day?" Fred asks as he begins to softly run his hands through y/ns hair out of a developed habit from all their late nights at Hogwarts. "Yeah it was good, just went out with Mason. We had a nice time but I'm just happy to be here with you losers." "Losers? How flattering" George calls from his bedroom. "Oh" at the mention of y/ns partner, Fred puts an end to his hands actions. Turning his attention pointedly back to the paper he'd been reading previously. "And how is 'Mr Fantastic'?" He sneers. "Yeah great...I think. I don't know, he sorta got carried away talking about work. Barely got a word in myself." Y/n chuckles fakely. Sensing her pent up reservations Fred can't help but resume his earlier actions, stroking her hair, but still his eyes stay on the page in front of him. Even if he can't seem to read a single word - too focused on the warmth y/ns body provides pressed against his. Wishing this were how he could spend every night, wrapped up on the couch with her in his arms.

"Alright, children!" George emerges from his bedroom, "I'm off. Don't destroy the place while I'm gone." "Oh that's right!" Y/n sits up excitedly to peer over the back of the sofa. "Tonights the big date" she rests her chin atop her arms as they fold over the backrest looking to George as he collects his wallet and keys. "That's right, Dearest." He ruffles her hair as he strides past to the door, "You're not the only one around here who goes out." He winks before leaving, a quick 'behave!' Called over his shoulder.

Y/n lays back down across Freds lap with a warm smile on her lips. "So...what do you wanna do tonight?"

---

Fred was quietly thankful for George being out of the apartment for the night, the quality time spent with y/n were more than he could possibly ask for. It felt like being back in school, when they'd sneak to the Lake or Astronomy tower past curfew.

They were currently sat on the lounge room floor; a bottle of firewiskey and several stolen sweets from George's stash, scattered in front of them.

"I can't believe you just called me a slag!" Fred shouts as y/n laughed loudly. "W-well it's true." She shrugged, speaking through poorly restrained giggles. "Need I remind you of your time spent with Alice?" "Hey! We had a deep, and meaningful relationship." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah!" "What was her last name?" Freds mouth opened in retort before swiftly closing. Eyes blankly scanning the room in search of the answer before realising he didn't have one. He nodded and shrugged in acknowledgement. "Point taken. Not that you're one to judge" he chuckled, taking a swig from the bottle of whiskey before offering it to her. "Also true." Y/n accepted.

"When was the last time you waited until the third date?" "Honestly?" "No. Lie to me." Y/n rolled her eyes at his question. "Katie Bell." "Noooo...in 6th year?" "Yeah. Go on then, when was the last time you didn't just give it up?" "What, 'Honestly'?" "No. Lie to me." Fred threw an every flavour bean at her for the mockery. "Okay...Mr Fantastic." "Noooo..." "yeah." "I don't believe you." "What!? Why?" "Because you're whipped by the bloke! Surprised he even made it to a first date- OW! Hey, chocolate frogs are NOT for throwing!"

Neither were sure how this odd game of confessions began, perhaps somewhere around the half way mark on their bottle of Whiskey, but the embarrassing dirty little secrets they'd begun to reveal to one another had them both in hysterics as a result.

"So, why not?" "I dunno he just...hasn't got me feeling that way, ya know? Like, he's great, and we have a good time together - I guess. But it's not like this" she guestured between herself and Fred, who was listening intently. "I can't seem to relax and just be myself around him. He doesn't get me laughing till it hurts. Or make me feel safe and comfortable." Fred's lips parted slightly at her words, eyes dancing hopefully back and forth between hers which seemed to hold the same emotion his did in that moment. Was it possible she felt the same way?

"Or ya know, something less sappy." She chuckled, taking a drink from the Whiskey bottle and turning away from him. Whatever moment he'd felt was gone, and reality set in with the familiar bitter pill settling in his mouth which he refused to swallow.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the disappointment that began to creep in. Over her comparison, in wanting someone like him, but in the end, not him. Never him. A sharp breath left him before speaking, "Yeah, well, I ah- I have work in the morning so I'd best call it a night." He avoided eye contact as he stood from his spot on the floor, all joints painfully stiff from the lack of movement.

Y/n was shocked by his abrupt change in attitude. He were no longer smiling, and there was an edge to his voice which wasn't there moments ago.

"Woah, wait...what just happened here? I thought we were having a good time." "We were" y/n stood, taking a tentative step towards him "So, what changed?" "Nothing"

"Fred? Come on, sit back down...please?" She grabbed one of his hands holding it close to her chest as she pouted at him. For a second Fred caught himself smiling at her antics. But only for a second. He shook his head, pulling his hand back from hers and stressfully running it through his hair.

"I can't, love." "Can't what?" Her brows furrowed in confusion. "I just can't sit there and listen to you talk about us; me and him." He snapped looking away from her. "Why? What's that have t-"

"Because I'm fucking in love with you!" Fred shouted, turning back to y/n in anger. "I'm in love with you and sitting there listening to you talk about how I make you feel safe - and how you wish it were him - it's ripping my fucking heart out y/n! But I'm stuck. Because I can't move on but I can't have you. So I just sit here like an idiot, watching you jump from one relationship to another, waiting- hoping that you'll care. I keep hanging onto moments - like right there - thinking there may be the slightest chance you might feel the same way. But you don't. And I can't do it anymore...so don't ask me to."

"Fred-" "I think you should go." "No, Fred I-" "Please! Go."

Y/n stood in place, staring in shock as her body seemed reluctant to move. She were petrified - numb to everything, but the fear swimming within her blood. What would happen if she walked out that door. Would he ever let her back in, or was this it? What if she leaves and loses him forever - and he never knew...

She drew a shaking breath that seemed to give a modicum of control back over her body. Her eyes flickered over the expanse of the boys flat. It were always so cheerful and warm - so why did she feel so cold? Her body trembled as her feet began to move, each step more painful than the last.

As she opened the door every nerve screamed for her to turn back around. Her head turned to the side, mouth falling dry and lips parting to speak though no words came. But the tears did. Rolling sadly down her cheeks as the door sealed shut behind her.

She was gone.

Fred fell to the couch. Any strength that were holding him from the ground disappearing as she did. Slouched over his knees, elbows digging into his thighs whilst he ran his hands through his hair.

He let out a heavy breath, a small relief spreading in his chest from the weight that'd been lifted. But mostly all that came was pain and tears from the heartache he'd tried so hard to shield himself from for all these years.

There's no telling how long he sat there, furiously rubbing at his eyes as the tears refused to stop falling. Not till the familiar crack of apparation reached his ears could he fully hold himself high again. George couldn't see him like this, he wouldn't let him.

With the creaking of the front doors hinges Fred stood, clearing his throat and running a final hand across his puffy, tear stained cheeks. "You're back early, what'd happen you strike out?" He joked, turning only to be met with the equally teary eyes of y/n. Although hers held something else as well - anger. Fred felt cold. What was she doing back here?

"Where do you get the nerve?" She snapped. Freds expression screwed between a mixture of insult and confusion. "Don't you dare, for a second, think you know how I feel." "I do." "No. No you don't! Otherwise you would have realised that I fucking love you too!" "W-what?"

"You think you're the only one? That after all these years together; after all those nights in the Astronomy tower. After all those days you spent by my side as I laid dying in that hospital bed. After all your time spent healing me; that I haven't fallen in love with you?"

"Well...well WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING!?" "WHY DIDN'T YOU!?"

Freds mouth was open but no words were coming. He let out a defeated breath, leaning against the back of the sofa as the weight of everything set in.

"...when?" "I don't know when I fell. Only when I realised. Guess that was the only good thing to come from that evil, pink bitch being around." Y/n chuckled sadly.

"THEN!? you knew then?" "After your first detention. I bandaged your hand and we spent the night together in the common room. You fell asleep in my lap, that's...that's when I knew."

This was all so overwhelming. So much for the quiet night in. Fred stared fixedly at a point on the side wall in thought, lightly shaking his head, unsure of exactly how he felt or what to do. This was everything he'd ever wanted to hear and that scared him a little bit.

"Look, I didn't say anything because you mean too much to me to ever risk jeopardising what we had and I- I could never find the words to..." Y/n swallowed thickly as all emotion caught in her throat. Taking his hand tightly in hers she tried to ground herself within the moment. The action turning Freds gaze back to hers.

"I thought it mattered what I said, or when I said it. Then I realised, all that matters is that you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. I never want to lose that and if you’ll let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way. All you have to do is just tell me; what do you want?"

Fred watched as the tears welled within y/ns eyes the longer she spoke, he wondered how they ever managed to be so goddamn obliviously stupid, that neither realised.

A soft smile crept across his lips as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "All I've ever wanted...is you." Y/ns whole body relaxed at his words, head falling in relief. Looking back into his eyes she bit her lip to suppress a giddy, lovestruck, smile.

"You've always had me."

#fred weasley x reader #harry potter fanfiction #fred weasley #hp imagine #harry potter #fred weasley fanfiction

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

Note

Um one thing i wanna ask is why do you want penny to stay a robot? She would have been hacked again as it wouldn’t make sense for someone not to try it again... ignoring the pinnochio allusion thing cause of course RWBY shouldn’t follow fairytales like a script, but just thinking about practicality as the problem would just occur again.

Also, people complaining about how its a problem they cured her illness (having the virus)... why would you want her too keep the virus when its literally about to kill her and the cure is right there???? I dunno some of the complaints have me a bit confused and i need clarity on them.

Like, If they didn’t grab the relic for themselves, they would have been hunted by ironwood for penny, she would have been killed for the powers to open the vault etc... if they went to the vault with penny without their plan, she would have died... its all a lose lose for penny to me at least

Questions are genuine and I’m not trying to be rude or anything :)

Happy to explain, anon! :D

I’m going to break this up into three parts: The claim that people are upset about Penny’s virus going away, the idea that she’s in more danger as a robot, and the assumption that she had to be made human to fix this problem.

The first is the easiest to tackle simply because I haven’t seen any of this myself. I don’t know why someone would “want her to keep the virus when it’s literally about to kill her.” My guess would be that there’s been some miscommunication at play. I’m not saying just because I haven’t seen these takes doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but rather that I have seen a lot of critical takes since Saturday and they all boil down to the fans being upset that Penny’s android identity was removed, not that the virus was removed along with it. Of course we’re happy about that additional outcome, we just believe it would have been possible — even easy — to achieve that same outcome without taking a core part of Penny’s identity along with it (more on that below).

Secondly, if one of the main arguments for Penny getting a human body is “It’s less dangerous” then I personally don’t find that persuasive. Yes, it means no one can try to hack her again... but it also means Penny can die all the horrible, messy human deaths that she was previously immune from (within the boundary of how long Pietro can give her aura, anyway). We saw it happen on screen. Penny was able to go from this

to this

purely because she was an android. Penny, due to her synthetic body, was able to be torn apart and then — pretty casually it seems, based on Pietro’s comments — be put back together, given more aura, and booted up with absolutely no downsides. Penny shrugged off death with a smile! No human body can do that. So yes, she’s vulnerable to hacking as an android, but she’s vulnerable to everything else as a human, things like Nora’s scars and Yang’s lost arm, things that android!Penny would have shrugged off. Each body has its benefits and its downsides, with my personal belief being that, from a combat standpoint, a synthetic body has far fewer downsides and far greater benefits. But that opinion aside, objectively I don’t think a human body is intrinsically safer for Penny in the long run, especially not after her biggest moment in the series was coming back from the dead. She can’t do that anymore.

Which then touches on our third topic with the question: Why couldn’t the show have fixed android!Penny in a way that ensures she can never be hacked again? See, we have to remember that RWBY is a constructed, fictional story. Nothing “has” to happen. Or rather, nothing has to happen until the writers impose limitations on the text that the viewer expects them to adhere to. For example, if you impose the implied rules of 1. “Our four main characters will make it to the end of the series” and 2. “A character, without aura, will die from a spear through the gut,” then RWBY has to find a way for Weiss to survive Cinder’s attack (rule #1), but that solution can’t be, “Weiss is just randomly okay after a deadly injury, I guess” (rule #2). Hence, we get the solution of “Jaune unlocks his semblance and heals Weiss for her” and it works! It’s a solution that viewers like because it obeys all the rules, both overt and implied. Meanwhile, the problem with Penny’s solution is two-fold. The first is that it contradicts the entire journey she’s been on of “Android girl learns that she’s real and human just the way she is,” which I’ve already spoken about extensively (there are other posts on that), but the second problem is that the show ignores other possibilities and makes up new rules solely to reach this ending.

Why is Penny made human? Because of Ambrosius’ rules. Why do those rules exist? Because the writers said they do in this episode. It’s not that they introduced these rules episodes or even whole volumes ago, thereby requiring that they adhere to them once Penny’s life is suddenly caught up in them (like with the Jaune example). Rather, the viewer only learned these were limitations while Penny was being fixed. So the writers could have just... not included those. There’s no reason why, in developing Ambrosius’ abilities right then and there, the show couldn’t have made them into something a little different. Have Ruby go, “We want you to magic up an anti-virus program that will heal Penny completely, with no chance of the virus returning. Thus, when you create something new, it doesn’t matter if that program disappears. The virus is already gone!” If the response to that is, “But Clyde, Ambrosius can’t create something he doesn’t understand” that’s a rule that the writers just made up. No one forced them to suddenly impose that limitation. It was a choice. Or even if we have to have it for some reason, you’re telling that the group gets to have the schematics for their escape route — essentially inventing a teleportation system because Whitley looked at airship flight paths for a few minutes — but they can’t have Penny or Pietro draw up an anti-virus program? There’s no reason why these rules couldn’t have been tweaked to cure android!Penny.

There’s also no reason why Ambrosius needed to be involved at all. As just mentioned, Pietro exists and many fans (myself included) thought he would be the solution. Imagine for a moment we had a slightly different version of these events. Penny’s virus is briefly halted by Jaune and, finally given a moment to breathe, she asks where her father is. Last she saw, he was floating in a dead Amity after Cinder’s attack. This reminds Ruby that hey, Pietro made Penny! He’s just as smart as Watts and is far more knowledgeable of her systems. Maybe he can help? So the group heads to Amity and, due to the same techno mumbo jumbo that launched Amity in the first place, or had Klein heal Penny after her crash, Pietro says yes, he can get rid of the virus. Better yet, he can slightly redesign Penny so that she’s made un-hackable in the future, using (again, mumbo jumbo) parts from the now useless Amity. But it will take time. It’s then that the group receives Ironwood’s message and learns that they don’t have time. The reality that Penny will not be cured before the hour time limit necessitates that they come up with a creative way of dealing with Ironwood. Enter Emerald. Her semblance can make it seem like Penny is there, despite her being fixed by her dad miles away. We get an extended fight with Ironwood and, at episode’s end, the new and improved Penny catches up, ready to open the vault for them, this time of her own free will.

Now, obviously I just made this up off the top of my head — far from perfect — but a scenario like this:

Remembers that Pietro exists and lets him/Maria as an assistant do something for the plot

Re-uses Amity now that it’s just a floating pile of junk metal

Creates a scenario where we get to see Penny and Pietro confront the fact that she was created to be a tool (sorry I originally made you so easily hackable/put a self-destruct in your brain)

Maintains all the main story beats like Penny’s near escape, Ironwood’s message, and using Emerald’s semblance

Makes space to tackle other issues like the complaint that Ironwood was taken down too quickly

Achieves the desired result of healing Penny without taking away her android identity

Proves that, because we can easily come up with another solution, the idea that she “had” to become human is inaccurate. There were always other options

Hell, we can even ask why the story bothered with a self-destruct threat in the first place. Seriously, why did Watts do that? I have my own headcanons, but the show never says. This act is the entire BASIS for Penny’s conflict and the show didn’t bother to a) say why he’d do this or b) explain why he’d do this when Salem would presumably like having a Maiden to control. It’s counterintuitive and the show never grapples with that. We have no canonical answer here. More importantly, what else changes if Penny’s self-destruct order is taken out of the narrative? Absolutely nothing. She’s still hacked and struggles to keep Amity afloat, still flies to Ruby, still wakes up and needs to be calmed down by Nora, still tells Whitley her order, still fights the Hound, still tries to escape, still tells Ruby to kill her so she doesn’t open the vault, and Ruby still realizes that opening the vault might be the answer. They could have taken Penny to the door and nullified the virus by letting her do what the virus ordered. Penny is fine now, they snag the Relic, and the group proceeds to save all of Mantle and Atlas. The only thing this self-destruct sequence brings to the narrative is a reason to give Penny a human body. That plot-point was introduced solely as an excuse to give Penny a human body. That never had to happen. It’s not that the writers had a story where, by the rules already in place, they truly had to change Penny to ensure they didn’t lose her, it’s that the writers carefully crafted a story that existed to justify their desire to change Penny. That was always the end goal. They decided they wanted this to happen and that’s the problem here. That they took a character who has spent her entire, fictional existence learning to love herself as she is and crafted a bunch of unpersuasive, needless, and contradictory scenarios specifically to get Penny to a place where they could erase all that.

There’s no version of Penny that exists who truly had to get a human body to survive because Penny is a fictional character. Everything she does and experiences is thought up by our writers. Thus, at some point they thought up the idea to erase her android identity for a completely human one instead — the part a lot of people are upset by — and then made some messy attempts to write a story to justify getting that ending.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #Anonymous

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jadoue1999 · 4 years ago

Text

Wanda and the life she deserved (she’ll make sure of it) Chapter 9

Summary: This chapter is about Monica and why she wants to help Wanda so much. It also follows the post credit scene of episode 7 and a little of the finale.

Previous part: chapter 1, chapter 2 , chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, chapter 11, epilogue

Chapter 9: Rambeau

Ever since her talk with Wanda, Monica was even more determined to help the woman. She had had her own painful experience after finding out her mother had lived two more years, only for her cancer to come back. It had taken her multiple days to really accept that she could have had more time with her, had the blip not happened. Also, adjusting to a universe that was five years ahead of her had been a challenge. Everything was different, not only culturally or technologically, but even in spots she had thought untouchable. Her favorite shop her and her mom used to go to escape the everyday stress of life was now gone. The owners were blipped, they had come back to find an empty lot that once contained their whole life. Monica, not one to dwell too much, decided that it would be better to move. Her apartment only served as a reminder that her mother truly was gone. Maria had probably wandered the same walls trying to convince herself that her daughter would come back only to succumb without finding out she was right all along. So, she had changed town, one closer to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, that way, she could concentrate on more assignments. She had tried going to therapy, the world had offered counseling for those who came back. Monica had found it unfortunate that no one seemed to consider that some needed more than just talking out their feelings. As much as she understood why they limited their service to this, the entire world was grieving after all, she just wished there were more options.

She had instead focused on getting herself back together and forming a new world for herself. She had tried socializing, but every conversation eventually ended up talking about lost opportunities and the grief people or their loved one had endured. She bought books of the latest invention and discovery, trying to understand the world who moved on without her. She had eventually settled her finances with the bank, her position at S.W.O.R.D. gave her priority over the everyday citizens. She was part of the lucky ones, her mother’s hope had kept her from claiming her life insurance, which made things a lot easier since she didn’t have to restart her life with a debt. While she wasn’t at peace with what happened to her mother, she decided to come back to her work. She couldn’t take the days alone, being assaulted by advertisements about fake opportunities offered by scam artists looking to make quick money on the web.

So, after three weeks of trying to adjust in a grieving world, she was back at S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. She was then assigned to the Westview anomaly which opened a whole new world of weird. Being mind controlled by Wanda had been one of the strangest things she had ever experienced. She was expected to hate her once she had been pulled out; but she couldn’t bring herself to. The avenger wasn’t doing this out of hate, but out of grief. She had felt her pain, one that was so similar to her own. The whole experience only made her more certain of her future: she had to help Wanda Maximoff.

...

That’s why even after being clearly shown that Wanda didn’t want her help, she decided to stick around. Agnes was definitely suspicious; she knew Wanda was grieving and seemed to want to keep it that way. Luckily, Wanda’s brother had intervened. That was another thing, who was he? He wasn’t on the resident board and he definitely wasn’t the real Pietro; she had seen the footage of Ultron. They didn’t even look similar. Yet Wanda seemed determined to keep him at her side and he seemed convinced that they truly were twins. She felt for the man, the mind control of the town definitely wasn’t a pleasant experience.

There were whispers of newcomers on the base the same day she, Jimmy and Darcy had been kicked out. She didn’t have time to learn much, but Hayward didn’t like them. Then again, he didn’t like most people that wasn’t directly on his team or that obeyed him without questions. Still, their arrival had ruffled some feathers, the identification process was made even more of a priority. She guessed that they were part of the many agencies that dealt with insurance and were trying to prepare for the storm of paperwork coming after the Hex would be brought down. As far as she knew, the counseling offered only covered the effect of the blip, not the after effect of being mind controlled by a grieving avenger.

After being pushed away, Monica wasn’t sure where to go. She walked around aimlessly; last time she was in town it was the 70s. Now, the advertisements were different, and everyone were dressed in the 2010s. She had to admit how impressive it was that Wanda was able to rewrite reality like that. She saw Herb, or John Collins, according to the citizen chart. He was watering his backyard and taking care of his garden, something he’d been a fan of even when she was part of the town. She didn’t see many other of the ‘main cast’, but she did see a few couples. Still no children, like Vision had pointed out on the last episode she saw on the base. The Halloween one didn’t count since she missed most of it trying to hide on her own base. After about half an hour, she decided that Wanda had probably calmed down. She had to talk to her again, she had begun to form a connection, she knew she could make Wanda see reason. She walked over to her house, but soon realized that nobody was there. Instead of going after her, she decided to investigate Agnes’ house. She looked through the windows, but not much was happening. The TV was on, but no one was watching it. She went in the back, perhaps she could find clues there. After watching through the windows and still not finding anything, she spotted a cellar.

She walked over and examined the door before opening it. She found what looked like vines that escalated the walls. She could see them glowing a deep purple, probably had something to do with her newfound powers. They seemed to give her the ability to see energy field that surrounded her. She was about to step inside when she felt a sudden gush of air.

“Snoopers gonna snoop,” came a voice next to her.

She gasped as she took in the person. It was the man who was cast at Pietro, only, he seemed off. Like he was doing something he didn’t want to. Before she could ask him anything, he grabbed her arm and the back of her neck. In a blur, they were in the house. Nausea suddenly hit, she grabbed onto a nearby table to stabilize herself.

“Give it a few minutes, it’ll pass,” reassured the man. “Happens with everyone.”

“W-who are you?” She asked once her head had stopped spinning.

“I’m Pietro, I thought you knew that?” She stared at him; something was strange about him. He seemed so kind, why would he help Agnes?

“That’s not what I mean,” she started. “It might be hard, but the mind control usually let you access a few memories of your true identity. You just need to concentrate.”

The man looked at her with a confused look. Seeing that she wasn’t getting anywhere, she tried running out of the room, but he stopped her only a few steps away from the window. He put a hand in front of him, with one finger, she was catapulted back onto the couch. The force of the impact knocked the breath out of her.

The man looked at Monica, “I’m sorry, I can’t let you out of here. T-the witch, whatever she is, she has my nephews. I have to keep you here or they get hurt.”

She smiled at his comment, relieved he wasn’t just another villain. “You truly care about them, don’t you?”

The man turned to look outside the empty street before answering, “of course, they’re family.”

“You truly can’t remember?” Monica looked at Pietro, who once again looked confused at her questions. “Nothing here is real, Wanda is giving everyone fake identity, giving them roles to fill. You’re no different.”

“What? Of course not, Wanda’s not like that.”

“Please, think about your life before Westview. Pietro Maximoff died; how can you be here if you were killed?”

“I-I,” He stammered. His confusion was a good sign, he was starting to wake up. He looked at her once again. “Look, I know my sister, she wouldn’t-“

Suddenly, his necklace glowed a scarlet red and his eyes glazed over. He looked disoriented for a second before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you out, my family’s lives are on the line.”

Monica didn’t react to what he said, she was all too focused on the necklace. What was it? It seemed to be controlling him, but what could the jewelry piece do that the Hex couldn’t?

She reached for it but stopped as the man backed off. Realizing how rude she was being, she cleared her throat, “may I?” Hesitantly, the man nodded yes. As she was about to touch it, it glowed red and sent a burning sensation through her hand. She gasped and put her hand in a fist, “I’m sorry, I can’t remove it. Do you remember when you got it?”

He seemed lost in thoughts for a moment before shaking his head, “I’ve just always had it.”

Monica had more questions but screams in the street made them both turn towards the window. Agnes was somehow floating in the air, holding both of the boys with a magical rope. She saw Pietro disappear, only to reappear a second later.

“I can’t get out, there’s a sort of barrier keeping me from leaving.”

She quickly got down the stairs, she was surprised he let her go, considering that his nephews’ life was on the line. She supposed the real threat compared to possible one was a good enough reason. She opened the front door, only to come crashing into a purple barrier. She put her hands on it, it felt strange, it was like... an energy field. She knew she could get rid of it, but she didn’t know how.

“So,” said Pietro, appearing beside her, “how to we get out? Considering we can’t even see the barrier.”

She pushed against it once again, the magic bending to the force but not letting them pass. “I can see it, but I don’t know how to break it.”

They both contemplated their options, but they couldn’t think of many. That is, until Pietro spoke up. “What... what if you synced your powers with the frequency of the barrier?” His eyes seemed slightly foggy, like he was remembering something from long ago. “You keep your hands there, and you concentrate as much as you can. You can match the strength, and slowly increase it until it becomes too much, and it breaks.”

She did as he told her, feeling her way through. Her fingers began to slightly vibrate, increasingly speeding up as her fingertips began to glow blue. After a few seconds, the barrier shattered, and they were free to go. She turned to the man, both surprised and excited that it had worked. “How did you know that would work?”

The man shrugged, “I think I did it once... on glass? Not sure but I definitely remember using this technique.”

She nodded and they ran to Wanda, Agnes, and the twins. The final battle was ready to begin.

...

Notes: So, we are close to the end! I promise that we will be back to Wanda's point of view after this one, I simply thought more context on Monica couldn't hurt. Also, she doesn't remove the necklace, I figured that if someone had to remove it, in the context of my story at least, it has to be Wanda. Props to those who understood the days of future past reference! Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated!

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benevolent-savage · 4 years ago

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this is what happens when u enable me lets go

(spoilers ahoy)

Firstly, here’s some somewhat miscellaneous reasons that don’t contribute to any sort of narrative analysis but are still parts of the character I like.

His boss fight is my favorite in the game thus far. It’s not super hard, but it isn’t super easy either, and I even managed to solo it on my Balance after a few practice rounds. Sufficiently challenging without feeling unfair.

His boss fight music. It is a bop and a half, go give it a listen, my soul ascends from my body a few centimeters every time I hear it start up.

His voice. I’m sure it’s processed at least a little but gotdamn his voice is so deep and spooky it startled me when I first heard it. Very curious who his actor is; I think he and Inyanga Whitestripes share the same one. Either way, very well voiced and acted.

His design is very good. It’s the perfect mix of innocuous but also spooky sorcerer fella who knows some shit. And I was afraid that the designers would try and make him like. Handsome? Under the hood? To try and make him more sympathetic? But they didn’t and I’m glad for it.

With those out of the way, the next thing to establish, I guess: I don’t interpret Old Cob to be the main villain of arc 3, nor do I interpret Raven as such. They’re definitely antagonists, but they’re not the ultimate problem; the ultimate problem is their divorce, and how they keep dragging people into their bs. It’s established the Aethyr is a physical manifestation of their anger towards each other, and as it thins, communication between them becomes possible, as Sparck puts it in this thinly veiled metaphor toward the start of Empyrea part 2.

But Cob’s still an antagonist and I love him so I’m gonna talk about that. Most of this is going to be talking about his motivations for doing what he does, since I don’t see him quite as the ‘likes to watch the world burn for the hell of it’ archetype that others might.

One of the reasons that drew me to his character is how legit his gripe is, when put in perspective. Old Cob- or Grandfather Spider, if you prefer- is not a mortal like the other antagonists of previous arcs, which establishes he has a different thought process right off the bat. This new universe was built on his suffering and he has a grudge against the ex wife who made it, so as a god, it makes some sense he’d try to destroy it and build one he would like better. He’s fully aware that what he is doing will hurt people but decidedly doesn’t care, and I appreciate that so much. He’s chaotic as fuck and he owns it, along with his superiority complex that’s as wide as the day is long.

Yet his reasoning is like. Weirdly understandable? Like, if my ex-whatever put me in jail for a lifetime sentence and stole my kidney to pay for a new house or something, I too would go apeshit and want my fuckin kidney back. That’s mostly how I interpret his situation. He’s not doing this for hell of it, he’s doing it because he wants to get back at his ex because he’s bitter and petty and for the most part he knows this but he feels justified in doing do because she ripped out his goddamn kidney- I mean heart, and he wants that back.

And then, even after all that, he and his magic are treated as if they’re inherently evil. While, sure, Shadow is a ‘dark magic’, its actual properties aren’t anything malicious by itself. It is described as “a magic that changes reality,” and that’s it. Incredibly exploitable and you should practice caution while handling it, but used correctly it is powerful and helpful; this is likely alluding to the backlash mechanic, where likes decrease the percent of damage you take, dislikes increase the percent, and I imagine the person meant to be the literal embodiment of the magic in question to be similar in nature: not inherently harmful and lashes out if he feels he’s been mistreated.

Going off that, I’m not sure he ever wanted the FirstWorld to be destroyed, and therefore believes his incarceration to be entirely unjust; he doesn’t deny that he instigated the fight between the Titans, but when it comes to being accused of its actual destruction, he gets angry.

...Okay the written text doesn’t really display how mad he got here, but he was like. Big Angy. Super offended. Honestly, a big part of why I love and analyze the hell out of his character comes from how his VA delivers his lines and his voice in general. If you haven’t heard it for some reason, I recommend looking it up. Anyway, here he’s basically saying he didn’t destroy the First World, and even if he did, he’s suffered enough punishment because of it, to my interpretation. The only one I remember blaming him for it is Raven; Bartleby was there, and I don’t recall him blaming anything other than the Titans for it. This is of course not accounting for the various changes made to the lore since he was introduced, but they could have easily thrown in a line like ‘And now Spider plans to destroy the Spiral the way he destroyed the FirstWorld!’ or something to make it clear it was done intentionally.

And this may very well be straying into headcanon territory here, but I think he holds positive relationships very closely to him, even if things went sour in the end; he clearly still has some remaining affection for the Titans, calling them ‘the children’ and being incredibly angry at Raven for forcing one of them to destroy his Heart.

When Rat loses in Polaris he shows up to praises his efforts and even comfort him, in his own weird way. He reprimanded Scorpion in Mirage, but it’s because Scorpion wasn’t doing what his dad asked him to and got his ass kicked as a result. As for Bat, every time they’re in the same room together he pays him some sort of compliment.

Bat claims that he and his brothers are meant to be his tools, and to some extent that’s true, but he also genuinely cares about them, and it’s really interesting to see a villain defect from the usual ‘not caring about anyone other than themselves’ and openly show affection for his kids while still managing to be an incredible asshole.

In line with this is his relationship with the Wizard. There is, of course, a foundation of manipulation to their dynamic, at least to some degree. I thoroughly believe that Spider was overshadowing Coleridge, at least partly, so our character could bust him out of prison.

And while this is happening, he regains some of his spent power and removes threats to it as well, namely Morganthe, using the Wizard’s help. In fact, I have very little doubt that he was at least partially responsible for her fall; his timing on that two-liner was too on the nose.

But even with that, I think he genuinely treasures the Wizard’s help and company, which is why he attempts on four different occasions to either sway them to his side, or warn them away from what he’s doing.

Boy, I want that vacation, but it’s your fault I’m here.

And then, of course, his relationship with Raven, something that is basically a summation of his character arc. Laden with baggage and tragic in concept, it is my belief that most of what he’s doing isn’t because he genuinely hates the Spiral or he wants to get back at her, but because he loved her and treasured their relationship; so upon her mistreating him, he lashed out at everything she’d made and detested it as a result. But only because he felt betrayed and hurt so he has to inflict that on other people because he is, as aforementioned, a petty and bitter old fuck.

Moving off that line of thinking, an admirable quality he possesses is how smart he is. This guy has so many wrinkles in his brain it must look like a raisin. Well, perhaps not ‘smart’ exactly, but how good he is at manipulating certain situations to his advantage. Like in Mirage; you just know that he was fully expecting Mellori to be there and fully planned to use her as a back up plan, or you could even argue that the whole debacle in Mirage was a ploy to get his hands on her, while having the added possible benefit of things actually working out.

Actually his scheme in Mirage was really interesting now that I think about it. His aim was to turn back time to when the FirstWorld was whole, further implying that he never wanted its destruction in the first place. It would also, of course, be a time where he had his Heart and would have the ability to avoid having it ripped out again. This would involve not having the Titans fight each other again, or at least not starting it and suffering the consequences. It would be everything he wanted to achieve knocked out in one go with minimal muss or fuss, compared to other methods. It’s probably a part of why he shows up personally to bargain with Eerkala and the Cabal, and why he directly intervenes in our Wizard’s efforts to stop him; it was too important to trust to any of his kids, so knowing Scorpion probably wouldn’t have been able to execute it anyway, he used his kid as a distraction for the most part.

I also like looking into the fact that his element, besides Shadow, is Storm, as opposed to pure Shadow or Death, as most major antagonists are. Storm is a school based on invention, experimentation and improvement. This is something that interests me for two reasons: one, the magic of major antagonists is always a part of their character, Malistaire the most blatantly, and two, because of this line he says in Mirage.

To my interpretation, this would imply that he sees the Spiral as something that could be improved. And as a god, he would of course find it his obligation to try and fix this flaw. When he made the barter with the Cabal, I don’t doubt he was being at least partially honest about restoring the FirstWorld; it would certainly fix the flaw it has in the context of stealing his internal organs, but he would also probably seek to improve it, make it more suited to Shadow or something.

Something else I find intriguing is how weirdly honest he is; I don’t recall him ever lying to us once, unless you count omitting certain facts as lying. But that’s absolutely something I can see him using against people, like “I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t tell you, your fault for not asking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .” As said before, he;s really good at manipulating people and he weaponizes whatever he can; @that-wizard-oki made a really great post about how he uses conflicts- his fault or not- to his advantage, and does his own thing in the background without interruption, Mirage and Neumia probably being the best example of this, with Scorpion and the Cabal serving as distractions while he either carries out things himself or gives instructions.

To pull all of this together narratively, I think it’s important to consider this line from Mellori during one of their confrontations:

He feels powerless, so he puffs up his god status. He has little power to fight with, compared to before, so he mostly manipulates and creates back-up plans while causing conflicts to serve as distractions. His love hurt him, so he lashes out at others and drags them into his problems.

You may ask, “But Sam, these are all bad qualities, why should we like him because of this?” And I would respond “Because it makes him a complex and interesting antagonist.” The kind of character that executes his shitty actions in such a way that you can’t help but respect- even just for the level of dramatics put in to it- while also having a motive that makes you stop and consider that maybe he has a point but is very much handling the situation the wrong way.

Like, c’mon, he ticks so many villain boxes. Tragic backstory? Check. Blatant thespian who owns it? Check. Gets his hands dirty before the climax of the story? Check. Smart/ manipulative/ has back-up plans? Check. Understandable, strong motives? Check.

He’s got layers. Like onion. I felt like there was always something new to discover about him, and for that I can assert my opinion that he’s one of the best characters in Wizard101.

lmao if you read this far into my simp-for-shithead post congrats. feel free to shoot me more asks on the subject bc i cant write persuasive-essay-esque format anymore my brain is rotting. if you will excuse me, im off to listen to the chronoverge combat track for the 82937487734th time

#i get that a lot of people havent gotten far enough into the game to meet him but I ENCOURAGE U TO TRY BC HE'S A GOOD AND FUN CHARACTER OKAY #i need more cob content >:U #wizard101 #w101

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galvanizedfriend · 4 years ago

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The Wolf Outtake

This is a little outtake, if you will, of The Wolf universe. It actually fits within the post-TW2 headcanons I've been writing to keep myself happy, so somewhere in S3. It's something that would never fit within the actual story because it's pure domestic fluff. lol I wrote this for @recyclingss, baby Eve's number one fan who yells at me when the child doesn't make an appearance and who’s also the biggest cheerleader this story’s ever had. 💖

This is set much later in the future, and you will notice baby Eve is actually more of toddler Eve here, but I've removed any specific context to make it so this would fit into any point of The Wolf post S2E14, I guess.

Summary: Just random KC+baby moment in The Wolf. It's fluffy, domestic, features the child and Klaus' bitter feelings for Bayou wolves. Nobody asked for it, but I figured, after the WEEK we've all had, maybe people could use some fluff? Hope you guys enjoy it! :)

______________________

Klaus doesn't even realize it's morning already until Caroline stirs next to him, making a lazy hum deep in her throat that pulls him out of his idle reverie. He blinks his surroundings back into focus; the fluorescence that had been filtering in through the windows last time he checked has now been replaced by warm sunlight. He didn’t even notice so much time had gone by.

Caroline rolled onto her side and was quickly lulled into blissful sleep after their late-night exertions. Klaus was distracted by the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest for a long time until his mind was ensnared by its usual culprits, thoughts trapped in the latest batch of torments and woes to take over the Mikaelsons’ lives.

When Caroline opens her eyes and offers him a slow smile, Klaus feels himself touch ground again.

"'Morning," she slurs in that husky voice, still thick with sleep.

"Good morning, sweetheart," he replies with a short grin.

Caroline yawns as she stretches out her body under the thin sheet covering her modesty.

"Did you sleep at all?" she asks, blinking sluggishly at him.

"I'm well-rested, if that's what you're asking."

"It's not." Caroline props herself up on one elbow to stare levelly at him. Some of that drowsiness in her eyes dissipates, disappointment panging through him for bringing her back to the harshness of reality so fast. This is why, sometimes, especially on those not-so-rare nights when he ends up not getting any sleep, he'd rather not stay in bed. It allows the reprieve that slumber offers Caroline to last a little while longer. "Is it about Elijah?" she inquires, a knowing look on her face.

Klaus' eyes wander away from hers. "It's about everything," he states vaguely, but not untruthfully.

Caroline hums unconvinced. "While I know you don't need to sleep, I also know it spells nothing but trouble when you can’t. It’s never good when you spend the whole night thinking."

"Well, not the whole night," he says with a suggestive leer. "I did spend a good portion of the time engaged in far more pleasant activities."

She rolls her eyes at him, but her smile is more than a little satisfied when she leans into him. "You're not as smooth as you think, Mikaelson."

"I beg to differ." Caroline chuckles, shifting under the sheets to press herself against his side, placing a kiss on his shoulder, then his neck, his jaw. Klaus snakes a hand around her back, pulling her closer still, feeling the familiar stirrings of heat in his underbelly. "Shall I prove my point?" he all but purrs.

Caroline smirks against the corner of his mouth, her palm coming to rest on his chest. Klaus covers her hand with his, angling his face to take her mouth into a kiss. Her breasts pressing against his skin sends a tingle shooting through his body, and his other hand is already sliding down her spine, ready to guide her to straddle him, when lively conversation in the next room makes them pause.

"Oh-oh," Caroline mutters. "I guess that means Mr. Wolfy is up early today."

Klaus lets out a disappointed sigh.

Eve doesn't cry so much when she wakes up anymore. Now, she either stays quietly in her crib until someone sees to her, or she starts playing with her toys. A social butterfly like her mother, she loves to engage in complex conversations with that hideous stuffed wolf Jackson gave her and her absolute favorite toy, the wooden knight Klaus carved for Rebekah when they were children.

When he started to wake up to the sound of her talking to herself, he became worried, thinking maybe she was seeing things they weren't - which, in New Orleans, could mean a number of horrifying deals. But Caroline assured him that it is perfectly normal for young children to talk to inanimate objects, especially one who lives exclusively amongst adults.

Apparently, it's good exercise for her imagination, or something.

When Klaus is watching her, he will make a point to take part in her debates, always highlighting Mr. Knight's grandeur compared to Mr. Bog Scum.

"Sweetheart, this filthy dog here is the enemy. He wants to shroud you in flannel, carry you away to the swamp and bore you to sleep. Mr. Knight is here to save you from this stinky animal's claws."

He's convinced one day she'll understand what he means.

What’s most troublesome, however, is that Eve has started to attempt to climb out of her crib on her own. They always lock the other door to her bedroom when she's asleep, but the door connecting her room to Caroline's is always left unlocked for safety reasons. One of these days, Klaus thinks, their little wolf is going to catch mommy and daddy in very compromising positions. The idea mortifies him, especially because he and Caroline can get a tad carried away. They are a hybrid and a near-hybrid, after all. Too much energy and whatnot.

"No rest for the wicked," Caroline speaks around a sigh before peeling away from him. Klaus watches her naked form with wistfulness as she climbs out of bed, his prospect of a lovely morning enterprise disappearing alongside the shape of her beautiful breasts as she shrugs on a fleece robe.

Caroline vamps off to the en suite bathroom to freshen up a bit and then follows to Eve's room.

"Good morning, sweet cheeks!" she greets their daughter sunnily. "Good morning to you, too, Mr. Wolfy!" Oh, for goodness' sake, Klaus curses inwardly. "And Mr. Knight!" Much better.

Minutes later, Caroline returns with Eve, comfortable in fresh diapers, right on her heels, carrying Mr. Inconvenient and Mr. Knight.

When she sees Klaus, she takes off towards the bed, her little legs getting more and more agile by the day. He pulls the sheets and covers up to his chest while she tries to hoist herself up. With ease, using just one hand, Klaus lifts her up and puts her sitting on his stomach.

"Good morning, my littlest wolf," he says. "Where's my kiss?"

His daughter leans down and smacks a loud kiss on his cheek, and then holds Mr. Fleabag close to him for a kiss as well. Klaus makes a face. "Not the dog, Eve."

"Seriously?" Caroline says with a bored air about her. "You're antagonizing a stuffed animal now?"

"This thing is a health hazard."

"That thing has a cute little name, Mr. Wolfy, and your daughter loves him."

"I refuse to treat a swamp dog as though it were a gentleman. Besides, I'm sure she loves Mr. Knight way more, don't you, love? Where's Mr. Hero?" She shouts something that sounds like Miter Nigh before pushing it onto Klaus' face. He cracks a proud smile at her. "There you go." He attacks her with tickles, and Eve bursts with sweet laughter.

Caroline shakes her head at him, but he notices she's quite clearly biting back on a smile. "You're impossible."

"I’m quite possible, I assure you," he replies smoothly. "Where are you going?" he asks when she starts tying her hair into a ponytail and taking clothes from her drawers.

"Running with Marcel."

"Oh, for goodness' sake," he protests. "Can you believe this, Eve? It's not even seven in the morning and your mother is willingly stepping out of the house to run. I sometimes fear she might be a psychopath."

She scoffs loudly. "You would know, wouldn't you?" While she walks by him to go into the en suite, she slaps him lightly across the legs. "Stop telling my child that I'm a psycho, psycho."

"How else am I supposed to explain this insanity? What kind of person runs for pleasure when there is an infinite array of far more gratifying activities to invest your energy into? Just now we were about to -"

"Not in front of the small child, Klaus!" she chides from the bathroom.

"She doesn't know what daddy is talking about, do you, love?" Eve giggles while he lifts her up above him, holding her like a flying superhero. "Blissfully clueless."

Caroline steps back into the room, already in her exercise gear. Klaus lets out an infinitely despondent sigh. He would love nothing more than to get her out of those.

"It's inappropriate conversation to have in front of the toddler," she remarks, putting on the smartwatch she bought recently to exercise with and measure her sleep patterns or whatever the bloody hell that is. She showed him all of this gizmo’s functionalities, swearing it’s the best thing ever invented by human minds. Klaus thinks it’s adorable, however incomprehensible, that someone with such close ties with the supernatural world would still be so impressed by technology. There’s literally nothing that cannot be sorted through magic. How is a watch that counts steps supposed to awe you once you’ve seen someone brought back from the dead? Caroline’s attachment to her humanity goes way beyond her empathy. "Besides, it was gonna be a quick activity because I'd go meet Marcel anyway,” she adds after a beat.

"I can make you see stars in five minutes," he leers, a smirk growing on his face.

Caroline whips her face at him with what is clearly an attempt at outrage but turns into something else when she can't hold her own smile. She can't deny him when his point was proved just the night before. Several times, in fact.

"Shut up," she retorts simply. "Can you give her breakfast? I left chopped fruits in the fridge. You can wait about an hour after the bottle and give it to her as a little treat - not Fruit Loops."

"She loves that thing."

"Of course she does, it's pure sugar. That's exactly why we don't let her have it all the time. She needs to eat real fruits."

Klaus rolls his eyes, sitting up in bed and putting the baby beside him. "Honestly, sweetheart, your mother sometimes..."

Caroline narrows her eyes at him. "You really love to make yourself out to be the cool parent, don't you?"

"I don't have to make myself out to be anything, love. I am the parent who doesn't deny her the little joys of sugary treats. If that makes me cool, then you’ve only got yourself to blame."

"You're the parent who'll spoil her rotten, that’s what. Let's see how you'll feel when she's 16 and her boyfriend is climbing the balcony in her room in the middle of the night because she never learned how to take a no."

"Oh, I would love for her suitors to climb her window in the middle of the night. It’ll be the last thing they do,” he says, smiling innocently at Eve.

“You’ll be such a ray of sunshine when she starts dating.”

“As per usual," he says with a bite of arrogance. "Hold the child so I can get decent, will you?"

Caroline picks Eve up and keeps her looking firmly the other way while Klaus flashes out of bed and into the bathroom. He hears Caroline teasing her with “Where did daddy go?” and laughing at what he knows is Eve's extremely confused but astonished face. She thinks they're magicians. It's one of her favorite things, to watch as Klaus makes full use of his vampire speed to all but vanish right before her eyes. Modern technology has got nothing on him.

There's something extremely heartwarming about his daughter's innocence. One day, she'll be old enough to understand why he can do the things he does. When that day comes, Klaus will cease to be a creature of magic and wonder, to become what he truly is: darkness made flesh.

He has never been ashamed of what he is, hardly ever had any qualms with filling the villain shoes, quite glad to do it, in fact, but he suddenly finds himself dreading the day when his child will figure out what it means to carry the Mikaelson name. When their family’s history will weigh down on her shoulders as it does on theirs.

While making people cower in fear at the mere sound of his name has brought him an obscene amount of satisfaction and pride over the centuries, Klaus has to admit he's fascinated by the pure sparkle in his child's eyes. She's the first human being in a millennium who does not see even a fraction of monstrosity in him, no shadow, no taints, no mortal flaws. Not yet, anyway. All she sees is a funny man who makes her laugh and can hold her up with his finger, tells her stories about evil werewolves and keeps her safe and that's enough for her to adore him. Sometimes, he feels unworthy of such love. As though he's a fraud, deceiving his own daughter and taking advantage of her innocence.

It still astonishes him that he should ever be capable of making something as pure and bright as that little girl. In a thousand years, Klaus Mikaelson has only ever brought misery and pain into this world. Eve is the first genuinely good thing he's ever done. Then, of course, she inherited all of that from her mother, who holds herself open for compassion and kindness even though she is herself in a symbiotic existence with her own beast. Caroline has taken control of her darkness in ways Klaus doesn't think he's ever seen a vampire as young as her do before. She truly is extraordinary, and every day he hopes, from the bottom of his withered heart, that Eve will turn out to be every inch Caroline's daughter more so than his.

Klaus can still smell last night’s sex all over himself, so he takes a quick shower and puts on a pair of denims and a shirt and vamps back to the room again, just to surprise Eve. She gasps when he materializes next to her, flinching, and then starts laughing like a little maniac, reaching out to him.

"Remember," Caroline says as she lets Eve slide over to Klaus' arms. "Bottle, fruits. No Fruit Loops. I'll tell your other child you said hi."

"A child who enjoys running has clearly learned nothing from me," he grumbles. “Hopefully I’ll do a better job with this one.”

“Start by not feeding her Fruit Loops,” Caroline remarks with a grin before she smacks a loud kiss on Eve's cheek and then one on his.

When she’s gone, Klaus turns to look at his little wolf, watching him with those dark blues of hers as though she's studying her father. Sometimes he wonders if toddlers know more than they let on.

"Do you want to do magic?"

"Yes!" she practically screams, her face splitting with a wide, toothy grin.

"Get ready, then. Are you ready?" She gives him an exaggerated nod. "Keep your eyes open. One, two..." And then he flashes out of the room with her.

______________

✨ Thanks for reading! :) If you’ve enjoyed this silly thing, please drop me a comment! Your reblogs are also much appreciated to help this reach more people. ✨

#klaroline #klaroline fanfiction #klaroline fic #kc fanfiction #kc fic #kcfic #klarolinefic #yokan writes #The Originals rewriting #is this me writing fluff again?#fluff with BABY?#why yes it is #the wolf outtake #klaus x caroline #+ child

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readerbookclub · 4 years ago

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Before introducing our newest book list, I want to say sorry about this month. It’s been underwhelming to say the least. So far this year was very chaotic (packing up to move countries, having the plane tickets cancelled, and getting into Oxford?!). Between everything that happened, I neglected this club. But I’m very excited and well-prepared for next month, so it won’t happen again at least in the foreseeable future. We also have several enthusiastic new members who’ve messaged me, so hopefully our discussion will be even more lively this time!

Now back to our newest book list. Not to brag, but I think this is the best one yet. Time Warp is a collection of books that bend and play with time. It’s such an interesting topic that includes books from many different genres. Several of your recommendations also fit in perfectly. So let’s jump right in!

Typically stories play out over the span of weeks, months, or even years. But what if a writer were to shrink that timeline? Not to days or hours, but the mere seconds it takes to ride an elevator? Well, that’s what Jason Reynolds did in our first book, a story that lasts for a single elevator ride:

Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds:

A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

***

Our next book warps time in a slightly different way. What if every time you woke up, you found yourself in the same day (a sort-of Groundhog Day situation)? But unlike Groundhog Day, you wake up in different bodies. This thrilling book was suggested to me by one of you, and I absolutely loved the premise:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton:

Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense. For fans of Claire North, and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

***

Now we move on to an exciting genre: time travel! This next book was recommended to me by @earphonesandquills and I just had to put it on the list. A sci-fi love story between two people on opposite sides of a war:

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone:

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

***

Typically, the protagonists of time-travel books are very intelligent people. But what would happen if someone wasn’t so competent? What if they fucked it up? That’s exactly what the protagonist in our next book does. Coming from a perfect reality, he messes up and finds himself in a horrifying dystopia (aka our world):

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai:

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.

***

Our final book is something I never knew I needed until I found it. I have spent way too much time day dreaming about a scenario where I find myself in the distant past. I imagine myself telling people about electricity and planes and modern medicine. But if they asked me to actually make something, I wouldn’t be able to. And that bothers me. This book is the solution. It’s a non-fiction guide on what to do if you were to find yourself in such a scenario (as unlikely as it may seem):

How to Invent Everything: A Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler, by Ryan North:

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever.

***

That’s it for this month’s list. Hope you like these books as much as I do! As always, please vote here.

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#book list #books #book club #booklr #long way down #time travel #sci fi #the 7 1/2 deaths of evelyn hardcastle #this is how you lose the time war #how to invent everything #all our wrong todays

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mydriases · 5 years ago

Note

If it's ok can I ask for headcanons where Malleus Leona Azul Kalim witness their normally soft spoken s/o go nuts during combat training with a trident grinning in a scary way before cutely asking if they want to have a picnic lunch by the lake? Have a good one

Thanks lovely Anon, I finally did this request in a way that satisfies me (and you too I hope) :D

Leona Kingscholar

When he hears people shouting your name he’s directly running to be at your sides, confrontation isn’t your way of solving things so surely someone must have defied you and you stood up to them.

Students moving aside upon noticing the frightening figure of Savanaclaw’s dorm leader, he finally succeeds to see a person pressed against the ground, one of the tips of a trident brushing against his throat. Above him, your form is casting a carnivorous gaze upon the coward.

As the observers continue to shout your name, you remove your weapon from its dominating position and reach out your hand to your poor opponent. He takes it, hesitantly, looking away as your eyes continue to stare at him without quivering.

"Don't you ever try to bully me again, you understand? "You hiss, the boy lowering his head is your only answer.

There’s a last applause in honnor of your complete triumph before Vargas orders the distracted students to get back to their training. You regain you composure, taking a deep breath you finally notice your boyfriend’s presence. He comes near you and pats gently your head while asking you in a detached tone, that hides real concerns, if you’re fine.

He’s glad that you decided to show that guy who you are, the less clever students that don’t understand that being loud isn’t how one gets to the top need to be put back in their place. The fact that you kicked that boy’s ass makes you even more attractive in his eyes.

When you ask him to have a picnic he accepts in order to celebrate his kitten’s victory, prepare for a lot of kisses and probably a nap in the grass with you trapped under him.

"I knew you weren't the prey but I didn't know you were the predator. "

Azul Ashengrotto

Though his face is devoid of any emotion, his rising pulse is telling a whole other story. It was an unspoken rule for him that he was the one that protected you, not because you thought you were weak but because he wanted you to avoid conflicts as most as possible. But when that person came up and asked to spare with him, Azul knew that it was because they wanted to confront him in a domain where he wasn’t comfortable.

He felt relieved when you proposed to take his place. Now, seeing as your opponent is not trying to play nice, he wishes he would habe been more at ease with his land body.

In a way that is uncalled for, he’s kind of happy that you choose the trident as a weapon. For the merfolks, this weapon is culturally important so it is a bit like you’re carrying a part of him with you, although his pride will never let him tell you how glad this silly detail is making him.

He’s unsettled by this change of attitude at first, if it is how you really are perhaps you would have liked to treated like a warrior should be rather than how a fragile piece of art.

His concerns are fastly erased when you come back to him, face illuminated by your victory and waiting for his opinion on your fight.

When you propose a picnic he’s already in the kitchen of the Mostro Lounge preparing dishes for your rendezvous, after all you’re the one who helped him so you should be the one who’s being take care of !

" It is a bit embarassing but… would you help me improve my fighting stance ? I think I have a lot to learn from you. "

Kalim Al-Asim

He’s almost as scared as your opponent. He needs to remember his discussions with you, and the fact that you’re his partner, to get back to reality (which is that the soft-spoken person he knows is also this fierce fighter he sees).

Although, once the initial shock is gone, he’ll be more prone to admire your method to wield your trident.

Due to your sudden change he may be a bit uncomfortable, was it your true face ? Was the way you acted a cover ? He’s used to being the victim of assassination plans, he doesn’t need his love to betray him. Because of those thoughts he was hesitant to have a picnic with you.

" You know that I can only eat Jamil’s food, right ? I’m sorry, it isn’t against you but… Jamil might get mad if I eat what you’ve prepared. "

If you don’t directly explain your actions, Kalim will avoid you and go ask for Jamil’s opinion on the matter. Whether it ends up being the first situation or the second -namely once everything is ok between you and him-, he’ll ask you if he can watch you practice your moves and would glady be tutored if you feel like it.

When you place body next to his in order to show him how to correctly position himself, he can’t help but take your hands and begin to lead you in a short dance. If you put so much efforts in the way your posture is, surely it can be used in more fun things like dancing ?

Who is tutoring who ? Don’t know anymore but at least there’s no way you get bored with a pupil like Kalim.

" Mixing dance and fighting is something that has been around for a very long time! How about inventing a new style of dance with me? "

Malleus Draconia

Because of your ‘position’ as Malleus’ partner no one ever try to bother with you since direspecting you is indirecly disrespecting Malleus.

But there’s someone that doesn’t mind crossing the line if it’s for his master’s protection : Sebek. I do believe it would be hard for him to accept that Malleus has someone who is so close to him. What do they have that make them so special ? He just wants to judge if you deserve or not to be with his master. After all, your reputations are linked.

That’s why he may rough you up a little bit, just to see if you totally dependent on your lover.

When Malleus understands the situation, he immedialy comes to separate the both of you. Upon seeing your refusal of giving up the fight he reluctantly let you continue where you stopped.

" Sebek, stop excusing yourself and face them. Don’t understimate them but don’t forget that this is training either. "

He feels a mixture of pride and joy when you make Sebek stumble and fall on his butt. The astonished look on the face of the man etching deliciously in the dragon’s memory.

Having proved yourself to your love’s bodyguard, it is with great satisfaction that you ask Malleus for a picnic in celebration to your victory.

Malleus practically beams at your invitation. He thinks about inviting Lilia and Silver but a selfish part of him wants to bask alone with you in this happiness for now.

" The lake seems like a nice place but I know somewhere far beyond the edge of the foods, there is a cute pond over there. I’d like to show you this place, only if you want to, of course. The lake is just as much lovely. "

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #leona kingscholar #leona kingscholar x reader #kalim al asim #kalim al asim x reader #malleus draconia #malleus draconia x reader

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revengeoftheantichrist · 4 years ago

Text

Anti-Christ Superstar

Warnings: Drug use

AO3

Chapter 1: She’s with the band

Friday night in Camden was bad. Friday night in Camden behind the bar was worse. Tonight, was hell, you were sure the devil invented this job to torment people. Your bar was a club and music venue for all things alternative. And tonight, you were graced with the presence of the new-ish kids on the scene. Satanic Panic had taken the alternative world by storm. They were on their second world tour, for their album ‘Fire and Reign’. They were playing your venue tonight and the place was jam packed. You didn’t even know you had the capacity for all these people, but here you were, taking order after order. You weren’t surprised at the turnout. The atmosphere of the room truly was electric, and you had felt it once before. You remembered seeing them for their Hawthorne tour at Leeds festival a few years ago, when they were fresh faced and very new to the scene. The way they managed to control the crowd of the smaller stage was quite magical, better than some of the bands that played the main stage. You weren’t surprised at their success; the music was good and the whole band was eye candy for people of all ages. However, you wished they would go be successful somewhere else, not in the place you worked, a venue what you thought was far too small for them now. You were just about to take a new order, before the manager pulled you back. “Y/N come with me,” he said, pulling you to the backstage area, you could barely hear him over the loud music and people. “Everything okay?”, you asked. “well…” he hesitated, “How goods your bass skills?” he finished. You gave him a confused look, “what the fuck are you on about?” He let out a sight. “Look, the bassist for the band just dropped out last minute, they clocked your bass in the locker room and asked if you could play decent… I said yes and they need you ready for stage in like… 15 minutes,” he said, looking at his watch. “Josh! My bass is pink and sparkly it’s not gonna fit the aesthetic and were flooded with thirsty people out there,” you whisper-shouted. “Okay great! You’ll play then,” he said, looking more giddy than necessary. Before you could shout at him, a velvety voice interrupted you. “So, is this our replacement for tonight?” You turned to look at the source, Michael Langdon, lead guitar and vocals. The face of the band. His perfect eyebrow was raised as his baby blues looked you up and down, sizing you up to see if you were fit for the task. Your manager spoke, “Yeah, this is Y/N just give her the instructions and she’ll do fine, I’m off to cover her shift now, have fun,” he waved at you before almost skipping to take over your post. You were left alone with Michael, at a loss for words. “C’mon, lets go, we have a concert to play,” he grabbed your wrist and dragged you along with him. You couldn’t believe this, you though you might be hallucinating, the heat of the venue getting to you. You pulled your phone out of your pocket to snap a picture, to prove to yourself and your friends that this night really did happen. Michael was too busy barking orders to the side to notice the picture had been taken. You finally got to where the other two bandmembers were standing. They looked up from their conversation and smiled at you. “The pink bass yours?” asked the blonde on, this was Xavier, the drummer of the band, his little cross earring glimmered at every concert. Upon a closer look you realised the cross was inverted. How very on brand. You nodded in reply, still trying to come to terms with the situation. “Oh cool, we’ve never played with a girl before, you better be good,” the brunet laughed. This was Duncan, the other guitarist. He had the good boy gone bad vibe to him, a rebel from a prim and proper family. You looked and him and pointed to your nose, “nose is a bit crusty there,” you said. Duncan laughed and wiped the white powder, sniffling a little, “thanks”. “Are you all quite finished?” interrupted Michael, looking annoyed at the interactions. The rest of the band just rolled their eyes. “10 MINUTES!” someone shouted. “Am I getting paid for this by the way?” you asked, not wanting your talents and time to go unrewarded, you were here to work after all. “Of course,” Michael snapped, “We have 10 Minutes before we get on there and we’ve never been late, here’s the set list, I’m sure you’ve heard our shit before if your working in a place like this,” Michael shoved a piece of paper in your hands. “shouldn’t be too hard to keep up, now, this is Rin,” he pointed to a blonde woman, “She’s the techie that’s gonna get you set up. Other than that, just follow my lead and stand on the right side of the stage,” he finished. That was a lot of information to process at once. “I’m Y/N by the way,” you finally introduced yourself to everyone, while holding your hand out to Rin. The support act was coming off stage as Rin gave you a quick rundown and set you up. You had worked here for months and yet there was still so little you knew about the stage. She told you exactly where to stand and where not to stand due to pyrotechnics. All you could do was nod, the reality of what you had been roped into hadn’t hit you yet. You were pulled away by Michaels death grip, it was time to go on. You took a deep breath, the nerves beginning to hit you. Michael was adjusting his leather trousers. Duncan was making sure his docs were tied tightly, not having a repeat of the last tour where he tripped over the laces and fell face first into the crowd. Xavier stood next to you, he noticed the look on your face and put a reassuring hand on your shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Hey, look, its gonna be fine. You know deep down inside how talented you are, otherwise, you would have run for the hills. This is a really weird situation so just give it all you got okay,” he gave you a little pep talk. “Thanks, I really needed that,” you smiled, patting the hand that was on your shoulder. “Can the pair of you please shut the fuck up, were going on now,” Michael snipped. “Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning,” you snapped back, not appreciating the attitude boy wonder was giving you. He opened his mouth to speak, but the lights lit up the stage and the crowd started to go insane, ready for the band to come out. You tried to control the nausea you were feeling, walking to your designated section of the stage. The crowd was massive but thankfully, all eyes were on Michael. You pulled the strap of your bass on, adjusting it so it would be comfortable for a long night of playing. You didn’t even know if you had the stamina for it. Michael had stopped talking to the crowd and Xavier started on the drumbeat. You looked back at your friends at the bar, your manger giving you a thumbs up. You began to strum in time with Xavier, setting the beat for the song. You thanked your lucky stars that you had just removed your acrylics a few hours ago. Michael’s and Duncan’s guitars came in, completing the intro to the song. Michael’s voice finally joined in. It was as if the room had immediately been put in a trance. You had been on the other side of the feeling before, being on stage with it was almost the same. Instead, it felt like your fingers were playing on their own, separate from the rest of you. You closed your eyes and embraced the feeling, letting the music and Michael’s voice control you. You opened your eyes and were met by Michael’s intense gaze, you just smiled at him, before looking back to the crowd and winking at your friend in the crowd. You still felt Michael’s eyes on you. The lights transitioned, indicating the song change. Michael and Duncan were back to back, in their competitive duet piece in the song. The crowd was going crazy at the performance. You looked back at Xavier and grinned at each other; you were surprised at how much you were enjoying yourself. Time seemed to fly, before you knew it you had played the final song of the set. You were finally out of your daze and got a good look of the room around you. Everything seemed so much brighter on stage. Duncan came over and gave you a high-five. “Thank you, London,” Michael began, “It’s been great performing for you all tonight. I want to say a huge thank you to Y/N over here for filling last minute, we wouldn’t have been able to perform without her,” he said, gesturing to you. A sudden shyness hit you, hearing the crowd cheer for you. You smiled and waved, giving them a little bow. The band finished with their messages, before walking off stage to a cheering crowd. “Oh my god,” you whispered to yourself. “There’s no god here,” Michael whispered in your ear. “Personal space Langdon,” you replied, glaring at him. A short woman with dark hair walked towards you. “This is Ms. Meade, our manager,” introduced Duncan. You held you had for her to shake, “Y/N”. She shook your hand, “the people on social media are loving you, you know that? We haven’t had this much of a positive response to a bassist since the one a few years ago. What was his name again? …. Eh, I can’t remember,” she shrugged. “This is so surreal,” you said to yourself, lightly patting you hot cheeks. “I need a spliff after this.” “Ask and ye shall receive,” Xav said, holding a rolled one out at you. You smiled and took it, “you are My favourite person on planet earth right now Xav,” you said, bringing out your lighter. You walked out to the smoking area, chatting away with Xavier about the strange day you were having. You heard Duncan snicker behind you, not knowing he was laughing at the death glare Michael was giving Xavier. Xavier and you scrolled through the twitter and Instagram tags of the concert. Meade was right, you seemed to be getting a lot of attention on there. You DM’s were blowing up too, from friends, family and total strangers on the internet. Within a span of a few hours, crazy fans had found your social media and followed you everywhere. If you hadn’t had been stoned, maybe you would have panicked a little at the sudden attention. But that was a problem for sober you. You went back inside to, Meade, your manager and the boys having a heated conversation. “Ah, Y/N so nice of you to join us,” said your manager. Meade just rolled her eyes, interrupting him before he could go any further. “Look, I’m gonna cut right to it kid. The people love you and we don’t have a bassist for the rest of the tour. You’ll be fully paid and accommodated for. If you don’t like it, Josh over here says your free to come back here any time. We’ll even throw in your own bus for you. How’s that sound?” You brain barely processed what she said. They wanted you permanently, your mouth was gaping like fish. “C- can I read the contract at least?” you asked. She shrugged and pulled out a wad of paper, it had to be thicker than the bible, your eyes widened. “Is there a TL;DR version of that?” “Nope,” they all said in unison. “We need to know by tonight, we leave for Europe on Monday, so you have Saturday and Sunday to pack and tie up any loose ends if you choose to do so,” she said. You looked around the room at the band members. Duncan and Xavier looked happy to have you, grinning at you. Michael however had a sour look on his as face, as if your very existence was offensive to him. You smiled to yourself, the thought of you just being near him and irritating him for a few months was enough to convince you. Getting on his nerves was already becoming a favourite pastime of yours. “Pen?” you held out you hand. Meade handing you heavy and expensive looking black pen. You signed your name onto the contract in blood red ink, not looking at the contents of the contract. “Welcome aboard Y/N, you’re officially a member of Satanic Panic.”

#my writing #michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #AS1

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chiseler · 4 years ago

Text

Hammett Made It Easy

To put it bluntly, it is simply, humanly impossible to watch Roy Del Ruth’s original 1931 film version of The Maltese Falcon without drawing comparisons and parallels with John Huston’s much more popular (if not exactly “timeless”) version from a decade later. After all, in many fundamental ways the films are a nearly identical match, scene for scene and line for line. Almost, anyway. Enough so that you’d notice.

The fault for this lies squarely on the shoulders of author Dashiell Hammett. whose 1930 novel made straying from the original source material extremely difficult. The sharp dialogue, the snappy pacing, and the already cinematic scene structure are all so very good that there was little reason to go messing with it. In fact, as the story goes, when screenwriter John Huston made the decision to move into directing, Howard Hawks gave him a copy of the book as a potential first project shortly before Huston left on a vacation. Huston handed the book to his secretary and told her to type it up in script format. She did, and it was that initial version straight from the book that was green-lighted by the studio—even before Huston had had a chance to read it.

Huston later made a few minor changes and additions, but one has to wonder if ten years earlier screenwriters Maude Fulton and Brown Holmes didn’t work much the same way, given how much of the 1931 film’s dialogue reappears verbatim in Huston’s—with the notable exception of the Shakespeare quote that closes the latter (a line supposedly suggested by Humphrey Bogart).

Granted, Huston’s film runs twenty minutes longer than Del Ruth’s spiffy 80-minute number (for a number of reasons, including a much larger role for the hapless gunsel Wilmer and an extended final sequence), but nevertheless if you remove the script from the equation, comparing the two films becomes much easier. At that point the remaining important factors are the directors and their styles, and the casts and their performances.

By 1931, Del Ruth was already well underway in a directing career that would find him making comedies, musicals, dramas, Westerns, and even the occasional horror film. Although comedies were his real forte (he would soon direct Lee Tracy in Blessed Event), taking on something like the Hammett novel was not that unusual. He was not a particularly remarkable director, and stylistically his films resembled most other standard films of the day. The scenes were quick, the camera was static, he didn’t have much time for pizzazz. As was the case of so many of the films of the era, his pictures often resembled filmed stage plays. He was on a tight schedule, and as soon as he finished one he had to be on to the next in a couple days. In the end he crafted an entertaining, well-told story, and that’s all the studio and audiences were looking for.

Meanwhile, The Maltese Falcon was going to be Huston’s directorial debut after having solidly established himself as a respected screenwriter. Some of the suits at Warner Brothers were hesitant to let him make the leap, so he had to prove to them he could do it, and approached the film with the kind of energy and big ideas you find with so many first-time directors. Although the film wasn’t as flashy and inventive as Citizen Kane, Huston did pull out a few tricks, like the famed seven-minute take, and the camera work was fluid and energetic. Even if audiences didn’t notice a number of his little flourishes, it was still a very confident film. More importantly, it was an entertaining, well-told story—and that’s what the studio and audiences were really looking for.

(It’s worth noting, however, that Huston’s version was much tamer than Del Ruth’s—perhaps for obvious reasons. In Del Ruth’s version there’s no pussyfooting around the fact that Sam Spade really is having an affair with his partner’s wife. Nor is there any question what happens after Spade accuses Ruth Wonderly/ Brigid O'Shaughnessy of only using money to buy his allegiance.)

What Huston really had on his side was, if not star power exactly, then at least a handful of familiar faces. It might have been Sydney Greenstreet’s film debut, but audiences certainly recognized Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook, and Bogart. Up until this point of course Bogart had only been a character player, but his star was definitely on the rise, and broke with this film.

Del Ruth, on the other hand, was working with an armload of good, available B actors. Most of them worked regularly, but they weren’t exactly Joan Blondell or Douglas Fairbanks.

It’s in looking at the performances of the two groups that the real differences between the films arises. Take the character of Sam Spade, for instance. Bogart’s performance as the womanizing, sharp tongued private dick always struck me as stiff and stagey—you can almost hear him thinking of each gesture before he makes it, and each line before he speaks it. There’s something tangibly artificial in his performance, the feeling that we really are watching an actor, and moreover one who’s not trying very hard. Or maybe one who’s letting his stage training get the better of him, thinking the dialogue alone will carry the day. I of course love Bogart, just not here, particularly.

Ricardo Cortez (in reality the NYC-born son of Austrian immigrants) portrayed a much looser, more easy-going Spade, always ready with a quip and forever chasing skirts. He gives a much more relaxed performance that often borders on the straight comic. In spite of the fact that Cortez is much more comfortable in the role, it seems, his Spade is almost out of place here, smirking his way through a double murder investigation.

Seen today, Greenstreet’s Gutman seems so unique a performance that it immediately became iconic, and a character and performing style he would go on to recreate for the rest of his career. It seems unique anyway, until you see Dudley Digges Gutman from a decade earlier. The similarities between the two performances are shocking. The intonation, vocal tones, the side mutterings, the laughter, the gestures, even the facial expressions are so nearly identical it’s almost as if Greenstreet studied Digges’ performance closely and decided to recreate it for the remake. Strange thing is, for American character actor Digges, it was a unique role quite unlike anything else he’d played before or would play again. Unless you care to argue that the spirit of the true Kasper Gutman inhabited both actors (and then stayed in Greenstreet), it’s a mighty remarkable coincidence.

One of the more interesting distinctions can be seen in the character of Spade’s secretary, Effie Perine, and more specifically it boils down to a single line reading.

In one of the first and most famous lines of the film, Effie informs Spade that a new client is waiting to see him. In the Huston version, bubbly Lee Patrick says, “You’ll wan to see this one anyway—she’s a knockout!” She seems awfully enthusiastic about it, happy to encourage her boss’s assorted flings. It seems a little odd, but then she spends the rest of the film running errands for Spade and we never give her another thought.

In Del Ruth’s version, Una Merkel’s Effie does not smile and does not chirp when she says dourly, “You’ll want to see this one anyway. She’s a knockout.” There’s so much stifled bitterness, frustration, and jealousy in the line that we can read her entire character—almost her whole life—in those few words. And for the rest of the film, whenever Spade asks her to run another errand or do another favor, we know what she’s thinking when she agrees. Thanks to Merkel, Effie becomes the one honestly tragic figure in the entire story, with the possible exception of Wilmer.

As Gutman’s henchman and punk, far be it from me to compare anyone with the great Elisha Cook, Jr.—unless of course it’s the equally great Dwight Frye. Sadly Frye has been given very little to do here except look sullen and angry. In fact he’s only been given a single line of dialogue (“I’ll fog him”). Still, he’s always fun to watch—though admittedly not as much fun here as Cook, who gets to give Bogart a vicious kick in the head.

In the end and over time, the choice of which, if either, version is superior is a simple matter of taste. It does become easier to understand, though, why in the 1950s Del Ruth’s version was redubbed Dangerous Female in order to distinguish it from Huston’s.

by Jim Knipfel

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r6sedust · 4 years ago

Text

Faith

(a fanfiction based off of an AU where Fenton is a FOWL agent, you can find it on ao3 by thatkidwithr6ses, which is my profile. I'm not posting the link cause my post dont appear in tags if I add links)

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

It wasn't hard to see that Huey thought highly of Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera.

He was smart and noble. A brilliant scientist who was capable of creating his own energy source. A hero who believed there was no limits when it came to saving others. And not only was he a great role model, he was a great friend. His best friend. He would always ask Huey for help and his opinions on his inventions. He was always so fun to talk to. Fenton would always enlighten Huey about his inventions that it sparked a childlike wonder inside of the small duck. He would always be delighted to answer Huey's questions about the Gizmosuit for his journal entries. Fenton was such a kind and good natured person. He was all that Huey ever dreamed of being.

Yes, he's a good person.

He's a good person.

He's supposed to be a good person.

A good person who is always there for his friends and family. Who is trustworthy and would never keep secrets.

Who would never lie

Who would never betray anyone.

Sure, he's betrayed them before, but he'd never do it again because he learned his lesson right?

Right?

That's what Huey thought until he saw Fenton standing alone in his bathroom office, holding a button in his hands.

That had a tiny voice coming out of it. A voice he heard giving him orders.

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Bradford Buzzard.

'Agent Double C? Agent Double C, do you copy?' That was Bradford's voice.

Agent Double C? Who's that?

Crackshell-Cabrera. Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera.

Huey stood at the entrance of the stall, clenching the bottom hem of his shirt. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say. He had barely any thought of what was going on. No, he knew exactly what was going on: that Fenton was a traitor-

'NO! ' Huey mentally screamed at himself, 'there has to be an explanation for this! Fenton isn't a villain! He's not! There has to be a reason behind this.'

"F-Fenton..." was all Huey managed to get out.

Fenton quickly turned off the communicator and hid it in his fist. His face scrunched up slightly and he looked at Huey. "Huey, I-" Fenton attempted to explain as he slowly approached the younger one of the two. Huey backed up a little bit in response. "W-what are...w-why are...why?" Huey struggled. "I-I..." Fenton was at a loss of words. He sighed and looked away from Huey for a bit to find those words again.

"I-I-I can't really explain it now, but all I can say is that I have my reasons."

Has his reasons? What does that even mean?

"W-what...what do you mean? What's going on? Fenton, why are you talking to Bradford?!" Huey exclaimed, tears starting to fill his eyes. "Why...why FOWL?"

Fenton slowly looked at the floor, tapping his fingers in his thigh. "I-it's a long s-story that I don't think...uh...that I cannot really explain right now." he responded while looking down the whole time. "No, this...this isn't right! You're not a villain! Is FOWL forcing you to do this? Are you being controlled right now? Cause if so then we can help-"

"Huey!" Fenton interrupts, looking the boy dead in the eye and clenching his fist. He then softens his expression and gives Huey a sorrowful look. "I'm d-doing this voluntarily." You can almost hear a loud thump as Huey's heart drops. He lets a tear slip as he backs away from the stall. "...no..." he manages to say. "I'm really sorry, but that's just reality." Fenton states.

Huey feels his whole body begin to shake. His breath was shaky and tears started to fall faster. He stared at Fenton with a fearful and hurt look that struck Fenton in the heart like an arrow. He tried to reached out to the young duck, but he quickly ran away from him. "Uncle Scrooge!" Fenton heard him call out. He thought of going after him, but realized that at this point it was useless. Preventing Huey from telling them the truth and forcing him to keep the secret against his will was cruel. Fenton wasn't heartless.

Which was the only thing about himself that he was certain of.

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

"He's in here." Huey said as his uncle, Scrooge, and his brothers and Webby followed behind. They quickly entered the bathroom, Scrooge walking in front of the kids to the stall office. He looked back at the kids to see if they were ready. Dewey posed in a basic fighting position and gave him a nod, Webby pulled out her dagger with a nod as well, and Louie just hid behind Webby and Dewey. Meanwhile, Huey just stood to the side, hugging himself and looking at the ground. Scrooge nods at the kids before pushing the door open.

"Alright, explain yerself Cabrera-" Scrooge started. Suddenly, he noticed that the stall was empty. He backed up and looked around the restroom. "Where in blazes is his?"

Huey's head perked up at his uncle's question. Him and the others ran to the stall to see what he was talking about. To their surprise, Fenton wasn't in the stall like Huey said. "He...ran away?" Huey asked quietly. Scrooge let out a frustrated sigh and looked and Huey. He bent down and pat his head and gave him a hopeful look. "Don't worry Huey, I'll find him and get to the bottom o'this." He said. As he left, he mumbled something under his breath that Huey faintly caught. "Curse me kilts. And to think that another one of my employees was just another traitorous spy."

Huey felt himself begin to cry again as he rested his head against the stall's door. Dewey, Louie, and Webby took notice and exchanged sad looks with one another. Webby approached Huey and gave him a hug from the side. "I'm so sorry Huey, I know this is tough on you." She said, rubbing his back. His brothers approached him after Webby, both of them joining the hug. "It's gonna be OK big bro." Dewey comforted. "I-I know," Huey said quietly, "it's just...so hard to believe. I-I don't w-want to b-b-believe--". Dewey began to shush him gently as Huey sobbed.

The others felt terrible for their brother. They knew there isn't really anything they can do to fix this, but they still wanted to help. They had a feeling that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

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

"Agent Double C, did you find those documents like I ordered?" Director Bradford Buzzard asked as Fenton entered the meeting room of the hideout. He walked to the chair beside the old buzzard and stood there with his hands folded behind his back. He looked away from Buzzard out of both annoyance and shame. "N-no sir, my mission was compromised. Huey Duck found out my identity and, as far as I am aware, he told his uncle." Fenton admitted.

Bradford furrowed his eyebrows and glared at the duck. "What do you mean he knows your identity? You were suppose to be FOWL's secret weapon. How can you do that when you've been caught?"

"M-my apologies, sir. I shouldn't have carelessly had my communicator on."

"Apologies won't fix my plan." Bradford huffed, he removed his glasses and wiped his face, letting out a sigh. "You were so close too. I guess I have to come up with another plan. You're dismissed."

"And to think you were competent enough for that job" Bradford quietly hissed as he walked away, not knowing, or more likely caring, that Fenton heard. Fenton scoffed to himself as he hurriedly left the room. He went into one of the private rooms and locked himself inside. He sat criss cross on the ground and rested his head in his hands. He felt like he was going to cry, but nothing came out except for a sigh.

If only, if only he hadn't had his communicator on at that time, he could've gotten the documents and have his mission be over with. He could've finally gotten what he had hoped of getting from Bradford like he promised. He wouldn't have had to crush Huey's heart.

No, he couldn't dwell on that anymore, on Huey anymore. He was merely just an obstacle in the mission. Fenton always knew that, he knew that getting close to anyone would be pointless.

But he did anyway. Not just to Huey, but to Dr. Gearloose, Manny, everyone. And it was all ruined in a matter of a minute. He had to admit that he did feel guilty about what he did, but that was the kind of person he was. That's what a good person does, they feel bad. Yeah, he was a good person. 'I am a good person" he thought to himself. He rolled his eyes and huffed.

"What's the point of lying to yourself anymore?"

#huey duck #ducktales #ducktales 2017 #ducktales fanfiction #f.ow.l #ducktales au #fenton crackshell cabrera

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corpse-of-bandersnatch · 4 years ago

Photo

ALRIGHT! :D (Ok I know this comes really late and I apologize,V! First I was too busy to answer and then I forgot it Dx)

So, the ‘blue’

Short answer: It's where the lil baby Vorta come from (when they reproduce naturally).

Longer answer:

I like to think that the Founders didn't change that much about the Vorta like they successfully made them believe. Like their high resistance to poisons of all kind, their bad eyesight, their lack of a sense for aestethics and taste – it's all natural. But the Founders told them, that it was their will for the Vorta to have these (and other) traits, to reinforce the feeling of absolute control.In (my) reality, the Founders gain(ed) their power over species not only through genetic manipulation, but especially through make-believe.

But where the fuck am I going, I'm losing my train of thought (bear with me, I’m running on coffee, black tea and Little Richard, but it’s worth it!)

OH I remember, why I started this way – Vorta, naturally, don't have different genders and sexes, they are all equipped the same way. Biologically, they are all capable of getting pregnant and of impregnating others.

There are two forms of reproduction.

1. If there is no suitable, compatible mating partner around, a Vorta is able to impregnate themself and create a clone of themself that way (I haven't thought about the conditions, which are potentially necessary for a Vorta to be able to do that though).

The Changelings didn't invent the 'Vorta-cloning', but used this natural capability of the species and manipulated it, so it suited their own needs before that of the Vorta. Additionally, they genetically disabled the Vorta's second form of reproduction:

2. If two Vorta like each other very very much....

..and decide to have children, they're doing the do and impregnate each other, creating two new, genetically unique Vorta. The Changelings destroyed this capability (because power and control and why would Vorta care about each other anyway, when they're supposed to glue their eyes on their awesome ditto gods?). Though a doctor with extraordinary intelligence in his field might be able to recover what the Founders destroyed.

In both cases, the new life develops beneath the violet (or blue) belly, that caught your attention.

The ‘womb’ of a Vorta lies in front of all other organs, right under the violet part of the belly. The belly consists of the same tissue as the violet parts of their ears. This tissue is at the same time especially flexible and resistant. It's on the outside of the womb to make it easier for the parent's body to grow together with the baby inside. The reason it is part of their ears lays in their extreme growing in their first year. Vorta are born (if that happens naturally) with pretty small ears, which then grow much faster than the rest of the body, so that the ears are almost completely finished in their development and growth after half a year post birth. Vorta also have that kind of tissue in their knee bends and crooks of their arms (though I always forget to draw that, duh!).

More infos:

Vorta aren't forced to press a whole child out of their genitals. You see the line under the belly? That's like a natural Predetermined ''breaking point'' (that sounded better in my mothertongue). It's like an opening of the 'Vorta womb', that is normally covered by another special kind of tissue, which is rather thin, but regenerates very very fast. 1-2 hours before the birth, it starts to rip open, so that the child can get pressed out of the 'womb' through this hole. The ripping does hurt, but the rest of the birth is way easier, faster and less painful than that of humans. It's super messy though. Because the child is sourrounded by a nutrient fluid, that fulfills a final purpose, when it drips out of the opening and makes everything slippery, so that the child slips smoothly out of the body (well, the parent still needs to press it out, but the fluid makes it easier). This fluid is of dark reddish-violet colour and people, who aren't familiar with Vorta biology, might mistake it for their blood. So a Vorta giving birth looks like they were butchered, but ironically it isn't half as painful as the process from other humanoid species.

As part of the dominion, new Vorta life doesn’t come into existence or develops in a Vorta’s body, and they don’t grow up as children. And although these organs and body parts became needless (in their ‘gods’ eyes, who taught the Vorta to see it the same way), there wasn’t really a reason, to remove them. Maybe they kept them as a reminder of how far they’ve come since their simple beginnings, thanks to the Founders. Or maybe they’re only allowed to keep these traits, because they have no purpose anymore, that might intervere with the Changelings plans.

I have more headcanons regarding the born Vorta baby and how it is raised (or was, before the Vorta became part of the dominion). Also they develop inside of the womb and get born in sth that resembles a soft eggshell. But I didn't mention it in this post earlier, because that would've been too much for a single post. And I don't want this post to become super long. So that's it for now! :D

#Vorta #corpse-krams #ladyvean #star trek #xenobiology

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