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lazerswordweilder · 9 months ago

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I, Damian Ah Ghul Wayne, walked through a crater. I followed the amulet I had been given, it tracked my brother and it had led me here. Led me to a dead city, every house charred or destroyed, I followed the amulet and walked to the centre of the crater, an explosion had created morbid but beautiful green patterns on the wall.

“Brother?” I asked, I wondered why my brother was exploring such a horrid place. Suddenly mist swirled in front of my eyes, gathering into a human form, I had my sword out as I analysed every detail of the new person, looks about fourteen, snow white hair, glowing green eyes, a charred hazmat suit, lichtenberg scars creeping up his body, and in his eyes- recognition?

“Damian?” the figured voice asked, it has wispy and sounded painful “Brother?” my eyes widened

“Danyal?!” I sheathed my sword and took a step forwards “What happened?” a sad smile crossed Danyals face

“I died.” Danyal said “Did you come to claim revenge?”

“No! I figured out the truth, how Ra’s made you hate me, and you died because of it and I hated you and I’m so sorry-” I started

“Damian.” Danyal stopped me

“Yes?” I asked

“Tell me your life.” Danyal asked, I blinked “At the very least tell me if you’re happy.” Danyal asked

“I’ll tell you all about my life, I- I meet father and I live with him, and I have many animals, and-” I started and Danyal stopped me again

“No need to rush, I forgive you for hating me.” Danyal said “Please don’t cry.” he said and I realised I was crying “Tell me about the outfit you wear, are you a hero?” Danyal asked hopefully, with a wave of his hand two comfortable chairs appeared and I sat down

“It’s the robin uniform. Father is Batman, I am the fifth Robin in the family, first Grayson, then Todd, then Drake, then Brown, and now me.” I said

“Batman?” Danyal asked, I blinked

“Are- did you not die at fourteen? Father’s been operating since before your birth!” I said

“Amity had a tech block out, completely separated from the outside world. I forgot parts of my old life- well pushed them to the back of my mind until they were useful again.” Danyal said

“Oh, Batman- his secret identity is Bruce Wayne-” Danny seemed to recognise the Wayne name

“Batman’s his hero name!” Danyal said excitedly “Our dad is Lady Gothams Knight?” he asked

“Lady Gotham?” I asked

“The cities ghost, I talk with her a lot.” Danyal said, I blinked

“Wait, tell me about your life! Both after you faked your death and your afterlife!” I asked

“Okay. First I need to explain what happened here, it’s a long story, sorry I don’t have any human food.” Danyal apologised

“It’s fine brother.” I said and Danyal relaxed

“Well, first of all I go by Danny Phantom and if I need to act human then Danny Nightingale even though my adoptive parents were Fentons. When i faked my death I chose a house at random, which might not have been the smartest choice given that my new parents- Jack and Maddie, were pretty much science supervillains, they believed in ghosts which I previously thought was stupid, and they built a portal to the ghost zone, although it’s proper name is the Infinite Realms. They made me clean up their messes and while inspecting the portal I must have hit the on button because it came to life, the explosion killed all of Amity Park but lasted everything in the city (human, animal, object) with just enough ectoplasm that it basically just brought everyone to the Infinite Realms and made them ghosts and there were no other changes, just the species change; I however got blasted with far more electricity, ectoplasm, and radiation, it killed me and revived me several times and my body (being in the activated portal) was spilt between dimensions, betweeen life and death, between human and ghost, I became something called a halfa which is why I can come into the physical word and be- you know, physical.” Danny said, I nodded, it explained how ghosts could be real but we rarely saw them and there were a dozen things about Danyal both big and small that shouted he wasn’t human “You’re taking this well.”

“You had the same childhood, I’m used to world breaking revelations.” I said, brother laughed

“Yes, well. Anyways, my parents had been at the edge of town in Hazmat suits so the accident only normally killed them, if they’re ghosts, they probably don’t remember their lives and I haven’t met them. By the way, the ruins of Amity are my haunt is this realm (my living realm) which is how I knew you were here. Anyways, before the accident I lived a surprisingly normal life, I pretended my parents had drove by and kicked me out of the car because I had amnesia which was a great explanation for why I was here and couldn’t explain anything. Not that my ‘parents’ cared, they forgot about me and my sister Jazz. Anyways I went to a school called Casper High, it looked regular on the surface- bullies, nerds, popular kids, but when push came to shove we all stuck together, everyone was a community there. I had too great friends, Sam and Tucker.” Danny beamed “Anyways, I got okay grades in most subjects and downplayed my physical abilities because I didn’t want the attention. Then the accident happened, like I said Amity basically got teleported to the Infinite Realms and everyone was made into ghosts, weak ghosts though, I’m the strongest by a lot especially when you add my training to the equation. So older ghosts came to pick on us and claim Amity as their haunts and I fought them off and claimed Amity as my haunt, then Pariah Dark woke up from the Coffin of Forever Sleep.” Danny said, I knew the tone he used, it was the ‘this is a really big deal but I’m so used to this kind of stuff that I’m going to say it normally’ and that did not bode well for my brother

“Pariah Dark?” I asked

“Oh right you don’t know! The former ghost king, not to brag but he was super powerful, took several Ancients (ghost gods) to put him to sleep the first time.” Danny said proudly, it took me a second to pry together what he meant

“YOU’RE THE GHOST KING!?!?” I yelled, a green crown which was on fire appeared above Dannys head, a ring with a skull on it appeared on his gloved hand, a cape made of galaxies swirled around him, the white ermine around his neck had frozen skulls in it, and he had an aura of power to him that made me want to bow.

“I have a castle.” Danny said “Also when I said Amity was my haunt it’s technically closer to this entire planet is my haunt because I’ve forbidden ghost from coming here with a few exceptions- but it’s not a haunt, like how the Infinte Realms are my territory but isn’t my haunt.”

“Brother I don’t know what haunt means.” I said

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll brief you on the ghost stuff later… do you want me to meet your ‘friad- family?” Danny asked “I can explain to them too.”

“Right now?” I was disappointed I’d just gotten my brother back after finding out he really loved me and now he wanted to meet everyone else?

“Later then.” Danny said “Come on, let me introduce you to everyone!” Danny said with excitement “You okay with that?” he asked

“Yes.” I said, that might of been a mistake because Danny pulled me through a portal into a place with swirling green sky, we were standing on a balcony of a castle

“What’s your full name or the name(s) you go by?” Danny asked

“Damian Ah Ghul Wayne if I’m out of the uniform, Robin if I’m in it.” I said. Danny nodded and suddenly I was in a suit and my domino mask was off, then Danny turned to face the void and called out in a language I didn’t understand. Creatures- ghosts started flying into the courtyard or just floating at the area around the island (I realised the castle was on a floating island) and every ghost chattered to one another in a langue I didn’t understand, Danny yelled something and everyone went silence, then switched to a mix of English and the other langue which I was called ghost for lack of a better term.

“GHOSTS OF ALL SPECIES AND GENDER, I CALL YOU HERE TODAY TO WELCOME DAMIAN AH GHUL WAYNE. MY BROTHER AND THE NEW PRINCE OF THE INFINITE REALMS! PRINCE WAYNE HAS TRAINING AS AN ASSASSIN AND IS A KNIGHT OF LADY GOTHAM. HE IS HUMAN, AND I EXPECT YOU TO TREAT HIM WITH THE SAME RESPECT YOU WOULD TREAT ME WHILE UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OUR TWO SPECIES AND RESPECT HIS LIMITS UNTIL PRINCE WAYNE JOINS US IN DEATH!” Danny yelled. I knew most species wouldn’t take well to a species weaker than them ruling them and I held my head high, the ghosts studied me for a moment and I expected at least some negative reaction, then the crowd broke out in noise

“What?” I asked

“That’s the equivalent of cheering, a stand up applause.” Danny said,

“Really?” I asked “Surely they would view me as less because I am human?” Danny smirked

“We’re ghosts Prince Wayne, we don’t care about your skin tone, or your gender, or even your species, we care about strength. Doesn’t matter if you defeat someone with smarts and human stuff, or raw power and ghost stuff, or whatever in between, all that matters is that you can beat them. Lady Gothams Knights have an impressive reputation here, everyone can sense her approval on you and she respects only the best. They can see and feel and have heard about your strength Damian, they don’t care if you’re human.” Danny said

“I did not need a lecture on self confidence.” I said

“Yeah, you say that, but you haven’t met Paulina yet.” Danny said “Anyways you’ll pick up on ghost speak soon enough.” he reassured

“Is that really what it’s called?” I asked

“I didn’t name it.” Danny said

There are two things that Damian knows that he knows Father doesn’t.

He has an older brother

He was dead

(And a secret third thing: Damian was glad he was dead. They did not get along.)

Well. No, correction, they were two things that Damian knew that Father didn't. Past tense. Strange magic swirled through the air and created a mirage before his eyes, and immediately a scowl forms across his face.

The mirage shifts and shimmers like the light hitting a slowly turning prism, and then it settles into a memory. One that Damian does not recall. Like looking into a tv screen, it shows, faintly, a room, with most of the magic going into the image of a crib.

His mother was standing on one side, and next to her, standing on his tiptoes was a small five year old boy looking up at her. With dark hair and skin that was only few shades lighter brown than Damian's, the little boy's resemblance to Damian was undeniable.

However, his eyes were blue. Not green. Damian's scowl deepens, and he sinks back. "Danyal." He mutters, and feels eyes turn on to him.

Danyal Al Ghul. Damian's older brother. A prodigal swordsman like Damian, and five years his senior. He'd be fifteen if he was still alive. His memory of the last time he saw his brother was still clear in his mind.

(A sword to Danyal's neck. Stars were glittering through his window. Damian was five, Danyal ten. He is not sure why Danyal had snuck into his room, all he remembers is hearing a sound and on instinct reaching for his sword.)

(His brother had intercepted easily. But had not shoved the sword away. Moonlight hit his blue eyes, and Damian remembers seeing the pupils shrink to let the light in. His eyes looked almost silver.)

(His brother bares his teeth at him. Damian wants to slice his neck more than anything, and he bares his teeth back. "Good." Danyal says, his voice low in a hiss, "Your reflexes are good, little brother.")

("Of course they are," Damian remembers snarling, and presses the sword closer. But it does not budge. "I am an Al Ghul.")

(Something unrecognizable passes through his brother's eyes, and his mouth twists into something like a smile. "I know." He says, and tilts his head downwards at him. "And you will be great.")

(His brother shoves the sword back, causing Damian to stumble. And like the wind, he is gone.)

(The next morning, he goes on a mission with mother and a few others. Mother is the only one to return with Danyal's sword, and a red-eyed look in her eyes. Damian does not mourn. Now there's only one of them.)

"Momma." The little Danyal-mirage speaks, a furrow between his childlike brows as mother lowers a bundle into the crib. His blue eyes watch her, and lifts onto his toes to peer into the crib as she sets the baby down. "Who is this?"

Their mother's hand comes to rest along his back. "This is Damian, my son." She murmurs, voice low. "He is your little brother. Protect him well."

Damian scoffs internally -- not likely. He remembers every spar he ever had with Danyal, every harsh word and insult. His pushing, pushing, pushing for Damian to get up. To try again. Do it again. The only kindness he ever showed him was when his fingers bled. And even that was harsh, firm. Rolling gauze around his wrist and scolding him, telling him how to wield his weapon better.

(It was the same as everyone else, but somehow it hurt worse coming from his own brother.)

But he watches his older brother's youngest self tilt his head to the side, and then reach his chubby hand through the crib's bars. He runs small, blunt fingers over the baby's arm, and the baby jerks. Through the crib's bars, Damian sees himself grab Danyal's fingers.

And he scowls even deeper.

And Danyal's eyes... widen. He lets out a little gasp, and a small smile Damian's never seen him wear tilts at the corner of his mouth as he looks up at their mother. "Mother," he whispers, "he grabbed me!"

Damian... his scowl falters, for a moment.

He doesn't wait for a response, he looks back to the baby with sparking eyes. His expression melts like sugar as he bounces the finger being gripped tight by the small hand. "Hello, little brother." His brother says, voice its of usual firmness, but there's more fondness underlying it than Damian's ever heard. "My name is Danyal."

The mirage shifts before Damian can comprehend his older brother's voice. It shows the crib again, appearing as if a few days had passed. There is night lilting through the nearby window, and a creek of the door. The baby doesn't stir.

Danyal sneaks in, still wearing his training clothes and a sword strapped to his side. Damian's scowl returns, watching him creep over to the crib. Of course -- the last night he saw his brother wasn't the only time he'd snuck into his room.

Would he go so low as to attack an infant? Damian wonders, watching his brother cross the room to his crib. But while his fingers rest against the hilt, they never curl to unsheathe.

His brother peers into the crib again, and there it is again, that smile wider in the corner of his mouth. It's not a full one, but its as uninhibited as it gets. Dripping honey-sweet with awe. "You are so tiny." Danyal whispers, and pokes a finger back through the crib. It wriggles, then pokes Damian's cheek gently. "Was I as small as you when mother gave birth to me?"

There is no response from the baby. Not a coherent one anyways, the little thing snuffles and turns his head, mouth open to latch. Danyal stills, his eyes grow ever wider again.

Danyal says nothing else, just rests his cheek against the crib and watches the baby sleep in silence. The affection never leaves his young face.

Damian feels unsettled. Off-foot. This Danyal is foreign to him... He wonders what happened to have changed his brother's mind on him.

There's a scuffle, quiet, but there. Danyal picks up on it just as Damian does, and his head pricks up like a deer, head already turning away from the crib. The affection leaves his face, falling away like water into something serious. His blade is already slightly unsheathed.

Two assassins, belonging to grandfather, burst out of the shadows. Their swords swinging into the air and ready to strike.

Danyal kills them both, his back to the crib. It's not without struggle, and when the two assassins lay dead on the floor, the baby is wailing at the top of his lungs. Danyal has a laceration cleaving down diagonal of his cheek. It's close to his eye, just barely missed blinding him.

Damian never knew how he got that scar. He does now. (He doesn't know how to feel about it.)

His brother clutches his bleeding face, sheathing his sword as tears well up onto his face. But he turns towards the crib, and hurries over. "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay." He hushes rapidly, the League-drilled seriousness fallen away to reveal a panic-stricken five year old. He sticks one hand into the crib, the one not clutching anything, and grabs little Damian's hand.

Their mother comes bursting in that moment, and Danyal turns his head towards her. "Mother." He says, his voice cracks un-wantingly. Their mother steps over the bodies of the assassins easily. "They tried to kill Damian."

"But they did not." Talias says, kneeling down next to the crib to inspect Danyal's face and Damian's well-being. When she finds nothing of concern beyond the injury, she continues. "You killed them before they could, Danyal. Well done."

The mirage of his brother nods, his eyes teary and red.

Damian... is discomfited. he never thought Danyal would kill assassins for him. He would have thought his brother would sooner look the other way. The mirage shifts again, and it quickly shows time passing.

Danyal sits in Damian's nursery every night, after that. He lays at the foot of the crib with his sword, a pillow and a blanket with him. Some nights there is nothing but peace -- or as close to peace as a baby could achieve -- and some days assassins break in.

Danyal kills each one.

The mirage shifts again, and it shows more memories of Danyal interacting with Damian during his youth too young for him to remember. His first steps, his first words.

"Danya." The small toddler of Damian says, arms reaching for Danyal.

A frown curls across Danyal's face, and pulls Damian into his lap. "No, no, little brother." He scolds, voice firm but.. softer. "It is Danyal, Damian. Danyal."

"Danya!"

Damian's brother sighs, but there is that same-small tilt at the corner of his mouth. A glimmer in his eyes. A glimmer... that Damian is finding he recognizes.

(He always thought his brother got that look in his eyes when he was mocking him. Was he wrong?)

The mirage shifts again, and this time it shows only mother and Danyal, alone. Danyal is older, taller. Seven, if Damian had to guess. Mother has a stern look on her face, her hands tight on his shoulders. "Damian will be starting training soon, my son."

Ah, then close to eight then. Training starts, always, at three years old. He watches Danyal nod, his expression mimicking their mother's. His arms are folded, always folded, behind his back, always neat.

"You can no longer have the relationship with your brother as you did before." Mother says.

Danyal's expression... falters. It shifts, it fluctuates. He looks surprised, thrown off. Like he isn't quite sure he heard what mother just said. His brows furrow. "What... do you mean, mother?"

"I mean what I said, Danyal." Mother says, stern, "Ra's will be keeping a closer eye on Damian now that he is of age to begin his training. He will not like if he sees you both getting along."

"I am sorry, my child. But your relationship with Damian ends here. You are rivals now, not brothers." In a cruel form a gentleness, mother raises her hand and tucks a stray curl out of Danyal's face.

Of course. Damian never had a relationship with his brother because of Grandfather. Of course. No, he's not feeling a little bitter. No. There's not an inner child that still, like a candleflame, wishes that he'd had a bond with his only flesh and blood.

Danyal is dead now. So it's not like it matters. He's happy about this.

Danyal frowns, and he steps back. He looks lost in thought. "We are still brothers, mother," he says, argues, and looks up to meet mother's eyes. "Let me train him, I will make sure he gets the skill he needs. If we must be rivals, then I will teach him how to defeat me. If he can defeat me, he can defeat anybody."

Their mother, and Damian, both blink in unison. Then mother smiles something sharp, calculated. She folds her hands behind her back. "Then do it. But you will make him hate you."

"...So be it."

Damian.... Damian is silent. His world axis has been tilted on its head. He is sliding, and sliding, and sliding down. Spinning. Many things click into place at once.

More memories from the mirage show. It shows Danyal training Damian. It shows their arguing, their bickering. It shows Danyal going to their mother to praise Damian and his skills, how fast he is picking up on the sword. How one day he will surpass even him.

It shows Danyal sitting outside Damian's bedroom door every night, listening in for anyone who dares to break in. His knees drawn to his chest, his sword at his side. Sometimes he sneaks in, sword drawn, when he hears a sound.

Some nights, Damian wakes up. He remembers those nights. Danyal standing over his bed with his sword unsheathed and tight at his side. He remembers the instant terror as he immediately reached for his own weapon.

His brother always scolded him for his lack of vigilance. That had he been anyone else, Damian would have had his neck cut. He would've been dead already. It only made Damian's hatred of him grow.

But he understands now. Because there were assassins in the room that Damian, four years old, three, did not notice. Not until later. He always assumed the attacks on him after Danyal's death had been because now there was a new heir to target.

It had been the only lesson he'd been even somewhat grateful for.

Then finally the mirage shimmers, and it shows Danyal, ten years old, in one of the training rooms, mid-spar with Mother. It's fast, sharp, impressive and like a blur. Damian is unsure if at ten which one of them was the better swordsman. Some of the assassins who have never met Danyal said Damian was, but the ones who had said it was Danyal. He'll never know.

In a lull in the fight, when their swords are crossed, mother speaks. "Ra's wants you and Damian to fight." She says, teeth grit into a deep scowl. The cross breaks and Danyal jumps back, he frowns.

"We have fought, mother." He says, and dives in first, swinging for mother's feet. Mother dodges, and slices at his arm. He swerves out of the way, twisting on his feet like a dance. "We are always fighting, doesn't he see our spars?"

"Not a spar like that, my son." Mother says, a snarl in her voice. She lunges, and Danyal blocks her blade. "A fight to the death. Father has grown tired of having two heirs."

That gets Danyal's attention -- or, more accurately, it distracts it. His eyes widen, and his sword lowers for a single moment. A mistake. "What?" Is all he gets out before mother has him on his back, her blade pressed to his throat.

He freezes. As does Damian. Danyal's brows furrow, then unfurrow, only to knot up again. "Mother, what do you mean a fight to the death?" He flips to his feet when mother removes the sword. She walks over to grab her water.

"Must I repeat myself, Danyal?" Mother snaps, rubbing her forehead before swigging from her canteen. "Father wants to find out which one of you is the stronger heir, and so you will fight to the death after your training in a few days."

Danyal's tan face loses a shade of color, he looks ashy. "There must be some mistake!" He exclaims, his arms gesturing out as he peers around mother. "There is a five year disparity between us, Damian has only just started training two years ago. It would be an unfair fight!"

"Do you think me unaware?" Mother whirls on him, and there is a grief-stricken look on her face. Like she is already mourning Damian's death. Damian feels ill. "Your skill is far beyond what Damian can accomplish right now, and there is nothing that I say that can convince Father otherwise."

Danyal wears an expression like he is scrambling for answers. A white knuckle grip on his weapon. There is a long silence, and his lower lip curls up. His throat bobs, he swallows. "Is there really nothing we can do?"

Mother makes a frustrated sound, pushing her loose hairs out of her face. "Not unless Father changes his mind, or I send one of you away. But Father would surely send someone to look for you or Damian."

"What if one of us faked our death?"

Mother stills. As does Damian. No, he thinks, stiff as a rod, no way. These mirages were lying, nothing but figments of an imagination. Of some quiet what-if that Damian had not yet stomped out.

Mother's expression shifts, and then turns contemplative. Danyal notices, and keeps pushing, he looks as hopeful as he could get beyond his usual unwavering, stone-like expression. "One of us could go to father--"

"No." Mother cuts off, voice sharp. Danyal wilts, confusion flittering across his face. Damian, from the corner of his eye, sees Father tense as stone. His white-slit eyes have not left the mirage. Nobody's has.

"Father will undoubtedly check there first, it would not be a good idea. You or Damian will have to go somewhere where he would not think to look. Someone unaffiliated with the League."

Danyal's face falls, shutters, and then closes up again into stone. Mother begins to pace, and Danyal's blue eyes follow her. "So a stranger?" He asks, and there is disgust lilting into his voice.

Mother nods, and she looks just as offput as Danyal.

The mirage of Damian's brother rolls his shoulders back. "Then I will do it, mother." He says, voice unwavering. There is a stubborn note behind it all, one that Damian recognizes. "I will fake my death, and Damian will stay here."

Mother's eyes turn sharp on him, and she stops in her spot. She pivots. "Are you sure?" She asks, eyebrow raising, "There is a chance you will never meet your Father if you leave. Nor will you see I or Damian again, if you do this."

Something like fear flickers across Danyal's face, eyes widening momentarily -- as if that very thought had not crossed his mind. But then it smooths over to sharp determination. He nods. "It would be the same for Damian if it was him instead. I will do it, Mother."

Damian feels ill again. Father has a strong set in his jaw, his teeth grinding.

Mother stares at Danyal, and then her expression softens. And like before, it is grieving. "In a few days time, I and another member of the League will be going on a mission to the American States. I will tell Father that you will accompany me, once there we will dispose of the other member and then orchestrate your death."

The American States. Danyal was here, in the country. He was out there somewhere -- but no this was fake. It had to be. Danyal was dead. A fool who got himself killed on a mission with mother and left the title of Heir to Damian.

Or maybe it had been his plan all along. His and mother's both.

...Was mother ever going to tell him?

The mirage of Danyal nods, sharp. Understanding. There is a gleam in his eyes that is not pride, it is tears. And when Mother leaves the room and leaves him alone, the stone-like expression on his face crumbles and falls.

His brother, ten years old, curls up his lip in an ugly way. It wobbles as the tears in his eyes do, and he brings up his hand to slam it over his mouth. And sinks to his knees, a yell-like sob muffled behind the skin.

His brother, ten years old, looks smaller than Damian remembers him being, and cries.

Damian has never seen Danyal cry. Not once in the mirage of memories, nor in his own.

The memory holds for a minute, and then disappears. And no new one shows up. The magic is gone, and it leaves a silence in its wake. Heavy, staticky, and full of revelations.

So there are two things that Damian knows that his Father now knows too.

He has an older brother

His older brother is alive.

(And a new secret third thing: Damian wasn't sure how to feel about it.)

#lazerswordweilder writes #dpxdc #might write a part two

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k-s-morgan · 3 years ago

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I'm pretty curious: what are your thoughts on Bedelia? Because I personally really disliked her and was honestly shocked when I discovered how many people on tumblr not only disagree but actually see her as a role model? Like, for me, she has no positive qualities. You could say she's curious and brave but no, she's just indecisive. She's curious in theory but when real life comes it turns out she's not brave enough for what she was curious about and also not brave enough to get out of it, so

she's always stuck somewhere in the middle, constantly biting off more than she can chew and convincing herself that she's there by her own choice and calculation. I think that in many situations she wants to see herself and so poses as someone way superior than is the case. And ok, she is smart, but because of her other flaws, she doesn't act on it. People glorify so much her outsmarting Hannibal after Florence but like, she could've just get him arrested at any moment?

She didn't need all these charades, she wasn't supervised. Or of course she could've just shot him or call FBI in Mizumono. And then she tries to act all superior with Will, but gets everything wrong with who was behind the veil, and the talk about being naked? The fact that she shows different emotions doesn't mean she hidden them so well but rather that she doesn't have such devastating emotions as Will. She showed plainly how unprepared she was to go there and how despite what she thinks of herself she doesn't fit Hannibal's nietzschean superhuman concept. For me Alana for example is a strong woman here, who learns and works over her trauma. Bedelia is too self-absorbed to even admit she made any mistakes. I'm sorry this ask grew into such monstrosity but I felt the need to explain my point of view and I would really love to hear someone's else (whose analysis I really respect) perspective because it's been seriously baffling me for a long time now

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Hello! This is such an interesting ask, I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on Bedelia. I agree with your analysis, although funnily, it's because of this that I like Bedelia :D She's definitely no role model in general, and I disagree with Bryan that she's the smartest character because I don't think any of her actions indicate it.

You are right, Bedelia is a very self-absorbed character. She's also self-sustained: I feel like she could happily live her whole life as the only person on Earth. She's cold and calculating; she has a high self-esteem and a painfully strong sense of curiosity - the problem is, it's mostly theoretical in nature. For example, Bedelia enjoys the idea of taking life, and she seems to have enjoyed the actual moment of it, but what comes next terrifies her. She doesn't like the consequences, she doesn't like the blood; she's scared about being caught and readily asks for help from a man who set this whole situation up. What fascinated her in theory turned out to be much uglier in practice, so she quickly retired and chose to isolate herself to avoid doing something like this again. She follows the same pattern of behavior with Hannibal.

Bedelia always knew that Hannibal is dangerous, but she still continued therapy with him, genuinely trying to understand him, too fascinated to back off. She says she tried to refer him to another doctor, but based on their interactions, she truly enjoys sessions with him, likely because she feels in control. In S1, when Hannibal reaches out, she backs away, never letting him close but keeping him interested enough to keep him coming to see her. It’s like she’s playing a game of her own, getting to know this man in a person suit, understanding she’s the only one he can more or less confide in, and enjoying her power. But the balance begins to shift when Will appears and when Bedelia realizes she underestimated the depth of Hannibal’s depravity. Hannibal is focused on Will entirely now, he doesn’t need Bedelia all that much, and she doesn’t like it because losing Hannibal’s interest means becoming disposable. Things become too real, so she freaks out and runs.

Another shift comes when she sees him after Mizumono and agrees to escape with him. Bedelia thinks she holds control again: Will is gone, Hannibal is a wreck who desperately needs council, and she feels confident about her own importance. Hannibal tells her, “I never found you to be lacking,” which she likely takes as a certainty that she’s never been disposable, after all. In that shower scene, it’s obvious how she gradually relaxes and becomes lazily arrogant. She thinks she can step forward now, getting to know Hannibal even better, behind the veil, being the one who’ll gather the pieces of him, and also satisfying her curiosity along with a morbid and mostly latent fascination with darkness, as well as basking in knowledge that someone as dangerous and unique as Hannibal needs her.

All these motivations are gone as soon as she understands that Hannibal is not only not over Will but that he’s also casually planning to kill her (in E1 of S3). She didn’t expect it, based on her reaction, at least not this soon. That’s where Bedelia starts another game with the aim to survive. But like you mentioned, even then, she's not just fighting to win - she's fighting for a good and comfortable life for herself.

Bedelia is afraid of going to prison and she is afraid of alienating Hannibal. She doesn't know if Hannibal will actually be caught, and that's why she tries to stay in the middle: she's setting him up, but covertly, sitting in front of the cameras instead of going to the police directly. Later, she tries hard to stay interesting and get Hannibal to support her alibi - Bedelia has no desire to be on the run forever. She wants her comfortable life back. The second she has it, when Hannibal is locked away, she relaxes and exploits him to earn more money and get more attention. She doesn't need people, not really, but at the same time, she enjoys being needed by them.

She overestimates herself repeatedly, like she does with Hannibal and then with Will. She cannot bear the thought that Hannibal considers her disposable while worshipping the ground Will walks on - it offends her, so she's starting talking to Will to get a better grasp on him and see for herself how he's irrelevant and Hannibal is just stupid for being fixated on him. Alas, she's wrong, and this time, she becomes dinner because in many ways, Will is an even more dangerous opponent than Hannibal.

I love Bedelia, though - I consider her a very interesting character exactly because of her flaws. It's fascinating to me how she considers herself superior and yet ends up being fatally wrong about so many important things; I also find her preference of theory to practice, observation to participation unusual and interesting.

#hannibal #bedelia du maurier #hannigram #hannibal lecter

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yelenasdog · 4 years ago

Text

it was a pleasure to burn (spencer reid x fem bau!reader)

genre: fluff i think even though the name is v angsty LOL it’s a literal screenplay with the amout of dialogue i wrote LMAO so idk

summary: a particularly rough and disturbing case gets to reader, and spencer and reader are brought together by this.

words: just about 6k (my longest fic ahhHH)

warnings: typical criminal minds gore and violence just up a notch, they get on a plane at the end, somebody gets ~shot~, somebody gets ~bonked~, cursing, mentions of reid’s addiction, and i think that’s it. also the reader wears reading glasses but that’s the only predetermined factor of appearance. btw i don’t think i used any pronouns in this but i apologize if i’m wrong.

a/n: LMFAO i was outside awhile ago celebrating litha with a nice lil hike and i saw a butterfly and i had just started watching cm and was like hMMm... killer who’s obsessed with symmetry??!1??!? y Es. enjoy 😼 EDIT: THERE IS SO MANY PLOT HOLES OMG FBREHJBFHEJFRE IM RBFBRE

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

Present Day, Central Park, New York

“Aren’t they just stunning?” The unsub spoke, keeping her eyes trained on the butterfly sitting happily on her finger. The brightly colored creature fluttered off her hand that was dripping scarlet, flying around her curly head of brown hair. Her, formerly white, blood-stained dress flowed around her as she followed it, watching in awe as it soared about. She giggled, plopping down on the grass in the middle of a circle of her victim’s pale, lifeless bodies, all of them with ironically morbid butterflies resting upon the frail skin of the corpses.

“Aren’t they, agents?”

She slanted her green eyes, gripping the grass a little harder. I flicked my tongue over my lips nervously, looking over to the lanky man on my left. He simply shrugged, just about as sure of how to handle the situation just as much as I was.

“If I knew you all were coming, I would have cleaned up, I really would have, I promise.”

We slowly walked towards her, twigs and leaves crunching under our feet. It could have been comparable to a hunter stalking its prey, but it unfortunately was quite the opposite.

6 days earlier, Quantico, Virginia

“3 bodies, all found within the last 48 hours in rural New York. So far, the first body has revealed that although it was dumped upstate, the victim was murdered in the city, and the same most likely goes for the other bodies as well. Nails well manicured, no drugs in the system. They aren't junkies, we’re dealing with upper class citizens.”

My face contorted as I took the photos from Reid’s hands, his large and tanned one surprising me by how soft it felt as it accidentally brushed against mine. I blushed like a madman, looking to see him doing the same thing. I cleared my throat getting Rossi’s attention.

“Why are we only now hearing of this?” I questioned, flipping through the images as I did so, my confusion only growing. I didn’t recieve an answer, leaving my curiosity to bloom.

“Wait, how did you say they were killed again?”

Morgan looked up, taking the photos from me. “He didn’t.”

I sighed, pushing my glasses up on my nose.

“Is there at least any correlation between the bodies and the butterflies?”

Our attention was shifted to JJ, the resident expert on the insects.

“Actually, the ones being found with the bodies are from the Amarynthis family, all native to Latin America. They weren’t there by accident so yes, they’re somehow related.”

Rossi stood up, grabbing his coat.

“Well, none of this is nearly enough for a profile, so pack your bags and tell the others, wheels up in an hour. We’re headed to New York.”

4 days earlier, F.B.I. Field Office, New York, New York

“The final report from the latest victim is in, all the autopsies are clean. They show no signs of struggles, no marks, no blood, no anything. The eyes weren’t bloodshot, so suffocation is ruled out, and that was our best bet.”

I sighed, sliding the case file across the glass table to Spence as I took my seat, sinking into it and allowing myself to be consumed by its warmth.

“So what your saying is that we’re back at square one.”

I looked up at Hotch from where I sat, running my hand through my ponytail.

“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

Just then, the young Doctor spoke up as he flipped through the pages.

“The eyes weren’t just not bloodshot, there was barely any blood left in any of the victims bodies, only about 3% of the volume left. The killer drained them.”

Morgan gave me a shocked expression, silently asking for an explanation.

“Which you failed to mention, Y/n.” Aaron spoke, agitation once again present in his voice.

I looked at the ceiling, crossing my arms in front of me before turning to face Hotch once more.

“Yeah, well, I thought it was obvious when I said no blood.” I stuttered out cautiously.

“On the bodies! Not in the bodies!” Morgan exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air in what was in my opinion, very childish. Everyone else in the room aside from Spencer was either shaking their heads or pinching the bridge of their noses, and reasonably so.

“Look, I’m sorry I just didn’t see it in the report, plus, In the scheme of things, it just doesn’t seem to matter.”

I soon regretted my words, realizing how ill-fit they were for the current conversation I was having. Spencer looked up, tilting his head.

“Doesn’t seem to matter? How? There’s an endless amount of possibilities now that we know this. If we had known it sooner we probably could have figured out the pattern and caught the one doing this!” He harshly spewed, his voice acting like a crescendo of sorts, quiet and calm and moving towards a loud and violent tone. Tears began to prick at the corners of my eyes and I was starting to feel guilty, not to mention absolutely stupid as could be.

“I’m- I really am sorry guys, truly.”

Hotch locked eyes with me, taking a stern tone that one would usually take with a disobedient child, perhaps even Jack.

“I hope that’s a comfort to you when another body shows up. That’s their blood on your hands.”

I was frozen, the gravity of the situation taking its toll.

In the background I heard him say something to Morgan about a new profile having to be made as there were many new things to be known from this revelation. But it all went in one ear and out the other, just unpleasant white noise.

As I clumsily stumbled out of the room, I felt Reid’s eyes burning holes into the back of my brain. I was quick to turn my head to meet his glance, causing him to look down. I felt bad, the weight on my chest growing heavier from the interaction.

I sat down at my desk, turning on my computer and immediately going to google. I typed in “hypnosis” and let the info trickle in.

About 30 minutes later, I still felt absolutely horrible, but I had also put together a valuable profile in the time that had passed. I shut the newly finished file, blowing an abandoned strand of hair out from my eyes. I had to do a double take when I saw Spencer staring once more, his deep hazel eyes meeting my own. I gave him a small smile before standing up and walking to Hotch’s makeshift New York office. I pushed open the heavy door, placing the folder on his too-clean desk.

“What’s this?” He asked, taking it in his hands.

“My theory about the unsub. I think I know what she’s been doing. You can tell the team if you want, I’m not sure if they would wanna hear it from me. ”

He gave a small smile, pushing the file back over to me.

“You get the team together and I’ll get the local PD caught up. You tell them yourself.”

A few minutes later, everyone except for Reid had gathered in the meeting room. I peeked through the half closed blinds that allowed a line of vision to his desk in an attempt to locate him. He was positioned there, staring blankly at his laptop that appeared to have nothing on the screen. I knocked on the window lightly to catch his attention, his glazed over eyes looking in my direction. I tilted my head at him, silently beckoning him to join me. He only shook his in response, shaggy brown locks swaying back and forth. I sighed, frowning at his action. I turned to the group, clasping my hands in front of me.

“Everyone, this will just be a second if you’ll excuse me.”

With a raised eyebrow from Hotchner and a jab in the direction of Spencer’s workspace, I swiftly walked out of the crowded room.

“Spence, care to join us?” I asked, resting one of my hands against my hip, the other on his orderly desk.

“No, I don’t think I will. I need to try to figure this out before she finds her next victim.”

“What makes you think the unsub is a she?” I searched his eyes that had seemingly become brighter at my piqued interest in his hypothesis.

“Well, the unsub seems to be obsessed with symmetry, all the bodies being found in obscure yet symmetrical positions. This could suggest she had some sort of deep rooted insecurity, possibly from some sort of bullying from growing up in a small town where she was looked at as a superior for subpar looks. She moved to the big city, expecting a big break. Instead she was shunned for being less than average. She grew frustrated and as a result, she began her killing spree. The stresser could have been one too many insults that made her snap. Plus, that would account for the butterflies left on the scenes that are used in modern examples of both femininity and symmetry.”

I smiled widely at his words.

“What- why are you smiling, what are you smiling at?”

I tapped his desk, rolling my bottom lip between my teeth. I headed back towards the conference room, looking over my shoulder.

“Because, I’m glad we’re on the same page, Dr.”

——————

“So, our girl, as Dr. Reid has explained to us, is obsessed with her appearance. She’s an organized killer, no mistakes and no signs of blood or anything of the sort on scene. She has practice, she does this sort of thing every day. She is most likely in the age group of 23-30, and has a job in the cosmetic industry, our guess is in plastic surgery. She probably volunteers weekends at local butterfly sanctuaries or zoos, finding comfort in their perfection that those in her life, or formerly in her life, cannot and could not provide.”

“Which would explain to her easy access to non-native species of the insects. She has an absolute infatuation with symmetry, which yet again, links the butterflies on the crime scene to her MO.”

Spencer and I were vividly explaining our shared theory to the team, as well as local law enforcement. He was excited by his discovery and the lead on the killer, and his energy was contagious.

“She kills without remorse and out of jealousy, picking victims who all have one thing in common.”

Spence pointed to all of the images pasted on the board in the center of the room, all of them split in half and reflected, creating a perfect mirrored portrait.

“They all have perfectly symmetrical faces, as well as strong jawlines and high cheekbones. As most of these victims are models or those searching to start a modeling career, we believe she is luring them in with a photographer trope, promising to make their dreams come true.”

I nodded, taking a moment to study Reid’s own sharp yet somehow soft features. I allowed my eyes to wander over his sunken in, kind, and curious eyes; his pillowy pink lips that are in dire need of some chapstick.

“Agent?”

I turned my head, snapped back to reality by Rossi calling my name.

I gave a tight and quick smile, returning to the topic at hand and tactics to catch the unsub. But of course not before Emily gave me a crooked smile, resulting in me rolling my eyes.

“Physically, she’s nothing special, most likely a mundane appearance or one with quite obvious surgical changes. No in between. Check all of the plastic surgeon offices in the area for both employees who fit our description, as well as a patient who has gotten any serious facial mod operations. Do the same for any weekend volunteers at local zoos and animal sanctuaries, specifically working with any insects.”

It was an NYPD officer then that spoke up this time, raising her hand briefly.

“But, you still haven’t mentioned how she’s killing them?”

“Hypnosis.” Reid and I both spoke at the same time. He looked to his black Converse, sliding his hands into his pockets. I observed the room and all of the skeptical faces filling it.

“Even if it may sound far fetched, we saw no signs of anything that indicated a struggle or even any marks or wounds. This led us to believe that some form of hypnosis was used to allow her an easy kill. This means extra caution will have to be taken when actually handling the unsub. Even though we’re positive she’s using hypnosis, which method she is using to actually kill them after the fact is what we’re unsure of.”

I turned to Spencer, handing off the explanation to him.

“We think that because of her whole thing with symmetry, she wouldn’t want to disturb the natural state of the victims and their faces, even if she would do the same to her own.”

“Which means?” JJ asked, her blue eyes slanted and glossed lips left ajar.

“It means that the unsub wouldn’t want to leave any large marks like stab or gunshot wounds.” I nodded at Prentiss, who had made the assumption, confirming she was correct.

“With her presumed background in plastic surgery, we believe she was able to make small incisions that made no visible scars. We’re having the coroner look back over the bodies as we speak.”

“She drains the body’s blood 97% of the way before closing the holes up. What she does with the blood, we don’t know. Another Eddie Mays, perhaps.”

I looked over to Spencer, raising my brows at his comparison. He was quick to defend himself, shaking his hands left to right and mouthing “No” while simultaneously shaking his head the same way, something he seemed to be doing often as of late.

After we had finished consulting with any officers who had remaining questions, we branched off to conduct our own routine investigations. We found that the only thing they all had in common apart from the symmetrical faces, is that they all had visited the Central Park Zoo in the 24 hours before they were killed. We received a phone call from Garcia not long after we put together those pieces, being alerted that there was one girl who had, in her words, “Hit every mark there was to hit, sunshine.”

“Her name is Alessia Copelas, she works weekdays as a surgeon's assistant at Premier Cosmetic, and weekends at Central Park Zoo from 4-8 p.m.”

I smiled at the new info from the blonde bombshell known as Penelope, turning to Reid who was still looking at me quizzically.

“Alright, thanks babes, you’re the best.” I spoke into the phone, a comical “Mwah!” made from either side as we hung up.

He shook his head, keeping the odd look on his face.

“I swear, you guys have a weirder relationship than her and Morgan.”

I laughed, sliding my phone into my back pocket.

“Oh, please, Spence.” I gingerly placed a hand on his cheek, patting it twice.

“You’re just jealous.” I made a pouty face, letting my hand linger before walking off. “Come on, we’re going on a field trip.”

“Where to?” He asked, gripping the door frame, using it as leverage to swing himself closer to me. He took long and quick strides, catching up to me in no time.

“You like animals, right?”

———————

4 Days Earlier, Central Park Zoo, New York

As soon as we entered the zoo, our ears were filled with the sounds of the loud screeches of birds and monkeys alike. Reid covered his ears, cringing and making his displeasure known with an “Ahh!”

I smiled at his geeky behavior, admiring the animals in the enclosures. I paid special attention to a particularly impressive species of tarantula, leaning down to admire them. A few moments later I looked to my left and saw Spencer doing the same thing.

“Did you know that arachnids have asthma which is why they don’t run for extended periods of time, similarly to cheetahs?”

“Yes I did.”

His face scrunched up in an adorable manner, causing an involuntary giggle to fall past my lips.

“Well did you know that-“

“Ma’am?”

I turned to see a young woman with flaming red hair and a freckled face smiling at me, her green collared uniform top complimenting her eyes of a different shade wonderfully.

“Oh, hi, I’m Agent Y/l/n and this is Dr. Reid, we’re with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI.”

Her expression shifted to a more confused one, her smile not leaving her face.

“What can I do for you two?”

“Is there an Alessia Copelas that works here, maybe volunteers on the weekends?” Spencer asked, his puppy dog eyes immediately warranting a response.

“Yeah, she volunteers here, she seems nice. Is she helping with an investigation?”

“Well we think that she may have some part in a series of murders.”

Her smile disappeared this time, turning into a cement frown as panic flooded her body.

“Oh God, was she- Is she a killer? Have I been working with a killer for all this time? I mean, I never had any shifts with her but from what I heard I thought she was so sweet-“

“Look,”

Reid glanced down to her name tag that read “Lillian” before meeting her eyes. His tongue darted out, licking his lips, a nervous habit of his I’d picked up on.

“Lillian, we aren’t sure if she’s the killer we just needed to get a feel on her and get some information regarding her personal life.”

She started frantically nodding her head, more trying to convince herself she was okay rather than ourselves. I looked over her shoulder at some exhibits, thinking to myself how this would end up being a waste of our time if this poor girl couldn’t get a grip on herself.

I was soon proven wrong when I looked over to see a young girl wearing an identical uniform to Lillian, probably somewhere between 23 and 24. She had untamed chocolate locks with bangs that stopped just above the shoulder, blemishes covering her T-Zone, and a rounded face to go with it.

The cherry on top? Under her arm she carried a small enclosure with what appeared to be amarynthis meneria, the same butterflies found on the victims.

I tapped Reid on the shoulder once as discreetly as possible, catching his attention. I heard him mutter a small “Oh God” before he told Lillian to walk away calmly and quickly. She ignored his request, turning to look at Alessia, letting out a blood curdling scream and sprinting the other direction.

“Shit.” I cursed, beginning to walk towards Alessia, Spencer by my side. I smiled at her, trying to appear friendly. Reid spoke up as we got closer.

“Hello, do you by any chance-“

wham!

“Spence!” I exclaimed, reaching down to help him up from where he had fallen from being whacked by the 4’2 pyscho that was Alessia Copelas.

“Did she get away?”

I turned to see her gone, the only sign she was even here being the forming bruise on the Dr’s face.

“Yeah. She did. I’m sorry, Reid, that was really stupid of me.” He shook his head, running his own hand over the raw skin.

“It’s fine, I would have done the same for you.” He looked up, and I wasn’t sure if it was my school-girl esque crush on him or the fact I just had another experience with a serial killer, but my heart was racing nonetheless.

————————

F.B.I. Field Office, New York, New York, 1 Day Earlier

The stress levels in the room were high.

Despite our best efforts, several more bodies had been found, New York’s narcissists were in a state of panic, and the spirits of the BAU were down to say the least.

“What? Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed, looking at Hotch in disbelief.

He rolled his chocolate eyes, fanning the folder containing the new information we had gathered on Alessia.

“I wish I was, Y/n. She’s off the grid completely, her apartment is empty, phone and credit cards have been deactivated, and the surgeon’s office hasn’t heard from her for 5 days. And the media has decided to give her the name ‘Butterfly Baron’, so she’s probably been fueled even further. We need a new lead before she strikes again.”

I scoffed, standing up and pushing my chair away.

“This is unbelievable. How many times do we have to reinforce the idea to local PD! Especially when the unsub is a self absorbed psycho, do not give them a name! God, I really cannot fathom this.”

I reached up, letting my hair down from where I had messily thrown it up upon my arrival to work that morning.

I stormed out of the room, my heels clicking behind me. I ignored Hotch’s calling of my name, making my way to the closest restroom.

I went in, locking the door behind him. I ran my hands through my roots, tugging just enough to where it hurt.

Turning the water to the left all the way, I splashed it from the stream leaving the faucet on to my face. I scratched my fingernails against the skin, wiping away the tears that had escaped.

“This is all your fault, y/n.” I whispered at myself in the mirror, doing my absolute best to engrain the message in my brain. I had my head hung in shame when a knock rang out.

“Y/n?”

It was Spencer. My mind started going a million miles a minute, thinking about why he could be there. With my voice raised a few octaves, I tried to scrape up a response.

“I’ll be out in a few, Spence.”

It was quiet for a split second, leaving me to foolishly dance around the idea that he had left me to wallow in my sorrowful thoughts.

“Y/n, Hotch wanted me to check on you. Are you ok?”

My heart slightly sank at the idea that he might’ve just come to check on me because he himself was worried. I discarded the thought, bringing myself back.

“Y/n can you please answer me? If you don’t open the door I’m gonna send in JJ or Emily.”

I sighed, wiping under my eyes where my mascara had smudged, begrudgingly walking over to the door. Just as my hand landed on the silver handle, his voice that was constantly playing in my head echoed out once more.

“Y/n, please? I need to know you’re okay. I’ll come in there myself.”

A soft smirk graced my face as I turned the handle to reveal a worried looking Spencer.

“Y/n, oh God, you had me worried.”

He was quiet when he spoke and his hair looked messy, like he had been running his slender fingers through it in a stress filled state.

I sniffled, attempting to still keep back tears that were still threatening to spill.

“I’m alright, Spencer. Really, I’m fine.”

He gave me a small smile, his eyes meeting my own.

“I know, it’s just that when I had my Diludad problem,” he hesitated.

“I would lock myself in bathrooms to shoot up, and I know you aren’t having a problem like that but I just was worried about you- what are you doing?”

I cut off his rambling by throwing my arms around his middle. He tensed, but quickly melted. He wrapped his strong arms around my shoulders and my waist, laying his head on mine.

“Y/n, I promise you, you’re doing your absolute best to stop Alessia. We wouldn’t even be where we are right now if you hadn’t made the connections. Those deaths are not your fault.”

My tears finally began to cascade like a waterfall, staining his shirt.

“I know, but it’s just like it is all my fault! I could have paid closer attention, or-or, I could have went after her at the zoo, it’s all my fucking fault, Reid.”

I sobbed into his shirt, my hand gripping his shirt like my life depended on it. Like if I let go I would fall into a deep, deep, endless hole.

His hand on my waist moved up to cradle my head.

“It’s not, I promise you-“

He was cut off mid sentence by the ringing of his phone.

“I am so, so sorry-”

I pulled away, breifly touching under my nose with my wrist, then moving a hair behind my ear.

“Nope, it’s fine, don’t worry.” Our words almost had overlapped each other as we clambered to fight the tension that had risen. I closed my eyes, tilting my head up, thinking about how unprofessional yet intimate our previous position had been. How wrong, yet how right it felt.

I kept running the moment through my head, the feeling of his warm figure encasing mine on replay.

His phone call played as background noise to the film playing in my brain, his voice calming me to an extent.

“Yeah, we’re on our way. Thanks, Morgan.”

He closed the phone with a snap, also snapping me out of my trance, putting the movie on pause.

“They’ve got a hit. Copelas was seen dropping by her old apartment.”

And for the first time since that Goddamn case had started, I smiled genuinely.

“Let’s go get her.”

————————

15 Minutes Prior, Central Park, New York

“Hotch?”

“Yes?” He looked back from where he was driving, following our lead in a rushed manner.

“What will we do if she...” I trailed off.

“Hypnotizes one of us?” He finished for me. I nodded solemnly.

The look on his face was conflicted and it took him a moment to come up with a response.

“We kill her before we have to kill one of our team members.”

He saw a look of uncertainty on my face and spoke up once more.

“And that’s an order.”

I nodded again, making eye contact with him through the rear view mirror. I fell back into my seat, closing my eyes briefly.

After a few more minutes on the road, we had arrived.

The doors all slammed to the SUVs, one after the other as we stepped out.

“The letter said that she would be here, somewhere here.”

The voice of Morgan was channeling through my earpiece, referring to the letter found at her apartment that she had left just for us.

“We ordered evac on citizens, correct?”

The unsure voice of JJ was also heard through the earpiece, her uncertainty quite unusual to hear.

“Yes, it was the first thing we did, Jayj.”

I whispered, a sly smirk from Spencer forming at my behavior.

“Oh shut up.”

“I didn’t even say anything!”

snap!

Our senses adapted, becoming dialed to 11 at the sound of a twig snapping under someone's feet.

“Was that you?” I mouthed to Spencer. He shook his head no and I silently cursed to whatever force was listening.

I nodded, which he then reciprocated, the pair of us slowly walking towards the source of the sound after he did.

“They’re going to remember me, I’ll go down in history.”

The voice was sing-songy and quiet, floating through the air. I took a shaky breath, continuing my steady pace.

My breathing momentarily halted soon after.

Different variations of “Oh my God”s, and loud gasps from almost everyone on the team flooded my ear canal at the horrifying sight in front of us.

Red. So much of it.

“Guys, I think we know what she’s been doing with the bodies’ blood.”

“No shit.” I muttered under my breath.

She was bathed in the blood, it looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Alright everyone, I want you to approach her as quietly as possible, Morgan, if you get the chance, corner her.”

Hotch’s voice was a stark contrast to her own, Derek’s response all the same.

—————————

Present Day, Central Park, New York

“But Agents, you still haven’t answered my question. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Alessia Copeleas, FBI, come on, get up, lets go.”

Derek’s voice was stern, not asking, but demanding that Alessia come with us.

“I’m afraid I just can’t do that, Agents.”

She stood up abruptly, causing all of our weapons to rise. The sun reflected off of the silver metal of Reid’s gun, sparkling in a stunning way that caught me off guard.

We all were trying to act as if we were in total control of the situation, but we could tell that us nor Copelas really believed that. Her words were her weapon, and this was the one time where words could hurt, but sticks and stones had virtually no power.

“Take another step and we will have no hesitation to fire.”

She smirked, rolling her eyes.

“If you do, will I be famous you think? You think they’ll hear about me back home?”

Her curls softly blew in the wind, making her appear almost harmless, maybe even endearing, if it wasn’t for the hardening coat of human blood soaking her clothes and seeping from her skin.

“Is that what you want? The kids back home and everyone here to hear about you? You want ‘Butterfly Baron’ written on every billboard in Times Square, your picture painted in museums, films to be made in your honor?” Reid was the one who spoke up this time, his voice remaining strong. Her eyes shone with a sickening excitement at what he said.

“You want to be famous?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Too bad.”

My eyes widened, surprised at the detour the conversation had taken.

“What-what do you mean?”

“Please, the only thing people will hear about is a sad, boring little girl from a small town who killed to feel better about herself. They’ll forget about you in a week, who knows, maybe they’ll even grow an infatuation with your town, someone you went to school with may get as lucky as to catch their big break!” He laughed, while Alessia looked absolutely devastated.

“You? You’ll be a nobody.”

“That’s not true! I’ll go down in history, and they won’t! I’m the fucking butterfly baron for hells sake! All these people?” She gestured towards her field of bodies.

“You won’t remember their names, maybe not even their pretty faces, but me? I’ll live forever.”

Her nostrils flared and she strode over to Reid with purpose. The safety on my glock clicked off, but Spencer motioned for me to wait. So I did.

“You know, Agent-“

“It’s Doctor.”

This visibly agitated her even more as she started her sentence over again.

“Doctor, you have a beautiful bone structure. Absolutely perfect. Symmetrical, not to mention just flat out stunning.”

A glaze formed over Spencer’s honey eyes at her words. He lowered his gun momentarily before turning towards me, Copelas doing the same.

“And you, Agent. Wow. I feel like I’m in an art exhibit, you’re gorgeous. I think the Doctor man here would agree.”

As he lifted his revolver at me, the situation became all too real as I understood what was happening.

I either had to shoot the man that I was struggling to admit I was beginning to love, or died at the hands of the very same man.

Tears flooded my eyes, all safeties were turned down, and all guns were pointed at Reid.

“Spence, please.”

My voice was weak, something that seemed to bring Alessia lots of joy.

She laughed before talking again, commanding Spencer.

“Pathetic, really! Spence”, she mocked,“shoot her.”

“No!”

bang!

whack!

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

Present Day, Somewhere In The Sky, The Jet

I opened my eyes from where I had been tackled to the ground by Hotch, surveying my surroundings to see Alessia laying on the grass, the source of her gunshot wound non-distinguishable from the previous blood on her body.

I looked to the right to see where Spencer had crumpled to, his frame bent in a discombobulated position.

“Spencer!” I cried out, crawling over to him like some sort of dog,

“What happened to him?”

“Y/n, he was going to shoot you-“

“I don’t care you should have let him!”

I cradled his head in my lap, allowing my pent up tears to fall.

“Y/n?”

My eyes snapped open for real this time, my mind calmed at the sight of Spencer sitting next to me on the couch, gently shaking my shoulder in an attempt to wake me from my nightmare.

“Spencer! Sorry, was I too loud?”

He chuckled, gesturing to the rest of the sleeping plane around us.

“You’re fine, I wasn’t sleeping, I decided to reread ‘Fahrenheit 451’ for nostalgia purposes. And you weren’t that loud, you just looked like you were having a bad dream.”

I chuckled at the not-so outlandish idea in an attempt to diminish it from his mind and move on.

“I’m fine. But fun fact, I did have nightmares after reading ‘The Veldt’. Seriously, I don’t get how you can just reread Bradbury’s stuff all the time.”

The genius scoffed, starting a rant on how Ray Bradbury’s storytelling was just classic literature and deserved to be reread, thus successfully changing the topic as I hoped my statement would. Although soon after, he caught on much quicker than I would have liked him to.

“And not to mention, The Veldt alone could be seen as a forewarning to the 21st century and beyond, even Bradbury himself supported that interpretation-‘

I gave him a tired smile, enjoying his rambling like I always did.

“-and you totally just got me to change the subject.”

“I was wondering when you were gonna catch up.”

“Hey!”

He laughed as I rested my head on my hand, trying to fall back asleep.

“Really, I can tell those nightmares are bad. What’s going on?” He questioned, his tone empathetic and compassionate.

“It’s nothing, Reid. I just keep seeing in the park, when Alessia got shot and you-you got hurt but instead of getting up like you did in real life, you just…”

I trailed off, not wanting to relive the negative dream any longer for fear of the tears that were pricking my eyes escaping.

“It’s okay, that didn’t happen, I’m right here.”

He pulled me into a hug, allowing me to bury my head in the crook of his neck, his warmth consuming me once more, a sequel to the film from earlier.

“I know, but what if it hadn’t?” I asked as I pulled away.

He shook his head, reaching for his wallet.

“In this job, this course of work, we can’t focus on ‘what if’s’. In this job, we also get nightmares, all of us. It happens.”

He slid a picture over to me, it was of a happy family. The edges were worn from years of being carried, but the picture seemed loved.

“Gideon gave me that when my nightmares started. He told me about how those families we save everyday, and how that’s what makes what we do worth it. And I know you didn’t know Gideon personally, or the work on the specific case with that family, but I want you to have it anyway-“

I cut him off by throwing my arms around his neck, attempting to speak despite being muffled by his fluffy sweater.

“Thank you, Spence. Truly.”

I smiled, and I imagined he was doing the same.

“No problem y/n. Anytime.”

I moved my legs over to be tucked underneath my arms, leaning into Reid. He wrapped his arm around me, also leaning in. We both managed to fall asleep for the remainder of the ride in our state of content, but not before he managed to sleepily call out my name.

“Y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“When we land do you wanna go on a date or somethin’?”

I smiled at him, separating from his form just long enough to see that beautiful face of his.

“Without a doubt.”

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

AHAHAHHAHAHAHA I’M WAY TOO HAPPY WITH THAT LMAOOO but anyway chile-

i don’t have some long ass paragraph to write this time omg wig, i’m just proud asf of my work for once (except for the zoo part ngl kinda didn’t like it😳)

😛✨vibes✨ love u, xx hj

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thegirlintheredchair · 4 years ago

Text

BOOK REVIEW: LOVE LETTERS TO THE DEAD BY AVA DELLAIRA

Hello everyone! Yes I have resurfaced from the depths of my busy life to bring to you a pending book review of a book I read in August 2020. Don’t at me cause A) I did get really really busy B) even when I had time I was just too lazy to take pictures C) I love odd numbers and needed three points so…

Lets just get on with the review before I start rambling.

P.S : Lowkey obsessed with this pen This will be in all my future posts now. Heads up!

Look at this book! Gorgeous cover, love the beautiful purple Sky.

Magnetic name: “Love Letters to the Dead.” You can already imagine some morbid fantasy! *sigh*

It just looks like a book that would leave you a sobbing mess. A book you cried a storm over because the story was just raw pure grief and you were so attached to the characters and what they went through!

It is NONE of those things!!!

The premise looked so promising: it basically starts as an assignment where you write a letter to your favorite person (dead or alive), and Laurel turns this into a year-long project. Writing in stunted sentences and then busting out philosophical metaphors about life. Her nonexistent grief for her sister and how she pines over a guy called Sky and shoplifts wine with her friends.

This is how the entire book is written:

Dear Famous Person,

You are amazingly cool because *insert a bunch of random facts about the said person that are easily google-able*. You left the earth too early but even though your dead, I think you’re life is far more interesting. You spend a part of it living out your dream on unicorn wings or angel dust or something.

I spent the day in high school with my “too cool for school friends” and then I went home to my very sad dad who watches baseball re-runs cause he lives his dream through them.

I saw into Skys soul cause “There is something fragile like moths inside of him, something fluttering. Something trying desperately to crowd toward a light. May was a real moon who everyone flocked to. But even if I am only Sky’s street lamp, I don’t mind.” SKY! More Sky. A BUNCH of EXTRA SKY. God, SKY is the universe.

Yours,

Laurel.

P.S oh and my sister died or possibly committed suicide. But we’re not going to talk about that. In fact, I’m going to tell you zilch about my sister or what happened on the night off.

I’m going to keep mum about everything inclusive of the events that led up to it. Because SKY and the moths inside him are far more important than my sister or what I went through.

??????

*whispers* the entire book follows this pattern *eye twitch*

You get it, right? Do you get that this book is pointless? Like it is trying to deal with a lot of heavy topics like suicide, loss, grief, molestation, etc #TriggerWarnings but in the dullest way possible. The letters have no substance. 75% of the letters are about Sky. 15% about her female friends who skirt around their feelings. Another 5% each about her family (sad dad, run away-mom and church-going Aunt Amy) and her cool older friends. Is that 100% complete? Did I mention her sister? Whoops, I forgot? Just like the author!! There is literally a 0.2% mention of her sister.

I’ve tried to sum it up in bullet points:

Annoying Protagonist: Laurel is about as interesting as a brick. She reminded me a lot of Bella in the sense that “every guy in school liked her” and thought she was “pretty” and she was too unaware of it! Also, Laurel made decisions or lived her high school life based on peer pressure. She did nothing unless she was dragged along for the ride, much like Bella Swan. Laurel was also a little like Laura jean because she was naïve and innocent. But Laura still had character whereas Laurels personality is nowhere to be seen. She does stupid stuff with her friends (like shoplifting wine or asking random strangers to buy it), cause she just wants to be loved really badly. But like no one pays attention to her cause she is not her sister !?!?!!? If this book aimed to relay an annoying teen with zero personality, then job well done!!!

The Romance: even though 75% of her letters are about Sky and how he is so cool, he hung the moon cause he’s the “Sky” (I am not sorry for that extremely bad pun), there are zero sparks between the two! He is a cool loner that can’t be bothered with girls, but Laurel is the one for him. Ugh! Teenagers, I guess.

Trauma: there is no grief over her sister’s death. Like I literally felt nothing. The epilogue of the book was the only piece of writing that stirred something in me. Like laurel is so passive about her grief to the point that she just never talks about it! Like why would I want to read a book about that? Also, some horrible things happen to Laurel on Mays watch, and that’s why she offs herself or whatever, but TBH I could not sympathize with her. Hell, even the secondary characters were dull.

Final Verdict: This book was pointless, pretentious, and manipulative to the point that it was trying too hard to get an emotion out of the reader. The inconsistent writing from 10-year-old fangirl to 20 something philosophy about life did it for me. Also annoying protagonist, I just can’t with a book then. That remains one of my biggest book peeves…

Recommend to no one ever! Good day! Hope you enjoyed this rant!

#bookreview #booklr #love letters to the dead #ava dellaira #2stars #pagesofsilver #pagesofsilverreviews #poetry #books of tumblr

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phantasmagoriaoriginals · 4 years ago

Note

1,2 and 4 for Ivory, Lilith, Heaven and Luna please!

I... read the 4 as a 3.... and didn’t notice until I’d written it all.... >.> Oops... Too late now, I guess, so please resend this with the 4 if you’d like!

. . .

Ivory

1. A trait they have too much of

Ivory definitely has too much anxiety. She’s a very nervous person who struggles to contain her fears around others. Her anxiety most stands out in social situations. Even though she’s capable of being very chatty and friendly, she tends to stifle herself when around people she doesn’t know just because she’s too anxious to try. Ivory wants friends and connections, but she doesn’t know how to get them. She’s extremely sweet when people break through her shell, but most will only see the parts of her that are hidden by the fearful shroud she keeps up to protect herself. It’s hard for her to open up and allow herself to get close to others.

2. A trait they don’t have enough of

Tact. Ivory definitely doesn’t have enough tact. When it comes to interacting with others, she can be far too blunt and insensitive. Despite her massive intelligence, Ivory struggles with knowing what to say and when. Social situations are definitely her weak point, and it shows. She frequently winds up saying things with the worst timing, striking nerves that she shouldn’t, or making people angry with unintentional mistakes. This is part of the reason why Ivory is so nervous about social interaction; she never knows when she’s going to slip up and say something that’s wrong. She doesn’t really work on this trait either, instead telling herself that it’s just the way she is and that she’ll never be able to make it better.

3. A trait they express in the wrong way

When it comes to things coming out the wrong way, her care for others is one of the biggest issues. When she likes someone, Ivory cares a lot, but she still has a hard time behaving properly and maintaining solid relationships. She always winds up being too hyperactive, saying something that she shouldn’t, or pushing too far when she wants to interact with someone. She can be too excitable and hyperactive, get too worked up over little things, and forget that other people don’t have as wide of comfort zones as she does. Even though she wants friends dearly, she has a hard time behaving in ways that make people want to stick around. She’s much too socially ignorant for her own good.

Lilith

1. A trait they have too much of

Lilith has far too much negativity and resentment. She’s the kind of massively-pessimistic person who hates the world around her a lot more than she should. She can be very very vengeful, something which has led to violent or harmful actions in the past. Overall, she sees the world in a very twisted, negative light-- rarely finding good in anything. Aside from her flowers and the moon, Lilith has trouble seeing worth or good traits in anything around her. People frustrate her and make her angry. She hates most of those who she has to interact with, and her bitterness only continues to grow as she lives in a world where she’s mistreated by others and learns to hate the world around her even more.

2. A trait they don’t have enough of

Lilith doesn’t have enough spine to stand up for herself. As in, because she doesn’t care much for her own wellbeing, she’ll allow others to abuse her. At the same time that she’s terrified of being someone’s pawn forever, she can’t work up the courage or willpower to fight back when people try to use her. She’ll heal. Her feelings don’t matter. People are bound to hurt her no matter what she does. It’s thoughts like those that drag Lilith down and tear apart her view of the world even further. She’s been abused by so many that she struggles to see there being any point in fighting back. Her childhood bullies did enough damage to her and her self-confidence that she’s given up on ever being able to stand up to anyone in a way that matters. She’s a pathetic person who’s no good at anything but tending to her plants, and it makes sense that those around her only want to use her for their own benefit.

3. A trait they express in the wrong way

Her self-control is both a blessing and a curse. Aside from when strong emotions get the better of her, Lilith is the kind of person who has perfect control over her actions. She rarely says or does anything without thinking it over first, and while this is good for keeping her out of trouble, it also means that she has a major tendency to overthink things. It’s hard for her not to consider possible conclusions to her actions until she’s panicking over what a single sentence could do to her in the long run. It’s good for her to think things through, of course, but Lilith really does take it too far. Overthinking just gives her anxiety, and being too reserved doesn’t do her friend situation any good. She’s polite and respectful, yes, but it means that on the inside... her head is always full of how things could go wrong.

Heaven

1. A trait they have too much of

Heaven has too much intelligence for her own good. Because of how smart she is, she’s isolated from the people around her just because they don’t operate on her wavelength. It’s her brilliant mind that contributes in part to her strangeness... although plenty of it is just nature as well. Heaven tends to see the world around her in a very unusual light; one where things don’t make the same kind of sense that they do to others. She’s remarkably bright, but that also means that she’s thinking in completely different ways than those around her, and that those different thoughts can make her oblivious to things that are obvious to “normal” people. Her mind is always in a very different place than other people’s which is a lot of what makes her seem so spacey, unapproachable, and strange. Her morbid nature also partly comes from the fact that she knows so much about the hard facts and reality of the world, which twists her way of seeing things.

2. A trait they don’t have enough of

A trait that Heaven distinctly lacks is a basic concept of social skills and personal space. She rarely gets close to people, but when she does, it comes with a clinginess and level of attachment that can be suffocating and disturbing. Heaven can and will get so far into other people’s personal bubbles that they’ll be filled with the urge to shove her away. Her social skills when it comes to what she says are just as bad. Morbid and inappropriate things constantly fall from her mouth, and she doesn’t seem to care too much whether or not she upsets others. Heaven is always in a world of her own-- one where saying disturbing things that make people uncomfortable is perfectly normal and acceptable, and one where getting far too close to the people she likes is a valid way of showing affection. She completely lacks a concept of behaving normally.

3. A trait they express in the wrong way

Heaven’s ability to analyze both people and the things around her tends to come out wrong. She’s extremely perceptive and analytical, and despite her utter lack of social skills, she tends to be way too good at judging people’s intentions and feelings. In a way, this trait makes her jaded. She’s so good at seeing people’s motives that she’s come to see human emotion in an almost robotic way. People often operate in the same ways, and with Heaven’s tendency to pick up on patterns, it’s caused a rift where she can see other people as merely following the patterns that she’s observed. She’s much too logical when it comes to interacting with others, and also has a sort of distance that means she struggles to interact with other people as if they’re beings that can think and operate on their own. Between her own strange mind and what she’s seen of humanity, there’s a disconnect between people being people, and humans just being made from the same mold.

Luna

1. A trait they have too much of

Luna definitely has too much jealousy. Her envy for others is one of the major things that defines her personality, and that’s not a good thing. She’s capable of being extremely shallow and petty, and she tends to lash out at others over stupid things just because she gets envious of them having more “special” lives than she does. When others have had easy or interesting lives, Luna gets jealous quickly. She hates seeing people who are better off than she is, which leads to another less-than-ideal trait of hers; her mean streak. Luna can be quite the bully when she’s irritated enough, and although she rarely dares to show it outright, she’s prone to doing things to hurt people purely out of spite and dislike for her own situation. She gets frustrated easily and takes it out on those around her.

2. A trait they don’t have enough of

When it comes to things that are lacking, the thing that stands out with Luna is her ability to be genuine. She always puts on the perfect, “girl next door” face when around others, concealing her real feelings in place of being the cheerful, friendly girl that everyone loves. Luna wants people to like her, so she behaves in ways that will get that-- regardless of it’s true to her actual personality or not. She wants to be loved and “special”, so she makes herself act like the heroines in her storybooks who always have people by their side. She has trouble ever showing her real self to people, keeps her actual feelings deeply buried and hidden from those around her, and always has a deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction because she can’t open up. For all she wants to be loved, Luna can’t bring herself to be genuine enough to be liked for who she truly is.

3. A trait they express in the wrong way

Something that Luna tends to struggle with expressing is her protectiveness with others. It rarely comes out, but she can actually be very kind and caring when a situation calls for it. It’s always a reluctant kind of thing where Luna resents doing it at first, but when she starts looking after those who are younger and weaker than her, she gets invested pretty quickly. Despite her tendency to lash out at and be jealous of those she thinks are better than her, Luna can do a lot of flickering between kindness and generally being a jerk. However, she struggles to hold a steady personality with a single person. Even when she opens up and cares about and for someone, she has a hard time maintaining her kindness when she gets frustrated. Equally, she can have trouble maintaining a grudge when someone she hates is truly suffering. Her inconsistency is something that always comes out wrong.

#Angelica's Eden #The Ball of Cats #Ivory Solemnis #Lilith Elsinger #Heaven Aveline #Luna Delamere

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wafflesandkruge · 5 years ago

Text

Soon You’ll Get Better (Because You Have To)

The promised RWRB fic. It’s an angsty one, please don’t come for me.

Big thanks to @looking-for-wisdom, @sulisaints, and @zemenipearls for beta-ing!

WC: ~4k Ao3 (tba)

Summary: Two nights after the shooting, Henry receives an email with a pre-recorded video from Alex. He gets one every night, and although it breaks his heart to see Alex happy and alive, he's terrified of when they'll stop coming.

For Henry, there was a before and an after. He supposed there was a little interlude between them, a few anxiety and terror filled hours on a plane shooting across the Atlantic, but he couldn’t recall it. There was a before, with Alex happy and smiling and well. And there was an after, with Alex pale and still and lying on a hospital bed. Henry wasn’t sure if he’d survive the after. Don’t go where I cannot follow, Alex.

––––––––––

Henry received the first email the second night after. It was nearly two in the morning, but he was wide awake from jet lag and trying to get some work done on his laptop. From the second bed, June and Nora’s soft breathing blended with the rhythmic beeping from hospital machinery. They’d insisted on staying despite President Claremont’s wishes, but Henry was glad for the company.

His breath hitched as he saw the familiar sender ID above a blank subject line.

<[email protected]>

He glanced at Alex who hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d arrived from London yesterday. His usually glowing complexion was drawn and dull, but Henry still wouldn’t put it past him to somehow send an email from his sickbed.

He opened it. Curiously, there was a video embedded in it, the thumbnail showing Alex sitting on his bed. He hastily pressed play and the heart-achingly familiar voice chased the ghosts from the room.

“Hey baby.” Video-Alex grinned and Henry felt like he’d been stabbed. What if he never saw Alex smile again? Or hear him call him baby? Unaware of Henry’s plight, video-Alex continued talking. “If you’re getting this, something bad happened to me. Or more likely I got drunk for two nights straight and forgot to reset the timer. If no news of an incident involving me has reached your ears, please disregard the rest of this video.”

Henry could tell Alex was nervous. His fingers were drumming against his knee in staccato patterns and he had his anxious smile on. “So… we had a security scare at the White House last week and it got me thinking- plenty of presidents have been assassinated before.” His hand darted out and knocked on a wooden bedpost. “I’m not sure if anyone would want to get rid of the most charismatic First Son this country has had in ages, but...it’s a possibility right? I think it’s stupid I haven’t considered it before.”

Suddenly, Video-Alex was swearing colorfully as the camera shook violently from the pillow someone had thrown from outside the frame. There was unintelligible female yelling. June perhaps? Video-Alex grimaced and straightened the camera. “That was June telling me how morbid I’m being. And to that I say FUCK OFF JUNO!”

Another pillow clocked Video-Alex right in the face. He swore again and picked up the camera. The screen went black. Heart hammering, Henry wiggled the mouse and was relieved to see there was still a minute left in the video. A few seconds later, Video-Alex’s face appeared again, this time a closeup seemingly shot on his phone. His back was to a blue tiled wall and Henry could imagine him all too well, curled up in the corner filming himself. “I’ve relocated to the bathroom so June can’t abuse me further,” he stage whispered. “Here’s the second part of what I want to say.”

He cleared his throat meaningfully and looked straight into the camera. At Henry. “There are so many things I want to tell you everyday that I don’t because I forget, or I don’t want to bother you, or because it’s classified and Zahra would murder me if she found out. And I don’t want those things to die with me because you deserve to know how much I love you. So I’m going to make these videos and hopefully never have to send them. Because everyone deserves a little more time with this adorable face.”

Christ, his smirk.

“Right now it’s...March 21st, 2021. Let’s see how long I can keep this up. I love you.” With a final wink, the video ends. Henry sat silently, stunned. It was just like Alex, to have so much, yet so little planned for the future. He exited out of the video and was about to close his laptop, but then he saw another block of text below the attachment.

Mark Twain to Olivia Langdon

“Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confined to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.”

It has come to my attention that you are woefully uncultured in the realm of American music. Thus, I will be including one song rec per email so you can build a playlist courtesy of one Alexander Claremont-Diaz. On a side note, does the royal family have a Spotify Premium family plan? If so, can you add me?

Song of the email: Royals by Lorde (yet another rebellious subject of the British Empire!)

Sighing, he set his laptop aside and took Alex’s hand. “Why do you always have to be such a hero?” Henry muttered as he squeezed it. He was sure he imagined it, but Alex squeezed back.

––––––––––

“Hey kid.”

Henry wasn’t sure what time it was, but the deep baritone of Oscar Diaz roused him from his uneasy slumber. He stayed still, not wanting to interrupt what sounded like a personal situation. Or maybe he should leave? At this point, it seemed awkward, so kept his eyes shut and continued breathing deeply.

The other bed creaked as Oscar took a seat. “It’s the third day since. You gonna wake up anytime soon?”

If Alex heard his father, there was no sign. Oscar let out a deep sigh. “We’re worried sick for you, mijo. You did good saving June like that, but you need to wake up, you hear? I’ll be back after I murder that slimy Nevadan bastard of a senator. Your mother’s swinging by later tonight after her speech.”

He whispered something in Spanish that Henry couldn’t pick up- a prayer perhaps? Then the hospital door was opened and shut again. Henry released a breath he’d been holding and finally opened his eyes. June and Nora were gone, in their place, a note left on the pillow of their bed. He got up and stretched, wincing as several joints popped loudly. He’d have thought that the First Family of the United States would pick a hospital room with comfortable chairs, but alas. He walked around Alex’s bed and picked up the note.

Out picking up pastries. Back soon.

- Juno Nune

He smiled at their combined names. The White House Trio always were overly concerned with their so called “ship names.”

He’d just put down the note when the door swung open again and he whirled around, startled. But it was only a nurse, with Amy trailing close behind to keep an eye on him. He paused when he saw Henry. “Pardon my interruption, Your Highness. Just need to change out the IV bag.”

Henry nodded distractedly and tried not to hover as the man did his job. What if he was secretly some kind of Soviet spy sent to finish Alex off, or- Amy seemed to notice his nervous energy and gave a firm shake of her head. Henry clenched his hands into fists. “Sir-”

The nurse looked up from the clipboard he’d been scribbling on. “Yes?”

Amy was making dramatic throat slitting motions with her thumb which Henry assumed was the charming American gesture for “shut up or I’ll kill you.” He forged ahead anyways.

“How is...Is he…” He couldn’t find a way to phrase his question that would make the queasiness in his stomach go away. “How is Alex doing?”

“I uh…” the nurse trailed off. He looked at Amy behind him for permission and it was expressly denied. “Sorry, Your Highness.”

“It’s fine,” Henry muttered as he sank into the extra bed. The nurse had a surprisingly good poker face as he went over Alex’s vitals. His mouth twitched downwards and Henry tried to guess what was wrong. Blood poisoning? Internal bleeding? Permanent paralysis? He didn’t voice his findings and soon left again. Amy lingered near the door.

“Sorry kiddo,” she muttered. “Madame President asked for a media blackout, you included. I’ll petition for you, but no guarantees.”

“Thanks.” As soon as Amy left, he fired up his laptop and opened up google. His fingers paused over the keys before he hesitantly typed out his search.

ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ SHOOTING

The first result was from the New York Times, but it was nothing he hadn’t learned from the news report that had sent him flying over in the first place. Alex and June Claremont-Diaz were at a Planned Parenthood rally in California. Only one of the siblings made it out unscathed.

Henry suddenly felt exhausted despite his several hours of sleep. He chalked it up to more jet lag and curled up for a quick nap. His last thought before drifting off was whether he’d have a new email waiting for him when he woke up.

––––––––––

In the end, the girls had bullied Henry into taking a break at his hotel room to freshen up and get some rest. He brought his phone into the bathroom with him, checking it as soon as he got out of what was probably the quickest shower of his life. No email. He checked again after he threw on the first clothes he could find. No email. He forced down a cold dinner someone had left for him. Still no email.

He stood in the kitchen in his pajamas and the hotel’s complimentary slippers, drumming his fingers on the countertop and trying not to watch the minutes tick by on the wall clock. It was nearing two in the morning. The practical part of him told him he should go to bed and see if there was an email after he woke up, and as usual, it was right. He went through the motions mechanically and his head had just touched the pillow when his phone emitted a bright ping!

With no dignity befitting a royal whatsoever, he leapt out of bed and practically pounced on his phone. The blue mail notification blinked happily at him. He yanked the phone from its charging cord and flopped onto the bed. Moments later, video-Alex was greeting him.

“Hey baby.” Alex’s easy grin placated some sore spot deep in Henry’s heart. He pulled the covers over his head until it was just him and Alex, the outside world muffled and cut off.

“I hope you didn’t stay up too late for this one. We had some Canadian delegates over for dinner and it got a bit busy. Anyways, before we get to the good stuff, there’s some more stuff I forgot to include in the last video. Here they are.” Video-Alex cleared his throat and shuffled through a small stack of index cards.

“First. My one regret is that I won’t get to see you in all black for my funeral.” He sighed wistfully and Henry snorted. “Yum.”

“Second. I had Zahra and a team of lawyers go over my will and I left you my Jeep. My dad will give you the keys. Don’t fuck it up or I’ll haunt you.” Oh Alex, you’re always haunting me.

“Third and last. I expect you to be publicly mourning for at least a year a la Queen Victoria for Prince Albert before the tabloids start reporting on your scandalously younger and hot boyfriend.” He threw the cards over his shoulder. “Now, onto the main event.”

Henry couldn’t quite believe the flippancy Alex had about his own possible death. The nervousness he’d exhibited in last night’s video had seemingly evaporated. He watched as Video-Alex hoisted an acoustic guitar into his lap. He had no idea Alex could play, but from the way he quickly tuned it and played a few experimental chords, it was obvious. “I stole this guitar from Nora’s apartment, don’t tell her. I think one of the Jonas Brothers gave it to her as a birthday gift. Anyways I was listening to Taylor Swift- ironically, don’t give me that look I know you’re giving me- and I heard this song. I’ve been listening to it so much June has threatened to evict me even though I am clearly the backbone of this household. So here goes.”

“I love my hometown…”

Alex’s voice was unfairly angelic as it swept over him. It was ridiculous how well this song fit them and how true it was. He did love Alex’s American smile. And he did rather fancy him.

“But god I love the English~” Alex drew out with an obscene wiggle of his eyebrows. Henry’s lips trembled involuntarily. It hurt to see Alex like that, so carelessly happy when it was possible that he would never wake up again. He tried to stifle a sob with his hand and failed miserably.

When the video ended, he rewound it to the beginning of the song. He did this over and over until Alex’s smooth voice lulled him to sleep.

Just wanna be with you.

Wanna be with you.

––––––––––

The emails kept coming. By this point, Henry had nearly been living in the hospital for the past two weeks. The only things that kept him going were the beeps that indicated a new email and the lukewarm coffee June brought him. It became his routine to rewatch each video before he went to bed, so every night he had a little more of Alex. He wasn’t sure what hurt more- seeing Alex alive and happy or seeing him lying still in bed.

He knew every video by heart. There was the London Boy, Come What May from Moulin Rouge, three quiet “I love you”s with nothing but black on the screen, the Senate run announcement speech he hadn’t told anyone about yet rehearsed in bed with his head framed by his blankets.

Henry even had all of the songs Alex had recommended added to a new Spotify playlist titled “The FirstPrince Mixtape” (as per Alex’s suggestion). It was silly and followed no coherent theme. Who would put something called “Old Town Road” in the same playlist as the classic “Someday My Prince Will Come”? But it was endearingly Alex, and when he wasn’t watching the videos, he was listening to the playlist.

Henry rose from the chair from where he had been beginning to drift off again and stretched his arms over his head. From the orange light filtering through the window shades, it had to be near sunset again. Another day gone.

He picked listlessly at the meal someone had left for him, the tastes not registering. It could have been flour and water for all he cared. As he ate, he watched Alex and tried to imagine what every little thing could mean. A sudden intake of breath- was he waking up? An odd beep of the machine- his heart skipped a beat?

He played that game until he was mentally exhausted. He refused to let his mind stray to the worst possibilities that all the news outlets couldn’t stop talking about. Alex would come back to him. He had to.

The air was starting to get stuffy, so Henry crossed the room and cracked open a window. The sounds of the outside world seemed unfamiliar and strange to him after being shut in for so long. He ran a hand along his jaw and wasn’t surprised to find that he needed a shave. He could almost feel Alex’s arms envelop him from behind and plant a kiss to his jaw. Keep it. It looks sexy.

He turned slowly, but as expected, all he saw was empty air. He fell back against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. Hallucinations were supposed to be bad, weren’t they? But even if Henry knew it wasn’t real, the false touch of Alex’s hands had sent his heart fluttering like the first time they’d met at Rio.

A beep from his phone had him scrambling to his feet and tearing through his bag. A heartbeat later, he was settled into his usual chair.

“Let’s see what you’re going to put me through this time,” he muttered at Alex. He might have imagined it, but the corner of Alex’s mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smirk.

The video was longer than most of the precious ones, about forty minutes. It began with Video-Alex fixing the camera, then sitting back onto his bed. He pulled Nora’s guitar onto his lap.

“I ran out of ideas because I was busy writing a speech for a Planned Parenthood rally with June, so you can just sit back and enjoy my beautiful voice. Please continue not telling Nora I have her Jo Bros guitar.”

He started strumming absentmindedly and it soon morphed into a soft rendition of London Boy. Henry let the words wash over him again. I saw the dimples first, then I heard the accent-...

Video-Alex seemed lost in the music, his gaze faraway as he continued playing. London Boy soon became Your Song, then The Star Spangled Banner, then just tuneless strumming and humming. It was as if he forgot the camera was still running. Henry closed his eyes. The moment seemed unbearably intimate, like he shouldn’t be watching.

He didn’t know how long it was before he heard a soft “sorry” from the video. He opened his eyes. Video-Alex had a sheepish smile on his face as he reached over and turned off the camera. Henry scrolled down.

Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas

“Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days.”

Song of the email: The Star Spangled Banner but Fergie’s cover

I love you, Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor.

––––––––––

There wasn’t an email the next night.

––––––––––

Or the night after that.

––––––––––

Henry rewatched the last video dozens of times until he noticed the suit that Alex had worn to the rally was hanging off the back of the chair. There weren’t any more videos because the Incident had only been several hours after Alex had shot the last one.

He still wasn’t quite sure how Alex was faring medically wise. The President hadn’t lifted the media blackout despite Amy reassuring Henry that she was petitioning for him nearly everyday. Nobody knew anything.

Henry had taken to reading Harry Potter out loud. Nora and June were usually his attentive audience, but they knew as well as he did that it was to reach Alex.

It was night now. June and Nora had gone out on one of their group bathroom trips. (Henry would never understand why girls felt the need to visit the loo in packs.) Sighing, he closed The Prisoner of Azkaban and set his reading glasses on the nightstand. He supposed he should go get some food and check in with Shaan.

He got up and brushed his fingers against Alex’s. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

He winced at his own joke and drew his hand back. But as soon as his fingers left Alex’s skin, the monitors started going crazy. The cacophony made him jump and swear loudly as what was probably a dozen people rushed in. Amy shot him a look.

He held his hands in the air and hoped he wasn’t about to be tackled to the floor by Secret Service. “I didn’t do anything!” he protested.

Suddenly, it struck him how dire the potential situation could be. Was Alex okay?

“Call the President!” one of the doctors snapped. Was that bad? It could definitely be bad.

“What’s happening?!” June screeched into his ear as she practically barreled into him. Nora was half a step behind, her eyes wide and scared.

“I don’t fucking know! IS HE OKAY?” Henry yelled to the doctors. None of them responded. June’s fingernails dug into his arm.

“Someone call the President, now!”

Henry’s head spun as people rushed in and out of the room with vaguely sinister-looking equipment. If something happened to Alex- His breathing quickened. He, June, and Nora clung to each other like a lifeline in a stormy sea. Henry was never really one for religion, but he muttered what little he remembered of prayer under his breath as the chaos stretched on.

“Get over here.” Amy pushed them towards the bed. The doctors had fallen silent, and Henry initially feared the worst until they moved aside and he was staring into Alex’s eyes. His open, beautiful, blinking, brown eyes.

Henry’s white-knuckled grip on the bed’s guardrail was the only thing that kept him from hitting the floor. Beside him, June let out a sob. She seized one of Alex’s hands, but his gaze was still locked on Henry.

Alex parted his lips. His voice was hoarse from weeks of disuse. “Who… Who are you?”

––––––––––

“That wasn’t fucking funny, you arsehole.”

Alex let out a small non-committal noise as he sipped coffee and continued reading his newspaper. There a sizable stack next to his bed, one for each day he had been unconscious. Only Alex Claremont-Diaz would want to catch up on current events as soon as he came out of a three week coma.

“It was a little funny. I wasn’t about to waste a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Besides, I’m sure if I tried that on June or Nora they would have hit me hard enough to land me in another coma.”

“I almost had a heart attack. Imagine the headlines. English Prince Killed Immediately After Lover Wakes From Coma,” Henry grumbled. He still couldn’t believe Alex- the real one, not the 2D Video-Alex- was in front of him doing normal everything things. He had to stay in the hospital for another week so the doctors could monitor him, but that was nothing to Henry.

Alex was truly beautiful in the early morning light. He couldn’t help leaning over and giving Alex a quick peck on the lips.

“Be honest- did you try waking me up like Sleeping Beauty?”

“That’s a fairy tale,” Henry said matter-of-factly. “So no.”

“I’m wounded.”

“Literally or emotionally?”

“Both.” Alex tugged down the collar of his shirt and for the first time, Henry saw where the bullet had gone. He’d heard people talking about it of course- about an inch above the heart, only missing an artery because Alex had the luck of the devil. But hearing about it was nothing compared to seeing it. The entry wound was a puckered and discolored circle, a stark contrast to Alex’s smooth brown skin.

He swallowed hard and Alex noticed. He gave a hesitant smile. “Looks like I’m the James Bond of this relationship, doesn’t it?”

“I’m much more of a Bond girl anyways,” Henry finally managed. He hastily tried to change the subject. “So about those videos…”

Alex went red. “In my defense, it seemed like a really good idea while I was drunk.”

“No, they were perfect,” Henry said firmly. “Except for the Mixtape. I think you need to work on your music preferences.”

“Oh really?” A teasing glint entered his eyes. He scooted over and patted the spot on the bed next to him. Henry climbed over, careful to avoid all the wires and tubes. As soon as he was settled in amongst the pillows, Alex tucked his face into Henry’s neck.

“Where should I start?” Henry shivered at the warm breath against his skin.

“Do you know Vera Lynn? She has this one song you might like. ‘Bésame Mucho.’”

Alex drew back and gave Henry a mischievous look.

“Oh I think I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #casey mcquiston #firstprince #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #june claremont diaz #nora holleran #my writing #my post #fanfiction #rwrb fanfiction

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homespork-review · 4 years ago

Text

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 1

CHEL: Yes, Act 5 Act 1; here begin the “act acts”. Just go with it.

FAILURE ARTIST: Welcome to Act 5 a.k.a. The Act Everyone Skipped To So They Could Get To Those Grey Demons. While I was a reader before Act 5, I wasn’t a huge fan until this part. The trolls are a great species. Different enough to be fascinating, but not different enough humans can’t relate. And what exactly is in their pants? That’s for the fandom to figure out.

BRIGHT: And fandom accepted the challenge with enthusiasm.

CHEL: Also, they’re fuggin’ adorable. It took me a while to get used to nonhumans in the sprite style and I thought they were creepy-looking at first, but we also see them in the more noodly style used in the dramatic moments with the kids, like the fall of Prospit, and that helped them grow on me a lot.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Act starts off with a grey planet with a green moon and a pink moon. A prompt box like the one for the Kids’ introductions is above it. In the box are letters in a script blatantly stolen borrowed from The Elder Scrolls games and turned 180 degrees. (Later on, when Hussie made a game that people paid money for, he couldn’t exactly use a stolen font so the team made an all-new font. But the old font is probably in the print books). Anyway, in case you’re curious, the letters spell out “Turdodor Fuckball”. This is the wrong name, and the right name is…Trollplanet. Though it’s called Alternia in the flavor text below and everywhere else.

So starts the arc called Hivebent. We cut to CG in a very grey room flapping his mouth occasionally at nothing. He’s introduced much the way John was.

This young troll stands in his respiteblock. It just so happens that today, the 12th bilunar perigee of the 6th dark season's equinox, is the day of this young troll's larval awakening, also known as his wriggling day. Though it was six solar sweeps ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name! Six Alternian solar sweeps, for convenient reference, is equivalent to thirteen Earth years. Earth, also for convenient reference, is a planet that does not yet exist. What will the name of this young troll be?

However, like Dave, he attacks the prompt box. He doesn’t want to do all the little gags and patterns.

CHEL: Thank God!

FAILURE ARTIST: This Hivebent arc will go much faster than the four acts before it. No dawdling along for this species. There’s twelve characters to be introduced and characterized before this is done.

CHEL: That said, it’s still going to be much, much longer than the others.

FAILURE ARTIST: So, CG’s name is Karkat Vantas. All of the troll names have a 6-6 pattern and are usually named after astrological and mythological motifs. Karkata is the Sanskrit name for the constellation Cancer and Vantas...is a prostate cancer treatment drug. Don’t look at me, I didn’t name him.

CHEL: It’s also possibly connected to “vanitas”, relating to Karkat’s simultaneous arrogance and lack of self-worth.

FAILURE ARTIST: Today is Karkat’s wriggling day. Let’s meet the birthday boy. He loves movies, though the narrator says he has terrible taste. In his room, there’s edited posters of “50 First Dates”, “Serendipity”, and “Hitch” that makes them look like troll movies, including lots of small type for the title. Like John, he likes to program but he’s not good at it. In fact, he’s so bad his programs are basically computer viruses. He wants to join a military organization called the THRESHECUTIONERS when he grows up. His weapon of choice is the sickle, possibly as a counterpart to John’s hammer.

He chats with his friends on a new program called Trollian, which is a reference to the real-life chat program Trillian. Fans forget that Trollian was a new program, except for Nepetaquest where the plot revolves around the making of that improbable software.

CHEL: Which begs the question of how they communicated before. Most of them don’t seem to have met each other in real life yet. Obvious answer is a different chat program, but in that case, why draw attention to Trollian being new instead of just having it be how they communicated from the start? It doesn’t really add anything IMO.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, talking with his friends drives him BATSHIT UP THE FUCKING BELFRY, which is a very human phrase.

The first prompt Karkat gets is to examine the slimy pod in his room. This pod is a recuperacoon and serves as a bed. Trolls need that slime to help assuage the terrible visions of blood and carnage that plague the dark subconscious of your species. Why do they have these species-wide bad dreams and how does slime help? It’s never said.

CHEL: The slime appears to be a form of drug, possibly a sedative. In Hiveswap we see it also has minor healing properties. Why trolls would have evolved to consistently suffer nightmares isn’t brought up here, but there are possible explanations later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Actually, after Act 6, recuperacoons aren’t mentioned. Also, oddly enough, the narration says sleeping is done nightly but we later learn trolls are nocturnal. The terms night and day aren’t used consistently in Hivebent.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 20

Karkat gets into the pod, but immediately regrets it. He changes his clothes (off-screen of course) into clothes that look exactly the same. This is because Trolls think fashion is stupid.

Next, he examines his movie posters. Turns out trolls have their own version of John Cusack, among other celebrities. Troll Adam Sandler is his favorite actor and one person he doesn’t want to do violence against. In his narration, he thinks Sweet Baby Jegus though Jegus isn’t actually a thing in troll culture.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 21

Karkat tries to captchalogue his sickle and we get some more sylladex hijinx! His modus becomes too heavy and literally falls through the floor. I thought picking up weapons was different from captchaloging stuff? We’re told these hijinx won’t last long and eventually Karkat trades his modus with his hacker friend. Good. For now, he just picks up the big black book on his dresser.

The big black book is about a programming language called ~ATH and for some reason is in Roman script. It’s a morbid little language and there’s a cartoon figure of the Grim Reaper and a fake (or real?) quote from Troll Will Smith. Karkat finds this language incredibly hard. There’s probably some sick programmer jokes I’m missing here.

CHEL: There’s one I’ve been informed of; ~ is called a tilde, so the name of the program is “tilde-ath”, or “till death”. I can’t say I recognise any others though.

FAILURE ARTIST: Karkat steps outside. He lives in a huge grey and red house (or hive) in a suburb as sterile as John’s. Trolls create their own homes as toddlers after beating the trials in the brooding caverns. First hint of how harsh Alternia is, yet everyone has their own housing which is sweet.

It's almost as if your people have placed great cultural importance on teaching children to become architecturally adept while very young. It has been this way since ancient times. No one seems to know why that is.

Hmmm…

Karkat almost has a poetic moment while looking out at the moons, but he rejects poetry. He also rejects mailboxes, which trolls don’t have because they have no mail.

CHEL: Do they mean no paper letters because they all have internet? I recall that they do receive packages.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think they have courier service but no dedicated government postal system.

So instead of poetry, Karkat talks about AMBITION. He wants to be something great but he doesn’t know what exactly. We’ll see where this character arc takes him.

We get a little detail about the Alternian calendar and it concludes with “You have a feeling it's going to be a long night.”

Karkat goes back inside. He checks out a Game Grub magazine with a disgusting image of a leaking grub and a DVD for his favorite television show. The show is THE THRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR, which is a take-off on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but is about a green threshecutioner cadet who sasses up the bluebloods in his flaysquad pretty good. The “green” and “blueblood” parts aren’t turns of phrases but literal. Given the strict hierarchy we find out trolls are under, it’s amazing there’s a series about a sassy subordinate. Maybe he’s only sassy in Karkat’s mind.

CHEL: Actually, that’s not too unbelievable.

FAILURE ARTIST: The title of the show doesn’t follow the convention of troll movie titles and that’s because 1) television is a newer medium and 2) it would ruin the joke.

Finally, Karkat gets down to business on his computer. His first friend to “troll” him has a purple Capricorn sign. Now, this friend is a character that though I’m now quite attached to, I didn’t much care about them in the beginning. I’ll try to be objective though.

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] TC: wHaT iS uUuUuP mY iNvErTeBrOtHeR? CG: WHAT IN THE SWEET ALMIGHTY TAINTCHAFING FUCK DO YOU WANT. TC: NoT a MoThErFuCkInG tHiNg BrO. TC: oThEr ThAn I bE cHeCkIn OuT hOw My BeSt MoThErFuCkIn FrIeNd Is At Yo.

Yes, my first thought too was “that’s a really annoying typing style”. Karkat agrees and complains about TC’s typing style. TC temporarily goes all lowercase but says it feels uncomfortable. Karkat complains more about how awful TC is and wonders what he did to deserve such a terrible friend. Instead of being offended, TC says friendship is beautiful and confusingly calls it a TrOlL dIsEaSe. We’ll see some stuff that suggests trolls don’t have friendship or at least don’t consider it in high regard but mostly trolls have friends like humans do.

BRIGHT: Despite his protests, Karkat has eleven friends, in a society that is not set up to facilitate this. I’m pretty sure that when I was his age I had maybe three.

FAILURE ARTIST: TC waxes on miracles like the carbonation in a bottle of Faygo. Yeah, trolls have Faygo.

CHEL: That’s a gag, though, so no WSP point.

FAILURE ARTIST: Karkat tells him that’s just carbonation but TC rejects science as just stealing the magic from miracles.

CHEL: It comes up more clearly later, but we’ll tell you now that TC’s entire character at this point, especially that line, is basically a shoutout to the Insane Clown Posse song “Miracles”.

Watch on YouTube

FAILURE ARTIST: After some more bantering, TC gets down to business: TA is going to play a game. Karkat says he’s not interested but TC says TA is Karkat’s best friend, which is sad when you consider TC calls Karkat “best friend”.

CHEL: TA, if you don’t remember, is twinArmageddons, the computer programmer.

FAILURE ARTIST: TC gets distracted by a horn going off and even types out a surprised yell. Karkat tell TC to get rid of the horns and TC says “MaN yOu KnOw YoU wAnNa GiVe My HoRnS a GoOd SqUeEzE. :o)” which sounds really flirty. Karkat says if he meets a kid as annoying as TC, he’ll convert to TC’s religion. TC is happy about this. With that, the conversation ends.

We cut to TC and he’s a motherfucking clown, baby! But I’ve already re-capped so much and need to give someone else a turn.

CHEL: Okay, I shall step up! TC’s actual name proves to be GAMZEE MAKARA, and he’s wearing a purple Capricorn sign. The name Gamzee was picked by a forumite as a reference to another user who went by Gammy, but it may also be a reference to “Gämse”, the German name for the chamois goat. Makara is the Sanskrit name for Capricorn, and also the name for a type of creature from Hindu folklore which would include the Capricorn sea-goat. There are several other layers of possible and probably-coincidental meaning listed on the Wiki, which we’d have to bring up spoilers to discuss, so we’ll save that for later.

Beyond his name and sign, Gamzee has clown makeup, explosively curly hair, long spiral horns, and a slightly glazed expression. Nightmarish pictures of evil clowns plaster his walls, his floor is piled with bicycle horns, juggling clubs, and Faygo bottles, and an oversized unicycle is propped against the wall. When he picks up a Faygo bottle and his “husktop” computer, his MIRACLE MODUS is seen, a hideously complicated mishmash of various styles which flickers and spins obnoxiously. Even Gamzee doesn’t know how it works, he just likes to watch the colours.

FAILURE ARTIST: Gamzee belongs to a RATHER OBSCURE CULT that believes in a BAND OF ROWDY AND CAPRICIOUS MINSTRELS who are CLOWNS OF A GRIM PERSUASION WHICH MAY NOT BE IN FULL POSSESSION OF THEIR MENTAL FACULTIES. Basically, he’s a Juggalo who worships the troll equivalent of Insane Clown Posse. Though the cult is called obscure and said to be looked down upon, later it is shown to be a state-sponsored religion. I guess maybe it’s just Gamzee’s particular denomination that’s looked down upon.

CHEL: “Obscure” also means “hidden”, so the retcon could be justified in the sense of it being mysterious? Or it might be related to spoilery Hiveswap theories. We can get into those if we ever get round to Hiveswap.

Gamzee attempts to ride the unicycle, but fails - unsurprisingly, since it’s taller than he is and he attempts to ride it by standing on the saddle. He falls off into a pile of horns, and decides instead to sample the luridly green pie on the counter, which turns out to in fact be made of the same SOPOR SLIME that trolls sleep in.

You aren't supposed to eat that slime. It does funny things to a troll's head. But you were never taught that on account of a lousy upbringing. Your custodian was always out to sea.

Gamzee arms himself with a juggling club to use against the alleged hostile SEA DWELLERS and heads out to wait for his missing guardian.

FAILURE ARTIST: His hive appears to not have a front door so I don’t know what’s keeping the hostile sea dwellers out.

CHEL: Someone contacts him online and he intends to settle down with a Faygo and answer, but he doesn’t know how to retrieve things from his miracle modus. Gamzee performs a short prayer to your beloved MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS, the faces of the two members of Insane Clown Posse superimposed over the background, and throws a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST in his face. We never find out what exactly “special stardust” is; it appears to just be glitter, but it comes up much later. His attempts fail, however, as the modus instead launches his Faygo miles out to sea.

You wonder if you can just... Just sort of reach over... And...

Apparently the sylladex modus can be physically reached, so there was no need for the endless pages of shenanigans in the first place. *quiet rage* But anyway, gallowsCalibrator is trolling him.

FAILURE ARTIST: GC asks G4MZ33Z if he’d like to play G4M3Z3Z with her. He replies "hEy YeAh ThAt SoUnDs LiKe ThE mOtHeRfUcKiN sHiT's BiTcHtItS!" She says something very tsundere in reply:

GC: 1T SUR3 1S H4RD TO 1GNOR3 TH3 W31RD TH1NGS YOU S4Y SOM3T1M3S! GC: BUT 1M GONN4 GC: TH3 ONLY R34SON 1M 4SK1NG YOU 1S B3C4US3 YOUR N4M3 1S L1K3 G4M3 GC: 4ND NO OTH3R R34SON GC: G3T 1T??? >:]

Gamzee isn’t offended she said this and GC gets annoyed he’s always rolling with the punches. She says that’s why Karkat can’t stand him. Harsh in hindsight. GC gets down to business and tells Gamzee they are going to H4V3 SOM3 MOTH3RFUCK1NG SH1TTY B1TCH3S PL4Y1NG TOG3TH3R. He asks if they could play later because he’s waiting for tHe OlD gOaT (which happens to also be a nickname for Satan).

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... GC: DURRRRRRRRRRRRR GC: W4Y TO GO, HOW DO3S TH4T STUP1D BOTTL3D SYRUP OF YOURS T4ST3 W1TH YOUR HOOF SO F4R UP YOUR MOUTH??? GC: >:] TC: sOoOoOoOrY.

This is the first time we find out GC has an unusual homelife. Yet it isn’t true that she has no family.

BRIGHT: And given how rarely Gamzee’s guardian is around, it’s not like he has much of a family either. Or a standard homelife.

CHEL: That’s also an... excessive response to a slip-up, but from what we see later, that’s how almost all the trolls talk to each other all the time.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s also problematic, because she’s doing an ableist imitation of the speech of people with mental disabilities. Though I suppose trolls aren’t meant to be PC.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 19

Gamzee suggests GC play with Karkat instead. She rejects this idea and says she used to play with him but he got too annoying. Gamzee then agrees to play and says give him a minute. She says he’ll just space out and that’s what he does. When he gets back into the conversation, he makes a second faux pas.

TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

People really get on this but it’s just the regular type of mistake people make while talking to blind or sight-impaired friends and he did apologize. Other characters say worse and never apologize. Some readers who know what happens later might attribute malice but right now he’s just a guy who does a lot of troll pot and makes mistakes.

CHEL: I know when I was eleven the blind kid in my class and I had a sort of running gag of “see you later”. It also isn’t very clear whether either of them is actually hurt by anything the other is saying. They don’t seem to be.

This is also probably a time to bring up certain things about Gamzee’s cultural coding. Even though we later find out he’s one of the highest-ranking trolls, certain cues about him would make people think of a lower-class human, namely his syntax, his eating semi-inedible substances (lack of access to other food?) and his love for cheap gross soda. (I’ve drunk Faygo. It’s weird.) This could just be a troll thing not being exactly the same as human things and also down to his guardian not being there, but there’s more.

Gamzee’s word usage involves a lot of quirks which are usually associated with African American Vernacular English, e.g. addressing others as “brother” or “sister” and using “be” instead of “am” or “are” or just leaving them out completely. His hair is probably supposed to look unbrushed, but it can also be interpreted as textured. His religious behaviours get described with the word “voodoo” a lot, and while this is a bit of a stretch I personally interpreted his typing and syntax as a Southern drawl plus he lives close to water, thus cementing an association with actual Vodoun in my head even though his actual practices aren’t anything like it. While the members of Insane Clown Posse, the band which inspired a lot of Gamzee’s behaviours, are both white, rap is a strongly black-associated musical style, and Gamzee is later shown to be interested in rapping. Stereotypical juggalos are white, but culture considers them to be worthy of mockery because they’re white people behaving in ways associated with black people. Add in his absent male guardian, drug use, and acting “trashy” when he’s one of the richest trolls, and this all adds up to a very clear mental image of him as a not-very-flattering portrayal of a black person. Coding a nonhuman character strongly with a human racial group isn’t a problem in itself, but when it comes off as supposed to be funny, it’s not exactly SU Garnet levels of good representation, is it? The fact that Hussie, prior to Homestuck, was known for drawing some incredibly racist comics (also including rape, abortion, and drug jokes, so be warned) doesn’t help; we won’t add points for those because we’re judging HS on its own merits and it’s possible for people to change and regret prior prejudices, but it sheds new light on things that’ll come up.

Individual CP points for his language, his hair, his voodoo association, his rapping, his Disappeared Dad, his drug use, and his being coded as poor despite not being so, I think. None of these would be bad on their own or portrayed as less “look at how funny/creepy this guy is”, but...

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 26

BRIGHT: The first time I read Homestuck, I didn’t realise that Gamzee was meant to be disliked until somewhere in the middle of Act 6. I thought his situation was sad, but Gamzee himself seemed pretty nice, if dopey and not terribly motivated. I still quite like him. Did anyone else find something similar?

CHEL: Yeah, me. I thought he was pretty adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: Gamzee suffers from abuse in the form of neglect. Though his guardian is arguably not quite responsible, it’s still abuse. As a result, Gamzee eats a dangerous substance and it’s probably why he lets people walk all over him. This is more obviously bad than Dave’s homelife. Yet it’s not ever dealt with and is even mocked. Hussie says in the annotation for this scene that there weren’t actually hostile seadwellers and Gamzee’s guardian just said that to keep Gamzee inside because he was ashamed of him. We find out later that seadwellers ARE hostile. This bit about Gamzee being gaslit is probably a joke then about how embarrassing Gamzee is. Yet isn’t it abusive to make up threats to your children to keep them isolated? Lots of fans consider Gamzee embarrassing too and so don’t see anything in this.

BRIGHT: Not to mention that it’s pretty fucked up to say Gamzee deserves abuse for being embarrassing, when that neglect and abuse is the reason he acts the way he does in the first place!

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 19 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 30

CHEL: One CP for the “humorous” drug use and another each for the “joke” gaslighting and neglect, and another for the illogical justification. Wow, that count’s really starting to spike already! And I think now might be a good time to introduce another count…

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 1

This will be used whenever the author is clearly showing a lack of respect to the characters or situations that he himself created, in this case by setting up an abusive situation and mocking it when we’re supposed to have sympathy for another abuse sufferer.

BRIGHT: Depressingly, it gets worse later. Significantly worse.

CHEL: Not to mention, if Gamzee’s supposed to stay inside and his guardian’s absent all the time, and trolls “don’t get mail”, how does he feed himself? Even with the sopor, where does that come from? Is it just secreted by the pod or what? Does the pod need to eat? We’re never told. In Hiveswap, the sequel game, we do see that trolls can receive packages, but I would class packages under “mail”, so saying trolls don’t have it is needlessly confusing.

We cut back to Karkat, doing some coding which I’m sure would be very amusing if I knew the first thing about coding. Apparently the biggest problem with ~ATH is the near-impossibility of terminating its infinite loops.

What many ~ATH coders do is import finite constructs and bind the loops to their lifespan. For instance the main loop here will terminate on the death of the universe, labeled U. That way you only have to wait billions of years for it to end instead of forever. You have bound a subloop to the lifespan of the code's author, which is you. Any routine at the end will execute when you die.

So apparently coding is literally magic in this ‘verse? This is backed up by a code sent by TA:

This code, when executed, immediately causes the user's computer to explode, and places a curse on the user forever, along with everyone he knows, and everyone he'll ever meet. Not surprisingly, later on you would run this code in a fit of stupidity.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Internet is magic, why not programming?

BRIGHT: I think the coding is a pretty nifty thematic fit with the whole concept of SBURB! If you’ve got a video game that can affect reality, it’s reasonable to extrapolate that coding can do something similar, even if only by piggybacking off the Game’s infrastructure. And once they get into the Medium, it makes even more sense.

CHEL: True! In the meantime, TA trolls Karkat. Karkat’s speech pattern is remarkably similar to Dave’s, except infinitesimally less wordy and much angrier.

TA: KK dont fliip your 2hiit about thii2 but iim 2ettiing you up two play a game wiith 2ome people. CG: WHY WOULD I FLIP MY SHIT ABOUT THAT. TA: becau2e you fliip your 2hiit about everythiing. CG: WELL WILL YOU LOOK AT THIS. CG: HERE IS MY SHIT, AND YET IT REMAINS UNFLIPPED.

*snerk*

CG: JUST SITTING THERE ON THE SKILLET, GETTING BURNED ON ONE SIDE. CG: IT'S A MIRACLE. TA: oh no are you iinto miiracle2 now two becau2e iif you are youre fiired preemptiively from the game. CG: FUCK NO. TA: ok niice. CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do. CG: THAT'S WHY HE HIDES THEM, THEY'RE FUCKING EMBARRASSING. CG: GOD LAUNDERS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS.

Very Judeo-Christian concept of God for an alien species.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 22

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s seemingly no other troll religion but Gamzee’s cult and that has dual gods, not monotheism.

CHEL: Anyway, TA is setting up a game of SBurb, or SGRUB as the trolls call it, which he made from 2ome crazy technology AA dug out of 2ome ruiin2. Karkat hasn’t been told about this by AA, whom he deems “SO SPOOKY”, and whose full handle seen in the chat roll is apocalypseArisen - spooky indeed and thematically appropriate. Mention is made of TA’s WEIRD MUTANT BRAIN; exactly what this means isn’t described yet except that it doesn’t mean he can read Karkat’s mind. TA refuses to elaborate on what he’s discussing with AA on the grounds that it’s private, and this leads into an insult-exchanging session.

TA: nobody hate2 hiim2elf more than you iidiiot. CG: YEAH WELL I HATE YOU WAY MORE THAN I HATE MYSELF, AND THAT'S FUCKING SAYING SOMETHING. CG: IN FACT I HATE YOU MORE THAN I HATE MYSELF AND YOU HATE YOURSELF AND YOU HATE ME COMBINED.

Karkat calls a timeout long enough for TA to explain how they’re playing the game; he intends there to be two teams, Red and Blue, 2o that there2 a better chance of at lea2t one group wiinniing. Karkat agrees this sounds sensible, but flies off the handle on finding out that TA and GC are the team leaders, not him. Karkat spews insults and accusations of cheating, while TA snipes back. This is presumably the moment depicted in this page’s art, in which Karkat yells angrily and flails wildly at his keyboard.

CG: HOW DO YOU GET OUT OF YOUR COCOON IN THE MORNING KNOWING YOU'RE THE WORST THING A UNIVERSE WAS EVER RESPONSIBLE FOR? CG: ALSO IT MUST BE HARD WITH YOUR HANDS TO PERSISTENTLY BOTHERING EVERY MUTATED SET OF GENITALS PEPPERING THAT GHASTLY HUSK YOU PAWN OFF AS A BODY. CG: HAS A FEMALE EVER LOOKED AT YOU WITHOUT AT ONCE TURNING SKYWARD AND ERUPTING LIKE A VOMIT VOLCANO, ANSWER ME THAT.

As later pointed out, trolls reproduce bisexually, so why he specified females here is odd. There is a fan theory I’ve seen that TA is straight, as he’s only seen with female partners and rejects a possible male one, but Karkat demonstrates in a later conversation that he has no concept of gender preference, so if TA is, Karkat doesn’t know that. I guess he could mean that he himself has looked at TA without becoming a vomit volcano, but I doubt that was what Hussie was thinking since it isn’t clear if they’ve ever actually met face to face.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 23

Anyway, TA tells Karkat that he’s laughing at Karkat’s immaturity, and that if he really wants to be Red Team leader, he should talk to GC.

CG: I GUESS THESE CONVERSATIONS WE HAVE DO GET KIND OF EMBARRASSING IN RETROSPECT. CG: ARE WE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF STUFF I SAID. TA: eheheheh you LIITERALLY a2k me that every tiime are you jokiing. TA: ii cant even tell anymore.

Okay, that’s adorable. But anyway, after seeing their conversations, you can see what we mean when we say it’s apparently normal for trolls to say horrible things to each other, so why fans and Hussie himself single out some instances and not others is stupid.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 20

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s another example that trolls do have friendship, though possibly not the same way humans do.

Also, though he’s not doing it to her face, Karkat is insulting GC’s blindness. Which is not just problematic but also silly given that her blindness is a super-power.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 31

After a quick panel where Karkat worries about an encounter with a “CRABBY” someone downstairs, we cut to GC. She is in a very colorful room, unlike Karkat’s grey one, and surrounded by stuffed dragon toys. On her wall is graffiti of a dragon and disturbingly a noose. Photorealistic books are piled on her desk. She’s introduced and we finally get her name: TEREZI PYROPE.

Terezi is the word for “Libra” in multiple languages, but it also might be a reference to the gender-bending blind prophet Tiresias. Pyrope is a type of red garnet and she does love red a lot.

Terezi lives alone deep in the woods (which does raise the question of how she gets all her stuff in a mail-free planet). She loves dragons, including the plushie series called SCALEMATES.

CHEL: Her walls are also decorated in the scales of dragons, which actually do exist on Alternia. Libra. Scales. Geddit?

FAILURE ARTIST: She likes roleplaying and once did a more extreme type until she had an accident that’s not explained at the time. Her big interest and motivation is JUSTICE and she wants to be a LEGISLACERATOR when she grows up. She doesn’t need TROLLBRAILLE (does such a thing exist?)...

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 24

... since as we know she has special powers. Alternian law is called BRUTAL and indeed it’s so terrible I have to side-eye Terezi for loving it.

CHEL: She claims to love JUSTICE, but Alternian law has very little to do with justice of any kind, as we see when she decides to start roleplaying it with her toys.

On Alternia, there is no such thing as a defense attorney, or a defense. In a courtblock, the word defense itself is offensive.

Not to mention the judge, a chalk depiction of whom adorns her wall, is known as HIS HONORABLE TYRANNY.

Also, do thirteen-year-olds regularly roleplay with their plush toys? I guess ones who are isolated from all actual life forms they could play with instead might.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi’s scenario this time is the trial of SENATOR LEMONSNOUT, played by a yellow scalemate. Given that Alternia seems to be an absolute monarchy, I wonder where she gets the concept of senators.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 25

Terezi stares down the yellow plush toy before she starts slapping it. She fantasizes about the toy crying tears. The yellow plush toy’s crime is embezzlement, using a currency called imperial beetles. Whether this is a real currency or something Terezi made up we don’t know.

CHEL: As we see later, she’s using a bag of literal beetles in the game. Not sure if they are currency, if she went and caught them, or if trolls can buy them in bags.

FAILURE ARTIST: If you are reading this comic sometime post-2015, there’s two choices. One of them is [???????] Ignore that choice. It becomes relevant only much later. For now, we go to Terezi calling a witness.

Unfortunately, said-witness is a green plush who has been stabbed by a photo-realistic dagger. Apparently, defense attorneys are verboten but murdering witnesses is expected. Alternian justice, everyone.

BRIGHT: It might be moderately less batshit if we assume that Terezi’s obtained all her legal knowledge from TV, movies, and books, and this is a dramatic embellishment rather than the way Alternian trials actually function. She does live on her own in the middle of a forest, after all.

On the other hand, this planet is inhabited solely by children, the over-the-top cruelty is entirely in keeping with Alternia so far, and I don’t think we ever see any of it contradicted.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi finds a bag of beetles and that’s all that’s needed to sentence the “criminal”. Her method is to flip a coin called a caegar that has two-heads on it, one of them with a cut on it. The narration says this is like Two-Face from the Batman comics and the villain of the movie No Country for Old Men, though those media don’t exist in the troll universe. Still, trolls have the same trope. She flips the coin and though the result is favorable to Lemonsnout, Terezi declares she can’t see the coin because

SHE'S BLIND, REMEMBER?

She “kills” the stuffed toy by hanging it, like she’s done with many of her stuffed toys. We see now she lives in a tree house (or hive) in a blue and purple forest.

CHEL: In most media, a character being set up like this would be a villain or set up for a heel-face turn, or at least a massive source of conflict over the differing moralities of the different societies. We’ll see if anything ever comes of that.

FAILURE ARTIST: She finishes up by licking her chalk portrait of His Honorable Tyranny. Weird kid.

She gets her weapon (a photo-realistic cane as used by real-life people with vision impairment) and gets down to recruiting members for her team. Her first target is AC, short for arsenicCatnip, who appears as a speech bubble with the Leo sign in olive. The narration says Terezi likes to roleplay with AC, but only facetiously. Terezi and AC roleplay as a DRAGONYY'YYD and some type of big cat. Terezi tries to eat AC’s cub but AC bribes her with an animal called a BULL CHOL3RB34R.

CHEL: AC types with a symbol like this at the front :33 < and with a heavy spurrinkling of cat puns. From what she says about her character, the type of cat in question has two mouths, and it’s later stated that :33 is in fact supposed to be a cat face, one mouth atop the other. The evolutionary or indeed anatomical usefulness of this feature is unclear. Perhaps it’s so they can bite down on prey and vocalise to communicate at the same time? That would be more useful for a pack hunter… Anyway.

FAILURE ARTIST: That done, Terezi asks AC to play a game and has to clarify she means outside of the game they are already playing. AC is interested but she says she has to get purrmission from a certain guy. Terezi thinks it’s ridiculous AC is scared of him because she kills big animals with her bare hands and lives far away from him. AC knows it’s ridiculous but she still wants to get permission. The relationship looks bad now but we later find out it’s part of troll society and it’s odd that Terezi thinks AC is motivated by fear. Anyway, AC says she’ll ask the guy and the conversation ends on that.

CHEL: I don’t know if Hussie either had come up with the relationship system or even decided if those two were going to have a relationship at this point. If he did, he might not have meant them to be in that relationship yet at this point, they could have started it later. It’s not really clear. Not a problem, though, serial writing develops that way sometimes.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi trolls Gamzee but thankfully it cuts off before we have to re-read the entire conversation. Next, Terezi has to deal with Karkat. She doesn’t want to ask him to play except as a last resort.

However, Karkat trolls Terezi to tell her he’s the leader of the Red Team now. Terezi doesn’t care though since she just wants to play the game. Karkat says she’ll be second-in-command but Terezi’s sarcastic reply turns him off the idea. The two insult each other and Terezi mock-flirts with Karkat.

GC: 4NYTH1NG TO G3T YOU TO STOP B31NG SUCH 4 B4BY CG: WHAT'S A BABY. GC: OH GC: 1TS L1K3 4 MYTH1C4L L1TTL3 P1NK MONK3Y

CHEL: Once again, babies only come in Caucasian, apparently. Also, doesn't the word "baby" apply as an adjective to non-human species all the time?

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 26

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out that Terezi is not supposed to have a LUSUS and if she did, the world would come to an end. Karkat is also confused by this statement. Karkat blames the trees for her weirdness and offers to move her into one of his neighbor’s hives. One of his neighbors has been CULLED (killed) and Karkat is blase about this. Terezi turns down his offer. Karkat excuses himself to DEAL WITH THIS GRUMPY CUSTOMER.

We cut to a little later. Karkat’s hive is covered in colorful paint and in the middle of a lake of red. This is the LAND OF PULSE AND HAZE and Karkat is the KNIGHT OF BLOOD. Karkat now has the weapon HOMES SMELL YOU LATER, a sickle in 90s colors. He trolls Terezi and complains about how she wrecked his home. Another running gag: girls ruining boy’s homes. He says she messed with his LOAD GAPER. Terezi (and us) call that a toilet. Toilet is blue blooded vernacular. Later on, highbloods use the term load gaper so I guess Hussie forgot this interesting world-building. Karkat is also upset by the paint job that wasted lots of grist. Terezi calls his fighting adorable and Karkat says it’s ADORABLOODTHIRSTY. He wants to be the next one to connect to a client and she says it doesn’t work that way. It’s only at the end he brings someone in. The priority now is to save her from the meteors by getting her in the game. Karkat hadn’t heard of the meteors until now and is very alarmed. Terezi tells Karkat to talk to apocalypseArisen, twinArmageddons, AG, or CT. There’s a conspiracy going on with those four people. With that, Terezi says she’s got to go.

CHEL: Also, an important point comes up in that conversation; Terezi demands to know what colour Karkat’s blood is, and he refuses to tell her. In case you haven’t picked it up by now, troll society is in fact supposed to be stratified by the colour of their blood. Literal blue blood is towards the higher end of the rankings; Terezi’s on the greener end of blue, so securely middle class. Karkat types in and wears grey, which is not a natural troll blood colour, and the other trolls consider this weird and suspicious. Looking at the list of names on Trollian, we see they range through the rainbow, except for some reason the greens, blues, and purples are split into several layers. I was confused by this at first; I knew he needed twelve colours instead of seven, but it seemed weird that they weren’t more spread out. Then again, social stratification does get a lot stricter up at the top. I thought perhaps the reds, browns, and yellows also come in other shades but just get lumped together because they’re peasants and no one cares? It’s not discussed in canon, but someone actually does have an explanation for it; it’s what you get when the RGB and CMYK colour wheels overlap.

A little while ago, a spooky-looking young troll lady with glowing white eyes and a maroon Aries shirt sign - this being the colour of apocalypseArisen, so this is presumably her - hovers over a frog-topped temple extremely similar to the one on Jade’s island. With a wave of her hand, the frog’s head breaks off and crashes to the ground.

You're not sure why you did that, really. There'll probably turn out to be a reason. There's a reason for everything. Understanding this lets you be reckless.

Somewhere else, Gamzee’s Faygo bottle, now photorealistic, lands at the feet of a mysterious someone who is wearing striped pants and what appear to be blue and purple bowling shoes, of all things. This person complains about Rubbish from the LAND DWELLERS and picks up the bottle with a hand wearing a purple ring emblazoned with an Aquarius symbol; the name in that colour text in the chat, should the reader go back to check, is caligulasAquarium.

FAILURE ARTIST: How fucked up was troll Caligula? Maybe he just broke troll taboos.

CHEL: The implication of him having an aquarium is making me picture Troy McClure.

We go back to Karkat’s hive and rewind a little, to see him deal with the earlier-mentioned crabby customer…

And we need to provide the text from this page in its entirety so we can discuss it.

FAILURE ARTIST: If you want to know why Homestucks go so crazy over buckets, read this and weep!

You go downstairs and confront your custodian, which is another term for a frightening beast known as a LUSUS NATURAE. Your lusus has looked after you since you were very young in lieu of any biological parents, whom you have never known. No young troll ever knows his or her blood parents, nor could such lineage ever be accurately traced. Adult trolls supply their genetic material to the FILIAL PAILS carried by imperial drones and offered to the monstrous MOTHER GRUB deep underground in the brooding caverns. She then combines all the genetic material into one diabolical incestuous slurry, and lays hundreds of thousands of eggs at once. The eggs hatch into young larval trolls which wriggle about to locate a cozy stalactite from which to spin their cocoons. After they pupate, the young troll with his or her newfound limbs undergoes a series of dangerous trials. If they survive, they are chosen by a member of the diverse and terrifying subterranean monster population native to Alternia. This creature becomes the troll's lusus, and together they surface and choose a location to build a hive. The building process is facilitated by CARPENTER DROIDS left on the planet to cater to the young. But only for building. They're on their own otherwise. The vast majority of adult trolls are off-planet, serving some role in the forces of ongoing imperial conquest, besieging other star systems in the name of Alternian glory. The culture and civilization on the homeworld is maintained almost entirely by the young. Trolls sure are weird!

CHEL: “Lusus naturae”, to start with, is Latin for “freak of nature”. Probably it means something else in Alternian.

FAILURE ARTIST: The lusus system is so bizarre. How long have they been using it? When we see what could be called a Bizarro Alternia, they also have lusus, so it’s not just because adults can’t raise children.

CHEL: Naturally-evolved symbiosis and parasitism are hardly unknown among animals on Earth, though no real ones really work like this. The closest I can think of among vertebrates are cuckoos and similar birds, where the egg is laid in another species’ nest and the hatchling kills or starves out the original offspring. This isn’t what’s happening here, as the lusus doesn’t have offspring of its own and wouldn’t appear to have any particular reason to let a young troll latch onto it, not to mention young trolls presumably look nothing like the offspring of a creature like that, and lususes/lusi (I don’t think there’s an officially accepted plural? The fandom latched onto the very non-Latin but suitably alien “lusii”) come in wildly varying species, so it’s not a case of a specific two-species symbiotic bond like clownfish and anemones. However, trolls do have psychic powers, so it could always be handwaved with a form of mental link.

BRIGHT: Bizarre as it is, the lusus system is nicely alien! I think that in this case, the lack of explanation actually works in its favour -- there’s nothing to point to and say ‘but that explanation doesn’t make sense’. I do like a good explanation, but in the case of background worldbuilding I think it’s fine to chuck something in and move on.

Also, we now discover that Jade had a perfectly normal childhood by troll standards. (Er, minus the murderous neighbours.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The narration says the “vast majority” of adult trolls are off-planet. This implies some small percentage of adults are on-planet. In the spin-off series Hiveswap Friendsim, there are characters on Alternia who get into, well, adult situations. The writers on Twitter clarified that there are trolls who are over eighteen Earth years but under the age of expulsion on Alternia. In one game, there’s adults who should be off-planet but aren’t, though how many trolls risk that is unknown.

CHEL: The age of majority in numerous Earth cultures is or has been twenty or twenty-one, so that’s probably what the writers were going for. Or, of course, just trying to avoid backlash from the Tumblr anti-shipping population. There are also cases where adults really should be on-planet but don’t appear to be, but we’ll get to that in the Friendsims.

I have to say I’m rather concerned by what appears to be a serious bottleneck in the reproduction system. According to everything we see, there is only one Mother Grub for the whole planet. What happens if something happens to her? Replacements are bred in the same way as queen bees or ants, but destroying the cavern where she resides would put a major crimp in troll society for a long time even if there was a replacement around. With ants and bees, there is generally more than one hive per species.

BRIGHT: We do meet one Virgin Mother Grub later on, and she’s acting as a lusus. I always assumed that there were at least a few around, otherwise having one potential backup breeder taken out of the pool should have raised a lot more fuss than it apparently did.

Moreover, while the Brooding Caverns aren’t described in Homestuck, they are described in Friendsim, and it is literally a single giant cave with the Mother Grub in the middle, surrounded by grubs, young trolls, and lusii. In one of the game routes, the Mother Grub is in fact injured by a distressed lusus, which would be easily prevented by having her in a separate room. There are apparently no barriers to an outsider just wandering in, and given that this is Alternia, said outsider could probably do quite a lot of damage if they so chose.

CHEL: Particularly since most lusii are extremely dangerous, and there are a hell of a lot of them there. It’s also been brought up in the Tumblr parts of fandom that it would be incredibly easy to rebel against the dystopian regime by taking the Mother Grub hostage or destroying/damaging the caverns.

FAILURE ARTIST: Karkat fights his lusus like the human kids fought theirs, but without a cool animation. It’s just a gif and a link to a 38 second tune. You’ll notice in the background on the fridge there’s a crude drawing of the crabby creature: a callback to John’s drawing.

We cut to TA, the troll we saw earlier get bonked by a key. TA has his glasses off and under them are a red eye and a blue eye. He puts them on dramatically in a reference to the CSI: Miami meme everyone has forgotten. After a long Dave-like block of text describing how this dude is cool but not cool, it turns out we won’t be introduced to him.

Cut to a troll with a green Leo sign on her shirt and horns that look a lot like cat ears. She looks cute but there’s blood on her walls. The narration is unnerved by her so we go back to TA.

TA’s name is SOLLUX CAPTOR.

CHEL: The name is taken from the mythological twins of the Gemini constellation, Pollux and Castor. The combination of sol-lux could also be read to mean “sunlight”.

FAILURE ARTIST: Behind him is what looks like a computer mainframe but covered in a yellow substance. On the wall, there’s red-and-blue writing. His recuperacoon has two openings, though it’s never even brought up why.

You are apeshit bananas at computers, and you know ALL THE CODES. All of them. You are the unchallenged authority on APICULTURE NETWORKING. And though all your friends recognize your unparalleled achievements as a TOTALLY SICK HACKER, you feel like you could be better. It's one of a number of things you SORT OF BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT for NO VERY GOOD REASON during sporadic and debilitating BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS. You have a penchant for BIFURCATION, in logic and in life. Your mutant mind is hounded by the psychic screams of the IMMINENTLY DECEASED. Your visions foretell of the planet's looming annihilation, and yet unlike the typical sightless prophet of doom, you are gifted with VISION TWOFOLD.

I used to think “imminently deceased” meant “recently deceased” and not “going to be deceased”. Either way, it’s really a Blessed With Suck power.

Lots has been made of Sollux’s BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS but I don’t think Hussie was seriously thinking of bipolar depression. Still makes for good fanfiction.

CHEL: Please don't use "bipolar" to just mean moody, Hussie.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 32 You have developed a new game, adapted via CODE PARSED FROM THE RUNES AND GLYPHS IN AN ANCIENT UNDERGROUND TEMPLE. You believe this game to be THE SALVATION OF YOUR RACE, though you are not sure how yet. To ensure success, you will distribute the game to two teams of friends, a RED TEAM and a BLUE TEAM. You will lead the latter group.

One guess what this game is. We also see “friends” being used in the normal human sense.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 27

The prompter tells Sollux to equip ninja stars, but it turns out he has psionic powers that allow him to move objects with a purple aura. However, in moving the ninja stars, he messes up and slices the BEEHOUSE MAINFRAMES. Little purple bees buzz around him and send him messages in beenary code. The prompter tells Sollux to taste the honey but he refuses.

You do not under any circumstance eat the MIND HONEY. The consequences are highly unpleasant.

Remember that. The mind honey is only supposed to be a soporific for his lusus.

Sollux snaps his fingers (spelling out 2NAP in his quirk) and the bees fall asleep.

CHEL: I only just noticed the “2nap” = “to nap” pun.

BRIGHT: Also, while Sollux does have psychic powers, those powers are not related to animal control. So this is a little strange.

FAILURE ARTIST: Sollux goes to his computer while stepping over video games, which in this world are colorful grubs. He first talks with Terezi. She knows about his game to save the world and immediately picks the Red Team. He wonders how she knew there would be a red team but she says it’s easy to guess he would make a red team and a blue team. This observation annoys him and he goes on a rant.

TA: maybe iim more of an aubergiine guy plu2 whatever that putriid color is you type wiith, what ii2 that, turqoii2e?

I have a headcanon he can only see red and blue and that’s why he doesn’t know what color Terezi types in. Considering his society is based on color this would be quite a disability.

CHEL: I’ve also seen headcanons he’s colourblind and struggles to remember which colours go where on the hemospectrum, as at one point he complains about how yellow is the lowest on the totem pole apart from something he can’t remember, while talking to someone who’s lower. (It’s actually third from the bottom.)

FAILURE ARTIST: They then talk about how this game will save the world. He isn’t sure how but he says AA can back him up on this. Terezi thinks he’s right...mostly. He says before this is done he will die twice and go blind, but he figures that’s what happens to a prophet of doom. He compares this to an angel getting its wings and we find out trolls consider angels to be feathery demons. Terezi wonders if this doom-and-gloom isn’t just part of his brain problems. He is offended by this reasoning and compares it to clown pieing, which in retrospect is scarier on Alternia than on Earth. He tells her to talk to AA and Terezi says AA hasn’t been the same lately. Sollux and Terezi say they’ll take the game seriously but they also goof around about it.

We cut back to the spooky troll from before. She kicks the frog statue so hard it all breaks off.

The prompter tells Sollux to deal with apocalypseArisen, the spooky troll we just saw. AA asks Sollux if he set up the teams, but without a question mark. He says he’s working on it. He asks if she’ll be happy to get out and leave the voiice2 behind. He says it would suck to have them stay until death, a statement which will become very ironic. AA says she’s 0k with a l0t 0f things...including their failure masquerading as victory. Sollux is angry at her pessimism. He gets more angry when he finds out the game will actually wipe out their people. He says he refuses to be team leader, but she says he was never going to be that. He threatens her with psionics and says he could do things that would make [her] head 2piin liike dervii2h iin a fuckiing blender which makes me wonder how trolls have Sufism.

CHEL: How many humans know where the term comes from? I could buy it as Translation Convention regarding, say, a clown cult thing, although everything seems to imply the trolls are speaking “English”. Still, the idiom comes from human Western culture, so...

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 28

FAILURE ARTIST: She says she’s coming up, which only confuses Sollux.

He goes and tells Terezi and then Karkat that the Game has been aborted. Terezi is confused but doesn’t say much. Karkat accuses Sollux of trying to kick him out. Karkat declares the friendship cancelled, showing again trolls have friends. Karkat insults Sollux’s programming skills and threatens to run ~ATH. Sollux tells him not to be Karkat doesn’t listen.

TA: KK DO NOT RUN THAT CODE. TA: hello?????????????? carcinoGeneticist's [CG'S] computer exploded. TA: oh my god.

That is some amazing chat program.

The explosion kills Crabdad. Turns out that code causes the death of ALL of Karkat’s friend’s lusii. Each lusus gets prototyped, which seems heartwarming but turns out very bad for their session. We see Gamzee mourning his Goatdad’s death by harpooning in a moment that’s very sad, even considering how terrible a parent Goatdad is.

CHEL: And here I want to go back to Gamzee for a bit. The commentary, as we mentioned, says that Goatdad “told” him to stay indoors and was ashamed of him. However, in the actual comic, everything is set up to show the lusii as being non-sapient, i.e. not able to talk to their charges and not in possession of a concept of shame. They behave like regular animals, Sollux says his is dumb enough to walk right off the roof if not tethered, and the trolls go on repeatedly about how happy they are to have prototyped their lusii because now they can actually communicate verbally with them for the first time, as Rose did with Jaspers. This is similarly inconsistent in the later-written Pesterquest games, which we’ll get to eventually. So either Hussie forgot that lusii aren’t the same as parents…

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 29

… or he claimed they were sapient when they weren’t before, solely to use them to bash Gamzee.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 2

FAILURE ARTIST: Back to Sollux. He tries deleting all his computer viruses, but there’s one he can’t delete. It has a flashing billiard ball next to execute. It’s set to go off after the universe ends and even Sollux doesn’t know what it does. The narrator does know.

When executed, the subprogram will summon an indestructible demon into the recently voided universe. This monstrous being with the power to travel through time is inconvenienced very little by his arrival upon THE GREAT UNDOING. He has the entire cadaver of the expired universe to pick apart at his whim. From its birth through its swelling maturity and tapering decay. In a reality he is known to have marked for predation, he will go about assembling followers through various epochs, even going as far as personally establishing the parameters for his future summoning. Sollux couldn't know that the virus is essentially a formality. The demon is already here.

Sollux hears grumbling noises coming from the ceiling. His lusus, a BICYCLOPS, is kept chained to the roof of his COMMUNAL HIVE STEM and regularly fed and fought.

CHEL: A bicyclops, later also referred to as a biclops, is a roughly humanoid being with two heads, each with one big eyeball. A hivestem is basically a block of flats, made out of a giant hexagonal tube-like structure with small grey hive-homes built into the sides. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be the literal stem of some kind of gigantic plant or not. Pretty cool if it is.

FAILURE ARTIST: In the night sky, there’s a few meteors. Turns out AA is floating outside.

We cut to GA wielding a chainsaw while riding a moth-like lusus against a colorful background. She lives in the middle of the desert in a home like Jade’s. However, we aren’t introduced to her.

BRIGHT: There are giant colourful sails attached to the towers. I’m not sure how practical that is, but it has definite flair.

FAILURE ARTIST: Instead, we are introduced to AT. His name is TAVROS NITRAM. He turns out to be a wheelchair user. I think this was ascended fanon based on his love of flying. How well Homestuck treats this disabled character we’ll see. His lusus is a little bull with wings. He’s surrounded by playing cards, stuffed animals, and posters of fairies. A lance is leaned against his wall.

CHEL: “Tavros” obviously derives from Taurus, and might also be from Davros, a wheelchair-using Doctor Who villain. Nitram is “Martin” backwards, which according to the wiki might be connected to Mary Martin, an actress who played Peter Pan, or Martin McGuinness, an Irish politician whose planned prosecution was codenamed Operation Taurus. It might also derive from nitrate, which causes “brown blood disease” in fish.

You are known to be heavily arrested by FAIRY TALES AND FANTASY STORIES. You have an acute ability to COMMUNE WITH THE MANY CREATURES OF ALTERNIA, a skill you have utilized to CAPTURE AND TRAIN a great many. They are all your friends, as well as your warriors, which you pit in battle through a variety of related CARD AND ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You used to engage in various forms of MORE EXTREME ROLEPLAYING with some of your other friends before you had an accident. You like to engage in the noble practice of ALTERNIAN SLAM POETRY, possibly the oldest, most revered, and certainly freshest artform in your planet's rich history. You have a profound fascination with the concept of FLIGHT, and all lore surrounding the topic. You believe in FAIRIES, even though they AREN'T REAL.

The name of his lusus may be ascended fanon too, if I’m remembering correctly. Its name, mentioned later, is Tinkerbull, and it’s the cutest thing ever I want a million of them.

Tavros is prompted to Cut to the chase and play card games immediately, and picks a Pokemon ripoff called FIDUSPAWN. He deals himself a favourable hand and lobs an OOGONIBOMB, a jelly-looking blob, at the HOST PLUSH. The Oogonibomb hatches into a terrifying face-hugger-like monster, which latches onto the plush, then scuttles out of the way in time for a larger monster to explode out of said plush.

BRIGHT: Alternian card games sure are something!

HORSARONI, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!!

CHEL: Horsaroni devours the fidusucker face-hugger in preparation for battle, and Tavros uses his awesome bestial communion abilities [to] bend the ferocious stallion to [his] whim while Tinkerbull looks on nervously. Tavros succeeds in getting the beast under control, and… gets it and Tinkerbull to take a nap together. Everybody wins.

FAILURE ARTIST: He plans on making Horsaroni have sex in the future. Whoa boy.

CHEL: The prompt tells Tavros to roll up the ramp which leads to the top of his rather high recuperacoon, and to hop in, which he does, followed by much reasonable complaining about how it’ll take an hour for him to change his clothes, plus the four-wheel device rolls back down the ramp without him. Also, it’s noted that his horns make it impossible to get fully inside the cocoon, which makes it hard to get any solid shuteye. So, wait, trolls can breathe while fully submerged in the slime? There’s no elaboration as of yet, but it’s possible Hiveswap will discuss that.

FAILURE ARTIST: This slapstick with a disabled character is unfortunate. Terezi never had to deal with this bullshit.

CHEL: Not to this extent, anyway.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 33

After much cleanup which we thankfully don’t have to read through, he gets back in his chair and picks up his JOUSTING LANCE.

FAILURE ARTIST: We get a look outside of Tavros’ hive as he thinks about his future plans. He lives in a windmill by a cliff and in his yard he has a practice dummy with...is that a pail???

CHEL: Considering trolls’ opinions of pails, I hope it’s a trashcan, but the bucket thing might be a retcon for the sake of humour.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, he hopes to be a CAVALREAPER when he grows up, if he isn’t culled (aka murdered) for his disability. Rather optimistic of him to think there’s a chance he won’t be culled. I think this is when we first find out about Alternian eugenics. Odd that it didn’t come up when we were introduced to Terezi.

BRIGHT: Terezi’s disability doesn’t really impact her ability to function, though. Her smellovision is accurate enough to let her read and she doesn’t have any trouble moving around. Tavros’s disability is clearly an actual disability that hinders him in a lot of ways. Given Alternian society as we’ve seen it so far, Terezi might be fine. Tavros would need assistive measures and that makes him a write-off.

There’s also the matter of personality. Terezi tends to be confident; Tavros generally isn’t. Add in Terezi’s midblood status to Tavros’s lowblood position, and it makes sense for it to come up now.

FAILURE ARTIST: Tavros admires his fairy posters, including one saying “ Pupa Pan” with a silhouette of a winged troll. This is the troll version of Peter Pan and their one also includes “indians”, just they are “weird aliens”.

CHEL: Can’t say I’m too pleased about that, personally.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 33

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t know if Andrew Hussie read Peter Pan but when I read it it felt very Hussie. Anyway, Tavros keeps his bedroom window open for Pupa Pan and splashes SPECIAL STARDUST on his face. The same substance Gamzee uses? Hmmm.

Andrew Hussie takes a jab at the fanon he decided to ascend:

You have had this interest [in flying] far prior to your accident. Being paralyzed isn't what made you want to be able to fly. That would be dumb and would make no sense. Being paralyzed does sort of make you want to be able to walk, though.

CHEL: Uh… haha? Are we supposed to laugh here, or feel bad, or what?

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?:21

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out in Friendsim that terrestrial flight is verboten, though Hussie probably didn’t think of that until much later.

We cut to the future briefly to see Tavros has robot legs. Because it would be terrible to have a disabled character just remain disabled! /s

CHEL: To be fair, they’re in a world which has the technology to make near-perfect robotic limbs and he wants to be able to walk again. One could argue that having that technology is problematic in terms of it being an easy handwave, but since they have intergalactic spaceships it might seem somewhat weird if they didn’t have robot parts. The existence of prosthetics in a society which kills its disabled as standard is a bit odd, but not impossible if they have whole robots. Though it begs the question where he got the wheelchair.

BRIGHT: Well, it could be that prosthetics aren’t standard, this is just a special situation. He doesn’t get them until after he’s entered the Game, after all.

CHEL: Disturbingly, and perhaps more fittingly for troll society, the legs were fitted after his real ones were removed via chainsaw, apparently sans anaesthetic.

GORE GALORE: 11

BRIGHT: It kind of looks like he got chainsawed through the waist. If that is the case, then a lot of important organs would have been mangled and would need replacing — at least if he was human. We don’t know anything about how troll guts are laid out, but there’s no reason to believe they’re radically different to the human setup.

CHEL: None of the troll gang appear to be medics, either. How is he not dead?

FAILURE ARTIST: The legs were built by an unnamed male character who likes to break as well as make robots.

Occasionally though, he will allow philanthropy to override misanthrobopy.

Misanthrobopy. I didn’t notice that until now.

GA was the one to chainsaw Tavros, with the male character watching in the shadows. That character has the Sagittarius sign and a broken horn. We learn his name later but never how he broke that horn.

BRIGHT: Which is also a point in favour of getting prosthetic limbs being somewhat unusual — Tavros only gets his because an acquaintance with specialised knowledge takes an interest.

FAILURE ARTIST: So, back to the present...of the past. Tavros is being trolled by both Gamzee and someone known as AG. He deals with AG first. With this, we get our first dialogue from Homestuck’s most Homestuck character. AG, or arachnidsGrip, brags about being on the Blue Team and mocks Tavros for being on the team full of 8lind girls and lame 8oys and cranky iiiiiiiim8eciles. Tavros says they’re probably right, but then says he promised someone not to talk to them. This person turns out to be Tavros’ imaginary friend Rufio, the personification of his self-esteem. GA was the one who gave him the advice. While that’s not a bad coping mechanism, he really shouldn’t be telling AG about it. AG complains about GA’s meddling and says GA was just making fun of Tavros with that advice. AG complains about how long it’s taking for the Blue Team to get going. In the end, AG says it will be like old tiiiiiiiimes and gives a winking emoticon.

After that conversation with a frienemy, Tavros raps with his friend-friend Gamzee. Gamzee apologizes for zoning out, but unlike everyone else who talks to him Tavros isn’t angry. Awww…

Tavros shares the good news that they are both on the Red Team, though Tavros says it came from someone he doesn’t want to talk about. Gamzee had already heard and he’s very excited. Tavros does an }:o) emoticon and Gamzee is tickled pink that Tavros “stole his nose”. That might be flirting among trolls. They make plans to “slam” but first Gamzee explains the Game plan. Terezi has connected to Karkat and now Gamzee has to connect to Terezi. However, she’s off in the woods doing something. For now, Gamzee has to get Tavros connected to him. He says something that I’ve seen people point to as a sign he’s bad to the bone.

TC: sO jUsT dOwNlOaD tHiS mOtHeRfUcKeR i'M sEnDiNg YoU sO wE cAn KiCk ThIs BiTcH dOwN tHe StAiRs.

This is probably a callback to Dave getting kicked down the stairs and not a conscious callback on Gamzee’s part. Really, usually when Gamzee says “bitch” it’s just another way of saying “thing”. He’s not kicking anyone down the stairs. Not yet.

Then again, he later says:

TC: JuSt LeT mE sNeAk Up On ThIs BoTtLe Of FaYgO aNd SnAp ItS nEcK lIkE iM a FuCkIn LaUgHsSaSsIn.

So he is a little sinister.

CHEL: Hardly any more so than Terezi the hanging fetishist, though!

BRIGHT: Or the guy who codes viruses that blow up his friends’ computers.

FAILURE ARTIST: After all the foreplay for their rap session, the dialogue ends with:

You both then proceed to have one of the worst rap-offs in the history of paradox space.

Only much later do we see this rap-off. We also find out Gamzee’s feelings towards Tavros. Yet this conversation alone was enough to sail that ship.

We cut to Terezi in a burning woods. This is where we find out what the deal with Terezi’s “family” is. Her lusus is a giant teal egg on an even larger DOOMSDAY SCALE. Inside the egg is a blind dragon. The dragon can communicate telepathically via dreams. It was how Terezi learned to “see” after the accident. This answers some questions while leaving so many unanswered. Like why does Terezi sleep in her street clothes?

CHEL: Balanced on the other side of the scale is a gargantuan skull with troll-like horns and a sort of goat-y shape. We’ll see the kind of creature it comes from later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi dreams of Prospit, and we see it as she “sees” it: gauzy and throbbing.

Her lusus hatches from the heat, but is immediately killed by a meteor. A sympathetic ally puts it in the kernelsprite and that sympathetic ally is clown boy. So put that on his scorecard.

With the egg hatched, the doomsday device displays 6:12. The arc number for this arc.

CHEL: Karkat’s “wriggling day” is 6/12, which actually makes him a Gemini rather than a Cancer. Guess it’s different for trolls.

FAILURE ARTIST: Finally, we are introduced properly to AA. The one with the inconsistent horns.

Your name is ARADIA MEGIDO.

CHEL: “Aradia” is the name of a “messiah” of witchcraft in Charles Godfrey Leland’s “Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches”, effectively a piece of paganism fanon. “Megido” is derived from Mount Meggido, the place from which the word Armageddon is derived and where the final battle of said event will supposedly occur, and a powerful spell in the video game Shin Megami Tensei. It might also be related to “Meido”, 冥途めいど, the Japanese equivalent of Purgatory, and “meido”, メイド, meaning maidservant, relevant to her low blood status and later her game class.

You once had a number of INTERESTS, which in time you have LOST INTEREST IN. You seem to recollect once having a fondness for ARCHEOLOGY, though now have trouble recalling this passion. It nonetheless has led you to find your PRESENT CALLING, which came through the discovery of these MYSTIC RUINS on which you presently stand, and which you recently DESECRATED OUT OF BOREDOM. Guiding you to this calling were the VOICES OF THE DEAD, which you have been able to hear since you were young. The voices have become louder as THE GREAT UNDOING approaches. This trend in escalation began after an ACCIDENT involving a CERTAIN KIND OF ROLE PLAYING, which might have been another of your interests once upon a time. It doesn't matter much anymore. The accident resulted in the DEATH OF YOUR LUSUS, which prompted you to leave your home and take up these ruins as residence. On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION. And by convinced, you suppose you mean tricked.

CHEL: She chooses to try to take something from her sylladex, but it works on the OUIJA modus, which means she can only take what the spirits allow her to take.

BRIGHT: This has to be the weirdest, most senseless modus yet.

CHEL: They produce a card with the Crosbytop, which she found on a dig a while ago. GA’s trying to contact her.

She's always bugging you. Bugging and fussing and meddling. What's her deal! You guess it's flattering that she wants to talk to you so much though. You're ok with it. You're ok with a lot of things.

She answers, with an “0h n0000000” on seeing GA, who asks if this is “The Night You Blow Everything Up”.

GA: Is There Nothing I Can Do To Change Your Mind AA: n0 AA: 0r yes AA: yes theres n0thing AA: and n0 y0u cant AA: but y0u sh0uldnt pretend as if y0u believe this has anything t0 d0 with the state 0f my mind AA: 0r the decisi0ns it will make 0r has already made GA: Yeah I Guess Not GA: I Thought Id Be Friendly Though GA: And Remind You That You Do In Fact Have A Hand In All The Terrible Things That Are About To Happen GA: Because Thats What Friends Are For GA: And The Fact That What Ensues Will Be Terrible GA: Is An Immutable Fact I Am Stating For The Record GA: And The Fact That We Will Not Be On The Same Team Is Similarly Immutable GA: It Does Not Mean That Teamwork Is What Isnt Taking Place Here AA: s0rry i didnt f0ll0w that GA: Ill Be Here To Help GA: If You Need Me AA: 0k AA: thanks

Honestly, this is giving me shipping ideas which will only make sense once more about trolls has been explained. Pin in that.

BRIGHT: How does GA know it will be terrible?

CHEL: Stay tuned. We’ll find out.

Aradia checks on Sollux and has the conversation we already have seen, which is linked back to instead of copied, thank goodness. Huss seems to have mastered that part of the timeline. Aradia arrives at his hivestem and levitates the Bicyclops, while meteors begin to fall, and AG trolls her. AG is revealed to be female and seen in silhouette; she has a blue Scorpio symbol, one pointed horn, one forked one, and long hair. Remember this character for later.

AG: Do you have Mr. Two Eyes all 8efuddled and flustered in your we8 of lies? AG: Or Mr. Four Eyes? AG: Hmmmmmmmmm. AG: I don't know. Which nickname do you think would 8e suita8ly derogatory in this case Aradia? AA: h0w ab0ut AA: eight eyes AA: minus seven AG: ::::P

FAILURE ARTIST: God, I love Aradia. Though I guess if you’re reading this for the first time you won’t get her jab here until later.

CHEL: Aradia protests that she didn’t trick him. AG says it doesn’t matter, and declares that once the game starts she and Aradia will be the Blue Team co-leaders, only asking afterwards if this is okay with Aradia, who doesn’t care. She tells Aradia she has a present for her, “Just from me. From me alone and no8ody else”, and wants a special team name for just the two of them, which Aradia doesn’t want to bother with.

AG: I just thought it would 8e really fitting. AG: Kind of like a fresh start, you know? AG: I don't know, what are our shared interests? I guess I never really thought a8out this! I guess I'm used to thinking of you as the enemy. There must 8e some overlap in profiles. AG: Come oooooooon, let's 8rainstorm! AA: 0_0 AG: Man, it'll 8e great. We'll 8e unstoppa8le. Surely you must admit it will 8e nice to re8ound from the Team Charge de8acle! AA: i never think ab0ut that anym0re AG: Oh maaaaaaaan, I'm so dum8! Here I am running my mouth and opening up old wounds, while at the very same time trying to make amends! What an idiot.

I hope AG’s fans are not stupid enough to assume she was sincere on that last line, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think that AG thinks she’s being sincere.

CHEL: She asks if Aradia’s “loser” male friend will be on the Blue Team, which Aradia says he isn’t, calls him dead weight (messing up her own quirk in the process, which would usually be “dead w8”), ignores Aradia’s declaration that she didn’t exclude him, and heads off to “give him a hard time” despite Aradia’s protest. From this we can presume said friend is Tavros.

We see AG’s face in the next page; she has blue makeup, one blackened lens in her spectacles, a cyborg arm, and a nasty grin.

FAILURE ARTIST: It kills me that we can’t just say who she is now. I’m sure she’s broken through cultural osmosis. However, instead of an introduction, we go to Sollux and Aradia.

Sollux apologizes for flying off the handle. He says even though he quit as leader, he’ll still play and do his best. In his self-degradation, he says something very odd.

TA: liike 2ome low cla22 guy wiith... whatever color blood ii2 lower on the hiierarchy than miine. TA: what2 wor2e than yellow? TA: fuck thii2 confu2iing ca2te 2y2tem.

You’d think he’d know by now, especially given how important the hierarchy is supposed to be.

CHEL: Especially since the person he’s talking to is not only lower on the hierarchy than him, but also one of his closest friends and (minor spoiler) possibly his love interest. This is where the “colourblind” theory for him comes from.

FAILURE ARTIST: Aradia tells Sollux to come to the window because she’s outside. He complains that he can’t see her and she tells him to look closer. He does so while grumbling about psychics. Aradia snaps her fingers and he falls asleep...in the dangerous mind honey.

CHEL: How does she do that? I don’t think she has mind control abilities, does she? All I remember is her throwing boulders around… did she Force-choke him into unconsciousness?

BRIGHT: Maybe she did it the same way Sollux knocked his bees out.

FAILURE ARTIST: Cut to much later. Meteors are falling furiously and all the teammates except Sollux are in the Medium. Sollux wakes up but with mind honey in his mouth. We find out what mind honey does to trolls like Sollux: it causes him to do an OPTIC BLAST , destroying the roof of his apartment and killing yet another lusus. Which just raises the question of why he let the mind honey flow on his floor.

Now, we are introduced to my Zodiac troll.

Your name is NEPETA LEIJON.

CHEL: Nepeta is the Latin genus name for catnip, and Leijon is the archaic spelling of “lejon”, the Swedish word for lion. It should be pronounced “lay-on”, but Hussie said “pronounce everything in the least affected manner possible, from an American perspective”, so I’ve always mentally heard it as “lee-jon” or possibly “lay-shawn”.

You live in a CAVE that is also a HIVE, but still mostly just a CAVE. You like to engage in FRIENDLY ROLE PLAYING, but not the DANGEROUS KIND. Never the DANGEROUS KIND. It's TOO DANGEROUS! Too many of your good friends have gotten hurt that way. Your daily routine is dangerous enough as it is. You prowl the wilderness for GREAT BEASTS, and stalk them and take them down with nothing but your SHARP CLAWS AND TEETH! You take them back to your cave and EAT THEM, and from time to time, WEAR THEIR PELTS FOR FUN. You like to paint WALL COMICS using blood and soot and ash, depicting EXCITING TALES FROM THE HUNT! And other goofy stories about you and your numerous pals. Your best pal of all is A LITTLE BOSSY, and people wonder why you even bother with him. But someone has to keep him pacified. If not you, then who? Everyone has an important job to do.

So the dangerous kind of roleplaying is more dangerous than taking down wild beasts.

CHEL: Which is already pretty damn dangerous!

You never know when you might encounter some unsuspecting prey. Or when some prey might encounter an unsuspecting you! On Alternia, everything is considered unsuspecting prey by everything else.

FAILURE ARTIST: Also just noticed her “hive” has windows even though it’s a cave and the windows don’t actually seem to open to anything? We never get to see any of her cave outside of this so who knows how it works.

CHEL: Maybe she painted them on?

Her lusus is a big cat, with the double mouths already mentioned in her roleplaying. I still don’t know what evolutionary purpose this serves. However, her trolltag is arsenicCatnip, and the double mouths are depicted as two threes; arsenic’s atomic number is 33. It’s little references and in-jokes like this that keep me loving HS despite its worst parts. I can’t get enough of these things.

Said cat is named POUNCE DE LEON, a reference to the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, seeker of the Fountain of Youth.

You and she go on adventures together in search of the FOUNTAIN OF CUTE. You ride your sure-pawed mount into the rugged frontier. And sometimes she rides you when she gets tired, which is frequently. It sure will be sad when she dies. But who knows when or how that will happen. We might not even really have the time to find out! Later there was a cave-in.

Note the cave paintings on her walls, which are in red, black, and pale grey, and large black animal corpses in the foreground. It’s not clear if the animals themselves are black or they’re just in silhouette, but they contrast with the lusii, which are all white. These beasts also bleed mammalian red, which Nepeta uses for paint, while the lusii bleed the same colour as their respective troll charges. What precisely the lusii are and how they’re different from a regular animal is never really made clear. They could be separate species, or they could be regular animals psychically or biologically bonded to a troll and metamorphosing because of that. Or Hussie might not have thought it out that far.

Karkat’s trolling Nepeta on her DRAWING TABLET COMPUTER. She wishes she could adapt it to a fetch modus because her own one is frustrating, and answers him. She has to handwrite what she says on Trollian, and surrounds it with doodles of cats.

AC: :33 < *ac perks up curiously* AC: :33 < *she wiggles her rear end a bit and then chases something she s33s bounce into one of karkats shoes* CG: KARKAT CAN'T BELIEVE HE HAS TO SINK THIS LOW. CG: KARKAT CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S ASKING AN AUTISTIC GIRL IN A CAVE TO JOIN HIS TEAM. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 34

Thanks, asshole. I’ve seen fans assume this means Nepeta is literally autistic, and she could be, but either way Karkat is clearly using it as an insult here, not a literal description.

Anyway, Karkat explains to Nepeta what’s going on. He, Terezi, Gamzee, and Tavros are already playing; Tavros needs a server player. GA is lined up for the Red Team, but doesn’t want to connect yet for mysterious reasons, so Nepeta’s the best candidate. Nepeta agrees, but wants to talk to someone else first.

CG: HOW CAN YOU BE BEST FRIENDS WITH THE ONLY GUY ON THE PLANET WHO'S A BIGGER ASSHOLE THAN ME. AC: :33 < hes not so bad! CG: HE'S SCUM. CG: BUT DO WHATEVER YOU'VE GOT TO DO I GUESS. CG: TAVROS IS WAITING.

This seems quite a distance from Nepeta declaring that the guy she needs to talk to “scares her” earlier on. May be a retcon.

Said friend proves to be the blue Sagittarius boy, still in shadow. I think here it’s time to add on a point we brought up but did not count when observing the Pesterchum Trollslum: his handle is centaursTesticle. I remind everyone the trolls are supposed to be thirteen. What a charming child. I guess maybe it’s excusable because he’s not a mammal himself, but still.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 9

He says hi, but becomes frustrated when Nepeta roleplays at him. He types in dark b100, is e%cessively formal, and precedes each line with a D→ emoticon, the significance of which will be explained in a moment.

CT: D --> This is f001ishness upon one hundred thousand prior, equally unsolicited f001ishnesses

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s weird that his first word is “hi”, considering how formal he usually is.

CHEL: Could be because he knows Nepeta well? A concession to her mannerisms?

He expects Nepeta to follow his orders; she stops roleplaying, but complains about him being “so lame!” and never roleplaying with her, even though he will go out of his way to find words with “x” or “loo” in them so he can use his quirk. He tells her off for using foul language at things as mild as “what the hell?” and she apologises.

CT: D --> Your fraternization with the base classes have 100sened your morals, can't you see this AC: :33 < no! i dont care, they are fun AC: :33 < and i dont know anything about classes or bases or blood color, it doesn't matter! AC: :33 < what does gr33n blood even mean! it doesnt mean anything to me and it shouldnt mean anything to anyone else! CT: D --> Well, green b100d is ok, but it's not great CT: D --> But that's why you're lucky to have me to 100k out for you CT: D --> Because you don't know better, and you can't fight the role the mother had in store for you

This relationship looks rather worrying from a human perspective, I must say. Still, Nepeta seems to be holding her own in the argument, and he’s not physically present so there’s little he can do to actually harm her if things go south.

FAILURE ARTIST: Yeah, early on this relationship looks bad, but this relationship is one of the more popular ones in Homestuck.

CHEL: Did he plan their relationship, or ascend the fanon? Do we know?

FAILURE ARTIST: I would say there wasn’t enough time for Equius/Nepeta to be fanon, giving the quick update rate for this arc, but fandom does work fast.

Nepeta doesn’t seem to be just against the hemospectrum but rather ignorant of it, which is odd considering how important it’s supposed to be. Then again, she does live in a cave.

BRIGHT: Considering how important the hemospectrum is supposed to be, a surprising number of characters don’t understand it or care about it. That’s two out of nine so far. And while the hemospectrum does add a layer of complication, it’s not that complicated. There are only (spoiler) eleven colours in official use, and most readers pick them up pretty quickly. Characters living in a society which violently enforces it should have a working grasp of it, even if they think it’s stupid as all get-out.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 26

CHEL: Nepeta points out he always puts his bow and arrow symbol at the start of lines, which she considers a sign of playfulness and he considers “highly dignified symbols”. Nepeta asks if he’s ever successfully fired a bow, and he refuses to talk about it.

CT: D --> The topic is making me CT: D --> Sweat

He does this a lot. Here it seems to be a sign of feeling awkward and embarrassed, but later on it will be the source of CALL CPA PLEASE points.

They argue; Nepeta calls him a “weirdo and a cr33p!” and says it’s good she’s there to watch out for him in turn because no one else likes him, and he tells her off for eating animals. So trolls aren’t fully carnivorous? Their teeth suggest they should at least lean more strongly that way than humans do, but I guess eating vegetation wouldn’t be impossible for them.

CT: D --> You're wrong about me, Nepeta CT: D --> I do like to play games CT: D --> But they must be e%tremely important games with very high stakes CT: D --> Not the kind played by trans100cent green wigglers who let 100se an e%cremental surge hard in their wiggler-bottom diaperstubs

Nice callback, though I’m kind of surprised he said “bottom” since he draws the line at “hell”. Also, why the hell would trolls have diapers? They’re raised by literal animals, most of which don’t have hands to change them with!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 27

FAILURE ARTIST: What we see later of troll infants, they don’t have bottoms to diaper.

CHEL: Equius informs Nepeta he’s leading the Blue Team; she’s already on the Red Team, but he forbids her to join it and says she must join him.

AC: :33 < *ac rolls her eyes almost as hard as she is rolling around in this really interesting smell* CT: D --> The thought of you fraternizing with and abetting those stink-b100ded h001igans strikes me as scandal beyond measure CT: D --> I'm afraid you're too delicate to withstand that sort of corruption

Didn’t he also forbid her from associating with the people on the Blue Team on the grounds of them being too dangerous to hang out with? There’s no pleasing this guy.

Nepeta tells Tavros she can’t join him. She’s angry at her friend, though she’s still obeying him, but Tavros thinks it’s for the best.

AC: :33 < *ac curls up in tavroses lap* AT: oKAY, *i, AT: fOR THE TIME BEING, aND, AT: fOR THE SAKE OF THIS FANTASY SCENARIO, i PRETEND, AT: tHAT MY CAT ALLERGIES AREN'T THAT BAD,* [...] AT: wELL, AT: iF YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM BEFORE, AT: yOU MIGHT HAVE PLAYED GAMES WITH US BEFORE, AT: aND SOMETHING BAD MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU,

All very well, but notice what’s wrong with this picture?

I am… not particularly happy about more wheelchair slapstick going as far as to cause what I guess could be called either pet death or parent death. Most people in wheelchairs are able to not do that. Wouldn’t he at least notice it going over the bump? The “lol the weak wimpy kid has allergies” thing isn’t marvellous either; Tavros’ supposed wimpiness isn’t a huge deal yet, but it will be.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 35

BRIGHT: Uh...okay, wow. I somehow didn’t notice Tinkerbull dying like that the first time I read this, and WTF, Hussie?

Tavros reminisces about his role-playing days. We get a flashback to him standing in his room pre-paralysis, dressed in a green Peter Pan outfit and wielding a very short lance he calls a ‘daggerlance’. He is preparing to play FLARP, an EXTREME ROLE PLAYING game which can have serious real-world consequences if played without caution. Tavros is part of Team Charge, and they will be playing against Team Scourge.

The other member of Team Charge is Aradia. Tavros starts a chat with her, and Aradia sounds a lot more animated in this one. She actually seems pretty cheerful and enthusiastic! They talk a bit about Tavros’s choice of class, the Boy-Skylark; apparently it’s not very strong early on, but picks up some powerful abilities once you reach a high level. Put a pin in that, it’s not directly relevant but it does echo some Class traits later on.

Tavros’s FLARP grub lays some eggs ...

CHEL: Troll technology is disgusting.

BRIGHT: … which hatch into neon pixellated bats called GAMING FLAPSTRACTIONS. These contain the data used to provide the roleplaying scenario, and will also follow live instructions provided by the ‘clouder’. One member of Team Scourge will act as Tavros’s clouder, creating a challenging scenario for him to adventure through. Aradia will be the clouder for Terezi, the other member of Team Scourge. The flapstractions are tied to the player’s vital attributes, which is what makes this sort of role playing so dangerous. It’s interesting that apart from SGRUB, trolls have video games which physically affect the real world, or at least some of the players.

CHEL: Which brings up a comment we made on an earlier Act; does everyone in John’s version of Earth have sylladexes, and do all their videogames affect reality? We never see.

BRIGHT: A little way into the game, and Tavros has been backed up to the edge of a cliff by a couple of FLARP monsters. His clouder contacts him to ask why he’s not moving; turns out it’s AG. Tavros tells her that the monsters are too strong for the level he’s at. AG responds by mocking him, calling him weak, and urging him to either advance or abscond. Tavros asks her to hold on, and tries to contact Aradia for help, then Terezi.

We get another glimpse of AG! She has a blue sign, has one hooked horn and one with a crescent tip, messy hair, and here is wearing an eyepatch with seven red dots over one eye. She appears to be standing in the field with Tavros, which clearly isn’t possible.

CHEL: Holograms, presumably.

BRIGHT: Tavros can’t get through to either Aradia or Terezi. AG starts messaging him again, telling him to roll the dice. Tavros, entirely sensibly, declines to do so, as he’s run the numbers and the monsters are too strong to beat no matter how well he rolls. AG says that if he won’t move, she’ll make him move.

AT: i THOUGHT, AT: yOU COULDN'T USE POWERS, AT: i MEAN, rEAL LIFE POWERS, nOT GAME ONES, AT: iT'S AGAINST THE RULES, AG: 8ut if you are going to 8reak the rules and refuse to roll, what choice do I have!

Using her psychic powers, she then takes control of his body.

And walks him off the cliff.

AG: Fly, Pupa!!!!!!!! AG: Flyyyyyyyy!

CHEL: This is our introduction to the most controversial character in the whole fandom, and quite possibly one of the most controversial in any fandom. So much as mentioning this girl can start huge flamewars, and there was an entire section of the official Homestuck forum set off for talking about her so it didn’t taint the experience on the other boards. We’ll see more of this behaviour from her later, and discuss the fandom’s opinion of it as we go.

AG types out a long string of mocking laughter, with eight exclamation marks. I believe five is the point Pratchett deemed to be a sign of insanity, what does eight signify? Anyway, Tavros takes out his phone and texts the first person he thinks of; Karkat.

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] AT: aG JUST JUMPED ME OFF A CLIFF, AT: wITH MY BRAIN, AT: aND, uHH AT: mY LEGS, aLSO, AT: aND NOW, tHEY FEEL, AT: iNVISIBLE, AT: wOW, i'M SURE THERE WAS A BETTER WAY TO SAY THAT, AT: aNYWAY, AT: tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS, AT: tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT, AT: oF ME GETTING HURT, CG: HEY ASSHOLE, STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS. carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling adiosToreador [AT]

It’s times like these I wonder if we should have stolen the RP1 spork’s “Why Are We Meant To Like You, Again?” count. Let’s tally up the ones we have…

First off, Karkat, you’re a sexist dick and a bully, and the narrative never calls you out on it, nor do the other characters.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 36

Second, two SLAMMER points, one for the sexism, and one for hanging up on a clearly injured person, when Karkat is supposed to be portrayed as “prickly but caring”, which is not consistent with this even if he doesn’t much like Tavros or know him well at this point.

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 3

And third, what the hell is the point of the “GAMES FOR GIRLS” comment? Karkat’s phrasing implies that this is a contemptible, weak thing to do. Considering the incredibly dangerous nature of the game, that makes no sense at all. Fandom likes to charitably interpret it as meaning that female trolls are expected to be more violent than the male ones and Karkat’s telling Tavros not to get himself hurt, but that doesn’t work either because in every other situation Tavros is socially punished for not being violent, forthright, and traditionally masculine, and as I said, Karkat’s phrasing and immediate hanging-up on Tavros implies contempt, not concern. If it was meant the way a human boy would put it, what the hell are games for troll boys like?!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 28

One way I’ve played it in fanfic is that female trolls are expected to be the strategisers, while male ones just barge on through, but that’s just my personal idea, not canon.

BRIGHT: Really the only way this could be read as not completely awful is if Karkat thought Tavros was role-playing the injury. But there’s no reason for him to think that; Karkat’s made his lack of interest in it abundantly clear, and we never see Tavros initiate a role-playing chatlog with anyone, even one of the other FLARPers. In fact, all the FLARPers seem to confine their role-playing to the game itself; the only person who role-plays in chatlogs is Nepeta. (And after this, it’s easy to see why CT didn’t want her FLARPing.) So Karkat’s being a real dick here.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s not really any charitable explanation for this. The fandom is just content to prove Karkat wasn’t sexist on human terms.

BRIGHT: Also, this is an impressively coherent summary of events from Tavros. If I’d just walked off a cliff and broken my back, I’m not sure I’d be up to texting anybody, let alone explaining things that clearly. Tavros gets short shrift for being weak, but he’s really pretty tough.

We jump back to Karkat in the Medium, having just finished the conversation with Terezi we saw earlier. AG starts messaging him, and Karkat is really not impressed.

AG: Hey 8rave leader. CG: OH MY GOD, WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME. AG: Can I join your team? CG: YES I'M GLAD YOU ASKED, BECAUSE THERE IS A WIDE OPEN SLOT FOR THE MOST VILE BACKSTABBING SOCIOPATH WHO EVER LIVED. CG: YOU REALLY HELPED ME OUT OF A JAM BY STEPPING FORWARD. AG: Vile 8acksta88ing sociopath? Karkat, did you copy and p8ste that phrase directly from your personal ad descri8ing what you are looking for in a lady? CG: HA HA HA! CG: MORE CAGEY CUTESY BULLSHIT. CG: LIKE I'M NOT UP TO MY LOBE STEM WITH THAT ALREADY HAVING TO DEAL WITH TEREZI. CG: YOU BOTH MUST HAVE BEEN INSUFFERABLE WHEN YOU WERE A TEAM. CG: YOUR OPPONENTS PROBABLY ALL JUST TRIED TO COMMIT SUICIDE AFTER A FEW MINUTES OF PUTTING UP WITH YOUR FANGY GRINNED DRIVEL. CG: THAT'S PROBABLY HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN WHEN THE SHIT HIT THE THRESHER.

AG continues to mess around and Karkat continues to be adamant about not wanting to be friends with her. He warns her not to use her mind control abilities on his teammates, and finishes up with something that actually seems to hit home.

CG: I'VE GOT THE BETTER SCOURGE SISTER ON MY TEAM AND IF YOU BREAK YOUR TRUCE YOU'LL HAVE TO ANSWER TO HER. CG: THE FUNNY THING IS SHE WAS ALWAYS WAY BETTER THAN YOU EVEN WITHOUT ANY POWERS. CG: YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, I KNOW YOUR WHOLE STORY. CG: YOU WERE ALWAYS JEALOUS SHE COULD MANIPULATE PEOPLE SO WELL WITHOUT RESORTING TO CHEAP MIND TRICKS. CG: HAHA, I CAN TELL THIS BURNS YOU AND I CAN'T EVEN PAW THROUGH YOUR DUMPSTER! CG: CHALK IT UP AS ANOTHER INFURIATING VICTORY FOR GUTTER BLOOD OVER ARISTOCRACY.

It’s interesting that although Karkat is extremely cagey about his blood colour, he identifies himself here as a lowblood. Granted, that’s the most logical conclusion to make -- a highblood would have no reason to conceal their blood caste -- but blood colour wasn’t even being discussed until he brought it up.

Karkat ends the chatlog, and then immediately starts messaging AG again.

AG: Oh, 8ack so soon! Did your thum8 slip on the 8utton???????? AG: I guess you can't get enough of me. AG: ::::) CG: YOU MADE ME DO THAT. CG: AND YOU KNOW IT. AG: You 8n't got nothing on me and you can't prove shit!!!!!!!! AG: Anyway, Karkat, I just wanted to say. AG: <3

...okay, I assume she’s using that in a mocking way, because we never get any other indication that she’s romantically interested in Karkat, but man, that threw me for a moment.

FAILURE ARTIST: AG says she can read Karkat’s mind and it’s implied she made Karkat slip up, but you’d think even with Karkat’s mind being a dumpster she’d still find it impossible to resist finding out his blood color.

CHEL: Impossible to not find it, in fact! It must be pretty prominent in his thoughts if it’s important enough to hide.

BRIGHT: The narration then hops to the blue Sagittarius boy, and...uh.

Wow, those sure are a lot of weirdly sexual posters and dismantled robots.

Let’s not beat about the bush here: Teens are (generally) interested in sex and very good at getting hold of depictions of it. On the other hand...thirteen is kind of on the young end for that. Also, most people don’t display their pornography proudly on their walls, although as I type this I remember that cheesecake pin-ups used to be a thing. Heck, maybe they still are. Either way, this is kind of disturbing.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 10

CHEL: Then again, I was never very close to any teenage boys when I was that age; for all I know, maybe they would stick their porn on their walls if they didn’t have parents to stop them.

I’d like to point out the unfortunate implications in having the narrator sound as disturbed as they do in conjunction with all his posters being of male characters. There are plenty of other reasons to be disturbed, plus his interactions with girls are even more disturbing, but as we proceed we’ll see hints that that possibly was meant to be part of the disturbance. Hussie has a real discomfort with m/m attraction, and it shows more than he meant it to.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 37

Since the trolls aren’t mammals and their anatomy isn’t necessarily anything a mammal would recognise, fandom’s occasionally had some fun with interpreting this as him not realising the posters are so explicit and just having them because he thinks they look cool, but that’s obviously not the intended meaning.

BRIGHT: I think the reader is also meant to be bothered by the posters being furry art. Honestly that part doesn’t bother me, but furries were the butt of a lot of jokes back in 2009 -- and possibly still are, although I haven’t seen any for years.

FAILURE ARTIST: Personally, when I saw this panel, I was peeved that he wasn’t introduced yet. I liked the cut of his jib for displaying such “art”. Of course, there’s also the shiner his lusus sports which may play a part in the narrator’s discomfort.

BRIGHT: The narration is as disturbed as I am, although possibly for different reasons, and promptly switches to a brief glimpse of the last troll we have to meet, who has dark pink goggles, a Pisces sign, and is prodding a cuttlefish with a trident. Before we can learn anything more about her, off we go again!

This time we return to Aradia, who is flying across the countryside atop the severed head of the frog statue. Her hive, when she reaches it, is in ruins and overgrown by vegetation.

You haven't been here since the night of the accident. On that night you found your CALLING. The voices of the dead grew louder, urging you to return to the ruins you discovered not long before. You left so abruptly, you didn't even have time to bury your lusus. But that's fine, because trolls don't typically bury their dead. Leaving bodies to be consumed by wild animals is more customary.

We’ve already seen that role-playing accidents on Alternia can be pretty damn extreme, and given that Aradia has telekinesis it’s not a stretch that property damage could get involved, but this is still very effective build-up to the reveal of What’s Up With Aradia. On my first read-through I was really curious about what had happened, and I still think it holds up well.

Aradia starts up the game and allows her co-leader to enter first, since she always intended to enter second. She then has Nepeta connect to her as her server player, and starts setting up the equipment. Since she doesn’t have a dead lusus to prototype the kernelsprite with, she uses the head of the frog statue instead. The dead have assured her that this is critical for later success.

Compelling your nonplussed server player to perform this task might have proven difficult. Luckily your telekinesis, an ability greatly magnified through your CALLING, would be sufficient to move the massive object, whereas the game cursor likely would not. Your server player simply watched in mystification.

Sprite sorted out, Aradia enters the Medium. Her classpect is MAID OF TIME, and her planet is the LAND OF QUARTZ AND MELODY, which is very pretty. It was important for her to enter second because her client player, presumably AG, has a present for her which can’t be replicated with grist, so they’re going to have to travel through the Gate above their house to get it to her.

Nepeta, meanwhile, is watching in befuddlement, because she can’t see Aradia on the screen...up until Aradia merges with the Frogsprite.

She couldn't see you up until the moment after the sprite's second prototyping. Because you were dead all along.

HOLY SHIT.

The first time I read Homestuck, this reveal blew me away. (Granted, I was a bit confused by all the hopping around between characters and time points. It makes much more sense on the second read.) It probably wasn’t intended as much of a surprise, given the next page…

We are all completely blown away by this stunning revelation.

Fair enough.

#Homespork #homestuck #homestuck meta #review #reread #sporking

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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766

My dad is starting to gear me up for ~adult life~ and has made me start a Paypal, a social security number, and all that jazz and it’s making me immensely anxious, so expect more surveys than usual in the next few days lmao.

How frequently are you inclined to read, and how much? Not frequent at all. I’ll read only if I have to; and when it comes to reading for leisure, I’ll only reread books I’ve already read in the past. I find it sad considering how big of a bookworm I was as a kid. When was the last time you questioned the direction your life was taking? Right now, what with the Covid crisis. My life would have been mapped out ever so neatly if my life’s schedule went as expected - finish the sem, finish my thesis, graduate, travel for a bit, get a job. Now that that has been thrown out the window I essentially have to start from scratch and go into the world blind. And if you've been reading my surveys, you’ll know my least favorite thing to have to deal with is big change. Would you say that your personal views align with society's, generally? Not the society I have no choice but to be surrounded by, which is mostly Catholic, homophobic, sexist, and just very backwards in general. But when it comes to people I voluntarily choose to be with, like the friends I make and the people I follow on social media, I make sure their views are as liberal as mine so I don’t go completely crazy. ^ If not, in what ways do your opinions drastically differ? I just said it, but yeah Filipinos continue to be very resistant to more open-minded, modern views. Girls will still often be told to cover up, religions other than Christianity are viewed as wrong and of lower status, abortion is the most scandalous thing a woman could do, drug addicts must be handled with bullets and not rehab, etc. Basically everything you can roll your eyes over, that’s what Filipinos will tend to side with; and it’s very difficult to want to have your voice heard here because you will be ridiculed and thrown Bible verses instead of legit arguments. What small things have the ability to get under your skin? People who only start picking their orders once they’re the ones at the cashier, drivers who do have their turn signal on but will go THE OTHER DIRECTION, finding out there’s a car accident and I find out traffic has been building up only because drivers slow down to look at the crash site. The last one makes me especially mad every time it happens lol.

When was the last time you were caused to be upset with someone? I haven’t been upset with anyone in a while. If I’m upset these days, blame it on the weather. ^ Have you made up with that individual yet, or will you ever? I will never be ok with the summer climate over here. What is something small that has the ability to cure a bad mood? Hearing a favorite song on the radio as I’m driving, hitting all the green lights while driving, finding a parking spot near the mall entrance... man I really miss going out :(( What beverage is best capable of quenching your thirst? Water. What was the last big change through which you went? It hasn’t happened yet but I’ll be graduating and will officially be done with school forever in a few weeks. I mean, that’s the case unless I decide to take up a master’s but honestly the chances of that are super blurry as I’m over school at this point. ^ Do you deal well with change, typically? Have you always? I am honestly terrible at it and as much as I’m excited to get my first real job, I’m also scared to see how my adjustment pans out. I’ve had a pattern for not being able to adapt well to a new phase – I didn’t adjust in high school until my junior year, and I didn’t adjust in college until the latter half of my sophomore year. I really wish the trend doesn’t continue in the workplace because I can’t handle another mental slump. How do you feel after spending a great quantity of time online? I feel nothing? I mean I need the internet to do almost everything so it’s just become a part of daily routine; it’s normalized already. I would tend to feel some shame if I’ve been unproductive online when I could’ve been doing much more important stuff, but I’ve been avoiding that - I’ve been working on my thesis again, working on stuff for my org, participating in my other extracurriculars, etc. I feel relatively productive given the current circumstances. What do you consider to be the biggest drawback to being you? Like I said, I’m terrible with change. It takes forever for me to warm up to new conditions, and in that period I tend to feel very alone and miserable. I don’t know why I’ve never learned to just get out and make friends earlier. What do you consider the best part of being who you are? ^ Related to said drawback, once I have adjusted to the change, I do very well. I make lots of friends and am back to being my bubbly, social self. I just wish She could come out more easily. What kinds of things do you have on display in your room? Several Audrey Hepburn frames, a couple of paintings, and a poster of a Korean actor. What do you think your room and its contents say about you, if anything? I think more than anything you’ll see how my interests have shifted over the years haha. There’s tons of old WWE magazines, Paramore albums, Beyoncé albums and DVDs, crafty stuff like painting sets and coloring books, etc. When was the last time you felt insecure about something/some situation? Half hour ago when my dad was encouraging me to register for a bunch of grownup stuff. He doesn’t pester me a lot in small bits everyday (which I would really prefer); he’s more of a I’ll-dump-all-this-shit-on-you-in-one-go kind of person, which pressures me even more. I mean I’m excited for this new chapter but I wish he didn’t tell me to start a bank account and a Paypal and a social security number and a TIN all at the same time. What is something about which you are very confident or self-assured? I pride myself on being a good worker/co-worker. Do you ever stop to contemplate infinity? No. Are you comfortable amongst nature, or does the wilderness discomfit you? Sure, it makes me feel at peace. When was the last time someone or something caught you off guard? Andrew did a buuuunch of progress on our thesis this afternoon after a few days of passive-aggressively telling him that I’ve been doing all the work in the last week. How much time do you put into maintaining your appearance and hygiene? I don’t want to take a lot of time since I’m usually on a tight schedule but I do put enough effort to look and smell nice, if that makes sense. Like I wouldn’t take hours to do my makeup and put up an intricate hairdo, but I will still make sure I don’t exit the house looking shabby. Are there any foods you eat daily? . . . Or wish you could? I have rice and some sort of meat everyday. When was the last time someone new entered your life? Start of the semester when we had a new wave of applicants joining our org. ^ What was your first impression of that individual? They all seemed nice and fun to be around, and I’m glad their batch has had amazing chemistry from the get-go. But because of the lockdown I never got to know them all that well so I’m a little sad about it, since I’m already graduating. Do you put much thought into your handwriting? No? It’s not really something I can control anyway haha. What are some of the top priorities in your life right now? Ugh I’ve talked about this so much on here that it’s almost stupid because I take these surveys to begin with to distract myself from my current anxieties only for the surveys to ask about said anxieties ksksksks. Can I say pass for now? Lol In general, how do you feel about romantic relationships? They’re nice, and it feels good to have a person you can share everything to, be affectionate with, who supports you in everything, etc. I’ve been used to being in one for so long now I honestly can’t imagine being single. Which emotional sensation inconveniences or bothers you the most? As if I haven’t talked about it on this single survey enough, anxiety. Are you capable of consoling others in their grief? It depends on how bad is the thing they’re grieving and how accepting they are of help. I don’t know if I’m capable of talking to someone who has lost a parent, but I’ll be able to talk to a friend who’s going through a breakup. Do you ever find it awkward to compliment another being? No. I can give compliments, but I’m unable to take them. When was the last time you had a new experience? What was it? Earlier this afternoon when my dad made me make a Paypal hahaha. Skskss plz stop reminding me of scary things Do you dress more for yourself, or to the expectations of others? A little bit of both. I want to look nice, but I also make sure I keep up with the trends so others think I look nice. What kinds of things tend to stress you out? The stuff I’ve mentioned throughout this survey... What is one way you cope when you feel like crap? I watch videos, I eat whatever I’m craving, I talk about it with my girlfriend, I hug my dog... I have a lot of coping mechanisms.

Name an insult you regularly receive, if there is one? My mom tells me so many insults on a regular basis I can put each one of them in a spinning wheel and give you whatever comes out lol. Name a site that takes up a lot of your time? YouTube. What is something you used to believe about life that you no longer do? That money was easy to acquire. It was certainly so easy to fantasize about as a kid. What is a lesson you have recently learned? I don’t recall picking up anything new lately. Realizations, sure; but I’m not sure about lessons. Do you have a tendency to look on the morbid side of life? Sometimes. When was the last time you went shopping? What did you buy? A weekend before the quarantine. I bought a couple of new tops. When you shop for clothing, how long does it take you? 10-15 minutes tops. I just pick out whatever looks pretty. What is something fun you have done within the past week? It’s been a horrid week. I can’t answer this question. What is something you hope you never have to do again? Stay at home with nothing to do for this long. How does the rain affect your mood, if it does? It makes me feel happy and at peace.

#survey #surveys

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raendown · 5 years ago

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What a way to celebrate Tobirama’s birthday. xD

Pairing: None Word count: 4022 Chapter: 3/4 Rated: T+ Summary: Months after the village is built Izuna is near his breaking point. Peace is nice, don’t get him wrong, but he could do without the pale shadow that follows behind him everywhere he goes. All he wants is to understand. What the hell is Tobirama’s obsession with watching him?

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 3

As a child Izuna can remember his mother teaching him a method of meditating on his own breathing pattern in an attempt to rein in his temper. It had worked to some extent then. At the moment he finds himself having much more limited success. It wouldn’t be so bad if his unwanted mission partner would only travel beside him but no matter what speed they move at somehow Tobirama always ends up just a step or two behind and it’s driving him absolutely wild.

“Have you tried some sort of rewards system?”

“Different ones, yes.”

Even worse still is that they have managed to keep up a semblance of amicable conversation for nearly the entire journey as if there is nothing more between them but the fact that their brothers are friends. Tobirama’s voice carries no hint of aggression, no undue curiosity, and there are certainly no hints of any romantic endeavors. At some point they find themselves on the topic of a child in the Uchiha clan who doesn’t pay even half the attention he should to his lessons and Izuna is vaguely surprised that his companion’s interest seems to be more for the boy than for him.

“Behavioral based or progression based?”

“What’s the difference?”

“If the child feels he is unable to obtain whatever goals have been set for him then he may not feel motivated even by the promise of a reward.”

Listening to him speak in such a bland tone leaves Izuna confused. He isn’t sure whether the man is trying to pretend his weird stalking isn’t happening or if he is merely striving for a bit of normalcy while they are forced to travel together but either way the efforts are pointless. It‘s impossible to pretend that everything is normal while Tobirama refuses to actually walk beside him.

“Huh, I never thought of it like that,” he murmurs, willing to keep the conversation up if only so he isn’t traveling in silence with an old enemy standing just behind his unprotected back. “We’ve tried to do it like that and we’ve tried to bribe him with sweets for even just showing up every day – I swear every tooth in his head is a sweet one. Nothing works.”

While his companion hums thoughtfully Izuna tries to remember if there are any other methods they have used to try and convince little Kagami to take his training more seriously. The little tyke has so much potential. Such a shame that he insists on wasting it all. If he had some other interest or passion that he were trying to pursue instead Izuna might understand, not all of their clan members are fighters after all, but at times it feels as though Kagami seems determined to simply never grow up.

A pause in the steps behind him catches his attention and Izuna turns to see that Tobirama has gone stiff, his head turned away, eyes narrowed where they stare in to the middle distance off east. Instinctively Izuna turns to look that way as well only to realize that Tobirama probably isn’t actually looking with his eyes.

“Three inbound at high speeds. Feels like Kaminari no Kuni shinobi.”

“Gods, how powerful is your sensing?” Izuna grumbles, loosening his sword in its sheath.

“More than I ever allowed the Uchiha to discover.” Tobirama’s gaze flicks over towards him and there is something dark hidden there before he looks away. “An oversight, perhaps, that I have not seen fit to share my true abilities with our new allies.”

“Right. Let’s take care of this and then we’re having a nice long conversation on exactly what you’re capable of.”

Before there is time for any sort of reply their new company arrives, flitting in to the treetops above them and pausing to assess the situation. Izuna takes a good grip on the handle of his favorite sword, tightening his fingers one by one, counting breaths just as his mother taught him.

In, out, one. Three opponents, one male and two female.

In, out, two. A sword glimmers in the hand of one female, something heavy and club like in the hands of the male, close combat fighters.

In, out, three. Large chakra stores burn almost tangibly in the air around the third, clearly a distance fighter, he will need to keep an eye out for whatever jutsu she has up her sleeve.

He never gets to four breaths. From behind him Tobirama explodes in to motion, charging the woman nearly bursting at the seams with her own chakra. A low hiss cuts the air just before the man leaps in to defend his companion. Izuna rolls his shoulders and acknowledges that he has been left to face the woman bearing a sword to match his own, the perfect opponent. Out of all the spars he has enjoyed with many and varied people since moving to Konoha very few of them have been able to match his skill with a blade enough to offer a proper challenge. In a strange way he almost misses his battles with the man he is currently fighting alongside if only because he worries that without Tobirama to face he might lose his edge.

Sparks leap between their weapons and Izuna realizes that he has moved out of habit without even consciously deciding to, sword leaping to hand and meeting the one aiming for his neck. For a single heartbeat they struggle, brute strength against brute strength, then the woman twists and dodges back once she realizes that his bulk outweighs her own. Rather than allow her the time to think up another angle of attack Izuna hefts his sword and watches her respond with a snarl of frustration. Good. That means she is off balance and an opponent who has no time to think is an opponent he can easily beat.

Only sharp reflexes stop his blade from cutting through the wrong flesh, pulling up a mere instant before he would have pierced Tobirama through the side as his mission partner suddenly appears between them to deflect his opponent’s blade. Then he is skipping away again with a snarl of his own. Izuna floods his eyes with chakra just to take in the expression of something almost like desperation on the man’s face. His reputation being what it is, revealing his greatest battle advantage has the added benefit of causing his opponent to hesitate. Not many people who know what it can do are stupid enough to attack an active Sharingan straight on and Izuna is oddly glad to see that his opponent is not stupid. Easy kills are no fun.

As Tobirama is pressed back by his own two assailants Izuna rushes in to keep this one busy. He can’t afford to let her find her bearings; he learned the hard way when he was younger to never underestimate how many tricks your opponent might have up their sleeve. She might seem like her skills barely match his own but he has no way of knowing what tricks or seals or the like she might pull out at a moment’s notice.

Neither does he have a chance to find out, as it happens. Each time their clash looks as though it might be about to get interesting Tobirama appears between them. At first Izuna accepts that he simply needs to dodge quite a lot while trying to face a long range and a short range fighter at the same time; keeping up with two different styles means keeping on your toes. It isn’t until his Sharingan focuses in on the pair chasing his partner around the field that he realizes both of them are downright ragged looking. One bleeds from several places and the other looks just on the verge of an asthmatic attack so out of breath are they. In contrast Tobirama looks tense yet still in good condition.

So if it’s Tobirama that is leading them around by the nose rather than the one getting chased why on earth does he keep dashing in between Izuna and his own kill? There’s a whole forest here to move around in.

Annoying as it is, the trained shinobi in his soul can’t help but admire how quickly Tobirama moves from place to place, how seamlessly he manages to insert himself just in time to deflect whatever attack Izuna is about to meet and then dance away again as though he’d never been there. Whatever else he is there can be no denying that he’s a skilled fighter. The problem is trying to figure out what the hell he is up to.

It simply doesn’t make sense, Izuna thinks as he takes his opportunity to bull in close and drive the woman back with a rapid flurry of attacks. Weeks and months of stalking that Izuna has been interpreting as some lingering form of aggression. Now suddenly the man is jumping in front of him in battle. Has he been making observations leading him to the conclusion that Izuna’s skills have diminished somehow? That certainly makes more sense than the ridiculous rumors of forbidden love, although it’s also wildly more insulting. Yet even that theory includes enough gaping holes that he can’t quite believe it either.

By the time Izuna finds an opening to drive his blade through his opponent’s neck and watch her gurgle out her last curses on the forest floor he is equal parts curious and livid. Tobirama dispatches of his own two assailants only a moment later as though he has merely been playing with them as some morbid excuse to remain occupied. He waits just long enough to clean his sword and slide it back in to the scabbard across his back, then Izuna is marching across the torn clearing to take the collar of his old rival’s armor and drag them face to face, oddly unsurprised that he is allowed to do so with no resistance.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he growls. “I’m not so softened by this stupid dream of our brothers’ that I’ve forgotten how to defend myself! I had that covered!”

“Your skill was never in question,” Tobirama murmurs. He looks entirely calm, unruffled, and that only irritates Izuna further.

“It sure as hell feels questioned with you babying me like some genin out on their first run! If you think I need to polish a few things then say it to my face, damn it, quit treating me with kid gloves! I didn’t need it back home and I don’t need it here!”

Composed as he ever is, Tobirama fails to react in any satisfying sort of way. He fails to so much as blink while Izuna screams in his face but there is one thing to be gained from overreacting. From this close – perhaps the first time they have ever been so close outside of battle – it is plain to see the well of something dark and deep in those red eyes so like the Sharingan, something that brings ice crawling up Izuna’s spine though he can’t yet define what it is. It’s enough to snap his jaw shut and make him step away to watch quietly as Tobirama turns, murmuring again that they should press on to their destination.

An uncomfortable mixture of anger and confusion with shades of worry twists itself into knots inside Izuna’s belly, keeping his mouth shut for the rest of their mission, speaking only when it is absolutely necessary. On the journey home he can feel the back of his neck itching with Tobirama’s eyes almost every step of the way but he holds his tongue for fear of what else he might see in that unwavering gaze.

When they make it back to the village the first thing they do is make their report to Hashirama, of course. Madara joins them and together they remain sequestered for over an hour discussing the results of their goodwill efforts. Despite his attempts to appear nonchalant Izuna is fairly sure the clan they were visiting with had noticed some tensions between himself and Tobirama but in a strange way it had actually worked out in their favor as their hosts seemed to be impressed with how well they function together anyway. Talking about that without making a big deal of why exactly there had been some friction in their unity is difficult. Izuna is more than glad when finally they have said all there is to say for now and he is able to drag his brother off towards home.

Madara puts up a good act of wanting to stay and finish his work. He fools no one. Not even his workaholic tendencies are enough to keep him from spending a bit of quality time with his favorite sibling – although Izuna does notice the man tucking a few scrolls in to his sleeve before they depart. It gets him out the door, however, so no comments are made until finally they are making their way through the gate leading in to the Uchiha district.

“I can’t figure out his angle,” he blurts, too eager for another’s opinion to bother with context.

“Who, Hashirama?”

“No! Don’t be an idiot, that tree is as transparent as glass with his intentions. I mean his gods damned brother!”

Humming contemplatively, Madara pulls a bit of hair forward to fiddle with. “Wouldn’t having him forced to travel with you sort of negate the stalking? I know you didn’t want him along but I thought it would be nice for you to at least drag him out of the shadows.”

Rather tempted to pull at his own hair, Izuna takes several breaths and counts them before he is able to form a reply through the flash of temper.

Thankfully his brother has the good grace not to interrupt as he recounts everything that’s happened while he was away. His description of the way Tobirama seemed to constantly find his way between Izuna and his opponent during their battle brings a crease to Madara's brow that only deepens as the story goes on. Slowly making their way up one of the side streets, a shortcut towards their home, he tosses the chunk of hair he is playing with back over his shoulder only to grab another and start again.

“Strange,” he rumbles. “Very strange. I honestly have no idea what the hell this is all about.”

“I know that it’s ridiculous but I just need to hear someone else say this out loud: please tell me it’s not plausible that he’s actually fallen in love with me somehow.”

“Plausible, technically yes. Probable, a very strong no.”

“Oh thank the gods.” Izuna slumps with relief to finally have another confirm his thoughts.

After rolling his eyes Madara slips right back in to thoughtfulness. “There’s something about this that just doesn’t quite sit with me the right way. I know it would make the most sense to say that he still doesn’t trust you, that he’s been following you to keep a close watch or whatever, but for some reason I just can’t make myself believe that. There’s no other evidence of that in any other behavior.”

“Yes, thanks, I didn’t quite notice that for myself.”

“If that’s how you’re going to behave then I don’t see why you started talking about it! Go jabber at someone else if you’re just going to be all snooty about whatever I have to say!” With a sniff Madara turns up his nose and quickens his steps.

While Izuna isn’t entirely sure how he ends up being left alone outside he isn’t all that surprised either. The two of them share like tempers after all. Madara is as given to hissy fits as he himself can freely admit to being. He follows behind at a slower pace and lets himself in to the home they share, nodding at the shoes kicked off haphazardly at just the right spot where they might trip him up if he weren’t already expecting to see them there.

Madara is angrily plugging in their fancy new electric kettle when he enters the kitchen and slumps down in to the closest chair, blowing out his fringe with exasperation.

“Done being a baby?” he asks bluntly. Madara crinkles his nose.

“Fuck you.”

“You’re still thinking about it. I can practically see the gears turning in your head.”

His brother pauses in the act of pulling down two cups with the continuing thoughts he doesn’t bother to deny spilling out over his face. “Obviously I am. I keep trying to think of some other reason he might be doing this but nothing comes to mind. If it’s not that he doesn’t trust you and it’s not that he has some sort of romantic whatever–”

“Kami please no,” Izuna interrupts with a shudder.

“–then he clearly has some other special interest in you but I am honestly stumped. If it were almost anyone else I might go so far as jealousy except the two of you have always been so closely matched that I can’t see either being jealous of the other.” Madara jolts himself in to movement again, reaching for the tea leaves, but continues speaking even as he measures them out. “I would have considered that he was trying to learn something specific about you too but for the fact that he hasn’t been shy about asking for any other information he’s wanted on our clan.”

“Which is a lot of information, actually.”

“Hm. I guess. No more than we’ve asked from the others, though, and nothing that he’s asked for has been any more suspicious or invasive than the things we’ve asked about the Senju in turn.”

Izuna rattles his nails against the hardwood table. “Do you think that could be it? Maybe there’s something he wants to find out but it’s inappropriate or he knows we won’t want to share whatever information he’s after.”

He waits with as much patience as he can muster while the other tosses that idea around but even as he speaks the words Izuna himself realizes that probably isn’t it either. Tobirama might be a sneaky bastard on the battlefield and more than capable of subterfuge when it’s necessary during a mission but in daily life he has shown himself to prefer as direct a route as possible to whatever goal he has in his sights. Finally Madara pushes both teacups towards the kettle and leaves it to boil as he comes over to sit at the table.

“No,” his brother says. “That just doesn’t sound right either. And the worst part is that I can’t say why it doesn’t sound right. It feels like there’s something nagging at the back of my brain, something important that I’ve forgotten. Like a missing piece of the puzzle.”

“Would your friend know anything do you think?”

Madara blinks. “Hashirama? He might. It would be worth asking if he’s got any idea what crawled up his brother’s ass.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be going over to their house for dinner tomorrow night?” Izuna rattles his fingers again but this time it is less with frustration and more to express the satisfaction of the stars aligning just for him. He is further pleased to see his sibling lean back with widening eyes.

“I am going to dinner, yes. He asked me over because both Tobirama and Mito are supposed to be busy and he wanted company. We’ll be all alone.”

“You couldn’t wish for a better opportunity to ask a few questions,” Izuna purrs with satisfaction.

When the kettle begins to whistle they turn the conversation towards other things. Spending time together after being apart – even if for so short a time – is only one of the ways they maintain such a tight bond between them. Even here in another home the shadows of the siblings they have lost echo around every corner, chased away only by the warmth of knowing that Madara will always stand beside him against whatever the world might choose to throw at them.

After a while, however, he finds other thoughts wriggling in, thoughts that Izuna knows he is above and yet he can’t seem to push them away without addressing them. Tracing the rim of his nearly empty cup gives him something else to look at as he fills the lull that has fallen naturally in their conversation.

“Can I ask you something?” He waits for the curious grunt before going on. “Why don’t you seem more worried about this whole Tobirama situation?”

“What do you mean?”

“If there was someone following you around all the time I think I’d be a lot more freaked out about it than you seem to be. Not that I’m angry or making any accusations! It’s just…odd. You’re usually so overprotective it’s hard for me to even flirt with anyone.”

“Hn.” Madara bunches his brows together as though mildly offended by the insinuation that he might not care. “I guess I just don’t feel any ill intentions from him. Something in my gut tells me that he hasn’t got anything bad up his sleeve. The way he interacts with you – hell, the way he interacts with all the rest of our clan – I just can’t bring myself to believe that he’s after anything terrible. I guess I was just unconsciously acknowledging that I don’t believe you’re in any sort of danger.”

Somehow that only increases the dread pooling in Izuna’s gut.

“If he doesn’t have any bad intentions then the kami only know what else he could have in that twisted brain of his. Ancestors watch over me.”

While his brother snorts and gently teases him for being so dramatic Izuna lets the words drift by him without actually listening. The entire reason he’s been wanting to go out on a mission is to get away from this situation with his old rival and just clear his mind a bit. Now that he’s been denied that opportunity and come home only more confused in the aftermath he realizes more than ever that he needs a night to just relax, to let everything else fade away until his mind is empty of all worries. And what better way to achieve that then a night on the town with someone he can trust to be entirely disinterested in whatever drama he’s gotten himself embroiled in this time?

“You gonna be okay on your own tonight?” he cuts in through whatever the other is saying. “I think I’ll go see if I can drag Hikaku down to one of the taverns for a few hours.”

“Don’t you have work to catch up on tomorrow?” Madara asks.

“I’m not going to get drunk or anything, don’t worry, I’m not that stupid. Just thought it would be nice to unwind for a while.”

Even as he nods understandingly Madara puts one hand to his chest and exclaims in dramatic fashion, “Because you’re just so stressed with all the work you do, of course. Helping to run a village, keeping both eyes on a walking tree, achieving your lifelong dreams. Oh no wait, that’s me.”

“Fuck off,” Izuna calls cheerfully over his shoulder as he makes his way out of the room, deliberately leaving the teacup behind for the other to clean up after him. Pettiness is just another family trait.

With any luck Hikaku will be as willing to indulge him as his aniki is. Izuna reaches back to pull the tie from his hair and run his fingers through it. Perhaps a bath is in order first to wash the dirt of the road away, he probably still smells like the rivers they’ve been trudging through. Unpacking can wait for tomorrow. If his cousin doesn’t want to come out then he fully intends to bully his way in to the other man’s home and find something there to help him get his mind off of things. Tobirama can remain a problem for another day just once more.

Tomorrow his brother will speak with Hashirama and ask their questions. Tomorrow, he hopes, they will have answers.

#rae writes #tobirama #izuna #madara #fanfiction

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gemder · 5 years ago

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a bubbline wip, featuring a dissociative episode by our fave punk rock vamp. set shortly after Stakes.

She doesn't know how long she's been hovering over the couch like this, with her gaze trained on the bumps and dips on the ceiling and her bass planted in her arms. How many times has she sung that old song, so old and resilient it survived the death and rebirth of the world (and the both of hers twice over, now) just by hiding in the corner of her mind she doesn't like to visit? She can't see the sun or moon rise through the entrance to her hideaway from this part of the house, and the cave-imposed darkness tells her nothing of the time or how much of it has passed.

She doesn't dare budge from her spot. She's been turned twice now; she knows from experience that any sudden action, anything to startle her base thought process, could spark that bloodlust from last time. That was some ugly biz, if she remembers correctly. It's been a while, but something like an uncontrollable urge to drain the lifeforce of every living creature within 30 miles sticks to you. She's just going to have to wait it out, until the itch in the back of her throat dies down and she doesn't worry it'll become an insatiable burning for hot blood, no matter how long it takes.

Marceline has had an excessive amount of time to learn how to be alone; 1003 years, in fact. So why does it never get any easier? Why does being left never hurt any less? Why does she seem to be so completely destined for eternal loneliness? What asshat decided she deserved to spend the entirety of her neverending life without a single constant presence?

Mom went out with promises of keeping safe and finding food and I love you so much, sweetie, that alone is strong enough to bring me back to you. It took two weeks before little Marcy came to the conclusion that her mom wasn't coming back with food or supplies, or even returning empty handed. Simon let a stupid magical crown take over every single cell of his brain and wrote a bunch of scattered letters about it while it happened instead of, you know, telling the frightened 7 year old she was going to be left soon. Dad just up and left to go back to running the Nightosphere after a few weeks, with nary a parting word nor any notice. Her post-apocalyptic comrades had no choice but to flee from an otherwise inevitable extinction. Bonnie had to go and grow up, and in the process decide that her 900-something year old girlfriend wasn't mature enough.

(She checked that old, busted up camper as often as she could over the following months. There was never another life in that thing after she hopped down the little steps and let the screen door slam back with the carelessness of a 6 year old.)

(She found a decomposed corpse months later that just happened to be wearing some torn up rags that looked like her mom’s old sweater and jeans. It must have just been a coincidence, though; there were a lot of recently dead back then, and even more moth-eaten sweaters in the world.)

(“I’m trying to save you, but who's going to save me?” ‘I don't know, old man, maybe you could have saved yourself? You could have not purposely used the magical relic that was making you go bananas?’ If a 7 year old could make it through the apocalypse without magic then so could a fully grown man.)

(He left her to survive on her own in the name of being executive manager of hell and he still wonders why she wants nothing to do with him, why she used to have such a hard time so much as calling him “dad” when he’s never been anything like what she was lead to believe dads were supposed to be like.)

(She’s 1000 years old, how in the name of the nightosphere could she not be mature enough?)

(Over the years she’s replaced the world “hell” with “Nightosphere” the same way the being once referred to as “God,” back when even she was young, is now called by their proper name of Glob. The Nightosphere really is hell, so it fits.)

(Sometimes she takes the time to think about how she's the heir apparent to the actual, literal, real life hell, and how she's one of the oldest beings around these days, maybe the oldest to still really be sane, but still a messed up teen.)

(She doesn't know how old she was when she was turned; years and months and all that are hard to keep track of when the species that invented it is all but extinct. Is she old enough to drive? Probably. She does and can regardless, because screw the old ways. Old enough to drink, smoke, vote? Debatable. The point is that she’s 1000 years old but actually, like, 18. What the fuck.)

She drifts, both mentally and physically. She's had plenty of time and isolation to ponder the Big Things about life and the world and why and how things happened the way they did, and what it means. She will have an abundance of opportunities in the future to think about these things, too. Some day she'll reflect on this part of her life in the far away, nostalgia-filtered sepia tones she currently thinks of her childhood and adolescence. She'll remember when Finn and Jake were the heroes of Ooo, when Simon used to chase after princesses who will have long since passed, when she couldn't get over her ex-girlfriend who happened to be sentient candy. It will be distant and she will miss it terribly, the same way she misses her mother, and Simon when he was Simon, and fries in a long-abandoned diner. But it will be a wound long since closed and numbed, like the deep scar she got on her calf sometime in her early teens that still exists today, preserved in her immortality and a sentimentality that prevented her from insta-healing it away, sting and blood long gone.

She has forever to reminisce, but only right now to live in the present. She makes mental patterns in the bumps on the ceiling, and slowly loses grip on her body. She is a million miles upwards, where the sky holds no oxygen and the stars are still pinpricks in a sea of indigo construction paper. Like a kid poking holes in the top of a jar of lightning bugs, equipped with a fork and enthusiasm at being able to destroy something for the sake of encapturing something else. She is, at the same time, hovering above her uncomfortably hard couch. One of her hands slips from its place atop her bass, and Shwabl licks it from his spot next to her on the dusty carpet.

She doesn't hear the knock at the door. She is right there, but she is centuries back and in a different part of the continent entirely. She doesn't hear Bonnie getting increasingly agitated, trying and failing not to raise her voice at her through the door. She doesn't notice when Bonnie lets herself in regardless of Marceline’s lack of response, or when Shwabl jumps up to attention at the guest.

It's the “Marceline, what -” that breaks her dissociative spell. That tone of exasperation in that particular voice is a very familiar one, especially within the last decade. She comes to to find that there are fresh tears in the corner of one eye and the words to a song as old as her youth on her lips.

“Oh, hey Bombòn. How goes it girl?” Marceline has had a millennium to convince the world that she's chill and totally not a big mess, and it shows in the lilt to her voice that screams ‘I'm just chillin’’ and not ‘I've been dissociating and crying and probably singing for who-knows-how-long and I'm really messed up’. She still doesn't dare move from her spot, because moving around could still trigger what she's trying to wait out.

“It's been three weeks, Marcy. Three weeks, and all that heavy biz, and no one's heard from you since. Doesn't that seem even a little bit irresponsible to you? Didn't you think people would worry? Or even wonder ‘hey, what happened to that girl who saved all our butts and got revampified?’”

“Dude, I've just been chilling. You know how it is; jams, games, pets, it keeps a girl busy. It’s cool. Ice cold, in fact.”

Bonnie sighs. Marceline has heard that sigh a million and three times over by now, and she's learned to like that particular sound from the pink girl; it's the one thing about herself that she can't manage to sweeten to the point of oversaturation, until it (like the rest of her) is practically dripping sugar. Marceline likes to deal with the authentic rather than the idealized versions of people, because the latter rarely ever means anything good is coming her way.

(She rationalizes that the Ice King component of Simon, while not idealized, is not authentic in the least; the products of full humans getting mixed up with magic seldom are. The authentic Simon Petrikov is the one who found a 6 year old girl in the ruins of a suburban New Mexico town and still had enough selflessness in the aftermath of the apocalypse to comfort her and take care of her.)

The sigh doesn't lead to the reprimanding the vampire expects. Instead, she watches as Bonnie leans down in her peripheral vision to pet Shwabl, expression focused intently on the dog. She's doing that same schooled neutrality shit she used to do during those globawful trade meetings - the ones Marcy used to steal her away from the go gallivanting through the rock candy mines.

“What kind of sweet tunes have you whipped up, then? Lay it on me girl.”

Marceline lets her face adopt a smirk - the expression has become a reflexive habit after centuries of being a bitter undead loner - even as something in her stomach drops. Bonnie rarely asks about her music because she knows so much of it is personal, and that which isn't is vulgar or morbid and prone to being shared regardless, not to mention the fact that Bonnie’s interests definitely don't lie in the arts, or punk rock music, or most of the uglier parts of Marceline.

“You know my latest album is the epitome of personal mush, Bons. It's so personal I'd have to kill you if you heard any of it. But, I do have a new demo about a fisherman.”

Bonnibel definitely wants something out of her; she has that smile she reserves for Cinnamon Bun and Finn when he's going on about dumb 13 year old boy things, the one that's polite and reservedly encouraging, the one that Marcy has always found to be condescending although it always looks as sweet as its wearer who is literally made out of candy, almost as sweet as the girl’s public persona.

The thing about being 1000 years old and also a teenage girl is that you spend forever being a socially-minded person on some level or another, because back in the day that's how girls were socialized to be - social-driven creatures who cared more about what Allyson wore on Tuesday or what Theresa said about Serena in math class than anything practical. So Marceline has had a long time to notice the tells and ticks of the select few she surrounds herself with often enough to care about. PB smiles like her kindergarten teacher used to on particularly trying days when she thinks the people she's with are idiots but can't call them out for it. Her eyebrows droop when she's so tired that sheer willpower will no longer keep them up. She plays with her hands when she's nervous. She used to chew on her hair when she was younger and in the process of creating her kingdom, when stress was a new feeling she hadn't yet made a feedback loop out of.

This is totally, completely because of the sexist socialization of the old world, and nothing else. Totally not because they dated for a good chunk of time, or because one or the other might, maybe be having rose-coloured thoughts about the other again.

“Everyone and their granny has heard that one, Marcy. If you've had all this time to do nothing but groove and game then I wanna hear some tunes! Don't be a butt about it.” She's trying to gode the older girl, but Marceline is itching to get out of this particular conversation. Somewhere in her cursed, mostly re-dried blood she knows this is a test.

“I don't bust into your lab and start interrogating you about your experiments - can you just lay off, man?” she says it more harshly than she had meant to, but being yanked back to reality and immediately questioned over every move will do that to a person. “Tell me what's been going on in Candyland. You finally get all the earwax off of your junk?”

“You know if you did ask about my science experiments I would be happy to tell you all about them - well, the ones that aren't classified. It's called caring, Marce, it's a thing that friends do.”

A tense silence follows as Marceline thinks of something biting (but not petty!) to throw back at her.

“And yeah, actually, I did. The dingus left a huge mess but there's nothing my purple cleaner can't get rid of.”

Bonnie can't leave a single box unticked, can she?

“Glob, that stuff is nasty. The fumes make me gag, and I don't even need to breathe!”

The princess raises a brow at her. The queen furrows both of hers in frustration and fixes her gaze back on the bumps on the ceiling. When she was younger she used to make images out of the dips and dots in the kindergarten room ceiling; the RV’s was smoothed and didn't allow that particular part of her imagination to play around.

“And I think the expression you're looking for is sharing is caring, Bubs. It's a thing they used to say waaaaaaaay back in the day whenever the old people got tired of little kids fighting over toys.”

*******

this was gonna be a longfic feat. mutual pining by our fave disaster gays and more references to marcy’s life pre- and during the apocalypse bc i have a lot of feelings about Stakes. might come back to it, who knows!!!

#ash talks #ash writes #bubbline #bubbline fanfic #writing wip

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chaos-burst · 6 years ago

Note

If I had money I would PAY you for more Widomauk content, because I am so fucking sad lately

[ ao3 ]

Caleb wonders if it’s possible to fall in love in retrospect.

Since Molly’s death Caleb has been thinking about him a lot. Even more so than when he was alive. Death does that to people, he ponders while he sits awake during night watches and draws patterns into the dirt. Death somehow shifts the presence of someone from outside of you into your head and makes them live there on and on and on.

Much like a violinist who only plays one song over and over.

Because Mollymauk can’t change in his mind, he’s destined to stay the same, just as Caleb knew him, without room to develop, to evolve.

And still.

Still, Caleb finds himself replaying their conversations almost obsessively in his mind. He’s able to remember most things, really, but sometimes, when it’s been too long, memories fade from him. And he doesn’t want Mollymauk’s memory to fade.

Mollymauk, who said he didn’t care about what they did before, only what kind of people they are now. Mollymauk, who needed to live by this code because his past never belonged to him. Mollymauk, who gave Caleb the tiniest smile when he said “That is enough for me, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”.

Stupid, ridiculous, endlessly brave Mollymauk Tealeaf.

Caleb feels an almost forgotten fluttering in his chest. Being in love is something he almost can’t remember.

Almost.

In hindsight, Caleb can’t say if he’s been in love before Mollymauk died. Maybe he just didn’t realize it. Maybe he got better at sorting out his feelings during the last months.

Today, the thoughts of Mollymauk are especially persistent. And it’s Jester’s fault. Her voice keeps repeating in his head, small and timid and unsure.

“I’ve been asking the Traveler to teach me this new spell. To bring Molly back to us.”

Caleb could see the surprise on Nott’s and Fjord’s faces. Beau on the other hand simply sat up straighter, leaned forward towards Jester and nodded encouragingly. That’s when Caleb knew that Beau is the same as him.

Replaying memories, still searching for solutions, still hoping, not letting go.

Not ever letting go. They’re both very good and not letting things go, Caleb thinks.

“I think I can do it now”, Jester said. “But I need his body and a pretty big diamond, guys. Like. Really big.”

So now they’re traveling towards the Glory Run Road again. And as if Yasha was able to feel what is going on, she joins them when they’re halfway there. Caleb can see her talk to Jester, tears glimmering in her eyes before she hugs Jester.

Caleb is sure that Yasha hasn’t hugged any of them first so far. But there they stand, holding each other tightly and Caleb can see Yasha’s lips move. He doesn’t need to hear the words to know what Yasha is saying over and over again.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Later, when they’re only a little more than a day’s ride away from Mollymauk’s grave, Beau sits down next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“You’ve been quiet”, she says.

Caleb shrugs. His mind hasn’t been quiet at all at the prospect of seeing Mollymauk again. It would have been so fitting, being in love with a dead man. The thought of being in love is still foreign in his mind. The last time he was in love, he was merely a teenager.

Now his heart stumbles at the thought of Mollymauk pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“You know I am not much of a talker”, he says, wondering if he should just tell Beau.

“Except when it comes to books and cats”, Beau says and gives him a lopsided grin. Caleb manages a smile.

“Looks like we’ll be complete again tomorrow.”

Her voice is so quiet, Caleb almost can’t hear her.

Complete again.

Yes.

“I’m happy”, he finally rasps, the words foreign on his tongue. Happiness feels strange, like something very old and lost to him, and still very new. Maybe he’s learning how it works to be happy again.

Beau actually puts her head on his shoulder.

“Me too”, she says.

The words stumble out of his mouth before he can stop them.

“Do you think it is possible to be in love with a dead person?”

Beau’s head stays where it is but Caleb can feel Beau go still at his words. His heart is hammering in his chest as if it wants to escape. Breathing is suddenly very hard. Hearing the words out loud is still very different from just testing them in his mind.

“Yeah. Sure”, Beau answers. No hesitance. No judging.

When did Beauregard Lionett become one of the very best friends to him? Caleb can’t say. Just like he has no idea when he fell in love with a certain purple tiefling.

“I feel stupid”, Caleb rasps, wringing his hands and trying to control his breathing.

“It’s not stupid, Caleb. Isn’t it like… super normal that people only realize what they had when it’s gone? Or whatever? That’s what it was like for me anyway. That dumb fuck was the worst and then he pissed off and–you know? When he gets back I’ll hit him. Like. At least twice. And then I’mma hug the fuck out of him because I fucking... didn’t do that while he was still around.”

Caleb doesn’t want to hit Mollymauk. He wants to hug him. He wants him to smile. And in a very ashamed part of his brain is a wish for a kiss. Caleb probably doesn’t even know how to kiss anymore. Molly on the other hand–

He can feel heat rising to his cheeks and he clears his throat, hoping that Beau won’t notice.

“I don’t think I want to hit him”, he confesses and Beau snorts.

“Nah. Didn’t think so. Though I have to say, Caleb. If you start smooshing faces I’ll get the fuck out of there. No offense.”

Caleb coughs a little and Beau raises her head again.

Beau looks at him and Caleb actually manages to look back. Beau seems to consider something, then she opens her mouth and Caleb can see the embarrassment on her face.

“Pretty sure that asshole is like. The brother I was supposed to have, y’know? And I didn’t realize that before–before he died. For me. So. Yeah. Not stupid. And now I have to stop talking about my fucking feelings or I’ll vomit”, she says, her voice hoarse and her eyes definitely wet.

Then she gets up and ruffles his hair aggressively before stomping away.

Caleb doesn’t sleep much that night and he knows that Yasha and Beau are also awake. Yasha staring at the sky, Beau pretending to be asleep.

Still, they’re the first at Mollymauk’s grave where, surprisingly, a rather dirty and worn-out coat still floats in the wind. Caleb feels his breath catch in his throat because the whole grave is full of vibrant, colorful flowers. Caduceus doesn’t seem to be surprised by this and he smiles, apparently satisfied with his handiwork.

Yasha sinks to her knees and carefully touches the flowers while Beau grabs the coat and folds it up before ripping the stick out of the earth.

“Let’s do this”, she says, throws the stick aside and swallows heavily, while Jester slowly approaches the grave and pulls out the diamond.

Caleb can’t breathe.

He’ll be back. He will be alive and breathing and–

Even though he’s exhausted and tired and weak Caleb helps to dig up the corpse. No one speaks when they find the remains. After months, there is not much left that resembles Mollymauk and Caleb has a hard time looking at what’s left of the colorful person he knew.

Jester is crying the whole time while she carefully puts the diamond on what was once Mollymauk’s chest. There is no question if the person coming back will be Mollymauk or someone else.

Jester calls only for Molly’s soul. The soul that belongs in this body above any other soul. Yasha and Beau hold Jester’s hands and Caleb carefully places a hand on Jester’s shoulder while Fjord, Nott and Caduceus stand on either side of the corpse.

The diamond vanishes in a flash of light and Caleb feels nauseous as he watches the body reassemble itself like a morbid puzzle.

“That is quite fascinating to watch”, Caduceus mumbles somewhere to his left.

When the body is whole again, it’s completely naked.

There lies Mollymauk Tealeaf, naked, scarred and in a bed of wildflowers.

In a moment of silence and panic nothing happens before red eyes spring open and a deep breath gets sucked into intact lungs.

Caleb realizes that he’s been holding his breath as they all rush forward, except himself and Caduceus.

He needs to sit down. He needs to calm his breathing. He needs to touch Mollymauk to make sure that he’s really alive and unharmed and–

“Alright there, Mr Caleb? Breathe with me, you’re doing great. Breathe in, breathe out”, Caduceus’ soothing voice says in his ear and warm hands grab him as he stumbles.

The next few hours are a blur for Caleb.

He has no idea how to approach Mollymauk while all the others have no problem acting as if he never died in the first place. Beau doesn’t actually punch Mollymauk, but she does hug him and Caleb hears her suppress a sob when she stammers “You fucking asshole, don’t you dare–don’t–just don’t!”. Yasha doesn’t leave his side for even a second. Nott and Jester keep telling Molly all about what happened to them after he was gone (”We were pirates!” – “You were pirates without me!?”) and even Caduceus asks curious questions about being dead.

Fjord shows Molly his sword. Jester and Molly hold hands. Yasha shows him all the new flowers she collected.

All Caleb can do is sit there and stare at Mollymauk. Wonderfully alive Mollymauk.

His heart aches so much, it actually feels like a physical hurt and Caleb just wants it to stop. Being in love never felt like that, he’s sure of that. At one point, he finds Mollymauk staring back at him.

Caleb’s throat feels very dry while those red eyes rest on his face and a small, lopsided smile spreads on his face.

He might just faint then and there.

“Do you want to get out for a bit?”, a familiar voice says and Caleb flinches before he looks up into Mollymauk’s red eyes. He swallows and looks around in a panic before he finds Beau’s face and she nods her head to encourage him. Caleb gets up and feels dizzy as he follows Mollymauk out of the small Inn they settled in for the night.

“You looked like you wanted to be elsewhere”, Mollymauk says when the cold night-air brushes their hair out of their faces and Caleb sits down on one of the boxes standing outside the Inn. Mollymauk sits down next to him.

“So. I can add ‘eaten by worms’ to my resumé. Pretty impressive, huh?”

Caleb shuddered and snorts.

“I don’t remember it though. Pretty glad about that.”

Caleb doesn’t know what to say. There are many things he wants to say, but they would be uncalled for, inappropriate and terribly embarrassing.

“The new guy is great, he knows an awful lot about mushrooms”, Mollymauk continues and lets his legs swing back and forth as if testing them. See if they still work the same as before.

“Ja. He uh–he really likes mushrooms.”

Molly laughs.

“Don’t we all”, he says with a chuckle and then he’s quiet for a while, looking up at the sky. Caleb thinks about how Beau doesn’t consider his feelings stupid. They’re still there, buzzing under his skin, now that Mollymauk actually sits beside him. But what do you do about feelings like this? They seem to big for Caleb’s body, trying to spill out in any way they can.

When a warm hand reaches for his he almost chokes on his own spit.

“Hey Mr Caleb”, Mollymauk says and doesn’t look at him when he speaks. His eyes are still turned skyward. “I died. And it sucked. Like, a lot. I might just die again tomorrow.”

Caleb’s chest feels very tight at the thought. Molly’s fingers don’t let go of his hand and he thinks his heart might fly away into the night.

“Don’t. Don’t–Just. Be careful, ja?”

Mollymauk tilts his head back and finally turns to look at Caleb.

“I’ll try. Dying sucks, to be honest with you. What I meant though, is–you know. If I die again tomorrow I might as well make the most of my time, yeah?”

Caleb barely manages to look Mollymauk in the eyes.

If I die again tomorrow I might as well make the most of my time, yeah?

Caleb takes a deep breath and turns his hand upside down, so his fingers are able to intertwine themselves with Mollymauk’s.

“We all missed you”, he rasps. It’s all he can manage.

Mollymauk smiles, a small, earnest smile. Not his flashy grin, the one he puts on when he lies and jokes and postures. It reminds Caleb of the smile he saw after they discovered the truth about Mollymauk’s past. Or the lack of it.

“I’m pretty sure I missed you, too. Can’t remember, but. You know. It was good with you all. I’d like to experience more of that.”

Another silence follows, this one stretching out longer. Caleb wants to know what’s going on in Mollymauk’s head. He also wants to say everything that goes on in his mind.

I’m too broken to love anyone. I’m too broken to be loved. I hate myself so much, being in love is so hard. Touching is hard. Talking about caring and feelings is impossible. How can it feel so good to just hold someone’s hand?

“Beau told me she missed me. Said I’m like a brother to her”, Mollymauk says after a long while. “She’s still entirely unpleasant, but I would die again for her any day, you know. Having siblings like that is great, to be perfectly honest.”

So Beau did what Caleb cannot. Just said it. Even though she must be ashamed and even though she has a hard time talking about feelings, just like Caleb.

“Mr Caleb?”

“Ja?” Caleb clears his throat. “Mr Mollymauk?”

His own words make him smile.

He missed saying this.

“If I die again tomorrow I’d be really angry if I didn’t try to kiss you right now.”

Caleb doesn’t want Mollymauk to talk about dying anymore. But his whole body freezes when he hears the second part of Molly’s statement and when Molly gets up and suddenly stands in front of him, all he can do is look up at him helplessly, his cheeks burning and his heart hammering.

“So, Mr Caleb. Will you let a dead man steal a kiss?”

The grin Mollymauk shows him is the one he uses when he tries to hide his uncertainty. Caleb knows how to spot it. He replayed every single one of Molly’s expression in his mind so, so many times.

“No”, he whispers and his heart might just explode at the flash of hurt that flickers over Molly’s features, “but a living one would be–that would be–”

Molly blinks and the next thing Caleb knows he has a lap full of purple tiefling, hands in his hair and very warm lips pressed on his mouth. He gasps and almost falls off the box he sits on before his arms wrap around Mollymauk and he finally finds the sense to kiss him back.

No more dying, he thinks as he desperately buries his fingers in Mollymauk’s hair. No more dying.

Molly kisses him like a drowning man in need for air. He tries touching every part of Caleb he can get his hands on and Caleb finds himself panting into the kiss. It’s all so much. Which is only fitting, he thinks, since this is Mollymauk Tealeaf he’s kissing.

“Why, Mr Caleb”, Molly pants against his lips. “For kisses like that, I might just stay alive as long as I possibly can.”

Caleb pulls him down again.

“Deal”, he murmurs into the next kiss.

He supposes that he’ll just have to kiss Mollymauk Tealeaf every day for as long as possible.

#widomauk #critfic #critical role #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #fanfiction #caleb #mollymauk #screeching into the void #text #if you're sad and want to talk to someone always feel free to shoot me a mssg #i hope this helped a little bit #no need to pay me honey <3 #Anonymous

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amberandmetal · 6 years ago

Text

How to thaw when the ice is in your bones

Request filled: Anonymous said: 2 & 7 with Bucky? Some nighttime cuddling perhaps? :3 “Stay here tonigth?” & “I’ll keep you warm” Square filled: Cuddling for @marvelfluffbingo Pairing: Bucky x Reader Warnings: Smut but not very graphically detailed, angst (mission gone bad and the flashbacks that come with), uhm.. might be some bad language as is standard when I write. I think that is all. If not: let me know. Rating: M Word count: ca 1,5 k Summary: During a mission things goes awry and now you can’t seem to get warm. Bucky, being the sweet thing he is, offers a solution. A/N: I’m actually quite happy with how this turned out, and suprise surprise again it seems like I have written a gender neutral reader. It seems to be my default mode nowadays? So this fic can be read by any gender! Whoop! Also I am not a native speaker, english is my second language and this is unbeta’d so all mistakes are my own!

~~~

The blankets you’d wrapped around your body until you were practically cocooned in them did nothing to counteract the cold in your skin: it had gotten into your bones. You couldn’t hear the TV over the chattering of your teeth or the febrile thu-thump thu-thump behind your ribcage.

It had been a close call, not that it mattered; you’d had plenty of those, all of you had. But you’d never felt so helpless before.

The woman, the agent that had gone under right through the ice, you didn’t even know her name. She’d been there one second, gone the next and you hadn’t been able to think, hadn’t been aware of making the decision until you were down there with her, the cold sharp as shards, using your enhanced speed to get to her before the currents took her with them.. She had been breathing when you left but that was also all you knew.

“Y/n?”

Your head snapped around so fast you almost fell off the couch, limbs tangled in a dozen or so blankets of various materials and sizes.

The others were all asleep, the wear after a mission hitting them all hard; except for Steve and Thor who were probably in the gym working out some lingering adrenaline.

Left awake in the common room were you, and Bucky.

“What?”

“You okay?”

You tried for an easy smile, puzzling together some sort of elaborate lie to tell him so he wouldn’t worry. You’d done this before, you could do it again. It was better this way. There was already enough burden on everyone's shoulders, you didn't want to add to that. You could do this. Just get the words out. That's all. Just settle for a I am fine. Just, get the words out.

His silver grey eyes looked tired but open with worry and you just deflated- too fucking tired. Too tired to come up with a plausible lie, too tired to act like you were fine; too tired, too cold and too fucking lonely. You averted your eyes, fixing them on the patterns of the floor.

“I’m cold.”

You squared your jaw as your neck tensed against the oncoming rush of images. The thick ice above you, the currents pulling you down, down, down, snagging on your feet and making it impossible to kick, superspeed be damned. You couldn’t find the opening where she had fallen through; you’d got her back up, and then.. slipped. Hit the back of your head on the ice on your way down and the few seconds of desorientation was apparently all it took for you to completely lose your bearings. You followed the bubbles from your breath upwards but found nothing but thick ice. You saw your team on the other side, tearing at the hole in the ice, making it bigger, searching for you. You’d tried to scream, tried to remain logical, tried to swim towards them, tried to hold your breath, tried to pound on the ice- anything. It had been so cold, and you just couldn’t get warm.

“Still feels like you’re in the ice?”

Still shivering, you nodded.

You heard some rustling and the sound of fabric against fabric and then a sudden thump.

“Ever since the serum,” you looked up at Bucky who had removed the back pillows from the couch and scooted in a bit, holding the blanket he’d been wrapped up in high over himself in clear invitation, “I run hot, like crazy hot, so.. if you want..”

It was frankly adorable how uncertain he looked, and under normal circumstances it was likely you’d be over analyzing this a mile a minute before coming to the conclusion that it was probably a bad idea. But this wasn’t normal circumstances and you’d do just about anything to warm up the ice in your veins. So without a word you untangled from your cocoon and cautiously made your way over to Bucky, nestling in, back to chest and making yourself as small as possible, knees drawn up tight to your body.

Bucky draped the fabric over you both, tucking it in around your smaller frame and then wrapped his shiny left arm around you; and to your great surprise it was warm. Just as him.

It was like being hugged by a radiator and you felt your muscles untense just the tiniest bit.

“Oh, wow. You really weren’t kidding, huh?”, you sighed, eyes closed and the soft quilt pulled up beneath your chin.

Bucky reached for the remote, pushing replay on the movie and then settled back against you, pulling you close as the notes to the intro rang out through the speakers. It felt weird but.. good, safe.

“Nah, I really weren’t.”

He hummed, pushing his face against your neck and you froze for a moment, and a second later so did he.

“What are you doing?”

“Enjoying the moment?”

And you actually managed to laugh at that, an unexpected effervescent sound trilling off your lips.

“So is this- what? You just-”

“Can’t we just stick with I like to be close to you and maybe not analyse that right this instant? You’re still shivering, doll, and not in a good way.”

You snorted, grateful that he managed to not only lighten the mood but distract you from the persistent memories picking your brain apart.

The shield had almost cracked your skull when it broke through the ice and you had three stitches to prove it, but you were still grateful, for if it hadn't been for Cap and that shield you wouldn’t been here now at all. Still, it was a sound you’d probably never forget. These things had a way of latching on to the very fibers of your mind, etching themselves into the linings of your skull like a morbid cave painting. You shuddered and burrowed closer.

“Yeah, yeah alright,” you conceded, pushing back, chasing the warmth, “but if you weren’t so damn deliciously warm I’d-”

“Still be here because of my dashing good looks?”

You huffed a laugh, snickering under your breath.

“You’re ridiculous,” you breathed, and added as in afterthought, “don’t ever change that.”

It was easier being open and stupid about things when you were tired and cold and in the warm arms of one of your favourite people. Even though you might judge yourself for this later on, you knew he wouldn’t.

He shifted closer, his body curling around yours until his knees nudged the back of yours, a pleased hum in his chest.

You’d almost fallen asleep when his lips moved behind your ear, his breath a soft thing against your skin.

“Stay here tonight?”, he let his hand curve around your waist and squeeze lightly, “don't worry.. I’ll keep you warm.”

You shivered against him, but this time for only the good reasons.

~~~

When your eyes reopened everything went by in a sleep riddled haze; the room was dark save for the light from the DVD menu- and you were the only two left.

There was only Bucky, warm and hard against you, and hands- his, yours, who knew- in a blurr; asking, squeezing, petting and pulling. Somehow you ended up facing each other and there was something there in his eyes, something only half aware but still asking. You answered not in words, but in touches, tiny little moans that you allowed to slip and the wet slide of your lips against his. He groaned as if in relief and you swallowed every noise down, tugging at him, caressing, pulling the sounds from him to drink down like water.

He mumbled sweet nothings in your ear, warm metal finding the curves of your body with ease, seeking out all the places that made you light up.

When you were flush against each other, not a thread between you, he slowly entered you, warming you up from the inside out, thawing you in a rhythm that closely resembled a slow heartbeat, soft and unrushed.

The heat billowed around you, seemed to come off his body like vapor and it was simultaneously comforting and addictive.

His arms were tightly wrapped around you and the nails of his right hand bore into your skin, keeping you centered, grounded. He closed his mouth over your shoulder, just at the nape; teeth grazing and rasping over your rapidly heating skin.

You whimpered, pulling closer and burrowing your face along his neck, the slight stubble rasping your cheek.

“I got you.” he murmured, and his voice sounded low and rich in your ear.

There was heat, and sleep addled minds, and roaming hands that never sought permission from their owners- just need beneath a blanket of barely awake; and when he drove you to your peak, pushing you over the edge only to soon follow, you simply shivered in each others arms, shared breaths and soft moans slowly warming you up.

#marvelfluffbingo2019 #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #the avengers #gender neutral reader

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ultrakeystotheheartblog · 6 years ago

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Not So Alone (Teen Titans x Reader)

Part 1 of 2 [Part 2 is now up! ♥]

Request: “Imagine waking up with them in your bed, and not knowing exactly when they got there. (Teen Titans?)”

A/N: Hey, hey, hey! I hope you enjoy it! I’ve been watching a bunch of old Teen Titans episodes lately (that beautiful, timeless 2003 version), and got a bit nostalgic. Then this happened once I saw that request. So, I decided to incorporate all of the Titans in this one :)

(BTW the next imagine I’m working on is a Young Justice!Dick Grayson x reader. Look for it soon!)

Warnings: Swearing. I think that’s about it. Anyway, I tried my best to make it all fluffy, but I apologize if any of the characters seem a little out of character.

****************************************************************************

You think you might be in some sort of afterlife.

An ethereal morning light is already cutting through the blinds on the windows, glowing, rigid slices of light that fall across the room in ladder like patterns, and flashes of warm sunlight pressing gently over the lids of your eyes like a kiss.

It’s enough to stir you awake, and as you’re dragged back to awareness you register the sudden shock of nausea first. Nope still alive. The afterlife wouldn’t be this shitty. It feels like you’d been hit by a tank and thrown 100 feet into the air, only to be reacquainted with the painful principles of gravity. Which wasn’t too far from the truth with what you could slowly begin to piece together from the day before.

Aliens. Not so friendly aliens from way out of town. No, forget that. Big, not so friendly aliens with a streak of violence—like sumo wrestlers on steroids. Flying motorcycles, sentient, scaly lizard tails (more like dragon tails) that seemed to have a mind of their own and pack a wallop like a fly hitting the window of a moving train, and burning hot lasers that you distinctly remember avoiding at all costs. Especially when they seared right through the sturdy brick of a building with ease.

Then it was getting distracted, for one stupid second, by a civilian making a run for it across the street. Long enough for one of those tails to crash against the back of your head and make the world tip upside down in your vision—a wave of blinding pain, a faraway chorus of yells, and nothing but the whooshing of blood in your ears—before it drags you right up into hell. That’s one of the last things you remember, before the fall.

Gravity, ugh.

Thou art an unforgiving mistress.

To sum it up, everything ached, right down to your teeth. Your body’s incredibly heavy and sinking into the mattress, throat dry, ears and throat stuffed with cotton. Your eyes are burning too, as you blink them rapidly to focus through the pounding in your head. The dizziness lasts for a few moments longer than you would have liked, but it’s easier to take in your surroundings now. And the other sensations of your poor, broken body. Because you’re pretty sure that your left arm is very broken, wrapped in a clean white cast and propped on your stomach. The muscles twitch and your skin itches as you lift your head to peer closely at it, a spasm in your neck making you wince again. You’d definitely been sleeping funny.

Your face was sore, like you’d face planted unceremoniously into a slab of solid concrete, and judging by the dull stinging of your additional broken nose, you’re guessing that you’d met a similar fate at some point while being tossed around.

You wonder if there are bruises that match the nasty patchwork of blue and black and purple splotches that climb the expanse of visible skin. From your throbbing knuckles to the tops of your shoulders, and then down to the lighter mess of injuries scattered across your knees and around your calves—but were no doubt deep enough to have actually bruised some bone. There are bandages wrapped around you too. You find thick gauze bound tight around your torso and soaked in small patches of blood when you gather enough courage to tug up the relaxed gray shirt you’re wearing. It’s just loose enough to hang down around the faded red shorts you’d always pull on after a long day of hero work (but when the hell did you get dressed in that?).

You catch the sight of a figure hovering near the windows of the room, legs crossed and head bowed towards the light streaming in, a dark purple cloak hanging off her shoulders. Raven must sense you’re awake, because she turns to you quickly, dark eyes scanning your form and then darting to either side of you, before she meets your gaze and tries to smile. It’s then you realize that there are more than just you two in the room (your room? You think groggily. Yes, you can see the outline of your books and little trinkets lined beneath the thin shelves under the window). In fact, the body heat surrounding you is enough to tell you that there’s more one body in your bed. Your very cramped bed.

You shift as gently as you can and drop your gaze from Raven to the girl sprawled out on her stomach at the end of the mattress, face pressed into the comforter bunched around your legs. Her long, fiery red hair hangs over her shoulders, her arm thrown across your ankles without much weight to it, as if she’s just reassuring herself that you’re still there.

Starfire looks mostly unharmed, save for the crisscrossing bandages wrapped along her hands. You raise an eyebrow and settle your focus on the socked feet next to her head. You follow them up to the person’s legs, clad in comfy looking blue sweatpants and a shiny black brace tight around his left knee, and then slowly up the length of his body. It’s lithe and powerful, and you take in the subtle lines and muscles of his figure up to the white t-shirt that fits like a second skin against his chest. And then—surprisingly—you end at mask-less eyes, swollen looking eyelids fluttering in his sleep.

It’s Robin lying next to you, all stretched out and facing the ceiling. His arms are crossed behind his head, his elbows tucked in a little closer to avoid your head. The muscles in your neck spasm again as you strain to stare at him by turning your head more fully in his direction; eyeing the stitches that run under his chin and various surgical dressings tapped to places along his collarbone and then disappear down his shirt. It looks like he’d either been shot or had shrapnel removed. You decide on the latter, considering what you can kind of recall following the initial attack on Jump City. Crumbling buildings were not all that easy to avoid really.

You feel something curl closer to your right side, just at your hip, the soft whine of a dog pulling your attention from your fearless leader. You can’t help but jump a bit at the sound, peering down at the small, green figure of a beagle settled there. Beast Boy is still asleep despite the movement, looking restless in his dreaming while the muscles in his back legs twitch and coil as though he’s ready to run.

You reach out with your good hand, gently brushing your palm through the fur pressed against your body in an effort to calm him. It seems to work, the muscles loosening at your touch, and he stirs slightly at the sensation but doesn’t wake fully. The fur is soft and warm beneath your fingers, and you furrow your eyebrows in confusion, wondering why your friend seems so anxious, even in his sleep. He has bandages too, little ones covering minor nicks and scrapes along his spine. So far, you seem to be the only one who’s come out of the fight looking as though you’ve literally been pummelled through that damn metaphorical meat grinder, that stupid saying feeling more literal at the moment than should probably be allowed. In short, you’re a mess.

You swallow a sudden lump in your throat and feel the flow of muddled emotion begin to crest, a sharp ache in your chest bringing the sting of frustrated tears to the corners of your eyes. God, what if you….died. You could have. You could be very dead right now. And suddenly you think you can appreciate the pain cycling through your body a little more. At least that meant you were still kicking. But as soon as you look up to your right, it becomes a challenge to stay on that morbid train of thought. You try to desperately stifle a bout of laughter when you find the final person in the room.

Cyborg is sitting in a chair by your bed, the back of the said chair tipped so far back it touches the wall behind it, leaving it to waver precariously on only two rear legs. The creaking mass of plastic is just barely enough to balance the massive, bulky figure of your friend. It’s quite a sight to behold, and like the others surrounding you on the bed he’s sound asleep, mouth hanging open as he snores away.

Once the surprised laughter passes, you wonder with prickling concern just how long he’s been like that. And then how long he’ll be able to stay balanced like that. He’s a big guy. And that….is a tiny chair. You take a few seconds to observe him like the others, gaze flitting over the tarnished looking metal of his entire torso, practically blackened by what you think might have been an explosion, and the chipped blue casing over half of his head. Not too bad, you consider.

Across the room, Raven lowers herself to the ground, stepping closer to sit on the edge of the mattress closest to Starfire. Your eyes snap to her at the movement and you flash a tired smile when she continues to stare at you, strangely and completely devoid of any real emotion, like…like she’s trying to hide that real emotion away. You can’t see any injuries as you do a quick scan of her figure; most of her body is shrouded by her cloak, but her dark hair is untamed and curling at certain angles, the only sign that’s she’s probably had a rough night of restlessness. She leans forward to speak softly, her own stoic gaze dragging across your injuries with a purpose that leaves you almost embarrassed.

“How are you feeling?” She asks.

The soreness in your throat makes it a little difficult to speak; your tone coarse and whisper-light as you respond as quietly as you can, hoping to not wake the others around you. “Oh, you know, fine. Despite the horrible pounding migraine and useless broken body.”

Raven breaks character and faintly smirks, “It’s not totally broken. I could help ease the pain though, if that’s what you want.”

“Yeah, I think that’d be good. It’s kind of hard to think.” You say in relief, carefully moving your uninjured hand up to your head. You press your fingers into the middle of your forehead, trying to massage out the white noise building just behind it. Geez, your neck was stiff.

“Not that you did much of that yesterday.” The new voice takes you by surprise and every muscle in your body locks up at the closeness of it, leaving you to practically choke an air. A hand shoots out from your left to rest on top of your cast, the thumb gently soothing over the dull plaster as if it was your skin. The gesture was kind enough.

It calms you in your slightly panicked state—which he caused in the first place trying to be a righteous smartass—and you shift to turn your head fully towards Robin, taking deep breaths to pull in sweet, sweet oxygen to your lungs. He’s still lying comfortably on his back, but his head is turned to look at you too. You meet his leveled gaze easily, the insanely sharp blue of his eyes punching that air right back out of your chest. Those were eyes you’d definitely seen before. A lot, actually, and holy hell how were you even supposed to cope with this new information? You huff in disbelief.

“Okay, a little rude considering I’m in too much pain to even lift my limbs to hit you.” You counter back in a harsh whisper. Robin doesn’t even flinch at the weak threat, and like the cocky little punk he is, just lets a slow, teasing smile spread across his lips.

“I doubt it would even hurt that much.” He says, much to your passionate displeasure.

“Disrespectful.” You hiss playfully in response, staying mindful of the sleeping figures still slumped around you. You pout at the way Robin tilts his head back and snickers quietly into his hand, rolling your eyes and turning away from him to stare at the ceiling. “How long have you been awake?” You inquire after a moment of silence.

Robin hums, “A while, I’m a light sleeper.” He turns over on his side to face you more clearly, the shifting weight drawing your attention back to him, and props his head upon the palm of his hand. He seems to grow more serious, those familiar eyes narrowing as they trace the bruises on your face, voice low and almost frustrated—though it’s hard to discern where exactly that frustration was aimed. Most likely at you judging by his earlier comment. Or maybe, even more sadly... himself. You’d known him long enough to consider that a possibility.

“You were lucky you know—to survive all that.” He begins with a frown.

You wince at the look on his face, trying to lighten the mood by jokingly stating, “You make it sound like I almost died.”

“You did.” Raven cuts in bleakly, sweeping off the edge of the mattress like an apparition, cloak cascading around her form but making no sound as it swishes through the air. You follow her path to the left side of the bed, her words sinking in past a sudden rush of dizziness. Were those black dots always in your vision? No, no, that wasn’t good at all. She bends over Robin to get a better look at you, lifting her hand to rest on the top of your head. It’s cold against the heat of your body and she doesn’t put much pressure there. It feels nice, soothing your mind and pulling you back from biting anxious thoughts until you’re head is clear enough to speak again.

“What?”

Robin’s expression doesn’t change much, besides the clench of his jaw and the darkening blue in his eyes, the brightness in them eclipsed by something unwavering and terrifyingly honest. To be honest, it was chilling to see that kind of look directed at you. Before you can spiral into negative thoughts, the crack in his hushed voice is what snaps you back to reality.

“Your heart stopped. Twice.” He murmurs, emphasising his distressing news with a tap to his own chest, before running his hand through his hair. “Starfire was in hysterics until Cyborg was able to get it working again, and keep you stable. We almost lost you for good.”

You didn’t even know what to say to that, so you swallow around that ever-present lump in your throat and sink back into the mattress with closed eyes. “Well, shit.” Raven’s hand flutters in its place on top of your head, her fingers spreading. There’s a feeling like water that cascades over your head, a soft touch of energy over your skin that soon seeps further—though your head is still completely dry.

It flows through your body like a full body shiver, a cooling sensation firing through your synapses until the throbbing pain begins to ebb away with each new wave. Relief turns your muscles to putty, the stiffness in your joints practically melting away as you sink further in the mattress, fully at peace with the hilarious possibility of just dropping through to the floor at some point.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much been the premise for the last 12 hours.” Robin mutters from beside you. Raven removes her hand and leans back to study you, returning to her spot on the edge of the bed when she’s content with your condition. The subtle dip in the mattress brings an unexpected thought with it, one that swirls with an urgency to remind you just how strange this morning has felt. And how crowded your room currently is.

You crack open an eye to look at Robin accusingly, “Bu—uhh how—when did you guys even get in my room anyway?”

Raven runs a hand through her hair as though just realizing how unruly it is at the moment, sighing deeply as she turns to you. “We never left.” She tells you. And okay, that sure made you feel some type of way. A way you weren’t used to feeling around people—awkwardly vulnerable (well, this is it; you think you might actually be dying for real this time because crapping shit the room isn’t supposed to feel this stuffy, right? Right?) and just a bit guilty.

“You...you didn’t have to stay.” You manage to stammer out, wholly surprised that your volume hadn’t woken anybody else up. They must be so tired, you think sullenly, and just like that your guilt all but doubles.

Robin flops onto his back again, training his gaze on the ceiling with a determined sort of smile. “Oh, I know. We wanted to.”

“To make sure I didn’t die again?”

“That’s one reason.”

“We were...worried.” Raven adds from the end of the bed, mouth pressed into a thin line. You tilt your head in confusion, gaze darting from her to Robin.

“You had another reason?” You ask hesitantly.

Robin turns his head to look at you, expression softer than before, and you see the brightness has returned to those pretty blue eyes. “You don’t have to isolate yourself, (Y/N). You know...act like nothing hurts you or insist on doing things on your own. We’re your team—your friends. You have us to always lean on when you need it.”

You think you might be dying again, but for a completely different reason this time. It’s odd, for sure, and kind of making you nauseous in a way where it’s hard to tell if that feeling is either good or bad. Was there a good nauseous? You decide that if there was than this would be it.

You feel safe for the first time in a long while, cared for and warm and increasingly more emotionally compromised than you can usually stand. Your heart flutters nonetheless at the sentiment, and you can’t help but wonder—through a thundering, corny realization about the importance of friendship, which leaves you reeling with bewilderment and edged with a disappointment at the slip up in your consciousness—if this mushy feeling inside you was here to stay. And if so, well, you think you can learn to live with it.

“I know.” You say quietly, reaching over to pat his shoulder in a rush of affection. “And I—wait, hold on. You said...how do you know what my name is?!”

Raven sighs and settles back more comfortably in her seated position, one hand resting behind her and palm flat against the mattress, her other hand once again hidden in the darkness of her cloak. “We had to look into your medical files at one point. I’m...sorry for the invasion in privacy.”

You shrug, “It’s okay. Though I’m pretty sure our resident detective already knew what it was.”

“Regardless,” Robin answers suspiciously, “We thought we’d even the playing field a bit.”

“Is that why the famous Dick Grayson is in my bed right now and not our fearless boy wonder?” You quip easily, gaze jumping to examine the familiar lines of his face again. Robin merely smirks.

“So, you recognize me.”

“Kinda hard not to when you’re all over the news.” You remind him with a teasing smile, “You and your dad—who’s totally Batman, oh my god.”

Robin’s eyes snap to you in an instant, and he lifts a hand to point at you with a sense of urgency you find hilarious. “That revelation stays in this room and can never see that light of day again. I’m serious, stop laughing.”

“Right, right. Who needs secret identities anyway though?”

“We do. Usually.”

“You trust us enough to take of the mask?”

“I’m learning.”

‘We’re honored.” Raven deadpans, in that special way only she can. You clap your good hand over your mouth and snort in laughter, watching her as she motions to herself with a simple flourish. “My name is Rachel.” She offers. You nod at her, eyebrows furrowed as you take in this surprising development in relationships with your team.

“This is so weird.” You comment into the silence of the room.

Robin sits up with purpose, “I can make it weirder.”

Your eyebrow lifts in amusement, watching as Robin grins, the smile boyish and charming and so not what you were used too when hanging around the team. He brings his fingers slowly up to his lips, giving Raven enough time to act. Her visible hand lights up with black pulsing energy, using her powers to bunch up the pillow you’re lying on, both sides lifting up past your head to press soft cotton over your ears. You just found your new best friend. Robin whistles—loudly—and the immediate reaction is priceless in every way you can imagine.

Cyborg accidentally rocks the chair in his haste to sit up straight, body tipping to the side as the delicate balance he created is broken at last, the large, half-awake teen crashing to the floor with a groan and once again in gravity’s evil hold. Beast boy shoots up from beside you with a panicked yelp and turns back into a very naked real boy, flailing back in a panic and slipping of the side of the bed to join Cyborg on the floor.

Starfire is a little less startled, back snapping straight as she rises to her knees, sleepily combing through the thick tangles of her hair until her piercing green eyes can peer out into the world again. The pillow slowly sinks back to its place and you can hear the aftermath more clearly now.

Cyborg groans in a daze, “I’m up, I’m up, I’m up!” He throws up an arm in the air—the only part of him you can see right now—only to let it flop back down and grip at the edge of the bed to pull himself. He leans forward with a sigh and plops his chin down onto the mattress.

“That was not the fun way to wake up.” Starfire says through a yawn, blinking away any remaining sleep as her gaze focuses on the commotion near the door.

Beast Boy is scowling and hastily pulling on a pair of black shorts he’d magically plucked from somewhere on the floor, avoiding looking in your general direction with all his might as a blush rises across his cheeks. Oh yes, Beast Boy, you had seen everything. And you were not at all happy with his choice in sleeping attire. Your bed sheets had to be burned immediately. “Dude, was that even necessary?” He rants with fervour, pulling harshly at the draw strings of his shorts. “Dog ears are sensitive to that crap!”

“I just wanted to get your attention.” Robin says simply, fighting back a grin at the exasperated look on Beast Boy’s face. Cyborg runs a hand over his own face and squints up at his friend, seeming to forget that you were even in the room and possibly still sleeping.

“Well now you have it, Rob, and none of us are very happy about it.” He loudly exclaims.

None of them seemed to have noticed you’re awake yet, and okay, fair. You’ve probably been nothing more than a perpetual unconscious lump to them, for enough time at least, to curb any excessive anxiety about checking if you’re still breathing or not. But even so, it definitely almost stings...in annoying kind of way. But then again, that might also just be your underlying frustration with the whole more or less dying thing. You roll your eyes at the unfolding madness, dramatically tossing your uninjured arm up to get their attention—while rightfully scaring the ever-loving shit out of them—and then gesture the length of your broken body with a slow drag of your hand.

“Would you be happier to see me?” You drawl with the movement.

Silence.

Then complete and utter chaos once the stunned expressions of your friends melt away into eager excitement.

“(Y/N)! You’re alive!” Beast Boy cries first, leaping back onto the bed to rest on his knees, shaking the frame and almost crashing into Starfire in his enthusiasm, but he’s mindful enough to avoid colliding with your sore limbs. He rises a bit to stare down at you, looking as though he wants to just dive in for a hug. He restrains himself though, and you smile up at him in silent thanks.

“Yeah, I—”

“Boo-yah! Ha! See? What did I keep telling you guys, practically invincible!” Cyborg interjects with a loud whoop, jumping up to his feet to pump his fist victoriously in the air. He catches you pointedly staring at him, lifting your casted arm to remind him of your situation, and he can only shrug with a dazzling grin. “For the most part. You lose B.B.! Guess who’s buying the pizza tonight! And then has to scrub every single toilet in the tower. Every. Single. One.”

Beast Boy spins on his knees to glare at him, “Oh, come on, dude! That’s not—I was only out by a couple’a hours!”

“Rules are rules.”

“Seriously stupid rules!”

“That you agreed too!”

You narrow your eyes at them, “Wait, what—”

“Friend (Y/N)!” Starfire calls, nearly floating of the bed in delight. “You are finally awake and hmm—mostly unharmed! What a joyous morning this is turning out to be!” She leans forward to take your good hand and give it a friendly squeeze, fingers warm like sunlight on your skin as she smiles down at you.

“It’s good to see you too, Star.” You say honestly, content to squeeze her hand back with what little strength you have. Starfire releases her grip on you then, touching her own hand to her chest as she explains.

“My true name is Koriand'r. I was merely fond of the way it translated in your language. But you may call me Kori, as our friends have been. I must admit that I have quite enjoyed having the new—” She pauses, searching for the right word. “...nickname?”

“It does have a nice ring to it.”

She cocks her head in thought, ‘That is a good thing, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, wonderful!”

You laugh at her unbridled excitement, the feeling contagious no matter how hard you try and resist it. You lift your arms up towards her like a child, panting at the heavy exhaustion that immediately settles into your limbs. Your movements still feel sluggish and weak, but damn it you’ve been laying on this bed for long enough. No horrible injuries were going to stop you from sitting up like normal person.

You muster enough strength to wave your arms in desperation, beginning to feel like a floundering fish out of water. Especially the longer your friends hesitate to move you, while just watching you struggle to get upright in a stupor of their own indecision. Come on, you lovable assholes, any time now would be great.

“Can you help me up, Kori?” You eventually huff—when it becomes painstakingly clear that nobody was going to do it of their own volition. She looks as though she’s been knocked to her senses finally, eyes widening as she surges forward to gently grip your flailing arms.

“Oh yes, of course.”

Everyone moves then, shifting back to give you more space as Starfire eases you up as smoothly as she can. Robin frowns, hand to your back as he helps guide you. “Careful.” He warns you earnestly.

The pillow behind you seems to move on its own again, though you know its Raven lending a hand, the comfy article propping itself up to help steady you as you’re positioned delightfully upright at last. Yes, you were breathing heavily, already tired enough to slip back into beautiful unconsciousness, but you considered this new improvement a win. You would even high-five yourself if you could, because take that, lizard-tailed summo aliens who tried to painfully obliterate you from existence. You were a survivor.

Beast Boy is eyeing you carefully now, nervously hovering around you like you’re about to combust or something. “Isn’t it too soon to be movin’ around? Ya’ got hit pretty hard.” He says once you’ve scooted back to lay more comfortably against the pillow, letting your upper body sag back a bit with a sigh. You turn to regard Beast Boy with a thoughtful hum, staring him down as you remember what he and Cyborg had been arguing about when you’d just woken up.

“I can feel that.” You retort rather sarcastically. Beast Boy is starting to sweat at the knowing intensity of your gaze now, and he takes a deep breath to try again.

“Well then, all the more reason to take it slow.”

You choose to ignore that, “Did you two actually bet on if I’d die again?”

Beast Boy gapes in disbelief, flapping his hands in front of him much like you were doing earlier, a look of pure horror on his face. “What! No! No! Not exactly—“

Not exactly?

Cyborg is suddenly standing right behind his friend, large metal hands dropping heavily onto his shoulders. The weight immediately shuts Beast Boy up before he can dig a deeper hole for the both of them, but he winces nevertheless at what he’s just said, especially when he sees the displeasure in your expression. “It was never a question of if you’d ever wake up again or not, it was more of a when.” Cyborg soothes, and you feel the irritation seep from your body all at once. Fine, you decide in a rare moment of forgiveness (crap, this was all so weird, like...like you’re swaddled in your own personal twilight zone). They were off the hook for now.

“You have a lot of faith in me, Cyborg.” You mutter, tone only half-joking.

He grins, “Vic. Short for Victor.”

“Good to know.”

Beast Boy ducks from Cyborg’s hold, morphing into a tiny, tweeting canary—and once again losing his shorts in the process, oh my god would you stop that—to circle the bed once in a bout of fluttering wings and pretty bird song, before delicately perching on the cast positioned across your lap. He looks up at you, beady black eyes focused intently, until he opens his pointed beak to try and make you see reason.

“I still think—”

You lightly poke the tip of your finger against his small feathered chest, still feeling that consuming guilt with how anxious most of your friends seemed to be. “Hey, I’m okay, B.B., seriously.”

“Garfield.” He chirps helpfully. You nod, filing his name alongside the others in your mind; a little surprised they all gave away their identities so easily.

“Garfield, I’m fine. You don’t have to be so worried about me.” You assure him, “Sure, I’m a little roughed up, but I’m also breathing and talking, and more importantly, alive.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I just...”

You can’t help but boop his beak teasingly, “Hey, no negative feelings today, okay? None of that gloom and doom stuff. Besides, brooding is Robin’s job.”

There are snickers all around the room and you swear you can actually feel Robin rolling his eyes at you this time. You didn’t even think that kind of thing was possible. Starfire leans back against Robin’s legs, smiling up at him as Cyborg starts to lose it in the background, his laughter pulling louder, silly giggles from both you and Beast Boy. The corner of Raven’s mouth begins to lift, an amused smile playing along her lips.

“(Y/N) does make the excellent point.” Starfire declares through the noise.

“I have to agree.” Raven adds, easing up the hood of her cloak over her head, until the features of her face are swallowed by shadows. Robin crosses his arms over his chest and sits up straighter, eyes narrowing at you.

“I do not brood.”

“Dude.”

Cyborg gestures at his expression, “You’re doing it right now.”

“That does not mean it is a bad thing.” Starfire promises kindly, hoping to soothe his annoyance by softly patting the brace on his knee. You lean towards him, smirking in delight at the way he’s practically pouting.

“Yeah, we love you for it.” You tease.

“Okay, laugh it up.” Robin exclaims, bumping your shoulder with his playfully. “But, you know, we could just focus on getting breakfast going instead of criticizing my many talents.”

Starfire shoots up into that air, twirling in a tight corkscrew before landing gracefully on the floor. She claps her hands, “Oh, yes! Breakfast sounds wonderful as well.”

Beast Boy twitters in agreement, leaving his place on your cast to circle in the air again above your head. He comes to a hovering pause by your face, tipping right and left with little dips of his wings that make it look like he’s dancing to some imaginary beat.

“I can do that!” He shouts, body rippling with a ridiculous amount of energy for something so little. “Pancakes?” He asks in a rush, beginning to jerk back from your personal space until you can see him without needing to cross your eyes. You point at him, fixing your friend with the kind of serious expression you’d usually reserve for missions.

“Uh, hell yes.”

“Aw, sweet, I got ‘chu! On it! These are gonna be the best damn pancakes you’ve ever had.” He swears sincerely, peeling off towards the closed door of your room. Cyborg lunges to get it open in time, Beast Boy’s tiny green figure vanishing from sight once he darts through the gaping space. Cyborg peeks out the open door to watch the canary’s zigzagging path for a moment, squinting down the hall with a level of suspicion that makes you laugh again. He sighs and turns back to you, already stepping out to pursue.

“I better follow and make sure he doesn’t sneak in anything tofu related.”

You nod in approval, “Bless you.”

“Hey, what are friends for?”

With that, he disappears out the door as well, his heavy footfalls fading into the unknown. Starfire gasps dramatically, as if just remembering something very important through all the entertainment, the look on her face bordering on comically elated. She hooks her arm with Raven’s and begins to tug her reluctant form towards the door.

“OH! (Y/N), I almost forgot! I wish to show you something truly exciting. Come Raven.” She proclaims, bouncing the two of them into the air. “We will return in a moment.” She zooms out over the threshold with Raven in tow, the blowback of wind tumbling unsteady piles of extra first-aid pieces, empty take out containers, cans of soda, and bottles of water scattered around surfaces in your room. Evidence that they truly hadn’t left your room in long while. Your chest grows a little warmer at the thought.

“I don’t know if I should be scared or not.” You casually state, turning to look at Robin.

“It’s harmless, trust me.” He reassures, stretching his arms above his head and then circling them to get rid of the stiffness in his shoulders. There’s the sound of bones popping and you gag, waving him away from you as he slowly slips off the bed. He smirks at your reaction, “Well, I’m going to go stretch my legs for a bit. Do you wanna come? I think you could try crutches if you put your mind to it.”

“No, I think I’m okay here. Sitting up is enough exercise for me right now.”

“Noted.” He says, limping to follow the others from your room. “I’ll be back too, give you a minute to relax before the crazy starts again.”

“Sounds like a dream.” You agree, letting your body slouch and unwind in exhaustion until you’re slipping back down the pillow. “Hey, Dick?” You call before he’s totally fades from your vision.

He pauses, looking back at you over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Robin shrugs, smirk widening as he begins to draw the door closed behind him. “It’s no problem, (Y/N/N). You’re not so alone anymore.”

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Part two is now up! ♥

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