#just admit that the crew-ra were just bad at their jobs

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

spop fans 🤝 toh fans

using the classic “the show was cancelled/there wasn't enough time” excuse to justify the creators' poor writing choices

[balillee]

my unpopular dsmp opinions, some of which genuinely should be popular

c!dream has crossed the moral event horizon and is irredeemable. once you cross that threshold, you're no longer a 'morally grey' character.

pre-recorded, heavily produced lore killed the lore. it was cool, sure, but you completely misunderstand the magic that the smp had when people watched it initially. the story is improv and that's how we like it. we can tell the cc's have lost interest in it, you can admit that to us, we'll understand, just stop lying to me.

c!dream's pov isn't necessary to understand his character or his motivations. if you've watched literally any c!primeboys stream he's basically spelled it out for you.

i don't understand how fans can dislike l'manberg or have claimed to be against it since the beginning. i honestly don't get it. what's so bad about wanting your own spot where you make your own rules and skirt accountability that has been used to technically oppress you before - and, before someone who never saw the earlier streams tries to disagree with this, the og l'manberg crew were imprisoned for shit that everyone else on the server was practically encouraged to do. also, what do you have against fun and happiness?

i think some of you forget that 'hybrids' aren't a thing, discounting c!ranboo. there's no piglin hybrids, c!techno is just a pig. there's no avian hybrids, c!phil is just a man with wings. there's no creeper hybrids, c!sam is just a creeper who's indecently exposed from the hips down. canonically there's no hybrids, and therefore no hybrid discrimination. people ran with that concept too much.

the loss and the fanon rewriting of the early lore up until pogtopia has ruined fandom perception of c!dream and the og l'manberg boys. c!tommy is more morally white than you think he is, and c!dream has always been a villain - he massacres and he kills and he destroys and he schemes and he always has broken his own rules. no wonder the boys wanted their own space after how they were treated.

i think ranboo oftentimes forgets his own lore. he brings stuff up that c!ranboo may have done, such as exploding the community house to frame c!tommy, holding onto Cat, and it goes absolutely nowhere. we've gotten all of these developments in his story but they have never been expanded on, and we're nowhere closer to figuring out his relationship to c!dream and what his other side is and honestly i see no hope that we'll be any closer to knowing even by the end of the year.

your characters don't all have to be morally grey for the story itself to be morally grey. this is fiction - some people can be nothing but evil and others can be nothing but good. being purely good or evil doesn't mean that you're one dimensional, either.

c!dream apologists have ruined c!dream for me. he's not a good person. how about you let me enjoy a villain for who he actually is, rather for than your percieved woobified ragdoll you pass off as c!dream.

the story was better when there was a central writer. it was brilliant back when wilbur wrote it to be that the environment drives the characters and the story, and it was really good in early s2 up until techno's execution day when it was more character driven. since then, the amount of autonomy people have over their characters without any central 'director', as it were, has been a detriment to the story overall. there needs to still be one overarching figure or director or writer.

not everyone is a main character. just because they have a pov, doesn't mean they're a main character. some characters have such little impact on the overall plot and describing everyone as a main character oversaturates the story and makes some characters seem more important than they are.

the egg lore had so much potential up until it didn't. all that built up threat that we were expecting and we still don't even know what the egg wants really other than just controlling people. does it hatch?

genuinely, if there's no major plot developments by the end of the year (and let's be honest, it's a very big possibility at this point), a few of the more prominent members of the server should do a podcast style stream talking about where the story would have gone, because at least then we would have gotten somewhat closer to a conclusion.

c!techno is a villain and an asshole and a bad person. he stops caring for people once their interests don't align with his or if they look at him funny. he makes meta-jokes about his own tyrannical and oppressive nature. stop taking that away from him. he's a bad person. cc!techno does a fabulous job portraying that in a comedic manner and the balancing of him being a deeply flawed person with deeply flawed morals and ideas with his comedically-portrayed stubbornness and lack of willingness to hear out opposing viewpoints is incredible. i want to like characters who are arseholes for the sake of being arseholes, and who refuse to take into account the hurt they've caused either out of self-righteousness or because they don't care, so let me. he's the anti-peacemaker, LET ME HIM ENJOY HIM FOR THAT!!!!

i think tommy and wilbur's way of doing lore is my favourite. relies heavily on improv, voice acting, sprite acting and facial expressions. really shows off the acting props and they pull off the emotional moments well for the insanity of the creative medium.

i'm not a fan of fan-music. i find songs about media i'm into difficult to listen to. coincidentally i'm also not a fan of shit like slam poetry or live music/musicals/pantomimes.

the death of l'manberg killed people's motivation to go on the server casually. i've talked about it more in depth before, but destroying what was a central, driving environment for the story killed momentum and motivation. imagine in an episode of she-ra, the princess alliance just nuke the freight zone and all of the members of the horde just have to deal with it. that would be shit.

until season 3 has some momentum, i'm counting the end of the smp as january 20th. that had a conclusion. season 3 has... whores, technoblade and tommyinnit. that's about it.

i wasn't a fan of the development of c!tubbo joining las nevadas. i preferred snowchester and the walled city conflict. give c!tubbo some backbone and some badassery. also tubbo where's the fucking nuke bro if you're shelving that plotline just tell us on like an alt stream what the plan was i beg

add like 2 or 3 new people to the server so that michael mcchill has someone to talk to and so that there's something always happening on the server. it gives the og's more motivation to return if things are happening in and out of canon and it'll help with momentum, and who knows? maybe they can write their own story/stories.

i really think that c!sam is an underrated character. he's multilayered, extremely interesting, and the dichotomy of his loyalty to his job and how far down the rabbithole that's taken him versus the genuine love he has for his friends that drives him to do what he does out of wanting to do right by them is brilliant. i don't talk about c!sam enough.

STOP HAVING FUCKING VILLAIN ARCS!!! I'M FUCKIN SICK OF IT!!!! i want to see more characters who see everyone else being absolute selfish, abhorrent cunts and go 'if nobody else is going to be a good person, i fucking will'. GIVE ME SOME MORAL WHITENESS!!! IT'S INTERESTING AND MORALLY GOOD CHARACTERS ARE FUN!!!

let tommyinnit build cobblestone towers. everyone bullied him too much for how ugly they were and the one he built outside of the prison looked genuinely really nice. it gives the boy something to do.

i'm a fan of the revive book and the canon lives system. don't ask me why, but i think it might just be the morbidity of it. it adds to c!dream's god complex persona, and i think the fragility of death itself is a really fun concept. not enough fan cc's have made connections with that and c!mumza, and it could make for cool fanfic.

ranboo your house is fucking ugly. it's an eyesore

c!niki, and to some extent now c!jack and c!fundy, are boring me and ruining my mood. i think c!jack is the closest to being an actually interesting sympathetic villain, mainly because nobody else seems to realise that c!niki is a villain. not a good one imo, but she's a villain. c!jack just has the problem of starting a new project over and over and over and over again and because of the slow in momentum for the primary cast, there hasn't been a lot of recent development for him.

not really a dream smp opinion, but if philza went full geordie accent, i would love it. i want him to, in canon, say shit like 'me n ye' instead of 'me and you' and use geordie dialect. i want him to be physically unintelligible because it's funny.

i don't really know what's up with c!foolish but i think he's a dumbass. he had a while to think about c!q's proposal and then changed his mind about joining the guy to admitted to letting him die just because. moron

i wish there was more c!eret lore. i wish he was an actual king with an actual kingdom and actual subjects and royal advisors. c!eret is far too fucking cool to be the king of nothing and nobody. fatten up the kingdom and the castle with people who work with c!eret, and don't just make it tyrannical and dictator-y to prove the point of the server's 'anarchists'. make it a healthy working environment, please - if you want moral greyness, have 'anarchists' who claim to care about the welfare of the server oppose a kingdom of happy people under a fair and just ruler because their ideologies clash.

the server needs more characters who oppose anarchy in more peaceful ways, or passively wish for systems to be a part of. i think a chaos vs order conflict ending only in mutual understanding where everyone understands that they should just leave each other alone would slot nicely into the story that's been created so far.

you need to have watched all of the previous arcs to understand the story. i've seen people argue that they don't need to know about earlier lore to understand the prison, but that's the equivalent of only watching the final season of pretty little liars and expecting to understand the context of what's going on.

some characters aren't that morally grey. some characters, take c!tommy for example, are definitely on the whiter side for the morality scale, he's just an asshole. he's abrasive and rude and a dickhead but he also doesn't agree with terrorism, he's patriotic, he strives for a better world, he's apologetic, but he's also a fucking BITCH.

you can add onto this if you want, but not if you're a c!dream apologist. nobody likes your opinions

[maybe-theres-hope]

Tarlos Fic - Dinner Date

3.2k | T | Warnings: Blood, Injuries (mostly minor) | Contains: Judd/Carlos friendship, Tarlos being perfect, blue Camaro (rip)

Read on AO3

“So, what are your plans for the night?” Nancy asked as they exited the ambulance, their shift nearly over as long as the bell didn’t go off in the next ten minutes. 

TK smiled to himself for a moment before he spoke. “Well, Carlos is taking me to Jeffrey’s, so…”

“Holy mother,” Nancy breathed, looking at him with obvious envy. “Do you guys have a ten year anniversary or something coming up? Did he get some kind of commendation at work? Because I know your last one was like a month ago, so.”

“No, no anniversary, that’s in a couple of months. And its three years, Nance.” He chose to ignore her muttering about their mushiness ‘aging me ten years’. “And nothing from work that I know of. Maybe he just loves me?” TK couldn’t stop grinning while they stocked the bus and readied for the handover. 

“He loves you crap ton! Their wagyu strip steak is a hundred and twenty-five dollars!” Nancy had her phone out, obviously googling the menu. 

“Well at least we’ll save money on wine,” TK said with a chuckle.

“I’ve heard of the place by reputation but like, dude, who ever gets the chance to actually go there?”

“TK it seems,” Tommy cut in. “Why don’t you go on? We got it here and you’re gonna need at least an hour to pick out an outfit.”

“And gel your hair. You and your dad are way more alike than you want to admit,” Nancy added with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. You sure, Cap? I can stay and help?”

“I’m sure, kiddo. Go get dolled up for your man. Eat a few bites for us, yeah?” Tommy yelled at his retreating figure. She and Nancy looked at each other with grins as they caught the little skip in his step. 

“So, what do you think the occasion is?”

Tommy looked back at Nancy with a gleam in her eye. “I can wager a guess, but I don’t want to jinx it.” Nancy just gave her a look and went back to restocking.

--

Around 8 p.m., Owen was sitting in his office toying with his phone in his hand, smiling at his last text exchange. 

we’re just leaving the house now, wish me luck!

you’re not gonna need it, kid :)

“Not if I know my son anyway,” Owen said aloud to the empty room. He wondered if it’d happened yet. No incoherent string of emoji’s from TK yet, so he doubted it. 

He was shoving the phone back into his pocket with the bell went off. 

--

“Alright guys,” Owen said into the mic from the Captain’s chair. “Dispatch says three vehicles involved, two still on the road and one went over the side into the ravine. Police are on their way but we’ll probably beat ‘em there. Strickland, Marwani, soon as we get there I want you to harness up and get down in that ravine. Judd, you too. You’ll be in command down there and I’ll stay up top with the other two vehicles. Everybody else you’re with me, got it?”

A chorus of “Copy that, Cap,” and suddenly they were on the scene. 

--

“Marjan, Paul, we’re goin’ down!” Judd called to them as the rest of the crew went over to the silver Prius and black Mazda that were crumpled in the middle of the two-lane highway. Judd wasn’t a prayin’ man, but he sent up a little something to the man upstairs that this went their way. It looked bad. 

Paul arrived at his side first, strapped into his gear. “Marjan’s grabbing the bag from the truck, she’s coming.” 

“Alright. We’ll go down this way,” Judd said, pointing to a safe-ish stretch of hillside. “Can’t see the other car from here but dispatch said bystanders saw it go over. Probably just hidden in the trees.”

“Okay guys, let’s do this!” Marjan called, harnessed and carrying the medical bag and a backboard. “TK’s gonna be sad he missed this. Medical doesn’t get to harness up a lot and I know he loved it. He coulda helped.”

“Nah, he’s got better things tonight. Carlos was takin’ him to Jeffrey’s,” Paul said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“Ohh, fancy,” Marjan said with a smile. “What’s the occasion?”

They’d reached the bottom and were starting to look through the brush and low-hanging trees for a vehicle. 

“Don’t know,” Paul answered. “But I think Cap’s in on it somehow.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Judd cut in as he whacked a few branches out of his way. “Carlos came by the station a few weeks ago, and they sat up in Cap’s office for an hour before he left grinnin’ like a possum eatin’ a sweet tater.” 

“I have no idea what that means,” Paul said with a laugh. 

“Hey guys, look!” Marjan called from a few yards to the left. The other two went to her position and saw what she’d found. A track in the underbrush where it had been torn at and flattened. “Think this is the place.”

“Let’s go,” said Judd. They followed the path through the brush for a couple of yards before they caught sight of it: taillights. “Alright, Marjan you go on the passenger side, I got the driver. Paul you see if you can clear some of that brush off the back in case the doors are jammed and we gotta get ‘em out that’a way.”

Visibility was still low despite the lights of the car and their flashlights, but as they approached they saw the car wrapped around the trunk of a tree on the passenger side. “I don’t know if I can get in there, Judd, but I’ll try,” Marjan said as she broke out into a jog.

“Wait!” Paul cried. Judd looked over at him, and he would have said such a thing couldn’t happen to a calm and collected person like Paul, but his face had gone ashen. “That’s Carlos’s car,” he said on a breath. 

“What?” In the dark, now that he was really looking, he could see they were coming up on—what used to be—a blue Camaro. 

“I’m sure of it. TK bullied him into putting that sticker on the back because he said it was too pristine and it needed personality.” He shone his flashlight at the rear bumper and sure enough, there was a SXSW sticker half ripped off from the path the car had taken to get there. 

“Come on,” Judd said, heart rate kicking up.

“Should we call Cap?” Paul asked.

“No, we stay down here and do our jobs, and he stays up there and does his. We’ll get ‘em.” His voice sounded numb even to his own ears, but he was determined. 

“They were on their way to dinner,” Paul said lowly.

“Yeah, probably takin’ the backroads to avoid traffic,” Judd said, shaking his head. Fate was hell sometimes.

When they reached the car, Marjan was yelling. “TK! TK can you hear me?” She turned to Judd. “I can’t get in there. The tree trunk is halfway into the car, probably pinning him to the console. He’s unresponsive.” Her face was also pale, but determined. 

Judd went to the driver’s side and saw Carlos, head hanging to the side facing the broken window. He tried the door as he called out. “Carlos? Hey Carlos, come on buddy. Can you hear me?” The door wouldn’t budge; Judd figured the car had rolled a couple of times coming down the hill, crumpling it like a tin can. Then he heard a soft groan.

He looked up, and one of Carlos’s eyes was trying to open. The other was swollen shut, where he’d probably hit his head on the steering wheel before the airbag deployed. Half his face had burn marks from it. 

“Hey, hey Carlos, look at me, that’s it.” That one eye tracked around before it landed on Judd, drawn to the light of the flashlight on his helmet. “Hey man. We’re gonna get you out okay? Now, can you move your fingers and toes for me?” Judd stuck his head into the window to see down in the floor boards. “Alright, likely no spinal damage. How’s your head?”

“Hurts. Shoulder, too.” His voice was barely audible. 

“Okay, it looks like you dislocated it,” Judd said as he prodded his left shoulder. “I don’t see anything broken but we’ll have to get you out to determine that.”

“TK—“ a wheeze, “TK…first. Been out…a while.”

Judd peered over to the passenger side, where TK was shoved almost fully into the center console, head laid back on the headrest and his face covered in blood. Marjan and Paul were still hard at work outside trying to clear a path into the car. 

“We can’t get to his side just yet, but we can get you out first and then we’ll be able to pull him out this way, okay? We wanna focus on you right now.”

“Alive.”

“Yeah, you’re alive, Carlos. You’re not gonna leave us yet,” he said as he assessed the door panels where they could cut through with the saws they brought. 

“No. TK. Weak, but…alive,” Carlos breathed out, coughing through the end.

“We’ll make sure he’s alive, okay?” Judd said, trying not to lose his professionalism at this whole messed up situation.

“He is.” Judd stopped looking around and looked back at Carlos. The man raised his right hand just as much as he was able, showing where he had two fingers on TK’s radial pulse. 

“Good, that’s good Carlos,” Judd assured him. That meant Carlos had had some minutes of consciousness after the accident before they showed up. “Was he talking at all? After you hit the tree?”

“Little. Minutes, maybe.”

“That’s good, that’ll help. Alright Carlos, we’re gonna get this door off so I’m gonna cover you with this while we do okay?” Judd waited for a small nod before he covered Carlos’s face and torso with his own turnout coat. 

After an agonizing four minutes, the door popped off in a shower of metal and broken glass. Judd removed the coat and went back in to assess. “Carlos? How you doin’?”

“Tired. But won’t…sleep. Promise. That’s bad.”

“You learn a few things from your Paramedic boyfriend?” Judd said with a watery smile.

“Mmm.”

“Judd, I got the back cleared. Maybe we can get in there to at least check TK’s vitals,” Paul informed them. 

“Get on it, I’ma try to get Carlos here out onto this backboard. Marjan, radio for another backboard and have two RA’s ready to go topside!”

“Copy that!” Judd had to admire those two. They never let their professionalism slip too far, though he could see they were worried sick. He could relate. He wouldn’t relax until both of the boys were back up the hill and on the way to the hospital.

From the looks of things, maybe not even then. But he had hope.

“Alright, Carlos, I’m gonna grab your legs and behind your shoulders here and pull you out, okay? It’s gonna hurt like hell, but it’ll be quick.”

“Wait.”

Judd stopped cold.

“Left…pocket. Please.”

“You want me to get at your left pocket?” A nod. “Alright, hang on.”

Judd carefully shifted Carlos’s leg so he could reach into his slacks, which had probably been part of a very nice suit at the beginning of the night. His fingers searched until they hit a small bump, an object no bigger than a baseball, soft velvet over a hard shell. He sucked his lips between his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as he pulled it free in his hand. 

“Keep it…safe…for me?”

Judd looked down at the little black box for a moment, then clutched it tight in his hand before transferring it one of the innermost pockets of his turnout. 

“Of course, man. I will guard this with my life.” He looked up and saw Marjan coming back with another backboard. “Alright, buddy. It’s go time.”

Carlos gave a weak nod and winced when Judd started to pull. 

--

“Welcome back, man. You had us worried there for a bit.”

Carlos opened his good eye to see Judd sitting at his bedside, smiling softly. It took a moment to remember where he was. Hospital. Accident. Tree.

“TK—“

“Is fine. Banged up and will need crutches for a few weeks, not to mention a killer headache with no meds, but he’s fine. All things considered.”

“Where is he?”

“On his way, so you just stay put, okay? You’re pretty banged up, too, ya’know.”

Carlos shifted a bit and winced. His left arm was in a sling, his head bandaged over his left eye, and his right side hurt like hell.

“Broken rib when the tree went into TK’s door, door went into TK, TK went into the console, then the console went into you. He’s got a femoral fracture in his right leg but like I said, all things considered, you’re both pretty well off for how far you fell and probably rolled.” 

“Yeah, he said his leg had gone numb but he could still move his toes. He made sense for about five minutes, then started talking all jumbled, then went quiet. I uh…freaked out a bit after that. I thought he had…” Carlos trailed off, looking haunted. 

“Yeah, and you kept your fingers on his pulse that whole time. What you were able to tell us at the scene helped us treat him. You did good, Carlos.”

“Not good enough to swerve in time,” he said.

“Not your fault. And don’t you dare go thinkin’ it is. I don’t wanna hear it, Carlos,” Judd said in what TK called his Dad Voice. Stern and no room for argument. Carlos just nodded. 

“And uh, hey. I been waitin’ to give this back to you.” Judd stood and walked over to the bed, holding out a tiny black box. Carlos took it and cradled it against his chest. “It better be a nice one, cuz I about had a heart attack while I was showerin’ thinkin’ someone was gonna come get my pile a’clothes and take ‘em to the laundry while I was gone.”

“You didn’t open it?”

“Nah, I figure the big reveal? TK deserves that all to himself.” 

“Owen’s seen it,” Carlos countered, smirking.

“Uh huh. He approve?”

Carlos laughed. “He whistled and said I spent too much.”

“To impress the Cap it must be a lot,” Judd said with a small whistle of his own.

“Well, what was it Michael Scott said? Three years’ salary?”

Judd’s eyes almost popped out of his head, and Carlos laughed harder before wincing again at his broken rib. “I’m kidding, Judd. But I can tell you, no matter the cost, TK deserves the best and that’s what I hope I got.”

“You gonna make another reservation? Soon as y’all get back into fightin’ shape?”

Carlos looked down at the box again for a moment, contemplating. “I…don’t think so.”

Judd had a confused expression on his face but at that moment, a nurse was wheeling TK into the room, followed by most of the 126. Carlos’s face lit up like starlight at the sight of him.

“Hey, babe,” TK said with a smile. His leg was in a full cast, so the nurse was careful in maneuvering him around to Carlos’s bedside. 

“Hey, I feel like you should be the one in bed! Why are you out and about?”

“Because you were still asleep and he’s an absolute menace. We made multiple apologies to the staff on his behalf for the last hour,” Owen said as he walked into the room behind his crew. “He’s a stubborn little shit. Always has been, always will be. You sure you’re up for that?” He asked knowingly. TK was still looking at Carlos, blushing at his dad’s ribbing. Carlos met his eyes and said, “Yes.” He blushed more. 

“In fact,” Carlos continued. “I’m ready to get started. I’ve waited too long anyway. I mean, how many times do you and I have to beat death before I get the nerve to do this?” He said, looking into TK’s beautiful eyes which were looking confused. 

“What are you talking about, babe?”

“Look, I’m sorry this didn’t go how I planned. And I’m sorry I can’t get down on one knee right now, but. I hope you love me enough not to mind.” He lifted his good arm, his hand holding out the box. “A little help, Judd?”

“It’d be an honor,” the man said before leaning in and opening the box, since Carlos only had one good arm. 

At the sight of the contents of the box, TK’s eyes went as big as saucers. Surprise was written clearly over every inch of his features, which were all still beautiful even scarred and stitched up as they were at the moment. God, Carlos loved this man so much. 

“Tyler Kennedy Strand, you are the love of my life. I tried so many different scenarios in my head of how this speech would go, before I just said screw it, I’ll speak from the heart. You’re kind, funny, sexy, sweet, and everything in between. You can’t boil water and you absolutely can’t properly separate laundry. I have a dozen pink shirts as proof of that.” At this, the gathered group chuckled and TK went bright red. “Ah, but you also know just how to ease the tension from a long day just by hugging me on the doorstep. And I can always count on you to be there for me when the world gets too much, when what we see out there creeps in too far. And I want you to know, that I want to be that for you too, for the rest of our lives. So, TK. Will you marry me?”

The room was silent, apart from the hum and beeps of the machines. Everyone on the edge of their proverbial seats, but no one having any doubt to the outcome. 

“Oh, my God! Of course I’ll marry you! Yes, yes! Yes!” The last was said through TK’s fingers covering his red face, hiding the few tears that had started to fall. He held out his left hand to Carlos, who Judd had kindly helped by removing the ring from its box and handing it back to him. He slid it over TK’s finger, smiling like an idiot the whole time, barely registering the whoops and hollers of the 126 throughout the room. 

He only had eyes for TK. 

“I love you,” TK breathed through his happy tears.

“I love you too, baby. Always.”

“Oh, my God, dude, were you seriously surprised?” Nancy asked incredulously once the commotion had died down.

“Well…yeah? I didn’t expect this at all,” TK said, looking sheepish. 

“TK…my dude…he was taking you to Jeffrey’s! How could you not know?”

Once again, the room erupted in laughter and TK ducked his head again. Carlos reached out and touched his chin, catching his eyes again.

There was nothing but love there. 

CLEARLY every Tarlos fic I write has to have a proposal in it *shrug emoji* 

Also I wrote this in like an hour after I had a dream so please excuse any typos I didn’t catch!

Please reblog if you liked it! I would really really appreciate it :) Thank you for reading!

[dappercritter]

Random She-Ra Season 5 Thoughts: THE FINAL RAMBLING

Yep. I finally got all my crazy absurd thoughts about this gay adventure-romance-drama cartoon summarized into one incoherent yet fun to read computer document/article! ...four months after the show itself ended. Oh well, no one’s perfect. Anyways, there are a whole lot more insane observations than ever before, so I had to put it below a link so this thing didn’t back up my blog or any of yours. Hope you enjoy reading through these as much I enjoyed spouting them for no discernible reason other than I felt like it!

-I feel that since is the last season, I ought to talk about an important part of the show that I’ve been putting off: the animation. It’s… okay. It’s definitely smoother than what the original 80’s show and it’s brother series (heheh) looked like, but at the same time it still seems to suffer from similar limitations which causes some distracting moments of stiffness. But other than that, it’s pretty good. It’s no Titmouse or Studio Mir but it looks good and it gets the job done.

         -After all, let’s not forget: “Imperfection is beautiful!”

-Even when things are at their lowest, Adora is a jock with a heart of gold.

-Horde Prime and the Galactic Horde’s aesthetic feels like a mixture of Catholicism, Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, and modern Microsoft, and honestly, that just makes him creepier.

-Speaking of Horde Prime, he didn’t waste any time with destroying Bright Moon. …apparently.

-Furthermore, on the topic of his giant holographic messages, WAS THAT A FREAKING MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MOVIE REFERENCE?!

-Boy, Glimmer and Catra sure got along quickly! It’s almost like they magically understand each other because they both assumed leadership roles and screwed up big time! …I guess.

         -Either that or this season is going to be a speedrun.

-Wow, the Rebellion sure got used to having a once-thought-dead king as well as a known enemy general/abuser running around their camp awful fast, didn’t they?

-Mara’s got a spaceship, a cyber girlfriend, a magic grandma, a dragon, a tragic backstory, AND a force ghost?! Dang, even in death, the girl’s got it all. No wonder everyone likes her!

-(*me looking at the TV rating at the start of episode*) “Why is language in there? Is there surprise cuss words or something in this season?” (*sees Horde Prime seize control of a clone for the first time*) “HOLY FREAKING SH—oh that’s why.”

-Applause to the crew for making the “dinner with Prime” scene for making a meal between a sparkly princess, a catgirl, and alien cult leader feel even more uncomfortable than it had a right to.

-(*me throughout the season whenever a clone was onscreen*) Is that Hordak? Is that him? Is that him? Is that him right there? Oh it is—oh no wait. … Is that h—

-Extra applause for having Glimmer learn from her grey-area wetwipe phase and refusing to sell out her friends again whilst telling the imperialist cult leader where to stick it.

-I would pay a sizeable portion of my life savings to hear what a Scorpia and Swift Wind duet would sound like.

         -In fact, I’d double it if it was just Scorpia singing.

         -Ah what the heck. I would triple it for an entire She-Ra musical!

-As happy as I am to see to see Entrapta interacting with the other princesses again, I have to say that their big reunion left me with some mixed feelings. Here’s a quick rundown:

         -Entrapta, a grown autistic woman, being led around on a leash by non-neurodivergent teenagers—again: that’s bad.

         -The Princesses confronting Entrapta about joining the Horde: that’s good!

         -The Princesses blaming all their problems with the Horde bots on Entrapta’s actions and her hyper fixations alone: that’s bad.

         -Entrapta explaining herself, admitting that she regrets her mistakes, and getting the Princesses to understand that she thinks and communicates differently, but in spite of that, she really does want help find Glimmer: that’s good!

         -Entrapta never gets to call out the Princesses for how poorly they treated her: that’s bad.

         -Entrapta saves the day and goes to space: that’s good!

         -Scorpia and Entrapta still haven’t interacted even though the former is with the Rebellion in the first place because she went to look for her because she is her best friend: …can I go home now?

-How nice! Michah finally got to shapeshift!

         -And he’s rocking that She-Ra outfit to boot!

-So is Darla a back up of Light Hope or do they just run on the same operating system and have the same voice?

-I could watch an entire season of Adora, Bow, and Entrapta going on space adventure in a rundown ship with their custom-made spacesuits, tbh.

-Is anyone else weirded out that Catra’s younger self looked at her in her flashback(?).

         -Actually what WAS happening there, anyhow?

-(*watching Bow’s spacewalk to save Glimmer*) “Is that a Gravity reference?” asked the man who never saw Gravity.

-Speaking of spacewalks, how did Glimmer survive those precious few seconds in space? Does the teleporter teleport a breathable atmosphere too?

         -Also, Catra, WHY did you think it would be a good idea to teleport Glimmer into space? I know you had a plan and the ship was right there but… Ah, never mind.

-Not that I’m complaining but Glimmer’s apology to the rest of the friend squad for her HORRIBLE plan last season went… surprisingly quickly.

-You know as cool as The Star Siblings are, being a quirky band of space-travelling siblings with cool powers and some trans rep to boot, I only have one small problem with them: weren’t there already Star Sisters on Etheria back in season 1?

         -That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about Masters of the Universe characters to dispute it.

-Entrapta confirmed pan, objectum, AND horny on main. Dang girl, you’re gonna have fun whether you got Hordak back or not…

-“The Velvet Glove” is both a menacing and stupid name for a decadent overlord’s mothership.

         -Wait, it’s from the 80’s canon? Oh. That kind of explains it, actually.

-Goshdangit, I wanted Catra to face punishment for her crimes, but I didn’t think that would involve going to evil alien conversion therapy!

         -Nor did I want her to die! For a second. Actually, since it obviously wasn’t going to last I was… weirdly okay with that part???

-Horde Prime seems awfully okay with Catradora. I mean he’s still super creepy and manipulative about it, but also oddly progressive for an evil brainwashing cult leader.

-(*Adora transforms into a She-Ra through seer will*) First of all, called it. Second of all, WOAH MAMA now that’s a glow up!

-Wrong Hordak did not have to be a thing, and yet, I’m glad that he is.

-Hordak remembers the LUVD crystal and Entrapta… Hordak remembers Entrap—! It’s happening! Oh my gosh, it’s happening! Everybody stay calm!

-Wow, Entrapta didn’t have to be so forgiving of Catra for everything she’s done to her but she did. Only I’m not sure if that was Entrapta taking the high road or the low road.

         -Or which road the crew took for that matter.

-I remember when I thought those “Chipped AUs” floating around here on tumblr were just something the fans came up with and that chipping people was not an actual despicable thing Prime does in canon. I miss those days.

-I know it’s not the same as before or the original design, but True She-Ra’s designs and powers? I think they slappin’.

-Hooray, Adora and Catra are finally making up! And it only took four and half seasons worth of communication failures, toxic villainous behaviour, and physical violence for Catra to snap out of it!

         -…We can go back to Entrapdak now, right?

-Poor Elberon. First they unknowingly adopt a double agent then get invaded by the Horde and now they’re getting brainwashed and chipped by the Galactic Horde. They might be a cute village, but they got some pretty lousy security.

-You know it’s cute that Micah is doing his best to be friends with Frosta and get back in touch with his dad-side, but look I can’t be the only one worried about how the local King is a less proactive leader than the princesses or the known war criminal/abuser, right?

-“The Perils of Peekablue” or as I like to call it, “You Thought ‘Boys Night Out’ Caught You Emotionally Off-guard? Hah! Watch This.”

-You know I didn’t think Scorpfuma would be a thing aside that one moment of flirting near the end of season 4, but they really pushed for it to be a thing! This is… actually pretty great! Perfuma’s not perfect, and I would have appreciated giving them a little more time to bond and form some real chemistry, but at least she reciprocates Scorpia’s sweetness instead of rebuffing it in increasingly aggressive fashion.

-I’m not sure what’s more concerning: that Mermista set a boat on fire, that it’s worded like she had a fling as part of some experimental phase, or that Sea Hawk is turned on by this.

-Peekablue might not be real, (I think?) but he is one dapper dude! Female-to-male redesigns could learn a thing or two from him.

-It involved them getting stung and seizuring, but that was a heck of a way to reintroduce Double Trouble! I swear I got watching them cycle through their transformations in some sort of physical reaction.

         -Or maybe that was just me worrying about their wellbeing…

-Okay, I get the Chips are huge, and actually rather clever threat, but how do these characters get chipped in the first place? I get there are chipped people who spread the chips throught the population but where do they get those from???

         -Do one of those Horde Prime drones just sneak behind someone, slap a chip on their nape then hand them a whole bagfull and say, “Beep boop beep, Horde Prime’s Light, blah blah blah. Alright have fun, kiddo”?

         -Or is it some sort of Alien: Covenant deal where they’re just floating around and Lord help you if one sticks to you?

-HOLY CRAP THEY ACTUALLY GOT SCORPIA TO SING! AND SHE WAS GREAT!

         -Oh shoot. Guess I owe the crew twice my life savings now…

-Entrapdak might be what got me into this show, but it’s Double Trouble that kept me around, so you can imagine how happy I was to see them make their grand reappearance!

-Conversly, you can imagine my disappointment when they just disappeared until the finale.

         -And on that note: HOW DID YOU GUYS LOSE DOUBLE TROUBLE?!

                  -You forgot to cherish them, didn’t you?

-So, Scorpia sacrifices herself just after finding a new girlfriend and gaining some newfound confidence, Mermista and Sea Hawk are split up,and Double Trouble didn’t join the main cast. Why can’t you just have fun like a normal cartoon, show?

-Gosh, I love me some shifting title cards!

-Is it just me or did they sneak in some more Annihilation references on Krytis?

         (-Said the guy who was too chicken to watch the movie and just read about it and watched a few clips online.)

-(*audibly sighs*) FINE. I guess I like Catradora now. Are you happy now, SPOP Crew? ARE YOU?!

-Hooray, Catra’s got a emotional support animal! And they’re a shapeshifting magic alien cat. Those are the best kind!

-Is it weird that I knew that weird glowing stuff on Krytis was just magic all along, or was it just not hidden very well. Anyways, I like Krytis. I like that we got to see a truly alien world with its own form of magic.

-Plus, we got a logical advancement of the magic versus science subtheme with magic being Horde Prime’s weakness! Neato!

-Getting back on the “which is worse?” wagon for a second, I don’t know what feels less right: that Wrong Hordak’s big revelation and his resolution to free himself and his brothers and friends from Horde Prime’s control is played humorously, or that Real Hordak should be the one having this moment.

-That bit with Castaspella and Shadow Weaver where she tells Casta about Etheria being a living thing with inherent magical property, or whatever, while we got a peaceful shot of some boar creatures sleeping was actually kind of nice. It would have been nicer though if it wasn’t part of a power hungry abuser’s obvious scheme. If only there was a kindly old witch lady character who was in touch with nature and knew just what to say when someone was feeling downOH WAIT.

-Furthermore… Why did Shadow Weaver and Castaspella need to have romantic tension?

-Seriously though, where’s our Madame Razz quota this season? Where’s my supportive magic grandma timelord at, yo?

-Yup, they speedran this season.

-I’m actually really disappointed we didn’t see more of an intergalactic new rebellion rising up to fight Horde Prime’s forces across the universe. Especially if it meant we got to see more Star Sibling action!

-Again, I adore Wrong Hordak but I keep wondering what was keeping the crew from just bringing in Original Flavour Hordak. (You know, aside from teasing us Entrapdak fans and trying to distract us with a loveable new character in the meantime.) I mean he could have done the whole infiltrating the clone squads and tricking them bit, too.

         -Heck, he could have done the wink, too!

-I’d gleefully point out Loo-Kee’s cameo this season but apparently, they already made some several seasons ago. That’s what I get for not rewatching the 80’s show and training my eyes first.

-(*sees Erelandians*) Are those freaking Toads and Toadettes?

-So, what’s keeping them from just hitting Spinerella’s chip again? Besides emotional baggage and gale force winds, I mean.

-Perfuma coming out of a cave scared out of her wits, demanding to know who’s there, clinging to her friends as soon as they come back, and balling her eyes out is a big, BIG mood.

-Frosta absolutely decking Catra in the face was nestled somewhere between cathartic and excessive.

         -Netossa spraying her with a bottle of water on the other hand…

-Oh, so Greyskull was the name of a Rebel Squad! I think. Meh, the important thing is we got an explanation and it still sounds cool.

-Leave it to a couple of dads to make a secret message out of a dad joke.

-You know I made fun of Light Hope for being creepy, but I swear that avatar from the Spire is even creepier. I don’t know if it’s her face—those dang blank eyes, man—or just that it she’s less animated than the real thing, but it just felt… off.

-Aww, Noelle made Netossa’s princess weakness illustrations! So cute!

-Forget episodes that deserves Emmys, Keston John deserves one for voicing Hordak, Horde Prime, all the clones, and several minor villains and giving each and every single one a distinct voice! Where my king’s respect, eh?

-Yes, Catra you had a small disagreement with Hordak. …Over sending his girlfriend and your “friend” to DIE IN A LITERAL LIVING HELL.

         -Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.

-Why does Perfuma get pressured to get angry and go wild when Entrapta’s the one who’s had it the worst out of all them? Why can’t my gamer girl go berserk, dammit!?

-Okay, but really, how do these fricking chips work??? Are they parasite devices who store Horde Prime’s Baptizing Dew then slowly pump it into their host’s bodies? Do they have their own nervous systems? Are they technorganic? Also, how and why do we need to make these chips are bigger threat then they need to be?

-Horde Prime showing up on Hordak’s throne in grand Killing Joke style and casually throwing shades at his brother’s overblown attempts to impress him is pretty awesome, but it feels strangely underdeveloped. Hordak’s not there to have his hard work insulted and we never got to see Adora have any similar encounter with Hordak here before, so unless you look at it from the perspective of someone who has been here before in the Horde story like Catra it lacks the dramatic weight it should have had.

-Scorpia resisting the chip to save her new friends was pretty great, though.

-I swear, when they got to the scene where Adora and the others figured out that Shadow Weaver was grooming her so she could use her to get to the Heart of Etheria, I was mouthing “You B***H” through the whole thing.

-They really brought back Etherian deep magic just so they had something to make Micah threatening. …okay.

-Okay, the rest of “Failsafe” messed me up, so here’s a rundown on all the other messy thoughts I had while the show ripped my heart and ground it to dog food:

         -Entrapta and Hordak reuniting: Yay!

         -Swift Wind yanking her away before she can get through to him: Boo.

         -Catra encouraging Adora to try and take care of herself for a change: Yay!

         -Adora hurts Catra and she runs away: Boo.

         -Adora finally calling out Shadow Weaver on what an utterly horrible person she is: Yay!

         -Adora resolves to risk sacrificing herself to save the world: Bo—okay, seriously, was all this suffering really necessary, show?

-I know I mentioned in my previous She-Ra random thoughts that I supported Glimmadora, but I am okay with Catradora and Glimbow ending up canon. The only problem I have is how rushed they feel—moreso with Glimbow. With Catradora, the crew had an entire season to make it work again and they took it. Glimbow it feels like they were down to the last few episodes and went, “Oh right, we were gonna do something with these two!” then did their darndest to fit in some chemistry in between all the other stuff going down.

-As ominous as it was, the music where Horde Prime starts hacking Etheria honestly SLAPS.

-Okay, I know everyone is magic or something, but I am legit surprised getting electrocuted in water didn’t kill the heroes right then and there.

-Sea Hawk tries to flirt with his girl even as she’s trying to kill him. Truly, he is a man of taste.

-What do you know, Shadow Weaver can only do good when she’s (canonically!) punch drunk.

-You know a whole lot of this could have been avoided if Holo-Mara was Adora’s mentor instead of Light Hope.

-When I think about it, it was actually really clever to make Horde Prime the final villain for Adora to face: a domineering decadent man who’s been in power forever against a humble emotionally vulnerable compassionate young woman.

         -Not to mention the divide between cult-like oppression and progressive freedom. Or something.

-Holy crap, did the First Ones get a great freaking a Great Old One for a guard dog?!

-So, you guys seriously didn’t bring Angella back to reunite with her family OR mention her all season after the impact her death had on everyone all last season until Glimmer needs a power-up at the last possible minute and then you never bring her up again. That is absolutely a dick move in bird culture.

-Entrapta’s hacker sticker gives me life. Gamer girl gremlin princess forever!

-On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Adora and Catra don’t get to have an awesome couple battle against the security monster and win. On the other hand, Shadow Weaver is finally dead. YAY!

         -With apologies to the writers and especially Lorraine Toussaint. She did splendidly bringing this character to life and even if I hated Shadow Weaver, I adored the effort she put into making her one of the most emotionally complex villains I’ve ever seen.

-Words cannot, will not, and will never describe the pure joy that I experienced when I first saw Hordak’s big scene: standing up to and disowning his tyrant brother, saving Entrapta, declaring his love to her (albeit in a nicely lowkey fashion), and then throwing Horde Prime to his apparent doom Disney style with Entrapta cheering him with sheer glee. GOSH, it was everything I could have hoped for from this season!

         -Now if only they kept the deleted scene where they got a moment to themselves before Prime body-jacked him again like the creepy sonuvabich he is.

-Horde Prime just wouldn’t be a religious villain if he didn’t tell everyone to burn.

         -Bonus points for actually trying to burn the frigging planet.

-Aside from the idea of Adora switching to wearing a She-Ra themed dress everywhere in the future, the future vision was really quite sweet, and seeing Prime step in to ruin it made it all the more impactful.

-Can I just say that it’s absolutely wonderful that the show, for all it’s flaws, said  “**** senseless heroic sacrifices”?

-BREAKING: Lesbian cat finally makes up with her jock ex, has a canon kiss so pure it saves the world!

         -In other news, Catradora fans are still spoiled rotten.

-Wow, look at all those character comebacks they skipped through! Look, there’s the chefs from Dryl, Double Trouble, Huntara, the Horde Trio, Imp, Madame Razz—are you kidding me?!

-Grumbling aside, I actually find the idea of the Horde Trio and Imp getting involved in a G-rated science-fantasy version of the first Hangover movie quite amusing.

-Oh dang, they pulled a Castle in the Sky with the Velvet Glove!

-As nice as it was to see Aodra save Hordak from Horde Prime and destroy the latter through exorcism via sheer compassion, I’m rather disappointed we never got to see She-Ra go full Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengence on any creepy old cult leaders.

         -Yeah, it would have gone against the “love conquers all” set up, but love takes on many forms, does it not? So, why can it not manifest as cleaving your mortal enemies with extreme prejudice to save your loved ones?

-Furthermore, in addition to Holo-Mara being a better mentor, Hordak raising Adora instead Shadow Weaver could have prevented a lot of similar problems. Maybe. Possibly.

         -Eh whatever, he has a lifetime’s worth of fanfiction to make up for it.

-ENTRAPDAK IS CANON, ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

-And so is Catradora and Glimbow! That’s nice, too.

-Aww, how sweet of them to skip through Catra and Scorpia, and Glimmer and Micah’s big reunions! It’s not like we’ve been waiting forever for this stuff or anything. HahahahAHAHAHDHAHAHFHAFHKSADJHFKAJHDfine.

-And so it all ends with everyone either friends, in love, or both, as heroes decide to make up for it all with a grandiose sequel promising more exciting space adventures we probably won’t see! HOORAY!

-All snarky ranting aside, I actually really enjoyed the finale. It was exciting, heartwarming, and above all it ended on happy, hopeful note without leaving too many frustrating questions unanswered. (*glares with utmost contempt at Voltron and Star vs. The Forces of Evil*)

-You know, this wasn’t bad for a final season, but I think this might have worked better as two seasons. Not in Netflix’s cheap “split a regular 13-episode season in two 6-7 episode long seasons” strategy, but I mean two full seasons with their own storylines leading up to the grand finale:

         -First, one that starts out with Horde Prime’s arrival the downfall of Etheria, focuses on the space adventures, ends with their return to Etheria and gives the characters time to recuperate from season 4.

         -Then, we have one final season that focuses on the Best Friend Squad’s Return to Etheria, Horde Prime’s plan, gives everyone more time to properly reconcile before ¾ of the entire cast gets chipped, sets up a new Rebellion made up of Princess Alliance and former Etherian Horde members, maybe even set up a proper Hordak redemption arc or something, and then our big happy ending.

-On a mostly unrelated note, I also feel that the whole show could have turned out even better if it had been either a dedicated science-fantasy war drama with some levity (like the good Star Wars shows or Avatar: The Last Airbender) or a lighthearted yet empowering slice-of-life action-adventure romcom (i.e. basically a well-made remake of the original show in the style of Adventure Time and Parks and Rec or something).

-My final random thought for this whole thing: we really could have used a triumphant end credits song or something. Aside from obviously recommending Fabulous Secret Powers, I would have also recommended the original 4 Non Blondes “What’s Going On,” a reprise of “Warriors,” Gorillaz’s “We Got the Power,” or (my favourite) Talking Head’s “(Nothing But) Flowers” since the ending scenes remind me of it.

Thanks again to the crew for giving me something to live for and/or complain about!

Now, let’s hope the He-Man reboots do as well...

[muddyhippy]

Night Terrors, Chapter 5: Check-ins and Check-ups

A Lily Of-Many-Names Mechanisms Story

(Re-posting again because Tumblr refuses to have this pop up in the mechanisms tag and I am determined to try all the things I can think of before I give up!)

Summary

Lily has another nightmare filled with darkness and bad ones later than her usual night terrors torment her and when her usual source of comfort is nowhere to be found she decides to try her luck with the one person she’s pretty sure will still be up…

Featuring;  Some science officer observations, discussions of nightmares, lots of comfort, medical practice, some past Jonny whump, and some soft mechs at the end!

Check-ins and Check-ups

 There was a tentative knocking at the lab door.

 Raphaella frowned, she checked the ship’s time, 4:54 am. That was unusual. The only one who bothered to knock like that was Lily and Lily would be in bed by now and—

 Ah.

 Raphaella moved in a fluid motion, rising from her workbench and opened the door to be greeted by a slightly soggy Lily, the tear tracks and snotty nose was evidence of what had happened, clutching a fuzzy lump of something.

 “Jonny not in his room?”

 Lily shook her head, “M’sorry.”

 Raph sighed. It wasn’t a great inconvenience, she was hardly interrupting a breakthrough, she’d just lost track of time documenting one of her less hazardous bio-concoctions. Without a word she scooped Lily and her fuzzy thing up and carried her back to the bench. Lily immediately cuddled in close to her, Gemini tucked against her chest, breathing in the science officer’s familiar scent of chemicals, leather and a hint of flowers from her long golden hair. Lily loved Raphaella’s hair, it was so beautiful and silky. She loved being allowed to play with it, threading her little fingers through the fine strands and trying to plait them carefully.

 “You want to tell me what it was about?” prompted Raph.

 “It was silly.” Lily thought the science officer was so clever and busy with all he experiments she felt shy and small and silly admitting what was wrong, she was a big girl and she should be able to handle one little nightmare. Even if it had really scared her. Lily hadn’t wanted to bother her, Raphaella was always kind when she did her checks on her but that was always at the same time, they were planned. So were all her fun science lessons. This was definitely interrupting and interrupting was rude.

 Raphaella sighed, disappointed at Lily’s conclusion, “If it upset you then by definition it is not silly. Just because dreams are caused by synapse transfer and your brain’s interpretation of events does not mean that the outcome can be deemed ridiculous if it has an impact on you.”

 “Oh.” Lily wasn’t entirely sure what that meant but it sounded like she didn’t think Lily was silly after all.

 “Quite.”

 “I dreamt the Aurora was all dark and cold and I could hear banging like a big, angry someone was trying to get in.” Lily explained quietly.

 “I see.” Raphaella frowned.

 Lily quailed a little, misinterpreting her expression and began to hide her face, “I said it was silly.”

 The science officer sighed, realising what Lily thought she’d meant, “And what did I say?”

 “Sorry.” The child cast her eyes down as she mumbled.

 Very gently Raphaella caught Lily’s chin and pulled her face up to meet her, “No, don’t be sorry. This is a perfectly rational thing to dream Lily. You’ve been very brave and you continue to be brave. My research indicates that nightmares are a way of processing something very frightening and unpleasant that as happened to you. What happened to you was not silly so your way of processing it is also not silly.”

 It had actually be a good excuse to research nightmares in general since she knew full well the whole crew got them, regardless of age. Her own ones were manageable if unpleasant, determined to remind her of things she’d much rather forget.

 Lily’s lower lip wobbled dangerously.

 Raphaella sighed and for once decided to take a leaf out of Jonny’s book.

 Logical rational explanations could wait until she was little older. And she knew Lily responded extremely well physical comfort, she’d seen evidence of that be beyond that farthest doubt.

 “Come here little proton, it’s alright.” Raphaella wrapped both her arms and wings about the upset child and began rocking her like she’d seen Jonny do. It seemed to work after all and if observed action had been proved to yield positive results then who was she to argue with empirical evidence?  

 “It’s alright. You’re safe. Aurora is never truly dark, Nastya, Jonny, Tim and Brian don’t really like the dark either so she makes sure it’s always bright enough. And no one can get into Aurora without our say so. Aurora wouldn’t let them in anyway.”

 “An’ you’d shoot them if they did.” Came a convinced voice.

 “We certainly would. Or do something more interesting but we’d make sure they never got to you.”

 “Promise?”

 Raphaella was not in the habit of keeping promises, they were ephemeral and inconsequential unless you could use them to get what you wanted but this one felt important.

 “On my honour as a scientist.”

 Lily’s eyes widened at the words, that was very important. Raphaella was the best scientist there was and science was very, very precious to her. So she very much meant it.

 “Thank you.” Lily snuggled closer

Raphaella sighed once more, not really put out, she began to card her fingers gently through Lily’s silvery hair. It had been more pleasant than she’d been expecting to show Lily an exact comparison for her hair colour in the natural world, sunshine reflected off the surface of the lake. She rather thought the explanation of how light travelled and refracted might have gone a bit over her head but Lily had been an enthusiastic listener all the same which was better than her crewmates most of the time. She had been thrilled at being compared to sunshine too.

 Lily tentatively inched her fingers towards Raphaella’s cascading tresses, seeking the comfort they represented, Raphaella was kind and she was safe, she looked after her using her science. Lily loved sitting on the science officers’ lap, it made her feel important and special when Raphaella spoke science to her, (like when the others told her about things they loved too) even if she didn’t always understand it, she especially loved it when she let her play with her hair. Lily wanted to grow hers just as long.

 The science officer gave Lily her warmest smile, the one she had cultivated especially for the child. “Go on little proton, I don’t mind.”

 Lily gave her a smile filled with wonder that quickly turned into one of happy, soothed exhaustion. Two hands, one large, one small, each carefully combing fingers through soft hair, both knowing a singular form of peace.

 It took precisely two minutes and thirty seven seconds for Lily to fall asleep under the science officer’s ministrations. Lily had never fallen asleep on Raphaella before, she wasn’t normally the lulling type, leaving it to the others when the occasion arose but this was immensely satisfying, she could now see why Jonny never really complained about holding her till she slept.

 She was glad this interaction was being recorded too, it would be useful to refer back to when comparing different calming methods they all used to see which was the most effective. She had a suspicion that despite all their research, Jonny’s instinctive cuddle and rocking combination from the first night was probably the more sure-fire way to settle Lily. Not that she’s tell him of course. He didn’t need to know just what a comparably good job he was doing. The thing Lily had been clutching was likely to be a Jonny concoction too, the man was deceptively good at needlecraft, he’d mended enough of the crew’s clothes over the years when sufficiently bribed with whiskey, he’d even fixed the Toy Solider’s uniform when it got torn badly enough, complaining that he’d done so only because he couldn’t stand it moping around lamenting the damage.

 He’d even carefully embroidered eyes on the thing Lily held which seemed to be some sort of geological shape. She could admit whilst in her own company only that the craftsmanship on it was rather remarkable. He’d obviously gone to some effort to make her something with crystalline accuracy in some sort of fuzzy fabric and given how tightly Lily had been holding it but she’d never seen it in the mess at meal times nor had it accompanied the child to her check-up sessions, it was her comfort-at-night object. That, that was surprisingly thoughtful of him. She smiled quietly to herself.

 He definitely didn’t need to know what a good job he was doing.

 Maybe a hint.

 He also didn’t need to know the general positives these interactions were having on the pair of them and by extension, the rest of the crew. They would all work it out eventually and if she said anything too soon the idea would be dismissed out of hand, no, it was much better to be able to make unobtrusive observations and predictions unhindered.

 Lily was beginning to grow at a healthy rate, she wasn’t back up to where she should be yet but after three months she was now making steady progress. At her last weekly check-up Lily was now projected to be back on track to reach where she should be for a healthy eight year old in the next three months. They’d successfully reversed the physical damage done to her by the three weeks of acute malnutrition but the longer effects of a lifetime of not having quite enough would take longer to mend.

 Still, it felt, well, nice to see her improving.

 The first time she’d insisted on a proper check had been only few days after Lily had joined them. She’d asked Jonny to bring her to lab so she could get a real idea of what they were working with for Lily, exact height and weight, not to mention resting heart rate, lung capacity, bone density and a blood test to make sure everything was functioning as it should be. Lily was human so there were some basics that could be taken for granted but Raphaella wanted a solid starting point for knowing how best to reverse the damage of long term malnutrition.

 She’d argued with Jonny about it for 47 minutes before he finally saw sense and agreed to bring her along. His hang ups over poor medical practice were one thing and even understandable but not to the point that it impeded Lily’s recovery.

 He’d grudgingly agreed, especially when the others added their voices in assent and Raphaella assured him that she’d keep to the bare minimum of procedures to assess Lily.

 Marius had argued that it was so they could help her not hurt her. Given how delicate the matter was nobody teased Marius that surely it should be him leading the investigation if he was, in fact, a doctor. As it was, they all recognised that Raphaella’s dedication to the scientific approach would probably yield better results long term.  Marius and Brian advised on what she should be looking for specifically all the same.

 It was Nastya who’d finally swung him into accepting the proposal. She pointed out that if they didn’t check her properly when they could have and it turned out that they’d ensured the damage done by her ship management was permanent then that made them no better than the idiots that had led her mission. A grim accolade no one wanted to earn, the more Lily talked about life on her ship the more everyone was convinced it was mission led by utter idiots doomed to failure.

 She added quietly that they weren’t like their creator, that Carmilla would only be interested in tests to see how she could exploit Lily. They needed to conduct tests to work out exactly how to help Lily properly and make sure she stayed healthy and happy.

 Jonny couldn’t argue with that. Well, he could. But he wouldn’t, Lily being safe and well and as healthy as she could be was too important. Kid was a bag of bones, a mortal bag of bones at that and he should know, she still spent half her time attached to him and he was honestly worried by how light she was. He had very vague memories of being young except for a few key things but if he really thought about it he was sure at eight he’d been taller and broader. That wasn’t a bullshit boy vs girl nonsense thing either, he was sure he’d been taller and heavier at her age and that was with his family set up. Something was wrong. Raphaella was right, they did need to check.

 He didn’t have to like it though.

 Raphaella wasn’t sure which of the two were the more nervous coming in to the Lab.

 She made it more into a game in an attempt to settle them both, it wouldn’t do for their nerves to set up a negative feedback loop.  She got them both to play catch with one of her more robust recorders so she could check hand to eye coordination and reflexes. She challenged Lily to scrunch up as small as she could then stand on her tip toes and then stand as straight and flat-footed as she could on her weighing scales.

 Raphaella had Jonny pick her up and hold her as though they were posing for photo whilst she deployed the scanner for Lily’s bone density, explaining that she wanted close ups of her smiling face. It covered her dental development too.

 Checking her ears and throat had been relatively easy, getting silly to pull as ridiculous faces as she could whilst trying to sing ‘Old King Cole’ worked on her throat and the otoscope was hardly invasive.

 Jonny had managed to keep things light enough asking if Raphaella had found some of Ashes’ missing gold down there. Lily had been indignant and Raphaella had played along, pleased he was trying to make things easier.

 The blood test was unsurprisingly a little harder of a sell.

 Lily went rigid with fear when she saw the needle.

 Hmm. Understandable but not helpful, it was one of her smallest ones as well.

 Jonny cleared his throat, his own spine stiffening and also not taking his eyes off the syringe. “Why don’t we have a go with the stethoscope first?”

 That was a surprising suggestion coming from him. Raphaella had been planning to brace herself and try to use that as a wind down but maybe there needed to be buffer. She decided to put it to Lily to decide.

 “Lily, I’m not going to hurt you. I need to take a little bit of your blood to check everything is working as it should be inside you. Your blood can tell me all sorts of important things that you yourself won’t be able to tell me.”

 Lily still looked scared. Raphaella found it wasn’t an expression she liked to see on so young a face. Raphaella had no problem being seen as intimidating or even down right terrifying by those who crossed her path or got in her way. That was half the fun, but on Lily? No, she didn’t like being the cause of that fear one bit. The test was still needed though.

 “But you’ve got a choice,” she continued in the tone she’d already modulated especially for the child, no-nonsense but gentle, firm but soft enough to put her at ease most of the time. “I can take this sample now then use the stethoscope to listen to your heart and lungs or I can listen first and then take the blood sample but either way I need to take it.”

 The child had tried to melt into Jonny, clinging to him, fingers burying in fabric and belts.

 Raphaella tried not to notice that the comforting hand that was running up and down her back was trembling.

 Lily turned to face Jonny. “What do you think?”

 Jonny tore his gaze from the poised syringe and did his best to look relaxed and nonchalant despite the fact his heartrate had audibly trebled, “I think it’s always better to get the thing that scares you done first. Raph’s right though, she’s only doing it because she wants to make sure you’re okay inside and out. It won’t hurt, it’s more like getting a sharp pinch on your skin for a second and then it’s done.”

 He didn’t mention that it was fine when blood was being taken from you rather than a bunch of different poisons being injected into you over and over again to see how quickly each one affected you and how quickly you came back. How each one burned and cramped and ripped through every single system until he was desperate for death. He was the first after all. Carmilla had to make sure her new creation was full-proof and indestructible. That he could come back from anything.

 “How do you know?”

 Jonny smiled ruefully, “I’ve had a lot of injections over the years, given lots of samples too. It doesn’t hurt.” ‘It’s what comes after’ remained unsaid.

 “Oh.” Lily clearly thought about it, weighing up the pros and cons. She eyed the stethoscope on the science officer’s workbench. She knew how that worked at least. There was something right next to her that might make her feel braver. “If Raphaella takes a sample can, can I listen to your heart while she does it?”

 Jonny was halfway to opening his mouth to say ‘no’ on sheer reflex when Lily added in a small voice, “I don’t want to watch. I don’t like blood. It goes bad and gloopy and changes colour too quickly. And it smells horrible.”

 Well fuck. He could hardly say no to that.

 “You won’t be able to smell it Lily, it’ll be in the syringe.” Raphaella tried to distract, she was well aware of Jonny’s dislike of anything to do with exam practice. She was actually impressed he’d not just dumped Lily on her and run, that he’d taken part so far. He had more courage than she gave him credit for, that or a greater sense of guardianship than she’d expected. Either way, he was making her job much easier and she appreciated it.  

 Raphaella had tried to get a better understanding of his Mechanism not long after she’d joined the crew, intrigued by the ticking of his chest. She’d come at him with a stethoscope and woken up in the wreckage of her workbench recovering from 6 gunshot wounds.

 She hadn’t pursued that line of research further.

 “Still don’t like it.” Lily half spoke into Jonny’s chest and half to the science officer.

 “That’s fair enough.” Conceded Raphaella

 Lily’s eyes were doing the thing again. The thing where they took up half her face, she gazed imploringly up at him. “Please?”

 Fuck. He really had to immunise himself against that. Later. Now though?

 He swallowed. “Sure.”

 Raphaella raised an eyebrow, fully prepared to snatch Lily out of his arms and rocket skywards if he looked like he was going to detonate like he did last time.

 Jonny gave her tiniest nod.

 This was Lily. He shook himself internally. It was Lily. Lily couldn’t hurt him if she tried. Okay, well she could but she wasn’t armed right now and she liked his ticking. He forced himself to watch her, to brace for the touch of the disc. He’d be ready, he’d know. If he closed his eyes there was no guarantee he’d be able to hold it together for her. This was Lily reaching to him for comfort, he reminded himself firmly. She needed him to distract her from something frightening but necessary. Lily wasn’t going to sigh and tut and then open him up.

 He wasn’t strapped to a table.

 He forced himself to breathe as calmly as he could, the way Ivy had shown him from one of her books when he’d taken refuge once in the earliest incarnation of the library.

 He was fine, he was holding Lily. He was free to move. He was holding Lily and being reassuring because needles were frightening. He was proving it was fine. It was fine.

 The disc made contact.

 It took everything in him not to bolt.

 “Jonny, your ticking is very fast.” A little voice piped up matter-of-factly.

 Before he got a chance to answer Lily had already drawn her own conclusions.

 “I know I’m not a proper doctor like Raphaella but I won’t hurt you. See?” She took the disc off then pressed it even more gently against him, then rested her head on him too, trying to be reassuring.

 Fucking Hell. That she thought she could hurt him? Like this? At all? But the pressure helped. Carmilla had never been gentle with his chest. She’d never been gentle full stop.

 Lily was.

 This was Lily and it was fine. He held her a little tighter. “I like this,” she spoke quietly, as if she was speaking directly to his heart but then again, when wasn’t she? “I can hear your ticking all around. It’s going slower now.”

 It took two tries to speak.

 “T-That’s because you’re doing a good job.” Raphaella was watching him like a hawk, despite the fact he’d drained of colour and there was a noticeable (to her experienced eye at least) tremor running through him he was still sat still and solid for Lily, making no sign that he was about to flip her workbench.

 “I am?”

 “Of course.” He managed the ghost of his usual grin, “I don’t let just anyone listen to me.” If only she knew how true that was.

 Lily beamed at him, utterly delighted. Just as Raphaella took her moment.

 Jonny was aware enough of the situation to catch Lily’s face as she turned to see the source of the sudden pinch, directing her back to look at him, the surprised ‘Eeep!’ already escaping her lips. “Keep looking this way Lemondrop, it’s alright. Keep listening to the ticking.”

 Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

 “It’s alright,” he ran his fingers through her hair, hating that she was upset, hating that they were doing this. He’d always sworn he’d have nothing to do with anything like this but here he was. A necessary evil. “It’s alright, she’ll be done soon. You’re being very brave.” He didn’t dare rock her and risk jostling the needle so he hummed instead.

 She clung to him with her other hand, with a muffled whimper but did as he asked. It didn’t hurt, not really but the idea of something being stuck in her was an idea she didn’t like. Still, Jonny had her and she could hear his ticking loud and clear and he said she was being brave so that was good. She could hear him humming Rose Red as well and she couldn’t help but relax, Jonny had her, she could hear his ticks and the humming and she could smell his spicesmokewhiskey.

 It was okay.

 She was safe.

 They were looking after her because she was part of the crew, they cared about her. It was alright.

 All at once there was the feel of something going away and something pressing on her arm.

 “There we go, all done, good girl, you’ve been very brave.” Raphaella finished taping the small cotton gauze to her arm covering the tiny pinprick of blood.

 Lily took a moment to take in the sight of her arm and then the science officer, Raphaella had been right, it hadn’t hurt. It had been scary because she wasn’t sure what it would be like and she was scared it would hurt because they were bigger and stronger and braver than her and that they said it wouldn’t hurt because it wouldn’t hurt them when they had to have needles in them but actually, it had been a bit of a shock but it hadn’t hurt at all and Jonny had made her feel safe all the way through and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her or let anything else hurt her anyway.

 She gave a sunny smile to Raphaella.

 “It didn’t hurt!”

 Despite herself, Raphaella was rather pleased, she allowed a knowing grin to bloom across her face, rather than the haughty scoff that she saved for the others, “I did say.”

 “You did!” Lily beamed wider.

 “Well I’m glad I was proved correct. Are you ready for me to take a turn listening to you?”

 “Yes.”

 “Good, I just need a listen to your chest and then we’re all done. Can I have the stethoscope back?”

 Lily carefully removed the buds from her ears and hand the piece of equipment back, she missed hearing Jonny’s ticking quite so loudly. She leaned against him instead.

 Raphaella decided not to comment on the sudden drop in tension from Jonny the second the disc was taken away from his chest.

 With gentle efficiency she had the device in her own ears.

 “Can you sit up straight for a moment please?” Lily did so, “then take some nice deep breaths for me.”

 Lily did the best she could.

 After a few minutes Raphaella sat back, satisfied.

 Her initial suspicions were well founded, Lily was almost chronically underweight and under-height but that could be fixed with care. Her lungs and heart seemed strong through and her reflexes as well as hand to eye coordination were sharp and focused, ears and throat were clear of infection too and that was the most common source of ailments for human children according to her research. Lily was a fighter and, pending the results of the blood tests had no reason not to make a full recovery. That was pleasing and definitely worth the few uncomfortable moments.

 She gave Jonny a short nod over Lily’s head.

 The relief in his face was something Raphaella was going to remember for long time to come. She might find him deeply irritating most of the time but he’d certainly proved himself when it counted. He was many things but could not be accused of being a selfish bastard. At least, not right now.

 “Alright then, all done here. I think you’ve earned something nice.”

 “Really?” Lily perked up even more.

 “Oh yes.”

 “What?”

 “I happen to know Brian’s been busy in the kitchen with Marius.” She happened to know exactly because they’d planned it earlier, it was only fair for Lily to get some sort of recompense for having to go through something unpleasant. It was something they all wished they had had when they were young (not to mention everything that had happened since they were young).

 The excited squeal that erupted was something that warmed both of the adults in the room and would certainly not get passed on to the chocolate cake bakers. It wouldn’t do to give them ideas after all.

 Not for the first time they found themselves hand in hand with Lily, swinging the excited child all the way to the mess.

 Raphaella came back to the present and smiled as she held the currently comforted and sleeping Lily, the child had got far more used to the weekly check-ups following the first one, it helped that her blood came back fine and healthy, no underlying issues to be concerned about so no more blood tests were needed.

 She still liked to listen to Jonny’s heart with the stethoscope during the check-ups.

 Jonny still endured it for her sake.

 Raphaella thought that over the weeks he’d looked a little more relaxed each time.

 The check-ups proved what they were seeing in real time. Lily was mending. She was putting on healthy weight and starting to grow, her skin was starting to have a glow to it again. It felt nice to have used her research and scientific approach for unquestionable good for once. She’d shared her findings with them all. The rest were pleased too. They’d made a comprehensive list of supplies with Ivy and Raph’s information that Ashes organised and sourced. Marius and Brian eagerly added more recipes to the collection and the others made a point of each eating vaguely healthy snacks every so often so as to not make Lily feel like she was the odd one out. Regular mealtimes helped too.

 It was satisfying to see that improvement over time, Lily was proving to be a fascinating research study that Raphaella was very much invested in. It was also immensely satisfying that the rest of the crew was just as invested her topic of study for once. Seeing Lily grow and heal and improve was something that was having a positive effect on the rest of the crew, she’d noticed (and made notes of course) that the crew interacted more frequently and more positively usually when Lily was present but sometimes even without her there. These developments were, pleasing, to put it into layman terms. Though Raphaella wasn’t entirely sure why. It would take further investigation of course but she did have eyes, the positive interactions were slowly improving the general well-being in the crew, communal mealtimes and friendlier banter seemed to be improving moods across the board.

 Most notably of course was Jonny.

 His general comportment had softened a little, his violent outbursts reduced and he definitely looked like he was sleeping more regularly. Raphaella estimated his alcohol consumption had dropped by a least a bottle a night which was rather impressive, it wasn’t like the alcohol did anything long term since all their mechanisms prevented permanent internal damage, especially when one was killed far too frequently to even consider organ failure due to extensive alcohol poisoning. But still, it was nice to see him looking more, centred, for lack of a better word.

 Heavy boots made their appearance on the peripheries of her hearing.

 Think of the devil…

 Raphaella took a moment to soak up the situation, Lily had fallen asleep against her peacefully and easily as if she were her mother. It was a completely new experience but not an unpleasant one it turned out. Raphaella had enjoyed introducing the scientific process to Lily over the past three months, teaching her the basic principles of chemistry and physics and now botany since she’d set up the hydroponics lab with Nastya and Ivy. That had been a fun collaboration and all three enjoyed Lily’s delight at each seed sprouted and new leaf grown.

 She’d added a whole new strand of research to her study too, the poisons and toxins of plants were fascinating and she was eager to put those to good use when the next opportunity arrived. There was always opportunity for hybridisation too. Excellent.

 The heavy boots stopped right outside the lab door followed by an uncharacteristically gentle knock.

 “Come in Jonny.”

 The first mate entered looking annoyed at the presumption that quickly melted into relief when he saw a sleeping Lily in her arms.

 The science officer gave him an appraising look. Despite the obvious panic at not knowing where Lily was Jonny still looked calmer and better rested than he had for centuries. Raphaella found she liked that look on him, he seemed far more settled, music rehearsals with everyone had become a lot more productive too, always a bonus.

 She still found it funny he refused to use his ship communicator to ask the group chat where Lily was on an evening she had a late nightmare-startled wander, clearly too proud to admit he’d lost her. It wasn’t as if she could get into any real danger any more. Both the Octokittens and Stowaways knew not to touch her and Aurora wouldn’t let her get lost anywhere too dangerous. Then again, the day he did they knew it would be a serious one.

 As it was the first mate was only looking marginally stressed and panicked, a whole lot better than she’d seen him look.

 Jonny took in the sight of Raphaella as he entered the lab. From the lights behind her and a sleeping Lily in her arms the science officer resembled an angel that he’d seen statues of on multiple worlds, beautiful and terrible, just as he remembered the preacher talking about on Sundays when he was small. He’d seen what Raph could do to somewhere or someone that irked her and he’d come to believe all those stories.

 Still, the look she was giving Lily as he walked in was something else, it was a face he knew she saved just for Lily, that slight softness, a pride in her eyes and smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

 Jonny knew Raphaella was incredibly pleased by the progress Lily had made both physically and with all the science lessons she’d been teaching, Lily had talked his ear off about all the things she’d made by experimenting. The physical checks were good too, in their way. Much as he hated them. If he really had to admit it, the checks were worth it, it was good to know Lily was on the right track at least, that they weren’t making a mess of her, at least not physically.

 “Thought she might be here.” Came his way of explanation,

 “Well congratulations.”

 “She been here long?”

 “Only half an hour or so.”

 “Good.” He stayed curt, not wanting to give her room to rinse him more than he was expecting, Raphaella had a way with words that could cut like one of her scalpels if he wasn’t careful, most of the time it didn’t bother him but if it was about Lily and how he handled her, it tended to cut to the core of him, much to his annoyance.

 “How did you lose her this time?”

 “I didn’t lose her!” he snapped, “She just got up when I wasn’t around. I do check the times on things you know, she’s usually up at 11, 1 and 3 so much that you can set a metronome by her. It’s not my fault she just got up out of sequence!”

 “And you weren’t in your room because?” pressed Raphaella, not giving an inch.

 “Because I wasn’t!”

 “Jonny,” Began the science officer in a deceptively gentle voice, “I could wake her up and make Lily ask you with her big blue accusing eyes.”

 The first mate looked furious he was about to say ‘you wouldn’t dare’ but Raph absolutely would to prove a point and he really didn’t want to risk having to admit the truth to Lily, he found it incredibly hard to lie to her properly after all.

 “Fine, Lily mentioned a birthday coming up some months from now and I am making something for that. Away from my room. Lost track of time. That’s it.” He ground out.

 “A secret something I take it?” Raphaella teased, amused to have caught him in such an obvious lie, Jonny on the whole was usually quite good at lying. He managed it effortlessly on stage after all. And he was damned good poker player.

 “You won’t find it.”

 “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the bits of clothing several of us have missed over the last few weeks would it?”

 Jonny’s ears began to turn red.

 “No.”

 ‘Aha.’ Thought Raphaella. But she was intrigued enough to let it stand, it was honestly rather refreshing to have Jonny do something vaguely productive outside of his musical and lyrical talents, repair work not-withstanding. There were only so many theoretical studies of chronic alcohol abuse and sleep deprivation she could observe before it got tiresome. This proved to be far more interesting.

 “Alright then, well I await to see the results with bated breath.”

 “Fuck off Raph.”

 “I could just wake her.”

 “I could just shoot you.”

 “You know you won’t.”

 The impotent rage on Jonny’s face was amusing to witness.

 “Fine, but I fill find a way to make you suffer.”

 “I look forward to it.”

 He matched her feral grin, feeling like he’d at least gained somewhat of an upper hand he moved on to the more important issue, Lily hadn’t been out of her bed unexpectedly for the last month, not since she found Brian during the poker game.  

 “What was it about this time?”

 “Doors being rattled and banged on by enemies in the dark.”

 “Oh, standard then. Good.”

 “Standard? I thought they were all like this one?” This was interesting, there were others? Raphaella got halfway through that thought and froze.

 Uh, Jonny realised he’d not actually shared a lot of detail of Lily’s nightmares, he passed on the basics to everyone at Tim’s insistence after she’d climbed in with him, demanding to know at least what they might have to deal with if the crew was now fair game to ask comfort from. The others had backed him up, the bastards, and he’d been forced to share a bit. He didn’t really want to, nightmares were private things after all and it wasn’t fair for him to share stuff that bothered someone else but as it had been pointed out, Lily was a child whom they all cared about, whom they were all guardians for and thus they all needed to know likely sources of upset and triggers to avoid when they spent time together, either during the day or if they happened to be the ones to comfort her at night.

 He’d relented, wanting to make sure she always had some solid options for comfort. He knew in excruciating detail how unpleasant it could be to suffer that sort of fear and misery on your own. Until you learned to ignore and bury it that is.

 So the others knew the basics at least, it was always the threat of attack, rattling and banging and bellowing in the dark unsurprisingly. He tended to keep the extra details to himself though, he knew how desperately Lily wanted to be seen as a ‘big girl’ by the crew. Even though there was nothing she could say or do that would actually make them think she was somehow less. Kid had endured enough and was still pretty functional, that was one hell of an achievement already. And she was stil mortal.

 Sometimes her nightmares was flavoured with gunfire (though not Tim’s apparently, that sounded different according to Lily, Jonny had no idea how the hell gunfire could sound ‘friendly’ but supposedly Tim’s did-children clearly had a higher nuance of sound perception-it made music lessons all the more interesting that was for sure), sometimes it was visions of what was left of her crew, her parents dying and on one particularly horrendous night images of her parents demanding to know why she hadn’t saved them. He had mentioned that one to Marius and then the rest of the crew since it had taken the singing of the entirety of ‘Alice’ to lull her back to sleep bookended with ‘Rose Red.’

 The one about her being left behind that she told to Brian was concerning, that one he had talked to the others about straight away, worried that taking her to a planet had, in fact, been a bad move. Given that that was as near as an admission to the idea he’d been wrong about wanting to take her planetside actually had them all discussing it properly with only minimal jeering. It ended up being pointed out that since it was such a new experience, even though it had been very positive, Lily’s subconscious was so traumatised it wasn’t surprising it had sparked off a different set of nightmares.

 It had assuaged the guilt a little at least. He was glad she clearly had really enjoyed the visit.

 “Jonny?”

 He realised he’d been staring into the middle distance and not actually talking. Shit.

 He refocused on her. A look crossed Raphaella’s face that he’d seen maybe once or twice before in all the years he’d known her. A hint of worry.

 “Does, does she have nightmares about what we, what I,” she corrected, “do here?”

 That question knocked him sideways, his initial instinctive bastard response died on his lips. This was Raphaella actually asking him, Jonny, for reassurance, reassurance that what she was doing wasn’t physcologically damaging their charge. He’d never seen the science officer look unsure before. Jonny realised he had a choice, he could lie and tell her that yes, the check-ups upset Lily and he’d had to calm her down from a lot of nightmares inspired by Raph’s actions or, or he could be honest.

 He thought about how genuinely devastated he’d be if one of the others told him that the reason Lily had come to them wasn’t because she couldn’t find him but that she was scared of him, that she’d had a nightmare about him because of something he’d done. He felt his guts twist. No, he couldn’t do that to Raphaella, he could murder her happily along with the rest of the crew whenever Lily wasn’t about and he’d been suitably bored or antagonised but lying about this?

 He couldn’t do it.

 If he stopped to think about it, there were quite a few things he couldn’t do now. All involved Lily, he couldn’t lie to the others about her, they were all in this together, more so than anything they’d been bound by previously. Jonny knew he was the primary source of Lily information but he actually respected that fact and that he should share as much as was reasonable to make sure it was as easy for the others to comfort and look after her as possible. This communal guardianship parenting thing they’d fallen into was working but it needed proper communication much as it felt like pulling teeth sometimes. It was needed so he did it. So they all did it.

 He fixed Raphaella with as sincere look as he could manage.

 “No Raph, she’s never had a nightmare about you or the check-ups, I think she’d settled into them, always asks me stuff about what you do in the lab so I reckon you’re fine.”

 Raphaella tried and failed not to look relieved.

 “Oh, well, thank you that’s, that’s preferable.”

 Yeah, it is. Her ship’s done enough of a number on her, she’s been here long enough now to know, I think, that we’re not trying to fuck her up.

 That seems like a reasonable conclusion. She’s not been put off by what she sees on a daily basis, between Tim’s shooting practice, TS’s stories and my science if that’s not affected her negatively then, for the moment we may remain in grace period.

 “What do we do when that ends?”

 “We’ll have to slowly introduce more regular elements of life on board to get her more used to things, little by little, it seems to be working so far.”

 Jonny considered, Raph did have a point, last week something had exploded and whilst Lily had gone stock-still and the colour drained out of her face she hadn’t cried or outwardly panicked, instead asked Jonny very quietly if they could find out what happened, because ‘it was probably Tim trying his new canon that he had been showing her through the building process but could they go and check please just to make sure?’

 So they had and it was. Jonny was feeling pretty fucking murderous but Tim had ignored him and got there first, explaining when they arrived exactly what he’d been upto, that he was sorry it went off without her there to see but the trigger had been too sensitive. He’d shown Lily the system and rig so that she understood the weapon and where the sound had come from, feeling much happier that she knew this was something to protect them and not a sign that they were under attack.

 Jonny had planned an elaborate murder for Tim and braced himself for an onslaught of nightmares that never came. Well they did but it was just the usual, banging on the doors in the dark one nothing to do with Tim or his explosions. He’d been waiting a full eight days and nothing. He was beginning to suspect Tim’s approach of including Lily in the construct of the weapon really had been a big help. Clever bastard.

 “Yeah, that’s, that’s probably as good a plan as we’ve got.”

 Raphaella considered, Jonny didn’t have to have been kind a moment ago. But he was. She’d almost entirely forgotten what it was like to be concerned about the long-term effects of her science and she hadn’t liked the feeling whatsoever. He could have made it worse and didn’t. That certainly counted for something and definitely towards her working theory about him and his own developmental track.

 “It’s probably better than what she would have in any other circumstance or with anyone else who might have rescued her. We’re all doing well with her, physically and mentally, we’re all in this together and it’s working, I can see it in my results and charts as clearly as I see it on her, against more odds than I think even Ivy would be comfortable calculating we’re improving her, as a crew, she’s healing and mending, and,” she considered her words, “you’re both the catalyst and accelerator in this compound of all of us, with all the variables.”

 Jonny began to open his mouth.

 “You’re good for her, my research indicates it.” Elaborated Raphaella stiffly. Being kind and gentle with Lily was far easier than she expected it to be, transversely being articulately kind to her crewmates was decidedly harder, she’d had very little practice and took refuge in her scientific terms, they always flowed more easily.

 Jonny’s eyes widened at the implication of what she was saying. That it was her saying it.

 Still, with him, sometimes actions spoke louder than words.

 Very carefully she handed over Lily to him, fuzzy rock thing and all, taking care to catch Jonny’s hand in the process and squeeze it for the briefest of moments.

 She was deeply surprised to receive a returning squeeze, equally as brief.

 She tried to read his face, a myriad of expressions flitted over him, shock, confusion, wariness, pride and elation before settling back to his default of ‘cocky bastard smirk’

 He held Lily close a moment then allowed a softer, sincere expression to linger in his eyes, “Thanks Raph, s’what the crew’s for, everyone’s got a job with this one.”

 He sobered and shifted, face returning to its usual look, his regular swagger sliding into his stance, “See you at breakfast.” He threw out his familiar feral grin without the need or will to add a snarky comment and sauntered out with a Lily tucked up against his chest who was at least half an inch taller and several pounds heavier than when she arrived.

 They were working as a crew and it was mending Lily.

 Not for the first time Raphaella considered the pair as they left her lab, a fond smile spreading across her face. The unlikeliness of this scenario had already cost Ivy one full notebook but the science officer could honestly conclude that she was deeply satisfied by this anomaly and looked forward to the further variables it generated.

 Otherwise, what even was the point?

 Smile still on her face she settled down to update her research log on the day’s nocturnal events. Her file was getting decidedly long.

 Raphaella found that only pleased her more.

[emperorsfoot]

In this chapter, Scorpia gets a song. It’s an IRL song, and you can listen to it here: Twiddle 

...

“Do you know any other songs?” Scorpia asked.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Sea Hawk’s personal theme song. It was just that listening to it for days in a row was making her kinda, sorta… absolutely hate that song.

Emily warmed up her pain plasma gun and fired a warning shot off the port side of the ship, then pivoted on her immobile leg to stare down the musical pirate.

Scorpia placed a calming pincer on the bot’s dome. “I think what Emily is trying to say is that we’ve heard that one a lot, and if you don’t know any other songs, maybe we should just sail in silence for a bit.”

Looking out across the water at the wake created by Emily’s warning shot, Sea Hawk swallowed awkwardly. The refurbished Horde bot was highly opinionated and not shy about expressing herself. He looked to Scorpia, seeking a compromise. “Alright, well, do you know any sea shanties?”

Taping a pincer against her lips, Scorpia thought. “Well, I did hear one sung around Redwater Bay once…”

A Horde song.

Sea Hawk was concerned. That did not stop him from plastering a crud-eating grin on his face and suggesting, “Well, why don’t you sing for a bit.”

“Really!?” It was wrong how excited the former Horde Force Captain sounded at the suggestion. “You’ll let me sing? And you won’t get annoyed. Or tell me I need to focus. Or remind me that we’re on a mission and have a job to do. Or ask how I’m a Force Captain.” She wasn’t a Force Captain anymore. “Or anything like that?”

“I won’t.” Sea Hawk promised. He did, however, move across the deck to the helm –the complete opposite end of the ship form her- under the pretext of checking the wind and their heading. He had no idea what this Horde shanty was going to be and he liked to have an excuse ready on hand to politely ask her to stop if need be. “Let’s hear it.”

Scorpia cleared her throat and tried to remember the lyrics.

“Oh you hear a lot of stories 'bout the sailors and their sport. About how every sailor has a girl in every port. But if you added two and two, you'd figure out right quick, it's just because the girls all have a lad on every ship.”

Sea Hawk raised an eyebrow. It didn’t seem all that bad. Certainly much more tame and cute compared to what he was expecting from a song sung in the Fright Zone’s Redwater Bay. He was far less apprehensive and in better spirits when Scorpia launched into the chorus.

“And it's twiddle ee ai dee ai dee ai. “Twiddle ee ai dee ei. “It's often times a man will leave you broken with dismay. “And it's twiddle ee ai dee ai dee ai. “Twiddle ee ai dee ei. “There's other things to twiddle when the men have sailed away.”

Wait… Sea Hawk straightened at the helm, not quite sure if he was disliking this song now for entirely different reason that had nothing to do with the Horde. This song wasn’t about… what he thought it was about… was it?

“Lucky Annie was a lady who'd been pleased by many men. “They all would sail away but then they'd come right back again. “But if they never sailed her way she really didn't care. “Cause she knows you don't need a man to twiddle under there.”

Oh. Yeah. This song was totally about what Sea Hawk thought it was about. Sea Hawk plastered that crap-eating grin back on his face, hoping Scorpia would assume he was enjoying himself and he thought about Mermista and how she didn’t really seem to enjoy his company unless she needed something from him, and even then, she acted like he was a great inconvenience. She certainly never needed him to… ‘twiddle under there’, as the song said.

“So next time you're with a lady and she takes you to her bed, “Be sure to please her well, and remember what we've said. “For if you do not treat her right, then know that this is true: “Us ladies all can have our fun without involving you!”

Scorpia ran through the chorus two more times before the song ended. She looked up at the rest of the crew, to gauge her song’s reception. She hadn’t sung –anything- in years, and this little sea chanty she barely remembered the lyrics too wasn’t exactly her best work. She hoped she didn’t do too bad.

Emily let out an odd sort of digital chirping sound that might have been clapping. She certainly seemed to have liked it.

Sea Hawk just kept up that crap-eating grin. “That was… not what I was expecting from a Horde song.”

Reaching up a pincer, Scorpia scratched the back of her head awkwardly. “Well, the Fright Zone’s only been under Hordak’s control for about twenty years or so. Before that, my family was the ruling power of the territory. The Fright Zone had its own culture, and art, and music, and folktales, and all that fun stuff.”

That crud-eating grin melted away, morphing into an expression of empathy. Not unlike what they shared during their time in the Northern Reach. “The Queendom of Scorpiones, right?” Sea Hawk vaguely remembered seeing an old pre-Horde map in a rubbish heap in Salineas wherein the Fright Zone was labeled ‘Scorpiones’. “What was it like?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I was only, like, a year old when my mother abdicated and gifted Hordak with the Black Garnet as a display of fealty.” She explained. “I don’t actually have any memories of the Fright Zone before the Horde. Just what older people tell me.”

That was so sad! Sea Hawk felt himself begin to tear-up. He wanted to sing another song to lighten the mood and maybe lift Scorpia’s spirits.

Except Scorpia didn’t really seem all that upset about it. Like she said, she had no memories of Scorpiones before it became ‘the Fright Zone’. She didn’t feel like she’d ‘lost’ anything. As far as she was concerned there was nothing to have lost. It was hard to carry nostalgia for a place or time you never saw. There was no feeling of hiraeth.

Scorpia only shrugged. Almost as if she didn’t even care that much. “Nations rise and fall all the time. I heard the Crimson Wastes used to be a lush woodsy Queendom before it was turned into the desert it is now. Dryl used to be an industrial mining dystopia built on the backs of slaves before Entrapta took over. Lonnie’s in charge of the Fright Zone now and is already rebuilding it in the image of what she thinks an efficient military state should be. Countries change hands and then just change in general. That’s the way things are.”

“But the Fright Zone used to be your family’s Queendom.” Sea Hawk reminded her. “Don’t you. I donno… wanna take it back? I mean, now that Hordak’s out of the picture. That places you back in power, right?”

Tapping her pincer on her lips again, Scorpia thought about that. Her in charge of the Fright Zone. Her responsible for all that technology and industry. All the weapons and vehicles. The cities and the land. The soldiers, and the workers, the people in general. She compared it to her own experiences as a Force Captain, commanding and managing vehicles and soldiers on a smaller scale. She remembered that one day she went almost out of her mind trying to find armor for soldiers that refused to fight so that Catra could plan an attack that never ended up happening.

Scorpia shook her head. “Nah. I’m a field commander. I work best out in the open and with small groups. I don’t think I could rule a whole territory.” She admitted. “Let Lonnie keep the Fright Zone. She already seems like she’s doing a better job than I ever could or Hordak ever did. She smart and adaptable, and I’m…” for some reason the image of Catra threatening her with a stun baton flashed through her mind “…slow. I’m slow at figuring things out. With people.”

That was a sobering comment and it made Sea Hawk pause and look inward at himself and his own relationships with people. “I’m slow at that too.” He finally concluded. “Mermista only ever wanted to spend time with me what she needed something from me. She wasn’t manipulative about it or anything. She flat out told me, in words, ‘no you’re just my ride’ and I ignored it and only heard what I wanted to hear. Until, finally, she wouldn’t even let me hang out at the palace when she had her friends over.”

“I guess, people are kind like nations.” Scorpia muttered. “People act differently depending on who they’re with, just like countries are different depending on who’s in charge. Catra was always so angry whenever we’d run into Adora. But when she was with me, or Lonnie, Kyle and the team, she was better. Calmer. More social. Less discontent. People change depending on who they’re with just like countries do.”

They lapsed into a forlorn silence. Both reflecting on how the people they loved were different around other people. Or how they themselves were different depending on who they were with.

Emily gave a sober little trill. Even she recognized that she had been different before she met Entrapta.

The people a person –or robot- meets change them. Sometimes only temporarily, sometimes only for the space of that meeting. Or, sometimes, irrevocably for the rest of their lives. It all depended on the people and the meeting.

“Catra always wanted to win.” Scorpia announced without prompting. “But she didn’t actually want to be happy.” A pensive frown. “I think, if I’m going to try liking someone again, I need to find someone who wants to be happy.”

Sea Hawk paused a bit longer, still reflecting on himself and his own failed relationship before announcing, “Mermista and I didn’t really have that much in common. I mean, she’s ruler of the seas, and I’m a sailor. It kinda just made sense for me to be in love with her. You know the old cliché about the sailor in love with a sea goddess.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I guess I was more in love with the idea of Mermista than Mermista herself. If I’m gonna fall in love again, I have to look for someone I share common interests with.”

“Shame they don’t offer a ‘romance orientation’ huh?” She joked, remembering how helpful Force Captain Orientation had been when she was first promoted.

“Orientation? Heck! They should offer a full-length class!” He agreed.

They shared a subdued laugh, the mood lightening up again. Not quite as light as it was before, but certainly not as grim and sober as they were just a few short moments ago.

There was a moment’s pause to appreciate the fact that they each had someone who understood them and they could commiserate with. Maybe after this was all over they could still be friends. And when they were each ready to get back in the dating pool, they could go to one another for a second opinion on the women they chose to date so that neither one set themselves up for heartbreak again.

Sea Hawk brushed some non-existent dust off his white shirt. “Welp, we’re about to cross over into the Growling Sea.” He announced. “I’ll need to be back at the helm.”

“Uh, yeah.” Scorpia agreed. She certainly didn’t know what to expect from a place called the ‘Growling’ Sea.

…

Swift Wind landed on a grassy cliff overlooking the ocean.

Not just because he would need a rest before flying three people all the way across the sea.

They all needed a moment to get their bearings. Adora wanted to give the rest of them the rundown of what Beast Island was like and what they could expect. She had never been herself, but back during the five minutes she was a Force Captain before she defected, she did receive a memo about it. She wanted to take an opportunity to strategize with the others and come up with a plan –not that any of their plans ever seemed to work, but it just made her feel more confident to have one.

Bow was not-so-low-key freaking out that they may-or-may-not have kidnapped Entrapta’s heir from their home. Yeah, Dak chose to go with them. Wanted to go with them. And was an active participant in their escape from the castle. Not just releasing him and Adora from the dungeon, but getting the sword and their other weapons back from the occupying Horde, and fighting off Imp and the rest of the Horde that tried to stop them from leaving. So, Dak at least, did not feel like they were kidnapped. But Dak was still a child, and Bow and Adora were (also still technically children) closer to adults and he had to wonder if they might have accidentally manipulated Dak into doing what they wanted. Bow needed to take a few minutes to work his feelings out.

Dak was anxious to get the still unconscious Imp out of their tool bag and examine the little deamon to make sure he was okay and not permanently damaged. Imp had been Dak’s companion consistently for their entire life thus far. The hybrid’s earliest memories were of Imp helping Scorpia to smuggle them out of the Fright Zone. Of Imp sitting with them while Scorpia tried to teach Dak how to feed themself and use the toilet. Of Imp trying to teach them how to hunt as best as the tiny deamon could. Then, in the heat of the moment, Dak struck Imp on the head because the little deamon was trying to prevent them going with Adora and Bow to rescue mother. Dak saw the android’s eyes go staticy and short out. They hoped they didn’t kill Imp!

The hybrid unzipped their tool bag, while Adora started gathering stones from the ground and arranging them in a circle in the glass.

“Okay, this is Beast Island.” She announced, then looked up to make sure the others were paying attention.

Swift Wind was eating grass.

Bow was biting his nails, and glancing from Dak to the direction they’d just come, and looking worried.

Dak was laying the winged troll in the glass and examining him.

“Guys! Focus!” She snapped.

Swift Wind lifted his head to give her this look like, ‘If I have to carry all three of you flightless bipeds across an ocean, I’m gonna need a snack and a rest.’ Then gave a very equine snort and went back to eating grass.

Bow kinda hugged himself. “I think we’re kidnappers.” He muttered. “What if we’re bad guys? How are we gonna be able to face the other Princesses? How am I gonna face my dads? They raised me better than this. What am I gonna do!?”

Dak did not look up from Imp. But they were the only one to assure Adora, “I’m paying attention.”

Adora rolled her eyes. She was begging to realize that, to spite being the child of Lord Hordak, leader of the Evil Horde, Dak fit in with their group dynamic almost seamlessly. Clearing her throat, Adora tried to continue. “This is Beast Island. The Horde have a prison compound on the south coast. Here.” She stuck a stick in the ground to mark the location of the compound. “The main entrance and exit connects directly to the harbor. They’ll be expecting a frontal assault from there. But, aside from the tyrosours, none of the beast on Beast Island can fly, so security will be more relaxed on the roof.”

Bow paused in his freaking out over possibly being a kidnapper to freak out over something else. “Wait, did you say some of the man-eating beasts of Beast Island can fly?”

“She said just the tyrosours fly.” Dak supplied, still not looking up from Imp’s inert body. Apparently, the hybrid really was paying attention even if they didn’t look like they were.

“Right.” Nodded Adora. “Which is why we’re gonna swoop down on Swift Wind and break in through the roof.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Swift Wind cut in, looking up from the grass he was eating. “I’d at least appreciate it if you consulted me before just deciding that I’m gonna be dive-bombing Horde compounds while also dodging human-eating beasts that fly as well as I do.”

A deep and gravely groan of frustration cut upwards from Adora’s throat. “No one said the tyrosours would even be there. All I said was that they’re the only beasts on Beast Island that fly. I never said they would be anywhere near the prison. The beasts are supposed to keep to the jungle. We probably won’t even see any of the Beat Island beasts at all. Okay?”

Bow and Swift Wind exchanged a glance. They had become genre savvy enough by this point to know that, now that one of them said it out loud, not only would they encounter a Beast Island beast, they would probably encounter the Great Beast itself.

“Don’t made that face!” Adora snapped.

“We weren’t looking at you.” Swift Wind informed her.

“I know.” She snapped. “I know what you were saying to each other.”

Both Bow and Swift Wind opened their mouths to reply. But before another word could escape either of them, they were cut off by the other member of their party.

“Ah, ha!” Dak exclaimed triumphantly. The hybrid had found a seam in the skin covering Imp’s head. A line concealed behind a pointed ear, and running up to the tuft of hair on the deamon’s head. Hooking their talons in the seam, Dak managed to peel the android’s face off, revealing the circuitry and workings underneath.

Swift Wind, Adora, and Bow all forgot their conversation in the wake of such… mechanical gore?

“I’m still listening.” Dak informed them, still not looking up from Imp. “Keep going. We probably won’t see the Beast Island beasts.”

All three of them just stood there, staring, wide-eyed, gap-mouthed, at this child that looked no older than ten years peel the face and hair off of what had previously looked like a nightmare toddler.

Holding Imp’s naked robotic head in their hands, the hybrid used their hair to reach into their tool bag. Pulling out thin and delicate instruments for small detail work on sensitive pieces of tech.

If the others asked what Dak was doing, the hybrid would not be able to tell them. They didn’t have the words to describe that they were concerned they might have knocked something loose or broken some vital inner component when they hit the deamon. They could not name the parts they were trying to repair, or the tools they were using. But that didn’t mean they didn’t know what they were doing. After spending all their free time in the Locked Room after it was opened, Dak had developed an almost instinctual understanding of robotics and machines. Tech ‘spoke’ to them in a way that could not be explained to others.

Bow was the first to recover from the shock of watching –what he always thought was Hordak’s pet, or baby, or both- get its face peeled off. He knelt next to Dak, always eager to learn something that could improve his own knowledge and understanding of tech. “Can I help.”

One of the tools held in Dak’s hair pressed against something and one of the deamon’s ears slid out, revealing memory boards that looked like they hadn’t been part of the android’s original design. Like they were extra data storage added at a later date after Imp’s construction.

“Hold his head for me.” Dak passed the android to the archer. They laid down on their belly to be on an even level with the now open head and its extra memory boards.

It looked like Dak’s hit did indeed knock something loose. The connectors that kept the extra memory plugged into the rest of the processing array had come apart. Dak reached in a couple thin tendrils of hair. Literally, hair thin. They reattached the connections and slid the extra memory boards back into the place. Picked up one of those tiny and delicate tools and, with the deftness of a surgeon, soldered them into place so that –barring another trauma- they would not get knocked loose again.

The moment they were in place, Imp’s mouth opened and a recording began to play. The voice sounded like Hordak’s. Like Hordak’s, but no quite Hordak’s. Like Hordak if he were more… tired? Regretful? …Remorseful? Those were certainly emotions none of them could imagine the original Hordak feeling, never mind allowing to seem into his voice when he knew he was being recorded.

“If you’re hearing this, Zero-Zero-Three, then I’ve gone to join the All High Host.” Said the voice that was almost a clone of Hordak’s voice. “I always knew it was a dangerous game I was playing, and if you’re sitting in my cabinet seat right now, then it’s a game you’re going to have to learn to play well. You’re a slow learning, Zero-Zero-Three, but you do learn. Learn quickly, because in this game you either win –or you die. I like to think I played it very well for many years. Clearly, I did not win-“

The recording cut off abruptly when Dak slid Imp’s ear back into the place.

“Wait, I wanted to hear that.” Bow blinked at the abrupt cut off. “I didn’t think the Horde played games.”

“Training games.” Both Dak and Adora supplied in almost perfect unison.

The hybrid turned their head to look at her. Their eyes meeting and a weird kind of understanding passed between them.

Adora had been raised in the Horde. They did not play games for fun. They trained. They spared, had skirmishes, held mock battles. There was a points system, or one hit matches. They were war games. Battle games. Training games. But they were not games for fun and leisure.

Dak did not grow up in the Horde. At least, not in the same way that Adora had. There was a Horde presence in their home, in the very castle they grew up in. But the Horde was not in control of Dak’s training. Dak was trained by Imp. Trained in stealth. In moving unseen. In tracking something that was trying to evade you. In catching quarry. Hunting games. At first, they had been fun games… until the hybrid developed other interests.

Imp’s eyes flickered for half a moment and Dak rolled the skin back over his face. Pulling the back half of skin-shell back up by the tuft of nylon-fiber hair. Dak was just making sure the seam in the skin was securely resealed when the flickering of the deamon’s eyes finally solidified into his normal golden-yellow glow.

Imp gave a screech of distress at finding himself in a completely different place from where he was when falling asleep. He leapt into the air, flapping on frantic wings. Flitting from one direction to the other, trying to get his bearings on where they were.

“Calm down.” Dak pleaded with the creature.

All that succeeded in doing was turning Imp’s distress on themself. The little deamon swooped down to snarl and chitter in the hybrid’s face. Shrieking, and squawking, sounding like a pack of angry monkeys rather than the one, singular, flying goblin he was.

What was master’s heir thinking? Aligning themself with the traitor and her companions! Imp was beside himself with frustration, and he let master’s heir know it.

“Wow.” Commented Swift Wind. “You kiss Hordak’s boots with that mouth.”

Turning away from the angry deamon, Dak blinked confused eyes at the horde. “I’m Hordak.”

“Other Hordak, little foal.” The stallion clarified.

By opening his mouth, Swift Wind effectively drew the deamon’s attention to him and before he knew it, the winged horde was getting his own face-full of angry screeching goblin baby. Squawking and chittering, growling and snarling. Making very animalistic sounds that the humans –and human hybrid- of their party couldn’t understand. But Swift Wind –the actual animal of their group- understood perfectly. He snorted, shooting a jet of warm air at the flapping deamon, unimpressed. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’d expect from the minion of a despotic colonizer!”

Imp blinked at having a creature actually understand him for once. Most organic being just assumed his attempts to communicate were noise. He recovered quickly, and launched into another chittering and squawking rant.

“Oh, yeah? How’s that working out for ya so far?” The stallion gave an odd little shrug of his wings, as if the deamon was completely inconsequential.

Tendrils of hair wrapped themselves around Imp and before he knew what was happening, the little deamon was plucked out of the air and hugged tightly against Dak’s torso. “Imp, calm down.” The child pleaded. “We’re going to rescue mother.”

The android gave another squawk of protest.

“He doesn’t want you to rescue the Princess.” Swift Wind translated for everyone. “He wants you to assume control of the Horde and finish conquering Etheria.”

“Don’t want to.” Dak shook thier head. The hybrid looked down to address the struggling deamon in their arms when they repeated. “Don’t want to.”

Imp chittered out something quickly, almost frantically.

Everyone looked back up at Swift Wind for a translation, since his animal mind with a human intelligence somehow understood the alien android’s feral-sounding ‘language’.

“He says you’ll need the army.” Explained the stallion, looking confused. “…if the emperor opens the portal from his side?”

“The portal!” Now the deamon had Adora’s full and undivided attention. “But I closed the portal.”

She closed the portal. Saved the world from being un-made. Restored things to the way they were before the portal was opened. None of the Horde from the other side got through. That should have been the end of it. It was closed. She closed it. It was over. Done with.

Except, when was anything ever that simple?

Adora looked out across the ocean. Somewhere, on an island beyond those blue waves was the woman who built that portal in the first place. If it was possible for someone to open a portal from the other side, she would know.

Now, more than before, Adora needed to rescue Entrapta.

[thatone-highlighter]

Some stuff for Shera season 3 before I die from season 4 and exams

Ignore the bad formatting I copy and pasted from notes and when I tried to fix it I deleted a chunk

She-ra season 3

Thoughts

Adora's backstory

It gives a reason for her specifically to be able to wield the sword other that her being ‘the chosen one’ but doesn’t explain how it works entirely like does the sword work for ANY first one or just one specific first one if it’s the second one how convenient that it just happened to be Adora . How was the first portal formed Mara did the thing to stop portals 1000s of years ago how did hordak open one to get Adora through those 20odd years ago and how did the world not fall apart then

I called it I connected the field in the trailer to the field shown in adoras flashback thing and I was right they are the same one I only got what the purple thing is wrong

Shadow weaver

I don’t think she’s been redeemed I think it’s more of a mutual agreement that they won’t kill each other for now the whole the enemy of my enemy is my friend thing fits right I think she could teach glimmer magic and some spells as well to assist them in the inevitable fight with the rest of the horde and being a princess and the daughter of such a powerful caster she could do some very powerful spells shadow weaver could also assist madam razz in teaching Adora about what she really is and how to control her powers because light Hope sucks

Light hope and Mara

Light hope was probably the reason Mara ‘snapped’ I don’t think she really did snap it’s just either how she interpreted it because she turned on her in the flash back showing ‘snapped’ Mara she-ra she has the red lines in her like when adoras shera gets infected with entraptas ‘murder virus’ so I don’t think that she really snapped light hope just doesn’t want adora to cut her off again or she honestly just doesn’t understand what Maras motives where we’ve seen that she doesn’t know much like the fact the babies don’t remember stuff was unknown to her so maybe light hope saw Mara destroying everything and disconnecting them from everyone else and taking them to despandos and saw that Mara must have snapped and not that she wa trying to protect everyone like Mara said she wouldn’t be remembered as a hero and she knew it and she still did it in the flash back if Mara ‘snapping’ she is shown to be whiter than the colour she is in the ‘perfect’ universe I think this is from one of 3 causes 1the crew hadn’t finalised her design by that point 2 she ras glow made her seem brighter 3 the tint of yellow-white on the screen made her look whiter . This is because you can still tell that her skin is darker than adoras shera what exactly did Mara do to get rid of the portal capabilities does it only apply to a portal made with the sword of protection for if it does why bother if she was supposed to be the last shera if not how did hordak Create the portal that brought Adora through

The ‘perfect’ reality

St first I was excited because I thought we were getting an episode of what would have happened had Adora never left the horde and I thought it would be fun.I was wrong. It was really interesting to watch it play out even if it still almost makes me cry after watching it 4-5 times everything seemed a little off even with the normal interactions like when Lonnie is thanking adora the way she talks just seems.. off like even then somthing was wrong catra was happy without the years of abuse and neglect she is happy and it’s great the first thing adora instinctively remembers is how shadow weaver treats catra and gasps when shadow weaver gets close and has a giant smile when she doesn’t do anything and is just fine how come adora sees madame razz in certain spots and not others and why does the informations guy behave like there is a screen there when he’s first saying the information and is it two different occasions where they’re there or just it skipped adora getting the sheets what was entraptas line of ‘I’m not really here’ about did she die is she saying the reality isn’t real if so why wasn’t it ‘we’re not really here’ that would make more sense for her to refer to all of them not specifically herself WHY didn’t bow rip his shirt open and why can’t glimmer teleport as much did she learn to get better through sneaking around I also liked the emphasis placed in her shoes when they don’t have toes and how they show the toe caps being back once they are back at bright moon in normal reality will angella return I think she might come back through the portal when horde prime comes back and is Mara also trapped in the inside of the portal from the last time she stopped it why easy the horde just immediately gone why was it there in the first place if it was so fast to disappear was micha still there even when the horde was still present why did it pick the decision to go with the rebellion as the decision to change when catra finally decided to admit that everything was wrong she was attacking adora with the intent to kill those where killing blows how exactly did catra perfectly position where she was in relation to the environment to go after adora like that when it kept changing when catra was attacking it kept going to places where she won where as when adora refused to let catra convince her it was all her fault it goes to the world falling apart while adora is falling she just sadly accepts that she failed and sits there to fall until she diaspears angella made a very nice and heart breaking spaech to adora then sacrifices herself for everyone in a way which is NOT fair for ANY of our emotions just why did they have to do that now my littke baby glimmer has no parents

The crimson waste/huntara

Adora has SUCH a crush on huntara and is so adorable and it’s also really gay which makes it even better huntara actually starting to like Adora too is so cute even if she gets teased for it. Glimmer just being happy to follow Adora and support her is also cute especially seeing how protective she was in the previous episode. Now that I think about it was the line ‘no we’re supporting her’ directed towards the going to the crimson waste to look for the centre and the Mara thing or was it towards Adora and huntaras interactions I’m not sure now

Catra

When season 4 come I hope catra faces the consequences of her actions like maybe scorpia might actually lose hope in her once she finds out she might get sent to beast island once hordak finds out she lied(side note entrapta better not be freaking dead for real this time) and if she does I hope Lonnie replaces her Lonnie deserves better she’s by far the best candidate for force captain that we’ve seen she cares for her friends can support them when they need it can actually do her job has speaking lines and she would make for an amazing antagonist for a season or 2 . Back to scorpia I hope she does alright after finding out what catra did and remembering what she did to entrapta who has only ever been good to her and how quickly catra turned back on scorpia

Glimmer+shadow weaver (ft. bow+adora)

With queen Angella effectively dead glimmer might go looking for another person to fill in that role in her life and she might turn to shadow weaver for that support. If glimmer tries to do this I think one of two things will happen with adora 1 adora will be completely against this and try her best to convince glimmer not to look to shadow weaver for advice or as a motherly figure and when glimmer inevitably goes to shadow weaver anyways it will weaken their relationship and/or adoras trust in glimmer until shadow weaver betrays/ starts to show her true intentions and once glimmer finds/ figures it out she will go and ask for adoras help and will ask her how they can fix things (both in terms of their relationship and about whatever the consequences of what shadow weaver did are) or 2adora will see that glimmer -the person who like a week ago would have taken any chance she could to punch her out- is giving shadow weaver all of this trust and is looking to shadow weaver for advice and adora might start to think that shadow weaver really had changed and start to lower her guard letting shadow weaver minipulate her again and eventually shadow weaver will betray the both of them and they will both be left there feeling completely abandoned

I’m not sure what bows place in either of these Scenarios would be but I feel like hell would probably be used as like a 3rd party thing (being the only one of the trio that hasn’t been directly influenced by shadow weaver) and try to convince his friends that they should stay away from shadow weaver or he might see them being happy or something and leave them thinking the possible negatives of whatever shadow weaver could possibly do seem to be outweighed by the positives in his friend lives

In terms of the first possibility of glimmer/Adora bow might side with Adora and try to convince glimmer that this is not a healthy way of projecting her emotions and to not use shadow weaver for a motherly figure and remind her of all the things that Adora does/did as a result of how shadow weaver raised her(e.g. Adora sleeping with a knife, not being able to relax etc)

Also how is glimmer going to handle her new responsibilities as queen of bright moon (also why was angella queen but every where else had a king then a princess) and maybe all of etheria like is brightmoon the ‘capital’ so to speak cuz everyone seems to give all this respect to the queen and there was the base of the original princess alliance plus that seems to be the main efforts that the horde put into taking also its protected by the whispering woods and EVERYONE was shook that it got frozen and fell apart leaving brightmoon vulnerable. How is little baby glimmer gunna Handle all of that especially after what just happened you know not just with her mum effectively dying also with the new stuff with Mara knowing adoras a first one and this shadow weaver stuff (basically just her existing)all this stuff happens and nobody got any time to proseess they are all going to need therapy not just catra

Swift wind and sea hawk

Sea hawk first Well if you think about it there was no chance for him to show up. Shadow weaver shows up then they go to the crimson waste where why would sea hawk be there and then adora gets captured so they go to the fright zone then we’re in the ‘perfect reality’ so unless he was like chilling in either bright moon or the fright zone he wouldn’t have been anywhere near them (in the perfect reality the war never happened and the alience never fell apart so glimmer never needed a captain to get to mermistas kingdom so they never met him there)

Then we’ve got swift wind. Swift wind being in any of the situations wouldn’t have really added anything to the plot maybe he could have shown up when they were thrown in the pit by huntara and co but that’s really the only time it would have made much sense. He COULD have shown up when they where breaking into the fright zone and helped with that but other than those two options I’ve got nothing having him anywheee else wouldn’t really make any sense he really would have just gotten in the way so it was a good call to just leave him out and focus on the other characters plus in the ‘perfect’ reality adora isn’t she-ra so swift wind is still a regular horse and therefore technically isn’t really a proper character for those two episodes

So over all neither of them really could have appeared this season maybe they will next time (most likely with swiftwind if we’re getting anything to do with light hope too) but I don’t really mind either way I like sea hawks interactions with glimmer and how she gets happy when she cheers him up a bit by being his crew but I don’t really care at all with swift wind tho he might help with somthing light hope related seeing as he was involved last time

The princess alliance pt1+2

So we’ve got the new princess alliance feturing spinnarella nettossa glimmer adora frosta mermista perfuma bow and sea hawk (part time entrapta) who all work together and do stuff like glimmer losing her powers being gay spreading the gay and more

Then you’ve got the original princess alliance that consisted of KING micha queen angella merimistas dad and I don’t think we’ve herd anything about the rest of them but it’s assumed that some of the other parents where a part I think frostas dad or somthing might have been but based on the time gaps we’ve been given frosta wouldn’t have even been born by the time the alliance fell apart because it fell apart once micha died and he died given that flashback in ‘remember’ when she was let’s say 3-4 and if we guess that she’s about 17 or so now then that means it has been apart for about 14-15 years and frosta has just cannonacly turned 12 so even if you be very generous with how old glimmer is in that flash back and say maybe even 5-6 then that still leaves you with a very very small chance that at the highest end of that frosta might have maybe been just born then taking into account the fact that she took the throne at 8 I assume because of a few deaths she would not have gotten much of a chance to learn much about the old alliance unless they where like very important stories passed down like tales of war

Their ages

So I think they are in like a few groups so here we go! We know frostas 12 so that’s easy and we also know that entraptas late 20s early 30s so we’ll say about 30 for her . 17-19 or so I think for glimmer bow adora mermista catra lonnie Kyle Rogelio then I think alitttle older at maybe 20-22 for Perfuma sea hawk then going from ther I think angella is about the same age as micha and if you do some math with him being about 12 in the light spinner episode and glimmer being about 17 then he is at youngest in his early to mid 30s so I’d say that’s the age for them. Hordak is like 100s of years old so I won’t go into that madme razz is ancient there is no way to work that out but if she was there for Mara she’s over 1000 years old at least

Now for shadow weaver when she says ‘take pity on an old woman’ to catra she really is serious assuming that she has that average life span of a human, ok let’s go so in the light spinner episode she is a full grown adult and presumably has been for a while so we can guess she’s mid to late 20s let’s use 27 for numbers sake then she’d have to be at the horde for a while to teach the level of 2nd in command so that’s a few years then she gets adora when she’s a baby and we know adoras about 17 so if we go from that she is at the very least almost 50 which if that is the case and she does have the average lifespan of a real human good job shadow weaver for reaching that age and still being able to do all the things you do

[techouspeaks]

A Review of: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Well first establish, I never watched the old series so I’m not going to compare the two series together. With that being said, I am very aware of the He-Man series since I grew up with the 2002 series, though that doesn’t make me an expert, I do understand the lore and what that series is about.

Put it short, I’m just going to judge it as is and I’ll try to be a bit brief about it. So, I guess I should explain the complaints I and most people have with this series. First the animation. Yeah...it’s pretty bad. I mean for a Dreamworks project I actually did expect much better. Considering that a lot of Dreamworks stuff in terms of animation wise, is soo good! Like Voltron being the best but shoot, even Kulipari, Dreamworks Dragons, ect, they have really great animation and this is She-Ra! An 80s fan favorite and one that would clearly sell because at this time of age, the whole girl power is like through the roof! They could have put more time into the animation. I mean, keep the art style. Art style is fine but the over all animation and how characters move is poor. Not terrible but you can tell it’s very rushed. They put more effort into the transformation scene than the rest...

And don’t tell me poor budget or lack of time...I’ve seen personal projects done by small studios, and people doing it by themselves through their homes that done better job at animating. Yes, animation is hard and it takes time but it’s worth the effort put in and there’s no excuse of a professional team cutting slack. Shoot, even the Disney sequels have better animation than this and they’re done from the animation teams that were just starting out.

Granted, the art isn’t totally bad. I prefer this over the butter bean style that Cartoon Network, for whatever reason decides to not give up on. I will say the character designs look like human beings than beans and in some parts when the animation decides to be good, it does show. The character designs and background art is good. It’s very creative. The animation and the movements just need to be amped up more.

Don’t tell me it’s because it’s a “kids show, it doesn’t have to look good.” Here’s a good example of a kid’s show with quality

Again those are shows that are done today that clearly had more effort put into the animation. Dreamworks has done the same with other shows, they could have done so with She-Ra. Again not the art style that’s the problem. It’s just how choppy the animation is.

Another thing that I have issues with is the pacing especially in the development with the characters. All the characters develop way too fast in my opinion, at least in some moments. Some moments with certain characters are developed fine, like Glimmer’s development. Her’s I actually thought was handle rather well, others especially Catra’s was handled either forcefully or rushed. Characters aren’t given enough time to take in the moment and breath a bit. Everything is rushed.

Speaking of Catra and her relationship with Adora, that was especially rushed. When we first meet the two, I didn’t even believe they were friends. If we had gotten to know Catra and Adora from the beginning more and have Catra actually feel something other than being bitterness at Adora, I would have felt something from their relationship, which sadly I didn’t. Even when we get to the arc of learning about Catra’s past with Adora, the relationship again feels rushed and clunky. Though I will admit, the pacing does get a little better towards the climax, but we had to deal with rushed pacing through out the whole season.

I get there are 13 episodes. You know what? Voltron had that much episodes, even less than that sometimes and each character developed well pace. Yes, some seasons had to have characters have their own arcs and it took a season for some to develop but that’s just it. The team behind Voltron knew that’s what it takes sometimes to make a well paced and very well told story and characters. We at least got to know quite a bit of characters and yes, sadly some don’t get a back story, but shoot, we got more backstory on those characters than we do the princesses besides Glimmer, Adora, shoot, we dunno much about Bow even and he’s one of the main characters. He’s the main bestie of the crew! Where’s his backstory and proper development? Least we had some kind of back story about Lance, Hunk and even Coran and those are the characters sadly we didn’t get too much back story, but they were developed enough for me to care about them deeply. 

That and a lot of the story is very predicable sadly. When Shadow Weaver attacked Adora when they were vacationing, I knew exactly what was going to happen. She’s going make Adora freak out and make her friends believe they hate her because she’s destroying everything, but Adora will realize SW’s plan, stand up against her and make everything right again. Some episodes had surprisingly good moments like the episode that introduces Entrapa. That episode was pretty good, though, I again I could predict a bit of it, except for the ending.

Bitch and moan, bitch and moan, what do I at least like about the series? Well, the characters are really good. I know I said that after bitching about the development but the characters as they are, are pretty memorable and likable, though, I can tell with the boys there was some SJW interfering. 

You know masculine men aren’t all bad? Not every masculine dude is a dick. It doesn’t hurt to have at least one masculine man. Just saying but as I say this, I will admit even when with that, the boys are still rather competent. They do hold their own and have some heart to em, especially Bow, who is one of my favorite characters and I like Mermista, Entrapa though a bit too out there to be even real, maybe anyway,  I still like her character and design. Also her butler is so adorable! I wish he had more screen time!

The villains, except for Hordak are decent, I love Scorpia being one of the best. I wanted to hug her she’s so awesome. Hordak is a snooze fest. I mean there isn’t anything about him other than he has a weird baby spy for some reason, which actually makes it all the more creepy...Is that like his son or something?

Catra is okay...I mean the actress who plays her is pretty good in doing her crying scenes. She does act like a teen would when upset and trying to figure out things, but again, her development is so clunky and again, I didn’t care for what was going to happen to her and her relationship with Adora. Again, if she had shown more sympathy to her friend from the beginning, I would have shown more concern for her and cared about their friendship. As is, they don’t act like best friends. They acted more like just classmates with how rushed the development is. 

Adora herself is pretty likeable and I did want to see what happens to her. Though again, some of her development is a bit rushed. At least in say Winx Club, Bloom got more time to develop but with there being 13 episodes, I could give this a slip. 

The music is amazing though! I loved the score for this series! It reminded me of some 80s background music with the guitar and the synthesizer! That is awesome! The only thing that wasn’t so awesome was the theme song...It’s mediocre but the rest of the score was awesome. In fact, half the time I thought the score was too good for this series man! 

Another thing I did enjoy was the episodes that did lead up to the 13th episode. That’s when the development did start slowing down a bit and we had time to at least care about the characters a little bit more and how they feel about each other. The animation even got a bit more decent towards the end. Like where was that in the beginning? Though the climax...Yeah I will admit, was pretty weak. Compared to others including from not so big animation studios, the climax could have been a bit more original. I’ve seen this climax done hundreds of times. I even have this sort of climax in one of my written novels but I at least put it well paced. As is, it’s not the worst I’ve seen, but definitely expected a better climax for a season.

I really tried to open my mind for this series and as is, it’s not the worst by far. I can tell a lot of heart went into this. The art style is fine but the animation can be very bad at times. The characters are great and memorable, but very rushed in development and a bit too SJW appeal to some, thus making them a bit dated once the SJW fad wears off and people move onto the next trend. Some episodes towards the climax are decent but the climax I felt could have been more original, if anything throw in a few twists to make an already seen premise be a bit more fresh. The music is awesome and some designs are cool. 

As is it’s not terrible but I’m gonna have to rate She-Ra an average 5 out of 10 star rating. I do recommend you watch it to see if you like it or have kids that would like to see some nice characters and action scenes as well as rather easy to follow story. It’s by no means a bad series, I just think there are shows that did better what She Ra was trying to do. I will see what Season 2 will bring and see if it will be better than Season 1 so there’s a silver lining. I will continue to watch this series. Not great but not awful.

5 Stars

Level: Good!

[leah-halliwell92]

When Your Best Friend Plays Cupid

@deepestfirefun

You´re a friend of Luke Evans and with his help able to travel to New Zealand to meet the crew that is making The Hobbit. You are thrilled to meet the company of the dwarves and RA since you´re an admirer of his work and way he works. While roaming on the set and talking to people, you´re unaware that you have caught Richard´s eye with your witty, little snarky attitude and happy go lucky personality. He keeps wondering how it is possible that you are still free until he hears it from Luke one night. Your last relationship ended badly and your lack of trust in men is one of the reasons why you´re still a free spirit. After a long day, Graham, Martin, Orlando, Luke, Richard, and Ian decides to go to a local pub to relax. To their surprise, you´re there too and Luke starts to ask you to play that guitar you have bought with you and you agree. You start to play the song You Belong To Me – Bryan Adams while Luke starts to sing. It doesn´t take long for all of them joins in and Richard sits next to you watching your skillful guitar playing. When the song is over, he finally asks you if you are willing to go out with him.

“Pleeeeeeeeeeease?” Luke said over lunch the day before he’s set off to go to New Zealand.

You sigh but smile giving into his begging.

“FINALLY, I thought you’d never agree,” he said with a jovial laugh.

“Anything to get you to quit begging like a dog. What am I suppose to do in NZ anyway?”

“Remember that job I told you I auditioned for?”

“The Hobbit job? What about it?” You ask keeping your excitement at bay...for now at least.

“Well we’re going back to start filming the second movie. The begging on my part for you to come is so you can meet the people I work with day in and day out and to give you a change of scenery,” he says taking your hand.

You sigh.

“Sweets, you need a change of scenery. I know you're looking behind your back trying to avoid /him/. This change can be something good! Plus...you’d be with the most hilarious group of people known to man,” he said with a kind smile.

You smile back tearfully and nod.

“How the hell am I gonna go when I haven't packed, haven't checked my calendar to see if I can put my work on hold for a bit and the most important bit is that I don’t have the money to fly right now,” You say with a groan.

He gave you an ‘innocent’ look.

“What did you do Luke?” you asked him alarmed.

“Nuffiiiiin...Your birthday is a couple of weeks away right?” He asked same innocent look on his face.

You nod not liking where this was going.

“I may have gotten your plane ticket already...”

You let your head drop with an exasperated sigh and reached into your bag. Fishing out your phone, you call your work and ask for all of your accumulated vacation days. You were surprised to see that you had a little over a months worth of vacation days at the ready and quickly agree to take them all. After all being, being co-founder/owner of your own business gives you a bit of liberty. And if it were a really necessity you could also work from home if need be. 

“Ok, now all I need to do is pack up and then we can be on our merry way,” You say with a laugh at his happy whoop.

Three days later you found yourself sitting between Luke and Sir Ian McKellen who is taking the same flight as Luke and yourself to the same location. You were happy to chat with the older man and more than happy to remain in his company during the duration of the flights. You shared many a laugh with these men and for the first time in a while you felt you could relax. Your ex didn’t do you any favors being more than a little clingy so you’d hadn’t realized how reeled up you really were till the plane was in the air. The three of you chatted and laughed and slept when it called for and before you knew it you were getting ready to disembark. 

You went to the hotel you had reserved last minute only to be manhandled by the Bowman and Wizard themselves into going out to dinner. That had been a blast with even more laughs and shared stories from both men. You really did enjoy their joint company more than you’d ever admit to the smug bastard that is your best friend. 

You planned to wake up early the next morning to see the sunrise...jet lag had other plans. You slept past your alarm knowing Luke would come to disturb her beauty sleep and she was right when a knock was heard to reveal a serenading Luke as he entered your room and took a nose dive on your bed.

“I’d tell ya to go fuck off but you’d enjoy that too much,” you said pulling the covers over your head.

He laughed and turned on a light.

“You have to get up sunshine, time to go to set. Come on lazy bones, you can go see all the stuff I’m put through to get into character,” he said hopping back on the bed and gave a hop.

“Fine you ass get off so I can dress,” you said and shove away the warmth of the covers to start your morning routine.

That done, he corralled you into his car and drove to the set. You have to admit, this is the most unreal place you had ever been in. New Zealand is truly a magical and beautiful place...you couldn't wait to see more of it.

Arriving on set Luke dragged you to his trailer and fed you since his puppy like attitude kept you from a good breakfast and a decent cuppa. 

“Morning Luke,” A blonde said from the door with a cheeky grin on his face.

“Morning Deeno,” Luke said patting the lad on the shoulder.

“Who’s this?” he asked cheeky grin still in place.

“(Y/N) nice to meet you,” you said with a kind smile before letting out shiver.

“Dean O’Gorman nice to meet you,” he said with a bright smile before turning to Luke, “You are a really bad host to let such a lovely woman freeze to death,” he said with a laugh, “You stick to me, I’ll take you to where the tea is.”

You laugh at Luke’s gasp and followed after Dean and as promised hot tea! Finally! Your hands were around the cup tightly letting its warmth seep into you and warm you up back to life. 

“You look cold,” a kind voice said.

You turn to meet a bald man with a kind smile.

“I am, I love the cold but I don’t fancy my best friend pulling me into a cold morning,” you say with a laugh.

The man laughs and offers you his hand, “Graham.”

“(Y/N),” you said as you take his hand to shake.

“You’re Luke’s friend!” He said his smile brightening, “Yeah he’s been going on and on about how he was bringing his best friend to set.”

You roll your eyes at that, of course the puppy would go about and spill the beans.

“Lay off old man, I’m taking her around the place,” Dean said cheekily.

“Lay off ya runt,” Graham said teasingly as he pulled the young man into a hug, “How ya doin’?”

“Good, tired but hey the show must go on,” He said with a shrug after returning the hug.

The men shared a laugh which allowed you to slip away to the nearest exit where the sun was just starting to rise. You so happened to be facing the East and you laughed as you quoted, “Look to my coming at first light on the fifth day. At dawn look to the East.”

“You a fan?” A deep voice said from behind you.

You jump to see a kind grin behind a dark beard and humor brightening the most beautiful eyes you had ever seen. The one and only Richard Armitage.

“Yes I am,” You said with a smile.

“May I?” he said motioning to the empty seat beside you.

“Of course,” You say.

You both sit in silence as you watch the sunrise.

“I’m Richard by the way,” he says with a kind and warm smile.

You return the smile, “(Y/N) nice to meet you, nice to meet you.”

And there you both sat enjoying the still cold air and the sunrise. It had been a while since you spent a good moment with a man. Your ex having no time for something as ‘slow paced’ and ‘meaning less’ as sitting down with your loved one to watch the sunrising on a brand new day. 

“So youre the one Luke’s been nagging about for past month,” Richard said with a teasing grin.

You gave a laugh and took a drink form your cup before you nodded.

“Sorry that he’s been a such a child and bother,” you say with a sheepish grin.

“No worries, we all seem to be like that in this lot,” Richard said with a laugh.

You stay a bit more time there with him having more than amicable conversation till Dean came out followed by a dark haired man.

“Richard, time to suit up,” Dean said patting Richard on the shoulder before turning to you, “(Y/N) this is Aidan.”

“Nice to meet you,” You say with a wide smile.

“Well, ain’t ya a looker,” Aidan said with a boyish grin.

“Well don’y you smell like trouble,” You shot back with a grin.

The trio laughed heartily at that only to be broken a moment later by a, “Oh she’ll fit in with this band of misfits just fine.”

You all turn to see Martin Freeman and Sir Ian there looking at your group with intrigued grins on their faces.

“(Y/N) this is our resident hobbit Martin Freeman,” Aiden said going to Martin and gave him a hug with a small laugh.

You looked on at the group and recognized the deep bonds that had formed. It was a sight to see and you couldn't wait to see more of the the more people you met.

It’s your last week in New Zealand. You had had so much fun seeing the many sights and meeting the unique cast of the film and new you were leaving with more friends than you came with. Today had been a particularly harrowing day so the main cast decided it was high time they took some down time. You leave them to it opting to go to one of the pubs that is nearby. Luke accompanied you stating that he saw the mugs of the cast day in and day out so going out with you was a given till he made it back to England. You laughed at the begging puppy he insists on portraying every time he wants you to do something. You get to the pub and order drinks and some food and relaxed.

A little bit later, Graham, Martin, Orlando, Luke, Richard, and Ian walked in and quickly spotted the two of you quickly. 

“Hey! Thought you were gonna spend the day catching up on much needed sleep,” Luke said greeting the group.

“Na, decided to go embrace the night life,” Orlando said with a laugh.

You all share a laugh at that and Luke ordered a round of drinks.

The night went on and all was going amazingly until you saw a guitar...your guitar...on Luke’s lap.

“Oh hell no,” you say with shake of your head.

“Pleeeeeeeease,” he begs with a puppy smile.

“Alright, alright,” you said and looked around to see the place was nearly empty.

You looked at the bartender and motioned to the small stage they have. He gave you a grin and nod allowing you to get on the stage.

Making sure the guitar was tuned to your liking you sat on the stool and began playing the chords to ‘You Belong to Me’ by Bryan Adams.

I take the night train, I take an airplane 'Cause you belong to me I just wanna say, ain't gonna let you getaway 'Cause you belong to me only wanna ho-o-old you,  I just wanna ho-o-old you, C'mon let me ho-o-old you, tonight

You say ain't leaving, I can't help dreaming You belong to me I take the highway, I take the low way Don't you belong to me

I only wanna ho-o-old you I just wanna ho-o-old you C'mon let me ho-o-old you, tonight

C'mon

End up drinking, get's me thinking You belong to me While you're out there, remember I'm right here And you belong to me

I only wanna ho-o-old you, I just wanna ho-o-old you C'mon let me ho-o-old you C'mon let me ho-o-old you Tonight

As you sang, Richard turned to Luke and asked, “How is it that such an amazing women such as (Y/N) is still single?”

Luke drew a breath and told him your story. From how clinging your ex was, how he would get overly jealous over you talking to any man that drew near you and how he dared lay a hand on you for standing up to him. 

Richard couldn't believe what he was hearing and wondered if you would even consider accepting to date him after such an experience. 

Soon enough Luke joined in the singing along side a red faced Martin and chuckling Ian. Orlando joined in with a shake of his head alongside a cackling Graham. That was the best night you had had in a while and was sad to see it end. Applause went around after the song ended and you all took a bow laughing up a storm. 

Richard approached you looking very much like a shy little boy.

“Yes?” You asked.

“I...uh...You sing beautifully and play amazingly as well, Would you...I mean...would you like to go out to dinner sometime?” He said with the most adorable blush you had ever seen.

You smiled at him kindly and said, “I wouldn't be opposed to that. As I’m sure Luke has told you my last relationship didn't end well. Is it ok if we take it slow?”

He looked up with a bright smile and nodded.

You give him an equally bright smile and get on your toes to press a kiss on his bearded cheek.

“So...what do you say to tea in the main land?” you say knowing very well how the schedule is gonna be for the remainder of the shoot.

He’s agreeable to that and you exchange information. And true to form, long after you had returned home and a day after Luke had come home, you heard a knock on your door. You open and frown at your ex being on the other side.

“What do you want?” you said leaning against the door jam not letting him into your home.

“A second chance.”

“No,” you said before he could even think of adding anything to that sentence.

“Come on–” 

“No,” you say again, “You dared raise a hand to me.”

“And I’m sorry, it won't happen again,” he said pleadingly.

“You're right it won’t because you're not getting that second chance, now go home please before my neighbors call the police,” You say your voice hard and turned to close the door.

“I suggest you do as the lady is asking,” A deep voice says from behind your ex.

“Who the hell are you?” Your ex demands only to look up to Richard since he is a good couple of inches taller than your ex.

“Your replacement,” you say pulling Richard into your home and shutting the door behind you.

He gives you an apologetic grin and says, “Was gonna come and ask if you still wanted to go for that tea date?”

You laugh and say, “Why don't you stay for dinner? I’ll cook.”

He smiles and nods.

You heard banging on the door and you went to answer only to have Richard wave you away and went to answer the door himself.

“Yes?” he says to your now fuming ex.

“Thats my woman you have there, MINE. Now I demand you leave and leave whats mine behind...”

“You son of a fucked up cow!” you yell and stand in front of him.

Slap!

"You ever claim to own me again and I’ll personally relieve you of your manhood,” you say your voice dangerously low, “By the way your mother called asking when you're going to go back home because (his other woman’s name) is looking for you because she wants to discuss wedding venues.”

He paled at that.

You smirked at him and stood back and closed the door.

“You do know the same applies to you right?” You tell an astounded looking Richard.

He gives a nod and follows you like a love struck puppy to your kitchen where you both prepared and enjoyed an amazing first date meal.

[calliecat93]

ST; TNG S6 Watchthrough Episodes 10-13

Chain of Command: Alrighty folks, two parter time!

Part One: Picard gets assigned to a vital mission. One that he has to keep secret from even Riker, While he, Crusher, and Worf are gone, Starfleet assigns Captain Jellico to command the Enterprise and handle negotiations with the Cardassians, much to Riker and the others disdain. I’ve seen mixed reception on Jellico, but I’ll refrain from giving opinions until the Overall. But he’s much more authoritative and hard pushing than Picard. Though it’s funny cause Picard was also very authoritative in the beginning, but he has GREATLY mellowed out throughout the series. But the reason that Jellico has been given command? Among with having experience with the Cardassians… Picard has been outright relieved because he’s most likely not coming back. Yeah, we got some high stakes for this one folks. It was a pretty good episode. We establish Jellico and his command methods, the crews' feelings about it, and Picard, Crusher, and Worf prepping for a VERY intensive mission. Which the ending to the episode? Yeah, they made sure to make sure that the viewers came back the following week. Will Part 2 be able to keep it up, however? We shall see but very solid first half~! 4.5/5.

Part Two: Picard has been captured. The Cardassians bring this up during the negotiations… which Jellico denies and won’t allow any rescue misisons. Needless to say this does not go over well with Riker. Yeah this was… hard to watch. Not because it was bad. If anything the fact that hey did it well is what makes it hard to watch. They do NOT hold back in showing the intensity of Picard’s torture. Like whent he villain used the device to just send Picard into agony… that was just… rough. On board the Enterprise Riker wants to admit that Picard was under Starfleet orders… but admititng that Starfleet was on such a missionw hen they have a treaty witht he Cardassians would cause a whole hos tof problems. As such Jelico won’t admit it and give Picard protections as a POW, which infuriates Riker to the point that he gets relieved of duty. It’s hard because obviously I side with Riker here… but I also can’t say that Jellico is necessarially wrong. This is a highly dangerous, critical situation on a politica, military, and even diplomatic front. Do you sacrifice Picard and ensure the needs of the many? Or do you go screw it and rescue him, but risk outright war breaking out due to it? Whatever you pick you will face major consequences. Fortunateley they find a way to get Picard back and stop the Cardassians via Jellico’s efforts, but Picard is left with the trauma and outright admits had they even been one second too late, he would have broken. His defiace in spite of his agony was awesome to watch especially when he finally broke down the villin… but the fact is he still suffered and came dangeorusly close to breaking completeley. Nothing, not even admiration for remaining strong, will ever take that away. It was hard to watch, but I can’t say that it wasn’t effective. Very well done episode. 4.5/5

CoC Overall: That was an intense one. The Cardassians are terrifying. I guess I’ll see more of this in DS9 but the way they torture Picard? How the villain outright allows his child to see it and dehumanizes/says hateful things about humans right in front of his child? Dear God…that is just so horrid I don’t know where to begin. David Warner did such an excellent job as the villain, being effectively cold-hearted and monstrous but with a layer of calmness that makes it all the scarier. No wonder he got cast as Ra’s al Ghoul in Batman: TAS. As for Jellico… there’s no denying that he’s a hardass. I wish that the episode did better at acknowledging how his over-taxing methods were, well… over-taxing, but they avoided having to make the crew go into outright battle. Nevertheless, after we see how Picard gets treated, it does make sense and in the end, his captaincy was effective. I don’t like his methods, but I can’t say that they weren’t effective and in this kind of situation it may have been necessary. He and Riker never get to liking each other… but they are forced to acknowledge that they need to work together and recognize the other's ability to get the job done. I greatly prefer Picard, but Jellico works for this episode under these conditions. At the very least he doens’t come across as a bad person. Also on a lighter note, glad that Troi is now wearing her actual uniform. She looks a Hell of a lot better in that than any of those jumpsuits they kept making her wear. So yeah a good plot, difficult choices, scenes that are hard to watch but well-executed, great acting… yeah this was an excellent two-parter. IDK if I’d want to watch it again because I don’t know if I can make it through Picard’s torture. Which needless to say if something like this is triggery or too much for anyone thinking of watching it, I highly recommend skipping this one (or at least those particular scenes) or watch it with someone. But it was very well done, there’s no denying that. 5/5.

Ship in a Bottle: So you guys remember the episode Elementary, Dear Data from S2? The one with Data and Geordi and Sherlock as Watson and due to Geordi being bad at wording the Moriarty hologram became sentient? Yeah… looks like the show finally remembered cause they finally bring back up that Moriarty’s kinda just been stuck in the computers for over four seasons now. Barclay ends up unlocking him, and Moriarty isn’t at all happy to have been left and forgotten for over four years. I was not at all expecting a follow-up to this episode, but Hell yes I am all for it! I can’t blame Moriarty for being upset especially since the show never brought it back up until now, so to the audience it feels like they just up and forgot him without giving a damn about his extesential crisis just like he does. Moriarty is able to at last leave the Holodeck, to everyone’s surprise, and all he wants is for them to make his lover real, even taking over the ship whent hey refuse due to still not understandinghow Moriarty became real… but there’s a bit of a plot twist. One that I’m not gonna give away here, but it is wild. But this was an excellent episode and a great, long overdue follow-up to Elementary, Dear Data. The questions of being alive/sentient (which we already had a few episodes ago but done differently enough here that it works), the argument between Moriarty wanting a life and the others concern by all that has happened, the limits on what they know, Barclay being competent without being the main focus, it’s very well done. Moriarty isn’t evil, just despersate and pushed to his limit, hence why he does what he does here. The ending is very bittersweet, but is a proper conclusion with some kind of hopeful note. Very well done~! 4.5/5.

Aquiel: Well I thought after S4 we were done with the ‘Geordi in love’ plots… guess not. So… this is pretty much ST’s attempt at making The Thing. When going through files to investigate a potential murder, Geordi finds lots of Aquiel and sure enough, he falls in love with her based on that alone. So… guess he learned nothing from Galaxy’s Child then, though at least he doesn’t try to use the Nice Guy excuse this time. Plus tbf he didn’t know that she was alive so i’s not as bad as in Boody Trap and Galaxy’s Child, but still he should really know better by now. But as it turns out Aquiel is alive, but was in Klingon custody… and is now the prime suspect in the murder. While I don’t mind the general plot of the episode and a Thing-like episode actually sounds pretty interesting, the ‘Geordi in love with a girl he never met via her personal logs’ plot wasn’t necessary and they already did it once. I think they did it better, but it’s still annoying to see that they did this again. I can’t even be happy about them having a dog in this episode because of reasons I won’t spoil, but let’s just say that the big plot twist can be seen a mile away. It was alright, but writers if you can’t think of a better way to do a Geordi-led romantic plot… maybe don’t use a romantic plot? Just saying. 2/5.

Alright, we are at the halfway point! So far? S6 has been great! Just great episodes all around. Some fun, some intense, some… well some are just meh but overall the first half has been excellent. It feels like they got their second wind after last season and I am loving it~!

[bugheadjones-the-third]

I was really into RIVERDALE in the first season and i still love bughead and sprouseheart really a lot but this season was disappointed, a lot of scenarios and dialogue seems made of just to satisfy the fans but in a cringe way for me, and my love for the show is kinda not the same... Maybe is just me that is not enjoying it that much anymore or seeing it in that way? I’m curious how you see the way the producers are directing the show know (?) Love your tumblr btw ^^

I share a lot of your thoughts and I can assure you're not the only one having problems with season 2. I myself have tried to understand what the producers/ directors are doing to the show, and it was only after thinking A LOT that I managed to find an answer that comforted me.

You see, Season 1 was just perfect. It was a new show with that noir vibe we all fell in love with, and it was all too virginal. When season 1 aired, all the eps were already filmed and there was absolutely no fan influence. It was theirs before it was ours, and in my opinion, that's why the first season was so beautiful and so perfect.

Nothing was forced and nothing was rushed. They had all the time to follow that one idea and all the mystery surrounding Jason's death, and that certain simplicity and freshness made everything fit into its own place. Bughead happened in that beautiful, truthful and even simple way, and I believe that's one of the biggest reasons why the ship became so popular.

Season 1 had it all, and all those pools and awards showed everyone that what they had in hands was a mine of success that could and would be explored in a second season.

The renovation of the series came with a lot of expectations, and even if the cast and the staff said the audience would have no influence in the future of the series, it's impossible not to be affected by what we say around here and on twitter. Riverdale, apart from all the love and dedication from the entire cast and crew, is still a something that makes money because of its audience. They have to keep us interested so we keep watching and keep the numbers up for as long as it's possible. They will follow their story, of course, but they will also take every chance to explore the things we, fans, love. And don't take it as something bad, no. It's just the way it is.

So, with all that said, we now have Season 2, with 22 episodes and basically with the recipe for success already tested and approved in season 1. They just needed to find a new mystery- which they easily did, with the Black Hood- and follow from where things left out. Theoretically speaking, it should be a piece of cake for such a talented staff. They had another crime for the kids, the most popular ships were together, and they could simply left things like that while they all focused on the whole angel of death thing.

It would've been simpler and it would've probably worked out just as fine as season 1. However, that was where they kinda screwed up. Because unlike season 1, where everything ended up surrounding Jason's death, season 2 started with a bunch of plots that had no connection and that proved themselves to be way too much for a bunch of high school kids.

All those plots had a lot of potential. Jughead as a serpent, North Vs South, the Red circle, Hiram in town, Betty's fight, Toni Topaz and the list goes on... All those stories could've been tied together, but instead of focusing on the small additions to the new season, they kept adding and adding until there was just TOO MUCH for them to handle. They forgot a bunch of stuff, changed the characters they created in season 1 and it was as if a bomb was dropped in Riverdale. And still, to add up even more, we had all that unnecessary drama between the ships that, unlike season 1, now play an essential role to the main story, whatever the hell that main story is.

There's nothing tying the knots anymore. Nothing that acts like a center to all the madness around the show, and it's as if they're all just writing a bunch of plot bunnies and trying to make it work. Sometimes, it does. Sometimes, it's just a chaotic mess that pisses the fans that fell in love with Season 1 and only creates more problems for them to solve in the future ( Cam Girl Betty being the best example for this).

But now, after I basically said all those stuff that pissed me off in season 2, you would say I'm about to give up on Riverdale and go flood RAS' twitter account because of that, right? Wrong. 

2A was really a mess and no one will ever disagree with me. It was a mess and it was too rushed (even for Riverdale). There was a bunch of unnecessary drama (yes, I'm talking about the J*paz and B*rchie kisses) and a lot of other stuff I won't be listing right now. Still, I think they've finally realized their mistakes. 

I think that all that was broken in 2A can (and hopefully) will be rebuilt in 2B. We've already had some really nice eps that brought back the old Riverdale feeling, with communicative Bughead, and stuff that made the characters walk forward instead of going back to where they all started. The staff realized the mess they've made, and if anything, last episode was their way of admitting it to us, the audience (They literally took the core 4 out of Riverdale so they could just get over that whole crap between the ships, so... yeah, It felt like a way to make a new start).

I was personally having a lot of issues with season 2. I was having anxiety attacks every Wednesday and it made me feel really sad when I actually got relieved that my favorite show would be on a break for so long back in December. But now, I'm feeling more confident about the whole thing. I feel like things will go back to how they were supposed to be from the start, and we will all be able to enjoy Riverdale again. So don't quit. We have a job as supportive fans here :)

And even if I'm wrong, well, at least we can always stick around just for our beloved Bughead and our tumblr family.

[gwynne-fics]

Board Meetings

decompressing

“I’m going to stop by Hyo-Shin’s set and congratulate him on his first day as the lead director in a drama,” Rachel said to Young-Do before he left. “I had a little bit of a panic attack and he helped calm me down. I might be a little bit later coming home tonight.”

“Alright. I’ll miss you. Do you still want to have a drink with me when you get home?”

Rachel nodded and pretended she didn’t notice the way he swallowed his jealousy. She told herself this wasn’t a test and she wasn’t testing him. She liked that he was a little jealous. It meant that he saw her as something precious to fight for.

Young-Do bent down and kissed her. Before he left, she grabbed his hand and felt shy. “I’ve been invited to a marketing event that Michael is in charge of on Thursday. I would like you to go as my date so we can use the pictures for our press release. Eun-Sang will be there but it would mean a lot to me if you could come along and be nice to my friends. I want to show you off. Will you think about it?”

“I’ll think about it. I just...I have some complicated feelings for her.” He looked away and took a deep breath. “I still feel guilty for giving into my mother and I wonder what we could’ve had if I was stronger. I know this is separate from what we have but it makes me feel guilty to even want it.”

Rachel curled her fingers into his and kissed his cheek. “Being honest with yourself about who you are and what you want, even if you don’t pursue it, is the first step to healing. My therapist taught me that.”

He laughed softly under his breath. “My therapist was mostly concerned with getting me out of bed and finishing school. Once I became president, I stopped seeing her. I couldn’t afford the scandal.”

“That’s too bad. I still see mine once a month. She is very capable. Would you like her name?”

Young-Do blinked and was tense for a moment before he said, “Yes. With the added stress of my mother, I should look into this again.”

Before he left, she gave him her therapist’s card. Then she texted Hyo-Shin to call her when he wrapped for the day. We are okay but I still want to talk to you.

Come over for a drink.

Rachel hesitated and decided it couldn’t hurt. She wanted to go home relaxed. She agreed and tried to focus on the rest of her day. Yoo-Ra eventually pushed her into her car and sent her to Hyo-Shin. She called the elevator and rode it up to his floor. She knocked on the door inside of just putting in the code and going inside. Hyo-Shin gave her an odd look.

“Boundaries,” she said as he welcomed her into his home. “They help avoid temptation. How was your first day? Amazing?”

“Everything I wanted.” He kissed her cheek before they sat down on the couch. He poured her a glass of wine and offered her some cheese. She nibbled but wasn’t very hungry and the wine tasted a bit off to her. She swirled it around in her glass and took another sip. “I’ve got a good crew and I’ve worked with some of them before so I know they’ll be good. I told the production company you were waiting for ratings before you offered PPL.”

“Director Song wants me to be cautious.” She set her glass down and laid her head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head. “She’s not wrong. I know you’ll get the ratings and next time it won’t be an issue. Are you fucking the writer yet,” she teased.

“I’m offended,” he joked back. “I don’t always seduce to get my way.”

She lifted her head and raised her eyebrows as he demurred. “President Yoo, just because my writer wants to live out her romantic fantasies doesn’t mean I offered myself right away.”

“Hard to get?”

Hyo-Shin grinned. “Only a little. I have a reputation to protect. Women like her don’t want an easy man. They want to overcome an innocent man and then have him overcome her. They are so obvious in their writing. I’m going to put what she did in the drama and see if the censors care.”

“I’m glad,” Rachel said. “I’m glad you’re playing around again.”

“I miss you,” he admitted after finishing his wine. “But I’m not a devastated wreck anymore. You are uneasy with him. What happened when you told him?”

“His mother told him anyway. She couldn’t even wait a week to out me.” Rachel closed her eyes and felt them sting. “It was a good conversation. He said everything he was supposed to. He is very genuine, Hyo-Shin, so I believe him. I think he’s unsettled by it but he’s not one of those people who think what I did is an abomination. I just...this is the point where I say it’s too hard and take a break. I miss Ji-Sun. I miss girls. There is so much less drama with girls.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Do you think he would agree to a break and to get back together at a later date?”

“I don’t know. It might hurt him too much. If I leave him...I don’t want to leave him but this last day has been so much. I dread going home and I hate that feeling.”

“You don’t trust him.”

Rachel closed her eyes. Her answer would’ve been different this morning before his mother showed up to ruin their relationship. Young-Do had been nothing but good to her. But the power of mothers who loved their sons was formidable. 

“What if she goes after Ji-Sun? Her family barely tolerates her girlfriends and it’s only because Ji-Sun is amazing at her job as a company director. What if she goes after Michael and Eun-Sang? I have...I have so many people that I love and care about. The abortion is just one skeleton in a closet full of skeletons.”

“The people you love aren’t skeletons. You’re not ashamed of us.”

“In a way that makes it worse, doesn’t it?” She laid her head back on his shoulder again. He took her hand and kissed her forehead. It was gentle and sweet and...just not the man she wanted to comfort her. She both wanted to go home and to never step inside Zeus Hotels ever again. Rachel started crying and it hurt so much. “Maybe I don’t really love him.”

“Now that, is categorically untrue. You don’t freak out the way you did when I suggested this relationship would eventually fall apart if you aren’t in love. I think you need to go back home tonight and just be with him, as awkward and uncomfortable as it is. It will fade. You know it will.”

She looked up at him and Hyo-Shin pulled out his handkerchief and wiped her eyes. He told her loved her all the time but she’d never felt it as keenly as she did now. Rachel leaned over and briefly kissed him. It was warm and familiar but she surprised him because he jerked back.

“Thank you. I really hope that one day, you find someone who loves you the way you love me. Thank you for giving me a little sanctuary tonight. I really needed it. Get me your character aesthetics and I’ll send something over. Director Song can just quietly seethe at her boss.” Rachel stood and kissed him again before getting her purse and shoes.

She went home.