#no Danny doesn’t exist in those worlds but he had POTENTIAL to exist

[noxcheshire]

I am sick, dizzy, and can barely think but you know what would be WILD?

If the DC universe was an echo of Danny’s world. What if the continents of their planet shifted enough where Amity is now in New Jersey and had then become Gotham.

And when Danny died underneath the portal a part of his death fractured and imprinted itself into those various worlds. One of them being Gotham, where Danny’s home ironically used to be where Wayne Manor used to be.

So just imagine it, you’re coming back from patrol, grimy, sweaty, and with questionable intentions by dressing as an overgrown bat when suddenly the lights dim. It dims and brings darkness, only enough light to catch the beady marble eyes of the bats you fear.

And then electricity jumps in the middle of the room, flinging itself around like an agitated snake in wide open circles.

Everyone is backing away, some weary, some cursing, some just half way out of their own suit.

And then a child — barely as old as your youngest now, flickers to life before you, screaming and screaming, wailing in pain as the scent of burning flesh mingles into the air. You can see the boy, black hair and blue eyes that underneath the bright light that burns them is causing black to turn white, and blue to turn green.

The electricity crackles and when the boy is about the drop, limp, certainly lifeless, he vanishes as if nothing had ever been there.

But he comes back, he always comes back, in the moment of calm and in the moment of despair, echoing that painful wailing of death.

It’s so wrong.

It’s very, very wrong.

It didn’t even matter anymore why the boy showed up, only that this moment of pain continues to haunt the cave of heroes.

Continuously haunting, even as some whispered apologizes when the boy appeared. Continuously haunting, even as some provided songs of comfort when the boy appeared. Continuously haunting, even as stories of Gotham are told and promises (though uncertain and flimsy at best) are spoken to the wailing boy who always drops fast and disappears just as quickly.

Always, it was the same.

Until one day it wasn’t.

The electricity crackled like it always did. A spark, and then a calamity of light. And the boy would be there, uncurling himself into a tense position as he would wail.

But not this time.

Instead the boy curled himself in the air, calm as can be, almost as if he were sleeping. Even the electricity that they have learned to dance away from was calm, gentle, like ocean waves.

And when the electricity vanished, the boy did not, instead dropping to the floor where Dick was quick to catch him, grunting in preparation of weight only to show alarm at how thin the boy truly was.

On that face that has haunted them all for months is just a boy, sleeping, and scarred. A boy breathing very slow, slower than what they would like, but here in the physical realm with them.

Dick brushed back bangs of black hair, and slowly, ever so slowly, glazed blue eyes stared back.

[al-n-cartoons]

Whilst I wait out the duration of my food’s cook time and avoid my academic obligations, I would like to ramble about an AU/story that I have somewhat written and likely will never post (though I have posted some art…); A Story Told.

Quick background, A Story Told is the bastard child of a fifty thousand word long, abandoned fic I belted out last summer. This story idea kept poking me when I was busy working myself into the dirt, preparing to move, dealing with family nonsense, and poorly managing medical stuff.

The framework of A Story Told is that Ben (Ben 10) becomes slightly displaced from his reality per an attempt on his life nearly succeeding. When Ben gets back from the reality the Omnitrix threw him into, he finds that he pulled bits of other worlds along with him and that his world is now stuck in episodic time loops. He cannot leave the city Bellwood is inside of without leaving his reality, and the loop restarts the moment he’s returned. When tomorrow comes, it is generally after several loops (from a few days to several months). One other person is in Bellwood who remembers the loops, but they don’t exist outside of them; they’re a person who (like Ben) is technically supposed to be dead and had been in the same place that the Omnitrix threw Ben in. This person, of course, is Edward Elric because I make the rules and also Ed’s fun.

Ben and Ed spend the first while trying to figure out what the heck is going on and what the rules are for them. They come to learn that any changes to Ben are undone at the start of each cycle (whenever a day repeats) whereas some changes can stay with Ed (if he has something on his person, it will stay on him the following cycle; if he started with something one cycle and takes it off before the next then he sometimes winds up with two of those items and sometimes winds up with neither). They also learn that either of them can make changes to the areas outside of the city (out of bounds) but that anyone or thing they bring from out of bounds will return to its original location by the next cycle (unless it’s on Ed).

Bla, bla, bla, my food’s ready but I want to keep going. Also, my eldest (Kira) says “Hi” in meowmer. Okay, continuing on;

The two look for anyone who might have answers and eventually come to find some people from beyond bounds who might. Ben finds someone who has accidentally time traveled per portal hijinx (Rex Salazar) whereas Ed finds a small group of people who have been dealing with pseudo undeath and dimension hopping for quite some time (Danny Phantom et co.). While not in a loop, Ben eventually finds Zak Saturday whom at first seems to be a potential resource for answers– but none of these people do. Ben eventually finds a dimension-hopping magical type who has answers and knows what’s going on, but the solution isn’t something that Ben nor Ed find desirable.

What this person (Raven from TT) tells them is that, while Ben avoided death, Ed is supposed to be. Ed exchanged kits body and mind in exchange for kits little brother (FMA 03’s final episode) but was caught up in the Omnitrix’s cheat such that it’s bearer’s reality was bending over backwards trying to correct for someone that shouldn’t be there and simultaneously couldn’t be anywhere else. In cases like this, she explains, the reality eventually wins out and erases the one who shouldn’t be there. The reason why kit hadn’t yet was because Ben was serving as stabilizing agent and was slowing down the process.

Raven tells them that Ed is unable to die in the loops because (1) kits undeath and (2) kit gave kits body to the Gate and the body wouldn’t be allowed to die so long as the Gate still had it. She explains that the reality would erase Ed from start to finish and that the only way out of undeath is rebirth; reincarnation. Ed says that kit doesn’t want to give away kits mind while kit still had it (before the reality had started tearing it at the seams) but that it might be a viable solution if what Raven says will happen does happen.

To put it in plain terms, Ed has been handed an early diagnosis of a terminal illness and is trying to plan the next few (and last) years of kits life. Ben is in the corner trying very politely to not have an aneurysm at the bomb that was just dropped in his lap.

The first loop came when Ben was fifteen and, by the time he is seventeen (when Omniverse rolls around) there have been five years in the loop (but only three outside of them). The loops were originally every other day and, by the time Omniverse comes, they’re only a few times a month. Likewise, Ben eventually learns that he can go to places that should be out of bounds (to Rex or Danny) even when not in a loop.

Alright, I’m running out of steam and need to get back to work. Blaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Bla.

Bla.

…

(Gwen and Kevin know about the loops and have come to accept that Ben is supposedly a time looper. Max does too– but he thinks it’s just an elaborate cover story to explain why ben never brings around this person who’s Ben’s home screen picture with whom Ben is totally just friends with.)

(Ben doesn’t bother explaining the situation to Rook because he doesn’t think it would make a difference, especially when no one else seems to believe him in the first place.)

[britcision]

Okay but this will also tie in perfectly with how he actually beat Dan

Dan didn’t have his human half anymore; he was all ghost

Which means he no longer had the meta gene that would have allowed him to adjust to Danny’s rapidly increasing power

So maybe Danny doesn’t fucking know he’s a meta at all.

(Legally he’s an ecto entity, which is distinct if both the Anti Ecto Acts and Meta Protection Act exist in this world - removing his ghost half would grant him rights if the human half survived

Extra motivation for vivisection, anyone?)

He’s getting all these powers by mimicking ghosts; makes sense that he’s also just a ghost, right?

Except the ghosts can’t scoop each others’ power sets, or Ember would be beating down doors for the wail

What if only metas can become halfas at all, because it takes an extremely specific meta gene to support a ghost core AND a human body

Practical differences in any story line not about the legal battle? Eh, negligible at best. The assumption is always that any outside observer will assume Danny’s a meta; them being right ain’t a big deal

Metas have legal protections ghosts don’t, everywhere but Gotham Danny is WAY safer as a meta than a ghost (no matter his actual DNA)

But there is a juicy little side story in this, in Danny’s assumption that he’s just a ghost and learning that actually? His meta gene is vital to becoming what he is

This means Jazz is a potential carrier of what is basically a genetic nuke primed to go off at the wrong near death experience and create a super weapon

And DC has lots of lovely villains who are all about trying to breed the perfect weapon

Give me Ra’s kidnapping Jazz in his quest for a new heir

Fuck, he can also kidnap Vlad, Vlad has a weaker version of a similar meta gene (or perhaps one that was able to keep him physically alive but unwell longer, taking more time to adapt)

Vlad and Jazz Unlikely Allies team up in Ra’s’ dungeon, Vlad finally realising that the reason not one of his clones stabilised is because he didn’t fucking need Danny’s ectoplasm, he needed his living blood

His bone marrow, his stem cells, he needed enough living matter with Danny’s meta genes to adapt to an influx of ectoplasm

He tried to start with ectoplasm and shape it to a baby, but he needed the baby first… and Ra’s worked that out potentially because of Vlad’s own research

Danny can also be kidnapped for the same things, but Jazz deserves a chance to kick ninjas in the head to prevent them stealing one of her ovaries

Because let’s be honest, the best part of this story? Ra’s trying his manipulative brain washing nonsense on Jasmine Fucking Fenton, who WILL therapise his immortal ass right back

Ra’s: You have been mistreated by your family, Jasmine… they never appreciated your brilliance, your dedication. But I do.

Jazz: What, you and the mountain of daddy issues and fear of death? I mean really, you could at least personalise that speech, I bet it’s what you tell all the kidnappees.

They fucking have to steal one of her ovaries because it’s obvious within 30 seconds that dunking her in the pit to see if she halfas can only create a halfa who will kick their asses because she fucking will not obey

There’s a chance Ra’s could try his body hopping on her directly too cuz we don’t know his gender flexibility but honestly if it’s a purely mental fight there can only be one winner

Jazz will read him for filth and make him cry

Also, if this is even remotely pre Damian going to Bruce, Jazz is the fucking goddess of “You Are Mistreating That Poor Innocent Child Drop That Weapon He Needs NURTURING”

(It also gives us a chance for a young Jason to be still with the League and also hear about Hurricane Jazz fucking Ra’s up and they can bust out together, Anger Management bait all I’m sayin’)

The most interesting version of this story barely fucking needs Danny in it because the big difference in Danny being a meta or a halfa doesn’t impact his powers

It impacts how transmissible those powers might be to someone else

Also Jazz deserves to develop fucking insane action hero powers within an hour of observation of the League of Assassins because liminal!Jazz is excellent but ninja!Jazz is the bomb

Fuck it Jazz/Cass is my OTP now there’s something just juicy in the girl born to be a weapon and the girl who can’t hit the broad side of a barn both reclaiming that they are fucking more than their DNA

Also Cass’ incredible body reading combined with Jazz’s psychoanalysis is a killer combo because Cass doesn’t need to ask why if Jazzy knows

You know what?

We’re missing out on meta!Danny and it’s a shame!

Like sure:

“I’m not a meta, I’m dead!”

And

“I’m pretending to be a meta to lay low.”

Are great tropes!

Ten out of Ten would read again

But give me Danny only survived his accident due to his meta gene

The reason he keeps getting more powers like a teen with acne?

His meta gene is trying to compensate for all the dangerous bullshit in his life.

Maybe he’s not actually half dead but just a meta and that’s why all the ghosts are so hostile to him!

Come on, let’s have some variety!

[bongo-clash]

Peacock Au Part 3

(Part One & Two here!!!)

Continuation of the Eldritch Danny DPxDC fic!!!! This is Kind Of the final chapter but Bones has also been making my brain go So Wild with other ideas so!!! Big chance they'll be more parts at some point (probably after Ectober week if I do!!)

Either Way Here It Is

(Fic under cut!!) (+ Part 4 Here)

-

Constantine makes the executive decision not to explain anything to Batman until the other League members are gathered in the watchtower meeting room. Maybe not his best choice, evidenced for the most part by the seething glare the vigilante is shooting him from his place at the head of the table, but still, John really doesn’t want to have to talk about this any more than he has to. It’s already going to be a pain in his side as is. 

It doesn’t take long for the rest to appear through the zeta tubes. Superman and Wonder Woman predictably arriving first of the lot, followed by Zatanna, the Flash, and then Green Lantern. Once they’re all settled and he figures this is all the people that’ll be showing up today, he deigns to begin speaking. He might’ve appreciated a bit of a higher attendance rate, but he’ll take it. 

“Alright, you lot,” He starts, just as the Green Lantern opens his mouth, likely to ask what this whole meeting is for. “I believe we’ve got a little bit of a situation on our hands.”

“Situation how, Constantine.” Batman asks, eyes narrowed behind the cowl, the furthest thing from a question. 

Constantine sighs deeply, fingers fidgeting in his coat pocket for a cigarette even if he knows he can’t smoke in the watchtower (maybe he could just hold one…). In lieu of looking the man in the face, however, he addresses everyone else in the room. “Well, see, the Bat here had a Pit forming in his territory, and he decided it’d be a bloody brilliant idea to call me for help instead of literally anyone else. The good news is the Pit’s gone. The bad news is I’m pretty sure the thing that got rid of it is worse.”

A few of them make faces, since if Constantine’s involved then this is definitely a magic problem, and none of them are fans of magic problems- Superman looks like he’s trying not to twitch. “Can you describe it?” 

“Not properly, no. Big, bright, bit of a space theme going on? Had these horrible things on them, kept changing between eyes and mouths and hands- used those to reach out and get rid of the Lazarus Pit, ‘far as I could see. They knew I was doing it for the Big Bat even though I never said a word about it, and from what I understand, they wanted a favour for sorting it out. I don’t know what they want it for.”

Batman’s face is unreadable, but there’s a scrutiny there that permeates the air around him. “So you discovered the existence of a powerful, unknown entity, and not only did you deign to summon it into our world, but you then proceeded to make a deal with it as well, completely unaware of the potential consequences.”

“In my defence,” Constantine retorts. “This is entirely your fault for getting me involved. I’ve no clue why you thought coming to me was a solid plan in the first place.”

There’s a storm brewing beneath that bat mask, but Wonder Woman intercepts before it can descend into a full-blown argument. “Now is no time to be assigning blame, we need a plan. Do you know of any way we can attain more information on this being, Constantine?”

“Not the foggiest,” He replies simply. “The only thing the book said was that it could help with the Pits. When I asked the damn thing what it was, it just gave me a riddle and, quite frankly, I wasn’t going to push it. So unless Zatanna has anything, I’ve got nothing.”

The whole table turns to look at Zatanna. She has a contemplative look on her face, pausing for the moment presumably to run through the information in her head. “Well, there’s a lot of entities around whose existences centre on keeping the balance between realms or concepts, but this is the first I’ve heard about anything like this. The closest thing I could think of is maybe Pariah Dark, since he’s known to have a connection to the Lazarus Pits, but he’s been out of commission for centuries now, and he’s never been depicted at all the way you described…”

“…And I know for a fact that his summoning ritual requires a blood sacrifice, and this thing didn’t want blood.” Constantine finishes. 

Zatanna makes a sour face, seeming to understand his implications, and the remaining non-magic members of the JL look appropriately disturbed. He thinks the worst thing about it for them is probably that there’s no real way to plan this out. They’ve got no power list, no strengths, no weaknesses, they don’t even really know what the entity is beyond its relation to the Lazarus Pits and even that’s an area of questionability, because the Pits are damn confusing on their own. If this thing shows up on them now, they’re screwed.

And just as the thought crosses his mind, there’s a tangible shift in the watchtower atmosphere, like the air’s thinning and closing in on itself at the same time. He looks at Zatanna with matching confusion, praying to gods he’s never met and that don’t like him that he hasn’t just managed to jinx himself in the worst way possible. 

“Do you feel that?” He says, and it doesn’t look like it’s only the other magic user in the room that does, because a fair few of the remaining League are pulling expressions Constantine really doesn’t like. Please, please say he hasn’t jinxed himself. 

There’s a sound like whale song and whistling as something comes up through the floor, and there’s not enough languages on Earth or beyond to encapsulate how many swears John wants to say right now. 

But it’s not the entity. 

Or at least, it doesn’t look like the entity, even if it certainly feels like it. It kind of looks like a teenager, of all the awful things. They have flare-white hair, bright, sheepish green eyes, and they’re wearing what Constantine thinks is a hazmat suit but doesn’t know enough about hazardous material protection to say for certain. No alarms going off, no doors opening or shutting, no signals at all; just a weird breeze, and the few seconds of warning that gives before the being appeared. That’s worrying. The way the League doesn’t even say anything is more so. 

“Hi,” They start, after what feels like an eternity of silence, and oh boy, they really do sound about twelve. Constantine doesn’t know how to deal with children, let alone ones that can just phase into the most secure superhero base in Earth’s orbit. This is awful. “Okay, so, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, so I just wanted to, y’know, rectify my first impression? Uh, sorry if I came across sort of… weird.”

Everyone looks at the glowing kid. Everyone looks at each other. No one knows what to say. Flash decides to be the one to break the silence with a cough. “That’s great, kid! Uh… who are you, though?”

“Oh!” They startle. “Right. Me and Constantine met yesterday- I think I kind of scared him? It was by accident, though, I promise! I’d just had a long day, y’know? I didn’t know I was gonna get summoned and I wasn’t thinking so everything just kind of happened.”

No way. 

No. No way in Hell.

“You are not that thing I summoned yesterday.” 

And he knows, he knows entities like that tend to have forms more palatable for mortal eyes, but after seeing that yesterday, his brain just cannot for the life of it connect it to this. This child floating mid-air in a base he shouldn’t be able to access, with big huge earnest eyes and a painfully youthful face. One that seems to have reached a realisation. 

“Ah,” He says, smile just a little bit wry. “Fair enough, I did look kinda different then. Just- here, this should look a little more familiar?”

It’s not a full shift. He doesn’t contort into the same mind-searing thing that Constantine had had to bear yesterday- but his eyes scatter into neon spots across his face, nose and mouth left intact, the neck of his jumpsuit folds into the creases of an open eye, and those peacock-membrane-whatevers fall into fruition on his back, drifting like a cape or like spines. And just to top it all off, there’s a dinky little crown floating above his head, decorated with icicles and whispers of mist. 

It’s not a full shift, but Constantine’s never going to forget those damn cosmic peacock feathers. No mistaking it: that’s the entity. Forget yesterday, this is the worst day of his life. 

“What the Hell is happening right now.” Green Lantern flatlines, face dulled into non-understanding. Constantine thinks he feels the same way but worse. 

He takes a deep, cleansing breath, and tries not to scream. “You’re the one who sorted the Pit problem out?”

“Uh, yep, that’s me.”

“Okay, great! Fantastic. Can you tell me what the Hell that whole deal was?”

What’s left of the maybe teenager’s face drops somewhat, and a gloved hand reaches up to rub at the back of what’s left of his neck. “Ha, right, yeah sorry.” He mumbles, and Constantine kind of feels bad, but he’s also still kind of suffering from the adrenaline high of meeting the guy yesterday, so he guesses they’re even now. 

“So, I mean, I don’t usually look like that? It is my true form or whatever, but I’m not really… I don’t hang about in it too often. Gives people the heebie jeebies, y’know? I don’t want to scare people out of nowhere, especially not for a first meeting! But I was about to go to sleep last night when you summoned me, and I wanted to shift my form a little just to be more formal about the whole thing, but I guess I let the whole thing go by accident, and I didn’t realise at all until I got home. And if I was in that form by accident- I usually go with ghostspeak during summonings ‘cause it’s easier in that way and there’s usually translation sigils embedded in the circle- but if I was in that form by accident, then I was probably using a different dialect to the one I thought I was, so if I sounded kind of off, then that’s why. Again, really sorry about that. This was totally not how I wanted my first impression with the Justice League to go. You’re all really cool, y’know? I wanted to get off on the right foot and not the ‘let’s fight each other’ foot.”

Constantine blinks, opens his mouth, closes his mouth, and then blinks again. He’s sure there’s a reasonable response to this that can be expressed in a sentence somewhere, but right now he’s too enamoured with how utterly absurd this is. He genuinely, honestly does not know what’s worse: that this kid can turn into that, or that he can turn into that and it’s so natural he doesn’t even notice. 

Still, as consistent as the sun sets, Batman’s the first one to break the stupor, interjecting with narrowed eyes. “How do we know you’re not a threat to us? We don’t even know who you are.”

“Uh,” The kid splutters. “I didn’t introduce myself. My name’s Danny.”

“Danny.” Batman replies flatly. 

“It’s a nice name!” Danny, apparently, defends, looking about as stupefied as someone can without eyes on their face. The dinky little crown drifts after him when he moves his head. “And, um, I don’t know how to prove I’m not a threat? I mean, I closed up that Lazarus Pit for you, if that counts as being helpful in a non-threatening way?”

If anything, Constantine would think that makes someone more threatening. “You said you wanted a favour for it, that you were going to ‘find your recompense’.”

“No I didn’t?” Danny says incredulously, before he pauses and his lips part in an O. “Right, translation error, duh. I uh, didn’t actually say that, that’s just how the sigils took it I think. You don’t owe me anything. It might be nice to get some help if I’m ever in a bind or something, but we didn’t make a deal or a pact or anything, you just asked for help, so I helped. 

His brain completely shuts down, blue-screen style. This isn’t how this type of thing goes. There’s no way this is that easy. “You seriously don’t want anything.” 

“I mean, an autograph might be nice. My friend thinks you and batman are cool.”

“You don’t think the rest of us are cool?” Flash complains, because that’s exactly what he’s supposed to be getting out of this conversation and not how utterly insane it is. 

Danny, the kid that’s going to be giving him nightmares and is already giving him migraines, has the audacity to look embarrassed. “I think you’re cool; obviously you’re all cool, you’re the Justice League! My friend’s just into the edgier members, I guess? She’s goth.”

“Oh? So who’s your favourite?” Why is no one acknowledging that the incomprehensible cosmic horror just called him edgy. Why are they just moving past this. 

“…Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern. I really like space.”

Yeah, no shit, he’s made of it. 

Constantine genuinely wants to pass out. He wants Batman to get him over the head with a batarang; he wants Superman to tap him on the forehead and give him a concussion, just- anything not to be here right now. This might not even be the weirdest thing that’s happened to him, but he’s hating every minute of it. This kid’s talking and existing like it’s nothing but even as the conversation begins to border on casual the atmosphere is still thick, nearly physical with the chill and the chiming of bells and the way something shifts every time those peacock feathers waver behind him. 

Right now, John really, truly does not care if this entity’s playing some kind of twisted long con to trick them into sacrificing their souls or something equally as horrifying. He just wants to go home and forget anything ever happened. “So, you’re not a malicious entity.” Constantine states finally, putting an end to any further back-and-forth that he’d managed to tune out. 

“I promise you I’m not.” Danny replies seriously, even as his features shift back to something more human-looking that only seems like it’s trying and failing to hide something bigger underneath it now. 

Constantine puts his hands in his pockets, and turns straight to the door. “Brilliant news. I’m leaving now. I hope we never have to see each other again.” The League and that kid can do whatever they want, but Constantine swears on everything he holds sacred that he’s not touching any of it with a ten-foot pole. He never wants to have to deal with anything like this again, and he is never agreeing to do Batman another favour. 

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

Hey do you know any fics where Stiles is dating Peter or Derek secretly, and Peter/Derek is actually Scott's dad/bro or maybe the Sheriff's friend/colleague? So they have to date secretly? Preferably somewhere in the story they are found out though

AND

Anonymous asked:

Hi, I wanna know if you or someone have recs on Sterek secret relationship or some Sterek with Scientist/CSI Stiles?

Thank you for all the work you do ❤️

AND

blissfullycamren02 asked:

Do you know any steter secret relationship fics or stetopher secret relationship fics

For sure!

When Nothing Else Works by hannah_baker 

(1/1 I 5,915 I Teen I Sterek)

Sheriff Stilinski is slowly and begrudgingly accepting the fact that werewolves exist, regular bad things still do happen sometimes, and his son may or may not be dating Derek Hale behind his back.

Or, the one where having Derek Hale in his bed is the only way Stiles can get to sleep. Much to his father's annoyance.

Sugarcoated by Shey 

(6/6 I 36,806 I Explicit I Steter)

Stiles doesn't want to admit it, but his dad is right—he's trying to pack way too many minimum-wage hours into the five-week break before the new semester starts. But what else is a screwed over college student with a budget tighter than his worn-out skinny jeans supposed to do?

At least he's found some nice, distracting eye-candy to keep his mind off of his problems.

All I Need Is You (And Cookies) by SincerelyLittle

(13/13 I 18,196 I General I Steter)

“Daddy Stiles!” those are the words that ring out the Hale’s backyard, everything seems to stand still for a moment while Stiles opens his eyes to the sight of long brown hair, beautiful brown eyes and a freckled face. He doesn’t blame anyone for believing the kid when she looks so convincingly like a daughter of his own would.

Since said child is so cute, he can forgive her for potentially starting world war 3 - or at least he thought he could until the next words were "Daddy Peter and I brought cookies!" At least he'll have cookies in the middle of battle.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Escalate the Problem by Julibean19

(1/1 I 4,300 I Mature I Steter)

“I didn’t tell you because I knew what you were going to say,” Stiles hedges, shrugging his shoulders.

“And what am I going to say?” John challenges, raising his eyebrows.

“That he’s too old for me and you hate him.”

Peter pushes the screen door open with one hand, the other balancing a perfectly browned quiche. He’s dressed in a dark blue cashmere sweater and grey slacks. To Stiles, he looks like a dream. To his father, he’s sure to look like his worst nightmare.

“He’s too old for you and I hate him,” John says immediately.

Trick or Treat? by steterismylife

(2/2 I 7,898 I Explicit I Sterer)

Stiles has to do a dare and dress up as Red Riding Hood to Lydia's party but they don't know he's dating the big bad wolf. When they find out is when things get ugly.

Disposition by Tulikettu

(7/7 I 56,104 I Explicit I Sterek)

Stiles has an itch. A kinky, kinda dirty itch he needs to scratch.

So why not go on the Internet and look for a complete stranger to scratch it?

Derek needs a partner for his rut.

What a coincidence.

What We Called Love by jadore_hale

(8/8 I 105,140 I Explicit I Sterek)

He’d guessed that if Derek wasn’t paying him for the sex, then he was obviously paying him for the conversation. So Stiles made it a point to talk and never stop. Stiles rambled and Derek sometimes listened. Stiles shouted about X-Men and porn in fancy restaurants, and Derek sometimes grunted in response. Every now and then, Derek would even look up from his phone and make eye contact and blink, which Stiles would always take as a positive and real acknowledgment to his existence.   And they never had sex. Not ever. No matter how badly Stiles wanted them to, and he wanted them to, oh so badly.

Stiles Stilinski has been Derek Hale’s sugar baby for the last three years, and just can’t understand why the man pays him so much damn money.

Or the one where Danny is Miley Cyrus, Dylan Sprouse, Justin Beiber, and Kanye West all in one.

Lovely Penmanship by DLanaDHZ

(31/31 I 110,743 I Explicit I Sterek)

To use a scribe to write your letters is a sign of privilege. To be a scribe is... mildly better than a servant. When Stiles, scribe to Lady Kate Argent, is instructed to write a love letter to Lord Derek Hale in her stead, he has no idea just how far from plan things will go. He has no idea that this series of letters will begin a secret affair under the noses of his employers, will lead to him discovering the truth about his past family tragedy, and will make his head spin for both good and bad reasons. All he knows is 'Dear Derek' has some very lovely penmanship.

AND

@anowlnamedpig suggested this one!

The Long Way Home by MyChemicalRachel

(6/6 I 19,846 I Explicit I Sterek)

Stiles didn’t plan to sleep with his best friend’s dad. It just kind of happened. And then it happened again. And again. And again…

[stardustbarbarians]

I Hear the River Say Your Name

Chapter 2 (ch. 1 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 | ch. 5 | ch. 6 | ch. 7)

A Josh Kiszka / fem!reader fic

Summary: Even before you were dating, you and Josh had been friends for years. You didn't see anything changing between you anytime soon. Then one day, you wake up and Greta Van Fleet doesn't exist and Josh isn't your boyfriend.

Tags: a lot of crying, a lot of angst, implied panic attacks

Words: 3.7 k

+++

You didn’t leave your house that day. Nor did Danny, too concerned for you to feel comfortable leaving you alone. He was so patient with you, far more patient than you thought you deserved, truthfully. He comforted you as you randomly burst into tears throughout the day, so overwhelmed and confused you didn’t know what else to do.

He answered all the questions you threw at him to the best of his ability, as well. You made a mental note to thank him for all this later.

“So if you’re a professional golfer, what are the rest of the boys doing?” you ask in between bouts of crying.

“Well, Sam is running his own vegetarian restaurant, Jake plays for the men’s U.S. National soccer team, and Josh is on Broadway playing JD in Heathers,” Danny explained while handing you a glass of water.

You accept it without taking a drink, instead you just stare into it with a bittersweet pride swelling in your chest. “He always was going to end up on the stage.”

You felt your heart contract with an ache of longing. Memories of watching Josh performing on the stage at a concert replaying in your mind. It was clear he belonged up there. Not only was his voice a presence of its own, but he seemed to glow and command the attention of the room all on his own.

“He really was born to perform,” you whisper to yourself, your thumb absently rubbing the glass in your hand.

“What happened to Greta Van Fleet?”

Danny scoffed at the mention of the band. “We never left the garage.”

This made you snap your head up in Danny’s direction. Obviously the band never made it big if all the boys were in different professions, but never going anywhere with it?

“You never got signed by Republic Records?”

There was a solemn look on his face as he ran his fingers through hair. “No record labels would sign us.”

“That’s bullshit, you guys are one of the greatest bands of our generation! Why the hell not?!” How stupid were those record label people to pass on your boys??

“They didn’t think we were going to sell anything because it was so different to what was popular,” Danny grimly explained.

You just couldn’t wrap your head around that. People around the globe bought their music, they were a global sensation yet they “wouldn’t sell anything”. It made you sick.

“I know it doesn’t really mean a whole lot, but since you already think I’m crazy there’s really no harm in me saying it. You guys were touring the world and even won a Grammy. Hell, before I woke up in this fucked up alternate universe, you guys were on tour with Metallica.” It probably wasn’t as comforting as you thought it was, but you needed to tell him. That band had and still has the potential for greatness. It deserved to be more than a trivia fact on each of the boy’s wikipedia pages.

Danny was silent for a moment, taking in what you had disclosed to him. It was strange not being able to know what he was thinking, he usually always wears his heart on his sleeve. After a moment, a small smile spread across his face and he hummed.

“At least you believed in us,” he sighed, a tiredness in his tone that indicated to you just how much of a sore topic that was. You could tell that he didn’t believe you, but at least he understood that you weren’t trying to taunt him.

You take a deep breath and look away from Danny, feeling the surefire indicators of a new set of tears forming in your eyes. You were tired of crying. You just wanted to go at least a few hours without shedding tears, but that had proven futile.

There was a knock on the door that disrupted the spell of quiet that had befallen the two of you. You and Danny looked at one another, a silent conversation going between you two about who would answer it. You got up from your spot on the couch, needing to stretch your legs. Looking through the peephole in the door, you were treated to a surprise. Without a second thought, you threw open the door.

“Sammy?”

Standing in front of you was none other than the youngest Kiszka brother, that brilliant yet goofy smile lighting up his entire face like a sparkler. It always lended to his boyish charm, his smile. Yet it was also extremely contagious, which was why you found yourself smiling right back at him.

“Hiya, sweetheart,” he greeted, throwing his arms open as an invitation to hug him. You took it without hesitation, wrapping your arms around him tightly. You breathed in, his scent filling your nose. He smelled of cigarettes and sandalwood and myrrh; at least he still smelled the same in this hell you found yourself in.

“Sammy, what are you doing here?” You invited him in after releasing him from your embrace.

He looked over your shoulder at something behind you, causing you to look as well. You hadn’t even heard him walking up to you.

“Danny invited me over. He told me you were having a bad time?” He took a spot behind the counter in your kitchen, leaning on his forearms against the faux marble.

Immediately you wanted to tell him about everything, you even opened your mouth to just let it all out. But, you stopped yourself. You know that you sounded crazy. Hell, you were beginning to believe that you’d gone mad yourself. What else could explain how you found yourself in an alternate dimension?

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” you dismiss, waving your hand in the air.

“I already think that, anyway,” Sam joked, that boyish smile spreading across lips again.

You still were hesitant. Part of you knew that Sam wouldn’t make fun of you for this, but there was also a part of you that was terrified that they were one step away from admitting you to a mental hospital.

A gentle hand gliding across your upper back made you jump at first, but you recognized it as Danny trying to comfort you and you relaxed. “It’s alright, we aren’t going to judge you.”

Closing your eyes and holding out your hand for Danny to take, he grabs it and you instantly feel so much better. You knew your Sammy and Danny wouldn't think you were crazy, but you didn’t know how this Danny and Sammy would react.

Taking a deep breath, you decide to just go for it. (You were never really able to say no to Sam’s puppy eyes)

“This morning, I think I woke up in a different dimension. I know it sounds totally insane, but I swear to you that this is not my normal life. The Danny, Sam, Jake and Josh I know are world renowned musicians who won a Grammy. Greta Van Fleet is considered one of the best bands of the generation and you guys sold out stadiums.

“You don’t play golf professionally,” you look at Daniel, “you aren’t in the restaurant business,” you said to Sam, “Jake isn’t a soccer player, and Josh doesn’t perform on Broadway.”

A loaded silence fell over the group. You felt Danny’s hand tighten its grip on yours, just enough for there to be slight pressure. You watched as the two guys exchanged a silent conversation, their faces expertly masked to hide their concern over you. However you knew these boys almost as well as you knew yourself and you saw right through their masks.

“You guys think I’m insane,” you finally relent, the oppressive quiet making you crack.

“No-“

“A little.”

“Sam,” Danny snapped, a stern look in his eye.

“What? You have to admit that’s a little crazy.”

At the very least, Sam managed to get you to smile.

“Thanks for your honesty,” you murmured, staring at the dark hardwood floor.

“While it is a little far-fetched, we think you’re being genuine,” Danny remarked in a very soothing tone. It reminded you of honey.

“Wait, really?” You searched both of their faces, finding that they both in fact believed you were genuine.

“It’s kind of hard not to believe you’re being genuine after seeing you sob all day over our long failed garage band,” Danny soothed, his thumb gently rubbing the back of your hand.

That garnered a small chuckle out of you, laughing at the ridiculousness of your over emotional day.

“I’ll make us some dinner. You guys have any special requests?” Sammy piped up, standing at his full height now.

“As long as it pairs well with hard liquor, I’m alright with whatever,” you quip, rubbing your hand down your face in exhaustion.

“If you’re drinking, would you mind making me a cocktail? You were always better than me at making them,” Danny requested.

“Unless you want a rum and Coke or a Salty Dog, I can’t really help you.”

Josh

“Excuse me, guys.”

You pulled your hand out of Danny’s and ran for the backyard, not even bothering to close the door behind you as your bare feet crashed into the dewy grass. Your chest thrummed in an arduous ache as you were reminded of the love of your life. You felt your throat closing in on itself and your breathing became a chore. The world around you blended into amorphous blobs of dulled color, the sun having slipped below the horizon.

You hadn’t even realized that you were kneeling in the grass until you felt the fabric of your pants become entirely damp. You were so focused on the flash images of precious moments in your and Josh’s relationship that only served as a reminder of how fucked up everything was.

The mountains were level, the valleys were high. Truth is a lie, you were perfectly fine. Josh was still in love with you, and everything was normal.

You were hyperventilating, each gasp of breath proving to be near as painful as the throbbing anguish in your heart. You wanted to just wail out in sorrow, to fully drown in your misery and let it overcome you. But you were raised in Michigan, and god forbid you let yourself feel anything other than surface level emotions. So instead, you just gripped onto the grass underneath your hands like it was the only thing keeping you alive and let your tears cascade silently down your cheeks.

Whomever or whatever placed you in this situation was cruel. Josh was the person you cherished most in your life. He was always there for you in any way he could be. He was your first for so many things: your first crush, your first kiss, your first love. You were used to him not being around physically all the time, but to know that he wasn’t there at all was the worst form of punishment you could imagine. To know that you couldn’t call him and be on the phone for hours on end, to not be able to add one of the lighters he left at your house to your ever growing collection. You would no longer be treated to your own personal concert in your room while Josh was showering in the next room. No longer would you so easily get to hear his giggling at a childish joke. No longer would you take his glasses off his face to clean off the lenses for him as he so often forgot to do. No longer were you able to wrap his curls around your fingers as you two were lounging and doing nothing in particular.

You weren’t able to experience any of that anymore. It was ripped away from you, peeled away like a layer of your skin, leaving you vulnerable and exposed. Not wanting to be near your house anymore, you get up from the grass and take off running in the woods that envelope your property. There was no set destination, you just needed to escape. Mud was beginning to cake the soles of your feet, but you couldn’t care less.

It wasn’t until you reached the Cass river that you stopped. The trickling of the water flowing in the late spring night gave you pause, forcing your anxiety and sorrows to be calmed. Leaning against a nearby tree, you close your eyes and just let the sounds of the nocturnal woods wash over you and offer you the comfort you so desperately needed.

You were beginning to feel your heart beat at a normal pace when something kicked it back into high gear. Underneath the leaves rustling against the wind and the bubbling of the brook at your feet was the hissing of whispers. It was so easy to miss and at first you believed that your mind was playing a trick on you, but you just kept hearing it. Searching frantically around you for the culprit, afraid someone was a danger to your life in the darkened woods, you came to the conclusion that you were alone.

It was while you were standing on the bank of the river that you realized that the whispering started to have a tone. It was now as if someone was stage whispering to you, but the words were still indiscernible. Figuring that you were already crazy and you had nothing to lose, you follow your instinct to lean your ear closer to the water. Without a doubt, that’s where the voice was coming from. Underneath the flow of water was a voice murmuring something over and over again. Straining your ears to try and decipher it, you close your eyes in the hopes that it will help you focus.

"Joshua Michael Kiszka.”

Your eyes snap open, feeling yourself recoil away from the river bank. You would have screamed if not for the impact of your spine colliding with the ground robbing you of your air. Every attempt at breathing proved to be arduous and laborious.

It wasn’t real. You didn’t just hear the river say his name. That wasn’t possible.

Your heart was pounding away at your ribcage like it was trying to do its best recreation of a miner. Half-baked and incomplete thoughts raced through your mind in a maelstrom of bedlam. It was as if you couldn’t even understand your own thoughts.

Suddenly, a murder of crows thought it was the ideal time to take off into the sky from wherever they were congregated. The abrupt cawing from the ominous birds forced you to pay attention to them. You watched as they ascended to the inky sky above, following no clear path as they traversed the stars.

That was when you finally screamed.

With your hands braced behind you and keeping your torso off the ground, you gawked at the sky above you in terror. You didn’t even notice your pants being caked in mud as your legs were sprawled out in front of you or that all the warmth was leeching out of your palms into the soggy ground beneath them. The only thing your attention was focused on was the night sky looming over you.

How had you not noticed it before? How had you not observed the rich yet eerie green film that had been cast across the environment around you?

All you could feel was pure fear as you stared down the object in the sky. It felt as if it could see right into your soul and mind, judging and deciding your very fate.

“-are you alright?? We’ve been searching for you and heard you scream,” a voice to your left rushed, ripping you out of your terrifying trance.

Pulling up from the ground was Sam, his long hair and sharp features reflecting the unnatural green glow originating from the sky on the left side of his face. He held your arms in his hands, the concern dripping in his rich brown eyes.

You wanted to answer him, but you couldn’t form coherent thoughts. The only thing going through your mind was the thing in the sky and the bone deep dismay coursing through your body.

Taking your face into his hands, Sam forced you to look at him and not glance frantically back at the sky. “Hey, it’s ok. You’re ok.”

He wiped away the tears you didn’t know had fallen down your face. He was able to calm your anxieties somewhat the longer you looked away from the sky. Forcing yourself to breathe at a normal rate, you leaned into Sam’s hands and closed your eyes.

“Sammy, what is that?” Your voice was still riddled with panic, but you were able to now put your thoughts together.

You pointed at the sky, your hand trembling. You kept your eyes on the man in front of you as he looked at what you were talking about. Looming in the sky was a rectangular gem that looked like a neon light. In fact, it was glowing a brilliant pure green like a neon light would.

“What, the Emerald Star?” he clarified. You nodded your head in confirmation.

“Where’s the moon?”

Just as you asked, Danny came crashing through the woods. He was breathing heavily as he spotted the both of you. Without saying anything, he made his way over to you and pulled you into a tight embrace. He’d been worried about you and you felt it in his hug.

“Don’t do that to me,” he breathed, still trying to catch his breath.

“I’m sorry.” You return the hug, his curly hair tickling your nose.

“You can’t just-” He pulled out of the embrace to look you in the eyes, the left side of his face also glowing in the ghastly neon green from the alleged Emerald Star. “You can’t just take off like that, alright? Me and Sam were so worried that we’d lost you with how distraught you were. We’ve been calling your name and searching for you for almost an hour now and then we heard you scream and-”

He cut himself off, shutting his eyes and pursing his lips. Sam placed a hand on his best friend’s shoulder, giving it a reaffirming squeeze.

“It’s alright, man. She’s right here, we found her,” he comforted, his hand moving from Danny’s shoulder to the side of his neck, gently pulling Danny’s head onto his chest.

For a moment, the three of you just basked in the relative silence of the night. The steady rush of the river bedside you all proved to have a very effective calming effect when it’s not somehow whispering your boyfriend’s name to you.

“C’mon guys, let’s get something to eat,” Sammy suggested after a minute. There were no objections to that and you all walked back to the house.

Upon arriving, you excused yourself to your bedroom to change out of your muddy and wet clothes. What you didn’t plan on doing was eavesdropping in your best friends

As you were getting changed, you didn’t bother closing the door all the way as you saw no point. The acoustics of the hallway leading into your room from the kitchen made it so that you could hear every word spoken.

“Sam, I’m so worried about her,” Danny admitted in a hushed tone.

“You’re telling me. She seemed absolutely horrified by the Emerald Star as if she’d never seen it before.”

“Is that why she screamed?”

“I think so. She asked me what happened to the moon,” Sam informed, his tone ringing with concern and confusion.

There was a lull in conversation. You had foregone getting changed in favor of pressing your ear to the door.

“She didn’t tell you earlier, but she thought she and Josh were dating,” Daniel commented, breaking the silence.

“Seriously?”

There was a small pause as you heard some rustling, assuming that Danny nodded his head. “She texted him good morning and when he asked her why she responded with ‘can’t I wish my boyfriend good morning’.”

“I take it she doesn’t know about Clara, then.”

Your pulse pounded throughout your veins, already connecting the dots in your head.

“I didn’t have the heart to tell her,” Danny admitted.

“She deserves to know, Danny,” Sam lightly reprimanded.

“She’s been sobbing all day, mostly over Josh. You saw how terrified and confused she was.”

You heard a bone deep, weary sigh originate from one of them.

“What do you think is going on?”

“I don’t know, but I think we need to take her to a hospital,” Sam posited.

Feeling like your heart was about to explode in your chest, you pull yourself away from the door and bite on your fingers to keep from choking out a sob. Frantically, you scramble up from your spot on the floor to find the wooden box you kept on your shelf.

Taking a spot back on the floor, you place the box in front of you and remove the lid, revealing your deck of tarot cards. Taking them out of the box, you shuffle them before asking a question. You didn’t have to. Immediately, four cards flew out of the deck and fluttered onto the floor. Setting down the rest of the deck, you flip over each card.

Laying out in front of you were The Moon, The Tower, The Page of Wands, and The High Priestess. The Moon and The Tower were obvious, nothing was as it seemed and your life had turned completely upside-down. The combination of The Page of Wands and the High Priestess puzzled you momentarily until you remembered the core element of The Page of Wands: seeking knowledge. Your cards were telling you to get help from someone more knowledgeable than you that you trusted in order to find the answers you needed.

Pulling out your phone from the pocket of your discarded pants, you opened up your contacts and searched for one woman in particular, hoping that she was around in this universe. If anyone would be able to understand what had happened to you, it would be the very woman who taught you the art of tarot and divination. She was the most spiritually in touch person you had ever seen; if you weren’t for certain she was mortal, you’d almost be inclined to think she was an omniscient goddess.

Upon finding her contact, you breathe out a sigh of relief. You wasted no time calling her despite the time of night. You were going to see Lady Moonbeam.

+++

This is what the Emerald Star looks like, just to help you visualize.

Taglist: @shutupdevvie @trplshotofdopamine @maykiszka

@m1rkw00dpr1ncess @allieboop @theleft0ver

Taglist Form

[sporesgalaxy]

ah a little ghost zone headcanon lore thing I had been thinking abt since I rewatched Public Enemies......exits from the ghost zone are uncommon, but not unheard of.

Wulf can bust out whenever he wants, which is treated as rare and powerful, but if 1 ghost has that power it stands to reason that other ghosts can potentially have variations upon it. Probably usually a much more conditional power for those who have it, but it's also probably still pretty rare since the Fenton portal is obviously in high demand. Metanarratively it would just be busted as hell if a bunch of ghosts could leave whenever they want.

That said, I think the naturally occurring portals in the Infinimap episode and the mostly-ignored Ghost Lair Doors all over the place in the Ghost Zone can be used to reason the existence of a number of Ghost Lairs which are connected to the human world. These are limited by where and sometimes when they are connected, and many of them are less stable and/or conditional somehow.

Ah shit wait I've actually just described Sidney Pointdexter's mirror. This is literally canon they just did nothing with it.

So clearly, I like Sidney Pointdexter's setup a lot, and would like to have Danny run into more ghosts who already sort of haunt the human world & have been doing so since before the Fenton Portal. The Dairy King haunting Vlad's first mansion is another example of ghosts canonically just existing in the human world in s1.

Silence's lair is not connected to the human world, because she doesn't have any strong metaphysical ties to one particular place, especially since the Library she wouldve spent the most time at burned down with her in it. Essentially she took it to the afterlife with her.

BUT as a Studyer of All Ghosts, naturally she wants to observe and record the afterlives of those residing partially or fully in the human world. I've alluded to this before, but I've never connected it to my longstanding plot hole of how exactly she is so practiced at posing as a human. I'll have to work out the who & how, but what all this adds up to is Silence knowing some shortcut into the human world through SOME ghost's lair, that she regularly uses and found long before she met Vlad or the Fentons built their portal.

[cordria]

Second Chances

Unlike popular opinion, Clockwork wasn’t the master of all time. Just the 50,000,317 most likely ones. And he didn’t really know which of those times would happen - he was just very skilled at statistics and probability.

And, being the master of time, he knew that in only 47 of those fifty-million-or-so futures does this particular person show up at his front door right now. That gave the knock at his door only a 0.000094% chance of happening.

Which explains why he wasn’t waiting for her.

Clockwork pulled open the door to glare at the human woman. She was dressed in a blue protective outfit, some sort of jetpack on her back, and a weapon dangling loosely from her hand. 

“I would like your help,” Maddie Fenton said without introducing herself.

He ran a tongue over his teeth. Of the 47 futures where this happened, only four of them turned out for the best. 8.5%. Statistically bad enough odds it wasn’t worth engaging in conversation. “No.” He floated backwards, intent on shutting the door and sending the woman home.

The weapon came up, whirring up a charge and glowing dangerously. “Let me rephrase it, then. You’re going to help me.”

Clockwork raised an eyebrow and shifted his form to his sixteen-year-old self, intentionally parroting her son’s age. One blast from her weapon would hurt, but it certainly wouldn’t cause permanent damage. He would have just continued to close the door, but in one of the 47 futures, she was pushed to violence and it ended with the utter destruction of the infinite realms. Even a 2% chance of that happening was too high. “Very well,” he said, releasing the door. He would appease her for now. “Come in, Mrs Fenton.”

Maddie let the charge in the weapon fade away and she stepped inside, glancing around. He wondered if she found all the clocks and ticking noises as off-putting as her son did. He prodded at his lair, turning up the volume.

“What is it you need help with?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. In 46 of those 47 universes, she came here for the same thing.

“I need to go back in time. Back to the accident.”

Clockwork rested his weight on his staff and shifted to an older age. He didn’t bother to ask which accident. The goal was to talk her out of this, not bore himself. “Why?”

Her shoulders dropped. “I can’t… sleep.”

He hummed and waited.

“... Just… knowing what he went through by himself. It hurts too much.” Even through the mask on her face, she looked to be in pain. 

A human mother, driven to violence for the sake of her child, was a dangerous thing. Clockwork narrowed his eyes and felt his fingers tighten on his staff. Hopefully he would not have to destroy the woman to protect against that chance of oblivion. Daniel would not take it well. “And you want to go back and stop it from happening?”

Maddie shook her head. “I want to be there for him.” 

He cocked his head, wordlessly asking her to continue. 

“I’ve thought this through a dozen times. More.” She spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “I don’t think I can take this from him. This is who he is, and he’s better for it. Everyone is better for it.” She was quiet for a moment. “But he doesn’t have to do it alone. I can be there for him.” Her words picked up speed and confidence. “I can be home, be there for him for once instead of out chasing some ghost that wasn’t there. I can be the one that finds him instead of his friends. I can… I can be a good mother for once.”

“You are a good mother,” Clockwork assured her.

“No, I’m not,” she scowled. “The last month has made that incredibly clear. But I could be.”

Clockwork drummed his fingers on his staff. This conversation had narrowed down the 47 possible universes to 22. That meant 18.2% of those turned out well, including one that was a wonderful potential future. “Interesting,” he murmured, changing his mind about shooing the woman away. 

“What is?” She blinked at him.

“This.” He turned and headed up a set of stairs, confident the woman would follow. 

“You’ll do it? You’ll send me back?”

Clockwork hummed noncommittally, shifting his form again, aiming for the visage of a wise old man. He floated along in silence until he reached the center of his lair, surrounded by ticking cogs and twirling bits of wheels and dials. The rhythmic sound thrummed through the air, making everything vibrate. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel, before he glanced back at his human visitor.

The woman was clearly not enjoying it. Her hands were over her helmet, obviously trying to press hands against her ears, and he could see her eyes scrunched together in pain. 

Clockwork let everything tick a few more times before he gestured with his staff, bringing everything to a stop. The quiet hurt, almost like he imagined a human heart attack would hurt. But it was ignorable, wouldn’t cause him lasting damage, and would allow for this conversation to happen. “Come here.”

Still blinking back tears, Maddie stepped forwards, studying the swirling green gases. He knew she didn’t have the eyes necessary to make out the 50 million odd futures shifting endlessly in the gas - he tightened his fingers on his staff, bringing one of those futures to the front. 

It was a horrible potential future. Danny was nineteen and had lost his mind. A large swath of both worlds was destroyed. 

Clockwork didn’t watch the scene. He watched the woman. 

She stepped closer, studying the images, slowly raising her hands to her mouth. “That’s the future?” she whispered.

“That’s one of several possible futures,” he said, “if you go through with your plan.”

“So I make it worse.” Her hands fell to her side, her eyes closing, tears slipping down her cheeks. 

He hummed and shifted the future. One she should recognize. It happened today, just a few hours ago - only in a different time stream. This Danny wasn’t sitting at the table with a black eye and broken arm, looking defeated and exhausted and picking at his supper. This one looked happy and vibrant, with a humorous twist to his grin. “This is possible too.”

Maddie watched for a very long time. “Why did you show this to me?”

“So you understand.” Clockwork shifted through futures in the gases, pausing each for a second so she could see them. Although he showed her a mix of bad futures and good ones, the bad was much more common. “Any of these are possible. We are already in a time stream that is one of the best outcomes. You going back might assuage your pain, but it doesn’t necessarily help your son.”

She sank to her knees, staring blankly at the shifting futures.

“If you do this, you have a much greater chance of making the future worse than making it better.”

“You want me to just go home,” she said quietly.

“It would be the safest outcome,” Clockwork said. The best possible outcome appeared on the screen again - a carefree young man with a strong support system. Clockwork leaned on his staff, studying the future, feeling it out. Dark Dan didn’t exist in this time stream. The New War wasn’t hovering on the horizon; instead there loomed a powerful king that would bring in a new age of peace and prosperity for the infinite realms. He cut his eyes over to Maddie Fenton. “But not the best.”

Maddie stared at the screen, tears still lingering on her cheeks behind the protective helmet. He could almost feel her longing for that image to be true. For her son to not be lying in his bed right now, in pain and feeling utterly alone.

“You can build a relationship out of the past we have. You can repair some of the damage that’s been done.” 

“But I’ll never have that,” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from the carefree smile on the young hybrid’s face.

“No,” Clockwork agreed. 

She was very quiet. Time wasn’t passing and Clockwork was infinitely patient. It was important that she made the right decision, and he was willing to wait. He aged his form a bit more, feeling his back curl, his beard lengthen, his knobby fingers clinging to the staff to hold himself upright.

“What’s the difference?” she asked, finally looking over at him and pointing towards the screen. “What’s the difference between that one and the bad ones? If I went back, how do I make sure that happens?”

“You’re the difference,” Clockwork said, “and you alone. Your choices. Your love. Your acceptance.” He tipped his head. “Your stability, your rationality, your rules, your respect. The balance you choose to strike between his freedom and boundaries parents must place upon youth.” He let his hold on the screen relax, and it started to shift between possibilities again.

She laughed, a soft disbelieving sound. “So it’s all on me.”

Clockwork arched an eyebrow. “You came to me. What else did you expect?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered. “Can you tell me? Can you tell me what to change?”

“The difference comes in a million little choices you would make every day. It’s not one thing.” Clockwork tipped his head. “Will you risk it? Will you risk this,” he froze the image on utter destruction, “for a chance at this?” he sent it back to the best possible future. “Or will you go home, play it safe, and build a life out of the decisions you’ve already made?”

He watched her get back to her feet and take an uncertain step forward, reach out a gloved hand, and touch the smiling image of her son. “I…”

Clockwork felt the future shift. The probabilities change. 

“I will,” she breathed. “I’ll risk it. I can be a better mother. I know it.”

“Very well.” He nudged the swirling mass with his staff, and it resolved into an image of the Fenton basement laboratory a bit more than two years previously. The portal was silent and dark. “The future rests on you.”

Maddie gave an uncertain chuckle. “No pressure, huh?”

“Just the fate of two entire worlds,” Clockwork agreed. The back end of his staff caught her knees, sending her stumbling forward through the portal. “Choose wisely. Time in.”

He watched her steady herself on a table in the lab, looking around the dark basement. 

“I’ll be right back,” came a shout from upstairs.

Clockwork watched Maddie flinch, then duck under a table just before the lights flickered on. She couldn’t let them know she was here until after the accident.

Danny Fenton tromped down the steps, his friends in hot pursuit. “You guys don’t need to come down here. My parents will kill you if they find you down here.”

“No they won’t,” Tucker Foley said, “your mother likes me.”

“And your dad likes me,” Sam Manson added. “They’ll just kill you.”

“Fair point,” Danny muttered. “But let’s not get caught anyways.”

Clockwork rested his weight on his staff and shifted his form to that of a toddler. “Good luck, child,” he said. 

[mimeparadox]

Alias vs. Nikita: Sydney Bristow and Nikita Mears: On Ethos

It took Danny for Sydney to even consider that SD-6 was not what it claimed to be.  

All told, the core premise of Alias is not one that stands up to scrutiny. In order for SD-6 to successfully fool nearly its entire staff into thinking that it was legitimately part of the C.I.A., the organization would have had to be either identical to the C.I.A., which presents myriad problems; its members would have had to be not nearly as innocent or patriotic as Alias pretends they are; or not nearly as perceptive or paranoid as spooks are required to be.

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that the latter (*1) is true. Consider, for example, how the existence of the Alliance is common among SD-6 members. Somehow, despite the fact that the cartel is precisely the sort of threat a group like SD-6 would be designed to handle—“the very people I thought I was fighting against,” Sydney claims—nobody ever finds it weird that SD-6…never actually fights it. More relevantly, there’s the fact that SD-6 had a policy of eliminating security threats, which agents knew about and apparently considered to be part and parcel of what it meant to work for the C.I.A. If anyone had doubts or suspicions, they were more than happy to set them aside as they did crimes. And Sydney was no different—until Danny.  

Danny Hecht’s murder was the first crack in the mirror; Daniel Monroe’s was the last straw. His death may have led Nikita to escape Division, but as the story makes clear, she already had an established history of questioning, and even covertly disobeying, her superiors. What’s more, it was not personal tragedy that led her to seriously question Division, but rather, the things she was asked to do. Therein lies the first key difference between Sydney and Nikita: they view the world through drastically different prisms.

For much of Alias, Sydney approaches the world through a tribalist perspective, dividing the world into two: those who are with her, and those who are not. Us vs. them. Right and wrong are determined not by the morality of an action or the contexts under which it is performed, but rather about who does it. Espionage is good when performed by the United States, but not when performed by an enemy. Lying to one’s friends and attempting to undermine their life’s work is forgivable when she does it, but not when someone like Lauren does.

For much of Alias, this binary thinking undergirds Syndey’s entire moral philosophy. There was nothing objectionable about SD-6 until it stopped being her tribe, after which she comes to hate it without qualms. The C.I.A. may be just as bad as SD-6 (or it would be, in a show more determined to explore its premise and or show the U.S. in a more critical light), but its actions can reflexively be excused away or forgiven. A.P.O. is as clear an illustration as one can get of this dissonance: explicitly designed to mirror SD-6, it is an admission that Sydney’s problem with her former employees had less to do with anything they actually did, but with which team they played for. Conversely, her loyalty to the C.I.A. has less to do with what they do and more what they do for her: while Sydney will likely never outright turn against the United States, she’ll bite back when she thinks they are a threat to her or her loved ones, without ever considering it to be a betrayal of her beliefs—blackmailing and extorting the  government are okay when she does it.  We see this in a smaller, more personal level with Sydney’s parents, whose actions Sydney considers unforgivable until she is convinced that they were done for her benefit.  Once this happens, their many crimes prove very easy to get over. 

One could argue, correctly, that Nikita is also all about doing the most for her loved ones: more than once we are shown that she is the sort of person who chooses her family over the world. However, her ethos is ultimately and fundamentally non-tribalist, and it is precisely this quality which led to her turning against Division. While Percy and Amanda and Michael did their damnedest to make sure their agents’ first priority was Division itself—us vs. them—Nikita never bought into that narrative, continuously choosing others—Ramón, Alex, Stefan and Ari Tasarov, Daniel, herself—over the organization.

Additionally, one of Nikita’s trademarks is the ease with which she makes allies, and her willingness and ability to work with others, even when their agendas do not align. The fact that Michael and Alex were working for Division did not stop Nikita from assisting them when necessary.  Similarly, Owen joining Gogol frustrated Nikita, but it did not cause her to turn against him. It’s why she was able and willing to rejoin Division, once Percy and Amanda were driven out: just because someone is against her doesn’t mean she can’t work with them—there may be an “us” and a “them”, but not necessarily a “vs”. For Nikita, the world is complicated and requires compromise: purity is a good way to get jack squat, and condemning people for making those compromises when she herself has done the same would require condemning herself.

If only Sydney thought the same.  Shockingly for someone in her field, Sydney is consistently terrible at working with people if they’re on her shit list. And while she might argue that this is merely a refusal to compromise her principles, it’s not about that at all: it’s about a desire for simplicity where it does not exist.    

One of the chief features of tribalism is that it is not concerned with logical or moral consistency, and we see this quite a lot with Sydney’s behavior, which at best lacks self-awareness, and at worst is plainly hypocritical.  Consider how many times Sydney goes rogue, disobeying, lying to, extorting or undermining her superiors, and how it results in lasting consequences for her, precisely zero times. Consider how she spent SEVEN YEARS as one of the top agents for an international criminal organization, and how little this ultimately matters (seriously, no one ever ever ever brings it up as a potential reason why she shouldn’t be trusted, which is appallingly stupid). Another person might notice this, realize how much they’ve benefited from others’ sympathy and understanding, and treating others similarly, but Sydney, not so much. Irina turns herself in, doing the same thing Sydney herself did a season earlier? She is the worst—a traitor, even though she never claimed to be loyal to the United States. Sloane claims to have reformed? Not on her watch. Perhaps most egregiously, when it is revealed that Lauren is part of the Covenant—the group which kidnapped Sydney and brainwashed her in order to turn her into an assassin—at no point does Sydney consider that the same might have happened to her.  And not only is this mindset hypocritical, especially when she turns around and conditionally lets bygones be bygones, it actively makes her a worse spy. Because she is so often invested in not understanding her enemies, she often misses opportunities to see them as potential tools (*2). Additionally, she is often at sea when those same antagonists choose to use her.

Had Sydney persisted in her tribalist outlook throughout the series, Alias would not have worked. Fortunately, she did not, and her transition into the sort of person who could work with Sloane or embrace Rachel, who was partly responsible for Vaughn’s death, allows her story to follow a concrete emotional arc.  It’s largely accidental, but the growth is there. Ironically, Nikita’s journey goes the other way, as circumstances lead her to adopt Division as her tribe, and to take morally corrosive measures she had once condemned in order to protect it. It is only circumstance, in the form of the Division mutiny, that prevented her and her friends from becoming the very thing they’d sought to escape. And in the end, she chooses to set aside tribalism: after Ryan is killed, she chooses the world over herself.  

What is particularly interesting about this divergence in worldviews is that it’s largely unintentional: while Nikita is precisely who the showrunners designed her to be, Alias’ writers surely did not intend Sydney to be as morally vacuous and un-self-aware as she is. Even so, both characters’ ethos make complete sense, given what we know of them, and in the next part, I’ll be talking a little bit about how both Sydney and Nikita were shaped by their pasts.  

----

Footnotes!

*1: Technically, the former is also true, insofar as, if we discount the security section shenanigans, we don’t really see SD-6 or its members do the work of an evil organization. The missions Sydney and Dixon are sent on are identical to the sort of missions the C.I.A. will send them on, which suggests something rather different from what the show thinks it suggests.  

*2: Case in point, Simon Walker. While he never draws Sydney’s ire the way someone like Sark does, that she never considers cultivating him as an asset despite the fact that he likes her and his relationship with the Covenant is entirely mercenary is one of the more frustrating things of that arc.

[ladylynse]

So, I've seen you reblogging some random My Hero Academia fanart lately, and I was wondering how much of it you know? Why? Because I'm curious if you have any idea about a possible crossover with Danny Phantom. (it's surprising how well DP can be crossover-ed with basically EVERYTHING and still make sense...)

I have seen the show. I...think?...I’m caught up on the show. I have not read a word of the manga. 

For a crossover with DP, I like the idea of Danny falling into their world rather than the other way around; it’s just easier, even if you toss in a time travel/dimension kind of quirk thing gone wrong and rely on Clockwork to get them home again. Me, I’d do this one of two ways, depending on whether or not Danny ever has a chance of going home again. Or, perhaps more accurately, how slim that chance is, because he’d still have a chance.

Option 1: Danny’s stuck in their world. Forever. Or near enough. Because he was trapped in a thermos for years, longer than anyone would expect him to be alive, and his time doesn’t exist, it’s past, it’s gone, because it hasn’t just been a day, it hasn’t just been a month, not even a year, and every human he ever knew and loved is gone. He couldn’t even find his family if he tried. It’s been too long, the world’s changed, and there are these things called quirks now, and he just.... He holds onto the faint hope that Clockwork can get him back home, that Clockwork will agree to let him go back home, that this can just be a few extra days or weeks or whatever lived in his life but otherwise it’s fine and like he was never anywhere else, but the stable portals he knew are gone, he doesn’t know how to find and can’t create the natural ones, and ghosts like Wulf and Cujo wouldn’t even know he was back. 

He can’t remember very well how he got into this mess. Maybe Vlad caught him and buried him on the other side of the world; maybe Vlad tossed him into the Ghost Zone, never really expecting Danny to get out. Everything is muddled, confused, coming back in pieces, and not like a moment frozen in time where he gets out and immediately remembers everything. It’s not like it normally is. But maybe it’s because he wasn’t released like he normally is, since he didn’t get out until the thermos degraded to the point that there was a hole he could slip through. Maybe it’s just because he was in there too long. He...he doesn’t know.

Option 2: AKA my old standby for DP crossovers to worlds that aren’t enough like his own, a door or portal in the Ghost Zone. Maybe Danny meant to go through, whether he was exploring or running from something with five sets of teeth that was faster than it had any right to be, or maybe it popped up in front of him and he was through before he could change course. He doesn’t have more hope of getting home in this scenario, exactly, but he’d be more hopeful, because this obviously isn’t the same world, it can’t be, so he can get back and get home and it’ll all be fine. 

In both cases, you can ignore the language barrier--write it off as a ghostly ability Danny didn’t realize he had, though that logic fails a bit when Tucker understands Wulf the best, or maybe Danny hearing it for years while in the thermos and just sort of absorbing it--through osmosis, if you like. But if you acknowledge it. If you accept the fact that Danny suddenly finds himself in a world where he can’t speak the language, can’t read or understand or even be sure he recognizes the language--because what is that, Chinese, Japanese, Korean? He has no idea. It might not even be any of those if it’s been how many years since, what with evolution of language. He just knows he doesn’t know the alphabet at all--then you can easily force other characters to interact with him once he gets in trouble (as will happen; it’s Danny) and maybe bring in a convenient universal translator hero support prototype, initially designed to help heroes better communicate with victims who don’t speak the same tongue(s) with plans for further development outside of heroing if it’s successful. Such a device would also give Danny a convenient excuse for when he says something that receives blank stares, as he can pretend it glitched.

Now. Danny will be trying to get home. That might be his entire thing--that and potentially acceptance that he can’t go home, depending on how things pan out. If he came through a portal/doorway, then he might be keeping an ear to the ground to find out why if there’s some reason why he’s here, but if he was just stuck in a thermos, he’s going to assume he got out because of pure dumb luck/erosion and focus most of his energy on finding a way into the Ghost Zone, which may or may not come back to bite him later. Especially if he didn’t just get out by chance or is here for a reason and doesn’t know enough to understand what that reason is.

The obvious thing to consider is how quickly Danny realizes these guys only have one ‘quirk’, even if they can use it in multiple ways. If he gets any inkling at all from them that having more than one quirk is odd and potentially suspicious, you can bet he’d try to hide it. He’s used to that. He’s had to hide from so many people. He can hide from these people, too. Or at least try his best. Me and my penchant for misunderstandings would obviously choose to have him hide his multiple abilities and not just, y’know, tell or show them straight away.

I mean.

Say they saw Phantom before they ever saw Fenton. Flying. Phasing. Shooting ectoblasts. That’s not normal.

And if Danny saw something happen and jumped in to help without entirely understanding the situation? He might try to take down both heroes and bad guys because geez, those people almost got crushed when that building fell, and another bystander nearly got flambéed, and he knows he’s destructive when he’s trying to save people, but still. Giant Lady is a pretty good distraction if you need a distraction, and she could get away from the good guys fast enough, and that guy just walked through a brick wall, so there’s a good chance he’s overshadowed even if Danny’s too far away for his ghost sense to go off, and--

Point is, they (some) might mistakenly peg Phantom as a villain, at least until the next fight where they have time to talk. Danny, who very definitely Not Going Ghost until he figures out what the heck is going on, is found in the aftermath and assumed to be a victim--a tourist, probably, since they can’t understand him and he can’t understand them--and probably picks an ability to call a ‘quirk’ even if pretending to be quirkless would be smarter because he’s not convinced he might not do something almost on instinct, and then where would that get him?

Danny does not overhear the speculation that perhaps this Phantom is after him. He does not overhear the concern of the UA students who witnessed the fight. He does not know how many strings were pulled to get him released from the hospital--where he Very Obviously does Not want to be, but he can write off weird abnormalities as, say, part of his Ice Quirk powers; after all, sneaking away probably won’t do him any favours, even if he has to get out of there before they realize exactly how fast he’s healing--or how difficult it was to get him released into the protective custody of the good people at UA (or, more specifically, those who rallied for him to get the opportunity). Because he’s wary and spooked and confused but still ready to fight, and they can see that, and they want to help him. They’re not even sure how much training he’s had with his quirk, since even after extensive questioning and a subsequent exhaustive search, they can’t find any record of a hero named Frostbite.

They can’t even find a record of Daniel Fenton. Not someone with an Ice Quirk who matches his description, anyway.

Which makes some people wary, even when others are eagerly including him, because what if he’s a plant, a spy, otherwise not on their side even if he’s not working with any known villains, and--

Hogwash. Poppycock. Pick your old-fashioned word for it, but that’s pretty much how your thinking is going, someone else would say. Because the kid’s got a good heart, and anyone can see that. He wants to help people. He does, even when it hurts him. He’s got the heart of a hero.

With what they’ve seen of him, it’s enough to quiet the mutterings.

Until the day Danny forgets himself and displays another Quirk in a way that can’t be explained, especially in light of all the other incidents that were.

(related - Dani)

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (12)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

WARNING: This chapter include a rather disturbing scene that is an organ exit, specifically, the intestines and...Other things. If you are a sensitive potato, I apologize for the potential disgust or potential nightmare following this passage. But if you are one of those who has already seen much worse with the saga Saw or Leatherface ... I don't know what to say.  ('-') Well then... Have a good read!

***

Do you like to go out at night, when the starry sky honors you with its presence? It's always a fascinating show and it's even more so when a shooting star or an aurora borealis appear. For some, it's the perfect view, the perfect time to show your feelings to the person you love. For others, it’s the spirits of those who have left us who, from heaven, look at us and protect us. And for the Nordics, the aurora borealis is the bridge that connects Midgard and Asgard.

But tonight, it was just a starry sky. A beautiful and mesmerizing starry sky that Danny was looking, leaning against his van. If he had a cigarette on him, he would have smoked it while watching the sky. But Danny wasn't a big fan of cigarettes, in fact he didn't like it at all. He didn't understand why people were ruining their health with such a poison. And the same was true for alcohol. He had no more than two drinks. He had already had the bitter experience of both too many times with his parents.

Hmph. His "parents." Danny calls them his tormentors instead. He remembers his “life” with his parents, his HELL’S life. Since he was young, Danny’s parents treated him like a dog, beating him and insulting him every time for nothing. He did everything to have the attention and love that a child must have. But he received nothing but hatred and disgust from them. His father was an alcoholic and a huge smoker. His mother smoked very little but was obsessed with religion.

For them, Danny was just a mistake, an unwanted child that they had to treat as such. And that's what they did. And if he thought he would find solace in making friends... he was wrong. His classmates made fun of him, and he found himself alone... always alone. He always avoided problems, but when he had to defend himself from the bullies of his school... He did. And if his parents played the comedy in front of the teachers, once at home, Danny was beaten to the point of losing consciousness once.

His years of college and high school were no better... but no worse either. In high school, he had managed to make friends, with whom he often made the wall to go and have fun at night. At that time, he no longer feared the wrath of his parents, especially his "father". He was a cute little boy when he was a child, and as a teenager he was a handsome boy, who attracted a lot of attention. His current appearance, apart from size, has not changed since.

How many girls wanted to go out with him? hundreds. How much did he have been in a relationship? Just two. And one of those two relationships ended badly. Yet he remembered an evening at the fair where he and his friends consulted a fortune teller. He didn't believe in this stuff but it was always a good time to have fun.

“Your life has been nothing but sadness and suffering my boy. But soon, a new life will be offered to you and one day you will finally find the one that is linked to you. The chosen one of your heart, is not here young man, but elsewhere.” she said. He remembers smiling, holding a laugh so as not to offend the old woman. But later, one of his visions proved correct.

“Where do you think you're going like that, you dirty little jerk?! You're not going anywhere! you hear me??” His Dad shout, beating him again.  

But this time... It had to stop. He had struck him in return, with a force he did not know himself. Her mother squeaked when she saw her husband on the ground, slightly frightened but still angry.

“I've done everything. Absolutely EVERYTHING to have even a little love! AND WHAT DID I GET?! ONLY BEATINGS AND INSULTS! ... But it's over. I get out of here and believe me that you will have NOTHING of me. You can both go to hell. I hope you die in the worst way there is in this f****ng world.”

And since that day, he has never felt so free and so alive. But what this fortune teller told him always kept him in mind. And if that person with whom he was related... the chosen one of his heart... was simply... You?

Since you both met, you are the only person who has been so pleasant, innocent and... kind to him. Of course, you’re acting like this because he was acting as Jed. But if Jed had never existed, if he had only been himself... Would it have been the same thing?  

Maybe... that you'd be in a relationship. He would love you as much as you would love him. He'd protect you, do anything to make you happy. Of course, he would never tell you about his... second "job." But what if you get sick? To the point of ending up in the hospital and dying just like...

“Danny...” He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to remember that. NEVER again.  

“Come on Danny. Stay focused. You can’t screw all you've made until now.” He whispers to himself before he puts his Ghostface’s mask on.  

He faced Mike's house. Certainly, Mckellan had to die first on the list but... the desire to eviscerate Mike was stronger, more enticing, more... Exciting. Danny licked his lips, thinking about how he was going to take care of his next victim. He had prepared everything, orchestrated and imagined the faces of the unfortunates who would find his corpse.

He's going to pay. Oh yes, he's going to pay SO MUCH for all the humiliation that Danny has endured since he started working at Roseville's Gazette. He's going to regret every fucking word he's said about him. Every fucking blow he's given her. And his attempt to strangle him... in front of everyone... will be the fatal blow that Danny will return to him.

Danny took a gift package and sneaked up to Mike's house. Even if he knows that at this time, everyone is asleep in this neighbourhood, it is better to be careful of a potential walker. He had parked in the same place as last time; he knew that no one ever went there.

He reached the kitchen window and saw it slightly open, so he took advantage of this opportunity to enter the interior without making any noise. He immediately walked to the basement, which was right in front of the kitchen, and went downstairs, realizing to the sound of the water that Mike was in his bathroom, taking a shower. Just perfect.

He rediscovered Mike's "playroom", the one in which he practiced his... disgusting and twisted fantasies. And he's the one we call f****ng psycho? Hmph, Danny found the champion in this category. He admits to being a little crooked sometimes, but really far from doing that kind of crap.  

He placed his "gift" on the table before taking an object heavy enough to knock Mike out. As well as a rope to be able to tie him. On the practical side, he didn't need to take anything. Everything was provided to him on the spot, for once.

"How nice you are Mickey... make it easier for me at this point, I would have almost taken you as an assistant ... if you weren’t a fucking pedophile and a drug addict. What a waste. Well, time to call.” Danny said taking out another disposable phone. He hid in a corner of the room, so that Mike would not see him and composed his number. Hoping he got out of the bathroom.

“Hello? Who the f**k is there?” said Mike on the other line. His voice was hoarse and tired. Looks like he smoked more than he should.  

“Hello Mickey...Miss me? I hope so.” respond Danny sneering about this situation.

“You little...motherf***er! I don’t know who the f**k you are but you gonna regret everything you do to me, you little shit!”  

“What a lovely language...Look since you didn't like my previous gift, I brought you another one... He's in the basement. Why don't you open it? I'm sure you'll like this one!”

“Go f**k yourself with your gift! You trapped me once! and it's already too much for me to leave you alive!” Said Mike enraged.  

“You could make an effort Mickey... I bend over backwards to find you a gift to make me forgive and you don't even want to go and see what it is. You're breaking my heart. Too bad... I guess I can send your photos to the authorities... they'll be happy to put you in jail.” Replied Danny getting ready to hang up.

“Rrrrr...Okay Okay ! I'm going to open your gift! You psycho...”  

He heard Mike heading towards the stairs before descending to the basement. the excitement caused Danny to tremble, he was waiting for only one thing: for Mike to open his "gift" and see his reaction before knocking him out. And once attached... the party can begin.

He went deeper into the darkness when he saw Mike advancing towards the table where the gift package was. Danny's hands trembled with excitement as Mike trembled with fear. After a moment of hesitation, Mike finally opened the package and backed away, swearing and holding back from vomiting.  

Remember when I said a "head was going to fall"? Well, a head actually fell. A man's head now stood on this table, and for Mike it was not unknown to him because he was one of his drug dealers, the one who offered him the best drugs.

The head was cut with sharpness and precision worthy of a surgeon. the face was marked by the drug that this man was consuming and dark circles almost as black as coal were plummeting before his eyes. Teeth had been torn off and tongue cut off.

Mike recoiled a few more metres before feeling a hand on his shoulder, when he turned, he had no time to react and received a blow, strong enough to knock him out. Danny looked at his unconscious body, a diabolical smile on his face. He took the rope and a chair, then lifted Mike's heavy body to attach it to it. He weighed his weight the animal!

“Look at this... What a beautiful sight. Ah Mickey... I will make you my most beautiful bloody work the world has ever seen... I'm going to make myself a huge pleasure to cut you pieces into pieces... make you suffer until your last breath.” Said Danny before laughing, thinking about all this.

Mike awoke after 30 minutes and, quickly noticing that he was tied to the chair, he tried to untie the ties. Unfortunately for him, Danny had tightened them up to the max. The latter came up to him, sneering, passing his gloved finger over the blade of his knife.

“Sleep well? I was starting to worry I thought I'd killed you too fast... it would have been a shame after everything I've planned for you... Don't you think so?” He said taking Mike's face with his hand.

“You’re f***ing twisted! You’re a crazy psycho! Let me go! Said Mike giggling in his chair.

“Oh... Not right now. We've just met face to face... I'm not going to shorten this moment so quickly.” replied Danny approaching his knife to Mike’s cheek. “So, do you like my gift? I must admit It wasn’t easy to find him because...He’s like a rat running everywhere in the house to steal some food. But he was so cooperative after I ripped off his tooth and cut off his tongue.

“P-P-Please...Don’t do this! Take everything you want!”

“Everything?” Said Danny before exploding with laughter. “But everything I want is your SCREAMS and you DEATH. After all you did, this is all you deserved. Fair enough don’t you think? But you know what? Since you're going to die... you’ll see your executioner's face.” He replied before taking off his mask.

“Ol...Olsen...”

“Oh, it’s true. My name is NOT Jed Olsen.” He said cutting off each of his hands with a blow, which made Mike scream a lot. “I’m Danny Johnson...The Ghostface. And I'm gonna take a real pleasure to slaughter you for everything you've done to me... You're not going to be a loss anyway. Because unlike you... I don't spend my fantasies on children."

He put on his mask on and thrust his knife deep into Mike's stomach, killing him like a pig. he pulled out the intestines that hung like ropes. he stabbed him many times, piercing his eyes, cutting his virility and his tongue before finishing him off with a sharp blow to the throat. Blood squirted everywhere, and in this show, Danny's crazy laugh was heard, he had nothing to fear, Mike had soundproofed the room for his... Fantasies. No one outside could hear it... and no one was going to come to Mike's house at this hour.

But it wasn't over oh no... He has to finish his work. He took Mike's intestines and cut them into fine pieces before throwing them all over his corpse like confetti that’s thrown at a party. After all, it's a party, isn't it? He took the drug dealer's decapitated head and carefully placed it in Mike's arms with a little message on it: "I, Mike Harris, killed this man without any remorse." And he placed Mike’s d**k on his mouth instead of his tongue which layed on the ground.

“I don't like being robbed of the star Mickey... but I confess that making you look like a murderer on this one makes me laugh a lot... We'll keep you the worst image of your existence, pedophile, drug addict and murderer. Jackpot. Now...Say Cheese!” Said Danny before taking a picture. “One down. There's one left. Sooner or later McKellan...you’ll meet the devil himself. And then... I could focus a little more on my sweet angel.”  

As with every murder, he erased all traces of his passage, and after making sure of it, he left as discreetly as he had arrived. Then he took the road to go home. But before sinking into the arms of Morpheus... A small visit is necessary.

The window of your bedroom was barely open, but that's more than enough for Danny to pass his knife and open the window just enough to pass. You were sleeping peacefully, the blanket almost covering your head but he could still see your face, your little and adorable angel face... He stood frozen in front of you for a few seconds, a smile on his face. Then he took a picture, an umpteenth trophy, an umpteenth memory.

“Don’t worry... Soon, all your problems will disappear... and I'd be the ONLY one to obstruct your thoughts. In a good way. Sleep well, my little sweet star...And never forget...” He said, kissing your forehead. “You’re mine. And only MINE.”

And then he vanished. As if no one had ever entered this intimate place... But little by little... The devil tightens his grip on you. Even if he will continue to scare you... He will do anything to be the only object of your obsessions.

And he won't let anyone near you.

***

(And it’s done! Phew thinking about Mike’s death wasn’t easy but I've made it! Again, I hope you’ll enjoy it like the other ones and if you got some questions or you just want to talk you can! For now, the French potato girl I am will get some rest! have a good week end everyone! See ya!)

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Verboten 16 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU. When Danny was five years old, he went missing for 2 weeks. In the years that follow, his family tried to make sense of what happened, only for the truth to be discovered years later.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, language. Be prepared for some very weird things

Parings: Danny/Sam

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr. This fic is very heavily inspired by folklore surrounding mysterious wilderness disappearances

Chapter 16

As Danny waited outside with the rest of the guests, his parents and Vlad met up with him. After they handed him a bag filled with one of his favorite Nasty Burger meals, he gave them a quick rundown of what he knew, save for the appearance of the ghost. While frustrated, his parents shuffled him into the RV so he could eat and warm up a bit. It was a chilly fall day after all.

As he ate, Danny vaguely wondered how his parents managed to convince Vlad, the man with the limo, to go across town with them. His dad’s driving prowess… well, lack thereof… was famous in the area. The townsfolk and even the police steered clear of any known Fenton vehicle. In actuality, he had no idea how his dad hadn’t lost his license.

After a couple hours, the fire department cleared the building with the exception that rooms on the second floor could not be used until the police preformed an investigation to verify whether or not arson occurred. The rooms on that floor would also need cleaned. Thankfully, little damage ended up being done from the fire: a few pieces of furniture and some scorch marks. The majority of the damage ended up being from the hotel’s sprinkler system.

After collecting their items, his parents drove to a large house on the outskirts of the housing plan where Sam lived. After asking what they were doing there, Vlad matter-of-factly stated he just finalized the payment on it. Danny’s utter confusion had to be evident as his parents explained Vlad recently decided to purchase a house in Amity Park since he would be around more to help with the research.

Well, it explained why it took his parents so long to get food. While the act itself didn’t seem that strange for Vlad, he did own a castle in Wisconsin after all, something about the timing bothered him. With the rare exception of a day when there was a major experiment malfunction, Vlad tended to stay with the family upon his visits. Exactly how long would he be in town if he needed to buy a new house?

After getting a quick tour of the house, Danny retired to his temporary room and called his friends. The three way call ended up being hectic as he explained what happened. “Guys, I’m telling you, I saw a ghost, and then somehow the hotel caught fire.”

“Calm down, Danny,” Sam instructed. “I know you’re telling the truth, but geez, how in the world did you end up being the center of so much trouble in two days?”

“My mom said something about me possibly attracting paranormal things now.”

“Makes sense, in a weird sort of way,” Tucker agreed as typing could be heard on his end. “I’ll see if I can dig up any stories of ghosts like what you saw this time.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tucker. You’re already looking into those files.”

“Nah, this’ll be easy. It’ll only take a couple minutes at most to set up a search and have it run in the background while we talk. Any specific things that stood out?”

“Other than the blue flaming hair?” He sighed and collapsed on his bed. “If she hadn’t been a ghost, she would have looked right at home in one of those bands Sam likes. She said she wanted to make people remember she still exists.”

“So she looked like a goth?” Sam questioned.

“Yeah, but with some, uh… I think you’d say she’s more punk.”

“Woah! That’s weird,” Tucker stated after something on one of his tech devices beeped in the background. “So, apparently there have been a series of spontaneous fires that seem to occur about every ten years, but they started after the death of a local girl. Some people think it’s her ghost that causes them. I’ll send you the articles.”

It took only seconds for the article links to be sent. Danny nearly dropped the phone when the picture of the mentioned girl appeared on the screen. With the exception of the hair, the girl’s face matched that of the ghost. “That… that’s her! Wow, she really doesn’t look that much different as a ghost.”

“Wait, you’re serious?” Sam hummed as she reviewed the information. “Says here while she was unpopular at school, she was in a local band. She was found dead after her house burned down mysteriously. The police thought it might of been an arson, but officials were never able to verify anything. After her death and around its anniversary, there were reports of fires in the city. Sometimes, entire buildings are engulfed, but other times the words ‘you will remember’ appear burned into buildings.”

“I kinda remember hearing my dad mention something about ghost fires growing up, but with it being my dad, I never put any stock into it.”

“My mom said something about it once.”

“I have no idea why I keep forgetting your mom works for 911,” Sam interrupted. “You know, we might be able to use that to our advantage.”

“I mean, you can try, but she refuses to talk about anything other than the occasional funny call. The one about the ‘bambulance’ still brings me to tears.”

“Tuck, you’re getting distracted.”

“Right. Anyways,” some typing could be heard on Tucker’s end, “my mom thought the fires were from the girl’s bandmates. They had just recorded a song called ‘Remember’ which got some local play before she died. Since I know asking Mom for anything else is pointless, I think I’m gonna see if I can get into the files of those fires. The news articles all have explanations, but some of them seem a bit over the top.”

“How long will that take?”

Danny snorted. “Sam, it’s Tucker. Knowing him, he’s already looking at them.”

“I’m hurt, Sam. Do you really have that little faith in me?”

“I know you’ll be able to get them eventually. You’re track record hasn’t been all that great recently. You’ll still working on those files you got from Plasmius, after all.”

“Oh, I’ve finished the review on those. Some of it isn’t pretty, but I wanted to verify information directly from Vlad Master’s companies. That’s been slow going ‘cause he has some impressive firewalls, and I’m really trying not to get caught. As for this,” Tucker briefly shouted in triumph, “I’ve already gotten what I need. Hmm… that’s weird. The official investigations regarding the ‘Ember fires’, as they’re called, all state there was no known cause of the fire. There wasn’t even evidence of an accelerant… which is…?”

“It’s something used to make a fire go from a few flames to a roaring fire. Think of what happens when you add gasoline to a fire,” Sam explained as tapping could be heard on her end. Was she at the computer too? “Most arsonists use one. If they don’t, unless the flames start where there’s something like tissue paper, sawdust, or something else really flammable, the fire usually takes a lot of time to grow and become a problem. Tuck, is there anything about flammable materials?”

“Hmm… no, not really.”

Danny sighed as he got off the bed and paced his temporary room. “Great, now there’s a fire starting ghost on the prowl, on top of Plasmius, that thing… and possibly whatever is wrong with that girl. Tuck, do you have any updates on anything?”

“On the Plasmius front, no. Like I said, I’m trying to cross-reference those files against the files from VladCo and DALV, but that’s taking a while due to his security. For the creepy thing that attacked you, I have a notification set up for any potentially related attacks. I think that’s all I can do for now on that… As for Maura, I got distracted a bit when Plasmius had that chat with you, but I can tell you she stopped posting on social media right after her disappearing act. That’s pretty weird for girls in her clique. Give me a couple days to get her medical chart.” Something beeped in the background. “Oh, it looks like I might have a pattern for our fire bug ghost.”

“At least that’s something. Can you send them to me?”

Sam snorted. “What, you’re gonna try to figure out where she’ll be and talk to her?”

“I mean, it’s worth a shot. Maybe she knows something about Plasmius or that thing? And… maybe I can nicely ask her to stop lighting fires?”

“I think you’re just gonna end up with your ass kicked, but go ahead.”

“Thanks for that wonderful vote of confidence,” Danny deadpanned. The ghost was nice enough to give him a warning so she couldn’t be all bad. “I think if I open up with a ‘thank you’, she won’t outright attack me.”

“It’s your funeral.”

“Actually, Danny, can you die?” Tucker hesitantly asked. “I mean… your situation is kinda weird.”

He thought about it for a few moments. “I think so. Clockwork told me I’m alive, so that’s good enough for me. But, to be honest, I don’t really wanna think about it too much.”

“That’s fair.”

…

Danny’s conversation only lasted a few more minutes after Tucker asked the awkward question as his parents called for him over an intercom system. Uncertain if the correct response to the intercom should be to cringe or be impressed, he pushed it from his mind as he meandered down the hallways to attempt to find his parents.

Something about the décor of the mansion seemed familiar, but Danny found it difficult to place it. Vlad loved the Green Bay Packers, and he commonly used their colors of green and gold for accents. He stopped in his tracks as he glanced around. Plasmius also had green and gold splashes in his home. It had to be a coincidence.

Not wanting to think about it more, he raced down the halls and eventually came to the main foyer. His dad shot him a questioning glance as his mother stood and moved towards him.

“Hi, sweetie! How are you adjusting? It’s been a hectic couple days.”

“I’m okay. I’m just a bit tired,” he told her as he dodged a hug. “I let Sam and Tucker know we’re fine. I’m not dealing with Jazz until after you guys talk to her.”

“I trust the room is to your liking?”

Danny jumped as Vlad’s voice came from behind him. How did he miss him? “Yes. Thanks for letting us stay.”

Vlad waved his hand dismissively. “It’s no trouble at all. My house is yours.”

“Vlad, you mentioned you had a workshop we can use?” His mother asked as she abandoned her attempts at hugging her son.

After staring at her for a second, Vlad shook his head and regained composure. “Surely that can wait until tomorrow, my dear. You’ve been through quite a lot in the past twenty-four hours.”

“No can do, Vladdy!” Jack boomed as he excitedly stood. “You heard those policemen. They want a Fenton product, and I can’t sit still when that spook is still a threat to my family. Say, do you want to help?”

The billionaire grimaced before forcing a smile. “I must politely decline, but I will gladly look over any blue prints in the morning.”

“Don’t worry,” Maddie told him while giving her husband a fond grin, “I know how… enthusiastic Jack can be when he has a new project. I’ll also make sure he sleeps tonight. We don’t want any accidents.”

“That would be greatly appreciated.”

Danny glanced between Vlad and his parents. There was some sort of story he was missing. “Should I ask?” he hesitantly questioned.

“I was badly injured when we were in collage when an experiment went wrong,” Vlad explained as his expression hardened. “As a result, I’ve made it a rule to not be in a room when someone is actively making experimental items or preforming experiments. However, I’ll gladly double check procedures, blue prints, set ups, and results.”

“I… yeah… That… that makes sense. But you’re okay now?”

“Absolutely, my dear boy. You could say I gained a different outlook on life as a result.” Vlad gave a predatory grin which sent shivers down Danny’s spine. “Why, if I hadn’t gotten into that accident, I probably wouldn’t have ended up so successful.”

“Right…” His mother must have caught something off in Vlad’s tone as she furrowed her brow in confusion. “It’s gotten pretty late. Danny, will you be alright?”

“Huh? Probably. I mean, I could use a snack.”

“The kitchen and pantry are just down that hall.” Vlad pointed towards the hallway opposite of the way Danny originally came. “Will you be alright to be back to your room once you’re done? If you wait, I can escort you back once I’m done showing your parents where the lab is.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be alright. ‘Night everyone.” Chuckling as his father couldn’t contain his excitement anymore and bounded down the hall followed by his amused mother and wary Vlad, he just made his way to the kitchen. It thankfully was easy to find, and after making a sandwich, he meandered his way back towards his room.

….

Around midnight, Danny decided he would attempt to sneak out of the mansion. Luckily for him, Vlad put him in a room on the ground floor, saying something about how the upper floors weren’t ready yet. Luckier still, there were no bars on the windows. Sam’s parents tried doing something like before due to how many times she snuck out, but it was struck down by her Grandma Ida, who still had control of the deed at that time.

Escape ended up being a piece of cake. There didn’t seem to be any type of security system or guard which seemed strange, but that would probably change once the mansion was officially finished.

He had an idea of where the ghost might end up appearing thanks to the articles Tucker forwarded to him earlier so he booked it in the direction of an older housing plan near the city’s boarder with Elmerton. The majority of buildings in the area were row houses in disrepair. While there were still a few low income families in the area, most of the houses were considered condemned. Danny remembered hearing talk of tearing the houses down at one point, but either the project was shelved or abandoned.

As he approached, he decided to shift to his ghostly form. While it seemed unlikely he would encounter anyone, the area did have a reputation for crime. While he didn’t know what sort of protection being a ghost would give him, it seemed a better option. And, if that thing tried attacking him again, maybe he could float to safety. He really hoped that thing didn’t appear; his trust in his abilities honestly was non-existent.

The soft glow of his ghost form provided the majority of the light as he silently found his way to the road where the girl used to live. The few street lamps were either broken or burnt out, and some even seemed melted.

His destination, Garnier Avenue, seemed worse than the surrounding streets. At first he thought the houses were just gutted, but a second look said otherwise. Most of them had some evidence of fire: melted windows, ash marks, and collapsed roofs and walls. Ash and dust could be found on the road as well as the sidewalk, and in some places, they almost looked like outlines of people.

The area seemed dead. No noise. No sound. No movement. As he continued to move forward, his hair stood on end and his breath misted in front of him. It was almost as if he walked into some sort of wall of static electricity.

“So this is what you actually look like. You’re not that bad looking after all,” a curious voice called to him, making him jump. Danny spun around to see the ghost from earlier materialize in front of him. Her appearance hadn’t changed, but she seemed more solid. Even her voice seemed closer and more natural. “Do you know how many of us would kill to be able to blend in that well?”

“Uh… I really wouldn’t know. This is really new to me,” Danny relied as he held up his hands in what he hoped was a submissive manner.

Her eyes narrowed. “So why are you here, baby pop? Do I interest you?”

He gulped at the undertones of her applications. “A little? I mean, you were nice enough to let me there would be a fire, and I wanted to thank you for that. And maybe ask a couple questions?”

“You just happened to be there at the right time,” she responded offhandedly though her satisfied smirk suggested his thanks was welcome. “It would be a waste to see someone like you get destroyed by accident. But, I would like to know how you found me.”

“I mentioned you to a friend of mine, and he was able to find out about your legend.” Danny hoped he sounded genuinely curious and not creepy. Wait, was it possible for him to not be creepy? He was a ghost after all.

She nodded. “I like to come back around the anniversary of my death. It helps strengthen me.”

“You do seem… I think stronger is the word I want.”

“Glad you noticed, and that makes you more observant than most of the guys I’ve met over the years. Call me, Ember.” Grinning again, she walked around him almost as if she was examining him.

“I’m Danny.”

She snorted. “Bet that’s your real name. Don’t met too many ghosts who remember theirs. You really must be new. Anyways, you had questions?”

“Yeah. I was hoping you might know something about this thing that’s been seen around the town. It attacked me, and it’s caused enough trouble to get the police interested.” When she didn’t immediately respond, Danny took that as a sign he could continue. So, he quickly explained his interaction with whatever the thing was. When he finished, Ember expression turned stony.

“You’re telling me something like that has been seen in my town?” she demanded. Her hair, which had been gently waving in an invisible wind, suddenly blazed in a blue flame. “Are you telling me one of those things have been seen here?”

Danny gulped and nodded. “Like I said, it attacked me! What are they? Plasmius doesn’t know what they are either.”

“Plasmius? Plasmius is here too?” The temperature around them spiked as she shrieked. “Are you working for him? You better answer me, Dipstick.”

===

Notes: ghostly fire is usually considered insubstantial and doesn't tend to cause damage. Actual paranormal fire damage is usually associated with poltergeists, and more modern theories classify poltergeists as creations of psychokinesis (PK) agents (normally living people) instead of spirits.

Ember's background is directly taken from information provided by one of the show's directors.

"Bambalance" is a reference to an old but hilarious 911 call. You can find it on YouTube under the title "the guy, the deer, the dog, and the bambulance." There is some foul language in it.

Also, there is a very subtle 'Phantom of the Opera' reference in this chapter.

[siriusbunbryist]

In defence of Abed x Annie.

Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I’ve rewatched Community at age 24, and still found Abed and Annie to have hit the heartstrings as much as I did when I was in high school watching the show for the first time.

But watching the series in its entirety just reinforces my thought that Abed and Annie had so much potential that was wasted, and it’s a shame that the writers planted all these seeds to only decide that perhaps this direction was not worth it / too risky / unfavoured by the audience. But I mean, Alison Brie herself (and I’m assuming Danny Pudi as well) endorsed them! Find here and here.

This was a pairing that with all the crumbs scattered throughout the show (I think we are all aware of these crumbs I speak of), could’ve easily played the “oh we’ve been secretly dating this whole time” trope during the last episode and it would’ve still made sense.

Naturally I did some scoping, and of course unsurprisingly the J.eff x Annie pairing takes the cake, while not a lot of love for Abed x Annie. So here are common points of contentions I see surrounding Abed and Annie, and my rationale on them.

Before I start, a note - I fully respect the J.eff x Annie ship and I don’t intend on starting a ship w.ar/debate. I understand where their support comes from! I just needed to vent because no one else in my social circle watches this show. No hate please.

1. Abed doesn’t see Annie romantically

I think on the contrary it’s been set up rather long ago that Abed at the very least is attracted to Annie.

Exhibit A: “What are you making” in Beginner Pottery

Exhibit B: “Flat B.utt and the one Abed wants to nail” in The Art of Discourse

This video basically explains it! The summary: Annie is Pierce’s favourite, Pierce constantly insults Britta, therefore Britta is flat b.utt.

Exhibit C: Not even trying to hide it in Accounting for Lawyers

But, a romantic interest has to be further built upon finding someone attractive right? There has to be intrigue to their character, such as

Exhibit D: “I can only connect to people through... movies” in English as a Second Language

It is pretty obvious here that Annie is a rare someone who has successfully broken the impartial screen that Abed filters everything through. Jeff saw it too which is why he said Annie was the ark of the covenant before Abed fell for her disney face. I can only imagine Abed to be quite struck with Annie’s infiltration.

A romantic interest should also share common interests, such as

Exhibit E: “Which makes Annie is my third favourite show” in Paranormal Parentage

I’ve said before that for Abed, a guy who lives life and communicates through comparing it with television and movies, it’s not unthinkable for him to be attracted to someone who genuinely watches his favourite shows and commits to roles during cosplay. And who, besides Troy, would fit this profile? Annie. 

And finally, the biggest indicator of it all, we also see how Abed views the Jeff and Annie pairing in everyone’s favourite episode Remedial Chaos Theory. Keeping in mind that the timelines are rendered by Abed, out of all the timelines, J.eff and Annie only kis.sed when Abed left the room for pizza. As well, as conjured in Abed’s head, Evil Jeff and Evil Annie only existed as a couple in the Darkest Timeline. To me at least, it’s arguable that this alludes to Abed’s omniscient “director” standpoint that he may be the obstacle in the Jeff and Annie relationship - pointing towards him perhaps harbouring feelings for Annie.

2. Annie doesn’t see Abed romantically The general consensus on this point is that Annie is only attracted to Abed when he’s playing a character. I rather think that being attracted to someone, and being attracted to someone during role play, aren’t mutually exclusive. Let’s take a look at the different characters that Abed played.

Don Draper: serious, sophisticated, and smooth.

Han Solo: immature, flirty and a smarta.ss.

Batman: mysterious, complex, and brave.

Three different personas, yet Annie responded to all of them. Since the common denominator to all three is that they are played by Abed, I would like to offer a counterpoint that perhaps the attraction to Abed has always been there, it’s just emphasized when Abed plays a character. Who knows, role playing might even be Annie’s ki.nk. After all, during For a Few Paintballs More, it is shown that Annie is disappointed when Abed dropped the Han Solo persona after the battle ended.

Annie also loves big romantic gestures. Who’s better than doing that than Abed? Since the beginning, Abed has already been doing big romantic gestures of varying degrees for Annie. With this, it’s not ridiculous for Annie to see Abed as a romantic potential.

Exhibit F: Staying in a room for 26 hours in Social Psychology

Annie: You sat in a room for twenty-six straight hours. Didn’t that bother you?  Abed: Yeah I was livid.  Annie: Then why didn’t you leave?  Abed: Because you asked me to stay and you said we were friends.

Exhibit G: Rescuing her from “captivity” and inviting her to move in in Remedial Chaos Theory and Studies in Modern Movement (even Troy was surprised at Abed’s invitation)

Exhibit H: Tearing down the Dreamatorium in Studies in Modern Movement

Annie: What about the Dreamatorium? Abed: Oh it's staying. The Dreamatorium is more important than any of us. But you're more important than our bedroom so we put the bunk bed in the blanket fort.

Bonus: Confirmed by Alison Brie

3. The show was about Jeff and Annie

Dan Harmon said that Community’s approach is that anything and any pairing is possible. We see this is as the series started with the classic “player vs smart snarky girl” trope with setting up Jeff and Britta as the main pairing. We also see Troy and Annie as the potential B couple in the show. The writers also threw Pierce and Shirley, Annie and Britta, Dean and Jeff, and even Chang and Britta in for a laugh.

And then the show subverted this all by introducing Jeff and Annie, and made Troy and Britta a couple, showing us that Community is a show that intends on breaking these classic sitcom stereotypes by experimenting with different pairings. Abed and Annie was no exception to this, as the writers often pair them up in different shenanigans and hint at possible grounds to explore*.

A few examples: Han and Leia in For a Few Paintballs More, Hector the Well Endowed and the Elf Maiden in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, spy partners in Modern Espionage.

No doubt that the show dabbled in and out of Jeff and Annie throughout the series. However, to say that Jeff and Annie was the primary pairing in the series would mean overlooking Jeff and Britta. Especially when Jeff and Britta have the whole love-hate dynamic, three(?) marriage close-calls, and emotional snippets such as helping Jeff reunite with his father in Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations.

Anyway, not to discredit Jeff and Annie, but knowing that the show explores the possibility of different pairings**, why write off Abed and Annie?

* Not to mention that the cop pairing in The Science of Illusion was originally written with Abed and Annie in mind! ** We also see a stray Abed and Britta during Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.

4. Annie is in love with Jeff To keep this short and shipper-goggle free, Annie has said on numerous occasions that she’s in love with the idea of Jeff, not Jeff himself. Specifically this scene in Virtual Systems Analysis:

Abed as Annie: "…We love Jeff…" Annie: "No we don’t, we’re just in love with the idea of being loved. And if we can teach a guy like Jeff to do it, we’ll never be unloved, so we keep running the same scenario over and over hoping for a different result."

And this scene in Conventions of Space and Time:

Annie: All right, I may have been play-acting that we were married, and then the staff thought you were cheating, and I had to save face. Jeff: Do I have to worry about this? Annie: No, I was just daydreaming. I mean, I've married you at least a half a dozen times. And Troy. And Zac Efron.

Not to mention that their conversation in the finale says it all.

Jeff: I don't wanna be fine. I wanna be 25 and heading out into the world. I wanna fall asleep on a beach and be able to walk the next day, or stay up all night on accident. I wanna wear a white t-shirt without looking like I forgot to get dressed.* I want to be terrified of AIDS, I want to have an opinion about those, boring a.ss Marvel movies. And I want those opinions to be of any concern to the people making them. Annie: Well I want to live in the same home for more than a year, order wine without feeling nervous, have a resume full of crazy mistakes instead of crazy lies. I want stories and wisdom, perspective. I wanna have so much behind me I'm not a sl.ave to what's in front of me, especially those flavourless unremarkable Marvel movies.

*Shipper-goggle on: Part of me thinks this is a reference to Abed, whose iconic style almost exclusively comprises T-shirts. What Jeff is saying is that he wishes he is 25 again with his future open before him, someone who compatible with Annie, but here he acknowledges that he isn’t, and lets her go in the end.

5. Abed and Annie wouldn’t work as a couple Another point I see is that Abed and Annie are strictly platonic and are more like brother and sister. On the basis that they have made out a couple times and are attracted to each other, I would disagree with the sibling statement.  

Troy, in contrast to Abed, I think actually resembles a more sibling-like relationship with Annie. Although Troy and Annie have the strong friendship of Abed and Annie, when disregarding the high school crush stage of season 1, their storylines never dwelled further down an attraction path, nor was there any specific episode that was dedicated to a deep dive of vulnerabilities and confrontation between them. As a comparison, Troy and Britta had opportunities to explore these setups (Troy admitted to lying about his b.utt stuff story and Troy helped Britta face Blade) - an indication that Troy and Britta were heading into non-platonic territory. Jeff and Britta too, had several opportunities to confront their feelings (up till the very last season), a clear indication of a non-platonic relationship.

For Abed and Annie, what I think pulls their friendship towards actual love interest potential is best pinpointed to Virtual Systems Analysis. Annie’s participation in the Dreamatorium prompted her to not only fully submerge into the way Abed thinks and comprehends his surroundings, but she also got to understand and address Abed’s stubbornness and flaws in a vulnerable way, confronting some of her own flaws as well.

Abed as Shirley: Your hospital school, young lady, is a simulation being run through a filter of other people's needs. Abed's been filtered out because nobody needs him. Annie: I need him!

And to point out this little tidbit in VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing,

Annie: That's why Abed is like a brother to me. You guys are so alike. Abed: I can't accept that based on one time machine story.

This whole episode, instead of establishing Abed is like Annie’s brother, I would argue is rather doing the opposite. Abed and Annie’s hyper antics in the episode were basically matched by Anthony and Rachel’s blatant indifference and confusion. For lots of Abed and Annie supporters, this episode was a major setback. But I think it instead highlights how in-sync they are with each other, which is a good thing.

Another point, despite Annie trying to prove otherwise, Abed and Anthony had different vibes, and each shared different dynamics with Annie. And as Anthony pointed out in the end, who were Abed and Annie trying to replace in the apartment? Troy. The person who they are trying to fill is Troy - their roommate, their brother, their best friend. Troy was the brother role that neither Abed and Annie can fill for each other.

In Basic Sandwich, we get this exchange:

Abed: The point is, this show, Annie, it isn't just their show. This is our show, and it's not over. And the sooner we find that treasure, the faster the Jeff-Britta pilot falls apart. Annie: Got it. Thank you, Abed. Abed: You're welcome. I have a girlfriend. Annie: What? Abed: You were about to start a kiss lean. Annie: I was not.

Not only did Abed saw right through Annie’s anxiety and comforted her in his own uniquely Abed way, but he also felt the need to remind her of his girlfriend. The fact that he broke the fourth wall here is likely the writers’ way to be meta, but simply acknowledging the tension and bond there says a lot in between the lines. If tension does not exist, there would be no need for this line.

Besides, instead of thinking that they’re strictly platonic (which of course is also okay), they would rather work great as a couple. In terms of opposites attract, Annie grounds Abed with just the right amount, while Abed clearly encourages Annie to be her true self and be immature. Such as this scene in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism,

Annie: I’m following him.  Troy: You moving in here was supposed to tone us down!

Annie also doesn’t just tolerate Abed’s idiosyncrasies, she actually likes them and fully participates as multiple paintball games and cosplays would tell us. Special shoutout to the missing lovers footage in Wedding Videography, which through Britta, actually shows us that Annie is the only one who would go along with Abed’s projects - while Britta found the project extremely weird and unhealthy, Annie thought it was fun and commits well to her role.

And while others may tiptoe around Abed, Annie isn’t afraid to call Abed out when he’s out of line and makes a point to teach him about empathy in Virtual Systems Analysis. Remember that Britta tried teaching him this but it didn’t work as well.

I am Abed Nadir... And I don't know a lot of things everyone else knows. I wander the universe with my friend, Troy, doing whatever I want. Sometimes accidentally hurting innocent unremarkables. This week, however, Troy went to lunch and I adapted. I now have the ability to enter the minds of others using an elusive new technique known as "empathy".

As well as in the entire episode of Cooperative Polygraphy.

They also know each other best. Abed knew her cushion preferences, was the one who spelled out her true pas.sion for forensics, and after living together, Annie knew how to navigate Abed’s peculiarities and to soothe him whenever he had a nervous breakdown. 

Annie also knows him so well that she can predict his reaction.

They are also each other’s exception. Annie was always the one who manages to pull Abed out of a trance and back to reality, usually with touch.

Abed is also very forgiving with her. An example is when Annie seemingly lost all common sense because she broke Abed’s special edition dvd in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism.

Annie: Well, Batman, on behalf of all of us that aren't perfect, can I just say I'm sorry I broke your DVD? Abed: Apology accepted. But I wouldn't mention it to Abed. That guy's pretty ruthless. And that's coming from Batman.

And in Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas, Annie was the only claymation doll that didn’t have a weird form (except Troy as toy soldier of course). Annie was a ballerina because Abed sees her as a creature of grace. Abed was also the first one who got her “brighter tomorrow” diorama and responded with enthusiasm.

They are also in the same stage in life. As Dan Harmon explains the choice of Abed and Annie being the ones who leave the group, with Troy gone, Abed and Annie symbolize the many possibilities of the future - a possibility that makes them viable. I like to think Annie transfers to the LA FBI office after her internship and they reunite.

And as the Spice Girls said, “if you wanna be my love.r, you gotta get with my friends”. In Paleyfest, Dan Harmon says this about whoever Troy and Abed ends up dating, “I mean a woman that comes into either of their lives is either going to drive them apart or she's going to have to be really accepting of a very special relationship”.

Britta tolerated their friendship but to a point of asking Annie to distract Abed for alone time with Troy, Troy dumped the librarian as she called Abed weird, Robin disappeared, Rachel we never got to see much of, but was pretty quiet and separated from the group. From this, logically speaking, Annie would actually be the perfect match for Abed, as we all know they’re the ultimate trio within the study group and a transition from friends to more will be natural. 

Oh, and, Abed is wrong. They’re not Chandler and Phoebe with little storylines together, they’re Chandler and Monica. 

Anyway, that’s it for my super long rant/analysis. Community the series is done and over, so there isn’t a need for any ship war. All I want to say is, if #andamovie happens, hopefully, the writers will actually take a leap.

[aion-rsa]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 1: Marvel and MCU Easter Eggs

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 1 spoilers, possibly spoilers for future episodes, and the wider MCU. We have a spoiler free review here.

Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 1 has finally arrived on Disney+. Now, those of you hoping for mystery box storytelling and surreal weirdness the likes of which we got from WandaVision may be a little disappointed. But those of you looking for some gritty street-and-spy-level action with a deeper look at life in the post-Snap/Blip MCU, well, you’re in luck.

Oh? But you’re here for Marvel Comics and MCU Easter eggs, you say? Well, you’re still in luck, friend! The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is full of subtle nods to Marvel and Captain America history, and continues to connect the dots in the ever-expanding MCU.

Here’s everything we found…and if you spot something we missed, let us know in the comments!

Sam Wilson

The stuff with Sam ironing his own shirt, or trying to help his sister get a small business loan is some real “the mundanity of superhero life” stuff that we rarely get a glimpse of in the movies, but that was such a hallmark of what separated Marvel Comics from their competitors in their early days.

In the MCU, Sam is from Louisiana. But in the comics, he was born and raised in Harlem, New York City.

Sam’s sister, Sarah Wilson, also known as Sarah Casper, was introduced back in Captain America #134 back in 1971, and created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan. She’s made only a few appearances over the decades and mainly exists for the novelty of having the patriotic superhero be known as “Uncle Sam.”

The boat that Sam’s sister maintains is named Paul and Darlene, named for their parents, and those were indeed the names of his parents in the pages of Marvel Comics.

Sam’s drop out of the back of the airplane at the start of the Captain Vassant rescue mission mirrors Steve’s in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The MCU’s version of Bubo is also back in action! Redwing is still very helpful during Sam’s “government contracts” it appears, as long as no one else messes with the drone’s wires. Also, Sam’s personal devotion to the Redwing drone is a nice nod to the fact that Redwing is a real falcon in the comics, and Sam’s pet/buddy.

Sam gets to have a sombre conversation with James “War Machine” Rhodes (Don Cheadle) in what is perhaps just the first of many unannounced The Falcon and the Winter Soldier appearances by other members of the MCU. We already know there will be a larger role for Sharon “Agent 13” Carter in later episodes. Who else might show up?

Bucky Barnes

Fittingly for his Marvel spinoff series, Bucky is introduced in the same way he was back in Captain America: The First Avenger – catching the tail end of an alleyway fight.

Bucky Barnes has now been pardoned for all the terrible crimes he committed, it’s quickly revealed. Doesn’t look like he’s pardoned himself, mind. Not by a long shot.

Bucky mentions having a sister. While it hasn’t been brought up much, he did have one in the comics. Rebecca Barnes was introduced in The Marvel Holiday Special #1 in a story written by Len Kaminski (hence the notebook Easter egg, which we’ll get to in a minute) and tremendously underrated ’90s comics artist Ron Lim. After the deaths of their parents, Bucky and Rebecca were separated. Her namesake was reintroduced during Heroes Reborn, where Rikki Barnes was Cap’s sidekick in Counter-Earth.

In Derek Landy’s new Falcon & Winter Soldier comics, Bucky has adopted a very chill white cat called Alpine. No sign of Alpine in episode one, but we refuse to give up hope.

Lieutenant Torres

The eager Lt. Torres (played by On My Block star Danny Ramirez) who clearly idolizes Sam appears to be none other than Joaquin Torres, who eventually took on the mantle of the Falcon in the comics. So if Sam is destined to become Captain America on this show, will Torres become his sidekick? We hope so!

Batroc

Just like at the start of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we get a confrontation with Georges Batroc (ze leaper!), once again played by Georges St. Pierre. Batroc is such a cool but minor Cap villain, and we never need to spend a lot of time with him, but we do hope he keeps showing up from time to time for cool fight scenes, just like he does in the comics. It’s nice to see that while they’ll never give him his ridiculous comics costume, he’s wearing his comics-appropriate colors here.

The Flag-Smashers

The masked baddies of this episode are known as the Flag-Smashers, an organization who want to do away with all national borders. There’s lots of ways this show deals with the weirdness of the MCU after the Snap, but the increasing radicalization of underground supervillain groups appears to be one neat side effect.

They take their name from the comic book supervillain Flag-Smasher (singular). Flag-Smasher was created by Cap writer supreme Mark Gruenwald and artist Paul Neary back in 1985. The original Flag-Smasher was Karl Morgenthau (remember that name, we’ll come back to it in a second), and he was a non-powered costumed terrorist who led an organization known as ULTIMATUM, “The Underground Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army To Unite Mankind” (folks, ‘80s Captain America comics absolutely freakin’ RULE).

The woman handing out the Flag Smasher masks was tough to make out, but that appears to be was Erin Kellyman (Enfys Nest from Solo: A Star Wars Story) playing “Karli Morgenthau.” In other words, she’s probably the leader of the organization, not the big, scary dude with super soldier strength. But speaking of him…

The big scary guy is credited as “Dovich” and he’s played by Desmond Chiam. How did he get so strong? Well, the words “Power Broker Watching” appear in the credits, and the Power Broker was key to John Walker getting his super soldier strength, as well as several other minor Marvel characters. Remember what we said about how awesome ’80s Captain America comics are? You’re about to find out!

Sam’s crack about “bad guys” with “bad names” in regards to the Flag-Smashers also applies to real world nitwits who go around calling themselves names like “Proud Boys.”

Bucky’s Notebook

There are some standout names in Bucky’s notebook, notably L. Kaminski (probably ‘80s Marvel writer and editor Len Kaminski) and H. Zemo (as in Captain America: Civil War and this very show’s baddie Helmut Zemo). 

We wrote more about those names here.

Captain America

In the Smithsonian exhibit where Sam and Rhodey chat, there are lots of artifacts from Steve’s life, mostly taken from the era of Captain America: The First Avenger like the Howling Commando uniforms, but there’s something else cool there: the actual cover of Captain America Comics #1 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the first appearance of the character. Remember, as part of the propaganda effort during the war to make Captain America a symbol of the wartime effort in the MCU, these comics were a thing. This means that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby also existed in the MCU, but their stories were meant to be chronicles about a real person.

Where’s Steve Rogers?

It seems that only a few people might know what really happened to Steve Rogers. Has Old Cap now passed on, or is he alive somewhere ready to make an appearance in the show at a later date? Many fans are still hoping for a Chris Evans cameo, and we’ve seen trailers for the series where Sam and Bucky apparently practice throwing Cap’s shield around out in the woods. Perhaps there’s a secluded cabin nearby…

The conspiracy theory about Captain America secretly watching us from the moon is likely a reference to Nick Fury in the comics. The events of Original Sin showed that Fury had been secretly waging wars on potential alien invaders for years. Uatu the Watcher put a series of events in motion so that he would die, but Fury’s immoral actions would be exposed. In the end, Fury was forced to become the new Watcher — the Unseen — and was imprisoned on the moon, looking over Earth as his new job. Coincidentally, Bucky took up his alien-fighting job in the aftermath.

It also feels a little like The Last Avengers Story, a dystopian Avengers comic from the mid-90s. It’s explained that at some point, Steve Rogers was President and was assassinated. In the final scene, it’s revealed that he’s been secretly recovering and has been watching over the world in a bunker.

Who is the New Captain America?

The new Captain America that we meet so briefly here is Wyatt Russell as John Walker. Who is John Walker, you ask? Well, John Walker was ALSO the new Captain America in the comics! But before that he was the reactionary supervillain known as the Super-Patriot. He took over the mantle of Captain America after the government decided they wanted Steve Rogers to be more of an employee and less a free agent symbol of liberty. After his time as Cap was up, John became the U.S.Agent. That’s all you’re gonna get out of us for now, for fear of spoilers.

You can read more about John Walker here.

Unanswered Questions

No, we don’t know who the L.A.F. are supposed to be, either.

The “government official” who introduces John Walker is played by Alphie Hyorth, and is simply credited as “government official” in the credits. That seems pretty suspicious to us, and we wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up being revealed with a recognizable Marvel Universe name like Henry Peter Gyrich or something down the line.

Names like Captain Vassant, Congressman Lockhart, Senator Atwood, or Bucky’s therapist Dr. Raynor appear to check out Marvel-wise.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 1: Marvel and MCU Easter Eggs appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3cQ19Wj

[twh-news]

What is the Multiverse? Five Must-See Alternate Timeline TV Episodes to Watch After ‘Loki’

Look, I get it — multiverse storytelling can be confusing. Marvel’s Loki streaming series is only the latest in a long line of stories that plays fast and loose with the idea of multiple or parallel timelines. Loki follows the God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) after he gets involved with the Time Variance Authority, or the TVA, as they try to correct problems in individual timelines. This provides us a chance to see lots of variant Lokis (including our favorite chompy green boy) and opens up opportunities for a lot of zany storytelling that doesn’t necessarily have to impact the primary timeline.

The idea of multiple universes existing at the same time isn’t anything new. Some of the earliest examples date back to Norse mythology, which divided existence into nine worlds. DC Comics first introduced the idea of the DC multiverse in its comics in All Star Comics #3 in 1940, and Marvel later followed suit, starting with their What if? series in the 1970s. While the concept of parallel universes might feel a little daunting to contemplate on your own, these five television episodes will help you understand the magic of the multiverse.

“The Parallel” — The Twilight Zone

When it comes to television that changed the way we think, Rod Serling‘s The Twilight Zone is the forebear of them all. The original series ran from 1959 to 1964 and contained stories from science fiction greats like Ray Bradbury (Farhenheit 451) and  Richard Matheson (I Am Legend). Each episode in the anthology series told a different short story, most with the intent of exploring some political or social allegory.

In 1963’s “The Parallel”, Major Robert Gaines (Steve Forrest) is orbiting earth in his space capsule when he suddenly blacks out and wakes up on Earth with no memory of how he got there. He’s uninjured, but the world he’s arrived in doesn’t quite match the one he left. His daughter suspects he’s someone else, his house suddenly has a white picket fence that his wife swears has always been there, and everyone keeps calling him Colonel, which matches his uniform but not his memories. He’s a little shaken until he comes to the conclusion that he’s in a parallel universe, and then takes steps to get back to his own timeline.

“The Parallel” marks the first instance of multiverse storytelling on TV. It doesn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking and is a middle-of-the-road The Twilight Zone episode, but it’s the first, which means it paved the way for everyone else to tell TV stories about parallel universes and doppelgangers.

“Mirror Mirror”/”Crossover” — Star Trek/Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Did I say doppelgangers? If there’s one franchise that has capitalized on the potential fun of meeting your alternate self, it’s Star Trek. In the “Mirror Mirror” episode of the original series, a teleporter mishap sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura to a parallel dimension where everything is reversed. The Federation has become an evil Empire, Kirk is a tyrant, and Spock has a goatee (that’s how you know he’s evil). The episode started several tropes about doppelgangers (including the whole goatee thing), and paved the way for future Star Trek iterations to really go wild with the Mirror Universe.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explored the Mirror Universe more than any other Star Trek series, with stories taking place there over five different episodes. The first of these, “Crossover,” is the most important and sets the stage for the later mirror episodes. In “Crossover,” Major Kira (Nana Visitor) and Doctor Bashir (Alexander Siddig) have an accident inside of the wormhole near the planet Bajor, sending them to the Mirror Universe. It’s been decades since Kirk and co. crossed over, but things are still pretty backwards in the Mirrorverse. Instead of the Federation, there’s a coalition between the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans. Terrans (a fancy word for Earthlings) have been enslaved. The space station Deep Space Nine is instead a mining operation, run by the alternate Kira, the Intendant.

There are few things in the world as enjoyable as watching Visitor play her double role. The entire cast really gets to go for it with their Mirrorverse personas, and you can tell they’re having a blast. The Mirror Universe in Deep Space Nine gave the actors a chance to explore their characters in new ways, and it provided more insight into their individual pathos. Sure, the Mirrorverse versions were the “evil” versions of themselves, but there were still versions of themselves. Kira is a strong leader with a dry sense of humor, regardless of whether she’s the former Bajoran freedom fighter or the Intendant. “Crossover” set up the following four Deep Space Nine Mirror episodes, including episodes where Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) must pretend to be his doppelganger and deal with the fact that his dead wife is still very alive in the parallel universe. Some of the episodes are silly fun, and some are a bit more heady, but they all get to explore sides of these characters that we’ve never seen before.

“Remedial Chaos Theory” — Community

The NBC sitcom Community frequently made its own riffs on popular tropes, and it had an utter field day with parallel universes. In the season 3 episode, “Remedial Chaos Theory,” viewers are treated to seeing six different ways the same evening could have played out. The friends, who met in a Spanish study group at their community college, are all celebrating Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi) moving into a new apartment. When the pizza arrives, group leader Jeff (Joel McHale) suggests they roll dice to see who has to go get the pizza. Abed, who is sensitive to tropes, points out that Jeff is creating new timelines by introducing chance, and then we get to see each of them play out.

What “Remedial Chaos Theory” does is brilliant. It’s a bottle episode, all set in one location with no visible impact on the overall plot. However, by seeing how the situations change each time a single character is removed from the group dynamic, we’re able to learn so much more about the group as a whole. The episode gives us insight into the characters and their relationships by changing up the formula just a pinch and removing one element. In the Darkest Timeline, which leaves Pierce (Chevy Chase) dead and severely maims the rest of the group, it’s revealed that things fall apart without Troy in the mix. At the end of the episode, the prime timeline continues and it’s Jeff who has to go get the pizza. This ends up being the most positive of the timelines, which means maybe the group is better off without Jeff at all. It’s a great piece of character storytelling and even ends with the Darkest Timeline versions of Troy and Abed making felt goatees for themselves before declaring they are Evil Troy and Evil Abed.

“Rixty Minutes” – Rick and Morty

Community showrunner Dan Harmon clearly has a love for stories involving parallel timelines, so it’s no surprise that he expanded on those ideas in Rick and Morty, the adult animated series he developed with Justin Roiland. Rick and Morty is a kind of Back to the Future for twisted adults; it follows the adventures of alcoholic mad scientist Rick Sanchez (Roiland) and his hapless grandson Morty Smith (also Roiland) as they travel through space and time. In the first season episode “Rixty Minutes,” Rick introduces the entire Smith family to the many parallel timelines that exist. He and Morty watch Interdimensional Cable in the A plot, which gives Roiland a chance for lots of fun improvisational gags, but the B plot is more interesting. In order to enjoy his cable watching, Rick gives Morty’s parents and sister a helmet that will let them see through the eyes of some of their alternate selves.

Jerry (Chris Parnell) finds a version of himself that’s a huge Hollywood player who parties with Johnny Depp. Beth (Sarah Chalke) finds a reality where she’s not a horse surgeon, but a human surgeon, like she always wanted. Their teenage daughter Summer (Spencer Grammar) discovers that she was an unplanned pregnancy and that her parents argued about whether or not to get an abortion. In the parallel universes, she either doesn’t exist or her life is hopelessly boring. This leads to a pretty massive existential crisis, but she’s stopped by Morty, who has already had his fair share of timey-wimey weirdness.

Morty takes Summer upstairs and shows her two dirt mounds in the backyard. He explains that he’s not the Morty from this timeline, and that he and Rick had to come here after things in their timeline got too bad. The Rick and Morty in this timeline had just died, so they slipped in unnoticed. Then, Morty gives Summer a bit of advice that shows he’s beginning to grow up a bit on his madcap adventures.

“Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV?” he pleads.

The episode ends with the entire Smith family realizing that dwelling on possible alternate realities will only ever cause problems. It’s a testament to living in the here and now, and is one of the series’ most emotionally resounding moments.

There are dozens of shows with multiverse stories out there, from ’90s sci-fi staple Sliders to the later seasons of Supernatural. These five, however, helped expand upon the trope as a whole, and are worth checking out to improve your pop culture savvy. That, and they’re just a lot of fun.

[mzannthropy]

Rebecca (2020)

I really couldn’t be bothered typing it all out, luckily I was tweeting about it excessively while watching so I’ll just use those tweets to write my review. 

Yes, it was a very nice looking movie, but that’s just not enough. Re the mustard suit... 

We’ve already heard enough about the mustard suit.

They start with the famous first line (duh, of course) and I also like that they kept in the line about bottling a memory like a scent. BUT---

The heroine and Maxim are NOT supposed to be physically intimate before their marriage. Hell, they’re not even physically intimate after they marry!

I don’t know what I make of her driving the car, I think it’s out of character. And in the book, he let her have the book of poetry. 

Nice car and how gorgeous is Monaco? 

Ann Dowd killed it as Mrs Van Hopper. Must be a fun character to play for an experienced actress like her!

So, the proposal, I’m probably an unpopular opinion about this, but I have always liked it, from the first time I read Rebecca--and I’m a Maxim hater. I love how casually he drops it, while eating breakfast (breakfast is one of my favourite things, ok?). I have always loathed big, dramatic proposals, the going-down-on-one-knee-with-ring things, I find them cringey and they make me feel like I want to run away. Ok maybe he didn’t have to call her a little fool, but I like it. Maxim grabbing her shoulders while saying that line was just...meh. (Also, since they had already kissed and more, why would she think he wants her to come to Manderley to be his secretary??) 

Manderley. There should have been a long, winding drive to the house but ok. Kristin Scott Thomas, a highlight of the movie. 

This is where it starts to go really wrong. The point was that Maxim DID NOT show, or let Mrs Danvers or any other servant show, the house to his new wife. She gets lost in it later! The family history is irrelevant. 

This is what I tweeted:  “Why is he sleepwalking? Jesus. Do you even know the story you're adapting?”

I liked Beatrice, Giles and Granny. Giles makes a good comic relief. I also liked Frank Crawley, now I realise I never mentioned him in my tweets but he’s like my favourite character and a million times better man than Maxim. Not sure this movie really captured the nice friendship he has with Mrs de Winter 2. 

Good to see Dolorous Edd again, not seen him since Game of Thrones! I liked the actor that played Robert too, even though he hardly had any lines, I thought he was a good fit.

So, Sam Riley as Jack Favell. Before watching, I hoped he, too, would be one of the highlights, as this is a good role for an actor to sink his teeth into, such a deliciously slimy character! I loved his performance--but that horse riding scene... not right. And then Maxim getting jealous over him?? Did these people read the book?

In the book the dress for the fancy dress ball was white, here they changed it to red but it doesn’t matter bc red is associated with Rebecca anyway. Speaking of which, they could have at least put those red rhododendrons in, they’ve got nice scenery and sets, why not flowers too?

These are my following tweets and I honestly don’t remember what they refer to, but at this stage it doesn’t matter:

This is now a different story.

I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be that many storms. (Ok, this one clearly refers to storms and yes, remember how in the book it was very hot and stuffy and the air was heavy and they *wanted* a storm, but it didn’t come until the evening after the inquest.)

Eh not sure that Armie is pulling this off... Sorry.

That's.... Not how it happened...

Gosh this is so flat.

THIS IS ALL WRONG!

This is not how it happened. This is not how it's supposed to go.

"Why shouldn't a woman amuse herself." Finally a good line.

It was good to see Maxim in a jail cell, where he belongs. He got out the next day, but I’ll take what I can. 

They confirm the Rebecca/Danvers relationship but then have Danny kill herself. Ok. And the ending...

Ok, the ending. It was really a beautiful scene. Lily in front of a mirror, smoking, then Armie and her get intimate. Absolutely gorgeous. BUT--that’s not the de Winters. That’s a scene from a different movie. It made them look like a couple that travels the world doing crimes, like Bonnie and Clyde or someone, but that’s not what de Winters are. They live a boring existence somewhere in southern Europe (I think) in hotels and read papers. Like, you might call them criminals, after all Maxim is a murderer and he made her an accessory, but not in Bonnie and Clyde way. Wrong.

What I especially hated was that they brought up all that stuff about Rebecca in court. The book has so much tension, this is where it turns into proper thriller. The point was that it never gets out. (If it was true at all, we only have Maxim’s word for it.) Well, the point is that this movie completely misses the point, so what can I say.

So much melodrama. And it had it potential.