#or things I thought were fun and it seems like the state of modern trek needs fun | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aangs-surrounding-love · 4 years ago

Text

My take on Aang’s trauma:

Alrighty everyone this is going to be a long one. I’ll do my best to only include the more important parts of Aang’s actions that I think reflect his trauma. Also, moments that I think reflect his trauma. Actually, I don’t really know if I can directly categorize this post but let’s just say this is very Aang-centric and somewhat of Aang-defense. Aang-protection? Feh-I’ll start.

In season 1 episode 1: The Boy In The Iceberg we see that Aang is briefly told that no one has seen an airbender in 100 years. We can see a tiny bit of shock but what happens next is that the topic is dissed and they move on. Aang doesn’t yet know what happened. But that small little face of shock and confusion always gets me.

Season 1 Episode 2: When Aang finds out he was stuck for 100 years, a war broke out, and his people were very likely killed, he looks on the bright side and looks to Katara saying, “I did get to meet you.”

When they find out he’s the avatar everyone is like, no wayyyy. He still offers himself up to protect the tribe.

Why didn’t he tell them? “Because I never wanted to be” is 100% a valid answer. He was scared. He thought that they’d push him away as his friends did at the temple. Or maybe send him away like the leaders wanted to do to him. (Although Sokka did banish Aang, it wasn’t because of his title and because he put the tribe at risk so it doesn’t exactly count)

Season 1 episode 3: The Southern Airtemple. “We’re home, buddy. We’re home.” Aang says to Appa. Something about this seems like a nostalgic moment. He left on bad terms and now he’s back seeing it 100 years later, hopeful.

He looks for all the old things that made him happy. Air ball, Gyatso’s statue, searching for people. (The little fruit pie flash-back)

He goes to the statue room and looks for answers. He meets Momo. However, when Aang and Sokka start chasing Momo I see Aang tearing up when he’s jumping down the cliffside. My take on this isn’t because he’s falling down at such a velocity that he starts crying, my take is that it’s because it’s his first chance to reveal that there’s hope that some of the Air Nation survived and that Aang isn’t alone.

Aang discovers Gyatso’s skeleton and goes into the Avatar State. His major hopes have been diminished.

He says to Momo, “You, me, and Appa, we’re that’s left of this place now. We have to stick together.” It’s so sad. They’re the only parts of the Air Nation that are alive. They don’t have anything left of the air nation and that’s why they need each other; they need to stay together.

At the closing of the episode, we see Aang and Momo flying away from the temple on Appa. Aang's face is so somber like he’s watching his happy memories diminish. Like the nostalgia being wiped away directly in front of him.

Season 1 Episode 5: The King of Omashu. This one is more of fine detail, but to me, it’s still very important and needs to be mentioned more. At the end of the episode, when Aang figures out it was Bumi, his old friend, you can see little tears welling in his eyelids. My understanding makes me think that Aang was tearing up because he sees someone who isn’t dead. The tears are of relief because to Aang, maybe not everyone is gone. His childhood isn’t over, Aang can still be a kid. Because the reason Gyatso was protecting Aang was that he wanted Aang to have a childhood. Although it was stripped away, this gave Aang another chance to have fun intentionally. Another sign that his childhood isn’t completely over.

Season 1 episodes 7-8: Winter Solstice Part 1: The Spirit World and Winter Solstice Part 2: Avatar Roku. In the first part, we meet a village. Aang tries to help them by saying, “I have to try” my legendary overthinking and analysis makes me believe that Aang truly wants to help these people already, but also that as the Avatar he wants to make up for the lost time he was stuck. He feels the burden he afflicted on the world.

His ability to relate to Hei Bai. Aang felt terrible about the woods and trees that were burnt down. It’s the empathy the made Hei Bai Aang’s friend. The compassion that Aang brings is truly amazing.

Part 2: Avatar Roku. Okay, so he wants to go alone because he doesn’t want Katara or Sokka to get hurt. My take on this is not only are they friends, but he also doesn’t want another one of his actions affecting the casualties of the war.

Season 1 Episode 12: The Storm. This episode is great. We get his backstory. We see why he ran away. We see what causes him to get stuck. And we get to see him upset. We see his guilt. “My people needed me, and I wasn’t there to help.” Followed by, “the WORLD needed me, and I wasn’t there to help.”

“How could they do that to me? They wanted to take away everything I knew and everyone I’ve ever loved!” This quote digs deep. Not only is Aang angry, but this takes a play on how he reacts to people and how he responds to people. He wanted to be a normal kid. (I’ll bring this back later)

Earlier in this episode, there’s this fisherman who was blaming him, so I’m in the cave Aang says, “the fisherman was right. I DID turn my back on the world.” He knows what he did was wrong and he saw the consequences. He ran away, and now that he faced the consequences, he actively wants to change and become better. He’s learning from his actions.

Season 1 episode 13: The Blue Spirt. Admiral Zhao says to Aang, “tell me, how does it feel to be the only airbender left? Do you miss your people?” Not only is this said in such a vile, evil way, we see Aang’s face which changes from being angry and upset with Adm. Zhao, we see that it changes to ashamed and guilt ridden. Actually, it kinda looks like Aang wanted to talk back to him, but he needed a moment. He needed that moment to take in what Zhao said.

Aang finds out that the Blue Spirit (the person wearing the mask) is Zuko. Aang was going to leave him there, to get caught by Admiral Zhao, but Aang instead takes him to safety. And may I mention that Aang made him a little leaf bed? Anyway, he stays with Zuko until he wakes up. Aang was talking about they could be friends and that one of his best friends was from the Fire Nation. I think not leaving Zuko behind shows both how Aang does his best to no longer leave people behind and to try to bring the best out of Zuko.

Season 1 episode 15: Bato of the Water Tribe. Aang takes the map to guide them to Hakoda for himself out of fear that Sokka and Katara would leave him. Though it was a bad decision, the thing is he didn’t think he could handle being alone. He was alone enough as it is. His people were gone and his friends (excluding Bumi) were gone or dead as well. So having to trek to the NWT alone would be a continuous reflection of his actions and would likely send him down on a more hateful path.

Season 1 Episode 16: The Deserter. Aang wants to learn the elements as fast as possible, even if it means doing it irregularly. He also is unsure whether he’ll ever get the chance to learn firebending again after he learns the other elements. So he starts to learn firebending from Jeong Jeong. He wants to make up for lost time which is another reason for this decision.

He hurts Katara and becomes afraid of handling fire and vows to be more careful with it in the future. (I will bring this up again later)

Season 1 Episode 17: The Northern Air temple. Aang sees that the northern Air temple became inhabited by people and they built pipes and other things that ruined the temple. They destroyed the temple and there wasn’t anything left that remained the same. When he saw the wrecking ball machine, he rightfully knocked it away for “destroying something sacred”. It was the last place that remained unaffected by modernization and industrialization then it was knocked over, right in front of him. So my take on this is a question within itself: if you loved something that was deeply close to you like a relic, something important, something that’s the only thing left of your family, got destroyed right in front of you, how would you feel? The answer would probably be pretty freaking upset.

Season 1 episode 19: The Siege of the North: part 1. Starting with part 1, the fire nation comes to the northern water tribe and the fight begins. Before the fight begins, Aang says, “I wasn’t there when the Fire Nation attacked my people. I’m going to make a difference this time.” He wants what’s best for the world, he’s going to stay. He isn’t going to run this time, he’s going to fight of the sake for the world, for the sake of the future. Still, the look on his face when he says that, it’s guilt plastered all over. The guilt is also shown with a determination to make his difference.

Aang flies out on Appa to try to prevent further damage by taking out a few ships. He returns around sunset, exhausted and somewhat defeated. He says, “I’m just one kid” then buries his face in between his legs. He’s right, he is one kid. The avatar, yes, a kid, yes. I have a feeling he’d be thinking about how massively overwhelmed his people were when the Fire Nation attacked. With the power of 500 suns, it would be disastrous. And with this, there are hundreds of ships in that fleet with hundreds more men, ready to fight.

Season 1 episode 20: The Siege of the North: Part 2. Aang returns to the spirit oasis and enters the avatar state saying, “No... It’s not over” he won’t give up on the tribe. He won’t let the Fire Nation win. Still, he isn’t running away, he chose to return to the Spirit Oasis to try to save the spirits.

Season 2 episode 1: The Avatar State. Aang’s told by General Fung that he could defeat the Fire Nation using the Avatar State. Gen. Fung manipulates Aang using Aang’s own guilt and faults to get him to try to train to turn the Avatar State on. Gen. Fung shows Aang the wounded to get him to join.

Initially, Aang doesn’t join. But he changes his mind upon further debate. During the training (well after a day of training) Katara and Aang have a long conversation about it. First, Katara tries to convince him to stop training to turn the Avatar State on but Aang refuses. Katara says, “I don’t understand.” Aang replied, “No, you don’t. Every day, more and more people die. I’m already 100 years late.” Aang’s own guilt is driving him to pursue helping everyone. Even though it wasn’t the right decision, he realizes that he needs to try everything he can to save the world.

Season 2 Episode 3: Return to Omashu. I already did my take away on Aang’s trauma for “The King of Omashu” but this will make my point stronger. Anyway, to the point. Aang goes to Bumi to learn earthbending. His old friend, the mad genius. When he arrives at Omashu, Katara, Sokka, and Aang see that Omashu was conquered by the Fire Nation. Despite Sokka trying to convince Aang to turn around, saying that there are other teachers, Aang shuts both of them down. He wants to rescue Bumi. Not only because he’s his best friend, but I think it’s the added reasons of impending guilt that he receives from leaving the Air Nation to fight on their own, and always wanting to protect his friends.

Season 2 episode 10: The Library. By goodness. Beginning of the episode. Aang is “making an orchestra”. My little headcanon is that all airbenders play an instrument and Aang chose the flute. Anyway, in this headcanon, the air nomads had a band that Aang loved to participate in. Just a little reminder he can’t be in a band surrounded by his people and wanted to make an orchestra on his own to feel happy like he would if he was around the Air Nomads.

Professor Zei calling Aang a relic. Just... terrible. That’s what he, his people, his culture surmounted to. Only a relic. An episode in time.

“We had no choice. Please. We’re desperate to protect the people we love.” This is what Aang says to Wan Shi Tong after the spirit’s anger about using the library to win a war. Aang is trying to protect the world and whoever he has left in the world. His people died. His friends before the war excluding Bumi are dead. Now all he has are his current friends, Appa, and Momo. That’s all he has left and he’s going to do anything to protect them.

Appa gets taken away. That’s it. They exit the sinking library. “Where’s Appa?” Aang asks Toph in confusion. As Toph shakes her head, humming, “mmm-mmm” Aang’s face looks so scared, so hurt. This is his best friend, his life partner to the death. His closest friend, even before the war. They have an inseparable bond and then Appa’s taken away from Aang. Aang doesn’t know if he’s alright, one of the three surviving members of the Air Nomads.

Season 2 Episode 11: The Desert. Aang is so hurt that he lashes out at Toph. His best friend and life partner were stripped from him. I could feel the pain and anger in his voice.

“I’m going to find Appa.” Aang flies away to search on his glider. Again, one of the last surviving members of the Air Nomads is gone. I will elaborate in others.

“APPA!” He calls out. He begins to tear up but sucks it down. “No... No!!!” He creates the gush of air at the ground, making the sand rise up. The complete anger is apparent.

“I’m sorry, OK? it’s a desert cloud. I did all I could.” Aang is left angry and lashes out at everyone. Aang blames Toph at first but it goes deeper than that. If Aang hadn’t gone inside, Appa could’ve been with him. Everyone could’ve gotten out of the desert.

Momo gets carried by a Buzzard-wasp. “I’m not losing anyone else out here.” If Momo was taken away that makes Aang the only one left. He’d be completely alone. And he would only have himself to blame. If he hadn’t run away... if he hadn’t gone inside the library... if he hadn’t chased and knocked the buzzard wasp down. But luckily, Aang gets Momo back.

Aang finds out that the sand benders he encountered were the ones who stole Appa. He acts appropriately and questions them. He wrecks a sand sailer. He wants his bison back. He needs Appa back.

“You muzzled Appa?!” He enters the avatar state in rage. Appa was much more than a pet. Appa is Aang’s best friend. His life partner. His link to his people. Hearing that Appa was treated like an uncontrollable, rabid animal isn’t alright with him. His people were already killed. So hearing that Appa could be in the same situation or worse hurts.

“I traded him with some merchants.” Trading him. Like property. Appa is living, breathing, he isn’t property. Then Appa was set to be sold. Sold.

Season 2, Episode 12: The Serpents Pass. Aang is trying to remain emotionless after Appa was taken away. He doesn’t want to grieve. He doesn’t want to feel. He wants the war to end and be done. He wants Appa back of course, but I think Aang feels that his emotions are going to prevent progress. So when Suki mentions how Appa wasn’t there, Aang was the first to look away. It hurts him immensely.

“Are you doing okay?” Suki asks Aang. At first, Aang looks to Suki and then to Katara, Sokka, and Toph. The view switches back to Aang where he says harshly, “I’m doing fine. Would everybody stop worrying about me?” Aang doesn’t want to be reminded further that -in his mind- that he failed.

“And now it’s like you don’t care about him at all,” Katara states. Katara continues about how worried she is for Aang and offers him a hug. He steadily rejects, “thanks for your concern, Katara.” He walks away. He is so hurt that he doesn’t want to feel. He doesn’t want to be human.

“But you’ve made me feel hopeful again.” It doesn’t mean he’ll stop himself from blaming himself, but it means Aang will return to being hopeful and optimistic.

Season 2 episode 13: The Drill. It’s towards the end where Aang gives the final blow, it’s not really about the moment but the music. Aang is determined to save the world. Even though he’s going through in an incredibly tough time, he’s not going to give up and he’s going to save Ba Sing Se. The music displays this perfectly also while the French Horns add Aang’s musical theme in the background.

Season two, episode 15. The tales of Ba Sing Se. Aang creates a Zoo after seeing all the caged up animals. I think that Aang did this because it reminded Aang what predicament Appa could be in. All chained up. Of course, above anything else, Aang goes to the Zoo in the first place to look for Appa. But I think Aang wanted to release the animals into a better space because Aang wanted to help them, knowing at least Appa would want a sense of freedom. Also because Aang could see that the animals were unhappy.

Season 2 episode 16: Appa’s Lost Days. Sorry but Aang sleeps with the bison whistle right next to him. Meaning, the first thing he wakes up to is the whistle. So right away, Aang is reminded that he needs to get Appa back no matter what.

Season 2 Episode 17: Lake Logoai. Weakly, Jet says, “I’m sorry, Aang.” Aang replies, “Don’t be.” Aang is already worried. But after it's inferred that Aang was going to die by Toph’s, “He’s lying,” is another reminder to Aang that having relations to other people puts them in danger. And that Aang might think that he is another cause for Jet’s death. It’s a big rolel, accounting for every death and injury at Aang’s stake.

Reuniting was Appa, finally. The tears, the relief. Appa will forever be his best friend. To death. A weight was definitely released from his chest.

Season 2 episode 18: The Earth King. Aang wants to tell the Earth King the truth. With Appa back, it’s hoped that things could turn out well for Aang. And a chance the war could end sooner. For the fatalities to stop.

Season 2 episode 19: The guru. “What do you blame yourself for?” Aang responds, “I ran away. I hurt all those people.” He holds himself accountable that he wasn’t there. That he was the cause of injury. Even though he forgave himself doesn’t mean he thinks about it. That’s the thing about guilt. It reoccurs no matter if you try to bury it. Or even forgive yourself, it still shows up.

“Lay all your grief out in front of you.” Aang pictures the whole Air Nation with Gyatso in the front. He’s trying to save the word to not leave their names, their culture in vain. He lost everyone.

Season 2 episode 20: the Crossroads of Destiny. He had to let her go. There were too many people against him. He had no other choice than to let go and enter the avatar state. He had to give up another part of himself to be what the world needed. He needed to save Katara, not letting any others fall to his fault.

Season 3 Episode 1: The Awakening. “Everyone thinks you’re dead. Isn’t that great?!” To Aang, it isn’t. In fact, that’s probably the worst thing Sokka could’ve said. To Aang, the world thinks he failed... again. At first, he vanished for 100 years, thought dead. Then he returned to become dead again. Now, the Fire Nation has practically won because he wasn’t able to keep Ba Sing Se afloat.

Aang wants to intervene even though he’s barely able to walk. He wants to handle it himself. He’s holding himself accountable. Maybe even thinking, it’s the least I can do if I’ve already failed to the world twice. He keeps trying to help, having Sokka hold him back.

“I don’t want you or anyone else risking your lives for my mistakes.” This means Aang really blames himself for everyone. Holding everything on his shoulders. Thinking, “it’s all my fault.”

Aang does the thing he knows how to, he flies away on his glider. Hurt and bombarded with a storm. When he’s found by his friends, he finds his glider which we knew was very important to him. Air Nomads weren’t very material, but to a person with a smidge of their culture left, it would’ve meant much more. So, seeing it in shambles and them actively choosing to burn it is heartbreaking.

Season 3 episode 2: The Headband. The fact that the children of the Fire Nation and everyone who was taught after the war started thought the Air Nomads had a military, forcing the Fire Nation to attack them. It’s screwy. It was wrong, but knowing that his culture was thought of as evil and bloodthirsty had to have been off-putting. I mean, the Air Nomads were pacifist!

Aang was stripped of his childhood, so going to a school gave him a new chance without the burden of being the avatar. For example, earlier I mentioned Aang was excluded from playing with the air-scooter, but in the Fire Nation school, Aang as Kuzon was invited to play Hide and Explode. A chance to have fun without his responsibility to defeat the Fire Lord. A chance to be a normal kid.

“You taught them to be free” Aang did his best to help the kids. It wasn’t defeating the Fire Lord but it gave them control. A mind. They were brainwashed by the school and their country! So achieving a sense of freedom by self expression is something more than I can display in words.

Season 3 Episode 9: Nightmares and Daydreams. Although it’s a fun episode, Aang is in his last moments to train before the invasion. He has to be ready. He’s afraid that he’ll let the world down a third time. So, he creates false scenarios and plays them out to prepare. In this process, he gets really sleep deprived because of his stress. He’s rightfully worried. The state of the world continues to burden him.

Season 3 episode 10: The Day Of Black Sun, Part 1: The Invasion. Aang comes to Sokka’s side when Sokka begins to worry about his moment of truth. Aang says, “I already failed to world once at Ba Sing Se. I won’t let myself fail again.” Again, it’s all up to him. He needs to save the world, he needs to redeem himself.

Season 3 episode 11: The Day Of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse. Aang finds that it was all a trap. He failed again. On Appa as the youngest of the group loads on Appa, Aang is crying. He told himself that he wouldn’t fail. That he needed to win. He needed this victory to find out that his plan was ruined.

Season 3 Episode 12: The Western Air Temple. Aang accepts Zuko into the group. He does this not only because he needs a teacher but realizes that in his past attempt to learn Firebending, he hurt Katara. And that Jeong Jeong wasn’t the right master, but knowing that Zuko changed made Aang accept Zuko into the group and teach him.

Season 3 Episode 13: The Firebending Masters. Earlier, I mentioned that Aang vowed to be more careful with Fire after burning Katara. Showing why his flame was timid and weak. He was afraid for it to become out of control and hurt someone.

Season 3, episode 16: The Southern Raiders. “You’re feeling unbelievable pain and rage.” He’s empathizing with Katara. We can’t forget that Aang is a survivor of genocide. He’s been through so much and wants to help Katara make the right decision. Not making it for her, but guiding her through the decision that would make her satisfied with herself and Yon Rha’s outcome. One she could live with. He’s using his own experience to help her.

Season 3, Episode 18, Sozin’s Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King. Aang wants to find an alternate solution rather than kill Firelord Ozai. He wants to stick to his principles. The ones that have been with him since forever. It’s not an easy decision. Maybe not only because of honoring the monks and their teaching but because the war had already created enough bloodshed.

Everyone is quick to assume Aang ran away. Although Aang is called to the Lion Turtles back. I think it was mostly unknowingly because he was like half asleep.

Season 3, Episode 19, Sozin’s Comet, Part 2: Old Masters. Aang looks to the past Avatars for their guidance. They’re the ones who might give him an alternate solution. In my opinion, they were all like, make whatever choice is right for you and the world. Don’t forget the world. Ultimately, to Aang, there were no other options, leaving him with the only option but to take Ozai’s life.

He meets the great look turtle. Aang respectfully asks him for an answer or an option. Once again, Aang was given the knowledge that he could take away whatever he received from the wisdom.

Season 3, Episode 20: Sozin’s Comet: Part 3: Into The Inferno. Ozai degrades Aang. Says, “you’re weak. Just like the rest of your people. They did not deserve to exist in this world, in my world! Prepare to join them.” So Aang has been told he’s weak and he is in no way weak. I will elaborate later.

Season 3, Episode 21: Sozin’s Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang. Aang unblocks the avatar state and pins Ozai down. Just as Aang was going to kill him, he stops. He stops himself from going against his principles. Ozai continues to degrade him. “You are still weak.” Aang directs Ozai’s fire blast away using the Lion Turtle’s wisdom, Aang pins Ozai down and energy bends. With this, Aang discovers this non-fatal solution by giving Ozai justice and taking his bending away. Ozai can no longer intimidate and oppress anyone anymore.

“Please the real hero is the avatar.” That’s it. Aang is the hero. Of course, he had his friends to help him, but every single one of Aang’s mistakes and choices led to this. Led to the world being saved. So, for the first time in a while, Aang can come out of hiding, proud to be in this Air Nomad robes without concealing his identity.

I think I’m exaggerating about the tiniest details, but then again, I’m putting myself in Aang’s shoes, and that’s how I’d feel and how I interpret Aang’s actions/reactions. Also, I know I missed a few points, but I tried.

Big takeaways:

When Aang is told his people have been wiped out AND that he’s been gone for 100 years, for him, it has only been a few days for him. He left and a day later he wakes up and it’s been 100 years. That’s incredibly off-putting and scary. One day and his whole world shifted.

Aang was given very VERY little time to grieve as he had to save the world and learn the elements right away. When we do see it, his grief, he tries to let it all out at once rather than have it seep out little by little.

Aang is 12! He is a child and he saved the world. He has real emotions and was confused from time to time. He was a little immature at first but developed immensely.

Aang makes mistakes. But most importantly is that he learns from them and uses them to decide what's best for him and how to help others.

He looked for the light in dark situations.

Aang is the beacon of hope but even he was unhopeful and detached. He went to nightmares and back despite the worst.

Despite Ozai’s bashing and false claims, Aang is not weak and never has been. Aang went through the worst. He lost his family, his friends, and at one point, his best friend. He died. He was given an almost impossible task. Yet, he completed this task. He saved the world. Yes, he made mistakes but those mistakes shaped Aang into who he became. And how he was able to save the world. And Ozai was incredibly wrong. Aang defeated him and found his alternative. It wasn’t weak. It was strength. As Katara said in The Southern Raiders, “I don’t know if I was too weak to do it or if it’s because I’m strong enough not to.” In Aang’s case, he found his alternative that honored his teachings, his principles, his beliefs all while doing what was best for the world. That isn’t weak. It’s strong. Adding on, to come back from death isn’t weak. To return to action after running away isn’t weak. To face danger? To help others? To fight on the losing side for what is right? No, it’s not weak at all.

The music is fantastic and I think it reflects Aang amazingly. This doesn’t really fit into what I was talking about but the music fits the show.

Aang deserves so much love. I'll say it again, he's been through so much. Much more than what I could handle or almost anyone else. He is a traumatized child but even through the rough patches became an inspiration. To me, I think he’s sometimes overlooked and pushed aside so this is just some of my headcanons and takeaways.

Another thing, I’m not blaming Aang for anything. When I mention “it was his fault” I mean by he was blaming himself. The Air Nation’s genocide is not his fault. I mean that he blames himself for not helping or staying, for running away.

Lastly, I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of their characters. They belong to their rightful creators and writers. Also, this is my analysis and a few of my takes on Aang’s trauma. I'm not trying to project my feelings on anyone. I'm just saying what I think.

If you made it this far thanks for reading my post!

#aang #aanglove #avatar aang #avatar verse #avatar #avatar the last airbender #avatar: tla #personal note that no one cares for but i’m saying it anyway #personal #my thoughts #aang is a sweetie and i will not stand for anything else #aang defense #aang defense squad #alta aang #aang is best boy #aang stan #aang protection #melon's analysis

103 notes · View notes

rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

Text

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways.

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize.

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it?

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965)

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day)

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American.

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways.

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision.

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season.

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit.

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters.

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange.

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets.

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway.

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within.

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year.

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off.

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny.

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet.

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time.

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways.

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades.

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope.

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars.

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965)

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series.

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967)

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here.

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday.

#wandavision #sitcoms #1960s #dick van dyke #bewitched

114 notes · View notes

ur-jinji · 4 years ago

Text

wallflowers: part two

zuko x reader modern au

warning: sokka throws up a lot. sokka always ends up throwing up in my fics

summary: after a night at a party with the gaang and meeting zuko, you join them for breakfast and find time alone with him

a/n: i had no intention of writing a sequel & left part one off with a little bit of cliffhanger just for the fun of it but i got like two comments asking for a part two and i was like damn i feel like i owe it to yall for ending it like that,, so here you go :) i don’t really know how to feel about it

Unknown: hey :) it’s zuko

Your eyes widened at your phone in surprised.

‘He actually texted me,’ You thought to yourself in awe.

“What are you smiling about?” Katara questioned from the drivers seat of the car. She raised an eyebrow and a very smug smirk was wiped across her face.

“Uh, nothing,” You lied before turning back to your phone. You stared at the message for a moment, your fingers stuck. Why were you so nervous to text him back?

You: hey :) how’s the party?

Zuko: really boring now that you’re gone :( aang and i just went up to the guest room for bed. everyone started to leave

You smiled softly.

You: you’re so sweet!!

Zuko: i heard we might go to breakfast tomorrow. will you be there?

“We’re going to breakfast?” You asked Katara.

“Yeah, once they all rise from the dead. Sokka and Suki will probably be the ones most screwed up tomorrow,” She replied, causing you to laugh and nod in agreement.

You: yeah i’ll be there :)

Zuko: good :) see you then

You put your phone back into your pocket and could not stop smiling. Butterflies were swarming in your stomach. You eventually made it to Suki’s apartment, and you and Katara had to practically drag them inside. Once you tucked them into bed, you made yourself comfy on the couch in the living room. You pulled your phone out of your pocket and saw another text.

Zuko: did you make it to suki’s okay??

You: yes :) thanks for asking. we had to put sokka and suki to bed. i think theyll be out for the rest of the night so no funny business haha

Zuko: just give it a minute

Just a moment after Zuko sent that text, you started to hear a consistent creaking of a mattress coming from the other room

You: oh my god you’re right they’re going at it

You: i don’t even know how lmao they were knocked out a second ago

Zuko: i’ve suffered through many long nights in the same house as them. they always find a way -.-

You: god theyre animals lmfao

You: i’m gonna get some sleep, you should too!!

Zuko: okay, sleep well :)

You: you too :)

You awoke the next morning with a sliver of sunshine from the mostly closed curtains shining brightly directly on your face. It was sometime around noon. You rubbed your eyes tiredly and noticed a sound from the bathroom that sounded like gagging. You were suddenly very thankful you only had one drink the previous night. If it weren’t for Zuko, you probably would’ve had more.

You stood from the couch and followed the noise of gags. The door was wide open and you could see Sokka leant over the toilet. You walked towards him, concerned.

“Hey, buddy. Want me to get you some water?” You offered kindly as you placed a hand on his back, rubbing circles. He looked up at you with a look of disgust on his face and nodded slowly.

“I don’t know how Suki does it. She’s perfectly fine,” He mumbled before burping and leaning back over the toilet. Some vomit came up. Gross.

You made your way to the kitchen where you saw Suki, all readied up, pretty, and ready to go.

“Hey, Y/N! How did you sleep?” She chirped. She handed you a water bottle for Sokka, already knowing.

“I slept good. The couch was very comfy,” Yoh replied with a smile.

“I didn’t mean to get so trashed last night. Did I do anything embarrassing?” Suki asked.

“Nope. Sokka on the other hand...” You responded, gaining a laugh from her. Katara appeared in the kitchen and greeted the two of you. She also looked ready to go. You felt embarrassed that you were the last one up.

“I’ll go get ready real quick!” You told them before speed walking from the kitchen. You bee lined to the bathroom and gave Sokka his water.

“Thanks,” He muttered sickly.

“I’m gonna get ready in here while you puke, mkay?” You told him. He nodded and took a long drink of water. He fell backwards onto the tile floor and stared miserably up at the sealing. You went over to the vanity and rushed to get ready using Suki’s things and an extra toothbrush she left for you. As you ran a brush through your hair, you heard Sokka scramble to get back up and upchuck into the toilet some more. You finished up getting ready and made your way out of the bathroom.

You joined the girls on the couch in the living room and chatted for a while until Sokka was able to hold down his vomit. He appeared in the living room and stared miserably at the three of you.

“Don’t you look pretty,” Katara teased. “Now let’s go. Aang, Toph, and Zuko just got to the diner.”

The four of you made your way out to the car and you somehow got stuck in the back with Sokka. He looked like he was about throw up all over you.

“Suki, I hate you for calling shotgun,” You told her. She turned around from the passenger seat and giggled.

“I’m not about to be thrown up on!” She reasoned.

Sokka grumbled something incoherent and then rested his head on the window, closing his eyes. Maybe if he does throw up, he’ll just do it on the floor? Maybe.

You arrived at the diner without any puke on you and you all made your way inside. Aang waved you over at a large table when he saw the group walk in. Your eyes landed on Zuko, who had already noticed you. He smiled warmly. He was seated at the very end of the table with Toph on the other side of him. You took a seat across from him, and Suki sat beside you. You were grateful Sokka didn’t sit by you.

“Hi, Y/N,” Zuko greeted you from across the table. You greeted him back, adding a grin. You looked over the menu to busy yourself. You felt yourself becoming very nervous again in Zuko’s presence, and feeling his gaze on you didn’t help.

“You’re lucky we’re in public, snoozles. I’m ready to put you into another chokehold,” You heard Toph say, presumably to Sokka, earning laughs from the rest of the group.

The table’s waitress came over and took everyone’s orders and then proceeded to say that it may take longer because the kitchen was super backed up. Your stomach grumbled loudly in response.

“God, I’m so hungry,” You said when she walked away.

“Me too,” Sokka said moodily from the other end of the table.

“I’m surprised you even want to eat!” Katara replied to him.

“Do you think you can wait?” Zuko asked.

“I mean, I have to,” You said with a chuckle, thinking you were stating the obvious.

“I have a granola bar in my car if you want it?” He offered softly to you, nudging your shoe with his.

“Really? I wouldn’t mind having one. I’m literally starving,” You responded, ready to jump out of your seat to get the dang thing.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Zuko said as he got up from his chair. You followed him out of the diner and into the parking lot, making small talk on the way to his car. Once you arrived at the destination, he opened the cardoor and fished a granola bar from his school backpack.

“I always have an emergency snack just in case for...y’know...emergencies,” He explained, his voice sounding anxious. You thanked him and ripped that sucker open. You split it in half and handed a half out to him.

“Please share it with me! I don’t want to spoil my entire appetite on accident,” You begged him.

Zuko grabbed the other half and then leaned against the door, munching on his half. You joined him against the door and looked up at him.

“So, did Sokka and Suki keep you up?” He asked.

“Not really. It was quickie,” You answered with a chuckle.

“You’re lucky. They kept me up for two hours once. It was awful,” He said, breathing out a shaky laugh. His nerves were becoming more and more obvious. “I’m not as bold as I was last night.”

“Well, the nickname liquid courage might explain it,” You joked.

“Wanna go for a walk?” Zuko asked with a hopeful expression. You nodded in response and the two of you began a trek out of the parking walk and down some sidewalk. The two of you spent the time sharing stories about your past and friends. You couldn’t help but notice how every so often, his hand would accidentally brush against your knuckles as you walked, causing a few blushes. You ended up at a large mural on the side of an abandoned bricked building on an empty street. It depicted the city abstractly. You looked up in admiration.

“We don’t have very many murals in my town. Just graffiti of random names,” You said to him. “It’s beautiful.”

You walked up to the mural, and as you got closer to the bricks, you reached out a hand, touching the paint gently, and running your fingers down the bricks. Zuko copied you, and his hand accidentally got a little too close to yours. His index finger lightly grazed your pinky. You both froze for a moment, taking in the rush that the contact gave. Zuko turned to you with a soft expression, which you returned.

“We should probably head back. Our food might be ready,” You said, nerves taking over you. You pulled your hand away from the bricks.

“Wait,” Zuko told you hurriedly. “I’ll regret not doing this.”

Before you could ask him what he meant, his hands found their way under your cheekbones. Zuko leaned forward and his eyes fluttered shut. His lips touched yours, causing a rush to race throughout your body. You immediately kissed him back, feeling like you’ve been deprived of his touch all your life. His lips moved quickly against yours like it was urgent. You opened your mouth slightly, welcoming his tongue, which seemed more than happy to enter. You eventually pulled away to catch your breath, both of you panting heavily. Zuko smirked and then leaned in for one more quick kiss, then another, then another, then another, pulling away for a second inbetween each one.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that since last night, but didn’t want to give you the wrong idea. I just really like you,” Zuko explained through his deep breaths. You grinned and pulled him back in for more to tell him you felt the same way. You eventually separated again, and you shared a smile with him.

“I like you too, Zuko. You replied, caressing his cheek, smiling and breathing out one final deep breath. “Let’s head back before our food gets cold.”

Zuko nodded with a small opened mouth smile. The two of you began your walk back, and he surprised you again by taking your hand in his, entwining your fingers.

As you walked back, you couldn’t help but think about transferring colleges.

taglist: @complainsalot @teelagurl558 @coldlilheart

124 notes · View notes

demi-shoggoth · 4 years ago

Text

COVID-19 Reading Log, pt 22

As my state goes back into lockdown, and the numbers of COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing, I am happy to stay inside and keep reading. My behavior hasn’t changed all that much through the various “waves” (because I’ve studied disease ecology and I know how this works. Also, I’m lucky enough to be able to work from home). The opening of my local library for curbside pickup has increased the variety, and decreased the cost, of the influx of books.

116. Sloths: A Celebration of the World’s Most Misunderstood Mammal by William Harston. This is a breezy book, a combined natural and social history of the type that British authors seem to specialize in. The book talks about sloth anatomy, behavior and conservation, as well as how they were maligned by early natural historians and given the name “sloth”. This comes down to, in this account, a lot of French bashing and claims that the English redeemed the sloth’s reputation, which I found charmingly parochial. The book also discusses the modern phenomenon of sloth popularity through YouTube, and the possible hazards that their new stardom puts them in through profit, but this is more a passing mention than a focus. Ample color photographs in multiple sections help remind the reader that yes, sloths are fricking adorable, and serve as a contrast to the inaccurate engravings and other Early Modern renditions.

117. Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells by Harold McGee. McGee is a food author, which makes sense. This book profiles the organic chemistry of volatile compounds in their guise as scents, grouped into broad categories and following the journeys of “Hero Carbon” through the land, sea, sky and living things. The book is filled to the brim with interesting connections between the molecules produced by different things, and is a surprisingly deep dive into the world of the microbiome (as many volatiles are made through bacterial and fungal digestion, not by animals themselves). Each of the things it talks about has “tasting notes” of different scent molecules and their aspects. This might be a fun book to have on hand while engaging in a wine tasting or dinner party (remember those?)

118. Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths by Ryan Britt. Another book recommended to me by library algorithms, this is a collection of essays about pop culture nerd topics. Most of them don’t really have a thesis, just sort of a general “let me tell you about a thing I like” vibe. The title essay, about why the Star Wars universe sucks because of pervasive illiteracy, is one of the better ones, as is the mirror image later in the book about how Star Trek, even most bad Star Trek, incorporates literary themes. The author has a few good zingers sprinkled throughout that I enjoyed, but also makes enough glaringly obvious factual errors (in a nerd book! gasp!) that I suspect that he’s trolling the reader. Also, it’s a glaring act of hubris to include the word “truths” in the title of your book of opinions. Overall, it was fine, but I’m probably never going to think about it again.

119. Life Changing by Helen Pilcher. After being pleased with Death by Shakespeare, I went on a binge of the Bloomsbury Sigma catalog, which my local library has seemingly all of. This is one of their books from this year, about human directed evolution, both intentional (domestication and genetic engineering) and unintentional (humans as a selective pressure on environments). The writing style is pleasant, and the book wanders down quite a few garden paths, making it a highly enjoyable read and purveyor of trivia. Did you know that Argentina’s premier polo player keeps a stable of cloned ponies, and has been known to switch between clones during matches? Did you know that the inventor of Sea Monkeys was a violent white supremacist? Did you know that about 65 billion chickens are killed for food every year? The whole book is filled with tidbits like this, and ends with a discussion of conservation and a plea for rewilding—not necessarily the dramatic examples like introducing elephants to Europe, but just letting large animals like cows and pigs behave like animals instead of commodities, and the positive impact that can have on biodiversity.

120. Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World by Philip Matyszak. I always forget how much I enjoy archaeology and anthropology until I read some. This book is filled with brief articles about cultures in the history of the Levant and Mediterranean that have less name recognition than your Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks or Romans. Some of these are peoples mentioned in the Bible but forgotten outside of their influence on histories or parables, like the Chaldeans, Philistines and Samaritans. Others are those that are more famous for their namesakes than their actual cultures, like the Vandals or Phrygians. Some are people I’d never heard of before. The book has a subtle, wry humor to it, and begins and ends with a reminder that all civilizations are temporary and our perspective is inherently a biased one. After all, Sargon of Akkadia thought his empire spanned the four corners of the world, and he would be remembered forever.

#reading log #archaeology #smell #artificial selection #sloth

20 notes · View notes

lunariasilver · 4 years ago

Text

The Virtuoso: Chapter 1

Masterlist

Previous / Next

Despite my better judgement, I decided to let the woman who attacked me live. She told me her name was Zara. I thought that was a stupid name.

I told her that, too.

She wasn't pleased, but what could she do about it? I had already made it pretty clear that the only reason she was alive was because of...I don't know, some sense of whimsy. Regardless, I was sure that I wouldn't see much of her in the future. It wasn't like I seemed like the type to run a gang, so she had no reason to bother me in the future with some strange desire to suck up to me.

Or at least I hoped not. The concept seemed like a lot of effort.

Now I was regretting not killing her. Those thoughts weighing heavily on me, I set about figuring out exactly how Meteor City worked in the first place.

It didn't take long for me to make a name for myself. Zara helped, actually. Immediately after I let her go she started spreading rumors about some "demon child."

I took a great deal of offense to that nickname.

I was 15 years old. I wasn't a child.

Meteor City was awful. Practically lawless. Dangerous. And yet...aside from a few big names I had to avoid, I found myself flourishing there.

Old habits died hard. Soon after my arrival people started coming to me to 'take care of' their problems. It seemed I was an assassin wherever I went. I had almost the finest amenities that Meteor City had to offer, which was admittedly not much.

We had no plumbing. Disease ran rampant. I threw an excrement bucket on someone's head for fun. There were some water sources, of course. But...well. They weren't exactly filtered.

I set myself up a decent base by one such water source. I threw the previous occupants out back.

I was starting to get settled into my new life of misery when I woke up one morning to find my violin missing.

My violin.

The only gift my grandfather ever gave me.

The only thing that brought me an ounce of comfort.

My most cherished possession.

The only thing that was keeping me sane in this hellhole.

I had to find it.

I had left a trail of blood behind me. Finally I stood in front of one of the only places I had actively avoided in Meteor City. It was a large building by Meteor City standards, but it was still pretty small.

HQ of the so called Spiders. They were an up and coming gang that was already gaining some sway in the City due to their strength. The trail of bodies led me here. I hesitated for only a moment before barging into their HQ. I needed my violin.

Desperately.

"Where is it." I called out in a monotonous tone.

"Where's what?" Some guy in a dark outfit responded. He was currently lounging on a beat up couch, reading a book. He barely spared me a second glance.

"My violin." I deadpanned. Now he looked at me. Both of us seemed to have the same dead-eyed expression.

"I don't have it."

"Bullshit."

"Tch." He then turned his attention back to his book. I narrowed my eyes at him, my mind running a million miles a minute. He wasn't the only one here, that much I knew. It would be stupid for me to attack him, even if I could beat him in a one on one fight, which I wasn't even certain I could do.

"Where's your boss?" I asked.

"Upstairs." He responded, turning a page.

I pursed my lips at him before turning away and quickly finding a stairwell.

'I can tell we'll never get along. I hate that boy.'

I remained alert as I trekked up the stairs. Who knew what they would try to throw at me-

I dodged out of the way of what I could only assume was a giant. "What the hell?!" I exclaimed before quickly reschooling my expression.

"Ha!!! You're fast" Some insane man with an afro exclaimed, grinning at me. It looked like he was wearing fur? For pants?

"Um-" I started, furrowing my eyebrows at him.

"Less talking!" And with that, he ran at me again. I managed to move out of his way again, despite being in a stairwell.

"Why are we fighting?!" I exclaimed, frantically dodging.

"Why aren't you fighting!?!" The man exclaimed. He looked fucking feral!

"I'm not in the habit of fighting animals!" I retorted before narrowing my eyes. 'I'm not in the habit of dying, either.' With that thought in mind, I reached over my shoulder and pulled a ridiculously decorated dagger out of thin air.

'Killua's dagger.' I thought, unable to stop the flash of bitterness, or the shame that came immediately after.

Somehow his grin became even more feral as he charged at me again. I would really prefer to come at him from a distance, but I was in close quarters. I didn't have much of a choice.

This time I met his swing with my dagger, which extended in length a bit. I managed to deflect his blow so that my dagger was now pushing into his forearm. Strangely enough, it didn't cut him. It didn't take long to realize that I wouldn't be able to meet him blow for blow. His own brute strength far outweighed my own.

I pushed myself off of him and pivoted to the side, leaving him to crash into the wall as I took off up the rest of the stairs.

"Hey, get back here!" He shouted.

"No! You're like 40 years old, I'm not fighting you!" I shouted back. He actually only looked about 19, 20 at the most. I didn't know why I said that.

My eyes were wide as I kept running. Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered that my father would be ashamed of me for showing fear, so I schooled my expression.

"HEY YOU BRAT!" I heard him shout. I entered a hall and kept running straight ahead before crashing through the door. In hindsight I could have just opened it, but it looked like I could just break it, so why not. There was a man with dark hair and dark eyes sitting at a desk calmly.

He had a disarming smile on his face as he regarded me. His hair was straight and free of fly aways, but he had shaggy bangs. It led me to believe that he put a bit of care into his appearance, despite the fact that we lived somewhere that modern amenities were practically non-existent. I quickly drew my eyes away from his face to the top of his desk. Sitting there, in plain sight, was my violin case.

My mouth twitched towards a scowl before stilling as I marched up to the desk. "That belongs to me."

His expression didn't change from the very vision of tranquility that it was. "It didn't take you long to get here."

I snatched the case and narrowed my eyes at him. "Never take my things."

"I gave it back." He replied. It was pissing me off that he looked so nonplussed about all of this.

I closed my eyes for a second, my eyebrows twitching. "I took it back."

"If I wanted to keep it, I could have."

I kept my eyes closed. I was well aware of the fact that I was in danger. I couldn't take on all of these people.

I couldn't see them all, sure, but I was well aware of their presence. Yet another reason for me to keep my expression as still as possible.

"I believe that." I opened my eyes and met his gaze. "So what do you want?"

"Just to say hello." He responded.

I inhaled sharply. "Hello."

I hate him.

That wasn't the last time I saw Chrollo Lucilfer, as I later learned was his name. It wasn't the last time I saw any of the three members I had seen that day.

Chrollo I found lounging by one of the cleanest water sources we had, reading a book that I recognized from a glance. It was one of my absolute favorites. Before I realized was I was doing, I was approaching him and taking a seat next to him.

"Hello Ivela." He greeted, turning a page.

"Do you like that book?" I asked, not bothering to return his greeting.

"I wouldn't be reading it if I didn't."

I bristled, but calmed myself. It was a fair answer.

I kept sitting there in silence for a moment, trying to think of what to say. On one hand, I wasn't here to make friends. On the other, I had never seen anybody else reading that book, and my family certainly never discussed literature with me.

Chrollo, to his credit, didn't push me to either carry on the conversation or leave him alone. He just kept reading his book, either unbothered by my presence or patiently waiting for me to say something else.

"It's one of my favorites." I finally spoke, breaking the silence. The water was suddenly extremely interesting to me as I ran my hands through the dirt. "Have you finished it yet?"

"Yes. I'm rereading it." He replied. I felt his gaze finally land on me. "I'm curious, what did you think of-"

We talked about that book for hours that day. The two of us had, apparently, lost track of time. I stared after his retreating form with narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows for a moment, before deciding that he wasn't bad company to keep after all.

I found the bad mannered guy when I followed the sound of blood curdling screams coming from somewhere nearby. Normally I wouldn't care about screams, but this one seemed somehow worse than usual.

When I found the source of the screams, it turned out to be the bad mannered guy from the Phantom Troupe building torturing someone who I didn't recognize.

I turned to walk away, deciding it was none of my business, when I noticed where he was cutting.

"It'll hurt more if you cut about an inch to the right." I stated. My expression remained neutral.

He said nothing, but, out of curiosity perhaps, did as I recommended. He was rewarded with louder screams.

The dead-eyed guy turned to look at me. Years of reading the members of my own family's expressions made it child's play to understand his unspoken question.

"You were just shy of hitting a group of nerve endings." I explained.

He regarded me for a moment. "I'm Feitan."

I nodded in response. "Ivela."

As it turned out, he knew some things about torture that I was unfamiliar with. We spent the day swapping techniques.

The barbarian actually found me. I was walking, scavenging for food when he chucked a beer can at my head. I caught it, of course. It took a second to register that he wasn't attacking me.

"Ivela! Have a drink with us!" The barbarian offered. He was accompanied by a tall man with a sword at his side.

I blinked. "I'm underage."

They laughed. "There's no laws here! Come on!" It was the tall one who spoke.

"Didn't you try to kill me?" I asked, still staring at the can.

"Pfffft. I wasn't tryna kill you!" The barbarian defended.

"Whatever." I said with a sigh. After a moment's debate, I popped open the can and chugged it down.

"Yeah! She's not a wuss!" One of them cheered.

The side of my mouth twitched. "It would take a lot more than that to get me drunk." Or even buzzed.

"Oh, I like this one. Come on, let's go drink some more!"

I found out the barbarian's name was Uvogin, and the tall one's name was Nobunaga. They were both incredibly irresponsible....but kind of fun to be around. I didn't mind drinking with them.

Apparently I was destined to keep running into members of the phantom troupe. The next one to approach me was a blonde woman with an odd nose in smart business attire. Something about her put me at ease. For a second.

I berated myself and raised my guard back up. Anyone who immediately makes you feel safe is probably out to kill you.

"Do you want something?" I asked her.

"I'm Pakunoda." She introduced. "I'm a member of the Phantom Troupe."

"Another one of you?" I muttered. "Are you all following me around for any particular reason?"

"We all have our own reasons." She deflected. "Mine is that I'm a fan of classical music."

I narrowed my eyes at her. I couldn't tell if she was lying or not.

"I'm not lying. Would you play something for me?" She requested.

I opened my mouth to tell her to get lost before I shut it. Had anyone ever asked me to play for them before?

I wasn't sure. I didn't think so. Why would she be interested in my music. Was she plotting something?

She had to be.

"Not today." I muttered, before walking away.

Pakunoda was persistent. She seemed to really want to hear me play. Or she was determined to kill me. I honestly wasn't sure which. Eventually, I caved and played for her. She didn't try anything, but I still didn't trust her.

It wasn't the last time she asked me to play for her. She seemed oddly fond of my music. I found myself looking forward to her asking me to play. It felt right to perform.

The last member I met was a girl about my age. Machi. She approached me out of the blue one day and started talking to me about random nonsense. I wasn't sure about her. But, I did find her easy to talk to. We seemed to have a lot in common. Probably because of our age. And our less than orthodox upbringings, respectively.

I stared at her one day. "Do you think I should dye my hair pink?" I wasn't sure what had made me want to do it, but I was tempted.

"What? Why?" She asked incredulously. She had been mid sentence when I interrupted her.

I shrugged in response.

"Also were you even listening to me?!"

I smirked sardonically at her in response.

Some time passes with me spending more and more time with the Troupe members. I didn't like them, of course, and they weren't my friends. I was just passing the time. Using them for entertainment. And because they were strong, it helped to be known as a friend of theirs's.

As I pondered on the fact that none of them were my friends and I wasn't fond of any of them, it occurred to me that I hadn't talked to Nobunaga in a while. That wouldn't do.

So I set off to go find him.

I was a pretty good tracker, so it didn't take me much time to find him. He seemed to be practicing his swordplay by himself.

"I could spar with you." I heard myself offer.

He stilled and regarded me with a hardened expression. "Do you even know anything about swords?"

"I know plenty." I responded. I was at least proficient with most weapons due to my upbringing. An assassin needs to know how to use any weapon available to them.

"Well then. Here!" And just like that, he tossed an unsheathed blade at me. I had no idea where he got it from, but I didn't have time to question it. No sooner had I caught it then he charged at me.

I blocked his swing, and we spent some time dancing around each other, steel clashing against steel. It was surprisingly fun.

I was holding my own just fine, but it was clear he was more talented with a blade than I was. I was constantly on the defensive. I managed to attack a few times, sure, but goddamn he was on a different level with his sword. It was honestly quite impressive.

I wondered how we would fare against each other in a nen battle. I almost wanted to try.

When the fight ended, it was because I was on my ass.

He was laughing. He was laughing at me.

I felt my face redden as my hands clenched into fists.

"Hey, don't be angry! You're great! Who taught you?" He asked as I stood up.

I was stunned. "You were laughing...because you were impressed?" That didn't make any sense.

"Yeah!" He replied.

"Uh." I was at a loss. "My...father and grandfather mostly handled my training." None of this made any sense. He was praising me for losing?

"They must be good." Nobunaga said. "I'd love to fight them."

I shifted my weight back and forth between my feet. "I think you'd die?" I told him. "They're, uh, assassins."

"You're an assassin?!" He exclaimed. I nodded at him, my hands fidgeting. He calmed down and paused. "Hm. That explains a lot."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. I wasn't sure why I felt relieved. "Yeah. That's why I've had so much training."

"You and I should fight again sometime. Go ahead and keep that sword!" He offered with a disarming smile.

I tilted my head to the side slightly. "It's...a gift?"

"Yeah! Make sure to use it!"

I looked down at the sword in my hands, unable to comprehend him giving me a gift. I didn't expect to ever get any more gifts after being banished. I would make good use of it.

I always made good use of gifts.

A/N

Buckle up guys, we're gonna be in Meteor City for a while.

#Chrollo x reader #chrollo lucilfer #hunter x hunter #chrollo x oc #ivela zoldyck #The Virtuoso

16 notes · View notes

pedros-mustache-main · 4 years ago

Note

mutuals as historical buildings??

now that’s what i’m talking about!!!!

@archaicmusings: the acropolis of athens, athens, greece.

i mean? duh? did you expect anything different? of course cal with her interest in classics history would be one of the most recognizable buildings of the classics age! now, don’t ask me what the heck this building was for because i don’t know. that is not my side of history, friends, and i’m smart enough to admit that.

anyways, can’t you just see cal leading a tour around the building?! she would absolutely be wearing socks and sandals and that makes me love her more.

@almightygwil: little red schoolhouse, farmington, maine.

this is more of a concept of buildings than a specific building, but the one pictured above (built in 1852) is pretty spot on in terms of the building(s) i would choose for ellie.

when i think of ellie, i think of little house on prairie. i think of one room schoolhouses and lots of kids under the tutelage of one teacher. essentially, when i think of ellie, i think of the historical life i would kill to live in the mid-to-late nineteenth century (if things didn’t suck for so many people back then). ellie is warm and absolutely gives great hugs (even if i’ve need received one from her) and i would love to be her student in one of these schools.

@im-an-adult-ish: wrigley field, chicago, illinois.

do i know anything about baseball? barely. do i know about the significance of wrigley field? again, not really.

what i do know is baseball is really important to meredith and so is wrigley field. i mean, her dog is named after it so that’s some indication of its importance. i do think that something about wrigley field screams “all american” and meredith is a very all-american girl (in the best possible way).

@ineloqueent: yerkes observatory, williams bay, wisconsin.

according to the internet, the yerkes observatory was “the birthplace of modern astrophysics” in 1892 when it was founded. i don’t know if that holds water, but i do know that tina loves stars and space and looking at stars in space. of all the other observatories i was looking at, i liked this one the most because, while it serves a specific function, it also is architecturally beautiful. it’s really european in feel (especially for being in wisconsin of all places) and we love our european tina!!! anyway, the combined natures of science meeting european architecture was what made me say, “yeah tina would be this building.”

@dancingdiscofloof: palacio de cristal, madrid, spain.

the first place on our list that i’ve been to irl!

i had absolutely no idea where we were going when we started the trek from madrid’s palace to this crystal palace. really, i was just walking and trying not to cry ‘cause i’d only eaten bread and cheese for a week. but then! out of the blue! this beautiful crystal palace in the middle of a park. also ducks!

this building reminds me of rove for two reasons: it’s classic, and rove is classic. it’s also modern, and rove is also modern. from what i can gather, the crystal palace operates slightly like a museum. different art exhibits have been housed in the building from time to time. (when i was there, the sculptures inside were these weird, like, sandstone naked people?? idk what that was about)

anyway, rove kinda reminds me of a museum or at least a very classy museum tour-guide.

@gwiilymslee: le mont saint michel, normandy, france.

look at that! it’s like freaking tangled! america could never!!!

all freaking out aside, audrey is absolutely a princess who deserves not only her own castle, but her own castle on an island. i think mont-saint-michel truly has this otherworldly feel to it, like something out of a novel or a movie. audrey gives me those same vibes.

@joemazzmatazz: san bernadino alle ossa, milan, italy.

another place on our list i’ve been to irl! i was in italy (among other countries) last year, and i randomly found this chapel nearby the milan cathedral. there are bones and skeletons of (supposed) plague victims decorating the very cramped room, and let me tell you, it was one of the weirder experiences of my life sitting in that room.

i chose this for regan because, while i could have gone for the quintessential 80s punk scene and that would have fit just fine, i also think regan is a blend of the macabre and the aesthetic if that makes sense? like she’s one of those people who can really pull off the edgy, grunge vibe while also maintaining class and sophistication. that’s the general feeling i got from this chapel when i was there, so i thought it fit.

@deacyblues: the flatiron building, new york, new york.

pearl will never not scream early 20th century to me. the flatiron building was built in 1902 and is typically seen as a landmark of the rapid growth of new york city, as well as the development of architecture in the united states.

anyway, to me the flatiron building is iconic of the early 1920s, and so is pearl. the building has some european feel to it, too, with the way the faces of each side are carved, and pearl often speaks with this blend of american/british vernacular. really, i think what i’m trying to say is pearl reminds me of transatlantic movie-stars, and so does the flatiron building.

@six-bloodyminutes: the guggenheim, new york, new york.

there are two sides to mo. when i first met her, i was like, “huh, this girl is pretty put together. she seems like she knows what’s going on.” then i got to know her more and i thought, “oh wait. she, in fact, does not know what’s going on.”

the geggenheim reminds me of mo because, from the exterior, it’s sleek and classic, but also unique. it makes you want to take a closer look. on the inside, it’s full of modern art that makes zero sense whatsoever. mo is much the same: put together on the outside, but on the inside, she’s full of surprises, absolutely delightful in her exuberance, and a joy to get to know better. also: i feel like if she were a staircase, she’d be the staircase inside of the guggenheim as well.

@hijackmy-heart: casa mila, barcalona, spain.

nat is fun. like she makes me laugh a lot and she’s witty (in two languages!!) and she absolutely knows how to have a good time. much like this really strange looking building. there’s a certain whimsy to nat that i feel like this building evokes, too. all in all, 10/10 building, 10/10 person.

@kiwi-hardy: bishop’s castle, rye, colorado.

the last place on the list that i’ve been too irl! the story of bishop’s castle is strange: essentially this man named jim bishop bought land in c.o. for $450 in the 60′s, and he has been handcrafting this massive stone castle ever since. there have been legal battles (over the stones used themselves and over road signs and who controls the castle in the event of jim’s death) but let me tell you one thing: that castle is not built to code whatsoever. i was afraid for my life.

i feel like nothing captures the chaos of leah as much as the house with a fire-breathing dragon on one side, a gift shop on another, and spray painted signs all over the property that say many things but particularly “enter at your own risk”

#mutuals as tag #okay enough distraction #back to writing

18 notes · View notes

bexterbex · 5 years ago

Text

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 54

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. Tag lists are closed

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother, but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 54: Learning and Encouraging

The general placed your lunch order for you, stating there were specific things needed for your course. When the droid arrived it placed a rather elaborate place setting in front of you. Lots of silverware and glasses that you weren’t familiar with.

The general seemed to want to make sure everything was precise and forced you to maintain a straighter posture than normal, “Now m’lady it is important that you take such a lead at this formal dinner. Other than the Supreme Leader, you will be the next highest ranking person there.” He then started to show you by example how to do things.

“So everyone will be looking at me and judging me. Got it.” You instantly got nervous. You hated being the spectacle of everyone’s judgment.

“Now, now m’lady, they will simply be following your lead, as will the Supreme Leader. One of the reasons why you are learning such things is that he needs to be shown what to do, he will follow your example. He has been taught these things, but he tends to either ignore them or forget them. He will be searching your mind and following you at the dinner,” Hux informed you.

“Searching my mind? Like he will literally be following my lead? I don’t know if I like that.” Truly you didn’t, it rather creeped you out.

“Well, m’lady it is either you or I, and I think he much prefers your mind versus mine. I can tell you that he does it anyway, if you know where to look you can feel him moving around in there.” He pointed to his head, “You might find that it is a good way to communicate without alerting others. I have found it rather useful at times.”

You considered this for a moment. He was in your head? You knew he read your thoughts, but you assumed that he didn’t do it all the time. But now you thought twice about it. Could he see what Adlez and you were doing? Would it even work if he knew what you were trying to do? How good was his concentration? This was something you were going to have to test.

“Ok, so if I do this correctly then he will take my lead?” You weren’t sure if that was the best thing.

“Yes m’lady, but I might recommend that you rather overly think it when you do. Like yelling in your own mind or rather when you pick up a glass you need to truly think about picking up a glass or a fork. He will need to be led by you as to what to do, less we want to make fools of ourselves.” He then went through what each item was used for and in what order you were to use them.

You eventually got to actually eat your food, “But it is very important to note that anytime you get up from the table all males will stand with you,” said the general. “The Supreme Leader will probably initiate this. You do not have to stand when another woman gets up, but any male that does not stand for you is someone who is insulting you.”

“Do you have a feeling that someone might try to insult me?” This was not something you wanted to repeat, not after the last time.

“There may be some at the dinner that do not appreciate that your planet has not been in the last few galactic wars. And now it is reaping the benefit of the First Order’s graces without doing the work.” You could tell this was not his personal feelings, only possible opinions that he was relaying to you.

“Would they possibly be the same people who are in favor of General Pryde staying around?” You had a gut feeling.

The general did not answer exactly but shared a pointed smile with you as he turned back to eating his lunch. You got the message. You were about to fight an entirely different battle. One that Kylo wasn’t proficient in, one that you would lead on your side.

“They may also make snide remarks about you m’lady, so you best be prepared. Adlez and Olivia-Rose will make sure you are presentable. It will be best if there are no marks along your neck. While they may be something, the Supreme Leader enjoys, it will not be something appreciated by them less you be in a different position; like that of a courtesan and not a lady.” He pointed to his own neck, miming to where your marks were.

“We won’t have that,” stated Adlez. “If anything, that will be the women they call wives that they will bring along.” She seemed ready to take this battle for you. You wonder if it was ever insinuated that she was one in her previous marriage. High society women were known to be catty and backstabbing.

“Of course not, but Lady Ren may have to remind the Supreme Leader as to the purpose of covering herself up.” You could tell that both you and the general knew that he probably wouldn’t be happy with the decision to cover them up.

Your hand went to the mark behind your ear, the one he almost seemed to insist be there at all times. Not that the other marks didn’t mean anything, but this was the one he darkened and remarked every morning. You had a feeling that this was the one that would have to stay, his little mark of ownership over you. His signature, his brand.

“I will try to do so general, but perhaps we can find a dress that makes covering them less tedious?” You turned to your ladies with the question.

“I have just the dress in mind, m’lady. It will show off a bit of your back but almost nothing of your collarbone and what is shown will be easy to cover. One of your many beautiful floral dresses,” said Adlez.

“We are confident we can cover any mark, the Supreme Leader decides to leave,” said Olivia-Rose.

Both of them made you feel better, you were glad you had their company otherwise you would be all alone here. Floundering trying to make this all work, lost trying to find your new role. They were essential to your success.

After lunch, you all made your way up to the second level. You walked past the place where your drink from the other night had crashed. There was a stain in the carpet there. You stared at it for a moment before taking your spot. Adlez noticed the stain and walked back downstairs before coming back with a brush and a bottle of seltzer water, salt and a rag. She went to work lifting the stain if only she could do that to the memory.

The general informed you that you would be skipping around in order of lessons until the Supreme Leader informed him that you were to do some of the others he had in mind.

Ch. 19: The Chaperon and Other Conventions

Ch. 27 Part 1: Notes and Shorter Letters (para. 1-24)

Ch. 27 Part 2: Notes and Shorter Letters (para. 25-59)

Ch. 27 Part 3: Notes and Shorter Letters (para. 60-97)

Ch. 27 Part 4: Notes and Shorter Letters (para. 98-140)

Ch. 27 Part 5: Notes and Shorter Letters (chart How to Address Important Personages - to end)

Ch. 28: Longer Letters

“Once you are officially introduced as the First Lady, Lady Ren of the First Order and because you are not married to the Supreme Leader at any official events, you are not to go off alone with him. I believe the Supreme Leader has designated myself as your official chaperon at the dinner. You will also take up some duties, including some official correspondences with some of our allies. When we get closer to the dinner the Supreme Leader and I will sit down with you and go over your new duties,” the general then stood and folded his arms neatly behind his back.

So you were not only were you and he going to be watched by everyone, you couldn’t be alone together for five minutes. You were also going to be given new duties and responsibilities. Part of you was happy because you were going to be trusted with things, but part of you was dreading having to possibly do something you didn’t want to do.

“It is also recommended that for the next few meals following up to the dinner that you follow that same set up to practice your etiquette. It should now be set up on your meal preference list to eat this way. Even though the Supreme Leader will probably just follow you, it may not hurt to have him eat like that with you beforehand,” you could tell that the general was giving you a hint. You would agree that Kylo had some manners to work on and it wouldn’t hurt to start early.

The general then took his leave as you followed your ladies down to the dressing room to get ready for dinner. You saw the lieutenant linger for a moment before he also took his leave.

You then got ready with your ladies, putting you in another rather simple dress for the evening and doing another simple but elegant style.

“So is there anyone that has caught either of your eyes on board,” you asked both of them.

Adlez caught your eye in the mirror you could tell that she knew what you were doing. “Not particularly for me, but I have had fun with some of the officers at the bar.”

Both of you watched Olivia-Rose blush and duck her head when both of your attention turned to her. “There is no one in particular.”

“No one in particular, or someone who hasn’t noticed yet,” asked Adlez taking the lead. Her all-knowing eyes settled on her younger counterpart.

“I don’t know if it would even be appropriate, or even if it would be reciprocated,” Olivia-Rose said in her own defense. She looked stressed and worried.

“It is most certainly reciprocated and really all you need to do is ask permission from Lady Ren,” said Adlez to her. She then looked at you, asking permission for her.

Olivia-Rose then caught your eye in the vanity mirror, you got up and took her shoulders in your hands. “Of course you can, all I ask is that if it doesn’t work out that you will be able to work together. He is my assistant after all, and you will have to be near each other every day.”

Olivia-Rose just blushed and ducked her head. Eventually, she nodded in response. You then walked over to the vanity mirror with her and Adlez to inspect their handiwork. They did an excellent job, as always.

“Adlez do you think you can get me ready for bed by yourself?” You turned your head to the older woman.

She met your eye in the mirror and answered it with a smirk, saying, “Of course I can.”

You then turned to Olivia-Rose, “I expect that you should be able to track him down. Or do you want me to send him a message? I am giving you the opportunity to do it now before things get too hectic for all of us.”

She blushed and ducked her head once more, “I can find him m’lady and thank you.”

With that, you dismissed them both and headed to the living area to wait for Kylo to return for dinner. You had some things to discuss tonight, one of them being the execution tomorrow. You just hoped he could keep a level head for once so that another night together wasn’t ruined.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo x reader #kylo x you #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #Star wars soulmate au #sw first order imagine #star wars first order #minutes to spare #a soul to mend his own

92 notes · View notes

dilliebar · 5 years ago

Text

I’ll Show You: A Dillie Fic

Hey guys, I just finished writing another little fic for ya’ll. I know we’re all running low on Ellie/Dina content so I’ve been working my booty off to p r o v i d e. Especially now that I’m done with school I can focus a lot more on fics, at least until June 19th anyway haha. Anyway, enjoy guys!

Ellie and Dina set out on yet another long patrol, but this time, with Dina's boyfriend third-wheeling. Having a bit of trouble in paradise, this isn't exactly a recipe for success, and when the trio find themselves setting up camp at an old community of cabins for the night, tensions begin to unfold in the love triangle.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24195085

Jackson was pretty well-known for its relatively warm springs and summers, at least in comparison to the Boston QZ, anyway. Any snow that happened to collect on the ground during the winter wouldn’t last for long. By the first sign of spring, the icy, white powder that caked the trees would quickly drip away back into the earth, snowmen that children built and admired saw their pebble smiles melt into puddles of water, and more often than not peoples’ shoes would be drenched in mud every time they took a step outside.

None of that seemed to bother Ellie, though. She would take mud and heat over the freezing temperatures and sight-hindering snow storms any day. Not to mention, this time of year was a lot less stressful on her, and so her first patrol out would be a heck of a lot less scary than the ones a few months before that brought back not-so-fun memories.

And she was with Dina, so that was always a plus.

They had already been travelling from the settlement for a few hours, since supplies on their regular patrol routes were becoming less and less abundant. It seemed like after every patrol they would have to travel just a little bit further, and after that one, a couple miles more, and looking forward they really didn’t know where they would eventually end up. But for now, the pair set out to Idaho Falls, which was a bit more than eighty miles west of Jackson. Neither of them really had a problem with it, but the third wheel glued to their side was getting on their nerves.

“So when we get into the city, you guys stick to me. Got it?”

Dina rolled her eyes as she rode on the back of the saddle behind Jesse. He wasn’t even supposed to be on this patrol, but he had absolutely insisted on it for some reason or another.

“Yessir,” she replied sarcastically, making a face at the girl riding next to them. Ellie let out a snicker at her mocking tone. Sometimes she wondered why Dina and Jesse were even dating at all, considering how much they squabbled.

In fact, not even a day before this entire patrol, the younger girl was at her house in the middle of the night going on and on about how she was going to leave him if he kept up his behavior, how controlling and demanding he is, yada yada yada. She could see the discomfort written on her friend’s face whenever he was around, which didn’t make a lot of sense considering what a relationship was supposed to be about. Despite their arguments they almost always seemed to end up back together one way or another, though, usually ending in Dina apologizing for things that she didn’t do and Jesse forgiving her for imaginary problems.

And Ellie just didn’t get it.

The majority of the trek was filled with long stretches of awkward silence, something that was fairly uncommon when the two girls were alone. If one thing was for sure, this was going to be a long patrol.

But soon the sunlight began to dim, and disappeared over the trees, leaving the trio in darkness.

“Still about twenty miles out,” Jesse stated monotonically, “There’s a small cluster of cabins just off the highway. Best stay there for the night.”

The other two nodded in agreement as they diverged from the road.

Ellie looked over at Dina, who had been awfully quiet the entire time. There was a far-off look in her eye, almost as if she had checked out of the conversation completely, which was quite unlike her being the chatterbox that she usually was. While Ellie would generally find her sarcastic, playful demeanor somewhat excessive at times, she actually started to miss it. Instead, she felt a tinge of annoyance at the way Jesse didn’t even really seem to notice, or at least care.

That’s when their eyes met for the shortest moment, bringing Dina back to reality and causing a smile to pull at her lips. Ellie gave a small smile back in return as they approached the small neighborhood of cabins, all of which seemed to have been left without a trace of any inhabitants whatsoever.

The community was fairly rustic, with overgrown dirt paths leading from one of the three log cabins to another, all meeting in the middle, where a fire pit and an old grill stood untouched. The cabins themselves were similar, but each held their own unique features. One had a more modern, triangular design, with windows that stretched across the height of the building; the one to the east looked small, but cozy, with a stone chimney poking out the top of the house; and the last one, facing the north, had a traditional lodge-feel to it, with a small back wooden porch built just slightly over the lake. The neighborhood was surrounded by magnificent fir trees and pines, and it was a community that Ellie could see herself living in someday. It was calm, away from everything, almost as if it were a world of its own.

Ellie and Jesse rode the two horses over to separate sides of the porch of the triangular cabin, hopping off of them and tying their leads to the posts of the railing. Jesse reached up to take Dina’s hand.

��I got it,” she declined, jumping off of the saddle.

Jesse just shook his head.

“I’m gonna sweep this one, Dina-”

“I’m going with Ellie.”

He sighed in defeat, nodding in acknowledgment as he made his way up the porch steps and into the house. Ellie snickered as the two were finally left alone.

“Didn’t work it out, huh?”

Dina laughed, “Yeah, no.”

The pair made the short walk over to the small, eastern-facing cabin. From the outside, it was definitely the least spacious of the three, just big enough for one or two people at most. Rocks outlined what had been a garden stretching around the side of the house, though by this point it had overgrown to the point where the plants had begun to climb up the foundation. The wooden beams supporting the overhang of the porch had clearly worn over the years, showing its age, but frankly it seemed much more sturdy than some other houses they had seen on patrol. Ellie placed her foot on the first step, causing it to creak. Almost in response, they heard a crash from inside.

She walked quietly up the steps, pulling out her pistol from her backpack pocket. She nodded at Dina, giving her the cue to pull out hers as well before peeking in the living room window, checking to see if any infected were nearby. As far as she could tell, it looked clear, but the two knew better than to trust only their eyes. Ellie tapped lightly on the glass, with still no sign of the source of the noise. She gave a half-hearted shrug to Dina, who just shrugged in response.

Ellie placed her hand on the knob of the door, hoping it wasn’t locked, and turned it ever-so slowly in an attempt to make as little noise as possible. To their surprise, it opened with ease, and the pair made their way into the living room, guns up and ready.

The house on the inside looked just as cozy as the outside of the cabin presented itself. Aside from the bathroom off to the left side of the house, it was all one room split up into distinct areas. To their right where they walked in was an old bed, blanketed in a colorful handmade quilt. To their left was the living area, where a rustic couch, stone fireplace and knit carpet made their warm presence known. And in the back of the house was the kitchen and dining room, in which the wood stove reminded Ellie all too much of Joel’s cooking.

Despite the welcoming appearance of the cabin, both Ellie and Dina made sure to stay alert, noticing a broken vase on the ground next to the kitchen table. It was undoubtedly the noise that they had heard, but who caused it was yet to be seen.

That’s when they heard a thud from the bathroom.

Ellie slowly made her way over to the bathroom door, which was open slightly ajar. She put her hand on the knob, and carefully pushed it open. Still, no signs of infected, but she did notice the shower curtain to her left that was pulled shut, which was most definitely hiding something.

“Careful, dumbass.” Dina whispered from the living area.

Ellie put a finger over her lips in response and then moved it over the trigger of her pistol, her other hand on the curtain. She mentally counted down from three to one in her head before ripping open the shower curtain and pulling the trigger non-hesitantly with a loud bang.

But to her surprise, the shower was empty, and a furry critter dashed its way between her legs and out the front door.

A cat.

“You two alright?!” they heard Jesse shout from across the way.

“We’re fine!” Ellie shouted back, sighing, “Stupid cat.”

She turned around and walked back into the living room, to where Dina was smirking deviously.

“What’s the matter, Williams?” she teased, “Cat’s got your tongue?”

Ellie just rolled her eyes as she began searching through the kitchen cabinets. She was slightly embarrassed but there was no way she would admit it.

“I mean you really escaped the claws of death there.”

Finally she spun around on her heel.

“Are you gonna help me, or are you just going to make cat puns the rest of the night?”

Dina raised her hands in defense, “Sorry, last time I checked, you really liked pus-”

That’s when Jesse appeared in the doorway, bundle of firewood under his arm and a box of matches in his hand. Whatever Dina was about to say caught in her throat.

“Found some firewood, thought we could cook up something to eat.”

The two hummed in agreement as Ellie finished up scouring the cabinets and Dina searched the living area and bedside drawers. They hadn’t eaten at all since they set out from Jackson early in the morning, so both of them were pretty much on the verge of starving. But Ellie couldn’t help but think in curiosity about the younger girl as she searched mindlessly through the bedroom area.

When Dina had come over to her and Joel’s house the night before, she hadn’t really said what prompted the visit, and honestly all that Ellie really cared about- even though it was a bit embarrassing- was listening to her friend vent and allowing her to decompress. Ellie just wanted her to be happy, and she could tell right then by her blank stare and tired body language that she definitely wasn’t.

Within a few minutes they finished searching the house, unfortunately not gathering many supplies, but in all honesty that wouldn’t matter all that much once they got into the city. They did happen to find food, though, which was always a plus when it came to scavenging. Ellie was even able to find a small bar of dark chocolate, probably used for baking before all of this, which she quickly shoved into her pocket for later. It was a small, but nowadays the smallest things made all the difference between a good day and a bad one.

By the time the two got outside, Jesse was already crouched around the campfire, setting up the logs and old scraps of newspaper in an attempt to start a fire. Hot expired canned goods were always better than cold ones.

Leaning against the grill were a couple of old camping chairs, which looked old but would probably be fine. She set up one for each of the three of them, with Ellie sitting on the far right, Dina in the middle, and Jesse to the far left. Soon enough the fire was up and roaring, and they all settled on canned pasta for a late dinner. Once again an invisible elephant placed itself smack dab in the middle of their silent conversation, and yet no one wanted to bring it up. Finally Ellie just decided to break the silence. “So, find anything good?”

Jesse puffed at her attempt to make conversation, not even making eye contact with her, almost as she had done something wrong. She couldn’t really remember anything, only making her more confused with the entire situation.

Dina sighed next to Ellie, setting her half-empty portion of pasta down next to her folding chair and standing up.

“I need some air.”

Jesse scoffed, “We’re already outside.”

She responded with a display of her middle finger.

Ellie just watched in amazement at the tension that pulled on both of them as Dina disappeared into some of the trees behind the eastern cabin. Frankly, she had never seen Dina that pissed off. Usually she would at least make some sort of sarcastic remark to lighten the mood a little bit.

She looked back over to Jesse, who shook his head and stabbed at the remaining pasta in the aluminum can.

“Okay, that’s it.” Ellie stated, “What in the hell happened between you two?”

Jesse rolled his eyes and set down the can, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. He definitely had a look of annoyance in his eyes, but he also looked much more upset than angry. He shook his head again, staring into the ground.

“Nothing.”

Now it was Ellie’s turn to be annoyed. Were they really going to just fight over the course of the entire patrol and not say a word about it? Traveling this far outside of Jackson was already miserable enough, and now she was going to have to deal with their drama, too?

“Listen, I hear you, man,” she sympathized, “but I feel like a kid sitting between two divorced parents right now.”

Jesse snickered at her comment. He thought about it carefully before looking back up to meet her eyes. Ellie never really liked Jesse from the minute he started dating Dina, but she decided to stay out of the way as long as he treated her right. Sitting here in silence while letting the tension build and build and build wasn’t treating her right.

“Just give us a minute.”

Ellie nodded as she quickly finished up what was left in her can. As she heard the shuffle of Dina’s footsteps behind her, she prayed that they could either just work this out or come to some sort of agreement at least for the rest of the patrol for her and Dina’s sake. She gave Jesse one last pleading look before standing up out of her chair.

“Going somewhere, freckles?”

She smiled at the nickname.

“Nah, I just think I’ve had about enough for today. Probably gonna turn in.”

Dina returned the answer with a small frown, a hint of disappointment flashing in her deep brown eyes.

“Alright, well see you tomorrow loser.”

“Night buttface.”

Ellie decided she might as well spend the night in the house they had already searched and leave the bigger one to Jesse and Dina. They still had to clear out the one near the lake, too, but she didn’t really feel like doing it right then and it could probably just wait until morning if at all.

She closed the door behind her and gave one last look outside the window to where the couple remained by the fire. Though she couldn’t quite decipher what they were saying, at the very least, their lips were moving as if they were talking, and that couldn’t be much of a bad thing, could it?

Ellie slipped off her shoes by the door and fell back into the bed. She felt her muscles relax instantly; they really had traveled a long way that day, and after all of the added relationship drama she could definitely use a good night’s rest. She pulled the quilt up over her body and adjusted the old, dusty pillow, finding a position she was comfortable in after a minute, and felt herself drifting further and further into rest.

She let her mind wander from topic to topic, but she found herself always drawn back to the thought of Dina. Her best friend was sarcastic and witty, but always kind to a fault, and sometimes Ellie worried about her for that. She was forgiving, and understanding, and a hundred percent invested in her relationships, and even when she didn’t get as much in return, she stayed committed. Sometimes Ellie wondered if she was really okay with Jesse, no matter how many times Dina said their relationship was fine, but if she ever thought to say anything she would usually just end up keeping it to herself for Dina’s sake.

Unfortunately for Ellie, the couple didn’t really mind letting the world know that they were having issues.

Loud shouting sounded from outside her window, and Ellie let out a groan of annoyance at the couple’s inability to work literally anything out. She ripped the covers off of her and walked over to the window to see a red-faced Dina storming off towards the lake, leaving Jesse alone by the fire. She watched to see if he would go after her, as he should, but instead he grabbed his backpack, shook his head and made his way back into the triangular-shaped cabin.

What a dick.

Ellie looked down at her tattered shoes, then back out the window, and then let out a small sigh. Did she want to just be alone? Should she follow her? After all, they were best friends, and whenever Ellie needed a pick-me-up she usually turned to Dina for a good laugh. She thought about it maybe for a moment before she was suddenly pulling on her shoes and making her way out into the summer night.

It was a bit cooler than usual, and she rubbed at her arms at the small chill she got upon exiting the cabin. She turned her head to see Dina’s shadowy figure sitting unaccompanied, legs hanging over the side of the lake cabin’s back porch, her boots just touching the surface of the water. Her head hung down and her shoulders were ever-so-slightly depressed. Ellie hadn’t seen Dina look that defeated in a while, and part of her really wanted to go tear Jesse a new one for whatever the hell he had said to make her look that upset, but instead she took the high road and made her way over to the shorter girl.

As Ellie approached Dina turned her head slightly to see who the source of her footsteps was, and her heart shattered as she noticed tears brimming in the younger girl’s eyes. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should turn around and let her have a moment to herself, but when Dina scooted over a bit to make room on the ledge, she didn’t wait long to take the invitation. She sat herself down to the left of her friend, who rubbed at her eyes and kept her head down.

When Ellie sat next to her she noticed something sticking out of her own pocket that she had completely forgotten about, but she couldn’t think of a better occasion to take it out than right now.

“You want some?”

Dina looked back up at the taller girl, who was holding out a piece of an old candy bar. The wrapper was a faded silver with blue ends, and the chocolate coating was a bit white, but she took the offered half anyway.

“Only if it doesn’t make me puke.”

“Oh, it definitely will.”

The two sat there on the porch for a bit, eating the chocolate as their legs dangled over the lake. It was probably one of the most scenic places Ellie had seen in her life, and coming from someone who had seen half the country, that meant a lot. She found herself captivated by the moon’s reflection off the water, which remained still as with the rest of the lake, and the sky was clear, allowing them to gaze up at the millions of stars up above.

Finally Ellie shook her head and turned to Dina, eyebrows tilted upwards showing her concern.

“What happened?”

Dina sighed.

“I told you last night, he’s just being an asshole.”

Not getting the answer she was looking for, Ellie prompted her again.

“No, I mean what happened?”

Dina rolled her eyes and fell back onto the boards of the porch, bringing her hands up to cover her face, contemplating.

“He wanted me to switch patrol routes with Jason.”

Ellie raised an eyebrow.

“Weren’t he and Jesse supposed to go together?”

Dina nodded.

Ellie tried to piece together the information in her head, but anything she was coming up with didn’t make any sense. Why would Jesse not want Dina to go on patrol with her? Sure, they hadn’t always come back with a ton of supplies, and sometimes things went wrong, but that was true for everybody; in fact, most of the time, they brought back more supplies than any other pair did.

“Why?”

Dina tilted her head to look over at Ellie, who was beyond confused at that point. Dina’s lips curved up into a small smile when their eyes met, much like the smile that they had exchanged earlier that day. Ellie couldn’t help but feel her heart flutter at the sight, and that’s when Dina sat back up.

“Why do you think?”

Ellie scoffed.

“Right, because I’d be asking if I knew.”

“I think you do know.”

The confusion grew at her comment, and it skyrocketed as Dina pulled her feet up onto the deck and began untying her boots.

“Now what are you doing?”

“Going for a swim, you coming?”

“I can’t swim, asshole.”

“I’ll show you.”

Ellie just stared in disbelief and felt her face get a redder and redder as Dina removed the rest of her clothes, sparing her underwear, and she sincerely hoped that Dina couldn’t see how flustered she was getting. But at the same time, her movements seemed slow and taunting, almost as if she knew what she was doing, and Ellie didn’t know whether to be grateful or embarrassed for the heat that was rising in her body.

It wasn’t until Dina reached over the ledge and felt the temperature of the water with her hand that Ellie realized she was serious. The water, even in the summer, was probably freezing, and it’s not like they had unlimited changes of clothes or something; they were old enough as it was, the water would only wreck them more.

But still, she watched as Dina slipped slowly into the water while holding onto the ledge, allowing herself time to adjust to its freezing cold temperature.

“What are you waiting for, freckles?”

Ellie gave her a “really” look.

“I mean, unless you’re scared.”

She narrowed her eyebrows.

“I’m not scared.”

“Prove it,” she teased, “stay for a bit.”

Ellie hesitated for a moment, their eyes locked in a tension-filled stare; not the kind of tension between Jesse and Dina, though, it was something that Ellie couldn’t really put her finger on. But the mood had definitely shifted from something somber to something a bit more intimate, and Ellie was starting to like it.

Before she could change her own mind, Ellie removed her top in one swift motion, throwing it to the side along with her old, tattered pair of jeans and shoes. The summer breeze chilled her skin even more, and she couldn’t imagine what it would be like when she got into the water. But then her eyes met Dina’s again, and suddenly she couldn’t even remember what cold felt like.

“Come on in,” she said, “I’ve got you.”

Dina reached up and put an arm around Ellie’s waist as she slowly lowered herself into the lake, but she stopped as soon as her foot touched the water.

“No way, that’s fucking freezing.”

“Haha no! Come on!”

“I am not going in there you ice cube.”

Dina let go of her waist and instead grabbed her hand between her own, looking deviously into Ellie’s eyes.

“What’re you-”

Suddenly all Ellie felt was the frigid cold water around her as Dina pulled her off of the ledge and into the lake. She started to panic, being underwater and not being quite sure how to get back up, but a pair of hands quickly pulled her back to the surface.

Ellie coughed any water she had accidentally swallowed and looked at the shorter girl with a piercing glare.

“What the hell dude?!”

Dina’s hands were still placed firmly on her waist, and Ellie brought her arms up around Dina’s shoulders to keep herself afloat. She was sure that the lake wasn’t that deep considering how close the edge of the porch was to land, but not being able to touch the bottom of it terrified her.

“Here,” Dina said, pulling Ellie’s hands off of her and moving one of her own back on her waist, using the other to keep herself afloat, “just move your arms like you’re pushing the water away from you.”

Ellie sighed and hesitantly moved a little bit away from Dina, trying to do exactly what she was saying. At first her moves were frantic, as if she was absolutely sure that by doing what she said she would most certainly drown, but soon she realized that she was still above water, and she allowed her movements to relax a little bit.

“Okay, good, now kick your feet.”

Again, at first Ellie kicked for dear life, and suddenly she felt Dina let go of her waist.

“Hey, don’t leave!”

Dina laughed, making Ellie’s heart flutter in her chest.

“You’re good, look, you’re doing it all by yourself.”

Ellie looked down and realized her head was still inches above water, which meant that this was actually working. It felt unnatural, considering it was something she’d never done before in her life, but soon her body gave into the soothing flow of the water, and after a couple minutes she actually began to feel comfortable.

She then watched as Dina effortlessly flipped onto her back, floating on top of the water without needing to do anything. She looked so calm as opposed to about ten minutes ago.

“How do you do that?”

Dina hummed.

“You don’t,” she responded, “just float.”

Ellie honestly wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but she tried to mimic what Dina had done as best as possible, and soon she found herself floating on her back along with her. She never imagined that swimming could be so calm, although she wasn’t really sure if this counted as swimming, but she didn’t really care.

The two of them stayed close like that for a bit, with their arms or legs sometimes brushing up against another, and Ellie got chills every time. The view above them made it even better; it was like the universe decided to give them their own private show as the stars sprinkled themselves throughout the sky, the moon like a spotlight on their little lake here in the middle of nowhere.

This is what Ellie missed over those long hours of patrol that day, that being the closeness that often displayed itself in their everyday interactions. What was rare was moments like this; the special ones that made Ellie’s heart race whenever she thought about them; the ones that helped her see another side of her friend, one that was more vulnerable and at peace.

“We were arguing about you.”

Ellie was instantly snapped out of her thoughtful trance at those words, and she went back to wading in the water so she could stare at Dina in disbelief. Why were they arguing about her? That didn’t make any sense. Dina went back to wading, too, meeting Ellie’s gaze.

“Why, did I do something?”

Dina shook her head.

“No, idiot,” she stated with a sigh, “he’s jealous.”

Ellie suddenly felt her body heat up. Jealous? Of what? If anything, Ellie usually found herself jealous of the romantic aspect of Dina and Jesse’s relationship. Why would he be jealous of her? After all, it’s not like that had done anything like that, although Ellie definitely, definitely wouldn’t be opposed to it. She was so unopposed to it, in fact, that she couldn’t help but notice the very short distance between them.

“Why’s that?”

Dina smirked.

“Do I really have to show you everything, freckles?”

Ellie’s entire body froze as she suddenly felt a soft pair of lips against her own and gentle hands on both sides of her face. It took the wind out of her, but she cherished every year-long second that passed by right then in ecstasy. Her first instinct was to deepen the kiss, but as soon as she moved her hands to Dina’s neck she felt them begin to sink.

Almost as if she had planned it, Dina lifted her legs up around Ellie’s waist as Ellie struggled to find a balance between keeping them afloat and enjoying the long-awaited moment that was ensuing. Dina’s lips were unlike anything she could’ve ever imagined, tasting slightly sweet from the chocolate they had earlier, but heavenly on a whole other level. Suddenly she felt like she was drowning for a completely different reason aside from the fact that she was barely keeping them up above water, and Ellie was loving every second of it.

When Dina pulled back Ellie immediately wanted more, but settled for leaning their heads together to allow them both time to catch their breath and to process what had just happened. Ellie was somewhat shocked, but Dina just smiled adorably.

“See? I told you, freckles,” she teased, “swimming is the easy part.”

Ellie just smiled back and stared into those deep brown, sparkling eyes in disbelief of what had just happened. She was about to lean back in when suddenly Dina pushed back, splashing her with a facefull of water. When Ellie had finished wiping the water out of her eyes she looked around for Dina, who was just walking out of the lake.

“Where are you going?” Ellie laughed at the bizarreness of the situation.

Dina raised an eyebrow suggestively, making a come-hither motion with her hand.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” she replied, “I’ll show you how to do some other things.”

Ellie hung her mouth open, knowing for the most part that Dina was joking, but what peaked her interest was that she was still down to her underwear and seemingly had no intention of going back to the porch for her clothes.

“Don’t we need our clothes?” she questioned, getting out of the water.

Dina smirked.

“Don’t need ‘em.” she said with a wink.

Ellie let out a small laugh of bewilderment before allowing Dina to grab her hand and guide them to the cozy cabin.

“Lead the way.”

#the last of us #the last of us part 2 #the last of us part two #the last of us ii #tlou #tlou2 #tlou ii #tlou ellie #tlou dina #tloup2 #fanfic #fan fiction #ellie and dina #ellie x dina #Ellie Williams #ellie #Ellie Miller #Dina #dina and ellie

55 notes · View notes

twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years ago

Text

The Wizard of Oz: A Product of the Times

1939 was a tough year.

America was in the middle of the Great Depression, and spirits (and funds) were low. World War II was on the horizon, with news every month about frightening developments in Europe. The movies were full of Sharp-Dressed Men, Simple, yet Opulent costumes, Screwball Comedies and Slapstick. Smoking was Glamorous, Shirley Temple was popular, and swashbuckling stories of action heroes used swords in Errol Flynn-esque fight scenes.

In short, the movies were glamour and glitz, used to forget about how hard life was at the time. People didn’t need another reminder about how dark life could be, they had to live with it every day. They were scared and uneasy, and the movies were full of optimistic, carefree noise to make up for it.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m telling you all this.

The answer is simple: to help us understand and contextualize The Wizard of Oz.

See, no film is an island. Every movie ever made exists as the product of the people who created it, all with different experiences and ways of thinking that are all influenced by one thing: the culture. Every movie, every book, tv show and song, is a product of people living in the times, therefore, a product of the times itself, even a so-called ‘timeless’ classic like The Wizard of Oz.

Every movie, no matter how far removed from the culture by location or time, carries the ideas, designs, acting style, archetypes, stories and special effects of the time of its creation. Whether it’s the screwball comedies of the ‘30s, the spy movies of the ‘60s, or the crime and drama films of the ‘90s. Some things hold up, and stand the test of time reasonably well, and some don’t, and today, we’re seeing which category The Wizard of Oz lands in.

It’s clear to see in the film itself where The Wizard of Oz shows its age. The acting comes across as somewhat stilted to modern viewers, the jokes a little lame, and the backgrounds and special effects necessary for a fantasy-land definitely remind us that it’s an old movie. Some comments made within the film can sound a little odd to modern ears as well, such as Glinda’s line: ‘only bad witches are ugly!’. Even the film’s central message, ‘there’s no place like home’, has long fell out of fashion in the movies, with more and more ‘coming of age’ stories dedicated to moving out on one’s own.

On top of that, elements were changed from the source itself to make it more palatable to the audiences of the time. Besides adding the ‘dream ending’ due to the unheard-of idea of a fantasy movie, the executives were worried that the Wicked Witch of the West would be too frightening, and cut down the scare factor of their main antagonist. (For example, the original message in the sky: Surrender Dorothy or Die being cut down to simply Surrender Dorothy) The action is far more PG on screen than it was even in the fairytale children’s book, and the film in general can come across as a cheesy old movie.

Despite this, there are several elements in The Wizard of Oz that speak to how progressive it was. The production of a fantasy movie in the 1930s was automatically considered doomed to failure, and as stated above, executives insisted on the ‘dream’ ending’ due to fears that the audience wouldn’t take a ‘fantasy world’ seriously, something that later films would have no problem doing. In another bold move, all three main characters, hero, villain and mentor, are all women, something that is never pointed out or treated as different within the narrative. These components might have been considered a little odd at the time, but fit in with modern tastes and sensibilities.

So here’s the inquiry of the day: Is The Wizard of Oz heavily dated, or is it timeless?

Interesting question. To answer it, let’s look at the definition of both of those words.

The word ‘timeless’ is described as ‘not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion’. This word carries the implication that, applied to film, a ‘timeless’ movie would be one totally understandable and relatable years after the culture has changed. Carried further, the ideal ‘timeless’ movie would be one with no cultural identity of its own.

By contrast, the word ‘dated’ is ‘marked with a date’, or ‘old-fashioned’. This word’s connotation is that, (once again, applied to film) a ‘dated’ film is one that is discernably set in a certain time, and less understandable by those looking from outside that particular culture. This would be a film that hasn’t ‘aged well’, and the criteria could be anything from hairstyles to slang of the era.

So, now that we’ve got our definitions, what’s the decision?

Here’s the thing: it’s more complicated than a simple yes-or-no.

Being one of the first of fantasy on film, The Wizard of Oz didn’t have to portray a lot of 1930s culture, which gave it a little more leeway with plot and characters that could afford to be less grounded in the times. It pioneered a genre with a fun and innovative way of telling a story, it created plenty of memorable scenes and lines, and it gave us timeless characters that we can enjoy years after, yet The Wizard of Oz remains very much a product of 1939.

I’d say we were at a draw, if I didn’t have a Theory.

My thought? Being ‘old’ (and discernably so) doesn’t make a movie dated.

It doesn’t matter if Luke Skywalker has ‘70s hair. It doesn’t have anything to do with the plot itself that E.T. is set in the ‘80s. Does the fact that Psycho is in black-and-white or contain styles of the ‘60s change anything about the story? No.

So what does matter?

My theory is this: By the dictionary definition, its connotation that is often used in the world of film debate, no film is truly timeless. Like I said previously, every single film is a product of the times. The spaceship sequences of The Last Starfighter look like they’re from the ‘80s because they are. The hair and clothes of Charlie’s Angels looks like the ‘70s because it is. The performances on Star Trek seem very much like the ‘60s because that’s when the show was made. These are all products of the times they are from, but they are not defined by them.

To me, a film is not ‘dated’ by using the methods of filmmaking (special effects, acting, costuming and beyond) of the time. A film is not ‘dated’ (not in the negative sense) because a movie is discernably from a certain era. Like I said: we consider a film ‘dated’ if it is less understandable looking back on it. We can easily look past special effects, costumes, and acting.

So what does date a movie?

Ideas.

In my opinion, the ideas of a film, the themes of it, how certain issues or character types are viewed, is what truly dates it, more than any outdated slang term or hairstyle.

It does not change our enjoyment of Goldfinger (or any Connery Bond movie, for that matter) to note that spy movies were big in the ‘60s, or that everyone is driving ‘60s cars and wearing ‘60s clothes. What does change our enjoyment is the copious amount of disposable, objectified women, ethnic stereotypes, and…..aggressive courtship of many of the ‘Bond women’ of the times. Those things, while normal in Hollywood of the 1960s, are wildly out-of-date and problematic when looking back on them with modern sensibilities and understanding. The character and stories of James Bond are far more defined by the times and sensibilities than the examples above, and in that, they are dated.

Here’s another question: Is being ‘dated’ necessarily a bad thing?

If we are set in only watching what is new, what is contemporary, what is ‘not dated’, we reduce ourselves to consuming a very tiny slice of the culture, be it film, television, books, or music. We miss out on our society’s history as portrayed through media, and we don’t learn the sensitivities, the concerns, and the ways that people told stories and expressed their ideas.

We’re also missing out on several movies that are good except for certain problematic elements- lots of films that were ‘fair for its day’. Some things, especially sensibilities, can make us cringe looking back on it from a modern standpoint, but that does not make the film as a whole necessarily bad. I’d even argue that it’s important to watch older films so that we can understand where we’ve come from, and recognize the problem. (For me, the exception is films that are rooted in a problematic idea or concept, which is something we shall address in more depth in a later article. In fact, a lot of this will probably be addressed in more depth in later articles.)

Looking at the context in which a film was created can help us to appreciate it, and even enjoy it a little better. It can help us figure out why decisions were made, understand how the culture has changed. By looking at where we’ve been (culture-wise), we can understand better where we are now. We can look back at older films, and instead of judging them for being different than what we’ve come to expect now, we can recognize what doesn’t hold up and what is considerably Not Okay, without ignoring what does hold up.

Back to our original question: Is The Wizard of Oz timeless, or dated?

I’d have to say, based on my use of the word ‘dated’, it’s definitely timeless.

Don’t get me wrong, like I’ve said previously, it’s clearly a movie from the ‘30s. The Wizard of Oz comes across as old because, quite frankly, it is. Eighty years is a long time in this fast-moving and developing world that we have now, and it makes sense that looking back, we see how much things have changed, even in something such as how movies look to us now. But as I’ve said, there’s a difference between being deeply rooted in changing ideas, and simply showing its age.

Does showing its age make it bad? No.

The Wizard of Oz is a charming, heartwarming, somewhat cheesy story that has remained steadfast this long because people love the story and characters. In my opinion, a movie is timeless not based on whether or not you can tell what decade it was made in, but by how well it has endured, on how well people can enjoy the story and characters after the culture has changed. If you can watch this story and love Dorothy, or the Wicked Witch, or the Scarecrow, or even Toto, or just genuinely like the story that they’re telling you, it doesn’t matter that the backgrounds look fake, or that the jokes are Vaudeville material. What matters is that, made in 1939 or not, it is still a good film. A film’s quality, or enjoyability, has little to do with how easily we can tell what time the film was made in, and a lot to do with the story, characters, and ideas that the film is about.

The Wizard of Oz has lasted this long because no matter if its 1939, 1999, or even 2019, people will be able to understand it, enjoy it, and relate to the characters and themes. And that’s the reason it will continue to endure. Eighty years since its release, Dorothy Gale and her friends, and the message of the film, has been unchanged from what they originally were, just like it will be eighty years from now.

In short: The Wizard of Oz is very clearly a product of the times it was made in, but that makes it no less an enjoyable classic. It was influenced by the styles of film and filmmaking just as much as it would go on to influence, and this does not make it either a good or a bad movie in and of itself. It just goes to show us that filmmaking, just like society, is always changing.

In the 1930s, The Wizard of Oz was a cheerful, uplifting story with fun, memorable characters and visuals, exactly the same as it is today, and exactly the same as it will continue to be.

Thanks so much for reading! Don’t forget to use that ask box if you have your own ideas or thoughts that you’d like to share. Join us next week when we’ll be looking at something a little less difficult (or at least, more contained): the visual and audio storytelling of The Wizard of Oz. I hope to see you there!

#The Wizard of Oz #The Wizard of Oz 1939 #1939 #30s #Film #Movies #PG #Fantasy #Adventure #Judy Garland #Margaret Hamilton #Frank Morgan #Ray Bolger #Jack Haley #Bert Lahr #Billie Burke #Victor Fleming

3 notes · View notes

jrcashwrites · 6 years ago

Text

Camping

Pairing: Flip Zimmerman x Female Reader

Warnings: Lemons ahoy!

A/N: Thank you always to lovely @ravenj84

“Finally getting out of here for a bit, Zimmerman?”

Chief Bridges raised an eyebrow as Flip placed the paperwork down onto his desk. Stepping back, the detective waited patiently as his boss scanned over his request.

“Thought I’d get out to Gunnison before the first snowfall.”

“Beautiful this time of year up there.” Chief Bridges commented as he stamped his seal of approval and handing the papers back over to him. “Enjoy yourself.”

Flip couldn’t help but feel a bit of excitement as he walked out of the station to his truck. He’d never taken anyone camping with him before, usually using his time off as a bit of solitude up in the mountains, far removed from case files and detective work for a weekend. If he was being honest with himself he’d never had anyone he’d ever wanted to ask to accompany him before.

You’d come in like a whirlwind, catching the detective off guard one night at the Red Lantern. Finally fulfilling a long standing promise to Ron and Patrice for an after work drink, Flip finally found the time to meet with his friends. He hadn’t expected for them to bring another along, finding you sitting in his usual spot in the back booth, forever altering his usual nightly routine of frozen dinners and reruns.

Making a quick stop at the grocery to pick up a six pack of Coors and a bottle of your favorite bourbon, he arrived at your apartment. Plopping himself down on your couch, Flip made himself comfortable as you switched off the television set and joined him.

“How’d you feel about a little weekend getaway?” Flip asked as popped the tab of his beer open with a hiss.

Leaning against his side, a vision of a weekend away on a white sand beach surrounded by palm trees with a shirtless detective lounging in a hammock next to you floated through your head

“Up to the mountains,” Flip added, causing any thoughts of the ocean to evaporate instantly from your mind’s eye. “Thought you’d might want to come camping with me?”

“Camping?” you questioned, sitting up on the couch a bit to look over at Flip.

Suddenly feeling nervous he’d even brought the idea up, Flip faltered. Maybe you weren’t the type that thought spending a weekend out in the woods as an idea of fun. Second guessing himself, he worried that maybe it was too soon altogether to ask you to go anywhere other than dinner or the movies.

“If that’s not something you like... I just thought…” he began to ramble, trying to redeem himself on his fumble.

“Flip,” you interrupted, immediately silencing the hulking ball of nerves beside you. “I’d actually really like to go camping with you.”

Breaking into a small smile, Flip felt a wave of relief come over him that you had agreed. He hated that he felt like such a blithering idiot half the time around you, always questioning why such a beautiful woman as yourself was hanging around the likes of him. Relaxing at your acceptance, he swung his arm back around you, allowing you to curl into his side again.

***************************************************************************************

When Flip asked if you’d ever been camping before, you eagerly said yes, even if it had been a long while since you’d gone. Your family had taken you on summer road trips as a child; piling everyone into the nine passenger station wagon with a pop-up trailer hitched to the back and driving up north to a scenic state park. Your father and uncle would set up camp on the dirt plot, hooking the trailer up to the provided electrical outlets. A shower area and general store were just a short walk down the paved road, where you and your cousins would stock up on bags of marshmallows to roast later over a fire. It was hardly roughing it in the wilderness, but you’d always enjoyed it nonetheless.

Never once did Flip mention that his definition of camping did not provide any modern amenities.

As Flip turned onto the unpaved road, the rusty Chevy bumped along causing you to hold onto the dashboard as best you could. After a few miles of rough terrain knocking your head against the ceiling of the truck when he hit a particularly deep divot in the road, he finally slowed to a stop, parking alongside a row of pines.

“Ready, sweetheart? It’s about a mile out to the lake from here.”

“A mile?” you blurted, staring at Flip as if he’d suddenly grown a second head. “What I wouldn’t give for an ATV right about now.”

You muttered the last bit to yourself, but pretty sure you heard the soft rumbling of Flip’s laughter at your admission.

Trusting that Flip knew what he was doing, you hopped down from the Chevy, grabbing your backpack from the bed and swinging it over your shoulder. Flip gathered the rest of the items from the truck. Crossing the dusty road, you set off into the woods.

Flip made the trek seem easy, leading the way through what seemed to be an endless sprawl of forest. A few steps behind, you wondered how he was barely breaking a sweat even though he was carrying twice as much gear as you were. Flip was clearly in his element and you couldn’t help but admire how good he looked; plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows and rifle strapped to his shoulder.

“Where exactly are we going?” you questioned, catching up to Flip’s side as the trail finally widened enough to allow you to walk comfortably beside him.

“It’s gonna be worth it, trust me.”

“It’d better be,” you hummed, adjusting your backpack straps on your shoulders.

“This is what I get for taking a city girl out in nature,” Flip joked playfully as he brushed a bit of stray hair out of your face that had worked itself loose along the way.

“Shush you,” you playfully nudged Flip’s arm. “There’s not as much city in me as you’d like to believe and besides, I wouldn’t want the mountain man I have with me to feel useless.”

“Is he cute?”

“Oh, very much so.”

The rest of the hike, Flip pointed out various things to you in the wilderness as you walked along. A rare black squirrel scampering up the side of a tree, the name of a distant bird that called out. Impressed with his knowledge, you hardly noticed the final ascent as you listened to him rattle off a list of things about the area with confidence. He clearly knew it well, which hardly surprised you. He’d grown up here, this was practically his backyard, even though it seemed like the farthest reaches of the earth to you.

The trees began to thin out as you reached the top of the hill, a large lake spanning out along with a breathtaking view.

“Worth the hike?”

Pausing, you took in your new surroundings. You had never quite seen anything like it before. The lake glittered a deep blue in the sunlight, seeming to reach on forever. Mountains sloped up from either side of it’s banks, rolling off into the distance as far as the eye could see.

“It’s beautiful,” you commented, still in awe that such a spot existed.

“Good. Cause this is our home away from home for the next few days.”

Flip dropped his pack from his shoulders, leaning his rifle against a nearby tree. Pacing a few times across the area, he determined the flattest spot for the tent, digging the item from his backpack and unfurling it on the ground. Making quick work in a matter of minutes, it was set up, followed by a small fire pit.

“We’re going to need some firewood,” Flip noted, as he wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

Joining him in the nearby woods, you soon had an armful of fallen sticks and a few larger logs. Not being completely inept, you returned to the campsite, stacking them into the fire pit in the teepee shape your father had taught you long ago that would sustain the best fire. Tucking some dried leaves and kindling around the base, you struck a match, stepping back as the fire caught, quickly spreading to the larger logs.

Flip couldn’t help to smile as he returned, a stack of logs of his own in his arms, at you sitting near the fire. Dropping the firewood to the ground near the fire pit, he kissed the top of your head.

“Not bad for a city girl.”

“I told you I wasn’t completely helpless.”

*****************************************************************************************

Daylight was already fading from the sky, casting hues of soft pinks and oranges over the still waters of the lake. The fire cracked and popped, burning strong and casting a warm light over the campsite. You helped Flip prepare dinner, adding spices to the cast iron pot he’d rigged over the fire as he stirred the ingredients to a simple, yet delicious meal. Laying out a blanket, he joined you as you sat down, warm bowl in hand.

You could get used to this, you thought as darkness fell around you. The first few stars began to twinkle in the inky black sky above. After cleaning up the dishes and packing them back away, Flip joined you near the fire. As it began to burn low in the small pit Flip had dug out to contain it, you noticed how quiet the woods were at night. Gone were the tweets of birds and rustling of forest animals through the underbrush. Your ears rang for a moment, unused to such silence. It was peaceful, yet eerie all at once, to be in such a secluded place. Pulling the over-sized flannel Flip had leant you closer around yourself, you shivered slightly in the cool night air. Leaning back against Flip, he wrapped his arms around you.

“Cold?” Flip asked, pulling you closer to his body from where you sat between his long legs.

“Just a little.” you admitted. Between the hike and the warmth of the sun, you had been almost too warm all day. As night fell, you realized you may have underestimated how quickly the temperature would drop at a higher elevation.

“Think I could warm you up a little,” he purred into your ear, nipping at your lobe.

“You think so?” you hummed back, tilting your head back to look up at him.

“I do.”

Catching you with a kiss, you wiggled a bit in Flip’s arms to turn yourself in his grasp. Straddling him, he let out a low moan as you settled yourself on his lap. He tasted of the spice from dinner, mingled with the tobacco from his last cigarette. Deepening the kiss, you ran your fingers through his hair, rocking your hips against him.

“Careful, sweetheart,” Flip warned as you twirled the long strands of his hair at the base of his neck.

“Mmm, why’s that?” you cooed. “Am I going to get myself in trouble?”

“There’s no one out here to hear me making you scream.”

More than once, your neighbors had pounded on the wall, warning you and Flip to quiet down. The apartment walls did little to contain the noise, much to their dismay. It took all of your willpower not to laugh the next day when Ms. Paterson from next door warned you that “next time I hear such a racket in the middle of the night, I’m calling the police.” Little did she know that it was law enforcement between your legs that was the cause for such a ruckus.

“I’d like to see you try,” you challenged Flip, rocking your hips once more against him for good measure. You could already feel he was hard, straining against his jeans. “Make me scream your name.”

Letting out a strangled sound, Flip moved you from his lap, turning you on to your back. Hovering above you, Flip ghosted his hands over your chest, palming at your breasts over the flannel. Diving towards your neck, he pressed his lips against you, nipping and sucking against your skin.

Flip hummed between kisses. “You are in so much trouble.”

“Have I been bad, officer?” you murmured as your back arched from the blanket and Flip pressed a line of kisses along your collarbone.

“Fuck,” Flip groaned as he struggled to undo the buttons to your shirt. He desperately needed to feel the softness of your skin against his palm.

A low giggle escaped you, knowing that pushed Flip over the edge. Feeling his hand trail down your stomach he dipped between your legs. Pressing against your center, you took a deep breath as Flip rubbed his hand over the fabric of your pants. While it felt good, you needed more. Reaching down, you unbuttoned the top of your jeans, Flip’s fingers quick to join, pushing the fabric down your legs.

Feeling the cold night air hit against your wet center, you stiffened for a second at the sensation. Flip wasted no time in pressing a warm finger against you, teasing you slowly as he circled your folds before dipping inside. Grasping his shoulders, you exhaled as he began working in and out of you at a torturous pace, adding a second and then a third. Goosebumps prickled against your skin, the mixture of pleasure and the chill of the mountain air cascading over you. Flip continued, pumping his hand rhythmically as you squeezed your eyes shut. You were lost in the feeling, his thick fingers working you as his thumb circled your clit. Nearly there you were teetering on edge when the loss of contact made your eyes fly open and suck in a deep breath, as Flip pulled his hand away.

“Think I was going to let you come that easily?” Flip smirked, before bringing his fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean with a pop.

Giving Flip a sly smile, you grabbed onto the collar of his shirt, pulling him close. Teasing him, you licked a stripe up the side of his neck. Salty and sweet, you relished the taste of him. Biting his neck, he let out a low groan. You were easily going to be the death of him and he wasn’t complaining in the slightest that this was how he was going to go.

“Are you going to cuff me, officer? you teased, letting go of Flip’s shirt to stretch your arms above you. “Wouldn’t want me to get away now would you?”

Pinning your wrists in his grasp, Flip held you steady with his large hand. “I’m off duty, sweetheart. Plus there’s no headboard to cuff you to.”

“But sir,” you mockingly protest, playing into Flip’s current conundrum. “I’m sure you could find some way to restrain me.”

Ever the quick thinking boy scout, Flip pushed the flannel shirt from your shoulders, making quick work of knotting the fabric tightly around your wrists. Satisfied with his handiwork, Flip ran his hand down your chest, delighting in how your body arched into his touch, begging for more.

Fumbling with his belt buckle, Flip wasn’t sure he still had the necessary motor skills left to work the leather free from his waist. Managing to get it undone, he unzipped his pants, taking himself out in his palm. Pumping himself a few times, his hand felt useless, especially as you were splayed out before him, legs parted, waiting eagerly for him to sink into you. Lining up to your entrance, Flip could barely breathe as he slipped into you. He would never grow tired of the soft exhale you made as he sunk deeper into you, steadying his hands against the blanket, careful not to crush you with his weight as he began to move.

Soon finding a rhythm, Flip rocked against you, driving deep as your hips snapped to meet each of his thrusts.

“Let me hear you,” Flip encouraged. “Be a good girl for me.”

Struggling against the fabric bonds, tight around your wrists, you tried to wiggle free but to no avail. The sensation of restriction only added to your pleasure as the flannel dug against your skin. You cried out into the night as Flip thrust into you.

“Fuck! Flip, please!”

“Please what?” he asked, his voice low and thick.

“Please,” you begged. “Please fuck me harder.”

“Careful what you wish for sweetheart.”

Withdrawing from you, Flip grasped your hips, flipping you to your knees. Faltering for a second, you steadied yourself as best you could on your bound wrists. Feeling his weight against your back, Flip reached around you, tearing the knotted shirt free allowing your hands to plant flat against the blanket.

“You look fucking beautiful like this,” Flip confessed, taking in the sight of you bent before him, your thighs slick with your arousal dripping from your center.

Giving your ass a firm slap, Flip let out a growl as he dove towards you, licking a long stripe against you with his tongue. Shuddering, your fingers grasped the blanket, desperately trying to hold onto anything that would ground you as Flip continued to lap at you. As he circled his tongue, you let out a cry, unable to contain the sounds you were so used to keeping quiet. Continuing on, Flip worked you until you were trembling, on the brink of collapsing, your arms weak from holding yourself up.

Pulling back from you, Flip’s chin glistened in the pale moonlight that blanketed your surroundings. Hardly fazed by the mess, Flip took hold of your hips once again, guiding you back as he pushed into you.

“Flip!” you moaned as his cock sunk deep within you. Wrapping an arm around your middle, he leaned down against your back, pulling you close as he rocked back and forth in time with your movements against him.

“Such a good, good girl for me,” Flip murmured, his voice deep as his pressed his lips against your cheek. “Just like that darling,” he encouraged.

#flip zimmerman x reader #flip zimmerman x female reader #flip zimmerman/reader #flip Zimmerman x you #flip zimmerman #one shot #flip zimmerman/female reader #flip zimmerman/you #reader insert #Female reader #reader #lemon #lemons ahead

163 notes · View notes

unto-myself-together · 5 years ago

Text

Of Stories and Songs: Ch 8

A lot of author notes, I know, but there’s no avoiding that. A TON of stuff happens in this chapter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author notes: I really REALLY need to stop making long chapters. 22 pages! Like I never get them out and I get “fatigued” or something when I make them super long like this. I also wouldn’t have to make such long author notes.

Inb4 my family thinks I’m creepy for breathing into my phone while recording.

I actually couldn’t figure out how to get the audio files off my phone, but you’re really not missing much anyways. Just when you get to the part of the story, take a deep breath in and listen to how it sounds when you take a deep breath in. Change it up by changing how fast you breath the air in, and listen. Yes, that was exactly what I was going for.

Character names and the Imagineers they were named after:

Claude = Claude Coates Michael Davis = Mark Davis Karen Anderson = Ken Anderson Solomon Gracey= Yale Gracey Rolly Mortimer= Rolly Crump The Atencio company = X Atencio Nell is named after the main character of the Haunting of Hill House *(as well as named after the author of that story). And Galloway isn’t anything important or a reference; it just sounded cool at the time.

Yes, I did indeed try to draw that creepy hand that passes over the grandfather clock. I’m sad it didn’t turn out quite right, but I dislike the act of drawing too much to actually bother fixing that piece up.

“Closing your eyes” : When I was young, my mother would always close my eyes when the Ghost Host would show his body hanging from the rafters. I thought she did it because I was afraid of the thunder and lightning, and she was known to hold my eyes whenever something I found scary happened on other rides. Even though thunder is a SOUND and not a sight, it did feel comforting to have her put her hands over my eyes anyways. It took me a long, long time to figure out the real reason she closed my eyes was because she didn’t want me to see the hanged man. Part of that was because I didn’t know it was a hanged man, even when I had a chance to look at it. It just looked like a weird clump of clothes hanging from the ceiling. So I guess in some ways, she didn’t even need to hold my eyes close to begin with (because I would not have known even if I looked at it); but I still appreciated that she went through the effort.

The idea of three people creepily coming closer and closer to you after having cornered you is kind of what I imagined the Cast Members would totally do to guests that don’t listen and leave the ride vehicles without permission. You know...if security didn’t have to be involved and they were allowed to be theatrical.

So in the actual ride, there are TWO stretching rooms for all Haunted Mansion locations. In WDW, they exist on either side of the Aging Man portrait. They are exactly identical, and I always thought it would be fun to imagine that they are the EXACT same room, and that the house just moves rooms around.

The door hidden in the darkness of the foyer is an actual door in WDW that I’ve been through. It connects to the small pet cemetery area right outside the exit doors of the ride. I’ve been through it before and it was totally awesome; might talk about it in another post.

There are actually two versions of Nell; the one in this story and the one that I roleplay. For all intents and purposes, they have the exact same personality, likes, and etc, but they just have different backstories and reasons for being at the mansion. In case anyone was confused.

I struggled, for a long time, to figure out what year this story ought to take in (as in, what year the two teens come to the mansion). There are benefits and downsides to both “modern era” and 1960s, the two time periods I considered. On the one hand, the 1960s could avoid the idea of under age drinking because the age was 18 back then (in the state of Virginia). The reason why I mention this is because there was a plot point that I...really don’t want to have to avoid all because the main characters don’t drink. I think I pretty much solved this dilemma in this chapter though, without underage drinking (even if I had to do so in a bit of an unrealistic way, sorry about that). Additionally, there would be no cell phones 1960s to ruin the story (as they call for help). On the other hand, it also means I cannot use modern day slang, ideas, memes, and etc....I think I’ve decided to kind of....let this story be in the modern day....possibly. I don’t know, I just might change my mind later. The struggle is real.

I may have forgotten a few author notes, in which case I apologize beforehand.

FINALLY, I dedicate this chapter to my dear friend, @asktheghosthost . Thank you for always listening, thank you for all the good times and good stories we’ve made together, thank you for reblogging these story chapters, thank you for pulling me back in the Haunted Mansion fandom...and thank you for helping to inspire this story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, domestic violence, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

This chapter: underage drinking (except not really. You’ll understand when you get to it)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , Chapter 5 ,

Chapter 6 , Chapter 7

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CH 8: Dust and Ashes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All of my life I spent searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings

~ Now at the end all I know that I've learned is that all that I know is I don't know a thing

~Dust and Ashes, from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Karen pulled the blanket closer to her as they descended downward. It was warmer in the stairway, but only just so; the more they descended, the closer the temperature got to the frigid room she’d woken up in previously.

“…Mr. Mortimer…I’m confused.”

“I can’t blame you none for that. I’d probably be the same, were I in your shoes.”

He kept pace beside her, his cane ticking with every step.

“What I meant was: Why are we going down? Shouldn’t we be going up?”

“We’re already up as high as we can get, young’un. Nowhere for us to go but down.”

“Wha--?”

She stopped, and Mr. Mortimer’s cane clicked to a halt as he, too, stopped a little ways in front of her.

“Where was that? The place we were before with all the junk?”

“That would be the attic.”

Karen considered this.

“Mr. Mortimer…why…did you go through all the trouble of carrying me up to the attic? What was the point if we just have to climb all the way down again?”

Mr. Mortimer chuckled, his gold teeth glistening in the act. The warmth of his tone, however, hardly made the sight terrifying.

“I certainly would not have gone through the trouble of gettin’ a living body all the way to the attic…You were already nearby.”

She gaped at him, trying to keep up with his logic.

“But I fell down a chasm of staircases…”

“No, you fell up a chasm of staircases.”

“That’s not even physically possible!”

“Talking about the physical in a house of ghosts, hmm? Trust me, young’un. Those sets of staircases you’ve been hanging about in are the very opposite of possible. Don’t think too hard about it, as it doesn’t make much sense even to us.”

He gestured for the two of them to continue, and she numbly caught up to his pace.

“If I…” She adjusted the blanket as they walked side by side. “…If I had fallen all the way…”

He frowned. “…Best not think of things like that. Won’t do nothing but worry yourself.”

She gave him a startled look, and he returned it with solemn nod.

She went quiet again for a bit, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. This stairway, at least, seemed to be relatively normal. Contained on all sides by walls, yet the rickety nature of it still threatened to trip her should she neglect to watch her step. Tiny spiders crawled along one of the walls. Tiny red spots on their backs that made them look like drops of blood circulating around them.

“…I’m sorry I didn’t say it before but…Thank you for saving me, Mr. Mortimer…”

“I’m afraid I can’t take all the thanks, young’un. Because I’m not the one who stopped yer fall.”

“Then who did?”

Mr. Mortimer paused again, and his gaze followed the trail of spiders.

All of them, the exact same appearance. All of them, traveling the exact same lines. Single Filed. Mindless and unnatural.

“Are those really spiders?” Instantly, she regretted the question, just as she was sure she’d regret the answer.

He sighed. “No. They aren’t. But that’s a right hard topic to talk about, and I ain’t too sure it’s my place to say. We better press on.”

His tone suggested that he’d prefer a change in subject, and his cane clacked as he continued forward again.

But Karen lingered a while by the spiders, watching them go from one end of the wall to the other. Black beady bodies with bright red spots each. A larger one was lingering above the traveling group with the same shade on its hairy exoskeleton as all the rest.

She looked from the tiny creatures lining the wall to the little bites that still lined her hand. These had to have been the same sort of spiders that fixed the window…and the floor…and attacked her for trying to interfere with their work.

The spiders stopped. Unanimously and simultaneously, they all turned towards her and lifted up their front two legs.

She took a startled step backwards.

“I’m sorry!” She said, wondering if they actually understood her. Her legs compelled her on to catch up to Mr. Mortimer, and a quick glance behind her told her that the spiders resumed their mindless trek once again.

“They’re so creepy…” She muttered as she was once again beside him.

“That they are,” The skeletal Mr. Mortimer said.

“Have they always been part of the house?”

“As far as I’m aware. Mr. Gracey told me he remembered seeing some of them back when he was alive, though it’s difficult to say whether they’d been upkeepin’ the house back then the way they do now.”

“How could he…not remember whether there were strange spiders rebuilding the house from underneath his feet?”

Mr. Mortimer gave a snorted laugh. “If you ever meet Mr. Gracey, I think you’d do well to keep that comment to yerself.”

“I already have, and I already think he doesn’t like me.”

Mr. Mortimer raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“He was just…”

She thought back to all the memories she had of Solomon Gracey, and the contrast it stood to her own personal experience meeting him. The resulting earthquake he seemed to summon right then and there in the hallway.

“…Really grumpy.” She settled on that, although it seemed a severe understatement.

“Likely was just angry with that Mr. Claude. He assumes all mortals that come this way are the result of that man luring them here. And he’s usually right.”

“Mr. Claude?”

“Ah...” He tutted to himself. “Sorry. Tried to remember not to call him that around you; I don’t think he likes the mortals using that name. But you would know him to be the self-proclaimed ‘Ghost Host’.”

Karen tightened the blanket around herself. “He has a name?”

“Just the one. No surname, no title names, no family names. Just Claude. Doubt it’s even his real name, the wretch does like his little nicknames, but it’s the only one he’s ever given us to address him.”

The Ghost Host, imagined as a once real and living person. Even in the one memory where she saw him as a mortal, it was hard to think of him as human. Having something of a name attached to him did almost nothing to wave away the inherent ethereal nature of his existence. In fact, it almost felt…discomforting that he should have a name at all.

“Him and Mr. Gracey didn’t much like each other even way back when,” Mr. Mortimer continued, “And their fightin’ didn’t get any better in death either. If anything, it got worse. Sometimes see them go at each other’s throats like starving bears maulin’ each other over a fresh kill.”

They stopped at a landing, and Mr. Mortimer opened up the door into another hallway.

“As it happens, Mr. Claude is the one who likes to lure in unsuspectin’ mortals, and occasionally shows them off to Mr. Gracey because the ol’ wretch knows it will get the master of the house right and proper pissed at him. Mr. Gracey doesn’t approve o’ tricking mortals into the house, you see. It’s all a lot o’ prime entertainment for Claude. ”

“So Mr. Gracey isn’t really angry at me, then?”

“I’m sure he’s a bit peeved. Mortals shouldn’t hang about here. They can get themselves hurt, and there ain’t much of a good reason for them to be fraternizing with the dead. Leads to all sorts of things, like ghost hunters and….not so good expectations about what it means to die. So I can’t say he’s much happy that you’re here. But he’s a right sort, a good man, and even though he’s a little, as you say,…”

He gave her an aside, his sea green eyes glittering at her as he smiled.

“…Grumpy, he won’t hesitate to help you if you’re in need of it.”

They wandered down a hallway that she could only describe as splattered with crimson; red carpets all across the floor, red wallpaper with a strange floral design, and even the lights seem to glow a bit red. Or maybe that last was simply a trick of the eye.

Mr. Mortimer suddenly slowed his pace, and as she peered at him she could see his ghostly brow furrowed in concentration.

“Speaking of, young ‘un…”

The sound of the wind drifted through the halls; strange as it was since there were no apparent windows about.

“….If anything should happen to me, you’ll need to go and find Solomon. The wretch Claude will try to stop you, he’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way, and you’ll need to swallow your fear and go down the scariest looking path to find Solomon. Solomon will help you.”

She was staring at him. “What….do you mean….?”

His eyes squinted; they looked off into the hallway and did not pay her heed “…It seems the wretch is about…Might be comin’ our way…”

“You can tell?” She tried to look down the hallway as well, but could see nothing out of place. It got colder; the wind shifted to breeze past her.

He shifted the hatbox to his cane hand so that he could grab her arm.

“Quickly now, young’un.” He said, pulling her along back the way they came. “We best be making our way back to the attic.”

“But why?”

“He never goes into the attic.”

And Mr. Mortimer left it at that, a note of finality in his tone that assured her he was not going to give her any other explanation.

They made their way, at a much quicker pace, down the red rimmed hallway again and back into the stairwell. He urged her to go up the stairs two at a time, a frantic pace that she was sure she wouldn’t have managed if he had not kindly helped pull up her weight with him. But even as they made it up their way up floors, the stairs seemed dauntingly and sadistically too tall.

“Can’t understand why he’s this dogged insistent… Plenty o’ mortals, psychic and not, have come by before and he never seemed this obsessed…What’s different here…? If I had known…if I had known…Ah, what a fool ya are, Rolly…” Mr. Mortimer muttered to himself. “Should have kept her in the attic, ya should…”

They made it to their third landing, before she suddenly buckled; an eerie, freezing sensation traced her spine and filled her with dread. And almost immediately as the feeling came, Mr. Mortimer spun her behind him and….

…And he was thrown against the wall.

She never saw it coming, for there was nothing to see. The invisible entity rammed the greenish hued Mortimer up against the wood of the stairwell; she could see Mr. Mortimer struggling against it, his “body” glowing and misaligning and fading a bit as he fought. She clenched her ears at the horrifying sound it seemed to produce, a cross between a woman screaming, a metal screw turning, and a set of nails rippling down a dry chalkboard. It penetrated her head.

Mr. Mortimer seemed to throw his attacker off him, as his feet were then on the floor. His glow sputtered as he slammed his cane onto the floor in an effortful movement; the screaming chalkboard sound returned again and she stumbled against the wall to hold herself up.

But it did not seem to last long. Mr. Mortimer was back and pinned against the wall again, his glowing form turning to glowing fog, and the glowing fog obscuring her from seeing him properly.

Until the fog cleared, but there was no sign of Mr. Mortimer.

There was a painting of him instead.

“Mr…” She gulped his name back down, afraid of what she was seeing. Her hand shakily reached up to touch the elaborate frame of the perfectly painted portrait of the man who had just been beside her.

“Crying for the dead is encouraged in this house.”

There was a twinge of anger that she couldn’t just brush away as she turned to the empty air.

“What did you do to him?!”

“Don’t feel so bad. It isn’t as though I killed him. Merely punished for trying to kidnap you away from me.”

“He wasn’t kidnapping me!”

“Oh but that is precisely why I have to frame him for it… Ahmmh mhmm hmmm ha ha haaaa HA!”

She went back to the portrait. Mr. Mortimer’s jaw seemed clenched in anger, his eyes glowering.

“Young….un….” She was surprised to hear a whisper coming from it, barely audible over Claude laughing over his own stupid joke.

“Solomon…..find….run….harder….to….catch….moving target…”

“But….what about you?” She whispered back.

The edged colors around his face seemed to soften a bit. “I…am...fine…”

She looked back at the open air; the damnable voice was still laughing as though his greatest enjoyment was to hear himself.

A quick adjustment of the blanket…Karen took a deep breath….then charged right through the nearby landing’s doorway.

The Ghost Host stopped laughing. “Oh? Are we playing the running game now? A bit of cat and mouse? What fun.”

She spun around the corner of the doorway, but was pulled back for a moment by an invisible force of vice-like cold. She struggled a moment, trying to twist it off her, before finally shoving off the blanket towards her attacker.

A tall figure.

The blanket outlined against a tall figure, where there had previously been nothing before. Its head was bent in a sickening angle, like the neck had been broken.

But she did not give herself a pause to absorb this; the grip on her had loosened and she took the opportunity to bolt down the hallway.

Red carpet, red walls, and as she propelled herself forward, her lungs drinking air, little spider spots came pouring down from the corner edges of the hall. First in a sprinkling, then in buckets as she traveled onwards.

Mostly, they spilled over the walls themselves, but a few occasionally dropped down from the middle of the ceiling and landed on her head. She brushed them off, again and again.

Her feet came to a halt at the junction, and her heart skipped a beat to see that one of her optional paths involved statues. A LOT of statues. The same kind of statue that had chased her before. But this path had a whole horde of them, scattered all the way into the darkness of the furthest she could see.

The other path looked clear.

He’ll try to throw illusions to make you go his way.

Mr. Mortimer’s words rang in the back of her head and she balked. How was she to know whether this were an illusion or a genuine herd of statue ghosts?

The shadow of a clawed hand, The Ghost Host’s distinctive chuckle phased in around her. The shadow claw circled her like a shark, twitching its fingers in anticipation of a single mistake on her part.

Karen cursed under her breath; not just directed at the Ghost Host, but herself. For the next thing she knew her adrenaline had already made the choice to charge. Straight into the hallway of statues.

It took a few ticks for her mind to catch up with her; the moment she thought this choice wasn’t a bad one after all was on the heels of the moment she noticed the statues were turning to face her. Grinding sounds of stone on wood and fifty pairs of stone weary eyes straight on her. She dipped and dodged around them, too scared to look back to see if claw hand or statue was following.

But she could feel them all pressing in around her. The sounds of scraping surrounding her...then one of her arms got caught. She managed to wretch it away.

But it happened again….and again…And until the other arm was snagged…and then her waist….her legs…stone hands grabbing her neck…her head….pulling her down with them….the restraints too strong…

She turned to look down the hallway to a vanishing freedom…took a deep breath as much as the stone arms would allow…And yelled:

“SOLOMON GRACEY!”

The statues froze in their grasp of her. No longer did they push to pull her to the ground.

And she swore she heard, to her great satisfaction, a grunt of annoyance coming from her long-standing invisible tormentor. Anything that annoyed the Ghost Host couldn’t possibly be a bad idea.

Sure enough, the walls began to shake. Vases on nearby corner tables toppled over, specks of dust trickled down from the ceiling. That sickening, cold spine feeling that she was beginning to associate with the Ghost Host began to dissipate…..and the statues started dissipating with it. One by one, as the earthquake rippled across the hall their forms smudged like a blurry photograph, before disappearing altogether.

Her body was released and she fell to the floor with a thud. The feel of rough stone was replaced….with a distinct taste of licorice. She swallowed to try and get the strange, sudden taste from her mouth, but it persisted. And the earthquake slowly died down.

She was alone and it was fantastically quiet.

“You…” A whisper on the air breathed. She looked up, only to distressingly find a pair of vivid, blue glints glaring down at her from the darkness of the far hall.

“You shouldn’t be here…” It continued, blue eyes moving towards her.

It sounded like someone taking in a long, deep breath.

And there was dust and ash.

Dust and ash….

It was like dust and ash….

Swirling together….coalescing….combining….until she could make out a face….a mouth….a nose….from the dust and ash came also the sleeves of a suit….a hand formed from the particles….legs….a person….

An angry person. A furious person.

The breath sound that lingered on the wind exhaled just as he was fully realized.

Though she had been rooted in the spot, in awe of watching a ghost forming himself in front of her, her adrenaline was still strongly beating in her veins. And it was this drive that caused her to stumble back, a frantic yearning to run screaming in her head.

As he advanced even closer to her, that internal screaming fueled her into dashing down the other hallway.

A candelabra blocked her way. A floating candelabra.

Another sound like someone taking a deep breath in….Dust and ash swirled around the candlesticks, the smell of roses, the wax dripping alongside the specks, until the figure of a woman appeared. Grey eyes, black hair, green dress; the head maid from the memories.

The breath exhaled.

She, too, advanced towards Karen, candelabra in her now mostly formed, dust dripping hand.

“P-please…” Karen stammered. But she herself wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to ask for.

Her feet took her down the last hallway, only to be cut off by a third figure.

Deep breath.

Dust and ash…

Dust and ash swirled once more, and a man in a green suite formed. Birds chirping. The breath exhaling…The dust settling off his shoulders as he guarded her final escape route and proceeded forward towards her.

Trapped on all sides. The master from the left, the head maid from the front, and the head butler from the right all converging on to her location, one step after another. A marked pace that noted they had all the time in the world to reach her.

And what would they do once they’ve accomplished this? She pressed her back against the wall, sliding gradually down to the ground as her head whipped from one of the trio to the other and the other. Her breath heaving in her ears. From Mr. Mortimer’s descriptions, she had imagined something much friendlier. Than again, she also had never imagined Mr. Mortimer was dead.

“No more running,” Mr. Gracey said with a sneer.

Right as she could see the hem of the maid’s dress a few feet from her eyes, she shut them tight. Waiting for…something to happen. The uncomfortable nothing that followed made her squint her eyes open once more.

They were just standing there. Waiting.

“You...really don’t need to do that….” Mr. Gracey said, frowning down at her.

“Do….what?” She breathed, finally releasing the breath she’d been holding in.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Act as though you’re about to face your own execution.”

“Well how am I supposed to react then?! You make a show of…of forming yourself all angry like that and just…” She stammered. Her nerves were too frazzled for this. “I only just avoided a bunch of statues grabbing me and…! And that Ghost Host taunting me and….and the running and…and earthquakes…”

She looked up at him again with the strongest glare she could muster. Solomon looked unimpressed.

“I don’t care what Mr. Mortimer says about you. You could have at least told me what you’re going to do to me after you finish chasing me! I don’t know what you want!”

“What I want is for you to leave my house.”

She gave a side glance to his posse before turning back to him. “Alive or dead?” She said, with no small amount of sarcasm in it.

“Considering that dead would result in you NOT leaving my house, I would assume you already have your answer,” he said, the sarcasm almost as equally strong.

She exhaled through her nose. “Then you could have just told me that like a normal person!”

“Honestly, all of you dead people don’t even remember how to act nicely…” she muttered under her breath as an aside to herself.

He must have heard that, because he stiffened considerably and looked more than a bit miffed.

“It’s done on purpose, child,” his eyes narrowed at her, “Just a little intimidation to scare you from any ideas about ever coming back. I will admit, though, you reacted a bit stronger than I anticipated...”

“Well yeah! Because you’ve just wasted your time! I’ve already seen PLENTY to convince me to never come back to this horrible place ever again! Evil murderous invisible men, statues that chase you, people coming out of the walls, falling down giant chasms full of staircases-“

“You fell down that infinite stairway?” The woman interrupted, looking more than a little bit concerned.

“Yes. Not long after I met you back in that other hallway,” she said, jutting out her chin accusingly at Mr. Gracey.

To Solomon’s credit, he looked downright horrified. Which was a nice change from his usual sour demeanor.

“Good lord, is that where you went previously? Are you all right?” He asked.

“Yes….No…I mean. I don’t know! I’m alive and everything seems to work…”

He gave a sigh that suggested both relief and frustration. “This is exactly the reason you need to leave. It’s too dangerous for the living to go skipping about these halls without a care in the world. Now child, if you wo-“

“Karen.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She stared him down, unflinching even as she held the gaze of those eerily, glow-y blues. At this point, she was beyond tired of getting pushed around by ghosts.

“My name is Karen. Karen Anderson. And I’m eighteen.”

“How good for you,” he said with a wry smile. “And I am well over a hundred. So you’ll have to forgive me if I cannot help but see you as a child, Miss Anderson. Nonetheless, I do apologize if I have caused you any offense. I meant it merely as a descriptor, and not as any indication that you are somehow lesser.”

One hand folded behind his back and the other hand over his heart, he gave her a short incline of his head.

“Allow us, further, a chance for introductions. I am Solomon Gracey, and this is my family estate. Primary estate, that is.”

He gestured to the other two spirits. “My associates….”

“Abigail Galloway,” The maid said, giving her a polite smile that would feel friendly if it didn’t seem a little too polite.

“Edgar Galloway,” The butler said, making neither a bow nor a smile. For all the world, he seemed straight up bored. After regarding her carefully with a quick glance, he went right back to stand there with a distant gaze.

By the shapes of their faces, and their matching names, eyes, and hair, the two were most definitely related.

Solomon coughed, and her attention returned to him. He offered a hand. She stared at it blankly.

His lips twisted a bit into a mischievous, almost boyish smirk. “To help you to your feet. Which I know are still working…because I just saw you use them.”

She opened her mouth to give a smart aleck retort, but realized she had nothing. So she begrudgingly took his hand instead. Freezing cold, like ice. Something she had already come to expect by now.

“Come along, then,” he said, releasing her as soon as she was steady on her feet to turn and walk down the way he originally came.

She could feel the two servants pressing closer to her; they weren’t going to give her an opportunity to disobey.

They walked silently and casually. Karen couldn’t shake off the feeling that their pace was measured and set specifically for her, because any hesitance on her part was met and matched by them. Even Solomon, who was facing forward, seemed to eerily slow-down whenever she did. That did more to evidence the fact that this was a supernatural situation than even their appearance; unlike Mr. Mortimer, who had a skeletal, glowing visage to him, these three people seemed to make every effort to give off the illusion they were alive.

“Um…” she started, looking at the back of Mr. Gracey’s head.

When he did not pay her heed, she turned to the maid beside her instead. Abigail smiled with a strange mixture of motherly affection, strict politeness, and a tinge of pity.

“Something wrong?” She asked.

“What about Mr. Mortimer?”

Abigail frowned. “What about him?”

Karen looked nervously towards the back of Solomon’s head and then back to Abigail.

“The Ghost Host trapped him in a portrait in a stairwell.”

Solomon spun quickly to face her, forcing the party to halt.

“Claude did what?”

Rumbling in the walls nearest to her made her ease a step back. The boards shook, but it wasn’t nearly as disorienting or terrifying as before.

She could see his hand shaking, fingers slowly furling into a fist then releasing. The walls seem to respond to that, working up in a frenzy with each tremble of his hand, getting stronger with every moment they closed in on themselves. And finally settling down, when his fingers gently unfurled themselves to a relaxed state.

“Miss Anderson…” he said, his voice struggling towards calm, “Would you…be so kind as to describe what this stairwell looked like?”

“Um…” her body tensed a moment, regardless of the fact that he was clearly not angry at her. “Narrow...creaky old wood steps…thin railings… and it was all enclosed by purple striped pattern on the walls. It was down that way…”

She gestured vaguely the way she came.

Mr. Gracey listened intently to her, face as expressionless as he could obviously muster.

“Edgar,” he said.

“Sir,” Edgar replied.

But when Karen turned to look at the butler, he was gone. She turned to look towards Abigail, who smiled politely back at her.

“He’s gone to help Mr. Mortimer,” she said.

“More of a courtesy to him,” Mr. Gracey said, and already he had turned to continue on. “Mr. Mortimer is powerful; he’s likely already freed himself by now. Something like this could only ever hold him temporarily, where lesser souls would be forced to spend weeks. Which means Edgar is mostly only going to inform Mr. Mortimer that you’re safely with us.”

“So…he’ll be okay?” At the maid’s non-verbal urging, she followed Solomon.

“He’ll be just fine. Don’t worry,” Abigail said.

They walked in silence after that; Karen was given time to think things over as they passed oak doors and flickering electric lights caked in cobwebs.

The taste of licorice. The smell of roses. These were sensations that had been clinging to her from the moment the spirits appeared. The soft sigh of birds singing disappeared when Edgar vanished.

Claude too. It dawned on her that whenever the Ghost Host was around, she’d feel a tingling down her spine. Mr. Mortimer always seemed to carry the smell of the sea. And the statue had that horrible burnt smell.

Spirits, it seemed, came with some sort of identifying sense.

She broke out of her reverie when they stepped into a room bathed in a familiar dull blue-green light. A slight panic bubbled up within her at the sight of stairways going any which way possible.

“Wait…why are we here? What are we doing??” The panic snuck into her voice too.

“This is the fastest way back to the foyer,” Mr. Gracey replied, before taking a stairway straight down.

As in, the stairway was literally going vertically down, with the ghost before her now walking with his form completely horizontal.

The maid seemed prepared to press her towards the same path, but she balked and backed up.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kill me!” she accused, looking back and forth between Abigail and Solomon.

“We aren’t trying to,” Solomon said, already having turned to look up at her. Neither his tone nor his face suggested maliciousness.

“Then what do you call this?!” She gestured to the sheer drop.

“Looks can be deceiving,” he walked towards her, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. “It’s ironic that mortals, so grounded in reality, would fall prey so easily to the illusions of the dead. You trust your eyes too much; not all believing comes from seeing.”

On that advice, Karen took an experimental step. She could feel her weight shifting, her stomach dropping with the gravity, her body threatening to fall forward, and every nerve in her body screaming at her that this was suicide. Her mind “helpfully” played out for her the fresh memory of her fall in her head.

“No…No I can’t do this. I can’t do this!” She made to back away several steps, but Abigail kept her in place.

Karen turned to her. “Please, I can’t do this! I ca-”

“It’s all right.”

“Don’t make me do this, please! Don-“

“Miss Anderson,” Mr. Gracey said, and he was already back on their stairway. The stairway with the CORRECT stairway orientation.

“Please, I just had a fall, I can’t—“

“You won’t fall. And if you do, I’ll catch you.” Mr. Gracey said.

“I can’t! I know gravity when I feel it! That isn’t just a trick of the eyes!”

“Miss Anderson, please. You won’t fall. I give you my word: As long as you remain with me, I won’t let you die.”

She looked from the maid still holding her to Gracey, who gave her a small smile of reassurance.

That did not make her feel better. She turned to Abigail, and there must have been pleading in her eyes because Karen could see her slowly relent.

“Here,” Abigail said kindly, turning her around. The feeling of cold fingers on her eyes. Karen’s sight went dark.

“Wha-?”

“Just step to the edge,” Abigail whispered at her ear. It was a bit unnerving to know that ghosts had frigid cold fingers, yet somehow (someway) managed to have hot breath. As if ‘breathing’ was even a thing with them.

“But I ca-“

“Just relax and step towards the edge. I’ll let you know when you’ve arrived there. If you cannot stand to go further than the edge, then we’ll find another way,” her voice had hints of softness despite the formal tone, “But try this first.”

“And if you’re just leading me straight off…?” It was a doubtful statement, but one that still managed to worm into the back of her mind.

“She’s not,” Mr. Gracey said.

She took a few experimental steps forward, completely blind. Solid wood met her feet each time.

“It’s all right; go a little further,” Abigail encouraged.

So she took a few more steps, larger steps this time, and still met solid wood. She also met with the realization that her ghostly companions made no footsteps; only HER steps rang against the chasm-like walls.

And yet, they HAD to still be there; she could still feel ice fingers covering her eyes. Her eyelids, in fact, were getting a little numb from it.

She took a few steps further, smaller this time because she was quite sure the edge would be there, and yet once again met with solid wood. Perhaps the direction change was farther along the path than it originally looked. Dimensions really were difficult to discern when you couldn’t see a thing.

“Where’s the drop? Is it much farther?”

“Keep going; we aren’t quite there yet. Take a few more full steps.”

She did as she was told, her shoulders heaving as her anxiety calmed down. And she continued to walk (tapping her foot experimentally in front of her before putting all her weight into it), until Abigail suddenly tugged her back a bit to stop her.

She could hear a door slam shut behind her, and she twisted to escape Abigail’s grasp. The maid let her go without a fight.

…Karen blinked. She stared at the sight long enough for Mr. Gracey to delicately raise an eyebrow at her.

“Are you all right?” He questioned, and there was a tug at the very corner of his lips that threatened to tease over into slight amusement.

Gobsmacked, she stared at him, then back to the scene in front of her.

She was in the first hallway. The very FIRST hallway. The hallway where the Ghost Host took Michael away from her.

“But…the stairway…” She looked around and spotted a door in the dark corner of the hall, across the way from the stretching room. She was sure she had tried that same door much earlier that night; it had been locked before then.

“You already made it through. Alive, no less. I guess we’re not very good at killing people, are we?”

His voice was dripping in sarcasm, and it both irked and amused her to the point where she, again, tried to find a clever response.

But her mental exercise was interrupted as the aforementioned door banged back open with much enthusiasm.

Nell Jackson, green pinstripe dress and all, stood in the doorframe, excitement frozen on her face at the sight of Karen as if she weren’t quite expecting her. Karen was sure the ghosts would remark on this, but they stood still and said nothing.

“Oh is it a party?” Nell cheerfully said, bounding into the room and shutting the door behind her. Karen caught a glimpse of twisted staircases encased in green light.

“Nell, what’s that all over your dress?” Abigail sternly said.

“Hm?” Nell picked a speck of dull grey from her apron. “Oh. It’s just a bit of sand.”

She did a twirl with gleeful grin on her face, and the sand fell off all in a circle around her.

“NELL!” Abigail cried, looking insulted.

“What??”

“The carpet!”

Nell looked down at the ground, faux inspecting the carpet.

Karen did a double take. Had there ALWAYS been carpet in this hallway? She thought there had only been floorboards before.

“Good news! The carpet doesn’t seem harmed by it.” Nell said.

“You’re still going to pick that up, young lady,” Abigail seethed through her teeth.

“I can do that later.”

“Nell.”

“What? It isn’t like the sand is going anywhere. Sand isn’t sentient…” a beat, “…I think.”

Abigail gave a pointed look at Solomon, who in turn looked a little uncomfortable.

“It’s just sand, Abigail. It won’t stain,” he said.

Abigail gave him a hard stare akin to betrayal, and he coughed before venturing into the stretching room.

“Come along chil- erm, Miss Anderson.”

She made to follow him, but dust and ash swept across the floor, and as she stood to watch she saw Edgar appear from the flurry.

“Edgar! Perfect timing. Help me clean up this sand,” Nell said, smiling.

Edgar gave one, long, bored stare at the mess on the ground before returning to a flurry of dust and ashes, particles picking up particles and the sand coalescing right into him.

“What? No! Edgar, stop that!” Abigail said.

Edgar half formed himself, just enough so that his face was showing. Eyebrows raised at Abigail in quiet confusion.

“Thank you, Edgar. You’re the best!” Nell smiled cheerfully at him.

“Nell, you needed to clean up the mess.” Abigail said.

“As long as it’s clean, why does it matter? And really, I wouldn’t have ever been able to do it that fast. Besides, Edgar doesn’t mind. Do you, Edgar?”

“I don’t care.” Edgar said, glassy bored look already returning to his features as he reformed himself.

“You see? It all works out!” Nell gestured towards Edgar.

Abigail gave a long-suffering sigh. “You disappoint me, Nell.”

“Well that isn’t unusual.”

“Nell…” Abigail sighed again, before finally turning to Karen and gestured her to enter the next room.

Karen gulped away her questions under the gaze of the still-irritated Abigail and went inside; the silly little drama of what she just saw was in stark contrast to the life threatening fear the Ghost Host had constantly subjected her to.

Solomon Gracey was waiting for them in the center of the room. He nodded in acknowledgement as the rest of the party joined him.

And what a stark contrast that was here as well. The room had changed since she’d last seen it; the differences were minor, yet remarkable in how they affected the mood. The gargoyles looked less threatening due to the fact that the room was lit up brighter, and the portraits had reverted back to their original, un-stretched appearance. It was just as cold as earlier, but infinitely less creepy. She couldn’t feel the gaze of the hanging man hidden above them, and the general air didn’t feel nearly as oppressive as a result.

As strange as it was, she felt safer, in spite of the fact that this time she walked alongside practical strangers.

They came back to the foyer, and as she turned to look behind her she paused.

“….Wasn’t the portrait room on the other side?”

It was true. She distinctly remembered Michael and herself being forced by the Ghost Host into a room to the left of Solomon Gracey’s portrait. Yet as they exited this very same room, they came out to the right of the portrait.

She checked; nothing but a blank wall to the left of Solomon’s painted visage.

“Ah. Well you see…” Abigail said, hesitant.

“The house moves rooms,” Nell interjected, grinning excitedly as she hoisted herself up one of the cabinets, “Isn’t it cool?”

“The house does what?” Mouth open and eyes wide, Karen stared back at her. The word ‘cool’ was the furthest thing from her mind.

“What the house does or does not do is of no concern to you. You’ll be on your way back to town shortly…as soon as we find your friend,” The actual Solomon turned towards her, “There is another mortal roaming around the house, correct?”

“Y-yeah… My boyfriend, Michael. We were separated when that Ghost Host dragged him underneath the floorboards.”

A flick of anger on his face sprung up before fading into sympathy.

“I am sorry about that. That filth is known to do things like that,” his stare towards her hardened just a tad, “I do hope this act as a lesson to you both not to intrude upon old houses, even if you think they’re abandoned.”

Now it was her turn to get a little angry. “We weren’t intruding!! We were just….we were just lost! And it was raining! And…”

She caught sight of Nell, happily sitting on the counter and eating from a jar of cookies. The sight irritated her a little more.

“And she!” Karen pointed an accusing finger at Nell. “She said we could come visit her if it ever started raining!”

All three ghosts slowly turned to look at Nell, who suddenly stopped mid bite. Both Abigail and Solomon had their eyebrows raised in the same exasperated expression. Edgar just continued to look bored.

Nell, still mid bite, looked from both Karen to the spirits and back again, before raising her head solemnly.

“Well I never said you could come in.” Nell said, quickly eating the remainders of her cookie as defiantly looking as she could.

“Wha—“ Karen began to protest, but Nell cut her off by wagging her finger towards her.

“Ah ah ah! I never said you both could come in! Now did I, Edgar? Edgar was there; what did I say to them, Edgar?”

The other two ghosts now turned their exasperated sights on Edgar, who took it in stride by looking especially bored.

“’If you’re ever in an unfortunate rainstorm, you’re more than welcome to hide underneath our awning.’” Edgar quoted.

Nell was triumphant as she turned back to Karen. “There, you see? I never gave you permission to use the front door, now did I?”

Karen glared at her.

Abigail, meanwhile, glared at Edgar

“You never thought to inform us of this?”

Edgar, with an utterly neutral expression, simply replied, “It did not seem important.”

“Edgar,” Abigail seethed.

“Nell,” Solomon groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“Master Gracey,” Nell said, tone treating the name-calling like a game.

“None of this ‘Master Gracey’. We talked about this,” Solomon said, looking a little more irritated, “You are not my servant and I am not your employer.”

“As you say, sir.”

Solomon grumbled on his way to a cabinet that looked like it had a wooden, intricate box built on top of its surface. When he took out a glass with a bulge in it and a strange, ornate decanter filled with eerie green liquid, Karen assumed it to be some sort of cubby hole for drinks.

“Abigail, Edgar,” he gestured to them aimlessly as he set up some extravagant drink that involved a strainer, what looked like a cube of sugar, water, and that sickly green stuff. “Could one of you be so kind as to find that other wayward mortal?”

“As you wish, sir,” Edgar stated, and he faded nearly instantly into whispy ash before vanishing completely.

“I could go too,” Nell offered.

“No, Nell. If I know you, you’d only hinder any effort to actually retrieve him.”

Solomon settled into an armchair that Karen swore hadn’t been there a moment ago. It was only a handful of feet away from the fireplace, and so faded that you only just barely make out its deep red color.

“What you could do, instead,” Solomon continued, “Is to get rid of that uniform and wear....well whatever it is modern mortals wear these days. Jeans and t-shirts, if I recall the words correctly.”

“You let Abigail go around in the uniform, even though she’s not your servant anymore either…”

Nell crossed her arms, but the ghost of a smile on her lips suggested that this had been brought up before. And her eyes occasionally darting towards Karen brought with it the implication that she was only mentioning it for the benefit of their guest.

Sure enough, Solomon stiffed in his chair, and Abigail looked just as equally uncomfortable as she busied herself with straightening papers on a nearby shelf.

“Nell,” Solomon warned, his tone deeper now.

“Alright, alright. I see how it is.”

Nell made to cross the room, but lingered out of Solomon’s sight. Karen caught sight of her gesturing to get her attention before pointing to the two ghosts, bringing her two fists to gently bump into each other while making a kissy face and giving a wink.

Karen stared hard back. What the hell did the girl expect her to do with this information?

Her staring morphed to horror when Nell took off her maid’s headpiece and made a sign as if to throw it at Solomon. Before Karen even had a chance to vocalize a sound, the headpiece went flying, phased straight through the middle of Solomon’s forehead, and landed quite obviously in front of him.

“Head shot! Yes!” Nell said while she fist pumped the air.

Solomon angrily shot out of the chair and spun to face Nell.

“Going, going, gone!” Nell said, grinning in that guiltless nervous way people get when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t.

She quickly exited out a door so hidden by the darkness that it was a wonder if it had itself materialized like these ghosts were known to do.

Solomon sighed, his anger abating as he settled back down in the chair and stared wistfully at his drink.

“God, I wish alcohol still affected me,” he muttered as he took a sip.

As he lowered his drink, he seemed to notice Karen was still standing. He motioned to the faded couch next to him.

“You’re allowed to sit, you know,” he said, smirking a little, “I imagine you’d need it after that self-induced workout you gave yourself while trying to evade us earlier.”

Karen clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a response even as her face burned a little out of embarrassment. She officially hated ghosts.

She instead focused her complete attention to the dead embers lying in the fire, her hands absentmindedly rubbing against her arms.

“Are you cold?” Abigail asked, coming back towards them.

“A little…”

“I imagine any mortal would feel quite cold around here,” Solomon said, getting up to move towards the fireplace.

“I’ve got that, sir,” Abigail curtly interrupted.

Solomon moved back to his chair, palms raised in surrender with a slightly amused smile on his face, “As you say, Abigail. Thank you.”

The fireplace roared up in a flicker of odd green flames, and the room began to grow wonderfully warmer. The remnants of anxiety faded as she sank into the couch, relaxation causing her mind to drift a bit. She felt the weight of exhaustion start to consume her, and she idly wondered what time it was. Her eyes wandered about, but were no apparent clocks anywhere on the walls.

She considered Solomon’s drink on the table near her. It didn’t have its greenish hue; it was more of a milky white with only a hint of green, and already halfway gone.

“How do ghosts even drink?” She asked in her absentminded state.

“Very carefully,” Solomon replied, with both sarcasm and a smile.

“But you can’t get drunk…”

“Such is the tragic nature of not having a body to intoxicate.”

“So what’s the point?”

Solomon took a sip, and made a show of smacking his lips as he stared into the pale liquid.

“Nostalgia,” He said, putting the glass back on the table.

She stared at the drink. “What even is that?”

“Absinthe,” he said, “Or the Green Fairy, as it was once known.”

He seemed to regard her as she remained transfixed by the glass.

“…Would you care for some?”

Her eyes grew wide at the offer.

“I’m only eighteen! Also, doesn’t...that stuff...cause hallucinations?”

Solomon’s smile bent at the edges a bit, and he looked towards Abigail. She was neatly standing near the other end of the couch from them both; she had been so silent that Karen had temporarily forgot she was even there.

“While I won’t lie; there were plenty of things we consumed back then that probably caused hallucinations,” Abigail stood with her hands clasped behind her back, a small quirk to the side of her lips, “But absinthe was not one of them.”

“At least, it’s not possible to get that effect with any amount you could feasibly drink,” he smiled bitterly, “Trust me on this.”

“This may be one of your only chances to try it,” Abigail added, “Since, currently, it’s very much misunderstood in America. That’s where your hallucination idea comes from.”

Karen looked back at the drink, her stomach queasy just staring at it.

“I…” she started. Solomon held up a hand to stop her.

“Please don’t feel like you have to drink it. You will not be missing much, I promise. It’s just another alcoholic drink, and you can get plenty of those once you’re older. I personally find it rather ridiculous that they increased the drinking age, but I respect that you aren’t comfortable with this. And if it will make you feel better…”

He made to get up, but Abigail was already on her way back to the drink cabinet. So he sat back down with a nearly unreadable (but distinctly defeated) expression.

The maid returned with something that looked just like Solomon’s glass; milky white. She offered it to Karen, but Karen hesitated to take it.

“This one isn’t alcoholic,” Abigail explained, “It’s made by a brewery in France, on special request and using the same kind of anise. As a result, it doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it has some of the same notes…”

Karen stared at it, wondering if she could not find shapes within the milky white liquid. The inkling of an idea had begun to gather at the edges of her mind, but the hazy warm room and the fact that it was likely the dead of night made it difficult to properly think. She kind of wanted to just sleep.

“Pomegranates...” She said.

The ghosts both looked perplexed, briefly side glancing each other before resting their eyes back on her.

She tried to gather her thoughts a little better so she could spit them out.

“In the story, there was a girl who had been kidnapped to the underworld and was tricked into eating the seeds of a pomegranate, forcing her to-“

“-To remain there, trapped, for several months every year. The story of Persephone.” Abigail smiled, “It is good to hear that present day mortals are still taught classic Greek mythology.”

“But your concern is a little misplaced,” Solomon added, a glint in his eerie blue eyes akin to an adult humoring a young child, “The food and drink here is not somehow magical.”

“And that would also be a little counterproductive to our goal of getting you to leave…”

“Oh yeah…” Karen said, trying to frown away her exhaustion. She partially wished she was still in that bed in the attic.

“Besides, this is not the underworld and I am not Lord Hades.” Solomon said, stealing another sip from his drink before setting it aside.

“This is nothing more than a mansion,” he said, gesturing around him, “which, for better or for worse…just happens to be haunted.”

She nodded to him; it was a bit of a foolish idea. If she had a little coffee, perhaps she would have thought things through a little clearer. Carefully, unwilling to trust herself, she used both of her hands to take the cup from Abigail and brought it to her lips.

….

It tasted of licorice.

#fanfiction #the haunted mansion fanfiction #haunted mansion fanfiction #fanfics #my fanfiction

8 notes · View notes

imaginetonyandbucky · 7 years ago

Note

Imagine Tony has been in the habit of enthusiastically indulging Bucky anytime Bucky actually chooses something. But Bucky has gotten too used to it, and is sort of riding roughshod over Tony now. (Not maliciously, just thoughtlessly.) Tony of course has no idea how to talk about the issue and so has been just going with it and letting it build and build. Finally a(nother?) major boundary is crossed and Bucky realizes what's been happening. Cue amends/compromises for a happy ending?

[A/N: This takes place in our Communal Kitchen ‘verse, between chapters 33 and 34 of Winter is Coming. But you don’t need to have read that to read this.]

Buckywas Bucky again, and not the Winter Soldier, thank god for smallmercies. Seeing Bucky triggered -- and then being forced to triggerhim again in order to win him back -- it had been one of the worstexperiences of Tony’s life.

AndTony had quite a few terrible experiences to choose from.

Ithad been even worse for Bucky, of course, and it was showing. Evenback to himself, he was quiet and withdrawn. And it didn’t takelong for Tony to realize that he was falling back into the habit ofletting others -- especially Tony -- tell him what to do.

Buckyhad noticed it, too; Tony could see him struggling with it. Therewasn’t much Tony could do to help, aside from watch his ownphrasing and try to be supportive of Bucky’s efforts to fight thoseingrained instincts. And to reward assertions of Bucky’s ownpreferences over Tony’s.

Ithad started small -- Tony said, “How do you feel about Chinese fordinner?” and Bucky had visibly braced himself before he responded,“Nah, I’d rather have Italian tonight.”

Tonyhad been craving eggrolls, but supporting Bucky’s fragileindependence was infinitely more important. He could have eggrollsany time. So Tony had swooped in on his boyfriend and kissed himbreathless. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

Andso it went.

Itwasn’t like it was hard. Simple things. Food choices -- and whenhad Tony ever really cared about food, except as fuel, so switchingfrom Mexican to Indian wasn’t too much of a big deal. Or movies;and after Bucky had watched enough modern cinema to have developed ataste in movies at all -- aside from just watching with all thediscernment of a four-year-old -- they were mostly compatible in thatdirection.

Buckyliked science fiction, the more cerebral and speculative, the better.He scoffed at the original StarTrek,but devoured JupiterAscendinglikeit was Oscar worthy. Bucky might have had bad taste, there, but hey,it was just a movie. Tony had sat through worse. Really, he had. Hewas sure of it. Maybe. But it was okay, they couldn’t agree oneverymoviethey watched.

Theworst part about it was on the rare occasion where Tony argued(because he was Tony and he always argued; it was in his very natureto be contrary). When Tony pushed back, Bucky would flinch,like he expected Tony to hit him. Or spew a mouthful of hateful wordsat him. Bucky recovered, quick enough, usually with a shake of hishead and a ready smile, and sometimes with a kiss, but Tony noticedhe was always… just a little less himself, after. For a while.

SoTony tried to argue less. With Bucky, anyway. Nothing was importantenough to see Bucky cringe like that, even for an instant, to have toremember Bucky’s life held in his hands. And really, Bucky askedfor so little, and he was so loving and generous with Tony...Relationships were about compromise, right?

Pepperwould be proud of how he’d grown.

[mobile readers, ‘ware the readmore!]

Sowhat if Bucky wanted to take the Tesla when they went out, instead ofTony’s favorite Audi?

Itwasn’t like it was any trouble. It wasn’t like Tony didn’t liketheTesla, too.

Okay,Tony did get in trouble the time that Bucky had wanted to stay in bedand cuddle, and Tony had missed an early investors meeting. Pepperhad been livid.“I didn’t forget,” Tony protested when she paused to draw abreath. “I just lost track of time, a little. Bucky wanted a littleextra cuddling this morning, and you know he’s been under theweather lately.”

“Tony,your boyfriend is older than you and me and Jim put together,”Pepper snapped, her eyes flashing dangerously. “He is grown upenough to be left to his own devices, whereas the Japanese PrimeMinister wanted some personalreassurancesthat integrating Stark Technologies for the majority of their publicutilities coordination was going to go smoothly. Reassurances that cannot give him, because I am a woman.” This was even moredangerous, although Tony would like to point out that certaindisagreeable sexism issues in other countries were entirely outsideof his wheelhouse. “Japan has a population density of three hundredand fifty per square mile; that’s a lot of people to be withoutpower if these new grids can’t hold up to the strain!”

“Ipromise I will go and see him at the embassy before his trip isover,” Tony swore. “Seriously, I didn’t mean to miss it, Ijust...” He trailed off, and held up his hands helplessly. “Comeon, Pep; you know me better than that. You know I didn’t mean it.”

“Iunderstand that you are indulging your boyfriend, and I’m veryhappy for you that you seem to have learned somethingaboutrelationships,” Pepper said, and she was gritting her teeth in away that suggested happywasthe least of her emotions at this particular point in time. “However,you have more than one relationship. Friends, and co-workers, and acorporation. Balance, Tony.” She sighed at his particularly hangdoglook. “Stop giving me the Bambi eyes. I’ll send him a fruitbasket. But you’d better get out there. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Absolutely,I promise.”

WhenTony came back from his visit with the Japanese Prime Minister, hefound Bucky hunched over a computer terminal, feverishly comparing...climbing tools? “Hey, babe. What’s cooking?”

Buckylooked up, giving Tony a wide, brilliant smile. “Tony, hi,” hesaid. “Missed you.” He reached out and tugged Tony into his lap.“Was watchin’ some television while you were gone. Documentary onthe Discovery channel. Kinda reminded me a bit -- well, minus theorcs and trolls -- of that movie, what was it? With the littlehobbits, and the ring? That. Yeah. And you know, there’s a spot,Voronja, out in Georgia -- the slavic Georgia, not the state. I wasthere once, for a mission, but I thought it’d be nice to see whenI’m in my right mind. Deepest cave on the planet, they say.”

Well,that sounded moderately horrible. Tony had pretty much avoided cavessince the whole Afghanistan kidnapping incident. But far be it fromhim to discourage another’s fun. “Yeah? You should do that,” heagreed. “Sounds like a heck of a trip.”

“Yeah?”Bucky snuggled up against him, rubbing his chin on Tony’s back.“It’d be fun, right? When do you think we might be able t’ getaway for a bit?”

“...We?”Oh god, Bucky wasn’t thinking that they’d bothgo,was he? “You mean, we,we?”

“No,me an’ Steve,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “Of course, we.Us. You an’ me. Like, a vacation.”

“Avacation. In Georgia,” Tony repeated. “In a cave.”

Buckymade an amused little noise. “Legally, I think I’m stillconsidered a Russian citizen.” That had to be a joke, Bucky hadn’tbeen considered a legal anything for most of seventy years. He hadn’texisted, officially, on any country’s census.

“Idon’t know,” Tony hedged. “This thing with Japan has Pepperwound pretty tight. Might be a while before I can get away.”

“Oh,yeah, okay,” Bucky said. He swiped the screen with his right hand,spinning the menu options away. “It… it can wait. Cave’s notgoing anywhere.”

Damnit, he sounded so disappointed. So dejected. Tony scrubbed his handover his face. “Give me a couple of days,” he said, “and I’lltalk to Pepper, see what we can arrange. Maybe we can make it astopover on the way to Japan or something.” He’d never been anygood at denying Bucky anything.

“Great,”Bucky said, and he sounded really pleased. “You know, there’s somuch I remember from then, an’ ain’t very much of it good. I’dlike to show you one of the few things I remember that was pretty.”He nuzzled at Tony’s neck. “You’re th’ best.”

Andnow Tony would have to be the world’s biggest heel to deny him.

Tonykissed Bucky and resigned himself to a cave. And a round or three ofnightmares.

***

Buckyhad ended up on the far side of the bed again. Tony sometimes calledit the continental drift, where both of them pushed away and therewas a huge swath of empty bed between them. It didn’t happen toooften; the room temperatures were usually quite cool and Bucky putout a lot of body heat, which meant Tony was often curled up on oneside or the other.

Absently,Bucky put out his hand and started patting around for his boyfriend.

Therewasn’t even a Tony-shaped divot in the bed. The memory foam hadcooled enough to be smooth and flat.

Buckyopened his eyes. A distinct lack of Tony in the room. He listened. NoTony in the penthouse, actually. Huh. Bucky was only a particularlydeep sleeper in the first couple hours after he fell asleep. Afterthat, Tony shifting around to get out of bed would have woken him, atleast enough to remember Tony leaving. Sometimes he got an idea inthe middle of the night and had to go to the workshop.

“Hey,J,” Bucky said. “Tony down in the ‘shop?”

“Heis, sir,” JARVIS said. “I believe he woke early and did not wishto disturb your rest.” There was a brief pause, as if JARVIS wasconsidering. “If I might, sir, a word?”

Buckyflashed a grin, knowing JARVIS would see it wherever he was. “Youneed me to go rescue him from himself?” Tony was prone toforgetting to eat, sleep, drink, sometimes forgot even to go to thebathroom unless he was reminded, and over the years, he’d gottenremarkably good at ignoring JARVIS’s mild suggestions that hiscreator might, actually, be human and need to tend to his meat body.

“Presently,”JARVIS agreed. “In the interest of his continued good health,however, I wish to offer something of a trend analysis, if I might beso bold.”

“Haveyou, a day in your existence, ever been less than assertive?” Buckyloved the AI, considered JARVIS nearly as much of the family as Tonydid. Sassy, intelligent, and possessing a certain dry wit, andunimaginable depth of compassion for those humans he took under hiswing -- so to speak.

“Whereit pertains to Mr. Stark’s wellbeing, certainly not,” JARVISsaid. “I have noted a marked increase in restless nights over thelast ten days, and a significant uptick in fear response wakingpatterns indicative of nightmares, in the last four. Analysissuggests that the upswing began when plans were laid for yourupcoming trip.”

“Yeah?That Japan thing got him in a right lather? I know Miss Potts’sbeen givin’ him a bit of a hard time, but--” Bucky shrugged. Hedidn’t know. Business really wasn’t his area of expertise,except, perhaps, in sabotage. He wouldn’t have thought that wouldget Tony wound up, though. From all indications, the Prime Ministerhad been delighted with the system’s promised efficiency, and Tonyalmost never made technological promises he couldn’t deliver on.

“Mr.Stark has been to Japan on numerous occasions. It has never causedthis significant a deviation,” JARVIS said. “I believe the issuemay be with some plans for your stop in Georgia. Specifically, yourforay into spelunking.”

Thecave was beautiful, Bucky remembered that clearly, remembered beingstruck by the natural power of the place, even in the midst of whathad been a particularly tricky mission -- removing and relocating avaluable geologist whose hobby had been the exploration of caverns --without alerting anyone as to when or where he’d gone missing.

Heblinked. “Wait, Tony’s havin’ nightmares about spelunking?”

“Thatis my speculation, yes. Have you reviewed the file on Mr. Stark’skidnapping, some years past?”

“The…Ten Rings thing, or somethin’ further back?” Bucky knew that Tonyhad spend an inordinate amount of time being kidnapped or held forransom when he was a child, all the way up through his college years.It was kinda disgusting, really, that Howard had never been able totake better care of his own kid.

“Thatis the incident to which I refer, yes.” JARVIS had the tone of avery patient teacher with a particularly slow child. “Are youfamiliar with it?”

Buckywas familiar with a lot of Tony’s life. JARVIS even knew that, hadaccessed all the Hydra files Bucky had liberated about Tony Stark.The Afghanistan incident, that he only had passing knowledge of; theTen Rings hadn’t exactly filmed their brutalities, most of thetime. He’d seen a few pictures, the original ransom demand, theremains of the terrorist camp after Tony had destroyed it.

“He,uh. Got hurt, bad. Took shrapnel in the chest. Would have died,except some scientist put a damn electromagnet in his chest, to keepthe pieces from tearing his heart open,” Bucky said. That much waspretty common knowledge. Everything Bucky knew after that was…well, after. When Tony got back to the States and started on the paththat would eventually lead him to become Iron Man. “They, uh.Wanted him to build them a bomb and tortured him, when he refused.”Bucky shuddered, not liking to think of Tony, how alone he must havefelt, without even the damnable peace of cryo, the numbness ofmissions, to ease the agony.

“Indeed.The Ten Rings cell that held him made their camp, at least partially,within a system of caves in the mountains. He and his fellow prisonerwere kept in one of the deepest of these caves, to reduce the risk oftheir escape.”

Buckytook the force of that like one of Tony’s old missiles. Oh.

“Well,”Bucky said, slowly, “don’t I feel remarkably stupid.”And JARVIS had talked him through it like a toddler, forcing Bucky tocome to certain unpleasant conclusions, not only about the cave, butabout himself. “I… uh. Thank you for bringin’ this to myattention. I’ll… I should go talk to him, yeah?”

“Ithink that would be prudent,” JARVIS agreed primly.

Itdidn’t take him particularly long to get to the workshop,especially since he took the stairs. He’d long since proven than hewas faster than the elevator, a fact that annoyed Clint Barton to noend.

Giventhat JARVIS knew he was on his way, Bucky found it more than a littleannoying when the door didn’t open to his print. Bucky scowled,then knocked on the damn door.

Tonywas clearly visible, working at his usual station. He glanced up atthe knock and waved Bucky in. He made a face and said something,possibly to JARVIS, because the door clicked softly as it unlatchedand opened.

“Hey,sweetheart,” Tony said as Bucky came in. “Is it morning already?”

“‘Bouthalf past seven,” Bucky told him, as if Tony couldn’t check thetime. “I… hey.” He crossed the room and tipped Tony’s chinup, studying his face. A few days worth of stubble had filled in thespaces around his normally fastidiously cultivated facial hair, andthe circles under his eyes were probably visible from the moon.“Honey? Were you… were you gonna tell me?”

“Tellyou -- what? That I had a few bad dreams? It happens to all of us nowand then, nothing to do about it.”

“Yeah,I know that, we all get ‘em,” Bucky said. That much was true;there wasn’t a single member of the Avengers that didn’t sufferfrom the occasional sleepless night. He chewed his lip. “Old wivestale.. When you have a bad dream, you tell someone about it, shareit. And then, wham, you never have it again. Wanna tell me?”

Tonyshrugged, looked away. “Not much to it,” he said. “Stuck inAfghanistan again, only this time I can’t find my way out. Wind upcornered, out of ammo, power drained.” He held a breath, and let itall out in a gust. “Usually manage to wake up before they startshooting.”

Usually.

Buckydeposited a kiss on Tony’s curls, sticking up in all directions asif he’d been shoving his oily hands through them. He probably had,knowing Tony.

“Huh,”Bucky said. “Sounds terrible. I’m glad you’re okay, baby. Iget, you know I get ‘em, stupid nightmares. You know I can’t sitin th’ recliners, ‘cause being tipped back like that just gets mespun up.”

Tonynodded. “I know,” he said, more steadily. “I know that’s aproblem. That’s why we just have a bench down here, when I’mworking on your arm. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Buckytook a deep breath, pulled Tony in close. “So… uh. Why do youthink I’d wanna do that to you?”

“What?No, of course you wouldn’t!” Tony sounded genuinely offended onBucky’s behalf. “Why would you think that?”

Buckyhad to tread very carefully; Tony was prone to getting his back up,doubling-down, if he thought he had to prove something. “There areother things to do, in Georgia,” Bucky said. “Ruins, and somepretty little traditional villages, an’ all kinds of food shops.Wine tours. If you still want to go. I could even go do the cavesmyself, just for an afternoon.”

“Oh.”Tony sighed. “That’s not the same, honey. If you want me to gowith you -- you said you wanted to show it to me.”

“AndI do,” Bucky said, because he was pretty sure that it was importantnot to lie, even to spare Tony’s feelings. “I wantalot of things. But one thing I want, more than anything else? Is foryou to be happy and comfortable. Baby, if this thing isn’t going tomake you happy, then I don’t need it. That’s… that’s okay.”

Tonyshook his head. “I can’t just say no for every little thing youwant just because it’s not what I want,” he said. “That’s notfair.”

“You’renot sayin’ no to everything little--”

Oh.Oh, god.

“--Tony,you’re not saying no to anything.Like, ever.”Guilt shook Bucky all the way down to his core. “What the hell,Tony?” He pushed back a bit, so he could look down at Tony’sface, caught the way Tony’s eyes slid away from his gaze. “Tony?”

“Ican’t,” Tony said, eyes fixed firmly on the wall. “I can’tsay-- I mean, I can,obviously, I know I can, but you get so... it’s like you think I’mgoing to hurt you for picking the wrong thing, I can’t take it. Ican’t do that to you.”

Thenoise that came out of Bucky’s throat was practicallyunrecognizable as a word, a half-protest, half strangled groan. “Oh.”Bucky was a little wobbly in the knees, like a newborn baby deer.“Can… come here, come here, let’s--” Bucky teetered backwardand then shuffled, moving them over to the cot where he could sitdown, heavily. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’tknow what?” Tony folded down next to him. “That you wereflinching? I’m not surprised, it’s just... something in youreyes, the way you hold your shoulders.”

Buckynodded. “Yeah, I c’n-- I see where it’s comin’ from. It’shard,asserting myself. I…” Bucky’s face and neck heated and heducked his chin so he didn’t have to look at Tony. “... you know,have to work my way up to it. Assets don’t have opinions. An’ Iknow, baby, I know. You’re tryin’ to make it easier for me. Iappreciate it, every bit of it, even if I didn’t quite notice atth’ time. But… Tony, we can’t go on like this, not either ofus.”

“Idon’t mind,” Tony said stubbornly. “Helping you is so much moreimportant than anything else.”

“Doesn’tseem very fair to you,” Bucky said. “An’ long run, I don’tthink it’s very fair to me, either. How’m I s’posed to getbetter at a thing, if I don’t get any practice. Tony, listen to me,please? Just… I swear, I don’t know why you think you deserve somuch lessthanI do. We’re partners, right?”

“Ofcourse.” Tony looked up at that, eyes searching Bucky’s face. “Iam listening, I just -- I’m trying to help you practice wantingthings,speaking up for yourself, having your own opinions. That’simportant, honey.”

“I’mnot disagreeingwithyou,” Bucky said, trying to untangle the situation. “I’m sayin’it’s more than yes/no. It… it’s not that simple, an’ I’msorry it took me so long t’ see that it wasn’t that simple. Iain’t been doing right by you, baby. My stupid messed up brain. So…hey, hey, stop lookin’ all sad like that, we’re gonna fix it,right, because that’s what adult people do when they’re in arelationship, okay. Okay?”

“Okay,”Tony agreed, though he still looked kind of sad. “I don’t knowhow, though. I want to help you. I likehelpingyou.”

Buckysmiled. “I like you helping me, too, honey. I like doing thingswith you, I like… all of this. What I don’t like, is yousacrificingyourcomfort for me. Okay? You gotta tell me these things, so that I know.Baby, I’d have never asked you t’ suffer, jus’ for me to have alark.”

“I’mnot--” Tony bit down on the lie, and huffed. “Yeah, okay. I...don’t want to go in any caves. That’s not... not my idea of fun.”

“Okay,Tony,” Bucky told him, and if he felt that vague tinge of unease,that sense of doom, he suppressed it as well as he could. It wasn’teasy, but that’s what they were doing, right. Compromise. It was athing. Bucky could feel uncomfortable for a few minutes, so Tonywouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable for several days leading up to,and probably after, and certainly during.“Then we don’t have to. So, do you still wanna go to Georgia, orwe can jus’ skip that an’ do vacation some other time, when we’vegot some time t’ think of something we bothwantto do?”

“Ialready wangled the time off out of Pepper,” Tony pointed out. “I’mnot about to admit to her that we could’ve scheduled the Japanmeeting earlier. We can still take a vacation together, like yousaid. Do some of that other stuff you mentioned.”

“Okay,Tony,” Bucky said. “We’ll do that. Tourist stuff. See all theplaces where I’ve been an’ didn’t notice what I was lookin’at. I like that idea. Honest.” He nuzzled into Tony’s hair,breathing in his scent. “I like spendin’ time with you. That’swhat’s most important, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,”Tony said, curling in closer. “Yeah, that part... That, I knew.”

“So…”Bucky said, still talking into Tony’s hair, “d’ you havesomehin’ down here you need or want t’ be doin’?” Maybe theycould make this work out, if Bucky knew what the expectations were,or the demands on Tony’s time, or his well being. Then he wouldn’thave to worry, when he asked for something, if he was beingunreasonable. And Tony wouldn’t have to be concerned that Bucky wasflinching, when he said no.

Tonylooked around at his shop. “Not really,” he said. “I wasjust... puttering, so I didn’t wake you up.”

Buckytraced a little circle on the back of Tony’s neck, then rubbed withhis thumb, soothing away tension. “I’m awake,” he pointed out,“if you wantedt’come upstairs an’ indulge me in some cuddling?”

Tonyappeared to give that some thought. “I think I have time for that,”he said, his mouth ticking up into a little teasing smirk. “I’dlike that.”

@27dragons & @tisfan

#prompts #winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #27dragons #tisfan #midnightwhispers12

281 notes · View notes

neth-dugan · 6 years ago

Text

Nine Worlds - Friday

Thursday found [here]

After having had only a couple hours sleep, we got up and got ready for the day. Some of us took longer than others, and no that wasn’t me. @laalratty @knittedace and I went to get breakfast outside of costume and then went back to our rooms to get properly dressed. I also had a nap on the bed as the first session doesn’t start until 10am, which helped I think. But I did spend the rest of the day very tired.

EDUCATION AT HOGWARTS

The first panel I went to at the convention proper, and @unwoundbobbin was on it which was a bonus.

It was a fun talk in which everyone agreed that education at Hogwarts is severely lacking, completely skips some very important subjects and really needs to look at quality of teaching.

As much as we are meant to root for Hogwarts and its independence, it’s an industry checking itself and what happens when people we don’t like are in charge? Someone said that it’s a great thing to show teachers who are fed up with having a curriculum and ofsted inspections. I agree. There was also a lot of talk that as much as muggle studies needs to be better and mandatory, there needs to be an introductory course for muggle raised students so they know what they’re getting into, the world they’re dumped in and so on. And, as a panelist pointed out, to better know all the shibboleths. She also mused that this may be exactly the reason they don’t do that and honestly, probably true.

ACE REPRESENTATION

So, I did a panel on a similar theme several years back and I was curious how this one would go. It took a different tone but times have moved. A lot of the panelists are relatively new to the community but then there was Nat Titman who is one of the founding persons of the asexual community.

I didn’t learn a lot, but it was nice to be in a room with a ton of aces talking about ace things. Aros talking about aro things. People still hating on Moffat for the crap he has spewed. Being inclusive aof aros and demis. Which I know for a fact meant a lot to some, as I was talking to a demi person at that meeting later that day who brought it up. I got to espouse my theory on how Yuuri Katsuki is so so very demi even if language, culture and censorship means it’ll never be explicitly canon.

BSL FOR GEEKS

This was amazing! I know how to say thank you and ‘g’ and that is it. So this was pretty great. Aside from being able to tell you my name at the end, I was delighted to learn the sign for Star Trek is literally the Vulcan salute. I also learnt how to say ‘Space, the final frontier’ though I probably do it with a massive accent. I learnt that this is the new sign coming up for trans:

...and tumblr provides a demonstration of this. Not video from the con.

Which is related to the sign for soul. Also I learned the sign that’s becoming popular for queer which is a ‘q’ in the motion of a rainbow and it’s awesome.

There were lots of character names and phrases and there’s no way I’m going to remain most of it. And I had a weird hand thing going on that this made worse. So by the end of it, my hand hurt a fair bit. But it was fantastic. It was presented by a a group of interpreters and deaf people who bounced off of each other really well. One person even forgot how to spell their own name. But given a person who shall remain nameless forgot what their name even was at a different session? This isn’t the worst I heard of.

I really loved it, and this was one of my favourite sessions at the entire convention. I wanted to go to the after dark one for adults only, in which there’d be swearing, but alas I had to take care of my hand and so decided it was a no go.

EVERYBODY HATES MORAL PHILOSOPHERS: THE ETHICS OF THE GOOD PLACE

I’m a big fan of this show. I came across it on Netflix and then got my Mom into it and it is brilliant. It’s smart and funny and thinky all at once. This session was more of a lecture than a panel or workshop which fit, because the person giving it is a philosophy professor. Not a moral philosopher, but a philosopher.

It turns out that it isn’t so much that everyone hates moral philosophers, it’s just really hard to be one. But whilst we were waiting for the session to start I spotted a person in front of me dressed up as Janet. I asked to confirm and was told, perfectly in character that interesting fact, they were Janet. And proceeded to give me a cactus sticky note with a Janet phrase on it. I sent a photo and a test to my Mom who loved it.

...I do have a picture, but didn’t ask permission to post on the internet so here is a close approximation minus cactus.

The lecture itself was pretty interesting. Turns out the writers are using real philosophy and real books and theories and the like when making the show. I can see how Chidi would get so anxious if he follows Kant. Even the text books given to Eleanor are ones the speaker has themselves and sees as foundational texts. So yay! She went through a few schools of philosophy that pop up in the show and it was fun.

Someone pointed out that it seemed that each of the human four seemed to be missing one of the classical virtues. The speaker agreed. There was lots of debate about fair or just the system in this show is, and also how much about it we can objectively know given Michael’s aim in the first season. I pointed out that the entire thing seemed to be unfair to those with disadvantages or some mental health conditions. The last episode of the latest season, without getting into spoilers too much, entirely takes advantage of things about two characters that they’ve no way of doing away with and/or find near impossible to control. It sucks. There seemed to be agreement on this. Privilege, it seems, exists in the systems of The Good Place as we currently know them.

ASSIMILATION AND IDENTITY IN STAR TREK

This was a session hosted by Jaime who some may know and is pretty awesome. I don’t always agree with them on everything but I do appreciate them. And I didn’t agree with a good amount of what was said here. Not that I think it’s wrong, just that some of it is a matter of perspective and assigning aims and motivations to characters that aren’t, to me, clear in canon. I tend to think Worf handed his son off to his parents because he never asked for a kid, didn’t know he had one, works a dangerous job, has no experience parenting and lives on a ship that goes through a major crisis on a fairly regular basis. But people can disagree.

There are some things about Trek that.... aren’t the best. The whole area around the Ferengi is a tricky area and a bit of a mess. I love them, I love the actors, I love some of their episodes, but there are anti-semitic tropes in there made all the more there by the fact that most of the Ferengi actors are of Jewish decent. It’s problematic. It’s meant to be a critic of capitalism and modern culture. Of US. I’ve heard various Trek folk basically state that of all the species in Star Trek, the Ferengi represent modern day humans. But. They fell back on some problematic crap and there’s no way of escaping that.

There was one point when I was a bit worried it was going to get a bit anti-atheist but it didn’t thank goodness. And that’s a whole other thing.

There’s a clip that’s pretty famous amongst DS9 fans, that you fan find here, that exemplifies some of what this panel was about. Not all of it, but some. It was running through my head for sure. After the session ended a group of us had a chat after. It brought up a lot of things to talk about, new ways of looking at things and agree or not that’s usually a good thing.

...Moogie!

‘OH, BRILLIANT.’ ANTICIPATING THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR

This one had @knittedace on the panel! She’d been talking about doing it last year and here we were . She in her hand knitted Dalek dress, me in the audience feeling a bit woozy and tired.

Mostly, it did exactly what the tin said. People being excited for Thirteen, recalling days when they’d written fic on the idea but never thought it possible, what people wanted to see or not see and the like. Mostly, it was a feel good panel with happy people glad for a new start that would bring in new and old fans alike.

Someone on the panel pointed out that for some kids, they’ll have never known a time when The Doctor couldn’t be a woman. For whom their Doctor is a woman. And that is amazing. And she gets to keep her accent too, and there is hope we will see some of the North this season. Not just more London, or Cardiff as London.

For myself, I’ve always figured some Time Lords could change genders and sexes. Some couldn’t. And doing so was some kind of Time Lord intersex thing. But I was never really rooting for a woman Doctor.... yet when they announced it was going to happen? I was excited and relieved in a way I hadn’t imagined I would be.

Bring it on.

INTERVAL

At this point I found myself in the bar with some ginger ale talking to some people I’ve never med before. One was a demi person who had been at the Ace Rep talk and was very relieved to see demis included. I explained about the history of the flag and how they’re explicitly on it. Outside of some gatekeepers, the ace community I know has always embraced those other identities under the ace umbrella.

Me, them and a friend of theirs made our way downstairs after a good chin wag to get good seats for the next panel. We figured we’d probably need them and coincidentally we were all going to the same one.

FROM A/B/O TO DUBIOUS CONSENTACLES

I’m still not sure what dubious consentacles are to be honest. My mind goes to dubcon hentai but I’m probably wrong. This panel was after 10pm, the last of the day and very much adult only. I was in my TNG uniform and there was a Trek fan vid screening in the room across the hall so a volunteer checked I was where I wanted to be whilst we were waiting for it to start. Which was sweet, people do get lost down there. Also, @unwoundbobbin was there which was a hoot.

The entire thing was a hoot to be honest. Not that formal, and mostly people sharing things they’d seen online, talk about the value of tagging, and wonder at the way fandom just comes together and decides on what dubious biology looks like. I shared the story of the early early days of Star Trek fandom how writers would come up with new weird and wonderful ways of depicting Spock’s genitals. I just think it’s something everyone should know. Fandom has been like this for a long time.

I wont go into detail of the things discussed. But it’s amazing how trends change over time, how even over multiple fandoms some of these tropes become so accepted nobody has to explain anything. We just know how it works and dive right into a kind of shared ‘verse thing.

There were some things mentioned that I hadn’t heard of and are very much not talking about on this post. But interesting.

Honestly, this was another of my favourite panels this convention. It was so much fun. So much. Some people were a bit tipsy I think.

I did warn the two mods that I was pretty tired so if my eyes looked funny or closed, I wasn’t asleep, I was just squinting. I got so enthused by the cracky fun of it all though that I needn't have worried. I also found it amusing just how many ace spectrum folk there were there.

After this I went back to my room. I got changed, went to bed hoping for a better night sleep than the one before. So very very tired. I’d had a great day but I was tired and I needed sleep urgently. Especially as the tired thing was not helping the dizzy thing. Thankfully I did get some sleep, not as good as home but I god some.

[SATURDAY IS HERE]

#nine worlds #nineworlds #doctor who #star trek #the good place #harry potter

4 notes · View notes