#probably chases the flying little asshole all over the camp

[3katanas]

@kisumshi asked: Icons only - Drogon incinerated all of Z's bandanas

[yacoka]

the journey back

ii. echoes of the past

character(s) — tsukishima kei, matsukawa issei, hanamaki takahiro, iwaizumi hajime

pairing — tsukishima kei x reader

genre — royalty!au, reincarnation!au, soulmate!au

warning(s) — none

beta(s) — @/doughnuts-5ever

masterlist

The first month of university flies past in a blur, and it is only when Issei drags you out of your room - which you haven’t left in a while except for school, meals, and showers - to meet your high school seniors that you snap out of the haze that’s been clouding your mind.

“Iwaizumi’s leaving for California in a couple weeks, figured we’d meet him and cause a little chaos while we still can.” Issei flashes you a mischief filled grin, and you can’t help but mirror it, memories of your high school days playing your mind. Iwaizumi had taken the brunt of you, Issei’s and Makki’s shenanigans, and he even had a scar on his left elbow to prove it.

“Where are we meeting them?”

“At Iwaizumi’s house, then maybe a nearby bar.” You watch as Issei’s shoulders shake slightly, his face tilted away from you.

“No,” you groan. “Tell me you told him we were going to meet.”

At this, Issei lets out his laughter, and the sound warms you, wrapping around your cold body like a thick jacket. His chuckles are infectious, and your giggles join his, filling the street you were strolling down with your joy.

It isn’t long until you find yourself turning a corner and facing a street that’s almost like a second home to you. Three houses down from the corner, past the tree that looks like an old woman hunched over in the dark, and there was Iwaizumi’s house. The setting sun casts a gentle glow, and the swirling leaves on the ground have your smile growing wider, happiness lifting your chin a little higher, your steps a little lighter. It’s been a while since you’ve felt this way, and you cherish every moment of it.

From your peripheral, you spy a familiar head of pink creeping up the alleyway on Issei’s side, and you bite your tongue in an effort not to ruin Makki’s fun, but Issei knows your tells better than you do, the little scrunch of your lips has him whirling around immediately.

Makki freezes, his hands a fingertip away from Issei’s nose. Issei goes cross-eyed and you burst into another round of laughter, bending over at the two idiots. Your idiots.

(You fail to notice the soft smiles they send your way, and the triumphant grins they exchange with one another.)

“Makki!” You grin brightly at him, moving around Issei to hug him. “I missed you!”

He wraps his arms around you, squishing your face into his chest. “Princess! It’s been too long since you’ve graced this lowly peasant with your beautiful face!”

Pulling away from him, a small pout rests upon your lips. “Stop calling me that, I thought we agreed to leave that nickname behind in high school.”

Makki pulls a face. “Uh, no? I don’t remember making such a ridiculous promise.”

You scowl, faking a kick at him. He yelps and darts away and you give chase, yelling at him all the while. It doesn’t take long for you to reach Iwaizumi’s house like this, and Makki bangs on the door.

“Iwaizumi! Open up before I get murdered by her royal highness!”

You reach him just as the door opens, and a hard shove has him falling through the open doorway and landing at Iwaizumi’s feet. Makki groans in pain, and you seat yourself on his back, grinning brightly up at Iwaizumi’s annoyed face.

“Hey Iwa-chan!”

He merely pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes narrowing. “I just wanted one last night of peace.”

“Well, you know you’ll never get that around us.” Issei snorts from the doorway.

“I know, that’s why I’m running away to San Francisco.”

“Rude!” Issei, Makki and you echo in unison. Iwaizumi slumps, and you swear you can almost hear his mental cries for strength.

There’s a few moments of chaos as Iwaizumi tries to lift you off Makki and Issei yanking Makki by his feet and someone’s shoes flying, but you somehow make it out of Iwaizumi’s house relatively unscathed. Said owner is currently tucked under Issei’s arm in a headlock, with Makki skipping happily beside. You trail behind them, watching your boys struggle to walk properly. If only Oikawa was here, your group would have been complete.

Issei turns around, eyes bright with joy. He grins brightly at you, one arm still around Iwaizumi’s neck, the other reaching out to you.

“Coming, Princess?”

You grin at him, sliding your hand into his, like you have since you were toddlers, and squeeze it tightly.

“Stop calling me that!”

Your first assignment receives a passing grade, and the sigh that you let out is painfully audible, drawing your seat partner’s attention.

“You did well?” He asks, the first bit of conversation he’s initiated out of the customary thank yous and excuse mes he usually offers.

You blink at him with wide eyes, shock filling every vein and artery that runs through you. He was making conversation? He was talking to you? There was no way this was actually happening, not when the last three months had been filled with him turning down everyone’s offer to hang out after school or eat together during meal times. The mysterious blonde who kept to himself was now talking to you.

“So?” The irritation in his voice jerks you back from the rush of thoughts, and your cheeks heat up.

“Ye-yeah, I guess so.” Your voice is small, and you just want to shrink into a tiny ball and disappear at the unimpressed look he sends you.

(“Tsukki,” he can almost imagine Yamaguchi admonish, a hand swinging out to lightly smack him. “You said you'd be nice!”)

He glares at the ground, and there’s a moment of hesitation before he speaks up once more, this time more gently.

“Yeah, me too.” It’s awkward, the air between you two filled with uncertainty. All you want to do is run away from it and go back home, back to familiarity where Issei was probably cleaning out the fridge once more. But there’s a voice that whispers that he’s trying, and he’s just as lost as you are. So you reach a trembling hand out, a silent offer to exchange papers.

His tensed shoulders sag, and wordlessly, you swap papers. You hadn’t planned on saying anything until you saw the big red mark on his paper.

“You got an A? Dude, that’s amazing!”

“It’s nothing,” he waves a hand dismissively, though you notice the light coating of pink across his pale cheeks.

“It’s not nothing, you did well, you should be proud of yourself.” You frown at your own paper in his grasp. “I would do anything to be able to do this well.”

“I can tutor you- that is, if you want?”

Your head whips up so fast it gives you whiplash. Tsukishima has his head turned away from you, though that does little to hide the blush that deepens with every second passing. It’s almost endearing, this bashfulness of his. It’s certainly more emotion than you’ve seen in the past few months as his seat partner.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

The relieved smile that breaks out from him is enough to quell the pit of uncertainty bubbling in your stomach, and you settle back into your seat and wait for the teacher to start the class.

“Hey!” You raise a hand and wave at Tsukishima. “Over here.”

He jerks his head in recognition and makes his way over, weaving between the tables and chairs that separate you two. It takes him three near accidents and a slight trip over an outstretched leg, but he reaches your table and sets his bag down.

“Hey.” He nods, slipping his headphones down to his neck.

You smile at him awkwardly, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. Several study sessions had passed, and the tension eases with each one as you learn to navigate around each other. That didn’t mean you knew how to react to his remarks all the time - some of them were especially aggravating and had you shrinking away from him.

“Are you going to order anything, or are you going to keep staring at me?”

You start, blinking at him in surprise. “I wasn’t staring at you, I was just- uhh, stoning.”

He snorts, a slight smirk slipping onto his face. “Sure, if that’s what you want to go with. Now go order. I want an iced mocha and a strawberry shortcake.”

It’s your turn to smirk as you register his order, and it’s years of growing up with assholes for friends that have the following words slipping out. “The salty bean pole likes sweet stuff? How uncharacteristic of him!”

Tsukishima’s smirk falls into a scowl, and he tosses a napkin at your grinning face. “Shut up and get me my food.”

“Alright, strawberry shortcake, I’m going.” Giggles erupt from you, even as you stand in line for the food.

It was a rather adorable fact - you never thought someone like him would enjoy such sweet things. Storing this knowledge for future use, you rattle off both your orders and when the cashier asks for your name, you shoot them a wink and whisper something else instead.

The red scrawl of ‘shortcake’ on the iced mocha has Tsukishima’s glare intensifying, a dark blush staining his cheeks as he splutters. It’s worth the absolute hell he puts you through later on during the study session.

“There is no way that happened!” You laugh, one hand covering your mouth to stifle the noise as the other smacks Tsukishima’s arm lightly. He no longer flinches away from your touch, nor bristles angrily when you come close to him.

“It did, unfortunately.” Tsukishima grumbles, glaring down at the papers spread across the table between you. “He turned up to the training camp and stayed all the way through as a ball boy.”

“You have to admit, it takes some guts to pull that off,” you chuckle, wiping the beginnings of tears away.

“Or a lot of stupidity and thick skin.” He mutters under his breath, pushing his glasses up slightly. But for all the complaining he does about his highschool friends, you still spot the smile hidden in the upturned corner of his lips, his eyes slightly brighter.

The conversation dies down into a comfortable silence that’s occasionally broken by the scratch of a pen on paper, or the shuffle of clothes as someone shifts around. You’re so focused on scribbling down the answers that you don’t notice the humming until it grows loud enough to catch your attention.

“I thought you said this song was a terrible song,” you remark, continuing to write even as you listen to his humming. It stops abruptly, and you glance up at him. “What? Don’t stop, I don’t mind it.”

“How do you know that song?” His voice is accusing, and the stare he shoots you is reminiscent of the guarded ones he used to give everyone before you became friends. Your brows furrow and the realization sinks in.

“How do you know that song?”

His mouth opens and closes, a bewildered expression forming.

“I don’t know. It’s just a song that’s always been in my head I guess.”

There’s a tangible tension in the air, thick and filled with a strange familiarity that feels out of place. You catch his gaze, and you can almost hear the tune of a half-formed song in your mind. It lingers with an achingly familiar scent of something sweet, something soft, something that settles a restlessness you hadn’t known existed.

“What a strange coincidence,” you say softly, unwillingly to snap the tension. But it does anyway, and Tsukishima leans away from you, an awkward laugh falling from him.

“It must be an old song we might have heard when we were younger,” he waves dismissively, shoving more papers to you. “Here, you got a couple of the questions wrong.”

You frown, but take the papers from him and return to your work, though you could still feel his burning gaze on you, brown eyes filled with an unnerving emotion you couldn’t quite place.

[amillionsmiles]

vieni a vivere (Steve/Natasha)

Title: vieni a vivere Summary: Sometimes Steve would choose to sit in the corner of a piazza and people-watch, sketching. Natasha would venture off on her own, ducking into colorful leather shops, chasing the dribble of her melting gelato with her tongue.  Once, she stopped on the street for a caricature artist.  It amused her, to be studied and then so deliberately exaggerated. / Natasha, Steve, and a whirlwind tour of Italy. A/N: This is an AU in which Clint sacrifices himself at Vormir instead and Steve doesn’t time jump at the end. It’s been languishing in my drafts for the better part of the past 8 months but here it is!

{Read and review here} or continue under the cut.

*

“Natasha,” said Clint, every syllable another twitch of his fingers, his hand working itself free from her grip. “I’m not saving you from dying. I’m asking you to live.”

.

.

.

There was no safehouse in which to disappear from grief.

So Natasha went to Missouri, where Laura Barton took one look at her and knew. A flock of birds carved through the clear blue sky. The tall, dry stalks of wheat stood at attention.  Cooper, Lila, and Nate came running in from the fields to find their mother and their Auntie Nat collapsed on the porch, holding each other, rocking.

“I had a hunch,” Laura admitted later, after they had done their best to tuck the children into bed. “When he didn’t call.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha tried for the third, fourth, fifth time, the bile rising in her throat again.  “We tried so hard.  I wanted—”

“Five years.” Laura rest her head against the wall.  She looked as young as the day Natasha had met her, except for her eyes.  They fixated just over Natasha’s shoulder, on the family photo framed above the dresser.  “It didn’t feel like that.  You know I wouldn’t believe it, if not for… he finished the shed while we were gone.” 

“Never could keep himself still,” said Natasha, thinking of Tokyo and the rain and the erratic dot she’d followed on the holo-map at her desk.  The gentler things, too: bandaging her wounds that first time, when she’d been nothing but startled and feral.  Rushing to hold a three-year-old Cooper as he climbed Clint like a tree.  Dragging the couch one way, then another, then back again.

“Will you stay?”  Laura’s voice broke her from the memory.  

Every part of the house creaked with his presence.  The bookshelves, the floorboards, the bottom drawer he’d stubbornly cleared out the very first time he’d brought her by because it’s you, Natasha, damnit, now hand me your things.  It hurt, but it was a hurt she owed him gladly, and Natasha closed her eyes and let it seep into her bones.

“Yes.”

*

Lila had Clint’s steady hands, the same way of looking down her nose and tilting her chin back.  Cooper had his squint and his hair.  Nate had his smile.

For a time it was enough, being their aunt.  Reading picture books.  Cutting the crusts off sandwiches.  Sometimes Nate woke up in the middle of the night crying for his dad and Natasha would lay there, listening as Laura tried to comfort him.  It got better.  It got worse. 

“Nobody in this house blames you for what happened,” Laura said from the doorway, watching Natasha fold a shirt and tuck it away in her duffel.

“I know.” The arrow necklace at her throat burned.

“Will you come back?” Lila asked as they bid their goodbyes.  She was getting tall, the top of her head nearly at Natasha’s collarbone.  Natasha ran a hand down the braid she’d tied for Lila that morning and closed her eyes, squeezing the girl closer.

“Promise,” she said, because she’d helped bring this world back and she’d be damned if she let it do anything to stop her.   

On the way to the airport, she called Sam.

*

“Journaling helps.”

They sat in Sam’s office.  The oak furniture gleamed warm and familiar.  He had a bruise on his right cheek, but other than that he looked healthy.  Fulfilled, even.  Natasha glanced at the shield propped behind his desk; Sam followed her gaze toward it and nodded, leaning forward.

“You know what he said when he gave it to me?” 

“What?”

“‘We got the world back, but it’s a new one.  Maybe I need something new, too.’” He tilted his head.  

“I have a list,” Natasha said quietly. “Not of targets. Places.”

Sam smiled. “There you go.  That’s a start.”

*

She found Steve at a sunny gym studio in Brooklyn teaching a class of 30-year-old women how to punch.

“Be honest, now,” she said as they entered the juice and salad bar right next door, “how many dates have you been asked on?”

“None,” Steve said, making it a point to study the menu even though Natasha’s reconnaissance had shown her that he came here every day after work.  “I keep things strictly professional.”

They found a table by one of the windows.  Natasha took a sip of her smoothie and wrinkled her nose—a bit heavy on the carrots, but it tasted healthy, at least.

“Does this new job of yours come with vacation?”

Steve set down his fork, lettuce and chicken drizzled with peanut sauce still stuck on its tines.  The gray instructor’s V-neck looked good on him, the studio’s logo printed neatly in black.    

“What’s this about, Nat?”

“I’m thinking of traveling for a while.”  She focused on the straw in front of her, rolling it between index finger and thumb.  “I’m trying to figure out who to be without… all of it.”  

Steve leaned back in his chair.  His finger tapped against the table once, twice.  

He had a right to say no, Natasha told herself.  When they’d told each other to get lives, neither had stipulated what that had to look like.  Soul-searching was probably more effective when done alone, anyways.

But that didn’t stop the surge of relief when he said, “I’m in.”

*

The park swing squeaked under her weight.

“Sorry to take him from you.”

Bucky half-squinted at her, then swept his gaze farther out.  They had come a long way since Soviet slugs and the freeway, Sam’s car.

“Nah, he needs this as much as you do.  Just do me a favor and bring him back in one piece, will you?”

Natasha nudged him with her shoe.  Bucky scuffed the gravel right back.

“Take care of yourself,” he added, a little softer.  “Don’t let it chase you down.”

*

Natasha hadn’t flown internationally in a good, old-fashioned commercial airline for years, and she planned on enjoying every minute of the eight-hour journey.  For the first hour and a half she busied herself finishing Ancillary Justice on her kindle, Dean Martin crooning Mambo Italiano in her ear through the in-flight music selection.

She’d chosen Italy because she liked the way the language burst free of your mouth.  That, and she appreciated the scrappiness of the country: a patchwork history of kingdoms, duchies, and republics expanding and contracting, managing to unify; the fierce sense of local identity married with proud celebration of a Roman past.  Natasha cared little for regimes, but she admired the people who lived through them.

“Last time I was in Italy was 1943,” Steve said on hour 3, peeling back the plastic wrap on the salmon and penne they’d be given for dinner.  “I only really got to see the military camps, though.”

“Well, I promise not to make you deliver any rousing speeches,” said Natasha.  “This trip is strictly pleasure.  No business.”

“Not gonna argue with that.”  He caught her reading the captions off his screen and took the earbud from his left ear, offering it to her.  “You know you’ve got your own monitor, right?”

“Shut up, Rogers, I’m trying to watch this movie.”

*

Cinque Terre looked like someone had taken a grandmother’s box of buttons and threads and sent it tumbling into the sea.  The houses sprawled on top of each other in an assortment of confectionary colors—pale blues and pinks, lemon yellow, deep red. 

On the trail down from Vernazza to Corniglia, Natasha stopped to admire Monterossa in the distance, the sun beating down between her shoulder blades.  Steve stood beside her, hands on his hips as he surveyed the landscape.  He cut a striking figure with his CamelBak; more than one group of hikers passing them by craned their necks to spare a second glance.  It wasn’t because of the Cap aura, though.  He just looked—handsome.  Nice.  The kind of guy you’d stop at the side of the road for if he held his thumb out as a hitchhiker.  

A mosquito landed on his bicep and Natasha reached over to smack it, flicking its remains off the palm of her hand.

“Can’t have any of these guys flying around with your super serum in their bodies,” she teased.  “What do you think would happen?”

Steve cracked a grin.  “They’d probably be even more stubborn and harder to kill.”

Loose gravel crunched on the path beside them.  A group of elderly—Natasha guessed they must be in their early 80s—walked by.  The man in the front wore a navy baseball cap and held a rust orange walking stick.  He was telling a story about his trek along the Camino de Santiago but paused to appraise them.

“Stopped already?” 

“We’re pacing ourselves,” Natasha said cheerfully.

“Don’t let us old geezers beat you!” he called over his shoulder, continuing on; one of the women in the group joked, “If I sat down to rest I think I’d throw out my hip getting back up,” and the rest of them laughed, the sound swallowed by the green trees and cliffside terraces as they rounded the bend.  Natasha wondered, not for the first time, if this was what having parents and grandparents would have felt like.

“Should we catch up to them and tell them your actual age?” 

In response, Steve hopped off the rock.  “Come on, Romanoff,” he said, and for a moment they were the newly minted leaders of a ragtag team of superheroes again—the clipboard’s weight in her hand, their footsteps in sync as they went out to meet Wanda and Vision and the rest—then let’s whip them into shape.  Who else could she have stood by all these years? 

“I’m not getting any younger!” called Steve, already at the bottom of the hill, the asshole—rolling her eyes, Natasha followed.       

*

The dream always started in the water.

The purple dunes around her brought her splashing to her feet.  Above her, the eclipsed sun winked, and she was back on Vormir’s unforgiving peak, shoulder screaming in pain as she tried to reel Clint’s dead weight up.

Natasha—

No, no, no—you bastard, don’t let go, don’t you dare let go—

Like a fish, Clint’s hand wriggled out of hers.  The cry tore free of her throat and she clawed at the air, fingernails digging into—

“Nat.  Nat.”

An arm wrapped around her waist, holding her up.  The rocking motion brought her to her senses and she turned, burrowing her nose into Steve’s shoulder, needing to be anywhere else.  He smelled like cotton and lavender, courtesy of their Airbnb host’s shower gel, the fabric of his tank top well-worn and familiar, more gray than white in the darkness.

“Hey,” he murmured.  

The last time he’d held her this close they’d been in a bunker in New Jersey, hoping to survive a missile.  Somehow, it seemed like a simpler time.

Deep breaths, Natasha.  Count to ten. She did it in Russian, then twice more in French and Italian.  When it no longer felt as if her heart were plummeting through her stomach, she pulled back.  

“You good?” Steve pushed a lock of hair away from her forehead, eyes searching hers.

“Yeah.” It came out strained—a sound that wanted to be a laugh but couldn’t.  “It’s just—” She raised her hand and made a twisting motion with her fingers.  “You know.”

Steve leaned back against the headboard to give her space.  A small strip of carpet and a bedside table separated their beds, and Natasha noted the disarray of his sheets, the evidence of haste.  None of it betrayed by his face, which adopted a careful expression as he studied her now.

“I have a question.  You don’t have to answer it right this moment.”

“What is it.”

“This trip, Nat… is it for yourself? Or is it for Clint?”

I’m not saving you from dying, Natasha.  I’m asking you to live.

Trick question, Rogers, Natasha wanted to say.  There is no me—the way I am now—without Clint.

“I just need to know. We promised we’d always be honest with each other.”

He was hurting, too.  When they’d first been partnered together all those long years ago, Natasha had been drawn to his loneliness; it had fascinated her, the idea of America’s golden boy left behind by everyone he’d known.  Now she knew better, of course.  The dry humor and the rule-breaking, the furrow between those blue eyes, the black and white photograph tucked away in a pocket watch, kept close to the heart. 

“What about you?” she asked. “Who are you traveling to leave behind?”

Steve considered, looking to the side.  She tried to follow his gaze but couldn’t make out what he was looking at in the dark, if maybe he was just admiring the paisley wallpaper instead. 

“My old self,” he said, finally.  “He’s a stubborn bastard, though.  Keeps running to catch up.”

Natasha cracked a smile.  “Mine likes waiting in the shadows.”

“Let’s make a deal, then,” said Steve, extending a hand. “Whichever of us gets to the other side of this first, we pull the other one along, okay?”

She took it and squeezed and thought: don’t let go.

*

“It’s not very high up,” Steve said, frowning at the balcony.

Natasha adjusted the braid over her left shoulder.  “People were shorter back then.  What, does the lack of height kill the romance for you?”

“Not exactly.”

He was right, though: Juliet’s balcony was little more than a pink stone box jutting out into the courtyard, ivy crawling up the wall next to it.  They’d passed through a graffiti-covered and gum-strewn wall to get to it, a little tunnel off the wider, smoother street of Via Capello.  Natasha liked that about Verona: the streets were clean and broad, yet the city was still small enough that you felt cradled by it.  Charming.

In the interest of being less conspicuous, Steve had worn a baseball cap, but that didn’t stop a few people from sneaking photos.  Sunnily, he overlooked them, choosing to focus on the bronze statue in the corner, polished golden by the touch of thousands of hands.

“So let me get this straight,” he said, reading the informational plaque nearby, “touching Juliet’s right breast is supposed to bring good luck?”

“In love, specifically,” Natasha clarified.  “You should do it.  When’s the last time you went on a date?”

“Not this again, Nat.” 

“I’m just saying, we brought the other half of Earth’s population back.  Your odds are no longer as shitty. Not that they were that bad to begin with.”

“Oh, yeah?” The smile he leveled at her was disarming.  It took her by surprise—ten years by his side, yet the supersoldier still had a few new tricks.  

Deflecting, Natasha said: “Speaking of breasts, you know you grab your left boob when you’re laughing.”

Steve looked scandalized.  “I do not.”

She reached over and twisted.

“Natasha.”

“For good luck,” she cackled, merciless, and darted away.

*

After fighting aliens, traveling to other galaxies, and resurrecting half of existence, these were the things Natasha believed in: warm pelmeni, a good dye job, and the quiet grandeur of churches, even if she wasn’t so sure about God.  Florence’s church to capita ratio kept her plenty busy.  It wasn’t that she was chasing salvation or forgiveness, necessarily.  Just that stained glass and measured arches gave her a certain peace of mind, one she still struggled to reclaim at night.

She hadn’t realized how deeply it had infiltrated her routine until she and Steve checked into their Airbnb.

“There’s a couch in the main room,” said Steve as they eyed the sole bed.

It had become a sort of symbiosis.  Steve got in his head during the day, so Natasha planned itineraries to keep them busy.  Natasha mourned at night, so Steve comforted her.  It happened frequently and without much discussion.  Sometimes he went back to his own mattress, but more often, they drifted back to sleep alongside each other—so often, apparently, that her subconscious had stopped looking for two separate beds when she made reservations.

“We can share,” Natasha decided, tossing her duffel at the base of the bed and moving to check out the bathroom. “We’re adults.” 

The old Natasha would have thought things over a little more, perhaps.  Weighed the merits and drawbacks of this arrangement, what it meant to sleep beside but not sleep with.  Especially Steve, who had a funny way of looking at her sometimes as she argued with street vendors or pulled them into random courtyards—a weighted pause, filled with equal parts exasperation, amusement, and an affection that Natasha hesitated to name.  The new Natasha went to bed with her hair wet and a towel on her pillow and woke up with her cheek pressed against his bicep, Steve already alert and scrolling through his phone with his free hand.  Upon sensing her stir, he glanced over, eyebrows slightly raised.  If she weren’t so good at feigning nonchalance, she’d have blushed.  

Instead, she probed: “What are you thinking, Rogers?”

“I’m thinking,” he said, setting his phone down and shifting to prop himself up on an elbow, “that we should talk about this thing between us.”

She wrinkled her nose. “‘Thing?’”

“Unless you’ve got a better name for it.”

“Here in the 21st century, we don’t care much for labels.”

“So I’ve been reading.  The Atlantic paints a kind of grim landscape for love.  Did you know that we’re in the middle of a sex recession?”

Natasha rolled over so that she was on her stomach, cheek pillowed on the backs of her hands.  “Are you propositioning me right now, Steve?” 

“No, but.” He shrugged, considering. “I hear friends with benefits is all the rage.”

Natasha laughed. “The ‘benefits’ part of that isn’t talking about retirement.”

Slowly, Steve blinked at her, the picture of feigned innocence.  “Isn’t it?”

*

Natasha wasn’t stupid.  The five years post-Snap had wrung it out of her, but she remembered flirting. For her, it had been a game.  When needed, a weapon or a wall.

Steve, though.  He meant what he gave.  Subtle but honest: an invitation, there for the taking, if she wanted it.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When Natasha had been younger, her list of wants was small: bread, water, the light of another day. Then they’d grown loftier: acceptance, redemption.

Steve smiled, and she thought that perhaps there was room for something in between.

*

They didn’t spend all their time together.  Sometimes Steve would choose to sit in the corner of a piazza and people-watch, sketching. Natasha would venture off on her own, ducking into colorful leather shops, chasing the dribble of her melting gelato with her tongue.  Once, she stopped on the street for a caricature artist.  It amused her, to be studied and then so deliberately exaggerated.

“Hmph,” Steve grumbled later, examining the picture.  “I could have drawn you for free.”

The light through the curtains created a glare on his tablet, which was open to the day’s crossword.  Steve had started them as part of his cultural catch-up.  Natasha often helped due to her arsenal of disparate factoids and interests, courtesy of all the covers she’d shuffled through over the years.  

“Work in Italy,” Steve read. “Five letters.”

“Opera,” Natasha said, not missing a beat as she stirred some honey into her tea.  The under-the-breath hm of satisfaction told her that she’d guessed correctly.

“We should see one.”

“Not a bad plan,” said Natasha, finally joining him at the small, tiled table near the window. “Are you feeling more Puccini or Verdi?”

“Nobody likes a know-it-all,” Steve said, though the smile playing on his lips told her otherwise.

“Funny,” Natasha quipped. “I thought that was why you kept me around.”

*

She went in a floor-length black gown.  The old training said it was because black hid most stains, and knife and gun were easily stowed in a garter. But the truth was that Natasha had chosen it because she liked the way Steve’s eyes lingered on her just a bit longer, and the low-cut back meant she felt every callus on his palm when he put a hand to support her as they climbed up the stairs to their seats.

“You know I’ve done this before.”

“It crossed my mind once or twice.” Gallantly, Steve offered an arm. “Do you object?” 

Somewhere, there was a movie like this—a swell of string music, a camera rolling. Steve’s bowtie sat as a dark knot at the base of his neck. You clean up well, Natasha had said earlier that evening, but what she’d meant was: I’m glad it’s you.

They settled in, the stage gilded and opulent. When in Rome, Natasha thought, the velvet seats plush against her back. She tapped her heels against the floor once, testing the acoustics of what she could hear. Two rows over, a French couple murmured to each other.

Natasha had attended operas before, as covers. And so, when the first deep note was sung, she looked to Steve. Saw the way he straightened and leaned forward slightly, as if someone had extended a hook into his chest and tugged him forward. An intensity overtook her, because in that moment he wasn’t supersoldier or teammate or partner, just achingly unguarded, human in a way that hurt. Human in a way that she could have. 

When intermission came, she excused herself to the balcony to get some air. Happiness winded her. For so long, all her contentment had been inextricable from relief—at having been accepted, at having survived. To have it stand on its own felt impossible; a gauntlet not meant for her to wear, a feeling she couldn’t possibly hold in this way.

“Nat.” Steve’s voice sounded from behind her. “Are you okay?”

Blinking through watery eyes, she turned. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to go all Pretty Woman on you.” 

The corner of Steve’s mouth tightened and he took a step forward. He wore disappointment well. She could appreciate it even if she hated that it was being directed toward her.

“Don’t do that, Nat,” he said, quiet.

“Do what?” 

“Play pretend. Wasn’t that the point of this trip? To find out who you were underneath it all? To just let yourself be?” And oh, hadn’t he said the same thing to Tony, when they were younger and snapping at each other’s throats, and how did she balance that against a world in which Tony was dead. What did it mean to want something for herself, after everything? To want this?

“What are you when you aren’t planning, or fighting?” pressed Steve, and he was too much bright and too much close but Natasha wanted, just once, to step into a blaze of her own making; not because her back was against a wall or because there were regimes to topple, but because she felt deserving of the life she’d live on the other side.

“I’m terrified,” she confessed.

“Me, too,” he said, and held her. And didn’t let go. 

*

When the alarm went off, Steve mumbled against her shoulder: “I’m gonna be honest with you—I’m getting kinda sick of all these churches.”

The old adage was that in Italy, the farther south one traveled, the slower life became. Bright-colored Sicily coated Natasha’s edges like a candy drop, crystallizing her in its sparkling waters, the lush gooeyness of cheese spilling from fresh arancini. 

Sated, still, from last night’s wine and seafood, Natasha turned in the circle of Steve’s arms, conjuring her most doe-eyed expression.  “That’s not very schoolboy of you.”

An arched eyebrow.  The ghost of a kiss on her collarbone.  The stroke of his thumb over her forearm set the hairs there standing on end.  “Maybe there’s something else I’d like to worship.”

The laugh pealed free from her chest before she could stop it.  “Oh, no.  How long have you been sitting on that one?”

“Since Florence, at least.”  Steve grinned, unrepentant, and she could write paeans to those particular shades of blue, the sweet softness of a good night’s sleep hiding in the crinkles by his eyes. The clock by their bedside read 9:00 AM.

“Maybe we could sleep in,” Natasha agreed. If it meant more time with Steve’s bedhead, and this particular warmth. Natasha was finding that, given full license, she was a greedy person: about food, about hot water, about touch. And time. Time wasn’t something she’d given herself permission to hoard, before. So, too, with Steve. Selfishness—maybe that was part of living, too. They could both do with a little more of it.

“Right answer,” said Steve, tucking his face against her neck happily. He fell back asleep easily; Natasha followed soon after.

.

.

.

At night, jasmine in the garden. The moon, full and forgiving. Natasha, alone, on the balcony, listening to the waves lapping—proof of a planet in motion, orbiting around a burning star. Clint, adjusting the aid in his ear, cocking his head in the wind. 

Hear that, Natasha?

A song for the living.

A song for you.

[punishandenslavesuckers]

Adventuring requires fast solutions to dangerous problems and sometime that problem is gravity, terminal velocity, and the fucking ground. Home-game excerpt. Death Ward lets you do some wild shit.

*

Orlia speaks Sylvan.

She’s a ranger and a dwarf so it’s reasonable she might have the occupational need to do that and also the lifespan to mess with weird supposedly unknowable languages. She’s used it on one previous occasion on this hellish trek; to lure giant elk in for nose-pats and oatmeal treats. She probably did it specifically to appease the party’s gender-indifferent tiefling cleric (Rime) who, being a Secomber local, is aware exactly how terrible it is being out here.

Which is to say, getting to pat a giant deer was one of the very, very few highlights of sneaking around the hobgoblin infested moors. The many lowlights have been vampires, a manticore, flaming skulls, goblinoid assassins, and dreading the fact they’re literally trying to hike across a war zone into giant country.

A fun note: Things that survive being in the same ecosystem as giants are, themselves, motherfuckingly dangerous to say nothing of the giants themselves. Blue – the team sorceress, Triton nobility, and the only one who speaks Giant – insisted that appealing to the diplomatic side of giant-kin is a GREAT idea. Will – the team half-elf, part-time werewolf, former highwayman, and monster hunter – pointed out rather keenly that, no, asshole, that’s a terrible idea. And then they bickered all the way from Secomber to the Emerald Enclave forward camp.

Bian (tabaxi rogue,former privateer, team sneak) and Rime have resigned themselves to a future getting punted two miles across the monster-infested moors. It’s been that kind of month.

Anyway, back to Orlia speaking Sylvan:

“They’re cool with it,” she’s saying in Common.

“How confident are you in your ability to understand Giant Eagle?” asks Will.

“One-hundred percent.” It’s convincing because one of the four giant fucking eagle standing behind her begins to preen her hair amiably. “I mean, like, if you’re a dick and they drop you for being a dick that’s on you, but they’re into the idea of helping y’all clear out hobgoblins.” A beat. “Also, they do understand Common. The Sylvan is for, like, effect. Ya know?”

Will eyeballs the three other giant eagles who are cocking their massive raportial heads at the group. “There’s only four of them…”

“You four go ahead. I can move faster alone. I’ll catch up to you.”

“Are we really going to ride giant eagles?” Rime is beaming, their big jet-black eyes lighting up with glee as the flower crown literally rooted to their horns starts to bloom with happy colors. They snap their fingers again, thaumaturgy generating their words for them. “They’re okay with it?”

“Yup,” says Orlia, her craggy features splitting into a grin. “You get to fly with eagles.”

“Fuck,” says Bian at conversational volume.

Rime laughs. “That’s amazing!”

“Fuck all of you,” Bian emphasizes. Her tail looks like a white bottle brush.

“They aren’t scared of cats,” Orlia says in what is probably meant to be a comforting tone.

“Fuck you especially,” Bian says, pointing. “This is a bad idea.”

“Is it safer though?” Blue asks.

“Yeah,” says Orlia. “They can drop you right in giant country—” Bian mutters something like ‘oh yes, the very definition of ‘safe’, sure’ – “and you can skip all the other heinous shit in this godforsaken tundra.”

“Yeah. God forbid we be tired when we meet the race of enormous bastards who will probably kill us,” says Will, totally deadpan. “Like it’s gonna make a difference.”

“I always make a difference,” Blue declares, marching past her ex-husband and flipping her long white hair so it smacks him right in the face. While he sputters, she approaches the nearest eagle and plants herself arms akimbo before it. “Hello. Your name is Murder Wings. We will totally take out hobgoblins.”

The eagle cocks its head back and forth like it’s considering the name ‘Murder Wings’ with some seriousness.  

“We’re gonna die because you’re all stupid,” says Bian.

Rime, who is already petting their eagle and feeding it scraps of jerky from their ration pouch, looks up from what they’re doing and says, “Hmm?”

“Never mind.”

They all, with varying amounts of awkwardness, clamber onto the horse-sized giant eagles. Rime has the least amount of trouble with this, probably because of the jerky bribery and genuinely friendly vibes. Blue’s eagle literally drops to a sitting position like a nesting sparrow while the tiny Triton woman boosts herself up. Bian, once mounted, clings stiffly to the back of her eagle and says, angrily, “I can’t stab anyone while we’re sitting on big fat birds, you know.”

Will falls off his eagle for the second time and says, “This bastard better not roll while we’re flying.”

“Again, for fuck’s sake,” strains Orlia, “they understand Common.”

Will’s eagle pecks him on the head.

*

Bian can’t quite hear what Rime is yelling at her until they snap their fingers and throw their words across the roaring, open skies directly into her left ear.

“This is amazing!”

Bian doesn’t have thaumaturgy like her adorable teifling priest buddy. (For whom, by the way, she has come out to this miserable inland war zone.) So she can’t tell her newest partner in crime (friend, ally, and genuinely good person pal) to literally go fuck themselves with a cactus the way she would like to. She can only cling to the back of a giant eagle and resist every single instinct in her body to sink tabaxi claws into the feathers beneath her.

They are about half a mile in the air and Bian has been trying not to think about that. Just imagine she’s riding a very feathery magic carpet barely two feet off the floor. The deafening roar of the wind, freezing air, and Rime’s occasional magic bursts of cheerleading are not helping. She would flip Rime off, but she can’t bring herself to spare a paw.

“Murder,” she says to herself like a mantra. “Stabbing. Future glorious vengeance.”

Her eagle’s head jerks a little bit. It eyeballs her suspiciously.

“Not you. Another guy.”

The eagle doesn’t look convinced, but that doesn’t matter because it’s about then Rime’s voice booms at three times its usual volume. Bian jerks, fur standing on end as Rime shouts in panic: “WYVERN! WYVERN, BEHIND AND FOLLOWING!”

Bian risks it then to jerk her head around and look over her shoulder.

Rime is ducked low against the back of their eagle, the wind ripping wildly at the ribbons and flowers that encircle their head. They’re pointing backward and up into a thin mist of cloud cover… and at a massive, draconic shadow as it abandons stealth and dives, screaming, from the stratosphere to gain ground. Bian struggles immediately for the crossbow on her hip, yelping as her eagle starts to fly a lot fucking faster away from the fuck-huge predator now chasing them.

“No, you dumb bird! Go back!”

The eagle flaps even faster.

“Goddammit!”

She looks over her shoulder. Rime shouts something and a flare of divine light ignites at their chest and spirals down their outstretched arm. A blinding bolt bursts from their palm and cuts a line of pure white through the sky, exploding into radiant fire across the wyvern’s chest. It screams as bright beads of magic cling like static to its hulking frame. It’s eyes shimmer with rage even from a distance as it rears up and –

Instantly gets a ball of chromatic lightning to the face.

The sky lights up with azure electricity, crackling as the wyvern shrieks.

Blue is twisted at the waist on the back of her eagle, thighs dug into its flank, one fist buried in dark plumage. Her right arm is up over her head gripping the crackling diamond component of her spell. She bares her teeth in a big battle-grin, her smile white in the light of her spell as her eagle inexplicably cuts its speed and begins to lag back. It places itself between Rime and the shrieking dragon-kin racing after them.

There’s a boom from Bian’s far right as Will pulls his scimitar one-handed from his back and activates the thunderous spell effect on the blade. He, like her, is not doing much good a mile in the air. He, like her, is realizing their eagles are pulling ahead of Rime and Blue. He, like her, is imagining the future six seconds from now when the beast hunting them picks its next target from the two spell casters.

“Fuckity fuck fuck,” Bian hisses, scrabbling for a crossbow bolt, jamming it between her teeth, fangs biting wood as she uses her other hand to rack the bow before slotting the arrow and locking it. “This is so fucked.”

She looks over her shoulder in time to watch Rime light off another bolt of tracing magic from their hand, the glow silhouetting their body against the dreary sky. Ribbons spin in an uncontrollable halo around their head. Their fingers spread wide and infused with light. Impact. The wyvern’s shadow blooms massive across the bone-white backdrop of the cloud wall behind it and it roars, blood spraying as a chunk of lightning-charred flash disintegrates from its neck and shoulder.

Blue’s eagle is still lagging behind, its claws flared with predatory intent.

Bian and Will exchange a look of horror.

“IS SHE TRYING TO FIGHT THE FUCKING DRAGON THING WITH HER FUCKING BIRD?!?!” Will bellows, horror in his wind-reddened face. “IS SHE TRYING TO FIGHT THE–?”

To Blue’s credit, she appears to be kicking her heels into the eagle’s flanks like a rider encouraging a horse to gallop, but the eagle ignores her. Blue yells something inaudible, turns, raises her fist and another lightning burst roars chromatic across the sky and ignites the wyvern, tearing flesh from its back and wings. It thrashes, tumbling, screaming… then flares its wings to catch itself.

It dives at Blue’s eagle.

It hits like a cannonball, feathers and blood bursting into the atmosphere. Blue’s body disappears between two massive beasts as they collide. The wyvern shrieks, talons tearing red lines into flesh. The eagle screams, clawing back, trying to break away… The tail lashes out, like a scorpion’s strike, slamming into the giant eagle’s ribcage and punching deep. Ribbons of blood begin to spiral out from beneath its body, snatched away in the wind. Its wings stop flapping.

“BLUE!” Will is yelling. “BLUE! BLUE, NO!”

Bian stares, transfixed, unmoving, and flying away from the battle.

As Blue’s eagle.

Falls out of the sky.

And drops through the clouds.

Rime screams. They do it with their real voice, the demonic one, and it sounds like a roomful of people screaming their friend’s name. Bian’s eagle just flies away even faster as she yells at it to turns its useless dumb bird ass around. Will’s body erupts on the back of his mount, fur and muscle swelling against the constraints of his chainmail and leathers. He bellows something werewolfy at his eagle and it begins to dive, following Rime’s mount as it too begins to dive.

Then they, like Blue, are gone beneath the clouds.

The wyvern is already gone, chasing its prey to the ground to finish off anything (if anything) still breathing.

Bian doesn’t see what happens next. She only sees the end of the fight.

Will though…

*

Will is a werewolf riding a giant eagle with a roaring scimitar that’s now on fire. It would be fucking legendary if he wasn’t scared shitless and diving at terminal velocity toward the ground. Even that would not be so bad if he wasn’t almost certain that Blue just fell half a mile out of the sky and she’s a burst corpse of organs and blood on the permafrost. Even that would not be so bad if… if…

His eagle slices through the cloud cover into the lower atmosphere, hooking hard up to level out at three-hundred feet up from the ground. The momentum is so intense Will has to literally bearhug his eagle which immediately shrieks as the flaming sword hazards it face.

Immediate landscape: Almost directly beneath them, Blue’s eagle is on the ground, flat, smeared like bloody throw rug. Blue herself is visible, sprawled half on top of the dead bulk of her bird, unmoving, but not (importantly) herself a fucking smear of internal organs across the moorland. Rime’s eagle is not diving with the same zeal that Will’s eagle dove, so the cleric is about 50 feet up from Will, their bird circling downward like an anxious vulture.

Most importantly: The fucking wyvern is on the ground, waddling its way like a hulking, leathery, lizard bat toward Blue who may or may not be too dead for their cleric to do something about.

Their cleric who is stuck on the back of an eagle too far away to do shit.

Will is thinking things like ‘Can’t these stupid birds go faster?’ and ‘Maybe if I jump, I’ll be fine. I’m a werewolf. Yeah, I think… I think it wouldn’t kill me.’ and ‘Blue can’t die yet, we didn’t finish this thing out.’

And that’s what he’s thinking about when Rime jumps off their eagle.

Later, Rime will explain that what they did was pull out the spell scroll they found in a crypt two weeks ago. Later, Rime will explain what Death Ward is: a spell a that wraps the hand of a god around someone and asks a favor from the pantheons of death for a just a little leeway. Later, Rime will explain they clutched that spell scroll to their chest like a fistful of flash paper burning in their fingers as they cast a spell too advanced for them to know.

And it worked.

But right now, in the moment, Will is calculating his odds of surviving the very same jump to the ground…

So Will has enough time to think ‘What the FUCK’ as Rime Raishon falls past him in a blur of armor and ribbons. They drop two-hundred plus feet to the permafrost. Will hears them hit the ground with a hideous, bone-shattering crunch. Will stares down, then, at Rime’s body outlined, sprawled, unmoving, on the rock and grass 200 feet beneath him.

He has time to think numbly, ‘Why did they do that? Whydidtheydothat? Why the FUCK did he—?!’

And then Rime stands up.  

Not, like, easily. But they get up.

Rime levers themselves up on one elbow, then up on one knee. Their scream as they do so – agonized and feral – comes to Will on the wind as they stagger to their feet. Will watches their cleric stumble into a run toward the wyvern, hobbling on phantom limbs splintered in a suicidal drop to earth. Their hand comes up and across the field a familiar eruption of ribbons blooms like a razor-wire flower and begins to tear at the wyvern. Rime’s spiritual weapon whacks the dragon-kin across the skull as it looms over Blue’s body.

Will has no time to figure out, in that moment, what the fuck Rime just did.

He’s too busy hitting the ground as his eagle dives, pulling into a flat glide feet from the ground where he can roll off its back into a stumbling run. He bolts past Rime whose standing, shaking, their eyes glowing with arcane light as they unleash bold of radiant fire, screaming something that might be Infernal at the wyvern as it starts to take flight, the corpse of the giant eagle (not Blue!) in its claws.

Will barely notices. Blue is a crumpled tangle of lacy blue dress, ghost-white hair, and twisted limbs in the grass. She’s like a broken doll and as he skids on his knees to her side, he can hear the ugly, wet, dying noise of her punctured lungs gargling. He tears a potion from his belt, uncorking the vial with his teeth and grabs her jaw, turning her face up and pouring the entire contents into the blood-filled ruin of her mouth. (It looks like she bit through her tongue on impact.)

“Fucking drink it,” he hisses, terrified she’s going to choke it up instead of swallow.

The wyvern is screaming, its wings buffeting the air nearby, but Will ignores it. It’s flying away. Some other direction. He can’t physically tear his eyes away from Blue’s mouth, the pool of purplish blood and glittering magic liquid on her tongue.

“C’mon, c’mon…”

Blue’s throat bobs.

She wretches, rolling on her side and vomiting up blood and phlegm as her lungs knit and immediately struggle to expel what’s blocking her airway. She coughs. Gags. Yells as a twisted wrist snaps back into alignment and cuts on her face sluggishly congeal and clot. She growls in pain, punching the ground repeatedly before rolling onto her back and looking deliriously around her.

“What happened?” She blinks blearily at him. Her eyes drift somewhere over Will’s shoulder. “Where is…?” Her eyes focus. She screams. She jackknifes instantly into a sitting position. “RIME!”

Will looks over his shoulder. Horror makes it slow, like time drags its heels in a nightmare.

He looks over his shoulder.

To see the wyvern flying away at speed.

It’s got something in its jaws – a dripping ragdoll trailing bloody ribbon the colors of a festival god. It’s flying away with Rime’s unmoving body clamped between its jaws. Because, obviously, obviously – idiot, idiot, idiot, oh fuck, oh no – it was flying back to attack the only spell caster left on the field. The one fucking stupid enough to keep inciting its attention until it mauled them unconscious while Will was getting Blue back up.

Will stands, even as his brain tells him it’s too late, it’s too fast, too hale, too healthy to run down.

It’s going to fly away with Rime. If they’re alive it’s going to eat them that way. If they’re dead, there’s no undoing it. Bian, Will thinks dully, Bian is going to be so fucking –

Blue screams in Aquan – a pure primal, primordial shriek – and her hands spin through complex pattern then lock like she’s got her fingers around something’s throat. The air around her sours with ozone, the smell of her magic as her eyes ignite lightning bottle blue.

Static leaps between her teeth and she says, “GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP!”

And the wyvern, against all fucking odds, instantly goes slack in midair.

Its ungainly bulk glides for a moment on its momentum, like a tossed dart through the cold winter winds, the arc of its trajectory falling ground-ward. Not far to the ground (it must have kept low to snatch Rime in its mouth), but it hits and skids to a halt after about 30 feet, a long drag of torn dirt in its path. Then it lies there in a pile of muscle and burnt hide. It doesn’t move. Just lies there, its massive flanks rising and falling slowly.

Dead asleep.

Blue’s hands are shaking. Arcane light still glitters in her eyes. She’s whispering to herself, softly, “Just barely. Just barely. Oh fuck… fuck…”

Will breaks into a run at precisely the moment Bian’s eagle comes wheeling down at a leisurely, cautious flight speed to alight on the ground about nintey feet off from the downed wyvern. It fucks right off the moment it realizes the dragonoid is still breathing and Bian kicks herself free of it, cursing and swiping her claws furiously at the giant bird. Then she rockets, tabaxi-quick, across the gap between her and the wyvern and immediately dives under one limp, tented wing.

Will skids around the body, hand jumping to his belt for a potion, fumbling at the strap.

But Bian looks up – her fur sticking up along the back of her neck – while Rime coughs, choking on the contents of the healing potion she’s just given them. The cleric is literally still wedged between the wyvern’s jaws, the massive points of its fangs grinding and squeaking on the battered metal of their breast plate. Rime’s covered in blood – a slick, sticky dark color just barely distinguishable from their natural tiefling complexion.

“Don’t wake it up!” Will hisses, ducking down and carefully prying the creature’s jaws apart. Like a dog with a chew toy. “Get out. Fast, fast, fast, it’s gonna wake up.”

“It’s asleep?!” Bian yowls, lunging away.

Rime wiggles out of its mouth, gasping with pain as the fangs drag across their armor, using one hand to grip a massive lower canine and push it out from where its shallowly lodged in a gap below their armor. They slip free, blood still running from their gashed arm and upper shoulder, soaking through the ribbons around their arms. Bian drags Rime all the way away across the grass as Will readies a direct blow to the beast’s skull. The burning scimitar flares in his fist.

“Blue?!” he shouts.

She has her diamond in hand already. Lightning crackles in her fist as she strides toward them, hell fire in her eyes.

“Do it!”

Will brings the blade down as Blue calls down lightning.

[izanyas]

Pythagorean

Gintoki 3 first kisses fic for @rethrone​ <3

Rating: T Words: 4,700 No warnings.

Pythagorean

Zura

"Have you ever kissed someone?"

Gintoki has come to learn that the boy named Katsura doesn't beat around the bush. He is quiet most of the time, drawn back further than any of Shouyou's other students, but whatever he says is always to the point. If he had not once stood by his side and readied himself to fight, Gintoki would have never thought him to be the kind for flashiness.

"Ew," he replies eloquently.

"So you haven't," Katsura says, matter-of-fact. "Taneda was taking about girls earlier. Takasugi started making fun of you in your back and said you'd probably die unmarried."

That is the thing with Katsura—the thing Gintoki has learned about Katsura. He doesn't speak up, doesn't stand out, but when that spark is lit, there is not stopping the fire from spreading.

They are alone now in the old room that Shouyou is occupying more or less legally for the month. Clean-up duty. Gintoki is still on punishment for the last time he punched his opponent instead of 'respectfully disarming him', and Katsura drew the short straw.

"What's it matter to Takasugi if I get married?" Gintoki asks, turning back to his task. His task being to polish the floor until it shines.

"Nothing, I suppose. He was adamant about it, though."

Gintoki hears the splash of water from behind him before he can sense Katsura move. Wetness spreads past his feet, and soap suds cling to his skin. He grabs the broom tighter and rubs it all away.

Were it up to him, he would have left the topic alone there. It doesn't matter to him what Takasugi does outside of fighting him directly, and Takasugi isn't yet good enough to beat him more than one time out of three. So what if the asshole has kissed someone and Gintoki hasn't? Any wife of his would probably take her own life after a week of having to look at his face.

Were it up to him, Gintoki would have not thought of kissing or marriage again until a long, long time. But Katsura is standing by his side and sweeping the wet floor, and he says, "Takasugi hasn't kissed anyone either, you know."

"Of course he hasn't," Gintoki replies in boredom. His smile is a little difficult to hide, but he manages. Katsura has never been very good at reading other people's faces anyway. "Who'd want to kiss him?"

"Some girls used to find him handsome, back home. I think his father said he'd be an easy marriage compared to his brothers."

Takasugi has brothers? Gintoki thinks.

He's never spoken about them before.

Katsura seems to guess his thoughts, for he adds: "His family is a little complicated. He'd probably beat me up if he knew I told you about it."

Gintoki is a little tempted to ask why Katsura told him, then. "Well, he's not," he says instead. "Handsome. Those girls must've had shit for eyes."

It's always a little funny to be crass around Katsura; his face remains unexpressive, but he can't stop a faint shudder every time. Right now it is his elbow shaking next to Gintoki's as if hunger is weakening him.

He splashes some more water over the floorboards and lets his broom fall into the puddle, making droplets fly over his and Katsura's clothes. "His personality sucks and he's always covered in crap. You're a lot more handsome than him, Zura."

"You think so?"

"Sure," Gintoki replies. "You've got nice hair and all that. Girls go stupid for nice hair." Or at least he thinks they do.

Katsura seems to take his words to heart, and the next while is spent in silence as they sweep the floor clean. They are neither of them good at such menial tasks—Gintoki has never had a house to clean, and Katsura looks the kind to have lived with a least a servant before. Their brooms knock into each other once too many times. Gintoki is half-tempted to engage Katsura in a mock-fight with them. The idea splits his lips into a smile, and he turns to look at the other boy with the suggestion ready, and stops. Katsura's face is somber.

What now, he thinks.

Katsura saves him the trouble of actually asking. "You think my hair is nice," he says.

For some reason, Gintoki's face warms.

"Uh, yeah," he replies. "I guess so. You know—better than Takasugi's."

Katsura looks up from the floor. Because he is shorter than Gintoki and Takasugi both, he always has to bend the head back a little to meet their eyes on the rare occasion he wants to. He does so now a little slow and deliberate; the clear spring light from outside pours over his face and changes his black eyes to brown.

"Would you kiss me?" he asks.

The flux between Gintoki's brain and his mouth seems to slow. "What?"

"Would you kiss me?"

Like, hypothetically? he wants to ask.

Part of his mind has gone white and silent. Another has bolstered up his blood flow so that his skin turns warm and uncomfortable from the neck up. Through it all, Gintoki can't quite meet Katsura's eyes or look away from them—the result being that he stares a little under the line of them, right where the bridge of his nose dips into nothing.

"Kiss you," he says.

"You'd have one over Takasugi," Katsura explains very plainly. He sounds nearly logical. "We both would."

"But you're…"

Gintoki doesn't end his line of thought. He doesn't know why, but telling Katsura 'you're a boy' feels like an insult.

As often when confusion reigns in him and Shouyou is nowhere to help him direct it into training, it turns into decision-making. "Fine," he manages. "Yeah, sure."

Katsura suddenly looks very pleased with himself.

He's the one who crosses the short distance between them, slowly enough that Gintoki has time to reflect on what he just said and wonder—Wait, right now? But then there is a twelve-year-old boy standing right before him, his straight nose a little too long and his brown eyes a little too wide, looking at him in expectation. Katsura smells like soap from his shower earlier. His hair, Gintoki notices, does shine in the sunlight in a very nice way.

It isn't the earth-shattering revelation that the other boys like to speak of sometimes. It isn't much of anything, really. Katsura's nose is way too long, and it ends up knocking into Gintoki's before their lips are anywhere close to touching. Katsura's eyes are closed now. He lets out a small sound that could be laughter or pain in equal measures. But Gintoki manages to tip his head a little to the left; he feels Katsura's exhale over his mouth and chin; he presses their lips together.

That's about all it is, in truth: the somewhat awkward position of his neck and the feeling of dry skin on his, not at all wet, not any sort of overwhelming. He doesn't close his eyes—he thinks Katsura may use the opportunity to open his and spy, and he doesn't know why the thought embarrasses him—but it's not like he can see anything from this close up anyway. After what he assumes is the right amount of time, he pulls back.

The step he takes to put distance between them almost ends up sliding off the slippery floor. He catches his balance before Katsura opens his eyes. The other boy lifts a hand to his lips and touches them thoughtfully.

How was it? Gintoki wonders.

Katsura says nothing, however, to let him know of his impressions. He nods, satisfied, and goes back to sweeping the floor in contented silence.

Gintoki can't chase the flush from his face for the rest of the evening. It sits below his skin, warming his cheeks and neck, until the late hours of night.

The following day during practice, Katsura challenges Takasugi to a spar. It is odd enough to see him challenge anyone that most of the other boys stop their own exercises to watch, Gintoki included. What's more, Katsura eliminates Takasugi in a series of well-placed hits of his bamboo sword, until Takasugi falls on his behind.

"What's wrong with you?" he spits at Katsura. His hair, sticky with sweat, leans over his forehead in little spiky strands.

Katsura lifts the bamboo sword and replies, "That's just the difference in experience between us, Takasugi."

-

Sakamoto

The injury is every kind of ugly.

Gintoki has never been squeamish in any way. A life of erring and feeding from the pockets of corpses beat that out of him long before he engaged in war, after all, and then war itself drained him out of the ability to cringe in the face of blood. He does feel something, however, looking at Sakamoto's wrist. He felt in when Sakamoto was carried away from victory by their allies, and he feels it now observing the red-stained cloth wound around his hand and arm.

This is Sakamoto's sword hand. The knowledge twists and turns inside of him and cuts his appetite short.

He has barely touched his meal when he puts the plate away for good. The rest of the wide room is mostly silent except for a few snores here and there; they are now living out of a farmhouse long abandoned by its inhabitants, all thirty of them, and night has fallen over their camp. Most of the men and boys are sleeping.

Nighttime and injury have never stayed Sakamoto's tongue, however.

"Chiyo-chan will never find me handsome now," he is bemoaning, Gintoki thinks. He stopped listening something like an hour ago. Sakamoto waves his injured hand around carelessly, almost hitting it to the corner of wall he is sitting against, and the bowl full of broth he his holding in his left spills some of its content over his dirty clothes. "I can never show myself to her house again."

"She never found you handsome to begin with," Gintoki replies, thinking not of the fat-bosomed girl Sakamoto fancies himself the love of, but of Sakamoto's hand under the bandages.

The cut is so very deep. Deep enough to almost sever his tendons. Deep enough to have damaged his muscles irreparably.

Finally, he can't stop himself. "Stop moving it," he snaps.

It is hard to see Sakamoto's face in the penumbra of the house, but enough moonlight filters in that Gintoki notices him blinking in surprise. "Yes, boss," Sakamoto says. His injured hand falls to his lap once more. "Are you gonna eat that?"

"Listening to you makes me want to puke. Go ahead."

Sakamoto laughs as brightly as ever. He maneuvers the bowl out of his lap and Gintoki's plate in its place. His chopsticks shake in the fingers of his left hand; half of the rice he picks up ends up falling back down.

Not that the animal minds. "Zura would offer to feed me," he complains, rice sticking around his mouth. "You're so uncute, Kintoki."

"That's not my name."

Gintoki does shift closer and hold the plate for him, though.

Zura and Takasugi are outside the house right now. Their turn to watch over camp. Any other day Gintoki would have come with them, and Sakamoto as well, probably, but Sakamoto can't walk so well with the fever that weakened him. It's a miracle it broke last night instead of killing him. Not even he is stupid enough to risk catching a cold now.

Gintoki frowns at the darkness in displeasure. They have been living here for over a week, but tonight the ground feels too hard to sit on, let alone sleep, and the air reeks of blood and warmed-over booze. There is a discomfort sitting tight within him that he doesn't know how to get rid of.

He thinks, oddly, that if it were Zura or Takasugi lying injured beside him, he wouldn't feel this way.

Sakamoto finishes most of the rice despite his trembling. The idiotic smile hasn't left his lips, but nightlight shines off of his sweaty forehead more starkly than before.

"You should sleep," Gintoki tells him before he can help it.

Sakamoto looks at him for a second. His smile widens. "Aw," he replies, "you're worried about me."

Zura has tried this line on him enough times by now that Gintoki is thoroughly immune to it. It's fine when it is Zura, who doesn't care about reactions as much as he does about making others listen to him, but Sakamoto is…

He's different. How or why, Gintoki doesn't know; but he is.

"You could talk a dead body into suicide," he grunts, looking away.

"Haha, thanks."

For a blessed moment, silence falls over them. Gintoki uncrosses his legs and rubs the fabric of his pants over his sweat-slick skin. Summer nights here are hot and heavy with wet. Many of the other boys and men complain about it in the languid hours in-between battlefields. When he leans his back fully against the wall, he feels humidity catch at his nape and warm over his skin.

"Hey, Gintoki," Sakamoto says.

Gintoki hums faintly in answer.

"Do you remember when I asked you to come to space with me?"

Gintoki is not supposed to remember that. That offer was made while he slept, or so he liked to pretend, but it's not as if he expected Sakamoto to be fooled either. It is so far removed a topic from everything going on in that moment that he finds no words to answer with. His shoulder closest to Sakamoto's own shrugs helplessly.

"So you do remember," Sakamoto goes on, satisfied. "Well, it looks like my plans might come true a little faster than anticipated, yeah?"

"You're leaving?" Gintoki asks.

If he were to believe in that, Gintoki could have thought Sakamoto's expression affectionate. "Of course," he says. "No place in a war for a man who can't swing a sword."

"You could—"

It is a stupid sentence to start, and Gintoki does not finish it. There are things that non-combatting people could do to help, but to suggest any to Sakamoto would add insult to injury.

Besides, it's none of his business what Sakamoto decides to do. He only joined their side of the war for profit and, as Gintoki understands, in order to spite his father. He's not like Gintoki or Zura or Takasugi. Not like the men sleeping around them either.

Sakamoto nods, almost pleased. "I still want you to come with me," he declares. "Won't you think about it?"

"Humans aren't made to fly off the ground," Gintoki mumbles. "Birds got wings for that. We don't."

"Yes, but think about it. Think of all those worlds out there we don't know! Haven't you ever wanted to explore?"

Gintoki has never thought about it before. Unlike Sakamoto, who grew up smothered and yearning for freedom, Gintoki has no greater wish than to be earth and home-bound.

He licks his dry lips. They taste of dirt and salt and of the thin broth they drank earlier.

"I'm not coming to space with you," he says. "Sorry."

It feels a little short, a little dry, for an answer. It is the best he can do.

"Ah," Sakamoto sighs. He doesn't sound surprised. "Well, I sort of expected it. Too bad, too bad."

For a moment Gintoki thinks that he may leave it at that and finally decide to sleep. This twice-avoided conversation would go back to its slumber and never wake again, and he could perhaps forget that he feels the way he does and forget that he doesn't know why he does.

But Sakamoto turns to face him frankly and says, "Then do you mind if I ask you for something else?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, however, or even to know if Gintoki has one to give. Gintoki sees him kneel up on the wooden floor and moves bracingly, wondering if Sakamoto intends to stand in his state and hurt himself further. Instead, Sakamoto grabs the back of Gintoki's neck with his good hand and leans in till their mouths are pressed together.

He pulls back almost immediately. Gintoki barely has time to feel the shape of his smile and the warmth of his fevered skin. Caught still and blank-minded, he watches Sakamoto look over the sleepers around them to make sure none are watching, and then his lips are back, firmer and more present than before, wet from the tongue he slipped over them furtively.

There is a faint hum on the heated air. Gintoki takes a moment to recognize it as Sakamoto himself voicing some kind of satisfaction. The fingers at his nape drag through his sweat-wet hair as Sakamoto fits their faces better; only then does he realize that he is leaning in instead of away and pressing right back.

It's hard not to echo that hum, that almost-moan, so febrile has his breathing gone and so tight does his chest feel. The kiss lingers between them, hot and awkward and yet not uncomfortable. This time, when Sakamoto pulls away, Gintoki knows his face his crimson.

He feels Sakamoto's laughter over his mouth and chin. Sakamoto's fingers rub his hair and nape and seem to drag away with them all the tension of the past week. "Can I get a little more?" he asks excitedly.

Gintoki's lips, face, body are a wreck. "More?" he manages.

"Yeah," Sakamoto says. "Yeah, like this."

He does't have to pull at all this time around. Gintoki meets him on the way, heedless of the heat and possible onlookers.

More, it turns out, is Sakamoto's lips aligned with his so that when they open, Gintoki's do as well. It is the surprising feeling of his tongue dipping between them and making Gintoki's whole head burn up—the endeared chuckle that challenges him into mimicking it until Sakamoto is as red as he is. His hands find Sakamoto's waist and grab tightly.

"This is so gross," Gintoki complains the second he pulls away for air.

He hasn't let go, however. Sakamoto laughs into his face; his palm strokes down the side of Gintoki's neck before leaving it.

"I think that was probably the most dangerous thing I ever did," he muses, pulling back fully. Gintoki has no more excuse to keep holding him, and so he stops and doesn't think about how wrong it feels. "If that guy saw…"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing," Sakamoto says. His smile is blinding even in the darkness.

Gintoki doesn't want to leave it at Oh, nothing. All of his reluctance has vanished and left him with a million questions on his mind. He doesn't know how to ask any of them—doesn't know that he wants to ask any of them. He unknots his limbs and falls back against the wall. His legs have bent into a half-kneel while they kissed; he straightens them now and smooths over the fabric of his clothes.

He is tense, he realizes. Something tells him that whatever is left to hover like this over them will come back to haunt him later if he doesn't address it. But Sakamoto is sighing now against his own corner of wall, one hand over his lips and the other, injured, in his lap.

"I'll miss you a lot, Gintoki," he says. His sincerity is nearly tangible. "Think about me sometimes, yeah?"

Gintoki looks over his profile in silence. His messy hair and crooked nose and adamant chin.

"Yeah," he replies. "I will."

-

Takasugi

The one and only time Gintoki thinks about kissing Takasugi, he is holding him in his arms and speaking of the past in flimsy words. The faint breaths that Takasugi lets out are few enough to be counted in the silence of the ravaged building. His skin is cold to the touch but each of his words burns.

Takasugi doesn't ask to be kissed like Zura once did. He does not make use of Gintoki's surprise like Tatsuma to take what he wants. He wastes his dying lungs to request a smile instead.

After that, there is no Takasugi to kiss, even if Gintoki wants to.

This is not any kind of ache he can push down and ignore. Gintoki used to be good at this—ignoring. Moving on. Making a small enough effort of living that the rest, the oh-so-heavy rest, can be forgot or looked away from. But either his age has caught up to him or he has become too saturated with grief to continue; for weeks and months after he tells Takasugi to wait for him in hell, he wakes and walks and sleeps with twice his weight in sorrow trying to bend his neck.

The human heart works in odd ways. Gintoki thought for over a decade that nothing could ever grieve him more than the memory of his sword cutting his teacher's neck. Now this seems faint, almost like a dream, next to the sound of Takasugi's voice asking not to see him cry.

Then, one day, Kagura comes to fetch him in the bedroom of Yorozuya. He has no time to wonder at the stunned expression she is wearing before she says, "There's a dead man at the door."

It is Takasugi. He looks a little smoother, a little younger, and both of his eyes are open; but it's him, standing on the front step and looking like he is expecting a sword to cut him down.

Gintoki could not have held a sword then if his life depended on it. His fingers shake under the weight of air alone.

The human heart works in odd ways. It isn't meant to sustain such grief and not meant to let go of it either. Gintoki contemplates the man in front of him and doesn't know how to feel anything but hurt, anything but sore, muscles and soul alike exhausted with effort. It's too much, he thinks, dry-eyed and dry-hearted. It's too much for fate to throw him another curved ball. He would need twice as much blood, thrice as much spirit, to overcome this.

Takasugi—the name alone dries him, with the man standing there—seems to share his feelings. His face is deathly pale in the cold morning light; his skin looks thinned and stretched to the point of breaking.

"I can leave," he says.

Gintoki knows what speaking like this costs him. It's the only reason he finds enough strength to reply, "No."

Moving aside to allow Takasugi in feels like moving a three-ton boulder with his bare hands. He does it anyway.

Kagura leaves the office without another word. Gintoki thinks faintly that she will join Shinpachi on his day off and help Otae out at the dojo while waiting for—for this to be done. Whatever it is.

Habit is what keeps him moving. He can't look at Takasugi for too long without feeling that his ribs are being pried open, can't stand breathing in the same air as him without suffocation taking hold, so he gives himself time by escaping to the kitchen. A chilled bottle of sake rests at the bottom of the fridge. He takes it out and warms some of it up.

Takasugi hasn't moved at all in the time he takes to come back. He is barefoot in the middle of the room, looking straight at the chipped desk Gintoki once fished out of an alleyway and has never had the heart to change.

Gintoki feels him breathe in as if the air is crawling through his own lungs.

"I went to see Zura first," Takasugi says.

The cups click against old wood. It seems to Gintoki that the sound echoes like that of bells. "How did he take it?" he asks.

He finds that the question is sincere. He finds that, for once, his worry for Zura is not tainted with reluctance or wariness.

"He only tried to stab me twice before he started crying."

Well enough, then.

"Sakamoto was harder to get a hold of," Takasugi goes on. Air moves with him when he takes a step forward. Gintoki doesn't have it in him to look at him, no matter that they now stand side by side before the desk. "He cried too. I wasn't expecting that."

Gintoki wants to ask him, Did you not expect people to love you?

"What about your old team?" he says instead.

"They were the ones who found me."

The take unfolds slowly. Takasugi has a talent for story-telling that is near classical in nature, something Gintoki remembers noticing and never commenting upon, a whole lifetime ago.

The dragon veins. The infant body he had to grow out of. The rate of this growth—the same as Shouyou's, when Gintoki found him—and the slow trickle of memories coming back to him as came back speech and walking. Takasugi tells it all in the way a writer would. He leaves in gaps wide enough to fit entire lives.

Their sake has cooled by the time either of them deigns to touch it. Gintoki can't imagine being able to lift his cup, never mind drink from it; Takasugi manages the former but not the latter, and for a long time it balances between his fingers to the rhythm of his words.

When silence follows his tale, it is much, much heavier than any Gintoki has known before.

He could withstand it. Grief is like a second skin to him by now; he could mure himself into it and wait for things to pass. He could accept to be just too tired.

But Takasugi is different. He has always been different. Silence is to him like gangrene to a wound. Distance of any kind nurtures and cultivates it. Gintoki knows that silence is not what Takasugi wants, just as he knows that if he leaves him to it, Takasugi will never again break it.

"Takasugi," he says.

He can't continue. Words fail him as they always have, as they always will. His body burns from belly to throat.

He thinks of phantom weight of Takasugi's dead body in his arms. He thinks of Zura's well-hid grief and Tatsuma's avoidance.

He thinks of himself and the things that those two did to pull the love out of him.

There is nothing in the way of his hands as he grabs for Takasugi's shoulders. He can hardly care that Takasugi jumps badly enough for most of his liquor to spill between them, not when the skin he finds in the opening of Takasugi's yukata is living-warm instead of cold, his heartbeat quick and secure.

He's not twelve or eighteen anymore; when he leans in to kiss Takasugi, he knows exactly what he's doing.

It doesn't stop it from being clumsy. Takasugi holds onto him almost painfully, his nails dug deep into the skin of Gintoki's arms, and from the way he moves and stutters, Gintoki can guess that he hasn't much experience. But the pain is welcome. The discomfort is welcome. Takasugi's chest stills and his face wets almost instantly, and Gintoki tastes salt between their lips.

Thank you, he thinks, is what he is trying to say by kissing Takasugi like this.

Thank you, and Zura, and Tatsuma, for giving me all those first steps.

It isn't anything he knows how to put into words, but that's fine. Takasugi sags against him like a puppet with short-cut strings, his body shaking and his wet mouth forming sounds that neither of them know how to decipher.

It's fine.

Gintoki pulls away from the kiss before he falls. Takasugi has leaned so far into him that his back is bent dangerously over the empty space behind him, and now the man is still gripped to Gintoki's body as if unclawing him would mean cutting off his own fingers. Gintoki wants to smile at this and wants to cry a little too; he replaces his hold on Takasugi's face with one around his shoulders and crushes him into a hug.

The sobs aren't long to come. Takasugi shakes against him and can't draw in a breath without choking on it, each warm burst of his air crashing against Gintoki's neck and shoulder. He doesn't let go for a single second. When eventually they part, Gintoki will wear the shape of his fingernails on his skin for days.

He thinks he wouldn't mind wearing them his whole life.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 3: Tree of Might

Movie time again.    This time around it’s “Tree of Might”, which premiered on July 7, 1990, between Episodes 54 and 55 of the anime.

I feel like this is one of the more popular movies of the lot, but it’s never been high on my list.   There is a lot to appreciate here, but there’s some things that bug me, and I guess they don’t bug anyone else quite as much.    It’s definitely way better than “World’s Strongest”, so I don’t want to overstate my case here.  

The movie opens with a space probe heading for Planet Earth.    Pretty sure someone making this movie had just watched “The Empire Strikes Back.”

On Earth, Bulma, Krillin, Oolong, and Gohan are on a camping trip.   Okay, so I guess there was at least one other meeting between Gohan and Oolong after Movie 2, and this was it.  I’m curious to see if they ever interact in any later films, or the TV series.  

Honestly, I’m not really sure why Oolong would be involved here.    In the last movie, it made sense, because he was the only one who would drag Gohan out on a Dragon Ball hunt, which drove the whole plot.   Here’s he’s just chilling out with the trio who went to Namek.   He feels like an odd man out. 

I feel like this movie is angling at being an epilogue to the Namek Saga, since it depicts everyone safe and sound on Earth.  It doesn’t fit well with continuity, but the Namek Saga was still in progress when this movie came out, so I can’t blame the writers there.   In any case, the implication is that Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan all got back to Earth, and the first thing they wanted to do together was spend some quality time with Oolong.  

Anyway, Gohan’s mom made him pack a ton of stuff he probably wouldn’t need for a camping trip.

Nearby, that probe lands in the forest and the heat of the impact starts a fire!  Ruh-roh!

Krillin wakes up to the smell of burning everything, and we see all the animals fleeing in terror, including this little dragon.

Krillin tells Gohan to use his ki to put out the flames.   

While they do that, Gohan notices the dragon trapped under a... log?    It looks more like a really long piece of rock, but I don’t know what you’d even call that.    Gohan lifts it up and the dragon moves to safety.

Later, the fire’s out, but the forest is still ruined, and the gang feels sorry for all the homeless animals.   I don’t know, maybe I’m jaded, but I always found it a little cloying how all the animals just stand around at the edge of the forest, looking all sad, like they’re neighbors or whatever.    I don’t know what real deer do in a real forest fire.   Maybe they just die, but I’m pretty sure the ones who don’t just keep running until they find somewhere else to live.   

Then Krillin has a great idea...

Dragon Ball Z!   Wow, this is a great idea, Krillin.   This show kicks ass, but unfortunately they already made it, so it’s not really your idea, you know?

But seriously, Krilln plans to track down the Dragon Balls just so they can wish to have the forest restored.     In lieu of the usual opening credits, we get this montage of the gang collecting the Dragon Balls.    Here’s Gohan flying an aircraft.    I’d ask why they thought this made sense, but they had Gohan fly an aircraft in the last movie, so whoever made Tree of Might can just claim that the precedent was already set.  

Just a thought, but maybe the reason Gohan does all this zany stuff is because Chi-Chi makes him study too much.   By that I mean, she wants him to become a scholar, but for some reason she made him read an entire pilot manual, just in case it ever came up in some entrance exam.    We’ve seen how well Gohan absorbs information, so naturally  he’d finish the book and want to try it out for himself.    Chi-Chi probably made him read a book about lion taming, and then she wonders why Gohan ran off to join the circus.

Here’s a variation on the OP, only with a dinosaur chasing Gohan instead of Bulma.    Gohan ought to be strong enough to kick that dinosaur’s ass, though.

For some reason, Tien and Chiaotzu happen to be jogging by while they’re at it.    Small world, I guess.

And then Gohan shows up with the last ball.  Good thing, too.   The theme song was almost over.

And finally we get the title card.   Granted, these trees in the background don’t look very mighty, but bear with us, we’re getting to that.

DRAGON DRAGON!   ROCK THE DRAGON!   DRAGON!   BALL! Z!

DRAGON DRAGON!   ROCK THE DRAGON!   COME!  COME GET ME!

The sight of Shenron panics that little dragon Gohan saved, and it tries to attack him?   That seems like an unusual response.   Gohan calls him “Haiya Dragon”, so I guess he named him off-screen?   

In the English dub, the dragon was named “Icarus”, which I frankly prefer, because what kind of name is “Haiya Dragon” , anyway?   That’d be like naming your son “Hello Human.”

Shenron flails his tail around, and maybe he was getting ready to slap some sense into Icarus, or maybe he didn’t even notice the guy.   Anyway, Gohan holds Icarus back and makes their wish.

And the forest is saved!   I assume the gang finished their camping trip and went home.    All the animals return to their burrows and trees and bushes or whatever, and the probe robot crawls out of its crater.   Wait, that can’t be good.

The probe sends signals back to a group of aliens.   They confirm the presence of life signs on Earth, although no one can believe it, because they know the Saiyan Kakarot was sent to Earth, and he should have wiped out all of its life a long time ago.  

Okay, but why did they bother sending the probe if they didn’t think there would be anything there worth finding?    Well, anyway, the probe reports that Earthis a suitable environment for the Shinseijuu Tree, which is Japanese for “Divine Essence Tree” Tree.    Um, I think the subtitles goofed a little.   I’m just gonna call it the Tree of Might.   

That reminds me, the actual title of this movie is Chikyū Marugoto Chōkessen, which means “A Super-decisive Battle for Earth.”   It’s also been called “Super Battle In the World”, which sounds pretty dumb.   For some reason, most of the movies have Japanese titles that absolutely refuse to indicate what they’re about.     Literally every DBZ movie could have been called “A Super-decisive Battle for Earth.”    Well, I guess Movie 6 was a battle for New Namek, but Meta-Cooler would have attacked Earth eventually.

Later, we find Goku and Gohan chillaxing in the oil drum they bathe in.    Chi-Chi’s tending the fire that keeps the water hot.    Does Chi-Chi bathe in this thing?  She’d have to, right?    I’m surprised that erotic DBZ  fan artists haven’t jumped all over that concept.    “Oh, now that the fire’s going and I’ve taken off my clothes, I can climb into this oil drum and take a bath!    It’s a good think I live in the middle of nowhere, so no one can see my boobs!”  

But then Icarus shows up and frightens Chi-Chi until Gohan explains who he is.   Chi-Chi immediately takes a dislike to the creature, and I’m with her on this one.   Icarus is a stand-up dude and all, but he looks kind of creepy.   He’s supposed to be cute, but he ends up looking like one of those Precious Moments figurines.

Chi-Chi tells Gohan to take the dragon back where he came from.   Goku tries to stick up for him, but she won’t hear of it.   

Gohan shoves Icarus away, but let’s be real here, he could carry Icarus all the way back to his forest if he really wanted to.

Then Goku leads them both to this cave he fixed up as a hideout for Icarus.   This seems pretty dumb.   Goku tells him not to let Chi-Chi know about this, but how did Chi-Chi find out about Icarus in the first place?   He followed Gohan to the house where she could see him.   

But Icarus is grateful, and he licks Goku.   See, Goku looks way, way cuter than Icarus.    They really tried to hard with Icarus’ design.  

Meanwhile, Yamcha’s cruising around in a car he bought with a 15-year loan, when suddenly he gets blasted out of the sky by...

... one of these assholes, I guess.    If I understand correctly, they blasted a big crater in the ground so they could plant their Tree of Might seed, but I don’t really understand why they couldn’t just use a gardening spade.    

Tell you what, let’s go over these guys names right now.   The big red one in the center is Amond.     The guy on the left is Daiz.   He wears pink leg warmers.  

The alien in the silver armor is Cacao.   I think he’s a cyborg, but who cares?  And the two little purple guys are Rasin and Lakasei.   They’re all wearing Frieza Soldier gear, so does that mean they work for Frieza?   Well, we’ll get to that.

The seed starts growing almost as soon as it hits the soil.   

Meanwhile, the aliens’ mysterious leader notes that this was all made possible by Goku’s failure to destroy the planet’s population as he was supposed to do.

The Tree of Might is huge, to the point where its roots erupt underneath a whole city, which I’m pretty sure is miles away from the forest where it was planted.

In the forest, Icarus watches this enormous tree finish growing, and he knows things are looking bad.

Meanwhile, most of the major Dragon Ball characters have gotten together at Goku’s house.   I’m not sure why.    Also, they didn’t invite Launch, which is kind of bullshit.   

Bulma gives Yamcha shit for buying such an expensive car, and accuses him of trying to impress girls.   So yeah, about the continuity of this movie.     These characters won’t be reunited on Planet Earth until Episode 120 of the TV series.   By the time that happens, Gohan’s a few years older, and Goku’s learned to turn into a Super Saiyan, so this whole movie just doesn’t fit.    Nevertheless, it seems to depict a possible scenario where the good guys managed to return safely from Namek and wish all their dead friends back to life.    In other words, this is the first time Bulma and Yamcha are seen together again since his death in the Saiyans Saga, and what is she doing?    Yeah.

Same, Tien, same.    Chiaotzu’s not gonna let this stop him from enjoying free refreshments though.

Then Icarus shows up at the window, and Goku and Gohan get caught trying to keep him, but they miss the fact that Icarus came back to warn them about the Tree of Might.   Too bad he can’t talk.

Fortunately, King Kai can talk, and he can communicate with Goku telepathically, and he warns him about the Tree of Might.    Well, “warn” might not be the right word.    According to King Kai, the Earth was doomed the moment the tree took root.    It’s basically a parasite on a planetary scale.    As it grows, it sucks the nutrients and life force from the host planet, reducing the whole world to a lifeless desert.

So where does something like the Tree of Might come from?   King Kai says it was originally grown so that the gods could eat its fruit.    That sounds halfway plausible, until you consider that a lot of the “gods” in this franchise aren’t nearly as awe-striking as the Tree of Might.    It’s hard to imagine someone like Kami planting a tree like this, destroying a whole planet just to eat its fruit.    King Kai literally cooks his own meals, and he seems to eat the same stuff as everyone else.     King Yama has a tree in hell that bears fruit reserved specially for him, but it’s not nearly as big as this one.   I could imagine Beerus snacking on fruit from a tree that kills whole planets, but he’ll settle for cup ramen.    More importantly, Beerus and his ilk wouldn’t be introduced to the franchise for another 23 years.

I’m not sure what King Kai is trying to tell Goku.    If it’s too late, why bother telling him about this at all?   Is he trying to suggest that Goku should evacuate the planet? 

Well, King Kai should know better, because Goku stone cold does not give a shit.    As soon as he hears about this crisis, he immediately makes plans to go beat up a tree.   His plan: Let’s all go shoot it with our best hand lasers.   Diagnosis: Awesome.

Then they all put their hands together in a show of solidarity.     It’s time to show that tree who’s boss!    Look at Chiaotzu.    He’s literally lying on top of the table just to reach the others.

Then Gohan tries to join in, because hell yeah.   Gohan can help.   He fires some really good hand lasers, especially for his age.

But his mommy said no, so he’s gotta stay home.    Better luck next time, kid.

Krillin notes that his wish to restore the forest was a total waste, since this stupid Tree of Might wrecked it all over again.     I think the whole point of that forest fire was just to give the characters a reason to use the Dragon Balls early, so that way they wouldn’t be able to wish their way out of this situation.    I’m not sure Shenron could remove a tree this huge, but it’s a moot point now.   The Dragon Balls won’t work again for another year.

So they shoot their finest energy blasts at the base of the tree, and it does nothing.   Krillin suggests another try, but Yamcha points out that if they use too much power they could destroy the Earth instead.

Then these jerks show up.   Okay, so this is one thing that’s always bugged me about this movie.   From here on, much of the action takes place on the Tree of Might itself, so you end up with a lot of indistinct backgrounds which are probably meant to be super-giant tree bark.   It just makes it hard to tell where anyone is in relation to anything else.   What exactly are they sitting on here?   Why does the Tree of Might have all these convenient ledges and horizontal surfaces for people to stand on? 

Yamcha demands vengeance for his dearly departed car.   Uh, yeah...   Whatever gets you in the zone, buddy.

The boys square up for a fight.    You know, I remember watching parts of this movie on Toonami back in 1999, and scenes like this, and Yamcha’s appearancs in the Frieza Saga, were really my first introduction to the character.   What really stood out for me was that he looked almost exactly like Goku.    Kind of like how Flash Thompson was a big fan of Spider-Man, and one time he dressed up as Spidey for a Halloween party, and the real Spider-Man had to trick Green Goblin into thinking that Flash was the real thing.    It just really looks like Yamcha is this jock who decided to dress up like Goku because he loves Goku so much.

Anyway, these two guys do some dumb shit.   I really hate Rasin and Lakasei.    Just... everything about them sucks.   They sound terrible in every dub, they look like inflamed hemorrhoids, and they do absolutely nothing to move the story forward.   

Tien blinds them with the Solar Flare, and that’s about the only effective offense the Z-Figthers manage in this whole movie.

It’s really a shame, because this is one of the few movies that actually bothers to use Yamcha, Tien, an Chiaotzu, and they get jobbed out.   Would it have been so bad to have Yamcha use his Spirit Ball on Cacao and actually hurt him?  Krillin’s Kienzan is one of the more serious techniques in the series, so I might have been cool to actualy see him kill somebody with it.     I’m pretty sure Chiaotzu has never won a fight in Dragon Ball up to this point.    Would it have been so bad to just let him kill Rasin?     But no.  

I always wondered why they included Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu in this particular movie, but now that I’m watching them in sequence with the anime, it makes some sense.    Around this time, the TV series had just revealed that they were training with King Kai in the afterlife, and one could certainly speculate that they would get resurrected later on, and play a role in the final battle with Frieza and/or Vegeta.   I think “Tree of Might” was trying to play along with that idea, except it never actually pays it off.    

Chiaotzu is in trouble for a while, until Gohan suddenly shows up to help.  Turns out Icarus managed to bring him to the forest where the battle was going on, so now he’s here to turn the tide.    Or something.

This attracts the attention of the boss alien, who recognizes Gohan as a Saiyan.

So he goes out to meet the kid, and realizes that he must be Kakarot’s son.   He introduces himself as Turles and...

Yeah, he looks like Goku.  That’s the big twist.  

Only it’s not much of a twist at all.   Turles explains that it’s not even that big a deal that he and Goku look alike, since they’re both “disposable, lower-class warriors.”   According to Turles, low-class Saiyans “only come in a few types.”  

I’ve seen this line interpreted in many different ways.    Some fans have suggested that the Saiyans cloned their low-class warriors.   I think a lot of fans prefer the idea that Turles an Goku might be related somehow.  Bardock and Goten’s close resemblance to Goku seems to support this.    Hell, Gohan looks a lot like Goku if you don’t take the hair into account.  

I think there’s always been a desire to make something more out of Turles than what the movie offers.    The fact that he looks like an evil Goku is easily the most intriguing thing about the character, and this movie does absolutely nothing with it.   Turles himself acts like it doesn’t matter, and Gohan is the only character who even seems to notice.   So why did they bother making him look like Goku in the first place?

I feel like part of the idea here was to explore the idea of what Goku might have been like if he hadn’t hit his head and turned good.  Turles could be a glimpse into what Kakarot might have done as a villain, although he’s so different from the real Goku that it doesn’t seem all that convincing.   They could have made him look like another Saiyan, and it wouldn’t really affect anything.  

Turles’ main personality trait is that he seems to want to recruit Gohan and Goku to his cause, saying that Saiyans should stick together.    I’m not sure if he truly believes that, or if he just thinks that his gang could use a couple more Saiyan lackeys.   He talks up the space pirate life as an endless romp around the universe, taking whatever he wants and enjoying food and drink as he pleases.  Again, I don’t know if that’s a genuine sentiment, or if it’s just his recruitment pitch.

Piccolo shows up and tries to save Gohan, but Turles makes short work of him, and goes back to tormenting the kid.

Turns out he can make one of those fake moon things just like Vegeta.

He forces Gohan to look at it, and then he destroys it as soon as Gohan turns into a giant ape.

He says it’s because he doesn’t want to turn into a giant ape himself, but why wouldn’t he?    Why did he turn Gohan into a giant ape?    He doesn’t need any help to beat the Z-Fighters.   Is he trying to prove a point?  Gohan won’t even remember anything he did in ape form.   Also, shouldn’t the transformation wear off once the fake moon is gone?   Turles accounts for this by saying it’ll stick for a little while, even after the power ball is gone, but that doesn’t sound right.    When Piccolo blew up the moon, Gohan changed back immediately.

For that matter, what good is the fake moon technique if it can be dispersed so easily?    Krillin could have attacked it during the Goku/Vegeta fight instead of trying to cut off Vegeta’s tail.

So now Goku has to fight his own son in giant ape form.    To the movie’s credit, this is a big highlight, because it’s the only DBZ movie to feature a giant ape transformation.    And that’s all well and good, but it seems kind of empty to me because I have no idea why Turles set this up.   Does he want Gohan to kill Goku?   Is that supposed to make Gohan more eager to join him?

The fight ends up in a cavern, which I think turns out to be the same cave Goku used as a home for Icarus.   That, or Icarus just happened to be here.   Either way, just seeing Icarus calms Gohan down.

This is cute and all, but it seems odd that Oozaru Gohan would react so strongly to Icarus when he didn’t even recognize his own father.

Irritated, Turles tries to attack Icarus, which turns Gohan against him.    Turles tries to kill Gohan with a laser donut...

But Goku cuts off Gohan’s tail before it can hit him, and he shrinks back to little kid size just in time to fall through the donut.   I guess it’s lucky that Turles relies on donut-shaped attacks.

Turles then offers to spare Goku if he pledges to join him, but Goku refuses.   He came her to whip a tree’s ass, and if Turles is pro-tree, then he can get wrecked along with it.   

Then all of these creeps show up to fight Goku first.    See, this is dumb.    They not only made a clean sweep of Goku’s teammates, they didn’t even defeat them on screen!   

Here’s a shot of Tien passing out from the hypothetical beating he took from Amond or some other guy.   

Well, at least this sets up a cool scene where Goku has to fight them all by himself, right?   Not really, Goku squashes them all in  matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, Piccolo tries to take on Turles, but he’s just no match for him.

Boom, roasted.

I mean, why couldn’t Yamcha take this guy out?  What was the point of having Yamcha in the movie if Goku was going to beat all the bad guys by himself?

With the rabble cleared away, Goku finally gets down to business.   Turles panics when he sees how strong Goku is, so he runs away...

...and picks a piece of fruit from the Tree of Might.    Why does he stick his tongue out to eat it?   That just looks kind of weird.  

Basically, the fruit of the Tree of Might ramps up a person’s battle power, which allows Turles to overpower Goku with ease.    This is the core concept with Turles, I think.    The challenge with this movie was to invent a new villain who could challenge Goku in the same manner as Vegeta and Frieza.   Well, that’s a tall order, because Frieza was hyped as the strongest guy in the whole universe.    A Saiyan villain would have made sense, except Vegeta was the strongest Saiyan, and the only one left.     To introduce a new Saiyan, you’d have to explain why he’d be strong enough to rival Vegeta or Frieza.

The solution is the Tree of Might.    I can’t find the line now, but there’s a part of the movie where Turles or one of his crew mention that the Tree of Might will make Turles strong enough to defeat Frieza.   It’s pretty clear, then, that he’s a renegade from Frieza’s organization.     They have their old uniforms, but instead of working for Frieza, they just roam the universe looking for places to plant their Tree of Might seeds.    They grow a new tree, eat the fruit, get stronger, and then repeat the process.   Turles started out as a weakling like Goku once was, but he found a way to cheat the system, and now he’s on his way to becoming the strongest in the universe.  

Turles leaves Goku when he refuses to surrender, and then Goku’s friends speak to him telepathically.   I’m not sure when they learned to do that, but whatever.   They beg Goku to get up and try a Spirit Bomb, and Goku finally musters the strength to try it.

While he does that, the Z-Fighters assemble for one last stand against Turles.   I guess this is supposed to buy time for Goku, but I’m not sure he needs it.   Turles isn’t actually doing anything at the moment.  

But it doesn’t work.   The Spirit Bomb relies on borrowng life energy from everything on the planet, and that’s been drained away by the Tree of Might, so Turles thwarts Goku’s attack with ease.    Oh, he also clobbered the Z-Fighters, so they’re down too.  Triumphantly, Turles looks at his fruit crop.    Where exactly is this that he’s standing right now?   

But Goku isn’t beaten yet.    He drags himself back into the fight, and confronts Turles one more time.

See, this time, Goku has a way to make the Spirit Bomb work.   If all of the Earth’s energy is in the Tree of Might...

... then he’ll just draw the energy from the fruit instead of the planet, and make a Spirit Bomb from that.

There’s this tense standoff, and then they both attack each other in a single instant, and Goku’s Spirit Bomb wins out.    I always have trouble remembering how this movie ends, and I think it’s because the climactic moment is so quick.    I’m pretty sure they tried to imitate a gunfight from a western. 

Turles gets consumed by the Spirit Bomb, and it drives him up through the trunk of the Tree of Might.   Really, this makes a lot of sense as a finale.   Turles’ trump card was to eat one piece of fruit from the tree, but Goku drew power from all of the fruit, so naturally his Spirit Bomb would be stronger than anything Turles could handle.   And it’s an elegant solution to the problem posed by the tree.   It was completely invulnerable to Goku’s own power, so he ended up using the Tree of Might’s own energy against itself.

All of this causes the Tree to glow yellow and disintigrate into sparkles of light, which rejuvenate all life on Earth.

So this dying deer is okay again, and presumably so is everything else.

Later, everyone celebrates with another camping trip.    Launch got snubbed again.

Oolong tries to praise Icarus for his role in the battle, but Icarus nearly bites him.

And Piccolo sort of chills out by a waterfall somewhere, and that’s the end of the movie.   

So it’s a pretty decent entry in the movie series, but I find it to be a mixed bag.   The highlights are things that don’t quite get developed enough.   Yeah, you have Turles, Great Ape Gohan, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu, but for my money, merely having those things in the movie isn’t enough.    It’s what you do with them that counts.    I find it particularly frustrating that the Dragon Ball Wiki has all this lore on Turles’ gang, but none of it ever made it into the movie itself, which is their only appearance.    What’s the point in having a backstory for Daiz if it never comes up anywhere?     His entire character arc was blowing up Yamcha’s car, and then getting decked by Goku. 

Still, if you like Spirit Bombs, this is one of the best Spirit Bomb finishes ever.    And the Tree of Might is a pretty cool idea.   And the visuals are a big step up from World’s Strongest.   

[tessatechaitea]

Black Condor #5

Five issues and five pure cheesecake covers.

Crud-for-brains? I'd wager my life savings that Brian Augustyn was an early Adventures of Pete and Pete fan.

The guys on the cover are just four young dude-bros stealing from drug dealers. They burn the drugs and take the money to give toward good causes. And probably also to buy cool shit for themselves. They're only human! Probably. I haven't read far enough along to know what they're really doing with the cash. Black Condor will find out after he beats the shit out of three of them. Sorry. I've been gone for awhile. You wouldn't have noticed since my long absence fell between writing the previous paragraph and this current one. And unless you ran off to take a desperate shit right at the same moment, the time between these two paragraphs was negligible, minuscule (I decided to use both words because I'm so proud of my ability to spell my native language (I considered misspelling "native" and "language" but decided that was a boring old joke which has carried more water than Capri-sun (that's a new joke and it's not very good because it doesn't make sense. But at least it's new))). But I was caught up in playing a stupid computer video game about dungeon delving dice trapped in a horrific game show. Spoiler: the dice never get to fuck. But I'm back now because this is blog is the only thing that keeps me sane anymore. You might think that because this blog was my link to sanity, I'd be more earnest. You might think I'd want to be grim and serious and discuss political, social, and environmental matters with the gravity and seriousness they deserve. But that's all the stuff that's doing my head in. So I'd rather pretend that I'm angry at comic books. Here's a secret for the few of you reading this who made it to this specific paragraph out of all of my paragraphs: I wish I were friends with Scott Lobdell. I bet he's kind of an asshole but he's the kind who, if he was getting his ass kicked at a bar for being smarmy and pretentious and smug (smug because he's a rich writer whom a lot of thirteen year old boys (and men with thirteen year old boy minds) think wrote some of the seminal X-men stories), he'd completely understand if you didn't step in to defend him. He feels like the kind of guy who knows what he really deserves (a righteous ass beating) and wouldn't think the world unfair should he ever receive it. Then he'd probably buy drinks for the people who beat his ass, and I'd look him in the eye and shrug, and he'd laugh, and we'd continue to not mention that time we jerked each other off when we were fucking wasted on single malt scotch and peyote. Black Condor and Ned decide they need to find the girl with humongous afro before she hurts people who don't deserve it the way the color changing white supremacist Nazi rapists did.

What does he mean by "completely autistic"? In 1992, I'm guessing that meant nonverbal with loads of stimming and maybe the ability to play any piano concerto immediately after hearing it once.

Karin was experimented on by Black Condor's grandfather's Society but she failed to gain the ability to fly. She did, however, gain mental abilities as powerful as his own. He's concerned that, being autistic, she'll hurt people with her mind rage. Please. She almost certainly just wants to be left alone by everybody in society expecting her to think and act in a specific way that she can't think and act, nor would she want to if she had the ability. Just leave autistic people alone, normals! They don't need help. Just because your autistic kid isn't giving you the kind of unconditional love you were looking for when you decided to have a kid that you would eventually love only conditionally based on how they loved you doesn't mean the kid needs to change. That's on you and your needs. Maybe just find a way for the kid to express themselves (or not! Who knows sometimes?!) and let them do and act as they please. Unless what they want to do is fuck the dog. I'm not saying autistic people fuck dogs but I am saying we're all individuals, you know? Use your common sense! And if your kid is fucking the dog, autistic or not, don't let them near the dog! The Merry Men on the cover (oh hey! There were Merry Men in the Sky Pirate issue! Brian Augustyn either loves old tales of daring adventure or LSD) have been robbing drug dealers to help fund a homeless camp run by a priest named Gamble. The priest isn't involved in the theft; he chastises them about their plans to get money illegally. But they assure him the money isn't tainted and he decides to believe them when they dump thousands of dollars on his desk. Doing the right thing is hard when doing the wrong thing will solve all of your money issues. If you're a weak minded jerk, that is! I totally would never sell out for thousands of dollars so hopefully nobody embarrasses themselves by offering me loads of money to write positive comic book reviews for their publications. Father Gamble refuses the money because he just can't be sure it was honestly come by. I would be less suspicious of the money and more suspicious of the white college kids trying to donate thousands of dollars to a homeless camp. What's really going on in this camp?! Why are these young men so interested in keeping it funded so it doesn't get shut down? Four probably rich white boys risking their lives to help the downtrodden? Sorry but this is the most aggressively fantastic comic book I've ever read. And I'm not using the informal definition of "fantastic."

"Which member of this organization could possibly be giving all of this information to these white boys and why am I exposing my plan to kill them before plugging the leak?!"

Maybe that's racist suggesting that the white guy in the gang is giving the information to other white guys. But this comic book has already asked me to believe too many fanciful plot points so I'm glad Augustyn decided the white guy was absolutely the inside man. The white guys name is Herbie and his boss, Mr. Soto, already knows he's the leak. I'm glad Mr. Soto is as smart as I am. Or as racist. Probably smart though! They follow him as he's trying to meet up with the college Merry Men to warn them that they're in danger. Luckily for Herbie, Black Condor happens upon the scene as he's searching for Karin. And even though Black Condor doesn't give a shit about this guy and his problems, he figures even a reluctant hero wouldn't just stand by and watch some jerk get what's coming to them. After Black Condor saves Herbie, he has to take him to the hospital because he was pistol whipped. Meanwhile, the rich white kids aren't warned that they're about to die so they drive off into the trap to steal more money that Father Gamble won't be accepting for his charity.

What a dumb asshole! Even the most ignorant of ignorant jerks knows there were only three musketeers! Unless he's so familiar with the book that he's including d'Artagnan along with Porthos, Mythos, and Harpos.

I never read The Three Musketeers because I was born in the late 20th century and exciting stories to thrill young boys wasn't a popular genre anymore because we had Batman and Green Lantern. Although I did once play the text adventure version of the book. When I did that, I poked fun at the idea that the author of it was writing the game so that people would remember Alexandre Dumas and yet it's the only reason I know anything about him! Although now I know a little bit more about him because I Googled his name to make sure I was spelling it correctly and now I know what a fancy lad he was!

Now I want to listen to an audio version of his book where every few sentences, the person reading it just says, "Oooooooh, my!"

The Musketeers (maybe I was wrong to assume they were more like the Merry Men?!) manage to get away with only one of them shot in the ankle (the others weren't shot at all, if that wasn't clear). They decide the best way to save their own lives is to lead the gun men on a chase through New York back to Father Gamble's homeless camp. They already know he doesn't want any trouble so why are they taking this gunfight back there?! What is Father Gamble's hold over these young men?! Luckily for everybody in the homeless camp, Black Condor is there still searching for Karin. He'll save everybody's lives reluctantly! Unluckily for everybody, Karin is also there and the gunfire and chaos freaks her out so much that she has a mind-storm! That's the thing she had before that killed four of her attempted Nazi rapists. And that's where the comic book ends! Lucky for older me, younger me bought the next issue so I wouldn't be stuck with this cliff hanger! Lucky for younger me, older me doesn't have a time machine so that fucker has gotten away with some pretty abhorrent behavior which I couldn't correct by going back in time and punching him in the nose. Unlucky for him, he's going to be a virgin for a long, long time! Ha ha! Take that! Ow. Older me just hurt older me's feelings. Black Condor #5 Rating: B. A solid rating that I probably wouldn't have given this comic book back when I was twenty-one. I don't think I understood just what this comic book was doing and wound up only remembering it as a comic book about a reluctant hero. I didn't realize how much of it was Black Condor trying to live his now much more complicated life while also continuously doing the right thing. Even when he just wants to hole up in the woods and say "Fuck it!" to everybody and everything, he still shows the heart of a hero when he's needed by people nearby. And he's fucking sexy hot too.

[gayfraphne]

scooby-doo and the curse of the 13th ghost review

WARNING: contains spoilers, as well as my unsolicited opinion. read at you own risk folks.

i’ll start off by saying, i really liked curse of the 13th ghost. it certainly wasn’t groundbreaking, but i had a great time watching it and i’m happy it exists. that being said, there were a few things that made me scratch my head a little bit.

the movie starts with a sepia filtered flashback of vincent van ghoul and his lover mortifer (not really but,,,,, we know how to read between the lines WB) capturing ghosts in the chest of demons. the scene ends with mortifer having his fucking soul devoured by ghosts and dying right there in front of my seven year old eyes. i literally screamed.

the title sequence absolutely sent me. it was really good on its own, but i love how it actually explains the whole plot of 13 ghosts, because i never actually saw it.

next we get a classic mall chase scene. there’s a hilarious moment when they’re chasing the suspect up an escalator, and fred tells the gang that they can’t run because it’s too dangerous, so they all have to stand on this escalator while tacky elevator music plays before continuing the chase. fred’s being an asshole to daphne in this scene to emphasise how attached he is to his leadership position, and daphne (like the bad bitch she is) ignores him and catches the guy they’re chasing herself, to emphasise that she’s much smarter than fred. not that much smarter, however, because it turns out they caught the wrong guy. they interact with the sheriff, who tells them that they’re too sloppy, and that once they turn eighteen (which is coming up quickly) they might end up serving jail time for harassment charges. with their best interests in mind, he tells them they have to quit solving mysteries. the scene worked, but it wasn’t very realistic. legally speaking, you can’t arrest someone for driving in their van (as this guy threatened to do).

next we see the three minute long scene that was released as a promotional clip on youtube of the garage sale at what i assume was daphne’s house, despite being tiny. a man named bernie alan tries to buy some stuff off them, but his check bounces (a reoccurring joke throughout the rest of the movie). vincent calls, tells them he needs help- blah blah blah.

daphne introduces the gang to her own van- which nearly sends fred over the fucking moon. especially when he can’t drive it because it’s a stick shift and, as we all know, FRED JONES CAN’T DRIVE STICK. honestly, that boy is adorable.

so daphne drives as fred sleeps on her shoulder like the angel he is- but things go awry when a car surrounded by green smoke tries to run them off the road. we find out why this is later, but it doesn’t.... really make much sense.

they get to vincent’s house, daphne and fred bicker some more, and shaggy decides to head off with scooby in search of snack-shaped clues. daphne asks velma to keep an eye on “lewis and bark” leaving her alone with fred. her crystal ball starts glowing, and they follow it throughout the mansion. velma, shaggy, and scooby have some classic mishaps, while fred and daphne do some classic fraphne things, such as forgetting that two people can walk next to eachother, and entrapment, and undermining each other’s intelligence. they all meet back up when velma and the boys fall through the ceiling and land on top of them. (shaggy jokes, “mind if we drop in?”) they find vincent, as well as the demon asmodeus, and this is where things start to kick off. vincent tells shaggy and daphne to trap asmodeus in the chest of demons, but shaggy says that he mailed it to vincent’s place in the himalayas when school started. vincent explains that it wasn’t his home, but rather an air b&b he’d rented at the time, and that he never got it- so they have to fly to the himalayas to track down the chest in the mail.

you know how movies and tv shows  that can’t afford the rights to certain brands will use cute little puns- to tell the audience what they’re talking about without saying the real trademark? it’s done multiple times in the movie, but in a way that’s very self aware. vincent refers to his air b&b as an “air boo & boo,” his iphone as a “die phone,” and countless others that i forget. but everyone around him is like “oh my fucking god can you talk normally please-” telling the audience that they were staying at an actual air b&b without having to use the name- but still being normal about it. it was a nice touch. as was “captain rogers, not for vanity reasons, but because when you have the lives of so many people in your hands, it’s better to think of yourself as the office and not the man- and also a little bit for vanity.” that’s right, folks, shaggy flies the plain. and it’s golden.

when they land in the himalayas, the first thing they notice is bernie alan, the check bouncing fiend. they decide to split up- shaggy, scooby, daphne and vincent follow him to the temple, while fred and velma go searching for the lost package. the next bit of the movie cuts between the two storylines, but i’ll just tell them separatley.

fred and velma show up at a deserted post office, and naturally go rummaging through the back to find shaggy’s lost package. instead, flim flam catches fred in a net. i don’t think we ever learn why he was in the post office. flim flam takes them to the novelty store he works at and shows them his various chest of demons memorabilia (mostly coolers, which he’s only ever sold one of) but when fred says they’re looking for the real thing, he brings them to his ghost-hunting store instead. fred finds a cool scooter and asks to drive it-  to which flim flam replies “sure! you can drive stick shift, right?” luckily he’s only kidding and fred get’s to destroy the scooter in the background while velma and flim flam argue over the existence of ghosts. fred and velma leave, and fred admits to velma that he feels useless now that daphne’s stolen his job as the leader. he even laments that he “can’t even do background shenanigans right!!!!!” before the scene has the oppurtunity to become cute and uplifting, the two of them get snatched into the air by an unknown force.

daphne’s crew are following bernie alan, but he manages to lose them. before they know it, they’re being stalked by the same car that tried to run them off the road earlier. the car’s loud engine starts an avalanche, resulting in the world’s longest “oh no!! we’re falling down a mountain!!” bit- which is then followed by a second identical bit as the car causes another avalanche immediately after the first. they wind up trapped in the temple with asmodeus and the chest of demons. there’s a cute little musical chase scene to a super catchy disco song, and a slightly uncomfortable bit where shaggy and scooby dress as monks. asmodeus tries to kill them, but vincent uses his magic to beam daphne, shaggy and scooby out.

daphne is about to break down sobbing because she thinks vincent is dead- when suddenly velma and fred fall from the sky. fred, being the little fucking legend he is, says “mind if we drop in?” they’re all down in the dumps for various reasons, and daphne says that it’s time to go home, and that there’s nothing more they can do. seeing his gang about top give up, fred reveals his darkest secret: while daphne and shaggy were catching the ghosts, he wasn’t just at any camp- he was at CHEER CAMP. THE ONLY KIND OF LEADER FRED IS IS A CHEERLEADER. it’s funny at first- hysterical in fact- but he does a cheer that lasts just long enough for everyone (characters and audience alike) to start feeling sad for him. but freddy jones is flippin away, doing back tucks over daphne’s head and throwing her in the air, and his enthusiasm encourages daphne to make a plan to catch asmodeus.

fred and velma head back to flim flam’s shop to ask for his help (but mostly his gear) and fred realises that the reason he can’t drive stick is because he’s been trying to use the parking break instead of the clutch. now he’s hell on wheels, and manages to run the random car that’s been following them off the road and into the abyss below. 

meanwhile, daphne, shaggy and scooby skydive down into the temple from above (”i can’t jump out of a plane!” “that’s okay, i’m going to push you!”) and find vincent. they link up with fred, velma and flim flam, and the latter jokes that all they need now is scrappy, to which velma asks “what’s a scrappy???” and there’s nothing better than the idea of a timeline in which daphne and shaggy just kept scrappy’s existence a secret all these years.

vincent reveals that asmodeus is actually his dead relative, which is cool, but everything goes downhill when they realise that asmodeus is a fake, and that he’s actually mortifer, vincent’s supposed dead lover, wearing a suit. then bernie alan the check bouncer is actually an interpol officer slash figure skater, and the swat team shows up.... they really lost me there. it was a disappointing resolution to say the least.

the final scene was probably my favorite. the gang are loading up the plane, and fred and daphne stare off into the sunset, and fred tells daphne that he’s been wrong about her all along, and that she’s such a capable leader, and that she’s the engine that makes the gang run. daphne replies “i might be the engine, but you’ll always be the driver” which is equally as adorable as it is true. they give eachother MAJOR HEART EYES, but fred- physically unable to let a heartfelt moment last more than three seconds- pulls away and asks if captain rogers will let him try flying the plain. daphne says sure, but only if he promises to stay away from the parking break. fred shakes his fist at god and curses velma’s name.

velma explains to everyone that ghosts aren’t real and that the 13 ghosts were all a hallucination, which..... fuck everyone involved in that decision. we realise that the chest shaggy mailed was actually the one cooler sold by flim flam (a nice touch). to prove her point, velma almost opens the actual chest of demons for funsies but thinks better of it, and then the gang hits the skies, where they’re all flabbergasted to find that scooby doo is the one flying the plane. the end.

it’s a good movie, no doubt- and was almost a perfect one. everything seemed to crash and burn as the demon turned out to be fake, and then everything else was fake, and then bernie alan was a figure skater in a fat suit... for some reason. had they gone with literally any other ending, it would have been great. 

the fraphne subpot felt a little underwhelming... maybe it’s just that i’m a hardcore shipper, but i felt like the resolution to their plot wasn’t big enough. they spent the whole movie building tension- i was sort of picturing that they’d have a big fight. but... nope. he just did a few backflips and everything was peachy.

again, i loved the movie. i don’t know if i’d put it in the top five, but definitely in the top ten. it had a lot of fun aspects and great character building. i’m really excited for return to zombie island, but also kind of scared. first of all, how do you make a sequel to something that happens when they’re 30 when they’re only 17?? also... pls don’t make the cat creatures fake. also... *slides writers a 20*.... fraphne kiss. just sayin.

[thenixkat]

Animorphs notes: 18

Book 18

Narrated by Aximili

Again I really wish something had come of the andalite traitors thing

Ax’s audience is other andalites

Leera’s like the only planet besides Earth to get an actual name in this joint

Andalites don’t use money

Ax is tryin g to work to get money to buy food

Ax needs to stop dicking around in human morph b;c he’s gonna getsomeone in trouble, possibly killed

This manager is actually a nice person

So Marco caught Ax

They are retelling the event at Cassie’s barn]

They are waiting for news from Erek

So was Ax? Alone at the damn mall? I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again there are rocks smarter than these kids

Erik has hidden chee with him

Of course Tobias fucking spots them all, its not like the chee could make themselves invisible

Hewlett Aldershot the Third, that’s a serious name

Yeerks wanna infest im for reasons and had Iness hit him with a car

Is this the same yeerk infested hospital from an earlier book? I guess boiling a bunch of folks alive and a minor wildlife rampage didn’t do shit.

Marco’s snippy when bored

So, either Visser 3 knows how to morph regular clothes or isn’t hamped by them at all and no one feels the need to mention them ripping through some while morphiong

Yeerks can’t do anything with a comatose host. 

Either the head of the secret service is a lady or the president is

That’s not really how wings work forget it

People have to be seeing this 6 winged bird thing chasing a seagull

Also apparently the kafit is some kinda bird of prey

Ax’s seagull morph has talons apparently

Visser 3 is scared of getting into a tail fight

Visser 3 thinks a teenager can beat him.

They’re right b/c they are shit at fighting

Stand face to face for even more opportunity to injure yerself and give yer opponent a better shot at yer head

Visser 3 nopes out of the fight, breaking a leg in the fall, but morphing human fast

Too much protein keeps Aximili awake

Dinnier at Cassie’s ment a lot for Ax

Ax races around as he wrestles with his thoughts and goes to Tobias to talk about feeliongs

Yeerks infultrating the andalite homeworld was an interesting idea and the writers are cowards

Shut up Cassie

Cassie you liar

If they could aquire from say blood alone, then why don’t they just try acquiring from parts of animals like ever?

Rachel is concerned about blood borne diseases and doesn’t know how most of those are contracted

Ax that sounds like bullshit. 

Ax you just hang with little squeemish bitches

Andalites have weak slow baby hands

How exactly do they plan to acquire blood that they ate as a mosquito? If they eat it it starts to break down from digestion and would be decently degraded by the time they vomit it back up and try to acquire from it.

A random sick kid has seen Ax and now knows his name

More humans have seen Ax

And like what reason with the yeerks have to let witnesses go like? Good job at getting more folks enslaved Ax

Ax thinks about collateral damage for once

...that’s a false surrender. Good job Ax! Not no one on yer side can ever actually surrender! Also a war crime.

Ax jumps out a window and morphs mosquito

That’s still not how compound eyes work

Pop

And now in the imaginary place

Huh, Ax and the animorphs get to see themselves in a 4 dimensional? view

Like tesseracts made of meat

Neat

Why, exactly would Tobias., who is in morph in ya know the shape of a bird not appear as a human jigsaw as well in this place?

They got dragged into Z space by a passing ship

And resqued by an andalite crew

The animorphs and Ax made a scientific breakthrough

.7 Andalite years stuck on Earth

I havent gotten to thhat book on my re read but everything you just said was wrong Ax

So there are multiple pool ships and such

Aximili doesnt actually have to stay with you all

He can fight yeerks where ever he pleases and really kinda needs to see others of his own kind every now and then

That grass probably tastes good as fuck tho after almost a year in Earth grass

Andalites being speciest

“May your great god Cha-Ma-Mib smile on you this day.” religious space frogs

“The continent loomed larger and larger. Most of it was lush and green, primarily jungle. Green like Earth's forests and jungles, but with wide swaths of some brilliant yellow vegetation, too. The northern end of the continent was less fertile, more barren, probably colder.”

Leera

The captian is a traitor

Also it is apparently pretty damn easy to take out andalites if you have even the slightest amount of drop on them

Visser 3 and Visser 4 are friends

That tailless dick fortified and used a weapon

The animorphs decided not to stick around in just listening to orders

Gonna blow the kids out an airlock and hope they survive

None of these fucks think to get in a damn fighter craft or emergency escape and attempt to survive

Just, welp folks we’re fucked time for some suicide!

Also the captain wasn’t even a controller, just willingly on the yeerk’s side

On the one hand Ax did abandon them. On the other the animorphs are not entitled to his service

Also this just isn’t the right time to pick on Ax

This is reallt not the right fucking time, Marco and Rachel are either trying to get themselves or someone else killed with their bullshit

Tobias u fucking chose to live in the woods as a wild animal, Aximili didn’t choose to be marroned on an alien world

You feathery asshole

Tobias vanished

Adi-fuckin-os

The yeerk forces are doing well on ground battle

Ax, the animorphs, the andalites, and the writers have failed ecology

Rachel vanished

The writers just really fucking hate sharks

“The water was perfectly, utterly clear. We were swimming in water that was forty feet deep, and we could see every detail on the ocean floor.

 And what detail! Huge, billowing creatures like white and yellow sails, triangular with biological propellers at each corner. Brilliant, electric-blue worms or snakes, each seventy feet long, swimming in wild schools. A bizarre creature that rose and fell through the water by blowing air into a bladder so thin it was almost transparent. A wonderful sort of fish in the shape of a screw that rotated its way through the water.

 And these creatures weren't scattered here and there, but everywhere. The Leeran ocean was a madhouse of life-forms.

 Spread around across the ocean were bubbling chimneys of rock and soil, encrusted with squirming, writhing creatures, small and less small. My shark senses could feel the electrical discharge from these chimneys, and the intense warmth. As I watched, a massive school of the brilliant blue worms came swirling around one of the chimneys. It swirled and my shark senses could feel the energy flow from the chimney into the worms.”

There would still be fucking predators u nits

“They were mostly yellow. They had skin that was slimy, as if covered with ooze, yet rough in texture, like gravel. They had large, webbed back legs. For arms they had four tentacles arrayed around their plump, barrel-shaped bodies.  The head was quite large, with a bulge at the back. It sat right on the shoulders. There was no neck. The face bulged outward and seemed to have just two features. A huge, wide, almost ridiculous mouth. And big, bulging eyes of a green that seemed almost to be lit from inside.

 There were four Leerans. They were riding on water jets. The water jets were long, narrow tubes, flared in front to make a sort of wing, flared again in back to give extra

maneuverability. Arrayed along the back wing were clusters of very narrow tubes pointed forward.”

Leerans

The crew free some leerans (granted they were going to kill them) b/c the leerans showed them how to get the yeerks out of them

The team morph leerans and are uncomfortable with knowing eachother’s thoughts

Oh what normal space ships arent good enough for crushing ocean pressures now? Gotta have actual submarines?

A lot of these high ranking andalites are quick to yelling and threats of violence aint they

That is a very iffy plan not the least being the yeerks with their mostly terrestrial shock troops would have likely set up camp there anyway it seems. But if u wanna throw away lives who cares

Marco vanished

Talking to scientists and shit

Actually Jake, if all of you vanish b4 u carry out the mission it will be too late for a back up

A world with no predators my ass

Cassie vanishes

Ah, so yeah bats aint flying with torn to shit wings. They’s ded

Jake vanished

How exactly did the andalites get the shit in there in the first place?

Hah, the hork hosts have rocket boosters

Aximili is saved by vanishing

So why were they snapped back in mosquito morph and not just flund full force back into their real bodies

And why snap them all back to the same moment and not staggared into different moments in time

How the fuck did this man feel a damn mosquito bite? A notible aspect of mosquitoes as that we don’t really feel them biting

Genral yeerk panicking over management

End with scene at mall

[ronweasleydefensesquad]

Personal headcanon/rant: of magical prowess and bashing

You know all these fanfics where you have Super!Harry with a bunch of superpowers or Hermione creating spells that Merlin himself wouldn’t be able to dream about? And how, oddly, Ron is pretty much always left out of the loop when it comes to the Powerful!fanfic bunch, because people would rather have a spoiled brat of a Death Eater or an asshole teacher be übermensch?

We know Snape is a good duelist and has “created” spells (unless he simply dug them out of a library somewhere), but he’s got twenty years of experience along with some skirmishes he must have gone through with his fellow DEs. We know Hermione’s good at spellcasting but that she also studies heavily, and that she has trouble with spells that are not entirely theoretical (the Patronus). Harry doesn’t study as much as Hermione does and is not that great at magic; the only spells he can to cast without any problem are the Patronus, Expelliarmus and Stupefy. As for Malfoy… He does Serpensortia once and then we never see him fight again because he’s a big coward. No super-strong magic here.

So why am I complaining about stupid fanfiction that makes characters who have no superior magical prowess whatsoever into the new Merlins of the world?

First, because they always leave Ron out.

Second, because if there’s one wizard in the Potterverse, apart from Voldemort and Dumbledore, who deserves to be given attention about his magic powers, it’s Ron.

Windschild8178 (some of you Ron-lovers might recognize them as the author of the excellent fanfic Stay Standing on FFN) is writing a few Ron-centric stories right now and has written an extremely good author’s note on their story The Boogeyman, a rant about all of the hidden potential Ron’s character presents, and how it gets ignored by pretty much all the HP fandom. I recommend you read it because it’s pretty much as if they took the very soul of Ron-lovers and put it into words.

And now, on to my own, much bigger, much less organized personal rant.

I’ve always had the feeling that Ron was the most magically gifted/powerful of the trio. His so-called “averageness” is very much a lie. His magic is fuelled by his emotions and as such becomes even stronger. This headcanon of mine is founded in several actual canon happenings that we can observe throughout the series (in the books only. Come on, dearest Stevie giving credit to Ron? Now there’s a laugh).

Not only does Ron react very strongly to external magic (the Veelas, Crouch Jr’s Imperius Curse leaves him skipping steps for more than twenty minutes after he’s been freed from it, he notices the locket’s “pulse” whereas Harry only vaguely feels it, he has the very correct feeling that Voldy’s name shouldn’t be said out loud), he also demonstrates great abilities when he gets serious. … and when he doesn’t, as well.

I mean, the class genius masters Wingardium Leviosa and makes her feather levitate 20 inches. Great, fine. Four hours later, the the kid who couldn’t do just that casts Wingardium Leviosa and makes a shit heavy club outright fly 12 feet off the ground!! And nobody thinks that this is slightly impressive?! Hermione states “Ron knocked it out with its own club” and no teacher raises an eyebrow? It’s like Ron is actively ignored by pretty much everyone besides Harry and Hermione.

Second year, Hermione herself tells us that the slug-belching charm is a spell that’s hard to cast, and it’s even worse with a broken wand. Guess who casts it, NONVERBALLY, with a broken wand? Ronniekins, that’s who! Percy was barely learning how to cast nonverbal spells at the time! Oh, oh, and you know what’s even more impressive? Ron’s wand was broken, but it wasn’t even his own wand! It was Charlie’s! Ollivander tells us that a good wizard can do magic with anyone’s wand but it’s easier with their own wand. Basically: holy shit, Ron!

Ron’s crazy magic settles down a bit during PoA and GoF, or at least I can’t remember any instance where JKR describes something unexpected happening concerning him.

However, we then have OoTP, and this time our beloved redhead’s quite in shape. For example, during his Charms O.W.L., it’s said that he transformed a plate into a toadstool/mushroom without knowing how he did it. A wooden plate… into a toadstool… a toadstool, which can actually be considered as… food.

HOLY SHIT RON JUST BROKE GAMP’S LAW OF ELEMENTAL TRANSFIGURATION.

Yeah yeah it was a throwaway joke and JKR created Gamp’s Law in the seventh book so she could justify why the trio was able to starve during the Camping Trip Of Pointlessness™, but she should have known better, or actually establish Gamp’s Law earlier on in the series (after all, they turn pincushions into headgehogs at some point in the earlier years, who’s to say you can’t eat a hedgehog?). And some people might say “but nooo its not food if its a poisoned toadstoool ron is not good at megic bcuz hurmion is bettur, ur full of lies” well guess what, in order to be poisoned you actually have to eat, meaning chew, swallow and digest - or rather fail to digest - the poisonous thing. BAM. IT’S CANON. RON BROKE GAMP’S LAW OF ELEMENTAL TRANSFIGURATION. (And JKR has the freaking gall to give him the same results as Harry only slightly less better. Can you feel her prejudice against her own character?) And that’s not all he does in fifth year!

At the Department of Mysteries, Luna tells us that she, Ron and Ginny fled from four Death Eaters that followed them into a room full of planets. Four Death Eaters. One breaks Ginny’s ankle and Luna blasts him with Pluto. Then they collect Ron, who got cursed by “them” and is acting all loopy and run back to Harry. … what about the three Death Eaters unaccounted for in the planet room? Well apparently Ron fought all three of them, got cursed by at least two, and still won, considering no DEs are chasing after Luna and her group. All hail the King.

In HBP, finally, we’ve got that time where Ron broke up with Lavender and was feeling so guilty, he was simply waving his wand around and… and it starts snowing. INSIDE HOGWARTS. He’s making it snow. INSIDE HOGWARTS. No incantation, no spell, nothing, just “I feel like I’m a coldhearted bastard” and suddenly it’s snowing INSIDE HOGWARTS.

And of course we can’t forget how Voldemort casts a Silencing Spell over the people of Hogwarts, holding his Elder Wand, saying Harry died like an idiot, only for Ronald Weasley, official best friend and badass extraordinaire, to scream AT VOLDEMORT “HE BEAT YOU!” and the charm, the super-powerful, cast-by-Voldemort-and-the-Elder-Wand Charm BREAKS. He wasn’t even using a wand, he wasn’t even saying an incantation, Ronald Weasley, through the simple power of his rage and grief, freaking breaks a silencing charm made by VOLDE-FREAKING-MORT AKA THE GUY THAT COULD HOLD HIS OWN AGAINST DUMBLEDORE.

So that’s well and good but if Ron was so talented, why didn’t he put his magical power to a use, the Ron-lover asks curiously and the Ron-basher sneers contemptuously?

The answer’s simple: 1) blame JKR for getting prejudiced against her own character as she was writing her series; 2) his perpetual negative billions self-esteem that could have been solved had any of his friends bothered paying a little attention to him.

One of the reasons why I’m so hostile to Ron-bashing is because these people look down at someone who already considers himself to be less than worthless… and then they proceed to dig him even deeper. That’s manipulative, abusive, borderline psychopathic behaviour. They do exactly what Draco Malfoy does with Weasley is our King in the first place: they kick people when they’re already down. They act like Snape acted towards Neville Longbottom (you know, the kid whose biggest fear would have been Bellatrix Lestrange had she not been hijacked by a teacher who delighted in belittling him and tormenting him?).

Ron’s the kind of person who needs reassurance to function. He needs affection and nice things said about him. Some people might think it’s pathetic but we all know better. Who doesn’t like to have nice things said about them, and to them? Wanting to be praised, to be appreciated, to be told he’s doing things right for a change, that was everything Ron Weasley needed to blossom, and that’s everything he’s denied for the whole freaking series.

Do you know what Weasley is our King is? If you’ve seen only the movies then no you don’t, and then you have no right to bash Ron. Because this song, this anthem to Ron’s glory used to be a song used to humiliate him so much, he wouldn’t be able to play Quidditch.

Picture it. Draco Malfoy. Sitting down at a table. Thinking “how can I make Ron’s self-esteem take such a nose-dive he’ll be literally paralyzed and unable to play?”. Picture Draco Malfoy actively looking for Ron’s greatest insecurities and fears of inadequacy. Picture Draco Malfoy writing a song about them and teaching it to every Slytherin in the school.

And then try to sell me Draco Malfoy the redeemed little angel, The Boy Who Made The Wrong Choice(s). See me spit right in your face because I refuse to praise an arrogant, bigoted, spiteful little bully, and you should too. He’s not so bad anymore, yes. But do you even begin to understand how Ron must have felt during this school year? How he was probably flushing in humiliation any time he saw something related to Quidditch? How he would have blamed himself for Harry and his brothers’ ban from Quidditch because he thought it was his fault for letting Malfoy get to him? How Harry never, not even once, tries to reassure him? Hermione might try but what does Hermione know about Quidditch? Ron being utterly alone and ashamed and filled with self-loathing? Hm? How’s that for sweet little Draco Malfoy who’s never been bullied and tormented by anyone, ever?

Draco wasn’t irredeemable when he joined the Death Eaters. He was irredeemable as soon as he opened his mouth to say that all Weasleys had red hair, freckles and more children than they could afford. Because while JKR “loathes a traitor”, I loath a bully. I’ve been bullied. I’ve seen people shipping characters with their bullies. I’ve seen people call such relationships as being those of “star-crossed lovers”. I’ve hated these with all my soul. Because being bullied is not romantic, nor is it cool or cute. It’s freaking awful, it’ll make you miserable, cause you to lose your friends, turn your life into a living hell.

Weasley is our King is a metaphor for harrassment and school bullying. It’s basically what a (blessedly) few teenagers have to go through during their school years. Do you know what usually happens to these teenagers? Suicide.

And the worst part? JKR herself partakes in it. JKR herself bullies her character. Do you know what happens after the triumphant reprise of Weasley is our King is sung for the very first time, when Ron saves all these goals, when he shows how incredible he can be, how good he is despite all the mockeries he’s had to endure during all of his fifth year that we didn’t see because it was All About Harry™ as usual? After Ron has finally triumphed and “proved” he was good enough to the entire school?

She has him bump his head on the door’s lintel.

Because being humiliated for an entire school year then proving your abusers they’re wrong without being ridiculed isn’t allowed when your author is named J.K. Rowling and you’re Ron Weasley.

I went on several topics there; Ron’s obvious magical prowess, how he could have used said magical prowess had JKR not restrained him with extra-heavy plot chains, and the disgusting prejudice there is against a kind-hearted character who happens to have a few faults while the bigoted bully next door gets a get-out-of-jail-free card, all by the will of an author who apparently had a nice long discussion with Steve Kloves in-between PoA and GoF to prepare the first movie adaptation of Harry Potter… and we all know how this ends.

That was my little… *looks at slider* … enormous rant on Ron, magic, and bullying. Hope I didn’t bore you that much. Cheers, Ron-lovers!

[rarestereocats]

Come morning after we've acquired horses and crests,  we set off on our week's long journey to the region of Kalcuer to visit the city of Phoenix Down.  Lord Crows words that warned us against making fools of ourselves while on official business for him is ringing through all of our minds,  but given how long the trip is,  it's no surprise that it's pushed to the back of our minds.  We get off to a great start when we reach a cobblestone road and Torik wants to activate his strange,  dwarven powers to learn the stone's history...by licking it.  A few guards patrolling the area pass us by and give us concerned looks,  but Sam flashes his crest and simply tells them this is official business.  They don't question us,  even though they really should,  and as we get back onto the road and night falls;  we camp out deep within the forests.

Probably a bad move considering everything goes wrong for us in forests lately,  but everything seems calm and still for the time being.  As Sam cooks us up dinner,  two curious wolves approach the camp to watch us all.  Beldroth,  being a firm animal lover,  immediately goes to befriend them despite me and Sam warning him to avoid petting any dogs in the forest after our werewolf encounter.  But he doesn't listen,  offering one of the venison steaks to the wolves,  and just as expected;  they aren't the friendly sort at all.  As one goes to bite at him,  the wolves grin as their bones start to crack and they shift into ghoulish forms and Torik knows that they're a type of shapeshifting fiend.  While we manage to kill one of them,  the other turns invisible and off it goes,  after it inflicts something on Beldroth that's making him have a bad acid trip and fearing poison ivy that he thinks is chasing him.

He himself manages to slay a single blade of grass and fearing he sees something we don't,  Torik and Sam both attack that spot in case the fiend is there.  But Beldroth panics,  thinking they're a part of the poison ivy brigade and goes to jump in a tree to escape.  Unfortunately,  he loses his footing almost immediately and falls,  and with me still being in rage mode,  I assume the fiend's up there and start swinging on the tree.  It's a beautiful display of our stupidity as the fiend had trotted off minutes ago and was nowhere to be found.  As we all look around to be absolutely sure we're safe for the night,  Torik finds himself a very evil candle (trust me,  I know cuz I insight checked the fuck out of it) and some sand.  Upon leading us to the spot he found it,  there's no tracks or signs of recent activity,  but beneath the sand is a slip of paper with an hourglass rune on it  While most of us don't know a thing,  Sam knows that it could be associated with the sands of time.  Beyond that,  we're not sure.

Whatever afflicted Beldroth during the battle still lingers as in the morning,  he wakes up to silence.  We try and talk to him,  but it doesn't seem like he's hearing anything,  and upon inspection;  it appears our friend is deaf.  That'll make our trip a lot more precarious considering we need those elven ears to hear danger before it approaches,  but we'll have to make do.  The next leg of our trip is surprisingly uneventful,  even when we all pass by the foothills of our former homes in the Frostwither Mountains.  After another two days and nights,  Beldroth is still deaf but because of the lack of distractions,  he's crafting the world's most beautiful map of a road that's been mapped a hundred times before.  We get flagged down by a poor human bard who's standing around with nothing but his underwear,  lute,  and fuzzy memories of what happened to him the night before.

We interrogate him,  learning he's from a small town up the road a ways and had some drinks with a nice looking group of travelers who came through the other day.  But beyond that,  he can't remember.  Norton,  as he introduces himself as,  just needs a ride back to his town so he can find his clothes and figure out what the hell happened to him.  So we gladly give him a ride,  provided he plays us some songs.  Once we drop him off and part ways,  it's back to the final leg of our journey and after a few more days,  we can finally see the farmlands of Phoenix Down and a shimmering river that cuts through the area.

The city itself is walled off and five spires tower over the rest of it.  With a flash of our crests and explaining what we're here to do,  the guards let us in without any issue.  You guys remember what Lord Crows told us before we left Fragifell?  Hell,  neither can we and as we make our way to the palace to complete our task,  things take a turn for the worse.  Even after flashing our crests to the palace guards,  they're all understandably paranoid...as Lord Crows had told us too.  But rather than be understanding of their paranoia,  the minute they start shit talking Lord Bros,  best boy who got me a pair of fucking manacles;  we've had enough and Sam grabs the birthday package and flies right over the guards.  Not the best move as they turn on their heels to apprehend him,  but he makes a break for the palace and Torik follows to help him out.  Cue Grand Theft Auto police chase as Sam manages to get inside while the rest of us are arrested,  and he soon joins us as the guards "gently" convince him to come down from flying with some crossbows.

Our weapons,  crests,  and the package are confiscated and we're thrown into prison where we meet a strange man by the name of Hailen.  He's got red hair,  a red eye,  an eyepatch,  and 11 different voices in his head which he has no problem communicating with in front of us.  His presence is a little unnerving,  but after a few hours,  some guards kindly step in to throw a bag over his head and whisk him away to god knows where and eventually,  the lord's steward of this city arrives to get us out of jail.  Lord Crows,  the absolute brotato chip that he is,  has bailed us out...but on one condition.  We have to do a year's worth of community service.  But the steward has another task for us.  Find an artifact that has gone missing from the royal archives and was allegedly stolen away by a tiefling thief that goes by the name of Bluebird.  We agree to this task reluctantly and he tells us to ask the archivist,  Sanctity,  for more information.

Upon entering the royal archives,  we get a chance to meet Prince Zuhur,  who isn't mad at us when he finds out we're the assholes who put his entire castle in a state of alarm earlier.  Torik uses magic to craft the prince a dwarven styled crown and Zuhur is impressed with it,  immediately putting it on before he excuses himself.  We turn our attention to the tiefling in the room,  who turns out to be Sanctity,  and she gives us information on the artifact.  It turns out it's the All-Seeing Eye that Beldroth's been searching for all these years,  the one his people want back very badly and his ticket to getting into the elven council.  Sanctity doesn't seem all that pleased by that as she wants it back for the archives,  but she says if we retrieve it,  she'll try and work out a deal with her people to let Beldroth hold onto it.  She tells us if it's Bluebird we're after,  the best place to ask around would be the sewers beneath the city.  There's all manner of people hiding out and living down there,  so surely somebody's seen them.

We then show her the rune Torik found and she says it's associated with a demon lord,  but rather than be as concerned about that as we are,  she steers us back into finding the artifact and agrees to gather up information for us on this demon lord while we're out.  With that,  we're led out of the palace,  given our weapons back,  and part ways for the evening.

[xyliane]

run away with me

summary: the best vacations shouldn’t be the ones taken with your best friend, running for your life because someone saw a problem they had to fix by blowing things up, but that’s how things work out. both gon and killua prefer it this way.

notes: happy killugon day! post-reunion chaos and mayhem and boys being idiots, some years down the line. why yes I did listen to carly rae jepsen the entire time why do you ask, that song is basically perfect. G, killugon, 2300 words.

ao3 link!

—

Killua didn’t expect to be running for his life when he woke up this morning. He’s on vacation, after all—vacation in a forest in the middle of nowhere, sure, but this is not the sort of place that leads to the thought “I am going to die today!” It’s an idyllic sort of forest, with lush green leaves the size of Killua’s hand on trees the size of skyscrapers, the forest floor covered with dense underbrush and vines crawling up and around trunks so wide Killua could build an entire house inside and still have room for a garden. The few clearings they’ve found are swampy grounds full of flowers in every color imaginable, including some that even Gon didn’t recognize—which he carefully cataloged for Spinner, in case she and her friends ever wanted to make it up this way, before tucking an orange one into Killua’s white hair and ignoring the screams of mosquitoes in their ears.

It’s not the sort of place that exactly screams romantic getaway, but Gon and Killua aren’t the sort of people who really need that sort of thing.

It’s also not the sort of place that’s supposed to have militant lumberjacks hellbent on chopping down the forest, who don’t take very kindly to vacationing Hunters stumbling into their camp and destroying their operations because someone thinks it’s bad for the animals. But the day has been full of surprises.

Surprises like the sound of a whirling buzzsaw headed at Killua’s face, thrown at nen-reinforced speeds too fast to actually see. He throws himself to the ground on instinct, a little crackle of electricity in his own aura that reminds him he hasn’t charged since they left the train station at the start of the week. High above him hanging from a branch by his ankles, Gon cackles gleefully, swinging to and fro like a spiky haired monkey. “Are you okay, Killua?”

“Shut the hell up, Gon!” Killua bellows. He has to roll as soon as the words are out of his mouth, only narrowly avoiding an ax as it spins past his shoulder and embeds itself a foot deep into the tree trunk. He hefts a stone, imbuing it with ren and more than enough electricity to knock out an elephant, and tosses it back in the direction of the shouts. The resulting boom and sound of bodies flying into trees makes him grin.

His best friend flips upwards, having easily avoided all of the blades, staves, and various other woodcutting tools thrown towards them from a hundred meters back. The lumberjacks learned early to keep their distance, although Killua probably can’t pull off another eruption of lightning like he did before and Gon only has so many of those big punches in him. “You know, this was your idea,” Gon says conversationally, like they’re not at risk of being horribly murdered.

Killua takes advantage of the brief lull of sharp things being thrown at him to leap up to where Gon is, hoping the shadows will cover them both for long enough to sketch out a plan of where to go next. Gon offers him a hand up, unneeded but no less appreciated. “I wanted a vacation!” Killua says. “Ikalgo never said anything about the forest being infested with assholes.”

Gon levels him with an incredulous look. “You let Ikalgo suggest a romantic getaway?”

“Fun, not romantic. Shit, Gon.” The thought makes Killua pause, and he tries to calm the worries that flood his head. “Would you rather have gone somewhere more…I don’t know, coupley?”

Gon looks like he’s mulling this over, willfully oblivious of the imminent death by lumberjack. “I guess the flowers were pretty nice. And the waterfall yesterday, that was cool!”

“The waterfall we only went over because you trashed these asshole’s camp.”

Gon smiles, a bright flash of white teeth that is entirely too innocent. “You helped! I never could have gotten all of their equipment fried like that, not even with my strongest punch.”

“I can’t let you have all the fun,” Killua says, and Gon’s grin widens, because it has been fun, in a weird sort of way that is absolutely and entirely them. “You have any idea how to get out of here?”

“Nope!” he says like it’s the greatest thing in the world to be stuck up a tree with murderous nen-using lumberjacks after him. And maybe it is, because he’s stuck up a tree with Gon. “You?”

“Yeah, maybe if we head southeast from here, I think the map Ikalgo gave us—” a map that had been lost along with most of their gear by going over the waterfall to escape the murderous lumberjacks “—said there’s a river that leads back to town. If we get there, we can lose those assholes, or lure them into a trap.”

Gon hums in acknowledgment, peering back down towards the forest floor. Far away, a bird call rings off the side of the mountains, echoing oddly despite the chaos-filled forest. It’s…weird. Too weird. Like all of their pursuers had mysteriously vanished. Or stopped. Or been stopped.

Gon notices, too. “Hey, Killua. You think it’s a little too quiet?”

“The lumberjacks scared off most of the wildlife,” Killua says. But there hasn’t been any noise since Killua relocated to the tree, a half-deafening silence compared to the chaotic mess they’d been running through until now. There’s a hundred reasons why that could happen, ranging from “got bored chasing a pair of Hunters” to “fell in a giant pit.” Killua hopes it’s more the latter, and that there were spikes at the bottom of the pit.

Whatever the reason, it’s the gap they need to get the hell out of here. “We should go while we can,” he says. Gon opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but is stopped by the sound of splitting trunks and a thump like a two-ton boulder crashing through the forest. The lumberjacks begin bellowing again, this time with a noticeable tinge of terror.

“What—”

An enormous lizard monster barrels into the clearing behind them, dumping lumberjacks and pieces of hundreds-year-old forest with ever step and leaving a wide open path in its wake. On all fours, its head comes about halfway up the tree Gon and Killua are perched on, pebbled skin rippling with glimmers of gold and green. The lumberjacks, forcibly evicted from their cover in the trees by the force of giant angry beast, desperately scramble to get out of the thing’s way.

It looks up, black eyes shimmering with intelligence, and seems to lick its lips.

Killua gapes. “Great. Now we have a dinosaur trying to kill us, too?”

“That’s not a dinosaur, Killua. It’s a mountainous land moledragon. You don’t see a lot of those! They mostly live in alpine rainforests, and this is kind of out of its ordinary hunting grounds. I wonder if the lumberjacks woke it up.”

Said lumberjacks, no longer attempting to run away from the beast, set to attacking it with everything they’d been attacking Gon and Killua with before, making the dino—the mountainous land moledragon bellow, stomping with all four legs and making the whole forest tremble and leaves flutter down like green flags.

Gon nods. “See, if it were a dinosaur, it would sound more like a really big chicken—”

“I don’t care, Gon! Let’s get out of here before more of them find us.”

“Spinner will really want to know—”

“Running now, dinosaur later!” Killua grabs Gon’s hand and leaps off into the forest, electrifying his aura just enough to speed through the underbrush. If he used any more, he runs the risk of setting the forest on fire or losing Gon, and while his best friend is still pouting at the loss of the giant lizard, Killua’s just glad to get out of there.

“Southeast’s the other way. You sure you know where we’re going?” Gon asks after they’ve been running for long enough that they should have reached the river. Killua’s stopped using kanmuru, relying on his natural speed and Gon’s uncanny ability to find sure footing on the worst ground.

“It is not! We need to be heading towards the mountains.”

“No, it’s the opposite direction of the lake.”

“Why would it be there, we came from—”

The sound of mayhem explodes just behind them, and both Gon and Killua turn to see the moledragon spilling out of the trees, a few terrified lumberjacks barely hanging onto its flanks by what looks to be a makeshift harness made of rope and bits of tree trunks. The rest of the lumberjacks hurtle after them, calling out to their friends and screeching at the Hunters in equal volume. The moledragon snaps at the harness, swallowing two of the lumberjacks whole before they have time to scream.

That’s all it takes before Killua snatches Gon up in his arms and runs. No more time for argument, no worries that maybe Gon might be right this time about where to go. He flies over the forest floor, electricity singing in his hair and Gon’s voice laughing in his ear even as he’s still trying to yell that they’re going the wrong way. But Killua’s running too fast to care, and Gon’s arms are strong and warm around his neck and maybe this is all a vacation is supposed to be, Killua and his best friend and running—

But then the forest runs out way too soon, and Killua screeches to a halt just before he runs them both off a cliff.

The forest stretches out in front of them, nestled in the center of a valley dotted with shimmering lakes and a tiny line where the river curls its way out of the mountains and towards a village, somewhere far away. It’s like the green never ends, a world of its own with its own secrets to hide and its own adventures to make. Wisps of white cloud look almost like cotton candy against the mountains, nearly close enough overhead to touch. Far away, a flock of metallic birds bursts out of the treetops and glimmer in the sunlight as they ascend, too big to be anything Killua recognizes. Gon would probably know.

“I told you southeast was the other way,” Gon says.

Killua drops his best friend into the dirt, smirking when Gon whines from the sudden loss of support. He doesn’t need to be reminded. “We’re on vacation, right? This is supposed to be an adventure.”

Not an adventure that might get them killed, but hey. That’s part of the fun.

It draws a bark of laughter out of Gon, and Killua lets a smile grow on his face. “What do you think we should do?” he asks. “I’m running a little low on electricity, since we’re in the middle of nowhere. And you’re the one who seems to know where we are.”

Gon rolls his eyes, still lying prone on the ground. “I don’t know where we are, Killua. I know where we should be.”

Killua prods him with the toe of a shoe, right in the ticklish part. Gon squirms away at the last minute. “So where should we be, dumbass?”

Gon fidgets a little more, standing so he gets a better look at the forest below. “Wow, we’re really high up,” he mutters, and Killua elbows him because that is not helping. “Hey, Killua, I think that’s the clearing with Spinner’s flowers!”

Which is nowhere near where they need to go, and is actually useless right now when Killua can hear the sound of forest breaking and people screaming coming closer and closer. “And?” he demands.

“And—” Gon points out towards the river, his finger drifting away from the mountains and downhill “—we found what we’re looking for.”

“But how do we get there from here?”

Gon shrugs, a gleam in his eye that spells nothing but trouble. “We can go back through the forest with the moledragon. Or climb down from here? Maybe there’s a path…”

“How about I throw you off the cliff, and I’ll come up with a better plan for myself.”

“That’s no fair—”

The moledragon and the lumberjacks finally catch up with them, the former looking pleasantly well-fed as it crashes through the side of the clearing. There appear to be far less lumberjacks than there had been yesterday, and they definitely did not recently fall into a hole. They spill out of the clearing opposite the moledragon, trying to keep as much distance as possible between themselves and the beast while also cornering the pair of Hunters.

Serves them right, since they were trying to destroy the forest. Not that the moledragon is helping preserve the ecosystem, but this is its home. Judging by the vicious grin on his face, Gon’s ecstatic at this turn of events.

Gon glances between their opponents, sizing them up like he’s reading to fight them all. He probably would, if Killua asked. And he might even win, if Killua helped. “Do you have any plans, Killua?”

He makes a show of tapping a finger to his lips like he’s thinking. The head lumberjack growls, a noise echoed the moledragon. “I’m a little busy now, but I’m free tonight.”

Gon laughs. “Killua!”

“I’m serious! It’s been too long since we went somewhere normal. Let’s get ice cream. You’re buying.”

“No way. It’s your fault we got into this,” Gon says.

“It’s just as much yours. Just like everything.” He grabs Gon’s hand, lacing their fingers together so they’re palm to palm. Gon’s smile deepens, his eyes dancing in the sun.

The lumberjacks are still yelling something about intestines, or viscera, or what they’re planning on doing as soon as they get their hands on the wayward Hunters. The moledragon cocks its head at the humans, evidently trying to pick out which morsel it wants to devour first. And beneath Killua’s back foot, the edge of the cliff begins to crumble, bits of dirt cascading down…and down…and down…

Killua matches Gon grin for grin, a feeling like lightning making his blood race. “Besides. Even if it is not at all my fault we’re in this mess, I’m getting us out.”

“Yeah?” It’s a dare, a challenge, and a vote of trust all in a syllable, and Killua can’t help but love that. Love Gon.

So he tugs his best friend back towards him, kissing him fiercely. They only have a moment, but Killua relishes how perfectly Gon’s smile fits against his lips. Maybe this is exactly the right sort of vacation for them, after all.

“I definitely am,” Killua says, and throws them both off the cliff.

It’s a long way down. Gon laughs the entire way.

[apicturewithasmile]

LOST rewatch (season 3):

[follow the entire rewatch-tag here]

episode 1 – A Tale of Two Cities:

Time for Dooooowntooooown!!!

“So I guess I’m out of the book club.”

Aaaah it’s THAT Jack flashback episode aka the lowest he’s ever been aka

It’s not that Matthew Fox is a bad actor… it’s just that everyone else on the show is better than him. It becomes even more apparent with the presence of Michael “I single-handedly invented acting” Emerson being around there to stay now.

Sawyer solving the bear cage puzzle is so cute I wanna hug him.

episode 2 – The Glass Ballerina:

Awwww yaaaaas Ben’s round glasses jkdgnidfgnoidsfg

It always baffles me how long it takes for the credits to finish. Going on minute 8 of this episode and they still rolling.

It’s Sally Slingshot

Only Ben Linus can use a camping chair as a dramatic prop

“My name is Benjamin Linus and I’ve lived on this island all my life.”

episode 3 – Further Instructions:

John being speechless after seeing naked Desmond running through the jungle – #same

Wait… is that the sweat lodge episode? If so it means sweaty topless Terry O’Quinn and my body is absolutely and 100% ready!!!

Charlie just made the same “you don’t call, you don’t write” joke on John that he already pulled on Eko

It’s probably the only totally… useless John flashback. Like… we don’t really learn anything about his character that we didn’t already know. I still enjoy every second of John screentime we get but… I wish they had used this one for something else.

“amendable for coercion” is probably what Ben has written in John’s file as well

episode 4 – Every Man For Himself:

Oh shut up Charlie, you jealous ass.

It’s the episode in which Ben knocks Sawyer out with his phallic baton.

“the big kahuna”

First time appearance of the true star of the show: bunny #8

I love that of all the characters on the show, Sawyer’s the one who reads every book he can get his hands on.

Murder cactus hair!!!

Ben’s Bunny Bag™!!!

episode 5 – The Cost of Living:

Sexy linen outfit, Ben! Love the abundance of chest hair!

“Do you believe in God, Jack?” – “Do you?” – “Two days after I found out I had a fatal tumour on my spine a spinal surgeon fall out of the sky, and if that’s not proof of God then I don’t know what is.”

“I guess he’ll be expecting us.”

episode 6 – I Do:

Yet another bad wig for Evangeline Lilly

Random Nathan Fillion

I love the cage frickle frackle scene

Nice psychological warfare, Benjamin fucking Linus!

episode 7 – Not In Portland:

 I love Juliet’s curly hair <3

“I’m Tom btw.” – nice timing, Tom!

RICHARD ALPERT!!!

Ben just lying there, chilling with his back cut open… getting some fresh air on that spine.

There it is: Angel Hair Pasta story 2.0

“I wanna know what he said. You owe me an answer.” Good God what is it with Jack and this overly possessive behaviour? Why does he always have to know everything about the women in his life?!?!?! That’s not healthy, Jack!

episode 8 – Flashes Before Your Eyes:

More Desmond, hell yes!

istg that blue semi-unbuttoned shirt is such an iconic look for Desmond and it’s also hot as fuck

OF COURSE Charlie is playing Wonderwall

episode 9 – Stranger In A Strange Land:

The worst episode yet it gives us topless Benjamin Linus.

Seriously, I have hardly anything else to say about this one.

“Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired, Jack.”

Good fucking God, Jack you entitled self-righteous asshole!

episode 10 – Tricia Tanaka Is Dead:

Roger Workman!

Where’s Sayid btw?!??!?! Haven’t seen him in a while!

Aaaah there he is my bebe Sayid!!!

“SHUT UP! Red…. Neck… Man….”

episode 11 – Enter 77:

It’s the Mikhail Bakunin episode!!!

Oh wait…. Is that a Sayid episode? The one with the cat that I had completely forgotten about until now?!?!?!

I loves Sayid’s flashback hair in this episode.

NOT EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY, JOHN!!!

Oh John, what is it with you and beeping computers?

episode 12 – Par Avion:

“Remind me why we’re keeping him alive?” – “What do you suggest? We shoot him like a dog?” – “No. I like dogs.”

I love you, Danielle!

“The John Locke I know was…” nice time travel foreshadowing

Claire’s aunt is such an asshole!

John throwing Mikhail through the sonic fence is my jam!

DADDY SHEPHARD!

Okay but… if you can just go over the fence? Then why does Smokey not just… fly over it?!

episode 13 – The Man From Tallahassee:

OH NO NOT THAT EPISODE!!! Right in the feels!!!

John finally reunited with his future island husband.

The bedroom scene! Yassss!!!

“The man from Tallahassee? What is that, some kind of code?” – “No, John, unfortunately we don’t have a code for: there’s a man in my closet with a gun to my daughter’s head. Although we obviously should.” FUCK YAAAAS!!!!

“I know you, John Locke. […] Tell me John, did it hurt?” – “I felt my back break. What do you think?”

I like Tom Friendly – he really lives up to his name.

I can’t believe that Jack – the only doctor the survivors have – wants to leave the island all because Kate fucked Sawyer. Sounds like something a guy would do who’d detonate a hydrogen bomb because his girlfriend left him.

Ben and John out-sassing and manipulating each other is foreplay tbh.

“I was born on this island…” LIAR!

THE MAGIC BOX!!!! Fgnidgnidflsgnlkdd FUUUUUCK!!!! SHIT’S GETTING REAL!!!

Also a very rare occasion in which Ben’s beautiful face has no wounds, scratches, bruises…

You can see I adore this episode by how much I have to say about it even if it’s just a ramble of feels

And now it’s bondage John!

“And then you came striding out of the jungle, John, to make my dream come true.”

episode 14 – Expose:

Wow… I can’t believe I’m already that far down into my rewatch.

Unpopular opinion: I actually love Expose. It’s so… useless and dorky that it’s amazing!

“I’m just a guest star and we all know what happens to guest stars.”

It’s Boone and Shannon *cries forever*

I can’t believe someone called Maggie Grace and told her “hey, we know you got totally screwed over and we killed your character before you could have any substantial character development but… we need you back for an episode, you gotta scream your fucking lungs out of your body once more!”

Seriously…. This is the creepiest death on the whole show.

episode 15 – Left Behind:

Hahahaha it’s the one where Hurley tricks Sawyer into being nice

I loooove Cassidy and I love they mirrored this flashback with the Kate-and-Juliet-are-handcuffed-together episode

“My name is Kate.”

episode 16 – One Of Us:

It’s the one where Ben is very very creepy

That’s probably the only episode in which I can somehow understand the people who dislike Ben…. But I still love my dear rat boy!

episode 17 – Catch 22:

Ooowwww I love Desmond episodes

Oh Kate…why?!?!

I deadass forgot the whole freighter plot, like… I knew Miles & Co. where about to appear but I forgot how this whole thing started

episode 18 – D.O.C.:

Jin’s the only one who has a nice dad and a terrible mother

Also I just typed “John” instead of “Jin” which makes me wonder: where’s my bald jungle baby?

Aaaah first mention of fake 815

episode 19 – The Brig:

Fuuuuuck I’M NOT READY!!!

They made me miss my dear John for two (three?) entire episodes only to come back with this to totally rip my heart out

The “previously on” bit already wrecks me

IT’S THE PINS AND NEEDLES SCENE!!! Also known as: Ben tries this “flirting” all the cool kids are talking about.

Terry’s looking hot as fuck in that entire episode

Ben knocking out Anthony Cooper with his walking stick is my aesthetic.

Danielle causally poppin by to get some dynamite

“little hot for heaven, isn’t it?” – I would looooove this whole red herring if it weren’t for the “they were dead the whole time”-crowd

God that Anthony Cooper = The OG Mister Sawyer reveal is AMAZING!

“I thought I was special.” – “Well, everyone makes mistakes.”

Yes, James, KILL THAT ASSHOLE!!!

“I’m on my own journey now.”

episode 20 – The Man Behind The Curtain:

My precious Carrie Preston!

Uncle Horace

“Call him Benjamin.”

“You are the man behind the curtain – the wizard of Oz. And you’re a liar.”

Namaste!

Sterling Beaumon was the best casting choice for baby Ben!!!

Mikhail Bakunin still running like the devil’s chasing him (literally, kinda, considering Smokey revived him.)

John: [Ben] and I are going to see Jacob. – Everyone else: Wuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Ben really has a history of very shitty birthdays.

And this is making me very emotional because it reminds me of the “video of tears and pain” which makes me wanna cry my fucking soul out.

“Kinda hard to celebrate on the day you killed you mom.” Oh fuck off, Roger.

Ben’s Bunny Bag™ back in action

“I don’t wanna go back there. I hate it there.”

The way Richard talks to baby Ben is soooo similar to the way Ben talks to John I’m gonna scream!!!

Okay but this is no kiddon the best episode of this entire show so far. Like… Nothing that happened up until this point compares to this!!!

I FORGOT ABOUT BEN SPEAKING TO AN EMPTY CHAIR!!!!

Still baffles me they thought they could slap some fake hair and make-up on Emerson’s face and make him look like a 20yo – when he was already older than Ben is in our now-timeline… like… was there no 20yo actor with a big nose and bug eyes around?!?!

“Goodbye, Dad!”

“The Dharma Initiative. They came here seeking harmony, but they couldn't even coexist with the Island's original inhabitants. And when it became clear that one side had to go, one side had to be purged, I did what I had to do. I was one of the people that was smart enough to make sure that I didn't end up in that ditch, which makes me considerably smarter than you, John.”

John Locke seriously bringing a knife to a gun fight!

alright kiddos, I am #fucked up now.

episode 21 – Greatest Hits:

How many episodes actually start with someone running through the jungle?

Danielle just showing up to blow something up!

According to Jack this is day 90? So it takes another 18 days for them to actually get off the island at that point?!?! Wow.

Guess that’s the end of bunny #8

episodes 22 & 23 – Through the Looking Glass:

OH MY GOD IT’S THE FIRST FLASH FORWARD!!!

“WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KATE!!!!”

“I’m a dentist. I am not Rambo.” – I love these two so much!!

Can you believe they thought it was a good idea to give Ben round glasses that make his eyes look even bigger than they already are? He looks like straight out of a manga.

There really is a lot of fatphobia in this episode.

It’s taller ghost Walt

ALEX AND DANIELLE MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!! WELP!!!

Ben letting himself be tackled and punched by Jack is such a power move. I am 100% convinced he let it happen on purpose because it’s already canon that he can easily knock out friggin Sawyer!!!

NOT PENNY’S BOAT

From Ben’s perspective this is once again John “striding out of that jungle to make my dream come true”

“I don’t wanna shoot you.”

Remember when you watched that finale for the first time and didn’t know all the time it was a flash forward and not a flashback?!?!? And then Kate steps out of that car and you were all like WOOOOAAAAHHHH?!?!?!

Remember when you didn’t know whose funeral they were talking about?!?!?!

That last scene was the first time I found Jack actually likable and relatable!

WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!

[entaraz]

Chapter One (Possibly)

I held her hand as the group of infected lurched by, willing her to not make a sound.

A group of ten infected were passing by our hiding place, every moment felt like an eternity. As I held her hand with my left, my right hand held my pistol, waiting for one of the stragglers to somehow notice us inside the dark room that me and my companion were hiding in. This situation would’ve been a lot easier had it just been me on this little excursion, I could handle a group this size and not worry about my safety, but with someone else it was a different story.

              I could feel her shaking with the effort not to panic, not many people know how to handle a situation like this, fortunately for me I tend to get into this situation a lot. I’m Neos by the way, I’m what you would call a procurer of lost technology from before the collapse. Usually I’ll be in a village and I’ll hear a rumor about some ancient piece of tech hiding in the city and I’ll go to collect it. Unfortunately, this time someone else heard the same thing and decided they would try and get it before anyone else would. That’s how the girl next to me, Ashley, and myself got into our current situation.

              As the last of the infected walked by I allowed myself a short breath to calm my nerves and try to think of a way to get out of this situation without causing the death of myself, or my companion. I pushed the door open slowly, wincing as it started squeaking. I stepped out into the dimly lit corridor and pulled Ashley out behind me.

              “Ok, it seems like we might be in the clear for now.” I say in a hushed whisper. The infected might be dead, but their hearing is better than most humans.

              “Are you sure it’s ok to come out, what if there is more of them out there?” Ashley asks in a strained quiet voice, as she stands there, her hand beginning to tighten around mine, more out of fear then anything.

              “Well it’s either we try and get out now, or risk trying to stay here for the next few hours and run the risk of one or more of them deciding that that room might have a snack in it.” As I start pulling her in the opposite direction of the group of zombies we just encountered. “Besides, we really need to get out of the city before it gets much darker, it doesn’t look like your prepared for a night stay here, and I only brought enough supplies for myself.”

              “This was supposed to be an easy job, why does this shit always happen.” She mumbles under her breath as she shakes her head.

              “Is this your first time doing this or something, you don’t look like you’ve done anything like this before and considering your shaking like a leaf I feel like this is your first time actually being around the infected.” I say as I look out the nearest window onto the street below.

              The scene on the street outside would have been the setting for a horror story before the collapse, now it’s just an everyday part of life. The sky is a permanent shade of black, with only a ring of light in the sky showing where the moon blocks the sun. The wreckage of vehicles littered the road with a few of the infected shuffling between the wreckage looking for a meal to eat. Every street in every city around the world looks the same, the infected are the top of the food chain now.

              “We can talk about that after we get out of here, I promise, just for right now can we focus on leaving this building.”

              Whatever I was going to say was interrupted by the door to our left breaking down and one of the infected crashing on top of me. As I fell to the ground with it on my back my gun fell out of my hand and slid across the hallway, disappearing into a dark corner.

              “God damn it!” I shout as I attempt to keep the creature on top of me from ripping my throat out. It’s bright silver eyes somehow managing to look angry at me as it was mashing its teeth together as it tried forcing its way passed my forearm, which I had wedged in its neck.

              If I could just reach the knife on my belt then I could get out of this situation, the problem was my other arm was keeping its other arm from ripping into my torso.

              “Grab my knife and stab it.” I yell towards Ashley who is cowering in the corner, her eyes so wide that I was afraid that they might pop out if she opened them any more then they already were. It was no good, she didn’t seem to register the world at all right now. “Ashley if you don’t move now we’re both going to die!”

              She finally seemed to snap out of it, but instead of coming towards me she reached next to her and pulled what looked like the leg of a desk off the floor and started advancing towards me. She proceeded to smash the leg into the back of the infected which jolted it just enough for me to get one leg under it and kick it off me, sending it flying down the hallway.

              Grabbing Ashley’s hand again I started to lead her down the hallway at a dead sprint. “Just run, don’t look back and run!”

              Reaching the door at the end of the hallway I rip it open and see a staircase on the left, and on the right, I see an emergency fire exit.

              “Take that door, it should lead you outside to a ladder, take it and I’ll meet outside.” I say this as I turn around to see the zombie getting up, it looked around until its gaze fell upon us.

              “What do you mean meet me outside, what are you going to do?” She asks me as I walk to the corner and pick up my pistol, I holster it and draw my knife from my side.

              “I’m going to make sure this asshole doesn’t follow us, you being here is going to make it harder for me to do that, so do what I said and go.” I growl as the zombie starts towards me at a half lurch half run.

              Seeing the zombie almost running towards us seemed to make up here mind as she opened the emergency exit door and ran through. “Don’t you dare die, I promised I’d tell you my story, just don’t die.” With that the door closed with a final sounding thud.

              “Alright, now that it’s just me and you let’s have some fun.” With that I braced myself, grabbing the zombie, using its momentum to propel it over the railing of the staircase. There was a sickening crunch as its body hit the railing on the floor below and then continued downward. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t kill it, but it sure as hell would slow it down. I opened the door and I saw Ashley just standing there.

              “I thought I told you to leave the building.”

              She blushed. “I couldn’t just leave you, what if you got yourself pinned under another zombie again huh, who would save you then?”

              I laughed. “Alright fine, lets just get out of here. This staircase should lead right outside, from there we can make our way out of here and back to my camp in the forest.”

              “What about the ones in the street, aren’t you worried about them.” She said as she nervously glanced out the window, like me she could see the few of them out there.

              “It will be easier to avoid them once we are out in the open.” I start for the stairs, sliding the knife back into its sheath.

              As we both descended the stairs our nerves where on edge, every squeak of the stairs would cause me to hold my breath, every door we passed held the potential for another zombie. I wasn’t the only one who was on edge, Ashley seemed to be on the edge of panic, her eyes nervously flicked from each creaking step as we progressed farther down the stairs along the building. Lucky for us the alley we where in seemed to be devoid of the infected for now, a fact both of us where acutely aware could change in the blink of an eye.

              “How can you remain so calm out here?” Ashley asked in a hushed whisper. She was directly behind me at this point as we finally made it to the bottom of the stairs.

              I turned around. “It’s because I’ve been hiding in this city for a long time, I’m used to life out here. You on the other hand probably live in one of those villages out in the forest, safe behind your walls while people like me go out into this wasteland to find what you people take for granted.” I say barely containing the venom in my voice. People in the little refuges throughout the wilderness have life hard, I’m not saying that, but they live in relative safety with guards on round the clock watch for any signs of the infected. For most of them their biggest issue is if they are going to have enough water for a bath at the end of the day.

              She blushed angrily at that “You Scouts are all the same, you think your all so noble for coming into this city and putting your lives on the line, but you only do it for your own personal gain.” Her voice was starting to get louder, if it got much louder we would have more to deal with then just her urge to hit me.

              I put my hand to her mouth before she could get any louder.

              “If you want to be mad at me for the life I choose fine, you can do what you want, but do it in a way that doesn’t draw the whole damn street towards us. We might be able to make a run for it if the infected start to chase us, but I highly doubt both of us will make it out of here alive. Now if you’d calm down and wait to yell at me until we are in my camp I can focus on getting us out of here.” After a few seconds I removed my hand, if looks could kill I’m pretty sure I’d be a dead man right now.

              Angrily she said. “Fine, but don’t ever think just because I didn’t grow up out here that my life was a cake walk, you have no idea who I am or what I’ve been through.” She said it in such a way I am pretty sure she has a dark past, when we get out of here I really needed to find out her story.

              “Lets just get out of here alright?” I said letting the anger drain from my voice. I was getting tired of this day, and I was running out of the energy to stay mad at a girl that I barely knew. Looking up I noticed the sky was beginning to darken, if we didn’t find shelter we where going to be in more trouble then we already were in. The infected get stronger at night, nobody knows why but they seem to thrive in the almost total darkness of the night. “We need to find somewhere to take shelter for the night, we don’t want to be out here for much longer.”

              “Where exactly do you have in mind? The nearest safe place is miles away.” I could hear the panic starting to rise in her voice. I completely understand, nobody wants to be caught outside the walls of a village if they can’t help it. Thankfully for this situation in my line of work I tend to spend a lot of nights outside the walls.

              “I have a place we can hold up for the night, it’s not much farther. We might have to do a bit of climbing, but better to be a little tired and above the infected.” If she wanted to argue about spending the night in an unknown, potentially dangerous spot, with someone she had only met a few hours ago then she didn’t say anything. She just set her jaw and nodded. I grabbed her hand and began to lead her down the alley towards the street beyond.

              As we approached the end of the alley I began to take scope of the street in front of me. From what I could count there was at least thirty infected either roaming the street or in small groups eating something, I don’t even want to know what it is. I turned to Ashley and held my finger to my lips to tell her to be quiet. If we alert the infected to our presence with this large of a group this close to sundown we would be overran quickly.

              I tightened my grip on her hand and started to sneak through the line of cars, being careful not to trip on any of the debris that covered the ground around us. We were both holding our breaths as we got closer to the edge of the street, I stopped to point up at the second floor of what looks like a small storefront. We needed to make a small jump up the back end of a truck, so we could climb through the window and make it to safety. The only problem was the three infected that were standing there looking aimlessly at the sky.

              I had one of two options, I could shoot them, and we could both make a run for the truck. I was just unsure how easily Ashley would be able to climb the side without my help, and if things went as south as I was assuming they were going to then I wouldn’t be able to help her and hold off the rest of the infected. Plan two was to lead them off in a quieter manner so only a few of them would follow instead of the whole pack. I motioned for Ashley to stay put while I started towards the left, deciding right now that as long as I can distract them long enough for Ashley to make the climb and make it safely into the store, then I could follow behind her and we would be home free for the rest of the night.

              Once I got into a position I thought was safe enough I picked up a good size rock, aimed at the nearest infected, and lobbed it right at its head. Now I figured that it wouldn’t kill it, but it succeeded got its attention as its bright silver eyes looked in my direction it started to lumber towards me. I picked up two more rocks and threw them as quickly as I could at the other two infected and started making my way back to Ashley. At that moment two more infected decided to make their way over to where we are, as I was crossing to the last car one of the two saw me and let out a chilling moan.

              “Run to the truck!” I yelled as I pulled out my pistol and quickly shot to take down the two infected that had snuck up on us. As their bodies fell to the ground I turned to see where the others where and they were already quickly advancing on our positions. Deciding that they were far enough away to warrant me not wasting any more of my ammo, I turned and ran towards Ashley as she was struggling to climb the side of the truck. I grabbed her by the hips and picked her up so she could reach the truck roof and pull herself up.

              As she finished pulling herself up I felt a heavy weight slam into my back, pinning me to the truck. I was getting tired of getting grabbed today. I grabbed onto the frame of the truck, put my foot underneath me and pushed myself back, trying to dislodge the infected from my back. I succeeded in jarring it enough to where I could pull my arm forward and drive my elbow into its eye, causing it to release be as I tried pushing myself again. This time it fell to the ground and I was able to jump up and grab the rim of the truck. As I pulled myself up I felt hands try and grab onto my boots, just barely missing them as my feet cleared the roof.

              I sat there for a moment, my heart pounding as I looked down to see the remainder of the infected gathering around the truck, grasping in vain towards me. After I caught my breath I got up and went towards the window and climbed in. The inside of the room looked just as I left it, with an old sleeping bag in one corner, a pile of food, water and ammo in another, and the last corner contained and shaking girl with tears trailing down her face as she rushed towards me.

              As she crushed me in a hug she said in barely a whisper. “Please don’t do that again, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this without you.” As she sobbed against my shoulder I put my arms around her to comfort her.

              “It’s ok alright? There’s nothing to be worried about anymore.” I began to lead her towards the sleeping bag and sat her down. As I started to take off my boots and remove my gear so I could sleep for the night Ashley was looking at me, her eyes still bright with unspent tears. “If you want I can sleep over there and you can sleep in the sleeping bag, I’m fine with it.”

              She started shaking her head and started to cry again. “No! I don’t want to be alone. With everything that just happened I just need someone with me tonight ok?”

              I didn’t really know how to respond to this, it’s night like with everything I do that I have a beautiful girl that I just met telling me that she wants to sleep together. I understand how she feels though, I’m pretty shaken up right now, having almost died twice tonight, and I’m pretty used to this kind of thing. So as she takes off her shoes I finish taking off my gear and head over to the window to close it and slide a makeshift barricade in the way. When I come back she’s found a blanket to sleep with and I climb into the sleeping bag with her as she covers both of us.

              As we lay there she whispers, “Thank you for saving me. I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.” I reach out to pull her closer, hoping to make her feel safe after the ordeal that she just went through. As she lets out a content sigh and her breathing starts to slow into the steady rhythm of sleep I begin to slowly drift off myself.

              That last thing I think before I slip off to sleep is that my life just got just that much more complicated.