#second for his changeling brethren

[elizabethemerald]

Jim is Honest AU, Lie 5

Jim Lake Jr lies again and again to his loved ones. What if instead, he told the truth? How would that affect his relationships, and story of Trollhunters? Let’s look at all the major lies and omissions Jim made and let’s turn them on their head. This time Let’s say Jim is Honest.

Strickler struggles with finding some way to turn Jim’s status as the Trollhunter to his advantage. However his conscious wars within him. What good would any advantage be if Gunmar is unleashed upon the world? What if there were a second option?

The final bell had rung for the day. Mr. Strickler sat in his office. They were getting closer and closer to their goal. The biggest obstacle was...Jim Lake. So far Strickler had managed to keep Bular in the dark about exactly how much he knew about the boy Trollhunter. He was starting to get worried that his fellow changelings might be more aware than they let on, but so far if they knew none had made a move against him. 

Strickler was trying to allow Jim to be killed without his direct intervention one way or the other. Jim had come to him, made himself vulnerable in asking for help. The last thing Strickler wanted was to betray that fragile trust. That thought in itself gave the changeling pause. Betrayal was second nature to him, it came to him as easy as breathing. Why should this boy be any different? Why should this boy stay his hand? Was there something in the innocence that made him pause? Or was it the boy’s mother? Dr. Lake certainly had a way about her that intrigued him. 

He looked closely at his pen as he thought. Truly the problem lay in his own selfish nature. What would killing the boy himself do? He could be the greatest of the changelings, which he already was. But to Bular and Gunmar he would be the greatest of their dogs, maybe the last to be killed and eaten, but that fate still only felt like a matter of time. He was sure he could manipulate Jim into opening Killahead Bridge willingly, but again what would that accomplish? Jim would either live the rest of his life as much a slave as the changelings or be the first human killed and eaten by Gunmar. Strickler doubted the Skullcrusher would care what his personal effort had been in convincing the boy. If only there was some way to turn the Trollhunter to his advantage. 

Almost as if his thought has summoned him, there was knock at his office door. Jim stuck his head in. Strickler found a genuine smile crossing his face, one mixed with relief that he wasn’t currently wearing his armor. 

“Mr. Strickler, do you have moment to talk about the chess club?” Jim asked. 

“For you my boy? Always, please come in.”

Strickler watched as Jim came in and sat down, not that surprising but the boy seemed stressed. 

“As glad as I am to see you, and not stuck in your armor, I confess I’m surprised to hear from you today. Karl told me that you had to give your spanish presentation today via Toby’s laptop. He said you were too sick to come in person.”

Strickler took a sip of his tea, that wasn’t all Uhl had said about the strange presentation in the staff lounge over terrible coffee, but Strickler was able to way lay any suspicions with a few small jokes then changed the subject. Jim rubbed his hand on the back of his head. 

“Yeah, I had bad run in with a fergulator, and the effects hadn’t worn off yet.”

Strickler immediately choked on his tea. “A run in with a what?”

“A fergulator. It shrinks stuff down, and apparently takes more than a single night to sleep off the effects.”

What on earth could Blinkous be thinking using a fergulator on a living being? Much less a human boy? It could have killed him, or just kept him pint sized forever. The Janus Order obviously had a few fergulators at their own disposale, but he would never put a changeling in the device. Mostly they used them to shrink large pieces of the Bridge down to sneak across state lines. He carefully wiped the tea he spilled on himself up. 

“I’m glad you’re back to your regular size than. Now was this what you wanted to discuss, or…?”

“Well, Blinky’s been training me on the three rules of being a Trollhunter. And I’m a little concerned.”

Strickler sat forward interested. He couldn’t say he was surprised to find out the trolls had three rules for Trollhunting, especially considering his own three rules for being a changeling. How exactly the Trollhunters were trained would be incredibly useful information. 

“And what are these three rules?” He asked, a calm mask carefully in place. 

“The first one is the easiest!” Jim immediately took on Blinky’s diction, Strickler almost smirked at how  accurate it was. “Rule Number one, Always be afraid.”

“Well that seems to make sense. Fear makes you aware, heightens your senses.” Strickler clicked his pen open then closed. 

“That’s exactly what Blinky said!” Strickler immediately wished he could take his words back, just on the principle of agreeing with Blinkous Galadrigal. 

“Mm. And what is rule number two?”

“See this is the rule that I have a problem with.” Jim hesitated, his hand again rubbing the back of his head. “Rule number two is Always finish the fight.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m supposed to kill my opponent.” Jim hung his head. “How am I supposed to do that? I don’t even like killing spiders in my house! I’ve called Toby over to deal with some of them. How am I supposed to kill someone?”

Strickler thought about that. If this were one of his changeling underlings he would say better to get over this feeling soon or they would be replaced. Changelings were assassins as well as spies. His own first kill had been his own human parents, and he had been out of the fetch for less time than Jim had been alive. Not that he really mourned his parents, they were bastards from day one. 

“Like today, I shrunk down yesterday in the fergulator to get a gnome out of a hole, it had stolen my amulet. I managed to capture it alive, and Blinky was insistent that I kill it.” Strickler struggled not to laugh at the idea of a gnome succeeding where changelings had failed for centuries, removing the amulet from the Trollhunter. “Toby hid him in a dollhouse. And it seems like the little guy just wanted a place for his own. He didn’t want to fight us.”

That caught Strickler’s attention. Any troll who had been called to bear the mantle of Trollhunter would have killed the gnome without question. The creatures are notorious pests, rated below spiders and rats to most of troll kind, only slightly above venomous giant toads. But Jim didn’t have any of the biases other trolls had. Could that mean perhaps… Strickler cleared his throat. He had to tread carefully here. 

“I have done a small amount of research on legends surrounding trolls since you brought their existence to my awareness. Are you perhaps familiar with the legends of changelings?”

Jim seemed a little confused by the change in topic, but shook his head. 

“Your trainer, Blinky you said his name was?” A nod of his head. “Has Blinky mentioned changelings at all?” A shake of his head. Walter took a shallow breath. A blank slate. No opinions on changelings. 

“According to legends changelings were the young of trolls, stolen away, then subjected to dark magics. Those magics bound them with a human infant, a familiar. The changeling takes the infant’s place in our world.” Strickler carefully studied Jim’s expression as he talked. The boy had nothing but compassion on his face, none of the disdain or disgust that a troll might have. “The changelings are forced to walk the line between the human and troll worlds. Forever outcast from both because of the magic that was done to them.”

“That’s...awful.” Jim said, his expression downcast. 

“Yes and the legends and stories, though shrouded and changed by time and retelling seem to say that because of this the changelings are forced to serve the same cruel masters that stole them away when they were young. They are never able to be fully part of either society.” Strickler watched as Jim hung his head. “Now Jim you are human, you weren’t raised in the world of trolls. You may not have the same views as they have about things.”

“I presume you spared the life of this gnome you spoke of?” He waited for Jim’s nod, then continued. “And I’m sure you’ve found yourself capable of living along side this gnome, despite Blinky’s feelings on the matter?”

“Well he’s living with Toby not me, but yeah.”

“Troll society seems to be a place where to them finishing a fight makes sense. But if you have the chance to offer a creature a hand up in this world, be they troll or gnome or changeling, perhaps you have the opportunity to change things, to cross lines that have existed for millennia. When you get the chance, will you offer your hand?”

Strickler put out his hand. Jim looked at it, and the changeling could see the boy’s mind racing, before he proudly shook the hand. The simple handshake felt...monumentous. It didn’t last long however. After a mere second Jim’s phone rang. He let go of Strickler’s hand and answered his phone. 

“Uh yeah I’ll be home soon. Bye mom!” Jim was soon saying grabbing his bag. “Thanks so much Mr. Strickler. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

With that the boy ran out the door. Strickler sat back for a second, a smug grin on his face. The seed had been planted. He would need to reach out to some of his compatriots in the Order. Some who shared his views about Bular’s heel grinding down on their necks. Otto maybe? No he was too much of a boot licker. Nomura always had a problem with authority. Maybe he could have her reach out, approach the Trollhunter when he was alone, to extend a hand as it were. 

As Strickler thought and planned, he realized he never did find out what Rule number three was. Too late now, he doubted it would be a problem for him though.

Lie 1, Lie 2, Lie 3, Lie 4

[feather-dancer]

Trollhunters Fanfic Recommendations - Part 2

My original fanfic recommend post seems to have exploded in notes which is a little bewildering if I’m honest. Since then I’ve stumbled over more I have enjoyed thanks to a couple other recc posts doing the rounds, a few I forgot to list and new ones that have appeared on AO3

Want to see the original recommendations post? You can find it here!

General Trollhunters

Love, we hold on together - Jilaire post Season 3 and very cute and fluffy.

Young Atlas - Season 1 finale with Jim and wandering into the unknown to do the right thing.

Hope (or something a little bit like it) - A take on what it was like for Dictatious  when he was pulled into the Darklands when Gunmar was sealed away.

Partners - Season 1 finale with Toby’s thoughts of his bestie going off without him.

Family - Season 1 AARRRGGHH thoughts and everything he’d do for his current and newly adopted family.

Family History In The Context of the Parallel Development of a Relationship as Told Through a Trollmarket Dwelling - Just as it says on the tin.

Under the Sun — Part One: The White Rabbit  - Oh what wonders could Otto have seen and done long before we met him in the modern day? Learning he hates the cold and snow, for one, and someone seriously needs to get him glasses pronto.

The Devil and the deep blue sea - A retrospective on Walter Strickler/Stricklander and missed chances.

Talking About Teenage Angst: For Dummies! - Steli fic with Coach being wonderful and things going rather pear shaped one night.

Sticky Notes - Another Steli fic, this one is very cute fluff with post-its.

~~~

Stricklake

We'll Meet Again - I think the actual summary sums it up better than I can: Perhaps there is no such thing as love at first sight, but what about second or third or fourth or…?

The Festival of Nauna - It’s time for a Troll festival post Season 3 and naturally Not!Enrique “helps” things along in regards to Strickler and Barbara’s still strained relationship. Also contains Strickler who likely has lasting fears of being summoned by gnomes and good old changeling banter.

Fallout - Jim for a time saw Strickler as a father figure he never had, it turns out however he might have been closer to the truth than either had realised. Secrets don’t stay so forever though, be they true parentage or the slight issue of somebody not being human.

Like for Like, Echo for Echo - IT TURNS OUT An Amorous Attack (The hilarious Draal reporting in to Jim) fic had a sequel and I had no idea! We heard from the troll what happened but it’s not quite the same as hearing from the actual culprits.

misc. trollhunters prompts -  Sometimes fluff, sometimes angst, who knows what you’ll find! Also includes Rebecoming which is an AU that makes me yell in good ways. Then Organised Knowledge made me yell even more.

Stricklake: Stones Through A Lake - Stricklake prompts! Contains fluff, angst and all that good stuff.

almost (you) me - In Unbecoming, what if Strickler had glimpses of a life he could have had if things had just happened a little differently?

The Strawberry Shortcake Chronicles - A collection from the fluffy to uh higher rated? Following the long relationship of Walter Strickler and Barbara Lake through it’s ups, the downs, the dawning realisation of falling for someone and of scenarios that are just adorable to behold. And then Strickler fucks up.

Good Morning Arcadia Oaks! - Put it under this section as two of these ARE actually Stricklake which are incredibly fluffy and delightful and the other one is AARRRGGHH having a job and I love them very much. The newest one is god please let this idiot teach again I need it in my life.

~~~

Alternate Universes

Eventide - An absolutely DELIGHTFUL Gang!AU. Fear the renegade teenagers, they WILL break into your house and make you toast.

Eclipsing Daylight - Jim has spent 6 months in the Darklands instead of two weeks before his rescue and brings a whole lot of trauma, emotional baggage and nightmares home with him. This is the fic that made me feel less bad about Ghost!AU as he’s severely put through the wringer here. Heeding the content warnings is a must.

Lasting Repercussions - His fellow Trollhunters were a bit too late rescuing Jim in the Darklands and the Decimaar blade did... something to him before Gunmar was punched away. With visions and thoughts distinctly not his own Jim has an extra thing on his plate he didn’t ask for but perhaps it could also be turned into an advantage.

A Fantastic Upheaval - Barbara meets her unexpected basement lodger and nothing short of sheer shenanigans ensue.

Works in Progress - Three unlikely friends meet one by one in a hospital, none of them are okay but maybe, just maybe, they can help each other on the road to recovery.

My Only Sunshine  - What if Jim was trolled as a five year old thanks to a (Presumed) magical bath bomb? By luck he turns back into a human but only while the sun is up which leads to both mother and son scrabbling to deal with this awful situation while also trying desperately to keep anybody uncovering their secret lest the worst happens to Jim. Expect to feel emotions, a lot of them, and just wanting things to start going their way. “Jim loses track of time” has never been so ominous.

In the Dead of Night - What if Bular survived? It turns out accidentally adopting a child called Trisha, terrible decision making involving pans on fire, a very confused Otto and the show that must still must go on.

Fire Agate - Toby makes the decision to be trolled like Jim so his new extended family won’t have to see him age and wither as a human. Comes with feels, so many many feels.

Whispers Within - Did you want a slice of life fic with a gay Uhl who gets a monster boyfriend? Well even if you didn’t you can have one anyway as it is DELIGHTFUL. The school actually has more staff, there’s a toilet garden, family drama and such damn good LGBT+ rep! 

Text Ya Later, Trollhunter - A text/group chat fic that tangented due to what we knew at the time into utter delightful chaos. “I see you smiling through ur window u tiny fiend!” has yet to stop being hilarious and I recommend this fic if you just want sheer silliness that led me to binging the entire thing until about 2am.

The Time That Is Given To Us - Please heed the summary and warnings of this before you read. Steve gets up, goes to school, has practice, heads off home, dies. Wakes up and it was just a bad dream right? But the deaths keep happening and along with the phantoms of his previous injuries following him as closely as his killer, he remembers everything. His only hope seems to be some little things are happening differently, slowly but sure...

~~

The self indulgent section

Listen it’s the second recc post, I think it’s now socially acceptable to plug my own two fics way way down here :p

Masks We Wear, Lies We Share - Strickler centric and set before the days Jim Lake Jr. was one of his students we follow the grand ups, downs and general craziness of being a changeling in a human world balancing two lives and the existence of your brethren on the same knife. Then one day you get a goblin making a nest in your hidden office as this is your life now. Contains Ocs that deserve good things, Nomura glad to be back in a warmer climate and soon to come, Otto relating a worrisome auction house incident

It can deal with uncomfortable themes, warnings can be found in the chapter summary when relevant.

-

Ghosts he left behind (Ghost!AU) - After “A House Divided”, we saw Jim manage to stumble home newly changed in the dead of night before collapsing moments after breaking the threshold. However, what if he never made it home after crawling out the waters that changed him?

First chapter follows Jim only, second chapter (To come) follows the rest of Team Trollhunters as they desperately try to figure out what happened to Jim and in turn find the boy who is succumbing to an increasingly distraught state alone. Second chapter also contains Stricklake because I can.

Please remember to check the tags.

[fvaleraye]

Scintillam God List(Subject to Change as I Think(tm))

Hi I received One(1) Encouragement on Discord, so y’all are getting the list ASDLFKJN

under a read more bc, while it is not as long as i thought, it’s still long as shit

The Church Pantheon

Aurelius - The Dragon King/The Creator/The Golden Serpent: The creator from the church's creation myth. They were the first Dragon God- the first dragon to ascend from immortality to outright divinity- and parent of the light goddess, Sol. They forged the stars and planets alongside their dragon compatriots. But they were a cruel god, for dragons were a cruel people, favoring their dragon brethren above their daughter and their human grandchildren, which led to them being killed by their daughter and the death of the dragons. Aurelius was the god of stars and the cycle of destruction and creation.

Sol - The Lady of Light/The Dawn Mother/The Sunlit Serpent: The daughter of Aurelius. Sol is the mother of humanity and the one to, according to myth, lead a rebellion against her creator and the other dragon gods. She created humanity, a soft, small race, supposedly in her image, to be foils to dragonkind, a titanic, scaled race. Eventually her children were enslaved by the dragons, which angered her, starting the rebellion. Sol is the goddess of the sun, light, order, peace, and family.

Luna -  The Maiden of Moonlight/The Night Mother/The Silver Serpent: Luna was a small, scaleless dragon in life, whose skin shined like diamond under the right light, and, supposedly, was given godhood when Sol recognized her great generosity, a rare trait in dragons. Her scalelessness helped provide inspiration for the creation of humankind. The two grew very close, which angered Aurelius. They cast a curse on the two sky gods, forcing them as far apart as they could manage, creating the cycle of day and night. They say that eclipses are the two goddesses returning to each others side, for just a brief moment. Luna is the goddess of the moon, faith, sorcery, light in the darkness, and dragons.

The Outsiders Pantheon

The Traveler - The Outsider/The Changeling God/The Faceless One: The original Outsider, and the creator of the creation myth held by the worshippers of the Outsiders. The Traveler is a being outside time and space, who appears as a hooded, purple skinned man bearing a large pack and cane, dressed in rags, without a face or name, and five arms: three on his left, two on his right. He is the father of the Changeling race, granting them his gift of facelessness, and the forefather of black magic. He created the world as a place to rest as he walked the stars, the months commemorating his travels, and the Changeling Moon supposedly marking his passing through our world again. The Traveler is the god of journeys, change, fate, and cycles. His holy number is 5.

The Wyrm - The Black Serpent/The Great Devourer: The second Outsider, and the destroyer god of the Outsiders. The Wyrm is supposedly the accidental creation of The Traveler as he perfected his magic. An endlessly large, black and purple serpent-like creature, with a mouth larger than the heavens, lined with more teeth than any being can comprehend, and billions of trillions of legs. In the Church of Light's writings, it was killed by Sol during a crusade against darkness, while the Order of the Outsiders claims that it was simply sealed by the Outsider, and chases him across the stars. They claim that each eclipse marks another moment where the Wyrm begins to catch up to its creator, and that, when it catches him, it will devour him, and all of existence, finally ending the Traveler's cycle. It is the god of serpents, destruction, darkness, corruption, and endings. Its holy number is 9.

The False Priest - The Betrayer/The Punished: The third Outsider. The Priest was once a man in service to the Traveler, who supposedly founded a series of "teachings" that he demanded all followers of the Traveler abide by. These teachings were never spoken by the Traveler, for he did not lead anyone, he simply let them think for themselves. Nevertheless, this man insisted that he knew the Traveler's plans for them all, and made sacrifice of five "lambs".  The first was a man, who was made a willing sacrifice. The second was a woman, who practiced magic that the Traveler did not create, deeming her a heretic. The third was a lord, who he hated for, in his eyes, wrongfully claiming to be favored by the Traveler. The fourth was the lord's prized beast, whose name, master, home, pride, and heart were taken. The fifth, and final, were his followers, who, in his paranoia, he saw corruption in. The Traveler cast him down, cursing him to an existence where, for his hubris, he would be eternally punished by the Fourth Lamb, whose sacrifice the Traveler saw as his greatest transgression. He is the god betrayal, paranoia, dogmatism, and deceit. His holy number is 4.

The Fourth Lamb - The Wronged One/The Broken/The One Who Shall Never Forgive: The fourth Outsider. The Lamb was once a creature of a long forgotten race, loved and created by the Traveler, and a proud pet of a lord, favored by the Traveler. After the creation of the Wyrm, her race was wiped out, leaving her the only survivor. The Traveler bestowed her on a kind Changeling lord, and told her that she would be with their family for eternity. However, the False Priest, in his evil took from her five sacrifices: her master, her name, her home, her pride, and, finally, her heart. Her death cry echoed throughout the cosmos, and a cry of rage from her creator sounded out in response. The Traveler arrived to see the last of his beasts broken on the ground. He restored her life, but he could not restore her body, not completely, for she was so broken. Now, as the Fourth Lamb, she endlessly chases the Priest through the stars, the sounds of her pained cries and cracking of her bones screaming through the void as she gives chase. She catches him every Lord's Moon, where he is ripped to shreds and devoured in a most painful and sadistic manner that lasts all thirty-one moons of the month. Then, on the beginning of the Dragon Moon, just as death takes him, the Priest is resurrected, and the chase begins anew, never to end, until the Lamb forgives him, which she never will. She is the goddess of beasts, loss, revenge, punishments, and death. Her holy number is 3.

The Unburnt Pantheon

The Unburnt Pilgrim - The Wanderer: The first of the Unburnt. The Pilgrim wandered the void, and he created the world as a place for his fellows to live and rest. His hands shaped the lands, his steps made the mountains and canyons, and his breath created the wind. He still wanders the void, creating more worlds, to make a masterpiece. He is the god of voyages, hermits, selflessness, and creation.

The Unburnt Father - The Lawmaker: The second of the Unburnt. The Father envisioned the designs of the physical forms of all life. He gave life laws, and kept them from savagery. He punished those who break his laws, and answers the prayers of men who demand justice. He is the god of laws, order, justice, and kings.

The Unburnt Mother - The Caretaker. The third of the Unburnt. The Mother gave birth to the designs of the Father. She gave life love, and generosity. She keeps all life humble, and loves all equally, even the Uncharred. She cries for the Son, and her tears gave way to oceans, which helps give life to the Uncharred. She is the goddess of love, family, compassion, queens, and motherhood.

The Unburnt Son - The Fool: The fourth of the Unburnt. The Son was the first child of the Mother and the Father. He, in his ignorance, led the children of the Unburnt astray, misinterpreting his Father's words, and leading the Children of the Unburnt to ruin. He was chained to a mountain, where the rays of the Unburnt Sun burn him eternally as punishment, so that all life may know to never repeat his mistakes. He is the god of fools, prisoners, and princes.

The Unburnt Scholar - The Mind: The fifth of the Unburnt. The Scholar give life a mind to think, and understand the laws of the Father. The Scholar's ways and wills are unknowable and unfathomable, even to the Father. They are the god of thought, understanding, and schemes.

The Unburnt Prophet - The Priest: The sixth of the Unburnt. The Prophet gave life language, and the ability to share the Father's word with those who it could not reach. His mind gave life the Primordial Flame, which burned brighter than any after it, but only briefly. With it, the knowledge to create flame. He is the god of faith, flame, and language.

The Unburnt Smith - The Craftsman: The seventh of the Unburnt. The Smith gave life metal and ore, which may be made into arms and armor by the flame of the Prophet. His veins run through the crust of the earth, from where he may be bled for ore. He made the weapons and armor of the Warrior, and helps him to wage his eternal war. He is the god of metal, smithing, mining, and craftsmanship.

The Unburnt Warrior - The Warmaster: The eighth of the Unburnt. The Warrior gave life emotion, and strength. He wages a war on the Neverburnt, which lasts eternal. His blood gives life to the Red Flame, the flame of rage and righteousness. He is the god of war, fury, strength, blood, and vengeance.

The Unburnt Sun - The Judge: The Ninth of the Unburnt. The Sun gave light to the world, so that it would not be shrouded in darkness. It punishes the Son with its rays, and it is only by its mercy that all life is not simply burned from the face of the world. It is the god of life, death, judgement, punishment, and mercy.

The Ocean Gods

The Silent Titan - The Destroyer: The patron god of the Deep Sirens. The Titan was sealed beneath the waves by the work of the ocean, in the Tomb of Titans. It is said to be unknowable, unnamable, and that it will one day escape, killing all other gods in revenge, and flooding the world with its black, tainted waters, killing all life. It is the god of silence and destruction.

Judex - The Tallyman of the Tides/The Gaoler of the Damned: The divine servant of Anguis. Judex keeps note of all debts, all tolls, all tithes. Every year, the sea monster hunters of the Free Lands are to be pay him with the seven hearts of a Deep Titan, brought and gutted from the depths. Every crew who will go out to hunt that year must pay one. Those crews who hunt without paying the tithe are visited by him, where he must be payed with a heart, or he will sink ship and crew, dragging them to the depths with his great chains, where they shall be damned, imprisoned, and punished for eternity. He is the god of tithes and prisoners.

Anguis - The Mother of Monsters: The holy mother of all ocean life. Anguis lives in the depths of the ocean, where she gives birth to ever greater sea monsters. She loves and cares for her children, but allows the land dwellers to hunt them if they provide her with the seven hearts of a Deep Titan, a spawn of her nemesis, the Silent Titan. Judex is her divine servant, whom she sends to collect the tolls and bring them to her. If she is angered, the oceans will storm for months. She is the god of monsters, mothers, and the fury of the ocean.

[fuwafuwamedb]

The Celt and the Changeling (Fae! Rin Tohsaka, Cu Chulainn)

Of course, following after the fool was a mistake.

She knew this very well, but the boar that had been heading her way had made her heart pound at the pace of finding gods and her spirit shake within her being. The spear that had launched itself through the air, smiting the beast before it could reach her, had made her fall to the ground.

The man had come forth, feeling like the heat from the sun itself.

How long had it been since she had seen a mortal?

“Oi.”

Rin had looked up at the man that had seemed to glow under the light of the heavens above. His grip was tighter than that of a hawk. His eyes demanded submission, attention and respect in the highest of calibers. His attire was that of finely spun weave, so fine that the attire was more like that of a second skin the color of the shores around the land, rather than armor and protection. Touches of silver were like loose threads upon the blue material, glinting like the fae realm portals that ever teased her.

“Fae,” he growled at her. “Return to your home.”

His voice rumbled like that of the heavens above in the midst of its moody temperaments. Rin could feel a shiver run through her as she tried to think of how to explain.

She was not truly a fae at this point, nor that of a human.

A changling, unwilling to stand the fate of her brethren who were too often slaughtered; she had struck out in the depths of the night, carrying with her only a bag of this and that.

The man wasn’t listening though. He yanked the red spear he had thrown from the body of the beast that had tried to kill her and was heading off into the distance. The warmth that had been around her was leaving. She could feel herself shivering at the feeling of being left alone once more…

So, she followed him.

Her feet carried her slowly after him, hiding behind the trees whenever he stopped. She could feel the sweat dripping down her frame as she pushed herself to her limits. When they stopped, thank the heavens they stopped, it was only for her to all but fall to the earth and pant behind her hiding place in the brush.

The man was building a fire.

No doubt, they’d be probably stopped for a while. Her hands went to her bag, sighing as she noted her food had been crushed a bit against her mending work.

“Oi.”

Rin jumped, her eyes flying up to the man looming over her.

“If you’re gonna follow a man, you should be better at it.”

“I-I wasn’t following!”

“Oh yeah?”

“O-of course not! I have no need to follow you! I’m just heading home!” She paused a second before she felt her face burning. “N-not because you told me to though! I just decided that was the sm-“

Her nervous voice was stopped by one of his hands pressing to her lips.

A loud sigh escaped his lips, but she could hardly think.

How on earth did he feel this warm? He was like being next to a bold and roaring fire from the hearths at home. He was like the sun in the skies during the summer solstice.

Those red eyes opened back up though, his hand pulling away and a whimper escaping her lips.

With a smirk, the man leaned in closer. “Ye’ve been followin’ me ‘round in circles for about five lands of three cows.”

FIVE?!

She gaped at him, her temper rising.

Five bloody lands of three cows? To think she’d walked across enough land to be worth fifteen cows! And this man had just enjoyed leading her along the way, no doubt laughing in his head as she had suffered through aches in her legs and feet as well as hunger and thirst.

“You damned-“

“Cu Chulainn.”

She blinked.

“I go by Cu Chulainn, Fae, although I doubt that my name could mean anythin’ to ya.”

“Damn you, Cu Chulainn.”

“So you were followin’ me. Should I feel courted? To think even the fae are chancing my skirts now.”

He laughed, earning himself what was to come.

Rin pulled back her hand, letting it fly forward to strike this man down. How dare he mock her. How dare he bring up that she was one of those filthy Fae folk!

His hand caught hers a moment before those eyes flashed.

“Don’t you be losing your wits,” he growled. “I’m invitin’ you to eat with me. I’ve got enough meat from that boar to feed us both tonight.”

“Maybe I don’t want to eat with you.”

Her stomach growled.

“Yeah, I’m gonna say you seem real satisfied from a days’ worth o’ walkin’ and a ration of your own wee temper.” He hauled her after him, leaving no room for debate. “Come on. Food’ll do you right. You can spit more of that fire at me while I cook.”

She’d just eat with him because he owed her for the teasing.

Yeah… He owed her.

That was it.

[simpz-art-stash]

Despair

work © azelforest , do not repost, re-distribute, edit, or claim as your own, etc.

Heyo, so I’m making a small series apparently with these stages, so why not have some really bad fanfiction to go with it?

(This lil AU section takes place right after the death of Aargh, during the two weeks between season 1 and 2. Where Blinky is in grieving where we couldn't see before in the show.)

It had been a single week since Aargh's death, and Jim's disappearance. When news had spread of the Trollhunters disappearance, it spread like a wildfire, especially considering he had went to the Darklands willingly to destroy Gunmar.

Some were ecstatic, to hear that the Trollhunter would finally take the stand to vanquish Troll-kinds biggest threat, that had been looming over them for centuries.

Others however, mostly saw the bad in the situation, especially after the fight of Angor Rot. There had been many death's afterall, and many skeptic's called Jim's 'stand' an escape, calling him a coward, a traitor, and some..a changeling spy.

Those that weren't theorizing over the Trollhunter, were in grieving for their lost brethren and sisters, one of such trolls being of course Blinky.

Blinky...had been rather quiet since the battle of Angor Rot and Jim's disappearance. He had been keeping to himself, especially after having of asked that Aargh's remains be taken to his study. Claire and Toby had already devised a plan on keeping Jim's disappearance a secret, seeing as he had never gotten around to telling his mother the truth after the whole fiasco involving her near death experience. Toby was sick of it, and Claire was...well, hopeful, that Jim would return with her brother...soon.

And while Toby and Claire were busy with their own duties, Blinky was...going through a tough situation. Aargh was dead, a once feared general, turned into his lifelong partner. Blinky had already lost many friends, and family from the wars of back then, and at one point he thought that it wouldn't hurt as heavily as it did now. But it did hurt, even with having to share the pain with others it still split his heart in two, feeling the deepest of sorrow for his fallen brother.

Even though Aargh had never held much conversation with his lack of speech, he could still feel just as much through action. And through the long years together, Blinky had grown attached to the giant, to the point they were inseparable. The brains and the brawn, partners in crime, brothers in arms...

But that was then...and this was now. And oh how he wished it were naught. For as not in vain as his death was, it still felt wrong, regardless of the causes.

For days and nights Blinky hardly slept, letting the other trollhunters do their own work.

At times, Toby and Claire would attempt to solace him, and sometimes, even Vendal himself would enter, spend a few minutes, talking mostly to himself of the past and bits of the present news before eventually leaving.

But most of those words usually just never reached Blinky, for his mind and heart sat far off elsewhere, attempting to mend themselves alone.

Several nights spent in silence, and several days spent in anguish over the traumatic memories of watching Aargh fall. So many nightmares...haunting him...taunting his failure, as if he could of done something, anything, to stop what had happened.

"I cannot fix this...I..I don't know what to do anymore old friend.." Blinky quietly spoke in a defeated tone, standing in a dark room.

A distant figure stood before him, and his solemn expression staring off towards Blinky.

"Blinky...why no save Aargh?.." The familiar voice asked.

Blinky winced, wanting to look away but also afraid that if he did, his friend would disappear.

"Blinky...why no save us?.." The familiar voice asked again.

Several other silhouette’s began to take form, many familiar, others not.

"Blinkous..please, save us.."

"Blinky we need you!!"

"Blinky! Why did you do this?!"

"Brother..why have you forsaken us?"

Blinky looked up at the all too familiar voice, his real brother...

"I DIDN'T!!" Blinky called out suddenly, "I WOULD NEVER!"

"Then why...why are we dead brother?" His real brother approached him.

"I...I tried..b-but I..I'm not the trollhunter...I can't save everyone.." Blinky choked.

"You've failed us brother...all of us, your friends..even your own family." The voice grimly mocked.

"Blinky hate Aargh..." Aargh's voice finally spoke.

"N-no!..I could never..Aargh.." Blinky's voice cracked.

Standing before him, in the vast void of darkness was Aargh himself, alive and well...but as he stared at Blinky, Angor Rot himself appeared behind Blinky, startling him.

"Blinky...let Aargh die.." Aargh spoke again, and as Blinky watched the same scene befall him as he'd seen many times before, Blinky cried out.

"NO PLEASE!! BROTHER!!!" Blinky startled.

"Blinky wake up! BLINKY!" A different voice shouted, and he felt a rough, yet soft punch hit his shoulder.

Blinky realized then that he had been merely sleeping, and upon almost falling out of his chair, straightened himself a little from the disheveled look he'd been having for the last several days for the sake of the company he now had.

Toby and Claire were standing beside him, a book in Claire's hands, which must of been what had hit him in the shoulder considering how painful it was to punch a troll with fleshy hands.

"T-Tobias..and Miss Claire..my apologies for the mess..I-.." Blinky only partially managed to apologize before Toby interrupted him.

"Mess?? Dude you were screaming in here, we thought you were being attacked by Gunmar or something!" Toby exclaimed.

"Blinky..you had another nightmare didn't you?.." Claire asked.

Blinky didn't seem to want to hold either's gaze at the moment, as he mildly fiddled around with 'grooming' himself out, a nervous habit he'd had for quite some time. "I..suppose I was.."

Claire sighed, "That's the fourth time this week Blinky...Me and Toby have been thinking you need to get some fresh air or something. Vendel says you haven't left your cave all week.."

"I'm fine where I am.." Blinky grunted, standing up finally, and walking away from the two in an attempt to stretch his legs a little while fixing up his messy study. "I've just been researching a means of opening the bridge and finding master Jim.." He gazed over a few of his lazy scrawling on the walls of his home, he winced at the sight of them.

"I mean..you're not the only one but, Jim wouldn't want you doing this to yourself Blinky. You're in a funk." Toby interjected.

"Hmpt.." Seemed to be Blinky's only response, the same response he'd been giving to any conversations most attempted to offer.

Not a second later did a book hit the back of his head, and after swiftly turning to accuse the culprit, he was stopped dead in his tracks by a teary-eyed Claire.

"I'm sick and tired of you being like this Blinky. You're not the only one who's been having to deal with all this!!" Claire shouted suddenly, "I'm just as sad and frustrated about Aargh and Jim leaving but I-we, are at least still hopeful that Jim will come back. You on the other hand, haven't done a single thing but sit in here all week and sulk over Aargh! I'm sick of it!!"

Blinky almost appeared like a deer frozen in headlights seeing Claire blow up like that at him. Even Toby looked surprised and didn't seem like he had intent in stopping her.

A furious gaze befell Blinky right then and there, "How dare you..I..I haven't been just sulking in here, what do you think I've been doing these several sleepless nights?!! I've been pouring my life’s work into trying to find a way to open Killahead Bridge so Aargh's sacrifice not be in vain!! All on my own! Me! While you two children are off galavanting upstairs!" He hollered, snarling almost in a very un-blinkous-like manner.

This seemed to startle Toby, as he took a step back, almost afraid the Troll would've charged them with the way he was looking down at them with all six eyes. Claire kept her gaze.

"I've been down here...trying..so hard.." The same spark he had but just moments ago died in front of the two as he stared across the room at the motionless statue of Aargh in the corner. "Trying to..bring him back.."

Toby looked back and felt the same crushing blow to the heart as Claire did when she turned to look back as well, before they both finally approached and gave the Troll a group hug. It being so hard to keep such a composure in front of the very pupil's he'd been training all these months. Several tears were shed right then an there, and thankfully, not all of them were Blinky's.

"I'm sure both of them would understand...if you took just a little bit longer to take care of yourself for now." Claire finally replied.

"...I suppose you're right.." Blinky answered.

[drrove]

I DM’d an odd D&D session over the weekend, and wrote up the details for one of the players that had to miss it. I figured I’d share the “dramatization” portion that I did. I write these up occasionally for particularly interesting events I want to expand upon.

In this session, the party was searching for a mysterious shapeshifter/alchemist named Dr. Rodgers due to his apparent interest in helping them defeat the very enemies he was currently helping. The PC, Dirk, had a strange infatuation with Rodgers, but never told anyone why. They’ve just found Rodgers in his underwater facility, which is actively falling apart due to their earlier battles with dangerous monsters and doppelgangers.

The PCs are Dirk, Newton, Thomas, Tr’Car, and Freyjadour (disguised as someone named Sebastian at the beginning.) Something very unexpected happened at the end that actually brought the entire session to a halt. If you’d like to give it a read, continue on after the break!

"It's not going to hold," Tr'Car insists, leaning his whole weight against the door as water streams in around the frame.

"Why did you have to rip it off its hinges, Thomas?" Newton scolds.

Thomas covers his ring of telekinesis self-consciously. "You said 'Get it open as fast as you can.' That was the fastest way."

"Sebastian," Dirk turns to the changeling, "don't you have an immovable rod?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sebastian sighs. They slide it against the door and active its immovability. "But now I'm not getting it back."

"We'll see," Dirk shrugs. They look at the buckling door for a moment as Tr'Car gingerly steps away. "Yeah, you're not getting it back.”

"What the hell happened here?" Jenny asks. The party looks around the "zoo" to see caged creatures of all sorts left dead or dying. Sebastian tries to read minds of the creatures, but none yield anything.

<It's him,> Thomas says telepathically, retreating into the shadows. <Rodgers. At the end of the room. Magical.>

Newton brightens his staff and squints into the darkness. "Dr. Rodgers? Is that you?"

"Oh, Newton," a disheveled, mustachioed man holding a large syringe steps into the light, "it's good to finally meet in person."

Dirk strides forward quickly, hand outstretched. "Pleasure to meet you." 

Rodgers shies away from his offered greeting and even dodges when the mercenary tries a more direct touch. "You are familiar. Yes, I certainly know you. But that was something new. More powerful than I remember. Good."

<What are you doing?> Newton queries angrily, trying to position himself between the two men.

Dirk backs up, but doesn't take his eyes off Rodgers. <We need to dispel his magic. He could be dangerous.>

<Of course he's dangerous. And provoking him will only make matters worse.> Newton knows Dirk is up to something, but can't quite figure it out, and decides to treat the dragon-breather with caution. He looks at the mad doctor, then to the syringe in his hand. "What's this?"

"A potent poison," the zern replies matter-of-factually. "I am bidding my children farewell."

Tr'Car looks closely at one of the dying creatures, a crocodile-like humanoid with a scything tail, as it lays languidly on a pile of shredded blankets. It watches him a moment through bleary, black eyes, then puts its head down and expires. Tr'Car frowns.

<We can't stay long,> Jenny insists, <this place will be underwater any minute.>

"You called us here and claimed to have something of great value to us if we help you escape," Newton says to the doctor, "what exactly do you have?"

"And why do you need our help?" Dirk adds. "You seem like a resourceful enough... 'person' to make your own way."

"The political winds have shifted against me, it seems," Rodgers confesses, "and it will take more than clever disguises to evade my enemies in the city on the surface and elsewhere. I will need to find an associate of mine quickly after my escape is made good."

"And the 'something of great value?'" Newton presses.

"Ah, of course." Dr. Rodgers drops the syringe into a case of its brethren and makes his way to the back of the long room. "Could I enlist some help from the half-giant?"

<He's asking for your help, Tr'Car.> Newton looks at his companion, then back at the doctor. "What do you need him for?"

"I must move this chest. It possesses the material necessary for your reimbursement."

"What are you talking about?"

Dr. Rodgers pokes his head out of his little nook as Tr'Car approaches and looks confusedly at Newton for a moment, then smiles. "Oh, you are not aware? I created the illithid mind slugs, and I can reverse engineer a solution. This would be of great value to you, correct?"

<Holy shit,> Thomas projects.

<Yeah,> Jenny agrees. <We need to get him out of here.>

<I still have more questions,> Newton insists.

<Ask him when we're safe,> Jenny counters, <this place is coming down.>

As if to confirm her warning, a loud bang issues from the leaking hatch. Then another. Thomas sighs. <Great, and that damned shark-dragon's back. We need to go.>

<Dirk,> Newton looks to the man, <can you teleport us?> Dirk stares distractedly at Rodgers. "Dirk!"

The mercenary seems to awaken. <Teleport? Yes. But not everybody. Only myself and one other.>

<There's still room in my portable hole,> Sebastian offers. They open the hole and nod invitingly to Rodgers. "Your chariot awaits, doctor." The doctor smiles awkwardly and motions for Tr'Car to lead the way with the chest.

<It's a little crowded in there already, don't you think?> Thomas insists, reminding them of the eight humans and giant apparatus of the crab already stored inside. He speaks privately to Newton. <I'm not getting in there and leaving my fate in the hands of Dirk and Freyjadour - or Sebastian or whatever it's called.>

<Me neither,> Newton agrees, <what other->

"Tr'Car! Stop!" Thomas lunges at the half-giant just before he enters the portable hole. He grips onto the handy haversack around the big man's waist. "This is basically a bag of holding. You don't put a bag of holding into a portable hole. Things go bad." He looks the giant over seriously and communicates privately. <Get back out when you're done. We're not letting Dirk call the shots.>

The giant nods and detaches the object before entering the hole with the chest.

"What other exit options do we have?" Newton asks.

"I can dimension door to the surface," Jenny offers, "but that won't get us far from whatever trouble Rodgers has here. We'll need to move fast."

"Air walk can do just that," Newton notes.

"I can teleport us," Dirk insists. "I can take us right to the elven lands, if you want. Easy as pie."

"This will work just fine," Newton replies, no longer able to mask his distrust of the mercenary.

"Fine," Dirk shrugs with a vaguely hostile smile, "I'll keep the scroll and you do all the work. Sounds good to me."

The banging on the door continues, and water begins to pour in more quickly than ever. <We need to go,> Thomas reminds them.

Tr'Car exists the portable hole, retrieves his handy haversack, and the party gathers around Jenny for a dimension door. She envisions the vector of travel and begins casting.

<Resist the spell.> Thomas hears the voice in his head and looks to see Dirk staring intently at him. Before he can respond, Jenny completes the spell and he feels the telltale tug of dimensional travel. He makes a split-second judgement call, and deciding Dirk is not to be trusted for anything, accepts the spell. In the blink of an eye, Thomas finds himself stainding within a copse of trees on the outskirts of town.

“Damn it!" Thomas looks at the empty spot where Dirk and Freyjadour had been. "Get back down there! Dirk's trying to screw us!"

Jenny doesn't question nor hesitate, and immediately returns the group to the underwater laboratory. But it's too late. Dirk and the changeling are gone, along with the portable hole and Dr. Rodgers.

<Dirk!> Newton shouts telepathically to the mercenary. <Where are you??>

<Everything is fine,> Dirk replies calmly.

<I'm getting us back out of here,> Jenny informs them. She pauses to grab a few of the poison vials Rodgers left behind, then expends a third dimension door on herself and her allies, just as the creature outside the metal door finally breaks it in.

<You son of a bitch!> Thomas growls through his mind. <You have no idea what you're doing!>

<We need him.> Newton says. <He's the key to stopping the illithid!>

<Sebastian... Freyjadour and I just need to have a chat with the doctor first,> Dirk claims.

<Where are you?>

<Somewhere safe. We'll make contact when we deem it appropriate.>

<Tell us where you are,> Thomas threatens, <or I guarantee I'll find you and cut that smile->

<I gave you the opportunity to join me,> Dirk reminds him. <You declined.>

<I'm coming for you, Dirk.>

<Freyjadour,> Jenny tries, <where are you?>

<Somewhere safe,> the changeling replies, dispassionately. <I apologize for this, but my organization needs some information from the doctor that I cannot reliably extract beneath the gaze of your elven associates.>

"They're going to kill him," Thomas says. He looks at Newton. "Dirk's going to kill him, and Freyjadour's going to let him. She's part of all this."

"Let's not jump to conclusions. What are our options?"

"We contact Aldritch and Aulaura. They'll track him down, and then we knock some doors down until we find that bastard." Thomas turns red in the face with rage.

"Fair enough. I'll use a sending," Newton agrees. "But we should put some distance between us and the town, first. Let's air-walk for a bit."

"We can't waste time," Thomas warns. "Who knows what they're doing right now?"

-------

Dirk slips down the alley with Freyjadour close behind. He stops in front of an unmarked door and taps out a stilted pattern of knocks. A shutter slides open and two probing eyes inspect them. The shutter closes, and the door opens.

Dirk thrusts a hand-full of gold at the burly doorman. "I need a private sanctum. Now. And call for your jailer. I need anti-magic cuffs and four guards outside the room ready to dispel if necessary."

The man grunts the affirmative, sends a scrawny man after the jailer, then leads the two adventurers to their private sanctum. Dirk shoves more gold into his hands, then slams the door in his face without another word.

"This should work," he paces the edge of the room, searching for any secret listening nooks. "This should work fine."

"What exactly is your plan?" Freyjadour asks, sitting calmly on a sturdy, metal chair. She looks around the sparsely furnished room and determines it can serve only one purpose: interrogation. She turns her mind reading on the mercenary, but his mind is inscrutable.

“I would have preferred an antimagic chamber, but this is the best I can hope for at my price point."

"And I can't open the portable hole in antimagic," Freyjadour noted. "Speaking of which, they'll be needing some fresh air soon."

"Give it a minute." Dirk continues to pace like an animal, his nerves clearly fraying. "When we get the antimagic cuffs, you go in and get Rodgers-"

"Why me?" Freyjadour doesn't like that she can't read the man's mind. She's done it before, and she knows what Rodgers means to him.

"He clearly doesn't trust me," Dirk argues. "You'll have better luck."

"No," Freyjadour remains cool, trying not to show her discomfort with the fire-breather. "Don't take this personally, but I don't trust you to make the right decisions. You'll go in and get him. If you don't bring him out alive, you're not coming out. I'll gladly let you suffocate."

"What about the people you promised to rescue?" Dirk challenges "Those innocent maintenance workers are still in there."

"Collateral damage," Freyjadour bluffs. She feels a genuine desire to help them, but can't crack in front of this desperate man.

"Fine," Dirk shrugs, "I'm going in. I'll create a solid fog before you open the bag in case he decides to run. You open up, I go in, I bring him out in one piece and still breathing. We have a conversation."

"That suits me just fine."

"Do you hear that?" Dirk squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his head. Freyjadour raises an eyebrow. Dirk chuckles, but with a hint of mania. "Thomas is singing. I guess it's just me. What a scamp. Haha." The laugh is disconcerting. Freyjadour still can't read his mind.

A knock comes on the door. Dirk barrels to the handle and opens up to reveal the jailer and a squad of dangerous-looking mercenaries. She holds up the pair of antimagic cuffs, but withdraws them when Dirk reaches out. "Down payment."

Dirk carelessly tosses a bag of coins at the woman, then snatches the cuffs. "Two hours." He slams the door in her face and stalks into the middle of the room. "Right here."

Freyjadour stands cautiously and produces the portable hole. She prepares to lay it down on the floor and nods seriously at Dirk. He produces the solid fog, and she opens the portal to the pocket dimension. Just before Dirk steps in, she puts out a hand. "Your efficient quiver. Just like a bag of holding."

Dirk laughs and removes his backpack, along with the quiver. "That could have been a disaster." Then he laughs again, and casually drops the entire bag into the portable hole. "Oops."

Freyjadour reaches out for it, but grasps at empty air. The portable hold vanishes in a snap and a flash. The only indication it had even been there are the faint spots temporarily burned in the changeling's retinas. In the blink of an eye, Rodgers and those men ceased to exist. "Why?" She stumbles back. "Why would you do that??"

Dirk dispels the fog and drops the antimagic cuffs on the floor. "Can't you read my mind?" He looks at her with a satisfied smile. <He made the monster you see. You think I wanted to be this monster? I'd do anything to kill him.>

"Those people..."

Dirk shrugs. "Collateral damage, didn't you say?"

"My organization... our companions... the brain slugs!"

"Not my problem. Good luck with all that." Dirk walks casually over to the door and exits. "Looks like I didn't need the two hours. Keep the change." He struts down the hall, whistling an up-tempo tune.

The jailer weighs the second bag of coins the mercenary just gave her, then looks inside the room to see Freyjadour sitting stunned on the concrete floor. "You still need time?"

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

"This is the song that never ends..." Thomas sings quietly to himself as the the four remaining members rest in a remove ravine. Newton sits, legs crossed, busy with the long task of casting sending to Aldritch. Jenny stalks invisibly around the edge of the ravine on the lookout for anybody that may have followed them. An unlikely eventuality at the speeds they were traveling.

Thomas glances at Tr'Car, who seems fascinated with a beetle. "You're awful quiet."

"Hm." Tr'Car replies with a nod. He picks up the beetle and sticks it in his sack.

Thomas hums some more under his breath and watches Newton in his trance. "Has it been ten minutes yet?" Nobody replies. He stops humming and sighs. "I'm going to kill Dirk. I'm going to get an army and dig him out of whatever hole he's hiding in and I'm going to kill him. If he kills Rodgers..."

"I spoke with Aldritch," Newton says. "He'll meet tomorrow in a town in the Arcane Empire where he'll provide teleportation the rest of the way to his school."

"Good." Thomas hums some more, then stands up angrily. "What the hell are we doing??"

"If you have a better way to find Dirk, I'm all ears," Newton replies. "Seriously. If you know anything we can do, please tell me. I agree that Dirk clearly has some terrible plans with Rodgers, and I'm kicking myself for letting him do this to us. I feel like an idiot. The man is clearly insane."

“Jenny," Thomas says. "She can detect cysts."

"I removed his cyst," Newton points out, "and I'm not comfortable with her using that kind of necromancy."

"I thought you wanted to find him."

"Let's not go down that hole," Newton warns. "Besides, as I said, the cyst has been removed. It's a moot point."

"I suppose." Thomas looks up on the ridge where Jenny continues to keep vigil. <Jenny, I know you put a cyst in one of those workers that went in the portable hole. If they released them->

<I already tried,> she says. <They're not on this plane.>

<It was worth a try.>

A familiar voice speaks in all their minds. <Dr. Rodgers is dead. Dirk killed him.>

Thomas curses loudly and throws a psionic dagger into a tree. He points an accusing finger at Newton. "He killed him!"

“What are you pointing at me for?" Newton groans. <How? What happened?>

<You let this happen, Freyjadour!> Thomas interjects. <You've killed our chances of rooting out the illithid and for what?? What have you gotten out of all this, you...> he searches for a word that doesn't also apply to himself, <you assassin!>

<I knew he wanted to do it,> the changeling admits, <but I thought he would give me time to get information. He just... he destroyed the portable hole. Everything inside. Everyone. I swear I was going to try to learn what he knew about the mind slugs. And I was going to let those people go... For what that's worth.>

<It's worth nothing!> Thomas says. <I don't care what you were 'going' to do! What you did was put your own interests over the entire rest of the world.>

<I have a lot to atone for,> Freyjadour agrees. <I'm sorry we had to end our relationship like this. I want you to know that he fooled me just as much as he did the rest of you.>

<Jenny, can you dispel this?> Thomas covers his face in frustration. <I'm tired of this.>

<Wait, don't-> Newton protests, but the magic vanishes. "Thomas! We need to think about this."

"What's to think about? Dirk and Freyjadour screwed us. Rodgers is dead, and so is our hope to figure out these brain slugs. What are we supposed to do about that?"

Newton glares at the petulant elf-kin, then shakes his head in defeat. "I don't know."

"So what is going on here?" Tr'Car asks.

"Were you even paying attention?" Thomas grumbles. Then something clicks in his mind and he stares at the half-giant. "Were you just speaking common?"

Newton stares in disbelief. The voice is clearly not that of Tr'Car. "Oh, Pelor."

"Hmmm..." the impostor shrugs, "it seems I have been discovered. I am Dr. Rodgers. It sounds as if things have gone poorly."

"You went in the portable hole," Newton says, still in shock. He thinks. Where's Tr'Car?"

"I think that should be fairly obvious," the shapechanger replies. "I do hope I misheard the news of his fate."

Thomas stalks around, breathing quickly and shaping psionic daggers. He suddenly stops and turns to Newton. "He killed Tr'Car." Furious tears well in his eyes. "Dirk killed Tr'Car. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him. I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!" He looks at the false Tr'Car. "You sent him to his death."

"I had anticipated that the deception would have been quickly discovered," Rodger says apologetically. "We would all have a good laugh and move on."

"Is anybody laughing?" Thomas asks.

"No, it seems not." Rodgers shrugs. "To be fair, I was asking for help, and it seems my suspicions that my life was in danger were true. At least I can still help. That's good, right?"

"We need him," Newton acknowledges. "Thomas, Dirk did this. Rodgers, start talking. How do you intend to deal with the slugs?"

"Ah, I'll just need to get the chest we brought along."

"The one you put in the portable hole?" Newton looks at Thomas and his heart sinks. "The portable hole that was just destroyed?"

Thomas turns on his heel and starts to walk away. "I need to find something to stab."

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

Werewolf AU: either Obi's pov of anything while he's being Shirayuki's wolf, or Yuzuri gets to find out he does indeed have a human form.

It doesn’t smell. That’s his first thought upon waking.

Or rather, it does. It just doesn’t smell like sheep shitanymore. He wrinkles his nose, but he hurts too much and his paws are too far away from him to blot it out. But it’s not asbad as rotting flesh, it’s just… odd: Dead plants and slaughteredtrees and burnt meat are typical fragrances of human dens, and it is that, but beyond, it smellslike wild and moonlight, it tastes like magic and blood, it sounds like-

It sounds like there’s a human. A human that is far tooclose.

He rolls back his lips, baring his teeth is a snarl, but allthat comes out of him is a weak whine.

“Easy. You’re okay.” The voice is tender, so tender, and hiseyes flutter open just a little to see who spoke it. There’s a woman, her lapsoft beneath his head and her magic so bright that it nearly blinds him. Hewhimpers in protest, and she strokes his head, taking some of the pain with it.

“Did you want to see it?”

He’s confused, but then her cupped fingers are before him,slathered all the way to the last knuckle with something thick and white.

He sniffs, and he can smell the animal fat in thereunderneath the fragrance of plants. His stomach aches, empty, and his tonguereaches for it. He winces at the flavor, ears lying flat to his head, and helicks the fabric of her skirt to try to rub off the spreading numbness.

She giggles, and it tickles the air like river stones in theshallows. “It’s not for eating.”

He sneezes at her.

“It’ll make you feel better,” she laughs, rubbing the strongsmelling mixture against the deepest of his wounds.

He’s surprised. Humans don’t use their tongues like wolves do – the elderssay that they lost traded their ability to use it like other wild things longago – but her hands make his skin tingle in the same way a pack mate’s mouthmight, the healing going deep into muscle and blood.

He sighs, melting as the hurt dissolves into warmth. 

“There you go,” she murmurs, petting his ears. “You’ll be better before you know it.”

~ ~ ~

When he wakes again, she’s gone.

He whines, picking up his head with some effort, but he can only see the traces of her magic in the air, sparkling like fireflies.

His whine turns into a whimper. She should come back. The wooden floors are less accommodating without the swell of her thighs to pillow him. It’s been so long sincehe’s curled up in a nest of his brethren, felt the weight of others breaths ina warm den, and he wants just a little more of it. Even if she was just a tiny human, more bone than fur and muscle.

Maybe if he complained loud enough, she would come back and stroke his pelt a littlemore. He had liked that.

Glassclatters in the other room and that quiet voice curses softly. His ears perk. She’s not far after all. Alcohol andlavender assail his nose and he sneezes twice to get rid of the sting. 

She should come back. She would get more enjoyment out of burying her small hands in his fur than whatever she was up to.

The witch sighs, muttering little incantations to herself and he huffs. Very well. If she wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her.

His first few steps are painful ones, the newly knitted skin athis chest pulling with every movement. Lowering his head, he sniffs every step ofthe way. It would be good to know what kind of human this was, who else might frequent her den.

He stares at the parquet, tilting his head in confusion. So many have passed through this place, and recently. She must have a large pack, but- why had he not heard them? Why did they not drive him out like the pack circling this land rightly tried to do?

“What you are doing?”

He lifts his head and there she is. Alone. Her magic is not asbright as before, but he can smell her ire. Fists bunch on her hips, and she frownsdown at him.

He wags his tail tentatively.

“Oh no,” she shakes her head. “Don’t you go making those eyes atme, Mister. Back to bed.”

His tail droops, and he looks around. She’s not much taller thanhim and she clearly is not as strong. He doesn’t have to listen to her if hedoesn’t want to.

Her hand buries into the fur at the nap of his neck. “Come on,”she grumbles, steering him back.

His lips curl. He could fight her, but-

He huffs, walking with as much dignity as a tiny human chastising himas if he were a wayward pup would allow, and then obediently curls back upunder her stern gaze.

She covers him with a blanket, patting him once on the head.

“I’ll bring you some food in a little bit. Just sleep for now.”

His eyes follow the bright flare of her magic until it fadesinto the other room.

~ ~ ~

Her pack is a strange one indeed.

Changelings of all sorts. Sons of Selkies. Descendants of demons. And daughters of men that smell like royalty. They all come and go and she pays each one no more reverence than the last.

Her closest pack mate he keeps one eye on, though. She smells like a cat and he does not like it. But either her magic is not strong or she was not taught for she just stares at him through theopen door.

Good. She knows who belongs here and who does not.

“What do you think, Yuzuri?”

“I don’t know.” She frowns at him but he can smell the lie. “Has he shed his skin?”

~ ~ ~

Every day he gets a little stronger, every day he gets a little more restless.

He is not made for indoor life, and when the night comes alive while she is fast asleep on the floor above him, he buzzes with energy, coming close but not quite testing the strength of her boundaries surrounding her home.

Tonight, though, something scurries in the dark, pale fur bright in the moonlight, hopping between the rows of her garden plot. 

It looks delicious. He wants it, bloody and alive between his teeth. He wants that last squeal of life before the crunch of bones silences it.

It must feel his hunger for it freezes, head lifting from a patch of vegetable and it’s nose quivers. It looks around rapidly, caged and nervous like prey always are, and quickly eats the rest of the leaf it had pilfered. And then it hops away, disappearing back into the forest.

He cries, pawing at the window. No, he wants it. He has to go get it. He pushes hard against the witches boundary and yelps when her magic smacks him away.

“Mister Wolf?”

He freezes, ducking his head at the groggy voice, and bashfully looks behind him.

“Is there something out there?” Her face is bleary with sleep,squinting into the dark. She’s wrapped in a blanket and she scratches behind his ears, frowning at nothing. “Did something scare you?”

He whines at the door.

She smiles down at him. “Don’t be scared. Nothing can get near this home unless I invite it.”

He cries some more, paw batting the air as she turns away. 

“I’ll stay down here with you so you’re not alone.”

He watches as she pulls down a blanket, flopping a pillow down onto the ground beside it.

“C’mon,” she settles next to his nest, patting his own bedding thick with his scent. “It’s too cold to not sleep together.”

~ ~ ~

He follows her after that. There’s not a step that she takes that he is not right behind her. If she will share his nest at night then he will share her day. 

The people, they come and go with more frequency than they did in the beginning, paying him less mind with every given day, and he thinks he understands now - her pack is not her pack. At least not most of them. She’s a healer; a wise one. They come to her for guidance and she grants it and sends them on their way regardless if they bring anything to her in offering.

So he stands guard at her side when they come so they know their wise one is a powerful one indeed. It’s all he can offer her. In that, he is no better than the most pitiful of the humans, and it fills him with shame.

And then the humans are gone, but her kindness remains true. She pets him. Feeds him. She whispers her little stories into his fur as she falls asleep. 

And he wishes there was something more he could do.

~ ~ ~

She’s humming, a sweet sound that is only comparable to the songbirds of the wild.

He has long learned to stay out of her way on days like this, when she takes a stick with dried grass to the floor and patiently beats the dust out of her blankets, leaving them in the sun to warm.

But today something has changed. Today she takes his blankets and he balks at his nest being disturbed. She pays him no mind, lifting the corner of one to her snout and then sniffing. Her nose wrinkles up.

“I’m going to have to wash this with lye,” she mutters.

He whimpers. He had just gotten those blankets to smell like he liked them, but she’s still not paying attention. Instead she is staring at the floor with a perplexed frown.

The witches bends over to pick something up and he stops whining, his head tilting in interest.

But she comes back up, several of her undergarments in hand. 

“That’s odd,” she frowns. “How did these get here?”

She takes all of it away, the door to the outside swinging shut behind her.

His tail droops. Those were his.

~ ~ ~

The cat is back. 

And this time she brought her kitten. 

He can’t say that he likes the mother. But he can’t say that he doesn’t.She smells of feline and watches him constantly as cat’s are wont to do, prepared to bat his nose if hesteps out of line but a second.

But her presence soothes the witch’s loneliness in ways that he cannot, so he tolerates her, playing gently with her offspring. 

The kitten is shy thing and although he smells a man on him, he has no strength. So he sets out to make him stronger.

The kitten grunts, pulling with his whole body against the knotted dishtowel that the witch had made them, and he tugs back, the fabric caught carefully between his teeth. He makes sure the kitten wins every other round.

“He likes him, I think,” the witch smiles, toweling off her hands and giving the cat a mixture of oil and life. “It’s good to see Keiran not so scared of him anymore.”

“He’s more like his father in that,” the cat grins slyly. “Hopefully when it’s your turn, you’ll find someone a little less nervous than I did.”

“Maybe,” the witch laughs. “One never knows.”

~ ~ ~

When the sky turns to burnish gold, the cat and her kitten depart, wandering down the dusty dirt road. His witch waves goodbye, scratching his head with a heavy sigh.

And he’s angry for some reason suddenly. So very angry.

He thought she at the very least the cat was a member of her pack, but- these people. They just come for a little while and then they leave. No one ever stays. They just take and take and never give and-

And it’s wrong that she be alone like him. She’s not cursed. She’s not damned. She protects this land with her magic and blesses their health.

He shakes his whole body in irritation, turning away from the sight.

It’s not right that he’s angry with them. He’s knows that when he is healed, he will have to leave her too. It’s not right for him to stay here when he is good enough to move, not right of him to steal her companionship as if it were something to be shared with a black dog.

He comes up short, staring at his nest of blankets that only just started to smell right again. In the center of it lay the knotted dishtowel, a toy left behind by the kitten she loved.

He stares at it longer, head tilting. He may not be able to give her much, but- but if he shed his skin, walked on two legs instead of four for a few nights…

He’s not strong enough to make the change. Not yet. But maybe- maybe he could give her something so she was not lonely anymore.

He shakes himself again. He must be going mad being kept indoors like this for so long. He should start making plans to leave. Maybe tomorrow.

Of course, that’s what he told himself yesterday.

~ ~ ~

Two more weeks pass and then he can put it off no longer. His wounds no longer hurt, they no longer pull nor break nor smell with the promise of infection. She has done all that she can do for him and more.

He crawls close to her that night just to steal just a few more moments of her scent. He’ll live longer than her, likely. He’lllive until she is nothing but the earth that she loves, but he’ll carry herscent long after the world has forgotten her name.

Her hand ideally strokes his fur, staring intently at one of herbooks. She doesn’t like it when he tries to pull her attention away from them.If he’s patient, she’ll just-

She sighs, her arm falling limp. She strokes his ears. He’ll miss that too, but he can’t take it with him.

“Am I wrong?” she says suddenly, and he perks up, looking up ather. There’s something so sad in her voice. “Are you just a wolf?”

He blinks at her, his heart weighs just a little heavier. He had hoped that was not the only reason she had cared for him, not the only reason she overlooked the ink of his pelt, but-

“Well,” she smiles sleepily, “even if you aren’t a faolofh, it is still nice havingsomeone else in the house.”

He stays still for hours after that, his chin resting against the soft of her belly, and watches the flames until they fade to ember. 

The change is not as difficult as he remembered.

[entrapdaknation]

I was so happy to see this analysis on my dashboard today, shining a light on Hordak (my favorite She-Ra character) and Odo (my favorite DS9 character).

I do have one quibble. On three occasions, the Founders either harmed Odo, or placed him in a situation where he could have been harmed. First, Odo was one of a hundred Changeling infants sent out as scouts to explore the galaxy. Had hostile beings discovered Odo instead of friendly ones, infant Odo could have been harmed, which the Founders had to have known. Second, the Founders arranged for Odo to contract an illness so that he’d be forced to return to the Great Link for healing. If Odo had refused to return, the disease would have killed him. Third, the Great Link removed Odo’s shapeshifting abilities as punishment for killing another Changeling. In their eyes, and Odo’s, being transformed into a solid was a humiliating and devastating experience that absolutely counted as harm.

In essence, the Founders saw Odo as exalted, like them, only if he did what they wanted. They disregarded his well-being the moment he acted against their wishes. Similarly, Hordak and his clone brethren were exalted clones of Horde Prime as long as they were physically normative and obedient. Prime disregarded Hordak when both his flesh and his mind deviated from Prime’s will. In both communities, one’s worth was contingent on one’s submission.

I know you've brought up Star Trek at least once so I'm curious if you'll get the reference.

Hordak reminds me a tad bit of one of my favorite characters from Deep Space Nine, Odo. Lost from his hive mind people gets caught up in things. Only difference is the only thing Odo was ever in charge of was station security and not his own Empire, and the Dominion wasn't a Hive Mind.

But it's just a odd comparison between Hordak and Odo from Deep Space Nine and how they may have started out.

Honestly, if I were to compare Hordak to any character from a Star Trek series, it would be Seven of Nine from Voyager.Both of them were part of a hivemind collective and that robbed them of the opportunity to grow up which left them both emotionally stunted.

Seven too is conflicted about the borg at first. She actually wants to be returned to the collective in the first episodes.

Neither of them are exactly proficient with their social skills.

Both have a lot of technical expertise.

Captain Janeway's compassion for her confuses Seven since she has no frame of reference for it just like Hordak is surprised by Entrapta's kindness and doesn't know how to react to it.

The only emotion either of them find easy to express is irritation.

Now, about that Odo comparison, his fish out of water and inability to fit in with the solids does ring similarly to a lost clone on Etheria.

Odo seems to have a strange relationship to the people that found and studied him which, depending on your headcanon, Hordak too could have had. It's entirely plausible.

I don't see the link as a hive mind in the sense that Prime's is or the borg collective since the changelings do not appear to have a hierarchy whereas both The Galactic Horde and The Borg have a clear God-Emperor / Borg Queen.

Both the borg queen and Prime show callous disregard for the drones of their hivemind while Odo's people never tried to harm him.

It's an interesting point that Odo and Hordak do share certain personality features like their loyalty, stoic attitude and their determination but their experiences are, in my experience, not that comparable.Odo was only made to feel othered by the aliens that treated him like a specimen whereas Seven of Nine and Hordak were taught they were nothing but cogs by the collective they served.

Either way, interesting point to bring up @jidblogger. Thank you for the ask.

[pikuna]

I’m currently having a writers blog, so I have no idea when and if (and to which extend) I would write this little idea of mine about Strickler/Stricklander after whatever happens in the second season. (And since we don’t know it yet, all is just headcanon of mine.) But I want to note down a few ideas. Putting them under ‘Read More’ because spoilers.

I will just go with the idea that Jim was indeed able to rescue the human familiars (maybe not all, but most of them), but didn’t managed to kill Gunmar, just barely escaping. I’m still unsure with what kind of headcanon I should go for this story. So far I only say that Enrique is back home and that the real Strickler isn’t around anymore. Of course Strickler (or Stricklander now) is trapped in his Troll form now, wherever he is in that moment. 

Besides getting out of the Darklands Gunmar wants Stricklander to be caught and use him as warning that no Changeling should disobey him. Since his Changeling brethren have abandoned him and are now after him on Gunmar’s order, Stricklander has no real safe place and since it’s in his own interest he goes to Jim and offers his help in the fight against Gunmar. Of course Jim doesn’t trust him, but Stricklander manages to earn his trust at least so far that Jim let him help (and besides, he has useful insider information). Since Stricklander has no home anymore and isn’t welcome in the Trollmarket, he shares the basement of Jim’s house with Draal, much to the chagrin of both. (I imagine Stricklander would still make fun of Draal, but much more subtle now so he wouldn’t get it.) They manage to get most of Stricklander’s books into the basement and he has his own corner for living. 

Jim hasn’t told his mother yet about him being the Trollhunter and so he forbids Stricklander to even think about talking to her. He agrees to this at first only for the sake of peace, but later advice him to tell her the truth, that she deserves to know what her son is up to and he had promised her after all.  Reluctantly Jim tells his mother and since the circumstances are a bit calmer now, he has more time to explain everything, how important it is and that it’s destiny. Barbara isn’t happy about this, but at least Jim is honest with her and she wants to support her son, if he is really sure about this. 

Of course Jim will have to introduce Draal to his mother at one point and that’s when she meets Stricklander for the first time. Jim hasn’t told her about what he had done to her, but one warning glare and Stricklander knows that he shouldn’t try to play nice with Barbara, not that he would want to. He still feels ashamed and just gives her the silent treatment. (”And who is that Jim?” “Oh, just another Troll who helps me. He isn’t very social, don’t mind him.)

This goes on for a while. Draal would now come up into the house more often, but Stricklander sticks mostly to the basement, even when he really misses to at least talk with Barbara. Maybe he could have acted good enough so she would never suspect that he had been Walter Strickler, but he can’t bring it over his heart to lie to her. (Also Jim would behead him) It hurts Stricklander every time when she is kind to him (like when she wants to tend their wounds after a fight, which he refuses. Barbara starts to think that this troll doesn’t like her) and he tries to return this kindness by preparing tea for her or put a blanket over her when she has fallen into bed after a long work day. (All when Jim is too busy for that and no one would notice.) 

But at a certain point Barbara confronts Stricklander. She has overheard several conversations between him and the others, puzzling together that he might be the vanished Walter Strickler (like hearing his name, hearing his manner of speech or when she went down seeing one of the books Walter had told her he liked (since she only lost her memory from the moment on their lives got bound together, she surely remembers stuff they had talked about before)) Stricklander then starts to tell her the details Jim had left out and says again and again that he is sorry about how he had used her. Barbara of course is shocked and hurt about it and now it is her turn to treat Stricklander with the silent treatment. He know he deserves this, but now it hurts even more to be around Barbara, even thinks about to take shelter somewhere else. 

But after the house got attacked and Stricklander did everything to protect her and Jim, she starts to talk again, much to his surprise. At first they are both a bit hesitant with talking much with each other, but Stricklander is now more comfortable with being up in the house and starts doing the little things he had done in secret now more obvious, so Barbara would notice and soon they would fall back into the chats they had before, even with the flirty note to it.  Jim is not very happy about this development and demands from Stricklander to stay away from his mother. He only returns that it is Barbara who initiate most of their chats and interactions and that he can’t help it to respond to that. During that conversation Barbara interrupts them and has a word with her son. She appreciates that Jim wants to look out for her and that she understands that Jim doesn’t fully trust Stricklander, but she asks him, if he doesn’t think that he had changed since their days as enemies. Barbara is very sure that Stricklander is now honest with both of them and that Jim doesn’t need to worry, after all it’s still her choice with who and how she interacts. 

Sadly Jim stays stubborn and so the atmosphere in the house is tense. Again Stricklander thinks it’s the best to leave, but Barbara tries to convince him to stay. He doesn’t think he’s worth the trouble he causes the family, but she insists on it that he is part of the family after all. (She has practically adopted all of Jim’s Troll friends into the family.) Even when Stricklander appreciates the sentiment very much, there are things that only complicate the situation, like him being a Changeling/Troll. Barbara then asks him, if he ever had lied to her. She knows he had used her as shield, but had he lied? He assures her he never forthright did so. She continues with explaining that she doesn’t mind it that he isn’t a human. She still enjoys his company, he makes her laugh, ease her worries and she trusts him again, for all he did was taking care and protecting both her and Jim. Just like she had wished from a good husband. Stricklander is so surprised by this statement and Barbara uses this to emphasize her words with a kiss. For her it’s the first kiss between them in her memory, while Strickler is just so happy to experience this again.

They are now officially a couple, much to Jim’s frustration. From this point on I don’t know how the story will go on or end.

One thing I want to add for later is, that the group finds a talisman that allows Stricklander to change into his Human form for a certain time (8 hours or so). He is very happy about it, since he missed it to be a teacher and also would like to go out with Barbara during the day. 

[sleepymarmot]

DS9 season 3 liveblog & notes

[Season index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PS]

The Search 1

Um... so what about that treaty about no cloaking on Federation starships, that was such a big deal in The Pegasus?

What's going on with Jadzia's hair...

"We're going to take our only warship into the territory of people who think of us as intruders to convince them we represent no threat" Logic???? What kind of plan is this?

Loaned? Ah, ok.

"When did I start thinking of this Cardassian monstrosity as home?"

If this is "one of the finest collections of ancient African art you'll ever see", what is it doing in their luggage instead of a museum? This is almost as bad as Picard and that priceless artifact in The Chase...

"Maybe it is. Maybe I'm your friend, and maybe I want you to see that you are still needed here no matter what some idiot Starfleet admiral might think." ;_;

Why dim the lights when you cloak? Just to give a visual shorthand to the viewers?

Wow Odo... I don't understand why everyone is so hard on Quark in this episode -- Sisko bullies him, Bashir insults him for no reason, now Odo is yelling at him with more aggression than he's ever shown in two seasons...

Seriously?! Cloaked ships leave a trace, and nobody in all decades of conflict ever noticed that?! I mean, even if somehow only the Romulans know, that means they can detect cloaked Klingon ships, which would mean they could as well have been uncloaked -- that'd be a massive retcon that doesn't work with anything we've seen before.

I still don't understand how replicators can produce foul tasting food... They make exact copies on a molecular level...

Poor Bashir -- it's as if Sisko picked his best friends to leave behind on purpose...

another literal redshirt dead

Class M planet with no star? What? 

Why do these changelings all look like Odo -- imperfect imitations of humanoids? I thought Odo's appearance was the result of trying to fit in Bajoran society + lack of skill to make face more detailed. These changelings live by themselves so they can pick any shape they like, and I'd expect them to have more control over details, so just repeating Odo's design looks like a lazy shorthand to indicate they're the same species -- as if their liquid state weren't enough. They even have the same hairstyle -- which he copied from a Bajoran! If the writers are trying to say "they're just copying Odo" then they should all be played by the same actor.

The Search 2

Oh come on, Kira, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a lot of questions in this situation!!!

Me: well this story is pretty bad so far, I don't have any expectations for it anymore Screen: Andrew Robinson as Garak Me: interest instantly restored

(I'm certain every person liveblogging this show made or reblogged a post in this vein...)

Alright, Sisko's plotline is definitely some kind of hallucination

Or is it? I thought it was all too good to be true, but maybe the Dominion is just tricking them

Wait, that subcommander is alive and on DS9?

Okay, I didn't like that "Starfleet security officer" and now he's more suspicious. Maybe he's a part of the Dominion. Maybe the changelings are a part of the Dominion. Maybe all these people acting strangely are changelings in disguise. Maybe everything is a conspiracy. I dunno, this entire episode feels incredibly fake. 

"It seems our leaders have simply gone insane" Garak stop reinforcing my impression that you and Sisko are somehow the only real people in this story... Well Dax and Bashir also seem to be alright, but they're a bit too passive.

Oh, Garak didn't look behind himself and got shot, guess he's not real either

FUCKING FINALLY

This is so unsurprising that I can't tell if the writing is to obvious or if I've seen this spoiler before and half-forgot. Probably both.

And they just let them all go. Sure. I wonder how they managed to gain so much power, if they're prone to dumb decisions like this..

What a shitty story. Jfc. The only amusing part was that according to the main characters, the Starfleet admirals are stupid and untrustworthy (what a surprise...), and Garak is smart enough to not only take action when needed, but seem to almost realize the world around him is wrong (but he still somehow fails a spot check in a firefight...). Bashir clearly wants him to join the team and run around having adventures (not a surprise either...). It's funny that the character who comes closest to becoming self-aware is actually one of the simulated ones.

The fakeness of the plot is obvious enough to make me unable to take it seriously, but not clear or fun enough to just relax and enjoy the ride. I don't hate simulations on principle, but I need them to be good simulations. The Federation is too stupid -- it might have worked with some new admiral, since they're often assholes, but we know Nechayev and she was obviously OOC. The editing is pretty telling: there are weird timeskips (worst offender: Sisko gets into a fight and then without a change of pace others come to break him out from the brig), plus I don't think there were establishing outside shots of DS9. And anyway, the very first scene with Sisko where he's in a shuttle even though at the end of the previous episode he was about to be captured, and then Dax and O'Brien show up and we've never seen them escape is a dead giveaway that everything about this group of characters from here on is somehow wrong. And that's 8 minutes into the episode. I thought "Well, maybe it's an editing experiment, and it'll be a how-we-got-here flashback episode" but nope. What a waste of time.

Lmao I just read this in a comment to a review of this episode: "When I first saw the The Search, Pt II I found it unusual that Bashir is in a shuttlecraft with someone and for the first time manages not to annoy his travelling companion. And then the ending reveals why – it was all a dream!" That's right! I actually thought that too! :D

I can say one good thing about this episode: Odo's love of order has always had dark undertones, and I like that it's explored and discussed here as a racial trait which made his brethren into a galactic evil force.

But otherwise I'm not very impressed with his storyline? In the first part his anger and compulsive homing instinct look offputting instead of sympathetic. At one point he makes an expression that is probably supposed to be soft and makes the viewers go "aww", but ends up just looking forced and creepy. And the tender moment with Kira at the end just didn't work for me.

The House of Quark

OUCH

I was pretty scared for Quark, since he's not a big fan of violence, nice to see he's taking this so well

A new pretty outfit for Quark! A beautiful Klingon woman!

Another beautiful Klingon with a great grey mane. Yes, my commentary is very deep today.

I just continue to be amazed by Quark's luck with the ladies. Cultural exchange with a Vulcan in the previous season, now with a Klingon.

Aw, O'Brien actually wants Bashir's opinion now. And Bashir gives good relationship advice to a married man -- compare to their conversation in Armageddon Game!

Doesn't this solve their problem? If Kozak died dishonorably, that means D'Ghor gets nothing. Which is what should have happened in the first place. So now that D'Ghor challenged Quark, Quark's inability to fight will be shown to everybody (as if it weren't obvious enough...), so D'Ghor's lie will be exposed. And then he'd not only have no right of ineritance, but presumably also become a criminal for lying to the coucil.

Quark is awesome

What a good episode. Quark acts cool and noble! Klingon vs Ferengi value clash & working together! A-story and B-story work together well because despite no direct connection, they're both uplifting and thematically linked!

Equilibrium

Oh, of course when Jadzia gets screentime, it's for her to act OOC

Aw, a J&J friendship scene

Time for the annual comment on how much Bashir grew up! I've already talked about his scene in the previous episode, and now there's this lovely, purely platonic scene with Jadzia

How can these Federation weirdos sleep without blankets?

This was okay. But can we have a Jadzia episode not about her almost dying? So far this season is disappointing -- only one good episode out of four.

Second Skin

O k a y. You got me, I really didn't expect this

This is the kind of episode I watch this show for

How do you disguise someone as a member of species for years? I can understand cosmetic surgery like in Face of the Enemy, but to change their entire body so it would show as target species during any medical examination... This concerns the episode Tribunal, too. How are agents so deep undercover supposed to work? She spent all these years helping the Resistance. How does that benefit Cardassia? 10 years ago they wouldn't have known the Federation would become involved and their sleeper agent would work with them

Niiiiice

"Just something I overheard while I was hemming someone's trousers" lmao his excuses are getting more and more ridiculous

Cardassian!Kira *is* more attractive than the real Kira

the real Garak demonstrates how much his reflexes are quicker than his simulation's :D

Honestly, by this point I'm just curious for how many seasons can the writers stretch the mystery surrounding Garak. :D They're having too much fun giving out pieces of the puzzle one by one.

The Abandoned

This beautiful woman with a really impressive chest is Jake's gf? Wow!

Why are they just taking away the wreckage instead of buying it from Quark?

Sisko holding the baby and Jadzia and Julian watching him with smiles on their faces :'))

oh my god Odo used his old bucked as a cache-pot for Kira's plant... :O

wait, weren't the Jem'Hadar much more reptilian?

"It's amazing how some people would judge you based on nothing more than your job" haha

If this boy has so much aggression, why is it only expressed as need for physical combat, and not angry verbal outbursts etc? Another genetically engineered quality -- he needs to be a brutal soldier that doesn't talk back?

I find it curious that this episode answers the question "Is it okay for a 20 year old to date a 16 year old?" with such a definite yes. That's pretty questionable territory, and it's unclear why exactly Sisko changed his mind: his opinion about the girl's job or Jake's interests doesn't negate the age difference.

I like that the show takes Odo's backstory as a lab specimen so seriously. I used to expect exploration of this theme with Data, since he must have spent a lot of time in some Federation research centers before entering the Academy.

Civil Defense

Garak AND Dukat? I like this episode already.

Why are they not asking Garak for help? I know they'd prefer other options, but is kind of an emergency! I know they'll have to, eventually, since he's in the opening titles.

"I never knew how much this man's voice annoyed me" :D I'd actually be curious to hear the announcement in full, personally!

This is such a good excuse for a Disaster-like episode?? Perfect synergy between the setting and the needs of the plot

haha of course Odo and Quark are trapped together

"The only place in the galaxy that still recognizes my access code is a Bajoran space station" So what about that code in Second Skin?

bwahaha it just gets worse and worse

I think this is a good episode to show new viewers who want a taste of the show before starting to watch it properly from the beginning: it gives a good idea of the setting and involves all major characters to some degree, but so far it has very few continuity references

"What? That you'd spend your final hours in jail?"

"Tell me, Doctor, what is it exactly about this situation that's making you smile?" "You, Garak." oh my god...

holy shit this station is something else...

Dukat shows up in person! It's strange they didn't even discuss the possibility of calling him earlier. Of course, he immediately turned this into a hostage situation, so...

Oh my god he's making himself tea in the middle of this... amazing

"If you had been on the station when I designed this programme, I would have made an exception in your case."

HAHAHAHAHA

When Odo and Quark walk out, why are so many people just chilling on the Promenade?! They were about to die seconds ago!

What a beautiful episode :D Probably not as suited for beginners as I initially thought, thanks to Garak&Dukat. But I really appreciate the dark comedy side of it

Meridian

I think I've seen this episode in TNG... maybe multiple times... Jadzia is even worse suited for this role than Deanna. 

welp this was really bad on literally every possible level. i could complain for a long time but i'd rather save my breath

the only good thing about this episode: it's so irrelevant you can easily skip it.

Defiant

I think she needs sleep, not a night out in the bar

THAT VOICE 

I think I'm spoiled about this one...

Second Chances did such a good job not villainizing Tom and then this episode comes and ruins it

ah yes tell all your military secrets to the Cardassians, including cloaked ship detection...

why the random kiss

aaand Riker spends possibly the rest of his life in a Cardassian camp? great. just great. why did someone hate him so much they deemed this necessary? they managed to make me so salty about this I didn't even care about the Cardassian stuff, that's an achievement. Will gets to continue his career and marry his imzadi while Tom, who already spent 8 years marooned alone and didn't even get a promotion afterwards, now rots in prison forever. "You always had the better hand," indeed.

it's hilarious how quickly Dukat can make Sisko sympathise with him just by mentioning fatherhood. worked even better than the last time. if he got half a brain he's doing it on purpose.

I hope Riker at least got to spend some time with Ro while they were both in the Maquis. now that's something I'd like to see

Fascination

"I'm a poor substitute for your wife" "I could have told you that 60 games ago"

do we really need the Odo/Kira/Bareil love triangle?

"I usually make it a point to drop by Quark's three or four times a day at random intervals, just to let him know that I'm thinking about him"

"Jadzia, of course. I've never understood how the two of you could be such good friends. [...] It's just that she gets to spend so much more time with you than I do." "Jadzia and I have been doing this for the past two years."  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

oh O'Briens, pls don't fight over nothing :(

so where is Bashir during all this? because I'm pretty sure he and Garak are not immune to this romance confusion nonsense, and that sounds like a much more intriguing story than what I'm watching

ah, he's with Kira, well at least this one's mutual and not sexual harassment

I understand Odo, but why is Sisko unaffected too?

A question that concerns not only to this episode: why is Kira always the object of everyone's attraction? She's dating Bareil (which I completely forgot about; when she mentioned having a boyfriend in the previous episode I was very confused), Odo has a crush on her, in this episode Jake and Bashir do too, an episode before Riker kisses her, an episode before some creep wants a blow-up doll of her, an episode before Dukat leers at her...

Well... I guess this was less gross than The Naked Now.

Past Tense

I like how Dax adjusts to this time period instantly. was she already born by then?

"Some of these people are mentally ill." *braces myself for some horrible comment* "...They need proper medical treatment." oh thank god

Jadzia looks absolutely gorgeous

surely it's not a coincidence that the only white character among the time-travellers ends up with a millionaire, while the others are locked up in the sanctuary

Sisko and Bashir's discussions are very heavy handed, it's like watching some old moralizing play

I like how Jadzia retrieved her combadge by telling the truth

there was nothing particularly wrong with this story, and it was well-made, but for some reason it didn’t really impress me

Life Support

so. Winn was behind the sabotage, right?

this is like "Ethics" in reverse

haha they want Terok Nor back

"She talks a lot for a female" Nog you used to be better than that...

"Listen to me. I don't care about your negotiations, and I don't care about your treaty. All I care about is my patient, and at the moment he needs more medical care and less politics. Now, you can either leave here willingly or I'll call security and have you thrown out."

now it's more like "The Host". (I can't stop comparing everything to TNG haha)

don't try to make this into a "grey morality" situation. Nog is objectively in the wrong here, the human culture is objectively better than the Ferengi culture in this respect. TNG intentionally wrote Ferengi values to be abhorrent, and DS9 didn't change them but somehow tries to justify them and it just. doesn't. work. Just admit you wrote yourself into a corner, and either retcon the Ferengi to be more tolerable, or set aside your "all cultures are valid" agenda for a minute and admit some things are just bad. this glorification of moral relativism is DS9's version of TNG's worst misapplications of the Prime Directive

wow, are they actually going to kill him off?

"Positronic implants"?! Um. UM. They have working positronic brain now? Since when? Last time I heard, nobody managed to make stable ones since Dr. Soong... Or are implants easier to make than a full brain? Anyway, the possibility of a mixed organic-positronic brain has never even been discussed before, this is kind of a big deal. Dammit, just putting some human skin on Data was something only the Borg managed to do! This sounds 1000 times more complex!

"Major" ah, so that's how they break up, he’s incapable of romance now

ahh, his voice, head movemens and facial expressions are just like Data's

uggh the Jake-Nog storyline went as I expected

wow I didn't expect the treaty to actually get signed!

"I won't remove the last shred of humanity Bareil has left" rude... and that's from the man who befriended Data... I'm disappointed

oh btw if he just casually talks about the possibility of fully replacing Bareil's brain, that means it is possible to create stable positronic brains at will now! this is enormous! Data doesn’t have to be the only one of his kind anymore! Lal can be rebuilt! oh wait, let me guess, this will never be addressed again ever.

Welp. You know, right before I started this episode, I was mentally complaining about Bareil, like "kill him off already". Whoops! I feel bad now. This episode didn't go as I expected, and was more important than I expected too, which is good.

Jake and Nog's storyline and the positronic stuff -- less good. Honestly, the more I think about these two points, the angrier I become and the less I like this episode.

I thought that A and B plots were annoyingly unrelated, but actually... I think they share the theme of "peace above all", on a very different scale. Because the Bajoran-Cardassian treaty doesn't sound very fair to me either. "There's even the possibility that the Cardassians will issue a formal apology"?! Is that really enough? "Even the possibility"? Meanwhile, people like Dukat not only walk free but remain at their high posts. Cardassia|Nog was the offending side, Bajor|Jake did nothing wrong, and yet rather than declare that and demand justice and apologies, the latter can only hope to achive mutual tolerance -- even that is hard enough. Well, let's just hope the show isn't going to try and justify the occupation, like it did with Nog's misogyny...

btw, since we're talking about international politics and status quo: what about the Dominion threat? everyone was really scared for a couple of episodes, and then things went back to normal. we went to the Gamma Quadrant once for no reason (nothing about the plot required that!). the Defiant, a unique warship sent here for defend DS9 and the wormhole against Dominion attacks, is regularly used as a shuttle/runabout for random trips. way to disperse all sense of danger, change and excitement.

I certainly like Bashir in this episode more than I liked Crusher in Ethics (or in The Host, lol). He can get pretty intense when it comes to saving his patient's life. Not "fly to Cardassia to face a former head of secret service" intense, but still.

It's nice to see Winn humanized a bit. The writers have spent a lot of time making Dukat likeable, she deserves the same treatment. I'm so used to mistrusting her, I spent the entire episode being confused whether she actually wants the treaty to succeed or is plotting to make it fail for some reason, whether she wants Bareil alive or dead. But I guess I was supposed to take everything she was saying at face value for once? 

I don't know what the hell is this season doing with these Ferengi B-plots that, I guess, are supposed to be humorous (???) but are wildly offensive instead. Are we supposed to just calmly accept Quark and Nog's extreme misogyny? It was played for drama pretty well in Rules of Acquisition; this is a noticeable step back.

Heart of Stone

I love Sisko and Bashir's casual conversation about a male ensign's pregnancy! Sure, he's an alien, but it's still progress for this show.

Odo and Kira's storyline is so cliched... I don't even make an effort to listen to their technobabble

As viewers we all know Kira will be saved somehow at the last minute, but in her and Odo's place I'd already start discussing a mercy kill. Phaser blast from a friend >>> asphyxiation

"I'm in love with you too" ???????????????????? YOUR BOYFRIEND LITERALLY DIED IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE

Sisko, he's just a kid. I know you're testing him, but there's no need to go that far.

Okay, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but: what about misogyny? The previous episode made a point of showing that Nog upholds Ferengi values regarding women. And that's completely incompatible with Starfleet. Isn't anyone going to mention that?

heh... there was a thought at the back of my mind that a changeling might be involved

aww, good, stand up to Quark, you two! :)

Well, most of this episode is very boring, contrived and derivative, but it does give Odo some character development (even if it includes the dreaded romance, ugh) and has a good excuse for this plot device at the end.

Destiny

"I also had Chief O'Brien reprogram the replicators to provide Cardassian food" Um, why wouldn't it already be on the menu? I assumed the replicators weren't replaced by Federation ones, and in season 2 Keiko gave a Cardassian dish to  Rugal. I went back to check, and she literally said "I found some Cardassian recipes in the memory bank of our food replicator"!

It makes sense that the Bajorans don't want the Cardassians in their Temple

let me guess, there'll be an unexpected third Cardassian and suddenly the prophecy will sound much more believable

"Now those are about the two friendliest vipers I've ever met" Hey, maybe don't make jokes like this immediately after someone walks out of the door...

Told you so

Damn, the third "viper" seems to actually deserve that name! Will she be the "bad" one, or, in subversion, the only trustworthy one?

"Men just don't seem to have a head for this sort of thing. That's why women dominate the sciences." ah yes hello reverse sexism trope

Cardassians flirt by bickering? Never heard that before... I thought this was more like Klingons.

Okay, they played it straight with Dejar

That's lovely! But "vipers will return to their nest in the sky" doesn't make sense -- how did the comet fragments return to their nest?

The Prophets don't "want" anything! They just can tell you the future because they don't exist in linear time!

Well, this was a lovely episode, if not the most engaging. But the subplot with O'Brien and the scientist was completely unnecessary.

Prophet Motive

Was! This! Necessary?! I don't need to see sex on screen! And yes that includes oo-mox!

Aw Bashir

I can't believe we're getting a story where Bashir is the one who suffers because his friends won't shut up. Karma is real...

nice job breaking it, Quark

The story is pretty shallow by itself, but makes me ask some interesting questions. Would it be ok to nonconsensually transform a bad person into a good one? Especially a person in a position of power? I know I'd be tempted to do this to some politicians... But even if we assume the ends justify the means, who would define good or bad? Sadly, this episode doesn't take these issues seriously.

After 2.5 season of Bajoran religion, it's actually nice to meet the "Prophets" in person again in all their creepy, clueless glory.

Visionary

Time to torture poor Miles with more unreality!

why are both sides being so dumb? just say "Odo was separated from the rest of his people as a baby, grew up with no knowledge of them, and only met them 1.5 times"?

"I'm always diplomatic" *cut* "THAT WAS THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I'VE EVER HEARD AND I RESENT THE IMPLICATION!"

my first thought: the transporter genuis who beamed in the device was O'Brien

this one doesn't make sense... the sleeping Miles should know about the disaster and the radiation device too...

As usual with time travel episodes, it's very fun to watch, but the mechanics break down at the end and spoil the impression. I like that, as in Civil Defense, every time you solve a problem it gets worse.

It's only season 3, and "O'Brien suffers" as a type of episode is already getting old.

Distant Voices

There's a Cardassian writer named Shoggoth? :D

"Still the man of mystery?" "Oh, you wouldn't have me any other way"

Melting Odo is a genuinely disturbing sight...

"There's hope for you yet, Doctor"

Very predictable story, but it has some character development and lovely scenes with Garak.

Through the Looking Glass

when Mirror!Garak looks in indignation at Sisko kissing Kira: honestly same

Mirror universe Terok Nor is less riot-proof than our universe's was...

Episode: boring and pointless as I feared

Mirror Kira: somehow even worse than the last time, at least watching her hit on herself was mildly entertaining

Mirror Garak: still a giant waste of Andrew Robinson -- seriously, he appears rarely enough, and for the third time in this season he's not playing his real character

Sleeping with alternate versions of friends/subordinates: incredibly gross

Well at least Bashir and Dax looked really hot with these haircuts lol

Improbable Cause / The Die is Cast

Ahh, so many of my favourite things. Odo investigates! Garak confronts his past and justifies his reputation for once! International conflict! Dominion is dangerous again!

The cliffhanger where Garak joins Tain is the most thrilling thing that happened on the show recently! But I'd be severely disappointed if he didn't do that. 

The torture scene is very impressive, but there are some things I don't understand about it:

What, "They're still my people and I want to go home" is the big secret that's worth all that torture? Seriously? Anyone could have told you that. How is this information new or relevant?!

Nevertheless, "he never broke" is a lie, right? Odo did break and confess, even if I think his revelation was completely useless. Don't the intelligence agencies of the two biggest police states in the galaxy have security cameras in their interrogation chambers?!

I could understand if Odo forgave Garak eventually, but not so soon and easily! He tortures you horribly, then you never even mention it and invite him to hang out only several hours after! Sorry, what?!

It's becoming a trend to start Garak-centric episodes with something bad happening to him. :D Oh shit, Garak's hand got bitten! Oh shit, Garak has a migraine! Oh shit, Garak's shop blew up!

Explorers

Come on, O'Brien, is this really more ridiculous than building ships in bottles? :D You of all people should understand!

"For a moment there I thought that you had been put in charge of the Cardassian Ministry for the Refutation of Bajoran Fairy Tales"

Miles, just say the word! :D 

Fireworks in space! :D I don't know what I love more -- the beautiful and uplifting moment itself, or Cardassians going "Shit :))) We gotta be really nice today :))))) Congratulations :)))))))"

After the epic intense two-parter -- 45 minutes of pure fluff :D It has so many things that are specific to DS9: Sisko and Jake's family bond, Bajoran culture and Cardassians being jerks about it, Sisko and Dukat's passive-aggressive skyping, Bashir and O'Brien's slowly developing friendship -- all leading to the celebration of the “boldly go where no one has gone before” spirit, and everything, for once, ends well.

Family Business

"If I were Curzon, I'd have stolen her from you by now" *facepalm* let's just pretend this stupid heteronormative line doesn't exist

this house looks like a Hobbit hole

Quark and Rom's mom is awesome. get rekt you misogynists!

omg Miles & Julian, how old are you? :D

Rom is so nice in this episode

I like Kasidy

Ishka is 10 times more awesome than it seemed

Rom really rocks in this episode

aaaand the ship sails :D

I wish Ishka could make a public statement, and Quark would 

Good episode: interesting family dynamics, amazing Ferengi feminist, cute new ship

Quark and women is a fascinating topic. He's a traditionalist when it comes to Ferengi women, but in daily life among other species usually manages to come off no worse than any 20th century misogynist, and finds strong and outspoken women attractive rather than repulsive. Apparently it boils can be traced back to mommy issues: Quark isn't just a "good Ferengi", he's being reactionary towards Ishka, but at the same time she clearly is a positive influence on him, even if he won’t admit it. Too bad in this episode he refused to take even one step forward as he did in "Rules of Acquisition"...

Shakaar

Shit, things are really going downhill on Bajor... separation of church and state, what's that?

"We spent so many years fighting the Cardassians. We spent so much time hoping and praying for a Bajor that was free. Now that we won, how can people just hand their freedom over to someone like Winn?" "It has been my observation that one of the prices of giving people freedom of choice is that sometimes they make the wrong choice."

Why can't those reclamators be replicated?

"I wasn't aware that our relationship needed solidifying" 

Great episode! (If I set aside the question of replication... Seriously, what's the law here? The Bajorans on DS9 can use the replimat, but Bajor can't ask the Federation to replicate some farm equipment? I don't think it would be physically impossible, surely it's not made of something like dilithium or latinum.) Winn hasn't reminded me of our sad reality so much since her first appearance. The B-plot was completely irrelevant, but I always enjoy seeing this sort of thing.

Facets

Quark... are you trying to convince the station commander's 16 year old son to write porn for you? seriously?

Ah yes, people closest to Jadzia, aka all of the main characters... and a dabo girl who appeared once for 45 seconds

don't do this... especially in front of all of ur friends...

Dax has a multi-Doctor episode! :D

CurzOdo and Quark's reaction to him are beautiful :D But how can he drink?

Poor Jadzia :(

Go Rom! Quark is too much of an asshole this season...

This is messed up... 

Typical man: he's attracted to a woman, so he takes out his frustration and her and nearly ruins her life

How do Trill memories work? Why is this ritual needed when all memories are already in Dax's head? Are some of them in a .zip and need to be decompressed to be appreciated fully? How did Jadzia not know of Curzon's crush? Is it possible to hide some of your memories from the next host(s) on purpose? You know what, nevermind. Rene Auberjonois (whose name I had to copy-paste, I must admit...) clearly had fun with this episode, and so did I.

The Adversary

yes finally! :)

When they introduced the word "changeling" I was like "that's dumb, that's not what the word means" but now I understand. tbh I love them as enemy -- this story is so beautifully paranoid

why are they all assuming there's only one changeling on board

Well, they certainly know how to end the season on a dramatic line...

This season, my honeymoon phase of "oh my god, serialized Trek" finally ended, and I started thinking about whether or not I like these serialized stories. So I felt compelled to write longer notes after each episode, and don’t have any general remarks this time.

[elizabethemerald]

Eternal Night Redux: Part 6

“We’ve caught him. We’ve caught the Trollhunter!” The triumphant call of the Gumm-Gumms echoed around the Heartstone chamber. 

“If this is another illusion I swear I will crack open the Heartstone with my bare hands!”

Jim couldn’t help but smile at the furious tone coming from Gunmar. Apparently his and Angor’s plan had worked very well. He quickly hid his smile as he was dragged before the Gumm-Gumm King. 

“So Trollhunter. Your games end at last.” Gunmar growled. “Now you will release the Eldritch Queen and when you have served your purpose I will enjoy breaking you.”

“You weren’t able to break me before, what makes you think you can do it now?” Jim said defiantly. “Do you think just because you are in the Heartstone with two Krubera and three Gumm-Gumms that you will be any better?”

Gunmar gave him a strange look at the way he was talking before he growled even louder. He stomped closer and Jim braced himself for the impact he knew was coming. 

“Hey Gunmar! Fooled you again!”

“Yeah you couldn’t tell the real Trollhunter from an illusion if I came up and smacked you on the ass!”

Jim strained against the Gumm-Gumms holding him to look back at the entrance of the Heartstone. There, Jim Lake Jr. swung a flaming warhammer and crushed one of the troll guards into dust. And Jim Lake Jr expertly twirled a jagged staff before summoning a portal under another. The Gumm-Gumm struggled for a moment before it fell into the portal and disappeared. Both of the Jims disappeared from the entrance to the Heartstone, the sounds of their laughter echoing around the chamber. 

“Another illusion!” Gunmar roared in fury. “After them! One of them must be the real Trollhunter.”

The Gumm-Gumm holding Jim’s arms released him and fled for the entrance. Gunmar moved to follow but before he he left he turned and back handed Jim. He probably would have flown much farther if he hadn’t immediately ran into the wall of the Heartstone with a brilliant flash of blue from his armor. 

Jim laid there for a few seconds then pulled himself to his feet with a groan. Gunmar and the rest of the trolls had departed. He took a wheezing breath and braced himself against the crystal walls as he dragged himself forward. It took all of his strength to limp down the stairs to the chamber where Morgana was kept prisoner. Each breath filled his chest with a shooting pain. 

Down below two Krubera guarded the Staff of Avalon. They readied their maces at the sound of his approach, but when they saw who it was they stopped. Jim walked past them, giving them both a nod, before he pulled the Staff from its position He turned and faced the two Krubera again. 

“Are you sure you’re just going to let me take this?” Jim asked. He had to lean heavily on the staff just to keep upright. 

“Yes.” One of the massive trolls said. “We served an evil queen for far too long. Now it is time to right that wrong.”

Jim nodded and pulled his phone from his pocket as he used the staff as a crutch to return to the rest of the Trollmarket. 

“I have the staff.” Jim said into his phone. “It’s time to end this.”

He limped out of the Heartstone to see the rest of Trollmarket. He could see another Jim flying by over head with his war hammer and could hear the distant sound of portals opening. He trudged forward with the two Krubera on his heels. He walked toward the sound of Gunmar’s enraged roars, and soon enough he could see him. 

“Hey Gunmar!” Jim shouted. 

Gunmar turned to look at him and Jim pulled the amulet from his chest. The armor of Daylight disappeared in a flash of blue. On the other side of Gunmar, Claire and Toby pulled off their glamour masks revealing their true selves in two flashes of green. Gunmar tried to roar orders to the Krubera, but they ignored him instead turning to attack the mind controlled Gumm-Gumms. 

The sound of an explosion suddenly echoed from the direction of the Gyre station. Jim could hear the sound of the Quagawump battle cry from that direction. Distantly he could see Blinky and Aaarrrgghh at the head of the charging green trolls. At the same moment several humans ran down the from the crystal stair, and in flashes of light they transformed revealing themselves to be changelings. Strickler and Nomura were there fighting alongside their brethren. 

Jim looked at his amulet for second while the noise of battle washed around him. Tiredly he tapped his amulet against the emerald of the Staff of Avalon. The magic made his hair stand on end, he could feel the power flowing between the two objects. Toby landed on one side of him with his hammer out and ready. Claire jumped out of a portal on his other side, her staff in hand. 

“For the Doom of Gunmar, Eclipse is Mine to Command!”  Jim shouted, holding his amulet out in front of him. 

The black armor appeared out of the air around him covering his body. Every line, carving and edge of the armor glowed with a brilliant red light. As Jim materialized the Eclipse Blade in his hand he took a deep breath, one with out pain, as the magic flowed through him, filling him with power and healing his injuries. 

Jim smiled at Claire and Toby. They nodded. And Jim charged at Gunmar. 

The battle reached a fever pitch. Changelings, Krubera and Quagawump fought tooth and nail against the Gumm-Gumms. Angor was a phantom, using his magic and blades to keep any troll from assisting Gunmar.  Aaarrrgghh and Blinky fought as one. Jim swore he caught sight of his mom fighting alongside Nomura and Strickler for a second. But his attention was solely on Gunmar. 

He had been training and fighting alongside Claire and Toby for months now. They were almost one mind as they fought perfectly in sync. Toby would slam into Gunmar’s side, then dive into a portal Claire created when Gunmar turned to attack him. While he was distracted Jim drove forward earning himself several deep cuts into Gunmar’s hide. Then Claire would batter at Gunmar’s back with her staff. 

Jim pushed his skills to the max. He fought with Eclipse. He fought with his glaives, or with his shield. And he fought with the staff of Avalon. He wasn’t as used to staffs  as Claire was, but he still knew how to swing one. Each blow from the staff sent up a cloud of sparks and smoke. 

Fighting side by side with his friends, with the people he loved, reminded Jim of what he fought for. He didn’t fight for Merlin, to be his perfect champion. He fought to protect those he cared about and maybe to be protected by them in turn. 

Gunmar roared in pain and fury as Toby slammed the back of his knee with his war hammer. Before he could retaliate, Claire created a portal under his other leg that Gunmar slipped into. Jim jumped at his opening, thrusting Eclipse deep into Gunmar’s chest. 

“In their darkest hour, we burn brightest!” Jim snarled as he pushed the blade even deeper. 

For the first time in his memory he could see fear on Gunmar’s face. Fear and pain as light began to spread in burning cracks across his whole body. Jim let go of the handle of Eclipse in order to drive the Staff of Avalon into one of the cracks. Claire jumped to his side and Toby was half a second behind her. All three of them grabbed the staff and forced the emerald into Gunmar’s splintering form.

The light pouring out of Gunmar suddenly grew even brighter. At the last second Jim pulled the staff out, and grabbed Toby and Claire and covered them with his body. A shock wave blasted through them and all across Trollmarket. Lightening bolts struck out from Gunmar’s stone body, destroying the mind controlled Gumm-Gumms. 

It felt like only a moment later that Jim felt two pairs of arms wrap tightly around his chest. He, Claire and Toby all dropped their weapons and hugged each other as tightly as they could. It was over. Gunmar was dead. They didn’t have to live in fear of him anymore. 

Slowly the sounds of cheers and celebrations filtered through the fog filling Jim’s head. He had won. They had won. Together. He couldn’t help but laugh, even as tears flowed down his face. He pressed kisses to first Toby’s then Claire’s faces, and they both kissed his cheeks in return. 

“You did it! You did it Master Jim!” Blinky said. Jim felt his trainer wrap his arms around the three of them, and they they were hoisted into the air by Aaarrrgghh. 

“Well done Haunter!” 

“I’d say that performance deserves an A, Young Atlas.”

“I guess you were right to hope, Little Gynt.”

The rest of the voices blurred together. The changelings, his mom, the Trollmarket Trolls, the Quagawumps, the remaining Krubera. All congratulating him. Celebrating their victory. Jim could only hug Claire and Toby as close and tight as their armor would allow. 

The celebration suddenly grew hushed as a golden light began to seep out of Gunmar’s stone form. Jim called Eclipse back to his hand as he released his friends. However there was no need. His body began to crumble as more and more of the golden orange light flowed out of him. They watched as the light floated gently through the air towards the gray heartstone. Slowly the warm glow returned to the massive crystal as the energy Gunmar had stolen returned to its home. 

Blinky was on the edge of sobbing as he and the other trolls could feel their bodies drinking the magic of the Heartstone again. It had been far too long since they had last experienced this warmth. 

The moment was shattered by a gravely voice. 

“Now that Gunmar is no more, may I have my staff back.” Merlin said as he strode forward, pushing his way through the surrounding crowd. 

“Oh now that the fighting is over you show up.” Blinky said, his voice heavy with disdain. All four of his arms are crossed over his chest. 

“And what exactly would you expect me to do without my magic?” Merlin replied dismissively. 

“That didn’t stop anyone else from fighting.” Jim sneered. Then he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “Including my mom. Who has no magic at all.”

“Truthfully I didn’t expect any of you to survive this sucide mission you were so interested in. And while I consider it a pleasant surprise that you have, I wasn’t going to risk myself on that gamble.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” Claire said, as she rolled her eyes. She bent down and picked up the Staff of Avalon off the ground and the Shadow Staff as well. “There is still the question of what are we going to do with this, or with...that.” 

She gestured to the staff, then used the staff itself to gesture toward the softly glowing Heartstone, and the prisoner they all knew held under neath it. There was a moment of silence as everyone considered their options. 

“Well whatever we do, we’ll do it together.”

Jim stepped forward and wrapped one arm around Claire’s shoulders and the other around Toby’s. Together they stared at the Heartstone and the rest of their small army gathered there with them, pushing past Merlin if they had to. 

Jim smiled. Their fight wasn’t completely over yet. Morgana would still have to be addressed at some point. But for now, for now he had the two people he loved most in the world in his arms. His mom was safe between Strickler and Nomura. Angor was free of Gunmar and Morgana’s control. Trollmarket was safe. The remaining changelings had survived Gunmar’s slaughter. Whatever came in the future, whatever machinations Merlin had planned, Jim would face them, with his family at his back.

[elizabethemerald]

Jim is Honest Au: Lie 2

Jim Lake Jr lies again and again to his loved ones. What if instead, he told the truth? How would that affect his relationships, and story of Trollhunters? Let’s look at all the major lies and omissions Jim made and let’s turn them on their head. This time Let’s say Jim is Honest.

Mr. Strickler is desperate to find some way to turn his pupil being called to be the newest Trollhunter to his advantage. But he struggles with his desire to protect the boy from the world he has been thrown into. 

Strickler stood in the courtyard watching Jim and Toby talk. It was obvious immediately that Jim had told his friend about the amulet. Toby’s hand motions as he talked made that clear. The larger boy stopped Jim to look at something that glowed in his bag. That could only be the amulet.

“We’ve got to get you somewhere that’s not out here.” Toby said.

Then he pushed his friend into the boy’s locker room. Strickler clicked his pen. He sneered as he entered the locker shortly after them. He heard a small crash and saw a flash of light over the rows of lockers.

“Now why did it do that?” The confusion and worry plain in Jim’s voice.

“Jim?” Strickler called into the locker room. If there were other students here his plans could go up in flames. “Jim are you in here?”

There was a second’s pause, then Jim’s panicked voice could be heard from the next row of lockers. “Mr. Strickler! I’m having a problem with the chess club!”

For a second the changeling froze. The fear in Jim’s voice. He was calling for help. Strickler pulled his pen from his jacket and jumped around the corner. He held his pen like it was one of his knives, ready to stab or throw at a moment’s notice.

His jaw dropped at what he saw when he rounded the corner. Jim wearing that cursed armor, that damned sword on his back. How many of his changeling brethren had been slain by that blade? How many times had his own knives clattered harmlessly off that armor? And worse of all, it was a human teenage boy wearing the armor. A boy who desperately wanted to take care of his mother with the sword on his back. It was like all of his worst nightmares at once.

He stared in shock at them. His memories flashed before his eyes. His earliest memory of the screams of his parents as he was stolen away, too young to do anything. Being trapped as a welp in the Darklands, desperately trying to survive. Being forced through the fetch after the horrifying magic remade him into the image of his familiar. Killing his familiar’s parents when he was barely old enough to hold the blade. Merlin had chosen a child to fight his war. Just like Gunmar had.

Strickler recovered himself with difficulty. Toby was staring at him in confusion while Jim still looked panicked. As he forced himself to return to the moment, Jim asked something he barely took in.

"Why is it doing this? Why can't I get it off?"

Strickler answered on automatic, "There's never been a human Trollhunter. Who knows how the amulet will react to human physiology?"

That statement finished pulling the changeling back to reality. Why would a human history teacher know anything about how a magic amulet would work? Fortunately Jim and Toby didn't notice his blunder.

Strickler looked around briefly for inspiration, then on spying the poster on the wall smiled and returned to his regular calm demeanor.

"Jim I'm not sure that is quite school appropriate attire." He fiddled with his pen, as his mind worked to retake control of the situation.

"Sorry Mr. Strickler. The armor just appeared and I don't know how to take it off."

"Might I suggest as a possible cover, auditioning for the school play?"

"The play? Oh, Romeo and Juliet!" Jim said.

"That might work, just say you brought your own costume!" Toby exclaimed.

"Better hurry you two, auditions end in just a few minutes." Strickler watched the two boys run for the auditorium. This would give the boy a perfect cover if his armor ever appeared while at school again.

He followed them at a slower pace. If Ms. Janeth didn't buy the costume line she might believe him. He entered on the tail end of Jim delivering his audition.

Whatever he was reciting wasn't Shakespeare but it was moving. And Mr. Lake was delivering it with a passion he had never seen before in the boy. Those watching the speech were eating it up.

Strickler's feelings warred within him. He knew that as the head of the Janus Order he should be angry that the Trollhunter was succeeding so easily. Yet he was honestly proud. The boy was a natural, he would make an amazing Romeo alongside Ms. Nuñez. Strickler allowed a small smile to cross his lips.

The smile slipped as he watched Jim's Juliet approach the stage. Even from where he stood at the entrance to the auditorium he could see Jim melt as she put her hand on his shoulder. Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy. And Jim was still a child.

Strickler turned away. He needed to get his emotions in check before he next talked to that brute Bular. Or else he and Jim would end up as Bular's dinner.

1st Lie